Guardians Make Their Own Fate The road back to the Vault of Glass was impressively easy with the Aegis. Gorgons did not approach Kabr, thinking he was another Gorgon. Kabr easily kited his way across the disappearing platforms. Finally, Kabr walked through the opening of the Vault of Glass. Before him stood Atheon. Atheon looked upon the Guardian, though this time, Atheon did not hesitate to fire. Kabr activated his shield and withstood the might of Atheon’s barrage. Atheon stopped his attack. Kabr - Do you understand now?! Do you understand your folly?! You never should have let me survive!! Kabr’s head began to spin, his eyesight clouded, and his stomach dropped. He could hear a faint voice in his helmet. Kabr - Ghost… is that you? Atheon - No. The voice did not come from the behemoth in front of Kabr, rather, through his armor. Atheon - You wear the flesh of my kin. You are now a part of the Vex. Kabr - NO! I will not succumb to this darkness! Atheon - Succumb? You freely placed our garb on your flesh. You accepted the gifts it gave you, why deny yourself the greatest gift the Vex can offer? Kabr - What gifts can a worshiper of Darkness like you offer me? Atheon - The gifts of the Darkness are eternal. While there must be Darkness for Light to contrast, before there was Light there was only Darkness, and once Light is gone Darkness will remain. Darkness is eternal. It will never be destroyed. We offer the gift of immortality. Kabr - I will resist your gifts! Atheon - It matters not. In the Vault, time frays and I am its master. My will controls all. I will travel through time and destroy all you have done here. When I am done, none of this will have mattered. Kabr - NO!!! Atheon - You are alone Guardian. You have always been alone. Join us, and never be alone again. In that moment, Vex by the dozens appeared all around Kabr. They reached out and grabbed him, ripping at his armor and flesh. They placed more and more Vex technology on Kabr, and he could feel his mind drifting, and he could hear the thoughts of the Vex Collective mind. Kabr - Ghost, escape! Kabr ghost manifested and was quickly apprehended by the Vex. Atheon - Come here my friend. Kabr’s ghost approached Atheon, but not of its free will. Kabr heard a familiar click in his helmet. His ghost had turned on the communication receivers that Kabr had placed from the Vault of Glass all the way to the entrance…perhaps someone could hear Kabr’s last words… Pahanin was at the entrance to the Vault. The massive door was still open. It was hard to understand why it had been opened for so long until his machine gun spoke. Super Good Advice - Amazing, according to the satellite communication system I just contacted, we have only been in the Vault 10 minutes. Pahanin - Impossible. Super Good Advice - Time dilation. Alert, we are receiving comms traffic on the relays, Kabr is opening communication channels! Kabr’s voice entered. He sounded distant, strange, almost metallic, as if part Kabr and part Vex. Kabr’s Last Words “In the Vault, time frays and a needle moves through it. The needle is the will of Atheon. I do not know the name of the shape that comes after the needle. No one can open the Vault alone. I opened the Vault. There was no one with me, but I was not alone. You will meet the Templar in a place that is a time before or after the stars. The stars will move around you and mark you and sing to you. They will decide if you are real. I drank of them. It tasted like the sea.” Pahanin was nearly hit by a Void explosion, a Vex Praetorian was forming from the Vex gate to the south. He could not stay and listen to the rest of the message…it was leave now, or never. Pahanin - Where is the ship? Super Good Advice - 10 seconds. Pahanin - At 2 seconds tell me and I’ll get into the open. Super Good Advice - I’d recommend focusing your fire on the Praetorian. Pahanin - Good advice, as always. The next few seconds were a lifetime, though not in the sense of being stuck in the Vault. The fire from the Praetorian increased as it approached, and Pahanin still lacked mobility. Super Good Advice - Perhaps the use of your Golden Gun is in order. Or active camouflage. On second thought, both. Pahanin - Agreed. Pahanin activated his Golden Gun, firing all three rounds into the Praetorian. The machine blew apart, but was still standing. Pahanin then activate his active camouflage. Super Good Advice - Step out now. Pahanin hobbled to the opening