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Keith wasn’t a morning person, honestly, but he always woke up before his alarms went off, dutifully started a full pot of coffee he shared with his grandma, and he was out the door on time every day for school. He stood by the bus station right in front of his house and hopped onto public transportation, same time every day. With a full thermos, music blaring in his ears, and sometimes an apple in his backpack, he’d walk right into the train station and waited for his 7:43 train. He entered the frontmost car, where he knew Lance would be sitting.
It’s not as if Lance was anyone particularly special or important to Keith. They shared a class or two, and they were on both the soccer and track team together, but Lance is loud and boisterous and over-the-top about a LOT of other things, which irked Keith. Still, though, when Keith found out on accident that he and Lance had the same train schedule, save for the fact that Lance hopped on at an earlier station, it became their habit to share seats, as opposed to sharing them with other commuters.
Lance was also not a morning person, looking half asleep sitting up with his bag in his lap. Keith slid into the seat next to him, still blasting music from his headphones. They didn’t even acknowledge each other, Keith sipping his coffee and Lance dozing with his head pressed against the glass window. It’s another 12 minutes commute before they would have to switch trains and head north towards their high school, Arus Academy, or AA, as is the common nickname between students.
The train was steady as it headed into The Underground, a crosspoint between the north/south and east/west trains. Keith nonchalantly, but not too gently, nudged Lance awake, and he woke up without a word, neither in thanks nor in annoyance.
They were up and by the door, being the first two to slip between the slow automatic doors. It wasn’t supposed to be a race, Keith reasoned, but Lance’s pace from one platform to the other was always too hurried, in his opinion. Keith kept pace, though, not complaining as he heard the horn of the incoming, northbound train.
Keith wasn’t paying too much attention to the outside bustle, his headphones canceling out the sound and his head was firmly facing forward, but the vibrations of the train crescendoed, and Lance shoved him in his side, knocking him prone and forcing the wind out of his lungs.
Keith gasped through the pain, Lance's mouth moving silently at him before yanking Keith’s headphones off his head and screaming “RUN!”
Screams, there were screams everywhere . People running up the stairs frantically as a crashing noise of metal on concrete deafened him. Keith jerked his head up, looking over his shoulder to see a living, concrete abomination, large and alternating between a solid and semi-fluid state, with glowing purple eyes looking ready to strike.
It was slinging parts of itself, wet cement immediately solidifying when it came into contact with other people, trapping their legs against the ground or their torsos against the train station walls. It gave an inhuman screech, enraged as it bellowed, “GIVE. ME. THE. MIRACULOUS.”
Keith cursed, grabbing Lance by the arms and throwing them both into a run. Keith had to get somewhere alone to transform, but first, he needed to get his classmate to safety.
They ran for the stairs, Lance yanking on Keith’s arm and forcing them to take cover as the monster started attacking the people on the stairs, pinning them to the ground in one fell swoop.
“We need to get out of here,” Keith whispered, resisting the urge to watch the cement monster’s work.
“No crap, Einstein! But what are we gonna do? Run down the train tracks?!” Lance whispered back, a lot louder and a lot more annoyed than Keith’s own quiet tone.
“Maybe…”
“We’d get electrocuted!!!”
“Shush!” Keith scolded, but the damage was done. The monster roared, and the unique yet horrifying sound of wet cement drew closer.
They both sprinted in the opposite direction, the monster turning past the stairwell and screeching, flinging itself at them. Keith feinted left, away from Lance, who’d done a sliding dive to the right, the two of them in sync just like in their soccer matches.
“Crap!” Lance yelled. “Okay, new plan! I distract it, and you run up the stairs and get help.”
Keith couldn’t stop the shock from showing on his face. “You’re an idiot! You’ll get hit and trapped down here!”
The monster caught up to them, standing in between them in the center of the platform. Lance started yelling at it as he ran down the station platform before turning and hiding behind another staircase, goading it for its attention and completely ignoring Keith.
