"Who's there? Show yourselves!"
The world seemed the slow around the three frightened paladins. Everything happened all at once, too fast for Keith to comprehend. Four giant mushroom like creatures burst from the brush surrounding the clearing, taking up aggressive stances. Blood was beginning to pound in his ears, the threatening pose of the attackers, the whimpering of Lance from behind him, it all became too much. Keith snarled and charged, drowning out Shiro's faint pleas for him to calm down, stand back so that things might work themselves out.
All he was aware of was that his teammates were being attacked by an alien life form in a place they had no information on. The fear took over. His vision tunneled, the roar in his ears grew louder.
Then fire erupted across his vision. Mid charge, he snarled and bit whatever he could see, thoughts gone, only leaving the harsh instinctive need to protect, to guard, to drive away the threat. He roared, flames erupting from his mouth in a large and uncontrollable bursts. He could distantly feel the feeling of quivering beneath his paws, as if he had caught something in his frenzy. Blurs of motion, harsh waves of emotions, all centered around the need to protect, the need to make sure those who were behind him were safe coursed through his blood. Vision red, paws sticky with something he couldn't tell, Keith growled at an unseen threat. Purples and yellows floated across the fire filled air around him.
The next thing he knew, the world was fading around him, the shouts and cries of his allies drifting away as he gave into the heaviness of his dizziness and pain, pelt on fire, mind exhausted from a force he didn't understand.
Shiro was going to be a grandpa early with all this stress, he just knew it. He looked down at the huddles form in front of him, wrapped almost entirely in a very thick coating of webs to substitute bandages. The former red paladin had sustained many injuries during the frantic fight. He would never forget the horror he had felt as the giant tiger-like paladin had pounced on the incoming scouts, eyes zipping from one enemy to another in crazed fear. The young 'arcanine', as the escort had stated, had lived just barely, suffering from several poisonous wounds, a near lethal amount of toxins, and a very deep scarring on his side from colliding into a tree in his frenzy.
Explained to the fear-stricken Lance, who had pleaded with the poisonous scouts not to harm Keith, was that the three had been trespassing in Forest Fenerc, which belonged to the peaceful tribe the scouts had come from. The recent activity sparked the wariness and what Keith had seen as aggression. After they had managed to get Keith medical assistance and treated properly, the two paladins managed to find information from the rest of the tribe.
Lance was what the locals had called, a Sliggoo, a rare sight for those in the tribe, as Sliggoo usually dwell near the eastern part of the forest whereas they were in the west. Shiro was a 'Lucario', also quite the rare sight, as Lucario tend to remain in the mountains in their own communities, though that may have changed in the last couple years, as the medic had explained.
When questioned about Keith, Shiro was met with a grim frown and worried tone as the medic met his eyes. "Has your friend recently evolved, or been in a stressful environment?"
Shiro thought over the strange question. He had no idea what the small 'Cherubi' (as the medic had introduced herself as) meant as to 'evolution' it had only been three hours since they had woken up on this planet, and Keith had seemed relatively fine. Maybe the stress of being dropped on an alien planet had gotten to him? Was it the recent activity of the Galra before they had changed? Shiro shook his head, "I have no idea what you mean by evolve, but Keith seemed fine when we were dropped here."
Cherubi's expression scrunched in confusion. "Dropped? What do you mean you don't know what evolve means? Have you never heard of evolution? Why I'd hardly think you were lords with how little you seem to know!"
Shiro didn't think the small healer had meant it as an insult so he let it (and the strange title) brush by to make room for his own confusion. "We have no idea why we're here, one second we were on our spaceship with the other paladins, and suddenly we woke up here in new forms and with strange abilities" he explained, recalling Keith's frightening rage and the fire that had erupted all around him as he attacked the scouts.
The small medic made frantic motions with her...(hands?) as Shiro spoke, pulling out a small bell from the folds of her leaves. She rang it, not even looking at Shiro as he gave her a questioning gaze.
He felt the commotion outside rather than saw it. The shelves rattled slightly, the tiny medical cot shook, the leaves making up the ground of the hit quivered gently.
"Lord Dominick!"
Cherubi's delighted cry knocked Shiro's gaze away from the leaves beneath him, instead drawing his gaze up at the giant, looming green snake above him.
"You are Lord Shiro, correct?"
