Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ Missions ❯ Chapter 2
[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]
By: MikariStar 
Non Anime: Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Action / Adventure / Comedy / Drama / Romance | Type: Other | Uploaded On: 07.23.2012 | Pages: 7 | Words: 9.3K | Visits: 282 | Status: Completed
Non Anime: Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Action / Adventure / Comedy / Drama / Romance | Type: Other | Uploaded On: 07.23.2012 | Pages: 7 | Words: 9.3K | Visits: 282 | Status: Completed
Missions: Report II
Mission 11: Whips
He slept in a coffin, he dressed like a vampire and he was just plain weird. It didn't come as a surprise to Reno, when he was assigned against his will to help Vincent Valentine move some of his old things from the Shinra mansion to his apartment, that the black haired man would have some odd items among his possessions. But Reno never imagined that Vincent had such a large collection of whips.
As far as Reno knew, Vincent's weapon of choice was a gun, a three barreled gun with a cute little doggy charm hanging from it. Apparently decorating one's weapon was the in thing, and not wanting to be left behind, Reno had recently placed a viera keychain on his electro-rod. But that would be straying from the topic of Vincent's seemingly endless collection of whips.
Reno stopped his insistent chanting of "I hate this job", placed another box full of whips in the helicopter, and looked at Vincent. "Why do you have so many whips?"
"It is none of your concern," Vincent answered.
"Does that mean I don't want to know, or that I should mind my own business?" Reno questioned.
Vincent took a deep breath, he had not learned his lesson about hiring Turks to help out with simple tasks, and for that he felt that he could crawl back into his coffin and sleep for the next hundred years. "They were in the attic."
"That's it? So you're just taking them?" Reno was relieved to hear a somewhat normal answer. The Shinra mansion had been abandoned many years ago, so it was no big deal if things were taken from there, no one really cared. At least it wasn't an odd answer like having a whip obsession. Though the question still remained, why would Vincent take the whips and not something else? "Why the whips?"
"I mentioned it to Reeve and he asked me to bring them," Vincent replied.
"Reeve..." Reno wondered why Reeve would want that many whips. "I know he collects cats, but why whips?"
"The WRO's budget is not very extensive. I assume he wishes to help equip the troops or sell the whips." Vincent tried to remain calm.
But Reno didn't know when to stop talking. "How cheap! With all the money Ruf- I mean, the mysterious benefactor has been giving the WRO that could have been used to pay for vaca-er... other things."
It was no secret to Vincent, or to Reeve, or to the majority of the population of the new Midgar, that the mysterious benefactor was in fact Rufus Shinra. Who else was that rich anyway? "Shall we finish loading the boxes so you may leave?"
Reno nodded and followed Vincent back inside. However, he did not remain quiet along the way as Vincent wished he had. "So how come we're taking this stuff to your apartment and not the WRO headquarters? Is Reeve going over to pick up the whips later? Or is it that he heard you hired a Turk and doesn't want Turks near the WRO? Are they planning something against Shinra?"
"There are no conspiracies taking place," Vincent mentally begged for silence.
But Reno would not allow that wish to be granted, "are you sure about that?"
Vincent sighed; in the past he thought he should punish himself for his mistakes. But now he was sure his debt was paid and he wondered what he did to deserve this. Had he not been punished enough listening to Reno all that time? Oh how he wished to cast a spell of silence...
xoxox xox xoxox xox xoxox xox xoxox xox xoxox
Mission 12: Date
Rude was not very expressive or emotional, so when the identity of his mystery date was reveled he remained cool, calm and collected on the surface. But deep down Rude was frustrated.
Rufus had the bright idea to make the Turks participate in a celebrity Valentine's Day auction, where the prize would be a date. Tseng and Elena avoided it by making it clear that they were dating each other. As deadly as Turks are trained to be, it was best not to provoke feelings of jealousy. Thus Tseng and Elena were out.
Reno immediately said he had a girlfriend, but Rufus paid him no mind claiming that, "it's okay as long as she doesn't find out," because he didn't believe the girl existed anyway.
In their little reunion at the president's office, it was at that point that Elena crossed her arms and glared icy daggers at Rufus, "don't encourage him to cheat."
To which Rufus responded by assuring Elena that "Reno is lying."
"I'm not lying!" Reno immediately defended himself. "If you don't believe me I'll tell her to come over tomorrow," and by then he would have turned that lie into a truth. Even if it was an improvised girlfriend, it was better than having no say at all on who the date was.
"I know you're lying, you're just going to go out and find a girl at the last minute to get out of the auction." Rufus saw right through the plan.
"So what if I am?" Reno challenged. "Actually, forget that, I'll just refuse."
Rufus shrugged, he couldn't look too disappointed for his trick to work. "Very well, then I will fill in for you."
The room was filled with gasps. "Wait, I changed my mind!" If Rufus was willing to go on the date, then the auction was either rigged to go to a certain girl, or all the richest girls participating were hot.
"Fine, fine, I'll leave my participation for the last auction. Rude, you're in the first action, Reno in the second, and I will be in the third," it was lie. Rufus would not participate at all, but he needed to keep Reno motivated.
As we end this little flashback at the president's office and return to the present at the Shinra lobby, we find Rude in a state of extreme frustration and making an inhuman effort not to show it, for there stood Cloud Strife, holding out the little slip of paper that proved he had won the auction.
Reno who had accompanied Rude to the lobby for moral support, and most of all to get a clearer idea of what awaited him in the next auction, was quick to point a finger at Cloud and yell at the top of his lungs, "Cloud Strife!"
"I had to!" Cloud yelled equally as loud, if not louder. The random employees whose attention had not been caught by Reno, was now captured by Cloud, and the blond felt countless pairs of eyes focused on him. "It's not... It's just that..."
"Tifa," Rude voiced. His only hope was that this was a gift for Tifa. Not that he actually expected it to be.
Cloud took a deep breath, "okay, I admit it. I overheard Tifa talking about an auction and thought it was for Rude, so I outbid her... But then I realized that I actually outbid a girl I don't know and the action Tifa was participating in was some online auction for a plushie."
Reno burst out laughing, "you messed up!"
Rude was not happy, he cleared his throat and Reno immediately fell silent.
Cloud shifted uncomfortably, "sorry," the delivery boy apologized.
Rude shook his head, it couldn't be helped. It was too late since the auction was already over.
Cloud rubbed the back of his head and shifting his weight from one foot to the other, "we could go play cards at Cid's house."
Thus Rude ended up playing cards with the guys instead of going out on a date, but the in the next auction it was Reno's turn. To quiet Reno's complaints, Rufus set some new rules for the second auction, only women could bid, which banned jealous men who suspected their crushes were bidding from ruining the auction. After the auction ended, Reno waited in the lobby to meet his mystery date, but she was nowhere to be found.
A couple arrived and the lady handed Reno the paper. Then the woman spoke, "we'll be gone all day, so you'll have the house to yourself," and she handed him a set of keys.
Reno thought his real date must be waiting in the home of this couple; maybe it was a sister, cousin, or friend. Then he finally realized that he had seen these people before. They were Shera and Cid Highwind. "So who's the date?" Reno asked, Shera had already said she and Cid would be out, plus she was married, so it was obvious she didn't enter the auction for herself. Reno could only reason that he was intended to be a gift for a fan girl.
"There's no date for you," Cid informed him.
"Sorry, but I wanted someone to clean the house and do a few chores while Cid and I go out. The Turks mission requests were cancelled until the Valentine's Day auction was over so I just used the auction..." Shera explained, but she was leaving a very important detail out, that would soon be revealed.
"Why do you need a Turk? Why go through all of this for a house keeper?" It made no sense to Reno, it was all too suspicious.
Cid lowered his voice, "not exactly, sure you need to complete this list of chores," and Reno was given the list, "but your real job is to guard the plans for my new airship. Someone will try to steal them tonight."
"So who's guarding the plans now?" Sure it was only the afternoon, but if the goods were left unguarded, thieves could strike in broad daylight.
"No one, because I'm taking the disk with the plans with me. I would catch the thief myself but," Cid glanced at Shera.
"No more canceling our dates," Shera warned him.
"The thief might chicken out if I'm around, but the Turk's new goody-goody reputation will trick him into taking the risk, then you can catch him." Cid finished.
"Do I get to beat up the thief?" Reno asked.
Cid nodded, "sure, why not?"
He might have been cheated out of a date with a hot rich girl, but at least Reno would get to release some stress and defend the reputation of the Turks tonight.
xoxox xox xoxox xox xoxox xox xoxox xox xoxox
Mission 13: Chocobo
Elena and Tseng had exhausted their patience dealing with the two indifferent chocobos. At first the male would avoid the uninterested female, and the Turks would lead the female towards the male in hopes of starting some attraction between the two chocobos. This only served to scare the male who ran away to be chased by Tseng.
That chocobo was not the brightest creature, running towards the swamp where he was nearly eaten. Tired, muddy and in a bad mood, Tseng returned from his mission having rescued the suicidal cowardly chocobo.
Then, by the effects of the heat or the scent of the odd smelling greens that the chocobos were being fed, Elena had an idea. "Give him a man to man talk while I give her a make over."
Thus Tseng ended up trying to give the male chocobo a man to man talk, or a man to chocobo talk to be more precise. The chocobo was tied to the fence with a rope around his neck to prevent him from running away again.
"You're ignoring me, aren't you?" Tseng already felt ridiculous trying to talk to a chocobo, but being ignored by a chocobo was too much. "Why can't you just give her a chance so we can leave?" The Turks' mission was to feed all the chocobos at the farm and play matchmaker for those two chocobos. Feeding the chocobos was simple enough, but the chocobos that were supposed to be a couple were not cooperating.
Meanwhile inside the chocobo stables, Elena had busied herself in brushing the female chocobo's feathers. "I'll make you look really pretty, then that chocobo will like you." But the female chocobo remained indifferent.
