Hi! This is a bit of an AU fic, so before we start, a few things should be cleared up.

Here are the ages of the characters, from youngest to oldest:
Chid = 5.
Merle = 16.
Hitomi, Van, Yukari = 18.
Dilandau = 19.
Allen, Dryden, Gaddes = 23.
Folken = 25.
Dornkirk = old fart.

You can contact Rai at the_techno_goddess@yahoo.com and Destiny at thelostprincessofhyrule@yahoo.com. We'd love to hear from you! ^_^

I think that's it for now. Enjoy!

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Prelude: The Earth, Its Moon, and Gaea

On July 26, 1969, the small, airless desert regolith that is the earth's moon felt the first footsteps of a human. Patchy transmissions beamed to NASA headquarters in Houston, Texas from Apollo 11's beat up lunar module were televised all over the world that night. One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind became one of the most famous phrases of all time. Even the Soviets, who had no idea that the Americans had beaten their unmanned ship, Luna 15, to the Moon's surface, cheered the success of not a nation, but a species.

Since walking on the moon, NASA has turned its ambitions to planet-side expeditions on Mars, Earth's nearest neighbor. Probes and rovers have scanned the rocky surfaces of the red planet, sending priceless information to scientists back on Earth. This goal that Mars should feel human steps, as the Moon has, gives purpose to NASA. But there is a big conflict now of how to fly to Mars, for it would take years to reach the planet, even by the shortest possible route. Theories are created and disbanded every day as scientists work through their problem. How sad it is that they could be setting their sights just a little lower and have a far easier time fulfilling a task nearly identical to the Mars project.

Humans on Earth do not know of Gaea. They have looked beyond their moon in hopes of finding tiny bacteria on dusty planets or unfamiliar metallic compounds and alloys, but never dared to search for civilizations. They have always hoped to find something like us, but do not bother to look. Even if they did, their telescopes would be aimed as far away from Earth as possible. To this day, they still believe that it is impossible for a civilization utterly separate from their own in such close proximity.

But we do exist, and watch the foolish inhabitants of the Mystic Moon from afar. We make no moves to contact them, nor ever plan to. They are obviously too stupid to be worth the effort.

Our home of Gaea is very similar to the Mystic Moon. We have forests, oceans, rivers, mountains, valleys, and so forth. There are vast amounts of quadruped mammals, fish, birds, and reptiles similar to creatures one might see on the Mystic Moon, but truly unique to Gaea. And then there we are, the sapient bipeds of the planet, rulers of Asturia, Freid, Fanelia, and other feudal countries that break up the land. Gaea is a small planet. If a person traveled from Earth to Gaea, and did not know they had moved, they would probably mistake the two planets for one and the same.

In fact, this did happen once, to a lonely girl from the city of Tokyo, Japan on the Mystic Moon. When she was fifteen years old, a portal between our worlds, an odd rift whose properties are unknown still to this day, forced her into Gaea. As we found out later, this girl had a mysterious destiny interwoven with our world. Using her powers of premonition, she struggled to end a centuries-old war between the country of Fanelia and the Zaibach Empire, hoping that to accomplish this would send her home.

It has been over three years since the girl from the Mystic Moon came into our midst, and the war had gradually come to an uncertain stop. It seems as though the conflict could possibly be at an end, but strange happenings have been stirring deep within Zaibach, and Fate has a nasty habit of throwing cruel twists in our way when we least expect it . . .