Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Keith isn’t exactly the planning type, obviously. He’s mostly been going by whatever feels the most right at that moment when he has to make a decision. But lately, he finds that planning ahead does actually do wonders for him.

Whether it be something simple like doing chores on certain days, or coming up with scenarios in his head for training before he has to start training, Keith has found that having structure is nice. He used to despise structure when he was a kid, which is why he wasn’t exactly freaking out about the war giving them nothing of the sort. But he figured now that without the whole “hating authority of any kind” thing, he would try it out.

And it isn’t like they suddenly get structure just because they’re not having to worry about being chased down every five minutes, because that certainly isn’t true. While they aren’t having to fight the Galra (and Keith often tries to ignore the gnawing feeling that they should be worried about that), they don’t exactly get much time before someone, somewhere, on their way back to Earth needs their help.

So Keith gets structure wherever he can. And this time, he made a plan.

He’s even been working on the plan for an entire few days. He can’t talk about it, because it would give it away to the person in question, but he’s proud of himself for it.

This new mission has led them to a traveler’s hub off the side of the Qrilbarantic sector on their way back to Earth. The Blades have reported a surprising number of traveler hubs popping up all over the place, getting in the way of transports, battles, all that stuff.

The sudden increase is caused by an influx of people newly freed from the Galra wanting to explore the universe. The traveler hubs range from tourist attractions to bars to hotels, to ship docking platforms- anything that catches the eyes of people finding their way home or looking for a new one.

The most that a traveler hub used to be was a rest stop, (kind of like those truck stops on Earth) or markets, like Melity took Pidge to that one time. Sometimes, it’s a bar or just a place to eat.

But now?

Allura and Shiro are concerned that they’re going to have to set up a system of regulating traveler hubs now, because people are suddenly forgetting that they are still in a war even though their planet has been freed.

(The worry is also that Allura and Shiro now have to basically set up rules for the entire known universe , which is gonna get dicey.)

Keith is a little iffy on how he feels. When he sees the impact this has on the war, he gets annoyed, because it’s tedious work that they have to waste time on. But on the other hand, he finds it hard to be upset that people who have been freed are wanting to have fun.

That, and Keith has his plan for this place. While he may not understand the hype about fish, Lance really likes them.

They’ve seen different types of traveler hubs around the universe, but this is the first time they’ve really investigated one, and also the first time they’ve seen one like this.

“According to the logs the Blades sent us, this hub used to be an outpost for research.” Pidge squints at her tablet screen. “The head researcher was a guy named Flaggalan, but that was about 400 decapheobs ago.”

“I can’t take you seriously when you’re wearing that hat.” Hunk informs her.

It’s a pink and green baseball cap with a spinny fan on the top, the blades shaped like fish. When Pidge looks up with a killer scowl, the fan on top of her head spins.

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“Does the little pigeon child want a lollipop?” Lance shakes a lollipop shaped like a jellyfish in her face.

“Why are we picking up more merchandise when I’m already paying?” Shiro scolds as he sets a fistful of gac change on the counter, and the cashier (a fish guy wearing a bright green and yellow striped polo shirt and no pants) sighs.

They had a large amount of their new merchandise already on them, but there were some items on the counter, like a bucket hat and snacks. They don’t actually have a lot of gac allowance, because Coran doesn’t trust them with it, so the stuff they were getting here was basically all of their money right now.

“Pidge needs a silly little lollipop to go with her silly little outfit.” Lance says as Pidge grabs the lollipop, yanks it out of his hand, and throws it over the clothes racks with as much force as she can muster. It hits the wall on the other side of the gift shop with a crack.

“Hey! I wanted that too.” Lance pouts.

“My propeller hat isn’t silly. This is my disguise, Lance.” Pidge points at the hat with a serious glare, and Lance holds his hands up in surrender. Shiro winces at how loud she was saying this in front of the cashier, but the guy doesn’t seem to give a rat’s ass about what they’re talking about. “If anything, you look stupider than I do.”

“And that is the point!” Lance gasps dramatically and clutches at his shirt. It has a blue, otter-like creature on the front and is bright yellow, with the caption ‘THE!” He also has a straw hat, blue cargo shorts, and socks and sandals. The socks have smiley faces on them.

Lance had picked them out with a smile and said, “This is perfectly sickening!” Keith doesn’t know why, because they look fine to him.

“My character design is impeccable. I look exactly like the type of guy you avoid looking at, at all costs. I understood the assignment.” Lance replies haughtily. “Right, Hunk?”

Hunk is too busy watching the cashier drag the gac slowly around the counter, counting under his breath. He was nodding every time the guy got one right, invested like it’s a TV show.

The plan here was just to go down and check out the hub, write about what they find and send it back to Allura, who is currently back on the Castleship. Except when they got here a couple days ago, they realized this wasn’t any old run-of-the-mill pit stop on your way to the next planet over- it was an aquarium.

It was filled to the brim with civilians that were definitely going to recognize them, because most of them were from a planet that they had freed very recently. So, they changed their plan and put on a bunch of disguises to look like tourists. It’s a drag, honestly, but Keith can deal with it. Even if he is perturbed Shiro made him wear a button up floral shirt and red shorts.

Keith hates shorts. Why does the universe need to know he has legs?

Anyways, that’s essentially what they’re here for. But Keith is just excited for his own plan, the one he’s been working on since they decided their move.

When they had gotten here, Lance had been delighted to find out what the place was. Lance’s older brother, Luis, is a marine biologist and had taught Lance a lot about the ocean back on Earth. It was sorta how they bonded, since Lance wanted to know more about Earth and Luis was always happy to teach. So there is the obvious conclusion Keith came to when he saw the way Lance lit up.

He’s been waiting for the moment that Shiro splits them up- because, obviously , they’re going to split up. It’s just like any other reconnaissance mission, but with kids running around everywhere tripping over themselves and weird alien fish.

A recon mission has a formula they follow, because it is the most effective. They split into groups that evens them out skill wise, with Pidge being the priority person (AKA, “keep Pidge safe” because she is looking at screens). Allura not being here means their group is a 3-2 split, or a 2-2-1 split, but that would be fine.

He’s been dropping hints to Shiro for a couple days now, ever since they made the plan to go, that Keith wants to be paired with Lance.

It’s an aquarium , one of Lance’s favorite places to be. For the first time since they’ve started dating, they can go on an actual date.

Because there’s a difference between sparring (or going over flight schematics, or going on a mission), and going on a date. Not much opportunity to hang out when you’re punching people in the face or running for your life from creatures that should have stayed in the imagination. And sure, they spend a lot of time together, but most of the time they’re too tired or too busy to date.

Keith used to think dates were stupid and cringe. But now that he’s with Lance who likes that, he can’t help but think the same as him. Shiro and Adam’s dating advice that Keith used to beg them to shut up about now applies.

Keith feels like he can turn to Lance at any time and find his hand to hold, a shoulder to cry on. He’s the most open with Lance than anyone else at the moment. And he wants to do the same for Lance. He wants Lance to feel the way he makes Keith feel. So if the way to do that is by coming up with cheesy date ideas, then he’ll do that.

The two of them are probably the most content than they’ve been in a long time. Keith finally talked to Krolia, and Lance finally got to talk with Adalin and they both moved forward from that. They aren’t done by any means, considering Keith still hasn’t seen Axca since before he found out Axca is his sister , and Lance still needs to see his family on Earth. But this place they’re in now feels good.

And “good” will always be better than “perpetually stuck.”

The only thing that is really bothering Lance right now is Adalin’s memories. He and Lance call each other every other day, and while Keith does hang out for a few minutes to talk to Adalin sometimes, he isn’t around for the part where they talk through their memories.

According to Lance, Adalin is having issues with remembering certain things. Even though Adalin can recall feelings he had about certain times in his life, there are memories that just… escape him. The feelings stick around, but the words don’t.

This is a good time to get Lance’s mind off of that for a little bit. It’s a good idea, and he’s actually excited for it.

He’s sure Shiro got the hint that he wants to be paired with Lance. He would have just asked, but Shiro says he doesn’t play favorites. If he had asked, Keith and Lance would have 100% have been split up just because Shiro would find it funny.

Keith crosses his arms and nods to himself, stuck in thought and taking a calming breath. He’s actually kind of nervous, but he’s determined to make this work. He never gets proper alone time with Lance anymore, it’s like the team has gotten clingier now that they’ve gotten together.

Alooooone time. Red snickers in his mind, and Keith can hear her wiggling her eyebrows to tease him.

Not like that! Keith furiously shakes his head to shut her up, which has never worked once, ever.

“Are you having a seizure?” Shiro nudges Keith with his elbow.

“No! Red is being loud. As always. Because she’s annoying.” Keith replies as Lance and Pidge start wrestling each other. Red huffs indignantly in his mind, and Keith knows he’s going to regret the comment later.

“Okay, okay, break it up, you two.” Shiro starts trying to pull Pidge off of Lance’s head without much success. Keith holds onto the clothes rack behind them that they keep knocking into to prevent it from falling. “Focus, guys, come on.”

Pidge bites at Lance’s shoulder like the animal she is, and Shiro scolds, “Do I have to tell Coran to cook dinner tonight?”

