AN: Welcome back readers, I hope you enjoyed the chapter, two actually and both parts, and are ready for more. Without further ado, Chapter 3 everybody.

It was early morning on Arus, more specifically, on the Castle of Lions. Where resided the Paladins of Voltron, and the last Alteans in the universe. It was currently peaceful as the Arusian sun rose, shinning its first light on the castle. Suddenly, the alarms starting blaring, alerting everyone in the castle.

"Everybody up! Zarkon is attacking! The Castle's about to be destroyed! Go! Go! We need Voltron now!" Allura's voice, loudly, rings over the castle comm systems and everyone reacts immediately.

Hunk, who was sleeping, promptly fell out of bed and began running to the door. Not without tripping on his blanket first though. (AN: That happened to me once. And may I just say, Ow!). Shiro, who was already awake, and in his armor doing push-ups, stood up and ran out the door towards the bridge.

Keith, who was also up, looking at his dagger, shot out of bed and grabs his jacket, then runs out the door. Finally Pidge, who was sleeping in the medical bay, awoke, dropping her laptop, and quickly got and made her way to the bridge with Rover right behind her.

"Hurry! We can't survive much longer!" Allura shouted. The whole thing was actually a training drill and there wasn't any danger.

"You've got to sell it a little bit more." Coran says and clears his throat. "Oh, no! Allura is dead! Aw, it's horrible! Her head fell off!" The ginger-haired man said, overdramatically. 

"Wait! What? Her severed head is trying to speak to me! What is it, Allura's head?! What are your final words? I'm listening." He continued, now just being ridiculous, not even noticing that the others were already in the room.

"Coran, it's over." Allura says annoyed.

"Oh, I know! If only Voltron had been formed!" He groans still acting, then felt something hit him in the back of the head, knocking him down.

"Drill's over, Coran! Knock it off!" The assailant was none other than Alaina. She was in her Altean battle outfit, but her hair was in slight disarray, signifying a restless awakening. Jaga on her shoulder, somehow looking annoyed. Allura's mice soon scurry into the room, making their way to their respective owner.

(AN: Okay, I'm just going to get this out of the way now, the names of the Mice. The big yellow one is Platt, the pink one is Chuchule, the gray one is Plachu, and the little blue one is Chulatt. With that explained, let's get back to the story.)

"Princess!" Amue, as always, was beside Lana and was trying to fix her messy hair.

"I'm guessing this isn't an actual attack." Shiro says.

"And it's a good thing it wasn't because it took you all... Coran?" Allura asks the Altean royal advisor.

"Seventy-five degrees." He answered. Wait a minute...

"That's a temperature reader." Amue says and plucks the device from his hands. She had finished fixing Alaina's hair, and it was once again in a braided bun.

"However long it was, it was too long." Allura states and approaches the Paladins. "You must always be ready to do battle with Zarkon. Look at you! Only Shiro is in uniform. Keith, Pidge, Hunk, where are your bayards? Alaina, I thought you would at least be fully ready." She says.

"Well excuse me, but you know how much I hate being woken up. Besides, I figured it was a drill, but I at least tried to get my outfit on as fast as I could." Lana says while petting Jaga.

"Indeed Princess, besides when did you and Coran wake up?" Amue asks.

"We've been up for hours getting the Castle back in order. We had to run a test on the alarms, and we decided to test you as well. Guess which was a failure." The first princess says, the last part being a rhetorical question.

"Hey!" Hunk said with a yawn, clearly he hadn't completely woken up yet. "You got to sleep for 10,000 years, man. Monday night, I was on Earth. Now, I've flown through space, fought an evil alien warlord named Zarkon, eaten green goo in some weird castle. It's a lot to process in, uh... I don't know. What day is it?" He finished with a question.

"It'd the third quintant of the Spicolian movement. Hump day!" Coran answers.

"It's a lot to process." Hunk insisted.

"You must understand the stakes of our mission." Allura began as a screen appeared and she taps a few buttons. "Over the last 10,000 years, the Castle has picked up distress beacons from the following locations." She continued, bringing up a holographic map of the universe, with red light markers in certain locations.

"So we have to assume that Zarkon has conquered almost the entire known universe." The Princess explains and moves the map to reveal the milky way galaxy. "Earth is here. An attack on your planet is inevitable." She states.

"Oh, no." Hunk says, now fully awake.

"Exactly. Our mission is to free all those planets. Coran and I are getting the Castle ready to leave Arus. During that time, you have to form Voltron, so we can fight against Zarkon." She finishes with every bit of authority she has.

"The Princess is right. Let's get to our lions and start training." Shiro instructs.

"Wait, I want to talk to the prisoners we rescued from the Galra ship." Pidge says.

"Uh, negative Number 4. I have you ranked by height, you see?" Coran says while appearing to be measuring Pidge using his arms. "The prisoners need to remain in the cryo-replenishes until tomorrow." He continues.

