Snow's red convertible steadily cruised down one of Bodhum's main roads a little over an hour later than it was scheduled to the day before.

"What took you so long to pick us up in the first place?" Lightning asked in a harsh tone, shooting Snow a long side eye from the passenger seat.

"Geez, I'm sorry… My aunt and uncle thought it'd be a good bonding experience to go to a morning pottery class together. What was I supposed to tell them? No, I can't go because I'll be late picking up our super-powered neighbors for our plot to foil a Pulse fal'Cie?" Snow returned.

"You're right. It's not like any tiny lie or excuse would've gotten you off the hook from an impromptu Saturday morning pottery class from the people who let you skip school last week because your aura was hurting," Lightning huffed, crossing her arms and turning in her seat to angrily stare out the window. "And it's GRAN Pulse."

Snow grumbled under his breath as he concentrated on the road. He guessed it might've been nerves concerning their upcoming battle, but Lightning seemed a bit more cross than usual today. "At least Fang didn't think it was too bad of a time shift…"

Lightning quickly spun around in her seat so that she was facing Snow again. "You talked to Fang today?"

Snow turned his head to glance at Lightning, somewhat curious about the sudden spark of interest. "Of course, I talked to Fang today. This is kind of a big deal for everyone." His brows ruffled in disbelief. "You didn't?"

"Must've slipped my mind," she muttered, averting her eyes to the road for a short moment before looking back up to Snow. "What'd she say?"

"Nothing too crucial," he shrugged. "Just that she'd probably be done with her field events by the time we get there, so she'd head home afterwards in case we needed to call her for something."

"Oh. Okay." Lightning simply nodded and turned to quietly face the window again.

Snow tore his eyes away from the road for another second to peep at her. She wasn't sulking like he had expected her to be doing. Instead, she just looked to be lost in thought. Yep, this fal'Cie thing definitely had to be shaking her up a little. Snow's eyes then darted to the rearview mirror to check on the youngest rider in the back seat. "Hope. How you holding up back there?"

Hope's head lifted towards the front of the car. He had been staring down at his lap, seemingly turning over something in his mind as well. "Alright, I guess. Just nervous."

Snow smiled. "Nothing to be nervous about, buddy. We're the heroes! We've got this in the bag." He slowed the car down as he approached the turn from the main street to the side road that led to the Vestige parking lot. "And this Anima dude is gonna find that out the hard way in just a couple minutes. By the—whoa…"

Lightning's head perked up attentively as Snow rolled the car into the parking lot. It was swarming with people. "What the hell…" she quietly questioned to no one in particular.

Hope leaned against the door in the backseat to peer out the window at the crowd of people moving around the lot as well. "Do you think there's some kind of event here today?"

"No." Light's voice was one step away from being a growl. She recognized the clothing of most of the people traversing the huge lot before she even noticed the yellow tape surrounding the building or the helmeted men marching from out and behind it. PSICOM.

"Snow, park the car. We've got to check this out."

"Aye, aye, captain," Snow consented, pulling the car into the closest empty space and unlocking the doors.

Lightning led the march across the rest of the parking lot to the tape that surrounded the Vestige perimeter. All of the PSICOM soldiers and officers seemed to be heavily engrossed in whatever they were doing, because none of them stopped or broke stride to pay the youngsters any mind. As Lightning flicked at the tape and studied the area, Hope tried to flag down one of the busy government men that continued to pass by.

"Excuse me. Sir?" He finally managed to grab the attention of an unmasked man in an enforcer uniform.

The man froze, genuinely surprised to see the group of students there before once again regaining his composure. "I'm sorry, kids. The Vestige is closed for the weekend. You'll have to come back some other time."

"Closed? But why? You've got it taped up as if there was a murder here." Lightning pointed out, turning her head away from the building to look at the man. From her knowledge, this sort of tape was only used for high crimes involving murder and such.

The man lowered his eyes at Lightning curiously, no doubt taking in her pink hair and blue eyes but not connecting what seemed so familiar about them. "I'm sorry, miss. That is official PSICOM business. Business that would run much more smoothly if you were not in the way. Please, allow me to escort the group of you to the bus stop."

