Chapter 4: Horrible
ScarletMidnight19
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A few vargas after the Balmera rejuvenation ceremony saw all the paladins standing around the princess while she lay in her bed under strict orders to rest from Coran.
Lance agreed whole heartedly with Coran. That much use of quintessence to save a living planet could not only drain someone, but it could've also led to the princess losing her very essence. She was very lucky she was suffering from mild exhaustion instead.
"I'm sorry, I know this is quite lacking for proper introductions." Allura started, sitting up from her bed to look at the Paladins congregated in her room. "I want to thank you for arriving when you did. Without your timely arrival I'm not sure if the others would've been safe."
Lance inclined his head in silent agreement. He had taken note of that when he had arrived.
"Let me introduce you to the paladins properly. It seems you have already made your acquaintance with our yellow and green paladin. Hunk and Pidge respectively."
"Hi!" Pidge waved, grinning mischievously from beside him. Hunk on his other side grinned and gave a shy wave,
"This is Keith the red paladin." she motioned towards a dark-haired brooding male, who looked like he wanted to be anywhere else but here. Lance could sympathize. He wasn't exactly thrilled to be here either.
"Shiro, the black paladin and leader of Voltron." She nodded to the only paladin that looked remotely experienced out of all the others. Shiro gave a hesitant nod and extended his arm out to him.
Scratch that. He extended a galra modified quintessence arm. The frak? However, he was not about to be rude. His sister would be horrified to know his manners were to be lacking, he accepted the modified hand and shook hands with his now-to-be leader.
"And of course you've met Coran. He is my advisor; he also handles the castle and all its functions." Lance nodded to Coran, to which the advisor grinned and winked at him. "And let me formally introduce myself. I am Princess Allura of Altea, and guardian of the Voltron lions."
Did she just say Altea? There was no way-
"I apologize. I must have heard wrong. You're the princess of Altea?"
"The simple term would be was, seeing as Altea no longer exists. But if it did, yes, I am."
"You know about Altea?" Pidge curiously asked
"Everyone knows about Altea." He responded "The empire, never fails to use it as an example. Altea was the first planet that was destroyed by Zarkon himself. The first planet casualty that began this hateful war." he glowered, his sunny disposition vanishing entirely as he glared at the floor. "You mentioned you're the princess. How did the Royal family survive all this time?" And why did they never help to fight back against the empire. Why did they hide?
"Well, it's not necessarily like you're imagining. Coran and I were there at the start of the war."
What? How? That's not possible. Even for Alteans that was a very long-life span.
"My father King Alfor, scattered the Voltron lions so Zarkon could not get ahold of them, and then placed us in healing pods and made it so we were only to awaken when the new paladins had arrived accompanied with a Voltron lion. We have been asleep for 10,000 deca-phoebs."
Asleep, for 10,000 deca-phoebs? Wait, what did that mean for them? Do they have updated information on the galra? The magnitude of the empire? The battle tactics of the empire? Ways to combat them? Did they have a concrete plan? What was their plan when they did manage to 'free' planets?
"FRAK!" he yelled, frustrated. 'Verse, why did this kind of stuff always happen to him. Just one quintant, that's all he asked for, but of course that was too much to ask for.
"Lance?" Hunk asked, a hint of nervousness mixed with worry.
Lance exhaled deeply and looked at everyone assembled in the room. First of all, he needed to assess them, gauge exactly how much they knew or didn't know.
"Who here has experience in fighting. And when I mean experienced, I mean life or death." Coran and Shiro where the only ones with their hand's raised.
"Experience in handling dangerous weapons?" Coran, Allura, Shiro, and Keith
"Handling different types of aircraft?" again the same four as last time.
Lance groaned. This was not ideal. Every single one of them should know this stuff. They were the basics after all. The very foundation of every single battle.
"What about intel? Aside from the intel that you knew of the Galra back when the war started, is your intel updated?"
"Well, some is, but most of it is inaccessible due to the castle not functioning for that long. Since the castle, as anything needs maintenance and updates needing to be done. The most information we have are stuff from 7,000 deca-phoebs ago. That's about as updated as we could get." Coran informed
"That's not updated. That's outdated!" Lance huffed. "Seriously where you guys just going to start 'freeing' planets without even having solid information on the empire? Do you know how the galra operate? Do you know their patrolling routes? Their battle tactics? The difference between a battle ship? Cargo ship? Or their home ships? Do you know which commander commands what sector? How about that dreadful witch Haggar? Or how where you planning on freeing planets while simultaneously avoiding the empire from reclaiming the planets lost?"
"Well, we were planning on getting proper updated information" The princess said, sitting up in her large bed and looking annoyed.
"Of course you were princess." Lance drawled "Do share with the others, where that Information would have come from."
Allura bristled at the tone, and Lance could see how annoyed she was becoming at being questioned; however, he could care less. This was a war; one she was asleep for, for its entirety while he had to grow up in it, learn to fight at an early age, get sent to battle, loose friends and family to this never-ending cycle of violence that Zarkon had created.
This was war.
