Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ Final Fantasy VII; Second Generation ❯ Chapter 2 ( Chapter 2 )

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jessie sat in the middle of her bed with her knees pinned up against her chest, she could the customers entering and leaving downstairs, some of them being thrown out the door by Tifa for getting too grabby of either her, Nicole or Marlene; who had been working at the bar since before Jessie was born. She could also hear the floor-boards from the next room creaking as Zack and her father; Cloud, walked about sorting orders, her father wasn't exactly organized which is why Zack had to help him.

 

“There is no way that is the same Vincent Valentine from 20 years ago, he too young to be…”, she mulls, resting the side of her head on top of her knees looking out at the blue-sky that was taking on gold, pink, and purple shades as the sun began to set.

 

A knock on the door draws Jessie's attention, causing her to turn her head and sees her mother standing there, a tray with two glasses of lemonade on it in her hands, “Can I come in?”, Tifa asks.

 

“Yeah, sure mom…”, she quietly replies, moving her head to stare down at her feet.

 

“Is there something you what to talk about, Jessie?”, her mother questions, walking in and setting the tray down onto the nightstand, and sits down onto the edge of her daughter's bed.

 

“I'm confused…”

 

“About what, Jessie?”

 

“If that is the same Vincent Valentine from 20-years ago, how come he hasn't aged?”, Jessie states, sitting up straight.

 

“Oh, so that's what is bothering you…”, Tifa sighs, “I was afraid you were upset with me…”

 

“Why hasn't he aged, mom?”

 

“Vincent's past was pretty messed up, which caused him to have demons that we can barely even imagine if we hadn't seen them…”

 

“What sort of demons, how screwed up can one's past be?”

 

“We don't like to talk about it behind his back, but if you must know… Vincent is actually 77 years old. I don't know the details too well considering how reserved Vincent is, but I do know this: 50 years ago, Vincent had been a member of the Turks assigned to protect some scientist on a project, and during that time he had fallen in love with the female scientist on the project, but something had happened that didn't allow them to be together…”, the older woman began to explain.

 

“Like what?”

 

“I don't know, but I know she was used in an experiment and that she fell ill. Vincent had tried to stop the project, but was shot by the egotistical scientist; who was also on the project, and Vincent had died from his injuries…”, Tifa continued, raising her hand to silence her daughter, “Let me finish first, the scientist had done horrible experiments on Vincent's body, which left his body unstable to the point that when he is angered, his body transforms into different monsters and the experiments left him permanently at the age of 27; he can no longer age. But even after the experiments, the scientist locked Vincent inside a coffin within a crypt underneath the mansion in Nibelheim, where we found him 30 years later… And that's all I know about his past…”

 

“So he's immortal…”

 

“Not completely, he can die from his injuries, he just can't died from old age because he'll never grow old”.

 

“Must suck for him…”, Jessie comments.

 

“It's the burden he must bear”, Tifa mentions, “You ready to come down and help, we're getting mobbed down there”, she asks.

 

“Sure, mom”, she nods, smiling.

 

“You look so much like your father when you cockily smile like that”, her mother states.

 

“Hey, what do you expect? I'm his daughter!”, she chuckles.

 

“You're my daughter too, with that head of hair of yours”, Tifa jokes, ruffling Jessie's hair up.

 

“Mom, watch the hair!”, Jessie protests, finger-combing her hair down and ties in back in a low-ponytail, “Come on, let's go”, she says, jumping off the bed and jogs to the door.

 

“Coming sweetie”, the older woman nods, getting off the bed and follows her child out the door.

 

 

 

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-Downstairs-

 

 

 

 

“There you are!”, Marlene says, with a tray full of beers in her hands as Jessie bounced down the stairs in the back on the bar.

 

“Hi Marlene”, Jessie greets, “How's your pregnancy coming along?”

 

“Still got another 5 months to go”, she replies, gently patting her bulging abdomen.

 

“Denzel must be proud”, the teen states, taking the tray from Marlene's hands.

 

“Thanks. Those go to table-six”, she informs.

 

“You shouldn't over-tax yourself, you're going to be a mother soon and me an aunt”.

 

“You do know not biologically, right?”, Tifa questions, coming down the stairs with an empty tray, after dropping off the lemonades to her son and husband.

 

“I know, but you and dad took Denzel in after Meteor-Impact and raised him like he was your own son, and that was before me and Zack was born. So he's like our adopted older brother”, Jessie answers, going through the swinging kitchen-door into the bar itself to deliver the beers.

 

“Hey Jessie”, Nicole's voice says, over from the direction of the cash-register.

 

“Hey…”, she slightly waves, letting her know she heard her as she walks out from behind the counter towards table number-6 where a bunch of regulars sat, but Jessie didn't care for this particular bunch.

 

They were loud, obnoxious, and extremely drunk, but not only that…

 

“Hey! It's the cutie!”, one of the men yells, as Jessie puts a bottle of beer in front of each of them.

 

“Nice ass, sweet-heart. Like your mother…”, another guy slurred, extending his arm out of the booth and wrap his arm behind her and grabs her butt.

