Hey all, back with chapter eight! And here we are, hitting that canon material again! Never forget how much poor Keith wanted a tree mech in Greening the Cube, and then he couldn't get one... rip Keith. Maybe somewhere, in an alternate universe, just not this one. Also I guess school starts soon for a lot of you? Or maybe has started? Either way, to all my readers still in school- do well! Take breaks! Do your homework! Get plenty of sleep! Eat properly!

Until next time!

maroon

chapter eight

green

Having Shiro know who he was was like a weight off his chest.

It's not how Keith expected it to feel. He thought it would be more like having Coran know- like an anxiety, gnawing at him. But no, having Shiro know was like a constant reassurance, a knowledge that he has someone to fall back on now.

It made him feel childish.

He'd been so dependent on everyone when he'd been young, that when he had finally been cleared to leave the medical ward, he'd done everything in his power to be independent. In hindsight, he might have rushed things a bit, against Ulaz's advice- but he was in such a hurry to start his training, already delayed by months, if not years, to become a proper Blade.

It was the only thing he could think of doing to pay them back.

Logically, he knew he didn't need to- he wasn't a burden on them, they had made that much clear. But he was all they had, and without getting some new recruits from the outside, they would have to be more cautious than ever, so as to not risk losing any more Blades.

(He tried not to think about Ulaz.)

At the time, he hadn't even known his father was the one responsible. All he'd known was that something had happened, something bad- and that was the reason there were no other children.

He knew that he was being kept in the dark, but truthfully, he'd been afraid to ask.

He'd learned the truth the hard way.

(Knowledge or death.)

True to his word, Shiro didn't ask him any questions. Nothing personal, at least- he did ask about things like troop locations and supply lines, and Keith would answer as best he could. Most of what he knew was two years out of date.

He... hadn't told Kolivan yet.

He should, he knew- having his cover blown, and to the leader of Voltron at that, was a pretty big deal. It meant that there were now two people on the ship who were aware of his true identity- and furthermore, one of them now knew that he was feeding information on their activities back to an outside group.

But what if Kolivan thought that was one mistake too many? What if he ordered him to return?

Which was a stupid thing to worry about. It wasn't like he could just send out another operative to replace him as the red paladin. This wasn't a traditional deep cover operation, not by a long shot. If it was, Kolivan would have never chosen him.

He hadn't been trained for deep cover missions. His status as a runt made him stick out like a sore thumb among Galra, and while there were Galra whose growth had been stunted later in life, some of whom were even shorter than he was, they were typically kept to the fringes of the Empire, treated like some kind of shame.

Anything that seemed weak was.

His mission on Earth technically qualified as a deep cover mission, which had necessitated a briefing, but he still hadn't gotten any formal training. What he'd be infiltrating wasn't the Galra Empire, but a primitive race that resided on a backwater planet, far from any imperial strongholds. It didn't exactly require the same skill set.

He'd thought as long as he looked like one, and as long as he didn't attract too much attention to himself, he'd be able to pass for human. He hadn't been wrong- even after he'd been held as a captive of the Galra Empire for a year, Shiro still didn't put the pieces together until after they had met Ulaz.

None of the other paladins suspected a thing.

Okay, so Hunk and Lance correctly thought that he was familiar with war, but they thought it was some kind of Earth conflict. As long as he was careful, he had nothing to worry about there. As far as he knew, Pidge didn't suspect a thing, though maybe that was because her own problems to worry about.

If there was one thing that had changed after Shiro learned who he was, it was the number of team bonding exercises, but he didn't know if that was actually related or not. He thought it was a good thing, roping Hunk and Pidge who would otherwise slack off into doing some actual training.

Even if some of the training exercises Shiro had them do made no sense.

Like this one.

Letting out a hiss as the metal ball gave off a faint electric shock, signaling that he'd held on to it for too long, Keith grumbled underneath his breath, searching for Pidge. She was wide open, Hunk and Lance's full attention focused on trying to catch him, so lobbing the ball over in her direction was simple.

He got the basic point of the game- he and Pidge were supposed to keep the ball away from Hunk and Lance, while they tried to get it from them, all within a certain time limit. He even understood how they had been split up- arms versus legs, to strengthen the bonds between the two pairs.

What he didn't get was why he couldn't just hold on to the ball the entire time. Surely that would have been the easiest way to win? Hunk and Lance couldn't even come close to touching him, so as long as he held onto it, they would win for sure.

