This idea came to me today and I thought that it would be a sin to not share this with others. We all love the Final Fantasy XIII crew or else why would any of us bother to stalk the archive for stories? Anyhoo, I bring you the gang as kids in elementary school. To clarify things Snow, Fang, and Lightning are all six year old first graders. Hope, Vanille, and Serah are all five years old and in kindergarten. I realize that the age difference should be more but to make this story as cute as can be, I couldn't have Hope, Vanille, Serah be babies. As for Sazh...don't worry about him...for now. Enjoy.

-Disclaimer: This disclaimer pertains to the story in its entirety because I don't feel like retyping it every time. Nothing of Final Fantasy is mine...'nuff said.

Edit 12/20/2011: I thought I should make this clear that I don't have any malicious intent for any of these characters. You may interpret it as bashing or me just plain hatin' on a character, but I promise you it isn't so. Anything that seems hateful is purely circumstantial and will probably get resolved. This story is meant to be light-hearted and funny so I hope you take it that way. That is all.

Edit 12/28/2011: I tweaked a few scenes here along with a couple in chapter 2. To make this shorter on people who've read the original it's just the playground scene, the dinner scene, and an extra scene at the end. Hopefully you'll enjoy it.

-3pm Bodhum Elementary-

"Lightning!"

Lightning turned her head to see a crying Serah frantically running towards her while clutching the back of her head. To Lightning, Serah looked like someone took her treasured stuffed moogle plushie and ripped the stuffing out right before her eyes. 'What happened this time?' Lightning thought as she sighed.

Serah stopped a mere three inches before her beloved big sister and continued to cry. This was possibly the worst day of her five year old life! As her tears subsided she looked up at her sister and opened her mouth to speak. "L-Lightning! Hope cut a lock of my hair after noodle pictures today! We weren't even allowed to have scissors!"

"Serah, I really hope that you didn't come here to ask me to-"

"Beat him up for me!"

"-do that. Serah, you know that I can't punch Hope."

"But why? You punch Snow all the time!"

'That I do,' Lightning thought to herself. "Serah, Hope's just too cute for me to even think about beating up. And besides why should I even believe-"

Before Lightning could finish her sentence, Serah quickly turned around and dropped her tiny hands to her sides exposing the back of her head. In front of Lightning was a hideous sight to behold. It was as if Serah's head was going naked.

"-you…" 'I know Hope's a bit on the weird cereal killer side- wait, why do people even want to kill cereal? It's yummy, easy to make, and sometimes, if you're lucky, it comes with a toy! When I grow up, I'll make sure to put all cereal killers behind bars! That way all Chocobo Bits would feed the tummies of good kids like me!'

"Light, you're just standing there!"

"I'm gonna get those cereal killers," Lightning mumbled to herself.

"Cereal killers? That has nothing to do with my hair! Though it might pertain to Hope…"

"Hair? What does hair have to do with any-"

Serah turned around once more to remind Lightning of her predicament.

"Oh…Yes Hope! I'm sorry but I still can't beat him up for you. Where's Snow?"

"Snow? Snow has nothing to do with this," said Serah venomously while thinking of ten ways to get back at Hope.

"I'd feel better if I beat up Snow. Then I'll tell him why I beat him up. Tomorrow Snow will go beat him up and after lunch you'll see a pathetic Hope limping back to class for arts and crafts time. That way you'll get your revenge and I won't have to do it. Trust me, my plan is full proof. Then again I can't imagine why my plan would go hungry…"

"I can't imagine why your plan would go hungry either! Lightning, sometimes you're too smart for me."

"I know I am. Now come on Serah, we need to find Snow."

The two sisters walked hand in hand into the sunset even though it was only 3:30.

