CAT AND MOUSE

Keith and Lance floated weightlessly behind the group, watching as Pidge, Shiro, and Hunk stared at one of the damaged coil rods on the exterior of the ship. Why Shiro had insisted on ALL of them coming out here was beyond him and, quite frankly, ridiculous. What could he possibly contribute? Or for that matter, what could Lance contribute? Neither of them were engineers, or mechanics, or tech wizards. He rolled his eyes and crossed his arms, letting his body fall into a relaxed posture as he floated in the space surrounding the Castle of Lions.

"Let's hurry up with these repairs. Zarkon could be here at any moment." Shiro commanded them all through their helmet coms and Keith rolled his eyes.

"Okay, panel's off. Now, what?" Hunk asked as he pulled the coil from its containment slot.

Coran had promised to walk them through the repairs, but Keith still didn't see why the Altean wasn't out here himself fixing his Altean ship of Altean design with Altean parts. Honestly, Keith was starting to think he was the only one on this team with any common sense.

"Very simple. Just loosen the blaxums on the somoflange." The man announced and Keith watched with an amused expression as Hunk stared nervously at the controls.

"Could you be more specific?" The squishy teddy bear of a paladin deadpanned. He stifled a laugh, garnering a suspicious glare from Lance.

"Sorry, Hunk, he means the poklones on the agroclams." Allura cut in and Keith smirked into his helmet from behind the group. A ship this size wouldn't even use any agroclams; they'd be too small to be effective.

"No, that doesn't help." Hunk sighed and it took every ounce of self-control not to lose his resolve as he watched the poor guy struggle.

"Easy, Hunk. I've got this." Lance interrupted, pushing the actual 'astro-mechanical engineering' cadet out of the way. Keith face palmed as the absolute dipshit pressed a series of buttons resulting in the near catastrophic failure of the engine core.

Allura and Coran panicked over the coms. Hunk curled in on himself, dissolving into a mess of nervous energy. Keith and Shiro tried to glare the coil back into submission. And Lance had the decency to look remorseful as he moved aside for Pidge to take over. The Green Paladin took a tic or two to assess the controls before immediately fixing the entire situation. Keith was impressed, but then again when it came to Pidge he usually was.

"The tech on this ship never ceases to amaze me; it's so mathematically elegant. Its fit is 100 times more frictionless than any exoskeleton we have on Earth. It's … beautiful." They gushed, staring in wonder at the repaired haul of the Altean Castle, stars sparkling behind their eyes.

"It's not a sunset, Pidge." Lance deadpanned and Keith couldn't hold back his chuckle. That line, that delivery: flawless.

A glowing snowball smashed into the side of Hunk's head. At least it looked like a snowball, not that Keith would know what a snowball looked like. He'd only ever seen them in videos on the Internet back at the Garrison. He quickly turned around to face the direction in which the alleged snowball had come, only to stare down an entire blizzard of them originating from a fixed point far off in the distance. The cloud of glowing puffballs was massive, completely engulfing the entirety of his field of view into the infinite void of space. Immediately Shiro went on the defensive, returning to "Officer Shirogane" and commanding them all to pull up their shields.

"Remember your rogue projectile cluster training from the Garrison. First, we need a temporary shelter." Keith was about to comment that they didn't need a shelter; they could easily just re-enter the Castle, when a goo-ball smushed against the back of Shiro's head. "Oof, wha-?" Their Black Paladin gasped in alarm as he spun around.

Lance hadn't had time to correct his pose, still in the post throw position. "Oh, sorry, Shiro! I was trying to hit Keith." Oh really? He thought to himself. Being raised in the Blades taught Keith many things:

1) How to be the best damn pilot the universe has ever seen.
2) Never apologize for your successes.
3)The engine room is a terrible place to hide snacks.
4) Highly advanced weapons training including: swords, blades, blasters, staffs, and throwing weapons.

Not necessarily in that order of importance. So naturally, Keith immediately grabbed the closest glob and spun around, using his momentum to hurl it straight at Lance's head, quickly snatching another for a follow up attack. "Ha, like that?" He smirked at their supposed sharpshooter when his throw successfully resulted in an uppercut. Before he could bait the other into retaliating, Hunk leapt in front of him, a goo-snow-smush ball thing in each hand.

"YES! Squishy asteroid fight!" He bellowed and pounded Lance with both projectiles. Keith immediately broke, nearly letting go of his own ammunition as he burst out laughing.

A rapid-fire series of shots smoked him in the face shield, dead centre. "Not so smug now are ya, Keith?" Lance taunted from behind the safety of Hunk's enormous frame.

Shiro tried to rationalize with them all, saying "Alright guys" in his most 'dad' sounding voice but a rather large glob hit his shield. Naturally it was followed quickly by three more as the Blue and Yellow Paladins laughed maniacally. "Oh, oh! Okay, now it's on!" He replied before jumping into the fray alongside Keith. They defaulted into pairs, Keith & Shiro vs. Lance & Hunk, the latter of which devolved into just Lance with a Hunk shaped shield.

