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Chapter 15

Scattered, Part II

Chapter 14 - Chapter 16

Eva wasn’t sure how long she kept staring, until a breeze startled her out of it. She didn’t bother with taking the slow road this time, instead jumping down and using the jetpack to slow her fall—and doing that was actually kind of fun, though the adrenaline rush probably had something to do with it.

She didn’t waste time in explaining why she was rushing either, when she’d come around the last curve Black’s front paw created: “I have to get a closer look at that place!”

Shiro stuttered at looking away from the now-present campfire, startled, before shooting it down. “No! Not by yourself,” the last bit was added when she started to protest, standing up, flinching with a hiss before moving his hand to his side. It wasn’t before Eva saw why he did that, though. The phantom-pain in her side suddenly made sense.

“You have a—uh,” she stammered out, pointing for a second before part of her realized that would probably come off as rude, gluing her arms to her sides.

Shiro glanced down at it. “It’s just a scratch.”

“I’m pretty sure scratches aren’t supposed to glow!” Whatever had made those purple-glowing “scratches” had cut right through his armor’s undersuit, and the skin around them had a bluish-black hue to it that probably meant something bad.

“It’s way too dangerous for you to go there by yourself,” Shiro insisted, taking a step forward—and promptly stopping when a growl echoed throughout the canyon, before looking up at the Black Lion.

“Besides,” Eva went on. “They might have some…some first-aid kits in that base. They probably won’t notice one gone.” Shiro looked back at her, and the standoff lasted for what felt like hours, before he sighed.

“Alright, you have a point. You can go—as long as you tell me why you wanted to go there in the first place.”

Eva bit her lip. Should’ve seen that coming. Well, so long as it helped sell the point… “They have some aliens there—a-and Rick’s down there too.”

Shiro’s eyes widened. “Did you see any other humans?”

“I…no, I didn’t. But maybe—maybe there’s more inside?”

He nodded slowly, before saying “It might be a better idea to wait until it gets darker before you go too close.”

“I’ll have to find a way to cross that canyon first,” she said. “But that’s a good idea.”

The second good idea was, instead of climbing the moss and vines again, to use the Black Lion as a sort of giant, lion-shaped stepstool/ladder. She leaned forward a little at Shiro asking, thankfully, which let Eva keep a good-enough foothold until she could get to the ledge above.

The ravine stretched on and on to the right, but to the left she could make out what looked like a natural rock bridge crossing it. “Now how am I supposed to get over there without it taking forever?” she mused, glaring out at it.

Red wearily surfaced in her head, pointing out the smaller vehicle in his cargo bay, and Eva promptly facepalmed. Shiro didn’t ask anything when she came back to get into her Lion, at least.

Dusk was coming quickly, with the sky going from hazy white to muted orange over the time it took for her to reach the rock bridge. During that time, the sense of trepidation that had sprung up the moment she’d realized that she hadn’t been seeing things had only gotten stronger, and by the time she had to stop her speeder by a rock overhang because it was still too light, Eva felt like she could hardly breathe.

“C’mon Eva, keep it together,” she muttered to herself at getting out of the vehicle, leaning back against the rock. “You just need a game plan now.”

For a moment, she wished Jordan was here—he probably would’ve known how to do this. But she had no idea where he was, or Stan and Koji for that matter.

Her Lion’s presence flickered again, with some concern. “I’m okay,” she muttered, before asking “How about you?” He went contemplative for a few seconds, before giving a few impressions; he was just over halfway done with repairs, but would need some more time to recharge.

Eva didn’t say anything in response to that, instead sitting down in the shadow cast by the rock. If she had to be completely honest with herself, she’d never really put much thought into the whole mind-link thing, aside from when it was an all-encompassing detail. It hadn’t been much more than another little problem on a whole stack of problems.

Now that most of it wasn’t there, she couldn’t help but feel like its absence was something more like a black hole.

Red purred then, relaying a scan’s results—the Blue Lion was roughly one galaxy away from them, which meant Jordan really wasn’t that far away at all. She smiled, looking up toward a few clouds drifting past. “Thanks Red.”

There was probably another two hours or three before the sun was fully down, and Red had circled back on his report to the bit on recharging, giving a thinly-veiled hint which she scowled at. “But I’m not—”

She tried to stifle the yawn that decided to happen right there. She really did. But it was still noticed, and he was pushing the idea of unconsciousness not counting as actual sleep.

Eva groaned, slumping to the ground. “Ugh, fine. Just…just wake me up when it gets dark.” The Lion purred again, and she shut her eyes.

Don’t worry Rick. I’ll find a way to get you out of there. Somehow…

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Three stacks of stone weathered smooth by both time and environment, with worn engravings in two languages for two, and one for the last, stood by one another on a cliff overlooking the sea below.

Terlar had been one of the castle’s cooks, and the one who always had set aside a basket’s worth of juniberry tarts for her whenever he made any. Even after the war had started, he’d managed to greet everyone with a smile.

Merla—and she’d had to ask Mariposa to translate the engraving for her—had been one of Allura’s closest friends, even after she’d started her training to be an alchemist.

And even though there was only faded colors to the stones to set them aside from the other two, it was otherwise a humble grave for the last queen of Altea.

Allura wasn’t entirely sure how long she stayed there in silence, just that only a soft rain starting was enough to stir her from her thoughts. “I’m sorry,” she murmured, standing and brushing dust from her outfit. “I hadn’t meant to stay here that long.”

“It’s alright,” the native replied, sliding off of the rock she’d been sitting on. “It’s nice getting away from everyone else now and then.”

Mariposa went off in a different direction when they’d neared the buildings that had been meant for the race teams, shortly before the rain started picking up. Thankfully, Allura spotted Coran waving her over from inside one that had its doors left open. “I’d been about to go looking for you before the sky opened up,” he said once she’d reached the safety of the roof. “It was a hard bargain, but we can get a few of the storerooms on the lower floors cleared out while we’re here!”

Allura frowned slightly, confused—those storerooms were mostly spare scrap parts and old electronics, and she last remembered Alwas as being willingly non-technological. Coran’s smile looked slightly more forced when she mentioned it. “That did come up, yes.” He coughed, before adding, “It would seem that recent events have a hand in them starting to move away from those practices. It won’t happen quickly by any means, but it’s going to start.”

That wasn’t surprising either.

His tone turned to something more gentle when he asked, “Where are they?”

Deep breath. “There’s a path leading along the cliff. You can’t miss it.”

He nodded, before looking more into the building. “Now, I can’t be entirely sure, given the rain, but the marks on the door kind of look like our paladins’ racing ship.”

Allura looked at him for a moment, silently thankful for the subject-change, before briefly stepping back into the deluge to see that he was right—it did look like the ship, if only from the front. “This must have been where they stayed during the competition,” she said, looking toward the stairs before making a decision.

There was a fine coating of dust over the furniture up the stairs and in the room in the back, as well as on the computer screen in that same room. Coran followed her up, not saying anything, though she could practically feel the questioning look.

“Do you think they’d appreciate having some of their things waiting for them on the castle?” she asked.

“Well, who would turn down having a piece of home out in space?” Coran smiled, a soft melancholy edge to it.

