Auron silently took in his surroundings.

As far as he could tell he was in what looked like a small maze, with two or three corridors meeting each other in different intersections. I can't delay here. We must move on to talk to Roland the Creator...

Let's get this over with...

Wary of what kind of thing would attempt to kill him in this Cloister, the warrior stepped forward. Nothing happened.

Good.

Slowly gaining a bit more confidence in the place, he carefully walked to the closest intersection and peered around the corner. There was nothing. Still wary, he walked to the other side of the corridor and peered around the other corner as well. Nothing there, either.

Suspiciously moving as quietly as possible, the warrior took a sharp right, ran to the end of the hall, and stopped.

Auron's eyes widened: there was something over there, to the left. A huge, red, dragon-like, scaly fiend, breathing in and out rather loudly... Maybe it will be best not to go that way...

Turning back, Auron silently crept forward—and his foot caught a rock on the floor, and he stumbled. "Who the hell put a rock there?" he muttered angrily.

But suddenly, he stopped: there was a growl coming from the ugly red monster he had just attempted to avoid. And—what the hell? Why could he sense that the dragon had heard him stumble, and was now running toward him to kill him with a violent and merciless murder?

The monster emerged from around the corner and rolled its eyes.

"Because I am, you idiot," it snapped.

"...damn."

Auron blinked, waved at it—and tore away.

"Hey, you luscious hunk of man!" the dragon whined femininely. "Wait up!"

Auron's expression greatly resembled a "o.O"; however, he didn't dare slow down or turn back (or ask why it was that the dragon could speak English). Instead, he merely continued sprinting ahead until another intersection loomed into view.

With a sudden burst of speed the warrior shot ahead and took a left.

"No!" the dragon moaned. "Come back, my exquisitely divine chap! Omigod, omigod, omigod, I never had a chance to do my nails this morning! Ugh! Now, TO THE HIILLS!" And with that, the dragon galloped away merrily to frolic in the meadows.

"What—the—hell..." Auron muttered, shaking his head pityingly. Fiends these days...

He ambled forward and made a turn at the next intersection of corridors, and there, he saw immediately, was a glyph on the floor leading to an exit.

And, he also saw immediately, a Tonberry just happened to be coincidentally standing right on top of it.

Coincidentally, he internally muttered in a quite sarcastic tone. "Well, let's get this over with."

He strode up to the Tonberry and stopped a few yards ahead of it. The Tonberry merely waved. Auron, who was trying not to waste time, slowly drew out his katana and leapt forward, slashing it at the Tonberry's face.

The Tonberry waited for its turn, then took a single, lone step toward Auron, but did nothing else.

Auron waited for his ATB bar to fill up (he WAS in the Via Infinito, which was from Final Fantasy X-2, so he had to obey the battle system of Final Fantasy X-2. He irritably remembered that he never had to deal with this stupid battle system back in his OWN game, FFX. Damn, FFX-2 sucked...) and then swung his sword at the fiend again.

The Tonberry took another lone step toward him. Auron waited again for the ATB bar to fill up, and then swung yet again. The Tonberry took another lone step toward him. Auron waited, and swung. The Tonberry stepped forward. Auron waited and swung. The Tonberry stepped forward. Auron waited and swung.

This process continued for about three hours, after which time an exasperated Auron cried, "FORGET THE STUPID ATB SYSTEM, I'M KICKING YOUR ASS NOW," and dove forward, slashing at the Tonberry's face over and over again and kicking it where the sun don't shine. He stabbed at it over and over again, and picked up the Tonberry and chucked him bodily into a wall. Then, Auron ran forward and rammed into it. Hard.

There was a cloud of dust surrounding the Tonberry when Auron was done. Slowly the dusty air cleared, and Auron, who had expected the Tonberry to be dead, cold, and lifeless, gaped as the Tonberry reappeared, perfectly fine.

The Tonberry blinked at him innocently.

Then, it took one more step closer to Auron—and this time, it ended up right in front of him. Slowly and disturbingly, the Tonberry took out his small little dagger, held it up to Auron's face with two hands, and—

"NO! Leave my boyfriend alone, you boyfriend-stealing little whore! Ugh! How rude of you, Tonberry! And to think I slept with you last week! You man-whore!"

Auron, who wished the Tonberry had just killed him now, growled angrily. Did that ugly dragon have to come just at this moment?

"Don't worry, my boyfriend! I'm saving you!" the dragon screamed. It galloped forward, picked up the Tonberry from the ground, and—

RRRRRIPPP.

Auron stared in utter horror at the dragon, who was now clutching the Tonberry's body in one hand and the Tonberry's head in the other.

