Ember sat in the middle of the training room, digital pad in hand as she read the gained information over. Most of it made sense - unless you were strong enough power wise, as soon as you let go of the object you formed, it disappears. Its better to practice in lighten areas, never in the dark for beginners. A few know people can actually use their quintessence in the dark. 

There was just so much information. 

   "Lets just slow it down," Ember murmured to herself, scrolling back to the top. "Here, 'There are many ways to form an object with the quintessence. One of my favorites is just to imagine the object in your head. How sharp is it? What metal is it made of? What design is it? Although all of the objects you create will have that multi-colored glow, thinking about what the actual object is should help you solidify it. Once it gets easier to make objects, you shouldn't even have to think at all, just will it.' I feel like that's going to take a while. . ."

Ember sighed, putting down the data pad and closing her eyes, stretching her hand out in front of her. What would be the easiest thing to make?

   "A ball," Ember scrunched her nose. "A round sphere. . .That bounces. . .and be thrown?" She trailed off in question, opening her eyes slowly. Much to her surprise, a glowing rainbow ball was in her hand, which dip slightly at the new found weight. "Woah!"

She rolled it around in her hands and tossed it up in the air, quickly catching it in her other hand. "Do I just. . .?" Ember paused, drew her hand back and threw the ball towards the white walls of the practice room. It didn't go more than two feet before it burst into sparkling lights, slowly disappeared as they floated down.  

   "That was cool," Someone commented from the door frame. Ember turned to see Lance standing there, looking slightly impressed. 

   "I'm not sure a glittering ball is going to scare away Zarkon and his army any time soon," Ember joked, turning her body towards Lance as he walked in. "What are you doing here?"

   "Apparently we have to go fix something on the outside of the ship," Lance explained, sitting down in front of Ember. "But that can wait a little bit. Try to make something bigger. . .Like a dagger that you can throw!"

   "You mean a throwing knife?That shouldn't be too hard. . ." She paused, staring at her hand as it started to glow, but no dagger appeared. "I take that back."

   "You got this, Bee," Lance prodded, smiling gently. "If I can learn to form Voltron in a day, you can make a dagger. Easy peasy!"

   "That has nothing in common, but thank you for trying,"

   "No problem!"

Ember chuckled, keeping her eyes open this time and stared at her hand. A dagger. . .Something that was extremely sharp, but small. It's like a butter knife, but slightly bigger. 

   "See? Not bad!"

Ember paused and focused on her hand. Sure enough, a small iridescent dagger was in her palm. She gripped the dagger's handle and sliced the air to her side, away from Lance. "I don't think a dagger is my thing, but at least I have a weapon now!"

   "As long as you start to practice fighting before you come on missions with us. We'll find your weapon - maybe its a sword?" Lance rambled on and shook his head. "Whatever, lets get to the bridge. Everyone is waiting for us there."

   "Race ya there!" Ember grinned, throwing her dagger towards the weapons rack and dashing out of the room. 

   "No fair! You can't cheat like that!" Lance cried, quickly following her. 

If they managed to look back at the dagger Ember had thrown, they would have saw it embedded deeply into the white wall, before disappearing in a sparkling haze.

▬ ✦✧✦ ▬  

  "Let's hurry up with these repairs. Zarkon could be here at any moment." Shiro commanded. 

   "Okay, panel's off. Now, what?" Hunk asked. 

  "Very simple. Just loosen the blaxums on the somoflange." Coran explained.

   "Could you be more specific?" Hunk deadpanned. 

   "He means this," Ember pointed towards a nob, pausing for a moment to reconsider. "Maybe."

   "Sorry, Hunk, he means the poklones on the agroclams." Allura corrected. 

   "No, that doesn't help."

   "Easy, Hunk," Lance glided forwards, pushing the Yellow Paladin out of the way. "I got this."

   "Do you?" Ember raised an eyebrow, that disappeared under her helmet. 

   "Of course!" Lance scoffed, twisting some  knobs and moving the bar around on the screen. As soon as he let go of the panel, an alarm went off and the whole ship lit up red.  "Uh-oh, that can't be good!"

   "No, not the smalters, the poklones!" Allura groaned. 

   "No, no! It's the blaxums!"

   "What are you talking about?" Keith demanded. 

   "The ship, of course!" Ember smiled sweetly at Keith. "Pidge, help?"

   "Yeah, yeah," Pidge hummed, scanning the panel. Twisting some knobs, pressing some buttons, and turning the bar in the middle of it cause the alarms to stop and everything go back to normal. "There. Fixed."

   "Well done, Pidge!" Allura praised. 

   "The tech on this ship never ceases to amaze me." Pidge gushed. "It's so mathematically elegant. Its fit s a 100 times more frictionless than any exoskeleton we have on Earth. It's. . .beautiful."

   "It's not a sunset, Pidge." Lance pointed out. 

