Lance eyed Keith suspiciously, “What was that?”
    Keith shook his head but repeated himself, “Boot Camp.  You’re going undercover as a foot soldier in Arus’ army.”
     He felt his eyes widen even more.  “Why?”
     Keith sighed, “There’s been rumors of Drule sympathizers in infiltrating Arus’ forces to overset Allura’s rule in favor of Lotor.”
     “What about Red Lion?”
     “Sven’ll cover it for the time you’re gone.”
     He found it difficult not to growl, “How do I go undercover when someone is bound to recognize me.”
     The look on his friend’s face made his blood run cold and his words froze it solid.  “Allura and Romelle have an idea for that.”
……………………
     Lance felt slightly dizzy at being tugged, prodded, poked, measured and… many other things he didn’t want to remember.  He wasn’t even sure which way was up and which way was down.
     It had all started with a dangerous twinkle in each Princess’ eye, he’d tried running for his life but Keith had locked the door after he’d left, he’d been effectively trapped.
     Now both girls were eyeing their work critically before deciding it was the best they could do.
     Swallowing hard around the lump in his throat he waited to see the damage as they lifted a mirror so he could see his reflection.  When he did, all of the air in his lungs left him in one gasp.  He didn’t look anything like he was supposed to.  His hair was slightly shorter and a pale gold color while his eyes were a bright emerald green, a series of freckles was splashed over the bridge of his nose and his cheeks, and there was a slight scar near his left eye that just touched his cheek.  Add to that the fact that his usual dark cloths had been replaced with a white silk tank-top and a pair of solid gray dress pants… he was literally a changed man.
     Princess Allura smirked slightly, “Well, no one could make you look good, but I think we did a decent job.”
     Romelle chuckled softly to herself as he rolled his eyes skyward.
     There was a knock on the door and Allura cleared her throat, “Who’s there?”
     “It’s Keith, is our dress-up doll ready?”
     Lance watched the Princess grin broadly,  “He’s in the bathroom, but come in and wait.”
     Not one to be upstaged Lance caught on to the joke and let a gentle, soft smile curve his lips and put on an air of reserved politeness and a general calm, almost reserved.
     Keith came in, shutting the door behind him and stared at Lance a moment before looking at both girls and then back.
     Letting himself blush slightly, he gave a slightly embarrassed, but reserved smile and moved forward, hesitantly holding his hand out to the confused Voltron commander.  “I beg your pardon sir, I believe we have yet to make acquaintances.  My name is Leo Bryant…  You would be….”
     Keith blinked but smiled a diplomatic smile as he grasped the fore-offered hand, “Keith Akira, Commander of Voltron Force.  I must apologize… I wasn’t expecting anyone to be in here besides them….”  His words died as the two girls burst out in giggles.  Puzzled, he looked back at Lance, peering closely and then his eyes went wide in shock.  “Lance?”
     Flashing his trademark, crooked grin Lance nodded, “The one and only, but hey, if I can fool you into thinking I’m Leo Bryant it shouldn’t be a problem fooling others.”
     Allura took a deep breath, all seriousness once again, “I think you’d have fooled me too Lance, if I hadn’t helped do this, that is.”
     Romelle nodded her head in agreement.  “And if you keep acting like Leo Bryant, no one will even suspect anything.  But can you really hold up a personality so unlike your own?”
     Lance’s eyes hardened, “Just watch me.”
…………………………
     He stood in front of the Drill Sergeant along with the rest of the new recruits that had just walked off the bus with their duffle bags in hand.  He felt like running the second he saw the group he was going to be chumming with for the next six weeks.
     But out of all of them, the Drill Sergeant picked him to ridicule.  The buzz cut older man stopped directly in front of him, barking into his face.  “Are you ready far basic training, Mama’s boy.”
     Lance had to bite back a vicious retort, and he decided firmly that it would be the very last time he ever let Romelle and Allura dress him.  Pink was just NOT his color.  “Yes sir.” He managed to answer in a meek tone, eyes on the ground while his cheeks burned with anger.
     The sergeant’s face was suddenly in his as he spit out his orders.  “Look at me when I’m talking to you!”
     Lance looked him in the face but not in the eyes, more out fear of what he might see there instead of fear of the man, “Sir, yes Sir.”
     “What’s your name, Cadet?”
     He stayed at attention, duffle bag still in hand.  “Leo Bryant, sir!”
     The Sergeant snorted, “You know what I think pretty boy.  I think you won’t make it past the first day.”
     Lance didn’t say a word, biting his tongue instead and with another bemused snort, the Drill Sergeant continued up and down the line of Cadets as he spoke.  “I am Drill Sergeant Mcgraff.  I’ll be the one in charge of you pussyfooted swine till the day of graduation.  And by the looks of you I don’t think any but two will live that long.”
