Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

If Shiro got paid every time the paladins got themselves into trouble he would have enough money to afford a factory of metal Galra arms.

Something had him on edge when he woke up. It wasn’t a nightmare, he didn’t think it was at least. Something just felt off. He was usually the first one awake aside from Coran and Allura. Keith was usually awake soon after him, often being found in the training room. He came to the decision that when he was done getting ready, he’d join him. It could help take the edge off.

When he got there, Keith wasn’t there. It didn’t seem like he’d been there at all considering the light was still off. This on one hand was a justifiable red flag, Keith always trained in the morning and the fact he wasn’t meant something was wrong. On the other hand, Shiro could be worrying too much. Keith could just be sleepy, it was one of the few days that immediate doom wasn’t looming over them, he could be finally resting. Or maybe he was awake and just still in his room. It didn’t help the bad feeling he had.

“Have either of you seen Keith? Usually he’d be up by now” he spoke casually to the two altean, urging himself to be rational.

“He and the other paladins have yet to come back from their late night adventures. While you were asleep, Lance had convinced the others to explore the planet. The castle security has not seen them come in since” Coran chirped, seemingly not worried. He had no reason to be. The planet was peaceful, the creatures on it welcomed them warmly. Shiro felt dread though, it was unlike them to be out so late. Or at least two of them. Pidge and Keith wouldn’t willingly stay out overnight, Pidge valued her sleep and Keith didn’t like interacting that long.

They could be held prisoner somewhere, trapped -the new planet they were on was far from stable-, stranded, dead..

Not dead, Shiro reassured himself. They were safe. And if they ran into any problems, which knowing them, they were bound to. They could handle it. They had their suits which would at least protect them if they got stranded or buried under falling debris. So he was sure they were fine, it was just his stress getting to him. Maybe some time alone was what he needed.

How they were roped into this competition was beyond them all. Not even Lance, who was the reason for it, could correctly recall the events. Everything up to a point was blank. They woke up in jumpsuits surrounded by others wearing the same. Their protective equipment was gone.

“I think I remember us signing up for something. Lance had been flirting with the girl with the clipboard. It was some sort of competition?” Hunk thought hard trying to think of anything else. He knew signing up for something on a suspicious planet wasn’t a good idea. He had been outvoted by Lance and Pidge, Keith agreed with him but his vote didn’t count because Lance claimed he never wanted to do anything and was suspicious of everything.

“You’re right! Childhood games, that's why we signed up” Pidge’s enthusiasm went away suddenly, “but they had to have done something to get us here without us knowing. They most definitely knocked us out. Why?”

“Maybe it’s some sort of tradition here? Like just their custom or something? Don’t give me that look! We’ve been to a lot of weird planets whose done weirder things!” Lance defended. Keith didn’t buy it, the others optimistically did.

“I suppose it could be something like that. For all we know it was in the acknowledgements we signed” Pidge reasoned. They weren’t able to read the native language of the planet, Pidge was only able to make out a few things. The reason it had caught their eye was because it mentioned competing in childhood games. One’s from Earth. It was rare they encountered something relating to Earth, let alone from it. After all the chaos that was finally calming down, they wanted to indulge in something homey. Keith had been heavily against it, willing to go back to the castle alone if they wanted to write their names. Hunk had advised against it but was swayed by Pidge’s excitement. No one could fault her for missing home.

There wasn’t anything around that they could gather information from. The most informative thing were the stacks of bunk beds implying they were supposed to stay the night. Their suits were obviously gone, they could only hope they would get it back in the same condition. Keith was antsy about his knife being gone.

Zorts look a lot like humans. It was something Allura told them about when they first landed. It was kind of ominous being huddled in a room with a bunch of physically looking humans. Their suit jackets were numbered.

A masked man spoke over a speaker, a game, prize money, a lot at stake. They watched as the large ball on the ceiling field with money. It was Earth money, to their surprise. They knew this planet's currency. Earth money was a way to trade here too but in a different way then it was on Earth. It was weird how they acquired so much of it.

“Don’t let your guard down”

“Not everything is some scheme to kill us, Keith. I’m surprised you have enough hair for a mullet with how much you worry. I wouldn’t be surprised if you wake up with hair like Shiro one day” Keith ignored the banter with an eye roll and huff. Sue him for wanting to take caution.

It was a while before the game started. Lance assumed it was for everyone to get settled and arrive. Though they still didn’t know how the arrival process went.

“Finally” Lance complained when there were signs that the competition was starting. “Red light, green light? Easy. I bet I can get to the end before you” Lance challenged. Keith was still annoyingly uninterested but Lance paid that no mind. He stretched, Pidge got ready as well, talking to Hunk about something.

“I doubt you could” when it came to agility Keith had him beat. That was if Keith actually tried.

“That sounds like a competition”

“This whole thing is a competition?”

“Whatever man, I’m not going to let you distract me. There’s definitely someone here that’ll beat you, aside from me of course.” Maybe the banter was a way to get Keith more motivated. Maybe it worked.

They took their places, Keith glanced over at Hunk and Pidge to check on them. With how many people between them they were too far for communication. Next to him, Lance was completely focused on the game, waiting for it to start.

The robotic doll turned around and sang a tune, Keith hesitated for a moment, unsure if now was the time to move or not. He had never played red light, green light, on top of that, the song threw him off. It stopped after a few strides and people froze, the robot turned.

Some did at least. Apparently the robot identified movement.

The masked aliens shot them.

Multiple rounds of bullets went off at the same time, multiple bodies hit the ground too. The bodies increased as people registered the violence and started running back to the entrance in order to escape. They were quickly shot. Keith’s adrenaline was pumping. He wanted to do something. Anything that wasn’t just standing there. He wanted to fight, tempted to run. Lance yelped but didn’t move.

