Home ended up being a little shack in the middle of absolutely nowhere. On the upside, Lance was fairly certain that they wouldn't be found by the authorities there. On the downside, Lance was also fairly certain that Keith was the only human life to have ever graced this place in, well, ever.

"It's not much," said Keith.

No kidding.

Lance quickly decided against saying that.

"You some sort of conspiracy theorist?" he asked instead, gesturing to the bulletin board full of photographs. He peered at it, brow furrowing. "Some sort of robotic lion."

Keith looked vaguely surprised, but shook his head. "It isn't conspiracy if it's the truth. And anyway, I don't know about robot. Those drawings- I don't know where they came from."

Lance nodded. "I guess it's pretty cool."

The other boy looked a lot more delighted than he had any right to, especially after not remembering Lance at all.

Pidge stood on his tiptoes to stare at Keith. "Aliens."

"I- I'm sorry?" he said.

"You believe in aliens?" the smaller boy repeated.

"Um, yes?" he said.

"After last night, who wouldn't?" said Lance. "We rescued Takashi Shirogane from a freaking alien escape pod or something."

Keith glanced at Shiro, still asleep- or unconscious- on the measly couch in the shack. His face fell into a worried expression. Lance was pretty sure the scientists had used some sort of tranquiliser on the guy, and he'd be fine, but Keith still seemed beyond worried.

"Is he like your brother?" Lance asked.

Keith paused and shook his head. "No. But- but we're close."

"Is he like your boyfriend?" Lance asked.

Keith flushed bright red. "No! He's- he's a friend. I've known him for a while."

He didn't explain further, and Lance mentally shrugged because the guy had never seemed much of a talker anyway.

"Did you know the rest of the crew?" asked Pidge.

Keith paused and shook his head. "Not really. Shiro talked about them."

Pidge nodded in what seemed to be disappointment.

"So, I hate to be the voice of reason- and the bringer of bad news- but we're in super big trouble," said Hunk. "Like, seriously, we're going to get kicked out of the Garrison."

Lance faltered at that. Sure, rescuing Shiro was an absolute must. He wouldn't have left the guy to be experimented on or whatever they would do. But outer space had always been his dream. His heart belonged to the stars and now-

The Garrison was his chance to get here, but with this stunt, Hunk was right. They'd be kicked out of the Garrison.

Pidge winced. "Damn."

Lance shot him a scandalised look. "Language!"

The smaller boy made a face at him that suggested that he really didn't care what Lance thought of his mouth. Lance just shook his head disapprovingly.

Keith was giving him an odd stare, but Lance decided to make himself comfortable and plop down on the floor- the little hut had no other furniture, really. The floor was comfy enough.

"So, one of the smart ones, how long does it take for a Garrison tranquiliser to wear off?" Lance asked finally.

"He'll wake within the day," said Pidge nonchalantly. "I'm starved! Is it breakfast already? Kevin, whatcha got to eat?"

"It's Keith," he said flatly.

"Yeah, yeah," said Pidge. "Again, you got any food?"

Keith stared at him as if he were an alien (and Lance wouldn't quite put it past Pidge to be an alien, there was something off about him).

"Food," said Pidge slowly. "It's necessary to life. Do you have it?"

"Yes?" said Keith.

Pidge sighed and grumbled something about finding it himself. Keith just looked rather befuddled.

It wasn't but an hour before Shiro woke up, after they'd finally found something to eat for breakfast (seriously, if anyone needed Hunk this guy did, because stale cereal and ramen was not something to live off of). Shiro had seemed alarmed upon waking, but Keith had offered him something to change into and left him alone for a moment. After changing, the man had stepped outside of the hut.

The clothes fit him well enough that they had to belong to him. Shiro was, you know, brawny and tough and Keith was, well, scrawny and- scrawny.

Keith went out to bring Shiro back in, or maybe just to talk. Lance watched them out the window a moment, revised his opinion and decided that the two were closer to brothers than boyfriends.

They came back in and Keith made a beeline for the robot lion conspiracy board. Shiro observed it with raised eyebrows.

"What have you been working on?" he asked.

Keith shrugged. "Well, I can't really- I got booted from the Garrison."

Shiro frowned and gave him a kind of disappointed look, like the ones his sister Maria gave him all the time when he got into something he shouldn't have.

"Yeah, yeah, I know," Keith muttered sheepishly, "but I was- lost- but I found myself drawn here, like some energy was telling me to come and search."

Lance knew that feeling. It was the same thing he felt about the area, and about space, and he, like Keith, had just screwed up and probably lost his chances to stay here or go to space.

"To search?" said Shiro. "For what?"

"I, uh, wasn't sure," Keith admitted. "But I found this area."

He gestured to one of the photographs.

"It's an outcropping of boulders and caves and it's got all of these ancient markings," said Keith. "They each tell a story about a blue lion- well, Lance thinks it's a robot lion- but they all have clues about some sort of arrival. And- well- you showed up."

Lance stared at the photographs, wishing he knew what was so familiar about the lion.

"I should thank you all for getting me out," said Shiro. Lance realised the man was addressing him and Hunk and Pidge. "Lance, right?"

He held out a hand. Lance stared for a moment without understanding, then jolted back into reality and shook the prosthetic.

"Yeah," he said. "I'm Lance, yeah."

Shiro smiled at him, then turned to Pidge. He faltered and his smile dropped in shock.

