"Nice job, Pidge," Shiro complimented the Green Paladin, Team Voltron all huddled around the podium that Pidge sat on. Ember was in between Allura and Keith with a proud smile on her face. 

   "You know, it's weird," Pidge admitted. "I've always been a tech junkie. That's how I connected with the world. But, for the first time, I feel connected to everything. I guess it's like Ryner said. We're all made up of the same cosmic dust."

   "So, that means we're all related," Keith realized, eyes wide. "The ship, those stars, the Olkari. Even the Galra and Majesdadian."

The small group was quiet before Ember giggled. "That was so adorable."

   "Uh-oh. I think Keith just blew his own mind." Hunk teased. Team Voltron laughed as Keith crossed his arms over his chest. Ember smiled brightly, nudging Keith lightly with her shoulder. 

   "Cheer up," She giggled. "They're just agreeing with me."

   "Well, that was a productive trip. Look at all these cubes they gave me!" Coran cheered, holding up a now black and green cube. He threw it up in the air, and they split into eight different cubes. "Coran, Coran, the gorgeous man!"

   "Coran, Coran, the gorgeous man!"

   "Ah, sounds pretty good." Coran admitted. 

   "Ah, sounds pretty good." 

   "These are not the droids you're looking for!" Ember suddenly pipped up, waving her hand in the air for effect. 

   "These are not the droids you're looking for!" 

Ember giggled, Lance and Pidge shaking their heads at her Star Wards reference. They never should have had a marathon of that. 

Hunk pressed his cheeks together, lips puckering, and let out a fart noise that the cubes easily repeated. They laughed, the laughter also being echoed before the screens lit up in a bright red warning. 

   "Whoa!"

   "What's that?"

   "What's that?"

The sirens blared loudly before an image of what was directly behind them blew itself in front of them.

   "Oh, no!"

  "Oh, no!"

   "It's Zarkon! How has he found us?" Allura demanded as Coran put the cubes back together.

   "His commanders must have radioed him from Olkarion," Keith suggested. 

   "We need to wormhole, now! Everyone to your stations." Shiro ordered, making everyone start to take action. "We've got to put some distance between us and Zarkon. This could be the fight of our lives."

Ember followed Coran, letting out a squeal of surprise as Zarkon's ships started to fire at them. Half way, she tripped and landed on her face. 

   "Ember!"

   "I'm fine!" She groaned, stumbling up and making her way to the controls. Hunk gulped from his spot. 

   "That's sure a lot of fighters."

   "Allura, can you evade these fighters? We can't have them following us through the wormhole."

   "I can try!"

The ship took off as fast as it could - and with Ember pushing a button - a blue shield formed around the castle/ship. 

   "Keith, Lance, lets lay down some covering fire." Shiro ordered. 

The Blue, Red, and Black Paladin got out there little troopers and started to shoot off the closing in fighter ships, making Ember tense up. 

   "Not good, very not so good," Ember muttered under her breathe. 

   "Lance, incoming, 12 o'clock high!" Pidge informed Lance from her small screen. 

   "Got it!" Lance copied before letting out an irritated, "Hey!"

   "Sorry! Gotta be quick!" Keith replied. 

   "How's that for quick?"

   "You. . ."

   "Knock it off, you two!" Shiro commanded. "Stay in your zones!"

   "Now it not the time for you have a fight!" Ember yelped. "Take your anger off on the fighters behind us!"

   "Yeah, Keith!" Lance just had to get the last word in. 

   "Keep calling out those fighters, Pidge." Shiro said over the Blue Paladin's voice. "Hunk, how are the defenses holding?"

   "I don't know," Hunk replied in a tired voice. "Ten percent? Fifteen maybe? Everything's a blur. I've been up too long. I have tired eyes!"

   "Twenty percent, Shiro!" Ember answered finally, having shuffled her way over to where Hunk sat and gripping his chair. 

   "I know we just came off an intense battle, but we've got to stay focused just until we jump."

   "And when is that?" Keith retorted. 

   "They're still too close! We need to gain more speed!" Coran hollered over his shoulder. 

