AN: Okay, here we are folks, the 30th chapter of Paladins of Elements, and have reached over 2,000 reads! Yahoo! Play the music boiz, and dance! 

The aftermath of the Kral Zera was, a lot to say the least. Lotor was now officially the Emperor of the Galra, and was working to reform the empire along with help from the help of the coalition. Currently, the Paladins and Alteans were down in the pod bay to send off Sam to his trek back to Earth.

"We're gonna miss you sir." Shiro says.

"Oh, you guys seem to be fine without me. Your mission is out here, and mine is on Earth." The man replies. "As soon as I get back, I'll inform the Galaxy Garrison about what's going on and start working on ways to upgrade our own planetary defenses in case they decide to pay us a visit." He then promises.

"While you're there, tell Iverson the next time I see him, I'm kicking his ass for strapping me down to that table." Shiro asks.

"I'll kick it too." Kuro volunteers, and Sam laughs.

"Just for that, I'm not gonna tell them about the "second Shiro" thing. Iverson's face is going to be priceless." The man says mischievously.

"Hey, by the way, I had everyone record some messages for our families." Hunk says as he steps up with an altean flash drive in hand. "Uh, a little heads up, I may have, gotten teary-eyed during mine, so... that's Mom's eyes only." He says with a slight blush while handling Sam the drive.

"Of course." Sam says as he takes it.

"Oh and you don't wanna watch Lance's either, since it's probably just a love message to Jenny Shaybon, or the other Jenny. What was her last name again?" The boy adds teasingly.

"Shut up, Hunk!" Lance yells and turns away.

"Okay, I was just joking around. Jeez." The other boy says. "Hey, are you okay man?" He asks worried for his best friend.

"I-I'm fine. It's just... When I started thinking about Earth, I began thinking of my Mom, my Dad, my brothers, Luis and Marco, and my sisters, Veronica and Rachel, my abuela and abuelo, and Nadia and Sylvio..." He said as he began tearing. "I'm-I'm sorry, I need to go." He says and leaves, not knowing he was leaving a trail of frost behind him.

"Is he okay?" Kuro asks.

"I think he's homesick. I'll go talk to him." Shiro says and follows after the boy.

"I guess this is it." Sam says to his kids.

"I wish we could go with you and help with building Earth's first galactic defense system." Matt says.

"I'm just worried we won't have enough time and the proper resources for it." The man admits.

"A wise man once said: "If you get too worried about what could go wrong, you might miss your chance to do something great"." Pidge quoted. Sam was stunned as she just threw his own words at him.

"Sounds like a wise man indeed." He chuckles. "Matt, you be careful on the front lines, and Pidge, keep an eye on your brother for me." He tells them.

"You got it, Dad." Pidge replies. The man suddenly began whimpering, with tears forming in his eyes, before he proceeded to engulf both his children in a hug.

"I love you both so much." He says emotionally.

"We love you too, Dad." Pidge says as she and Matt hug him back. Rover flies over to them and starts beeping. The small family separate and Rover opens his hatch, a seed falling out. Pidge quickly catches it and concentrates, soon a strange flower bloomed from the seed, with yellow petals and pink pollen center.

"We'll always be connected." She assures, handing the flower to her awestruck father. Behind them, both Hunk and Coran were tearing up at the exchange. With that, Sam boards the altean pod and flies out. Allura opening a wormhole for him to travel faster, with the Holt children watching as their father disappears.

Meanwhile, across the universe in the Blade of Marmora headquarters, Keith had been called in by Kolivan for something urgent. Though, he didn't know why yet. Currently, he was with the man to learn exactly that.

"This base was, until recently, run by a Galra commander named Ranveig, who was developing a new super weapon of sorts. We're not what sure what it is, but we do know it's incredibly powerful, and most probably dangerous." Kolivan tells the young half-galra.

"How did we learn about this?" Keith asks.

"We have a spy in their ranks. We assume because she managed to acquire high-level security clearance, that she is currently in charge of the base. Since Ranveig was lost in the calamity of the recent Kral Zera." Kolivan answers and explains.

