Chapter Text
Keith flipped and cocked the oversized gun in sharp, clawed hands, tilting it for a double check along with the smaller ones mounted on his hips. Each one of the weapons glinted under the tower’s golden light, making their smooth silver hide glisten and reflect off the gold.
When the gun’s checkup was done Keith paused in his thoughts, he’s not sure how much a creature from another dimension can take. So he hopes the beast can’t take much as there was only so many guns at their disposal, and the people from this planet eat vanity for breakfast, so being helped was off their menu if anything went wrong, much less saved, so they need to strategize.
But that’s not exactly easy when you don’t know what you’re trying to fight. The beast is unknown, from strength to it’s weak spot, unidentified for the bunch. Risky.
Keith took a look to the city below them then up to the roaring skies, pursing his lips and frowning at the swirling clouds just up above. Being so high up Keith could feel just how crisp the air was with the fresh scent of rain from the clouds that looked so near. He could see the way they rolled over one another, nudged against each other then faded into thin air, Keith felt like he could just reach up and swat at the smoky clouds, ripping it like cotton candy (whatever that was) to feel it’s stickily wet textures melt through his hands and fade.
“I thought swords were your thing?” a sweet but shocked voice chimes and Keith whirled his head to the source, taken from his musings, “I mean, you favored swords.”
It took a quick second for Keith to react but when he finally did, “What?” Keith said, the confusion oozing in his tongue. “You expect me to fight an interdimensional creature with swords?” he tilted his head, incredulous to the idea.
“No, no!” Lance said almost defensively and apologetically, as if Keith was gonna be angry which he was not, more like baffled but Keith’s face was stuck in a constant scowl so pretty much everybody was wary around the temperamental galran. Lance waved one unarmed hand in some sort of defeat, “I just, y’know, always see you with swords.”
Keith rolled his eyes with a tempting tug to his lips. “I do favor swords, but I can’t take down a giant beast with just them.” he helpfully pointed out and watched Lance turn away.
“You know, just thought you were the one with the swords and I was the one with guns,” Lance mumbled while he shuffled through the bag, clanking it’s contents around until he found his favorite pistol to match the first one. “That’s all.” Lance mumbled once more and Keith shrugged, switching his attention back to the guns.
Keith distracted once more with his weapons, Hunk took this opportunity to tease his best friend. He stood besides his shorter, unaware teammate and whispered. “Caught off guard by Keith with guns, are you now?”
Lance whipped his head to face his taller friend, sputtering, “No!” he whispered, but who was he fooling, everybody but Keith noticed the blush that crept up Lance’s neck. Sure, he was caught off guard the sudden change in weaponry but seeing Keith with a gun? Oh boy Lance is weak.
“C’mon guys,” Pidge pipes in. “This isn’t the time to be discussing about crushes or teasing your friend about their crush,” she grumbled, pulling out two connecting wires. “We should be getting ready! That beast is coming for these batteries any second.” she firmly stated and sat down on a vacant speaker, to her side was Shiro swinging his legs. “Shiro, you need to go hide somewhere. It’s gonna be dangerous.” She tried to push the kid away to get him to hide, but he stood his ground and huffed with a shake of his head.
Lance scoffed, “What are you even doing?” he inquired, quirking his brow at the speakers.
“You like playing music while we kick ass,” Pidge jumps off the speaker, taking one of the cables to her other hand so she could fix her glasses. “So I set up these!”
“Weren’t you the one who was just talking about this is not the time?” Hunk frowned.
“C’mon, Lance always likes playing his Earthling music!”
“I’m agreeing with Hunk, actually.”
Pidge was shocked for a quick second. Her features twisting and her nose twitching up, until a snort made it out her throat and she winked. “Okay, I get it,” She said and winked a few more times, a smirk up in her expression.
“Pidge, I’m serious.”
“Yeah, I totally get it!” Pidge winked some more.
Hunk was too caught off guard to properly react at first, disbelief washing over him. “...Pidge, I can literally see you winking right now.” He said, deadpanning.
“Oh.” Pidge dropped her shoulders. “Was I winking with my left eye? I need to work on that.”
“GUYS!”
Keith shrieked, snapping the trio from their pointless argument. For a moment they thought that the arguing (well, it wasn’t really an argument) over the music made Keith lose his temper, but the trio finds out not shortly after that Keith screamed at them for one reason: the beast.
The sky roared as it got torn a hole through it’s storm clouds, rainbow highlights sparking all over the inside of the portal as a giantly grotesque, larvae-looking monster wormed it’s way out of it with a wide, roaring mouth, full of sharp needle-like teeth and about eight tentacles - ten? no time to count - as it’s hind body. Oh boy.
