Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ Final Fantasy VII; Second Generation ❯ Chapter 1 ( Chapter 1 )

 

 

*The Lifestream…

 

That is what the river of life is called…

 

The spiritual-energy of the Planet, continuing to cross back and forth across the boarders of life and death…

All life on the Planet is cherished…

We mourn the death of a loved one and we celebrate the birth of new life…

The cycle is never ending…

 

But…

 

There are some life-forms on the Planet whose DNA should have never been entered into the gene-pool…

 

~

 

It has been 20 years since Sephiroth's death at the hands of nine unlikely heros…

 

But when he died…

 

He left something just as deadly as himself…

 

Perhaps…

Even Deadlier…*

 

 

----------------------------------

 

 

 

The Northern Cave…

 

 

 

“Where is it?”, the voice of a female shouts out, as she rummages through the rocks and dirt.

 

“You won't find it here…”, another woman's voice mocks, “I removed it from this place long ago”.

 

“Tell me where you hid it, or…”, the first woman threatens, as she stood up with a glowing green orb in her hand.

 

“Or what?”

 

“I'll be forced to kill you”, she finishes in a rather psychotic-sounding voice.

 

“Go ahead, kill me. I'm already on borrowed time anyway…”, the second woman states, opening her arms to physically state her welcoming of death.

 

The first woman just growls in frustration and the second woman vanishes in a burst of flames from the materia the first woman held.

 

“I will find it, I swear it…”, she growls, as she walks out of the cave, her emerald-green eyes glowing in the mako inside the cave, “I will find the Black-Materia, and finish what my father had started 20-years ago…”

 

 

 

 

 

-------------------

 

 

 

-Edge-

-Midgar High School-

 

 

 

 

 

 

“After Meteor-Impact 20-years ago, the planet was struck with an epidemic known as Geostigma, for which a cure couldn't be found”, the history teacher says, “And during that time…”, he began to say, but spots one of his students staring out the window, causing him to go over to her desk and hover over her, “Uhem…”, he coughs trying to get her attention.

 

The 16 year old teen's sparkling blue eyes were glazed over in disinterest as she continued to blankly stare out the window, her mid-back length glossy black hair reflecting the sunlight, a set of decently-sized breasts donned her chest, and an elegantly shaped face, the teacher did have to admit to himself that these features would make her the object of any man's interest, but…

 

“Hey, Jessie…”, the boy sitting behind her whispers, poking her in between the shoulder-blades with his pencil, causing her to spin around suddenly to face him.

 

“What Zack…?”, she hisses, glaring at the 16 year old male with shoulder length dark blonde hair tied back in a low ponytail with natural spiky bangs and chocolate-brown eyes.

 

Her attitude wasn't something desired…

 

Zack points over Jessie's shoulder at the teacher standing behind her, with a nervous smile on his face, causing her to turn back towards the teacher and sheepishly looks up at him.

 

“Mr. Kawasume…What are you doing here?”, she sheepishly asks, feeling a blush threatening to consume her face.

 

“Miss. Strife, I'm trying to teach the `whole' class recent history, but a `certain' student is daydreaming out the window”, Mr. Kawasume replies, with his arms crossed in front of him.

 

The teacher's comment instantly causes Jessie's face to light up like a red-orb of materia being used.

 

“Why can't you pay more attention to the lesson like your twin-brother; Zack”, he sighs, heading back up to the front of the class, “Now where did I leave off…? Oh yeah, during the time of the Geostigma epidemic, three young men showed up claiming to have a cure for the disease, but it was a ploy to kidnap the children from the cities and continents, and use them to locate the remains of an alien entity named; Jenova, so they could bring back the one who had caused Meteor-Impact 2 years earlier, the one-time SOLDIER War-Hero; Sephiroth. And in a lengthy battle the heroes who had stopped Sephiroth had foiled the plans of the three men, and at some point during the battle, a cure was discovered in the chapel-ruins of the old sector-5 slums in Midgar…”, he explains, just before the bell rang to let the students out for lunch, “Now I want a 5-page report on the history of Meteor-Impact and Geostigma on my desk after vacation!”, he shouts to the students who rushed out the door.

 

Jessie just groans as she stood up, grabbing her book-bag from the hook it hung from on the side of her desk, “Just great…”, she mutters under her breath, shouldering her pack and walks from the class-room into the hallway.

 

“Jessie! Hey wait up!”, Zack shouts, running after his sister and slows down when he catches up, “Why were you spacing out in class?”, he pants.

 

“Because we've heard the story some many times while growing up that I know it by heart, plus it doesn't help that `our' parents `were' the ones involved in stopping Sephiroth `and' Kadaj's gang…”, she spat, “I didn't need to hear the story again!”

