(From Ashes) Chapter 29

 Pride: From Ashes
        Chapter 29
        Red Handed

As he'd promised Yellow, Hunk had given Vince a little bit of space after the latest sparking incident. And now as he'd also promised Yellow—or perhaps threatened him—they were going to be having a talk. He'd thought it over a bit, made something that might slightly resemble a plan, and hopefully it would work.

Herding wrenchies was still a weird part of the job. But he supposed this wasn't quite that, either.

At least finding Vince wasn't hard; he was in his room, and Hunk poked his head in with a big grin. "Yo!"

"Eeeep!"

Thunk.

After taking a moment to recover his senses, Vince found himself on the floor by his bed, which he had been sitting on. Grimacing, he slowly got up off the floor. "Hi." He'd really been trying to avoid, well… everyone. Though at least after three ghosts turning up to chat, he could still look at Hunk without immediate guilt pangs. There were few people on the team that applied to these days.

Hunk was feeling a little guilty himself, and blinked. "Little dude, we gotta wrap you in bubble wrap or somethin'."

"Or don't startle me?" He sat back on the bed. "I mean, I think we haven't looked into not startling Vince, er, me, enough."

"I uh, hate to be the one that points this out." The big guy walked in and ruffled his hair lightly. "But sayin' hello startles you."

"You didn't knock."

"Wouldn't that have startled you?"

Vince glared, Hunk gave him his most innocent smile, and he decided he couldn't actually argue that point. "Whatever… what's up, do you need me to do something?"

Nod. "Wanted you to come help me with the shuttles! We don't hafta talk about how they got powered up, but they are and we've gotta run some tests to figure out how they work, yeah?"

Oh, right. Vince frowned and looked at his hands. "Yeah… uh, that is important, that they run and all."

"Totally. You in?"

"Yeah, I'll help."

With a grin, Hunk started out of the room with him, and first opted to wait a couple of minutes and see if he would say anything unprompted. It didn't work a bit.

Aaand awkward silence is awkward. Well, he hadn't really expected otherwise.

"So, there was one other little thing I wanted to talk to you about real quick, okay?"

Vince side eyed him. Was he going to try to sneak something in about the shuttle sparkage after all? That didn't feel like Hunk's style. "Oh, uh… okay?"

"My lion is totally a jerk and I yelled at him for ya." Both of them immediately heard Yellow's mildly indignant growl, and Hunk snorted. Dude, even you wanted a better way to do this, you hush.

Yellow hushed.

For once though, hearing the lion wasn't quite the greatest of Vince's concerns. "Um. For being a creepy voice?" Crap. Don't admit you hear him… too late.

'Creepy' wasn't the exact words Hunk would've used for Yellow's voice, but he supposed it was good enough for now. "Oh, trust me, I've yelled at him about that for me, too."

Eyeroll. "And I bet he listened."

"Totes didn't." Shrug. "Did tell me why you're gettin' so much company lately, though, and also told me I'm not allowed to say anything to you about it but I renegotiated that."

Vince stopped dead in his tracks, and his brain halted just as abruptly. Had he just…? Hunk stopped too and leaned back against the wall, watching him, seemingly content to wait it out.

He supposed he'd heard the Earth was patient.

"I, uh." Scratching the floor with his shoe, Vince tried to regain his thought processes. "I didn't…" No, that hadn't been an accusation, surely he could come up with a slightly better protest. "It kind of doesn't feel real."

Hunk's thoughts immediately went back to the Drule ghosts in the desert, and he nodded slowly. "I believe it."

"But it was kind of nice, too."

Huh. Okay Yellow, maybe we'll put off that arc welder after all. "Yeah?"

"I mean…no?" Vince shook his head in frustration. Seeing them was nice. Talking to them, seeing them flicker out again, just hurt. And that was before even getting into what they were telling him. "I don't know. It was fuzzmuffinly weird. And I don't get why!"

Don't you?

Hunk wasn't sure how much to say. He'd already flat out refused to say nothing, but knew he couldn't say everything either. But that was why he'd been thinking on it… he exhaled slowly. "Yellow likes to dig stuff up." Snort. "It's his thing. But it's stuff that can't stay buried, yeah?" He might not know exactly what was going on with Vince's ghosts and sparks, but it was clearly something that wasn't going to just be ignored. Maybe admitting it was the first step.

Maybe he could admit his own mask was always going to break…

"Why can't it stay buried?" Vince frowned. "I can think of lots of things that should stay buried."

"You sure about that?"

"YES."

Nod. "Since when?"

"Always?"

They both know that wasn't true, and Hunk shook his head. "You wanted to get the sparkin' stuff under control. You wanted to come find Voltron."

"And look what that got me. Ghosts!"

"Listen, little dude…" He knew Vince didn't want to hear it, probably only stayed close out of politeness. Kinda Vince's thing, really. "I dunno if I can actually help you. Yellow says it's a you thing, but we're also a team, yeah? But I was the first one who threw myself into…" He gestured widely. "…whatever all this lion stuff is. Cuz sometimes…" He could see that hole in the desert again, hear the lion's voice challenging him. Hell yeah it had been creepy. "…sometimes takin' the leap of faith is the only way you get the answers. And you need the answers, yeah?"

Vince shook his head. "I thought I did, I thought…" His mind was racing again, thoughts of Jace and all he did to try to help with his sparking. Of Flynn, who he'd finally told about the visions. But they were both gone, and the promise of answers just felt like adding insult to injury. And the answers themselves felt like… "I thought I wanted to know, but it's too much. I'd rather not, now."

Yellow had been right about that. "I get that, little dude. But not knowing isn't gonna make it all go away." That felt like it had been clear since the very first spark. They hadn't known a thing.

It was all true. Still frowning, Vince looked at his hands. He couldn't make any argument against the point except a plaintive whisper. "I want it to."

Hunk reached over and squeezed his shoulder. "I know."

"You do?"

"You're not subtle, little dude." The other engineer gave him a big grin. "Which I totally appreciate." That earned him a tiny smile from Vince, so he kept on going. "So here's the thing. Yellow isn't behind the sparking and uh, he ain't behind most of the ghosts. He could give up on gettin' you as his Sentinel or whatever right now, but the other stuff will still be there. Might be the only way out is through." He looked him in the eye. "And I'm just gonna leave you with that, okay? Cuz the rest of it's up to you, no need for me to keep hammerin' it in. But if you do wanna talk more…"

Vince took it all in, exhaling. The truth could be so annoying sometimes. "Yeah, ok," he conceded, grudgingly. He would think about it, and that was the only promise he was going to make. Even to himself.

And don't you even start, creepy voice.

Yellow purred, because that was what he did.

"Okay." Hunk gave Vince an even bigger smile. "So! Time to play with alien wires and control boards?"

Relief washed over Vince. "Yes!" Let me bury my head in wires. With that he followed Hunk down to the cavern.

The thoughts would follow, of course. But he could pretend they weren't for a little while longer.

*****

Training the new copilots—the new Sentinels—had to be the top priority. Maybe it would help the team figure out more of what they actually did. So Black and Red Lions had taken to the skies, though not without a little bit of logistical work first.

They'd figured out how to make a makeshift firing range for the lions: a couple of large, gentle slopes coming out of the mountains. They'd found a few roughly spherical boulders that the lions could roll down those slopes, which made for moving targets. Definitely not the holographic multifunction target ranges back home, but they were getting used to coming up with such haphazard solutions to their problems. It worked, and that was what mattered.

"Okay, kid." Lance had a huge, stupid grin on his face that had been there pretty much since the moment they launched. About damn time he had Daniel in the cockpit with him. "Ready for some target practice?"

"Obviously." So far Daniel had figured out how to fully unlock and deploy all of Red's rear console controls, and was doing his very best to resist the urge to just start hitting all of the buttons. All of them.

Smirking, Lance took Red up higher, circling a rocky area between the two slopes. Stationary targets first. "Go for it."

Nodding, Daniel made a couple of experimental moves with the crosshair control stick. Right away the tail beam looked like the most fun—it could aim literally anywhere, regardless of the lion's orientation. With a smirk of his own he took aim at a small depression in the ground and took a shot. And then there was a large depression in the ground.

"Yeehaw!" Lance yelled as he brought Red around for another pass; it earned a disgusted look from his copilot.

