Harumi quickly flipped a switch, muttering to herself as she moved around the control room. She had to hurry, had to move as quickly as possible. They were on a serious deadline, and any delays could be very bad for the both of them. Behind her, the door opened, Lloyd coming over to stand by her and look at what she was doing.

"How's that going, Rumi?" He whispered softly, glancing over his shoulder quickly to make sure there was no one behind them.

She frowned a bit, glancing up at him. "It's more complicated than we thought at first. I need some more time."

"Gotcha. I can do that." He gave her a quick kiss on the cheek and disappeared, closing the door behind him.

Her frown turned into more of a smile as she got back to work. Their mission was simple. Infiltrate an underground crime ring that went by the name 'The Dream Snatchers' and find out what their plan was. If possible, they were to take them down.

At this point, she wasn't very optimistic about the two of them being able to take them out alone. Get information about them? Most definitely. Unfortunately, it didn't seem like they would be able to bring it down right now, though

Carefully, she put a drive into an output and started the download, keeping an ear out for anything out of the ordinary. It was better to be cautious than to get caught off guard.

A clatter above her head drew her attention, setting off alarm bells in her brain. Slowly, she reached over behind her and drew a knife, listening closely. A second later, she was glad that she did, because right above her, she could just barely see the shadowy outline of a person.

She frowned, adjusting her grip on the knife, reaching behind her for the flash drive. "Who are you? Show yourself!"

A young woman's voice floated down to her, mocking and teasing. "Are you sure you want that, Princess? There's a reason we're called the Dream Snatchers."

Harumi frowned, trying to figure out who it was. "Is that so? That's kind of the reason why I'm here."

"Too bad you're not going to find it out." She dropped down to be level with Harumi, her black heels clicking against the metal. "Now, I suggest you give up now before you or your boyfriend gets hurt."

"Where's Lloyd?!'' Harumi snapped, bringing the knife up, ready for any attack. "Tell me now!"

The other woman laughed. "Feisty, are we? Oh well, it doesn't matter. If you really want to fight, I don't care. You'll fall, just as he did."

Harumi's worry for Lloyd intensified, gripping the knife even tighter. What had happened to him? She had to find him, now. "Where is he? Who are you?''

"You can call me Catcher." Catcher flicked an invisible speck of dust off her pants smugly. "Now, Harumi, the Quiet One, are you going to do the smart thing and give up, or no?"

"Oh, heck no. You're going to tell me what happened to Lloyd or I'm going to make you." Harumi growled, fear starting to morph more into laser sharp focus.

"I'm afraid I can't do that, Quiet One. Rest assured that he's unharmed." There was a pause in which Harumi could practically see the smirk on Catcher's face. "For now, anyways."

"If you hurt him-"

"Relax, I won't hurt him!" Catcher raised her hands innocently. "Not if you surrender right now and give me that flash drive."

"Not gonna happen. You're not going to hurt him, and you're not getting this flash drive either." Harumi's fingertips brushed the flash drive, trying to stall for time in order to allow it to download as much information as possible.

"In that case, you're going to have to choose one. Your boyfriend, or the information on that drive." Catcher extended a hand for the drive, her voice hard as stone. "Pick one, Quiet One."

The use of the name she used to go by made Harumi angry, clenching the knife even tighter. "Do not call me that."

"Isn't that who you are, though? The girl with too many secrets, the girl who still dreams about the lives she decimated?" Her voice was mocking, relentless. How did she know what Harumi dreamt about? That was impossible.

"You- don't pretend that you know what I dream about." Harumi snapped, keeping her guard up. Catcher wouldn't get under her skin, not when Lloyd was in danger.

"Oh, but what if I do? I know better than you might think." Catcher smirked, arrogance evident in her posture. "You can't win this battle, Quiet One."

"Watch me." Harumi flipped the knife in her grip, looking for weak points. "Don't you dare hurt him."

"Fine then." Catcher chuckled. "Come and get me."

