AN: So...it's been a terribly long time. I kept promising that my insane update rate would slow down, and it has! Life has gotten majorly in the way of my writing time, and I had to step back from a lot of things for a few months. I had a case of "writer's fear" about this chapter as it's so pivotal to the story. I'm equally excited and worried about the upcoming chapters, but I'm really scared that I won't write them properly and will lose the tone I want. Regardless, things are coming. We're now in the 4-month break, so there's going to be quite a bit that wasn't in canon listed here. Please bear with me as my updates will not be frequent, I apologize in advance. I'm writing my thesis at the moment, and have four months to get it perfectly finished for initial review! After that I may have more free time to write as frequently as before.

On another note, THANK-YOU to those of you who reviewed during my hiatus, you guys are golden and are a lot of the reason that this story stayed in my head these past four months instead of being forgotten. I really hope you enjoy the second half of this story as much as the first. Eventually I'll be posting a fully edited/altered version of this story on AO3, but for now that's off in the future. I think a lot of my writer's block occurred as Reverie is starting to annoy me as a character, so I took her back to the drawing board and am going to be altering the original plan I had for her in the second half.

I've been struggling with this chapter for a long time, writing and re-writing chunks. I decided today that enough was enough, and it was time to post the 8th re-write of the chapter or I'd never move on.

I hope you enjoy, and please let me know what you think!

When Push becomes Shove

"Was it you or I who stumbled first? It does not matter. The one of us who finds the strength to get up first, must help the other."

-Vera Nazarian

There was something so eerily clean about the NILE system. White walls were illuminated in white light, leading to pristine white floors and clear, mark free glass. The chair in the console unit was stark white, and even the cables that had previously given the room technological color had been carefully tucked and stashed away behind white panels.

The noise of the room reminded Reverie of the dim hum of a recovery unit. A little electrical, a little lonely, and mostly silent. It reminded her that she'd become alone.

Her brother was gone, her step-father had run halfway around the world, and her mother had never been someone that she could rely on, especially after her last visit home. She was alone again, but she didn't mind, not yet. The crew of Ptolemy had become her family over the past months, giving advice, making sure she was all right, including her and becoming her closest friends. That was changing, mainly due to her own selfishness, but she couldn't pull the emotion out of her heart to care.

She was apathetic.

She couldn't feel anything anymore, at least not right now. She didn't feel happy, but she didn't feel sad. The two weeks following Deiter's death had ripped her to pieces from the inside and grief had threatened to consume her. Now, three weeks later, it had. There was a hollow space where all of her feelings should have been, but she didn't mind. It was… clean. Clean and neat, like the NILE system.

Letters flashed across the large screen opposite her and she manoeuvered her map to see the training zone outside the ship. The Meisters were training, safely hidden in the magnetic dead-zone of the asteroid belt surrounding Lagrange eight. After a set of attacks on two of Celestial Being's remote supply locations Ptolemy had been on edge. It was clear that someone was coming for them, and they were going to be ready. The scheduled training sessions had also become a way to relieve the tension on-board which had been steadily mounting since the Katharon attacks. Everyone was on-edge and everyone had something on their personal plates, not that anyone was talking about it.

She watched as Hallelujah attacked Setsuna mercilessly, becoming frustrated as Setsuna seemingly danced around his blows and countered his attacks with calculated precision. Hallelujah was no easy opponent, but Setsuna had been changing slowly, in a way that Reverie couldn't exactly explain. Tieria hadn't launched and was still inside toying with Seravee's calibration, so the giant mecha was nowhere to be seen. Flashes of green and white caught her eye, and she shifted her map back to black space.

"If you need to get it off your chest…"

Lyle.

Her eyes flicked shut.

Lyle was the last one left on-board who was trying to mend the relationships around them. She wanted to go to him. As soon as he'd offered a shoulder she'd wanted to burst into tears and tell him everything she felt, but she knew it was better not to. She knew that the support she needed – no, wanted – from him was something that he couldn't give her. It was better to leave him be and deal with the pain on her own. She'd dealt with this pain before, the pain of losing a family member and the pain of her ability, and she knew that she could deal with it again. She had to; it was the only way she knew.