"Oh, come on!" Lance protested when they ganged up on him, each moving to one side attempting to bypass Hunk and sandwich the Blue Paladin's head.

"Hmmm." Pidge hummed from somewhere in the 'not fun' zone. Picking up one of the squishy-goo balls and studying it intently. "I don't think these are asteroids." They announced thoughtfully. "Coran, I'm going to need a containment unit."

"Just a tic" He called before being replaced by the Princess on the line.

"They appear to be some sort of hyper-resilient spore." She noted, observing the mystery object through a feed Pidge setup in their visor.

"This bioluminescent pulsing doesn't seem natural." Pidge replied. "It appears programed. I think it's a code." The containment unit shot out from a vent on the castle, whirring past Lance's head and distracting him long enough for Keith to get in another clean shot. They started talking about impossibilities of programming a spore but Keith wasn't listening because distraction was weakness. Shiro had just learned that lesson the hard way as a 'spore' bopped him on the side of the head, causing his ear to smash painfully against his helmet. Now Keith was down a teammate and the two Human boys were crossing the gap, closing in on him to make their final blows.

He was not going to lose this match! Not to a couple of Humans, not to a couple of cadets, not to a couple of TEENAGERS! Even without Shiro he would destroy them because Keith is Galra dammit, and the Galra do not submit or surrender or LOSE. He may have shouted "Victory or death" in his native Galran before unleashing hell on the other two.

"Everyone needs to come in for decontamination." Allura commanded and the group reluctantly returned to the primary hangar as Coran ran the appropriate sequences.

Keith crossed his arms and admittedly fell into a slight pout as Lance boasted his win. "Oh ho, I totally beat you, Mullet!" he'd said, now safely inside the castle while the decontamination countdown began.

"You did not!"

"Did so! Look, I have less space goo on me than you do!" He reasoned and – yea, ok that was true but he was NOT going to get this as a win!

"Yeah, but only because you hid behind Hunk like a coward!" Lance let out a high-pitched gasp at the accusation but Keith pressed on. "Shiro and I combined have less goo on us than you and Hunk do, and since we were fighting in teams – you lose and we win."

"Nuh uh! We took Shiro out of commission before the end, so you were down a team member and WE win."

"Like hell you do." He was all charged up and stepping closer to Lance, ready to go a few more rounds. But Shiro intervened, moving to stand between them as the cleaning cycle began.

Keith sat on his bed after a tense dinner. Lance had glared smugly at him the entire time, muttering 'we won' not-so-quietly under his breath numerous times throughout the meal. Keith had rolled his eyes and at one point (much to Shiro's horror) even suggested they have a rematch with the food goo. Lance had been keen for it but Paladin buzz-kill had squashed the idea immediately. Pidge mostly wanted to get back to their lab and study the spore. Hunk wanted to keep the peace and maybe bake some food goo cookies. Allura and Coran backed up Shiro.

Which is how Keith found himself in his room, bored, and full of anxious energy. Ideally he'd hit the training deck, but Coran had banned him again. This time it was for taking out his frustrations on the main console after the gladiator hit him in the giblets with its staff one too many times. He tried blocking it and he tried to delete the move from its memory, but he couldn't get it to stop using the attack. All this trouble because the stupid droid was programmed to learn the most effective techniques against its opponents. So Keith did the next best thing – use a luxite sword to cut the control panel in half. Done.

Except, now Coran was super pissed off and had vowed to make him help with the repairs. Luckily the more essential parts were stored in the castle's lower levels but they would need to be replaced again, which meant a supply run. Which meant maybe getting some proper food so they didn't have to live off goo. Which meant that in the long run – this had really been a win. But it didn't change the fact that he was super bored right now and complaining to anyone about that only meant getting stuck helping Coran.

So Keith sat in his room and stared at the ceiling until that was too boring. Then he practiced his Blade forms and Garrison forms. Then he completed a few more lessons in Altean. Then he stared at the ceiling a bit more. Very thrilling day, lots to do.

"Ughhh" He groaned as he gave up staring at the ceiling for the third time, resigning himself to another round of forms and drills, maybe he'd even spice it up a bit and do some workouts.

"Guys, check this out!" Pidge's voice came over the speakers and he welcomed the distraction as he hurried his way to the Green Lion's hangar.

Inside, Pidge had their lab stacked with equipment Keith had never seen before. There was an array of what looked to be repurposed Altean tech, a multitude of homemade contraptions, and Pidge's trusty Earth laptop. In the centre of the madness was the tiny Green Paladin, typing away and completely oblivious to the arrival of their teammates. It seemed as though each time he came down here Pidge had added new, and slightly more questionable, equipment.

"Pidge! What's good, my man … lady? Genderless creature of the dark?" Lance cracked, shooting finger guns at the exasperated Gremlin. They rolled their eyes and Keith stared at him in utter disbelief and bewilderment.

