When Pidge first woke up her head was still fuzzy from sleep. The flickering lights seemed to be just a part of her dream. Then she blinked a few times and sat up, realizing that she was awake. Every screen in the cockpit of the lion was sputtering. Static buzzed all around her, making it nearly impossible to hear her own thoughts.
"Seriously? This is the first time I've gotten a decent sleep in ages!" She growled in annoyance and reached out to her lion.
"What's going on, girl?"
She got the feeling that something was definitely wrong, but the lion wasn't giving her any more information than that.
"Alright. Not much to go on. Maybe it's just a weird glitch. It'll resolve itself soon, right?"
Red warning lights flashed on several screens. Everything seemed fine otherwise, so Pidge had no idea what could be going wrong. She shuddered. Her eyes darted around, searching for anything useful. She couldn't access any of the ship's systems.
Then everything went black.
Pidge shrieked and squeezed her eyes shut, preparing for an explosion, or to be ejected into space, or something. But when she cautiously opened one eye, she saw that everything was back to normal. It was as if the glitch never happened.
A few days later, Hunk woke to whispered voices. He couldn't make out what they were saying, but he could hear the harshness. Whoever was whispering was very angry. In the near-darkness of the lion's cockpit, he felt alone and defenseless. Realistically, he knew he was wearing armor and had his bayard at the ready. But still, with Romelle sleeping where she had dozed off behind him, he couldn't relax.
With a shaking hand, he turned on the comms.
"Pidge," he said, his voice quavering.
"What?" she croaked. "I just fell asleep." She had dark bruiselike circles under her eyes and her mouth was tugged downward into a deep frown. Her hair was messier than usual, sticking out at odd angles.
"Sorry. I just… I heard something. I think there's something here with me. Something… supernatural."
"Doubtful. You're probably just tired."
"Speaking of tired, what happened to you?"
"I've been having a hard time sleeping the past few days. My lion's glitching out. I can't figure out what's wrong with it. It's messing with my head. I'm doing everything I can think of, but nothing's working."
"Oh man. I'm sorry I bothered you, then."
"Don't apologize. Just… maybe bother somebody else for a while."
Lance woke up to images of Shiro – or someone who looked very much like him – with glowing yellow eyes. The cockpit of the lion was much colder than he remembered. He shivered and stared outside at the unforgiving emptiness of space. Space was much less fun when you'd been drifting through it for several days.
To keep his spirits up, he sang to himself, remembering some songs he had learned as a boy scout.
"Hey-o, the rattlin' bog, the bog down in the valley o!
Hey-o, the rattlin' bog, the bog down in the valley o!"
He clapped his hands to the beat and grinned. Actually, this was fun!
"And on that bog there was a tree, a rare tree, a rattlin' tree!
And the tree in the bog and the bog down in the valley o!"
He got up and danced around a bit.
Then he stopped. He thought he heard somebody call his name.
With a tremor in his voice, he continued on to the next verse, adding a branch on the tree and singing slightly faster.
As he sang, the voice got louder. Screens flickered to life without his permission.
"A-a-a-nd the feather on the bird and the bird on the nest and the nest on the branch…"
You forgot me!
Lance's heart hammered. "andthebranchonthetreeandthetreeinthebogandthebogdowninthevalleyo!"
He opened a comm link to Hunk, who he figured would be bothered the least by his interruption.
"Hey Hunk, something weird's going on."
"You too, huh?" came the weary response.
Keith found himself standing in front of Shiro, his bayard in hand, while his former friend and mentor grinned a very un-Shiro-like grin and launched himself forward. Keith swung his sword forward to block Shiro's glowing purple Galra hand.
He swung his sword to the side, knocking Shiro off balance.
The Black Paladin spun with the momentum and lunged forward again. Before Keith realized what had happened, his sword was buried in Shiro's chest.
Shiro looked up at him, grinning with blood pouring out of his mouth.
Then Kuron stood where Shiro once was.
Keith woke up in a cold sweat, gasping for air. He sat up and held out his hands, watching them shake. Kosmo pushed himself in between Keith's hands and licked his face. Keith smiled and pet the dog.
Hunk's face appeared on the comm screen. He looked pale and had sharp lines under his bloodshot eyes. Keith sat forward.
"Hey, what's wrong?"
"I could ask you the same question. You're white as a ghost."
"I'm just pale, dude."
"Have you been hearing voices or having weird dreams?"
"What? What brought this on?"
"Because Pidge, Lance, and I have. So I wanted to know."
Keith blinked hard. He was relieved to find that he was not alone in having been plagued by weird phenomena the past few days. But he was also worried. What was going on was obviously something big. It could be affecting the whole team.
"Okay. Let's do a group call. We need to figure this out."
"I'll take that as a yes."
Allura dodged a magical energy blast and swung her quarterstaff at Honerva's shadowy form, but it disappeared. She heard a low chuckle behind her and spun around to face its source.
She found herself facing Shiro.
No. Not Shiro.
She dropped into a fighting stance, leaped forward, and…
Woke up.
Coran was hovering over her, concern written all over his face.
"I'm okay. Really."
She sat up, rubbing her head.
The screen in front of her lit up with the faces of the other Paladins.
Shiro rubbed a hand over his weary face. All the Paladins looked like ghosts with their sunken eyes and gray-tinged skin from stress and lack of sleep.
"Okay, something's going on," Allura said. "I'm guessing you all have been having nightmares too? And your lions have been glitching."
Pidge nodded. "Yup and yup."
Shiro added, "I'm no stranger to nightmares, but these are new. More intense and realistic."
Allura thought for a minute, then said, "Okay, let's make a pit stop. We're probably all exhausted from the battle, and going on a long road trip hasn't really given us a chance to relax."
"Good idea," said Shiro.
Everyone steered toward the nearest planet, a Pluto-sized barren rock with many caves that made perfect shelters. Tall spires of rock jutted out into the sky.
The Lions sat in a semicircle around the cave while Team Voltron set up sleeping mats on the ground. Lanterns were set up around the cave, giving it an inviting light blue glow.
Just as everyone was settling in for the night, all the lights turned off.
One lantern flickered on, then it turned off again. Some distance away, another one flickered on and off the same way. The Paladins and their friends huddled together. Kosmo growled while Hunk whimpered.
"Show yourself," Shiro shouted. His Galra hand glowed purple.
"Gladly."
The voice was given form. A single lantern lit up in front of Shiro. In its light stood Kuron. Shiro felt like he was staring at his reflection, or a younger version of himself. No, that wasn't quite right. The hair was wrong, and the eyes.
His gaze drifted from Shiro to Allura and back again.
"What did you think would happen when you took over my body? Did you think I would fade away into nothingness?"
Allura gulped. "We… um… didn't think about that."
"You didn't think about it. I may not have been Shiro, but you still cared about me. You still accepted me as part of your family. And then you tossed me aside like garbage the second you got the better version of me back."
Lance shrank back, tears forming in the corners of his eyes. "We didn't realize…"
"Of course you didn't. I was just a clone right? I didn't count."
"We're sorry," Shiro said. "What we did was wrong, and we know there's no way to make up for it."
Allura nodded agreement. "Life is life, whether artificially created or not. And Team Voltron's job is to protect life. We should have considered that."
"Too little, too late. Because of the way I was evicted from my body, I can't move on. I'll be stuck in limbo until Shiro – and my body – dies. And until then, I'll make sure you never forget me again."