Pidge gulps. “That can’t be good.”
The team scattered out as the beast hit the top of the tower. It’s tentacles swaying wildly and slapping anything within their range, it’s upper body busy with snapping it’s jaws and flailing about trying to chomp down on the aliens attacking it, preventing it from eating the power sources.
Lance and Pidge flew around the beast, each boosting up and skillfully dodging the snaps and slashes. They shot multiple times at the beast’s slimy hide to damage it, but the thing was relentless and with all the flailing, half the time was hard to tell if the thing even got the hit. Hunk was in no advantage either, while he swiped his daggers at the creature’s blind spots - which was arguably everywhere, honestly, there was only a few options as to where it’s eyes reach - but guess that’s why the tentacles were so long. Keith himself in no better position either. It’s like their attacks were reflecting off the beast.
Meanwhile all this chaos took place, the toddler known as Shiro was dancing all around the dangerously high platform. The kid plugged in the cables for the speakers and an unknown song to his ears started blaring out the devices and Shiro danced without a care in the world, while in the background everybody seemingly got their asses thrown around like a rag doll.
Lance was the first to be slapped down to the floor, groaning while his jetpack flickers as the engine turned off when his back met the floor. He writhed about for a few seconds, turning his head to see Shiro dancing like nothing’s happening and pretty much like everybody else had reacted today, Lance was too baffled to even say anything. This kid was just dancing while a rampaging monst-
Lance screamed as the monster’s tentacle wrapped tight like a giant snake and dragged him away like monsters would in horror movies, Shiro didn’t even react. The next one to experience this was Pidge, not because she was snatched out of the sky but because she took notice of him.
She flew down to Shiro’s side, her panicked urging for Shiro to hide going over the kid’s head and soon enough, Pidge is called by Lance - now urging her to come back and help him with shooting the beast and she had no choice but to fly back, not before telling Shiro, once again, to hide. Like everybody has been doing, but did Shiro listen? Nope.
It’s not long before the kid rounds the whole place - he eventually reaches Keith’s side. He stood his ground, aiming the gun up and shooting. Shiro stands there to simply watch the galran do his job, not going unnoticed by him either as Keith caught the sight of the small alien.
Keith wrinkled his nose, “Shiro! Stay back!” he shouted. That kid was dangerously close to the scene. Keith took Shiro’s word for it as he generally listens to one or two people, at random, each day - but Shiro did not listen and Keith did not caught up on it.
Everything was going great.
Spoilers: It wasn’t.
The team’s ammunition was running low and so were their options. Hunk was thrown for the second time and this time around, he landed right on the speakers, shattering the squarely devices upon contact and abruptly cutting short the music, causing Shiro’s visible display of anger. He flung over to Hunk, screaming and grumbling incoherent words as his tiny fists barely did anything to knock Hunk back down once he stood up.
The stronger of the two shot himself up, “Sorry, buddy! I’ll fix them for you later, okay?” Hunk promised, and satisfied with the other’s words Shiro stopped his attack and let go of the broad man’s shoulders, dropping to his feet. Hunk gave a relieved sigh, moving his way to a very much worried Keith, whom’s last gun ran out of ammo and was now tossed away.
“Do you think it’s surface is like a shield?” Hunk suggests, “Maybe I should jump into it’s mouth and kill it from the insides!”
Keith peeps, a weird noise that bubbled as worry and bewilderment washed over. “Hunk no!” It was a great idea actually, but the problem wasn’t the beast’s surface, the tentacles were just reflecting most attacks from what Keith gathered. “This thing isn’t like the Weblum!”
“Then what are we supposed to do?” Hunk said, frozen in his last motion.
Hunk looked onward to the flailing beast to see Lance coming down the approximate monster’s height, jetpack switching off once within one feet off the ground. His shoes clopped on the metal surface, his body craning to turn and look as he walked to the galran’s right side.
“Fuckin’ resilient,” Lance cursed and Hunk shushed the man, warning him about watching his language around the kid they’re responsible of, who was just peeking off Hunk’s side to watch the spectacle of the rainbow-roaring monster.
Keith’s golden eyes squinted and observed. The beast tilted it’s head up, roaring some weird rainbow mist at Pidge who mostly avoided it, then there at the beast’s neck was a gash on where the throat was located, then it flopped back down when it’s attempt to snap at Pidge failed.
“There,” Keith points out. “There’s a cut on it’s neck. Try to get it to look up, and Hunk, slice away!”
