Guest: *in a sing-song voice* You'll see! I'll do my best!
"Everyone, up!"
It was a month later, an entire month of nothing but empty space, sleepless nights…and feeling utterly useless.
By the time Keith's call filtered through the coms, Pidge had already awoken, and she propped herself up on one arm.
"Yep, I'm up." She said to the coms, waiting for Keith's conformation that he had heard.
"No…" Hunk groaned.
"10-4. Hunk, sleeping time is over. Lance, no time for slacking. Allura, there's work to be done."
"What's the point? We're just out in space, there's no day or night here." Lance complained, voice tired.
"I have to agree with Lance. We should sleep for another five doboshes." Allura yawned, probably not completely coherent.
"Guys, we can't let this long voyage make us soft or dull our skills. Routine will keep us sharp." Keith hissed, voice exasperated.
Shiro's voice was grim as he stepped into Pidge's half of the cargo bay, on his way to the cockpit. "Keith's right. Routine was how I survived being Zarkon's prisoner and being in the infinite void of the Black Lion."
"So that makes you an expert of killin' time…" Lance groaned.
Shiro opened his mouth to say something back, before snapping his jaw shut.
Pidge watched him, wondering what he had been about to say. Probably something that the clone wanted him to say. After all, the clone still dwelt in a far corner of his mind, whispering suggestions. Shiro had never actually told her this, but she had guessed from their overall conversations. Also he talked in his sleep.
"Can't we just…can't we just eat first?" Hunk stammered, exhaustion in his voice.
"No." Krolia sighed, a slight beeping filtering from her side of the coms. "Once we're completed, you may eat, but, for now, try to behave."
"Hmm." Hunk grumbled.
"Why do you sound so much like a mother?" Lance growled.
Krolia wisely decided not to answer him. "Everyone up, or I just may have you do this simulator twice."
Everybody? Pidge grinned slightly. She loved loopholes. Everybody included her, even if Krolia didn't mean EVERYbody-everybody.
Shiro, however, shot her a pointed look when she began to turn herself to the edge of the bed, and she paused, relaxing into the covers as if she hadn't done anything wrong, just rearranging her position. Then she gave him a smile, a look that used to get her just a laugh before he…died. Now all he did was narrow his eyebrows, eyes sliding into slits as he pursed his lips.
Pidge's innocent smile faded away, replaced by embarrassment. Shiro was different now. It didn't even seem like he had emotions anymore. Of course he didn't want her to act like a kid anymore. Besides, judging what Acxa had said…well, Pidge was an adult now, by Earth standards. Childish ways should be behind her. After all, she had witnessed some awful things. Entire families slaughtered like pigs, seeing Zarkon face to face, having her legs broken, stuck with the knowledge that she had killed someone…the last one the first she had encountered.
Haxus.
Shiro had found her several hours after the incident, while Lance was healing, bent over the evil Galra's body down on in surface of the engine rooms. She had been sobbing, but had run out of tears to cry by the time he found her withered form. He had hugged her for a long time, only moving her when she fell asleep. The next time she had went to stare at Haxus's body, the deceased general was gone, leaving only a memory.
Now, Shiro gazed at her frostily for a long moment before turning his back on her. From what she had heard, despite him volunteering to ride with her in the Green Lion, and apologizing profusely for his clone's behavior, sometimes he still acted as if his clone still had control.
Shiro left the room, with one final glance back at her, warning her to not try anything.
Alas, that was against Pidge's nature. As soon as he was gone, she forced her legs over the edge of the bed, grinding her teeth together with pain as her legs moved the tiniest bit.
"Ow." She hissed, only keeping herself 'afloat' by balancing on some crates. "Owowowowow."
She could make it. All she needed to do was make it to one of the crates on the far wall, and then come back. That was all she wanted.
Pidge staggered, cursing her legs, forcing them to move, just a tiny bit. "Come on." She urged then aloud. "You can do it."
