Home not so sweet home
AN: As I have said with my other recent posts, I WILL return to my older fics, I just want to let my muse run free for a little while before I put her back in her cage again. This is a oneshot that might become a two shot, but I'm not going to take up seriously writing for this series until I get some of my older works done. This is just an idea that has been running around in my head that wouldn't leave until I wrote it out. I had this almost fished several days ago, but then 'Fortress of Deception' aired and I had to completely rewrite it. Then another author posted a new fic and I was basically forced to scrap the entire first 'chapter' leaving me with this.
I do not own Sym-Bionic Titan, if I did Lance's cover would have been Ilana's overprotective boyfriend and not her brother (also there would be more focus on Ilana instead of overly focusing on Lance every episode.)
Princess 'Acting Queen' Ilana frowned as she moved through what she was positive to be one of the few remaining intact buildings on Galaluna.
It had been a little over a year since she had last set foot on her home planet. A year of living in exile on a backwater planet tucked away in the farthest corner of the galaxy. It had been an interesting experience, and she would be lying if she said that it had been completely unbearable. If anything she would say that it was like a vacation, less than she normally had but far from 'roughing it' as humans would say.
She had learned a great deal, and much had happened in that time. She could honestly say that she had many happy memories, some of the happiest in her life in fact. But that was then, this was now.
After a year of hiding and doing their best to avoid drawing attention to themselves, it had finally become apparent just why her father had selected Lance to be her guardian. He might not have been their best, the strongest or the smartest, but in other ways he was all of these and more.
His level of skill in combat was beyond astounding, head and shoulders above nearly all of his peers. But what truly made him special, what made him unique was his age.
At the age of sixteen, he was easily one of the five greatest warriors their planet had ever produced. As time passed he would only become stronger, faster, and more skilled. Combined with the Titan he was more than just a force to be reckoned with. General Modula knew all of their planets secrets and everything about their military strength, all save the Titan.
A promising young soldier combined with the only weapon they had Modula was unaware of had turned out to be their Ace in the Hole, their only chance for victory in this war.
Silently she mused that Lance's unorthodox thinking and willingness to break the rules were another aspect that made him dangerous. That was a side of him that she had come to appreciate and enjoy the company of greatly so in recent months.
With a tiny smirk gracing her features she paused to bow respectfully to the guard waiting at the door. He saluted her before opening the passageway then returned to his post.
"I had forgotten just how…stuffy being formal all the time can be," a quiet voice echoed in the back of her mind. Only a few days had passed since her return and she was already missing the freedom of being a lowly 'civilian'. She had to be careful with her posture, her choice of words, even the clothes she now wore.
"Calm down, don't let everything get to you at once. Focus on the now and what is within your power to control," 'Lance' said to her.
That was something else that she had grown accustomed to in the latter months of her exile. There were times that she swore she could hear him speaking to her, even when he was a great distance away from her. She wasn't so naive as to believe that it was telepathy of some sort, and Octus has assured her that it was not connected to their forming Titan.
Lance had proposed that it could have been her 'thinking' like him, that she had spent enough time around him to know how he would think or react to certain situations. He even admitted to having the same thing from time to time with General Modula or her father 'speaking' to him. When pressed if he ever heard her voice however the Corporal quickly clamed up and the subject was a closed matter.
Reaching the end of the passage way, she waited for the doors sensor to detect her and open.
Several seconds passed before they did, half way and came to a screeching halt, stuck between opening and remaining stuck the automatic doors shook and shuttered.
Letting out a sigh of aggravation she growled before lifting the end of her skirt several inches and delivered a fierce kick to the stubborn device.
Sure enough it quickly opened the rest of the way allowing her entrance. She could see several technicians quickly approaching her, most offering her apologies, some offering excuses while only one out of the entire group actually went to examine the door to see what was wrong with it. Taking a momentary glance at the lone technician she made sure to remember his face.
"I'll see if Octus can find more suitable work for this one," she mentally noted. It was something passive she had been doing since arriving and the liberation of the planet, taking note of people who actually did their job were in short supply from what she had observed thus far, and the few who had were the ones she was making sure to keep close to her.
Despite her private ponderings, she had been keeping track of what the others had been saying, so with a polite and as honest a smile as she could plaster she accepted their apologies and pardoned them of their 'error' with the door before politely ordering them to get back to their tasks.