"I told you I'd save you! NOW WE CAN MAKE LOVE!"

Auron scrambled away and hurriedly touched the glyph on the floor. Hurry up, and get me the hell out of here!

"NO! MY MAIN SQUEEZE! WHERE ARE YOU GOING? COME BAAAAAAAAAAAACK!"

But Auron was already gone.

Rinoa, who was in a whole different Cloister, looked around the place.

"This is an open field... This isn't a Cloister, is it?" she mumbled to herself confusedly.

And, indeed, the area was in the shape and form of an open field, she realized. But Pogo had probably cast some kind of strange magic on the place to make it look like an open field, instead of just a regular Cloister.

Bemused, the woman walked around a bit, observing things as she went. There was small airplane-ish machinery sitting far away in one corner of the massive field, and in the center of the field was apparently some sort of Travel Agency or something. Several people were standing around the field looking like they had nothing to do with their lives, and along with many of them were large yellow birds Rinoa immediately recognized as Chocobos. What was this place? She'd never been here before.

And then, as if just on cue, a large welcoming sign materialized directly in front of her, flashing the words "Welcome to the Calm Lands!" in front of her.

"So, this is the Calm Lands," she said, interested. The Calm Lands were not from her game, Final Fantasy VIII, so, naturally, she had no way to know of them.

A grinning woman on a chocobo trotted up to her.

"Hello there!" she said. "I saw that you seem to be a bit confused around here. Would you like a map, or a guide, or a chocobo?"

"Um..." Rinoa narrowed her eyes. "Well, I would like some information, more like. Such as, do you know how I can get out of here, and get to the next floor so I can talk with Roland the Creator?"

The Chocobo woman blinked. "Are you alright? This is the Calm Lands; there is no next floor. The only exit out of here leads to Mt. Gagazet..." The woman brightened. "But, I did find this a few minutes ago..." She held up a strange-looking object with a glyph on its front side. "Is this what you're looking for?"

Rinoa thought. She knew she didn't want to go to Mt. Gagazet; she merely wanted to get out of here so she could proceed to see Roland. So, in order to navigate through this "Cloister", she thought, I'm going to have to probably touch some sort of magic glyph or something, like what they do in Final Fantasy X

"Yep, that's what I'm looking for!" she said, reaching out to grab it.

"Ah, but not so fast. In order to obtain this from me, you're going to have to beat me in a chocobo race, and get a score of 0:0.0. See those balloons? If you hit those, they take away three seconds from your final time. And if a bird hits you, they add three seconds to your final time AND they stun you for approximately 1.8 seconds. Got it? Now, the finish line is all the way at the end of the Calm Lands, and I get to start three feet ahead of you."

Rinoa stared at her. "No! That's not fair!"

"Of course it's not! But the Chocobo Catcher race has always been this way! Just ask anyone who's played Final Fantasy X. Now, get on that chocobo over there. Good. Ready—

"—set—

"—GO!"

Reluctantly, Rinoa and the Chocobo Woman set off.

They started off at the ramp at the top of the Calm Lands. Oh, look! Four balloons! Rinoa shouted internally. Hurry up, chocobo! Let's get them before the Chocobo Woman—

"Move, bitch!" the Chocobo Woman screeched, butting Rinoa out of the way and getting all four balloons to herself.

Well, okay...we'll try again... Rinoa turned a sharp corner at the end of the ramp and saw a batch of balloons in front of her, as well as a flock of angry birds coming her way. Hurry! Get the balloons before the birds come! she thought.

She collected four balloons before one of the birds smacked into her rudely and "accidentally" popped three of them. "NO! My balloons!" she cried, and immediately, before she could recover from the first hit, another bird smacked into her. And then, before she could recover from that, another bird smacked into her. And another. And another.

Damn it! She angrily moved on, avoiding two more birds. Look! More balloons! Quick, get them, chocobo!

But just at that precise moment, the chocobo ran off track to urine in the grass, and by the time it finished, the damn Chocobo Woman had already collected the balloons.

"QUICK!" Rinoa screamed at her chocobo. "RUUNN, FORREST, RUUNN!"

The chocobo yawned. Then, lazily, it galloped ahead, got smacked by an average of 43 more birds, peed again, collected one balloon, and caught up with the Chocobo Woman just before the end of the finish line.

"Give me those, bitch!" the Chocobo Woman shrieked, snatching two balloons out of Rinoa's hand and getting to the finish line before her.

Both of the women dismounted off their chocobos, and compared their collected balloons and number of hit birds.

"Don't give up! Someday you'll hold the record!" the Chocobo Bitch exclaimed cheerfully. "One more time!"

"NO."

