Chapter Text
It’s dark. That’s the first thing Shiro notices when he wakes. It’s dark, it’s hot, and he can feel the sweat dripping down his face. He flexes his hands, his arms, his legs and fights for his next breath when he can’t move them. He blinks into the darkness.
Where is he?
There’s nothing. He blinks a few more times just to make sure but the room is pitch black. There’s no light to see by. The only thing he can tell is that he’s strapped flat to a hard surface. He pulls at the restraints again. There’s still no give.
It’s a familiar sensation, but it’s one he tries not to focus on. He swallows hard and forces himself to relax. Top to bottom, shoulders, arms, hands, chest, waist, legs, feet. It does nothing for how tight his lungs are but the rest of him feels loose. He closes his eyes since there’s no reason to have them open. It’s dark and he’s strapped to a table. How can he fix this?
He clenches his hands. Left, then right. Right. His right arm.
Shiro opens his eyes as he activates it and even though the dim violet light doesn’t illuminate the entire room, he knows exactly where he is. The light flickers out as his eyes go wide and his breath comes short. He isn’t supposed to be here.
It’s a box room with a single door. The metal of the walls reflects the light in purple shades. He squeezes his eyes shut tighter as he fights for control of his breath. He’s not supposed to be here. He got out. He got out!
He strains against the binds, arm activating again, but he knows it won’t be enough. His arm was never enough. He’s surprised when the band snaps and his arm shoots up to nearly hit him in the face. He gapes at it, breath quick, and it doesn’t take him long to go after the rest of his bonds.
Shiro rolls off the table and stumbles, legs weak and forcing them to carry him doesn’t bring much success. He tilts sideways and keeps going until he runs into something solid. It’s not the wall, though. It’s too smooth and the surface shines like glass beneath his flesh hand.
There’s a panel beneath his other hand, he learns. It lights up beneath his palm, followed by the buttons and switches, until the the whole thing is lit and Shiro is left gaping in horror. He backs away, eyes stuck, and trips over a cable stretched across the floor. He crashes hard and barely manages to keep from cracking his head against the table.
“No,” he says. Or, he tries to, and it’s another level of horror when nothing comes from his mouth. No, no, no! He wants to scream, to shout. But there’s nothing no matter how hard he tries, and he still can’t pull his eyes away from the image in front of him.
He doesn’t want to believe it. He can’t believe it. There’s no possible way that there’s somehow a copy of himself in that pod. He can’t look away from the slack face that hovers behind the glass. Can’t ignore the white lock of hair and the scar that cuts across his nose. How? How did this happen? How did he get here? He tries to remember the last thing that happened as his eyes dart back and forth.
Zarkon! He remembers beating Zarkon! He remembers the triumph and the joy that had surged through his chest, shared with the Black Lion in their moment of victory. He remembers the relief in the knowledge that Zarkon is finally dead. But how can that be the case when he’s stuck on their ship again and there’s this horror staring him in the face.
It takes Shiro another moment to realize that he is indeed staring, looking just as wide eyed and horrified as him. He chokes as soon as he does and it triggers the man in the pod to action. His arm ignites - something in Shiro rallies against that, his arm! - and the glass cracks and spider webs under his fist. Shiro finally moves, lunges up with his heart in his throat, and tries to get as far away as possible.
“No!” the man shouts, rages , and Shiro can barely hear it through the glass as he punches it again. “Not again! I won’t let you take me again!”
What?
The glass shatters and Shiro is reeling. There’s a ringing in his ears. The copy is real, that much he can’t deny. Not when Shiro’s being grabbed and lifted by the neck. He wants to yell as he scrambles against the hold, but nothing comes out and he kicks uselessly at the air. It’s a position he never thought he’d be in again, helpless off his feet and held by a clone of himself. Except Haggar’s laugh is missing and the copy glares at him with his own eyes and snarls with unbridled rage.
“How does it feel to be on the other end?” he growls.
What?
Shiro’s eyes widen as the grip closes on this throat. His breath cuts off and his fingers scramble at the metal fingers of the clone. This isn’t supposed to happen! He’s supposed to be safe with his team!
He kicks as his vision starts to dim and he doesn’t miss the look of victory that burns in the clone’s eyes. He’s going to die by his own hand, what kind of irony is this?
