I need to make some things clear before I let you into this fanfiction, so I appreciate if you would read this few words beforehand because it probably will make your understanding of this fanfiction a lot more… pleasant.

First of all: English isn't my mother tongue and so I struggle with it a little bit. This project will help me to better my English (hopefully) and get a better grasp at the language. Therefore there might be sentences that sound odd or I make mistakes that are considered stupid. So please keep that in mind! I really appreciate any help I get and I hope it isn't as horrible to read as I think it will. (Hello, low self-esteem!)

The second thing I wanted to get off my chest is the fact that the first 22 chapters are from 2012, while everything onwards is from '16 and '17. I picked the story up after a long pause and I never overhauled the 22 chapters I already had. I'll translate them as they come, so you might see a difference between chapter 22 and chapter 23.

Thank you for reading and feel free to comment.

For any readers from Germany: You can read the original here - .de/s/4fe4ba7a0002731106a003ec/1/Red-Chocobo

My name is Reno – at least that is what they call me. Besides myself no one knows if that is the name imprinted on my birth certification or if it is only a code name I gave myself to secure my family. For this story it really doesn't matter, though. Fact is that everyone knows me by Reno and everyone that doesn't know me… well, they miss out on something.

Anyhow: For years now I work for a certain concern, ShinRa Inc. In the past all they did was suck the life out of the planet to make some electricity. There were people happy about that but others weren't as happy but that's in the past. My place wasn't in the office or as mechanic to maintain the machines. My job was to stand up against the troublemakers that wanted to hurt the concern. Homicide, robbery, blackmail. Yep, that was and is my work.

Well, not alone of course but I am part of the group that makes sure that the boss gets what he wants regardless of the circumstances. Knowing about the group; called TURKs; most people already figured out that electricity wasn't ShinRas only business.

Most of that is in the past now but ShinRa still exists; Rufus Shinra on top of it; and so do the TURKs but I guarantee you: There were times we did worse things than in the present day. Word of honour, I swear.

The world was rescued from the brink of extinction and me and my boys are almost redundant. Almost! The past years we were busy with trivial things but it seems like this will change from now on because there is a huge storm coming – and when I tell you, that I'm drowning in shit you better believe me.

When I woke up this morning and lighted up my cigarette the world was in perfect harmony. As always I came in late for work and as always Rude gave me a head-butt while Elena was telling me off even though I didn't pay attention to her angry muttering. I was carefree until the air got colder; at least it felt like it; and I knew that I had to pay attention now because our boss came into the office and that meant trouble.

»Woah! What a blessing!« My words were spoken in a mocking tone, Rude and Elena took the chance to poke their elbows into my side to make me shut up.

The boss wasn't as happy to see me as I was to see him because his ice blue eyes glared at me as if he wanted to pierce right through me. A sigh left his lips and he brushed a few blonde streaks of hair behind his ear before he looked at all of us. While Elena und Rude stood there like soldiers I had the hands in my pockets and smirked at him.

I was here for a very long time; you know; so I knew that Rufus was only playing cool and I had nothing to fear right now. He nearly ever punished me for my misbehaviour and if he made a fuss about it and put some extra work on me, I simply dumped it onto Elena. And Elena dumped it onto Rude. You could say that we were almost like a little group of friends.

Rufus broke the silence. »Funny as always as I see, Reno.«

»Aye, sir. It's a nice day after all, yo?« I answered and brightly grinned, shrugging my shoulders. I heard both of my colleague's murmur that I should just shut up.

»At least now I know who is going to get the next mission done.«, the blonde ice prince replied.

I rolled my eyes inconspicuously and gave a friendly nod. »Everything you want, boss.« I bet it was some boring shit like delivering drugs, weapons or a mail. Wasn't my favourite task to do because it was as exciting as watching a Chocobo eating its vegetables but I tried to look at the bright side of it: If it was just simple stuff like that I could smoke a lot of cigarettes on my way.

»Fine. Come to my office later. Alone.« Rufus instructed.

»Do I need to massage your feet again, yo?« I gaggled and winked at his angry gaze but he lost interest in my behaviour and just left for his room while I was a little bit puzzled. If he wanted me alone, it had to be something big or he had to be really mad at me. Luckily, I was really good at shoving the blame off of me. Some called it puppy-eyes but I just knew that it was Reno-charm – irresistible.

»Later? When is later?« I asked later after I was mindlessly looking through some reports.

Elena looked up from her magazine about explosives and frowned. She smiled at me. It was her "You know you're in massive trouble"-smile but I simply smiled back.

»Whenever.« Rude answered my question. He was the only one from this division that really worked on something right now.

»Of course…« I groaned.

It was always like this. We didn't talk much because there was no need. All of us shared the same fortune and we all had our dark secrets. There was no need to talk about love, Minerva or the rest of the damn world. Sometimes we went for a drink after work and I was pretty sure that Elena and Rude fucked once in a while but that's about it. I still felt like we were friends. Not just the three of us but also Rufus and…

The door flew open and Tseng walked in. His black hair was as perfect as his black attire. If there was any positive chemistry going on in this room it went down the hill as soon as he stepped in – he still was one of us and I wouldn't deny that.

While Rufus always seemed like he tried to be a bad guy, Tseng WAS the bad guy. His gestures and facial expressions spoke a thousand words and not even Rude with his stoic impression and the sunglasses could hold a candle up to him. The most intimidating would always be Tseng.

We all greeted him at once but he ignored it and came straight up to me, closing the file I had opened at my desk. I stared at him and blinked while I tilted my head a little bit to await his words.

»Sir Shinra said, that YOU were the chosen one?«, he asked harshly.

»Chosen? Did I win the beauty pageant of this office or something?«

Elena started giggling but she stopped as soon as she saw Tsengs eager eyes on her.

»Oh, you're so funny, asshole. How about you get your lazy ass to the boss office?« He almost shouted and left in advance, not giving me the chance for a funny comeback.

»HEY, I wanted to be alone with Rufus!« I yelled back but he probably couldn't hear it because the door already closed behind him. »Is he on his period or something…«

The blonde woman started laughing now. »Am I that bad once a month?«, she asked, playfully pouting.

I scratched my chin and shook my head. »Nah, sorry. You're not as worse as him.«

While Elena still giggled, Rude showed no emotion but I knew that he was secretly laughing at my situation.

Well then.

Into Shinras office, it goes.