FicWad

Missions: Report V

Mission 41: Shot Glasses

Rude was busily cleaning a multitude of shot glasses, regretful that he didn't empty them himself. It was sad, but he had worked so hard during this mission that he didn't have time to drink, even if the mission took place in a bar. He didn't even have time to talk to Tifa, or listen to her since he wasn't very talkative. Though admittedly he was hired to work, not to socialize and drink, but it would have been nice if he could.

One thing that confused Rude was how the shot glasses piled up so much. There were not that many customers that night after the incident which made Elena leave the mission and pass it on to Rude. Tseng was also forbidden to take the mission because of that same customer scaring incident; and Tifa didn't quite trust Reno not to drink everything himself.

It was funny in a way, the situation with Reno, Rude and booze. Sure they went to bars together, but Rude, ever the calm and composed one, never gained the drunken reputation. In fact, Rude actually went bar hopping more often than Reno himself, and drank more than Reno as well. But somehow, Reno always got the rep, which Rude didn't really mind as long as he got the booze.

The bald man set another clean shot glass aside and picked up the next, washing it, drying it and putting it away. He had never seen so many shot glasses in one place, and wished he hasn't end up stuck with the mission.

Originally, this was Elena's mission. She was supposed to be the bartender while Tifa took a break. However, Tifa didn't warn her about how to handle flirty drunken idiots. An icy glare and the occasional waving of a fist was enough to make them back down. But Elena was a Turk so instead of an icy glare she used ice materia, freezing the drunken idiots that annoyed her. She scared many customers that way, until Tifa came to tell her not to do that.

The night was young and though after the frozen customers where dumped outside by Cloud at Tifa's request, they did not bother coming after they melted free; other customers did eventually arrive, oblivious to the icy misfortune of their fellow drunken idiots.

Inevitably, that new group of customers included more drunken idiots who also wanted to flirt with Elena. Tifa told her not to hurt the customers and she didn't want to fail the mission, so instead Elena glared, but it wasn't quite enough. She was about to wave her fist threateningly, without actually hitting the customer, just to give him a scare like Tifa said, but Tseng did the fist waving first, right into the drunken idiot's face.

The leader of the Turks had heard about Elena's mission and came to see her and get a drink. He didn't understand why Elena didn't freeze that guy immediately, and interpreted her lack of action as a call for help. Of course he couldn't abandon a fellow Turk, especially not Elena.

As it happens in bar fights, punches and kicks slip, drinks are knocked over, and chaos spreads. However, the drunken customers didn't know, or didn't understand, that Tseng was a Turk, and Turks are dangerous. Once again it was up to the unfortunate Cloud Strife to clean the mess of unconscious and badly beaten men after Tseng was done. That was what finally made Tifa request that someone else took over the mission.

Rude was currently in the clean up area behind the bar, since the customers had left after the bar fight, he was stuck there cleaning the glasses, which continued to pile up, especially the shot glasses, Tifa had many of those. This confused Rude, how could the used glasses continue coming in if the customers had fled? It couldn't be that the customers actually returned after all that happened, and even if they did, there couldn't be enough customers to use this many shot glasses with the bar being to quiet.

Tifa set another dozen shot glasses next to the sink for Rude to wash. "It will be closing time soon," she assured him, and Rude nodded in response, ever the quiet one.

However, Rude's confusion begged for an explanation. He paused his work and dried his hands, curiously looking to the front of the bar where a single customer sat. It was a familiar looking customer, "Reno..." and he was drunk.

"Hey Rude! Tifa told me about what happened, hic. I was going to give you a hand but Tifa said she rather hic have me as a customer. She didn't believe me when I told her you drink more than me," a string of silly laughter followed. "Gotta mess up more glasses like Tifa said, I'm helping!"

"I didn't say that!" Tifa thought back about what could have given Reno such an idea; then the realization hit her. When she was explaining what happened at the bar, while Reno was still slightly sober, but apparently less sober then she thought, Tifa sarcastically commented that "the success of a bar is measured by the mess left behind." It was an old saying between bartenders, but that particular mess had not been profitable.

Rude glared behind his ever present shades. Reno was the reason why he was stuck washing so many shot glasses. Rude was once again enduring the consequences of his partner's actions, but this was even more annoying than being hit on the head or having his shades stepped on. One of these days Rude would lose his patience, one of these days Reno would be in big trouble, one of these days...

Mission 42: War!

Reno was the last to enter the Turks office, meeting with a disproving glare from Tseng. "Now that we're all finally here, I will explain the mission." There was a sense of urgency in Tseng's voice that the other two Turks had not heard in a long time.

Rude remained silent, as usual, and Reno had to comment on everything, as usual. "Elena isn't here yet!" The redhead pointed out. "I'm not the last one to get here this time." It was odd, Elena was usually very punctual.

"Elena is the one in need of our help," Tseng dramatically revealed. "She left, disguised as a civilian without her uniform or anything else to identify her as a Turk. I suspect the worse."

