(From Ashes) Chapter 36

 Pride: From Ashes
        Chapter 36
        The War Within

Black Lion was on patrol, and patrol was not very eventful. It was frustrating, and the attack Sven had reported only made it more so. The threat was lurking out there—a threat that wasn't just a carefully tuned psychological weapon, though it was that. On a purely tactical level, the jaivur was difficult to counter with what they had. And it was, entirely, about countering.

Which was the real frustration. Flynn had the initiative, and all they could do was try to be ready.

What did being ready even look like?

One thing Keith was sure of was that more experience in the lions couldn't hurt. So much of what they'd uncovered so far came from being in the cockpit, doing things, feeling things. It was the only way to learn under the circumstances. So he'd scheduled this patrol with that in mind, covering the foothills thoroughly while making a couple of passes further south. There weren't a lot of hiding places down there, other than the village, where the militia kept a sharp watch just as a matter of course. But there were a few spots, and the rest of it gave them some open space for weapons practice.

Allura had been very quiet for the first leg of the patrol, and he glanced over his shoulder as Black headed south. "You awake back there, Princess?"

She startled; her mind had been entirely elsewhere. "Ah, yes…" Perhaps more accurately her mind had been too much on the lion, not the patrol. Being back in the cockpit reminded her of what she'd done the last time. She wanted to understand more about how her magic, these Sentinel powers, interacted with the lion—and why shouldn't she? It seemed like an important part of the job. "I was just overthinking, perhaps."

Keith gave her a grin before turning back around. "That can happen." Even if she'd actually been dozing, which he'd doubted, he couldn't entirely have blamed her. It had all been so much lately. "All right. We can do a little work in the desert before we head north again, what would you like to practice?"

"Just some of the weapons, I think." Her eyes ran across the consoles. "I want to test something…"

"All right. I'll get some targets set up." Bringing Black to the ground, he pushed up half a dozen large piles of sand, which… had already kind of been large piles of sand, but now they were nice and equally spaced. At least they were learning to improvise.

As if improvising hadn't always been the team's specialty. And if it hadn't always been Arus' forte, they'd certainly had enough on the job training.

Pushing the last 'target' into place, Keith launched them back into the air, circling a couple of times and keeping an eye out for any unusual movement. Nothing was showing up, so he nodded. "Whenever you're ready."

Nodding also, Allura bit her lip in concentration, trying to remember how she'd handled this before. It felt somehow simpler in combat, where the urgency of the situation made her instincts easier to follow. Was it even dependent on her? Was it the lions themselves who unlocked parts of what they'd lost through combat? No, thinking herself into not trying wouldn't help.

"There are ways, Stormheart."

"It is possible then?" she murmured. "From here?" Taking a slow breath, she concentrated on the other times she'd wielded lightning: the arrows, and the precision shot in the last battle. Focus. Focus was important, but were there other applications?

Black purred. "I believe so."

Placing one hand on the console and the other on the firing controls, Allura tried simply channeling a bit of energy in before aiming the shock tail and firing. A larger, brighter bolt than normal shot out, dissipating into the sand. She tried again, channeling a bit more energy; this time the bolt pierced through the center of the target, leaving a glittery tunnel of molten sand behind.

"What the…?" Keith was watching the monitors, and the weapons had just gone well over their baseline. The princess didn't answer, and Black Lion just purred… possibly a little bit smugly. "Those were both more powerful than usual, is it because we have more people bonded now?"

"Not precisely, Stormsoul."

Allura gave him a look. "Um, I hope it's more what I'm doing."

"…Oh, right." This was still taking a little getting used to. He'd done plenty of flying with a backseater at the Academy, but a RIO was a very different thing than a Sentinel. Alliance fighters were, after all, rather light on the elemental magic.

Black chuckled. "It is as I said before. The Knights guide our claws, and the Sentinels guide our power."

That actually did make a lot more sense now than the last time, Keith decided. "Sorry. Go on."

Allura grinned. "Let's see now…" Emboldened by the successful shots, she gauged the other five targets in turn. She wanted to test the limits. If she could add some extra precision and some extra kick, that was valuable on its own. Could she do even more?

Lining up on the targets, she squeezed off five rapid shots in a row. The first two struck as true as the last attempt; the third was a little bit off. The last two went well off the mark, leaving scorched paths in the sand, and she felt a wave of exhaustion flood through her.

Limits, then. We'll work on that. She sank back in her seat briefly, wincing, but still took two more shots just to tag the last two targets on principle. "I think that's enough for right now."

She was starting to understand it, she thought. In what basic flight training she'd had so far, it was all about action and reaction. Making yourself an extension of the lion's controls, being able to respond without thinking as the circumstances around you changed. Her own skills seemed to be something similar, but spiritual instead of physical. Becoming one with the lion's element, rather than the control rods…

"Alright. Should we get back to patrol, or do you want to work on something else?"

Eager as she was to keep working, Allura knew she also shouldn't overdo it. "Perhaps back to patrolling for right now. I have some ideas… I can study my panel and regain some energy by the time we get back here."

"Sounds good. Good work, Princess."

"Thank you." Smiling, she started to cycle through some readouts, wanting to see what the lion had recorded from her tests. A lot of the data still didn't make sense, but she studied it nonetheless. Every bit helped, and they needed all the help they could get.

Progress.

*****

Sven's report had been short and to the point—his condition at the time hadn't allowed for much else. It was lurking in Lance's mind as he stood in the broken room that looked out at the volcano. He hadn't spent much time here since bonding; he could go to the actual den now, after all. But something about that view had called him here, the mountains and the smoke rising into the sky.

Beau Terre blue…

"Is this helping?"

Lance snorted; Red knew the answer to that. He ignored the question and went back to his talk with Allura instead. This was her home lying in shambles. Surely there were a hundred things she could've done other than tracking him down in Red's den, but there she'd been. And maybe he'd needed that reminder of why he'd bonded… for Arus, for justice.

For what they'd all lost.

You know it's not him. In your head, anyway. But the information Sven had brought back only confirmed it more, and he'd committed those words to memory. It's not really him, but he's on the front line. It gave him a sick feeling, and now he fully understood why.