She keyed her report through to the bridge and then slipped her hands back into the system. It was the same as the last eight hourly reports, but she needed to feel like she was doing something. Soon it would be time for her sedation again but she didn't bother keeping track of time.

She'd started sleeping less and less lately. It was easy to do; miss a shot here, get caught up in work there… deep down, she knew that it was dangerous. She was a wreck when she didn't sleep, and Celestial Being would suffer if she wasn't at her best. Still, she could rationalize for the rest of time and still miss her sedation. The truth was that she didn't feel like she deserved to sleep. It was too peaceful. She was angry that she couldn't dream. She should have had nightmares, terrors, woken up missing Deiter and mourning his loss, but she couldn't. She slept as peacefully as a coma patient and woke up to the same empty void.

"- Promise you'll let me go. -"

She clenched her teeth as the memory of Deiter's thought surfaced. He'd backed her into a corner. She couldn't feel guilty for his death, and yet she couldn't accept that there was no one to blame. Her hands clenched inside the gel-like conductive substance that connected her to the ship's power.

"Heart-rate rising! Heart-rate rrrising!" Haro chirped.

The little robot's voice brought her out of her thoughts and her hands released. She couldn't let herself get angry, it wouldn't accomplish anything other than prolonging the memories. She sunk back into the strange absence of emotion that she'd been desperately trying to maintain. She looked up at Haro, who was happily floating about on the other side of the system. He was watching her work and keeping tabs on her health, she knew. She still held a bit of a grudge against the white ball for knocking her out after Deiter's suit had exploded, but the bot had been earning its stripes back. It had started leaving out its accusations and berating, but she supposed that could have been because she'd been working non-stop. Who knew. Regardless, she was appreciating the little robot more lately. She watched him float along the other side of the glass, jealous of the bot's lack of emotional understanding.

Her eyebrow raised a fraction as she realized that she was jealous of a robot. Wasn't that ridiculous.

"Haro, start system reboot."

The ball swerved and watched her through the glass. "Initializing!"

She slipped out of the operating chair and stretched. It would take seven minutes for the system to refresh itself, if not longer as she'd been running it non-stop. Seven minutes was a perfect amount of time for a coffee break – one of the few things that still got her excited.

She wasn't surprised to find that the halls were empty. With the Meisters running training everyone would be on the bridge or casually hovering around their battle stations. Had she not already been in the NILE system, she would have made her way there out of habit.

She picked up an anti-gravity mug from the neatly arranged stack near the coffee dispenser. They currently had false gravity, but she didn't want to end up chasing coffee around the halls if that were to change. She leaned against the counter and looked at the deserted cafeteria.

So much had changed since she'd first arrived on-board Ptolemy. She'd eaten at these tables dozens – hundreds of times, and she hadn't ever imagined how the world would change. She sighed. Her world had shifted dramatically, but they were all still so far from changing reality for everyone. They could do it, right? Sometimes she wasn't sure that they were chasing an attainable goal. Could peace be attained through armed conflict? The longer they tried, the crazier it felt.

The hair on the back of her neck stood on-end. Her thoughts were interrupted as a twinge of a familiar sound shifted the air in the cafeteria. She bristled.

'Pseudo Drive.'

She dashed towards the NILE system, her introspection over. The droning hadn't reached a painful level yet, she could barely feel it in her head. She skidded to a halt outside the room as she realized that the system was still rebooting. 'Dammit!' She'd waited for this attack for days and they managed to catch her in seven minutes on a break. She turned on her heel and ran for the bridge as the droning became louder, and she felt a twinge of pain behind her ears.

Why were they only sending one drive? Was it scouting the area? If they had known where Ptolemy was the A-Laws would have sent multiple suits in the hopes of overpowering them. This was strange.

She skidded through the doors of the bridge, apparently having caught Sumeragi just as she returned.

"Reverie?"