Hunk felt sick, a sudden cold rush washed over him that he was sure happened to everyone. “Pidge?” he whispered, trying his best to hardly move his mouth. It wasn’t clear what was the limit of movement.

“Here” she whispered back, it was soft, shaken. .

She was too scared to turn her head to see if any of her friends were victims of the surprise penalty. When the song started again she checked, relieved that they were okay. She no longer prioritized getting to the finish line, she had to focus and not be in a position where she could move past time. Lance and Keith stayed close, which was mostly Keith’s unspoken choice, he suspected anyone who didn't pass the line within time would get the same treatment.

He needed to make sure the others got there before him.

Deeming Lance fine on his own, he was sure it was fine to leave him.

“I’m not going to question what you’re doing. I hope you have a plan” Lance said reluctantly, glancing carefully at Keith. They were close to the finish line, it was easily reachable, especially for Keith who was admittedly faster. But Keith didn't continue towards the finish line. He didn’t reply verbally, Lance saw him gesture to keep going before speeding off to the side. It made him nervous seeing him stall. It made Keith nervous seeing Pidge and Hunk so far.

He practically ran over to them, the bodies he had to go over had multiplied as the rounds went on. Time was running out, they didn’t have much longer left.

“You two need to hurry” Keith told them roughly on a red light,

“I want to be careful… I’m too scared to move any faster” Pidge admitted. Hunk made a noise in agreement, too scared to nod. Keith was put off by how scared they both were. He wasn’t good at being sentimental, he couldn’t deal with his own let alone others’ emotions very well. He couldn’t help but think that Shiro would be able to calmly get them moving.

“That’s okay.. but I need you guys to walk faster. Just trust me” Keith hoped neither would fight back, it raised the chance of moving on red. He grabbed both of their arms when the music started, sprinting forward strategically. He stopped them a bit early just in case, drowning out their surprised yells.

Being this close, Keith noticed all the blood that was on Pidge. She must’ve been standing next to someone who got shot at some point. He internally grimaced, he had to focus on what was happening, getting her across was more important.

Keith helped them rush to the finish. It scared both of them going that fast under such pressure but with Keith holding onto them and shouting directions, they could almost pretend it was training or a mission. Lance was waiting at the finish line for them, looking sick with stress. They got there only a few seconds before the timer buzzed.

The only reason why Keith allowed himself to be pulled into a group hug was so they would all be too distracted to witness all the people who didn’t make it across die. As he suspected, shots rang out with the elimination sound.

Hunk threw up when they pulled away, Lance rubbed his back, smiling sadly.

“I’m impressed you didn’t do that earlier. It’s okay big guy, let it out.” They were all surprised he lasted this long without throwing up, even Hunk himself.

“Now that we’re all safe, what the quiznak! People are dying!? What… What!” Lance freaked out, Pidge pushed her glasses up to recompose herself, shushing him from being any louder and making a scene. Things were far too stressful for him to be that loud when they were so close.

“We can’t panic. When we go back to the waiting room we’ll talk with one of the.. workers? At the very least those masked people are some sort of executioner. We’ll tell them we made a mistake and didn’t understand the language” she said logically. They had been to a few planets that had gladiator type fights. This must’ve been this planet's version. If they explained the situation then logically they’d be let go.

“Is that a good idea? They did just kill a bunch of people, they aren’t moral” Hunk didn’t like that idea.

“She might be right.. this was an accident. We misunderstood. They wouldn’t shoot us for that…” Lance wasn’t wholly sure but surely. They only killed those who lost.

The people with masks had different shapes on them, they ended up speaking with a square.

“Hello, um sorry to interrupt the… game but I think we made a mistake. My friends and I didn’t mean to join this. You see, we’re not from this planet, I think we misread the rules. If you could just take us off the roster? We’ll leave right away” Pidge explained politely.

“Speaking of which, could you also show us the exit, please?” Hunk added,

For a long minute the square masked creature did not reply. Eventually their head shook stiffly. Their expression couldn’t be read so it was hard to tell the mood.

“In case you don’t know, we’re Voltron. As in saviours of the universe. Really important, cool, famous people. We can’t die from this! We have stuff to do and planets to save” Lance tried to reason. The creature did not change their choice. They tried to find someone else to let them out, a lot of other people were trying to do the same after that game. It made Pidge think that the killing was news to them too. The chances of it being a gladiator-winner takes all competition was not likely.

Foreign or not, no one was allowed out. The masked people didn’t speak, they hardly moved. The number of them spread out and armed was enough for others to not attack. Sadistically, it seemed like not everyone was desperate to escape. It likely had something to do with the money prize.

Keith was tempted to fight his way out anyways. If his blade hadn’t been taken then their guns be damned he would’ve. He had no weapon and there were too many people with.

They were helpless. There was nothing for them to do but play the game. And win. Maybe they could escape, at the moment it didn’t seem likely but who knew what else they’d have to do.

The first game was a way to show the contestants what this place really was and what was on the line.

They had time before the next game started. The group found themselves in a corner. It was best to stay out of the chaos the others were getting into during the free time. Some people were forming alliances or making enemies. Pidge didn’t have any of her gadgets with her, the same way none of them had their paladin weapons, it was just supposed to be a few hours out. She still managed to catch some of the conversation from the foreign language.

Hunk and Lance kept busy talking, years of experience allowed her to drown them out..

Not everyone spoke the planet's language, she had heard plenty of people speak english. She eavesdropped, attempting to stay focused on one pair but sometimes interesting things would get her attention. Like a suspicious businessman who offered money if they beat him in a game.

They didn’t get that, but it was similar. It was like they were doing some last minute recruitment by the time the four of them came around. Pidge got their attention, whispering so no one overheard her overhearing.