Outside, Tseng continued his effort to motivate the male chocobo. "It's okay; women are not as scary as you think they are..." he felt a little guilty lying to the poor bird, but it was all so he could get his mission done and leave. "All you have to do is give her a chance; I know you'll end up liking her. Then eventually she will lay an egg." Tseng had his serious doubts that a valuable racing chocobo could come from such a combination, but it wasn't his job to question the chocobo farmer's choices.
"Come back here!" Elena suddenly came running out of the stable, chasing after the female chocobo. "Tseng stop her! I tried to give her a bath and she ran away!" Apparently, that particular chocobo wasn't too fond of water.
Tseng got ready to capture the chocobo, but the female didn't run out of the ranch as he expected. Instead she ran towards the male and started pecking and scratching at him, while he tugged on the rope trying to break free.
"Oh no, they're fighting!" Elena panicked, "this is terrible, we failed the mission and now they'll never be together!"
"Elena..." Tseng pointed towards the two chocobos, surprise evident in his voice.
"How do we stop them from fighting?" Elena paused, a shocked expression appearing on her face. "They're not fighting anymore?"
"No, they're not," Tseng confirmed.
"They like each other?" Elena blinked; the two chocobos seemed to have worked things out after their short fight. She shook her aching head and held it in her hands. "No one is going to believe us if we say we got stuck playing matchmaker for the strangest chocobos in the world," and it was best to just forget about it anyway. At least the mission was done, but this would not be their last mission at the chocobo farm.
Time passed and Tseng and Elena were called for another mission. Once again they were left to deal with feeding all the chocobos, which wasn't all that hard. But of course there had to be a catch. It turns out that the egg from the couple on their last mission had hatched, but the parents were away at the chocobo races, leaving the chick to be cared for by humans.
"It's so cute!" Elena held the small chocobo chick. It was hard to believe the baby had come from the egg of such a troublesome and odd chocobo couple, and it was even harder to believe that the tiny bird would grow to be large enough to carry a human. Elena tried to feed the chick the baby chocobo formula filled with all the nutrients he needed to grow big and strong, but the chick wouldn't drink it.
"It probably tastes bad..." Tseng observed. That green goop did not look appetizing at all, even for a chocobo.
"But he needs the vitamins..." Elena tried again, resorting to everything from the classic airplane dramatizations, to the overused trick of pretending to eat it herself to show how yummy it was. Of course it was only a side view visual trick, and the green stuff never touched her mouth.
The chick then began to chirp, proclaiming his hunger in a loud high pitched voice, but still refused to eat the sticky green stuff. "I'll ask if there's something else we can feed him." While Tseng went to seek some advice from the chocobo experts that hired them out of laziness, Elena sang a little lullaby.
After a while of Elena's singing, and rocking the chocobo in her arms, the chick calmed down but continued to chirp softly, as if asking to be fed. "Poor little one, I wish I had something yummy to give you."
As if on cue, Tseng arrived with some gooey white and yellow stuff that looked slightly better than the green stuff. "They said this is sweeter, and he might like it better." He handed the food to Elena who once again tried to feed the chick. This time the baby ate it.
The Turks continued feeding the little chick, and admiring his cuteness, until some footsteps were heard, followed by the click of a camera. There stood Reno, looking victorious, "mission accomplished!"
"Mission? What mission?" Tseng asked.
"I got a mission directly from Rufus," Reno replied. It was a mission that not even Tseng knew about. After all those missions for civilians, Reno was glad to receive a mission directly from the president. It might not be a cool, spy-movie style mission, but it was better than what he had been doing lately. "My mission was to capture a cute and fluffy moment with the Turks on camera. You two look like the chocobo is your baby."
So far Tseng had more or less eluded having his cool Turk image be fully destroyed. Sure all their images suffered, but Tseng had not been completely ridiculed yet, and he wasn't looking forward to some paid journalist try to make the chocobo lovers favor Shinra by portraying Tseng as having a chocobo obsession himself. "Give me the camera!" Tseng chanced after Reno, who ran away with the camera. A man had to have his limits after all, and Tseng would draw the line right before the last shred Turk dignity was consumed. Elena shrugged and let them go; mistakenly assuming the article wouldn't be so bad.
xoxox xox xoxox xox xoxox xox xoxox xox xoxox
Mission 14: Scissors
Elena grumbled as the scissors chewed the thick cardboard paper, art was not her best subject. She was feeling very frustrated with her project, but she motivated herself by imagining it was some kind of odd Turk mission.
Elena's older sister, Gun, had excelled in all her classes; she graduated from high school with perfect grades and went off to follow in their father's footsteps and become a Turk. Though most of the information concerning Gun's missions was top secret, Elena always heard how proud her father was, and she was condemned to be not 'Elena', but simply, her father's daughter, or worse yet, 'Gun's sister'. Their names were often attached to her relation to them as a way to identify Elena, and that did not feel good at all, she wanted her own identity outside of the shadow of her father and sister.
Elena had grown a competitive spirit, fueled by the need to please and be noticed. She wanted to at least catch up to her sister, and if possible someday outshine her. She wanted to be the one to carry her father's legacy along with the Turks.
But alas, Elena was still a high school student battling with an annoying art project. She threw the scissors across the room at the same time the door was suddenly opened. She didn't have time to warn the person who had just entered her father's office about the flying scissors, but he easily caught the projectile and surveyed the office as if nothing ever happened.
Elena would have apologized for the sudden loss of her temper, but her voice seemed to disappear when she noticed that the one standing at the door was none other than Sephiroth, the hero and legend.
The tall silver haired man looked down at the blond girl who sat on the floor surrounded by a multitude of art supplies that did not fit on her father's desk, the smooth wood surface already occupied with a computer and several folders. "Where is your father?"
The question was simple enough, and the tone was generally calm, but Elena couldn't decide if she should be angry, embarrassed or thankful that her thrown scissors were disregarded. But the scissors were not the point, being treated like a child was. She pushed her voice out of her throat, vowing not to allow another awkward silence to form ever in her life, and thus eventually becoming quite talkative. "He's not here, but if you need to hand in a report I can give it to him." Elena got up and dusted the small pieces of left over paper off her skirt, letting them fall on the floor like confetti. It wasn't unheard of that sometimes Soldiers and Turks went on missions together, and that would explain the folder Sephiroth was holding, even legendary heroes couldn't escape paperwork.
That girl, the daughter of that well known Turk, Sephiroth didn't know her, but it was rather obvious that she came and went in and out of Shinra with her father's ID as she pleased, and no one complained about it. She was probably a future Turk so she might as well get used to being in Shinra. Sephiroth handed her the folder, which Elena received and placed in her father's desk. Then the Soldier gave her the scissors back.
Elena took the scissors and muttered an embarrassed, "thanks."
The silver haired legend nodded and left the office. Out at the hall, Sephiroth observed his hand. Somehow that school girl's unintentional blow had punctured his glove. He removed the black glove and examined the small cut.
"Let me see!" Zack Fair came out of a near by elevator and stared at Sephiroth's hand. "The great Sephiroth bleeds!" Zack gasped dramatically.
Sephiroth tried to ignore the sarcasm, "it's nothing."
"Who was it?" All the Soldiers from third to first class had been begging to spar with Sephiroth, and when he did grant them the honor, they were quickly beaten effortlessly. The Soldiers had made it their mission to at least put a scratch on Sephiroth, but none had succeeded until now. Zack had to know who managed to make that cut, but Sephiroth wasn't telling...
xoxox xox xoxox xox xoxox xox xoxox xox xoxox
Mission 15: Polish
"Polish?" Reno looked absolutely horrified when he was informed about the mission. "Polish?! There's no way I'm going to polish anything. I'm a Turk!"
"I never said you had to polish something. Your mission is only to find and buy high quality polish," Vincent clarified. He didn't really feel like hiring a Turk to run this errand, but he couldn't find anyone else to do it, and he did not wish to go himself because of the inevitable questions that would follow.
"What's the polish for?" Questions such as the one Reno just asked.
"You do not need to know that," Vincent didn't feel like explaining it to Reno any more than he felt like explaining it to the shop keepers, hence why he intended to send the Turk to buy the polish and let him deal with the questions. "As a Turk you should be trained to accomplish your mission without questioning it."
"Yes, but..." But this wasn't a real Turk mission; it was an errand, the kind of thing a child would do to earn a little extra allowance; and it annoyed Reno to no end thinking this was his job. "I won't know which polish to get unless I know what it's for."
"Metal," Vincent replied, unconsciously hiding his left hand in his cloak.
"For your glove and shoes?" Reno laughed, "you could have just said so from the beginning, but I'm only buying it and you're paying for it. I refuse to shine anything; you'll have to do that yourself."
"I already told you, you only need you to buy it," Vincent was losing his patience, he didn't exactly feel comfortable with the subject, but Reno didn't understand that.
"What's so bad about going to the store and buying polish?" The redhead continued asking questions, and drying what was left of Vincent's patience.
"It is... unusual and..." Vincent paused; then glared, "you must leave on your mission at once! Questioning your mission will not be tolerated!"
Reno did a mock salute, "yes sir!" and started heading for the door of Vincent's apartment, where he stopped and looked back at his client. "You're probably afraid people will think you're a freak."
A golden shoe came close to hitting Reno, but the Turk reacted fast enough and ducked, the dangerously pointy shoe flying over his head. "Okay, okay, I get it! Armored vampires have feelings too!" Reno made his escape before he became the target of Cerberus.
Buying the polish was easy enough, and so was delivering it. "Good, well done, you may leave now," Vincent received the polish and practically pushed Reno out the door.
However, Reno held on to the door frame and refused to leave. "Wait! Aren't you going to let me watch how it works?"
