Another Word for Never

***Another Word for Never*** is the first season of Voltron: Duality and the first work made for this universe. It can be found here.

## Summary

"Shiro used to dream of Earth. That was before the Arena, before Haggar, before he joined the Galra army. At least he has an ally, a Galra officer named Keith. Together they plan to bring down Zarkon's empire from the inside.

Matt never thought he'd see his family again. Then he crash-lands on Earth and Pidge rescues him from Garrison custody. But his homecoming is short-lived. Now the Holt siblings, along with Lance and Hunk, must find the Voltron lions and free the universe from Galra control.

Or: Galra!Keith, double agent!Shiro, red paladin!Matt, black paladin!Allura, full series AU."

### Pairings

* Matt Holt/Shiro
* Keith & Shiro
* Matt Holt & Pidge
* Hunk & Lance
* Hunk & Shay
* Allura & Matt Holt
* Allura & Coran
* Lance & Matt Holt

### Main Characters

* Matt
* Pidge
* Lance
* Hunk
* Allura
* Coran
* Shiro
* Keith

## Chapter by Chapter

### Chapter 1: Transfer

Matt Holt crash-lands on Earth, where he is rescued by Pidge, Hunk, and Lance. The four discover the Blue Lion and escape the attacking Galra warship by flying into a wormhole. Meanwhile, Shiro and Keith, a Galra officer, learn of Sendak's trip to Earth and resolve to find out what's going on in Zarkon's army.

### Chapter 2: Discovery

Matt, Pidge, Lance, and Hunk arrive at the Castle of Lions, where they meet Allura and Coran, who send them off to find their lions. After returning with Pidge and the Green Lion, Matt informs Allura that he doubts his ability to pilot the Red Lion. Keith discovers that the Galra first visited Earth a year before the Kerberos mission.

### Chapter 3: The Red Lion

Pidge and Allura free some prisoners from Sendak's ship, Matt earns the Red Lion's trust, and Team Voltron brings down Sendak's ship, but are unable form Voltron. Shiro and Keith discover that Zarkon's commanders are expanding the borders of the Galra empire, heading straight for Earth.

### Chapter 4: A Test of Loyalty

Shiro and Keith face Haggar's test and win the right to join Commander Orgul on the front lines.

### Chapter 5: Leifor's Dive

* Trigger Warnings: Several instances of panic attacks and flashbacks, implied torture

Allura tries to get the team in sync through a series of team-building exercises, but her plan backfires when the stress of the exercises push her paladins to the edge. Matt and Pidge head out to examine Sendak's downed warship, but are unable to extract any information about their father or Shiro because of damage to the ship's power supply. Their expedition is cut short when a robeast resembling Matt's old friend Simsill lands in the desert near them.

### Chapter 6: Weapons of the Galra

Team Voltron defeats the attacking robeast, Matt hears that Shiro has joined Zarkon's army, and Allura agrees to try a human bonding exercise called a "slumber party."

### Chapter 7: Slumber Party

The paladins take a break from training and the stress of their new life to have a slumber party. Dares are dared, truths are revealed, and Lance gets a new pair of headphones.

### Chapter 8: Fallen Foes

Lance and Allura pay a visit to the Arusians while Matt and Pidge dig out the robeast's crystal to power Sendak's computers. Meanwhile, Sendak sneaks into the castle and takes flight, with Coran and Hunk trapped inside. Keith and Shiro intercept a transmission and change course to help the paladins retake their ship.

### Chapter 9: No Turning Back

* Trigger Warnings: Panic attack

The paladins, with the help of Shiro and Keith, defeat Sendak and Haxus and retake the castle-ship. Shiro and Keith make contact with Allura and Lance, but do not reveal their identities ultimately leave the castle for the front lines to stop Zarkon's progress toward Earth. Meanwhile Allura and the paladins head for a nearby Balmera in search of a new crystal to power the ship and heal Coran.

### Chapter 10: Disease

Keith and Shiro arrive on the besieged planet Lan Trossa, only to witness Commander Orgul's army crushing the last of the Trossa rebellion. Meanwhile the paladins find a Balmera teeming with Galra troops. Allura, Matt, and Hunk are captured while harvesting a crystal, and before Lance and Pidge can come to their aid, a new robeast arrives to challenge them.

### Chapter 11: Heart of the Balmera

The paladins form Voltron and free the Balmera from Galra control. Meanwhile Keith and Shiro arrive at the planet Yaltin. They are unable to stop the initial attack, but make contact with the survivors and hope to form an alliance to thwart Commander Orgul's plans.