"From one of their stations of course. The station located in the Balmera would have been a great source of information."
Lance tried to not explode, really. He is just frustrated. Did he really have to fight alongside them? This was a punishment, he was sure.
"Unfortunately princess, the information located in the Balmera was wiped out two movements ago."
"What? Are you certain?" Coran asked him 'what's a movement?' he heard the green paladin murmur to the red paladin who just shrugged and shook his head.
"Very certain. When a Balmera is no longer producing crystals of the quality that it used to, it ceases to have value in the eyes of the empire. They will then start removing anything of value from their system before the Balmera eventually succumbs to their death. That being said however doesn't mean that the information you would've gathered would be anything useful."
"How do you know?" The red paladin demanded, glaring at him suspiciously.
"Because the only information they save, are transactions. Who they sold the balmera crystals to, what type of crystal was it, how many crystals did they want, when they sold the crystal(s), and how much was it valued for. Just business transaction forms." Lance sighed, "As to how I know this. It's because even before getting chosen by Blue, I was already doing missions and fighting back against the empire. I was in the middle of a mission when I found Blue. The Balmera has always had information about business transaction. Not anything that would actually help in battle."
"Alright, so what do you suggest we do." Shiro asked, speaking for the first time since this conversation started. "It seems out of everyone, you're the most knowledgeable."
"Do you really believe that Shiro? We know nothing of the guy! He hasn't even taken off his stupid helmet!" Keith declared, still glaring at him.
And oh! The red paladin was right, he had totally forgotten to change.
"I apologize for that. It looks like I forgot with all the excitement." Lance chuckled taking off his helmet. Once off he ran is fingers through his hair. Combing the mess, he knew his hair would be in.
"Holy shit"
"The fuck."
"Are those diamonds real."
"He kind of looks like Allura & Coran."
"Let me properly introduce myself again. My name is Lance. Blue paladin at your service." He grinned cheekily blue eyes sparkling mischievously.
"What's up with those diamonds dude?" Hunk asked
"Yeah! And what type of species are you?" Pidge added, looking at him with a hungry look that made the hairs on his neck stand.
His diamonds huh? It looks like where they were from, they were also called that. Lance had three diamonds placed on his forehead. The middle one was the largest one, and he had one small diamond on either side of the larger, all of them were connected by a seemingly invisible line.
"I apologize, but my kind are extremely secretive, soon enough you will have the answers to your questions."
"How are we supposed to trust you then." The red paladin shot back; eyes narrowed in suspicion.
Lance liked him, it was good to be wary. "You don't need to know my full story, as I don't need to know yours or even the Alteans. The lions of Voltron have chosen each of us, for now that is enough for me."
There was a tense silence at his proclamation. All of them not knowing how to follow up with that.
Lance sighed breaking the silence "We will be fighting together, while also learning to form Voltron. As it stands all you need to start training. Coran, do we have somewhere where we can train?"
"We do have the simulator room. Some of the functions are operational." The Altean responded, twisting his mustache in thought.
"No need, we'll be training with pure weapons."
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Lance was dreading this; from what he had seen these humanoids had no experience in the battlefield. With being paladins of Voltron, they were going to have to start learning how to defend themselves. And honestly Lance would feel so much better if they got in a bit of training.
This was just a mock battle, so he could properly assess them.
And that's why he was in the training deck along with the rest of the Paladins.
Before Lance could even say something, the yellow Paladin beat him to it. "Hey Lance, quick question but your armor is so cool. It looks comfortable as well as sturdy enough that judging from the scorch marks it can handle explosions or anything with a lot of fire power. Is there any way we could get an armor like that? Ours isn't that comfortable and has obvious flaws in its design I m-"
"-Rambling. Hunk, you're rambling" the red paladin interrupted while Pidge grinned beside Hunk.
Lance grinned. He WAS still wearing his armor and not the Paladin one. In hindsight he should start wearing the Paladin one, but his armor was superior in every way. Not only was Hunk right that it WAS sturdier and more comfortable, but it also provided a sense of anonymity considering it covered the whole face and didn't give away anything as to who would be behind the mask. Being Paladins of Voltron, the empire would now be after them, but if he gave them each an armor like his they would be able to cover their identities and would be able to go out to malls or even go in undercover missions, or even just go out to get intel without no one knowing exactly who they were.
Now that was a thought. He will definitely have to get more armor; he will have to run that through with Shiro and the Alteans however.
"That's not a bad idea Hunk. This armor is one of a kind. It's not something you'll find so easily out in the universe, I would have to request the armor specifically made for each of you, but it's definitely something to look into. I'll have to double check first and get back to you on that." Hunk pouted at this but nodded anyway.
"Request it from where? Can't you just request it later or any other day?" Pidge asked
"Classified, and no that would be too dangerous" Lance replied in tandem, before anyone else could ask more questions he continued "Obviously we all now know that half of you don't know how to fight. Which is a huge handicap when fighting in the battlefield. Which is why, your training will start now."
Before anyone could comprehend what was going on, Lance had thrown a dagger Shiro's way. Shiro predictably ducked and moved out the way. Keith however raced towards Lance, blade bayard active and ready for battle.
