Dissidia Final Fantasy: Unus Mundus

Chapter Seven ~ A New Mission (Reno)

"Ugh... what the hell happened?"

The world was dark. Only wind was heard.

"Hey. Is there anyone there?" a man exclaimed. "Rude? Tseng? Elena? Where are you guys?" Finally, the man opened his eyes and saw the world around him. He was a red-haired man in a black suit: Reno of the Turks. The city of Midgar had completely disappeared. Reno jumped to his feet and looked around. "Whoa..." Reno couldn't hear anything but the wind, and not a single thing was moving in sight. "I don't think I drank last night... What happened?" Reno started walking, but the second he did, an unfamiliar voice spoke to him.

"Hold it!"

Reno stopped walking at the sound of the voice. It was a girl's voice from behind him. He turned around and saw a little girl, no older than maybe seven or eight, with short, purple hair with a wooden staff in hand. "Hey, little girl. What in the world are you doing here?" he asked, but the girl jumped back and held her staff out. The tip flashed white and a giant bird-like monster came flying out of the clouds, spiraling at Reno with great speed. Reno fell back and laughed nervously. "Whoa-ho! I don't mean any harm, okay!? Could you please tell that... thing to back off!?" The bird flew towards the little girl and landed, lowering its head. The girl slowly placed her hand on its head and pet it softly.

"Her name is Valefor," the girl said. "She's an Eidolon I just met recently." Reno scoffed and dusted off his suit.

"You mean a Summon, right?" he asked. "Creatures you can, well, summon with the right Materia?" The little girl looked at him with confusion and looked back at Valefor with affection. 

"I'm a Summoner from Madain Sari," she replied. "One of the last ones, in fact. A lot of... very bad things happened to me and my friends as a result of another Summoner that was with us." 

"One of the last ones?" Reno crossed his arms. "You don't mean you're an Ancient?" Once again, the girl looked at him with a confused expression.

"You're a strange man," she remarked. 

"Tell me something I don't know..." Reno murmured under his breath. "Anyway, do you have any idea as to what happened here? There used to be a big city in this place, lots of people, a corrupt government, the usual."

"I wish I knew," the girl said, wrapping her arms around Valefor. "I just woke up here, completely alone." She embraced Valefor tightly. "I don't know where my friends went. I woke up and suddenly felt compelled to summon Valefor here, but she's an Eidolon I've never met." Reno looked at Valefor as he scratched his head.

"I've never seen that one either," he said quietly. After a moment of silence, Reno sighed and decided to break the silence. "My name's Reno. Could you tell me your name? And maybe any names of your friends? We could probably go look for them."

"...Eiko." The girl, Eiko, was reluctant to say anything. She clutched to Valefor as she looked up at Reno. "Can you really help me find my friends? Or are you gonna try to hurt me?"

"No!" Reno exclaimed, his hands out. "No, I don't mean harm! In fact... I honestly never meant harm to anyone in my past, either. They were just orders of mine."

"Were you a bad man?"

"N-no..." Reno was a bit more reluctant to answer that, thinking on all the dirty work he'd done over the years. He shook his head and sighed. "Oh, who am I kidding?" He looked at Eiko with a solemn expression. "I'll be honest with you, Eiko. I've done bad things." Eiko quickly gasped and backed up a bit, but Reno smiled kindly. "That doesn't mean I'm gonna do anything bad to you! I was working for bad people, so I had to do bad things. But look around." Reno gestured at the empty fields around them. "The best we can do is at least try to work together. Let's make a deal. If you think I'm doing something bad, have, uh... Valefor there attack me, okay?" Reno held his hand out for Eiko. "I promise I won't hurt you." 

Eiko was still hesitant to believe Reno, but she saw actual kindness behind his eyes. Finally, she smiled back and grabbed his hand, shaking it. "Alright, it's a deal," she said. Reno smiled and stood up with his hands on his hips.

"The question stands, though," he said. "Where do we start?"

"Simple!" Eiko replied, climbing onto Valefor's back. "We'll fly around on Valefor until we find a place with people in it!" Reno chuckled nervously, looking at the giant bird.

"Fly?" he scoffed. "On Valefor?" Eiko smiled and held her hand out for Reno this time to help him climb up onto Valefor's back. Reno sighed and took her hand. "You're crazy, you know that?" Once they were both on, Valefor spread her wings and took to the skies.