#shiroganetwork

“Idiot or no he’s lost, alone, and probably scared out of his mind,” Lance as quick to get things back on track. “We need to find him and find him fast before Keith has to go back to piloting the Black Lion.”

Ryou saw Keith visibly tense at the idea. “You said he went into some weird cave right?”

“Don’t you even dare,” Keith nearly growled. “I don’t want to lose you too.”

“Keith’s got a point sir,” Hunk was as firm as his tone. “We have no clue what happened and we can’t afford doing some trial and error.”

“My instincts are going haywire Hunkilicious,” Ryou began pacing around the room. “I need to do something and telling me no is making it worse! Where’s Roro when I need her!?”

“We should really stop enabling him,” Pidge muttered to an agreeing Matt as she tried to find the last signal indicating Shiro’s location.

Meanwhile, Shiro had found himself in the physical incarnation of terror.

The trees reached so high into the sky, higher than what should physically be allowed, that he could not even see the canopy of leaves overhead, only basking in their pitch black shadows. Each trunk was thick enough to qualify as solid rock, and most likely wouldn’t dent even if Voltron hit it. There was a deafening silence surrounding him, broken only by swift blades of wind cutting through the air and rustling unseen foliage.

“Keith?” Shiro tried to listen for an answer amidst the static of the comms, only finding that his voice was far too loud in the silence. “Kolivan? Anyone?”

A low rumble of dread filled Shiro’s entire being. He looked up and saw four large and thin things walk by. It looked down, and he was faced with five glowing eyes almost twice as big as his entire body. They blinked and continued on their way.

“I gotta get out of here.” Shiro told himself, trying to remember which direction he came from, a task much easier said than done.

He had been turned around at some point, and seeing what was essentially a giant deer did nothing to help his sense of direction. The only light was from his suit and bio-luminescent giant fungi around him. Needless to say, he wasn’t willing to stay here too long. He made the decision to keep moving forward, with the hopes that eventually he would reach the other end.

Shiro went a full two minutes before he was attacked by giant bat-likes creatures. They swooped down, attempting to grab him, their claws getting a little too close for comfort. One of them did catch him, and a quick punch to the face was enough to make it drop him. He landed on another bat, causing it to panic and fly straight into one of the trees. Surprisingly, it wasn’t into the trunk. Instead, he found himself on a branch, thick with leaves.

“Ow,” Shiro groaned, huddling near the trunk as he saw the bat climb up onto the branch. He held his breath, watching it lick itself clean.

Looking up, he saw that there was a hint of a twinkle, no more than a blink. He glanced back to the bat, still cleaning itself, and flew up, dodging branches and leaves along the way. Shiro felt air rushing past him as the twinkle of light grew. If he could break past these trees and into the atmosphere, he just might be able to contact his team.

A sudden gust rushed past him in the opposite direction, cutting his shoulder and nearly hiting his neck. More gusts rushed past him, cutting here and there. One hit his jetpack and he was sent back down, but not before he got a glimpse at the night sky.

Crashing wasn’t the worst part. It was crashing and feeling his breath get knocked out of him multiple times before finally finding solid surface that truly felt awful.

His chest heaved as he gasped for air, not helped by all the pain.

Still sore, Shiro attempted to stand up. Despite his lungs and back screaming in agony, he managed to find his footing, and looked up towards the sky, wondering what fresh hell gave those gusts of winds invisible blades.

Looking down, he saw that the branches were haphazardly cut, hanging by threads of themselves. He though he saw a bit of fur and blood on the lower branches, but shook his head and tried to asses his wounds. Mostly scrapes, by the look of it, but still quite painful. His visor displayed the image of the sky that he was lucky to get even a brief glimpse at.

Ryou may call him an astro-nerd all he liked but his compulsive need to briefly but thoroughly study the alignment of the stars from each planet they visit had finally came in handy because Shiro had found this planet’s equivalent of the North Star.

“Time to go home,” Shiro used his zipline to lower himself onto the forest floor, considering his jetpack had been damaged once again.

The visor went out halfway down, but he already had a general sense of the cardinal directions and was already heading north. As long as he kept going on a straight path, he would be able to find the entrance of this eldritch hell.

Back with the rest of the Paladins, the tracker had seemingly updating, showing that Shiro had been somewhere above the cave but immediately disappeared.

“Stress eating!” Ryou said loudly, angrily eating. “Because of that dingdong! This is a really good donut!”

“We have a general location,” Matt noted. “Something’s making the readings really weird around that cave but he’s there.”

“I’ll head over in the Green Lion and-” Pidge began to explain, stopped when a suddenly quiet Ryou walked by and stood at Shiro’s seat.

“Ryou?” Keith put a hand on his shoulder, surprised when the floor suddenly lowered itself.

“Or they can just head over in the Black Lion,” Lance said. “Either way works.”

