New chapter! Thanks again everyone for your comments and your feedback, I appreciate it. This week has been difficult for me, mostly for little things that built up rather than any single event. The good news is that I think I've got things under control. A quick update about the upcoming releases... I am once again a chapter ahead on my editing, and I will probably be very busy come Thanksgiving weekend. Chapter 8 will go up on time; chapter 9 will more than likely post the day before Thanksgiving. December will probably follow my Sunday posting goals.

Taking a moment here to answer a few particular comments...
violastrum: I have some very particular plans regarding Ranma and the Materia. Please wait and see. :)
Unrepentant Pedant: Ryoga is probably going to be the only NWC member to show up in this story. I appreciate that a lot of Ranma stories have everybody and their grandparents showing up. This will not be that kind of tale. At the absolute maximum, maybe one other character will show up from Nerima, but I admit I have not yet planned out as far as that point.
babaga: I'd honestly forgotten about the 'adjusted prices' for Aerith's flowers. I tend to avoid that area nowadays in my playthroughs, it bothers me... suffice it to say that I have a problem in general with the idea of brothels, more particularly with ones that are run by people like Corneo. Sex work is one thing. Probable slavery is another.

I think that's all for now. Anyways, enjoy!

Chapter Seven

In The Beginning

[ ν ] - εγλ 0007, December 9

It was early evening. Aerith had packed up a number of flowers, and placed them in her basket. "That should be everything I need," she said to Ranma and Elmyra as she slung her staff behind her. "I'll probably be back late, so don't wait up."

Ranma was still doubtful. "Ya sure you don't want me to come along?" he offered.

Aerith shook her head. "People see a flower girl with a personal bodyguard, and they'll assume something's fishy," she replied. "Besides, that's not the only stop I need to make tonight, and I'm going to need to be alone for that, too. I know you agreed to protect me, but there are a few things that a girl needs to take care of herself."

Ranma was not convinced, but nodded his agreement. "Stay safe then," he said, as Aerith stepped out the front door. He turned in his chair and went back to work on the shock baton he had taken from Reno, trying to see if he could modify it.

Elmyra brought a bowl of soup to the table. "Are you going to be okay, dear?" she asked.

He nodded, paused, shook his head, paused again, and shrugged. "I'm pretty sure Aerith will be okay," Ranma answered after a long delay. "Even without my training, she's survived a long time here. I just don't like feeling useless. Like I said, fightin' is one of the few things I'm any good at."

Elmyra nodded, and gave him a gentle hug. "For what it's worth, Ranma, you're far from useless. And Aerith does one of these trips around this time of year, every year." She let out a sigh. "She won't even let me go with her, so don't feel bad about it."

Ranma considered that in silence for a long moment. "I don't want to pry…" he began.

"Yes you do," Elmyra countered, a sly smile on her face. "And I don't blame you. You're here in a place you don't know, trying to get home, and the one person who's been kind to you so far is keeping a secret. I'd want to know too."

Ranma was more than a little surprised at that. "Why would you tell me all this…" he started to say, and then it clicked. "You know."

"I know," Elmyra confirmed.

Ranma smirked. "Then I'm definitely not gonna pry," he replied. "If you or she tell me, that's your business. But you two haven't pushed into my personal stuff, and I'm gonna respect that."

Elmyra smiled, and wandered off to busy herself in the kitchen. Ranma stared after her in silence for a long moment, then shrugged and returned his attention to the work bench, carefully dismantling the shock baton.

-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-

"Hi, mom."

Aerith stood at the foot of the steps leading up to the platform of the Sector 7 train station, flower basket in hand and her head bowed. "One more year… and I still miss you." She set down her basket, and pulled out a dried long-stem rose, with a fresh yellow flower wrapped carefully around the stem. She knelt solemnly, and set the two flowers down on the first step. She clasped her hands together, offering a quiet prayer, and for a rare few moments, in Sector 7, there was peace. She bowed her head, stood back up, and dusted off the hem of her dress.

