On the other side, the stars are different. Lance notices this first, because he's been looking up at the night sky trying to find his home for his entire life. Shiro comes to the same realization that he does a moment later and murmurs, "I don't recognize any of these constellations. We must be a long, long way from Earth." While the others are clearly shaken up by this knowledge, Lance's heart sings as he takes another step towards the truth. He knows this is where he belongs, out here in the stars, and the best part? He didn't have to go through another three years at the Garrison under Iverson!
Lance has a hard time keeping his joy to himself as he and Keith heckle each other, but he knows the others, especially Shiro who seems to have just escaped hostile aliens himself, have no reason to be happy at this turn of events. He tries to ease the tension in the cockpit of this strange, alien warship; he keeps conversation light and even lets out a fart, allowing himself to become a welcome distraction in the bleakness of their situation.
Only once he feels everyone beginning to relax does he point out the plant in front of them that he has been guiding them down to. It is not dissimilar to Earth, according to Blue's scanners. It has a breathable atmosphere, some green vegetation, and even an acceleration of gravity within ten percent of Earth's own.
Lance sees its beauty but does not think it is home.
Blue urges them to the castle. To be fair, there is nothing else around, so it seems the most logical choice. Shiro, their de facto leader by this point, agrees.
Inside, there is no one. This feels wrong to Lance, who's never known anything but a full, busy home or the constant hustle and bustle of the Garrison. The others seem to notice something is wrong as well. Hunk calls out for echoes, hoping someone, anyone, will respond. Their little group presses onward when they find nothing in the darkness.
When the castle comes alive and begins to scan them, Lance immediately crouches into a battle stance with lightning flickering between his fingers, quickly deciding his secrets are not worth losing any of his friends, his hero, or even Keith. He's always been taught to hide, to not show anyone what he can do for fear of what those in power could do to him, but Lance isn't on Earth now. He's willing to whatever it takes to make sure they all come back alive.
Luckily, it's not necessary for him to fight. Whatever scan the castle ran shows them as friendly, or at the very least not hostile. The lights slowly come on, flickering as if they haven't been used in a long time, and are just remembering how to shine.
The Earthlings are led onward towards some kind of central chamber with a raised platform in the middle of the room. As Pidge notes it to be some kind of control room, two mechanical pods rise up out of the ground and open up.
Lance's heart stops as the most beautiful girl he's ever seen is revealed as the clear material of the pods seems to disintegrate, leaving her to pitch forward as she cries out for her father. Luckily, Lance's body has always been a little bit faster than his brain, and he manages to rush forward and catch her in her arms before she falls to the floor. Unluckily, his mouth is part of that body and opens up of its own volition to offer a cocky "Hello, I'm Lance, and you're right here in my arms."
Naturally, this does not go over well, just like a million times before, and Lance finds himself on the receiving end of a submission hold while the alien beauty demands information. As he answers all of her questions, he subtly tests the strength of her grip. While she is no doubt stronger than any human he has ever met, he notes that would still have no problem tearing his arm free if he was willing to expose himself.
The woman's name is Allura, and she and her companion Coran (who is definitely Lance's favorite so far) are from a planet called Altea and have been asleep for nigh on ten thousand years. Altea has been destroyed, as well as all of her people, by a creature named Zarkon, leader of the Galra. It turns out that Shiro was a captive of Zarkon as well and can corroborate her claims of his being a genocidal dictator.
Lance sees red. He finally understands why his family must have sent him away: to keep him safe from the destruction of the Galra. Zarkon is the reason he will never be able to find his home, no matter how long he searches. His blood boils in his veins as he quietly swears vengeance on those who destroyed his people, vowing to root them out wherever he can find them.
In the expeditions to find the other lions, Lance is assigned to escort Hunk to a "peaceful" planet, the home of the Yellow Lion. Naturally, this means that they are chased by Galra fighters and fired at by land to air artillery upon entry, and Lance is forced to hot drop Hunk rather than actually land and search.
Lance does his best to keep the Galra busy, but despite the power both himself and the Blue Lion, he is only one man, and some manage to slip past him. His heart sinks into his stomach as he sees the missiles impact the cave that Hunk ran into, spelling the end of the best friend he's ever had. He pushes the tears down and allows the rage to rise just under his skin, causing the air in Blue's cockpit to crackle with power. Blue seems to pick up on his anger and roars, redoubling her lasers and speed in an attempt to take out every last one of the Galra who killed his people and his friend.
