Fun fact: This story was inspired by the idea of Pidge as Peridot trying to flush herself down the toilet.

Please review, as it makes me feel alive inside.

...

Chapter 4: Together Breakfast

Keith woke up all nice and toasty in his big bed. His room was so nice, built up in a sort of loft, with stairs from it to the living room.

After getting ready for the day, Keith realized something important. The only food in the house was junk food.

So, sadly, Keith was forced to resign himself to eating a plate of junk food for breakfast. But what junk food should I eat? He thought.

In the spirit of everything Hunk taught him about cooking, Keith decided to try something new.

...

The process was long, and very brutal, but Keith had done it. He had started by heating up 7 waffles in the toaster. (it was more like 17 waffles because of how many he had overcooked)

Then, he covered the waffles in syrup. "Maple syrup. The trees' greatest gift." He declared.

Next, he added a large mountain of whipped cream to the top, and two bags of hard snack pretzels. Finally, he added exactly 12 blueberries to the whipped cream pile.

Keith admired his handiwork. "This is too good to keep all to myself." he decided. "I should share it with the others."

Even though Keith knew that the Paladins didn't really need to eat, he had seen them eat from time to time. And he knew Hunk would be proud of his concoction.

"But how am I supposed to get inside the temple?" he asked.

As if she heard him, Blue suddenly appeared on the warp pad. "Blue! Perfect timing!' He called out. "I made us all breakfast."

Blue stared at the stack of calories. "I can't stay," She said, "There's business inside the temple I must attend to."

Keith narrowed his eyes. "I know it's not the healthiest, but it is in a stack. So you could call it a balanced breakfast." An adorable smile took over his features.

Come on, he thought. Fall for the terribly pun and adorable look.

And although she did not show it, Blue was tempted to stay. Both the prospect of sitting with Keith and wiping that almost smug look from his face tempted her to no end, but she had a duty to attend to.

"Sorry Keith," she apologized. "I have to burn this." She held up a scroll in her hand that Keith had not noticed before. It had what looked like screaming faces painted on it. "Whoa." Keith stared, then without knowing why, took a picture of it with his camera phone.

Keith yelped as Blue had yanked his phone out of his hand. "Hey!" he cried.

But Blue had already used her gems to open the door behind them, and headed straight inside.

"I have to burn this too." she said.

"But that's my phone!" said Keith.

"Sorry, I can't hear you!" Blue called out as the door closed behind her.

Keith ran up to the door. He rapidly knocked on the door with both hands. "BLUE! That's the third phone this month! Coran won't let me have another one!"

But the door was sealed shut. Keith lifted up his sweatshirt. He placed his gem on the door. "OPEN!" he screeched. It didn't open.

Useless, stupid rock. He thought.

"Why don't you work when I need you to?" he questioned. As he pulled his shirt back down over his gem, he walked over to the counter. He stared at his breakfast. Guess I'm eating this alone.

Suddenly, Keith heard a loud noise. Then a total stranger, a grown man, burst into the room. "If I go down, punk, you're gonna go with me!" he screeched. The man held up the gun he was holding, and fired.

Keith barely had a second of reaction time before he was jumping in front of the stack of waffles, protecting it from a water balloon, and soaking himself in the process.

The man laughed. "Got you!" he said. Then, his entire head began to glow, and it shifted into that of Hunk's.

"Ha ha, Hunk." Keith laughed sarcastically. Then, Hunk smirked wickedly. Keith noticed, and paled.

"Hunk, no." he said. But Hunk didn't listen, and held up his weapon so that it was launching a constant stream of balloons at Keith.

Before too long, Keith was soaked through, and was silently fuming. Hunk kept laughing at Keith's suffering, right up until the temple door began to glow again.

It was not the glow of Blue's Y-like shape opening, but instead a yellow glow of an X.

"That's my door!" Hunk cried angrily, wondering who was in his room.

Shiro walked out, carrying what looked like a sword.

He came over to the two of them with an agitated look on his face. "Hunk," he began, "can you tell me why one of my swords was in your room?"

Hunk glared. "Probably trying to avoid getting whacked with other swords." He replied.