It wasn't just the face the monster wore, the voice it spoke with. It was his own denial, that last desperate hope. That he could fight back, be free of this in some way other than death.

If he fights, he gets worse. It felt like that should silence the hope, and yet, confirmation that he was fighting just kept it alive.

"Hope will happen, whether it's logical or not," Red purred.

Lance nodded quietly. What had it been like for Sven, he wondered. Seeing Jace as himself. What he wouldn't give for just… no, he could not let his thoughts go down that path. "No matter what, I can't freeze again."

"I don't believe you will, Firestriker."

"I have to be all in. If I'm not…" He shook his head and looked up at the sky again. That sky that told him he was home, which wasn't logical either, but right now he needed it. "I will be."

Could he talk himself into believing it? Who knew, but that was why he was here. Moving closer to the edge of the broken castle wall, he looked up at the wispy clouds over the mountains and slowly exhaled. Maybe he needed to stop trying to think so hard. Just fight. That was usually what he was good at.

Staring up into that brilliant blue sky, he wasn't seeing what was happening on the ground.

*****

The team checked in on Hunk as much as they could, but he'd insisted they didn't always need to have someone just sitting around the infirmary. They had a lot to worry about, and if he couldn't really help, at least he didn't have to be a distraction.

…To them. A lot of the orderlies rushing in and out seemed to find him awfully distracting, and he didn't even know how to say 'vroom vroom' in Arusian.

He had his copy of Lady Hys' booklet, at least. In fact, Lady Hys herself had brought it to him after he asked very nicely. Since none of the medical staff knew English, they had to fetch her for translation duty more often than not. Apparently she had a more predictable schedule than the various members of the military and royalty who also spoke the language.

That was why she was currently pacing the recovery room, glaring daggers at him as she read Dr. Gorma's latest report. "You have been using that arm too much, Mr. Garrett!"

"I've barely moved it!" he protested, pointing at the sling they'd wrestled him into about half an hour ago. Somehow they'd managed to do that without aggravating his wounded side too much. "And believe me, I could get outta this thing if I wanted to, yeah? But I'm not. Cuz I'm bein' a perfect angel until I'm healthy again!" He offered his brightest grin.

The governess was not impressed. "According to this, you were placed in that sling due to disobeying doctor's orders, most notably reading a book. With both of your hands." She crossed her arms and gave him a withering stare. "If I am not much mistaken, I must assume that to have been the book which I provided you, upon promises you would cause no trouble once you had it."

…Well, she was scary, but she wasn't stupid. "I was tryin' to learn! And it was working, want me to tell you the five principles of Arusian courtly chivalry?"

Blink. "Have you truly memorized…" No, she wasn't going to let this large and cheerful hooligan change the subject. "Mr. Garrett, do understand, I applaud your apparent desire to learn. Perhaps once your ribs heal, you can set a good example for your friends." She arched a skeptical eyebrow, and he grinned again in response. "However, you have been accepted as a defender of Arus, and your therefore have a duty to heal first!"

Hunk couldn't even argue with that point. There was an argument he could make, the same one he'd made unsuccessfully through pantomime to Gorma, which was just to point out that he hadn't actually been moving his bad arm while he used it to prop up the booklet. But it really didn't feel worth going to the wall for that one.

Going to the wall sounded painful right now. Or going to the mat, for that matter. He did not want to go to any metaphor whatsoever. Maybe he could go for a pizza? Probably not.

"Okay, okay. I'll sit and be quiet and not use the time to learn Arusian. Even though I'm totes surrounded by people who only speak Arusian, which is why they hafta keep draggin' you in here to talk to me. That's cool."

Lady Hys' eyes bulged, and she sputtered a few things he doubted were listed in her booklet. Though they probably weren't the kind of things Lance or Daniel would've been interested in learning, either; he wondered if it was just the Arusian for 'hooligan'. "Mr. Garrett, may the Honored Mother help me…"

"That's the proper lady goddess, yeah? Why wouldn't she help you?"

Her eyes bulged again. He hoped they didn't pop out, though if they did, she was in the right place. Then her expression softened. "You have actually been learning, haven't you?"

…Why yes, yes he had! What else did she think he'd been doing?

If it were just about him, he wouldn't really have cared about that question. Big Dumb Hunk wasn't a mask he needed to wear anymore, but it didn't sting like it used to. This wasn't that, though. No doubt it could've been any other offworlder stuck in this bed right now and she'd have been equally stunned that they could read. "Dude, you don't have to sound so surprised about it."

Immediately she was back to glaring. "What did you just call me?"

Oh. Uh oh. "I called you dude!" He gave another bright smile. "Don't take it too serious? Trust me, I call everyone dude, dude."

Lady Hys opened her mouth, shut it, opened it again, and made a strangled sound he doubted was a word at all. What it probably most sounded like was one of his brothers, tapping out of a headlock during family wrestling night. Or maybe one of Yellow's vultures choking on a bone—not that he'd ever actually heard that, but he could imagine.

"Uh, you okay?"

"…Yes, of course," she managed to sputter, then spun on her heel and left him to stare blankly after her.

"Sheesh. Somethin' I said?"

After another minute, one of the orderlies entered the room, approaching and picking up the untouched booklet beside him. Then she pointed to the doorway, pulled herself straight, and mimicked an apron and a very stern face.

Whatever she said to follow up, he definitely caught the name Hys in there. "Dude. I didn't think it would make her that mad."

The Arusian shrugged, pulled a chair over, and used a couple of rocks and some scraps of medical tape to prop the book upright, motioning for him to try flipping through it. As he obliged, he noticed she was staring pointedly at his other arm the whole time. It didn't even budge as he turned the booklet's pages.

"Tse'capho," she declared after a minute.

Hunk grinned; he didn't know exactly what that meant, but had gathered it was something positive. "Naroehna!" As the orderly departed, he flipped to the vocabulary section and considered what had just happened. There hadn't been any need for a grumpy governess to send someone in for that. Sure it was helping her too, but still. Maybe Lady Hys wasn't so bad after all?