   "I've got an idea! Hold on!" Allura commanded, making Ember hug the back of Hunk's chair. The Princess made the ship take a nose dive, nearing a planet and a moon close by. 

   "Allura, what are you doing?" Pidge asked in an uncertain tone. 

   "I'm going to use this moon's gravity to gain speed and put some distance between us and Zarkon." Allura replied. 

   "Brilliant!" Ember cheered, squeezing the chair still. "But only if it actually works!"

There was no counter comment or even a retort as the ship was pulled by the moon's gravity, causing everyone in the room to let out grunts. 

   "We're clear to wormhole!" Coran called over the noise. 

Ember let out a whoop as a familiar blue wormhole opened up not-so far away from them and the ship flew directly into it. That was until the red alarms started to blare again, making Ember groan. 

   "We got away from Zarkon, how come we're still on alert?" Lance asked. 

   "Coran, what's going on?" Shiro demanded. 

   "Oh, no! Teludav lens malfunction!" Coran exclaimed. "We're about to exit this wormhole a lot sooner than we planned!"

   "Oh, my God," Ember whispered out as the pull finally went away. They were near what looked like a field of ice figures, but Ember knew that nothing was really what it looks like. 

   "Whoa. Where are we?" Lance wondered. "Looks like some sort of iceberg graveyard."

   "Coran, what's the status?" Allura panted tiredly. Ember noticed that she looked like she was sweating buckets, and started to make her way over to the Princess in concern. 

   "Checking that now," Coran responded. "We didn't make it to our exit point, but we're several galaxies from Zarkon's fleet." 

   "Whoa!" Ember exclaimed as Allura flew backwards. The black haired girl grabbed her before she could fall back and gently sat her down on the floor to sit. "Hold on there."

   "Allura!"

   "Allura!?"

   "Sweating buckets," Ember murmured to herself, placing a hand on Allura's forehead. "Slightly burning, out of breathe."

   "Oh, no, you look exhausted." Coran said as everyone started to walk over in concern. "You must rest. You've been exerting way too much energy."

   "You're not wrong," Ember finally spoke out loud. "She's suffering from Over Exhaustion. Or Fatigue."

   "I'll got check on the main turbine and figure out what's going--" Coran cut himself off with a yelp, slamming into the wall body first. A trail of water seem to suddenly drip from him and cause a trail to follow him. 

   "Whoa! Are you alright?" Lance asked. 

   "I'm fine," Coran groaned and tried to play it off. "Look, I tell you what, I've probably hit a slippery spot on the ground there. Someone please wipe that up there!"

   "A slippery spot, that is seemingly lactating from you." Ember rose an eyebrow as Pidge flinched from behind her. 

   "Em!"

   "Sorry, but what other word should I use??"

   "Dripping! Falling! Anything but," Pidge cut herself off with a shiver. "That word."

   "Lac-tat-ing!" Ember sounded out each syllable, making Pidge squirm again. Allura shifted from the spot she was sitting down on, throwing her legs over the edge of the platform. 

   "You're sweating. You might have a case of the slipperies." Allura concluded. Ember's eyes seem to glow brighter at the thought of helping Coran with the disease. Or, the way Allura said it made it seem like a disease.

   "What? No! No, that's an old person virus, and I'm not old. I'm young." Coran denied before smiling sheepishly. "Well, young-ish."

   "What are the slipperies?" Ember asked curiously, leaning closer to Allura without realizing it. The slightly older woman smiled at her readiness to learn. 

   "It's a common Altean virus that occurs later in life." She explained. "It's not harmful and usually only lasts a couple of days, but it causes one's body to secrete extremely slick fluid."

   "Ew!"

   "Gross!"

   "Cool!"

The earthlings were quick to back away from the infected Altean, but Ember stayed put with a grin. 

   "It's not cool," Coran mumbled harshly before putting on a fake smile. "Yes, it is gross, so it's a good thing I don't have it!" 

   "Coran, it's nothing to be embarrassed about." Allura tried to assure him. 