“Noooooo!” Hunk shouts, startling the cashier who drops a few gac on the floor. Hunk grabs at Shiro’s shoulders roughly. “Why are you punishing me!? What did I do!? You know that group punishments never solve anything and only push the blame onto everyone else, causing lasting resentme-”

“Hunk, geez, I wasn’t going to actually-”

“Ow!” She bit my finger!” Lance kicks the back of Pidge’s knee, making her fall onto the ground. She scrambles back onto her feet as Lance flicks the fan on her hat to make it spin.

“Shiro! Lance is bullying me!” Pidge protests, and Lance’s jaw drops in shock.

“You bit me! Twice!”

“You’re just a piranha, after my dinner!” Hunk turns to her now.

“What are you talking about?”

Keith gently grabs Lance’s left wrist and pulls him backwards, a little close to Keith’s chest, as Pidge and Hunk start to argue. He stands behind Lance, resting his chin on Lance’s left shoulder, and uses his left hand to stretch Lance’s fingers out to examine it.

“You’re literally fine.” Keith tells him. Lance’s eyebrows furrow but his eyes are far off as he leans away to stare at Keith blankly. His thinking face, upon apparently figuring something out, turns into Lance’s face growing somewhat red.

“No I’m not! My feelings are hurt! Aren’t you supposed to be supportive?”

“Supportive?” Keith grins at him.

“Yeah, supportive, Keith. Next time someone bites me you have to be like, ‘No, not my precious love, how could someone do this to you?’ And I can brag about how cool my-”

“Want me to kiss it better?” Keith interrupts calmly, trying to sound cool and not cheesy. He finds that he likes making Lance do a double take.

It must have worked, because Lance immediately pauses to stare at him again, then looks the other way, his ears turning red.

“This is supposed to be my thing,” Lance pouts, and Keith can’t stop grinning.

“Pidge, can you just-” Shiro’s voice cuts through, and Keith and Lance turn back to see Pidge pointing two fingers at her eyes and then at Hunk, gesturing I’m watching you . “Is everyone ready? Hey, sir, are you-”

“Please just go.” The cashier was shoveling the gac in the register without counting.

“Yeah, we can do that.” Shiro sighs, taking the tags off of the clothes everyone was wearing already. He puts on the green bucket hat that was on the counter. He was wearing a fanny pack too, and had these chunky looking yellow glasses hanging from a chain on his neck. He would take a picture to show Adam later, but he wants Shiro on his good side until he makes his decision.

“You look not old at all.” Keith tells him. Shiro’s face squishes up in suspicion or exasperation, Keith can’t tell which.

“And what even are you on about lately?”

“I was complimenting you!”

“Stop doing that!”

He practically drags them out of the store. Shiro looked like he needed some peace and quiet, which leads Keith to believe he wants to split up now. What better way to get peace and quiet than to make them leave him alone for a couple varga and have a good excuse to do it?

“Pidge, what else does the log say?” Shiro asks as they stand outside the gift shop.

Keith squints at the amount of people inside the aquarium. There were so many, it looked like it was going to be hard to get through the crowd properly. He isn’t looking forward to this part. Crowds and people make him itchy.

“Not much else,” Pidge looks down at her tablet again, calmer now. “The outpost wasn’t really watched because it appeared abandoned on routine check ups, but it recently got a new ownership. Someone named… Huh.”

“Someone named ‘Huh’ or are you saying ‘Huh’ like-”

“Shut up, Lance.” Pidge kicks his shin. “The name is Glagalfan.”

“…And?” Hunk prompts.

“Doesn’t sound any weirder than some of the names people come up with, Pidge Gunderson.”

“Shut up, Lance!” Pidge glares at him, and Lance sticks his tongue out at her. “It looks suspiciously a lot like an anagram for Flaggalan. You know, the first owner of this place, that I mentioned? 400 decaphoebs ago?”

“They could be from the same planet? If the Galra were here 400 decapheobs ago, and the research stopped, maybe it was because Flaggalan went back. And now this Glagalfan came over after we freed their planet.” Shiro reasons, and Hunk nods. Keith, however, isn’t as convinced.

“It’s still a little weird that the letters match up.” Keith points out.

“Thank you, Gay Knife Boy.” Pidge goes back to reading, and Keith sighs. “There isn’t much else to go on, but I also find it weird that there are so many deliveries.”

“Deliveries?” Lance leans over to look.

“Yeah. The map says there are 24 exhibits, but compared to the creatures logged as being delivered versus the amount of deliveries…”

“Yeaaaaah, I see what you mean. That’s weird…” Lance points at something on the screen. “Delivered 14 of these tencretacions, but the info on the animal says that they are territorial with other tencretacions. Are they putting them in other exhibits?”

“No,” Pidge shakes her head. “The only exhibit with info on the tencretacions is one exhibit. So either they have poor management here, which is very likely- like SeaWorld- or something else is going on.”

“We’ll definitely have to check that out, then.” Lance huffs, becoming annoyed. “Both options make me want to tear this place down and relocate the creatures. What do you think, Shiro?”

Yes! Split up time. Keith has put days of being nice to Shiro just for this to work out.

“Hmm…”

Shiro was staring at a board and table nearby the entrance of the aquarium. The board as written out in alien script, but it was clear to the Paladins what it was saying: SCAVENGER HUNT!

“…Shiro?” Keith asks, but his stupid idiot moron jerk brother was already walking over to the table. He can see the gears turning in Shiro’s big fat dumb stupid head. “What are you doing?”

“You guys don’t seem very cohesive as a team today,” Shiro says, and Keith instantly feels the urge to punch him. He fights back the demons in him that resort to violence.

“I don’t want to split up.” Shiro decides.

“I hate you.”

“What?”

Keith pauses. “I said that out loud. Sorry.”

It didn’t sound very apologetic, nor did it feel very apologetic. For good reason.

“…Alright, everyone take one of these.” Shiro ignores Keith in favor of passing out cards from the table, and each of them is handed a tiny handheld camera to take pictures with. Keith is seething on the inside.

What did Keith do to Shiro to make him hate him? He was extra nice, for three whole days! He even complimented the bastard. Keith is going to put food goo in his pillow case. That’s the only revenge that would satisfy him right now.

Too bad, so sad. Red huffs. There’s a crackle next to his ear.

“Whoa, hey,” Lance runs a hand through Keith’s hair. His hand is cold and Keith sees a bit of smoke in his face as Lance brushes away a couple flame sparks. He grins at Keith. “What’s got you all fired up?”

“I’m plotting Shiro’s murder.”

“Fine.”

Keith raises an eyebrow. “Fine?”

“What? I’m being su-ppor-tive. If you have to, I have to.” Lance reasons.

“Shiro, this is stupid.” Pidge complains loudly, and Keith nods in agreement. She looks through the card list with growing disappointment. “We have to do a recon mission and a scavenger hunt?”

“Yeah, what Pidge said.” Keith agrees firmly.

“Aren’t we supposed to split up on recon missions?” Hunk asks, also looking at his card. “Also, I have no clue what a ‘pre-pre… preturba- preturbamentalitit- no, preturbamentaliticus’ is.”

“Yeah, what Hunk said.” Keith nods.

“Keith, you’re just repeating the same thing.” Shiro looks at him in bewilderment.

“They make valid points.” Keith crosses his arms and shrugs. Shiro brought this upon himself. This is what he gets for ruining this- it would have been a perfect day otherwise!

“You guys have been arguing since breakfast.” Shiro claims. “Besides, this isn’t like one of our normal recons. Look around.”

Shiro points at a group of kids smushing their faces on the glass of one of the closer exhibits.

“No one is going to be shooting at us here. There’s no danger besides being recognized. Adding the scavenger hunt to this will make us have to work together as a team, and there isn’t a risk. And look at the prizes!”

He points at a poster with a bunch of pictures on it, and Keith is unimpressed. He doesn’t keep a lot of things in his room, finding it to be a waste of time. Pidge, Lance, and Hunk always waste a little time cleaning their rooms on their chore days- Pidge, most of all, because her room is like a hoarder’s dream.

And the prizes were just erasers for ten items found, kid toys that look like choking hazards for twenty items found, and a giant stuffed whale shark/otter/manta ray thing for thirty items. For forty items found, you could get all the prizes. This seemed like a bad business practice.

“This is stu-”

“I need that abomination creature plush,” Lance says, taking one of the lists from Shiro, excited.

“…Fine, let’s get this over with.” Keith sighs.

“You could at least try not to make your motivation so transparent.” Pidge rolls her eyes.

-

Getting used to life on the Castleship was… difficult, to say the least.

Bracken wasn’t used to the type of camaraderie that Voltron has. He had spent most of his life with Tri-Ant and Dvele at the helm, feeling like he was walking on a tightrope. One wrong step, and he’d be tossed aside, over the edge, and free fall into the darkness below.

The one lesson they had always tried to teach Bracken was to not be ‘weak’. To be useful, to have a purpose, but also to be quiet. He had to be smart, but not too smart or they would be upset with him. He had to be observant, but have the common sense to keep his mouth shut and know when to look away.

His only comfort, as strange as it may sound, was Melity.

She was not his blood relative, and neither was Tri-Ant. They had found him abandoned on a planet that was a fight to survive, surrounded by people who had also had their homes destroyed by the Galra. Someone had told Tri-Ant that if he wanted a decent hacker, then to find Bracken.

To Tri-Ant, he was just a tool to be used in order to get more money, more power. He would be called a “son” because Tri-Ant knew all Bracken wanted was family. But Bracken was always clever enough to understand that the man had held no love towards him, nor towards Melity, his blood daughter. And Bracken regretted the day that he ever chose to become good with technology.