But no- Shiro had designed the game so that the ball would give him a light shock- and only him- if he held onto it for too long, forcing him to pass it to Pidge. It was beyond frustrating.

Sure, they hadn't caught Pidge yet, but they had come close to it a few times- way closer than he'd ever let either of them come to him. It was just more efficient to let him do the entire task, rather than split the duty up with Pidge, who wasn't as suited to it.

Wasn't part of being a team delegating tasks to the person best at it?

Or was he getting something wrong?

Teamwork was complicated.

(Humans were even more complicated.)

Even worse, Pidge fumbled the ball at the very end, allowing Lance to grab it. If she had just held onto it for a minute longer, then they would have won.

She didn't even look that sorry.

If anything, she had the audacity to look annoyed with him. What was her problem? He wasn't the one who had screwed everything up, so what the heck was she giving him the stink shoulder for?

(That... didn't sound right. Cold eye? Humans had so many turns of phrase that it was hard to keep track of them all.)

Letting out a low growl, Keith felt Shiro's hand rest on his shoulder. He tensed up at it, before relaxing, realizing who it was- before remembering that he was currently annoyed with him, for thinking up this absurd, contradictory exercise.

"I don't get it," Keith grumbled, "-we could have won if I'd kept it."

"Then that wouldn't be teamwork."

Shiro had said it so simply, so matter of fact, that it felt like it should mean something to him, but it didn't. Giving his shoulder another pat, Shiro left his side to go and chat with the paladins, leaving him alone.

If Antok were here, he'd doubtlessly say that he was sulking.

(He wasn't.)

He'd thought he'd been getting a hang of this teamwork thing, but Shiro seemed to think otherwise. It wasn't like they never worked with teams during Blade missions, but that was... different from how things worked with the paladins. Teamwork here meant not leaving your comrades behind, even at your own peril.

He was starting to learn that, but actually putting it into practice was proving more difficult than he could have thought. Protecting himself above others had been so ingrained into him, that trying to teach himself to do otherwise was nothing short of a challenge.

It didn't help that he'd never had anyone in his own age group to pair up with during training. That was supposed to be normal, but instead, he'd been trained alone. Losing a generation of children had thrown things off significantly for them, and they were still trying to recover.

When he'd arrived on Earth, the number of family units with multiple children had shocked him. He knew that Pidge was the youngest out of a pair, and that Lance had a bunch of siblings, but there was nothing like that among the Galra. Most female Galra were capable of giving birth only once- so siblings were rare, and usually only happened in the case of twins.

Those who had lost their children would never be able to try for another.

It didn't use to be that way- it was only after the introduction of quintessence that birth rates began to fall. In turn, their life spans began to grow longer- these days, it wasn't rare to find Galra who had lived for upwards to a thousand years, if not longer.

Kolivan would say sometimes that their race had become just as warped as their leader.

"Paladins," Allura's voice came across the ship's intercom, breaking him and everyone else out of their thoughts, "-sorry to interrupt your training session, but it seems that Coran needs a bit of a hand with the repairs. Could you come to the bridge?"

"Sure thing princess," Shiro said, briefly catching his eye, causing him to blink, "-we're on our way."

"You know, I'm just surprised you don't actually know what a somoflange is."

"I'm not Altean, Shiro." Keith told him, barely so much as sparing him a glance. "It's been a dead language for ten thousand years. Not much sense in teaching it to anyone."

When he'd found Keith, he was perched on top of the red lion, going through some kind of old book. He'd heard that there was a library on the ship from Pidge, but he'd never actually been there himself- he doubted that there was anything there that he'd be able to read.

Keith, on the other hand, could.

Maybe he couldn't read it, but he'd seen enough of it by now to recognize the symbols. It wasn't just the book that Keith was looking through, but all the books that Keith had gathered seemed to be in Galran. He guessed it made sense- back before Zarkon had turned on them, they'd been allies.

It really shouldn't have come as a surprise to him to learn that he was fluent, but then- Keith didn't look very Galra. He assumed there was a reason for that, but Keith hadn't told him yet, and he wasn't about to go back on his word and ask.

Keith hadn't told him much, actually.

