Lance, Hunk and Pidge were still staring at me as we lay Shiro on the couch so her could rest easier. I sighed and stood up at my brother's side.
"If you have anything to ask, you should ask me." I said, surprising everyone out of their stares. However, they didn't ask me anything. It was a good thing too, since I was too tired, my previous exhaustion catching back up with me.
"Saoirse, you'd better get to bed. I'll call you up when Shiro wakes up." Keith said, pushing me to my room.
I sighed and didn't put up a fight, going straight to my room, closing the door and collapsing on my bed for the next few hours.
~~~Keith POV~~~
Hours passed and Shiro woke up. I wanted to wake up Saoirse, but she was too deep in her sleep to be woken up by me.
I gave Shiro a pair of my dad's old clothes, it was a good thing that they had similar builds and sizes. After he got dressed, Shiro went outside and watched the sunrise, thinking about whatever happened to him.
After a few minutes, I went out to talk to him. I saw him standing on a small nearby hill next to the house, holding his prosthetic hand and looking it at confusingly.
I walked up to him, placing my hand on his shoulder.
"It's good to have you back." I said.
"It's good to be back." Shiro said, smiling.
"So, what happened out there? Where were you?"
Shiro looked down at his feet, his eyes showing that he was troubled.
"I wish I could tell you." He sighed, "My head still pretty scrambled. I was on an alien ship, but somehow I escaped. It's all a blur. How did you know to come save me when I crashed?"
"You should come see this. Saoirse is gonna kill me when she finds out I didn't wake her up when you did." Shiro's eyes widened when I said this, his mind going back to the sister he left behind.
"Oh, man, Saoirse." He gasped, "How is she doing? Is she all right?"
I sighed, scratching the back of my head, "She's doing okay. When you disappeared that really messed her up. But, she's doing better."
"Takashi!" A voice shouted from the house. We turned around and saw Saoirse standing behind us a few feet away. Her eyes filling with tears when she saw Shiro alive and well. She had changed apparently, wearing a silver sleeveless shirt with a ringed collar around her neck, dark navy jeans and a pair of black boots.
"Saoirse." Shiro sighed. Saoirse ran up to him, wrapping her arms around his waist. Shiro quickly returned the embrace.
"I missed you." Saoirse said through her tears.
"I missed you, too, Saoirse."
They hugged each for a minute more until I patted both of them on the back.
"C'mon, let's go back inside." I said. The two pulled away from each other and followed me back to the house.
The three kids who hitchhiked with me were already standing in the living room in front of my covered up bulletin board.
I went over to the board and pulled off the sheet, revealing what I was researching all this time.
Several maps and pictures of the landscape were pinned onto the board with strings connecting them. Notes with equations and time stamps were scattered around on the board and marks I made with pen circled important spaces.
However, some of the pictures were strange. Pictures of caves with strange carvings in the shapes of lions littered the walls made me wonder a lot about what their meaning was.
"What have you been working on?" Shiro asked.
"I can't explain it, really." I answered, "After getting booted from the Garrison, I was kind of lost and found myself drawn out to this place. It's like something... some energy was telling me to search."
"I followed Keith out here to help him will using my own resources at the Garrison to further expand our research." Saoirse added. I smiled at her, silently thanking her for all she had done.
She didn't have to come stay out here with me, but she did. And for that I was grateful.
"What were you two searching for?" Shiro asked.
I turned my attention back towards Shiro, "Well, I didn't really know it at the time... until I stumbled across this area." I pointed on the map to the area where I circled it as 'Energy Source'.
"It's an outcropping of giant boulders with caves covered in these ancient markings." I gestured to the pictures of the lion on the cave walls, "Each tells a slightly different story about a blue lion, but they all share clues leading to some event, some arrival happening last night. Then, you showed up."
Shiro looked confused for a moment, then looked over at the other three who stood in the room.
"I should thank you all for getting me out. Lance, right?" Shiro said, walking over to Lance and stretching his hand our to shake.
Lance looked down at Shiro's prosthetic hand and hesitated in shaking it. But he smiled and shook his hand with a firm grip.
Shiro turned towards Pidge and Hunk, wanting to shake their hands as well, however, Hunk seemed a little more nervous than Pidge.
"The nervous guy's Hunk. I'm Pidge." Pidge said shaking Shiro's hand, "So, did anyone else from your crew make it out?"
"I'm not sure." Shiro answered, still looking confused, "I remember the mission and being captured. After that, it's just bits and pieces."
~~~Saoirse~~~
After Shior talked about how his memory was fuzzy, my concern for him increased. What happened during the year he was gone?
