(From Ashes) Chapter 24

       Pride: From Ashes
            Chapter 24
            In Glimpses

Daniel walked towards Lance's room with his eyes narrowed. He'd checked the room multiple times throughout the day, and the man had the nerve to be out practicing each time. He had something important to tell him, dammit!

It was late, but he was going to check one more time before calling it a night. He'd seen Hunk walking around, which meant they were finally done with lion practice… or that Hunk had just bailed. That didn't seem like something he would do, but the pilots had started practicing around lunch and it was well past dinner. Poor dude might be hungry.

But practice was indeed over, and Lance was settled in on his bed. His pillow was sitting perfectly under his head, a refreshing glass of water was on his bedside table, and he was finally getting the time to really start reading the very large lion book. He needed to know more; the name 'Flamebearer' and what little he'd been able to read before training had been distracting him all day.

His eyes flickered into highlighter mode, which was still creepy, but so useful. The next entry was Flamebearer bitching about Red, and he grinned. Apparently, that was a universal lion pilot trait. Some of the words weren't translating… were those curse words? He was very interested.

Lance's musings were cut short by the sound of an irritated Daniel bursting through his door. Loudly. He jolted upright and the book went flying from his hands.

"Fucking finally!" Daniel rejoiced.

Glare. "What the fuck!? Don't you knock?!" Of course the kid would choose just that moment to burst in.

"When the fuck have I ever knocked?" What the fuck was his problem? He was the one who took forever getting back. "Like, ever?" He didn't knock, that was one of his things. Everyone should know that by now.

Lance leaned over to pick up his book; surely the book didn't deserve this. "Yeah, well we have doors."

"Oh do you?" Daniel asked with sarcastic curiosity, turning towards the door and pointedly inspecting it before letting his voice go deadpan. "I thought it was a tea set."

Eyeroll. "Kid…" Why was he choosing to do this now? "I'm trying to read, what is it?"

Daniel couldn't believe this. He had awesome news and Lance was totally ruining it. This was not the reaction he wanted. "You'd rather read than appreciate my presence? God, you might be more annoying than your lion…" Was he, though? "…No, he's worse."

"Yes, I want to read." He waved the book around as best he could; the thing was heavy. "This is the journal of the former Red Lion pilots…" Then Daniel's sentence really hit him, and he trailed off. "Wait, WHAT?!"

Daniel smirked. That was the reaction he wanted.

"He's what?" Lance demanded, setting the book aside and jumping off the bed.

"He's started talking to me."

Now it was Lance's turn to rejoice. "Fucking finally!"

"I've been trying to tell you for hours." Waiting was horrible. He just wanted to bitch about the lion in his head; it should've been easy with this group! "He's annoying as fuck."

"I was flying—he didn't mention it—and yeah, I know." Lance smiled. "It's about time, I was starting to wonder if it was all wishful thinking."

Daniel continued right on with his bitching; he was rolling now. "He won't answer anything I ask him. He's all 'answers are not always clear' and 'it's all there in your questions'."

Snort. "Sounds familiar."

"Like, what does that even mean?!"

"I still don't know." Lance shook his head. "But this is great," he took a deep breath to finally say it, "because there's a fucking back seat!"

"He wants to bond but… I don't know. He won't answer why he needs to bond to a second person." He gestured towards Lance, the announcement having not quite penetrated through his own rant yet. "I mean he already has a pilot—THERE'S A WHAT?!"

"Another seat, and he's been forcing me to be quiet about it." He scowled in the lion's general mental direction at that. "But there is a fucking back seat and seriously, kid. Who better to sit in it than you?"
"He must forge his own path, Firestriker," Red admonished softly, and he sighed. Right, his own path, blah blah blah. He didn't need that kind of discouragement right now.

"Why didn't he just say that?! Wait—why is there a back seat, what would I be doing in this back seat—you know what, no." Daniel was also now fully understanding what the team meant about every answer coming with new questions. "What about "I have a second seat" was so hard for him to just say?"

Frowning at Red, Lance kept his eyes on Daniel. "Red's not great at being direct. He has reasons… usually really annoying reasons." And deeply personal.

Daniel considered that, then decided to just backtrack to Lance's question. "Well, I am obviously the best person to sit in that seat. But…" He paused a moment, shaking his head. He really, really didn't want to disappoint Lance, but… "I'm just not sure about all this yet. And I'm way less freaked about having a mythical robot cat in my head than I think I should be—"

Red purred.

"—YO! Red! I said twenty-four hours!"

In response Red purred again, somehow more pointedly.

"Twenty-four hours of brain silence. That's not brain silence. I said the weird warmth hug thing was okay, that was it!"

"Is he being annoying?" Lance smirked. It was taking a lot to not laugh outright; the lions being annoying was much more enjoyable from the outside.

Daniel sputtered in frustration. "UGH! He's—whatever." His voice dropped to a low grumble. "He's purring. Loudly."

"I find that oddly soothing." That's what the kid thinks is annoying? He hadn't seen anything yet…

"Not a word, peep, or growl, he told me. He said nothing about purring."

Now it was really all Lance could do not to laugh.

"…It's not horrible," Daniel admitted grudgingly as the purr came again. "I like the warm thing he does better."

"Yeah, that's great too. He has some plus points." Not that he wasn't currently frustrating Lance a bit too. "But yeah. I don't really know what's up with the backseat or what he needs from you, or wants. He says you have to forge your own path."

"He said that to me too, and I don't really get what it means." Daniel sighed. "Though I'm getting the feeling that's what I'm gonna think about everything he says."

Oh, just wait. "I fucking get that. Just…" The kid had to forge his own path. Fine. But he could at least know where Lance stood on the question. "On the record, I'm all for us being Team Red… you know, if you want it."

The thought of Lance wanting him in the back seat was extremely nice, regardless of what he felt about the rest of it. "It's not you I'm unsure about, or even Red really—I don't—" He made a face. "I don't wanna talk about it right now."

"It's… hard. I understand. I had more doubts than I let on, you know."

Daniel nodded, less surprised than he'd have thought. How could anyone not have doubts? But much as he didn't want to talk about the annoyingly purring pyro-cat, he did still want to be around Lance. "Can I stay in here tonight? I'll be quiet while you read."

He had no intention of doing any such thing, but if Lance believed him promising to be quiet at this point? That was his own fault.

Lance grinned, believing no such thing. No way the kid kept quiet, he didn't know how. "No problem." He indicated the lion book. "I can give you the highlights."

"That's fine." Daniel paused. "Fair warning, I can't promise the salalizards aren't going to puke embers all over your room." They were messy little things.

Lance waved that off. "Kermi would never." As he said it a curl of warmth ran around them both.

It was weird how comforting that warmth was; didn't stop him from rolling his eyes about his salalizard problems. "You can have her. She bit me again."

"Probably just a love bite."

Daniel snorted, and another wave of warmth curled around them both. Yes, he could definitely get used to that.

*****

Sven had made his way out to the beach by the lake, carrying the blue book Allura had given him. It was getting pretty dark, but he'd been able to appropriate some candles; it turned out those were in decent supply. The Arusians were understandably cautious with smoke and fire hazards in the tunnels, and the benefits of a tiny personal open flame rarely outweighed the risks.