In response, her bones grinned, a sickening cracking noise coming to her ears. They instantly became limp, pain stabbing through her. Pidge bit back a scream, managing to pick herself up again, using the crates as support. After two or three doboshes of collapsing, picking herself up, and falling again, she reached the crate, and she dropped to her needs beside it (probably not the best decision, seeing as how her knees were the only thing actually broken) wincing in pain as her mouth parted to let out a gasp.
The box held her armor, from the breast plate to the under-suit to the belt, and right now she desperately wanted her gantlet. She had to dig through her armor quickly, silently cursing Krolia, who had put it in here, for being so dang organized.
After quite a bit of searching, Pidge finally found it at the bottom of the box, beside the arm guards, and the shoulder pads.
Stupid Krolia…
Stupid organization…
If Pidge wasn't in such a hurry, she would have spat on the ground. As it was, she had to hurriedly drag herself back to the bed, using the crates as leverage. She just managed to pull herself into bed, pulling the covers over her and cramming the gantlet under her pillow when Shiro entered again, no doubt watching the simulator from the cockpit.
"They finished quickly." Pidge acknowledged.
"Yeah." He tossed her a wad of GAC. "Hunk was the first to go out."
Pidge fumbled through the cash for a moment, counting it up. "Hey, we agreed on five hundred GAC!"
"Fine." He handed her the last hundred. "Was wondering if you'd notice."
"Dude."
"Dude."
Pidge rolled her eyes. "Yada yada. Okay, who was the next to go out?" Shiro handed her a pouch of coins. "Keith. I couldn't believe it."
"Who next?" Pidge asked as she allowed the coins to stream between her fingers.
"Lance was." Shiro shrugged, handing her two more satchels weighed with silver.
Pidge stuck out her tongue, grinning. "Winner, winner, chicken dinner."
"I have no idea where that comes from."
"Me neither. Matt used to say it." Pidge shrugged, frowning down at the coins. "I think I'll use this newfound wealth to buy a laboratory."
"Where? Earth probably still uses dollars and cents."
"I dunno. Just…somewhere. Somewhere in the middle of the action, ya know?"
"Hmm." Shiro nodded, not really sounding like he was listening.
Pidge frowned at him, and he looked back, eyes blank.
Inside, though, his heart was clenching. He knew for a fact that Hunk wanted to pass down the Bayton, he had heard Keith say something about taking it easy once they arrived on Earth, Lance had said he was going to go to Varadero Beach to chill out, and would bring Allura, too, to meet his twin sister. So he knew that everyone was just about ready for retirement, whether or not they admitted it. But…Pidge still wanted to be in the brunt of the action?
"Are you okay?" Pidge asked, wringing her hands.
"Yeah. I'm fine." Shiro nodded, blinking at her. "Why?" He reminded himself sharply that she was a lot younger then the others, and was not even out of her teens. He didn't think she was, at least. Maybe she was. Ugh, well, the point was, she was still at the peak of her prime, and, while the others felt old, she still was young and full of spirit.
"Um…never mind." Pidge shook her head, crashing Shiro back into reality. "Nothing."
"Pidge." Shiro sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "We need to be able to communicate one-on-one with each other, especially when we're living in close quarters. It's inessential."
"That's going to be a problem." Pidge grunted, crossing her arms.
Shiro nodded slowly. He and Pidge hardly ever actually…taking. Maybe once a day, which was too little. And their minor conversations were mostly tied in link to the other Paladins.
"I know that it'll be tough." Shiro admitted, half to himself. "But we have to try."
Pidge smiled weakly at him, though her mind was elsewhere. "Yeah…it will be."
"Food incoming!" Hunk called through the coms suddenly, interrupting their conversation. "Aw, what a good wolf…fella…guy… Oh my gosh, we really gotta come up with a name for this wolf."
Pidge caught Shiro's eye, rolling her eyes as she giggled. "As if Keith would allow that." She mumbled.
Shiro chuckled, before remembering himself and stiffening his posture.
"Not gonna happen." Keith rebuffed Hunk's decision instantly, his voice with a wary twang to it.