"Must you yee the haw at everything cool? You're literally adding lame to one of the coolest things ever." He took another shot at the hole, this time holding the trigger a bit longer and carving a charred line across it.

Lance snorted. "I'm gonna dive, you target and fire." The kid needed to learn to work with just how fast this cat could move, after all. "And there is nothing lame about a good yeehaw!"

"You see, that's where we disagree." Daniel took another shot while Lance was maneuvering. "No such thing as a good yeehaw."

No appreciation. "Oh yeah?" Shaking his head, Lance took Red a bit higher. "Pretty sure this is gonna be YEEHAW FUCKING AWESOME!" With that he plunged the lion into a full speed dive, and Daniel didn't have a chance to object to his commentary because he'd left his stomach far behind.

It was awesome.

As Red shot across their training ground, Black Lion approached with a bit more caution. Keith had given Allura a very general overview of the piloting controls before they really got moving, just to be safe. Actual flight training would come later, though… the back seat's actual functions came first.

"Are you ready, Princess?"

Allura took a deep breath, reading over her own consoles one more time. The options felt dizzying, but perhaps the best way to learn was to see them in action. "Ready as best I can be."

Keith could hear the trepidation in her voice, but it was matched by determination. "Okay. You see that large boulder in the middle of the main screen? That's your target, go ahead and give it a shot." Literally.

Nodding, Allura focused herself and selected a weapon; she'd watched Red's runs as they approached, and the tail seemed as good a start as any. The controls were responsive, but the crosshairs wavered a bit as Black Lion hovered. She couldn't seem to get a perfectly steady lock… as she struggled with it, Red carried out another run, and she huffed in frustration. She was used to things needing to be perfect, both in trick shots and courtly manners.

No. In real combat, with lives on the line, perfection gave way to pragmatism. Closing her eyes for a moment she tried to focus herself on those memories. Take aim. Center of mass. Check for obstacles. And fire!

A narrow trail of lighting flared from Black Lion's tail, connecting the weapon and the boulder for an instant. Then it was gone, leaving her blinking back afterimages to see a dull scorch mark near the center of the stone.

Allowing herself a small grin, she took a couple more shots, scattering them over the boulder in a haphazard cluster.

"Not too bad." Keith had been very aware of her hesitation, but speed would come with comfort. And perhaps with necessity. "Now, I'm not going to be holding still very often—more than likely the target won't either, but we'll start with one source of movement. I'm going to fly over that same boulder, see if you can hit it."

In a way Allura found that a relief. Not having the time to overthink it might be helpful. Still, she snorted with displeasure as her first attempt grazed the target. A second pass yielded better results, but it was a rather large rock and the new scorch marks seemed very far away from the first set.

"Remember," she muttered under her breath as her next try missed entirely, "we are learning." This didn't even resemble the immediacy and tactile feedback a bow offered.

Keith heard, and went back to hovering, looking back to offer an encouraging nod. "Yes, you are. Just focus and pay attention to the crosshairs, worry about keeping your own hand steady. You only need to lead the target slightly—this is an energy weapon. Let's try it again."

She took that all in, then nodded. "Okay."

Only one more lion was out and about; Pidge had Green perched on a nearby terrace, partly watching, partly working. He'd been trying to take advantage of the free time to finally figure out the data they'd stolen from Admiral Yurak's ship. Finding where to edit the information in the lion's database was actually easier than he'd expected, but there was a small problem.

He didn't know Drakure.

Green Lion didn't know Drakure.

Nobody around here knew Drakure, except…

"I know what this says, but these words don't mean anything in the order they're in." Romelle was leaning over his shoulder studying the readouts. "This one is… Occultist Wreath? Model 4360, battle cruiser."

He eyed her skeptically. Alliance protocol didn't actually translate the names of Drule ship classes—or any others that weren't in Common, for that matter. "When you're reading words that don't make sense in the order they're in, my understanding is that the correct response is to 'smile and nod'. Not sure what it helps, though." She considered that, shrugged, then smiled and nodded; he snorted. Okay, probably deserved that. "Can I get that name out loud in Drakure?"

"It's um… no." Written Drakure was a partially pictographic language. Being able to interpret what something meant was sometimes easier than knowing how to pronounce it. "The characters are ku-byora-mad'ri-junom, but I doubt it's said like that."

Blink. "…Okay, we can stick with Common names then, what's next?"

"YEEHAW!"

He very much doubted it was that. Seconds later, a blast from the makeshift range caused enough of a roar to make his passenger jump, and he shook his head slightly. "Does that word even mean anything?" In any order?

"It's a fucking feeling!"

"Yeah, it means you're feeling lame."

Pidge decided that was a no.

Recovering from being startled, Romelle took a few breaths… then smiled and nodded again, for good measure. Focus, Romelle. "Okay, the next one is Incandescent Orb, Model 1997, frigate."

That would be incredibly impractical to have to call out in combat. "Maybe we can get the lions to steal a language database next time."

"We'll see what we can do."

Now it was Pidge's turn to startle. Wait, really?

"I can't promise anything, but we have learned much in our time."

…Good to know!

Black had moved to one of the slopes. Allura was feeling more comfortable with the controls by now; Keith's advice to only lead slightly had helped. Along with perfection, she was a bit too used to ballistic trajectories—she had definitely been overthinking it. But needing to factor both lion and target movement in could still be complicated. "Okay, I'm ready."

"Then let's go." Nudging one of the round boulders with Black's muzzle, Keith launched into a half-loop, their path intersecting with the rolling chunk of stone below.

For a split second Allura was overwhelmed, then shook it off. The movements were steady, her hand was steady. It was the same kind of predictable physics that a trick shot with her bow called for, just applied differently. She could see the trajectories in her mind's eye with the same clarity as a bouncing arrow.

Lightning arced from Black Lion's tail again, and she allowed herself a little grin as it struck the boulder almost dead center.

Daniel had also nailed a moving target or two, which in Red's case had left a spattering of molten rock along the slope. He felt like that was a good start. But the rock they were using was still mostly intact, and that was just unacceptable.

"Team Red is fucking awesome," Lance declared with a smirk, moving the boulder back to the top of the slope. The kid could have a reprieve on the yeehaws. For a moment.

That forbearance wasn't lost on Daniel, and he knew better than to hope it would last. "Kind of want to try out these plasma darts. Or the inferno missiles… no wait, the cluster bombs!"

Snort. "Pick an order and we'll practice each one."

How was he supposed to pick an order when everything looked so badass? "How different are the heavy lasers from the tail laser?"

"Just say you want to push all the buttons," Pidge snarked between database entries.

…He wasn't wrong, but Daniel shot Green a dirty look nonetheless. Then he smirked. "Know what, let's do plasma darts first, let me at that big rock in the middle."

"Alright, wanna have a clean shot or should I move?"

"Clean shot. Don't move at all. Make it practically impossible for me to miss."

Lance shrugged. He could perfectly understand just wanting to see what all the cool—well, hot—weapons did. Not that he wouldn't get in a little jab. "Hovering and boring it is!" Red's shoulder arrays deployed, and Daniel took a few moments to test their range of motion. Mostly vertical, but enough horizontal to be useful. He carefully took aim at a rocky outcropping.

"This one is Fury of Ancient… no, wait, Fury of the Ages. Model 5768, battle cruiser—"

In a quick, smooth motion, Daniel yanked the crosshairs off of the rock in front of him, and Red fired a volley of shimmering plasma darts just slightly beside the stationary Green Lion.

"—What in the name of Optari was that?!" Romelle yelped, reflexively diving to the floor of the cockpit as light flared across the monitors. Then she felt a little silly, because that probably wasn't even a useful place to be if the lion were under fire.

She didn't actually get up yet, though.

"Oh, shit. Sorry, Pidge." Daniel's tone was completely deadpan and extremely not-sorry. "My hand slipped."

Pidge hadn't even flinched. He just reached over and flipped a selector switch, then fired one of Green's heat decoy pods straight at Red. The detonation wreathed the other lion in dazzling flares—harmless, especially to the Lion of Flame, but impressive-looking nonetheless.

"See," the ninja's tone was equally deadpan, "you startled me and my hand slipped too."

"No one said they celebrated Star's Crossing here," Lance snorted, and Daniel cackled with laughter.

