AN- Eyyyy a chapter appears! I got on a roll with a bunch of fics so I'm giving you the gift of WORDS.

A single light swung idly overhead, causing the room to have an illusion of rocking. Fang opened her eyes but didn't move, not wanting to alert her captors that she was conscious. Her head hurt, but that was nothing out of the ordinary these days. She counted the days of the week, what year it was, who the current council heads were, making sure all memories were intact. One of these days she was going to wake up without the ability to answer.

There was a soft murmuring in the corner, people talking quietly just out of her line of sight, and she sighed. The accents were distinctly Pulsian, and it was only a matter of time before her past caught up with her properly. "I am honestly getting too old for this shit." She drawled, slowly raising her head. There were a few startled gasps from the others in the room, and it gave Fang a brief moment to look over the ragged crew. They didn't look like the stylishly dressed rival gangs from Eden, or even the streamlined colours of the Triads. They looked like a pack of street urchins, not unlike those she had found with Balthier.

"Shit. She's awake. What do we do now?" One of them whispered, a younger looking, dirty blonde girl. Fang rolls her eyes and gives them her best intimidating stare.

"Just no tranq drugs, thanks. The last time someone tried that it didn't end well for them." She growled in warning, the others taking a few steps back. Fang narrowed her eyes at them and tilted her head in confusion. "Who are you lot? You act like a pack of amateurs."

"Amateurs that happened to capture the feared Oerba Yun Fang." Another scraggly man snaps, clearly insulted by the observation. He was far older than the others, and Fang nodded in recognition.

"I remember you. You were with the other blokes who tried to attack me before Fran stepped in. You know she's gonna be pissed when she finds out you went against her strongly worded advice, right?"

The man stalked forward and backhanded her hard, causing Fang's head to spin. "I don't care. The reward money we will get handing you over to the Triads? All of us can leave town tonight and never see them, or poverty again. It was your fault our people are like this. You were the one to bring Oerba to ruin because of your deeds with the Port Runners."

Fang spat blood on the ground and growled. "Did you hear nothing that I had said that day in the Alienage?" She bit back, old wounds rearing their ugly heads yet again. "I will spend the rest of my life making amends for the chaos I caused in my ignorant and fucking stupid youth. But that life won't last long if you hand me over to the Triads you bunch of goddamn spoons. They are no better than the Port Runners."

"And what will you do?" The man sneered. "My father was a baker in that village. You would have known him. You fetched the bread for your family daily as a child before you stole his hard earnings in your later years. What would you do to bring him back, after he passed from a cold winter on the streets two years passed? Will you resurrect Oerba from the ashes of your mistakes?"

Fang fell silent, hanging her head. It was just one more body to add to the pile, one more soul to pave her way to hell. "There is nothing I can do to change the past, S'yani. And yeah. I remember you. I remember playing in the streets with you. I remember my dad giving you your first hunting lesson. I remember you and your family didn't even bother showing up to the funeral. I remember how you and your family turned a blind eye to Vanille and I on the streets, just like the rest of the village. We became the dirty little secret nobody wanted to talk about. Maybe if someone had, we wouldn't have taken the hands of the Port Runners when they were the only ones to reach out to us."

"Don't you dare lay your sins on my father." The Oerban roared, punching her in the face. "Or the rest of the village. You own your mistakes, Yun Fang."

"I do. I own then every goddamn day. I pay for it in dirt, sweat and blood, to build a better life for those who can't. I did it in Eden, and I'm doing it here too. But nothing in this world is black and white, S'yani. Nothing. It was gang life or a winters death, just like your father. When you're cornered, you do reckless, stupid shit to survive. Just like you and this little rag tag bunch of morons is trying to do now."

One of the girls stepped forward, taking the unofficial leader by the hand before he struck Fang again. "She's baiting you, S'yani. And if she isn't, and speaking the truth? Unpacking your rage on her face isn't going to do us any good if she's dead before we deliver her. The Triads specifically want her alive."

Fang looked at her pleadingly, her expression softening. "Darlin'. I swear to you on the honour of the creed and clan, that I am trying to rebuild lives, to take Yusnaan from the grip of the Triads. I could have turned tail and gone home by now, shored up my defences in Eden. I stay for my people. I stay because it's right. But I'm warning you. You're all making a terrible mistake. Because I'm either going to have a bullet in my head for your troubles, and nothing will change for you. Or my wife is going to come barrelling in here doing some stupid reckless shit herself, and you're gonna end up eating lead instead. I don't want anybody to die here. I swear to you on my honour as a Yun."