   "I'm not embarrassed because I don't have it!" Coran snapped, holding his arms out in defense. Despite the statement, his arms dripped the liquid that Allura explained as slick. Coran turned. "And, now, I'm actually going to leave because I've got to fix the main turbine!"  

Trying to walk out, Coran simply walked in place without realizing it. Grunting, Coran started to run in place, before slipping onto his back. "Quiznak!" He cursed as he slid out the door and down the hallway. 

The team watched on, not bothering to move to help him before Shiro spoke up. "All right. Since Zarkon has no idea where we are, this is the perfect time to focus on our next step." Lance and Hunk sighed and Allura looked down. Even Keith looked a bit disappointed. "Maybe we can find that secret group, the Blade of Marmora. Pidge, where are those coordinates?"

   "Wait, hang on." Pidge groaned from her seat. "I'm so tired, my brain's not working."

   "Yeah, neither is mine," Lance admitted. 

   "Shiro," Ember started off, looking around at the team. "You guys need to rest up before you charge into another battle. Lance looks like he's about to fall on his face."

   "I'm about to fall on my face," Lance agreed. 

   "Hello, all." Coran spoke up, a screen popping up in front of them all. "I've checked the engines."

   "That was fast."

   "Well, I slipped right down, I mean hurried down." Coran groaned as he slid around, falling face first, and hurriedly corrected himself. "Anyways, the good news is, the Galra fighter did minimal damage. I flushed the turbine and it's fine."

   "What's the bad news?" Ember asked, tilting her head.

   "The bad news it, the teludav, or wormholder, as you Earthlings call it, is in bad shape. Several scaultrite lens-stones of the magnifying beam generator are cracked. As you know, the magnifying beam generator uses a crystal to convert Altean energy into usable fuel. That supplies the power needed to wormhold." He explained, pushing on the huge bump on his forehead. "Well, anyway, I need to remove the cracked lenses and readjust their trajectory temporarily until we can replace them." 

 How long will that take? Ember wondered with a frown.

   "I'll also need to divert power to make up for the lost energy. Anyways, it's going to take at least a quintant." Ember did the math in her head.

A day.

   "All right. We'll hide the ship and get some rest while Coran comes up with a work-around." Shiro told Coran, making Ember smile. "Tomorrow, we'll be sharper and refocused." 

   "I'll hide the ship!" Ember beamed, standing up quickly. "Everyone else, go rest. Doctor's orders! Especially you, Allura!"

   "Of course," Allura smiled before pulling a face. "Do you know how to pilot the castle?"

   "No. . .But it can't be that  hard!"

▬ ✦✧✦ ▬

Although Ember was optimistic, she had never flown a ship that was this big before. After scaring the crap out of everyone when she almost hit an asteroid (She was like, a  foot or two away, it wasn't that close) they went their separate ways. 

Ember stopped by her room, taking a nap for a short while before an idea popped in her head. She shot up from her bed, grinning. 

   "Why haven't I thought of that before?!" She exclaimed, rushing out of the room. "Dude, like, Ben 10 use to be my favorite show, and Gwen was bad ass!"

Keeping that in mind, Ember skidded to a stop just outside of training room, and was quick to set up some targets. 

   "Okay," Ember sighed, rolling her neck. "I'm not actually making an object, just bursts of light. . .maybe sharp light, I need to cut through metal when fighting. . ."

The black haired girl look a deep breathe, holding her hands out to the side of herself and thought hard. About how the light surrounded Gwen's hand as her power activated. How whenever Gwen threw her arm out, the light would detach and fly, hitting at whatever target the red head wanted to hit. 

Ember looked down, seeing how the iridescent light surrounded her hand in a circle, her hands turning the same colors and moving as if it were alive. She grinned and looked up, rearing her arm back, and threw it forward. 

Nothing. 

The rainbow colored circle stayed around her hands though.  

Ember grumbled to herself. "How do I throw them? It really can't be this hard. . .Not as hard as making a weapon." She sighed, closing her eyes. Breathing in deep, and letting the air out slowly, Ember thought she was ready. 

With a small cry, Ember threw her arm forwards.  This time, a multi-colored disk actually flew off her hand. 

