Voltron: Legacy

Chapter 3

The next morning, after a distinctly uncomfortable breakfast in the dining hall with everyone staring and muttering, I headed straight out to the lions. Black was waiting for me, looking even more intimidating in the morning sun. I walked up to it and its mouth opened, letting me into the cab. Sitting down, I leaned my head back on the seat and closed my eyes.
“Hi again. Do you have any clues for me about what it is we’re up against?”
No response.
“You are really darn good at the silent treatment, you know that?”
Then I remembered the promise I’d made last night, about learning to work together. It looked like everything else would have to wait until we’d mastered that.
“Okay, Black. Let’s get started.”
I grabbed the controls and tried a few basic moves: running, jumping, taking off and landing. The Black lion was so much bigger than anything I’d ever driven before, and it took all my concentration to keep from running into things at first. I got the sense that I was still just barely in control of what was going on here. It got to the point where I almost gave up, but then I remembered what Shiro had said last night. Everyone was counting on me.
I thought about Mari. She’d been about to burst from excitement when I called her this morning and told her what was going on. I had to protect her. Which meant I had to work with my lion.
I wrapped two hands around the main controls, and used the other two to press a few symbols on the holo screens.
“We are trying this again. This time, I’m gonna listen to you. You’re not just some ship, are you?”
Black sent me a feeling that translated roughly to, “It’s about time you figured that out!”, but it seemed more exasperated than really angry. I tried a lighter touch on the controls, and they moved almost like they were anticipating what I was trying to do. Black could be reading my mind, for all I knew. Normally I wouldn’t like the idea of having someone else in my head, but Black only sort of felt like a separate entity. It was more like having an extra limb. You know, a really big, dangerous, cat-shaped extra limb.
We tried staying in the air a bit longer, moving and twisting in flight, and finally diving. Pretty soon, I had the hang of the basics and a new respect for my lion.

I grinned as we came in for a landing, feeling the thrum of my heartbeat through my whole body after an exhilarating ride.
“Thanks. You’re a pretty good teacher, dude.”
I didn’t exactly know why I’d started calling my lion dude. It just seemed to fit. As I strode out of Black’s mouth, I saw Jason and Leilah waiting for me. They looked pretty angry.
“What’s wrong?” I asked them.
“Oh, I don’t know, maybe the fact that you were practicing out here and didn’t even tell us, much less help us practice too?!” Leilah snapped. “We’ve never driven these things before, in case you didn’t notice.”
Okay, I guessed the whole leadership thing was not off to a great start.
“You’re right.” I admitted, trying to swallow my pride. “I’m sorry. I’ll try to keep better tabs on what you guys need in future. Maybe we can start eating together and checking in then.”
Jason nodded, but Leilah made a disgusted face. “Eat at your table? What, you want me to lose all my social cred?”
I glared at her. “The fate of the Universe is a wee bit more important than your little human clique system, right?”
Leilah sighed. “Yeah, but-”
I cut her off. “Then act like it.”
“Maybe if you stopped acting like a total butt, I would!”
Jason got in between us.
“Guys, quit fighting! Leilah, Karah’s got a point. If we’re on the same team, we should start spending time together and checking in. Karah, you could’ve told her that without being rude, leader or not.”
I stared at him. Jason was usually really quiet when he wasn’t all excited about tech stuff, this was probably the first time I’d actually heard him raise his voice. Finally, I nodded.
“Thanks, Jason. Leilah, I’m sorry.”
It was a grudging apology and we all knew it, but Leilah seemed to accept that it was as much as she’d get from me right now. She stopped glaring.
“So what now?”
“Now we practice, and then we grab something to drink, because flying these things is thirsty work.”
They nodded.

We got in our respective lions, and I showed them the little bit I’d already figured out on the ground. Then, we took off. Leilah’s face popped up on one of my screens.
“Hey, look!”
She was grinning like a little kid as she made Blue somersault through the air. The lion’s tail whipped around, catching Green in the head. I heard Jason yelp, and a view of his empty seat popped up on another screen. Slowly, his face came into view from below camera level. He was rubbing his head and looking annoyed as he fumbled for his glasses.
“Watch where you’re waving your rear, Leilah!”
I couldn’t help snorting at that, which set us all off laughing. It felt good, laughing with them. Better than I’d expected.
“Okay, let’s try flying around each other before we do any more gymnastics.”
It took a bit of practice and a few more collisions, but finally we could dodge and weave around each other in midair without too much trouble. Leilah wiped sweat from her forehead with a corner of her headscarf as we landed.
“That went well.”
“Yeah, actually.” I agreed.
“Me three.”
“Jason, who even says that anymore?”
“I do. So there.” Jason said with pretend indignation. “And I’m a genius, I’ll have you know!”
I covered a grin with my hand. “Okay, genius, lead us to some soda then.”
I had discovered soda, and other carbonated drinks, not that long after I arrived on Earth, and had quickly decided they were an amazing invention. I mean, they’re impossible to drink without either burping or sneezing at least once, which makes them great for humor reasons. And even beyond that, the carbonation gives them a unique taste I really like.
I’d made Keith take Mari and I to the food court at some random mall, bought a bottle or cup of every single brand of cheap soda I could find, then shared them with my sister and had a contest to see who could make the most disgusting soda cocktail.
That had led to a lot of weird looks directed at us. A lot of facepalming on Keith’s part, too. It was one of the few times recently that I’d been able to loosen up and actually have fun.

After we grabbed our sodas and some food, we took them to a little green area and had a sort-of picnic. We had just finished when our communicators buzzed. Shiro’s face popped up on the screen.
“Paladins, the other two will be arriving in a few minutes. Get ready to come meet them.”
“Okay, we’re coming.” I said.
I did my best to hide it from Leilah and Jason as we headed out towards the teludav, but I was nervous. Like, to the point where all four of my palms were sweating. With the other two here, we’d have to start doing team-building stuff.
Sharing about ourselves. That was something I hated doing. And we’d have to try actually forming Voltron. I still didn’t know how that bit even worked. Although, if my connection with Black was anything to go by, it was probably more of a not-knowing-how-it-worked-and-doing-it-anyway sort of thing.

Well, thinking about that wouldn’t help me calm down right now. I shoved my worry to the back of my mind, straightened up, and kept walking.