It was at this time that Shiro found himself from another giant deer. He figured it would be harmless if he left it alone, still unnerved by its sheer size. He thought it might be possible that it was the same deer he first saw, but figured that one had wandered off somewhere in the time he had gotten his bearings.

The bats watched him curiously, now more weary about prey that fights back. He figured that he hadn’t been led off the path yet and should be coming to the mouth of the cave soon.

He tried to activate his visor again, mostly to judge if his sense of direction was true. However, he was faced with readings of hostile forces above him. He couldn’t see anything, but there was multiple blips. A few made sense, such as the bats. He saw a smaller deer, still quite large in comparison, which was also noted on the hud. But higher up above those readings were more beings and there was quite a lot of them.

Whatever they were, Shiro did not want to find out. He couldn’t help but think of this forest as a reverse ocean. The darkness, the size of the creatures, the overwhelming doom and dread that hung in the cold air.

It was…

uncanny.

The wind seemed more menacing now that he knew it could physically hurt him. His cuts were aching and stinging, and he was sure he could get all sorts of infections if he wasn’t careful now. He had kept an eye out for the giant fungi, staying as far from them as possible in case they decide to trap him with neurotoxins or other such things.

Once more, he froze as a giant, multi-eyed version of another woodland critter came a little too close. This time, a four eyed squirrel with a glowing tail. Shiro activated his hand, wondering if its glow would be enough to convince this creature that he was also bad news.

Thankfully, it was, and Shiro may or may not have quickened his pace.

Shiro finally found the mouth of the cave, though not the end he was looking for. His comms were back online and he wasted no time making contact.

“Guys?” Shiro could feel the smile on his face, even as a cheering cacophony assaulted his ears and nearly deafened him.

“Shiro are you okay?” Lance asked.

“Do you need medical or emotional attention?” Hunk asked.

The questions kept coming, and Shiro was about to answer them when he saw one of the stars coming closer. He held his breath, seeing that it was the Black Lion, ready to take him home.

Out of the Black Lion came Ryou, nearly tackling him as he ran into his arms. Behind him, Keith joined in the hug, apologizing for everything.

“We gotta go,” Ryou pulled them back to the Black Lion. “Come on, before anything else happens.”

“Coran, Shiro’s got some cuts. I don’t know from what,” Keith explained over the comm.

Shiro looked up at the stars, thanking whatever deity would listen as he sat in the cockpit. The controls slid right into his hands, and they were off and away from that quiet and dark hell. It was only when he was stepping into the cryopod did a question come to mind.

“NO.” Shiro grabbed Ryou and dragged him back onto the futon. “Just go to sleep,” he insisted, his arms wrapping around his younger brother in a firm hug. “We’ll hear him out, make some agreements, and keep him under watch.”

“That’s what he wants,” Ryou argued. “He’ll pretend to be on our side and then BANG!” The sudden yell drove off whatever impulse to sleep that was in Shiro. “He’ll turn us over to his dad and have us executed before we can even blink.”

“Zarkon wants Lotor hunted and executed with extreme prejudice,” Shiro sighed. “At the very least, Lotor is against Zarkon.”

“He’s in his rebellious teen phase,” Ryou growled.

“Ryou please,” Shiro held him tighter, “go the fuck to sleep.”

With one more growl, the two settled down to try and catch a few winks of slumber. It worked for a few minutes, or maybe it was a few seconds. It could have been the fastest couple of hours since the next thing Shiro knew, he heard four words that sent a shiver down his spine.

“Can I kill Lotor?”

“What?” Shiro looked to Ryou.

“Can I kill Lotor?” Those words repeated with the same tone. It was completely genuine, as if he was getting permission to eat some sweets before dinner. Yet in those eyes were the anticipation of a cold blooded killer.

“Do you know what you’re saying?” Shiro tried to keep his voice steady as their one secret-a language all to themselves-slipped through his lips.

Ryou’s wide and wild eyes stared endlessly into Shiro’s, as if at any moment they would make good on that threatening glare when suddenly… they softened. Those eyes, once filled with animalistic bloodlust were now filled to the brim with fear and guilt, though Shiro only had a second to see it when Ryou hid under the blanket.

“Hey,” Shiro reached out. “Ryou, listen to me,” Shiro patted Ryou’s shoulder. “It’s fine to feel that way. We all have our doubts,” Shiro could practically feel the tension when they heard the voice of the exiled prince over the comms. “We’re all scared that the worst might happen, that we’re putting our trust in the wrong hands but as far as we know, he’s on our side.”

From under the covers, Ryou peeked out, a yearning and hopeful look in his eyes.

“We have to trust Lotor,” Shiro insisted, gently holding Ryou’s cheek, relieved when Ryou almost melted at his touch. “And if he betrays us,” he smiled a little, “you have my permission to do whatever you want to that smug purple face of his.”