At the same time, the ship rocked dangerously and the alarms started to sound, causing Ember to loose her balance and miss her target. The disk flew high above the dead drone that played as a sentry and hit a wall, bouncing off the wall surprisingly and headed right back to Ember. 

   "Mer-" Ember got cut off, having the disk hit her in the chest and sent her flying back. A wheezed cough left her mouth. "I-I did it. . .Now I know what the sentries feel like. . .but I did it!!" She cheered, fist pumping the air. 

Another blast sent the ship rocking, making Ember grunt as she tried to stumble her way to stand up. "What could be the problem. . .?"

Ember started to make her way out of the training room, letting out a yelp as Pidge zoomed passed before following. 

   "Pidge? What's going on?!"

   "I don't know, but I think we're being attacked!"

   "By what?!"

The two girls made their way into the main control room, not even fazed by the explosions that rung around them anymore. Pidge leaped to her spot while Ember took up the spot that Coran usually took. 

   "Right now, we must figure out a way to get out of here." Allura stated, at her station as well. 

   "Or we can stay and fight. Now's our chance." Keith pointed out. "Form Voltron. Enough running!"

   "It's too dangerous!" 

   "Allura's right. We can't take on Zarkon and his entire fleet." Shiro agreed with the Princess. "Remember what happened at Zarkon's command center. We wouldn't have escaped if the Blade of Marmora hadn't shut down the shield."

   "The turbine's up," Coran announced, sliding pass the camera. "Still working on the worm--" He was cut off by his own scream as he fell on his butt, landed on his head, and spun. 

Ember was just amazed at the fact that the virus had seem to make Coran rubber. 

   "Uh, guys, I think I'm realizing now that I do, in fact, have a case of the slipperies. I'm sorry I yelled at your, Pidge. I may need your help, after all."  Coran admitted, finally. 

   "I'm coming down," Pidge said, leaping from her seat and making her way towards the engines room. 

   "Let's clear a path," Shiro ordered. 

Ember hummed, typing in a few things onto the computer before saying, "Activate your blaster robot thingys! I just opened the bay doors for them!"

   "Blaster robot thingys?" Keith teased, but nonetheless activate his fighter drone. 

   "I don't know what they're called! Particle barrier is at eighty percent!"

   "Lance, there's a fighter advancing on your nine!" Keith called.

   "Thanks for the heads-up! And you've got one going for the lower barrier!" Lance responded. 

  "Good eye!"

   "Wow, they're actually working together," Ember murmured to herself.  "And complimenting each other!"

   "Okay, buddy, you're mine." Lance declared before panicking. "What's going on? I lost control of my defense drone!"

   "I got your covered!" Keith faltered slightly as his power went out as well. "Uh, I don't got you. Oh, there must be a system failure."

   "Nope, that was us!" Pidge faced the camera to look at them. "We're diverting power from non-essential systems to get the wormhole generator working." 

   "Shooting bad guys is pretty essential!" Lance exclaimed. 

   "Even I have to agree with that one, Pidge," Ember remarked. 

   "We lost secondary controls! Thermal regulator's offline!" Hunk reported. Ember let out a squeak suddenly, pressing buttons as quick as she could. 

   "We lost the particle barrier!" She whined.

   "Okay, try it! We should be able to make one very small jump." Coran finally said, adding a I hope  under his breathe. While Allura closed her eyes to concentrate, Ember was still pressing the buttons. 

   "I don't know how to say half the words Coran announces when you guys do this," Ember gulped. "But I pressed everything he showed me to start the wormhole thingy! We're ready to jump!"

Much to their relief, a blue portal opened before them, causing Shiro to call out, "The wormhole is open!"

   "Oh, no! The lenses are breaking down even more!" Coran groaned. "We'll be out of the wormhole even sooner this time!"

True to his word, they exited the wormhole back into space. Another planet - no surprise - was in front of them, but this one looked like there was a storm wrecking the land. 

Silence settled over the control room as the ship finally calmed down. Ember sat herself in Pidge's abandoned seat, eyes darting over to Keith, who had his hand on his cheek, and Lance, who was slumped into his own chair. 

