The Bahamut Bandit

"So, Fang, how do I look?"

Fang glanced over at Vanille and grinned. The younger woman had a handkerchief tied over her face to hide everything below her eyes and a big, wide-brimmed hat on to hide her hair. "You look just fine, Vanille." She chuckled. "Not too scary, but I guess that's my job." She reached up to put her own handkerchief and hat into place. "How about me?"

Vanille giggled. "I think you look very dashing."

Fang rolled her eyes. "Dashing, right. Not exactly what I was hoping for, but I guess it'll do. Come on, let's go rob ourselves a bank."

The two of them ducked out from around the corner and with a last glance at the street to make sure that there wasn't anyone else around, they stepped into the bank. There were five people inside and Fang grinned behind her handkerchief as one of them, a young man who couldn't have been more than maybe seventeen stepped forward to greet them.

"Afternoon there, can we be some assistance?"

Fang chuckled and reached out to give the young man a pat on the shoulder. He smiled awkwardly. "Actually you can help me and my friend here." She tightened her grip on his shoulder until he winced. Then she pulled out her pistol and cheerfully poked him in the chest with it. "How about you get down on the ground with your hands on your head." She glanced past him at the other people in the bank. "And the rest of you too, if you don't mind."

The young man looked at her with wide eyes. "What do you think you're doing?"

Fang rolled her eyes. Honestly, what was it with all the young people these days? With deliberate slowness she brought her gun up until it was level with his face. "I'd have thought it would be obvious, but if you really want me to explain..." She tapped him lightly on the forehead with the gun. "This is a hold up."

"Oh." He blanched.

"Yes. Oh." Fang smirked. "Now down on the ground please, and don't scream or anything. I'd hate to have to remodel your forehead."

He dropped to the ground almost too fast for her to see, all but one of the others following suit. The one who remained standing was a fairly burly looking fellow with grey hair and he met Fang's glare with one of his own. At his side, his right hand twitched. Fang smiled beneath her handkerchief. Clearly, he was the hired muscle.

"I'd think twice about going for that gun of yours if I were you." There was no shortage of mocking in Fang's tone. "You're looking a little long in the tooth there, old man, and as twitchy as that gun hand of yours is there's no way you'll even clear your holster before I put a pair of holes in you."

The guard scowled back ferociously. "You don't look too fast."

"That so?" Fang grinned from ear to ear. Her gun fired once. The guard yelped and looked down at the smoking hole in the wall just behind him. There was a hole there about an inch below his crotch. Fang cackled. "Seems to me I'm fast enough. Now do yourself a favour there, old man, and unbuckle that gun belt of yours. Slide it across the floor before you hurt yourself."

The guard reached down to undo his gun belt and then stopped. His face was a little red. "My gun belt's what's holding up my pants."

"I see." Fang tapped one finger on her chin and then shook her head. "Too bad. You can either lose that gun belt of yours and end up with your pants around your ankles, or you can end up with a hole in those pants in a most uncomfortable place, if you catch my drift. It's your call, so get going."

The guard's gun belt – and his pants – hits the floor.

"Good choice." Fang looked at the other people who were down on the ground. "Now there are two ways this whole thing can go." Her emerald eyes twinkled with mirth. "The first way is pretty simple. You folks all do exactly what I tell you, when I tell you and after my partner here and I have what we want then we can all go our separate ways." She glanced over at Vanille.

"And the other way?" It was the young man who'd greeted them earlier who spoke.

"Vanille, why don't you answer that," Fang said.

Vanille giggled and nodded. Then, as cheerfully as could be, she explained. "You folks could make things tough for us, you know, screaming and fighting and carrying on something fierce. Then we'd have no choice but to torture the lot of you all horribly and bloodily with all kinds of unpleasantness." She shrugged and scratched the back of her head with one hand in a gesture that would have been all kinds of cute if it weren't for what she was saying. "But then we'd still get what we want anyone only after we parted ways you probably wouldn't be in such good shape." She laughed merrily. "Or even in one piece." She looked back at Fang. "That about right, Fang?"

Fang smiled and went over to pat Vanille on the head. "Just about." She looked back at the lot on the floor. "Now which one of you is the bank manager? And remember what my friend here said about the torture…"

One of the men raised his hand.

Fang nodded. "Good man. Now, sir, you are going to go off with Vanille here and open up that vault of yours. You do as she says and you'll have nothing to worry about. You give her trouble and she has my leave – no scratch that – my blessing to go make you wish you were dead. Understand?"

The bank manager nodded but continued to cower on the floor.

"You can get up now, mister manager, unless you have some way of opening that vault that don't involve you laying hands on it."

