Three
The tension in the control room was as heavy as the silence between the two teams. All the humans could do was stare at their strange counterparts. No matter how humanoid in form, or how civilized and like them they seemed to be, there was a wild fire in their eyes, even down to little Pidge, that reflected an untamable heart. Likewise, the animans regarded the humans with caution. It had been a long time since the creatures had gone extinct on their planet, and mixed emotions stemming from varied, passed-down tales of the bad side of these primates ran high. Mainly that they had a tendency to be extremely violent and destructive, and obscenely cruel to each other, much less other creatures. The look of death the human Lance was shooting their young leader did nothing to quell their unease. It was a glare that said "first chance I get, you're a fur coat."
"So… does anyone have an explanation…?" Coran nervously broke the silence, praying to himself that it wouldn't spark a battle. The people of Arus knew far less about humans than the Terran animans, but he was sure that a confrontation between the two teams would end badly… and bloodily. That much was evident by the subtle posturing of the four boys. He'd known them long enough now to read when they felt threatened, and how aggressive they were prepared to become to defend their territory. The fact that the mood had spread to normally calm Pidge was worrisome. Even his tail was bristled at the tip.
"I don't know where they came from, but they nearly knocked me out of the sky! Black'll be down a week for repairs. Half her circuits are scrambled to hell!" Keith hissed, ears forward, tail arched up at the tip. The human Lance shot back without missing a beat.
"YOU nearly took my hand off, you refugee from a fur mill!" As soon as it was out of his mouth, he realized it was the absolute wrong thing to say. He saw Pidge flinch back, and his own counterpart's ears flicked quickly, eyes narrowing. A growl that was obviously not from his stomach rolled from Hunk's direction, one Lance could physically feel. This was bad. The furred Keith silenced them all with a quick snap of his head and a soft barking sound. Then he turned eyes wavering from blue to black back at the human.
"If I remember correctly, YOU had a gun trained on me… YOU reached out to touch me, despite my warning…" His voice was even and measured, swallowing the desire to scream.
"Warning? What warning?" Lance barked, incredulous. Keith's ears snapped back flush with his skull, neck arched and head low, and Lance found he could suddenly see a lot more fang when he spoke than before.
"The exact same one I'm giving you right now…" There was now a distinct growling undertone to his voice as he moved forward, and his bright eyes had narrowed to dangerous slits. Coran quickly came between the two; the last thing he wanted to deal with at the moment was a savage dominance fight.
"Now, we must remain calm until we figure out what exactly is going on…"
"Has he had all his shots? Because I really don't want rabies!"
"Oh, that's it!" Keith's lips came back from his teeth in the most menacing snarl any of them had seen out of the young myriad in a long, long while.
"Commander Kogane, stand down!" Coran's order was short, sharp, and surprisingly effective. Keith's growl ceased mid-note, and he tilted his head slightly, flashing his white throat for a second before dropping back into rank with his friends. He moved closer to his own Lance, all the while staring hard at the human, eyes full of distrust… and fear?
All eyes turned to the corridor, in the direction of the surprised gasp that came from the princess on entering the room. Allura's footsteps were silent as she crossed the room to stare at the humans. She stopped before her own counterpart, eyes wide with curiosity and wonder. The human girl looked back with a similar expression.
"You're me…!"
"I… I suppose I am…"
"Are you… a lion?"
"Lion-ESS!" Allura tossed her head slightly, causing the human to giggle. The catgirl gave her a mockingly reproachful look, then burst into laughter herself. Neither girl was aware that they had just defused most of the tension in the room. Coran relaxed when hackles and tails lowered, and bristling fur smoothed out. Although the human Lance was still glaring at the furred Keith, who was now calmly ignoring him.After having his hand checked out and the wound deemed far less severe than it appeared, Lance received a rather reluctant and grudging apology from the other Voltron captain, more or less wrested out of him by Coran.