   "Zarkon keeps finding us," Shiro started off softly. "It's like he knows how to track us down. Maybe he planted some kind of tracking device." 

   "Well, it is nothing on the ship." Allura confirmed after a pause, bringing up a map diagram of the ship to her right. "The Castle would have detected any tracking devices."

   "Until we figure out exactly how he's doing it, we should assume that he could show up at any minute." Shiro responded. "So, stay alert."

Hunk's snoring caused Ember to face palm, digging her face into her hands in slight stress.

   "Oh, man! Oh, what's going on?" Hunk woke, like he felt their gazes, and stood. "What are you guys doing? What are you looking at? Why is Ember having her face in her hands?" 

   "You woke yourself up snoring." Keith dead panned. 

   "My bad." Hunk sulked to himself.

   "Coran, what's our status?" Shiro opened up the link to the engine room. "Any good news?"

   "Actually, there is a bit of good news," Coran admitted, skating around the area like it was ice. "I'm finally getting used to these slipperies. My mucus glances are working at an incredible rate!"

   "Ew," Ember scrunched up her nose. "I hate that word."

   "Mu-cas!"  Pidge called over her shoulder teasingly. 

   "Pidge!"

   "Any good news about the teludav?" Shiro tried to get to the point.

   "I'm afraid not. The last jump overloaded the lens-stones." Coran replied grimly. "Now, even more of them are broken. I'm going to try some readjustments to change the beam trajectory. Until then, wormholing away will be impossible."

   "Hey, there's a giant metallic storm ahead of us," Pidge pointed out. "I think we can hide in the eye of the storm."

   "Shouldn't we keep moving, though?" Ember asked. "I mean, we don't know how Zarkon is tracking us, maybe we shouldn't stop moving." She suddenly gasped. "What if saying his name caused him to track us down? Like Voldemort!"

   "Hiding in the eye of the storm should give off enough interference so we can't be tracked," Pidge discussed. "Besides. . .Voldemort isn't real, and their isn't such thing as tracking magic like that."

   "Dude, almost a year ago we thought that magic wasn't real," Ember deadpanned.

   "It's worth a shot." Shiro interrupted.

Into the storm they flew, Ember not driving this time, and they finally stopped in the eye of the storm like Pidge said. The storm clouds were so thick and colored like sand that they couldn't see outside of the small circle they were in. 

   "Brilliant, Pidge," Allura complimented. "We're essentially invisible to any radar, radio waves, universal scans, or any other known technology."

   "This would be a great place to keep a base then. . ." Ember mumbled to herself, perking up and typing onto the screen she made appear. "Annnnd. . .saving coordinates."

Speaking way too soon, the alarms went off again. Ember let out a childish whine, sinking into her seat. 

   "No!" Allura gasped as Zarkon's ship appeared out of no where above them. Fighters were quick to make their way out of the war ship and towards them. 

   "Okay, I don't know how he found us, but it definitely wasn't with normal instruments." Pidge spoke up. 

   "He totally tabooed his name!" Ember groaned. Allura looked down in thought before speaking up. 

   "It's me. It's been me all along. That's how they found us on planet Arus." 

Ember flinched back into her seat as the fighters started to fire onto the Castle of Lions. 

   "It doesn't matter, Princess," Shiro said. "We're in this together. We're gonna get out together."

   "Uh, how? We're trapped." Hunk blabbed. 

   "We need to form Voltron and go through the storm." Shiro declared. 

   "The storm? What are you, nuts?" Lance stood up in shock.

   "Yeah!" Hunk stammered as he stood. "What do you mean? Yeah, why would we do that?" 

   "It's risky, I know," Shiro emphasized. "But it's our only chance. We have to go through the storm, then lure Zarkon's ship away, giving Allura some time to get into open space."

   "Then, what?" Allura asked. 

   "Then, we wormhole away."

   "B-But," Ember stuttered out, gripping the chair she sat in tighter as the ship rocked once more. "Shiro, we can't wormhole!"

