Mission 38: Doctor Reno
It was that mysterious request again; the payment had been received; though it couldn't be tracked. It was them again; Reno knew it, the three little terrors of what was left of Sephiroth. But even if he knew this, Reno was bored, so bored in fact, that he hopped on his helicopter and went off to see the three little monsters. His better judgment screamed for him to turn back, but Reno ignored the voice in his head and landed in the Forgotten Capital.
At least there would be a challenge in this mission, though it may just be too much to handle. He needed to practice his survival skills anyway before he lost his Turk abilities, and this was a perfect opportunity to train. Turks were fearless, marching to their doom unfazed, and coming out of an impossible situation alive. He was a Turk, off to battle the three biggest terrors the world would ever know, the child versions of Kadaj, Yazoo and Loz.
Even if he was deliberately marching into danger, that didn't mean he was suicidal, so when Reno didn't hear the trio of energetic little voices that belonged to his torturers, he knew something was wrong. The three boys were nowhere to be seen, and the only sound faintly carried by the breeze was that of a sneeze.
Reno curiously followed the sound, wondering if the boys were playing hide and seek. Instead the found the three children curled up in a corner of a gigantic sea shell shaped house. "Brother!" The three of them ran, though not energetically, towards Reno and clung to him desperately.
The boys had been crying, and Kadaj was the first to calm down. "Yazoo, Loz, don't cry. Even if he's not mother's son, Reno will be our brother and take care of us. He did come when we called him."
Little Yazoo nodded and sniffled, while little Loz looked up at Reno pouty faced, "you'll take care of us, right?"
"Wait a minute, what's going on?!" Reno backed away from the three boys, their feverish red cheeks, warm foreheads and wet noses.
"Brother!" The three boys whined in unison, as they once again clung to their unwilling savior.
"We're sick, heal us," Kadaj demanded, he sounded funny with his stuffy nose.
"I'm not a doctor, I can't heal you!" Reno had come to do some action training, to get some practice in basic survival skill, not to take care of sick children. Those three little boys could certainly cry loudly and Reno could feel a headache starting. He knew that if he ran away, the vengeful little brats would risk being discovered to give him a bad mission review and the press would exaggerate and say Shinra is cruel to children, never mind if they are the remnants of the man who tried to destroy the planet. "Okay, fine, stop crying!"
Yazoo puckered his lip and asked, "then you'll take care of us?"
"I'll see what I can do..." Nothing ever went Reno's way, and even when he was prepared for things to be very hard, they turned out to be far more difficult than he ever imagined. Truth be told, he had no idea where to start. "How about you rest?"
"We've been resting all this time, I want to be healed, heal me!" Kadaj weakly stomped his feet and sneezed.
"Stay here, I need to get some things from the chopper," fortunately the helicopters by standard order, were to be equipped with basic emergency supplies, and Reno was pretty sure there was a box of tissues in there.
"Don't leave!" But getting the supplies would be much harder than it looked, with three little boys clinging to him, whining, crying and sneezing.
"I'll be right back, let go!" Reno pried one of the boys off, and by then the other two would start clinging to him again. It only got worse when they decided they wanted to be carried.
The walk back to the chopper, though relatively short, felt incredibly long to Reno, as he had to make it there carrying a little boy on each arm and putting up with their constant sneezes because they just didn't get it when they were told to cover their mouths. Kadaj rode on his shoulders, occasionally kicking and pulling at his hair. In short, Reno was not going to walk back like that, so he attempted to take care of the three boys in the helicopter. He found the box of tissues and hoped it was enough to last a while.
Reno knew he couldn't do this alone, so he called the only person he could think of that was constantly around children. "Tifa?It's Reno. I need to know what's the cure for a child's cold."
Needless to say, the question surprised Tifa, but then she figured Reno was stuck babysitting a sick child. "There is no real cure for the common cold, but you can treat the symptoms with over the counter medicines."
Though Reno didn't mention that he wasn't even sure a cold was the problem. Those three were different from normal children; there was no telling what it could be. He dug around the helicopter searching for some kind of medicine, finding a small bottle that was supposed to heal all status problems, a Remedy. "Found it... you three each have to drink one of these!"
A chorus of "no!" echoed all over the Forgotten Capital despite the children's sore throats.
"Tifa, they don't want the medicine, what else can I do?" Reno asked over the phone.
In the Seventh Heaven, Cloud wondered why Tifa was laughing so hard while talking on the phone. "Keep trying, you have to convince them to take the medicine. Also, you can make them chicken soup," Tifa paused, remembering the tales of Reno's kitchen disasters. "On second thought, its best if you don't try to cook for them. You could offer to tell them a story if they take their medicine and take a nap."
"Okay, I'll try that." Reno was desperate for a solution and nothing was working. "Listen up, I'll tell you a story if the three of you take the medicine and get some sleep!"
The mention of medicines and sleep only made the three boys cry and wail "big brother is mean!"
"They hate me now," Reno grumbled into the phone. He wasn't listening to Tifa's reply and instead pointed out of the chopper. "Out! If big brother is so mean, then it's best if he leaves." Forget the negative reviews and his plans to let the three terrors grow and bring the necessity of real Turk missions in the future.
"Don't abandon us!" The three boys clung to Reno again, and actually took their status problem relieving medicines, not that it did much for a cold. "Story! Story! Story!" They chanted.
Tifa continued to laugh at the sounds in the background, without realizing who the children were. Cloud gave her curious looks saying "put it on speaker phone, whatever it is, put it on speaker phone!" But the call had already been ended.
The three boys tackled Reno, effectively trapping him in a corner of the helicopter, where the three of them got comfortable, despite Reno's discomfort, and used the Turk as a living pillow. "I hate my job," Reno grumbled, but there was no room for his complaints with all the complaints from the boys that wanted a story. "Once upon a time, there was a really cool Turk. He went on all sorts of fun missions and lived an action movie style life. Then one day, the company he worked for decided to turn stupid and the missions were not fun anyone. The Turk ended up getting stuck babysitting three annoying little brats that... fell asleep in the middle of his story... acho! and have him a cold. But he couldn't leave because the brats were sleeping on him, and if he got up they would wake up... and they all lived unhappily ever after."
End of Mission 38
Disclaimer, I don't own Final Fantasy VII. Mission 38 was requested by Dawn of Destruction.