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Hunk tightens his grip on his gun, his eyes scanning the deserted corridor before him. His footsteps make the slightest noise despite his careful pace, and every few steps he stops to listen. Sliding along the wall, he sneaks into what seems to be an empty room. Gratefully, Hunk heads toward a corner for a safer position, until a snicker causes him to jump and turn quickly. He sees no one, and is partly convinced he imagined it. Hunk is still on edge, though, and treads carefully into the room when suddenly something hits his chest, and a red stain blossoms onto his armor. He groans.
"Man down, man down!" Hunk cries into his comm link.
He hears that same snicker again. "Calm down, ya big baby, it's just a bit of food goo."
Hunk spots a flash of green, barely visible, dart out of the room. The only sign of anyone else having been in the room is the bright red goo decorating Hunk's chest plate. He groans again.
"Guys, I think Pidge has a cloaking device," he says through the comm link.
He is answered by Lance's indignant squawk. "Hey, that's not fair!"
"Yeah, Pidge," Hunk hears Keith's cool voice say. "Why didn't you give me and Allura cloaking devices?"
"Sorry guys," Pidge says, "I only had one that actually worked, the others fizzled out after a few seconds. One actually exploded. That was not pretty."
Then, everyone else shuts their comm link off, and Hunk is left in silence. He slides his helmet off and screws off the top on the canister attached to his gun. Grabbing a handful of the contents, Hunk then proceeds to eat his ammunition. If he has to be out of the game, he might as well use this time to get a bite or two.
"Good morning, paladins!" Allura's cheerful voice cuts through the groggy air of the room. She is answered by muffled groaning. The paladins are clearly not in the best shape at this moment. Lance's eyes have dark bags under them, Pidge's glasses are askew, Keith has possibly the worst bedhead ever, and Hunk's face is buried in his food goo, each snore making the goo rise and fall in a rhythmic fashion. Only Shiro looks as impeccable as ever, and he greets Princess Allura with a warm smile and a "good morning".
"Since yesterday was a difficult mission, I thought we'd take it easy today with a simple team-bonding exercise," Allura says. "I have another game from Earth for you today, one that I find quite interesting."
Lance slumps into his chair. "Please, not Twister again. I'm going to have nightmares about that for the rest of my life."
"Don't remind," Pidge says. "I never want to see a Twister mat again. Keith, tell me you got rid of that thing."
"Oh, I burned it, don't worry." Keith shudders. The memory of that day is enough to make all the Paladins blanch.
"It's not Twister." Allura's statement makes the whole room collectively heave a sigh of relief. "It's paintball!"
"Huhwha?" is everyone's response.
"Of course, I haven't been able to find any paint, so we'll have to make do with what we have. I'm sure you've noticed that today's breakfast isn't green, but red and blue."
They hadn't noticed. Judging from the state the paladins were in, they likely wouldn't have noticed a bomb hitting the castle.
"So once you've finished eating, get dressed in your armor and meet back here. I'll have your equipment ready by then," Allura says.
When they meet back in the dining room, Allura is decked out in full battle gear as well. She hands each of the paladins a rifle attached to an empty canister. No one questions where she got them from.
"Since our goo is red and blue, I thought we'd let our red and blue paladins pick teams." Allura mentally hopes this isn't a bad idea. The last time Keith and Lance had an argument, it lasted three days, and Allura wants to get playing as soon as possible.
"Coran's not playing, is he?" Lance asks.
"Nope," Coran answers. "I'm just here to make the ammo." He grins.
"Alright, so the teams will be even." Keith mulls this over, before saying," I pick Pidge."
Pidge shrugs, and begins shoveling red goo into her canister from one of the large bowls on the dining table. Lance shouts angrily, "Hey, I was gonna pick Pidge! Why did you get to pick first?!"
"Wow, Lance, it's not like I'm your best friend or anything," Hunk grumbles. "Whatever, man."
"Fine then, I pick Hunk!" Lance splutters.
"Allura."
"Shiro!"
And the teams are decided.
(“Hey, that's not fair! Why do you get the brains and the brawn?” “Deal with it, Lance. You’re going down.” “Over my dead body, Keith.")
The teams huddle up to formulate a game plan. “I think we should split up,” says Pidge, “so if one of us gets shot they can’t get the rest of us. We should each focus on getting one person out. I’ll take Hunk.”
