Chapter Text
Space is a quiet place. You don’t really know how quiet it is until all the machineries stop humming and all the people are quietly sound asleep. That’s what Lance thought as he sat at the command center where Allura usually stood controlling the castle during their space jumps or battles. Staring out into the deep dark void of space he reached his right hand and clutched his left arm. The makeshift bandage over his arm held his deep wound together as he tries to stop the bleeding from the gash.
Around him, injured and unconscious on the floor, were the other Paladins, Shiro, Pidge, Keith and Hunk. Whereas, Coran and Allura were out cold too but they were at the wall beside the exit placed slumped against each other.
Lance slowly and painfully got up and with a small limp started to move towards the exit of the command center.
The doors were tightly shut due to the absence of power in the castle. Lance sighed and using his bayard he transforms it into a gun and shoots the slight opening and then wrenches the door open with as much strength he has.
The metal of the door creaks and moans and Lance opens a big enough space for him to squeeze through. He falls to a knee, gasping after the exerted effort had caused his injury in his arm to bleed again.
“Crap…”
Lance clutches his injured arm again while slowly rising to his feet once more he slowly makes his way down the hallway.
Blasting another door open, this time really blasting it down, he makes his way to his bedroom. Once he pries himself through the door he spends no time dragging his desk across the doorway and then collapsing onto the ground from fatigue. Feeling safe but terribly injured Lance finally settles down.
Lance collapses on his right side of his body, panting. His body riddled with bruises, cuts and the two large wounds. His breathing ragged and short, Lance’s consciousness finally gives way.
What Lance saw was the nightmare that happened after the he returned to the castle from the newly Galra relinquished planet of Dalver.
Lance having had falled in love with the rain that wet the planet of Dalver’s plant life and ground, Lance decided to stay back on the tropical-like planet for a little while longer. When he returned and walked towards the command center and announced his return strongly his arms thrown upwards with a wide grin and an obnoxiously loud, “Lance is back! Did ya’ll miss me when I was gone??”
But his smile broke when the other Paladins stood in a sort of circle and they had their bayards out. In the middle of their circle an unconscious Allura and Coran were in tied up and slightly injured.
“Guys! What happened?!” Lance freaking out at the tied up princess and Coran, quickly rushed to untie the tied two until he was slashed deeply by Keith’s sword.
Lance jumping back and wincing at the sudden attack by his teammate, he yells “Dude what are you doing?!”
This time Pidge’s katar grapples and wraps itself around Lance’s neck, pulling him down to the floor quick and hard.
Not yet recovered from the sword slash and heavy drop to the ground Lance is then gripped by the collar of his battle armour by Shiro’s Galra altered arm and thrown hard, his chest slamming hard against the wall, knocking the breath out of him.
“How did you get in here, Galranian?!” Shiro yelled after quickly pinning Lance against the wall with his robotic arm against Lance’s throat and straddled on top of Lance, holding him down with the weight of his body.
“Sh..i..ro…” Lance squeezes out of him with what breath he has, “…it’s me…Lance…”
“Tell me!” Shiro didn’t respond to Lance’s rugged speech.
“Shiro! The Blue Lion is back but there isn’t any sign of Lance!!” Hunk yelled back from checking the security system.
Turning back to the pinned Lance, Shiro sternly asks, “What did you do to Lance?! Tell me!”
Lance’s brain puts everything into perspective and sends one signal to his entire body.
You need to move.
He needed to get Coran and Allura to safety but he couldn’t do it without possibly hurting his friends. They were obviously being controlled but Lance needed for them to either wake up or risk hurting them to save their butts.
That’s when Keith strides over and in the most unlike Keith way whispers something in Shiro’s ear, who then gets up and moves towards Pidge and Hunk who were tapping away at the command board. Keith then drags the weakened Lance over by the hair to the center where Allura and Coran were tied leaving a profusely bleeding Lance next to the captives.
These were definitely not his friends. Nor were they aware of what they were doing.
Lance needed to do something but he knew that he didn’t stand any chance against the four Paladins all at once.
The four other Paladins had their backs turned away from them.
Bad move guys. Lance thought as he slowly and as quietly as he could reach for his bayard.
That’s when Lance made his decision.
Lance pulls his bayard out and as it quickly transforms into his gun, he takes aim and fires at the Paladins.
The first blast knocks Shiro square in the shoulder where his robotic arm was, blasting him over the computer that he was just looking over. Then just as quick at the blast hits Shiro, Lance takes aim again. This time at Keith’s hand holding onto his sword and then at his chest knocking him breathless and on the ground.
At this point Pidge and Hunk are on their feet and dashing towards Lance.
Pidge shoots her blade towards Lance mercilessly aiming for the kill. But Lance, quick on his feet, dodges the blade, which then lodges deeply into the ground where he once laid. It doesn’t take Lance long for him to shoot her too, this time he shoots her in the stomach knocking her back further than he expected and landing on Keith who was unconscious at this point.
Having concentrated on taking Keith then Pidge down, Lance had lost sight of Hunk who had his large blaster powered and aimed. Upon hearing the sharp pitch of Hunk’s blaster powering up, Lance quickly spun around and took aim and fired twice. Their shots went off almost simultaneously, but while Hunk couldn’t avoid the small quick shots that Lance had fired, Lance realized that Allura was still groggy and Coran was still out cold.
Just as Hunk’s shot was closing in, Lance turned his back towards the blast, shielding Allura and Coran in the process.
