I've decided to declare "The Rival" as abandoned and while I know it's probably for the best since a) I've totally lost interest in it to the point that I realized that I felt a sense of dread every time I opened the doc and treated writing it like a chore and b) I have interests in writing other things now, but I just... feel guilty. I've been working on it for 3 years now, and I'm barely half-way done (because I planned way too long of a fic, so it's partially my own fault) and I hardly have any time to write with my semester starting, but it's hard for me not to feel guilty and frustrated that I can finish what I started. But I want to thank everyone who has read, reviewed, favorited, followed, left kudos, etc. for all of the support for this story.

I am also including in this chapter my outline for the rest of the chapters, so that I'm not completely and totally leaving you wonderful readers wondering.

Again, thank you for everything, and I'm sorry that this story can't be completed to the extent that I would prefer.

39: In route to this new planet, Lance, Hunk, Keith, Allura and Coran inform Tali, Lani and Caelum of what happened between Pidge and Shinji, but they refuse to tell Shiro. Meanwhile, Shiro confronts both Pidge and Shinji; Shinji is surprised to learn that Pidge hasn't told Shiro what happened. Pidge tells him it must be something Shinji tells Shiro. On planet, the team splits up: Shiro, Keith, Pidge, and Coran go one way while everyone else goes another. Shiro, Keith, Pidge, and Coran are attacked by a native creature that lulls them unconscious; by the time the others find them, one of the natives explains that awakening them is not easy. The creature gives its victims visions of a world where their greatest desire is fulfilled, but at a price. The locals explain that the visions show what your greatest want is, what you cannot live without, and what you need the most. For Pidge, their father and brother are safe and on Earth, but they confirmed that Shiro died at the hands of the Galra. For Shiro, there is peace in the universe, but the other Paladins, Allura and Coran died. For Keith, his mom is still alive, but the cost is that he didn't attend the Garrison, meaning he never met Shiro, Tali and Matt or Lance, Hunk and Pidge. Coran… Coran gives no indicator of what he saw, but everyone assumes it had to do with Altea so they don't pester him about it. All four are given a different sequence of numbers; all Keith numbers, which is actually a code for coordinates. Keith is certain that he knows what it might lead to: his father. Hunk and Keith have a conversation later, with Hunk asking what it was like for Keith to see his mom again, and Keith realizes it's because Hunk wishes he could see his dad again, especially now that they are going to try and find Keith's father.

40: The coordinates lead to a high-security Galra data center. Pidge is downloading information, meanwhile Lance encounters a small Galra child and tells Shiro and the others to stand down in the attacks, realizing that there are more children on the base. The women of the base are led by a pregnant female officer. They meet with the child's mother, who explains that her mate, the baby's father, joined the army to support the family. She is grateful for team Voltron sparing their lives, but is confused as to why they would do so. The team figures out that her mate was one of the captives they took a few chapters back—the one who fought until he realized that they were just going to cyrofreeze them, then relaxed some when Allura promised that it would not be permanent—and they release him; he gives more information about Keith's knife and who it's match belonged to. "He was once my commanding officer. A good soldier, but an even greater being. Then he… He disappeared… But not before giving me and my wife a gift." The pair show a matching set of stones that allow a communication of presence, but also say that there are numbers that do not make sense inscribed on the back, which turn out to be coordinates. The officer and couple decide to join Voltron, the former out of spite towards the officer who impregnated and exiled her (revealing that he was trying to get rid of her as she got the promotion he wanted, and was subsequently promoted while she was demoted, and her demotion led to her being the commanding officer at this base, but little hope of being back in action) and the couple trying to find a better place to be.