…Well, maybe. He'd need a little more research on the subject first. For now, he shrugged and settled in to study the list of key phrases again. Tse'capho, it turned out, meant that'll do.

It would do.

*****

Flynn had seen more lions come and go since his encounter with Sven, and was now thoroughly convinced that he needed to take the fight to places the lions wouldn't be. That meant the castle.

He didn't like it. The structure wasn't immediately unstable—given it was still standing—but flinging destructive energy around in the vicinity seemed like it could easily change that. He was low on alternatives though, short of his bare hands. It still felt like the witch had forgotten to tell him something.

In any case, he'd scouted the grounds, using what little cover there was to try to get a sense of the layout. A fallen stone, a couple of scorched bushes, a grill…

…A grill?

…Of course there was a grill. He'd have laughed, if his guts hadn't twisted so quickly.

Gauging what he could from the gaping wounds in the structure, he moved closer to get a better look beyond a couple of the holes. Nobody seemed to be guarding the openings, but that seemed reasonable. They weren't very defensible positions. Still, he didn't much care to move in right now. Darkness would be better…

All that fine tactical planning lasted about until he looked up at the northeastern tower, and saw movement in one of the gashes.

It's him.

Through most of this scouting run, Flynn had been calm. The voices were unusually silent. Maybe that was why the first pang got through, a surge of refusal even as his instincts kicked into combat mode. No. He shouldn't be doing this, it didn't make sense, it wasn't right!

And that was the end of the calm. With hatred washing out his thoughts, he did a quick study of the tower's deep cracks and jutting stones before scrambling up the wall.

With his eyes still fixed on the volcano, Lance felt a sense of unease creeping down his spine. The hair on the back of his neck was standing up, and he started to turn—looking first out over the meadow as Red gave a growl of concern.

Flynn had made a point of coming up behind him. The fields and the distant mountains made for a nice view, if one cared about that sort of thing. That, too, was irritating. "Is this really the time for sightseeing, flyboy?"

It sounded wrong. That was Lance's first thought. Not panic, not really fear at all. Just that the voice breaking through the silence was wrong. Too cold, too harsh. He slowly completed the turn he'd begun, staring at the jaivur who'd suddenly turned up behind him and trying to make sense of what he was seeing.

It was all wrong.

Go for your fucking gun! "You…"

Flynn's eyes glowed that sickly-bright purple, the jaivur energy surging. "That's all you have to say?"

His own eyes flaring red, Lance tried to drop his hand to his sidearm but his body wasn't cooperating. When he fights he gets worse. But he fights! "Are you in there?"

"Hell's that supposed to mean?" Flynn was certain this had been discussed—though the other voices, the others who were in there, were still strangely quiet. He probably shouldn't question it. You should've saved a bullet, you could kill him right now.

Lance just kept staring, as if looking harder might make what he wanted to see appear. "You… Flynn!"

He snorted. "I remember you being able to string a sentence together."

Funny, I always felt tongue tied around you. Wrong. It was all wrong. "I remember you being someone who'd never hurt his friends."

You can kill him anyway! "I remember thinking I had friends," Flynn hissed, tensing. It was building with every moment of hesitation. The blinding rage, fueled not by voices but by struggles, memories.

"You still do." Did he really believe this was going to work? That after all of it he could break through? GUN, MCCLAIN! But he was listening, wasn't he? "Flynn, please." Ice was filling his chest and his heart was ready to crack, and he managed to take a step backwards but his hand still wouldn't take his weapon. "Is there any of you in there?"

Something snapped. Even Lance felt it the instant before it happened—then Flynn lunged forward, grabbing his throat and slamming him against the broken wall. "You gave that up!" he screamed. "You all gave that up, you all gave us up! You don't have the fucking right!"

You all gave us up. But the others weren't speaking, weren't raging. And for half a second his own will tried to surge—no, he remembered more than this. Remembered caring too much about Lance as a friend. Remembered giving himself willingly, for his friends and his team. Remembered volunteering to come to this planet at some strange magic lion's behest. Without the others pushing back, the hatred that kept him on this path wasn't quite blocking it out fast enough.

Their eyes locked.

For that same half a second, Lance saw it. He could see the fight in Flynn's eyes, but his inability to breathe kept him from focusing on it too much. Fuck! Survival instinct kicked in, and he tried to twist free and shove him off. They'd sparred enough back on the Bolt, he knew he should be able to do it, but the jaivur's strength was too much. But he had to fight, he had to try. Flynn was fighting!

End it!

The rage won out, as it always did. As it had to. Whatever fight was there vanished, replaced by a toxic glow and a savage smirk. "Goodbye, flyboy." And he could've just left it at that, but the churning hatred demanded more. Fury at his own pathetic attempts to struggle, at Lance's efforts to break through, at every damn thing that had brought them here… with a snarl, he leaned over and kissed him with every bit of that hatred.

In that instant, the spell broke. A wave of ice crashed down Lance's spine, and his hand finally found the gun that had been so damn stubbornly eluding him. "No!" He wasn't sure how he managed to shout it—only that suddenly he was free of the chokehold, the scream filling his whole body with a surge of strength.

Wrong.

Hopes older than the jaivur, older than the arena, slammed into the awful reality. And he saw it at last with his heart as much as his eyes.

In a single reflexive motion, he flipped his gun to full power and fired.

The blast was enough to melt a hole in Flynn's armor, and he staggered back with a gasp. Faex! He didn't know how many shots like that Lance had left, and he didn't want to find out. Stop fucking around. Too many times already he'd let winnable fights get away from him, it wasn't going to happen again.

Grabbing Lance's wrist, he wrenched to disarm him. "I hope you enjoyed that." He was pretty certain he meant the shot. "It's the last one you're getting!"

Searing pain shot up to Lance's shoulder, but it was no match for everything else churning in his mind. "If you were him…" Everything's wrong. "Fuck, you're not him!" He could see it all now. The monster that had their friends trapped, that dared to wear his face. He couldn't even feel his fingers as pain and grief filled him, but he squeezed the trigger again, scorching a line across Flynn's forearm that forced him to back away.