"Yeah, sorry to interrupt, but back to the aliens. Where are they now?" Hunk asked, snapping me from my thoughts, "Are they coming? Are they coming for all of us? Where are they at this very moment?"
Shiro sighed, "I can't really put it together. I remember the word 'Voltron'." Shiro answered, "It's some kind of weapon they're looking for, but I don't know why. Whatever it is, I think we need to find it before they do."
Hunk looked down, rummaging through Pidge's bag.
"Well, last night, I was rummaging through Pidge's stuff, and I found this picture. Look, it's his girlfriend." Hunk chuckled, holding up a picutre of a boy in a Garrison uniform and a girl in a purple dress standing in front of a ship. They seemed happy. However, Pidge was not pleased.
"Hey, give me that!" Pidge ahouted, snatching the picture and bag from Hunk's hands.
"What were you doing in my stuff?"
"I-- well, I was looking for a candy bar." Hunk said, "But, then, I started reading his diary." He pulled out a small notebook, shocking Pidge at his find. The young boy quickly snatched the book from Hunk's hands.
"Anyway, I noticed the repeating series of numbers the aliens are searching for looks a lot like a Fraunhofer line."
"Frown who?" Keith asked confused by the strange name.
"It's a number describing the emission spectrum of an element." I explained.
"Right!" Hunk smiled, "Only, this element doesn't exist on Earth. I thought it might be this Voltron. And I think I can build a machine to look for it, like a Voltron Geiger counter."
"Hunk, you big, gassy genius!" Lance exclaimed happily.
"It's pretty fascinating, really. The wavelength looks like this." Hunk reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper with a rough sketch of the Fraunhofer line.
Keith gasped at the strange shape, "Give me that!" He said, grabbing the paper and walking back to the board where he held it over one of the pictures of the landscape nearby. It was a perfect match.
"I guess that's where we're going." I said.
Keith turned towards me, "Are you sure you're up for it, Saoirse?" He asked.
I nodded, "I'm sure. I'll be just fine. Besides, it seems like an interesting find."
Shiro smiled at me. He had always loved my sense of adventure.
"Okay, but before we go, can I ask a question?" Lance asked.
We turned around and faced him, waiting for him to ask.
"Umm, this may be a weird question to ask, but... how are you two related?" He asked sheepishly, "I mean, she called you brother and yet you two look nothing alike besides the black hair."
Shiro and I sighed. It wasn't the first time we had to explain how we were related.
"Long story short, Shiro and I met when I was twelve and I first got into the Galaxy Garrison. We bonded quickly after that and he took me in as his younger sister." I explained, not wanting to go into too much detail.
They seemed to be satisfied, so we left it at that. Hunk and Pidge quickly put together a detector for the strange energy source and as soon as it was finished, we all headed out, following the readings.
We walked around for hours, following the energy signatures until they reached its peak near the exact site as in the picture on Keith's board.
"Okay, I admit it. This is super freaky." Lance said.
"I'm getting a reading." Hunk said, pushing Pidge aside as he followed the energy signature.
We followed Hunk as he led us through the rocky terrain. A few minutes passed and the device Hunk was holding began to be intensely.
We ran after him, until he stopped at the edge of a cliff leading downwards to a cave.
"Whoa." He said as we proceeded to slid down the rocks and walk into the cave.
We all gasped in awe as we walked further into the darkness. As we looked around, we saw the same ancient carvings Keith was telling us about. Each carving had a lion, but it still confused us as to why they were here.
"What are these?" Shiro asked.
"These are the lion carving I was telling you about." Keith answered, "They're everywhere around here."
Lance walked up to one of the walls and stared at the carvings, reaching out his hand and gently brushing off the dust and dirt from the carving.
All of a sudden, the cave began to glow, each carving in emitting a bright blue light.
"Whoa. Whoa!" Lance exclaimed, backing away from the glowing carvings.
I couldn't help but be amazed by the glowing cave carvings.
"They've never done that before." Keith said, slightly nervous as he crept closer to my side.
Suddenly, I felt cracks forming underneath my feet. We looked down as the ground began to crack and glow, then screamed when the ground finally crumbled beneath us.
We slid down soft and smooth rock covered in water, Keith and Shiro staying close to my side as we slid down the earth made waterside.
It didn't take long before we reached the exit, but instead of feeling hard ground, I landed on something significantly softer than rock as we landed in a large pool of shallow water.
"Are you okay, Saoirse?" Someone asked me from below. I looked down and blushed with embarrassment when I saw Keith underneath me.
