Chapter Text
The world was disoriented, I didn’t know how much time has passed but it must've been a couple of days now right? I don’t know, nothing makes sense anymore, Adam came into my room last night and we had completely blacked out from the news, I couldn’t bother to show up to my office or anywhere outside my room, Keith has been dropping in giving me food I barely ate from the cafeteria. How am I supposed to break this to him? He already knows something is up with the way both me and Adam are behaving it won't be long before he figures out it has something to do with Kerberos mission. The Garrison would’ve announced something soon, scrambling to make a cover up, I know they’re lying, Shiro sent me proof that they landed on the moon perfectly fine, hes passed every flying simulation and broke every record there is, there is no way he could’ve died, there must’ve been something that's stopping the Garrison from telling the truth.
It must’ve been around noon when someone burst into my room, I was on the floor disassociating until they grabbed me to let me up.
“Professor get up please, cadet Kogane is going rogue right now we need you.” My head focused a bit hearing Keith’s name, confusion rising up in me.
“Keith…? Where is he?”
“In the cafeteria, no one has been able to stop him, he already beaten up 2 students and a commanding officer.” Keith did all of that? Did the Garrison announce the Kerberos mission already? I start to panic a bit as stumble on my way to the cafeteria the noises and loud ruckus was hard to miss. Keith was beating in someone's face, I immediately grab him and pulled him away trying to lock him on the ground in my hold to calm down. He was thrashing and crying and kept on trying to get out to no avail as he began to start crying.
“It’s okay Keith, I’m here, it’s okay…” I whisper to him as he fully starts to break down, he stopped thrashing around making whispers under his breath, I could barely make out what he was saying.
“Shiro’s gone, he lied to me, he left me too…” I let him get his sobs out, loosening my grip as he calmed down, the whispers among the students and staff around us were loud and overbearing, which I don't blame them for.
“s/n, Kogane, my office now.” I hear a voice demand behind us, I turn around to see Saunda with a glare in her eyes, guess her wishes are coming true after all.
“Come on Keith.” I say standing up, pulling him with me, he was still emotional as he stuck to my side as we made out way to Saunda’s office. I know what's going to happen, but is the end result bad?
“Outside, s/n we need to have a stern talk.” I let Keith sit in the office outside, following Saunda into her office, her words nothing but heartless.
“I think we both know why we’re here. Keith is getting suspended. We do not tolerate violence here at the Garrison and what he pulled in the cafeteria is more than just insubordination. I’ve put up enough of his behavior here because of Shiro and you, I want both you of you gone as soon as possible.”
“Yes ma’am, I’ll see to it that we’ll be out by tomorrow if that's what you want.” I stood up giving her a glare as I left, slamming the door on my way out. God, I can’t stand that woman! Shes so infuriating to be around! “Come on Keith, let's get packed alright?”
“I’m suspended, aren’t I? I was planning to leave anyways, there’s no reason for me to be here when Saunda’s kicking you out, Shiro’s gone, why stay here when I never wanted to be here in the first place.”
“Keith, I don’t think Shiro’s gone, he sent me messages during their moon landing, there’s no way they crashed, something must’ve happened that caused the Garrison to write a cover up…either way I’m leaving this place behind, they lied and conceived behind the world, this place sucks.” I whisper to him Keith’s hold tightened in my hand as he tried to hold back more tears, I want to protect him so much, he doesn't deserve any more heartbreaks after today.
“He better be, or I will personally find him and beat him up myself…”
One year later
“Today’s the day right?” I ask making my way downstairs to see Keith rummaging against his corkboard filled with lion things. He didn't say much but a small hum and nod, anxiety-filled us both as the hours pass by, the writings we saw said that a ship will arrive tonight, and a year filled with searching and decrypting is finally upon us. “You okay Keith?” I ask, hes been quiet all morning.
“Sorry I just, what if it’s Shiro? Maybe…just maybe…he’ll come back…I don’t want to get my hopes up…I just still miss him…” I place my hand on his back for reassurance, giving him the gentle rubs he needs.
“Guess we’ll find out tonight.” I say the year has been rough on the both of us, we hunted, gathered, and spared any resource we had out here in the desert of Keith’s old house. I kept in contact with Adam with some updates on our whereabouts, never giving too much detail just in case. I stopped talking to Katie and her mom too, it's been nothing but me and Keith against the world out here in the desert, we both knew there was something bigger out there in the universe and we were keen on finding out what it was.
