This story emerged from a few RPs I had on Gaia Online with a friend of mine, AquaYagami. During the time that this was written, my avatar on there was dressed like Aerith in her Crisis Core garb.
A long time ago, centuries in fact before you became a Keyblade Master, there was a race known as the Cetra. The Cetra were a migratory tribe who traveled from world to world, in order to find a way to Kingdom Hearts. The Cetra were also highly skilled in the arts of magic and Keyblade wielding.
But not all good things were meant to last. While the Cetra were in the world that would later become the Keyblade Graveyard, a meteor fell and made an enormous crater in the world. The meteor was really a sentient being named JENOVA. She killed thousands of Cetra and later took the guise of a Cetra woman in order to lure unsuspecting members of the race to their doom. It seemed that nobody would be able to escape her until a non-Cetra man named Shinra encased her in a giant test tube in order to study her.
Fearing that she may one day return, the other Cetra fled although almost all of them died from unknown causes. All except my mother, Ifalna. She stopped in a world called Christmas Town and later took up residence in Santa's mansion, out of the kindness of the sage's heart. Although my mother was happy, she felt lonely. Her prayers were answered when a doctor named Gast Gainsborough arrived, studying the properties of the worlds in order to find out what made each one unique. The two fell in love and on February 7th, 1980, I was born.
My family lived together in Santa's mansion for three years helping him and his elves with toy making. But after those three years, my father's colleague Dr. Hojo arrived. Hojo wanted to test my mother with cells extracted from JENOVA. My mother said to father that JENOVA was a demon and that he must refuse. And so he did, but at the cost of his life. Hojo then wanted to continue his experiment uninterrupted, but another interruption came... my mother stabbed him with the syringe containing the JENOVA cells. My mother and I got a lift from two of Santa's elves, Wayne and Lanny, to escape from the mad scientist.
The elves dropped us off at the edge of the continent containing Radiant Garden. After days of hiking to the city, my mother collapsed and died from exhaustion. In my mourning, I did not notice that I wasn't alone. As if by a miracle, a wizard appeared and helped me carry her body to a church in the city. During our walk, he revealed that his name was Merlin and that he agreed to be my adoptive grandfather.
We buried my mother in a church in the city. From where she was buried, flowers sprang up from the otherwise non-fertile soil. After settling down in his house, Merlin introduced me to the life I know live.
Every first Sunday of every month, Merlin would take me to a different world and show me what it was. One of those worlds was Olympus. Now remember, I was 10 at the time so you hadn't arrived at that world yet. It was during this visit that I had met Zack Fair, a young boy training alongside Hercules. Merlin knew that there was a spark between us and decided that the two of us would send letters to each other every week. One day I got a letter from him, which said that he would be visiting us soon. And so after straightening up the old man's books, we waited for him to arrive. But he never came. I then thought that he had run off with another woman, but I knew better and said to myself "Something happened so he had to cancel the visit."
One year after the cancellation had passed and I was playing a game of Go-Fish with 5 year-old Kairi, since I was babysitting her. But then, sirens started wailing and in the confusion, I was separated from her, Merlin, Ansem, and my friends. This was the incident that turned Radiant Garden into Hollow Bastion, a perfect lair for ne'er-do-wells such as Xehanort, Maleficent, Pete, Sephiroth, and the Heartless. What were supposedly the survivors of the incident were taken to a world known as Traverse Town.
Even after losing our old home, this served as home until the Heartless were booted out of our old world. The supposed survivors were Squall (who then changed his name to Leon), Cloud, Cid, Tifa, Yuffie, and I. Merlin did manage to find my other friends Vivi, Yuna, Rikku, and Paine, but the others were presumed lost or dead. After this, life returned to normal.
After Sora saved the universe from Xehanort's Heartless, life began to return to Hollow Bastion. But even while repairs were being made to the city, we were still plagued by random Heartless attacks. Don't worry, they were mostly Shadows. After a few months of repairs, Cloud, Yuna, Leon, and I were taken to an alternate dimension. In this dimension, the villains were known as the Warriors of Chaos, people with hearts so dark that they wished to bring about the end of existence. I was on the side of the Warriors of Cosmos, good-willed heroes who fought to keep the universe in balance. The Cosmos Warriors won the battle against Chaos and we were brought back to our own dimension.
I then began to grow anxious as to what happened to my old friends, and more importantly Zack. So after writing several letters addressed to them, I gave them to Scrooge McDuck. Scrooge then got into his airplane and traveled each of the worlds in order to find my friends. When he got back a week later, all the envelopes were replaced... except for one, Zack's. He couldn't find him anywhere. That saddened me further. But the letters that gave me hope were the ones from Rinoa, Cecil, Garnet, Zidane, and Kain. And I knew very well that Rinoa would be sending a letter to Leon, seeing that they were in love before the incident.
Afterwards, I was encountered by a strange man in a hood. I couldn't put my finger on it, but he seemed to remind me a lot of Kain. He asked me if there was a way to repent for his sins, and I told him to follow me to the church. After a confessional, I gave him penance, and baptized him with the water from the basin.
"And that's all I have to offer for you, my friend." she said sipping tea in the café. Even though she was alone, she wasn't alone. She was actually speaking to a person telepathically across realms.
This person was Aqua.
And just in case any of you are wondering who I had intended as Aerith's voice for this, I was thinking of Mandy Moore, her original voice from the first game.