AN- Ta-da! Nothing to say except for—Enjoy!
Disclaimer- I do not own, or claim to own, any of these characters, they all belong to their respected owners, I simply create fanfiction with them. Any similarities to real people or real events is purely coincidental.
Shiro still couldn't shake the strange feeling that he got every time he thought about the legs injuries, upon looking down at his own leg again, he realized there was a burn but there was also a long cut right next to it, Four out of five paladins all having some kind of cut on their leg can't be a coincident, he thought as they exited the Green Lion to start the journey to Hunk.
After running and jetpacking for a while, a sudden groan of frustration from Pidge brought him out of his thoughts as he looked down at her.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
"My scanners just reset and now Hunk's signal, which was right in front of us, is far to my left. Check yours."
As he checked, Shiro noticed she was right, they were no longer going in the correct direction even though they were just moments before.
"How did that happen?" Shiro's confusion evident in his voice, he was hoping that Pidge had some sort of scientific explanation for this and could fix the problem before they ended up out of anyone's reach.
"I don't know. This planet does seem to have some strange readings being thrown around, but it shouldn't affect our scanners like this." She replied looking down at a screen projected from her wrist.
"Can you do something so our scanners can avoid the interference?"
"Maybe, but not from here," she took a deep breath before continuing, locking eyes with him, "Shiro, I think we have to go back to the Green Lion. I can't do anything from here like this, and unless you want to be spinning around in the dark on an unknown planet we have to go back to Green."
Shiro's dislike of the idea was obvious, but at the same time he was having a hard time coming up with an argument. Without their scanners working properly they would never be able to find Hunk using them, and with the darkness quickly descending on them they wouldn't be able to get a visual on him either.
"I don't like it," he needlessly said, "but you're right. We'll never find each other this way. Keith did you hear all of that?"
"Yeah, I heard, and I agree. Lance and I will hold up here, we all have emergency supplies in each lion that will last at least a few days."
"Alright. How's Lance doing?"
"He's actually looking better. He might even be able to move a short distance in the morning."
"Good, let's go Pidge." Shiro put a hand on her shoulder as they turned back around, he knew that her suggestion of leaving without Hunk was eating away at her and he couldn't have that. They needed her now more than ever.
"Pidge," he forced her to look at him, "I'm sure Hunk is okay. We will find him in the morning."
She gave him a soft smile, the gears already turning in her head as she planned out ways to modify the scanners and maybe even be able to contact Hunk.
By the time they got back to Green, the last shreds of light were disappearing, Shiro took one last look around they area before ducking inside to find Pidge already furiously typing code into a computer that she apparently kept in her lion.
"Did you get all of that Lance?" Keith checked after hearing Shiro and Pidge start to make their way back to her lion. Lance nodded his head, he really did look better, but at the same time, he was exhausted. Keith went back to where the medical supplies were kept, if they were going to stay here longer-and now that Lance's wound was no longer bleeding, and he had a chance to recover, the wound needed proper attention.
Lance glared at him as he came back, clearly unhappy with what was about to happen, but didn't protest because he knew it was necessary.
"Sorry, Lance, but we've got to sew that wound up otherwise you'll probably bleed out in the middle of the night." Keith said anyways.
"Do you even know how to do that?" Lance questioned as Keith started the necessary preparation.
"Yes, they taught us at the Garrison, remember?" At Lance's blank look he added, "Did you even pay attention to anything while you were there?"
"Hey I did pay attention!" Lance protested while Keith simply raised an eyebrow at him in disbelief.
"Okay, sure Lance. Whatever you say."
Lance glared at him the entire time he sewed up his wound, even as he gripped his seat tighter and his breath came out as a hiss from the sting of the needle. After Keith had finished, the puncture wound was bleeding lightly so he wrapped it and applied some pressure to convince it to stop.
"How did you even manage to get a wound like this anyways?" he question.
"How am I supposed to know? I was unconscious!" Lance argued.
Keith frowned slightly as his brow furrowed, he still hadn't found an object that could have punctured Lance like that, nor was there blood anywhere else except for where Lance was sitting.
