Chapter seven: Too Much Adventure?
"Ahhhhh, who's idea was this again?!" Lance screeched, and everyone continued their own vocal response, braced over wherever they held their ground as the shaking continued alongs it's rough path.
"Yours! It was totally yours!" Dax cried, trying not to lose his grip on the panel he was braced to behind Lance's left side.
"Hold tight, guys!" Pidge urged them. And finally it ended with a burst that left them in more of a smooth float; and their guards finally dropped with a heavy sigh.
"Hoh man, I'm glad that's over." Lance breathed, leaning back again.
"Yeah, but.. where are we now?" Pidge wondered.
"I don't recognize any of these constellations.." Shiro noticed. "We must be a long, long ways from earth."
"Well at least there's a planet nearby." Lance reasoned, as the lion turned toward the earth-like planet. "I think it's going home." He finished, as the jets fired and they began their descent to the friendly looking beast of the planet.
As the initial flames of the atmosphere-change wore off, they found a land very much like earth in their wake. Blue sky, green grass, mountainous, rocky terrain and a sleek structure built into the hill above it all, acting as somewhat of a pinnacle of the whole landscape. The large center structure towered with four detached pillars resembled that of an odd castle. And their feline craft veered toward it, heading for the center courtyard of what looked to be the front entry of the futuristic building.
"Ho.. ly.. crow." Dax, Lance and Hunk breathed together, as shadows from the high pillars panned over them on the way through them.
The Blue Lion took a gentle dive and set down on the ground that clearly shook a little; and they all marveled at the immense detail of the sight before them. The structure overall was an off white, the odd lining of plating details and accents of blue strangely appeared appealing.
"Woah.." they all breathed together.
"What is this place?" Keith wondered, almost to himself.
"Everyone keep your guard up." Shiro vocalized, in a more hostile tone, his brow furrowed with his hand becoming a fist on the roof above him.
"Something wrong?" Pidge wondered, looking up to him curiously, trying to decide if they needed to be worried or not.
"My team was captured by aliens once,.." he said, turning to her with troubled eyes. "I'm not gonna let it happen again."
"So.. do.. we go out there?" Pidge wondered slowly. "Especially if this is a trap.."
"We can be sure that's the case." Shiro interjected, with some amount of certainty. "But we also can't be sure that whoever may be in there is friendly.. we will go in.. but we'll keep our guard up at all times.. just in case. And if something doesn't feel right?.. we'll leave immediately. Understood?" He finished, turning to the group.
"Yes." Keith answered.
"Sure." Dax nodded.
"Ok." Lance agreed.
"Got it." Pidge responded.
"Scout's honor!" Hunk saluted.
"Alright then.." Shiro breathed. "Then let's go." The stare he shot out the windshield lasted only a short dramatic moment, so he could then turn and exit the sliding doors, soon to be followed by the others in a quiet filing of a non-linear fashion.
xxxx
The lion's jaws parted and the ramp went down before them, though they had to shield their face from the intense sunlight that came through immediately. And as soon as the initial lighting change, with the burst of air that came with it, subsided.. they proceeded forward across the open courtyard toward the looming majesty of their castle destination. Studying it intently upon their approach. The door they came to, they observed to be sizable to the lion itself. But the reasoning for this seemed a bit odd.
"So..how..do..we get in?" Pidge wondered, turning to Shiro once again, who just stared at the door in silence.
"I think we should take a closer look.." he said finally, running different risk factors through his mind by saying this. "Clearly we've been brought here for a reason.. as long as we stay focused.. we should be able to scout the place out to find out why we're here."
"Uh.. isn't it obvious?" Lance asked, bending over to look at him from the far left edge of the line they stood in. "That lion thing got us away from that crazy alien warship."
"And brought us here.. why?" Keith reasoned, looking down on him plainly in a blank sidelong glance to the young pilot cadet on his left; his tone more to make a point than to truly wonder.
"Not helping, mullet." Lance deadpanned, letting his arms go limp from his shoulders dryly. But when Keith cringed a turned to reply, his eye-level view of Shiro's shoulder blocked him from doing so, and he turned his attention to him, like everyone else, as he approached the door. But halfway between the group and the door, the ground shook them off balance. A couple stomps and a roar rang out, so loud, in fact, it could've pierced right through their ears to their heads.
