you're gonna go far, kid | ON HOLD

chapter 11

When Keith stepped into the lab, he vaguely recalled the time about a year before– only months before Voltron first emerged as the first organized group of prodigies vowing to protect the city and actually succeeded– when Matt had come home slung over Shiro's shoulder, crying and shaking in glee. He'd been speaking too quickly for Keith's mind to process the words, and all he knew was that something had happened that made him really fucking happy.

It was probably safe to assume now that that was the day he landed this job, and knowing Matt, Keith did not blame him at all. It was a large, open room with several scientists bustling around the room in lab coats donning the Voltron logo and staring at some screen, beaker, or clipboard. The walls were covered in charts, tables, screens of microscopes, news websites, and cameras that looked into closed off rooms.

They received quick, friendly smiles from the other scientists as Keith followed Matt and Plaxum, who had introduced herself as Matt was skipping ahead in the hallway. She was a pretty cool person from what Keith gathered, apparently one of her sisters was a prodigy under Voltron and she'd been working there during her sophomore year of college as head of the research department for the development of superpowers.

Keith was a bit unnerved at first that she already knew so much about him– his medical records, his name, the names of his birth parents– but Plaxum had assured him that it was completely confidential and that she was under oath to keep the identity of all the Cadre a secret.

It was incredibly dangerous, that she knew who they all were beneath the masks and hoods. Galra could easily just get into the head of one of these superpower development scientists and it would all be over.

Still, he let her run her tests, answering her questions to the best of his ability– Keith still wasn't sure why his opinion on modern art sculptures was important, but Plaxum had insisted– and letting then stick him into what looked like a really odd MRI machine that made loud beeping sounds and gave results that had Matt, Plaxum, and the other scientists perplexed.

"Keith," Matt began, pulling out his clipboard. "You're positive that the red talisman bonded to you?"

His brows furrowed at Matt's confused tone. Usually he was pretty confident in everything he did, why was this time different? "Uh, yeah, that's what Momentous said. And I'm pretty sure this is what the talisman is supposed to look like, isn't it?"

Keith pulled on the black chord and the coin fell out of his shirt, glinting even under the fluorescent lights of the lab.

Plaxum nodded, jotting something down on her notepad. "Yeah, definitely. The lion alteration, it's right there. Logically, the talismans don't– shouldn't be able to– join with a Bereft, there's no point when there's nothing for it to latch onto. So that means to become a wielder one must be a prodigy. But you didn't show any of the energy readings that a prodigy would. Instead, you read exactly like a Bereft."

"Maybe your bio-mom was a prodigy?" Matt suggested, looking down at his own clipboard. "It's plausible; about sixty percent of the population has some sort of ability now, so she could've had some really strong ability that allowed you to bond with the red talisman. But even if that's true, you have no powers yourself so there's no way that you should've been able to no matter how strong your mother's were.

"Maybe it connects to something else, something other than your abilities. But if that's true then why do all the rest of them have them? How come there's been no other Berefts able to bond with any of the talismans? Meticulous' abilities are mostly natural skill, his powers just nudge things a bit more in the right direction, but it's still there so all of them have abilities to some extent. But not you. I wonder..."