“I heard a part of someone's conversation. People were scammed into this. At least two people here were approached by a man who basically convinced them that doing this would get them out of their debts and set them up. They were just told this game would give them the chance to earn a lot of money. They also don’t remember how they got here.”

“Great. Suspicious company forcing a bunch of people to play games and kill the losers. Great. I love this situation” Lance complained, he didn’t see any way out of this and it scared him. Of all the situations they’ve been through in space this shouldn’t have been the most terrifying. But then again, the aliens that usually put their lives at stake don’t look so much like fellow humans.

“I wonder who said this was a bad idea?” Keith asked rhetorically, this situation could have easily been avoided if Lance ever listened to him. Or had common sense to not volunteer for something they couldn’t even read fully.

“Guys, this is really the worst time for this. Let’s not blame anyone… even if it was kinda Lance’s fault” Hunk tried to calm them down. He couldn’t imagine them all surviving if they were arguing. Lance made an offended noise. Pidge threatened them if they continued the argument so Lance made sure that it was known that he was being the bigger person and was the one to stop it.

Silence fell over them after that. It wasn’t tense from anger. Quite the opposite. They were worried if they’d make it out, they were all still recovering from what they saw.

When the next game started they didn’t get any clues as to what it could be. It wasn’t as obvious as the first one. While it hadn’t been clear it was red light, green light, the way it was set up implied a race. This however left them with no ideas.

The masked workers were lined side by side at tables. A shape was in front of them. They didn’t get any context as to what they were for, everyone was just told to line up behind one.

“Should we all go for the same one? What if it’s team based?” Hunk asked, he didn’t want to accidentally split up and have to go against his friends. That was the worst case scenario. It was to be avoided as much as possible.

“I’m choosing the star because it resembles me. You all can join or not, I’m sure it’ll be fine” Lance said, Pidge sighed at his recklessness. She wanted to blame it on his nerves going haywire from everything.

“I hate to justify this but I don’t think they’ll do a team game so soon. I can’t be certain but the last game revealed our lives were at stake. They’ll probably play into that, at least for the second game. I’m going to do the triangle”

“Look, they're passing something out. I’ll do circle, it’s calling me” Hunk said. None of them were happy with this, they were just trying to get through it. Panicking would only make things harder for them. They had to somehow go with it as much as they could.

The things being passed out were in silver cases. They all seemed the same but the shapes had to mean something. They didn’t match the one’s on the masks. Two of the shapes were new and the square was missing.

They looked at Keith expectantly, did he really have to announce it? They would see him go to it. He decided to help keep the peace a little longer and go with it.

“I’ll join Pidge. Let’s hurry, I don’t know how much longer those guys will let us stand here” he said, gesturing to the pink hooded people. There were a lot more of them than there were in the resting room. He was sure they were being watched, the threat to shoot inching closer with each second they didn’t comply.

They found their way into their chosen line.They regrouped when they got their container because there was no instruction to stay with your chosen shape. Everyone was spread around the room with a few outliers like them in pairs or trios.

“*THE INSTURCTIONS*” (add that if they break the actual shape they will get eliminated. They all already knew what that means)

“So we just have to cut the shape out? Seems easy enough” Lance said, grazing his needle in the crevice of the cookie, just testing the surface.

“Dalgona cookies are extremely fragile! Please don’t be careless about this one Lance, they're easier to break than they look” Hunk stressed. He felt woozy, this was hard, guards hovered over them waiting for them to mess up. “I think I’m gonna be sick,” just as he said that somewhere in the room a shot rang out. Someone already broke theirs.

“Puke if you think it’ll help make you feel better, it’s okay. But we need to start now. It’s going to take time to do this strategically. We just need to calculate-” she was cut off.

“I’m assuming we can break as much as we want around the shape, right? So what if we just..” Lance used his needle to cut a small corner out of the bottom. Pidge made a soft yell, catching his actions out of the corner of his eye.

“What are you doing!? Don’t do anything unnecessary like that. It could easily crack the shape” she would’ve hit him if she didn’t want to risk him dropping it. Meanwhile Hunk tasted the part of the cookie Lance had managed to take off.

“Just calm down, Lance. You got this” (OR SOMETHING SEE WHAT THAT ONE IMAGE SAYS) - add Keith says or somth -

“For space, these are pretty good. Y’know.. this is a Korean treat. Why do they have this here?” The dessert distracted Hunk from the stress he had felt seconds ago.

“The song the doll sang during the red light/green light game was too” Keith added absentmindedly, scratching at the lines of the triangle. He was too focused to really pay attention to what the others were saying. He had a steady hand during other things, hopefully it would come through here. A few screams rang out, the constant reminder of the aliens standing over them waiting for them to mess up.

Hunk licked at his shape, there wasn’t any harm, it’s not like he was using his teeth. The sweetness calmed him down, food always did. If there was any time to stress eat it would definitely be now when he could easily die and has seen others die.

“You’re making me nervous” Pidge eyed him. Why were boys so reckless? The first thing Lance did was hammer away at the corners and now Hunk was eating his. She was unsure of the status of Keith, he was leant over his so she didn’t really see his method. For her own, she used internal math to calculate a good angle and the amount of pressure based on the density of the cookie. As much as she hated to, she had to focus on herself at this moment.

“Don’t be, I feel less nervous in fact” Hunk would experimentally prod at his cookie in between licks.

No one looked up from their dalgona. They were concentrated. Lance had been making a slow and steady process. He stopped messing around when one of his attempts cracked a small portion he didn’t intend. Luckily it wasn’t a part of the shape, it was in the space below. But he hadn’t been using much pressure so it was a hard-hitting realization at just how easily breakable these things were.

“It might be in my head but I think licking it is making it easier. Like- physically easier. It’s making it softer”

“Really?”

