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The paladins rushed to their lions the second the alarm blared. They dropped everything, they knew how serious these alarms were.
Lance had been studying up on the Altean language, which he was getting very good at thank you very much. Keith had been in the training deck with Shiro practicing some of the more advanced levels. Pidge had been working with Coran about various problems aboard the Castle of Lions. Hunk had been in the kitchen making treats for the team. And Allura had been gossiping with her mice.
But at the sound of the alarm, they rushed to their stations. Lance, Keith, Shiro, Pidge, and Hunk rushing to their lions. Meanwhile Coran and Allura raced for the bridge.
“Alright paladins,” Allura says, voice coming from the comms, “there is an oncoming fleet of Galra. Maybe 2 cruisers and a ton of fighter jets.”
Lance grinned in his lion, he knew they could take this. They could do it easily too, they had faced worse than this. He voiced his thoughts to the rest of his team, “we got this guys, we’ve faced worse.”
“Lance is right,” came Shiro’s reply, “we have faced worse than this. However, don't get cocky, lots of things can still go wrong.”
“Lightn’ up Shiro,” Lance said grinning, even though no one could see him.
Shiro ignored Lance and addressed the team as a whole, “Is everyone ready?”
The paladins all gave replies:
“Yep.”
“Yes.”
“Yee Haw.”
“As ready as ever.”
It came as a surprise to no one that even in a very serious situation Lance would be one to joke. “Alright good,” Shiro said. And with that they all shot out of their hangers into the oncoming fleet of Galra.
<<—>>
The battle turned out to not be as easy as they suspected. There were a lot more fighter jets than any of them could have predicted, which easily had them out numbered. Normally this would not have been a problem because they could just form Voltron and quickly be over it but something was off and they couldn’t.
Lance thought that this battle could still turn out in their favor though. It had too. If it didn’t they would probably blame him for not being able to form Voltron. They always blamed him. He was always not serious enough. Or he was in the way. Or some other reason they blamed him.
Although in truth it might actually be him holding them back. He has been tired all day. He hasn’t eaten much either. Lance unstrapped the seat belt for his seat in his lion. It felt like it was restricting his movements, his reaction time. How could he be the team's sharpshooter if he couldn’t aim? All because of a stupid seat belt. Lance snorted at the thought.
Lance’s amusement died with Hunk’s shout, “Pidge! Right behind you!”
Lance turned in the direction he knew both Hunk and Pidge to be just in time to see Pidge narrowly avoid crashing into the fighter jet that had been aiming to hit her.
He grinned, this was his moment to shine, he had a clear shot to the jet and he took it. Lance quickly aimed Blue’s gun and hit the trigger. The lazer soared through space and smashed the jet into pieces with a violent explosion.
“Let’s goooo!” Lance exclaimed at his victory.
“Good job Lance,” Shiro said and Lance grinned with the praise.
His victory was short lived though because with all of them distracted with Pidge, Hunk, and the explosion none of them noticed the fighter jet break out of formation and head straight towards one of them. They didn’t notice and before any of them could even react it fired its lasers, straight at Lance.
Lance didn’t even have time to dodge before the lasers slammed into his lion sending him and it spinning out of control. And because Lance was no longer wearing his seat belt, he flew out of his seat and straight backwards, his head slamming into the back wall of his lion. Lance’s vision went black for a few seconds. When he came to it was a splitting headache and voices calling his name that greeted him.
Lance slowly drags himself to his feet, his eyes tearing up with the pain. As Lance walks his way back to his pilot seat a wave of nausea hits him and he has to grit his teeth to stop from throwing up.
“Lance? Lance, are you alright?” That’s Shiro’s voice, too loud all of a sudden.
“I’m fine,” Lance tells his team, with a surprisingly steady voice.
“If you're sure then let’s get back to fighting,” Shiro said, “All of them are almost gone.”
“What happened to the one that shot me?” Lance asked.
“I got it,” Keith’s voice replied.
“Thanks” Lance said, truly grateful. He would have ended up much worse than he already was if they hadn’t taken down the fighter jet.
“No problem,” Keith said, seeming surprised that Lance actually thanked him instead of turning it into a joke like he normally would.
“Alright paladins,” Coran’s voice said, coming over the comms, “there is one fleet of fighter jets left. Both the cruisers have left already.
“Thanks Coran,” Shiro said, “come on team you heard him, just one fleet left. Shouldn’t be too hard.”
Much to the entire team's dismay, it was not as easy to take down the remaining fleet of fighter jets than they had initially thought. First with Lance’s headache it made it much harder for him to actually hit his targets. Something that was surely noticed by the team but even if they did notice they didn’t say anything. Second they still couldn’t form Voltron, something that the entire team was put out about.
Finally after another full 10 minutes all of the fighter jets had been destroyed. Lance’s headache had yet to go away. In fact it seemed to only be worse. Along with the added occasional wave of nausea Lance was not well, not at all.