"Aw, com'n, I vote Kosmo." Hunk suggested, voice brightening as he went against his leader's order.
"I like Kosmo." Allura voted.
"Kosmo is cool." Lance agreed.
"Yeah!" Pidge grinned as Shiro handed her a packet of food from Kosmo's pack. "It's nice."
"We're not calling him Kosmo." Keith said, annoyed.
"Oh, com'n Keith, we gotta call him something." Hunk complained.
"I figure when he's ready, he'll tell me his name." Keith grunted, lacking any avid in his words.
Pidge smirked into her cup, wondering if Keith knew dogs-er, wolves-couldn't talk.
"So Kosmo." Lance blankly responded, sighing. "Got it."
A few ticks of blissful silence pervaded the lions, in which Pidge took a sip from her cup.
"Oh! Hunk," and of course Lance was the one who ruined the peace, "this is delicious!"
"Yes, thank you Lance. Yeah, I made it from collecting fungus paste from the dung of the beetles on the last planet we stopped at to gather supplies."
"Ugh!" Lance screeched. "Hunk, please, I don't want to know what it is, I just want to eat it and pretend it's my meemaw's home cooking."
Pidge stared, distastefully down at the food as she hesitantly put a spoon full into her mouth, groaning a little.
"Really, Lance?"
Keith grunted, his classic brusqueness returning.
Suddenly a few beeps sounded from the Black Lion, withdrawing a small murmur of praise from Krolia.
"What happened?" Romelle asked, confused by why her 'adopted mother' seemed so pleased.
"Pidge had an idea to put out a passive signal, so nobody could track us again, but so we could collect signals."
"Well, I'll be a wraggler's horn." Coran puffed, pride tinting the sentence. "What is it?"
"Patching it through now." Krolia must've already been in the process of 'emailing' it to the others, for as soon as she uttered the last word every got the signal on their dashboard.
Shiro lifted his wrist to let Pidge see the frequency too, frowning as three Bii-boh-biis appeared on the screen. Honestly, he was surprised that nobody turned it off instantly.
Instead, Coran began laughing.
Shiro, in fact, was about to dismantle the communication, but Pidge grabbed his forearm and forced him to sit down on the edge of her bed, intrigued by the comedy show that the Bii-Boh-Biis seemed to be emulate.
"We need some more fun in our lives." Pidge hissed, noticeably concise. She subconsciously touched her legs as she spoke, narrowing her eyes. They both knew that she didn't understand the language, but what the heck.
Coran was ranting something about Bii-Boh-Biis really understanding comedy, but they ignored him.
The next thing everyone knew, one of the Bii-Boh-Biis had thrown a punch at another one, and the victim was laying on the ground, looking almost dead.
They all flinched, Pidge because she knew what it was like being hit, and the other Paladins because the hurt Bii-Boh-Bii reminded them all to much of how Pidge had looked during the torture session.
If Shiro had two hand available, he would have wrapped at least one of them around Pidge to remind himself that she was there.
Pidge leaned heavily into his shoulder, surprisingly needing no prompting from her peer, taking a shaky breath.
Suddenly, all noise from the comedy show cut off, static rising from it instead.
"Quiznak! What happened to the frequency?"
"Mom, what?"
"Um…why's only static coming through."
"Thank the Lord! I couldn't understand a word they said."
"My apologies, Paladins." Krolia sighed, her attention hardly on them. "I need to listen to this, though."
There was about twenty ticks of agitating silence.
"It sounds like just radiation interference from the nearest star." Pidge sighed. "You should try to just tune it out."
"No, that's just what it's supposed to sound like."
"What?" Keith sounded miffed as he spoke to his mother, although his voice still sounded calm.
"Listen to the beeps between pulses. There's a distinct pattern."
Beep…shrkkkk…beep…shrkkkk…beep…shrkkkk…beep…
It sounded almost like morse code, Pidge noticed, frowning.
"She's right!" Allura gapped.
"Back before the Blades were established, we used this crude code to communicate to each other. Few know it now, it must be a senior member."