His fingers are losing their grip. He can barely lift his legs high enough to kick. Actually, he can’t. He can’t move, he can’t see, and all he can hear is the blood rushing in his ears.
He didn’t even get to say goodbye.
The next thing he knows, he’s sucking in burning lungfuls of air and the floor under him is shaking. There’s shouting, screaming, metal shrieks in the distance. The room is bright and Shiro can see the clone picking himself up off the floor.
He needs to move.
He rolls, heedless of the glass scattered across the surface, and scrambles for the door. It opens before he reaches it and his blood chills in his veins. The blast of druidic magic blinds him, and it’s the last thing he remembers.
--
He wakes up gasping, a cold voice on the edge of his psyche. One of the druids, he knows, but his eyes dart back and forth and he finds nothing familiar, good or bad. It’s cold, practically freezing, and he’s surrounded by rocks, cliffs and open skies.
There’s no Galra in sight.
Shiro crawls to the wall and slowly stands on shaking legs, both hands pressed against the stone. He has no idea where he is. “Hello,” he tries to call but again, there’s no sound. He has no voice. He presses a trembling hand to his throat, but he can’t tell if there’s a scar. Nothing raised at any rate.
There’s a dim light on the horizon. Either sunrise or sunset. He’ll learn which in a bit. A brief look at his surroundings doesn’t bring up anything new. Rock, rock, and more rock. He follows the wall for a bit but it’s solid. No holes, no caves.
Is there even anything here?
He picks up a loose stone and debates striking it against the wall. Does he even want to bring attention to himself? His vision wavers and he leans against the wall to stay upright. No. He really doesn’t. He keeps a hold of it though incase something nasty thinks he’s a worthy meal. Or an easy one at least.
He stumbles more than walks along the wall. Cliff face, he amends. He’s at the base of a cliff. But it’s weird how there’s no holes dug, no cracks in the wall. No vegetation, either. Just barren rock for miles.
He has to stop and close his eyes for a bit, try to stall the slow rise of nausea in his stomach. He slides to the ground when it doesn’t fade right away. Does he even have anything to throw up? He takes a deep breath and slides down even further until he’s pretty much prone. He really doesn’t want to find out.
The sun’s in a different spot when Shiro opens his eyes again, just… not where he expects. It’s directly in front of him with his back to the wall, still right below the horizon line. He closes his eyes again and knocks his head once against the stone.
Shit.
He’s either too far north, or too far south. That really doesn’t say much for his options. He groans as he stands - actually, no he doesn’t. It’s a heavy breath of air but it’s a far cry from the emotion that a groan encompasses. He touches his throat, searches, but he still doesn’t find anything.
Later.
Shiro swallows the nervous swell in his chest and continues along the wall. One foot in front of the other. Keep going until there’s something different. Keep going, keep going, keep going . The sun moves further along the horizon and he has to keep going. He almost doesn’t notice when the ground disappears.
His toes brush the edge, sending small stones into the yawning darkness. It’s a hole. But it’s massive. Shiro presses closer to the cliff face. He can see the other side, see how the ground rises to become the top of the cliff he’s pressed against. And he can see how the cliff itself extends out over the hole to a point near the center.
And there’s something else but Shiro can barely see it over the top of the cliff. Something’s behind it, or on it, but he needs to be on the other side to see what it is. He follows the edge of the hole with his eyes and takes a deep breath. Right. Just keep moving.
He steps away from the wall and nearly falls on his face. He stares wide eyed at the ground, on his hands and knees. His breath mists in the air. Okay. He swallows and slowly pushes himself back to his feet. Shelter, then food. If there is any.
It’s slow progress. The sun keeps moving along the horizon, and Shiro concentrates on keeping his feet beneath him. He looks back at the cliff every now and then, keeps an eye on the shadow that looms behind it and slowly it comes into view. More than once, he has to stop and sit.
By the time he can see the structure, the sun is almost back to the point where it started and Shiro is breathless. He drops to the ground as soon as he realizes what it is.
It’s a Galra command center, but it’s dark and there’s no sign of movement. If there’s something there that can see him, there’s no one to take action. It’s abandoned. This whole place is abandoned. Shiro looks at the hole, gets lower, stomach to the ground, and squints into the darkness.
