Chapter Text
This was going to be weird.
Lance took a breath and picked up the paladin armour, he could instantly tell the difference right away, it felt lighter yet more sturdy and the black undersuit had shimmery tight fibers- was it lycra or milliskin?
He even tested the armour in the training room both side by side. Before he made his choice he had to make sure which took the least amount of damage.
There was no need to downgrade and possibly get killed over aesthetic.
But it was clear, the Paladin armour was superior.
He slipped on the undersuit and fastened his gauntlets, once he turned in the mirror he almost flinched.
It’s been a while since he’s seen his own reflection. He’d have to get used to seeing himself again.
He left his room and began to walk towards the training deck, Coran said he wanted to show them all something, apparently it was some data in the castle files he was sorting through and he found an archive about Voltron.
Finally they get to learn more about Voltron, maybe what led to its design, it sounded much better than flying in the dark.
As he neared the door Lance faltered, this was the first time he was wearing a different armour, why was he nervous?
Lance scowled stomping forward, they’ve seen him as a galra- they won’t judge him for this.
“The Paladin armour looks terrible on you! Sorry you’re fired from Voltron. Even the blue lion won’t accept you please leave!”
Lance chuckled as if they would say that, feeling much calmer the doors opened and he stepped inside.
Most of the others were already here, besides Keith he was a little delayed.
“Hey Lance- wow lookin good!” Hunk complimented and Lance’s cheeks flushed “Thanks, Hunk. Is Coran going to tell us about Voltron?”
Pidge hummed but their attention was on her laptop, they seemed to be going over the rebellion flags in their Coalition their eyes were flicking by so quickly Lance had no idea what they was looking for.
“You mean telling us Voltrons origin story? Yeah he’s taking his sweet time about it, we have other stuff to do-” Pidge barely noticed Coran standing behind them. His brows steadily getting deeper as they rambled on.
“I mean I bet it’s not even good intel- just another dumb team bonding excersise.”
Coran cleared his throat “Thank you Pidge, But I promise you will all like this new intel is insightful, we will start with Keith when he decides to join us.”
Pidge tensed their mouth pressed into an awkward line.
“I’m here- what is it?” Keith asked, finally walking in, followed closely by Allura. Lance raised an eyebrow wondering why the two joined them together when Allura hated Keith?
Both stared at him, Allura glared “What?”
Oh they could see his face.
“Nothing, just wondering why you guys came in together?” He wiggled his eyebrows for emphasis.
Allura responded with a violent flush to her face “Lance! That was not what- how can you think-”
Keith took too long to respond so Lance knew them coming together at the same time was innocent. Or Keith was just playing dumb.
“What? No- We were just talking.”
Shiro decided to join in “Talking, huh- that’s not what I called it back in my day.” Keith growled stomping further away from them and further towards Coran.
“What is so important to be here?”
Lance chuckled wrapping an arm around Keith's shoulder “Aw don’t be mad Keith, we’re only teasing.” He poked his cheek and Keith only sighed, shutting his eyes.
He was probably counting to ten.
“Yes I’m sure you’re all excited to learn this- here we go!” Coran called bringing attention as he hit a small device and images began to play on what could be described as a small projecter.
“It began with Altea, they were explorers and above all. Gifted Alchemists who journeyed the world to catalogue materials and find new civilisations to not only share our gifts but learn from other species. we even allied with planets such as Nalquod.” It showed an image of the planet and the people.
...The aquatic species, Lances home...before it was destroyed.
“They look like…” Shiro glanced at Lance and he nodded “Yeah,”
“And Daibazel,”
“Daibazel?” Pidge asked glancing up from their laptop.
“The Galra Planet, before it too was destroyed.”
Coran showed a picture of a group of people standing tall, the others recognised Alfor, Zarkon and Blaytz but they didn’t recognise the other two.
“These are the first Paladins, the original who piloted Voltron, Trigel from the Dalterien belt and Grygan who came from Rygnirath.”
Pidge wasn’t going to try to pronounce that.
“But why was Zarkon the black Paladin?” Keith asked his eyes narrowed on the image of Zarkon. Who looked soft and adorable...and a dork.
Coran sighed “He wasn’t always a monster...Zarkon died thousands of years ago. This is something much worse but we have to start at the beginning you see, the Alteans were at war- it feels petty now but we are not always perfect some fights were fought to defend ourselves...we are not as wise as we believe were are and some wars were terribly unneeded it was lose-lose. Battles brought us to the other Paladins and thus began our alliance. This brought the golden age to the galaxy with Alfor as king to Alteans and Zarkon, emperor to the Galra.”
Lance knew this already but he could tell the others were paying rapt attention.
“This all started when a reality comet hit diabazel, it wasn’t big enough to cause too much damage but one could say it appeared out of nowhere before striking the planet. But this comet.” Coran clicked through pictures “Through the data it describes it like ripping a whole through space, the comet was removed to be studied by alfor but the ruins.” Here he showed a picture of a clear comet sized crater but instead of a crater it was a golden pool.
“What is that?” Keith asked, looking a bit too interested.
“It’s called ‘The Rift,’ it was...a sort of rip in space and was open to another dimension! Alfor sent his best scientists to study it, to make sure the rift was safe to the Galra.”
“The Comet was the most unique material Alfor had ever seen; he began to work with it and it...it spoke to him.”
“Coran- that’s not what it says here.” Allura spoke reading through a datapad...maybe she was impatient with Corans presentation and skipped ahead.
“He told me that in secret, it was alive he began preparations straight away molding the comet to life and created Voltron.”
