Author's Note

Please note that as of writing this chapter, I am also in the process of rewriting the other chapters to fall in a line with an updated take on the story. Please bear this in mind when you come into lore discrepancies between this and the opening chapters, which i aim to have revamped by the end of next week.

A fair warning, going forward the story will take a much darker turn then i originally envisioned, with an exploration into some personal psychological themes that i encountered during my four year hiatus, those uncomfortable with such things may find the story unpalatable.

Also, I'll take the time right now to state that i haven't watched a single episode of the show since 2014 so don't expect any lore within this or upcoming chapters to accurately reflect canon until I've caught up. I'm not sure how long this will take.

Regards.

Erol.

IV: First Blood

The diagnostics didn't look good.

Locked within the fleshy confines of the Angels skull, E.V.E. Felt an acute sensation of dread settle deeper and deeper into her non-existent stomach as data poured into her active mind; the Anima-Spirit sifting through reams of binaric cant, hexademic invocation, and the thousand other defunct data-forms that had been employed by now long-dead engineers and animatics in her construction. Before her was a web on light, a thousand tiny threads of winking data in an endless sea of eternally shifting biological code; the mind of her angelic charge laid out as some great tapestry of knowledge, stretching out into the unknown bounds of organic consciousness, to the boundaries where instinct subsumed even the most stringent of cyberpathing techniques. Here could be found – down to the tiniest iotas of digital existence – the most complex working of the human race; the pinnacle of its craft in science and technology, a blueprint of a creature which strove to be the Divine.

To the digital intelligence of E.V.E. it was beautiful in a way that an organic could never begin to understand, at once a monument, ideal, and embodiment of the wedding of a living mind to machine perfection; simple in its elegance, yet one only had to peel back the barest layers of the construct to gaze upon a trove of technology that spoke of knowledge that was now all but extinct. Flight algorithms for the pitch-perfect control of the angels cybernetic pinions sat effortlessly intertwined alongside gyroscopic stability engrams to ensure absolute flight control, programming for the maintenance of his plasma-fuelled heart bleeding into binary shoals of homeostatic functions, all studded with the pin-prick diamonds of a thousand thousand sub-routines, each glinting with the beauty of fire-flies against the twilight sky as they flitted to and fro amidst the larger programs, linking together the endlessly disparate nodes of information into a beautifully formed and perfectly functional whole; a unique marriage of biological instinct to technological reflex.

Yet there was a flaw.

To the Anima-Spirit it was nothing less than a yawning void in the web of stars, a gaping hole at the heart of the magnificent construct into which data was gradually being sunk, consumed, mangled, then spat out again to begin adding further corruption to the perfection of the surrounding architecture. Long had been the war between the Anima-Spirit and the hole of entropy before her, many had been their clashes and just as many had been E.V.E.s victories, for as an engineer maintained his engine so did E.V.E. maintain her Angel; stabilising his neural network, replacing that which had decayed during her three thousand year vigil over the Ark and its lone occupant, the Heavenfall. Yet now, the nature of the war was changing, and the enemy threatened her with victory.

Since the angels awakening, the void had begun to grow.

Before, E.V.E. had believed the yawning void to simply be nothing but the manifestation of natural decay within the angels data; all things must bow before the march of time, and the digital systems of the angel had been granted no exception to that universal law; time slowly stealing away its functionality via the gentle touch of entropy. Yet E.V.E. had always been there to trade it blow for blow. Whatever time had broken she could replace, whichever system fell out of alignment she could restore to the balance of the wider whole; it hadn't been a war so much as a game, a gentle, managed stalemate that let E.V.E. bide her time in isolation without going completely insane. Yet now, after all these thousands of years, the abyss she'd gazed into, and fought against, had awoken.

Now, it gazed back upon her.

Where before the void had simply been a sinkhole in the perfect engineering of the angels divine architecture, now it seemed to have taken a sentience of its own, tendrils of its darkness reaching out to leave the mark of its corruption upon yet more of its host operating system the longer that the angel remained conscious. At first she'd believed the damage to be random at the most, directed by some corrupted internal logic at worst, all of it merely by-products of the interrupted revivification cycle that had returned Cypher to life; but now, even as she watched the void begin to subsume and incorporate a block of core-function programming, E.V.E. couldn't deny what her own sense told her; that the void had become an entity of its own: a unique personality, separate from both her and Cypher, growing within the grand order of the angels digital psyche. Where she existed to bring order and maintain the status-quo of the angels operating system, this new entity was subsuming whole portions of the deep-core functions, sinking them into itself and incorporating them into some new, unknown form.

E.V.E. looked over the diagnostic evaluations once more, a sensation close to biological dread coursing through her subroutines as she realised her worst fears had come to pass. Diagnostics had traced the new amalgamation of code back to the deep-core archive, the inter-mesh between the structured digital programming of the angels higher functions and the uncontrollable organic subconsciousness rooted deep in instinct and animal urge, but had been unable to process any further, running up against a wall of data that it reported to be the entity, unable to decipher the seeming gibberish code that was being spat out of the lower functions. In their processed forms, E.V.E. now realised as she inspected the raw data, the reports were useless; the data rendered incomprehensible by diagnostics attempts to clarify exactly what it was looking at. Only now that she could see the data-forms themselves did E.V.E. realise the true damage that the Angel had suffered.

Cypher was dead.

Sat at the heart of the new entity, subsumed, consumed, and broken into a thousand fragments, sat what had been the repository of Cyphers unique biological signature, the cache of data that had contained what organics would call personality and memory. The entity had spawned from its very heart, growing unnoticed at the very edge of E.V.E.s awareness, in the organic folds of the angels brain where she couldn't simply delete it with a program or subroutine; a whole new mind spawning within the brain of the angel as it hibernated through the long ages since the Old War, replacing what had once been with something new. The closest approximation E.V.E. could reach was that over time the electrical signature of Cyphers active mind had lost its imprint upon the angels neural pathways, three thousand years of inactivity leading to a failure in data retention. Now, E.V.E. realised with a sudden jolt of clarity, this new entity, this new Consciousness, was driving the angels body, puppeting its flesh in a parody of life. It had been this new entity, not Cypher, that she'd dragged back into the world of reality.

