Part One


It was a simple mission: escort a diplomat to another planet and avoid being detected by the Galra warlords that roamed that specific solar system. It seemed easy enough, Keith reasoned with himself, but the diplomat, Caldurn of Tylexia, and his entourage insisted on having the entirety of Voltron leading them to safety, so all five lions were deployed and flew in a protective formation around the ship.

Unfortunately, trying to go undetected was close to impossible and an entire fleet was on their tails before they were halfway through their trip.

"Guys, I think we need to get the ship to safety before we do anything else," Lance remarked through the comms.

Keith agreed instantly and hailed the diplomat's ship. When the link was connected, he was instantly greeted with the entire crew panicking and the diplomat running around like a maniac. As he rolled his lion out of the way of the cruiser's laser, he shouted, "Sir, you're going to need to get to safety! Take your ship and head to the closest planet in this system."

Caldurn waddled to the communicator - a tall alien that reminded Keith of an ostrich - and he shrieked, "You're supposed to protect us, paladins! What if they follow us?"

Keith activated his dual jaw blades and sliced through a dozen fighter ships before replying, "They're not here for you, Caldurn. Just get your ship to safety and we'll take care of the Galra. When we're done, we'll come back and get you and finish this mission."

He shut off the communicator before Caldurn could argue further, then went to aid Pidge and Allura. He shot down the fighters that had been pursuing them, then zoomed past their turning lions to get to Hunk's position at the cruiser.

"Thanks, Keith!" Allura called as she went to help Lance. "The Tylexian ship is heading towards that planet, so we're in the clear."

But they weren't. Another entire fleet of Galra fighters and cruisers just warped to their location, and were already raining fire down upon them. Keith grunted as he reared the Black Lion back and spun out of the way of more fighter blasts. "Pidge! Check your scanners for any nearby moons or asteroids fields we could use for cover - anything other than the planet where the Tylexian ship is hiding."

"On it!" Pidge replied as she swiped through a line of fighters with her jaw blade. Two ticks went by before her face lit up his screen again. "There's a moon with a jungle-like terrain. There's enough foliage to cover us and prevent the Galra from finding us for a while."

"Send us the coordinates," Keith ordered. As soon as the popped up on his screen, he opened the lines to the others. "Okay, paladins, go to those coordinates as fast as you can. We can't take on all of these fleets by ourselves so we have to hide."

There was a chorus of affirmations and soon all five lions were flying at top speed towards the jungle moon. Lance was first to break through the atmosphere, followed quickly by Keith, Pidge and Allura, and lastly Hunk. A handful of Galra fighters kept in pursuit, but as soon as the lions broke through the treeline they were lost. The sounds of explosions above the canopy told Keith they had crashed, but there was no way to be sure while they were hiding.

"Uh, guys," Lance spoke through the comms. "I think we have a-"

Before he could finish, vines reached out and grabbed all of the lions, and the trees actually moved to block their paths. All of the paladins were screaming in shock, the power in their lions going out as they were dragged to the underbrush by sentient plants.

Keith struggled to pull Black from the grips of the oversized vines, but he was quickly jostled from his seat, slamming his head against the console and blacking out as the screams of his comrades filled his ears.


"Keith!"

"Keith! Wake up, buddy!"

Allura did her best to wrestle Blue out of the vines, but she was just as tangled up as everyone else. Lance and Red were upside down above her, and Pidge had to be somewhere behind her. Hunk and Yellow were sprawled out on the underbrush of the jungle, strapped down to a ginormous flower like an animal ready for slaughter.

And Keith? He and Black were being dragged away by the vines, the paladin not answering the calls of his comrades as Black was pulled deeper into the shadows of the monstrous trees.

Allura's eyes burned and she tried using the freeze ray again, but Blue was not responding to her call. "Quiznak! Keith! Please, answer!"

There was groaning in her ears, then a huff of breath against the microphone. "I'm here, Princess."

"Thank goodness!" Hunk sighed in her other ear. She could imagine him panicking. "What do we do, Keith?"

Keith grunted again and she heard him say an Earth curse word under his breath. Shit, was it? An interesting choice of word that suited the circumstance, definitely. "We can't let these vines destroy the lions."

"Duh, Einstein," Lance snorted. "How about a plan, team leader?"

"I'm working on it, Lance," Keith hissed and Allura saw the eyes of the Black Lion light up from the darkness in which it had been pulled. There was a roar, but nothing followed. "Shit. I can't move. Can anyone work their lions?"

"Nope."

"Not me."

Allura sighed, "I cannot."

"Green is still online but my jaws have been forced shut by the vines."

"Shit."

"Can we try to form Voltron?" Lance asked, then a distinctive sound of him jiggling his controls filled Allura's ears.

"Can't do that if there's no power," Pidge replied. "And it seems like only the Black and Green Lions are even powered on right now."

"Shit." That time it was Allura.

There was a pause, then a snort from Keith. "Princess, did you just say 'shit?'"

She was a little confused. "Did I not use it in proper context? It seemed like a good moment as any."

