Two weeks. It had already been two weeks since Keith temporarily took Lance's place as the Red Paladin, and they still had no idea what had happened to their teammate. It was frustrating to say at least; especially for Keith. Across the duration of the said time, they had to fend off a number of Galra attacks, but nothing that couldn't have been handled without the Red Lion. Hence, a certain hot-headed teen was becoming impatient.

Keith always hated being out of touch with what was happening, thus the sudden disappearance of Lance left him feeling uneasy in regards to the Cuban's wellbeing. He blamed it on Shiro's tendency to go missing causing him some kind of PTSD. Moreover, Pidge's and Matt's discovery after decrypting the data from both bases added on to the uneasiness. Apparently, the Galra had gone to Tyrus for a reason; something regarding the proprieties of the planet being optimal for a big project that they did not go in detail about. It was unnerving not knowing what they plotted and even more unsettling thinking that whatever happened to Lance might have been what they intended all along.

The half Galra let out a groan, banging his head softly against the shiny surface of Red's paw as his back rested against it. He had needed a break from the entire situation, and after training for the second time that day with no results of taking his mind off of Lance, Keith resorted himself to going into the hangar to sit with Red. The teen felt grateful that the Lion had not completely severed their bond when he was assigned to pilot Black and was now happy to be reunited with her, though he would have preferred it happening in other circumstances.

He missed Red, thus Keith decided to spend some time with her while trying to evade reality, but what he didn't expect was for the said Lion to flood his mind with thoughts about the exact boy he was trying not to think about. Granted, the onslaught of images was a perfect distraction from Keith's own imagination that orbited around the thought of Lance being strapped to a metal table while mercilessly tortured by Galra.

"I thought you didn't like him," Keith teased after Red showed him some of Lance's silly doings. He kind of missed seeing the Cuban's antics.

A rumble traveled through Keith's mind as if saying 'I don't', though the tone seemed light yet stubborn; just like a child.

"Sure doesn't seem like it," The half Galra chuckled when the Lion let out a childish 'humph!' in response. "We really are alike, you and I," Keith added, a small smile etched onto his face as he thought about how once, when Shiro pointed out to him that he liked Lance, he had acted the exact same way; earnestly denied it. Though he knew that Shiro completely meant it in a platonic way, at that time Keith wasn't even entertaining the idea of ever becoming friends with the Cuban, as the latter seemed to be obsessed with the thought of them being sworn rivals.

Now that Keith thought about it, what was his current relationship with Lance? He considered the others some type of weird family, but Lance's place always seemed to be kind of in the air. With time, their initial fights evolved into occasional playful banter that could only be considered harmless and quite friendly; even more so Keith would sometimes crack a smile at the Cuban's cheesy jokes. All in all, he lately found Lance's company to be quite enjoyable, seeing as the teen was not as obnoxious as he led others to believe. Lance was a good person, Keith decided; a good friend. Red let out a rumble in agreement.

For who knows how long, the half Galra continued to sit there exchanging thoughts about the former Blue Paladin with Red, comforting her when she blamed herself for not being able to properly convey to Lance that at the time she refused to advance further because she felt something was wrong. Their conversation came to an abrupt stop when Allura's voice requested them to gather in the Control Room for an announcement.

Before he knew it, Keith had already gotten up, bid farewell to Red and hurriedly started making his way down the many hallways leading to his destination. Whatever the announcement was going to be, it surely had something to do with Lance or at least the planet's situation. Upon entering the room, the teen quickly spotted his teammates gathered in front of a huge screen, so he headed their way, stopping next to Hunk. During the past days Keith had spoken more with the boy, seeing as he was the most affected by Lance's disappearance, and he tried to cheer him up; though if you ask him, Keith wasn't the best at lifting up people's spirits, Lance was way better.

Sending what he thought would be a reassuring look at Hunk from the corner of his eye, the half Galra directed his attention to the screen in front of him; one that showed the image of some kind of map. Narrowing his eyes, he inspected the numerous green dots sprinkled on the map, some individual and other forming one big splotch of green almost in the middle. People, Keith realized as he let out an inaudible gasp at the revelation.

"Those are the results of the underground scan on Tyrus. As you might have already noticed, we finally found where the Ilphies are. Our next objective is gathering as much information from them as we can," Shiro spoke up and everyone agreed in a somewhat more upbeat tone. They were getting closer to figuring out what happened; getting closer to finding Lance. It was time for some answers.

So there we are, new chapter. Next time we'll find out more about the mysterious Ilphies and hopefully about the weird anomalies that caused the disappearance of Lance, so stay tuned. But until then, I hope you'll enjoy this chapter.