As the technicians scurried about returning to their responsibilities, she moved towards the back of the massive building. It had once been the hanger bay of a starport, but due to its close proximity of the palace and the current state of affairs she had temporarily altered its purpose to that of a defense post.
General Modula had been quick to destroy most of the planets defenses, be it a fighter craft or any sort of armor or weapon that might be used by the rebels. What they had found left was less than five percent of their fighting forces intact. Three dozen fighters and one frigate was all that remained of Galaluna's once fearsome armada, while their armored division was less than a dozen strong and contained only two functional Manus units.
Though he had been gravely injured, Modula had escaped, and given their current military strength pursuit was out of the question. Sighing mentally, she reminded herself that even security patrols were out of the question. What few defenses they could find or repair to working order had been moved as close to the palace as possible, for at the moment they were nearly the only defense Galaluna had.
As she reached the back of the hanger she felt her spirits rise however as she reached her destination.
Lance's Manus armor.
It was in bad condition, worse than she could recall ever seeing it back on earth, but it was still in far better shape than it had been when they found it after the liberation of their world. They had used Titan to deal with the majority of the Mutraddi Ultra Beasts and most of the Mutraddi forces in general, but then General Modula himself challenged them. Lance instructed them to separate and search for her father while he dealt with Modula.
Had it been anyone else she wouldn't have agreed, but she trusted Lance, she knew he was skilled and knew he could handle himself.
She knew that he would not die, not if he promised.
When they returned with her father and a small army in toe, the sight that met them nearly turned her blood to ice.
Lance had been torn out from his armor, and had suffered greatly at the General's hands. It was then that she understood what he had been trying to do, why he had sent her and Octus to free her father and rally the people.
With no Ultra Beasts and few remaining Mutraddi, Modula was alone. As powerful as he was and as skilled as he was in combat, even he had not emerged from his duel with Lance unscathed. Beating on an unconscious teenager was one thing, but to fight the entire population of an angered planet was another.
Pity they never had the chance to land a blow on him.
It had been said before that Lance would in time be the most dangerous soldier Galaluna had ever produced. That day however, under the failing light of the sun, the people, and more importantly Modula learned that Ilana was the most dangerous being Galaluna had ever produced.
There was a part of her that was ashamed at how she had reacted, how she had fought before the eyes of not only her father, but a good number of her people. 'Street fighting' was what earthlings called it, uncouth and uncivilized was what her people would probably label it. It hadn't been so much of a fight as it had been a one sided beating, but at the time she didn't care, nothing mattered, not her father, not her people, nothing.
He had still managed to escape, but she knew his pride had been shattered beyond repair. He would return, though not in person she wagered, not until she had been slain.
By virtue of the divine Lance had survived, barely, and even now his life was in danger. She banished the thought as she continued to inspect the armor before her. Wires were exposed, armor panels were missing, and it looked like someone had taken a can opener to it.
Still, it was safe, and in time it would be back in operating condition just as its pilot.
That had been another of her less than stellar moments, and she knew that her people were watching, judging her actions to see if she was indeed ready for the responsibility to rule.
It had been by sheer chance that she happened upon the armor as it was being harvested for parts to repair the other Manus armor they had found earlier. To say she had been furious would have been an understatement.
The men tried to explain to the 'inexperienced' princess that there was nothing special or unique about Lance's armor, and that any Manus armor unit could be used for the Sym-bionic fusion. They were simply taking what little functioning material they could from a now defunct unit to get the other up and running should it be needed.
Her temper had been on its fringes at that point, but then one of the engineers crossed the line.
He calmly informed her that it was within his right and his authority to salvage the armor unit.
With a voice that made the hairs on the back of their necks stand on end, Ilana calmly replied that it was within her right and her authority to have him sent through the Rift Gate without so much as a space suit.
She could still hear her words echoing in her mind. It was yet another strike against her, another mistake she had made in her short 'rule' that she knew was going to be remembered far longer than any good she did.
"Princess Ilana, the ruler who chewed out the chief engineer of Galaluna's armed division because he dared deface her boyfriends Manus armor," she scoffed to herself, never mind the fact she had liberated the planet from a madman, never mind the fact she had ended an occupation that had lasted an entire year, no, she would go down in history as the little princess that ticked off and chewed out every important figure her planet had during its weakest hour.