"What do you mean?" The boy asks this time.

"Unfortunately, we are not the only one who have heard of the weapon. With Ranveig gone, two different Galra factions, led by Commanders Trugg and Ladnok respectively, are at war over the territory. Our communications were cut off due to their fighting." The older galra answers him.

"We need you to infiltrate the base to extract our spy, and destroy Ranveig's weapon. Keith, this mission is of the most importance. If either faction gets their hands on this weapon, it could tip the balance of the war in their favor. So you cannot allow your feelings to deter you." He says next.

"What?! I wouldn't--" Keith began.

"You have a history of letting your emotions get to you. You must learn better control, for yourself and others. Your powers are partially tied to your emotional state and react to it, so you need self-control, or you'll end up hurting yourself, and others." Kolivan tells him. He wanted to deny, but couldn't, as it was true.

"Understood." He replies.

"This is the operative that you'll be contacting." The galra man continued, and an image of a galran woman with a ponytail and two stripes on her cheeks is shown. "Her name, is Krolia. Thace has already been dispatched to meet her, but we lost contact with him a while back, and he could probably use backup." He informs.

Meanwhile, back with the others, they were all flying the Castle of Lions to meet with Lotor about the new empire at the main ship station.

"I still can't believe that we're flying into the belly of the beast." Lance comments.

"Yeah, it's weird to think about how the last time we were here, we were fighting the Galra. Now we're working with them." Hunk says in agreement.

"I know, but we agreed to work and support Lotor now that he is the Emperor. This is our chance to promote a new era of peace." Allura states. They then dock and board the ship, making their way to the throne room.

"Thank you for coming my friends." Lotor greets them as they walk into the room. Narti by his side, along with two high sentries and two lines of them on either side of the path leading up to him. "We've prepared a new imperial banner to herald our alliance. This is the same symbol that flew over our fathers when they worked together as the original Paladins." He says as they walk up to him.

"I hope that we can return the universe to that golden age. But I'm afraid, since I had ascended to the throne, the Galra Empire has been torn apart. A sizeable portion have sworn their allegiance, but other massive factions remain in revolt, refusing to accept me as their new king." He then explains. Oh, that's not good.

"Uh, okay, the Galra aren't exactly known to turn the other cheek." Hunk says.

"Yeah, they're more likely to swing the other fist." Lance adds.

"How do you get an empire that's only known tranny and violence for thousands of years to put down their weapons?" Shiro himself asks.

"By providing them with the very thing that they're fighting for. Quintessence. An unlimited amount of it, and, Allura, you are the key to getting it." Lotor replies. "I'm sure you're all interested in inspecting every part of the galra headquarters." He says to the others.

"I would like to cross-reference our star charts with current galra troop locations." Shiro admits.

"Consider it done then." Lotor replies.

"You want to sync our intelligence to the Galra Headquarters?" Coran questions. "Well, I never thought I'd see the quiznacking quintant." The altean man says.

"Sentry, take them to the records room. You will find everything you need there." The hybrid emperor orders one of the sentries, then informs them. The sentry begins walking away and Coran, Shiro and Kuro, follow after it. Lotor then turns his attention to Lance, Hunk and Pidge.

"I'm leaving you three with Narti and a personal escort. You can explore as much as you, but I advise you to be careful." He tells them then turns back to Allura. "As for you Princess, I'd like to show you something." He says and the walk away.

"So we're free to roam around Galra HQ and have some fun?" Hunk asks.

Yes, I and the sentry can take you anywhere you desire. Narti signs.

"Awesome. I'm glad you're with us, Narti." Lance replies back to her.

"What is, fun?" The sentry assigned to them asks, causing the three Paladins to look at it.

"You're about to find out." Lance declares.

"Lance, it's a robot it can't have fun." Pidge states, then looks like she thought of something. "Unless... I reprogram it." She says.

"Take us to the sentry repair center!" Hunk shouts excitedly, having tossed his helmet into the air where it conked another sentry on the head, though it seemed unfazed. The sentry then leads them to the center.