Rude was silently confused while Reno was loudly confused, "I don't get it. What do you mean the worse? We've been getting the lamest missions, there's not even a lot of danger in them. Unless you're worried she'll be bored to death." Reno paused, thinking about on his own deadly missions. "Well, at least there shouldn't be anyone trying to shoot her or something."

"A date," Tseng spoke with more gravity than anyone would expect from such a word. "I suspect that Elena was hired to go on a date with someone under the threat of failing the mission and being fired if she refused. That's why she wouldn't tell me what her mission was about."

Reno grinned, with an expression that obviously indicated he was about to say something annoying. "Tseng is jealous!"

Tseng frowned, deadly glare locked on Reno, "I am not jealous; I am... concerned, frustrated and angry. Elena shouldn't be forced to go on that kind of mission and I will kill who ever requested it."

As always, Reno never knew when to shut up. "Oh yeah, he's jealous!"

Tseng's stapler flew at Reno, but fortunately the redhead ducked on time. "Since Elena has not filed her report yet, the information is only in the paper form, which she took. There's nothing about this mission in the databases, so we'll have to find Elena ourselves. To make matters worse, her PHS is off and she can't be tracked. Reno, you are to take a helicopter and fly over the entire city, contact us immediately when you see Elena and inform us of her location. Rude and I will search on the ground. Rude, you will take the north side of the city and I will search the south." Each Turk went to carry out his assigned task.

xoxox xox xoxox

It was Reno who first spotted Elena when she was coming out of a shopping mall, which was sort of a reformed wall market in the new city. Elena was with Tifa, Shera and Yuffie. Reno landed the chopper in the parking lot; there were no men in the group, just the four girls. "Aren't you supposed to be on a date and that's why Tseng is so jealous?"

"Date?" Elena looked confused, "I didn't say I was going on a date, it's a secret mission!"

Tifa, Yuffie and Shera glared at Reno, who didn't know why he was being glared at, until a large shuriken came dangerously close to his throat held by the ninja's hand. "Ruin our girl's day out and die!"

"Girls day out?" Reno blinked, he wasn't expecting that. His theory had been that this was a conspiracy to turn Elena against Shinra.

"Elena!" Tseng spotted them and rushed to the group, dodging the shuriken that Yuffie threw at him, at the same time giving Reno the chance to get away and take cover among the parked cars.

"Tseng!" Elena called out in surprise, before Tifa pulled her behind one of the cars.

"I don't feel like talking to male kind today," Tifa admitted.

Shera nodded, "me either."

"I'm with them," Yuffie agreed.

"So you're all mad at your boyfriends and husbands?" Elena concluded.

The three girls nodded, and Yuffie added, "I'm mad at my lack of boyfriend. This girl's day out is supposed to take our minds off men."

"Let Elena go!" Tseng yelled from behind the barrier of parked cars.

Reno was amused and didn't feel like revealing the information he recently obtained. "I don't think they're going to listen, they tried to kill me and brainwash Elena!"

"Then we'll just have to save her," Tseng aimed for one of the cars near the one the girls were hiding behind though not the same one, and he fired a warning shot. The bystanders screamed and scattered in a panic.

"He's shooting at us!" Yuffie flailed her arms.

Tifa clenched her fists, "coward," she pulled her gloves on and prepared to invade the enemy territory. "I'm going in, cover me."

"Alright, charge!" Yuffie threw a rain of kunai knives at Tseng's side of the field, where her shuriken was still stuck to one of the cars, and Shera fired her gun sized flame thrower.

"I didn't know you had a flame thrower," Elena curiously commented, before realizing the gravity of the situation. "Stop, you'll hurt them!"

It was too late; Tifa had already infiltrated the enemy lines, thanks to the distraction from Yuffie and Shera. She caught Tseng while he was reloading his gun and kicked it out of his hands. The Turk leader stepped away, weaponless but far from beaten, and Reno got ready to join the battle. "Looks like we'll have a hostage of our own to negotiate with. You were a fool to come here by yourself!"

Tifa grinned, "I didn't come by myself."

The two men turned around to find Yuffie and Shera standing behind them and Elena watching the event unfold; with the glow of icy materia in her hand. "I'm sorry Tseng, but you told me that Turks always finish their missions so I can't help you."

"Elena, are you siding with Avalanche?!" Tseng was in disbelief.

But Elena shook her head, "no, I'm siding with the girls, it's part of my mission in this girl's day out. I already told Reno before."

Tseng glared at the redhead, "Reno?!"

The leader demanded an explanation that Reno could hardly provide. "I thought we could win?"

xoxox xox xoxox

Rude had been disappointed with his assigned search area. He didn't find anything of interest, but little did he know he was better off that way.

A monument had been constructed, a comet flying towards the planet, its long tail of light behind it. From that tail there hung two ropes, and tied to those ropes there were two partially frozen men waiting for their comrade to rescue them.