He can’t see very far but there is a ridge and a bridge from the tower down to it. He thinks he can see another, going deeper, and Shiro closes his eyes to the knowledge.
This is a Balmera and it’s very, very, dead.
He imagines the Balmerans, resigned to their fate much like the ones they saved were. Hundreds of thousands of Balmerans clustered together in the Balmera’s final moments.
He takes a deep breath as he heaves himself upright and swallows back the tears that want to form. This is no time to have a soft heart, he tells himself. He needs to get to that tower.
Shiro puts his focus back into his feet. One step after another. He stays a careful distance from the edge and makes his way around the hole. It’s right there, he tells himself. Get to the tower. Then rest. Just get to the tower.
His legs are shaking and his breath comes in short bursts. He can see his breath in the air.
Get to the tower.
The incline is getting steeper. More than once, Shiro’s foot slips and he falls to his knees. The tower looms above him, dark and ominous. He can’t see the sun behind the cliff. When the ground flattens, it feels more sudden than it should be. Shiro stumbles and falls, no longer needing to climb, and he rolls onto his back to regain his breath.
He made it.
The top of the tower is a shadow against the stars. It looks impossibly tall from this angle, a dark symbol of oppression. A scar on an innocent creature. Shiro purses his lips and gets back to his feet.
Finding the door is easy enough. There’s gates blocking the way, but his hand cuts through the metal and there’s points where rust has completely eaten through. Breaking in is laughably easy. The door doesn’t open, no power and his hand isn’t enough to jolt it through the panel. But there’s windows, already broken by fallen pillars and cranes and-
Shiro eyes one of the windows, and tilts his head as he examines it. The bottom of the pane has fallen in but the top half is still there somehow. The glass spider webs from one spot. This one was shot. From the outside. There’s more, a spray around the bottom half of the window, denting the metal.
This place was attacked.
But an in is an in, and Shiro climbs through the broken window. He’s not as careful as he should be either, his fingers catch on the edge and small shards dig into his skin. He can’t stop the sharp hiss between his teeth as he gasps.
Shit. Just what he needs, an open wound on top of everything else. He picks them out as best as he can but it’s even darker inside than it is outside. And he’s not willing to put more glass in his hand to get rid of the shards already there. He’ll deal with it for now. Blood drips between his fingers, likely leaving a trail, but he doubts there’s anything left to find him.
He goes through the first open door he sees. The main one it looks like, one side torn out and laying bent on the ground. It’s getting darker the further he goes and he keeps his hand lit so he doesn’t step on anything. There’s debris in the corridor, but it’s impossible to tell from what. Supports, lights, weapons, all were viable. Shiro steps around it and tries every door he comes across.
Some are open, but the smell within them has him turning away. Rot and mold, not anything he wants to be near. He needs to find a generator, something he can turn on. Something to create heat. He goes through the door at the end of the hall and stops.
The tower is hollow, and Shiro is standing on a bridge that crosses the gap supported by cables. One is already disconnected, half of the cable resting against the wall above his head. He takes a step out, then another, and another. About halfway out, the bridge shifts beneath his feet. It’s swaying, a subtle up and down that Shiro can’t see but can feel in his stomach.
He swallows and hurries the rest of the way across. The cables are creaking by the time he’s through the other door, and his heart races in his throat. He’s not looking forward to going back across.
The next door that opens leads to stairs. He can’t go up, not with the rubble of the collapsed flight above in the way, but he can go down. So he goes down.
It’s… a lot further down than he first thought. There’s no other doors along the way, just one at the very bottom that Shiro goes through without a second thought. He holds his hand up in the darkness and breaths a sigh of relief.
It’s a mess. It looks like part of the ceiling above collapsed leaving, crossbeams and wires hanging near the opposite side. But along the wall to his right, behind a leaning pillar, is a series of pipes. At the end of them, is a console. A generator. Heat.
Shiro ducks around the pillar and heads straight for it.
He presses his hand against the main panel, ready for it to turn on under his palm. But it doesn’t react. Shiro freezes.
He’s going to die here.
In the underbelly of a Galra command tower, on a long dead and abandoned Balmera, without food or water, he’s going to die. Which is fine, he guesses. He’s already on borrowed time, still alive long after he should have died. At least he saved some people along the way.
