Old Habits Die Hard

Things Go From Good To Bad Very, Very Quickly

Pidge had brought their computer with them, of course, but Hunk and Lance came empty handed. Sometimes, Lance actually believes that their computer is somehow attached to them.

They made some light conversation for about ten minutes before something extraordinary occurred: a humongous, bright object zoomed across the the sky and landed right on the Garrison's campus. None of them had any idea of what it was, but a slight twinge of anxiety and excitement pulled at their thoughts.

"Woah..." Hunk said quietly, staring at the rising pillar of smoke in the near distance. "What was that?"

"I have no idea." Pidge said. They closed their laptop and pulled out their convenient binoculars because obviously that's something that you just carry around. "Let's find out."

Pidge looked around for a moment. "I can't see anything!" They said with frustration.

"Let me try!" Lance said, taking the binoculars from Pidge without waiting for them to respond. He looked through them carefully, but wasn't able to see anything of the crash either. However, he was able to spot a flash of movement off to the side and saw the back of a mullet. He groaned.

"What?" Hunk asked with concern, squinting into the distance. "What do you see?"

"It's Keith! I'd recognize that mullet anywhere." Lance put down the binoculars and started to leave the roof.

"Where are you going?" Pidge asked.

"There is no way that I'm letting him see that before me." Lance moved his hand in a motion that implied that they should follow. "Come on!"

And that was it. That was what started it all. They could have just ran back to their rooms and hid, hoping that the Garrison staff would never find out that they had not been there in the first place... but they didn't. Maybe they should have...

They tried to discreetly approach the area. There were already Garrison officers surrounding what looked like a crashed space ship.

"Aliens?" Hunk suggested, and Pidge gave him an extremely disappointed look. He shrugged and said, "Just throwing out suggestions."

Distant yelling could be heard from inside a tent, and Lance spotted Keith on the outside of the tent. The boy entered it and soft thuds could be heard.

"Let's go." Lance whispered and started making his way towards the tent.

Once they entered the tent, Lance could see Keith helping a man off a table. Wait... was that... Shiro? Shiro as in his childhood hero who went missing years ogo? No way that he was going to let Keith steal his thunder. He was going to rescue his hero, not Keith. And he said just as much.

"Nope. No way. Absolutely not." Lance walked over and put his arm around Shiro, helping to support the barely conscious man. "I'm going to rescue Shiro, not you."

The boy looked Lance up and down. "And who are you?"

Honestly, Lance was kind of shocked. Was he really that forgettable? "Uh, the name's Lance."

"Who?" Well, that answers that question.

"You know! Lance and Keith: neck and neck?" Yes, it's true. Lance had sort of made up a little bit of a rivalry with the boy. It was a good motivator for him when it was a bad day. Besides, with Iverson constantly reminding him that he'll never be as good as Keith... well, that may have had something to do with it.

There was a shout from outside of the tent, and Keith sighed.

"You know what? Whatever. I don't care. Just help me." He started moving towards the exit quickly, and Lance just followed his lead with Pidge and Hunk close behind.