Sweet Jesus, how many months has it been? I don't even want to think about it. Sorry for the wait, guys. Also, the last chapter got some criticism, all of which was incredibly rational and useful to me. Thanks guys. Anyway, I think this chapter's a lot better. No techno babble, I promise!

Katzu was part of the great Clan Shrike. They were known throughout Ivalice as "the butcher birds", partially because of the bird they named their clan after, and also because they were known as one of the most efficient and mercenary of clans. It was said that in combat, only the legendary Clan Nutsy could best them.

Katzu himself was a young contender of legendary strength. It was said that with one Far Fist he took out five of the palace's templar guards. He combined this great strength with a mind few would have thought to be encased in a skull known to break down doors and poorly made walls.

There was only one foe that ever got the better of Katzu. Once, Clan Shrike had encountered Clan Nutsy at Aisenfield. There, he and Clan Shrike's finest took on the Clanners under Marche and Montblanc. After a bitter battle that raged for almost an entire day, Clan Nutsy emerged victorious, Katzu for the first time in his life tasting the dirt. It was Katzu's bitterest sorrow that he had not been slain by the legendary Excalibur wielded by Marche, or the Thor Rod of his second in command Montblanc. No, Katzu was defeated by a Saint Gordon Templar named Macgregor. Since that day, Katzu made a secret vow to run Clan Nutsy into the ground as they did to him.

Roland limped down the hallway, each step with his left foot shooting pain all the way to the base of his skull. A gaping hole in his femur had been bound by a part of his kilt and was doing a dedicated job at keeping its owner from bleeding to death. Roland, had his apprentice or someone he'd known been there to see him, looked completely different. He was like a walking corpse, with wide gashes in his skin, missing clumps of hair, and his massive leg wound making him look like one of the zombies he used to off in his clanning days.

He looked around. Dark, lots of stone, basic prison architecture. There didn't seem to be any magic sucking going on, and he could feel the magic beginning to creep in. He slumped onto the wall and started to patch up the hole in his leg. A fatty pink fluid was starting to ooze out. "Well, it's not like I honestly needed that marrow anyway. Oh no, not at all."

Damn that Ezel! No one but him would have thought of using that as the way out. Still though, Roland took a deep breath and continued on. "Going to have to find a shelter. I don't know when the guards are coming."

"Hey, did you hear that, Zwingley?"

"Sure did, Tim. It was coming from this way."

Roland rolled his eyes. "Of course this would happen, why did I think otherwise?" he thought to himself.

Two guards hurried down the hall and scanned the hallway. Finally they saw what they were looking for.

"Well, what do we have here, Tim?" The first said to his companion. He looked straight down at Roland.

"Why, it's a little kitty, Zwingley," Tim said.

"Meow," Roland said resignedly.He wasn't one for being immortalized or anything, but if his life was ever made into an epic saga, he decided any playwright who devoted even a couplet to him having to morph into a kitty cat to hide from two hillbilly guards was going to be shot with extreme prejudice . "And my clanmates thought it wasn't worth learning how to morph once I became a sage", he thought to himself.

"How the heck did a cat get into the prison, Tim? This don't feel right."

"Oh no, looks like we have a thinker in our midst," Roland thought to himself. "Better lay it on thick." With that he slunk over to Tim and started to rub his head on the guard's shin. Tim seemed like a cat lover.

"Aww, come on Zwingley. He seems a cute feller. Besides, me mum always said that cats had strange and unnatural powers. They could get in and out to anywhere they pleased."

"It hurts to be so right sometimes," Roland thought. It was good to savor these small victories.

"Well, your mum is a mighty fine lady. I guess there's nothing too unnatural about a cat getting here unnaturally."

Tim picked Roland up and looked at him. Roland had managed to take the shape of a nondescript gray tom. Not old, not young, a bit scruffier than most, but not a bad looking cat by any means. "You figure we could take the little feller back to the guard house? It gets mighty lonely there; it'd be nice to have someone over there besides you and me."

Zwingley, obviously the brains between the two, stroked his chin. "Well, I reckon if we don't tell anyone, it won't be too big a problem. Besides, I like this cat. There's something in his eyes that I can't quite make out."

"That's contempt, you marble mouthed buffoon," Roland thought, but purred while in Tim's hands. Roland wasn't much of a morpher, and even turning into a little house cat was a strain after so long not having to use it. He needed rest, and he knew it. Also, the wounds his old body had were just being postponed by this transformation. He still had plenty of hell to go through. But why bother with that right now?

"Hey Tim, we got any cream in the ice box?"

"Yeah, and me mum always said to put a bit of brandy in the cream too for cats. Keeps the coat shiny, she said."

"Your mum has much wisdom on many subjects, Tim."

"She does indeed, Zwingley."

