chapter Seven

Lance slept on the couch in his room and woke to sirens blasting, on automatic he tried to jump up like he always would but found himself opening a closet without any clothes in it, then he looked around and remembered when he was as opposed to where he was. But alarms were going off and that wasn't good, he pulled his blaster out of his jacket, which he'd tossed on the desk chair before he'd collapsed on the couch. Shrugging it on, gun at the ready he ran toward the control room feeling the familiar rush of running into a battle, even if here it was unknown and more than a little surprising.

"What is it? What is going on?" Lance shouted, as he entered the room.

L.T., Lia and her mother were in the only ones in the room but they were arguing with a guard, Lance had had seen him around the Castle since he and Allura had arrived, vigilant at his duty, double and sometimes triple checking things. He'd just assumed he was good at his job but now Lance was wondering if there was something more to it.

"We can't leave, Ramon, we have to figure out how to send the King and Queen back to their time," Queen Ella was explaining.

"They should go into the bunker with the family. If the Arielist have heard they are here they could try to kill them to stop your whole line. We can't take that risk, or any risks. I must insist you leave now."

"I will not, Ramon."

"Arielists?" Lance said.

"There is no time," Ramon snapped. "There was a bomb lobbed into King Coran and Queen Ella's bedroom this morning. Thankfully she was here all night and the King is a early riser, and Ora and I found it before it went off and were able to disengage it. The note attached said they were into the Castle today. They have people inside, I know it, they know about the King and Queen, they know enough about the prophecies. We need too,"

Suddenly there was a huge explosion that rocked the whole castle. Lance moved to the control room computer brought up the outside of the castle on the main computer screen, there was more expolsions and certain vibration that Lance knew all too well. "Shit," he muttered.

"What the hell."

"Who is in charge of these Arielists?" he asked.

"A scientist named Anna, she's been rising in power for some time, she's anarchist, she's from a long line of dissenters of the McClain bloodline being allowed into the Royal line of the throne. Her bloodline can be traced to Allura's Aunt Orla.

"She built a robeast," Lance said grabbing the key for the red lion.

He heard Allura behind him. "What's going, oh my god!"

"Allura get into Blue," he shouted.

"Yes of course," she said.

"Wait! No," Ramon shouted. "You two are too important, you can't risk your lives. All the royal family needs to get underground into the safe bunker. King Coran and Laurie are already there."

Lance spun on Ramon, he looked the guard in the eye and had instinct. He picked up a key. "Take this, call your fellow guard Ora, tell her try yellow or green, whichever she wants, we are going out, that's order."

Allura looked at him eyes wide.

"It can't hurt," Lance muttered and pushing the button to bring up the chutes for the lions. "I mean it Ramon, get the hell into Black lion, now!"

"Get the other guard up here named Ora, I want her in yellow or green ASAP," Lance yelled at L.T. then he took off, knowing Allura would be on his heals.

"Ramon, how is it going?"

"I can't believe this, I'm flying the lion, Black Lion, I?"

"Good, use your all your missiles and go into as close as attack you can on the center of that robeast, right where a human heart would be. Castle control, Lia? Can you scan it, what can you and your mom tell me about this scientist," he asked watching Ramon take to flying Black like a pro; firing at the robeast, the attack Lance ordered making the the scientifically created monster stagger. Then it blew blue-hot fire from its nostrils at Ramon.

"Back up," Allura yelled, coming using one her ice blasters, as well firing her own missiles at the same area, Lance was in there too, fighting the fire with his own fire.

A another female voice joined the fray. "Wow, I'm here as ordered."

"Ora?" Lance asked not believing he'd been right, he checked his screens and the view port windows and saw the green lion come in blasting.

Lia came up on the screen. "The power center is where you guessed it, Lance. It's already down to 80 percent, if all four lions keep attacking there, you'll destroy it."

"Lia, make sure the rest of my men are fighting the ground troops, and I would really like it if you, your brother and mother would."

"Can it Ramon, we don't run from fights, I've got your men doing their jobs and I'm running castle defenses."

"Where is L.T.," Lance asked.

"He decided to try to fly yellow," Lia said. "It didn't work, so he joined the lines."

Ramon growled as he went in for another assault on the robeast.

"Just focus on our fight Ramon, Allura you and I going to the Alpha 2 Attack. Ramon, Orla, keep doing what you are doing, Go."

"Go," they all yelled.