"Yeah, at least we know to call Pidge next time we need some fireworks."

"Pretty sure this is where I say something like 'I'm here to help', kir sa tye?"

Finally putting everything together, Romelle slowly lifted her head and started to climb up off the floor. Looking between Pidge and the outside, she swallowed. I'm going to have to get used to… being under fire, if Blue Lion really wants me, aren't I? They all seemed so casual about it.

Of course, she wasn't entirely a stranger to space battles. But even with a soft purr from Blue in her mind, the memory of that made her skin crawl.

*****

Sven had been in the militia's… office? Headquarters? Bunker? Whatever their room in the tunnels was… studying maps and making plans, when the whole tone of the place had become different. First a slightly panicked scout had arrived, reporting to Captain Sarial in breathless Arusian; he'd been able to make out bits and pieces of something being wrong in the foothills.

Why yes, he knew the word foothills in Arusian. Maybe he'd only recently mastered hello, but map words he had down.

A few other reports, a couple of different runners, and someone who didn't seem to be militia at all had finally piqued his curiosity enough to ask at the next quiet moment. Apparently a hunting party had stumbled across a particularly large and cranky specimen of local wildlife. They'd injured it—it had reciprocated—and now three of the militia were in bad shape in the infirmary, while an extremely dangerous wounded animal was roaming their prime hunting grounds.

Naturally, he'd volunteered to help.

So now he was out in the foothills with the militia's best hunters. Which, to his surprise, included Larmina; he'd known she had a prominent role with the militia, but not that she was that good. The other two she'd introduced as Hanso and Allendar, and since then things had been pretty quiet. Stalking wounded wildlife worked better without too much noise.

Sven was thrilled to be out hunting, honestly. Lion combat was fine, Voltron was great, but getting out on foot and tracking dangerous prey? That was where he'd first gotten a taste of action. Without the hunting trips of his youth, he probably wouldn't be here at all. Pacing the others with his knife at the ready, he was positive of one thing: there would be no boartah shit happening this time.

Terina felt like forever ago.

Allendar was pulling a cargo sled. Putting the wounded animal out of its misery—and neutralizing the threat it posed—were the main objectives, but bringing such a bounty of meat back to the shelters was a close second. Hanso, thanks to lingering remnants of chest trauma, was still not cleared for sled-hauling duty. So he was the first to catch sight of what they were looking for.

"I don't think a healthy kyor-val left those." A nearby tree bore a series of deep gouges high on its trunk. And a healthy kyor-val during breeding season might indeed leave such markings, but the bloody smears on the bark below? Not so much.

Translating for Sven, Larmina added an explanation. "They have big horns."

"Horns," Sven echoed, looking up at the gouges and judging just how large this creature must be. They'd had a hard time getting across to him what exactly a kyor-val was. But between the gouges and what looked to be a couple of tracks nearby, he was guessing some sort of deer.

A very big deer.

"The blood isn't dry," he said finally, "it can't have gotten far."

"You'd be surprised." Larmina had seen the tracks too, and was moving to follow. "We don't usually hunt kyor-val, you'll see why."

"…Lovely." He looked over their weapons. Larmina had a bow, while the other two were carrying crossbow-like contraptions which appeared to be loaded with two small bolts. Would they be enough to take this thing out? His knife would only be helpful if things got up close and personal, and if this kyor-val got through enough shots to get up close and personal, well… it actually might be boartah shit all over again.

He did have one of their scavenged Drule rifles, just in case—but lasers were terrible hunting weapons, and he was terrible with guns. It was very much a last resort.

Allendar didn't need to speak Common to understand his reaction. "Larmina, are you scaring the Earthling?"

"I don't think he's scared." She switched to Common. "Allendar wants to know if I'm scaring you."

Glancing between them, he chuckled quietly. "I have a healthy amount of apprehension, but no. I'm not scared."

Larmina relayed that, and Hanso rolled his eyes. "They tell me apprehension is good at keeping you healthy, but apparently I wouldn't know." He gave his weapon a dirty look as he said it. Slingbows really weren't his preference, but a regular bow was another thing lingering chest trauma made unwise.

After a moment's thought, Larmina relayed that too; learning a language was easier when you heard as much translated as possible. Then she smirked. "Don't listen to him, he was plenty of the apprehensive when he got shot. We were opening a door with Drules behind it."

That sounded like an excellent reason for apprehension, really. "Well if he doesn't think it helps, maybe he should try being less apprehensive? Though it might be his apprehension is why he isn't dead."

Before she could translate that, the group came to a halt; the tracks they were following had disappeared into a stretch of thick mud. Sven tilted his head, looking around but not seeing any sign of blood; he didn't think that was a good thing. Something as heavy as this kyor-val seemed to be would surely sink into such swampy ground—if it was still strong enough to escape without much struggle, they could be in for some real excitement.

"There, to the left." Allendar had noticed a scattering of leaves beneath a large tree in the mud. Too many. Leaves shouldn't be falling so much in the spring… unless perhaps a large, flailing animal had shaken them loose.

"Hold on." Larmina only said it in Arusian, motioning to get it across to Sven before scrambling up the tree in question. No gouges or blood that she could see on the trunk, but from the higher vantage she could see something else. "Those bushes north of us are a mess, there's a whole line torn through them. It must've gone through there."

Sven had understood little of that except for 'north', but Allendar motioned to the bushes and he nodded his understanding. Nothing looked off from the ground, but they would take Larmina's word for it.

Silence fell again as they moved through the bushes and regained the trail. Which made Larmina's next whisper, a few minutes later, seem strange at first. "It's getting quieter."

She was right, though. The sounds of the wilderness were muted… things always attack when it's quiet, Sven mused. Something about prey animals tending to hunker down when it was dangerous. There had been some rustling around them, perhaps smaller wildlife seeking shelter, but the background cries of birds and other creatures had faded away almost entirely.

Even he had to admit it was creepy.

What he could hear was a distant trickle of water, and he wasn't the only one. "Left again," Hanso said quietly. "We're close to the stream, kyor-val hate water."

Sven knew the word water too, for probably obvious reasons, but needed Larmina to translate before he followed why they were turning away from it. Which was good for his own secondary objective on this trip; even with limited conversation, it was helping improve his Arusian a bit. Learning a third language was proving easier than learning a second.

They crept up and down one hill with no further sign of trouble, but coming to the bottom of that hill they found more than enough trouble to make up for it.

"That's… a lot of blood."

A large patch of grass had been flattened, and a patch of dark blood was not only not dry, it was outright pooled there. Their quarry had been here very recently… and as Sven looked around at the mangled vegetation nearby, he could only conclude that it was also very pissed off.

Hanso started to say something, thought better of it, and just motioned with his slingbow to a nearby stand of trees. A couple of the trunks were damaged. It looked very much like a wounded kyor-val might've gone in there to forage.

For a moment, the four of them just exchanged uneasy looks. It was probably not the case that the beast they were tracking was hiding in the trees waiting to spring an ambush on its hunters, but right now it kind of felt like it might be.

Larmina really did not want to just walk into those trees.

Sven kind of did want to walk into those trees.

Allendar noted that the Earthling looked like he was considering walking into the trees and shook his head slightly; Larmina's friends really were all weird. Hefting his own slingbow, he started to creep around to the right, while Hanso remained in place. Flushing the target out would need to be the play. Taking note of their movements, Sven understood the plan and started to move around the other side.

"I appreciate you attempting to do this safely, Icehunter. Replacing my Knight so soon after bonding would be inconvenient."

Oh, there she was. The last thing I'd ever want to do is inconvenience you.

Blue chuckled. And before it had fully faded—before Sven had even gotten more than a couple of steps into the trees—an unearthly shrieking noise and a thunder of hoofbeats broke the silence.

"Dovayat pol!"

"Excuse you!" Larmina had also been setting up for when they flushed the beast out, and minus the part where they'd had nothing to do with its appearance she was ready. Mostly. As the group scattered she managed to loose an arrow into the kyor-val's hindquarters, which wasn't where she'd have intended to aim but did slow the beast down. Slightly.

"Fuck…" Sven finally got a good look at the kyor-val as it stopped and bucked angrily. That is not a deer. That is more like a moose. A very pissed-off moose. It was every bit as huge and powerfully built as a moose, anyway; its snout was shorter and its facial structure less coarse, but the comparison was close enough.