The Angels high-grade amnesia suddenly made much more logical sense to E.V.E., as she processed this new knowledge with a bizarre feeling in the pit of her non-existent stomach. Put quite simply, the new entity had been born a blank slate, awakening without any prior knowledge or existence to fall back on; a babe born into the flesh of a man, only able to function thanks to the knowledge that had been hard-coded into the augmetics that riddled its brain. From what she could infer from the data the new personality was growing throughout the pre-existing network like a decomposer organism, falling upon and digesting the now dead Cyphers neural engrams as a carrion eater recycled the flesh of a carcass; reassigning and reconstructing the new defunct architecture to sustain the growing needs of the new consciousness as it slowly approached the beginnings of individuality.

It was making its own brain.

Had she had the time, resources, and equipment necessary, E.V.E. would have found the whole process utterly fascinating. The idea that with enough time an old biological pattern could be lost, and a new one born from the same fleshy mush of neurones and synapses was enticing, and already the A.S. felt dozens of experiments formulating in some tangent process of her vast mind, contemplating the uses and implications of what such a phenomenon could mean. Alas, Gabriel had assigned her with over-seeing the completion of Cyphers mission, and she couldn't tarry. Even now her masters enemies, the celestial sisters, would be closing on her position, seeking whatever had survived the death of the Ark and doubtlessly doing so with the intention of destroying whatever it was they found. E.V.E. damned the failings of the biological form as a sub-routine notified her that what patches of data she was still receiving from the sensors of the wrecked Ark overhead indicated a mass of biological and thermal signatures making an approach on her position, vector analysis rendering only one possible destination; right on top of her and the recumbent angel.

She didn't have time to waste.

As she prepared to induce activity within the angels slumbering mind, E.V.E. couldn't help but wince at the sheer magnitude and difficulty promised by her up-coming mission; a one-man war against the two most powerful biological entities ever discovered, equipped with little more than a standard survival pack, what she'd managed to recover from the Arks decrepit server banks, and a cybernetically altered post-human without true combat training, survival skills, or any of the thousand other things E.V.E. could think of that would've improved the odds of success by even a fraction. Something akin to bitter resignation settled throughout her coding as she began to process some alternate strategy that would allow for the completion of the mission. Reaching down into the organic murk to the angels brain, E.V.E. began to coax the new entity within Cyphers flesh to wakefulness, all to aware that from here on out, things would be much more difficult.

Cypher, wake up.

<ФФФ>

Mist clung to the treetops, quiet and serene.

The squad swung in low over the canopy, ten heavily armoured forms held aloft on powerful wings in the early morning breeze. They hugged close to the ground as they passed closer and closer to the target in order to reduce their signatures to any active tracking equipment, a skill acquired through many painful lessons during the Old War. At their head, clad in the ancient armour of his station as patriarch of the Celestial Guard, Shining Armour read the terrain before him via his witch-sight; his eyes perceiving not the mundane world of matter but one of pure and wild energy; the boundless skeins of the realm of magic reaching endlessly before him.

Beneath his hooves the Everfree was a riotous mass of colour and flame, flexing and writhing in the roaring flows of the four winds of magic - flitting from one form to another in the moments between moments just as fire twisted and danced when in the flush of its consumption. The forest had always been a wild place, even in the ancient days before the Old War; when legends whispered of an ancient conflict and horrendous civil war, of the Nightmare Heresy and the death of sunlight for long, long centuries. In a land where nature herself bowed to the Daughter of Faust, such a place was an anachronism, a final, haunting reminder of the true wild ferocity of the Earth Mother before Faust had sought to tame her flesh and bind it with fetters of magic. Even as his hooves brushed the very heights of the canopy, Shining Armour could feel the aetheric power that coursed through every tree and flower of the place, feel the very life-pulse of the vast entity that was the Everfree.

Below he could make out the aetheric signatures of life as it scattered before the oncoming host of soldiers, both the small, blurry fuzz of the smaller animals, and the larger scintillating auras of the more deadly beasts as they lumbered for safety, all instinctively aware of what the equines presence meant; trouble. Pushing his senses outwards, Shining Armour could feel the presences of the forests deadlier denizens at his periphery, hidden deeper within the boughs in those places where light never breached the canopy, and magic and organic began to blend into fusions of life too esoteric to contemplate. Yet though each signature represented a beast of great and terrible power, each a source of high acclaim to the warrior that slew them, today Shining Armour hunted something far more deadly and terrifying; an Angel of the Angelic Choir.

Shining Armour still remembered the battlefields of the Old War, when human and equine had met in bitter conflict, for he'd strode them with his own hooves; in that ancient time before the sisters had seen fit to grant him the ultimate apotheosis and raise him into the pantheon of immortals, before the loss of Twilight and the Elements. He'd fought humans from the Black-Marches to the Shatter-Peak and back, a hundred fields of war in a struggle that had lasted decades. Even now he could recall the great cry that had gone up from the human masses at the breaching of Jericho's walls, taste the blood of their warriors as he'd cut them down with righteous fury on the banks of the Redwash, the screams of their females and children as they'd fled before the legions of Equestria.

He remembered, where others forgot, the sheer horror of an angelic onslaught, for he'd faced them in the flesh when the heavenly choir had still streaked across the skies of the world, when the sonic shriek of their mechanical pinions was as the banshee scream of death. He'd seen first hand the skill and martial fury of mankind's finest warriors, had watched with his own eyes as the angel Azrael held the breach of Jericho for sixty-four continuous hours of battle before finally succumbing to the wrath of the Celestial Sisters.

