Lance groaned, flopping back on the metal floor of the hangar. Blue made a quizzical noise, angling her head down to peer at him where he lay between her front paws, and he reached up one hand to stroke the cool metal of her chin. The action got a soft purr in response, feelings of pleasure and contentment echoing through the bond, and he grinned. "Don't worry, beautiful, we'll get this eventually."

After nearly four full days with absolutely no progress, it was getting increasingly difficult to focus on meditation for hours on end. The blue paladin found sitting still a struggle at the best of times, and the enforced idleness was driving him up the wall. The problem was only compounded by the way nightmares kept jolting him awake every night, leaving him physically exhausted and mentally jittery. He huffed in frustration, torn between pacing and not moving at all.

A bolt of aquamarine flew past, striking a target mounted on the wall dead center, and he scowled, lifting his head to watch Allura gather energy in her hands that launched with a quick one-two punch. Nearby Malrento nodded approvingly, touching one of her fists lightly as he explained something too quietly for Lance to hear. She nodded and repeated the motion, this time with bolts that were more compact and left visible cracks in the target.

That Allura was making far more progress than any of the Paladins was as understandable as it was frustrating. Malrento was training her separately because apparently working with ambient quintessence, which was what the Druids and only a small percentage of Alteans, including Allura, could do, required entirely different techniques than learning to access one's own internal quintessence like the Humans were learning to. On the second day, Pidge had spent almost three hours badgering both of them with every question she could think of about the latter process and come away from it all none the wiser except that Alteans apparently had a literal sixth sense for quintessence and that was absolutely 100% Not Fair.

Another flare of aqua had Lance dropping his head back to the floor and closing his eyes. The hangar that had been set aside for their training was peaceful, with his teammates all lost in contemplation on or near their Lions, and Allura training over at the far side. Exhaustion tugged at him, turning his limbs to jelly in spite of himself. Maybe he could afford a couple hours for a nap, since he'd spent a few extra hours on meditation this morning after Blue had woken him from a disjointed dream of a crushing darkness, the reek of blood, and tumbling thoughts of can'tmovecan'tfeelwhycan'tIgonnadie. He sighed and allowed himself to drift into sleep with a mental request to Blue to wake him if he had another bad dream.

A gentle touch on his shoulder woke him and his eyes blinked open to the familiar face of his best friend. "Mm? How long was I out?" He mumbled, propping himself on one elbow to look around, the others nowhere in sight.

"About four hours, I think. I didn't want to wake you, you looked so tired, but it's dinnertime." The yellow paladin wore a concerned frown as he looked at the other. "Are you okay? You're not usually one for naps, especially not long ones, on the floor and in your armor to boot."

Lance sat up and grimaced, realizing that Hunk had a good point as numerous aches immediately made their presence known where the edges of his armor plates had pressed the skin. "Yeah, I just…" He stretched, joints popping noisily and making the bigger teen wince. "...haven't been sleeping well, I guess. Nightmares." He clarified at Hunk's questioning look. "Ever since Kurogane and Alejandro got here, I can't stop thinking about everything that could go wrong, and it's coming out in my dreams."

"Do you want to talk about it?" Hunk plopped himself down in front of him, crossing his legs and giving Lance his patented I Really Think You Should Talk About It And I'm Not Above Pestering You Hourly Until You Do stare. A look that Lance had been on the receiving end of more times than he particularly cared to admit, and had long since learned meant that resisting was only delaying the inevitable.

"I guess? I mean, I don't know if it'll really help, since it isn't gonna make the source of the stress magically vanish. I don't even know what I'm having nightmares about half the time." He pulled off his helmet and ran frustrated fingers through his hair, letting it stick up every which way. "Like the one I had last night, it was just darkness, the smell of blood, and feeling trapped and scared. That was it. And yet I still woke up in a panic."

"Your dreams are giving you panic attacks?" Hunk latched onto that admission instantly, looking alarmed, and Lance swore. He hadn't wanted the other to figure that out, knowing the anxious paladin was worrying about enough things as it was.

"Only once or twice, I swear. The one I had the first night was the worst, the others haven't been nearly so bad." He waved a hand, trying to paste a grin onto his face, but gave up when he realized the yellow paladin wasn't buying it one bit. "...Mostly."