   "Coran, remember how you said getting this Castle to wormhole is impossible?" Shiro turned towards the Altean. "Well, I need you to do the impossible."

   "Oh, great," Ember whispered to herself. 

▬ ✦✧✦ ▬

Ember huffed and puffed as she ran her way down to the engine room, trading Pidge's spot so the team could form Voltron. She slid through the double doors that opened before her, just in time to hear Allura ask;

   "How's it coming, Coran?"

   "In ordered for this to work, each remaining lens-stone will need to take the equivalent of five beams! There's no way it can hold that kind of power! The whole thing will explode!" 

   "Wait," Ember stumble forward. "What if we use my powers to put a protective coat over the glasses?"

   "I'm not sure if that would work," Coran admitted. "We don't know if the beam would even reflect off of the quintessence that you would produce. Could you even make that many coverings?!"

   "No clue, but it's the best thing we got right now," Ember paused. "Right?"

   ". . .Try your best, I'll see if there is another way." Coran ordered, making Ember nod and head towards the tunnel. Already knowing her way towards the space, she arrived within minutes of running.

   "Coran, here we go!"  Allura announced as she moved the castle out of the eye of the storm. Ember settled down in front of the tunnel, crossing her legs and holding her arms out. 

   "Come on. . .Just a shield in front of these small pieces of glass. . ." Ember muttered, concentrating as hard as she could. It was kind hard, seeing as she ship was jerking violently, even though they weren't being shot at anymore. 

   "Why haven't we wormholed yet?" Keith asked, connecting their coms with the link Allura and Coran already had set up. 

   "Because we can't! We're missing several lens-stones! They've shattered! Gone! Don't exist! Sloven-day-ho! That's Altean for gone! " Coran snapped. "Ember is trying to see if making a protective covering over the lens would help, but we don't know how it would even react!"

   "Wait, did you say 'scaultrie'? I've seen that somewhere before." Pidge questioned. "I think Hunk was making some terrible cookies from that stuff!"

Hunk growled audibly at the statement/insult. 

   "Why would you make cookies out of lens-stones?" Ember wondered, faltering slightly at making the protective coverings. She barely had a third of the tunnel completed and she felt extremely light-headed.

   "Ember, hold off on making the rest of the coatings," Coran ordered, making the girl let out a grunt. "We might have something here. . ."

Not even ten minutes later, Hunk had brought the so-called cookies he made into the engine room, letting Coran observe them as the rest of the team watched. 

   "Unbelievable! These cookies do have a trace elements of scaultrite." Coran exclaimed. 

   "Could they work?" Shiro asked. 

   "They might be able to hold for one jump, but we'd still need several people to actually physically holding them." Coran glanced over at Ember. "Or have Ember hold them in place."

   "I barely even got a third of the tunnel covered," Ember sighed. "I can probably hold some, but I'd need people to hold the others."

   "So if the trajectories were calculated just so. . ." Coran trailed off. 

   "Well, someone hold the needed lens in place, I'll take hold of them, and then you guys got the rest." Ember decided. The team nodded, grabbing as much cookies/lens they could hold and placing them in the direct place they should be. 

Trying to be quick, Ember did her best to concentrate and hold the lens in place. It wasn't much, but it helped everyone else to not have to hold as much. Although, they were in ridiculous poses that made Ember snort. 

   "Okay, there. Now, nobody move if you want to live." Coran ordered, just as the ship shook. 

   "I think I moved! I think I moved!" Lance panicked. 

   "Well, then move back to where you think you were! Okay, now, I'm going to monitor the beam from out there." Coran casually skated his way out of the lens tunnel. 

   "Wait, Coran! How dangerous is this?" Hunk asked. Coran's figure was straight as could be, but his voice was dark. 

   "Honestly, this is the most dangerous thing I've ever seen, or heard of, but since we're probably going to die anyways, what the heck, let's give it a shot!"

Ember panicked slightly, eyes popping open in shock. "Merde," Ember cussed.

   "Good luck, gentlemen and gentleladies. It's been a pleasure." The door shut between the earthlings and Altean. "Don't touch the lasers!"

