you're gonna go far, kid | ON HOLD

chapter 12

A/N: warning this is way longer than my normal chapters and was actually cut down so uh take your time i guess and enjoy

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"I've absolutely no idea if this is supposed to be keeping this a secret or whatever, but there's a new guy in Voltron."

Keith stiffened, glancing up from his sketchbook to Meticulous. After what Momentous had said yesterday, he was surprised that the superhero had even shown up tonight. There were much more important things to be focusing on right now, after all.

Prodigies were going missing and then reappearing later on as puppets of Phantom. There was a good chance that Galra had returned, vengeful and hellbent on the elimination of Voltron. There was no time for one of the main members of Voltron to be sitting around on Keith's window when there could be another attack at any second. And really— though Meticulous didn't know this— there was no need to anymore.

The red talisman had chosen Keith, he would soon become a member of Voltron officially. Not that Meticulous knew this, of course, if he did then things would officially descend into hell and madness. There was no way that Keith could ever let him know. But it would help him defend himself were Phantom to try to attack again— though those seemed to be at a halt right now— and try to keep him from dying too easily. Though Keith had to admit the company was nice. It was his sole source of social connection now aside from Shiro and Matt. He had a feeling that Pidge's friends— alright, just Lance, really— didn't really like him, though it was probably fair because Keith didn't like Lance either.

And so he sat quietly, listening to Meticulous talk about his day. He kept his face carefully blank as he doodled half heartedly in his sketchbook, ignoring the open textbook beside him. If the rest of the Cadre really was about the same age, Keith would have to ask how they were balancing school out with all the superhero bullshit. They were nearing finals now, and all Keith could really do these days was worry about prodigies trying to kill him– or, as of late, recruit him to their elite group of prodigy superheroes– and try not to fail his classes. College wasn't proving to be easy as high school, where he could zone out and end the class with a B. and if Shiro noticed even a slight drop in his grades then he'd be forced into a tutoring session with Matt.

Keith had told himself that was never going to let that happen again after Matt had done a large, overly detailed 3D model of a cell and listed extra terrifying facts when Keith had gotten a C on his biology test during his sophomore year off high school, but he seemed to be veering that direction again. When there were so many bigger things going on right now what was the point of relearning algebra when he wasn't going to be using it anyway?

"We didn't get much out of him yesterday even though we all looked into each other's deepest souls and whatever but I dunno how to feel about him yet. I mean, yeah, I'm going to be forced to like him if we're going to become comrades or whatever," Meticulous said, hands waving as he talked. Some time in the past few months he'd gone from sitting on the windowsill to the foot of Keith's bed. Keith didn't know how to feel about that, though it was one of the less weird things right now considering that the hero was pretty much talking about Keith to Keith. "But there's something about him, some weird aura that kind of feels like he looks down at all of us and is better? It's weird because like, I've only just met the guy and we don't even know what his power is yet. Could've just been leftover adrenaline though. The streets are getting more dangerous now, you know."

He raised an eyebrow at Keith. When he only stared, Meticulous' small concerned frown morphed into a coy, confident grin. "Which is why it's a good thing I'm here to protect you. It's like Zelda or something."

Keith scoffed. "Yeah not really."

Meticulous stuck his tongue out and Keith could imagine the crinkle in his nose under the shadow of his hood. "Alright, uncalled for, but I guess I'll let it slide for now. But yeah, who knows how this is going to turn out. What if the talisman chose wrong and we can't tap into Voltron's higher powers or whatever? There's been smaller... incidents lately, more powerful but low key prodigies disappearing and whatever. I don't know if we'll be able to stop it."