"Ahh, booze and a sheen to my coat," Roland thoughtwith only a little sarcasm, "truly, this is bliss. Tim's mother, you are an equal to any queen in my book." He purred a bit more, just out of generosity to his new benefactors. Things were looking up. Sure, he was still in a prison with his most hated foe, and he probably had a pretty good idea that he was out of his prison soon, but at this point in time, in this place, Roland was content. With these few not at all assuring thoughts, Roland drifted into a nice heavy sleep.

--

"Ahh, Roland, old friend, good to see you. I was honestly expecting you a bit earlier than this." A voice filled with puckish good humour floated through Rolands head as he got up. Looking around, he saw himself in a comfortable little room. There was a roaring fire, an over stuffed chair before him, and beside the oven was dark grey nu mou in the traditional garb of a high ranking alchemist. His snout was a bit more upturned than the norm, and the insides of his ears were pink from where his massive earrings had worn away at them, and as he turned towards Roland with tea tray in hand, the bright eyes, filled with good natured contempt and razor edged intelligence creased into a smile.

Roland smiled and accepted the tea from this mysterious nu mou. "Does this mean you were expecting me to have died like yourself, dear Ezel Berbier?"

The alchemist, now revealed to be the legendary folk hero of Ivalice, laughed as he sat down. "Well, ninety odd years is a decent run after reaching the peak of your prime, eh? I imagine you were pretty well preserved, especially considering the reports that went out at Cadoan. I was at your funeral, even."

"Oh, you know how those sensationalist reporters are, have a few tons of loose sheet rock block your cave's entrance and people start saying how wonderful a man you were, and how loved you were by all and other such nonsense. Funerals are terrible when you're the guest of honor."

"Fair enough, so where were you?"

Roland rolled his eyes. "Sleeping. It was a simple lab slip up, could have happened to anyone."

Ezel grinned. "I always knew you were lazy. I told young Rachel that, but she married you anyway. At any rate, how's the world coming along since I left it?"

Roland sighed and swirled his tea around before taking a sip. It was good tea, the smoky black blend that Cadoan was famous for. "It's terrible. I probably should have died in my lab, to be honest".

Ezel nodded knowingly. "Exactly as I predicted it. I knew that Katzu fellow was going to be trouble. He seemed too sincere at the delegate's meetings in Cyril. You really have to watch out for someone described as 'selfless'. They always have an angle."

"You seem to have known him better than I did Ezel."

Roland's friend chuckled at his comment. "Know him? That young bastard was the reason I'm here!"

"Oh, well that's a shame. You know me, never was one for world affairs. "Roland sipped the tea and took a large butter rum muffin that was offered to him. As he was munching on the delightful little cake, Roland looked around for a second. "Where exactly is here, anyway? I'm almost certain that this isn't heaven. I was sure that heaven had more blushing maidens, classical architecture, and wine. This looks rather like one of your hideouts."

"Oh, yes, well, this is the Abyss."

"What?!" Roland said, more than a little surprised. The place between the worlds wasn't even considered as punishment by the Totema, a place where nothing was. It was a place devoid of the power of life, or the solidarity of eternal souls. "What are you doing in here?! This is supposed to be a place that only those who have an iron clad will could even hope to gaze upon, let alone have tea and muffins! This is excellent tea, by the way. How did you manage to do all this without any magic, or any life force?"

Hearing this, Ezel smiled so wide that his normally benign features became almost predatory. "Roland, can you keep a secret?"

Roland solemnly nodded to his friend. "Of course not."

"Oh good. See, when I died, I know that they ransacked my room, looking for any plans I might have had. I happened to have something I'd worked on for a long time, it was a way to siphon off magical power, a little charm I'd worked on since my Anti Laws were starting to get a bit saturated. Too many on the market at once. Could you believe that the clans were just trading amongst themselves, trying to cut me out? A few were even trying to reverse engineer the cards. They said I had a monopoly on the business, as if it was a bad thing. Such cheek."

"Ezel, get on with it," Roland said pleasantly. "You're dead now, it doesn't matter."

The unearthly alchemist sighed. "Yes, I suppose so. A minor set back, eh? Anyway, the siphoned magic would come back to me. The way I see it, I just give a few to some choice clanners I don't like, and it would be like having an ether drip feed."

"Very diabolical. I like it. So wait, you're still getting magic power from it? After you're dead?"

"Well that's the strange thing, I hadn't intended on my using it after I stopped living. I hadn't even implemented it while I was alive. I've no idea where the magic's coming from."

Roland took the final sip of tea from his cup and placed it down. "I think I can tell you where, Ezel. The magic, it's stored in some kind of battery, right?"