"That's right. Now, get to your lions." Allura commands and they all obey.

"Is he really gonna be calling us numbers based on our heights?" Hunk asks Lana.

"Probably. He sometimes calls Allura and Me, Princess One and Princess Two." She replies and they all go into the pillars in the room, where they dress in their Paladin armor. Shiro, already in his armor as stated before, instead goes to one of the bridge Paladin stations.

The Paladins are then lowered through an elevator like shaft. Once reaching the bottom floor, they all take zip lines down further, though Hunk fell off his and had to slide down the rest of the way. 

At the end of the zip lines, the Paladins jump into a chute and land in some kind of vehicles and start them up, driving to another platform that raises them into their lions' hangers and all board the lions with their vehicles. Again for Hunk, he unfortunately missed his vehicle and had to walk the rest of the way, then found Yellow asleep and had to wake her up.

The rest of the Paladins had already flown their lions out of their hangers and landed in front of the Castel and were waiting on the Yellow duo.

"Should someone go after him?" Lana asked a little concerned.

"I'm guessing Yellow overslept again. Give them time." Blue replies. Just then, the said Paladin and Lion finally appeared.

"Hi, guys. Sorry, everybody. I had troubles with my chute and Yellow wouldn't wake up." Hunk apologized as he flew his lion down to join the others.

"Hey, I said I was sorry. I'm not an early bird, and why did we have to get up so early?" The Lion replies.

"Seriously though, can't they park these guys like, a little closer to the bridge?" The Paladin asks.

"Yeah, that always did bug me." His lion agreed.

"Alright guys, let's fly in tight formation until we're totally in sync." Shiro instructs.

"Feel the bond with your lions and your fellow pilots until ten become united and you form Voltron!" Allura encourages over the comms. With that, the Paladins and lions take off all flying in formation and yelling in enthusiasm. Though said enthusiasm diminished as they continued to fly, but nothing happened.

"Whoo. Am I the only one still pretending to be excited?" Hunk asks. The others' silence was a confirmation.

"Clearly, this isn't working. Let's set down for a little bit." Shiro says.

"Maybe we should build Voltron from the ground up." Keith suggests.

"What do you mean?" Asks the leader.

"I mean, let's try literately building Voltron, like stacking on top of each other." The Red Paladin said.

"Wait, like a cheerleading pyramid?" Pidge snickered and Keith groaned.

"A what?" Lana asked, having no clue what they were talking about.

"You got a better idea?" Keith asks.

"Worth a shot." Shiro says and they do it.

The lions all stack on top of each other, trying to recreate the order of Voltron. However, the order was all over the place. The Green and Blue Lions were on the bottom, with the Red Lion on top both of them, Black on top of Red and Yellow on top of Black.

"Hunk, what are you doing?" Shiro asked.

"What do you mean?" Hunk asked.

"You're supposed to be the leg. Over there." The Black Paladin states.

"What? No, no, no, no. I'm pretty sure that we were the head. That's Yellow said." Hunk replies.

"Yes, we were." The Lion said with a mischievous grin in her voice. Black seemed to sigh and proceeded to throw the Yellow duo off his back.

"Not funny, Yellow. Now get serious." The head lion scolds.

"What the heck Shiro?!" Hunk yelled.

"That was Black. He agrees that wasn't funny." The Black Paladin replies.

"Besides, didn't you yell "I'm a leg!" anyway?" Lana asked.

"I was yelling a lot of things." The big guy replied.

"Shiro's the head." Keith insisted.

"That means Black too Yellow." Red adds.

"Let's just do it my way for now." Shiro says.

"Alright, but next time I call the head." Hunk says.

"Yeah!" His lion agrees.

"Yellow." Black says in a scolding tone. While Hunk couldn't understand him, he got the message, if the growling was any indicator. With that they properly build Voltron in the correct order. Blue and Yellow at the bottom, Red and Green on them, and Black on top all of them.

"Feel the bonds with your lions. Now, channel your energy into forming Voltron." Shiro instructs. "Focus. Focus." He repeated, but again, nothing happened. Except an alien equivalent of a tumble weed rolled by. "Is everyone bonding and focusing?" The leader asks.

"How come this was so much easier before?" Keith grunted.

"Was it really? It took us until Sendak caught us in his tracker beam to form Voltron last time." Lana states.

"You're the one with the most experience here, how do we form Voltron?" Pidge asks the princess.

"As I've stated, I don't know. The Paladins of Old would fly just into the air and suddenly combine. I never asked any questions about it, because I didn't know what to ask." The Altean girl replies.

"Even we're unsure of its exact mechanics." Green said.

"Fair point. Let's take a break then." Shiro says and they unstack.