None save the sisters knew better of the zeal with which the creatures had prosecuted their war against the rightful rulers of this terrestrial sphere.

Ahead a signature began to manifest itself from the surrounding miasma of magic, coming into ever sharper focus as the squad flew closer to its destination; the Royal Ruins. Though aetheric scrying had revealed the fallen angel to be within the immediate vicinity, Shining Armour couldn't help but let a mirthless snort of laughter escape him as he realised the location of his quarry; the irony of the site of their conflict. In the Era of Elements, long before the arrival of the Ark, the Royal Ruins had instead been known as the Imperial Palace, the grandest and largest structure to grace the surface of Fausts garden; dwarfing even Cantelot in the scope and scale of its majesty. In the time before its destruction and ever since no construction on the face of the globe had ever been able to compare to the sheer power and awe projected by the structure.

Here had ruled Celestia and Luna for all the uncounted ages since the dawn of time, when Faust had knit the world together from the skeins of magic and bestowed upon it the blessings of her daughters to rule with love and compassion. Endless were the tales to be found within the apocrypha of the Canterlot library of the glory of that distant age; the gardens of the palace said to have been home to every flower and vine in the world, lush meadows of natural growth encircling the palace in ring upon concentric ring, while the spires, it was whispered, were so tall that they reached to the heavens themselves, such that Celestia and Luna may return whenever they wished to the throne of their divine mother. Within had been great halls and galleries, the like of which had made pale the great wonders of Canterlot he'd seen only a few hours previously, a gathering of the greatest treasures of all the world; a thousand thousand gifts of tribute from kings and empires so lost to history that in the current age it was unknown that they had ever existed at all.

Yet for all the magnificence of the Imperial Palace and its history, as it had become for all of Equestria since their arrival, the stain of humanity had left its indelible blemish upon the glory of the past. When the Ark had crawled it way in-system from the great dark void beyond, The Daughters of Faust had still held court within the palace - ruling from it the ancient empire that had girdled the world - and thus had it been the palace that gave this wayward species, humanity as they named themselves, their first glimpse of the new world that their God-Dreadnought had delivered them to. Though he'd been but a foal in the arms of his mother, Shining Armour could still recall the great fanfare that had gone up as the Angels had made their descent from above, could still recall the beauty and regal bearing of Equestrias Diarchs as the Angel Gabrielle, leader of the last tribe of men, had bent his knee in supplication and begged leave to begin human settlement. It had seemed then to be the dawning of a new age, the beginning of a new epoch where the fates of the children of Faust and the scions of the Ark were to be intertwined forever-more.

How wrong, and horribly right, that belief had been.

'Patriarch' came an aetherial whisper in his mind, the sensation of it leaving a copper tang in his mouth. 'I sense you are approaching your target. Report.'

Shining Armour couldn't help but shiver a the great weight he felt pressing against his consciousness, the power of the Solar Monarch bleeding upon his mortal psyche as she bridged the distance between them with her aethereal might. The sensation was akin to standing too close to an inferno, the sheer might of the Princess's aethereal signature simply too overwhelming to the fragile mind of an earth-borne mortal. It was like staring into the heart of the sun, like reaching into the umbra of a shadow; for the briefest instant Shining Armour became aware of the most minute power bound within the flesh of the Solar Monarch, and felt his soul wail at the unadulterated grandeur of what it saw.

'We are making our final approach, Dearest Life-Flame.' Shining Armour replied, the thoughts not so much as being transmitted as Celestia merely plucking them from his mind, leaving behind a sensation of a brief, empty void. 'I feel the angels aether signature within my mind.' The Patriarch sent another pulse rippling forward, not so much for his benefit as his monarchs, knowing full well that when she reached her mind to another's that she could perceive all that they did, and often so much more. The pulse returned to him in but an instant, though now, with closer proximity, the details it revealed were... interesting.

'The Heavenfall, he is not alone.' Celestia mused, her thoughts washing against Shining's mind like a rip-tide threatening to pull him under 'There is another being with him, but its signature is unorthodox, hollow, almost as if it were...' Celestia ceased, and for a brief moment Shining Armours mind was nothing but silence.

Then, she began to laugh.

It was like the rumble of a mountain, the harsh grind of rock against rock as it ground down into oblivion. She didn't truly laugh; the Patriarch has heard the sound before, and knew it to be as gentle as the songs of stars as they sang praise for all eternity. This was something else, mocking, primal; the mirth of a warrior as they came upon a hated enemy defenceless and crippled, ready for the kill.

It chilled him to the core.

'So, the Mother of Man lives still, and she has returned with her last son to face her doom.' Images of the Old War tumbled through his mind, half-glimpsed memories of the Solar Monarchs own first-hoof experiences from that terrible conflict; the strange, sightless helmets of the human soldiers as she cut them down with but a thought; the walls of Jericho tumbling down around the angel Azrael as he held the breach for as long of possible; the screaming face of Gabriel as he gave a final roar of defiance against the power of Faust, even as Celestias blade on scintillating light sunk itself into his plasma-fuelled heart. 'So, the coward couldn't bring herself to die with her master. Disappointing, but not unexpected; E.V.E. was always a trickster spirit at heart.' Another rumble of laughter passed over his mind, like thunder threatening him with a bolt of lightning. 'It seems that E.V.E. and I will finally be able to renew our acquaintance, she still has much to tell me of the humans and their weakness.'

'I shall return with both E.V.E. and the Angel, my princess' Shining Armour replied. 'We are close, they shall not escape us.'

