Full steam ahead! After seeing the new season 2 trailer they just posted today I felt a new hype to start writing again. (it gave me some new hope that maybe just maybe they won't kill off Shiro XD) Oh, any guesses on what the white lion is for? if so place your bets now ;) or at least write down your idea before you start reading so you can make a bet with yourself. If you guess right, treat yourself to some cookies or a candy bar or some other nice little treat.

Song suggestion: Starlyte & Krale - Artemis

on to the story!


For the next 2 days, Shiro seemed to be intent on keeping his word. Latia would leave once she thought everyone was asleep and sure enough the paladin would already be there warming up. It had been a rather eventful 2 days on top of that. Since then the castle had taken off and left planet Eris, making it impossible for her to continue practicing piloting her lion. Instead, she'd get some extra combat training with the others since they were on their way to rescue the people of some planet known as Bulmera.

From what Latia could tell Hunk was rather invested in getting there as quick as possible which made her feel a bit guilty that her arrival had delayed them from begin able to help the planet that needed them. The delays didn't stop there either as they ended up having to take the time to answer a distress call that ended up leading to one of the lions being taken and more time being wasted as they had to get it back.

Though once the Blue lion was retrieved it was back to being on track and everyone waiting for Alura to call them to action.

"Paladins we're approaching the Bulmera! Everyone come to the main deck." The Princesses voice rang throughout the castle.

"Well, here we go." Latia thought as she got up from her bed, scratched Disney behind his ear for a few seconds then changed into her suit before making her way to the main deck with her helmet under her arm.

"We'll be arriving at the Bulmera Soon, Liberating these Bulmerians from Zarkon's grasp will not be easy." She heard the princes say as she entered the room finding that the other 5 had already arrived. For now, she simply stood and listened as the others talked.

"So what's the plan? We go in there and just Pow-pow-pow and free the prisoners?" Lance asked with a rather confident smile.

"What was that noise," Keith asked as he looked to lance unimpressed with the sound effects.

"Laser guns" He stated with a goofy grin that only faded as Hunk decided to somewhaKeith's side.

"No lance I think you mean pbew-pbew-pbew nnnnnn chunk PBEW" Hunk stated, making his own sound effects that were actually rather impressively accurate causing Latia to smile as the younger members seemed to be getting sidetracked rather easily.

"That sounds like fireworks" Lance stated clearly not as impressed with the laser gun effects.

"Technically they're more like bachu bachu bachu" Pidge stated as she made a much higher pitch noise by comparison.

"I dunno I'm gonna have to give hunk my vote on this one. That was pretty impressive" Latia stated with a small smirk knowing she couldn't do any better.

"Ok enough with the bad sound effects," Shiro stated as he looked over at the group sounding a bit tired.

"oops… guess I got a bit distracted too" Latia started to think only to have that thought cut short as Shiro spoke up once more.

"besides. It's more like Blam blam blam" He quipped getting a bit more into the acting part of it than the others had. However, his own sound effect seemed to meet the most resistance as the other four chimed in with remarks of 'What' 'no way' 'you're crazy' and 'yeah, wrong'. As the younger members shot down their leader, Latia covered her mouth to try and keep herself from laughing. She'd learned something rather interesting; their captain was just as much a child at heart as the rest of them and seemed to have a good sense of humor at the very least.

"Paladins focus please!" Alura stated picking up the chiding where Shiro had left off causing everyone to get back on track and start thinking about what to do.

"We can't just go in there shooting everywhere, the Bulmera is alive and from what we've seen it doesn't look very good." Hunk explained causing the others to stare at the screen ahead of them that showed the Bulmera's read out. "After seeing Shey's people enslaved, it made me realize how bad Zarkon really is. And we're the only ones who can stop him."

"Okay, so we can't go into the tunnels guns blazing." Shiro state to confirm that he'd understood what Hunk was saying. "Plan B, we figure out how to draw the Galra up to the surface and battle them out there" Shiro stated as he crossed his arms. The others seemed to agree with this and quickly built up the plan from there, bringing up ideas and technology that they could use to make the plan work as Latia simply watched. She didn't really know what she could add to the team yet, so she didn't know how to chime in or what to suggest.