Mission 43: Hawaiian Shirt

It was silly really, and he felt silly thinking he had to wear it. Tseng examined the shirt with a look of surprise that such a bright thing existed. It was odd and unusual, it was cheerful and it was bright.

Tseng looked down at the clothes he was currently wearing. Black and white, orderly and "what's this?" the opposite of Reno. Without allowing the leader time to reply, the redhead opened the plain white box that had been left on his desk with a yellow sticky note carrying only his name. From inside the box he pulled out shirt, a very brightly colored shirt and some shorts. "What's this?" Reno asked again, though by now it should be obvious.

"A shirt," Tseng replied somewhat annoyed. "It's for our next mission; we're supposed to wear these to advertise a clothing store. There were no names, no ads and no logos on the clothes, but even so it was advertisement, because there was only one store in all of Midgar, and possibly the Planet, that sold such ridiculously brightly colored clothes.

"It's the same color as my hair," Reno was amused, he was easily amused, and it was true. The shirt Reno received was indeed a bright red, the same color as his hair, but it had ridiculous bright yellow polka dots that would make one question the sanity of any man who wore it.

But at least it wasn't lime green with bright pink flowers like the one Tseng got. "Do you want to trade?"

The leader's question caused Reno to shove his shirt back in the box and hold it protectively, "no!" Though it was rather silly, at least it wasn't lime green and flowery pink.

"There is no choice; the Turks always complete their missions." Tseng's solemn expression didn't match the bright colors of the shirt at all.

"So we have to wear these? That doesn't sound so bad." At least it wasn't bad compared to Reno's other missions.

Tseng frowned, leave it to Reno to walk around in public with such a ridiculous shirt and not be embarrassed. Sighing, the leader figured that there was no use in putting off the mission, and he might as well wear the shirt, walk around a little, enough for the one who requested the mission to see him, and get it over with. "We should," Tseng paused, noticing that Reno was already wearing the silly outfit, the leader had no idea how the redhead changed so fast.

"What?" Reno asked, as if the clothes were not weird at all.

"Never mind, I'll change in a moment." While Tseng was changing, right there in the office, Elena and Rude arrived. Rude was wearing a similar silly outfit; his shirt was yellow, decorated with little blue triangles. Elena, who was wearing a Hawaiian outfit, complete with grass skirt and flower necklace, wristbands and anklets, did nothing more than stare at Tseng, who didn't even notice right away that someone new had entered the office. But he eventually did notice and tripped when he was putting on the shorts, which left him laying on the floor in his boxers, while Elena continued to stare, and Tseng, momentarily forgetting his position, stared right back.

Of course the predicament could only bring more consequences, as Reno began to sing "Tseng and Elena sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G!" This would be a long mission...

Mission 44: Drink up!

It was only fair, and it could only end in disaster, because life was not fair. The stressed leader and rich bartender would testify this for years to come.

"Our mission is to go drinking?" Tseng blinked as he stared at the mission form. He didn't believe it when Reno told him; the redhead was known to make up stories at his convenience every now and then.

But this one was true and Reno could only grin in pure happiness. "Isn't it great?" After spending some time literally hanging around the meteor monument, tied to the end of a rope like a fish trapped at the end of a fishing rod, it was only fair that things were balanced out.

If their predicament was the result of Elena's girl's day out, then the guys deserved their own day to have as much fun as Elena did, doing their own things with other guys, and hopefully getting the girls to feel guilty and care for them during their massive hangovers. But life was not fair and balance was unheard of.

Tseng had a heavy feeling of forbidding, which had become the norm when starting a new mission lately, since Lady Luck had decided to hate him. But the fickle Lady Luck not only hated him, but also most of his Turk companions. She had probably only shown mercy towards Elena in an act of kindness for a fellow fan girl. "I don't know..."

"Don't be so pessimistic!" Reno was practically jumping with joy; actually he was literally jumping with joy all over the Turk office. But that was not surprising, as annoying as the missions had been lately, and with all the Turk torture the Planet was bringing upon them, Reno saw a drop of mercy as if it was an ocean of bliss.

Tseng sighed, when you hit rock bottom, all you have left to do is climb up. Maybe this was a sign of the start of their climb back to the top. Tseng could only hope.

But fate would have it that it was not quite an improvement in their lives, not mercy, not hope, but the product of a pilot's boredom. Cid Highwind had heard about Rude being able to drink quite a bit, more than Reno even, and so he decided to cure his boredom with a drink off destined to end in disaster.

With Tseng as the only semi-sober one, their fate was looking grim, but Tifa had bills to pay so she didn't kick them out of the Seventh Heaven... except Reno, his silly singing had gone from amusing to annoying half an hour ago.

Never try to out drink Rude, it was a lesson Cid had leaned that day when the story was retold about how he snuck into Shinra HQ and tried to jump off the roof, certain that he could fry. Of course Reno never learned his lesson so he would probably end up very drunk, many times in the future.