"There's a pseudo drive on its way." she said, trying to catch her breath. She wasn't panicked yet, one suit wasn't something they'd have to worry about terribly.

"Only one?"

Reverie nodded. "It may be a scout."

"And the NILE system?" Sumeragi asked, sliding quickly into her seat.

"Scheduled re-boot. They caught us blind."

"Not quite blind." Sumeragi said. Reverie thought she almost heard a smile in her voice. "This is the best scenario we could have hoped for."

Reverie looked up at the battle ground layout, and the three gundams that were sitting in formation. Her forecaster's mind saw the same upside that Sumeragi did. "The battleground is perfect camoflauge."

Sumeragi nodded and relayed the information to the Meisters. They would attack only if necessary and would focus their attention on drawing conflict away from Ptolemy and Lagrange Eight. They couldn't risk another incident like the one at Lagrange three, Celestial Being might not survive the hit.

"As long as it's just the one suit we can keep Tieria back. There's no point signalling our location by releasing a Gundam."

Reverie nodded. She appreciated Sumeragi verbally including her in her thought process, it wasn't something that she was obligated to do. "I don't think there's any need for him if this is a scouting mission."

-This is no scouting mission, Reverie.-

The voice in her head made her freeze, teasing and chastising her at the same time. It wasn't a scout, it was Gallagher. She cursed under her breath "It's not a scout." She said, glancing at Sumeragi. "It's the A-Laws telepath."

The forecaster sighed. "This may not be an easy ride after-all." Sumeragi had copies of all the information that Tieria and Reverie could muster about the A-Laws captain. He was a wildcard, and Sumeragi wasn't sure if he could even be called a member of the A-Laws. His allegiance with them seemed to be of convenience, not obedience.

"Communications request incoming from the A-Laws mobile suit!" Feldt turned from her station.

Sumeragi's eyes narrowed. "Accept it."

Within seconds Gallagher's masked face was grinning at the bridge from the main screen. He looked as full-of-himself as ever, which couldn't be a good thing at all. "Sumeragi Lee Noriega" he greeted, his tone almost insulting. "Celestial Being's fine tactical forecaster. I think I'm going to make a masterpiece tactical problem for you today."

Reverie was focusing on the man's thoughts, but that was proving more difficult than she ever could have imagined. His thoughts were fragments of pictures, strong memories, and anger. She couldn't pick a coherent thought from his head. –ah ah ah, you can hear what I want you to hear, Reverie.-

She glared at the masked face on the screen. She didn't know how he'd come to that conclusion, but she was going to prove him wrong. He had no way of knowing what she was capable of hearing.

"Ailin Gallagher, I don't think we've met before." Sumeragi replied, oblivious to the silent conversation occurring next to her.

"I think you'd be surprised by how wrong you are, Leesa." Sumeragi bit back her surprise. It wasn't a stretch to imagine that he knew her real name. "That's irrelevant to the current situation, though."

"What is the current situation?" She replied, not enjoying being forced to dig for information.

Reverie was digging as quickly as she could through the mess of thoughts that were ricocheting around in his head. He seemed dishevelled, his uniform was askew and beads of sweat slipped from under his mask. There was something very wrong with him, that much was obvious. She felt like she was an inch away from understanding what it was.

Gallagher continued despite Reverie's determined glare. "Before I tell you what I want, I want to explain exactly how helpless you currently are at the moment. I know the locations of all of your operating bases, the names of your contacts both on Earth and in space, and I know the identities of many of your operatives. I have space coordinates for your supply caches, and your emergency docking locations. I haven't disclosed this information to any member of the A-Laws as of yet, but I could very easily be persuaded to."

Sumeragi's brow furrowed. It didn't make any sense for him to withhold the information that could bring Celestial Being down. Wasn't that what he wanted?

"I want you to try to take me down, Celestial Being." He sneered. "If that's possible."

Throbbing pain split through Reverie's skull and her head crashed into her hands as the force of the droning increased. There were more drives on their way. She groaned. "He's not alone!" She couldn't pinpoint how many. "Twelve, thirteen… " she focused harder. "Fifteen other drives!"

