Block V-128, Earth

Free

"Lance."

"Hmm?..."

"Are you asleep?"

"I was." he replied, somewhat cranky. He'd had a long day in flying program and every muscle in his wings was pulsating with pain.

He really could use some rest, but Hunk seemed to have something else in his mind.

"Good, 'cause see, I've been thinking."

Lance sighed. It'd been three years since they had taken Shiro. Two and a half since they took Matt. Yet, there the three of them were, still alive, now the oldest of the block.

"You don't say." Lance muttered a bit sarcastically, though Hunk didn't really take offense to it.

"It could work this time, you know?"

Lance lazily opened one of his eyes to look at Hunk through his little window from the corner where he'd lay to sleep.

He'd said the same thing the last time. And all of the times before that. It wasn't that he didn't want to escape. He dreamt of it, every night, every waking hour. Everytime he was tortured and broken he closed his eyes and tried to imagine the sky, space, freedom. However, Hunk and Pidge's plans rarely got them anything but pain and scorched feathers.

With a defeated sigh, he stood up and looked through Hunk's window. He could even see Pidge's honey eyes looking at him from the other window in Hunk's cage. She had refused to take the name Katie again until she found her brother and so had taken the name Pidge.

"All right then, big guy. Lay it on me. What do we have to get this time?"

It was probably halfway through their sleeping cycle, so most of the others in the block were out cold and the soldiers rarely made their rounds. The perfect time to plan for an escape.

Hunk had been halfway through explaining his new plan on how to obtain and sneak a small metal piece into their cages (which could be later transformed into a tool) when the lights went out with a low hum.

"Guys?" Lance heard Hunk whisper, terror filling his voice.

"It's okay. Everything's okay. There's nothing here." Pidge offered quickly. Her eyes had been operated on a few weeks after Matt had been taken away. It had taken some time, but she'd healed and now could see perfectly in the dark.

"I... I can hear running." Lance had always had a keen ear, which apparently came from DNA modifications and not an operation, which he was kind of glad for.

He was used to the laboratory's constant humming, the marching of soldiers outside and the sobs from other avians. But at that moment, the noise was coming from outside and the block was completely dead quiet. They were all waiting for something, though they did not know what.

Suddenly the sound of something metallic hitting the ground harshly made them all jump out of their damned skins. He was trying to make sense of the whispers in the row above them when Pidge let out a cry.

"Pidge! Wha-" Hunk had begun and Lance had turned to try and take a look through his window when he realized it too. The shock collar was loose in his neck.

And the metallic sound now made sense.

He pulled the damned thing off as if nothing, his neck was sore and scarred but he was free.

Free.

With tears on his eyes, he tried babbling to Hunk to take it off, but he was too excited to even be able to say anything coherent.