AN: Somehow I've found the time to update! I don't have much to say this time around, other than I've edited the previous chapter to make up for its issues. I didn't change *too* much, but hopefully what was changed has helped it (and thanks for telling me how to fix it!). This chapter was written over the last two weeks in bits and pieces, and I had to go through it a lot to make sure they were smoothed together. Lyle's bit is short, but I didn't want to add too much when I feel that what is there got the point across.I hope that shows and that my stress at the moment didn't permeate the chapter. The Katharon/Rev/Deiter 'chapter' will be closing up soon, so don't worry, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Also, a small side note about Karen/Deiter's names that was brought up in a pm: I know they aren't correct to German, but that was intentional. Gundam likes to play with names and spellings, so I changed them around a bit. I hope that clears up anyones confusion!

Answer Game

The halls of Katharon's residential quarters were silent. There was barely any sound in the concrete-and-dust passageways, and from time to time the ancient fluorescent lighting flickered, almost to remind those living there that the lights were nearly two-centuries past their retirement date. Many of Katharon's bases were expanded around centuries-old military bunkers left over from various major wars, and this one was no different. Some sections of the base were pristine, well-painted, and modern. Those were reserved for children, food, and parts that couldn't be handled properly in dim lighting. The rest of the base was barely hiding its ancient roots; plaster walls that barely hid the carved rock and wooden passageways from centuries before. It was eerie, yet at the same time a cold reminder that wars had been fought for too long already.

Reverie walked the halls slowly, her footsteps echoing and breaking the electric silence of the hall. Haro rolled calmly next to her, somehow not in the mood for his usual incessant chatter. She was headed to Deiter's room, but she wasn't paying particular attention to where she was going. She was being pulled from dream to dream along the halls as she thought about the events of the day.

She was in the wrong.

The thought made her press her lips into a thin line. She knew that she was wrong, and she hated herself for it. She'd never been one to raise her voice at her brother, for starters. She'd also never seen herself one day saying things just to hurt him. Finally, she hated the way that she flew off the handle whenever her father was brought up. She didn't want to, but just like when she couldn't sleep, she wasn't quite herself when her father was brought up. It wasn't just her error that made her upset, though.

Where she was wrong, Deiter was right.

He was right that she'd stayed as far away from her family as possible after their father's death. From outward appearances she'd moved on. She'd completed school, gone on to complete further education, worked with the AEU Defence Force, and after her accident she'd disappeared. In reality, she'd been running since the day she left his funeral.

She bit her lip when she realized she was at the right door. Haro bumped into her leg, apparently as spaced out as she'd been. He didn't speak, but flapped his ears to steady himself. She knocked lightly on the door.

"Didi?" she questioned softly. Part of her hoped he hadn't heard her; that meant it wasn't too late to run. She shook her head. No, she couldn't run anymore. If she was going to be useful to anyone; CB, Katharon, Deiter, herself…she had to start accepting responsibility for her screw-ups. Sumeragi had made her realize it, and ever since she couldn't get the idea out of her head.

She knocked again, louder this time. "Deiter, can I come in?"

"Yeah. I wasn't sleeping anyways." He pulled the door open. "Karen I'm-!"

"Don't say it. I'm sorry." she cut him off with a hug.

When she pulled away, he scratched his head in confusion. "Well… I can't say I expected that." He quipped, barely hiding a subtle smirk.

"I'm sorry." she repeated, this time for her surprise visit in the middle of the night.

"Stop saying that. It sounds weird, coming from you."

"I'm sorr-!"

"Jeez, you're terrible at taking direction. Come on." He dragged her into the room and sat down on the bed with his back against the wall. She looked at him curiously for a moment before he patted the space next to him. "Just like when we were kids. Sit down." She silently wondered when he'd decided to become the older sibling.

She listened and they found themselves staring at the wall in silence. She could hear him going through the conversation that he'd pictured over and over again, throwing pieces out and adding to others. She tried to block him out as best as possible, but she hadn't slept since the day before and it was already wearing her tediously thin. She sighed.

"Deiter I-!"

"Have I ever told you how I felt after dad died?" he asked, cutting her off. He'd never told her. Even when they were young he'd avoided the topic avidly, and she'd always wondered how he'd really felt under the surface. Sometimes she wondered if he felt it at all.

"No, you haven't."

"I imagine it was the same as you were feeling, or something close. I mean, I was a lot younger than you, so I didn't understand it the same way most likely, but I knew that he was gone." She swallowed. "I watched Mom busy herself with the funeral obsessively, like the most important decision in her life was whether or not to pick blue or yellow flowers. I saw our relatives drift in and out of the house, sometimes shaking their heads, other times in a rush as though it was a chore. Most of all I saw that dad's things disappeared one-by-one from the house as though they'd never existed. It was like… he was being erased."

