Washouts and Weed Killers

Summary: On the hunt for their lost comrades, Pidge and Lance trade barbs, boasts, and battle scars in the boundless void.

Disclaimer: Voltron: Legendary Defender is the property of Dreamworks Animated Television and its collaborative affiliates.

A gentle wind flirted across the surface of the calm, crystal blue sea. The light of day splashed against a curdled barricade of clouds, heat filtered to a pleasurable warmth easily thwarted and complimented by the slightest salt-kissed breeze. It was a perfect afternoon and the Green Paladin, current master of the Left Hand of Voltron, and one of the newly appointed Defenders of the Universe hated it. Despised it right down to every individual water molecule on Planet Hilm complicit in its construction. The same waters, she inferred, that had spawned the hundreds of eerie inhabitants gathered around her and the massive armored beast of a corpse floating just a few dozen leagues away.

"It is a great and rrrrrregrerttable shame that you cannot stay longer to see the Star Shells take flight once again," the Metchazoa Aqualyte trilled through a tangle of translucent barbels. "Their spires, though peerless in beauty and performance underwater, shine immeasurably brighter as they rrrrrrrrreflect the brilliance of far off suns."

Eerie might've been a little unfair. They reminded her of ocean slugs. The transparent clear ones with the wings, but much larger with parapodia developed enough to deserve the "sea angel" moniker. Cloyons or Clions. The exact name escaped her. Biology had always been more of Matt's field. He had joked about that while he was still around; what they'd do if they ever encountered alien life in some uncharted star system. 'I'll handle all the cultural analysis and physical examinations,' he said. 'While you oogle the robots.'

She had giggled and it took a generous portion of very present bitterness to stop the memory from tugging her lips upwards.

Their studies would inevitably overlap. You couldn't meaningfully admire a piece of technology without asking how it was made, who made it, and what circumstances led to its conception. Pidge was sure that there was a great deal of intriguing history between the first cognisant thought these beings had to them effortlessly bobbing on the surface waist-deep on this horribly wonderful day. She could barely fathom what difficulties and desires were responsible for their current appearance; the arms and legs, the four-fingered hands, the svelte physique, the clothing made from nautical leathers, and the sculpted delicate visages that could be mistaken for human if not for the large, solitary, ruby eye set between the twin stalks atop their heads. Their newly restored capacity for interstellar travel alone spoke favourably in regards to their intelligence and societal progress. Their adulation of Lance? Much less so.

"Maybe I'll cross paths with them while I'm up there, Omak," the Blue Paladin smugly mused from atop his floating Lion as he used a cylindrical copper-colored device to burn his signature onto an adoring fan's Data Scale for the thousandth time that day. Or maybe this was the ten thousandth? Pidge hadn't been counting. This would be the last of them and that was all that mattered.

The thin line of Omak's mouth parted to reply only to be deformed into an indignant and furious O as he was elbowed in the face by a larger, younger, and apparently less composed member of his species. "Pondle, you rrrrrrrrrrreckless oaf! What are you doing?"

"B-b-but how will we manage without you?!" the soldier asked, the medals decorating his chest clinking together with his every sob. "What if we're cursed once more? What if another monster rises out of the Sacred Deep? What if my wife leaves me again?"

"Just shrug and turn around, Lance." Pidge mentally commanded, staring as hard as she could from behind her visor at the back of his head, hoping either her thoughts or her glare would compel him to stop and get into his Lion.

Neither worked.

"Come on, guys. You're not giving yourselves enough credit. And I think you've had enough of me to last you a while," he flashed a smile towards the crowd. Pidge wondered if he could see it reflected in the shimmering skins of the Metchazoas. "Remember what I taught you guys."

"Drown Every Druid!" one of them said.

"Catchy and a little aggro. But that's not it."

"Gore All Galra," another cried.

"If they're up to no good, and they usually are, but that's not it either."

"Feast On Your Foes!" one screeched.

"Those words have never left my lips in that order. And try not to do that. Especially with that thing," he motioned behind him at the drifting clawed behemoth. "It might be poisonous or full of parasites. Though you shouldn't eat your enemies to death or even if they're dead because that's kinda-um-not cool to do and-whatever-the lesson I taught you was 'Confidence is Crucial!' The first step to solving a problem is believing that you can. Remember now?"

He waited for all the hasty nods and 'I knew that's to subside before continuing. "Don't forget, you guys had years to surrender and let the Defilon defile all over you, but you never really gave up. You even had most of the tools you needed to take him down. All that was missing was a little bit of Lance." he flexed his right bicep, which looked doubly impressive thanks to his uniform, eliciting furtive whispers from the mob. "Other than that, I couldn't have beat him without you." At this, he swung down his arm in a swift chop, stopping it just as it was level with his shoulder, fingers curled saved for his index and middle digits, aimed at no one, but angled at a seductive degree that made all his admirers think he was pointing at them personally.

The pleased collective murmur made Pidge want to heave.

"Dial down the hostility a bit though. I'm pretty sure the Galra's days are numbered and I understand that you're pretty miffed at them for waking the Defilon all those tics ago, but have some grace in victory. I don't want to come back into space after visiting my folks only to find out that you guys committed genocide in my name."

"Wouldn't it be more like a genoTIDE?"

Like many of those that met their first Metchazoa, Pidge had assumed that they'd be incapable of complex audible communication given their aquatic habitat. She didn't know that thousands of years ago, members of the species had stumbled upon a pocket of air in an underwater cave and became entranced by the unique vibrations possible in these dryer zones. Centuries then passed, giving rise to the Orbles, gigantic mobile cities, half filled with air stolen from the surface. Unobstructed, sound rung clear within these spheres. Thanks to them, the combustible sciences and the parched arts flourished, but more meaningfully, the Orbles were the cradles for crisp expression. Poems, insults, jokes, introspections and lamentations replaced the gurgles and moans that had previously filled their lives. So Pidge hadn't expected the Metchazoa to laugh, and to laugh so loudly that she couldn't even hear herself groan.

"Fon, I was wondering why you were so quiet!" Lance cackled.

"Haha! Wordplay! Excellent!" Omak cheered, the pun having restored his good mood. "And we shall endeavour to be merciful in our pursuit of rrrrrrrrrrecompense. Can we do anything less? We will forever be in your debt for rrrrrrrrrrestoring our liberty and imparting to us yon 'sick beats' on our Data Scales. And though I am sceptical as to the longevity of the latter due to obscure colloquialisms and cultural rrrrrrrrrreferences we may never understand-."

"I still don't know what a 'street' is!" Pondle wept with fresh tears.

"-the former shall be treasured and protected until the seas turn grey," the Aqualyte finished. "Our rrrrrrrrrrrrremaining concern is that we have not lavished you with enough rrrrrrrrrrrevels and rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrriches to rrrrrrrrrrrreward you."

"I could go for a goodbye backrub." A harsh electric thrum from behind made him tense; the unmistakable telltale tune of a Bayard's activation. One that was probably being aimed in his direction. "But I think I'm all revelled out, thanks," Lance said, trying to guess how far the painful green grapple blade extended. "And I can't keep my home girl Pidge over there waiting, now can I?" he gestured to his fellow Paladin, who was, to his relief, in the process of putting her weapon away.

"If that is your wish, then go. We shall meet again in due time. Dive upward into the moon streams and world pools in your cerulean familiar alongside your sky bride."