"Most of the year went by… pretty much the same way it usually does," she said quietly. "Been keeping out of Shinra's hands, growing flowers, and… talking. Something kind of unexpected happened a couple weeks ago… this boy showed up from out of nowhere, and from what he's been saying, he's from another planet." Aerith shuffled her feet uncertainly. "And I think I believe him, there's so much that's different between what he knows and what we all take for granted."

Aerith gently spun about in place as she spoke. "He's been teaching me a few things about staff fighting… and somehow he knows about… talking," she continued after pausing to glance around her. "He calls it something else, but it seems that even ordinary people in his world can learn to do it with enough effort. He can also do things with it that I didn't know were possible, and he's started teaching me some of those things.

"I wonder if you knew about these things," Aerith whispered. "Or if you would have been just as amazed as I was. The trouble with being the last of anything… nobody to learn from, and nobody to teach. But I think I'm getting by. I think…"

Aerith paused, trailing off. She felt… something familiar, from a long way off. "I think I have to get going, Mom…" she said, her tone a little more cheerful. "I'm not sure I'm ready to tell him about you… about us… but maybe soon."

She smiled, bent down to pick up her basket, and walked away to the north. In the pale light, for just a moment, the two flowers she had set on the step glowed softly, and then it was gone.

-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-

Ranma looked over the disassembled pieces of hardware. "I guess it's this thing," he said dubiously. "Wouldn't have guessed it could do that." He gently took the mako battery out of the handle, then began considering his options as he looked it over.

Elmyra was peeking over his shoulder every so often. "So, what is it you're doing?" she asked, curious.

Ranma smiled, but kept his gaze focused firmly on the baton's inner workings. "I did a little readin' in the library last week, about mako, and about what it can do," he answered slowly, fiddling with a delicate part. "My world has something similar to this… we call it nuclear energy. But even taking a grain of salt with Shinra's public books on everything it can do... I think there's more to it." He carefully removed another connector, and examined it studiously.

Elmyra looked concerned. "Should you be doing that in here?"

Ranma shrugged. "I won't say it's safe, but I don't think it's going to explode or anythin'. I just… I learned a long time ago to trust my gut." He took a pair of tweezers and tugged firmly on a small protuberance. It remained in place, which Ranma had expected, but which was still annoying to him. "An' my gut has some words about this," he finished ominously, taking a small screwdriver and carefully inserting it between two halves of the outer shell. "Elmyra, could I ask a quick favor?"

"Hmm?" Elmyra stepped forward for a moment. "What is it, dear?"

Ranma was focused on the circuitry in front of him. "Could I ask you for a dish that you wouldn't mind never using again?"

Elmyra hesitated for a moment, before moving quickly to the kitchen and back again, having brought an old earthenware bowl with a slightly cracked glazing. Ranma nodded towards the worktable he was at, and Elmyra set it down cautiously. "Can you tell me about it?"

Ranma blinked for a moment, considering his words carefully. "I know it sounds nuts, but I don't know how else to say this," he said slowly, tilting the battery back and forth, watching the fluid mixture inside slosh gently through the narrow glass panel set in its side. "If I didn't know better, I'd say that there's some kind of... liquefied chi energy inside this thing."

Before either of them could say another word, there was the sound of an earth-shattering blast in the far distance. A moment later, the lights flickered once, and then everything went dark.

-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-

Five minutes previously…

Aerith was sitting near the old theater in Sector 8, which had been shut down by the owner only last year. The outside was still in decent shape, but a couple of families were now using it as a halfway house, and most of the doors were boarded shut. Regardless, they had purchased a number of her flowers, and had mostly been polite to her today.

She had been confused when the voice of the Planet mentioned that she should come by here. It was well out of her way, it was further than she normally went on her own, and she didn't actually know anyone in Sector 8. Despite that, she trusted that voice, and even if it was frequently difficult to understand, it had yet to put her in any real danger.

Aerith noticed the exposed mako vent in the alleyway next to the theater. She had mentioned it to the occupants, but they said it wasn't a problem. She hadn't told them about the voice of the Planet or how it was louder when she was near to a source of mako. This close to the reactors, it always sounded like it was screaming. She tried to stay away from them for that reason.

