Warmth (Klance Warmth series Book 1 of +4)

3: Cold Foreboding

"Well, I've got some good news and some bad news," Coran announced, straightening from the lit panel he'd been focused on for the past hour or so. "Good news: the Princess and I have managed to locate two of the missing Lions."

"Sure, sure," Lance drawled, waving his hand in mock annoyance. "Give big sis all the credit. I didn't do a thing. Nope. Didn't even lift a finger."

"Ahem," Coran coughed into his hand.

"Bless you," Lance said graciously. "Better get that checked. Don't want to be catching space plague now, do we?"

"Space plague?" Hunk stuttered, mildly terrified of the idea. "That's a thing?"

Lance considered a moment before replying, a shit-eating grin working its way across his face. "Well, I wouldn't say it's a 'thing' so much as it's a 'creature' bent on destroying all food in the universe." Hunk gasped and Pidge rolled his eyes while Lance pressed on. "It's said the plague takes hosts and uses them as its puppets to destroy every morsel of food in existence."

"Not the food!" Hunk exclaimed.

"Lance," Shiro said with a heavy sigh. "You and I both know there's no such thing as a space plague."

"Really?" Lance asked innocently. "Are you sure? Would you bet your life on it?"

"Ah-ahem!"

"Bless you Coran," Lance said, concern sparkling merrily in his eyes. "Perhaps you should take another nap in a healing pod to be sure you're alright."

"Lance," Allura said, planting her hands on her hips and glaring at her little brother.

Lance slumped in defeat, glowering at his sister but wisely keeping his mouth shut.

"As I was saying," Coran said, giving Lance the evil eye. Lance just rolled his eyes and sulked. "We found two of the other Lions: the Green and Blue Lions. The bad news is we haven't been able to locate the Red Lion yet."

"This could pose a problem," Allura said, crossing her arms over her chest pensively. "The Black Lion is currently in the Castle, but it's locked away where even I can't reach it." She nibbled her lower lip in worry. "The only way to free the Black Lion is to gather the other four Lions here at the Castle."

"Why so much trouble for a Lion?" Pidge asked. "Does this have something to do with the giant robot thing we saw? That Voltron thing?"

"Voltron!?" Lance cried. "How do you know about Voltron?"

"You saw Voltron? Where? When?" Allura demanded.

"Woah, easy there, guys," Pidge said, waving his hands frantically.

"We saw it in a vision," Shiro offered peaceably. "It was when we first found the Yellow Lion."

"Yeah," Hunk said. "I mean, the floor gave out underneath us, so we fell into this super-secret hidden cave place covered in these glowing yellow carving things. That's where we found Yellow. I touched the glowing yellow shield, then POW!"

Lance jumped and made a small cry at the sudden loud sound effect but Hunk ignored it and kept talking.

"I had this vision of this huge, huge awesome robot. But it wasn't just me," Hunk insisted. "Shiro and Pidge saw it too. I swear I'm not crazy."

"Relax, Hunk," Lance said, recovering from his admittedly embarrassing display with practiced ease. "I know you're not crazy."

"Thanks, man," Hunk sighed in relief.