Left Behind
A Story in the Turks of Midgar Arc
Chapter 10 - Fireworks
Rudy Raleigh was an orphan. He knew this, since he'd killed his parents himself. He knew Reno's mom knew this too, but she'd still come back for him. He'd been friends with Reno for a while now; they both had a habit of getting into trouble, they were both smarter than was good for their ages, and neither feared death.
Rudy, later to be known as simply Rude, was a pyromaniac. He had burned down his house at the age of five, killing both his parents and badly injuring his older brother. His aunt hadn't wanted "that little fire demon" in her home, so while his brother had been taken in, he'd been sent away. He told the police that it had been an accident.
Earlier that day, his mother had burned lunch while she was busy playing trucks with him, and his father had beaten them both. His mother had been crying so hard that no number of hugs could make her feel better, finally shoving her sensitive young son away and telling him that it was his fault. Little Rudy had taken it to heart, and went to his room to play with the matches he kept hidden. He couldn't remember what had happened after that, but the next thing he knew, he was sitting in the middle of a burning house, cradling his burned hand to his chest. When the firemen carried him out of the house, he had screamed and fought to go back inside and die with his family.
Jesse knew this. She also knew that though the boy was considered unstable and dangerous, he and her son got along perfectly. She liked Rudy, and so she adopted him and took the chance that her whole world might go up in flames.
She was now home schooling both boys, and given Rudy's preoccupation with fire, she was slowly but surely teaching him the art of explosions. Naturally they started small, with fireworks.
Rudy was more sensitive than Reno, in some ways, and the boy quickly developed what Jesse called her bomber's timer, that section of her mind that was constantly on a countdown. She never had to guess how long something would take; she was precise and accurate and soon Rudy was developing his own sense of time.
The brown-skinned boy knew that there was no way he could pass as Jesse's biological son, and so he chose not to call her Mom. Jesse understood that, and she treated both boys equally. Eventually, Rudy called her simply Jess, which was close enough for both of them.
He was well aware of the danger Jesse was in, and so when he saw a tall man with long silver hair in Kalm, he told Jesse immediately. Unfortunately, that had been just what Sephiroth wanted.