Rinoa slapped the Bitch across the face, cast Thundaga on her chocobo, snatched the glyph away from her, and irately touched the glyph just in time to give the Chocobo Hoe a quite unpleasant gesture with one of her fingers. A second later, she disappeared, but not before her lingering voice could be heard by the Chocobo Whore:

"After I save Muse Land from destruction, I swear I'm going to play Ayuno's Final Fantasy X game to kick your behind..."

Tidus, who was in a different Cloister, looked left and right. "Hey, I remember this place!" he exclaimed. "This is the boat I went to! The... S.S. Winno!"

And indeed it was. He, apparently, was in a Cloister that was magically set to look like it was from Final Fantasy X. Tidus walked around, determined not to spend a lot of time here. He could already feel the disease starting to kick in...

Walking to the back of the ship, and wondering what he would have to do to leave this place and get to the top floor to talk to Roland, Tidus spotted a lone blitzball sitting in the center of an open space. "Oh, hello, blitzy..." he said to it.

He picked it up. And threw it in the air a couple of times.

Then, a little note popped up magically in the air, which read:

The Jecht Shot Challenge:

Memories of that day still haunt Tidus and interfere with his concentration. Try to shake off the memories and successfully perform the Jecht Shot!

Tidus raised his eyebrows.

"Uh...okaayy... I guess..." Shrugging, he thrust the blitzball high in the air, and leaped up to meet it in midair.

You can't do it, kid! a mysterious voice laughed annoyingly, out of nowhere.

Tidus was doing all sorts of tricks and such with the ball.

No one else can do it but me, kid!

Tidus had the ball spinning on his nose.

Only me, my boy. I'm the best!

Tidus kicked the ball higher into the air.

Don't mess up, don't mess up...

Tidus was just about to boot the ball into the ocean, thus successfully performing the shot, when—

LOOK! A HOT GIRL BENDING OVER!

"WHERE!" Tidus's head whipped around to fast his neck cracked.

The blitzball smacked him on the forehead, and Tidus fell dramatically to the floor. "You bastard! You distracted me!" he cried at the mysterious voice.

Well, what do you expect? I'm supposed to support you? Ha!

"Well, yeah! Why not?"

Because, Tidus... A shadowy figure loomed into view, and began to walk up to him. I am your father.

Taking off his mask, the figure appeared to be—Darth Vader.

"What the hell?" Tidus boomed. "Wrong movie."

Oh, sorry. The figure disappeared in a wisp of smoke, leaving a plot hole in its wake.

"..." Tidus blinked a couple of times. "Well, this was stupidly corny," he said, and then he shrugged and dove headfirst into the plot hole.

While all that crap was going on, Cloud was actually doing something that made sense, in his Cloister: he and a pretty, skinny, blond woman he had met earlier, were walking to a place called the Fire Cavern. He had no clue what the Fire Cavern was, however, except that a hot girl had volunteered to take him there and "test him on some...things." And that was all he needed to know, before he hastily accepted.

He and the woman came to the entrance of the cavern, and stopped.

There were two strange-looking men in robes guarding its entrance. One of them stepped forward and said, "Objective: To obtain a low-level GF. A SeeD member must support. Are you ready?"

Cloud looked around and then realized he was the one being spoken to. "Oh. Whatever."

"I'm his support. Instructor Number Fourteen, Quistis Trepe," the woman beside him said officially, flipping her hair.

"Select a time limit. Choose one suited to your abilities," the guard continued, addressing Cloud. "Challenging...yet reasonable. Ten minutes, twenty minutes, thirty minutes, or forty—"

"...thirty seconds," Cloud said shortly.

"Thirty seconds? That's not one of the choices! You have to choose between 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, or—"

"I said, thirty...seconds," he repeated sharply, grabbing the guard by the collar and chucking him light-years into the air, resulting in the guard landing on top of Balamb Garden and falling through its roof, which consequentially and coincidentally caused the whole building to collapse violently on top of Seifer, Raijin, and Fujin. "You got a problem with that?" Cloud asked the other guard threateningly, who quickly shook his head.

"N-no, sir. Good luck!"

Quistis nodded. "You ready?"

"Whatever."

"You have thirty seconds," the guard said, "to get in the cavern, find Ifrit, defeat it in battle, quickly sprint back to the cavern's entrance, and make out hornily with Quistis."

"What was that last one?" Quistis questioned warily.

"Quickly sprint back to the cavern's entrance?" the guard said, and before Quistis could reply he said, "Now, your time starts... Now!"

Cloud shot off at a sprint, with Quistis struggling to keeping up with him. They rounded a corner, avoided all random battles possible, and did not dare to slow down their pace. "You know," Quistis huffed, "the boys often choke on this test when I come with them. I guess my charm makes them nervous!"