Fifteen minutes later the robeast fell, the lions landed and the few Arielists left attempting to attack the Castle were all falling in surrender. They'd only had the element of surprise and the strong arm of a robeast on their side. And the hope they'd killed the King and/or Queen in their beds. As Lance, Allura, Ramon and Ora walked into the control, Lance saw L.T. being helped in by another castle guard who looked worse for wear than L.T. but L.T. did seem to have a bit of a limp.

"Really, Charlie, I'm fine."

"L.T. I get that but if I can't make you go to the medbay, I have to make sure you get here in one piece. Hey, boss, sweet Black Lion!"

L.T. nodded. "Well, you find us two pilots."

Lance nodded. "I actually want to try three more."

He handed his key Lia. "Try red."

"Red? But wouldn't I be more suited for Blue?"

"No,' Lance said.

Allura looked at him and she nodded, her mind putting things together. "L.T.," she walked over to him and handed him the blue key. "Try blue."

"And you, Charlie is it?"

"Uh, yeah. Try yellow. Go on do it now, seeing more lions in the air won't hurt with closing up and making sure people know this battle is over and done," Lance said. "How many injured?"

Queen Ella answered. "Too many on both sides, but no causalties, we got lucky I think," she watched her two children head out to the lions. "If L.T. gets turned down by another lion, I don't know if I can make him feel..."

She was cut off by a large 'woohoo' on the audio communications and then her son's face on the screen. "Mom, check it out," he shouted as he fly blue lion out of the lake.

"You're not the only one who gets to show off!" Lia cut off his feed and there she was in the air with red lion. "Oh wow, this is awesome."

"This has been the weirdest day," the guard named Charlie said showing up in the air between the two siblings in the yellow lion.

"Queen Ella, I give you your Voltron Force, Ramon in Black, Princess Lia in Red, Prince L.T. in Blue, Ora in Green and Charlie in Yellow."

Ella smiled, but Lance felt her eyes on him and she stepped forward. "How did you know?"

Lance shrugged. "I didn't, it was just an instinct, something to try. I kept thinking L.T. was supposed to fly one of them, Lia too. I don't know more I got to know them more it felt like he was more like Allura and she was more like me. The crisis today just brought up the other three. They stood out, when they needed too, how they needed. I know Ramon just mentioned Ora, but it was how he did it. They are a team. Voltron Force is a team."

"That sounds thought out," Both Ella and Allura said.

Lance shrugged. "Whatever it worked. Can you get us home?" he asked Queen Ella.

Queen Ella sighed. "Lia and I are closer, but not yet. I'm sorry."

L.T. came up running back up. "Thank you," he said running to Lance and Allura. "Thank you, both."

Allura pointed to Lance. "He figured it out, I just followed his line of thought."

"Still, uh, can you tell us how to move a meteor. Lia already knows where we can move it to so it won't endanger anyone else, but I mean, do we just form Voltron and push?"

"Give or take," Lance said, he glanced at Allura. "I should give them a rundown, do you want..."

"I'll leave that to you, your the better pilot, and it's about piloting mostly. I'm going to go see how I can help with the injured and helping out with the damage to the town and the Castle."

Lance nodded, he watched Allura walked away and he blew out a breath. L.T. walked closer to him. "Sorry we can't send you back as easily as we grabbed you, we'll be forever grateful you figured out who should be in the lions."

Lance nodded, thinking he got lucky, it was just his gut talking in the moment while there was danger. "Was that Arielist Anna caught?"

Ramon shook his head and stopped talking into the communicator he was speaking into to his men over the castle. "No, she never gets her hands dirty. She's still out there, but this, this has to be the first of many."

"Good thing we just became the Voltron Force then," Charlie said.

Lia hurried over to them. "Can we get this meteor briefing over with, I really need to help mom with operation send-back."

"Yeah, let's go talk in your Dad's office," Lance said leading the way to what was currently Keith's office off the control room in his present.

~~.~~

Keith grumbled as he carefully attempted to sign his name on a report legibly with his left hand. His right hand in a cast, and he was the lucky one. Hunk had a broken leg, and Pidge had separated his left shoulder and broken his left wrist. They were all a mess, and they all had to fly out there still hurt and battle Drule forces and robeasts that Keith felt they kept defeating by the skin of the teeth by sheer will alone.

He didn't know how they kept winning. It was getting closer and closer every time, it was only a matter of time. It'd been two days now since the last attack, and he felt like Zarkon and Lotor where just laughing at them now, watching them squirm all injured and unnumbered. They knew by now that Lance and Allura were missing.