Carefully setting the book down on a rock, he started lighting and placing candles in the sand. He quickly discovered it took a lot more candles outside than it did in his room to have enough light to read by. Once he had enough lit, he sat down with his back against the rock and started to read.

Romelle had noticed that the others were back, but she hadn't seen Sven return. After asking a couple of the others if they'd seen him, she made her way outside. As she approached the lake, an odd heat bloom formed in her vision, slowly coalescing into a human figure and several flickering points of light around it. Ah. She slowed and intentionally made some noise to alert him to her presence; no sense startling him.

Sven's eyes snapped up from the book. His first instinct was to scold whoever was interrupting him, but that instinct faded as he saw who it was. "Romelle?" What is she doing out here?

Nod. "Good evening, Sven. I'm… not interrupting you, am I?" She nervously clasped her hands in front of her stomach, suddenly feeling a little foolish for coming out here to speak to him in the dark.

"You are, but I don't mind the interruption." He watched her for a moment, debating on if he should stand up, then moved several candles out of the way instead. She looked so uncomfortable. "Would you like to sit?"

"Thank you." With a sigh, she slowly sank down to sit on the sand. "I…" She fell silent, still not sure how to broach this subject, and finally just pointed to her head. The direct approach would have to do. "Your lion spoke to me earlier."

Sven's eyebrow slowly raised at her statement. He wasn't really surprised; they had been theorizing about this, after all. "How was it?"

Romelle paused, staring out over the water. "I… I'm not sure. She decided the appropriate moment to say hello was while I was helping interrogate one of the prisoners from the Radiant Fortress. It felt like bad timing, at least to me." She chuckled, a little bit chagrined, a little truly amused now that it was behind her. "She disagreed."

Somehow, he was even less surprised by that, and nodded. "She does that. It was very disconcerting at first. Now, I don't mind so much. She can be helpful on occasion." He let silence hang between them for a moment, giving Romelle time to sort through her thoughts.

"Yes, she did seem to be… encouraging."

His eyebrow might've arched a little higher. "…Encouraging?" She gets encouraging and I get snarky comments?

"You are on different paths and require different methods, Icehunter."

"Yes, I think that is the right word." Perhaps also a little maddening, but encouraging.

He considered that, and decided if he needed to argue the premise he could do it later. The rest of what Romelle had said interested him, too. "How did the interrogation go?"

"It… wasn't easy for me," Romelle admitted with a sigh. "But effective. Blue didn't seem to disapprove of the ruse I was using. And after…" No. She shuddered, pushing the memory of her brief breakdown—what saying that name had done to her—aside. "I mean, we did get some new information. I was assured that it will be passed along to the team and the princess."

"Keith probably has a copy or will have it soon, then." The Arusians were diligent about such things, he'd noticed. He also had noticed her shudder just fine. "Are you alright?"

She shook her head, vigorously enough to send her hair flying around her face a bit, then flushed with embarrassment at the outburst. "I don't know." She bit her lip a little harder than she probably needed to, the physical pain a distraction from the emotional pain she was trying so hard to avoid. "A lot of things happened back—back there." She wasn't talking about the dungeon. "And I don't understand why your lion is talking to me."

Sven nodded. "I don't quite understand why she chose me, either, but she must see something in you that she values." He thought that statement over for a minute; what Blue valued was still not fully clear to him either, if he were honest. "She named me her Paladin of Purity. I'm not quite sure what she found so pure, but maybe that's the point." The choice he'd made—she'd been right, hadn't she? "She sees something in us that we don't."

"Purity?" Romelle scoffed, frowned, and shook her head in a much more subdued manner this time. That word felt sour on her tongue, too. "I'm… that's not me." She looked away, her voice becoming soft. "And after what I did, I just… I don't understand how she could want me."

Sven watched her and shrugged. "You know yourself better than I do. Next time she speaks with you, maybe ask. She's a very approachable being, once you get past all the the sub-standard snark." He heard Blue growl and smirked; that wasn't exactly an argument. But the smirk faded as he considered what else Romelle had said. "What do you mean, what you did?" They were still short on details about exactly why Romelle had fled with them, but they could be confident things had been done to her.

Romelle shivered, feeling cool waves of comfort coming from Blue. She looked over at the lake. "She did say that you adored her. As for what I did…" She shook her head. Not again, not today, not for a long time. "I can't talk about it. Not right now."

"That's fine. You don't h—wait, she said what about me?"

That actually made her giggle. "I said she might not be as bad as you thought and she said, I quote: You are incorrect about one thing. Icehunter adores me."

Sven shook his head in amused exasperation as he followed her gaze to the lake. "I am fairly fond of her, but adore? That might be a stretch."

Waves of amusement washed over them from the lion.

"She's laughing, isn't she?"

"Yes." He chuckled. "I think she finds us entertaining."

Entertaining. Romelle shook her head too. "This lion stuff is…"

"Confusing? Infuriating? Incredible?"

"Yes. And weird." She smiled, the first real smile she'd had since that morning, and finally looked at him directly. "Thank you, Sven. For allowing me to interrupt you, and for listening."

"You're welcome." He studied her for a few moments, remembering their last talk. Her uncertainty was more than understandable, and he could imagine what it must be like to have this thrown at her when she had nothing else to fall back on. "Just so you know, Romelle… no matter what you end up deciding to do, neither me or Blue will hold it against you. You're still a part of the team either way."

For a moment she froze; the nod she finally managed was almost regal, as if to cover the rush of wholly different emotion. "Thank you. I appreciate that." She exhaled slowly. "Hopefully the next time she decides to pop in for a chat, I'll have a bit more freedom to actually discuss this idea of hers with her."

He nodded with a chuckle. "I wish you luck with that."

"I'm sure I'll need it." For some reason, she found herself grinning even as she acknowledged that. "I'll go so you can get back to your reading."

Sven returned the smile. "Enjoy the rest of your night."

"I will try." She got to her feet—carefully, so as to not knock over any of his candles—dusted some sand off her jumpsuit, and headed back to the castle. She had no less to think about now, probably more. But at least she felt a bit better about it.

*****

Training sessions had shifted to focus almost entirely on Voltron. The lions were familiar enough; even for those of the team who weren't pilots, they at least knew how piloting a stand-alone spacecraft worked in theory. Piloting one-fifth of a giant humanoid robot? The basics were more intuitive than they'd have thought—no doubt owing to a hefty dose of glowy-eyed lion assistance. But those were still only the basics… they would need more, and fast.

The next morning found them focusing on fundamentals with that in mind. Basic movement as Voltron had to become second nature. Something that came so naturally they could spend their focus on more complicated matters.

Or chatting.

"Anybody read anything good so far?" Sven was very curious about the other books, and it felt like being able to pilot robot limbs while holding a conversation was the very least they should be able to do.

"Flamebearer thinks Red is a virat," Lance volunteered. He hadn't gotten very far, not near as far as he'd wanted, but Daniel hanging out and—sure enough—not actually staying remotely quiet had taken priority. "I think it was affectionate, though."

Not polite, but affectionate.

"I seem to have mission reports. Not a lot of opinion." Pidge fell silent for a moment as the team put Voltron into a sharp reverse. The arms, it turned out, had a surprising amount of work to do to keep balance while they were running. Not unlike how the average humanoid worked, yes, but Voltron was hardly average. "And from two people, I think? I've seen them signed from both Windscythe and Thornwhisper."

