So I finally caved and decided to write an epic FFXIII fanfic. I argued to myself that NOOOO, I don't have time for this, but the feels got to me and I'm trash so here it is.

Anyway, I don't feel like writing 2 chapters worth of background information, so everything that happens before this chapter is explained via minor flashbacks at the beginning of every chapter. Don't worry if you're confused about something because it's probably meant to be that way. If you think otherwise, just ask me!

This fanfic picks up from the events of FFXIII. The things that will be explored here include lots of Gran Pulse stuff, as in lots. Be prepared for a lot of adventuring.

You might notice that these two aren't being as obsessive about their 'sisters' as usual. There's an explanation for that, of course, and I'm not going to be all "Lightning is in denial and Fang pokes the bear a lot" without an explanation as well! Just trust me and let me explain it later ;)

Lightning jams down her gunblade as hard as she can into the small gap between the orb's constantly shifting plates of stone. She forces down the weight of her body until the entire weapon is buried to the hilt, gritting her teeth as she falls towards the ground. The glowing runes of the orb beat brighter as it starts to fail, almost like an artificial heartbeat that speeds up with it's demise.

She braces herself for the fall. The first contact of stone against ground releases a pulse that pings all around them in powerful bright waves of energy that simultaneously weaves around her like water while passing through her in an ethereal burst that ignites from the ridges between it's plates. The force knocks her backwards and she lets go of her weapon. The soldier has always been excellent at every single facet of combat, but the painful gash that runs down her thigh damaged her muscles more than she cared to admit and she's paying the price now.

She gracefully lands on her feet, but the rivulets of blood that run down her shins and the pain of her sliced tendons effectively stop her from digging her heel into the ground. Lightning lands on her hips first with bruising force before she flips around and hits her shoulder. The l'Cie rolls to a halt after sliding more than twenty feet away from the now defunct sphere. It's lights are dead and her gunblade looks a little bit worse for wear, but it's done.

Is gone and they're going to wake up. Vanille and Fang are going to wake up.

Lightning winces as she drags herself onto her feet. It takes a while to reach her weapon with the limp she has, and it's even harder to pull it out, but she does it because she's Lightning Farron and she does what she has to.

She's coming home.

"There, all done." Fang ties the final knot. Perhaps her bandaging skills are far from being as good as Vanille's, but she thinks she did a pretty decent job. Maybe she had to rewrap it a couple of times, but she didn't waste the single roll like she did the first time she tried to change Lightning's dirty ones.

The elder Farron reluctantly pulls down the shirt that she often wears when she goes to bed. Her pants are right there on the foot of her bed, safely out of reach from her hands on the perfectly white sheets. "Thank you." She frankly says, her eyes fixed downwards. Although she can definitely appreciate how her leg doesn't itch anymore, all she has on her mind is the cool touch of her sheets on her bare thighs.

In her defence, Serah is usually the one who cleans her wounds and such. It's always been that way, from her first day of work and throughout her promotions and countless nicks and cuts, some worse than others.

And then Fang suddenly showed up this morning, bandages in tow. This would not have been so bad if she could change into shorts so she wouldn't have had to take her pants off, but she can barely even walk without crutches. Every step tears her muscles more than they already are, and she'd like to get back into fighting shape as soon as possible.

Only after staring at the pristine pair of track pants at the end of the bed does she notice that Fang hasn't said anything. One look explains the observation, confirming that the Pulsian is indeed looking down, much further from where she's supposed to be. She whistles, not even trying to conceal that she likes what she's seeing. "You really like white, eh?"

Lightning pulls down her shirt even further, perfectly aware that it's probably going to be stretched and ruined if she keeps it up. "Why are you here?"

"Helpin' out my Sunshine, of course." She replies, much too casually for the soldier's comfort. The smirk on her face is too infuriating for words. "After all, she got hurt just so she can see my beautiful face, right? Only seemed right if I patched up my hero." She bats her eyelids exaggeratedly.

"Don't flatter yourself, Fang." Lightning coldly denies. "You and Vanille have been good allies and I wish to continue fighting with you both."

Fang's eyes are still pointed down. "Right..."

Serah walks into the hallway with a clear view of Fang barely dodging Lightning's slipper by a hair. The, you guessed it, white object clatters to the ground just as incoherent shouting from the room grabs her attention. It's soon cut off by the Pulsian shutting the door out of fear for her own safety, although the wide grin on her face suggests that she's doing it just because.

The dark skinned woman releases a relieved breath. "Damn, your sister's hot when she's mad."

"I'm glad the two of you are getting along." Serah giggles, the tray of food stable in her hands. The omelette and the glass of milk is still warm.