Harumi barely even hesitated to lunge for her, anger shooting through her like a tidal wave. How dare she touch Lloyd! Catcher would pay for whatever she'd done to Lloyd, that much was for certain.

Everything was darkness, cradled by the pleas of someone far away, someone… familiar. Harumi couldn't move, couldn't breathe. What was wrong? Where was she?

"Harumi! Come on, please wake up…"

Lloyd!

Harumi jolted awake, every inch of her sore and in pain. She could just barely see Lloyd, sitting just beside her, a hand on her shoulder to wake her up.

"Lloyd! What happened?" Panic filtered through her again, the darkness around seeming to close around her like a cage.

Lloyd sighed in relief, brushing his hair back. "Thank goodness. You had me worried there."

Harumi slowly sat up, putting a hand to her head. First Master, she was so dizzy... "There was a woman... she wasn't much older than the two of us..."'

"Yeah, I know." Lloyd sighed, moving so he was sitting down next to her. "I met her too. Catcher, right?"

Harumi nodded once. She remembered meeting her and getting angry because of… something happening to Lloyd, but beyond that... "Lloyd, do you remember your fight with her? It's… I can't, for some reason."

He frowned, trying to think. "No, I don't. That's really odd... no, not just odd. Suspicious. How could both of us just straight up forget?"

"I have no idea." Harumi glanced around the room, slowly realizing that they were in a cell. She forced herself not to panic. It was perfectly fine, they'd get out of here easily. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but we're locked in here, right?"

"Yep, pretty tightly too. I wouldn't suggest sticking your hand between the bars."

"What? Why not?"

Lloyd raised his arm and tapped a metal bracelet that she hadn't noticed before. "You'll get electrocuted."

Harumi grimaced." Yeah, I'll pass on that one, thanks."

He grinned at her, oddly cheery despite their predicament. "Good idea. Anyways, I say we wait it out here until the others get here."

"They should be here soon, right? We must have been gone long enough that they would have noticed that something's wrong."

"I think so. It'll just be a matter of them finding us." Lloyd adjusted so he was sitting beside her more comfortably and took her hand, closing his eyes. "Which shouldn't take long, I think.''

Harumi squeezed his hand, trying to ignore how sore she was. There could only be a few reasons for why he was acting so calm. He was totally and completely confident that they would be out of here in no time at all. "How long was I out?"

"Only about an hour or so.'' He frowned a little, his eyes still closed. "The thing is, I have no idea how long I was out before you were thrown in here."

"So, in other words, we have no idea how long we've been missing.'' Harumi sighed, idly scratching a cut on the side of her neck. "That's just perfect. I hope it hasn't been too long..."

"Yeah, me too..."

They sat there for what seemed like a long time, listening to the sounds around them. Eventually, everything seemed to get deathly quiet, like the whole world was watching and waiting for something to drop, to explode.

Lloyd sat forward, opening his eyes and listening closely. "Any minute now, I think..."

Harumi smiled, adjusting so she was a bit more comfortable. "You're getting good at guessing this stuff, huh?"

"Yep! It's not hard to figure out once you know the pattern."

In fact, just as he had predicted, only a few minutes later, the door at the top of the stains opened, spilling light into the room. "Harumi? Lloyd?"

"We're in here!" Lloyd called back, keeping his voice low.

"Are you two alright?" Cole asked, coming over to smile at the both of them. "You scared us."

"We're fine, just a bit scratched up." Harumi got to her feet, keeping a hold of Lloyd's hand. "How'd you guys get in?"

"The front door, obviously." Cole activated his lava arms and ripped the door from its hinges, allowing them to come out.

"Are they down there?" Jay called from the doorway.

"Yep! Can you come down here?"

Jay appeared and grinned at the two of them. "Fancy meeting you two here!"

Lloyd grinned back. "No kidding. Can you get these off?"

"Yeah, I got it." Jay crossed to them and examined the bracelet on Lloyd's arm, eventually opening a part of it and zapping it.

Lloyd rubbed his wrist gratefully. "Thanks, Jay. How's everything up there?"

