Recovery - Chapter Six

Recovery
Chapter 6
Rogue Trip Part One

A/N: (crawls out of grave) So it’s been a wild few months, huh. I decided to post what I have because the second half of this chapter is giving me problems. Thanks for waiting so long for another upload, my dear readers, I can’t promise that this won’t happen again lol. Happy reading!

Hunk snuck down to the catacombs and walked into the cadets’ lair. They scarcely decorated it with posters, a few chairs, and an accompanying table. He walked past them and reached a single computer terminal that was tracking three high-speed objects.

He groaned, “Radar duty, whatever. I’m not missing much,” he mumbled to himself. 

---

Daniel whooped as his motorcycle’s back tire balanced backwards in a wheelie. The bike was huge and painted red with white accents. It had two insanely large exhaust pipes behind it, and cyan lights added for extra decoration.

He sped up in front of Larmina and Vince, “Oh man, Hunk doesn’t know what he’s missing!”  

“Sure he does,” Larmina snarked, “He knows he’s missing your obnoxious face!”

“I can’t hear you! Too busy being awesome!”

Vince rolled his eyes. It had been a few months since the first Hunkyard visit, and the cadets had put some actual effort into upgrading their rides. After the team had defeated the giant droid with Voltron, the cadets couldn’t help but gush about their day and their vehicles, minus the secret lair, of course. The pilots later decided it’d be a good way to teach them how to work on the lions by working on similar mechanics in their vehicles.

Vince’s turret was now shorter, with a smaller gun too. The cockpit was sturdier and shaped like a snake’s head, with its fangs poking out and cyan lights around the edges. Its underside weighed down the machine more, too.  

Larmina had enough of Daniel’s holier-than-thou attitude and raced up to him,

“Well, if you think you’re so cool, let’s play chicken, hot-shot!”

He didn’t need to answer her, as his engine’s revving was all the confirmation she needed. As they rode through the open canyon they were in, they set their sights on the enormous cliff in front of them and put pedal-to-the-metal, trying to get there first. Larmina, already having thought out her plan, pushed forward to get Daniel to act recklessly. Which is exactly what he did. Pushing a dangerous speed, he pulled ahead of her and looked into his side-view mirror. She was gone and as he looked; he spotted her on top of the cliff ahead. She had jumped onto the top of the cliff and stared him down. After glaring at her for a few seconds, he looked back in front of him and almost had a heart attack from seeing how close he was to the cliff wall. He forced his bike sideways in a last-ditch attempt to slow down before hitting the wall, which he lightly bumped into by the time he reached it.

She laughed at his shoddy attempt at reorienting, as he tried to see if looks could kill. “It’s not my fault that I’m better than you at thinking things through!”

Her vehicle had changed a lot, too. Originally, she controlled her enormous skeleton with a rope and pulley system connected to every limb. Now she was untethered and moved around with holographic gloves and boots to better match her moves. The surrounding rings had stayed. It activated a shield to protect her when needed, and inside her sphere she had a console for settings like power and speed for her ride. The gun had gotten a major upgrade, now looking like a giant taser with lethal power. Aesthetically, there were cyan lights to match the boys and spray-painted icons of a skull and lightning bolt on the joints of the front legs.

Vince cut in before he could take the chance to sass her back. “Cool it, guys! We’re here for more than a joyride, and I’d really like to get back to that super awesome reason.”

“Right there with ya, buddy!” chimed in Hunk, “You guys are go for the trial formation sequence!”

That sparked their excitement again. But there was something else the rest of the team didn’t know, even if they helped with the upgrades themselves a few times. Daniel may have originally had a stupid idea to fix all their problems, when in reality it was only to fix his, but it had actually kinda helped in a way. Larmina was tired of not being in a fight. Vince had anxiety about not being useful to the team, even with his weird powers, and Daniel just really wanted to pilot a giant robot. What Hunk helped them come up with didn’t solve everything, but it did a hell of a better job than the group training they were told to do to ‘bond’.

“Remember cadets, this is your maiden voyage! We don’t even know if this works yet, so take it slow and cautious!” Hunk told them,

“Neither of those are in my vocabulary!” said Daniel,

Larmina scoffed, “The fact you could even say ‘Vocabulary’ is a big enough milestone on your end.”

