Chapter Text
As many things go, the world is but an asshole. Lance knew that for a fact. Especially now, when multiple Galra -built like a bear- are running after him, shooting lasers at them like a game of laser tag, but more deadly and with more fire and fear than not.
How fun.
Lance was not happy with this predicament; no shocker.
“Fuck this shit,” Lance shouts, getting a dad™ look from Shiro, and a burst of hysterical laughter from Pidge; the other two didn’t react- too busy covering everyones six while running in the direction of the lions.
Lance smiled a little at that, happy that at least Pidge was looking less depressed than earlier in the mission, purposely ignoring the stare from Shiro. That was until he winced a bit, the ache of his metal prosthetics deciding it was a good time to tell Lance that they should have been off hours ago.
‘Oh, yeah, I forgot about that,’ Lance grimaced, having pushed that to the back of his mind- too busy trying to understand the mission itself (which wasn’t all that hard) and making sure that nothing was out of the ordinary about himself (he’s special like that).
But how all that happened was not much of a surprise to Lance, perhaps for some of the others, but not him.
When Lance woke up from his little 20-minute nap, having slept on his desk- where he was writing out some mathematical formulas with the side dish of learning some foreign languages across the galaxy- it was to an alarm blaring out its fantastical tune.
Lance looked up aggravated, a piece of written paper finally fallen out of its hold on his face, and did a big ass sigh. A yawn was out of his mouth before he could curse the world for not allowing him to sleep. Sighing once again for the fucks of it, he gets up from his desk chair, cracking his knuckles and neck and stretching out his back muscles for all their worth. A little bit of pain from his scar tells him off, which Lance purposely ignores, wanting the stretch more than the pain.
“Ah~,” Lance moaned, “that felt amazing.”
He relaxed his muscles after getting one last stretch in, even smacking his lips a bit, before returning to his senses, running towards his armor and putting it on as humanly possible.
Before he was finally in the deck room, his legs decided to give out on him, and he cursed down as he tried to save his face from the cold hard floor.
“Fuck,” Lance swears, tired of all the sass the world is giving him today of all days. He got up as quickly as his prosthetic legs were able to give him- which was not much- added with a fire-blazing side dish of his ports being in an asshole in more ways than one. Lance ignores it to the best of his ability, not happy that he is becoming late because of it, and books it once again towards the deck.
“Oh look who finally shows up,” Allura says into the room, as Lance runs inside the deck room, going towards Hunk's right side. Lance starts flushing at that fact- still late even after going at his second-to-best speed (the pain in his ports was hurting now, regretting having not taken them off when on his desk).
“Sorry Princess,” Lance says, calming down his heavy breathing softly, “took a moment for me to wake up from my beauty sleep!”
Allura just gives him an annoyed yet entertained look in his direction before returning to her leader™ face, looking towards the rest of the Paladins.
“As you all should know by now, we were on our way toward planet Wesyrish, correct?” Allura tells the team, getting nods from everyone, “Well, their neighbor planet, Eklisy, sent a help signal towards us, saying that they require help."
"And?" Pidge questions.
"We got into contact with Wesyrish, after getting the help signal, and asked if we could help out their neighbor planet, which they said yes to, saying that it was one of the reasons why they called for an alliance with us in the first place."
"Huh, ain't that a coincidence," Pidge wonders, stroking their nonexistent beard as they stare into space.
"And that it is, Pigeon," Lance fires back, grinning from ear to ear when Pidge gives him a death stare.
"Alright, alright, settle down now, both of you." Shiro sighs.
Both Pidge and Lance grinned at each other from that, thinking silently of the many pranks both of them would do when they had the chance.
"Lance," Hunk hisses, nudging Lance's left arm.
Lance pouts at that, going back to what the meeting was about, half zoning in while at the same time not- kind of a half and half Lance likes to call it- not fully there but enough to get out of trouble from the Princess and Shiro.
And now that Lance is thinking about that, his eyes slightly shift over towards Shiro's man titties, looking respectfully at how huge and plump they rightfully are, blushing faintly when he caught sight of Shiro looking at him.
Lance looked away as best as he could, looking at Keith next, who was right beside Shiro's left side, looking respectfully at how defined his muscles came to be when his Galra puberty came about a couple of months back, making him look one of those Greek statues but more alive and taller.
'Oh Díos, I'm a fucking simp aren't I -shit, shit, sHIT-' Lance internally screams, also looking away from Keith's beautiful body when he caught Lance looking at him, blushing even more at the fact that two people in a row caught him staring respectfully at them-
"- and Pidge I need you to go into the base's main computers and hack into it for any information they have about the prisoners' whereabouts, and to look at any info of interest that will help on the ongoing war," Allura says lastly, looking slightly proud at herself for having a good strategy for her team.
