Whumptober 2021

No. 13 - THAT'S GONNA LEAVE A MARK

The blade of Marmora had been informed of a base that's testing new chemically fuelled weapons. After talking with the paladins it was decided that Kolivan would take a team to the base and report their fundings back to the paladins. Kolivan knew exactly who he was taking with him, Thace, Regris and Keith.

Once at the base there were sentries at almost every turn so the blades had to be carful. Once inside the main control room of the base Kolivan decided that they would have to split up to find the lab where they were making the chemicals for the weapons. They knew they had little time before their presence was noticed so they would have to move quickly to gather the information they needed. Kolivan took the upper left floor which was full of prisoners making plans for high tech weapons. Thace took the lower left floor which was where they were making the weapons but not the chemicals they needed to inspect. Regris took the upper right floor which was full of druids which gave him no choice but to turn back. Keith however took the lower right floor which was where they were making the chemicals to go inside the weapons.

Keith began looking around and taking samples of the chemicals to give to pidge and Coran so they could identify them. He turned his coms on to tell Kolivan and the others he'd found what they came for when he was interrupted by six sentries all firing at him. He yelped a little when a laser from one of there guns grazed his arm but continued to charge at them with his blade, Kolivan and the others heard his Yelp and began running to his location. Whilst they were racing to help the younger male the paladins patched through to check on how the mission was going, Kolivan updated them and they insisted they stay until Keith was on the coms as well. Just as the paladins where connected to all four members of the blade of marmora a gut wrenching scream filled the coms.

Thace-  KEITH !!

Regris- Keith come in , are you alright ?

Kolivan- Regris your closet to his location grab him and get back to the Rendezvous point.

Shiro- Bring him to the castle we can treat his wounds here.

Kolivan- Affirmative paladin.

Regris raced through the halls of the base to where his locator said Keith was, he had expected Keith to be stood over a sentry with blade in hand, but the closer Regris got to Keith's location the louder the sporadic screams got. He knew it would be bad he had not however expected to see Keith with his knees tuck up to his chest rocking back and forth slightly crying softly into his knees letting out an occasional scream of pain. Regris approached the crying boy slowly and bent down in front of him.

Regris- Keith look at me, let me see.

Keith- H.. hurts ... h.. help ...

Regris- Come here, I'm going to carry you back to the ship ok ?

Keith- O.. ok

Regris lifted Keith slowly off the ground and into his arms, his face frowned even more upon seeing Keith's face. It was completely burnt on his right side and his right eye was bleeding, he'd never seen anything like it before. What ever chemicals the galra where using they were more dangerous than anything he'd ever seen from a weapon.

Once the blades arrived at the castle Keith was practically sobbing into Regrises chest, Kolivan and thace exited the ship first explaining that Keith would need a pod immediately. Shiros face dropped and a tear fell once he saw Regris exit the ship with Keith clutched close to his chest, all the paladins could hear Keith's gut wrenching sobs muffled by Regrises chest.

Coran turned Keith's face away from Regrises chest and jumped back a little after seeing the state his face was in, blood still pouring from his right eye blisters starting to form on the burnt skin. Hunk tried not to look but one glance at his friends burnt face had him passed out on the floor. Shiro however felt a sudden wash of guilt and quickly grabbed Keith from Regris and began making his way to the pod at record speed with a whimpering Keith in his arms and a very concerned coran following behind him.

The team arrived not long after Shiro had placed Keith into the pod.

Thace- Will .. will it heal ?

Coran- I'm afraid It won't heal the scars but I won't know for sure how much it will heal until he is out of the pod.

Lance- Is he blind in his right eye now, there was so much blood...

Coran- Yes I would assume he will be, there is only so much a healing pod can do and I'm afraid stopping blindness is not one of those things.

Shiro- Will he still be in any pain once he's out of the pod or will it heal everything completely ?

Coran- Yes number one unfortunately he will still be in a lot of pain once he exits the healing pod but with the proper care the pain should ease after a week or two. The good news is that he was able to get samples which means it wasn't all for nothing.

Shiro- I see, at least you and pidge can analyse the samples and see if you can make a cream to help soothe the burns.

Kolivan- Good, then his injuries weren't for nothing. We will be able to learn how to protect against them in the future.

Coran- This is true, he will need to be in the healing pod for at least a week and even then he will still be in a great amount of pain.

Kolivan- If it's alright with you princess I'd like to leave Regris and Thace here until Keith wakes up.

Allura- Of course and we will be sure to inform you when he wakes up.

The team knew that keith had a long road of recovery ahead of him but they believed in him and the hoped he'd get through this.

[ Word count - 1031 ]