She bit her lip. She'd seen the same thing, day-in-day out. She didn't want to, but it was painfully obvious that their mother was trying to erase the things that pained her, their father's things. His memory.

"I was scared to bring up my memories of him because somehow I thought that she could erase those, too. Like maybe if I brought up my memories of the carnival we went to, or him dropping me at school, or his visit for career day, that she'd somehow be able to pull them right out of my head. I could see her getting more and more upset each time you brought him up, and sure enough, you disappeared."

Her eyes widened. "Didi, Mom didn't chase me out of the house for remembering dad." Had he really thought that when he was younger?

"I know, she didn't do it intentionally anyways. I mean, we always knew that I was her little boy and you were daddy's girl. It wasn't hard to see that looking at you hurt her. I always hoped that you couldn't see it…" His face was a mixture of apology and pity, as though he felt bad for speaking the truth.

"I know she didn't mean to." Reverie barely whispered. "I know she tried to hide it."

He nodded. "I knew you were going to leave. We'd always known that you were closer to Dad than I ever was, or even at times than Mom had ever been, and I knew it was a matter of time. I remember not being surprised at all when you dragged Mom away from my eighth birthday party to show her the pamphlet you'd found for a French high school program in Marseilles." She flinched inside. She'd always assumed that Deiter was too young to have understood what she was talking about. "And to be honest, part of me was happy."

"Why?" It sounded like the dumbest question she'd ever asked.

"Because I knew I could never match your grief. Even now you wear it like a martyr's cloak."

His words stung. "Deiter, that isn't true."

"Isn't it? Look me in the eye and tell me you've moved on." He said flatly.

She glared at him. "Fine." She softened her glare when she realized that she was starting to put her walls up again. Now wasn't the time.

"It's not fine. It isn't healthy and it's hurting you. You can't tell me that the grudge you're carrying isn't tearing you apart."

She wanted to snap again, but she focused on keeping calm. What he was saying was true. She knew that. Still, the urge to be defensive was almost overwhelming. "I think I have other issues that are doing a good enough job of that already." She said slowly, pressing a finger to her forehead.

"Which is exactly why you don't need to be carrying around this anger."

There he was, her eighteen-year-old wise-man brother. She wasn't sure why he was piloting when he was a master of playing therapist. Still, he was right, wasn't he?

"I can't let it go." She said. "Not yet."

"Why? So you can keep your grudge against Bruns?" he asked knowingly. "displacing your anger like this isn't going to help you, Karen… it's going to eat you alive."

"I have my own reasons for hating Bruns, Deiter. I'm not displacing my anger."

"Keep telling yourself that, Karen. If Bruns really is the lowlife you keep insisting that he is, why spend so much time and attention on him?"

"I…." she didn't know how to retort to that, though she wanted to. She closed her mouth. "I don't know, alright?"

He shrugged. "Alright. Just make sure you think about that, Ka."

They sat in silence for a moment before he stood. "I have to get back to bed, I've gotta test-run the GN-X tomorrow, but I want you to take this." He pulled a small wooden box off the shelf that ran along the other wall in his room. He opened it and dug through it with a finger before pulling out a long metal chain with two tags at the end. She knew what it was immediately.

"Dad's unit tags…" She thought they'd been lost with him in the fire.

"I hid them when Mom was getting rid of his things and I've kept them with me ever since."

"Why would you give them to me?" she asked, holding out her hand when he held the chain over her. He dropped the tags and put the box away.

"Maybe if you wear his tags as a memory you'll stop carrying his death."

His tone was wistful, but the message sharp. She turned them over in her hand as she stood. She remembered playing with them when she was a child, and they looked just as they did the last time she'd seen them. She closed her fist around them. "Didi?"

"hm?"

She hugged him again. "Thank-you."

She left before he could see the tears in her eyes.

Lyle cursed as he lost his shot again. The A-Laws were attacking Ptolemy, and so far they'd been relentless. He and Tieria had been fighting non-stop for what had to be at least a few hours. Only having two machines put them at a severe disadvantage… one they were feeling intensely. The pitch-black of night surrounding Ptolemy added to the ominous setting, and the flashes from beam weapons and shots were almost swallowed up. If there was one bright side to the situation, it was that he didn't have to rely on eyesight to fight; Cherudim's night optics were fantastic.

As excellent as Cherudim's technology was, it couldn't make-up for the intense situation that he was currently embroiled in. The A-Laws telepath was present, and he'd decided to doggedly pursue Lyle again. It was confusing and irritating and strange all at once. The other pilot fought as though Lyle was the only opponent on the field, and worked with blatant disregard for any of his comrades. More than that though, it was obvious that he wanted something specific from Lyle. He wasn't attacking to kill, he was attacking to immobilize Cherudim.

"You're right, Lyle Dylandy."