S'yani curled his lip in a snarl and snapped his fingers, pointing at the door for the others to leave. He made three quick jabs at her stomach, and one more to her face for good measure before the girl pulled him back towards the exit. "Honour? Don't insult us. Strip your clan name, Fang. Honour doesn't exist in your veins." He growled, slamming the door behind him and leaving Fang in darkness.

"Ok. So no offense, little lady, but your Pulsian accent is shit and you're too recognisable with that… Facial accessory." Naki drawled as Lightning wandered the outside of the warehouse by the wharf. He received a dangerous glare from the pinkette but at this point it no longer intimidated him. "I need you to just keep your head down and let me do the talking."

Lightning ignored him, looking at an image on her phone that Vanille had sent her earlier of satellite reconnaissance. She counted her paces and stopped by a wall, humming thoughtfully to herself as she reached into the backpack she had brought with her.

"We need to be cool, calm and collected and…. And…. Lightning, what are you doing?" Naki asked, watching as she leant down and began to pull out what appeared to be clay at first glance, sticking it to the wall in the alley.

"I mean, it's a great plan and all. But I'm rigging explosives."

Naki pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration, making an annoyed sound through his nostrils. "Can you… Can you not?"

"No."

"Lightning, please. My plan will work. We just have to get in there, and I can start selling that I'm the liaison to the Triads. They trust me. They're a bunch of kids." Naki watched helplessly as Lightning calmly wired up the wall to blow, and dusted her hands with a satisfied look on her face.

"Cool. But I'm still blowing the place up."

Naki glared and grabbed Lightning by the arm, yanking her away from her work. "They're a bunch of idiot youths, Lightning. No older than yourselves, plenty of them a hell of a lot younger." He snapped, suddenly paling as Lightning turned to him with a cold, heartless expression on her face that chilled him to the bone. Until then, he had thought she was not capable of such malice in her eyes. He was clearly wrong.

"They took my wife, Naki. That kind of action doesn't go unpunished. They will learn what happens when anyone tries to cross me." She growled, her face impassive. Lightning didn't care about who was behind the warehouse wall, only Fang. Only that Fang was alive and she would be able to bring her home. Her expression finally softened and she shrugged. "Hence, explosives."

"... Well alright then." Naki reluctantly agreed, hoping there wouldn't be a need to resort to violence. He understood desperation when he saw it. He had seen it far too many times in himself over the years. Trying to escape it at the bottom of a bottle, in a flop house, whatever he could find to hide from himself. But Lightning was a woman of action, and it simultaneously impressed and terrified him.

"I may have more ethics than most in this line of work, but I still know full well what I have become, Naki. What I am. I will not let anyone mistake kindness for weakness." Lightning explained quietly, feeling the scar on her face itch in painful memory. "I am far from weak, and all of Yusnaan will know it if they won't see reason."

Naki leant against the wall and lit a cigarette, relaxing and waiting for the sun to go down. He needed patience, he needed her to calm down before they made a move. "The wharf rats are skittish at best, Lightning. We need to wait and not go barging in. No matter what your thoughts are towards those who took Fang. They're children. They're kids who have lived it tough their whole lives and they're scared. If the Triads dangled a carrot, there isn't many in this city who wouldn't take it."

"Would you?" Lightning asked, turning to him with a cold stare. "If the right carrot was dangled, would you?"

"I honestly can't believe you would ask me that. She's my daughter." Naki growled in warning, his wounded eye twitching around the scar tissue. Lightning wasn't scared of the topic and stepped forward, staring him down.

"You've been gone from her life since you were declared dead, Naki. There's nothing to say you are her father. You managed to disappear. You could have come for Fang and Vanille and taken them with you. We all could be leading very different lives for that. My father had a saying, that choices make for stranger paths of fate. Meaning that whatever path you choose to tread, make the wise decision, for the greater good." Lightning responded, before leaning against the wall with a bitter laugh, snatching the cigarette from his mouth and taking a drag. "Funny how I never listened to him until it was too late to tell him I was sorry for the choices I'd made."