Declaring everything short of their bedrooms neutral ground, Coran patiently pointed out that not only would fighting not solve anything, it would be rather counterproductive. Human or not, these were not only fellow Lion Knights, who shared the same mission in their world as their counterparts did. The fact that the lions were virtually identical except for a few minor points was enough to convince the advisor that this was not a trick of Doom, but rather an extremely unusual, and quite possibly wonderful fluke of space.
"A wormhole." One of the Pidges piped, no one was sure which one. The only questions were what was to do with the second set of lions, more importantly, was the wormhole still open? The decision was made, tentatively, to send the furred Pidge out in Green to see if he could get any good reading.
With Keith's coordinated in Green's navigational system, Pidge orbited the area of the anomaly as close as he dared get. There were trace elements from the disruption, abnormally high radiation levels, but nothing bad enough to do to his smaller lion what was done to Black. He quickly reported back that no trace of a time-space opening was present. Whatever it was had closed up for now."So we're stuck here forever?" The human Allura teared up at the thought of never seeing her own Arus again. She sat up quickly as the realization hit her, "If we're here, then there's no one to protect Arus or any other planet from Lotor and Zarkon!"
"Y'know, he's a complete twip regardless of what dimension he's from." Hunk snorted. There was a consensus of nods.
"I guess we'll have to change out the lions… take turns letting them charge up," Keith shrugged uncomfortably, ears swiveling back and forth. He looked over to the two Pidges, who were happily chittering to each other; he caught snatches of the scientific conversation and gave up trying to eavesdrop, not understanding half of what they were talking about. He felt eyes on him and turned quickly, trapping not the other Lance, but his own counterpart in his gaze. The human stiffened a bit, but he saw no malice in his eyes, only curiosity.
There was obvious physical difference between them. The human was a bit taller, as tall as the furred Lance, and heavier in frame. Keith guessed there was at least a twenty pound difference between himself and his counterpart, although that didn't mean the human was stronger than him. Why, he didn't even have any claws, just short, soft fingernails, and those dull little teeth couldn't get a good grip on a thrashing prey if he tried!
The human Keith found the lithe animan equally as odd. He seemed impossibly thin and delicate to be a fighter. His hair was far longer, hanging to mid-back, and his wide eyes kept changing from one shade of blue to the other. A quarter of his weigh had to be made up of the three? Four? foot long tail that was constantly in motion. He looked more impish and youthful than anything else…
"Your ears are pierced?"
"Hai," Keith flicked his left ear, causing the gold hoop in it to jingle against the two silver studs, "Three in one, two in the other. Why?" His question was curious, not suspicious.
"No reason." He quickly noticed that earrings seemed to be a popular jewelry as he looked around. Lance bore three, Hunk just one. Only Pidge seemed without adornment, and that probably would change in a matter of time…
The young myriad found being under the scrutiny of this human rather unnerving and bound over to his Lance to get his full opinion of this wild situation. The fox offered little advice, as uneasy as his young leader, but agreed to stand by whatever decisions he made. What other decision was there but to let the humans stay?
He looked with glassy eyes at the two youngest. You'd think they'd been best friends forever the way they were so comfortable. Sighing, he resigned himself to the fact that these humans were in fact just a fur coat short of being their twins, and that just maybe they could really get along…When Coran suggested that for a while they share rooms, if only to get better aquatinted and to help gain trust, only Pidge and the Princess seemed happy. The human Lance had swallowed a smart comment about predatory habits knowing that he would have to go to sleep eventually. The layout of the castle was virtually the same, so the humans knew just where to go, although it was still a surprise when they got there.
Keith had expected the Spartan room he had at home; a few books, a photograph or two… What he walked into was… the total opposite! Brightly colored scrolls of bands featuring youthful animans and stylized kana hung mingled with tapestries and posters of mythical animals. A small paper lantern hung from the ceiling in one corner, surrounded by several multicolored origami cranes. The smell of incense sweetened the air, a hematite lioness burner the source. The shelves were lined with books and trinkets; small toys and strange artifacts abounding, and an electric guitar was propped up in one corner against a huge tower of audio and video discs. On the shelf at the head of the bed was a massive personal stereo, and instead of a pillow, he had a reclining lion plush, and several smaller lion beanbags, dyed all different colors, flopped over various surfaces, including a large picture frame.