Am I going to regret this? Narti asks, Kova meows from her shoulder.

"Hmm... Probably, but it'll be fun. Like a rollercoaster." Lance replies.

A what? Narti asks.

"Oh, right. I'll explain while they work the sentry." He says and they follow after the other two paladins and robot.

Meanwhile, Keith arrived at the planet with Ranveig's base, in a galra fighter, where he found a literal war zone. The fleets were shooting at each other, with one side clearly losing. Oh, man... Well, best thing to do was blend in with the debris as he flies down to the surface.

So far it was going smoothly, but then a piece of the debris hit his ship, taking one of the wings with it, and causing him to spin out of control. As he nears the planet surface, with a high possibly of crashing, he manages to catch himself. The landing was rough, but he managed to survive and make it to the facility.

The inside was hectic as the occupants all appeared to be evacuating. Keith hides behind a corner, looking out to see a bunch of sentries along with the same galra woman from the picture. Krolia. She began to turn her head, so Keith ducked back behind the corner. He looks out again, but doesn't find her.

"What are you doing here?" He hears and turns to see another Blade of Marmora. Thace. Before Keith could anything, the two turn back, taking out their blades and aiming them at their assailant, who turned out to be Krolia. She looked at their blades then back to them. Keith wasn't sure, but she looked, surprised, at his.

"You're late." She says as she retracts her weapon, Thace and Keith doing the same. "We don't have much time." She tells them.

Back at the Galra Headquarters, Lotor had taken Allura to Haggar's lair. Hoping to find something that could help them. Allura was reluctant to look around the lab, but Lotor managed to encourage her. The shelves were filled with all sorts of odd items, and even parts of creatures, where Allura came across something familiar.

"Look at this." She says, getting Lotor's attention as he walks over to her. "It's an Altean science log. Like the ones my father kept." She explains, handing it to the hybrid emperor, who activates it.

"This was written by my mother, Honerva, thousands of years ago." He states.

"Wait, your mother was Honerva?" Allura says surprised. "The Honerva, who studied and documented the rift on Daibazaal? Then, that would mean, you're, half-altean?" She confirms.

"Yes. It was something the Galra, including my father, considered it a weakness, but to me, I see it as a strength." He says back.

"Narti had told us you were a hybrid like she is, but I never would have thought your other half would be altean." Allura admits softly.

"The union between Zarkon and Honerva had sparked a technological revolution within the empire. Even back then, Altean culture was remarkably advanced, but with the kinds of experiments she was conducting... she'd managed to advance it further. By eons." The half-altean adds, looking through the images on the log.

"How did Haggar get her hands on this?" The altean princess questions.

"She was constantly seeking any magical altean knowledge that she could use to increase her own power. I wouldn't be surprised if half of these items turned out to stolen, or taken from ruined planets. Though there must have been things she was unable to access." He theorizes.

"I'm going to continued my search." Allura tells him and walks away to do that, while Lotor continues looking through the log.

Back on Ranveig's base, the three Blade of Marmora agents were busy

"Why would Kolivan risk sending you two here now?" Krolia questions as she works on the base's computer systems.

"Because he's heard about Ranveig's super weapon. We cannot let it fall into the wrong hands." Keith replies.

"I know. I figured Thace would be enough, but I don't understand why he would another agent in this situation." The Galran woman reiterates.

"I think I might have a theory on that." Thace whispered to her so Keith couldn't here. Said boy was distracted by another blast to the base to notice.

"I'm guessing from Commander Trugg attacking my base, that Ranveig is dead, then?" The alien woman asks.

"One of the causalities of the recent Kral Zera." Thace answers.

"We need to destroy super weapon as soon as possible, Trugg is about to crush the last of your forces. What did he even develop?" Keith states, then asks.

"A while back, Warlord Ranveig intercepted an unknown shipment of something in his territory. Inside, it turned out to be quintessence, but nothing like ever seen before, it was far more powerful than we've ever had in the empire. He took for himself and began to experiment with it. Eventually, he used it to make a weapon, the quintessence however, had some unexpected effects." Krolia explains.