     Despite Lance’s instant dislike of Mcgraff, he could understand where he was coming from.  Most of them looked like rogue gang members, bookworms, overweight coach potatoes and few farm boys.  But he could see some potential… he wondered if the Sergeant did too.
     As they were dismissed he grabbed his bag and followed the others to their new quarters, all the while planning horrible things to get back at Keith and Allura for this privilege.
………………………..
     The next day he was woken up at five in the morning for calisthenics, and then he was marched to a cold shower before they cut most of his hair off.  It was shorter than Coran’s but during it all, including the breakfast of runny eggs, he smiled softly, spoke softly and remained unobtrusive but alert.
     After the hair cut they were forced on a two-mile run, which Lance, who had been running all his life, had no problem doing but opted to run with the lagers.  They were given ten minutes till lunch and Lance took the opportunity to introduce himself.
     The three people he’d been jogging/walking with were a slightly asthmatic boy with glasses who liked video games and was named Edar, a chunky boy with a red face named Alyn and a slow talking farm boy with freckles who was called Sivad.  None of which had entered the Army of their own free will but had been forced by their families into recruitment.  He could sympathize; after all, his Uncle had shipped him off to the Star Academy.
     He stuck by them as they went through a hastily eaten lunch and met at the obstacles course, lining up in single file as the Drill Sergeant had ordered.  Him and his new acquaintances were near the end, one of the ‘gang members’ was in front of him, a guy called Jerem Bernheart, another person Sergeant Mcgraff didn’t care for and one of the main reasons Lance was willing to befriend him.
     Lance let his attention drift to the obstacle course for a moment and for the first time in his life he was grateful for the difficult course Keith made them run every morning.  The course the Drill Sergeant had set up was a frail comparison to Keith’s.
     In front of him he watched Jerem start through the length of tires five heartbeats before following at Mcgraff’s command to ‘go’.
     He paced himself over it, going slower than normal.  Jerem tripped ahead of him and fell, Lance was about to jump over him when Alyn slammed into him, Edar and Sivad, not far behind.
     They ended up in a large heap just before the wall and not long after they could heart the Sergent’s bellow.  “That’s it!  You five have bathroom duty!”
………………………………….
     Lance wiped a thing sheet of sweat from his forehead as he glared at the toothbrush he was holding.  The Drill Sergeant had said bathroom when he should have said bathrooms.
     He went back to scrubbing the toilet bowl, watching as Edar worked on the sink.  They’d been working for two hours, the five of them, and until they had it to Mcgraff’s expectations they couldn’t leave.  Another hour and they’d be going without supper.
     His stomach growled in protest.
     “Leo?”
     He glared darkly upward and flinched inwardly as he saw all four of the others, including Jerem back up a step.  Carefully he smiled softly, masking the feelings he’d been going through.
     “I apologize.  I was thinking, that is all, what may I do for you?”
     Surprisingly enough it was Savid who spoke, slow and to the point.  “It seems like we’re all in the same boat.  None of us want to be here but none of us can leave and… Mcgraff doesn’t like any of us.”
     Lance waited as the tall blond looked at the others who were nodding in agreement and than he looked back to Lance.
     “The others agree with me that we should band forces and help each other make it through this in one piece.  Whaddya say?”
     Lance looked at them hard and saw for the first time exactly the thing that had made so many good soldiers before: Determination, anger and stubbornness.  Without a single doubt he knew they could do it.  “I’m in, on one condition.”
     Edar pushed his glasses up his nose.  “What’s that?”
     “If a person tells you to so something that’ll help you out and the rest of us agree to it, you have to follow it as best you can.  If you fight it you’re on your own, is it a deal?”
     Lance never once saw their determination falter as they slowly agreed.  But what he said next would be the deciding factor.  “Then let’s start.  Alyn… you have to go on a diet and a fitness regimen right now.  Edar… you have to wear the military issue glasses, I don’t care how thick they have to be.  Savid… you have to learn to act before thinking or think faster.  Jerem… obey orders.”
     Everyone looked at him in a silence that seemed to stretch on for what seemed to be hours before Jerem nodded curtly.  “Sounds about right but you need to be less polite.”
     Lance had to fight hard not to smile.  “I don’t think that’ll be TOO much of a problem.”
…………………………
     On spare moments Lance had all of them with him on the obstacle course or running.  Together they got Alyn to eat half what he normally did within a week.
     Though he kept his eyes peeled he didn’t see anything that seemed suspicious only a strange tightening of his gut whenever certain people were around.  But no one would listen to him if that was all he had to go on, what he needed proof.
