⚭ Seeking Assistance; Chapter Thirty-One ⚭

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"So how was it?" Shiro asks Lance, feeling the tension calm a bit once they had regrouped. Pidge and Hunk awaited his answer while Keith stood quietly off to the other side of the room. Their meeting place is an empty booking cubicle that hasn't been used by the resort in months, secluded and silent in the air of the setting sun. "What kind of intel did she give you?"

"She doesn't remember anything about last night. No side effects, no aftershock or soreness. Y/n was completely normal, she has no idea she almost died." Lance explained, hands in his pockets. His muscles were relieved and his skin felt rejuvenated after filling in the gap that Lotor left in Y/n's spa day.

"Somehow I find that creepier than if she knew something's wrong."

"I agree. She is lonely, though. Lotor makes her feel more like a... like a worker than a fiancée. Especially after he left her completely on her own today, she said she probably would have just gone back to the ship if I hadn't been there."

Pidge taps away at sort of digital notepad, too busy to care for Hunk's shoulder-hovering. "Thank you for doing something so last minute Lance. It really helped us put ourselves in a more positive part of her judgement." Shiro says.

"For a free facial and massage? I'd be the thing hanging off of Lotor's arm for the attention alone."

"Could you be any more pathetic right now, Lance?" Keith spat, teeth grinding in the shadows.

"Keith-"

"She's not some 'thing' hanging off of his arm. You were just in the right place at the right time." Keith sneers, glaring into the wooden floors. "She would have invited anyone."

Allura slipped a small, sympathetic frown. "Keith, please try to understand that this situation helped us very much. It would be best to keep any jealousy you may have at bay."

"Jealousy? You all think I'm jealous?" He asks, facing the group with a sharp turn.

The room shared awkward glances, but the agreement throughout the room is chilling. Keith's fists shake, eager to do... do something. If he were only allowed to abandon the morals that he doesn't even hold to himself, this whole situation could have been fixed weeks ago.

"In what way could I be jealous? It couldn't be that the one person who I know Y/n has liked before me just got to spend a day out with her 'for the mission'. Maybe it's because I had to see him make her laugh on the cameras in ways that I can't because some imbecile prince decided he needed to ruin a life so he could have a new plaything." He shouts, grabbing at his shirt, searching for any source of life stability at this point. "Maybe that's why!"

"Keith.." Shiro mumbles, walking across the room to approach him kindly.

"Don't touch me." Keith warns, so the offender keeps his distance. There's an anger similar to Keith's behind his stormy grey's, but a sheet of deep sadness layers over them. Shiro knows something he doesn't.

"I know you've been through a lot, but you have things to consider." Shiro says timidly, gesturing his hands to show his open honesty. "Just calm down."

"..What things are there to consider? I don't understand."

"Well," Shiro says, "you have to know that in most of the situations where we get Y/n back, we probably won't end up with one that acts like the way she was before."

"Well yeah, two rounds of hell with the Prince of Deranged City would change someone." Keith tenses his shoulders deeply, posture crippled and confused, engaged with concern.

"Not.. not like that."

"What do you mean?"

"What I mean to say is.." Shiro rewords himself. "If we do bring her back to our side of the war, we may not be able to have her back to the way acted around us before Lotor. She'd be the way she is now, only with Voltron in favor of her best interest."

"And?"

"Like I said, Voltron would be in her best interest, but.. not.. not you."

Hm?

Oh.

.......

Oh.

Realization cripples Keith until you could touch him gently and shatter him like glass. He jerks, eyes lighting up with a fire only blood could smother. They glint yellow and deep purple, raging with fury, outrage.

"So what you're trying to tell me is we're just going to let Lotor get away with obliterating us from her memory? We'll just let her walk around without knowing what she should know, what she deserves to know? That's not fair! It's not fair to her, it's not fair to me-" Keith starts, but Shiro places strong hands on his shoulders and retaliates.

"Things aren't always going to be fair Keith. If the world was fair, we wouldn't have to try. In this situation, there's not a lot that we can do to try! Her memories and emotions have already been juggled and messed with so much, we can't just go altering a human system as many times as it has been, especially if we can't put any of it back."