"God I'm turning into Lance," the princess muttered to herself.
In light of her outburst she made another mistake, a slip of the tongue that while minor she knew would be remember for just as long as what brought it on. She had ordered Lance's Manus armor to be repaired, rebuilt, and 'pimped out' before she promptly face palmed at the earth term that had slipped out.
With a groan of frustration she then reworded her instructions, that they were to return it not only to full operating condition, but that they were to make it aesthetically fitting for her people's greatest hero.
That they understood. She left, and silently prayed to the Goddesses that Octus never caught wind of her slip, and that he never attempted to explain what 'pimping out' meant.
As for her decision regarding Lance's armor, it had been two fold. The first was that she had learned over the course of her time on earth that men had an unusual fixation with anything that they perceived as their property, especially with anything that was sentimental in nature.
It had been only a few months before returning home that Lance had begun telling her about his past. It was never much, just bits and pieces here and there. But one of the pieces that he had revealed to her was how he received his first demerit and major black mark on his record.
She was surprised at first when he told her about the fight that had taken place on the day he was supposed to be presented with the Medal of Excellence, but when he revealed that the Manus armor he used to fight Baron that day was the very same armor he now used, she realized just how important it was to him, that in his mind the armor was 'his'. Given how protective he was of his car that he and Octus built, she knew he must have held it in even higher regard.
The second reason was that as she learned about Lance and his past, she saw just how often he was overlooked or passed over and unnoticed. He worked hard, and despite his attitude there was no excuse for him to have been overlooked to the point he had been. He might not have been commander material, but he had fought and earned more than the rank of Corporal for sure.
At first she thought of giving him several of her peoples highest awards and medals, but quickly realized that they would mean little if anything to him. Her second idea had been to have him assigned as her full time bodyguard, but she realized that would appear to be showing favoritism. Her third and final idea had been to grant him several promotions, all of which he had earned by this point, but again she realized this could appear to others as a way of showing favoritism.
So when this little situation came up, she knew she had found what she was looking for, a way to not only reward Lance for all that he had done (even if it was far from being what he deserved in her mind) but make sure he was in some way noticed for once and not simply swept under the rug. Anytime he was seen in his armor he would be recognized as the hero of her people.
There had been few changes from what she could tell, and for that she was actually thankful, she wanted him to be recognized, not a beacon. Still she knew it would take some time before it was finished.
Satisfied that everything was developing as well as could be expected, she left the hanger and made her way to her second and final personal destination of the day.
As she activated her Corus armor, she idly mused if there had ever been a ruler in the history of her people to travel via personal power armor, but quickly pushed the thought aside as she surveyed the city below.
Crumbling buildings dotted the landscape like craters on earth's moon, the few buildings that still stood that is. She remembered when the land was sprawling with vast cities beyond imagination, but now all that stood were reminders of just how terrible war really was.
"I don't know which is worst, how bad things are, or that it was like this when we arrived," she asked herself as she noticed a building collapse on its own free will just as she passed it. Modula seemed to have been driven to completely destroying the planet rather than actually ruling over it.
"So much death, so much destruction, it will take many years for us to rebuild and recover from this," she thought before once again 'hearing' Lance respond to her. "True, but time is one thing that will always exist. Anything can be fixed; it just takes time and effort."
Feeling her lip tug slightly, she landed outside the palace, the one building that Modula had left fully intact on all of Galaluna, and deactivated her armor.
There to greet her were several members of the Royal Guard who she greeted kindly and exchanged pleasantries with, though this was little more than her running on 'auto pilot' as she had come to call it. Again it was something she had picked up from her former guardian, the ability to speak with others without actually thinking. A part of her mind heard them, and she for all appearances she was actually conversing with them. The only time this was actually true however was on the off chance a certain word or name came up in the conversation, otherwise her thoughts were elsewhere on more important matters.
Once again the sound of her heeled boots clicking echoed through an empty hallway. There were few people in the royal palace at this time of the day, though it was crowded during the night as she had opened its doors to the people whose homes had been destroyed. Rebuilding took time, time and people. Her experience ruling was limited but she had learned a few things during her exile.
Coming to a stop, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath before opening the door before her.
