Laguna led the group into the basement with Selphie clinging to his arm, Kit still trying to wipe away tears, and Andrea looking around with interest. Even down in the basement, the stone walls were hung with paintings, tapestries and videogame posters, and every light on the wall seemed to be a different type or color.

"This place is...eccentric," she commented, trying to ease everyone's concern.

"Is this the door?" Laguna asked doubtfully as they reached the bottom of the stairs.

"Oh no!" Selphie wailed. "It's locked!"

"Hang on," Kit muttered, coming forward and reaching for the pendant around her neck. "It's sealed with a spell that can't be broken unless I'm dead. I didn't want anyone tampering with it." She mumbled a few words and the crystal in her pendant began to glow, and slowly the door dissolved into another passageway.

The group raced down corridor after corridor, which all looked as identical as the most standard RPG dungeon, until they finally reached a dead end. Selphie wrung her hands in despair and Laguna scratched his head in puzzlement.

"Now what?" he said.

"Man, you'd think you guys have never played video games," Andrea said with a shake of her head, starting to run her hands over the rock. "Haven't you ever heard of a switch...ah, got it!"

The concealed door swung open and they hurried inside, Selphie whispering to Kit. 'Wow, is she a genius or something?"

"Just a videogame nerd," Laguna answered cheerfully. The door swung shut behind them and they were suddenly faced with a room full of computer panels.

"So, which one is it?" Andrea asked, raising an eyebrow, and Kit shrugged.

"Let's just turn them all on!" Selphie grinned, running across the room to hit various power switches as she found them, her brown hair bouncing as she giggled in her new-found game. Kit and Andrea followed her, finally finding what they assumed to be the main console. It was embedded with two sets of hands, glowing in anticipation.

"All right, this is pretty cool," Andrea said appreciatively and Kit grinned. Side by side they placed their hands into the slots and suddenly everything started whirring, and the room started shaking and moving, tossing Selphie into Laguna's arms, where her green eyes gazed up at him in wonder as she blushed.

"I think we're going up!" Kit exclaimed, removing her hands and running to where panels in the walls were now revealing dark skies in lieu of stone walls. The little room hovered between the two towers of the castle, and Kit and Selphie gazed out in awe, the view going on uninterrupted for miles.

"We don't have time to gawk," Andrea pointed out. "As nice as the view is...what do we do now?"

"We need to find delete...to delete Sage," Kit replied with a mischievous grin. "And a reset of at least today wouldn't be a bad idea either."

"Yeah," she replied thoughtfully. "We could just scroll time back to this morning."

"Do we leave everyone's memories intact?"

"That would be safer, don't you think?"

"Hey, don't we get a say in this?" Selphie pouted.

"No." they both answered automatically, and they grinned at each other.

"So which one is delete?" Laguna asked in attempt to prevent a fight.

"It's big and red..."

"Right here!" Laguna exclaimed, punching a button.

"And ROUND!" Kit finished, her eyes going wide as Laguna's fist hit the very decidedly square button.

Alarms went off all over the room and they ran to the windows, watching the sky turn a greenish hue as both the moon and the sun sat side by side in the sky. Down in front of the castle they could now see not only Flik and Rian, but Viktor, Hardin, Kain...and Sydney! The demons had begun to attack the castle in full force, and as the group in the control room looked on, they instead suddenly lined up and began to sing.

So many men!
So little time!
It's morning, I open my eyes
And everything's still the same
I turn to the guy who stayed last night
and ask him: What's your name?

Sydney's usual black attire was replaced with an outfit akin to Frankie's of Rocky Horror Picture Show, and he crooned into a microphone turned up so loudly they could hear it inside the control room.

This seems to happen more and more
I love those men one and all
Each new one I meet
Makes my heart beat fast
When I see them so strong and tall

Viktor and Flik, in ballet tutus, began to dance together across the field in front of the castle, and Kain had digressed to a little blond-haired boy, clapping his hands as he jumped up and down in his grossly oversized dragoon armor.

So many men
So little time (so many men, so little time)
How can I lose?
So many men
so little time (so many men, for Me & My)
How can I choose?

Bastian came running out the castle door, and as he did, he started to grow...and grow...and grow... Soon his eyes were level with the control room, and he shook a fist at them, swearing in a combination of Japanese and Atlantean. "HIME-SAMA!!" he raged at Kit and she gulped a deep breath.