“It’s not just mind games?” Lance gave a few licks himself to see. He was skeptical but hypothetically it should check out. Saliva was a liquid, liquid on things tended to make it squishy. “He’s right! It actually does. Hunk you genius”

Pidge felt silly but licked hers a few times. It would probably need a lot more licks to make it ‘easy’. She was fine with using math to finish hers. The trick did help to some extent.

Hunk was the first one out of them to finish. Having licked his a lot longer he could cut the circle out sort of easily. Keith was second, he hadn’t heard their trick, too lost in concentration, so he looked at Lance weird when he saw him seemingly eating the cookie. Pidge and Lance finished around the same time. Lance almost wanted to break it now that it was over but coming face to face with the masked person reminded him not to.

As fast as the relief washed over him for having finished in one piece, it also brought back the feeling of uselessness,

He hated how there was nothing they could do but play the game. They were paladins! They explored space, flew magical robot lions, saved multiple planets, fought space creatures with powers. Space creatures with unique guns should have been easy to deal with. Lance reasoned that in any other scenario they would have access to those said robot lions and their weapons. Something they currently don’t have.

Something didn’t seem right to Pidge. There wasn’t much left but they had some time before the game ended.

“What’s going on up there” Hunk tried to follow her gaze but it was moving among the people.

“They don’t all look like Zorts. I know humans and Zorts are remarkably similar but there’s something about some of them that don’t fit. They look completely like humans.”

“Is it possible for there to be other humans here?” Keith asked. They were on the planet because the castle needed some parts. How would regular humans get here?

“Maybe. I wouldn’t say it’s not. I’m going to ask them”

“Woah, woah, hold on. That could be dangerous. We don’t know these people or why they're here.”

“Well we’re all stuck here. Even them. Even if they aren’t friendly or kill planets they're just as useless here as we are. There’s no motive to hurt each other, not when we’re not in a game, it’s unlikely they’ll do anything but send me away. It might provide information. This could be our chance to get a better understanding.” In the name of science and their safety she was determined. She pinpointed one of the girls who she was almost certain was human. She was a bit mean looking, a scowl on her face. She made a big scene with two of the guys earlier, the three apparently didn’t get along. Pidge was glad the argument had since settled down.

“Hey, I’m sorry to interrupt, I’m Pidge, a human from Earth and a paladin from Voltron. I was wondering, are you from this planet?” It was a direct approach but when dealing with a woman who had a temper and looked like she could crush her, she wanted to play it safe. Get her point across fast.

“No, I’m also from Earth. How’d you get here?”

“I was meaning to ask you the same. If you don’t know what Voltron is then it’s kind of a long story but the.. spaceship my team uses needed parts so we landed here. The four of us wandered off and ran into a girl with a clipboard and some signs. We couldn’t read the language and signed up for something we didn’t understand.” she had gestured to the others. Who tried to make it look like they hadn’t been staring down the interaction.

“Hmph. stupid kids.” the unidentified human grunted. “Got here ‘cause this business guy approached me. I was in debt and he offered a way out. Played a dumbass, rigged game. Woke up here. This is the case for a few others I’ve spoken with. Those boneheads were astronauts whose ship drifted off and they lost contact with Earth. Ended up on this planet or something. There’s a few humans here as far as I’m aware. They were recruiting people back on Earth. I don’t remember how I got here, they probably abducted us.” Pidge nodded along. “Now scram, I’m not looking for alliances, I’m keeping the money”

Pidge thanked her and left. Avoiding the dead bodies on the ground as she went. She told the group the news and how her theory was correct. They all tried not to think about how many humans they saw die. Not that the aliens weren’t traumatizing, them looking so human-like already didn’t help but there was some disconnected assurance knowing they weren’t humans. Being in space and fighting aliens all the time made them desensitized to seeing space creatures die.

With the news in the back of their mind, the game ended.

They were served lunch, surprisingly enough. The number of contestants had plummeted and only two games had been played. Hunk wondered if this was some sort of reward. A little incentive for making it this far. The gamemasters could’ve easily not fed them. No one knew how long they'd even been here. Between the guts and anxiety, no one felt the pang of hunger. It was only acknowledged when food was placed in front of him.

“Where’s Keith?” Lance asked, he didn’t see a mullet anywhere in the line for food. Getting split up was easy even with the lower numbers.

“I saw him come back in here with us.” It was Hunk's way of saying he’s alive.

“The bathroom maybe?” Pidge suggested. None of them went in there but they were allowed to.

They didn’t see Keith for all of lunch. Hunk ended up eating his share when they found out they weren’t allowed to save it past the time. Lance had checked the bathroom. His fear of losing one of them made him tempted to ask one of the guards if they had seen him. He decided against it when he remembered that they were killers and he wasn’t going to put Keith in danger like that.

“Where could that hothead even run off to? There’s only three places to go! And one of them is the ladies room.” Hunk shrugged it off slight;y, almost optimistically.

“‘I don’t know. But knowing him he probably has a plan.” The two stared at him blankly. “...An idea of a plan” he reconciled. While Keith seemed impulsive there was usually some reasoning or strategy behind it. Whatever he did was usually reckless but he always knew that and was prepared. Slipping away during a murder game on an alien planet was exactly like him. Really, they should’ve seen it coming.

“Whatever. He better be back soon”

TUG A WAR

Keith was back before the next game. They divided into even sections, one group on the left and the other on the right. Thankfully, due to the lack of friendship among the survivors no one particularly cared about which of the eight teams they were on. If one group needed more, someone was always willing to move. That meant the four of them could securely stay on the same one. With the 80 players left, they moved into eight teams with ten players each.

This had to have been a team game.

“Where were you?” Lance whispered, Keith shook his head,

“Ignore it. Focus”

He wanted to argue. Lance thought that when the stakes were this high, going off on your own required an explanation.