Naki was silent for a while, before looking her over and wishing for his cigarette back. "I… Didn't think you smoked."

"I don't. Used to. Don't tell Fang. I've been trying to get her to quit." Lightning exhaled, throwing it to the ground and stepping on it, much to Naki's dismay. She pushed off from the wall and checked the time on her phone before pocketing it with a sigh. "Well, you may feel it's a great idea to just hang about here but I have a wife to save."

"Light for fuck's sake-" Naki scrambled to reach for her, but she was too quick for him. He watched her leave as she pulled a gun from her jacket and kicked a side door in. He buried his face in his hands and groaned. "I'm getting too old for this shit." He muttered, disappearing down the opposite end of the alley to go and get supplies.

The door swung open violently, startling Fang and causing her head to snap up at the sound. S'yani stalked in angrily, bleeding from a cut on his eyebrow. He glared at her momentarily before kicking her chair back further from the door. Another of his lackeys brought a familiar face in, who was kicking and trying to bite anyone who got too close. "Light!" She cried out in fear, worried that her wife had been injured by the others. She seemed unharmed, for now, and it brought Fang what little relief could be wrought while tied to a chair.

"What a lucky day I have, here." S'yani crowed, wiping the blood from his face with the back of his hand. He grabbed Lightning's wrist and threw her to the ground, kicking her in the stomach to stop her from struggling. "Both the infamous heads of Ragnarok, ready to deliver to the Triads on a silver platter. Getting Fang as the bait was one thing, but I honestly didn't think you were stupid enough to just kick in the door guns blazing!"

Lightning groaned on the ground, not bothering to get up. "I got impatient." She drawled, getting another kick in the stomach for her snark. "Hello, my love. Sorry I'm late."

"You think this is a joke?" S'yani yelled, his rage growing by the second at the pinkette's seeming indifference to her current situation. She would not, could not be rattled by him, and it infuriated her. Lightning shrugged and gave him a curious look.

"I mean it could be a joke, but I don't have a mirror to hold up to your ugly face."

S'yani roared in anger and pulled her up by the shirt, punching her in the jaw several times. She spat blood in his face and laughed, gesturing to the scar on her face. "You're adorable with how you're trying to intimidate me. I've walked through hell and back. You're nothing."

"Nothing? I'm nothing?!" S'yani seethed and brushed his greasy black hair from his face. He took a low shot to her ribs and knocked the wind out of her, dropping her to the ground. He glared at Fang who was staring back at him with a dangerous fire in her eyes, but helpless when she was bound to the chair. "If your woman wasn't worth so much, I'd kill her in front of you, Fang. Just so you could feel a shred of the suffering we have endured from you." He snarled. Fang struggled in her binds and tried to see if her wife was alright, the brief lack of movement nothing short of alarming.

"I have… I have something… Information… I need to.. Tell you. It's… It's important…" Lightning wheezed, clutching at the Oerban's ankle. S'yani glanced down and arched an eyebrow, kneeling to hear her rasps. She leant up as best she could and got close to his face. "You really…. Really… Need a mint."

"Stupid bitch!" S'yani snapped, kneeing her in the ribs and backhanding her across the face. Lightning sunk to the floor, limp and silent, and it scared Fang to the bone. "You two will be dead by sundown, and we will be so very much richer for it. And the world will be a far better place without the likes of you, Fallak'nara." S'yani sneered, before barking orders at the others to get out. He slammed the door behind them, leaving Lightning to catch her breath.

"He… Really doesn't like you much, does he?"

Fang breathed a sigh of relief at her voice, before promptly getting mad. "Light, what the hell are you doing here?" Fang hissed, looking up towards the door as Lightning crawled over to untie the ropes around her wrists. As soon as she was free, Fang knelt off the chair and helped Light sit up, checking over her injuries.

"I'm fine. Really. He was too pissed off to really hurt me. Or check the body armour underneath for that matter." Lightning drawled, patting at her side and Fang hearing the soft thud of padding beneath the shirt. "I mean it still hurts like hell but… I'll sleep it off later after a nice ice bath."

"Only you would say nice and ice bath in the same sentence and mean it, you friggin' maniac." Fang sighed, slowly getting to her feet and helping her wife up. "So did you even have a plan at this point?"

"I had a plan. It was a great plan."

"Which was?"

"Shoot stuff."