“We better find some rags first, then,” she said, starting toward what she believed to be an elevator. “It’s a little breezy even with the rain—we don’t want dust flying everywhere when we move everything.”

This would hopefully be a nice surprise for them to come back to.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Waking up felt weird. Weird, partially because his head felt like it was full of cotton balls, but mostly because he couldn’t remember falling asleep to begin with.

He was definitely still underwater—there was still the telltale movement-resistance when he tried sitting up, along with that motion in itself being kind of awkward.

Then Blue mentally hit him like a tidal wave, alarm and concern being first and foremost. “H-Hey, I’m fine,” he stammered out, frowning. “Just…really, really confused. What happened?”

She didn’t know either. Just that he’d gotten all hazy once he’d gotten close to the one major settlement on this part of the planet, and hadn’t responded to anything she’d done. Jordan groaned. I knew I had a bad feeling about this…

“So the stories are true, then.”

He stifled a flinch, and turned toward the source of the voice. Standing by the doorway (or not really, since it looked like this was more of a cave system) was an alien that more than likely had gills, since he didn’t have any sort of gear. He had a few features that made Jordan think of a manta ray, though he was humanoid and had two short antenna on his head, and was mostly a shade of something between navy-blue and charcoal.

“I’d heard that the Voltron Paladins could communicate with their Lions over a great distance, but I never thought I’d be able to see it in action,” he went on, smiling just enough to show off sharp teeth.

“Uh…”

The alien paused, and then facepalmed. “Ugh, where’s my head…I’m Isond—unofficial leader of…well, of the remaining free people of Plegia. And you are?”

“Jordan,” he replied slowly. Blue helpfully supplied that Plegia was the name of the planet, but now her touch had something of a hopeful shock to it. You know this guy?

A pause, before a half-negative. She knew the species, and was relieved that they were still around.

Isond was watching him again, more contemplatively this time, before saying “Since I heard you wondering, we got you out of the palace. Luxia had some pretty tight security on you, too.”

And the confusion was back. “H-Hold on a second, I don’t even remember getting near the city!”

Now the alien grimaced. “Just like everyone else that doesn’t go prepared. Come on—we’ll explain things to you. Don’t worry about walking, we’re far enough down for it to be more like the surface.”

The tunnels were lit by some kind of glowing algae, with a few spots of seaweed here and there. There were a few side-caves along the way too, one being full of weapons and another looking like a kitchen of sorts. Not to mention one filled with, for some weird reason, nothing but jellyfish.

“There’s not many of us left, unfortunately,” Isond was saying. “There’s myself, two other Nalquodians, and three Plegians. Those three are the ones that got you here.”

“Plegians—you mean the mermaid people?”

“I’m not sure what this mermaid you speak of is, but they’re restricted to being aquatic, if that’s what it means.”

Isond motioned to a larger side-cave, the occupants of which looking up as soon as they noticed the movement. “You’re awake! Excellent!” one of them exclaimed, throwing…two of his tentacles up. “Now we can get to planning the big mission!”

“Now, now, Blumfump, we have to go through explanations for Jordan here first,” Isond said. “First of all, I believe introductions are in order. You know me already, and I just mentioned Blumfump there.”

“Plaxum,” a cyan-colored Plegian spoke up. “And that’s Swirn.” The third, spotted one made a slow hand-motion, looking bored. The two Nalquodians—one orange and the other brown—introduced themselves as Maiph and Ruta.

“Okay, so what the heck is going on here?” Jordan asked. Isond had said something about them being the last free people, and that didn’t have a very good implication.

Isond frowned. “That’s what we want to know too. A few phoebs ago, things were fine, and then, one quintant, I suddenly found myself at some of the volcanic vents some ways away from the city. It’s likely that I had been caught up in a tidal current, but the main thing is that I didn’t remember anything between that and coming-to there.”

“The same thing happened to me and Swirn,” Plaxum spoke up, Swirn nodding a bit.

“We were out on a hunting trip when whatever this was started,” Maiph said, crossing his arms. “We saw everyone acting weird from the cliffs overlooking the city, so we just stayed away.” “And I got abducted by those two!” Blumfump supplied cheerily, pointing at Plaxum and Swirn, who gave him unamused looks.

The latter rolled her eyes, before asking “What’s the last thing you remember?”

Jordan thought about it for a few seconds. “I was following someone to the city. And then…” He paused, trying hard to think of anything other than the haze for a few seconds, before giving up and finishing “And then waking up.”

“Exactly.” Blumfump nodded like he’d just had something proven. “I’m telling you, the queen has something to do with all of this!”

“But we don’t know for sure.” Isond crossed his arms, giving the Plegian a pointed look. “And infiltration is out of the question, given that we only have one form of immunity to whatever it is happening that’s altogether too obvious. Things had been looking pretty hopeless…”

“And then Maiph and I saw the Blue Lion crash through the ice,” Ruta said softly.

Jordan stared at her for a few seconds, before standing up straighter at realizing where this was going. “Uh, h-hang on a second. I just started at this whole paladin thing not too long ago. I’m not sure if I—”

Isond interrupted with a wave of his hand. “Anxiety is one’s worst enemy. If you go in thinking you won’t be able to do it, then you really won’t. So you just have to think otherwise.” Blue jumped onto that idea, and Jordan nodded a bit after a few seconds.

“Now, if we’re done with all of this,” Blumfump said, a little snippily. “With the Lion, we might finally be able to rush in there and grab the queen!”

“If only because that’s our only lead on the cause, since she’s still in command of everything,” Maiph said, before stepping over to look at Jordan more closely, muttering “Maybe that murang-colored one’ll fit.”

“A murang what now?” Jordan asked, lost again.

“Jellyfish,” Plaxum supplied, shrugging. “It’s…well, we’re not really sure how or why, but for some reason they block whatever’s causing all of this. Just a warning, they sting a bit. And you might have a reaction to it.”

“Uh…” That really didn’t sound like a thing he was looking forward to. Hey, uh, Blue? Any chance you’d be able to block…whatever’s going on?

The Lion went distant for a second, before giving a sort of mental shrug leaning towards a yes. She couldn’t be too sure, but she was aware of some sort of signal coming from somewhere in the city, and she just had to add a filter for it to her shields. Whatever it was, it wasn’t a machine causing it.

So long as it meant a jellyfish didn’t have to go anywhere near his head. Then Jordan processed that last piece of information. Wait, you mean it’s not a machine?

Denial. It was definitely a living thing causing it. Blue just wasn’t sure what it was, though.

Isond looked thoughtful at that information, having just shrugged at the information of the jellyfish not being required, before they all started out toward where Blue was. “That might simplify things, in the end. Easier to take a living thing down than a machine, since those can be rebuilt.”

To the side, Swirn fidgeted a bit with an uncomfortable look, while Maiph tightened the grip he had on his spear.

Thankfully, Isond changed the subject. “The Blue Lion told you that, didn’t it?” Jordan nodded, and the Nalquodian chuckled. “The Lions really are marvels. I’m just glad I got to be part of the generation to see their return.”

“Wait, what do you mean by that?” Jordan asked. “I-I mean, I thought—most people think they’re just fairy-tales.”