But Melity was different.

Because Bracken was observant, he could always see the small sparks of defiance in her actions. While Bracken may have been the type to find a victim’s grave to place flowers and apologize, Melity was the type of person to find the solution that kept Bracken and her alive while also benefiting her father in the least way possible.

She would say that she held no care for anyone, but Melity was in fact a highly empathetic person. She knew that showing comfort, or kindness, was considered “weak” to her father, but she was a gentle person by nature.

Throughout the many faces he has seen Melity have to wear during undercover missions, she was her most natural when she met the Paladins. The face she presented was the one that Bracken would be able to see no matter where she went. And it had struck him as odd, of course.

He had been watching, relaying information for Melity, most times that she had met with them. He noticed when Lance trusted her so easily, that it was the first time Melity had ever hesitated. Melity was a concise person, making decisions easily, and yet, she hesitated. She joked far more often, and took risky moves, and it was as if she wanted them to catch her.

He couldn’t understand it at first. Why would she so blatantly drop hints like that? She would never risk any other mission, what was so different? But now, he thinks he has come to some kind of conclusion.

Melity was already at the end of her rope when she met the Paladins. He doesn’t know where or when she had become sick of her father and Dvele, but it had happened. When Bracken had gotten hurt when helping Pidge, her hands had been trembling.

It was a sign of “weakness” and yet Melity did not once try to snap out of it as she normally would have. She had been scared for him.

Melity is his sister. He can see right through her, and she can not lie to him. He knows that despite what she has done or what she wants to believe, she is a kind person. And it was because of that, that he also believes she is brave.

The dynamic that Bracken was used to had started to slip the moment they became involved with the Paladins. It was why he had made the first decision to leave, to join the Paladins on their fight rather than go through with betraying them.

He had honestly thought Melity would come with him. And for the first time, he was wrong.

Bracken had prepared himself to let her go, to pretend that he didn’t miss her, or that he was worried and wondering where she was. But not once had the Paladins asked him, or ever implied for him, to do that. Hunk especially tries to understand Melity through Bracken, asking about them and their life. And Bracken tries his best to tell him, clinging to the small memories he had where he had seen Melity smile and it wasn’t for a role.

It’s a different life here, even though it is more dangerous. They themselves are angry at Melity, but they feel for Bracken. They don’t expect him to let her go, and while they are cautious about trusting new people, they continue to do so.

That is what makes them so interesting to Bracken, and he finds that he can never look away. His eyes are glued to them, wondering what they will do next, what they’ll accomplish. No matter how many times the war has knocked them down, they get right back up again and push harder.

Bracken knows he made the right decision to go with them. Coran likes to teach him anything and everything that he can, Hunk and Pidge always include him in their projects and listen to his opinions. Lance always asks him to pull pranks with him, gets denied, and then brings him along anyways. Keith is… he has a scary face, but he tries his best to make conversation with Bracken. It’s mostly Shiro and Princess Allura that Bracken does not often interact with, but he knows they are good and considerate people.

Bracken is observant. While he may not interact with Princess Allura directly very often, he is around because Coran is teaching him, and Bracken helps with the Castle. And because he is nearby, he has begun to notice that the Princess is…

Different, lately.

And he is not the only one here to have noticed. But he may be the only one with an outside perspective of it.

When he had first met her, she was a rather serious face when she was in a professional setting, but when around the Paladins they brought out a side that no one else would ever see.

However, ever since her last fight with Haggar, she has been different. While her initial rage may have left, there is something else stewing. He knows, because he had watched Melity. He had seen the same something in her eyes that he sees with the Princess.

The only times that Princess Allura seems to feel normal again is at times like these, where she is with Coran, Romelle, and Emperor Lotor. Especially when Emperor Lotor comes to visit.

And now is one of those times. While the Paladins are off on a mission, the Castleship is orbiting, docked at a Blade outpost nearby. Emperor Lotor had come to visit- as he often does, because from Bracken’s perspective, he is very smitten with Princess Allura.

“Is everyone set up?” Coran is fiddling with the screen in front of them.

They are occupying one of the training rooms at the moment. Bracken had come in briefly to let Coran see the schematics on one of the boosters, just to find that they weren’t training, but are on the floor in front of a holo-screen, each of them holding tablets. It was reminiscent of a school setting that Bracken remembers. Before it had gotten blown apart by a Galran ship.

Romelle raises her hand. “Why are-”

“I didn’t call on you,” Coran says without looking up from the tablet Bracken handed him. Romelle’s face scrunches with displeasure, and she continues to raise her hand. Bracken mouths a nervous ‘ sorry’ to her. Coran hands back the tablet and smiles cheekily at Romelle. “Yes?”

“…Why are we on the floor for this?” Romelle asks with displeasure.

“Because it’s fun!”

“How?”

“Because it is. Now,” Coran clears his throat and shuts Romelle down. “Is everyone ready?”

“Wh-What are you all doing?” Bracken leans to see the screen behind Coran.

“We are comparing notes, you might say,” Emperor Lotor replies, and Bracken gulps down his nerves.

He glances to Princess Allura in time to see her grip on her tablet tighten for a moment. Not in anger at Lotor, because she is sitting close to him and seems okay with that, but at something else.

“We want to see just what history Haggar may have changed for Romelle and the colonists, or what got lost to time when Lotor was researching Altea.” Princess Allura tells him, looking at her tablet. Ah, that explains the anger, then. She was thinking about Haggar again. “Though, I was thinking we were going to just talk about it-”

“It’s more fun as a game!” Coran sounds almost like he’s begging them to go along with it. “Bracken my boy, you might want to stay and see this! You can play too!”

“Play? Me? I-” Bracken is handed a tablet and Coran leads him towards the others. “I don’t know anything about Altean history, Coran, I mean, I don’t even know most history. Like, none of it, really-”

Coran roughly seats him on the floor next to Romelle, who grins at him. “It’ll be fun to learn about it though, right?” She asks.

“R-Right…” Bracken smiles back nervously, but he doesn’t quite know about this. To be the only one here who knows nothing about Altean history? Is Coran trying to use him as some kind of control group?

“Okay, everyone!” Coran points at the screen with two hands, amped up already. “The game goes like this: I’ll ask a question, and everyone will type their replies. They’ll show up on the screen, and I’ll choose who is closest to the right answer. Then, we can discuss!”

“Seems simple enough.” Lotor says confidently.

“Very presumptuous of you,” Allura replies. Lotor cracks a smile, still just as unworried.

“I’ve done quite a lot of research.”

“We’ll see about that now, won’t we?”

“Question,” Romelle raises her hand again.

“Answer.” Coran raises a brow.

“Are we putting down what we think the answer is, or…?”

Coran shakes his head, perplexed. “We’re doing this to compare what we know. If you don’t know it, just say you don’t know the answer.”

“But I won’t get any points.” Romelle frowns.

“You’ll do better than me!” Bracken reminds her. She glances at him and then nods as though satisfied.

“Alright, then I won’t be losing. Third place doesn’t seem so bad.”

“Gee, thanks, Romelle.” Bracken grumbles.

“First question!” Coran claps his hand. “We’ll start off with an easy one, that everyone might know. What decapheob is considered as the start to the Galran War?”

Easy? Bracken doesn’t think it’s easy at all. He doesn’t know! It’s not like it’s taught in class, just that everyone knows it’s been ten thousand, give or take. Alright, um…

“Hurry, hurry, you have only a few seconds to answer!” Coran is grinning like a madman.

A few seconds!? Everyone else is already typing their answers, and Bracken is doing math! What’s the decapheob minus ten thousand?

“Alright! Everyone has submitted… Looks like everyone got it right! It was the decapheob 6984. Good job, youngsters!” Coran cheers.

Bracken sighs with relief. He hadn’t expected to get that right. The next questions probably won’t be as kind to him, though.

“Second question: Which Altean Alchemist discovered quintessence?”

See? Ugh…

Bracken writes his answer fairly quickly: I don’t know. But-

“What!?” Princess Allura stares at the screen at both Lotor and Romelle’s answers.

“What?” Lotor seems genuinely surprised by her reaction. Allura turns to Romelle.

“Haggar said she discovered it?” She asks, and Romelle nods.

“Yeah, she said she was the one who figured it out, and how it works.” She replies, and Allura’s face darkens. “I had a feeling it’s a lie.”

“Of course it was.” Lotor nods his head, sure of himself. “It was Unvein, was it not?”

“AAAAA!” Coran mocks a buzzer. “Nope! Allura is right: the alchemist was Baruvix Myanthor. Though some say it might have been Unvein, the credit goes to Baruvix because it was them who actually recorded how it works and what it does. Unvein merely recorded the wavelengths.”

“Well, how does it work?” Romelle asks, growing more confused. “From what Princess Allura has taught me, it’s an inner… feeling? Rather than an outward one?”

“What did Haggar teach you?” Allura asks, a serious look in her eyes, desperate to know.

“We were taught that all things have quintessence, not just living beings. Planets, stars, all that. And that everyone has different degrees of it. Some things have strong quintessence, like planets and stars, and some have weak quintessence, like plants and rock. People can manipulate that quintessence, but it is an inherent ability that can not be forced.”

“Only one part of that was wrong.” Allura states, taking a cooling breath. “People have quintessence too, as you know…”

Bracken looks down at his tablet at the reminder of the colony.

