5 「Proximity」

The Galra would come the moment that the Lion was activated? Pidge didn't quite understand how that was possible. How close were the Galra to Earth? Was this why he wanted to give Earth weapons? Because they were close enough to be here within a moments notice?

She dreaded the idea of Earth being invaded all because the the Lion had activated, left Earth, and Shiro came to Earth with them in tow.

"How long exactly would it take for them to enter Earth's planetary system?" She asked curious of what the answer could possibly be. If they could make it to this location in a matter of seconds, this meant that their three month trip to Kerberos made them seem extremely primitive.

"Probably less than a Minute. They've already suspected that one of the Lions is in vicinity of Sol." He looked over at Keith, knowing very well who is mother was and his origins. "We probably have the Blades of Marmora to thank for that, turning them away from the planet for so many years."

When informed of this, he looked down at the weapon in his hand, smiling quietly. So his mother had been a warrior? He knew his father, but he knew nothing of his mother. Not only was she a warrior, but she spared him and the world an inevitable fate. His grip tightened around the weapon, knowing that his mother didn't leave him behind for no reason, she didn't leave them behind for no reason.

Seeing that Keith came to the realization earlier than he had in the show, Nemoi seemed to be rather proud of himself. However when he looked over at Pidge, she seemed to be staring straight through him.

He could tell that she knew, that he knew more than what he was letting on. It was only a matter of time till he had to expose many other secrets. Or work around them and avert certain events.

He already had some plans in the back of his head, relying on his knowledge from another reality of this universe. "What is it?" Nemoi called her out on it with a brow raised slightly.

"Why don't you tell us everything?"

"Because that would put you in fruitless danger. It would throw everything off course, including getting your family back." He responded looking down at her without much hesitation in his response. Using her family as a reason why he won't say anything was dirty, but true.

Should they try and collect her brother who had joined an alien rebellion or her father who was off in the work camps, things may change in not such a good way. Their main problem was Zarkon and his Witch. They would be their immediate antagonists.

The only reason why he wasn't found by the Witch was because he was using the natural surroundings to shield his Altean energy from arcanic detection.

That was one of the reasons why he wanted to bring Iverson here, rather than to leave the ship. Though he doubted that the humans wouldn't try to remove him from his vessel. However he knew that Iverson shouldn't be kidnapped. That would shed him in a bad light. Tapping his lower lip, he looked down at Pidge.

"Have you ever wanted to see a black hole from up close?"

Pidge blanked when she heard the question, blanked with excitement. He was offering to show scientific footage of a black hole from up close!? Humans haven't even gotten close to one before, let alone saw a true black hole except through their telescopes. Even then, they couldn't see them, at least not clearly without filters.

He motioned for them to follow him and they, clearly interested, followed behind him.

Pidge seemed to be jumping up and down beside them. As they made it to the center of the command center, a hologram was projected above them. A massive spiralling black hole appeared. A planet being torn apart, first losing its atmosphere, before all integrity was lost. The footage was looped.

"This is amazing..." Pidge was starry eyed, her arms bent in front of her with her fingers curled tightly into fists. Her fingernails clearly marking up her palms from the pressure.

He watched as she went on to rant about how humans have been found capable of making short-lived miniature black holes to general energy. She seemed to believe that this data would allow humanity to go even further than they ever have.

In which he wouldn't lie, this would definitely make humanity go by leaps and bounds in technological advancement pertaining to power output. This could very well be used as an alternate source of energy to Quintessence since humanity didn't know how or where to obtain and harvest the resource.

"I can set up a Universal thumb drive with a thousand exabytes of information for you to give to Iverson filled with the scientific information you need. It'll take about an hour to compile it all, translate it to be read by your terran operating systems."

Pidge tilted her head hearing the term Terran come from his mouth, but still nodded to his suggestion. He was about to give the world a grand wave of culture shock. There was no time to introduce this slowly, they needed to introduce it quickly. They didn't have decades, they had only at least a couple years.

Walking over to the terminal, Nemoi would fold his hands behind his back.

Keith and Lance seemed to have lost interest soon afterward and went on to look around the castle; going their separate ways.

Pidge walked up beside him as he opened a small compartment on the side of the terminal and took out what looked like a universal thumb drive, though it was sleeker than ones found on other, except for the connection apparatus.

She stared at it for a few moments, wondering why it looked so similar to the ones found on earth. Then paused, looking at him curiously. While it could be assumed that he had woken up before, it seems that is unlikely. At the same time she began to surmise that he knew the future before coming here in the first place.

Could this be someone who could peer into the future and prepare for it? Then why did he seem so out of it? Why did he seem so unprepared? Billions of questions were coursing their her mind once again.

It was probably useless to ask him, he'll probably find his way around the subject. Though he seemed to find an honest way of doing so. She could only hope he'd eventually come clean with her. He did say he wanted to be with her, at least that is what she got out of his confession earlier when he locked them in the room alone together.

