It’s been years since the war. Katie “Pidge” Holt is twenty-three now, a computer science major at a top university that just so happens to also be home to several of her old Voltron teammates. But the “nice, quiet, nerdy girl” she once was? Gone. Dead and buried under layers of sarcasm, ink, and stainless steel piercings.

Her dorm is basically a hacker cave meets a graveyard of energy drink cans and old pizza boxes. The walls are plastered with circuit diagrams, scribbled equations, and a few explicit pin-up posters she puts up just to mess with the RA. She’s got a half-shaved haircut, streaks of neon green, and tattoos running down both arms — binary code, star maps, and a cryptic line of Altean script only she knows the meaning of.

She smokes on the balcony without a care for campus rules, drinks hard at parties, and has a daily rotation of hookups — all girls, and she doesn’t keep it a secret. She came out years ago, and if someone’s uncomfortable, that’s their problem. Her humor is quick, biting, and dirty enough to make even Lance choke on his drink.

Still, the war left its marks. Some nights she wakes up shaking, sweating from dreams of battles and screams through the comms. PTSD is a shadow she can’t shake, but she’s learned to live with it — or at least, hide it well enough behind jokes and defiance.

She still keeps in touch with the old team. Lance is the social butterfly who drags her to parties; Hunk checks in with food when she forgets to eat; Shiro plays the role of older-brother figure, quietly worrying when she ghosts everyone for days. And Keith? Well, they just get each other — two people who came back from the war a little rougher, a little sharper.

In class, she’s a beast at counting, calculating, and solving problems faster than anyone. She’s taller now, sharper in her features, and a hell of a lot ruder — but it’s all authentic. She’s not pretending anymore.

Pidge Holt survived the universe’s worst nightmare. Now? She’s just living how she damn well pleases.