If you were… Flynn blinked. For a moment it cut through the rage, bringing an odd sort of numbness with it. Does he mean…? The words were like a gut punch and he went still, just for a moment.

It wasn't lost on Lance, but he was angry now. He understood. Screaming through the bars didn't make a prison any less a prison. "I won't let you keep that body!"

At the same time, the voices finally sprang to life. The momentary feeling of emptiness wasn't unlike what Sven had caused before… but it wasn't the same, either, because the jaivur rage surged back immediately. Flynn stepped forward, eyes blazing, energy surging between his hands. Everything might be a tangled mess right now—but he was still an empowered undead, and Lance was literally stuck between him and a deadly fall.

"And what do you expect to do about it?"

…It was a good question, Lance admitted. But his own eyes blazed red again, and he raised his gun, because finally one answer to it was clear.

I'm gonna fucking fight.

*****

After another round of burn treatment and a decent, if fitful, nap, Sven had been fetched from the infirmary by Romelle and… Vince? It had taken a minute to shake the cobwebs out of his brain, and then it all made sense.

Pidge was elsewhere and Hunk was incapacitated, but the new lenses for Blue's eye had arrived.

"So what do we need to do with these, exactly?"

"We'll need to cut the glass some, make sure it all fits together right. After that, well… the lion takes over or something?"

The lenses were heavy, round pieces of something that probably wasn't really glass. Romelle was pulling them from the box and arranging them carefully on the floor of Blue's den, while Vince examined the lion's unbroken eye. Both of them had insisted Sven take it easy while he could, so he was watching and thinking about how much he preferred maps.

It had been a few days since he'd been able to think about maps. But it was better than thinking about, well, other things. Like what he wouldn't have given for just another minute… scowling at himself, he shook that off. "What do you mean the lion takes over?"

"That's how it works with the armor." Vince shrugged. "We're still kind of winging it more often than not on lion maintenance."

That was fair, he supposed. Romelle looked a little less convinced. "How do we cut it?"

"I can do that part." He pointed to the tools he'd brought down: a plasma torch and two weird triangular things the Arusians said were for polishing glass. He'd brought them along expecting the lenses to be somewhat convex, and he'd been correct. "I'll need you two to help make them flat first, if Sven is up to that."

"I'm fine." The Arusian burn salve was having some diminishing returns at this point, but fortunately that wasn't his main source of relief. "Blue being able to cool away the pain is phenomenal. Just tell me what you need me to do."

Huh. Guess the lions do have some plusses. Vince wondered if it was a sign of progress that Yellow's growl of protest didn't even startle him. It was becoming a sort of routine by now, those easy thoughts to avoid the real issue—

Fuzzmuffins, just cut the lenses!

"Good thing Blue's helping you then… I need one of you to help me with some measurements." It was simple in theory. "We'll map this out on the ground."

Sven perked up at the word map, even though he knew that wasn't what Vince meant. "I can help with that part." He did enjoy hands-on geometry, too; protractors could be fun if you let them!

Somehow, Vince was not surprised by that. "Okay. Romelle, can you figure out one of these glass-grinding uh… things? We need those lenses to be even."

"I can do that," she confirmed, picking up one of the devices and studying it. It actually looked pretty intuitive; she assumed Earthling technology would be rather different, from the way the other two looked at them, but Polluxian design principles weren't that far off from their ancestors.

Of course, she had not done any manual labor on Pollux… still, she figured it out fast enough. As she worked, she couldn't help but glance over at the lion every so often. Her lion, now. And there was something satisfying about working to fix this wound.

Paladin of Tenacity.

The Princess Romelle of a year ago on Pollux would hardly recognize what she'd had to become. And while that thought brought some sorrow with it, a faint smile flickered across her lips. It was something to be proud of, being here. She understood that now.

There was just still so much to do.

Arusian and Drule measurement tools were also pretty intuitive, and it didn't take long for Vince and Sven to have the hole in Blue's eye replicated in the sand. "Will this be precise enough?"

"It should be." Vince was better with wires than with large slabs of material, but he had taken plenty of fabrication classes. "We can fill any cracks by melting the scrap glass, assuming the lion can't do it with, you know, lion magic."

Blue gave a short growl that he thought was probably a laugh. It didn't startle him the way Yellow's interjections in his brain did, but the echo around the den was still kind of creepy.

"Uh, was that a yes?"

Sven tilted his head. "I don't think it was a no."

"We will simply have to see what happens, Icehunter."

…I see I'm a good influence on you, too.

Though he wasn't wholly sure what to make of that, Vince decided he was probably happier not knowing, so he just started working on a lens layout. "I can do this part if you want to help with the glass?"

"Sure." Sven picked up the other polisher and looked it over; Romelle approached to help. He found himself wondering what these must have been used for in another time. When the castle had been whole and gleaming, he felt certain these hadn't been intended for military use.

Giving him a quick run through on the device, Romelle handed him a lens, though she followed it with a worried look. "If it hurts too much, don't push it, please?" Actually grinding the glass down did take a little muscle, and he did have a lot of burns.

Sven gave her a reassuring smile before getting to work. Pushing wasn't his thing—well, not unless it was necessary. Pushing it was for combat, not glasswork. "I won't overdo it."

For a few minutes the den was silent, except for the hum of equipment and the flickering of plasma flame as Vince finished the layout and started cutting the lenses. But silence wasn't very good for him. He couldn't help glancing more and more often at Sven, thinking about the report earlier and feeling pangs of guilt that just got more and more intense.

Maybe, though…

Everyone had been so adamant that it wasn't his fault. From Romelle to Hunk to the ghost King to Yellow Lion himself. If he was going to convince himself of that, it probably had to start with telling the truth, didn't it? Admitting what he'd been seeing. If he'd told the team—his team!—about all of this before, maybe it wouldn't have been quite such a gut punch when the Drules used it against them. Maybe it still would've been, but he wouldn't feel so miserable about his own part of it.

We must see things clearly.

The water lapping at the edge of the den, and maybe even the familiar sounds of machinery and things being created, were as calming as everything else was nerve-wracking. And as those thoughts chased themselves through his mind, Yellow gave a reassuring purr.

