Chapter 1: Boy vs Wild
Disclaimer! I don't own anything, so please don't sue me.
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It had been around 16 hours since young Shinji Ikari and Evangelion Unit-01 had been sucked into the dark abyss that was the 12th angel. He felt stupid for allowing Asuka to goad him into attacking the creature despite orders from Misato to stay put and watch the creature. Unfortunately, there was nothing he could about it now.
He was trapped in the belly of the beast.
"It's getting hard to breathe in here…" Shinji whimpered to himself.
The fear of suffocation was starting to get to the boy's head and before he knew it, Shinji began to panic. He tried bashing on the entry plug's hatch and screamed for someone to help him but soon gave up. He knew it was useless. He was stuck there and he accepted he would die alone in that plug.
Just as he had sat back down in the pilot's seat a massive force nearly forced him out of it. The force was accompanied by a sound that reminded Shinji of thunder, amplified by a thousand. Then he suddenly felt a strange sensation.
It was almost like Unit-01 was falling.
Shinji groaned from the force and hurriedly turned on the Eva's external cameras. To Shinji's utter shock and horror, Unit-01 actually was falling, and it was falling from very high up.
Sheer panic and terror filled the lad's mind and he screamed the first thing that came to mind.
"ASUKA, YOU BITCH, I BLAME YOU FOR THIS!"
As soon as he had finished the German pilot of Unit-02, his own Unit hit the ground.
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Unknown to Shinji, the reason he was in his current predicament was due to Dr. Ritsuko Akagi's plan to destroy the angel. Neither Misato or the other pilots actually liked the idea of dropping all 992 remaining N2 mines into the angel to destroy it. The mere mention of the plan had earned the woman a hard slap from Misato.
There was nothing that anyone could do to stop the plan, even if they wanted to. The Commander had given Ritsuko's plan the green light and that was the end of it. Though Misato had somehow managed to convince Ritsuko to halt the plan until they were sure the Unit's life support had given out. Misato was not about to have her surrogate son/little brother killed. If there was even the slightest chance for him to live, she had to give it to him.
Shinji had performed miracles in the past, and Misato had faith that he could somehow perform another one that day.
Sadly, it was not to be, and it was time to get the show on the road. Asuka and Rei were loaded into their Evangelions and got into position to use their AT Fields to contain the blast from the remaining N2 mines.
As the bombers containing the N2 mines flew overhead and released their payload into the inky blackness below, Misato's facade of strength broke and she began openly wailing for her boy to be brought back to her.
As soon as the last N2 mine entered the angel, it began to shriek in an unearthly way and its zebra-striped shadow turned solid black. The shadow on the ground that acted as the angel's body disappeared and the black mass in the sky began to suck objects toward it.
"What the hell?" Misato managed to cry out through her sobs.
The terror in the command staff's eyes was prevalent but none were as terrified as the good doctor. Ritsuko realized what the angel had done to itself and quickly opened a comm channel to the two pilots still near it.
"Girls, get out of there! The angel has turned itself into a black hole!" Ritsuko shouted.
Rei had to practically drag Unit-02 into one of the elevators, seeing as its pilot was furious the creature dared to still live after taking down one of her comrades-in-arms. Asuka had armed her Unit with a pallet rifle and was unloading into the void as Unit-00 yanked her back onto an elevator platform.
As soon as both Evas set foot on the platform, Lieutenant Maya Ibuki brought them back down into NERV HQ.
Topside, the black hole the angel had become began pulsating violently before increasing the flow of gravity towards it. Cars, street signs, telephone poles, and even some buildings close to it were sucked into the abyss.
Suddenly, as soon as it began. It was over. The black hole gave one last pulse before disappearing completely. It was over, the 12th angel was gone.
And so was Unit-01 and its pilot.
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"Owwww…" Shinji groaned.
Shinji's vision blurred and his head pounded but he somehow forced himself to activate the entry plug's release latch and force himself over to the plug's hatch to open it. He knew if he didn't get some oxygen fast, he was going to suffocate in the stale LCL.
He felt the familiar feeling of the entry plug twisting out from the nape of Unit-01's neck and quickly opened the plug's hatch. LCL poured out of the plug and fresh air poured into it.
After his deed was done, Shinji simply sat back down and tried to shake off his dizzied state. Even though he wasn't syncing with Unit-01 when it hit the ground, the impact still made Shinji feel like he had just been hit by a train.
'Not fun. Seriously, never wanna do that again.' Shinji thought.
After a couple minutes of getting his bearings, Shinji stuck his head out of the hatch to see where exactly he had landed. Unluckily for him, he couldn't see where he was due to the fact his Eva was lying in a gigantic impact crater. He would have to climb out of the crater in order to be able to check out his surroundings.
"Dammit…" He swore.