“Ha! You’re gonna have to speed up if we’re gonna make this work!”

Hunk watched his screen, tracking the cadets as they got closer together. Until he noticed they were pushing fast and then some.

“Cadets, what’re you doing?! I told you to take it slow! Cadets!!”

They, minus Vince, had gotten used to being yelled at, so they tuned him out as they pushed harder towards each other.

“Guys, I think we should slow down! Don’t we have to do some sort of interlocks sequence?!” Vince asked worriedly,

“Nah!” answered Daniel, “I say we just start this with a simple, ‘Let’s Voltron!’”

They’d gotten close enough to interlock and immediately started pulling levers and pushing buttons. Hunk had made the system similar to the interlocks on Voltron, so the cadets had little trouble doing the right things at the right time. Larmina’s exoskeleton vehicle had unfolded into a more bipedal shape, its limbs making up the arms and legs of their robot. Vince’s turret folded up instead, only separating to clasp on the front and back of Larmina’s vehicle, making up the body and head of the bot. Daniel’s motorcycle folded over itself, pipes pointing downwards and the body of the bike attaching behind the turret. Once everything had stuck together, the newly formed three-part robot landed on its feet, ready for action.

Hunk let out the deep breath he took earlier,

“That... was wicked!”

Not answering him just yet, everyone looked over their controls. Even though the cadets themselves were small, the bot’s chest cavity wasn’t big enough to hold all three of them. They figured that out while working on the cockpits, and Daniel immediately announced himself as the head. Larmina and Vince didn’t take that lightly and told him he wasn’t gonna get that position without a fight. Still being cocky, he challenged them to one. Vince backed down, but Larmina was game, eventually wiping the floor with him. She had officially earned her spot as the head after that, while both boys would sit below her.

Finally, they moved. Larmina controlled the limbs and head, while Vince and Daniel shared control over the main body and sensors. However, piloting a giant robot with only three parts when used to five instead is a lot harder than it looks. They flailed and stumbled a bit before finally figuring out how to keep a balance. Soon enough, they were running and doing parkour across the canyon cliffs.

“Oh man, this is so cool!” Whopped Daniel, “Alright, first things first! What do we name them?”

Vince spoke first, “How about Neutron? New because this is a newer Voltron and because a neutron is a subatomic-“

“Nope!” Larmina cut him off, “Too nerdy! What about Rathgard, The Destructor!”

“Calm down Shadow The Hedgehog, that’s way too edgy,” Daniel sassed, “It has to be something that just screams ‘Awesome!’”

Then, all at once, they had the same idea for their new favorite three-piece robot,

“Awesometron!”

They laughed at the simplicity of the name, but it felt right, all things considered. They prepped to really push Awesometron to their limit, but just then, what sounded like a loud gurgle echoed in their cockpits,

Larmina looked over her screens, “If that was a mechanical failure, it didn’t sound good”

Hunk spoke up before the cadets could freak out any harder over the potential problems of their new mech child,

“Nope! It was ma’ stomach. You three noobs need to get back over here, find me some lunch... and probably something extra for the rest of the team.”

They were unimpressed, with Larmina thinking it was actually kind of funny, and split into their own rides. Bummed, they put their plans with Awesometron on hold, splitting back into their rides. But the promise of food sounded good to them, so it soothed their worries of not getting time with their new favorite giant robot.

---

The cadets returned an hour later, with Daniel and Vince carrying boxes of pizza, while Larmina kicked open every door that wasn’t automatic. The team gathered in the control room, with tables pulled out to sit all together.

As they sat down, they talked about the trial run for the cadets’ vehicles. Daniel, still keeping their new Voltron inspired mech a secret, ranted about how cool their upgrades were. While everyone tossed ideas for future upgrades around, he took a slice of pizza and noticed movement from the corner of his eye. Looking closer, Daniel saw a small fish, bug-eyed fish, and in response to being noticed, it twitched.

He screeched, “What is that and why is it moving?!”

“Arusian anchovy,” Hunk said, “They’re found in super hot waters, close to Red’s lava pits, so they can survive being cooked.”

As Daniel stared at his slice in horror, Vince did the same. Except his anchovy jumped off the slice of pizza and tried to squirm away from the table. Which turned into a failed effort when Pidge grabbed and ate the thing with no hesitation, terrifying Vince.

