Rule 27: Allura, we understand why you have repressed anger issues towards the Galra, and you have every right to feel the way you do, but it's time to do something about them.

Lance frowned as he heard the sound of growling voices and distorted guitars. It took him a mere moment to connect the sounds to Allura's recently revealed preference for death metal, and he mentally shrugged. So she trained to music. Big deal. Triggering the doors, Lance stepped into the training area - right as training dummy met training dummy with an unpleasant CRUNCH!

Eyes wide, Lance watched as Allura used a training dummy to smash another training dummy to pieces, her bayard left forgotten several yards behind her. Her face was twisted in a rictus of fury, the dummies had been crudely painted to resemble Galra, and then there was what she was saying. The words were…

"Murderers! Conquerors! Traitors! Suffer! Die!"

Telling, to put it charitably.

Suddenly, the dummies both broke. Allura was now smashing the floor of the training room with a severed robot arm. This did not stop her, or even really slow her down.

Slowly, his face carefully blank, Lance backed out of the training room, and when the door closed behind him, veritably sprinted towards the hall. Unfortunately, Keith, also dressed up for training, opened up the door and blocked his path.

"What's got you in such a hurry?" he asked.

Raising his hands, Lance placed them on Keith's shoulders, staring straight into the other Paladin's eyes. "Trust me, dude, you don't want to go in there."

Keith stared back, blinking, before brushing off Lance's hands. "Talk to me when you're not being weird," he said dismissively, before heading into the training area.

Silently, Lance let him do so. When Keith froze in the door to the training room proper, he was completely unsurprised. And then he had to hold in his laughter, because when Keith turned around, he had the same expression he'd had when some asshole had emailed goatse - or was it blue waffle or some other shock site? - to everyone in the Garrison training facility. He had fond memories of that day. Keith's expression, not the emails. Thank god he deleted that one upon seeing the subject line.

Anyway, it was that same haunted, torn-between-disgust-and-fascination expression. "What…" Keith managed to get out.

"I know, right? I mean, we all know she really doesn't like the Galra. And I mean, really doesn't like them. But that's a bit much."

"A bit much," Keith repeated, stressing every syllable.

Lance threw up his hands. "Well, excuse me for downplaying things to try and avoid freaking out!"

"Okay, that's… a pretty good reason," the other paladin admitted. Screeching metal sounded out from the training area, and both of them winced. "We should probably do something about this."

"Talk to Shiro and Coran?"

"Talk to Shiro and Coran."

~o~

Unfortunately, neither Paladin had a chance to before Coran reported a surprise Galra installation in the system they'd dropped into. He'd immediately ordered the Paladins into their Lions, and now Lance and Keith were jetting towards the Galra base, slowly convincing themselves that Allura's actions weren't as bad as they seemed.

That went out the window when the Blue Lion shot ahead of the pack and began laying waste to the Galra facility.

"Uh, guys?" Hunk asked over the comms. "Why are we sitting back here instead of helping her?"

"Maybe because she doesn't need any help?" Pidge suggested.

Indeed, the Blue Lion was doing a damn fine job smashing up the facilities and the hapless Galra fighters that were trying to stop it. It was a ballet of destruction that was almost hypnotizing to watch.

Idly, Keith keyed up his communications channel with the Blue Lion.

"- and stomp you until you can be fucking mailed!"

Another button press fed the communications to the Castle and the remaining Lions. Amazingly, Allura went silent shortly thereafter - at least, until she finally hit something critical, the Galra facility going up in flames.

"There's a nice Earth saying I picked up that's very appropriate for this situation." A cough. "Quoth the raven: suck my balls! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA-!"

"Ah, princess?"

"-AHAHAHA- URK?!"

"Get back to the Castle," Shiro ordered in a tone that brooked no argument. "We need to talk."

~o~

The feeling in the conference room was… uncomfortable. To say the least. Coran and Shiro had on their best dad faces, under which Allura could only try and make herself smaller. Keith and Lance had positioned themselves about as far away from Allura as they could physically go, which left Hunk and Pidge thoroughly confused.