The Samoan teen sighed, shaking his head slightly. "Tell me about that one, then, the one from the first night. Talk it out, hug it out, remember?" He smiled, leaning forward to rest a reassuring hand on Lance's knee.

"Yeah, I remember. Friends don't let friends cry alone." He managed a small, genuine smile as he remembered one of their rules from their time at the Garrison, the very first one they had come up with a week into their time as roommates, when Hunk had talked a homesick Lance into crying on his shoulder for the better part of an hour then shared the last of a stash of precious homemade cookies he'd brought with him to school. That night had cemented a bond that had gotten Lance through quite a few rough spots in his life, and he'd always done his best to return the favour.

"Exactly. Now talk to me." Hunk straightened, posture relaxed and open as he waited.

"Okay…" The Cuban took a deep breath. "Like I said, the first dream was the worst. We were fighting the Galra, but this time we were doing it over Earth. There were a lot of them, but we were holding up okay. Then…" he hesitated, biting his lip. "There was this big ship. Not like any of the others we've seen. Looked kinda like it had a giant ion cannon running right through the middle. Looked fucking stupid. Then it fired and, well, we weren't laughing anymore." His breath hitched, gaze unfocused as the images played out in his memory again.

"You dreamed about the Weblum's Breath?" The yellow paladin asked softly, tone coaxing and concerned. He didn't try to hug Lance just yet, for which he was grateful. A hug would bring tears, and if he cried he wouldn't be able to finish talking about it.

He nodded, a sharp, jerky movement accompanied by a humorless chuckle. "Yeah, must've been. Nothing else I can think of would be able to do what that thing did."

Another gentle prompting. "Which was?"

"It was like...I can't even describe it. Purple energy in a massive beam, the air was burning, the ground was burning, it was tearing a hole straight into the earth. And then the planet just...broke. Shattered. Went to pieces of ice and rock, and Earth was just...gone."

"Oh man, Lance…"

Another hiccuping, hysterical laugh. "You know what the worst part was? They could have killed us after that. The Galra, I mean. In the dream. The Lions were all just sitting there, everybody in shock, they could have destroyed us then and there. But they didn't. They left. And then it was just us and what was left of Earth. And then I woke up."

Hunk surged forward, and Lance gratefully allowed himself to sink into the protective embrace, burying his face in one broad shoulder and letting his body shake with sobs. He'd been trying so hard not to think about it, about that horrifyingly vivid glimpse of what could happen, and it was a relief to finally share it with someone else, to be comforted and reassured. His friend was murmuring softly in his ear, a steady litany of it's okay, buddy, we're not gonna let that happen. The deep voice was choked with emotion and it helped knowing that someone else was as scared as he was at the very idea of losing their family and their home.

They stayed like that until Lance's breathing settled from ragged gasps to trembling but steady and Hunk's cheeks were slowly drying. Only then did the smaller teen sit up again, although he stayed where he was between Hunk's legs. "...sorry…" he muttered softly, scrubbing at his cheeks with the back of his hand.

The yellow paladin simply shook his head. "Second rule." He chided softly.

Lance rolled his eyes but smiled slightly. "Emotions are good and expressing them is healthy, so never apologize for feeling." He recited, laughing softly and leaning forward again to rest his forehead on the damp armor of his friend's shoulder. "What would I ever do without you, buddy?"

"Be an anxious mess, I'm sure." The Samoan teased, patting his back affectionately. "But then, I'd be the same without you, so…"

"True facts. At least we get to be anxious messes together, right?."

"Right." Hunk sighed, shifting against him. "...You said you've been having nightmares every night?"

"Yeah. Not as bad as the one I just told you about, but that nap was the best sleep I've gotten in like a week." Lance sighed, one hand grabbing onto the fabric of the other's suit.

Hunk hummed thoughtfully, one hand coming up to idly stroke the short brown hair. "That's not good, you need to be rested in order to train and fight. And from what you're describing, you're not getting enough or restful sleep."

Lance snorted. "That sums it up pretty well, yeah. Even music and white noise don't help because it's not falling asleep that's the problem, it's the dreams once I do that are bothering me. If you've got any ideas on how to fix that, I'd love to hear 'em."