Cloud coughed loudly.

"Ugh! I'm just kidding! Just trying to keep you relaxed, that's all."

Cloud eyeballed her, but said nothing. Nineteen seconds left.

Suddenly, a large demonic bear-like creature materialized from nowhere and breathed in Cloud's and Quistis's faces rudely. Just as rudely, Cloud and Quistis breathed right back at it. The two horrifying odors met, and there was a large explosion of gases.

A second later, the demonic creature roared angrily. A label appeared over its head that read "Ifrit."

"Are we supposed to be attacking it?" Quistis asked stupidly, and in a very OOC manner, since she was supposed to be the instructor here.

The letters "Ifrit" disappeared from the label, and the new words "Well, duh, you idiot," replaced them.

"Let's defeat it!" Cloud yelled at her.

"Ohhhhhh, okay, I get it!" The OOC version of Quistis giggled, taking out a mirror from her purse. "One sec, I need to put more lip gloss on..." As she took out a small tube from seemingly nowhere, Cloud turned away and realized his shoe was untied, completely oblivious to the fact that they only had ten seconds left.

"Much better!" OOC Quistis giggled, and then snorted. "Now I just need some more eyeliner, and then I'll be..." There was a rustle in the bushes behind her, and two hands suddenly grabbed her by the ankles and dragged her into the bushes, where the sound of a group of people violently beating her up could be heard. "AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Seconds later, a group of pleased fangirls emerged, leaving OOC Quistis tied up to the bushes behind them.

Cloud, who hadn't noticed a thing, sprang forward and stabbed his immensely huge sword at Ifrit. Ifrit, who appeared to be quite pissed off at this point, grabbed Cloud by the foot, picked him off the ground, and slammed him into a wall.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" the fangirls cried, screaming and sprinting forward to bitch-slap Ifrit and dig their nails into his skin.

Cloud raised one eyebrow and watched in amusement, ignoring the fact that there were now only five seconds left.

Ifrit roared painfully, still in the process of being beat to death by the angry fangirls. One of the fangirls, however, let all the others do all the work, and ran forward to tackle Cloud to the ground, rip off his clothes, and get something from him that she evidently believed she deserved.

"NO!" Cloud screamed, shoving her off of him.

But by this time the other fanbitches and fanwhores had caught on to what was going on behind their backs, and they suddenly abandoned Ifrit and dived on top of Cloud as well. Cloud bellowed in protest, AND—

The screen went black and the next thing he new, he was staring at an empty display of nothing. He watched as the word appeared in the middle of the screen, and sad, dreadful music played in the background.

Shrugging carelessly, the former SOLDIER walked into the middle of the screen, sighted a green, glowing glyph, and touched it. Immediately he dematerialized.

Ayuno was in the last—thank god—Cloister. Hopefully his Cloister would not be quite as... strange as the others' Cloisters.

He appeared to be in some sort of—medieval arena. Does this mean I'm going to have to fight something? he asked himself, regretting that he already knew the answer.

There was an enormous crowd of excited and anxious random people who were screaming and cheering, up in the stands.

"Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the world's 31st annual Tri-Battle Killing Tournament!" a short, bald man standing in the middle of the arena boomed, speaking into a microphone. "People from all over the world have come to witness the blood and gore and violence that is...this tournament!"

The audience cheered like a bunch of mindless idiotic fools.

Ayuno looked around and observed the place more closely: The people in the stands did not exactly look like normal people... Many of them had long, narrow eyeballs with unnaturally large and sparkling pupils. Others had small, pointed, triangular noses with no nostrils, and plenty of them had large, widened mouths in which three apples could easily fit. As they cheered, their eyes formed into semi-ovals at the top, and they cheered with much more excitement than any other crowd Ayuno had seen before.

This isn't a medieval tournament... he realized, this is... an anime tournament!

"I am Krillin, your announcer and host! Don't ask what happened to the old announcer/host; he broke his neck or something. Anywho, the first round will be between Ayuno, this random guy who nobody has ever really heard of before—" Krillin, who now seemed quite familiar, pointed to Ayuno, and the crowd cheered mindlessly. "—and Samara, someone who you never want to meet personally."

A small little girl with a halfway decaying face whose body was completely stale and covered in mold, and who was carrying a weighty chainsaw, grinned and waved to the crowd. However, the girl did not look quite as horrendously hideous as she otherwise would have if she were not animated and in a Japanese anime show. Vaguely Ayuno wondered what he himself looked like, in his anime version.

"The winner of this round continues to Round 2, the winner of which continues into Round 3, and so on, until they either implode unceremoniously or win against Round 5. Everyone excited?"