"Claire Farron?"

A cold shiver ran up Lightning's spine and her brows instinctively creased as her head snapped in the direction of the familiar voice calling her real name. Steel gray eyes locked on her own as a tall, silver-haired man approached the small group.

Yaag Rosch.

"Whew. PSICOM officer or not, dude's got balls," Light could hear Snow whisper to Hope behind her back.

A small, tight-lipped smile made its way to Rosch's face. "Oh, I apologize. It's Lightning, isn't it?"

"Farron?" The man in the enforcer uniform asked, quickly turning his head back and forth from Lighting to Rosch with a stunned look on his face. "As in—"

"Gaskins," Rosch addressed the man, not allowing him to finish his question. "The forensics team could use some more hands to help bring their equipment in through the west entrance. You should get on that. Now."

"Oh, uh… yes, sir." Gaskins bowed his head subserviently, gawking at Lightning for only a second more before hurriedly striding off to the direction of the west entrance.

"Lightning," Rosch said, bringing his attention back to the teens. "I am so sorry to disappoint you and your…" His eyes lifted to glaze over Snow and Hope before returning to Light, "…friends, but the Vestige is currently closed due to a major investigation."

Lightning felt her brow tighten even more as she uncomfortably stood under Rosch's gaze. There was something that she just found downright unsettling about this man, and that eerie half-smile on his face was doing nothing to ease it. "What would be so important to investigate at the Vestige? Did someone steal something valuable?"

"Hehehe," Rosch softly chuckled, his smile opening into a bit of an impressed smirk. "I see you have a strong, investigative sense just like your father. But yes, I guess you can say that something important went missing. It seems as if a very old and very important artifact that was accidentally stored on the premises may have disappeared some weeks ago, and it's of extreme importance that we find it."

"Must be one important artifact," Lightning mused, shifting her weight around a bit before folding her arms tightly across her chest, "I mean, if it's got so much of PSICOM searching for it weeks after it's gone missing. Even though it does bring into question how important it is if you just noticed it was missing now."

"Well, sometimes things get misplaced and tend to slip past security," Rosch replied with a look of pure interest still on his face. "But it is so fortunate that I should run in to you here. You see, there seems to be a rumour going around that a few local teens were caught breaking into a restricted area of the Vestige, but we can't seem to find any leads or evidence of such. As a high schooler, do you happen to know anything about this?"

Lightning wasn't sure if her mind was playing tricks on her or not, but there seemed to be a knowing spark in Rosch's eye as he asked her the question. Nonetheless, she put on her best poker face and in an even tone answered, "Well, sir, they are called rumours for a reason."

"I see…" Rosch nodded, his gaze on Lightning never wavering. "I guess that's just the power of the high school rumour mill. Even after you've graduated, it still pulls you back in."

"I guess so," Lightning replied, staring back at Rosch just as hard. "But since the Vestige is closed, my friends and I should probably be going. It looks like you guys have a lot of work to get to."

"That we do," Rosch agreed, that spark once again shining in his eyes.

Lightning peered over her shoulder at Hope and Snow and tilted her head in the direction where they had parked. Both boys nodded in agreement and began to lead the way back to the vehicle, Lightning following close behind. They hadn't gotten too many steps forward when they were once again halted by Rosch's voice.

"And Lightning!"

Light turned around to give Rosch an inquisitive look.

"I look forward to seeing you at dinner tomorrow."

Lightning's expression slowly twisted in confusion and Rosch smiled broadly in response. "Your father invited me over for dinner at your house tomorrow night. We would've settled on tonight, but I'm afraid my hands will be tied with interrogations for the better half of the evening. Nonetheless, I couldn't be any more excited. I feel that we'll have lots to talk about."

"Yeah…" Lightning agreed as her stomach uncomfortably turned. "Me, too. C'mon, guys. Let's get out of here."

"Argh, you've gotta be fuckin' kidding me!"

"Do you think the thing they're looking for is the fal'Cie?" Snow asked in a shaky voice, burning rubber down one of the nearly empty back roads. "The thing they're looking for can't be the fal'Cie, right?!"

