I Never Let Her Die! (Aerith x Male Gamer Reader)

Disk 01: Chapter 02: The Road Goes Ever On and On

"Something wrong?" Tifa asked.

I decided again to not quite lie. "Remember yesterday, before I passed out, when I told you about how I didn't know how I got here?"

"Yeah. Something about falling asleep in bed and dreaming of a blue midget?"

"Right. I've never seen any of this stuff before. Not even the clothes on my back."

"Most interesting." Red commented. "It appears your dream was more than a dream. Perhaps your mystery visitor provided you with a gift upon dropping you here."

"Considering that we're in the middle of nowhere and you're unarmed otherwise, I'd take up this gift if I were you." Tifa said.

"Agreed." I said with a nod. I removed the belt and scabbard from the bag, slipped them on, and sheathed the sword, after looking it over closely enough to determine it held four materia slots, two singles and a linked set.

Peering into the satchel, Aerith asked "Is all this materia yours? It's a very complete set of the basics."

"No... It's like everything thing else in there. I've never seen it before. Uh, actually, if you can put any of it to use feel free to help yourself. It's not like I'm likely to get much use out of it, I've never actually had the chance to use any of the stuff."

Three heads snapped around to stare at me in disbelief. "You've never used ANY materia at all?" Tifa asked.

"Most unusual." Red concurred. "But then, everything about you is most unusual."

"You can say that again." I agreed. "In any case, no I've never used it, no I don't even really know how..."

Aerith grabbed my hand in one of hers and a materia from the satchel in her other. "C'mon. Get that bag over your shoulder, I'll teach you on the way..." I secured the satchel over my shoulder and we started on our way...

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At this point, I need to point out a detail that's going to become more and more important as my narrative progresses. Distances between places are much greater in the real Gaia than they are in the game version you may have played. To give an example, think of the film version of Fellowship of the Ring. Remember the scene where Gandalf leaves the ring with Frodo and goes in search of answers. Then, a little later, there's the scene where Frodo returns home from the tavern to find Gandalf there waiting for him. Now, when I first watched the film if you had asked me 'How long do you think Gandalf was gone?' I would have answered 'A few weeks." Then I read the book and found out that seventeen years separated those two scenes.

Things were similar in Gaia. Playing the game, you might think the entire trip from Midgar to the Forgotten Capitol took only a few days. In reality, with the travel times of (mostly walking) across an entire planet as big as Earth, our journey was actually just over a year in length. The walk from Midgar to Kalm alone took nearly four days. Anyway, as we walked the first day Aerith stayed by my side teaching me the hows and whys of working with materia. During our lunch rest, I practiced on the trunk of a long-dead tree with mixed results.

It was early on the morning of my second day when I got my first taste of actual fighting. We were walking and talking when suddenly the ground directly in front of us erupted in a massive explosion. Tifa turned around and I followed suite. Behind us, slowly approaching, was a strange robot that I recognized as the 'Custom Sweeper' from the game. It stopped walking and a loudspeaker popped out. "Targets identified: Avalanche members and Hojo specimens thirteen-red and two-green." It said. "Surrender."

"Two-green?" Tifa whispered.

"Must be the quack's code for me." Aerith answered.

"Surrender." The robot repeated. It then launched another spread of missiles. Tifa rushed forward to attack while Red began moving to attack from behind. I jumped to the side, pulling Aerith along with me. We landed just as the explosions erupted where we had been standing. I lifted my head and watched as Tifa reached the machine, dived underneath it, and began tearing into the unarmored underside. She managed to do some damage, but it wasn't entirely defenseless there. A pair of gripper arms unfolded and grabbed onto her shoulders, pulling her out and casting her aside.