"I do not ask to watch you while you work on personal hygiene." Vincent reached for Cerberus, which would also get polished soon.
"That would be weird, but it's not like you're going to bathe in polish, are you? You're more of a freak than I thought!"
"I will not use the polish for bathing, now leave!" Vincent insisted.
"I get it! That glove thing is attached so you can't take it off. That sucks; I bet it scares away the fan girls. Good thing I don't need polish to look good." When Reno lowered his guard, Vincent shoved him out the door and closed it, locking the complaining Turk out.
Next time Vincent would buy the polish himself and put up with the questions and strange looks. It was certainly better than putting up with Reno.
xoxox xox xoxox xox xoxox xox xoxox xox xoxox
Mission 16: Ninja
"Sign here," Yuffie eyed the paper Reno was holding. "Is that what I was called here for?"
"Yes," the Turk replied holding out a pen as well. The Wutai pagoda could be seen in the background, surrounded by complaining tourists that were not allowed to go up.
"I guess you don't mind if I read it." Yuffie wasn't stupid. Her father had called her claiming that she needed to perform an important task for the benefit of her country, and that just made it seem all the more suspicious.
But Reno had nothing to hide, "go ahead, there are no tricks."
Yuffie took the paper and read it. "So basically it says that I gave you a tour of Wutai and discussed important historical events. You want me to skip all that and sign this, right? This is part of Shinra's good image propaganda! They want to prove that the Turks enjoy and respect the culture of Wutai even if it's a big fat lie. I refuse to sign this!" The ninja stomped her feet, feeling the beginning of a temper tantrum.
"Wait a minute!" Reno countered, "I appreciate Wutai and if you would just sign it so I can call my mission done, I will continue appreciating Wutai. Besides, I'm bringing proof just in case." Reno wasn't wearing his uniform for this mission. Instead he was wearing, jeans, sneakers, a Tshirt with a picture of two ninjas and the word 'Wutai' written in bold font, and a metal plated headband with a W.
"Covering yourself in souvenirs is not the same as appreciating Wutai's historical value! We're not just a tourist trap!" Everyone could hear Yuffie yelling, and a group of tourists was starting to form a circle around them assuming it was some kind of tour guide promotion, oh the irony.
"Fine, then you can enlighten me about Wutaian history in that restaurant over there," Reno pushed past the crowds, leaving Yuffie with the unsigned paper.
The ninja girl followed the Turk, "I'm not done talking yet!"
Once seated in the restaurant, it became apparent that Reno would pay more attention to his food than to anything Yuffie would say, but she hasn't even starting talking anyway. "You can start the history lesson any time."
"Right," deciding that she might as well try to enlighten the Turk, and this was as much attention as she would ever get, Yuffie began the lesson. "Wutai is a proud nation of ninjas, or at least it was until Shinra came to invade us and turn this place into a pitiful tourist trap! My father has no sense of Wutaian pride; I think I'm the only real ninja left around here!"
"Wait, are you going to give me stuff to write on the report for Tseng and Rufus, or are you just going to vent?" Reno interrupted.
"This is important!" Yuffie took a deep breath; she would at least try to share some Wutaian history, if only to satisfy her own ninja pride. "Wutai was founded on... on this land, by... a ninja. Our culture is very interesting and..."
"I think the tour guide booklet explains it better, not that I actually read it," Reno interrupted the so called lesson.
"Fine, so I paid even less attention in history class than in the rope escape lessons," Yuffie admitted. "But that's not what Wutai is all about!"
Reno's PHS beeped, it wasn't a call but a text message. He looked at the sender and opened it. But before he could read the message, the PHS was gone, seemingly vanished into thin air. "What the hell?" He was holding the PHS a second ago and now his hand was empty.
"This is what Wutai is about," Yuffie held the PHS victoriously, "ninja skills!"
"I didn't bring my materia," Reno pointed out.
"That was the first thing I noticed," Yuffie read the message, "from your girlfriend?"
"Give that back, it's from work!" Reno attempted to recover his PHS but Yuffie ran away with it.
"From work? I don't believe it!" Yuffie ran out of the restaurant with Reno chasing after her. The owner didn't make a fuss, and simply added the unpaid bill to Shinra's tab, assuming Reno was on a paid company vacation, though he hasn't had that in a while.
"It's true!" Reno yelled as they ran all the way to the pagoda, pushing past the crowds of tourists.
"So who at work calls you Ren-cake?" Yuffie pocketed the PHS and bolted past the guard inside the pagoda.
Reno hit the guard with his electrorod, and followed Yuffie. "Fine, so it's not from work."
"Yuffie!" A little girl from Wutai who aspired to be a ninja like Yuffie called out to her. "Look how far up on the pagoda I made it on my own! Let's train together!" She ran over to Yuffie.
"I can't talk now," Yuffie continued running, this was kind of fun. "Turks are slowpokes!"
"Who are you calling a slowpoke!" Reno continued giving chase.
The little Wutaian girl pointed at Reno, "you're not supposed to be here!" But he had already run past and didn't listen.
When they finally arrived at the top floor, having beaten all the enemies that got in their way, Reno chased Yuffie around in circles for a while, trying to recover his PHS. This went on until the same little girl arrived, "you're in big trouble Mr. Turk! I called your boss and told him that you're in the pagoda!"
"How do you even know Rufus' number?" Reno didn't believe her.
"It's on your PHS," the little girl held up the devise victoriously.
"What? How? Hey!" Yuffie pointed and jumped around. Her little prodigy had stolen what she stole first. "Not fair!"
"I'll take that back now," Reno took his PHS.
The little girl returned the PHS without complaints. "Its okay Yuffie, I told his boss so now he's in trouble!"
Reno rolled his eyes, "tattle tell," and he headed downstairs to leave the pagoda.
"Must train harder..." Yuffie muttered, though the little girl was only trying to help, Yuffie couldn't let her young fan surpass her.
As Reno came out of the pagoda, several tourists took pictures because it was very rare that someone who wasn't from Wutai went up to the pagoda, though the pictures didn't show he forced his way in.
It turns out the little girl from Wutai wasn't very specific during her call to Rufus, and the president was left with the impression that Reno was actually allowed to go to the pagoda. With people's vacation pictures being sent over Shinra's internet service provider, it was easy to get some of those pictures and the mission was considered a big success even if Reno never obtained the signature of someone from Wutai's leader family.
xoxox xox xoxox xox xoxox xox xoxox xox xoxox
Mission 17: Flowers
Reno and Rude were surprised to find that, though this mission was requested by Cloud Strife, it didn't involve delivering packages or helping him pick a gift for Tifa. Instead it was all about gardening.
"You want us to take care of the flowers?" That was not something Reno was good at.
"Yes, I'll give you the easiest part, water the flowers," Cloud handed Reno a watering can. "Rude and I will take care of collecting seeds and planting them."
"The easiest part? Are you saying I'm bad at this?" Reno complained.
Cloud nodded, "yes."
There was a short moment of tension in which Rude considered stepping in, "yeah you're probably right," but the tension dissipated as if it was never even there when Reno accepted the truth. Reno went off to do his assigned task, grumbling that he was a Turk and not a gardener.
Cloud and Rude went to work as well, but they weren't all that great at gardening either. "Don't step on the flowers!" Cloud suddenly yelled.
Reno threw the watering can in surprise and it hit Cloud on the head. The redhead looked at the flowers crushed under his feet. "Oops..."
Cloud rubbed the sore spot on his head. "Stop stepping on them!"
Reno scrambled away from the flowers, stepping on more as he did. "How am I supposed to water the flowers in the middle without stepping on any of them?"
"Step between them, not on them," Cloud pointed out.
"Easier said than done," Reno snatched the watering can and tried again, this time stepping between the flowers like Cloud said.
Cloud nodded in approval and went back to his previous task of collecting seeds so they could be planted. "Rude don't pull out the seeds like that, you're supposed to be gentle with flowers, Aerith said so."
Rude offered no reply beyond "..." and continued working.
Reno continued to balance himself stepping between the flowers, until he lost his footing trying to avoid squishing a flower, and ended up falling on a lot of flowers.
"Reno!" Cloud yelled so loud that his voice echoed. "The flowers!" He was supposed to be doing something in Aerith's honor by helping take care of her flowers, but now Cloud thought that maybe it was best to let the flowers take care of themselves. Cloud's eyes glowed mako green and he passed out.
Cloud found himself in an endless whiteness. There was someone standing behind him. The voice was familiar, it was Aerith's voice. "You've been working very hard."
"But I let them die, the flowers, crushed like Sector Seven," Cloud replied.
"It's alright, you only wanted to help. Accidents happen, don't worry so much about it, the flowers will grow back." Aerith spoke gently.
Cloud tried to turn around, but as it always happened, Aerith disappeared, and Cloud woke up. "Ow..."
"I think you crushed more flowers than I did," Reno sounded amused, he hated this job and he was so bored he became easily amused.
"What?" Cloud quickly got up, realizing that when he fainted, he landed on the flowers. He sighed; maybe it was best to leave the flowers alone from now on.
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Mission 18: Apology
"You're such good children..." It was the seventh time so far that Elmyra had said this.
Elena endured it with a smile and nod; she wasn't too bothered by it. Tseng nodded with a neutral expression, Rude remained as still as a statue and Reno twitched.
"We're not good children," the redhead grumbled, loud enough for his Turk companions to hear, but not loud enough for the sound to reach Elmyra. "We're Turks."
Tseng elbowed Reno, while Elena kept Elmyra distracted by asked, "is there anything else you need?" despite Reno frantically shaking his head for her to stop. He didn't want to do anything else.
"Tseng, dear, could you water the flowers, Aerith used to water them all the time," Elmyra requested.
"I will water them..." Tseng left to do his assigned chore, trying his best not to sound like it was a drag, even if it was.
