Hello Everyone, here's another story for you all, collaborated with CinnamonChild.
WARNING: The story contains self-harm.
Keep yourself safe and don't read if it is triggering for you.
Much love and enjoy xxx
This Chapter contains Self-Harm
ONE
Home.
To Lance, Home was everything.
Altea was his Home, where he lived an innocent and free life with his family, his friends. Days were filled with endless play and laughter, returning home to his parents' warmth when the sun set beyond the mountains and the stars would light the skies.
He had naught for want; all he ever desired was his, content with the promising future that lay before him, his to decide, his to strive towards and make his family proud.
He was another then. A child, with simple childish dreams to see the smiles upon his Mother's face, to feel the touch of his Father's hand ruffling his hair, to hear his sister's praises. He only wanted to make them proud.
But the simplicity of Lance's dreams were stolen from him.
Home snatched away from him, all too soon.
For is was a monster that descended upon his home. With thunder and fire and screams that filled the once peaceful paradise and warped it into that of a nightmare. For Lance, that was all it could be. No horror had befallen him like this before, so how could it possibly be real?
But it was real, and a nightmare all at once. Blessed perhaps, with a pure mind that saved itself from being torn apart as it took itself away from the screams, the heat of flames that engulfed his Home until there was nothing left.
Nothing left but his own fear and panic that pulled him down into darkness, deeper than sleep where the monsters still lurked to haunt him when he closed his eyes.
A nightmare, she called it.
A nightmare that he would wake from, still screaming, still crying, blindly reaching out for solace from the fangs that gripped his body tight, from the heat that burnt his flesh until he was nothing but bone and dust.
But no, the fire couldn't hurt him. Because she was there. She, who came for him, warmth and love, to pull him into her arms and whisper to the child that he was safe now, he was safe.
She wasn't his mother.
She was not his kind, not Altean, but Human. The woman, who looked similar to him in appearance, with warm smiles and kind eyes. She had found him, her and her husband. They had found Lance in a spacecraft, small and badly damaged from the fall to Earth, washed ashore to their private little beach on which they lived, overlooking the ocean.
"My fallen star," she called him, every time he asked to hear that story, listening to her words with childish glee, his nightmare forgotten as the tale twisted its lullaby around him and settled him to sleep, curled in his arms.
Not his mother by birth, but his mother all the same. She found him and she saved him. She took him in as her own.
Lance found a new Home. On Earth, with his new parents and his new siblings that welcomed him with beaming smiles and open arms. They were like him in many ways, with their cheeky laughter, and his name that fell so lightly from their lips as they called him to play.
All too soon the memories of Altea were replaced by the boy's imagination; his memories distorted through filter lens so that he only remembered Earth. Altea became a dream, and the Galra War only haunted him in his nightmares. Not long, until that was forgotten too.
But not everything disappeared. But it didn't matter if Lance was the only one in his family to have matching birthmarks on either side of his face. Because Mamá told him they made him special, and he didn't mind them.
Others minded however.
Bullies and children who would poke and prod Lance and remind him that he was different, that he wasn't really a part of their family, that he hadn't been wanted, and dumped there in the first place. They didn't believe him when he told them he was a fallen star, only laughing at him for thinking himself special. Lance didn't want to listen, didn't want to believe them. He didn't.
It's just… he hated the feeling their hurtful words would bring; the reminder that there was only a thinly veiled line that stood between him and his family, the ones that he had claimed as his own and those that claimed him as theirs.
But they weren't really family. He wasn't born to them, so how could he ever hope to be more than a guest to them.
And that was a thought that he could never rid his mind of.
So Lance built up walls. He put on a mask and became a son to be proud of, adopted or not. He ignored the taunts and the teasing, he learned to use his smile, learned the charm of words and the way people thought; their need for social approval. Everyone wanted praise, everyone wanted someone to remind them of their wit and charm. Lance was the puppy at their heels and they loved him for it.
Then came the Garrison. Surprising even himself, Lance had risen to the top of his class. He remembered when he told his Mamá and saw her smile, felt the press of his Papa's hand ruffle his hair, listen to the praises from his brothers and sisters alike. He had made them proud, but he could do more.
