It'll Be Alright

Lance never thought he was the most important member of team Voltron. Hell, even when Allura began piloting Blue and proved how much of an effortless badass she was, he knew he was never going to be the best.

But, he'd never been told to his face that he was the weakest link. No. Not until now.

"Don't listen to him, Lance!" He heard Hunk say off to his right, ever the faithful friend.

Their enemy stood in front of Team Voltron, plus Shiro. They had received a distress signal from some obscure uncolonized planet in the Gamus Quadrant. He'd had his reservations about answering the call, but Pidge had seemed incredibly excited and Shiro seemed like he needed to go on this mission. So, who was he to hold his team back because of his worries.

And yet, here they were. Fighting against some of the toughest enemies they'd had to deal with... excluding Zarkon and his son.

Lance felt his attention waver as the words struck a chord within him. This was no time for him to be distracted.

He realized his mistake too late, when his bayard was knocked out of his hands by one of the villain's robot lackeys. Lance tried to refocus himself as he kicked the robot away from him. A flash of purple indicated that Shiro had dispatched the robot permanently.

"Stay focused, Lance!" Shiro snapped angrily. His worry for his teammates causing him to be unnecessarily harsh.

"S-sorry!" the new red paladin replied as he ran to fetch his fallen bayard.

The enemy, who had taken advantage of Shiro's distraction and had managed to smack Keith away, laughed. "Aww, need someone to help take care of you during battle?" Keith swiped angrily at him and the alien blocked the blow. "Where did you even find this guy? Is he the newest member, or something?"

Ignore him. Ignore him. Lance sniped a few robots as he chanted the mantra in his mind. Stay focused. Stay focuse-

There was a startled cry to his left. When he turned to its source he found Pidge lying dazed on the ground.

"Pidge!" Lance swung the barrel of his gun over to the robot that had just hurt the green paladin and fired at its head angrily. "You alright?"

"Y-yeah." She answered as she stood and kicked the robot's remains before launching into battle again.

"Lucky shot!"

Lance looked over and found Shiro and Keith slowly overwhelming the antagonistic alien. He was still smiling, even if the two men attacking him were gaining the advantage.

Lance felt his blood boil. The sounds of the fight faded away. He didn't know where this sudden dark feeling came from. Maybe it was all his insecurities pooling together and causing this dark emotion to rear its ugly head? Or maybe, "I've had enough of this shit." He announced darkly as he knelt to make himself less of a target and took aim. When there was a space between Keith and Shiro, Lance took the shot.

With a raucous splattering, the alien's head was blasted from his shoulders. Lance, who had been so focused on the shot, sat horrified as he noted the charred remains of the neck from the heat of the bullet. The body twitched as it fell to the ground.

Keith and Shiro, who had spared a glance at Lance's outburst, watched with disgust as the blood slowly seeped from the fatal wound.

Pidge, Hunk, and Allura had managed to subdue the robots they were fighting and the few that remained fell to the ground, their objective of protecting the alien failed.

Shiro was the first to speak. "Uh. Nice shot, Lance."

The red paladin still watched through the scope lens at the scene. Shiro's voice didn't reach him as he realized he'd just killed someone. He was fine with destroying robots. They were robots, after all. Their fried circuits and exposed wires were nothing like the exposed flesh that greeted him now.