41: Decoding the message, the team finds Thace in a ship on an asteroid. He reveals that he did not know that Sunny was pregnant with Keith when he left until he saw footage of Keith getting the Red Lion. But Sunny encouraged him to become a double-agent, working for Galra who were exiled due to their noncompliance. He is saddened to learn of Sunny's death, but happy to meet his son, and confused why Pidge is not the Black Paladin. "You are biologically a human female, correct?" "Yes?" "And once a month you bleed because your bloodthirst was not satisfied?" "Wait, what?" "Lance, two questions, one, can non-Catholics be Sainted and two, if so, how does one begin the process of making Keith's Mom the Patron Saint of Human-Alien Relations?" "In diplomatic relations or the other kind?" "Both." Keith gives Thace Sunny's tablet with the videos. Thace realizes that both Keith and Shiro seem to be keeping their distance, and goes to Lance for help because he realizes how close Lance and Keith are. Lance explains Shiro's PTSD, Keith's autism, and Keith's protectiveness of Shiro and how when Keith first started shifting into his Galra form, he was really terrified of scaring Shiro. Keith will warm up, but until then give him a little time and space to adjust. Trying to bond with his son, Thace asks Keith to watch a few videos together.

42: Thace leads the team to the exiled Galra. For the first time since he figured out how to control his shift, Keith steps out as a Galra. Other youth try to challenge him and test to see if he is a true Galra or not while most of the female youth try to court Keith to his very evident uncomfortableness, the latter of which results in Keith clinging to Lance to show that he's taken; meanwhile, the leaders are also a bit wary of the Team. Meanwhile, Pidge asks for help in tracking down their brother and father. They learn that Matt and Sam escaped a labor camp, but when the ship was found, all the escape pods were jettisoned and could not be traced. Retreating to the Castle, disappointed, they are not pleased to have Shinji run up. "I think you need to do that mind-meld thing with your Lion now." "And why is that?" "Because I think I know what happened." "What are you talking about?" "How this all got started. How this war started, why Zarkon became evil and… And how the first Green Paladin died. And more importantly, who that Paladin was."

43: The mind meld reveals that Nova, Allura's mother, was the first Green Paladin, and she died at the hands of Zarkon. Allura, angry, goes to confront Coran about keeping this from her, demanding to know what else she doesn't know. She storms off angry, but later goes to apologize to Coran for yelling at him, saying that she was hurt and confused, which wasn't a good excuse. Coran explains that the loss of Nova destroyed Alfor, as well as Altea's relationship with the Galra. But Alfor did not want Allura's judgement of the Galra to be clouded by ill feelings towards Zarkon for her mother's death. "And even now? Now that I hate him for all that he has taken from us, including my mother?" "Now is when you need that clear mind the most, Princess."

44: Answering a distress signal, the Paladins take back the planet, but it is after that things do not go well. A non-native alien recognizes Shiro and chases after 'The Champion', promising to make him pay for his actions. When the Paladins group up, intending to fight the alien off together, everything changes when a native alien tries to fight off the one chasing Shiro, revealing that he had been following Pidge, but calls Pidge "Matt", and tells Pidge that he is glad that "Matt" finally found the Shiro that he was looking for. He is confused to learn that Pidge is actually Matt's sister, and that they are looking for Matt. The alien explains that he and Matt were once prisoners together; Matt helped him and a few others escape, and told them to keep an eye open for Shiro, and presents a hastily scribbled drawing of Shiro for reference. "Is… That supposed to be Shiro?" "How?" "Look, see, it's got the hair floof…" "No, I mean, how can Matt perfectly draw out star charts from memory and diagrams, and yet he can't draw a decent stick figure?" Pidge wants to know when and where the alien last saw Matt, but it was months ago and Matt was departing for an unknown location; he was not with Commander Holt either. Shinji demands an explanation for why Shiro was called 'The Champion', which is more or less reluctantly given. Angry that Shiro never told him about this before, Shinji challenges Shiro, demanding to know if Voltron is really all that Shiro cares about now, or if he even does or wants to remember anything from before, suggesting that maybe the alien was right, all The Champion cares about is victory. Shiro argues that that isn't true, and Shinji says to prove it. "Do you remember our cat? How she was all black except for her paws and loved the sunlight and always knew you'd feed her scraps when we had fish?" "Yes, of course I do. I remember her." "Then you'd also remember that Dad was allergic to cats. We never had a cat." Shinji storms out after that, and Pidge goes after him, demanding that Shinji apologizes, but instead Shinji lashes out at her "This is all Matt's fault! Takashi wouldn't have had to go through all this if your stupid brother hadn't been such a coward!" And Pidge slaps him before running off in tears.

