It had taken several hours for all of them to recover from the emotional rollercoaster of the morning and afternoon, from the high of discovery and the painful shock of Alfor's ultimate fate and the associations Allura and Coran's loss had for many of them. Gradually, though, the mood had lightened as they all worked to support each other through their own personal hardships. Eventually, even an edge of their earlier excitement had returned, as quiet conversation and hesitant admission by Allura and Coran had confirmed that the small box the latter had carried out of the tomb was, in fact, what they'd been searching for. Now, as Pidge rigged a connection between the small data drive inside, her laptop, and the main screen in the lounge, the anticipation was palpable as it dispelled most of the lingering strain in the room.
"Just…about…there!" Pidge sat back with a sigh, tucking herself back against her mother's side. On the screen, text scrolled rapidly as the translation program did its work. Within minutes it was complete, two boxes of text, one Altean and one English, appearing side by side on the main screen.
Coran tightened his arm around Allura, pulling his daughter closer against him, and took a deep breath. This was it. Time to discover just how many secrets Alfor had hidden from him. The resentment and hurt over Alfor's actions had faded now, knowing that the choice had been no easier for his husband, but the loss ached, as fresh now as in the days after they'd first emerged from cryosleep to discover just where and when Alfor's request had sent them.
"Alright, so it looks like we've got a few different sections here." Pidge muttered, speaking half to the room at large and half to herself as she frowned at her laptop screen. "Some of them seem to be research notes, separated into sections by date it looks like."
"My mother's." Allura murmured, exhaling slowly. "The…message…left for us said that her research notes would be in the file."
"Right. Okay." Pidge noted that down on the files. "Then we've got…okay, that one seems to be a summary of the same plan we got from Fiorin's message and Marmora's files. We can go through that and see if he included any details they didn't that we should know about. Later, though." More scrolling on the screen to another item on the list. "Lions and bayards. Pretty straightforward?" She glanced over at Coran.
Coran nodded, forcing a small smile. "I wouldn't be surprised if those were the same notes from our efforts to create the Lions, as well as perhaps information from the time after they found their paladins." He mused. Those were the same notes that had once been contained in the Castle's main servers, unfortunate casualties of the corrupted crystal. "If they are, I expect Number One will get the most use of them, as they do contain the original schematics from which the Lions were constructed." Hunk's face lit up and he made a grabbing motion toward Pidge, who giggled and nodded.
"Alright, so. Research notes, Lion schematics, that scheme of theirs…aaaaand…" She clicked on the last one. "Oh, an index!"
On the screen, the file contained a short list of topics, each followed by a pair of dates that no doubt corresponded to the sections of the research notes. Creation of Lion cores. Effect of Lion bonds on Paladin quintessence and aspects. Five-colour quintessence. Metaphysical aspects.
Coran frowned as he studied the list. On Altea, the guild of amvel nayeta had had a longstanding policy that all new research should be kept private, either within the guild or to the researching individual or individuals, until they were certain that their discoveries were not dangerous to the untrained or the unwary, or were not capable of mass death and destruction in the hands of the unscrupulous. Altea's past was not clean of bloodshed for all its creed of diplomacy and peacekeeping at the time the war began, and some of the worst atrocities were born of advances in the technological control of quintessence.
As such, he was well aware that Linnata, pioneering genius that she was, had never more than hinted at the details of her work to either of her husbands. They had respected her boundaries, just as she and Coran had respected those aspects of Alfor's duties as prince and king which he could not share even in the privacy of their own rooms. Now, though, he couldn't help wondering just what discoveries their wife had been making in the solitude of her workrooms.
He refocused on the conversations going on around him just in time to hear Shiro say firmly, "It's Allura's family's files, and Coran's. We'll let them decide what order we should tackle these in."
Beside him, Allura bit her lip, smoothing her dress restlessly. "Coran?" She asked quietly. "You knew more about Mother's work than I do. What do you think?"
"Not as much as you might expect, Princess." Coran sighed, running his eye over the list again. "I think perhaps we should start with the section on the paladins and their aspects. Complete our missing knowledge in that area before moving on to the next."
"Wise advice as always, Coran." He felt her relax a bit, seemingly buoyed by his outward air of relaxed confidence, and he patted her shoulder gently in reassurance.