 

They were perverts…

 

“Keep your hands to yourself!”, she angrily protests, swatting the hand from her behind and starts to walk away, but she didn't get far as one of the guys grabs her arm and pulls her backwards onto his lap.

 

“Come on…Stay a while…and have some fun…”, he slurred in her ear, as he wrapped his arm around her waist.

 

“Let me go!”, she shouts, struggling to get loose.

 

“Come on baby, it will be fun…”, he says, snaking his other arm in front of her, groping her chest.

 

The action causes Jessie to scream and trust her arm backwards, elbowing the man in the ribs which caused him to release her as he held the spot she hit, and she scampers out of his lap.

 

There should be a rule of what you should or shouldn't do when dealing with a drunken man: Do not; I repeat, do not what so ever attack a man while he's drunk, you'll only start a fight between yourself and him & his buddies.

 

“You little bitch!”, one of the men snarls, slapping Jessie across the face with the back of his hand, sending her sprawling onto the floor.

 

“You should behave like a good little lady…”, another man says, standing up and removes his belt, “Now I'm going to have to beat you…”, he continued, gripping his leather-belt in his hands, as Jessie tried to get up off the floor shaking cob-webs from her head.

 

“Jessie!”, Nicole screams, having watched the whole thing.

 

Jessie looks over her shoulder to see the man standing above her with his arm raised and the belt in his hand prepared to whip her.

 

“Jessie!”, Tifa shouts, as she began to nimbly leap over the counter and runs to her daughter's aid, but she wasn't going to make in time as the man swung his arm downwards at Jessie, the girl closing her eyes and preparing herself for the pain that would follow.

 

The sound of leather cracking against flesh rings out through the bar, but Jessie hadn't felt any stinging pain anywhere on her body, causing her to peek an eye open and sees a wall of black in between herself and the drunk.

 

“Don't you know it's rude to hit women, especially if the woman is the daughter of the bar-owner…”, Vincent's smooth baritone voice says, as he held the belt in his bare right-hand.

 

“Vincent…?”, Jessie gasps, as she looks up at the eternally-young man and notices blood dripping from his hand.

 

“Stay out of this! This isn't any of your business!”, the drunken man shouts, swinging a punch towards Vincent and he simply side-steps the man, causing him to become off balanced, “Fight like a man!”, he slurred, as he fumbled to regain balance and swung another punch.

 

Vincent catches the punch in his wounded hand, “Also another thing… the woman is the daughter of a friend of mine… So it is my business…”, he says, landing a punch with his left-hand into the man's abdomen, knocking the breath out of him.

 

As the man collapsed to the floor gasping for breath, his buddies raise to their feet ready to pounce onto Vincent only to stop when they saw his left-hand, and Jessie could see what they saw. A gold-colored metal-gantlet attached to a black leather-glove donned his left hand and forearm, the fingers of the gantlet ended in sharp-points; like claws, a frightening sight to see in the dimming light of the bar.

 

“Monster! It's a Monster! Run!”, the men yelled, as one of them grabbed their fallen friend and ran out the door into the street.

 

Jessie could see Vincent slightly flinch at the comment, then he sighs and turns to look at her, “You alright?”, he asks.

 

“Yeah…”, she nods, as Tifa ran to her side to check her child over, “I'm fine mom”, she replies, as she got back to her feet.

 

“Sorry if I caused you to lose some of your customers, Tifa…”, Vincent quietly says.

 

“Don't worry about it, I'm always beating those guys up…”, Tifa laughs, “But still, without fail they're in here the next day getting too drunk to remember anything again…”

 

“What the hell happened? We heard a noise and someone shout `Monster'!”, Zack questions, as he ran from the kitchen into the bar, leaping over the counter in one movement.

 

“Zack, what have I told you about jumping over the counter?”, Tifa scorns.

 

“But you do it all of the time mom”, he retorts.

 

“Do as I say, not as I do!”, his mother replies, “Besides, those were emergencies when I needed to stop a fight!”

 

“Listen to your mother, Zack. Because she is correct”, came the voice of someone who sounded completely patient, but of course his family knew him better, as Cloud stepped out from the kitchen and around the counter his son had leapt over, with the same patient air surrounding him as it did 20-years ago, he had aged gracefully; not one sliver strand of hair among his spiky blonde hair, and his face looked like it belonged to someone in their 30's not their early 40's like Cloud and Tifa were.

 

“Cloud, it's been a long time…”, Vincent says, greeting his former traveling-companion and leader of the group.

 

“Vincent…”, Cloud replies, acknowledging his friend, “So what happened, Tifa?”

 

“Some of the regulars got out of hand and Jessie was their unfortunately target…”, she began to explain, as Cloud walked over to his daughter to examine the bump on her head.

 

“I'm fine dad; Vincent came between me and the guy before I got hurt further”, Jessie states, not liking the extra attention she was receiving.

 

“You sure?”, her father asks.

 

“Yeah…”, she answers, looking up at her father; with her being 5'5” and him 5'7”, to look at him in the eye to convince him she was fine.

 

A few tense moments of blue eyes staring up into equally blue eyes passes before Cloud says, “Yep, you're fine…”

 

“I told you that, dad…”, she growls.

