PROLOGUE


			I

The house looked eerie.

At least, that was how she saw it.  She paced in little circles out on the
driveway pondering whether to step onto the porch and ring the bell or
not.  The small, straw-woven basket swayed under her arm as she walked
timidly, chewing her lower lip in worry and furrowing those lean eyebrows
ever so slightly into her beautiful, pale face.  

She did not know how long she had been standing there.

With an indecisive look her eyes wandered and traveled along the curvy
green vines that had crawled up the crumbling paint and formed giant,
greenish cobwebs onto those dusty gray walls that once were white.  She
walked around to see the other side of the old mansion and tried hard to
tear her gaze away from the deformed tree - the singular, overly-large
branch that plastered itself against the windows on the second floor, and
that slanted, rotting stem that seemed about to fall and crash into the
house any minute.  Even in the midst of a mid-August day when the sun took
its sweet time scorching the ground down here in the South and turning
everything into a melting wax effigy of a summer, the house in front of
her still emitted a strange feel of cold, damp darkness that she could
almost... taste.  

Yup, she said to herself, this is definitely creepy.  

But then again, she had no choice.  Every single time they did a sale, she
always ended up having the most cookies left in the end.  Although nobody
ever said anything about her poor record, she felt bad nevertheless and
therefore was determined to finish selling her basketful this time around
at any cost.  That was actually why she was here now, five miles away from
her own not-too-philanthropic neighborhood and in the middle of nowhere,
trying her damned best at selling these girl-scout cookies.  

Gathering what courage she had, she held her light, angular chin high,
straightening the wrinkles on her sleeves and her knee-length skirt and
dusting off her hair, she marched up to the porch like a woman on a
mission and firmly pressed the doorbell.  

Hopefully someone answers soon, she thought as she lifted her free hand to
her forehead, wiping off a few beads of sweat.  I don't want to miss
Sailor Moon this week.


			II

To sum up the painfully long into the mercifully short, Vinny Vampherlive
was having a bad day.  

Actually, he had been having a bad day everyday since he retired from the
CIA three years ago.  Immediately after his retirement, his wife ran away
with some other guy and didn't even bother filing a divorce.  Said
something to the effect that it was a payback for all those years in the
service when he's neglected her because of his work.  

In truth, Vinny loved his wife very much.  Like many other dumped men, he
often drank himself to a half-comatose state, seeking to relieve the pain
in his heart.  It was not until a year ago that he had found a rekindled
love - the NRA.

The National Rifle Association had literally pulled him out of his
two-year shock, and restored in him the ability to function like a human
being once more.  Vinny had always been obsessed with firearms, although
he wouldn't admit it and even consciously suppressed himself from using a
gun unless he absolutely had to, as it would make his professional career
look very unprofessional otherwise.  However, with the NRA he finally
found an outlet to release himself and openly stock and treasure his guns
as much as he wished.  In fact, he polished each piece on his rack daily
ever since, caressing the cold, steel barrels like a woman's skin and
loving the surge of raw power that he felt whenever he held a gun in his
hands.  For a while, life for Vinny was passably good.

Things turned ugly when the congress, due to a rapid rise in
assault-related crimes all over the country, passed a resolution that
severely limited the NRA and its members from holding an excessive amount
of small-weaponry in their houses.  The slogan they used was very simple,
"You have a right to bear arms," the spokesman of the House intoned in a
news conference, "just not more than what your hands can carry."

In short, this translated to Vinny having to sell off every one of his
beloved collections except for the two trusty shotguns that he treasured
above all.  And no, he was not happy about it.  Deprived of his love for
the second time in his life, Vinny resumed his drinking and left
everything else, including his house, in shambles.  He himself had long
realized what a mess he's become and, prophesizing an early death for
himself, he even bought some coarse materials and made a coffin that he
stored down in the basement, very sure that it would come in handy
sometime in the near future.

Then, the unthinkable thing happened today.  

His long companion for eleven long years.  His trusted friend who stayed
with him and endured all hardships when others abandoned him.  His pet
bat, Reeny Rude, died earlier this morning of old age.  

Vinny sat long in his chair after he buried RR in his backyard.  He wasn't
angry.  He wasn't sad or depressed.  He just... was.  Reeny Rude had been
the only tie left between him and this world that had seemingly deserted
him, and with this last bond severed, Vinny Vampherlive felt nothing
anymore.  It was as if there was a gaping hole somewhere inside his body,
and he was too tired to try patching it up any longer.  It took every
ounce of his energy to restrain himself from picking up one of the two
shotguns he's left with and blow his own brains out right here and now.
The only reason he didn't shoot himself yet was because he wanted to kill
that damned boy who drove the dumpster truck first for being so damned
late every single week, including today.  So he sat in his chair, seething
unholy rage at everything in general and especially at that dumpster-truck
boy whose absence was detaining Vinny from going to his own maker,
silently waiting to bestow this small farewell gift unto a world that had
been cruel to him all his life.

