Chapter Text
Fighting in space was pretty freaking awesome. What was not so awesome was that the blue lion had decided to stop working for them.
All of the paladins along with Allura and Coran stood in the blue lion's hangar, trying to figure out what the hell was wrong. The lion had been working just fine before and after they had recaptured the other lions. It was working just fine during the fight to get back to Arus. But something must have happened after they finally formed Voltron (after hours of frustrated attempts) because the blue lion had made a weird noise, eyes glowing a bright yellow before it sat down in it’s terminal and activated its shield. No one was able to get through, not even the princess who had been flying it.
"There has to be a reason why Blue isn't responding to any of us" Keith scowled, crossing his arms in frustration.
Allura nodded. "I agree, she was fine when I piloted her earlier. Once the lions have claimed a new paladin, they don't typically close themselves off like this." She placed her hand upon the shield that was keeping them all out. "It doesn't make any sense..."
Shiro stepped close, looking up at the massive robot. "Keith, you said you heard her say something to you earlier when we first found her, do you remember what?"
Keith recalled the strange sensation of the lion communicating with him when they first flew out of Earth's atmosphere. There had been sensations and ideas that were pushed into his mind, but she never actually said anything. But he tried to focus on what Blue had been trying to convey.
"Sort of...? I think it had something to do about a paladin."
“A paladin? That could be any of us.” Hunk said.
“No no. It felt more specific than that. Like... she wanted me to look for something-- someone . Their paladin.”
The group of them were silent for a moment, all of them trying to figure out what it would mean.
"Okay wait a sec," Pidge’s voice snapped them out of their thoughts. He waved his arms around, pointing to Allura. "Allura, didn't you say you felt that too? That the lion was looking for someone?"
Allura brows scrunched up in thought, hand falling from the shield. She crouched down to pet one of her mice, looking up at the robot. "Yes, but it doesn't make any sense. The paladins of old are gone."
"Why don't we, you know, just ask her?" Hunk said. “Like, there’s no harm in asking… right? I’m sure she’ll give us an answer.”
They all looked at one another, unsure.
“Haven’t we been asking, though?” said Pidge.
Keith looked up at the lion, staring intently into her eyes. He had an inkling that she needed more than their probing questions for her to answer. He closed his eyes briefly, trying to get a feel for the lion’s connection. He had connected to it before, he could probably connect to it again. In the back of his mind, he could feel the presence of his red lion. He gently pushed that connection away, opening his mind for the blue lion.
A shiver ran through him as the blue lion’s presence filled his mind.
“I’ll ask.” He said, placing his hand against the blue shield. It was cold, sending a chill through his arm. Keith couldn’t help but compare the shield to the one his red lion had, which was warm to the touch, unlike this one. "Blue lion, can you tell me about this paladin you were talking about?"
The shield rippled, but it didn’t disappear. The yellow eyes of the blue lion looked down at him.
A vision hit him like a brick and Keith stumbled as he closed his eyes, but he kept his hand in place. It was an image of a boy with brown skin and white hair standing in a field of what looked like sunflowers. The wind was gently ruffling his hair. His long blue cape was flowing with the direction of the wind. The sky was filled with clouds, a dark ship darting through the sky.
Keith opened his eyes. "This was your paladin?"
The lion was still, but Keith could swear the lion nodded its head.
"Wait what did you see?" Pidge asked, jumping around Keith excitedly.
"A boy with dark skin and white hair. "
Allura gasped, head turning to look up at the lion. "She showed you Lance?"
"Lance…?"
“Who’s that?” Hunk asked, tugging at the ends of his bandana.
“Lance was the Paladin for the blue lion, he was also a distant cousin of mine. It’s astonishing that Blue here still feels connected to him.”
“What do you think this means, Princess?” Shiro looked at her, concern in his eyes.
“I’m not sure…”
"What does that mean then?” Keith repeated after Shiro, looking back at the lion. “Why are you showing me this old paladin of yours?"
This time a vision pushed into his mind like water dripping from a faucet. It was a slow build up, a little blurry at the edges before it cleared and exploded with information. Too much for Keith to understand. There was a castle, much like the one they were in, but it was smaller and more compact. And it was floating in space, then it occurred to him that it wasn't a castle, it was a freaking space ship.
An onslaught of images hit him one after the other.
Of a long haired Galra, strange planets, scarred faces, the cave they found Blue.
There was so much information that it was hard to focus on one thing. But then it all changed, concentrating on the ship again, the vision zooming in through a large window.
There was a pod in the center; a boy with stark white hair sleeping within it.
"Your Paladin is still alive, is-- is that what you're trying to say?"
The lion didn't move.
"That's impossible," The princess shook her head. “My father-- he sent the paladins off with the lions. None of them could have survived.”
“The vision I just saw, he was in a pod, like the one we found you and Coran in.”
“How could he have been put in a cryopod if he was supposed to be protecting the galaxy?”
“Well Princess,” Coran started, “As you know, your father sent the paladins off with their lions. It’s highly likely that the blue lion was in an Altean fighter ship and then sent off the lion, hurtling towards Earth. Who knows where that ship may be orbiting now.”
“It didn’t look like Blue hurtled toward earth. The place she was in wasn’t a crater where she impacted with the earth. And I also highly doubt she did with all those markings in the cave we found her in and what not,” Pidge remarked, pushing his glasses up his face.
“I agree” Hunk nodded his head, hand cupping his chin in thought. “The markings looked like someone purposely drew them. There were images of the lion and words that kind of look like Altean everywhere? And now that I think about it, they sort of acted like a sort of ward?”