She heard Sumeragi swear in her head.

Gallagher grinned maliciously, then shrugged. "I can't control who follows me. I cancontrol your information, however. Try to flee, and I'll share it all. Destroy me, and your precious information falls with me." The communication link closed and the screen returned to its view of the mobile suits in space.

"Dammit!" The forecaster's fist hit her desk.

Reverie watched her from the corner of her eye. Sumeragi was being forced to play murderer, and it wasn't a game she enjoyed. The only option for the protection of Celestial Being was to take Gallagher's bait. "This doesn't make any sense!" Sumeragi stated, frustrated.

"I think he wants something different." Reverie interjected, watching the main screen as she held her head. "There's something very wrong with his thoughts, I can't understand what he's thinking."

"What do you mean?"

Reverie shook her head. "It's all jumbled. Bits and pieces of everything he remembers… I can't clearly hear him." It was like nothing she'd ever felt before; it was almost as though there were two people in his head.

"Will you be able to?"

She didn't have time to answer as she locked onto a coherent stream of thought, and the bridge disappeared from around her. It was a memory of his that she'd never seen before, and she realized she was witnessing it through his eyes. He was staring at a ceiling through one eye, head throbbing to a beat that was unfamiliar to him. The room around him was a foggy blur of odd shapes and patterns that his mind refused to organise. Voices and beeping sounds were vibrating through the air but he couldn't make out what they were saying or what they meant. He was so confused and groggy… it was like a piece of his brain had shut down. A hand held his eye open and ran a flashlight past it once, twice, three times. A surgeon's masked face floated in his periphery, then the room faded away. She opened her eyes. She didn't know where she had just been in Gallagher's mind, but she knew that he was fighting the memory and trying to stay lucid as he piloted the suit. She could feel his exhaustion and realized that it had taken all of his self-control to keep his calm exterior during his conversation with Sumeragi. In reality, he was as far from calm as he could get.

He was breaking down.

Reverie's eyes widened as she understood what was happening. Suddenly it made sense. "I think… he's starting to remember who he is!" That realization opened the floodgates of Gallagher's mind and now she could choose between his memories and his thoughts! She could have jumped for joy.

"If that's the case, what does he want?!" Sumeragi asked, fingers flying over her console as she relayed her plan to the Meisters.

"I'm not sure yet." Calming down, Reverie pushed through the flashing, vivid memories; pain, confusion, crushing sadness, the mask. She saw his ascent into space, and felt his destructive, determined glee. She sliced the memories from his thoughts and emotion. They were all focused on one thing: Lyle.

Find Lyle, Fight Lyle, kill Lyle.

Her eyes widened as she narrowed on his plan.

"He's here to kill Lyle!"

Neil Dylandy's memories were coming faster and stronger than ever before but Gallagher didn't care. Today was his day to kill or be killed. He'd decided long ago that his life would end as it had begun: in violence. He knew that the day he died would be the final platform for his destruction, the final curtain call, the chance for him to release all his hate, all his anger, and all his thirst for blood. He smirked. He'd imagined his death, but he'd never imagined such a perfect target for his last soliloquy of rage.

Lyle Dylandy was his chosen target, and he would destroy anything that got in his way.

Gallagher was a freight train of fury flying off badly hewn tracks, and he'd crush and burn anything he touched. The thought made him giddy and filled the cockpit with laughter. He was in his final hour and he'd never felt such joy in his life.

"Where are you, Gundam Cherudim?" he challenged, opening his communications to include all suits around him. Would the pilot come out to greet him, or would he hide? Surely Reverie Traum had passed his ill-intentions along by now; he wasn't trying to hide them.

A flash of green and white crossed his screen as Cherudim shot past him in all of its indignant, snarkish glory.

"Why don't you and I go somewhere we won't be interrupted?"