Ember felt the door shut and press against her back. A small space was just big enough for Ember to sit on and hopefully not get hit by the lasers. She was more worried about Shiro, Pidge, Lance, Hunk, and Keith though. 

   "Uh," Hunk whimpered. "Is it too late to back out?"

   "Don't worry Hunk," Ember said, scrunching her eyebrows together in pain. "I'm gonna had a shield around all of you guys."

   "Wait, Ember, can you even do that?" Pidge worried. "You're already casting out too much power." 

   "I can do it," Ember argued, bowing her head. The iridescent shield slowly started to appear around each of the members inside the tunnel, Lance being the last person to be shielded. 

The beam at the end of the tunnel lit up, making Keith call out in a panic, "Ember, shield yourself!"

Ember huffed, but slowly a shield surrounded herself.

   "We're gonna die, we're gonna die, we're gonna die!" Lance chanted. 

   "Hang on, Lance!" 

The beam suddenly shot out, but as soon as the beam hit Lance's lens, it went out. 

   "What's happening?!" Hunk called out in a panic. 

   "Whatever it is, better hurry!" Ember commented harshly. She felt the door open behind her and felt a random gust of wind fly over her head. Peeking her eyes open, she saw Coran gliding along the lens and making them shiny. 

   "Ten," Allura started to count. 

   "Merde," Ember snapped out, focusing on Coran. She had to wait for the right moment to shield him, after he got all of the lens shiny. 

   "What's happening?" Shiro demanded. 

   "Nine. Eight."

   "No one move! I've got to shine these stones!" Coran replied. "Good thing I got a case of the slipperies."

   "Seven."

   "Hurry!"

   "Six. Five. Four."

The door, once again, slid shut behind Ember.

  "Three. Two. One!"

Ember watched as Coran launched himself at the last lens, wiping his face against it to make it shine before falling to the side. Ember dropped her own shield in order to cover Coran fast enough.

Just in time, as he squeezed himself behind the lens and the beam harmlessly grazed his hand.

As soon as the beam stopped, meaning they made it out of the wormhole, Ember relaxed and fell backwards, passing out. 

▬ ✦✧✦ ▬

It wasn't that much later until Allura arrived at the scene and noted everything. Her eyes scanned the paladins as the shimmering rainbow shields slowly fell around them. 

   "Is everyone alright?" Allura asked, looking down at her feet. Eyes widening, Allura dropped and pulled a knocked out Ember closer. 

   "Yeah, we would have been fried if it wasn't for - Ember!" Pidge flew across the reflective room and slid next to Allura. "Is she alright?!"

   "She's breathing," Allura assured everyone after a beat, checking over the younger girl. "Ember must have used a lot of power in a short amount of time." 

   "Will she be okay?" Hunk worried. 

   "Yes, she just needs to recharge a bit. Taking a nap will help her, and when she wakes up we can give her some food." Coran slid from in between the wall of lens to walk over, twirling his mustache while at it. 

   "I'll take her to her room then," Keith offered, getting on one knee to lift her up. "Get her to bed so she'll be comfortable."

   "You know where he room is?" Lance asked, narrowing his eyes. 

   "Yeah?" Keith replied.

   "How would you even know where her room is? Do you stalk her? Why do you-"

   "Lets just let Keith get Ember to her bed," Shiro interrupted, nudging Lance to be quiet.

So, here they were, Keith carrying Ember down the hallway, trying not to move her too much. He let out a soft grunt of annoyance as they finally arrived at her room. 

   "Of course, you're always putting people in front of yourself," Keith grumbled. "Never thinking about saving your hind, always thinking you can do more. . ."

Whilst he kept complaining, Keith gently sat Ember on her bed, took off her shoes and socks, and tucked the girl under the covers. The Red Paladin stared gently down at Ember and scoffed lightly. 

   "This is why I need to watch over you," Keith muttered to himself, checking over Ember once more before leaving the room. 

Not noticing the small, happy smile that grew on Ember's face whilst his back was turned.

**Note

Ember's disk thingys are like this.