A flicker of annoyance past of his features, but Shiro quickly replaced it with a smile.

"It's okay." he said, "I know you took it, and I forgive you."

Hunk rolled his eyes, and ran past Shiro to the temple door, which was still open to Hunk's room.

As the door closed, Keith let out an agitated groan.

Shiro gave him a puzzled look. "What's the matter, Keith?" he asked.

"I made breakfast for everyone, but everyone just keeps leaving." Keith whined.

Shiro nodded, and turned his head to the door. His gem began to glow, and it opened in the shape of a C. "Sorry, Keith." he apologized. "But things we all have to take care of."

Shiro walked into his room.

And that is when Keith found himself faced with a predicament. He could go in after Shiro and have a chance to eat with his friends, or he could stay out here and eat alone. Shiro is always talking about how we should bond as a team. he decided.

So Keith grabbed his stack of waffles, and ran in after Shiro.

...

Shiro's room was large, and made up of several fountains of water, dripping waterfalls into a giant pool below. Shiro was standing on a fountain that was towards the back of the room, putting the sword he had had earlier with a bunch of others, each one suspended in the air by some unseen magic.

"Hey Shiro!" screamed Keith.

Shiro yelped. "Keith! What are you doing in here? You know it's dangerous for you inside the temple." he scolded. Shiro's gem glowed again, and the door opened back up behind Keith.

"Why can't we all just eat together?" Keith asked.

In a desperate attempt to get to Shiro, Keith thought it would be a great idea to try and swim over to him, and find a way to climb up onto the back fountain.

"Keith, you need to leave." said Shiro. His voice was full of authority, but Keith was nothing if not stubborn.

But as Keith swam, he felt a current pick up, and drag him down towards another waterfall on the other side of the room.

"KEITH!" he heard Shiro call, before he was sucked down the waterfall, and into an infinite void below.

...

Keith felt himself wash up on a shore. He held the plate of breakfast over his head. It was perfectly dry. He let out a sigh of relief.

Then he heard a crash. When he looked up, he saw Hunk moving a giant box from one shelf to another.

"Better." he mumbled.

"Hunk." said Keith.

Hunk turned around. "Oh. Hey Keith!" He smiled. "Did you come down the waterfall?" Hunk asked.

Keith nodded.

Hunk's smile turned sour. "Shiro's so mad that I have his stuff, but it keeps getting washed down here." He complained.

"And then," he continued to rant, "he comes in here and wrecks everything!"

Keith looked around the room. There was a hole in the corner of the ceiling where the waterfall came from, dropping into a pool that took up a sixth of the giant room. The walls were yellow and white, with small spots of orange in them. There were shelves all over the walls, and each shelf had something different on it, such as collections of action figures or LEGOs, movies and books, and boxes of machine parts and tools. There were also several work tables, each with some kind of project on them. The only thing that looked wrecked was a pile of stuff labeled "washed up."

"Still looks pretty neat to me." said Keith.

Hunk smiled once again. "Aw, thanks! I try."

Hunk and Keith stared at each other for a second. "Hey, Keith. What's that?" Hunk pointed at the plate.

"I made breakfast for all of us." replied Keith.

Hunk stared at it, and started to drool slightly. "It looks good." He complimented.

Then he pounced, snapping his mouth forward, trying to get a bite of the food.

"Hunk! This is for all 4 of us!" Keith scolded, yanking the plate away. "It's a together breakfast."

"Together, huh?" Hunk asked, still drooling. Keith nodded.

Hunk jumped for the plate. Keith shrieked in fear (although he denied this when asked) and took off for the door in the other corner of the room.

…

Hunk had chased Keith and the together breakfast through a long tunnel and across a bridge of floating rocks, with Hunk constantly shouting "Keith, I'm hungry!" In a sing-song voice.

"We have to eat it with Shiro and Blue!" Keith yelled back.

After making it across the bridge, Keith ran through the doorway on the other side. He didn't know what was in that new room, but he knew he had to keep Hunk from eating the together breakfast.

He didn't even register what was in the room before he grabbed onto what looked like a giant firefighter pole in the middle of the room. It was awkward, as Keith could only really hold on with one arm.