"Sure, I was thinking something small, an amulet or even a pair of shoes. Then the stored power slightly siphons out to me. The mages think they're getting a little magic bank to go back on, when in fact they're just keeping it there as it slowly comes my way. Quite elegant."

"Indeed, a bit too elegant, actually," Roland said, laughing a bit at Katzu's expense. "With your convoluted notes, Katzu's alchemists thought you'd just created a simple magic battery. They've been sucking so much power out of high class mages in some devilish anti magic prison they aren't noticing the stipend it's sending you. By the way, thanks for having made it so that the natural magic in the body's undifferentiated cells aren't affected. I knew only a spell weaver of your level could know about the magic within these cells that allow them to differentiate to the various cells the body uses. Hurts like hell to fashion a spell using what little magic's in the things, but it works. My body won't be liking it."

"You figured it out then? Well, I'm not sadist, Roland. Narcissist? Well maybe to some people. Pathological hater of establishment? Sure, why not. But I don't want to hurt people. When you mess with the magic of life," he looked over his teacup mockingly, "you become a sage. Only you people have enough of a god complex to do that. More tea? Good for marrow regeneration."

"Yes, why not. What does it do for hair growth and healing of the deep dermis?" Roland was used to the ribbing that Ezel gave him about his particular fields of expertise. Being a sage meant mastering the magics of life and the natural. It's dangerous stuff, messing with life. The first zombies were created by the crazy sages who lived out in the swamps around Cadoan, sad but true. Still, to Roland, there was a greater potential to aid the people of Ivalice through his work. "Anyway, what are we going to do, Ezel? Ivalice as we know it is gone. What's your plan?"

Ezel, normally so jovial, had no amusement in his laugh as he answered Roland. "Plan? What plan? As I recall when I was alive, Katzu was treated as a hero. The people loved him, they were just a hair's breadth from chucking a crown on his head and declaring him the next king of the place. And I bet they still love him, eh?"

"You have no idea. But Ezel, you know that's not right." Roland shook his head and sighed. "Once, when I was in Cyril with Matt, he's my apprentice by the way, I talked to a beautiful young girl there about politics. She was gushing about Katzu saving the country and protecting our freedoms. Our freedoms, Ezel. They have none. To prove this, I said these were interesting points and asked what she was currently studying. She said that Katzu had given her a grant to study economic statistics because she did so well in her studies and they needed more people to monitor the ever expanding economy. I asked if that was what she wanted to do. Ezel, she wanted to be a clanner like her grandfather, who had been a ninja, but then she said that everyone had to make sacrifices so we could all be happy. What if it meant sacrificing your life? Montblanc and Rachel are still alive; Katzu uses them as magic storage containers. So now even they have a use in his master plan. He's a mad man, Ezel. The people love him; they've given everything to him. What happens if he decides not to be so nice to them?"

"What are you suggesting, Roland?"

"Ezel, don't you know?"

Ezel got up and paced about his cottage. This was a man who was calm at the time of his death, when running away from Ivalice's greatest bounty hunters and most elite Judgemasters. It was quite odd to see him agitated. "Roland, I knew from the beginning. I'd always known he was nuts. And of course, I know how we can defeat him. We need a revolution, a glorious revolution, and I don't feel like it. Why did you think I let myself die? I was old when they'd found me, certainly, but there has not come a day when Ezel Berbier couldn't tell when someone was trying to assassinate him. Roland, the truth is, I'm tired. And selfish. I left heaven and came to the Abyss to find true freedom. From the gods, from authority, and I found it. My magic's helped me manage it, and I'm happy. The Ivalice I know is gone. And I'm certain Katzu's got bigger plans for it. Say goodbye to his nationalistic fervor, Roland. We're going to see the start of imperialism, greater governmental autocracy, and slowly, the icy hand of a totalitarian ideal is going to grip my beloved country. Take my advice and just die quietly. Our age has passed.."

First Barnabas, now the great Ezel himself, did no one have hope for Ivalice?Roland didn't know what to say. He just got up and left. Ezel sighed and cleaned up his tea kit. About thirty seconds later, Roland staggered back in, his eyes dilated and his teeth chattering. "This is where you live?! That was terrible, Ezel!!"

Ezel smiled grimly. "That's absolute freedom. A severence from everything. It is terrible, and yet, it's what I've always wanted. Sit down, it goes away after a while." He helped his twitching friend into a chair. "In all honesty, I haven't gone out since I managed to craft this place."

"I can see why, you maniac! You'd rather stay here then help your country?"

"Yes, quite cynical, eh? So, shall I put another pot on?"

"No, but have one ready when I get back."

"Back? Whatever do you mean?"

