Left Behind
Chapter 1 – The Business at Hand
The rebels had been entrenched in the office building for five days now, and Shin-Ra Inc. was getting tired of it. SOLDIER hadn't yet been able to take back the building, and President Shin-Ra had ordered in the Turks. The leader of the Turks, Kisaragi Tseng, had sent themostdetructiveTurk to do the job. The Great Sephiroth would be accompanying her, and so Tseng didn't think much of letting thebad-ass do the job.
The building was old and decrepit, crumbling to bits and now blasted full of holes. The Turk knew that Shin-Ra didn't want the building saved for the sake of the hostages, but as a means of showing other rebel groups that they meant business. She also knew that if she, for some odd reason, didn't make it out before the bombs went, it would be no great loss. She was a mere bombs expert...not anything special, like Sephiroth. Jesse flipped her plain brown bangs out of her eyes, and then adjusted the sight on her rifle. She pinpointed the guards in the windows, resisting the temptation to take them out. She was to blow the building sky high, taking everything in it out, not just individual guards.
Jesse raised her head from the scope, leaning back and stretching her arms over her head. She was in an office two blocks away, and trying her damnedest to ignore the presence of the General. He sat on a desk, his back ramrod straight, polishing his famous sword. He had his long silver hair loose, and every now and then, he would push it behind an ear, a habit Jesse took note of. It was nice to know that even the greatest warrior to ever live had a few unconscious habits. She leaned the rifle against the wall near the window and walked over to the chair she'd draped her suit jacket over. After a few moments of fishing in the pockets, she found her cigarettes and lit one, taking a grateful, heavy drag before putting the half empty pack away.
Sephiroth looked up from his sword and fixed her with an intense look. She blew the smoke out of her lungs, letting it hang in the air between them. She didn't like the way a mere glance from him could freeze her lungs. She'd avoided saying a single word to him, letting Tseng brief him on their job, the enemy, all of that. She wanted nothing more than to get on with the business at hand, then go home and feed her cat. Maybe read a few books before she went to bed, drink a few glasses of wine, and do it all again tomorrow. She left the tiny office without a backward glance, walking down to the ladies' room. Jesse splashed a few handfuls of water on her face and looked at herself in the mirror.
Intelligent, slightly tilted eyes looked back, tiny flecks of black scattered throughout the deep blue, framed by long dark lashes. Her mother had always told Jesse that her eyes were her best feature, and that was even truer now that she had tiny scars all over one side of her face. If you could see me now, Mom, Jesse thought. Her mother had died fifteen years earlier when Jesse was only nine, the accident that gave Jesse her scars taking her mother's life as well. Sent to live with her mother's wealthy cousin, the scarred child had been educated in the best Midgar schools, displaying an early fascination with learning, to the dismay of her adopted parents. They had believed that the only way Jesse would make a suitable society marriage had been if she had all the grace, poise, charm, and lack of brain cells the debutantes of the day were known for.
Jesse had the grace, the poise, and the charm of a big cat, being everything her relatives had wanted her to be, but with a decidedly sharp edge. Her grace was tinged with something dangerous, her poise bordered on cynical arrogance, and her charm was best appreciated cold. Jesse had skipped finishing school to get her degree at the University of Midgar, graduating in the top two percent of her class. Instead of entering the marriage market, Jesse went to work for the Shin-Ra weapons department as an explosives designer. Within a year she had been promoted to her own department, but Jesse's marriage of a man Scarlet had her eye on cost the position. Two months later, Jesse was divorced and back on the bottom of the corporate food chain.A few business lunches with Vice President Rufus and a quickie on his desk later, she was in the Turks, and had been there ever since.
Jesse ran a wet hand through her layered brown hair, pulling it away from her face, then letting it drop back into her eyes. She wondered why she still tried the gesture, since the scar tissue in her right shoulder prevented her from raising her arm all the way. It didn't feel right to do it with her left hand, so she had stopped the habit almost completely, resorting to it only in moments of extreme nervousness or stress.
She adjusted her fingerless black gloves and then slammed her fist toward the mirror. Her knuckles stopped scant millimeters from the glass, but it shattered all the same, and Jesse grinned wickedly at her fractured reflection. Busted or not, I can still kick ass. She turned on her heel and left the bathroom, letting the door bang shut behind her, muffling the sound of the falling glass. Violence always helped her feel more like the heartless killer everyone thought she had become, and a little wreckage in her wake didn't hurt the impression.
Jesse walked back to the miniscule office and took up her position by the window once more, refusing to meet Sephiroth's questioning gaze.