   "You're right. A billion sunsets just happen every day. Some genius engineer actually built this." Pidge gently pushed the panel back into the ship. 

   "Kinda looks like a big, delicious curly fry." Hunk drooled. 

   "Oh, I miss fries so much!" Ember let out a dramatic groan, throwing herself backwards to do a small backflip. She let a squeal of surprise as something similar to a snowball whacked her on the side of her helmet. "Merde!"

Looking to her side, there was floating snowball like things flying throughout space all around them. Should they be called spaceballs?  Shiro summoned his shield. 

   "All right, we're prepared for this." Shiro reminded them. "Remember your rogue projectile cluster training from the Garrison." 

   "Our what?"

   "First, we need a temporary shelte-" Shiro let out a grunt, head bumping forwards as a spaceball hit the back of his head. "Wha-?"

   "Oh, sorry, Shiro. I was trying to hit Keith." Lance apologized just as another spaceball hit him in the face. 

   "Like that?" Keith chuckled, holding another spaceball in his hand. 

   "Yes!" Hunk cheered, clutching two spaceballs in his hands. "Squishy asteroid fight!"

   "Spaceball fight!" Ember laughed, grabbing a spaceball and throwing it at Shiro, hitting him square in the face. 

   "Oh, you're on!!" Shiro laughed, throwing a spaceball at her. It hit her in the gut. 

The five of them laughed as they threw spaceballs at each other - Hunk and Lance on their own team while Shiro and Keith were on a team. Ember just fly back and forth, throwing spaceballs at everyone she could. 

   "How do you have such great aim?!" Keith sputtered, after getting hit in the face again with a spaceball. 

   "Softball," Ember replied with a grin. "You're looking at the pitcher for the SWATs'."

   "Softball With An Attitude," Pidge answered the unasked question as Ember nailed Lance with another space ball, the other girl herself grabbing a spaceball. "I don't think these are asteroids. Coran, I'm going to need a containment unit."

   "Just a tick," Coran answered. 

   "They appear to be some sort of hyper-resilient spore." Allura explained. 

   "This bioluminescent pulsing doesn't seem natural." Pidge said, putting the spore in a containment unit. "It appears programmed. I think it's a code."

   "A code? From who?" Hunk grunting as he was hit with another spaceball from Ember. "Choose a side, Bee!" 

   "I don't know." Pidge answered. "I mean, it makes no sense. You can't program a spore."

   "If anyone can figure it out, it's you, Pidge." Shiro complemented, lowering his shield to look towards Pidge, instantly getting hit in the face with a spaceball. 

   "Come on, Pidge!" Ember flew towards her best friend, gripping an extra spaceball and shoving it into Pidge's hands. "Lets show these guys who really run this team!"

   "Em-"

   "Rawr!!!"

Ember giggled as she started to toss spaceballs towards the boys, hitting each of them somewhere or on the shield. Pidge snorted before actually throwing some spaceballs. 

The five paladins and medic messed around some more outside, throwing spaceballs at everyone and laughing when they hit. Finally, Shiro let out a breath, grinning at everyone. 

   "Alright, lets head inside and see what Pidge can make of these."

   "Before that, everyone needs to go through decontamination." Allura ordered with a tone of amusement. Not daring to put up a fight against the princess, Team Voltron made their way to the decontamination room and stood there, waiting. Hunk was covered in so much spaceballs, you couldn't see his face.

The room sprinkled water on them and everyone scrubbed the spaceballs off of their armor, Pidge letting out a yelp as hot water hit her. 

When the room started to fill with soap, Ember laughed with Hunk and popped the bubbles in the air. 

Once the soap disappeared, the room filled with water, causing everyone to float around. Lance was relaxing on his back and Ember started to swim around, doing front flips and back flips under water. 

Finally, when the room drained itself and the fan turned on, Shiro took off his helmet. Lance and Ember were kicking at each others' feet, trying to make the other fly across the room. Instead of them two flying though - Pidge, who was on the other side of the line - flew away. 

   "That was great!" Ember laughed, walking out of the room once the door opened. 

   "That was so  not great," Pidge grumbled, stalking off down the hall. Probably to go decode the spore.  Seeing this as another chance to practice, Ember grinned and skipped off to her room. 

   "I'll be in my room if you need me!"

▬ ✦✧✦ ▬ 

 Ember wanted her own weapon. That much she knew. But she didn't know what. The biggest weapon - and only weapon she could think of - was a sword, but that was Keith's weapon. Ember decided that she was going to check out the weapon's rack - mess around with each weapon to see what one she was most comfortable with. But by then Pidge had called them all over the intercom. 

So here they were, gathered around Pidge in a group. For once, Ember left her yellow gloves back in her room and she sat on the crate next to Keith, who was leaning against the other one. 