"I've got Earthshaker, who's uh…" Hunk gave an exasperated sigh. "Patient." The others snickered. "Mentions goin' home to somewhere called Ariel once, feels like I've heard that name before? Maybe it's just the mermaid."

"Mermaid?" Pidge echoed blankly.

"…Ninja, don't worry about it."

Lance shrugged and focused briefly on a half-spin maneuver, keeping Red from flying wildly out to the side. "Known a few women named Ariel. One man, too."

"Of course you have." Pulling them out of the spin, Keith tried a couple of jumps—the robot seemed able to jump through some mechanical function, as well as just using its flight systems. Good to have options. "Stormstrike seemed to appreciate Black's wisdom on occasion."

"Strike?" Lance grinned. "Awesome name." Though Keith agreed with that privately, he decided not to say so; he had a pretty good idea of why Lance had said it, and he didn't need encouragement.

"Mine hasn't mentioned their name," Sven said, frowning. He hadn't found that odd, it was a journal after all. Maybe it was all of the others who were weird. "But they appreciate Blue's attitude much more than I do." No, it was definitely his predecessor who'd been weird.

Shaking his head, Keith took them back into the air, feeling the others react quickly to his inputs. They were definitely getting smoother. "Alright, that was a good warmup. Let's break up and reform." Just putting the lions together in the first place was something that still needed some work too.

"De-Voltron activated."

"Makin' like a band!"

Pidge frowned. "I thought we were supposed to be a Pride."

"I know I've got pride!" Lance exhaled as Red shifted back to his lion form; it was much more comfortable than flying an arm. But of course, that was why they trained.

Keith sighed and cleared his throat loudly as the lions spread out. "And the more familiar we get with everything, the stronger a Pride we'll be. Let's do a couple of quick laps as a breather."

Falling in beside the others, Hunk couldn't help but chuckle. "Pretty sure we can be a Pride and a band, yeah? Let's be real here, nobody would be surprised to see Magical Cat Robots tourin' with Typical Hamster."

Lance snorted. "Don't they already?"

At the mention of Typical Hamster, Keith had brief, unwelcome flashbacks to glitter and pumpkin crowns. "Wouldn't the cats chase the hamsters?" he objected to cover it.

"Dude! We've been over this, they're not real hamsters."

"I have completely lost track of this discussion," Pidge said matter-of-factly as he pulled into some open air.

"I wasn't even attempting to keep track," Sven countered.

Glancing over at Blue, Pidge found himself in the unusual position of wondering if a human was smarter than him.

"All right!" Keith pulled Black to a halt as they finished circling. "Let's form back up. Activate interlocks!"

There was a certain rhythm to the formation. The sequence was important. The pacing was somewhat less so, inherently, but everyone had to be in sync with each other. Their commander had been timing the callouts carefully, making sure they had enough time to engage systems and get in formation, but not wasting any precious seconds either.

"Dynotherms connected." A three-count was about right, he'd decided. "Infracells up." One, two, three. "Megathrusters are go."

Now that they could hear the full sequence, most of the team still very much wanted to know what all of those things were.

"Form Voltron!"

It was still a bizarre sensation. Shifting gears, loud clangs, the faint squealing of metal on metal as armor plates shifted. They couldn't see what was happening to their own lion—really they couldn't even see what was happening to the other lions—and inside the cockpits, several new consoles were lighting up.

"This is just so fucking weird…"

"First we're a lion, then we're a leg, then we're a lion, then we're a leg…"

"I am still not entirely sure about being a foot. With laser eyes."

As the formation completed, Pidge found his attention drawn by a gauge on one of his auxiliary monitors. It wasn't anything new, but it had never called for his attention before… but it had just turned a worrisome orange color. Frowning, he started typing on the main console, trying to get some more information.

He was a bit surprised when it actually worked. "Sir, I don't think we can keep doing many more of these formations."

Keith eyed the comms curiously. "I want to get this process down well enough that we won't need step by step callouts in combat."

"Understandable." Laudable, even. "But the formation process is draining our reserve power… uh, the 'infracells'… in significant bursts. I don't think it'll affect Voltron's overall performance much," he'd think he would've noticed it at some point during normal operations if so, "but we can probably only do one more formation before letting them recharge."

…Oh. "Good to know." It wasn't information he'd particularly wanted, but if those were the facts it was better to have them than not.

"Wait, that's what an infracell is?" Hunk glanced at his own monitors; sure enough, the reading for the infracells was low. "You got any ideas on dynotherms?"

"Absolutely not." It was on his to-do list.

The mention of expending power had taken Sven's mind in a different direction, and he glanced at his own readouts. You never did explain to me why you have a weapon that completely drains your weapon power.

"There is a time and a place for it," Blue answered simply, and he rolled his eyes. Of course there was.

"I expect you engineer-y people to figure it all out," Lance was saying as he returned his focus to the others, and he couldn't help but laugh.

"Oh we'll get there, bro. Probably."

"I'm sure they will, Lance. We're all still figuring things out as we go."

"I love how you think we're figuring anything out."

Pidge had been about to protest Hunk's lack of confidence, but Sven's last point made him pause. It was probably fair. "I wouldn't use the present tense, exactly."

"We don't know a fucking thing."

"I know I'm a leg!" Hunk objected, drawing another snort from Sven.

Keith frowned. He understood the sentiment, but it didn't feel entirely accurate. "We learned how to form Voltron. I'd say that's progress."

"And it brought how many new questions?"

"A mega fuckton."

…There was that. We took a step forward, but the finish line got two steps further away. If there's a finish line at all.

But still, moving forward was better than not. And if answers weren't coming quickly, the goal of securing Arus felt more possible by the day. "All right, then let's focus on what we can do. Since our ability to do repeated formations is limited, we may as well get in more maneuvering practice before we split up again."

With a round of agreement from the others, Voltron dropped to the ground and broke into a sprint.

*****

Vince was doing his own wrestling with technology. Namely, he was sprawled beneath one of the shuttles to the dens, holding a couple of Arusian tools—one with what he thought might be a diagnostic scanner he couldn't read, but at least it gave him a better look at things—and wishing there had been more Academy classes about working with alien tech.

There had been plenty of such classes, and he'd taken most of them, but none of them had covered anything like this. But he was determined to accomplish something; the shuttles were still too awesome not to poke at. And the words of the High King were lurking in his mind. Thanking him for helping.

At least this was something he could help with, right? Right! And he was pretty sure he'd managed to find the shuttle's internal power source, near the cables he and Hunk had looked over a few days ago, though it didn't strike him as a generator in itself. There had to be something external to charge it. Looking through the wires, he picked one that looked promising and followed it, resolutely ignoring a gravelly vibration in the back of his mind.

It was nothing. Definitely not a robot lion purring at him. Nothing.

"Who uses purple wires?" he muttered under his breath as he untangled it from a couple of others.

"Why would they not be?"

Nope. "Nopenopenope." He was just muttering that about the stupid purple wire, too. It didn't seem practical, wasn't purple supposed to be a hard color to make? Maybe not on Arus. It just made the alien tech feel even more alien, and as he opened a new panel to poke around under the casing, the purple wire seemed to split seamlessly into three. Even weirder.

