Chapter 4: Reuniting with a Certain Black Cat and His Friends (Marinette's POV)

She steps into the cave, covered by a blanket blocking the entrance. Sitting by a fire is… No it can't be…

"Adrien?" Marinette whispers in shock.

The teens at the campfire turn to look at her and Adrien smiles. He's wearing a black suit with stars with green highlights on it. His helmet is nowhere to be seen meaning he must be in miraculous form right now. He also looks slightly older. "Marinette." He rushes into her and gives her a big hug, and then lets her go. "I almost lost hope that we'd ever find you…"

Shiro comes in beside her and asks, "And how did you?"

"Our equipment picked up the broadcast you're sending to Earth. It's how Chloe knew where to find you."

"And why did you send only Chloe?"

"Because we didn't have much hope that it was you. We thought it was another trick by the Fire of Purification to track down and destroy any remaining Voltron supporters. Until Chloe did a recon and discovered you guys being captured."

Her stomach fills with dread, "What do you mean destroy any remaining Voltron supporters?"

Adrien shares a look with the rest of the teens and sighs, "We don't have time for that right now. Our priorities should be checking the state of your lions and gathering provisions for the Journey back to Earth. Once that is done, me and my team will tell you everything."

"I trust you Adrien."

"Pidge, you run a diagnostics test to see how the lions are doing. The rest of us will take inventory and see what we need to gather for provisions as we'll have a few new guests joining us on the voyage."

A Few Hours Later:

"Okay now can you tell us what the hell is going on?" Lance asks, interested along with the rest of them.

Adrien nods, "I am Adrien Agreste, holder of the Black Cat…."

"Wait! You're Chat Noir!? But you two are polar opposites," Marinette shouts in shock, interrupting them.

"Heh, even your partner thought your superhero persona was completely different from your citizen one." a female laughs wearing a fox themed space outfit and Adrien glares at her.

"Anyway, these are my teammates, Zoe is the holder of the fox miraculous, Kagami is the holder of the dragon miraculous, and Chloe is the holder of the bee miraculous."

"Wait, Chloe… I swear I've heard that name before," Marinette mutters. It's on the tip of her tongue, but she can't place where she's heard the name Chloe before.

"That you have," responds Chloe. Her helmet shimmers, revealing her face beneath the space mask. Her blonde hair falls to her shoulders and she has blue eyes. Suddenly it clicks.

"Bourgeois?" She gasps at the revelation. "Why the hell are you in space? And why were you glad to see me? You hate me!"

"Glad to see you still have some fire left in you Dupain-cheng. As for why I'm space, well, it's complicated."

"It's not that complicated Chloe," Zoe retorts, "We obviously came to space to find you. Voltron, the Legendary Defender. Or at least that's what Keith calls you anyway."

"Keith?" Shiro asks astonished, "You know Keith."

"Yeah,"

"Why isn't he here with you? Trying to find us?"

"All will be revealed if you let us tell our story." Adrien says.

Her heart pounds, she doesn't like the sound of this. But she remains silent. Maybe their story could give them insight into why Axca and Ezor looked so different from the last time they saw them.

"It all be began when Commander Holt came to Francios Dupoint in search of Keith, it was shortly after our battle with Miracle Queen. He needed Keith's help to teach some of the finest flyers in the Galaxy Garrison how to fly Altean tech spaceships. Keith was torn due to his duty with Team Miraculous and helping Commander Holt. Being the Guardian I allowed him the use of the horse miraculous so he could teleport at any time to help us with any akuma attacks. A month went by and I lost the miraculous which weren't being used by my team and I due to taking a risk trusting my cousin Felix who wanted the peacock miraculous. Because he used the dog miraculous to steal my baton ..."

"Wait, you had access to the Miraculous in your baton?" Shiro asks, "Does anyone sles have that ability?"

Adrien shakes his head, "No only the Guardian has access to the Miraculous at all times. Moving on…."

"What happened to Master Fu?" Her heart begins thumping like crazy.

"You've met him?"