Rude hid his drunkenness better than anyone would think is possible... until he was finally pushed over the edge and joined Reno in the strangest duet Midgar ever saw. The cherry on top was that the next day, the girls went for another day out and the guys were abandoned with their merciless hangovers.

Mission 45: Sober

Reno couldn't believe he had been dragged to the middle of nowhere; to a place with a name that fit so well. Forget Me Not Valley, as if the small town begged not to be forgotten because it was so small, so rustic, so out of the way and away from civilization, that it was indeed easily forgotten.

Thus it was also easily overlooked and the thief slipped past the defenses of the big city, stashing his loot in this forgotten place. He had been caught rather easily, as he was so confident that his movements fell into a predictable routine, and the treasure was recovered with the mysterious thief surviving only because of the interference of a farm girl.

Reno hasn't seen Tseng so angry in a while, though the redhead could only laugh at the silver haired thief's obvious attempts of escape while he flirted with Elena. Despite that she almost looked like she was falling for it, she disappointed the thief informing him "that's what I would do if I wasn't a Turk, but I am," and at that point Reno laughed the most.

But the Phantom Thief, as he called himself, would not desist, causing Tseng to get angry and attempt to make it look like said thief had an unfortunate accident, from which a farmer girl saved him at the last moment. The incident ended with the girl actually believing it was an accident, even if the thief kept claimed he was nearly killed on purpose. Stupid country bumpkins.

Thus Skye, the thief, was left in the care of the farmer girl, and the Turks recovered the stolen goods and ended their mission a little too late to be heading back. They stayed at Inner Inn, a place that was so low tech it wouldn't rate a single star even against the cheapest hotel in Midgar.

There was nothing to do, since a decent television or internet signal didn't reach that far into the wilderness, so Reno went to a near by bar and suppressed the need to strangle the bartender when he was handed the menu. The place sold everything from alphabet soup and milk to oddly named vegetable juices, which at first Reno thought were actual bar drinks until he tried one, and they dared to call this place a bar.

xoxox xox xoxox

"There he is!" As Reno exited the bar some time later, darkness had already invaded the poorly lit valley. Then he found Elena pointing at him the second he set foot outside.

"What?" Reno wondered what he did now.

It was a question which Tseng was quick to answer, "it was your turn to guard the recovered goods. Rude has them at the inn."

"Okay, I'll go guard them now. There's nothing to do in this town anyway so I might as well sit around staring at a box." Reno was about to head towards the inn, but Tseng stopped him.

"I would rather you not guard it in this state," the Turk leader shook his head. "Couldn't you wait until after the mission was over to get drunk?"

"Rude goes to bars a lot more often than I do, so why do I have the reputation?" Reno thought it wasn't far, but it didn't truly bother him as much as it intrigued him.

"You just came out of a bar, of course you're drunk!" Elena reasoned.

"I'm not! I only had some weird vegetable juice!" Reno was telling the truth, but no one believed him.

Tseng sighed, "you must be really drunk if you hallucinated about drinking vegetable juice at a bar." The rumors said that city bars sold soft drinks that were nothing compared to the pure alcohol of those rustic country bars.

"Really, just go in and see for yourselves! They sell a different kind of vegetable juice for every season, herbal medicine, milk and alphabet soup!" No one would even try to give Reno the benefit of the doubt after that explanation. What use was telling the truth if no one ever believed it?

Mission 46: Turkey

"This is a disaster!" Elena glared at Reno, the one she blamed for the so called disaster.

"What's wrong?" The redhead innocently asked, this time truly unaware of what he had done wrong.

"The decorations are all crooked and uneven, this has to be perfect!" Elena stressed, "Tseng entrusted us with the very-"

"Annoying," Reno cut in.

"Important," Elena emphasized, "task of decorating Healin Lodge while he's busy guarding the president at headquarters. This place has to be perfect, or Rufus won't approve of it and he won't give us the day off on Thanks Giving and... and..." she blushed.

"And you overheard Tseng saying that he wanted to ask you out for Thanks Giving if we got the day off," Reno finished.

Elena blushed more and shook her head, "I don't know what you're talking about. I'm just doing my job!"

"Right... But do you really think Rufus is going to give us the day off?" The main door was opened behind Reno, but he ignored it. "Rufus has a huge ego; he thinks Thanks Giving is all about thanking him. He won't even let us leave early, and he'll probably expect presents." Reno paused, finally taking note of Elena's signals, "what?" He turned around and realized that the one who had arrived was not Rude with the groceries as he had originally thought, it was Rufus and Tseng.

"Big ego?" Rufus glared, taking a few threatening steps into his home. "You should be grateful I haven't fired you!"

A mere few seconds later, Rude arrived with the groceries. The quiet Turk immediately heard the argument. He couldn't leave Reno alone for a little while because the redhead always got into trouble. "They were out of turkeys," Rude announced, shifting Rufus' attention from Reno to himself.