-5pm Bodhum play park-

In the sandbox playing with PSICOM action figures, there sat Bodhum's notorious trouble makers. To offset the "trouble maker" title they were given, they deemed themselves Team NORA. In case you were wondering NORA actually stood for No Onions, Radishes, or Asparagus. Those were the three veggies the team refused to eat. Members of NORA included Gadot, Maqui, Yuj, Lebreau, and of course the leader had to be Snow.

At the moment the PSICOM action figures were in a heated battle against the evil forces of Pulse. Since none of these youngsters actually knew what the evil forces of Pulse looked like, they used a red painted moogle plushie to represent the baddies.

"And once again the hero saves the day," yelled Snow at the top of his six and a half year old lungs. The self-proclaimed hero had painted his action figure gold so that 1) he could actually remember which one was his and 2) his would be the mightiest of them all, just like the white moogle on Moogle Rangers.

"Snow you always win," Gadot complained.

"Yeah, and you won't even let us paint our PSICOM dolls," said Lebreau.

Before Snow could reply to the complaints about his heroism, a very angry Lightning stormed onto the playground while clutching a unicorn plushie sans the horn. Lightning had originally purchased the unicorn plushie with the intent of ripping off the horn because all of the other regular horse plushies weren't majestic enough. She refused to let her parents sew up the tear because she deemed it as "hardcore", a word she had learned just the day before. After weeks of stuffing falling out of the hole, Lightning finally relented and let Serah patch it up with duck tape. Although Lightning had no idea what a duck actually was, the tape had saved her plushie from inevitable doom.

"You," said Lighting pointing to Snow. "I. Need. To. Beat. You. Up."

"But why?"

"Don't worry, it's for Serah. Today at school, Hope cut off bunches of her hair. I mean, you should see it! But anyway, I need to beat you up because I can't beat Hope up. No worries, after I'm done smashing your face through your skull feel free to teach Hope a lesson. I would prefer if you got your revenge, on Hope mind you, tomorrow after lunch."

As if on cue, Serah finally arrived at the playground and stood beside Light.

"Serah, hold Odin." Lightning commanded. "And you might want to close your eyes."

"Please just make it quick!" Snow pleaded.

Cracking her knuckles, Lightning set to work. She grabbed Snow's hair and proceeded to punch him repeatedly in his left eye. To mix things up a bit, she poked him repeatedly in his right. She targeted his mouth next. She was very intent on knocking out a tooth. Moments later, she succeeded and placed the prized gem in one of her pockets. For good measure, she gave him a couple of slaps. A few backhands here and a couple of palms to the face there. Tired of using her arms, she resorted to kicking his arms fiercely. It was rather impressive. It couldn't even be explained. It was as if she defied gravity. Or rather, gravity couldn't control her. She ended her barrage of kicks with a few to his shins.

Looking back at her handiwork, Lightning decided she wasn't done yet. Although it was rather pleasing to see Snow huddled in a pool of his own saliva touching where his tooth once was, she knew more could be done. Jumping in the air, Lightning proceeded to pummel her opponent with an elbow to the gut. Now that her arms were back in action, Lightning decided to give Snow's another beat down. She selected the most noticeable part of his arm and punched him repeatedly, effectively giving him a charley horse. Four Indian burns later and Lightning was finally done with him.

"Not my best, but it'll do." said a huffing Lightning. She reached into her pocket and pulled out Snow's tooth. She then walked over to her backpack and pulled out a tiny envelope and placed the tooth inside. Once the tooth was secured, Lightning scribbled the letters IOU on the outside and threw the packet at Snow. "Show this to my mom. She'll know what to do."

Finally, she left the playground with her sister in tow.

"Man Snow, she got you good," said a bewildered Yuj.

"Yeah, I thought you were supposed to be the hero," said an equally surprised Maqui.

"I…am," said a thoroughly beat up and dejected Snow. "I am."

-6:15 Farron household-

Upon arriving home, Serah opened the door and yelled, "We're home mom…and dad!"

