Chapter 35: Final Confrontation
The fury of the battle was intense. Excalibur rang as it slashed through the air, Icebrand and Lily's rapier accompanying it. Magic flew back and forth, crumbling pillars and ripping stones from the places they had lain for thousands of years.
Chaos swung and Maron hit the wall leg first. It broke and she was out of the fight, though still conscious. Tom retaliated by giving Chaos a deep wound with Excalibur, and Lily used Icebrand to freeze Chaos's mouth shut. Sami had modified Dia into Holy, which was doing massive amounts of damage to Chaos and Nate's spells had never been so focused.
But Chaos was stronger than they had expected and their attacks didn't seem to be doing much. Chaos slammed Tom and Lily and they joined Maron against the wall, stunned.
Sami and Nate kept fighting, hurtling spell after spell at Chaos, who kept taking it and dishing it back at them. He swung again, and Sami hit the wall. The blood spilling from her testified that if she didn't get help soon she would die.
Rage built up in Nate. Sorrow and fear were gone, replaced by an incantation. He started chanting and mana flowed to his fingers, wreathing them in fire, ice, lightning, and earth.
Chaos looked at the black mage for a full second before he realized what was about to happen. He shot a death spell at Nate, but it was absorbed into the maelstrom of magic surrounding him.
"Help Sami!" Nate called during a pause in the incantation, "This is a once-in-a-lifetime spell, and I won't be able to do it again!"
The maelstrom was at its greatest, and Nate uttered the final words of the incantation. "Power of the Earth!" he called, "Power of the Water! Power of the Fire! Power of the Air! With the Power of Darkness are they bound, with the Voice of Light are they called! I bring now, the Apocalypse!"
The maelstrom focused to a point in front of Nate, then surged forward against Chaos.
Sami woke at this point, saw the spell blast Chaos into oblivion, heard chaos in his death scream. She saw Nate standing there, swaying from exhaustion and then saw him fall to the floor.
"No." she said weakly. She stood, shakily, and went to Nate's side. The others followed, Maron being supported by Lily and Tom. Nate was lying face-up on the ground, eye glowing vacantly. They didn't know what he was seeing.
The rest of Nate's memories came back. He had turned himself in. Stood trial, found that the man he thought he had killed had lived. The sentence of three years, being let out early on good behavior. Walking down the street, the orb in the gutter.
He blinked. He was on his back in Chaos Shrine, Tom, Lily, Sami, and Maron standing over him.
"I wasn't so bad after all." he said. Then he gasped, as did the others. The black veil covering his face faded, then vanished. For the first time they saw his true face.
He looked average. His skin was lighter than it should have been, and his brown hair was somewhat mussed. His steel-gray eyes registered surprise.
"Now I understand." he said, "I was brought here because I was the only one who could break the loop. I was the easiest way to prevent time from rewriting two thousand years of history."
He closed his eyes and smiled. "It's done now. We're done...Chaos is defeated." He started laughing. "We're done. We survived it."
Everyone joined in the laughter, which intensified when Sami planted a big kiss on Nate's cheek. They were done. It was over.