This is going to be the last chapter before The Gala (deserves the capital letters even if it's not actually capitalized in the text). Next chapter is the final round of setting up dominoes before the plot begins to fall into place.

12/22/17: Rewritten to change the timeline of events and flesh out the visit to the opera.

Chapter 5: Alpha Wolf:

Hyperion

Luna

November 13th, 2840

Sweat streamed down Shiro's back as he flowed around the ring, moving the practice sword in his hand through the forms of razor combat. Since being formally employed as a lancer of House Augustus three weeks ago, he'd spent most of his free time in the training room, where one of Darrow and Mustang's soldiers tutored him in combat with razors and other bladed weapons. He'd been coming in during his free time to practice some more on his own, and he could only hope he'd never have to use the razor he'd been given with the job. But knowing my luck, that's not very likely, he thought to himself. Most of the Golds here in the Citadel would mock him for only just now learning how to use their caste's signature weapon, since most Aureate had trained with a razormaster by the time they turned twenty. Thankfully, many of Virginia's friends from her and Darrow's inter-house army were more accepting of his learning curve.

In any case, his sword technique was solid, thanks to his experience in the gladiator arenas of the Galra Empire. It was just a matter of learning the new techniques and how to work with the razor itself, and his experiences as a Voltron paladin made him a quick study. With his training session completed, Shiro bathed in the training room's communal shower before returning to his own suite to get ready for that night. After a day of dealing with the politics of the Sovereign's court, Mustang was going out to the opera that evening for a date with Cassius, and as her bodyguard, Shiro was required to accompany her. His thoughts echoed in his head as he walked through the corridors of the Citadel towards his personal quarters, reflecting on everything that had happened in the last few days. Shiro and Virginia had become close friends in the weeks since his arrival in this era, enough that she let him use her nickname Mustang when outside of formal situations.

He had someone who he could talk to who knew where he really came from, and she had someone who she could vent to without fear of political consequence when she needed someone to talk about her frustrations with. In their spare time, they discussed topics ranging from politics and philosophy to life on Earth in the pre-Conquering era. He told her stories of his trip to Kerberos, and the friends he'd made with his fellow paladins. While he still refused to go into detail on his captivity at the hands of Zarkon's empire, the stories he did share with Mustang still enthralled her.

He forced his reminiscing to the back of his mind as he opened the door to his suite and stepped inside. Once he closed the door behind him, he walked over to the closet and selected a black military uniform from his sparse wardrobe before glancing around at the rest of his possessions. A few other uniforms dangled from hangers spaced out around the oversized walk-in closet, interrupted only by a large dresser filled with only a week's worth of casual clothes, and his Paladin armor stacked in pieces in the corner. It occurred to him then just how little he owned for himself anymore. While the living quarters on the Kerberos mission were sterile and cold, he and the Holts had at least been allowed to bring along a few things to alleviate the inevitable homesickness. Photos of his family, favorite books and movies, souvenirs from some of the shenanigans he and Keith would get up to during their days at the Garrison together… all those had been left behind on Kerberos when they were captured by the Galra.

After that, the only thing that he could consider his own was his prison uniform, and that wasn't really saying much. He hadn't even had a chance to rest after returning to Earth. He'd had the opportunity to sleep without fear of being woken up by his guards and change into clothes that were more than just mass-produced prison rags. But after that, they'd gone looking for the Blue lion and, given what he now knew about human history now, had never been back since. He'd spent his entire career as a Paladin of Voltron owning nothing but his uniform and the clothes on his back. And now the armor was the only thing he had left. His uniforms, his armor… even his new razor was considered property of House Augustus, and he had a hard time thinking of the era-appropriate clothing as his own since it was only for the sake of blending in.

The Black Paladin hit the brakes on his brooding as he changed from his casual attire into his uniform. He couldn't afford to show any weakness tonight. Tensions between the Augustus and Bellona families had been rising for some time now, but the passive-aggressive hostility between the two houses had begun escalating to a fever pitch. In five weeks, all the major Gold families in the solar system would gather on Luna for the Summit, a three-day event held once a decade where two-thousand of the most important Golds in the empire assemble to discuss, legislate, and debate on matters ranging from critically important to the survival of the Aureate regime to staggeringly mundane. For every cabinet meeting among the ArchGovernors about the spread of the Sons of Ares, there would be a conference on the latest fashion trends. For every back-room business deal, there'd be ten class reunion parties being hosted by the various schoolHouses of every Institute campus in the solar system.