"Sorry to interrupt," the other Altean Princess's image appears. "But I may be able to help." She offered. "Yesterday, you weren't able to form Voltron until you were in the heat of battle." She says, the others agree and listen. "Perfect. Because I need to run a diagnostic test on the Castle defenses. So this should help!" She said while pressing a few buttons.

"Wait, what? You're kidding, right? Wait, you can't be. Oh, Quiznack, run!" The younger princess says and takes off.

"What? Why?" Pidge asks confused. They got their answer when the particle barrier comes up and laser beams start shooting at them and they all start running too.

"Allura, what are you doing?!" Keith yelled.

"You're really lucky you're that castle right now!" Red growls.

"Yeah, sis what the hell are you thinking?!" The other Altean girl asks.

"Running a diagnostic test on the Castle defenses and inspiring you!" She replies. "I believe in you, Paladins! Let fear be your guide! From Voltron!" She encourages.

"We're not going to be able to form Voltron if you kills us first!" The other white-haired Altean rebuffs strongly as they continued dodging the Castle attacks.

"Ahh! That's it! I'm going back to the Castle!" Hunk shouts and starts flying Yellow back like he said.

"Yeah, I'm out!" His lion agrees.

"What? No! Wait Hunk, the--!" The 2nd Princess tries to warn, but it was too late as the Yellow duo rams into the barrier and bounce right off. "Particle Barrier, is still up... Oh, dear." She finishes, then quickly dodges a big one.

"Allura, stop this right now! Have some mercy on us!" Shiro shouts.

"Yeah! This is no way to motivate teamwork!" Black growls.

"You think Zarkon will have mercy on you? He's probably coming now to destroy all us!" The older princess rebuffs.

"Again! Not if you destroy us first!" The younger shouts, but the other wasn't listening and turns on auto mode and left the bridge. "Allura!" The Altean shouts but she was already gone. "Quiznack!" She curses.

They continued to dodge the oncoming attacks, before the they finally stopped and the particle barrier went down. The Paladins and Lions wasted no time, and flew back to the Castle, landing their Lions in their hangers and meeting up in the lounge area to take a break. 

All except Shiro were there, having collapsed against the couch in the floor, as the door opened and Allura and Coran walked in.

"Are we at full power on condenser number five yet?" The princess asked the advisor.

"No, still just 84 percent." Coran replied as Allura notices the Paladins.

"You did it! You formed Voltron!" She assumes.

"No. The shooting stopped and the particle barrier shut down, so we just flew in." Keith corrected and explained.

"What?" She asked annoyed, while Coran looked sheepish.

"Oh, right. Uh, sorry, Princess. I had to turn off the Castle defenses to test the fire suppressors." He apologized as Shiro walks.

"What are you guys doing in here? We're not taking a break." He says.

"Shiro's right. You should be training." Allura agrees.

"We have been training. We just need a short break, before we can get back up on our feet. Forming Voltron is not as easy as it looks." Lana replies.

"Yeah, and when can go back to Earth?" Hunk groaned.

"I'm not going back until I find my family." Pidge says.

"Guys, there won't be an Earth if we don't figure out how to fight Zarkon." Shiro states.

"Shiro, I understand you've suffered under that tyrant and want justice for it, but we need to take step back there. We can't form Voltron, so we can't fight him." Alaina states.

"Well, I'm not surprised." Coran spoke and everyone turned to him. "You know, the original paladins fought hundreds of battles together, side-by-side. They were like a pack of yalmors linked at the ears." He explained while stretching his ears.

"Yeah, and we are the furthest thing from that. Even before Voltron, the Paladins of Old fought together, side-by-side, like Coran said. We've just barely met, and I'm pretty sure forming Voltron last time was just luck." Alaina emphasized.

"Indeed. During the last battle, your survival instincts forced you to work as a team, but that will only get you so far. You'll have to become a real team to have any chance of forming Voltron and beating Zarkon next time." The ginger-haired man explains. "You should try working out on the training deck." He suggests.

"Wait, there's a training deck?" Hunk asks as Lana stands up.

"Good idea, Coran. Everyone, follow me." She says and leads the others to the castle training deck. Coran behind them.

Once they arrive, the Paladins look around in awe. It was huge! And spacious. Perfect for practicing combat. Though it was also kind of empty, not really having anything to practice against. Coran himself, was up in the deck control room and turns on the system.

"Two, two, one, two." He spoke into the microphone headset like electronic he was wearing. "Okay, listen up, guys. The paladin code demands you put your team members safety above your own." He announces.

"A swarm of drone is about to attack. It's up to each of you to do everything you to protect the other members of your team." He explains Altean drones appear and start circling them.

"Wait, wait, wait. What's going on?" Hunk asks nervously as the Paladins all activate their shields, he eventually does as well.

"Get ready." Shiro commands with a raised shield, then the drones start shooting at them. Hunk panics, and ducks, causing Pidge to get shot. Then the floor opened and she fell through, signaling she was out.

