I stared at the menu screen.
The revolver I was using had felt sub par for killing Oracles, even though it had been serving well for the majority of the Raid. The Lord High Fixer was upgraded fully, the damage upgrades were as high as they could go. I was killing mostly everything with one shot, and my statistics were good.
Still, killing Oracles felt slow, and when I finally saw one fall, a second or third was spawning and all I could focus on was the encroaching darkness as my character popped out the empty cylinders and reloaded.
We looked at the stats screen this round. I killed a couple of Oracles, more than a few Supplicants. But at the end of the encounter, Atheon still stood, and we Guardians of The Remnant were looking at a failure screen. It was all we knew.
We started again, hunkered down in the starting positions where we felt comfortable and waited.
I felt a little tinge of apprehension. I was not afraid because I had done this a dozen times before, fear of the unknown was not a factor. But when we were lost in time, in either the Past or the Future, I had only barely been killing Oracles, and I felt that maybe the last two wipes were my fault.
Behind the column, I made a decision.
I changed my weapon loadout.
I equipped the Grim Citizen, an auto rifle that I had yet to upgrade fully, but what I hoped was a change for the better. With the Lord High Fixer, I was doing the same thing over and over again hoping for a different outcome each time.
This time would be different.
I saw as Atheon opened the Time stream and to my relief I was not teleported away.
“Brown or Green?” I asked.
“Green.” I watched as the other two Guardians floated to their positions, opening fire on Supplicants the instant they touched down. I opened fire from my position across the chasm, taking out a few as I listened to my teammates on the other side of the portal, in the same place physically but in the far Future.
“Oracles are down.” I look to the left of the screen to see Time’s Vengeance and a countdown timer.
The Vex Timegate activated with a flare of white light as the last supplicant on that side fell.
“Your gate is clear!” I am louder than I should be on the mic. I am excited, because our execution of this sequence is not perfect. This time it is. I watch as one of our Titans lands in the center of the chasm and creates the Ward of Dawn.
I commence my float down to the center and enter the bubble. Weapons of Light activates in the left corner. The rest of the team collapses on the Relic Carrier as they arrive on the central platform. The Relic’s Shield is activated and the team opens fire on Atheon, dropping him to two thirds health.
The Relic Carrier starts their countdown. At one, we all leave the platform and resume our positions behind the columns.
Two more times, I think to myself. Just two more.
Atheon opened the Time Stream and again, I was one of those left behind. We executed our roles perfectly, and again, our Team returned safely. We opened fire from the stone island in the chasm, sending everything we had against Atheon from the safety of the Relic Shield as our Relic Carrier counted down again.
I crouched behind a pillar and waited as Atheon stood at just over a third of his health remaining.
He opened the Time Stream as my vision blurred.
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