Chapter 3

The paladins were on a random planet, waiting for Shiro to be okay. He was in a healing pod, trying to adjust to his new body. "Is he going to be okay?" Hunk mumbled. "Only time will tell if the body with accept Shiro's consciousness." Allura answered. Keith was looking back on how the two of them met. "Is there anything we can do to help?" Lance asked. He received no reply. "I have been trying to contact the Coalition, but I can't seem to get through to anyone. It doesn't make any sense. There might just be some distortion I can't pick up. Maybe we need to get into the upper atmosphere." Pidge explained. "The lions aren't going anywhere until they have recharged their power cores."

"The battle with Lotor severely depleted them. If we had the Castle of Lions, we could recharge them but..." Allura paused. "Is there another way we could recharge them?" Pidge inquired. "They can recharge naturally given enough time and ambient energy, but that might take phoebs." Coran answered

"There's gotta be something that we can do." Keith almost pleaded. "We are on the Dalterian Belt, home to the element faunatonium. We may be able to use it as a temporary solution."

"Faunatonium? How will that charge the power cores?" Lance questioned. "You see, it involves gluon field fluctuations..." Lance cut Coran off. "You know what? Never mind. Magic or something."

"That's not far off. We're going to use the element to expand the energy particles within the cores. But first, we need a yalmor."

"Wait, there are yalmors on this plant?" Hunk asked. Coran scoffed. "Well how do you think we find the faunatonium? Yalmors have a nose for the stuff."

"Okay. You guys find a yalmor and get this faunatonium stuff. I'll stay with Shiro." Krolia put a hand on Keith's shoulder. A silent vow that she would stay as well. "I will also stay." Allura declared. "I may have exhausted the limits of what I learned on Oriande, but I still might be able to help in some way."

"All right, then, we'll get started." Coran announced and everyone that was planning to go started to walk out of the lion. But Romelle paused. "Wait, you just fought Lotor, defeated him, stopped and explosion that could have destroyed reality, took your friend's consciousness from the Black Lion of Voltron, and put it inside his evil clone, and we're just... moving on?" There were some murmurs of "Yeah." But Hunk spoke. "Trust me, I'm always saying the exact same thing, but these guys like to move on." Lance, Coran, and Pidge started to walk away. The Hunk and Romelle followed.

"He's going to be okay Keith." Allura tried to reassure him. "I hope so. You can't imagine all he's done for me."

"You could tell us." Allura suggested. "Maybe start with how you met." Keith cringed, even though it led to a good thing, he was not proud of what he did. "He came to my school to tell us about the Garrison. My teacher gave him a list of the top students. I was the only one to make it past level three on the simulator. He asked her if I was on the list. She told him I was a discipline case and introduced him to a kid named Griffin. So, I stole his car." Krolia chuckled. "What's a car?" Allura asked. "A vehicle with four wheels and a place for people to sit that is used for transportation on Earth." Allura continued to ask questions and Keith answered.

The other group was traveling in a forest trying to find a yalmor. Coran smelled some floors and sneezed. "This looks like a yalmor patch." He licked the flower. "Yep, yalmors definitely sprayed here." Everyone groaned in disgust. Coran began making a weird screeching noise. A noise replied from behind a bush and Coran ran over. "Yes, there's a yalmor."

"Wow. They're a lot uglier than I thought they'd be." Lance to them. Pidge replied, "I think it's cute, in a, you know, creepy hideous sort of way. Like you Lance." Lance glared at her. Coran shushed them. "Yalmors are extremely aggressive. Any sign of weakness and they attack. You've gotta corner it, and make it think you're the bigger, meaner, yalmor. Alfor and I used the Squelsian Technique to wrangle up some yalmors." He began doing his thing.

"Are all ancient Alteans like this?" Romelle whispered. "Well, we only know two." Pidge replied as they watched. The yalmor went to attack Coran and he jumped back and landed in Hunk's arms. Who then bumped into Lance, who was poked by a plant, and fell on the ground. He saw a little creature. "Oh, hi, there, little fella." The creature then spread the team with a pink and yellow spray. When they looked around, the plants looked larger than before. "What the quizacker just happened?"

"Romelle, it's pronounced 'quiznak' and I have no idea." Pidge replied. A large stomping sound began shaking the ground. "Uh, guys, what's that sound?" Hunk was sweating in concern. "Lance what did you do?" Hunk said almost accusatory. "Nothing, I just bumped into..." Coran cut him off. "What's that?" And there was the Yalmor, which was now much bigger than them. It growled and the group started screaming and running away. "Adventures are not fun." Romelle declared. "Thank you." Hunk told her. "That's what I am always saying." Drops of a water like liquid were starting to fall on the group. The yalmor used its trunk to wack the plants. "Watch out for that grass." Coran yelled. "We're not running fast enough" Lance yelled at Pidge. "Run at an angle."

