Continued Reality: A Voltron Fanfiction

ELECTRICITY

     Keith is sitting in his chair at the front of the ship, studying a piece of paper that he scribbled Shiro's secret message on:

     DANGER: Mrawls are coming. Universal war eminent. Fly to coordinates, find the kloflax. Tell no one else. STOP THE WAR.

     What does it mean? He has been trying and trying to figure it out, but he's afraid they won't understand the message completely until they arrive at the coordinates that Shiro provided.

     "Whatcha got there?"

     Keith looks up to see Veronica standing over him, staring down at his notes. "Oh, um... just Shiro's last message."

     "Oh," Veronica says. "You two were close, weren't you?"

     "He was like a big brother to me," Keith replies, staring down at the ground.

     "I'm really sorry," Veronica says. She kneels down and places her hand on his.

     For a split tick, this takes Keith by surprise. But he allows her hand to remain on his, taking comfort in her kindness.

     Who would have guessed any sister of Lance's would be so caring? Keith thinks to himself jokingly. But then he notices the look Veronica is giving him. The same one she gave him earlier.

     Okay, maybe she isn't just being kind... He figures he'd better end this before it begins. "Veronica–"

     "Awooooo!" Kosmo's sudden warning howl causes Veronica to jump.

     "What is it?" Keith says to the wolf, concerned.

     Kosmo rushes past Keith and continues to howl out the front viewport, the hair on his neck bristling.

     "What's going on?!" Lance shouts as he, Pidge, and Hunk come running.

     "I'm not sure," Keith replies, staring out into the blackness of space. "He must sense something coming."

     Sure enough, the group soon sees something in the distance. And it's coming towards them —fast.

     "What is that?" Veronica asks.

     "Whatever it is, it looks huge! Like, super huge!" Hunk says worriedly.

     "We might not want to find out what it is," Pidge says. "I think I see flashes of electricity coming off of it."

     Keith glances over his instruments and begins to press the controls. "Let me see if I can plot a course around it."

     But before he has the chance to change course, the mystery object is suddenly upon them —or rather, the mystery creature. It is long and slithering like a snake, and it is about the size of a weblum. But the worst part of it is the electricity sizzling and cracking all around it like an electric eel.

     "Look out, look out!" Lance shouts as the creature nearly collides with their ship. But Keith is able to jerk on the controls and move the ship out of the creature's pathway just in time.

     "Phew," Pidge says with relief. "It's a good thing that creature didn't touch us. We'd be fried!"

     But Keith knows that the danger isn't over yet. His heart skips a beat when he sees that hundreds of the same kind of creature are coming directly for them, all flashing with dangerous electricity.

     "Uh, how are we going to make it through them?" Lance asks, pointing.

     "Yeah, I don't want to be fried!" Hunk screams. "I do the frying!"

     Keith maneuvers the ship around a couple of the creatures, but more and more keep coming, surrounding them. "I don't know how we're gonna make it out of this!" He says. He is an amazing pilot, and normally he would have no trouble at all weaving between comets or asteroids or even a pod of space whales. But not only are these creatures flying so closely together, their electricity is also sparking so much that just coming close to them could lead to the gang's demise.

     "Watch out, Keith!" Lance yells again as another creature comes way too close.

     "Stop shouting at me! It's not helping anything," Keith says, getting irritated.

     "Well stop trying to get us killed and I wouldn't have to shout!" Lance retorts.

     "Let him focus!" Veronica shouts at Lance.

     "Oh sure, take his side!" Lance says.

     "Guys, stop argu-" Pidge begins to say. But Hunk's sudden scream pierces the air.

     They are in a direct collision course with one of the creatures. No time to react, no time to change course. As many of them as there are, this was inevitable. Keith knew as soon as he saw all of them that they wouldn't make it through. Now they would never get to finish Shiro's mission, to figure out his message, to learn what exactly even happened to him. Keith closes his eyes and awaits his fate.

     But nothing happens. There isn't a crash, isn't the sound of electricity zapping them to death. In fact, the only thing he hears are the awed sounds of his friends around him.

     Keith opens his eyes to see a clear viewport, no creature in sight. The entire group of them is just gone, nothing but empty space stretched out before him. He turns to look at his friends, and sees Lance's hands outstretched towards the viewport, his Altean markings glowing, and an incredibly confused expression on his face.