"Paladins and aspects it is." Pidge hummed, backing out of the index and selecting the indicated section of research notes.
There was a moment's pause as the translator worked its programming on the contents of what was apparently a fairly substantial file. On the main screen, the display rearranged itself as it tried to accommodate the internal formatting of the file alongside the double-pane of the translations, ending up in four smaller squares of text. On the left, dated sections contained what appeared to be observational notes, interviews, and experimental write-ups as Pidge scrolled down it. And on the right…
"Allura, if I could kiss your mother I would." Pidge breathed.
"It's even colour-coded." Matt pointed out, sounding patently delighted and drawing a choked noise from Shiro.
"Talented, intelligent, and organized." Hunk grinned. "Man, Coran, you and Alfor have really good taste in partners."
Coran burst out laughing. "Why, thank you." His heart swelled with fondness as he took in the running summary, tagged with various relevant dates, written in a series of neat, concise point notes in the right-hand panes of the screen.
Allura coughed, her cheek markings glowing faintly. "If we could please focus on the task at hand?"
"Right, right, sorry." Pidge grinned sheepishly, ducking her head as Colleen chuckled and ruffled her hair. She selected the right-hand panes and expanded them on the main screen to focus on them.
-Paladin bonding appears to deeply entangle the quintessence of Lion and Paladin in a way that is previously unknown. In effect, they become two physical beings with a single shared quintessence
-In species that do not naturally manipulate quintessence (Hylathian, Galra), species that manipulate only in limited forms (Olkari), and non-nayeta Alteans, the mingling of quintessence between Lion and Paladin apparently confers the paladin with the ability to manipulate quintessence sufficiently to make use of the pure-colour aspects. Cause unknown. Possible artifact of core formation ritual, or related to the nature of the bonding process itself
-Due to the mingling of quintessence, the form of the aspects is altered in Paladins, with the exception of the psychological and emotional traits. The others affect the Lion-body or the Lion-mind, possibly due to the imbalance of the quintessence ratio between the two linked physical forms
-Observed altered forms:
Natural elemental aspect: energy blasts (Red) replaced by rail gun, sonic blasts (Blue) replaced by sonic cannon, thickened skin (Yellow) replaced by heavy armor, plant manipulation (Green) replaced by plant cannon, phasing (Black) restricted to Lion. These abilities are not able to be accessed while the Lions are merged into the Voltron form.
Combative characteristic aspect: speed boost (Red) restricted to Lion in form of additional boosters, enhanced flexibility (Blue) replaced by additional maneuvering boosters, self-anchoring (Yellow) restricted to Lion in form of mechanical gravity generation points on the ankles, auto-analysis of mechanisms (Green) restricted to the form of a special scanner, sensory riding (Black) restricted to a system enhancement that provides the Paladin with access to the viewpoints and combat-specialized tools (multi-targeting, threat analysis, structural projection, gravitic and trajectory monitoring) of the other Lions. These abilities are usable in both single-Lion and Voltron forms.
Physical analogue aspect: Absorption and redirection of energy from attackers or allies (Red) is performed through the Voltron-body rather than the Paladin body and allows enhancement of combat systems; coordination of individual quintessence manipulations to greater effect (Blue) takes the form of allowing multiple bayards to be used simultaneously to generate a greater variety of weapons; mobile quintessence-based shielding (Yellow) manifests over the skin of the Voltron-body; ability to accelerate healing and general recovery (Green) becomes directed acceleration of internal repair mechanisms within the Voltron-body; sharing of strength and skills among a linked group (Black) manifests as reassignment of weapons controls and, in extreme circumstances, general Lion control. These abilities are restricted to the Voltron form
Emotional and Mental trait aspects: no observed change, and abilities continue to be used by the Paladin directly
-In amvel nayeta paladins (one observed case), the Paladin appears to retain the ability to use the aspects in their original form in addition to the Lion-form
After that the section became a list of questions and theories, including what would happen to a Paladin's ability to manipulate the aspects in the case of a broken Lion bond (Linnata had correctly predicted the loss of the ability), the effects of the loss of another paladin's Lion (none, at least as far as the aspects were concerned), and how having multiple bonded sets of paladins would impact the use of the aspects (she predicted that the Lion-form abilities, which could only be used when the Paladin was present anyway to 'complete' the quintessence, would only be able manifest when the completing paladin had learned to access those aspects due to their nature as quintessential manifestations).
