Chapter Two: The Corruption

"I can't believe he did that."

Hunk laughed darkly at Keith's words. "Keith, this is Lance we're talking about."

Keith took a deep breath. "Yeah… I guess I shouldn't be this surprised."

"Nevertheless, we need to get him back," Shiro growled. "We need to get him as soon as we can. The Druids won't treat him as a royal guest. They'll tear him apart."

"We need to plan this carefully, though," Pidge interjected quickly. "Alpha Kaj isn't something that we can easily get to. Plus there's no way it still hung around in Neba galaxy. It must have moved somewhere else."

Shiro closed his eyes. "I know," he whispered, voice broken.

Allura watched alongside Coran, silent and still, wondering what exactly they were supposed to do. Once again they were robbed of one precious member, and once again they weren't sure how exactly they could regain him. Allura sighed, pursing her lips in contemplation. Lance was never her favorite. He was far too loud, too obnoxious, his tendency to throw pickup lines twenty times a day too annoying, but he was also an irreplaceable member of Voltron. He was also a Paladin, whose traits had kept them going.

He was also family.

Allura straightened up and took a deep breath, turning to greet the freed prisoners. She plastered a smile and opened her mouth to speak, but she was beaten to it.

"My lady," greeted a tall, three-eyed lady with hair that could rival the most exquisite curtain, "I am Pythia of Castal. May I speak to you of your missing pilot?"

"I – " Allura blinked. "Of course."

Pythia kneeled in front of her, seemingly only so Allura didn't need to crane her neck up so keep eye contact. "My lady. The people of Castal have always been able to foresee the future, however briefly or vaguely. With enough willpower, we can access this vision as we wish, though the result we get would be far too fragmented. However, I have reasons to believe that your lost paladin would be retrieved safely, more likely sooner rather than later."

A knot of tension Allura didn't realize even existed eased slowly in her stomach. She had heard of the Castallians, their predictions, and their unnerving accuracy. Allura smiled. "Thank you very much, Pythia of Castal. Your information is greatly appreciated."

Pythia's gaze turned solemn. "I must say that it most likely would be a difficult battle, though."

Allura instantly mirrored Pythia's expression. "I know."

"The bond!" a sudden shout from Pidge drew Allura's attention. "We could use Blue's bond with Lance to track where he is!"

Allura stared at her quizzically. "Can you not use the bonds between Paladins to do it instead? It would be much faster and easier than using the bond between the blue lion and him, since you cannot understand the blue lion as well as you do your own lions."

Pidge shook her head. "I'm not sure it's strong enough to track with. We can barely feel one another during training, much less through… I don't know, solar systems?"

"Yeah, even I don't sense him all that well," Hunk agreed. "But Lance's bond with Blue, on the other hand, is really strong. We should be able to track him through Blue."

"Alright then," Shiro spoke up. "Let's go to Blue's hangar. We'll work there."

"If this is your equivalent of suite hotel room," Lance began, "then I must say that I am severely disappointed."

The Druid that had strapped him to the bed he was on peered at him, head tilted aside as though curious.

"Oh, did you know?" Lance said to him conversationally. "There's like, a classification for hotel rooms on Earth. Standard, deluxe, junior suite, and suite. Standard is just, well, standard, while suite is like the most wow of all rooms. I wouldn't know because I've never stayed in a suite room, but I heard it's great."

The Druid nodded and looked away.

"You talk much for someone who has just been captured. Don't you realize what would happen to you?"

Lance turned to the door, where a tall, long haired Galra who looked way prettier than any Galra Lance had laid his eyes on strolled to him casually. He grinned. "Hey, I'm sure these guys appreciate it. I wouldn't want to be your typical silent, cowering prisoner and bore you out of your mind."

The pretty Galra smiled. "I have heard that the Blue Paladin has ways with his words, but I never thought he would be this entertaining. I am Prince Lotor, Emperor Zarkon's son. Pleased to make your acquaintance."

Oh shit. Suddenly the pretty Galra didn't seem so pretty anymore. Lance let a smile bloom in his face. "Oh, heeey. Nice to meet you too. The name's Lance. Uh, how's your dad?"

Lotor chuckled darkly. "Comatose. Doesn't seem like he'll wake up anytime soon."

Lance cringed. That was awkward. "Ah. Um, sorry to hear that?"

