The door slid open and footsteps marched toward her. A clawed hand grabbed her face and lifted it up from the tear-stained nest of arms and knees. The general dug his nails on her skin and the Green Paladin gave out a rasping whimper.
"Poor, pitiful thing. Seeing your friends get hurt has broken you, hasn't it? I bet they think you're dead and gone. So much for the Paladins of Voltron." He jeered. A cruel smirk curling in his lips. "Now, why don't you tell me where the Lions are? Perhaps, I would let you see them. Maybe even spare your short lives."
Pidge struggled to look at him with clouded eyes. She will see them? After many, long days, she will get to see them again - not strapped against a table, not writhing in searing pain as quintessence burned through their entire being? Those words were too tempting, too real to be true. She yearned for her friends and missed their antics that she has taken for granted in her one-track mind of searching for her missing father and her brother. She longed to hear Lance's lame jokes and puns, to taste Hunk's alien-turned-to-Earth-tasting cooking, to enjoy the quiet yet comforting company of Keith, and to feel Shiro's hand ruffling her hair as he praised her.
Yet it was there, being offered to her openly. All she has to do is to say yes.
"What do you say, Green Paladin?" His eyes glittering in the dimly lit room. "Will you save them?"
"I…" Her eyes peered at the window – her only access to the horrendous room that bear witness to the horrors that the Galra have brought to her friends. To her family. Just like what they did to Shiro. Just like what they might be doing to her father and her brother. Just like they did to everyone, both innocent and brave to fight back against their oppressive rule.
Lies!
A voice hissed in the deepest recesses of her mind. A voice so familiar, yet the unmistakable anger was foreign from her memory.
Nothing but foul lies! The voice spat. They ripped your father and your brother away from you, gripping them in an iron fist and away from your reach! They stole a part of you – a part of your identity! Those wretched beings who wallow in power and glory in the agony of the innocent and dare to call themselves the strongest!
Pidge gasped as memories, memories of ten thousand years, of the bloodshed in the eyes of the original Green Paladin. She saw buildings exploding as purple lasers rained down the sky, families torn apart as parents lost their children in deadly stampedes and children watching their parents lost their lives in front of them. She saw planets being destroyed, star systems fading from maps, and futures lost in all eternity.
She felt Trigel's grief. Her agony and the torment she experienced until her final moments. Her sorrows and regrets of not being able to foresee all of it. She is the most knowledgeable of them all. The Paladin of the Green Lion. The Shield of Voltron. Yet she has failed to protect them all.
She felt the Green Lion's doubt of the Black Paladin. Her anger at his betrayal to her pride, at her brother and leader's trust of the Galran emperor even ten thousand years later. Her despair at the loss of her beloved Paladin and the anguish of not being able to guide her Paladin well as her Lion. The left arm of Voltron and its Shield. She has failed them all.
But not anymore.
Not this time.
Not her new Paladin.
Not her new Pride.
Never.
Pidge felt her Lion's desire to protect. To finally become the Shield she was crafted to be. To protect her brothers and sisters and their Paladins. To protect her Paladin. To protect her pride.
As Pidge opened her eyes and stood in front of her Lion in the mindscape, she could hear, feel her calling out to her. Her unwavering desire to find her father and her brother. The feeling of belongingness in the family of misfits she has found. Her anger of those goddamn Galra hurting her friends, for trying to tear them apart like some yesterday's plaything.
She could feel all of it, every thought, every feeling, every desire, mingling with her Lion's and hers to Pidge's. She could see it now, see herself reflected in the Green Lion's eyes.
Protect.
They hurted those you love and they will continue to do so until life is gone from their eyes. Green whispered. Will you let them take your new family, our pride, away from you?
The mere thought of it stoked the last embers of anger inside her. A storm awakening within her veins as Nature's wrath imprinted itself in her very core. She grabbed the general's wrist and bared her teeth. "No. I will not save them from you." She growled. Her hand tightening around his wrist and a maniacal smile curling at her lips and her eyes glowed in poison green. His bones cracked under his skin and the general yowled in pain.
"You save yourself from us."