Oh, and it had a rack of no less than eight massive, double-pronged antlers, any one of which could easily gore a person in a matter of seconds.

They have big horns, indeed.

Out of the corner of his eye, he noted that the apparent haphazard scramble of his companions was anything but. Allendar's angle as he cut back in towards them kept him shielded by the trees, while Larmina had kept a solid firing stance even while darting out of the way. Hanso hadn't even taken a cursory glance around for cover before vaulting up onto a large boulder behind him. He had no intention of losing another chunk of his chest, and even as he steadied himself on the rock with one hand, he leveled his slingbow with the other and fired two darts into the kyor-val's kneecap.

The beast didn't seem to care in the slightest, charging the boulder with another shriek. Hanso vaulted off and hid behind it, as the enraged kyor-val shoved what had to be at least a ton of stone several inches backwards.

"See what I mean?" Larmina asked grimly, loosing another arrow, and Sven couldn't help an equally grim chuckle. Yes. Yes, he saw exactly what she'd meant.

There were two weak spots that he could see. The existing wound in the kyor-val's flank appeared to have been caused by a blade, not an arrow; it was large and not especially deep. Whoever had landed it had been lucky to even survive. It presented a vulnerability, but also, being wounded there hadn't done much to slow the creature down so far.

The other option was the spine. He could see the indentation at the base of its neck, between the shoulder blades. The muscle would be weak there, but he would have to get an opening somehow… and he absolutely could not miss.

Allendar had taken advantage of the kyor-val's attack on Hanso's boulder to line up his own shots. Slingbows weren't very powerful weapons, but made up for it in accuracy. As the beast reoriented, he was able to line up with the same knee his companion had already shot, burying two bolts into the back of the joint.

This time the kyor-val noticed, and the leg buckled as it spun and charged him.

Larmina's eyes narrowed. She'd been aiming for the old wound, but seeing what the other two had accomplished she dropped her sights lower. Usually she'd never have tried to shoot for the legs; even a kyor-val's huge hooves were an objectively small target. But if it was slowed down enough…

Even with one leg crippled, it managed to lunge for the tree Allendar was using as cover. There was a deafening crack as the trunk gave way, a few muffled curses as he jumped out of the way, and that was just enough time for Larmina to take her shot.

The arrow pierced through just above the hoof on the kyor-val's other front leg, and as it attempted to recover from its charge, both of its legs gave out. That might not last—it was trying to get its hooves back under it immediately.

But it was all the opening Sven needed. Springing at the creature as it struggled to rise, he plunged his knife in at an angle. It hit bone first, and he winced, ready to abandon the attempt in an instant if needed—but then he was able to shift the knife a bit more, and the blade found a gap to sever the kyor-val's spinal cord.

By the time Larmina had a second shot lined up, she was staring at an Earthling clinging to the back of a slowly twitching kyor-val, rather than the rampaging Arusian moose she'd expected. "Um. Whoa."

"Larmina, you have the craziest friends," Allendar declared as he poked his head out from the trees. Hanso popped up from behind the rock, and while he didn't say anything, his wide-eyed stare made his opinion pretty clear too.

It only took a few seconds for the kyor-val to stop twitching and go fully limp, and only then did Sven dare to withdraw his knife and retreat. Looking himself over he didn't see any bruises, and no blood to speak of, just a few drops from when he'd pulled out the knife. So much better than last time.

Turning to Larmina, he smiled. "That was fun."

Fun? "Allendar thinks you're crazy," she informed him flatly, "and so do I!" But she couldn't keep the grin down any longer. "That isn't so bad, though."

Hanso had caught Allendar's name and made an educated guess at the reason. "I think he's crazy too!"

"Oh, and so does Hanso."

Sven just shrugged; he was used to that. And if there was anything he'd learned from being on an Explorer Team… "Crazy gets the job done."

Considering that for a moment, Larmina relayed it to the others, who slowly nodded their understanding. The militia knew a little something about that themselves. "Seems right."

"Speaking of jobs…" Allendar looked at the dead kyor-val, then at the transport sled, and made a face. They'd brought the biggest one they had available, but this was still going to be a trick. "We're gonna need a bigger sled…"

"Oh we've got this, we just need a little creativity." Hanso smirked. "You all need a little creativity, anyway. I can't lift that, I'm injured."

Larmina glared. "Let's see how injured you end up if you don't help."

"Okay, okay!"

As they got to work loading the kyor-val onto the sled, with a great deal of difficulty and a whole lot of rope, a few birds were chirping again.

*****

Allura felt like she'd done about what she could with Black's shock tail. Not that she couldn't improve with it, of course—but at some point shooting a rock couldn't do any more. Feeling prepared to wield it in real combat was the best she could hope for at the moment. "Keith, I think I'm ready for something else."

"All right. Good job, Princess." Keith was reasonably impressed so far. She was a quick learner; Black's controls were intuitive, yes, but knowing what buttons to press and being able to do it under pressure were different things. And he'd given her as much pressure as possible without actually being shot at. "Try a different weapon, then?"

"I think so… hmm, choices." Reading off each option, Allura had a memory of what she'd seen within Voltron. The various 'items' kept flickering into her mind. Had they all been weapons? Perhaps it would make sense.

Closing her eyes, she tried to bring herself into sync with the lion, and felt static crackling through her fingertips. "How about… ionic piercers?" Flipping a switch, she felt Black's hull shudder slightly as his shoulder cannons deployed, and her eyes widened a little. "These seem impressive."

Keith bit back a chuckle at her awed tone; she wasn't wrong, anyway. Everything the lions carried was impressive. "The ion cannons have multiple firing modes," he explained. "The ionic piercers are the most precise option. Go ahead, I'll hold still until you get used to the weapon, then we'll do the moving target."

Nodding, Allura took aim with the cannons, taking a minute to get used to their range. Then she fired; a pair of javelin-like projectiles shot forward, impacting the ground in a wash of electricity and a massive thunderclap.

Surprised for a moment by the boom, Allura leaned back in her seat and exhaled slowly. Yes, impressive.

Red raced by. "Cool shot, but check this out!" Daniel was putting Red's heavy lasers through their paces, and held the trigger for a long burst that cut parallel trails in the slope.

Not that he was really competing with the princess who'd just started learning this stuff. He was just showing her how awesome she would be someday too! Yeah, that was it.

Shaking his head, Lance looked back at him and grinned. "You ready to try those cluster bombs, or is showing off with the lasers too much fun?"

"Showing off with the lasers is very fun." Everything sounded fun, to be fair. "Maybe a couple more runs first."

Romelle was starting to get used to all the explosions going on outside. "Okay, this one is Shadow Veil, Model 9189, destroyer." Someday, she would like to know what the deal was with these model numbers. Surely even the Drules hadn't created nine thousand versions of one ship? For now, she would have to settle for words not making sense in the order they were in.

As he entered that translation and attached it to the rest of the model data, Pidge triggered a long-range scan. He'd done that for every entry so far, mostly because there wasn't a save button and it was a useful way to cycle the database. And that was really all he needed from it.

But this time, a loud alert tone rang through the cockpit.

Explosions might have become less worrying, but alarms still made Romelle jump. "Um…"

Pidge stared at the screen. "You've got to be kidding."

"That's not good, is it?"

"That's one way of putting it."

Keith looked over as the chatter came over the comms, and Allura stopped her weapon testing. "What is it?"

"We have a, uh… Shadow Veil-class destroyer somewhere on the edge of sensor range."

Lance pulled Red to a halt. "You are fucking kidding me?"

"I can go check it out." It was a reflex. Drules on his sensors meant he cloaked and went to go have a look. But as Green sprang into the air, he realized a second too late—

"—Wait, what about me?"

Pidge turned, looking at Romelle, who had just a touch of fear in her eyes. It would really be better if he dropped her off, but… if they were about to be in a fight, the ground wouldn't be safe. Hells, taking her back to the castle wouldn't necessarily be safe, and it would take time they may or may not possess. It seemed highly unlikely that one Drule destroyer was here without either a bunch of its friends, or another robeast…

If it was Romelle we'd be letting her.

The sudden irony of that argument was not lost on him. "Hold on tight and don't touch anything." With that, they were heading for low orbit.