"I'm sure you are, considering that it's you and your friends who made him this way."

A laugh, high pitched and nervous, escaped Lance's lips. "Yeah, well. About that."

Lotor stared and gave a small smile. "Never mind that. Anyway, I'm here to give you an offer."

"I don't know if I'd like this but go on and explain?"

"Before that." Lotor held up a finger and turned to the door, calling, "Come in now, Haggar."

Lance felt his fingers growing cold when the door opened again and the familiar, hunching figure of the Head Witch of Galra Empire walked in. She stared at him for a moment before turning to Lotor. "Sire?"

"I have to agree with you, Haggar," the prince told the witch. "He is as interesting as you made it seem to be. He's got quite a mouth, too."

"I am here, I heard that, I'll take that as a compliment," Lance interjected.

Lotor gestured. "See?"

"He is certainly not your average prisoner, Sire." Haggar sounded unimpressed. "I do believe he could be good for the empire, however."

Lance stared. "Excuse me, what."

Lotor threw him a brilliant smile that somehow made Lance feel sick to his stomach. "Well, about that offer I talked about earlier. Simply put, I want you to join the empire."

An eyebrow shot up. "What."

"You are good with words, that's what I'm looking for," Lotor explained. "As I'm sure you've seen, our soldiers aren't good talkers. I'm not that good either, to be completely honest, but I think you're more than good enough. You have ways to… connect with people, make them like you, unlike most if not all Galra around, and I believe that could be very influential. Dangerous, even. Join the empire, Blue Paladin, and help me convince others to join us as well. The Galra Empire could bring prosperity for the entire universe if only people agree to join us."

"You want me to sweet talk people to surrendering their planets to Galra?" the brow lifted up again.

"Well, it's either you join us willingly or be our power by surrendering your quintessence and let Haggar do whatever she needs and wants to do with you," Lotor told him, almost nonchalant. "She thinks your ability to control water and ice is very interesting. And able to heal, too? Fascinating. I also think your ability is very interesting, Lance. It's another reason why I wish you could join us."

Lance forced a smile that came out more of a grimace. "That's a very generous offer, but I'm good, thanks. I'll stay with my current team."

Lotor stared in disapproval. "You do realize that you're fighting a losing battle, don't you? My forces far outnumber yours."

"That's true, but I like my friends better than yours," Lance shrugged. "So it's a no. Don't push it, Prince. My answer won't change no matter what."

"I see." Lotor straightened, suddenly looking distant. What little warmth he'd shown to Lance vanished with no trace. "I'm sorry that we do not see eye to eye, Paladin."

"Well, you and me both, buddy." Lance shrugged again.

Lotor spared him a small smirk and turned to Haggar. "He's all yours. Do whatever you need to do."

"Of course, Sire." Haggar's eyes followed as Lotor exited the room. As soon as he was out, she turned her full, undivided attention at Lance. "Blue Paladin."

Lance gulped. Haggar was still as nope as he last remembered her. "Why, hello there Haggar, beautiful as always, I see. Listen, I'm sorry I trapped you in ice. I was upset and reckless and didn't think through my actions." Shit, he was babbling. He needed to stop babbling.

Haggar circled his bed, staring like someone who was considering buying some kind of goods. She didn't acknowledge his words. He wasn't sure if that was good or not. He gulped and stopped talking, choosing to warily eye the space witch instead.

"I had considered coming after you, Paladin," she spoke lowly, partly to herself. "I have found your ability to control water and ice intriguing. Druids are able to use magic, but not the elements. What makes you able to wield them? What is different? Are you able to use basic Druid magic?"

Lance stared. "Uh. Can you tell me what you were saying again? In simple sentences, if you please? 'Cause I have no idea what you're talking about."

Haggar ignored him. She lifted her hand and reached to him, and he froze in panic. Nowhere to run, nowhere to move. He tried to squirm away, but her hand reached him anyway, gripping him tight in the arm. He couldn't shake her off considering how he was bound, so he resolved to glare at her while enduring her completely unwelcome touch.

Her fingers sparked purple, but no lighting came to electrify Lance. He glanced quizzically at her hand, then back at her face, and gasped.

