SHIRO
Silence.
Heavy. Wrong. The kind that sinks into the stone and into his bones.
Shiro's ears rang from the collapse of light, but when the noise faded and the dust settled, what terrified him most was the stillness.
Seren didn't move.
Lotor didn't move.
They lay like two halves of the same shattered artifact—one limp in Shiro's arms, the other sprawled on the stone with his hand still faintly curled as if reaching for her even in unconsciousness.
Shiro swallowed hard.
"Seren? …Seren, come on, kiddo, breathe for me."
She did—but shallowly. Like her lungs were guessing at the rhythm instead of following instinct.
Her pulse fluttered against his fingers, disorganized and inconsistent, as if trying and failing to sync with some external beat.
His?
Lotor's?
Shiro didn't know.
He just held her tighter.
Behind him, the cavern crackled with residual quintessence. Dust floated in the air like motes of blue fire.
He turned—and saw Blue Lion lowering itself to the ground in a slow, cautious crouch. Its eyes remained wide and luminous, scanning the two unconscious figures with a mix of wariness and…concern?
Shiro exhaled shakily.
"Everyone…just stay calm," he said.
But nothing about this was calm.
---
KEITH
Keith didn't move from his spot between Lotor and the others.
Blade drawn.
Feet planted.
Instinct wide awake.
But this wasn't a threat he understood.
Lotor's body was still glowing faintly—like the afterimage of a star collapsing. Veins of light pulsed under his skin in uneven spurts, sometimes in rhythm with Seren's flickering aura, sometimes in direct opposition.
The bond was still active.
Still alive.
Keith's jaw clenched.
"Shiro?" he said, eyes locked on Lotor. "He's…reacting to her."
Shiro looked up, worry etched into every line of his face.
"Yeah," he answered quietly. "I see it."
The prince's breath hitched suddenly—like he was drowning in his sleep.
And Seren's body jerked in the same second, as if mirroring his pain.
Keith nearly swore.
"Shiro, if one of them flatlines, do they both—"
"We're not letting that happen," Shiro cut in sharply.
Keith didn't push.
He didn't have to.
The fear was already in the air.
---
PIDGE
Pidge's tablet was screaming.
Red warnings. Yellow warnings. Warnings she didn't even know the machine had.
"Quintessence surge detected—dangerous levels—"
"Bio-link conflict—irreconcilable pattern overlap—"
"Bond collapse imminent—fatal chain reaction predicted—"
Pidge made a distressed noise she would deny until death.
"Oh this is bad. This is bad bad. This is cosmically bad."
She zoomed in on their readings.
Two life signatures.
Intertwined like double helixes.
Rotating around each other but violently out of sync.
"This shouldn't be possible," she whispered. "Soulbonds are theoretical. They're story stuff. Myths. Not—this."
She hesitated.
Then said quietly:
"…According to Ancient codexes, this type of bond was only formed between…mates."
Hunk made a strangled squeak.
Keith gagged.
Shiro winced.
Pidge turned crimson.
"W–which!! Doesn't mean it's Seren and him are! It just means it's the only precedent we have. The only recorded version involves pair-matched essence sharing. But this—this is like someone tried to force a merge without stabilizing the anchor points."
Keith's brow furrowed.
"Anchor points?"
"Other bonded individuals," Pidge whispered. "The system said three anchors. That means Lotor is the first…and the other two haven't connected yet."
A chill swept through the group.
Keith's hand tightened on his blade.
"Well that's just fantastic."
---
HUNK
Hunk knelt beside Shiro but didn't touch Seren.
Touching her looked like a great way to get electrocuted by fate.
"She's still flickering," he whispered. "Not as bad as before…but she keeps going transparent around the edges. Like she's not…fully here."
Shiro nodded grimly. "She's phasing. Probably bond interference."
Hunk swallowed.
"And him?"
Lotor groaned faintly in his sleep, fingers twitching again. His expression was twisted—fear? Anger? Pain? Hunk didn't know, but it made him shiver.
"He looks like he's fighting a nightmare," Hunk whispered. "Or fighting through one."
A pause.
Then—very quietly:
"Shiro? …Do we help him?"
Keith nearly barked:
"No."
Shiro hesitated.
Then answered:
"…We help whoever keeps Seren alive."
It wasn't an easy answer.
But it was the true one.
Shiro wasn't sure what it was about Seren, but every instinct was telling him to protect her.
---
BLUE LION — (quintessence sensory POV)
Mist.
Heat.
Static.
Pain.
The human-girl radiated it—fractured, spiking, uncontained.
Her soul was tethered to too many points.
Her body was not built for this.
Blue lowered her head, touching the air above Seren's form.
≪You break.≫
≪Little one, you were not meant to carry such weight.≫
Then she touched the residual bond line still sparking between Seren and the fallen prince.
≪This one…this enemy…shares your light.≫
Blue recoiled.
Confused.
Angry.
Conflicted.
Galra did not share quintessence.
They took.
They corrupted.
They drained.
But this one—
This silver-haired, golden-eyed prince—
was glowing with the same burn as the girl.
A matching flame.
≪Impossible.≫
But the bond pulsed again.
And Blue felt it:
Fear.
Confusion.
Loneliness sharp as knives.
A plea wrapped in pride:
'Do not let her die.'
Blue stilled.
For the first time, her eyes softened.
---
SEREN
Her mind was heavy.
Her body was gone.
Her breath came as if from far away, like she was submerged in warm water.
She felt…him.
Not fully.
Just the echo.
Lotor's fear—tight and cold.
Lotor's anger—burning sharp.
Lotor's shame—old and deep.
Lotor's instinct—protect, protect, protect—
It felt like touching a live wire of emotion that wasn't hers but tangled with her own.
She drifted, hearing voices muffled through fog.
Shiro calling her name.
Keith swearing.
Pidge rambling.
Hunk worrying.
The lion growling softly like an enormous, celestial cat.
She wanted to answer.
But her mind was caught on one repeated pulse:
Lotor is drowning.
Lotor is drowning.
Lotor is drowning.
She pushed through the dark, whispering—
"…stop…hurting…"
But she didn't know if she meant him or herself.
---
LOTOR
He woke slowly.
Awareness filtered in like ash falling gently through air.
He couldn't open his eyes—his body felt pinned by gravity, quintessence, and humiliation all at once.
But he could feel her.
Seren.
Human.
Impossible.
Bound to him.
Her soft presence brushed against his senses like feathers dragging over exposed nerves.
And worse—
He felt her worry.
Worry for him.
His jaw clenched weakly.
Pathetic.
He tried to pull back—hide his thoughts—slam walls up—but the bond was too raw, too new, and her unconscious mind slipped past his defenses like water.
She saw the edges of his nightmare.
She felt the loneliness he had spent years burying under ambition.
She felt the part of him that whispered—
'Just once…someone stay.'
Lotor's breath caught sharply.
No.
No one saw that.
No one.
He forced breath back into his lungs, forced vision into focus, forced his expression neutral even though no one was looking at him.
He would wake soon.
He would stand.
He would reclaim control.
But for one single, private heartbeat—
before his eyes opened—
one thought echoed through the bond without his permission:
'If she dies, I die.
I will not allow that.'