Keith clearly wasn’t going to give one though. Not yet at least. Maybe they could get one out of him later but not when so many guards were around. He probably did something not allowed.

Tug a war was the game. There was no cheating, their hands were chained to the large rope. In the middle of both teams was a drop that would most definitely kill. Their side of the rope tried to come up with a strategy. An old man took the role as leader. HIs logic checked out according to Pidge so there were no objections.

“Take two steps forward!” the old man shouted as they started to lose. It had been going so well for them, of course something near-death had to happen.

If they took two steps added with the weight and motion of the other side pulling them, the chances of them falling off was great. It no longer seemed like a good idea to listen to the old man.

“Are you crazy!? We’re not actually doing that, right?” Lance asked frantic, trying to pull. His hands hurt and were probably rope burned.

“Just do it! He might be right” a new voice said. They hadn’t spoken to the man after they got into position for it to start.

“On three!”

The two step forward and pull method made Lance lose a few years off his life and Hunk to vomit in his mouth. They were extremely close to not making it. Practically the whole team had yelled in fear, grunting as they pulled.

The old man, whether he was crazy or not, had made a good choice for them. The whole team on the other side had died. They had almost gone with them considering the rope was connected, it cut off just in time. No doubt a purposeful design to scare them.

There were other teams that needed to go, they got to wait in the lounge in the meantime. It wasn’t expected to be a very long seven rounds. This version of tug a war went in one side's favor quickly.

“Are you going to tell us why you left?”

“I found a way to leave. There’s a labyrinth of rooms outside. I don’t know where all of them go to, but I got my blade back. It was the only thing I could find. I think I might know where our gear is though” he explained quietly.

“What!” the guards looked over, Lance gave them an apologetic gesture out of instinct. They didn’t deserve it in retrospect. “Are you crazy? Like actually mentally-asylum insane? Why would you even risk that?”

“Why risk us not making out if one of the games are too hard? Were we actually planning on winning this? If we can get out early we do it”

He had a point. For all they knew it could be designed for only one person to win. Meaning at the very end they’d be put against each other. They talked about it earlier, that escaping may be the only way. As impossible as it seemed.

“As long as you didn’t get caught or do anything rash”

“You didn’t do anything rash.. Right?” Hunk felt like something was up with Keith’s body language after Lance relented and calmed down.

When Keith slipped out and into the new area the first thing he had done was come face to face with a circle. He was quicker and took him out. He had a feeling there’d be cameras so he grabbed the person in a pink mask and kept his number cover. He went into a room, it was one of the few with a window. It’s where he found his blade. He took out the cameras with it. Then some guards. They were in the way and he was on a time crunch, he didn’t think he had more time before the game started. He managed to take them out before any of their shots landed. In his defense he had been stealthy. The cameras likely didn’t even see him before he threw his blade. Their shots were loud though and he worried it would alert others. It was then that he went back to the others. Discarding the mask by the body he took it from. He hid his blade. He came back at the perfect time, the game did in fact start only a few minutes after. None of the guards inside knew he was gone.

“I may have killed a few guards and took out the security cameras.. But it was necessary and I obviously didn’t get caught.” He added before one of them could overreact. “Now if we find an opportunity we don’t have to worry about cameras when we escape”

“Is there any way they could track it to you?” Pidge asked, Keith shook his head. He didn’t think so.

“I wish Lance never asked, I do not want the stress of knowing this. We could get into so much trouble”

“Don’t think about it, Hunk. Would any of you like to rest?” Keith changed the topic, there were a few others who were using the beds. They didn’t know how many teams were left, plus however long gets added with the intermission time they get in between games.

“Actually, yeah. I think we’ve been up all night by now.” Pidge normally was a night owl, her sleep schedule was a bit more of a schedule ever since Voltron. Coran had them up for training occasionally, on their days off Shiro ‘heavily encouraged’ being up by a certain day as to not waste their days away. She would’ve gotten a few hours of rest by now, now that Keith brought it up, thinking was difficult. She was the thinker on the team, especially in this group, she needed sleep to continue.

“I’m staying awake, you guys can go to sleep if you need then, I’ll wake you before we start”

“Why don’t you get some sleep? It might help with your nerves and vomityness” Lance ushered Hunk into bed who went willingly. It was a good idea, he didn’t want to keep throwing up and there may not be a time during the game. Like in tug a war.

They were next to a stack of beds that were unused. It had pretty much been their corner the whole time. He went into the very bottom bunk and Pidge climbed into the one above his.

“Are you going to sleep?” Keith asked Lance,

“Maybe.. I don’t know yet. I don’t feel tired but it’s probably from everything. I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep if I wanted to. I’m assuming you aren’t either? I can wake you guys up instead if you want to sleep”

“Not tired.”

They sat there together, both supposedly not tired. Keith didn’t want to be tired anyways, someone had to stay awake. He didn’t trust the other people in the game, as much as their victims they could still be bad people. He knew Pidge and Hunk had at least one person they trusted amongst the remaining, he wasn’t sure if there was anyone Lance actually trusted but he flirted with two of the females. Though past experiences have shown he doesn’t have to trust them to flirt.

He couldn’t help but let his mind wander. Was behind the scenes in chaos as one of the workers found dead coworkers? Did they think there was a mole? How else would their deaths be behind closed doors? Doors they didn’t expect their players to reach.

Maybe they could get out afterall. He had lost faith after the second game. It was obvious this was just a game. Designed for mass murder and entertainment to whoever pulled the string. He really couldn’t find any twisted morals or ethics that could be behind it. There was no lesson to be learnt as far as he could tell.

“Keith, do you think we’ll get out of this?” the question was sudden, they were sitting shoulder to shoulder, Keith could tell he was tense.