45: Shiro comes to Pidge that night, unable to sleep and complaining about something being wrong with his arm. "You know, if you wanted to talk to me, you didn't have to bust up your arm." "Trust me, Pidge, I know that. I did not plan to get it messed up this bad. But at the same time, I'm not complaining." Pidge fixes it, and they talk. "He just doesn't get it. He doesn't understand the things you've seen, the things we've seen. He doesn't get why it's worth it and why you fight so hard. He's angry, but that doesn't mean you should be what he takes his anger out on." Pidge also reveals her secret project to Shiro, thinking that he needs something else to think about. She shows him that she's working on making him a new arm. It connects differently than his current arm, meaning it's less painful and he can take it off more, and it does run on Quintessence, but she is making a glove that Shiro can use in battle that works like his hand would. Shiro is incredibly grateful and the two fall asleep together on Pidge's bed. The following morning, Pidge awakens to a knock on her door, and finds Shinji there, who wants to apologize and starts to. However, when he sees that his brother is in there, he gets frustrated and leaves.

46: The team is getting three different distress signals from the same planet, and arrive seeing that there seems to be an interplanetary war, but very strategically done so there is little damage and no casualties, yet all three leaders are very vocal about going to war with the other two. When Team Voltron tries to get them into peace talks, all three leaders reveal that the civil war was a ruse to get Voltron involved; their planet has resisted Zarkon's colonization for a long time, but Zarkon recently had the leaders' children captured as hostages for surrender. Right now, they know it is Zarkon, but are trying to present it as they have each kidnapped a child to cause war so that Zarkon does not know that they know he took their children, thinking that he can swoop in when there is chaos. There are five children total; the three youngest are the easiest to find and rescue, as they are all on a prisoner ship in the system. When they are brought back to their parents, they begin looking for the other two. Zarkon reveals where one is, and they know it's a lure for Voltron to come, or more accurately for Shiro: Zarkon gives a count-down to when the young girl is supposed to fight in the arena.

47: The team decides to take advantage of Keith's Galra shifts and Allura and Caelum's shapeshifting, sending them undercover as a Galra family to be spectators of the fights. They make plans to rescue the girl, but Keith also keeps running into a mysterious, hooded stranger who also seems to be trying to get into the prison cells. While Caelum and Allura smuggle out the girl, Keith chases down the stranger, who he unmasks to reveal Commander Holt.

48: There is quite a tearful reunion between Pidge and Sam, as well as Sam and Shiro—as Sam reveals that he was at the fights looking for any evidence of where Shiro could be, as that was the last known location he and Matt had for Shiro. Sam explains that he and Matt managed to help prisoners escape, and then they split up trying to find Shiro. But Sam also mentions that he lost contact with Matt some weeks prior. He's also surprised to learn that Keith is Sunny's son, and reveals that he knew Keith's mother when she was in grad school; he was asked to sit on her doctoral thesis committee. The two had lots of conversations regarding extraterrestrial life, and she was insistent that there was life off of Earth, which some of the others laughed at, especially at the look on her face when she was told to prove it. Sam also mentions that Sunny was often accused of being a helicopter parent, and it was reluctantly that she registered Keith for kindergarten. Sam reveals that, before her death, Sunny seemed to have grown paranoid and frantic; she said that she had something she wanted to share with Sam, and they made plans to meet on the day after she died. Sam realizes that he now has to explain to both Keith and Thace that Sunny didn't just die, she was murdered.