"My what now?" Lance gagged.

"Your Sky Bride. The short green one with her mouth now agape in rrrrrrrrrrapturous infatuation."

"Pidge?!" the possibility brought an impromptu Charley Horse to the Blue Paladin's heroic posture. "She isn't-we're just-why would you even think that?"

"Observation." Unaffected or forgiving of his savior's spastic blubbering, Omak bowed his head. "When she came down from above, much like you did sans the crash landing, she chanced upon the corpse of the slain Defilon while I was standing guard over the artefact you entrusted me with. She rrrrrrrrrrrecognized the item for what it was and immediately asked how it came into my care. As I rrrrrrrrrrrrregaled her with the story of how you came to liberate us, she grew more fearful and strained in countenance; weeping as I rrrrrrrrrrreached the chapter featuring your heroic – near – sacrifice, unendingly apologizing for not being present to witness the event, and clutching the artefact closely to her-."

Defying its size, the Green Lion roared as loud as its peers, blasting out seawater into an ominous fearful spray, silencing Omak, and bringing absolute attention to its Paladin's words

"Ok. Lance. Once you're done getting your ego basted , you can find me in orbit." Pidge said flatly, thumbing at the sky. "Zoa guys, thank you for the water and squid jerky. Bye," she finished before unlocking and leaping down an entry hatch hidden in the nape of her Lion's neck.

Pidge had entered and activated the Green Lion enough times to make the process nigh automatic, and her anger did not impede these motions as it did oil them. The rage blinded and intoxicated, blocking out the turbulence and the low rumble of her vessel. Each crimson-tinted second forced back the fear and frustrations that had dogged her for almost a week. It felt good being mad. Angry people took action and got things done. Or if they didn't, they broke enough things to feel slightly better about whatever had irked them in the first place. And it wasn't like she had a use for a calm, rational mind for what she was doing. This wasn't delicate lab work; it was just putting distance between her and those soggy sycophants on Hilm. She would've continued well past the planet's circumgyration, but didn't, because that was the responsible thing to do. A concept that seemed more incomprehensible for wannabe captains and lotharios than the aliens they hit on.

She called up her map and set a new waypoint. "Should've gone to one of these instead of coming here," she said to herself. "Would've given him more time to party with his sea slug cyclops friends." A gentle chirp from her console signalled the coming of a vessel flying fast and clumsily from Hilm. "Speak of the devil," the infuriating blue speck continued to traverse the screen. Relative to her jade icon, it was currently at arm's length, but would get to the elbow and shoulder within moments. "Maybe I should wait for him," she thought about flying in close proximity to Lance and his Lion for the duration of her search. How long would that be, she wondered. Days? Weeks…Months? "Nah," she gave her control yokes a hard shove, sending her and the Green Lion hurtling forward into the incandescent dark.

Shortly after they had all been gathered together, Pidge had taken it upon herself to study the Lions to determine what differences they had with each other, if any. The Black Lion was, as its appearance and placement in the assembly of Voltron heavily implied, absolutely distinct from those that formed its limbs. No surprise there. The qualities of its Blue, Yellow, Green, and Yellow counterparts were what baffled her. Raising questions such as "Why would you want the left leg to be more armored that the right?" or "Why did her Lion have a shield while Keith's didn't?"

At present, she was thankful for how some Lions were faster than others, an inequality she previously disparaged for making half the team less likely to dodge oncoming death. With her head start and a relatively straight path to the next lost Paladin, it would be virtually impossible for Lance to catch up with her before she had a chance to calm down.

This tranquility lasted for about 5 minutes before Lance remembered that his Lion was equipped with a robust long range radio system and soon,

"Pidge! Hey! Wait up!"

Began blaring all throughout her cockpit.

Fingers savagely darted across the holographic and physical portions of the Green Lion's controls as Pidge tried to find a way to halt the constant stream of,

"Pidge! Pidge! Pidgester! Pidgeoroni! Pidge! Hey! Can you hear me? Can you hear me now?!"

Every swipe, press, and expert adjustment failed to impede the relentless repetition of her name and variations thereof. Attempts made to mentally prod the spirit that lay within her machine for assistance likewise failed to produce an answer. Maybe there wasn't a way to turn it off. That had to be it. There was no other way unless the Green Lion WANTED its insides to be filled with Lance's yammering.

"Something wrong with your radio, Pidge? Are you picking up my transmissions? Think you could maybe slow down? Looking up your tail is starting to get waaaaaaaay awkward."

Pidge flicked on her helmet's face plate and turned up the external sound dampeners. She had enough oxygen stored in her armor to buy her a full day of peace. Far from a permanent panacea but it was better than having to endure-.

"Pidge! Pidge! Pidge! Pidge! PIDGE!"

With her head sealed in so securely, the chant broadcasting through her helmet's tranceiver was almost deafening. Pidge ripped it off with a shriek and tossed it back into the spacious recesses of the cockpit. She waited for the ringing in her ears to subside, then took a deep breath – trying to ignore how the oxygen was tainted with such loathsome vibrations – before she hit the respond switch on the command console.

"Yes, Lance?"

"Aw, finally. You okay in there, man? You weren't picking up."

"Technical malfunction," she lied. "What do you want?"

"What do I want? What I want is to to know is what your deal was back there." Lance said, failing to recognize the curt, uninterested tone of Pidge's words. "You left so suddenly that I barely had time to remind the Metchazoas to 'Vote Voltron' before I had to chase after you."

"Don't ask." Pidge thought to herself. "You don't need to know. You don't need to know. It's probably really stupid," and it would be; she was sure of that. And she didn't need to know. She didn't. "Vote…Voltron? Why did you tell them to Vote Voltron?" she echoed.

"Because 'Power to the Paladins' was a little too aggressive and while 'Be Cool, Like Blue' was sure fire platinum promotional material, I didn't think it gave the team as a whole enough credit." Lance explained with a hint of pride.

"That isn't what I asked about. I will simplify, why the slogan?"

"Zarkon's got his 'Fetid Saw' or however you say it, so I thought that we needed our own snappy call to arms."

"Like a Battle Cry."

"Pretty much, but a pinch friendlier. You can even express it nonverbally if you've got the right extremities. Flash two peace signs, raise 'em up, and there you have it; instant solidarity against the Garla Empire. 'Democracy Good. Monarchy Bad.' Classic."

This was almost as bad as his Castle Siren idea. "Nice sentiment." Pidge said. "You should tell the PRINCESS all about it if we ever see her again."

"Are you saying that you wouldn't vote for Allura?"

"Yes. No. I suppose, in theory, I think she'd make a really good President."

"So do I, Pidge. So do I. Can I count on your support then?"

"My support?"

"For 'Vote Voltron!' Hunk'll back me up, but if more than half of the Paladins think that the saying's a good idea, the team's top brass will just have to make it official. We can put it on t-shirts, posters, collectible pins, and more. It could be huge! Just imagine!"

And imagine, Pidge did. She indulged in the idea that this nonsensical two-word creedo would take of. That rebels throughout the cosmos would take to vandalizing Glara property with the line and how its uttering would cap off every clandestine resistance meeeting on dozens of worlds. She thought of how Allura and the Paladins would go about spreading the phrase. They might hijack a broadcasting station, rain down flyers on occupied city, or if they wanted to be ruthless about it, carve the message into the wreckage of downed enemy ships and the surfaces of barren moons. It was a fun thought, so delightful in its unlikeliness that she almost forgot where it had come from.

