Lasciate Ogne Speranza

A Neon Genesis Evangelion Oneshot

By

EvilFuzzy9

A/N: Here's an NGE fic. It's a curious thing, really: I've never actually seen the series apart from a few disparate clips here and there, so I don't have the best grasp of its canon, but I have read a good number of fics for it as well as reading most – if not all – of its entry on TV Tropes.

The title comes from a line in the Divine Comedy. If you don't recognize it yet, you almost certainly will by the end of the fic.

Also, this thing took me forever to finish. Seriously, it was sitting in doc manager for like, half a year at least (I refreshed it periodically to keep from losing my work) before I finally got around to writing the last bits of it. Seriously, it was only a few paragraphs (and a bit of editing to match up more with my present style), but I just kept on procrastinating. It's doubtful whether this is really any good as far as fics go, seein' as how it is (or was) a bit experimental for me, but eh. Whatever.

It is anno domini MM, the two thousandth year of our Lord. In Antarctica, where radar imaging of the area under Mt. Markham has revealed an astounding subterranean structure, there is a gathering of explorers and researchers: scientists sent there by various groups – most notable among them being the Katsuragi Expedition funded by SEELE under the cover of the Committee for Human Instrumentality. The day is the twelfth of September. Gendo Ikari (formerly Gendo Rokubungi) is flying a helicopter back to the Artificial Evolution Laboratory in Hakone, Japan with a treasure trove of information extracted from the White Egg – and ADAM within it – thus far.

Meanwhile, back in Antarctica, the scientists of the Katsuragi Expedition begin preparations for a contact experiment using the Lance of Longinus – an implement built around the remnants of the Spear of Destiny (the selfsame Lancea Longini of the Roman centurion Longinus who had with it pierced the side of the Christ in the hour of His death upon the tree, crucified between two criminals at Calvariae Locus) retrieved from deep within the ruins of Berlin, Germany by a young Keel Lorenz following the fall of the Third Reich in World War II.

A great distance away, flying over the Sea of Japan, Gendo Ikari chances a glance back in the direction from whence he has come.

In the White Egg, beneath Mt. Markham, the contact experiment is initiated. ADAM is pierced through with the Lance, upon which is a nearly two thousand year old trace of genetic material from the son of a carpenter. This slight remnant of consecrated lifeblood derived – however distantly – of LILITH reacts violently with ADAM's physiology, grievously injuring and infuriating him. The interaction between the blood of LILITH and the flesh of ADAM – two things never meant to mix – generates an anti-AT Field, causing a localized Instrumentality.

ADAM awakens.

I AM THE WAY INTO THE CITY OF WOE.

Gendo Ikari, thousands of miles away, sees the Giant of Light upon the horizon. Even at this great distance, he feels a tugging at the threads of his very being as the anti-AT Field pulls at his soul, threatening to unravel it. He is far from the site of what would come to be known as Second Impact, but ADAM recognizes him.

The First Angel remembers. He knows the Identities of every one of those petty things – the spawn of his rival – that so foolishly entered his domain and defiled his sanctum. He had allowed them entrance, feeling their souls so dim and fragmented and believing them to be little more than lowly, harmless pests. It was not until he had felt them tinkering and exploring and experimenting – FELT the Fruit of Knowledge within them, seeing in their splintered souls the same inquisitive intellect as had once belonged to LILITH, his equal – that ADAM knew. They were not harmless vermin – quite the opposite. They were creatures of thought, as himself, only moreso.

They were sentient beings with the Fruit of Knowledge, and the proudest and most favored of the children of LILITH, for they had inherited her affinity for the mental. They had not the raw power of ADAM or his ilk, but if they were anything like their mother then they could doubtlessly manipulate the laws of nature with sublime subtlety, dominating stronger lifeforms through cunning and replicating their attributes to use for themselves. And they were in his ship.

I AM THE WAY TO A FORSAKEN PEOPLE.

But ADAM had restrained himself, remembering his defeat at the hand of LILITH. She had overcome him and proven herself superior. She had earned the right to seed life upon this world, and these creatures – though fractious and quarrelsome – were her most direct descendants. They had inherited the planet from her.

ADAM understood this, and had resigned himself to being used as a tool by these creatures to advance themselves. It was a harsh fate, but such was the lot of the conquered. He, and everything that had once been his, had been claimed by LILITH as the victor's rightful spoils – an inheritance for those who would one day succeed her and claim their place as the dominant species. So he had allowed them to do as they wished, unmolested – for a while, at least.