Isond just shrugged, smiling. “The Lions are a part of my people’s history, actually. In fact, my great-great-great-great-great grandfather was the paladin of the Blue Lion, in his time.”

Jordan promptly tripped on a rock, and Blue did the mental equivalent of a spit-take. “Wait, seriously?”

He nodded, looking distant now. “It’s part of why we’re refugees here on Plegia. Nalquod is pretty deep in Galra space, and after what Zarkon did to Altea…well, I suppose it’s safer to not take chances in situations like that.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Her and the other two on her team getting transferred to the Garrison base on Elpis in itself had been a blindside. Honestly, part of her had a feeling Iverson only suggested them to have the commanding officer here deal with them instead.

It wasn’t all bad, though. If anything, though, it just let her pick up on even more alien radio chatter. (The warning notice they’d gotten before the actual transfer had also been what finally prompted her to send an e-mail to her mom back home. She hadn’t gotten a response back yet, probably because of the distance, but she was not looking forward to it.)

She’d known as soon as someone had called in two unknown spacecraft crash-landing on the mesa a few miles from the nearest town that something big was happening—especially when all cadets were told to stay in their dorms. Not like she’d listened to that, though. She’d just gone up to the roof instead, computer in hand.

The level of excitement everyone was showing meant it probably wasn’t anything Crog-related, which was a relief because Lance really wasn’t as good at flying things as he said he was yet.

The security passcodes here were a little trickier than the ones back home, but they were still no match for Katie Holt—and for a few seconds, she just stared at the security feed. “A lion?” she muttered, squinting at it. It was bright-yellow and built like a tank, had four legs, and both a defined head and tail.

It also didn’t look like anything in the books, though to be honest, giant robotic lion wasn’t anything like how a typical alien ship would look, or at least her definition of an alien ship. It was enough to get her to bring her other gear out from the hiding place she’d set up for it all.

The first thing her listening device picked up on was the communications between the base and the crew still at the crash site—that got filtered out after a few seconds.

The second thing she got was only recognized as French because it was the Coalition delegate’s native language. Katie didn’t recognize the voices, either—and one of the sources was close.

She stood up on her toes and looked around, squinting at everything. There was nothing out of the ordinary, at least until she looked up at the cliff overlooking the base.

There, on a ledge, was a glimmer of white. A closer look with binoculars showed that there was someone up there, and that the uniform they had on was accented in the same shade of yellow as the lion-ship. Her grip tightened on the binoculars, and she let out a sharp breath. Bingo.

Against what would probably be better judgement, she shoved everything sans her computer back into its hiding place, and made use of some conveniently-placed pipes to get to the ground.

An unknown alien craft inexplicably shaped like a lion, that might just be piloted by a human? It was so absurdly out there to begin with, but that in itself meant it could be a lead.

There were a few times she tripped over rocks or tree roots in the darkness, but there was enough light for her to avoid any of the big drops on the way up the cliff.

She was out of breath by the time she reached the ledge, almost stumbling to a stop, and the supposed-pilot froze as soon as he noticed her—and he was definitely human. There was a pause, before she dimly heard a concerned “Que se passe-t-il?” from the other person.

The pilot hissed something equally-not-understandable back, and then Katie remembered the oh-so crucial detail that she didn’t know French. Well…maybe he knows English. “Are you the pilot of the—the lion?”

He froze, eyes darting from side to side, before saying something else to whoever he’d been talking to, and slowly nodding. So he did understand her.

“Is there anyone else out there?” she asked next, a hopeful note in her voice. “I mean—do you know anyone named Sam Holt? Or—or Matt Holt?”

He stared at her, (there was recognition in his eyes there) biting his lip, before going glassy-eyed for a few seconds. Then, slowly and with an obvious accent, he said “Not…not directly. Shiro does.”

Katie stood up straighter. “Shiro? As in Takashi Shirogane? He’s alive?!”

“Y-Yes?”

“I knew it!” she shouted, punching the air. “Is he here too?”

“I—no.” The pilot swallowed. “I don’t know where he is. We—we were split up.”

“Oh.” She hesitated a moment, before saying “But you’re not alone here. You were talking to someone.”

He made a weird choked sound, and she heard the second voice say something that sounded like a name.

Name. Her palm promptly met her face, before saying “I’m Pidge.” Not her real name, of course, but her pseudonym—her brother’s nickname for her. Better safe than sorry.

The pilot kept giving her a wary stare, until the person over the comm said something else. The stare was maintained for five more seconds after that before he sighed, saying “Stan.” Then he asked, “What are you going to do?”

“Me? Nothing. Don’t have a reason to. I mean—you’re trying to get back to your team, right? And you can’t do that as long as your…lion is in that base.”

“…right.”

“So here’s the deal. I help you get the lion, on one condition.” Stan nodded, prompting her to finish, “You give me information. I want to know everything.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In retrospect, they were freakishly lucky that the one person that found them—a cadet, if the uniform was any indication—was willing to help them. Stan personally had been against telling this kid anything, but Koji had pushed for getting any sort of help because they needed it—especially after she’d (that was a guess purely on voice, but Stan wasn’t going to make any assumptions) mentioned being able to knock out the base’s security in three minutes flat.

It also really helped that Yellow had enough English figured out to help Stan sound out words. He was pretty sure he’d gone and butchered a few pronunciations, but the explanation was taken quietly, with only a few nods here and a few questions there.

“So let me get this straight,” Pidge started. “You were originally on a planet called Alwas for some interplanetary star-racing competition, and then these…Galra aliens barged in looking for part of a superweapon called Voltron, which the lion in the base is part of.”

“Yes,” he replied. “It was the Red Lion on Alwas, though.”

“Right, and there’s…what, five of them?”

“Five.”

“And the only reason you knew it was there was because of Shiro.” Stan nodded. Honestly, he really didn’t want to know what might’ve happened if Shiro hadn’t been there to warn them.

Pidge stood up from where she’d sat down. “Well, that’s definitely a better explanation than what the Garrison put out.” She rolled her eyes with a mutter of “Pilot error my ass,” before adding “You and your friend have some sort of distraction in mind, right?”

“Well, sort of?”

The idea was for Koji to rush in with the speeder to get back into Green, and then pretend to be threatening. Just to get some of the scarier people away from the base.

He coughed a bit after explaining, before adding “I’m not—I was just a mechanic before…this.”

Pidge shrugged. “And? It sounds like a solid plan to me. Everyone’s been on edge lately—it’s been radio silence since a few weeks ago, after…after what happened on Alwas, I think. Shouldn’t take too much to get everyone cleared to fly a fighter in the air.”

“How do you know that?”

At that, she smirked. “I have some of my own gear. I can get signals from halfway across the galaxy if I really wanted to.” Cue falter. “I picked up on a few SOS calls when all that happened, I think. I mean—it’s what they sounded like. I couldn’t understand a word of any of it.”

That made sense, in a scary way. Stan glanced up at the sky, noting a few clouds moving in, before saying “Hey, Koji? I think now might be a good time to start that distraction.”