She remembered once upon a time when the immense room that stretched on further than the eye could see had been the royal banquet hall. She remembered the festivals, the dances, the many occasions it had been filled with society's upper class and elite. Now however it was lined with makeshift beds and cots, filled with the wounded, the injured, and the dying.
As she made her way through the isle, feeling a thick and heavy miasma settle in her heart, she again wondered just how her people could think of her as their 'hope' how she could possibly be anything that brought light to their hearts or minds.
Hearing a wet hacking cough, she paused to see a soldier struggling to rise and salute her.
Without a second thought she quickly approached the man and knelt at his side, placing one hand upon his chest and gripping his raised wrist with the other.
"Shhh, rest, save your strength for now," she assured the man as she helped him lie back. Seeing him weakly nod, she offered a small smile as she took hold of his hand with both of hers. It was a small thing really, a display of kindness she herself had not known for most of her life. The sheer power that could be displayed and given to another through simple contact had surprised her, but it was at this time the only thing she could offer the many brave souls who now surrounded her.
Rising to her feet, she felt a lump in her throat, the weight of the responsibility on her thin shoulders was crushing, and for the first time in over a year, she was completely alone in dealing with it.
It took her far longer to reach her next destination than she had hoped, but after repeating the incident from before with several others who seemed to be determined to show 'proper respect and honor' to her she finally reached the back of the massive room, a set of double doors the led to the storage room where extra chairs had once been kept.
She had only taken three steps into the room before she felt an honest and true smile grow across her visage.
"Father?"
The large man's head turned, and while it took several seconds he responded in kind.
"Ilana, I wasn't expecting to see you so soon."
The princess took seat in the chair at his bedside.
The father and daughter, reunited yet again spoke for only a few minutes. Time was precious, and unfortunately she still had many other responsibilities to take care of, but she made sure to steal away a few minutes every day to visit what in her mind was the most important place on Galaluna at this time. She was always careful to not bring up too much of what was happening with her father, he was recovering but was still weak from what he had endured over the last year. Positive things, good news, these were the reports she would bring him, and though they were few they were the only comforting things she could bring him at this time. She had sought his advice and guidance on more important matters, but those few exceptions aside her visits were always on the positive side of things.
Biding her father farewell, she gathered her strength as she rose and turned to the room's second bed.
Unlike her father who was covered in bandages, but for the most part recovered and merely resting to regain his strength, this beds occupant was in far worst shape.
Both arms and one of his legs were in crude splints, the best they could offer at this time as medical supplies were still in short supply and reserved for dire emergences. His body covered in cloth bandages as her father, his face was the only thing she could even see. Her heart ached at the sight of his eyes swollen shut and the bruises that colored his face. Perhaps the worst was the machince he was hooked up to, the name escaped her but she knew that Octus had built it from memory based on an earth device. The exact specifics were unknown to her, but he had explained that it was basically breathing for him until his lungs were able to work on their own again.
"Lance…"
Four days had passed since they returned; four days had passed since she had heard the voice of the young man who had protected her with his life.
"Lance…I…things are…doing better, they found a second Manus armor today, and Octus thinks he might have long distance communications restored by tomorrow, we'll be able to contact our old allies for help, supplies…" pausing when her voice started to crack she knelt at his side and gripped his hand in hers.
Thankful that her back was to her father and that he couldn't see the strong front she had put up crumbling, she struggled to maintain what self-control she had left.
"Lance…please wake up…I need your help…I need your strength," she whispered.
It might have been her imagination, but she thought she felt his hand tighten ever so slightly in hers.
"Cor sine corpus possum vixi unicus parumper," she begged before regaining her composure and giving his hand one last squeeze. Rising, she bade her father farewell as she returned to face the growing epidemic of a crumbling people. They looked to her for strength, and for as long as she could she would give it. She could only hope however that her own source of strength would soon return to her.
AN: Yeah, it usually takes me awhile to get characters frame of mind set so I can write them; hopefully I didn't butcher anyone here. I felt that there was already enough focus on Lance both here on the site and in the show, so I wanted to put a little spotlight on Ilana. I might do more with this but at this time my other works take precedence to this one. If anything this might become a series of one shot drabbles. As for what Ilana said to Lance at the end, well, it's not really a secret, just another language lol, it's something for readers to try and figure out if they want to.
Till next time, ja ne.