There was a long pause as everyone finished reading the file and absorbing its contents. Finally Shiro sat back with a sigh as he surveyed the rest of the team. "Well. Looks like we finally have a clear picture of what the aspects do. At some point I'd like as all to sit down and discuss which ones we want to focus on as most potentially useful." His mouth twisted in a wry grin. "Besides the Black physical analogue that is." He nodded to Hunk, who grinned sheepishly back at him. "For now, though, let's keep going. May a well go through all of this at once. Allura? Coran?"
Coran hummed thoughtfully, taking a moment to gather his thoughts while Pidge switched back to the index file. Trust Linnata to have extensively studied the effect of the Lion bonds on the abilities of those who were bonded to them. And trust now, after all his hard work combing through his memories in the holoprojection chamber, for one to surface in his mind of his beautiful wife bouncing a tiny Allura in her arms as she eagerly interrogated their husband over breakfast for every possible detail of an incident on his last mission with the other Paladins that had resulted in Acalli, reflexively trying to use one of the aspects to dodge an incoming threat and momentarily forgetting that she was, in fact, in her Lion, manifesting a set of maneuvering thrusters that allowed the Blue Lion to perform unheard of maneuvers, while Alfor gamely tried to answer her questions around mouthfuls of cereal.
"I can't think that anything to do with the construction of the Lions' cores would be relevant to our needs at the moment." He mused, stroking his moustache thoughtfully as he considered the remaining options. The metaphysical aspects were a sensitive topic for Alejandro and Kurogane, with all the ways their lives had been affected by them. It might be wise to leave the hardest topic for last. On the other hand, he had no idea at all why Linnata would have been researching five-colour quintessence, or what she might have discovered. And five-colour quintessence was one of those traits that Allura shared with her mother.
Better a gamble than a known hardship to start with, he decided. "Five-colour quintessence next, if you don't mind." He caught relieved, grateful looks from the two time-travellers, and surreptitious glances at Allura from some of the others, who obviously remembered that conversation they had had-was it only a decarotation or so ago?-when the topic had come up.
The requested file opened onto the screen and Pidge immediately expanded the section of summarized notes on the right.
-Balanced nature of 5C quintessence tends to allow rapid assimilation of skills in amvel nayeta with minimal training
-Statistically excessive proportion of 5C individuals among most successful guild members throughout history and among notable innovators
-Balanced attunement with natural world results in 5C quintessence having its own set of 'aspects' not dissimilar to those accessible by elementally-attuned 1C individuals, even falling into the same categories with the exception of the natural element, which does not appear to exist for the 5C set:
Combative characteristic: "Versatility" - appears to manifest in those who have demonstrated the ability to use a variety of problem-solving techniques out of those associated with the 1C aspects. Results in a general enhancement of skills including strength, speed, flexibility, and intuition, although not to the same degree as the 1C average based on observation.
Physical analogue: "Senses" - appears to manifest from a demonstrated ability to encourage cooperation and coordination between social groups. Results in an ability to draw on the strength of others to significantly enhance the power in quintessence manipulation abilities.
Emotional and Psychological traits: "Endurance/Defiance" - Only observed in 5C individuals who have experienced great hardships and refused to be broken down by them. Renders them immune to the effect of 1C aspects unless desired.
-Possibility that 5C aspect effects may have been responsible for unexpected effects on those involved in incidents surrounding certain historical quintessential works, as evidenced by the effects on myself in the wake of the ritual used to craft the cores of the Voltron Lions. [Refer to notes on the creation of the cores]
"It, ah, would appear I still have a lot to learn." Allura said softly into the silence as they all finished reading, looking down at her hands with a stunned, slightly awed expression.
Lance grinned, scooting across the floor to elbow her leg gently. "Guess you'll be joining us on trying to learn aspects now, huh Princess?"
She giggled and nodded. "It appears so. Hopefully you'll all be able to give me some advice on how best to go about it."
"It'd be our pleasure." He gave a courtly bow, or tried to, but smacked his arm into the couch.