But this comes to an abrupt end when he feels them do something to him. They stab him with that curious implement which is imbued with the faded light of some soul that may have once been nearly comparable to his own in power. Upon this implement he sees the degraded genetic material of something akin to these creatures.

Then he is impaled upon it, and the blood of LILITH's spawn touches his own. The AT Field imbued into the Spear reacts with the light of his soul.

They initiate the contact experiment.

I AM THE WAY INTO ETERNAL SORROW.

ADAM strides forth in his might, the Giant of Light – the visual manifestation of his soul, unbound from his flesh. All living things present are absorbed into him.

ADAM's body is ruined, having been at the focal point of Second Impact. Nothing remains of it now save a sea of LCL, and the Giant of Light stands tall, observing in sorrow the devastation wrought by this Instrumentality. These creatures – humans, the voices of their doomed souls sing, speaking to him in the tongues of the dead, we are humans – cry out as one by one their AT Fields are negated, causing their bodies to dissolve into the primordial ooze.

One by one they are erased, swallowed up into a collective mass of LCL.

One by one, ADAM, the Giant of Light, appraises their souls. He finds that he feels sorry for their plight. So weak, yet consumed with such ineffable passion. They had each had names, friends, families, hopes, and dreams.

But at the same time, he makes no move to help them. They have brought this fate upon themselves. He sees within their thoughts and memories one common thread in particular which stands out to him: SEELE – 'soul', in one of the many languages these creatures speak amongst themselves in life. None of the humans present seem to know more of this "SEELE" than its name, but ADAM sees and knows that their association with it is something that many of their number consider... unethical. It is a strange concept to ADAM, but through the memories of the "humans" he learns much about their ways.

It is... enlightening.

SACRED JUSTICE MOVED MY ARCHITECT.

At the center of Second Impact, Dr. Katsuragi finds himself disembodied. He has nor arms nor legs nor head nor torso nor anything else he can identify as a body, but he is not dead. At least, he does not think he is dead.

He looks around – though it is not truly 'looking' as we would think of it, for he has no eyes with which to receive light nor any brain with which to interpret visual stimuli – and perceives that his fellow scientists are all about him and within him and through him. On some level he realizes that he should be far more disoriented by such absolute discombobulation of self, but it does not worry him. There is no more 'me' or 'you' or 'they' or 'it' – only 'we'. They are one yet many, distinct yet indivisible. And he who was once Dr. Katsuragi, the expedition leader, finds himself lulling into restful oblivion...

'Mi...sa...to...'

Something niggles at the back of his mind. Something important... He is forgetting something important...

A metal cross shimmers, reflecting the radiance of the Giant of Light. A young girl whimpers and weeps, caught up in a whirlwind of fear and confusion. And all at once, what little remains of the good doctor's consciousness is struck with a sudden realization. His faded, disintegrating mind is inundated with a tumultuous, overwhelming cascade of images and thoughts and emotions and memories.

Love. Wife. Family. Birth. Daughter. Danger.

"MISATO!"

I WAS RAISED HERE BY DIVINE OMNIPOTENCE,

Misato Katsuragi watches the proceedings in horror. She does not understand what is happening – not entirely, for she is only a child. She cares little for her father's work and even less for her father himself. She knows nothing of the Angels, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Instrumentality, or SEELE. All she knows is what she sees.

A Giant of Light emerges from the White Egg.

Scientists, technicians, and support staff scream before they dissolve into nothing and everything.

The sea runs red with the blood of the earth as the heavens burn and the hells freeze.

The sky falls.

O, it falls

and

it

falls

and all the people sing,

"The sky is falling, the sky is falling,

The sky is falling, the sky is falling,

The sky is falling, the sky is falling,

And this ain't no Chicken Little."

She tastes blood, feels fear. She sees the ponderous, angelic behemoth standing tall above the landscape. She hears the cries of the scientists and the workmen. She smells death, the death of all life.

She is witness to the end of all things, a captive audience of one. She stands still, transfixed by this horrific, otherworldly spectacle. She is unable to flee – unwilling to flee. Escape... she knows there is a way to escape, but... at the same time, the very concept of flight from her imminent demise, of running and surviving, is utterly incomprehensible to her.

Even as the Light washes over her, she stands still and watches and waits.

For what, she knows not.

PRIMORDIAL LOVE AND ULTIMATE INTELLECT.

There is a great, thundering, rushing sound as millions of gallons of water – millenia of ice and snow melted in an instant – pour into the ocean. The mountain – despite having so long lain dormant – erupts in an orgy of smoke and flame and molten rock. Its peak explodes, shattering into millions of pieces as the fury of the earth and the power contained with its liquid mantle force the crust to rupture. A hail of molten slag and superheated ash falls from the sky, raining horrible, burning death on all below.

