"We have to do that again," Lance burbles, excited. He thinks he's excited. He's got this edgy, roiling feeling in his stomach and hoo, boy, if that isn't excitement it is one hell of a sense of dread. "We're gonna do that again. Right? Right? Because if we don't do that again, I call quiznak. That was amazing."

"It was dangerous is what it was," Keith points out. They're at a table now. All of them. Their headsets are in the middle of the table. "Blinking out like that? In the middle of a firefight, that could get us killed."

Hunk makes a dodgy sound in the back of his throat. Keith glances over at him through the corner of his eye and Hunk shrugs, speaking up. "Voltron is supposed to be a legend. Maybe this is just... the next step in how we're supposed to link with Voltron."

Allura drums one finger against the table, her eyebrows knit together. She looks stressed, and Lance can't blame her. In the sheer amount of crap that has happened in the past... what, four months? Five? Lance can't remember. He was out of commission for a lot of it. But for the past really-long-time-in-space, she's been re-awakened from a semi-permanent slumber, rescued people and planets from the grasp of the Galra, been under near-constant attack, and had one of her paladins captured as well as... tortured, and when they found him he looked like the enemy and had a whole slew of issues.

And to top it all off, Lance thought, that slew of issues drove the group through the mental fire and flames and what came out was... a giant robot with its own personality.

All things that made no sense. All things that meant anyone in a leadership position would have to be thinking all the time, delegating and cooperating and trying not to let thousands of years of 'The Galra are filthy purple traitors and tyrants' color the perception of someone who never even asked for it.

Madre de Dios, Lance hoped something like this never happened again. Not that it wouldn't- for some reason, Voltron drew weird like... something big that magnetically attracted weird. A weird magnet. Voltron was a weird magnet. Sometimes that was good, in the case of the Balmera, sometimes that was bad. Like in the case of Zarkon. And evil alien catpeople.

And Lance being an evil alien catpeople.

"My father would have told me of this," Allura mutters. "It would have been with his records of the Lions' upkeep. In the paladins' records! But it simply wasn't."

Coran, unlike his usual self, is neither cheerful or dandy. He's almost pointedly trying to look everywhere but Allura.

"Maybe they didn't record it," Keith suggests. Pidge shakes her head.

"Maybe," Pidge says, "They deleted the information."

"Why would they do that?" Lance demands. "This is- we became a giant robot! Voltron! We didn't form Voltron, we became Voltron! It was amazing, it was great, I felt better than I have in weeks-!"

At some point while he was talking, Lance got up. He started gesturing wildly. His hands are still in the air, hung there, fingers splayed. And now he's frozen, because despite the fact that they were all in the same mental kiddie pool earlier, Lance now feels like he's just peed in it.

It's not about Lance. None of this is about Lance, this is about Voltron.

"You. Uh. You all felt it, right?" He asks, looking away. Lance tucks his arms back, settling into his claimed chair. Props himself up on the table. "Better than you have in a while. Not just me."

Nobody answers him. Pidge continues her thought.

"Say you had a giant, highly advanced superweapon," She elaborates. "And someone figured out that in order for the advanced superweapon to function at full capacity, you need five paladins capable of connecting. Deeply. I mean, we drove with the lions before and directed Voltron, but there's a big difference between remote controlling a fine-motor bipedal operating system and embodying that system."

Lance tries to sink into his seat.

"This might be endgame. Maybe Voltron's strongest when Voltron's the one behind the wheel, not the paladins, all of us who have to deliberate and give reports on each section before we take action. But if someone knew about that, about that connection... Well, let's just say that if I programmed a laser that absolutely needed five power cells to cohesively function, the way I'd stop it in a pinch would be-"

"Remove a power cell. No laser," Shiro finishes for her. "But I don't understand. We need five power cells anyway. Why would it matter if it was concrete information that you needed all five?"

Lance doesn't get it.

Keith does. "Pidge, do you mean to fire the laser, you need those specific five cells?"

Pidge... Pidge nods.

Coran heaves a sigh. Allura looks at him, her eyes stricken.

"If any of those cells burn out," Keith thinks out loud, "You can't replace it. The laser won't fire again unless all five cells are replaced with new ones."

Lance's ears are pinned to the back of his head. He can hear his blood thrumming. That excitement from earlier, that might-be-dread stuff? It's dread. Loud and clear. Dread.

"Coran?" Allura turns to him. "You would know. My father trusted you implicitly."