Exhausted, the paladins retired to the castle. Now that the fighting was over and the adrenaline was gone they all felt the weight of the battle, Lance more so than the rest of them.
When he landed, Lance slowly got out of Blue not wanting to upset his stomach. There was no blood on his head where he had hit the wall so his injury must not be that bad. He probably only had a small concussion.
He had no dizzy spells or nausea as he walked to the bridge to meet up with the others. However the headache was worse than ever. No need to mention anything there was nothing to worry about it was just a simple head injury, it would heal with time.
<<—>>
Keith climbed out of Red with no trouble. That battle had been more of a struggle than any of their previous but the same old thing over and over was boring so this had been a nice change in pace.
Lance had also thanked Keith for saving him and blowing up that fighter jet. That had been unusual but Keith wasn’t complaining, it had also been nice. It was like the two of them had been good friends forever.
Keith would have to make sure that Lance was actually okay. The blue paladin had seemed kind of shaken up after getting hit with those lasers. And the time that it had taken Lance to respond was a little worrying too. It had been a full 30 seconds of Shiro calling his name before Lance said anything. Even then his voice had been slightly shaky.
Speaking of the blue paladin, Lance was just stepping out of his lion’s hanger now. Keith sped up his steps to catch up with him.
“You good?” Keith asked. Lance looked slightly pale and his pupils were dilated.
“What?” Lance seemed confused and slightly shaky and jumpy.
“I asked if you were alright.” Keith said now getting truly getting worried.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m great.” Lance said.
Keith didn’t believe him. Something was off. Had Lance sustained an injury when he had been hit with that laser. He didn’t see any sign of one, but Lance’s confusion and eyes were setting off alarm bells all throughout Keith’s head.
Lance, clearly sensing that Keith didn’t believe him, tried to reassure the red paladin once again, “I mean it Keith, I’m fine.”
Keith’s only response was a disbelieving, “Alright,” before they headed to the bridge together in silence.
When they got to the bridge everyone else was already there, waiting for them. Shiro gave Keith a questioning look and Keith responded with one of his own that he hoped said, later.
Shiro nodded back and Keith took that as a yes. He then focused on the conversation. They, Coran and Allura, were talking about how they had failed not once but twice to form Voltron. Keith didn’t want to hear it. This was something that they had always worried would happen but didn’t think it actually would. The whole thing irritated Keith. Now they were going to start pointing fingers at who it could be. That would just create a whole fight and things would only get worse from there.
And he was right, not even 20 minutes later they were all shouting at one another with the exception of Lance and Keith. Keith looked at Lance wondering why he wasn’t being his usual talkative teasing self, always happy to jump in and give his input even when it wasn’t wanted. What he saw though worried him. Lance was pale, unnaturally so. He also seemed to be swaying on his feet, looking like he was about to pass out.
Keith got up and went over to the blue paladin. Lance jumped as Keith came closer, his dilated pupils coming to rest on Keith. “You good Lance?” Keith asked in a whisper.
Lance gave a slight shake of his head and Keith knew that if he didn’t get Lance out of here he would probably end up passing out.
“I’m tired.” Keith heard Lance mumble.
“Okay,” Keith said, going back to watching the rest of the team argue, “I’ll create a distraction and you can slip out.”
When Keith glanced back at Lance he found the other boy’s eyes on him. Lance looked grateful despite how obviously dead on his feet he was. Keith stepped away from Lance then to shove Shiro, “What’s your problem man?” He said, “it was no one's fault that we couldn’t form Voltron.”
“Then what do you propose it was? Huh, Keith?” Shiro shot back angrily.
Out of the corner of his eyes, Keith spotted Lance speed walking out of the room. Keith grinned, now he could have some real fun.
“Well there could be a number of things that caused us to not be able to form Voltron,” Pidge cut in, looking at the monitor that was hovering over her wrist. When no one responded she looked up and explained, “the lions could have been undercharged, there could have been space radiation, or many other things.”
“Thank you Pidge,” Keith said, shooting a grateful look at Pidge and an annoyed one at Shiro.
“Hey guys,” Hunk said looking around, “where’s Lance?”
This question had everyone, even Keith, looking around. And everyone but Keith looked extremely confused. “Yeah, where did he go?” Coran asked, “I could've sworn he was here a few minutes ago.”
“Maybe he was tired of this arguing and went to change and rest,” Keith suggested, knowing full well that was what Lance would hopefully be doing, “I mean that fight was one of the worst we have had by far.”
“In that case then let’s all go get cleaned up and rested,” Shiro said, “just because today was hard doesn’t mean that we aren't still going to have our regularly scheduled training tomorrow.”
And with that they all dispersed heading down the hallway that led to their rooms. First Keith was going to go to his room to change and shower, then he would go check on Lance to make sure that he was alright. He went into his room and shut the door.