"You didn't seem to have any problems when you were napping earlier." The larger teen observed, looking around. "Did you not have one then? You were definitely out long enough to reach REM sleep."

He blinked, sitting up in surprised realization. "No, and Blue had instructions to wake me up if I started having another nightmare, so I must not have." Above them, the Lion rumbled in confirmation, sending him a feeling of having watched over him like a mother protecting her cub. He smiled, sending back a wave of appreciation and affection that she promptly echoed back to him.

Hunk laughed. "I'll take that as a no, too. So something must've been different enough to keep you feeling safe and not trigger a nightmare. Maybe because everyone else was around? I mean, we're all linked through the Lions, maybe you felt their presence or something and it was reassuring."

"Make sense, I guess. But it's not like I can make everyone sleep in with me just so I don't wake up screaming every night." Lance grimaced, cheeks darkening in embarrassment. The last thing he wanted to do was show weakness like that in front of his team, especially Keith.

"Says who? We're a team, and we help each other out." Hunk said firmly. "So here's what we're gonna do. We talk to the rest of the team about this, first off. If it'll help I'll tell them I've been having nightmares too, that's not a lie even if mine aren't every night like yours. We'll try doing a group sleepover in the living room for a few nights, see if that does any good. If it helps, it helps, if it doesn't we'll try something else. Okay?"

Lance grinned weakly. "You make it sound so simple."

Hunk smiled back, strong and calm. "Because it is. I got your back, Lance, and so does the rest of the team. Now come on, let's go have dinner and talk to them, okay?" He heaved himself to his feet, reaching out a hand to his best friend. The blue paladin took it and let the other pull him to his feet and into another brief hug. "It's gonna be okay."

All he could do was nod gratefully and let himself be led out of the hangar.

000000000000

Hunk shot Lance an I-told-you-so grin across one of the tables in the Long Wind's huge cafeteria as Pidge and Keith carried on a heated debate next to them about which of the common rooms in the Castle of Lions had the more comfortable accommodations for a sleepover. Keith contended that the lounge on the sixteenth floor would be best because the couches could be pushed together into a sort of nest arrangement, while Pidge maintained that the thirtieth floor observation room had thick plush carpeting underlaid with some sort of soft padding that made for ideal sprawling. The blue paladin rolled his eyes and blushed but smiled back, seeming much more at ease. Before they could continue their conversation, Keith snarled something insulting that had Pidge narrowing her eyes and the yellow paladin quickly stepped in before things could get out of hand.

"Okay, okay, settle down. How about this? We use the observation room," Pidge crowed triumphantly and Keith scowled, "but we'll make a big nest of blankets and pillows for whoever wants to cuddle. Lance likes looking at stars, and Shiro'd probably be more comfortable with a little bit of space around him, just in case." All eyes turned briefly to the black paladin, who was oblivious to the attention, lost in an animated discussion with the H'ress sitting beside him. After a moment Keith deflated and nodded, conceding the point.

Relieved, Hunk spooned up some more go and popped it in his mouth, chewing idly. The blue goop the Humans (except for Keith and Kurogane for some reason, who had been given purple goo consistently for reasons no one had gotten around to asking about yet) were being fed with was thicker and chewier than the green Altean goo available on the Castle of Lions and that he could see being eaten by the Alteans and some other species here, and his jaws appreciated the difference. "So, that's sleeping arrangements sorted. Jobs next. I'm food, obviously. Pidge, lighting, music, and entertainment." The green paladin threw him a cheerful mock salute. "Keith, collect all the blankets and pillows you can find." The teen nodded firmly, looking determined. "And Lance, party activities, and yes, that can include a beauty session."

The blue paladin looked absolutely delighted at the permission, but hesitated. "This is an awful lot of work, though, what if-"

"Stop, Lance." The other's jaw snapped shut and Hunk sighed, leaning across the table to grab him by the shoulders. "Listen, okay? We all need this, not just you. And I've thought this through, alright? Even if you, me, or any of the others has a nightmare, you wake up, you're surrounded by your friends. Everyone else works together to provide comfort, decreasing stress and allowing you to get back to sleep easier. Improved rest, improved health, improved morale." He ticked off his points on his fingers.

