I lay on the ground, my arms and legs spread wide, starfish-style.

Ten minutes.

Ten minutes of being fired at nonstop. Yep. Someone's definitely not making it through the day.

The others are also resting, except Shiro. I have no idea where that guy went. The others, however, are on the couches, either sitting or lying down. I opted for the floor because there was more room there. Also, I'd be able to spread out as much as I want without falling off.

The doors hiss open and I lift my head to see who it is. Oh no. it's Allura-the-Crazy who tried to kill us into forming Voltron and Alien Weasley, her henchman. I groan inwardly.

"Are we at full power on condenser number five yet?" she asks.

"No," Alien Weasley replies. "Still just 84 percent."

"You did it!" Allura exclaims. I look up. Oh, so she saw us. "You formed Voltron!"

I groan and put my hands over my face. I never want to hear that word as long as I'm alive. It's caused me enough troubles already.

"No. the shooting stopped and the particle barrier shut down, so we just flew in," Keith informs her.

I point at Keith. "He's right."

"What?" asks Allura, fuming.

"Oh, right. Sorry, Princess," Alien Weasley says sheepishly. "I had to turn off the Castle defenses to test the fire suppressors."

"What are you guys doing here?" Shiro asks, walking in. I look up to see him. "We're not taking a break."

I groan louder. Just leave me be! Let me die in peace, gods of Olympus!

"Shiro's right. You should be training."

"Yeah," I tell her. "Training, not dying! Which you seem very interested in us doing!"

"I was not trying to kill you! I was trying to help you form Voltron."

I scoff. "Yeah, tell that to my poor muscles. They're the victims here."

Personally, I have nothing against training. I'm used to hours of exhausting training from when I took karate. I signed up for the karate tournaments, taking place every two years, and the training was two hours every Sunday. I am used to excruciating pain caused by said training. I'm just not used to nearly being blasted to smithereens. Alteans are weird.

"We've been training," Hunk say. "When are we going back to Earth?"

"I'm not going back until I find my family," Pidge says.

"Guys," interrupts Shiro. "There won't be an Earth if we don't figure out how to fight Zarkon."

I blow up. "But we're just teenagers," I say angrily, sitting up and facing Shiro. "Sure we can fight, but we're kids, Shiro. Can we really take down an empire?"

"I believe so, yes."

I furrow my eyebrows and look down at my hands in my lap and everyone stays quiet. I think about Percy Jackson, and the Kanes, and Magnus, and even Harry Potter. They were all kids. And Bianca di Angelo. She willingly died for her friends and she'd only been twelve. And what about Annabeth, who'd run away at seven? They were all younger than me and they defeated their evil grandfather and the evil snake that swallowed the sun and kept their great-grandmother from waking up. I sigh. I hate it when my fandoms get the best of me.

"How are we going to fight?" Lance finally asks, breaking the silence. "We can't even figure out how to form Voltron."

"Well I'm not surprised," Alien Weasley pipes up. "You know, the original paladins fought hundreds of battles together, side-by-side. They were like a pack of yalmors linked at the ears."

"Wow. Yeah, that's definitely not us," Lance says before collapsing on the couch.

"During the last attack, your survival instincts forced you to work as a team, but that will only get you so far." I give Allura a pointed look, but she doesn't notice. "You'll have to become a real team to have any chance of forming Voltron and then beating Zarkon next time."

I look around the room at the other paladins. Hunk and Pidge look bored, Keith looks annoyed, Lance is dozing off, Shiro's the only one really paying attention, and I probably look— and feel— like a dazed zombie from my restless night. What a sensational team we make.

"Ha," I scoff under my breath.

"You should try working out on the training deck."

"There's a training deck?" Hunk asks.

"Of course!" Alien Weasley twirls his moustache around his finger. "Now follow me!"

We all follow him out of the lounge and towards the grand staircase. We climb down a staircase and go down the hall before stopping in front of a door. It hisses open and we step in, the lights blazing to life.

"Whoa..." I breathe, turning around to stare at the grandiose training room. This is amazing.

"I'll go up to the control room." Alien Weasley points to a box jutting out, higher up, glued to the ceiling. There are large windows, but they're tinted, so only the person inside can see us. "You six wait here."

He leaves us in the center of the room, making sure we're standing in a circle facing away from the others. I'm standing between Hunk and Keith.

"I like this place," I say to Keith. "It's huge. It's so great."

He smirks. "Yeah, it is."

"Maybe we could train against each other. Like the good ol' days."

He looks at me with a smirk. "You're on."

I don't notice, since I'm marveling at the sheer size of the room, but Keith is staring at me.

"Did you sleep at all last night?" he finally asks.

"Of course I did."

"No nightmares? Or... you know?" he refrains from using the word 'insomnia' because he knows that I don't like to talk about it. And if I did, he knows it should come from me, not him.

"Uh, nope."

"Really, 'cause you fell asleep on me, earlier today."

I frown. "Okay, fine. I did have a nightmare, and woke up at 3am, and watched Doctor Who in the lounge until I fell asleep around 5, but it happens all the time."

