Chapter Text
The hum of drones floated through the air, blending with the sharp clashing of practice swords and the occasional grunt of effort. In the center of the training field, Lance dodged one of Hunk’s attacks with the grace of a dancer… or at least, that’s what he believed.
“Did you see that? You saw that, right, Pidge? That spin was worthy of an intergalactic viral video,” he bragged, barely ducking under another strike that nearly took his head off.
Pidge, sitting in the stands with a tablet in her hands, didn’t even look up.
“Yeah, Lance, super impressive. You almost died with style,” she replied flatly.
Keith snorted from the far end of the field, adjusting his grip on the practice sword. Routine training had become part of daily life at the Castle of Lions. After so many chaotic missions, a little sparring and dumb jokes were… almost enjoyable.
Shiro stood beside Allura, arms crossed, a faint smile curling his lips.
“Keep moving, team. We don’t want the next battle catching you rusty.”
“Speak for yourself, Shiro,” Lance shot back, flashing a grin. “I was born ready.”
Keith rolled his eyes.
“You were born annoying.”
Lance flashed a crooked smile, the kind that hid more than it revealed.
“Is that what bothers you… or what attracts you?”
The collective facepalm from Pidge and Hunk’s choked snort were immediate. Keith turned red as a tomato but simply raised his practice sword toward Lance.
“Wanna find out… in combat?”
Before they could dive into yet another of their endless competitions, the castle’s sharp alarm blared across the hangar.
The lights flashed red, and the communication panels lit up all at once. They sprinted toward the main console, where Coran was already projecting the information into the air.
“We have an incoming transmission! It’s… from the Kaizen Prime rebels,” Coran announced, his mustache bristling with tension.
The hologram revealed the worn, dust-covered face of a rebel leader, his expression carved with urgency.
“Voltron… we need your help. We discovered a hidden Galra base inside the Pularis asteroid belt. They’re building something… we don’t know what, but it has the power to destroy entire planets. We can’t stop them alone. We need your help. But… be careful…”
The transmission distorted, the image glitching.
“…it’s a trap… but it’s our only chance…”
The image cut off. Silence.
Only the pulsing red glow of the alarms filled the room.
Allura frowned, her eyes drifting to Shiro.
“Pularis is completely surrounded by asteroid fields. A mission there would be… suicidal.”
Shiro nodded, his expression serious.
“But if the Galra are building a weapon that powerful… we can’t ignore it.”
The team exchanged looks. The lighthearted atmosphere from training vanished like smoke in the wind. Lance swallowed hard, the jokes leaving his lips for the first time in hours.
Keith was already adjusting his jacket, sharp eyes focused, ready for whatever came next.
“Then we won’t,” he said with determination. “We’re going to stop them.”
No one said it out loud, but everyone felt it.
The castle’s hangar buzzed with activity. The lions, aligned and ready, looked like sleeping giants about to awaken.
Footsteps echoed across the metallic floor as everyone prepared. Armor adjusted. Weapons checked. Systems calibrated. There wasn’t much talking. This wasn’t just another routine mission. They all felt it — there was something different in the air.
Lance adjusted the chest plate of his blue armor. His reflection in the polished surface of the Blue Lion stared back at him — serious, eyes shining with an uncomfortable mix of adrenaline and excitement.
“Hey,” Hunk’s voice pulled him out of his thoughts, “we’re gonna be fine. We always are.”
Lance forced a smile — the usual one, the one that made everyone believe he was calm.
“I know, I know. The Galra can’t take us down. It’s just…” He made a wide gesture with his hands. “Pularis. Asteroids. Secret base. Planet-killing weapon. Sounds like a complicated Wednesday, doesn’t it?”
Pidge walked past them, holding her helmet, wearing that typical expression that screamed this is concerning but I refuse to say it out loud .
“Sounds like we need to be careful,” she said simply.
Keith appeared beside the Red Lion, holding his helmet under his arm. His eyes met Lance’s for a brief second — quick, fleeting — but long enough for Lance to offer him a small smile.
In that moment, Lance thought, if something goes wrong… I won’t forgive myself for not saying what I really feel .
But it wasn’t the time.
Shiro, calm but firm as always, raised his voice.
“Team, this won’t be easy. The reports are unclear and the enemy is waiting for us. We need to be ready for the worst… and trust each other.”
Allura nodded, already dressed in her combat armor, ready to pilot the castle if needed.