With his goal set, Shinji pushed the button that activated an emergency rope ladder to pop out of the side of the entry plug. He gulped and carefully clambered out of the plug onto the ladder. As he descended, Shinji noticed Unit-01 had landed on its front with its face flat in the dirt. If his head weren't still pounding Shinji would've found the idea of Unit-01 doing a gigantic bellyflop humurous but now wasn't the time for laughter.
Soon the boy had reached the flat of his Eva's back and surveyed the easiest looking way out of the crater. He noticed the Eva's right arm was laying at such an angle that looked easy to traverse out of the crater so he did so as quickly as his aching head allowed.
When he reached the mechanical beast's fingertips, he had nearly reached the crater's mouth and only had a few more feet to climb. When Shinji hauled himself out of the crater, he took a moment and looked all around.
"Where the hell am I?" He wondered.
Shinji noticed Unit-01 had crash landed near a cliffside with a forest nearby. Shinji looked to his right and saw that the cliffside stretched on to the horizon. To his left was the same, only a large, strange-looking castle with a crumbling bridge stood in his view of the horizon.
It was quite far away but it still close enough Shinji could make out some of its details. It was like nothing he'd ever seen before. It appeared very old but oddly enough, very advanced. Before Shinji got the chance to try and reason where he was based on the castle before him, a loud roar assaulted the boy's ears.
Shinji jumped in surprise at the sudden sound and took a step backwards. When his heart stopped pounding enough for him to think, another roar sounded off. The lad then noticed the roars sounded very much like a lion's.
"What would a lion be doing here? This place doesn't look like Africa." He reasoned to himself.
A third roar came and this time Shinji noticed the sounds seemed to be originating from the castle he was staring at. Strangely, Shinji didn't feel frightened by the sound. He felt strangely calmed by it, and even drawn to go toward the sound.
He wouldn't actually do that though. What if it actually was a lion? Shinji did NOT want to be cat food.
Before he knew it, time had gotten away from the boy. Shinji didn't know how long he had stood there staring at the castle but he reasoned it had been quite some time due to the setting sun. He decided to retreat back to the entry plug, he had completed his mission of surveying his surroundings and he was feeling the need to rest.
As he made the journey back to the entry plug, his thoughts drifted back to the battle. He was worried about everyone back in Tokyo-3. He also wondered how exactly he got where he was. Shinji finally concluded that if the angel could swallow half a city into its own personal pocket dimension, there wasn't any reason it could spit him out somewhere else if it wanted.
As Shinji sat back down into his pilot seat he felt more at ease as he remembered that all the Evas could be tracked worldwide. Misato and the others would come for him, he just knew it.
"Misato-san will find me, and then I'm going to give Asuka an earful for making me get eaten by that thing. Hehe I think I'll cook something special for us all when I get home though, can't be mad at Asuka forever." He smiled to himself.
In the following days, Shinji realized that no one was coming for him.
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4 YEARS LATER…
Shinji didn't know exactly how much time had passed since he first arrived at wherever the hell he was but he did know it must've quite some time. After the realization that no one was coming for him, Shinji's NERV survival training kicked in.
All the pilots had been trained on how to survive in situations like the one Shinji found himself. Technically the pilots weren't soldiers but Misato insisted they undergo the same survival training that soldiers do, just in case. She wasn't taking any chances.
Looking back on it, Shinji was eternally grateful to her for those lessons. He also greatly appreciated those rare times he went camping with Kensuke, he learned a thing or two from the spectacled otaku as well.
There were also times when Shinji wanted nothing more than to die. During the times when Shinji had almost taken his own life the smiling faces of all the people he knew in Tokyo-3 along with another loud roar from the castle stopped him in his tracks and gave him the determination to keep moving forward and keep surviving.
During those years by the cliffside, Shinji experienced true loneliness. Before he got sucked into the angel, Shinji thought himself a lonely boy but the Shinji who now stood would've laughed at his younger self. It was one thing to hate one's self and separate from others but not being given the chance to connect with anyone due to the fact there was nobody around to connect with was far worse in Shinji's eyes.
He missed human connection, even if it caused him pain.
Shinji had somewhat come to terms with himself over the years. He knew he yearned to connect with people and he knew it would sometimes result in pain but he wanted to try it regardless. He knew it wouldn't be easy for him but it would be better than nothing at all.
Shinji's mental state wasn't the only thing that changed during those times either. Shinji had changed physically as well. Teenage puberty and having to adapt to a wild environment left Shinji quite different from the timid boy who he used to be. He was now much taller than he used to be, at a solid five foot three inches tall. He was still thin but he now had some muscle to him. His voice had gotten deeper as well but not enough to make it unrecognizable if you had known him before.
