Title: Welcome to Miami
Chapter: 21
Rating: T
Summary: AU - Near Future - Something was going on in Miami Beach, something big, Captain Takashi Shirogane was certain of it. It involved the worst organized crime syndicate he'd ever dealt with in his career, the Galra. His adopted brother, Keith was the lead detective on the case, he might be young, but he was good. So how do Shiro's ex, the lawyer Adam West, and some illegal immigrant kid from Cuba fit into this mess?
Special Request Story for Shiranai Atsune
When Shiro and Adam got back to the rest of them, they had settled into chairs in a meeting room. There was a long oblong table surrounded by chairs and a screen on the wall at one end. Keith smirked at the look on Shiro's face. His brother hadn't worn that particular grin in a long time. Whether he approved or not, and he was still reserving judgement on that, Adam had a knack for making Shiro smile.
"So, I suppose it has come to be time for some revelations." Allura began. "I first want to say that, this secret I am about to share is dangerous. I want to give you all an opportunity to leave now. Lance, that includes you, it will not impact what you have already agreed to do, but knowing will make your task even more dangerous." Lance frowned, but nodded. Keith looked from the younger man and back to Allura with narrowed eyes, he wondered what exactly they were having him do. "Coran will be starting with some background." Allura sat and gestured to Coran.
"I suppose the only way to begin is at the beginning." He dimmed the lights in the room and brought up a picture of stars, galaxies actually. "This is the Milky Way." He used a laser pointer to circle it. "This is a galaxy known as Oriande." He circled a large galaxy on the other side of the screen. He clicked and the screen changed to showing a close up of Oriande. "This star is called Voltron." He zoomed in on the star system. It depicted fifteen planets circling a star. Two planets seemed to be revolving around each other as they revolved around the star. They were equal in size and there was a strange glow between them. "These are planets Altea and Daibazaal. I was born on Altea approximately four hundred of your years ago." Coran paused a moment for the shock to settle through the new members of the audience.
Keith looked suspicious, Shiro looked awed, and Lance laughed.
"Looking good for four hundred, my man." Lance laughed and for a moment Coran was afraid he thought it was a joke, but the sincerity in his eyes was genuine. He just wasn't that bothered.
Keith stared at Lance again, "How are you taking this so well?"
"Super hero suits, flying robot gardeners, and magic healing pods," Lance ticked off three fingers. "Why are aliens and a really old Coran going to bother me after that?"
Coran cleared his throat and continued. "Altea and Daibazaal were essentially twin planets. They revolved around a gravitational anomaly known as The Rift. Almost a thousand years ago our people developed space travel, no doubt spurred by the nearness of Daibazaal and the knowledge that it was likely to support life. King Danfor the Determined, piloted the first voyage himself. They traversed around The Rift, fearful of it's impact on their ship. It took two of your weeks to reach Daibazaal. When they landed they were met with surprise and curiosity form the people on Daibazaal, people known as the Galra."
Shiro hissed in a long breath and Keith drew back at the word. Lance for the first time appeared nervous. Finding out your friends were advanced aliens was somewhat less concerning than finding out your enemies were as well.
"Our people became allies. We combined our technologies and our scientists worked together. We discovered that The Rift contained a powerful source of quintessence."
"What's quintessence?" Shiro asked frowning mightily.
"It is the energy that gives life, flows through every living thing in the universe. It comes in different forms, but at it's base, it is basically the same." Allura answered.
"The quintessence from The Rift was concentrated perhaps by the gravitational fields. We found a way to harvest the quintessence. It was used to provide energy to the planets, to fuel long range space ships, even to open wormholes for deep space exploration." Coran explained. "It was also found to have healing properties. We used it to create the healing pod, like the one Lance used. The Galra discovered that it could prolong life, indefinitely." Coran's voice turned grave.
"The Galra begin taking treatments, absorbing the quintessence into themselves. It stopped their aging, but the side effects," Coran sighed. "It seemed to sap the very humanity from them. Galra that were friends turned cold, power hungry, and without regard for others."
"That sounds like the Galra." Keith spat.
"Yes." Coran shook his head sadly. "The demand for quintessence on the Galra homeworld became higher and higher. They harvested more and more from The Rift. Our scientists warned them that they were taking too much, destabilizing the rift, but they did not listen. A war started between our planets. The war stretched on, neither side gaining the upper hand. It became clear to us that we had not stopped the Galra in time. Our scientists designed a long range ship, to carry our people away from our home, to find a new planet to settle. When the ship was started it would hold all the people of Altea, when it was finished it was twice as large as we needed." Coran wiped a tear. "So many had been lost to the fighting. King Alfor was the ruler when the ship finished. He despised the war. He reached out to the Emperor of the Galra, to Zarkon."
Shiro's mechanical hand crushed the glass he had been holding.
"I'm sorry." he muttered embarrassed.
"Do not be concerned." Allura soothed. Nan, who had been standing by quickly cleaned the mess.
"King Alfor offered Zarkon a truce and space on our ship to escape the destruction of our home worlds. Zarkon accepted. He was young then, they both were barely more than two decades. They had grown up watching lives lost and vowed to stop it. A week before The Rift was scheduled to collapse our peoples boarded the vessel. We called it the Castle of Lions, because King Alfor was called King Alfor the Lion."
"Among other reasons," Adam smiled.
"I'll get to that." Coran swatted at him. "You're as impatient as a Sretvaliant Cobra."
"Just get to the good part." Adam smirked. "You get windy."
Coran sputtered and Adam laughed. Shiro smiled at Adam, it was good to hear his laugh. It had been such a long time.
"Please, continue, Coran." Allura swatted at Adam chuckling in a low tone.
