The two lions, Blue and Red, sped out the other end of the wormhole, and were imminently drawn in by the nearby planet's gravity. Lance attempted to pull back, but Blue wasn't responding. "Blue? Blue!" He shouted. All the lights and controls had been switched off. Lance's heart sank as he was pulled closer and closer towards the planet's surface. "Blue? What's wrong with you? Why aren't you moving?"
Lance looked out the window frantically. He spotted the Red lion just a few yards ahead of him. It looked to be unresponsive as well, and had a tail of flames trailing behind it as they entered the atmosphere. "Keith? Can you hear me?" Lance called out desperately, though he knew it was useless.
Red warning lights began flashing around him. Why the quiznak were they working and not everything else, Lance wondered. He didn't have the time to sit around and think however. They were approximately three dobashs away from impact, and Lance needed to act quick.
But what was Lance to do? The lion wasn't responding, and he had no clue of how to fix it. "Think Lance, think." He mumbled. "What would Father do?"
There was now one dobash until impact. Lance's heart pounded hard against his chest, and entire body began to sweat. But his now sticky clothes were the least of his worries at the moment.
Thirty ticks... twenty ticks... ten ticks. Lance pulled and pushed every lever and switch. Nothing was working. Nine ticks... eight ticks... six... five... four... Lance shut his eyes tight, and braced himself for impact. At least he was going out with a bang, instead of rotting away in that damn castle. Three... two... ONE!
The two lions crashed with a loud bang. Lance's head snapped forward, and slammed into the control panel, knocking him out cold.
***
"Your majesty... Prince Lance?... Prince Lance!" Keith smacked Lance across the face. The Altean prince imminently shot up, bringing his palm to his aching cheek.
"Quiznak!" He blurted out. "What the Voltron?... What? Where the hell am I? Where's Blue?"
"It spit you out." Keith answered. "Right before shutting off again."
Lance looked to his left, then to his right. He was surrounded by some sort of tree filled area. Blue and Red sat powered off under the comfort of a nearby cave. Those douches, Lance thought, they had enough energy to find shelter, yet not enough to rescue Lance from nearly falling to his death! Speaking of which... How the Voltron was Lance still alive? He was alive... right? Was this what the afterlife looked like? If so, he hated it. Why did Keith have to be there?
Lance stood, and brushed himself off. His cape was completely torn off, and mud stained his armor and skin. His short, messy white hair had sticks and other creatures entangled in it, and his crown was completely missing. Lance brought his hand to his forehead, and gasped. "Where is it?"
"Where's what?" Keith stood as well, brushing off his dirty clothing, aka: the fancy white and blue uniform Lance's father provided every servant. He didn't seem too upset about it getting ruined however. Smudges of brown dirt stained his light purple skin, and his long hair was a complete mess. Together, Lance and Keith looked like a pair of homeless trolls. Well, Keith always looked like that, but more than usual.
Keith dug into his pocket and pulled out a card looking device. He tapped it once, and a blue, holographic screen appeared. He swiped his fingers a few times, making the hologram's picture shift. Lance watched in awe. He wasn't too familiar with technology. Never really had an interest in it, preferring more organic things. Still, he was amazed by just how fascinatingly the screen changed shape.
Keith activated something, then grumbled. "No response. We must be too far away."
"Like, how far away exactly?"
"Like... Take the distance between our star and the closest one to it, and multiply that by one million." Keith responded. "Then take that number, and multiply that by the millionth power. That would be about .0000000000000000000001% of the distance needed to travel to get from Altea to here by regular means."
Lance's mind nearly combusted. "Well... I'm not real good at math, but I'm guessing that's pretty far."
"Not just pretty far." Keith corrected. "It's immensely far. Beyond description. This part of the universe hasn't even been documented yet! How in the world did you manage a wormhole this far?"
Lance shrugged. "I don't know. Reached into my core, and stuff. I'm pretty sure Blue did most of the work."
"And you're not hurt?"