"No."

"Wh-why not?" Lance stammered. "It's a phenomenon in the making!"

"It isn't, Lance. And even if it was, I'm not in the mood for any of your schemes right now." Pidge spat.

"Why? What did I do to get you so cheesed?"

"It's not what you did, it's what you didn't do!" she exclaimed. "Did you really think a few gallons of drinking water and some fresh seafood would fill me with so much starstruck gratitude that I wouldn't notice?"

"I don't-." Lance coughed. "I don't get what you mean."

"That corpse you're so proud of didn't keel over yesterday, Lance. Based on the weather and the stench, it's been rotting in the sun for about a week; you killed it ages ago. But instead of trying to find me, the Castle, or the rest of the team, you decided to live large with your transparent groupies and your endless rrrrrrrrrrevels!" Pidge trilled in mocking imitation. "I didn't think you could be this disgustingly irresponsible, but whatever, it's something to add on the very short list of stuff I've been wrong about."

"Hey, it's hard to tell day from night when you're in a moving underwater city." Lance tersely explained. "And I totally earned those revels."

"Right. That's likely!"

"How could you not see how huge the Defilon was? That fuchsia clawed lobster serpent was like a mile long!"

"A thousand meters." Pidge corrected. "Only a little more than half a mile. Leave the hyperbole to your fan club."

"Only half a mile?!" Lance echoed angrily. "I'm sorry that the unstoppable sea monster with a near impenetrable shell wasn't big enough to impress you!" he growled. "You fight a two mile octopus crab on your way to fetch me?"

"No, but I wouldn't have done a 7-day victory lap if I had."

"Were you hoping I'd be in serious danger when you got to Hilm? Because there was plenty of that as I was bashed all across the ocean!"

She paused, suddenly wishing she had dropped the subject after outing her comrade's weak deception. "That's not why I'm-."

"How about dead? Did you want me dead? I'm seriously getting that vibe from you right now."

"Don't even joke about that."

"Who's joking? Maybe Omak was right. Maybe I was wrong to tell him to fix his story so it didn't sound like I died at the end. Apparently, I got more sympathy from you when you thought I had bit it than when you found out I actually survived."

"How can someone so skinny be so fatheaded?" she thought. "I didn't want you dead."

"Oh I get it. You're not mad. You're just jealous that I actually came out on top for once."

"I CAN BE BOTH!"

To her surprise and immediate satisfaction, the blue dot on her scanner tumbled back a few inches from her green one. Whether her outburst had scared him into backing off or caused him to temporarily lose control of his Lion in surprise, she didn't care. Lance was further away now and more importantly, he wasn't yelling back. In fact, he wasn't saying anything. He was quiet. And so was Pidge's cockpit.

"Score one for Katie," she mentally sighed. Now she could search for the others without distration. Without ludicrous proposals or tedious chitchat. She had done just fine without them so far.

She settled back into her seat and allowed the calm to re-establish that familiar sensory rhythm. The sight of constellations zipping past like sundrenched attic dust, the smell of oxygen perpetually purified and recycled through unknown mechanisms, the blessed numbness that kept her grip unyielding and spared her from feeling how greasy her skin had gotten, and that routine silence. The same silence that had been her sole companionfor 324 Hours, 17 minutes, and 49 seconds until a strange little slug man had implied that one of her only friends in the whole wild universe was dead.

"Lance? Are you still there?"

"Last time I checked. Um, what's up?"

"Nothing. Nothing. I'm just making sure that the comm system still works."

"It does," he replied quickly. "I can hear you loud and clear."

"That's a relief." Pidge bit the inside of her cheek. The slight discomfort helped her stay grounded, which seemed harder and harder to do recently. It was so easy to drift away, upward into a yielding weightless sphere where all of existence appeared to conform to your whims while you never actually got anything done. "Do you, maybe," she paused, letting the words dangle over the edge of realization. "Want to know where I've been since we all got separated?"

She waited a few seconds as Lance mulled over this offer, unsure if she could make it again if he asked her to repeat it. "Sure, but you don't really sound like you want to tell me."

"Don't give me an out, Lance. I'll probably take it." she fumed. "I do, sorta. If you wouldn't mind."

"Fire away, Pidge. Get it off your chest."

"Right," the Green Paladin took out her glasses from one of her armour's compartments as she tried to decide the best place to begin. Careening through the wormhole as she lost sight of the Castle and the other Lions? Getting spat out in a foreign star system on a remote fringe of the galaxy? Her panicked attempts to contact Allura, Shiro, or anyone at all on the slim chance they had wound up near her or somewhere close? As she put them on, she noticed that there was a large smudge on the right lens that she'd have to clean later when she had full use of both her arms.

"I landed on a heavily forested world," she began. "I thought it would be a good place to resupply before I went out to look for you and the others. My on board instruments weren't powerful enough to tell me where you all were, but they did tell me that the air down on Planet...Elad was breathable; that I could drink the water, and eat the vegetation. The Lion's databanks said that there was supposed to be a thriving civilization on it, but even after I did a quick sweep over the planet, I couldn't find any."

"And you still stuck around?"

"I didn't have much of a choice. It might've been the only planet with food and water for lightyears. Anything could've happened to the people who used to live on it over the last few centuries. That's what I told myself. Maybe it was a war or maybe they had all left to colonize other worlds. I decided I'd take what I needed and then leave. In and out. I didn't want to stay on some abandoned planet, no matter how lush and peaceful it seemed," her molars shook against one another, trying to impede the next passage from being uttered. "I parked Green near a lake and stepped out. Started foraging. Found a lot of fruits that were full of vitamins, some roots my computers said were rich in nutrition, if not flavour, and I loaded up the emergency ration canisters with water. Enough supplies to last me a month," and oh, how proud of herself she felt. Katie Holt, master of the wild. "I had my helmet on the entire time despite how all my analyses were telling me the same thing; that the air was safe, that the water was safe, that this was a safe place."

"Did you keep it on?" Lance asked. And Pidge could hear the worry in his voice, the hope that a few hours of roughing it was all she had to endure, and that her resentment of him was chiefly about the parties and the autographs.

"Come on, Lance. I was exhausted from helping rescue Allura, I was practically half asleep, and I was tired of breathing in processed oxygen. And the planet looked peaceful. Sounded peaceful too. Not a chirp, buzz, or bark. It was completely quiet. That should've been my first clue. That aside from the plants, it felt like I was the only living thing there," she explained. "I disengaged my face plate. The air was light and sweet. Free of the filter, I was reminded of how thirsty I was and I took a sip of water from the lake. Why not, right? I knew the water wasn't poisonous or alive or that it would give me indigestion. What was there to worry about?" she punctuated her question with a frosty snicker, knowing that Lance wouldn't be able to answer it. Only she could.

"What happened next?"

"I started seeing things. Things that weren't there."

"Like what happened with Allura and her dad's AI?"

"No. That was a corrupted hologram. This was something much more comprehensive. Much more," her voice trembled. "It brought me home. I was there. My mom was there. We were standing in front of the door. I didn't know what we were waiting for and I didn't care. I was excited, completely excited, like when you're absolutely sure what you're excited for won't let you down. Then the door opened and they stepped through. Dad and Matt. Then mom welcomed them back."

"It made you see all that?"