"What kind of effects?" Thace asked, but is interrupted by an explosion, causing them all to shaken off-balance

"Warning! First level of defense has been breached! Engaging second level!" A voice from the computer announced. Krolia types in something, pulling up a holo image of the battle cruisers landing.

"Trugg's fleet has touched down near base. We're running out of time! Come on!" She says, leading the two men out of the room and into an elevator.

Back at the central Galra Headquarters, Lotor was still looking through the science logs, but something was off.

"What's the matter?" Allura asked as she walks back over to him, noticing his tense expression.

"By the end of these logs, it's like their written by a different person. She's frantic, paranoid, erratic, and superstitious. Her reason and intellect seem to be gone, and have been replaced by fear and paranoia." He replies and explains. "It doesn't make any sense." He adds, then Allura looked like something strikes her.

"Lotor, have you ever wondered, what if Honerva became corrupted like Zarkon was? Perhaps, she didn't die. What if, in fact, she and Haggar are the same--"

"That witch, is not my mother." Lotor cuts her off and insists. He deactivates the logs and turns to search the room. "There must be something else in this room, something that we missed." He states.

"I've looked all over this place. I can't find anything relating to altean alchemy." Allura tells him.

"Perhaps we're not using all the tools at our disposal. Close your eyes and just... let yourself feel the energy around you." Lotor suggests. Allura does what he said. "See if any of these objects call out to you." He says and she does, not knowing her marks were glowing. They stopped when she opened her eyes and walks over to one of the shelves, moving aside a metal box to reveal a strange stone.

"I was drawn to this." She says as she picks up the stone and shows it to Lotor.

"Wait a tick. I know I've seen something about this before." The emperor says. He presses something on his gauntlet, bringing out holoscreen and began looking through the files on it. "Where is it? Here!" He said, stopping at a picture of what looked like an old stone building.

"These are ancient ruins from an old Altean outpost now beneath the oceans of Planet Entuk. There, I found a mosaic depicting Altean explorers following a map projected what they called a "compass stone". Supposedly, it can lead the mystic realm of Oriande." He explains.

"Oriande? You mean the legendary realm, said to be the source of secrets of the greatest of Altean alchemy? I thought it was just a folktale." Allura asks.

"Indeed, and my research has led me to believe that it is quite real." He replies back, while turning off the holo image. "We need to get this stone working. If we do, we can find Oriande and discover the secrets of alchemy that've been lost for deca-phoebs." He declares.

Back on Ranveig's base, Krolia led Thace and Keith down to the ground floor through the elevator they took.

"Get to that console!" She orders and she and Thace run to the said computers.

"What now?" Thace asks, Keith next to him.

"We need to simultaneously enter this code." Krolia replies. At that moment, the door was blown off and galra sentries came marching in.

"I'll handle these guys, you focus on the code." Keith says, taking his blade in hand and charges.

"Keith-!" Thace begins but the boy didn't listen and instead starts slicing up the sentries. However, one gets the drop on him, taking his blade and knocking him out. "No!" Thace says and jumps in, brandishing his own blade. Krolia retaliates also using her hand blaster, before grabbing Keith's blade and using it herself.

When it was over, the two turned to see Commander Trugg with her lieutenant and troops, who managed to capture Keith and had their guns pointed at them. Said Paladin looked like he was about to use his fire to break free, before Thace looks at him sternly and shakes his head, telling him not to. Keith was confused.

"Surrender of die." Trugg tells them. Krolia sighs, the blade in her hands turning back into its dagger form. She then raises her hands up to her head.

"We can make a deal." She offers.

"What are you doing?" Keith asks.

"Krolia..." Thace says from next to her.

"No... We left you once, I refuse to leave you again." The Galra woman responds. What? What did she mean? Thace seemed to flinch, then looks at Keith, before turning away, looking... ashamed? Why? "Give us a ship and I'll give you the codes to the weapon." Krolia says.

"Why should I trust you?" Trugg scoffs.

"You don't have a choice. I'm the only one who knows the access code. If you try to break in, the room will self-destruct." Krolia tells her. "Once we're all airborne, I'll give you the code." She promises and Trugg looked reluctant.