Which didn't mean that he hadn't learned anything new about him- he had, actually. Ever since he had confronted him about the truth, Keith had grown a bit more relaxed in his presence, in a way that he never had been before. The guard that he had been holding up so fiercely had weakened, allowing Shiro the occasional glimpse through the gaps.

If it were anyone else, he would have hidden the books.

For him? All he'd done when he'd asked about them was to mutter something about research. He hadn't told him anything more, but he hadn't made any effort to conceal the fact that he was reading a Galran book.

"Fair enough." Shiro observed. "I'm probably more surprised that you started that- what did Hunk call it, a squishy asteroid fight?"

Now Keith did spare him a glance, the faintest hint of a smile on his lips. "Technically, Lance threw the first one. And besides, they're spores, not asteroids."

"Hey, I'm not saying it was a bad thing." Shiro told him, holding up his hands. "It's good that you're trying to bond with the team more."

And that just confused Keith.

"I don't see how throwing things at each other is bonding." Keith told him.

"Keith, it took a food fight for us to be able to form Voltron." Shiro pointed out. "I'm pretty sure none of us are in a position to say that."

Tilting his head, Keith merely frowned. "...that's sound logic. Bonding wasn't exactly what I had in mind, though."

"Maybe not, but the intention doesn't have to be there for it to count." Shiro told him, giving him a faint smile. "Even if it was a little on the childish side."

Not that it was a bad thing. Assuming Keith's height was as actually advertised- and he had no reason to believe otherwise- then he was pretty small for a Galra. Either his growth had been stunted at some point, or he wasn't full grown- a child, in other words. When he'd joined the Garrison, he'd put down his age as sixteen, which meant that now, two years later, he'd be eighteen- but that was only under Earth terms.

He couldn't ignore the chance that Keith might actually potentially be a lot younger than the other paladins. Hunk's child solider theory might still have some weight.

In that case, seeing him act like one was a good thing, in so far as he was concerned.

Letting out a faint snort, Keith arched a brow. "Shiro, you were right there, throwing spores around with us. What's your excuse?"

"In my defense, I'm only six years old." Shiro told him.

To his credit, Keith barely so much as blinked, squinting at him for a long moment- before understanding flickered across his features. "Oh. Right. Now I remember."

Darn. He'd been hoping that leap years were one piece of Earth trivia that Keith hadn't managed to pick up on. Which, okay, maybe a bit childish of him, he'd admit- but he'd never had the chance to pull that joke on an alien before, so it was no fun if he already knew what a leap year was.

"What do you think they are, anyways?" Keith asked, turning the page of his book. "The spores."

"Can't say." Shiro told him. "Whatever they are, I'm sure Pidge will find out."

He didn't miss the way Keith's brow crinkled at the mention of the green paladin. Clearly what had happened during training was still bothering him.

Keith's biggest problem when it came to teamwork was that he could pretty much do everything on his own. Teaching him that he could- and should- rely on his fellow paladins was not going to be an easy task, but Shiro hadn't expected it to be. But if they were ever going to come together as a proper team, then it was a hurdle that he needed to overcome.

He'd known from the outset that it wasn't going to be an easy task. Not only did he need to teach Keith, he needed for him to unlearn what he already knew. Whatever he had been taught during his Blade of Marmora training, it wouldn't do him any good as a paladin.

At least he didn't think Keith would hold Pidge's error in training against her. Odds were, he'd probably grumble about it for a day or two, but he'd move past it.

Pidge on the other hand... she'd seemed pretty miffed.

Not that he could blame her. From her perspective, it must have seemed like Keith had decided he couldn't rely on her. It wasn't exactly great framework for a team, much less for a pair that had to work in tandem as Voltron's arms.

It wasn't like Keith thought she couldn't defend herself- he did, that much was clear. He wouldn't have left her to deal with the sentries during the Castle invasion if he didn't. But as for actually relying on her to have his back... that was a different story.

Not that Keith seemed to trust anyone to have his back. That was something he was going to have to work on too.

"Guys!" In an impressive feat of timing, Pidge's voice came over the intercom. Based upon how excited she sounded, it wasn't hard to guess that she'd broken the code. "Check this out."

"You know," Lance began, "-I would have thought a psychic nature boy would have been better at this."

Glancing up with a slight frown, she turned her gaze towards Keith. Sure enough, he was still tinkering with the Olkari circlet that Ryner had given them, turning it over in his hands. A tight frown was set on his lips, and she briefly recalled the way he'd expressed interest in the tree mechs.