"And more. Smells, sounds, sometimes tastes; it felt so real. And after I was done hugging my dad, all of a sudden, we were in space. I couldn't even bring myself to question it. I was too happy to let rationality get in the way. And when I was coming down from that, I was somewhere else. It never gave my mind a chance to settle and think about what was happening. It kept putting me through all these different scenarios to keep the wonder fresh. I was young. I was old. I had kids. I was a kid. There was peace, then war, then the war had never happened in the first place. Sometimes you guys were there and the same or you were completely different. Coran was a talk show host at one point. I can't remember the shifts very clearly, but my family and I were always together. That never changed. And I didn't want it to." Pidge confessed, trying not to sound or feel wistful about being so grossly deceived.

"How did you realize you were being played?"

"My glasses. Matt's glasses. The pair I borrowed and used for my disguise. Not this specific pair. You can't see me wearing them, but I am. He had like 9 of these and I had to replace the lenses of mine because their grade was too high," she pinched the bridge of her nose. "That came out wrong. I got off track there."

"I don't mind. That was actually all news to me." Lance assured. "But how did they get you out of those visions?"

"We were on a planet full of square bubbles. Don't ask. It was a bright day, Matt turned to tell me something, but the light, it didn't reflect off of his glasses as they should've. It just went through them like they weren't even there. Because they weren't. None of us were. I probably saw this happen countless times, but I only noticed it then," she allowed herself a grin. "Isn't that nuts? Matt's trapped, toiling away on some prison colony in the Galra Empire, and he's still looking out for his little sister."

"Sweet is what it is, Pidge," Lance claimed, and for once, Pidge couldn't disagree with him. "Was it enough to get you out of that crazy dream rock?"

"Sorta. It didn't happen right away. I had to…hack it…first."

"With an ax?"

"No. I did it with my…brain…and I think my Lion. The dream wouldn't let me call up a lab or even a junkyard so I couldn't build a solution. It kept bombarding me with fantasies and triumphs to bring me back under, but I couldn't. Eventually I got sick of all the lies it was trying to feed me. I stood my ground, in my head, reached out, still in my head, and tried to turn it off. And it worked! Kinda. I paused it at least. It was strange seeing everything frozen in place, but it was a familiar feeling too, a real one. It was the little thrill I get whenever I solve a problem. I didn't know how I had cracked the system, but I felt Green helped somehow, keeping me centered and rooted. And it was less like I was manipulating the machinery than I was the other stuff. The plant…stuff. Does that make sense?"

"My Lion told me that the best way to stop a collapsing alien power plant from falling was to freeze it," Lance reminded. "Even if it didn't make sense, you'd still be in good company, Pidge."

"Right. Anyway, as I started peeling back its layers to creae an exit, I began to learn more about what the dream actually was: nano-sized biocomputers spread throughout the world; small and sophisticated enough that they were able to mask their presence from my scans. They were in the air I breathed, the water I drank, and the supplies I had packed into the Lion. I must've inhaled thousands of them when I opened my helmet. I dug a little deeper and found out that the people of Elad had made them. They were all part of this great, big supercomputer that was built to solve all the problems of their people: War, Poverty, Disease, Loneliness, etc."

"So it wiped them all out, right? No more Eladians; no more Eladian problems."

"Not in the way you'd think. It wasn't allowed to use violence of any kind and its decisions had to benefit everybody on Elad. It proposed a whole bunch of different initiatives to tweak the economy, broker peace between nations, and improve the base level of living, but they were either thrown out or altered to be less effective. In the end, it came to see that the flaw in its mission was that it couldn't give everyone what they wanted; too many ulterior motives and conflicting goals. The solution? Make everyone THINK they had gotten what they wanted."

"By dousing them with brainwashing spores?"

"Mhmm. Once it made sure it had infected everything on Elad, it activated its modules simultaneously, and shut everyone down. Even the animals. Then while they were asleep, the computer started to 'integrate' them into its framework so it could 'grow' even further."

"Fertilizer?" Lance gagged. "It turned an entire civilization into supercomputer fertilizer?! That's sick!"

"More or less." Pidge felt a small tinge of appreciation that Lance was almost as disgusted as she was when she had found out that the lush verdant sanctuary was built on the bodies of millions. She decided to withold the little tidbit of information that would make their revulsion equal; that the Eladians were still, in the most minimal sense of the word, alive and completely stripped of ego in their technologically-induced fugue. That was knowledge even she didn't want to keep. "I managed to return to my house. I turned the knob myself, knowing that this was it, I'd be free, but Elad wasn't through with me yet. I opened the door and they were there, Dad and Matt, standing in my way. The two of them smiled at me, and dad said as gently as I'd ever heard him speak…"

"Pidge?"

"He said, You've been asleep for ages, Katie. We're probably long gone by now, you know that, right?"

"Tell me you kicked that forest in the quiznak."

"As much as I could kick a bunch of trees there, yeah. I stepped right through my fake father and woke up covered with vines that were trying to get into my armor. I cut them loose with my Bayard, but my legs were weak from not being used for so long; an entire week! I was out for an entire week! I had to crawl my way back to Green. After it scooped me back inside, I used the connection I still had to the Elad computers to, er, hack the spores from my body and all the food and water I had taken onboard. Then, like I did while I was in the trance, I tapped into the planet's main network and used all that virulent microscopic processing power to exponentially boost the range of my scanners. To think, in spite of how hard it tried to stop me from doing so, I don't think I would've been able to find out where any of you had ended up without those spores."

"Um, pardon me for asking, but you're not planning on using that big plant computer to help us fight the Galra, are you?"

"Not a chance. When I get the time, I'm going to go back to Elad, and then I'm going to blow it to smithereens."

"Count me in." Lance stated. "This might be the one unique case where blowing up a planet fits into the whole Paladin code of 'defending the universe.' We could even form Voltron with the rest of the gang for the coup de grace!"

"Sure. With the rest of the gang." Pidge glumly repeated. "Now do you understand why I was so mad earlier?"

"Yeah. You got your head messed with. Like, a lot."

"No. That's only part of the reason. Did I forget to mention it? I forgot to mention it, didn't I? My bad." Pidge ran a hand through her splayed light brown locks and wished she hadn't tossed away her helmet. She felt so vulnerable when it wasn't on. As if a stray laser bolt or flung knife would be summoned by its absence and strike. "While I was making my way towards your locations, I was keeping track of where you guys were in case you moved. And aside from Shiro, none of you did."

"What was so bad about that? If it was me looking for you, it'd be easier if you had stayed put on...ah. Okay, I can see why you'd start to worry."

"Then you can put yourself in my shoes. Tracking the signal of your Lion to a giant dead half-a-mile sea monster, trying to make contact with your cockpit or helmet radio over and over again with no answer, and finding your headphones on a floating pedestal being guarded by some pretentious old coot with a speech impediment who told me that it was a 'sacred artifact' placed there in memory of how you plunged yourself into 'the labyrinthine, inescapable innards of the beast' to save his people."

"Pidge, you have to believe me, I just told him to take those up to the surface for a few hours so their solar cells could recharge, not to make a shrine around them."

"And after I bawled my eyes out over your supposed demise," Pidge went on, heedless of Lance's protests. "It turned out that not only were you not dead, you were living large miles below sea level!" the familiar pressure of indignation pushed against the inside of her forehead, causing her teeth to grind against each other as she spoke, "It was just so jarring that after I spent days worrying about how you were doing, you were perfectly fine and you didn't even seem to care that I had arrived."

