It luckily didn't take Pidge and Shiro too long to return. Lance let out a triumphant whoop as the Black and Green Lions joined them.
His celebration was unfortunately short-lived. Smaller ships shot out alongside the big ship, and Allura's voice filtered over the comms: "Sendak is entering the Arusian atmosphere! We need Voltron now!"
And, as if on cue, the ion cannon Hunk had taken out fired on the castle. The particle barrier protected it, but Lance still winced.
"Aw, man," said Hunk. "Those Galra repair things way too fast!"
"The barrier is going to get weaker and weaker with every blast," Coran warned. "Once the shield goes down, the castle will be defenceless!"
Lance grimaced. They definitely had to take out the big Galra ship- or at least its ion cannon- before the shield went down.
"We can give you cover with the castle defences," said Allura, "but you must form Voltron now, or we'll all be destroyed."
"Encouraging," muttered Hunk. "Just leave it up to the newbies, that's- that's great."
"Relax, Hunk, we'll be fine!" Lance said.
"Listen up, Team Voltron!" Shiro exclaimed. "We can only succeed if we give it everything we've got. Things don't look good, but I know we can do this! Are you with me?"
Lance nodded determinedly.
"I'm nodding," said Hunk, "is everyone else nodding?"
"Yes," said Lance, as Keith and Pidge echoed him.
"Then let's do this!" Shiro declared.
"Yeah!" Lance cheered.
"How?" said Pidge.
There was a brief silence. "Good question. Does anyone have any idea how to form Voltron?"
"I don't see a 'combine into giant space robot' button on my glowy dashboard," said Hunk apologetically.
The ship fired a laser at them, and they scattered in order to avoid being hit. The smaller ships started attacking them with fervour, giving them no time to stop and think about forming Voltron.
"Agh! Can't they quit it for one minute so we can figure this out?" complained Pidge.
"Lance?" said Shiro expectantly.
"Don't look at me!" Lance protested. "Blue isn't giving me any hints!"
"Combine!" yelled Hunk, slamming Yellow into Red.
"Hey!" Keith yelped.
"Sorry," said Hunk, "thought that would work."
Blue sent him the image of forming Voltron again, as if trying to push him to realise something. He blinked, then grinned.
"Quickly, Paladins! We're low on energy!" Allura exclaimed.
"I have an idea!" said Lance. "What if we fly in formation? Like in the vision Blue sent us before, remember?"
"That might just work," said Shiro. "Alright! On my cue- Keith, Lance, right flank. Pidge, Hunk, left flank. Three- two- Voltron!"
"You skipped one!" wailed Hunk as they shot into the sky after Shiro.
"Nothing's happening!" Keith snarled in frustration.
Blue seemed a bit confused as to just why nothing was happening- she'd evidently been absolutely certain flying in formation would do the trick. Lance reached out and patted the dashboard comfortingly.
"Wait! I feel something!" exclaimed Pidge.
"I do too!" Hunk laughed triumphantly. "It's like we're all being pulled the same way- is this it? Is this the power of Voltron?"
Blue didn't seem very thrilled, and Lance realised why as he looked up.
"Oh, no," said Shiro, tone a strange mixture of resigned exasperation and horror.
"Sendak's ship is sucking us in like a black hole!" Pidge exclaimed.
"Oh, no, oh, no," Hunk stammered. "I don't care what you say, Shiro, I'm panicking now! Really panicking now!"
"It can't end here!" Pidge managed.
"Oh, no, this is it!" Lance lamented. Blue howled in his mind, and he tried to send her back some sort of apology for failing her so early in the game.
"It's been an honour flying with you, boys," Keith said solemnly.
"No!" Shiro practically roared. "We can do this! We have to believe in ourselves! We're the universe's only hope- we can't give up! Think of your families back home, everything you love! They all depend on us. Everyone depends on us! We can't fail- we won't fail!"