“Alright, I see why. Here goes…” The last two words were muttered, and one minute that felt more like an hour dragged by, before an alarm started sounding from the base, followed by the Green Lion racing by overhead, soon followed by a cluster of aircraft that had previously been parked near the base. Stan heard a quiet gasp from Pidge; her eyes were fixed on the Lion flying around in a wide arc.

“They are pretty cool,” he said, though the Arrow still had its own special spot in his opinion.

“Yeah,” she replied in a mutter, blinking, before sitting down again and opening up her computer, with another alarm started going off shortly after. “Now just give me a minute, and the security cameras will all be off. You would not believe how fast a fake halogen leak would get a building empty.”

“Actually, I think I could,” he replied, seeing people file out below. Then an idea hit him. “H-Hang on a second. Do you have something I could write on?”

She side-eyed him before tapping a few things into the keyboard, before turning the computer toward him, showing a blank document. The address was down on it in seven seconds. “The manager there—if you could…let him know me and Koji are okay, I’d—I’d appreciate it.”

“So long as you keep an eye out for the rest of the Kerberos mission out there.”

“We’ll do that. We’re looking for some people, too.”

They split up at getting closer to the base, Pidge heading off toward where everyone else was while Stan went for the nearest doorway in. Like Pidge said it would, it opened automatically.

A left, two rights, and then down a staircase, just like she said, and then he found himself at a large room with an equally-large hangar door taking up the ceiling space, with Yellow being laid out in the center. He perked up at seeing him there, happily reporting that he’d fixed his jaw-hinge. “I’ll get that barrier-crystal fixed when we’re out of here,” Stan muttered, running in, before reporting “Alright, I got Yellow.”

“Okay, think you can get out here so we can go?” Koji asked in response. “They’re starting to shoot at Green.”

Nothing was said about leaving the base, so Stan went the straightforward route—having Yellow plow through the hangar door. And boy did that set off some alarms.

The first thing was rushing to pick up Yellow’s speeder and the supplies that were crammed into the aforementioned vehicle, and then it was just them both heading up and away from Elpis.

It wasn’t long before the aircraft following them had to bank away, not being meant to reach the upper atmosphere.

Koji sighed when they were a safe distance away, saying “Kind of wishing I thought to…I don’t know, write a letter to send home or something before all this.”

“I know what you mean,” Stan agreed. “Though I did ask the kid if she could get in touch with Miguel. Let him know we’re okay, at least.”

Koji frowned over the screen. “You sure she’ll do that?”

He shrugged a bit. “Honestly, I’m not sure, but…she asked if we could keep an eye out for the other two that had been on Shiro’s team. She knew their names, so maybe she knew them.”

“So, a trade-off.”

“Yeah, something like that. Now, I have to fix this barrier crystal…think you could figure out where exactly the castle is?”

“Probably? I’ll get on that.”

Reaching the crooked crystal took some stretching and arm-twisting, but it was eventually put back into place. At the same time, he heard a muttered “You’ve got to be kidding me,” from Koji.

“What? You figure out where they are?” Stan asked, getting up.

That got a weak laugh. “Yeah. They’re on Alwas.”

“…I’m sorry, what.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The plan was for Maiph, Ruta, Swirn, and Blumfump to keep the guards busy, while Isond and Plaxum stayed in Blue’s mouth, the latter armed with a slingshot and what was essentially underwater puffball mushrooms, and the former with a sort of lasso fashioned from a very sticky plant.

It took all of seven minutes for them to have Luxia after getting to the city. “Okay that was…way too easy,” Jordan said, leaning back a bit in the chair. Blue had brought up a camera showing the entryway—she kept some water in there so the Plegians could breathe.

Luxia blinked a few times, before looking up, confusion written all over her face. “Wh-What’s going on here? Isond? Where are we?”

“You don’t know either?” Isond looked some weird mix between disbelieving and relieved, while Plaxum was frowning in a way that was somewhere between disbelieving and suspicious. Jordan himself was leaning more toward relieved himself. Contributing to a regicide wasn’t really something he’d been looking forward to. “Luxia, what’s the last thing you can remember?”

“The last…” Her brow furrowed for a second, before she paled. “That—that thing that crashed through the ice. I-In the gardens!”

“The thing in the gardens,” Isond muttered, before his eyes widened. “Wait, that sounds familiar! I think we both went to look at it and then…and then…” He trailed off, fins drooping, at the same time as Blue mentally tensing.

“What thing?” Plaxum asked, sounding doubtful. “How do we know that’s not a lie?”

“Uh—I think that proves it,” Jordan pointed out, with Blue helpfully opening her mouth for them to see too. There was what looked like a garden in the city below, and either it was just him, or it was moving.

More precisely, the centerpiece of the garden was uncoiling itself from the rocks, showing itself to be something less like a plant and more like a giant…snake-worm thing, which screeched loudly at facing Blue, showcasing rows of needle-like teeth.

“A mind-controlling sea monster. Great,” Jordan muttered, thinking quickly. True, it being the thing controlling everyone was a guess, but with everything else he knew about this, it honestly wouldn’t surprise him if it was true. “You guys might want to get somewhere safer—and get everyone else out of there! I’ll keep it distracted!”

At least, that was the plan. Jordan really did not expect that thing to move nearly as fast as it did—it twisted out of the way of all three shots Blue fired off at it. How am I supposed to hit it if it keeps moving like that?!

Blue suggested freezing it, but that only worked for maybe ten seconds before it used its own tail as a hammer to free its head before coming at them again. “Okay now what?” he asked, yanking on the control sticks to keep Blue from getting tackled by it.

They definitely had to keep the thing away from the city. Jordan had an ugly suspicion on why it was hanging around and controlling the people here, and Blue was agreeing with it, but they needed some way to make sure it couldn’t hurt anyone. Maybe if we could trap it, Jordan thought, looking around. Blue saw the cavern first, using her tail-laser to blast the entrance open wide enough for her to get in.

Through the crevice was an open cavern, with enough gaps in the top for teal-hued light to filter down—it had been nighttime when they’d crashed, that was why it had been so dark—and when Blue turned, the sea-monster wasn’t there. It followed us, right?

Jordan got his answer three seconds later when it slammed into the Lion from above, wrapping around her and roaring right in front of her face, which gave him a way-too-clear view of its teeth—a few of which seemed to have splotches of something mercury-silver stained on them that he really hoped wasn’t blood—

Blue fired, a fresh wave of anger going into it, and while the thing shut its mouth right before the shot went out it was still sent reeling. Whatever this thing was, it was controlling everyone around just so it could get free meals.

Whatever it was, it had to go, and Jordan agreed wholeheartedly.

But how? The thing moved too fast to shoot at, and freezing it didn’t work. Hitting it head-on probably wouldn’t do any good either…but the thing that just showed up on a side-screen might work.

Jordan wasn’t sure what exactly Blue was suggesting, but he definitely heard whatever it was activating as soon as he’d hit the screen. The Lion shifted slightly, and Jordan could see the tip of whatever it was materialize with a blue flicker—and then he heard it.

To him, it was just a faint whining sound, but to the sea monster, it was obviously something a lot louder, with how it started trying to get as far away from Blue as possible—at least until it slammed into the back wall of the cavern hard enough to dislodge more than a few rocks from the ceiling. Oh. Well that’d work!