What felt like a never ending slow motion sequence was over in an instant. Hunk was out cold slumped against the wall. Having hit his head relatively hard on the metal of the castle wall after being shot twice, once in the chest and the second in the abdomen.
That’s when Allura woke up.
Lance, barely keeping his consciousness, looked at Allura and with a slight pained smile asked, “You doing ok Princess?”
“Lance! You-”
But before Allura could say anything a loud battle cry was charging towards them. Shiro’s arm glowed a vibrant purple as he leapt and was coming down hard for an attack.
Lance shoved Allura and Coran with one arm and blocked Shiro’s heavy attack with his blaster.
Adrenaline rushes through Lance’s veins, numbing the pain of the Hunk’s blaster gun but the gash from Keith’s sword from earlier was weakening his resistance to Shiro’s attacks. Lance manages to shove Shiro off but Shiro’s quick footwork landed a solid kick to Lance’s side. Letting out a pained yelp, Lance is flung backwards towards the entrance of the command center and is almost knocked out cold.
Shiro begins to move towards Lance’s limp body when Allura, who had freed herself using her superior alien strength, rammed Shiro straight into the wall making a dent in the wall while kicking him out of the battle and slumped just beside where Hunk was.
Allura dashed over to where Lance was, a worried expression filled her face.
“Lance are you alright?! Lance?!”
Cradling Lance in her arms, Allura calls Lance awake.
Lance dazedly blinked his eyes open and smiled, “I am now that I’m in your arms.” Allura drops Lance but helps him pull himself up from the ground.
He was pale and sweating profusely and in dire need to get into the healing pod.
“Where’s Coran?” as Lance says, Coran groggily walks towards Allura and Lance rubbing his head and back.
“Princess? Lance?!” Coran looked at Lance’s battered form and rushed towards him. “What happened?”
“I don’t…I don’t know…I was hoping you knew.” Lance looked at Allura and then at Coran.
“We don’t know either. One moment we were checking the ship for damages and the next thing we know we were out cold and tied up and you were shooting the Paladins and now your injured-“ Coran stopped talking abruptly and suspiciously studied Lance’s face.
“Lance. Why were you shooting the Paladins?”
That’s when Allura shouted. “Coran get away from him!”
Lance and Coran spun their heads quickly towards her but Coran spun his head back towards Lance as just as quick.
Coran yelped and begun backing away and Allura holds herself in a fighting pose.
“So the Galra have found out how to disguise themselves, huh?”
“Wait what?! Allura it’s me! Lance!”
Lance’s words fell on deaf ears though as Allura quickly threw a series of punches and kicks. Each kick and punch severely weakening Lance’s already weak body.
Lance managed to dodge one of Allura’s attacks long enough to aim and take fire at Allura.
Clenching his teeth the blast hits Allura in the shoulder just above her right breast. This causing Coran to panic and rush to her side as she falls to her back in pain.
The recoil this time knocking Lance’s weak body off his feet.
Coran visibly upset that this Galranian had shot Allura, begins to charge at Lance and at this point Lance was so weak that Coran could probably take him down.
With the little adrenaline left in him Lance gets up and slams his gun into Coran’s face, knocking him out cold. Lance dragged Coran towards the wall next to the exit and turned to Allura who was clutching her pained shoulder.
Lance had hit a soft spot in her armour, damaged from the battle with the Galra either by pure luck or by pure accident.
“I…I’m sorry…Allura…I-” Allura loses consciousness as Lance stutters. His eyes begin to pool but he doesn’t let it fall. With what little strength he can muster, Lance gently drags Allura’s body and props her up next to Coran.
Lance looks around the room for some cloth to quickly bandage Allura’s wound but decided that Coran wouldn’t mind that his pants be torn to help out the Princess.
Limping over to where Pidge’s katar was he picks up the short blade’s handle from the ground and reels it over.
He then limps back to Coran and tears the left side of his pants . He wraps the cloth tightly around his arm and ties it off with his teeth. Then he tears Coran’s right side of his pants and wraps it around Allura’s chest, wrapping it just tightly enough that the blood wouldn’t seep but not too tight that it cuts off her breathing.
Nothing can go any worse than right now. And what happens next was just the topping of the cake.
The castle’s power cuts off. All of it.
The sudden cut of power sent a piercing silence throughout the castle echoed and rung throughout the emptiness of command center.
Blinking his eyes open Lance found himself on the floor of his bedroom floor, his body aching from the bruises and the wounds.
Groaning he dragged his aching body towards his bed and buries himself in the bed’s warmth and fall back asleep once more.
When he wakes up again, Lance gets up slowly as he holds his head in his hands. He’s less dizzy from the lack of blood but his body is sore and he can feel the bruises swelling.
Unable to take off his armour just in case his crazed hallucinating friends come back and attack him Lance achingly drags himself to the corner of his bed facing the door with his gun pointed straight at the door.
And he just waits and thinks. Thinks about what has happened in the last hour and tries to figure out to what caused this crazed behavior in his comrades.
Was it the plants in Dalver? Was it the atmosphere? A new Galra tactic? Why wasn't I affected? Why? Why? Wh...y...?
Lance clenched his eyes tight. Hoping to wake up. Wishing that it was all some kind of horrible dream.
But he opened his eyes to see the shoddily barricaded door, his gun and the smell of dried blood in the air.
Loneliness and the painful betrayal overflowed through Lance. Tears pooled and fell from his eyes his chest tightening as he heaved and choked on his snot and tears.