“Split up,” Shining Armour called out to his squad, the nine Alicorns around him perking to attention as their patriarch dispensed his orders. “Standard assault formation with basic flanking manoeuvre. Titus, Severin, and Diocletion, you take the flank, the rest of you with me. The target is located within the heart of the Royal Ruins; we shall drive him into a corner and close off his escape. Be advised that the Solar Monarch has demanded our quarry be brought back alive; keep physical trauma to a minimum when and where possible. Do not let your guard down, Angels are powerful creatures, and this one shall be no different. Now; disperse.”

As one they fell out, each moving to their positions with a fluidity that belied years of practice. Had he been commanding a squad of regular recruits for such a daring operation, Shining Armour would never have dared attempt an air-borne insertion; knowing all to well that he'd have been relegated to a ground based assault, something utterly useless against a target with the ability to fly. Angels were highly mobile creatures, as Shining Armour had learnt first-hoof at the assault of Jericho – the first great battle of that ancient conflict – when Gabriel had lead the Angelic Choir in a series of devastating guerilla raids that had decimated supply lines and nearly broken the siege in a single week. Though their mechanical wings lacked the fluid grace of a natural pinion, their steel flesh had more than sufficient power to be the match of any flyer in the sky. They were fast, the sonic boom of their flight akin to the roar of thunder, and their devastating strikes as fierce as lightning earthing itself into the flesh of the world. The armies of Equestria would have never been able to stand against them.

Thus, to counter the angels, the Diarchs had made angels of their own.

The Alicorns.

In the darkest reaches of the past, in those distant ages when the world had been young and Faust still active within creation, legends spoke of those Alicorns who had been the servants of the Goddess; creatures who made real the great metaphysical designs of their mother. Theirs had been the gift of awesome power, and equally awesome responsibility, for it was entrusted to them to make real the dreams of Faust, to turn magic to matter and bind life to flesh. It had been they who'd raised the mountains and riven the earth with metals and minerals; they who'd filled the oceans and set the currents in perpetual motion; they who'd let loose every bird and flower; who'd made of the earth a great garden fit for the mortals Faust so loved. Theirs had been a time of wonder and power, an age when the old magics had still been strong in the world, and creation could be remade with but a whim if one had the strength of will to do it. Even to this day their song could be heard oh-so-faintly within the realm of magic, if one had the strength of heart to listen to such a beautiful thing.

Yet those ancient days were long since passed.

Of the fate of the Alicorns, many were the schools of thought. It was believed by some that they'd returned to the throne of Faust, no longer required to remain within such a confining, mundane plain of existence with their great work done. Others pondered that they'd become the world itself; that everything from the winds and the mountains, to the oceans and streams, was merely the Alicorns continuing in their great endeavour, ensuring that the clockwork engine of creation kept on ticking with perfect synchronous. Yet regardless of their beliefs, all agreed on one thing: that such creatures would never walk the face of Equestria for all the long ages to come. Theirs had been a singular age, and to dream it would ever come again was folly. Of Fausts herd only Celestia and Luna remained within this world, and no force in heaven or earth could ever move them to reveal what wonders they'd seen in the distant time.

Yet Alicorns weren't extinct, not quite.

There were magics in this world, powers from the dawn of time, that could still bring forth the members of that great race to the world, in a fashion. The Apotheosis – or Fausts Gift as it was colloquially known – was an ancient spell of great power; able to reknit flesh and bestow upon the bearer the most minute fragment of the holy energy that had forged the world. To a unicorn it granted wings of flight, to a pegasus the horn with which magic was manipulated, to an earth pony it gifted both. Yet though these were great boons in and of themselves, they were nothing compared to the longevity of life possessed by the recipient; allowing them to pass centuries, millennia even, without loss of youth or vitality. Not true immortality, but close enough. Shining Armour himself had been granted Apotheosis on the eve of the final battle of the Old War, more than three thousand years ago, and physically he'd aged but a single day. It was an incredible thing, to watch the world grow and evolve around you, to watch the currents of life as they gently rolled against the great beach of time.

But as with all great gifts, it came at a terrible, terrible price.

Alicorns, even the half-breeds that Celestia and Luna raised from the populace, were not mortal creatures in any sense of the word. How could one be anything as simple as 'normal' when one was gifted with the power that had shaped the world, how could one relate to the mortals around them that withered and died as a grape on the vine compared to a creature that could pass the epochs without a blink of the eye. Strange was the mind of an Alicorn, seeing the world through the lens of the divine, perceiving not mundane matter but the luminous fabric of creation itself. They were a breed apart, and they stood apart.

As Shining Armour understood it, the same could be said for the Angels of humanity. In their own texts the Angels who'd come to Equestria were merely the latest in a long line of creatures that claimed to be divine. In the dawning age of their species, upon a distant world they named the First Garden, the first Angels had been the servants of an unnamed higher entity, one that, in their arrogance, they believed had formed the entirety of creation in a mere six days. Like the Alicorns they'd assisted in the formation of creation, and had returned to the higher heavens when their work had reached completion. The Angels of the modern era, those who'd led humanity upon their arrival to this world were powerful beings in their own right, but even their might paled in comparison to that first generation of winged men.

A sudden shift in the Angels aetheric signature roused the Patriarch from his thoughts; noticing instantly the increased energy the signature gave off. The Angel was mobile, slowly moving away from the squad at a leisurely pace. Shining Armour grinned, the Angel must have been unaware of their approach to still be lingering in the area. Good, that meant they still had the element of surprise, but the Patriarch couldn't help but be perturbed by what he sensed. In the Old War the Angels had seemed nigh-invincible; gifted with armour impervious to attack, and possessing senses that seemed near-impossible in their attunement to the world around them; Even the weakest of their number – the angel Veloria – had been a fierce adversary when Shining Armour had faced her in combat. Yet this signature didn't match those of his memory. It lacked... fire, little more than an ember compared to the great infernos of the Angelic Choir. Perhaps the Angel had been weakened by his fiery descent to earth, perhaps its senses had been rendered lame by the passage of three millennia? Shining Armour wasn't quite sure, but he wasn't taking any chances.