Smiling, Ryou huddled closer to Shiro. “Anything?”

“As long as Lotor is not dead,” Shiro’s tone became stern.

“Booo,” Ryou playfully whined.

They laughed a little, the artificial stars watching over them. For a few short seconds that had felt so much longer, they only looked at each other.

“Hey,” with barely a whisper, Ryou began to talk again. “We need to talk about Keith.”

“What about Keith?” Shiro thought they were past petty squabbles and the like. What did they need to talk about?

“He’s…” Ryou narrowed his eyes, trying to figure out what he wanted to say. “He’s dealing with a lot right now. It’s all just way too much way too fast.”

“It’s part of war,” was all Shiro could say. “We just have to endure it.”

Ryou’s eyes, for a split second, were filled with distrust and savage fury. It was so quick, Shiro wanted to believe he was just seeing things. But after that flash, Shiro saw the gears turning in those eyes, watching them flick around as Ryou began to understand what he had heard.

“Right,” Ryou’s voice was low and rumbling gently. “I’ll… I’ll talk to him.”

“To Keith?” Shiro felt a smirk on his face. “Or Lotor?”

“Definitely to Keith,” Ryou sighed. “And to Lotor,” he finished with a growl. “But Keith first.”

“Lotor first,” Shiro insisted. “He’s our priority right now.”

“Keith first,” Ryou argued. “He was-he was going to-” Ryou’s eyes switched between that untamed anger and gentle reassurance.

“Ryou,” Shiro held his brother’s face again. “It’s going to be okay.” With a pat on the shoulder, Shiro flipped onto his side. “Get some sleep. We have a big day tomorrow.”

He heard harsh breathing, and felt Ryou reaching for him, only for Ryou to turn away.

When Shiro woke up, Ryou was already gone. Shiro was busy negotiating with Lotor and the Blades, with Keith suspiciously relaxed about the whole thing. Afterwards, he found Ryou toiling away with some sort of blade-gun hybrid, probably making good on his ambitions now that he had the tech he needed.

“Looking good,” Shiro looked over Ryou’s shoulder, seeing an assortment of parts and tools.

“Yep,” Ryou did not look at him. “Don’t touch that.”

From behind a scrap pile, Shiro saw Lotor saunter into view, a smile on his face and a pep in his step.

“Apologies,” Lotor reached for one of the parts, only for Ryou to slap his hand. The expression that flashed on his face was priceless and one that Shiro would treasure. “I find such skills to be fascinating. I am impressed by your dedication to turn simple pieces of debris into working equipment.”

“Uh-huh,” Ryou raised and eyebrow and continued working.

“What a blessing it is that the High Priestess did not find out about such an ability,” Lotor kept talking, walking closer to Ryou. At that point, Shiro held his hand out, standing between them and giving Lotor the firmest glare he could without being outright threatening. “So protective,” Lotor smirked.

“Hey could you guys do me a teeny tiny little favor?” Ryou looked at both of them, standing and putting a hand on their shoulders. “Hm? Do me a solid?”

“Um, sure?” Shiro raised an eyebrow as Ryou put the two in a headlock, pulling them in close.

“Get the fuck out of my room before I use you two as test dummies,” Ryou cheerfully whispered.

“Of course,” Lotor’s movements became slightly stiff, judging by the small hint of panic as he put some distance between himself and Ryou. “Distractions will hinder your progress.”

“Me too?” Shiro was sure they had come to an agreement last night, still finding it odd that he was still being forced to dodge a flying tool or another whenever he came to check on Ryou.

“Especially you,” Ryou narrowed his eyes into a fierce and firm glare.

Shiro feigned hurt. “How cruel of you.” He amped up the dramatics as Ryou pushed him out the door, nearly falling onto the floor as the door was closed.

“I assume this is his usual behavior,” Lotor was waiting outside.

“Yes, it is.” Shiro went back to his firm attitude, dropping it as Hunk walked by.

“Excuse me, coming through,” Hunk announced, carrying a box of parts, topped with a cautiously balanced tray of food, into the room.

“May I ask why the Yellow Paladin does not need to watch for projectiles?” Lotor had also noticed the distanct lack of metal hitting metal.

“Ryou likes Hunk,” Shiro answered.

“I see,” Lotor’s blank expression did not change. “Care to elaborate?”

“My brother was an engineering teacher and Hunk was his one of his students,” Shiro continued without giving too many details. “They have a bit of history.”

“How curious,” Lotor began walking.

“What?” Shiro followed.

“I was led to believe that the Paladins of Voltron and their allies all had a close bond.” Lotor explained.

“We do.” Shiro argued.

“Yet your so called brother prefers the company of his student as opposed to that of his kin,” as he walked, Lotor’s voice grew steady and low.

“He’s like that,” Shiro huffed.

Lotor paused and looked at him. “To think I was like you once.”