Lyle's voice – his voice - carried through his comms. Gallagher knew that the Meister's real goal was to draw him away from Ptolemy and the Celestial Being base, but he didn't care. After he was done ripping Cherudim to shreds he could return for the rest. Gallagher grinned. "That suits me just fine."

He shot after the suit and opened fire, not giving the green and white titan time to turn around. The Gundam dodged the shots with relative ease and Gallagher laughed. He knew Lyle wouldn't fall that quickly, it was a message. I'm not playing this time.

Lyle received it.

Steel hit steel. For the first time in their encounters, the two suits clashed with intent to kill. Shots were fired only if they were meant to hit, slashes were aimed to dismember instead of maim, and the groaning of the metal around Gallagher told him that they were fighting with speed that neither had attempted before.

Dodge, hit, shoot, dodge, repeat; over and over again.

"If I didn't know better, I'd say Reverie let you in on my little secret." Gallagher bit through gritted teeth as he dodged expertly placed shots. His body whined at the force of the movement, and he faintly registered that his nose was bleeding.

"Maybe I just decided I'm sick of dealing with you." Lyle's tone cut across the link, strained and dark. He was angry! Good. Gallagher liked that. The man wasn't lying. The deadly precision of his strikes were testament to just how badly he wanted to be rid of Gallagher. He wanted to kill Lyle, and if the rage of Lyle's attacks were any indication, he wanted to kill Gallagher just as much.

Almost.

"Why don't we take guns out of the equation?" Gallagher yelled, throwing his rifle into a nearby asteroid. It exploded on impact and sent bits and pieces of debris between them destructive hail. The rifle was something irrelevant to their fight; it was distant and impersonal. Gunfire was too far, too clean, devoid of satisfaction. He wanted Neil Dylandy to feel his brother die.

He activated the Proculeza's beam sabre and charged the Gundam.

Cherudim dodged, but not quickly enough to avoid a well-placed slash to the firing assembly of its rifle, rendering it useless. Gallagher charged, as did Cherudim, and the two Gundams met with reverberating force yet again.

"Trans-Am!" Lyle yelled. Cherudim was engulfed in a reddish-pink light and it began ruthlessly attacking, using its newfound speed to its maximum. The proculeza shuddered as Cherudim started smashing the mobile suit with the useless weapon. Gallagher could see pieces of green and black debris float past his cameras. Clever thinking. He shot away from the Gundam, giving chase and drawing him into an asteroid deathtrap.

Gallagher's world shifted as he was pulled into another memory, right as Cherudim charged again. A burned building, an explosion site. He could smell charred flesh and feel the heat of the fire that burned ahead of him. He was looking for something, digging and pulling and crawling over slabs of concrete. His hands were small but determined as they worked pieces of metal and stone away from the pile in front of him. "Lyle!?"

"Captain Gallagher!"

Gallagher snapped back to reality as an Ahead shot past him to absorb the impact of Cherudim's attack. The red and black mobile suit raised its weapon to fire and Gallagher's brows knitted in anger. This was his battle, his win or loss, his individual sparring game. He saw red.

"How dare you interfere!"

He charged the suit before the pilot had a chance to respond, carving a gaping canyon through its armour from bottom to top, straight through its cockpit. He laughed as he felt his destructive need be met for the moment by the man's mangled yell. He'd make sure that Lyle Dylandy's didn't end so quickly. The suit sparked and he retreated, grabbing the doomed suit and whipping it at the green and white Gundam at the last second. Cherudim didn't have time to move before the suit exploded, catching the Gundam head-on. Even with the telltale pink hue of Trans-Am, Gallagher knew that the explosion had to have done some damage.

Another memory dragged Gallagher in as the explosion filled his monitor with all the colors of a murderous sunset. The recycled air of his suit gave way to warmth and wood-smoke. He was wrapped in pillows and blankets, sitting in front of a familiar fireplace. Stockings hung from the paneling over the hearth, and a tree glowed in the corner, the ground under it littered with brightly coloured packages. Lyle was curled up next to him, watching the fire.

"What did you wish for when the star went by?" Lyle asked as he watched the flames.