"Ahhh, I told you that thing was gonna eat us!" Hunk cried, hunkering down with the group, his hands over his ears like the rest of them.
And as they waited for the end to come, they noticed that it never came, especially when silence fell once again and the door split in two to give way to a darkness inside.
"Oh!.." Hunk realized, as they all straightened up. "The door.. is open!"
"Guess I was wrong about you." He told the lion, who, by now, had sat down and fallen silent.
"I guess we have our way in." Shiro supposed, turning to them again. Then leading the way toward it, the group slowly advanced.
As they entered their footsteps echoed upon the sleek metal flooring.. and it gave them an eerie vibe with how lonely it sounded amongst the deafening silence. A rotunda shape to the otherwise open space led to a grand stairwell directly across the room from them, funneling up in two directions from the landing at the top, leading around to an upper landing that only ran around the walls themselves. This landing then, also led off into a few other doorways from what they could see, and they observed one to still be open on the left side from where they stood, still facing the stairs.
Hunk turned himself around as they all walked forward into the quiet darkness of the room.
"Hello?" his utterance came louder than he anticipated and he soon froze to the stares sent his way by those ahead of him.
"Really Hunk? What did Shiro say about 'keeping our guard up'?" Lance complained.
"I was just trying to see if anyone was there, that's all." Hunk shrugged innocently.
"Well what if there is someone here?" Lance reasoned. "What if they're not friendly? What if they eat us because they think we're some kind of sick enchilada meat or something?" He finished then turned to continue walking.
"Hoh, mama's enchiladas.." Hunk mused, dreamily turning to look up into the non-existent distance; then looking down to his right, noticed that his friends were climbing the stairs without him.
"Hey, wait for me!" he called racing after them.
"If you'll finally zip it so we don't give ourselves away to whoever's listening.." Lance muttered, mostly to himself. Earning him a hard nudge from Pidge's boney elbow as she took the lead over him with Shiro, Dax and Keith; leaving him to rub his arm as Hunk caught up to him and stopped to exchange a glance then follow after them again.
Coming around a corner a burst of light occurred, and Shiro stopped short, raising an arm out from his body with the natural instinct to react with both, and took a step back; Keith peering over his left shoulder and Pidge peeking out from his right. Realizing that it was merely a fixture on the wall coming to light, he relaxed as Keith strode forward.
"It's just a wall light." Keith told them, turning to Shiro in particular.
"I know." Shiro sighed, relaxing once more. "I can see that."
And Keith's eyes asked him..
"Are you ok?"
And Shiro's replied with a sense of..
"I'll be fine." As he took the lead once again and they kept walking down the half open hallway that continued to add light wherever they went.
Taking a left this same pattern continued,.. until they reached a room that entered into another rotunda that sported a strange dip in the floor leading to an odd structure at the center. Gazing about every which way.. the groups studied the details of the room, which maintain the same modernistic feel as the outside of the building and the interior they'd seen thus far.
Pidge approached the structure, resembling something of a panel, and noted its unique fashioning; as her reflection met her to flash a memory across her own mind to almost catch herself off guard. Snapping out of it quickly, she gazed up once again.
"What is this place?" She wondered. And leaning forward she instinctively set her hand upon the flat surface in front of her.
And suddenly, a high pitched hiss burst a cloud by Lance, who leaped into Hunk's arms right next to him as two tall shapes rose out of the floor next to them. This gave them all a fright, and rightfully so,.. and as they watched this a different level of astonishment came alongside it, as they noticed some oddly notable shapes within the clouded, yet transparent shield that seemed to surround them.
"People?" Keith breathed, more confused than he could be.
"Are these guys.. dead?" Hunk wondered, dropping Lance, who immediately hopped up again.
No one could even formulate an answer in their dumbfoundment,.. until they were distracted by another sound, which brought down the shield of the first structure, which amazed them with what they found in it.
Pale white hair and deeply tan skin, clothed with a seemingly traditional gown, and crested with a golden band across the forehead, all gave off an almost angelice vibe. And the feminine appearance of this motionless figure gave an initial thought to their minds at what they must be.
"Father!" The strange being gasped when eyes of purple shot open, and she began to fall forward leaving Lance to push past Dax and Pidge to come catch her before hitting the ground.
"I gotcha!" He called, lowering her to the ground as her weak body pressed against his, within his tight embrace.