### Chapter 12: The Tipsy Mordyte

* Trigger Warnings: Alcohol, underage drinking, misgendering (brief and in a flashback)

Keith and Shiro join the fight for freedom on the planet Yaltin, and Commander Orgul issues an ultimatum: subdue resistance in three days or face her wrath. Meanwhile, Team Voltron leaves the Balmera and stops at a spaceport for spare parts. There, Matt hears rumors that Shiro has joined Zarkon's army, and Lance almost has his lion stolen by Nyma. They leave for Vel-17, where Matt spent nearly a year inside a Galra prison.

### Chapter 13: Vel-17

* Trigger Warnings: Moderately graphic depictions of violence and death, minor body horror

The battle for Yaltin is taking its toll on Shiro, who's struggling to cope with the guilt. Keith remembers how he came to know Shiro and offers him some encouragement. Meanwhile the paladins travel to Vel-17, an abandoned prison planet where Matt was held prisoner for a year. In the E-dep chambers, where experiments in Quintessential deprivation were carried out, they find three monsters. Now separated, the paladins attempt to make their way back to the Green Lion and escape.

### Chapter 14: What Remains

* Trigger Warnings: Mentions of genocide/mass murder, asphyxiation/strangulation

At the end of Orgul's three day deadline, the Galra army on Yaltin pulls out, only for Haggar to show up with a new weapon and drain the planet of Quintessence. Meanwhile the Galra experiments on Vel-17 attack the paladins, separating them as they chase them though the Galra prison. Matt, Lance, Allura, and their lions are consumed by a dark energy attack, leaving nothing but an empty crater behind.

### Chapter 15: Those Who Are Lost

Shiro and Keith land on Berlou, where resistance efforts have survived several months of siege. They use a Galra scouting party to locate the rebels, and then Keith attacks the other Galra to prove his intentions to the Berlua. Matt, Lance, and Allura discover a space station called the Hive, where they hear more rumors of Shiro's defection, sparking an argument between Lance and Matt. Pidge, Hunk, and Coran visit the planet Wa'resha in search of information and a motivator for the wormhole generator, and Pidge befriends a Resha named Jeya--but Jeya leads them into an ambush. Coran and the paladins are attacked and sedated.

### Chapter 16: Last Stand

Pidge and Hunk start a rebellion and sneak aboard the Executioner to sabotage its photon cannon and redirect long-range transmissions to the rebellion's command ship. Meanwhile Keith and Shiro contact the resistance on Berlou only to be met with suspicion. Undeterred, they take out a large chunk of the Galra war camp's perimeter defenses in one final blaze of glory before fleeing the army with the help of a few grateful Berlua.

### Chapter 17: The Enemy of My Enemy

Berlou's distress beacon reach both halves of the separated Team Voltron, but Haggar reaches Berlou with her superweapon first. Shiro and Keith leave the city to sabotage the weapon just as Lance, Matt, and Allura arrive to join the battle. Lance is shot down and encounters Keith, who had followed the Blue Lion's call to the crash site. Panicking at the sight of a Galra officer approaching his lion, Lance opens fire. Shiro shields Keith and tries to talk to Lance--but after hearing rumors that the Champion had defected, Lance isn't in the mood to listen.

### Chapter 18: Loyalty

Lance, Matt, and Allura finally meet Keith and Shiro face-to-face. Together they attempt a run on Haggar's superweapon but are unable to make it through the Galra army. On the ground, Allura yields her place as the Black Paladin to Shiro (despite Matt's protests), and Matt reveals to Keith that the Red Lion has chosen Keith as her second paladin--but because of an unpleasant run-in with Lance, Keith panics and runs off.

### Chapter 19: Something Bigger Than Us

* Trigger Warnings: Mild body horror

The Paladins make another run on Haggar's superweapon. Allura, Matt, and Keith face the druids hand-to-hand while the other Paladins provide support from their Lions. Keith is accepted as a Paladin by the Red Lion. They successfully destroy Haggar's weapon, and she retreats from the battlefield but sends in reinforcements. Galran saboteurs take down Berlou's shields from the inside, but the Paladins manage to keep the forces. Pidge tests out their brand-new LOKI shields. The team forms Voltron, with Keith in Red and Shiro in Black, and they take out the remaining warships. Throughout, tensions run high between Keith and the rest of the team, but Matt makes an effort to make peace with him. The Kera arrives at the end of the battle to clear out stragglers and assist with recovery. A medic finds quintessence crystals embedded in Matt's body. Thace and Dez exchange information about the rebellion and Voltron's victory, while Val catches Iverson conspiring with the Galra, but is then caught herself.

## Trivia

* The title comes from a line in the first scene Nonny wrote for the series, in which Matt told Shiro that "Someday's just another word for never." The scene was scrapped and doesn't appear in the fic itself, but the line was moved to Chapter 6, when Allura was trying to comfort Matt.

## References

1. ↑ Nonny on the inspiration for Another Word for Never's title