“Lance, stop!” Keith yelled, ready to race after Lance, but he hesitated. The best way to help Lance was for the Paladins to arrive, and that meant Keith had to disappear. Keith wanted more than anything to race after his classmate, but as he is right now, normal and without any powers, he’d just get in the way. To beat this thing, he needed to be Red.
Keith took a deep breath, trying to center himself, before he turned and raced up the stairs. People were shouting at him, pleading with him to help them get out, but he couldn’t do anything. They were thigh deep in stone, stuck until real help arrived, but he couldn’t stop the crushing thought that he was leaving them behind.
Keith shoved the ‘Exit Only’ gate open, sprinting down the street to the nearest alleyway, thanking his luck that it was empty. With no cameras in sight, he threw off his backpack and opened the compartment inside the biggest section, where he knew Rouge was sleeping.
“Get up!” Keith growled, tugging her out and holding their small, fairy-like body in the palm of his hand.
“I’m up. I’m up… What happened?” they mumbled, glaring at him.
“How did you miss the Cement Man attacking us?! I landed right on my backpack!”
“Kwami bodies are sturdy. Are you getting lighter, maybe?” they asked, a bit unenthusiastic about being forced awake. They certainly had cat-like features, like small ears, whiskers, and a tail, and they had the personality of one, to boot.
“You know what? Never mind. Rouge, transform me.”
They huffed, their body coalescing into a bright, red light that swirled into the silver bracelet on his right wrist. As they flooded his body with magic, his school uniform melted away, being replaced with black, white, and red armor that was flexible like cloth but strong like metal. He felt the power rushing through his body, the surge of energy eating away any fatigue or exhaustion present and infusing the light into every fiber of his being.
He felt the white-and-black mask settle into place and strengthen his perception, the metal ears and tail materializing and providing him with heightened hearing and balance. With a flash of light, his fully armored Paladin costume was formed. He didn’t waste a second, sprinting to the underground train station at almost twice the speed it took for him to escape sight.
He vaulted over the turnstiles and raced down the stairs without a beat, ignoring the excited and relieved cries of the captives, even though he felt a pang of emotion at the pleasant change in tune from before.
“Where did it go?” he asked a nearby man in a business suit, glued to the wall. His tone bled with authority and control, comfortable in his skin.
The business man smiled, looking relieved at Keith’s presence, but he sobered up to tell Keith, “He ran after some kid. They ran north on the tracks.”
Keith wanted to curse Lance out for his ridiculously dangerous plan, but he held it in, nodding his thanks at the man. “Don’t worry. We’ll get this sorted out, everyone, and you’ll all be set free,” Keith declared, sprinting after the cement monster with a crowd of cheering pedestrians echoing behind him.
He checked the tracks before jumping down, thankfully hearing the silence of a disabled electric field. As he sprinted, he ignored the worry gnawing at his gut for Lance’s safety. It didn’t take long for Keith to pick up the sounds of combat, though, and the cheery declaration of Blue giving a sarcastic little, “Woo, that was a close one, big guy! You almost had me!”
“Blue?!” Keith called out, hurrying his pace and following the bend of the rail line, seeing the next stop up ahead with an empty platform, an angry cement monster, and a dark skinned boy sporting armor with the same motif as Keith’s own paladin outfit, though with blue accents instead of red.
“Red! Buddy, it’s great to see you!” Blue said cheerfully, lifting his shield up to provide cover against the cement attack. Keith summoned his own bo staff, smacking the cement monster in the head with a glancing blow and rushing past the monster before it could grab him. It provided enough time for Blue to rip his shield out of the hardened concrete, and they both retreated up the small escalator entrance to put some distance between themselves and the monster.
“You could not have had better timing!” Blue said when they hit the top of the entrance to the train. Recovering from their sprint, the two of them gave a little fist bump in greeting. “Seriously! Shield plus sticky stuff equals a bad time.”