"Elena, sweetie, could you get started in the kitchen? Let's all have lunch together!" Elmyra continued assigning chores.
"No problem!" With her best media face, Elena went off to accomplish her next task.
"Rude, darling, you look like a strong boy, you can help me rearrange the furniture." Elmyra only received a nod as a response this time and Rude remained characteristically quiet. "Reno, strawberry, could help clean around the house?"
Reno twitched, dear, sweetie and darling were silly enough, but strawberry? "Strawberry?"
"Oh yes, your hair is the same color as a strawberry, it's so cute," Elmyra giggled.
Reno continued to twitch, doing his best to keep his temper in check. The solitude and the trauma of losing all her family was getting to Elmyra, and she was now convinced that the Turks were the grandchildren that Aerith never gave her. She didn't even realize that they were close to the age Aerith would have been if she was still alive, some even a little older.
In reality, the Turks were there to bring an apology from Rufus to Elmyra for all the trouble Shinra had caused her, including the death of her husband serving Shinra in the past and the sacrifice of her adopted daughter who was trying to stop Sephiroth. As usual Rufus was sending off the Turks to do the hard work, because no matter how much Shinra changed, some things never changed.
A giggle came from the kitchen, and Reno knew that Elena had heard Elmyra calling him strawberry and was laughing at his account. Then he noticed Tseng looking inside the house from the window when he should have been out watering the garden, he too had an amused expression. Even Rude almost laughed, almost but not quite, because he was Rude and Rude never laughed out loud. But on the inside, Reno was sure that Rude was laughing like never before.
"You're such good children..." Reno glanced at Rude searching for support, as Elmyra repeated the phase yet again. Then he looked towards the window but Tseng had already left to water the flowers. The sound of pot and pans was head, and the scent of food filled the house indicating that Elena was busy in the kitchen. "Let's move this couch over there, so strawberry can clean behind it." Elmyra was oblivious to it, but that day Reno hated the new missions more than ever.
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Mission 19: Reconstruction
"You should reconsider, it's not safe here," Tseng had been trying to reason with the inhabitants of Mideel for the past hour. "There are some very good apartments available in Edge."
"No, no, and a million times no!" The mayor insisted, supported by the unanimous decision of the rest of the Mideel population. "This is our home and we will not abandon it! We didn't abandon it when it had a big hole of life steam in the middle, and we won't abandon it now!"
The planet had eventually began to heal its wound, though there was still a crater where the large pool of life stream had been, this wound wasn't as big as the one in the Northern Crater. The life stream was sucked into the ground and the dry land of the crater was livable, but uncomfortable. Even so, the residents of Mideel stayed in their land and built their new houses around the crater.
The new structures were weak, having been constructed in a hurry due to the pressing necessity of shelter. The materials used where of poor quality, random pieces of wood collected in the area, and reused parts of what was left of the old houses. To summarize, the new houses were not all that stable and the media made it Shinra's duty to make sure everyone had a safe place to live.
If those houses came apart and someone was crushed to death, injured, or even lightly scratched, it would be Shinra's fault like everything else in the world. Thus the Turks were sent to try to talk the residents of Mideel into relocating into an apartment complex in the city of Edge.
Should the Mideel people refuse to move, the current structures that housed them would be strengthened and remodeled into something that resembled a decent living area with the Turks as the remodeling crew.
"..." Rude was silent as usual.
"Yes, I know," Reno agreed with Rude, as if he could tell what Rude was saying just by looking at his neutral expression.
"Do you two have a psychic connection or something?" Elena took a break from painting the neighbor's house to see how Reno and Rude were doing.
"What do you mean? Didn't you get what Rude was trying to say just now?" Reno placed the nail on the wood and attempted to hammer it in.
"Not really..." Elena admitted.
When Reno threw the hammer back and brought it down on the nail, he realized that he only had the handle. "Cheap hammer..."
"Duck!" Elena suddenly looked alarmed.
"Wark!" A baby chocobo curiously approached Reno.
"It's a chocobo," Reno paid no mind to the hammer, which was missing the metal part that had flown off and knocked out the mayor.
"Oh no!" Elena pointed at the unconscious mayor, as a circle of Mideel villagers surrounded him.
"..." Rude watched quietly.
"Yes it is," Reno petted the baby chocobo; any distraction from the unwanted work was welcome. "It's a chocobo, it's still a baby but it's bigger than a duck."
Tseng arrived with more materials, setting a bunch of wood down and rubbing his sore shoulders. "What are those villagers doing over there?" He didn't like how it looked at all.
The Mideel villagers dissipated the circle, revealing the corpse of their mayor. He was old and couldn't take such a hard blow to the head. "Hey, what happened to the old guy? Did he have a heart attack or something?" Reno asked, as if he had no part on it. Then he saw the missing part of the hammer stuck on the mayor's forehead. "Is that...?"
"Yes it is!" Elena yelled.
"Reno!" Tseng scolded him.
The villagers had quickly gotten ready to hunt down the Turks with torches and pitchforks as if it was a classic ogre hunt from medieval times. The four Turks ran to their helicopter and took off full speed to Shinra HQ, and away from the murderous villagers.
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Mission 20: Entertainment
Instead of feeling a great foreboding, and refusing the mission at all costs, Reno was relieved to hear the setting of his next mission was the Forgotten Capital. He didn't know what in the world he was supposed to be doing there, but it couldn't be community service, because there was no community to serve in such a remote area.
The red haired Turk took to the skies on a helicopter, assuming he was to lead a dangerous expedition or something like that. Sure there was nothing to worry about as far as he knew, but he could at least pretend this was an adventure and attempt to mend the broken pride of being a Turk.
By the time he landed at his destination, Reno had not even fully read the mission request, having left Shinra as soon as he read the location of the mission. Thus where the mission took place was all he knew about the mission, and he still ignored what his task would be, but it couldn't be that bad, right? It was about time Lady Luck stopped being angry at him.
But alas, unknown to Reno, Lady Luck was moody and pissed off, so he was not going to catch a break today. Had Reno taken the needed time to analyze the mission, he might have noticed that the origin of the form was a mystery. The paper appeared on his desk out of nowhere, even if no one had placed it there, and few had access to the Turks' floor anyway.
The security cameras, had they been checked, would show nothing but an eerie green glow. There had been a ghostly presence manifesting itself by printing out the request form, filling it out and placing it on Reno's desk; but none of that was checked.
Reno left the chopper parked as close as he could get to the Forgotten Capital and walked deeper into forest of unusual tress that looked like a combination between trees and ocean flora. Shells and sand adorned the area, making Reno wonder if the place had been under water long ago. But quite frankly, he didn't care; he just wanted to get some decent entertainment out of his mission like he used to do while blowing things up and dodging bullets.
"There he is!" The voice was child-like, and Reno couldn't help it but to cringe, fearing that he had been tricked into another babysitting job, though at quite an odd location.
"Kadaj? Yazoo? Loz?" They looked like miniature versions of the three remnants of Sephiroth.
"Play with us!" Kadaj demanded, pouting, crossing his arms over his chest and stomping his foot for emphasis.
Reno pulled the mission form out of his pocket and cursed his own haste. The mission's description that he read for the first time there and then indeed requested that he played with the boys, that was his mission all along. "Are we going to play destroy the world or kill Strife?" Reno actually sounded hopeful.
"No, we're going to play tag and you're going to be it!" Kadaj and his brothers ran off, fully expecting Reno to chase after them.
Reno stood there for a few seconds rooted to the spot. Finally, he breathed deeply and started running. "You better be plotting to call meteor or something!" Because Reno was desperate for a real mission, even if it meant the possible destruction of the planet.
After running for a while, and losing sight of the three boys, Reno set out to search for them to interrogate them about their mysterious return, and the possibility of Sephiroth coming back. At least that would give the Turks something to do and Rufus would be forced to suspend the ridiculous missions.
A small laugh was heard, but Reno pretended not to hear it. He searched the bushes at the base of a tree then pretended to be on his way, but he suddenly turned around and dashed towards the three, climbing faster than most people could. "I found you!" He sat on a branch next to Loz.
"You didn't catch me!" Loz went further out into the tree branch.
"Come back kid, if you fall and crack your head open, Sephiroth might come out. I know that's Kadaj's deal, but I'm not taking any chances." As much as Reno wanted Sephiroth to return for the sake of having a mission worthy of a Turk, he didn't want the One Winged Angel to come back as a reaction to a broken remnant and possibly seek revenge on the one who let that remnant get hurt.
"I don't want to be it!" The branch where Loz was started to crack under his weight until it broke.
Reno reacted fast enough, and grabbed Loz's hand pulling him up to safety. Loz got scared and clung to Reno who somehow managed to get both of them down from the tree without any casualties.
As soon as they were down from the tree, Loz jammed his fingers into Reno's nose, "I didn't want to be it!" Little Loz cried.
Reno pried the crying child off and put him on the ground, "stop that you little brat!"
"What did you do to my brother?!" Yazoo came running out of nowhere and kicked Reno on the knee.
"You little son of Jenova!" Reno hopped around on one foot.
Then Kadaj joined them, "hey! Why are you playing with everyone else and not with me? I don't want to be ignored!"
The three children then tackled Reno, demanding attention and piggy back rides from their new toy. Reno really wanted to get rid of them permanently, but the return of Sephiroth might be the only thing capable of bringing enough chaos to require real Turk missions and restore the meaning of being a Turk.