Romelle sputtered, then glared at the back of his head. Part of her was keenly aware that Pidge, of all people, letting her be in his lion for an impending combat was a compliment. Most of her just wanted to know—"How am I supposed to hold on and not touch anything?!"

…Fair point, that. "Hold on tight and don't touch anything that moves."

Oh, wonderful. She fell into the back seat and looked around, were there no restraints in these things?

This was going to be weird.

"We have to get the others out here." As Green vanished, Keith was coming to similar conclusions about the likelihood of only one Drule destroyer. "Hunk? You read? We're going to need you and Sven out here ASAP."

Hunk's answer was almost immediate. "Loud and clear, boss!" They'd taken to stashing one of the portable commsets in the shuttle chamber, after the whole robeast incident. Coran didn't want to have to run them down anymore. "I'll find 'im and—"

"—I'm here," Sven interrupted. He'd just gotten back from the kyor-val hunting excursion, and the militia's commset had picked up the conversation. "On my way."

"We're still doin' some diagnostics on the shuttles, but they oughta be good for an emergency. Be there very ASAP!"

At least that was finally some good news. "We'll hold here until Pidge reports."

Lance looked over his shoulder and smirked. The Drules had terrible timing sometimes, but they also had perfect timing sometimes. "Looks like you're getting real targets."

"Looks like I might get to use those cluster bombs after all," Daniel agreed.

"As you should, I fucking love those things."

Pidge was quickly seeing why they hadn't detected the enemy ship without a deep scan. It was very close to one of the Arusian moons, obviously doing its best to not be detected. And sure enough, as they came closer, it wasn't alone. Four icons were showing up on his sensors: three of the Shadow Veils, and one that they apparently hadn't translated the IFF entry for yet, because it showed up in Drakure.

He was about to ask Romelle, but then he got a look at the actual ship. And while he wasn't an expert on Drule ships, the giant radar dish and scanning arrays made this one pretty distinctive.

"What are they doing?" Romelle whispered; she wasn't touching anything, so Green's rear screen was displaying the same as the main screen. And even she could see the ships weren't moving.

"Something we don't want them doing, no doubt," Pidge muttered back, then raised his voice. "Sir, we have three of those destroyers and a Mev'roth-class surveillance cruiser holding in high orbit, using lunar screening."

"A surveillance cruiser?" Keith echoed, his frown deepening. Allura leaned forward and tried to dial up Black's own scans, but couldn't get much from here. The decimated Arusian satellite network still needed to be rebuilt as soon as they could, clearly.

"They're fucking spying on us," Lance growled. "Guess we made an impression."

Daniel snorted. "So when can we shoot some fireworks at them and tell them to get the fuck out?"

"Not until everyone's here," Keith cautioned. "We don't know what tricks they might have up their sleeves." On the plus side, he could see Blue Lion approaching from the lake, though Yellow was still nowhere to be seen.

Pidge was keeping his distance from the enemy vessels. He still didn't really know how Green's cloaking worked, and until he did, he certainly would not be risking it against a ship specifically designed to pick up that sort of thing. Instead he fell back a bit. "Hold on again," he instructed Romelle, then pulled a couple of sharp test maneuvers. They'd never had the lions in zero-G before…

His passenger gave a mild squeak of surprise, but mostly kept herself calm… mostly by gripping the sides of the seat so hard her hands hurt. Trust him, trust the team… and remember to breathe…

"Green is handling fine up here, and we know the lions operated in space when they were awake last."

"Good to know, thank you, Pidge."

Yellow Lion arrived a few moments later; though Hunk had started down his tunnel in his shiny functioning shuttle first, they'd neglected little things like checking to be sure the tracks were entirely clear. He'd had to move some rocks. "These guys really don't take the hint that they're not invited, yeah?"

"Shall we escort them out, then?"

"Better knock it into them harder this time."

"Totally."

"Yes sir."

The other lions launched higher into the sky, heading for the distant sliver of light that was, in actuality, a gigantic sphere of space rock. Taking note of that on his sensors, Pidge looked over his shoulder at a visibly nervous Romelle. It felt weird having her there—somehow not correct. But not a threat, even to his overtuned sense of such things, and that was probably interesting.

Green purred, and he rolled his eyes at her before attempting some reassurance. "Don't worry. I've managed not to get blown up so far."

Blink. "So… encouraging." The Drule ships seemed huge compared to the lions, it was all she could do to keep quiet and not distract him, and that was what he was going with?

Lance rolled his eyes too. "Romelle, we've all got this. Just hold on and enjoy the ride."

"Enjoy it?" They're crazy. They're all crazy. She'd known that, but it once again seemed to bear repeating.

"Shooting Drules is fun, Princess!" Romelle attempted to glare at him for that—of course, she was mostly glaring at the back of Pidge's head and a pinpoint of crimson light in the distance—in any case, he was wholly unaware of it as he looked back at his copilot. "Finger on the trigger, kid?"

Daniel was grinning like, well, crazy. "Definitely."

"I appreciate you were tryin' to be nice, ninja," Hunk snorted. Surely someone ought to reinforce that behavior.

The rest of the lions moving in hadn't escaped the notice of the Drules, and all four ships brought their engines to life. The destroyers moved to put themselves between the Mev'roth and the approaching lion robots, but none were actually moving to engage; it looked like they mostly wanted to get away from the moon.

Keith frowned. "Why aren't they attacking?"

"Why aren't we attacking?" Daniel countered.

"Oh trust me, we will." Lance was already sighting in on a target, though they weren't all that close to being in range.

If anything, the Drules were moving back a bit as they scrambled to clear the moon's gravity well. "They're moving. Stay alert."

It didn't make sense. Or it might make too much sense. "They're being a little too cooperative about leaving, kir sa tye?"

"Maybe they know we can take them."

"Maybe they have information valuable enough to flee with." Green, any chance Voltron can just steal back whatever data they picked up here?

"No. The Defender has the ability to learn from our foes, but it would not deprive them of the knowledge."

Got it. Worth a try.

"Oh. Fuck." A brief, worried silence fell over the comms. "Boss, permission to let the kid cluster bomb their asses?"

Keith was pretty certain that had been the plan anyway. "Yes. If they have information we'd best not let them escape with it."

Coming up on Black's left, Hunk tested out Yellow's maneuvering. They were definitely high enough up to not have to worry about atmosphere. Or gravity. "What I'm hearin' is, hit the jets."

"Yes, Hunk." Keith allowed himself a grin of anticipation as he exchanged nods with Allura. "Hit the jets!"

With several roars—both from the engines and otherwise—the lions shot forward.

It was clear the Drules wanted no part of this. While the destroyers opened fire at what had to be the very edges of their range, they were still retreating. Red was the first to fire back, Daniel testing the range on the heavy lasers and landing a decent shot on the lead ship. Then they were fully in range, and all hell broke loose.

Assuming the enemy to be sufficiently distracted now, Pidge darted directly towards the cruiser. He had learned his lesson about clever stealth ambushes—they worked better when he didn't attempt melee. So he moved in close and opened up on one of the Mev'roth's receptor arrays, melting it into a plasma-scorched puddle before moving just as quickly away.

Having a lion turn up in the middle of a formation was always good to cause some panic, and one of the destroyers took what had to be a reflexive shot at Green in return. Pidge yanked the control rods back, and the destroyer's shot carved more armor from the cruiser instead.

Sven decided to start with what had worked last time… well, the last time they'd faced warships and not a giant spider gator monster. Flying in space meant Blue was quicker, more responsive; almost like she was in water. He focused on covering the other lions and launching missiles at individual weapons, more worried about ruining the enemy's offensive capabilities than actually bringing down the ships.

That was working reasonably well, so Hunk came up to join him, though Yellow's weapons were a little less suited to precision. Instead he decided to test if sand breath even worked in space, unleashing a short burst at the nearest destroyer.

Without air resistance, it turned out, sand breath really worked. The blast shredded a neat hole in an entire layer of the Drule ship's armor, and he gave a low whistle. "Dude."

Lance had angled in on the cruiser, though one of the Shadow Veils had tried to block him. Emphasis on 'tried'. Daniel had taken control of most of the weapons, which let him focus on just flying; none of these huge metal potatoes was any match for Red's speed. He darted around it, with the kid landing several more laser shots as they passed by.