Keith rips his bayard off of his leg and swings himself around, twisting right out of Shiro's grasp. Once he faces the wall, his sword forms long and slender in his hand, and he slashes into the wall of wooden planks without mercy. He could fit right through the splintery disaster he's made, and he does. He walks out of the room with anger seeping out of him, searing and hot like boiling wax. The red lion roars from a distance ahead and lands quickly at his figure, bowing it's head to him. It feels the same anger as Keith, and she's ready to bring him to his war.

"Where are you going?"

"To prepare for Lotor's challenge!" Keith shouts in reply, reattaching his bayard to his armored thigh. "I'm going to face him, I'm going with everything I've got. I don't intend to lose."

Keith steps into the jaw and fixes himself in his piloting seat.

"I'm going to kill him."

The Red Lion retreats from the planet faster than an asteroid hurling itself through open space, leaving the rest of the team to watch with wide eyes and dry, empty throats.

"Hunk, stay here with Pidge and make sure you get everything you need when it comes to Lotor's weaknesses. Allura and I will go help Keith as best as we can. Good luck."

"Rodger that."

The team exchanged nods and went their designated ways, each of them crossing their fingers, hoping and praying that tomorrow will go as planned; that Keith's anger won't outweigh his ever-limited patience, and that Lotor will be true to his ever-sly word.

Yet, as far as they've known him, when has he ever?

.+0+.

This is infuriating.

You sit in the hot springs, embarrassingly alone and pruning in the warm waters. Other couples in their own jacuzzis enjoy sweet bubbly drinks and share laughter, while you look like the sad rich lady who bought herself three hours to boil alive in a human-sized cauldron.

Lance had rejoined his team and left you to your final activity of the day, which you had at least hoped to be spent with Lotor instead of boiling slowly like a seasoned potato. You had even worn a nice bathing suit, but you already managed to finish the remain two hundred and forty-seven pages of your book and were sitting in need of something to do.

Out of a three hour time slot, you had thirty-two minutes left.

"Y/n," That familiar voice speaks, "I hope you haven't been waiting long."

"Five hours, actually." You say with a passive-aggressive tone, closing up on yourself unknowingly. "I missed you."

A lie, however big or small. Hopefully it keeps you on his good side compared to what you feel like saying- no, shouting at him.

"Well, you should know that your time alone wasn't spent in vain." He says, causing you to let out a soft snort. Alone, ha. His head turns away from his bag and he looks at you curiously. "Why did you laugh?"

"I don't think you want to know."

"You.. you were alone, I assume?" He asks with a timidness that could be pushed right into anger with your next words.

"Nope."

"No?" He says with a low chuckle. On any other day, that tone would have sent you begging on your knees for forgiveness. Today, he owes it to you to give you a pardon. "Ah, the guide. I had nearly forgotten."

"Yes, but no."

"Explain." He says, getting a smidge more irritated than he'd usually like.

"The Blue Paladin." You say carelessly, picking up your book to read the back reviews again. The carelessness in your voice sparked something, making Lotor's blood begin to boil- and it wasn't the fault of the hot spring.

"Of Voltron?" He asks with a strain. You nod.

"He was the tour guide all along, but you were too busy figuring out ways to abandon me on a foreign planet instead of paying attention to that. He was there for me, he made me laugh. It was refreshing."

"Refreshing?" Lotor asks, sounding wounded in addition to the tone that sounding like he wanted to wound something. "I make you laugh."

You scoff. "You know what's really funny, then?" You nudge his foot with your elbow, teetering him as he takes off his armor to show his bathing suit. "Doing all of your mathematics and being abandoned at a foreign resort for hours on end. Oh, oh! And threatening me every time I talk about Voltron, even though it's never my fault when they show up and talk to me! Real knee-slappers, I have to say."

"I... I can't say that I'm fond of your attitude."

"And I couldn't say that I'm fond of the fact that I spent a better day with the enemy than I have on any other day with you."

You fold your arms and turn away in his silence, feeling so damn proud. You set your book down after you finish, leaving him with red hot anger siting on his face, richer and more heated than the hot spring you sit in. "What do you think?"

