The Second Helicopter Incident.
Otherwise known as: Why Cloud officially gets Airsick.
Hello everyone, you may be wondering by the title what the First Helicopter Incident is, and trust me, you'll find out.
But this is more or less about the second one, because this is the Incident that gave Cloud his ungodly phobia of flying and consequential airsickness.
Why?
The short answer is: Reno.
The long answer? A bit more complicated than that, but still comes down to Reno.
Join me as I recant the tale of why there's a specific regulation that prohibits landing in the Midgar Swamp, and why Reno is no longer allowed to pilot any sort of air vehicle over said swamp.
It begins with what should've been a simple mission: Eliminate the local creatures harassing the field agents prospecting near the Mythril Mines...
"This is some Planes on a Snake shit, yo!" Reno called cheerily as he adjusted their trajectory in the helicopter.
Beside him in the copilot seat, Shisun let out a quiet groan and a sigh. "Not this again, senpai. We were ordered to-"
"I know what we were ordered to do, kiddo." Reno cut the other off, rolling his eyes. "However they said nothing about the methods of getting there."
Shisun opened his mouth to reply, but another voice crackled over their headset. "Everything good up front?"
Zack.
Zack Fair and his understudy-slash-student-in-training Cloud Strife were dispatched as the SOLDIER Operatives to handle clearing out the monsters while he and Reno's job were to ensure the site remained uncompromised, just in case.
"Just peachy!" Reno replied cheekily.
Shisun simply sighed again. "Yes, Zack. Everything is well." He responded.
"We're just clearing out the beasties down there, right?" Zack asked.
"Yup, but trust me, there's some pretty nasty ones down there." Reno responded. "There's some really big snakes that loves to try and eat the Field Agents down there."
"...Snakes?" Came the quiet voice of Cloud.
"Yeah, snakes. Why, you scared of 'em blondie?" Reno responded a bit mockingly.
"...No, snakes don't scare me. There's plenty of snakes around Nibelheim. I'm more scared of the Black Dragons that live on Mt. Nibel." Came the response.
"We'll be fine, snakes or no snakes! Right, Cloud?" Zack chirped.
"Yeah..."
Reno glanced around at the ground below before a wide grin broke out on his face.
"Target acquired. Hang on, everyone. This might get a bit bumpy." He called cheerfully as he rotated the joystick and began a rapid descent of the helicopter.
Shisun drew in a breath, letting out a silent prayer to the Goddess that they didn't crash this time around.
Reno may have been one of the best pilots in Shinra, but his choices of what was and wasn't a landing pad were sketchy at best.
There was a loud screeching noise and a sudden, heavy 'thump' as the helicopter touched down against something.
"What the hell was that?" Zack asked.
"Hurry and get out," Shisun warned. "He just landed on a Midgar Zolom, and by the sounds of it, it's not happy."
"You did what?" Cloud asked incredulously.
"Like I said, this is some Planes on a Snake shit, yo!" Reno responded brightly.
The helicopter began shaking and before anything more could be said, Reno was forced to jerk the stick upwards and take back off just as the Zolom beneath them thrashed its tail at them.
"Whoa there, better hang on!" Reno warned as he proceeded to take a very sharp turn in the air to avoid another tail strike, still pulling up on the stick to gain altitude.
"Reno!" Shisun yelled in warning, flicking a few switches on the chopper in preparation to open the cargo door as well as deploy the chopper's mounted guns in case he had to fire back at the damned snake. "Trine attack incoming!"
"I'm on it, kid. In the words of Cid: Hold on to your drawers and don't piss in 'em!" Reno replied.
Zack was looking out the window to see lightning gathering around the snake. "Whoa, check it out. That's cool!" He called.
Cloud paled a little. "I'm not sure 'cool' is the right word for this situation, Zack..." He murmured.
Just as the Zolom fired off the intense strike of lightning, Reno rolled the chopper mid-air while twisting the stick to jar them sideways even further.
The cargo door popped open and with the jostle, Cloud felt himself sliding. Instinctively he screamed.
Zack's hand clamped around his wrist just as he began to fall down and out of the chopper. "Gotcha!"
Shisun glanced backwards over the seat. "Shit. Reno!" He yelled again.
"I'm working on it, fucking hell, give me a break!" Reno yelled back.
"This wouldn't happen if you had some common fucking sense about where to land, especially not landing on snakes!" Shisun yelled, losing all sense of his professionalism in the moment because of how idiotic his mentor could be.
"Don't fuckin' patronize me, kid!" Reno snapped back as he jerked the stick again to reorient the chopper and put them back upright. "Anyway, if you've got time to fucking complain, you've got time to distract the fucking thing."