"Oh good, you girls are home…again. Why don't you both go and wash up for dinner." said Mrs. Farron. Upon closer inspection she noticed Lightning's hands. "Especially you Claire. I have a feeling you beat up that nice Snow fellow again."

'Good thing she hasn't noticed my hair yet!' thought Serah.

"Oh and Serah sweetie, your hair looks atrocious. What did you do, get caught in a tree? "

"Honey you're doing it all wrong," started Mr. Farron. "You talk to her as if she understands you. Try something more simplistic." He pointed to Serah's hair and said," You're hair bad. We fix tonight. Wash hands now. See you at dinner." And with that Mr. Farron jovially stalked off to the dining room table to finish his monthly issue of Man Cave.

'What a douche. Whatever that word means…,' thought Lightning as she went upstairs.

Meanwhile Serah was rooted to the floor trying not to cry. "I hate Hope." she mumbled to herself.

"What was that about hating Hope? What does he have to do with anything?" asked Mrs. Farron. "You're the one who got stuck in a tree. Hope is such a nice boy. Remember that bake sale he had in honor of his dead pet? What was its name again? Chewy? Chunky? Roadkill? Ah who cares, it's dead anyway. And remember that time when he helped fifty old ladies consecutively cross the street? His parents definitely raised him right."

"There you go again! Talking to her like she knows what you're saying," shouted Mr. Farron from the dining room table. "You should say something like this: Hope good. You stupid."

"I have a lot to learn." said Mrs. Farron.

-6:30 dining room table-

"Ah honey you make the best food. What is it?" asked Mr. Farron.

"I don't really know myself. I think it's duck."

"No," said everyone in unison. "We don't even know what that is."

"Aww family moment. We have so few of those. I can only recount two other times." said Mr. Farron. "You guys remember when we survived that nuclear disaster together? Once we were all cleared of contamination, there was a collective sigh of relief! And the other time was when we all decided to cook together. It was kind of weird when I saw that we were all cutting onions at the same time. But I found it very endearing that we all started crying at the same time. Good thing I had my camera that day. That's my favorite picture on the refrigerator. Those were good times."

"Anyways," started Mrs. Farron. "It was labeled 'mystery meat' at the supermarket. And you know me, I can't pass up a good mystery! That's why we got the box instead of the boat on that game show we were on."

"Good thing we already have a boat or else I would have divorced you." said Mr. Farron.

"What was that?" asked Mrs. Farron.

"Umm…I said good thing we already have a boat and I love you."

"Parents sure are weird." said Serah to Lightning.

"I wonder what it would be like if we didn't have parents." said Lightning.

"Hmm…my guess is that you would join the Guardian Corps, be cold and distant, and I would run off into the arms of Snow after becoming a L'Cie."

"A L'Cie? Enemy of Cocoon? Danger to us all? Why would you run off and do that?" Lightning asked. "And with Snow to boot!"

"Well, Snow's not such a bad kid." Serah defended.

"Enough dilly dallying you two! We have to actually eat this dinner before it gets cold and all. I mean, you never know what could happen to mystery meat once it gets cold. Because it's obviously mystery meat and not something familiar…" Mrs. Farron reprimanded.

"Yes ma'am." replied both the Farron sisters.

After a hearty dinner of mystery meat and nothing but mystery meat, everyone started to vacate the dining room.

"Dinner was nice and everything but I need to put the leftovers away before the mole people get to them. In a warm place though because it's mystery meat and everything." Mrs. Farron said.

"Wait!" Lightning exclaimed. "I need to take those to Fang and Vanille!"

"Those squirrels you keep talking about?"

Oblivious to the squirrel part, Lightning continued," Yeah! They live in my tree house you know. The least I can do is feed them. And besides, they're probably hungry."

'I didn't know squirrels ate "duck".' thought Mrs. Farron.

-7:02 pm treehouse-

"Say Fang, what do you want to do when you grow up?" asked Vanille.

"I wanna save Cocoon from impending doom." answered Fang.