Serves him right, some part of her thought. Maybe it was a bit petty of her, but this morning had put her in a sour mood. Part of her recognized that Keith's behavior during their exercise had been the entire reason that Shiro had thrown it together, but the other part was still miffed.

If the exercise hadn't been designed so that Keith couldn't hold on for the ball for too long, she probably would have spent the entire time hanging back on the sidelines. Sure, maybe she wasn't the biggest fan of physical activity, especially not first thing in the morning, but she liked the feeling of not being relied on even less.

So yeah- she was annoyed with Keith right now.

At least being here, on Olkarion, had managed to put her in a better mood- even if she had grumbled about having to go to the forest as opposed to the city at first. That was before she knew that the ones who had sent the distress signal were a band of Olkari that had escaped from the cities when they had been overtaken by the Galra- though in hindsight, she should have guessed.

After all, they had managed to program a spore. Who could manage a feat like that, if not the universe's greatest race of engineers?

Figures Keith would be thrilled about the forest though. Him being a nature boy, as Lance had put it, didn't surprise her at all, considering that they had first found him living out of a shack in the middle of the desert, alone.

Which did raise some questions about his parents- who let their child just live out in the desert by themselves, doing something as vague as chasing an energy signal?

Maybe they were psychic too.

"I don't think being psychic is going to help him much." Pidge simply remarked. "I'm more surprised that Hunk can't manage it."

"Yeah, I'm no good at thinking in binary." Hunk told her. "Pretty sure it'd just give me a headache."

Watching with one eye as Keith finally threw in the towel, going to join Shiro, Pidge frowned. Maybe being psychic didn't help him interact with the Olkari interface, but she had noticed that he'd been acting a bit weird every since they had stepped foot on Olkarion. It wasn't the same kind of weird as back on the Balmera- if anything, it was the opposite.

Being in the forest made him seem more energized.

Maybe it was just the whole nature boy thing. They had been stuck on the Castle of Lions for who knows how long now. The last time Keith had left the castle-ship, it had been back when the red lion crash landed on that asteroid. They hadn't been on a planet with actual nature since, well- Arus.

Before that, he'd been living out in the desert.

Of course, it could be the psychic thing. Keith adamantly refused to answer any of her questions about his abilities, turning down every offer to test them- even though, as she pointed out, they could help him to better understand them. It wasn't like she was doing it for her own personal curiosity, which, okay, she'd admit, was a factor.

It was almost like he had something to hide.

"I still say mine was just a tree." Lance said. "But hey- who knows, maybe if we free this King Lubos dude or whatever, he'll take our little Pidge here under his wing?"

Oh man, that sounded like a dream come true.

Being mentored by the leader of the Olkari? Forget becoming a paladin of Voltron, when she found Matt, that was all she would brag to him about.

The presence of his helmet was the only thing keeping him from pulling out his hair.

From the second he'd heard that there would be an infiltration mission, he'd perked right up. Something like that fell well within his range of talents, a fact which Shiro knew now- so he thought for sure he would send him in. He could be in and out with this King Lubos in no time, leaving them free to attack the imperial forces that had taken the city.

Granted, he'd never been on a rescue mission before, but it couldn't be that hard. It wasn't something that the Blade did often, if ever- usually when they did, it was because whoever they were rescuing was someone too important- or too dangerous- to be allowed to fall into Zarkon's hands.

Instead, they were all going.

He'd shot Shiro a look across the circle, one that he'd caught, but had then proceeded to pointedly ignore. He knew Shiro must have had a good reason for his choice, but he couldn't help but fume- what good was he to the team if he couldn't put his talents to use?

He wanted to pull Shiro aside, to ask him about it, but there was no time. Not when there was some kind of unknown weapon in the Olkari city, one that nearly looked complete. Getting King Lubos out of there and taking out the entrenched imperial forces was the priority right now- anything else could wait.

Any weapon that the Olkari had built could be nothing good.

He knew that Olkarion had fallen to imperial forces some months before he was to be sent to Earth. Kolivan had been keeping an eye on the situation, but from the intelligence that he had gathered, he'd determined that the commander in charge of this sector was acting alone, and had yet to report his actions to Galra High Command.

Commander Branko- greedy, ruthless, but also shortsighted. It was that latter trait that had him placed on the fringe of Zarkon's forces, away from any of the real action. He took too many gambles, and not all of them paid off- and Zarkon preferred those who earned him results.

