A/N: I've thought about writing de-aging stories, but the fandoms I wanted to create them for always seemed to be so inundated with those types of tales already. So, when this idea came to me, I had to run with it - it's adorable, has the potential for a lot of shenanigans, and! I've not seen very many stories of this type within the Voltron fandom yet, so we've got wins all around.

Partial credit also needs to be given to my roommate, knightlychika on Tumblr, as I apparently first mumbled out this idea when half-asleep and promptly forgot about it by morning. But she heard, and fell in love with it, and promptly wrote down the basic idea for me.

Which is how I'm now able to welcome you all to the first chapter of:

A Change in Profession

Chapter 1

"Oh, this was a terrible idea," Coran muttered, bringing the Castle around as he continued to fire at the enemy ships. "'I'm going to help evacuate the village', she says, 'it's the least I can do while the paladins are fighting!'" Cutting short his high-pitched impersonation of Allura, the man redirected main power to the shields, just in time to block a blast of sickly looking yellowish green energy from the flagship.

None of the inhabitants of the Castle had known who their new opponents were, only that they were attacking a lunar colony of innocent settlers. While the paladins went out in their lions to drive away the aggressors (whom Lance promptly dubbed the Space Pirates), Allura went down to the surface in order to speed up the settlers' retreat into the surrounding mountainous crags. Busy providing cover fire, Coran barely paid attention to the communications going on between the pilots.

He did note when Keith announced he'd picked up Allura, the settlers safely away.

And it was hard to miss Voltron forming, sword in hand, ready to slice apart the final pirate ship - just as it was impossible to miss the massive energy blast from the enemy vessel which bathed over the entirety of the robotic warrior.

Voltron paused then.

Panicking, Coran readjusted power in the Castle once more, sending everything he had into a concentrated shot that speared through the pirate ship, thankfully destroying it in one go.

"Hello, paladins?" He asked over the comm lines. "Shiro? Allura? Anyone there?!"

There was no answer from the humans or his princess, though Voltron did give a large shudder and promptly disbanded into the five lions. Coran noted that they all proceeded back to their hangars without any of the flair that the paladins would often throw in. He was also growing more and more concerned that no one responded to his hails.

Most worried for his princess, the only Altean left besides himself, Coran hurried first in the direction of the Red Lion's hangar.

It took him several minutes of hurried jogging to get there, of course, by the end of which he was breathing heavily. "Allura? Keith? Are you in there?" The Red Lion crouched down, observing him for a moment before opening up the center hatch.

The two figures that came hurtling down the ramp were not at all the ones Coran had been expecting.

"Coran!" An Allura who appeared to be about thirteen or so hollered at him. "What's happened? Where are we? Who's this strange being? Why won't he talk to me? Where's the real red paladin?" Behind her by a few feet was an even younger Keith, watching with wide eyes as he fiddled with clothes far too large for him and the few armor pieces that had yet to fall off.

"Oh, quiznak." Coran muttered, clapping a hand over his eyes.

"Coran? What's the matter with you? Where's Father?" Reluctantly, the man sighed, and knelt before his princess.

"Well, Allura, the short explanation is that you and this young fellow seem to have been hit by an unstable form of G'nee'an energy, which has removed a fair amount of your memories and reverted you to this younger state."

Both children blinked at him.

"I know, that's a lot to take in. But! We don't have time for a longer explanation, as we've got to go find Shiro and the other paladins-"

"Shiro?" Keith asked, lighting up with a hopeful expression.

"Yes, Shiro's here too, along with another pair of lads by the names of Lance and Hunk, and a young lady we call Pidge. Come along now, it's a long hike to the other hangars- oh, Keith, here, allow me." Coran helped the boy divest himself of the more ungainly armor pieces, and tweaked the settings of the nanotech jumpsuit that shrunk the black material to a much more manageable size. "Much better."

With that, he led the thirteen and nine year olds off, allowing the one to chatter as much as she pleased while the other remained entirely silent. Eventually, they reached the Black Lion's hangar, where the de-aged pilot had already disembarked and was studying his surroundings.

"Shiro!" Keith bolted to the startled teen's side, grabbing him in a tight hug and refusing to let go.

"Keith? What are you doing here?" Shiro asked, alarmed. Coran studied him with no little amount of awe for a few moments, as the black paladin looked greatly different lacking his discolored hair, his scar, a great deal of his muscle mass and about a foot of height. The one thing he was not lacking, however, was his flesh and blood right arm.

"He's got the same weird ears too!" At Allura's comment, Shiro looked up and spotted them, his eyes growing very round.

"Who...?"