“Yeah, we will.” He was tempted to just leave it there, it didn’t offer much comfort though. “After everything we’ve been through in space, we’ll get out of it. We always end up finding a way,”

“What if this time we don’t though? What if this is finally the thing that we-”

“Lance, calm down. Just trust me, okay?” Lance nodded, taking a long breath. Exhaustion seemed to be creeping up on him, he seemed tired in a more sleepy way. He kept his eyes closed, either to lull himself to sleep or keep himself calm, one way or the other it worked vise-versa. Lance was nearly asleep, still on the floor next to him. “I’ll make sure you get out of this” Keith said quietly, in a way that almost made it seem like it was to himself.

Pidge woke up to a bad dream, or rather memory. She didn’t tell Keith about it, who was the only one out of them awake. But that was fine, it wasn’t Keith’s place to force her and she seemed relatively okay. As okay as any of them could be.

“Is the next game starting soon?”

“I think so. I was planning on waking you guys up. I saw the guards move around. They haven’t said anything so I can only assume their movement means their preparing” The guards haven’t said anything the entire time. Only one masked thing spoke and it was the out of uniform one on the TV.

They woke Hunk and Lance up. The first almost believing that everything that happened was some weird space-infused nightmare, only to come to the disappointing reality that he was still in a green jumpsuit in a weird place.

The next game commenced. The figure in black with no shape told them the instructions, just like he’d done for all the other games.

The trend of vagueness continued into this game as it did all the other ones. They weren’t told what they were playing, just that they needed a partner. There were too many of them for there to only be one winner. Unless on the off chance that it was a speedrun to the last game, but they didn’t want to think about that being the case.

“Together for this?” Lance asked for clarification. They hadn’t really discussed the plan for partner games. As in who partners with who. They were a nice even number so it wouldn’t be hard.

“I don’t think I'm going to partner with any of you for this. I think I can secure a partner with that girl from earlier. We should get allies where we can. It could be useful, she might know something we don’t. We still need to find a way out” Pidge explained. They had to escape before the final game. It was obvious they were trying to get as many people out as possible, it implied only one winner.

“Tell your partner to go easy on us if we run into each other” Lance ruffled her hair in a way to bother her. Things were so tense, he tried to do anything to alleviate that tension. This game was the first glimpse they’d get at being put against each other. It was likely still possible to avoid each other.

“I’ll go find someone then too, I met someone really nice earlier when I was throwing up. I think he’ll still be available, it seemed like he stayed away from everyone too” Hunk said, willing to separate from the group. He and Pidge said their goodbyes. It was unspoken that Keith and Lance would be partners so as to not completely split up the team. Hunk and Pidge were told to come back here if they couldn’t find their partner in time.

Everyone managed to get a partner.

The robotic voice got everyone’s attention.

“Each of you were given ten marbles. You can play any game you want with those marbles. But in order to win you have to get all ten of your partners’ marbles. You may find an area to play”

It wasn’t teams..Choosing a partner implied working with them.

They were going against their partner.

Lance felt as pale as Keith looked. If possible, Keith felt paler.

A circle masked worker showed up behind them to hover. To shoot the loser. The employees in pink hovered in every game, but knowing the loser would be one of their own, one of them were getting killed, was impossible to swallow.

The silence dragged on for too long. Barely a minute had passed but it may as well have been all ten.

“So what.. what game do we play?” Lance asked, pushing down the urge to cry. He hated referring to this as a game. These sick bastards knew what they were doing. They told them to choose a partner knowing they’d choose the person they didn’t want to die. This whole thing was just a way to kill people, he didn’t know why he expected them to have morals. These weren’t good people.

He didn’t want to look at Keith, didn’t want to see his frenemy-friend that he had grown so close to over the years of being in Voltron. Even though they weren’t friends at the time, they knew each other since they were teens in the garrison. It was like killing family.

Keith took a while to reply. Understandably so.

“We’ll just use one marble. Toss it over to the wall there, whoever gets it closest wins” he said numbly. Emotion void in his tone. Keith was much better at keeping himself composed.

Or at least acting like he was.

“Who should go first/”

“You. Your number is lower” Keith gestured to the number on his jumpsuit. Lance looked at both of theirs, checking that it in fact was. He never really paid attention to their numbers, he forgot they were there.

“Right..” he tried to brace himself, stalled when taking out a blue marble. “Whatever happens, no hard feelings, promise? This isn’t any of our faults.”

“Promise. Don’t blame yourself”

He went to aim the marble, it would be easy getting it to the wall. he thinks. He supposed you’d have to account for the rebound though, you couldn’t just hit it to the wall. It may roll back more than the others’. It felt wrong to be thinking like this. To be trying to win. He didn’t want to die, he didn’t want to kill Keith.

“We still have a bunch of time and our game’s short. How about we wait?” He was stalling. Keith breathed out, out of relief, or stress, or annoyance, it wasn’t known.

“Sure” Keith sat down, there wasn’t a point in standing around. The circle didn’t seem to think this was against the rules. Afterall, they technically make their own rules in this game. Lance sat down next to him, toying the dirt idly.

“I wonder how Pidge and Hunk are doing” Lance wondered aloud,

“I’m sure they're fine. Pidge probably came up with an elaborate game. I think she’d win any strategy game against these people. Hunk was probably given a win because whoever he was with saw how nice he is and they couldn’t do that to him. It’s hard to overlook that when you’re with him”

Lance stared at him, Keith didn’t look back. He tried to pretend he didn’t see him in the corner of his eye, a sad smile on his face at the very plausible ideas. Even if it wasn’t supposed to be a strategy game, even if she didn’t pick it, Pidge was a genius, she’d figure out a strategy. Lance was a bit worried that Hunk’s kindness was a problem. He was too nice and caring, he’d give someone the win because he didn’t want to hurt them.