"Yeah! OK let's do this. Let's go kick some alien butt!" Hunk cheered as the plan came together and the castle started making it decent. He and the others quickly went off to their Lions and Latia was about to do the same when a Hand on her shoulder stopped her.

"Why don't you stay with the princess and Coran for now. You're still not very confident with your piloting and this is going to be a high-stress environment." Shiro offered, causing Latia to frown but nod in agreement.

"Right. That's probably for the best. I'll do what I can from here." She replied while thinking 'which is a fat lot of nothing' to herself. Figuring she took that rather well, Shiro gave her a quick pat on the back before walking off to get to his lion. Once Shiro was gone she grumbled a bit under her breath as she put her helmet down on a table then walked over to a spare chair waiting for instructions that frankly never came. Alura and Coran were busy working with the paladins and reading screens of data, leaving Latia to just stare out a window. Her attention was thin until she began to see some dark ships heading towards them causing her to be alert once more.

"Um, Princess. I think we have a proble-" She stated only for the castle to quake throwing her from her seat and keeping her from finishing her sentence. Coran and the Princess quickly got back up and to their stations to set up the shields and protect the castle.

"Hey, Princess can you come and get us?" Latia heard lance ask over the communicator

"We're quite occupied at the moment" The princess replied back as she braced herself for further hits from the barrage of enemy fire that was rocking the ship. "We're completely surrounded by Galra ships and we're taking heavy fire!" She explained as Latia hurried to pick up her helmet and put it on after staring at the many explosive rounds that were pelting the castle's defensive shields.

"Paladins, you need to get out of there as soon as you can." She ordered over the sounds of warning sirens.

"I can go out and start taking a few out while they work on getting out of the tunnels" Latia offered, figuring that maybe this was what she was meant to do? Be an extra member for when the others were trapped or busy.

"Get it together guys," Latia heard Shiro reply before answering the castle,"Alura, we'll get there as soon as we can, Latia, stay on the ship. If you go out there by yourself you'll be an easy target"

Latia frowned once more feeling a twitch of a sneer pulling on her face but again he was not wrong. "Understood." She replied once more standing around to do nothing as everyone else did their part.

"They're heading down into the tunnels. They're going to steal the Lions!" Coran shouted as he realized the Galra's plan.

"Paladins the lions are in danger you must get back to them Immediately" Alura ordered which caused Latia to tense up even further, she hated being so useless but she felt that she should still follow orders.

"Princess something's locked onto us," Coran announced causing Latia to glare out the front window.

"Great! What else. What else could possibly make this situation worse!" Latia thought only for the color to drain from her face as she saw a large battleship appear from hyperspace that was easily four times the size of the castle.

"What the Heck is that…" Latia whispered horrified as she started to mentally curse herself for jinxing them.

"Paladins, do you copy? There is a battle cruiser locked on to us." The princess announced which answered Latia's question. "If it fires at us with its Ion canon… I don't know if we can survive." Alura admitted solemnly which caused the white paladin's fear to skyrocket though she couldn't take her eyes off the massive cruiser.

"We're trying Alura, Shey is pressing her hand against the wall which apparently sends vibrations to the other Rock People who vibrate back, Or something? Hand talking? I guess the answer to your question is Yes we copy" Lance replied in a rather long-winded manner after which the communicators went quiet as they tried to figure out how to get out of their own respective problems.

While Coran and Alura worked with the controls of the castle a reply eventually came through.

"Allura stand by, we're on our way up" Shiro stated causing Latia to let out a small sigh of relief, thinking that perhaps there was still going to be a way out of this mess. "Guys, did everyone make it to their lions in time?" The leader asked over the com system though from what Latia could see from the castle windows all 5 were in formation.