“What? If you don’t want your anchovies, give ‘em here. I’m not picky with food.” Pidge said,

“That fact that your glutton tendencies haven’t made you gain weight feels like a cruel joke from the universe,” snarked Lance.

“Hey, don’t hate me for my metabolism. If I don’t eat, you guys freak out anyway, so quit your complaining.”

Daniel groaned as he quickly picked off the remaining anchovies on his slice and put them on Pidge’s plate.

“I miss Earth pizza!”

“Heard that,” Vince said, looking at his slice with sadness.

Hunk sighed dreamily over the memories of his favorite pizza places, “Best in the galaxy, nobody makes it like Terra does.”

Larmina tore into her pizza, “You guys have been raving about it for months, what’s so good about a wheel of dough and cheese from Terra that Arus can’t copy here”

Daniel and Vince gave each other a look before shouting out, “Road trip!”

Keith shot them a serious look, “Absolutely not. Terra is way too dangerous for a road trip right now. What if garrison soldiers spotted you?”

“I’m not condoning this little field trip of yours, Terra is already pretty far away,” Hunk said in a surprisingly stern voice, “As long as you only plan to go alone, that is.”

At the suggestion, the rest of the pilots immediately agreed with him. They were desperate to go out after being stuck in the castle for the entire six months since their return.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Keith said judgmentally, “Terra is enemy number one right now! If we get caught, Arus would be defenseless!”

Lance immediately fought back, “Dude, how out of touch are you? Arus has a solid military now. Nat and her guards can handle any tin-can Wade can throw at us, if he can even find an excuse to do so in the first place! Plus, who said we’re going anywhere near a Garrison base?”

“Then what about getting there in the first place? You’re not stupid enough to suggest taking the lions. Every spacecraft has to dock somewhere and show identification accordingly. We’d get caught then and there,”

“Keith, you say that like you aren’t besties with the best smuggler in the galaxy. Manset definitely has enough connections to help us with something this simple. Plus, you forget Pidge exists. Speaking of, can we still use our fakes to get around, short-stack?”

“As long as you still have ‘em, sure,” Pidge told him, “I should have a blank for Keith around here somewhere, but I’m not sure if there’s enough for the cadets. Though I can mess with their legal ones easily.”

“And you have those skills why?” asked Keith.

He let out a short laugh, “Did you really think the guys and I could exist outside the Garrison in peace? People still hated us after the incident, and while people forget faces easily, names not so much.”

“Plus, you’re not the only one who made shady deals to get stuff done.” Hunk said, “Turns out when you can’t prove you’re not a domestic terrorist, government surveillance gets a way stricter. It kept us out of trouble.”

Keith didn’t like them all tag-teaming him like this, even if he did it to them before, often. He looked over at Allura, hoping she’d be on his side,

“It’s your call princess, you’ve heard both sides, so we’ll follow your choice”

Pushing away the sadness she felt over Hunk’s words, she mulled it over. Keith had made some solid points, as usual, but her planet was tough! They took care of themselves while the team was off planet before and now, after being rebuilt, they’re even more prepared for enemies than before.

“I say we go have some fun on Terra!”

Everyone but Keith cheered. They won’t be able to fully relax, but going to Terra was the closest thing to a day off for them.

“You still haven’t answered my question. How are we getting there then? Wade probably flagged all Arusian spacecraft, like we did with the Garrison ones. So we can’t take a fractal, and the cadets haven’t even tested their vehicles’ in space flight capabilities-“

“I vote to test them now!” interrupted Daniel.

Keith shot him an unimpressed look, causing Daniel to silently beg Vince for help as his ultimate hero was staring him down.

“It’ll, uh- it’ll be the perfect opportunity to calibrate our vehicle’s interstellar travel matrixes. There’s nothing like firsthand experience!” he threw out nervously,

“Uhhh, yeah!! That!”

Keith could only take another breath before Hunk slammed the final nail into the coffin. 

“When Lance ditched us and got to Arus with the cadets, we started getting our stuff delivered over here. Which it already has been, including the perfectly legal project ship the three of us worked on while stuck on Terra”

Lance scoffed at the jab, stealing one of Hunk’s slices and putting it on his own plate in retaliation. However, something about what Hunk said confused Larmina,

“There’s no way you got everything out of there in time. Didn’t you guys have your own rooms over there? You had to have left something behind.”  