Confused eyes blinked and looked up into the waiting brown ones and Lance was immediately struck with the beauty of their innocence; and he blushed at initially seeing them with an odd smile spreading across his face.
"Hello." He greeted coolly, flashing the shiners of his pearly whites her way.
"Who are you?" The soft sweet voice of the strange alien wondered, sporting somewhat of a British-style accent that made her voice all the more alluring. "Where am I?"
"I'm Lance.." the young man answered easily. "And you're right here in my arms." And the group beyond him groaned.
"Ugh! Lance!" Pidge groaned.
"Dude, come on! Gross!" Hunk moaned.
"Seriously?!" Dax complained, making Lance frown back toward them without turning his head to show it to them.
"You're.. ears?.." And while he was about to turn back and silence them, his interest in what the alien stranger said, took his attention once more; and he had to steal a look toward his own body part which she spoke of.
"Yeah?" He asked, implying for her to continue.
"They're hideous." The alien finished in a bit of disgust, shifting away a bit. "-what's wrong with them?"
"What?! Nothing's wrong with them! They heard exactly what you said about them!" Lance protested, but no longer had he finished this, did he suddenly feel a yank on his head and was forced around by the alien woman, gaining a quick upper hand with his ear alone.
"Who are you? Where is King Alfor? What are you doing in my castle?!" The alien demanded of the strange group.
"A giant blue lion brought us here, that's all we know!" Lance blurted out from the restraint on his right ear and the arm lock that held him to his knees.
"What?!" She gasped, now releasing him. "How do you have the Blue Lion? What happened to its Paladin?"
"What are you all doing here?" She asked them earnestly, with this last question in particular.
"We don't know." Dax spoke up, in almost an accusing tone.
"Uh.. paladin?" Hunk echoed, as Dax continued.
"That's why we came in here, when that giant mechanical kitty-cat brought us to this crazy planet."
"But that's impossible!" The alien replied, almost talking to herself in this. "That last we were awake, Zarkon was said to attack!"
And this seemed to jog a memory in Shiro's mind of the strange voices he'd once heard speaking of something along the lines of the strange name she'd uttered; but having barely caught it, the memories also remained hazy.
"Unless.." she realized lifting her gaze to stare at them with a sudden distraughtness to her eyes. "How long has it been?"
"I know this must all be confusing for you," The Garrison lieutenant ventured sensitively. "But maybe if you tell us who you are, maybe we can help." Shiro's suggestion gave no indicator of hostility whatsoever, which seemed to soften her guard a little to a more natural formality.
"I am Princess Allura of the planet, Altea,.." the young woman introduced herself, unsure that she should be doing so. "Daughter of King Alfor and Queen Melenor, and heir to the Altean royal crown. You are outsiders among us.. Where did you come from?.. And how did you find us here?"
"As we said, we're not sure how we got here." Shiro answered her lightly, shifting his arm in the sling. "We found your blue lion on our planet and it brought us here. It was in a cave with paintings, marking its existence; but didn't seem to reveal it's location until we all came looking for it."
"And how did you know to be searching for it?!" The alien woman accused sharply. And Shiro's eyes closed deeply, then opened for him to continue.
"I was captured by some hostile aliens some time ago, but I was recently able to escape." Shiro told her. "While I was their prisoner, I heard talk of some.. weapon they'd been looking for.. I believe I was sent home to find this thing first.. this.. weapon, called Voltron."
"Voltron?!" The alien Princess gasped, and her surprise was interrupted, however, by a secondary hiss that began to drop the shield around the other enclosed figure..
Yay! Finally a new chapter! Ugh! Sooo sorry you guys.. had other things to attend to! The holiday season is the craziest time of year for me.. from Thanksgiving to New Years with holidays and birthdays in between,.. it's easily the perfect storm of busyness that it's a miracle I had any time for writing, on top of my other responsibilities, up until, and even during, winter break in some spots.
Either way I'm finally back! And hopefully gonna be working more on this story again! I honestly didn't think it would take this long to write this story initially. But hey, stuff happens.
Also I apologize if this chapter seems a bit shorter than some, but I think with what I have to deal with at this point.. it was the best option to go with.. Now granted it's not too much shorter, but.. you get the idea. And thank you in advance for your understanding!
Anyway, enjoy this new chapter and I'll see in the next one! Thx!