"Definitely." Shiro agreed with a smile before glancing over at Coran. "Coran?"
"The, ah, the section on Lion cores, please." Nevermind what he'd said before. He'd known, long ago, that the ritual that had been used to craft them had been in some way related to Linnata's death. Her collapse at the moment the Red Lion first encountered Fiorin, the way her body had rapidly and catastrophically shut down over the course of the vargas that followed despite the best efforts of every medical specialist in the Altean alliance, could never have been coincidental. She had admitted to being able to hear the Lions, though not so well as their Paladins could, and every one of them had been fond of her. But he'd had no idea, none at all, that it had had something to do with the colour of her quintessence.
Had Alfor known? Did it have anything to do with his insistence that, in the last days of the beginning of the war, Allura-not Coran, but Allura-needed to be bonded to the Lions? All he had ever admitted to was that Linnata's notes spoke of the necessity for someone in that role to allow new paladins to connect to the Lions, and to enable her to locate them once she awoke. But never how, or why.
His changed mood must have shown on his face, because everyone was quiet as Pidge changed the files once more. She knew without prompting what he must be looking for as she scrolled through the notes about elemental quantities and concentrations, looking for the ones that the notes about quintessence must have been referring to-
There.
-The ritual calls for an individual with five-colour quintessence as keystone, in order to properly interconnect the five cores by threading them through the 5C's own core. This linkage makes use of one of the aspects of 5C quintessence, the physical analogue, to allow paladins to be connected to the Lions, with the 5C acting as the 'bridge'
-Without a bonded 5C bridge, the Lions will be unable to connect to new paladins
Then, the next note, with a much later date. It must've been sometime after they had been discovering the other Paladins of Alfor's group. Coran remembered the conversation with Alfor, relating what Acalli had theorized about viable sets.
-The apparent imbalance of connecting paladins one by one is not a problem that actually exists. Due to the interconnection of the quintessence of viable paladins, the entire set is bound simultaneously, regardless of proximity. Intensified strain on 5C bridge? Difference in strain for creator of cores acting as bridge versus another bridge? Probably less for healthy bridge.
There it was. The confirmation he had feared. Linnata's link to the Lions had caused her death. And now Allura was bonded to them in her place.
He tightened his arm around his daughter, who was still staring at the screen in shock. When the current paladins had bonded to the Lions, Allura had been deep in stasis, her body young and healthy and loaded with ten thousand cycles of stored quintessence. The shock of the bonding would have been cushioned as much as it was possible for it to be. But now…if another set of Paladins was found, would he lose his beloved daughter too?
"Coran…Coran, it's alright." He realized abruptly that Allura was talking to him, that she'd turned in his arms to press her forehead to his and cup his cheeks gently. "It's alright, Papa." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "You're not going to lose me."
He took a deep breath, trying to steady the shaking of his hands and get his emotions under control. He'd had such good control of his emotions, once, he thought distantly, but somewhere along the last cycle of loss and hardship that mask had begun to crack. And today's firestorm of tumbling emotions had been entirely too much for him to have any hope of keeping composure. But he still needed to try. The paladins, Allura, they were all so very young. They needed to be able to depend on the stability of the adults in their lives, in this universe where so much was dangerous and unpredictable.
"I know, sweetheart." He forced out at last. "Just a bit of a shock, I promise you. If anyone can handle the strain of binding paladins to Lions, it would be you." Saying it, even with the deep-seated doubts in his chest, made it a little easier to hope for.
Allura eyed him for a moment, as though seeing right through him, but didn't press. Slowly, she nodded and settled back down beside him. "Don't worry. Everything will be fine." She turned back toward the screen, sitting up just a bit straighter, and her gaze was determined. "Whatever happens, I assure you I can handle it."
They were given a few more minutes to compose themselves, and Coran was grateful for the way the others avoided an awkward silence in favour of quiet conversations about what had been learned so far. They may not have known the full import of what those few lines of notes meant, most of them, but he suspected they could guess. They were too clever by half not to.
Finally Coran cleared his throat and nodded to Pidge. "We can continue whenever you're ready."
Pidge nodded, turning her attention to Alejandro and Kurogane. "Right. You two ready for this?"