Still sucks that he couldn’t say goodbye to everybody. He wants to apologize.
‘Sorry for leaving so suddenly.’
‘Sorry for not trying harder.’
‘Sorry for dying.’
He takes a deep breath and ignores how shaky it is. He’s about to pull his hand away when the generator clicks and the panel flickers on. Shiro stares. He stares at the red writing as it starts its boot sequence. The clicks turn to a hum and the generator begins to vibrate beneath his hand.
It works.
A cursor blinks then the writing vanishes. A menu opens on the screen. Shiro flips a switch and the pipes along the wall creak. Power. He flips another and the lights closest to him flicker on.
Shiro wants to laugh. Does laugh, even though it’s silent. He falls to the ground, then to his back and laughs to the broken ceiling. At the very least, he’s not going to freeze to death here.
Already he can feel the room heating up. It’s a welcome change to the cold that was beginning to seep into his bones. He grins at the ceiling for another moment then sits up. Now he can get rid of the glass. Then sleep.
Yeah, that sounds like a good plan.
--
It’s the groaning that wakes him. Metal put under too much strain. Shiro looks up at the ceiling just in time to watch another section give out. The lights flicker and Shiro watches as a beam pierces through the debris and starts to fall in his direction. No, right towards him, he realizes as he sucks in a panicked breath. He scrambles to get out of the way, but his glass cut palm doesn’t take his weight and his feet slip against the dust ridden floor.
He presses backwards instead, hard against the pipes and curls up as much as he can. Arms over his head, knees pulled tight to his chest. The pipes vibrate at his back and the ground shudders beneath him. More than one thing hits the floor and he waits for the dust to settle before even daring to peek out. He finds the beam less than a foot from his face and the air in his lungs comes out all at once.
Holy fuck.
Shiro looks at where the beam meets the wall and swallows hard. Slowly, he slides himself down and out from under it. There’s no way he’s touching that. Not when it looks two seconds from busting through the pipes. The screen on the generator is flashing a warning and Shiro takes the message for what it is.
Get the fuck out.
Except the only way out is through the door.
On the other side of the beam.
Shiro scans the rest of the room and briefly considers leaving through the ceiling. There’s enough shit hanging through he could probably pull himself out. Doesn’t mean there’s anything else up there that could help him, though. Shiro eyes the pipes and the beam and the debris resting on top of it.
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the warning change. He doubts it’s good.
He gets low and crawls on his stomach and manages to mostly get through. But his foot gets caught on a wire he didn’t see. It startles him enough to knock the beam. One of the pipes start to hiss.
Fucking move!
He bolts up for the door, careless of the beam now that he’s fucked it up already. It hits his back before crashing to the floor and he runs through the sudden ache because he’s not going to die in a fiery explosion. Fuck that. There are better ways to go out.
He runs up the stairs as fast as he can, breath harsh in his ears. He doesn’t even know how far down he went. He didn’t count. His legs and his lungs burn, but he can’t stop. He doesn’t actually know what the broken pipe is going to do, but he’s not sticking around to figure it out.
He keeps going, up, and up, and up, until he’s on the door and crashing through it. He trips and rolls, coming to a stop against the opposite wall. There’s power up here too, though the lights are dim and flickering. For half a second, he wonders how much of the tower the generator is powering. Then a rush of heat comes out the door after him and Shiro is up and running.
He goes through the door to the bridge and doesn’t allow himself to stop. The bridge is visibly moving, swaying back and forth and the cables groaning with the effort. His hurried footsteps don’t make it better. A cable snaps right after he passes it, a sharp echoing twang in his ears and one half whizzes by his head before it swings below the bridge.
Two more snap, one right after the other and while one passes by harmlessly, Shiro has to leap over the other as it strikes the metal. The bridge shudders under his feet as he lands, starts to buckle, and Shiro’s heart leaps to his throat.
He dives through the door and looks back to watch the rest of the cables snap. The far side of the bridge goes first, dropping down to the basement and bringing the rest of it with it. It sends up a flurry of sparks and Shiro knows he would’ve been dead had he stayed down there.
But he’s not in the clear yet. Far from it.
The fire’s in the basement and it’s only going to spread upwards.
He gets back to his feet and makes for the exit.