Lotor was halfway done with tying his hair up when your words physically cut him off, causing him to strain his fingers so hard the band snapped, landing with a zip in the drink of a woman across the cave. "I think you're in need of a punishment for fraternizing with the only enemy I'm trying to succeed at the moment."

"I disagree."

He blinks, fists shaking, arms strained so hard at his side that his knuckles turn white. "You what?" Lotor sneers.

"I disagree with you."

"No, I don't suppose you do."

"Haven't you heard of it? It means: what you think isn't the same as what I think, since you had every chance to stop it if you had cared to check on me even once today." You shrug.

Lotor is stuff, angrily frozen. "I thought you were aware of what may happen if you oppose my better judgement?"

"But is it really better?" You ask in a slightly-sarcastic tone. Couples had turned around to look at your argument, witnessing a flurry of power on your side of the debate for the first time since you woke up at Lotor's side. "I've been in this stupid hot wate for far too long, so I think I'll leave. I'd prefer to go to bed now."

"You don't know our room number, or which wing we're staying in."

"I know. I was actually thinking of going back to the ship while you stay here at the resort and consider what I said." You say, feeling confidence surge through you like an addicting adrenaline.

Lotor grabs your arm when you try to wade out of the spring, albeit sharp yet gentle. "Where did this new tone come from? You're acting... you're acting wild."

That was, quite obviously, your final straw. It snapped, you snapped, and with a twist you grab his forearm and press it harshly, threatening to snap it clean through.

"I am not acting "wild". No, I've stated that we've had a formal disagreement between us. I'd say that a mere disconnection of opinion is anything but wild." You spit, firing out an angry rant as if your fiery words were dripping with gasoline, and it feels damn good. "Now please let me go before I start asking about your secret challenge with Voltron, too."

And he does. You release his arm and grab your book, turning around with a whip of pride larger than any math problem you ever had to solve.

Yo walk out of the quarry with stomps that slap wetly against the stone grounds. After a brief walk as the third of three suns set on the dusty red cliffs, you find the docking bay and surprise, you were able to fly yourself safely back to where you found yourself most comfortable. (It isn't much comfortable at all anymore, but the resort is just a settlement of Lotor and your simmering anger at this point.)

You personally asked for a general to escort you back to your room, and settled for, at last, a night with the bed all to yourself.

When you woke up and noticed Lotor's remaining absence, you smiled. It didn't feel like sin anymore, to not miss him and be glad that he was gone, so you wore that smile all morning.

Today, you'd be doing something drastic. If anyone found you participating in your secret objective, you may as well be done for. Lotor has left his tablet in the ship, and you had quite obviously pocketed it once you had laid eyes on it.

After getting yourself presentable and relocating the page of his recent calls, you set it up against your vanity and sit, taking a chilling breath.

"I'm going to be okay." You say, finger hovering over the most recent contact. "Someone is on my side, he'll listen."

You press the button. It dials, loading up with the assumed speed of the most technologically advanced society in the universe. A click is heard, then a small whirr, then you're in.

"Lotor." Allura says, glaring up into the screen until she adjusts, eyes widening. "Y/n?"

"Princess Allura." You say nervously. "I hope it's not too inappropriate of me to request conference with you and your Paladins. I'm... I'm in a time of need, and you're the only ones who could help me."

She takes a few seconds of silence to process your words, then clicks into a new mood. "Of course. Is Lotor with you?"

"No, Prince Lotor is off planet at the moment. I... I left him there." You say, awkwardly brushing the nape of your neck. "Lance said something to me yesterday, about something Lotor did without caring to include me in the explanation."

Nodding, Allura calls throughout the palace for the Paladins, who all come pouring in after each other within the following two minutes. "You run a tight ship, Princess."

"Y/n?" Lance asks immediately, turning to the screen. "What are you doing up there?"

"I want to know something." You say, fixing your posture as the Paladins direct their attention to you, eager and concerned. "And excuse me if this is abrupt, but-"

You swallow, taking down all of your fears and concerns- though, that means that they'll come up later rather than now.

"I want to know about Lotor's Challenge."

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