“Yes…” Romelle looks sad recalling it as well.

“Quintessence is all about bending your energy, not others.” Allura says, opening her palm. “Manipulating outside quintessence is very dangerous, and it is unnatural. What Haggar does is pull the quintessence of the world around her and uses her body as a vessel for it. It mixes with her quintessence, causing a dangerous and unstable energy, like electricity.”

Allura’s not scarred Altean mark glows on her face as she opens her hand. She faces the palm upwards as it glows pink, sparks of electricity dancing on her fingers.

“But your quintessence also looks like electricity.” Romelle says, and Allura nods.

“Yes, but it is stable because I am not mixing it with other components. That is why I am able to heal other people. I am not taking their quintessence and mixing it with mine, but merely putting it back together by helping their bodies fill in the gaps of missing quintessence.”

“Like with Prince Adalin’s mental state.” Lotor stares at her hand, eyes intense with thought. “He was touching pure quintessence in a concentrated spot. It mixed with his, latching onto his mental state. You stimulated his quintessence so that it pushed out the foreign energy.”

“Yes, exactly.”

“So what about the Paladins?” Bracken asks without thinking.

“How do you mean?” Allura looks at him- Bracken hesitates, because he is still getting used to the idea that she doesn’t want to kill him for the whole betrayal thing.

“W-Well, they manipulate outside quintessence. They each have their own element. If it isn’t theirs, then why doesn’t it hurt them?”

“Well…” Allura pauses, unsure.

“We don’t quite understand the Lions.” Coran replies thoughtfully. “We are still learning more about them every day. The fact that the Paladins can manipulate outside quintessence without it being so unstable, was a shocker to say the least. But my running theory is that perhaps the quintessence… is theirs.”

“Oh… I see what you mean, Coran.” Allura nods. Uh, Bracken doesn’t get it, though.

“Huh?” Romelle states oh-so-eloquently.

“Think about it for a moment. The Lion were always connected to certain elements, which is how they got their colors.” Coran muses. “When the Paladins bonded with their Lions, their quintessences meshed, in lack of a better word. There is no ‘just Lion’ or ‘just Paladin’. They can hear each other in their minds, they can feel each others feelings, and that stretches into the bond of the other Paladins and Lions.”

“They all share quintessence. That must be why a bond can’t be forced.” Lotor says.

“Precisely!” Coran crosses his arms proudly. “They share quintessence with their elements, which is why they aren’t harmed by the outside energy. Haggar, on the other hand, is forcing that energy. It might just blow up in her face one day.”

Allura pushes back her hair, and for a brief moment it appears as though she touches the scars she received from Haggar’s attack.

Bracken notices everything. Including the way Allura’s eyebrows furrow with frustration as she is lost in her thoughts and the anxious glance to her hands. He also notices the keen eye of Lotor, watching her with a worried expression.

A small buzzing noise from his pocket interrupts his thoughts. A small red notification pops up as he looks at his comm, and Bracken pulls up the screen to see better. It looks like…

“Ah, uh-” Bracken shoots up to his feet. “Iiiii, uh, have to check- I have to check on one of Pidge’s programs. Please excuse me!”

“A-Alright, see you later my boy!” Coran shouts after him as he hurries out of there.

All thoughts of Princess Allura and Emperor Lotor leave his mind as Bracken makes a beeline for the Paladin hallway, his comm still beeping.

“Oh no no no no no…” He curses Pidge’s name, and the stupid promise he made.

He tip taps in a hurry and pushes through the sliding doors to Pidge’s room, looking around in panic. Her room is, of course, an absolute mess. She has towers made of things she has collected from all over the universe, but what Bracken looks at is the box of robots that Pidge is not allowed to be making.

See, Pidge’s bots have a tendency to blow up, or do their own thing. Kind of like their creator, who has a tendency to create bots with programs that simulate her own personality type: troublemaker. And Bracken promised (under duress, mind you) that he wouldn’t tell anyone. And that he’d help should one of them get out…

So when he sees a sensor going off that indicates one of the bots got out of its box, Bracken wishes he was stronger and didn’t make that ridiculous promise.

“Man, oh man, oh man, oh man…” Bracken starts looking around the room. He checks cabinets first, pressing buttons that a small robot could reach, looking into other boxes, checking around towers of Pidge’s “collection”, but no robot.

“Beeeep,” A familiar sound chimes.

Bracken slowly turns around to look at Pidge’s bed. He swore he just heard a comm start a call…

He slowly inches towards the bed, looking at one particular lump under the covers. Beeeep he hears again. Quiet as a mouse, Bracken makes his way over. After a third beeeep, there is a click, and he hears a voice coming from the blanket lump.

“Uh, hello?” A woman answers the comm. “Hey, you don’t look like Pidge.”

“Ezor, who are you talking to?”

“Apparently a robot.”

“What? Shut up.”

“A robot called me from Pidge’s comm. Look!”

A robot! And of all people, it called one of Lotor’s generals… if he finds out, he’ll mention it to Allura, and Pidge will be found out. Bracken curses, his hand hovering over the lump in the covers…

“Oh, that is a robot.” Zethrid, Bracken thinks, says. “Why would a robot call you?”

“How should I know? It isn’t telling me.”

Bracken takes a deep breath…

And he grabs the robot with the covers, making sure it can’t slip out. He scoops it up, yelling in panic as the robot beeps and clicks at him, angrily thrashing around inside the blanket.

“Gotcha!” Bracken shouts. “Just hold still! Deactivate!”

The robot curses at him, blindly kicking.

“Huh? What the… What is going on? Who else is there?”

“Uhhh, hi- Ezor, right?” Bracken winces as the robot grows more angry. “This is B-Bracken…”

“Oh yeah, you’re that little guy, the second spy.”

“No no no, not a spy- uh, anymore, I guess. I’m just- This robot is Pidge’s- stop moving!” Bracken yells at the robot as it kicks him in the ribs through the blanket. “Oof… Owie… Uh, um… It’s Pidge’s invention- I’m just catching it for her.”

“Hahahaaaa,” Ezor cackles. “Well isn’t that awesome!? I didn’t know Pidge could do this!”

“She asked me not to mention it to anyone, so it’d be nice if you could keep it a sec-OW!”

This time, Bracken lets go of the robot as it clamps down on one of his fingers through the blanket. It drops to the floor, and out scurries the robot. It was barely at Bracken’s calf in height, and looked like a spherical human with gangly limbs. It beeps as though it’s snickering at him as it rushes to the door, comm in hand.

“Agh! Noooo!”

“Help me, I’m trapped in the comm!” Ezor’s voice starts to get quieter, but Bracken rushes after the bot.

“You’re not funny!” Bracken complains, already huffing out of breath.

“Hehe, I think I am~” Ezor giggles.

The bot turns sharply down a hallway, and as Bracken tries to follow, he slips as he turns, hitting the ground. He lets out a choked noise of pain, but gets up quickly in order to not lose sight.

“Beeeep!” His comm rings in his pocket, and Bracken groans. He takes it out and answers the call, not looking at the screen. “Hello!?”

“It’s me,” Zethrid’s voice comes through.

“Huh what?” Bracken turns again.

“If you lose that bot, Ezor will see what it’s doing on the other comm, and I’ll tell you where it’s at.” Zethrid explains.

“Wh…Why do that fo- For me? Oh my universe, why do people choose to run?” Bracken wheezes, trying to ignore the stitch in his side. He is never promising Pidge anything else!

“Doing it for Pidge. You said it’s a secret.” Zethrid says bluntly.

“That’s right! We go way back with Pidgey, she’s like our little sister~” Bracken hears Ezor on both of the lines.

“R-Right… well, thanks.”

“Don’t thank me, just try to keep up with that bot!”

“Right! Yes ma’am!”

-

Keith’s idea of fun is not a scavenger hunt, he’s learning.

He has had enough of trying to figure out what things are and where it is. After figuring out the Blue Lion and aliens, looking for a fat fish named Boogley isn’t nearly as entertaining. And it’s very telling that it took a mental breakdown in order for Keith to even try to find Blue.

After thirty minutes of… this, Keith had to look away from the exhibits because they were hurting his eyes. The noise of all the people around had started to grate on his nerves as well. He’s thankful that they are at least now at the end of a hallway, where it appears no one else wants to be by the grace of whatever god the universe might have. They are alone at a dead end, a staff’s door behind them.

Seriously, nothing can save his mood right now. And because he can’t say anything about it without sounding like a dork, he’s more annoyed.

“That’s ten pictures so far…” Pidge sighs with boredom as she looks through the gallery on the toy camera.

“We just need twenty more and then we can get that beautifully ugly prize.” Lance states proudly.

“I just want those erasers.” Pidge leans to peek through the exhibit.

“Because you like chewing on erasers.” Hunk comments.

“Hunk, don’t make fun of her. She’s just teething. It’s a natural proce-oof!” Lance keels over when Pidge elbows his stomach.

“What did you say about this helping us not argue?” Keith asks bitterly under his breath to Shiro, who was rubbing one of his temples as he feels a migraine coming on.

“What crawled up your ass and died today?” Shiro hisses back.

“You’re a moron, that’s what.” Keith replies.

“What did I do?”

“Be yourself.”

“Hey look,” Pidge points at the exhibit sign listed next to them. There were various listed fish for this exhibit, just like every other exhibit they’ve visited so far.

“What is it?” Hunk asks while watching one of the fish swim closer.

