Author's notes: Hello again dear readers! Got to say, I was stumped about last chapters popularity. I knew it was good and that I asked for reviews, but 16 reviews was still a surprise, not to mention all the favorites and alerts. I actually got a little scared that i wouldn't be able to keep up a high enough quality for this popularity and begun searching for an active beta who could check the next chapters, and last week I was just about to PM one, but real life interfered. Again. I'll try to send that PM next week. Until then, bear with all the mistakes I make, thank you.

Now then, reviews! This'll be a long one, so I'll answer only the ones with something to answer. To everyone else, thank you very much for reviewing! Especially Cheeki Really motivating! And another special thanks for Shintouyu for recommending my story in his Author's notes in Zero's Noble Overlord!

darkowl1989: I actually have plans for that already, but unfortunately it's still quite far away. Be patient, I don't plan to let you down.

Prinny Ramza: I'm glad you like. As for his skills, Marche here is based on the Marche I had when I last finished Tactics Advance. This also means that I've tried to keep Marche's abilities within canon limits, so no Time Magic for the human. I might add abilities if the story needs it, but I'll try to keep Marche's abilities in check. I don't want to make him too overpowered.

Black Mage

Fire, Fira

Blizzard, Blizzara, Blizzaga

Thunder, Thundara, Thundaga

Return Magic

White Mage

Cura

Esuna

Shell

Protect

Turbo-MP

Blue Mage

Goblin Punch

Magic Hammer

Acid

Blowup

Mighty Guard

Dragon Force

Guard-off

Night

Twister

(LV3) Def-less

Matra Magic

Poison Claw

Hastebreak

Bad Breath

Stare

Roulette

Drain Touch

(LV?) S-Flare or Shadowflare

White Wind

Angel Whisper

Sandstorm (not really a spell a Blue Mage learns, but the plot needed it)

DamageMP

Learning

Blue Combo

Illusionist

Prominence

Freezeblink

Tempest

Deluge

Wild Tornado

Soil Evidence

Star Cross

Stardust Rain

Thief

Steal: Accessory

Steal: Gil

Counter

Ninja

Throw

Earth Veil

Wood Veil

Unspell

Double Sword

Last Haste

Archer

Take Aim

Faster

Concentration

Hunter

Ultima Shot

Advice

End list.

Fanfiction reade: Good guess, but wrong one. Next I'm actually planning for some original content. There will probably be familiar characters though, I'm terrible with OC's.

Poliamida: Sorry, it takes. Probably the next one too.

Nivek Beldo: Tactics Advance has some really good music for the atmosphere. I've listened them more than a few times while writing this. And sorry if the ending was a bit rushed. It was deliberate, I'm afraid. You see, if Saito were genre savvy, or at least thought of Halkeginia as a game, he would connect Marche as the recurring boss. The one that you beat in a fight, but returns stronger than ever. Look it up in TV tropes. As for my favorite character in FoZ, it's actually Tabitha. I like Kirche too, but she's just not my type. But she's very useful character to have when I need another angle for the scenes. I'll probably use other characters for that in the future, but Kirche's going to keep that role in the future.

acap88: Well, Marche's evilness is a bit debatable. Good thing you like the story though!

Guest: Wardes will get his ass kicked, don't worry. It'll just take some time.

End notes.

Chapter 6

Restart

Abandoned warehouse, La Rochelle

Marche let out a long sigh as he sat down heavily. He had been trudging around the warehouse for the last hour, bored out of his mind. The soft metal plates that had meant to immobilize him had been long since detached and thrown away. His wounds were easily healed with a Cura spell and after that, healing the mercenaries was a piece of cake with a White Wind spell. That particular spell had always struck Marche as an oddity. Sure, it was a healing spell, one that could under right conditions heal even more damage that a Curaga, but it had some very odd rules to it. Namely, its effectiveness reflected the casters physical condition. If Marche was at top condition physically, like after getting hit with few Cure spells, the White Wind healed the patients to top condition. If Marche was wounded, the spell lost power and not even Turbo-MP could change that fact.