A few laser shots (with one landing on the sea-monster’s face again for good measure thanks to it being pinned) and a collapsed cavern later, Jordan looked hard at what was left of the area after the dust had settled. His instructors always told him to not go overkill in shooting things, but in this case, it was warranted, and Blue agreed.

“I don’t see anything moving,” he muttered, looking around. “Did we do it?” A pause, before an affirmation, eliciting a sigh from him. Then she pulled his attention toward the screen that had stayed up above one of the side-consoles.

Jordan couldn’t read any of it since it was all displaying in Altean, but Blue provided the basic idea for what it was saying. The thing currently on her back had just been used as a sonic-cannon, but it could also be a sonar, radar, scanner, or even as an amplifier for signals. “So—we can use it to find the others?”

The response to that was essentially slow down, followed by a reminder. “Oh, right,” he muttered sheepishly, with Blue turning to start back toward the city after putting her radio-gun (Jordan couldn’t think of a better way to describe it) away.

They went toward the largest gathering of people, who all moved to make room for Blue. Isond was at the front of the crowd, with Luxia and the others. “We heard the noise from here,” Isond said, wincing a bit. “Is it dead?”

“Well, it’s under a bunch of rocks now, so I’d think so,” Jordan replied. There was a visible response of relief from most of the aliens present at that. He hesitated, biting his lip before asking, “So uh—is anyone…missing?”

“Some of the guard aren’t accounted for, and we can’t find any of the garden’s attendants,” Luxia replied, sounding weary. “We’re not going to find them, are we.”

“I…no,” he muttered. “What was that thing, anyways?”

“A baku.” Isond shuddered slightly. “I thought they would’ve been eradicated—they’re not picky eaters, and they can survive on land as well as in water, so I’d assume the empire’s had its share of having a few set sights on some colonies of theirs.”

Blue growled—this was her first time having fought one, but she’d heard about them from the others. You mean the other Lions? And if that didn’t bring something else pressing to mind, Jordan wasn’t sure what would.

“H-Hold on a second. You guys wouldn’t happen to have any sort of…long-range communicators, would you? I’m—we don’t know where the others are.”

“I’m afraid not.” Luxia frowned. “We haven’t had anything like that for a very long time. As far as we can tell, Zarkon doesn’t know we still exist, and we’d rather keep it that way.”

“…oh. I mean, I get that, but—” Jordan cut himself off. Talking wasn’t going to get him anywhere here. They didn’t have anything, end of story. Which meant they were probably going to have to pick a direction and fly in it, and hope they didn’t run into anything ugly.

That got a purr; it was one option. The other was that they could start in the direction of the next galaxy over, where a long-range scan reported both the Black and Red Lions as being in. Shiro and Eva.

“But you have to go find your team?” Isond guessed, smiling.

“I—yeah, I kinda have to go now, so uh—”

“Ah, don’t sweat it.” The Nalquodian clapped him on the shoulder, hard enough to make Jordan stumble a bit but not enough to hurt. “You and your team got saddled with one hell of a mess, so getting back together is important.”

“He’s right.” Luxia swam forward a bit. “We’ve all lived in hiding for so long, hearing that there might finally be some hope of being able to reach out again is heartening. You will have Plegia’s full support, should you ever need our assistance.”

“And Nalquod’s, even though we’re all living here until further notice.” Isond grinned briefly. “I don’t suppose you could fit getting us all home eventually into your schedule?”

“I’ll—I’ll have to go over that with the others first,” Jordan replied, managing a smile before stepping back toward Blue. Blue herself was set on that idea, purring audibly when he reached the cockpit. “Yeah, I guess that wasn’t so bad,” he said, turning her to start toward the surface.

Blasting through the ice was no problem, and it was just open space around Plegia in all directions, a few rings encircling the planet aside. Blue had a fairly solid ETA to where Shiro and Eva were to be about forty minutes, if she didn’t slow down and nothing tried bothering them.

Ten minutes later, she started seeming smug about something, and Jordan took his focus away from the space ahead for a bit, asking about it—she didn’t give a direct response, of course, instead giving a vague impression of steering.

What about the steering? He had both handles forward, like everyone else did…wait.

“Hold on. You mean—I’m flying?”

The smugness turned into a happy affirmation. To be more specific, he’d been flying since they’d left Plegia.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

He’d already known that the castleship was big, but seeing it near the pits really put it into perspective. Or what was left of the pits, anyways. Most of them looked more worse for the wear.

The sky was overcast in all directions, a sticky wetness to the air implying that it had been raining on and off. Though that the grass had to be soaked didn’t stop Allura from running over to where Green and Yellow touched down, despite the fact that she had her dress on. “You’re both alright,” she said, looking relieved.

“And you are too,” Stan pointed out. “What the hell even happened back there?”

“If you’re referring to the wormhole, I’m not entirely sure—but Zarkon’s witch had to have something to do with it.”

“When you say witch, you don’t mean like the magic-type, do you?”

Allura didn’t reply, and that coupled with Green going tense at the mention had Koji assuming yes. He forced a cough after a bit, saying “What about that thing the Red Lion did? With the…was that a railgun or a plasma cannon?” He lowered his voice at the last part, looking at Stan, who just shrugged.

“It—it’s something between those, actually,” Allura said, blinking a few times in surprise.

“Okay, so what’s the deal with it?” Stan asked. “One second it was there, and the next it was gone.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know much,” was the given (and admittedly expected) response. “The most that the original paladins were able to learn was that it had something to do with the aspects of the Lions themselves.” Allura’s tone took a turn for the stilted at the end, and Green was being silent on the matter. “It works in a way similar to your bayards.”

In the distance, Koji saw a small group of Scrubs stumble to a halt at noticing them, staring with obviously-startled looks, and he made himself look away. “Of all the places you could’ve ended up, though,” he said, trying to smile.

“Of all the places,” Allura agreed, mirroring the expression. “Coran and I had just finished moving some of the mechanical equipment from your housing area here into the castle.”

“You—oh.” Koji blinked a few times, surprised. He and Stan had been planning on asking if they could bring their things from here with them when they left.

Some of the aforementioned tools not being there aside, the pit was otherwise exactly as they’d left it, if noticeably dustier. Stan had wordlessly pointed out the half-collapsed housing tower, which had Koji wondering if anything of Rick’s or Don’s would even be salvageable.

Eva’s room (compared to what they had on the castleship, it really couldn’t even be called that) had been cleared out already, as had Jordan’s, but it looked like his own room and Stan’s hadn’t been touched—aside from the dressers, which were emptied already.

Another once-over of everything confirmed that yes, he really had forgotten to take his spare glasses with him when they’d first left Earth. I guess I’ll just have to make these ones last, he thought, starting to gather some of the smaller objects scattered around the room into a box.

The nice thing about the lingering clouds meant that it wasn’t as hot as it could’ve been. It also meant that he could keep his focus on the sky instead of on the ground, because if he looked at the ground there was still the odd chance of him noticing that they were being stared at on the way to the castle.

“They definitely remember us,” Stan said once away from the buildings. The contents of the box he was carrying was basically the same variety of what Koji had packed away first, which probably explained how they’d ended up heading out at the same time.