49: Before Sunny died, she killed her murderer, using the knife Thace had given her. The assailant's body was found on hers, initially making investigators believe that it was a murder-suicide, but then learned that the assailant was hired following a search of his body. But they could not determine why Sunny was killed or who wanted her dead; they found that she had requested Keith's school records and had paid through the end of the month on her apartment lease, and had been collecting cardboard boxes. Going onto Sunny's tablet, they watch the last of her videos, which reveals that she planned to move Keith and herself out to the desert shack and that she was going to homeschool Keith, as well as some research results she found, which could indicate that creatures of legend on Earth might actually be aliens searching for something, and thinks it might be something called a Blue Lion. "Alright, look, can we avoid the Mothman planet? Because Keith would totally leave me for Mothman." "… No I wouldn't…" "You had to think about it, didn't you?" "…No?" "Good try there, babe." They contact Colleen to let her know that her husband is alive, but to also petition to reopen the Sun-Hi Kwan homicide investigation with new information, particularly to look into the Garrison personnel.

50: Shinji's bad mood takes it up a notch, speaking to Shiro solely in Japanese and pretty much refuses to acknowledge Commander Holt. Hunk tracks him down later, and realizes that it's never been Pidge that Shinji's hated: it is Pidge's father, who led the Kerberos mission. Meanwhile, they get a video of the last child, who is in a labor camp along with Matt. Shinji, frustrated by the confrontation with Hunk, he preys on the fact that Lance has been feeling isolated from Hunk—who spends a lot of time with Lani—to stir up a fight amongst the paladins.

51: During the incredibly tense dinner that follows, Coran expresses his frustration with the Paladins, saying that he thought that they would be better. This leads to the realization that Coran was the first Blue Paladin, which the Blue Lion confirms. Together, the Lions give an explanation of what happened: Nova, feeling a need to retire as a Paladin, figured out a way to more easily break the bond between her Lion and herself without a full renouncement, meaning she could still pilot Green and use her bayard. Meanwhile, Coran and Zarkon have been having an argument; Zarkon, who has been overwhelmed with his duties as both Emperor and Black Paladin, delegates some duties and allows for a questionable bill to be passed. Coran confronts Zarkon about it, saying that it was a bad decision; Zarkon, in turn, gets angry at Coran for interfering with the Galra Empire ("You are Alfor's advisor. Not mine. You cannot tell me what is right or wrong for my people!" "I am your friend and I am trying to get you to recognize that you made a mistake!" "No one is being harmed by this, least of all Altea. Why can you not trust me to lead my own people?") so the two are on a tense note when the Paladins get called for a mission, where Nova dies. Coran thinks that it is his fault, because he started to doubt Zarkon and renounces himself as a Paladin, unaware that Zarkon also blames himself and has done the same thing. Zarkon takes the bayard, not as a trophy, but a reminder, and because the next BlackPaladin does not need a Paladin killer; Alfor is heartbroken at Nova's loss, and Ryla yells at both Zarkon and Coran, calling them cowards for abandoning Voltron, for abandoning Allura.

52: After this realization—and realizing that Coran loved her father, not her mother—Allura runs to find Coran, insisting that what happened wasn't his fault. "It does not matter whose fault it was, or if it is the fault of anyone. The war we have now… That did not begin with my mother's death. It did not begin with you and Zarkon. It did not begin with the Paladins of Voltron. But the Paladins will end it." Coran also tells her what he saw a few planets back. He had what he wanted most: his friends alive and healthy, Altea, Alfor's love… But not what mattered the most to him: Allura. Meanwhile, the Paladins are doing a lot of thinking on their own. Shinji, however, somehow ends up in front of the Black Lion, unsure why he came to her hanger. The Black Lion decides to show Shinji something, the reason she chose Shiro as her Paladin. Shinji learns that he unintentionally played a huge role in shaping Shiro into the leader he is: from the moment he learned he was going to be a big brother—launching a fiercely independent streak after Shinji's birth and protective instincts—and learning how to set an example, as well as how to react to people following him. Shinji realizes that while Shiro has forgotten a lot, Shiro never really forgot him like he thought. The memories weren't lost in his head, but safe in his heart. It is then that Shinji knows he must fix what he has broken.