"Protect your teammates or no one will be there to protect you!" Coran says as Hunk is also shot and dives into the hole when it opens under him. The remaining three move in, back-to-back against each other as they guard from the drones. They were doing pretty well, until...

"Time to increase intensity." Coran announced and the drones got faster and were shooting more.

"How are you holding up?" Alaina asks.

"Fine. Just concentrate on keep me safe." The Red Paladin replied.

"Please, this isn't my first training session." The Princess Paladin says. Just then, a drone tries to shoot Alaina and moves out of the way. "Incoming!" She warns, but Keith ignore her and gets shot, out of the game. 

"Warned you." She says and goes to block more incoming attacks, but ultimately gets shot, with Shiro following her soon after. Coran groans as he watched. Clearly, there was work to be done.

~Alaina of Voltron~

Now it was only Alaina in the room, a maze depicted before disappearing.

"To form Voltron, you must trust in each other. This ancient paladin maze will teach you that trust. Your teammate can see the walls, but you cannot." Coran explains. "So, listen carefully. If you touch the walls, you'll get a slight shock." He then warns.

"Wait. Who's the one going to be guiding me?" Lana asks as she slips on her helmet.

"Take two steps forward." She got her answer at the familiar voice.

"Really? Him?" She asks Coran, who shrugs back. "Fine, what was that again?" She asks. Keith grunts and then speaks again.

"Like I said, take two steps forward, turn right, and take three steps that direction." He replies. Lana sighs and began walking, only to get shocked.

"Very funny." She says annoyed.

"You're not listening." Keith replies.

"You told me to turn." The Altean says.

"Before that I said to "take two steps forward"." He rebuffs. Alaina does so, but still gets shocked. After that she refused to move an inch, ignoring Keith's yelling, until Coran switched him out with Pidge.

~Alaina of Voltron~

The Paladins were now back in their lions, now flying high through the Arusian sky.

"You won't be able to form Voltron unless you have a strong bond with your lion." Coran says over the comms.

"Don't have to worry about me then." Alaina says and Keith groans at her.

"Good, then you won't have any issue with this exercise then." Coran says. "Everyone, I want you to put your lions into a nose dive!" He instructs and they obey diving downwards to the planet's surface.

"This is an expert-level flying drill, and you really shouldn't be attempting until you've been flying for years, but, uh, we're in a bit of a rush, so here we go. Activate training helmets!" He says.

"Wait, what?" Keith asks, then gets his answer as everything suddenly goes dark. Same for the rest of the Paladins, all their helmet visors were shaded over.

"Coran! What are you doing?!" Alaina asks. Even she was confused.

"You must learn to see through your lions' eyes. The goal is to pull up right before crashing into the ground. Feel what the lion feels!" Coran says in encouragement. Needless to say, it wasn't working.

"Mine feels scared!" Hunk says whimpering.

"No I don't!" Yellow rebuffs, but Hunk already pulls up.

"You good Hothead?" Lana asks Keith.

"I'm fine! I'll make it before you!" Keith said, both were still bitter about the maze incident earlier, and speeds up.

"You sure you want to do that?" She asks, this time genuinely concerned.

"I've got it!" He yells back angrily and speeds up more.

"W-wait!" Red tries to warn, but Keith doesn't listen, going even faster than reaches the ground, crashing into a sand dune. "We've got a lot to work on." The lion sighs. Hoo, boy.

"What was that noise? Did he crash?" Pidge asks.

"I tried to warn him. At least listen to your lion." Lana sighs, though she could only tell that Red said something through the growls, and had no idea what it was. That didn't help Pidge, who nervously pulls up, hitting the side of a canyon, the same canyon Blue and Black were still diving into. Lana and Shiro both take deep breaths, closing their eyes as they descend.

"That's right, feel the bond. Use my eyes to see." Blue says as she and Lana seem to resonate with one another. Lana looks, seeing what her lion was seeing and at the last moment, pulls up before impacting the ground.

"I think we're getting this." Shiro says from his lion, having pulled in time too. Lana flies passed him, over the water near the castle, kicking up some water.

"Us too! Whoo-hoo!" The princess shouts, having a total blast. It was exhilarating.

"Excellent! Shiro! Alaina!" Coran praises.

~Alaina of Voltron~

Afterwards, they all fly back to the castle and were back on the training deck, Keith being grumpy the whole way. They all sat in a circle in the center of the room, each wearing strange Altean head gear.

"Now, the most important part of paladin training is being able to meld your minds and focus on one thing: Voltron. Everything else has to fade away." Coran explains. "This technique will be essential every time you form Voltron. So relax and open your minds. Now walls, no secrets between Paladins." He continues.