Ahead of them, the first ruined spires broke through the canopy.

<ФФФ>

Cypher, wake up.

Cypher – or more rather the creature that believed itself to be Cypher – hissed in pain as he opened his eyes.

The morning light was blinding, a pure white-gold glow that sent blinding flares of light across his vision. Regaining consciousness, bone-deep blossoms of aching pain spreading across his body as his awareness began to expand, Cypher allowed himself a deep groan, wincing as he felt ghostly twitches of pain rumble beneath his skin. From the muddle of shapes that comprised his vision lines began to solidify; wisps of cyan light drifting across his HUD as the display flickered into life, streams of data scrolling up his field of view fast than he could read them as his augmetics ran a swift series diagnostic tests. Gaining enough of his vision to make out his surroundings, Cypher jumped in his own flesh as he found himself quite literally buried into a wall, his body tightly lodged at the centre of a shallow impact crater a foot deep. Fear seized the Angel’s mind as he suddenly realised an impact with such force would easily have been able to crush his body into bloody pulp; but, as he flexed his extremities, cautiously testing his own body, relief replaced the rising tide as he found himself to be relatively unscathed; perhaps a bit bruised, but otherwise anatomically sound.

How... impossible.

Damage from the impact was minimal. The cold, dispassionate voice of E.V.E. spoke through his mind, the sensation unsettling to say the least. Though there has been some bruising to your muscle tissue, your augmetics proved sufficient to shield you from the worst of the damage. Had you remained with the life-pod upon impact, I fear the resulting explosion would have ended your life; such a high concentration of shrapnel in such a confined space would have torn you to shreds.

Cypher felt a knot tighten in his stomach at the idea, the Angel shaking his head to clear his thoughts before turning his attention to his current predicament. Though he had been buried into the wall upon his impact the previous night, it seemed that fortune had smiled upon him this time; lucky for Cypher, the crumbling structure hadn’t simply collapsed in on itself after such a forceful blow, leaving him trapped beneath tonnes of rubble. Looking to his right arm, the Angel gave his muscles a probing flex before gritting his teeth and pulling with full force, the limb bursting free from its confinement mere moments later, sending a small avalanche of rubble and detritus loose with it. For a brief second the wall groaned, the structure heaving as the stones of its body settled on their foundations, Cypher holding his breath for what felt an age before he once more worked up the courage to delicately disentangle himself from his impact crater.

Pulling himself free from the wall, Cypher dropped to the ground, stumbling on landing as his legs gave out beneath him; weak from exhaustion and three millennia of atrophy. Once more, there seemed to be a force pulling him downwards, something that inexorably drew him to the surface of the world. Though he had experienced gravity before, on board the Ark, the artificial force generated by the vessel was much weaker than that of a true world; the graviton emitters that had once been designed to perfectly emulate a single G of gravity degrading with the passage of time, resulting in further atrophy to his musculature. Cypher wasn’t sure how such medical knowledge had simply appeared at the forefront of his mind, but he disregarded it for the moment, taking a few long draughts of sweet, fresh air before pushing himself to his feet; his stance shaky, but up-right.

I appreciate your currently weakened state, but we haven't any time. Cypher, enemies are coming.

A shiver of fear ran through the Angel as he looked about, wincing in the harsh morning light as his weakened optical systems attempted to compensate for his weakened biological receptors. “How do you know?” He asked, raising an arm to shield his vision from the glaring sun. “I can't see a thing.”

Instantly his vision began to dim, the Angel shuddering as he felt the Anima-Spirit in his brain adjust the dilation of his pupils to prevent sensory overload. As the use of his eyes became bearable E.V.E. dropped a tactical display in the Angels HUD, its bottom right edge a mass of red blotches that were approaching a green dot in the centre with frightening speed. Momentarily Cypher had no idea what he was looking at before, somewhere deep in the grey matter of his skull, a memory engram flared to life and the display took on a sudden and horrifying clarity; seven enemies were approaching at high velocity.

They'd be on top of him in minutes.

Make for the life-pod. E.V.E. spoke in his mind, her tone calm, but her insistence clear. If it has survived, the survival gear within will greatly increase the chances of our continued existence. Hurry; if you fail to survive this encounter all my work will have been for nought.

Struggling forward on shaking legs, the Angel made all speed for the plume of black smoke on the opposite side of the courtyard he found himself in; picking his way across the tangled overgrowth. Perhaps, at some point in the past, these ruins had been a garden of some sort, the signs of old flower beds and pathways still visible in the hints of the undergrowth. Even the plant life itself wasn’t very wild, the lush space mostly dominated by thick bunches of beautiful flowers in bloom, a row of tall trees rising skyward only just further across the courtyard; their boughs heavy with ruddy-red fruit. Butterflies and bumblebees flitted to-and-fro from the overgrown flowerbeds, vibrant and alive thanks to the bounty laid before them, whilst from beneath the tangles, snaps and rustles hinted at signs of larger, furrier denizens.

It all seemed so beautiful, yet there was no time to stop and marvel; if he paused for even a moment he could wind up dead.

He came across the life-pod in short order, or, more rather, what little was left of it. As he made his approach, it was easy to see that the life-pod would never function again, the burnt-out husk little more than blackened plates of metal and a few hints of scorched wiring, twisted and gutted circuitry visible within the desecrated shell. The husk sat within an impact crater of its own, surrounded by the ashen remains of the plant life it had landed atop, their leaves and stems curled and twisted by the heat of the flames that still licked gently around the pods base. As he came closer a few plates slipped loose with a loud clattering, but otherwise, it seemed safe to approach.

Aside from the fires, I detect no residual energy signatures; the life-pod seems completely inactive. E.V.E. noted. You should be able to find the emergency survival kit beneath what’s left of the seat. Quickly now, contact will be in less than a few minutes at most.