Lance looked down at himself. He didn't seem too hurt. A bump here and there, but other than that he was perfectly alright. "Nope."
Keith let out a sigh of relief. "I'm glad to hear that... Now, WHAT THE QUIZNAK DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?"
Lance reeled back. He wasn't expecting such a loud reaction from the normally stone faced Keith. "Whoa, whoa, whoa! Ok, we have to agree on at least this: this situation was not independently my fault."
Keith looked as though he wanted to smack Lance upside the head again. "How the quiznak is this not your fault?"
"Hey!" Lance held up his hands defensively. "I never asked for you to follow me. Besides, it was Blue who malfunctioned, not me."
"It was your plan to begin with."
Lance nodded, and held up a finger. "Yes, yes. But, you must admit. I'm only a victim of circumstance. Honestly, Allura's more at fault than I am. She's the one who forced... you... on me. And Father! If he never agreed with this 'arrangement', I would likely still be rotting my life away back in the Castle of Lions. Honestly, I should be thanking them! If not for you, I would never have found the hanger, or had the motivation to escape."
"You wanted to crash land on a likely hostile planet, with no survival experience, nothing but the clothes on your back, and with no way of getting back?"
Lance paused. "Um... Well... I'm not really one for plans. I kinda just follow what my guts tell me to do, you know. Actually... In this case it was a giant cat robot. It didn't tell me to do it exactly, but it never stated to not do it."
Keith face palmed. It looked as though it hurt as well, as it left behind a reddish mark on his light purple skin. "Whatever..." Keith grumbled. "We need to... We need to find a way to fix these lions."
Fix the lions? Yeah right. How were they supposed to do that? Lance had absolutely no engineering experience, and he seriously doubted Keith had any as well. Plus, it wasn't as though there was anyone on this planet that could-
"EEEEEEEEEEEEKKKKKK!" A high pitched scream rang out across the trees. This made both Keith and Lance jump. They looked to one another, then in the direction of the noise.
Welp, what else was there to do? The two stranded boys ran forward. What were they to find? It was a complete mystery. They were in a strange new world. So far from home, and so alone. If there was any chance of intelligent life, they needed to find it.
They ran out into a clearing. There was no more trees where they stood, and some sort of soft, peach dirt replaced the normal grassy ground. Nearby, a blue, liquid substance stretched out to the horizon. It was like nothing Lance had ever seen before. He only had a few seconds to admire it however, before another ear splitting shriek rang out, nearer this time. Both Lance and Keith turned.
"Stop screaming Hunk!" A girl... or at least Lance assumed it was a girl, with a green tank top and white shorts stood next to a much bigger, burly looking boy. He had a yellow shirt, and green shorts, as well as a yellow piece of cloth tied to his forehead. The boy had some sort of red creature clawed to his nose, and the girl looked as though she was trying to pull it off. They looked fairly similar to Altean's. Their sickle shaped marking below their eyes were missing however, and their ears were short and blobby. "Just calm down, before it claws down even harder!"
The boy, Hunk Lance assumed, took a deep breath in. "Pidge... I'm kinda freaking out here." His voice sounded nasally with his nose being clamped shut by the feisty red animal. "You can get it off, right? You can, can't you?"
"Not if you keep screaming! You're provoking it!" Pidge scolded, grabbing one of the creature's legs, and pulling. She just nearly missed a swing from one of its massive chomping claws. "Come on crab! Just get off my friend already!"
"Pidge?! Are you almost done? I think I'm going to scream again!"
"Don't you dare Hunk!"
"GAAAAAAHHHHHHH!" The big burly guy yelped, as high pitched as ever. The creature squeezed down harder on his nose. "OMG, OMG, OMG!" He fanned his face in a panic. Pidge lost hold of the creature's leg.
Lance turned to Keith, a baffled expression on both their faces. "Should we, like... help them?" Lance whispered. The two aliens still hadn't noticed them watching. Too busy freaking out, Lance guessed. Wow, this planet was already turning out to be super weird. He wondered what else lived here.