"I was able to crack the 'sporse code', see." They replied with a snort-chuckle combo. All three of the other Humans in the hangar groaned in unison and he realized there was some sort of joke he didn't get. Shrugging, Keith moved on, deciding not to care. "I ran the bioluminescent pattern through a variety of cryptanalytic sequences -"

"Woah, ok, stop right there. Again, but in English this time?" Lance cut them off.

With an eye roll and a grumble, Pidge continued. "I ran the blinky goo through some of my code-breaker programs," they replied with a heavy helping of sass, "including this homemade virtual Turing machine. Of course, I had to make a few tweaks to the original design because; obviously there have been several advancements since he designed it. Although you have to admit, Turing was a shining light in the world of science in an age when far too many were still -"

"PIDGE!" Keith interjected, cutting them off from their tangent. "What does it say?"

"Oh, yeah, sorry. It says 'Under attack. Galra. Help.' And then, there are coordinates."

"It's a distress signal." Shiro deduced, bringing the room up to speed in an instant. "Good work, Pidge." He smiled warmly down at the small Paladin, receiving a beam of pride in return. "Get those coordinates into the Castle ship's navigation system. Looks like we have another mission, guys." With that the team disbanded, splitting up for their respective rooms to change into their Paladin armour and meet back on the bridge.

Keith sat in his chair at the Red Paladin console and listened as Coran explained to the others exactly where the coordinates led. The spores came from the planet Olkarion, home of the Olkari people. Keith had been to Olkarion a few times as a small kit while on supply runs for the Blade of Marmora. He had been given the same lecture from Tok every time they went: Do not leave the pod, do not bother the delegates, do not touch anything, and do not remove your mask. He always left the pod, he always bombarded the locals with questions, he touched everything his eyes landed on, and he rarely wore his mask. In retrospect, bringing him along hadn't been very smart.

On one mission he had sneaked away, only to find himself hopelessly lost in the maze of constantly rearranging streets. A very nice lady guided him back to his team and, from that point forward, he'd been given a cube to occupy him when they arrived.

The cube was the coolest thing he'd ever seen. Whatever you gave it was spat right back at you. If he told he cube words, it would repeat them in his voice exactly as he'd said them. If he hit it with a rock, it would absorb the energy of the attack and shoot it back at him. His favourite thing was to record some of the Blade's giving orders and have the cube repeat them back to other Blades from around a corner. The chaos that would ensue was always entertaining. Stars, it's no wonder he had a reputation for causing trouble.

"My name is Coran, and I'm a Gorgeous Man." { My name is Coran, and I'm a Gorgeous Man } The words were repeated back instantaneously and Keith was pulled from his memories by none other than the presence of an actual Olkari Cube.

Pidge was losing their mind, bouncing up and down with stars in their eyes. Lance gave the cube a skeptical look, while Hunk and Shiro both looked shocked and impressed.

"Why would a society of literal tech wizards use spores to send a distress signal?" He asked, clearly the only one able to focus on the mission at hand.

"Who cares?" Pidge dismissed. "When do we get to see that city?"

Disappointingly, Allura popped Pidge's bubble with her revelation. "Actually, Pidge, the distress signal isn't coming from the city; it's coming from the forest."

With their Lions being ground by the Olkari's EMP arrows, the entire team was forced to march on foot behind a woman named Ryner. Keith had heard of her, she'd been some sort of highly ranking advisor to the Olkari's King. Now, she was the leader of a band of rebels who had fled the great city into the forest for survival.

And survive they did! The forests had been transformed into mind-blowing recreations of their vast cities. Made entirely amongst the trees using a combination of wood and various other natural resources they had on hand, this new city was equally as impressive as the shape-changing Capital. Their group was standing on a ridge overlooking the new home of those who had fled the Empire's invasion. "As you can see, our people are resilient. We never stopped evolving. Instead, we adapted our skills to the environment." Ryner explained before they began their decent into the new city.

Here it was substantially darker, most of the light from the planet's star being blocked by the foliage above. This provided the Olkari with the necessary cover to hide their settlement from the eyes of the Empire. But it meant that species like the Alteans or Humans would have difficulty seeing, especially when the night cycle began. Not Keith though, his eyes were designed for this level of lighting and the dimmer it got, the easier it would be for him.

A bug thing flew by his head and he hissed at it, realizing too late that it was one of the tech infused creations the locals designed. An Olkari teen snickered from behind a tree but let out a gasp when he turned to glare at them.

" – get rid of these Glara invaders." Shiro's words drew him back to reality and he moved closer to the rest of the team, having fallen behind in his post bug-thing panic.

"It's not that simple, I'm afraid." Ryner countered. "The Galra have our leader, Lubos. If you attack, who knows what they'll do to him?"

"Then, we'll just have to rescue him." Shiro replied with determination and Keith just couldn't stop himself from cutting in.

