Day 1: SWORD AND SHEILD

"Hmm. This doesn't look right," Pidge thought, tapping her chin as she looked over her tablet in comparison to the complex interior of her lion. Something just seemed off to her, causing the young genius to scratch her head in confusion.

"What did I do wrong?" she asked herself, pondering over her previous steps in her head.

Deciding it wasn't worth losing time over, she figured it was best to ask for help.

"Now, if I were Hunk, where would I be right now? My room, or the kitchen?" she thought aloud.

It only took her a moment before she shook her head and laughed at her own ignorance.

"The kitchen it is,"

She whistled as she walked, tucking her tablet under her arm as she skipped down one of the corridors of the castle. It was peaceful tonight as they traveled through the galaxies, the quiet a welcome change to the daily grind of protecting the universes. Her mission was deterred however, when she heard strange noises coming from the training room, a light shining through the slight crack from underneath the door.

She paused outside the closed entryway, putting her ear against it in an attempt to hear better. However, she had a lapse in her memory about the automatic capabilities of said door.

She stood stock still, closing her eyes and bracing herself for beratement to come; but it never did.

Pidge slowly opened one eye, and then the other, watching the scene before her with rapt attention.

The sweat continued to accumulate on his brow as Keith struck blow after blow against the training robot, his strikes swift and his movements accurate despite the very apparent fatigue that was beginning to slow him down.

Keith's frustration began to mount, coming to it's peak as he decided he was done with this robot; so in three consecutive movements – block, leg sweep, swift downward strike- the robot sliced in half diagonally and disappearing.

Keith wiped the perspiration from his brow, his eyes catching the sight of Pidge standing in the doorway, her mouth agape and her honey-brown eyes wide.

"Pidge?" he asked, pulling a small towel from what seemed like nowhere.

"What are you doing here?"

He began to walk towards the Green Paladin, wiping the towel across the back of his neck.

"I-,"she cleared her throat "I was just heading to the kitchen to find Hunk. I was h-hoping to ask him for his help with my lion," she replied, holding up her tablet as if it were evidence to collaborate her statement.

She couldn't help but mentally curse herself for her slight stutter.

It didn't help that Keith was standing only five feet away from her, wearing a white, sweat-soaked tank top, outlining every muscle of his chest that he had built up over the past year as a Paladin and as a Blade.

"Oh," came his short reply in between heavy breaths.

"So what are you doing here?" she asked, slapping herself mentally at the dumb question.

"I was sloppy on my strikes last mission with the Blade, so I wanted to practice getting them down. One mis-timed attack could mean the difference between victory and defeat; or even life and death,"

Keith gazed down at his feet while he spoke, avoiding eye contact with the girl in front of him.

A moment of awkward silence passed between the pair before Pidge broke it by clearing her throat.

"Well I better get going. My lion isn't going to fix itself!" she said, laughing nervously.

"Yeah," Keith replied, sighing deeply and running a gloved hand through his greasy hair, cringing at the sticky sensation. "I better get back to training," He pointed towards the arena with his thumb before he headed back into the open space.

"Hey Keith?" Pidge suddenly asked.

"Yeah?" he responded, turning around to meet her gaze.

"You – you want to train against a real person for once?" Where was this coming from?

"What? Wait, I thought you had to fix something with Green,"

"I do, but I don't want to go all the way down to the kitchen and find out that Hunk is right in the middle of a complicated recipe and he cant leave it or everything will burn down,"

Keith chuckled, knowing that what Pidge was saying about the lovable Yellow Paladin was indeed the truth.

"When is he ever not in the middle of a complicated recipe?" he asked, a hand landing on his hip as his mouth quirked upwards in a smirk.

Pidge smiled as well, enjoying the expression that rarely graced Keith's features now a days.

"Alright, if we're gonna do this, then let's get started," Keith said, breaking Pidge's moment of admiration, causing her cheeks to darken.

"Oh, uh," Pidge stuttered nervously, fiddling with the edge of her tablet as she bit her lip.

"What?" Keith questioned, looking at the shorter girl with a quizzical expression in his dark eyes.

"I forgot, I'm not really in the best of training clothes," she replied sheepishly.

"Nah. You're fine,"

"Last time I checked, this shirt was not conducive to accurate physical training," Pidge argued, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Then take it off," Keith said, looking at her from out of the corner of his eye, before turning away from her.

Pidge's cheeks grew three shades darker at the implication behind what Keith had just so nonchalantly told her to do.

"A-are you – do you know- how could you," she sputtered out, her words about as incoherent at the moment as her brain.

Keith raised an eyebrow at her odd behavior. "You do still where a tank top underneath right?" he asked.

Pidge felt her skin grow even hotter as she remembered that she did indeed wear another shirt underneath her regular baggier one. She had started to wear a tank top with her typical ensemble once she started to grow, puberty beginning to make more changes to her body.

"Oh. Yeah," she replied, laying her tablet on the floor next to the door. She glanced towards Keith, making sure that he was looking the other way before she grasped the hem of her shirt and pulled it over her head. She tossed it in the direction of her tablet, shrugging when it landed slightly to the left of her intended target. "Close enough," she thought.

Keith suddenly turned to her, tossing her a staff from the rack against the far wall.

She caught it eventually, despite a slight blunder with her footsteps and a few slips with her fingers.

Keith simply prepared himself, twirling his staff in his hands before he ended his stance facing her, staff held behind his back with one hand and the other directed towards her.

He made the first move.

While Pidge didn't have the lightening quick reflexes that her red partner did, she did possess an uncanny ability when it came to speed, something that saved her from more than a few hits as they trained together.

"You're fast!" Keith exclaimed, catching his breath for a second.

"I know," she said, quirking her head to the side swiftly and smiling at him.

Keith smirked back at her, attacking before she had a chance to recover from their brief respite.

They continued with their training, each other looking for an opportunity to take the upper hand.

Keith had seen several opportunities, but decided in the end that the risk wasn't worth it. If he was going to win this thing, he wanted to do it right.

There.

With a swift twirl of his staff followed by three quick thrusts that Pidge barely managed to avoid, Keith was able to take her off balance, toppling her defenses and landing a sweeping kick beneath her legs, forcing her to the ground with a hard thud.

"Gotcha," he stated proudly, looking down at his opponent while he held his staff to her neck.

Pidge looked menacingly at him, a snarl on her lips and anger in her eyes.

Keith stood before their position had a chance to get to awkward, pushing his bangs out of his eyes before he offered the girl a hand. She was still pouting despite taking his offered hand.

"That was a cheep trick!" she claimed, poking him in the chest.

"You can't blame me Pidge. It's my natural tendency to attack, it's your's to defend,"

"And how exactly do you figure that?" she asked, folding her arms.

"Because I'm the sword, and you're the shield. It's our duty to perform like the tools placed in our hands," he explained, tossing Pidge her staff that had been discarded.

"Well maybe I wasn't meant to be the shield," she replied self-consciously, rubbing her arm.

Keith shook his head.

"Nope. Green knew what she was doing when she picked you. You defend people with everything you have,"

"And you fight for the people that you love, don't you?" she asked, looking at the Red Paladin.

Keith nodded.

"it's the only thing I know how to do for them," he replied, gazing down at his feet.

"We should train together more often," Pidge said, smiling as she placed a gentle hand on his shoulder.

Keith grinned back at her.

"We should,"