as his ship flew in fast and low. He was immediately teleported into the ship, and it departed just as the first few blasts from the Praetorian hit the ship. Pahanin slammed the accelerator forward and the ship took off in a hurry. Super Good Advice - I’d like to scan the ship for damage before you break orbit, not much point to all this trouble if you die now. Pahanin - Very well. Thank you for your help. Super Good Advice - It’s why I’m here. Lost fragment of Kabr’s transmission: “I have destroyed myself to do this. They have taken my Ghost. They are in my blood and brain. But now there is hope. I have made a wound in the Vault. I have pierced it and let in the Light. Bathe in it, and be cleansed. Look to it, and understand: From my own Light and from the thinking flesh of the Vex I made a shield. The shield is your deliverance. It will break the unbreakable. It will change your fate. Bind yourself to the shield. Bind yourself to me. And if you abandon your purpose, let the Vault consume you, as it consumed me. Now it is done. If I speak again, I am not Kabr.” Atheon’s Epilogue Atheon looked upon Kabr’s body. Kabr had been transformed, no longer flesh. And with this, Atheon put to an end the presence of Light in its Darkness. Now, Atheon could travel back, undo what these Guardians had done, and restore the Vault. Atheon opened the temporal path though the Vault and looked for the frays tainted by Light. It located the moments that needed to be fixed; the Templar’s destruction, the Oracles lost, and the guardians that entered its Vault. It picked these moments and attempted to cut them out like a surgeon removing an abnormality. But as it moved through the temporal pathways, something followed its movements. At first, it was not aware of the presence, but Atheon recognized the danger quickly. Something followed its movements; something could not be cut out. Atheon then perceived Kabr’s greatest triumph, the Aegis. Kabr had stumbled on the one weakness in the Vault. For the Vault to exist some things had to be definable and immutable. The Vault existed because of Atheon, and Atheon existed because of the Vault. You could not have one remain outside of time without the other, to destroy one was to unbalance the Vex temporal equation that allowed them control of time in the Vault. The Gorgon’s were a part of that equation. Gorgon’s judged what was real, and if judged as real it was added to the equation the Vex used to control time. The Aegis was made of Gorgon, it was a part of the Vault. Atheon could not remove the Aegis, nor the events and tools Kabr used to create it. The Aegis was as eternal and indestructible as Atheon. To destroy the Aegis’s creation would unsettle the Vex equation that allowed them to control time in the Vault. To destroy the Aegis’s creation would mean the destruction of Atheon. The Aegis must exist, which meant that Kabr must enter the Vault, which meant that Atheon could not remove the events that occurred. The Gorgons must judge Kabr as real. Kabr’s entrance changed the Vault of Glass in a way that Atheon could not heal. Kabr pierced its darkness with a creation of the Vex's making. Atheon became enraged, it slammed its arms against the time gates before it. The Aegis, like the Gorgons, was now everywhere Atheon was. Atheon was the past and the future, so now the Aegis was the past and the future. Now the fate of the Vault of Glass was not solely controlled by Atheon. Atheon knew it would need to assist Kabr in his feats. The timeline could not be changed. Atheon travelled through time and instructed the Vex to not engage Kabr. Atheon was stuck inside one of its own paradoxes. If Kabr did not achieve the creation of the Aegis it would unbalance the Vex temporal equation. It would undo the Vault. Atheon knew it must hide the Aegis in the past, present and future. It must hide it behind its strongest forces. If Atheon was the Vex’s answer to the equation of time, the Aegis was humanities irrational number, something that unbalanced the harmony of the Vex equation. The fate of the Vault was also the fate of Atheon, for the two could not be separated. If the Vault was not solely controlled by Atheon, then Atheon was not solely controlled by the Vault. Atheon could now perceive it could not control its fate…and thus its destruction was only a matter of time… [url=https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/100607273]Links to the 16 chapters...[/url]