"Rescue him? Rescue King Lubos? From the Empire?" He questioned rhetorically, a sarcastic edge to his tone. "Are we seriously doing this again?" Lance shot him a glare but Shiro merely held his gaze until the point was made. Yup, they were doing this again. And he had a funny feeling it wouldn't be the last time either. Keith groaned and huffed as he crossed his arms in defeat.

Speaking had drawn attention to him. His faintly glowing yellow eyes, slightly pointed ears, and sharper teeth meant Ryner took a grand total of 3 tics to determine that he was Galra. "I was unaware that Voltron had a Galra Paladin." Keith felt his back stiffen; he was not ready to deal with this all over again, though he had known it was inevitable. Every planet they were going to visit, every species they needed to free, were all under the control of the Empire and would most likely react poorly to his presence on the team. After their first (and admittedly rather uncomfortable) talk in his room, he and Allura had had another, much longer discussion where she'd promised to stand behind him. The Princess vowed that she would ensure each new member of the coalition knew he could be trusted.

He'd yelled at her for that one. Saying it wasn't that he could be trusted, it was that there were more Galra than just the Empire and that they could be trusted. Eventually the Blades would be working with the coalition – it was inevitable, and he wanted to lay the groundwork of acceptance before that day came. Allura had conceded quickly, agreeing that she would adjust her wording. But the Princess wasn't here right now; she was tucked away safely on the Castle of Lions waiting to hear a status update, and therefore she wouldn't be able to back him up.

"Yes." Shiro answered. "Keith is an invaluable member of team Voltron, and the Paladin of the Red Lion." He beamed at the man for his support. Ryner nodded but didn't say anything further, at least not until they ran into an older woman who made an admittedly exaggerated double take.

She'd recognized him from when he'd come to apparently pickup weapons crafted by the Olkari. Tok had always told him the supply runs were for parts needed to repair bases. Which was probably for the best – if he'd known they were powerful weapons he probably would have wanted one. Or destroyed something by accident.

The older woman disappeared into their central tree hub and returned with a stack of four blades in hand. The blades were long since deactivated, their flicker of quintessence having faded away several deca-phoebs ago. "When the Galra Empire attacked, we called upon the Blade of Marmora for assistance. A nearby outpost came to our aid but their members were defeated. These weapons are all that remain." A man next to her explained and Keith reached out, taking the four cold, dead blades in his hands and holding back the influx of emotions threatening to take over. Pidge nudged his hip with their elbow and smirked up at him, the closest attempt at emotional support they'd probably ever managed. He smiled back but felt the weight of it pulling down at the edges of his face and cementing his frown back in place.

A few dobashes later, Keith had the blades stored inside Red and was catching backup to the others before their entire team was lead further into the woods. "Um … Ryner? Where are we?" he asked, looking around at nothing but random trees and bushes.

"This is the armoury." They watched as several Olkari placed their hands inside various plants, closing their eyes and transfiguring them into blasters. Another group placed their hands on a tree and a stream of bright light cracked its way up the bark, activating a seedpod and causing it to morph into an elaborate mech suit made of wood.

Lance's eyebrows shot straight up his head and he squeaked out a breathy "cool". Hunk and Shiro stared in open-mouthed shock, while Pidge looked on in glee. Keith was flabbergasted. He wanted one! Those were the coolest things he'd ever seen and he needed to have one.

"Uh, can I get one of those?" He'd asked before realizing it had been out loud.

"Of course. You can each have one." Ryner replied passing them all some weird vine headbands and explaining a bunch of very technical sounding mumbo jumbo that only Pidge seemed to understand. They all excitedly tried to connect to the trees, immediately attempting to create their mech suits.

Only Pidge got to have one.

It was ridiculous to expect a bunch of non-Olkari and non-Pidge's to be able to speak in binary to a tree. At least he still got to ride in one. And, he got to ride with Ryner and Shiro instead of Lance, who went with Hunk and Pidge. Actually, if he couldn't have his own wooden mech suit than this was a pretty decent consolation prize.

After a quick bout of reconnaissance, the team was now meeting back at the forest city to discuss their plan of attack. Shiro had it all worked out. First, they would use Green and her stealth mode to fly Hunk, Lance, Shiro, and himself to the topmost point of the centre tower. Pidge would then fall back to a safe position, where they would monitor the biorhythm sensor and surveillance systems. The four of them were to decend the narrow shaft into the tower, drop the sensor, and set it to detect any Olkari biorhythms. Next, they use the scans to locate King Lubos and any other Olkari being held as prisoners by the Empire soldiers. At which point it was rescue time.