Taking Olkarion was a feat, but one that he was choosing to let go unreported. He'd probably been planning on using it to gain him glory, to win back favor with Zarkon- and judging from the giant cube outside of their headquarters, it looked like that was exactly it.

In theory, it should make taking back Olkarion simple.

In reality, he knew that nothing was ever simple.

In reality, King Lubos had sold out his own people.

It made Keith's blood boil. He'd seen it before- rulers that would rather give into Zarkon, rather than try to fight. That was one thing- most of them were earnest in their desire to avoid bloodshed, if not naive. They would beg for mercy, and not realize that none existed within the Galra Empire.

But then there were rulers like this.

King Lubos claimed that he was doing this for his people- but just one look at his well fed, rotund figure told him a different story. He had been living a pampered life, while half of his people had been kept as slaves, and the other half had to flee for their lives, exiled to the forest.

He was no king.

He didn't think his gamble with Lubos would bear any fruit- but he could tell that they were outgunned, so he needed to do something. Taking Lubos hostage seemed like a good idea at the time, if not ineffective.

Besides, holding his bayard to his throat made him feel better.

For all that he was a genius engineer, Lubos clearly didn't understand one thing- there was no such thing as a bargain with the Galra Empire. Once you served your purpose, you would be thrown out like scrap.

And now they had a dangerous weapon, all because of him.

Turning him over to his people seemed like a mercy, compared to what he wanted to do to him. As far as he was considered, the King was a traitor, and traitors only earned one thing for themselves.

But they still had the weapon to contend with. At first glance, it appeared to be nothing more than a giant sized version of the flying echo cube that Coran had- which turned out to be the problem. Whatever they fed into it, it gave back- and when they tried to slice it apart, it just multiplied.

They were steadily running out of options.

Gritting his teeth, Keith gripped the controls of the red lion tight. Once again, Voltron wasn't strong enough. They weren't even Voltron now, they had split up back into lions, forced to do so in order to evade the attacks of what were now four echo cubes.

Even the blue lion's freeze ray had no effect.

That's when he heard the scream.

Jerking his head up, he turned in the direction it had come from, watching as the green lion plummeted to the ground. He hadn't seen what had happened, but he could only assume that it had gotten taken out by the cubes- a direct hit, given the crackle of energy that coated it as it crashed to the ground.

He felt something cold creep into his chest at the sight of it, taking root when Pidge didn't respond over the coms. He knew it would take more than just that to take out one of the lions, but he didn't know if the same could be said of its paladin. The armor that they wore had been designed with defense in mind, but even then, a blow in the wrong spot could still do serious damage.

(He tried not to think about how fragile humans could be.)

He felt, rather than heard, the low growl that escaped him. How could they be the defenders of the universe, if they couldn't even beat one measly cube?

How could he be a defender of the universe, if he couldn't actually protect anyone? Not his fellow paladins. Not Ulaz. Not anyone.

He couldn't even defeat a stupid cube.

He just wanted to throw himself at the damn things, to take them out of the sky, but nothing they had tried yet had worked. He still hadn't tried his lion's railgun, but given that the shoulder cannon hadn't worked, he doubted he'd have much luck with Red. He wasn't going to risk giving those things more firepower.

He sensed, rather than saw, Pidge's return.

Something connected in the back of his mind the instant he did see her- while the others were focused on how fast she was flying, his thoughts were on something else. He guessed none of them could sense it- the way that the green lion's presence was stronger than it had been before.

When he'd unlocked Red's hidden weapon, he'd felt the same thing.

The blue lion felt that way too now, and it hadn't been hard to guess why- Lance was only telling anyone who would listen about unlocking its hidden power. Which had to mean that between the time she had fallen out of the sky, and the time she had returned to battle, something had changed between Pidge and the green lion.

Hunk was right- he wouldn't have thought that vines would have brought those cubes down.

Shoulders sagging, Keith caught himself letting out a breath of relief. Ignoring Branko for as long as they had, had clearly been a mistake- if that weapon had gotten into Zarkon's hands, he couldn't imagine the damage that he could have done with it.

It also reminded him that the Blades' intelligence, though far reaching, was hardly perfect. If it was, they would have been able to locate Pidge's family by now.