Hunk seemed to snap out of his daze at the sight of the pole. "Wait." He said, worry creeping into his voice.

"Keith!"

Keith turned his head at the sound of Shiro's voice. He looked scared.

"Keith, you shouldn't be in here!" Shiro whisper shouted.

"Why not?" Keith asked.

"That's why." said Hunk. He was pointing at the ceiling. Keith looked up.

Stuck to the ceiling of the room was a large, glass orb. It was red, and it had several long glass pipes attached to it. They disappeared into the walls and ceiling of the room he was in. Keith realized the pole he was holding onto was one of those pipes.

"This is the heart of the temple." Shiro said quietly. "Keith, you really shouldn't be here."

Looking back at it, the orb did look a lot like a human heart. But why was it dangerous? And why was Shiro whispering?

Lost in thought, Keith relaxed his grip on the pipe ever so slightly.

Big mistake.

"KEITH!" Hunk and Shiro screamed simultaneously.

Keith slid down the pipe, sliding down it through a giant hole in the floor he hadn't noticed before. As he traveled between the walls of the temple, he was scared, but not freaked out. In fact, as he slid down it, he came to some kind of room that was completely quiet, and was filled with what looked like clouds. "This isn't so bad," he said.

Then the pipe traveled through the scariest place he has ever seen. He screamed in terror.

…

Soon, Keith's descent of the pipe slowed, and he found himself at the end of the line.

Literally.

He was in some kind of room, filled with more of the glass pipes and bubbles filled with gems. The whole room was lit up with blue, green, red, yellow, and purple light. In the very center of the room was a circular pool of lava.

Blue came into the room from a doorway below Keith's pipe, and headed straight for the pool.

Keith stared at her. She pulled out his phone, and snapped it in half, before throwing it into the lava.

Darn.

Blue then pulled out the scroll. Her gems began to glow, and she used her magic to lower the scroll into the lava. It caught fire, and she placed it in a bubble. The scroll burned up, and smoke formed in the bubble.

Keith was so entranced by what Blue was doing, he didn't notice when Hunk and Shiro landed beside him until he heard Shiro whisper-shout, "Keith! We're getting you out of here."

Keith whisper-shouted back, "Why can't we just all eat together?"

Keith was really bad at whisper shouting, so Blue heard him, and turned her head towards him. And because she took her attention away from it, Blue's bubble popped.

The smoke seemed to form some kind of sentient being that began to attack the Paladins. The three gems summoned their weapons, and they each fought back. "It's trying to escape!" Blue shouted.

"Force it back!" Shiro instructed. They each struck at it with their weapons. Realizing what the Paladins were trying to do, the smoke monster flew over them, and landed straight in the together breakfast.

"It's taken refuge in organic matter." said Blue. The smoke had formed some kind of gain monster made of waffles, whipped cream, and chocolate syrup. Because he still held the breakfast plate, Keith found himself stuck under the monster.

A stream of syrup shot from the monster and pinned Shiro to a wall with its stickiness.

"It has all the power of a breakfast." Blue observed. "We have to destroy it."

Hunk tied a bib around his neck, and pulled up what looked like a fork and knife. Blue shot him a look.

"What?" he asked.

The breakfast monster launched a waffle at Blue and Hunk, pinning them to a wall as well.

Keith felt rage flare in his heart. "You were supposed to bring us together." said Keith. He forced himself up, and used the plate to move the monster forward. It howled in fury, but Keith still pressed on.

He came up to the lava pool, and forced the monster down by the plate. "All you did was tear us apart." he said coldly.

The monster was completely destroyed. The three Paladins forced themselves out of their sticky situations.

They all crowded around Keith. His face turned red. "I'm sorry." he said simply.

...

Keith and the three Paladins were enjoying a nice morning by making breakfast together. This new breakfast was even bigger than the last one, with two stacks of waffles, half a bottle of syrup, an entire tub of cool whip, and exactly 24 blueberries.

When they finished, the four of them all smiled all their beautiful creation. Then they all frowned. Then they all exchanged looks. One thing was clear between the Paladins and Keith. There's no way we're going to eat that.

"Let's order a pizza." they all agreed.