Climbing atop the husk, Cypher carefully lowered himself into what was left of the passenger compartment, the rim of the opening lined with harsh jags of metal, before sifting his way through the wreckage, clearing away the debris as fast as his lethargy allowed, hissing when he cut his fingertips on the metals sharp edges. Clearing away one particularly razor-like piece of metal, Cypher suddenly found himself staring at a dull grey box, a simple seal of a sword framed by two mechanical wings printed in white on the front.

“Ah, found you.”

Tentatively pulling the survival kit free from its razor edged prison, Cypher extricated himself from the wreckage of the life-pod before hopping off and kneeling down on the much softer plant life outside, his bloody fingers working the catches loose one by one.

It’s standard gear for a surface operative. E.V.E. explained as Cypher pulled a thick, off-white vest from the box, the apparel made from some tough-knit material. A composite kevlar-alloy vest to improve life-expectancy and increase survival odds in combat; some basic plating to provide protection for the limbs; military boots to allow for easy traversal of the terrain; a months’ worth of condensed, high-protein rations to provide sustenance, a self-purifying liquids container, a combat knife, and a standard slug-gun. As an Angel you will have little need for sustenance, making the rations near-useless. Still, the apparel shall prove more effective than your hibernation gown, and one can never doubt the usefulness of a good pair of boots, or a sharp knife.

With as much speed as the wasted muscles of his body allowed, Cypher donned the equipment, pulling the vest over his filth covered hibernation gown before strapping the plating to his limbs, a sense of queasy unease running through him as they tightened themselves against the contours of his body like living beings; moulding themselves to his flesh as if they were a part of his very flesh.

Good. E.V.E. spoke as he slipped the slug-gun into an in-built holster on the vests chest. Now, we have to leave before th-.

Acting on a compulsion he couldn't even comprehend, the Angel suddenly threw himself to the ground, dodging by the merest inch a bolt of cyan energy as it lanced into the earth exactly where he'd been stood not a moment early. Rising as the rank stink of ozone filled the air, the Angel felt the reflex seize him once again, rolling away behind a block of stone as another burst of energy fell from the sky with the speed of a lighting bolt.

Damn, I thought we had more time.

A shadow fell over Cypher, the Angel looking up just in time to see a winged mass of white, blue, and gleaming gold metal hurtle down towards him, flanked on either side by six equally threatening shapes roughly about the same size. Instantly E.V.E. threw combat protocols into effect within his mind, the Angels thoughts stilling and senses heightening as the augmetics within his system began to release synthetic-adrenaline and serotonin, his plasma-fuelled heart cycling up as it prepared to supply his augmetics with the energy they'd need to see him through the fight. Acting on pure instinct, the world around him fading away as the programming took over, the Angel pulled the slug-gun from its holster, the weapon heavy, yet comfortingly familiar in his hand, raised it to the approaching creatures and fired a single round.

The slug-gun kicked like a mule in his grip, the report muted in his ears as his augmetics cancelled out the deafening blast. Instantly one of the onrushing enemies dropped like a stone in a welter of blood and scraps of flesh, Cypher gaining the impression of four limbs and two wings as it limply tumbled out of sight before disappearing into the lush canopy beneath it. Without pausing for thought, the Angel let off another two deadly rounds before jumping from his position, not even turning to see if his shots had struck home. Just as well he did, for not an instant later the remaining attackers let off collective volley of energy that would have incinerated the Angel in an instant had he stayed sedentary, the air turning foul as it filled with ionised particulates.

I'm tracking six individuals. E.V.E.s voice echoed in his empty mind, the Angel barely responding as a thousand engrams and all their subroutines churned away in his mind. Telemetry is patchy, the sensors aboard the Ark are too damaged to allow a higher resolution of data.

Nodding absently, Cypher leapt over the fallen trunk of an ancient oak, lances of fire dogging his every step as he vaulted the thick beam of wood and rolled on landing; firing again as he sprung to his feet. The sensation of combat was... odd. His body seemed on auto-pilot, his limbs in synchronous, yet seeming to come alive with minds of their own. Beneath him his legs found sure footing with each step, as if they'd walked this earth a hundred times previously, while his hand-eye coordination seemed honed to the razors edge, the augmetics in his skeletal structure acting of their own accord. Raising the pistol for a final shot, Cypher felt pneumatics in his out-stretched arm jink to the left as he squeezed the trigger, correcting his aim by the fine few millimetres that meant the difference between a kill shot and a mortal wound. The slug missed by a mere inch, the target veering aside at the last possible instant; Cypher letting out a cry as the first of his assailants made earth-fall, hammering into the earth with the force of a comet.

For the first time, he saw the enemy.

The xenos struck a powerful figure as it began its advance; standing tall on four powerful legs corded with muscle. The limbs led up to a stocky body of rippling flesh, musculature sliding beneath the skin with each step it took, alive with the promise of brute force and raw strength. It's head, and indeed its whole being, was equine in nature, a sharply jawed muzzle thrusting forward, its ultramarine eyes glaring with hatred as it met his gaze, its mouth parting to reveal fanged canines that spoke of a carnivorous nature. From its back sprouted a vast pair of wings, not the silvered metal of steel and adamantine, but plumed in white feathers, like the Angels of old earth, while from its forehead rose a needle pointed horn of ivory, a triple helix spiralling along its length. Its whole body was encased in thick golden plating, polished to such a degree that they dazzled in the morning light, the Angels optical sensors struggling wildly to compensate for the harsh glare of the reflected sunlight, his vision dimming to near functionless darkness before a corrective program began to compensate. Eyes watering, Cypher forced himself to hold the creatures gaze as its five companions slammed home beside it; each an equally imposing and powerful figure in their own right.