There was a sense of wrong in the air around her. That was all the warning she got before an air-ripping explosion sounded in the distance above her. She saw a shockwave of fire ejected from the middle of the No. 1 reactor, and ducked quickly back into the theater as wreckage and flames rained down from above. The lights flickered once, twice, and were gone.

-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-

Power returned to the Gainsborough household less than a minute afterwards, the city's redundancies rerouting from the closer reactor. Ranma was already outside, trying to find a good view point to get an idea of what the damage was. "Kami, what in the world…" he swore under his breath as he vaulted to the top of the house.

As he reached the upper roof, he was able to peek through the parts of the Sector 6 plate that were still under construction, and get a view of some of the upper plate, as well as the distant horizon, while the sun was out. He noticed a light in the distance that seemed unusual. As his eyes focused across the distance, he realized exactly what it was.

"Elmyra!" he shouted down from the rooftop before leaping back down to the ground. "One of the reactors is on fire!"

Elmyra looked like the bottom fell out of her world. "Oh dear goddess, no," she whispered. "Aerith! Where is she?"

Ranma gritted his teeth. "I'll find her! You stay here in case she gets back before me."

"You want me to stay here when a reactor is on fire?" Elmyra shouted hysterically.

"Calm down," Ranma said, putting his hands on her shoulders. "It's the north reactor, number 1. That's a long way from here. If you run off into the night, with everyone else already in a panic, you could get hurt or worse, and we might not be able to find you." Ranma tried a smile. "If there's any evacuation order, go with that, but otherwise stay here and keep yourself safe."

Hearing the wisdom in his words, Elmyra nodded. Her face was pale and she was already close to tears, but she ducked back into the house and closed the door behind her. Ranma took off running.

-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-

It took forty five minutes of dashing through the rough-marked roads, but Ranma was certain he was going the right way now. He was near the border of Wall Market and Sector 7, a small park to his back and a sizable neighborhood in the distance. Aerith's beacon of chi was somewhere nearby, but with everyone running around in a panic, it was hard to get a fix on her through all the chaos. Privately, he was suddenly glad that he had told Elmyra to stay put.

"Ranma!" he heard a voice call out. He stopped and glanced around, then spotted Aerith in the distance. She looked to be safe. Ranma smiled and hopped down from the rooftop he had been standing on, landing on a pipe running between two buildings halfway up.

Which promptly gave way as soon as his full weight was upon it, dropping Ranma unceremoniously to the ground below, and releasing a torrent of cold water over his head.

"I hate my life," Ranma said flatly. She stood up, shook the excess water free from her hair, and walked the rest of the way to meet Aerith.

Aerith, for her part, looked genuinely concerned. "Are you all right?" she asked Ranma.

Ranma nodded. "I'll be fine," she said. "We saw the fire. Are you all right?"

Aerith nodded slowly. "I think so…" she said. "Scared me half to death though. After the explosion there was this big gust of wind and it nearly knocked me flat."

Ranma stopped short at that. In terrain like this, she realized that Aerith must have been pretty close to the reactor when it went off to feel the shockwave. "If you say so," she said, but didn't press the issue. "We should get back to your house, Elmyra is worried sick. I had to tell her to stay put so she wouldn't get caught up in..." she gestured vaguely around them, "...well, all of this."

Aerith smiled. "You probably don't think that's much, but… thank you for watching out for her," she said.

Ranma grinned. "Hey, she's kinda my mom too while I'm here," she replied. "Of course I'm gonna put my foot down to keep her safe. You too, if I can help it."

Aerith stopped suddenly, still smiling, but her eyes had misted over. "Ranma…" she whispered. Ranma stopped and looked back at her. "You are far better than you think you are."

Ranma smiled, but shrugged. "Let's get back there then."

-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-

The next morning, the television networks had dedicated analysis of the explosion at the No. 1 Reactor. There was discussion about a group of terrorists calling themselves "AVALANCHE" and how they had brutally murdered their way through civilians and troopers alike. Ranma knew a propaganda broadcast when he heard it, but there was enough feeling of truth in there to make it difficult to sort it out.