Each Paladin had a different image before them, depicting what they were thinking about. Keith was thinking about his shack back on Earth. Hunk, of course, was thinking of food. Pidge's image, that was flickering, is of the picture they always carried with them. While Shiro was thinking of the Kerberos Mission.

Finally, Alaina's image depicted a child her and Allura with Alfor, along with a beautiful altean woman, with long blonde hair and pink altean markings, who was holding a young Alaina. Next to her was an Altean man, that was not Alfor.

"Come on, everyone, clear everything. Now focus on forming your lion." Coran instructs. Shiro's image then turned into the Black Lion. "Bring your lions together and form Voltron. Keep your minds open, work together. Good!" The mustache man says next. The other Paladins also form their Lions, that were all coming together, except for Pidge who was still thinking of the picture. "Keep focusing! Only one to go!" Coran shouts. Though it wasn't really helping.

"Pidge, stop thinking of your girlfriend!" Keith scowls.

"Jealous much?" Lana mutters to herself, and Keith side-eyes her in return.

"I wasn't! Hunk was rooting around in my head!" Pidge shouts back.

"I-I thought we were open. You can look in my head hole." The yellow paladin offers.

"Everyone has to be able to look in everyone's head holes! Clear your minds!" Coran shouts. The Paladins do, now all creating images of their lions and bringing them together. "Good!" Coran says. "Almost there. Now form, Voltron." With that the images begin to form the might robot, but just as the Green Lion is about to attached to the body, it turns back to the flickering picture. Lana notices.

"Pidge-" The Altean Princess begins to say.

"I'm done with this!" Pidge shouts as they stand, removing the helmet and throwing it to the floor. The Image of Voltron dispersing. "Look, I don't like everyone grubbing around in my head, okay!" They shout.

"Oh, come on, Pidge, we're just starting to get the hang of this." Shiro says.

"I'm just... I'm just tired, okay?" Pidge says with a sigh. Alaina looks at her in sympathy, and takes off her own head gear, then turns to Coran.

"I think we should take a quick break." She suggests. Coran nods and comes down. Amue shows up soon after, with pouches in her arms, and Jaga following in after her. "Hey, where have you been?" Lana asks as she stand and takes an offered pouch.

"I've been busy cleaning the castle. After 10,000, it needs it." The pink-haired Altean explains and begins handing out pouches to the other paladins, just as Coran comes in. Lana sits back down, and Jaga hops into her lap.

"Guess you all have been working hard. Maybe some relaxation is good." He says.

"What are these things?" Hunk asks, looking over his pouch confused.

"Their water pouches." Lana replies and starts drinking from hers, using a straw that was sticking out of it. Jaga purrs as she scratches behind his ear. The others follow her example and drink from theirs. Just then, Allura comes into the room with all four of her mice, two on each shoulder. She did not look pleased.

"What are you doing lying around? You're supposed to be training!" She scolds.

"Just resting a bit. You know, you can't push too hard." Coran replies.

"What do you mean, "can't push too hard"?" Allura asked. "Get up, you lazy lumps! It's time you face the Gladiator!" She declared and the other Alteans look at in shock.

"What?! No!" Lana said as she stands up, Jaga jumping out of her lap, and walks up to her sister. "Allura, you can't possibly be serious? I highly doubt their ready." She states.

"If they are to be Paladins, then they must face the Gladiator. Including you." The older Princess said and walks away. With that, the others stood up, while all non-Paladins left, with Amue carrying Jaga. The Paladins all got their weapons ready.

"In order to defeat the Gladiator, five paladins must fight as one." Coran says from the observatory box. With that, an opening appeared in the ceiling and an altean droid drops down, with a staff in hand, the robot then starts to attack.

Hunk attempts to shoot it, but the bot easily dodges and knock Hunk off his feet. Literately. Then touches Hunk with his staff, apparently electrified, knocking the Yellow Paladin out. Pidge then charges and manages to get a few hits in, but is ultimately overpowered and knocked down onto Hunk.

Alaina keeps away a fair distance and shoot at the bot, but it has no effect on it. Keith charges in, but is quickly knocked away. Shiro activates his Galran hand and prepares to fight, but as the bot charges at him, he suddenly freezes, flashing back to his time as a prisoner. Keith gets up and blocks the bot's staff before it can hit Shiro, who stands there, frozen.

"Shiro, are you okay?" Keith grunts as he tries to hold droid back. Shiro doesn't respond and the bot breaks free and goes to hit them both, when something catches its staff.

It was Alaina, whose bayard was now a whip like weapon. Not wasting anytime, she pulls the staff away from the bot and charges, her bayard glowing as it starts to change again. She jumps into the air, and comes down, striking the droid, with her now sword bayard, slicing off its head, and it collapses. Allura comes in.

"That combat simulator was set at a level fit for an Altean child! You're not even close to working as a team, let alone ready to face Zarkon! Alaina had to take care of it herself!" She proceeds to scold them.

