"Injured," Veronica tapped her foot on the floor as a doctor wrapped up Lance's arm, "You know mom knows more than you let on, right?"

"According to Iverson, she's feared in my line of work," Lance nodded solemnly, "I think the rumor is that 'B1s mother will kill you before B1 can pull his gun out'-OUCH!"

Veronica smacked him upside the head, "Mom DOESN'T know you're been holding a GUN! Its one of the FEW things we've been able to keep her in the dark about. That woman is clairvoyant."

"That woman is a mother," the doctor chimed in, finishing his wrapping, "and if she's anything like my mother, then Sherlock Holms couldn't hold a candle to her. Now, I want you to stay the night. Just to make sure everything's ok."

"Awww, com'on," Lance whined, "I dun'wanna!"

"Too bad," the doctor said turning and leaving the room, "You're already checked in and guards are outside the door. No more unauthorized adventures on my watch."

"I GET VISITORS, RIGHT?"

()

After his mother had come in to make sure he had eaten his dinner and was going to be ok, the Paladins and Shiro got their turn.

They discussed each of their missions and what they had done. Pidge and Allura both expressed their vehement dislike for the way Lance had tricked them.

"I said I was sorry," Lance shrugged, "But I was SO close to finishing one of my operations."

"What was that?"

"What operations does B section actually do?!" Allura stressed. Lance had always danced around the topic.

"…you havn't figured it out yet?" Lance asked and they just glared. So he sighed and explained.

"I…well, B section is the force that bites back. Being part of a super secret agency tends to go to peoples heads. B section keeps everyone else humble. If someone, oh, I don't know, decides the best course of action is to side with a homicidal alien race against a portion of earth, B section takes care of them."

"By that you mean…"

"We arrest them," Lance smiled at Hunk who looked worried, "Sometimes we have to kill them, but only if they resist…or if the situation demands it."

"So all those agents that sided with Sendak?"

"Every agent that turned its back on the earth, regardless of siding with Sendak or not, I made sure they were executed," Lance said, his tone firm and his face stern, "The agency has no room for idiots like that."

"Isn't that an abuse of power itself?"

Lance shrugged, "That's why everything I do get's written down. Even my time off the job I have to turn in as a report. My orders and requests are dealt with by the council themselves. And that's why there's always ever just one B. BUT NOW THAT'S CHANGED!"

He beamed, and the others relaxed instinctively.

"So what's B2 all about?"

"Well," Lance said, still estatic, "that means there's two main missions, one of which is self preservation, the first one and the one I was trained under. The second one is Seek and Find. If those two ever clash, then I get to chose! We get to chose!"

"Which….meeeeeaaaaannnnss…"

Lance blushed a little, "It means I can train without worry. Tradition used to be that B's were trained until the trainer died."

"Ohhh," they all suddenly seemed very interested in their hands or feet.

"What?"

"Well…we read about what happened to your trainer," Hunk said, coming clean first, "and we're really sorry about that."

"What?" Lance was confused.

"The file on your trainers last mission that you wrote…we…kinda read it."

"Ooooo," Lance laughed, "The story you read was a fake."

"A fake?!"

"So you didn't kill anyone?" hunk was relieved. The thought of a child killing anyone was a little terrifying.

"Eeeeehhh," Lance made a face, "I did, but not who the report said I did. Anyway, the report was made to lure the two-timers out and make sure they came to me. I had a ton of things to do on top of homework, can you blame me for failing physics?"

"Don't blame others for your lack of intelligence."

"I tried to stop them from asking about it," Shiro said, but didn't look like he really tried at all.

"What ever happened to 'you had a good reason' stance you guys had this earlier?"

"that was when everything looked like it would blow up if we pushed the wrong buttons at the wrong time," Hunk explained in his usual confusing way.

"What Hunk said is that we wanted to wait till you had calmed down some before we interrogated you and then we forgot until now."

()

"I was accepted into the agency's training program when I was about 9. My trainer was Agent Blue-"

"You're kidding," Pidge grimaced.

"No," Lance grinned, "He liked being called Agent Blue because his code was B1U3. 'Blue' was easier to say and to remember. He was a good teacher. Out of all the other kids that started at the same time, I excelled way ahead of them. You know Agent K in the MIB movies? Think of him but younger, better looking, and better humored.

"about the time I started training, a fourth planet wanted to join our trio. They were much more advanced than all three of us and they truly had amazing fighting power. The council was split on the decision to accept them or not," Lance laughed, "I remember I asked him which side he was on and he told me that a field agent does his job. And if the agent does his job well, then that would reflect in how the council would behave."

"That's double talk," Shrio said scowling.

"Don't get ahead of the story," Lance chided, "but you're right. At the time I thought he meant to not worry about it and it would just work out so long as we did a good job. With the rising tension, however, our already established alliance started to break apart. The fourth planet, the Rodakkin, were not only militarily strong, but politically wise. They knew what they were doing from start to finish.

"The only thing standing in their way was the agency. We were intermingled with all the races of all three planets. We had a bond with each other than we didn't have outside of that badge. While the Rodakkin were trying to tear everyone apart, we stayed together.

"You guys probably wont believe this, but Iverson was the one who really held those council members together. And, despite everything the Rodakkin had tired to do, the council unanimously refused them a seat in their alliance. The price the Rodakkin asked for was too high."

"What was the price?" Hunk asked.

"They wanted free access to our worlds," Frok put in, "they wanted to build cities and be able to come and go as they please. It's a subtle infiltration tactic, but no less than what the Galra do by blunt force."