So he worked harder, and harder still. His scores improved, skills improved. He impressed his peers and those that monitored the Cadet's progression. Lance continued forwards. He got into the piloting class, okay by a technicality but who cares, not Lance, nope he's one step closer to making his family proud.
But that hope was snatched away from him too.
Space was another of Lance's dream. Piloting through the stars, a pilot for the Garrison, making his family proud as he said he would. He told his Mamá her fallen star would return to the sky, that he'd find her something truly amazing. He'd find her a real star and take it back home.
But Lance can't go home. He can't take Mamá her star, he can't make his family proud if they don't know where he is.
They don't know that he's billions and billions of miles away, sat in the cockpit of a giant alien warship with his classmates and (up until recently) the missing hero that had inspired him to strive towards this goal and not another.
His family don't know that he has met an Alien Princess, who bears the same marks as him, the ones that he learnt to hide, to stop the teasing remarks.
They don't know that Lance is a soldier, fighting a war. A Blue Paladin of Voltron, standing against the tyranny that is the Galra Empire; a despicable race of Aliens that want nothing but the domination of the entire Universe.
Lance has a new family now.
He has Pidge; someone who considers him her brother as much she his little sister. They compete against each other in video games, or they hang out in her lab, Lance ready to help her with her gizmos and numbers and stuff. She'll listen to him ramble about Earth and they'll paint their toenails and watch kids movies when they're meant to be sleeping. He'll tell her about his family on Earth and she'll tell him about Matt in space. That's why she's out here, why she hasn't gone home. She's searching for her family, to take them Home.
Then there's Hunk, the big lug that is all heart, cotton candy smiles and a warmth that is incomparable to any mother's love. He cooks all of Lance's favourite snacks, even without the boy asking him. He may be sweet as sugar cane, but in secret, he's a prankster at heart, and usually it's not him, but Lance who gets blamed for the mischief they like to pull on their unsuspecting teammates, like that time when they reversed the gravity in the training room, or when they mixed dye with Coran's moustache shampoo, (it took two whole weeks for the purple to fade).
Ultimately, the two boys have a lot of fun together.
They're as close as brothers and the best of friends. Lance couldn't ask for anyone else to be tossed into space with.
And of course, there's Shiro. He's the Castle's resident Space Dad as well as Lance's go to man for advice. Not just because he's older, but the man is level -headed and has had a lot more experience than any of the younger team.
Lance enjoys spending time together with him, most often the two of them meeting in the training hall, sparring and testing their fighting capabilities. Shiro, serious as ever wants them to be ready for battle, but the Blue Paladin is just happy to spend time with his childhood hero.
Yet he can see the strain it puts on the Soldier that's spent too long fighting for his life in the Gladiator's Ring. Lance is there when Shiro wants to talk about it, and there when the man just wants to sit in silence instead.
Lance understands. The boy suffers from his own nightmares as well.
The rest of Lance's new family are Aliens.
There is Coran, who is as much a weird space uncle as he is a second father to all of the team. He's stern when Lance pushes the boundaries and a shoulder for the boy when Lance is feeling homesick. Sometimes he joins in on the pranks and other times he is the one who gets the last laugh.
And then there was Allura.
She was beautiful and kind, and polite enough that Lance could hold conversation with the Princess, concerning the future of the war, and the possibility of gaining allies after freeing them from the Galra's control. Their conversations were always business, always with a particular avoidance when it came to anything personal.
Lance, of course didn't pry, he didn't push where he knew his focus wasn't wanted, but he couldn't shake the disappointment at each of her dismissals; kind yet firm, as she draws the line she does not want him to cross.
Allura reminded him of his older sister back on Earth. And maybe Lance was searching for familiarity, maybe he was just trying to build a bond with the Space Princess to help fill the small void in his chest, so that when she did turn her cheek, it hurt more than he liked to admit.
Lance had a new family now.
And yet, he feels more alone than ever.
Every day he would question himself, questioning what he knew, why he was here, if it even mattered if he wasn't. His worth wasn't all that much to the team, he knew that, and knew the risk of deluding himself otherwise.
He was always alone, one way or another. Even when surrounded in the mess hall as they ate meals together, or when they were side by side running through familiar training drills, Lance always felt alone. And scared and worried for their uncertain future.
