Lightning finishes applying her second stripe onto her shoulder pad. A surge of accomplishment rushes through her body. She even lets a small smile come on to her face. "Well, I suppose things could be worse." Lightning sarcastically thinks as she spins her chair around to look out the window. She gazes out the window, still taking in all that has happened to her today. She was expecting to possibly be demoted when she came into work today, never in her wildest dreams would she have imagined that she would get promoted today, or this year. Her train of thought is quickly interrupted as she hears the door to her office click open. She twists her chair around to face the door to greet her guest.

"Sargent Farron?" Asks the soldier who appears to hold the rank of private.

"How can I help you, Private?" Lightning asks with a stoic look on her face.

"I have a delivery from the front desk." The soldier looks down at the three inch stack of paper in his hand. "It mainly consists of your new contract with Guardian Core and confirmation of your acceptance of your promotion, ma'am." The private states, as he stares just above Lightning's head.

"Why do I need a new contract?" Lightning asks with a bewilder tone.

"They told me it was just a part of the promotion ma'am." The soldier states, as he walks towards Lightning's desk and places the stack in front of Lightning. "The front desk requests that you return the papers to them when you have completed them. They also ask, if at all possible, if you could complete the papers by the end of today." The soldier gives a salute and walks out of the office.

Lightning glares at the pile of papers. She absolutely loathes paperwork. That is all she did, when she wasn't in training, as private. Fill out paper, place on stack. Deliver stack, repeat. She practically had to chain herself down to the desk to complete it all in the given time frame. She continues to glare down the paperwork as if it were her old rival. She begins to slowly reach for the pens in the far left corner of her desk as she spreads out the papers on her desk. She gives a deep, deep sigh and then begins initialing paper after paper, not even bothering to read the paper. She figures that it doesn't matter what the papers say because if she has a problem with it, she can kiss her salary and life style goodbye.

The battle between Lightning and paper rages for three hours, she initial, signs, and dates every paper accordingly. As she signed her final signature, she dots the single "I" in her name especially violent, leaving a small indent in the wood desk. She wastes no time in re-stacking the papers and begins walking rather vigorously down the hall to the main desk. She slams through the double doors leading to the lobby and locks the front desk in her vision. Her strides become wider and faster. She arrives at the desk and holds the three inch stack of papers two feet above the desk.

"Here." Lightning says calmly, as she drops the papers on to the desk. Her tone was calm but the look in her eyes tells a totally different story. Even a pack of raging Behemoths would think twice about attacking her. The lady at the desk evens the stack of papers rudely dropped on the desk by the raging soldier

"Anything else, Sargent Farron?" The woman at the desk asks tauntingly

"Tch," Lightning scoffs as she begins to head back to her office. She looks at the clock above the double doors she is about to walk through. 5:00 PM. Relief breaks through Lightning's body. Her shoulders drop down to a more relax position. Quitting time. Thank the Maker. Lightning thinks as she returns to her office to grab her gun-blade and turn off the lights. She calmly walks down the hall for the second time today. She pops her next and massages her hand from the vicious paperwork battle. If being a Sargent means I have to do more paper work, I might opt for a demotion. Lightning thinks as she walks through the doors of headquarters.

Lightning walks for a few minutes to the bank nearby. She deposits her check she received from work then heads toward the grocery store. She picks up some fruit and bottled water. She walks down the freezer section and spots ice cream. She stops midway in her stride and thinks about the practicality of buying such a frozen treat. Looks both ends of the aisle, checking to make sure she is alone. She quickly grabs the container of ice cream, slings it in her basket with such speed that she would put her own name to shame. She continues to furtively walk towards the check out. Lightning watches with precision as the cashier scans each of her items. From the Lightning's blatant stare, the cashier's hands begin to shake slightly as he scans her last item. Lightning swipes her card grabs her two bags of groceries and heads for home.


Serah hears the door click.

"Hide!" She half squeals, half whispers.

Snow, taken back by the urgency of Serah's voices, jumps behind the coach with her. "Why are we hiding?" He whispers.

"Sorry, I got startled, just stay here for now." Serah says as she immerges from behind the coach. She walks into the front room and sees Lightning with her groceries.

"Hey Serah, I brought ice cream." Lightning says, trying to not let any sense of joy be perceived in the tone of her voice.

