Chapter Text
The cell starts rumbling and the alarm blares. There’s shouting outside the door but he can barely understand what’s being said. The symbiote listens for him.
“We have to save Shiro!”
Shiro?
“Shiro, something just showed up on the thing you said nothing should show up on,” Atashi spoke into the com line.
The sensor beeped again, closer.
“Hey! Is someone out there?”
“What?” came Dr. Holt’s confused reply.
“The blob is the size of my thumb on the screen. It- I think it’s bigger than Kerberos.”
“What?! Atashi are you sure?” Shiro asked.
The cell door melts and two people pear through the hole.
“Yep, and it’s not going away…” his voice broke off.
“I got her but there’s a change of plans,” a Samoan boy speaks into an open com line. “Who are you?”
“I’m Atashi. Human. From Earth,” the man in the cell raises his hands in surrender.
“What’s wrong with your eyes?” a dark-skinned girl in pink asks.
“Alien symbiote experiment. Are we going or no?”
“Not quite. We need to get the Black Paladin.”
“Takashi? I’m glad you’re my brother and I’d never trade you for anything. You know that, right?”
Haggar is standing over Shiro saying, “And now, Champion, your time is over.”
Everything turns black. Atashi can feel his body moving from his spot and, God, he wants it to. There’s the sound of a question being asked but he can't hear it. All he sees is Haggar trying to kill the last family he has. So he runs, he runs and pulls everything he can from her soul. He knocks into her just before she bats him away like an angry cat.
Atashi lands on his back, the air knocked out of him as heat sears above him and hits Haggar once. He opens his eyes and is again greeted with the blinding white light. He shuts them tightly to avoid the overexposure.
“Where’s the scary lady?” Hunk asks and Allura scolds him.
Atashi breathes in, trying to refill his lungs. The others go quiet.
“Who…” Shiro stops. “Oniisan?”
“Hai, Takashi.” He painfully rolls onto his stomach to get up. With a smile, Atashi says, “I’d say it's good to see you but I am currently blind.”
“How can you tell-... Never mind, we need to get out of here.”
-
This is insane. Absolutely insane. My brother is alive and with me in the Lion and the Lion seems to like him.
“Shiro, it’s been a wild ride of two years but you gotta focus. I can’t drive this thing so you have to,” Atashi said. The Black Lion purrs in the back of my mind, urging me to listen. It warns me Keith is fighting Zarkon and he’s not winning.
“Okay, hold on,” I hear myself say. “We need to get Keith.”
“Keith is out here too?!”
-
The ship is shaking.
“I don’t need eyes to tell me something’s wrong.”
“Coran, what’s happening?” Shiro calls out.
Presumably Coran replies, “The integrity of the wormhole has been compromised. It’s breaking down!”
Another kid asks, “What does that mean?”
Coran, with all the calmness this man can muster, says, “It means we have no control over where we’re headed!”
I grab onto Shiro’s shoulder just before gravity starts swimming.
“Atashi!”
— — —
“We’re entering Kerberos’ gravity. Prepare for landing.”
Ka-thunk.
“Ow.”
“Is there someone in here with us?”
“Shit,” pokes head out. “Uh, hi. Shiro, please don't kill me.”
“You snuck onto the ship before takeoff…”
“Hey, you made the bet. When we get back, you owe me a month of udon.”
Falling hurts. Especially inside a metal box, but everyone already knows that. I try opening my eyes again and this time it doesn’t hurt. I’m in the back of the cockpit. Must have been knocked out for a few hours.
“Atashi,” Shiro groans out, “You okay?”
“Alive and seeing,” I reply as I stand up and hobble over to him. “You look like shit.”
“Thanks, so do you.” Shiro speaks into his com, “Keith, are you there? Keith? Damnit, we gotta get to higher ground.”
I help him stand up, “Keith? Our Keith?”
“Yeah.”
-
“Are we high enough yet?”
“Hopefully-”
Static comes through the speaker for a moment and then we hear Keith, “Shiro, are you there? Answer me!”
“Keith,” he says as I help him sit down. “I’m here, Keith. I’m okay.”
“Shiro, you made it.” There’s some static but we can hear him better.
Something buzzes at the base of my skull. The same buzz I’ve come to associate with the symbiote warning me. I take its warning and look back at the Black Lion. Big hairless dog things are crawling onto it.
“-How are you?”
“Not good. My Lion’s busted,” Keith pauses. “Wait, what wound?”
“It’s nothing.”
“It’s definitely something,” I say as I kneel down in front of Shiro and point to the creatures. “But we have bigger things to worry about.”
“Yeah, on second thought you’d better hurry.”