He couldn't tell the others of his fears. He didn't want to appear weak to them, didn't want them to think that he was incapable of being the Blue Paladin.
Day by day, the constant questioning of his own self-worth grew, stronger and stronger until it manifested itself into paralysing fears. It was black-tar that clung to his skin, clung to his mind, making it hard to think, harder to push through the heaviness that dragged him down, heavier than before. Almost too heavy to lift.
They were still searching for the Red Lion.
It's been months since Blue took them far from Earth, into Space and into the unknown. Blue had taken them to Arus, to the Castle and the last surviving Alteans. But she had also taken them into war, into the jaws of a beast that there was no escape. Only the option to stand and fight before they were consumed.
It's been weeks since the attack on the Castle, Sendak long since been thrown to space and the light of Arus' star just another in the expanse of everything around them.
The Paladins were finally settling into a routine of living life in the vastness of the ever-expanding galaxy.
It has been hard, without the Red Lion and the inability to form Voltron when battles raged around them, when the Galra came with intent to destroy. With the intent to kill.
But despite their efforts, the team have won many victories, outwitting their foe across vast territories. Sure there were some close calls, and some battles in which Lance feared would be their last. But they had been victorious, and all of them were stronger for it.
Or at least they're supposed to be.
Lance knows Hunk is. After all, the big guy is over his fear of heights. He no longer second-guesses his decisions, now trusting the team to have his back where his confidence lacks.
Pidge has come out of her shell; boisterous and loud, with as much energy as the ship's main core reactor and a temper just as hot. But she works hard when the team are sparring, smiling more, knowing that she's much closer to finding Matt and her Dad with every passing day.
Even Shiro's improved, becoming more confident in leading now, quicker to make orders than suggestions followed by apologies. He isn't just their peer, he is their leader. He is quick to take charge, confident to issue orders when the Galra attack, and keeps a level head on the battlefield, despite his demons that still haunt him.
Everyone was stronger, everyone except for Lance. It feels like, instead of growing with the team, he's falling further and further behind. He can't keep track of the days in space, there's no difference between day or night for him, when all that stands beyond the windows are space and stars and an endless expanse of nothing.
All that separates one meal and the next is a visit to a planet, a fight with the Galra or a trip in the cryo-chamber. There's no sunrise, no sunset, no breath of fresh air that's not chemically cleaned oxygen pumped through the castle's air ducts.
It's hard to feel grounded when even the gravity is artificial.
Lance doesn't notice it at first, but all of a sudden it's there. Nothing.
It's slow, growing beneath the bitter-ice, the chilling-snow of fear. It's frostbite in his head, his mind succumbing until it is numb, numb to the endless halls that are his to wonder on sleepless nights, numb to the people who fight alongside him in this endless, unavoidable war.
It is the act of "not feeling" that haunts him. The boy didn't really know how he managed to drag himself out of bed every morning. It was more of a sense of duty than a want. It is expected of him and he does so, without complaint. Because who is he to complain, when he stands as the last line of defence for too many in this never-ending war that is slowly draining the boy of his very being.
Lance used to dream, when he was a child, when Mamá told him stories of her little fallen star, he would dream of space and all the stars in the night sky. All of it, before Lance learnt the name of his heroes, of the names of those that sought that stars like him. Yet they were up there, somewhere, cruising through the endless serene of black. Lance wanted to be one of them, to be an explorer who would glide across the night sky. No longer her "little fallen star," but Mamá's shooting star, the blazoned the night sky with brilliant light, as he carved the path to new discoveries in the great wide out-there.
Would he find adventure? Or was there something more, something that he couldn't find on Earth? Was it that sense of belonging he craved, that even when his family held him close and told him they loved him, it being something he had never found?
Because, no; a sense of belonging, or a place, or even a purpose was not Lance's to find. They showed him the way, but all the boy stumbled upon was more pain, more fears, more questions to add to all those that no one had answered before.
Like Allura, and Coran.
When the boy first saw them, he was shocked. Human, his logical mind had thought, wondering just how it could be for Humans to be so far from Earth. But then, when the fog settles and his mind slowed for a chance to catch itself, he saw their faces, and the markings upon their cheeks. Markings practically identical to his own, pale blue against his darkened skin. Ones that he had long since learnt to hide to stop the bullying.