"It just doesn't make sense; how could an object stab you and then completely disappear? No trace at all."
"I don't know, why don't you ask Pidge- our resident genius." Lance was obviously done with this conversation; he would never admit it, but now he himself was starting to wonder what had hit him, he wanted revenge on that thing after all.
"She has enough on her plate right now." Keith was zoning out now as well, he figured he could last another ten minutes before the exhaustion sets in and he passes out for the night, so he decided to use this time to rack his brain for the answer that had to be right in front of him.
Sure enough, ten minutes later Keith was having trouble keeping his eyes open while Lance was snoring softly from the pilot's chair. Silently thanking Alfor for the lion's ability to regulate its temperature, he laid down next to Lance's chair and promptly passed out.
"Hey Coran, what did you say the name of this planet was again?" Allura asked, trying desperately to keep her mind off of the Castle's snail speed as they were only running off of auxiliary power which, in order to keep other essential systems online, meant the Castle's speed was decreased to an unrecognizable pace.
"I believe it's Thrakzian Princess." Coran yelled slightly through the coms, he was currently checking the oxygen levels and other systems to make sure their limited power was still holding.
"I don't really know anything about Thrakzian, do you?"
"I'm afraid not, although I'm sure you could find something about it in the ships archive."
"Most likely, although does the Archive have power?" She raised an eyebrow, the auxiliary power was strained enough as it was, she doubted she would be able to access the Archive without pulling power from another system.
"On second thought maybe don't do that." He laughed nervously, temporarily forgetting their situation. "I'll see if I can get the main power up and running, at this rate it doesn't matter what we know about the planet; we'll never reach it!"
Allura sighed as she was once again left in silence, it would have been peaceful, maybe even relaxing if she wasn't too busy worrying for the paladins. I swear I've heard of this planet before! She thought, trying to remember something, anything!
At that moment Coran walked back in, "Princess you look exhausted, you must rest." He tried to persuade her.
"How could I sleep at a time like this?"
"I can guarantee you the others are as well. Rest. I can take care of this. We'll need to be fresh when we get there."
Although unhappy, she knew he was right, "Fine, but just for a little while!" She said pointing a finger at him expecting him to honor the time limit.
Coran had absolutely zero intentions of doing that, fully prepared to sedate her to keep her asleep.
"Hey Shiro?" Pidge asked quietly not wanting to disturb the man if he was already asleep. He was, but he had heard her anyways, humming out a response to prove it not bothering to open his eyes or check the time that he knew had to be an ungodly hour.
"Do you really think Hunk is okay?" She asked in a small voice, causing Shiro to fully open his eyes and look at her.
"Pidge, I know he is. He has the Yellow Lion to protect him, and his bayard. I haven't even seen anything on this planet that he would need to protect himself from."
"But Lance was hurt badly in the crash and he had the same protection as Hunk has!" Pidge had obviously predicted his response, firing back with hers after the words had barely left Shiro's mouth.
"Pidge," Shiro moved closer to the smallest paladin, "we all know that the Yellow Lion has the heaviest armor out of all of the lions, and you said it yourself the reason we can't contact him is due to a technical problem not because something bad happened. We've trained and fought beside him, we know how tough he is, he'll be okay for one night. As a matter of fact, I'm sure he's doing what he can to find and contact us."
Pidge didn't know what it was, but whenever Shiro made a speech-it worked. Every time. The logical part of her brain saying that it was just his personality, the way he was, but another part of her told her that it had something to do with his Black Paladin nature; something deeper and ingrained into who he was, why he was Black after all. She smiled at him, before a large yawn interrupted anything else she was going to say, catching Shiro's attention.
"Come on, you need to sleep if you want to find Hunk." He said as he leaned back against the side of the lion while Pidge plopped down next to him using his uninjured leg as a pillow, he shifted his leg under her slightly but didn't seem to mind after that. Space Dad mode activated. was all Pidge could think about the matter before falling asleep in her surprisingly comfortable location.
AN- Thanks for reading! Please like and comment so that I can improve. Thanks for all the likes and comments that I have gotten, they mean the world to writers! Chapter 4 is in progress. See you next time!
~Kiera540