“They’ve listed the fish in this exhibit under the wrong names.” Pidge points out. She points at two listed fish. “They swapped these, and this third one right here?” She taps a picture of one of the fish at the bottom. “That name is completely made up. They also have no record of delivering that fish.”

“That’s weird…” Hunk squints, patting Lance’s shoulder. He turns towards Lance when he doesn’t receive a response. “Uhh… that’s weirder.”

Lance was trying to take a picture of one of the fish, but a group of them have gathered around the glass. They were floating in front of Lance, following him with their eyes and trying to get as close as possible. Lance lowers the camera, just as confused. One of the fish keeps hitting the glass with its face.

“Are they being aggressive, or…?” Pidge shakes her head.

“No, I don’t think so.” Lance puts a hand on the glass, and a few of the fish move to float in front of his palm. A wide grin spreads across his face, and a childish laugh escapes him. “I think they like me! Who wouldn’t, though? I’m amazing.”

“Whoa, maybe it’s because you’re the water Paladin?” Pidge theorizes, fascinated. “I can kinda talk to plants. It might be the same for you, but with water creatures.”

“Does that mean I talk to rocks?” Hunk muses, touching his chin and looking at the ceiling. “Or like, am I echo-locating like a bat? Wait, Shiro, what does the wind sound like?”

Shiro hums in thought. “Like… whoooo….”

“It’s amazing how the universe ever became freed.” Pidge remarks sarcastically. “Everyone can hear the wind, Hunk.”

“Right, yeah,” Shiro clears his throat in embarrassment. “I think I’m just more aware of pressure changes and things like that.”

Pidge pushes Lance down a few steps, and the fish follow him. She then pulls him back to where he was standing before. Some of the fish become agitated that he’s moving, their fins flicking or opening their jaws, but they continue to swim to be near him.

“So cool!” Pidge cheers. “You’re like Percy Jackson now!”

Keith hears something behind him faintly, but he doesn’t exactly hear what it is. He steps away from the exhibit, the others lost in talk, and stares at the staff door.

Again, he hears something, and it’s clearer this time. It’s the slamming of a door, maybe?

“Guys?” Keith presses his ear to the door. No one hears him, preoccupied with the fish.

He puts his hand on the handle, checking to see if it’s locked. It opens without a problem, which is yet another thing to say about the shitty management of this place. Keith opens the door wider to peer down the hall.

It’s a blank, white hall that extends about twenty feet, then turns right. Keith stares at the end, listening for another sound. And he gets it.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”

The shriek is so loud that even if the door was shut, it wouldn’t have muffled it. The echo of the hallway makes it ten times worse. it’s accompanied by banging and crashing sounds, and this time Keith doesn’t have to get anyone’s attention.

“WHAT WAS THAT?” Hunk freaks.

“I dunno,” Keith enters the hall, following the banging and screams.

“We all know who would die first if this was a horror movie,” Hunk complains, but he follows the team as they hurry down the hall.

Keith gets confused at a couple turns (and cursing the florescent lights), but eventually he manages to find the door where the noises were coming from. It had settled down from screaming to a clanking noise.

The door doesn’t open when he pushes on the handle. Shiro goes to lift his foot up , but Keith quickly kicks in the door first with a BANG! It swings off the hinges and hits the wall, then clatters to the floor.

“Sure, Keith, go ahead and do it. I don’t mind.” Shiro huffs in frustration.

But Keith is too busy staring at the inside of this place.

It was a pretty big room, but it looked small. On the left side were tanks of water, starting off very small and getting bigger as they go down the wall, and then one huge, near ceiling to floor tank, that was cracked. Water was all over the floor, going towards a drain underneath a metallic table, on which were tools for surgery.

There was a door directly next to the tank, where muffled noises were coming from. On the other side of the door were cages, varying in different sizes. There were very still and quiet animals inside, but they were awake. None of the animals nor the fish inside the tanks looked well taken care of, and what was worse?

The labels on the tanks and cages. As Keith gets closer to them, he can see that the labels either said “Experiment (Number)” or “Prep (Number).”

The cage next to the door, labeled “Prep 20” was open. And there was a shuffling noise coming from around the room somewhere.

“Oh we are so arresting everyone who works here.” Pidge says in horror. She kneels down next to one of the cages, looking at a very sad and crumpled-looking bird with dull feathers. “These poor guys…”

“You hear that?” Keith tilts his head, and Lance nods.

“Yeah, like… It sounds like paws. Hunk, do you have a- What are you doing?” Lance gawks, and Keith turns to see what this is about.

Hunk was standing on one of the experiment tables near the door. He mocks Lance’s surprised face. “Excuse me, but how many times have we gone through this? Alien animal creature that wants to rip our faces off, or chomp on our bones? Make a nest out of our internals?”

“So you’re gonna stand on the table like you saw a spider?”

“Yeah, I am, until you guys can tell me where the two things that got out are. Laugh all you want, I don’t care!”

Keith shakes his head, instead getting down on his hands and knees to look underneath the gap in the tanks and the floor.

Which was the right thing to do, of course. Because he comes face to face with a dog.

At least, it looks like one, sorta.

A dark and bright blue fluffy coat, and big yellow eyes looking right at him. Its ears were bigger than its head, and was just small enough that it looked like an eight week old puppy. And judging by its pretty big puppy paws, this space dog was going to get big.

“What is it?” Lance leans down to see, but Keith is in front of the dog.

“Uh, a puppy.”

“A puppy!?” Hunk starts to get down instantly from the table, dropping to the floor so he could see, cooing already. “Why didn’t you say that earlier?”

“Because I didn’t see it until now?” Keith retorts.

Neither Hunk nor Lance could see well enough, but it wouldn’t matter. The puppy was fixated on Keith entirely. Keith reaches out his hand for the dog to sniff, with Hunk whispering “Maybe not a good idea?” into his ear.

The dog’s tiny nose twitches, bringing its head closer to sniff his hand. Keith is getting a little wary with how long its taking to smell him, but then he sees a tail wag. Then another, and another. Until its tail starts thumping, and it lets out whines as it begins to crawl towards him.

Keith sits up to let it out, and the puppy starts jumping over his lap, spinning around. It keeps licking the air, Keith’s hand, his elbow, his chin, his shorts. It lets out a squeaky bark a couple times, but it mostly whines, simply so excited to meet him.

“Maybe dogs just really like Keith.” Pidge comments from across the room with a snarky smile like it meant something.

“He’s so cute I’m gonna cry.” Hunk breathes out, fanning his face. “It’s too late! I’m crying!”

Lance scratches the dog’s back lightly, and the dog flops into his hand with all of its weight, wagging its tail so hard it was wagging its whole body.

“Hey little guy,” Keith tries to pet the dog’s head, but it’s so excited to see him it tilts its head back to give him more licks on the hand. “What would this place want with animals that don’t even go underwater?”

“Clearly this isn’t a regular aquarium.” Shiro looks around the room with Pidge, who was cataloging every animal she was seeing. “You said it popped up recently, right?”

“Fairly recently.” Pidge frowns at a small furry looking frog thing sitting in a cage near her. “It popped up right about after Zarkon was defeated. But it only gained popularity when we pushed back the Empire Galra.”

“Maybe it was never meant to be an aquarium.” Shiro reasons, walking around the cages to see inside. “It’s just a front to hide what they’re doing in plain sight.”

“Well… we do know that experimentation fits one monster’s bill…” Hunk stands up, crossing his arms. “Feels like a very Haggar thing to do, don’t you think? Isn’t she also going around taking things from her research outposts before Lotor’s generals can get to them?”

“Yeah, she is. If she didn’t think that this one could be moved, maybe that’s why she felt the need to hide it.” Lance says.

Keith looks down at the puppy his lap. It was just a baby, yet it was here in this awful place all on its own. Who knows where it even belongs. Probably halfway across the universe.

“Haggar’s experiments have to do with quintessence, though. We didn’t get any abnormal readings here.” Pidge sighs, taking off the spinny hat to run a hand through her hair. “And besides, Haggar has been focusing all of her attention on creating a new Voltron, right? She’s not going to be worried about things like this until she’s sure she can get rid of us.”

“So then what’s this place for?” Keith is flopping the puppy’s ears from side to side. It trusts him so much that it’s laying backwards in Keith’s lap. He’d think that with being an experiment subject, it wouldn’t trust anyone anymore.

It’s unfair.

Why do creeps like these sickos always pick on the little ones? The people or animals that can’t protect themselves, who don’t even know that people can be mean yet?

This little guy was probably with its parents when someone came along and snatched it up, just for their own selfish wants.

Lance brushes a cool hand through Keith’s hair again, and he figures from the sizzling noise that it’s because his hair had caught on fire again. Lance smiles smally at him, pinching Keith’s cheek reassuringly.

“Maybe if they have a computer around, I can get into their stuff and see what’s really going on here.” Pidge says, observing the tables and cabinets around the room for anything useful.

“Good idea.” Shiro starts looking through the cabinets underneath the cages.

“I’m gonna see if I can talk to the fish.” Lance says, scooching over to one of the tanks and kneeling in front of it.

The fish inside looks gray and sick, but it gives Lance its attention. Lance stares at the fish, squinting hard and his lips pressed in a line while he thinks really hard. Hunk shakes his head at Lance as he gets up, crossing the room to help Pidge find anything tech she can use.

