Standard Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy, Green Lantern, or any of their related characters and concepts. This is a work of fan fiction.

"Courage To Change The Things You Can"

Chapter 37: "In The End Is The Beginning"

=== Begin Third-Person P.O.V: Tseng ===

Approaching from the north, Tseng and Elena arrived at Knowlespole just a few hours ahead of us. They explored quickly and located the entrance to the underground. By the time Avalanche arrived and descended the great crystal stairway the two Turks were already well concealed behind a low dividing wall on the far side from the entry.

"Just like we were told." Elena whispered.

"Yes… Though now I find myself torn. I'm going to go along with the plan but it doesn't quite sit right to stand by and allow something bad to happen when we're here and could stop it."

"Then why don't we write our own ending to this?"

Tseng sighed. Elena was smart, she had potential, but she so often missed the bigger picture. "Unlike the Guardian, we cannot see the future. This is about more than saving Aeris… It is about saving her in order to save us all. If allowing events to proceed unhindered is the only way to insure that…"

"…Then we go along no matter how much we hate it." Elena finished, seeing Tseng's point. "Alright… …Tseng?""

"Yes?"

"I have to ask, why are we trusting this Ganthet so readily? It's not really like us."

"No, it's not." Tseng admitted. "I'm calling it a calculated risk. If what he told us is true, then we need to go along with him. If he's lying, we need to be in a position to find that out. Either way, we should go with it for now."

Elena nodded. "Makes sense. So have you decided where we're going to take her?"

"Yes, in fact." Tseng replied. "There's only one place in the world where I would trust a hospital staff to not contact Shinra as soon as they found out who and what their patient is: Wutai."

"Long trip from here."

"We can stop at Icicle Lodge on the way if needed."

Satisfied with Tseng's answers, Elena said no more. Together, they watched as the events played out, Aeris praying on the altar, Cloud's breakdown, Sephiroth's attack and my attempts to stop him.

"When do we move?" Elena whispered.

"Be ready… We're supposed to go while everyone else is distracted."

Across the way, Sephiroth finished his gloating and flew away into the sky. A dark object fell, and exploded out into the second Jenova monster, which immediately took Avalanche's full attention. "I doubt we're going to get a better distraction than that." Tseng said. "Let's do this."

Moving swiftly and quietly, careful to avoid notice by either Avalanche or Jenova, the Turks slipped in and gently lifted Aeris, carrying her to an out of sight location. "She's unconscious." Elena said as they laid her down, "But I've got a faint pulse."

"The wound is serious." Tseng noted. "But it seems her protector did well, Sephiroth missed everything vital, though not by much." He cast Cure III twice. "Better… But I'm in no shape to cast much right now."

"Moving her further is risky." Elena said.

"Very risky. It can't be helped. Let's get out of here."

Working together, they cautiously carried Aeris the long way around behind where the battle was still raging and up the long stairway. The entire way up, Tseng feared that someone would look up and see them, but no one did and he sighed with relief at the top, then pulled out his phone and called for pickup. The helicopter came shortly afterwards.

"Wutai." Tseng told the pilot once they were aboard. "And make it fast…"

OOOOOOO

=== Begin Third-Person P.O.V: Yuffie ===

Ninja don't cry. Even regular ninja don't cry, so certainly that had to go double for the greatest ninja of all. At least, that's what Yuffie kept telling herself as she struggled against the tears that threatened to burst loose. It was a losing battle. The sad truth was that, for all of her bluster and determination, for all of her knowledge of the horrors of battle and how quickly things could go wrong, she had never expected it to happen to anyone on her side of things.

But now Aeris was on the ground, I had vanished in front of her very eyes, and another Jenova creature was on the loose, and seemingly stronger than the first one. In a funny way, she had to admit that the monster was doing her a favor by giving her something else to focus on. Drawing her giant shuriken, Yuffie considered summoning Leviathan again, but then thought otherwise. She needed to be active herself, not just standing back watching someone else fight for her. With a loud battle cry, she leapt into the fray…

OOOOOOO

Immediately after Jenova's second form was beaten, everyone rushed to where Aeris had been, but of course she was gone. "This is the right spot isn't it?" Yuffie asked. "I mean, look, it's gotta be the right spot, there's still blood on the ground."

"This is right… But where did she go?" Tifa asked.

"She cannot have gotten up and moved after such a wound." Vincent said.

Barrett agreed, "No. And besides, if she had there'd be a trail in the blood wouldn't there?"

"Not to mention, that Christian also vanished. Before our very eyes, in point of fact." Red said.

"Then what happened here?" Tifa asked.

Cloud looked over to Red. "Can you get a scent?" he asked.

"No… The blood scent is too strong to detect anything else."

"I guess…" Yuffie started to say, but stopped before saying anymore.

"You guess what lass?" Cait asked. "Don't be shy if you've got an idea."

"Well… It doesn't explain Christian disappearing, but maybe, I hate to say it, but maybe she wasn't just hurt… Maybe Aer died, and her body was taken into the lifestream. I mean, I know that's not how it works normally but she's half-Cetra. It could be different for them."

"Plausible." Red agreed, nodding.

"So what do we do?" Cid asked.

