Chapter Twenty-Six

Allura felt like she was burning, all her muscles burned but she wasn't going to stop, not on her life, she'd been the first sent into the obstacle course Space Marshal Graham had fashioned for them. It was by the mountains, near the canyon, the part of Arus that was both rocky and then a span of desert for thousands of miles.

She'd been running, following the markers that been put in place, 'enemies' would rush out every now again, Garrison officers dressed as Drule soldiers, who she would either have to fight in hand to hand combat or blast with with a special blaster they'd handed her, aimed at a special target they'd all wore. She'd been finding it rather easy to take them all down, she'd been quite proud to hear more than one of them say 'no way did the Princess of Arus just kick my ass' in their own more color ways of course.

She thought of what Lance kept telling her, she was being taught by the best in hand to hand combat to kick the ass of Drule, she could kick ass, it was about time it was tested. Allura smiled a bit as she continued her run around a corner, she wanted to see the pride of Keith's face when he found out how well she had done in the ass-kicking department. She was still mad at him about the night before but she loved him and she wanted him to proud of her.

As she rounded the corner and her eye caught sight of the next flag she needed she run toward, she realized she was going to have to scale a mountain wall to get to it. Her eyes widened, but she ran up to the wall and took a moment to figure it out. She was in her uniform, it gave her everything she would need - Graham had promised that. She remembered that they had a tool that could be used as a handheld grappling hook into the rock, or even a side of a building. Pidge usually took them and made a ladder for everyone else to climb. Allura took out two of them, took a breath and told herself she could do this.

~~.~~

Lance had been grateful when Graham informed them that the hand to hand evaluations would be part of them obstacle course. Talk about one bird and two stones, it made things quicker and cleaner. He'd seen Keith's eyes widen though, his eyes darting to Allura and Lance rolled his eyes. How someone who was the expert in hand to hand, could train someone to be a black belt in it and still feel over protective and not have a clue of their skill was insane. Maybe it was because Keith never sparred with her, he left that up to Lance, next training session with Keith, maybe Lance should make their fearless leader spar with his girlfriend.

Graham was waiting a long time between sending them out, Lance figured he had his reasons, but he sent Allura in and then didn't sent Pidge out until fifteen minutes later. Another fifteen minutes and he sent out Hunk, leaving Lance and Keith to keep stretching out and waiting for their turn. Finally Lance heard Graham, yell his name.

Lance walked over to the starting line and Graham looked him in the eye. "Follow the flags, finish line it right over there," he pointed to the other line that had been set up that said finish, to they were going to be running in some sort of big half loop, that was for certain. "Use the blaster, or hand to hand combat against all enemies, look for civilians, and finish all obstacles. You can help any teammate you see in trouble," Graham finished off then he blew his whistle.

Lance ran off, wishing that they weren't so close to the desert because his throat always went dry too face down there, but he ignored it and ran into a few enemies rather quickly but he blasted one and easily took down two without really breaking his stride. He wondered if the Garrison was even training them anymore, but then thought maybe he and the others had always had an advantage with Keith around. It was like having a secret weapon, an expert was helping you out with your martial art moves making you better than the average guy in the classroom. Lance snickered, suddenly feeling like he'd cheated on all his Academy martial arts exams because his roommate had been Keith Kogane.

After another five minutes of running he found himself looking up a mountain wall, and grabbing the tools he needed from his tool belt, Hunk was still on the wall but Pidge and Allura were both out of sight. He started to climb up and paused as he got closer to Hunk, knowing that the poor guy was freaked as hell by heights.

"You okay?"

Hunk grunted something that sounded like. "I got this."

Lance stayed put. "You sure."

Hunk moved up another foot or sure. "Uh, huh, go on don't waste time on me," he muttered.

Lance nodded and continued to climb at his faster pace and then made the top, where there were four enemies waiting to attack. Luckily they all had their backs turned. So Lance hid behind a few rocks, waited for them to turn around to see if anyone was going to show up behind them and shot two of them on the target, then he handled the other two with hand to hand. They were bit harder than the first few enemies were, but not by much.

Then he was running again, up hill again, Lance groaned and wondered when they were going to start looping around back to where they had started.