"Kolivan…?" Keith murmured, failing to keep the hopeful light from his words.
"Possibly." Krolia hummed. "We need to track it to find out."
"Um…not to be rude, Krolia, but…uh, wouldn't that be going out of our way to find whatever it is?" Hunk asked, trembling in worry.
"Setting the course now." Keith told them, setting the destination.
Hunk whimpered.
It took them a good five hours to reach the destination, and they set down on the asteroid.
"Alright. Everyone, follow me. Pidge, sit tight." Keith ordered, pushing himself up to his feet as he nodded at his mother.
"What?!" Pidge squeaked. "That's not fair! Romelle's going!"
Romelle let out a squeak of protest, her rebuffing noise going unnoticed.
"Romelle's not injured." Keith responded evenly. "Besides, there's strength in numbers."
"And you're leaving me alone?!" Pidge pouted, feeling rejected. She might be hurt, but there had to be something she could do.
"Aw, com'n, nothing can hurt you as long as you stay in here." Keith sighed. "Relax, Pidge. It's only temporary. If we're not back in ten vargas, I give you permission to get your helmet and com us."
Pidge pouted, jutting her lip at the coms. "Fine. Make sure you make it back in eleven Vargas, alright?"
She could practically see Keith's eye roll. "Twelve, if it'll make you happy."
"Deal!" Pidge agreed full-heartedly, then pointed at the armor bin. "Shiro, can you lend Krolia my gauntlet? It's pretty handy for tight situations."
Shiro nodded, reaching into the box. He looked a bit confused when he saw how disorganized it was, but he made no comment. And if he also noticed the lack of the second gauntlet, he didn't acknowledge it in any way.
Pidge watched him leave, then, as soon as the door closed behind him, she activated the screen in her gauntlet, hacking into Keith's helmet's camera. Now she could see, not to mention hear, everything he did. The best part? She could erase all evidence that she was even watching with a push of a button.
Meanwhile, Keith exited the Black Lion, his mother and the wolf(he still refused to call his dog by his newly bestowed name)in his wake.
Keith looked out over the landscape, the ruins of the town in front of him, at least five miles long before sharp cliffs rose up on the opposite side of the cavern.
"It almost looks like Earth." Hunk noted, taking a step closer. "Like, I know it's not, but it sure seems like it…"
Shiro handed Krolia Pidge's gauntlet.
"Hmm." Krolia filed through the screens, pursing her lips. "I'm not picking up on any biorhythms…it looks completely abandoned."
"Is that a good or bad sign?" Romelle asked, chucking a pebble as far as she could manage. It managed to reach the roof of a low-bearing house, bouncing twice before breaking into several pieces.
"Bad." Keith hissed under his breath.
"Yeah, Romelle, in my experience in space, there's never been any 'good signs'." Hunk frowned sadly. "I'm sorry to admit it, but it's true."
Lance chucked a rock. It only reached half the distance that Romelle's did. "You know…Hunk's right. About the Earth thing. It's pretty peaceful."
"Yeah…" Hunk agreed quietly, longing in his eyes.
"Well, we can't just hang around up here forever. We better get moving. Find the source of the signal."
Keith ordered, slipping down the hill that overlooked the village that they stood on.
Krolia was immediately sliding down after him. Shiro came next, then Romelle and Coran, Allura and Lance, and, finally, Hunk.
"It looks awful from the ground." Keith sighed, staring up at the sky scrapers, enormous holes in them.
"An ion cannon did that." Shiro realized, pointing to a perfectly round hole near the top of a building next to them.
"The Galra." Allura hissed. "They're always destroying civilizations."
Krolia turned away, pretending to study some carvings in the wall, and Keith stared awkwardly at his feet.
They knew she didn't mean any harm in her words, but words did hurt.
"I'm sure the princess didn't mean you." Romelle comforted her adopted family, but she spoke a bit louder then she meant to.
"Oh!" Allura gasped, eyes stretching wide. "Romelle's right. I didn't mean it like that, I just-!"