"Come on Shiro, Who do you think you're dealing with? A buncha amateursWOAHA" Lance replied though the sounds of clashing metal could be heard at the end of his question

"Do you really want me to answer that?" Shiro asked in return with a teasing tone.

"No" Lance answered, in turn, sounding rather depressed before the team got to work taking out the multitude of enemy ships.

"It's charging it's Ion canon!" Coran announced snapping the group back into the reality of their situation

"Guys glad your back, but we still need help up here" Latia stated into the mic on her helmet.

"Divert all energy to the bow!" Alura ordered to which Coran obliged, quickly pushing the necessary buttons to try and protect the castle just in the Tick of time. Sure enough, before the shield could be destroyed Voltron was formed and moved the ship so the blast was no longer aimed at the castle. Leaving room for Alura to order a return fire and destroy the Galran warship.

As everyone began to cheer over the com system Latia let out a sigh of relief and slumped into her chair one more. She wasn't going to die just yet.

"Mission accomplished," She heard Keith stated in a similarly relieved tone.

"Just in the tick of time, the castle's defenses are battered and will need to fully recharge." Alura agreed as she got to work on setting up the systems to do just that. The was cut short when a new warning siren alerted to the group to further danger as an unknown object started careening towards the Bulmera's surface and landed with a loud crash.

"oh no," Pidge groaned upon seeing the container.

"Shoulda guessed that wasn't the end of it" Latia stated as she held her forehead.

"Please tell me there's not a monster in there, Please tell me it's empty, or full of space candy. One of those two, either one of those would be fine" Hunk pleaded showing more signs of fatigue than the rest.

"I don't think it's a piñata hunk" Lance replied to counter the plea.

"if it's the same kind of monster that attacked us on Eris we already know how to beat it." Keith pointed out as he used his bayard to summon Voltron's sword while pidge activated its shield.

"Hold your Ground!" Shiro ordered as Voltron moved to take a more defensive stance while the capsule opened to show a monster covered in eyes that proceeded to fire a Large green laser beam at the team causing Voltron to skid backward. Latia listened to the others talk amongst themselves about what to do leaving Latia once again frustrated that she wasn't helping.

"….to heck with this!" She thought as she got up and snuck out of the control room while Coran and Alura were busy looking between the fight and the many monitors they were working with. By the time she got to her lion and into the cockpit it sounded like the situation wasn't getting any better for them as she could hear them all struggling and bracing for a second hit from the thousand-eyed monster.

"We can't hold out," Lance warned causing Latia to hurry to have her lion take off.

"My Lion's weakening! If the shield sustains structural damage we're done for." Pidge added shortly after as they were pinned back by a third blast.

"Pidge is right" Keith agreed as Latia circled around to the other side of the beast without it noticing since it didn't know to look for a 6th lion.

"Oh, pidge is right! I'm the one that said we can't hold out" Lance began to argue only for Keith to cut him off.

"Lance watch your footing!" Keith warned and sure enough, the shield broke as Voltron fell to the ground and the beast geared up for another attack.

"Surprise!" Latia announced through the communication device and Before the laser beam could be fired Latia had the White lion charge forward and tackle the monster. Her one-time advantage of surprise gave her enough of an opening to knock the thousand-eyed monster's attack off track which was met with an array of cheers of relief.

"Alright team, let's do this!" Shiro Called into the com system again receiving a mixture of cheers as they got back up.

Latia smiled feeling a small sense of pride in the fact that she had been right to go against her orders to stay in the ship. Before she and the white lion could do any further damage to the monster thought, it grabbed onto them before throwing the white lion off to the side and went back to trying attack Voltron who continued to fly around trying to dodge the beams.

"We might need to think of a new plan we still can't afford to take another direct hit!" Pidge reminded as the beast started sending lasers every which direction leaving little place for them to get out of the way as it was gearing up for one of its larger critical attacks.