And then, of all the days in the world and for the first time in more
years than Vinny could remember, his doorbell rang.


			III

"Would you like to buy some girl-scout cookies?"  She was about to say in
the sweetest girl-scout-cookie-selling tone possible as the door swung
open, but stopped short at the word "buy" and gasped when she found
herself talking to the receiving end of a large, twin-barrel shotgun.  

"Yea?  What do you want?"  The dark-haired man behind the half-opened door
asked, his bloodshot eyes examining the uniform figure before him.  

Her pretty green eyes widened in fear.  Vaguely she seemed to recall to
have read in the newspaper a few weeks ago with some headline that ran
like "Girl Scout On Fundraising Sell Shot By Raving Maniac."  Even if she
hadn't read it somewhere before, she was positive that it would appear
very soon.  "Uh, uh," she stammered in shock, staring at the gun.  "N,
Nothing, sir, I'll just be going now.  Very sorry to bother you, yes,
really, I'm terribly sorry.  I promise you I won't ever show up again,
please, sir, have a very pleasant day," she said while edging a few steps
backwards quickly and almost tripped herself on the stairs as she did so.

"Wait!  I'm not done with you yet!  Why did you come here?"  The red
pupils that stared at her maliciously glimmered in a predatory fashion as
he spat the words out.  Oh no, I'm gonna die, she thought, I'm gonna get
blown into a thousand little bits and my dress is gonna be all bloody and
messy.  

"Please don't shoot me!  Please!"  She pleaded.  "I'll give you everything
I have but please just let me go!  Look, I can give you-" she frantically
began searching through her pockets and came up with... nothing here.
"some, um-" Nothing here either, save a few dollars of change.
"-girl-scout cookies?"  She offered hopefully.  "I'm sorry but I only have
two dollars with me and I need them to take the bus back home... but you
can have all the cookies.  They are very tasty, I'm sure you'll like them
if you just give it a try."  

"Wait, let me get this straight," the man seemed to lower his guard for
only a few seconds as confusion seeped into his voice.  "You're a
girl-scout, and you're here to sell me some cookies?"  She nodded.

"You mean, you're here to sell cookies?"  He repeated.  She nodded again.

"And you think that I would be interested in them?  You think that someone
whose wife ran away, who was forced to sell out his guns, someone whose
bat just died this morning, Someone Like Me, WOULD BE INTERESTED IN BUYING
YOUR GOD-DAMNED COOKIES?"  The man took a step toward her, cocking his
shotgun in one swift motion.  

She trembled.

"Get the hell outta my house now and take your damned cookies with you and
don't COME BACK OR ELSE I'LL SHOVE THIS GUN AND YOUR COOKIES UP YOUR
**********!"  He hollered in uncontrollable rage.  Thankfully, she covered
her ears with her palms in fear before she could make out what the raging
madman was actually yelling about.  

The poor girl fled in tears, making a beeline straight across the lawn
toward the street.  

"AND STAY OFF THE LAWN!"

She hopped over to the pavement instantly and continued scrambling down
the driveway, spilling cookies everywhere.

Out of the corner of his eyes Vinny saw the familiar green, juggernaut
shape that was the dumpster truck speedily hauling itself up the slope
from the other end of the street some fifty yards to the right.  For a
slight moment Vinny hesitated and wondered why the garbage truck was
driving in reverse this time, but then he pushed the thought away and
slowly took aim at the truck.  A tiny voice nagged at his subconscious and
warned him something about that girl who was currently making a blind dash
down the street while constantly turning her head back to check on him,
and about the truck that was quickly backing up from the other end of the
road.  

All of a sudden, an unreadable expression flickered across Vinny's face as
the realization of some impending calamity dawned upon him and temporarily
made him forget even his desire to kill.

"HEY!"  Vinny yelled at the top of his lungs at the retreating figure,
"WATCH OUT!"


			IV

It wasn't that Seth was lazy or tardy in nature.  Quite the opposite, in
fact, would have held true for him: Seth was just about the most dedicated
man ever lived.  He would do absolutely anything to get a job done.  And
he never complained.

Which would be one of the many reasons why he was now in all his glory -
complete with the cape and gloves and all the get-up, flickering aside a
stray long strand of silvery-white hair as his eyes narrowed in
anticipation like a soldier about to charge into the fray.

Then the green light flashed.

Seth promptly stepped on the gas pedal and, feeling the familiar trembles
and the infernal growl of an overtaxed engine, proceeded to steer the
green monstrosity that he currently sat in down the next block.

