Ready Lover One? (Klance/Laith)

Chapter 5: Joining A Guild

Upon entering the castle, Keith was in awe of how spacious the inside was compared to the outside. A grand staircase filled nearly the entire entryway before hallways on the upper and lower levels lead in all directions. Red slowly climbed the staircase with Keith following close behind. 

Keith continued to follow his guardian down several twisting hallways until the two arrived at a balcony overlooking what looked to be a large common room. The raven haired teen had no idea why Red had lead him there and was about to leave when he heard a familiar voice. Cautiously, Keith made his way over to the railing and peered down at the group of people below while making sure to remain hidden in the shadows. 

"You should have seen the two of us working as a team to take down a monster orc! He even agreed that I was beautiful." Sharpshooter moved around the open space of the room nearly flawlessly in his attempts at recreating the fight from earlier. 

A girl sitting on the wall length table dressed in a green cloak shook her head, "Are you sure you didn't hit your head too hard or imagine the whole thing?"

"How could you say that, Pidge? I'm not lying!"

"It might have something to do with you calling him Mullet or how you described his fighting style. I've never seen someone fight like that AND use magic at the same time."

"She has a point, Sharpshooter. I haven't seen anyone like that before either but that doesn't mean that someone like that couldn't exist." A tall, bulky male clad in a yellow cloak, yellow bandanna and silver armor leaded back into a chair at the table. 

From Keith's position, he could see three other people gathered around the far end of the table with amused looks on their faces. He also noticed there were four lions similar to Red laying in different areas of the room. The yellow and green lions were curled up with there backs against one another as a massive black lion sat in the back of the room watching everything that moved. 

"Do any of you believe me?" Sharpshooter's voice caught Keith's attention. The taller male seemed desperate in his attempts at being believed. A man with jet black hair and a scar across his nose spoke up. 

"It's not that we don't believe you, it's just that with your reputation for extending the truth a little it's hard to completely know if everything you're saying is true."

A defeated look washed over his face as his eyes dropped to the floor. Compared to how he was when they first met, Keith would have thought this was a completely different guy than the one the orc had thrown at him. A pang of guilt hit the raven haired teen in the stomach. Not everything he said was exactly right but the rest of his story was true and he deserved to be believed. For some reason, Keith felt entitled to help Sharpshooter out after all the things he had done for him. Even if some of them were painful and unnecessary. 

A white haired woman put her hands together, "Well, what was this stranger's name that helped you?"

A faint smile tugged at the corners of Sharpshooter's mouth, "Nightblade."

The girl that went by Pidge giggled, "What kind of name is that?"

All traces of Sharpshooter's smile vanished once again and Keith knew he had to do something. Seeing the poor guy like that was even worse than dealing with him when he was a ball of energy and full of himself. Keith made sure his scarf was pulled up on his face before he jumped over the railing. 

Keith landed and rolled over his shoulder onto his left foot and right knee. The blue lion was the only one to notice and perked up with curiosity. She walked right up to him without anyone noticing her and rubbed against him. The teen scratched behind the lion's ear nearly chuckling at her soft purring. 

Walking up behind Sharpshooter, Keith put his arm around the slightly taller teen's shoulders and leaned into him just as he had back at the stream. 

"If I remember correctly, I didn't call you beautiful but rather an idiot," he smirked. 

Sharpshooter's face did a complete 180 from what it had been seconds before. The others watched the two boys with shocked and surprised faces. 

"Mullet!" The taller boy tackled the other to the ground in a massive hug. 

Keith tried pushing his way out of the hug, "Dammit, I thought I told you not to call me that! And what is with you always knocking me to the ground with your body?" 

Sharpshooter burst out laughing, "Your reactions are always the best and you know you enjoy having a beauty like myself in your arms." He winked. 

"Red, get him off me, please?" The raven haired teen yelled. To everyone's surprise the red lion jumped from the balcony, walked over to the two boys and gently lifted Sharpshooter off of Keith. 

Once everyone had calmed down and found a seat at the table, the white hair woman spoke up. 

"Welcome, Nightblade, to the Voltron guild. I see that your lion lead you here and that you are already familiar with one of our members. I'm guessing that since you were able to enter the castle without alerting any of us then you must have received one of the special codes." Keith simply nodded before she continued. "You're already up to level 12, which means if you wish to join a guild you can. And you have the opportunity to join ours if you wish."

"I can't believe we're going to be guild-mates and see each other all the time!" Sharpshooter couldn't contain his excitement. 

Keith rolled his violet eyes, "We aren't anything yet and I haven't accepted either. I doubt I even belong here. Unlike you all, I'm new to this whole thing and probably won't even play this game after today."

An uncomfortable silence settled in the air around everyone. No one knew exactly what to say and the silence was only broken when Keith stood to leave. No one tried to stop him and he didn't expect them to. After all, they were strangers that meant nothing to one another. 

When him and Red made it outside, a popup screen for notifications appeared. He had received a guild invite to join Voltron from someone called Princess. He assumed it was the woman who had done most of the talking before. He was about to ignore it when the message notification appeared. It was from Sharpshooter. 

It was nice seeing you again. Thank you for helping me out with proving that you were real. I hope that you do join the guild and continue to play the game. It's really fun and gets better when you play with friends you know in real life or the ones you make on here. If you ever need someone to talk to I'll be there to listen. Please, just give it some thought. Anyway, hopefully I'll see you around again soon. Also, Blue, my lion, already misses you. 

The raven haired teen sighed. He thought he would absolutely hate this game and would be back to his boring life in no time. But, he had somehow found himself getting dragged deeper and deeper into the game the longer he played. Maybe it wasn't as bad as he thought. The teen logged off of the game, removed the VR headset and flopped down onto his bed. He told himself that he would give the game one more shot tomorrow to see where things would go. 

A.N.~ I'm so sorry for not updating this in such a long time. Honestly, I was at a loss for how I wanted this story to go on top of mentally not feeling like myself for awhile. I'm feeling a little bit better now and hoping that I'll be more inspired to continue on with this story. Hopefully this chapter will be near the same quality as the previous chapters. I hope that everyone enjoys and I'm really sorry again for not working on this for so long.