Keith looks down at the puppy in his lap, who was looking up at Keith already. It looked like it had no idea that the place it’s in is a bad place to be. It was smiling, even, with its tongue hanging out all goofy to the side.

“You’re pretty cute,” Keith chuckles at it, scratching under its chin.

“Of course I am.” Lance replies, still staring at the fish in the tank.

“Oh, I meant…” Keith pauses, sensing danger. Lance turns his head slowly to stare at him, raising a brow.

“You meant…?”

“I meant the dog, but you look cute too.” Keith says sincerely.

“Even in this outfit?” Lance seems to be cutting him some slack because the dog is actually cute.

“Yeah, you’re always cute.” Keith leans his chin on his hand. Lance had started to tilt his head in an effort to read the fish’s mind. “Have you tried speaking to the fish out loud?”

“Fish can’t speak out loud.” Lance says seriously. “They don’t have vocal cords. They have this bony structure that they can rub or click together, but I’m pretty sure I’d only hear it if I was underwater.”

Oh, right, Keith almost forgot Lance knows a lot about fish from Luis. The dog rolls over and bites down on Keith’s shorts, chewing on a pocket zipper, and Keith tries to pull it off.

“…Right, okay, but I mean more like, you ask a question, and see if the fish nods or shakes its head or something.”

“Shakes it- okay, you know what? I can try that.” Lance points at the fish, which looks back at him through the glass. It has a fat forehead with a yellow circle on it. “Do you understand me?”

The fish merely looks back at him.

“Swim down if you can understand me.”

“Lance, are you… talking to the fish?” Shiro glances over his shoulder at Lance upon realizing what the blue paladin was doing instead of helping them.

“I think it gets me. I’m gonna get so much information out of this fish, just you wait.” Lance replies, not looking at Shiro. Keith smiles and shakes his head, endeared by that somehow. When he catches Shiro’s eyes, he’s looking at Keith as if he’s a lost cause.

“Hey, this door won’t open,” Pidge grunts loudly. Hunk sets down some of the surgical tools on the table, and heads over to the door between the cracked tank and the open cage.

Now that Keith is really looking, it looks like the lock had been broken. It was sitting on the ground a few feet from the open cage door, which was bent as though something had crashed into it.

So why was the tank broken, and the cage door?

“Hey, kick that over to me.” Keith points at the lock. Shiro, who was closest to the lock, kicks it and it slides on the tile towards Keith.

He picks it up and examines it closer, Lance watching Pidge and Hunk both push on the door. Just like he had been suspicious of, the lock was abnormal. It had puncture marks in the metal, evenly spaced out circles.

What would be able to puncture metal like that?

It almost looked like something had used the metal as a-

The dog swipes a paw up, bringing Keith’s hand down, and starts to chew on the lock. It gnaws on the ring first, and to Keith and Lance’s surprise, it chomps down hard enough that they hear a metallic cracking. Keith tries to take back the lock-chewtoy, but the dog was refusing.

“It amazes me how we keep seeing something new.” Lance says. “You’d thing the universe would run out of things at some point, but no.”

“Ugh! Stupid fucking door!” Pidge complains. She and Hunk try again- the thing was, the door didn’t have a handle or anything, so it should just swing open without a problem. Instead, it opens a couple inches, and doesn’t budge farther than that.

Keith stares at the tank and all of the water on the floor near that door. He was wondering how it had become broken, and what was inside it before. The glass was cracked like something had smacked into it, and if Keith looked closer, there was some blue liquid on the cracked glass.

Maybe whatever was inside had crawled out, and scratched itself on the glass on the way. But why had the tank broken?

Now that he looks at it closer, the other tanks looked like they had shifted over a couple steps towards the door, if the scratch marks on the floor say anything. The tables holding up those tanks had been pushed by something…

There’s a puncture mark in the leg of the table that matches the locks that the criminal dog in his lap was chewing on.

So… The dog had gotten out of its cage, started eating the lock… Maybe it got bored and started chewing on the tables? So, what, the dog broke the tank?

The flaw in that theory was how would the dog have gotten out of the locked cage in the first place? Why was the cage door bent? How would this small dog crack the tank that was sitting up on a tall table?

“Is something behind it?” Pidge tries to see through the crack in the door, but the lights are off inside the room. “Wait, why am I pushing? Shiro, you come get the door.”

Shiro takes Pidge’s place at the door, and this time when he and Hunk push it open, it gives a couple more inches.

“Keep it open!” Pidge orders, and she clicks the bracelet on her wrist. A light appears from it, and she shines it inside the room. “Uh oh, I can see someone’s feet.”

“Ew,” Hunk squinches his face in disgust.

“No, they have shoes on.” Pidge rolls her eyes. “I think they’re passed out on the floor. But… There’s another person in there too.”

Pidge goes quiet for a couple seconds, and Keith can see her shoulders tense slightly.

“What is it?”

Pidge backs away from the door. “Close the door.”

Hunk wastes no time. He instantly lets it go, and Shiro stumbles back a step, unprepared for the door to SLAM shut from the weight of something on the other side.

“What did you see!?” Hunk panics, and Pidge’s face is pale. “What? What? What? Don’t just stand there all ghostly white and shit! What did you see? Whaaat?”

“…A really, really big tentacle.”

“Noooooo!” Hunk whisper shouts, falling to his knees. His pants are wet from the water on the ground but he doesn’t care. He starts to army crawl across the floor, as if getting smaller will save him. “Get me out of heerrreee!”

Keith sits up, picking up the dog and putting it under his arm. It continues to chew on the lock. He taps Lance on the shoulder, who sighs in defeat and slumps his shoulders sadly.

“I can’t talk to fish.”

“I know, that sucks.” Keith rubs his arm for comfort.

“I really wanted to talk to fish.”

“I know, Lance.”

“Shut up shut up shut up!” Hunk hisses at them under his breath. He’s made it to the doorway they came in from. “Did you not hear the part about the big tentacle octopus-squid WHATEVER monster in that room?”

“But-”

“SHHHHHHH!” Hunk taps both pointer fingers on his lips aggressively. “SHUT UP!”

Only, a sound comes from behind that door. Shiro takes quite a few more steps away from it as Keith and Lance stand up. Keith holds onto the dog- not quite sure why, considering he can’t take it, can he?- as Pidge does a quick jog to go hide behind Hunk, who was trying to pick up the busted down door to the entrance of this room and put it back on the hinges so he can close it.

A creeeaaak sounds as the door is pressed against. They can see the metal door frame pushing outwards, and Hunk is whispering under his breath something that sounds like a “please anything but this today.”

A groan sounds from the other side of the door.

“Whooo…. is innn.. my lab?” An extremely deep voice utters. The door screeches under the pressure of the weight on the other side.

Keith doesn’t like the sound of that, and it sends Hunk over the edge. “IT TALKS…” He mouths involuntarily as his voice gives out.

“Who’s there!?” Shiro shouts, and Hunk mimes punching Shiro over the head from where Shiro can’t see.

“WHOOO…. IS INNNN MY LAB?” The voice says again, more aggravated now.

“No one is!” Hunk tries with a falsetto voice, but Pidge yanks on his hair to keep him from speaking.

This had only pissed off whatever was on the other side of that door. The door is freed from the weight as the creature backs away from it, and a second later it is pulled open, revealing what is likely going to haunt Keith’s dreams tonight.

The bottom half was what looked like a giant green octopus. The tentacles- at least twenty feet long each- grab onto the door frame, pushing it so hard that the walls crack, opening the doorway wider. And the upper half?

A person was making up the top half of the creature. They were rather round, with harsh red boils on their purple skin. He had long gills on either side of his neck, and the face of an angler fish gone wrong. And the name tag on the employee shirt, underneath a white lab coat, said: GLAGALFAN.

“YOU INTERRUPT MY EXPERIMENTS!?”

“Yeah, we do!” Lance glares at Glagalfan vehemently. With a flash, Lance reveals his bayard, the device that holds their bayards hidden underneath their pants.

“What a great day to get into a fight without armor,” Pidge complains.

Keith also reveals his bayard, but with one hand holding a dog, he isn’t sure he can do much. And this room was way too small to fight in.

“We need to move,” Shiro glances at the doorway Hunk was standing in. “We could accidentally hurt an animal in here.”

“THESE ARE MY EXPERIMENTS!” Glagalfan roars. “I DO WHAT I WANT WITH THEM!”

“No, they aren’t, and no you won’t!” Lance’s bayard shifts into a blaster.

Glagalfan wants to retort back with anger, but his fishy eyes land on Keith- or, more accurately, the dog under his arm. His face grows dark purple and his cheeks puff up, and he lets out a roar of pure anger.

“THAT STUPID DOG!” He points to it. “LOOK WHAT YOU DID TO ME!”

-

“And thaaat’s….” Coran holds his hands up in suspense, and Romelle was the only one leaning forward in anticipation. “…A TIE!”

“Yayyy!” Romelle squeals, hugging Allura tightly around the shoulders, rocking back and forth. “We won! We won!~”

“No, Romelle. Allura won. You and I tied… somehow.” Lotor says regrettably, crossing his arms. He does not know how he managed it, because he was sure Romelle would not know much about Altean history considering Haggar’s track record, but it happened. They had managed to tie, with Allura coming in first place.

Which, he isn’t competitive about something like this. Not at all. It just manages to annoy him a little bit, since Romelle is always competing with him.

