What they don't know

Part 18

A blip. 

An empty space. A patch of nothingness. 

In many ways, a lack was a clear indicator of something. The same could be said for rift creatures.

As beings crafted specifically to devour quintessence (although that concept brought about another question - what came first the rift creature or quintessence?), they left a quintessenceless void behind in their wake which, somewhat fortunately, provided a work around for the lack of progress he had made in tracking them individually. 

Unfortunately, without a subject for reference, Lance didn't even know what they were made up of. At the very least he could rule out quintessence and, theoretically, most known materials that the living of their reality were made up of otherwise they would not have been sturdy enough to survive in the rift.

There was the potential that they were made out of the same material as Voltron but that was only a fleeting idea. There was no evidence whatsoever to support it so it was simply another theory they could throw out their to prove that they were maintaining an open mind in their investigation. 

Their lack of knowledge led them to fall completely back on the few things they knew for certain - that the creatures devoured quintessence. That led them to their current discovery - a minor rift in their reality, where a small back of the creatures had been congregating. 

Due to the number of them, Lance suspected it meant that the space between realities was vaster than they initially imagined, otherwise there should have been a constant influx of new creatures as they picked up on the scent of quintessence. Or they were otherwise occupied.

The latter was feasibly provable, but not without filing for a high profile mission that required the aid of the Vanguard paladins. With the small amount of training Lance had been able to impart on them, he wasn't comfortable asking such a thing of them. Not to mention, that he would rather not balance that with an investigation in the effects of mass amounts or pure quintessence - that should warrant its own investigation even if it sounded like it would only bear grim fruit. 

Lance had been prepared for his research to force him away from the Vanguard and the frontlines, potentially even permanently re-stationing him if it so called for it. Luckily (if he could truly call it luck), their paths seemed to be aligned for awhile longer to come. 

With Haggar being their biggest enemy at the moment, any conflicts with her or the places her forces were concentrated in required the attention and handling of the Vanguard, causing them to be shuttled around the frontlines constantly. 

As Lance's and Haggar's interests were lined up for the time being, it also coincidentally meant that Lance's search brought him to the same destination. Lance almost considered it fate.

"What are you smiling to yourself about?" 

Matt was tinkering away absently on top of Lance's drawers, geared up and ready to go - just waiting on Lance. 

"Nothing," Lance picked up his humming against, getting ready in no real rush. He had been pulling on these kinds of armour for years, there came a point where they all felt the same - taking no real effort to slip in and out of. 

When he was a paladin, there had always been a strict time limit on how long it should take him to get ready, thinking about it had always made him mess up and fumble. Once there had been a time so stressful he had been brought to tears by the constantly nagging announcement. 

But nowadays there was no need for that. 

The urgency was often still there if he was dragged into missions last minute and everything still ran on a fairly strict schedule when it came to field operations, but Lance had grown used to it.