"Sorry," he said. "You remind me of- a friend."

Pidge's brow furrowed but he didn't say anything about it. "The nervous guy is Hunk. I'm Pidge. Where is the rest of your crew?"

Blunt as usual.

Shiro's face fell. "I- I don't know. I remember- on Kerberos- and we were captured- but then it's all fragmented. I don't know."

Pidge's face fell as well, utter disappointment evident in his features. "Oh."

"Okay, so, sorry to interrupt," said Hunk awkwardly. "But what about the aliens? Where are they and are they coming? Like, for us? At this moment, now?"

Shiro sighed. "I don't know. The most I can remember is the word 'Voltron'. Some sort of weapon, I think, and they're looking for it. Whatever it is, we need to find it first."

"No kidding," said Lance fervently. "No way can they get Voltron, that'd be disaster!"

Everyone turned to stare at him.

"You know about Voltron?" said Shiro.

"Uh," said Lance uncertainly, surprised by his own reaction. "I know that it's a weapon. Cause you told me. And that Pidge heard a lot of, what's-it-called, alien radio chatter."

"And the aliens are bad," Hunk added. He shook his head. "Well, anyway, so last night I was going through Pidge's stuff- I found this picture, it's his girlfriend, aren't they cute-"

"Hey!" Pidge squeaked, yanking the picture from his hands. Lance raised an eyebrow. Pidge had a girlfriend? His girlfriend was shorter?

Must have been a really, really short girl then.

"What were you doing in my stuff?" Pidge nearly snarled.

"Um, well, I wanted a chocolate bar," said Hunk. "But I started reading your diary instead."

"What?" Pidge squawked

"So I noticed these repeating number series? Yeah, the aliens are looking for them and it looks a whole lot like a Fraunhofer line," said Hunk matter-of-factly.

"A frown-what-now?" said Keith, voicing Lance's thoughts for him.

"A Fraunhofer line," Hunk reiterated. "It's like a number describing the emission spectrum of an element. Thing is, this element doesn't exist on Earth. But maybe it's Voltron! So I bet I could build a machine to look for it, like a- a Voltron Geiger counter."

Lance beamed. "Hunk, that's absolutely genius!"

Hunk rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "Well, it's actually really fascinating. See, he wavelength looks like this."

He held up a sketch. Keith's eyes widened and he grabbed it, and held it up to the image of the cliffs.

"I think we know where to start looking," said Shiro.

Keith was the only one that knew the way to the cliffs, so they ended up following him. As soon as they reached the cliffs, Hunk whipped out his homemade Voltron Geiger counter and started searching for a reading. They followed him as he studied the screen, before his face lit up.

"This way, I've got a reading!" he said as the device began beeping.

The Geiger counted led them to the cave full of drawings that Keith had found. Lance stared around in amazement. The drawings were all over the cave, accentuated with words in a language he sort of recognised but didn't understand.

"Wow," whispered Pidge.

"What are these?" said Shiro.

"These- these are the lion carvings I told you about," Keith said. "They're everywhere."

"They look ancient," Lance commented. His brow furrowed and he put a hand on one of the carvings. "It's like someone crashed here or-"

The carvings lit up. Lance stumbled back in shock as the cave took on a light blue glow.

"They've never done this before," said Keith, staring at lance in unabashed shock.

"I didn't do anything," Lance protested.

Before it could turn into an argument, the ground beneath them gave way. The fall was not a long one, but the landing was still jarring. Lance was the first to sit up.

Sitting majestically before him was the same blue, robot lion the carving spoke of. A shimmering force-field surrounded it- her- it felt like a her.

Lance stood and walked over to it in shock. The other followed him a moment later.

"Is this it?" said Pidge. "Is this- is this Voltron?"

"It must be," Shiro said.

Lance shook his head. "I- I don't think so. At least- I dunno, but I don't think this is Voltron. Not all of it."

"All of it?" said Hunk.

"A gut feeling," said Lance after a moment.

"This must be the cause of all the weird energy," said Keith. He put a hand on the force-field. "How do we get through?"

"Maybe," said Lance, "you just gotta knock."

He rapped his knuckles on the force-field, not expecting it to work. The force-field promptly vanished, and Lance almost fell forward in shock.

"Woah," said Pidge.

The lion was definitely staring at them. After a moment, visions appeared in Lance's head. The blue lion joined with four others to form- some sort of giant robot. Lance was right, it seemed. The Blue Lion was only part of Voltron.

Lance glanced around at his friends as the vision faded. Hoping he wasn't crazy, he asked, "Did everyone else just see that?"

Keith and Shiro nodded mutely.

Hunk made large hand gestures, something kind of like explosions. "Voltron is a robot- a huge, awesome robot!"

"And this is only part of it," said Pidge. "Like Lance said."

"This has to be what they're looking for," said Shiro.

The lion stood suddenly and lowered its head, mouth open. The five stared for a long moment, before Lance took a step forward.

"Lance," Hunk hissed warningly.

Hunk could worry all he wanted. Lance had made up his mind. The lion was familiar and, well, he was nothing if not incredibly curiously.

Mind made up, completely unsure of what lay ahead, Lance stepped inside of the Blue Lion.

A/N: You guys! I am so so super sorry this took so long! IB took my by storm in April and May. I'm a failure and I am sorry. But here's the latest update! I really hope you'll forgive me for the wait, and I hope the chapter is worth it.

Love you guys! 3