Shisun snorted loudly, but flicked another switch that deployed the guns on the helicopter. "Gladly!" He replied before he pushed his own joystick forward and aimed the barrels down at the Zolom before pulling the trigger and began to fire on it.
Cloud was making near hysterical noises as he scrambled to get a foothold back on the railing ot the chopper, other hand finding purchase on the inner railing and with help from Zack, pulled himself back in.
"Hang on tight, Cloud!" Zack warned worriedly.
Cloud was hyperventilating and everything was spinning to him. He felt sick. "Can't...stop...spinning..." He mumbled out.
"We're going in hot, get ready to deploy you two!" Reno shouted.
Cloud made a weak noise, but Zack put a hand on his shoulder to steady him. "Hold it together a little bit longer, Cloud." He soothed.
The helicopter descended once again, with Shisun firing the guns and a few missiles at the Zolom and Reno made the chopper hover several feet above the ground. "Close as you're gonna get, now go!" He called.
With a nod, Zack grabbed Cloud's arm and threw it over his own shoulder and wordlessly pulled the other to his feet and jumped out of the vehicle.
Cloud let out a tiny scream again at the sudden jolt before they touched down on the ground.
He doubled over a moment later, feeling as if he was going to puke.
"Catch your breath there, Cloud. I'll handle the Zolom." Zack assured his friend and protege before drawing his sword and charged off after the Zolom. "Oi, big ugly snake-thing! Over here!" He yelled at it.
"Reno get us out of here, now!" Shisun snapped.
"Don't gotta tell me twice." Reno replied cheerfully as he ascended the chopper and pushed forward on the stick, the helicopter speeding forward and off. They had to bank around in order to get a clear sight of their next landing zone.
Five minutes later found them landed and Shisun was swift to exit and make quick, angry strides towards the Mines, leaving Reno to sprint to catch up to him.
When Cloud finally calmed down, he was able to gain enough bearings to join Zack and help him in taking the Zolom down, but it was no easy task. The snake was _pissed_ and unleashed the full brunt of its fury through multiple Trines, Poison Strikes, and hard hitting tail strikes. When it was finally felled, Zack whistled and stretched, doing several squats. "Man, that was something, wasn't it?" He questioned.
Cloud remained silent, just breathing heavily.
"Cloud? You okay?" Zack asked worriedly.
"...I never want to do that again." Cloud finally said, voice meek.
"It's okay, Cloud." Zack reassured. "You're tough." He patted the other on the shoulder.
"Now let's go, we've still got a lot more creatures to clear out of here. Time to locate the Field Researchers." He said.
Nodding weakly, Zack followed after his mentor.
Shisun was not a happy camper at all with his own partner, and refused to speak to him the entire time they were inspecting the mine, clearing out a few of the pests that tried to nest within before they exited.
"Come on, kid. It could've been worse." Reno tried.
Shisun spun on his heel to stare Reno dead in the eyes, his face flushed with fury. "It could've been a lot better, too!" He finally snapped.
"You crashed the chopper on the fucking Zolom last time, and we nearly lost Cloud out of the chopper this time because you decided to land on yet another fucking snake!" He ranted, waving his hands about angrily.
It was rare he lost his cool, but this was a moment. "I'm not holding anything back in the report this time, Reno. Veld's going to hear all about this." He threatened.
"C'mon, kid. It really wasn't that bad-" Reno tried to cut in.
"No!" Shisun snapped back. "I'm not covering your ass this time. You're going to own up to your own shit, senpai. I'm not going to play your accomplice this time."
Reno let out a heavy sigh and held his hands up in defeat. "Alright, alright. Fine. Have it your way and tell Veld." He responded.
When all was said and done on either side, the helicopter ride home was a doozy for Cloud. He spent the entire ride doubled over, heaving into a bag. The events from prior had completely traumatized him and made him completely sick to even be in the chopper.
Shisun left nothing out of his report when he handed it in to Veld and Tsebg.
Needless to say, Reno was thus banned from piloting over the Midgar Swamp, and a new regulation was made, prohibiting any flying craft over the airspace. The Swamp was now to be entered only by land vehicle or on foot.
He also faced a month's worth of deskwork and the lowest class escort duties for the Science Department.
Cloud unfortunately never did recover from the trauma and any time he had to ride an air vehicle he had to be knocked out or thoroughly drugged up to deal with it.
Zack would go on to tell the rest of the SOLDIERs hilarious stories of the things Cloud said while drugged, including the mini-dream-slash-nightmare he had about Tseng in a tutu and Angeal in a macho man outfit with a fake moustache.
...But that's another story,
-End, TBC.-