Many would wonder how on earth the great Seth Phiro had fallen to such
state as to humble himself by doing menial labors like collecting trash
for a remote town in the middle of God-knows-where, but the truth was very
simple: Seth had chosen it himself.

Make no mistake in thinking that he hadn't been successful at any of his
other careers.  He had been the best bodyguard one could ever wish for,
the most-famed actor in Hollywood, a most amazing pitcher, and simply the
greatest fireman ever lived.  He had saved countless lives while working
as a fireman, and his miraculous efficiency had been much publicized by
the media, who attributed it as a result for having a "seemingly-fireproof
hair and most definitely a fireproof cape."  

In fact, he was at the top of his field in every single one of his past
fifty-some different careers.  Business bloomed with every store he worked
for; lawsuits were won in his favor whenever he argued for a case... there
was no doubt that he would have been voted as the next President should he
cared to run a campaign.  It would not be far off the truth if one claims
that the whole nation was on a Seth Phiro high. 

Then why in the world did Seth keep switching jobs?  Perhaps one might
ask.  The answer was obvious; it's called "every pro has its con."  And
the con factor that came with his unparalleled beauty, grace, and
fire-immunity was this:

Girls.  Lots of them.  All packed with starry eyes and usually a slight
drool off one corner of their mouths.  They swarmed about him wherever he
went.  

At first, Seth didn't mind.  It was an attention that he didn't actively
seek for, although it never personally disturbed him either.  However,
they kept breaching security to find him and knelt in front of him
professing their love whenever they did find him, creating mass
human-roadblocks as a result.  Eventually Seth was forced to quit being a
bodyguard and went into acting.  And he quit that too, when he was
simultaneously awarded the Oscars for Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor,
and Best Director three years in a row when he only did a cameo as a
passer-by in a low-budget documentary film.  As for the fireman bit, it
was indisputable that he had single-handedly saved more lives than any ten
squadrons combined, but the national index for counts of arson had also
risen 500% during the two years when he served on the task force.  You had
no idea how many housewives set their own houses on fire while their
husbands were away...  Well, let's put it this way:  It caused quite a
stir when the First Lady, along with every female staff member in the
building, burned down the White House and sent a note demanding that Seth
Phiro and Seth Phiro alone flew to Washington this minute and rescue them
out, or they would all die waiting for him.  And so on, and so forth, Seth
drifted from one job to another, relentlessly hounded by packs of
ravenous, lovesick females everywhere.  Perhaps the only time when he had
personally been part of the reason for an early retirement was that single
season when he played for the Cardinals: The league could take his little
fixation on coloring his baseballs green, but they staunchly refused when
he insisted on using a twelve-foot-long bat.  

And that was basically why he was stuck now as perhaps the most beautiful
street-janitor in the history of mankind.  Need to find a new job again,
Seth noted to himself passively as he drove up toward Cemetery Drive.  Two
teenage girls had already discovered him here about half-an-hour ago and
had tried to jump into the pile of garbage on the back and then work their
way to the front to get to him.  He had narrowly escaped from having his
garbage truck hijacked both times by flooring the gas pedal before they
could put their hands on the truck, but if he had learned anything from
the past, he knew that those girls would not give up so easily.  More
likely than not, they would have been right on his tail this whole time.  

Just to prove his theory was correct, Seth turned his head and looked back
from the window.  Surely, he could vaguely discern two tiny figures slowly
gaining on him from the rear.  Time was running short, Seth realized.  He
needed to think of a way to track those two and make sure they wouldn't
jump onto the truck while he was distracted... and suddenly, he had an
idea.  The last house in the service area was that old mansion up at the
end of Cemetery Drive, and as far as he knew, nobody dared to go near the
place because they thought it was haunted... Immediately, Seth shifted the
gears and did a U-turn, then began driving the truck in reverse up
Cemetery Drive, figuring that it would be safe to do so and he could
monitor those two girls at the same time so that they wouldn't be able to
sneak up into the truck.  

Seth had so counted on the fact that there wouldn't be anybody running on
the street near where he was going that he didn't hit the brakes until he
heard the feminine scream coming from the back as he felt the rear bumper
hit something solid and soft, and realized that he shouldn't have done an
emergency break while driving in reverse because it would cause all the
garbage bags to topple back out of the truck.  

		x	x	x

She screamed when she suddenly felt a mind-jarring impact on her body that
sent her airborne.  She felt her body hit the ground and almost passed out
from the pain.  Dimly she thought she heard a harsh, grating sound like
someone applying an emergency break, but she couldn't be certain since
everything around her became a haze.  She struggled to see what was
happening around her, but the only thing she could make out were strange,
huge black bags descending down from the sky in waves toward her.  It must
be a dream, she thought, must be some weird dream like the ones she had a
few weeks ago.  She felt sleepy and slowly closed her eyes.  The last
thing she could sense was blackness... and a really, really bad stench.