"A little sister."

The childlike Lyle looked at him curiously. "Why a sister?"

"Because you're the only brother I want."

The image disappeared, and for a moment Gallagher was worried as he looked out to Cherudim. The Gundam was sparking and whittled by the blast. Black singe marks gave way to exposed wiring, and laboured breathing came through their communications link. The shield bits were trying their best to maintain function, but it was clear that the blast had disrupted their sense of direction. They flew about aimlessly, firing at one another.

He abandoned his controls to grab his head as another memory started to take hold, distracting him from the sight of Cherudim struggling. He knew exactly what his alter-ego was trying to do by showing him the brotherly memories. It was irrelevant. Gallagher would never feel the brotherly bond that his body had once shared with the Celestial Being pilot. All the memories did was wrack him with anger and further his homicidal resolve.

How dare Neil Dylandy try to save his brother by making him feel things he didn't care about! Gallagher was born in a lab, pressed into the man's head and told what life to live. He'd be damned if Neil Dylandy were allowed to live the life he threw away with Celestial Being. His day was over, it was time for Gallagher to do as he pleased.

His teeth were clenched as he fought off the memory and watched Cherudim slowly struggle back to life. "This may have been your body, but I will not let you rise, Neil Dylandy!"

"This may have been your body, but I will not let you rise, Neil Dylandy!"

The transmission from the A-Laws Gundam stopped time.

The bridge sat in frozen silence. Sumeragi's screen blinked as it waited for her next tactical input. Feldt's eyes were widely staring at the wall, her lungs not willing to breathe. Lasse was standing half out of his seat, mouth gaping as he stared at the green and black Gundam. Reverie had never heard thoughts go so completely blank at once. The air was a stifling blanket of disbelief.

"…Neil?"

Feldt's half-whispered word brought the thoughts of the bridge back to life again. Tieria's face appeared on-screen demanding to launch and Sumeragi blankly nodded. The thoughts rushed Reverie's consciousness with a force she'd never felt before; it was like she was suffocating in emotion.

-If that's Neil, we can't attack. We have to recall the Meisters. What if someone…-

-How did he manage to survive? Why is he…?-

-Ailin Gallagher? But Neil was nothing like that man…-

-Don't attack him!-

Reverie couldn't stay on the bridge, she had to get out. Her head was throbbing with the sound of the pseudo-drives and she couldn't handle feeling the crushing shock, guilt, and confusion of those around her. She stood. "The NILE system will have finished its reboot. I'll be of best use there." She didn't wait for a response to leave...if she had, she'd never leave the bridge.

She dashed through the door and slid into the operating chair as Tieria launched and Seravee's signature appeared on-screen. She whipped her hands into the conductive gel of the system and sighed in relief as the droning noise died down. Someone had to keep the Meisters informed. She may not have been the best person, but she figured she was better than nothing. Everyone on the bridge was frozen in disbelief, she could still feel it from her seat in the system.

She took stock of the battlefield. Arios and the GN-Archer were ripping through the defensive positions that the A-Laws were trying to implement, keeping the mobile suits scattered and disorganized. Hallelujah seemed to be taking particular pleasure in ripping limbs off suits as he whipped by, using them as weapons as he rounded on the suits again. His maniacal laugh and violent taunts narrated the battle in staccato as Reverie activated her communications earpiece. He may not have been trustworthy in person, but he was remarkably dependable when he was instructed to kill.

The bright green light of Double-Oh was flitting around the battlefield, clashing with a suit that seemed to be designed to resemble a Union Flag. The dark suit was demanding Setsuna's attention and Reverie could feel his frustration seeping through his thoughts. Something in Setsuna's mind had been changing, and he didn't understand what it was. The confusion was clear in his fight; he didn't know if he should strike to kill or try to reason with the pilot that kept pursuing him. Instead of choosing either option, Setsuna struck just enough to maim the suit with each blow, making the battle much longer than it would have been weeks before.

