A/N: In this story, you will see many ideas you recognize, but not a lot of characters you know; this story is set in the distant future, far beyond the scope of human prediction. Our story starts in Spira. It is a vast, changed world, filled with technology and great cities reminiscent of the age of original Zanarkand.

Disclaimer: I do not own FFVII or FFX, nor do I stand to make any money off its creative property.

The Fall of Gaia

Chapter One: Planetfall

The light peered in through the open windows, and the smell of the ocean and Besaid wildflowers wafted into the room on the morning breeze.

Zeitu awoke, and he cursed to himself as he rolled out of bed. The clock's face showed 8:30AM, and he was suddenly alert. "Shit." He cast the clock a frustrated glance as he hurried to shuffle on his pants. Cyfia, his sister, had laid out breakfast 20 minutes ago, and she brought this to his attention a good 12 times before he had finished and ran out the door and onto the sandy road. The Besaid Environmental Preservation Society had adamantly refused to allow this extremely small swath of beach and jungle to be overrun by the great city which had sprung up all around; every other square inch of the island had been taken by the growing need for space for the city. Zeitu's family had lived at this home on this blessed patch for generations, and were quite wealthy before Zeitu and Cyfia became the final heirs.

In times past, a walk through the wilderness, even a patch of it as small as this sandy road through the jungle and across the beach, would mean battling fiends almost constantly. However, only a hundred years after the beginning of the Eternal Calm, the fiends that had so tirelessly plagued travelers since time immemorial began to appear less and less frequently until they finally stopped showing up at all. Now there was no need for travelers to carry weapons, and Zeitu's trek was entirely uneventful.

Besaid was the smallest of the great cities; where most had at least 8 levels (denoting height) and as many as 20 blocks or more, the city had four levels and was split into nine blocks.

Zeitu worked full time as a antique restoration expert in a small oddities shop on the first level of the city, east block.

He walked through the busy city streets on the lowest level. Machina, hulking masses of metal and gears and wheels that performed various tasks, were speeding down the center of the roads with an incredible amount of noise. Bright lights, neon-hued holographic signs, and the loud grinding of metal against metal filled the dark undercity which served as the main hub for the maintenance robots that ensured the safety of those living on the upper levels and as the main living quarters for those too poor to afford housing in the more luxurious upper levels. Most people lived in the lowest level and took trains, escalators, or stairs to the upper levels where they worked and did most of their shopping.

Just as he had reached his destination and had begun to turn the handle to go inside, a bright red dress caught his attention from the corner of his eye. He turned, and saw a girl he recognized. She was looking with longing at the flowers which sat just inside the front window. He knew this girl well, as he had found himself staring longingly at her from the other side of the glass every morning for as long as he could remember working for the shop. She stopped by the window every day as she walked by, and she never failed to catch Zeitu's attention with the bright dresses she wore. He took a deep breath; he had been preparing for this moment for almost a week, now. "Those flowers are for sale, if you want to buy some," he said, smiling as best he could, nervous as he was. She jumped a bit, not having realized she was being watched. She looked at him, frowning, "I can't afford them."

And this was probably true. If you lived anywhere near the great cities then flowers were a luxury item which normally only those on the upper levels could afford. Having those flowers in the window was an eye-catching device to try to entice customers to visit the store out of curiosity. It was, after all, in exactly the wrong place to advertise the flowers if you intended to sell them; which was why there was no price tag next to the flowers. Zeitu smiled a little wider. "I know a place where the flowers grow, if you want me to you take there," he said in a whisper.

The place was, of course, his house. He'd bring her there on the pretense of seeing the flowers, and then he'd ask if she wanted to stay for tea. She'd meet his sister, and Cyfia has such a way with people that once the girl got caught up listening to Cyfia's stories she'd be there so long that, before she knew it, the whole day would be gone and he could offer to walk her home. He'd had this plan in mind for days, and coordinated it to exactly time with Cyfia's day off and when the flowers were just coming into bloom.

He smiled easier when he saw the brightened expression on her face, "Oh! Of course!" he heard her exclaim, "When?" Zeitu tilted his head towards the store. "Shop closes at eight," he said, grinning. She nodded. "See you then!"

As Zeitu took his seat at his workbench and tuned out the grumpy old store owner, he couldn't help feeling that this would be the best day ever.

The hours that followed were spent in an enamored daze, and Zeitu was too busy daydreaming to notice several important events happening outdoors. As the day waned and the sun was approaching the horizon, a green glow from the east began to wash over the city.. Those on the lower level had no idea what was about to happen, but the upper levels were already beginning to notice the unfamiliar object in the sky."

The entire upper city stood still with fear as the burning object to the east eclipsed the luminous rising moon and cast its green glow halfway around the sky, meeting the sunset's burning red at the middle. The sky turned white, and all gasped or screamed as a surge of blinding light instantly arced upwards from the horizon, permanently blinding everyone who was looking directly at it. The light had struck the huge object, and it had split into billions of shards that, unfortunately, appeared to still be falling to Spira's surface. The shards lit up the night sky as they streaked by overhead, but the crowd soon realized that not all of the material was burning up in the atmosphere and a large cloud of the fallout was heading straight for Besaid, and the crowd slowly began to turn and run, leaving the blind and the weak to be trampled by the maddened stampede of humans. There was a terrible pressure wave and burst of light as the first shard of many to come pierced through the upper-level buildings and vaporized halfway through a major roadway. The sheer kinetic energy ignited the air and was accompanied by an unexpected and terrible green flash of light that sent the entire upper level rippling and groaning under the immense strain. Another shard hit, and then another, and then another, until many thousands of shards, ranging from the size of a gil to the size of a train car were striking the city and the air was filled with a sustained roar as buildings and roads, along with the people in or on them, were destroyed in the massive explosions.

The air was filled with dust and debris, choking Zeitu's lungs, and the many overhead lights from the upper level suddenly shut down, leaving the lower level in sudden darkness. Maintenance robots were shrieking back and forth amidst the falling rubble, throwing themselves over humans in accordance to their programming. Something hit Zeitu's head from behind and he collapsed immediately, the dark world turning to a silent black.