"Please state your perceived condition, Blue Paladin."
The question throws him for a loop. Lance blinks and stops scratching his arm. How does he feel? He woke up a week ago. He's been pretty isolated, healing up.
"I don't know," he replies honestly, his ears flicking. "I... there was something important. I think I forgot. Es un dolor."
The world is wavy in his head. It shudders when he stops to remember.
"Maybe if I could see my lion, it'd be better. Blue helps me think."
The voice from the walls is quiet, for a while.
Something paws at him. He almost feels the sensation in his mind, gentle prods from something ancient. But it's weak, and Lance has to meet it halfway.
Lance worries his lip with a sharp tooth, trying to think and remember. For some reason, ever since a few days ago, his brain is cloudy. He can remember times that it wasn't, before that, but there's a lot of pain... and it takes effort. Like walking through maple syrup.
Has he been here before?
He woke up and there was a shirt in the cell. Lance put it on like a robot, barely able to go through the motions. There were gloves with thick fingertips, too, but Lance kept them in his pocket. They looked too small for him.
Lance doesn't have his bayard. This isn't a castle. Why is that wrong, why does everything feel wrong? What even is maple syrup? Lance doesn't know why he's thinking about it, because he's been eating nutrient sponge for weeks because he's been stuck in the Galran battleship!
...Lance is in the Galran Battleship. His eyes widen and he searches around him like a rat caught in a trap, some layer of ice he's had over his entire mind cracking into pieces. He feels a slight thrum in his mind before it quiets, like a lion's purr.
"Blue Paladin is experiencing a relapse. This is the third in seven newticks. Blue paladin will be processed to cold storage assuming the mental glamour continues to be ineffectual. Capturing the Voltron Lions remains priority, and as Voltron has still not taken the bait I recommend-"
Lance isn't having a relapse! He's finally remembering! Lance scrambles out of his chair and darts for the door, his claws skittering as he tries to get it open. It's a hydraulic door. There's no handle. Lance'll get it open anyway, because he can't forget again. No, he won't forget again. The door opens, and behind it is an armed guard. This one has a gun instead of a stick. Lance can work with that, he just has to leave and-
"Do not use lethal force to secure the Paladin until we can crack the Lion's barrier!"
The world shivers. He hears a shrill sound in the back of his ears.
The guard is Hunk, training a cannon on him.
No, it's not.
The guard is Pidge, grapple gleaming with electricity.
No way.
The guard is Keith, with his sword at the ready.
Lance lashes out, finds purchase on fur in the gaps of armor. He snatches the gun, even though what he sees is Shiro, hand glowing at Lance's neck. He swings his gun down and-
Stops.
Allura glares at him, some kind of elf war goddess.
"Back OFF!" He grunts, shoving the guard-who-is-not-Allura with the gun he's stolen. The guard hits the wall and slips down, and Lance can hear Allura in pain. It's not real. It's not real. It's not-
He's already running down the hallway. He pulls the gloves out of his pockets and tugs them on. They're too short, but shooting a gun barehanded messes with your hands. They click and his claws are hidden away.
"Blue Paladin is attempting escape for the third time. Seal doors Theta and Lambda and standby."
Lance has a gun. He's not going under again, they can't make him. He's the blue paladin! He's Lance McClain, he was a prisoner and an experiment of the Galra, and he's not ever going to go back to being blurred out like that. No matter what psychological magic they try to use, he has to come back. Lance is terrified that next time he'll go down for good.
He makes it to the fork in the hallway where the doors are. One is already starting to close, and without thinking he skids across the metal floor, slipping under it. He nearly catches his stolen gun on the lip of the door, that's how close his call is. He gets up and sees more guards that fade between being Voltron Paladins and Galra grunts. He can't open fire. Lance just can't. He won't shoot his teammates.
The galra aren't that picky, and laserfire singes his fur. Lance ducks behind a metal ship's brace and scatters fire on a group that actually looks like Galra.
Man, could Lance use a break. Lance could really, really use a break.
KABLAM!
Sound fills the hallway as something cannons itself against the hull of the ship. Screeching metal echoes and galra go down, clutching their ears. Lance among them. He tumbles as the floor tilts. This ship doesn't have windows. Did someone crash their battle cruiser? What the hell is-
The roar of a lion shakes Zarkon's ship.
Suddenly, Lance has to get out even more than he did before. He's not hallucinating this. All those guards went down, the floor is actually a few degrees diagonal. Lance wracks his brain. How is he going to find his team? What did they do last time?
Last time, Lance and Hunk ran interference, Shiro ran outright assault, and Pidge snuck in with Keith to steal back the Red Lion.
If they're attacking, that means that Team Voltron is trying to get something back. Whether it's Lance or the Blue Lion, that doesn't matter. What matters is that Lance meets them there.
Lance sprints past the soldiers still incapacitated by the high-pitched squeal of metal and snags an arm, blasting it off with his stolen gun. The guard hits the floor, helmet coming off. He runs off, slinging the helmet and arm over his shoulder before he uses it to open a door. The Blue Lion isn't supposed to be on this ship. It's supposed to be across the galaxy, worlds away. But Lance has been given nothing but lies and grief.
Lance ignores the shimmer of magic he keeps seeing.
He might as well go look where his teammates would go look. The Blue Lion should be in an extremely secure hangar protected by loads and loads of guards. Lance still can't read the signs and digital screens on the ship, but he can remember the hallways. The cells are clustered together. The throne room is at the opposite end of the ship, near the front. And like the castle, the loading bay for the lions should be somewhere behind the throne room. Altean ships and Galran ships are organized like each other. Holodeck, he remembers.
Lance puts on the helmet. His ears barely fit under it, the sound muffled.
Then he keeps going, running for the docking bay at the back and bottom of the ship. He doesn't stop to second-guess himself. Lance'll have time for panic later. Right now, he can't forget.
The scientist over the cell intercom doesn't bother to take further action. He's already being called to meet with the druids.
The Voltron Paladins have attacked the ship with no warning. Not even a blip on the hyperdrive warp sensor. Their bait, the redirected signal of the Blue Lion, has worked too well.
AN: And the rescue action begins! If it felt too sudden, I just thought Lance could use being thrown a bone. Glad you enjoyed the last chapter, more to come!