Two hours later, Shiro stood in the corner of a private box as opera music droned on around him. Cassius and Mustang sat together on a plush couch in the middle of the room, two Pink attendants standing by ready to provide whatever comforts the two Golds wanted during the performance. The time traveler stood in the corner by the door to stop any potential intruders who might come in from the halls, bored out of his mind as he struggled to stay awake. Opera had never been his thing, but unlike the last time he'd been dragged along to a performance, he didn't have the luxury of falling asleep until it was over. He met the tired gaze of Cassius' bodyguard standing in the opposite corner, and a moment of shared boredom passed between the two men. Funny, Shiro thought to himself. Even with how screwed up human civilization has become, and how high tensions between the Augustans and the Bellona are right now, some things transcend time and space.

Mercilessly, the opera lasted another three hours before it finally ended, and Shiro was practically dead on his feet. It was well past midnight, and the only thing keeping him awake was the coffee he'd quietly asked the Pinks to bring him hourly over the course of the performance. To assuage the ever-present guilt at having to play the part of a Gold overlord, he made sure to be as polite as he could, and discreetly slipped some credit chips to the slaves who brought him his beverages. It wasn't much in the grand scheme of things, particularly compared to the obscene scale at which Golds spent their wealth, but it was still more money than most of these people would make in a month. The awestruck, reverent look the Pinks gave him every time he handed one of them some cash made him feel sick to his stomach.

His hatred for this whole system of de facto slavery aside, the evening was largely uneventful. Cassius and Mustang chatted amicably throughout the performance, although Shiro had overheard the new Morning Knight make a few unflattering remarks about Darrow during the performance. Shiro knew on an intellectual level why Mustang continued to date the Bellona heir even though she clearly didn't care for him the way he did for her. She'd been raised in a harsh, brutal world that taught its rulers to protect their biological family at all costs, and she saw manipulating Cassius via a relationship as the most expedient route to that. But the Black Paladin still had a hard time understanding it on an emotional level when he could tell that she still had feelings for Darrow. But despite his suggestions that she end things with Cassius amicably, she turned him down, again citing the need to protect her family. Thanks to her father's inability to stamp out the Sons of Ares, ArchGovernor Augustus had fallen out of favor with the Sovereign. The Bellona sought to strip him of his governorship, and Cassius' mother Julia was even now gaining favor with the one woman in the system with the authority to do so without a vote by the senate.

It was well past midnight when they finally left, and there were still a few more things to do before Shiro could crawl under the plush covers of his bed and sleep. As they made their way out of the Elorian Opera House towards a waiting aircar, Cassius stepped forward and opened the door. After helping the Augustan heiress get into the car, the Bellona turned to Shiro and gave him a firm handshake. The young Olympic Knight seemed to respect him, despite the hostility between the two houses. Shiro nodded as the two men shook hands and he walked around to get in on the other side of the waiting car.

"Well I'm glad one of us enjoyed this evening," he commented as he closed the door. With both passengers inside, the car climbed into the sky and joined the flow of traffic as it made its way through the spires of the city's highColor district. While Shiro wasn't a fan of the Prequel Trilogy, the cities of Luna reminded him of Coruscant from Star Wars.

"The opera was pleasant enough," Mustang commented as she typed out directions for their next stop. She needed troops in the Citadel who weren't loyal to the Sovereign, so to that end, she had brought in some old friends from the Institute. Their torchShip from Triton was landing at the spaceport, and she and Shiro needed to give them the address for the safehouse she'd set up on the outskirts of the Citadel grounds. Not to mention introduce them to Shiro so they'd know him enough for her to use him as a courier should the need arise. "I could have done without his constant jabs at Darrow's recent failures, though," she added.

"I thought you and Darrow were done," Shiro commented, only half teasing. They'd had this conversation before, when he'd tried to convince her to break things off with Cassius and find another way to get close to the Bellona clan. She'd turned down his suggestion, but he still tried to convince her anyway. Outside the window, the Black Paladin could see the Flaminius astroDock in the distance, where transport ships entering and exiting Earth's atmosphere docked. His musings on how far mankind had come in eight hundred years were put on hold as he heard Mustang answer his question.

"Just because I can't understand why he chose to go against his principles and become another one of my father's killers doesn't mean that I'm fine with others belittling his accomplishments," Mustang answered as she pulled a clump of semi-translucent out of her bag and tossed the inactive ghostCloak at her bodyguard's face. "After all, they were just as much my accomplishments as they were his." That was the end of the conversation, as Mustang pulled a second ghostCloak from her bag and threw it on over her dress as Shiro finished donning his own. Their ride passed in silence for another hour before the aircar taxied to a halt at the curb a few blocks from the spaceport. As they exited the vehicle, Mustang handed Shiro a few credit chips from her bag, and he turned around to give them to the Brown who'd driven them to the spaceport.

