Chapter 2

A/N: hey guys, welcome back! Remember, I just own my OCs and the story, nothing else.

Something was pressing against his face. That was the first thing Keith registered as he woke up. Groaning, he rolled over to see his ghost floating just above his pillow, his glowing eye almost blinding him in the darkness. "You know I don't like being up early," Keith muttered, looking to the window. Unsurprisingly, it was still dark outside, which meant dawn was approaching.

"It's about time for the drugs to have worn off," Yorak replied, his shell whirling slightly. "They'll be waking up soon."

"Keith sighed, a small part of him contemplated going back to sleep, but he knew Yorak would wake him up. One of them had to be responsible, and his ghost knew it wasn't going to be him. Which was proven as Yorak pushed against his face again, his cool metal a sharp contrast from the warmth of his bed. "Fine, I'm up, I'm up," he yielded, sitting up in the bed with a yawn.

With his victory, Yorak vanished in a flash.

Rolling out of bed, Keith pulled his regular clothes off the dresser, quickly changing before moving across the hall towards his father's room. Opening the door he was unsurprised to find Shiro starting to stir.

The older man groaned as he slowly sat up, holding his head as if it were bothering him. Though, considering his concussion and the combination of possible drugs leaving his system, having a killer headache wouldn't be much of a stretch. Shiro looked around the dark room, his gaze eventually meeting his own, "Keith? Is that you?"

"Who else would it be," he gently jested stepping into the room. "How're you doing?"

"My head's killing me," Shiro murmured. "What happened? Where am I?"

"You're at my house," Keith supplied. "As for what happened, I was hoping you could tell me. What do you remember?"

"I was in Garrison—"

"No," Keith cut him off. "I know about that, I was the one to bust you out. But before that, what happened?"

Shiro looked down, his jaw shifting as he thought. "I…I don't remember."

Keith sighed, he was afraid of that. "It might come back as the morning goes on, just give it time," he reassured stepping over to the dresser and slowly pulling open a few drawers, tossing out articles of clothing. "These belong to my dad, so hopefully they should fit—they might be a bit big though."

Shiro took the gray shirt, a weak smile forming on his face. "Thanks."

"It's no problem. You can get dressed in the bathroom if you want," he offered, motioning to the walk-in bathroom in the corner of the room. Moving to another set of drawers, he pulled on the handles, grimacing as they scraped loudly even with his efforts to keep quiet. But, then again, it wasn't like these drawers had been opened recently. It'd been years. Standing up, he held some of his mother's old clothing; glancing at Jaz, he looked back at the clothes, these would probably be big on her too, but it was still better than the dirty prisoner garb they had on now. "I'll be in the kitchen if you need anything."

Closing the door behind him, Keith walked out into the living room, scowling as he saw the three passed out forms of his uninvited guests. He forgot about them. Sighing in defeat, he moved into the kitchen, opening the fridge looking for something to eat. He didn't have enough milk for multiple portions of cereal nor enough cereal, so that was out. That also ruled out anything that could be made with milk, which was equally frustrating. But he did find hotdogs and buns.

People did have breakfast for dinner, so he supposed having lunch for breakfast wasn't too much of a stretch.

"Mmm, is that food I smell?" the largest one of the group mumbled as he sat up, stumbling into the kitchen.

"Hotdogs," Keith supplied opening the microwave. "One for everyone. Condiments are here too," he set down the mustard beside the ketchup. Picking up two hotdogs he stepped out into the living room, glancing down the hall, he could see the door was open, which meant Shiro had come out at some point while he'd been making food.

Biting down on his hotdog, Keith held it with his teeth as he used his now free hand to open the door. Like he expected, Shiro was standing outside watching the light of the dawn. Coming over, Keith held out the hotdog, "Hungry?"

"What?" Shiro jumped, looking startled before he spotted the offering in his hand. "Oh, thanks."

"It's good to have you back," Keith said taking a bite of his meal as they stood watching the sunrise.

"It's good to be back," Shiro agreed. "Kami-sama," he took a bite of the hotdog, "I can't remember the last time I had real food."

Keith chuckled, "Never thought I'd hear you call a hotdog real food."

"Better than anything I got…" Shiro trailed off.

"Got where?"

"Back there…on the alien ship," he murmured. "That's where we were before the crash. Somehow Jaz and I got out…most of it's still pretty fuzzy though. Jaz might remember more."

"It's still better than nothing," Keith reassured patting his shoulder.