"Yes, Allura." He gave Adam a glare. "The ship took off through The Rift. The quintessence was loaded into special tanks to give the energy required for the trip. A wormhole was opened, but something happened that was not expected. The massive drop in quintessence trigged the collapse of The Rift too soon. It's collapse spun the ship out of control and we did not reach our destination. Instead, we crashed here, into your Atlantic Ocean almost a hundred years ago."
"How did that go undetected?" Keith asked in awe.
"Cloaking technology and Earth technology couldn't compare, especially back then. There were some rumors, but remember, that long ago it wasn't like it could all be posted on the internet." Pidge answered.
"Though we did have a bit of a scare there in '37 with that whole War of the Worlds fiasco, thought we'd been discovered." Coran laughed and the others around the table just looked at each other in confused awe.
"After the ship submerged, we did several surveys of the planet, and while it was compatible with both Galra and Altean anatomy, it was clear that your primitive society was not ready for the introduction of an alien society, let alone two alien societies seeking refuge. We agreed that we would live on the planet, but with an effort to blend in and go unnoticed. Our plan was to repair our ship and eventually find or develop the technology that would allow us to complete our journey to our new home worlds."
"The area of the ocean we found ourselves in was relatively unexplored. We built two islands, one for the Alteans and one for the Galra. Some twenty years later we were miraculously discovered." Coran smiled fondly. "There were, of course, still bad things happening in the world, the Korean war and such, but we tried to focus on the good things. Our people presented ourselves as simple peasants. We kept our technology hidden. King Alfor though knew how to work with people. He met with Queen Elizabeth, he brought Elvis Presley to the Altean Island for a concert, he met with Churchill, he leaked information that was pivotal to the completion of the polio vaccine, he even marched in protests in the United States over segregation. As Alteans we had always considered ourselves adaptable and we found the good in humanity and found our footing and place on this world."
"The Galra, however, grew bitter. They saw all that was wrong with the world, and I think we can all agree Earth is not perfect." Several nods around the table and he continued. "The Galra were still using the quintessence to maintain youth. The Alteans are already naturally long lived and the Galra argued that they should be allowed the same lifespans even if it was obtained artificially. As Zarkon took more and more treatments to maintain his youth he grew distant from Alfor. The King knew what was causing it and pleaded with his friend, but ultimately he didn't want him to die either and so he did not do more than ask him to stop." Coran stopped and bowed his head.
"Coran, perhaps a break?" Allura offered.
Coran nodded and wiping his face turned to leave the room, "I, yes, thank you. I just need a moment." He stepped out and the room sat in silence.
"Coran and father were very close, it hurts him to think of him and what happened. Coran was even friends with Zarkon at one time, though not as close as he was to father." Allura smiled sadly at the door Coran had left through. "I think perhaps that is enough for tonight. If you would like to spend the evening there are rooms available?" Allura looked to Shiro and Keith.
"Actually, I need to get Keith back, we didn't bring all of his medication." Shiro answered regretfully.
"Then if you are available we can reconvene for brunch? Say 10ish?" Allura offered.
"Yes, I can do that." Shiro was pale and his hands shook a little, it was a lot to process, and hearing Galra and Zarkon so many times made him pretty sure he was going to be having nightmares tonight.
Keith seemed to understand and though he would rather have stayed and finished the story, he would go home for Shiro. He was also going to dig through all of alien conspiracy material at home and see if there was anything he could match up with Coran's story.
Adam had been watching Shiro most of the story and at some point and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. He gave it a squeeze and planted a kiss on his cheek.
"I'll see you tomorrow?" He asked about more than just brunch and Shiro knew it. It was are you okay, are we still trying this, did I scare you off?
"Yeah." He turned and kissed Adam softly on the lips. "Tomorrow."
"Ugh. PDA." Pidge groaned and banged her head on the table.
"Katie!" Colleen snapped.
"Sorry." she muttered and then under her breath so low that only Keith and Lance heard her, "not sorry."
"Wait!" Lance nearly yelled in the silence.
"What?" Adam looked at Lance confused.
"No I mean, wait a minute, cause if Alfor was Allura's father and he was a King that means she's a…" He looked up at Allura with even more awe than usual. "A princess," he completed with a goofy grin.
"Aliens, wars, history, and everything else and that is what you got out of that story!" Keith snapped staring at Lance with near horror.
"Well, yeah, you got to focus on what's important right?" Lance gave him a lazy grin that he knew would only serve to annoy the other man.
"You are an idiot." Keith declared.
"Yep, not worried about your opinion, Mr. Detective." Lance mocked.
"That's enough."
"Boys, really?"
Adam and Shiro said nearly at the same time, looking at each other and blushing a little.
Pidge snickered something that sounded like "dads".
Pidge and Colleen walked with Lance out to their rooms. Allura went to find Coran. Adam was left to escort Shiro and Keith out.
"I'm glad you came." Adam said quietly.
"I'm glad you asked." Shiro gave him a small grin. "This is a lot to process, but I'm glad to have the chance to try."
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner." Adam held Shiro's hand at the door.
"You should be." Keith rolled his eyes and headed out to the car not bothering to say goodbye.
"So, he hates me." Adam sighed.
"No, but you hurt him." Shiro looked sadly after Keith. "You know how he is and having you leave, well, it just hit all the wrong spots."
"Yeah I know, and I know I hurt you too." Adam looked up into Shiro's eyes.
"I think we hurt each other. Let's try not to do that again." Shiro leaned down and kissed Adam again letting their foreheads rest together for a minute after before pulling away. "Tomorrow."
"Tomorrow." Adam echoed.