Keith knew this was going to be difficult, not as difficult as storming Central Quiznaking Command, but still far beyond the training their two younger cadets had. Lance and Hunk would have to assist in infiltrating a secure enemy strong hold. It wasn't child's play, but they didn't have a choice. He was confident in his abilities and knew he could complete this mission on his own if he had a long-range weapon backup with him. Preferably Marra since he knew how well they worked as a team. Unfortunate, he got Lance. It was fine; everything would be fine. Lance was surprisingly good at pulling through when needed and, as long as he kept his mouth shut, he made a good partner. Plus (and Keith would never admit to this) Lance was a damn good shot.

When they finally arrived at the 'cell' in which King Lubos was being held, Keith found himself utterly repulsed by the man's very existence. His fat ass was sitting in a fancy chair, eating from a table with an abundance of snacks, and watching some cheesy romance movie. All while one of his own people stood cuffed wearing literal prison rags behind him. King Lubos was no prisoner; he was a traitor.

The blood in his veins boiled. Four Blades had died to protect Olkarion and Lubos had gone ahead and just handed the entire planet over, willingly choosing to create a super weapon for the Empire. But, when the traitor King went and set off an alarm alerting the Empire Commander of their rescue attempt? Keith saw red.

"You turned your back on your people to save your own skin?" Shiro sounded dejected, disappointed that a leader would stoop so low.

"I'm doing this for my people! They wanted to fight the Galra but they are too powerful! The Galra could destroy us!" Lubos tried to justify, his large corpulent frame standing in stark contrast to the slim prisoner next to him. He yelled his supposed defense at Shiro; all the while crumbs of food still littered his tunic.

But Lance wasn't buying it. "So you helped enslave your people to build some super weapon?" he pressed.

"Don't make me the bad guy!" Lubos insisted, further proving that he was beyond reason. "HE forced me to do it!" His arm lifted into the air and one of his fat fingers was pointed at an Empire Commander. The large and imposing Galra smirked, not disputing the accusation in the least. But that didn't justify the King's actions.

Lance picked up on his attitude and mocked him with a jeering, "Did he force-feed you too?" Keith would have snickered at the comment but he was far too angry. Four Blades, FOUR, had died and for what? So this sad excuse of a man could sit on his ass and shove his face full of sweets while the rest of his people suffered? This was unacceptable. He knew how the Empire worked, the Commander would execute the traitor when they got their war cube, but death was too kind of an end for this lump. Keith decided right then and there that he was going to bring Lubos back to his people to face judgement.

He charged at the obese King, activating his bayard and pressing the red and white blade against his throat. "Okay, we're walking out of here!" He shouted at the Commander and his sentries in Galran. "Anyone tries to stop us and Lubos gets it!"

"WHOA! K-Keith!" Shiro sputtered in shock.
"That came out of nowhere!" Lance punctuated.

Hunk said nothing, but from the corner of his eyes he caught the larger paladin hitting the emergency button on his wrist gauntlet. Keith ignored them. Instead, he maintained eye contact with the Commander. "You don't want me to hurt your genius engineer, right?"

"Oh, be my guest. His work is done. The War Cube is complete." The imposing man replied with a smirk and Lubos lost his mind, sputtering about a deal they had arranged. But he was a fool; you never make deals with the Empire. Once they get what they want, they dispose of any liabilities. Keith rolled his eyes at the fall out and how the oblivious King hadn't expected to be double-crossed. Moron.

"Guards, put them all out of their misery!" The Commander ordered and the sentries charged their blasters. Just as they were about to shoot, a bright laser fired across the line of sentries, filling the room with smoke and dust.

"Your ride is here!" Pidge cheerily called over their helmet coms and the large head of the Green Lion appeared in a gaping hole at the side of the room. Running like their lives depended on it; the group darted across the distance and leapt for Green's open mouth. Lance activated his shield and blocked the shots from the sentries, while Hunk and Shiro carefully helped the prisoner, and Keith half dragged Lubos into the lion.

Shiro unceremoniously threw the disgraced Lubos to the ground at the feet of Ryner. A crowd had gathered to celebrate the rescue of their King and Keith reveled in the fact that they would all hear of his betrayal. In the end Ryner had spoken to the man in a disappointed tone but that was it. The young Blade gawked at her, completely at a loss for words that the other had gotten off so easily. Maybe he should have just left the lump behind for the Commander to deal with. He was going to keep that thought to himself.

Once again, Shiro rallied the spirit of the locals, urging them to join Voltron in driving out the Empire from their Planet. The Olkari took on the Empire soldiers while Voltron targeted the War Cube.

It was unlike anything they had ever gone up against. No matter what they did, the Cube just shot it right back at them. They tried blasting it and nearly decimated their shields, they tried slicing it and only multiplied their opponents, and Lance even tried blasting it with the Blue Lion's ice ray only to end up being a Lance-cicle in the end. Keith had used Red's flamethrower to melt Blue's face but ultimately, Voltron couldn't contend with what was now four War Cubes.