"Ezel," Roland gave his colleague a most solemn stare, "you're not getting out of this that easy. I assure you, I will be back, it will be on my own terms, and if I need to drag you back to the realm of the living by your long grey ears and bond your soul to a rock to keep you there, so help me I will. At any rate, I think my near death experience is almost over so I'll be back in the mortal world any seco-"

--

Roland's eyes snapped open. So it appeared that it was a dream. Still, he had in his mouth the slightly bitter aftertaste from a cup of good Cadoan tea, so he knew it hadn't been a worthless dream. He got up and stretched his paws out, silently thanking Ultima that he hadn't reverted back to his normal shape while he was asleep. It would have been quite a shock for the two guards to have seen a dying and unclothed old nu mou in a small basket, and someone might have gotten stabbed in all the excitement.

Speaking of his new patrons, Roland's new feline nose detected the delightful aroma of cream and brandy. Sure enough, the two men had left a little something out for him, and he happily lapped the delightful treat up. Life wasn't bad all the time, it seemed. Finishing his snack, Roland cast his yellow green gaze about the guard house. It was a small room, built into the outside prison wall, and aside from a desk and a fireplace, there was nothing there but the bunks the off shift slept on. Zwingley and Tim were snoring away on them currently, with Tim occasionally mumbling the name "Miranda". Roland shook his head and hopped up to the desk. Surely they needed to keep a map somewhere so the idiots on guard wouldn't get lost.

Finally finding it stretched across the top of the desk, he scanned the entire thing, looking to where Beth would be. Finally, he found the cell where she was kept in, along with a girl named Veronika Feynman. "Hmm, Feynman, Feynman, why is that familiar? Oh! Young Berkley Feynman married Harker Drogovitch's daughter! Could it be they had a daughter themselves?" he wondered. Drogovitch was yet another excellent alchemist from the old days. Roland considered if this Veronika girl knew any of his secrets. Now knowing where to go next, the sage hopped off the desk and vaulted through the little gatehouse window into the main courtyard of the prison.

He had to hurry, he was already feeling the strains of keeping the different shape for so long, and he couldn't have himself reverting back while still on the prison grounds. With desperation fueling his moves, he bounded onto the top of the first prison wall, ran up a penant rope to the central building, and then stopped at a chimney. Hopping up, he looked down to the bottom, and saw no fire burning.

Carefully lowering himself down, he put all four of his paws on one side of the chimney and pushed at the other side with his back. Tentatively, he brought one paw slightly lower, than another. Soon he was walking himself down the chimney with relative ease, though the chafing to his back almost made up for how easily he was accomplishing the task. There's a reason why cats don't like it when they're petted the wrong way.

Near the end, the enclosure started to narrow. Suddenly, one of Roland's paws hit metal. Tail first, he helplessly slid down and finally out of the chimney space. For a moment he just stayed still and attempted to regain his senses. Finally having gathered enough of them, he got up and surveyed his surroundings. It was almost completely black, even his feline eyes couldn't catch a hint of light. Walking forward, he hit a wall. The wall gave way under his weight and he was catapulted out of the room he'd landed in with a clang of metal. Getting up, he shook himself and looked to see where he'd gotten himself into. Here, moonlight filtered through windows and reflected off of sharp surfaces. He saw implements for slicing and chopping, instruments for the hewing of limbs and the bisection of bodies. Blood ran off of a knife that might as well have been a sword. Corpses swung from chains hanging from the blackened ceiling. The smell of death had pervaded the room.

"Ah, a kitchen. I suppose that means that," looking behind, Roland saw a monstrous box wrought of black iron. "Yes, I slipped down the oven chimney. Hmmm, according to the map in the gatehouse, that window's under the rubbish pile. I could probably ride the trash wagon out of here."

Roland, his path apparently laid out before him, leapt up to the window and wiggled through the bars. He finally managed to squeeze his narrow feline shoulders out and looked down to the massive pile of garbage under the window that had accumulated from that week's cooking duties. It was a good four story drop, but he was sure that his current body would have no problem. As he was about to leap down, another thought went through his mind. "Hold on, the trash comes in the morning, and I still have a few hours to kill." Suddenly, the sage's quick mind, honed after years as a clanner and an academic, started to piece together a plan. His lips pulled back, and he grinned a pointy grin. Leaping from windowsill to windowsill, he finally decided on one an poked his head in. Through the heavy curtains, he saw two figures. Both were covered completely by blankets, but the one to the right had two long pointed ears and a red ball peaking out. Looking at the black tips of the ears, Roland grinned again and slipped in. It was time to wreak a little havoc in Ivalice's most advanced prison.

Well, that's all kids. If you read this after my hiatus, bless you. You're too good for me. You know, now that I think about it, I bet we're going to get some crazy traffic now that FFTA2 just came out. Hello, any new faces! Welcome to the fold. Also, yes, I'm going for record number of semi colons used in a fic.