“Remember, if that weapon activates, it could mean the end for hundreds of planets. We cannot fail.”
Silence settled over the hangar. Only the lions’ systems hummed softly, ready. Another mission… but with a different, heavy feeling that settled deep into their bones.
Lance took a deep breath, his hand brushing the inner pocket where he kept his personal communicator. The one he used for messages that… weren’t always about the mission.
Just in case.
Only in case.
He slipped his helmet on, letting the visor hide any doubt in his eyes.
“Ready to kick some Galra ass,” he said with his best cocky tone, and one by one, they climbed into their lions.
One by one, the mechanical giants awoke. Engines ignited. Wings spread wide. The deep roar of the Blue Lion echoed in Lance’s chest.
The mission was underway.
And no one knew that some of them… might not come back.
Stars slipped like blades of light through the Blue Lion’s windows. Everything felt… too quiet.
Lance rested his elbow on the control panel, his cheek in his hand, staring out into the vast, cold space. Around him, the team’s voices came through the comms, mixed with faint static.
“We’ll enter the asteroid belt in less than ten minutes,” Pidge reported from the Green Lion.
“Remember, sensors will be affected by the magnetic field. We’ll be flying practically blind,” added Shiro, his tone serious but controlled.
Lance spun the controls skillfully, but his mind was elsewhere. On the other side of the formation, Keith piloted the Red Lion silently, but his dark eyes never left Lance. He knew him too well. Something was wrong.
“You good there, Sharpshooter?” Keith finally asked, his voice breaking the awkward silence between them.
Lance took a second to answer, as if caught off guard.
“Huh? Yeah, yeah. All under control. Why? Missing my voice or what?” he joked, with that usual arrogant spark.
Keith squinted, unconvinced.
“Just… don’t get distracted,” he said, trying to sound teasing but with real worry underneath.
Lance swallowed hard, forcing a smile Keith, luckily, couldn’t fully see.
“Relax, Keith. I always land on my feet. Like cats… or idiots… and I’m both.”
Keith let out a soft snort through his nose, and the comm channel filled again with Coran’s voice:
“Attention team! Strong interference detected. The Galra are definitely here. Get ready.”
The ships slowed down as the Pularis asteroid belt stretched before them—a jungle of floating rocks, shadows, and danger.
Lance glanced at the screen. His reflection returned an expression he didn’t like to see. Doubt. Fear.
And as the lions plunged into the darkness, he slid his hand into his inner pocket, squeezing the communicator.
Just in case.
_______________________________________________________________________
The communicator…
He found it in one of the castle’s forgotten rooms, covered in dust, abandoned as if no one had thought about it for years.
It was a small communicator, an old model—not only for emergency messages but also capable of recording audio on a loop. Small, almost elegant, with metal edges and a dull shine that seemed to hide a thousand stories.
Coran saw him fiddling with the device and, with a nostalgic smile, gave him permission to keep it.
“The Alteans used to record memories with these. Conversations, thoughts… important things. Maybe it’ll help you,” he said, walking away whistling down the hall.
At first, Lance put it away without much ceremony. He thought about writing in his journal as usual. He did that when missions overwhelmed him, when nostalgia gripped him, when the image of his family pierced behind his eyelids.
But writing wasn’t always enough.
One night, after a particularly chaotic mission—too much crossfire, almost losing Pidge, too much silence in the meditation room when it was all over—he found himself alone in his room, the communicator in his hand.
He turned it over in his fingers, hesitating.
Then he turned it on.
The small device blinked with a soft light and started recording.
Lance took a deep breath. The first attempt sounded clumsy, hesitant, his voice trembling a bit.
“Well… here we are. Another night in the castle. Everyone’s alive, luckily. Barely. Today… almost…” He paused, swallowed hard, ran a hand over his face. “We almost didn’t make it. But we did. Although… I feel like we’re getting closer to not making it every time…”
He stayed silent for a few seconds, listening to his own breathing.
“Just in case. If someone finds this… I don’t know, maybe I won’t be here anymore. But I want them to know that… I tried. I always tried. And that…” Another long pause. “…I miss home. I miss the sea. I miss not being scared every damn day.”
He turned off the communicator and tucked it under his pillow.
That was the first time.
The first of many.
After every mission, every scare, every half-victory, Lance would lock himself away, turn on the communicator, and talk. Sometimes just to complain. Sometimes to laugh at the day’s jokes. Sometimes… to record goodbyes.
No one knew. No one asked. And Lance didn’t offer.