"Um..." Keith mumbled back. "I think it's best to just stand back for now. To not freak them out any further."
Lance nodded in agreement. How would these aliens react to him? More importantly, how would they react to Keith! Lance could maybe pass as one of their kind, but Keith looked a hell of a lot different from them, and much more... animalistic. Plus, Keith did state earlier how this section of the universe was yet to be recorded. Who knew how advanced their technology was! What if they never even ventured beyond their solar system before Armatures, Lance thought.
Pidge yanked on the creature's leg (crab if Lance remembered correctly), and finally pulled it off Hunk's nose. She tossed it far away onto the grainy soft dirt, and it scuttled away into the big mass of blue liquid. Lance wondered why it was taking its own life by drowning. That's what happened in liquids, right?
"Phew." Hunk fell forward, a nasty red mark across his nose where the crab had held. "Thanks Pidge."
Pidge fell forward as well. Lance assumed they both were catching their breaths, and getting over the initial shock. "Yeah, no problem. I do this kind of thing all the time." She huffed.
Wow, all the time? Lance thought. This planet must be really hostile.
A few ticks pass in total silence. But, right when Lance saw the two aliens recover, Hunk suddenly lets out another loud screech. "EEEEEEEEEKKKK!"
Pidge nearly jumped out of her shoes. "What? What is it? Don't tell me another one attached to your butt!"
Hunk, his face showing an expression of utter terror, lifted a shaky finger and pointed straight towards Lance and Keith. The two Alteans looked at one another nervously, then back to the pair of aliens. Pidge's eyes widened behind her round, clear, goggle looking face mask. Lance wondered what the purpose of it was.
"W-what the fuck is t-that?" Hunk whisper shouted, doing his best to stay still, yet shaking violently in fear.
"What the quiznak does fuck mean?" Lance whispered to Keith. He shrugged.
Hunk yelped, and jumped back. "I'm not imagining things, am I? Right Pidge? I'm not losing my mind, am I?"
Pidge adjusted her clear goggle things, and narrowed her eyes in Lance's and Keith's direction. "No. I see them too. Hm... do you think they're cosplayers of some sort?"
"Cosplayers? Cosplay of what? And why would they be all the way out here?"
Pidge shrugged. "I don't know. The purple one could be a furry."
"Furry?" Keith's eyebrows scrunched together. "I'm not that furry." Lance muffled his laughter behind his hand.
"OMG! It talked!" Hunk ran and hid behind Pidge.
She rolled her eyes. "Hunk, chill. They're only costumes. They're not dangerous."
"How do you know that?"
Pidge sighed, and pulled Hunk by the ear out from behind her back. She then turned her attention to Lance and Keith, and called out. "Hello there! What are you two doing all the way out here?"
"Well, currently standing." Lance answered. "And trying to find help... Well I'm not, but this guy wants to get back. Honestly, I don't care."
Pidge raised her eyebrow suspiciously. "What do you mean by trying to find help? Can you step a little closer?" Hunk shook his head furiously as though that was the worst idea in the history of ideas.
Lance shrugged, and went closer. Keith was about to pull him back, but decided against it. Perhaps he suspected Hunk and Pidge to be much too ludicrous to be of any danger.
Pidge looked Lance up and down. She then turned to Keith and squinted to get a better look. "Wow." She stated. "I'm impressed. Whatever you did to make your skin look that way, it's incredible! It doesn't even look like makeup. So organic with the shading, and touch of fur. How did you ever manage-"
"It's real." Keith sighed.
Pidge let out a laugh. "Ha, yeah right. Are you seriously telling me that you-"
Keith's skin began transforming. His hair became a dark shade of black, and less abundant on his arms and face. His skin also lightened up until it was a peachy shade. Only his eyes stayed the same. Perhaps it was beyond his power to shift them. Shapeshifting did take a lot of skill, and training after all. Lance could only change his skin from brown to green. A not very helpful ability, but hey. He was happy to just be able to do that. Still, it did surprise Lance to see Keith change so suddenly. He looked like an actual Altean! Like, a full one! If he was so skilled at shapeshifting, Lance wondered why he didn't try and do it all the time. That way, people would stop staring, and maybe treat him as an actual valid member of society.