"It seems our employer pulled a fast one on us, or he got killed chasing the messenger", Marche finally admitted and massaged his temples with his right hand. His left was hidden behind his back, ready to throw a spell to cover his escape in case things turned violent. People, especially those whose profession was violence, tended to get a bit aggressive when it came down to their payment. They had only gotten half in advance. Just like Marche. Difference was that Marche as a mage had substantially larger paycheck than your common mook. Also, he was the middle man between the mercenaries and the Masked man. So, it wouldn't be uncommon for the disappointed mercenaries to try and get their dues from him.

Emphasis on try. A Phantasm skill that was only a name away would make sure of that.

Luckily, before an uncomfortable silence could fully evolve, it was cut off by a commotion coming from the outside. It didn't take long for everyone inside to jump up and dash to the warehouse doors, pondering whether the commotion was the city watch coming to round them up or their elusive employer finally hauling his ass over. Marche hoped it was the last, although he felt it was a vain hope. Thus far, everything in this city had gone against him.

To Marche's relief, this commotion wasn't a prelude to another farce. Well, hopefully not, Marche thought as he observed how two of the guards, that had been posted (meaning, lost in rock-paper-scissors that Marche had taught to the mercenaries so they could quickly decide who had to take the boring job) around the warehouse to keep watch for authorities, manhandled a civilian into the warehouse.

A circle quickly surrounded the three and Marche, as the curious mercenaries wanted to know what was going on. Marche took this as a good sign, as then men still considered him as their leader, even when their paycheck had been compromised. Maybe this city wasn't a complete failure.

"What's this then?" Marche asked the guards, while eying the civilian with false disdain. He was dressed in a common enough attire for a dockworker. He had probably been skulking around the warehouse and the guards had caught him. He might have been there by coincidence, but Marche had decided to play it safe, meaning intimidating him until he either spilt the beans or proved he was there by coincidence. And Marche knew just the spells for intimidation. Illusions couldn't harm those the caster deemed friendly, after all. And if that failed, he could turn him into a toad with Bad Breath and if that did not break him, then nothing would. It had after all caused Marche himself to nearly piss his pants the first time he was hit with it. It might have had something to do with the hungry Malboro that had hit him with the spell to begin with. Marche really doubted he'd have to go that far to get the man's story, but he believed in being prepared.

"This one was sneaking around suspiciously, Fouquet sir. We thought you might want to have a look at him", explained one of the guards and shoved the man forward, almost throwing him to the ground.

"Really?" Marche cringed at the name, barely stopping himself from barking at the man to not call him that. At this rate I'll never get rid of that stupid name, Marche despaired mentally, while still taking a notice that the civilian's eyes widened a little with the information. So he isn't here because of the battle at the hotel, Marche mused. It was probably already public knowledge that "Fouquet of the Crumbling Dirt" had attacked the hotel and everyone brave enough was probably looking for him, so they could inform the authorities and collect the sizeable bounty.

"Now, what would a simple man like you want from an empty warehouse at this hour?" Marche eyed the man carefully, hoping to catch more subtle messages from his body. The man swallowed nervously before speaking.

"Err… Mister Fouquet sir…" the man began cautiously, but when Marche's eye started to twitch at the name, he quickly continued, "I-I-I'm just a humble worker. I meant nothing really, was just taking a m-midnight stroll", the man explained, waving his arms nervously.

"Out for a stroll, eh? Why have a stroll here in the docks where all the… Shall we say, suspicious folk gather? Wouldn't there be more ideal places out there? Places where a worker like you doesn't go every morning?" Marche asked a bit smugly, laying a hand on the handle of the Terre rod, "quite suspicious, I would say. What about you guys?" The mercenaries made agreeing noises and Marche smiled at the sweating man.

"W-w-well, you see my wife… She, well, you know threw me out again a-a-and then I just started w-walking and before I knew…" the man tried again, but Marche just shook his head and turned to his men.