~~.~~

Allura was tired, but she wasn't about to give up and she flipped another man onto his butt and kept running, which is when she made it to an edge of a cliff that led out to the river. She saw the flag and realized she had to dive into the water and swim to the shore where the flag was waving. She also the five enemies waiting for her down there, but they hadn't seen her yet. She sighed, but looking head she realized she was on the last leg of the obstacle course so why was she standing still. She heard footsteps behind her, so she turned ready to fight but all she saw was Pidge. Pidge looked at the men on the ground and frowned.

"I hope this doesn't mean I don't get a full score, because the are still out from the count from you," Pidge said.

Allura grinned.

Pidge looked over the cliff and groaned.

Allura nodded.

"Let's come up with a plan for those five, before we dive in," Pidge said.

Smiling Allura agreed with him.

~~.~~

Lance had flashes to his time on Lyra as he dove off the cliff into the river below him, then he popped up for air and took a good lung full and swam underwater toward the shore. The five men on the shore were patrolling, but he knew they hadn't been looking when he'd dove. Hopefully they'd missed him completely if he'd counted their movements right.

He swam to the rock he'd decided to climb out on, and carefully got out of the water and then hid behind it, watching the men. They all looked up to the cliff, and Lance looked to see Hunk at the cliff, looking out at them. Lance decided to wait even longer than he was planning to before to make his move. He could go back into the water undetected and get Hunk to his hiding place they could work together on the enemies. He saw Hunk back up from the cliff, when he saw that the men had seen him, knowing Hunk would try to get into the water without them knowing. The enemies were changing their strategy though having caught sight of Hunk, however.

Lance decided to help Hunk out, he found a rock and managed to throw it so it bounced off a tree, then a rock and looked liked someone had thrown it from the opposite direction of where he was. They all, Lance rolled his eyes, started to move toward the sound. Had Graham told them to act as dumb as Drules? Lance glanced back up the cliff, hoping Hunk had noticed and saw he had because he dived into the water...

And didn't come back up, Lance watched, he counted and waited, then when Hunk did come up he was thrashing around, coughing. Fuck, Lance thought diving back into the water, hurriedly swimming out to Hunk. He got to where Hunk was just as he fell back under the water and Lance dived back underneath the water and grabbed onto him and pulled him back out.

Luckily Hunk was spouting out water and coughing, as well as swearing up a storm in Japanese and English, muttering about getting a side cramp and a charlie horse and letting Keith and the team down. Lance told him shut up, as he struggled to get them both on shore and he wondered exactly what was going to happen with the enemies - because they might be Garrison officers but this was an evaluation and Hunk was fine.

"You can shoot right?" Lance asked as he pulled them on shore and felt the five men behind him. Hunk nodded and his jaw clenched as he steeled himself, rolled over onto his belly as Lance jumped out of his line of fire. Hunk started shooting, and Lance started fighting.

It was a bit messy at first, but Hunk shot three of them on target and Lance got two of them down. Lance then went over to the water logged Hunk and helped him onto his feet.

Hunk shook his head. "I didn't stretch out enough, Keith told me too," he muttered.

Lance laughed.

"It ain't funny, I'm letting you all down."

"We won the round didn't we," Lance said. "Come on, lets go on now," he said.

Hunk nodded and together he and Lance took off, though Lance ended up taking the lead rather quickly.

~~.~~

Allura made it across the finish line, two seconds after Pidge, and she couldn't have been more happy about it than anything in her life. She thought it was never end. All those soldiers, all the blasting and fighting and she wasn't sure if she was wet from sweat or the swim, or a horrible combination of both. She was also sure her muscles would never stop hurting, Pidge told her to stretch out, and she followed his lead.

They were handed bottles of water, by Graham himself, not long after they made it past the finish line and after stretching out, Pidge took off to take a shower but Allura found she wanted to wait for the rest of the team and she was a little afraid to stop moving. So she walked in tiny circles, sipping her water and waited, and not for very long. Lance came across the finish line not much later, looking tired and he grabbed the water from Graham with a very hearty thank you.

He grinned at her and said. "Kick much ass?"

She smiled back.

"Knew you would," he said as he started to stretch out himself, but he made sure he was facing the finish line, Allura noticed he looked a bit worried.

"What's wrong?"

"Hunk, had a bit of a hard time," Lance said.

Allura then turned her eyes on the finish line. "What happened?"

"He didn't do so well with the swimming, but it's okay we handled the five guys fine."