Whatever cool that the teens had held in the Vestige parking lot had immediately faded and turned into a hectic, jumbled mess of feelings of anxiety and 'oh, holy shit-ness'.

"Of course, he was talking about the fal'Cie!" Lightning groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose. She had suddenly gotten a major headache and she couldn't stop herself from continually rocking back and forth in her seat. "What else could he have been talking about?"

"But I don't get it," Hope leaned forward onto his knees from his spot in the middle of the back seat. "If he heard the rumour about the trespassing… how could he not know it was us who did it? It's not like it's a well-kept secret."

Lightning took in a deep inhale through her mouth and slowly exhaled through her nose in an attempt to settle herself down. Today was supposed to be the day that they faced the fal'Cie and got this Etro-forsaken curse lifted from them. Things weren't supposed to be getting this out of hand. "He probably does know it was us," she replied in a strained breath. In her mind, she could still see that stupid, smug smirk with that knowing gleam in his eyes as he talked to her. "He just must not have any proof. I'm pretty sure that my dad wiped our school from the Vestige's entry log, and it wasn't like it was an official school field trip or anything."

"But they're PSICOM!" Snow chimed in worriedly from the driver's seat. "If they really suspected we had something to do with a rogue fal'Cie, couldn't they just kidnap us or whack us and make it look like an accident?!" Snow's face then paled and his eyes went wide. "Oh, no… we're gonna get wasted…"

"For the love of... ugh! Can you just calm down?!" Lightning exclaimed before looking over her shoulder to make sure that Hope wasn't fazed by Snow's morbid concern. "We're still minors and my dad is a high ranking PSICOM official. There might just be too many complications or something like that… I don't know!"

"Man…" Snow breathed, his hunched shoulders visibly relaxing a bit as he thought about it. "I've never loved your dad so much as I do now, which might not sound like such a big deal since he's scared the crap out of me for most of my life—"

Lightning rolled her eyes.

"—but this is different. Serious man crush going on right now. Just think of what would happen if we were like Regular Joes or something. We'd be totally screwed."

A short moment of silence settled in the car before all three teens came to a simultaneous and sudden realization.

"Fang and Vanille!"

Lightning's stomach dropped. For some reason, even though PSICOM had suspicions about the group's involvement, they had yet to act on them. But if they knew that any Gran Pulsians were involved, they probably wouldn't waste any time in sending in a hit squad to take out half the reservation. She immediately yanked her phone from her pocket. "I'll call Fang. Hope, you try to get Vanille."

"Don't worry, guys!" Snow veered hard to his right, swiftly turning the car onto the very next side road. "We're not too far away from the reservation. I can get us there in a few minutes."

"You know where their living area is?" Lightning asked as the first ring went unanswered on the phone.

"Just about. Vanille explained the known lay of the land to me once. I think I'd be able to get us there without getting lost."

"Dammit! It went to the machine! Hope, did Vanille answer?" Lightning turned to Hope in the backseat and worriedly growled when the boy dejectedly shook his head to answer 'no'. This couldn't be good. She roughly ran her hand over her face as the echoes of unanswered rings and Rosch's smug voice kept repeating on loop in her head. "Snow, STEP ON IT."

Snow nodded and punched harder on the gas. The car's engine rumbled as they sped along the empty road through the woods to the Gran Pulse reservation.

Snow slowed the car down as the dirt road he drove on opened up into a clearing that was cluttered with large, metal structures. "I'm guessing this is it," he announced, slowing the car down even more.

Lightning's chest quickly heaved up and down. For the rest of the ride, she had found that it was getting immensely harder and harder to breathe. Neither Fang nor Vanille had answered their phones or decided to call back. She tried to find some relief in the fact that everything on the reservation seemed peaceful, with older adults sitting outside their trailers talking and others casually walking about, but it wasn't as if PSICOM didn't have the power to quietly sedate and sneak Fang and Vanille from the premises.

Snow pulled the car further into the living space before finally deciding to put it in park since there wasn't exactly a prescribed place for parking and he couldn't see any other vehicle around for him to guide his decision on.