With the cruiser looming in his viewscreen, Lance couldn't help taking a shot of his own. "Let's see what magma breath looks like in space!" A glowing column of molten rock slammed into the cruiser, hardening much more quickly than usual. Not really that much different otherwise, but still… "Yeeehaw!"

"Please get another catchphrase," Daniel grumbled.

"Absolutely not." Was it even his actual catchphrase? It was now, he supposed. For very good reasons.

Rolling his eyes, which was really less effective when Lance couldn't see him, Daniel looked over his weapons console again. He really wanted to use the cluster bombs, they just sounded so awesome. But they also had some kind of extra trigger and he wasn't clear on what it did, so… "What do the inferno missiles do?"

Smirk. "Try them and find out, aim for this one." With a tap he was able to designate one of the destroyers as their primary target, then circled Red away from some incoming fire to give his copilot a clean shot.

Well, if Lance was okay with him just trying things out, Daniel would just try things out. The missiles didn't seem to lock, so he led and fired.

The impact splattered some kind of glowing crimson substance over the ship's hull, which almost immediately went white-hot as the whole area started… burning? Was it technically burning if it didn't have any oxygen? Did they even know it didn't have any oxygen? The lions were kind of like that about physics.

Whatever it was… "That is awesome!"

Allura was also focused on weaponry, as Black Lion weaved between the enemy vessels. It had taken her time to get into the battle—suddenly the options all seemed overwhelming again. What was the best weapon to use in a given circumstance? How would she know?

"Allura? You alright?"

Blushing furiously she snapped out of her indecision and forced herself to pick something. First she tried the wing rifles, but quickly decided she didn't care for those. For one thing, they didn't have a lot of flexibility. For another, they were powerful enough to rock the lion's frame slightly when they fired, and that just seemed like something that would bother the pilot.

Fortunately, she quickly determined she did enjoy the ion cannons.

…Should she be enjoying this? She shrugged that off as she landed another shot on the nearest enemy. It was satisfying to improve, to watch her hastily-snapped shots under fire getting more accurate, more effective.

Also, the Drules had attacked her planet and killed her family, and she could be happy to be smacking them back if she wanted to. Larmina would be proud.

Noting that Allura hadn't fired the rifles in awhile, Keith took a shot at the closest destroyer. She tried to follow up with the ionic piercers, but misjudged and skipped them off the ship's hull instead; blushing again, she made a few tweaks to her aim as the weapon cycled, and a second shot worked better.

The battle was going… smoothly. It was dangerous to even think that way, but it didn't seem unreasonable. These ships didn't have the armor or the firepower to be a real challenge to the lions, and even they seemed to know it. Through the entire course of the battle, they were slowly getting further and further from the moon.

As she watched from Green's back seat, Romelle couldn't help but remember the last time she'd been in this position. Watching and tracking the battle felt important; she knew Allura had never been given this sort of experience before accepting the call of a lion. But it was Lotor's voice she could hear. Explaining the maneuvers, reminding her that battle was fluid, ever changing…

For now the fight seemed one sided. Would it change, somehow? Or was there something else they were missing?

What they were missing wasn't in the enemy's capabilities. It was in the whole reason this fight had begun.

Having noticed that Daniel wasn't using the cluster bombs, Lance decided to launch a few himself. The projectiles scattered over one Shadow Veil's hull, leaving smoldering wounds in the steel. Watching that, and encouraged by his success with the inferno missiles, Daniel decided to give it a try of his own. Aiming for one of the other destroyers, his eyes narrowed as the targeting indicator drifted down to the cruiser without his permission.

Lance had been aiming the second volley on reflex; he knew where the crosshairs were and where they needed to be, he didn't need to actually look away from his flying. Which resulted in him firing and hitting absolutely nothing.

"Bro, what the fuck!"

"Oh, fuck… sorry, habit." Lance shot a quick apologetic look over his shoulder. "We'll work on keeping in sync."

"Did you not see your aiming system moving without your permission, I can't even with you."

Snort. "Yeah, yeah. Do over, you target, I'll fly."

"Good plan." This time Daniel's attempt with the cluster bombs went much better.

Red Lion actually chuckled.

Keith had started making more and more risky dives into the battle, taking advantage of Black's elusiveness and the general chaos of the battle. At such close ranges, Allura couldn't miss. And she didn't. Lightning wreathed the destroyer in the rear of the formation, and its engines briefly sputtered out altogether.

Emboldened, the princess swept the crosshairs down and tried for something a little more tactical than just hit the huge metal targets. "Going for the engine port." A wave of white-hot lightning erupted from Black's shoulder cannons, followed by a bolt from the tail for good measure.

The other engines recovered, but the one she'd shot remained dim, and the destroyer continued to limp along far behind its fellows.

It was a success… but not enough of one. The other Drule vessels had gotten far enough from the moon. Coming to a halt with a flare of their reverse thrusters, all three ships began flickering as the space began to warp.

They'd never been fighting to win.

"Damn it!" Keith fired Black's wing rifles and lightning breath, as Allura triggered the ion cannons again. "We need to finish this, now!" The attacks hit the warped space and mostly deflected, and he hissed a few Japanese curses. It might already be over.

"Shit, boss is right."

"Mijtairra."

"Oh, fuzzmuffins."

Three other lions tried to fire as well, but their attacks had the same minimal effect as Black's. One lion did not.

More grateful than ever for being in space, Sven brought Blue around the cruiser's side. He felt more than heard the bone-rattling thump of a piercer drive engaging, one of the destroyers escaping, but the cruiser had to be the main threat. Hopefully. There wasn't time to explain, was hardly time to think.

Not wholly unlike with the kyor-val earlier, he took aim at what he knew to be a weak spot and gave it everything he had.

With a blinding flare, Blue Lion's particle cannon sprang to life, and a massive beam of sapphire energy tore through the ripples in spacetime to smash into, and through, the Mev'roth's drive ports. A line of secondary explosions followed as the beam's passing detonated subsystems and fuel cells.

"Mijtairra sa kye!"

"Bro, that was sweet!"

"Well fuck me, Viking!"

Snort. "We've already discussed how out of your league I am, Lance." Space returned to normal around the cruiser, and he quickly started to retreat; Blue wouldn't be providing much offense for the rest of this battle. But it had been enough. "That was the piercer drive, it's not going anywhere now."

Nor were the other destroyers, which had stopped trying to pierce out when their lead ship was disrupted. Keith narrowed his eyes. They couldn't rely on that; how quickly could the cruiser relay its information and have a destroyer run for it? "Everything we have, team. Bring that cruiser down now."

He didn't need to tell anyone twice.

"Daniel, inferno! I've got the lava." Lance held the elemental cannon's trigger so long the energy gauge for it actually flickered, and a solid dozen missiles punched into the hole alongside the column of magma. Absently he wondered if Daniel even had access to that weapon; considering aiming it was literally a matter of pointing the lion's head at the target, he kind of doubted it.

Pidge went for Green's elemental cannon too, and immediately felt silly for doing so. There couldn't be wind in space, there wasn't even air!

…Then he felt even sillier as a vortex of force erupted anyway, because the lions did not respect physics one bit.

Leaning forward with wide eyes, Romelle tasted blood, and only then even realized she'd been nervously biting her lip. And she wasn't even participating in this battle, exactly. But this is what Blue Lion wants me to do. To fight for this world, and maybe others… she shivered a little, and tried to look out at Blue, but could only catch a glimpse of her before losing line of sight.

Hunk sidestepped, or whatever the flying-lion-in-space equivalent was, to get a clear shot with Yellow's own elemental cannon. The sand blast was just as effective as it had been earlier, scouring a second hole in the armor that dislodged a plate and opened the Mev'roth's entire engine block for the taking.

Something blue-hot in the cruiser's heart caught Allura's attention; it didn't take experience or knowledge of warship design to recognize it had to be important. So she took careful aim, holding as steady as she could. Steady enough. The energy framed her crosshairs completely, and she fired.

Lightning and plasma poured into the blue flare, which expanded and started to glow white, then orange and red. The compromised reactor core was cooling and expanding rapidly as it lost containment, triggering new chains of explosions, and the cruiser's energy signatures went completely dim.

She didn't let up on the trigger until the Mev'roth started plummeting back towards the moon.