"Guys, we gotta find the right buttons! The round red one, and the triangular purple one!"

"Got the red one!" Andrea called from across the room, hitting it immediately, trying to contain her laughter.

"Purple!" Selphie cried, pointing.

As hail the size of basketballs and colored a bright neon orange began to rain down on the continuum, Kit reached out a hand, clenching her eyes shut as she punched the purple triangular button. Please let it all end up ok...

i hurt myself today
to see if i still feel
i focus on the pain
the only thing that's real

Kit stood alone on the cliffs outside the castle, watching the sun move backwards through the sky. The purple button had immediately suspended all of the muses, moving them backwards through the day to the point where the computer could delete Sage with the least problem.

This is all my fault...I always let myself get carried away, I think too much and yet still reach the wrong conclusions. I got a muse killed, dragged Andrea out of the wooden shack, let demons attack us, nearly let Sage take Sydney...nearly destroyed the entire continuum...and to top it all off, Rian mocked me when he rescued me and then flirted with Andrea...dammit, can't I even get what I want in my own continuum?! Am I just doomed to be a martyr, even in my own world?

"No more!" Kit yelled to the sky, to the ocean, listening to it tumble on the rocks below her. The sun was nearing dawn, and she knew she only had a few moments.

"No more what, Kitty?" crooned an all too familiar voice. Kit's eyes went wide and she whirled around to face Sage, with, strangely enough, Rian standing by her side.

"We're not exactly muses," Rian said with a smirk.

"But you're still partially under control of the continuum," Kit snapped back. "So you're both not acting yourselves! Everything's whacked out."

"Au contraire..." Sage said sweetly as Rian unsheathed his sword and stepped toward Kit with a strange grin on his face. "I am perfectly in character."

"But..." Kit said hesitantly, turning her eyes to glance at Rian. How could he side with her? He was just rescuing me not long ago! This makes no sense...a trick of my own mind...?

"We kill you and we kill the continuum," she narrowed her eyes at Kit.

Kit withdrew her sword just in time to deflect Rian's first blow, and as their lightning reflexes...a result of faerie blood or just my continuum...? aimed blow after perfect blow and parry, Kit tried to catch his eyes. When she finally did, they were not the eyes she knew. "What's wrong with you?!" she cried out desperately as Sage cackled maliciously behind him.

"If you won't let me have Sydney, then maybe I'll just work my magic on your beloved."

"Stop these games, Sage," Kit cried out, still trying to parry Rian's swift volley of sword swipes. Metal clashed against metal, causing sparks to fly off around them. Kit waited desperately for the sun to finish it's descent and free her of her own idiocy, but time seemed to slow to a standstill.

"No." Sage finally answered, the grin leaving her face. "You may have been a friend...but you crossed me, and now you will die. And I will take him as my trophy."

"Fight it, Rian!" she exclaimed, already out of breath. "Fight that darkness! You're more than that."

Sage lifted her hands, sending arching bolts of lightning towards Kit's feet. "Kill her," she said icily.

The light blinded her, too much, too fast, and she felt the blade slide through her middle, the cold metal blurring with the white, hot searing pain. All sound seemed to stop in that moment, and though she could see Sage's body moving with laughter as her emerald eyes sparkled, she could not hear her voice. Kit dropped to her knees, letting her sword fall beside her with a noiseless clatter...her hands clutching at herself as Rian withdrew his sword. Their eyes met, his like ice, and hers singing of the betrayal, before he turned his back to her and moved no more.

you could have it all
my empire of dirt
i will let you down
i will make you hurt

The crimson leaked out around her hands, staining her dress, running into a pool around her knees even as she doubled over in pain. She could hear Sage's footsteps, but caught as her eyes clenched shut, the sight of her boots aimed at Kit's ribs.

Sage kicked the girl, once, twice, three times, each strike infused with her trademark lightning, jolting and tearing into Kit's body until she collapsed completely, rolling to her side with a silent, anguished cry. One last kick sent the already incapacitated mage tumbling right over the edge of the cliff.

The last thing Kit saw as she felt herself falling, felt her body hitting the rocks, was the color of the sky... As the sun set in the east, over the ocean, there was nothing but a divine blue. If you die in your own continuum...what does that mean...

The world dimmed.

if i could start again
a million miles away
i would keep myself
i would find a way