"Hey! I told you they weren't ready! I was only able to because I fought the Gladiator since we were kids!" Alaina growls then turns to her team. "Still, what was that? Do you guys have any combat experience at all?" She asks them.

"Not really, the garrison taught us self-defense, but nothing this excessive." Hunk answers with a small whimper, Pidge still on top of him. Lana then turns to Shiro.

"What about you? You're supposed to be the leader here." She began. "You stopped and the Gladiator nearly got you. In a fight, you never freeze and you don't hesitate. Hesitation is your worst enemy in battle." She states

"Well, what about you?! What was that earlier?!" Keith yells as he stands. "How the hell were you able to beat it down so fast?! And how come your bayard changed?! You're a princess!" He asks/yells.

"Like I said, I've fought against the Gladiator since I was young, and Allura already said the bayard's form is based on their Paladin. I've learned more than my fair share of fighting styles with different weapons." She explains. "And what does my status have to do with anything?" She asks with a quirked eyebrow. Keith stood there, mouth agape, speechless.

"Uh, Allura. Amue here has just informed me, that we have a slight malfunction in the main engines." Coran informs. Allura sighs in annoyance.

"You go handle it sis." Alaina says. "In the meantime, I'll teach the Paladins combat." She continues and everyone freezes.

"I see, good luck then." The older Altean Princess says and leaves, while the younger turns to her new team, who give her nervous looks. She sighs.

"Look, clearly you guys don't have a lot of combat experience. We won't just be fighting in Voltron, we're going to have to face-to-face at times. So, if we want to make sure to sure we don't have any casualties, we need to train in such." She states. "With that, let's begin." She says.

To the others' shock, she was a pretty good instructor. She certainly wasn't exaggerating when she said she had been training to fight since young. Her fluid movements and quick thinking were great examples of it. Including her advice.

"Your small size can be an advantage in battle. The smaller you are, the harder it will be for your opponent to hit you, and the faster you can dodge." She says to Pidge. 

"Keep elbows in and knees bent, ready to act when needed." She adds. Pidge nods and begin practicing what the Altean just told her, using her bayard. The girl smiles and goes over to a nervous Hunk, holding his bayard.

"Your size and strength are your greatest tool. Not many Altean warriors I've known could lift a weapon like yours, let alone wield it." She starts and Hunk is a bit flustered. "However, in order to wield it properly, you need a strong and steady stance, in order to keep your balance. Here, I'll show you." She said and demonstrates, spreading her legs and slightly bending her knees. Hunk mimics her stance while holding up his weapon. "There you go." She said, then goes to Keith.

"Red chose you because of your raw fighting talent and instinct. However, I've noticed you often let your emotions run wild and lose sight of what's around you. You also, have never actually wield a sword before have you." She states and Keith freezes. 

"Alright, like I've said I've trained with a sword before, so I'll give some pointers." She says and brings out her bayard, but instead of a blaster, it transforms into an unique sword.

"I've been meaning to ask. What type of sword is that?" Pidge asked observing said blade.

"An Altean Broadsword. A traditional weapon on Altea, particularly for royalty." The Altean Princess replied with a reminiscent look on her face. "Both my father and uncle once wielded a sword like this. A long time ago now." She added with a sad look on her face. Shiro decided to change the subject.

"So, what about me? What should I do?" He asks and the alien girl turns to him.

"With you, I'm not so sure. Pidge told me about you fighting off galra sentries with your robotic arm as a weapon, but that seems more like muscle memory and that will only get you so far." Lana said.

"Yeah, I guess." Shiro says looking down at his metal arm.

"By the way, what happened out there Shiro? You just suddenly froze out there." Keith asked the leader who looked stiff for a moment.

"I-I don't actually know. One minute the Gladiator was coming at me, I was ready to fight, suddenly I found myself back on the Galra ship with a bunch of sentries coming at me, and I just froze." Shiro replied.

"It's not that big of a surprise. You were held captive by the Galra for a year, that's bound to leave some scars." Alaina states. "But you have to face those scars, not just for Voltron, but for your own health as well." She adds. Shiro understands.

"For now, practice what you do remember." She instructs then turns back to Keith. "Meanwhile, Hothead and me we'll fight ourselves, and I'll show you how to properly wield a blade." She states and the Red Paladin gives her an annoyed look and charges at her with his own bayard sword, though his was shaped like a katar. The two clash against one another, the other paladin watching in awe.

"Your swing is off kilter." Lana says and knocks Keith's sword away, causing him to stumble back a little. "You need to wield your sword with both hands once in a while, and switch hands as well, it will help you keep your balance and keep your swings more focused." She says. Keith just scowls in return.

"Well, this sword doesn't need both hands! And I'm right handed anyway!" He shouts and swings at her, and promptly misses.