Keith snorts. “I’m glad that thing didn’t eat my staff. It was a lucky shot, I think. Wait, did you see a kid down there? The people at the train station said it was chasing someone.” Keith asked, worried that he didn’t see Lance at all in the tunnel.
“Oh, that kid?” Blue’s tone betrays the false-breeziness he was going for. “Yeah, I got to him! Sent him through a maintenance entrance in the tunnel, so he’s safe.”
Keith put a hand on Blue’s shoulder. “If he got hurt, it’s not your fault. You did everything you could, okay? We can check on him later.”
Blue’s face didn’t look any less guilty, and he seemed quick to put that situation on the back burner for now. “So what do we do? Wait for Bossman to show up and fix everything?” Blue asked, staring down at the slow progress the monster was making as it fought going up the down escalator.
“Or Green. She’d at least have some ideas for what we can do to slow it down,” Keith said, twirling his staff in thought, only for Blue to shove him to the ground to avoid a ranged attack from the monster clawing its way up.
They fell to the ground with a grunt, a bit winded, but Keith hopped up quickly, giving Blue a helping hand. “Thanks for that,” he said, giving Blue a smile.
“It wasn’t a hard decision. Sorry, I made you land on your ass- phalt, though.”
Keith groaned, smacking his face with his hand at the awful jokes pouring from his friend’s mouth. Honestly, if Yellow were here, it’d be twice as worse.
“What, are my jokes too solid for you to handle?” Blue egged on, the two of them sprinting down the main drag of Downtown, heading north as the monster trailed behind, laser focused on their movements.
“Yanno what would really rock? Concentrating on the monster!” Keith retorted, dodging another attack by diving behind a corner of a skyscraper, the two of them running side by side as they zig-zagged through the streets, not letting the monster keep a clear line of sight of them for long before turning off onto another road.
Blue laughed a little madly at Keith joining in on the joke. Keith tried not to let Blue’s laughter get to his own ego.
They didn’t have a plan, except evasion. They tried their best to keep in circles and stay within the already evacuated areas, but when they looped back to a previous street, Keith noticed the trailing indentation in the road.
“It’s eating the cement around it for ammo. We’ve got to get it away from concrete things.”
Blue just shot him a dirty look. “We’re smack dab in the middle of downtown! There’s no such thing as ‘away from concrete’!”
“If we keep in circles, it might start taking out buildings!”
“MIRACULOUS!” it roared from behind them, startling them out of their conversation.
“Crap!-” “Run!”
It slung another attack, one that Keith reflexively attacked with his bo staff to defend Blue, but as the concrete touched his weapon, it solidified around it, and the weight knocked it out of balance in Keith’s grip, causing the increase in weight to buckle his wrist and hit the weapon against the ground, where it fused to the concrete.
Keith cursed, trying to tug his staff out with his super strength, but Keith was yanked by the collar of his armor by Blue, who threw him out of the range of another cement attack. Out of time, Keith and Blue ran perpendicular, taking cover behind another building and leaving Keith’s weapon behind.
Keith cursed, watching with a final glimpse as the monster reached over and grabbed his staff, absorbing it into his hand with a sneer. A small portion of it was left jutting out, mocking him.
“Be pissed later, let’s go!” Blue said.
The click of a connecting radio interrupted them. “What kind of trouble did you two get into now?” Green said with fake annoyance and an exaggerated sigh.
“Honestly, I was just trying to enjoy my lovely commute!” Blue quipped back cheerily, Keith now listening to him in surround sound as his voice came through the communicator.
“Any ideas, Green? It’s not gonna run out of ammunition any time soon,” Keith said, both of them running down another street and turning left, where they were graced with the relieving sight of Yellow, standing in the middle of the street with his long-handled warhammer slung over his shoulders.
“‘Sup,” he said, looking them up and down and raising an eyebrow at the dried chips of cement on their suits.
