Who's going to save you?
Lance banged on the glass repeatedly, trying to get the other's attention.
James turned his head, and his eyes widened. He ran towards the tank, saying something to the others. He broke the leg off a table, Nadia and Pidge following suit. He began smashing the glass, swinging the leg like a baseball bat, hitting the same spot every time. With a loud "CRACK!" The glass broke and both the water and Lance came rushing out. He fell to his knees and started coughing up water, lungs grasping for air. "Lance! Are you okay? What happened?" James asks, kneeling next to him and patting his back to help him get the water out. He heaved one more time before sitting up. "I- I fell in. And the top fucking closed on me! Then it started filling up with water. I thought I was dead!" James shrugs off his jacket, wrapping it around Lance. "Let's get you to the med bay. Colleen is gonna want to check you out." He clings to the jacket and nods, struggling to rise. Pidge and James stand by him, steadying him.
Pidge smacked one with a book as Keith kicked another. "What the- whoa!" James says as a table goes flying over his head. "What happened?" He asks as another bot throws a book at Pidge. "LESS TALK, MORE FIGHT!" Keith yells. James nods and grabs a stray sword from the wall, slashing at a nearby bot. It dissolves and disappears. HE grabs another sword and throws it to Keith, who jump-kicks off of a bot to grab it. Then he slashes down on the bot he kicked, and it disappears too. The bot Pidge is fighting goes too, a book impaling it's forehead. They make quick work of the rest of the bots, and James goes to their side. "What happened?" Pidge groans and throws her book. "I don't know! The code should've worked! Me and Veronica checked it. Five times!" James raises an eyebrow, obviously confused. Pidge sighs. "We made a new program that's supposed to make the bots fight like the Blades. That way, in case we have a mind control incident we can defend ourselves. Keith was gonna test it, cause he fought a bunch of them during his Trials." James nods. "That's how you got the scar on your shoulder, right?" Keith nods, frowning. "I dunno. This, plus Lance's accident earlier? Doesn't seem like a coincidence. Maybe something is wrong with the ATLAS." Pidge sighs. "Not another theory. Keith, the ATLAS isn't a sentient being." "It transforms, just like Voltron! The MFES only respond to James and his team! Why wouldn't the ATLAS be sentient too?" Keith argues. The two start going back and forth, and James steps between them. "Can we continue this discussion somewhere else? I don't want to have to deal with more bots attacking us."
"What the hell is happening?" James asked, him and Ryan bursting into the room. "The food is attacking us!" Hunk yelled, popping up from behind a counter. Then he yelped and ducked as a nozzle turned towards him. "Something's wrong with the wiring!" Ina yelled. "One day! One peaceful day, that's all I wanted!" Shiro grumbles. "What do we do?" The boys asked, appearing next to him. "How-" "Dodgeball has it's benefits." Ryan offers. "Hey!" Ina calls, and all three turn to her. "They've got motion sensors. If one of you can get to the control panel, and press the green button, it'll shut off. Then they'll just lie on the floor." "Why is the off button green?" James asked. "Because Pidge! Now just get it! I hate being attacked by food!" Hunk exclaimed.
"Has this happened before?" Ryan asked Shiro, who nodded. "With the Castle." "Okay, all of us need to run out at the same time. Maybe it can't get us all." James suggests. "And we all run for the panel, that way if someone gets fooded, the others are still going." "You make it sound like it'll knock us down." Ryan scoffed. Hunk frowned and threw a plate in the air. The food goo slapped it, throwing it into the far wall and cracking it.
"Oh." Ryan said, gulping. "You ready?" James asked. The others nodded. "3, 2, 1... Go!" Ina yelled. They jumped their hiding spots and ran at the panel. Shiro got hit square in the face with a large green blob, falling on his ass. Ryan laughs, then gets hit in the gut and doubles over. Now Shiro's laughing, pointing at him. James just barely avoids a glob to his face, some goo getting in his bangs as the rest whizzes by his eyes. Ina grabs a plate to block some goo, dropping it when it cracks in her hands. Then three globs, in quick succession, smack her in the gut, and she falls. Hunk and James both run for the button, but Hunk slides on some goo. James lunges for the panel, and smacks the button. The nozzles fall, flailing around on the floor. He taps a few more buttons, and the food goo stops coming out.
"What is happening?" He asks, turning to the others. First, Lance gets trapped in a tank, then Pidge's robots attack her and Keith, and now the food is attacking us? Maybe Keith's right. Maybe there is something wrong with the ATLAS."
Shiro sighs and stands, flinging goo off of himself. "I'll have Sam and Slav look into it. Maybe there's a bug. Until then, everyone be on your guard. You see trouble, you call for help." He orders. The others nod in agreement. Everyone needed to have their guard up. Something was wrong with the ATLAS. And until they found out what, no one was safe.
The MFES flailed in the water, trying to swim away from the whirlpool. James and Nadia pulled themselves out of the water, then helped Ina and Ryan. "How did you break the pool?" Lance yells at them. "It's the fucking ATLAS! It's gone haywire!" Ina yells back. Ryan grabs one of the air modules from the wall.