As Vanille and the bank manager disappeared into the back of the bank to open the vault, Fang sauntered over to the nearest chair and sat so that she could watch everyone else at once.

"So," Fang began. "Would I be correct in thinking that all of you fine folks work for a company called Cocoon and that this bank belongs to Cocoon too?" They nodded warily. "Good, it's nice to see that I picked the right bank."

The young man who'd greeted them looked up and there was an odd look on his face that seemed half fear and half awe. "You wouldn't happen to the one they called the Bahamut Bandit would you?"

Inwardly, Fang preened. The Bahamut Bandit was a name the newspapers had given her about a year back. It wasn't exactly great, but it wasn't half bad. Hell, it was a lot better than "Vanille the Kid". "What makes you say that?"

The young man gave her an almost scandalised look. "You said your friend's name was Vanille, right? Everyone knows that the Bahamut Bandit and Vanille the Kid are partners. Besides, the Bahamut Bandit only ever robs Cocoon banks."

Fang chuckled. "Well, you've got me figured, sonny." She took her hat off and gave him a mocking bow. "The Bahamut Bandit at your service." She looked up to find him staring at her intently. "What now?"

"Oh…" he shot her an almost apologetic look. "It's just… I thought you'd be taller."

Fang scowled. She'd been called all sorts of things in her life, a great many of them less than complementary. No one, however, had ever called her short before. "Really?"

The young man sat up, apparently warming to the subject. "Oh, yes. I mean, the papers write about you all the time. They say you're ten feet tall and more man than woman with big, crazy red eyes." His voice rose in both volume and excitement. "They also say that you're the worst kind of person, a killer with no sense of mercy who forces herself on women."

Fang had to force herself not fill the poor young man with bullets. What on earth were the papers writing about her? It was one thing to call her a bandit – she kind of, sort of, maybe was one – but for the record she'd never, ever forced herself on a woman. Hell, most of the time she had to beat them off, or rather let Vanille beat them off. The younger woman was absolutely deadly with a plank of wood and most of the women never saw it coming. "Hmmm… is that what they say?" she said at last as she shot the young man a glare with enough bite to it to drop an adamantoise from forty paces. "I don't suppose you agree with all that stuff they write do you?"

The young man turned satisfyingly pale as he realised the situation he'd managed to get himself into. If Fang really did do all those things he'd just said then he was in a whole lot of trouble. "I was thinking," he began slowly as he frantically wracked his mind for something to say, "That maybe you're… um… a little… uh… misunderstood."

Misunderstood? Fang had to give the young man credit for the attempt. "You can think pretty quickly, it seems." Fang was about to say more when Vanille came back in with the bank manager. There were several bags of cash in his arms.

"I've got the stuff, Fang," Vanille said before she stopped and looked at the young man. He looked very much like he was about to pass out. "Um, Fang, what's wrong with him?"

Fang shrugged. "He's just feeling a little queasy." She tilted her head at Vanille. "Go on ahead with the cash, Vanille, I'll finish up in here."

Vanille nodded and gave everyone a jaunty wave before she disappeared out of the bank with the cash.

"Now then," Fang said, a playful lilt to her voice. "I'm in something of a bind here. I can't have any of you lot letting the authorities in on what's gone on here until my friend and I have gotten a fair ways from here." She looked up at the ceiling and waved her gun in a slow circle. "Of course, I could just kill all of you right now." Five heads shook frantically. "But that just seems a little rough, especially seeing as I'm just a little… what was the word?" She grinned at the young man. "That's right… misunderstood." She chuckled. "So here's what we'll do…"

X X X

Marshal Jihl Nabaat took one look at the group of men hogtied on the floor of the bank and had to fight the urge to either shoot someone or scream. Her mood wasn't helped in the least when she saw the message scrawled in large, somehow taunting writing on the wall of the bank:

"Thanks for the cash. We'll be sure to put it to good use. And if you're reading this Marshal Nabaat, try not to frown. You're plenty wrinkly as it is.

With lots of love,

The Bahamut Bandit and Vanille the Kid"

X X X

Author's Notes

First of all, I neither own Final Fantasy, nor am I making any money off of this.

So here are Fang and Vanille's introductions to the story. As for why they're robbing banks and taunting marshals, I'll get to that later. I had originally considered making Fang Lightning's deputy, but I thought it would be much more fun to have her on the opposite side of the law. And don't worry, Jihl won't be the only one after the Oerban duo. Sooner or later they're going to stumble across a certain pink haired sheriff and when they do, well… that's a story for another day.

As always, I appreciate your feedback. Reviews and comments are welcome.