"That for the ball of happiness inside there?"

The younger Farron nods. "Yep. Sis has always been picky with her food. I put spinach in the omelette so she'll stop talking about not getting enough nutrients." She points her eyes to the tall glass of milk. "And we can't forget the protein."

Fang seems to agree. "Course not." She chuckles and the corner of her lips rise in a not entirely innocent smirk. "No way she can have those thighs without them."

A flash of alarm shows in Serah's eyes and she falls silent. "Um..."

The Oerban cocks her head to the side. "What?"

"You know, the last time someone said something like that to my sister, she had to pay for all the fake teeth he had to buy." She coughs. "Well, I did, because she didn't want to..."

"What? Why?" Fang does look genuinely confused.

Lightning told her about how things worked in Gran Pulse. No laws, no authority except for the fal'Cie that delegated l'Cie from time to time. "We're not allowed to hurt anyone but criminals in Cocoon. If we do, we could go into jail or we'd have to pay a lot of money to cover their medical bills."

"That's weird." She shrugs her powerful shoulders. "It's legal to be an asshole but illegal to punch one in the face?"

"I think Claire agrees with you." Serah hopes she won't have to meet more angry mothers and concerned siblings, though. "Maybe that's why she likes you."

Fang bursts out laughing so suddenly that Serah almost spills the milk. "Oh, don't let 'er hear you say that."

"Oh, come on, Fang." Serah brushes her away thoughtfully. "Sis even got you your own room when we built this house, and she left alone to free you and Vanille before we even set the foundation. She didn't come back until yesterday." A small morose look crosses her face for the split second she stops talking. "I was really worried about her."

Fang can see why. If what she suspected Lightning did was true, then her sister has every right to be concerned. She puts a powerful hand on the younger woman's shoulder, looking down at her with a reassuring smile. "Hey. I'm gonna look after your sis now, like she looked after me. Nothin's gonna get to her while I'm watching, you got it?"

Serah nods peppily. "Yep." She remembers the brief talks she had with her only sibling before she left for all those months. "She said you're really strong."

Fang would like to tell her all about the time she wrestled animals to the ground with her bare hands and even hunted down a dragon, but then she remembers the food. "You want me to feed 'er?"

"Oh, no, Vanille said she wanted to see you." Serah is about to smack her own forehead in realization when she realizes she's still holding the tray. She can't believe she forgot to tell Fang about Vanille. "Besides, Claire's arms are fine. She'll never let me. Oh, I'd better get to her before the food is cold!"

Fang imagines herself feeding the mighty soldier and decides to try and do it some time, if only to see her reaction. "Heh. Yeah, that'll be the day."

She whistles an old tune as she makes her way through the immaculately vacuumed hallways of the Farron manor. She's been walking around all morning and her bare feet hasn't even collected a single visible speck of dust, which makes complete sense when one considers who owns the place. It's not long before she enters the small library. The shiny dark wooden panels line the floors and sleek black bookcases cover most of the walls. Books on various subjects neatly fill every corner, and two dark brown recliners sit at the edge of the room with a comfortable red carpet underneath.

Vanille sits on said recliner with a rather large and thick leather book on her lap, impatiently tapping on it as she gives Fang her most pouty face. "Come on, come on, I found it!"

"Great." Fang speeds up her walk. "Good to know our fearless soldier isn't going to cause the end of the world or anything, right?"

"No, thankfully." The other Oerban sighs in relief. "Not that I'm not happy about being free or anything, but going after some legend I told as a campfire story that was probably fake was really ballsy. Especially if she knew nothing about it except for what it did."

"Hey, that's Sushine for ya." Fang shrugs. "Alright, so what did you find?"

Vanille waits until the older woman leans over her to view a startlingly accurate sketch of the orb. "The Orb of Stase. Apparently, after years and years of people being unwillingly turned into Pulse l'Cie, one of them somehow created some kind of device to break the sleeping ones from crystal sleep. He ran out of time though, and he didn't complete it. No one knows if he turned Cie'th or completed his focus, but he left the blueprints for the next l'Cie who found it."

"Damn." Fang clicks her tongue. "Who woulda thought?"

"I guess no one wants to die like that." Vanille swallows and her fingers stiffen. "I know we didn't."

"Vanille..."

"Anyway," She coughs. "The next l'Cie found it, and then the next, and then so on. I don't really know why they didn't activate it, though..."

"And then Light found it." Fang completes. "And it blasted shit at her or something."

