You Can (Not) Forget

Blackout

Misato, Mari, and their fellow Nerv personnel escorted Shinji's class to Central Dogma where the Commander was already waiting. He eyed them, scrutinizing the civilians now occupying Central Dogma, but said nothing. As this was an emergency, and he'd authorized their presence in Nerv today in the first place, becoming upset over his own decision would have been unbecoming of his station. As this happened, Rei, Shinji, and Asuka made their way to the Eva cages after changing into their plugsuits. They boarded their Evangelions, fought the Angel, and defeated it while showing Toji how wrong he was about being a pilot.

That's what was supposed to have happened, anyway. Unfortunately for everyone involved, the actual chain of events had not gone so smoothly.

On the way to Central Dogma, the lights began to flicker and before anyone knew what was going on, the lights all over Nerv went out. The students and the teachers panicked and looked to the Nerv personnel escorting them, unsure if this was supposed to be happening or not. Misato frowned as Mari looked around in the dark. Regardless of the lack of light though, Misato continued on as one of the students closest to her – Mayumi to be exact – murmured a question.

"What's going on?" asked the bespectacled girl.

"Don't know," replied Misato as casually as possible, which was actually fairly casual. She assumed the back-up generators would kick in and restore some modicum of power soon. Besides, she'd experienced enough weird crap in her life that while this was certainly unexpected, she wasn't as surprised as someone should probably be in a situation like this.

"We'll find out soon enough though, I'm sure," added Mari, sending a smile Mayumi's way; she had noticed the concerned look on Mayumi's face. Misato's words hadn't done a thing to dispel the girl's worries. Of course, the Lieutenant Colonel hadn't had any intention of doing anything like that from the beginning. She was in all business mode now, Mari noticed.

Soon after Mayumi's question, the group stopped in front of the doors to Central Dogma and it was apparent to everyone present that they weren't about to open. Misato didn't mind though. After all, she had plenty of people with her. Turning around, she addressed the students and her personnel.

"Grab hold of the doors. We need to get in and they're certainly not opening themselves," said Misato, a certain edge in her voice. She was slightly more concerned now that she'd noticed the back-up generators didn't seem to be doing their job.

A simple blackout shouldn't be able to take out the back-ups, thought Misato, scowling, something's not right about this.

~X~

Shinji frowned as he let his plug suit tighten around his body. The power had gone out shortly before the three of them had made it to the changing rooms – and it hadn't come back on. He was fairly certain that this hadn't had anything to do with the angel that had attacked shortly after the blackout in his dimension, but if nothing else he was sure about which angel would be the next of his kin to do battle with him. He hoped he'd be right, anyway.

Matarael, huh? Thought the young pilot as he made his way out of the changing room, stopping to wait in the hallway for Asuka and Rei.

Shinji remembered that one – not that Matarael had been an extraordinary challenge or anything. Matarael was only even an issue because of the blackout. Even that had more to do with the fact that Asuka was too stubborn to let Rei lead them to Central. If she'd been less concerned with being in command at the time, the three of them would have made it to their destination much faster.

But that wasn't all that important right now.

"What do you think has occurred?" Rei inquired as she approached him, her expression ever stoic.