Fourteen year-old Arisa Greensford had no idea what hit her.




[Standard Disclaimers]






ukulele studios
proudly presents




		Live and Let Die
		  (working title)

			- a semi-original fan-fiction
			  based on Final Fantasy VII




Chapter One: The Dangers of Being A Bubbly Salesgirl


			I

The mud-sodden road that girded the so-called market looked slightly less
worn today.  Perhaps it had to do with the light shower that sprinkled the
locale with hesitant, almost bashful raindrops again late last night - but
then again, perhaps not.  After all, Market Boulevard had been the only
name-worthy street in town back when Midgaria was still just called
Midgar, though even then it had never come close in scale to a real
boulevard in any sense of the word, no matter how one might look at it.
It was only fitting that the street, now mostly slushy dirt and muck and
hardly a speckle of gravel or tar, would look the way it did after a night
of that ever-so-annoying, ever-so-persistent drizzling.  

Of course, the buildings that leaned against the sides of the road - or at
least what was left of those buildings - had fared no better either. The
pedestrians who were busily scurrying by through either side of the
grime-filled tracks, however, would never bother to stop in mid-stride to
ponder just exactly what had happened to the once seedy, obscenely
prosperous smut-heaven of Wall Market, as doing so was an act of futility.
There hadn't been a public maintenance department... no, there hadn't even
been a city-planning department in Midgaria for the last twenty years, and
frankly no one was quite worked up enough to complain for a change from
the status quo.  

That was essentially why the plaza looked the way it did now.   

Half-collapsed structures groaned around the town in echo through yawning
holes that had once been shut off by glass windows as faded paint slowly
peeled themselves off the crumbling high walls to the ground below like a
mass, organized ritual suicide that had persisted daily over the last two
decades.  Rag-sewn canvas dangled, not unlike entrails from a disemboweled
enemy, over the stands and vendor carts beneath some broken neon tubes
that used to form legible signs.  Greased fumes smothered the surroundings
from oil lanterns hung onto streetlights that had never shed light -
according to the memories of the younger inhabitants here, who have been
mimicking against their will the image of hungry rodents trapped inside a
gigantic trash-bin for as long as they could remember.  In a sense, it was
almost as if the entire pathetic, helpless experience at surveying these
miserable establishments could be summed up and flawlessly represented by
a torn sign suspended high between two ancient, weather-beaten wooden
beams at the town's entrance, quietly announcing:

        			Welcome To
			   W A   L   M A R     T

A brown-haired young boy was standing under that sign, silently watching
the beams totter back and forth rhythmically at a sudden gust of wind.
Involuntarily, he drew up the hood from his small, smudgy overcoat with
one hand as he clenched reflexively at the hand holding him with the
other.  "Mom?"  Dull hazel eyes darted once to the right from under the
hood as he afforded his mother a timid, questioning glance.  "I'm cold,"
he pleaded.  

"Yes, dear, I know."  His mother sighed, still gazing at the road.  In
comparison, her simple dress was much more threadbare than what she donned
for the child.  "I just have to drop these batteries at the junk shop and
then we'll get back home.  Just stay put for a little longer and if I can
haggle a few more gils from that stingy old man at the store I'll even get
you something, how about that?"

"I guess so... hey, mom!  Can I get one of those?"  The sudden
enthusiastic lilt in the boy's tone stunned her slightly and caused her to
fix her attention onto where he had pointed.  The very notion that
something existed here could ever raise any noticeable sign of enthusiasm
from anyone was alien and absurd to her.

"But... honey, those things... they don't work."  The woman explained
patiently after she realized what her son had been talking about.  A tall,
young brunette wearing a tidy red and pink uniform dress loitered by the
old clothing store at a deliberate pace, apparently trying to sell some of
those Shinra fortune-telling cards in a hand-woven basket which she
carried in one arm.  It was all just a decrepit, inane idea thought up by
the Shinra revival movement as far as she was concerned; no cheap, lame,
glow-in-the-dark message card was ever going to cheer up them survivors in
the slums after the Meteor.  "But mom!" the little boy beside her
protested, tugging at her sleeves and wriggling his tiny body where he
stood, much like a gigantic little worm in untold agony.  It seemed to be
the favorite physical expression of objection among children, and an
ingenious one at that because the very act itself was such a pain to watch
that their accompanying adults would usually comply with their demands
immediately in hope to only make them stop twitching like that.

"I'm sorry, honey, but that's out of the question.  You don't buy what you
can't eat," she told him flat out.  She had built enough immunity against
the notorious Twitch of Compliance that she was able to resist giving in
on the first try.