His hair was wild and unkempt, flowing down to his shoulders. Much to his annoyance, he had also grown a short beard. He had tried several times to rid himself of it but he had no way to completely get rid of it so he had given up on the idea and simply kept it trimmed as best he could.
None of his tools were sharp or precise enough to not slice open his face and he hated it. Having a beard reminded him of his father and he had finally come to terms that he and his father were too different to be a family. Shinji had given up the pipe dream of having a functional family.
Then there was the matter of clothes. As he aged, Shinji's plugsuit became too small for him so he used a primitive knife he made to carve it into a functional pair of pants. He didn't have enough material to make a shirt so he saved whatever leftover material he could.
Though it had been a long time, Shinji never strayed too far from where he had originally crashed. The farthest he had been was the strange castle he had seen when he first arrived. Shinji had also crafted himself some primitive weapons, and for good reason.
Soon after his arrival, Shinji realized something that disturbed him to his core. Wherever he was, it wasn't on Earth. The flora and fauna were too different than anything he had ever seen on Earth and some of them weren't friendly.
Soon after the crash Shinji was feeling the need for food and ventured into the nearby forest, only to be chased out of it by vicious doglike creatures with six legs and batlike faces. The only reason the creatures didn't tear into the boy was Unit-01. It's natural instinct for animals to run in the presence of a predator and that's what the beasts felt when they got too close to the Evangelion so they turned tail and ran.
Shinji never ventured back into the forest without his trusty spear.
Without that spear, it's likely Shinji would've died long ago. Shinji knew his food options were limited so he finally decided to man up and face his nemesis; water deeper than three feet. Shinji was familiar with the concept of spearfishing but there was only one problem, he couldn't swim.
At first Shinji only lightly waded into the sea to try his hand at fishing but when the fish weren't as plentiful in his regular fishing spot Shinji knew it was time to sink or swim. His first attempts at swimming were more like flopping around in the water but after a while he started to get the hang of it.
He now understood why Rei enjoyed swimming so much. It was peaceful, and calming.
After he grew tired of alien fish, Shinji expanded his diet. He ventured back to the forest and gathered whatever types of plants he thought were edible and brought them back the edge of the impact crater. He then made himself a little garden for the plants he brought back.
Luckily they were all edible but they didn't exactly taste good. As long as they kept him alive, Shinji didn't really care what they tasted like.
As the days stretched on, Shinji grew more and more bored. He had accepted the idea of trying human connection but he couldn't do so without anyone around so he explored as far as he dared. Most days he would hear the roar from the castle, so he decided to investigate. He never went past the castle due to the fact he was on an unknown alien world and he didn't want to stray too far from his Eva, but he found the castle ever so interesting.
His first trip to the castle had been an eye-opener for the pilot of Unit-01. He had the answer to one of life's greatest mysteries. He knew from that day on, that humans weren't the only intelligent beings in the universe.
There was no actual way into the castle from what Shinji could see from whenever he visited it but his curious side desperately wanted to explore inside it. He was initially frightened of the implications the fortress alluded to but got over his fear due to the amount of times he visited it. Unit-01 wasn't that far away and it only took about 45 minutes to reach the castle from the great mech so Shinji went to the castle quite frequently.
Eventually he started bringing supplies with him and before he knew it, he had constructed a small second base in the castle's courtyard. He made a little wooden hut, a fire pit, and even a couple wooden chairs. He thanked whatever guardian deity watched over his new home that they vines he used to tie the wood together held up so well.
He was also thankful that whatever planet he was on either had no seasons or the seasons were much longer than the ones on Earth. In the four years Shinji had lived there, the planet had barely undergone any changes in weather. It felt like summer almost all the time with the occasional cold front that slightly lowered the temperature.
And throughout all that time Shinji never lost that little glimmer of hope that one day he would escape that planet, the hope that Dr. Akagi would find a way to get him home. Little did Shinji know that he would indeed get rescued, but not by who he would've expected.
It was the day THEY came that was Shinji Ikari's salvation. The band of weirdos in the strangest craft Shinji had ever seen would be his ticket back to Earth, they were also how he became known as one of the universe's greatest heroes.
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Well here it is, my Voltron/Eva crossover! I've had this idea rolling around in my head for quite some time but I wanted to wait until Voltron Legendary Defender had a lot of episodes released so I had a general idea of where I wanted to take the story. If you're a fan of Shiro, I'm sorry to say he will only make minor appearances in the story.
As for you all who follow me and my other stories, I thank you dearly for the love and support. I've hit a creative wall with some of my other stories and I don't know what direction I want to take them. That fact made writing new chapters feel like a chore so I'm shelving Endure and Survive & Guns in the Valley for now. I will get around to them eventually but right now I want to focus on this and one other story I've been cooking up.
Sayonara, Peace!