That voice, his voice rang through the comms as he twisted and dodged away from the offending suit's attacks. The voice was the most irritating piece of all. Since he'd arrived Lyle had been battling a sickening feeling in his gut, and it had stopped him from taking chances to destroy the offending suit. As he dodged and evaded and tried not to attack, one question turned over and over in his mind.

What if the man wasNeil?

Could he really pull the trigger if he had doubts? Would he ever be able to let it rest without knowing? What if he pulled the trigger and learned that it really was Neil on the other end? He couldn't risk it. He couldn't pull the trigger, that much was certain. The only option that was left was to dodge the deep green suit and wait for a chance to immobilize it. Somehow, they were playing the same game. Shoot, dodge, slash, parry. Never land a hit that can kill.

He didn't know how the fight would end, but he was sure of one thing: both of them would make it out.

Although she was reaching exhaustion, Reverie didn't want to be put under yet. Her conversation with Deiter had left her with a mix of feelings that she didn't know how to process and she wanted to take whatever time she could, alone, to think about them. The dreams of those around her were flitting through her consciousness here and there, interrupting her thoughts with their interjections. Although the dreams were getting difficult to block out, it was peaceful.

She was lying back on her bed, twirling her father's tags around her finger. The quite whoosh of their motion somehow added to the atmosphere as she watched the iron tags spin. She and Deiter had talked out their confrontation from earlier in the day, but she still felt like it hadn't been resolved. She knew that Deiter was fine, the trouble lay with her. She still felt defensive about what he'd said, and it angered her. She shouldn't have been so quick to snap, and she'd never thought of how her words would hurt him when she said them. It was so unlike her that she felt embarrassed. She knew more than anyone how important it was to screen words…she heard them un-screened all day, and she'd used those burning, sharp words on her little brother. Her family.

"Visitor! Visitor!" Haro quietly chirped, interrupting her thoughts.

"I doubt it Haro, go back to bed." She would have heard a visitor's thoughts, so it was out of the question that anyone was standing outside her door.

"Visitor! Visitor!" it insisted, rolling to the door and spinning in front of it. She stopped spinning her father's tags and listened to the silence of the room to appease the little bot. She'd expected silence to confirm her suspicions, but it wasn't silent. She could hear a faint whirring noise outside her door, likely radiating from down the hall. It was probably someone cleaning, or one of the kids playing with a toy when they should have been asleep, she decided. Regardless, she knew Haro wouldn't be quiet about it until she'd investigated. She slipped the tags around her neck, pulled the door open with a bit of frustration, and stepped out into the hall.

The whirring had disappeared around the next corner and she walked with brisk, unhindered strides towards it, Haro following along. It definitely sounded like a mechanical floor-cleaner. She wondered who would bother cleaning halls that were made of a material that seemed to shed dust, but shrugged it off. One could try, right?

She turned the corner with feigned irritation, then stopped dead in her tracks. Froze in her tracks.

An automaton.

Not even ten feet in front of her, in all its terrifying, towering steel glory. Her breath caught in her throat and she forced herself to exhale slowly. She couldn't panic this time, though the urge to was almost overwhelming.

Its camera was turned away from her, and she knew that if she was silent she could sneak back around the corner and alert the rest of the base. If there was one of them, there were bound to be more, and the faster the others knew, the better. She was about to turn and leave when she saw something that made her breath draw in again.

The door to the children's area was open and casting a sole light across the hall. It was the worst possible scenario. Someone was awake in there, and the machine was steadily advancing. Her stomach turned anxiously as she listened for the person in the room.

-I wonder why he needs a story every time he wakes up. What could have happened to him to create such terrible nightmares?-

Marina.

She was unwittingly baiting an automaton with the shadows that danced out the door of the daycare room. She had to think of something immediately, But what? She was having trouble hearing herself think… how the hell was she supposed to take on an automaton!? She shook her head to clear the doubt-inducing tone.

"Haro, go warn Marina about the visitor, alright?" she quietly instructed the white ball. It spun and flapped its ears before rolling determinedly down the hall. Now she just had to distract the giant killing machine.

"HEY!" she yelled and advanced on the machine. She'd have to stay out of the way of its camera so it couldn't aim, but she had to get it away from that room. She darted to the machine and gave it a thorough kick to get its attention. 'Dammit!' Her foot throbbed painfully as punishment for her recklessness, but she didn't have time to nurse it as the machine started to turn. Seeing its bright red camera reminded her that this wasn't the brightest idea she'd ever had. 'Stupid, stupid, stupid!' She'd have to make do with her terrible idea. She heard the whirring of its camera focusing and sprinted around the corner as quickly as she could. It swerved and raced after her. 'Yes!' Her heart was pounding in her ears as she heard it smash into the wall behind her. She tripped on a chunk of off-cast rock and was thrown off her feet hard enough to make her teeth crack together painfully. Though stunned from the sudden impact she rolled, got up as quickly as she could, and sprinted again with the machine in pursuit. Three long strides later she made it to her door and slid in. A second later half her doorframe was missing as the automaton swiped by.