End of Report II
Disclaimer, I don't own Final Fantasy VII. Mission 11 was requested by S.N. Naina. Mission 12 was requested by Sasami10.Mission 13 was requested by Death Korps (the chocobos) and Sasami10 (a mission with Tseng and Elena). Mission 14 was requested by Niquie. Most of the missions in this collection take place after Advent Children, except Mission 14 which takes place during Before Crisis, which obviously takes place before Crisis Core. Mission 15 was requested by Sharem. Mission 16 is for les yeux sans visage. Mission 17 was requested by Death Korps. Mission 18 was requested by Death Korps, an apology for Elmyra and it's also for evenstarfictionfan who wanted to see more missions with all the Turks. Mission 19 was requested by Death Korps. Mission 20 was requested by Silver Tears 11. Most of the mission requests consisted of a character and a word, then I wrote a story about that character that involved the chosen item or verb and a few requests were basic concepts of things the Turks should do.
Mission 11: Whips
He slept in a coffin, he dressed like a vampire and he was just plain weird. It didn't come as a surprise to Reno, when he was assigned against his will to help Vincent Valentine move some of his old things from the Shinra mansion to his apartment, that the black haired man would have some odd items among his possessions. But Reno never imagined that Vincent had such a large collection of whips.
As far as Reno knew, Vincent's weapon of choice was a gun, a three barreled gun with a cute little doggy charm hanging from it. Apparently decorating one's weapon was the in thing, and not wanting to be left behind, Reno had recently placed a viera keychain on his electro-rod. But that would be straying from the topic of Vincent's seemingly endless collection of whips.
Reno stopped his insistent chanting of "I hate this job", placed another box full of whips in the helicopter, and looked at Vincent. "Why do you have so many whips?"
"It is none of your concern," Vincent answered.
"Does that mean I don't want to know, or that I should mind my own business?" Reno questioned.
Vincent took a deep breath, he had not learned his lesson about hiring Turks to help out with simple tasks, and for that he felt that he could crawl back into his coffin and sleep for the next hundred years. "They were in the attic."
"That's it? So you're just taking them?" Reno was relieved to hear a somewhat normal answer. The Shinra mansion had been abandoned many years ago, so it was no big deal if things were taken from there, no one really cared. At least it wasn't an odd answer like having a whip obsession. Though the question still remained, why would Vincent take the whips and not something else? "Why the whips?"
"I mentioned it to Reeve and he asked me to bring them," Vincent replied.
"Reeve..." Reno wondered why Reeve would want that many whips. "I know he collects cats, but why whips?"
"The WRO's budget is not very extensive. I assume he wishes to help equip the troops or sell the whips." Vincent tried to remain calm.
But Reno didn't know when to stop talking. "How cheap! With all the money Ruf- I mean, the mysterious benefactor has been giving the WRO that could have been used to pay for vaca-er... other things."
It was no secret to Vincent, or to Reeve, or to the majority of the population of the new Midgar, that the mysterious benefactor was in fact Rufus Shinra. Who else was that rich anyway? "Shall we finish loading the boxes so you may leave?"
Reno nodded and followed Vincent back inside. However, he did not remain quiet along the way as Vincent wished he had. "So how come we're taking this stuff to your apartment and not the WRO headquarters? Is Reeve going over to pick up the whips later? Or is it that he heard you hired a Turk and doesn't want Turks near the WRO? Are they planning something against Shinra?"
"There are no conspiracies taking place," Vincent mentally begged for silence.
But Reno would not allow that wish to be granted, "are you sure about that?"
Vincent sighed; in the past he thought he should punish himself for his mistakes. But now he was sure his debt was paid and he wondered what he did to deserve this. Had he not been punished enough listening to Reno all that time? Oh how he wished to cast a spell of silence...
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Mission 12: Date
Rude was not very expressive or emotional, so when the identity of his mystery date was reveled he remained cool, calm and collected on the surface. But deep down Rude was frustrated.
Rufus had the bright idea to make the Turks participate in a celebrity Valentine's Day auction, where the prize would be a date. Tseng and Elena avoided it by making it clear that they were dating each other. As deadly as Turks are trained to be, it was best not to provoke feelings of jealousy. Thus Tseng and Elena were out.
Reno immediately said he had a girlfriend, but Rufus paid him no mind claiming that, "it's okay as long as she doesn't find out," because he didn't believe the girl existed anyway.
In their little reunion at the president's office, it was at that point that Elena crossed her arms and glared icy daggers at Rufus, "don't encourage him to cheat."
To which Rufus responded by assuring Elena that "Reno is lying."
"I'm not lying!" Reno immediately defended himself. "If you don't believe me I'll tell her to come over tomorrow," and by then he would have turned that lie into a truth. Even if it was an improvised girlfriend, it was better than having no say at all on who the date was.
"I know you're lying, you're just going to go out and find a girl at the last minute to get out of the auction." Rufus saw right through the plan.
"So what if I am?" Reno challenged. "Actually, forget that, I'll just refuse."
Rufus shrugged, he couldn't look too disappointed for his trick to work. "Very well, then I will fill in for you."
The room was filled with gasps. "Wait, I changed my mind!" If Rufus was willing to go on the date, then the auction was either rigged to go to a certain girl, or all the richest girls participating were hot.
"Fine, fine, I'll leave my participation for the last auction. Rude, you're in the first action, Reno in the second, and I will be in the third," it was lie. Rufus would not participate at all, but he needed to keep Reno motivated.
As we end this little flashback at the president's office and return to the present at the Shinra lobby, we find Rude in a state of extreme frustration and making an inhuman effort not to show it, for there stood Cloud Strife, holding out the little slip of paper that proved he had won the auction.
Reno who had accompanied Rude to the lobby for moral support, and most of all to get a clearer idea of what awaited him in the next auction, was quick to point a finger at Cloud and yell at the top of his lungs, "Cloud Strife!"
"I had to!" Cloud yelled equally as loud, if not louder. The random employees whose attention had not been caught by Reno, was now captured by Cloud, and the blond felt countless pairs of eyes focused on him. "It's not... It's just that..."
"Tifa," Rude voiced. His only hope was that this was a gift for Tifa. Not that he actually expected it to be.
Cloud took a deep breath, "okay, I admit it. I overheard Tifa talking about an auction and thought it was for Rude, so I outbid her... But then I realized that I actually outbid a girl I don't know and the action Tifa was participating in was some online auction for a plushie."
Reno burst out laughing, "you messed up!"
Rude was not happy, he cleared his throat and Reno immediately fell silent.
Cloud shifted uncomfortably, "sorry," the delivery boy apologized.
Rude shook his head, it couldn't be helped. It was too late since the auction was already over.
Cloud rubbed the back of his head and shifting his weight from one foot to the other, "we could go play cards at Cid's house."
Thus Rude ended up playing cards with the guys instead of going out on a date, but the in the next auction it was Reno's turn. To quiet Reno's complaints, Rufus set some new rules for the second auction, only women could bid, which banned jealous men who suspected their crushes were bidding from ruining the auction. After the auction ended, Reno waited in the lobby to meet his mystery date, but she was nowhere to be found.
A couple arrived and the lady handed Reno the paper. Then the woman spoke, "we'll be gone all day, so you'll have the house to yourself," and she handed him a set of keys.
Reno thought his real date must be waiting in the home of this couple; maybe it was a sister, cousin, or friend. Then he finally realized that he had seen these people before. They were Shera and Cid Highwind. "So who's the date?" Reno asked, Shera had already said she and Cid would be out, plus she was married, so it was obvious she didn't enter the auction for herself. Reno could only reason that he was intended to be a gift for a fan girl.
"There's no date for you," Cid informed him.
"Sorry, but I wanted someone to clean the house and do a few chores while Cid and I go out. The Turks mission requests were cancelled until the Valentine's Day auction was over so I just used the auction..." Shera explained, but she was leaving a very important detail out, that would soon be revealed.
"Why do you need a Turk? Why go through all of this for a house keeper?" It made no sense to Reno, it was all too suspicious.
Cid lowered his voice, "not exactly, sure you need to complete this list of chores," and Reno was given the list, "but your real job is to guard the plans for my new airship. Someone will try to steal them tonight."
"So who's guarding the plans now?" Sure it was only the afternoon, but if the goods were left unguarded, thieves could strike in broad daylight.
"No one, because I'm taking the disk with the plans with me. I would catch the thief myself but," Cid glanced at Shera.
"No more canceling our dates," Shera warned him.
"The thief might chicken out if I'm around, but the Turk's new goody-goody reputation will trick him into taking the risk, then you can catch him." Cid finished.
"Do I get to beat up the thief?" Reno asked.
Cid nodded, "sure, why not?"
He might have been cheated out of a date with a hot rich girl, but at least Reno would get to release some stress and defend the reputation of the Turks tonight.
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Mission 13: Chocobo
Elena and Tseng had exhausted their patience dealing with the two indifferent chocobos. At first the male would avoid the uninterested female, and the Turks would lead the female towards the male in hopes of starting some attraction between the two chocobos. This only served to scare the male who ran away to be chased by Tseng.
That chocobo was not the brightest creature, running towards the swamp where he was nearly eaten. Tired, muddy and in a bad mood, Tseng returned from his mission having rescued the suicidal cowardly chocobo.
Then, by the effects of the heat or the scent of the odd smelling greens that the chocobos were being fed, Elena had an idea. "Give him a man to man talk while I give her a make over."
Thus Tseng ended up trying to give the male chocobo a man to man talk, or a man to chocobo talk to be more precise. The chocobo was tied to the fence with a rope around his neck to prevent him from running away again.
"You're ignoring me, aren't you?" Tseng already felt ridiculous trying to talk to a chocobo, but being ignored by a chocobo was too much. "Why can't you just give her a chance so we can leave?" The Turks' mission was to feed all the chocobos at the farm and play matchmaker for those two chocobos. Feeding the chocobos was simple enough, but the chocobos that were supposed to be a couple were not cooperating.
Meanwhile inside the chocobo stables, Elena had busied herself in brushing the female chocobo's feathers. "I'll make you look really pretty, then that chocobo will like you." But the female chocobo remained indifferent.