Immediately, both destroyers surged forward. "Oh, they did not like that."

"I don't think they're appreciating their escort at all."

"I think that was the idea?"

A volley of laser fire drove the lions back slightly, reorienting now that their enemies seemed a little more interested in offense. But it wasn't going to be enough—they should've run for it while they could. Sure, if they showed up without their fancy surveillance cruiser, maybe they would've ended up as next season's gladiators… but they were Drules, weren't they supposed to be honored by that?

Didn't matter now.

"Let's do some damage." Lance called up Red's jaw blade and charged in, cutting a swath in the closest Shadow Veil's armor. Being able to count on Daniel to handle the ranged weapons made melee easier, too. He darted around the destroyer, slicing with the lion's claws as well as the blade; Daniel took shots with the tail laser into the holes left behind.

Since apparently his lion could create wind in space, Pidge tried launching a shrapnel pod and catching it in the vortex. The result wasn't nearly as effective as Yellow's sandblaster breath, but it did soften up the armor a bit. Inspired by Lance's display, Hunk brought Yellow himself around, activating his jaw blade and charging at the weakened spot.

Braking was harder in space, and he'd misjudged it. Just a tiny bit. Rather than slashing into the ship with his jaw blade, the entirety of Yellow Lion crashed right through the hull.

For a split second, all of the other lions stopped what they were doing to just stare.

"…I don't think he meant to do that," Pidge said conversationally as he and Romelle watched debris spill from the hole.

"Well… it… worked?"

A second later, Yellow erupted out the other side of the destroyer, which began a slow plummet to the moon below. "Holy fuzzmuffins!"

"You mean yeehaw!"

"No he doesn't, that was way too awesome."

Hunk just chuckled. "I don't need to steal your catchphrases, bro."

"See? He doesn't want to sound like a lame old man."

Rolling his eyes, Lance turned back on the other destroyer. "You both are allergic to awesome."

Hunk sputtered indignantly; what had he done to deserve that? "Bro, uncool!"

"Yeah, definitely not allergic to being uncool," Daniel snorted.

Pidge launched a tail blade at the remaining destroyer and sighed. "Do you people realize there's still a warship right there?"

Daniel did, in fact, realize that, and was already opening fire again. "What's the point of life if I can't blow shit up and snark at the same time?"

"Yeah, we can multitask."

Considering that, the ninja shrugged; he supposed that was actually pretty normal. "Fair."

Black and Yellow had moved in as well, with Blue hovering around a bit underneath. Her weapons weren't even close to recharged, but Sven knew he could still land a claw strike or two if he got the opening. In fact, he was moving in to do just that.

But the Drules could see just fine where this was going; they'd already seen another ship identical to theirs literally eviscerated by a lion, never mind the destruction of the cruiser. There was no way they were winning this battle. The best they could hope for was escape, or…

Several of Green Lion's sensors howled, and Romelle stared uncomprehendingly at the main screen. The entire destroyer was rapidly starting to radiate a heat signature. At the same time, Pidge's eyes widened. "Power surge from the ship—move!"

Nobody questioned or hesitated, which was fortunate, since they barely had seconds to react as it was. Light spilled from the Shadow Veil's engine ports, there was a hellish rumble, and the destroyer exploded into a colossal fireball.

Being in space muted the effects of the blast itself, but what shockwave there was washed over the lions, followed by a hail of debris. None of them got through that unscathed. As he wrestled Black back under control, Keith looked back at Allura, then at his radar to see the other lions slowly recovering too.

"Everyone alright?"

"Wooo…" Allura squeezed her eyes shut, willing the world to stop turning circles around her. It didn't entirely work, but didn't entirely not-work either, and she gave Keith a weak smile as he looked back again with concern. "I just need a moment to stabilize."

"A-OK here," Lance announced, more confident than he'd been about twenty seconds ago. "Daniel, you good?"

The kid laughed. "I'm great!"

"Good here," Sven agreed.

Even having been the first one to start moving, Pidge was not a bit pleased with what Green's damage readouts were telling him. "Nothing a lot of armor patching won't fix."

"I'm alright, I think." Romelle's nerves were not alright, but the rest of her seemed to be.

All eyes turned to Yellow Lion, which had been flung towards the moon. Hunk had managed not to crash, but even a little extra gravity had made recovery that much more difficult. "All good here…" He blinked blearily at his sensors. "'Cept there's three of all of ya right now."

Keith couldn't help but grin. "Alright. Let's get back to the castle, then. Good work…"

He almost said 'team'. He was used to saying 'team', they were a team. But… hadn't the books said something else?

With Black purring in his mind, he decided to try it out.

"…Voltron Force."

*****

Hunk and Sven, having taken their shuttles, also got to ride their shuttles back. So they were the first to return to where Vince was waiting.

"How did it go?" Under the circumstances he wasn't sure if he was asking about the battle or the shuttles.

The second was the one Hunk opted to address. "We uh, are gonna need to check the shock absorbers on these things." It'd felt like every single tiny bit of debris on the tracks had threatened to derail the whole thing. More startling than anything, but as Pidge would say, suboptimal. "But other than that they're sweet!"

"Adding it to my mental list." Vince was fine with that. The more of a mental list he had that didn't involve creepy voices, the better. "Fight go okay?" It did still feel polite to ask.

"Yeah, couple blue dudes tryin' to spy or something. Didn't go real well for 'em."

Glancing over at Sven—though still not quite able to meet his eyes—Vince got a small nod of acknowledgment, and decided that was good enough. The navigator was just taking a few moments to breathe and let the adrenaline fade, and he didn't have much to add to Hunk's report.

What had the Drules been looking for? Had they found it? Had the team successfully stopped whatever they wanted to do?

Keith's thoughts were mostly on that, too, and having not taken the shuttle he had plenty of time to dwell on the question. Allura, trailing just behind, was deep in thought about her responses to the battle… she wasn't pleased with how she'd started things. Too much indecision still. But she was pleased that it had faded over the course of the fight, and just needed to keep on improving.

Though both were preoccupied with serious concerns, the silence in the tunnel was comfortable. They had worked together as well as could be expected, perhaps better, with so little experience. At least that part of it was encouraging.

Walking down Red's tunnel, Daniel was much less at peace with the rush of battle fading. Noting his expression, Lance offered up his own complaint. "This is the only downside, all the walking." They'd gone far enough that they didn't even have the windows to the magma anymore. Hopefully the shuttles would be cleared for more than just emergencies soon.

Daniel waved that off. "It's not so bad."

"What's the face, then?"

"Adrenaline high is fading. It's so sad."

Snort. "We'll be back out there soon enough, don't worry. The one getting away probably just pissed them off even more."

"Oh no. Poor pissed-off Drules."

"Oh they can fuck off."

Red was chuckling again, but he wasn't disagreeing.

The silence in Green's tunnel was rather more awkward than in Black's, and finally Romelle decided she needed to break it. "You… did a good job out there, Pidge."

"…Thanks?" He'd been serviceable. Really he wasn't at all confident enough in his piloting to ever dare to say he'd done a good job. But he had fulfilled one thing. "Told you I'd probably manage not to get us blown up, kir sa tye?"

He wasn't actually sure if he'd been joking or not, and clearly neither was she, but it didn't really matter as light started filtering in from the shuttle chamber. As they left the tunnel, Romelle's eyes fell on Hunk. And she told herself to keep her composure, to show dignity, to pretend she hadn't ever been afraid…

A second later, she raced across the floor and hugged him.

Pidge looked after her blankly, then allowed himself a wry smile. Yes, impromptu hugging definitely seemed like Hunk's skillset.

Sven arched an eyebrow, then shrugged slightly. It did seem like a Hunk thing.

"Welcome back!" the big engineer chuckled, once his own surprise faded, and ruffled her hair a little. Yeah, she definitely couldn't have tried that on Pidge, and he wasn't about to object to anyone who needed a hug.

"Are you alright, Romelle?" Vince hadn't even known she was out there.

"Thank you, Hunk." Romelle stepped back and gave Sven a small shrug; Hunk was the only person around here she knew to be open to hugs, was all. Then she turned to Vince and nodded. "I am alright, physically. Just… battle is not the same as wargames, that's for sure."