“I’ll get Shiro.” Allura and Pidge exchange a look that Keith can’t decipher. “That leaves me with Lance, then,” he says.
On the other side of the room, Lance says, “We should stick together, so they can’t pick us off one by one.” Shiro and Hunk nod in agreement.
But when the game starts, Keith, Pidge, and Allura all dart off in different directions, Pidge taunting Lance as she goes. Forgetting their plan, Lance races off after Pidge, leaving Shiro and Hunk behind to shrug and split up.
Allura stalks through the castle, rolling her feet with each step so as not to make a sound. She feels something brush against her, and looks to her right to see Hunk sitting on the floor, red goo all over his chest. "Good one, Pidge," she whispers, and takes off in the opposite direction of Pidge.
Allura makes her way down the hall when she stops abruptly to listen for the others. She hears quiet footsteps padding around the corner, and a white tuft of hair appears. As fast as lightning, Allura jerks her gun up and presses hard down onto the trigger, goo splashing onto the surprised face of one Shiro.
"Haha, you're out!" Allura crows triumphantly. The shocked look on Shiro's face turns into a smirk.
"I'm not the only one, Princess. Look down." Shiro gestures toward her chest.
Allura's battle suit now has blue goo all over the front. She looks up and meets Shiro's eyes. The hallway is silent for a moment, until both Allura and Shiro burst into laughter.
Lance ducks into a room for a quick breather. As he gets ready to exit, he hears a lone voice murmur, "If I were Lance or Shiro, where would I be?"
Lance grins. It's Pidge's voice. He positions his gun just outside the doorway. The noise is coming from his left. He takes careful aim and then shoots.
Suddenly, Pidge is being fired at. She expertly dodges the first few flying balls of goo, but slams into the wall trying to avoid the last one, smashing the cloaking device situated on her hip and blowing her cover of invisibility. "Aha!" Lance cries, and before Pidge can move, Lance releases a barrage of blue goo at her. It splatters all over her body and helmet. Pidge wipes off the goo obscuring her view to glare at Lance. "You really didn't have to use that much."
Lance grins sheepishly. "Oops. Well, you're out, and now I just have to find Keith."
Pidge blinks. "Is Allura out too? Man..."
"She and Shiro got each other," Lance tells her, and Pidge smacks her forehead. She wonders what Allura was thinking. The inevitable showdown between red and blue, Keith and Lance, is not going to be pretty.
Lance makes his way back to the dining room to refill his nearly empty canister before going to look for Keith. Unbeknownst to him, Keith is staked right inside the dining room at this very moment. He watches with calculating eyes as Lance hurriedly marches past him and scoops blue goo into his canister. Ever so slowly, he drifts across the floor, silently coming up behind Lance. Keith tells himself he’s coming closer to Lance to get a better shot, and not for any other reasons. He’s not sure what those other reasons might be, but he still doesn't believe himself. Raising his gun, he takes aim, and is about to fire when he sees that the safety of his gun is still on. Mentally cursing, Keith clicks the safety off.
The sound echoes throughout the room. Lance whips around, bits of goo spraying onto Keith's face. He's about to shoot when he notices Keith's gun aimed at his chest. The two boys are locked into a stalemate, each trying to think of how to shoot the other without getting shot and calling a draw.
Lance's mind is whirring furiously when he notices a piece of goo on Keith's lower lip, from when he spun around at the sound of the safety clicking off. Lance isn’t sure he should do this, but he reasons that it’ll be worth it to beat Keith for once. Moving before he can stop himself, Lance leans forward and licks the goo off of Keith's lip. The effect is instantaneous. Keith's gun falls out of his hands and hits the floor with a loud bang. Keith flushes a red bright enough to rival the sun. He stammers, "W-what, w-why did you-"
Keith is interrupted by a faceful of blue goo. Frozen, he lets it drip off his face and onto his chest as Lance runs out of the room, partly because of his victory but mostly because he's scared of Keith's reaction.
Keith is later found curled up on the ground, his head shoved between his knees, a shell-shocked look on his face. He still looks quite red. Allura worries that he has a fever, but the paladins wonder what exactly happened between Keith and Lance.
(Later, Allura admits that paintball is a terrible team-bonding exercise. But, she says with a smirk, it is not without its merits. Pidge just smiles knowingly. If the blush on her and Shiro’s faces are anything to go by, Allura must have had a very pleasurable paintball experience.)