Unknown alien wires, that was just what he needed. But at least that was a cool mystery to poke at. Not like—

"What are you hiding from, cub?"

"YOU!"

The word bounced and echoed from the rock and Vince immediately flinched. Crap, I acknowledged him, that was not the plan! But maybe it would work. Of course it was only the lion, the scary lion voice that kept bothering him inside his own head, and who wouldn't hide from—

"Ah, a truth. But not an exhaustive one."

"Hmmmmph." WIRES. Wires are your savior. He started trying to trace the splits of the purple wire, all three of which seemed to lead towards a side compartment. That seemed like progress.

The voice gave a low, growling chuckle. "The Earth is patient…" He could feel, somehow, that the lion withdrew then, and sighed as he pushed himself out from underneath the shuttle.

"Only if patient means creepy."

He half expected the lion to come back and have comments on that, but thankfully it didn't. For the next hour or so he was granted merciful silence, except for his own grumbling and the occasional clink of metal or thump of insulation. The side compartment the purple wires had led him to included two panels. One looked like the shuttle's own diagnostic panel; it had several features in common with the scanner he was holding. …Including his inability to read any of the Arusian writing.

The other seemed to have external contacts on the shuttle's outer shell, and that looked much more promising. He hadn't looked much at the equipment to the sides of the shuttles. Were they more than just docking stations? Charging, maybe? If the internal power source wasn't a generator, charging stations would make sense… frowning, he walked back to the side equipment. Most of the shuttles weren't aligned with their stations anymore.

It didn't take him long to find a compartment with two very similar panels, and he grinned a little. Progress! Then, opening the first one up, he found himself staring at an awful lot more purple.

Well, fuzzmuffins.

No way he could follow any of these wires like this. But it looked like the compartment could be pulled out for maintenance. Flipping a couple of latches, he tried to pull it out; it didn't budge. Had he missed a latch? Didn't seem so… he yanked harder, stumbled back over the tracks, and flailed wildly enough to just avoid falling hard on his butt.

"Be a little more fucking careful, Sparky."

With a yelp and a shower of sparks, he really did fall, yelling something his mothers would not have approved of at all on his way down. It didn't matter. None of it mattered. His eyes were wider than the diagnostic screens, they had to be, as he slowly looked up towards the voice and tried to convince himself it hadn't been real…

"Or not."

"Nn… wuh… no." It was real. It couldn't be real. All the weird had finally driven him outright mad, it was the only answer. Because standing there, pale and translucent and emanating a faintly gold-green aura, was… "Jace?!"

The ghost crossed his arms, leaned back against the shuttle, and gave him a look that was every bit as effective as when he'd been alive.

"You can't… you can't be here," Vince whispered, gulping back a huge lump that had suddenly formed in his throat.

Snort. "Really? That's what you're gonna go with? I'm clearly standing right here."

"Do… do you know you're dead?" Immediately he regretted the question; it had been rude. Because politeness was definitely the thing he needed to be worried about right now.

"Kind of hard to miss that," Jace retorted without even missing a beat.

"But…" Vince shook his head. "I've…" It didn't make sense. "All the ghosts! All of them! Creepy Arusians around every corner, and Drules in the desert, and even the High King, but—you. YOU?"

"You wanted friendly ghosts," Jace pointed out—wait, how did he know that?—and then he frowned slightly. "Okay yeah, that doesn't explain me at all, huh."

Despite himself, Vince laughed. "But…" There were a lot of things that didn't explain. "You didn't die here." That was how it worked, wasn't it? Ghosts were tied to places? He was new to the ghost thing, but he was pretty sure that was how it worked in the movies. Couldn't there at least be a few consistent rules to all of this, for fuzzmuffins' sake?

If there were rules, couldn't someone just tell him what they were?

"I am not real clear on that myself," Jace admitted. "Some shit about memory and metaphysics? Korrinoth can one hundred percent go fuck itself, I didn't ask too many questions—look, I'm supposed to be helping you, not getting interrogated."

…It was all so familiar it hurt. Of course Jace didn't want to answer questions about being a ghost when he had other people to poke at. To help, in his own angrily aggressive way, which… "Helping me?" Finally gathering enough of his composure to get to his feet, Vince stepped back out of reflex, because ghost. Then stepped forward again, because Jace.

"You fucking need the help," the ghost snorted. "Pretty sure you've noticed that just as well as I've noticed I'm dead."

Frown. "Yeah I'm not arguing, it's more just… that's a really long list."

"Yeah, tell me about it."

But Vince had told him about it once, at least partly. And maybe that was why it finally hit him, like a punch to the stomach, all the feelings making their way through the shock and confusion. He looked at the ghost and swallowed hard. "I really miss you."

Jace stared back at him, blinking slowly. "…Uh." His voice became quiet, almost uncertain. "Look, I don't think I've got a ton of time here. Let's not get all sappy with it, huh?"

And wasn't that part of the problem? "If you're supposed to help me, doing that with no time seems kind of unlikely."

"I mean, probably. But this ghost shit is… exhausting." He seemed annoyed by that, though he hadn't quite regained his usual demeanor. Then he shook his head, studying Vince seriously. "Fuck that, this isn't about me. What's with you? You were asking for help and looking for answers and shit, and now you're back to LALALA EVERYTHING'S NORMAL, and even I can tell nothing is normal for any of you fuckers these days."

An instant of memory flashed through his mind. A moment when he'd thought he'd had the answers—no. He shook his head violently, forcing it aside, and gave the ghost a plaintive look. "I want normal," he said quietly. "I want something that's just normal." Was it so much to ask for a single thing he could continue to grasp?

"We're a fucking Explorer Team," Jace answered immediately.

…Yeah. We sure are. He sighed. "Yeah, well, the team has the whole Voltron thing handled. They don't need me to do any more than, well… just figuring out these dumb purple wires."

"Oh sure, it's handled," Jace scoffed. "And everyone totally agrees that it's handled, right?" His outline flickered for a second as he spoke, wavering like a holo on its last couple of kilojoules.

Vince's eyes widened. "No, stay!" The flicker was almost as much of a gut punch as his appearance had been. "I just… I have enough on my hands…" He looked at his hands, that memory trying to force its way back in. "You know, with the sparking."

"And you're trying to do that shit alone again," Jace countered, "and you know—FUCKING!" He'd flickered again, worse this time. "—You know what you have to do."

"…No." There were more layers to that no than he'd have thought possible, even with all the nopes he'd yelled since they reached this planet.

"Yeah." He was pretty sure Jace understood the no had meant a hundred different things. "Think on it, kid. And maybe…" He hesitated, that uncharacteristic uncertainty shooting through his eyes again. "…do me a favor and don't tell Sven about…"

He was gone.

You know what you have to do.

Vince let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding and sagged back against the docking station. He knew what he'd just been told to do, at least, but… no. He could handle this himself. The others had plenty to occupy them as it was, they shouldn't have to worry about him.

Yeah, I've got this… handled.

He could hear the medic scoffing at that.

Wires. Turning back to the shuttle, he tried to shift his focus to a distraction, or at least something to keep his hands occupied while his mind no doubt dwelled on what had just happened. But he couldn't even make himself approach the spot where Jace had been standing. Not yet.

