Synthetic Survivor: Machine Age

The sky was the limit. That was the fact before the invention of flight-capable technology. It was not until the first plane did the humans finally conquered the skies. in Fiorg, the skies have been conquered but not as much as the humans did back on Earth.

They rode creatures of great shape who were beasts and bore death. The wyverns which the kingdoms manned and flew above their lands to protect their skies and the cities. The small dragons they tamed or enslaved to protect their treasures.

Of course, these flying beasts were used for war. Not only do they overpower the common soldier but they do so effectively against a thousand or more common soldiers. The common soldiers were no match for the beasts whose wings would blow them away, the feet that would stomp on them and their ability to fly.

With armour as thick as metal, no puny amount of arrows can take them down. The only thing capable of doing so was, of course, magic. Magical weapons and spells were effective and almost the only viable way of shooting them down or injuring them in that manner. They always aimed for the riders, if the riders fell so would the beast.

The rider was its brain and love, its husband and wife. These beasts were trained to always follow their masters, so much so that it resulted in them committing suicidal acts if its rider falls. Thinking that this was no issue, the kingdoms of Fiorg shrugged off the warnings and trained them as they would be today.

And today was the day that they would encounter an enemy equal to their strength, equal in a sense but not as they thought.

On the twenty-seventh day after the first army set up camp below the other side of the hills which separated them from the enemy, the first wyverns took flight above the forest. The sky was covered in dark clouds of smoke and ash because of the fires that were still ablaze.

Commanding the wyvern riders was an iron-willed captain Ghemerie Tron. Gemerie Tron was a fresh new graduate of the Theocracy's five year bloody training camp that turned already seasoned riders into commanders that would command a hundred more of their comrades and lead them into battle.

This was his third mission above enemy territory. The commander was stoic, disciplined and wise, using the knowledge he acc.u.mulated over the past years of riding and the limited information provided to him before the crusade, he was confident and thought that he was more than ready to face the enemy.

The enemy, however, was more ready to face him and his wyvern flock. The mission was to aid the twenty thousand strong army in penetrating the defence line. He and his flock would simply conduct raids and try to pick off as much of the enemy soldiers as possible. This was the most common strategy of using air beasts but by far the most efficient when the enemy has little to no resistance to it.

Ghemerie Tron was not informed that the enemy had metal beasts which flew, none of them did. Not even the goddess saw these beasts before the battle happened and their demise was by then set in stone.

Ghemerie and twenty other wyverns temporarily broke off from the other eighty wyverns to perform a surgical strike behind the defence line as their allied army charged below on the ground beginning the assault.

It was supposed to be an easy victory, the weapons of the enemy were focused on the twenty thousand soldiers and there was no clear opposition against them.

Suddenly, a fiery roar sounded like thunder that echoed in the sky in which they flew. Ghemerie and his men heard the roar and fear struck them. What is this feeling? He thought. After the roar finished the metal beasts suddenly appeared unexpectedly above the ash clouds and brought hell to the commander and his flock.

The metal beasts were unlike anything he'd ever seen, they flew faster than they could catch, could turn at angles impossible for their wyverns to achieved and possessed firepower that could decimate entire armies. They flew right through the flock and easily slaughtered thirty in a frenzy of lights, explosions and sonic screams. It was a nightmare for the riders.

But they did not back down, Ghemerie Tron rallied what remained of his original flock and tried to mount a desperate defence. Despite what looked like to be a one-sided slaughter, he turned it into something similar to events he did not know of but happened back on Earth.

The army of twenty thousand below them was decimated and quickly the survivors routed in fear and anguish. The mages that were supposed to lead them were all defeated in front of them and the enemy began to push them back, their swords and staffs stronger than what they had. Ghemerie saw this entire fiasco while they battled in the skies.

His eyes reflected his horror as he saw his fellow countrymen as small little dots in the ground running across fields of bodies, flames and destruction. This was the first setback but it did not mean defeat, he knew that and decided to fight on and die as martyrs for the future of the Theocracy.

He, like many before him, was a devote believer of the Fax Religion and worshipped the goddess with all his strength. Through the horror he witnessed and the inevitable defeat simply knocking at his door with death behind it ready to lead him to the depths of the hell, he mustered whatever iron will he had and led one final push.

The wyverns and the metal beasts went head to head in what was seen from below as a chaotic display of fireworks. Explosions rocked each side, the riders cast magic spells and the wyverns tried in such disparity to claw, gnaw, and follow the metal beasts.

But despite this, despite their best efforts and the great leadership of Ghemerie Tron, they were defeated in a fantastic fireball. The metal beasts suddenly dispersed from the battle making Ghemerie and his surviving flock think that they have pushed the enemy back, they cheered and cried and sounded prayers of thanks.

Only to be greeted by a fiery flame that engulfed them, sent them crashing down to the ground. There was something that exploded in the middle of their jubilee, Ghemerie was the last of the flock to fall from the sky.

His body facing the sky as he continued descending to the ground, the glimmer of honor, will and confidence he once had in his eyes all disappeared and his dreams fell with him. His belief for the Fax Religion was met with uttermost doubt when he fell, everything he ever believed in and his life flashed before him.

From birth to death, unto the soil we shall return, for the soil we were from and to the soil, we shall return. A familiar saying back on Earth and was also a proverb in the Fax Religion that echoed in his head.

Before he finally crashed onto the solid ground, he heard the faint crack from the bones of the weaver he rode that fell before him. He saw the rest of his flock falling from the sky like a host of heavenly angels that were slain in the battles of heaven.

The demons won this battle, but the angels of the Goddess would strike back! He thought once more.

And then he crashed onto the ground, bones cracked and displaced, blood splattered all over the grass and organs protruding from the opened holes that appeared from bones piercing his skin. His body was one of the many soldiers who fell to the evil that would soon plague their lands.

But their war was just beginning, not only would they fight them in the skies but also in their fields of wheat, their bricked streets, in the humble vestiges of their villages and the busy districts of their cities.

In that day, when the army charged and the flock of Ghemerie followed, what they gained and sowed from the seeds the planted that die were the rotten wheat of death.

As the sun was finally setting, the landscape became darker, the skies were blanketed in ash and smoke that prevented even the light of the stars to be seen nor the moons to show their holy lights. In the distance, vast fires raged as the Theocracy prepped once more for another attack, they were on a crusade! The burning of the forest was necessary, how can they supply and march an army of hundreds of thousands with terrain as awful as that?

A worthy sacrifice at the cost of the magical energy in the forest. With magical energy severely depleted due to the fires, mages were forced to use their own reserves but with the help of the goddess, the lack of natural magic was barely a problem.

Though the battle that raged in the skies were something to be awed below and learned from in the centuries to come, the battle that took place on the hill that day was a battle to be remembered for generations.

If there were surviving generations.