He could feel something deep beneath, crawling and wriggling and gnawing deep into his being. It was gross, disgusting, repulsive. It felt like the thing was trying to take over and turn him into something else entirely, changing his bright blue into something murky and muddy and unrecognizable. The crawling was deeper than his skin, deeper than his flesh, deeper than his bones – it felt like it was trying to reach his very soul. He choked on a sob as his eyes began to water, and he wished it would just go away, leave, leave, leave, I don't want you here.

Then, as soon as it came, it retracted into itself and vanished completely. Lance gasped again, gulping in ragged breath after ragged breath, relieved to know it was gone but still shaken and confused by the whole ordeal.

"How curious," Haggar mused, and Lance jolted. "You could manipulate your own quintessence and control a powerful element, yet you don't know how to cleanse your own core."

Lance took a deep breath. "Lady, I have zero idea what you're talking about right now," he told her, cursing inwardly at the tremor in his voice.

Haggar pulled her hand away from Lance. She turned to the Druid that had been standing still, keeping watch, by the bed all this while. "Prepare the equipment. We shall study his bond with the lion, see if it has anything to do with how he uses his power. Locate the rest of his comrades, too, while you're at it; I'd prefer to get back my Champion as well."

Lance's eyes widened. Haggar wanted to study his bond with Blue. Haggar could locate his friends through Blue. Haggar could potentially get Shiro back again.

His heart pounded loudly against his chest. When he let himself get captured, he completely forgot about the bond he had with Blue. Small hope bloomed in his chest – they can trace me, they can get me, they can save me – but as soon as it came it was squashed. He couldn't rely on the bond to let his friends get him. Haggar would be expecting that; it would be the same as presenting themselves on a silver platter. They couldn't do that.

But him being here meant Haggar could use his bond to locate Blue, and therefore his friends. He didn't know how, or if that was possible at all – he didn't know Haggar, for all he knew she could just be bluffing.

He wasn't willing to take that chance, though. He couldn't let his friends be captured.

His resolve hardened, as sure as ice forming in sub-zero atmosphere. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and reached deep within, grasping at his bond with Blue. It felt weak, stretched by distance. Alongside it was the bonds he had with other Paladins, far weaker than the bond he had with Blue, but present nonetheless. He dove into his connection with Blue.

My Paladin? Blue's voice was so faint, so distant. They were too far apart, but effort from both their ends fueled by desperation allowed words to travel through.

Blue, Lance bit his lip. Blue, they're going to use me. They're going to use our bond to find you. Haggar wants Shiro back.

My Paladin, please, fear not, Blue's voice grew slightly stronger. It was laced with forced calm. Paladins of Black, Green, Red, and Yellow are trying to locate you.

Panic rose within him. No, no, Blue, they can't! They can't do that! Haggar would be monitoring the bond, she'll know. I can't let them come when we're still connected, Blue; you, me, all the other Paladins. If the bond isn't there, if Haggar can't see them coming, they'd have better chance at attacking.

My Paladin, Blue began warily, agitated, what are you planning to do?

I'm the only link that could be misused, Blue, he explained. If the bond is gone, then…

My Paladin, no. Please, don't.

I can't let them get to you, Blue. I can't let them get my friends. My family.

Paladin –

I'm sorry, beautiful. Be safe.

Lance – !

Lance gripped his bonds – with Blue, with the Paladins – and, before he could stop himself out of fear, before Haggar realized what he was doing and stopped him, stretched the already stretched thin bonds and let them snap.

The effect was instantaneous. Blue's voice was abruptly cut off, and he received a quick but powerful surge of despair, fear, and anger all mixed into one through the tattered remains of Blue's bond before it was gone. Through the bonds with the other Paladins, he got faint feelings of shock, then confusion, then dread before they, too, faded and was gone completely. He felt hollow somehow, the cavity the bonds left mocked him through the proverbial gaping hole in his chest, the dangling threads that once conveyed feelings of reassurance, of warmth, of affection, mockingly sent only cold nothingness.

Through it all, he heard a distant noise that he soon recognized as screaming. It took him a moment longer to realize that it was him who was screaming, and that he was crying. As it turned out, ripping away bonds with a giant robot lion and important people in one's life was a big deal. Who knew.

When the screaming stopped, he realized that Haggar was glaring at him hatefully, panting slightly. The guard Druid inched away from her. Were her cheeks red? Had she been screaming, too?

"How dare you," Haggar hissed. "How dare you!"