One thing was for certain… tell Sven? About that? He wouldn't even know how to begin. And that was pretty much normal for him, wasn't it?

Just one more thing he couldn't make himself say.

*****

Larmina had made a decision. She wasn't convinced it was a good decision, but it was hers and she was sticking to it.

That was kind of her thing.

What was the worst that could happen, anyway? The Golden Priests would hear about it somehow and treat her like some kind of disgrace? Oh yeah, big change there. And Romelle hadn't gotten herself immediately smited in the ruins of the royal chapel, so there was that.

Still, there was exactly one Arusian she felt like she could actually ask about the subject, so hopefully she would find Auntie somewhere nice and alone. And for once, she got what she wanted.

Allura was in the royal quarters, reading some notes from the council and rubbing the bridge of her nose. It wasn't entirely staving off the headache. She'd been delivered a new batch of "concerns and possible resolutions." Most of them were reasonable, and about what she'd expected once the elders had time to submit something more formal. Others were… not.

A bit soon for some of these. Resettling Dolce Vita? Really? Allura wanted her people out of the tunnels as much as anyone—but the castle village felt like the last place to be putting civilians when the Drules hadn't even yet launched their full counterattack. On the other hand, excessive optimism was surely better than the alternative. Or the previous worries about offworlder protocol; she'd at least managed to mostly silence those.

And she supposed the council really couldn't be blamed for being a bit lost right now. The revelation of the Great Lions was easily the worst they'd been blindsided since the invaders struck in the first place. Patience with them, as well as reassurance for the people, was part of the necessary followup.

Starting to mark down her responses to the reports, she shook her head slowly. "At least I know where they stand…"

"Ooh, paperwork! Looks fun."

Allura let a smile cross her lips for a moment, then turned to Larmina and made a face. "Oh, yes. So very fun." It wouldn't have even been that on a good day. "What can I do for you?"

Pushing her cloak aside so Auntie could see the small patches of blood, Larmina smirked. "I got bit by a banewolf and I still wouldn't trade you." Yeah, that's the important part of what you were doing in the forest.

Startling at the bite mark, Allura pushed the paperwork fully aside. "Need me to give it a check?"

"It doesn't hurt much, just looks cool—I mean uh, scary." That got her another grin. "Though you can give it a good poking if you want."

Was she stalling? Why yes!

Nodding, Allura pushed her sleeve up and started looking over the bite, checking for infection and working to dispel what pain there was. "Why did you get bitten? Get too close to something the banewolf was guarding?" She knew her niece had an understanding of sorts with the legendary beasts, and apparently the Green Lion did as well. But they were still, well… banewolves.

"Pretty sure they were guarding me." She shrugged her good shoulder. "I got in a little trouble in the forest and they had to drag me away to…" No, she would leave the where out of this story for now. "…Somewhere safer. It's not even the first time."

That sounded about right for Larmina, actually. "Well, I'm glad they're looking out for you." Applying some wound adhesive from the room's small first aid kit, she sat back in her chair and waited to hear more.

With a long, slow sigh, Larmina sat opposite her. "Anyway, I uh… need to ask something that neither of us probably wants to talk about."

Well that was certainly a lead in. "Oh?"

"Do you know anything about the Usurper Gods?"

…And that was certainly a question. Allura fell silent, casting around in her memories for anything but the most basic of tales. Every Arusian knew what the Usurpers were, what they had done. Knowing anything more about them, except for an ancient cautionary myth?

"Not much at all," she finally said, frowning. "Nanny never liked even mentioning their existence, she always kept the topic very brief. Why do you want to know about them?" It was the last thing that was likely to come up as an idle question. Had she found something significant?

"There's… an old shrine in the forest." She wasn't going to be mentioning her mother, either. That part was still hers alone. "A ruined one, I mean. But it seems like it's important to Green Lion—and there's a bunch of dead banewolves there."

A shrine? Allura raised an eyebrow. She'd never heard of any such thing before, anywhere. But the Forest of Altair had always hidden mysteries; its semi-sacred status protected more than just the lion that had slept within. But the lion might well know those secrets. "So there could be more information…" What else might be hidden there? "Things hidden in different places, or sources." Searching for information on the lions had always centered on, well, the lions. Was this a new angle, or just an accident of geography? "How would old gods and lions be connected?"

"Yeah, that's a good question." Larmina frowned. She had taken that very in stride; maybe she didn't admit it often enough, but she really did appreciate Auntie's open-mindedness about things. Even confusing, nonsensical, probably completely blasphemous things. "But what if they are?"

The damaged page mentioning Voltron was running through Allura's mind again. Perhaps the most important question they'd never thought to ask was how it had been damaged. Why did the Polluxians know about Voltron, but Arus had forgotten the name? It seemed unlikely for things to have been lost so completely without help…

"This could mean a lot of things," she murmured. But she knew where she thought it might be going.

So did Larmina. The Usurpers were banished, and the lions sacrificed themselves to protect the Arusian people who followed the Usurpers… and Romelle's people left after the lions were hidden, and took two of the Usurpers with them. It was a puzzle with a lot of pieces still missing, but bits of the picture were taking shape.

Green Lion growled softly in her mind, and she couldn't even object to it. In fact…

"She also said whatever the banewolves pulled me away from had something to do with why the lions needed offworlders." Her eyes narrowed. "And when I find out what it is, whoever did it is gonna be sorry."

Allura smiled; Larmina's outbursts couldn't help but have that effect on her. We were not broken. We aren't broken. "So what do you think this means?"

That was an awfully broad question that she opted to narrow the best she could. "That two ancient mythical things where most of the information is hard to find are probably related?"

Probably. Leaning forward with her chin in her hand, Allura looked at her niece seriously. The implications for their people would be… very complicated, if this theory panned out. But they couldn't afford to ignore it, either. "We should look into this connection carefully, but quietly. See if there might be other spots like this shrine in the forest. There might be vital information there."

…No matter how open-minded Auntie was, Larmina hadn't quite seen that coming, and she immediately felt silly about it. Of course she would want to look into it, these lions were kind of her thing. Though, the most surprising part wasn't that…

"We?" she echoed quietly. She'd barely been involved in this before everything got blown wide open.

Tapping her chin, Allura let the grin return. "Ah yes, it would mostly be you finding things in the forest. But I'm sure if we put our heads together we can find even more. I can see if the priests have more information on the Usurpers; I am the Crown Princess. Surely I should know even the shadowy parts of our history."

Larmina swallowed. "I…" Well, she'd complained enough about not being included in this before. Couldn't really refuse the invitation, could she? And really, who better to look into disgraced gods than the disgraceful bastard child that hung out with common militia peasants?

The more she thought about it, the more she liked it.

"I'll uh, try to stay conscious the next time I go exploring, then." She was grinning too.

"Good. Get back to me with anything you find, and I'll cross reference it with anything I learn." For a moment, Allura stopped to reconsider. Should they really be doing this? What mattered was that the lions were flying—what did delving into a history that might go to such risky places help?

Everything.

If the lions had never fallen into sleep to begin with, Arus surely wouldn't be in its current state. Could it happen again? They had to know. No matter what discomfort it might bring, they had to understand the truth, or it could all wind up being for nothing.

"We will find these answers—or if not, it won't be for lack of trying."