"Woman troubles, then?" Marche said and then spun around while drawing the Terre rod, pointing it at the man's chest, "As if! Last chance, you know. Next lie will be answered with a spell." The man paled considerably, while Marche focused on keeping his poker face. He really didn't have guts for any torture besides bluffing. He would cover the man in illusionary flames if he had to, but he wouldn't be able to make an unarmed man, who might have just been there on a whim of fate, feel them without feeling disgusted with himself. Why couldn't the man just break already?

The man swallowed hard and wiped sweat from his brow. Marche could almost feel the mental fight the man was having. Finally, the man took a deep breath and steadied himself.

" To tell the truth… I'm kind of, you know, making some money on the side. There's this man you see, he pays for information about ships. Like what their cargo is, what kind of passengers they have and when they leave. I, well I work near the harbormasters office and I can find these out easily. He pays me to send this information to him and, you see one ship left during the night and it was one that I'd been asked to keep my eye on, and, well", the man breathed in deeply, "my way to contact the guy is stashed here in this abandoned warehouse", the man explained calmly, before crumbling into a heap. Marche raised his brow at the show. Was it that big of a deal? Marche wondered and stashed the Terre rod away.

"Hmph. I thought it was about us, well about me anyway. Can't say I'm all right with piracy, but I think I can let this one go, if we are talking about the same ship here. Sure, go ahead and send your message", Marche said and waved his hand dismissively, "we should get going anyway. As I said, our employer isn't coming."

As the mercenaries started to gather their belongings, Marche kept his gaze at the civilian, who seemed quite puzzled at Marche's reaction, but eventually he collected himself and stumbled to one of the corners of the warehouse. There, he pried off a floorboard and pulled out a large clay brick. Marche followed curiously as the man started to scribble on the stone, its surface unnaturally soft for something with such a solid shape.

"That's a Message Stone", somebody informed Marche, and he turned to see a mercenary with a scarred and hairy face. Marche remembered naming the guy his second-in-command before coming to La Rochelle, but he had forgotten his name. Oh, come on. How did I forget my sergeant's name? I remembered Montblanc easily enough, Marche cursed in his head at his bad name memory.

"Message Stone?" Marche asked the sergeant, while hoping he would remember the name soon.

"Something earth mages liked to make several years ago. It's basically a set of two or more bricks like that. You write something on one, it shows on the others. When others have read their stones, they wipe them clean and the text disappears. They have some range limitations, but they can be easily increased, by placing beacon stones between the two points. Bad thing is you don't know who is reading the stone, so usually people have all sort of passwords to go with those", the sergeant explained while checking his armors straps.

"Sound like handy little things", Marche nodded.

"Thing is boss, they're not really cheap. No small time pirate can't afford one, let alone two", the sergeant stated and looked at Marche knowingly.

"You mean we are dealing with a privateer?" Marche asked curiously.

"A what?" the sergeant asked and the stare turned into confusion.

"You don't know what a privateer is? Strange. Well, a privateer is like a government sanctioned pirate. They raid ships, but give a part of their loot to the government. They get some funding or such to get by first, so they would be able to get something unusual like these Message Stones", Marche explained, "question is, which government do they work for? Can't imagine Tristania having a pirate stalking their own ships… Gallia? Germania?"

"Albion has the best ships…" the sergeant, nope! Wilhelm, -or Wallace, Marche wasn't completely sure yet- said furrowing his brow.

"Albion? Hmm, what say you, shall we have some petty revenge?" Marche smirked at the old sergeant and walked to the man who was just finishing scribbling to the Stone.

"Hey, my good man! You finished yet? You see, I'll give you something special to report. Might give you a bonus reward or something", Marche smiled at the man and crouched next to him.

"You see, that ship left early because of us. We were paid to mess with some of the passengers. Make sure they don't leave the city, while somebody else takes their place. Well, we succeeded. Now there's someone on board the ship who shouldn't. Can you guess who this guy is? Well, not who, but what. No? Well, he is an assassin. I'm not telling you who he is hired to assassinate, but your friends might want to detain him. I'm sure his employers are ready to pay a great sum to see him finish his mission. But keep this info anonymous will you? If wrong people hear about this, well, let's say it'll be bad to us both", Marche grinned widely and nudged the man a little, before rising up and walking away, leaving a completely confused man behind him. Marche chuckled a bit at the man's expression as he walked to the warehouse doors, where the others were waiting for him.