Lance firmly nodded. “Pidge!” Lance called and boosted up into the air, “Higher up! We need to get Mr. Squiggle Worm here to look up.”
“Roger that!” she called back.
The duo flew up higher and the beast desperately hopped up, obviously at it’s limit with the smaller being’s pestering and distracting it from feeding on the batteries, as Hunk went for it’s tentacles to keep them from reaching his teammates.
Keith’s hands brushed over the short swords’s handles, their silvery sharpness glinting much like the guns earlier. Looks like he was taking down a interdimensional beast with swords, after all. Keith snorts, before his mood shifts to mainly concentrate on the beast before him. Keith was a skillful climber, agile and quick, so with a few swift movements and climbs Keith reached the throat of the beast and dug one, then two blades in the center of the gash. He dropped under his feet, and let his body barrel down nearly the entire thing, ripping the creature's front side open as it screeched in agony.
Once feet hit ground, Keith retreated with swords in hands, stepping out the way in case the beast died leaning forward. So once he was clear of the beast's falling path, he watched it fall, defeated and dead. Keith’s shoulders dropped as the beast gave it’s last breath, sighing in relief Keith then shakes off the gooey blood off his swords and sheaths them back into their places. Hunk pulled up besides him, with Lance and Pidge descending from the sky to their galran and balmoran teammate.
“Whew! For a second there thought that thing would eat us.” Lance wiped the sweat off his forehead, flipping his guns around the index finger then mounted them back to their straps. “Are any batteries damaged?”
Pidge did a hop to one of the batteries, Hunk following along to help with the check-up. He checked the outer shell, tentatively poking at the glowing cocoon-like battery after the once-over was done while Pidge’s little mischievous gremlin hands opened up a little hatch, where the smaller batteries were stocked in. She smirked and slipped one, two, three, four and five of the atomic batteries in her tool belt pockets.
“Let’s head back to the Queen and let her know our job’s done.” Lance said, stepping besides Pidge and Hunk with Keith and Shiro not far behind. “Then we can take a load off, we deserve it.”
~~~
The team stood upright in an arrow-esque formation. Lance was up in front, bowing his head to the queen sitting in her throne, all high and mighty. “I cannot thank you enough for risking your lives to deal with the interdimensional beast.” She said, “I hope you understand that I simply couldn’t put my people in danger. It’s not our thing, as for you see we are all scientifically genetically modified. Perfect.”
Lance smirks, “Oh. I prefer doing it the old-fashioned way, you see.”
“Hm?” The queen smiled. “Perhaps you can show me the old-fashioned way sometime.”
Lance’s eyes went wide. No, no! Abort! He may be a flirt, but the only being in this universe who has his heart is a certain Galra with his dumb, fluffy mullet.
Keith scowled, feeling the claws of jealousy worm their way into the pit of his stomach and repeatedly tear at him, so he dropped his shoulders and stepped forward with crossed arms before the queen decided to make another move, because lord knows he’d get executed for arguing with her and threatening to keep her hands off Lance or else. Jealousy thy name is Keith.
“Your people promised us a reward in exchange for this favor.”
The queen glared, but Keith didn’t flinch. So instead she let the situation brush over and she stood from the golden throne, “Ahh, yes.” She clapped her hands, two guards coming on cue from her left side. They held a struggling and cuffed form, shadowed in a long and heavy tethered cloak.
They forced the figure on their knees and ripped the hood away, revealing the hissing man’s face that still remained mostly skin but the rest a combination of robotic parts, even the head was replaced with the metal, permanently hairstyling his long, white hair into a side shave. The man was a Galra, much like Keith.
That man was Lotor, as well.
Lotor is Keith's little brother.
And Lotor has tried to kill Keith in the past many times, and has ever since.
Hunk and Pidge interchanged looks, their mouths zipped in a line with blown eyes, Shiro watching from his hiding spot behind Hunk, everybody else pretty much stoic but boy, if they couldn’t feel the awkwardness as the brothers, children of Zarkon, stood in the same room that could become a battlefield within seconds if Lotor managed to snap free, the team does not know then what 'awkward' and 'tension' might mean for these aliens then.
“Hello, little brother.” Keith stepped up to him, his face contorted in anger and Lotor hissed again in return to his older brother’s greeting.
“Oh, heh..” Lance finally said, feeling the tension still dropping in on him as much everybody else in who knew the situation between Keith and Lotor. Lance stretches his forearms out and shakes his hands like to the cha-cha-cha. In attempts to make the situation less awkward, he says:
“Family Reunion? Ayy?”