"Wow, sis. That is very unlike you." Serah says, gawking at Lightning. They walk into the kitchen and begin to put the groceries away. Serah musters up the courage again. "Hey, Light, what would you think if I got a boyfriend?" Serah questions nervously.

"I wouldn't care too much. As long as the guy you date wasn't a total idiot, and he was nice to you, I would be fine with it." Lightning rambles.

"Really?!" Serah squeaks.

"Sure. Why? Do you have a boyfriend?" Lightning questions nervously.

"Actually, yeah. And he is kinda behind the couch." Serah says, walking over to the couch. "We kinda got startled when you came home."

Lightning turns to the couch and raises her eyebrow and crosses her arms.

"Eh hem," Snow grunts.

"Well, I kinda got startled." Serah giggles. "Here, this is Snow." Serah introduces as she yanks on Snow's arm to pull him out behind the couch.

"Hello, I am Snow Villiers." Snow introduces himself as he bows slightly to Lightning. "You must be Lightning, I have-"

Snow stops speaking when he looks at Lightning's face and immediately recognizes her as the soldier who interfered and took the criminal he was going to capture early this morning. Lightning seems to be thinking the same thing.

Lightning's expression hardens, "You have a lot of guts coming to my home, punk."

Serah gasps, "Lightning be nice-"

Snow interrupts, "I could never have imagined that Serah's older sister was some Sanctum dog." Snow hisses at Lightning.

Lightning realizes the severity of the situation. "You mean this idiot is your boyfriend?" Lightning turns to face Serah.

Serah's face cringes at the question. "Yes, Lightning. He is." She suddenly feels enraged by her sister's outbursts, "What's the matter with you Lightning, literally five minutes ago you said you were okay with me having a boyfriend. What has Snow done to deserve this treatment?"

"To be precise, this morning at 6:30, he interfered with a Guardian Core mission and delayed me to the point of returning to base hours late. He is a fool, leading around a group of kids trying to catch dangerous murderers." Lightning scowls as she walk up to Serah staring her in the eye.

"We aren't trying to do anything," Snow interrupts the sisters' conversation, "We are protecting the city, just like what you are trying to do. The only difference is, NORA doesn't have to obey procedure and wait for a Sanctum master to tell us what to do!" Snow yells. "We are giving this city real justice!"

"Heh," Lightning sarcastically chuckles as she turns to face Snow, "It seemed like you had the situation handled with that criminal this morning. When I finally found you kids, you had a gun to your head while you friends were completely at a loss of what to do." Lightning matter-of-factly responds.

"I had everything under control!" Snow yelled.

Serah was mortified by the situation that was unveiling in her kitchen. This is complete and total warfare. She knew she had to stop it, but she had no idea where to start. How do you stop wars Serah?Serah pondered. … OH! Stalemate! But would leaving these two to battle it out for that long help? Gosh! I have no idea what to do!

Serah's train of thought was interrupted when she saw Lightning beginning to charge at Snow. On impulse, Serah ran in-between the two raging beings.

"Lightning, just stop! You too Snow!" Serah said emphasizing her point by looking both Snow and Lightning in the eyes for a few seconds each. Serah grabbed Snow's hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. "Were going out Light, try to calm down, please." Serah said calmly.

"I don't want you going anywhere with this idiot! I'm going to get a call telling me that you were killed because of something that this fool did!" Lightning began to shout.

"I would never—" Snow began but only to be interrupted by Serah.

"SHUSH, both of you!" Serah finally yelled. Lightning and Snow were both taken back by the sheer volume of Serah's voice. "I wasn't asking for you permission Light, we are going out. I'll be back tonight… Then we can talk" Serah calmed down and lead Snow out of her house. Lightning never broke eye contact with him as he walked behind Serah. Upon hearing the click of the front door, Lightning relaxed her body posture and stood staring at the front door.

If Serah ever comes home hurt, or crying, that idiot is dead. Lightning thought. She took a deep inhale and let out an equally deep exhale. Lightning rolled her shoulder and cracked her neck as she tried to relax. She spotted the groceries on the counter and finished putting them away. She put them all away except for the ice cream.

Looks like it's going to be you and me for a while, ice cream.