Every single person in the crowd screamed excitedly, except for a man who said, at the top of his lungs, "NO."

Everyone glared at him. Krillin angrily produced two energy disks from both of his hands and flung them at the man, who was immediately sliced in three.

"Anyone else?" Krillin asked, eyeing the crowd.

No one moved.

"Good! Let—the battle—BEGIN!"

Ayuno watched as Krillin left the stage to sit with Android 18 and his daughter, as well as several other recognizable anime characters, and some unrecognizable ones. As Krillin sat, he waved to a boy in the front row with blond, spiky hair, an unusual headband, and something that looked strangely like whiskers on his cheeks, who waved excitedly back.

"Naruto, turn around, you're embarrassing me..." muttered a pink-haired girl sitting beside the boy. Ayuno stared in horror as a dark-colored, shadowy figure that had the exact same features as the girl, emerged from the girl's body, howled, "WHY DID I HAVE TO SIT WITH NARUTO? I WANTED SASUKE!" and then disappeared.

Across from them was yet another unusual group of people. A boy with long, white hair extending down his back had his arms folded irritably, as a girl dressed in a green skirt attempted to poke his massive sword.

"Hmmm..." the girl said. "You know, Inuyasha, up close, that sword is larger than I thought...! Would you mind if I just—"

"NO."

And somewhere close to them was a boy who was seemingly sitting alone, but had a small bunny perched on his shoulder. "Look, Ai," the bunny stated bluntly. "I suggest you watch the tournament closely and pick up some things... because you suck like hell at martial arts. Your psychic aura is good—but BOY do you need some work at fighting."

"Hey, that's not true, Master Boo!" the boy named Ai replied, blushing and producing multiple sweat-drops at once.

Ayuno raised his eyebrows at all of these familiar anime characters, but did not have the chance to observe the arena any longer, for Samara was now approaching him, holding up her chainsaw, ready to attack. The crowd cheered in delight, excited that the battle had finally begun. Ayuno raised his fists, ready to beat the hell out of the creepy little moldy girl, as she slowly continued to approach.

Then she stopped.

"Hold on, let me plug in my chainsaw..." she mumbled, looking for an outlet.

The crowd immediately stopped its cheering and gaped at the little girl as she frantically searched the place for an electric outlet in which to plug her deadly weapon.

...idiot. Ayuno took this chance to kill her off. Jumping high in the air in an anime-like fashion, he cried, "Nuclear... Kick!" and soared downward, smacking his foot against Samara's face.

But Samara did not look injured at all. Instead of wincing, Samara slowly and angrily rotated her head about 180 degrees until it faced Ayuno. Then—she grinned maliciously. She jumped into the air, held her hands at her side, and bellowed, "Ka...me...ha...me...HA!" And a blue energy beam emerged from her hands and shot toward Ayuno.

Ayuno, thinking quickly, shouted, "Mirror Attack!" and abruptly, a mirror materialized in his hands. He held up the mirror to the Kamehameha Wave, and—

The energy beam bounced back and shot back toward Samara, who screamed a bloodcurdling scream and went "KABOOM!"

Bits and pieces of her hideous body flew everywhere. Samara's chainsaw ended up being blown into the air by the massive explosion; someone in the crowd jumped up and caught it excitedly in midair as if it were bouquet of flowers at a wedding.

Then, Krillin ran into the middle of the arena and cried out, "We have a winner! Ayuno advances to the second round!" He walked up to Ayuno and handed him a boxlike object with a glyph on its front. "You receive this prize for winning the first round. Good job!"

A glyph? Ayuno pondered, squinting at the object. Looks like it's time to go...

"Aren't you excited at all?" Krillin asked.

"Oh... um... yeah!" Ayuno then left Krillin and everyone else quite confused, as he touched the glyph and vanished.

There was silence, and people in the crowd blinked confusedly multiple times.

Then, the pink-haired girl next to Naruto cried, "Damn it, Naruto, you scared him off! And he was hot too!"

Naruto scowled at her.

Auron, Ayuno, Rinoa, Cloud, and Tidus all stood in a white room.

"Erm... what just happened?" Tidus asked. "Did you guys just come back from your Cloisters too?"

"...yep," replied everyone in unison.

"I think mine was the best," Tidus continued. "I got to relive the days of Yuna's pilgrimage! Back in Spira, on the S.S. Winno—"

"Do we have time for this?" Rinoa interrupted. "We still have to stop the plague. I'm guessing Roland the Creator is in the next room..." She pointed ahead, at a door. "Should we go through?"