"Allura, it's fine." Krolia said, her voice holding a tiny fraction of brusqueness to it. "We know you didn't mean any harm."
"Alright, break it up." Shiro ordered, gripping the chance to change the subject. "Krolia?"
"Still haven't picked up on the origins of the signal." The woman is question huffed, staring down distastefully at the screen in front of her. "I'm getting it to run an auto-scan, but it might be slow going. For now I'll do it remotely."
"My, I wonder what kind of beast made these!" Coran trailed a hand lazily over a scratch mark.
"Magic." Allura hissed, sensing the remnants of concentrated quintessence in the air.
Krolia looked over at the ruins of a building that used to be someone's home. "Something destroyed all these houses, and it wasn't just ion cannons. Even magic, unless if it's at its highest level, can't knock down a building.
Allura began shifting through the rubble, over turning the stones. "Oh!" She finally gasped, drawing back suddenly, a sob caught in her throat. She grabbed Lance, crying quietly as her peer wrapped his free arm around her.
Allura had uncovered five skeletons, a women holding two babies in their hand, yet kept her arms wrapped around a child's body, the child's body the size of a human five-year-old. A larger, make skeleton had his body wrapped protectively around his family. But, from the angle of their bodies, it was clear that the house had collapsed on top of them, killing them upon impact.
"Well…that explains the lack of life forms." Hunk murmured, pretending not to notice how Allura sobbed into Lance's shoulder, and the tender looks the Red Paladin gave his weeping friend.
"We need to keep moving." Lance whispered, his eyes still fixed on Allura.
"They should have had a proper burial." Romelle sighed sadly. "On the Altean colony, it didn't matter who died, the entire planet came to ever funeral service. There was at least five every week, though that number dropped the more Alteans left with Lotor."
Hunk ripped off his helmet and retreated into an abandoned building, probably to puke.
When he rejoined the group, they continued mournfully through the ruins. It was another kilometers before anyone spoke.
"So…magic, ion cannons, and collapsed buildings. Anyone got any ideas?" Lance asked, trying to sound cheerful, but it came out sad, depressed, even.
"These slash strikes look Mamoran." Krolia noted, pondering Lance's question hard. "There was a massacre here."
The wolf growled, pointing his muzzle towards a large pile of rocks.
"What is it, boy?" Keith asked, his hand that clenched the Bayard quivering slightly as he tried to hold back tears.
Obviously Kosmo gave no reply, bounding up the rocks and tackling whatever was on the other side.
Instantly all the Paladins followed him, staring at shock at what he had pinned down.
A man with a yellowish-brown and orange face lay there, staring up at Kosmo in shock. Well, best he could. Guy had no eyes.
"Who are you? Who's broadcasting that signal?" Keith demanded, thrusting the sword closer to the newcomer's neck.
"It was me!" The man wailed, shaking.
"Impossible! You're no Blade of Marmora!" Keith shouted.
"I will explain all if you would put down your weapons." The man begged.
"Let's see what he has to say." Krolia growled.
"You're the Paladins of Voltron." The man rose to his feet shakily, coughing.
"You recognized us?" Lance asked, cocking his head.
"Well…" the newcomer cocked his head at them. "Yes, though it took me a moment. Come, I will bring you to my home." He led the way, everyone doing their best to follow him through the terrain. "Where is the green paladin?" He finally asked, turning to face them as he stood atop a pile of rocks.
Everyone exchanged looks, unsure if they should answer him.
However, Lance, the most trusting of the group, voiced the knowledge nobody else dare speak. "She got injured in a fight a few weeks back. She's in the Green Lion, resting."
"Lance!" Keith, Krolia, and Shiro all hissed indigently.
"What?" Lance shrugged, helplessly holding up his hands in defeat. "He sure seems trustworthy."
"Thank you, Paladin." The man probably would have smiled if he had a mouth. (Hang on, how was he speaking?) It's only a short distance to my home, where I will explain everything. Now, come."
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