Lightning quickly hopped out of the car the moment it stopped. She stood outside the door and frantically looked around. It was just beginning to sink in that she had no idea which trailer Fang and Vanille could possibly live in. Was there some sort of directory? Should she just start calling out their names? She was so taken up in her worry that she didn't even notice the multitude of eyes and the small crowd of gatherers that their arrival was attracting.

Snow and Hope, on the other hand, did notice.

Snow cautiously reached over to grab Hope's hand before slowly walking around the car to stand behind Lightning. He looked about him cautiously as the reservation inhabitants began to crowd about with curious and defensive looks on their faces. Snow's ride was by far the newest, shiniest, and most expensive thing that he could at least see in the area. Hell, he'd even bet that it cost more than a whole block of their trailers did.

"Light…" he softly called under his breath, keeping a firm and close grip on Hope's hand as he continued to watch the slowly approaching Pulsians. Lightning, however, just stayed oblivious, surveying the area for at least a clue as to where the two missing l'cie may live.

"Oi!"

She was broken from her frantic thoughts by a loud voice across the way. She lifted her head to meet the resolute stare of a young man that didn't look much older than she was. He had bronzed skin, similar to Fang's, and was wearing a ripped, sleeveless shirt that allowed her to see a few tattooed bands around his upper arm.

"Can I help you lot with anything?" The young man called, slowly walking in the Cocoonians' direction with a guarded look on his face. "Directions to the nearest highway, perhaps?"

Lightning just glared back at the boy. She was sensing some hostility from him and didn't like it one bit.

"Oh, uh, no," Snow spoke up from behind her. "We're actually looking for someone. Or some people."

"Oh. Looking for someone, eh?" The boy lifted his eyebrows with a skeptical look on his face. "Well, it's pretty hard to find people around here, so I suggest ya just head back to wherever ya came from and try looking somewhere else."

"Hey, man," Snow said, raising his free hand in a calming gesture, "We don't want any trouble. We just need to see F—"

"I told ya," The boy curtly interrupted, taking a single, aggressive step forward. "We can't help. Now please. Take your little brother, your fancy car, and your girlfriend, and leave… or something might not leave here as pretty as it came."

"Ugh! We don't have time for this!" Lightning exploded, taking some deliberate steps of her own in the boy's direction. "We need to—"

"Stop right there!"

Lightning halted in mid-step as a handful of other residents defensively stepped forward to stand behind the boy, all of them tensed and looking ready to pounce. Lightning's hands began trembling, but not out of fear or anxiety… This was from anger. She balled a fist and felt an electric and oh so familiar sensation run from her chest to her hand, pooling into her balled fist. Unless if it was to lead her to Fang and Vanille, if anyone else so much as twitched in her direction, she would make sure that all of them would remember her namesake.

"Dane! Light!" A familiar voice sounded through the air. "What're ya doing?!"

Lightning's fist immediately relaxed and she whipped around in the direction of Fang's voice. Sure enough, her training partner had just exited from one of the trailers and was jumping over its steps to reach the ground. Lightning never thought she would ever be so happy to see that scraggly mop of dark hair as she was in that moment.

"Fang…" she breathed, and without thinking, she let her legs take off into a sprint to close the gap between the two, barely giving Fang enough time to register what was going on before flying into her.

"Augh!" Fang choked as she caught Lightning in her arms, holding her as she stood straight up so that the pinkette's toes dangled a couple of inches off the ground. "Light?"

Lightning just tightened the grip that she had around the other girl's neck, hooking her chin over the top of Fang's shoulder to tighten the embrace even more. They were so close that she could feel Fang's heart beating against her own excited, heaving chest. "You didn't answer your phone," she accused in a more relieved than angry tone.

"I-I'm sorry," Fang apologized, still unsure of what was going on. "I'm an idiot, I know. Vanille was wound so tight that I thought she might be having a panic attack, and I forgot to turn the blasted thing off silent, and… and I guess there's no good excuse, really."

Lightning just nodded along, finding comfort in the vibrations against her body that came from Fang speaking. Fang, meanwhile, warily studied the faces of most of the crowd from over Lightning's shoulder. Hope and Snow looked totally flabbergasted at the sudden outburst of emotion from their usually detached neighbor. Most of the other Gran Pulsians were whispering amongst each other and scrutinizing the two through curious eyes while one in particular just settled on them with a firm and disapproving gaze.

