Tidepool (A Klance Surfer AU)

Poorly Planned Meeting (Chapter 12)

Hey guys! Sorry this isn't coming along too quickly, I didn't have as much of this prewritten, and I'm also finishing my Galra!Keith story you can find in my profile. Anyway, hope you enjoy, feel free to comment, and thanks for reading!

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Lance was up and out the door before the sun had rose above the horizon. He barely got any sleep last night, his brain was buzzing with everything he had learned.

Pidge and Hunk were mer... And his parents were mer and from the Voltron tribe, of course!

Lance was grinning ear to ear when he dove into the glimmering waves. The magic air bubble Keith had given him when they first met reformed again, and Lance sunk slowly to the bottom.

You're probably thinking: 'most people would float', right? Lance was surprised he sank too. The water seemed to gently press down on him, holding Lance on the bottom.

After walking/paddling for a few minutes, he spotted the reddish-orange scales in the distance, and slightly picked up his pace. Why he was excited to see the annoying punk again, he didn't know.

But then, Lance stopped, maybe twenty feet away, his smile fading. Something felt wrong, something just wasn't right. He eyes darted around him fearfully.

Man, he sometimes hated when he was right.

"Keith--!" Lance shouted before the ground shook, sand shifting all around him. Purple bodies rose from the sand, with swords and harpoons pointed at the human.

Lance barely heard Keith call his name, too distracted by the Galra that surrounded him.

"Oceania, surrender!" The leader barked, the same one eyed one from the Arusian prison camp. Sendak... "By order of the mighty Emperor Zarkon!"

Lance thought about his next move carefully, before his watch glimmered and caught his attention. Lance faked a smile. Sure hope Pidge was right about this...

"Tell Zarkon he'll have to wait," Lance grinned before something appeared around the watch. Lance slammed his hands down into the sand, and somehow, the watch threw up a huge cloud of sand, blocking Lance from the Galra.

Lance was pretty proud of himself, and started drifting towards where he last saw Keith. He forgot about he Galran harpoons though. Lance barely turned before the harpoon was inches from his head. The water curved it, but only barely.

The projectile seemed to whiz by in slow motion as Lance watched the point drive through his air bubble, obliterating it. Lance started panicking, trying to swim to the surface, but his power kept him on the seafloor.

He had to reach Keith. He could give him a new bubble or help him to the surface. Lance peered at his watch again, and had an idea as he spotted the flash symbol.

He started pressing it rapidly, sending out a makeshift S.O.S beacon through the murky silt cloud. Lance's lungs started to burn, his senses numbing. Keith! Where are you?!

Lance whirled around, sensing movement behind him. He was hoping to see the familiar red scales and black mullet, but instead, a large prosthetic hand grabbed his chest and lifted him off his feet. Lance glared down at the purple, one-eyed Galra through his blurring vision.

"Can't breathe underwater?" Sendak smirked triumphantly. "Maybe you aren't the Oceania after all."

Lance screamed in frustration, only releasing bubbles into the water. He would drown, unable to stop Sendak, much less Zarkon. He couldn't protect the world, or Voltron. Lance couldn't even protect himself at the moment.

Great, I'm the worst hero ever--

A red blur slammed into Sendak, forcing him to drop Lance to the floor. Instead of sinking to the sand, Lance felt himself being hauled upward, higher, higher...

The water seemed to push the two teens faster towards the bright light.

Lance gasped for air the moment he breached the surface, coughing up salt water. He felt a pale hand tightly squeeze his shoulder as the other hand and a red tail helped him stay afloat.

"Lance?" Keith called worriedly, giving the Oceania a little shake. He couldn't let the Oceania die on his hands!

"K--Keith...?" Lance muttered back dazedly, shaking the water from his head and the blurriness from his vision. He was snapped back to reality when Keith hugged him. Unused to the affection from the emo, Lance just floated there, frozen in shock.

Keith soon pulled away, a little too soon according to Lance, and promptly slugged the human.

"Ow! What the hell--"

"Don't you ever do something that stupid and reckless again, you idiot!" Keith shouted, practically fuming. The moron had almost given Keith an actual heart attack; of course he was mad!

Lance snorted and failed to smother a loud laugh. "S--Sorry."

Keith gave a small laugh too, before remembering the Galra soldiers rushing up towards them from the depths. "Are you good?"

"Yeah, let's go finish Sendak's squadron--"

"Oh no, after the stunt you pulled, you're staying here," Keith stated firmly, before giving the Oceania a small but cocky smirk. "I got this," Keith reassured before pulling out his dagger and submerging to meet the dozen attackers.

Keith was a really good fighter, standing his own rather well. Still, Lance was going to help, watching the battle below. There were too many, according to him, for Keith to battle alone.

Lance closed his eyes, arms down towards the Galra. He opened his blue eyes with a smile, all the Galra frozen in place. They struggled to move, and Keith beamed up at Lance proudly before continuing the downpour of slashes and jabs from his knife and slaps from his tail on his immobilized opponents.

When Lance finally released them, the majority of the bodies sank harmlessly to the sand, unmoving. Those who were still alive, including Sendak, pitifully gathered some comrades that were still alive and quickly retreated.

Keith chased the deeper for a while, before pausing by a corpse. He looked at Lance, whom he knew wouldn't see him at that depth. He grabbed the Galran's helmet, slipping it on his own head before silently swimming towards Lance from behind.

This'll show that reckless moron...

Keith slowly stuck his head out of the water before leaping up and grabbing Lance's shoulders from behind with a loud splash. Lance nearly jumped completely out of the water before whirling around, ready to attack.

The wide-eyed look on his goofy face was too much for Keith, and he started bursting out laughing under the mask.

"Keith!" Lance snapped, irritated that it was he who was pranked and not the other way around.

The Red Paladin pushed the helmet off and let it sink as he wiped a tear away from laughing too hard. "That what you get for scaring me earlier! And man, was it worth it!"

"Whatever, Mullet," Lance teased. "Let's head back to Voltron. I have a lot to fill you in on." After Keith provided Lance with another bubble, the two dove and returned to the battle-worn kingdom.