No, these were not human, but Alteans.
The word was… familiar, and frightening all the same. Because, no it couldn't be possible, Altea couldn't be real.
It was nothing more than a made-up place that Lance had imagined when he was a child. It was a game he would play with his brothers and sisters, when he took them from their home, over the garden wall to the wonder of his fantasy world where he'd spend his childhood. It was the lie he built to cover the truth of never remembering, instead choosing to believe in the sunsets of gold, the tall white buildings that seemed to stretch forever and beyond.
It was the made up, fantasy world that Lance had destroyed when he grew too old for childish games and dreams that someone had wanted him once.
In his memory, Altea was nothing but castle ruins as ancient as bones in the soil, the once-smooth rock of the garden wall pitted and scarred, the skeleton of the mighty spires now hidden under years of growth. Tendrils of bark pushed into the white stone and pulled Lance's fantasy to nothing. To rubble and stone and fire and war and—
No! That was nothing but a dream, a nightmare!
Altea couldn't be real. It couldn't.
And it wasn't. Not anymore.
But it was once, and it was everything the blue-eyed boy had imagined.
So did that mean, that, the dreams of really having a family, of once having those smiling faces be real, of wanting him, of loving him….
The longer Lance remained in space, the more he believed it to be true, that yes, the Altea of his childhood and the Home of the Princess were one and the same. Now no more, lost to the stars with all her people.
And the truth that, Lance was not Human like his family. Years spent believing such, vanished in the instance of realising that Allura and Coran were his people, not those like Shiro and Pidge and Hunk.
They were Human, he was not. But did that mean the two Alteans were now his to claim as his last remaining family, them the only ones who could offer the acceptance he had been seeking for as long as he could remember.
But could such a thing really be real?
No. No it could not. Not to someone like Lance.
Besides, why would he want to throw away his family, throw away Earth for a planet that doesn't exist, for the childish hope of finding a "family," just like him.
He already had a family. Back on Earth, they waited for him, not knowing if he was alive or dead, safe or hurting and wanting for them.
Mamá may have told him her story of how he came to them, but that was all it ever was: a story. There was no magic star that brought him to her, there was no flash of light and the wreck of a ship that they pulled him from, before the sea rose up and claimed it for itself, dragging it down to the bottom of the sea. Such a tale was theirs to weave to lure him to sleep, hoping to bless him with pleasant dreams of 'Altea.' Not silly childish idealisms that created the lie that, he was in fact "a fallen star."
Besides, isn't that everyone's wish at some point in their life? The wish that they are special. That they weren't just the luck of the draw, some few random cells that mingled, merged and mutated into the Human that stood to exist as just another statistic on the global scale. Everyone wanted to believe that they were a gift from god, that they were born for a reason.
Lance believed that too.
And then he grew up.
Lance understood he wasn't special. He knew that he was just some ordinary kid from the foster system, whose parents didn't want him.
And to make himself feel better, like every abandoned child, he fashioned himself the tale that he had been lost to his true family. Not from the stars, but a distant land. Sailing on the waves aboard the King's vessel, fallen prey to a storm. One day they would come for him and take him to his true home.
Lance broke his Mamá's heart when he told her. They'd been fighting; something childish on Lance's behalf and he'd thrown the words at her like they were bullets.
They hadn't made her bleed.
They'd made her cry.
And she wept. She wept and she wept until Lance cried beside her, apologising again and again, saying how sorry he was, that he loved her, that she was his Mamá and she'd always be his Mamá.
Even far in space, too far to see her smile or hear her voice, she was still Mamá, and he was still "mi pequeño bebe." Her little baby. And he always would be, no matter how big he grew, or how much he told her he was too old. But it didn't matter.
Because he was her son. Because he was her little fallen—
"Lance? Hey buddy, you there?"
Lance sat upright, his head snapping back to reality, his thoughts filed away once more, until he had time to himself where he could pull them out, one by one, like sun-stained photographs, black and white, curling at the edges from time.