"Wargames?" Daniel and Lance had arrived to the hug fest, and Daniel for one was not at all surprised by the idea that Hunk was good at hugs. Nor at the idea of battle being different than wargames, though academy wargames had actually been pretty fun. Definitely more so than any of their other training exercises.

Vince had not found wargames fun. "Yeah, not the same."

"I'm free for hugs too," Lance volunteered, flashing one of his most charming grins.

Romelle had already been blushing a little bit, and now she was blushing even darker. "That is kind of you." She might even take him up on it at some point, though he probably shouldn't hold his breath. "But don't call me princess again, okay?"

…Oh, he had, hadn't he? Knowing that they did have one princess who was okay with being called Princess in the battle had probably crossed his wires. "Noted, never again."

"Thank you."

Daniel wrinkled his nose in displeasure. He was not volunteering for hugs. "Can't we just high five instead?"

"Can we just not do any touching?" Pidge suggested. "Especially without warning?" That was how people got stabbed.

"Ninja, I'd hug ya right now if I didn't know you'd stab me."

And there was Hunk proving once again that he was not, in fact, an idiot.

Lance smirked. "Don't worry, ninja, no hugs without consent. Or at least without knowing what we're doing." To prove his point he grabbed Daniel in a one-armed hug and gave a huge smirk. "What's wrong with this, kid?"

That got him a rather halfassed shove; Lance could hug him, Daniel guessed. Everyone else could fuck off.

Keith and Allura had arrived in the midst of all that, and Keith had decided it was better to just not say anything. Allura was intrigued, though. She liked hugs—Nanny had never been too happy about that, which had never exactly discouraged her. But the idea of some apparent Earthling substitute felt like something she should know about, especially if she was going to be on a team with so many of them. "High five?"

Oh, good! They could change the subject. Daniel pulled all the way out of Lance's hug and walked into the middle of the shuttle chamber, waving his open palm. "Someone help me teach the princess to high-five!"

Nobody moved, Allura tilted her head curiously, and Daniel groaned.

"Is no one seriously going to high-five me here?" This was important. It was for education! Some of these people kept telling him that education was important!

"I'd do it, little dude," Hunk said with a shrug. "But you totally don't need an arm busted. Again."

…Well, there was that.

Sighing, Vince realized that he was now the closest person, if Hunk was taking himself out of the running. So he stepped forward and gave the gunner's hand a halfhearted slap.

"…That was horrible."

Vince shrugged. He'd never promised a good example.

"You call that a high five?" Lance snorted. Admittedly he hadn't volunteered either, but he'd already demonstrated proper hugging, he'd done his part. "Princess, I bet you can do better than that. You have to really smack it hard, put some enthusiasm into it!"

Allura blinked. That was… certainly something? But she could see how it worked, she thought. Enthusiasm, excitement… well, they had just won a battle. That was something to be excited about, wasn't it? With a shrug, she stepped forward. "Like this?" She raised her own hand and smacked Daniel's open palm with feeling.

A sharp jolt of electricity shot across her palm, down her spine, and showered a scattering of sparks out around their hands. At the same time, a fierce warmth and a whoosh of flame ran through Daniel, a burst of fire erupting to the left of his own hand.

"Whoa!"

"Holy fucking—what the fuck?!"

"Komora sa kye?" Pidge's yell was half at the burst of energy, and half at the fact that Vince was suddenly hiding behind him.

"It wasn't me this time, I am not used to being on the other side of that, WOW."

Allura had initially just chuckled, and only the team's reactions made her realize that probably wasn't what a 'high five' was supposed to be. Earthlings didn't do magic, of course that wasn't what it was supposed to be. "Interesting…" She withdrew her hand and looked at it, still feeling the static in her fingers. "I want to try that again."

"I'm sorry, did fire just come out of me?" Daniel demanded, then looked to Allura holding her hand out and blinked. "Again?"

"Do it again," Lance agreed, staring in disbelief.

"Do it again? I don't even know—whatever." Why the hell not? He smacked Allura's hand again, but this time nothing happened except, well, a perfectly normal high-five.

Now she was frowning too. What had happened? Lightning and fire, it couldn't be a coincidence… she heard Black purring, which was enough reassurance for her that whatever had happened, it was as it ought to be.

Enigmatic lion noises were not sufficient for Daniel. Nor were enigmatic lion comments, for that matter. Red was chuckling in his mind again. "Did you truly believe the Sentinels exist to fire a few weapons, cub? Your true skills will take time to learn."

"Take time—take time to learn?" He was in no mood to keep his lion talk to himself, either. "What the fuck does that mean, Red?!" As if to answer him, another flash of flame erupted to his left, and he dropped his hand in disbelief. "What the fuck."

"It means your true role is control of the flame."

"Oh sure," Pidge said dryly. "Let's have more spontaneous sparks flying around the delicate electronics we just fixed." One incident of beneficial sparkage didn't feel like it should invite further attempts.

Lance had more immediate concerns, as the fire flickered just by him. "Hey, watch the jacket!"

"I don't know how I'm supposed to watch the jacket, I don't even know how I'm doing it." Snort. "And Red just said I'll learn to control it but—"

"Wait, Red says you'll learn to control what?"

"'The flame'." Daniel shrugged and was almost surprised when another burst of fire didn't come out. "Apparently I will learn to control 'the flame'." What in the actual fuck. He'd just wanted to fly and now he was a pyro?

Sven had just been exercising his usual reaction to team what-the-fuckery by raising an eyebrow until it threatened to burrow its way up into the castle proper. But apparently that wasn't going to do the trick, so he cleared his throat slightly. "May I make the suggestion of no more… whatever this is, until we are no longer in an enclosed space?"

"That seems wise," Romelle agreed in a small voice. She'd been edging further and further away from everyone as Sven's eyebrow went further and further up.

Personally Daniel would've been fine with that, except he hadn't asked for any of this to happen to begin with. "Tell Red about it!"

"Kid, you can make fire!" Lance looked down at his own hands and wondered. Was it a Sentinel thing only? That would be a shame, it seemed pretty fucking awesome… he heard Red purring, but no flame emerged to threaten his jacket, so he decided he'd probably get a straight answer later.

At the least convenient possible time, no doubt.

Keith looked around the room and tried to regain order again, though he really had no idea how to do so. "This is… certainly a new twist." Not the confidence he'd been going for at all, but not untrue.

"It is," Allura agreed, looking at her own hands. She could still feel those lingering traces… closing her eyes, she felt something building, and concentrated as it seemed to swell in her fingertips.

Everyone else in the shuttle chamber backed right off, and Sven sighed. No one listens to me.

As Allura opened her eyes, releasing the energy, a small, bright, and completely anticlimactic bolt of lightning jumped between her hands for a moment. She sighed. "It definitely feels like something that will take a bit of time to master."

"Yes, Stormheart. Patience. You will understand the nature of your role and abilities in time."

"Master?" Daniel echoed, staring. "Lady it's been like two minutes and you're already talking about mastering it? I don't even know if I like it! Never mind knowing how I did it in the first place!"

She smiled; Earthlings confronted with magic never quite seemed to come to terms with it right away, no matter how much they'd seen before. "You just need a bit of focus and attention."

Lance had stepped forward to calm Daniel; now he snorted. Oh, sure, that would go well.

"Those are the two things I do not have!"

"Yeah, we'll uh, find a different way."

Vince was still watching Allura. Is that what it looks like when I…? But she'd done it just like that, on purpose. And that brought him back to the memory of the one time he'd done it on purpose…

Nope.

Hunk had his eyes on Vince too, and his mind was racing. He and Sven had talked to rocks and to water, hadn't they? But this seemed a few steps beyond that. And now that they were shooting lightning and fire around, he couldn't exactly not wonder about Vince…

"It is not what you're thinking, Earthwarder. But it is not unrelated."

And you are bein' clear as mud again.

As a silence filled with awkward confusion fell over the shuttle chamber, Pidge finally managed to voice what they were all thinking. "The lions don't just disrespect physics, they outright laugh at them." Green chuckled in his mind, and he rolled his eyes, though he wasn't even surprised anymore. "Literally!"

"Well…" Keith shook his head slowly. "We knew we had more to learn." Suddenly, this whole endeavor felt absolutely insane all over again.

But if anyone could do it, he supposed…

We're an Explorer Team. And… we're the Voltron Force.