"Ah, Shiro, I'm aware you don't remember us, as you seem to have lost about a decade of your life and all the accompanying memories," Coran laughed nervously. "But I am Royal Advisor Coran, and this is Princess Allura of Altea."

"Um... Okay?"

"Excellent! As I'm sure you also don't remember, there are three more paladins we must go reclaim, as I'm not certain I want to see the amount of damage they can cause as children." Again, Coran sighed and rubbed at his forehead.

Blinking, Shiro rested his hand absently on the back of Keith's head, who had not moved, and nodded warily.

"Splendid. I promise, I'll do my best to explain the whole story once everyone's been assembled." The group set off once again, with Coran in the lead, Allura bouncing along behind him, and Shiro watching both with a mixture of bemused uncertainty as he kept himself between them and Keith.

Coran's ears twitched as he heard the teen whisper to his small friend. "You okay, buddy? Not hurt or anything?" He didn't catch Keith's answer, only an indistinct mumble, but Shiro's response was more than adequate. "Yeah, I'm a little scared too. But don't worry, even if they are aliens, they seem nice."

Coran took that as a very positive sign.

They reached the Yellow Lion's hangar next, where a Hunk who seemed to be a year or two younger than Keith was excitedly clambering all over the large robotic feline. If Coran didn't know any better, he'd have said that Yellow was enjoying it, too.

"Hi!" The chubby boy beamed down at them right away. "I'm Hunk! Who are you? Isn't this robot the coolest?"

Coran ran through his and Allura's introductions again, while Shiro handled his own and Keith's. They then had to convince Hunk to come down and join them, which the boy was loath to do. It wasn't until Coran mentioned that they'd have lunch once everyone was gathered together that the boy reluctantly left his new lion friend.

Allura wound up engaging him in conversation as they continued to travel, which to everyone else sounded like a non-stop, chattering stream of questions which were hardly answered before more asked in return. Keith watched the other two perplexedly, tightening his grip on Shiro's hand. Fortunately, they soon arrived at the Blue Lion's hangar.

"Hi Hunk!"

"Hi Lance! You've got a lion friend too!" The two boys gave one another hug, excitedly asked if either knew what was going on, and when the answer was no both times, turned their attention to their amused audience. "This is my best friend Lance," Hunk announced proudly. "That's Mister Coran, he's funny, and Allura, she's a princess, and Shiro, I like him, and Keith, he doesn't talk much."

"Hi!" Lance grinned at them. Coran smiled back, helped the boy adjust his baggy clothing as well, and then led the group onwards to their final destination. Lance started off as part of Allura and Hunk's continued conversation, but then fell back to peer at Keith, who pressed himself as close to Shiro's side as he could get.

"Are you shy?" Keith glared at him for the question.

"No."

"Then why are you hiding?"

"I'm not!" And with that, the two of them pulled ahead, joining Hunk and Allura.

"Okay," Coran heard Shiro mutter. "He hasn't done that so far." The man decided to take the opportunity to ask something he'd been wondering about.

"I knew that you and Keith were associated before becoming paladins, but not that it was an acquaintance lasting more than a decade."

Shiro looked at him in surprise. "Oh, well, uh, I've only known him for a couple weeks now. He was hiding in the dumpster behind our apartment building during a thunderstorm, I almost dropped a bag of trash on top of him. My dad insisted on bringing him inside to dry off, and since then I've been looking out for him, teaching him English. Guess he's kind of like my little brother, now."

"Which makes," Coran murmured. "Complete sense. Well, in that case, I'm going to expect your help to make sure his and Lance's arguments don't get too terribly out of hand."

"...Are you expecting them to argue?"

"Well, they're usually butting heads during all parts of the day as teenagers, so I'd expect much the same to occur as young boys."

"Gotcha. Well, you said earlier that there were five, ah, paladins? Who's the fifth?"

"The youngest and smallest of us all, Miss Pidge, whom you supposedly know already as well."

"I do?"

"Or, well, her brother at the very least. I don't think I'm actually aware of what Pidge's real name is... But! Her brother is Matt Holt, I know that much."

Shiro blinked. "Yeah, I know Matt. We took an astrophysics course together in school. But, I've never met his baby sister. I don't think she's even in kindergarten yet."

"You do know her name, though?"

"Why does that matter, if you call her Pidge?"

"Because she's only been Pidge for a short time, and the loss of the last decade will mean she won't answer to it."

"Oh. Well, uhm... I think it might be Kaley? Kitty? Something like that."

"Oh, wonderful."

As it turned out, though, they had a more pressing issue that recalling Pidge's actual name: specifically, that of locating the girl, since she was nowhere to be found in the Green Lion's hangar.

"Quiznak." Coran groaned. "Why do I feel as if this is only the beginning?"