Nightfall came pretty quickly, I sat on the porch looking for any shooting stars that may come crashing down on the surface. Keith was busy prepping his hoverbike for the drive, ready for anything, I had my charger on hand scoping the sky through the scope lens. A flash of purple shot through the sky as yell out to Keith.
“It’s hitting near the Garrison!” I yell out jumping onto his bike after Keith. The purple aircraft made a rough landing near the outskirts of the Garrison, Keith and I parked not far behind the ship, and explosives were set up on our way to distract any guards and members on standby. I press the button as we reach a spot to park the bike, the explosives blowing off in the distance.
Keith was quick to run in as I gave him cover, I had my sniper in standoff mode just to make sure no one actually got hurt, only enough to make them fall on their faces. Keith got into the quarantine setup room to free the pilot, I stood at the entrance guarding any other Garrison people, until a group of students showed up. A Cuban, short brown-haired boy, and a big man waltz up, the Cuban boy immediately ran past me.
“Aren't you...Garrison students..?” I ask staring at the other two, the shorter one kinda hiding behind the other, he looks way too familiar.
“I am so sorry about us interrupting, we were supposed to stay in our dorms but Pidge here saw some message from aliens out in space and he and Lance ran out here and then Lance started rambling about this rivalry with the red jacket guy and- wait a moment, aren’t you the professor that got kicked out? The phycologist one?” The big man sure loves to ramble, he just is anxious and here against his will.
“Yes I am that professor, we can discuss my termination later, first we need to get this pilot away from the Garrison.” I hear bickering behind me to see Keith and Lance carrying out the pilot, a human covered in bruises and prisoners clothing, a scar ran across his face, and his front bangs were white, but it was no mistake who it was. “Shiro..?” I whisper out gently.
“We gotta hurry, y/n cover for us, Im bringing Shiro back home.” Keith announced, I nod my head aiming my charger for any upcoming cars. The other 3 extra passengers hopped onto Keith’s bike as I got on last, shooting the tires of one of the front cars causing a massive delay.
“Go, Keith! I bought enough time!” Keith immediately drove off as Lance held onto me on the back of the bike keeping guard of any oncoming Garrison. I shot the ground by an of the tires that were getting too close, we managed to get into the canyon area not far from Keith’s house, but the weight of the number of people on the bike was slowing us down. “Keith we’re slowing down!”
“We can just get rid of excess weight!” Keith yelled out. The big guy immediately agreed and looked around to see if there was anything to throw off, catching on to his sarcasm.
“Big man lean left!”
“You want me to what!”
“Do as I say or we will all die!” the whole bike completely leaned left as we turned around each corner, the cars following behind completely missing the sharp turns. We were nearing a cliff as Keith preps for the jump, I grab on tightly to the group massed on the bike, bracing for impact. “Hold on tight!”
“Keith that is a cliff!! You are driving straight into the cliff!!!” Lance was screaming in front of me. Keith continued to speed up, pulling the bike upwards as we hit the cliff, landing on the ground safely with little damage to the bike. I look back to see the cars had stop the pursuit, allowing us to take the drive home easily.
Keith finally pulled up to his house, where the others got off pretty fast, Keith and I carried Shiro in his dad’s old room, leaving the others to awkwardly stand around in the living room. I left my charger by the corner of the room as Keith grabbed some cold towels, I sat by Shiro on the bed, getting a good look at him now that we were safe.
The scar on his face was healed, but what did he do out there for him to even get it? The white hair growing on the front, labored breaths, and…the robotic right arm. I gently graze it with my fingers, it looks so foreign and advanced for anything we have on earth. Shiro was even built differently, he had more muscles than before, whatever trauma he faced out there must’ve been insane. Keith came back with towels and left them on Shiro’s head, sitting down on the other side of the bed.
“I can take the first watch, you should rest after that drive.” I say, Keith looked up at me, tired eyes conveying through.
“Fine, but no one gets to come into my room got it?”