“Honestly, I’m kind of hoping no one says anything,” Koji replied at the same tone. Whether it was just because of the fact that the reason that the souk was halfway burned out and obviously still being put back together was something linked to them now, or that he and Stan were probably the only part of a team that had been on Alwas to come back, he felt guilty for it.

Stan seemed to sense what he was thinking, and stopped to elbow him not-quite-gently. “You really think there’s any way anyone could’ve known that we’d get dragged into some science-fiction fairy tale?”

“No,” Koji replied, almost laughing at how Stan had described it. It honestly wasn’t that far from the truth, and that earned a flash of mock offense from the Green Lion.

Well, you and the other four are making me have to rethink how the world works every other day, he remarked silently to her. Her response was something impishly prideful and it didn’t translate into words.

They passed Coran when they were almost to the castleship, who both greeted them enthusiastically and informed that he’d put most of the mechanical tools in the shuttle hangar for them, along with a few other assorted things that had been in the pit’s hangar.

Koji decided, upon getting to his room in the ship, that it’d be easier to just leave the box on the desk in there for now, and figure out where to put things later. There would be one more trip back for the rest of the things in the pit that were his, and then maybe one or two more for other things still there that they could use.

On the way back toward the main lift, Stan stopped again, looking into the hangar while they were passing it. Koji frowned at him. “Stan?” He didn’t reply, instead just pointing at the Arrow, which was also just as they’d left it. Then Koji noticed it too.

For a minute, neither of them said a word, until Stan muttered “The purple needs to go.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Eva woke with a jolt, stumbling to her feet and looking around, heart pounding. Then she noticed Red’s presence receding, and remembered what led up to her falling asleep this time. She murmured a thanks, before looking at the sky, now a dark shade of reddish-purple flecked with silvery-white.

It didn’t look like this planet had a moon, or maybe it was just a new-moon. Either way, if this wasn’t the best time to infiltrate a Galra base, Eva didn’t know what was.

Now how am I going to get in there? Just walking in through the front door wouldn’t be a good idea. Red fired off some sarcasm at that, earning a muttered “No duh Sherlock,” from her. “D’you think they’d have…I don’t know, a maintenance entrance somewhere?”

Probably not—but there might be a ventilation duct somewhere she could use, and there was one side of the building not blocked by a wall. And just her luck, there was a vent duct there. With a conveniently-shaped rock formation next to it, to boot.

Getting the cover of the duct itself off took a few minutes of trying to use her bayard as a crowbar. The spiked end of the bow was just fine enough to get between it and the wall of the building, and it eventually popped off. Of course, it couldn’t be all good luck for her: the vent was choked with dust, and it was narrow. Sure, she could fit, but it was a tight fit.

At least the dust could be ignored by means of a sealed helmet.

The first room of note that had a grate over it was what looked like a supply closet, though all it had in it were cleaning supplies. I guess even these places need janitors.

The second grate was above a lounge room. Which had two actual-Galrans in it. “I’m telling you, this quadrant is the pits,” one of them was saying. “Nothing ever happens out here!”

“You said it,” the other one agreed. “Captain Lirax doesn’t help with it either.” Lirax? That name sounded familiar—and Eva hadn’t realized she’d made a sound until she saw both of them tense, and she quickly moved back as quietly as she could manage.

“You hear something?” one of them asked.

“Thought I did…probably just that fan malfunctioning again.”

“Yeah…” Footsteps, and then a door activating.

Eva sighed heavily, whispering “That was close,” to herself before moving forward again. The next duct, which wasn’t seen for the next three minutes, she had to suppress a flinch when she saw the bright-orange alien that seemed to be sleeping. She didn’t recognize the next one either, or the one after that.

The next one she did recognize—not that she was happy to see Grooor again. He didn’t notice her, and she wanted it to stay that way, so she kept quiet. After him was a Scrub, then another alien she didn’t recognize, and then…he was sitting in the back of the room and the lighting really wasn’t the best, but she recognized him in moments.

He tensed when she knocked a fist against the duct cover a few times quietly, looking up while blinking a few times tiredly—oh hey he had green eyes—before squinting up at her. “Hey Rick,” she greeted quietly, feeling herself smile more than anything.

His response was for his expression to cycle through confusion, concern, disbelief, before just going slack-jawed for a few moments. “Little Mouse, you never cease to amaze,” he breathed, before standing up. “Glad as I am to see you in one piece, how did you even get here?”

“It’s a long story,” Eva replied, moving so that her arms were crossed in front of her so she could rest her head a bit.

“Well, I’m definitely not going anywhere, so I think we have time.” The remark was dry, with no snideness intended, though it still had her biting her lip.

“Okay, so it started when Shiro crashed on Alwas—or, well, a really long time before that, actually,” she stuttered a little in correcting herself at Red’s behest. “The reason they hit Alwas so hard was because they were trying to find something that was hidden there.” Rick didn’t say anything, just quirking one brow a little, so she went on with “It…it was a weapon. A ship.”

“I take it you and the boys found that ship first.”

Eva nodded, before smiling. “Would you believe me if I told you it was a giant metal lion?”

Rick stared at her for a few seconds, before saying “To be honest, that reminds me of something I saw in an old book back on Alwas. It mentioned some sort of fire-guardian. Must’ve taken a shine to you.” He paused, visibly frowning. “Hold on. If you’re here, where are the others?”

“They’re…well, Shiro’s not too far from here, but I—I don’t know about everyone else. We got split up after…um…” After they all did something nigh-on suicidal? More specifically for her and Red?

“Things got crazy,” she said with a sigh.

“Don’t sweat it Molly, life’s just like that sometimes.”

Oh. Right. That.

“Actually, Rick? There’s…there’s something else I should probably tell you.” A few seconds passed, and she tried taking another deep breath. C’mon Eva, you did this once already, it really shouldn’t be that hard—!

“How about you start from the beginning?” Rick suggested. Red agreed with the idea. So that was what she did. It took the better part of maybe five minutes, with a few intervals of having to stay quiet for a bit when a guard patrol passed by, but there otherwise weren’t any interruptions.

“Eva, huh?” Rick sounded thoughtful, before saying “You know, Don told me he had a kid while you and Jordan were out, before everything went south on us.”

Static. “He did?”

“He didn’t say much beyond that.” She heard a sigh. “Before you ask, no, he’s not here. We got split up pretty early-on.” Had it not been for the gauntlets, her nails would’ve been digging into her palms. I think I saw that coming, she thought.

“Honestly, you telling me your end of it fills a few blanks,” Rick went on. “That was really brave of you to come out to the others like that. And three of ‘em, you barely even knew then.”

“It wasn’t that bad,” Eva muttered, glancing sideways.

“And that Voltron thing. I heard some of the guards talking about it—sounds like you’re all raising hell out there.” And now her whole face felt warm. Great.

She heard Rick chuckle a bit, before saying “You said something about Shirogane getting roughed up earlier? There’s a storeroom with medical supplies further down the hall—they might treat us all like trash, but they don’t like it when we get too roughed-up.”

“Okay.” Eva paused, vision blurring for a few seconds, before saying “And Rick? I—we’ll come back here for you,” while pretending that her voice hadn’t cracked. “I promise.”