It's Keith's turn to frown. "Well, I'm still worried, okay?"

"I know. And I appreciate it—"

Alien Weasley interrupts by clearing his throat over the PA. "two, two, one, two," he says to make sure it's working. "Okay, listen up, guys. The paladin code demands you put your teammembers' safety above your own. A swarm of drones is about to attack."

I skip a beat. "A swarm of what is about to what?"

"It's up to each of you to do everything you can to protect the other members of your team." White circular objects with blue circles in the center fly toward us. Drones.

I start keeping a mental tally. This is Trial Number One.

Shields activate on our arm. Mine activates on the opposite arm as everyone else since I'm left handed.

"Wait, wait, wait. What's going on?" Hunk asks as his shield activates. "Whoa. did you guys get one of these?"

"Get ready," Shiro says.

The drones, which are now circling us in an almost creepy way, or the way a predator traps its prey, start shooting. I raise my shield and block using my karate moves. This is easy. Especially after two hours per week of our senseis drilling defense and offense moves in our heads for five years. I smirk. Yeah, I've got this.

Behind me, I hear Pidge scream and see, out the corner of my eye, the ground disintegrating beneath her feet and swallowing her up. Okay. So that just happened. I get it. Don't get zapped or you take a trip down the tunnel of doom, leading to who-knows-where. I deflect a hit.

"Protect your teammates or no one will be there to protect you!" says Alien Weasley.

Hunk gets hit and also gets swallowed by the ground. The remaining four of us crowd around each other as the drones shoot faster and faster...

I look down at my shield. I know this only works in the movies, but maybe. Just maybe...

What if I aim the shots getting aimed at me back at the drone? I try. One of them shoots, I deflect and try to ricochet the shot at another drone. Score! The smoking ball hits the ground. The others see what I'm doing and try to imitate me, but miss. They obviously aren't used to fighting moving targets on hand to hand combat like I am.

"Time to increase intensity," Alien Weasley announces.

The drones turn even faster around us, but I still haven't broken a sweat. This is just a warm-up for me after all of that training.

"You keeping up over there, Keith?" Lance asks.

No, no, no, no! Not now! I complain in my head. Why must they always choose the worst times to fight? I glance at Keith giving him a don't do it look, but he doesn't see.

"Just concentrate on keeping me safe," Keith replies.

"Me? I own this drill. You're the one who needs to concentrate."

Keith glances at me and sees that I'm smirking a bit as I parry easily. I catch his eye out the corner of my eye, but keep my focus on the drones. "You're not the one owning this drill," he says, quiet enough so that only I can hear. My smile grows wider.

Suddenly, the drones go low, so do we. Except Lance. Keith gets shot and swallowed by the ground. Lance gets shot too and also disappears.

"Guess it's just you and me!" I call to Shiro as we back up to crouch back to back.

"You good?" he asks me.

"Trust me when I say that this is nothing compared to what I did back in tournament training."

We parry and try to shoot down, trying to keep the other safe while watching our own front and sides. It feels a bit like driving. Except the car is on fire, and the road is on fire, and I'm on fire. Our technique works for about a minute. Until both of us get shot simultaneously on the side. The movement causes me to lose my footing and to fall, I hit the ground and groan. The ground opens up and I yelp a bit as I fall.

Apart for me and Shiro, who actually tried to stay alive— figure of speech— the others got shot down in under one minute.

Trial Number One is a fail.

***

Trial Number Two.

To form Voltron, you must trust in each other," Alien Weasley tells me and Hunk. "this ancient paladin maze will teach you that trust. Your teammate can see the walls, but you cannot. So, listen carefully. If you touch the walls, you'll get a slight shock."

We were paired up by Alien Weasley in groups of two for the next trial. I was paired with Hunk, which is good, since I don't know him much and vice-versa and this is supposed to be some sort of crazy trust exercise.

"Okay, Hunk," I start. "Take two steps forward."

"Are— are you sure?" Hunk asks nervously.

"Yes, Hunk," I reply. "This is a trust exercise. You've gotta trust me. Take two steps forward."

Hunk tentatively does so and, when he doesn't get shocked, relaxes a bit. I guide him through the maze fairly easily, but I take a long time, since my sense of orientation seems to stop working when it comes to mazes. Hunk waits patiently as I try not to get myself lost, and we sometimes breaks the silence with questions or just talking about nothing in particular.

I release a breath that I didn't know I'd been holding when Hunk makes it out. That was so hard.

"Good job on not electrocuting me, Nova," Hunk congratulates. "I knew you could do it."

"Really?" I ask. "'Cause I honestly didn't."

"Great job, Number Five," Alien Weasley says, patting me on the back. "Next one, come on up."

The trial is fairly simple. Pidge guides Shiro, Shiro guides me, I guide Hunk, Hunk guides Keith, Keith guides Lance, and Lance guides Pidge. Most of us were successful. It's not hard to guess who failed. 

Trial Number Two, a sort-of success.