“Kid, we’re not really attached to Terra anymore. Anything that really was important to us stayed here, since Allura refused to have our rooms cleared out.” Lance said, which earned him a very proud look from the princess at her mention.

“Honestly, it’s kinda hard to get attached to anything when Wade was breathing down our necks non-stop. If he found out anything we cared about, it was just another thing for him to weaponize against us,” Pidge added,

Their words stung Keith. It wasn’t secret that he had to leave everything behind after becoming the universe’s most wanted criminal. Yet it never hit him that the boys had to do the same— even after swearing their loyalty to their newest and more dangerous enemy yet. Thinking about it now, he didn’t hold the same love for Terra that he did before, either. Maybe everything the Garrison did to them had finally tainted all of their feelings for the planet most of the team called home.

“Can we go now?” Daniel whined, abruptly snapping Keith out of his realization, “I’m really craving some Earth pizza!”

He was at a loss. Keith simply waved the group off to pack for their trip. Still, he wondered if it was a good idea to go at all. As everyone ran out of the room, Allura lingered briefly before giving Keith a sunny smile. It was a look he hadn’t seen from her in a long time. 

“Thank you, Keith! I think the team really needed this. It’ll be good for us, I promise!”

Keith softly voiced his agreement before finally watching her leave. He hoped she was right. She always had a tendency to be. To him, she hadn’t been that enthusiastic since before going lone wolf on his team. He realized that it’d actually been seven years since they started dating, but really, he was only actually present for two of those. This impromptu trip could be a way to spend time with her again. He hoped that it’d give them the new start their relationship needed.

---

After an almost four-hour flight to Terra, the team finally got what they so desired: pizza. Not being dumb enough to go to a public area in their well-known uniforms, everyone had changed out into casual clothing.

“I don’t know... this doesn’t look any different from pizza on Arus,” Larmina questioned.

“Trust us, it’s way better,” Vince told her.

She took a small bite from her pizza, and then immediately tried inhaling the rest of it. The group laughed, having known that was going to be her reaction.

“Alright, I give in. This is the best pizza I’ve ever had.”

“Told you so,” said Daniel in a sing-song voice,

“I’ve never had things like this from the royal chefs!”

Vince softly laughed, “That sounds kinda-“

“Spoiled,” interrupted Daniel.

She glared at him, “I was not spoiled, my childhood was just as normal as yours. Private tutoring, etiquette classes, holo-sculpting, intensive martial arts training-“

“Which was the only class you actually liked,” said Pidge,

Ignoring him, she turned back to Daniel, “It’s the usual stuff”

“That was mostly boring, Larmina. When did you hang out with your friends?”

“Oh, my team of bodyguards wouldn’t let any other kids near me. I only ever hung around the team unless one of them took me outside the castle, which stopped happening after they left.”

Daniel didn’t speak, instead he just looked at her, trying to find out if she was kidding or not. Vince just gave her a look of pity. He might like to isolate himself from time to time, but Larmina never had a choice.

“Why are you looking at me like that? This is the same as you two! Before you got to Arus, you didn’t even know each other.”

“No, it isn’t,” Daniel said seriously, “People didn’t lock away us from having a social life before and after Arus”

“Well, I wasn’t either! Everyone I was close to was royalty or castle personnel-“

That made her pause. Had she really grown up with only the employees whose job was to serve her for company? That couldn’t be right. She had the team with her, after all! But she thought about it. The rest of the team saw her as a kid sister, but only Pidge could be her friend, even though he was more like family.

“Oh Gods... I never experienced a childhood, did I?”

“…Doesn’t look like it,” Vince said softly, not wanting to make her feel worse.

The table was quiet, and it felt like the parlor had gone deafeningly silent with them as well. Larmina silently picked at her fingers as her reality finally set in. She prided herself on acting out to not get trapped in the castle like her aunt did at her age… but she couldn’t even escape the history nobody she didn’t to repeat. The boys all glanced at Allura. She was the one who had the power to help her, but by the look on her face, she didn’t even realize her own niece got locked in the same chains she fought tooth and nail to get out of.

Vince didn’t like the stomach churning feeling he was getting from the silence. Being royalty was actually a prison sentence from birth, apparently, so he built up his inner Daniel and just blurted something out.