"It's a great plan." Pidge put in, leaning forward with her elbows on the table. "Honestly, I don't know why we didn't start doing this sooner. Leave it to Hunk to strategize a solution to chronic nightmares. And don't start getting all mopey and insecure, Shiro needs this just as much as you do even if he won't admit it. We'll make him join even if we have to knock him down and sit on him. Which we might have to, honestly. You push, I trip." That got a laugh out of the Cuban, and Hunk was relieved to see him finally relax and accept the idea.

"It'll be a couple more hours before we head back and can put the plan into action." Keith sighed, pushing himself to his feet. "We should probably get some more training in. You never know. Maybe one of us will have a sudden breakthrough."

"And maybe Coran will shave his moustache." Pidge muttered, but followed. Hunk laughed, exchanging smiles with Lance as they scarfed down the last of their goo and followed.

Coming around the last corner, they nearly collided with the green and red paladins who had stopped in the doorway to the hangar. "Whoah, why the traffic jam?" Lance complained, leaning a hand on the wall for support.

Pidge looked over her shoulder at them, expression unreadable. "Hunk, were you late to dinner because you were tinkering with Yellow?"

Hunk blinked in confusion. That was a very strange question to be asked out of nowhere. Had something happened to Yellow while they were gone? He couldn't think why else the smallest of the group would be asking that. "No…? Lance and I were just talking…?" He quickly reached out through the bond and got back a sense of contentment, pleasure, and quite a bit of smug, but no concern or explanation. "Why? What happened?"

Wordlessly, Pidge pointed into the hangar at the Yellow Lion, and the yellow paladin stepped forward to peer over her shoulder. His jaw dropped in surprise. Yellow was standing proudly, absolutely radiating smugness, to the perceptible annoyance of the other Lions. The source of his delight seemed to be the wide metal hoops, similar in shape to a bladeless fan, mounted on the outside of each ankle and currently folded back out of the way that had definitely not been there when he left what the heck.

"...I'm gonna go get Shiro." Keith stated quietly, turning and jogging back the way they'd come, Pidge shouting after him to find Malrento as well. Lance was bouncing on the balls of his feet, grinning and babbling about wicked upgrades and speculating all kinds of bizarre weaponry, but all Hunk could do was stare at Yellow in shock. The Lion would have alerted him to anyone messing around, which meant that he must have done this himself, somehow. But why? He prodded his partner again and got back a sense of pride and approval towards the yellow paladin that, while appreciated, really didn't answer the question. Nor did the image of bright, glowing yellow that accompanied the emotions.

He was still staring in bemusement when Keith returned, Shiro jogging anxiously behind him and Malrento following rather more sedately. The black paladin stopped in the doorway alongside him, peering out at the Lions. "When did this happen?"

"While we were at dinner." Pidge explained. "Hunk didn't do it himself, he says he and Lance were just talking before they came." Her side-eye at the larger teen suggested she didn't quite believe him.

"Hmm…And what was it you were doing during dinner?" Malrento's vibrant orange eyes fixed Hunk with a stare that seemed to look right through him.

"Planning a sleepover." He stuttered out, intimidated by the expression. What did that have to do with anything?

"On a whim, or for a particular reason?" Was it just him or did there seem to be pride and maybe a little bit of awed satisfaction in the Altean's expression.

"Lance has been having nightmares. Hunk thought a shared sleeping environment would help everyone" Keith fixed Shiro with a knowing stare as he spoke, making the older male's cheeks redden "get a better sleep because they fall asleep knowing where everyone is and if they have a bad dream then everyone else is there to comfort them."

"In other words," Malrento stated, and yeah, that was definitely a pleased expression, "You became aware of a problem, considered the implications and options, and crafted a plan to resolve the issue." Hunk tilted his head. That was what he'd done, yeah, but something about the older man's wording made it sound just like…

"Wait, the yellow combative characteristic?!" He spluttered, wide-eyed in shock. The startled exclamations of his teammates were drowned out by Yellow's roar of confirmation, and he looked back and forth between his Lion and the Altean. "It's only been four days!"