It seemed that Elmyra and Aerith were used to it too, because after five minutes they had muted the talking head on the news broadcast and were discussing amongst themselves the most likely explanations. On the other hand, the explanations that Aerith and Elmyra came up with included such possibilities as an ancient tribe of space-faring humans, a traveling swordsman with a time machine, and something about a boy with a sword in the shape of a key and his animal companions. Ranma honestly thought it was possible that the media here was weirder than some of the stuff back in Japan.

Ranma had decided to remain as a girl for a little bit, mostly so she wouldn't further impose on the hot water limitations of the house, and partly so that she could take a look around and get a better idea of the damage. Despite her feelings overall, she recognized that her female form held certain advantages, not the least of which was speed and being able to fit into smaller spaces. Usually. As long as her boobs didn't get in the way, at least.

However, by the time she got to Sector 8, everything close to the No. 1 Reactor had been cordoned off for almost a kilometer in every direction. Shinra's troops were everywhere, along with several mecha-looking guards, and she didn't feel it was worth the effort to push past them. After wandering about for a bit, she returned to Aerith's house, not having accomplished much in the early morning.

When she returned, she noticed the battery she had been working on from the previous night, still laying on the workbench she had set up. She focused on it for a moment, trying to recall her disrupted train of thought. After staring at it for a full minute, she couldn't recall why she had been doing anything with it, and decided to leave it for now. "I'll have to put that thing back together later on," she muttered to herself. After a moment, she called out, "Aerith! Time to train!"

"Yes, sensei! I'll be down in a minute!" Aerith called down from above.

Ranma stepped back out to the front yard. The mako battery and the disassembled shock rod lay forgotten on the table.

-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-=x=-

It was just past lunch time, and Ranma and Aerith had just left the house to head to the church. "What were you working on there, anyway?" Aerith asked.

"Huh?" Ranma was briefly confused. "Oh, that. Honestly, I can't remember. Some weird idea I had about the mako battery, but with all the mess going on from last night I don't remember what I was thinking about."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Aerith responded, "I didn't mean to cause that much trouble."

"Nah, nah," Ranma waved off the apology. "Wasn't your fault. Lost my train of thought when I heard the explosion. If it was important, I'm sure it'll come back ta me later."

Aerith nodded, and they continued walking in relative silence, Aerith still practicing the last maneuver from their morning training session. Ranma held a Cure materia orb in her pocket, occasionally grasping it and pushing a small amount of her energy into it, getting herself used to the threshold needed to activate it. They were just past the junkyard when there was a dull echoing crack from somewhere above.

"What was that?" Aerith wondered, looking up.

Ranma's reaction was faster, but even she couldn't tell what was going on at this distance. It sounded like a small explosion, not nearly as large as the one that took out the distant reactor the previous night. Then she saw the movement. A steel platform maybe five meters across was sailing down from somewhere far above. There was a crash and the sound of metal collapsing under its own weight as it collided with the ground somewhere in the distance.

"That… can't be... the church…?" Aerith gasped.

A few moments later, there was another colossal burst of fire, the sudden darkness even at midday as the lights below the plate extinguished, and the screams of civilians as they scattered to the wind.

And in the distance, a man with blonde hair was falling from the plate.

A/N: I swear to any ten gods you care to name, when I first started writing this, I did not plan for us to join up with the main story on chapter seven. I will however claim serendipity, and leave it at that.

Ifalna's death was not given a specific date in any official material that I could find. Considering that Sector 8 is nearly the opposite side of the city from where Aerith lives, I decided that it was in early December, which would give Aerith a reason to go out that far in the first place during such a cold time of the year.

Ranma's insistence that Elmyra stays put is actually pretty reasonable. The explosion, while significant, is a long way off. People can get pretty stupid if they're panicked, running around and pushing each other to the ground. An evacuation order would presumably have set instructions and a location to move to for anyone involved, and thus if Ranma and Aerith came back and the area was evacuated, they could find out where to go. If Elmyra ran off on her own, she'd end up just putting herself in danger as well as Aerith. That's my logic, anyway.

Hope you like it! Comments and feedback welcome, as always.