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Final Fantasy 7. Tifa Lockhart: Journey to Midgar.	By : Nickamano Category: Final Fantasy VII > General Views: 7306 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: Final Fantasy 7 is created and owned by Squaresoft, now Square-Enix. Nothing here is owned by me. It was created for entertainment purposes, and I am not profiting financially from the creation and online presentation of this story.

Chapter List
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25. A new friend.
Tifa spotted a passageway up ahead, between the edge of a pile of construction trash and the boundary wall and she slipped through it into a deeply shadowed and enclosed area only illuminated by a couple of oil-drum fires.

It was like a wider opening led into via a narrow alleyway. The walls were lined with trash as always. And couple of down on their luck individuals who lived amongst the garbage and were currently standing around the flaming, smoky oil drums.

A figure almost at once, emerged from the blackness to her right. A huge, massive silhouette. He was as tall as he was broad, and his form likely to get stuck in the frame of a double door, never mind a standard opening. As he was dark skinned and dark clothed, even with the dancing flames from the closest of the oil drums, he remained almost entirely in silhouette. Although a corona of his smooth and apparently tattooed skin, revealed itself sporting a beautiful shade of smoky copper, though he was still hard to recognise or to judge. Tifa kept her distance, wary, and yet noticing that he was keeping his distance too.

“I saw what yer did back there, girlie. You really took those two apart! Was quite some shit yer pulled, for someone so little.” The big guy said.

His voice was bass-deep and gruff, though there was a warmth oozing from the back of his throat that soothed the inherent threat of his size and gruffness. Tifa felt herself tensing up, but the big guy was grinning down at her, pearly teeth stained orange by the flickering firelight. And she had to admit, there was something about him, something admittedly inexplicable, that made her feel calmed, even charmed. And so, despite her tenseness, she smiled up at him.

He was well over a foot taller than Tifa, as big a human as she had ever seen, and the muscles of his upper arms were gigantic, tree trunks of taut, thickly veined muscle, glistening with perspiration. She guessed he was in his early thirties.

“Hope I didn’t scare you.” He continued. “I’m lookin’ for a little perverted friend o’mine, keeps sneaking down here ‘n’ getting himself into all kinds’a trouble.”

The grin was wide and infectious.

“His name’s Biggs. He’s only a kid himself, ‘bout your age, I guess. Skinny little tyke, short, brown spikey hair, red bandana… You seen him?”
“No, sorry. To be honest I don’t know where I am. I could help you look for him? And… maybe afterward… You could return the favour and point me in the direction of Sector Seven?”
“Won’t be a problem, we’re both from there. Well, not originally, but we live there now.”

The man cocked his head, indicating back the way Tifa had come.

“We’ll check the southside first, he’s more than likely down there. Money burns holes in his pocket and he’s got a thing for the ladies, if you get me…”
“I did see plenty of ladies down there.” Tifa nodded.

She fell into step beside the huge man and they slipped through the gap back in the Wall Market.

Tifa was a little worried about being identified as the person who had taken out the stall holder and Rusen but she remained silent, walking beside the big guy, who felt like the size of a small house, alongside her.

Like Rusen, he was wearing dark-lens, light-amplifying shades that hid his eyes from her. He was handsome in a powerful yet gruff, battle-scarred way and she had no doubts he would have seen plenty of conflict in his time. Though Tifa had an inexplicable feeling that he would be the huge soft teddy-bear type, rough and hard on the outside, and yet far from it under the surface.

“Name’s Barret.” He offered gruffly.
“Tifa.” She replied. “Nice to meet you.”
He performed a little half-hearted salute with his right arm, and that was when, now that they were out of the darkness and back into the Northern section of the Sector Six Market, Tifa noticed that instead of a hand he wore some kind of motorised multi-barrelled chain gun prosthesis.

She caught herself staring, and had to shake herself free from staring at the unusual choice of prosthetic.

However, then she noted in the background to her left, the market stall where she had had her altercation a few minutes earlier was no longer there. The stall and the two men. And there was no evidence that they had ever been there.

“Free stuff don’t last long ‘round here.” Barret commented, following her eyes.
“It’ll been confiscated and sold on, cash redeposited, and the two men will have been stripped, killed and dumped probably. Best way to keep the damned fucking Shinra outta our hair.”
“Really? I feel kinda bad now. I just wanted my belongings back.”
“Respect that.” Barret nodded. “Respect you for not stealing his cash too, but you probably should’a done.”