He swung his sword forward, only to be blocked by Lance's forearm. Lance smirked at Keith, pushing him off before ducking and side stepping another blow. He saw Pidge running towards them from his peripheral, her grappling hook bayard at her side. She stopped mid run aiming at him and fired. Lance ducked under another blow against Keith's sword and swiftly turned to the opposite side of Pidge's grappling hook, so when Keith readjusted himself, he would be on the hook's line of fire. And while Keith prepared for another attack, the hook intertwined itself between his sword and his arm. Lance immediately swept Keith's legs bringing him down while simultaneously being electrocuted because of Pidge.
After Keith had fallen, groaning and twitching, bayard falling precariously to the side and out of reach, Lance grabbed onto Pidge's wire and pulled, pulling the small paladin towards him. Pidge yelled, flailing her legs as she flew. He used the momentum to swing her in circles, and while Pidge was flailing, she hit an approaching Hunk with her legs, causing him to shoot his cannon bayard without a seeming target. With one last spin he threw her straight at Hunk, her wire still connected to Keith and pulling him along.
All three paladins falling against each other.
He heard a hum from behind him, and he quickly ducked and rolled away. Shiro stood in front of him, mechanical arm shining a Galra purple. They locked eyes with each other, each sizing the other up before both charged. Lance balled his right hand into a fist ready to uppercut his leader, Shiro balled his shining weapon arm aiming a punch to his face.
His face? Not the face, anywhere but the face!
Panicking, at the last moment before they would collide, Lance bent both his knees sliding under Shiro's arm, using his advantage he pulled out his pole staff from one of his pouches at light speed. He let the staff enlarge itself while simultaneously hitting Shiro in the ribs, he heard his leader grunt at the impact. He aimed another hit at Shiro's mid back with his staff and while bringing the staff down hit the back of Shiro's kneecaps, making the man stumble and fall unwillingly. But before Shiro could fall, he had grabbed onto Lance's staff and pulled. Lance, to not lose his weapon, instinctively reached for his staff and as he did Shiro pushed the staff landing a blow to Lance's stomach, he grunted, stumbling back and trying to regain his balance.
Shiro held onto the staff, aiming it at Lance. Both looked at each other once again, before Shiro relaxed and smiled at him, Lance smiled back but not before throwing a black and red Bolas aimed at Shiro's legs. By the time Shiro reacted it was too late, he fell backwards with a loud thud, his staff clattering to the side.
"Okay, I guess that's enough for today." Lance sighed. They needed so much work, well except Shiro he just knew the black paladin was holding back against him and was underestimating him, which would be sweet if they weren't in a war. During these times one should never underestimate another, that could be their downfall.
"Good fight Shiro" Lance smiled offering a hand to his fallen leader, who had sat up and was untying the weapon from his legs.
"You fight well" Shiro complimented him. Lance felt his ears get hot and he quickly ducked his head muttering a quiet thanks.
"Umm no he doesn't, he cheated" Keith yelled from the pile of paladins that were still laying on the floor.
Lance scoffed "This is a war. There's no such thing as a fair fight. You go out there expecting a fair fight from a Galra and you will die." he glared at the red paladin "Actually scratch that with the way you fight you probably will either way" he smirked, crossing his arms as he leveled the paladin with a haughty look. His siblings used to tell him that it was because of that look that he always got into unnecessary trouble. Which, valid.
"Excuse me?" Mullet hissed, violet eyes glaring a hole right through him.
"You're excused" Lance replied. Moving away from Shiro and ignoring Keith's sputtering in lieu of helping Pidge and Hunk.
'Verse what had he gotten himself into. His new team was horrible at fighting, and they wanted to free as many planets as they could? Lance internally scoffed.
"Frell" he swore "fraking frell"
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He had to tell the commander. He had to. This was something that would change the tide of the war. 10,000 deca-phoebs and finally, FINALLY, a chance at winning.
"Sir! We've received word." He busted into the commander's lab. He would of course have been more mindful, but with a news like this. He HAD to tell him.
"Careful Raj." The commander scolded, going back to his work.
Raj gulped, mumbling apologies. The commander was busy at work developing new weapons for them, since the shipment that was supposed to arrive never did. They finally had an answer as to why, though.
"What is the news?" He asked, lifting his goggles. Warm amber eyes clashed with Raj's own violet ones.
"It's about Voltron sir."
"The myth?" His superior responded back, removing his gloves.
Raj nodded, because that's how it had always been spoken like. Like a legend, a myth. Something that would never come to pass, but oh how wrong had they been.
"We got word from Vrek, sir! The rise of Voltron has begun."
"Are you certain?"
"The lions have chosen their paladins, sir."
"Thank the stars!" He exhaled sharply, finally, FINALLY, this war would end, and he could go HOME. "Get the word out. We must start preparing, so when Voltron does need our help, we will be ready to give them aid."
"Yes sir!" Raj exclaimed, saluting at his commander and leaving the lab to do as he was ordered.