…………………………
     He waited until dark a night or two afterwards, before he snuck into the Sergeant’s office.  It was easy to pick the locks and he looked through the files in the cabinet.  Despite himself he couldn’t help but double check on his ‘friends’ files as he looked through them all.  What he found, mostly in Mcgraff’s own writing surprised him.  Mcgraff wasn’t as stupid and unobservant as Lance had first thought.  The Drill Sergeant had noted the potential in his team.  He saw Alyn as a good foot soldier, Edar as someone who could do well in intelligence, Jerem had impressed Mcgraff highly and the Sergeant had decided that he would recommend him for elite training.  But Lance had to smile at Savid’s file, it seemed that Mcgraff had noticed what he himself had.  The quiet, slow farm boy was a natural leader.
     But it was a small blurb in Edar’s file that startled him.  It wasn’t anything that anyone might have noticed had they been just leafing through or if they didn’t know anything about the Royal family’s family tree.  But Edar was apparently a distant relative to Princess Allura.  He frowned at that.  If the traitors knew about the link Edar had with the Princess his life could be in danger.
     Absently he leafed through a few others, noting certain files that appeared too clean cut.  If someone didn’t want you to know who they were they always over did it on the small stuff.  Overall, the files didn’t give him much.
     He knew from a quick briefing from Pidge that the Organization supporting Lotor was looking for a way to make a public statement but hadn’t done anything note worthy yet.  Short of an attack on the Royal Family or the Palace, not much would get them into the media.  But they couldn’t risk having their identities known, or their operation would be a failure.
     He made a promise to himself to watch out for Edar for the next little while, just to be on the safe side.  He slid the folders back and was about to slide the drawer closed when he saw a file marked Leo Bryant almost winking at him.
     Casting a look around the office, feeling slightly guilty but curious he slowly reached down and pulled it out.
     With almost reserved movements he opened it and looked inside, wondering what Mcgraff had written about him.
     What he saw was:
 

     Slowly he shut the folder and put it back, suddenly finding a new respect for the Drill Sergeant.  It seemed that the Sergeant portrayed a persona in order to throw people off of the truth, make them underestimate him, much as Lance did.
     Quietly he made his way back through the shadows back to his bunk, acknowledging for the first time that he and Mcgraff seemed to have agreed on people that hadn’t felt quite right.  It gave him a lot to think on as he laid down and closed his eyes.
……………………………
     It was actually their free hour, and they were running the gauntlet (which is what they’d renamed the obstacle course).  Edar had gone to the bathroom but it seemed to be taking him awfully long.  Going on his gut instinct he excused himself and moved swiftly in the direction that Edar had gone.
…………………………
     It didn’t take him long to get there and hearing muffled noises from inside he quietly slide in the door.  What he saw made his blood boil.  As a rule Edar was short, not much taller than Pidge, and he could fight well… but not against six guys, all about twice as big as he was.
     Rational thought left Lance and he gave no thought to his cover, he just acted.  With a growl he shot forward, punching a guy hard in the head before slamming a fist into another’s stomach.
     A knife came out of no where and there was a brief flash of pain along his side before he grabbed the arm and twisted it, causing a yelp from his opponent.
 His head snapped forward with a blow to the base of his skull but he whirled, kicking the guy’s legs out from under him.  He would have continued but stopped as he heard Edar’s laboured breathing.
     The assailants must have sensed his preoccupation because they dispersed as Lance gathered the half-unconscious teenager into his arms and carefully headed to the infirmary.
…………………………….
     Lance was sitting next to Edar when he heard familiar voices, one of which was Mcgraff.
     A sharp stab of anger shot through him as he heard the door open, not even closing before the sharp voice cut through the air.
     “What the hell!  Bryant what happened?!”
     He hadn’t looked up when they’d entered, keeping to the shadows… but now he stood up and ever so slowly met Mcgraff’s gaze.  “What do you think Sergeant?”  His voice was ice cold and low.
     He saw Mcgraff blink but Lance continued to speak without waiting.  “Edar is a distant relative to Princess Allura, who was planted here by his family to verify the rumors of traitors amoung the new recruits.  They didn’t like him nosing around, so they did this to shut him up.  But I believe that they had wanted to shut him up permanently, they just overlooked me and my involvement.”
     Lance moved over to him, looking him directly in the eye.  “I’m going to give you a list of names and YOU are going to have them arrested, is that understood.”
     Mcgraff bristled, “Now listen here….”
     Lance’s hand went around his throat and he pushed the Drill Sergeant up against the wall.  “No.  YOU listen.  Do I look like one of your wanna be soldiers?”
 He didn’t answer at first, just watched Lance carefully as if he wasn’t sure if he had one or two heads.  Then slowly he spoke, “THIS is the real you isn’t it?”
     Lance grinned darkly.  “I’ll leave you to decide that… And now that I think about it, I have a better idea than having the traitors merely arrested…”
     Mcgraff eyed him before speaking.  “I’m not sure why you’ve kept your real identity secret, hell, I still don’t know your real identity, but I do have one question… are you a higher rank than I am.”