The purr was still nice. His wrist snapping in exactly the wrong direction as it startled him, not so nice. "Don't purr at me while I work!" …Crap, that was out loud.

Romelle gave him a knowing look, and Sven grinned. "At least he's purring, and not critiquing or being a smartass." He was honestly surprised Blue hadn't had more to say about his work, considering it was her eye they were trying to patch up.

"I can't judge your work until it's in place, can I?" she growled, amused. "I assure you I will do so at the appropriate time."

Imagine my relief.

Vince was not overly relieved that Yellow was only purring, either… though Sven was probably right that he should be. A mildly confused growl from the lion reinforced it. YOU. Knock that off! I am CUTTING. GLASS.

"You don't want to hear from me when you are not cutting glass, either."

…True. He wasn't sure that was an argument in the lion's favor. But… sighing, he turned to Sven. The guilt wasn't going to stop, and that meant Yellow wasn't going to stop popping up, and well… maybe getting it off his chest would help? He'd tried every form of not doing that.

And it was Sven who'd been the first person he couldn't bring himself to look at anymore, since it was his friend who'd turned up first. "So, uh. You saw Jace, huh? In that jaivur… thing. You talked to him?"

Being smacked with exactly what he'd been trying not to dwell on made Sven nearly drop the lens he was working with. Not least because that was also the last person he'd expect to bring it up. "…Yes, I did," he confirmed quietly. "I broke through somehow."

How? Trying to explain that hadn't worked then and wasn't going to work now, but somehow, he didn't think that was what had Vince worried.

The look Romelle was giving him backed that up. "What's on your mind, Vince?" She was pretty sure she knew, and he definitely looked like he could use a little nudge of support.

Taking a deep breath, he finished with the lens he was cutting and set the plasma torch aside. "It's just that, I feel guilty."

Frown. "Why? You've done everything you can." There wasn't much Vince could do to help against the jaivur, short of bonding—and Sven knew damn well that wasn't nearly as simple as just making a choice. Or, more to the point, that freely making such a choice was anything but simple. Romelle had only just gotten there, and their nervous engineer had always had more going on than anyone could quite sort out.

But he was here helping fix Blue anyway, wasn't he?

Those words sent another pang through Vince, but also helped steel his resolve. Everything we ever asked of you. He exhaled slowly. I can do this. "It's just, I uh… I'd been talking to them. Jace, Cam, Flynn… their ghosts, I mean."

It felt like Sven's stomach had dropped out, just for a moment. "You… what?" He noticed Romelle didn't look surprised by the revelation, but maybe that shouldn't surprise him. She knew more about the ghost things in general, after all. "When?"

"Before." Vince shook his head. "They were here trying to help me talk through some things I guess, it was the fuzzmuffin lion's fault…"

"Always blame the lions," Sven agreed; Blue snorted.

"They do seem to work in mysterious ways," Romelle agreed softly, and received a small growl of appreciation. Sven managed to compose himself enough to roll his eyes at that. Snarking at the lions was easier than, well…

…Than what though, exactly? His guts were twisting with the information, but what would he have advised Vince to do about it?

Seeing the mixed emotions playing out on Sven's face, Vince averted his gaze for a moment. "I just… I didn't bring it up to begin with because, I mean, I didn't know how to tell anyone. You all missed them too." Jace told me not to tell you, specifically felt like something he should still keep to himself; they were way past the circumstances that had led to that promise, but he could still keep a little bit of it. I wasn't the one who should've seen any of them.

"I wouldn't have known how to tell me either," Sven agreed quietly.

"And then I was talking to Flynn and he disappeared, and it wasn't right, but I didn't… I mean, I didn't expect this."

"Who would?" Romelle pointed out, and Sven nodded. The unfairness of the situation hurt, but it certainly wasn't any reason to be upset at Vince.

"I'm fairly certain none of us would've expected Drule witchcraft and an undead monster just from that." He picked up another lens, but just turned it over in his hands rather than doing anything with it. Looking at his reflection, remembering the watery reflections of whatever had happened out there… no, none of them could have imagined. "I'm glad you felt comfortable telling me about it now, but you can't blame yourself."

Comfortable! Vince looked at his hands and fought down the urge to laugh at that. But you can't blame yourself… "So I've been told." Sigh. "I can't shake it, though."

"Shaking it may just take time."

Romelle nodded her agreement. "If you keep taking steps forward, eventually you'll end up where you need to be. You're doing fine, Vince."

Definitely not doing that. The thought was almost a reflex by now. But they were both trying to help… the way the ghosts had been trying to help. The way Hunk kept trying to help. There was no shortage of people trying to help him, they just kept running into the fact that he had no shortage of things he wanted to shake.

It felt like a failure, but maybe less of one than it had been. Maybe Romelle was right. Was he moving forward?

"The Earth shakes, yet cannot be shaken," Yellow purred. "The truth remains."

He couldn't even glare at the lion right then. "Hey, Blue? You seem nicer, can you tell your uh, yellow friend that he's annoying me?"

Blue Lion's laughter filled both of her pilots' minds, and Sven managed a bit of a grin. "She says he knows."

"I just wanted to be sure it was clear." Looking up from his hands, Vince tried to look Sven in the eye. "Anyway I just… I don't know. I'm sorry that the jaivur attacked you like that. But I'm glad you got to see him, you know?"

Oddly enough, when he put it like that, Sven did know. "Yes." His smile became a little more sure. "…So am I." Having that moment had hurt, but it had been wonderful, too. Even if he'd wished for more, it was more than he'd had any reason to hope for… We're going to save them. He picked up the polisher and started grinding the lens down, then glanced at their stockpile and blinked. It wasn't really a stockpile anymore. "Are we about ready to start putting these in place?"

"It looks like." Grabbing the plasma torch—it was the only one they had that was rated for glass—Vince scrambled to get back to work. After that admission, he really needed some engineering; it wasn't wires, but it was something! And right now he'd take what he could get.

Just to keep moving forward… a little.