 

“Yeah but, that can make our reports the best, because we can interview everyone involved in the battles”, Zack replies, trying to look on the bright side of things.

 

“Why are you always Optimistic?”, Jessie questions.

 

“I have to be, to balance out your Pessimistic-attitude”, he states, actually showing his less cheerful attitude.

 

“Now I can tell you're my brother…”

 

“Zack!”, came the shrill scream of glee from down the room, causing the twin-siblings to turn just in time to witness a 5'5” 15 year old female leap and wrap her arms around the neck of 5'6” tall Zack, her braided butt-length blonde hair trailing behind her and her bright blue eyes sparkling in excitement as she hugs him.

 

“Nicole, what a surprise…?”, Zack stammers, trying not to blush at her hugging him.

 

“My father said you could come over after school if you want to”, Nicole says, looking up at him.

 

“I'd love to, but I have to help my dad with his deliveries…”, he replies.

 

“Oh, that's too bad…”, Nicole pouts, “Can I come over to help?”

 

“Things are hectic at our house, you'll only be in the way, Nicole”, Jessie pipes up, knowing that to be true, “But maybe you could help our mom with bar-keeping, sometimes she gets over-loaded, especially with today being the anniversary of Meteor-Impact”.

 

“I'm willing to help with anything, so much as I'm near my Zacky-kun!”, Nicole smiles, hugging Zack closer to herself.

 

“Jessie…”, he growls, as his sister smirks at tormenting her brother.

 

“Hey Shinra! Go back under whatever rock you climbed out from!”, a male student shouts at Nicole.

 

“Yeah, your father's company created Sephiroth!”, his buddy yells.

 

Nicole winces, visible affected by their comments and clinging to Zack harder. But it wasn't her fault that she was Rufus Shinra's only child and that her Grandfather was behind the genetic-experiments that created Sephiroth and Deep-Ground.

 

“Hey leave her alone! It isn't her fault for her family's past mistakes!”, Zack shouts, defending Nicole.

 

Oh please, just because your parents saved the world doesn't mean you can boss us around”, one of the instigators sneers.

 

“Yeah!”, the other snorts, obvious the follower of the two.

 

“Just because you have relatives that died during Meteor-Impact, doesn't give you the right to torment Nicole for what her grandfather did!”, Jessie snaps, standing in between Nicole, her brother and the two boys.

 

“Stay out of this, delivery-girl Strife!”

 

Now Jessie; despite being the daughter of Cloud Strife and Tifa Lockhart-Strife, hadn't inherited her parents' streak of patience or cool-headedness, instead she had inherited their tempers; whenever they did become angry. Zack even once made a comment that his sister's temper was like their dad's when he was truly angry times-ten, plus PMS.

 

She clenches her hands into fists, desperately trying not to be blinded by anger, but was have an extremely hard time doing it, when she suddenly lunges at the boy who mocked her and her father's job.

 

“Oh no, now they've done it…”, Zack groans, putting his face into the palm of his hand.

 

“Take…back…what you said…about…my father's…job…!”, she yells, punching the boy with almost every word she said, she draws her arm back to really slug him hard, when a set of hands gently grasps her elbow, causing her to see who had grabbed her and sees Nicole standing there with a look of grief on her face as she held Jessie's arm back, “Nicole…?”

 

“Please stop, I know you're just defending me, but… beating the poor guy senseless isn't fair…”, she says.

 

Jessie turns to look down at the guy she was beating, seeing multiple bruises already forming on his face and a split-lip, “You're right, Nicole”, she replies, standing up and cradles her bruised knuckles in her other hand.

 

“Come on sis, let's get your hand bandaged up”, Zack smirks, knowing that Nicole's caring personality was the reason her and Jessie were friends, and glad that Nicole was hanging off his neck anymore.

 

 

 

 

-------------------

 

 

 

-Next Period-

 

 

 

Jessie sat at her desk with an ice-pack on the bruised knuckles of her left-hand to keep the swelling down, while she copied down the assignment with her right-hand; secretly glad she could write with both hands or she would have been crippled from doing class-work, but also knowing her parents were going to be upset that she got into a fight at school, again.

 

“As you know, after every vacation when you students return to school, you'll have to write a paper on what you did over vacation. So don't forget to do them”, the English-teacher advises, her hand writing the project onto the board, “Now I want you guys to have an excellent vacation. You're all dismissed”, she kindly adds, right before the final ball rang, ending the school day.

 

“Finally, hell let out…”, Zack says, stretching as he stood.

 

“English class wasn't so bad…”, Jessie mutters, as she stood up and held the ice-pack to her hand.

 

“Now that I think about it, English class in pretty-much one of the only classes you don't space out in…”, he states.

