Ramza had chosen this place because for him, it was a beginning of an end. He wished it to be the end of the end. The remains of the ruined fort Zeakden had lost their sharp edges, being eroded by the years following the great explosion. Ramza stands at the end of a ruined bridge. It had led to the gunpowder stores. Now it led to the abyss. Ramza unsheathed his sword. He raises it in front of him. It not his combat sword, but a simple iron blade unadorned and not yet whetted with blood. Ramza turns the weapon, lets its blade linger but inches from his chest. The warrior leans forward, and falls. Ramza hears a sharp crack.

"Did you think I would let you die that easily?"

Ramza opens his eyes. He reaches under his body and pulls out a hilt. The sword's blade had been shattered into toothpicks.

"Damn you and your aim, Mustadio!" He sneers, rising off the cold, dead earth. He unsheathes his chaos blade. He rushes towards the engineer, his blade waivers and flickers like a flame, but slower. Upon reaching his friend, Ramza collapses in fatigue and anguish.

"Get up Ramza. I'm here to talk to you. God, what were you thinking? That your problems would just go away?" yells the marksman.

"Why did you stop me? Do you realize how hard it was to prepare for this? Do you know what it is like to have lost every thing?" Ramza says. He gets up and smacks Mustadio in the jaw. Mustadio staggers back, but does not fight back. From behind him, a young blond woman comes forth with tears in her eyes.

"Ramza?"

"Alma… you should not be here." Ramza says quietly.

"You still have me, brother. You still have me!" she screams. She is comforted by Mustadio, who remains silently staring at his old friend.

The sound of distant chocobos is heard. Ramza looks up sees familiar looking figures in the distance. Eight chocobos, an iron man, and an Apanda were converging on the wreck.

"Why are you all here? Is this some sort of intervention?" comments Ramza.

"We were coming any way. Your faithful iron slave informed Alma that you had gone with a new sword, and Alma thought it might be serious. Thank God she was right." says Mustadio.

The robed twins Rafa and Malek arrive first, weighing much less than the others. They are followed closely by Agrais, all ways one to put business before comfort had been pushing her chocobo to its furthest. Orlandu and Rad, his squire, follow her in nonchalant brown robes. Beowulf and Reis ride together, and Meliadoul is the last of the riders. She was never very good on a Chocobo. Than comes that enigma, Byblos. Last arriving is the great iron giant worker eight.

"What is it you want, Mustadio? And more importantly, why here? By the great one, its cold!" asks Malek.

"We found your note at Ramza's cottage. It looks like you timed your messages perfectly." observes Rafa. She had the common sense to bring a jacket, and was therefore not freezing like Malek.

"Ramza! Why are standing there like that? What is going on? I demand some answers, I am sick and tired of secrecy!" orders Agrais.

Alma steps forward to answer. "Ramza tried to kill himself. Mustadio stopped him, but well…" Alma says. She breaks down in mid sentence and resumes crying.

"Ramza, you know if you ever need something, we are here for you. Physical or spiritual. You may never enter a church again, but this old priest still remembers his training." says Beowulf. He puts his hand on Ramza's shoulder.

"I cannot keep running. Not from the church, not from my past, not from myself. I cannot keep living in Ivalice. I cannot take the guilt." Whispers Ramza.

"That is why I have sent for us to gather here. We all have been left on the way side, without a place to go or a country to call a homeland. I propose we remedy this. After my father died, I was left notes on a collection of artifacts found under Goug." Explains Mustadio. He pulls out two stones from his many pockets. One is a jagged almost golden gem in a crescent shape, the Taurus stone. The other is a large diamond shaped artifact. He rises up the diamond. "This is a stone that would take us to a land far away. Weather it leads to a country far away, another planet, or even through the streams of time, I do not no. I do know it resonates with my zodiac stone."

Mustadio demonstrates this by bringing the two near. They begin to vibrate and shine.

"You present a door that leads to freedom or oblivion. A one way ticket to God knows where, a game of roulette where you can't see the odds. I like your style, human." Says Byblos. He casts some form of dark summoning and brings out the Serpintarius stone.

"I am willing to take a risk, if it means we can go to a place were we can be a family. What do you think Bea, a place to finally settle down?" Real asks Beowulf. They look in each others eyes, and take out there stones, the Leo and Cancer stone.

"Any think for." Beowulf says quietly.

"What is a heretic Holy Knight, but an orphan, ripped from her mother's arms." Agrais responds. She takes out her own stone, the Aries. It had belonged to another Holy Knight before her.

"I come too." Meliadoul says.

"Why is that?" asks Orlandu.

"I keep my own council, thank you very much."

"Well, now I have too come. The girl has sparked an old man's interest." Orlandu says. Laughing heartily, he turns to Rad. "Well, what about you? Join an old man for a last adventure, one final escapade?"

"Of course Lord Cid. I would be honored." responds the youthful squire. Mel, Cid, and Rad all present their stones. They are respectively the Sagittarius, Libra, and Pisces stones.

Alma, still crying, looks to her brother expectantly. "Maybe, we don't need to run any longer." she tells him.

"I go where Master beckons. The Aquarius stone that powers me resonates with your teleportation device." exclaims Worker 8.

"Maybe, maybe this other world has what I'm looking for." Answers Ramza. He turns to Mustadio. "What do we do?"

"Get in a circle. On the count of three, reach out your stones. After a few moments the zodiac stones will activate the crystal and send us to our destination." He explains. Ramza takes out his Capricorn stone and Alma her Virgo stone.

The atmosphere is decidedly quiet. Without a sound and with great trepidation the thirteen comrades prepare to go.

"One. Two. Three!"

A flash. Scenes receiving messages beyond mortal bounds. Confusion. Finally, darkness.

Ramza awakes with a feeling somewhat similar to a thousand hangovers. The sun is almost heavy, as if heat could weigh a man down. The air is hot and arid. He is lying by the side of a road, beside a giant levitating orange crystal. He is being watched by the most bizarre of critters. It has the face of a cat person, is about two feet tall, and has large ears. It also has tiny batwings, cloths, and the most bizarre kind of head gear Ramza has ever seen. It is some kind of fuzzy ball suspended by a string.

"Where am I?" asks the delirious hero.

"You're in Rabanastre, Kupo!"