"Roger that Princess!" Pidge happily shouts, doing a funny two-finger salute before looking at Lance with a smirk.
‘Why is Pidge looking at me like that? Did they see me looking at Shiro and Keith?’ Lance wonders, making a weird face at them.
Pidge just laughs at him.
‘Rude.’
Lance looks away from Pidge, crossing his arms tightly around himself, having a sinking feeling that Pidge is going to hound him at some point in the mission- or after the mission maybe.
Allura looks at Lance strangely for a split tick, before schooling her expression going on to say, “If you guys are done being silly, let’s set the plan in motion.”
“Yes, Princess!” Everyone chorused before getting into their lions, Lance wincing when he was finally facing away from his team, not knowing the curious looks Shiro and Keith gave him as he ran to his lions' entry from the deck.
……..
“Hey baby girl, let's get this show on the road!” Lance spoke softly to the blue lion, sitting down on the comfy pilot seat.
‘Finally, my legs were hurting like a BITCH’
The concerned whine that the blue lion gave to Lance broke his thoughts away from the phantom pain in his legs, asking Lance if he was all right or not.
“I’m fine baby girl, my legs are just sore is all,” Lance sighs, “might take them off later.”
Blue whines more in concern towards the lad, not liking his words, telling him to take them off now; at least until they get to the Planet.
“But-”
‘Now, little one,' Blue says, ‘I’ll make sure that we are on the right course, just take care of yourself.’
“...Fine.”
Lance quickly but efficiently got his armor and the undersuit off his legs, before getting to his upper thigh, releasing the prosthetics from the port, and moaning out in relief when he got both of them off his body. He relaxes onto his chair before getting Blue ready for the flight, finally getting out of the hangar to join the rest waiting for him.
“What took you so long Lance?” Pidge questions into the coms.
Lance unmutes himself from the coms before telling Pidge that he is only having a bonding moment with Blue.
“Lucky son of a bitch.” Pidge whispers loudly. Lance just laughs loudly, grinning from ear to ear on their screen.
“Pidge, language.” Shiro sighs loudly in the coms, which Pidge only snickers at before moving their lion forward to planet Eklisy.
“Let’s go slow pokes, we’re on a time crunch to get this mission done.” Keith pipes up finally, speeding past Pidge’s lion, smirking lightly at Pidge’s squawk.
“Hey!”
Keith just laughs as Pidge curses at him, trying as they might to get past the red lion.
Lance smiles at that, happy that his team is in a light mood even with the weight of the mission upon them, and goes after them, laughing lightly.
…...
Once they got to the atmosphere of planet Eklisy, Lance went to put his prosthetics back on and the leg armor on again, cursing softly as he did so since it was not enough time for his ports to settle down from being worn for so long. Blue whined softly at Lance when he got up off his seat, stumbling from the pain and just putting it behind his mind for now, comforting his lion that he was alright enough to do the mission. Blue sighs before letting him go, opening her mouth so that Lance can slowly get out of it.
“Let’s get this party started!”
And that it did.
At first, everything was easy enough; breaking through the Galra base, hiding away from the sentries, and moving on forward towards the central computer system of the base quickly.
“Don’t you guys think that this is too easy, or is it just me?” Lance whispers, quickly sticking his tongue out at the back of a Santry before running to the other side of the hallway.
“No, it is not just you,” Keith says back, running towards the next hallway, “Let’s hope it stays that way. It would be a nice change for once.”
“And don’t we all need that,” Pidge whispers back.
Hunk nods at that, adding, “That would be nice, less stress, more time to get the mission done and out of here.”
“Yeah, that would be nice, but keep your guards up until the mission is over, alright team?” Shiro mumbled.
“Aye, aye Captain!”
They all saluted at Shiro before going back to watching out for the sentries.
…...
Once they finally got to the primary computer system, they knocked out the Sentries and Galra behind their back to get there (at some point, the number of sentries increased as they got farther to the base).
Keith opened the door with his hand on the hand scanner, before going in to see if there was anyone on the other side. When he found that there was no one, he hand signaled the rest of the team to come in, which they did gladly.
“Okay, time to do my magic,” Pidge uttered, getting out a cord to connect to the main base, and hacking into it quickly.
“I’m in!”
“Have you found anything on the prisoner's whereabouts yet?” Shiro asks.
“Not yet, but I’m getting there. They updated their system since the last time I hacked into one of theirs,” Pidge answers, “It might take a couple of ticks, so protect me until I’m finished, alright?”
“Roger that Pigeon.”
Pidge gives Lance their resting bitch face before going back to their hacking.