"I was happy to see you."

"You said as much and the fresh Nomlas fillet was nice, but you were so flippant about how I had come all that way. And you even took your sweet time leaving the planet when we should've started searching immediately. Did you even think about what the rest of us might've been going through? Are you really that-that-." The pressure hardened, twisting into a solid block of fury. Her body tensed, her fingers clutched at her controls, and a tempestuous racket filled her ears. Then the wave broke, smashed back to stagnancy by the exhaustion in her muscles and the walls of her skull. She slumped back into her chair with a huff. "Lance. I was glad you weren't in any danger when I got to Hilm and I was relieved that you weren't dead. Besides my mom…you, Shiro, Hunk, Allura, Keith, and Coran are all I've got left. I can't...I can't lose anyone else, okay?"

"Pidge, I...can...can we land somewhere really quick?" Lance asked.

"Why would we do that?" Pidge grumbled.

"It's like you said, we didn't get much of a chance to, I mean, I didn't try to really talk to you back on Hilm."

"And?"

"And I'd like to continue this conversation with you face-to-face."

"There's nothing left to talk about, Lance." Pidge said. "What would be the point?"

"For starters, you'd know that it's really me you're speaking to and not another phony." Lance answered. "And something's eating you. Heck, something almost did. You were almost mulched while you were getting pumped up with a bunch of bogus fantasies. That's something we could discuss."

"Lance, what happened, happened. I'll get over it someday."

"I could help you not feel so bad about it sooner."

"How?"

"I don't know. But whatever it is, I know I can't do it over the stupid radio!" he yelled.

Pidge blinked. Over the course of their association, she had come to recognise that Lance was an extremely expressive fellow. Whatever he felt or thought could not be adequately contained by the muscles in his face or the movements of his tongue. His words were punctuated by the slick gestures of his hands and emotions sloped and straightened the length of his spine and the bend of his knees. Having to talk at length like this with only his voice to carry him through must have been stifling. Reluctantly, she used her empowered scanners to scope out the sectors of space that lay ahead. "There's nowhere stable enough for us to touch down on, Lance. I appreciate the sentiment, but it's not going to happen today."

"Dang it."

The raw disappointment in his voice made the curse strangely touching to the shorter Paladin. "Although, I can tell you that while it got old fast, the way the Metchazoas fawned over you was pretty compelling evidence that I was no longer hallucinating. I would never have imagined I'd find you about to be crowned King of the Sea Slug people with your Lion full of pirate treasure."

"Really? That's a relief. However, I'd like to point out that I was never going to be their king. Not being able to breathe underwater was kind of a dealbreaker for them. And it wasn't pirate treasure. Just a bunch of chests filled with gold," the Blue Paladin smacked his lips. "And I've got so much that I could give you a few nuggets if we parked for a few minutes."

"I wasn't kidding, Lance. There's really nowhere we can do that at the moment. And to be honest, I'm not looking so hot right now."

"Putting aside how that's hard to do in these flattering space cop uniforms and your big disguise schtick from back in the Academy, when have your looks ever been a big issue for you?"

"It helps that I feel really horrible too. Two weeks on the move and a limited water supply haven't given me much time for extensive hygiene. I got bags under my eyes, my breath stinks, and you know how our suits are supposed to feel like second skins? There's a thin, but impossible to ignore, layer of...something...between mine and my actual skin," she flexed her hand and cringed as she felt it sift through the grime on its way to affecting the garment that covered it. "How in the world did you manage to stay so clean and flower-scented while you were living in the ocean?" she asked, the sight of his emergence still fresh in her memory; Botticelli's Venus, but nearly as naked, and with a mechanical Lion in place of the iconic clam.

"Aww, you noticed how aromatic I am. And my secret to that is...oh...ah...eugh."

"Lance?"

"I think I-whew-I think I know how to make you feel better now," he claimed, his voice lousy with hesitation. "About pretty much everything."

"I'm listening." Pidge stated, trying to sound sceptical and not at all eager.

"Omak told you how I beat the Defilon, right?"

"He did. He said that you learned that Hilm had a rare alloy that could temporarily pierce the Defilon's armor, you covered the front of the defunct Metchazoa escape ark with as much of it as you could find, snuck Blue into the hollow of the reinforced tip, faked an evacuation, and then launched the ark directly at the Defilon, impaling it just enough so that you could break out of the flimsier prow and begin attacking it from the inside."

"Wow. That felt a lot more impressive and terrifying when I was doing it, but yes, those are the basics. And because you were incredibly indifferent to its success instead of morbidly amused, I'm assuming that he didn't tell you how I had PLANNED to leave through the Defilon's head after I was sure I'd killed it, but in the midst of all my blasting and freezing and clawing I got turned around, and what I thought was its throat turned out to be a much less pleasant...way...out."

Pidge's increasing external and internal shabbiness left her exhausted and prone to irritation, impatience, and general pique. However, while it robbed her of the energy to actually avoid them, her fatigue came with a warped sense of awareness that let her foresee what stampedes of passion would splash down and drive her forward; usually they consisted of an avalanche of premature cantankerousness, a whirlpool of recursive concerns, and a very apprehensive hurricane. Only this time, the attitude boiling into existence was a phenomenon long since thought impossible due to her current physiological and psychological climate. "Did...did they see it happen?"

"Yes." Lance mumbled.

"The Data Scales," Pidge said, recalling those extraordinary radiant plates the Metchazoans used to snap some last minute pictures of their hapless hero taking a bow. "Were any recording your, hrrk, victory by any chance? Did they get your good side?"

"How dare you? All my sides are good."

The primordial bubble within Pidge swelled and popped into a booming thunderclap, palms smashing against one another in pursuit and applause of the lightning bolt of absurdity and misfortune; harnessed and channelled through the human body in the only way it knew how. "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

"Laugh it up. Laugh it up." Lance groused.

"Ahahahahahaha!"

"Okay. Maybe that's enough. It wasn't that funny."

"B-b-but-butt-but Lance!" Tears of a different flavor flowed from tired eyes, moistening the lifted edges of dry lips, and shakily descending the curve of a rattling chin until a gloved hand wiped them clean. "Future generations of Metchazoas will look back and waHahahatch those videos and they'll see you-see you-s-s-ssss-hahaha!"

"They'll see me!" Lance exclaimed. "The Azure Avenger of Hilm using his cunning and superior piloting skill to defeat the B-movie Behemoth that terrorized their people for decades-."

"-Followed by him escaping the NETHERworld!" Pidge squawked.

"For the love of crow!" Lance whined. "You couldn't help yourself. Could you?"

"I could've," Pidge admitted. "I just didn't want to."

"Heh. Fair enough," he acquiesced as he waited for the guffaws of his former communications officer to fade into a contented purr. "Feel a bit better?"

"Still tired, smelly, and anxious," she listed. "But I'm a little happier, thanks."

"Nah, I'm the one who should be saying that. Thanks, Pidge. For…for travelling so far to get me. I appreciate it."

"I'd be lying if I said, 'No problem' to that."

"And you don't have to. Neither of us had it easy, but you're right. I shouldn't have had so many revels. I should've tried searching for you." Lance assured. "Y'see, the reason I was so chill when you got to Hilm and why I wasn't worried about what you and the others…and Keith might've been going through is that, I figured, you'd all do just fine without me. You usually do. So if I was okay, you must've been too."