“Well, we’re here now, right? I definitely started doing new things when we started hanging out that I’d never get to do if I stayed on Earth!”

Daniel agreed, “We’re already doing all the things regular kids get to do, but just way cooler and more action packed!”

They didn’t help Larmina all that much, but it brought some life to the statue-like figure she had turned into.

“What did I miss out on?” she asked.

“Don’t worry about it!” Daniel said, “I already told you we’re already doing way cooler stuff than that!”

Hunk knew that wouldn’t keep Larmina at bay, especially when this was the type of situation both the team and Larmina herself didn’t want her to be in. So he got up from his seat at the edge of the table and started taking any extra orders the team had.

“We’re here for pizza, and I’m not leaving without it! What kind do you guys want so we can get takeout?”

Thankful for the distraction, the team all chimed in with their preferences: meat-lovers, classic pepperoni, an in house special. Pidge reminded Hunk of Anya’s veggie toppings order, to which he complained about because she ditched the onions and olives, which were the best part. At some point, the boys got in an argument over toppings and walked over to the counter together to get their order straight. Only Allura and Larmina had stayed behind at the booth.

Allura wanted to say something, anything, to cheer up her niece. Although they were insanely distant relatives, Allura had adopted her niece into her family in a time of need. She was determined not to leave her alone again, but before she could speak, Larmina beat her to it.

“I’m okay auntie, I swear,” she gave her a look of confidence, “I don’t think I’ll ever say this again, but Daniel’s right, I can’t worry about what I didn’t do before.”

The princess laughed lightly. Even if Daniel was a bad influence on her, the boys were one for her too when she was her age. If history was going to repeat itself, she was glad that the support system was part of it, too.

“I’m glad you recognize that, Larmina. You are here in the now, so if anything is going to change, it starts in the present instead of the past.”

Allura gave her a tight hug. She was going to have to make up for not realizing Larmina’s isolation somehow, so she was going to plan for their return to Arus. After she let go, she grouped up with the boys again, making sure they didn’t get her order wrong, either.

—-

With how many pizzas they ordered, it was going to take a lot of time to get everything made. So, after a bit more prodding at Keith, he had caved and let the team go explore before meeting back at Pizza Hole.

Allura looked around, wanting to ask Larmina if she’d like to spend time with her, but after about fifteen seconds she saw she was nowhere to be found. Lance noticed the look on her face. Neither of the royals had been outside their own planet much. Every time they did, it was strictly business.

“She’s probably in the restroom, princess. You know she wouldn’t miss an opportunity to cause some problems outside the castle.”

She laughed, “Fair, maybe this is a good time to surprise her with something, then. I want to do more for her.”

“There’s a shopping district nearby we can hit, plus we have time to explore more if we can’t find anything there.” Hunk piped in,

After asking the cadets to stick with her niece, the pilots headed out. But ten minutes later, Daniel and Vince had a feeling she was gone from the restaurant entirely.

“Where could she have gone, dude? She’ll be close by for sure. Don’t get yourself in a twist.” Daniel said,

“Did you forget she’s royalty and has never been on Earth before? She’s more trouble alone than with us right now!” Vince snapped back.

As they walked out of the building, they kept bickering, not noticing the weirdly familiar figure that approached them.

“I knew it!” They exclaimed, “You really are the Voltron Force cadets!”

Daniel and Vince were stunned. In front of them was a boy around their age, with clip-on Drule ears, and a loose costume of Keith’s old red and white uniform. He had rusty colored hair, green eyes, and freckles all over his face. Vince couldn’t help but notice he talked with a lisp, too.

“Oh, I’m so excited! What are the chances of meeting you guys here?” He said,

Daniel soaked up the attention like a sponge. “Indeed, we are! And you might be?”

“The name’s Dudley, I’m Voltron’s biggest fan!”

“With us here, I’m not so sure about that!” he joked.

Dudley’s smile stopped reaching his eyes, “We’ll just have to see then!”

He looked around expectantly, then turned back, confused.

“Aren’t there supposed to be three of you?”

Vince pulled up the tracker on his voltcom. Larmina was farther than he expected her to get, but still pretty close by. With her location, he led them out to go find her. Still worried she was going to get into trouble that she couldn’t get out of.