"How'd you know where to find us?"

Keith sighed, now it was time for explanations. "Come on inside, there's something I need to show you."

Leading the way inside, Keith raised a brow as he opened the door and saw the others jump in alarm as they turned from the bookshelf. No doubt they'd been snooping. Keith rolled his eyes, walking past them and opening the office door. Motioning the rest of them in, they stared at a large bulletin board with a massive map. Across its surface there were multiple notes tacked to it and markings scrawled over parts.

Shiro was the first to approach the board. He knew this area it was the desert just by the Garrison, private land if he recalled correctly. Shiro remembered looking at maps like these back in the Garrison, but…the markings weren't familiar. It wouldn't be surprising if Keith just used his own symbols cause he didn't care about the Garrison's stuff. Looking to one of the post it notes Shiro's brows furrowed, he knew Keith wasn't exactly known for having the best handwriting, but he couldn't read this. Actually, it might've been another language. Picking up the note, Shiro moved it into the light to get a clearer view. Yep, it was definitely another language, one he didn't recognize. The pilot sighed, just when he thought Keith made sense, something else came along to further deepen the mystery of his brother. "What exactly have you been up to?"

"After…the news about Kerberos came out, I got booted from the Garrison," Keith confessed shoving his hands into his pockets.

"Wait, you got booted?" Shiro interrupted.

Keith tossed his adoptive older brother a glare, "Yeah, Iverson was slandering you and blaming you for the so-called crash. So I kicked his ass and he lost an eye."

"You ripped out his eye?!"

"No, it's more complicated than that," Keith retorted. "But that's beside the point. So, since I was booted, I moved out came back here to my family's place. Our stuff began to pick up some signal anomalies in the area and…I dunno, it felt like something was telling me to search."

"For what?"

"Wasn't sure. Until, I found this area," Keith replied tapping a red circle on the map, one that had numerous strings attached to it from various notes and pictures. "A large rock formation with an entire cave system hidden inside it. Its covered with all these ancient carvings of a Blue Lion. All the stories were different, but I managed to piece together some clues in it about something that was supposed to happen last night. Imagine my surprise when you crash landed here."

Shiro gave a nod, setting the note down. Frankly after everything he could and couldn't remember, Shiro doubted this was the weirdest thing to happen to him. Sighing, he turned to acknowledge the others in the room. "I should thank you all for helping get me out," he smiled holding out his hand to the closest one. He looked familiar, he's was from Keith's class back in the Garrison. "Lance right?"

The boy nodded, hesitating before he reached out and shook his hand.

Smiling, Shiro turned to the next one. He was almost sure a miniature version of Matt was staring back at him; undoubtedly the little sister he loved to brag about. "I'm Pidge," she smiled, confirming his thoughts. That was definitely Katie Holt, that was her brother's nickname for her. "The shy guy's Hunk. Did anyone else from your crew make it?"

"Jaz," Keith deadpanned.

"Besides Jaz," Pidge corrected herself.

Shiro frowned, "I…I'm sorry. I remember the mission and being captured, but after that, it's all a blur."

"Sorry to interrupt," Hunk interrupted raising his hand. "But the aliens. Where are they now? Are they coming? Here? To Earth? For us?"

"I…I can't remember," Shiro sighed again, rubbing the back of his head. "They were looking for something called Voltron. I don't know why, it might be some big weapon. Whatever it is, we need to find it before they do."

Keith frowned at that name. Voltron? It sounded familiar. Going over to his desk, he pulled open a drawer, looking through files his father kept. He'd definitely seen or heard that name before, the question was where?

"What were you doing in my stuff?!" Pidge exclaimed, causing Keith to pause. Looking back at the group, he could see Pidge clutching to her bag as she yanked something from the hands of the stocky one, Hunk.

"Looking for a candy bar," he answered, like it was a good reason for snooping through another person's things. "Then I started reading his diary—"

"WHAT?!" she shrieked.

"Anyways," Hunk continued, "I noticed a repeating series of numbers that the aliens were searching for; it looks a lot like a Fraunhofer line."

"A what?"

"It's the number describing the emission spectrum of an element. Only this element doesn't exist on Earth. It could be this weapon thingy, and I might be able to build a machine to look for it."

"Hunk! You big gassy genius!" Lance exclaimed hugging the larger boy.

Hunk nodded eagerly, grabbing a piece of paper and a pencil. "It's pretty fascinating," he said drawing quickly, "the wavelength looks like this."