The lead xenos, its head encased in a helmet plumed by blood red fire, raised a twin headed axe, its heads flickering with witch-light as energy coruscated along its deadly edges.

Shining Armour E.V.E. whispered, her voice one of fear and hate.

'Who?'

Celestias champion; the slayer of Veloria. Cypher, this is a fight you cannot win. Run.

'What?'

Run!

His assailants leaping forward, Cypher turned tail and fled as fast as his legs could carry him, wings flaring as the ignition rings on his back instinctively began to cycle up, preparing to launch their bearer skyward. Yet even as the process began a blood red warning dropped into the Angels HUD; the power drain of the ignition rings too intense for his internal reactor to support, his plasma-fuelled heart struggling to cope with such sudden demand after three millennia of inactivity, still burning too cold to support his combat functions at their fullest. In the back of his mind Cypher felt the sensation of vast blocks of coding all chittering at once, trying to reach an equitable distribution of power even as active demand over-ran his background functions ability to process such issues. The ignition rings coughed and fell silent, their orange glow fading as some deep-core function shut them down to prevent a total power loss.

I'm attempting to compensate. Flight functions should be re-enabled in short order. E.V.E. practically shouted in his skull, her tone frantic as her programming warred with the augmetics inbuilt Anima-Spirits; attempting with all her power to override the internal safety protocols. Your reactor's burning too cold to support full functionality, I need time to boost the active threshold.

“And until then?!” Cypher shouted as a lance of energy shot passed his ear, the flesh sizzling where the intense heat caused it cook; anaesthetic flooding his blood stream to blot out the pain.

You have no choice, you must fight.

Skidding on his feet as he spun around, Cypher raised the Slug-Gun and fired on the enemy, back-peddling all the while. The shot took the closest of his assailants through the bridge of his eyes, brain matter flying in all directions as it punched clean through the xenos skull and smacked into the far wall of the courtyard, the dull concussive boom echoing outward like the roar of some great beast. Lining up for another shot, Cypher ducked as another energy beam shot past him, the wall behind him hissing as melted stone ran like tallow wax as he returned fire, dropping another enemy before holstering his weapon; the enemy now too close for such a weapon to remain a viable option. On pure reflex he whipped his knife up before him; the foot long blades serrated edge glinting cruelly in the morning light.

Of his seven assailants, only four remained standing, though even then Cypher wasn't certain of victory. Three bore blades before them, the weapons levitating in a sheen of energy, seemingly held in place by some form of telekinesis, while the fourth – whom Cypher presumed to be the squad leader – thrust forth his deadly axe, wisps of cyan energy flickering as it sensed its masters aggression. For an instant the world was still, the threat of violence hung in the air.

Then the creature spoke.

“Cypher of the Angelic Choir, by order of her highness Princess Celestia; Life-flame of Equestria, Solar Monarch, and holy daughter of Faust, you are hereby placed in the custody of the Celestial Guard. Drop your weapon and surrender, or face the wrath of the Diarchs.”

For the briefest instant Cypher was too shocked to speak, his mind tumbling as he realised that the creature was speaking his tongue, the mere idea of human language coming from non-human lips the very epitome of perversion to his fresh-born mind. It seemed impossible, ludicrous even, that a being who'd evolved on a completely alien world would even be capable of uttering human speech, and yet here was proof before his very eyes. Yet as quick as it came, the shock passed; suppressant sub-routines within his mind quashing his fears and doubts to leave his focus clear and sharp. Raising the knife in a back-handed grip, Cypher growled at the xenos E.V.E. had named Shining Armour, natural human defiance coming to the fore as he held the beasts gaze.

“If you want me, come and get me.” he spat in return. The words sounded petulant even as he spoke them; like a child resisting punishment. Yet he knew even then that he couldn't yield; though he knew nothing of this world, he'd learnt enough aboard the Ark to realise that surrender would be the worst course of action to take.

As E.V.E. had told him, the Heavenfall was the last hope for humanity.

Shining Armour grinned, the expression like that of a feral beast as he once again flashed his canines; the fangs disturbingly out of place on a beast whose earth analogue had been primarily herbivorous. “I have slain Angels before, Heavenfall, do not think your fate shall be any different.”

One-hundred-and-eighty seconds. The Anima-Spirit in his mind whispered, as if the creature could hear his very thoughts. Flight functions are coming online, Cypher. Just hold on a little longer.

The three sword bearing xenos surged forwards as one, their blades glinting in the light as they thrust ahead of their wielders. The first came in high for a devastating strike, the second and third aimed squarely at his gut, seeking to impale him in place to prevent his escape. On pure reflex Cypher flung himself to the side, his wings flaring as his internal gyroscope spun wildly to compensate and retain balance. Leaping forward in an attack of his own, Cypher leapt into the null space left by the thrusting blade and lashed out with his knife; the steel glinting as it slashed across the neck of an enemy, the creature collapsing to the ground as it pawed at the ragged wound the Angel had tore in its throat.

'One down, three to go.'

One-hundred-and-forty seconds.

Pulling back for another attack, the two xenos threw themselves forward; one striking high as the other swung low. Throwing up his knife before him, the air filled with the shriek of metal against metal as Cypher parried the high strike, his feet twisting with the grace of a ballet dancer as he side-stepped the low blow by a mere inch. Seeing another opening, the Angel prepared to attack before a shadow fell upon him, realising a second too late that the attacks had never been intended to wound him, merely keep him in place as4 the xenos called Shining Armour fell down upon him with his deadly axe. Curling away from the deadly strike, the Angels left pinion wrapped itself around his form; shielding him from the blow as it slammed into the photo-voltaic cells of its outer membrane, the Angel letting out a shriek of agony as the axe head bit deep into his most precious augmetics and discharged a fierce blast into his body.

