Okay so I'm starting to feel bad about this, so have a preview of the next chapter. Slightly more detailed note below.

Arc II: New Defenders

Duality (Preview)

Another thing to add to the ever-growing list of features their already-over-the-top uniforms had was magnetic boots. It definitely came in handy right then, considering that the five of them were standing outside on the ship's hull.

"Alright, panel's up," Stan said, taking a step away from the spiral-shaped antenna-like thing now sticking out of the ship. "Now what?"

"Very simple," Coran replied. "Just loosen the blaxums on the somoflange."

There was a long pause, before Stan said "I have no idea what either of those things are."

"Sorry, he meant the poklones on the agroclams," Allura clarified. Or at least she tried to. Stan still looked about as lost as Jordan was feeling, and it didn't help when the two Alteans started arguing about what was called what.

"Can I try?" Eva asked after a bit, to which Stan just stepped aside. "Okay, so what were they talking about?" she muttered, pausing before going to work on the thing. Jordan watched for a bit, assuming she'd directed that question at the Red Lion, before looking over his shoulder.

Shiro was staring off into…well, space again.

Both he and Eva had the same general idea of trying to talk to him earlier, but it ended up as just the three of them hanging out on the observation deck in complete silence.

Then again, given the bombshell Kythylian went and dropped on them about Shiro? That Shiro himself may or may not have remembered completely?

Jordan wasn't sure how to even start approaching something like that…and he didn't realize that his eyes were tracking something completely different until one splattered against the side of his helmet, getting a reflexive curse out of him.

"Jordan?! What…what are these things?" Eva's exclamation turned into a confounded question, reaching out to catch one of the many puffball-looking things floating by. They were pale-blue in color and all flashing slowly.

"They look kind of like…spores?" Stan sounded somewhere between surprised and dubious.

"Spores, in space." Koji sounded completely dubious.

Shiro came back to stand by them, shield materializing out of one gauntlet. "Whatever they are, we shouldn't chance anything. We finished the repairs, so—" He broke off when one of the maybe-spores hit him in the back of the head.

Jordan didn't realize he'd been the one to throw it until he realized they were all staring at him. "Uh, sorry," he stuttered a little, improvising in forcing a smile that hopefully looked normal. "I was aiming for Eva."

He knew from the moment she went narrow-eyed that he'd just made a mistake in saying that, and was rightfully expecting the spore she was holding to make contact with what equated to his face. "Like that?" she asked brightly. Three seconds later there was another splat, followed by a "Hey!"

"I think like that, yeah," Stan said, laughing a bit. Whether or not he realized what Jordan had been subconsciously intending or just went along with it for the heck of it, Jordan didn't know and honestly didn't care at that moment, because dodging out of the way of spores thrown by both Eva and Shiro became first priority.

The spore-fight went on for a few minutes, winding down when the four of them were out of breath. Koji had stayed out of it, instead staring intently at two of the spores. "Uh, Koji? What are you…?" Stan asked.

"They're flashing at the same regular intervals," was the response, the stare turning into something like a thoughtful scowl. "I don't think these are natural."

"They are, actually," Allura spoke up. "Though I must say I've never seen anything as hyper-resilient as these spores. I'll send out a containment unit. In the meantime, the five of you need to come back in for decontamination."

Decontamination went as such: after being downright drenched with something that looked like water but was lime-green in color, they got air-dried by what might as well have been a giant industrial fan that was at least fifty times stronger than what it should've been.

(If he accidentally snickered when Eva actually got sent flying during the latter event, at least there was no way anyone could've heard.)

In recent events, I lost both my beta reader and my self-confidence in writing this fic. Not to mention an old hyperfixation from maybe a decade ago randomly decided to rocket out of the grave without any sort of prompting.

So…yeah. The fic's not canceled, primarily because I've already sunk two years of my life into it and secondarily because I am still pissed about how VLD ended and want to spite canon.

I'm just taking a little vacation from it. This preview will be removed and then replaced with the finished chapter when I get to it.