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This was bad, very bad. The team was fighting Galra once more, but they were outnumbered. And unfortunately, their lions were out of reach. They had barely the time to catch their breath, killing enemies not to get killed, trying to protect each other.
But they were all tired.
They were all exhausted.
It was supposed to be an easy mission, but they had been taken by surprise. And even with Allura and Coran’s support, it was hard to keep up.
But they couldn’t just give up and let themselves be killed, so they were fighting.
“Where is Lance?” Shiro shouted, fending an enemy.
“He’s still in the enemy base!” Pidge answered. She dodged a hit, avoided a shot. “He was supposed to free the prisoners!”
Lance was indeed in the enemy base, and had freed the prisoners. As his teammates had been a diversion, he had gotten easily rid of the few soldiers left. But when the others got attacked by all the soldiers, he immediately wanted to go and help them.
But he knew that would be stupid. He wouldn’t make a difference. The soldiers were too many. To win, they needed to take down the commanders, but the commanders were cautious and staying out of his friends’ range.
The Blue Paladin swore and clenched his fists in rage. He summoned his bayard, gripping it tightly to calm himself down.
He had to help his friends. He had to. He couldn’t let them die like that without doing anything.
He had found a flying scooter and was about to ride it in order to come to his team rescue even if it was stupid, when his bayard suddenly lit up.
He blinked, surprised, and his mouth opened wide when he saw what his bayard had become.
A sniper rifle.
It wasn’t his usual gun, it was a long, heavy, sniper rifle.
Lance immediately understood. Bayards could turn in any weapon their users needed: and here Lance needed a sniper rifle. He ran toward the roof and looked at the battlefield afar, then lied down and adjusted the rifle’s optical sight. That weapon was incredible. Lance could see with accuracy the fight raging on, and it took him no time to understand how it was functioning.
He spotted Keith, and his heart missed a beat when he noticed that the Red Paladin was in danger: already hurt, he was fighting a soldier but hadn’t noticed that another one was about to strike him down from behind.
Lance didn’t hesitate. He shot.
Keith turned around when he heard the shot, to see a dead soldier behind him, killed by a bullet right in the head. Another soldier fell next to him, and one of the commanders who was giving orders got shot too. The Galran troops stopped a moment, surprised and unsure, before another commander gave an order and the fight went on.
Still, Keith raised an appreciative thumb toward the enemy base, for Lance to get that he had been great help.
Well, it was a nice action, but as it indicated Galra’s soldiers where the sniper was, Lance cursed Keith a lot. Now he had to change of location before the soldiers arrived. Nice.
He got up and went down the roof, then using the scooter to flee from the base just in time.
They were on a rocky, desert planet, so he used the rocks to hide himself and find a better shooting spot.
He shot two soldiers that were about to hurt Hunk, and was ready to shoot a third one when the Yellow Paladin happily waved at him, giving away his location once more.
“¡Joder!*” he swore, riding the scooter once more to escape the soldiers coming in his direction. He got closer to the battlefield, but still at a safe distance. He decided to shoot the soldiers looking for him, then saved Pidge from another commander.
“Quedan tres comandantes*,” he muttered for himself, very concentrated.
Unfortunately, Pidge turned toward him and raised a fist in his direction as a thank you, and he had to change of spot once again.
In fact, each time he was helping his friends, they would stupidly try to show him their gratitude by gesturing toward him, forcing him to move after one or two shots.
In the end, he got a bit fed up.
“Guys,” he grunted, lying down behind a couples of rocks and aiming at some soldiers again, “I appreciate that you appreciate me but please stop waving at me after I save you, I’m sick of running around trying to find new spots, I specifically chose a long-range weapon so I could lie down all the time.”
Well, that wasn’t exactly the truth but it wasn’t exactly false either.
“Huh, sorry Lance,” Hunk apologized for the team, using his weapon to destroy a bunch of enemies. “Anyway, they only have three commanders left so if you could-”
There was the sound of a shot. “Two left,” Shiro constated.
The soldiers were less organized without their commanders to give them directions, so they were easier to defeat. As some point, Pidge even managed to sneak out, in order to get her lion.
Lance, now well-hidden and happy of his location, was searching for the two commanders left. He was covering his teammates, but killing the commanders would make the fight way easier.
“Lance, up there!” Keith suddenly shouted, pointing a spot in the rocks above.
The Blue Paladin quickly spotted a commander and zoomed. The commander had a special earpiece, and, Lance realized, he was surely about to ask for more troops.
Lance thought of killing him - but what if the earpiece fell down and was found by another soldier?
No time to think.
He shot.
The bullet crushed the earpiece and the commander fell down, the side of his head wounded. Lance shot again, and he was dead the next second.
“Found you!” a voice suddenly exclaimed above him. Lance raised his head, panicked, seeing a Galran soldier that he hadn’t heard approaching in front of him. The soldier was smirking, ready to kill the Blue Paladin.
“Leave him alone!” Keith shouted, appearing from nowhere, and he sliced the enemy in two. He was panting heavily, meaning he had ran all the way from the battlefield to protect their sniper (more like his sniper if you ask me, but whatever for now).
Lance was wondering what to say, when he saw the last commander on a small ship, flying toward them. “DOWN!” he exclaimed, and in one swift movement, he got up and pushed Keith to the ground.
He raised his rifle and shot, ignoring the laser that had just hit his shoulder. The ship passed next to them and, without control, crashed against the nearest rocks. Lance reloaded before lowering his weapon with an impressive calm and seriousness.
Meanwhile, Pidge had arrived with her lion, and Hunk, who had quickly followed her, was not far behind. The Green Paladin was already clearing the area, but when the Yellow Lion then arrived, Galran soldiers had no more chance to win.
“Looks like we won,” Keith said, still panting.
Lance blinked, getting out of his daze. His rifle disappeared and he dropped himself on the ground. “Huh, wow. Great,” he commented, not really knowing how to react. Keith bumped his shoulder and he winced in pain. “Come mullet boy, I got shot earlier, don’t be an ass.”
“Hey, it was incredible,” Keith smiled genuinely. “I know you were good with a gun, but you basically saved us here.”
“I would have been better if you guys hadn’t kept on giving away my location,” the brunette grunted - but he was touched by the compliment. It wasn’t often that Keith was being admirative of him and well, it was nice. “Especially you.”
“It’s because I love you,” Keith laughed light-heartedly before realizing what he had just said. He had wanted to say “it’s because we love you” but as Lance had then precised that it was especially Keith’s fault, he had changed his sentence a bit.
“You-” Lance began.
“Shut up,” Keith cut off, clumsily getting up. He offered a hand to the Blue Paladin who kept it in his after getting on his feet. The black-haired boy glared daggers at him. “Let me go”, he grunted.
“Oh, no,” Lance grinned, even if his shoulder hurt a lot.
They began to walk toward the other Paladins. Even if Keith was complaining, he made no attempt to push Lance’s hand away. “And why not, moron?” he still asked, ready to bicker with his friend again.
Lance laughed and it was like a shot right aimed at Keith’s heart. Lance was, in many way, a talented sniper. “Because I love you, mullet-boy, because I love you.”