"Lance…that isn't-."

"Bah! Enough with my excuses! No matter how bad or good our pals have it, we'll find them anyway. Who're we headed to now?"

Pidge smiled. "Hunk."

"Oh yeah!" Lance exclaimed. "The Three Amigoteers Back Together! Lance! Pidge! And…Hunk. Hunk…huh."

"Something the matter?"

"You know what? I've done some thinking, and I've decided that I'm going to call you 'Holt' from now on."

"What's wrong with Pidge?"

"I want to get used to your real name. If Shiro can do it, why can't I?"

"He calls me Katie."

"Eh, it's not as snappy as your alias or last name. It'll mess with the single syllable flow of the team roster."

"And Shiro?"

"He's the leader. He gets two syllables. Same with Coran. Allura's royalty so she gets three. Sound reasonable?"

"It sounds like the premise of a dystopian young adult novel." Pidge wretched.

"You say that like it's a bad thing. Those books make mad bank."

Appropriately, this almost left Pidge at a loss for words. "I'm simply going to ignore anything you say that is prefaced or ends with the word Holt."

"Think about it! It'll give you massive alliteration points with Hunk for when you build junk. Shiro can walk into your lab and be all, 'Holt! Hunk! What do you got for us today?' or he can yell, 'Holt! Hunk! Hack and Smash those turrets!' in the middle of battle." Lance pitched in the best imitation of the Black Paladin he could muster.

"I'd…I'd rather not let the Galra know that I share a name with one or two of their prisoners."

"Shoot," Pidge could nearly hear his grimace over the radio. "I hadn't thought of that. If those creeps ever found out, they might hold them for – hang on – one or two?"

"It's been more than a year," she replied tiredly. "Shiro barely managed to escape with one arm and he's had real military training while my-."

"Two," Lance sternly insisted. "Using your real name might get two of their prisoners in trouble."

For the first time since Shiro had told her about the gladiator pit, Pidge imagined what her missing father and sibling must have looked like now. She scratched away that healthy unmolested facade that Elad sold her and stopped just short of the undignified shallow graves of her nightmares. Set between these two extremes, she saw them for how they could be; Dirty, Tired, Bruised, Alive, and against all logic, Hopeful.

"That sounds about right."

"Because it is. And I'm not giving up on Holt & Hunk either. I can make it happen. Maybe after…maybe after we win the war!" he snapped his fingers. "You can start your own inventor science research firm company club on Earth. And with our Celestial Savior credentials, you two will be drowning in contracts and investors. Naturally, your co-Paladins will get a generous discount on H&H stock options. It's only fair."

"I'm not sure that'll work out so well."

"What? Nepotism? It's easy!"

"The returning to Earth part. That might be a problem. I'm worried that if Galaxy Garrison learns about Voltron, they might want it for themselves."

"Can't really blame them. These Lions are pretty suh-weet rides."

"Aren't you the least bit afraid that they might try to use our-." Pidge scowled. "-our familes to get to the Lions?"

"Pidge, they're not the Galra."

"Did they need to be when they tried to take Shiro away?"

"Rrrrgh. You're busting my chops here, Pidge." Lance whined. "Busting them hard!"

"Don't blame me. Blame the military industrial complex."

"Fine! Fine! Let me think. Let me think."

"Maybe you should take a break from that."

"I got it! They can't kidnap our loved ones, if we kidnap them first!"

Pidge's left eye twitched so hard and suddenly that it closed. "Care to make that sound a little less insane?"

"After we beat Zarkon, but BEFORE we publicly strut our stuff to our home solar system, we use your cloaking gizmos to covertly extract all our friends and family so they can't be taken prisoner."

"They might not like getting cooped up in the Castle, man."

"Allura's bachelorette pad isn't some antique NASA shuttle. There's space for them to run around in while they're travelling in space. And should she not want to part with any of her thousand and one sitting rooms, they can always move into the really big and weirdly long tunnels we use to get to our Lions. Take it from a guy who, pending a surprise marriage, pregnancy, or adoption that happened while he was off-world, has 11 Lance Clan members to rescue and is totally fine with leaving them down there."

"Hmmm. Not to jinx it, but that's not a bad-."

"Whoah! Hold up! We could make it even better."

"I-I think it's fine the way it is."

"Consider this: We make them think they're being abducted by hostile aliens!"

"Whuh?"

"We get Allura to shapeshift – she'll owe us one after we help avenger her father – so she's all evil looking. We convince Coran to dress up as her wicked vizier and style his stache so it's all pointy and threatening. Scary Coran. How nuts would that be?"

"No."

"Allura laughs like a maniac and tells them that they're in her clutches and that they'll be all that remains of humanity after she razes the Earth so it can be reborn as Neo-Altea!"

"No."

"Then she'll unleash her 'doomsday weapon.' She'll put on a little Quintessence light show. Then FLASH! Confetti! Party Poppers! Regular Allura! And of course, us, safe and sound, and surpise, a squad of space superheroes."

"Lance! I am not going to let you give my mom a heart attack!" Pidge screamed. "A hoax that extreme could kill her!"

"How old is she?"

"That's both rude and irrelevant."

"Age can be a pretty relevant factor when it comes to heart attacks."

Pidge allowed herself a moment to mourn for the mangled misuse of that poor, innocent fact. "Hi, mom! It's me, Katie. I'm sorry I've been gone a while, but I found dad and Matt! I'll explain everything, but first, step into this big, green robot lion so I can take you to them," the spiel was as high-pitched and improperly chipper as Pidge had always imagined it being, and yet, its moronic edge was bluntly rounded by an underlying sense of self-awareness. "There. She'll be shocked, confused, and will most likely ground me for the rest of my life once she calms down, but at least she won't think she's being enslaved by a genocidal interstellar empress! Go ahead and terrify your own parents."

"Don't think I won't! And good luck getting the nerve to just show up on your mom's doorstehahahaUGH!" Lance squealed. "On second thought, why don't you have Shiro pick your mom up for you? He and your parents are tight, right? She can trust him. And who needs Earth anyway? All the awesome advanced science magic is up here. Why go back to boring, old Terra Firma?"

"What are you plotting?"

"I'm not plotting. You raised a lot of good points that made me remember that Earth might not be the safest place for you anymore."

"Because of Galaxy Garrison?"

"Technically no...and yes."

"Lance, after we get my mom out of harm's way, I can handle anything they throw at me."

"Ginger Ellington."

Pidge's blood ran cold. "Pfft. I don't see how she'll be a problem." Freon flowed through her veins, poisoning her courage. "She's probably still a cadet." Her confidence became brittle with frost, and a mountain range of trepidation began lining the insides of her stomach. "AND, I'll have you know that, despite all those...rumours surrounding her, she was nothing but nice to me back at the Academy."