     That actually caught Lance off-guard but with a slight nod he answered, “Yes, I am.”
     The older man grinned which made him look years younger.  “Then by all means tell me your plan.”
     Despite himself Lance felt a sudden bond with the man and grinning crookedly he outlined his plans.
………………………
     War games.  Even now, he loved them; especially now, because he was on the hunt for traitors.  His plan had been simple, two teams: those who’d beaten Edar up and Lance and his own team, including Edar and a member he’d recruited on his own that not even Mcgraff knew about.
     They had conveniently let it be known that Lance, or Leo, hadn’t seen the attacker’s faces and neither had Edar.  Lance was pretty sure that they would try another attempt on Edar’s life to create the statement the so badly needed for their organization.  Only this time Lance would have an unexpected surprise waiting for them.  Despite himself he grinned maliciously as he thought about what he was going to do to them when he got his hands on them.
………………………..
     Lance fingered the blue band around his arm as he watched Edar ‘scouting’ ahead.  It had been an hour since the exercise had begun and he and his ‘secret’ companion had been watching the shorter young man for about half that time.  No body had taken a shot at him yet and Lance, who’d never been patient, was beginning to wonder if he’d been wrong waiting the three days before they’d put the plan into action.
     Just when he was getting ready to call it quites he caught site of a small movement and using the small earpiece com. Units he spoke to all the members of his team.  “We’ve got a bite people, hold positions until we’ve got what we need.”
     Lance blended into the shadows, watching dark figures moving quietly towards Edar who was peering into the darkness ahead of him seemingly oblivious.  The cover of night was something the group who due to recent information, called themselves ‘Empires’ People’, was trying to take advantage of, and despite the earlier encounter he’d had with them Edar had been ready to help.  The reaction of the other three had already solidified Lance’s decision to speak to hire-ups about getting them jobs with the Castle guard, maybe part of the fleet.  Edar’s strength had earned him that right and though Jerem had been unhappy about following orders he was a damn good soldier when he did.  Savid, on more than one occasion including the present, one had shown remarkably good strategical tactics and was a strong leader.  He was actually the one who was currently leading the others, no one, not even Edar knew what was REALLY going on.  They only knew that it was an opportunity to get back at those who’d hurt one of their own.
     Surprisingly it had been Alyn who’d been the angriest over it all and with the lost fat and added muscle, it had been almost as frightening as getting in Hunk’s way when it was dinner time.
     He watched as the group of shadowy figures moved forward from each side.  Lance gave Edar a sharp warning at the same time he gave his ‘friend’ the signal and had the others come in as back up.
     Edar swung around nailing two across the chin with the butt of the paint-gun before they realized they’d been busted.
     With a flying tackle Lance knocked the guy, who had started to pull his gun from his holster, back into his companion and sent a fist into the one’s face while executing a strange round-house kick to the other who collapsed to the ground without a sound.  Looking up he caught sight of the black-clad stranger grappling with a fifth who soon found himself tied up tight.
     Unfortunately, one was missing and Lance was about to go looking for him when he heard a crashing noise from behind him.  Spinning he blinked as Savid, Jerem and Alyn came over to them with an unconscious person slung over the large brunette’s shoulder.  Lance didn’t need to be told that the traitor had met with the wrong side of Alyn’s fist.
     All three stopped short but it was Edar who spoke up, “Who’s that?”
     Lance turned to look at his masked helper who removed his black veil and shook out his dark hair, “Nice work Lance.”
     Lance watched Edar’s puzzled face as it registered who the other was but the other three beat him to it in near unison.  “Keith Akira!  Commander of Voltron….”
     Lance glared at his best friend.  “Keith, I ought to kill you for putting me through this.  I swear to God that Allura and Coran owe me SO big time for this mess!”
     Keith crossed his arms over his chest and sighed in exasperation.  “Cool your jets Braddock, it’s not like you fought all that hard in the first place.  Sides I figured you’d be HAPPY to have this over with.”
     Lance snorted, “About the only thin I want right now is to make sure Sven didn’t put any dents in Red Lion.”
     There was a sharp intake of breath and Lance turned to see Alyn gapping at him before waving his hands wildly at his friends.  “It’s… It’s… It’s…”
     There was a gruff chuckle and Mcgraff came into view flanked by MPs who set to work gathering the six fallen men.  “So you’re the pilot of Red Lion, Second in Command of Voltron, huh?  Some how I can believe that… Lance Braddock is supposed to have a temper hotter than a volcano, and much more violent.”
     Lance’s face went red but Keith clapped him on the back, laughing, “Here, here, I agree!”
     Lance glared at his grinning Commander and growled, “I do NOT have a temper!”
     Which caused everyone to try and hold back smiles, except Keith who was doubled over trying to breath.