Lightning's eyes lifted on seeing the door to the trailer Fang had exited open and Vanille's head slowly peeked out. She felt a sudden sinking feeling of embarrassment as the redhead's gaze landed on the two of them, her brows slightly scrunching and the cogs of her mind obviously turning as her whole body now appeared in the doorway.

"Ahem!" The boy who Light had been at ends with just a moment ago, Dane, loudly cleared his throat, never taking his hard stare off the two girls.

Lightning loosened her grip around Fang's neck and allowed the other girl to gently lower her back to the ground. Now that the impulse had worn off, she could feel her cheeks heating up with abashment at how badly she had lost her composure. She took a hard swallow and uncomfortably took a short step away from Fang. "Next time, answer the phone when you say you will," she scolded in a low and muffled voice, pushing Fang's shoulder.

"Yeah… yeah," Fang replied, but her focus was not on Lightning. She barely seemed to notice the shove at all. Her attention was more divested in the intense staring contest she was having with Dane. "C'mon," she finally said, taking Light a little bit by surprise by gently grasping her hand. "Snow. Hope. You too. We should talk inside."

Fang nodded in the direction of Vanille and their trailer before leading the way to its entrance.

As the rest of the Gran Pulsians began to disperse, with most of the younger ones beginning to crowd around the bright red convertible, Dane continued to watch the group of younger teens make their way inside Fang's trailer with an unmistakable look of disdain.

"So what's goin' on?" Fang immediately asked, turning to look over her fellow l'cie once the trailer door had closed behind them. "We've still got our brands. Did it not work?"

"Pretty much," Lightning answered. "Place was crawling with PSICOM. We think they found out about the fal'Cie but now they can't find it. They were doing a full investigative sweep of the place when we pulled up."

"And we think they might suspect we know something about it going missing," Hope added. "Even though we technically don't…"

"Wait, you think they know we saw the fal'Cie?" Fang asked in an escalated voice.

"They've heard the rumours about the arrest, but they can't find any real proof of it," Lightning tried reassuring.

"Since when has PSICOM needed proof for anything?" Fang murmured, dropping her eyes to the floor with a look of contemplation on her face.

"That's what we thought too. …it's why we rushed over here so quickly to find you two." Lightning hadn't even noticed that Fang was still holding her hand until she felt the light pressure of a comforting squeeze after making that statement. "But there must be something stopping them from making the next move."

"Well," Hope spoke up again, rubbing his chin. "I've been thinking about it... And Van and Fang might actually be the safest ones out of all of us. Well, at least for now."

Fang finally released Light's hand so that she could plant both hands on her hips. "Now there's a first. How'd ya come to that conclusion?"

"Well, they seem to only know about us through the rumours about us getting arrested," Hope began, earnestly looking over everyone's faces as he talked. "Depending on his sources, there's still a chance that Fang and Vanille might not have been included. The Vestige happened over a month ago, and everyone pretty much stopped caring about Vanille and Fang being involved almost a couple days after it happened, probably town pride and all. I can say for a fact that the last time I heard the story, it involved us trying to stop three Pulsian men from trying to rob the place. No one outside a small circle of folks at school even bothered to figure out Fang and Vanille's names after it all happened… And since there was no class roster from the field trip and Pulsians aren't even allowed to go into the Vestige in the first place, it might be easier for them to assume that it was either a break-in from some adults or just a falsified rumour added to make the story more exciting instead of two high school girls finding a loophole in the security measures."

"Hmm," Vanille tapped her chin, speaking amongst the group for the first time today. "Sounds plausible."

"Sounds too good to be true…" Fang muttered in response.

"But Light, that one guy said he's eating dinner at your place tomorrow, right?" Hope asked, now looking to his older neighbor. Lightning nodded in response. "Then maybe you can find a way to mine him for some info. See what he knows?"

"Wow," Snow said with an impressed grin. "You're becoming a strategic mastermind."