"Guys watch out!" Latia called as they seemed too busy focusing on dodging the smaller lasers to notice the imminent larger beam about to be fired directly at them. Before she knew it a strange but strong energy started to pull her and the white Lion towards Voltron as it attached to it's back and began to unfold creating a secondary layer of Armor over the titanous Machine. However, As it began unfolding Latia was jettisoned out of the cockpit so the White lion could finish creating a protective layer over Voltron.

Sufficed to say, this is not what Latia had thought would happen, leaving her to let out a shout as she panicked while tumbled through the air making a rather quick descent to the ground. This shouting didn't last for too long before her suit's jetpack kicked in and slowed her spinning fall enough so that she could control where she was going and she was no longer spinning around.

"Latia are you alright!" Pidge asked rather concerned from the shouting.

"I'm fine. I just wasn't prepared to get thrown out like that. Do me a favor? Make sure you don't step on me once I reach the surface ok?" Latia remarked in return as she tried to even out her breathing while angling herself so she'd land as far away from the fight as possible.

Before Latia could get too far the inevitable happened and the Thousand eye's monster's beam crashed directly into Voltron, the shock waves of the blast sent Latia rocketing away much quicker than before and with a weakened jet pack she made her way to the ground rather quickly receiving some minor bruising from the impact.

"Ok Team Voltron, let's do this!" Shiro called as Voltron moved from a defensive stance to a more offensive stance.

"I think my Lion's trying to tell me something," Hunk replied before putting his bayard into the slot and turning it causing the sword to deform as a large shoulder cannon to spawn on Voltron instead. Voltron Fired the canon at the same time as the monster let out another comparatively weaker blast since it had less time to charge for this attack. Voltron's canon blast was able to easily push past the thousand-eye monster's attack thanks to the extra energy provided by the white lion and punch straight through the Galra modified creature. As the thousand-eyed creature collapsed to the ground due to its missing torso the team cheered causing Latia to smile while she got up and looked at the mech in the distance.

"What?! No! how can this even be possible." Haggar hissed as she watched her beast fall. "You had the quintessence of an entire planet." She shouted at the screen in her anger with a snarl lingering on her lips. "I must inform lord Zarkon of this development immediately." The druid grumbled only to stop once she noticed the emperor standing in the doorway.

"There's no need for that Haggar. I've seen enough" he stated before walking over to look at Voltron closer. "So, the Altaians think that having one extra lion is going to stop me. Heh. How quaint." He stated quietly in an amused tone. "For now we'll let them continue to think that they have their secret advantage. This information is not to be shared outside of my head commanders is that understood?" Zarkon stated before turning to head back out.

"Clear as a Bulmerian Crystal" Haggar replied with a devious smile.

"Great job guys!" Latia cheered happily with the others as Voltron deformed and the 6 lions landed in a circle. The white paladin tried jumping to get her jet pack to work only to land back on the ground with no success. "Er. So. My jet pack got damaged it seems. And walking back is going to take me a few hours. Is there any chance I could maybe hitch a ride back to my lion?" She asked sheepishly, He'd have to find a way around this for the future. She wouldn't always have the luxury of being in an area where she can just be thrown out of into the open.

"I can go get you" Lance offered all too eagerly causing Latia to cringe internally once more.

"No need I'm already on my way" Shiro stated as his seat slid back putting him into the black Lion's speeder. Once clear of obstacles he took off thinking to spare Latia from Lance's usual flirtatious comments and forward actions. Even on a speeder, it took Shiro a good 10 minutes to get to Latia who was sitting on a rock formation rather bored.

Once Latia noticed the speeder on the horizon she stood up to be more visible and held her arm out giving a thumb's up like a hitchhiker. Once the speeder came to a stop she hurried over it and looked it over trying to find a good place to sit on.

"Thanks for the lift," Latia stated after the protective light screen of the speeder faded away to show the paladin.

"No problem. That was some quick thinking out there, good job" He replied giving a nod and flashing a small smile.

"So does this mean I'm actually on the team now?" Latia asked as she loosely crossed her arms and looked to the leader with a raised eyebrow since she was still a bit miffed that he had her stay behind for the more of the mission.