"Deal." She says.

Back with Allura and Lotor, the two found themselves stuck on how to activate the compass stone. Allura in particular was frustrated.

"It won't open." She says dejected, unable to open the thing.

"I know you can, you just have to concentrate. You have the power is within you." Lotor encourages her.

"What if I don't? My father had an ability that very few Alteans possessed. Coran doesn't have it, Honerva didn't have it. The truth is, I may not have his abilities either. I'll never be the alchemist my father." She says, as tears began forming in her eyes. She then felt hands enclose hers, and looks up the emperor.

"Allura, that's not what I meant." Lotor says, wiping away her tears. "You do not have to be like your father, you already have a different power, the gift that Zarc granted you. He saw something in you, like I do right now." He tells her with a genuine smile on his face. Allura looked stunned, but then returns the smile.

Just then, the compass stone, now held in both their hands, glowed and an image sprout forth from it. Materializing into what could only be described as map. Most likely to Oriande.

"What? Did I...?" Allura asked stunned.

"I think, we did." Lotor says, looking to her then the stone. "Together... One of us couldn't activate it on our own, but together we..." He trailed off, then looks back up at Allura. "Together, we can find a way to carry on the lost tradition of Altean alchemy." He says excitedly.

"I had worried that tradition had died along with Altea, so many deca-phoebs ago." Allura admitted, then looks up at the map again. "Is that...?" She asked.

"Oriande." Lotor finishes, both looking at where the map leads to.

Back at Ranveig's base, Krolia, Thace and Keith, had all boarded one of the fighter ships and were preparing to leave the base and planet.

"I still can't believe you gave them the weapon just to save me. You compromised the mission." Keith tells the Galran woman.

"Keith, shut up and trust me." Said woman scolds the boy, who promptly shuts his mouth, then opens a com link to the Commander. "Commander Trugg, we are prepared for liftoff. Are you at the weapons console?" She says then asks.

"Affirmative." Trugg replies.

"The code is Beta-5-2-7-4... Omega-5-4-5." Krolia proceeds to them.

"Confirmed." Trugg says and the galran woman turns to her companions.

"Get us out of here, now!" She orders. Keith quickly rushes to the helm and proceeds to take off, flying away from the base and planet. However, it wasn't going to be that simple, as Trugg proceeded to shoot them.

"They're locking onto us! Hold on!" Keith says and dodges the ensuing blasts aimed at them. "This is why you should've have made that trade for me! We could die, and Trugg gets the weapon!" He says after a near miss.

"Krolia, I understand your motive, but why would you leave it to them instead of setting them up?" Thace himself questioned.

"No, you're wrong. I didn't leave it to them, I left them to it." Krolia corrects. As soon as they were in the clear, Keith breathed out a sigh of relief, then got up and walks over to Thace.

"I could've escaped, why did you tell me not to?" He questioned.

"Because if Trugg realized what you could do, she would've taken you as her weapon." Thace replies.

"Why do you care? Please, tell me. What do you know of me?" He asked, but Thace stayed quiet. Keith growled. "Enough with these games! I've been looking for you! Back when we were fighting Zarkon, you said my father's name! I know that's no Galra name, and you were looking right at me! So tell me! What do you know!?" He pleaded, tears forming in his eyes as he shook the galran man.

"Keith..." The two turn to Krolia, with Keith letting go of Thace. "I should give this back to you." She says, handing the blade back to the boy.

"How were you able to use it? The Blade told an agent's weapon, would only work for them." Said boy questions, sniffling as he wipes his tears.

"Because, it used to mine. Before I left with you, and your father, Jeremiah. When me and Thace left you both on Earth." Krolia replies. What...?

"Wait, that would mean, you're my..."

AN: Woo-wee! That was a trip. What a 30th chapter. Well, at least I hope it was. With that ending, I bet you are all wondering that with Krolia now in the picture, what does Thace have to do with Keith's past? Well you'll find out soon enough. So stick around and I'll see you all next time.