"Please...?  I'll be real good from now, I promise..." The puppy eyes he
gave her were enough to melt iron. 

Realizing perfectly well that the boy wouldn't take 'no' as an answer and
would probably bug her for days on end about this afterwards, she sighed
and bit into her lower lip.  This was going to cost her weeks of work.
"All right, hon', but only this once and after we get back from the junk
store."

"Thanks mom you're the greatest."  The young boy bubbled as he pulled her
arm down to him and quickly kissed her cold cheeks.  "Let's go!"  He
immediately bounced up and down in joy and dragged her towards the
direction of the vendor, suddenly entirely unaffected by the chill in the
wind.  

"I said, AFTER we get back from the store!"  She drew her arm back along
with the boy reluctantly attached to it, and headed toward the other
direction in exasperation.  

			
			II

Again.

Sixteen year-old Ariel Garland stared down at herself in slight dismay.
She did her best to clean off her soiled dress with her hands, but all it
accomplished in the end was to smear mud over the areas of her blouse that
were originally untouched.  Watching the puddle of muck by the street,
then at the departing Chocobo wagon, and then the darkening sky, she
concluded that there was nothing to be liked about this weather
whatsoever.  Not one bit.

She refrained herself from muttering a string of not-nice-words with a
little effort; her shirt was damp with raindrops and clung to her skin in
a nasty, gooey way and what's worse was that no one was buying her cards
so naturally it wouldn't hurt to take a look -

Oh no.  She'd done it again.

Ariel caught herself glancing downward to her left guiltily again for the
third time, and immediately tore her gaze away.

C'mon, a petulant voice nagged in her mind, you know you wanted to take a
look.  What's the problem?

But... it's silly, she chided herself, hoping to gently squash the thought
that had been bothering her for the past few hours before it got out of
hand.  Ever since the little incident this morning, she had been troubled
by this pestering voice somewhere inside her head about sneaking a look at
one of those fortune cards.  While immersing in self-debate was as good a
way to pass idle time as anything else, she was beginning to tire and her
firm resolution was gradually worn down over time.

Aren't you in the least bit curious?  The other part of her insisted.
Don't you want to know?

She couldn't help but to take another peek at the basket resting on her
left arm.  

It really was silly, she told herself again.  In fact, it was completely
ludicrous, especially given the fact that she knew those things were fake,
and she knew that for a fact because she was currently selling them.  

>From what she was told, the idea for these Shinra fortune-telling cards
was originally conceived by one of the higher-up executives after the old
Midgar, along with the pizza platter it was served upon, was sucked into
the vortex of destructive magic when the planet confronted the Meteor.
After the entire Shinra building and the Sister Ray cannon had been torn
in the cyclone in a hideously-splattered-like-a-bug-in-a-blender sort of
way and flung across the Midgar sky in countless tiny sheets of metal
confetti, the surviving Shinra board member had decided that total
reconstruction was in order.  The decision, according to the campaign
flyers dropped from the air by the Highwind, was not so much a
reinstatement of a syndicate government, but rather a deed of necessity to
prevent the world from lapsing further into chaos and anarchy.  

In short, what it boiled down to was that someone with former connections
to Shinra was out to rebuild Midgar from ground zero, and since Shinra's
control over the world had been virtually erased, the cost of rebuilding
could only be afforded through various means of fund-raising activities.
And selling these fortune-telling cards was one of them.

Ariel knew exactly how these cards were made.  From what she was told,
they were formed by some sort of recycled metal scrap that had been
infused somehow by leftover Mako energy.  Obviously, the trace of energy
was so minute that all they could do was to emit a small amount of light
in the dark, illuminating pre-written messages of good fortune in the
process.  These messages, in turn, more or less went along the theme of
"tomorrow will be a better day" or "things are looking better and better
for you".  It was basically part of a plan by the new Shinra to boost the
morale for the survivors in the slums, and Ariel didn't really object to
telling a little superstitious white lie if it would help people cope with
their lives.  After all, she thought, if you keep hearing stuff like
"things are getting better" every single day, and you know deep down that
things couldn't possibly get any worse, wouldn't it be true either way
that things will actually start to look up?

To a small extent, the morale-boosting trick had worked.  As she slowly
wandered through various old sectors, Ariel had occasionally seen before
her very eyes glum looks of children and adults slowly replaced by
hesitant smiles, and lackluster strides growing slightly more confident as
time grew on.  And that made her tremendously happy, when she knew that
her hard work had finally bought a small degree of happiness into people's
lives.  