“Yellow!” Blue cried cheerfully, running up and giving Yellow a quick hug, Keith giving a polite shoulder pat to him when they separated. Yellow gave Keith a shoulder squeeze, a bright smile on his face.
“So you two look awful,” he said.
“Thanks,” Keith replied, raising an eyebrow.
“Would you like to join us for a morning jog?” Blue asked, pointing his thumb at the monster turning the corner.
“I think that sounds great,” Yellow said, “Good thing my plans weren’t set in stone today.”
Keith and Green both groaned, Keith already deciding to sprint ahead of them just to save himself from the pain of listening to their pun-off, both in the flesh and over the radio.
“Where’s Black?” Keith begged, turning a corner and watching behind himself to make sure Yellow and Blue were well ahead of the monster.
“Don’t know, but I have an idea,” Green said.
“Alright, shoot,” he said, the other two stopping their jokes to listen intently.
“Cement has a range of fluidity where it’s a workable paste,” she explained. “So if it gets too wet, the crystallization process won’t work, and it won’t harden.”
“Ohhhh, duh, of course . Why didn’t I think of that?” Yellow said, sounding a little annoyed at himself, “There’s a park about a mile north! It’s got a man-made lake in it. If we get it close enough, we might be able to dissolve all those layers and find the tainted crystal.”
“A genius, as always, Green,” Blue complimented.
“Hey!” Yellow pouted, a little miffed.
“Of course, Yellow was obviously going to say the same thing, but you interrupted him an-”
“Quit flirting, and start running north on Argonne Avenue ,” she deadpanned.
“Yes, ma’am!” Blue said, making Keith snicker.
They kept a good pace, getting closer and closer to Piedmont Park. There weren’t any pedestrians along the way, most likely because of Green’s handiwork, which was quite frankly astonishing since it was the middle of morning traffic, last Keith checked.
It was a lot harder to keep on one single road, but the three of them did their best. From dodging attacks to Yellow using his hammer to bash cars into its face, the three of them kept its attention scattered as they made steady progress north, heading through a semi-residential area.
“Alright, someone give me a sitrep, please,” a voice called over the radio, unquestioningly belonging to the Black Paladin.
“Bossman!”
“It’s about time!”
“Nice of you to join us.”
“Better late than never!” Green happily chipped in, and Keith listened to Green give a rundown and the mini-interrogation Black was asking in an effort to get the full picture.
“I bet he won’t stray too far from the concrete, no matter how badly he wants to go after us,” Pidge admitted, “So that’s as far as I’ve gotten.”
“Hmm…”
“Also, Red’s down his staff,” Lance added, grunting in exertion when he blocked another attack, ripping his shield out of the concrete with a huff.
“There is also that,” Keith admitted, springing up and grabbing onto the balcony of a condo to dodge another volley. Hunk ran up and smashed a car at the monster to gain its attention again, whacking it like a golf ball.
“Where is it, and how hard would it be to get it back?” Black asked, his tone contemplative.
“Well, it’s kind of sticking out from his big cement hand, so uh, like an eight out of ten?” Keith guessed.
“Eight out of ten?” Blue interjected. “More like ten out of ten! If that thing touches you, you’re toast!”
Keith shrugged, climbing up the complex until he landed on the roof. “We’ve had worse situations, right?”
From his view, he could see Black and Green at the end of the road, where it ended at a T-intersection with the park directly behind them.
“Think you can time out a Flame Strike when you grab it?”
“Probably. Want me to toast his arm?”
“As best you can,” Black said confidently. “See if you can force him into the park with the fear of heat. Yellow, Blue, you do your best to keep him protected from any counter attacks, and Green, when he gets close, you pull him in. He won’t let go if he’s trying to steal weapons from us. Then Blue will hose him down.”
“Yes, sir-” “Alright-” “Can do-” “-Ready!”
“On my mark,” Black called, and Keith watched from above as everyone crouched low, ready to attack like the pride of lions they were. “NOW!”
And without a single hesitation, Keith jumped.