What struck Reverie as the strangest on the field, though, was how lost Seravee seemed. She had never been able to hear Tieria's thoughts, but she could see his uncertainty and fear in the way he moved across the battle. The calculative approach he usually took to battle was lost; he was shooting in the dark. How strongly did Lyle's brother affect the crew? She knew that he was integral to the interwoven relationships on board, but she hadn't realized the magnitude of his influence until now.

She didn't have time to speculate. "Tieria, give Cherudim support!"

'Yes… that seems most fitting' His voice wavered through the comms.

She didn't have time to analyze Tieria's mental state as she took in Lyle's predicament. Cherudim sat across from Gallagher's black-and-green mobile suit, as though they were in a stare down. As she zoomed in on the scene, she realized how badly damaged Cherudim had been. Deep black singe marks mottled its surface, and chunks of its armour had been blasted away. Still, it was functional. The armour around the cockpit was in-tact. Lyle, however, was not.

-Neil…if it's really you, how can I leave this fight alive?-

His feelings washed through her as she tapped into his thoughts. He was filled with fear and sadness. He was afraid that the suit would strike, and afraid that he would kill his brother if he retaliated. His sadness was much stronger, stemming from years of memories shoved under the surface and the realization that his brother had become something so twisted. He didn't know if he should attack or surrender.

"How does this affect the plan of attack?" he asked the bridge, voice wavering through the transmission.

"Tieria, get over there as fast as possible! You have to help Lyle immobilize that suit!" If the bridge wasn't responding, she would have to.

She had no idea what direction to give Lyle. How could one make a decision like that? No matter what decision was made, Lyle would suffer. If he attacked and killed the man that his brother had become, he would live with the guilt of having killed his brother, never knowing if he could resurface. If he didn't attack, he would die.

"Ptolemy, advise!" he pleaded through the comms.

"Lyle…" she swallowed. "…You have to avoid him until Tieria can back you up."

"I hope you've got a better plan than that." He quipped.

"I'm working on it." She started running possible scenarios immediately, the prospects looking very grim. She sent them to the bridge in the hope that they'd be analyzed. If she'd been under the supervision of a veteran forecaster, and if she hadn't been being assaulted by droning pseudo-drives and thoughts of crashing shock from the crew, maybe she'd have been able to find better outcomes. This was the kind of scenario she hadn't been trained for. She had to get Sumeragi to respond or someone was going to die.

"Miss Sumeragi, please advise!" she pleaded. She wished with all her might that the bridge would snap out of their stupor.

The explosion had taken a toll on Cherudim, but it was far from being useless. Trans-Am had protected it for the time being. The Gundam's joints groaned to life as Lyle tested the pneumatics and made sure the limbs were still in some type of working order. Alarms were beeping and urgently demanding his attention, and his chest heaved painfully after the force of the blast. His visual input systems flickered back to life here and there. He was focused on something other than the irritating static of his screens.

The green and black mobile suit of the A-Laws telepath had temporarily become the only other thing in Lyle's world. The titan hung idly, black metal disappearing into the darkness of space, green metal giving just enough of an indication of its definite existence.

Neil.

Knowing that it really was his brother in the suit made every interaction he'd had with the telepath crystal clear; the fighting style, the man's obsession, the intuitive way that Lyle had read his movements. He didn't know if he felt closer to his brother for it or if it served to push their continental divide beyond reach.

He was momentarily frozen as the suit shot towards him, a hurtling beast of steel and carbon fibre. The second that the suits clashed again, Lyle's world became an explosion of deafening motion. The maniacal laugh of the man who professed to be his brother tore through his comms, antagonizing him as the suit slashed again and again and again. He could see the sparks rising from Cherudim's surface as the man attacked but he couldn't bring himself to do more than shoot away and block the onslaught. Trans-Am's power would run out soon, and he would lose his protective advantage.

He couldn't strike.

"Lyle, I can't affect his suit's power-levels, he's blocking me! You have to get out of there!"