When it came down to it, only a small handful of Blades were cleared for deep cover missions. It took specialized training- not just how not to get caught, how to scramble messages and cover up their actions, but also how to resist.

Druids, torture- but also propaganda.

Those who were selected for deep cover missions within the Galra Empire were only chosen after a rigorous series of tests. Even then, it wasn't perfect- all deep cover agents were closely monitored for any signs of suspicious activities. Even his mother wasn't spared that scrutiny.

They couldn't afford it.

All it took was one- just one- and their entire operation could be blown wide open. His own father had been a painful reminder of that. He would never know if it had been a mistake to send him on a deep cover mission in the first place, or if it had just been a mistake to send him on the one to which he'd been assigned.

All he knew was that Kolivan didn't risk sending any more agents to spy on Lotor.

He hadn't gotten the information that he'd wanted in the end, but they'd still paid too high of a cost for it. Kolivan had paid too high of a cost for it- the weight of the choice that he'd been forced to make that day was still one that weighed heavy on his shoulders, maybe more so than any other he'd been forced to make since taking command of the Blade of Marmora.

Shaking off such thoughts, Keith landed the red lion. The Olkari forces had been successful in driving the imperial forces out of the city, reclaiming it for their own. It was important news, and he'd have to report it to Kolivan as soon as possible- but for now, he needed to get out there and join the others.

Casting a glance in Pidge's direction, he gave her a slight frown. She deserved all the credit today- if it hadn't been for her unlocking her lion's hidden power, they might not have made it out of this battle alive.

...maybe he hadn't been giving her enough credit.

Inwardly wincing, it dawned on him that he'd been doing the same thing to her that he hated being done to him- judging her because of her size. He knew that Pidge was capable- back when the Castle of Lions had been taken over by Sendak, she'd dispatched the sentries sent after her. He might have taken out Haxus, but it had been her efforts that allowed them to win the day, and to take back the castle-ship.

He should have known better.

Maybe- maybe that's what Shiro had been trying to teach him.

...in which case, he probably owed her an apology. Probably.

Which was- infiltration missions he was good at, but apologies? His Blade of Marmora training didn't prepare him for that.

"Pidge, can I have a second?"

And there went her good mood.

Part of her just wanted to ignore Keith, brush him off. But there was something in his tone that forced her to stop, staring up at him with a tight frown on her face. He sounded... hesitant. Which was not a word that she normally associated with Keith.

"Sure," she told him, "-take all the seconds you need."

He seemed to frown at the turn of phrase, but didn't question it. Hunk was right, they seriously needed to work on Keith when it came to figures of speech. If she didn't know any better, it was like he'd grown up under a rock.

Hell, maybe he had.

"I- the training exercise from before," Keith began- and she didn't even attempt to disguise her frown at the mention of it, "-I didn't do it right. Sorry."

...okay, she hadn't actually expected an apology. Heck, she'd been certain that Keith hadn't even realized he'd done anything worth apologizing for.

It was short, abrupt, even a bit forced- but she was pretty sure it was at least earnest.

"Wow," arching a brow, Pidge couldn't help but let an amused smile twitch at her lips, "-you suck at apologies."

Keith seemed to bristle at her comment, but before he could say anything else, she preemptively cut him off. She didn't exactly want to give him the wrong idea.

"Apology accepted." She told him, nudging him in the stomach with her elbow. "Just don't do it again, okay? Us arms have to stick together."

Blinking, Keith tilted his head, brows furrowing- before he slowly nodded his head. "Yeah. Sure."

"Great!" Pidge grinned. "Now, if that's all, I'm dying to get out of this armor. Between early morning training and saving a planet, I'm pooped."

Which made one of them, she noted- for someone who apparently only slept for three hours, she couldn't recall the last time she'd seen Keith tired. She didn't know how he did it, but she was dying to know his secret. Imagine all the stuff she could get done if she only had to sleep for three hours!

"Allura said she wants us on the bridge when we're done." Keith reminded her.

"Yeah, I know, I'll be there." Pidge assured him.

Satisfied with that, Keith gave her a curt nod of his head, walking away without another word. His departure was just as abrupt as his apology was, but timing did not appear to be Keith's strong suit. But hey- she'd give him credit for trying.

And her bad mood? Gone.

Heck, between awakening the green lion's hidden power and meeting the Olkari, maybe today was even a good one.

She just had to go and jinx herself, didn't she?