Now was not the time for nostalgia. He was meant to be helping Hunk. They were sat in the kitchen together, Lance with the translation notes from Pidge and Coran as he tried to help Hunk decipher whatever ingredients he had bought from their last planet; Jastra or something.
There had been a market, and Hunk intent of expanding his culinary skills had returned to the ship with many a prize. He had called upon Lance to help him with the food's preparations. Or at least, the translation of each to understand what they could be.
"Lance? You alright?" Hunk leaned across the counter, fingers dusted with purple powder as he pressed it on his friend's brow, mind jumping to fever. Because Lance is never quiet for long.
"Huh? Oh, yeah, yeah! Sorry I was just daydreaming," Lance said, plastering on a grin, letting the motion move his entire body as he pulled back from Hunk's touch, brushing his forehead to rid it of the powder remnants. Hunk laughed.
And then, because it was part of his ploy as goofball and court jester, Lance fakes a yawn - which turned into a proper yawn - his jaw nearly unhinging from the effort. "Come on Hunk, this is boring. We could just throw it all in and hope for the best."
"And have the oven explode? Not on my watch. Besides, it would only be the two of us clearing it up afterwards and I'd rather not have any extra work to deal with, thank you very much."
Lance shrugged when Hunk turned back to the purple "flour" looking box in his hands, satisfied that he'd managed to swing a curveball.
Hunk had known him for years, so it was sometimes a challenge to fool him. Deflecting worked better, but that didn't mean the Yellow Paladin didn't hold onto the idea that there was something bugging Lance. He would store it in his memory, then find Lance and corner the poor boy at the most inopportune times.
Then it was left to Lance to deploy Plan B; where he chose to feed Hunk tiny little titbits of not-so-bad-things-that-are-getting-me-down, just to settle the questioning. Homesickness was only the final line in his arsenal to get hunk to drop his questioning, knowing bringing it up would cause the big guy to as feel such too.
Even if it was the most effective excuse, Lance hated to use it against him. Hunk was his friend and he didn't deserve the lies, the reminders that home is far away, that Lance is the one who brought him here and should hate him for such.
But the words bring solace and peace. Or as much peace that Lance could find inside his own mind. He found it harder and harder these days; the tar consuming thoughts inside him, devouring happy memories until it left only marred, warped versions that had him hating himself all the more.
It was hard to keep fighting when even his head was against him.
"Lance?"
Oh shit, he's done it again.
"Yes Hunk I'm listening," Lance lied. But looking at his friend's face, he knew that this time, he'd been caught out. "Are you sure, buddy? Because you've been looking a little down these past few days." And so begins Hunk's attempts at interrogation.
The boy just nodded softly. He didn't want to open his mouth. He didn't have any excuses, nor silver-tongued lies to pull him from the pit before he buried himself in it. He was afraid that if he tried to answer, this time, he'd just fall apart.
Lance shuffled in his seat, uncomfortable under Hunk's burrowing stare. "Fine, I guess I'm not sleeping. I just thought it was, like my body clock, all wrong. Because we've been on Jastra for… what? Five days? And their days are like thirty odd Varga? I guess my body is still trying to figure that out."
Please buy it, please buy it, please—
Hunk gave him his classic "mom" look. "Lance, if you're tired, you know you don't have to force yourself to help me. Go chill. Lie down and what not. You've got three hours roughly till dinner is cooked. I'll come get you when it's time."
Lance saw his exit and took it. "Yeah sure thing. And if I don't wake, just save me a bowl or something. I'll probably end up getting up in the middle of the night or something stupid."
"Your bowl will be in the cooler."
"Thanks Hunk."
The blue paladin yearned for the normalcy of social interaction, but if being in the presence of his friend meant his walls were collapsing then he couldn't risk it. So he hurried from the kitchen, making an excuse to Pidge who called out to him in the corridor, telling her Hunk needed help translating before rushing to his bedroom and locking the door behind him.
His bleak, cold, uncharacteristically clean room.
There wasn't much that he kept in the terms of personal belongings.
There was a picture of his family, one that he was lucky enough to have on his person the night Shiro crashed his spaceship in the desert. It was precious to him, and kept under his pillow, so that the nights that he'd lie awake, unable to sleep, they would always been close by. He'd pull them towards him, look at their smiling faces, hoping to dream of home.