"Yeah!" the rest of them cried together. Blue let out a fierce roar, both in Lance's mind and in real life. The other lions did the same, and a rush of energy and power jolted through Lance.
It happened way too quickly for Lance to completely comprehend. The unfamiliar touch of his teammates mind briefly shocked him as their lions came together. Lance let out an exhilarated laugh.
They landed on the Galra ship and punched the ion cannon in the side, preventing its next shot from hitting the castle. Unfortunately, the thing still seemed to be up and running.
"You did it!" Allura exclaimed excitedly.
"I can't believe it!" managed Keith.
"We did it! We formed Voltron!" cheered Pidge.
"I'm a leg!" Hunk bellowed delightedly.
"How- how are we doing this?" Lance asked, his grin never fading as Blue's purrs rumbled in his mind.
"It doesn't matter right now," said Shiro. Despite his professional tone, he seemed just as thrilled as the rest of them. "Let's get that ion cannon!"
"Alright!" said Lance.
The Green and Red Lions each grabbed the cannon, and with a strong yank it was fully detached from the ship Voltron threw it out of the way, and then the Red Lion punched clean through the hull.
"Fire your laser!" Shiro ordered.
"You got it, Shiro!" Keith said. He fired his laser through the ship, and the area exploded. Lance was reminded of a super cool action movie as Voltron moved away from the destruction and kicked through another part of the ship.
"Pidge!" Shiro exclaimed.
"On it!" he chirped, using his laser to blow up more of the ship.
"Haha, this is awesome!" Lance exclaimed.
"Alright, team, straight through the centre!" Shiro said.
The team all let out fierce battle-cries (well, Lance let out a fierce battle-cry, the others may have been screaming, he wasn't sure) and Voltron rocketed through the ship. It finally blew into pieces, falling to Arus in a flaming mass.
"Good work, team," said Shiro. "Let's get back to the castle."
Allura and Coran were there to greet them outside of the castle when they arrived. Allura was beaming, and Coran was giving them a proud smile that reminded Lance of the look his dad had given him when he got into the Garrison. Lance managed to grin back at both of them as he pulled off his helmet.
Hunk collapsed to the ground and groaned. "Wow."
"Good work, paladins!" Allura exclaimed brightly.
"Thanks, beautiful," said Lance, jokingly shooting the princess one of his best flirty smirks. She glowered at him.
Okay, so she wasn't into that.
"We did it," said Shiro in relief.
"Heck yeah we did," said Keith triumphantly, as if he hadn't almost given up in the middle of the fight like all the rest of them.
"How did we do it?" asked Shiro, relief fading into disbelief.
"I was- I was just- just screaming? The whole time?" said Hunk. "Yeah. Yeah, maybe that was it? The screaming."
Lance shook his head. "Battle-cries, buddy, battle-cries."
"Call it what you want, I was screaming," said Hunk.
Shiro put a hand on Pidge's shoulder, giving him a soft, brotherly smile. "We're not going to stop looking until we find your brother and father. I know they'd be proud of you."
Pidge smiled back at him kind of sadly. Lance stared at the small boy in surprise.
What did that mean? Was Pidge really an alien like Lance sometimes imagined? That one was kind of out there. Well, maybe- had Pidge's family been taken by the Galra or-
Lance did a double-take, realising suddenly just how much Pidge Gunderson looked like Matt Holt.
Was he really… Pidge Holt!?
Talk about a plot twist.
"We've won the battle," said Allura, "but we have not won the war. Zarkon will not stop until he has Voltron."
"Well, it's a good thing you paladins know what you're doing," said Coran, a smile pulling at his lips as if he were thinking of some sort of joke. "You're going to have to form Voltron again and again and again-"
Hunk was nodding, but then he stopped and shook his head madly. "Wait, what?"
"We barely survived forming Voltron once," Lance exclaimed.
"And you were only fighting one measly ship!" said Coran. "Wait 'till you fight a whole squad of them! It won't be easy being the Defenders of the Universe!"