“Of course, I'll get the others settled too, I’ll wake you at 4 alright?” He nodded off and yawned making his way to his room down the hall, I gently squeeze Shiro’s hand before kissing his forehead. “Welcome back Takashi…” I leave the room making my way downstairs to see the others still on the couch.
“Hi, ms. s/n, It's me, Lance. Can you explain what just happened and why you’re out here with mullet head and the mess of that corkboard?” Lance let out, resulting in a jab from the brunette.
“I'm on first-night watch, couch is a pull-out so two of you can sleep on it, the short one can stay in my room.” I start off, by going into the kitchen to grab a cup of water. “To answer your questions, my job got terminated when the Kerberos mission was announcing its crash landing, I was a heavy influence in letting Shiro participate in its mission. Admiral Saunda took the opportunity to get rid of me I guess, I was a heavy influence for Keith getting better with his peers at the Garrison, but…the announcement of the Kerberos mission, got him suspended. So the both of us have been spending the past year here, mindlessly wandering around until Keith started getting tingling feelings, enough about me though, I haven’t even gotten your names yet.” I point to the other two. Lance was quick to jump in, he must’ve been promoted and is their team captain.
“Short one is Pidge, and the other guy is Hunk, we were just doing a team bonding exercise when we found Pidge on the roof with his weird tech or whatever,” Lance explained, Pidge huh? Well, that confirmed to me that it was Katie.
“Go rest up, we have a big day tomorrow,” I say, the others were quick to head to sleep as Pidge followed me up the stairs, he was a bit quiet until we got to the door.
“You know already don't you y/n?”
“To be fair Katie, I worked under your mom, and I went to your house multiple times before my Garrison transfer. You look just like Matt. I’ll keep your secret until you’re ready to tell the others alright?” Katie smiled and gave me a hug, as I pat her head. “Now go to sleep it's getting late.” Pidge nodded off and went to bed straight, I smile knowing that at least we have some form of answer revealing itself now after a whole year of questions.
I make my way back to Shiro’s room, sighing loudly sitting in silence I don’t want to sleep in fear of waking up for this to be nothing but a dream. Looking at the stars outside the window, I let the silence take me over.
“y/n..?” Shiro’s voice called out behind me, I turn around to see him getting up on his elbows.
“Stop, you need to rest Shiro…” I say placing my hand on his chest to keep him down.
“I'm not dreaming right, you’re…you’re really here right?” He asks holding onto my hand.
“I’m here, and I’m never leaving you ever again Takashi.” I whisper out in a gasp.
“I missed you so much starshine…” He said quietly bringing my hand up to his lips, and gently kissing it. I let out a sob as I go lay down next to him, embracing the warmth of his arms after so long.
“I missed you too Takashi…”
“There are so many things I wanted to tell you about, I’m so sorry for how long I’ve been gone, leaving you and Keith behind like that-”
“Takashi, shush, be quiet, you got sedated and you need rest, you can tell me everything in the morning alright?” Shiro hummed as he clung to me, the drowsiness of sleep getting to me as he gave me a kiss on the forehead.
“I love you my starshine…”
I woke up the following day in shock, I shot out of bed patting next to me to feel it empty.
“Shiro?!” I yell out, running down the stairs, past the others outside to see Keith and Shiro next to each other a bit further out. I let out a sigh of relief seeing both of them conversing, Shiro was wearing Keith’s dad's old clothes, they finished up their talk and noticed me standing not far behind. Shiro opened his arms gesturing for me to come over. Immediately I ran over to embrace him tightly.
“Don’t scare me like that again you stupid…”
“Sorry y/n, come on, Keith told me you guys have something to show me.”
“Right, Voltron.” I say, Shiro took my hand as we make our way back inside, the others are awake and waiting as our trio made it inside.
“After getting booted from the Garrison, I was… drawn to this place. It's like, some energy, a gut feeling, and it drew me to this spot, to search basically” Keith explained, pointing to the map we had drawn out.
“For what?” Shiro asked.
“Right here, there's an outcropping of giant boulders surrounding a hidden cave, covered in ancient markings, each telling a slightly different story of a blue lion, especially about some…arrival last night. Then, you showed up.”
“I should thank you all for getting me out, Lance right?” Shiro held out his right arm, the prosthetic one towards Lance, the slight hesitance visible in his little flinch.