"Okay, okay, so ya've apparently got someone you can get information from, but something's still bothering me," Fang said, lifting a finger to the air with a pensive look on her face. "Ya said they were doing a full investigative sweep of the place?"

"Yeah. They had forensics equipment out the wazzoo," Snow replied.

"Like brushing for fingerprints and being able to match 'em through a database type equipment?" Fang asked.

"Shit…" Lightning groaned. "How many of you have a criminal record?"

Three hands lifted to the air.

"Jaywalking."

"Why is it just assumed we have criminal records? All Gran Pulsians are required to be fingerprinted and put on record, regardless of committing a crime or not, ya know."

"Multiple misdemeanors," Snow said, adding in his two cents. "Plus there was the whole shaving off half my head for the drug testing."

"Alright, we've got to get moving. My dad's at HQ today, so I can make up an excuse to visit him and try to find a way to delete everyone's files… somehow."

"I'll call Maqui. He's in some type of genius hacker association. They live for this type of stuff," Snow offered, pulling out his phone and following Lightning to the door.

"Wait, I'm comin' too," Fang called, rushing behind them.

"No!" Lightning twirled on her heel to face Fang and stare her straight in the eyes. "It's better that you just find some place safe and wait."

"You're joking, right?" Fang asked with a disbelieving expression. "This is my problem too, ya know! Ya can't just keep benching me every time something important happens!"

"Fang, you're talking about marching straight into this region's PSICOM headquarters to perform a criminal act without bringing any more attention to yourself than you already have! Top that onto seeing my dad so soon after what happened yesterday, and you're just asking to get into more trouble!"

Fang just glared, angrily steaming at the thought of being left behind again but at the same time realizing just how much sense Lightning was making.

"Uh… what happened yesterday?" Snow asked, shifting a questioning glance from Lightning to Fang.

"Nothing," Lightning quickly snapped, turning for the door. Fang snorted a heavy puff of air from her nostrils and raised her hands to interlock behind her head, averting her glare to the opposite side of the trailer. "But we've got to go now! Before they send in any prints or hair samples or something. Fang. Vanille. We'll call you once we get done."

"Yes, ma'am, Miss Lightning sir ma'am," Fang responded in a sarcastic tone as the three Cocoonians exited the trailer.

Vanille watched them leave with a slightly confused expression on her face before turning back to her best friend. "What was that about?"

"Nothing," Fang mumbled, lowering her hands from her head so that one could cradle her branded upper arm. "Look, I need some air. I'll be back in a few."

"Fang, it's probably smarter if we both stay inside and stick to—" Vanille was cut off by the door slamming behind Fang on her exit. "—gether…" The ending of her sentence fell on an empty audience. Vanille stared at the door worriedly. She understood why her best friend was so upset, but after so many years of knowing the girl, she just couldn't shake the feeling… something was wrong with Fang.

"I won't lie and say that I'm not surprised to see you, though." Colonel Farron admitted to his eldest daughter, who stood in front of him in one of the HQ offices with a short, unruly looking blonde boy who was wearing a pair of goggles atop his head. "And please, remind me again what your name is."

"Maqui, sir!" The boy chirped excitedly

"Maqui is one of my babysitting clients," Lightning added, regaining her father's attention. "It's a long story, but his parents dropped him off and we decided to take a walk for ice cream. I forgot to bring my keys, and Serah left to do something cheer-related so we ended up getting locked out. I was hoping that I could borrow your key to get back in?"

"You forgot your keys?" Farron asked disbelievingly, still turning his gaze to every once in awhile study the weird blonde child standing next to his daughter. "And as a result, you decided to take a child across town to enter a Code-3-Clearance government building? You couldn't have just taken him to a park?"

"I left my medication in the house," Maqui stated while looking around the room in wonder. "When I was five, I was diagnosed with a real bad case of—"

"No, it's alright, son. I can probably guess," Farron assured dismissively.

"But speaking of, uh, stuff, do you know where the boys' room is? I've been holding it since before I got dropped off."

Farron raised a slightly disgusted eyebrow in Maqui's direction before answering. "Out the door, make two rights. Here, take this badge in case somebody stops you."