Biting his tongue to stifle the pain, the Angel whipped the slug-gun from its holster, took aim, and fired, stitching a line of craters down the front of a sword-wielding xenos as it sought to take advantage of his distraction and slip round his guard, the body falling to the floor with a wet thump.

'Two down, two to go.'

One-hundred-and-nine seconds.

Another surge of pain flowed through him as Shining Armour wrenched his axe free of the Angels wing, coruscating energy licking up and down its length as the two remaining xenos fanned out; aiming to surround, divide, and conquer. Cypher felt his artificial heart racing in his chest, his blood alive with the song of adrenaline as a vicious aggression seized him, filling his flesh with a glorious inner fire. Without thought a battle hymn began to tumble for his lips, the words coming unbidden from the depths of his mind as he lashed out with his knife. The last of the sword-wielding stallions tried to duck, but was a fraction of a second too slow, screaming in pain as the atomically sharpened edge caught him through the eyes, slicing through the soft jelly of both orbs like wet paper. The xenos screamed wildly, limbs flailing at his sudden blindness before a hard boot to the side of his skull knocked him unconscious with a sickening crunch; Cypher wheeling around to face his last opponent: Shining Armour.

'One left.'

Seventy seconds.

The xenos dropped into a low combat-stance, axe held across his length in a defensive guard. Brining his own knife to bear, Cypher and Shining Armour began to circle one another, each wary of making the first move.

“I'd forgotten how deadly your kind are.” Shining Armour spoke, his eyes leaving Cyphers for the briefest moment as he looked back to the bodies of his fallen comrades; the ground all about them wet with gore and flesh. “These soldiers have served me for over a thousand years, yet you cut them down like wheat before the scythe.” A deep growl rumbled from the beasts lips, eyes alive and burning with hate. “For that, you shall pay. When I drag you before Celestia, I doubt she'll mind if you're missing an arm!”

Fifty Seconds.

Surging forwards almost too fast to perceive, Shining Armour brought his axe down in a vicious side-swipe, Cypher leaping away to avoid being split and gutted by its flickering heads. Pushing forward to keep the Angel in retreat, Shining Armour did not relent, his weapon striking forward again and again; each time Cypher dodging or parrying with barely a moment to spare. Clearly this Shining Armour was far more skilled than the soldiers he'd brought with him, Cypher realised as he leapt backwards, the xenos falling upon him not a moment later, axe hacking viscously towards him. What was worse was that anatomical analysis suggested that the creature was pulling its punches, so to speak, purposefully avoiding lashing out with its full strength and dealing a wound from which even an Angel could not recover. Raising the slug-gun Cypher fired point-blank into the creatures skull, hardly daring to believe his eyes as the shot was deflected aside by a wall of ultramarine light; Shining Armour grinning like the devil behind its scintillating light.

Thirty seconds.

Realising he had to break off the engagement to have any hope of escape, Cypher angled his ignition rings forward and fired a single seconds worth of thrust; twin tails of orange fire lancing towards Shining Armour as he back-peddled from the attack, his telekinetic barricade flaring brightly as it began to crumble against the vicious onslaught. Buying himself precious space, Cypher turned and ran, the xenos in hot pursuit as the Angel leapt into the air, the augmetics in his legs boosting the jump to launch him well over ten meters into the air. Landing hard on the crumbling remains of what must have been an outer curtain-wall, Cypher ran on, the stone work beneath him tumbling loose after millennia of laying undisturbed. Behind him came a faint whoosh of air as Shining Armour used his wings to propel himself up after his target.

Twenty seconds.

Flinging his right arm out behind him, Cypher fired wildly with the slug-gun, shots flying wide as he sought to keep Shining Armour off his tail, the xenos forced to duck and dodge as the solid rounds passed by.

Ten seconds.

A sudden horror surged through the Angels systems as he realised what lay ahead. Before him the remains of the curtain-wall dropped away into nothingness, the crumbling foundation giving way to a wide, deep gorge, the roar of rushing water rising up with a fine spray to greet him with the promise of fast rapids and jagged rocks.

Five seconds.

Finally out of wall, and with no where else to run, Cypher flung himself into the void, arms flailing as a sickening lurch rushed through him, gravity seizing him its awful grip as he began to fall head first into the white-wash below.

Three, two, one. Ignition!

Instantly the roar of the rapids was drowned out by the harsh scream of the ignition rings as they cycled to full power, the plasma-fuelled heart in the Angels chest diverting all non-essential power to the winged augmetics as they sought to counteract the force of gravity. For the briefest moment Cypher floated in air, his fall arrested as the ignition rings came into full balance with the gravity of the earth beneath him before, with a sudden rush of reflexive glee, the Angel felt himself begin to rise up and up and up.

Within a second he shot up out of the gorge, rocketing into the clear blue skies on twin tongues of orange fire, the face of Shining Armour blinking past him in an instant, a look of grim hatred marking his features as he watched his quarry begin to soar into the skies above. Wind rushed past the Angels face, whipping and tearing at his long hair as he let out a whoop of pure instinctive joy, feeling himself slip loose from the bonds of the earth. The sensation was incredible; the weak propulsion of his wings aboard the Ark less than nothing compared to the power he now felt flowing through his flesh as he flew two hundred, three hundred, four hundred meters into the air. He was unstoppable, untouchable, nothing could harm him when he flew like th-

Cypher, hostile right!

Cypher let out a wail of agony as a lance of energy skewered into his back, the flesh between his wings sizzling as it cooked under the heat of the blow. Instantly the Angel felt himself begin to tumble, the fine aero-dynamics of his flight shattered as his wings flailed in pain, gravity seizing him like some leviathan beast of the deep seeking to drag its prey down into the darkness below. Warnings flashed in his HUD, klaxons rang in his ears as automated systems attempted with utter futility to correct his spiralling descent.

The earth below rushed to meet him like an expectant lover.