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Black.
That's all Lance could see, his eyes far too heavy to even attempt to open.
"LANCE!" a shrill high pitched voice echoed through his coms. Lance moaned in reply the noise rattling around in his brain only worsening the splitting headache setting in.
He could barely remember what had led to this moment. He was sitting in his room staring at the walls in boredom when the alert sounded throughout the castle and he was thrown into his lion and forced into yet another battle, this month was especially busy with attacks on the castle from the Galra. Lance barely had a moment to think without them shooting at him and his team. It was different this time however, the Galra had learned from their last encounter with the lions and were more than prepared for whatever the paladins had thrown at them. Lance, the weakest link of Voltron, was the target of their attack. He hadn't been in his lion for more than 2 minutes before a blast from a Galran cannon had shot through his cockpit and straight through him, an easy target he proved to be, too focused on winning his arguments with the red paladin to focus on defending himself.
The voice had woken Lance up. He forced his eyes to open setting them on the controls in his lion. The damage done was irreparable, small sparks shot off the control panel as he moved his hand towards it flinching slightly when it sparked into his palm. "Blue..." he whispered instantly feeling the lack of his companion's presence. Lance continued to survey his lion, everything was in disarray, the collection of large plushies he kept in Blue for when the two had film nights was now floating in and around the lion in a shredded mess of stuffing, stray thread dancing through space taunting him as it drifted past. Lance began to move from his seat and towards the hole the Galran ship had created in blue's head.
Lance struggled to move out of Blue, like one side of his body had given up on him and had joined Blue.
A small buzz came from his helmet. "Lance, status report." came Shiro, professional as always. Lance sighed in response not sure what to tell his team... he had destroyed one of the only things capable of defeating the Galran empire because he was too busy having petty disputes to do his job. It was pathetic. He was pathetic.
He lifted his right arm to his headset to turn on his com system but nothing happened. His arm must have been broken. He lifted his left arm to his headset instead the movement feeling quite unnatural.
Lance sniffed, "She's gone..." his eyes began to burn tears welling up threatening him to fall. "Blue, she took the hit for me."
Allura had signed off the comms at that moment her face leaving his helmet's display. Lance had a hole in his chest from the guilt he felt at that moment, her father's lifes work was entrusted to him and within a few moments he had doomed the universe and killed off the small part of what she had left of him. Without Voltron, the Galran empire was free to wreak havoc wherever they pleased.
Hunk sighed disappointment lacing his every word, "How are you holding up?" Lance could feel the venom from where he was, floating in space.
Lance checked himself over. From what he had seen when he escaped Blue he was fine, at least half of him was. Blood coated his entire suit and upon further inspection, he was missing a leg blown off from the knee down. He choked back a sob; horror coating his face. He had only ever heard of injuries like these in the news, never once believing he would become the target of such an attack that would leave him limbless. Lance put his hands up to his face checking his helmet over for head injuries but only one of his arms followed. Of course - he remembered- the other was broken.
Lance glanced over expecting to see an uncooperative appendage but instead was greeted with a shoulder. Just a shoulder. A shredded shoulder at that, one of which ended at that shoulder. No arm followed along. He felt defeated. Up until now, the Galran empire had never caused serious casualties within the team, everyone had always walked away with a scratch at most. Fights mainly had felt like a fun family day out until now, they had all finally seen the reality of the Galran empire, of war, of what they were fighting to stop. It didn't fuel Lance into action and powered him towards vengeance like he dreamed he would do in such a situation. No, instead he was finished. He didn't want this life for himself. He wanted to be back home with his family, with Marco, Luis and Veronica laughing over a game of Uno or being in the arms of his Abuela watching the newest episode of The Voice where he terribly recreated each contestant. Instead, he was on a battlefield minutes from bleeding out.
"I've lost." Lance sobbed. "I've lost my leg... my arm." and he screamed. A blood-curdling scream that rang out along the comms and stopped the paladins in their tracks. It wasn't a scream of pain. It was that of defeat, a painful defeat. One Lance wasn't sure he could come back from.