Every time he visits, Romelle is always attempting to one up him with something, as long as that something impresses Allura. The last time he was here, she had beat him in an Altean game that the Paladins kept calling “hopscotch” or “pon.”

“I won because you didn’t!” Romelle chirps sweetly. This digs at his tough skin, but he sets the comment aside. He can not complain too much, as it makes Allura smile.

“Well, with that done, I should go check on Bracken.” Coran puts away the holo-screen and picks up the tablets they had been using. “He’s been gone quite a while, and that doesn’t bode well if he was checking on something for Number Five.”

Lotor gets a chill every time he is reminded of the Green Paladin. She stopped asking about alien anatomy, but he gets the feeling she had not really stopped researching it. She is… rather creepy. Perhaps that is why his generals enjoy her company so much.

“I’ll help!” Romelle stands up quickly, jogging to catch up with Coran as he leaves. “Hunk put the both of us in charge of taking out those things he has in the freezer so he can make dinner tonight.”

“Well, let’s hope the poor boy isn’t injured from another robot explosion. Shiro would not be pleased!”

Lotor really does think they need to keep an eye on the Green Paladin, but they speak of the chaos fondly. They even laugh about it as they exit the training room. Maybe everyone on the ship is quite creepy in their own right.

“Will you be staying for dinner?” Allura asks in a hushed voice. She sounds very tired today, and he’s sure that was why Coran wanted to play a game instead of merely talking. Clearly, the Princess has not been getting enough sleep lately.

As they sit on the floor, Allura was slightly turned away from him. She had one knee propped up, hugging it slightly with one arm. Her fingers danced together slowly, lost in thought. Her soft hair was covering her face from this angle, as she no longer pulls it back.

Lotor knew she took great pride in her long hair, as did most of the royal family. It was a tradition they held, where they would only cut their hair when being crowned, when someone they loved died, or as a declaration of being new. Only, Allura was forced to cut her hair because of Haggar, and her Altean mark is gone.

Lotor does not know how to comfort her. He’s never had to do such a thing before, really. Though his generals are all women, their camaraderie did not come from “talking it out”, which is a method of soothing that the Paladins enjoy.

“I would be honored to stay.” Lotor matches the quiet whisper of her voice, turning his body entirely to face her.

He reaches up tentatively to brush the hair out of her eye, tucking it behind her ear. She locks her gaze onto his, and he feels his breath catch in his throat. He just wanted to see her expression more clearly, just to be sure before he spoke. Sometimes, he forgets how deadly that can be to him. He forgets he has a voice, let alone thoughts, when she looks at him.

And when she is thinking so deeply, when she retreats into her own world inside her mind, he wishes he could see. He desperately craves to know everything about her, because even just a fraction captivated him.

He hesitates to drop his hand, as if the hair will cover her eyes again. The closest he will ever truly get to seeing inside that world of hers is through her gaze.

“Forgive me if this comes out wrong, Princess, but you seem tired.”

She sighs shortly, as if she knew this was coming. “It has been… difficult, lately, to fall asleep and stay that way.”

There’s a beat of silence, and then she laughs. It does not sound like it was actually funny to her.

“I feel like I’m losing my mind.” She admits. “The only time I feel normal is when I’m around the others, or when I’m talking to you.”

He ignores the way his heart pulls when she says that last part.

“I am glad that I can bring some sort of comfort.” Lotor tells her, speaking more honestly than she would likely assume. “I can not imagine the pressure you must feel right now. If I can do anything to help you, even just for a moment, I would be glad to.”

And she smiles- a real smile, where she’s actually laughing this time.

“You already do a lot.” Allura says. “I feel like we talk more often than I talk to the people I live with, sometimes.”

“Well, we have much to discuss.” Lotor would never tell anyone, but he does make up things to talk to her about, pretending it’s important when it really might have already been decided.

But who could blame him, really? She is a once in a lifetime mind.

“Yes, of course.” She barely holds back her grin, as if she had already caught on. “Very important work we do.”

“Very.” Lotor agrees, with a short nod.

“To be truthful with you, Lotor-” His mind hangs onto the way she says his name, “-I don’t know how you do it.”

“Do what?” Lotor pauses. Had he said something?

“Keep it together.” She replies, slightly frowning. “I don’t know how you appear so… I don’t know. Now that I know what you have been through, I often can not stop thinking about it, about what she’s done to us. What she’s done to everyone.”

Ah, he sees now. He tries to find the words…

There was much he could say, that he doesn’t quite understand himself. So it is hard to truly say exactly one emotion about it all. At one part of his life, he truly wanted his mother and father’s love, and the realization that he could never get it had destroyed him.

“I do not believe that people break, or that they can not be put back together.” Lotor says slowly, trying to collect his thoughts. “I believe that we… change, but also stay the same. There is something inside of us, that is just fundamental to us. It can not go away because it is us.”

Allura tilts her head slightly as she listens, her eyebrows knitting together as she considers his words carefully.

“I think of it as an ‘idea’. The idea of us, as people, that we are all created with. We go through many phases in our lives, collecting new ideas. Some stick with us because we want it to, and some stay because we can not get it out of our minds. These ideas create a picture, an image of ourselves, and the thing about art is that it is as subjective and original as who creates it. Some of the ideas we can not get rid of, they might just be spilled paint that you can make something out of. But others may be a tear in the canvas.

“However, it is your only canvas.” He takes a deep breath, picturing the time in his life that he almost gave up. When the life that he had been given felt like it was no longer his. “Those people, with their ideas, that try to tear away at your canvas and ruin it, do not understand what you were trying to make. They do not care.”

His parents were incapable of caring, both for their own reasons. His mother was a cruel woman who would never be able to think of another, and his father was just a dead soul.

“I found that I was not done creating.” He says, putting his palm over his chest, where his heart beats proudly. “I would be damned if I let someone else ruin that for me. It is my life, my canvas. I choose to make art out of the tears, because it is the only canvas I have.”

Allura’s gaze has softened, and Lotor can see her fingers touching at her own pulse, as if reminding herself that she was there. Her heart was also still beating.

“Someday, I hope that people will look back on what I created, and they will see how hard I worked. I want them to see my story and be inspired. I want to create an idea that exists after me, and always will. I want to be like you, Princess.”

“Me?” She pauses, confused.

“Certainly you haven’t forgotten your own words?” Lotor reminds her. He could not get her idea out of his head after they had met at the ball. He imagines her words as the stars on the painting he has created, an idea that he had collected.

He had waited to see if she could live up to those words. If her idea had had any credit. And she had proved him wrong. That was why she was an idea he could never forget, and would never regret following.

“You said you believed, that even if you only made a small dent in the universe, it would mean you made something.” He repeats her words to her, never once looking away from her eyes. I want to see her world. “You said, ‘People can be quite tenacious under the right circumstances.’”

Perhaps Lotor is better at comforting people than he thought, or perhaps he had just chosen the right words to say to her. Because Allura nods in understanding, and he can truly see her relief.

“My answer had been simple, but it really stuck with you, it seems.” She says, her voice low and sweet. “This time, it was me who was taught a lesson.”

“By your own words.” Lotor jokes lightly, shrugging a bit.

“By both of our words.” Allura points out. “We make a good team.”

“…We- We do.” Lotor says breathlessly. She really knows how to get to him, does she not? “We do.”

-

It’s decided. Bracken hates robots.

He rubs at his nose, kneeling on the ground and feeling rather pathetic. He’s never ever, ever, ever, ever- not in a million years- promise Pidge anything ever again. And, like, there’s only so much he can do about this, right?

He glares at the robot from where it sits upon its mountaintop of glory (the kitchen counter), holding up its mighty sword (spatula) as it celebrates its defeat of the awkward dragon (Bracken).

At least, he’s pretty sure what that stupid robot is imagining right now. It’s been thirty dobashes since that robot got loose, and while it may not have any names yet, Bracken has given it plenty. The problem here lay in the fact that Bracken was not only dealing with the robot now, but also dealing with Ezor and Zethrid.

The two of which were still on call, because they want to see how this ends. The robot had long since dropped the call with Ezor and discarded the comm by throwing it at Bracken, so they weren’t as much help anymore.

“Come on, kid, get up!” Zethrid urges him, and Bracken merely rubs his nose. “Don’t tell me you’re quitting already. Where’s your spirit?”

“Yeah, Bracken! You’ve got this!” Ezor encourages.

“No, I don’t!” Bracken snaps, picking up the comm from the floor.

The frustration has finally gotten to him. He’s tired, he’s weak, he’s now in pain. He isn’t built for this type of thing, not at all!

“I’m not good at this, okay? I don’t know why Pidge would even ask me!” Bracken sits down fully on the floor, his grip tight on the comm and not caring if that stupid robot decides to keep running away from him. He’s not chasing it this time.

Bracken puts his head in his hands, trying to calm down.

“She asked because she trusts you.” Zethrid replies after a moment of tense silence. “I’m sure the other Paladins know, right? Besides the Black Paladin?”

“…Yeah, sure.” Bracken mumbles.

“Soooo, if she asked them to help, and also asked you, it means she does think you can do it. She wouldn’t put you through something you can’t handle on purpose.”

“I didn’t say she did it on purpose. I’m saying she has too much faith in me.” Bracken responds bluntly.

“And?”

Bracken lifts his head, staring at Zethrid on the screen. “And what?”