Fang gave her a sardonic glare and ran her fingers through her hair to straighten it out. "Light, that's not a plan."

"Also this." Lightning pulled a small remote out of her bra and pressed a button, a muffled sound of the bombs going off beyond the cell. Fang could only stare in disbelief as chaos began to sound off outside.

"That… That wasn't shooting stuff, Light. That was an explosion, darling."

Lightning shrugged and kissed her gently, just momentarily letting her bravado slip so she could remind herself that once again, they had managed to survive stupid odds. "Same difference." She breathed, her voice a little shaky. "Come on."

The door was locked and Fang rolled her shoulders in annoyance. She wasn't sure if she had the strength to kick it in, but she wasn't going to wait around to regain her energy. There was a fiddling with the lock from the other side, and Fang immediately stepped in front of Lightning to shield her.

Carefully, the door opened and to Fang's surprise, Naki was kneeling down at the lock level, holding a lockpick tool in his hand. He arched an eyebrow at her then leant to the side to check in on Lightning. "Is she always this impatient with you, Fang?" He asked, slowly getting to his feet with a grunt. Fang couldn't believe that he was standing there, and she immediately tensed. Lightning placed a soothing hand on her shoulder to calm her.

"It's alright, Fang. He helped me find you. He's helping us get out."

"Helping us? It's probably his fault I got caught to begin with!" Fang snapped, stepping back away from him. Naki hung his head and looked away with his one good eye, sighing softly.

"I know I have a lot to make up for, Fang. And I don't deserve forgiveness for the choices I've made. But I can get you and your wife out of here so that you can live a happy life with her, and give yourself the family that I couldn't."

Fang looked back at Lightning, who was staying quiet and out of the moment between father and daughter. Now wasn't the time for reunions or arguments however, and Fang squared her shoulders and pushed her way past. "We'll have this conversation. But not here, and not now, old man. Let's go." She clipped, storming from the cell. Lightning gave him a shrug and followed behind, holding out her hand for Naki's weapon.

"You can't kill them, Lightning. They're just kids." Naki warned, Lightning just standing there calmly with her palm still facing up.

"Don't care. If they shoot first, I'll shoot back. They started this by taking Fang, and to hell with anyone who thinks I won't finish it."

Lightning snatched the gun from Naki's holster and left the cell, heading after Fang. She whistled out for her and pointed down the rows of storage containers to their left. "My self-made exit it that way." She explained, rubbing at her ribs through her jacket. As far as she could tell, there wasn't anything broken, and she was inwardly thankful that the idiot that had kicked her had next to no strength behind him.

The hallways smoked and were littered with rubble as they raced towards the exit, Naki following close behind. He yelled out as the girl from before leapt down from the crates, tackling Lightning to the ground. Fang shot forward to pull the urchin off her and got an elbow to the face for her troubles. Lightning growled and rolled, slamming the girl against the wall to shake her off. Successful, she clawed her way to her feet and pulled the gun on the youth.

"Light no!" Fang yelled out, causing her to hesitate. It was enough for the girl to launch upwards, brandishing a knife and catching Lightning on the chin.

"Dammit!" Lightning hissed, clutching at her face. "Can I even go a week without being injured because of you?"

The outburst stung, and Fang looked away. "I am keeping my word, even if the kid doesn't see it right away. Enough Pulsians have died because of me." She said quietly, the hurt bleeding through in her tone. Naki stepped forward and took his gun back off of Lightning to cover them as they moved towards the exit. The other Pulsians were now focused on putting the fires out from the explosion, before it engulfed the warehouse.

"Forgive me adding my two cents here, but that is absolute bullshit, mal'am." Naki drawled, seeing the light from the hole in the wall shining around the corner. "The Port Runners targeted you, groomed you into a criminal. Kept you from the worst of it so that by the time you realised how much damage the gang was doing to Oerba, it was too late."

"Naki is right, Fang." Lightning sighed, wiping more blood from her neck that had dripped down from the cut on her chin. She was still mad at Fang for getting in the way, but her earlier shot was unfair. There'd have to be an apology later. Complete with flowers. Or a bank robbery. Hadn't decided. "Auron did the same to me, and god knows what would have become of me had I have allowed things to continue, had I have not taken that plea deal to have my record expunged." She slipped her hand inside of Fang's, giving it an apologetic squeeze.