"Not really." Alejandro sighed, wrapping his arm around Kurogane's waist. "But it needs to be done. We…we need to know."
Pidge nodded again, and switched the screen to the last file on the drive, the one about the metaphysical aspects. The notes here were shorter, less formal. Linnata's sudden death had left this research incomplete, and she had never had the chance to write out the more concise explanations the other files had possessed.
-fifth category of connections between colours of quintessence and building blocks of nature: deals with most fundamental level of forces of nature, time (Blue), space (Yellow), matter (Green), energy (Red), and reality (Black) - "Metaphysical aspect"
-Observed effects (refer to testing log):
Blue/Time - allows observation of potential futures OR travel into the past, enabling the user to make use of the natural rules of chaos theory to direct the flow of events ("Chaos")
Yellow/Space - allows manipulation of the fundamental forces of attraction and repulsion, resulting in micro- or macro-scale control of space itself ("Law")
Green/Matter - allows creation, destruction, or manipulation of matter through the use of elemental fusion processes ("Creation")
Red/Energy - allows creation, destruction, or manipulation of energy through the use of elemental fission processes ("Destruction")
Black/Reality - allows alteration of reality itself, although there are apparent restrictions (see below), through a combination of the processes involved in the other metaphysical aspects ("Balance")
-accessed through intense focus and desire on altering reality in some way?
-Observed restriction of Balance aspect: unable to bring intelligent sapients back to life.
-IMPORTANT: Due possibly to the sheer power of natural forces involved, or because of the interconnectedness of fundamental natural laws, use of the metaphysical aspects is invariably fatal, even if successful, unless the individual is part of a set which includes all five colours of quintessence in roughly even proportions amongst its members.
-A given individual can only use their metaphysical aspect once (strain?)
-When the Chaos aspect is used to travel backwards in time, the quintessence of the two versions of the same person becomes linked. It also becomes impossible for the "past" version, despite not technically having used the aspect yet, to use it, possibly due to that linkage.
-Testing with a Paladin (yellow) showed consistency of inability to repeatedly use metaphysical aspect. Insufficient data to determine whether this will extend to other Yellow Paladins due to linkage. No observed change in manifestation of aspect.
-observed in nature: Blue and Yellow in black holes, Red and Green in core of stars. Connection to fundamental forces explains Blue in absence of water and Green in absence of life
The notes cut off abruptly, as though simply waiting for their author to return to complete them.
"That...doesn't make sense." Alejandro's forehead was scrunched into a frown as he stared at the screen. "Fatal without a balanced set. But it didn't kill us. It killed..." he trailed off, swallowing hard, then forced himself to continue. "It killed Blue and Red. Not us."
"Didn't Malrento say the ability to manipulate quintessence comes from the Lions?" Hunk asked quietly, grabbing a cushion and hugging it to his chest. "And Linnata's notes said the same thing, right? Maybe that's why it affected the Lions instead of the two of you. And why Fiorin could use it without killing Blue. Two of their paladins were dead, but the Lions were fine, and the loss wasn't enough to make the quintessence distribution unbalanced."
Kurogane exhaled slowly, running a thumb over the seam of his pants. "That...makes sense, I think. I mean, I'm not a scientist, but that at least sounds right. I remember when Red...I felt it hurt her. Like something was wrong, not there. It might've been the missing bonds to Yellow, Green, and Black that I felt through her."
Shiro leaned forward to put a steadying hand on Kurogane's shoulder, and Kurogane glanced up to offer him a weak smile. It was obvious to Coran, and likely to the others as well, just how deeply the former red paladin still felt the loss of his Lion. Most likely that wound would never heal, not completely.
"At least it answers our questions." Lance pointed out. "We know what they are now, and what they can do."
Alejandro nodded, giving him a long look. "We also know what we have to be very careful, because we're not getting another do-over. Because I time-travelled, you can't. We'd have to try to find another blue paladin-at least Fiorin and I proved that different paladins for the same lions can both use the metaphysical aspect-and if things get bad enough that we're looking at that plan, there's a good chance that we may not even be able to use it. That we might lose the Blue Lion, or Allura, or something else that would keep it from even being an option."