"Yeah when Tikki was sick and I brought the Grimoire to him."

"Well due to Hawkmoth Lila was able to get her hands on the Miraculous and Master was cornered… There was nothing I could do in time, beating her army of Parisians with the Miraculous was a little difficult. He transferred his Guardianship to me before his shelter could be destroyed and the Miracle Box dropped into my hands, effectively ending the battle. Hawkmoth disappeared because we were too focused on Master Fu. But he couldn't reme…" Tears fall down Adrien cheeks, making him unable to finish the sentence.

"It was a hard blow. He was our mentor, more to Adrien, but it still stung. We lost an ally that day. Luckily Li Jie, the former Guardian of the Asian Miracle Box, assumed to be dead, helped guide Adrien through his new position. He even helped us take the miraculous back from Hawkmoth and defeat him once and for all." Zoe finishes for Adrien.

Chloe then takes it from there, "Yeah. Once we made sure we had the butterfly miraculous Paris was at peace. Keith focused solely on prepping and training for when hostile aliens might invade while we focused on normal things. We did have group chats once and a while to check up on each other. But eventually the Galra came. We tried to save Paris but there was only so much our miraculous could do and Paris along with the rest of the world fell. The Galaxy Garrison was our only hope and so we flew there. It was still standing, an orange shield was formed around it. Once we made our identities known and they let us in. Meeting Keith again in person was the only light amidst that dark time. We tried to contact you but before we could reach you Sendak of the Fire of Purification took out our satellites, serving our contact."

Kagami speaks up, "It was then we knew we had to get one last message out in case you reached our solar system. Keith pulled us aside and asked if we could go and find you since the message would only be heard in our solar system and he wasn't sure what your status was. We agreed and through our astro forms, while the Galra were distracted by the rocket we bypassed their cruisers and made it into space with the space power up and once we got close to your last known location we made camp here on this planet, doing recon and seeing if we could find anything, but there was nothing until that transmission you sent to our home planet a few weeks ago."

"That's a lot, and that only happened in a couple of weeks." Lance comments.

"Weeks, what are you talking about?" Chloe asks.

"It's only been a few weeks since our fight with Zethrid…"

"We got a transmission from Matt Holt about three years back to stop broadcasting out into space. He said no has seen or heard from you since your fight with Zethrid. A few of the Coalition is still standing but the Fire of Purification and other factions have made most of the remaining supporters go into hiding."

Her heart beats faster and her eyes widen. "How long has the Galran been on Planet Earth?"

"Five months. Our suits carried us to this area of space in less than a month and we've been scouting for you for at least four." Kagami bluntly states.

"And with the Lions having diminished power cores they'll still be on Earth for another approximate one and a half years." Coran surmises.

"That's not good."

"Don't worry. Commander Holt did a lot of upgrades to Earth's tech while you were gone…."

"So as far as the universe is concerned, we've been gone for three years," Allura blurts out, interrupting Chloe.

"Yeah…."

"That explains the discrepancies in the star charts of our lions. I thought they were off due to the dimensional jumping we did in our fight with Zethrid, which I guess is true in a way because sealing that rift with losing the Castle must have cause a time slippage in our experience to the rest of the universes."

"And if the Galran have become fractured into factions then what else has changed?"

"I hope my father, Matt and Earth are okay." Pidge comments.

"They'll have to be strong in order to hold out for one and a half years."

"Is there any way to cut that time?" Kagami asks "You said the lion's cores were diminished. Is there a way to recharge them to full capacity? From what Keith said the lions could travel somewhere almost instantaneously."

"I'm afraid not. Faunatonium, while effective, didn't replenish the cores as much as we hoped." Coran explains.

Shiro says, "Earth will hold out."

Marinette hopes Shiro is right. The peaceful Earth she dreamed of coming to, has been shattered. She's seen what the Galran can do. God she hopes her parents are alright and safe. But that hope is dim considering Paris has fallen and it is miles away from the Galaxy Garrison. But though it's dim, she doesn't douse it just yet. They will save Earth.