There was silence for a moment. Then, Ayuno said, "Shouldn't we plan out what we're going to say to him to make him believe that actually come up with a cure for the disease? We can't just go out there and look like idiots..."

"Why not?" Tidus asked.

The other four stared at him.

"You'd look like an idiot no matter how much planning we do," Cloud muttered.

"There's no time." Auron strode ahead. "We don't have time to plan, or argue. Come." He placed his hand on the doorknob. "We must convince Roland that we've found a cure...or this world will die. And us along with it. This is the moment...that will shape our fate." He turned the knob and opened the door.

Then he froze.

"What is it, Auron?" Rinoa asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I've just realized... we have a problem. You see, if we talk to Roland, we could severely alter our lives back on Earth, or on Muse Land. Roland has the power to make anything come true, right? So he might unintentionally use his imagination to make the situation worse than before. Interacting with Roland the Creator could be dangerous."

Ayuno nodded; Auron was most certainly right. If they said the wrong thing to Roland, Roland might end up worsening things with his imagination. They couldn't have that. "You're right..."

Tidus brightened. "I have an idea! I can check on Earth, to make sure nothing bad happens to it while the rest of you are with Roland! And...I'll check on the rest of Muse Land too!"

"Good." Auron nodded. "While we're with Roland, make sure nothing bad happens... And if it does, come back here immediately and warn us, before we leave from this castle. If it doesn't, just meet us back at the entrance to Muse Land, in ten minutes. Understand?"

Tidus nodded. "Yep!" And with that, he vanished.

Ayuno walked nervously into the next room.

The room was nothing but a blank, white space with blank, white walls and a blank, white ceiling, along with a blank, white floor. Ayuno felt like he was floating in a void of nothingness. But then, he looked up—and saw a middle-aged man lying in a bed, sick.

Apparently, this was Roland's room.

Roland appeared to be a 50-or-so year old man with a balding scalp and wide, frightened eyes. Nothing else could be seen of him, for he was holding the covers all the way up to his mouth, as though he was far too frightened to show his face. Ayuno looked him up and down, startled: he had thought Roland would look... more special than this. And his room? Ayuno could hardly imagine having to live in a place so empty.

"Wh- Who are you all? And how did you get past Pogo and the tornado?" the Creator croaked weakly.

Ayuno saw almost immediately that he was going to have to do most of the talking here, for his Muses were merely staring at Roland as if he were a highly amusing television show.

"Well, we kind of...had to...erm..." He decided to start at another angle. "Well, I'm Ayuno, and this is...Auron, Rinoa, and Cloud." As he spoke, he gestured to each of his Muses, who each smiled as their name was spoken. "We, um... Well...we're here to...um..."

Roland was not pleased.

"Did you have a reason for breaking into my castle?"

Ayuno gulped. "Well, we're pretty sure we've found a cure to the disease that you—and everyone else in Muse Land—have."

Roland's face brightened dramatically, and he suddenly sounded as if he had gained new energy. His voice no longer sounded weak, and he certainly no longer seemed as angry as before. "You have? Really? How?"

"Well...uh..." Ayuno hastened to think of something. All I have to do is lie, and make him believe we've found a cure. Then, he'll be cured, and so will the rest of Muse Land... "Well, er... scientists from Earth have discovered this new...thing...that just happens to be a cure to the disease you have!"

His Muses glared at him with a "you idiot!" look.

"...you lie." Roland narrowed his eyes at him.

"No, no, really!"

Roland's eyes were now so narrow that they looked like slits. "Those scientists are unbelievably foolish; there is nothing on Earth that can heal this disease!" He coughed a multitude of times, and sneezed two or three times. Apparently, this guy really was sick...

"Oh, but this cure isn't from Earth!" Rinoa quickly added.

"It's not?" Ayuno, Auron, and Cloud repeated incredulously.

Roland shook his head. "That can't be true."

"It is, it is!" she said. Ayuno got the impression that she was thinking very, very fast. "You see, there was a—meteor. Yeah, a meteor struck the planet Earth, and from that meteor, scientists extracted an undiscovered substance! And...as it turns out, this substance has now been proven to heal your disease. The substance has been called...er...the Ranklesteinburg Element."

"The WHO?" everyone in the room cried out. Surely she could've come up with a better name than that... Ayuno muttered internally.

"...the...Ranklestein...burg... Element?"

"And what have they called my disease?" the Creator wanted to know.

"... they've named it... Ranklesteinburg," Rinoa answered without delay. "You see, Ranklesteinburg is the name of the disease, and the Ranklesteinburg Element is the name of its cure. It's...quite simple."

Ayuno shook his head. We're doomed...