Things were tense in silence for the next couple of dobashes. The only sound was the light breathing of everyone in the room and Pidge’s angry huffs.
“Finally!” Pidge shouts, fist-bumping the air.
“I got the prisoner’s location, Let’s get to them.”
“Alright team, move out,” Shiro tells the team once Pidge can get the location confirmed.
Everyone moved out of their spots, going behind Pidge as they moved towards the prisoners.
…...
It took two whole dobashes before they could get to them. The aliens were Elf-like in build, with vertical-shaped eyes and long hairless tails on their lower backs, and looked to be tall with how they were crouching their whole body low from the ceiling of the prison.
One of the prisoners noticed the Paladins and started chirping out in happiness. Soon almost all 25 started chirping in happiness after seeing the Paladins opening (read breaking) the doors open for all of them to get out of.
All except for one.
The prisoner that did not chirp out in happiness was an extremely sickly-looking Eklisy child. When all of them got out of the cramped prison cell, the child was the only one left.
Hunk walked inside the prison cell, towards the child.
“They don’t look all that good guys,” Hunk says over his shoulder, picking up the sick child off the floor.
“That child will not last long even if you intervene Paladins.” One of the shorter Eklisyier says, looking at the child with pure pity. Lance did not like that look from the Eklisy person, so instead walked towards his best friend and brother, picking the child off of his friends’ huggable arms.
“Lance!”
“Shh, let me take the kid, you got to keep watch of our six while we exit this base, all right? No and’s, or’s, or but’s.”
Hunk looked at Lance’s face for the longest time before relenting, walking briskly out of the prison to see if there were any injuries the Eklisyier had.
That was when everything went towards shit; in other words, shit hit the fan.
Hundreds of Sentries and Galra started swarming the Paladins and the recently freed Eklisy people around the hallway.
“Is this a good time to say a curse word, Shiro?” Pidge asks, getting on the defense in front of the Eklisy people.
“Yes.” Shiro fires back, his arm glowing a faint purple light as he also gets in front of the defenseless people.
“Cool, in that case, FUCK THIS SHIT!!”
And that was how the battle started.
Pidge used their whip-like weapon towards any that got close to them, taking down all that tried to get past them. Shiro on the other hand teamed up with Keith as they mode down all that swarmed in on them. At the same time, Hunk started opening up another pathway for the Eklisy people to escape to the other side of the base.
Lance looked over at the child, not liking how pale-looking and thin they looked, hugging them slightly as he looked back up with a determined look.
“Lance, come on, we got a path opened.” Hunk yells lightly, in which Lance runs to get with the rest of his team at Hunk’s words, trying to not jostle the child as he runs.
“Fuck!?” Pidge yells.
“What is it Pidge?” Shiro asks.
“I forgot to get any information besides the prisoner’s location.” Pidge huffs out in frustration.
“Fuck indeed Pigeon,” Lance agrees, moving the child closer to himself as they all run back from where they came from.
And that was how they got into this situation, 402 meters left to get to their lions, so close but so far feeling with how their lives are being played with like a cat with its toy mouse.
“Shit!?” Lance yells, his legs going out on him.
‘This is not the time right now legs.’ Lance tells himself, moving his body sideways so that the child is not crushed underneath him.
“Come on Lance, get up,” Keith tells him, picking his body up like he weighed nothing before sitting him back on his feet, looking at the amount of Garla still on their tail at the same time, “We are in a bit of a hurry.”
“I know, I know,” Lance says, pulling out his bayard, and shooting down a Galra that got too close to Hunk as he adjusts his hold on the child.
Keith stared at him for a tick- almost like he was in shock- before turning back around at the hoard of Galra, going back to his previous station to fight off more of them.
“Hmm,” Lance hummed, looking at Keith for a little longer than a tick before a laser shot (That was too close for comfort) came towards him, breaking his confusion, and he went back to running, trying to catch up with Pidge and Shiro who were a couple of meters ahead of him now.
Once he was finally caught up with the gremlin and Shiro, the child started to wake up, speaking in a jumbled mess as Lance finally got inside his lion, taking off towards his seat as Blue moved them away.
Just in time too, because it started to explode in a wide range of colors from the explosions they put in as they were moving around the base earlier; Pidge having detonated them once it was confirmed that the freed prisoners were far enough away not to get injured from it.
“Good job team let's head back and get the Eklisy child into a pod,” Shiro tells the team, his face showing onto the screen as Lance tunes out what his teammates are talking about, making sure that the child is alive still- in which they are- and to assess the situation he got himself in with his prosthetics.
‘This is going to be fun. ’ Lance sighs, moving the wine-red hair out of the child's face.
‘Very, very fun.'