Cloud stood up straighter and said "Everyone… Please listen to me. I don't know what's going on with me. But it's obvious there's something. I should quit this journey, get away from you all, but I just can't do that now. Sephiroth has the power to destroy the planet, and we don't know if Aeris finished with Holy before… We need to keep moving."

Barrett objected. "But what about Aeris? And Christian? We got a mystery here Spiky, an' I don't like leavin' a mystery at our back."

Nodding, Cloud said "I understand. But there's nothing for us to do here. No way to solve this mystery." He turned and started to walk away, then stopped and looked to Red. "Still… Red, are you carrying one of Aer's old staffs?"

"Here." Red answered, producing a staff from his mystery storehouse.

Cloud took the staff and drove it into the ground upright. "There. If she's alive somehow, it's here for her. And if she's dead, as I think she must be, it's here as a grave marker." Cloud headed up the stairs, and the rest of the team followed…

OOOOOOO

=== Begin Third-Person P.O.V: Aeris ===

Aeris awoke for the first time some three weeks later. She recognized her surroundings as a hospital room, but was otherwise confused at first regarding how she had gotten there. It took until the following day for all of her memory to come back, and even then she would never remember the actual moment of the attack. Doctors and nurses came and went, and she learned from them how long she had been in their care, but not who had delivered her there.

"I'm sorry miss, but I'm not at liberty to say who bought you in." A plump elderly nurse answered when Aeris asked after it.

"Alright… You say three weeks I've been here?"

"Yes ma'am. And let me tell you, you're lucky to have been here at all. Whatever you ran into, it missed your heart by half an inch and a major artery to the other side by a quarter-inch. I know you've gotta be hurtin' still, but count your blessings dear."

"I am." Aeris smiled weakly. While the nurse went about taking readings from the various machines, Aeris focused her mind and tried to feel the planet's thoughts. Holy was active, that she could tell, but there was no sense of anything else. "Nurse?" She asked, "Has anything else big happened while I've been out?"

"Big like what dear?"

"Oh, I don't know… Big monsters running around, giant meteors in the sky?"

The nurse gave her a funny look, but said "You're still out of it aren't you? No worries, nothing like that I'm happy to say." Finishing her work, the nurse excused herself and left.

Alone, Aeris took the time to think. "Three weeks, no meteor yet… It can't be much longer though… I hope everyone's still okay. Nothing I can do about that for now though. As much as I hate it, the only thing I can do anything about right now is myself. The sooner I'm well, the sooner I'll be able to go to Christian. Maybe together we can do something…" She drifted back to sleep.

OOOOOOO

Over the next few weeks, Aeris gradually improved. The medical staff moved her to a private room, and started physical therapy soon after. Though keeping busy, she was still worried about everyone, plus distracted by the mystery of why Meteor still hadn't appeared.

Then, in the middle of the night some three months after Knowlespole, Aeris awoke suddenly. Something was terribly wrong. The voice of the Planet was screaming loudly, the lifestream in turmoil. Throwing off her covers, Aeris rushed to the nearest window as quickly as she could manage and flung open the curtains. The usually black night-sky shimmered with crimson light, and high over the southern horizon she could just make out the dark form of the gigantic space rock now approaching Gaia.

"Holy…." She swore softly. "How is anything I did supposed to stop that?"

From behind, Aeris heard an unexpected answer; "All you did was, so to speak, 'uncork the bottle.' Gaia and I will handle the rest."

Aeris turned to face the speaker. "Lady Minerva."

"Greetings once more, Daughter of Ifalna." Minerva replied. "I come bearing news. Your recovery is complete enough to leave this place. And none to soon. Sephiroth has learned, somehow, that you yet live. Even now one of his clones comes to rectify the situation."

"What do we do?" Aeris asked.

"You must go to where you will be safe. As for the people here, they'll be safe enough once he senses you've gone. As for where you must go, I can think of no better choice than to reunite you with your husband."

But he's on his own world again, right? And Ganthet said his memory would be messed up…"

"Yes." Minerva nodded. "You will need to help him…" Reaching under her cape, Minerva produced a long cylinder. "I bring you a gift. This is the Heart of Gaia." Minerva pressed a trigger on the cylinder, which suddenly expanded into a six foot long staff. Two materia crystals shone in the weapon's many slots. One was a green gem Aeris didn't recognize. The other…

"Is that the White Materia!?" Aeris exclaimed. "I thought it was lost!"

"I recovered it. It can safely go with you, it's presence on Gaia is not needed now that Holy is active. And the nature of the Heart is such that you will be able to channel the White Materia's power for minor light-elemental spells."

"Minerva, thank you…" Aeris said, reaching out to take the staff. "Although, how will I get to Christian's world?"

"The second gem is a Transit Materia. It's power will take you to whatever world you need to reach. Now time is short, so let me finish your instruction so that you can be on your way…"

OOOOOOO

Author's Notes: This marks the end of this chapter, but not the story. Aeris and Christian are reunited in the short story 'Stranger Highways.' It's already published, though in a couple of weeks I'll be releasing an expanded and updated version that takes some things from this story into account better than the original does. After that, they'll be returning to Gaia for the second half of the adventure in the upcoming tale "Insert Disk Two." Look for it soon!