"Hmm... Maybe it could..." Roland considered it—then shook his head. "Nah. I've had this disease for too long now... I can't be cured. It's too late for me."

Rinoa seemed to be unable to think of anything else to say, so, quickly, Cloud stepped in. "Of course you can, you fool. It cures everyone! It...already cured everyone else in Muse Land!" he lied.

"It did?"

"It did."

What is he saying? Ayuno thought. It hasn't cured anyone! We only— But then he realized that if the Creator Roland truly believed that the cure had already healed everyone else in Muse Land, his imagination would make it come true. And then...everyone in Muse Land would be cured already...!

"But..." Roland sighed. "I was the first person to obtain the Ranklesteinburg disease...so that means it's probably too late for me. I'm going to die."

"Of course not." Auron strode forward and looked Roland in the eye. "Look. There are people on Earth who have gotten the disease before you have. The...Ranklesteinburg Element... has cured all of them. It has been scientifically proven to heal the Ranklesteinburg disease every time."

"Then... where is it?" Roland said.

There was a pause.

"... where is what?"

"Where is my cure! The Ranklesteinburg Element! You did bring it with you, didn't you?"

"Oh, yes, of course we did!" Ayuno said hastily. He quickly dug in his pockets and felt around for something—anything—to give to Roland. He came up with—two pieces of lint, and a paperclip.

"Er... this is it! Right...here! Behold—the Ranklesteinburg Element!" he cried, thrusting out one of the pieces of lint.

Roland blinked, and stared at him, as though trying to decide whether he was joking or not. "...Ayuno? That's a piece of lint."

"N- No, it's the Ranklesteinburg Element. It's just, they've disguised it as a piece of lint, to fool people who would steal it and use it for their own purposes."

"Oh!" Roland took the lint. "What do I do with it?"

"Um... you...eat it."

"No! I'm not eating this! And—" the Creator's eyes bulged dramatically. "Oh, dear... Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear."

"What is it, Creator?" Rinoa asked.

"Well... didn't you say that a meteor hit the Earth?" he said.

"Yeah... Where else would the cure to your disease have come from? Of course a meteor hit the Earth! Well, I mean, it was a really really tiny meteor, so it didn't do any damage or anything—"

"But you don't understand? Scientists believe...that if another meteor hits Planet Earth, it could cause another Ice Age!"

Ayuno exchanged glances with the others—and broke out laughing. " That's what you're so worried about? No, don't worry, the meteor was really small. Everything's fine on Earth—"

"NO, IT'S NOT! THEY SAY THAT A METEOR WILL CAUSE ANOTHER ICE AGE, I'M TELLING YOU! It's proven!"

"Hey, calm down, old man..."

"AN ICE AGE!"

"...THAT'S IT." Ayuno, who was growing more and more impatient, angrily shoved the piece of lint down the Creator's throat.

The Creator choked for a moment, and then swallowed the thing. "There, now you're cured," Ayuno said. "It ... may take a moment for the healing to kick in." He and his Muses waited anxiously to see if the fake "cure" actually worked on the Creator. If it didn't... Ayuno gulped. He hoped he had really convinced Roland that it would truly work. Because, if not—

Roland blinked a couple of times. Then—

"I...I feel..."

"Yes...?"

"...I feel... Better!"

"YES! It worked!" Ayuno pumped a fist triumphantly in the air. "We're saved!" The Creator stared at him questioningly. "Er—I mean—you're saved!"

"I knew we'd be alright," Auron said, smirking. "Now...we must leave before we make anything go wrong," he muttered low enough for only Ayuno and the other Muses to hear. They nodded in agreement.

"How can I repay you—?" Roland asked. But they were already gone. "Er..."

Tidus was waiting for them at the entrance to Muse Land, like planned. "Well? How'd it go?" he said.

"It worked!" Rinoa giggled, grinning excitedly. "...I feel all... heroine-like."

"Me too," Cloud said.

Rinoa glanced at him. "... Heroines are females."

Cloud shrugged.

"Did any changes happen to Earth or Muse Land while we were with Roland?" Auron asked sharply, speaking to Tidus, who shook his head and said, "Nah. All's good. I made sure of it."

"Good."

Ayuno smiled. Then, Tidus said, "So, I guess this means I win the bet?"

This question resulted in Ayuno, Auron, Riona, and Cloud falling over and sweat-dropping several times at once. However, they quickly recovered, and Ayuno cried, "You're still thinking about that stupid bet we made? That's all you've been thinking about, isn't it?"

"...pretty much."

Rinoa slapped him across the face. "Fool! No one wins the bet! The bet was automatically called off when we realized that fate of Muse Land was in danger!"

"It was? Awww man!" Tidus pouted.