I quickly stood up, brushing off my soaking wet clothes and bowing in apology.
"I'm so sorry, Keith. I didn't mean to land on you." I said, reaching our my hand to help him up.
"It's fine. Nothing's broken." He said, sitting up and taking my hand as I proceeded to lift him off the ground.
"They are everywhere." Lance gasped looking further into the new cave.
We followed his gaze and gasped in shock and awe when we saw the most amazing thing I had ever seen.
It was a large blue mechanical Lion surrounded by a glowing blue light. It sat majestically in the center, staring down at us with a serious expression.
"Is this it? Is this the Voltron?" Pidge asked.
"It must be." Shiro said.
"This is what's been causing all of this crazy energy out here." Keith said, amazed as the rest of us were. He ran ahead to get closer to the lion.
"Looks like there's a force field around it."
As the rest of us walked towards the Lion, Lance began walking side to side, watching the lion.
"Does anyone else get the feeling this is staring at them?" He asked.
"No." Shiro said.
"Yeah. The eyes are totally following me."
I looked at Lance and then back at the large lion. I didn't want to admit it, but I felt something towards this Lion. I just couldn't out it into words.
"I wonder how we get through this." Kirht mumbled, touching the force field around the Lion.
"Maybe you just have to knock." As a joke, Lamce knocked his hand against the force field. Suddenly he yelled when the force field began to glow brightly. The lion's eyes shone for a second before the force field went down, the ground beneath the Lion glowing just as brightly with strange patterns.
Just then, images were sent flashing through me. Six lions, including the blue one on front of us, flew into the sky and combined in a flash of light. From that light emerged a warrior unlike anything I've ever dreamed of.
The warrior was amazing, standing tall and proud with a blazing sword in its hand. I gasped when I blinked and found myself back in the cave with the Blue Lion.
"Whoa." Pidge and Lance gasped when the vision was over.
"Uh, did everyone just see that?" Lance asked.
"Voltron is a robot. Voltron is a huge, huge, awesome robot!" Hunk shouted.
"And this thing is only one part of it!" Pidge added, "I wonder where the rest of them are."
"This is what they're looking for." Shiro said.
"Incredible." Keith said.
"Definitely." I agreed.
Just then, the lion lowered its head to the ground. Pidge and Hunk screamed in fear, afraid that the Lion would do something to us. But for some reason, I had a feeling that it wouldn't do anything.
My feelings were true as the Lion didn't do anything harmful, instead, it opened its mouth. A walkway appeared, illuminated with lights along the floor to light our way inside.
"Hmm." Lance hummed before chuckling and rushing inside the mechanical lion.
"Lance, what are you doing?" I called out to him, running immediately after him inside followed by the rest of the group.
We followed him to a separate compartment of the lion, which seemed to be a pilot cockpit. It had several black screens and a single chair in the center, for which Lance quickly took.
"Here we go." He said before he screamed at the sudden movement of the chair sliding forward a few feet before stopping.
We stood behind him as screens activated and appeared hovering in midair. Ths screen in front of us activated, breaking away its black color and appearing as window of some sort.
"Alright, very nice." Lance said impressed by the Lion.
"Okay, guys, I feel the need to point out, just so that, you know, we're all aware." Hunk said nervously, "That we are in some kind of futuristic alien cat head right now."
Lance didn't listen as his eyes widened, as if he was in some kind of trance that broke a few seconds later.
"Whoa. Did you guys just hear that?" Lance asked turning in his seat to face us.
"Hear what?" Keith asked.
"I think it's talking to me." Lance leaned forward closer to the strange controls on the floating screen. He hesitantly pressed a few keys on the screen.
The lion stood up automatically, roaring loudly.
Pidge and Hunk screamed at the sudden movement, but Shiro, Keith and I were perfectly still, still marveling at the technology of this Lion.
"Olay. Got it. Now, let's try this." Lance said. His hands grabbed two handles near the front of the dashboard, then he pushed them forward.
With Lance's motion, the lion launched forward and burst through the cave walls, flying high into the air at incredible speeds.
It spun around a few times before activating some kind of boosters on the bottom of its feet, keeping us off the ground and in the air.
I held on to Shiro as the Lion flew into the air, spinning around with Lance's controls.
"You are the worst pilot ever!" Keith shouted over Pidge and Hunk's screams.
The lion flew faster than before, then it landed on the ground and began running.
"Isn't this awesome?" Lance asked.
"Make it stop. Make it stop." Hunk begged, his face turning green.
"I'm not making it do anything. It's like it's on autopilot."