"How can I run at a... oh." He saw what she did and followed suit. They ran into a large pile of dirt, but to them it was a mountain. "We're trapped." Romelle declared. "We can see that." Lance told her. The yalmor got up close but Lance saw a giant plant pod in a tree and shot it down and it fell on the yalmor. It ran away but splashed a lot of that liquid towards them. When it disappeared, they were soaked. "Keith, do you copy?" Pidge tried to get a hold of the larger members of the team for help. "Allura? Krolia? Anyone?" After no response she turned to the group. "The miniaturization must've caused our communicators range to drop exponentially. Nothing is getting through."

"We're so small. It'll take us forever to get back to the rest of the crew." Coran pointed out. Romelle was now really freaking out. "What are we going to do?" The group found a small hole on the ground in a mushroom and decided to seek refuge there for a while. "What if we're this quizacking small forever?"

"It's 'quiznaking' and yes, thank you, Romelle. What if?" Hunk replied. He pulled of his boot and a bunch of water came out. "Coran, you said the faunatonium works of gluon field fluctuations, right?" Pidge asked. "Correct. It expands atomic distance."

"Well maybe it'll work to make us bigger."

"You might be on to something." Lance interrupted. "But how are we gonna find the faunatonium?" Coran twirled his mustache. "With a yalmor. We'll lure a yalmor back here." Everyone just looked at him. "Lure a yalmor? To us? Like this?" Romelle deadpanned. "I mean, it's like I think it and you say it." Hunk replied. "It will be incredibly dangerous, and Hunk's our only hope." Coran told everyone. Everyone looked at him again.

The group climbed a tree and started to dangle Hunk down by a rope. "I can't believe we are doing this." Romelle sated as they lowered Hunk. "You can't believe it? I'm the literal bait. How could I possibly let this happen?" Hunk yelled. "I told you Hunk, you scream the loudest, which will attract the yalmor." Coran told him. "I don't care that I..." a screech was heard. "Oh no." Said quietly. "Keep up the panicked yelling. It's what we need to attract the yalmor." Coran told him. "Seriously, guys..." More screeching a stomping was heard coming closer. Hunk started to climb up the rope when he saw how close the yalmor was. "Oh. Oh. Oh no! Oh no!" He yelled. The yalmor went to take a bite of Hunk while he screamed. The group pulled him up by running across the branch with the rope.

They dropped onto the yalmor. "We've made it much further than seems possible." Romelle told everyone. Hunk started falling onto the yalmor as well. When he landed on the yalmor with everyone else everyone looked at him. "This is going well." Romelle stated. Then the yalmor started moving and everyone started yelling. "This is worse than being bait." They were holding on for dear life. "Yes! At least then you were the only one in danger!"

"'Hey, Romelle." The yalmor stopped and started digging. Bubbles started coming up from out of the ground, and the yalmor bellowed. "What is going on?" Pidge inquired of Coran. "More yalmors. If they link at the ears, we're sitting on a faunatonium wizplute." The yalmors did indeed link at the ears. Coran shouted for joy. "Pay attention, Paladins. This is how you work together."

"Alright, let's go." Pidge said. "Wait, what?" Everyone but Coran asked. "Look, if we wanna get back to our regular size, we have to jump in there." Lance, Coran, and Pidge all ran towards the faunatonium. They jumped of the yalmors head. Romelle turned to Hunk. "Are we actually going to do this?"

"Unless you wanna spend the rest of your tiny life on the back of a yalmor." They ran and jumped of the yalmors snout. Each one ended up in one of the bubbles. And then they were back to their regular size, in a dog pile. "Oh quiznak." Romelle said. "My back." Hunk complained.

Back at the lion, the situation was getting worse. For a while, everyone had been silent. Finally, Allura spoke. "I'm afraid the clone body is rejecting Shiro's consciousness"

"There has to be some way you can help." Allura looked at him sadly. "There's nothing I can do." Keith looked at Shiro. "Shiro, please, fight." He banged on the glass. He was crying at this point. "You can't do this to me again." Shiro must have heard him, because things started to get better. The pod opened and Shiro started coughing. "Shiro."

"Keith." He opened his eyes and looked up. "I was dreaming. Keith, you saved me." Keith hugged his friend. "It was time for me to return the favor." The rest of the group came back in. The ran to the pod. "Shiro's looking better. All right." Keith was helping sit up. "Where were you guys? We couldn't get ahold of you." Keith questioned. "Well, we were shrunk by a magic skunk, but we ended up using that sparkly dust that makes electricity bigger or whatever. Used it to unshrink ourselves. So, ready to charge up the lions." Krolia, Keith, Shiro, and Allura just looked at them as Lance explained. Shiro chuckled. "It's good to be back." This got a few other chuckles from the group as well.