"You sure that was wise, boss? If they hear you leaked their plans…" Wilhelm asked as Marche stepped into the morning air. Marche merely smiled a little and waved his hand dismissively.

"Well, they shouldn't have bailed on us", Marche defended his actions. He knew he was being petty, but things had been going wrong for so long that he had to get at least a little retribution at the people who complicated his life like this. Seriously, first they ask him for help, and then ditch him at the first opportunity. Like he had offended them or something.

"Well it's your own skin", the older man grumbled, before speaking out loud again, "what now then? You aren't our employer anymore, so you can't order us around. But to tell the truth, I wouldn't mind you tagging along for a while. Would be good for business too, to have a mage in to company. Would give us some more value on the market, so to speak."

"Interesting offer. I have worked as a mercenary before and I know what you mean. But still, I think I'll have to refuse for now. You see, I have some errands to run", Marche said and scratched the back of his head, "I don't suppose you all would like to join me?"

"Errands… Sorry no. I don't think we are suitable for your errands. We're soldiers. Not thieves", Wilhelm refused and sighed, "well, if you're sure you don't want to. It was nice while it lasted though. Got our asses kicked, but no-one really died. That's always a plus. See you around, maybe?"

"Absolutely. But hey, I'm not asking you to become thieves. It's just that I know I need warriors with-" Marche tried to persuade, but Wilhelm waved him off.

"It doesn't matter. You just keep doing what you've done until now. Keep doing what you're good at. See what happened when you tried to be a military commander? Nothing worked. Sure, you had good ideas and all, but you were too much of a lone wolf. You could react to the changes on the battlefield, but as a leader you should have given orders to your troops. Not charge forward alone. I can't really decide if you were suicidal or mad. Attacking alone is always a suicide, but you didn't even try to order us to come with you. Usually nobles command more than act, it's the way they've been raised. To command. You act like you've been at the receiving end of orders like us… commoners…" Wilhelm seemed to stop and think something, but Marche let it drop. He was too focused on the advice he had been given.

True, I've been acting alone quite a lot here… At the forest I was alone at the cliff and now I charged to the enemy, leaving my backup behind… When did I become a solo player? In Ivalice, I was still a team player, Marche wondered. Did I get too arrogant? I looked down on the enemies, maybe I looked down on my allies too. Thought they wouldn't be able to keep up with me. They were, after all, just some nameless muscle-for-hire one could find anywhere, while I am, well, was a leader of a clan. And not just any clan, but the Alodia which could boast over 300 completed missions and had a turf that covered the whole country, basically ending the Clan Wars and severely hampering the operations of crime syndicates like clan Borzoi or the Redwings. It was under my leadership that the Alodia caught dangerous criminals like the "Swamp king" Kanan and "Dark Duke" Lodion. We fought and defeated the "Worldwyrm" Oghma. Famfrit, Ultima, Adrammelech, Exodus and Mateus, the five Totemas of the five races of Ivalice lost against us and I destroyed their charges, the World Threads. Llednar Tvem crumbled before me when our powers clashed. Li-grim the Wish Gatherer died fighting me. No-one here stood with me back then. No-one who stood with me exists anymore. Montblanc , Ezel Berbier, Littlevili, Lini, Pallanza, Eldena, Quin, Cheney and the others…

Marche actually felt a tear make its way down his cheek when he reminisced about his old comrades. He knew they weren't real persons, merely ghosts created by ancient magic. Some of them might have had real life counterparts, like the bullies turned undead Lyle, Colin and Guinness. But Marche had not met anyone in Ivalice who resembled his old comrades. There was no-one as-intelligent-as-he-is-cheery guy, who would jump in on a fight to help a total stranger. There were no geniuses with huge egos, no rebellious little sisters with grand plans to show off at their older siblings, no starry-eyed namesakes of ancient heroes, no crowd playing master gladiators, no mysterious high-class witches hiding their smirks behind their hands, no responsible scientists with disturbing fondness for explosions and no cool and collected hunters. And no dozen other misfits with varying reasons to follow his lead. Or even believe his outlandish story.