"Better than telling someone to shut their quiznak," Keith immediately replied with that same fondness he always used when he spoke to her.

"Hey!" Lance interjected. "How was I supposed to know that I basically said 'shut your fu-'"

"Guys!" Hunk shouted, causing everyone to straighten up. "Please focus! Deadly vines trying to kill us, remember?"

"Hang tight, guys," Keith declared before his lion roared loud enough to shake the whole forest. The eyes glowed again and Allura watched as the Black Lion ripped through the vines that had constricted around its body, formed the dual jaw blades and went about to freeing the others. Pidge was freed first and her lion began assaulting the vines trapping Hunk, countering with vines of her own. Black soared past Blue and Allura gripped her controls as she was slowly freed. As soon as the vines retreated, Blue came back online and she helped free Lance with her ice ray.

"Everyone on me. Pidge, find a mountain or something out of these trees."

"You got it."

"Lance and Allura, protect us with your fire and ice rays."

"On it!"

"Right behind you!"

As Pidge searched for a place for them to hide, Allura kept freezing vines that tried to tie them down as they raced through the trees. It seemed that the trees were getting thicker as they kept moving, so Keith steered them away and up through the canopy. Allura hoped this would get the vines away from them.

"There!"

Coordinates popped up on Allura's screen and soon all five lions were racing on. As they broke through the treeline, a large plateau came into view that overlooked the entire moon. No structures, no more vegetation. It was high enough that it almost pierced through the thin atmosphere that surrounded the moon.

The lions all landed, out of the reach of the homicidal vines, and the paladins were quick to get out of their cockpits to convene.

"Okay, so what now?" Hunk asked what had been on everyone's minds. "The Tylexians won't wait forever, and I'm sure Caldurn will freak out if we don't get there as soon as possible."

"Those vines really did a number on the lions," Pidge stated as she looked at her micro computer. "The diagnostics aren't looking good, and we'll have to wait until the power cores recharge a little. This planet has decent amounts of quintessence that the lions can absorb, but it'll take a while."

"Plus, we can't take off when that is in the way."

All eyes went to Keith, who was looking up at the sky. They all followed his gaze and saw another planetoid dipping into the atmosphere, taking up almost the entire sky as it moved.

"Keith's right," Pidge said. She was looking at her screen again and Allura could see the drop of her shoulders as she read the numbers. "It looks like the moon we're on is larger, but the smaller one is denser so its gravity would just pull us in and we'd have a harder time blasting off, especially with low power. We better stay here until the lions are ready to go and then head to that planet with the Tylexians."

Lance was the first to speak up with a huff, "It beats being lost in space, right? Anyone have food?"

"I've got some MRE's in my storage space we could eat," Hunk replied. Right as they started heading towards the Yellow Lion, the ground started to shake. The paladins all met eyes and Hunk was able to utter an 'oh no' right before the ground broke apart underneath them and they started falling towards the dense trees again.

"Everyone stabilize!" came Keith's voice in their ears. Allura did her best to fire her jet pack, but her back hit a thick branch and she was jarred as she spun in circles. Someone shouted her name, but it was dim in her ears as their bodies continuously ran into more and more branches. The ground wasn't coming as quickly, but Allura could see through her spinning vision a red flower that was the size of the entire bridge of the Castle of Lions.

Everyone crashed into it - Keith to her immediate right and the others sprawled over each other on another petal - and through the dizziness Allura saw some sort of pollen-like powder come up when they all landed. It filled the air and the moment Allura inhaled it, she felt her head spin and her lungs seize, but she couldn't cough it out. And she was too late to close the lower portion of her helmet, so she got an entire lungful of the stuff. It seemed everyone else did, as well, and were starting to feel the affects as much as she did.

Her head kept spinning, like she was still falling, and her heart was starting to race along with her seizing lungs. Vaguely, she could feel Keith grab her hand and tighten his grip, but it was lost when she gasped in another deep breath of the spored air.

Then, it felt like she was falling: stuck in a weird trip that made it feel like her consciousness was being sucked out of her by a straw and then deposited on the ground right as she fell. Her whole body hurt and felt abnormally heavy, and she faintly realized that they truly had fallen from the petals of the giant flower and landed on the underbrush.

The moment her head stopped spinning, Allura opened her eyes and tried to focus on the other paladins. It was so dark that she could barely make out their forms, but the other four were still there. And Keith was still holding her hand.

They were all panting, finally settling after that struggle, and she swallowed against the sudden dryness in her throat.

"Okay, everyone. Sound off."

Wait. That was strange. That was her voice that had just said that...

She blinked a few more times and swallowed again as she tried to sit up. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness - much quicker than usual - she noticed two things: one, she was much taller than before, and two, her body was starting to stand as well in her field of vision. As she looked down at herself and back at the body in front of her, she nearly screamed with realization.

"Oh, shit."

Four sets of eyes went to her and she watched with horror as her own widened and her own face went ashen.

"I have reason to believe we've all switched bodies."


tbc.