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.
End of Mission 13
Disclaimer, I don't own Final Fantasy VII. Mission 13 was requested by Death Korps (the chocobos) and Sasami10 (a mission with Tseng and Elena).