The Remnants of Time (Original Version)

Journey to the Past: Part I

Aris and Athena were now back in their normal clothes as they faced off against each other. Athena had also given her brother back his watch.

"Well you try leading a twelve-year-old version of our mom through a mansion you've never been in before" Aris said. "And did I mention that I was with a twelve-year-old version of our mom?!"

"I know, I know" Athena said. "And to think that I would have sent our dad to another dimension if he didn't trick me into thinking that I actually knocked him out."

"Wait, he was actually-"

"I'll explain another time" Athena interrupted him. "Our dad just swapped places with you after you went into the bathroom, so right now is a good time to think about what our next move is going to be."

"He did?"

Aris cracked the bathroom door open just in time to watch Nathaniel and Mara walking away, clearly knowing where they were going now.

"Oh, that's a relief" Aris said with an alleviated tone as he closed the door again. "By the way, I know where you get your grumpiness from now."

Athena ignored him as she began to pace back and forth across the room, thinking about what to do next.

"Blendin was going to have us break up our parents, without us knowing!" she said with an incensed tone. "That man has no idea who he is messing with."

"Two kids with anger issues and short attention spans. I'm sure that if I were him, I'd be quaking in my boots" Aris said.

"But it doesn't make any sense" Athena said as she thought aloud. "If they fell in love and as a result created that paradox, then how are we still able to exist?

I mean, think about it. In the original timeline where our parents never got together, we obviously wouldn't exist.

But in this new timeline where they do fall in love, even then we still shouldn't exist because time travel wouldn't have been around to make sure our mom didn't erase herself from our dad's memory. Therefore, they wouldn't fall in love, and that should end with us still not existing!

So how are we still here?"

"I don't know, but if you think about it, it's amazing the neither one of us has started disappearing Back To The Future style by now like how the time travel club probably did" Aris commented.

"There's gotta be a way for us to safely exist without tearing apart the fabric of time" Athena said.

"Yeah, it's not like we have a magic watch that can take us to literally any time period in the past so that we can change it" Aris said sarcastically.

Athena suddenly stopped pacing, a sign that Aris knew meant that she was struck with an idea.

"I never thought I'd say this, but Aris, you're brilliant!" she said excitedly, her smile so wide that it was taking up half of her face.

"Wow, that's two compliments in one day!" Aris said. "That's a new record!"

"We'll go back in time to the period when our mom was going to erase our dad's memory, and we'll steal the memory gun from her. That should prevent her from erasing his mind!"

"And they'll still fall in love and have us!" Aris finished. "One snag though: won't that still mean that time travel will cease to exist?"

"Who cares if those time travellers are still around? They almost duped us into breaking up our own parents!" Athena said. "If anything, I'd consider them not being around anymore to be a bonus. So fire it up!"