“Don’t worry about me Little Mouse,” he said, smiling and giving her a thumbs-up. “You take care of yourself first.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Shiro wasn’t sure how much time had passed before Eva finally came back with a medical kit obviously taken from the base in hand, just that it was at least two hours after the sun had set. The wound in his side had flared a few minutes ago, the heat emanating from it becoming painful enough to have his vision blurring, but it had settled once Black noticed and stepped in. Her response was something concerned to the point of frustration, vaguely referencing the castle. I’ll be fine, he thought, opening the kit and identifying the antibiotic.

“Do you need any help?” Eva asked uncertainly.

“I’ve got it,” he replied, unscrewing the cap and pouring some onto the wound. In retrospect, that hadn’t been the best idea—especially given how much it burned. “Stings a bit,” he admitted at seeing the younger girl’s expression.

“A bit,” she repeated.

“Alright, maybe a lot.” Shiro took a deep breath, ignoring the probably-a-laugh feeling coming from Black right now, before asking “Were you able to talk to your friend?”

Eva froze for a second, before nodding. “Yeah, I was.” She took a shaky breath before saying, “We’ve gotta get him out of there.”

“And we will. But not until we’ve regrouped with the others.”

She kept a level gaze with him for a few seconds before sitting down by the fire, hugging her knees to her chest. “Did you—you didn’t hear anything from anyone, have you?”

Shiro turned to look up at Black, who went pensive for a few seconds. Then the pensiveness turned into welcome surprise, right as both their helmets’ comms crackled. “—iro, Eva, can you—?”

“Jordan?” Eva exclaimed quietly, jumping to her feet again. “Jordan, where are you?”

The cadet laughed over the comm, still broken up by static, but otherwise legible. “Heading toward—now,” was the response, getting clearer as he went. “Blue says—should be there in five minutes.”

Five minutes. The Blue Lion must’ve ended up not too far from us, then, Shiro thought. The odds of that were small, with how large the universe was, so they lucked out there. “Actually—Jordan, have the Blue Lion stop by the nearest planet to this one. We’ll meet up with you there.”

“Sure…wait, why?”

“There’s a Galra base on this planet, and I’m not sure how well-armed it is.” Shiro looked sideways at Eva as he spoke, and she just shrugged a little, looking slightly sheepish. “I don’t suppose you’ve heard from the others?”

Jordan sighed a bit. “Not yet. Uh, but Blue’s got a—well.” He paused. “We have something that might be able to help with that. How hard did you guys crash?”

“What happened to you?” Eva asked in turn.

“Blue went right through some ice into an ocean.”

“Then you got off easier than we did.” Definitely easier—Black’s mental eye-roll gave the impression that out of all five of them, the Blue Lion was the best at maneuvering in the water.

While the two kids were conversing, Shiro was putting a gauze patch over his wound. Seconds after it was in place, Black purred. She was mobile again, at least, though her weapons weren’t back online yet. “Hopefully we won’t need them,” Shiro muttered, wincing while standing up. “Eva, can the Red Lion fly?”

“Huh?” She looked up at her Lion, before saying “Yeah, we can fly. We’re…going now, huh.”

“We can’t risk staying here,” Shiro said gently. “To be honest, it’s a miracle that they haven’t noticed us yet.” It really was. Actually, it was almost strange that they hadn’t been noticed yet.

“But we’ll come back for Rick, right?”

“Once we’re all together again,” he reassured.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Jordan had known he was getting close to them before they were in communication range, by means of some of the mental white-noise coming back. With it had come a weird ache in his side that Blue had side-eyed in a concerned way, though she wouldn’t clarify on what it was, aside from it not being from him.

The small brown planet he and Blue had stopped by had a moon and two rings, was uninhabited, and called Epona-5. And Jordan had been the one to pilot her there all the way from Plegia—he hadn’t freaked out or anything this time, either. And they all kept saying I couldn’t do it!

Blue purred, giving a prideful impression, before drawing his attention to the space facing away from the nearest sun. He saw the Red Lion first, being the one speck of color against the darkness of space, and the console beeped before two screens appeared. “Am I glad to see you,” Eva said, slumping in the seat a little.

“You’re telling me,” Jordan replied, smiling. “So that thing I was telling you guys about? Blue’s got a secret weapon.”

“Really?” Shiro looked curious. “What does it do?”

“Er, well,” he stuttered a little. “It’s actually kind of a multipurpose thing, but she thinks we might be able to get in touch with the others with it. I mean—it can amplify radio waves.”

“So it can boost a signal.”

“Yeah.”

Shiro nodded. “It’s worth a shot. Give it a go.”

Blue brought up the device readily, earning a surprised “Oh wow,” from Eva. Jordan eyed the screen, thought Hope this works, and then tapped it. He heard the device charge up before doing its thing, and a few minutes dragged by.

“Did it work?” Eva asked.

Jordan glanced at the ceiling, feeling a bit anticlimactic, and Blue reported that their location was definitely received by the other two Lions; the castle wasn’t included to be safe, in case of there being a Galra ship or base between them. “Yeah, it did. We’re gonna have to wait for them to come to us, though.”

“Well, a little more waiting isn’t going to hurt any of us,” Shiro said, wincing a bit while putting a hand to his side—which either Jordan was just seeing things, or there was a sizable bandage over it.

“You got hurt back there,” he realized.

“It’s not as bad as it looks.”

“Shiro, it was glowing,” Eva exclaimed. “I don’t think that’s supposed to happen!”

No, it was not supposed to happen, and the level of worry Blue had now was putting Jordan on-edge. C’mon guys, wherever you are, can you hurry it up?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

It had taken the better part of two vargas, but the pit that the paladins had used during their tenure as participants in the Great Race of Ōban was, for the most part, cleared out now.

Stan and Koji had both come back looking perturbed by something, and had been moving with a driven purpose when it came to collecting the rest of their things, though when Coran had asked Koji, he’d just mumbled something about paint and the racing ship.

All that was really left now was clearing out the specified storerooms on the castle—the princess had already started on that, with assistance from a few of the locals. Coran himself would be going to assist them, after one last thing.

The building’s elevator stuttered on the way up, but it reached the third floor, and the sight that greeted the adviser was that of a disaster area. What had once been the fourth level of the building had collapsed into the third, leaving the floor strewn with debris. He’d still have to try to reach the last floor, in case there was anything left up there, but first things were first.

There was an intact closet with some fairly-colorful clothing articles against the wall, and a mostly-intact desk lying in the center of the room, though the same couldn’t be said for a device that looked like it had been built into the aforementioned furniture, with how frayed wires were sticking out.

The same also could not be said for the drawer, which had been thrown out of its place entirely, leaving its sole content to be half-crushed under a plank of wood. Though he knew it wasn’t his place to pry into the affairs of whoever it belonged to, the pale edge of a single photograph was both hard to miss and a source of curiosity in itself.

It was a simple picture of three humans, but Coran recognized one of them as Eva after a few ticks—much younger and barring both the red dye and tattoos, of course, but still her. Which meant that the other two must be…

He sighed quietly, before tucking the photograph into one of his pockets. He still wasn’t entirely sure why she’d hidden her identity from the others at first, even during the race, especially given that her father was involved, but he had a few vague ideas.