Lance stared at her through vision blurred by tears, confused, before he realized what she meant. It hit him like bricks, and before he could stop himself he let loose a bark of laugh. "What? Is it that bad that I don't have my bonds anymore?"

Haggar gritted her teeth. "I will make sure you suffer, Paladin."

Lance couldn't help it. He laughed, loud and hysterical, unable to rein it in even as his whole body shook and his stomach ached from the force of it all. With the laugh came the tears, and before long the laugh was interlaced with sobs and hiccups.

Lance let himself laugh and cry without restraint, bracing himself to the coming pain. From now on, he was all alone.

Coran watched as the remaining Paladins worked in Blue Lion's hangar, trying hard to use the bond between Paladin and Lion to track Lance.

Or, well, some of them worked. Shiro stared at the monitor of Pidge's computer, where the young girl typed as fast as she was able to, spouting line after line of codes in hope of getting their teammate back. Keith was pacing back and forth, gripping the Marmorra dagger and using it to cut through the air every once in a while as he tried to work out his agitation. Hunk, on the other hand, had long since abandoned the post and went to the kitchen to bake some cookies after knowing that at the moment there was nothing he could tinker with so he could tamp down his frustration. No tool that needed to be made, no hardware that needed to be rewired. Nothing a mechanic could do.

"Pidge, status report," Shiro requested.

"I'm getting close to translating the bond into binary codes, but we'll have to figure out how to make sense of it all later," Pidge answered monotonously, too absorbed in her work to answer otherwise.

"If anyone can do it, it's you, Pidge," Keith told her.

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, now shut up and let me work." Despite the dismissive tone, Pidge's fingers flew even faster.

Coran glanced at Allura, who was standing by him. She returned his glance with her own worried one, and he knew instantly that his gaze mirrored hers.

Each and every Paladin of Voltron was important, and they all contributed to keep the team balanced and strong. Lance, however, was invaluable in how he kept the team going no matter the circumstances. If he hadn't been there when Shiro was gone there was no doubt that the team would fall apart. Now that he was the one actually missing, Coran wasn't sure how the team – the princess and himself included – would fare.

"Hey, guys." A voice from the doorway caught Coran's attention, and in came Hunk holding a large bowl of cookies.

"Hunk," Allura greeted. "Have you calmed down a little?"

"Yeah, baking's always helped me do that," Hunk answered with a grin, though it wasn't as easy as usual. "I made way too much, though. I have the usual green goo cookies, and the peanut butter cookies, also this space blue choco chips cookies, and basic vanilla butter cookies." He stared at the 'vanilla butter' cookies. "Except the vanilla ones turned out to be neon yellow instead. Hm."

"Soon as I'm done with this I'm gonna need the peanut butter ones to refuel," Pidge announced, still typing.

"I'll save some for you," Hunk promised. "Now does anyone else have special requests? Because I'm pretty sure I'm gonna eat like half of these on my own so if you want to call dibs on them – "

Several things happened at once, then.

The Blue Lion, which had been sitting completely still all this time, came online all of a sudden and let out a deafening roar, eyes lighting up bright yellow. It immediately paced frantically, swiping and clawing at the hangar walls, still roaring. There was an undercurrent of grief and despair within its voice.

Hunk stopped talking abruptly, eyes growing wide before rolling into the back of his head without warning as he swayed and fell back, bowl of cookies forgotten at once. It immediately activated its anti-gravity feature and floated nicely on thin air, but Hunk didn't have the same advantage. Coran dove to catch him before he hit the floor, managing to do it just barely. He ended up cushioning his fall with a loud oomph.

Keith, who was still pacing around, gasped aloud. The Marmorra blade slipped from his fingers and clanged loudly against the floor. He fell on his butt, sitting without moving while staring at nothing. Silent tears streamed down his cheeks. He looked… disconnected, somehow. Disjointed, and unsure how to deal with it.

Pidge stopped her rapid-fire typing so suddenly that the absence of constant noise was jarring. Instead of typing, Pidge had resigned to gripping her laptop so tightly that Coran was surprised he didn't hear it crack. She heaved heavily before curling into herself and started screaming wordlessly into her computer.