They weren’t hurting anyone. This wasn’t their fault. Any choices made here were by force.

It’s not their fault and Hunk would be fine.

He closed his eyes and inhaled. He didn’t want to do this. He didn’t understand how Keith was staying so calm. Out of all the times they needed him calm and level-headed, he chose to do it now.

“You’re probably right.” Lance finally agreed. The others would be fine.

“Almost five minutes left. Let’s start.”

Once stood and brushed off Lance resumed his position to toss his marble. There was no more stalling. He tossed it underhand, with calculated pressure. It landed fairly close to the wall. He didn’t feel happy or proud about it.

There was a part of him that worried Keith wouldn’t be able to surpass it, there was a part of him that worried he would.

“Lance, get back to Shiro for me.”

The red tinted marble dropped. It didn’t roll. It didn’t move more than a centimeter. It wasn’t tossed or thrown. It was dropped.

Thumped onto the ground as if there was nothing more than an accident. It took Lance a second to register. The calm, resigned, tone of Keith had kept him from understanding what he’d done.

“What- Don’t just- what do you mean by that? What are you doing?”

“Get out of here. Shiro must be worried that we’ve been gone for so long. Make sure to see him again for me, okay? I don’t want him to worry about me”

“Roll again” he wasn’t listening to this anymore. “Roll again Keith!”

“I don’t have a reason. You have a reason to win. You have people on Earth to go back to.”

“You self sacrificial fuck! Do you think this is what I want? Do it again. Stop trying to act so cool and have some common sense. It was a mistake! You just dropped it, do it again. See Shiro yourself” Lance was shouting, tears pooling as he manhandled Keith by the collar. He tried to get a reaction out of him. Any reaction that wasn’t disconnected mellowness.

He shoved him. His provocative actions were met with Keith moving closer and his hand slipping into his pocket, the pocket that was away from the armed worker’s view. Lance hardly registered it, even when he did he couldn't tell what it was.

“I want someone to keep it. It’s the only thing I have of my mom” Keith didn’t want to end this on a sad note, he knew this would already be hard. “Make sure to kill at least one of these bastards with it” he whispered

A joke.

Or partially a joke. There may have been some truth to his request but based on the faint smile, Keith found it amusing.

Lance put his hand in his pocket. It took him a bit to realize it was the blade he had seen Keith hold and use. It made sense why he did it secretly, the workers couldn’t know.

“It’s okay, Lance. We promised”

Lance was involuntarily crying, he felt sick.

“Ke-” he was going to continue to beg him to actually try and toss it. He was cut off by a loud blaring.

It interrupted the circle from aiming their gun, they bolted as soon as the alarm rang. There was some sort of emergency, he could hear others running too. Lance was frozen, gripping the blade, focusing on it. Was this what dissociating felt like? Normally he’d do… something.

The handle was foreign in his hands, he never actually touched it before. He was zoned in on the feeling when Keith grabbed his arm and ran, forcing him back to reality. He was still crying, he realized. Blinking away tears.

Neither of them knew what the siren was for, for all they knew it was just a fire and when they came back they’d make sure to shoot Keith before the next game. But with the chaos of everything, now may be their only chance to do something. Even if they don’t manage to escape, they have to try. They ran into Hunk and PIdge, Lance quite literally running into Hunk.

“What’s it saying?” Pidge asked, referring to the voice that followed the arm. She didn’t really expect an answer.

“There’s been a breach” Keith translated.

“Like chemically, spacy, person?” Hunk shouted to get over the sound.

“It doesn’t say”

The number of players left had dwindled due to the game. Based on the blood on Pidge, she had already played and won. Hunk’s status was unknown, the only blood on him was from red light/green light. It could be assumed he played and won though. Most people didn’t wait down to the last five minutes to finish.

“Let’s find our bayards” Keith ran, it made the others follow. He led them to the room he had gone into earlier. The dead bodies were cleared and the cameras still destroyed, “split up, search as many rooms”

It was empty, the workers were dealing with wherever the breach was. Anyone they did run into they had a chance to fight. They were a part of Voltron after all, it wasn’t a lot to take someone out. It was harder without their stuff, but still.

“Guys! I found it!”

“Did anyone see where they were going? If it’s a breach then it could be someone here to save us. We need to help” Pidge said, looking out just in case. They could hear commotion but it was coming from two spots, it was hard to tell what was what.

“Follow the sounds of fighting or fighting... this isn’t looking good”

“Or third option, get out of here”

“Shiro!” they collectively greeted.

“How’d you know where we were?” Lance asked, it was the first he’d spoken since leaving the spot with the marbles.

“I didn’t. I brought a team. Someone heard about voltron, he knew we were here and hoped we could help. He survived these ‘games’ and got to leave. He didn’t want anyone else to deal with this too.”

“What do we do about the guys in pink? We can’t just blast them, can we? Some of them are humans”

Shiro was alarmed by the news. They hardly ever encountered other humans while in space.

“Don’t think about that. It’s not safe to keep them around; they'll just do this again. Let’s go, the crew is holding them off, the exit is nearby. I’ll gather the others, go help with the fight.”

The trip back to the castle was mostly quiet. No one was comfortable talking, they didn’t know how to proceed. Shiro looked at them concerned. Before they left they got their equipment back, Pidge had changed into her armor right away, discarding the bloodied clothes. Hunk took off his jacket. Shiro tried to ease their nerves but he knew from experience that sometimes rest was what the mind needed, not to talk about it.

“Paladins, welcome back, I’m sorry to hear about what happened” Allura greeted sympathetically.

“I can’t imagine what you guys went through. If any of you want to talk about any of it, I'm here. Don’t hold back on talking about it” Shiro told them.