Ginger Ellington was one of the most promising senior cadets Galaxy Garrison had to offer. Not the largest, not the fastest, not the most scientifically gifted of her peers – if she ever deigned to consider them as such – she could nonetheless outfight, outrace, and outsmart any of them due to her drive, discipline, and absolute ruthlessness. Interviews for potential cadets had that tried and true kneecapper of a question, 'Where do you see yourself in 10 years?' to measure their confidence and long-term vision. Unbeknownst to them both, Pidge and Hunk had provided answers identical in nature, lacking in ambition but precise in detail for their own clandestine and uncomplicated motivations. Lance's response was overblown and indulgent with only the vaguest skeleton of a plan. When her turn came, the delicate rugged fingers of Ginger Ellington drew together like Venus Flytrap lacework as she said, "In charge," and nothing else. She was currently on Year 3, and her once stiff competition had systematically, and suspiciously, sagged with all rivals either dropping out or falling in line behind her.

"Yeah. She sure was. Nice to you, that is."

"What are you implying?"

"Pidge, use that big brain of yours and just think about how nice she was to you."

"All right, but I don't see how-." As Gunderson, Katie had done her best to keep her head low so as not to attract excessive attention during her investigations. From his quiet demeanour to his foreign but unremarkable last name, Cadet Pidge was constructed to be an unremarkable presence you could see, but not really notice. Ginger Ellington noticed him though. She had even winked at him once. Winked at her. Winking wasn't an act the stern, mirthless Ginger Ellington was known for. Pidge must've been a special case. To what degree and manner, she could only guess. And when she dared to, she understood. Fully. Irreversibly. "Oh no."

"Oh yes."

"But I'm-!"

"You are."

"And she's-!"

"She is." Lance paused. "But are you..."

"As of this moment..." Pidge pondered. "I don't think I am. Is she-?"

"Nope. I guess you're just going to have to deal with her then."

From what Pidge had heard and what she knew, that never ended well. "How did this even happen?!"

"Didn't you help her up that one time? That might be where it started."

"She tripped! I was being polite!"

"Nobody's blaming you, Pidge. It was your first week at Galaxy Garrison. You couldn't have known any better."

"But you sure did!" she accused.

"I was gonna tell you the night we flunked that simulation!" Lance retorted. "But-."

"We wound up in deep space."

"No. I found out you had a girlfriend. I took one look at that picture and thought, this cutie is so doomed when Ginger Ellington finds out about her." Pidge felt her cheeks warm at the flattery. "And then you were actually your own girlfriend and...yeah...that's why I think you can never go back to Earth. Or any planet in its general vicinity. At the rate she's climbing the ranks, she'll have her own starship to chase you down with soon enough."

"I-I'll just tell her the truth. That I only did it to find out what really happened to my family. She can sympathize. Who wouldn't?"

"Oh, Pidgey!" Lance crooned. "I was just a pawn to you this whole time?"

"It wasn't like that. I didn't want anything like this to happen!"

"Oh! So I mean nothing to you then? After I opened up my heart and was ready to do the same with my breeches?!"

"That is not an accurate representation of how she'd react."

"True. She's more about action than talk. Swift, merciless, you can't trace that back to me action." Lance shuddered. "Don't risk it."

"This isn't fair." Pidge said. "This isn't fair!"

"You've faced worse, arguably, and you can always tie her up with your Bayard."

"That's not going to stop her."

"Possibly. She is all sorts of crazy nasty."

"I-I don't accept this. I refuse! I refuse to accept this! I am not going to survive this war just so I can get stabbed in the face by that scarlet psycho when I get home." Desperation tore off a valve in Pidge's head, drenching her thoughts in bile and viciousness. "Lance! I need you to come up with one of your awful scams!"

"They're not scams. They're mostly legitimate. And why do I have to come up with a plan? You're the braniac and she's your stalker."

"Because I'm too tired, scared, and mad to think straight." Pidge snapped. "What's the matter? You've been bombarding me with half-baked proposals all day."

"I-I'm more of a spontaneous problem solver." Lance stammered in his defence. "You can't force inspiration."

"Oooooo, you better figure out how real quick. Because if you can't pull a fast one out of your butt, I'm going to tell Ginger Ellington that you were in on it."

"That's-! No! That's a dirty lie! I was the last to find out!"

"What do you think she'll find more believable, 'captain?' That you couldn't tell that the trainee you worked and lived so closely with for months wasn't actually a guy? Or that you're half of Lance & Pidge: Partners in Crime?"

"Hunk was complicit!"

"Hunk didn't spend his past seven evenings and mornings getting worshipped and pampered like a certain 'Cerulean Celebrity' I know." Pidge said. "We're either getting through this together or we're going down together. Your choice."

"Uhm, uh, clones. Robots. Robot clones? Plastic surgery? Gah!" Lance listed and dismissed, the gaps between words filled with second guessing and self-inflicted scepticism. "Why did you have to lie about something so big? Why couldn't it have been something small? Like your name? That's all Matt would have had to do if he was...if he was...wait! We could foist her on your brother!"

"That...that…that might be the least terrible plan you've ever had. That could actually work."

"Did you just insult me or compliment me?"

Pidge elected to direct her frayed mental faculties elsewhere. "I can't believe I didn't think of it. Matt would be perfect for this."

"He'd also owe you to an insane degree for rescuing him from the Galra."

"EXACTLY! This is the least he could do. And Ginger Ellington's a huge step up from Zarkon." Pidge insisted, but didn't quite believe.

"Yeah, she's only horrible on the inside."

"And what Matt doesn't know won't, rather, he doesn't need to know that. Via a cursory glance and on a quantitative level, Ginger Ellington is quite the catch"

"A 10 in a lot of fields. I don't think he'll mind bailing you out. Not for a while anyway."

"We shouldn't frame it so negatively to begin with. Instead of asking him to settle a debt, we should act like we're the ones doing him a favor. 'Welcome home, Matt. And guess what? I got you a date! She's pretty, smart, loves science – mostly those related to weapons, surveillance, and politics – and she's a redhead. And I know how much you like redheads!' I'll tell him the only catch is that he has to answer to 'Pidge' and we'll get on with our lives."

"That takes care of Matt, but him being taller and older might raise some red flags with his would-be sweetheart."

"We'll say that he escaped imprisonment and teleported back to Earth, but there was a transport malfunction and he wound up younger."

"A teleporter accident…turned him back into a teenager? That's a stretch."

"You know what isn't a stretch? Us saving the world of Hunk's living rock girlfriend with the help of a magical 10,000 + year old alien elf princess."

"Touche. That still doesn't explain where Katie Holt ran off to though."

"I forgot about Katie. Her. Me. Crud!"

"Relax, if de-Aging wormholes are on the table, then I've got the answer."

Whenever she'd be asked about her ordeals on Elad, Pidge would insist that it was the inconsistencies with her brother's glasses that snapped her out of the planet's hypnosis. With each retelling, she became less confident in this absolute, and wondered if there had been other clues that had played a part. One day in the future, not having much to do, she will be detached enough from the episode to carefully and fearlessly explore it. She will learn that even before those lenses failed to perform as intended, there was a glaring flaw in Elad's mechanisms that would have inevitably tipped her off to the fraud.

The spores provided her with all the elaborate delight she could handle and more, but they couldn't truly convince her that she wasn't alone. The machine that had touched and conquered so many minds could not fabricate genuine companionship. Her family and friends had been conjured up from her memories and acted as she had known them or rather, to the limits of what she knew about them. The novelty of being together at last wore off in time. Conversations became rote, their actions turned stiff and practiced. Elad had resorted to moving the ground beneath their feet to continue fooling her: The Holts visit the Moon, The Holts on Safari, The Holts and the Sleeping Princess, and the inexplicably uneventful The Holts save the Universe. The productions were all clocks empty of machinery and lightbulbs painted yellow; the supporting casts were well-defined in staggering two dimensions, unable to challenge or surprise their leading lady.