"And yet here you are. Go on and find out how the planning aspect has manifested for you. Before your blue teammate explodes from excitement." Malrento gave Lance a teasing smile, who blushed but grinned back, still bouncing. The Altean put a hand on Hunk's back, giving him a gentle push forward toward his Lion. The others followed right behind, peering curiously up at the new hardware.

Yellow was quick to lean down and offer the ramp, and purred happily as all five paladins crowded into the cockpit. The screens flickered to life as Hunk dropped into his seat, and a touch of a key sent information scrolling across the main panel, diagrams and status readouts standing ready. He scanned the screen until he found what he was looking for, the name of Yellow's new features.

"Gravity anchors? What are those for?" The name and diagram were not particularly enlightening, and Pidge, who must have been climbing the back of his chair to lean that far over his shoulder, was frowning in equal confusion.

"Why not take us out for a spin? Give them a try?" Shiro suggested reasonably. He leaned around to tap the communications panel, opening a channel to the communications hub. Avenol grinned back at them from the projected holoscreen a moment later, raising an eyebrow in surprise at the sight of all five current paladins crammed into one cockpit. "Hey, Avenol, can you give us clearance to take the Yellow Lion out for a short flight? Testing a new feature."

The Altean nodded, turning his attention to his own panels. "Right away, Black Paladin. Opening hangar. Watch out for meteors, there's some debris out there." He warned.

"Will do. Black Paladin out." The connection closed and the deck vibrated under them as the hangar door began to slide open. Hunk could feel Yellow twitching excitedly and grinned.

"Hang on, here we go!" He shouted, pushing the controls forward and sending the Lion charging toward the growing patch of starlight, laughing at the chorus of shrieks behind him at the unexpected maneuver. Then they were at the opening, leaping into open space and kicking on the boosters to soar in a lazy spiral. They kept moving until they were a safe distance from the Long Wind and the Castle, not wanting to risk the ships with untested weaponry.

Bringing Yellow to a halt and feeling four pairs of excited eyes on the back of his neck, Hunk took a deep breath. "Okay, buddy, let's find out what these things can do...activating gravity anchors!" He hit the button to activate the system, felt power surging toward the Lion's legs…

Nothing happened.

He frowned, double-checking the commands for the system. Had he hit a wrong button, or was he using them wrong? As an engineer, not knowing how these things were meant to be used was frustrating as hell.

"Maybe you need to be moving?" Keith offered into the silence from somewhere at the back of the cockpit.

"Worth a try." He sighed, deactivating the anchors. He pushed Yellow's throttles forward, not maximum speed but still a respectable pace. "Activating in five," he warned, keying in the command sequence. "and...now!"

The effect was instantaneous, like running into a brick wall even with the inertial dampeners all the Lions possessed. Hunk was slammed forward in his safety harness. Pidge was flung forward with a scream off her perch on the shoulder of his chair, crashing into his lap and her helmet cracking off the arm. Shiro slammed into the back of the chair with a loud oof, and there were cries of pain and metallic thuds as Lance and Keith were knocked off their feet entirely.

There was silence for a moment, followed by a chorus of pained groans. "What the fuck just happened?" Lance complained, pulling himself cautiously into a sitting position as though he expected to be flung to the ground again at any moment and blatantly ignoring Shiro's reflexive "language, Lance."

"Umm…" Hunk checked his readouts, searching for an answer to that question. One number in particular caught his eye and he gaped. "We just went from about 75% of Yellow's max acceleration to a dead stop pretty much instantly? And her boosters are still going but we're not moving? At all?"

Pidge struggled upright, still in his lap, and straightened her helmet to look at his screens. "You're shitting me. Dude, that's insane. The momentum involved…" Her eyes widened. "Call up the canon. I bet you anything you won't have recoil issues with those babies on."

Hunk stared at her, then gasped, a delighted smile slowly spreading across his face. The recoil of the massive canon his bayard summoned was a frequent issue, as it allowed the enemy to predict the motion of the Yellow Lion for a few critical seconds every time he fired, Newton's third law pushing him in the opposite direction to his target when he fired. If that was no longer going to be a problem, he'd be that much harder to hit. His Lion's armor was good, but not perfect. In fact, he realized, the gravity anchors were the answer to a lot of his maneuverability problems as well. As the heaviest Lion, especially in his armored mode (the aspect of Earth, apparently), Yellow had the lowest acceleration and the hardest time changing direction due to sheer momentum. But now he'd be able to stop sharply and take off in a new direction whenever he wanted. The Galra wouldn't know what hit them!