Shiro had frozen for a moment, eyes wide and unseeing as terror flashed within the depths of his gaze. His Galra arm suddenly lit up a bright purple, brightest Coran had ever seen it. He launched to his feet, losing his footing immediately and falling again, and he squirmed backwards, eyes darting around as though trying to locate a threat. His unseeing gaze found Allura, the only one who was still standing upright, and he cried loudly as he launched forward to her, ready to slice her to pieces. Thankfully, Allura reacted quickly. She caught his flesh hand and quickly pinned him down as gently as she could, whispering soothing words in an attempt to bring him back to reality. It didn't seem to work, as Shiro instead struggled against her, tears of fear and anger gathering in his eyes, shouting loudly and telling Allura to let go.

"What's going on here?" Coran asked aloud, baffled, perhaps a little bit scared. First Lance was gone, and now the rest of the Paladins suddenly ceased to function and the lion Lance piloted acted up? It didn't seem right.

Soon, things began to calm down a little. The Blue Lion stopped wailing and pawing the walls, slowly folding into itself and laying down on the floor. The yellow light of its eyes died as a particle barrier was raised, cutting itself off from the outside world. Pidge's screams had stopped, replaced by choked, broken sobs that squeezed Coran's heart until it was nothing but a bleeding mess. Shiro's loud order to be let go had turned into a soft request that Allura soon granted. He finally seemed himself again, though he still struggled to keep his arm under control.

"Coran…"

Coran's attention snapped to Hunk. The young man reached and gripped his sleeve, eyes moist. "Coran, it's gone. What do I do? I can't feel Lance anymore."

Coran felt cold immediately. "What do you mean, Hunk? What's gone?"

The tears escaped Hunk's eyes. "The bond! The Paladin bond, the one that connects me with Lance. It's gone, Coran. It snapped."

Coran opened his mouth to speak but found no words. He closed it again as he stared at Hunk in speechless shock. The Paladin bond, snapped? Had it ever happened before? Was it even possible?

Hunk took a look at Coran's flabbergasted face and laughed grimly. "You don't know what to do either, do you, Coran? Oh man. This is hopeless." Tear fell like waterfalls down his cheeks. "We don't know what to do. Lance's gone. Lance's gone. Lance's gone…"

"Hunk, please, calm yourself," Coran gripped Hunk's hand. "It's true that this has never happened before, so I have no idea what will happen to Lance, but right now our first priority is finding Lance."

"But the bond snapped, Coran," Hunk argued. "Doesn't that mean he's gone? Permanently? Like, d-dead?" Hunk sniffed.

Ah. So this was why the Paladins were so distressed. Coran squeezed Hunk's hand. "Hunk, I don't think Lance is dead."

That stopped Hunk's tears. Suddenly, all Paladins' attention was on Coran. He steeled his gaze.

"What do you mean?" Hunk asked, voice small.

"When a paladin dies," Coran ignored how Hunk flinched at his choice of words, "the bond they have with other paladins don't snap. They fade, little by little until not even a remnant of it is left, but while fading the bond is still there. It just doesn't feel of anything. Is that how it feels like, Hunk?"

"…no," Hunk answered after a moment of contemplation. "It just… snapped. It feels like it's… dangling? Like it's trying to reconnect somehow, but someone is actively holding it back?" Hunk looked at him. "Does this mean Lance is doing this?"

"I don't know, Hunk. This has never happened before." Coran sighed. "But I'm sure Lance is not dead. How he is now, though, is another matter entirely. Which is why we need to get him back. If not through the bond, then through some other methods."

"We can get Slav to help," Shiro wheezed through gritted teeth. He groaned, Galra hand clenched as the purple light finally dimmed. "If he can see all realities, then he can give us pointers where Lance is."

"Pythia says she can see the future, even if just snippets," Hunk added. He pulled himself up, sitting up instead of slumping against Coran. "We can ask her to help, too. I'm sure she can work with Slav."

"Blade of Marmorra," Keith's voice was soft, if a little hoarse. "They got intel of where Alpha Kaj was. They can do it again."

Allura nodded. "Well, then. Let's relocate to the control deck, where it will be easier to arrange it all. Shiro, please go get Slav once you've had your arm under control. Hunk, go to Pythia. She told me earlier to find her in the star map room if we need her." She stood up and turned, placing her hand on Blue Lion's particle barrier. "We will find your paladin," she vowed solemnly. "This I swear to you."

Hunk rubbed his eyes and slapped his cheeks with both his hands. "I'll go clean up for a bit. Then I'll go get Pythia." He stood up and began to walk. "Thanks, Coran."

