Ramza Beoulve awoke in a small straw mattress in Gariland Academy. He opened his eyes and spied his old roommate David across the way. A young squire with short, dark hair, and he was a fairly tall young man. He was relatively nice, if you didn't piss him off too much. He never really liked using weapons of any kind, and preferred to fight with his bare hands as a Monk. His girlfriend was really nice. Her name was Kylie Masters. He would never admit it to his girlfriend, Dorothy, but he thought she was so cute. Dirty blonde hair, playful green eyes, and she looked so good in that standard issue Squire's uniform. Everybody thought he had a thing for her, including jealous Dorothy, but he and Kylie knew better.

He looked over at where the sleeping form of his roommate should be, he saw the sleeping form of his sister, Alma. He wondered what was going on, and he got up to look at her. He shook her to wake her up, and she snapped quickly out of her sleep.

"Ramza, where are we?" she asked, looking around the room.

"This is my old room from when I was in Gariland," Ramza replied, also looking around at the subtle differences that he remembered. Nothing big, just something like a misplaced crack in the ceiling over his bed that Ramza used to stare at when he was trying to sleep at night, or the smell of the room, not like cinnamon, a cleaner to cover up the smell of alcohol and vomit because David was a big partier, but more like apple cider. It was strange.

"Let's just get out of here," Alma said to her brother, and moved for the door, but as soon as she opened it and walked through, she found herself at the back entrance that went outside to the training area. Still inside Ramza's old dorm room. "Ramza, what's going on?"

"I don't know Alma," Ramza said, thinking intensely for a few moments before noticing another person in the room. He quickly turned around to face this person, and immediately recognized him. The dark brown leather armor, a dark brown leather hat, a black-brown beard extending from his chin down past his gray shoulder plates and stopped just at his chest. He carried the Blood Sword tightly in his big hands.

"Gaff," Ramza spat, looking with contempt at the man he once revered. "What are you doing back you son of a bitch? I thought we killed you at Lionel."

"You did, you did," Gafgarion said, pulling apart his leather chest plate to show Ramza the scar where his sword pierced his chest. "I was killed, and because of my life choices, I wasn't sent to Heaven. But this is my chance to go there, if you two can realize something."

"Like what?" Alma asked wide-eyed and totally believing every word Gafgarion said. She had always been a naïve person, and this really got her into trouble sometimes.

"Well, that I'm not at liberty to say out loud yet," Gafgarion said, setting the Blood Sword down on the table in front of Alma and clipping his leather chest plate back together. She looked at it with a mixture of terror and longing. "But I do have to show you this."

The scene around them switched suddenly to Zaland Fort City, the place where, if Ramza remembered correctly, they first met Mustadio. Walking up the steps that led to the main fort were three men and two women. One of the men, who resembled Gafgarion and could very well be a younger version of him, was holding hands with one of the women. She was rather pretty, she had dark hair and dark eyes, and her dress was a deep forest green and hugged her lithe form quite nicely. It started directly underneath her shoulders, and went down to about her ankles, so you could see the silver shoes she was wearing.

"Her name was Claudia," Gafgarion said wistfully. "And we were stationed together in the Touten Knights. This, mind you, was before I was leader. We grew very close, as you can see, and I think we loved each other. She was an engineer, although I know she doesn't look it."

"Who are the other three people?" Alma asked, always asking questions as usual.

"Well, the woman is Elvira Grey, before she became queen of course," Gafgarion replied. "Shortly after this moment, she left the Touten and married Denamunda. That priest is Zalmo Rusnada, and the one with the big sword is Mesdoram Elmdor. They aren't important for the purposes of this demonstration. What is important is that girl, Claudia. Watch."

Claudia and Gafgarion waved goodbye to the other members of the Touten and walked into a small hut that must have been their home. It was light brown, and pretty standard. They must have lived in the main fort because they were sent to defend it, or so Ramza guessed. The scene fast forwarded itself to later that night, or so Ramza assumed. Then, out of nowhere, about a half dozen or so knights with the crest of the Shrine Knights came and surrounded the house, and the figure in the purple robes that Ramza recognized as Vormav knocked on their door.

"What do you want Zalmo," Gafgarion said as he opened the door. "I already paid- who are you?"

"I'm Vormav Tingel," Vormav said in that dripping poison voice. His silver tongue had deceived many brave and noble warriors and mages to work for the Temple Knights. "And I have a proposition for you, my dear Gaff."

"I'm listening," Gafgarion replied, and Claudia appeared at the doorway, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. She came up to the door and looked around at the aging Shrine Knight and his entourage.

"Gaff," she asked, obviously deeply afraid all of a sudden. "What's going on? Who are these men?"