For the most part, though, things didn't change in the way she hoped they
would.  More often than not, she would encounter groups of people drifting
about aimlessly, lamenting as they rummaged through the ruins and the
surrounding grassland areas right outside the old gates looking for food.
It brought tears to her eyes whenever she thought about the majority of
the population who had been devastated to the point that they no longer
cared about anything, that they would only perform the most rudimentary
and necessary tasks in life for a bare-minimum level of subsistence.  

Unfortunately, she had hit another one of those towns last week.  She
shuddered at the thought that there were still two sectors that she hadn't
visited before, especially when rumors said that they were a little...
unstable.  Taking a brief survey at the scenes before her eyes and
reciting from her memory of the past week, Ariel knew that although this
particular sector had suffered far lighter damage as compared to the
others she'd seen before, the general attitude of the locals was one of
the worst.  Maybe it was because the area had not been demolished to the
point where it was inhabitable, but people here seemed to be content in
living their whole lives out in the junk-filled town without a change
while it could have been so much more.  Her shoulders drooped a little as
Ariel let out a small sigh.  It was really like trying to fill a general
depression and angst the size of the Northern Crater with a shovel; times
likes this just made her wonder if her work would ever truly pay off
someday and make everyone go on with their lives.  Seven days out on the
street with only one customer was a new record low for her, not to mention
a little embarrassing and out of place.  It almost made her feel like she
was selling charcoal in North Corel, or skin-whitening cream on the
beachside of Costa del Sol.  

Without meaning to, she tried to recall what happened earlier today when
she finally hit her first customer and more-or-less brought about the
self-questioning and reminiscing that she had been going through ever
since...

		x	x	x

"Would you like to buy a Shinra fortune-telling card?  It's only 100 gils
each."  With practiced ease, Ariel had addressed the pair before her in a
singsong voice.  She could tell that the lady in front of her was more
than disinclined and probably not at all interested at buying anything she
had to offer; the dull, barely tolerant glare from the woman's eyes spoke
volumes as she stood a few feet away.

"Yes," the middle-aged woman replied, "my son would like to buy one of
these... gadgets... please."  The strained tone of her voice clearly
indicated that she, on the other hand, would have absolutely nothing to do
with it.

"Here you go," Ariel cheerfully said to the little boy.  He was the first
customer she had seen for the entire week.  "Just hold the card in your
hand like this and it'll tell you your fortune."  Without tearing the
plastic wrap away, she held the two edges of the card gingerly in a quick
demonstration.

"Cool!"  The boy eagerly snatched the card from her fingers, took one
brief look at the front cover with a colorful picture of Cait Sith, the
Shinra mascot and at once started to experiment with the card like he was
taught, not in the least noticing his mother leading him away.  

Ariel let out a tiny smile at the corner of her lips.  She could already
guess what the little kid would see on his card.  However, her rueful
smile was broken when she heard someone calling out to her.

"Excuse me, miss?"  It was the mother, standing about thirty feet away
from her, who had paused suddenly and turned to her.  "Yes, ma'am, how may
I help you?"

"If you don't mind me saying this, don't you think there are better things
for a young lady like you to do than to spread this scam around all the
time?"  The question was brutal, direct, and unexpected to the point where
she could only stutter in response.  "Huh?"

"I mean, you and I both know very well that this thing doesn't really tell
your fortune, and although I don't see the point for you Shinra people to
keep on selling this stuff, I personally hate a hoax when I see one.  And
if what you're selling isn't a fake, why don't you try reading your own
fortune from one of those things yourself sometime?"  Without waiting for
a reply, she turned her head contemptuously and dragged her son off.

For a long time afterwards, Ariel could only stand still and feel the
burning flush in her cheeks rise even higher.

		x	x	x

The words had stung.  She could feel the heat on her face threaten to rise
again just by replaying the scene alone in her mind.  

Up until now, Ariel had always believed what she was doing was for a good
cause.  It had pained her to see the inhabitants around Midgaria roaming
about listlessly everyday, stripped of possession, family, or often even
the will to persevere.  And she had always wanted to help.

Oh, how she wanted to.

She had listened to countless stories recounted by her mother before,
stories about how the lands and the earth had been before the Meteor.
Things weren't perfect then; in fact, they were far from good.  But
whatever the conditions had been, they seemed worse now.  Ariel personally
would have chosen the old days when Shinra was in control rather than
having to see the old and young alike roaming about this filthy dump day
in and day out, again and again like scattered groups of mindless zombies.

That was what she had said to herself when she applied for the job a
little over a year ago.  And she had believed in it wholeheartedly.  She
had thought that more good would come to it for everyone to have something
to believe in, something to perhaps brighten their day... even though it
might not even be true.  

Now she wasn't so sure anymore.