That poor guy looks like he's going to have a stroke, the Black Paladin remarked sadly to himself as the aircar sped away through the sky lanes of the city's upper levels. It made his blood boil that what Golds considered pocket change was more money than their servants saw in a year. Once again, he felt the urge to march into the Citadel and take down Lune by himelf. But just as quickly as the urge came, he forced it down. Now wasn't the time, and even if he managed by some miracle to make it passed the Praetorian Guard, the Olympic Knights, and all three Furies, he doubted the Sovereign herself would be any easier. This was a woman who intentionally started a riot when she was nine by throwing diamonds out of an aircar window. She was not someone to underestimate.

Shiro and Mustang walked through Luna's cloying, polluted air along the walkways of the highColor district towards the spaceport. Even after weeks living in the Citadel, the Black Paladin was impressed with how far humanity has – or from his perspective, will – come, that they could terraform the planets of their solar system in any way they see fit. A few hours later, they reached the dock they were looking for to find hundreds of passengers of all Colors flowing out of a parked torchShip. As he and Mustang approached the crowd, the lowColors parted like a diverted river, revealing the distinctive sight of nine shorter-than-average Golds. One of them, who Shiro presumed to be the leader due to the wolf helmet he held against his hips, had a mechanical eye in place of where he clearly lost his organic one.

"Lo, Mustang," the one-eyed young man remarked before taking a long look at Shiro. "Did you replace me before I even got here?"

"Hardly," Mustang replied with a chuckle. "I simply managed to convince my father to permit me to hire a new lancer as part of my plans to protect my family from House Bellona. As far as he's concerned, that's all Shiro is here for. But you already know why I brought you all here from the Rim. I need men here at the Citadel I can trust. The more people I have not loyal to the Sovereign, the better. Now I assume you've all brought ghostCloaks?"

"As if you even had to ask, horsey," the man answered in mock offense as the rest of his Howlers laughed.

"I've missed you too, Sevro," Mustang commented dryly as she explained the sleeping arrangements she'd made for the Howlers and made introductions. The tall girl was Quinn. Clown, Pebble, Thistle, Screwface, and the others, insisted on being referred to by their nicknames. Shiro did his best to commit everyone's faces to memory. Once introductions had been made the group activated their ghostCloaks and headed out to the safehouse Mustang had set up on the outskirts of the Citadel grounds. As they engaged their gravBoots and took off into the dark midnight sky, Shiro noticed Sevro glaring at him out of the corner of his eyes. It took all of three seconds for him to realize that despite Mustang's assurances, the lead Howler didn't trust him. Shiro was going to have to be extra careful not to let anything slip.

Sevro has come, and he's brought friends. That's right, Red Rising fans, our favorite Howler has arrived on the scene. The mistrust between him and Shiro will be a subtle plot thread for the next several chapters. It'll take until he learns the truth about where Shiro really comes from for him to trust the Black Paladin. But it'll happen eventually. And book fans will probably know why he's suspicious of Shiro (hint: it has to do with the similarity of Shiro's fake backstory to Darrow's)

I wanted to give readers a glimpse at the backstory Mustang had concocted for Shiro in the previous chapters before we get right into the thick of things, and I wanted to show that she and Shiro are starting to become more friendly with each other. No, there will be no Shiro/Mustang romance. I have too many emotions invested in Darrow and Mustang to ship either of them with anyone else.

Terminology:

TorchShip: Common spaceship class. No clue what they do but from what little is in the books, it's some kind of military transport. Sevro mentions travelling aboard one to get to Luna in Golden Son, so either there's a civilian model used as a passenger ship, or they're just multi-purpose spaceships.

GhostCloak: A sci-fi version of Harry Potter's invisibility cloak.

Datapad: Arm-mounted holographic tablet used as a laptop/kindle/digital organizer/etc.

Citadel: The capitol building of each planet or moon from which all major government business is conducted.

Razor: A collapsible sword that allows its wielder to alter the shape of the blade at will. In its inactive state, it resembles a whip kept hooked to the wielder's belt. With the toggle of a switch, the whip uncurls and hardens into a searing hot blade. The type of blade can be customized depending on the wielder's fighting style, so that it functions as a broadsword, rapier, scythe, etc. depending on what the owner needs it to be.