“Wait- it was sentient? Is sentient?” Hunk looked horrified and Coran shrugged “In all these years Voltron has only conveyed it was to be a saviour, Voltron has never turned against the paladins.”
“Until Zarkon.” Shiro admitted looking more worried than he should be.
Coran shook his head “That was outside sources- hold on I haven't explained everything yet!” Chagrined Coran continued with the presentation.
“Honerva, head scientist worked on the Rift personally and was the first to begin academic studies in Quintescence.”
Hunk spoke up “You mentioned that before, Quintessence and that ours were connected to the lions.”
Coran nodded “Exactly!” He pointed his pointer at Hunks face.
“Quintessence isn’t a life force as some believe even completely drained of all quintessence you can still survive it’s never been proven but there is studies that quintessence could be downloaded into technology.”
Allura wondered what made Alfor and Coran think this then gasped.
“No- the castle-” Coran shook his head losing his energy a bit “I’m afraid we didn’t have long to experiment Alfor is a crude and almost ghost like version of what we could’ve had if we had more time, Alfor could’ve pooled his entire quintessence into the castle. He would’ve been more than an A.I.”
“So what stopped him.” Shiro asked, seeing how they were beginning to get off topic but still, knowing that you can still linger even after you’ve died like a ghost? Shiro shivered he would HATE being trapped with seeing the people he loved without them seeing him or hearing him.
“Honerva, she was getting to close to the rift and whatever made Voltron appeared...it brought something with it.”
He showed another slide and this was a video, it was recording some sort of cylinder tube that had pure quintessence in it but then a flicker. A moving black shape that appeared then vanished.
“What the heck was that!?” Hunk cried out.
Coran spoke gravely and for the first time didn’t sound like his light hearted self.
“Alfor named it Crux. The ying to Quintescimal Yang.”
Lance overhead Hunk murmur to Pidge “Did you tell him about Yin and Yang?”
Pidge mumbled back.
“No?”
“He also knew about our earth times like hours and minutes when we first got here…”
Both stared at Coran suspiciously while the man continued to go through the slides sweating a little.
“Truthfully it is impossible to have constant amount of pure quintessence without any consequence, the more you take the less you have. Honerva thought she needed it she thought it was the key to the universe, curing illness saving lives a constant resource to be used. She was getting more sick by the day.
“Alfor pleaded with Zarkon to destroy the Rift, use Voltron to undo what has been done but Zarkon pleaded that they needed the rift the reason I cannot say. But Alfor stopped asking. Until something came out of the rift.”
It showed a splotchy image and now Hunk looked even more terrified even Shiro felt repdition.
“What is that?”
“A monster made entirely of Crux, the Paladins of Voltron defeated it, Alfor knew the rift couldn’t stay open any longer unless more came out, parasites that lived in the quintessence field they had an insatiable hunger and would consume planets, people, it would be the end to the universe as we knew it.”
“Zarkon agreed and took Voltron into the rift- but he lied. He took the black lion deeper into the rift seperating from the others and left the lion. He had Honerva in his arms and both were consumed the only remains were their bodies.”
“The Galra took them and prepared a ceremony mourning the loss of their emporer. But he awoke with a message, damning alteans and any who allied with them and began the ten thousand year war….any questions?”
The others looked shocked at the...info dump that was unceremoniously dumped upon them.
“Wow what? He just- started a universe war for what?”
“I Believe,” Coran said, “That something took over Zarkon and Honerva, changed them, warped them into shadows of themselves; there is no saving them now. But I looked into this data and realised it had tracked ports around the galaxy recording any findings and any strange occurrences and we found this.”
Monsters, distorted monsters of a huge magnitude was ripping out of the rift, Diabazel was in ruins and yet it was a home to these creatures.
“Is that a weblum?”
“Yes, I studied weblums and never realised they came out of this rift. Any scientific find we had, was created from this disaster we profited from it and now Diabazel is destroyed.
“Wait- that’s the Mandrake Hunk and I fought on that mermaid planet!” Lance called out, it was hypnotising people and killing them, lulling them into a state of peace and warmth.
Another monster came out, it was huge but at worse it began to change and before their eyes it vanished.
“Where did that go-” Hunk cried out, it was the most horrifying thing yet!
“It’s like a black hole…You won’t see it until it’s too late.” Pidge spoke sounding very spooked.
Shiro took a calm breath “So we have to deal with these Monsters as well as the Galra.”
“Of course, they didn’t arrive here naturally and their only goal is to consume. I hypothesis they are using Zarkon and Hagger like puppets to take over the Universe.”
“That...that sounds way worse than us dealing with Just Zarkon.”
Lance nodded “We have to tell the blade- this changes everything.”
“And you’re telling us this now!?” Pidge cried out looking near hysterical. Coran scowled “I just downloaded the data and made this presentation with notes! Sorry I wasn’t faster!” He pouted.
“It’s okay Coran, better late than never. Is there anyway to contact the blade- we need to change our strategy.”
“I’m on it.” Allura spoke instantly turning on her heel and power walking towards the front deck.
To know that something was out there that could change you- could turn you into someone like Zarkon against your control?
Lance shivered, he couldn’t imagine it...
As the others converged going over the data and dissecting each frame Keith moved over to Coran.
“Coran?”
“Yes my boy!”
“What would happen if anyone was exposed to it...pure quintessence I mean.”
Coran hummed looking like he was thinking hard on it.
“Well they would probably turn out like Honerva I would assume.”
Keith almost stopped breathing.
“Why do you ask?”
“No reason.”
(Image above of the Manifistation of 'CRUX' Or Anti-Quintescence that sucks them dry and leaves the high.)