 

“Mrs. Strife, isn't it about time to be closing up now?”, Nicole questions.

 

“Oh you're right, Nicole. Closing time everyone!”, Tifa announces, clapping to get the patrons attentions, “You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here!”, she says, as she started to herd the crowd out the door with the help of her son.

 

“You heard my mother, the bar is closed!”, he sternly says, loud enough to give those who were already starting to get a hang-over a headache.

 

“Jessie…”, Cloud mutters to his daughter.

 

“Yes dad?”

 

“Take Vincent to the kitchen and treat the cut to his hand…”, he replies.

 

“Oh right!”, she gasps, remembering that Vincent had gotten hurt protecting her, “Come on Vincent, let's get your wound treated…”, she says, ushering the former Turk into the kitchen.

 

“I'm sorry that I caused you to be injured…”, she meekly apologizes, as she held his wounded hand and cleaned the blood from it.

 

“It's alright, you don't have to apologize…”, he simply says, “The wound should heal in a few hours anyway…”

 

“So you used to be a Turk, huh?”, Jessie asks, trying to strike up a conversation with the quiet man, “You know, before you were experimented on?”

 

“Your mother told you my past, I take it?”

 

“She didn't use any names, except yours… If that makes you feel any better?”

 

“Your mother didn't know much about my past anyway…”, he replies, ending the discussion, “And, yes… I used to be with the Turks when the Shinra Power Company was still known as; Shinra Manufacturing Department…”

 

“Oh…”, she gasps, taking the hint to drop the subject, “By the way, thank you from protecting me…”, she thanks, as she applies a bandage around his hand and took a glance at his face for the first time without the cloak covering it, `He's easy on the eyes, he'd be easier on the eyes if he smiled…But he's old enough to be my grandfather, he must still miss that female scientist from 50 years ago…That's a long time to live still looking like your in your prime…', she thinks, tying off the bandage, “There all done”, she says, standing up and heads towards the stairs to get ready for the concert.

 

“Nice girl, when she's not full of piss and vinegar… But too much like her parents though…”, Vincent mutters to himself, as he watches her leave the room.

 

“I hope she didn't give you any trouble, Vincent”, Cloud says, carrying a tray loaded full of dirty dishes; he had been recruited by his wife to help clean up the bar.

 

“She's like you, so it's not I'm not used to saving someone…”, he replies, bringing up the time he had to rescue Cloud from Kadaj and his gang 18 years ago, as gets to his feet and flexes his hand experimentally, “She's better at treating injuries than you were…”

 

(A/N: Ouch, low blow!)

 

“Tifa says the same thing…”, Cloud comments, not letting the fact of Vincent remark faze him; as if anything did faze him.

 

“What do I say is the same thing?”, Tifa asks, with a bin full of useless leftovers of uneaten food.

 

“Jessie and her father…”, Vincent answers, helping Tifa by taking the bin from her.

 

“Thanks, those go into the large bin labeled `Farm Donations'…”, she says, “It's true, Jessie is like her father”.

 

“I'm still in the room you know…”, Cloud pouts.

 

“Good, at least you're paying attention…”

 

“So when is Cid, Barret, Reeve, and Yuffie coming?”, Cloud asks, changing the subject.

 

“They called to say they can't make it this year…”, Tifa sadly replies, “Reeve is busy with the WRO, Barret's has to work over-time in his Oil-Business, Cid has a dead-line on a ship build, and Yuffie… I can't get in contact with her…”

 

“It has been at least 17 years since all of you have been together”, Marlene says, carrying a basket of dirty rags from the bar into the kitchen.

 

“Yeah…” Tifa sighs.

 

“Jessie you ready?”, Zack shouts up the stairs as he came down wearing a pair of black jeans and a navy-blue zip-up vest as a shirt.

 

“Yeah I'm ready!”, she snaps, running down the steps two at a time, her out-fit consisting of a violet-blue tank-top and a pair of indigo-blue capris.

 

“You two ready?”, Nicole asks, poking her head through the kitchen-door, being the only one who didn't change her clothes, still wearing the forest-green sleeveless dress she arrived in.

 

“Yeah!”, the twins reply, heading towards the door.

 

“Where are the two of you think your going?”, Tifa questions, stopping her children in their steps.

 

“I told you mom, we're going to the concert”, Zack explains.

 

“I know, but not without your jackets”, she scorns.

 

“I'm on it mom”, Jessie says, taking her faded blue denim jacket from the coat-hook and pulling it onto her frame, “Here's yours, scatter-brain!”, she calls out, as she threw Zack's grey sweat-shirt jacket at him.

 

“Do you need a jacket, Nicole?”, Tifa asks, turning to the youngest of the three teens in her house.

 

“No, I have one”, she replies, pulling a short black trench-coat style jacket from her bag.

 

“Can we go now, mom?”, Zack whines.

 

“Yes, you may. Have fun you three and be careful on your way home!”, Tifa yells, bidding them luck, “We might as well watch the concert on T.V.”, she adds, heading into the bar area.

 

 

 

 

 

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