"We need one!" Rufus insisted; then once again glared at Reno, he wanted the ungrateful Turk out of Healin Lodge. "Reno, go out and buy a turkey."

"Fine, fine, I was bored of being here anyway," Reno extended his hand to receive the credit card from Rude, but Rufus snatched it away and instead gave him some gil. "I can't trust you with the card. This is enough gil to buy one turkey, I don't care how far you have to go to find it, make sure you don't come back without a bird!"

"Got it!" Reno did a silly salute and left Healin Lodge. The way Rufus phrased his request could only bring trouble.

As Reno left, Elena asked, "do you like the decorations?"

Rufus looked around nonchalantly. There were pictures of turkeys and autumn leaves all over, but no new pictures of him. "They're okay," he sounded uninterested.

"Ingrate," Elena muttered.

"Did you say something?" Rufus asked.

Elena forced herself to smile, "nothing."

Time passed and a few hours later, Reno returned. There were no turkeys to be found in the new city of Midgar or the neighboring towns, but he didn't come back empty handed. "I'm back!"

"Where's the turkey?" Tseng asked, seeing that Reno wasn't carrying any grocery bags. "Don't tell me you bought a live turkey? Reno, I told you not to do that again after what happened last year!"

"I couldn't find a turkey, but Rufus said not to come back without a bird, so I bought a chocobo. I got it for a good price too, but don't tell Rufus I'm keeping the change," Reno smiled proudly, but Tseng was not convinced.

"Rufus wanted a turkey," the leader reminded, "you know how stubborn he is, a chocobo won't do... But I guess we have no choice. Maybe Elena can disguise the flavor with the condiments and Rufus will believe it's a really big turkey," it seemed farfetched, but it was the only choice they had left. "Where is the chocobo?"

"It was following me a minute ago..." Reno looked down the stairs that led to Healin Lodge. "There it is! Come on chocobo, there are cookies up here!" The fat chocobo, warked and tried to push itself up the stairs.

"A live chocobo? We don't have the time to turn it into something edible. Besides, there is no way Rufus would eat that chocobo, it has too much fat." Reno signaled to the unsuspecting Tseng, but the leader disregarded it as random Reno silliness and continued talking, while Reno uselessly flailed around. "You know how Rufus is a complete narcissist, he'll worry about gaining weight, then he'll blame it on us because chocobo meat not only has more fat then turkey meat, but how healthy the meat is, is proportional to how fit the chocobo is."

"Narcissist!?" Rufus yelled; he had been standing right behind Tseng the entire time. "So I'm an egotistical, ungrateful, narcissist?! Nice to know what you really think," Rufus pouted and went to lock himself in his room.

Rude only shook his head in silence, and they dared to wonder why he always got the biggest Christmas bonus. Sometimes silence is best.

Mission 47: Best Friends Forever

It was another normal day at the Seventh Heaven. Marlene and Denzel were playing upstairs, Cloud was hanging around idly downstairs while he waited for a new delivery request to come, and Tifa was cleaning the counter. Everything was normal and nothing was out of the ordinary.

Then Reno came running in, he stopped leaning on the counter, his breaths fast and heavy, he looked as if he had been running for a long time. Reno tried to speak but no sounds were produced from his dry throat, while his starving lungs continued trying to recover. "W..."

"W?" Tifa blinked trying to complete the sound into a word, "w... whiskey?"

Reno shook his head.

"W..." Tifa went over the names of different drinks in her mind, wondering what Reno wanted.

"Water..." Reno finally managed to force the word out.

Tifa tilted her head curiously and blinked. "Right, water, maybe you should sit down. Cloud, check his temperature."

Cloud nodded, "okay," he wasn't sure why they were helping a Turk, but then again, they were not enemies anymore and Reno was a good customer for Tifa's bar. Though the redhead still occasionally pulled a few annoying pranks on Cloud that made the delivery boy wish they were still enemies. Cloud placed his hand on Reno's forehead, lifting the goggles to do so. "Warm... It feels like you have a fever."

"No fever," Reno tried to say. Then Tifa placed a glass of cool water in front of him on the counter and all words were momentarily forgotten while he drank it in a split second, "more."

Tifa was a bit surprised, but she complied none the less and after Reno drank his fifth glass of water, he seemed to have recovered considerably. "What's going on?"

"He has a fever," Cloud pointed out, as if that alone could answer Tifa's question. Reno was odd, for lack of better term, when he was healthy, so Cloud found it logical to think that he would continue being random in a different way when he was ill.

"It's not a fever, I just feel warm from running for the past... what time is it?" Reno asked.

Cloud looked at the time on his PHS, "Nine thirty-five."

Reno counted on his fingers and finally replied, "ten hours, that's how long I've been running." Reno's face was nearly as red as his hair, he seemed to irradiate heat, and it looked as if he had lost some weight. "I'm hungry..."