   "Oh, oh! I've seen this experiment." Hunk exclaimed. "But, question: Why do we need to get electricity from a potato?" 

   "What? No, no. I was able to crack the sporse code," Pidge stopped to chuckle at her own joke. "I ran the bioluminescent through a variety of code-breaking sequences, including this homemade virtual Turing machine. Of course, I had to make a few tweaks to the original design, because, obviously, there have been several advancements since he designed it.

   "Although, you have to admit, Turing was a shining light in the world of science in an age when far too many were still-"

   "Pidge," Keith interrupted her rambling, making Pidge yelp. Ember nudged Keith with her elbow, mouthing Rude to him. "What does it say?"

   "Oh, yeah. 'Under attack, Galra. Majesdanian. Help.'  And then, there are coordinates."

   "It's a distress signal. Good work, Pidge." Shiro praised and turned towards Coran. "Get those coordinates into the castle-ship's navigation system."

A worm hole later, and the Castle of Lions was approaching a beautiful orange and brown planet, where even more of those spores/spaceballs surrounded the planet. 

   "The signal came from Olkarion, home to the Olkari, a proud class of engineers, builders of vast cities that could change shape at the whim of their creators." Coran explained, bringig up a picture of one of the citites. 

   "They had a seemingly magical ability to manipulate solid metal." Allura adds. "With just a wave of their hands, they could build a computer inside a block of steel."

   "Whoa," Pidge grinned in excitement. 

   "An Olkari once gave me this!" Coran pulled a black cube out of his pocket, a glowing green ling wrapped around its middle. 

   "What is it?"

   "Uh, hello? It's a floating cube!" Coran laughed. "Oh, this guy. And watch! My name is Coran and I'm a gorgeous man." 

The cube started beeping before Coran's voice echoed. "My name is Coran and I'm a gorgeous man."

   "Why would a society full of literal tech wizards use spores to send a distress signal?" Keith questioned, ignoring the fact that Pidge was practically sparkling from amazement. 

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

   "Actually, Pidge, the distress signal isn't coming from the city," Allura informed. "It's coming from. . .the forest."

   "Oh,"

   "Oh!"

Pidge's and Ember's reactions were two different things, that much was clear. 

   "The plant life on the planet must be so different than the planet life on Earth!"

▬ ✦✧✦ ▬ 

Deciding to hitch a ride with Lance, Team Voltron flew their respective lions down into the planet's atmosphere and into the forest. 

   "Why doesn't anyone ever send a distress signal from a cool place?" Pidge complained as the city disappeared behind a mountain. 

   "What are you talking about? This place is cool!" Ember beamed, leaning onto Lance's chair to get a better look of the outside. 

   "There's nothing bu sunburn and poison oak. I hate the outdoors." 

   "I like it out here. It's quiet." Keith admitted. Ember's head turned towards her left to see a bunch of arrows flying through the air. They hit the lions with a little plink. 

   "So much for quiet."

   "What was that?"

   "Uh, are we being attacked?"

   "I don't know, but something's dragging my lion down to the surface." Shiro said.

   "Yeah, something's pulling Blue down, too." Lance added. The lions landed on the ground, in front of a small army wearing the most particular things Ember ever saw. 

   "Are those wooden mech suits?"  Hunk asked. 

   "Are you kidding me? We got taken down by a bunch of tree people!" Lance exclaimed. 

   "We come in peace!" Shiro said suddenly. His voice echoed, making Ember realize he was speaking over a speaker now. 

   "Pidge-"

   "Alright on it," Pidge sighed, grabbing the container that held the spore and exiting from the top of the lion. "We found your distress signal!" 

   "Lubos!" The small army cheered, dropping their spears and guns from their defensive position. Ember let out something that sounded like a shriek and started towards the exit ramp of the lion. 

   "Slow down, Bee!" Lance called after her, taking his time to power down his lion and follow after her.

Ember made it out the lion the same time Pidge jet-packed her way from the lions head, and Keith had walked out of the Red Lion. 

   "Hello- Woah!" 

Ember skidded to a stop, eyes wide at the amount of spears and guns pointed at her. 

   "Whoa!"

   "Hey, don't point those at her!"

   "She's a Majesdanian!" An Olkari man shoved his spear closer to Ember, who quickly raised her arms. "She shouldn't be here!" 

   "She's with Team Voltron," Keith defended her, stepping infront of Ember to block her fro the others view. Pidge stepped to her right and Lance quickly stood on her left. 

   "I-I'm only half Majesdanian," Ember stammered out, watching as the woman that looked like the leader step forwards.  "I didn't even know I was Majesdanian until recently. . ."

   "Then you do not know of the war that happened between the Olkari and Majesdanians," The woman stated. Ember shook her head vigorously. "Before Voltron was formed, our two species were at war, a war lead by your past King. It went on for years, but once Voltron was formed, the Majesdanian Queen gained more power, and put a stop to the fighting. But now that the Majesdanians and Galra have teamed up. . ."