Elad had made her elated, not excited. Excitement came on the upper reaches of the incline and the downward plunge down the rollercoaster's zenith. It was flummoxed by dead ends and invigorated by long shots striking the bullseye. It incorporated its fellow emotions instead of supressing them, arranging them all amidst its form to balance its progress lest any maverick mood topple the whole enterprise. It was agitation and glee at the dips and peaks of compromise.

It was at this juncture that the seeds of that epiphany were first plucked and sown in her head as it feverishly and furiously began constructing an ersatz narrative of its own that would see its authors exempt from all crimson consequence. The rules, such as they were, had been laid out, and were lax enough that just about anything was possible so long as the before maintained fidelity with the after. The joy of creation, of joint design where twice the amount of ideas stacked and molded themselves into an entity exponentially greater. She and Lance criticized and visualized as they synthesized. So engrossed in these deliberations that they failed to see how their Lions mirrored their collaborative mindset. Flying parallel and side by side at last, their lustrous trails of exhaust running straight, zigzagged, curved, and then across from one another, blazing twin decorated with bursts of viridian whenever they found a common space.

"So to summarize, the experimental technology the Galra used to snatch up my father and Shiro – who will stand by this version of events if he values our lives – accidentally sent Matt back to Earth and turned him younger. Seeing that Galaxy Garrison was covering up the abduction, he decided to investigate the facility using the name, Pidge Gunderson."

"We've got the beginning down pat, that's for sure."

"He became friends with you and Hunk, and together you met up with Shiro and Keith, found the Blue Lion, and became Paladins, defenders of the universe yada yada yada, but soon, Matt gets injured so badly that he can't pilot anymore. Since she needs a replacement fast, Allura sends Matt to Earth to pick up yours truly, his kid sister. He goes through the wormhole and then heheheHaHaHaHa!"

"Focus. The comic relief comes in later."

Through these debates over how the past should be edited, Pidge was given the proper stimulus to mentally cleanse herself of the weariness that had made her perceive the future as sombre and the present as precarious, giving her new eyes to regard recent and current events. And although it was nowhere near as poignant as the one she would someday have about Elad, this fruits of this review were fulfilling in their own way.

"S-Sorry. It-It's that-." Pidge snorted. "It's about that goodbye speech you gave to the Metchazoas."

"Ah, so you did enjoy it. Good for you. I think it was one of the best I've ever done."

"Lance," Pidge smirked so decadently that she knew he could sense it. "You totally called yourself a tool earlier."

The End

Author Notes:

I would like to thank that cliffhanger ending to Season 1 for providing me with the perfect conceit as to why and how these two would end up stuck together to talk for a protracted period of time.

Thank you for reading the first Ventures in Viridian story, a series of connected one-shots that will draw Lance and Pidge closer to one another with each passing tale until BAM!

Sorry it took a while to make. I got sidetracked with work and writing "5 Heads are Fatter than 1," my other Voltron fanfic. The next story, Caramel Flot/Alphabet Soap (haven't decided on the title), should come out either the following week or a week and a half.

Until then, have some insights into all the weird (and arguably superfluous) stuff I managed to cram into this one chapter.

The Defilon

A titanic life form from Hilm's prehistoric era, brought back to life and enhanced by a Druid War Missionary to punish the Metchazoas for not allowing the Galra to annex Hilm so it could act as a foothold in a quadrant far from the reach of the Empire's main forces. The Defilon was originally going to be a mile-long creature, but the 1000 meter mark retained the menace (1000 to Voltron's 100) while allowing Pidge to take the wind out of Lance's sails with that jab about it being "just" 1000 meters. Based on the oddities found in the Burgess Shale with some Moby Dick sprinkled on, the Defilon was a creature tasked with destroying civilization specifically; Large settlements, sizeable industrial centres, and construction sites devoted to the creation of the above. Gifted with hideous strength, regenerating nigh-impervious armor, ferocious speed, and a sensitivity to all meaningful forms of assault that bordered on clairvoyance, it was a formidable opponent for Lance, a middling Paladin in many respects right down to his Lion. Ultimately, he comes to the conclusion that the only way to land a lethal hit on the monster was to hide it behind a lesser hit. Ergo the seemingly futile ramming attack with the evacuation ark (a little something for you Cthulhu and Little Mermaid fans), a massive ship that was never used because the Defilon would sense the preparations and smash it before it broke the ocean's surface. Lance appreciated the irony. The symbolism linking his name to his chosen way of defeating the creature totally escaped him though. I'd be down for writing this conflict out if there's enough interest as there a number of scenes in it not mentioned I this one-shot that I'm quite fond of.

The Metchazoas

The design came easy enough as did the aesthetics of their culture, but I needed these guys to sing Lance praises and do so with actual words, which weren't very likely to manifest if they spent their entire lives underwater. Having them stumble onto sound by chance and then deciding they liked it was an idea that facilitated the airy habitats Lance would need to survive during his stay on Hilm and their capacity for trailing rrrrrrrrrrrrrs. Once a vibrant and inventive people who were making great strides in interstellar travel, the Defilon put their culture and spirits into a decline as it slowly killed their world by destroying countless Orbles and wrecking havoc on the planet's ecosystems by greedily feasting on the aquatic wildlife en masse. Lance's victory wins them back their future and the gifts they give him will have a delightful impact on the events of the next story.

Elad

If Lance had a water world to save, Pidge's own misadventure would have to take place on one with a lot of plants. At the end of season 1, I had come up with ordeals Keith, Lance, Shiro, and Hunk could undergo - that would have played to the strengths of their personalities and powers - almost instantly. Pidge though, was a lot harder to crack, as wooded settings allow for a wide number of narratives, but none of them seemed to fit her. Elad's dark secret was originally totally organic in nature, but adding a technological aspect to the spores made the entire supercomputer complex a mirror to Pidge's own proclivity towards deception, disguise, and super science. The consequences of said deception are further explored with…

Ginger Ellington

Not an OC as some of you might think. Ginger Ellington is actually based on a member of the Voltron Vehicle Force and her name is a combination of the one they gave her in the cartoon (Ginger) and her original from Armored Fleet Dairugger XV (Patty Ellington). She piloted the Falcon VT Fighter in both versions, which formed the chest plate of Voltron/Dairugger. While only mentioned at the tail end of the story, her segment was actually written first as a simple gag where Lance would tell Pidge that there was a girl back at Galaxy Garrison that had a crush on her, eventually culminating in them deciding to 'foist her' on Matt. While the one-shot became significantly longer, the overall narrative was always in service of getting to this final farcical exchange so it could end on a high note, but the more I thought about it, the more it didn't make sense that the oftentimes brazen Pidge, exhausted as she was, would've been all that intimidated by the possibility of hurting a fellow girl's feelings over an innocent misunderstanding. To preserve her distress at the prospect, I had to make upsetting Ginger a little more dangerous, maybe even lethal. This helped connect her segment with the previous one about neutralizing Galaxy Garrison as a threat to the Paladin families, but it had the unintentional side effect of making Pidge and Lance's decision (which hadn't changed) a tad despicable, something Pidge tries to make excuses for (which were also fun to write). Sorry, Matt!

As always, feel free to leave a review to let me know what you thought about the work.