"Not bad. They all kind of... retreated. It wasn't hard to get down here."

"Seriously? Yet another thing that's unusual." Harumi frowned, letting Jay remove the cuff from her arm and chucking it into a corner. "Normally, people don't just give up like that."

"Definitely not, but I'm not arguing about it. Better to get to you two faster."

Lloyd pushed away his visible worry and nodded. "Fair enough. Let's worry about that later, we should get out of here"

Harumi bit her lip, trying to think. Why would they have just retreated like that? It didn't make any sense. Even so, she followed Lloyd up the stairs and away, filled with too many questions and worries to count.

When they got back to the Monastery, there was a dizzying flurry of activity while everyone made sure that Lloyd and Harumi were alright. It was only after they were both cleared that everything began to calm down.

Lloyd yawned, sitting at a table with Kai and Zane playing dominos. For some reason, he was feeling unusually tired tonight, even if it wasn't very late. Around the time when the game was starting to wrap up, he stretched, his eyelids heave

"I think I'm gonna turn in early. I'm exhausted." He yawned again, pushing the chair back. "Good game, you two."

Kai grinned, tossing his dominos onto the table. "Good game, especially considering that I was about to win."

"On the contrary, you were in third place." Zane calmly laid down his dominos too. "Lloyd was actually on the verge of winning."

"What?!" Kai blanched. "That's... how did you accomplish that?"

"Just a simple strategy." Lloyd got up, fighting a grin. "Now, I'm going to bed. Try not to be too loud, alright?"

"I will endeavor to keep everyone silent." Zane smiled at Lloyd. "Get some rest."

Lloyd smiled back and clapped him on the shoulder as he passed. What a day... hopefully he'd be able to get some good rest…

Harumi swung her legs lazily, sitting on the table in the garage and watching Pixal work. "But it has at least some of the information we were looking for, right?"

"Yes, it does." Pixal scrolled through the data, eyes flickering as she uploaded information. "I am impressed that you were able to procure this, Harumi. Very good job."

She flushed a bit. "Well, it wasn't that difficult. I just needed to distract her long enough. Not that I can remember doing it, but... "

"Even so, you are making admirable progress." Pixal glanced at her briefly and smiled. "I'm very proud of you."

Harumi smiled back, trying not to blush too much. "Thank you, Pix."

"Of course." With a smooth hiss, the flash drive came out of its slot. Pixal picked it up, holding it up to examine it in the light. "Just as a question, did you happen to get a description of the woman who attacked you?"

She sighed, trying to think. "I never saw her face, she was wearing a mask, but she had heels on. She called herself... Catcher, like a dreamcatcher."

"Anything else?"

Harumi leaned her head on her hands, thinking through everything that she did remember. "I… don't think so? She was confident, almost arrogant, around my height."

"Hm, I see… It seems likely that this woman was one of the higher-ups."

"How can you tell?"

"Harumi, think about it. If she were not one of the leaders, why would she introduce herself with an alias? Logically, it does not fit together."

Harumi frowned. "Huh, I guess that does make sense... it also explains how she was able to defeat both of us so easily."

"Exactly. I suspect there is much more to this than any of us knows." Pixal tucked the flash drive into a compartment and turned to face Harumi. "Hopefully, this will help us to figure it out."

"I hope so. This is certainly starting to get bigger than we thought it would at first."

"Indeed, we must be prepared." Pixal clicked the computer off, making sure all external systems were off for the night. "And on that note, I would like to suggest that you get some rest. You've had a long and tiring day."

Harumi hopped off the table, brushing her hair behind her ear. "I will. Just… not right now."

"May I ask why not?" The two went to the elevator, calling it up. "Is there something wrong?"

"Well..." Harumi leaned against the wall, allowing Pixal to press the button to go to the top floor. No matter how she tried, she couldn't say it out loud. Not yet. "I- I don't really want to talk about it right now. I'll get some rest a bit later, I promise."

Pixal frowned a bit, but didn't push the matter. "As long as you actually will, I will not press you."