Those few unfortunate souls who had not been caught in the initial instrumentality soon find themselves perishing at the hands of Mother Nature in her incalculable, unparallelled wrath. But among them, in the chaos and confusion, one appears who should have been dead.

Through force of will, through the strength of his paternal instincts, Dr. Katsuragi has managed to escape the inescapable Nirvana, however briefly. Desparate, driven by only a single desire, he seeks out his daughter.

Finding her, seeing her transfixed by the Light, he grabs her and rushes to one of the emergency escape pods situated at the edge of the base camp. Like a man possessed, he pushes her in and initiates the launch sequence, barely noticing as he gives her the simple metal crucifix which he had worn at his neck in his life, the only outward mark of the faith of his parents. The door of the escape pod closes, and it soon launches off.

That is the last time in this life that either father or daughter will ever see each other.

ONLY THOSE ELEMENTS TIME CANNOT WEAR

Across the globe, chaos reigns. The polar caps melt, the sea rising to swallow up countless cities and villages alike. Entire islands sink down into the depths. Storm cells of unprecedented size form within seconds and dissipate just as quickly. Temperatures rise and fall as jet streams and climate systems are turned on their heads.

Governments panic as crops begin to fail and rioters take to the street. Anarchy threatens to engulf the world as those who survive the immediate catastrophes begin fighting over what remains. The weather is erratic and unpredictable. Famine and plague become widespread as conditions worsen, causing millions more to die in the aftermath of what would come to be called the Second Impact.

Armies take to the streets to put down revolts. Wars erupt between impoverished nations and global superpowers alike as food and medicine become more precious than gold or oil. Industry falters as workforces are decimated. The global economy threatens to crash, potentially plunging the world into a depression unlike any other before it.

Doomsday cults spring up by the dozen as people cry for reform and repentance, proclaiming that the end is nigh and that the Second Coming is at hand. Churches, mosques, shrines, synagogues, and temples around the world are filled to bursting as nearly unprecedented numbers turn to the supernatural in a desperate search for answers. At one point, seven out of every ten survivors of the Second Impact are attending religious services as frequently as they are being held. Monastic orders undergo an explosion of growth as countless individuals turn to faith to find meaning in a world seemingly gone mad.

Even as the years pass and order returns to the world, everybody knows that things can never be the same as they once were. No amount of mending and rebuilding can return the world to its former state.

In an instant, everything had changed.

And from the shadows SEELE watched and waited as their grandiose machinations come ever closer to ultimate fruition.

WERE MADE BEFORE ME, AND BEYOND TIME I STAND.

Yui Ikari smiles, appraising with a growing sense of pride the pinnacle of her research, the last hope for mankind. Today, she will initiate the contact experiment. Today she will activate Evangelion Test Type Unit 01. She will be the first person to synchronize with an Eva.

She glanced aside to where Gendo and Shinji stood.

Watching.

Waiting.

She smiles sadly as she steps into the cockpit of the half-finished Eva. She knows that what is about to happen will most likely severely traumatize her young son, but it is a necessity. The scenario needs to move forward. She needs to be absorbed by Unit 01. She needs to become its soul – to become the goddess of the machine, the deus ex machina.

Only through the souls of a mother and her child can this clone of the Second Angel be controlled, can any Evangelion be controlled. Very few are aware of this, though – she, Naoko, and Kyoko are chief among them, and possibly Professor Fuyutsuki as well, if his reluctance to let her, his most prized pupil, go through with the contact experiment is any indication.

But everything happens as it must – it needs to be done this way. For the sake of the scenario. For the sake of Human Instrumentality. For the sake of her son.

Feeling the link between her and the presently soulless Unit 01 begin to form, she remembers an excerpt from il Sommo Poeta Durante degli Alighieri's magnum opus, Divina Commedia, in the first and most famous of its three canticas: Inferno.

'Per me si va nella citta dolente

per me si va nell'eterno dolore

per me si va tra la perduta gente

giustizia mosse il mio alto fattore

facemi la divina podestate

la soma sapienza e la primo amore

devante a me, non fuor cosa create

sei non eterno, ed io eterno duro.'

Out loud, she recites the final line in Middle Italian, saying the words: "Lasciate ogne speranza voi ch'intrate."

ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER HERE.

The contact experiment is initiated. The gates are shut. Upon them is the inscription:

GOD'S IN HIS HEAVEN

ALL'S RIGHT WITH THE WORLD

FIN

TTFN and R&R!