Was she truly doing something horrible?  The lady's words that morning
made her feel like a petty scum, out to swindle what little money people
might have left and give them a false hope in return.  Was this what she
had truly been doing for the past year?  That very notion had shaken her
to the core.

A lone tear escaped and silently traveled down one side of her cheeks
before she could rein in her emotions, leaving a small, glistening trail
against the soft curves of her face.  She was hurt, and she was confused.
Her birthday was coming up in two months, and she had originally planned
on working overtime just to have enough savings to go celebrate for a day
or so.  Now... now she just wanted to run back home and get away from it
all, at least until she could calm down enough to reason out what she was
going to do.

Unable to cope with the onslaught of shame and doubt in her mind, she
clutched the basket tight against her waist and began to run.  Hoping to
leave before she could break down even further and cause a public
commotion, Ariel shut her eyes closed and made a blind dash towards the
town gates.

And promptly tripped herself over a small puddle of mud by her feet on her
first step.


			III

"DAMNED LIL' MUGGAS!  GIT YOUR ASSES BACK HERE!"  Barret Wallace hollered
at the fleeing carriage tearing its way down the street as he spurred on
his own steed, one gun-grafted hand dangled loosely against his side
suddenly flailing wildly in tune with an unexpected lurch from his saddle.  

The response he received was a shot too close to his liking from a pistol
up front, clipping away a few feathers and a leather strap on a side belt
as well.  The beast he rode upon nearly leapt five foot into the air at
the sudden twinge of pain.  "Shit."

The massive man spat out a string of curses into the wind, preparing to
charge up another gallop to close the distance.  The chase had raged
across the western ruins of Sector 7, and the collateral damage they
caused was more than he would like to think about.  G'thing the place's a
shithole already, Barret smiled a grim, taut smile, beads of sweat
dripping down from his brows; 'coz I dun wanna be ther' t'pay the damn
bills if it ain't.

Painful as it was to admit, this was one time he actually wouldn't mind
having some Shinra soldiers around to help out.  As it were, however, most
of the units had been disbanded within three months after Shinra's
collapse, and the ones that didn't were usually the farthest away from
Midgaria... and were reduced to mercenary thugs controlled by former
squadron leaders, out to terrorize the countryside for basic commodities.
Last time he heard, Vincent and Cid had just cleaned up a local rebel
militia unit near Rocket Town.

"Man, my back's killin' me," Barret muttered out loud, draping the bridle
in a loop over the gun barrel on his right arm as he freed his left hand
to rub off the soreness on his back.  "HEY YA LIL' PIECE OF SHIT, I SAID
STOP!"

He was ignored.

It was usually not a very common sight for a fifty-five year-old man, with
his short, flat stub of hair and trimmed beard graying, to drive a Chocobo
steed one-handed and engage on a mad shoot-and-run chase with some young
upstart teenagers; but this was Barret Wallace.  He was used to blowing
Mako reactors to smithereens on a four-man-mission at his prime, and he
was the one to score first blood against Hojo on top of the Shinra tower
twenty years ago.  Give him a target and enough lead; Barret was nigh
invincible.  Unfortunately, even he had his limits, and it was beginning
to show in the form of random gasps and huffs after five gruesome hours of
street dogfight, constantly ducking bullets and dodging grenades.  

A long chain of colorful expletives escaped his lips on instinct as the
retired veteran war hero swerved his massive body to one side and almost
lost his balance from avoiding a passing volley of fire.  The Chocobo
under him squawked loudly in protestation; the sudden shift in weight had
almost brought her down crashing into the road as well.  Reeve's gonna owe
me big this time, Barret thought, cursing all the while.  He was going to
take down that stupid "Snow Ball" gang even if it was the last thing he'd
ever do.

A small corner of his mind briefly recalled the meeting last evening he
had with the new Shinra chief executive.  Reeve had gone out of his way to
beg him to come lend his hand in solving the problem last week, and had
even prepared him a top-grade racing Chocobo with an Avalanche ribbon
banner tied onto the back of her tail for this mission.  It was
uncustomarily nice for him, and for one short moment Barret had suspected
some sort of ulterior motive at work.  The creator of Cait the Cat was
nothing but sly, and even though he had proved over the years that he had
indeed turned to the good side, Reeve was still able to pull some nasty
surprises on the rest of the team from time to time.  Cait had only
persuaded him to leave his home in Kalm and come to his office after
explaining that Shinra was very short on patrols and the Snow Ball gang
had been a terror near Sector 8 for the last few months.  "Besides," the
grinning stuffed cat (on top of a stuffed moogle) had said while stroking
the large Avalanche banner on the bird's tail, "it'd be a good chance to
make people remember what Avalanche had been all about.  There are still
some people out there who still believe that you were the bad guys, you
know, and you might as well try to clear the whole thing up again if only
for Jesse and everyone else's sake."  