"Thank you, sir!" Maqui thanked with a wide smile as he accepted a clearance badge from the colonel. He then turned to flash Lightning a special, private smile before quickly scurrying out the room.

Farron continued to watch the boy curiously until he had disappeared out the door. "Tell me you're getting paid extra for that one…"

"Not really."

Farron sighed and rubbed his temples. "Claire… You locked yourself out of the house? I don't know what to make of these past two days, but I can tell you for sure that I don't like it."

"I understand," Lightning responded, clasping her hands behind her back and looking down at her feet. "And it's also kind of why I thought to come here as well. I want to apologize for everything."

Farron's expression perked up and he leaned back to make his seat recline. "Apologize?"

"Yes," Lightning affirmed with a resolute nod. She raised her head to look her father in the eyes. "I should have told you beforehand about Fang being my sparring partner. It's just that, there are so many benefits to the relationship, but I didn't think you would approve after everything that had happened at the Vestige. I'm sorry."

Farron gazed thoughtfully at his eldest for a moment. "I can't say that I approve of the deception, but I do admire your ambition. And one of the trials of being a parent is letting your children make decisions on their own, no matter how… questionable they are. Now, about Fang. She doesn't try to wish you luck often, does she?"

Lightning could feel an involuntary blush coming along on being put on the spot about the kiss from last night. "No, sir. I was caught off guard just as much as you were."

"Hmm," Farron continued the critical stare down of his child and allowed a short moment of silence to pass between them before asking his next question. "What do you do for fun nowadays?"

Light was caught off guard by the sudden change of subject. "I, uh, guess reading and training."

"That's it? That's all you do for fun?" Farron raised his eyebrows at his daughter who just stared back at him. Farron could read his daughter very well and her expression showed that she had no idea how to answer him. "I've been hearing that there's a little social for the new cadets coming up soon. I've been mentoring a particular young man who's still looking for a date. He's a real nice young man. Might not have as much discipline and determination as you do, but maybe the two of you can rub off on each other. You should consider it."

Lightning quietly stood for a moment, letting the information sink in. "Aren't I too young for that?" she finally asked, not knowing any other way to respond.

"He's only two years older than you. It's fine," Farron assured.

"Okay... I guess I'll consider it then."

"Good," Farron said with a smile before rubbing his chin pensively for a moment. "But there is one thing that's been bothering me lately… What was she wishing you luck for?"

"Huh?" Another question that blindsided her. Her father was probably too worked up yesterday to think to ask the question, but now that he had had time to sit and think on it, the thought had probably been nagging him all day.

"What was so important that she needed to give you a… well, that she needed to wish you luck for?"

"Maqui," Lightning quickly blurted. "He's considered to be a handful, especially with his medical condition. I was complaining about it a bit and Fang wanted to wish me luck."

"I see." Farron nodded his head. "You should have definitely asked for more pay if the child has a reputation. Speaking of which, how long does it take him to use the restroom?"

Lightning felt her pulse pick up speed. "I can go look for him if you want," she offered. She had been expecting some sort of lecture from her father to buy more time. It was foolish of her to have brought the conversation back around to Maqui when she didn't get one.

"In the men's room? No, you stay here. I'll go check on him," Farron said, moving toward the door. "We don't need two kids roaming the hallways."

Lightning silently cursed as her father exited the office. She knew her father wasn't going to find Maqui in the restroom.

She immediately pulled out her phone to text the younger boy, hoping that something might detain her father on the way to the men's room. At the very least, she hoped that Maqui would be able to make up a good excuse for wandering off.

A few minutes passed without anyone else returning to the office. Lightning nervously began to pace around the small room. Something had to be up. Maqui never texted back and her dad never returned to see if he had come back to the office. If Maqui had been caught hacking into the system, she was sure there would've been some type of alarm or code red system that should've gone off... Nonetheless, she decided that she'd only wait three more minutes before she leaving the office to search for them. She didn't want to have to use her powers in a PSICOM facility, but she would if she had to. All of their well-beings depended on the success of this mission, and Maqui didn't deserve to be dragged into it like this either.

