Mission 40: Snow
The request was unusual that was for sure. For a moment Tseng wondered if the request for snow was actually a request for ice-cream, but the paper clearly read "Snow". The mission would be a challenge that was for sure, because Tseng knew that a small amount of snow would be unacceptable, and it couldn't be fake snow or ice from materia. Tseng knew they were expecting a high quality delivery of natural snow.
Thus the leader recruited all the other Turks for this mission, "our objective, is to gather as much snow as we can from the mountains up north. To avoid accidents when we drop it on Rocket Town, we must filter out small stones and the like out of the snow."
As strange as it was, the Turks did not question their leader and went off to the snowy mountains to gather the snow. For this they recruited the help of Cid and his airship, the only ship large enough to carry everything by air.
Thus the Turks left their summery weathered headquarters and ventured into the freezing cold mountains to gather snow. "I can't believe we're doing this," Reno shoveled more snow in the machine that would blend it and extract all the stones, pebbles and unwanted materials, producing nice clean snow that would be packed in the refrigerated cargo boxes in the air ship. "Cid, whose idea was this?"
The pilot shrugged, "I don't know. But the weather's been damn hot in Rocket Town, makes me wish I thought about it myself."
Reno pouted, "can't you people wait until winter?"
"At that speed it will be winter by the time you're done," Cid pointed out.
"You're not helping!" Reno complained.
"It's not my job," Cid was amused, he enjoying watching the Turks work. That was it, Reno couldn't take it anymore. He made a snow ball and threw it at Cid, who responded with an angry, "damn Turk!"
"Reno!" Tseng scolded, "we're here to work not play!" At that very moment, Cid made a snow ball and threw it at Reno in revenge. But the redhead ducked and the snow ball hit Tseng instead. "Cid!" Though he was supposed to be the composed leader, Tseng lost his patience as well and returned fire, or rather snow.
The exchange continued until a stray snow ball hit Rude's bald head, making him yelp in a very un-Rude way. He wished he wore a hat. Whoever threw the snow ball would pay, and Rude joined the battle.
"Stop it, all of you!" Elena flailed her arms, trying to get the others to listen. Then a stray snow ball hit her. She growled as she wiped the snow away from her face. "Don't forget, the one with the ice materia is me."
It was an all out war that lasted several hours, until the Turks and Cid exhausted their energy. But even if they were tired, they would finish their mission, because they were Turks. Thus they finished gathering the snow and flew back to Rocket Town.
From the airship, Tseng announced with a loud speaker, "to bring relief from the summer heat, Shinra will now make it snow in Rocket Town, just as it was requested!"
The citizens of Rocket Town gathered around and cheered when the airship spread the snow around their town as if it were really snowing. It would soon melt, but it would be just enough to help everyone cool off.
Feeling satisfied with the conclusion of his mission. Tseng went off to get his client to sign the completed mission form as soon as the airship landed. That's when a woman approached him and asked, "where's my bowling ball?"
"Bowling ball?" Tseng repeated confused.
"I sent you a mission request to deliver a bowling ball," the woman reminded him.
With a heavy feeling of foreboding, Tseng read over his mission request form again. "Rocket Town, Snow, bowling ball... Deliver snow to Rocket Town for..." Tseng trailed off into silence realizing his mistake, he didn't even look for the client's name in the request form and didn't realize that Snow was the client's name. He was not supposed to deliver snow to Rocket Town; he was supposed to bring a bowling ball to a woman named Snow who lived in Rocket Town, but he didn't read the request well enough. "I thought..."
Catching what he meant, Snow laughed. "That you had to deliver me to Bowling Ball in Rocket Town? Well you can tell Mr. Ball that I already have someone I like," she giggled.
For Tseng what was even worse was that he spent the better part of the day gathering snow and having a snow ball fight even if he was freezing, but if he had read the mission request form more carefully, he wouldn't have needed to go through that. He could only hope that the other Turks, especially Rude, never found out.
End of Mission 40
Disclaimer, I don't own Final Fantasy VII. Mission 40 was requested by Snow, who made the character by the same name, I only borrowed her.