They disbanded, splitting up into their lions and trying to attack from multiple angles. But nothing was working. It wasn't long before Pidge was caught between twin bolts of electricity, a cube on either side, causing the Green Lion to fall back to the forest and crash somewhere out of their sights. Shiro had called out but there was no response. They had to keep fighting though, no matter how badly he wanted to go down there and check on his friend, Keith had to fight. Those cubes were going to destroy Olkarion if they weren't defeated.

They held their own for nearly 20 dobashes. Keith had been hit by a weaker blast of electricity, sending Red crashing down to the surface, but not taking her out of commission. Hunk and Yellow were thrown from the sky by a large blast. Lance and Blue were forced down by a pursuing cube. And Shiro slammed Black down hard as the horde closed in on them.

"Guys, hang on!" Pidge called over their coms and the Green Lion shot out of the forest crown. She moved faster than Keith had ever seen, not as fast as Red but certainly much faster than the other three lions. It was like Pidge had connected with Green on a level they hadn't reached before. He felt the purr of confirmation from Red and smiled in pride at his friend.

They streaked across the sky, dodging the Cubes blasts and retaliating with some of their own. Green fired a beam from a canon that materialized on her back and massive vines burst from one of the cubes. Pidge circled the other three, taking each one down in the same way and coming to land in front of the team as the now defeated cubes fell back to the surface.

"Vines!" Hunk chuckled. "Well, that is not the way I thought a giant cube of death would go down."

The Olkari had been successful in taking back their city, and Keith watched as the Empire cruiser fled the planet. To flee a battle was a great act of cowardice. That Commander was not in for a good time when he would inevitably have to explain their exit from Olkarion to Emperor Zarkon. Keith was willing to bed that man would find himself in the Gladiator pits or as a subject for the witch to experiment on. He shuddered at the thought.

They said their good byes, Ryner promising to always be there to answer the call should Voltron require the Olkari's assistance, and the Lions took off back for the castle. In a way, he was a little disappointed that they didn't share what King Lubos' fate would be, but he supposed it really wasn't any of his business. Still … he hoped whatever it was; it hurt.

When they arrived back in their hangars, each of the Paladins rushed for the bridge to congratulate Pidge for their success. It was mostly their Green Paladin who won the day for them. Pidge took the praise in stride, ever the humble one when it counted.

"Well that was a productive trip. Look at all these cubes they gave me!" Coran threw his old cube in the air, splitting it into 8 separate pieces and commanding it to echo him once again. A chorus of { Coran, Coran, the gorgeous man } resonated off the walls of the bridge and only Allura resisted the urge to groan, though she did shoot the advisor an exasperated look. "Ahh, sounds pretty good." { Ahh, sounds pretty good }

Hunk made a weird fart-like sound with his lips, which also echoed around the room, and Shiro rolled his eyes at him. But before the adult could scold their Yellow Paladin, the proximity alarm went off.

"What's that?" { What's that? } Coran questioned, with the cubes echoing his words.

Before anyone could move, Emperor Zarkon's Central Command fleet flew out of hyper drive. The imposing silhouette covered each screen on the bridge and a collective gasp was heard throughout the room.

"It's Zarkon!" The Princess announced. "How did he find us?"

"His Commander must've contacted him from Olkarion." Keith suggested. It was the only way the Emperor could possibly know where they were so quickly. Shiro took charge immediately, ordering them all to their stations and directing Allura to wormhole the castle away from the imminent danger. But the sheer volume of fighter pods was too great. There was no way to wormhole away without at least hundreds of them making it through with the castle.

Keith, Lance, and Shiro activated their remote battle drones, laying down covering fire from their paladin chairs. The problem with this was that the team had practiced working together countess times in their lions and on the training deck, but they had NEVER practiced with the battle drones. And their lack of coordination really showed as he and Lance flew their drones into one another multiple times.

They each had a job to do but they were not machines. Pidge and Hunk had more technical tasks and the lack of rest was wearing on the latter. He struggled to focus on the intricate details displayed on his screen, complaining that everything was beginning to blur in his sleep-addled brain.

"I know we just came off an intense battle, but we've got to stay focused, just until we jump." Shiro implored. He tried his best to urge the crew to give it their all but it was difficult to do when their all had just been given to fight off those cubes.

"And when is that?" Keith snarked back; exhaustion playing at his patience.

It was Coran who answered. "They're still too close! We need to gain more speed!" But how was the real question. He looked at his console, reading the Altean configurations displayed there. The engines were at their maximum output, and the Balmeran crystal was already fully engaged. Keith racked his brain for a solution. The ship was large enough that the hits from the fighter pods wouldn't do too much damage on their own, and the castle should be able to out run the Emperor's Command ship. But running on full power for extended amounts of time really wears on the engines.

Allura's voiced pulled him from his thoughts, shouting out an absolutely brilliant plan. "I'm going to use this moon's gravity to gain speed and put some distance between us and Zarkon."

It worked. They gained enough space to wormhole away, but the ludicrous speeds put too much stress on the Teludav, forcing them to make an early exit.