"Which is really weird, since that would make the activation harder." Vanille strokes her chin thoughtfully as she fingers the corner of the page. "Especially since she said there were these guardians that sprang from the walls and tried to stop her."

"Oh, don't think too much about it." Fang pats her back. Her calloused hand is comforting as always to the girl she already considers her sister. The rough pads are the way they are after scuffles of a childhood long since past and they are soft for her, just like they've always been. "We're fine now, right? No more runnin' and hiding. Best enjoy it."

She's hesitant, but she closes the book she's been analyzing since the day before. It wasn't hard to find the pages due to an amazing invention called the glossary, but everyone came to see them. Sazh and his son brought food, NORA and Snow threw a party that led to them being forced to clean up afterwards, and Hope's gotten a lot less sullen. Serah herself has been too nice to her and she would feel horrible retreating from all that to stare at a book. "I guess you're right."

The heavy thump of the book closing shut is accompanied by the soft creak of the door opening. Lightning slowly enters with both her crutches in her arms, noticeably wearing a pair of shorts instead of track pants now. She stops, her right leg quite obviously slack. "Vanille." She takes a look at the woman in the blue sari and her gaze stiffens. "Fang."

"Hi," Vanille carefully puts the book on the table by her recliner. "I was just doing some reading about the Orb of Stase."

"Oh, that." Lightning doesn't seem very interested in discussing it. She slowly makes her way to one of the tall shelves, her eye on some thick novel with a green spine. After she leans one of her crutches against the adjacent wall, she rises on her tip toes, her bad leg still limp at her side.

She can't reach it. It's just out of reach from her fingertips, although Lightning is by no means short. A lone stepladder sits in the corner of the room, but she obviously can't use that. So there she is, viciously glaring at the book, but no amount of it would make the novel tip and fall into her waiting hand.

A warm breath brushes against the supple skin of her neck and the small contact her fingers make with Fang's makes her freeze. The Yun's finger effortlessly hooks over the book's spine and pulls down, sending it right into her hand. The book goes right over Lightning's head.

Fang smirks like she's just found a stash of embarrassing baby pictures. "A romance novel about pirates?" Her curious green eyes flit to the summary. "When a commander of the Royal Navy is ordered to take in a dangerous pirate from-"

"Give me that." Lightning interrupts, reaching out a hand to take it back.

Fang lifts the book up. "Never knew you liked reading these, Sunshine."

"You have no reason to." She coldly scowls.

"Give it back, Fang." Vanille awkwardly laughs from behind her. "I really like my room and I don't want us to get kicked out."

"We won't." The former huntress confidently says. "This place's owner adores me."

"Stop flapping your gums around, Fang." Lightning glowers.

Vanille doesn't seem too convinced by Fang's answer. Given a few extra inches, she would smack her and take it back before they both get thrown out to the wilderness, although that wouldn't really trouble them at all. She gives Lightning her most apologetic look. "I'm so sorry about my idiot sister, Lightning, it's just that she's never had this much free time before."

"True." Fang doesn't deny it.

"We've always been running and hiding and she's always been fighting and hunting in some serious thing or another." She continues, giving the taller woman her harshest stare. "She's just starting to be annoying because she has nothing else to do."

"Hey! I'm not annoying."

"You are being very annoying." Lightning deadpans. "It's only been one day, literally one day since you woke up. We have a television and a library, not to mention a gym. Do something that's not annoying me."

"I helped you change your bandages!"

"You were staring at my legs."

Fang innocently beams. "Can you blame me for it?"

"You moved my coat hanger an inch to the right."

"You noticed that, huh?"

Lightning's eyebrow twitches. "You knew it would bother me. Then you tried on my clothes, switched the weights on the weight rack, and put chocolate milk in the salt container."

"She's just a bored baby!" Vanille hurriedly jumps between them before anything can happen. "She won't do it again, right?" She hopefully looks behind her for an answer.

Fang has already begun reading the summary out loud again. "They fall into unbearable lust and soon-"

Lightning raises her crutch high into the air, ready to strike down, and Vanille closes her eyes. Here it comes.

And then it doesn't.

She peeks out with one eye and sees Lightning looking, frankly, exasperated. Lightning puts the crutch back down because of course she wasn't actually going to do it, and Fang's voice dies down as quickly as it rose up, and she stays that way as she watches the injured Farron exit the room with an annoyed sneer.

The sounds of her feet on her floor is the only thing that fills the room as Fang watches her, dumbfounded. The door shuts a little bit harder than it's supposed to.

Vanille crosses her arms. "Now you've done it."

All right, then, now I wait to see if there's any interest in it because I'll continue or not based on how much intrigue this story gets. Tell me what you think.