Enjoy! I watched as there was a brilliant, dazzling light beam from the spire. Smoldering flesh and twisted metal before me. I fought, I pushed away the hoards and my light is strong. But curious what is this? There is potential here as the doors swing open. New worlds of possibility exist in assimilation. It’s quite magnificent, the Vault. Surreal, water drips and foliage blooms in white light. I run my hand over the smooth stone and as we approach one of many drop offs; I am in awe. If others could see this. Vex present with certain limitations on understanding, but the ultimate culmination of existence, metal and flesh, warrants such limitations. We kill them but are they really dead? I hear them, I feel them, they are in my head. I am so alone yet determined to prevail. I stare over a temple. Stunning, elegant, void of life. It floats above a place before or after the stars. The vast expanse, endless, grey, cold was home to the clouds of visions either that once were or yet to be. In all manner respectful I approached the temple. Another gate lay before me, it was open yet something was there. A silent chain stopping me from advancing. I saw the starts. They glowed and shined so bright. My heart pounded and I cried at the sight. A birth, something, such alone as I was, I could only relish the taste. The slumbering giant before the gate awoke and I bowed before its magnificence. Only a Templar could command the stars to sing. Its power unrelenting, over powering, abusive, and mauling would wreck the temple but only for a moment. The temple drank from the song of the stars and was made anew. My eyes grow dark, but then clear when I embrace a star. I can tell they have vision. They desire a perfect world like the Vex always do. But the stars can only sing and rely on the Templar to be their guardian. A relationship that I only wish I could possess. Maybe being a hero is too much but I am determined. But I can’t win, not here. I feel my pocket watch again, it pounded as the hands spun forward and back. I had to leave the temple, I was unworthy to sing with the stars any longer. The door is shut. I felt the darkness over my eyes, it was welcoming. But no, I couldn’t let myself succumb not now. The stars have my ghost but I can fight the darkness. Light bends to my will and no matter how blind I become I can still see. I am familiar with the damp stone beneath my feet and the soft foliage brushing my armor. And then I see it, bathed in white light I am cleansed, purified. That’s when I see it. The decent. Like a diving board into oblivion a rock extended into the void. This dark place was beyond time; I can’t feel my pocket watch any longer. The hands do not move. Chills race my body and my nerves stifle my every move. I can’t look, it is too much. I leave my back to the void and fold my arms. The plunge was a pleasant nap. Consciousness left me as the grey clouds of visions gently led me to the labyrinth. I distinctly remember two sets of hands, but I am alone. I see no one. I feel no one. I know, no one. Cocytus screams at me. I can hear it, the pain, the agony, the utter deceit. It flows but do not follow it. The Gorgons know how simple we are. A people always looking for direction, a hint, a crumb, anything to show us the way. They intelligently designed their labyrinth this way. They decide what is real and what is not. Reality bends to them, they possess an ontological weapon, something in their gaze. Cocytus leads to a door, a room with no exit. An alter where the Gorgons will judge your soul. Do not gaze back, as not even my light was powerful enough. A singular overwhelming force is necessary to overcome a foe such as this. The maze was beautiful for all the danger. I can see it as a pleasant place, one where darkness and light are absent and it is just perfect. I found the exit but something is keeping me here. It isn’t the Gorgons, for a creature in possession of ontology itself, it bumbles. There is a presence here, but I am alone. I sought out the presence searching for a time indefinite. What was there is lost. There are limitations on understanding and those understandings urged me to flee the labyrinth. That door, it has to be that door. The altar is the only explanation. There is a ghost there, wailing like Cocytus. But suddenly I was gone. I fled the wails, their voices too much to bear. I stare out into another abyss. This chasm a time in flux. I see a monolithic structure before me, a wall, something much larger than a temple. The steps only appear for the faithful or worthy. I was neither. I climbed the wall searching for other ways across. There was a dormant gate in the void. I sat on the best position I could to prepare for the leap of faith. I had to cast out all doubt in my mind. I had come this far alone, too far to fail now. So I stood again, proud and indomitable. My faith was rewarded as I landed on the dormant gate. I did not need the steps of faith from before. I jumped again and landed on the wall below the monolith. I made my own path up the wall. I will not be stopped. So now I stood before the doors. Stone or metal I cared not. They lit up in triangular fashion. I walked through the emperor’s mausoleum to the king’s room. A glass monument where time flowed. To my right an ancient gate way overgrown and rather beautiful. To my left a soiled gateway, red and desolate. The Gate Keeper roared in anger at my intrusion. There was once a time I would have run at the mechanical monstrosity. But not this time. I focused my light into a singular strike. It brought down the Gate Keeper but opened both gates. They needed to be shut. Vex flowed from them, innumerable, like a flood of biomechanical seas. Right first, the small area was ancient. A time locked from time where the universe was just made. There was another Gate Keeper, and the stars sang once more. Their voice was welcoming but failed to mark me. I was immune to its allure. My focus was the gate keeper and when it fell the gate started to close. I cut off the flow from the inside. The Vex before time faded from existence on the outside. The next gate was in my sight. The stars sang again and my immunity protected me. The Gate Keeper fell and I was back in the shadow of glass. It stood in full glory. White light and blue metal. Living but metal, a god. Atheon, Time’s Conflux, an apt name. I fought so hard. The titanic battle was an endless waltz of light versus time. Ultimately futile, I was doomed to lose this fight. And so laying in the dirt, my light fading I embraced what was sure destruction. I am alone. But… Guardians should not be! As the final crushing blow came down all of my light and energy came to point. A shield of indescribable power. The energy absorbed from the machine pierced its own armor. A wound, a wound to the Vault, A Wrinkle in Time itself. Then I faded. I am bathed in darkness, destroyed by my own decision. But take the Aegis, use it. It will change fate, and break that which is unbreakable.