Propped up against the wall was the closest he could come to an acoustic guitar. He'd bought it off of a trader a while back; the seven-stringed instrument reminding him of his brother's hand-me-down he used to strum on, on rainy days looking out the window and being all melancholic, like he was in some dramatic music video.
He didn't play much, in space. But the guitar was another link to home, and he took what he could, so far from the familiar green and blue.
The last of Lance's possessions wasn't something he had let anyone else see. He kept it in a small grey box, hidden away, in the headboard of his bed, behind a loose panel that only he himself knew about.
It was the solace he sought, and it was that; that clear, overpowering thought that had Lance crossing the room, climbing onto his bed. With practiced precision, he had the box in his lap, hands on the clasp. He stopped before throwing the lid, eyes on the door, listening for the sound of approaching footsteps. Perhaps Pidge, or Hunk, or even Shiro who was concerned enough about Lance's quick escape to come asking for him.
Hah, as if he would be so lucky. Of course, no one came. There was no sound, from Human or Altean otherwise, and Lance felt himself relax back into the cushion of his pillow, flipping the lid.
The boy dug past the tape and the bandages, his fingers catching on the cool smooth metal of his blade that he buried beneath. Not so much a blade as it was as much a shard of glass; a perfect edge sharper than any razor he could find. Something that no one knew he'd possess, with no one to watch him as his mind danced upon the line of danger and insanity.
There were many blades he could take for himself, for such purpose; knives from the kitchen, weapons from the training hall, scalpels from the infirmary. Even a razor from his shaver in the bathroom.
But Lance was cautious. Perhaps paranoid.
What if Shiro was to notice something was up, and came in and counted the blades in his bathroom, to make sure the boy wasn't broke on the inside. What if Coran noticed the missing scalpel, what if Hunk noticed the missing knife?
They'd notice something like that. They wouldn't notice the shard of vitrified crystal, taken from a battlefield; which one, he did not know.
And as Lance held the glass, the sharpness pushed hard against his flesh, he felt the spiral of darkness well up from inside him. Not special, not needed, not strong enough, not special, not fast enough, not Altean, not good enough, not Human, not needed, not wanted, not—
The castle's alarm is what stopped him.
Shattering the silence with its high-pitched wailing, Lance almost imagined the sound of screams and tears. But none were shed for him.
"Paladins, we are almost upon the Galra fleet. Hurry, to your lions!" came Allura's voice over the comms-system, calling out for the soldiers to mount their beasts and ride, to deal bloody battle with the enemy.
Lance looked down to the blood that welled from the cuts upon his arm. There would be no time to clean himself up. It would have to wait. Protecting the Castle came first, hell, the safety of the others came first. Before him, before his pain, before his insecurities.
They came first. Every time.
Lance was the last to enter the changing room, rushing past Shiro and Hunk who were already heading to their lions. They didn't see the way Lance held his arm close to his chest, hiding the blood that seeped through the sleeve of his jacket, the way he deliberately turned his body to the side to hide the limb from view as he rushed in and Pidge rushed out.
"How many?" he called after them, watching the three charge down the corridor, faces masks of stone. "Don't know, didn't hang around to count," Pidge yelled back. "But I think this is the fleet we've been searching for. We haven't come across one this size since leaving the Javeeno system, but it's not just that. It looks like they're splitting in half. Not all of them are staying to fight us, so Allura thinks that the fleeing ships have the Red Lion. We have to get it back."
Then she's gone, chasing after Yellow and Black, leaving Lance the peace of the changing room.
Lance shed his clothes quickly, stashing his bloody jacket in some random storage locker, not in the main room, but a side room on the way to the Bridge. He hid the marks of his self-harm, concealed underneath his Paladin armour and the sleeve of his undergarment and gloves, the pain of the fresh cuts hidden under a mask of seriousness for the upcoming battle.
"Six battlecruisers," Allura was saying as he entered the Bridge, ignoring the holo-projection that filled the room with stars and the half dozen large ships. Dotted around them, flying in formation were dozens of Djalg squadrons. Their foe was the largest they had come up against, so it stood to reason that they were protecting something important. And that something had to be the Red Lion.