"Everybody sit down and hold on, I'm testing a theory." He warned, giving his teammates a few seconds to situate themselves and ignoring the frankly alarmed looks they exchanged. Once they were ready, he pushed the throttles forward again. "Be prepared, vehicle makes sudden stops!"

A brief pulse of the gravity anchors killed most of his momentum in a sharp jerk and a second later he was off again, in a direction at right angles to his original path. Another touch of the controls, another change of direction, this time almost a complete reversal of course. He let out a delighted whoop, plunging his bayard into its port and pulling up the cannon. He let it charge, flying fast and hard in random patterns, then stopped to fire at a random asteroid, letting the anchors kill the recoil just like Pidge had speculated before chasing his own blast into the shattered rock shards. The yellow paladin laughed delightedly. This was fantastic!

Satisfied, he made one last course change, taking them slowly back toward the Long Wind. Behind him, his teammates speculated loudly about the upgrades their own aspects might result in and how they could increase their versatility in battle, based on Yellow's drastically improved maneuverability.

Hunk grinned. He couldn't wait.

00000000000000

As he strode down the corridors of the hidden base, Kolivan's face and body language remained utterly impassive; yet he still managed to exude an aura of barely controlled fury that sent lower ranking Blades scrambling to clear his path, ducking into rooms and cross-corridors and pressing themselves against the walls in a desperate bid to avoid drawing the leader's ire. He might have found it amusing if he hadn't had such grim thoughts on his mind.

The warnings of the two time-travellers-and if a Bytor said that's what they were, then they were, no matter how impossible it seemed-had been dominating his thoughts for the last few rotations. Ten thousand cycles of careful work would be destroyed within another one and a half if he failed to act on the information given him. The question was who, how, when, where. Not for the first time he regretted the loss of Antok in the assault on Zarkon's command ship. The other had a gifted mind for puzzles.

Reaching the privacy of his quarters, the Galra locked himself in before activating his personal computer. A dozen holoscreens popped up around him, and in a few moments he had the profiles of every current member of the Blade displayed, tiny thumbnails beside angular Galran script that listed basic statistics such as placement, role, and time since joining the Blade.

In the midst of all this information, Kolivan ran over the conversation with the two paladins once more. Whether they realized it or not, the two had given him some very crucial details that he could use to narrow down the list of potential suspects. Time, and data.

The first was the timeframe. According to the red paladin, total destruction would take place within one and a half cycles. No member who had been with them for such a short period would be privy to sufficient information to wipe out every base and every undercover operative. And while hacking was a possibility, a great deal of sensitive information was not recorded, maintained only in the minds of the leader of the Blade of Marmora and a handful of trusted members. Therefore it was a near certainty that the culprit was already within their ranks, and the thought made him snarl with fury and outrage.

The second was far more crucial. The two had implied that the Blade had been unable to give warning of the development of a weapon capable of destroying planets. That meant the knowledge of its existence had never reached him, deliberately censored or played off as mere rumor until it was too late. The Blade of Marmora had many operatives working in deep cover, but the majority of those were stationed amongst the rank and file of the military, passing information on troop movements, the Arenas, the ebb and flow of resources within the Empire. They likely would have heard rumors of a new weapon being developed, and Kolivan would naturally have had someone from his handful of higher-ranked operatives look further in order to either confirm or dismiss, depending on the information in those rumors.

Whoever he had chosen for that task, in the other timeline, had chosen to betray them all.

With a few growled commands, he dismissed most of the profiles, leaving only the two dozen operatives on that short list. He regarded them, scowling darkly, for some time before inspiration struck. "Computer, record message. Encryption, supplementary orders. Blade, you are to be on the lookout for any information regarding the development of a new weapon, a potential planet-destroyer. Relay any information you find, rumors included. Knowledge or death. End recording."

With a few swipes of his claws he created a list of names from the handful of profiles still glowing on the screens around him. "Send to all." Kolivan commanded.