"That's funny, it kind of clashes with what I wanna do."

"And that is…"

"I want to become Ragnarock and destroy Cocoon so we can go back to living on Gran Pulse."

"Hey! I thought that one was off the table!"

"A girl can dream can't she?"

You're probably wondering what's going on. Well you see, Fang and Vanille ask each other what they want to do when they grow up every day. They would switch up whoever would ask first every day too. Apparently Vanille had made it against the 'rules' to want to grow up and destroy Cocoon. As you can see, Vanille is a liar.

Shortly after overhearing the destroy Cocoon conversation, Lightning made her presence known. Ever since the duo started living in her tree house, she heard stories about them being from Pulse and how it was so awesome. But of course, none of that could be true. After all they would have been caught by the golden PSICOM warrior Snow keeps rambling about. 'Another Pulse joke.' she thought.

"Hey guys. I brought you some food. Today was mystery meat."

"What is it, duck?" asked Fang.

"No it couldn't be. We don't know what those are?" added Vanille.

After taking a bite, Fang came to a conclusion. "Tastes like moogle."

A heartbroken Lightning looked towards her house and said, "M-Mom? Is that where our moogle went? Was the supermarket a lie?"

To fill in the blanks, about a week ago, Lightning's beloved pet moogle, Mog, suddenly disappeared. What really happened was Mrs. Farron was oh so curious as to what moogle meat actually tasted like. After Mog had peed on the carpet for the umpteenth time, she was fed up. She wasn't going to stare and wonder anymore. No, on that night Mrs. Farron took action. She dragged Mog to her secret underground storage facility, a woman cave one would say, and basically murdered Light's precious pet moogle. After successfully skinning said moogle, Mrs. Farron googled how to properly prepare a moogle. She found a recipe that required the moogle meat to marinate for a week. And as you've probably guessed, Mog was tonight's dinner.

"Eh, Mog tastes good." said Fang. "I really have to meet your mom one of these days and compliment her on her moogle cooking skills."

"Agreed," Vanille added.

A horrified Lightning said in her dad's simplistic speech," I sleep now."

"That's alright with me Sunshine." Fang said.

Snapping out of her shock Lightning asked," What was that?"

"Sunshine? It's a new word I learned today. It's completely opposite to what your demeanor is right now. So therefore, it's sarcastic."

"Fang sometimes you're just too smart for me," Vanille chimed.

"I know. Now let's go find those squirrels Mrs. Farron is always talking about."

They left hand in hand into the actual sunset to find said squirrels. A dumbfounded Lightning could only think about how that scene was déjà vu…whatever that phrase meant.

-9:00pm Front Door-

At the moment, Mrs. Farron was trying to solve an extreme Sudoku puzzle. Instead of nine numbers, there were eighteen. "Oh darn! I already put a twelve there. Maybe if I move the three I can fit a seventeen in there."

A sudden knock was heard at the door. Actually, it was a pretty small and insignificant knock. Mrs. Farron, having ears of steel and all, heard it nonetheless.

Setting her puzzle gently on the sofa, Mrs. Farron made her way to the front door. When she opened the door, she initially saw no one. Thinking it was the midnight milk man arriving early, she looked down to see if there was a jug of milk. To her surprise, she saw Snow looking up at her with all the hope of the world in his eyes. "Snow, what are you doing here at this hour? Isn't it your bed time?"

Without uttering a word, Snow gave Mrs. Farron a glass of milk with his tooth submerged in it along with the IOU envelope.

"Oh dear, did Claire knock out one of your teeth again?"

Snow nodded.

"Well come on in, I'll get you fixed up again."

So I hope you guys like the first installment of Back in the Days. Did you notice how smart yet so naive they are? I hope you figured out all of my references I snuck in there. Well...tell me what you think. Was...good?...bad?...too cute for words? So uh...don't be afraid to click that review button ya hear?