   "I'm sorry for what has happened in the past," Ember apologized, gently pushing Keith to the side. He reluctantly moved. "But I know neither the King or the Queen that once ruled my species. Nor do I fight for the Galra."

   "Besides," Shiro finally said something, stepping closer to the huddled group around Ember. "Ember here is the best medic I have ever seen. Must be one of the best in the galaxies. I'm sure you have some injuries bodies."

   "Drop your weapons," The Olkari woman ordered, eyes twinkling in the most curious way. "This youngling means us no harm."

▬ ✦✧✦ ▬ 

   "When the Galra attacked, only a few of us escaped the cities." The Olkari woman from before, who they learned was named Ryner, was explaining as much as she could to Team Voltron. "We were forced to flee into the forest."

   "How long have you lived like this?" Shiro wondered. 

   "Many decafeebs." Ryner responded. "But, as you can see, our people are resilient. We never stopped evolving. Instead, we adapted our skills to the environment."

   "It looks so beautiful," Ember murmurer, looking at every building she could see that was built into the trees. 

   "Coran was right, Ryner." Pidge agreed, watching as a small flying bug was built by an Olkari. It flew away after hovering around Pidge. "You really are the most incredible engineers in the universe. To be able to switch from working with precision machinery to a bunch of sticks!"

   "Nature's designs are superior to any that we could devise." Ryner said. 

   "No offense, but I'll take my computer over a tree any day," Pidge declared. 

   "One day, a tree is going to save your life, Pidge," Ember grinned at her friend. "And I'll be here to remind you of what you said about trees."

   "You two can talk science later," Shiro interrupted, sending a look Ember's way. "Let's assemble Voltron and get rid of these Majesdanian and Galra invaders."

   "It's not that simple, I'm afraid." Ryner sighed. "The Galra have our leader, Lubos." The crowd around Team Voltron murmured his name quietly. "If you attack, who knows what they'll do to him?"

   "Then, we'll just have to rescue him." Shiro declared. 

   "Follow me, then," Ryner started to walk into a different direction, letting the Paladins easily catch up with them. 

After going around many different areas, they finally arrived to the area Ryner wanted them to see.

   "Um. . .Ryner, where are we?" Keith asked. 

   "This is the armory." Ryner replied. Ember watched with fascinated eyes as a young Olkari put her hand into a flower. The flower easily crept up her arm and transformed into a gun with green details. She fired test shots as well. 

   "Whoa!"

   "Cool!"

Ryner walked over to one of the many towering trees and placed her hand on the trunk. Green details flew up the tree, onto a branch to where a wooden sphere sat. It glowed green for a moment before dropping to the ground in front of the paladins. 

   "Cool!" Lance cheered. 

   "Uh, can I get one of those?" Keith asked. 

   "Of course," Ryner nodded, waving her hand in front of another flower. It opened up, reveling a handful of sticks that were made into bracelets with a green gem in the middle. "You can each have one. Now, the key to operating it is understanding that the nanacellulose responds to electrical impulses from the neural pathways connected through this."

Each of the paladins got one, even Ember, who head the object carefully. 

   "Do what now?" Lance asked. 

   "Mm. Mm!" Hunk licked the thing Ryner passed to him. "Makes my tongue itchy."

   "That's your interface?" Pidge asked, putting the thing around her head. 

   "Oh! It's crown!" Ember grinned, delicately putting the crown on her head.  

   "Of course," Ryner nodded, smiling in amusement at Ember. "All commands need to come as binary coded messages."

Pidge hummed, walking over to a different tall tree and placing her hand on the bark. "So, like this." Sure enough, the same green design that Ryner did flew from Pidge's hand and up to the wooden sphere things. Another huge machine dropped behind Pidge, opening up. 

   "Yes! Excellent!" Ryner cheered. Ember hummed, placing her hand on the bark of a tree as well. She closed her eyes, imagining the green details that went up the tree bark - like it had done for Ryner and Pidge. When she opened her eyes, the tree bark around her hand was just glowing in an iridescent hue that blended her hand into it. 

   "I think mine is just a tree."  Lance said. 

   "I don't think Majesdanians are suppose to do this," Ember sighed, withdrawing her hand from the bark, but still having her hand shine. She furrowed her eyebrows, staring harshly at her hand until the throwing knife from before appeared. 

   "Come along, youngling," Ryner called out towards Ember, making the girl snap her head up. Everyone was waiting on her. 

   "S-Sorry!" Ember stammered, running towards one of the wooden armor things and climbing in. "Why am I called youngling though? I'm pretty much the oldest."

   "Come, this way!" Ryner exclaimed, skillfully avoiding the question as the armor shut on their own. "To the edge of the forest! To save our king!"