When the Yellow Lion tunnels out of the ground it is to the sight of a destroyed Galra encampment. Where once there were hundreds of sentries, fighters and anti-air placements, now there are scattered broken parts and scorch marks. In the middle of it all sits the Blue Lion, not moving, eyes not glowing, until it sees him.
"Hunk! You're alive!" cries Lance as the Blue Lion powers up and bounds over to him.
"Wow man," breathes Hunk, "it looks like you were busy up here."
Before they can continue this happy reunion Allura's face appears on a screen in their lions, warning them that they need to get back to the Castle of Lions as soon as possible. Lance barely holds in some witty flirtatious comment on the tip of his tongue. He can't help it, it's who he is and she's just so beautiful it's hard not to.
At the castle they meet up with Shiro and Pidge, who have successfully returned with the Green Lion, leaving them in possession of four lions, only three of which are currently available. In order to get access to the Black Lion, which will form the head of Voltron, they need the Red Lion that is orbiting Arus on a Galra battlecruiser.
While Hunk wants to just leave Arus with the lions and the castle, not liking the idea of fighting a highly advanced alien civilization with a group of only five people plus two aliens they'd never met before today, everyone else wants to stay and fight, Lance most of all. The others believe Lance only wants to make a good impression on the princess, but Lance knows better. He only discovered what must have happened to his people (whoever they were had been) a few hours ago, but already hatred festers in his gut, and it is this that fuels his will to fight.
As they prepare themselves for battle with Sendak and his forces, Allura takes them to retrieve their new paladin armor and bayards. While Lance doesn't need the armor to protect himself, he's pretty sure he still needs to breathe, so he takes it without protest. His bayard takes the form of some high-tech sniper rifle, and if he didn't already have his hammer, he'd be in love.
While Lance doesn't like having to play nice and pretending to surrender Blue to the Galra, he can't deny the ingenuity of Shiro's plan. By appearing to be afraid and give Sendak exactly what he wants, they can ensure he won't be looking anywhere else, allowing the others to sneak onto the Galra ship undetected and take the Red Lion.
The plan is successful. It isn't hard for Hunk and Lance to take out dozens of fighters when they're piloting the most advanced semi-sentient warships the universe has ever seen. Once Keith confirms that he has the Red Lion (Lance would be jealous, but none of the other lions could possibly be better than Blue), they immediately pull back to the Castle of Lions so that they can awaken the Black Lion. Only with all the lions in one place, Allura tells them, can they form Voltron to defeat Sendak's ship.
Forming Voltron feels… odd. While he had always known he wasn't human, Lance had never felt the difference between him and those he camouflaged himself among as keenly as he did now, linked to these four alien minds. They felt like candles in a light breeze, not quite sputtering out, but fragile and spontaneous. His own mind had always been almost like a castle, strong and unassailable, with thoughts rushing along the battlements like little soldiers on patrol. Luckily, while his new teammates can feel the difference in Lance's mind compared to their own, they are all too busy coordinating the massive war machine known as Voltron against Sendak to dwell too deeply on it.
As the Galran ship is torn apart in the cold vacuum of space and Voltron splits apart, Lance knows he will not be so lucky as to escape questioning once everything has settled.
Okay, that's chapter one. Hopefully y'all aren't too disappointed with it, but honestly I'm just having fun writing this and that's why I'm doing it.
Also, if you haven't figured out who Lance is that's kind of sad, but I want to make it clear that THIS IS NOT A MARVEL CROSSOVER. Yes, Lance is Thor. No, Lance is not the Thor from Marvel.
Couple of announcements that y'all may or may not care about:
1. This will be completed, and I'm planning to post semi-weekly on Tuesdays (I know today's Wednesday but it's Tuesday night so I'm just going with that) and Saturdays from now on. The outline is mostly done, and once I have the whole story written up, I may increase how often I post, which leads me to my next point:
2. I'd like a beta, if anybody's willing, just PM me. I'm pretty confident in my grammar and writing stuff, but I'm an engineer not a journalist so it would probably be best if I have somebody to just read over it. Really, what I want a beta for is to have someone to bounce ideas off of, and maybe tell me which of a few drafts/idea paths (i.e. this chapter I almost wrote it so that they couldn't form Voltron at all because Lance's mind was just too different) is the best to take. TL;DR: be my beta, make sure I do words good, and help me design the story.
One last thing: I've been keeping this story light on dialogue (don't worry, there's actually quite a bit in the next chapter), mostly because I'm shit at writing it, and it's easier on me to focus completely on Lance without worrying about other characters (which I really should to be honest). Let me know if y'all would like more actual fleshed-out conversations, and I'll do my best to deliver.