“The nervous guy is Hunk, I’m Pidge, did anyone else from your crew escape with you?” Pidge asked.
“I remember us getting taken together but, everything after that is just bits and pieces, I do remember the word Voltron though, it's some kind of weapon I think, and we need to find it before they do.”
“Well, I was rummaging through Pidge’s stuff last night, and look at this, it's him and his girlfriend how cute.” Hunk pulled out a picture of Matt and Katie in front of the Garrison launch bay, Shiro and I stifled a laugh seeing the picture on display.
“Gimme that! And why are you looking through my stuff anyways!?”
“Well I was looking for a candy bar, then I started reading his diary.”
“WHAT?!” Pidge yelled out grabbing the book away.
“Yeah, so I noticed there were a lot of repeating numbers that he wrote from the aliens and it looks a lot like a Fraunhofer line.”
“Frown….who..?” Keith asked.
“It’s a number describing the emission spectrum of an element, only this element doesn't exist on earth, I thought it might be this Voltron so I can maybe like, build a Voltron, finder, thing.” Hunk explained.
“Hunk you big gassy genius!” Lance let out.
“Yeah I know, I mapped out the numbers too, and look at it.” Hunk pulled out another item from behind him, how much stuff can he hide?
“Gimme that,” Keith said grabbing the paper and lining it up to a part of the canyon pictures we took, lining up perfectly.
“Well, we know where to go now at least, let’s pack up some food and water and head out, I can take two of you guys on my bike so we don't clutter up Keith’s.”
“I call dibs with y/n!” Pidge let out.
“Im riding with her as well.”
“You're letting me? Ride with the mullet?!”
“Yes.”
“You really are going to leave me with him y/n?”
“Take it as a bonding exercise Keith.” I smile, at him, grabbing extra water for the team. Shiro and Pidge followed me to the back where my bike was under some tarp, I pulled it off and threw it in the shed on the side of the house preparing for the ride ahead.
“Since when did you start learning to drive one of these? I thought you only knew cars, and even then you were terrified.” Shiro asked jumping in the seat behind me.
“Since the Garrison kicked me and Keith out, he taught me how to drive one since I thought, it might be for the better, obviously I'm still not as good as him or you but I know my way around it at least."
“What did I do to deserve such a cool girl like you.”
“Don’t cry on me now Shiro, we still have a Voltron to find.” I say, starting my bike, the hovering pulled up a bit as I turn the corner to see Keith, Lance, and Hunk piled on his red bike.
“Let's head out.” Keith drove off, and I sped up next to him as we made our way across the desert canyons. The mountains lined up in an area up ahead in an exact match to where Keith and I took the picture. Keith and I stopped on a ledge as we got in view of the Fraunhofer? Frown, frown line Hunk found, Pidge and Hunk pulling out his equipment to scan the area looking for an exact location or cave entrance.
“Oo! I’m getting a signal here.” Hunk announced, following wherever his little remote box was pointing at. Shiro grabbed my hand as we made our way following the group under a ledge to discover a small cave entrance. The insides of the cave were massive, covered in the markings of the blue lion.
“These are the markings you two talked about?” Shiro asked.
“Yeah, it’s, something to grasp alright…” I reply, we stood there for a few seconds to see if there was anything special about any markings until they started to glow blue. “They’ve never done that before though-” I say before the ground broke away, I screamed loudly as Shiro grabbed and held me to his chest as the group slid down a waterfall into a shallow pool in the end. I landed right on Shiro and immediately started apologizing to him.
“It’s okay starshine, I’ve handled worst before.” I get up and pull him up along with the others, turning around upon hearing Lance gasp loudly. A massive blue mechanical lion stood in front of it, a shield surrounding it in protection.
“Is this it? Is this, Voltron?” Pidge asked.
“This must be what's causing all of this crazy energy out here…” Keith walked up to the lion, observing the obvious. “Looks like there's a force field around it.”
“Does anyone else get the feeling that it's staring at them? The eyes are totally following me.” Lance was moving around trying to prove its point, but I don't see any pupils on the lion so how did he know?
“I wonder how do we open this…” Keith touched the field, and I did too, feeling a cold sheer glossy feel on my hand upon the force field's surface.