"Is this your family…?" In the photo about thirty animans were crowded together against a big city backdrop, displaying a wide and beautiful variation of coat colors.
"Yeah. Most of 'em are back in Manhattan."
"You're from New York?"
"Hai. You, too?"
"Yeah."
"Guess we have more in common than I thought. Do you miss it? New York, I mean."
"Not really…"
"Oh. I do, sometimes. I miss picnics in Central Park and skating in the rink at Rockafeller… New York hasn't changed in hundreds of years. Why mess with what works? Same with a lot of the big cities. Is it like that in your world?"
"Kinda… there's been a lot of modernization, but they kept some of the old designs…"
"I liked going every spring to our home in Tokyo for the cherry blossom festival. We'd go out and watch the petals fall every day for a week. It was so peaceful… And then sometimes in the summer we'd go to Italy and visit all the family there. Oooh, I miss the food. Nanny can't do Italian food worth fffft!"
"Your family's got a lot of money?"
"Old money on both sides, yeah. Didn't yours?" his look was curious and open.
"No… We weren't poor, but we weren't rich either. Middle class, I guess. And then I sometimes had to scrape by…"
"Oh… I'm sorry. Well, anything you need? You name it, you got it!" the myriad gave a bright smile, ears perked and posture relaxed.
"Thanks… Are these your parents?" he singled out the two closest to his counterpart in the picture. A strong, muscular male with white fur and raven ears, hair, and tail, eyes too dark to tell, and a tall, lean female with a golden coat and a tidal wave of sable tumbling around her face.
"Hai. My father's a decorated captain in the Space Corps. Mom's an archaeologist. Funny thing is, she's the tougher of the two. Always dragging him to the furthest sectors of space in search of new civilizations to learn about…" Even as small as her face was in the picture, you could see the sparkle in her blue-green eyes. Their cub had his father's coat and his mother's frame, and a perfect mix of their personalities.
"You sound like you really miss them."
"I do… When school was out, they used to bring me along to excavations for as long as they could. I mean, I always knew they loved me more than anything."
"My parents were both space explorers. They vanished on a mission when I was eleven…"
"Vanished? You don't even know if they're dead or alive?"
"Nobody knows. What about yours?"
"They're still alive and well," the animan suddenly looked guilty for this dramatic difference between them, "Still gallivanting around the universe… Haven't seen them in almost two and a half years…"
"But they're still alive."
"I get transmissions and messages from them on occasion. Sometimes it's en route to somewhere so remote or cloaked by this phenomena or that, that it's impossible to communicate once they're there… Do you have any other family?"
"No. I'm pretty much it."
"Oh… I couldn't imagine being alone…"
"You get used to it… you try and make friends…"
"Still… Wait! I know!" Keith jumped as his smaller, furrier twin whirled and began scrounging in a drawer for something. He came up with a small pendant, "Gimme your hand!"
"What are you going to- OW!" As soon as he had extended his fingers, the animan had grabbed his hand and slashed the palm with one thumbnail. He then slashed his own palm and cupped their bleeding hands around the medallion carved with several complex kanji.
"This is my personal crest, the golden rising sun. I name you as a brother in blood, and as such, forever a part of my family." Blood stained white fur and cream flesh and pattered mingled onto the carpet. The myriad let go and quickly found two towels to band their hands with. The cuts weren't deep, looking worse than they were. They'd be half-healed by day's end tomorrow. He flashed a shy smile, "I know that sounded kinda corny, but I meant it… You're a member of my family now. Anywhere you go, no matter how far, if you call me, I'll hear you. Hell, we're almost twins, anyway. Obaasama is gonna have a field day with you!" He smiled, polishing the red stains from his crest. He gave the human another curious look, noticing the glassy look in his eyes, almost liquid "Are you okay?"
"Yeah. It's… I'm not used to your incense."
"Oh." he smiled inwardly as he put his pendant away, knowing full well that there wasn't the least bit of smoke in the air.