It's a small device, not bigger than a mask. Put it on, and it filters water into air. "Who's gonna dive and plug the drain?" He asks. James huffs and takes it, strapping it on before he takes a running jump into the heart of the whirlpool. "James!" They yell, running to the edge of the pool.
It's silent for a minute, the others holding their breath, waiting for their friend to resurface.
The whirlpool stops, and they see a shape coming up to the water's surface. They let out a collective sigh of relief when James's head surfaces. "Okay, I agree with Keith. Something is wrong with the ATLAS. It seems to be targeting us." He says, climbing out of the pool once more. "Yeah. Let's go find Sam. Maybe he knows what it is now." Lance suggests. The MFES nod in agreement, and they head off down the halls.
It's quite a site. A paladin in regular clothes and all the MFES dripping water and in swimsuits, towels wrapped around them haphazardly. "What happened to you guys?" Pidge asks upon seeing them. "Pool. Whirlpool." Ryan answers. She frowns. "It's getting worse." "What's getting worse?" Ina asked, going over to Pidge's workstation. "We found a bug in the ATLAS system. It's causing it to malfunction and attack people. Keith had another run in with some bots, and Hunk's blowtorch tried to fry him while he was doing some maitnence." "It might be a Galra virus, once we might've gotten from some of the technology we've salvaged from their fallen cruisers on Earth." Sam adds. "That's why it attacks us and the paladins. We're the enemies of the Galra." Ryan says. "Actually, Keith, Nadia and James aren't in their systems. They have footage of Keith's fighting techniques, and track him through that. But they've never seen the other two's faces clearly, and don't have sufficient data to make a program the recognizes them." Pidge reports.
"So we're the only ones the Galra can't track?" Nadia asks. The Holts nod, and she smiles. "Cool."
They gasped when they realized what they were seeing.
It was James.
His hands and feet were chained behind him, and he knelt on the floor of a dark chamber, eyes closed and head hanging. "Your friend is at my mercy. When the timer starts-" A red stopwatch appeared in the top center. "-the chamber will begin to fill with water. And since it's in an ocean, it'll fill rather quickly. I've given you the average time a human can hold their breath to find and save him." "A minute? You're giving us a minute?" Ina asked incrediously. "45 seconds actually. After the time is up, or when he stops breathing, the chain will release him, and he'll float to the top of the sea. Then you'll still have to find him. Your time starts... now."
The room glowed blue for a second, and James's head snapped up. They saw him look around the room frantically, eyes filled with fear. He started tugging on the chains as water started flowing in slowly.
"Pidge? Any idea where he is?" Keith asked. "Not yet!" She was typing away furiously on several screens, along with half the bridge crew.
James tugged at his chains, the water now at his waist. "PIDGE!" Keith yelled. "GIVE ME A FUCKING MINUTE!" "YOU DON'T HAVE A MINUTE!" He yelled back. "I KNOW!" She snapped.
The water was up to James's throat now, and was desperately trying to keep his head above the water. The other MFES stared silently, faces blank. 20 seconds.
"How are you not freaking out right now?" Hunk asked, grabbing Ryan's shoulders. He didn't even look at him. He just stared at James.
10 seconds. The water was above his head, and he was still tugging at the chains.
"KATIE!" Keith roared. "I KNOW, I KNOW!" She said, panic seeping into her voice.
5 seconds. James's movements were getting sluggish, and his eyes were fluttering closed.
0 seconds. The water hit the ceiling, and James looked up at it, eyes drifting closed. His body slumped over in the water, and the paladins froze in shock.
The chains released him, and he began floating upwards. The camera followed him, his body slowly rising past the chamber walls. "You failed. The universe's mightiest heroes couldn't even save one of their own." They said.
"How are you not freaking out?" Lance asked. "Your leader is dead." Nadia held up a finger silently.
James's eyes flew open and he shot upwards, swimming towards the light.
A cheer went up on the bridge as he swam higher and higher, a look of determination on his face.
He burst to the surface, taking big breaths of air. He treaded water as he looked around, chest rising and falling. He looked at the sky, mouth moving. He was calling for them, looking around.
"Pidge, where is he?" Keith demanded. "Somewhere in the Atlantic." She answered, sighing. "He's alive. Holy shit he's alive." Lance hugged her tightly, kissing her forehead. "Thank god for Pidge."
Now, if you asked her, she'd say she wasn't crying, she was just suffering from allergies.
James kept calling for them as Shiro put new cordinates into the ATLAS, the ship starting to move.
The voice laughed. "You really think it'd be that easy?" A shadow fell over James's figure, and his face fell, eyes filling with fear. He started swimming away from the camera, glancing behind him ever so often. Purple blasts hit the water around him as he dove under, and they saw a group of drones descend on him. "Shiro, get the ship to him NOW!" Keith ordered. "Paladins, to your lions!"
They all ran off the bridge, the lions taking off not too long after.
A shot hit James, and he stopped, starting to sink in the water. The red lion flew low in the water and Lance dove out, swimming towards James. He wrapped an arm around him and pulled them to the surface, bringing him into the lion.
He coughed up water and Lance wrapped him in an emergency blanket as he shivered. They silently made their way back to the ship, where Colleen took James to the infirmary. He said nothing the whole time, silently following instructions.