Hello everyone – here is a new story from me to celebrate my change in pen-name. It is mostly a friendship fic, but it will have its pairings. This is a prequel to my story 'Start of Something New' so it will detail a lot of things that are mentioned there, so if you want to know stuff like how Allura comes back, what happens with Allurance afterwards, this fic will have at least some of that. I have not planned out to what extent though as I am winging it. Ages of the characters are as follows:

Keith is 23 years old

Lance and Hunk are 20 years old

Pidge is 18 years old

Shiro is 28 years old.

Matt is 25 years old

Curtis is 30 years old

Trigger warning for bullying and a character being beaten up. If you have experienced bullying as a child, been haunted by childhood bullies and they have hurt you even when you were older, the following content may be a bit triggering for you. Please proceed with caution.

1. Demons from the Past

Being a hero, saving multiple realities and basically the entire universe did not eliminate the fear of personal demons. Pidge wished things were that simple – it would make life a whole lot easier. She had been waiting for Lance at the Garrison – because he was the only Paladin that had any connection to the Blue Lion, and she was going to bring her friend. Allura had sacrificed herself to save the whole universe – she deserved to see the world that she had helped create with the rest of them.

It was why she had not expected what happened next. A lot of people hung around the Galaxy Garrison so what were the odds of people she had tried so hard forgetting to be some of them, right? Apparently, the odds were quite good because the mocking laughter reached her ears as if she were still a kid at school.

"I can't believe my eyes," The girl's voice – Jasmine, as she remembered the name was disbelieving as she had walked over to where she was standing. "Katie? Katie Holt? Wow, you really do look like a boy."

Pidge clenched a fist. Ignore them and they'll go away. Okay, so that never worked when she was a child, but she was a hero now, right? This should be a lot simpler now then why wasn't it? Because ignorance never made them stop, no matter how old she got, and Matt wasn't here. He was at home. 'You're an adult now, Katie. You don't need your brother bailing you out of everything, right?' She did wish for her bayard right now, just to teach Jasmine a lesson even though she knew it wasn't the right way. She didn't have long to think about it as Jasmine grabbed her by the shirt.

"What do you think, Katie?" Jasmine said, getting right up in her face. "That just because you saved the world makes you special now? I know you really are. Nerd."

Pidge squirmed, her tiny fists clenching even, and she brought her knee up, pushing it into Jasmine's stomach to push her back. "Leave me alone!" The Paladins' faces flashed in her mind – she wasn't alone anymore. Lance. Keith. Hunk. Shiro. Coran. Even Allura although she wasn't here right now – they were with her. She didn't have to put up with them because she had her friends, right? If that's true, where are they? That was true, where was Lance? He was supposed to meet her here and he hadn't messaged her that he might be running late. Still, trying to stand up to Jasmine was a mistake – she was a lot bigger than her, after all. Jasmine had always been around Hunk's height as well as beautiful, model-skinny and people surrounding her all the time. But with Keith's fighting abilities – though clearly not, the honour of either of them. Neither Hunk nor Keith would ever attack someone who couldn't fight back.

The girl struck her down and Pidge's eyes widened as the flurry of kicks and punches pounded upon her like a ton of bricks. She curled herself into a ball but could still feel the impact of each kick in her back. She coughed – was it a mistake to try to stand up to her childhood bully? She had thought she was stronger now – she could feel Green's protests in the back of her mind, encouraging her that she was stronger, and Pidge could sense it. Green wanted to fly to her.

No, Green, I can handle it. She winced as her head slammed into the ground as she tried to crawl away, blood coming into her eyes from the cut it made but just as suddenly as the attacks on her smaller body had started, they stopped, and Jasmine got up.

"Shit," Jasmine cursed, and she ran off. Pidge could see that much even with the blood in her eyes but what had made her run off? She got the answer when Lance ran to her side.

"Pidge! Oh my god, are you…" Lance sounded a little panicked. She opened her mouth to reassure him that she was fine – that this was nothing new to her but the moment she tried, she dissolved into a flurry of coughs because everything hurt.

"S-sorry," was all she managed to get out. Wait, that wasn't what she meant to say because it would mean she wasn't fine, but she wanted Matt.

"Hang on, I'll call the ambulance, once I get you more comfortable," Lance said quickly, and he reached out to pick her up. "I'm so sorry, Pidge. I should have gotten here sooner."

Pidge leaned against Lance's chest slightly, trying to uncurl herself from the ball she had curled her body up into, but this made her cringe. Every part of her body hurt right now, and it hurt to move but she had to keep going. Anything to keep from answering the questions Lance was bound to have – the questions she didn't want to answer. Her heart sunk – what if this was the moment when the Paladins decided she wasn't good enough to be their friend? They had saved the world together, but they had never really known this part of her past – the darkest part, the one she had always tried to keep hidden from everyone and it had been put on display now.

"Matt," Pidge managed to get out, ignoring how her throat stung just to get that out. "Please, Lance. Call Matt." She was slowly starting to uncurl as her body was beginning to relax from its tense position it had been in.

"I will, I promise," Lance assured, settling her on a Garrison couch. "But let me call an ambulance first, ok? You're…I'm really sorry I got there too late, Pidge. Maybe I could have done something. I'm really sorry."

He sounded so guilty – okay, so that meant he hadn't assumed anything about these being her childhood bullies – that was good, that was really good. Her heart relaxed as she curled back into a ball again and closed her eyes. She knew she most likely might have a concussion, so she'd keep herself awake until the ambulance got here. As long as her friends didn't know, everything would be okay.