“How about we knock?” Lance knocked on the field and immediately got zapped with some magical space dust, the shield completely breaking down as the others gasped out loud. “Did anyone else see that? I'm not the only one right?” I stare in confusion not knowing what they were yelling about.
“Voltron is a cool huge awesome robot!”
“And this thing is only one part of it! I wonder where the rest are.”
“This is what they're looking for.” Shiro let out a sigh when he finished, the lion stood up and moved its body to perch in front of us, mouth opening up to a walkway inside. Lance snickered and rubbed his hands together strolling inwards. Shiro and I made eye contact and decided to follow him in, the other three behind us. We made it into the co*ckpit where Lance was already in the pilot chair as screens pop up all around us. I stare in amazement at the advanced technology, nothing in the Garrison could compare to what's inside this lion's head.
“Okay, guys I just want to make this clear so we’re all aware. We are in some futuristic alien cat head right now.” Hunk started off only to be interrupted by Lance screaming.
“Did you guys hear that?!”
“Hear what?”
“It like spoke to me.” Lance pressed a few buttons on the front panel, and immediately the lion roared, Lance rubbing his hands together like an evil fly. “Alright let's roll out this baby.” He pulled on the two cranks on the side, the ship busted out of the cave like nothing and started flinging around in the air. Everyone started grabbing each other in panic and screaming, Shiro hold onto the seat Lance was on as I clung onto him, Keith holding onto me and Hunk tightly screaming.
“You are the worst pilot ever!” Keith let out. Lance hit a thruster of some sort as we spun in circles in the air, eventually, the lion jumped on the ground only to shoot up into the sky yet again. “Where are you even taking us damnit?!” Keith let out another scream.
“I don’t know! It’s like on autopilot, I can't control where it goes! She did say there's an alien ship approaching Earth though! I think we’re supposed to stop it.”
“What do you mean it's saying?!” Pidge let out.
“Well it's not like it’s saying words, it’s more like, feeding ideas into my brain, kind of.”
“Why don’t we just, I don't know, give them the lion, be on our way? Maybe they’ll leave us alone then.” Hunk suggested. I felt Shiro's grip tighten on me as he retorted back.
“You don't understand, these aliens spread through the universe like a plague, destroying everything in their path. There’s no bargaining with them. They won’t stop until everything is dead.” Silence filled the co*ckpit as everyone stared at Hunk in disbelief.
“Oh. nevermind then.”
We faced forward again only to see that we were out of Earth’s atmosphere, it's only been mere seconds, not even. Within another second, a massive battleship was flown in front of us freaking us out. It was massive, probably the size of a whole metropolis city if I'm seeing it right.
“They found me…” I hear Shiro whisper quietly, I tighten my grip on his head for reassurance as Pidge yelled at Lance to move out of the lasers way.
“Hang on everyone!” Lance flew around dodging most of the lasers, thrusters pushing us to even faster speeds. “Alright, I think I got the hang of it!”
“Be careful dude! This isn't a simulation! You always wreck those!”
“Good thing this isn't a simulation then!”
“Lance I know damn well how bad of a cargo pilot you are, you better have not kept that up into your senior year in fighter class!” I yelled out as we thrashed around more. Lance shot a massive laser into the ship's main hull, completely blowing out that battleship.
“Alright! Now let's move this baby out of here!” Lance started the boosters again as we started to fly full speed outwards, another battleship jumped behind us in case.
“It's not shooting why is it just chasing us?!” Hunk yelled out.
“Where even are we.” Keith asked, both Shiro and I moved to the side window to see the Kerberos moon.
“Edge of the solar system, that's Kerberos right there…” I answer him.
“No way! It takes our ships months to get this far! We got out here in five seconds!” Pidge yelled out. A giant star dust wormhole opened up in front of us, causing silence to fill in the co*ckpit. “What is that…”
“I think, the lion wants to go in there…Shiro, you’re the senior commanding officer here, what should we do?” Lance asked as we are getting closer to the hole.
“The lion knows more than we do, I say we trust it, but we’re a team now, we should decide together.” Shiro finished, everyone glanced at each other and all gave a nod in acceptance of our fate.
“Alright then, guess where skipping class tomorrow.” Lance pushed full thrusters as we entered the wormhole ahead, spitting us out into the unknown.