Gah! This is not the time for this, Marche shook himself back to reality or whatever passed for one currently. To his embarrassment he noticed that all the mercenaries were staring at him spacing out.

"Oops, sorry. Just remembered something personal. You were saying…?" Marche asked Wilhelm to get out of the awkward situation.

"Oh, nothing big. Just that the noble folk tend to just command us to attack and then when everyone is distracted with the melee, they sweep the battlefield with big spells, barely paying attention to us mercenaries. Your style to charge in with the first wave is a bit… odd to say the least", Wilhelm explained a bit hastily.

"Oh, that's just a diehard habit of mine, from the time I lacked training in the magic usage", Marche explained, "to put a long story short, I began my training with magic at quite late age when I joined a cl-, I mean a mercenary group that had a mage in it. I wasn't a very fast learner, so I had to double as a swordsman until I learned magic." It was basically the truth, he just left few tidbits out. Like that he didn't even know magic existed until he and his friends rewrote reality to their personal utopia. Or that he had to get up close and personal with several monsters to learn half of his spells. Stupid Learning, why did it have an effect only through contact? Wouldn't just seeing the move be enough? Marche fumed in his mind, remembering some of the more painful spells he had to learn, like certain-kill Roulette or the hurts-like-hell Shadowflare.

The mercenaries shared a few glances with each other and nodded at Marches explanation. Had Marche been keeping his attention in reality, he would have taken notice, but at the moment he was busy shuddering at the memory of what at the time had appeared to be a spontaneous combustion in dark flames.

"Ah well then. We'll just part ways now then. Not the worst employer we could have had, you know. Got at least half of the pay, and no-one really died", Wilhelm said jovially and slapped Marche's back, almost knocking him over, "Let's go for a drink next time we meet, eh?"

"We'll see, we'll see. I take it you're not leaving the city then?" Marche asked as he got his balance back. Mentally, he was berating himself for spacing out again. He had done that a lot lately. Maybe having magic again is making me more nostalgic? Marche thought. He had many times wondered if destroying the world of Ivalice had been the right decision. He had had so much in there: magic, physical ability, many great friends and a purpose, a higher calling. The first few weeks after Ivalice had been a sort of lost daze for Marche as he had to adjust to losing most of them. He had got some of them back, but not quite at the level. He had physical ability, of course not as good as it had been in Ivalice. He had friends, but not as many as in Ivalice. He had even found a purpose, something to be when he grew up. But that had looked so bleak in comparison to the one he had in Ivalice. And there had been no magic, no matter how hard he had looked for it and wished for it in the later years. Marche had actually given up on finding anything supernatural again, but then this had happened.

"No reason for us. You're the only one people will recognize. We'll blend in with the dozen other mercenary companies here easily enough", Wilhelm explained.

"True," Marche sighed, "how I would prefer anonymity, but there's nothing I can do to that."

"Right you are. Goodbye", Wilhelm shook Marche's hand and walked away with his men, leaving Marche standing in the empty street.

Marche looked at their leaving with a faint sense of loss. While their relationship had been nothing like the one Marche had had with his clan, he still felt close to the men he had commanded in battle and he felt a bit betrayed that they didn't just follow him now. He shrugged it off as just another habit instilled in him back in Ivalice. This isn't a kid's utopia like Ivalice. Got to remember that, Marche thought and yawned. He had a long day ahead of him.

"Well, it's a new beginning for me", Marche said to himself and stretched his arms, before turning his gaze at the direction he remembered the city gates being. Thus far his adventure in Halkeginia had been a bit unsuccessful, but Marche didn't let that get him down. He had just underestimated everything up till now. Now he had a little experience. Next time, whatever it was, he would succeed.

But first I need allies. Allies, equipment and information. The best place to get those would be the capital whatsitsname, Marche thought as he began walking towards the gates. It would no doubt be a long walk to get to the capital, but it wasn't like Marche was in a hurry. Also, he had some money now, so he could buy a horse if situation called for it. He would ask around when he got to the gates. There would probably be stables around there.