<><><>

They found Biggs down an alley to the far south of the market that, according to the signs, led to the place she had heard about on the ocean ferry, called the ‘Honey Bee Inn’.

“It’s not an inn really, it’s the highest-class brothel down here. All the girl’s wanna get into the Honey Bee, they’re protected in there. Plus, the damned Shinra often use the place, so there’s plenty’a Gil to be made.”

“I was nearly one of them…” Tifa murmured.

She was looking at the girls standing on the street corners and visible in little clumps up and down both sides of the alley. To all intents and purposes, it was a meat market. Men, from teenager to pensioner, wandering up and down the narrow lane, examining the merchandise until they picked out the girl they desired and began negotiations.

“Seems t’ me you got more skills than just yer looks.” Barret said.

Tifa glanced up at him with surprise and she noticed him looking uncomfortable, and he avoided her gaze. She found it sweet and endearing.

“Thanks. I think I might have found a job, that’s why I want to get to Sector Seven. You heard of a bar called Seventh Heaven?”
“I know it. Bit of a dive. But compared to ‘round here, you can do worse…”
“So, it’s not like a topless bar or something?” Tifa asked, afraid of the answer.
“Nah, though the owner would be happy enough if it was, bit of a dirty old geezer him… I’ll take you there, soon as I find this dumb horn-dog…”

He paused, looking across at a small crowd at the entrance to the Honey Bee Inn.

“Crap. Yeah... There he is. In trouble again.”

Then Tifa spotted a small youth, in his mid to late teens, in amongst a group of others. There seemed to be an argument raging. She noticed at least two people in amongst the crowd were wearing Shinra Infantry uniforms. They were the ones who seemed to have a hold of the kid, who was wearing dark green shorts, a black leather jacket and a red bandana that lifted his mousy brown hair up away from his slender, lean and admittedly handsome face.

“Looking a bit fraught… This could get nasty. I’m gonna have’t crack quite a few skulls to get him outta there in one piece.” Barret glowered.
“Can’t go using this though...” He grunted, lifting his gun-arm. “Too many innocents about.”

Tifa put an arm lightly on his midriff as he started down the pathway. He paused, looking down at her.

“Give me a sec…” Tifa said and then went storming across toward the increasingly animated scuffle.

It seemed to be a mob and the Shinra men against the kid. Whatever he had done, they appeared to be after blood. Whether the Shinra were trying to calm the situation or were the ringleaders Tifa neither knew nor cared.

“Biggs!” She yelled. “Where the hell have you been! Dinner’s been on the table over an hour! And you’re hanging around here! You in some real damn trouble, mister!”

Her yelling, making it up as she went along and hoping this Biggs lad wasn’t as dumb as he looked, caught the mob by surprise and numbed them enough to give her the opportunity to storm into the midst of the angry group. Barging and shoving men out of the way, she grabbed the teenager by the back of his jacket’s collar and hauled him out of the clutches of the Shinra troops.

There were, in fact three of them, with personal defence weapons and truncheons. However, the guns were stowed, though the truncheons were out and threatening.

“Wait a minute, miss!” One of them growled. “This kid’s under arrest for illegal engagement of the services of a prostitute, attempted blackmail, loitering and resisting arrest! You can’t just take him home!”

Tifa snarled at the Shinra infantryman, still dragging an incredulous, though thankfully silent Biggs out from the midst of them.

“Ha! You can have him when I’m done with him!” She snarled, yanking at him harder.

She actually succeeded in lifting Biggs off his feet and swinging him out of the circle of the gawking mob. However, another of the Shinra infantrymen abruptly reached out and grabbed hold of Biggs by the wrist. And then the third unhooked a pair of steel handcuffs from his belt and prepared them for use.

“Forget it you little bitch!” The handcuff brandishing guard snarled. “This is official Shinra business! Now get lost or we’ll take you down to for obstruction of justice!”
“He’s mine and you’re not having him!” She yelled back.

She could see Barret lumbering in at full pelt, and that the first Shinra man had also seen him and was partway through dropping his truncheon and swinging his machine gun up from around the small of his back.