"Too slow, and too broad." She says and hits him in the side with her hilt, causing Keith to grunt. She didn't strike him too hard, but it still left him a bit stunned. The Red boy growls and swings again.

The two swing, clash and dodge, back and forth, the others continuing to watch the spectacle. Just as it seems Keith is getting the upper hand, Lana suddenly switches her sword hands and strikes, knocking the sword out of his hands, and suddenly lowering to the floor and kicking her legs, knocking Keith to the ground.

"Your stance is too wide, making it easy for someone to unbalance you." She says and stands up with a proud smiles on her face. Pidge and Hunk clap their hands, while Shiro goes over to the fallen boy, who has what could only be described as a resting bitch face on. When the other two humans notice, they start laughing, causing Keith to scowl more.

Later, when they finished training, Amue came in and lead them to the dining hall. Really it the only way to describe it, with a long table and chairs set up around it.

"Ahoy, young Paladins!" Coran greets as they sat down at the table. They all sat on one side of the table, order following, Pidge, Keith, Lana, Hunk then Shiro. "I've whipped up a big batch of focusing food. After this meal, you'll be forming Voltron six times a movement and twice on the astral conflux!" He announces. However, the food in question was just the green-goo stuff.

"Smells great, Coran. Thanks." Shiro says and they all go to eat when Coran suddenly brings out a device and the Paladins all find themselves handcuffed to one another.

"What in the-! Coran, what is the meaning of this?!" Lana asks.

"I saw a lot of solid individual performances today, but you're still struggling to work as a team. So, welcome to the final bonding exercise of the day." He says.

"Coran, I want you to think about what you're doing right now." Hunk said surprisingly serious. Don't get between a man and his food, as they say.

"Oh, this one's a classic. You get to feed each other, like a pack of yalmors!" The ginger-haired man exclaims with a flourish, while the Paladins all groan.

"Uh, Coran, isn't this a bit excessive?" Amue asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Nonsense!" Coran replies.

With that, the Paladins, attempted to help feed each other, which wasn't going very well. At some point, Allura came in and sat down to eat as well. the Paladins were all trying to do the exercise but it was more of an annoyance at this point.

"Ah! How rude!" Lana shouted at Keith, who's had been pulled into her food goo.

"Me!? It's your fault!" Keith restored "This is ridiculous." He adds annoyed.

"Do earthlings every stop complaining?" Allura growls annoyed herself.

"Can't you just give us a break? Everyone's been working really hard today." Shiro tries to reason.

"Yes, Princess, they have all been working hard. Can you not at least let them eat?" Amue agrees.

"Yeah! We're not some prisoners for you to toy with, like... uh, like..." Keith trailed off, trying to think of the right words.

"Like we're a bunch of chulthaks!" Lana yells. (AN: Yeah, just made that one up on the fly).

"Yes! Thank you, Lana! You're even treating your own sister like a, chell-flacks...?" He yelled, not sure how to pronounce that last word.

"Oh! You do not yell at the Princess!" Coran rebuffed.

"Oh, the princess of what? We're the only ones out here and she's certainly no princess of ours!" Pidge retorts.

"Yeah! She's hasn't helped us all day! Lana has! For a so-called "Second Princess", at least she's been actively trying to help us! She's more of a Princess than her!" Keith yells. Suddenly him and Pidge found themselves getting pelted in the face by food goo. 

Courtesy of said Princess. Keith glares at her. "Go loose, Pidge!" He yells and the two throw a plate of food goo at the Altean Princess, which Coran quickly blocks then throws a spoonful of food goo at all the Paladins.

"Oh, it is on!" Hunk says and drops his face into his plate stuffing his cheeks, then rises up and spits food goo at the Alteans.

With that, a great food goo war erupted between the Paladins and Alteans. Although Amue hid under the table to avoid the calamity. Green goo was flying all over the room, landing on Paladin and Altean alike. Yells quickly turned to laughter as goo was flying everywhere in the air at this point.

"That's enough!" Shouted Amue angrily as she emerged from under the table, and everyone froze to look at her. "You do realize who has to clean this up now, right?" She asks with a quirked brow and scowl, clearly ticked off. The Paladins were confused until it hit them.

"Oh, sorry Amue." Lana apologized then looks at her fellow Paladins. All at once, they burst into uncontrollable laughter. Lana in particular was laughing very loudly, but cutely. If you asked Keith that is. Amue's scowl diminished at the sight.

"Enough! Don't you see what you're doing?" Allura shouted with her head bowed, then lifted up to reveal a big grin. "You're finally working together as one!" She exclaims.

"Hey, she's right!" Keith says looking at Lana, who surprisingly smiles at him.

"I, actually don't mind your presence right now." She says with a small giggle.

"Call me coo-coo, but I believe this is the first time we've heard you laugh, or be chill since we met." Hunk says.

"Yeah, he's right. You've kind of been in "serious mode" this whole time." Pidge agrees with a grin.