Allura laughed. "Uh, does that mean Keith is the only one who will have to handle them on his own?"

Lance laughed. "Yeah, but that won't be an issue for Keith."

Allura nodded. "True," she said, the she smiled a bit brighter because she saw both Hunk and Keith show up in the distance. "There they are."

"Good, Hunk looks like he got a second wind," Lance said.

"I can't wait to tell Keith how well I did," Allura said, beaming.

Lance glanced her at her. "I thought you'd be still mad at him?"

"Oh I am, but I still want to show off."

Lance grinned at her and leaned forward and kissed her on her cheek. "I bet you passed with flying colors. I'm going to go hit the showers, I just wanted to stay to make sure Hunk made it."

Allura nodded and watched him walked for a moment, before turning back to watch Hunk stumble over the finish line a few seconds before Keith did. Though given the staggered times they went into the course, Allura was sure that meant Keith did a better time than Hunk, as she'd seen the order and Hunk went in before Lance.

She walked up to Hunk though and hugged him, and he hugged her back as he took his water from Graham. "Are you okay?" she asked.

Hunk nodded. "I need to remember to listen to the Chief here when he tells me to stretch, that's all."

Keith frowned as he took his own water bottle. "What happened?"

"Uh, I almost drowned. Lance saved me though, I was making up time from the mountain climb, the height thing slowed me down but I pushed a bit too much and hadn't stretched enough and when I hit the water I cramped up. Good thing Lance hadn't gone ahead yet."

Keith put his hand on Hunk's shoulder and nodded. "We'll work on your stamina, I'm glad your okay."

Hunk nodded. "I'm going to the showers."

Keith nodded and watched him go a serious look on his face. "I've got to try to get him to go on a diet again. He always puts up a fight saying he needs his food. Nanny doesn't help, thinking we all need to be fattened up."

"I could try talking to her about how we need to eat healthier," Allura said.

Keith looked at her, Allura felt the weight of his dark eyes, he was studying her, looking at her to make sure she was okay. In one piece and not harmed in anyway. Allura did her best not to feel like he expected her to have done badly, he was naturally protective, he was naturally serious, she knew these things. She held her breath and counted to ten and waited for him to say something.

"You have a black eye," he said, his hand coming out to touch it. His fingers were gentle on the skin, just under the bruising and he frowned. "You need ice, why haven't you gotten ice yet?"

"I was enjoying the wound," she admitted and frankly she'd forgotten about it. Lance hadn't said a word, though she'd seen him eye it as he'd asked her about the ass she kicked. She kind of loved him for that. "Besides I hurt everyone else more," she said not hiding her own pride or excitement about the fact. "It was amazing, I really didn't have any issues with anyone in regard to the hand to hand. I do think I need to work on my target practice with the blaster, though."

Keith let his fingers fall to her cheekbone and then off her face completely and he looked her in the eye and he smiled. "You had fun, didn't you?" he asked sounding more than a little surprised.

Allura nodded. "Yeah, I did."

Keith laughed then he shook his head. "Then I can't wait to see how you did on the video that was recorded. You should go take a shower and then get ice on your eye, okay?"

Allura nodded.

"I have to talk to Graham after my shower, go over mine and everyone's run and then Graham will give his final evaluation of the team."

"I know it will good," she said, then she kissed Keith on the lips before turning around toward the Castle to take a shower herself. She felt better than she had before about them, she was sure once they talked things out about last night that everything would be okay between her and Keith. Maybe she could start to talk to him about not always going along with Coran's way of thinking for her own well-being. Keith had gone against Coran more than once when it came to Arus, for it's own sake, they all had and she'd been better off for it, even when she'd wrongfully disagreed. She'd learned from it. She hoped, maybe if she could get Keith to see they should be allowed to date how they see fit, that he could also back her up in how she is ready to have more control in how to rule her planet.

First though she had to do a lot of research on the Arus Underground, if it'd been around for as long as she'd been told last night, there had to be history on it. As soon as she had some free time, she was going down to the archives to look into it, and she was even thinking of visiting her father, to question him about it. She wanted his opinion, she was having a hard time believing her father would allow it to remain unspoken knowledge.