Keith's eyebrows shot up as he held up the haphazardly drawn wavelength. He's seen that before. "Give me that," he said swiping the paper from his hands. Holding up next to a photo of the rock formation, he sensed Yorak perk up.

"That's it! It's almost the exact same!" the ghost exclaimed through their bond.

That was all Keith needed to hear. "How long will it take you to build that device?"

"A few minutes."

"Good. We leave as soon as you finish."

A loud thud came from the other room, causing Keith to perk up. Pushing past the others, he entered the next room, where Jaz stood leaning against a dresser, a lamp on the floor. "Where's the name of the Knight that ran me over? Cause we need to have another chat."

-.-

"Ok…so what are we doing out here?" Jaz muttered crossing her arms as they stood out in the middle of nowhere.

"Tracking a signal I've been following for several months," Keith replied. "The caves are hidden in these rock formations."

"Which direction are they in?" Hunk asked.

"Follow me," Keith replied. Taking the lead, he quickly climbed over rock formations.

"I'm getting something," Hunk replied. Walking past Keith, he followed where his device was pointing into the entrance of the caves. "Whoa."

"What are these?"

"The carvings I mentioned earlier," Keith replied, tracing his fingers along the inscriptions. "They run all over these cave systems. The signal is coming from somewhere in there, I'm just having trouble narrowing down the exact location in this maze."

"Maybe you just have to touch it?" Lance said, tapping once of the carvings in the cave walls.

Keith bristled as he felt the crackle of energy pulse around them. He'd always felt it while in these caves, but now, it was stronger, much stronger. "Yorak! What's going on?" he hissed.

"Something's activated," his ghost replied quickly. "It might be that superweapon Shiro mentioned."

Keith opened his mouth to ask another question before the ground shook under their feet before it crumbled away. Air rushed past them as gravity pulled them into a freefall, the rushing of wind by his ears barely covering the screams of the others they fell. Keith grunted as he slammed into something, water splashing around them and soaking through his clothes, sending chills up his spine. He could tell they were sliding down with the powerful current as small rocks caught the edges of his jacket and shirt as well as a dim light slowly getting brighter as they moved towards it. Popping out of the waterchute, Keith grunted as he landed on the ground, quickly rolling out of the way as he heard the screams of the others behind him.

Lance was the first to land after him, landing solidly on his ass and sprawling in the water, trying to catch his breath. It proved to be a bad choice as Shiro bellyflopped onto him, which was then followed by the combined weight of Hunk and Pidge.

Out of all of them, Jaz was the only one with any sense. Falling out of the tunnel, she curled up and rolled off the others, springing to her feet with practiced grace.

Seeing they were all alive, Keith turned his attention to the source of the strange blue light in the room. Like in the carvings up above, there stood a blue lion with a glowing blue dome around it. It appeared to be mechanical rather than like a real lion as the carvings suggested, but there was a strong chance ancient civilizations had misinterpreted.

Jogging up to it, Keith spread his palm on the surrounding dome. He could feel energy coursing through it, it felt similar to what he'd been sensing for the past year. "Force field," he muttered. "Has to be what's been causing those energy pulses."

"Scanning for access points now."

Keith nodded in acknowledgement. Biting the inside of his cheek, Keith considered using his own powers to try to break through. Light sparked along his fingers as he ran them over the barrier, looking for a weak point. He might be able to force his way through it, however….he glanced back at the others, there were witnesses to deal with.

He could trust Jaz, they'd grown up together and she knew all about the Guardians. Her mother and his father worked closely together for years. But the rest of them, they didn't know shit. Guardians like himself may've outranked most officers, but at the end of the day, they were still beyond top secret. Shiro could probably be trusted, he was practically the only family he had on Earth as his father was back on Terra, driving the Cabal from their home and his friends were all in hiding around the system. But the others, he didn't know them. They could stab him in the back.

And he wasn't going to risk that.

""Does anyone else feel like this thing's staring at them?" Lance asked as the others approached the barrier.

"No."

"Seriously, I swear the eyes are following me."

"It's a machine, the eyes aren't following you," Jaz deadpanned stepping up beside Keith. "See any way through?"

"Not yet. Yorak?"

"A supercharge might work. But I can't say for sure without analyzing the systems of the lion itself."

"What's he say?" Jaz inquired.