53: On advice from Coran, Shinji recreates the time when the Paladins first started working together—the food fight. When before, Allura and Coran were a single target for them, he has to be the target now. He confesses that he's the one who posted the video, albeit by accident, but that still isn't enough to start the food fight. So he has to do the harder confession of telling Shiro that he was the reason why Pidge was kicked out of the Garrison. When they're finished throwing food goo at Shinji and each other, a lot of the tension has left the group, and the Paladins apologize to each other. Shiro, however, is now the angry Paladin and storms off, Shinji following. Shiro lashes out verbally at Shinji, finally letting out his anger and frustration and hurt and telling Shinji to leave him alone.

54: The rescue mission is launched. But it is a trap; there are so many Galra troops there. Tali, Caelum and Thace start getting the prisoners out, where Tali reunites with Matt. Meanwhile, seeing Zarkon and Haggar, the Paladins know they have an opportunity to end the war here and now. However, things go sideways really fast. Pidge and Shiro are soon locked into a battle with each other as Haggar takes control of Shiro's arm while Zarkon watches, trying to replicate the battle that killed Nova.

55: Meanwhile, while Keith and Hunk are trying to take down a shield generator, Lance slips off, seeing an opportunity to snipe Zarkon and Haggar. However, when he gets in position, he can't find Haggar until she appears behind him, her hand around his ankle, using her magic to shatter his leg from the knee down. Pidge and Shiro hear Lance scream in person, and Pidge has to get Keith and Hunk to come back up while still fighting Shiro. In the meantime, Shinji figures out that there is a something similar to the invisible maze where they are dueling, which could buy time to figure out a solution. He triggers it, giving Pidge and Shiro an opportunity; Shinji yells at Pidge to use their bayard to get up closer to the ceiling, but as soon as they try it, Haggar shoots a bolt at the bayard, making Pidge fall back to the ground hard, then she shorts out the invisible maze. But, suddenly, something else happens: the Black Lion takes over Shiro's body, overruling Haggar's control, making him attack her instead of Pidge, a fight that Shinji joins with his own weapon. Lani, Tali and Matt arrive as well as Keith and Hunk, and Lani uses her blaster to try to shoot at Haggar and Zarkon, the latter of whom is already making his escape, and Haggar disappears.

56: Once they get back to the ship with the prisoners, they start to assess the physical damage. Pidge's shoulder was dislocated in the fall, but quickly put back in thanks to Coran and her father. Meanwhile, on Shiro's orders, Tali, Matt, and Shinji work together to disconnect the Quintessence, because that's what Pidge believes is what allowed Haggar to control Shiro. Meanwhile, Lani, Hunk, Caelum and Keith are tending to an unconscious Lance when they realize the extent of Haggar's damage: when Haggar made Lance's bone break, it shattered; some bone splinters are left, but most are not, some lodged in Lance's armor. On top of that, there is nerve damage and massive artery damage. They could get the bone shards out, but not without further messing up Lance's leg. ("The pod can't fix what isn't there, and there is no guarantee regarding the damage to the nerves.") No one is sure of what to do, and then Commander Holt suggests they ask Lance; Keith argues that Lance is unconscious, but Sam points out the heart monitor indicates otherwise. Lance has heard everything said, and tells them that he trusts the team to make the decision on what to do. Amputation is reluctantly agreed upon as the best option. Thace points out that the medics on the Planet of the Exiles is faster, Shiro argues against it for two reasons: 1, Lance is going to lose a lot of blood, and he'll need access to his type on Earth and 2, if he's going to go through amputation, he should at least have his family with him. Pidge also points out that it gives the rest of the team enough time. "Time for what, exactly?" "To build Lance a new leg."