Tifa didn’t hesitate, she leapt quickly into the air while at the same time launching Biggs, by her handhold of the collar of his jacket, out of the grasp of the Shinra infantryman. She forcefully pitched him backward across the dusty pathway, toward the oncoming Barret.

As she touched the apex of her leap, she lashed out hard with her right boot heel, ploughing the crescent of metal-reinforced rubber sole into the exposed nose and mouth of the helmeted infantryman. And as he started to collapse, spraying blood from his ruined nose and broken mouth, she kicked off from his chest with her other foot, whipped her body around in the air in a reverse spin, and slammed the same boot heel into the solar plexus of the second Shinra man.

Perfectly balanced, she rode his own stumbling fall until she was back on her feet on the ground, stepping away from his fallen body. Instantly, she skipped, quick as lightning across the two-feet of space between herself and the third infantryman and felled him with a fast combination of left palm-heel and then right upper-cut elbow. The first strike slammed into his sternum, the second under his chin. The fast one-two, snapping his neck and shattering his breast bone almost simultaneously.

Everyone ignored Tifa, other than keeping wide of her. Two of the onlookers instantly went after the Shinra bodies, to loot them for valuables, while the rest of the group essentially melted away into the ether, vanishing into alleyways, the Honey Bee Inn itself, or into the crowds that were still milling about up and down the narrow, trash strewn alley.

Tifa and Barret got to know each other as they walked together from the Wall Market across into Sector Seven. Barret was basically forthcoming about his past, though he kept most of the details to himself. He told her he had lived in a small mining town on another continent and that the Shinra had burned the place down and killed his family. Tifa was almost brought to tears when she told him her almost identical story. She didn’t mention Zangan or Cloud or Sephiroth. Just that Shinra had done the same to her village and she had lost everyone in her life too.

So, they bonded over their mutual grief and mutual hatred of the Shinra. And then they started to chat, and agree, over the state of Shinra’s Mako reactors and what it meant to the planet.

Biggs kept his mouth shut, walking alongside and slightly behind Tifa, and he couldn’t take his eyes off her for the whole trip over to the Sector Seven Slums.

“I guess you’ll need somewhere t’ get changed ‘n’ freshen up ‘fore your interview…” Barret said, once they made it to his house.
“…You can use my place. I have to go and collect my daughter from the neighbours.”
“Your daughter?” Tifa said.

Barret had told her he’d lost his family in the fire. However, she didn’t want to go accusing him of making up lies, he seemed to be a very nice and passionate guy but she had already come to recognise that he was quick to temper.

“Adopted.” He said, simply.
“Ah.”

Barret unlocked the front door and allowed Tifa into his small, though immaculately clean and well-maintained domicile. It was a single-story, three-room place. There was a living room and kitchen area, a bedroom with a partition separating Barret’s bed from Marlene’s and a bathroom, with a shower, sink and toilet.

There was something strangely ‘mine-like’ to the internal and mostly wooden construction. The walls and interior partitions all sporting horizontal wooden planks with sturdy floor to ceiling ‘Y’ frame supports. There were rugs over the wooden floorboards and framed paintings, old advertisement billboards and the like, on a number of the walls. And over an old fireplace that no longer saw use, there was a framed piece of a map of part of Tifa’s home continent. The topography stretched from the Eastern edge of the Nibel mountain range past the Great Desert to just short of the Eastern coast line.

Tifa found her way to the bathroom and then took a quick shower where she soaped herself all over with some bright orange scented coal-soap that Barret already had, and then washed and dried her hair.

Wrapped in a large, through slightly threadbare towel, she worked her long straight mane into loose wavy tresses, with most of the body and length swept over to one side. Then she pulled on the skin tight shimmering purple dress she had bought from the ocean ferry and tried her best to replicate the makeup style that the waitress, Tina, had applied the last time she had worn the dress. Earrings and the coin-chain-belt and finally, her purple heels completed the ensemble.

She had to adjust her cleavage within the triangular window to make sure the pressed-together valley of alluring shadow was central and even. And then she, trying not to blush or trip with her nerves, stepped out into the living room. Barret was sitting in a huge and comfortable looking old arm chair. Marlene, Barret’s infant daughter was cradled in his arms. She was little more than a baby, maybe a year old. Barret was bottle feeding her carefully, a thick pillow between Marlene and his gun-arm. The motor and chain were disconnected from the prosthetic, the enclosed-chain levered away from the breech via a hinged safety-mechanism.