A cloud of dust and rubble filled her room and she found herself fumbling blindly for her handgun, fingers trembling. She was shaking and her breath was coming out in strained gasps, but she wasn't panicking this time. She slipped a hand under her pillow and grabbed the handgun that she'd placed there. The antique pistol in her vest would do nothing against the steel killing machine, but the energy-pulse handgun that she'd retrieved stood a chance. She pressed herself to the wall closest to her destroyed door and listened to the hallway. The dust in the air burned her lungs and her own wheezing made listening difficult, but she could hear it. The slow, methodical, mechanical buzz of its camera searching through the haze made her shiver. It rolled closer, closer, closer, until she was deathly sure that it was on the other side of the slowly crumbling wall. She squeezed her eyes shut, raised her pistol and-!

Shots cracked through the air and bright flashes of light filtered past her eyelids. The repetitive crack of automatic fire filled the hallway with deafening sound and she raised a hand to shield herself from the bits of plaster that fell from the ceiling in response to the sharp sound. The shots cut off abruptly and footsteps took their place.

"Reverie Traum!"

"Shirin?" Reverie opened her eyes, lowered her weapon, and leaned past the rubble-filled hall. The automaton was lying in a twisted heap at the far end of the hall, and sure enough, Shirin was making her way towards her. Her automatic rifle was slung over her shoulder, a second hung loosely in her grip, and she seemed to be completely fine.

"Are you alright?"

Reverie nodded. "Yeah, I'm fine. What's going on?" She could hear people's minds shifting as they awoke, and her body hummed with the nervous energy that the countless Katharon members were feeling. No one really knew what was happening, and the voices started to swirl almost painfully in her head. She took a deep breath and tried to separate her thoughts from the others.

"It's A-Laws, they're after the high-profile political targets we're housing here. Take this and follow me." Reverie caught the heavy automatic weapon and the two spare magazines that the woman handed her. She turned one of them over and examined it. The training Lyle had given her told her that it was an antique weapon that had been modified to take high-powered energy-pulse ammunition. That explained how it was able to take out the A-Laws killing machine. She slipped the battery-mags into her vest and followed Shirin out of the hall.

"If they're after high-profile targets, why are they sending Automatons?"

"The Automatons aren't set to kill-mode, they're set to immobilize."

That would make more sense. She could feel herself trying to figure out what their plan of attack would be from a forecasting perspective, but she couldn't isolate her thoughts enough to really form any kind of conclusions. She pressed a hand to her head and squeezed her eyes shut briefly. "What are you doing in response?" it was hard to hear her voice properly over the chatter behind her eyes. Shirin pointed to her head.

-We're mo-What time is it, my alar-the A-Laws are in th-the vice minister! One shot…- Reverie shook her head and placed a hand firmly on the woman's shoulder. She'd been awake long enough that the thoughts were starting to reach their first state of jumbled confusion. Whenever she reached the twenty-four hour mark of wakefulness, the thoughts competed with each other in a confusing array of incompletes. She was a few hours shy of that point, but the shock of finding an automaton and outrunning it must have used up whatever energy she'd had minutes before. Physical contact was the only solution at the moment. "Sorry." She apologized.

Shirin nodded. -We're moving you all to shelters, and our forces are clearing the tunnels.- "I'm sorry that I can't explain out-loud…" –The A-Laws have men moving through the tunnels as we speak-

"And me?" she asked, walking alongside the woman with her hand still loosely resting on her shoulder.

-You'll be going to one of the shelters.-

Reverie raised an eyebrow. "I'm sure I could be of better use to you than that." She didn't like the idea of having to sit back and wait while other people fought, especially when she could give the Katharon members an advantage.

-I read your file. The fact that you've reached a point where you need physical contact says that you can't be of use right now.- They stopped by a large chunk of fallen ceiling tile and Shirin pulled it aside to reveal a glistening steel door. –Get inside, I'll lock you in.- Marina and the children were already inside and the princess held them protectively as the door opened. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw who had opened it.

"Are you sure that's the best idea?" Reverie asked, returning to their conversation. Still, she could hear the unconvincing tone of her own voice. She needed to sleep, if only a short nap. The problem with that idea was that battles were usually very short.

-I can't focus on fighting if I'm worried that you're going to be caught, and neither can the rest of the crew, your brother included.-

She couldn't argue, and she would have asked the same thing of anyone else given the situation. She nodded and stepped through the door as a familiar drone started to tug at the back of her mind. "You may want to ready your pilots, I can hear Pseudo-drives on the way."

Shirin nodded and closed the door.