But before he could whine annoyingly, Auron cut in, "Look, let's just get back to Earth. We shouldn't dawdle here any longer." And Ayuno agreed. Auron made a gesture and the yellow door from before popped out from nowhere.

"Are you going to go in willingly this time, or am I going to have to kick you in again?" he asked.

"I'll go willingly, thanks," Ayuno grumbled, and reentered Earth, closely followed by the others

But something was wrong.

He emerged in front of his house, which, strangely, was...covered in snow... And so was the lawn in front of it. And all the streets. And the trees. In fact, Ayuno realized, everything in sight was buried under no less than five feet of snow. And in some areas, the snow was even higher up than that—up to what looked horribly like ten to eleven feet of snow.

The snow surrounding him was luckily only up to his neck. He attempted to scrape the ground with his feet, but then he realized that the ground was covered in a thick sheet of ice. And, what was worse, the snow was still falling down very rapidly, carried by the wind, and smacking him in the face—along with enormous bits of hail beating down on him. What was this?

"Oh my God..." Rinoa gasped, slowly placing her hand to her gaping mouth.

Ayuno gawked, feeling his stomach churn horribly. "What—what's happened here?" he said loudly, starting to get a horrific realization that he could not bear to come to terms with.

"...What the f—" Cloud began.

His eyes widened; he looked over to Auron. "Auron... What...is this?" he muttered in a severely low voice.

Auron's eyes darted across the scenery several times, as if taking in all the details, before he answered. Slowly, gravely, and darkly, he said—

"I fear...our confronting with Roland has...altered our own reality, here on Earth. In order to make him believe we found a true extraterrestrial cure for his disease, we told him that a tiny meteor from far in outer space had struck Earth... And...he believed it."

"Oh my god," Rinoa repeated, now understanding what Auron was trying to say. "And then... since Roland believed it..." She gulped, and could go no further.

"...it came true," Ayuno finished. "And Roland also believed that since a meteor had struck Earth, it would cause another Ice Age. And...since he believed that too, it also came true..." He felt his blood go cold as the full impact of what he and his Muses had done hit him:

He had inadvertently caused a second Ice Age...just like Roland said he had.

Everyone he knew—his family, his friends—would all have been frozen in their homes by now, dead as a rootless tree. And whose fault was it?

Guess. Just guess, he thought, as the glacial cold began to get to him, and he began to freeze. His body was slowly freezing, that is, but his mind—was as clear as ever. It's mine.

Mine...

But—

Hold up.

Slowly, menacingly, warningly, with all the strength he could muster in his horrid blizzard, he turned to face Tidus, who had said nothing all this time. "T-Tidus?" he asked, as his teeth quickly began to chatter, and his fingers and toes grew numb with what he knew was frostbite.

"...Y-y-yeah?" the young man replied. Ayuno could've sworn he saw Tidus sweating in an extraordinarily nervous manner, despite the absolutely bitter weather.

"D-didn't you say you would check to m-make sure n-n-nothing went wr-wrong, when we were talking t-to Roland the Cr-Creator?" he managed to say.

"Er... y-yeah..."

Hearing this, Rinoa, Auron, Cloud, and Ayuno all rounded on him, all knowing they were going to die within minutes in this cold—but apparently they were all too pissed to care.

"Then wh-why d-didn't you t-t-tell us this would happen!" Rinoa screeched.

"I—er—um—"

"WELL?" she urged.

"Y-YEAH," Ayuno barked furiously. "WH-WHAT THE HELL ARE W-WE GOING TO DO N-NOW? W-WE'RE ALL GOING TO D-DIE, B-BECAUSE OF YOU!"

"W-WHAT DO YOU H-HAVE TO SAY FOR YOURSELF?"

Tidus managed to smile sheepishly.

"...uh, plot hole?"

And with that, everyone blew up.

"NO!" Shadray, the real author of this story, cried; this just wasn't working. "Sorry everyone, but this just isn't working out. We can't have everyone blow up!"

Darian, one of his real Muses, frowned. "Why not? What better ending than everyone dying a horrible, fiery death?"

"Actually, there are a lot better endings," Rianna, another one of his real Muses stated, rolling her eyes at him. "Like people living, for instance?"

Shadray growled, frustrated that his story was not going to work out the way he'd planned. He had written all that, with his Muses beside him, and now what? He was going to have to start all over again. Shadray crumbled the paper up in his fist and flicked it toward the trashcan in the corner of the room; it did not land inside the barrel, but instead fell short and landed somewhat in front of the can, among ten other crumpled up pieces of paper.

The paper that he had given life, given color to—was now dead, lifeless, along with all of the other failed attempts at a fantasy story.

…again.