"We didn't make it to our exit point, but we're several galaxies from Zarkon's fleet." Coran responded but the relief was short lived as an exhausted Allura collapsed. The entire crew responded, Keith included, running up to check on the Princess and ensure that she was okay.

In an instant absolute chaos descended on the bridge. Allura didn't have the energy to create another wormhole, the paladins were starting to fall asleep where they stood, and Coran had a nasty case of the slipperies. Keith had read about the age related illness but hadn't thought Coran was old enough to develop it. Evidently, the mustachioed ginger had aged rather gracefully. Still, having the slipperies was incredibly gross and incredibly inconvenient. Especially with the Emperor hot on their tail.

"Ugh, I'm so tired my brain's not working." Pidge groaned, rubbing their temples.

"Yea, neither is mine." Lance agreed and Keith snickered muttering, "didn't notice a difference" under his breath and catching Hunk smother a snort.

It didn't take long before Coran was calling the bridge, having left to check the systems from the engine room. He informed them that, as suspected, the fighter pods didn't inflict much damage. However, when they entered the wormhole at those crazy speeds it had cracked and fractured several of the scaultrite lens-stones. All it took was the mention of scaultrite and Keith was blanching and pulling faces.

"Is something wrong?" Shiro asked with mock concern, annoyed by his juvenile display.

"The Teladuv uses lenses made from scaultrite?" he asked Coran and the man nodded on the screen. "Are there any extra's in the storage rooms down in the lower levels?"

"I'm afraid not." Keith groaned at the worst. News. Ever.

"Shot NOT being the one who has to go inside a quiznaking Weblum!" He called out, crossing his arms over his chest in a definitive stance. He'd been there; he'd done that - never again!

"Oh, we shouldn't need that much scaultrite. Nothing a little trip to a swaaaaaa-" And just like that the line disconnected as Coran slipped on his own excretions and slammed his forehead against the control panel. Keith rolled his eyes but snorted nonetheless.

"What's a Weblum?" Hunk asked.

With a dismissive hand wave and a passive tone, he replied. "Giant worm that eats planets and has a deadly acid laser in its face." Hunk paled at the description, sputtering about never, ever going in one and Keith nodded his assent.

"Alright team, we'll hide the ship here and get some rest while Coran comes up with a work-around for the wormholes." Shiro announced, redirecting everyone's attention back to the situation at hand. "Tomorrow we'll be sharper and refocused." With that the team disbanded.

"Whatcha gunna do with your free time?" Keith overheard Lance ask Hunk while the four paladins headed for their rooms. Shiro had opted to stay on the bridge and assist Allura, much to Lance's disdain.

"I'm going to try and learn some Altean!" Pidge cut in before the big guy could answer. "It's built into the training deck software. Which, not gunna lie – kinda weird! Like, why would language learning be on the training deck?" They puzzled and Keith tried his absolute damnedest not to laugh. Should he warn them, or try to watch?

"Well I'm going see if I can flood the decontamination chamber and go for a swim!" Lance answered, clearly proud of his idiotic plans. Keith rolled his eyes.

"Why not just use the pool dipshit."

"THERE'S A POOL?" The Blue Paladin shrieked and he felt the chuckle escape against his will. Nodding in confirmation, he watched as the Cuban's entire face lit up with excitement. "Oh man, this is going to be sweet! Hunk, buddy, you gotta come with me!"

"Can't, I'm heading to the kitchen to bake some cookies before I crash for a much needed nap." He replied before putting himself squarely on Keith's hit list with his follow up response. "Take Keith with you." If looks could kill they would be down a Yellow Paladin right now.

"Nah, Keith's no fun. He probably can't even swim!" WHAT? They argued back and forth about who was a better swimmer, each turning to their friend for support when they realized both Pidge and Hunk had ditched them. Dicks. He though, before immediately remembering he hadn't had a chance to warn the Gremlin about turning off the safety on the language tutorial. Oh well, serves them right.

Keith changed into the red and white swim trunks in his room and grabbed a towel before heading down to the pool. Throwing the towel over his head to free up his hands, he wandered in a zombie like state through the hall, his earlier exhaustion catching back up to him. Briefly he wondered if maybe turning around and going to bed would be a better use of his time, but he couldn't let Lance think he chickened out of the race he'd been challenged to. So Keith trudged on and caught the elevator door just as it was closing.

He pried it back open to reveal Lance standing before him in a matching pair of blue swim trunks. He had a towel draped around his neck that was falling onto his chest, his bare chest. His bare, toned chest. Oh quiznak – maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all.

The door shut behind him and the other boy gave him a strange look. "Take a picture, it'll last longer." He condescendingly remarked.

"Why would I want a picture of you, Lance?" Keith replied as sarcastically as possible, trying desperately to look anywhere but at the half naked, slim, perfectly tanned, lightly toned, smooth, fresh-smelling body next to him. Shit, he was so screwed. "Look, you stay on one side of the pool and I'll stay on the other, and we'll be far, far away from each other – very … far ... away."