Coran broke first.

"What the quiznak was that, Princess?!" he demanded, dramatically slamming his palms against the table. Allura flinched back, unable to look him in the eye. "Where did you even hear that phrase?!"

"My bad…" Pidge said, raising her hand. "Showed her a joke website, didn't expect her to remember that specific gag."

"Thank you. Pidge. For your help," Coran ground out, mustache twitching. "But that gets us back to the original question: why?!"

Silence. Most everyone shifted uncomfortably. Keith and Lance shared an even more uncomfortable look. Then Lance shifted to a glare and pointed his arms at Allura. In response, Keith's face fell into a similar expression and he imitated the movement. Lance loomed over the other Paladin, ready to-

"Something you two want to say?"

One last look between the two. 'Don't chicken out on me.' 'Psh, as if.'

"So, when the alert came we were just outside the training room, with Allura inside it," Lance explained, prompting the Altean to try and shrink even more.

"She was… breaking the training robots," Keith elaborated. "With her bare hands."

"And cursing. Like, a lot."

"There was that death metal she listens to blaring over the speakers."

"Oh, and did I mention the robots were painted to look like Galra?"

"Huh. You didn't mention that, actually."

"Okay, I think we get the picture," Shiro cut in. "Princess…?"

Allura didn't respond. Coran did, his expression devoid of any fatherly disappointment. Instead, a deep sadness seemed cast over his features. "I imagine Princess Allura has a fair bit of repressed anger towards the Galra. And I'm sure you're all familiar with her normal attitude towards them."

The Paladins were, in fact, familiar, Keith especially, and as one they winced.

"I can see why," Pidge veritably spat.

"Yes, well…" Shiro coughed uncomfortably. "Understandable or not, when it affects combat performance, we need to start talking coping mechanisms."

A muffled, mumbled something drifted out from between Allura's knees.

"Uh… what?" Hunk queried.

A face still flushed from embarrassment rose up. "I said, I already have coping mechanisms," Allura answered.

Shiro's expression flattened. "Healthy coping mechanisms."

"They're healthy!" she protested.

Lance's shouted "Acting out revenge fantasies on innocent robots is not healthy!" promptly collided with Pidge's snarked "Oh? Then the raven quote and Leeroy Jenkins charge just spontaneously popped in your head?" in a clash of noise. An imperious sniff cut right through.

"I'll have you know that such strategies are considered quite healthy in many cultures," she said.

Silence and incredulous expressions greeted this proclamation, broken after a few seconds by Lance muttering "She did not just imperiously sniff at us." under his breath.

The next to speak was Keith, and being… himself, he cut right to the heart of the matter. "And what cultures are those?"

Once again, Allura froze. With her nose up in the air, it was actually kind of funny to see.

"Certainly not Altean culture, I'll tell you that much," Coran dryly informed his audience. "If anything, this kind of 'coping mechanism' sounds like something the Galra would use!"

has encountered a fatal error.

A full-body shudder ran through Allura, then nothing but the breathing. Curious, Pidge leaned over and looked in her eyes.

"I think you broke her, Coran," she remarked. "I almost expected her eyes to be blue."

"Right," Shiro said, shifting uncomfortably. "Considering the long day we've had, I say we table this discussion for now."

Nods all around, some eyes darting towards Hunk, slumped over asleep…

"I object to this course of action very strongly!"

Except for Coran.

"We need to address this! We cannot just let it fall aside!" he all but shouted, all passion and fury.

"And we're not going to-"

"You said you were going to table the problem!"

"Yes, and-"

"No! We're not going to table this! I refuse to let the Princess-"

"Oi, dad-boys," Pidge cut in, posture tense yet slumped and expression flatter than a pancake. "What do you think 'table' means as a verb?"

"To put the matter aside for the moment."/"To end the discussion and never speak of it again!"

Blinking, Coran and Shiro exchanged a bewildered look.

"Yup, language issues. Called it," Pidge smugly replied, before letting out a jaw-cracking yawn. "Anyway, Shiro's got the right idea. G'night, you all."