*****

Daniel was flipping through Red Lion's book, or at least trying to. He really wasn't the best reader. Mostly because, Lance's obsession with this Flamebearer person aside, it was boring. If they wanted people to actually follow all this shit, couldn't they have made it into a movie?

Bad enough that there were so many words. Worse that they were in a language he absolutely could not read without the bond's help, which was weird and kind of distracting. Even more distracting, though, was that something else about the bond felt… off. Wrong.

Lance had been a mess lately, of course, and Daniel was trying to give him some space to deal with it because nothing else seemed to be working. But what was keeping him from concentrating properly on the book now wasn't normal 'Lance is a mess' off-ness. It was a whole other level of off-ness. Maybe someone had finally taught Red the word 'fuck' and he was being passive-aggressive about it?

A sharp growl echoed through his mind, and he jumped. "Kidding!"

Red growled again, not addressing that. "Flamechaser, you must go to Firestriker. Now!"

"What?" He tossed the book aside and jumped off his bed, running for the door. "Where is he? What's wrong?"

"He is alone with it. Inside of the tower, where he goes to see my den."

With it. Eyes widening, Daniel broke into a sprint. He knew the broken room; it was one of the first things Lance had shown him after he'd bonded. Which had struck him as weird then, why stare at the outside of a volcano when you knew how to go hang out on the inside? But he was glad he'd paid attention now.

Every so often, paying attention was worth it. Who knew?

Wheeling around a couple of sharp corners, he could feel the pressure beginning to build. Just a little bit—he was too focused on getting there to be thinking too much about why. But then he skidded around the final turn and saw it. The undead freak with the gross purple magic swirling around him, launching a couple of brief flares at a target who was answering with what looked like a rather depleted laser.

Oh that's bad. "Lance!"

"Daniel!" Lance's eyes widened; for a moment he wanted to ask what the kid was doing there, but the sense of Red's presence answered it. "Don't get close."

Don't get close? Daniel snorted; he was already close and he sure as fuck wasn't leaving. At the same time, the jaivur turned on him, smirking.

"You can die first."

"No!" Lance tried to shoot again, but all he got was a flicker of the no charge light on his gun. Fuck!

Facing down the abomination, Daniel felt fear and anger building, swelling faster and hotter than the energy the jaivur was gathering in its hands. The pressure was becoming overwhelming. But something else was there too, something not quite like the other times. A fierce determination, the conviction he'd felt when he first saw Voltron, filling him as surely as the fire. This damn thing had caused too much pain already. It wasn't going to hurt Lance. It was not.

Without thinking, just acting, he raised his hands and let the pressure release.

At the same moment, Flynn let his own blast go, a violent surge of energy that filled the corridor. He fully expected it to be like the lion, at worst—magic meeting energy, an explosion that the room surely wouldn't survive. So be it; he wasn't the one who would die from that. But instead, the jet of flame met the toxic flare and consumed it, burning through completely.

As all three of them stared in shock, the flame engulfed him and he screamed.

Holy shit! Ducking out of the way—though he was instinctively unafraid of the fire—Lance rushed towards Daniel, trying to set aside how badly his own arm was hurting. Spinning around he saw the jaivur, the monster that wasn't really Flynn, trying unsuccessfully to smother the flames.

Can't stay here. Flynn knew the fire was dangerous, and not just physically. There was something… not just surprise, not just pain, but a force of determination from deep within that made him turn to flee. Not to save himself, but… he could still feel the flame even as it burned away, could hear it roaring in his ears.

Let it end!

Daniel watched the inferno with wide eyes, then looked at his hands. The fire had actually… done what he wanted it to? How? More importantly, could he do it again? His emotions were still churning—this was no time for celebratory fist pumps, but hell if the feeling wasn't strong. The determination was welling again too, and he released the building pressure as another brilliant jet of flame.

Seeing the second burst coming, Flynn gave up on damage control and just ran for it. Not fast enough. The flames caught him as he vaulted out of the broken castle, and he hit the ground with another cry of pain.

Rolling once to put out as many flames as possible, he ran for the river.

Staring after him, the pain in his arm almost forgotten, Lance took a step closer to the outside. "Flynn…" He'd seen them fighting. "Jace, Cam… we're…" His eyes narrowed. "WE'RE GOING TO FUCKING GET YOU JUSTICE!" he screamed after the fleeing form, hoping against hope they could hear.

"Does justice include killing that thing?" Daniel asked, coming up beside him. The pressure had faded now, much more quickly than when he'd just been randomly conjuring fire around. "'Cause I'm down."

"Yeah." The words came without hesitation. "Justice includes saving them from that… fucked up magical bullshit." He turned back to Daniel and grinned weakly, but his next words were every bit as sincere. "You were fucking awesome."

"I know!" It still didn't quite feel like time for celebratory fist-pumping, but no point pretending that hadn't been badass. "Guess this magical bullshit ain't all bullshit after all!" He was still not one hundred percent clear on how he'd done it, but he'd done it twice and felt like he could probably pull it off again. That was about all he could ask for right now, wasn't it?

Red purred.

Calming down a little, Daniel noticed Lance's physical condition; he was still gripping his gun, but his arm was hanging in a way that didn't look right at all. In fact he wasn't sure he could've put the gun away right then. "Uh, are you okay?"

Oddly, Lance's first instinct was to say yes, and it had been awhile since he could lie about it that easily. He was more okay than he'd been since all this began—his own determination and anger were finally falling back into place. But his arm still hurt like hell, his throat was bruised, and his lips felt cold from…

No, no. He absolutely did not want to think about that. So he shivered, forcing it down, and looked at his arm with a wince. "Think it dislocated my shoulder."

"Ouch. They taught us how to pop those back in, I can do it if you want." Score another for actually paying attention! Given his hobbies, first aid had always seemed like a good class to actually learn in. "Or we can go find someone more professional, up to you."

Lance groaned, but nodded. "I trust you, kid." Truthfully he probably trusted him more than anyone 'more professional' right now, and not only for the obvious reasons. It had been made clear while they were all in the infirmary that human and Arusian anatomy were not precisely the same. He didn't need some well-meaning orderly ripping his whole joint apart.