Pidge watched his fingers as they moved to plug the USB into the terminal. The way he moved gave a lot of information. His movements were unsteady, his hands shook ever so slightly, but enough to notice with close observation.

She was starting to believe in order to learn his secrets, all she had to do was watch him.

She wasn't entirely wrong in that perspective. His quirks, his interactions with nothingness, eventually things would align. For the time being however, it didn't seem as if she knew much of anything about his true nature.

"While that's formating," he turned to look over at her with a smile painted across his lips casually, "Would you like to see my room?"

The offer was random, in a sense, though he did offer for her to stay the night. As well as the others who were present. She didn't think Keith would mind, even though she didn't have any information on where he was staying prior.

The fun fact was, he was living in a shack in the middle of nowhere.

"Uh..." she thought about it. Pidge had never really been in another boy's room other than her brother's. She didn't think of it as a big deal, but she definitely knew her mother would.

In some fashion, her mother scared her more than the existence of the Galra's planet killing capacities and that was saying something. If her mother knew that she was going to go off to save the universe without her permission, she'd clearly be grounded for life.

That's when she paused and looked up at him, did he know about that?

"Well?" Nemoi made a very human-like rolling gesture with his hands as to egg her on into answering the question.

"Sure," Pidge made an affiliative smile, which was received rather well by Nemoi.

Hunk who had been collecting parts from the robots, had stopped by and happened to hear the invitation. His head tilted to the side slightly, wondering just what was going on? Were they planning on sleeping in the same room together?

He was starting to have the same thoughts as Lance prior, they rolled that way? Or was the alien secretly a woman? Because they didn't know the Holt family, they didn't seem to know immediately that Pidge was indeed Katie Holt.

Hunk watched as they left the room and went down a corridor, disappearing around a corner after entering a lift to go to another level. Following after them however in order to learn where their sleeping quarters would be, he rushed as fast as he could after them.

As he made it just in time before the doors to the lift closed, Nemoi placed his hand between the closing door to hold it for him. "In a rush?" He snickered quietly to himself as he took a step back for Hunk to take his place on the lift.

Hunk stood between the two of them as the door began to close and as it began to move, he glanced over at his friend and toward the alien they had just met.

"Sooo..." Hunk nervously attempted conversation between the three of them. "How about those Galra?"

"Merciless brutes." Nemoi started with a monotone voice

Pidge continued with her own set of words. "Extinction level event...."

Hunk flinched at the words used, imagining his own doom. "Do I really have to be apart of this?"

"You live on Earth, don't you?" Nemoi and Pidge asked as they both looked at him.

"Well, yeah. It's not like they will destroy everything..." Hunk would say with a little itty bitty amount of hope in his voice that he would be left out of all of this.

"If they don't destroy it, then it will be wished to be destroyed. Anything that isn't Galra, Vassal or a Tributary state to the Galra Empire is likely enslaved. Zarkon is the destroyer of Freedom, destroyer of the Weak corrupted by overexposure of Quintessence."

Hunk's face paled as best it could, it made him almost look sick as he nodded at this little bit of information.

"The only thing, the only weapon, that can defeat him is Voltron and its new paladins." His gaze matched that of Pidges as he was sharing more information to them. Pidge seemed interested, so he continued as he saw the question mark rise above her head, following the word 'new' before Paladins.

"Zarkon used to be the leader of the Paladins of Old. He killed his teammates, massacred the Alteans under the pretense of their betrayal towards him. Then went on to enslave and lord over the known Universe." He took in a deep inhale, and exhaled sharply, sounding thoroughly depressed over what he had just exclaimed to his acquaintances.

With that, the lift came to an instant stop, and the doors slid open.

Nemoi and Pidge were the first to step out. Hunk did so unsteadily, but he regained his composure as they walked down the circular corridor which seemed similar to a habitat ring on a space station, abide, it had gravity.

"So our quarters will be in here?"

Nemoi nodded to Hunk's question, "Yep. At least for the Week. Once we have Shiro... Then you'll likely be drawn to wherever the Black Lion is located, whomever these lions are attached to." He informed as he looked over at Hunk for the time being, shrugging to himself. "If I leave this ship, its likely the Galra will detect my presence due to my concentrated Quintessence energy."

Pidge frowned slightly hearing this. He was hiding here, he was unable to leave, mingle with anyone outside. He couldn't see the blue sky in person, feel the grass of another biome. He was stuck in an underground lake, surrounded by dust and dirt.

When they reached what looked to be his room, there was a yellow and black caution sign written in Altean on his door. It read, "Caution: Trespassers will be shot, Survivors will be shot again."

Pidge stared at it for a few moments until Nemoi read it outloud in english, making her smirk. "I should get one of these for my room."

"I have another one on the other side of the door that says, 'Caution: I don't have time for stupid people' as well. However the only reason why it wasn't on the outside was because it made some of the crew members... Uncomfortable, I guess?"

Pidge shrugged, "It's good humor."

"I know right," Nemoi grinned like a doofus as the door opened at his command, allowing the trio to step inside.

avataravatar
Next chapter