“Wow, looking like that, girl. If the old fart doesn’t offer you the keys t’ the place, it probably means he’s gone blind!” Barret said.

Tifa smiled and found herself blushing through her make up. At the same time, she was intimately aware that he didn’t give her more than a cursory once over and avoided eye contact, but the corners of his most often downturned mouth were slightly lifted into the slightest hint of a smile. It felt like evidence of a blush.

“By the way. I popped my head in on the way t’ pick up Marlene and gave him a heads up that you’d be coming in to see him about the job.”
“Thank you, Barret. That was kind of you.”
“I should tell yer. Every woman ‘round, here’s tried to get a job there, but the old perv’s so goddamn picky no one’s got a look in. But girl, you ain’t gonna have a problem. I guarantee it.”
“I’d best be off, I suppose. I have to say I’m really nervous…”
“No need. Get your ass out there and grab that job. That train only comes by once or twice in your life, you gotta reach out and grab hold, see where that line takes you.”
“Thanks Barret. You’ve been really kind to me.”
“You helped me out with the horn-dog.” He shrugged, gently moving Marlene onto his massive shoulder so he could burp her.
“Besides, we orphans gotta stick together, right?!”
“Right!” She sang.
“Oh, hey, girl. Whether you get it or not, come back here afterward. I’ll cook us up somethin’ and if you like, you can hang around while you figure out your next move.”
“Definitely. Thanks again.” Tifa smiled enthusiastically. “Wish me luck!”
“Break his leg!” Barret grunted after her.

Tifa paused in the doorway and smiled back at him. Then she stepped out, unsure if he’d wrongly quoted the saying or if he’d meant threaten the old guy if he played hard to get. She laughed to herself as she closed the door and descended the steps onto the street of Sector Seven’s slum.

She remembered the way to the place. Barret had explained it to her. First left, second right, first left, second right. Easy enough to remember, though she was mildly confused whether she should include alleyways as left and right turns. She decided not to and kept to the main thoroughfares.

Sector Seven seemed very much the same as the other parts of the Midgar slums she had come across, though parts of Sector Seven seemed to have been cleared of much of the trash, compared to other areas. Maybe there had been less of it here in the first place or maybe there was a bigger sense of community pride in this area.

It occurred to Tifa that it wasn’t long ago, a day or two? It was just about impossible to keep track of time in the place without a sky or a recognisable day or night. However, long ago it had been, she could now look back and identify the moment she had hit rock bottom, well a couple of moments really, but having her backpack stolen had been the lowest point. And since then, even though her situation hadn’t improved at all, she felt like she had turned a corner somehow. Getting this dress back and the flyer for this job, had really been the turning point. It had given her hope again.

Plus, meeting Barret, the big teddy-bear who had helped her and hadn’t wanted anything in return other than finding his friend. He hadn’t tried to blackmail or coerce her into sex or a date or anything. And now she was here in Sector Seven on the way to a job interview in a bar. It had been a career path that had opened out for her ever since Zangan had brought her to his cabin, as though it was decided for her, as though the planet itself was offering her new and different opportunities. Well she was going to grab it with both hands, see where this train took her, as Barret had just said. Were train metaphors a thing with him? Smiling to herself, she walked on.

As usual she was whistled at, hollered at, approached, propositioned numerous times by teenagers, adults, middle aged and old men, plus three women. Though this particular time it didn’t bother her at all. She was far too excited and positive.

For the first time she was seeing an opportunity to improve her circumstances, to go out on her own and potentially make something of her life. She also thought that maybe, she might have made a new friend in Barret, her first friend in Midgar. He seemed kind and trustworthy and she felt safe with him and had come to acknowledge a feeling, as though she’d known him all her life. They had things in common, a background of fire and loss, which was down to Shinra. And also, an appreciation for the planet and the natural way of things that Shinra were stomping all over. A subject she would be very interested to talk more about with him. Plus, he was respectful around her, and hadn’t tried coming on to her at all. And that made a nice change.

That lad Biggs on the other hand, he was something else entirely. ‘Horn-dog’ was a perfect nickname for him. Though he seemed harmless enough and he seemed to worship Barret, so he couldn’t be all that bad. Maybe he would grow on her over time.

First though she had to get this job.
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Final Fantasy 7. Tifa Lockhart: Journey to Midgar.