A gun cocked behind them and they both turned, seeing the young Pulsian girl standing shakily, weapon raised. Fang immediately stood between her and Lightning, despite the fact that the pinkette was wearing body armour; she was not. They stared each other down and Fang swallowed hard. "You don't want to follow in my footsteps, kid? Make better choices." She said firmly, reaching behind her to hold Lightning's hand. The youth narrowed her eyes at both the gesture and the threatening death glare the pink-haired woman was giving her.

"Almi fed Almi, Yun." The youth answered, pocketing her gun and turning back the other way. "Don't let S'yani get the drop on you like that again." Turning away from them, the young girl ran back into the warehouse, yelling that they had gone in the other direction. The street kid had given them their out, uninhibited.

Naki stepped out into the alleyway and led them along the docks, away from the warehouse. He spied a familiar sleek sedan parked in an alley, its silver-haired driver leaning against it lazily. He gave her a wave and looked over his shoulder back at the other two. "In the absence of reason, people always look for someone to take the fall, to shoulder the blame. To make their desperate world make sense. The decline of the Pulsians and their subsequent lives here are the result of their own choices. Not yours. Don't take on their burdens as some divine punishment for your past."

As Naki walked over to greet Aranea, Fang's footsteps slowed. Lightning took her hand and tugged it gently, to urge her onwards. But Fang held firm, coming to a stop. "Why him? Why of all people, him?" She asked, sounding exhausted and emotionally drained. Lightning turned and cupped her face, stroking her cheek with her thumb.

"Because you'll find that there is very little I won't do, no line I wouldn't cross, in order to bring you home, my love." Lightning answered, leaning in to kiss her. "I know it's hard. I do. And you have every right to be mad at him. To hate him. But at least… Just hear him out. You have a real shot here, to build a family again."

Fang took her by the hands, her anger starting to deflate a little now that she knew the reason behind Lightning's need to push the subject. "I already have my family. I have you, I have Vanille. I have the gang. I don't need to build what I've already got. Look. I know you blame yourself over your dad, but-"

"I held him as he took his last breath, Fang."

Clamping her jaw shut, Fang stared in disbelief at Lightning. Any time she had tried to get the pinkette to open up about her family in the past the topic was quickly -and sometimes aggressively- shut down. She squeezed Lightning's hands gently, wanting to convey that she was there but not knowing what else to say. "Light?"

"He died in my arms after I watched him get shot. He looked... so disappointed. His last words were, I told you. Nothing poignant, not even a complete sentence, it sounded like he was about to lecture me when he choked on his own blood and died." Lightning paused, swallowing the lump in her throat. It wasn't often she spoke about her past, and for good reason, given how much of what happened she continued to blame herself for.

Fang suppressed her anger for a moment, pulling Lightning into her arms. "I'm sorry, sweetheart." She whispered against her hair, feeling the pinkette return the embrace tightly with a quiet sniff.

"Don't be. You have every right to be mad. If I was in your position I can't say with all honesty that I would have just stopped with the one punch. Naki has a lot to answer for with his choices towards you, let alone the cryptic stunts he's been pulling with the gang." Lightning assured as she leant back and cupped Fang's face. The tears of frustration and betrayal that lined those expressive viridian eyes broke her heart, and she ran her thumbs along Fang's cheeks as if that would wipe the pain away. Sadly life wasn't that simple, and especially not for them. "But you're right. I wouldn't hesitate to have one last conversation with my father. To apologise for everything. To see if he would he proud of the person I've become. You have the chance that I will never get."

"You're my family, Light. I don't… I don't need him." Fang sniffed, her voice raw and exhausted. Lightning leant up and gave her a soft, slow kiss, just indulging for what felt like the first time in ages.

"I know. It's not about need. It's about… that choices make for stranger paths of fate. If there's a reason he's come back, at least hear him out. See where the path leads, you know?"

After a moment, Fang nodded and leant her forehead against Lightning's. "Alright. I'll try. For you though, not for him. I can't make any promises though."

"That's all I needed to hear. Let's go back to the hotel. A night with champagne and a hot tub is calling my aching muscles." Lightning mused, pulling Fang along towards the waiting sedan. The Pulsian sighed happily at the idea of the evening ahead, even if it meant they were just tending to each other's wounds.

"Now that's the best plan I've heard to date since this entire shitfight began."