A Paladin's Blade

Leaving Earth

"Here we go." Lance said, relaxing into the chair. Then unexpectedly, it pulled forward, a hologram control panel appearing. The rest of the group entered the cockpit and looked around the lion. Sirafina stood behind Pidge, her hands on the pilot seat, examining the control panel. She had never seen anything so technologically advanced. Not even the Garrison Tech could do that.

"Heheh! All right! Very nice!" Lance laughed, a screen turning on, showing them their surroundings.

"OK guys, I-I feel the need to point out, just so that we're all, y'know, aware: We are in some kind of futuristic alien cat head right now." Hunk said, gesturing to the inside of the lion. Sirafina smiled but then she noticed Lance looked really out of it. She placed her hand on his shoulder to see if he was alright but he didn't react. Finally, after a couple of seconds, he turned his head to Hunk.

"Whoa, did you guys just hear that?" Lance asked, looking to see if anyone else had.

"Hear what?" Keith asked confused, waiting for Lance to respond.

"I-I think it's talking to me. Hmm... Um..." Lance started, his voice veering off as he started to press a few buttons on the control panel. The lion then stood up and roared, causing Sirafina to lose her footing, falling back into Shiro. He helped her up quickly, accepting her thanks for catching her. Hunk and Pidge looked out the window horrified, totally not expecting what had just happened. Shiro and Keith just stood there amazed, waiting for something more to happen.

"OK. Got it. Now let's try this." Lance smirked, pushing the levers in front of him forward. The lion shot up out of the cave and started flipping and twirling through the air. Everyone grabbed onto the seat, trying to stay upright as Lance flew the lion like a maniac. This however, did earn a reaction from Keith.

"YOU ARE. THE WORST. PILOT. EVER." Keith yelled, just before the lion boosted again and shot through the air. Sirafina looked up from where she was holding on for her life, seeing Keith leaning forwards, his eyes closed. The sight was actually kind of funny to her. Keith had always done tricks in the simulator, not nearly as crazy as these, but she would have never expected him to be a little scared right now. The lion landed, and started running across the desert floor at a high speed.

"Isn't this awesome?!" Lance smiled excitedly, but the same response could be said for the rest of the team.

"Make it stop! Make it stop!" Hunk cried, starting to look nauseous.

"I'm not making it do anything. It's like it's on autopilot!" Lance clarified. With that, the lion shot into the air climbing through the atmosphere.

"Where are you going?!" Keith exclaimed loudly.

"I just said it's on autopilot! It says there's an alien ship approaching Earth. I think we're supposed to stop it." Lance repeated himself, the lion continuing to fly higher.

"What did it say, exactly?!" Pidge demanded.

"Well, it's not like it's saying words, more like feeding ideas into my brain. Kind of." Lance responded, and glared at Pidge.

"Oh so it's purring into your frontal-cortex?" Sirafina asked sarcastically, looking unconvinced.

"Yeah! That!" Lance exclaimed.

"Huh. Guess you're the insane one," Sirafina muttered to herself, thinking back to last night when Lance accused Pidge of being insane.

"Well, if this thing is the weapon they're coming for, why don't we just, like—I don't know, give it to them? Maybe they'll leave us alone. Sorry, Lion, nothing personal." Hunk said, looking around at the others and then at the lion as he apologized to it.