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After meeting The Blade of Marmora and what they thought was taking down Zarkon they immediately set out on tracking Haggar, only to find that a prince had taken the throne. He was as inexperienced as they came but he knew how to pull the paladin’s strings and mess with their insecurities. The past encounters with Prince Lotor had quite the toll on team Voltron.
Even so, Keith became close to the members of the Blade who began to teach him their ways. In his spare time, Keith would train using both his Galra blade and his bayard. He started to become beyond efficient in using both blades; even with the awkward handle difference, he would be able to wield both weapons simultaneously. He could mutilate the practice dummies in an instant without breaking a sweat now.
Standing in the Blade of Marmora’s training deck, dressed in the trial suit, Keith wipes sweat from his brow calming down from a skirmish with their training bots. They’re a slightly higher difficulty than the Altean one and help him with exercising both hands so they get trained equally. The bots also picked up the slack of the Altean ones on making Keith defend himself with both blades. Keith returns his bayard to its original form and puts his blade away.
Keith walks to the side of the room leaning against the wall before sliding down and taking a seat on the floor. The cold, hard metal soothing the heat and aches in his body. Keith lifts his left hand and grips his wrist stretching his sore muscle. When he had first picked up dual wielding his left hand was always in pain after every practice no matter how long it was. Eventually, the pain started to subside and his muscle began to strengthen. The ache in his wrist would only come back after a long or hard training session.
Keith picks himself up and walks the halls of the Blades ship, thinking about anything and everything, taking a moment to breathe and calm down. It’s not often the paladins get chances to be by themselves and relax, so whenever they get the chance they squeeze out every drop. He reaches the hanger Red stays in when Keith comes the to ship and gets into the pilot seat, talking with her for a minute or two before leaving and going back to the Altean ship he now calls home.
Flying into and out of the base has become second nature to Keith by now. He goes to the base at least every other day and he knows the place almost just as much as the Altean ship. The halls no longer trap him in their twists and turns and the people don’t shy away from him. In fact, he’s made some friends. A lot of them are his sparring partners when he needs real ones that is, but they’ve become close over the conversations during and after training sessions. They say hi to him in the halls and stop him to talk and ask how training and how the other paladins are doing. Sooner or later the conversation will softly drift off and they’ll say their goodbyes and go their separate ways, it’s a good system.
When he arrives back to the castle he leaves Red with the other lions in the hanger and goes to change out of his Marmora training suit before resting in his room, all the other paladins doing their own activities.
Pidge had somehow found a way to connect the intercom system between the two ships so it’s easier to communicate and so if there ever is a surprise attack the Blade well hear and be able to help. So one day while Keith is in the middle of training and the harsh sounds of the sirens begin to go off, Keith isn’t sure if he should change into paladin armor or not. Either way, it didn’t matter he needed to go and make sure his family was alive and stayed that way. Keith bolts down the halls not bothering to apologize for bumping into the other people rushing around, they’d understand, and clambers into Red taking off immediately, barely processing that there’s a low amount of ships, but that they’ve been breached.
Keith logs into the comms calling out to everyone, “Hey! Is everyone alright?” Keith’s tone is drenched in worry and his muscles are tensed waiting for any sort of response.
“Keith!” Multiple voices yell into the comms in unison and Keith lets out a sigh hearing everyone's voices muscles still tense with the adrenaline pumping through his veins and not being able to pick out a certain voice, hoping the boy was just too busy to answer.
“How’d they board the ship?” Keith calls out swerving this way and that, dodging lasers that come from every direction. Keith shoots down any ship in his sight and rushing to the castle.
“We don’t know they came out of nowhere!” Pidge yells into his ears, voice strained and sounding stressed. “Lance stayed inside to fend them off from overrunning the castle again but I haven’t heard from him in a while. We’ll keep this ships at bay, you go in and help Lance.”
“Affirmative.” Red drops him off at the entrance the galra had made to get inside and flies away, taking down ships on her own. Keith brings out his bayard in his right hand and blade in his left, taking down Galra soldiers one after the other. His dual-wielding making things easier but also leaving him open to loose shots being thrown around at random. He gets grazed a few times but nothing too major. Once Keith had disposed of all the immediate threats he begins to run through the halls searching for Lance, calling out his name.
Checking every room he passes and taking out every soldier he comes across Keith lets his mind wander through all the shit the two paladins have been through. The first couple of months when Lance still believed they were “rivals” and Keith wasn’t over his garrison crush. When they began to train together and be in each other's company without bickering. Giving each other haircuts because Lance couldn’t take the full mullet anymore and Lance hated the feeling of hair on the back of his neck. They began to open up to each other and learn about one another. Lance has now become his go to about problems and insecurities, Unless of course, it’s about Lance himself then Shiro is back at the number one spot.
As Keith is close to the main control room when he starts to hear gunfire. Keith rushes into the hall and starts to hack away at every soldier in front of him.
“Lance! Keith calls out to the other boy whilst in the middle of a group of galra.
“Keith! Oh my god Keith! Are you alright? I wasn’t sure if you’d make it here.” Lance continues to shoot but starts to be more cautious now that Keith is in the middle of all of it. Lance can see flashes of both swords as Keith spins, dodges, and slices through the pack of soldiers.
“You idiot! I’m fine the real question is if you’re okay? You’ve been holding down the castle all by yourself for who knows how long.” Keith starts to see glints of blue through all the purple as he nears the edge of the Galra trying to reach Lance.
“I’m fine. I’m assuming you are too even though you’re swimming in Galra right now.” Lance fires at a soldier behind Keith lining up a killing blow. The fighter falls to the ground his armor clashing against the floor drowned out by all the other noise.
“Thanks, sharpshooter, I owe you.”
“Just get out of here alive Keith.”
Keith reaches the edge of the horde of galra when time slows down for Lance. Keith is mid spin, mouth open in a battle cry, eyes a cold grey, and swords coming down in every direction. Lance just takes in the sight, Keith’s shaggy chopped hair flying around, body contorted in a way that shouldn't be possible while fighting, and expression shaking the brown haired boy to his core. Keith makes it to the front and joins Lance’s side. He looks over at Lance having to tilt his chin slightly from how Lance has grown a few inches within the last year.
Keith smiles at him and says, “Ready to kick some Galra ass?”
Lance’s first thought is “Holy fuck I’m gay. I’m gay for Keith.” then he turns back to the black haired boy. “Let’s do this” a slight tilt to his voice and a smile gracing his face.