The question caused Shiro's expression to shift to confusion for a moment before it clicked that he'd been excluding her from fully being a part of the team even if it was unintentional. "I was a bit worried that you still needed more training. But I think you've more than proven yourself. And having the white lion added on to Voltron seems to be a good advantage." He replied which was enough for Latia to accept since it's not like his concerns were completely unfounded.

"I'll keep doing what I can then." She replied as she uncrossed her arms and worked on finding a good place to sit on the outside of the speeder.

"Right well- What are you doing?" Shiro asked as he looked at her confused once more as she tried to situate herself to straddle the short bit of metal that attached the propulsion engine on the right side of the speeder to the base.

"Trying to find a place to hitch a ride. There's no way two people are fitting in that pod, at least not comfortably." She pointed out as she tested her grip, sure she could fit if she had to but it's not like she was just going to jump onto the guy's lap.

"That work" He replied with a bit of a chuckle. "Hold on tight, and keep your helmet on so you can let me know if you start slipping." He offered to which Latia nodded and tightened her grip as much as possible before the speeder took off. Before long she was back in her lion and they all made their way back to the castle where Alura was waiting for them outside.

"Great work paladins, I'm afraid our work here isn't quite done, though," Alura replied once the paladins had exited their lions once more and made their way over to her. Hearing this caused the team's collective shoulders to fall thinking they still had more enemies to fight "Coran and I will need to stay here for a few more days to so we can perform the healing ritual on the Bulmera, with any luck breaking it into segments will make it more manageable for our health." She explained which peaked hunk's interest.

"Wait, so there aren't more, scary mutant laser monsters that we have to fight?" He asked looking to Alura with a hopeful expression.

"No Hunk, you're all free to relax for a while but make sure you're vigilant and ready to go if there is another attack," Alura warned Which caused Hunk to smile widely.

"Great! I'm going to go find Shey then" He stated before walking off to find the Rocky lady. Seeing this caused Latia to chuckle to herself as she took off her helmet.

"Well Somebody is smitten." She stated quietly unaware that it was loud enough for Shiro to hear.

"Oh, what makes you think that?" He asked with a smirking smile as he was being somewhat rhetorical. Latia wasn't expecting the question causing her to look to the black paladin with surprise before replying.

"He was making the face. You know, The gushy one that guys make when they're thinking of someone they find attractive" Latia replied as she goofed off a bit by making an exaggerated version of the expression at the black paladin.

"And you have experience with this I take it" He replied giving her a gentle nudge causing her to stumble a few steps away with a chuckle.

"Sorta yeah, I have two brothers, so I've seen them make that face a fair few times as we were growing up." She explained nudging him back though it didn't have similar results as Shiro stayed in place. "I'm the oldest sister so naturally it was my job to tease them relentlessly until they'd end up tackling me. Ah, good times."

"Well, that explains a bit." He stated amused feeling some sympathy for both her brothers and for Latia who'd end up getting attacked for her teasing.

"Pfft, maybe so." Latia agreed, shaking her head a bit. "Luckily we'd pull our punches. Especially now, since my one Brother, Garrett, He's some hot shot MMA fighter now." She stated with a wistful smile as she thought about her family.

"I can see how that might not end well if they didn't" He agreed, figuring that could be destructive to anyone not just siblings if they didn't pull punches.

"Ha, yeah. Sorry, I started rambling there for a bit. I should get my Lion back in the spare hanger." Latia said, figuring that Shiro might be getting bored of talking with her by now.

"I should probably do the same. See you around later." Shiro replied giving a quick wave before jogging off to get back to his lion.


So, what do you think? anyone get it right? what do you think of the extra Armor for Voltron? Love it, hate it? Oh, and what do you think her bayard should be able to create if she uses it before being ejected? let me know what you think u I already have a plan for the bayard bit but if I like your idea better I just might message you and ask if it's ok to include that instead.

Commentator Corner:

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