"Thank you, Pix." Harumi pushed off the wall, going into the living room and flopping onto the couch. "I'm serious, though, I'm alright!"

"Of course you are. I do not doubt you."' Pixal crossed the room and opened the door, glancing briefly back at Harumi. "But, if you require a listening ear, I am here."

She smiled at the nindroid a bit. "Alright, I'll keep that in mind."'

With a final nod, Pixal disappeared, presumably to her own room. Harumi sank into the couch, brushing her hair out of her face.

Two years. So much had changed since then. She was older now, almost an adult, she had a family, a job she adored. The thought made her smile.

Even with all that, there was no way that she could forget how she'd gotten here, how many people had been hurt because of her actions...

No, she couldn't think about that. She was taking steps to atone for what she'd done. Maybe she wasn't up for going to sleep just yet, but it didn't do any good to dwell on the past.

She exhaled deeply, getting up to grab a book. All she was going to do was calm herself down before going to bed. That wouldn't be hard.

Almost three hours later, Harumi yawned, putting her book to the side and rubbing her eyes. How was it so late already? At this rate, she was going to end up pulling an all-nighter, which wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing... as long as it worked to keep the nightmares away, she would be fine.

Getting to her feet, she reached down and touched her toes, brushing her long hair out of her way. Maybe some tea was in order, some nice mint tea.

It didn't take too long for her to make the tea and came back, warming her hands on the cup. Before she could get completely comfortable again, though, the door to the living room slammed open with a loud bang, causing her to almost spill her tea all over.

"First Master, what's wrong?" When she looked up, she felt sleepy, finally. It was about time, she'd finally be able to fall asleep!

Standing in the doorway, Lloyd shook his head. "I- I don't know."

"You don't know?" Harumi put the cup down on a side table, getting to her feet again to go over to him. He really didn't look so good...

Lloyd shook his head again, his bright green eyes sleepy and filled with panic. "No, but it's- it's bad. Something's not right, Rumi."

Harumi gently took his arm, guiding him to where she had been sitting. "Come on, sit down. You're so pale." Even as she said it, a wave of exhaustion went through her, making her shiver.

"It's not just me, then?" Lloyd sat down on the couch, rubbing his eyes sleepily. "You can feel it too?"

"I mean, I'm just really tired, if that's what you mean:" Harumi turned to pick up her tea again. "I feel fine other than that."

Lloyd frowned, more panicked than she'd seen him in a long time. "No, that's exactly it. It's not right, there's something horribly, horribly wrong."

She shook her head. "You're not making any sense. What's wrong?"

"I- I think they did something while we were unconscious." He rubbed his eyes, looking totally and completely exhausted. "I don't know what, but that's the only plausible explanation."

Harumi took a slow sip of her tea, having to make more of an effort to keep her eyes open. Going to sleep sounded really nice at the moment... "Making us sleepy isn't exactly something that benefits anyone, though."

"Not unless- " Lloyd yawned suddenly, stretching. His eyes drifted shut for a second before snapping open again. "First Master… unless they could…"

She blinked, sleep starting to weigh heavily on her. What was going on? She'd never felt so sleepy all of the sudden like this before. "Unless what?"

"Unless they could somehow keep us asleep." Lloyd looked almost like he was about to pass out, nodding off where he sat.

"No, don't- " Harumi yawned again, having a hard time keeping a grip on her mug. "Don't fall asleep. who knows..." She trailed off, sleep coming in a crashing wave and knocking her off her feet and down, down.

The last thing she heard before sleep claimed her was the crash of broken pottery and her boyfriend shouting her name.

Behold! I am not dead! Instead, I have been working on doing this and getting it together asap. This is based off a really old rp that OLS and I did ages ago, but I wanted to add more to it and make it a bit more coherent.

Not to worry, peeps! This is only part one of two, I'm currently in the middle of writing part two, and it will hopefully be up at some point soon! Hopefully. You know how this stuff goes sometimes XD.

Anyways, if you liked it, feel free to drop me a review! I'd love to hear your thoughts!