Chapter 36: The Beginning of the End

Rumble rumble.

The Light Warriors looked up and saw the ceiling cracking and crumbling.

"We need to get out of here!" Nate said. They started limping out, each of them too injured to run. Then Nate saw Garland.

Garland was unconscious, lying face down amid the rubble. Nate rolled his eyes. "I'm going to regret this." he said. Then he grabbed Garland and dragged him out. He and Garland managed to get out just as the entire shrine fell down behind them.

"What'd you bring him out for?" Sami asked, surprised, "He just tried to kill us!"

"Uggh." Garland groaned, "I shouldn't have had that last glass of wine. I'm probably late for my shift." He sat up and looked around. "Who the heck are you and why am I here?"

"You should know." Sami said, "You summoned Chaos to kill us!"

"What?" Garland asked, "I'm Garland, knight of Cornelia. I wouldn't summon Chaos to save my life!"

"So you don't remember anything?" Nate asked, "Nothing at all?"

"Nothing except that I'm late for my shift."

"Well, in that case, let's go." Tom said, "It's a good day's walk back."

"I'm not going anywhere until my leg's splinted." Maron said stubbornly.

"I'll do one better." Sami said. She held her hand over Maron's leg and healed it.

"Great." Nate said, smiling, "We'll fill you in while we set up camp."

"Fine, but if I get in trouble, it's on your head." Garland said.

They set up camp, explaining their whole adventure to Garland. They had no sooner finished than Garland started asking questions.

"So I was possessed by Chaos." he asked.

"Right." Tom said.

"And you kids beat him."

"Barely." Nate replied.

"And I'm not dead...why?"

"Because Nate dragged you out of the shrine before it fell in on itself." Sami said.

"And you would save someone who tried to kill you...why?"

"Because it seemed like the right thing to do." Nate answered.

"And how did that whole time-loop-thing go again? The one you broke?"

"Something along the lines of if we go back in time and defeat Chaos and the Fiends, then none of the events that would be required for us to go back in time would have happened. Therefore, we would not have gone back in time. But if we didn't go back in time, then Chaos and the Fiends would not have been defeated in the past and they would have come and set about the requirements for us to have had our adventure and gone back in time to defeat them, which would have kept us from going back in time due to the lack of a need, leading Chaos and Fiends to not be slain in the past, leading us to go back and kill them, leading us..." Lily answered.

"Enough! I've already got a headache, that just made it worse. Just tell my why it was broken." Garland said, holding the sides of his head.

"'Cause clumsy here dropped the black orb and sent us to the present before we had killed the Fiends or Chaos, meaning the past stayed the same and thus so did the present, ending the loop permanently." Sami answered. "Make sense?"

"No." Garland sighed, shaking his head. "But then, I'm still reeling from Lily's time-loop rant. I think I'll take a nap and shake off this headache, I wouldn't be any use on duty right now anyway." And with that he lay down and started dozing.

Nate glanced at Sami and smiled. "Not half bad, once you beat the demon out of him."

Sami smiled back. "Not unlike someone else I know."