Larmina nodded. "It's a plan." Her grin widened. "Be careful. Don't have a book fall on your head or anything, way less cooler than a banewolf bite." With a smirk, she pulled her cloak back up and departed, leaving Allura chuckling softly behind her.

She took a minute to just enjoy being content with that course, but there was more yet to do. Lion of Storms? Do you know of any connections between yourselves and those known as the Usurper Gods of Arus?

The lion's purr came quickly, but his response was slow and measured. "I do not, Daughter of Storms. As I have said, much has been lost, both to mortals and to ourselves. Our sleep was long, and the fog that fell upon us was deep."

Allura sat up a little straighter. That had held something new. Daughter of… Storms? She looked at her hands, feeling the static dance in her fingertips. Why do you call me that? He didn't respond, except for another soft growl, and she shook her head slowly and murmured aloud. "It feels like so much more has been lost to time than we can even comprehend."

"Unfortunately, much has," he agreed. "But we continue to strengthen. We shall either remember or relearn what has been lost, in time."

"Then I hope we all can relearn as quickly as possible." Allura closed her eyes. "You will let me know if there is something I should know, yes?"

"Indeed, on both counts."

She smiled softly. "Then I shall let you be, and return to this pile of business… so that I can begin my part of this next search."

"Until we speak again, Daughter of Storms."

The name sent a small shiver up her spine. It felt like there was something she should grasp from it, but nothing Black could explain? Another question. Yet she was pretty sure she wasn't against it.

Returning to the paperwork, Allura's mind continued churning over everything as she answered the most routine reports first. So much they had yet to discover and rediscover…

Something hit her that had almost been lost in the shuffle, and she dropped her pen as she realized.

Had Larmina said the Green Lion had spoken to her?

Father… she couldn't help the wide smile. You were right about everything. Picking up the pen, she took another long breath, refocusing herself. And we will ensure your sacrifices endure, no matter what it takes.

*****

Morning sunlight was pouring over the region marked as the Arusian administrative district as the Anduslin's Fist tore its way free of metaspace, emerging into high orbit and immediately running a series of sensor sweeps. Some were routine; some were not. All came up empty, for the time being.

Admiral Yurak hadn't particularly expected otherwise, but he was proceeding with all the caution this mission warranted. And that was quite a lot.

The other ships in the task force appeared around the dreadnought: two battleships and five cruisers. After reviewing the footage from Graktag's fleet again, Yurak had left every smaller ship back at the jumpgate. They would present no easy targets.

"Anduslin's Fist to all vessels. Remember that this is a fact-finding mission first. If our choice is between a retreat with information and a glorious death in battle, our duty is to retreat. There will be no glory for any who die from recklessness here."

One by one, each of his captains responded with their understanding. Again, he'd expected nothing else; they were the reserve force of the conquests precisely because they understood such things. But the procedures had to be followed, especially when faced with such uncertainty. They were a strong foundation to keep the troops steady.

The fleet began to approach the planet, and Yurak narrowed his good eye. No sign of anything in middle orbit except for a few ruined satellites. The previous force had been ambushed in atmosphere; he expected little difference this time, unless they changed the pattern.

Fortunately, one of the few comms officers who spoke Arusian had been on leave at the jumpgate station. That had saved him the time of having to recall one from the forward invasion fleets. Having her leave cut short to perform a special mission for the Admiral was, of course, not something she'd been inclined to protest.

"Communications, any sign of an active network?"

"No sir."

"Very well. Relay the message to all open frequencies and keep a careful eye on radar."

"Aye, sir." Opening the channels, she began speaking in the odd, alien language of this odd, infuriating planet.

Coran was monitoring the warning network, such as it was, when the message came through.

"People of Arus, this is the Anduslin's Fist, flagship of the armada of conquest for the Ninth Kingdom of the Drule Supremacy. We come under the flag of conversance, and would speak with your lion-beast defenders or those who command them."

…Well, that was not entirely what they'd been expecting. Somehow he didn't feel that was necessarily a good sign. He hit the comms; the lions had gone out not too long ago for another round of practice. "Lions, we have a transmission from an inbound Drule fleet."

We knew they'd be back, but that's faster than expected. As Coran relayed the translation, Keith's frown became deeper and deeper. Flag of conversance? Admittedly, he didn't know much about Ninth Kingdom protocol, even now… except for selectively ignoring the Deros Conventions, anyway. "Okay, team, form up on me. Let's see what they want."

"Can't we just shoot first?" Lance suggested as Red fell in to his right.

"As much as I'd like to, they're here wanting to talk. We'll try that first."

"I knew you were going to say that, but I had to try."

Keith smirked. "Well, after that we'll see."

"Maybe they wanna surrender?" Hunk suggested. "I mean, probably not, but we're due a little luck, yeah?"

"I think that's more than 'a little' luck," Pidge muttered.

Sven remained silent, though the thought that he'd much prefer the shoot first kind of diplomacy was on his mind. His mother would've been appalled. A medic would've been very proud.

As the lions approached, the Anduslin's Fist picked up the pinpoints of movement. "Five kinetic signatures approaching, sir." A pause. "Scan results are… entirely useless."

"That'll be who we want," Yurak responded grimly. "All hands, engage all recording systems. I want every scrap of information we can get on these beasts, no matter how this discussion goes."

Their opposite numbers were looking for information, too, though the lions still didn't have any Drule ships in their databases. Pidge was once again relegated to guessing at classifications. Large ship, large ship, larger ship, large ship… way too large ship. "Sir, I'm pretty sure that's a dreadnought."

Looking at the dark shapes ahead of them, Lance grimaced. "Hate to say it, but it does seem pretty dready."

"Better Red than dread?" Hunk suggested.

"Fuck yeah!"

Keith took a long breath. They probably shouldn't be surprised to have attracted such a vessel, but seeing it held no less visceral terror in a lion than it had back in their wounded Vagrant. "All right. We'll stay out of firing range for this conversation." Pulling up short at what he presumed to be a safe distance, he flipped two comm channels open. One to Coran, for any further translation and to keep the Arusians in the loop.

The other was directed to the Drule ships. "This is Commander Kogane." He wasn't quite sure how to qualify that—of the Alliance? Of Arus? Of the Black Lion? None felt correct and most felt unwise, so he simply didn't use any of them. "What is it you wish to discuss?"

Yurak blinked several times as the message came across, less for what had been said than for how. "They speak English…?" The information was all coming together in his mind. "Comms, I will take this myself."

"Aye, sir."

"Commander Kogane, is it?" His own English was rusty, but an admiral had to know the diplomatic languages at a passable level for precisely this kind of situation… well, precisely was an overstatement. "And where might you come from, Commander Kogane?"

"He wants an origin story?" Lance muttered, making sure it only went to the other lions.

"I'd be less worried about where we come from than where he's going," Pidge agreed grimly.

Keith felt his hands tightening on the controls—too much so—and slowly loosened his grip again before responding. "Not how introductions usually go." Saying they were from the Alliance was still entirely out of the question. "To whom am I speaking?"

"I am Admiral Yurak, lord of the Anduslin's Fist and its armada." His good eye narrowed. "And if I am not much mistaken, I am speaking to Earthlings of infamy. Am I correct, 'This Space For Rent'?"