“So what if she has too much faith in you? Why is faith a bad thing?” Zethrid replies gruffly. “She thinks you can do it, or she thinks you’ll at least try. So you’re just gonna let her down? Because it’s hard?”

Bracken is quiet, mulling this over.

He isn’t big, or tough, and he certainly isn’t agile. He doesn’t know what he’s doing except when it comes to orderly tasks, and universe forbid if he has to lift anything that weighs even half his weight. By all means, Pidge shouldn’t expect him to be able to pull off catching one of her robots.

But maybe that wasn’t the point.

“…Fine, whatever,” Bracken complains, but he sits up properly. “Do you have any advice-”

“Who are you talking to?”

At first, Bracken didn’t realize why he paused. He didn’t realize that the voice sounded familiar, or that he missed it. It took the person in the background of the call to speak again for him to fully understand what he heard.

“Who is it?”

Beeeep. Rings his comm, and he looks down at the screen to see his thumb had moved on its own to end the call.

He feels numb, mostly. Until it all comes crashing down on him, and his eyes water on their own. A lump in his throat forms, and he coughs uncomfortably to try and clear it. Because the voice he had heard was Melity’s.

It was Melity, he was sure, but he- he couldn’t understand…

Why? Why was she with Lotor’s generals? Is that where she’s been since Candosia?

The first emotions that hit him are: alright, she’s alive. She’s alive, and she’s with people she can trust. But afterwards, Bracken can’t help but ask every question he can think of.

Why wouldn’t she have called him? Did Lotor know, and he didn’t tell Bracken?

And a worse thought: Did the Paladins know, the whole time, and they were the ones who didn’t tell him?

But he shakes his head, ridding himself of the thought. He doesn’t know what’s going on, but the Paladins likely do not know. They would have been much more wary to work with Melity, and it just wouldn’t make sense that they wouldn’t have told Bracken. He can’t think of a single reason they wouldn’t.

Which means that Melity was likely the one who chose not to tell him. He doesn’t know how to feel about that.

There’s a pitter patter of feet, and then a cold robot hand touches his arm. The spatula is set down on the ground, and the robot crawls into Bracken’s lap. For its credit, it looks like it’s actually trying to be nice.

He sets the comm on the ground, picking up the robot. The robot tilts its head at him, grabbing at his cheeks as if to say, There there.

“You’re a little troublemaker,” Bracken tells it, and it feels like he isn’t just talking to the robot. “But you’re kind at heart… or, uh… kind in your programming.”

“Beep.”

-

“Dude, you have a problem with a dog?” Pidge gawks at Glagalfan, and the man roars angrily, jabbing his hand to point at the puppy.

“LOOK what it did to me!” He bites, gesturing to himself. “I’ve become an abomination!”

“You were already an abomination before this happened, I’m sure.” Lance says. Turns out, this wasn’t a good time be sassy.

Glagalfan screams in frustration, and a giant tentacle smacks the experiment table. It crashes into the cages with a huge BANG! and the animals inside screech. They holler and scrape at the the cages, trying to get out, or cower away in fear, trying to get as small as possible.

“THAT THING RUINED ME!” He screams again, throwing anything he could get his hands on.

“We need to get him out of here!” Shiro orders.

“Way ahead of you!” Hunk shouts, running out into the hallway and shouting. “I’ll find somewhere else!”

“Pidge, go with him!”

“Yes sir!” Pidge chases after Hunk, just as ready to leave the room.

“How do we get him to follow?” Lance aims his gun, but Glagalfan was moving around so much, that if Lance shot him, there was a chance he could hurt one of the animals or crack a tank too.

Keith, unfortunately, has an idea.

Keith holds up the dog in the air over his head. “Hey ugly!”

Glagalfan roars angrily at Keith, starting to move towards him. Keith turns on his heel and runs out of the room.

Shiro and Lance chase after him, Glagalfan ripping through the doorway to get right on their heels. “This was your brilliant idea, Keith!?” Shiro shouts, ducking to avoid a tentacle to the noggin.

“It worked, didn’t it!?”

It didn’t take long for them to find somewhere to bring him- they spot Hunk and Pidge running through a set of double doors, and holding them open. Keith tucks the dog closer to him as he sprints through the doorway and into what appears to be a huge storage room.

There were ceiling to floor storage racks, and fat boxes almost as tall as Keith stacked on top of each other. Lance takes the opportunity to get up somewhere high. He jumps to pull himself up on one of the boxes, then onto another, and then onto the storage racks.

Keith and Shiro end up in the back of the room, near another exit. Glagalfan starts pushing everything out of his way, making a beeline for Keith and the dog.

“What did it even do to you!?” Pidge’s bayard shifts into the biggest taser Keith has ever seen.

“It destroyed me! My work! I’ve become a monster!” Glagalfan screeches, throwing boxes at them. One of the tentacles grabs at Hunk’s ankle and starts to dangle him in the air. Another shakes the storage rack that Lance is on, and Lance holds on for dear life, trying to find a shot.

“That wretched monster got out of it’s cage and attacked me and my workers!” Glagalfan cries. “It knocked me into the tank of that stupid octo-cephalopoda!”

“You aren’t saying that right!” Lance screams over the rattlign of the storage rack.

“SHUT IIIIIT!!!” Glagalfan screeches. “The only way I could get that creature to stop attacking me when it got out of the tank was to fuse it with my body!”

“There were probably like a million different things to do before you try that out!” Pidge lands a hit on her taser. Glagalfan screams in pain, grabbing at the ends of the taser to try and physically pull them out of his skin.

The dog wiggles in Keith’s arm, which frees Keith to fight with both hands. But he panics, wondering where the dog is going. It circles around Keith a couple times, barking at him.

“What? You’re gonna get hurt!” Keith tries to shoo it into a corner, worried that it’s too exposed now. “Go on!”

The dog ignores him. It rushes forward at Keith and collides with his legs. Keith feels a tugging sensation in his stomach like when they do a wormhole jump. He sucks in a gasp as he feels like he’s falling backward-

No, no no no! Keith realizes he’s now in the air, dangling over the enemy. He’s falling down.

There’s two flashes of light, one from above him and Glagalfan, and then down below next to Shiro, where the dog reappears. As Keith falls, he plunges his sword downwards, managing to strike Glagalfan’s shoulder.

Glagalfan screeches and throws him off. Keith lands on the ground, rolling several feet across the tile. He groans as pain from the hit spreads across him. He’s denying every undercover mission from now on that has no armor.

He gets up quickly, wincing as a shock spreads around his right ribs. He has to set his bayard down, unable to get a good grip on it as his fingers won’t close all the way.

No one said anything about the damn dog being able to teleport. In fact, Keith wishes he knew that sooner.

But it certainly explains how it was able to get out of that cage earlier. It must have teleported out, used the lock and the tables as a chewtoy, and when it was defending itself against those workers and Glagalfan, the idiot mad scientist knocked into that tank.

The dog bites at Shiro’s ankle, and Shiro yelps mid way through cutting through one of the tentacles. The dog yelps at him when Shiro tries to shoo him away. Unfortunately, he wasn’t paying attention to the tentacle anymore, which meant that it grabbed at Shiro and threw him towards Keith.

Keith ducks down to avoid a collision, but the dog leaps and bites Shiro again. They both disappear in a flash of light and reappear sliding on the ground, but otherwise unharmed.

“Is this dog smart or dumb!?” Shiro gets up.

“Good dog!” Keith says, and the dog lights up. It rushes over to Keith and knocks its full body weight into him. It flops down on his lap for tummy scratches. “We’re keeping you, I don’t care what Allura and Coran say.”

They can deal with one more animal on the ship. If Allura gets her mice, and the others get their Kaltenecker the cow, Keith can have a dog.

Keith looks back at the battle, holding onto the dog. It was smart that it knew how to help them, but they should probably practice before they start letting the dog do whatever it wants.

Pidge was climbing onto one of the boxes, her hat knocked off her head and a big red spot on her face. She has a pissed off sneer on her face as she shifts her bayard again.

“We’re having deep fried ocotpus tonight!”

It crackles as it grows, electricity zapping off of it, as if it was just as angry as Pidge was. A giant net gun appears in her hand. She lifts it up to aim above Glagalfan, and shoots.

The huge electrical net swings in the air, falling like a blanket over Glagalfan. He cries out in pain as the net pins him down to the floor, thrashing around but unable to get it off. Everyone backs away from him.

His cursing and crying slowly die out as he stops convulsing.

“Is he… actually dead?” Hunk asks, but Pidge scoffs.

“No, he passed out. Good thing, because I can’t wait to make him rot in a prison for this.” She hops off of the box, only to point at Keith and the dog. “What are we doing with that?”

“We’re keeping him.” Keith declares, petting the dog. “Obviously.”

“Keith, we can’t bring another animal onto the ship. That’s so many animals.” Shiro tries, but Keith glares at him.

“No. You owe me this one.” Keith hasn’t forgotten Shiro’s sins for today.

“Keith-”

Keith holds up the dog, who’s ears flop cutely and its tongue lolls out of its mouth. It barks at Shiro.

“You have to say no to its face.” He demands.

There’s a tense few seconds of silence.

“Go on, say it.”

Shiro puts his hands on his hips, glaring at the dog. He chews on his lip, and sighs heavily. He can’t do it, not to that cute face.

“Fine. But you’re responsible for it.”

Keith sets the dog down, satisfied with that. He pats the dog’s head. “Good job sticking it to the man.”