"Oh..." Pidge mumbled, her eyes practically bugging from their sockets. "T-that's not normal..."
"Yeah, no kidding! T-that's it, I'm getting out of here!" Hunk announced, turning his body away from the scary shapeshifting monster.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Pidge stopped Hunk in his tracks. "Stay Hunk. This is... This could be interesting. Tell me, whoever you two are, what are your names, and what are you?"
Lance pointed finger guns in Pidge's direction. "Hey, the name's Lance." He said suavely. "And I'm single."
Keith frowned, "Are you seriously flirting with an alien right now?"
"What? It's not everyday I get to meet girls my age. Or boys, for that matter." Lance redirected his finger guns towards Hunk, and winked.
Hunk blushed and inched back behind Pidge. She rolled her eyes once more, and pulled him back out by the ear. "Ow, ow, ow!" He complained. "No need to be so rough! I'm going, I'm going."
"How do you know they are your same age?" Keith whispered, ignoring the aliens. "They live light years away. Who knows, they could look like teenagers, but be one thousand years old."
"We are teenagers." Pidge got the two Alteans attention once more. "Hunk here is eighteen, and I'm sixteen."
"Oh quiznak..." Lance mumbled. "I just flirted with two infants..."
"Infant?" Pidge looked offended. "Infants are that age where you come from? How old does that make you then?"
Lance puffed his muddy, armored chest out proudly. "Eighty six and three quarters. But I'm quite wise beyond my years."
Keith rolled his eyes. "Yeah, is that why you got us stuck on the other side of a wormhole?"
"You know what, Keith? I'll stick you in a wormhole!" Lance raised his arms in a 'fight me' gesture. Keith clenched his fists, and scowled back.
Pidge looked from Lance to Keith then back to Lance. "Wormhole? Shapeshifting? Long ass life spans? Don't tell me... Are you two like, aliens or something?"
"Us? Pshh! No." Lance scoffed. "You're the aliens here, not us."
"Um, no." Pidge corrected. "Last time I checked, you are on our planet. Therefore, that makes you aliens to our world."
"Hmm..." Lance gave Pidge a evil glare. "You are smart... For an infant, that is."
"I'm not an infant!" Pidge argued back. "And I am right. You two are the aliens here. But why? Why did you come here of all places?"
"I don't know." Lance answered, looking out towards the horizon. It was morning where they had landed, as well as real hot and humid. Back at the castle, it was almost always cold. He wasn't used to the feeling. Especially not with his bulky, tight fitting armor. "Kinda didn't have a choice on the matter... What is this place anyways?"
"Earth." Pidge answered. "And where are you two from?"
"Altea." Lance smiled. "Good thing I'm never going back there again."
"Yes you are!" Keith cut in. "Someone has to find us... eventually..."
"Pshh! Yeah, right. You said it yourself. We're trapped on the other side of a wormhole. There's no way they can find us now."
"Queen Allura won't stop looking for you, your majesty. Not until she either brings you back home alive, or discovers your body dead."
"Whoa! Aren't you just a ray of waznlight!" Lance frowned, crossing his arms.
"Waznlight?" Hunk finally spoke. "What is that?"
"Oh! Of course you don't know. The Altean star is called Wazn... But don't worry..." Lance leaned in and continued in a whisper. "The author totally made it up. It's not cannon."
"What's a cannon?" Keith wondered.
"Welp! I think that's enough questions for one day." Lance exclaimed. "If we continue on like this, we'll never get a chance to progress the plot! Now, tell me... what was your name again?.. Pidge? Hunk?Yeah, I think that was it. Do you know how to fix a semi mechanical, semi magical robot kitty?"
Pidge and Hunk looked to one another, then back to Lance. They seemed very confused. "Uh... no" Pidge answered.
"Aw... Well, how about food? I'm starving!"