To be honest, everyone was afraid of not coming back.
Only Lance carried it differently.
He disguised it. Buried it beneath jokes. But the fear was there, growing like a shadow beneath his skin.
And that’s why he recorded.
Just in case.
Then came a mission.
One where he thought he wouldn’t make it…
The dull hum, the translucent blue light, the cold seeping through his skin…
The first thing he felt waking up was that emptiness in his chest. The vague idea that he was dead. Or about to be.
It took a few seconds to realize he was inside a healing pod.
The warm liquid surrounded him, his wounds already starting to close, and sensors blinking above his head.
He blinked, dazed, memories returning in fragments: explosions, fire, his breathing ragged as blood slipped through his fingers, the distant sound of someone shouting his name.
And then he saw him.
Next to him, in another pod, just as battered, just as unconscious, was Keith.
His hair floated in the liquid, his body full of cuts and bruises… but alive.
Lance closed his eyes for a second, letting the pressure in his chest ease just a little.
They had survived.
By the skin of their teeth, but they had survived.
That time.
When they finally took them out of the pods, Lance faked his usual smile, cracked jokes, said something about how Keith couldn’t live without him, that’s why he let himself get hurt at the same time.
Keith looked at him with those dark eyes that saw too much.
He said nothing at the moment.
But later…
Lance found the communicator in his pocket.
That night, still sore, knuckles trembling, he recorded his first real goodbye message.
Because that time, he thought he wouldn’t make it.
And he understood something.
The fear was here to stay…
_______________________________________________________________________
They made it.
The stars were silent witnesses to the chaos they had just survived. The Pularis asteroid belt had been a hell that nearly swallowed them all.
Hunk, breathing heavily, sweat on his face, leaned against a metal wall of the Galra ship while Pidge unwrapped a bandage with steady hands, focused on stopping the bleeding from a wound on his arm.
“This bandage is the best I can do with what we have,” Pidge said, biting her lip.
Hunk tried to joke to ease the tension, but the gravity of the situation overwhelmed him.
Shiro stood firm despite the pain coursing through his left arm, wrapped in a makeshift bandage that Hunk had helped him put on while dodging Galra fire.
“I can’t afford to be out of commission,” Shiro said, gritting his teeth.
Back at the castle, Allura and Coran watched the transmissions, nervous but trusting the team.
“They have to be quick,” Allura ordered. “The ship won’t wait forever.”
Coran nodded, deftly manipulating the controls to keep the link active.
Meanwhile, Keith and Lance exchanged looks heavy with worry and determination. The weight of their friends’ injuries and the mission’s pressure pressed on every step.
They knew they were inside the enemy’s nest.
The Galra ship’s corridors were dark, cold, and full of metallic echoes reverberating every step they took. The lights flickered irregularly, as if the ship itself was struggling to breathe.
Keith led the advance, sword in hand, eyes sharp as blades, alert for any movement.
Lance followed right behind, breathing hard, heart pounding. His leg hurt, but he wasn’t about to let that stop him.
“Shiro and Hunk are still dealing with their wounds. We have to move fast,” Lance whispered, watching the shadows.
A shot rang out from around the corner. Lance reacted instinctively, throwing himself to the ground as a laser streaked past, a blueish streak of light just where his head had been moments before.
Keith spun and delivered a precise strike, knocking down a Galra soldier trying to flank them.
“Watch out!” Keith shouted as another enemy came running from a side corridor.
Lance, despite the pain in his leg, lunged forward and kicked the attacker down.
But more footsteps were closing in.
“We’re surrounded,” Pidge said over the comms. “You need a plan. Fast.”
Keith gritted his teeth and looked at Lance.
“Take control of this section’s defense system. I’ll cover your back.”
Lance nodded, slipped over to a nearby control panel, and began hacking quickly while Keith prepared to defend them.
Minutes felt like hours. Every second counted.
And though danger lurked in every shadow, they kept moving.
Because giving up was not an option.
The Galra ship roared with enemy fire and shrill alarms as Keith and Lance positioned themselves in the last corridor, blocking the way so the rest of the team could escape.
“We just have to buy time,” Lance whispered, adjusting his weapon with steady hands but a trembling body.
Keith nodded, his gaze sharp and hard.
“They have to get out. We’re staying.”
Over the lion formation, Pidge screamed desperately into the comms.
“WE CAN’T LEAVE THEM HERE!”
From the castle, Allura’s calm voice responded with authority.