"Anytime, Hunk."

"I should go too," Keith, too, stood and followed Hunk out.

"I'll go to Slav," Shiro added, following the other two. His hand had dimmed even more, though it hadn't deactivated yet. Coran was sure it would soon. Shiro had always had good control over it, and he'd regain it soon.

Pidge was the only one who hadn't moved or spoken. She had stopped sobbing, though she was still sniffling. Coran glanced to Allura, who met his gaze. She nodded and left the room quietly.

Coran moved, sliding to a crouch by Pidge. "Number five? Pidge, are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm… I'm okay," Pidge croaked. Coran couldn't see her face because she was still curled, still gripping at her laptop. "I just need a moment."

Slowly, Coran reached and touched Pidge hands. She jolted at the touch, but didn't recoil. He pried the laptop off her hands and set it aside. "Pidge? Will you look at me?"

She sniffed and slowly looked up. Her eyes were red, and tears fell still down her cheeks. Snot peeked through her nostrils. She sniffed again.

Coran took a handkerchief and gave it to Pidge. She took it wordlessly and wiped her eyes and nose.

"Do you want to talk?" Coran offered.

Pidge was silent for a moment before she finally spoke up. "I just… am I cursed?"

Coran blinked. "I'm sorry?"

"This is kind of selfish of me considering what's currently happening, but I can't help but feel like I'm cursed or something," Pidge sighed. "Everyone around me just… goes. One way or another, one by one. First it was Dad and Matt, then Shiro, and now Lance. I feel like me being around people puts them in danger." Her hands curled into fists. "Even I disappear from my mom's life. What kind of kid does that to her own mom? She didn't know I was gone. She probably thought I was dead. She probably thought she's the only one left in our family." She hunched forward and sniffed wetly. "I'm a terrible daughter."

Coran's heart sank. "Pidge… it's not your fault."

"I know," Pidge sighed. "Logically, I know it's not. Me and Lance and Hunk and Shiro and Keith being whisked up by a giant robot cat is no one's fault. It's kind of a blessing, actually, since now I have opportunity to look for Dad and Matt. But I can't help but feel guilty that I left mom alone. And I can't help but think that I could have done something to prevent Lance being captured."

Coran stared. "Was there anything you could have done?"

There was another moment of silence. "Probably not," Pidge admitted at last, not sounding happy about it. "The Druids were too fast. Nothing could hit them, not even Lance's shots." She rubbed her face with both her hands. "Ugh. I guess I just have to get him back myself, huh? Then I'll get my dad and Matt. Somehow."

"Then you can all go back home to meet your mother," Coran agreed, smiling warmly even though his heart ached still.

Pidge smiled. "I mean I'll probably have to go back here if anything happen again, but for now… for now that's good enough." She nodded. "Yeah. That's good enough."

Coran's smile widened. He circled his arm around Pidge's shoulders before squeezing softly and letting go. "Come on, Pidge. Let's get Lance back."

Pidge nodded. "Yeah." She got to her feet and pulled Coran up before gathering her things in her hands. "Thanks, Coran. Lance is right; you're the best space uncle ever."

Coran laughed aloud. "I sure hope I am, though I'm sure you don't have another space uncle." He grinned at Pidge. "Does that make Lance your space big brother?"

Pidge groaned. "The worst bro ever… we have to go clean up his mess all the time." She straightened up and turned serious at once. "Still a space bro, though. So yeah, let's go."

The thing about quintessence was that you don't know how truly important it was to you until yours had been poked, gauged, and stretched so thin you feel like you've run three decathlons nonstop without any break whatsoever.

Well, Lance certainly knew now. The Druids and the head witch Haggar hadn't spared him any of the details. By poking, gauging, and stretching Lance's quintessence so thin he felt like he'd run three decathlons without any break. Honestly, Lance had never exhausted his quintessence like this before, and he wasn't sure what would happen if he ran out – or worse – which was totally a possibility given how Haggar treated him.

Lance didn't really want to find out.

He knew he was about to anyway.

"I don't understand," Haggar muttered to herself as she circled Lance's bed. "There doesn't seem to be anything different in your quintessence. Why are you able to do what you do? Why can't the Druids?"

Lance laughed breathlessly. "You know, I was just asking the same thing. What about you put me off this rickety thing and we can discuss and theorize over a cup of tea? No?"