Lightning slowed her pacing down for a moment when she caught sight of a shiny, navy blue box in the corner. On the side of the box in red letters were the words 'ANTI-GRAVS'. Light quickly strode over to the box to open it. Sure enough, the box was pretty much filled with small, portable anti-gravity mechanisms. A fleeting, warm feeling broke through all the nervousness in her system as she looked over the little pieces of tech. She remembered these. Once upon a time, her dad used to let her take a couple whenever she'd visit HQ and they'd go to a park afterwards for her to practice jumping off of jungle gyms with them. Pushing the warm memory to the back of her mind, she snatched a couple handfuls of the tiny things to stuff into her pockets. If she had to rescue Maqui and escape from HQ, they might just come in handy.

"Why? Is your medical condition IBS?"

Lightning straightened and jumped away from the box on hearing her father's voice outside the office door.

"Actually, it's—"

"I don't really want to know."

Light's eyes slightly widened in surprise as Maqui and her father finally entered the office. Maqui gave her a sly smile as he walked to her side. Lightning felt her brows crinkle a bit in wonderment as she looked down at the boy. He couldn't have pulled it off, could he?

"Well, dad," she began, slowly peeling her eyes away from Maqui, "I guess we should get going. Thank you for… everything."

She placed her hand on Maqui's back to lead him out the door.

"Claire."

She froze on hearing her father loudly state her name before turning her head to look over her shoulder.

Her dad stood with a slightly perturbed look on his face. His arm was outstretched and his key to the house was held out between two fingers. "You forgot this."

"Oh." She took a few steps back in the office to take the key from her father. "I guess my head really has been a bit all over the place lately. Thanks."

"Uh huh…" Farron folded his arms against his chest and watched with a hint of concern on his face as his daughter left the room for the second time.

It wasn't until they were off of PSICOM grounds and waiting for Snow to circle back around to pick them up that Lightning turned to Maqui. "So wait, just… how?"

"Easy," Maqui smiled smugly as if he had been waiting for her to ask this question for ages (because quite frankly, he had). "On my way to the bathroom, I looked into every office I passed to see if there were any computers hooked to the mainframe jacks. Once I found one, I snuck in and placed one of my special decoding chips to the bottom of it. Then I went to the bathroom, sat in one of the stalls, pulled out my datapad, and worked from there. I also used my secret weapon." At this point, Maqui pulled out a circular shaped device that looked a bit like an air freshener. "I stuck this to the wall of the stall, and it simulated sounds of using the restroom while dispensing the smell the fecal matter."

Lightning crinkled her nose a bit at the thought that the boy was carrying a shit-simulator around in his pocket. "So that's why my dad really thought you were using the bathroom… You're not worried that someone might find the chip you hid?"

"Nope. It's made of a special material that the temperature of the computer should melt within the hour, leaving no trace that it was there in the first place."

"And you were able to erase everyone's records?"

"Well, I figured that it'd be too fishy if I erased them all, especially Fang and Vanille's since Pulsians are required to have their prints on record and they might stick out too much if they don't have any charges against them. So I simply replaced everyone's fingerprint and DNA records with new ones. PSICOM will never be able to match them."

"Wow," Lightning crossed her arms and stared down at the boy in reverence. "Color me impressed."

Maqui grinned proudly. "Fang's going to owe me a whole car for this one."

Lightning smirked to herself, but the smirk soon faded as she thought about the predicament that they were now in. They had no fal'Cie and no idea of how to interpret their focus. They were pretty much back to square one except now they had less time and PSICOM was sniffing at their trail. Between that and the growing tension with her dad over Fang, Lightning was having a hard time just accepting the smaller victories as they came. Hopefully, she would be able to get some good information from Rosch at dinner tomorrow, because more than anything right now, she felt like she just needed a big win.

A/N: Whoa, thanks for all the feedback! Much appreciated. And a definite thanks to The Nameless Author for the heads up on the rank change. I didn't even realize that I ninja'd that switch in there, which is weird because it looks like I was actually using both of them in one chapter... hmm. But yeah, thanks again and sorry if there was any confusion. I've went over the past chapters and edited everything so it's now just one consistent Colonel.