“Trust them.”
Pidge didn’t back down.
“BUT!” —her voice cracked with fear and rage—
Shiro, trying to contain the storm of emotions, spoke firmly and with pain.
“Pidge, I don’t want to leave them behind either. But if we don’t, no one will make it out alive. We have to think about the team.”
A heavy silence fell over the comm channel.
Pidge let out a frustrated huff as she ran toward her lion, not looking back.
“Then so be it,” she murmured.
Engines roared as the lions began their escape, speeding away while Keith and Lance fought.
Alarms echoed throughout the Galra ship, red lights flickering like the ship itself was in a panic. Keith and Lance sprinted down the corridor, dodging fire, footsteps pounding on metal as they neared the hangars where the lions waited.
They were almost there.
The Red Lion gleamed at the end of the corridor, massive, imposing, its hatch ready to receive them.
“Run, Keith!” Lance shouted, panting, his leg barely dragging from the old wound.
Keith turned just to make sure Lance was following, but that second of distraction was enough.
Galra guards leapt from the shadows like an ambush, surrounding them, weapons raised, ready to stop them.
Keith drew his sword and charged, but there were too many…
Lance fired what he could, covering Keith, but his body no longer responded fully. The pain in his leg made him stagger.
Within seconds, they were surrounded. Galra arms grabbed them, weapons torn away. Keith struggled, pure rage in his eyes, teeth clenched.
“LET US GO!” Keith roared, kicking, but the soldiers’ brute strength overpowered him.
Lance was the same—trapped, gasping, desperate eyes fixed on the lions.
The chance was slipping through their fingers.
But then, Lance made mental contact with Blue.
A flash of understanding crossed his gaze.
And in that moment, everything changed.
The Galra guards held them tight, but Lance was no longer thinking about giving up.
He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and sought that familiar bond in his mind.
Blue…
The response came instantly. A low roar, the familiar warmth in his chest. His lion was there. Always there.
Trust me. One last time…
Lance opened his eyes and in one swift move, with all the strength he had left, spun around and fired at the guards holding him. The blasts disoriented them, and Lance seized the moment.
Keith turned, ready to fight by his side.
But Lance had already made his decision.
“Run, Keith!” he shouted, pushing him with both hands.
Keith stumbled backward, straight into Red’s open cockpit.
“What are you doing?! NO!” Keith stretched out his arms, trying to come back, but Lance was faster.
With one final shove, he pushed him with all his weight.
Keith fell into Red’s cockpit, his body hitting the interior. Before he could get up, Lance threw the communicator, which landed on his chest.
“Take it…” —his voice cracked, heavy with desperation and something deeper, something he couldn’t quite say— “Just in case…”
Keith scrambled, trying to get out, but Red reacted instantly.
The hatch slammed shut.
“No, no, no! LANCE!” Keith shouted, pounding the controls with his hands, watching the hatch seal his fate.
Outside, Lance gasped, connecting mentally with Blue, his eyes burning with tears.
“Take him, Blue. Promise me… we’ll see each other again…”
The lions roared. Red took off, dragging Keith with it. Blue followed close behind.
Inside, Keith beat against the cockpit, eyes glassy, watching Lance grow smaller and smaller.
And in his hand, the communicator.
The last promise.
Red’s engines roared, lights flickered on the controls, but Keith didn’t see any of it.
He was pressed against the cockpit glass, fists pounding the surface, desperate.
“LANCE!” His scream was swallowed by the roar of the lions and the explosions shaking the Galra ship.
Outside, Lance was still standing—barely.
His wounded body, ragged breathing, eyes fixed on Keith—even as the Galra guards closed in again.
Keith fought the controls, fought Red, fought everything—but the lion wouldn’t obey him.
Red was following Lance’s orders.
Blue was escorting him in the escape.
And then, in an eternal second, everything shattered.
One of the Galra soldiers raised his weapon.
A precise shot. Cold. Merciless.
The beam struck Lance right in the stomach.
Keith went breathless.
The last thing he saw was Lance dropping to his knees, hands stained red, eyes glassy, searching for his.
And then the image vanished as Red and Blue sped away, escaping.
Inside the cockpit, Keith screamed, tearing his throat raw, fists bleeding from pounding the panel.
“NO! LANCE!”
But it was too late.
Only the lion’s roar, the cold of space, and… the small communicator, forgotten in his lap.
Without him knowing… Lance’s voice was still alive inside.