Hunk sputtered—he'd nearly forgotten that little detail of their gladiatorial adventure. It was funny for about two seconds, then it made him think of Cam, and then he just wanted to shoot first too.

He wasn't the only one. "Fuck." Lance's trigger finger was very itchy; even Keith had to pull his hands well away from the controls for a moment as the memories flooded back. On his left, Pidge was seriously considering shooting the next Drule who called him an Earthling just on principle.

Sven found himself stifling a genuine, if sad, laugh. He hadn't appreciated that name enough.

Regaining his composure, Keith opened the comms again. "And if we were this infamous group, what then?"

The Drule actually chuckled. "You would have my genuine respect, Commander, though it won't stop me from killing you if required."

Nor us you. The respect of the Ninth Kingdom wasn't something even Keith particularly cared about just now; it hadn't gotten them anywhere helpful before. "What is it you want, Admiral?"

Yurak looked over the lions; even at this distance, they were impressive. And their pilots were no less so. He didn't specifically have authorization for his next words… but while it was the way of the Ninth to take what they wanted through conquest, they also recognized conquest wasn't the only way to gain strength.

"You have performed astonishing feats," he said sincerely, "and now it seems you've come into remarkable weapons. You are wasted on this shell of a planet, being hunted like vermin."

"…He fucking isn't."

"He better fucking not be."

"He probably is…"

"I make you this offer, on behalf of the Ninth Kingdom. Join with our armadas, and this world is yours to rule as you please."

Even knowing they wouldn't like where that was going, Keith froze briefly at the sheer audacity of its specifics. "What?!"

"When are we allowed to start shooting?"

"Keith, let me fucking fire now."

Even the lions were bristling. As he closed his eyes, listening to his team, Black's indignant snarl rang equally clearly through his mind.

"Normally I'd say we should hear him out," Pidge said quietly; his voice dripped with the struggle for calm. "End the attacks on this planet and see what we can do to the Ninth from the inside. But I think he's forgetting why we left Korrinoth."

Master of understatement, the ninja was. "You mean the part where they actually killed three of us just for fun?" Hunk asked darkly. "Or the part where they were plannin' to sacrifice everyone else at the victory party?"

"All of the above."

It was only their range that stopped Lance from opening fire as the thought of Flynn slammed into his mind. "Who needs tricks? I wanna kill this bastard. Now." Sven wasn't much further from it—diplomacy really was overrated sometimes. But they held back, because they both knew they wouldn't be waiting much longer.

They would tell this bastard where he could shove his offer as a team.

Yurak hadn't heard anything since the commander's what. "I assure you the offer is quite sincere." Arus was inconsequential; nothing else it offered could match the lion craft. Even the insult of the Earthlings' escape could be forgiven, if they had sense enough to join the superior side. It really would be a waste to see them killed.

Opening his eyes, Keith nodded and glanced out at the others. "Get ready, team." It had never actually been a question. He reopened the channel to the dreadnought, letting a bit of his own anger seep into his tone. "Here's our answer, Admiral."

With a roar, Black Lion darted forward, breathing a sustained lightning blast that raced over the dreadnought's hull and arced out to each of its accompanying ships in turn.

"So be it." Yurak closed the channel. "Destroy them."

The other lions had surged ahead the instant Black moved, and were in range before the Drules had time to react. Lance had Red's jaw blade out; he was going to rip some chunks of metal from these bastards up close and personal. He'd sighted in on one of the battleships that was between him and the dreadnought, and rained missiles on it as he moved in, stitching a line of explosions over its broad hull and raining armor fragments everywhere.

Pidge had a more direct line on the dreadnought. Having the initiative meant he'd been able to cloak, and he'd gone straight for the command ship—ninjas were assassins, after all. And he was, well, upset. The fact that under other circumstances he'd have used the offer against the Drules made it no less insulting. Sighting on where he was pretty sure the bridge must be, he wove through the explosions blossoming in the sky around him and raced forward at Green's top speed.

Hunk had chosen a cruiser, one that looked very similar to the last fleet's command ship, and was pummeling it with repeated plasma spheres. The weapon really didn't fire very fast, but it did make very large kabooms. With a better sense of how much punishment Yellow could take, he barely bothered to dodge in favor of making the cruiser thoroughly miserable.

Likewise, Sven wasn't doing a particularly good job of dodging. There were even more lasers this time around. But he was doing much better at returning fire. He'd closed in on the other battleship, letting loose with Blue's missiles in targeted bursts. It wasn't about bringing the whole ship down. Instead he looked at it as a field of smaller targets: focusing on the dozens of weapon ports that were raining hell over him and his team, and methodically scrapping them one by one.

They were putting on a much better showing this time around, though all five were pretty certain they would need something more. But for now, softening up the enemy rather than presenting a single target was a start.

Zeroing in on where he was pretty sure the bridge on a Drule dreadnought ought to be, Pidge made it into close range and called up Green's jaw blade. With her head down and her claws out, he rammed the lion squarely into the dreadnought's bow.

…And bounced off, cloaking flickering out, staring at an extremely large dent in the ship but nothing more. "Mijtairra." He'd been right the last battle, ramming a warship wasn't actually a good idea.

Though he hadn't breached the armor, his aim had been true. Everyone who hadn't been strapped in on the bridge went flying halfway across it… most notably Yurak himself, who slammed into the main hatch with a snarl of rage. "That one first, then!" The Anduslin's Fist took aim at the green lion craft, which was recovering from the blow.

"Pidge!" Keith had busied himself with the cruisers, alternating between lightning blasts from Black's mouth and tail and the wing rifles' heavy slugs. He was cut off from actually helping the ninja's predicament, and compensated with another gauss rifle shot that ripped a hole in the nearest cruiser's outer hull. It returned fire, sending Black spinning towards the ground, and he fought to regain control only a few meters from slamming into the dirt.

Yellow was in better position. "Ninja, that was awesome! Not uh, not real practical," wasn't that supposed to be Pidge's thing?, "but awesome." Firing a spray of sand as cover, he darted in and clamped Yellow's jaws around one of Green's cables, dragging her out of the way just before a lot of lasers filled the space.

"Thanks." Pidge shook his head and got moving again. No, definitely not practical.

"Any time." Firing a plasma stream just to give the command ship something to think about, Hunk broke off in the other direction.

Sven had been sticking to the battleship, though one of the cruisers was trying to force him away. He wasn't going to let himself be deterred. He was rapidly gaining a great new appreciation for Blue's eye lasers; their speed and precision gave him much more room for mobility, though dodging didn't feel like it was ever going to be the lion's strong suit. Not unless they could get the Drules in some water, anyway.

As if to confirm that thought, the cruiser managed to converge a pair of heavy lasers across Blue's back, and he hissed in concentration as he struggled to keep her steady. He'd have thought cannon impacts would've caused more control issues, but no, it was always the lasers.

Though he very much wanted to follow up on the dent Pidge had made in the dreadnought, Lance's initial strike on the battleship had drawn too much attention. Dodging a barrage of incoming fire—mostly—he responded with lava, leaving a glittering swath of obsidian along the battleship's stern. A few colorful flares of light danced along the area, lasers working to punch through the glassy sheet, and he took advantage of it to reorient and launch a volley of everything he had.