~~.~~

The results of the evaluations went well, Hunk was the only one Graham gave a bit of a stern talking to but he also admired Hunk's drive to fight through is fear of heights. He did inform Hunk he was ordered to go on a diet and work on his stamina with his commander. However his diet could start tomorrow for tonight there was a formal dinner planned to say goodbye to Space Marshal Graham as he was going to be returning to Earth.

As everyone left the room to start to go get ready for the dinner that Nanny was already in the middle of making, Keith called after Allura and Lance to stay behind. Everything had gone better than he thought it would earlier in the day, Allura had been in an amazing mood, she'd enjoyed the obstacle course and Keith had to admit that he was proud of her. He also had to admit that Lance was right when he said Allura could kick ass and he was being too protective. He'd taught her well, and he owed her that acknowledgement but he still had to deal with their behavior the prior night.

He was still angry about it and confused by Allura's trust of Lance in certain areas over him, he couldn't see it any other way, she trusted Lance in things she did not trust him in. He had to admit it hurt, but what really confused him was he didn't know when it had started and why it had happened. It seemed like one day he woke up and Lance and Allura had completely different relationship than they had before and it bothered him. It bothered him a lot, because before Allura only turned him and if he was honest, he missed being the only one she turned too for anything.

As soon as everyone else left the control room, Keith gave Lance a pointed look. Lance nodded and walked as far away as he could from Keith and Allura. Keith took Allura's hand and walked them even further away from Lance in the other direction until they hit the wall.

Allura sighed when they reached the wall. "If you want to be alone with me, you should just be able to just be alone with me."

Keith shook his head. "The rules are there for a reason Allura, your planet has their traditions and I'm honoring you by honoring them."

Allura shook her head. "What if I don't believe in those traditions?"

Keith shook his head. "Allura, I don't believe you really think that, I know you want what is best for Arus. Right now, in such a chaotic time, with Doom and attacks, they need their traditions more than anything. I know you believe stability is important for Arus?"

"I believe stability is important yes, but I'm not so sure about a lot of Arusian traditions anymore."

Keith sighed and glanced at Lance, who was leaning against the far wall, eyes closed, looking like he wasn't even in the room. Keith had a feeling he was listening to every word. "I think Lara is bad influence on you," he said.

"I'm nothing like her," Allura snapped.

Keith flinched, Allura sounded like she didn't like Lara in the moment, which took him by surprise. "Uh."

"I mean that Lara's views aren't why I feel the way I do. But maybe I have listened to some of the things she's had to say. Though, I don't at all agree with how she treats, Lance."

Keith sighed. Lance, that was where the animosity came from, of course. "Yeah, speaking of Lance. Last night, we need to discuss it."

Allura nodded.

Keith took a breathe. "I was wrong to think that either one of you would go out to anything frivolous before an evaluation. What I don't understand is why you won't tell what it as you were doing?"

"Because the minute I told you it was important to Arus, you asked why I haven't included Coran."

Keith shook his head. "Allura, anything that is important to Arus should be run by Coran, he's your advisor, he's your advisor for a reason. You're the Princess yes, but your young, and you won't fully have ruling power until your 21, he has to help you make your decisions."

"What if he's making calls I don't agree with?"

Keith sighed. "If this is about our dating rules?"

Allura growled at him. "There you go thinking I'm just talking about frivolous things - not that I think our relationship is frivolous but it's more than that, Keith, I'm talking about my people, my planet, and there are things..."

A beeping from the control room console made her stop, both Keith and her turned toward it and watched Lance walk over and answer it. "Castle of Lions, Arus."

"Hello, old friend. This is Sven."

Lance grinned as he sat down in the chair and put his feet up on the console. Keith cleared his throat, Lance ignored him. "Hey, Sven."

"Keith around?"

"He's right here," Lance announced, giving the two of them an apologetic look but what was he to do, it was Sven. Keith could read it on his face clear as day and he couldn't blame him, even if he wanted to. Keith crossed the room and he put Sven up onto the screen, so he could see Sven, Sven could see them.

"Hello, Sven," he said.

"Hello, Keith, oh Hello, Princess."

Allura smiled.

"What happened to your eye?"

Allura grinned. "It's the other guy you should worry about."

"We had evaluations from the Garrison today, Allura kicked ass," Lance said, proudly.

Keith kind of wanted to hit him but he pushed the thought away. "Sven, what's up?"

"Well, I have a big favor to ask, and I know it might be too much to ask, but I need to borrow Red Lion."