"Not without risking an explosion," Keith paraphrased. While a normal supercharge wouldn't be guaranteed to cause an explosion, in his current state, he didn't like the odds.

Jaz frowned crossing her arms, "Damn. Too bad we don't have Darvah, he could probably figure this out."

"No kidding," Keith agreed. Looking to his oldest friend, he put a hand on her shoulder, "We'll get him back."

Jaz gave him a smile, "Thanks. But we can't do that till we get this thing working."

"Maybe you just have to knock," Lance shrugged as he sauntered up, lazily tapping the shield.

At his touch, the shield flashed brilliant blue before it retreated. "You've gotta be kidding me," Jaz deadpanned. "That's all it took?"

"I've been tapping at the field for a minute," Keith grumbled.

"Well…what was that about then?" she frowned as the lion rumbled. Metal creaked as the machine moved for the first time in decades no doubt, as the lion crouched down, opening its maw and allowing a ramp to descend.

Rather than wondering what was going on, Lance smirked and ran up to the beast, trotting up the ramp. It took a moment for the rest of them to realize what he was doing and chase after him.

"What idiot runs headfirst into an unknown ship?" Keith grumbled.

"You're one to talk Keith," Jaz smirked.

"That was different and you know it!"

"Guys," Shiro interjected, stepping between his little brother and his friend, "now isn't the time." Patting their shoulders, he slipped between them, leading the way after Lance. A door opened up ahead and they could see the boy's lanky form slip into a chair as they stepped into the cockpit.

"All right, very nice," Lance grinned, taking the controls.

"Maybe you shouldn't touch those," Jaz warned. "We don't exactly know what this thing can do."

"Pfft, it'll be fine Jaz," he said rolling his eyes. "What's the worst that could happen?"

"Do you really want an answer to that?"

"Guys, I feel the need to point out that we're in some sort of futuristic space cat right now," Hunk spoke up.

"We noticed, Hunk," Pidge said.

"And technically, it seems to be some sort of weapon based on the form of a lion," Keith corrected. "Though that doesn't seem very effective."

"I agree," Jaz nodded. "It's probably based for ground combat, no way something like this could be aerodynamic."

"Did you guys hear that?"

"Hear what?" they all asked, turning their attention back to Lance, whom was looking around the cockpit confused.

"I thought I hear something," he answered leaning closer to the controls. "Maybe it's talking to me."

"It's a ship, it can't be sentient," Shiro said.

"Besides, even if it did have some sort of AI, why didn't we hear it?" Hunk chimed in.

Lance gave a shrug in response as he grabbed the controls again. "Who cares, I wanna see how this thing works!"

"WHAT?!"

Ignoring their protests, Lance shoved the controls forwards. The lion jerked as it leapt to its feet, shaking the floor of the cockpit, causing those standing to stumble and grab onto the nearest thing to keep their balance. Its massive frame rumbled and through the windows they could see the wall approaching rapidly. However, instead of crashing into it, the lion's head reared back, firing a blue beam from its maw. The rock eroded away under the heat of the blast, allowing the ship to charge through.

The floor beneath their feet rocked as the lion continued to run across the desert and their pilot grinned, "Alright! Let's see what this baby can do!"

Pulling back on the controls, they were all shocked as the mechanical creature leapt into the air and shot into the sky. It was flying. The giant, mechanical blue lion was flying. Lance whooped in excitement, pulling the controls into loop-di-loops and spins, the g-forces shoving the group around the cockpit like pinballs.

"You are the worst pilot ever!" Keith exclaimed digging his nails into the upholstery of the seat.

"What do you mean?! This is awesome!"

"No, it isn't!"

"Make it stop," Hunk moaned, his face slowly losing color.

"Lance, seriously! Stop!" Jaz demanded.

"I'm not doing anything! It's like this thing's on autopilot or something!" he protested as they continued to ascend, the sky growing darker as they appeared to be leaving the atmosphere.

"Then where are we going?!" Hunk whined as his eyes widened as he looked to see Earth retreating behind them.

"I just said it's on autopilot!" Lance exclaimed. "It says some alien ship is approaching Earth. I think we're supposed to stop it."

"What exactly did it say?" Pidge asked.

"I dunno, it's more of feeding ideas into my brain."

"Wow, you actually have a brain?" Keith muttered. "That's a shock."

"Hey!"

"Well, if this thing is what those aliens are looking for, why don't we just give it to them?" Hunk spoke up. "Maybe they'll leave us alone."