"It sounds innocent," Shiro turned a little pale, "but the implications and over time the-"

He actually shuddered. Lance nodded.

"We refused them entry into our alliance," Lance repeated, "and everyone worked around the clock to make sure the Rodakkin weren't planning a counter response. After almost a year, everyone began to relax. And agents were able to really focus on training again.

In our training we were to visit each of the planets in the alliance. Sometimes that's the only time an agent sees another planet because of their ranking when they graduate. But as a trainee, you got to see and experience a little of everything.

The Jurmites were still a little upset with the rest of the council and were being more than a little picky about who came to their planet. My trainer happened to be one of the few allowed to land on the planet. He and one other Agent were to look after all the trainees."

"Like a field trip!"

"Yup, just like that. Except most teachers don't shoot the para in the face. We landed, my trainer shot the other agent and we took off again. Most of the kids were older than me, but we'd all had about the same amout of training, so none of us really had any idea what was going on. They all thought I should know, but I couldn't even begin to guess. He'd shown no sign that anything was different. He was the same as he always was. I asked him where we were going and he said we were going to visit a better planet. It was the older kids who figured it out first and locked all of us in the back."

Lance paused here. They waited patiently for him to continue, and when he did he wasn't looking any of them in the eye.

"We waited for the ship to stop moving and power down. One kid was able to jam the door. It was a neat trick and I made sure he taught it to me later. We knew we were in enemy territory and, using a few gadgets one kid had we were able to deduce we were inside a hangar of sorts. One kid had a locator map and discovered we were on a desert planet that shouldn't have any life on it at all. We thought maybe we were wrong and the agent just wanted a place to burry the body.

"My trainer started to try and get into the door. I still didn't quiet understand what he was doing. And when I opened a vent for the others to escape, I decided to stay behind. If we weren't in Roddakin territory, then I couldn't imagine there being anything else wrong. I didn't believe he'd really do anything to me. There was no evidence of it. He'd been the perfect teacher, and all I could think of were all the times we had worked together and I couldn't believe that he'd do anything.

"But he had also taught me to back up my beliefs, which was why I told the others to escape and get Iverson. If I was wrong, then help was on the way. If I was right, then no harm no foul."

He paused again and when he looked up at them finally he laughed, "boy was I wrong. I've never been so wrong in all my life! I was just a trainee so I didn't have very good weapons on me. That and I trusted him from the get go, which was a mistake. I had my guard down. He broke my arm disarming me, and then broke both ankles so I couldn't run away.

"I could tell he was angry even though he was still smiling. Because while I was keeping him busy, the other kids were able to highjack a ship and get away. It was a very small victory for me. But it struck a deep nerve with him.

Turns out he was planning to end the recruitment program that Iverson had started so the Agency would die out on its own. By getting rid of the current trainees, it would be deemed too dangerous for agents to be trained that young."

"But isn't it a little too young?" Hunk stress, "I'm not agreeing with his methods here, but 9, 10, 11 years old, that's really young."

"Childrens minds are open," Shrio explained so Lance could get ready for the rest of the story, "they are less judgmental and by training a young mind, you can raise a child to think on a broader scale. Its not just one planet these agents are in charge of, its three. Try getting an adult to wrap their human minds around that…its not pretty."

"The fact is," Lance continued, "that my trainer was completely on the side of the Rodakkin. He was willing to give the kids over to them, and then they would come and take the alliance by force. The minimal limit was three kids, because then Iversons program would be shut down due to the fact that 1) three kids died, and two) there aren't enough kids left in the program. Recruitment would be put on hold and if they attacked directly, then there wouldn't be any new blood already in the system to take over. The agents would die out.

"Agent B1U3 firmly believed that letting the Rodakkin take over was the best form of safety. It didn't matter to him how many would die in the process, so long as a few were saved."

"That's…so messed up…"

"I never said it was good, only that this man was smart enough to pull it off. While they discussed how they should go about making their next move, I got my hands on this," Lance pulled out Pride and laid it on the floor in front of him, "The agency and even the council ruled that Rodakkin technology was banned. We didn't want to give them any excuse to lay claim on any of us, but this is my spoil. I earned this one and they allowed me to keep it. I've never been really good at shooting with my left hand, but I've always been decent. I killed all the Rodakkin in the room, my trainer had taken cover.

"The kickback from this gun in nothing to look down on, and my arm was pretty numb after firing it so many times. But I got him in the end….i got him…and it was ten days before help came."

"Oh my gosh…"

"the docters had to rebreak my bones and reset them," Lance chuckled, trying very hard to lighten the dark mood and the even darker story he was telling, "Frok was the one who found me. Apparently 11 and 13 year olds suck at giving directions and Frok found me on an expedition to the next planet after the one I was on. But he decided to stop because he saw a building that wasn't supposed to be there. The Rodakkin built it as a station between their planet and ours."

"Soooo the hide and seek?" Hunk asked and Lance laughed again.

"I was in the hospital and got sick of staring at the same four walls, so I left, wheal chair and all. And then I got stuck in the mud and before I knew it Frok came over to stand and be confused over "Things humans say"."

"You didn't tell us before because it was too close…"

"-to the incident, yeah," Lance sighed, "now you know. I've got no more secrets, honest."

Pidge scowled, "lie."

Lance grinned, "Those aren't secrets, those are confidential."

Pidge shrugged, "fine, torture my curiosity."

"I shall," Lance stuck his nose in the air, "it will be my favorite pass time."

(((((((((((((fin))))))))))))))))))