It’s easier to move when there’s more light than the dim glow of his hand. He goes quickly down the corridor and into the entryway but he doesn’t leave through the window this time. Not when there’s suddenly three new people in the room and for a heartstopping second, Shiro thinks they’re Galra.
Second glance tells him no but they seem to think he is with the way they aim at him. He barely has time to dive behind a partially collapsed desk before they’re shooting.
“Stop!” he tries to shout and remembers, again, that he has no voice. He sees one come around the side, still keeping their distance and Shiro bolts. He leaps over the desk, picks up one of the broken legs and hurtles it towards the one in front of him. They curse and long arms deflect the projectile with little bother.
It gives Shiro time to get close though. Close enough to get into their guard and send the shots they’re trying to shoot wide. He hooks his arm around theirs and slips to their back, using them as a temporary shield.
He picks up something else, he doesn’t know what, something curved and it arcs when he throws it. It hits the one with four arms by the door, just as Shiro turns and tosses his shield into the one by the desk. He runs for the side door, opposite to the window he came in, and stumbles into the cold.
A shot nails the frame right behind his head and Shiro drops. Sniper. Another shot hits the dirt by his feet, sending a spray and Shiro looks towards the cliff as he rolls behind a metal crate. Fuck. There’s no way he’s taking them out. There’s a grunt from inside, too close to the door for his comfort and Shiro bolts to new cover.
Whatever they want, he knows they want him alive.
A shot pings off the corner of another crate just as Shiro ducks behind it. It rings in his ear and he makes sure they can’t see him from the cliff or the door. They’ll have to find a new vantage point. He catches his breath as he surveys his options.
At least four people, three inside and one on the cliff. There’s the possibility there might be more. He’s alone with no armor, and no voice. All he has his arm and his wits. Not the best combination but he’s worked with it before and he can do it again.
There’s a crunch of gravel to his left, away from the door and the cliff, and Shiro grits his teeth. That was too fast for someone to loop around. There’s a fifth person. Shiro gathers himself, prepares to leap up and take the guy by surprise.
The tower groans.
There’s a commotion in the building, shouting it sounds like and Shiro leaps out, arm lit. There’s a gun in his face and Shiro freezes.
“Give me one reason why I shouldn’t shoot you dead.”
Shiro sucks in a breath and all thought comes to a stop. He knows that voice. He stares down the barrel, barely seeing it. That voice shouldn’t be here.
He looks up the line of the gun, over the armor and the cloak. He stares at where their eyes should be behind the mask. It shouldn’t be here, but what if...
Slowly, he raises his human hand. The person’s hold on the gun seems to falter only for a second. Shiro reaches for the crate and with his fingers, he taps SOS.
A chair crashes through the window just at the gun drops.
“Captain, we’ve gotta split!” one of the guys shouts. The big one with long arms is already leaping through. “Whatever this guy did, this place is about to collapse!” As if to emphasize, the tower gives another groan. The guy - he knows him, he does - grabs Shiro by the shoulder, and Shiro doesn’t fight the pull.
“Stad, Rumi, fall back,” he says and Shiro assumes it's through a radio. None of the people running towards them react. “We’re leaving. Mission success.” He starts heading back around the tower and Shiro has to keep pace with him since he doesn’t seem keen on letting go.
“Wait, this is it?” The voice is distinctly female, the one with four arms bringing up the rear. “This is the disturbance?” That mask turns towards Shiro for a second.
“Yes,” he says. The groaning has turned into creaking. Shiro looks back and the sporadic lighting flickers as the tower tilts. They’re still far too close for comfort. “Get to the ship. We don’t want to be here when the place goes down.”
There’s a chorus of affirmations and the group surges ahead. Out of the corner of his eye, Shiro spots two people gliding over the hole. Six. He was surrounded by six people.
There’s a tug on his shoulder and Shiro gasps. The air is cold. Everything is cold. Everything seems brighter and darker all at once and the world tilts.
“Shit. Inah!”
That’s Matt’s voice. Where did he come from? Long arms wrap around him and Shiro doesn’t have the strength to fight. Everything hurts.
He sees orange out of the corner of his eye. Fire. It expands, higher and higher until it falls. He doesn’t hear the crash. That’s weird. Is he actually dying this time? He can feel the heat, though, warm against his face. He closes his eyes. At least he got one thing he wanted.