Outside, Tseng continued his effort to motivate the male chocobo. "It's okay; women are not as scary as you think they are..." he felt a little guilty lying to the poor bird, but it was all so he could get his mission done and leave. "All you have to do is give her a chance; I know you'll end up liking her. Then eventually she will lay an egg." Tseng had his serious doubts that a valuable racing chocobo could come from such a combination, but it wasn't his job to question the chocobo farmer's choices.
"Come back here!" Elena suddenly came running out of the stable, chasing after the female chocobo. "Tseng stop her! I tried to give her a bath and she ran away!" Apparently, that particular chocobo wasn't too fond of water.
Tseng got ready to capture the chocobo, but the female didn't run out of the ranch as he expected. Instead she ran towards the male and started pecking and scratching at him, while he tugged on the rope trying to break free.
"Oh no, they're fighting!" Elena panicked, "this is terrible, we failed the mission and now they'll never be together!"
"Elena..." Tseng pointed towards the two chocobos, surprise evident in his voice.
"How do we stop them from fighting?" Elena paused, a shocked expression appearing on her face. "They're not fighting anymore?"
"No, they're not," Tseng confirmed.
"They like each other?" Elena blinked; the two chocobos seemed to have worked things out after their short fight. She shook her aching head and held it in her hands. "No one is going to believe us if we say we got stuck playing matchmaker for the strangest chocobos in the world," and it was best to just forget about it anyway. At least the mission was done, but this would not be their last mission at the chocobo farm.
Time passed and Tseng and Elena were called for another mission. Once again they were left to deal with feeding all the chocobos, which wasn't all that hard. But of course there had to be a catch. It turns out that the egg from the couple on their last mission had hatched, but the parents were away at the chocobo races, leaving the chick to be cared for by humans.
"It's so cute!" Elena held the small chocobo chick. It was hard to believe the baby had come from the egg of such a troublesome and odd chocobo couple, and it was even harder to believe that the tiny bird would grow to be large enough to carry a human. Elena tried to feed the chick the baby chocobo formula filled with all the nutrients he needed to grow big and strong, but the chick wouldn't drink it.
"It probably tastes bad..." Tseng observed. That green goop did not look appetizing at all, even for a chocobo.
"But he needs the vitamins..." Elena tried again, resorting to everything from the classic airplane dramatizations, to the overused trick of pretending to eat it herself to show how yummy it was. Of course it was only a side view visual trick, and the green stuff never touched her mouth.
The chick then began to chirp, proclaiming his hunger in a loud high pitched voice, but still refused to eat the sticky green stuff. "I'll ask if there's something else we can feed him." While Tseng went to seek some advice from the chocobo experts that hired them out of laziness, Elena sang a little lullaby.
After a while of Elena's singing, and rocking the chocobo in her arms, the chick calmed down but continued to chirp softly, as if asking to be fed. "Poor little one, I wish I had something yummy to give you."
As if on cue, Tseng arrived with some gooey white and yellow stuff that looked slightly better than the green stuff. "They said this is sweeter, and he might like it better." He handed the food to Elena who once again tried to feed the chick. This time the baby ate it.
The Turks continued feeding the little chick, and admiring his cuteness, until some footsteps were heard, followed by the click of a camera. There stood Reno, looking victorious, "mission accomplished!"
"Mission? What mission?" Tseng asked.
"I got a mission directly from Rufus," Reno replied. It was a mission that not even Tseng knew about. After all those missions for civilians, Reno was glad to receive a mission directly from the president. It might not be a cool, spy-movie style mission, but it was better than what he had been doing lately. "My mission was to capture a cute and fluffy moment with the Turks on camera. You two look like the chocobo is your baby."
So far Tseng had more or less eluded having his cool Turk image be fully destroyed. Sure all their images suffered, but Tseng had not been completely ridiculed yet, and he wasn't looking forward to some paid journalist try to make the chocobo lovers favor Shinra by portraying Tseng as having a chocobo obsession himself. "Give me the camera!" Tseng chanced after Reno, who ran away with the camera. A man had to have his limits after all, and Tseng would draw the line right before the last shred Turk dignity was consumed. Elena shrugged and let them go; mistakenly assuming the article wouldn't be so bad.
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Mission 14: Scissors
Elena grumbled as the scissors chewed the thick cardboard paper, art was not her best subject. She was feeling very frustrated with her project, but she motivated herself by imagining it was some kind of odd Turk mission.
Elena's older sister, Gun, had excelled in all her classes; she graduated from high school with perfect grades and went off to follow in their father's footsteps and become a Turk. Though most of the information concerning Gun's missions was top secret, Elena always heard how proud her father was, and she was condemned to be not 'Elena', but simply, her father's daughter, or worse yet, 'Gun's sister'. Their names were often attached to her relation to them as a way to identify Elena, and that did not feel good at all, she wanted her own identity outside of the shadow of her father and sister.
Elena had grown a competitive spirit, fueled by the need to please and be noticed. She wanted to at least catch up to her sister, and if possible someday outshine her. She wanted to be the one to carry her father's legacy along with the Turks.
But alas, Elena was still a high school student battling with an annoying art project. She threw the scissors across the room at the same time the door was suddenly opened. She didn't have time to warn the person who had just entered her father's office about the flying scissors, but he easily caught the projectile and surveyed the office as if nothing ever happened.
Elena would have apologized for the sudden loss of her temper, but her voice seemed to disappear when she noticed that the one standing at the door was none other than Sephiroth, the hero and legend.
The tall silver haired man looked down at the blond girl who sat on the floor surrounded by a multitude of art supplies that did not fit on her father's desk, the smooth wood surface already occupied with a computer and several folders. "Where is your father?"
The question was simple enough, and the tone was generally calm, but Elena couldn't decide if she should be angry, embarrassed or thankful that her thrown scissors were disregarded. But the scissors were not the point, being treated like a child was. She pushed her voice out of her throat, vowing not to allow another awkward silence to form ever in her life, and thus eventually becoming quite talkative. "He's not here, but if you need to hand in a report I can give it to him." Elena got up and dusted the small pieces of left over paper off her skirt, letting them fall on the floor like confetti. It wasn't unheard of that sometimes Soldiers and Turks went on missions together, and that would explain the folder Sephiroth was holding, even legendary heroes couldn't escape paperwork.
That girl, the daughter of that well known Turk, Sephiroth didn't know her, but it was rather obvious that she came and went in and out of Shinra with her father's ID as she pleased, and no one complained about it. She was probably a future Turk so she might as well get used to being in Shinra. Sephiroth handed her the folder, which Elena received and placed in her father's desk. Then the Soldier gave her the scissors back.
Elena took the scissors and muttered an embarrassed, "thanks."
The silver haired legend nodded and left the office. Out at the hall, Sephiroth observed his hand. Somehow that school girl's unintentional blow had punctured his glove. He removed the black glove and examined the small cut.
"Let me see!" Zack Fair came out of a near by elevator and stared at Sephiroth's hand. "The great Sephiroth bleeds!" Zack gasped dramatically.
Sephiroth tried to ignore the sarcasm, "it's nothing."
"Who was it?" All the Soldiers from third to first class had been begging to spar with Sephiroth, and when he did grant them the honor, they were quickly beaten effortlessly. The Soldiers had made it their mission to at least put a scratch on Sephiroth, but none had succeeded until now. Zack had to know who managed to make that cut, but Sephiroth wasn't telling...
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Mission 15: Polish
"Polish?" Reno looked absolutely horrified when he was informed about the mission. "Polish?! There's no way I'm going to polish anything. I'm a Turk!"
"I never said you had to polish something. Your mission is only to find and buy high quality polish," Vincent clarified. He didn't really feel like hiring a Turk to run this errand, but he couldn't find anyone else to do it, and he did not wish to go himself because of the inevitable questions that would follow.
"What's the polish for?" Questions such as the one Reno just asked.
"You do not need to know that," Vincent didn't feel like explaining it to Reno any more than he felt like explaining it to the shop keepers, hence why he intended to send the Turk to buy the polish and let him deal with the questions. "As a Turk you should be trained to accomplish your mission without questioning it."
"Yes, but..." But this wasn't a real Turk mission; it was an errand, the kind of thing a child would do to earn a little extra allowance; and it annoyed Reno to no end thinking this was his job. "I won't know which polish to get unless I know what it's for."
"Metal," Vincent replied, unconsciously hiding his left hand in his cloak.
"For your glove and shoes?" Reno laughed, "you could have just said so from the beginning, but I'm only buying it and you're paying for it. I refuse to shine anything; you'll have to do that yourself."
"I already told you, you only need you to buy it," Vincent was losing his patience, he didn't exactly feel comfortable with the subject, but Reno didn't understand that.
"What's so bad about going to the store and buying polish?" The redhead continued asking questions, and drying what was left of Vincent's patience.
"It is... unusual and..." Vincent paused; then glared, "you must leave on your mission at once! Questioning your mission will not be tolerated!"
Reno did a mock salute, "yes sir!" and started heading for the door of Vincent's apartment, where he stopped and looked back at his client. "You're probably afraid people will think you're a freak."
A golden shoe came close to hitting Reno, but the Turk reacted fast enough and ducked, the dangerously pointy shoe flying over his head. "Okay, okay, I get it! Armored vampires have feelings too!" Reno made his escape before he became the target of Cerberus.
Buying the polish was easy enough, and so was delivering it. "Good, well done, you may leave now," Vincent received the polish and practically pushed Reno out the door.
However, Reno held on to the door frame and refused to leave. "Wait! Aren't you going to let me watch how it works?"
"I do not ask to watch you while you work on personal hygiene." Vincent reached for Cerberus, which would also get polished soon.
"That would be weird, but it's not like you're going to bathe in polish, are you? You're more of a freak than I thought!"
"I will not use the polish for bathing, now leave!" Vincent insisted.