Suddenly the entire castle jostled and they were plunged into instant darkness. "Uh, what was that? I can't see anything other than your freaky eyes." Lance unhelpfully, and offensively, commented.

"Gee thanks, Lance." He rolled his eyes and looked around them. On the wall at the base of the panel was an emergency power button. He pushed it but nothing happened, so naturally, he pushed it 20 more times. Finally the lights came back on and he stood up, turning around to face the pain-in-the-ass behind him. "Okay, we need to get out of here. There's an emergency hatch up there -" he pointed up above their heads "- we just need to climb up to it."

"Okay and how do you suppose we do that, genius?"

"You're just full of compliments today aren't you?" He sassed right back and watched a set of sapphires roll in their sockets. "Look we can climb up the walls by pressing back to back." Lance sighed but nodded in agreement.

This was a bad idea. They were halfway up the wall and Lance kept screwing them up. Finally Keith had enough. "It's right, then left. You're off!"

"You're off! And shoving too hard!" the Blue Paladin replied, pushing back with all of his might and sending Keith face first towards the wall.

"You're not shoving hard enough!" he responded by pushing back just as hard.

"I should be at the pool right now!" Lance pouted.

Keith rolled his eyes and groaned. "Would you stop whining?" he threw back.

Eventually they made it to the panel at the top, kicking it open and sliding down the vent shaft to the poolroom. Except, he'd forgotten what Coran had said regarding the pool, and the sudden shift in gravity had them landing hard on their tailbones. Which hurt, a lot, and did nothing for the general mood of the room.

"WHAT THE HECK?" Lance screeched upon seeing the water floating above their heads.

"Ughhhh" he groaned again. "Stupid Altean pools!" Another jostle to the castle, this one substantially larger than the last, found them being scooped up by the water and deposited with a heavy thud in another section of the room. This time, the unrest wasn't a result of Coran fixing the Teladuv.

"Paladins! We're under attack! To your stations!" The Princess called over the coms and the two boys ran as fast as they could – using a different elevator this time.

Rushing into the bridge they were greeted by the sight of Emperor Zarkon's Command Fleet once again. "They found us again?" Lance voiced his exasperation. "How is that possible? IS that possible? That doesn't seem possible!" He continued to screech as they pulled up their individual console screens.

"Right, now we must figure out a way to get out of here." Allura voiced and Coran's desperate form slid across the screen, slamming into something out of their view. It sounded painful though.

"Uh, guys? I think I'm realizing now that I do, in fact, have a case of the slipperies. I'm sorry I yelled at you Pidge. I may need your help after all." He practically sobbed into the com as he struggled to get back up, slipping numerous times on his own excretions. Keith shuddered; glad he wasn't the one who had to go down there.

They used the drones again, calling out if anyone spotted something outside the other's field of view. The team was moving much more fluidly, that tiny bit of down time they'd all received really doing a number for their cooperation.

"What's going on?" Lance once again whined. "I lost control of my defence drone!"

"I've got you covered." Keith moved his drone to the middle of their shared range; arriving in position only to watch his controls dissolve before him. "Uh, I don't got you." He replied in confusion. "There must be a system failure!"

"Nope! That was us!" Pidge popped up on the screen, startling him and earning twin shrieks from the Blue and Yellow Paladins. "We're diverting power from non-essential systems to get the wormhole generator working."

"DEFENCE IS PRETTY ESSENTIAL!" Lance screamed, jumping from his chair and looking far less commanding than intended while wearing bright blue swim trunks.

"Okay, try it! We should be able to make one very small jump … I hope!" Coran yelled as the particle barrier went down, its power also being diverted.

The wormhole opened before them and, as quickly as it popped up, they were already exiting it. This time it was right into the heart of a massive electrical storm.

"Zarkon keeps finding us. It's like he knows how to track us down." Shiro suggested, his tone dark and tired. "Maybe he planted some sort of tracking device."

Allura immediately began typing angrily. "Well it's nothing on the ship; the castle would have detected any tracking devises."

"Until we figure out exactly how he's doing it, we should assume that he could show up at any minute. So stay alert." He commanded to a missing green paladin, exhausted red and blue paladins, and a snoring yellow paladin. A particularly loud snore woke said paladin with a start and Hunk shouted in terror, wondering what had happened.

"You woke yourself up snoring." Keith deadpanned.

They'd decided to hide in the eye of the massive storm, but it hadn't changed anything. Somehow the Emperor still managed to find them. There was no way it could possibly be through any known means of technology, there was nothing in existence that could penetrate that electro-magnetic storm. He wondered if may be the Emperor was able to track his Blade communicator, but then hiding in the storm would have worked, which it hadn't.

Keith racked his over tired brain, trying to think of how they were being found so quickly each time, when Allura piped up. "It's me." She said. "It's been me all along."