"Defenders of the Universe, huh?" said Shiro. He chuckled. "Well, that has a nice ring to it."
They finally got the food they were promised: some sort of weird green food goo. It didn't taste so bad, and Coran insisted it had plenty of nutrients.
Speaking of Coran, Lance finally got the chance to talk to the man after what he decided was probably dinner. The other paladins had gone off to do their own thing, and Lance wasn't sure if he had a thing he could be doing besides exploring the castle, so he found Coran.
"Hey," he said.
"Ah, Lance, right?" said Coran brightly. "You're just in time! Would you like to help me with cleaning out these pods?"
"Sure, man," said Lance- he had nothing better to do. "Hey, uh, I wanted to ask you earlier- did you know the old paladins?"
Lance immediately felt bad for asking as Coran's face fell.
"I did indeed," said Coran. "I knew them very well."
"What were they like?" Lance blurted out before he could stop himself.
Coran chuckled. "A lot like you all, I expect, and a lot like their lions. The yellow paladin was kind and caring. He was intimidating when you first met him, but he was about as cuddly as stuffed klanmüirl!"
Lance didn't quite understand that, but he supposed Coran meant something like a teddy bear. That did remind him of Hunk a bit, if he was honest.
"The green paladin- she was something," continued the Altean. "Smart and brave and witty- logical to a fault. She would take a robot any day over actual socialising, but she was friendly in her own way."
"Heh," said Lance, "that sounds like Pidge alright."
"The black paladin," Coran's face fell again. Lance wondered if he was particularly close to the black paladin. "He was a good leader, a strong leader. He could sometimes be a bit of a traditionalist, and occasionally put duty before feelings- but his team was important to him. When he loved, he loved fiercely- too fiercely, some might say."
Lance wondered what that meant, and if it had anything at all to do with Coran. Was he maybe related to the old black paladin?
"The red paladin was the most reckless of the lot," said Coran, a sad smile on his face. "Ah, the man would rush into danger without a second thought for himself, especially if it was to save others. Incredibly intelligent, even if he rarely knew what he was doing. His instincts saved all of the paladins on countless occasions."
That didn't sound much like Keith if you asked Lance. The old red paladin sounded like a pretty cool guy.
"And- and the old blue paladin?" Lance asked hopefully.
Coran's brow furrowed, face twisting in grief for a moment, before he smiled again and looked up at the ceiling.
"If you ask me, she was the best of the lot," he said softly. "Kind. Loyal. Brave. She was a peacekeeper and she was often the team's impulse control. She was the caretaker, in a way, when the others were training too hard, staying up all night to work on projects- you name it. Ah, she had a sense of humour too- I can see her humour in you, my boy. Must be a blue paladin trait."
"Yeah," said Lance after a moment. "She sounds great. You- you were close?"
Coran's shoulders dropped, but he kept smiling. "Yes. We were."
"Sorry for bringing up bad memories," Lance said awkwardly, even though he was really happy to hear about the old paladins. To hear of his predecessor, the one Blue had loved so dearly, simultaneously saddened him and warmed his heart.
"Don't worry, my boy," said Coran, chuckling. "I am glad to talk about them, and I'd gladly tell you of them anytime. It would be an insult to them if I never spoke of them."
"You just lost them," Lance murmured.
"Yes," agreed Coran. "But I've found in my life that grief fades if you remember the good things you had."
Lance stared at him, then nodded. "We haven't touched the pods."
"We'd best get on that," Coran laughed. "Come on. I'll show you what to do!"
A/N: Wow, season three has gotten me so inspired! It's another update!
Finally finished with episode one, so yay! We also got some more Lance and Coran bonding... I wasn't sure if I'd have him ask about the former paladins yet, but I decided he probably would. It hurt me to have to leave out Blaytz, but in this AU he isn't a part of Voltron... it saddens me, but, ah, well. He has his place in my other fic.
Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! Love you guys!