her story

Aerith was born on the Northern Continent in the Icicle Inn to her mother Ifalna, who was Cetra, and her father Professor Gast, who was an ex-Shinra scientist. Aerith was greatly loved and cherished by her parents. Though they were worried that one day Shinra would find them hiding out (to find more out about why Gast left Shinra, read up on The Jenova Project). When they did, they threatened the family and then mercilessly killed Gast and destroyed their home. Fortunately, Ifalna escaped with Aerith and travelled to Midgar. Now the time from when they left the Icicle Inn, Aerith was only a few weeks old, and when you see them in Midgar, she is about 6 or 7. So, quite a bit of time passed in between. In that time, Ifalna became very sick from unknown causes, and just as they made it to the Slums train station, Ifalna collapsed. This is when Elmyra Gainsborough came along looking for her husband who was fighting as war in Wutai. When she came, she found Aerith by her mother's side. Ifalna asked Elmyra to take care of her special child. Elmyra accepted, and took Aerith into her home.

For many years, Elmyra witnessed Aerith become and great and wonderful, yet mysterious young girl. Aerith was not like any other girl. She often claimed that she could communicate with the planet and also the dead. It was hard to Elmyra to believe something like this, but when Aerith came to her one day and said that her husband would never be coming back from Wutai because he had already moved on, she was a believer. Right from the beginning, people like the Turks were always trying to take Aerith away because of her special gift. They wanted to do experiments on her because she was the last living Cetra (or half-Cetra, at least). Whenever they came, Aerith would deny that she had any special powers whatsoever and run off. This is how her life was for the next few years, always worried that someone was going to take her away. I believe she sought solitude within her small church. It was safe there, and it was a place where she could pray and just be with herself.

When Aerith first met Cloud, it was on the streets where she asked him if he wanted to buy a flower for 1gil. After he accepted the flower, he told her to hurry on home because a Mako reactor had just exploded. Their second meeting was in the church, when Cloud fell through the roof and they befriended each other. Aerith asked him if he could be her bodyguard and take her home, and he did so. When they finally got to her house, Cloud stayed for a night and then made to leave, but Aerith caught up with him and asked if she could go along to help him rescue Tifa. Cloud reluctantly agreed for her to come along, and they made their way to the Wallmarket. After a quick rescue and a very interesting meeting with Tifa, they escaped to the sewers and tried to get back to 7th Heaven (Tifa's Bar) but got sidetracked because Shinra was attempting to blow up another reactor. After all this fighting and craziness, Aerith was kidnapped by Shinra and taken to their headquarters.

Cloud and everyone else was determined to save her, so they fought their way through the Shinra bulding and saved her from being attacked by Red IIIX (who wasn't actually trying to attack her).

A lot was found out when they were at Shinra. They wanted to breed Aerith and Red IIIX together because they were both the last of their race, and create some new super race of some sort. Also, they found Jenova'a body in a tank (ahem, without a head) and found out that Sephiroth was on the loose again, now killing people. This is what started their big journey across the world trying to keep on his tail and figure out what his motives were. What they found out was that Sephiroth was trying to get something called "Black Materia" in which he wanted to summon Meteor and destroy the whole world. Yikes, angry guy, eh?

With this knowledge, they tried to stop him at the Temple of the Ancients, but failed miserably. Cloud was being controlled by Sephiroth and he started to attack Aerith. He then fell unconscious and dreamt of Aerith. It took place in the Sleeping Forest, where she promised that she would be back when it was all over, and that she would deal with Sephiroth. Of course Cloud and the others went after her, but they were too late. When they arrived in the Forgotten City, they found Aerith praying. As Cloud approached her up on the alter, something was controlling him. He took out his sword and made strike, but got a hold of himself. In the fmv, Aerith looked up at him and smiled. Just smiled. It was the last time she had ever smiled at him. Sephiroth came from above and stabbed her form behind with his sword and she died almost instantly, with her White Materia falling from her hair and into the calm water below. It was said that her hope was to call upon Holy to stop Meteor from coming. In the end, Holy did come, but Holy wasn't enough. It was the mighty Lifestream - the Lifestream that saved the world. Aerith was apart of that Lifestream, and right at the end her face appears on the screen and it ends.

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