We’ve all seen this shit ‘ere where Lotor like smooth talks Lance “We’ll be powerful, your friends dont need you, come to the dark side, etc”

And so, they’re on a mission, and Lotor talks to Sweet BoyTM and Lance pulls an Anakin Skywalker on his pals. And so he and Lotor bond, and he becomes a trusted right hand man to the prince.

Meanwhile the others feel totes betrayed, and they blame themselves, but they also get angry at Lance because he turned on them.

And they meet him on the battlefield, and they ask him to come back, ask him why he would do this to them. He doesn’t answer, just steps behind Lotor slightly, head bowed. There’s a bruise on his face, they think, and he looks thinner than normal, but he wont look at them, so they don’t know what to say.

Time passes, and they learn to function without him. Their missions don’t go as smoothly, and they get injured far more frequently, and they realize how much they needed Lance. But they carry on.

And they prepare for their final battle, battlefield littered with different species, everyone that the Galra had victimized rising up. Allura, who took the place as the blue pilot, feels Lance’s loss more than ever.

The battle begins. They fight hard. Lives are lost, so many lives. Lotor is has grown so much stronger, so much more ruthless, more prepared than Zarkon ever was. The galra army is bearing down on them, closing in for the kill.

Shiro and Pidge are unconscious. Allura went missing among the soldiers. Keith is injured, Hunk is trying to protect them. The castle, Coran, has gone silent. The end is near, they are going to die. The Galra are going to win.

They see the ion cannons charging, hear the hum that signals their firing squad. They see the lights as they prepare to fire.

And then it all shuts down.

The purple lights that represented their fear go out. The Galra ships crash to the surface of the moon that they were fighting on. The mother ship that had ordered their massacre settled to the ground, slowly opening.

Two figures stepped out. Clearly visible, was Lotor, a knife to his throat. The second, who held the knife, was shorter, and shielded from view.

Hunk and Keith watched the slow, long march Lotor and his captor took towards them. Hunk raised his weapon, but Keith weakly put a hand on his arm. “Wait.” His voice was the only sound in the otherwise deafening silence.

As the two neared, Keith recognized the messy brown hair, the cocky grin that never seemed to leave.

“Lance,” he breathed.

“What?!” Hunk asked.

“Look. It’s Lance.”

Hunk thought Keith was delirious with pain, but as the two approached, he too recognized hthe blue lion’s true pilot.

Lotor was forced to his knees several feet away from them, Keith’s knife still at his throat. Lance smiled tiredly at them. “Sorry I took so long. I cant read Galra,” he said sheepishly.