 

“Besides gym”, she adds, “Hey shouldn't Nicole be…”

 

“Zack-kun!”, came Nicole's voice as she latches herself onto his back.

 

“Right on time…”, Jessie whispers, knowing Nicole to be predicable when it came to her brother.

 

“Nicole, get off of me!”, he groans, peeling the girl from his back, but she quickly latches onto his arm, “Hmm, you're not going to let me go, are you…?”, he sighs.

 

“Nope”, she joyfully replies, hugging his arm.

 

“Let's get home, mom and dad will need help with preparing for today”, Jessie laughs at her brother's misfortune, as she walks down the hall.

 

“Might as, Nicole is helping out too…”, he mutters, following his sister with Nicole trailing along.

 

“Hey Zack, guess what I got from my father?”, Nicole says, innocently looking up at him.

 

“What?”

 

“Three tickets to the memorial concert later tonight, want to go?”

 

“Sure Nicole, let's all three of us go, mom is closing the bar half an hour before it begins”, Jessie states, not letting her brother decline.

 

“Jessie, are you ever going to stop making decisions for me?”, he comments, “Jessie?”, he asks, when she doesn't reply.

 

“That guy must be crazy! It's almost 99° out and he's wearing black clothing under a heavy red cloak!”, she suddenly yells.

 

“Who?”, Nicole questions.

 

“Him!”, she points, causing her brother and Nicole to turn and they see a man who appeared in his late 20's wearing black pants, a black long-sleeved shirt with black leather gloves, black leather boots with gold-colored armor-like metal attached to them, a long red cloak with a collar that covered the bottom-half of his face, and a strip of red-cloth wrapped around his head among his long mid-back length mid-night onyx-black hair.

 

The three of them watch the man as he walks down the side-walk towards a door, “Hey isn't that the door into the bar connected to your house?”, Nicole observably points out.

 

“Yeah it is, but the bar isn't open for another half-hour…”, Jessie replies, continuing to watch the man, as he turns the knob and the door opens, allowing him to simply walk in, “Carp! Mom's probably thinking that is me and Zack coming home…”, she curses.

 

“We have to warn her!”, Zack sternly says, dislodging Nicole from his arm and runs for the door quickly followed by his sister.

 

“Mom! Look out there's a…!”, Jessie immediately shouts, taking up and fighting-stance along side her brother.

 

“Oh there you two are, I was wondering why it was taking you two so long to get home”, their mother replies, as she glanced over her shoulder from the coffee-pot full of hot-water, while the man sat at the bar-counter with an empty tea-cup with a tea-bag in front of him.

 

“…creep lurking around…”, the teen trails off and she relaxes, after seeing her mother at ease with the man.

 

“Your children, Tifa?”, the man asks, his voice monotone and carried the weight of someone who has a lot on their shoulders, as he looks over the two teens with his startling blood-red eyes.

 

“The one with the dark-hair is my daughter; Jessie, and the boy beside her is my son and Jessie's twin-brother; Zack”, Tifa answers, pouring the hot-water into the cup with one hand as she tucks a clump of black hair with a few sliver-strands behind her ear with her other hand.

 

“Hello Mrs. Strife”, Nicole greets as she walks in, finally catching up to the two teens inside the bar.

 

“Hello Nicole, how's your father?”, Tifa nods, acknowledging the girl.

 

“He's doing fine”, she replies, sitting on a stool next to where Zack stood.

 

“That's good to hear…”, the older woman mutters, as she starts making a sandwich for the man she had married while he was busy sorting through delivery-orders.

 

“Mom, just who the hell is this guy?”, Jessie shouts, pointing at the man as if he was a mako-infused monster.

 

“He's an old friend of your father and me…”, Tifa answers her daughter, “Jessie, you were fighting at school again, weren't you!”, she asks, noticing the bruises on her daughter's knuckles.

 

“That is beside the point, mom!”, she yells, hiding her hand behind her back, “Just `who' is he?”

 

“My name is Vincent Valentine…”, the man replies, taking a snip of his tea.

 

Jessie was so full of rage that she didn't notice that the man had answered her question; or did she?, as she storms up the steps towards her room, slamming the door with such force that the whole house and bar shook.

 

“Charming daughter…One hell of a temper though…”, Vincent mutters.

 

“Oh Jessie, there she goes with her war-path again…”, Tifa sighs, “She is going to give me more grey-hairs…”

 

“So are you the same Vincent Valentine, from the stories mom told me about her and dad's adventures 20-years ago, because you barely look beyond 27!”, Zack pipes up, leaping onto a stool beside Vincent, completely interested, causing Vincent to simply raise an eyebrow at the child of his former traveling-companions that had inherited the cheerier aspects of their personalities.

 

 

 

 

 

-------------------------------------------------------------