Lotor had even had the gaul to come over the communications to claim they had sent Allura with Lance as some bodyguard to keep them them apart, to keep him from possessing his love. It'd made Keith sick to think of beautiful, sweet, amazingly empathetic Allura anywhere near that sick perverted Drule Prince. That twisted piece of work, who deserved to be dead.

If they lost in the next battle, Keith sure as hell was going to try to make sure that Lotor went down with him. But Keith didn't want to lose, what he wanted was to find out where Lance and Allura were. Where the hell were they? The teams spirits were completely down and Keith found he was craving Lance's sarcasm, his sense of humor to offset the grim mood they were all in. He kept them light, he kept them from taking the hardness of their life too seriously and kept them falling under. Allura kept them smiling, with her youth, her enthusiasm for being alive and optimistic nature to keep on going, no matter the hardship. Allura always smiled.

He missed her smile. Especially the shy smile she saved for only him, with the rosy blush that came up on her cheeks. He tried not to encourage her crush, he tried not feel anything back for but friendship and a kinship for a teammate but she was beautiful, she was so strong. Keith sighed.

"Missing them," Hunk said from the doorway of his office.

"Yeah," Keith said.

He hobbled in on his crutches. "I don't get where they went, I still don't like and still think we're being dense that it wasn't the Drules."

"It wasn't, they'd have made a mention by now if it was and you heard Lotor the other day."

"Perverted bastard," Hunk muttered. "Don't like this waiting, they know we're two men down, they know we're against the wall and they do this?"

"I know."

Pidge showed up at the door. "I have good news."

Hunk and Keith looked at each other, Keith found he had no idea what could possible be considered good news, unless it was about Lance and Allura but he asked anyway. "What?"

"Sven finally got back to us, he apologizes for being so late, he and Romelle were out of town. He said he is on his way, and that Prince Bandor is coming with him, he's offered to fly Red lion, if red will take him."

Keith nodded. "I hope that works, because we do need all the help we can get."

"I just wish Lance and Allura would come back. Nothing feels right without them here. Everything feels so...gloomy." Pidge muttered, wincing a bit as he moved the wrong way for his healing wrist and sensitive shoulder.

"Coran says they'll return, I don't know what to believe," Keith said, thoughts occurring to him that he didn't want to think about at all. The two of them had disappeared completely, without a trace, there were no leads, they had no way to look for them. There was no hope at all, except the word of the spirit of Allura's father. And Keith had had experience with King Alfor before but Alfor wasn't talking to him this time.

Keith had even tried to talk to Allura with his mind, they'd done it before but all his thoughts, everything he tried to send out to her, nothing came back to him.

He looked at the faces of Hunk and Pidge, the both looked as dejected, fatigued and hurt as him, he didn't want to take away any more hope - if they still had them. "It'll get better. Sven and Bandor will help. I'm sure Red will fly for Bandor, I am. It will work. King Alfor's always been right before, so Allura and Lance, they'll come back."

"Right," Hunk and Pidge said, trying to smile. Keith joined them. None of them really managed.

~~.~~

Coran stood just outside Keith's office, heard the sad conversation between the three members of the Voltron Force, it was going on a full week now that Allura and Lance were gone. It'd been longer than he expected, Sven and Prince Bandor from Pollux were coming to replace them. Coran made his way back down to where his King lay at rest.

He lit the candles around Alfor's last resting place, before he even kneeled Alfor's spirit rose before him.

You grow impatient Coran.

"My King, we are at war and Lance and Allura both bring much to the team, more than just the lions they pilot."

Yes, laughter and hope, both of them in their own ways.

"Yes, they are still returning? I thought it would have occurred by now, King Alfor?"

Time works on its own pace. A mission has been completed and now there are things for them to learn. When that is done the light will open and all that has happened here will erase.

"Erase?" Coran said, shocked and confused. "King Alfor what do you mean?"

As I said before when they return everything shall return to place, you needn't worry about what occurs in their absence.

Coran watched his King disappear into the ether once again and he straightened back up and snuffed out the candles. He felt more certain that the Princess and the red lion pilot would return, but he was uneasy about what that return would bring, and what it all meant. All he knew was it was best that they return, a team wasn't whole without all its parts, and while Coran was sure Sven would bring energy back to Keith, Hunk and Pidge, he doubted he'd fill the whole left by Lance and Allura.