"I get it! That glove thing is attached so you can't take it off. That sucks; I bet it scares away the fan girls. Good thing I don't need polish to look good." When Reno lowered his guard, Vincent shoved him out the door and closed it, locking the complaining Turk out.
Next time Vincent would buy the polish himself and put up with the questions and strange looks. It was certainly better than putting up with Reno.
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Mission 16: Ninja
"Sign here," Yuffie eyed the paper Reno was holding. "Is that what I was called here for?"
"Yes," the Turk replied holding out a pen as well. The Wutai pagoda could be seen in the background, surrounded by complaining tourists that were not allowed to go up.
"I guess you don't mind if I read it." Yuffie wasn't stupid. Her father had called her claiming that she needed to perform an important task for the benefit of her country, and that just made it seem all the more suspicious.
But Reno had nothing to hide, "go ahead, there are no tricks."
Yuffie took the paper and read it. "So basically it says that I gave you a tour of Wutai and discussed important historical events. You want me to skip all that and sign this, right? This is part of Shinra's good image propaganda! They want to prove that the Turks enjoy and respect the culture of Wutai even if it's a big fat lie. I refuse to sign this!" The ninja stomped her feet, feeling the beginning of a temper tantrum.
"Wait a minute!" Reno countered, "I appreciate Wutai and if you would just sign it so I can call my mission done, I will continue appreciating Wutai. Besides, I'm bringing proof just in case." Reno wasn't wearing his uniform for this mission. Instead he was wearing, jeans, sneakers, a Tshirt with a picture of two ninjas and the word 'Wutai' written in bold font, and a metal plated headband with a W.
"Covering yourself in souvenirs is not the same as appreciating Wutai's historical value! We're not just a tourist trap!" Everyone could hear Yuffie yelling, and a group of tourists was starting to form a circle around them assuming it was some kind of tour guide promotion, oh the irony.
"Fine, then you can enlighten me about Wutaian history in that restaurant over there," Reno pushed past the crowds, leaving Yuffie with the unsigned paper.
The ninja girl followed the Turk, "I'm not done talking yet!"
Once seated in the restaurant, it became apparent that Reno would pay more attention to his food than to anything Yuffie would say, but she hasn't even starting talking anyway. "You can start the history lesson any time."
"Right," deciding that she might as well try to enlighten the Turk, and this was as much attention as she would ever get, Yuffie began the lesson. "Wutai is a proud nation of ninjas, or at least it was until Shinra came to invade us and turn this place into a pitiful tourist trap! My father has no sense of Wutaian pride; I think I'm the only real ninja left around here!"
"Wait, are you going to give me stuff to write on the report for Tseng and Rufus, or are you just going to vent?" Reno interrupted.
"This is important!" Yuffie took a deep breath; she would at least try to share some Wutaian history, if only to satisfy her own ninja pride. "Wutai was founded on... on this land, by... a ninja. Our culture is very interesting and..."
"I think the tour guide booklet explains it better, not that I actually read it," Reno interrupted the so called lesson.
"Fine, so I paid even less attention in history class than in the rope escape lessons," Yuffie admitted. "But that's not what Wutai is all about!"
Reno's PHS beeped, it wasn't a call but a text message. He looked at the sender and opened it. But before he could read the message, the PHS was gone, seemingly vanished into thin air. "What the hell?" He was holding the PHS a second ago and now his hand was empty.
"This is what Wutai is about," Yuffie held the PHS victoriously, "ninja skills!"
"I didn't bring my materia," Reno pointed out.
"That was the first thing I noticed," Yuffie read the message, "from your girlfriend?"
"Give that back, it's from work!" Reno attempted to recover his PHS but Yuffie ran away with it.
"From work? I don't believe it!" Yuffie ran out of the restaurant with Reno chasing after her. The owner didn't make a fuss, and simply added the unpaid bill to Shinra's tab, assuming Reno was on a paid company vacation, though he hasn't had that in a while.
"It's true!" Reno yelled as they ran all the way to the pagoda, pushing past the crowds of tourists.
"So who at work calls you Ren-cake?" Yuffie pocketed the PHS and bolted past the guard inside the pagoda.
Reno hit the guard with his electrorod, and followed Yuffie. "Fine, so it's not from work."
"Yuffie!" A little girl from Wutai who aspired to be a ninja like Yuffie called out to her. "Look how far up on the pagoda I made it on my own! Let's train together!" She ran over to Yuffie.
"I can't talk now," Yuffie continued running, this was kind of fun. "Turks are slowpokes!"
"Who are you calling a slowpoke!" Reno continued giving chase.
The little Wutaian girl pointed at Reno, "you're not supposed to be here!" But he had already run past and didn't listen.
When they finally arrived at the top floor, having beaten all the enemies that got in their way, Reno chased Yuffie around in circles for a while, trying to recover his PHS. This went on until the same little girl arrived, "you're in big trouble Mr. Turk! I called your boss and told him that you're in the pagoda!"
"How do you even know Rufus' number?" Reno didn't believe her.
"It's on your PHS," the little girl held up the devise victoriously.
"What? How? Hey!" Yuffie pointed and jumped around. Her little prodigy had stolen what she stole first. "Not fair!"
"I'll take that back now," Reno took his PHS.
The little girl returned the PHS without complaints. "Its okay Yuffie, I told his boss so now he's in trouble!"
Reno rolled his eyes, "tattle tell," and he headed downstairs to leave the pagoda.
"Must train harder..." Yuffie muttered, though the little girl was only trying to help, Yuffie couldn't let her young fan surpass her.
As Reno came out of the pagoda, several tourists took pictures because it was very rare that someone who wasn't from Wutai went up to the pagoda, though the pictures didn't show he forced his way in.
It turns out the little girl from Wutai wasn't very specific during her call to Rufus, and the president was left with the impression that Reno was actually allowed to go to the pagoda. With people's vacation pictures being sent over Shinra's internet service provider, it was easy to get some of those pictures and the mission was considered a big success even if Reno never obtained the signature of someone from Wutai's leader family.
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Mission 17: Flowers
Reno and Rude were surprised to find that, though this mission was requested by Cloud Strife, it didn't involve delivering packages or helping him pick a gift for Tifa. Instead it was all about gardening.
"You want us to take care of the flowers?" That was not something Reno was good at.
"Yes, I'll give you the easiest part, water the flowers," Cloud handed Reno a watering can. "Rude and I will take care of collecting seeds and planting them."
"The easiest part? Are you saying I'm bad at this?" Reno complained.
Cloud nodded, "yes."
There was a short moment of tension in which Rude considered stepping in, "yeah you're probably right," but the tension dissipated as if it was never even there when Reno accepted the truth. Reno went off to do his assigned task, grumbling that he was a Turk and not a gardener.
Cloud and Rude went to work as well, but they weren't all that great at gardening either. "Don't step on the flowers!" Cloud suddenly yelled.
Reno threw the watering can in surprise and it hit Cloud on the head. The redhead looked at the flowers crushed under his feet. "Oops..."
Cloud rubbed the sore spot on his head. "Stop stepping on them!"
Reno scrambled away from the flowers, stepping on more as he did. "How am I supposed to water the flowers in the middle without stepping on any of them?"
"Step between them, not on them," Cloud pointed out.
"Easier said than done," Reno snatched the watering can and tried again, this time stepping between the flowers like Cloud said.
Cloud nodded in approval and went back to his previous task of collecting seeds so they could be planted. "Rude don't pull out the seeds like that, you're supposed to be gentle with flowers, Aerith said so."
Rude offered no reply beyond "..." and continued working.
Reno continued to balance himself stepping between the flowers, until he lost his footing trying to avoid squishing a flower, and ended up falling on a lot of flowers.
"Reno!" Cloud yelled so loud that his voice echoed. "The flowers!" He was supposed to be doing something in Aerith's honor by helping take care of her flowers, but now Cloud thought that maybe it was best to let the flowers take care of themselves. Cloud's eyes glowed mako green and he passed out.
Cloud found himself in an endless whiteness. There was someone standing behind him. The voice was familiar, it was Aerith's voice. "You've been working very hard."
"But I let them die, the flowers, crushed like Sector Seven," Cloud replied.
"It's alright, you only wanted to help. Accidents happen, don't worry so much about it, the flowers will grow back." Aerith spoke gently.
Cloud tried to turn around, but as it always happened, Aerith disappeared, and Cloud woke up. "Ow..."
"I think you crushed more flowers than I did," Reno sounded amused, he hated this job and he was so bored he became easily amused.
"What?" Cloud quickly got up, realizing that when he fainted, he landed on the flowers. He sighed; maybe it was best to leave the flowers alone from now on.
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Mission 18: Apology
"You're such good children..." It was the seventh time so far that Elmyra had said this.
Elena endured it with a smile and nod; she wasn't too bothered by it. Tseng nodded with a neutral expression, Rude remained as still as a statue and Reno twitched.
"We're not good children," the redhead grumbled, loud enough for his Turk companions to hear, but not loud enough for the sound to reach Elmyra. "We're Turks."
Tseng elbowed Reno, while Elena kept Elmyra distracted by asked, "is there anything else you need?" despite Reno frantically shaking his head for her to stop. He didn't want to do anything else.
"Tseng, dear, could you water the flowers, Aerith used to water them all the time," Elmyra requested.
"I will water them..." Tseng left to do his assigned chore, trying his best not to sound like it was a drag, even if it was.
"Elena, sweetie, could you get started in the kitchen? Let's all have lunch together!" Elmyra continued assigning chores.
"No problem!" With her best media face, Elena went off to accomplish her next task.
"Rude, darling, you look like a strong boy, you can help me rearrange the furniture." Elmyra only received a nod as a response this time and Rude remained characteristically quiet. "Reno, strawberry, could help clean around the house?"
Reno twitched, dear, sweetie and darling were silly enough, but strawberry? "Strawberry?"
