The Red Lion

Chapter 1 Bonding

Lance was walking towards the area where they kept all their lions. A few months had already passed since they had all defeated Sendak so, things were finally starting to settle down a bit. However, he still thinks about what happened that day. He had almost died back there, twice. It was because of that near death experience with his sister that he decided he should try to improve his connection with Red.

Lance got into the cockpit of his lion and sat down in the seat."Hey Red, after what happened back then, I think it's time for some bonding."

Lance began smiling awkwardly a little. He had no idea how to do this. Shiro had managed to strengthen his connection with black back when he was the black paladin but, he never told Lance and the others what he did exactly.

"Maybe I just have to focus really hard," he thought.

"........."

"Red, please."

Suddenly the window where Lance normally looked through lit up a bright red. He covered his eyes with his left arm. When he lowered it, he realized that he was still in his seat but, his background had completely changed. Instead he saw a young black haired kid with a mullet reading a book on a couch. Upon closer inspection he realized that this kid looked a lot like Keith. 

Lance began to smell something strange. It smelled a lot like, smoke. Lance's eyebrows furrowed. 

Apparently the kid that looked a lot like Keith smelled it too because he put his book down and smelled the air. 

"Fire!!!!!" Someone shouted from outside.

The black haired boy immediately ran out of the house and Lance quickly followed. However, Lance quickly discovered that he didn't even need to open the door, he literally just phased through the wall. Lance eyes widened when he reached the other side of the door before he continued following the boy. 

The sight that Lance saw was horrifying. 

A woman he did not recognize ran up to the Little Keith(as Lance called him in his head). "Keith, are you alright! There's a fire in my house and I think it might spread to yours!"

"It is Keith! That lady must be his neighbor," Lance thought.

Keith looked at the burning house with fear and worry written on his face. The house was burning from nearly every entrance and exit and quickly spreading to Keith's home.  

Then the firefighters arrived and Keith ran up to one of them and grabbed on to the man's coat.

"Dad, what's going to happen! I'm scared."

Keith's dad glanced down in surprise and relief at seeing his son outside of the houses.

"Don't worry, everything will be alright I promise."

Then he hugged his son tightly and ran into the house before Keith could say anything else.

"I'm getting a bad feeling about this," Lance thought while he continued observing.

Lance saw Keith's face pale as his father ran into the building. 

"No, come back! Don't leave me!" 

 Keith tried running towards the burning building but, his neighbor held him back. She continued to struggle as Keith kept trying to escape her hold. 

"Don't go in, it's about to fall!" she shouted.

 Keith began to slacken from exhaustion and began crying. 

"Please, just let me go!" he begged.

Lance couldn't take it anymore, he ran over to the boy and hugged him himself. Then his hand immediately phased through Keith's body. The Cuban boy realized that, none of this was real. He was just a ghost here. He couldn't comfort Keith here, all he could do was watch. He felt the tears in his eyes beginning to spill over, even if none of this was real, or in the past. He wasn't sure what was really going on.

Then there was a sudden blast in the direction of the house.

"No! Dad!" 

The neighbor lady let go of Keith and he dropped to his knees and elbows. 

"Why, why me, not fair, not dad too," he muttered between sobs.

Lance faced dropped and he began to tear up again.

"Why did he have to go," Keith asked to himself.

Then, there was a big red flash and Lance yelped as he covered his eyes again.

When he opened his eyes again, he realized that he was back in Red's cockpit. Lance jumped in his seat in surprise and glanced around the room in frantic search of past Keith. 

"Red what the quiznak just happened!" he mentally screamed at the lion.

"I showed you memories of the previous Red Paladin," Red replied.

"Why did you show me that then!"

"You must understand."

"Okay, that's kind of vague-Aaah!"

Before Lance was able to say anything else there was another flash of red light.