"I guess with everything, I didn't know when to really let go." Alaina admits with a cute smile. Keith felt a fluttering in his stomach. He was confused.

"You guys thinking what I'm thinking?" Hunk asks, interrupting the moment.

"Let's go form Voltron!" Shiro exclaims and they all agree.

"Actually, I was thinking dessert, but, yeah! Let's do it!" Hunk says then exclaims. However, at that moment, thanks to the cuffs, the Paladins all fell to the floor. With Lana falling on top of Keith, who began feeling his heart racing.

"Oh, sorry. Pardon me." Lana says and gets off the "Red" Paladin. Amue looks at the scene, then casts a look to Coran, who quickly gets the message and proceeds to deactivate the cuffs connecting the Paladins.

~Alaina of Voltron~

With that, they all went to the bridge and walked into their respective pillars, making their way to their lions. This time, Hunk made it through and Yellow was awake and waiting.

"Everyone ready to do this?" Shiro asks as he boards his lion.

"Sisters!" Black calls.

"Roger that!" Pidge replies.

"Affirmative!" Green adds.

"I am ready!" Lana says.

"Right with you!" Blue agrees.

"Yes, sir!" Keith says.

"Ready for action!" Red says.

"I was born ready!" Hunk says.

"We both are!" Yellow adds.

"Then let's go!" Shiro exclaims and the others agree. The lions all let out roars and the Paladins fly them out of the hangers and into the open. They all fly up into the sky, their hearts and minds now one, and they combine into Voltron! While on the ground below, the Alteans were all watching.

"I told you I could get them to do it." Allura says. "They just needed a common enemy." She add with a proud smile.

"It's true. Like the old proverb says, "A man be driven to do anything, if a beautiful woman is just really, really mean to him"." Coran says and Allura looks annoyed.

"First off, that's not a real saying, and you know it." Amue began, directing their attention to her. "Second, thanks to that little "battle" in the dining hall, we have a huge mess to deal with." She says with an almost sickening sweet tone. 

"And since you two were the ones who initiated it, you're going to clean it!" She says and proceeds to drag the princess and advisor back into the castle and pushes them into the hall with cleaning supplies. The two were about to protest when she throws them a heated glare and they immediately get to cleaning up the "mess" hall.

~Alaina of Voltron~

Back with the Paladins, they had dispersed and came back into the Castle and all met up in the lounge.

"That was exhilarating! I'm not even sure I'll be able to sleep from all the excitement!" Lana exclaims cheerfully.

"Not me, I'm wiped. As soon as my heads hits the pillow, I'm going to be lights out." Keith says.

"I just want you to know, that I realized something when we were in Voltron, we're siblings man." Hunk says as he brings Keith and Lana in for a "Hunk hug". "You know? Like, we're totally connected. No secrets, no barriers, no nothing. Siblings all the way. I love you guys." He says emotionally.

"G-forces mess with your head a little bit?" Keith asks as Hunk loosens his grip.

"Yeah, maybe a little. I don't know. It's been a tough few days." Hunk says.

"Ah, there, there." Lana says as she pats Hunk's head. Just then, Jaga comes in and hops onto her shoulder. "Hey sweetie." She greets her cat with a scratch under his chin. The cat purred then meowed something to her. "Really? Pfft! Oh my-! Well, serves them right." She says.

"What'd he say?" Pidge asked curiously.

"Apparently, Amue is making Allura and Coran clean up the dining hall." The white-haired girl replies. Everyone is silent, before bursting into laughter. "Amue didn't give them much choice in the matter. She was really pissed." She adds.

"She scary when she's mad or something?" Keith asked.

"Oh yes, it takes a lot to get her riled up, but when she does, let's just say I'd rather face Zarkon than face her. An angry Amue is a scary Amue." She states seriously.

"Note to self, never get her mad at me." Keith says and the others all agree. They then start to get up and head to their rooms, except for Pidge.

"Are you coming to bed yet, Pidge?" Shiro asks them.

"In a minute." Pidge replies.

"I'll wait too." Lana adds and the rest leave. Pidge looks down and takes something out of their pocket. It was the picture they were thinking about during the mind meld. The altean mice had scrambled onto their shoulders to see. "You're worried, aren't you." Lana says. It wasn't a question.

"Yeah." Pidge replies looking to the side.

"It'll be okay, I can promise you that." Lana says as she puts her hand on their shoulder. Pidge looks to see the smile of an angel on her face. The alien Princess then leans down and kisses Pidge softly on the forehead. "Goodnight, see you tomorrow." She says and leaves the room. Pidge staring at her leaving form.

What none of them realized, was the storm that coming their way.

AN: Hey guys, welcome back! Sorry I haven't updated in a bit, it's been a little eventful. Anyway, I'm happy to see my newest story doing so well so far. See ya all for the next chapter!