"Oh yes, your hair is the same color as a strawberry, it's so cute," Elmyra giggled.
Reno continued to twitch, doing his best to keep his temper in check. The solitude and the trauma of losing all her family was getting to Elmyra, and she was now convinced that the Turks were the grandchildren that Aerith never gave her. She didn't even realize that they were close to the age Aerith would have been if she was still alive, some even a little older.
In reality, the Turks were there to bring an apology from Rufus to Elmyra for all the trouble Shinra had caused her, including the death of her husband serving Shinra in the past and the sacrifice of her adopted daughter who was trying to stop Sephiroth. As usual Rufus was sending off the Turks to do the hard work, because no matter how much Shinra changed, some things never changed.
A giggle came from the kitchen, and Reno knew that Elena had heard Elmyra calling him strawberry and was laughing at his account. Then he noticed Tseng looking inside the house from the window when he should have been out watering the garden, he too had an amused expression. Even Rude almost laughed, almost but not quite, because he was Rude and Rude never laughed out loud. But on the inside, Reno was sure that Rude was laughing like never before.
"You're such good children..." Reno glanced at Rude searching for support, as Elmyra repeated the phase yet again. Then he looked towards the window but Tseng had already left to water the flowers. The sound of pot and pans was head, and the scent of food filled the house indicating that Elena was busy in the kitchen. "Let's move this couch over there, so strawberry can clean behind it." Elmyra was oblivious to it, but that day Reno hated the new missions more than ever.
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Mission 19: Reconstruction
"You should reconsider, it's not safe here," Tseng had been trying to reason with the inhabitants of Mideel for the past hour. "There are some very good apartments available in Edge."
"No, no, and a million times no!" The mayor insisted, supported by the unanimous decision of the rest of the Mideel population. "This is our home and we will not abandon it! We didn't abandon it when it had a big hole of life steam in the middle, and we won't abandon it now!"
The planet had eventually began to heal its wound, though there was still a crater where the large pool of life stream had been, this wound wasn't as big as the one in the Northern Crater. The life stream was sucked into the ground and the dry land of the crater was livable, but uncomfortable. Even so, the residents of Mideel stayed in their land and built their new houses around the crater.
The new structures were weak, having been constructed in a hurry due to the pressing necessity of shelter. The materials used where of poor quality, random pieces of wood collected in the area, and reused parts of what was left of the old houses. To summarize, the new houses were not all that stable and the media made it Shinra's duty to make sure everyone had a safe place to live.
If those houses came apart and someone was crushed to death, injured, or even lightly scratched, it would be Shinra's fault like everything else in the world. Thus the Turks were sent to try to talk the residents of Mideel into relocating into an apartment complex in the city of Edge.
Should the Mideel people refuse to move, the current structures that housed them would be strengthened and remodeled into something that resembled a decent living area with the Turks as the remodeling crew.
"..." Rude was silent as usual.
"Yes, I know," Reno agreed with Rude, as if he could tell what Rude was saying just by looking at his neutral expression.
"Do you two have a psychic connection or something?" Elena took a break from painting the neighbor's house to see how Reno and Rude were doing.
"What do you mean? Didn't you get what Rude was trying to say just now?" Reno placed the nail on the wood and attempted to hammer it in.
"Not really..." Elena admitted.
When Reno threw the hammer back and brought it down on the nail, he realized that he only had the handle. "Cheap hammer..."
"Duck!" Elena suddenly looked alarmed.
"Wark!" A baby chocobo curiously approached Reno.
"It's a chocobo," Reno paid no mind to the hammer, which was missing the metal part that had flown off and knocked out the mayor.
"Oh no!" Elena pointed at the unconscious mayor, as a circle of Mideel villagers surrounded him.
"..." Rude watched quietly.
"Yes it is," Reno petted the baby chocobo; any distraction from the unwanted work was welcome. "It's a chocobo, it's still a baby but it's bigger than a duck."
Tseng arrived with more materials, setting a bunch of wood down and rubbing his sore shoulders. "What are those villagers doing over there?" He didn't like how it looked at all.
The Mideel villagers dissipated the circle, revealing the corpse of their mayor. He was old and couldn't take such a hard blow to the head. "Hey, what happened to the old guy? Did he have a heart attack or something?" Reno asked, as if he had no part on it. Then he saw the missing part of the hammer stuck on the mayor's forehead. "Is that...?"
"Yes it is!" Elena yelled.
"Reno!" Tseng scolded him.
The villagers had quickly gotten ready to hunt down the Turks with torches and pitchforks as if it was a classic ogre hunt from medieval times. The four Turks ran to their helicopter and took off full speed to Shinra HQ, and away from the murderous villagers.
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Mission 20: Entertainment
Instead of feeling a great foreboding, and refusing the mission at all costs, Reno was relieved to hear the setting of his next mission was the Forgotten Capital. He didn't know what in the world he was supposed to be doing there, but it couldn't be community service, because there was no community to serve in such a remote area.
The red haired Turk took to the skies on a helicopter, assuming he was to lead a dangerous expedition or something like that. Sure there was nothing to worry about as far as he knew, but he could at least pretend this was an adventure and attempt to mend the broken pride of being a Turk.
By the time he landed at his destination, Reno had not even fully read the mission request, having left Shinra as soon as he read the location of the mission. Thus where the mission took place was all he knew about the mission, and he still ignored what his task would be, but it couldn't be that bad, right? It was about time Lady Luck stopped being angry at him.
But alas, unknown to Reno, Lady Luck was moody and pissed off, so he was not going to catch a break today. Had Reno taken the needed time to analyze the mission, he might have noticed that the origin of the form was a mystery. The paper appeared on his desk out of nowhere, even if no one had placed it there, and few had access to the Turks' floor anyway.
The security cameras, had they been checked, would show nothing but an eerie green glow. There had been a ghostly presence manifesting itself by printing out the request form, filling it out and placing it on Reno's desk; but none of that was checked.
Reno left the chopper parked as close as he could get to the Forgotten Capital and walked deeper into forest of unusual tress that looked like a combination between trees and ocean flora. Shells and sand adorned the area, making Reno wonder if the place had been under water long ago. But quite frankly, he didn't care; he just wanted to get some decent entertainment out of his mission like he used to do while blowing things up and dodging bullets.
"There he is!" The voice was child-like, and Reno couldn't help it but to cringe, fearing that he had been tricked into another babysitting job, though at quite an odd location.
"Kadaj? Yazoo? Loz?" They looked like miniature versions of the three remnants of Sephiroth.
"Play with us!" Kadaj demanded, pouting, crossing his arms over his chest and stomping his foot for emphasis.
Reno pulled the mission form out of his pocket and cursed his own haste. The mission's description that he read for the first time there and then indeed requested that he played with the boys, that was his mission all along. "Are we going to play destroy the world or kill Strife?" Reno actually sounded hopeful.
"No, we're going to play tag and you're going to be it!" Kadaj and his brothers ran off, fully expecting Reno to chase after them.
Reno stood there for a few seconds rooted to the spot. Finally, he breathed deeply and started running. "You better be plotting to call meteor or something!" Because Reno was desperate for a real mission, even if it meant the possible destruction of the planet.
After running for a while, and losing sight of the three boys, Reno set out to search for them to interrogate them about their mysterious return, and the possibility of Sephiroth coming back. At least that would give the Turks something to do and Rufus would be forced to suspend the ridiculous missions.
A small laugh was heard, but Reno pretended not to hear it. He searched the bushes at the base of a tree then pretended to be on his way, but he suddenly turned around and dashed towards the three, climbing faster than most people could. "I found you!" He sat on a branch next to Loz.
"You didn't catch me!" Loz went further out into the tree branch.
"Come back kid, if you fall and crack your head open, Sephiroth might come out. I know that's Kadaj's deal, but I'm not taking any chances." As much as Reno wanted Sephiroth to return for the sake of having a mission worthy of a Turk, he didn't want the One Winged Angel to come back as a reaction to a broken remnant and possibly seek revenge on the one who let that remnant get hurt.
"I don't want to be it!" The branch where Loz was started to crack under his weight until it broke.
Reno reacted fast enough, and grabbed Loz's hand pulling him up to safety. Loz got scared and clung to Reno who somehow managed to get both of them down from the tree without any casualties.
As soon as they were down from the tree, Loz jammed his fingers into Reno's nose, "I didn't want to be it!" Little Loz cried.
Reno pried the crying child off and put him on the ground, "stop that you little brat!"
"What did you do to my brother?!" Yazoo came running out of nowhere and kicked Reno on the knee.
"You little son of Jenova!" Reno hopped around on one foot.
Then Kadaj joined them, "hey! Why are you playing with everyone else and not with me? I don't want to be ignored!"
The three children then tackled Reno, demanding attention and piggy back rides from their new toy. Reno really wanted to get rid of them permanently, but the return of Sephiroth might be the only thing capable of bringing enough chaos to require real Turk missions and restore the meaning of being a Turk.
End of Report II
Disclaimer, I don't own Final Fantasy VII. Mission 11 was requested by S.N. Naina. Mission 12 was requested by Sasami10.Mission 13 was requested by Death Korps (the chocobos) and Sasami10 (a mission with Tseng and Elena). Mission 14 was requested by Niquie. Most of the missions in this collection take place after Advent Children, except Mission 14 which takes place during Before Crisis, which obviously takes place before Crisis Core. Mission 15 was requested by Sharem. Mission 16 is for les yeux sans visage. Mission 17 was requested by Death Korps. Mission 18 was requested by Death Korps, an apology for Elmyra and it's also for evenstarfictionfan who wanted to see more missions with all the Turks. Mission 19 was requested by Death Korps. Mission 20 was requested by Silver Tears 11. Most of the mission requests consisted of a character and a word, then I wrote a story about that character that involved the chosen item or verb and a few requests were basic concepts of things the Turks should do.