The planet around them was burning.

Lance clutched the little alien he was holding in his arms tighter as a nearby house collapsed in on itself.

"Shhh," Lance tried to sooth into her ear, talking as quietly and calmly as possible. "It's going to be okay."

Lance wasn't sure if the little alien could understand him or not, but he figured that the tone of his voice would still work to sooth the crying child. It worked on his niece and nephew when they were upset.

Of course, they had been upset about not getting ice cream or having scrapes and bruises from falling on the playground, not having their home burn around them due to an alien race trying to take over the universe.

Still, it was all he could do.

Looking around him Lance determined that that coast was clear for now, so he stood pulling the little girl closer to his chest and started running towards the Blue Lion on the far side of the city.

The team had woken up that morning to alarms ringing through the castle and Allura screaming through the speakers, "Paladins to your lions! Galra ships are attacking a nearby planet!"

Apparently, a planet only one system away had been attacked by Galran forces. The attack had been unexpected and ruthless.

The Galra hadn't been looking to conquer this planet; the Galra had been looking to destroy the planet and everything on it.

Lance wasn't sure what the species on this planet had done to the Galra to deserve complete destruction, he wasn't sure the Galra even had a reason. He tried not to wonder if the Galra had merely chosen the planet at random, or if they had attacked the planet so close to the Castle to send a message.

It didn't matter now though; the Lions had reached the planet only to see it burning.

What must have once been thriving forests were now completely gone. Rivers, lakes, and even oceans completely evaporated.

Everything was on fire.

Voltron was too late.

Lance could feel the teams emotions, their anger, fear, and grief strongly swirling between all of them as they approached the planet.

"Look for any survivors." Was Shiro's only order given to the team.

Their paladin suits were made to withstand nearly anything, but they had to be careful not to stay on the planet too long, the filters in their suits would only be able to filter out smoke for about five hours before damage would start happening to their lungs.

So the lions started to split up, all of the Galra forces had already left the system, and they couldn't chase after them without leaving this planet, and any of its survivors, to burn.

And so Lance found the first village he would start to search and started looking for any survivors.

There hadn't been any.

Lance had continued on, finding village after village and after three hours of searching, he had found less than a dozen survivors. They were mostly injured or unconscious from the smoke, and he sent them back to the castle to get treated at the castle in pods that Coran was able to send to everybody's locations.

And now, he had found the largest town yet. In fact, Lance was pretty sure that he had managed to find a city. The entire thing was now mostly rubble, but Lance could see how the buildings had probably been built like skyscrapers and could almost imagine the city as it had been before it had been destroyed.

It was all gone now.

And then, miraculously, Lance heard crying coming from the burnt out husk of what must have been a shop at one point.

He had dug the little girl out of the building just in time for it to collapse, sending dust and debris into the air in clouds of smoke and large cracking sounds that seemed to echo throughout the former city.

Lance had ducked behind some sort of wagon to block him from the dust and debris.

It was an act that had probably saved his and the little girls' life, as only a few moments later a Galran ship had flown overhead.

Lance scrambled to turn his coms on and get in touch with the rest of the team,

"Guy's I just spotted a Galra ship fly over my location. I have a survivor with me; we are heading to the Blue Lion."

Coran confirmed what he said, it seemed that there were only one or two Galra ships around the planet, or at least that was the case according to Coran. Probably just stragglers, or Galra trying to find the survivors to take as prisoners themselves.

Either way, Lance did not want to attract their attention and was glad that he had hidden Blue.

So there he was, trying to cross the city with a terrified child clinging to his chest and to make matters worse, his oxygen filter was due to stop working any second now.

The child squirmed in his arms again, almost causing him to drop her.

He stopped, bending down so that she was looking straight at him through his mask. The makeshift one that he had given her so she could breathe was easily covering half of her tiny face.

"Hey, I know you are scared, but I need you to hold on tight and not move okay? We are almost to my Lion, and then we can get you out of here."

The child still didn't speak, and Lance wondered once again if she could even understand what he was saying.

The child started crying silently, and Lance could picture her lip wobbling beneath the mask, her face screwed up tightly in fear.

He remembered being this scared, only a few years ago.

Back before the war when he was exploring the universe with the Doctor and running away from danger, before he realized what traveling with the Doctor truly meant.

He remembered the first time he had nearly died, alone and separated from the Doctor. His only link to the Doctor through the ships comlink, as the Doctor tried to talk him through defusing a bomb that was about to explode only inches from his face.

That was the first time Lance understood true fear.

But the Doctor, the Doctor lived in that fear. And what the Doctor told him that day had gotten him through the first of his battles up in space with Voltron and all the way to here.

To now.

And now it was his turn to tell this little girl, this little girl who should not have to suffer this much so young.

The little girl who had lost everything and was so, so afraid.

So Lance crouched down again, feeling the beeping indicating that his filter was depleted and the non-filtered air was going to start coming through his mask any moment now.

"Hey, look at me. We have to get going now. But I want you to do something for me, okay?"

The little girl looked him in the eyes again, her own still shinning with tears, and seemed to sense the change in his voice.

Like she knew what he was saying was important, and she nodded.

"I need you to be afraid."

The little girl's eyes widened in shock and Lance learned forwards like he was telling a secret.

"Because didn't anyone ever tell you? Fear is a superpower."

He had the little girls' attention now, and she was no longer shaking in his arms, making it much easier to carry her as he resumed his task of returning to the Blue Lion.

His arms were shaking, and his vision was beginning to fog up, but he kept talking to the little girl, repeating what he was saying in his head as he did so like a mantra as he put one foot in front of the other.

"Right now your heart is beating so hard you can feel it through your hands, there is so much blood and oxygen pumping through your brain its like rocket fuel. Right now you can run faster and fight harder than you ever have before! And you are so alert its like you can slow down time!"

Blue was only a few more meters away, which was good because Lances lungs were really starting to burn and couldn't help the coughing fit that followed his little speech. He desperately needed to get out of this air.

But the little girl was still listening to him, her large eyes shining as she looked up at him hanging on to every word.

"So remember," he rasped out as Blue's eyes lit up as they approached, and lowered her head so that they could climb safely inside.

Lance practically collapsed into the cockpit, only able to carefully set the little girl down before he was ripping off his helmet to get better access to the filtered air in the lion.

Pulling in big gasps of air he rolled over to look at the little girl who was similarly drawing in big gulps of air and looking at him expectantly, waiting for the ending of the story.

"Fear is a superpower," Lance finished carefully, helping her up into a seat and strapping her in safely.

"And it makes companions of us all."