With a bright smile, Daniel grabbed his shoulder and elbow. "This is gonna hurt." Without waiting for a reply—the warning had kind of been unnecessary anyway—he popped the joint back into place, drawing a sharp hiss of pain.

"Fucking ow." Lance gave his arm an experimental slow shake, then holstered his gun. It still hurt like hell, but at least it was usable. "I think that was all. Might want to go get it looked at by a professional just to be sure, I guess."

"Yeah, probably." Daniel eyed him skeptically. He still had that feeling from before, of just general… off-ness. And it was definitely coming from Lance, which was both weird and oddly not as weird as it could've been. "Is anything else wrong?"

Looking from Daniel, to the hole, and back again, Lance took a deep breath and swallowed hard. Both of which were painful, and his heart was pounding. So damn much was still wrong, but… I'm okay. No, not exactly okay. "I'm… ready to fight."

Nodding, Daniel felt that sense of conviction welling up again, and if he didn't know better he might have thought that was coming a little bit from Lance too. But then Red growled, curling warmth around both of them.

"The will to fight is never simple, cubs. But when the pursuit of justice finds no other path… the Flame speaks to War."

Exchanging looks, the two of them slowly nodded. It was coming together now… and they had to be ready.

"Come on. Let's go get you looked at."

"So we can tell the others."

"Right."

Without another look at the outside, they headed back into the castle's depths.

*****

Though they weren't technically on patrol, Pidge and Larmina were out on another training run. The two kinds of missions were pretty similar at this stage. They'd taken to the jagged cliffs that separated Thunder Ridge from the Forest of Altair; it offered a good view of the meadows in case something went wrong. Which things tended to do lately.

Diagnostics were part of the operation, speaking of that. "Ready with the tracking beacon?"

"Yeah, sure, I'm ready." Larmina took aim at the boulder they'd been using for target practice; it would've been very thoroughly tracked by now, if their test fires would actually work. "How many of these things do we have, by the way?" So far they'd ejected two out the not-quite-patched-enough hole in Green's ammo feed, and gotten a third one stuck.

Ah yes, there was that ammunition question again. "I have no idea."

"Enough," Green reassured them.

Pidge frowned slightly. "Don't suppose you'd like to elaborate on that?"

"I would very much like to. However…"

Sigh. "Okay, fine. Fire away, I guess, let's see if we've fixed it this time."

Larmina smirked and hit the trigger, and the lion's hull shuddered slightly. That seemed like a good sign; the last attempts had been accompanied by less lurching, more metallic shrieking. A second later, the silvery blur of the tracker pod shot from Green's turret and smashed into the boulder, cracking open to deposit a small, dull-gray beacon which swiftly shimmered and camouflaged itself against the stone.

It was the first time she'd seen the thing work as intended, and she grinned. "That's actually kind of cool." One of her side monitors had lit up, the same one she'd used to detonate the shrapnel pod in combat, and she studied the controls there carefully. "Looks like I've got options to deactivate, detonate, disable camo, change broadcast strength?"

"You do?" Pidge turned to look at the controls she was indicating. "I don't think I have that." Learning more about the backseater's role was good and all, but he hoped she wasn't going to have all of the fun stuff while he was stuck with flying.

Green laughed outright at that. "You have access to everything, Windseeker, if you search thoroughly. Practicality is a concern, however."

Frowning, he brought up the holographic auxiliary panels; sure enough, a little shuffling found him the controls for a deployed tracking beacon. But he understood her other point, too. "Fine, I guess you can keep it."

What was so exciting about tweaking a broadcast signal? Larmina would never understand offworlders. No, not even that, this wasn't any old offworlder thing. She would never understand Baltans. "You can keep it if you want." Taking aim at the beacon, she snapped off a couple quick shots from Green's tail blades. One hit at the wrong angle and skipped off the boulder entirely. The other embedded itself in the stone, a good five feet from where she'd been aiming. "Hmm. Guess I have to work on that."

"Go ahead."

…Well that figured. Shrugging, she took a few more shots, and a small frown crossed her face as blade after blade embedded itself in the stone. "I'm sure you're going to glare at me for this, but how many of these do we have? And do they just… stay there until someone yanks them out?"

Pidge did, indeed, glare at her. "You know, while I'd love very little more than to do a deep analysis of the lions' ammunition mechanisms—"

"—I'm just asking, do you realize the militia has to account for every single arrow we use?—"

"—Wait, did you think that was sarcasm?"

They fell silent, staring at each other in confusion, and Larmina blinked first. Because, well… "Yeah, sorry. I forgot that you're you."

Shrug. "Fair. I'm serious though, the next time we get any kind of real downtime, the ammo bays are the first thing on my list." Trying to crack them open when the jaivur could resurface at any second would be a bad idea. "And I believe you just volunteered to help."

"No I didn't." Larmina leaned back in her seat, then tried detonating the tracking beacon. A small poof of flame removed it from the boulder, barely leaving a trace behind. "I was expecting something bigger."

"There's reasons you might not want an enemy to know you just blew up the beacon that was spying on them."

…Also true. This lion stuff was complicated; she didn't like it. "Are all spacecraft like this?"

Pidge still wasn't sure what to make of his new copilot, in all honesty. So far she seemed to do an awful lot of complaining about, well, being in a lion. But considering what she and her planet had been through, he couldn't just write it off as her being sheltered.

Sometimes, like now, he wasn't even quite sure what the complaint was. "Like what?"

Larmina made a face. Saying complicated wasn't going to be any help, but she wasn't sure how else to even describe what was bothering her. She just felt edgy in the lion. Pidge had explained the detonation thing so simply, like there was a whole world of spacecraft-combat knowledge out there that he knew all about and she didn't know a damn thing.

And she knew that was literally true.

Maybe it was also the feeling of the walls literally closing in. The cockpit was a safe little cocoon with no escape, and she got enough of that in the tunnels. Whether the forests or the foothills, when she was facing danger, Larmina had gotten used to having options.