Everyone else had already gone ahead, Lance catching up as normal. Allura bade him good luck, to which he nodded before throwing himself down the zipline.
The Comms came online, with Shiro laying out a quick-fire strategy to find their target ship. There was a definite divide in the fleet now, Allura directing them from the Bridge that the further three main cruisers and four smaller had changed direction, heading away from them, while the remaining ships and at least two thirds of the Djalg turn to face the castle that closes in on their position.
Their guns began to light up, way before the castle's own guns would be in range. Coran scrambled for the shields as the Paladins scrambled for their lions.
Shiro's voice crackled in the Comms as Lance climbed into Blue's pilot seat, trying to ignore the pain as he gripped her controls. "Lance, you were the first to bond with your Lion, and the quickest to find a secure connection with her. I know Blue is yours, but we have no one to fly Red. I'm, going to need you to go get her. We'll keep the focus on us while you board that ship and get Red back to us.
"Remember guys, the aim isn't victory, it's buying Lance time so he can deliver the final Lion for Voltron."
Everyone yelled out in agreement, Lance's body on auto as he piloted her from her hangar, up into formation of planned approach. He slowly pulls back, allowing Black and Yellow to take the lead, Green above him as they try their best to hide Lance from view.
It's not long before the stars are filled with fire and explosions, as the Galra and Voltron engaged in a fierce battle. Black draws out his jaw blade, leaving debris in his path, trying to cut open a path for Lance to break from the battle and pursue the other half of the fleet. It is moving fast, faster as it builds up power and their window for their plan is slowly diminishing.
Allura and Coran have slowed their retreat, trying to pull them back into the fight with a constant barrage of fire from the Castle, but they're being outmanoeuvred by the numbers of Djalg and the fleet that is acting as a wall between them and their desired prize.
"Damn— Damn it! I've got some on my tail," Hunk yelled, the sounds of explosions joining his less-than-chipper tone. "They're too fast, I can't quite shake them. Pidge can you—"
"Sorry Hunk, I've got my own adoring fans. I've got too many chasing me, but I can't— Damn! There's no chance to turn and take them out, I—" An explosion rattled the communication line, everyone calling out for their youngest teammate. Lance saw the barrage of fire being laid down upon his family, Blue turning in mid-air at the lightest of touches, pulling away from the obvious path to the main ship hauling itself from the fire fight.
"I'm coming guys," he yelled, turning Blue on her heel, an ice beam freezing the three that were inbound for him. He made to push Blue into a nose dive, but Shiro's voice stopped him in his tracks. "No Lance! You need to get the last Lion. We've got this. Now go!"
"But Shiro—"
"Go!"
There was no way Lance would've been able to cleave himself a path to his family, no way to turn back once he saved them and give chase to the fleet. He knew it and Shiro knew it, taking away Lance's choice by giving him an order.
Despite everything in his being telling him no, Lance pulled hard on Blue's controls, once again speeding after the carriers far from the battle. None of the guarding Djalg noticed his approach, none slowing him down as he sped away from his family, wishing them to be safe, knowing he could do nothing for them while Red was so close, his for the taking.
Blue reached the rear of one main carrier. Her maw was strong enough to rip through the metal like it was nothing, breaching the Galra ship deep enough that the air rushed out, along with soldiers, androids and supplies. Not Lance though. Taking shelter in Blue's mouth, he held on tight until the pressure dropped and it was only him left in their immediate vicinity. But the attack had called upon the attention of others surrounding him.
Blue was in danger, but she wouldn't fit inside the breach, and there was no time for Lance to re-join her in the cockpit and pilot her to safety. This was their last chance. Too close to Everall, and the Galran's controlled systems, this was the last time they'd be given such an opportunity.
Lance couldn't turn back now. And doing what he had never done before, he ordered Blue to leave him.
When Shiro told Lance he had been the first to find a secure connection with his Lion, he would never have imagined that just with his voice, Lance could ask such a thing of his lion. With their mind link, he showed her the path, back to the Castle, back to the Paladins where she would be safe.
And with the Djalg on her tail, and her goal in mind, she left, leaving Lance on an enemy ship.
Alone. Separated from the team.