“Yeah, you’re right. The symbols glowed once Shiro touched the symbol of the lion on the wall before the floor crumbled. We wouldn’t have been able to find the blue lion otherwise.”
“And if we take into account what Allura told us-- about how the lions choose their paladin, we can assume that those markings were placed there to prevent anyone else but future paladin--paladins?-- to find the lion.”
“Ah I see,” Allura said. “So the question is, who was with the lion when it landed on earth?”
“It must have been another Altean,” Coran said. “No one else knows how to create those markings.”
“Well, whoever it was, they were keeping Blue safe. What we need to figure out now is how to find the blue paladin.” Shiro said, looking at Keith. “Can you see where Lance’s ship is?”
Keith closed his eyes. The image in his mind zoomed out from inside the ship, to outside. “Um… it’s definitely floating in space.”
“Are there any planets or suns that you see that can help us find his location?”
All the planets and stars Keith knew of were planets near Earth. And made up ones his father had told him in bedtime stories when he was growing up. He had no idea where in space this was. He didn’t even see any planets to describe, not even a distant one to take note of. The ship was floating in the middle of nowhere.
“All I see are stars. There aren't any planets or anything here really.”
“Is there any other way we can find the ship's location?” Shiro said. “Can we communicate with the ship somehow, send a signal that will help our GPS find it?”
Coran twirled the ends of his mustache in thought. “It’s a possibility. We’ll have to check the main control panel back in the command deck. But it may take a couple quintants since we don’t have any clue to where it is in space.”
Everyone nodded in understanding. It was a little discouraging the amount of time it would take to pinpoint the location of the ship. The Galra were after them, and without the blue lion participating during battles, they couldn’t form Voltron. They couldn’t be the defenders of the universe like Allura had told them they were supposed to be.
Keith took his hand off Blue’s shield, the image of the ship in space fading from his mind. But his thoughts went back to the white haired Altean boy. Lance.
Keith was trying to wrap the facts around his head, and some of them weren’t clicking in place. Information was jumbled, the puzzle pieces fragmented. They looked like they fit but they didn’t. There was definitely something missing, and he was determined to find out.
If Lance had been piloting the blue lion, supposedly fighting against the Galra, or trying to separate from the rest of the crew, how had he gotten into a ship? If he was frozen, who had piloted the lion in his stead, hiding it on Earth? He couldn’t help but wonder what exactly had caused him to get cryogenically frozen. Allura and Coran had been preserved by the late King Alfor. Who had been there to freeze Lance?
--------
The harsh, ear piercing sound of the alarm rang throughout the castle woke Keith up. He was up in an instant, heart beating frantically in his chest. He was gripping his dagger in front of him, ready to strike.
Corans voice sounded from the speakers. “Alerting all paladins, please come to the command deck as soon as you can. We’ve got some information to share.”
The alarms died down, but Keith could still feel the ringing in his ears. God, what terrible way to wake up. He wondered vaguely, if this was how his days were going to be from now on, jolted awake to go help save the day, never having a decent amount of sleep. His heart was still pounding as he changed clothes and walked into the halls that lead to the command deck.
Everyone was there when he arrived. Pidge was rubbing his eyes. Hunk was nervously tapping his fingers on his thigh. Shiro stood near Allura, robot hand covering his mouth as he yawned. Keith briefly wondered if the alarm had unsettled Shiro more than it had the others, but there he didn’t seem like it had affected him any differently than it had the rest of them.
“Glad to see you make it Keith.” Allura smiled at him.
“What was with that god-awful alarm?” he asked as he stepped closer to the group, crossing his arms.
“Ah, sorry about that,” Coran said, scratching his head. “The ship still has some kinks to work out. She hasn’t been in proper operation for quite a while now, so she’s a little buggy. I’ll fix the alarm once we’ve got this blue paladin missing things figured out.”
“So what was so important that you had to wake us up like that?” Pidge asked this time, pushing his glasses up his nose.
Allura spoke first, hand hovering over the computer panel. Semantics appeared on the screen across from them. “Coran has figured out a way get the ship Lance is in to send a signal back to us.”
“Quite so! The ship Lance was in was probably a sister ship of this one if there were cryopods in it. And because, well, it’s Lance. Nobility and all. Anyway, the sister ships have very similar systems. I was able to pull up the connection between the two, but the communication system in his ship has shut down. I wasn’t able to trace that brief connection, but I was able to work around that and found a way to get the ship to create a beacon to show us where it is in space. The only problem is, it’s not a signal that we can isolate. Meaning--”
“Anyone in the vicinity will be able to tune into the frequency of the signal and find the location of the ship as well.” Pidge finished.
“Exactly!” Coran smiled brightly, clapping his hands together. “You paladins are quick to piece things together.”
Pidge beamed at the compliment.
“So we have to act fast,” Shiro deduced. “Once we get the signal, Allura has to get us up and ready to wormhole there in case Galra ships are nearby and get ahold of the location.”
“Wait, wormhole us as in us in our lions or us as in the whole ship?” Hunk asked.
“We’ll figure that part out later,” Shiro said. “I think the princess still has more to tell us.”
Allura smiled at him in thanks.
“You must be prepared to fight. Coran and I were asleep for ten thousand years, and Lance has been floating in outer space for the same amount of time. We believe his location to be safe if he’s still out there unharmed. Once we send the signal, that safety will be compromised.
“Although this pains me, we must postpone our search for him. You all need to train and hone your abilities if we want to have a chance against the Galra. Training won’t be for too long, a short 3 quintants should suffice in keeping your on your toes, prepared to fight. Does everyone agree with this?
The paladins all nodded, “We understand.”
“Then let us begin your training.”