"…It's all so strict," she finally muttered. "This button does this, that button does that, if you want to do the other thing you'd better know where the other-thing button is and if there isn't an other-thing button you're kind of screwed?"

That, Pidge thought, was fascinating. The lions were the most versatile, least limiting spacecraft he'd ever even heard of. But he could understand what she was saying, too. Compared to the absolute freedom of operating on foot, relying on your own body and skills and tools… "Yeah, they're all like this. Usually a lot worse." He turned to face her. "You should really help me check out the ammunition systems, you know."

She scowled. "Don't blow me off, Pidge." Green, remind him that I don't like him, would you?

The lion growled in fond exasperation. "He knows."

"I don't like you either," he grumbled without a lot of conviction. "Look, you're not wrong about the limits. And if all you ever learn is the buttons on the consoles, it'll always feel that way. Once you actually get inside a ship's systems and start seeing how things work, you start to see how many choices you really have." Frown. "Also it sounds like you're supposed to learn some magic things eventually and this whole discussion might end up obsolete. But in the meantime—"

An alarm cut him off, and he reflexively whipped back around. Nothing much was showing up on Green's sensors. Just some faraway blips of spiking energy. But the flares of light suddenly pouring from the distant castle stood out pretty clearly against the sky.

"Um."

"Uh oh."

"I think practice is over," Green declared grimly, and Pidge snorted as he launched them into the air.

At the same time, Black Lion was returning from the south, and had a better view of the hole in the castle. Which may or may not have actually offered a better idea of what was happening. "What the hell?" Keith pushed the lion ahead faster as another flash of purple light emanated from the gap, and then… fire?

Allura went to the sensors, pushing up the magnification just in time to see what looked like a flaming humanoid figure leaping out of the tower. "Oh, no."

"Shit." They weren't close, but they were close enough. And the jaivur didn't seem to be taking evasive action from anything other than what was behind him.

In fact, preoccupied with zigzagging and being on fire, he hadn't noticed the approaching giant robotic felines at all.

Noting Green on his sensors, Keith flipped the comms open. "Let's finish this."

"We can't let him get away again," Pidge agreed. Green was gaining faster, though they'd been further away to begin with.

"Uh." Larmina glanced over the lion's weapons; she distinctly remembered the last time they'd tried to do this. "What do we have that's gonna stop him?" Could she hit a target that size at this distance with the plasma cannon? Even with him literally lit up that seemed like a tall order.

It was a fair question, Pidge admitted to himself, trying to coax even a fraction more speed from a lion that was already roaring ahead at full power. "Well his track record at dodging tornadoes isn't good."

"And lightning might slow him down, or more." Keith was trying to force his throttles past their limits too, keeping his eyes on the fleeing undead. Black wouldn't have to worry about any friendly fire this time. "If what Allura did last time is any indication, we might be able to finish the job."

What Allura did last time had already been on the princess' mind, too. But she didn't think it was precision they needed this time. Closing her eyes, she rested her hands on her console; time for a more live-fire test than she'd expected. "Larmina, focus your energy through the lion."

Blink. "Huh?" Larmina's first instinct was to look for a 'focus energy' button; it took an entire two seconds for that first instinct to feel very silly. "Focus my what?"

"Let what your lion does be an extension of you." As she spoke, Allura was drawing herself into that place again, the lightning crackling around her. It felt even easier… perhaps because of experience, perhaps because this time she was only trying to feed the swelling stormclouds rather than guide them.

Okay… Larmina placed a hand on her own console, focusing on the humming of the engines and the electronic vibrations beneath her fingertips. If you understand the systems, then you have choices. Or there's magic. Or something. It was all still overwhelming, not really getting her anywhere. But then her mind went back to Daniel, the talk they'd had about his powers.

If Auntie has focus and control, and lizard boy has a pressure boiler, the wind has… what?

Lifting her eyes to the main viewscreen, she could see their speed as they closed in on their target. And if she concentrated a little harder she could imagine the rush of the wind, even feel it…

That's it!

Pidge's eyes widened as one of his gauges beeped, and Green's weapon power spiked. "What did you—forget it, I'll ask later." Lining up with the distant jaivur, he slammed the trigger for the elemental cannon and held on.

Narrowing his eyes, racing forward just about parallel to Green's path, Keith took careful aim as well. "Let's free them." He could feel the increase in Black Lion's power even without checking his monitors, and unleashed the lion's lightning breath.

A glowing cyclone and a blinding thunderbolt, the lions' silvery energy crackling through them, converged on their target before he ever knew what hit him. Searing heat, then overwhelming force—Flynn was vaguely aware of being thrown forward, skidding across grass and dirt until plunging into water beyond. A current took over that he couldn't have fought even if he'd tried.

As the light from the sky above vanished, there was one fleeting moment of clarity.

Is it… finally over…?

"…Is it over?" Keith hadn't stopped firing Black's lightning until the lion himself gave him a growl of warning. "Pidge, are you reading anything?"

"I don't see anything." Hovering over the river, Pidge started to run scans, though he already knew what he was going to find. "There's too much residual energy, the water's already completely lit up. We've never gotten a solid enough signature on that jaivur energy for the lions to scan for it with any real precision."

Behind him, Larmina was working some sensors too; she was certain Pidge knew this area better than she did, considering they hadn't even gotten to that part of training yet, but it felt better than doing nothing. She could still hear the wind whistling in her ears. What was that? It was kind of cool…

Maybe the cockpit felt a little less confining already.

Green gave a chuckling purr before becoming serious. "I cannot sense the creature, cubs, but that means little. It does not live. Our brother would know."

"I don't think we can get Yellow out here," Pidge muttered. "Not in time to do any good, at least."

"Something feels different," Black growled softly. Looking up from where she'd been trying to refine a scan of her own, Allura tilted her head questioningly.

"Different?"

"I do not yet know."

Keith sighed; that wasn't much, but it was something. If there was anything they'd learned from the lions so far, it was that something often had to suffice. "All right. Let's move downstream a bit and maintain our patrol, just in case. Hopefully we'll see something more."

"Understood."

"Yessir."

"Sure."

As the lions moved over the water, the river below remained silent.