57: Pidge quickly takes control of this project, though it involves sacrificing the new arm they've been working on as a base. They, Hunk, Tali, Coran, and Matt start the ground work while they utilize Sam and Shinji as their researchers. Lani, meanwhile, starts making contact with doctors on Earth to bring in the best doctors for what is most likely going to be really intensive surgery with a sped up recovery time, sending them X-rays. As Lance's commanding officer, Shiro is the one to contact his family. Pidge calls in a favor with the Illevians, requesting light-weight metal parts for the leg ("It needs to be the exact same weight as Lance's real leg; Lance is the Guardian of Water, and he needs to be able to swim." "Lance could also hit another growth spurt, and building a whole new leg won't necessarily be possible, so we need to figure out how to accommodate that, too."). While asking Shiro what he—as an amputee—would want, they also decide to make the leg the same skin tone as Lance's. There is a lot of caffeine consumed. The Green Lion loans Pidge strength when the pain from her arm gets to be too much and she refuses to take anything that might cloud her brain.

58: Everyone is exhausted when they arrive on Earth. Lance has been in and out of consciousness, and the decision is made to wean him off the Altean sedatives and pain meds so that it doesn't interfere with the Earth ones. He wakes up and talks with his parents; meanwhile, Keith is out in the waiting room with all of Lance's siblings, but it is Bella he approaches first, apologizing because he couldn't keep his promise. When the rest of the family is finally allowed to go back, Keith lingers in the doorway until Lance calls him in, officially introducing Keith as his boyfriend. "This is Keith, my boyfriend and I love him. He tries to hide it, but he's a snuggler. And sometimes he's purple, but that's okay, because then he becomes even more huggable." The following morning, when Lance is going into surgery, Pidge and Hunk both start to panic, wondering if what they built will be enough and if they're wrong then Lance might be getting his leg amputated for no reason. Shiro tracks down Pidge and hugs them tight as they cry, promising that everything is going to be okay. They finally stop crying and they are quiet for a long time, and then, they start kissing.

59: The surgery is a success, and so is the prosthetic. Shidge is official now, and so are Hunk and Lani and Tali and Matt. Team Voltron, plus Tali, Matt, Lani and Shinji, is ready to go back and continue the fight against Zarkon. Meanwhile, Coleen reveals that there is new information in Sun-Hi's case. Sunny was right, she was being watched; a non-Garrison affiliated alien hunter had been suspicious of her ever since Thace's ship crashed and frequently dropped by the shack to poke around. They didn't see each other again until a few years later, and realized Keith was the right age to have been conceived while Thace was on Earth; he had hired someone to kidnap her to force her to confess about her "encounter" and therefore prove him right, and said that they had Keith hostage, thinking she'd come quietly; instead, she fought back. The man had a record of trying to invade the Garrison and got especially rowdy during the Galra invasion. Thace is furious at recognizing the face and name, because this person is the reason he left Earth; this man saw him, and Sunny sent him away for protection. But because it was a cold case and past the statute of limitations, the man is going free. Coran and Keith manage to convince Thace not to enact his own justice. However, they are not in space for very long before they learn that the man died in a very mysterious manner: drowning in the middle of the desert. Thace is insistent of his innocence, which is proven by the fact that the Earth governments did not like the idea of a full-blood Galra running loose on Earth, meaning he had to stay with humans the entire time. Allura, however, is suspicious of Coran, who disappeared claiming to go do a check on the Castle. "Did you have something to do with this?" "Of course not, Princess." "Coran… The Blue Paladin is the Guardian of Water, and represents trust and loyalty." "I am aware of this." "My mother once said that if anything were to ever happen to me, she pitied the fool who harmed me, for you would be last thing they saw. That you were loyal, not to the throne of Altea, but the people on it. Of late, I have seen instances that that loyalty encompasses many more other than myself. You are not loyal to Voltron, but its Paladins." "That is quite true." "In which case… I am going to trust your answer." "A very wise idea, Princess."

Epilogue: Shidge Wedding