"Why were you running for that long?" Tifa asked, while she rushed to prepare a nutritious meal for the exhausted Turk. Her motherly instincts had kicked in and she didn't even bother asking what he wanted to eat. Reno would eat what Tifa gave him or she would force it down his throat, it was for his own good.

"Today is our day off, so last night I went to get Rude to ask if he wanted to go to the Gold Saucer and party all night or something. But instead of just saying no, he tried to kill me! He chased me all over the city until I finally lost him a while ago," Reno explained.

Cloud couldn't help it but to smile, "serves you right!"

"Isn't that a bit harsh?" Reno complained.

"I'll have to agree with Cloud," Tifa voiced, "maybe now you'll learn your lesson. Poor Rude, having to put up with you all the time, that poor man must have finally snapped."

"But Rude has always been my best friend, he's never tried to kill me before..." A plate of food with meatloaf, mashed potatoes and rice was placed in front of Reno and next to it a tall glass of orange juice.

"Eat," Tifa was commanding yet motherly all at once, "every bite."

Reno did a funny little salute, "yes ma'am!" Tifa was a great cook anyway and he was hungry, besides, he didn't need someone else trying to kill him today.

Then Rude entered the Seventh Heaven causing Reno to almost choke on his food. "..."

"You're not going to try to kill me again are you?" Reno asked.

Rude's expression remained unchanged "..." there was a pause until finally the cause of Rude's homicide attempt on his best friend was explained, "sleep walking."

Reno's jaw dropped, "sleep walking?! You were sleep walking and trying to kill me?! But I yelled at you to stop, why didn't you wake up?"

"Ear plugs," Rude replied. He slept with his sunglasses so Reno couldn't if his eyes were open or closed and Rude could follow Reno by use of his Turk senses alone. "Security camera," Rude didn't say a lot, but he spoke the words that needed to be voiced. By chance he had run into Tseng who managed to safely approach Rude enough to wake him up. Then they investigated to see how far Rude's slumbering destruction had gone, the apartment building's lobby was a mess.

"Are we still best friends?" Reno childishly asked and Rude nodded. "Good, I thought you were tired of having me around. Of course that's not true. No one can get tired of me." Reno... he never learns...

Mission 48: The Boy Who Cried Wolf

"I can't believe we're babysitting sheep!" Elena wasn't sure for how long she had to stare at the sheep for the truth to sink in. The Turks were, in fact, babysitting a group of sheep.

"At least it's peaceful," Tseng consoled. There really wasn't anything to do, save for keeping an eye on Reno, and Rude was on the job, he was used to it.

"The last time I saw a sheep I was really little," Reno commented though no one had asked. "There was a talking wolf too, but no one ever believed me."

"You probably imagined it," Elena replied.

"I'm sure I saw a wolf, a red wolf, and it talked! His name was Na... Na... Something with Na!" Reno was certain of it; the memory was still crystal clear in his mind. But just as no one had believed him back then, he didn't really expect anyone to believe him now.

xoxox xox xoxox

"I want to ride it!" As soon as her son made that, rather loud, announcement; Reno's mother prepared to enjoy the show with a large grin plastered on her face.

Although, before her son could do anything amusing, her goody-goody nephew had to ruin it all. "No, Reno, you can't ride the sheep." Reno's cousin thought he was being a good cousin as he dragged the complaining little Reno away from the unsuspecting sheep.

"I want to!" Little Reno insisted, while his older cousin looked at his aunt wandering why the child's mother hasn't said a single word.

Little did he know that Reno's mom enjoyed watching her son's antics and encouraged him to have fun no matter how much she was told by older relatives and neighbors time and again, that her son would grow up to join some sort of gang or something if she didn't discipline him. Reno's mom just rolled her eyes at them, and when Reno did join the Turks later on, she thought it was cute, everything he did was cute.

"I have a present for you," she looked through her purse until she found a gift card and handed it to her nephew. "It's good for any Shinra store, enjoy." Hey she was too busy shopping for herself to pick out things for others, so instead she shared the joys of shopping with a card. The gift was there, he just had to go pick it up, and it could be anything he wanted since there was a Shinra store for everything.

"Thanks" the boy gave his aunt a big smile, even if he wasn't certain how to use the card, but he had a feeling it could get him something cool.

Then they went into the house following Reno's aunt and uncle. While his mom was chatting about every day things and after Reno was released from the hugs and ruffling of his 'pretty' hair, he dashed towards the sheep again.

"Hey little cousin, you're not supposed to ride the sheep." Once again, his older cousin frustrated Reno's attempt to ride that fluffy white, walking pillow.

"But I want to!" Reno insisted, which only caused his cousin to start randomly ranting about the joys of baseball and offer to play with Reno. That poor boy later learned that putting a bat in Reno's hands was not a good idea, because the small redhead really wanted to ride that sheep, and he did, after knocking out his cousin.