The lion jumped off of the ground and flew back into the sky.
"Where are you going?" Keith asked.
"I just said it's on autopilot!" Lance yelled.
I looked down at the screens and saw a light blinking nearby.
"Um, Lance, something's approaching us." I said.
Lance looked down at his screen and saw what I did.
"It says there's an alien shop approaching Earth." He explained, "I think we're supposed to stop it."
"What did it say, exactly?" Pidge asked.
"Well, it's not like its saying words." Lance said, "It's more like feeding ideas into my brain, kind of."
"Well, if this thing is the weapon they're coming for, why dont we just, like, I don't know, give it to them? Maybe they'll leave us alone. Sorry, lion. Nothing personal." Hunk suggested.
"And how do we know that these aliens are not going to use this weapon on us, Hunk?" I asked.
"Saoirse is right." Shiro agreed with me, "These monsters spread like a plague throughout the galaxy, destroying everything in their path. There's no bargaining with them. They won't stop until everything is dead."
Everything got quiet, all of us staring at Hunk who had perplexed look on his face.
"Oh. Never mind then." He said.
The lion roared once again, bringing our attention back the front and gasping at the sun rising over Earth. We made it out of Earth's atmosphere.
However, we were not safe out here. In an instant, a large purple ship appeared in front of us.
"Holy crow!" Hunk exclaimed in disbelief, "Is that really an alien ship?"
The lion flew past the ship, hovering in the middle of space and watching it from above.
"They found me." I heard Shiro mutter.
All of a sudden, the ship began to fire large beams at us.
"We've got to get it out of here!" Pidge shouted.
"Hang on!" Lance pulled back on the controls, moving the Lion and evading the shots fired at us.
"Hold on. I think I know what to do." Lance said.
"Be careful, man. This isn't the simulator." Pidge said.
"Well, that's good. I always wreck the simulator."
"Quite badly I might add." I said.
Lance thruster the left control forward. The lion opened its mouth and fired a powerful beam, slicing through the alien ship causing it to receive massive damage.
"Let's try this." Lance pulled back on the controls, the loon spinning and continuing to evade the shots fired at us. It flew down to the side of the ship, scraping its claws against the side and then flying away before the ship exploded from the attack sight.
"Nice job, Lance." Shiro praised.
"Okay, I think it's time to get these guys away from our planet." Lance said.
We flew away from the shop, which quickly turned and headed after us at an increased speed.
"Oh, no!" Hunk shouted in panic.
"They're gaining on us." Pidge said.
I looked at the surrounding screens, noticing that the ship behind us wasn't trying to attack.
"Does anyone else notice that they're not firing at is anymore?" I asked.
"Yeah, it's weird." Lance said, "They're just chasing us."
"Okay, seriously, bow we thi no k having aliens follow us is good?" Hunk asked,, "I am not on board with this new direction, guys."
"Where are we?" Keith asked.
Shiro and I looked out the window and saw a familiar moon.
"Edge of the solar system. There's Kerberos." Shiro said as we passed the moon of pluto.
"It takes months for our ships to get out this far. We got out here in five seconds." Pidge said shocked.
I looked forward and saw something appear. It was a large circle swirling with dark colors surrounded by light.
"What is that?" Hunk asked.
"This may seem crazy, but I think the Lion wants us to go through there." Lance said.
"Where does it go?" Pidge asked.
"I don't know." Lance said, "Shiro, Saoirse, you two are the senior officers here. What should we do?"
"Whatevee is happening, the lion knows more than we do." Shiro said, "I say we trust it, but we're a team now. We should decide together."
I nodded, agreeing with the plan to go through. Everyone quickly agreed.
"Alright, guess we're ditching class tomorrow." Lance before he flew the Lion through the strange light.
Everything went white after that, the force of the this light pushing us back.
A minute or so passed before we exited the strange portal.
"Whoa. That was..."
Hunk gagged, grunting before vomiting in the corner of the Lion.
"So sorry." He said before vomiting again.
"I'm just surprised it took this long." Pidge said slightly amazed by the time to took for Hunk to empty his stomach.
Shiro and I looked up at the starry sky.
"I don't recognize any of these constellations." He said, "We must be a long, long way from Earth."
I sighed, "I don't think this is what Commander Iverson meant when he told me to take a few days off."
The lion continued to fly through space, heading towards a sandy and blue colored planet.
"The lion seems to want to go to this planet." Lance said, "I think... I think its going home."
As we sped towards the planet, I couldn't help but think like everyone else.
What was in store for us on this planet?
What did the future have in store for us?