Allura and him were thanked for their efforts. Everyone retreated to their rooms or the showers.

Shiro was concerned about the impacts from what happened. Not only for the future of Voltron, their moods could impact their missions and formation, but just with them in general. As humans who had to witness everything they did . He didn’t know how they’d fair mentally.

“Maybe some group training exercises will help” Allura suggested,

“Thank you princess, but I don’t think training is what they need right now” he told her politely. Maybe bonding exercises at some point.

“Are there Earth procedures for things like this?” Not that things like that happened on Earth, Shiro tried to think of anything equivalent.

“Well from experience, in between missions, we’d do psych evals. That.. might help. I’ll have to get their opinion on it first. I don’t want to force them” he said uncertain. None of them were really emotionally open, except Hunk, he was probably the most, and maybe Lance depending on his mood. It was more that he was easy to read.

“I’m sure whatever happens will be okay, you’ll make the right decision. It’s getting late though, who knows what will happen tomorrow the way things are. You should rest soon”

Allura left to follow her own advice. Shiro knew logically he should but he stayed there thinking for a while longer.

They had gotten information about the group that ran the games. Not everyone could be identified, there were too many of them and not enough information. It turned out the reason there had been so many things from Earth, like the cookie, the song, the language spoken during the emergency siren, it was because the person who was behind it all was human. They were from Earth, had partnered with the Garrison through a program before the Garrison kicked him out under the diagnosis that he was too unstable to go on missions. How that turned into this? He never said. There was a chance he was just crazy and in isolation he needed sadistic entertainment.

The guy who found Voltron and put together a rescue team had been a part of the games. He wondered how many people, this planets people and Earth, had been forced to be a part of the games. They were able to contact the garrison and find a safe place in the meantime for the human contestants until they could relocate them back on Earth.

He needed sleep.

Before that though, he wanted to check over the castle. Coran always did it, made sure security was put up and everything was stable but Shiro felt the need to check anyways. He always did. Sometimes he found Pidge working on something, attempting to pull an all-nighter, Keith training, or Hunk experimenting with foods to make their space experience better. He always tried to talk them into going to bed.

This time however, he found someone someplace he didn’t expect.

“Lance, what are you doing here?” he asked gently.

Lance was sitting on a bench in the training room. Usually Keith was there. He wouldn’t have been surprised if he found Keith here after everything, but he guessed it was bad enough that it tuckered him out too. Which was why he was so surprised to find Lance there. He found the blue paladin lost in his head, staring zoned out at the floor. He jumped when Shiro spoke to him.

“Oh, um.. nothing really, I guess. I uh, was just waiting”

“For someone? Keith perhaps?” he verbally nudged, trying to be gentle about it. He hadn’t missed the puffy eyes he had earlier, and while that had since dried there was still sadness in them.

“How’d you know?”

Who else would Lance be waiting for? In the training room no less. Shiro instead said his most logical reasoning.

“You have his blade.”

“Oh.. right.” Lance looked back down on it. He hadn’t even realized he’d been staring at it for so long. Keith had forgotten to ask for it back, he assumed he might be able to find him here he waited. He was going to give it back but got lost in the shiny purple that seemed to glow. Keith never showed up, he wondered how long it had been. It must’ve been long if Shiro was checking here. Shiro would scold whoever he found in the mornings, everyone knew Shiro would find Keith training late or Pidge and Hunk working on their own interests. “I assumed he was going to come here and I could talk to him.”

“You can talk to me instead. I think it could help. I promise Keith won’t know that I know anything. Do you think that’ll help?” Lance thought about it, Shiro worried he might’ve scared him away. Getting to know a tiny Keith had been a trail and error of finding out what scared someone emotionally closed off away and what didn’t. Lance wasn’t typically closed off but he didn’t know how he was in this mindset after everything.

He nodded,

“You have to actually not tell him though. Like really, really, don’t tell him. I think he’ll be pissed and if anything I want to talk to him first” Shiro nodded understandingly. “The last game, the one we were playing right before you came was one were we had to choose I partner. Hunk and Pidge went with someone else but Keith and I were together. We didn’t know we would be choosing our opponent..” his voice trembled. “We got to come up with out own game to get our partners' marbles. Keith.. He let me go first, he didn’t even try to toss his! He just dropped it. He was basically saying goodbye. Said that I had a reason to continue because I have a family back home…” Lance didn’t mean to cry again, he thought he’d be fine now that Keith was alive and apparently not.

“He was sacrificing himself for you” Shiro finished for him, understanding now. Lance nodded. Shiro hated that he wasn’t surprised.

“I hate him! Why’d he act all big and tough as if I’d be happy going back to my family knowing he died for it. He could’ve tried. Even if he purposely messed up, he could’ve tried to stall. I kept telling him to redo it but he’s annoyingly stubborn,” Lance ranted, Shiro let him. Listening patiently. “I hate him”

“It doesn’t sound like you do” he pointed out, “It takes a lot of love to worry about someone like this” Lance didn’t know what to say. “I had a feeling he was self-sacrificial. I’ll see if I can get him to talk about it tomorrow and see what I can do to stop him from doing that. Talk to him tomorrow, he needs to know it’s not what others want when in a dire situation”

“I’m planning on it, I have to give this back to him anyway” Lance gestured to the blade. He had calmed down a bit but his sadness had turned into frustration. He didn’t seem like he was going to continue so Shiro rubbed his back and stood,

“Keith is already asleep, I’m sure, so you should try to go to sleep too. Sleep helps recovery like this. You might feel a bit better tomorrow. Get some sleep, Lance” Shiro was about to walk out,

“I’m scared of losing him,” Lance blurted. Shiro had paused when he heard him speak, he smiled softly at the admission.

“Tell him that.”