Little Reno was carried away into the fields behind his aunt and uncle's house riding the startled sheep. He was lost for several hours until a red talking wolf kindly led him and the scared sheep back to the house. Since nobody saw the polite and gentle wolf, nobody believed it existed. Thus the story about the red talking wolf was disregarded as part of Reno's active imagination.

Mission 49: Surprise

It flew past Tseng unsteadily; then the fragile air craft crashed against a wall and fell on the floor. "Reno," Tseng warned.

However, the stern look and serious voice that the leader used was lost to the redhead. Reno busied himself in making another paper airplane; it was his idea of putting those important documents to good use. He threw it but this time his aim was a little off.

Another improvised airplane made of paper flew over Rude and Elena, this time crashing against Tseng's head. "Reno!"

"I'm bored!" Reno complained.

They were all bored actually, but that didn't have to be a bad thing. Quite frankly, Tseng would rather be bored than have to put up with one of those annoying missions they had been receiving lately.

Elena got up from her desk, her steady footsteps sounding off louder than they should due to the excessive silence of the office. She nodded her head in a quiet goodbye, a bright smile upon her face, as she closed the Turk office's door on her way out.

"She's been going out like this every day lately, but I don't know what her mission is. Elena won't talk about it, she only smiles and blushes when I ask." Tseng didn't like that at all. "She keeps saying it's a top secret mission, some internal work for Shinra instead of a mission hired from the outside."

"Jealous?" Reno threw another paper airplane.

The airplane unsuspectingly flew in front of Tseng towards the opposing wall. But it never reached its destination because Tseng reached out and grabbed it, crushing the paper in his fist. "I am not jealous, I trust Elena... I just don't trust, who ever is with her. What if he tries to hurt her?"

"You're really overprotective of Elena. She's a Turk, she'll be fine. Besides, we don't know anything about the client." Reno grinned, it may have sounded as if he was consoling Tseng, but he was actually poking his curiosity.

"I want to know more about that client..." and Tseng fell for it, just as Reno had hoped.

"Want me to investigate?" That would certainly make things easier for Reno, instead of going through the trouble of sneaking out of the office.

"Yes, then maybe some of the paperwork will be saved," Tseng agreed.

Thus Reno left to investigate what Elena was doing and to make sure the deadly innocent maiden wasn't being deceived. Elena had become more skilled since her days as a rookie, surely anyone could see that, but Reno wouldn't complain about having a chance to get out of the office.

When Tseng asked Reno about what he saw, Reno reported that Elena had gone out with Tifa, Shera and Yuffie. It made sense; those four had been spending more time together lately. Elena must have been smiling because she was looking forward to a girl's afternoon out. But then that would mean she skipped work and she never skipped work, much less that often.

Tseng was not gullible; he knew that Reno was hiding important information. Then the theories started to pile up in Tseng's head, like the papers on his desk. Whoever was trying to steal Elena away must have bribed Reno and bought his silence, leaving the redhead to make up excuses for Elena. Tseng had tried asking her directly but she always avoided the subject.

Another day came and Tseng breathed deeply, looking at the pile of paper work waiting for him at his desk with disdain. Usually he would attack the work none stop until it was done, but today he just didn't feel like it. It was an odd coincidence that just when Elena started to mysteriously leave the office, his paper work started to pile up. It was almost as if Rufus himself was in on it... Wait, Rufus?! No, it couldn't be!

When Reno later brought his false report, Tseng decided to try to get more information out of him. "Rufus is involved isn't he?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," though Reno denied it, for just a split second he had a deer caught in the headlights look.

"He is involved!" Tseng concluded. Then the Turk leader looked at Rude, "take care of the paper work. This time I will investigate myself. Maybe Elena is feeling ignored because I'm such a workaholic and Rufus is taking advantage of that."

"This is starting to sound like a soap opera, I'm leaving now," and Reno made his escape.

"These papers need your signature," Rude pointed out.

"Forge it!" Tseng couldn't believe his own words, but with that said, he ran off. Yet coincidentally Rufus had a minor emergency soon after, which forced Tseng to go to his aid at the risk of losing his job if he refused. But also it helped Tseng confirm that, at least on that particular day, Elena was not with Rufus.

After carrying Rufus around piggyback for the day, because the young president insisted to have twisted his ankle, Tseng was too exhausted to do anything other than sleep, and the mystery of Elena remained a mystery for another day.

Finally the moment of truth came, Tseng would investigate what was going on if it was the last thing he did. Elena didn't even show up at work that day and neither did Reno. Strangely enough, Rude was no where to be found either.

Tseng headed to Healin Lodge to settle his suspicions about Rufus. That day when Rufus supposedly twisted his ankle, Reno could have alerted him of Tseng's suspicions. It was odd that Rufus' injury was inexplicably healed the next day. Sure Rufus overreacted sometimes, but even taking that into consideration it was still too odd to ignore given the circumstances.

However, when Tseng arrived at Healin Lodge he was met with a big surprise. "Happy Birthday!" Confetti rained down on him as much as confusion did.