Keith didn't even need the bond to feel his ghost's rage and hear his angry shouts. Though, he had to agree, handing over a weapon with unknown potential was a very bad idea.

Shiro seemed to agree as he whirled on the nervous teen, "No! You don't understand. These monsters spread like a plague throughout the galaxy, destroying everything in their path," he snarled. "There's no bargaining with them. They won't stop till everything is dead!"

Keith crossed his arms in annoyance. That explained nothing about who they were facing. It sounded like five different races. Why was it so many of them wanted to either destroy the universe or conquer it? Well, he had his potions narrowed down: to absolutely nothing he knew of. All the alien races he'd known to be bent on conquering the universe didn't match any of the factors of Jaz's and Shiro's capture—plus he and other Guardians would've gotten an alert from the Awoken about an enemy fleet in their system.

"Which meant they were facing an unknown. He did not like dealing with unknowns.

Several of the monitors began flashing and Keith looked over Lance's shoulder, trying to figure out what was going on. Symbols in another language flashed across the screens; Keith smirked, finally there was something familiar. "There's something incoming!"

"What?" Lance asked.

His question was answered as a large warship exited from lightspeed. It was large, violet in color with various purple lights flashing on it. For the most part, it looked relatively normal, save for the giant horseshoe-like structure on the front. It definitely wasn't a style Keith was familiar with.

"Draaf," Jaz whispered, her hand clenching tighter on the seat, her blue knuckles turning white from the force.

Shiro appeared to be just as alarmed as Jaz was. Blood had drained from his face as he stared at the ship. "They found us."

"We have to get out of here!" Pidge exclaimed as she spotted what looked like a cannon powering up.

"I'm on it!" Lance nodded. Gunning the thrusters, they dove out of the way of the first blast. Multiple guns fired from the ship, skimming by the lion as it zipped through the torrent.

"Be careful, this isn't the simulator," Keith growled. As a shot came too close for his liking.

"Good, I always crash in the simulator."

That was the last thing anyone in this situation wanted to hear. "You what?"

"We're all gonna die," Jaz muttered.

"Uhh…let's see what this does!" Lance said pressing a random button. What happened was a blue laser firing from their ship, hitting one of the cannons, causing it to explode. "Cool! What button was that again?"

"LANCE!"

"Oh! Right!" he yelped hitting the thrusters again as the ship continued to fire at them. The lion wove through the blaster fire, approaching the ship. A blast hit the back of the lion, causing it to spin on a collision course.

Fortunately, their pilot recovered. Quickly pressing the controls, the lions claws dug into the metal, creating large gashes in the hull as he leapt off flying away from the ship.

"Nice job Lance," Shiro praised.

"Thanks, now let's get these guys away from our planets!"

As the lion flew away, Keith couldn't help but glance back in its direction. He wouldn't say it, but he was going to miss it. Earth was his home away from home; it'd been where he spent large swaths of his childhood with his father. There were a lot of good memories back there.

Of course, there were bad memories too. He was more than happy to leave those behind.

"Guys! They're back!" Hunk called.

Looking at the scanner, Keith grit his teeth. Sure enough, the mysterious aliens were back. And they were catching up.

"Where are we?" Pidge asked.

"The edge of the solar system," Shiro breathed. "Look, there's Kerberos."

"What?! It takes months to get out here! We got here in seconds!"

Pidge didn't have more time to rant about the speed before a blue glow came in front of them. A ring of blue light with markings on it spread out in the void of space in front of them, a swirling mix of light and dark in the center. But, despite the darkness in it, it didn't feel like it. Keith didn't sense anything that would set off his internal alarms. But, he did know enough to recognize a portal when he saw it, even if it wasn't the ones he was used to.

"What is that?"

"Uh, this may seem crazy, but I think the lion wants us to go through it," Lance spoke up.

"Where does it go?"

"Who knows," Lance replied. "Shiro, Jaz, you two are the senior officers. What do we do?"

"Whatever's happening, the lion clearly knows more than we do, I say we trust it," Shiro replied.

Jaz raised a brow, "It's a ship?"

"But," Shiro continued, "we're a team now. We should decide this together."

"Going to the unknown is better than leading an enemy to our home," Jaz commented.

"She's right," Keith agreed. "We don't know what we're up against. Better to lead them away than put civilians in unnecessary danger."

"Guess we're all missing class tomorrow," Lance said. Shoving the controls forwards, the lion shot into the portal.