Reverie's voice was barely audible over the whining alarms and shrieking metal. "I've been trying!" he yelled. His voice was desperate and strained. Despite the advantages of his mobile suit, his new knowledge of his brother's existence made him helpless. He continually manoeuvered away from the suit but it kept ripping him back for another brutal round of blows that he could barely block in time. Trans-Am faded and Lyle cursed aloud. The alarms for Cherudim's armour were urgently yelling for his attention; the armour couldn't take anymore and his thrusters were giving out. It was clear that the explosion must have distrupted the energy distribution of the suit. Even if his suit were functioning properly, though, he knew he'd be stuck in the same position.

He couldn't strike.

He'd struck to kill hundreds of times. He'd intentionally backed pilots into hopeless situations and shown no mercy. He'd ended more lives personally than a person ever should. As he watched Cherudim's left arm give out and crumple he wondered if this was his penance. He'd never cared for confessions and repentance, but if he'd ever wished he had, it was now.

"This isn't how it ends Lyle! You can get out!" Reverie pleaded over the comms, undoubtedly overhearing his thoughts.

Cherudim scorned her words as it shuddered and its thrusters lost power. He was stuck at the mercy of the man in front of him, who was also in his head. Pieces of green and white floated past his monitors as the suit in front of him kept tearing away. He tried in vain to re-boot the thruster system and deflect the vicious blows that the suit was trying to land to the cockpit, but he could feel his resolve withering away. The metal in front of him was vibrating and his screens were succumbing to black and grey static.

He didn't want to die.

The suit before him drew its beam sabre and he felt his will to live clawing through him, desperately pushing him to find a way out. His eyes frantically scanned for anything that could help as fear and panic crept through him. Arios was nowhere to be seen. Double-Oh was in the distance, shooting towards him but too far. A white and grey shape drifted into the view of his remaining camera.

Seravee.

Hope. The suit was shooting towards them, cannon raised and aimed at the madman's suit. Yes! Yes! Yes! His heart clung to every piece of hope that the massive mobile suit was offering. He could live!

His elation turned to confused horror as the giant suit came to a standstill just within firing range.

What happened!? Seravee's cannon was still poised to fire, the bright yellow of its promising, liberating blast hanging inside its barrel.

"Tieria!"

The A-Laws suit raised its sabre, the bright glowing red of the beam glinted maliciously from the titan's face. Seravee hung in space, frozen.

"TIERIA!"

"But Neil…"

The name hit him like a slap in the face. Neil. The hope that he'd felt ebbed away as the sabre started its descent to his cockpit. He could hear Reverie screaming through the comms for Tieria to do something, but the hope he'd felt moments before gave way to calm, stunned acceptance.

The brother that he'd loved more than himself in the beginning of his life had come to end it. His mirror image had come to remind him that in the end, he was the darker side of them, meant to be destroyed by the light.

Neil… is this all we were ever meant to be?

How had they come so far from matching mittens and missing scarves to destruction for a cause that neither could really comprehend? How could the world rip them so far apart?

He heard the sabre sear through Cherudim's armour and he closed his eyes. The cloud had finally come for the island, and there would be nothing left. The searing sound of the sabre dropping grew louder and louder and he could see the light of its beam filtering through his eyelids.

If so, I hate it.

It stopped. Lyle opened his eyes, stunned.

Shaking breaths filtered through his comms from the suit in front of him, then the hitched breath of tears.

"…..Lyle?"

The sabre powered down and the suit fell against Cherudim with resounding force, clinging to it as the hitched voice started to sob. "Oh god Lyle..."

Lyle knew that voice, the tone of the malicious madman gone. He knew that voice better than he knew his own.

"Neil."

Warm tears slid down his face as the name left him.

Neil.

.

Brief AN to avoid spoiler-ness: I have to apologize for not having much from different characters in this chapter. I've been writing and re-writing this chapter over and over in hopes of adding more in from others, but there's so much pivotal Dylandy-ness going on that I couldn't make it all flow without making the chapter much longer than it already is. I really didn't want to split this in two parts, and there will be a LOT of character examination coming, so I figured it was better to nix it here and wait until later.

Toodles!