Rufus had heard from Cloud when he went to the Seventh Heaven for Tifa's cooking, about how much fun it was to make little surprise parties. The topic of Zack was already present when Rufus arrived and he caught the conversation when Cloud was narrating a particular occasion in which he and a few others surprised Zack on his birthday.

Rufus was feeling bored. He had taken to trying a variety of different pastimes and often wanted to try something new when ever he saw it or heard about it, which included completely random ideas every now and then. Sure he had received plenty of surprise parties, and some of them he actually didn't expect, thus making them real surprise parties, instead of in name only like the majority. But he had never planned a surprise party with gifts, cake, decorations and the like. The way Cloud descried the process it made it sound like fun.

Thus in an unexpected turn of events, Rufus decided to inquire whose birthday was next, which his escort at the time, Rude, revealed to be Tseng's. That was how that crazy idea came to be. Rufus was picky and it had to be done right. Who better to help pick out the necessary materials than Tseng's girlfriend Elena? Of course it had to stay as a secret so Reno, Rude and the paper work were the distractions. Although, one had to wander if a surprise party was really worth nearly giving poor Tseng a nervous breakdown, not that he actually showed it.

Mission 50: Red Alert

"Tell me again why we're here?" Nanaki was confused. He felt out of place in the Gold Saucer, among so many unfamiliar two legged things.

"That's because hanging out with you is my mission and this is a good place to hang out," Reno replied.

Nanaki shook his head. What was Cloud thinking when he hired Reno to 'hang out' with Nanaki? "Why you?"

"What? Am I not cool enough?" Reno pouted.

"I meant no offense, I'm only curious," Nanaki clarified.

Reno looked unsure at first, as if he knew what was going on but was debating if he should reveal it or not. "Tifa said I should be more polite and follow your example. Then Cloud had the idea to hire me to hang out with you, I guess he wanted to impress Tifa or something."

"I see..." Nanaki gave Reno's words some thought, but they didn't make as much sense as he wished. Anyone could teach Reno some manners; it didn't have to be him. Then again, maybe it was more accurate to say that no one could teach Reno manners, not even Nanaki. But the question still remained, "why was I chosen for this task?"

"I don't know, maybe it's because we're both redheads or something... well actually, you're all red. Yeah I think that's it, the color." Reno nodded to himself; it was the only explanation he could come up with for receiving this unusual mission. "Let's go to the chocobo races or something, it's not fun if we just stand here with random kids pointing at you."

"They must have mistaken me for one of the actors." Nanaki wasn't sure how he felt about being mistaken for part of the entertainment, and he wasn't sure what he should do about Reno, but he might as well play along for now.

"Hey Red, roar a little and jump around," Reno's suggestion was met with a confused look from Nanaki, but the Turk assured him with the must unsure statement, even if it was spoken with absolute certainty, "trust me."

Nanaki paused, realized that Reno was actually serious, and sighed shaking his head. But none the less he complied, roared catching people's attention, then proceeded to show off his acrobatic abilities. People gathered around to witness the show, and even the guards were surprised by the new actor, who was assumed to be a man in a costume. The distraction gave Reno the chance to sneak into the chocobo stable and feed sleeping pills to some of the chocobo.

The pills varied in strength and the time they took to take effect, they would not make the chocobos fall sleep right away, that would be too suspicious, but the chocobos that took the pills would definitely slow down during the race. Other than that, there was no harm done, so Reno, with his own special logic, thought there was nothing wrong with the arrangement. Then the Turk placed a large bet on the chocobo he left fully awake and obviously won.

"You cheated," Nanaki stated with disapproval. "That was wrong and I'm reporting it."

"You helped and I couldn't have done it without you, so you're guilty too," Reno grinned victoriously.

"That's not fair, you tricked me!" Nanaki looked at the gil Reno offered.

"I'll share the winnings," Reno always thought that he couldn't get into trouble unless he got caught, and shared his logic with everyone else. Nanaki was a useful partner in crime so it would be worth it to give him his rightful part of the loot.

"This is still wrong," Nanaki remained firm in his disproval.

"So what if it's wrong? Accept it and get on with your life," that was how it worked for the Turks.

Nanaki made a long pause, then finally sighed and shook his head one last time before accepting the gil. Thus the mischievous redhead took the first step towards corrupting the polite redhead and another mission backfired.

End of Report V

Disclaimer, I don't own Final Fantasy VII or Harvest Moon DS Cute. Mission 41 was requested by Cherri. Missions 42 and 44 were requested by Sharem. I also got ideas from reviews from Aki Masamune in Mission 44, being nice to a fellow fan girl and "turk torture". Missions 43 and 47 were inspired by Kaeghlighn's reviews. The title of Mission 47 is a reference to The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy. Mission 48 was inspired by Sacred3's review. Mission 49 is for evenstarfictionfan, who wanted to see more of Tseng being protective of Elena.