Coran toys with the end of his mustache.

"Not quite," Coran finally says. "Not exactly, Princess."

"But it is similar," Shiro presses.

Coran hunches forwards, his fingers lashed together. He rests his chin on them. "In a base sense, yes. Voltron's most powerful form is when Voltron himself is, as you have surmised, himself. Voltron knows his full capabilities and how to use them. He can call upon his paladins' minds to understand what to do, when to take a shot. He is capable of self-diagnoses under extreme pain or duress. But Voltron is also at his most vulnerable at this peak of performance."

"How?" Allura asks first. "If he is at his most powerful, how is he vulnerable? Is there any way for us to return Voltron to its previous state, after today's experiment?" She says the word experiment like it's a bug in her mouth, like she wants to brush off her tongue but can't.

"Trust," Coran says. "You can replace the cells, but you cannot make the laser fire fully unless those cells are working perfectly with each other. If one cell's energy is malignant, it can convert the other four. Your father forbade any whom knew from revealing the truth. Because that sacred trust between paladins was once broken. Voltron's mind was twisted."

Lance digs his nails, claws, neatly wrapped in his paladin's gloves, deeper into his palms. It doesn't hurt, but the tension is relieving.

"Twisted," Allura breathes. She's been through a lot today, Lance thinks again. She didn't know about Voltron having consciousness either. "This... it explains everything. Everything. Why my father... why his paladins were once disbanded."

"Allura?" Shiro asks. Allura shakes her head, massages her temple.

"When I was a girl," Allura doesn't look at any of them. "Voltron revolted. Completely cut off from the castle in a sector full of nebular interference, Voltron ceased escorting a valuable ally's ship in the middle of hostile space and instead turned upon it, attacking it. It is one of the only recorded times in memory that Voltron has not acted as a defender. Shortly after the attack, decimating the cargo and citizens onboard, Voltron emerged from the nebula."

"They called for the Black Lion to report, for my father to respond and explain himself," Allura strings her story together, looking like she's been betrayed. "The lions were silent. Voltron, all of its paladins, no response. My mother, my grandmother, they urged me to leave the room for my safety. I never heard the reason for Voltron's singular malfunction."

"I had to carry you out of the room," Coran remembers, even his mustache drooping. "You couldn't have stayed. We couldn't let you learn about the onboard crew of the escort vessel. Not then."

"I wasn't a child!" Allura bites at him, angry. "I'm not a child any longer! Soon after the incident, Zarkon's Galran extremist group rose in prominence. You should have told me! You should have- we need to know every risk! I thought I knew the dangers! And I've just been encouraging my paladins, my friends to muddle through a dark area through a psychic connection because the information was forbidden!"

Allura's seriously upset about this. She's practically on fire, a pot about to bubble over. Lance knows that her father is a soft spot, but this... this isn't about any of them, in particular. It's about Voltron.

"Allura?" Lance takes a chance. He reaches out to her, his hand barely brushing her arm. Allura jerks away, and the movement hurts like getting spat with hot oil.

"Coran," Allura steels herself. "Why is Voltron vulnerable. Who was he vulnerable to then, and who is he vulnerable to now? All of the paladins from those days were banished from Voltron and from their lions. There is only one whom I can possibly consider-"

Coran looks older than he ever has before.

"The black paladin," He answers.

Everyone's head swivels towards Shiro, gobsmacked.

"Me?" Shiro is shocked, but it's hidden away. Business, then panic. "How? Is it because of this?"

He lifts the arm the Galra took from him.

"Not that black paladin."

Allura's eyebrows shoot up. Lance can fairly hear her heartbeat speed, if he strains.

He also hears the nearly inaudible "Not Zarkon," as it drops from her lips.

AN: Writer's block and real life are horrible, awful things that blot out all willingness to write. Don't let anybody tell you otherwise. But I finally got some time to write and wouldn't you know it, on the exact same day the second season came out. I'm only up to episode 10, but whoo, boy. That's some good stuff. Mmm, worldbuilding.

Rest assured, I will FINISH THIS FIC! Keeping in mind the stuff I've learned from season 2, the stuff I remember from season 1, while trying to keep the story straight and not confusing. Hopefully I'll upload quickly now that I've gotten back into a writing groove. Wish me luck!

As per usual, thank you to all who have fav'd, followed, and reviewed! Reviews let me know what's good and what needs tweaking under the hood.