Hopefully the photograph that her father seemed to have kept would give her some peace of mind.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

It wouldn’t do anyone much good if he was seen now, so watching from afar was really the only thing he could do. In all honesty, he shouldn’t even be away from Ōban at this point—but fate had a tendency to be tempting like this. “Well, she hasn’t changed much,” Satis mused, watching the Altean princess directing a small band of Scrubs moving various scraps of metal. Something of a mental eye-roll came from the Yellow Lion, while the Green gave a reminder of a ten-thousand-year stasis. “That’s true, that’s true.”

He sighed. It was a real shame Molly wasn’t here. It would have been nice to be able to talk to the girl one more time before…well.

Satis had been correct in the nagging suspicion he’d had of having to deal with some awkward questions from the other finalists, regarding the matter of there being only six when there should have been nine, but the race was progressing smoothly.

It wasn’t shaping up to be much of a competition, in the end, but he supposed that was just how the cards of life were dealt sometimes.

He likely wouldn’t be around to see how this all ended, but that fell along the same lines.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“I think that’s everything,” Allura said, turning to look at Stan and Koji. The sun was beginning to set, shading everything orange, and the clouds had finally cleared. With it, the castle was a few storerooms’ worth of items emptier, though the contents of one had simply been replaced.

“It feels really weird being here again,” Stan muttered, looking toward the small crowd that had gathered near where the two Lions were. Koji nodded slightly.

Neither Lion had raised their shields, but they may as well have with the distance. Then again, they may as well be a folktale come to life.

Then both of them mentally perked up, the Green Lion reporting a set of coordinates almost immediately. At the same time, there was a blurted “They heard from Jordan! A-And Shiro and Eva are with him!” from Koji.

Relief swept over Allura like a wave at that. “We’ll wormhole there as soon as Coran’s back,” she said, looking around. She couldn’t see the adviser anywhere, but she knew that he was in the general vicinity of the building.

“You’re leaving?” Allura hadn’t realized Mariposa had come up to them. The Scrub didn’t look disappointed, however—if anything it was a searching look.

“We are, yes,” she said. “Is something the matter?”

“Not really.” Her grip on the staff tightened before she added “My cousin was one of the pilots who went missing that night. And it wasn’t just pilots who disappeared either. A few of the townsfolk did too. If you find them out there…”

Allura smiled. “Don’t worry Mariposa. They’re out there somewhere. When we find them, we’ll make sure they get home safe and sound.”

She saw Stan and Koji exchange a glance to the side, though neither of them said anything. Coran returned a few doboshes afterwards, holding an armful of clothing. “This is all I could get out of the third and fourth floors,” he said. “The furniture’s unsalvageable, unfortunately.”

“That’s alright,” Allura said, while Stan moved to take some of the articles. “Are we set to leave?”

“That we are, princess!”

The departure from Alwas wasn’t nearly as monumental as that from Arus, once the Green and Yellow Lions had returned to their hangars. “So where did our three errant paladins end up, anyways?” Coran asked.

The Yellow Lion replied with an image of a smaller solar system, in a quieter corner of the Galra Empire, distinguished only by the name of its star, Epona. The sight of the star was the first thing to greet them on the other side of the wormhole, and directly before them were the other three Lions. A series of screens was prompt to appear on the main display.

“Took you guys long enough!” Eva exclaimed, though there was a tinge of relief under the irritation in both her voice and expression.

“Apologies for the wait,” Coran replied, nonplussed. “That wormhole scrambled the castle’s navigation systems. That had to get a reboot before we could go anywhere.”

“What matters is that we’re all together again,” Shiro said tiredly.

Allura frowned, coinciding with the Black Lion making her unease known. “Shiro, you look pale. Are you alright?”

“It’s nothing.”

“Says the guy with the glowing gashes!” Jordan remarked sarcastically.

“She injured you back there.” Allura felt cold—she’d seen what an untreated druid wound could do before, before all of this. “Shiro, you have to get into a pod. Now.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Coran had gone right to making sure Shiro made it to the infirmary, with the rest of them meeting up on the bridge. “You two alright?” was the first thing Stan asked.

“I’m still a bit wet, but yeah,” Jordan replied. “Me and Blue crashed on Plegia—it’s an ocean planet.”

“That sounds familiar,” Allura mused. “I think my father went there once. How are things there?”

“Well, uh, they’re kind of in hiding, and there was some sort of brainwashing sea-monster there, but we took care of it.”

“A…a what?” Koji sounded as baffled as he looked.

“Long story. What about you guys?”

The mechanics looked at each other, before Koji said, “Elpis.”

Eva waited a few seconds to make sure she hadn’t misheard him, muttering a “What?” when she realized she hadn’t.

“Yeah, I couldn’t believe it either.” Stan shook his head a little. “We both got some stuff while we were there, too.”

Jordan stared at them, before saying “Okay, that settles it, you guys are awesome.”

“It’s really nothing,” Koji tried deflecting. “I mean—it’s things we might need out here.”

“More supplies are always welcome,” Allura said. “Which we should have a few phoebs’ worth of now.”

“Wait, where did you and Coran end up?” Eva asked.

“Guess,” Stan said, trying to hide a grin. “Here’s a hint: we got some of our stuff now too.”

She thought about it for a second, though Red beat her to the realization, the baffled sense of irony making the answer obvious. “Wait, Alwas?”

“Alwas,” Allura confirmed, though her smile faltered slightly. “They weren’t exactly welcoming at first, but we have a few storerooms’ worth of basic supplies now.”

“What about you and Shiro?” Jordan looked over at her now. “You haven’t really said anything about where you ended up yet, aside from the Galra base.”

“About that.” Eva swallowed apprehensively, clenching her fists. “We have to go back. They have prisoners there.”

The princess slipped right into serious-mode at that. “How many?”

“I don’t know, b-but—some of them are from the race.” That got the other three’s attentions.

“So next up is a rescue mission,” Stan said. “We’ll just have to wait for Shiro. How long should that take?”

“I don’t know,” Allura replied, ears lowering slightly. “Druid injuries…they become infected quickly, and heal slowly. It could take anywhere between three quintants to three movements.”

“We can’t wait that long!” Eva burst, thoughts going from single-track to everywhere at once. “Rick’s there too!”

“Are you sure?” Koji sounded tense.

“I’m sure. I-I had to sneak in there to get some medical stuff for Shiro, a-and I talked to him a bit.”

“Count me in,” Jordan said automatically. “It wasn’t that big of a place, was it?”

Eva stammered slightly. “Well, it was just the one building—”

“So just the four of us should be able to handle it! Right?” He turned to look at the others.

Koji was biting his lip, and Stan looked about as conflicted as Allura, though the latter turned to pull up a few screens. “It’s a smaller base, yes,” she said. “The only thing I can think of that would require Voltron would be if a battlecruiser showed up.”

“I think we might be able to handle one of those now,” Eva said, remembering one detail of the bad-idea fight she’d gotten into.

Allura looked at her for a few long seconds, before sighing. “I can see you’re all set on this. Very well. I’ll set a course for Epona-6. Be ready to launch as soon as we get there.”

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