Most of it scattered somewhat ineffectually over fresh armor, and an answering shot swatted Red hard in the side. He was fighting angry…

"Control is better, Firestriker."

Control. Right. He dodged a followup barrage and took a few breaths, trying to steady himself. The team was scattered. And while they weren't putting on a bad showing by any means, certainly not like the last time, they were definitely hitting the limits of what the lions could accomplish on their own.

"Fuck, we need to regroup." The Drules were definitely not going to let them do that. "We need a distraction."

He was right, and they all knew it. Pidge was launching Green's tactical pods, filling as much of the air with chaff as he could. Sven was leaving a trail of ice in Blue's wake, and Hunk was spraying sand into any open wounds—disruption wasn't really Yellow's strength. But it all felt like delaying tactics.

Keith had Black's ion cannons up, firing full disruptive blasts into everything around him, but the warships were too large and well-hardened against that sort of thing. The ionic piercers did better, but by the time he could land a solid shot on one ship, whichever one he'd hit before would have shaken it off. "If you've got an idea I'm all ears, Lance."

As a matter of fact, he did. The heat blasts Red could unleash as Voltron were on his mind; they'd focused so much on practice with Voltron since then, he hadn't had a chance to find out how they worked in lion form. And he had a suspicion, an instinct. Not a weapon exactly…

Flipping a switch, he felt a wave of heat ripple through the cockpit. And with a deafening roar of flame, a fiery projection of a lion surged forward. A pair of Drule missiles slammed into it, burning away harmlessly, and whether from heat-seeking sensors or sheer distraction several lasers followed immediately after.

Lance almost forgot to actually regroup. "Holy fucking fire cat!"

"Holy fuckin' firemuffins!"

"Mekyra sa kye…"

"Very nice, Lance!"

"That is fucking awesome!" As the projection started to disperse, he remembered why he'd launched it in the first place. "…And uh, we should take advantage."

"Right." Keith blinked back the shock; he really shouldn't be shocked by anything anymore. "Let's do it."

With Pidge launching a couple of decoy pods in the fiery mirage lion's wake—though Lance's decoy had been cooler, or hotter, or whatever—the team shot into the open sky.

"Activate interlocks!"

Sven eyed his comms. It would be the second time this morning… "Do we really need the play by play? I think we have this memorized."

"Yeah, we've fucking got this."

"We have heard it like ten times in the last couple days, yeah?"

"We have it down, sir."

Keith couldn't help but grin; his monitors were showing him they'd all put in the commands, perfectly in sync, as they'd been speaking. We are figuring some things out. "Then let's form Voltron!"

As the lions came together beneath a cloak of silvery energy, Yurak felt his nerves tightening. This is it, then. He did not anticipate destroying the combined beast with this force, not with how little damage they seemed to have done to the individual lions. Or at least how little of that damage seemed to have stuck—the readings hadn't been quite clear.

What was clear was what damage they were doing now, which was none whatsoever. His chief gunner looked back with concern. "Sir, our weapons are being fully dispersed by the energy field."

He nodded. "Cruisers, fall back. Battleships, firing with us the second the barrier fades. Prepare the atmospheric piercer systems, we may need them." Entering metaspace from atmosphere had a nasty habit of contaminating the piercer drive's power core, requiring some intensive repairs, but it was better than losing the whole ship.

They might retreat, but not without every second of data they could acquire.

As Voltron finished forming, Keith found himself breathing slightly easier. Only slightly, but—

CLANG.

—Not even slightly, then. "Kuso!" Fighting with the controls he felt the others getting into sync, keeping the reeling robot from crashing to the ground as the full firepower of three heavy warships slammed into them.

"Whoa! Rude!"

"They are visiting us, you'd think they would have better manners." Hunk and Sven were taking the brunt of the recovery, giving way and staggering back while sidestepping a second volley.

"Manners at a time like this?"

"We should give them an etiquette lesson, there's plenty in Lady Hys' book." Pidge and Lance were again flailing to keep them all balanced, and a couple of days ago they wouldn't have been able to do it. But now the robot held itself upright, the momentum bleeding away.

One last light tug on the control sticks, and Voltron stood firm beneath the Drule fleet, eyes aglow with energy. Keith grinned. The damage wasn't light, but it was already starting to repair itself, and now it was their turn.

"Let's show them how we pay it back."

"Fuck yeah!"

Lunging them forward, Keith's attention was drawn to a button near the rest of his sensor controls. As he pressed it, a wave of silvery light emanated from Voltron's eyes and washed over the dreadnought. It didn't seem to be doing any damage that he could see… but he noted data scrolling over the monitor there, and spared it one curious glance.

Then they were at optimal weapons range. "Alright, team, let's at least take out one of these bastards. Elemental cannons ready."

"Ready."

"Oh we're ready, boss."

"Beyond ready."

"Open fire."

As sand, water, and lava converged on the dreadnought, Lance flipped on the open comms channel again. "YEEHAW!"

Pidge had waited half a second on instinct; even as Voltron, Green's wind cannon was more of a support ability. And in this case, 'support' meant turning the other three into a raging elemental cyclone, ripping deep into the belly of the command ship and tearing a huge armor plate clean off.

The Drules were trying to return fire, but Keith pushed them forward as the elemental cannons faded, dodging the incoming fire with more grace than a giant robot—especially one they were still learning to use—had any right to achieve. Leaning forward, he flipped the wings down and fired a volley from the gauss rifles squarely into the space the armor plate had been wrenched from moments before.

With sensors shrieking of an intermediate hull breach and inner hull damage, Yurak decided they had seen enough. "All units fall back! Emergency pierce. We've done what we came here to do."

In a flash of blue-violet drive plasma and a shimmer of quantum tearing, the Drule ships vanished.

Voltron was left holding the field so abruptly that for a few moments, the team could only stare at where the warships had been.

"…That was impressive," Sven said finally, leaning back in his seat. "Even by our rapidly increasing standards."

"Fucking impressive!" Lance agreed.

Pidge grinned slightly. "I like this arm thing alright."

Hunk grinned wider. "I like this Voltron thing alright."

"Yeah." Keith chuckled softly, relaxing his shoulders from the tension of battle. "I like this Voltron thing, myself. We sent a message…" What he didn't like so much was the behavior of the Drule fleet, and not just their ridiculous invitation. It seemed like they'd mostly come for a message themselves. "They will be back again."

"And we'll kick their asses again."

"Happily."

Pidge was studying his auxiliary monitors; the data the eye beams had generated was still there, and he was curious. It all seemed to be in Drakure. Which made no sense unless… "In the meantime, I think we just pulled some data from their systems." Even without reading the language, there were some patterns as he scrolled through. "…Green, did you guys just steal the Drule IFF database?"

She purred smugly. "We didn't not steal it."

"You… are spending way too much time with us."

Keith blinked. They did what? Black was purring in his head, too. Okay, I'm impressed. "All right. Let's get back to the dens and have a better look at that data then, shall we? I think we can rest a little bit."

As they separated into lions again, Lance couldn't help a quick glance at the seat behind him. If Voltron was this awesome now, how awesome would they be once they added the kid to the mix? Somehow? Red, you still won't tell me anything more?

The lion just chuckled, and he shook his head with a grin. Hopefully they'd find out soon.