Feeling the truth in his words, the veteran leader of Avalanche had agreed
to the job.  Nevertheless, when he rested his gaze on the large,
paint-printed "SNOW BALL" on the back of the Chocobo wagon in front of him
and caught several passers-by staring at the chase with an expression that
was partially fear, and partially something unidentifiable altogether,
Barret couldn't help but think that maybe somehow he was missing something
from the big picture.

The trail lead him to turn sharply around a corner and he suddenly
realized that he was about to enter a more populated area once again.  He
made another attempt to catch up to the terrorists when he recognized the
surrounding area as somewhere near Wall Market.  Letting those two weave
their way into the town was simply unacceptable; the chance of casualties
occurring was too great a risk for him to take.  Barret had held back his
fire to a minimum before, as he didn't want to dirty his hands again after
all this time.

But there ain't no choice anymore, he told himself grimly.

Gritting his teeth, Barret Wallace charged his own guns and began to let
loose a hail of ammunition back to the two terrorists, trading shots in
earnest.


			IV

"Ow."  Ariel softly exclaimed, both hands cupping over the petite round
tip of her nose.  Then she slowly propped herself up from where she sat.
Sprawling all over on the ground was not a position she would like to stay
in for too long.  Her face turned an embarrassing shade of red.

Oh no, she thought, suddenly taking note of her condition, my uniform is
ruined!  And what's more, Ariel realized, was that the basketful of
fortune telling cards had been spilled all over the road during her
fall... "Oh, what a mess!"

Reflexively, Ariel began dusting off her sleeves, the hem of her skirt and
then her chestnut-brown hair that was tied into a long braid at the ends.
That done, she quickly scampered about the road to retrieve her goods,
doing her best to clean the mud out from the wrappings of the cards before
she dropped them back into her straw basket.

>From somewhere past the town gates the green-eyed salesgirl could discern
some sort of commotion, but she ignored it and concentrated on finishing
her present task first.  "Oh, great,"  Ariel said to herself, seeing that
one of the cards was caught by the handles of a manhole lid several yards
away, its plastic wrapping torn loose and scratched.  She immediately
hopped over onto the large metal lid on the ground to pick up the damaged
piece.

The background noise had gotten louder now and some voices yelling back
and forth could be crudely made out, but Ariel tried not to mind it too
much.  Instead, she slipped two long, slender fingers beneath the rusty
handle and gingerly fished the card out.  Perhaps she could still salvage
it somehow, maybe selling it at half price or something...

A light tingling sensation coursed through her fingertips when she touched
the small, metallic card and almost made her drop it in surprise.  Mildly
shocked, Ariel looked downwards at her hands and suddenly realized that
something on the card she was holding had begun to flare a deep, materia
green.  

At once, Ariel realized that this was what she had wanted all along.
There was something ironic in the idea that she would even consider
reading her fortune from a device that she knew did not work, but Ariel
couldn't care less.  She needed to reassure herself that the possibility
of those cards actually working, no matter how slim the odds, was there.
She needed that affirmation badly especially after the conversation this
morning, because if she could know that what she was selling wasn't
completely worthless, then a little bit of the guilt in her heart would
disappear and she would be able to trust in her hope again.  Now was her
chance to prove she was right.

Partially shying away from the intense magical flash, she tried to make
out what the message on the card was with apprehension mixed with a wave
of excitement.  It took a short moment for her eyes to adjust to the
light, but when she did she read the green, flickering message to herself.

Shuddering convulsively, with her hands trembling, she paled.

The line was crisp and simple, and in an old English font that she didn't
recognize.  But the message was very clear.

"You will not live
	to see your seventeenth birthday."

And then, without warning, darkness rose from all sides as the ground
leapt up to swallow her whole.


						[END CHAPTER ONE]









======================================
Coming Sometime in the Future...
======================================

Chapter Two: Of Things to Remember When Revisiting the Midgar Sewers

Chapter Three: The Unexpected Convenience of Taking Refuge in Your Own
		Church

Chapter Four: 101 Ways to Kill an Aeris Gainsborough

Chapter Five: Legacy of the Last Soldier

Chapter Six: Voice of the Planet

Chapter Seven: Strife amidst Clouds

Chapter Eight: The Missing Wing on the Angel

Chapter Nine: Meteor, Part Two

Chapter Ten: The Holy One

Chapter Eleven: Live & Let Die


Epilogue - That Flower Girl...



p.s.  In case you guys didn't notice before, co-writers wanted!!!  ^-^;  I
really don't have all that much time to do this all by myself anymore, and
I really want this piece to come to fruition so if any one of you writers
out there feel interested and aren't too busy with another project lately,
please help out :)  Thanks.