Haggar glared. "If you hadn't snapped your bond this would have been much easier to do."

Lance gulped. "Well, I guess we're both stuck then."

Truth to be told, not really. Lance could feel the snapped bonds, how they desperately try to latch and reform again. He could feel how the Paladin bonds searched and tried to reconnect the little strands back until tattered threads could recreate ribbons once more. Lance had to actively stop them from getting to close to his end of tattered remains just so they couldn't repair themselves. He still couldn't let that happen. Not with Haggar still around. Not even if she wasn't around.

Blue's bond stayed silent and dormant, however. Even when Lance tentatively poked at it, nothing went through. It made him worried. A part of him childishly felt abandoned.

How stupid. It was him who broke the bond in the first place. If anything, it was him who abandoned Blue.

He sighed. Just how long had it been? He wasn't sure if he could trust his sense of time. It felt like weeks, but he couldn't be sure. Mealtimes were sporadic, seemingly only given when he's already starved or exhausted. And he got starved or exhausted often due to the poking and gauging thing.

Which, he now realized, he probably should be worried about. It seemed that Haggar had decided that his quintessence wasn't much different from Druids'. She'd probably switch methods to poke and gauge at him now.

His suspicion was proven correct when Haggar approached him with electricity brimming in her hand. Before, only the Druids came to work with him, and only with needles and cables. They drew his quintessence out, studying it under several different magically controlled environments. To be honest, Lance didn't know what exactly they were doing with it or even how they could draw someone's quintessence out, but they did it. The only good thing Lance got from it all was that his quintessence apparently behaved like liquid and could spread frost and froze things in a moment's notice.

Usually, Haggar only watched. The fact that she came to him personally was more than enough to make Lance feel even more uneasy than usual. The way her hand sparked menacingly certainly didn't help matters.

"Uh, what are you doing?" Lance asked when Haggar stood by his bed.

She didn't respond. Instead, she placed her hand on his chest, and Lance grimaced, readying himself for pain. The electricity in Haggar's hand sparked before sinking into Lance's chest.

"If we cannot find out what makes you different," Haggar began, "we will simply make you ours."

"What – "

"Even if we cannot have our Champion back, we will make a better weapon."

The surprisingly familiar and entirely unwelcome feeling of something crawling within him overpowered Lance immediately. He choked on a gasp as the same disgusting, disgusting thing dug deep into him, reaching ever deeper and leaving trails of repulsive darkness. He immediately remembered the time when Haggar did the same thing before, rummaging in his very self and shaking him deeply before retreating immediately.

That time, it was experimental. It was sniffing out a new field, curiously poking before retreating without leaving anything. This time, it was different. It was soldiers marching into battleground, it was mercenary with a mission, a bird of prey diving for the kill. It was darker and stronger, intent, focused. No matter how much Lance willed it to go away, how much he wished it would vanish, he knew it wouldn't.

Or perhaps it could, if only he was a bit stronger. Pity all those experiments he'd gone through had made him too exhausted to put up a fight when it was actually needed.

The dark reached his core. Bright blue was soon stained, stirred up and tainted. Lance let out a scream before he could stop himself, begging the dark to get out, get out, get out, but no matter how hard he tried he couldn't make it go away.

Lance looked up at Haggar. She was the one doing this, still doing this. Her hand didn't budge from his chest even as he writhed around in fruitless attempt to get the darkness out. He gulped as tears began to gather in his eyes. "Stop this," he begged, not really caring about preserving his own pride. At this point he'd do anything as long as he could get away from the disgusting feeling of crawling and gnawing that was threatening to change his very soul.

Haggar simply returned his gaze calmly. "Serve the empire well, Ice Mage."

The remaining bright blue within himself flashed before it was devoured. His original color was gone, too tainted to be recognized. Ugly, muddy shade of its former self began flaring its power. As Lance's tears fell, coldness began to spread and numb his fingers. His tears froze.

Haggar lifted up her hand. Lance drowned in the darkness of his own tainted core.

A/N: The part about Lance cutting off the bond and being corrupted is one of the reasons why this fic exists at all, actually. Those are the first scenes that came to mind when I pictured this story, and when I imagined them they were so vivid I put them in with minimal editing. I hope the writing's good though.

Next chapter will be up in a few days. Hope you have a great day!