"My dear girl, we are nothing more that your boyfriend's colleagues," Vormav answered silkily. "And we merely wish to discuss a business deal with him."

"If you want to hire the Touten Knights," Claudia said, and then yawned. "You'll have to come to our office during business hours. Or at least sometime when we're not fast asleep."

"It is not the Touten Knights I want," Vormav went on. "It's merely Gaff. I will have the others soon enough. Gaff, I want to make you a deal. I want you to work for me, as a Temple Knight. If you accept, you will of course have a much higher salary, and your abilities will be used instead of being squandered on a mercenary knight troupe. So, what do you say Gaff? Work for me, or waste your life?"

"Hell yes I'll work for you," Gafgarion said, and gave his ecstatic lover a hug. "When can I start?"

"Right now," Vormav smiled, and looked at Claudia. "There's someone who's been a thorn in our sides for years, and she's a member of the Touten Knights, so I assume you know her. She's the sole reason that the Touten are so successful. She's their engineer." All the blood drained from Claudia's face.

"You want me to kill Claudia?" Gafgarion asked, mortified. "I can't do that to her!"

Vormav looked sad. "That's too bad Gaff," he sighed. "And you would have been such a good ally. Kill them both!" And he teleported away.

The knights that were stationed around his house attacked. Claudia pulled out her Blast Gun and began to fire. She electrocuted one of the knights, but more kept coming. Meanwhile, Gafgarion was fighting three knights at once. He managed to knock them back with the Blood Sword, then he concentrated hard, and a red orb appeared above his head. One of the Knights looked terrified as a red crystal erupted from the ground, encasing him in it and sapping his life force. Gafgarion was healed as the knight was killed. The other two were joined by one of the other knights as the attacked him relentlessly. Claudia was still having trouble handling two. She shot another one, but due to the fickleness of the Blast Gun, it summoned a low level spell and the knight was only slightly wounded. Gafgarion was pinned to the wall as he watched those two knights pinned his love to the wall with their swords. They took the gun out of her hand and she looked at Gafgarion and said her last words.

"Gaff, I love you."

And then one of the knights shot her between the eyes, and she died. This threw Gafgarion into a murderous rage, and he cried out and summoned another red crystal underneath the center knight that was holding him, and trapped him in the crystal with an expression of horror and pain on his face. Then he took his Blood Sword and decapitated the knight on the left before he even had time to look at his fallen comrade. The two knights that killed Claudia raced over to save their lone companion, but he had already fallen to a third red crystal. Gafgarion ran over to them, and knocked their swords out of their hands. He stabbed one in the head as the other ran for his sword. Gafgarion pulled the Blood Sword out of the knight and picked up his discarded sword, then he threw it at the knight running away, for he recognized this as the one who had shot his beloved Claudia. The sword hit him in the shoulder, and he dropped like a rock. He was the one that Claudia had wounded his left arm, and Gafgarion had rendered the right one useless. He walked over to the Temple Knight, picked him up by the collar of his cape and looked him straight in the eyes.

"You bastard," he whispered so quietly it was barely audible as he moved his grip to the knight's neck and began to squeeze with all his might. The shiny glove on his hand helped quite a bit. "You took my life from me, now I'm going to take your life from you." The knight struggled more, but after a while the struggling decreased as the life was choked out of him, and soon it stopped completely.

"Well, done Gafgarion," Vormav's voice resounded through the tiny house. "I knew you had it in you."

"And that's why I turned evil," the present Gafgarion said to Ramza and Alma.

"Oh God," Alma choked out. She had started crying when Claudia died. "That's horrible. Vormav is such a bad person."

"Yeah, yeah, real sad," Ramza said, still skeptical. "But how do I know you're not just making this up?"

"Because I don't have that kind of power," Gafgarion replied. "But I do know who does. Ask your friends. One of them is responsible for all this limbo nonsense. But I'm not complaining, I get to go to Heaven."

"So why are we here?" Alma asked.

"Well, I'll put this simply," Gafgarion said. "Altima killed you all. Your team is dead, as is Kletian. I'm here to make sure it's not permanent."

"I'm dead?" Alma said, and the waterworks started again.

"But, now we get to go back to Ivalice right?" Ramza asked, and Gafgarion nodded. "And the others, they got the same deal right?"

"I don't know," Gafgarion said. "But I do know that Ivalice needs you two, and you'll be there when it does."

Gafgarion raised his hand and Zaland Fort City turned white.

A/N: As you can probably tell, I don't really like Ramza or Alma. They're overdeveloped. Too much of the game is about them. I had fun delving into Gafgarion's past and making him a tragic hero. Anyway, next up is the rest of my 'generics' that will play a role, some crucial, some not so much, in the rest of the story.And then the REAL story begins. Finally.