Lance winced and tucked his knees up to his chest. "Right. No time-travel." He paused, tilting his head to the side. "Wait, does the linkage thing affect Keith? Since Kurogane already used the destruction aspect?"
The two time-travellers exchanged startled looks, the thought obviously not having even occurred to them, before both glanced at an equally-startled Keith. Then all three turned to stare at Pidge.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm looking." She waved an exasperated hand, tapping at keys as she worked her way through the full notes. "She may not have got a chance to try something like that, though, it's a very specific scenario-'what happens if you use the chaos aspect to send someone else who's already used their metaphysical aspect back in time?'-and I'm honestly not sure myself what the answer would be. On the one hand, if it's something to do with the two of them being the same person, then the answer would be yes, it affects Keith too. But if it's a property of having triggered the time travel, then maybe not. Plus there's the fact that Lance and Alejandro have that weird link thing going on-the time-travel link could explain why you could hear Blue when you first arrived, even before Lance had her open up fully, and might be the entire reason he could do that in the first place. But Keith and Kurogane definitely have no link thing going on at all, so I'm leaning towards no even more from that." She sighed, pushing her laptop back a little. "Yeah, there's nothing relevant in her experimental logs as far as I could see."
"So don't bank on me being able to use it, I guess." Keith folded his arms awkwardly.
"We want to try to avoid using them if we don't have to anyway." Shiro assured him. "If we can only use each one once, then they'll have to be a tool of last resort. Powerful, but still only for worst-case scenarios. For now, we focus on the other aspects and keep going as we have been, with teamwork and strategy."
"Sounds like a solid plan to me." Alejandro nodded. "Now that we've found the information we were looking for, we'll be going back to bigger targets, right?"
"Yes." Allura straightened beside Coran and he moved his arm to give her room. She seemed to have regained her composure at last, or perhaps she was simply putting on a diplomatic mask again. After the day's revelations, he could hardly blame her for wanting some time to process everything in private. "With the help of the Blades and the Icebringers," She nodded to Matt, "the plan is to continue hitting strategically valuable targets in order to cripple production, processing, and transportation."
"Food resources would be a good target." Colleen offered. "A hungry army doesn't fight as well."
"Yeah, but we don't want to risk them going locust on some defenseless planet." Matt pointed out, and Colleen hummed, nodding as she conceded the point.
"Our first focus will be technology, in order to limit supplies of critical devices and materials." Allura said firmly. "We plan to focus on Balmeras first, since we will be liberating people as well as crippling the production and maintenance of several technologies that rely on the crystals."
"Good thinking, Princess." Shiro smiled warmly. "Alright. First thing tomorrow, we'll do some light training-don't groan at me, we haven't been doing much of that lately. Then we'll sit down and have a proper discussion about the aspects we still need to unlock, which ones we think should be focused on, and how to help Allura with learning hers."
"Later in the day we'll have a strategy meeting about our next set of missions." Matt put in. "Shiiar'keh knows we've found it, so they should have a status report on the repairs to the various pack ships by then. I think they and some of the other pack leaders are looking forward to getting back into action again."
"Right now, though, it's late, and we all need to rest after today. Time to get organized for bed, all of you." Shiro rose to his feet and waved his hand in gentle shooing motions.
"Are you sure you're an older brother and not a Dad, Shiro?" Coran heard Colleen comment as he got to his feet. Shiro's growl of mock annoyance had him chuckling as he slipped out of the room.
He took his time preparing to rest, mulling over everything that had happened. The confirmation of Alfor's death was an ache in his chest, but he supposed some part of him had always known. If he'd been alive, Alfor would have returned to them by now. Far more worrying was the revelations about the nature of Linnata's role in the Lion bonds, and what that might mean for Allura. He could only hope that she truly was strong enough to endure if another set of Paladins were found, that Linnata's last fleeting thought in her own notes about another bridge being affected differently than the one who had given a part of herself to complete the lions in the first place was correct and would protect their daughter from sharing her mother's fate. Sighing, he wrapped a warm robe around himself, the soft garment a long-ago gift from Linnata. "Give me strength to keep her safe." He murmured to the air. The mere thought of losing Allura was unbearable.
Closing the closet and squaring his shoulders, he headed for the door, to return to the lounge and his new and remaining family.