A/N: As with Shattered Horizon, this is short and to get ya'll ready for the next few things... This, however, differs from Shattered Horizon in the style and setting. This one occurs around 10 years post-Falling Up, before SH. This style has much more detail than the other... Capricorn, the speaker, is a floating, color-changing fireball (a Lost Soul, which you'll learn about when you read the sequals to Falling Up), and is discussing how he discovered that Swift was his Guardian.

Swift, Capricorn, and A.I.R. are (c) me.

Have fun, kids! And don't forget to R&R! :D

Archetype

It was perplexing, really. This creature in the tube beside mine…

Familiarity pulsed through me each time I cast a glance her way. For some strange reason, every look dulled the pain, no matter how great. Understanding of this phenomenon came within two weeks or so of her arrival, I guessed. One word that burned through all other explanations I had attempted to formulate.

Guardian.

Realization struck me after coming back from one of their testing stints with a little fight still left in me, just enough to cling to consciousness. They were transferring me back into my Plexiglas container when I heard something off, though I really don't have ears to hear with. I managed to look over, to see what the commotion was about. The navy and charcoal hedgie's eyes were piercing flames of onyx as she rose to her feet, shaking as frightening fangs extended from her snarl and wings of pure darkness materialized from thin air on her back. She was yelling and pounding on the walls of her cage. The scientists stood in shear shock while the now-winged hedgehog managed to crack the extremely thick and strong casing holding her in; her furious shouting I discerned to be the sound that did not belong. Quite frankly, I was just as stunned, for her injuries were more than substantial. How she had even mustered the strength to stand was beyond me…

The scientists finally snapped out of it, throwing me in my tube and locking me down hurriedly before descending upon her like a pack of wolves. I heard glass shatter and watched as crystalline shards fell from the metal ceiling like rain. Could I even remember rain…?

Abruptly, a yellow pulsation of energy erupted from an unseen epicenter within the swarm, knocking the whitecoats back as the heavier duty men began to arrive, breaking even more objects in the room, including my own cage, though I was much to weak to capitalize on this opportunity. I merely lay there on the metal basing, watching through unexisting eyes as this creature set the whitecoats' world ablaze with a simple flick of the wrist.

I must have fazed out at that point, for I reawoke in a new room with even thicker walls holding me captive. Anxious, I glanced around in confusion, finding the hellhog sprawled out on the floor of her tube in a pool of her own blood, nearly comatose, but alive. Comprehension of her actions escaped me until I tried to catch her attention, finding out a bit too late that I had no idea who she was.

"Ryde!" I yelped, the name simply rising from my vocal cords. How I had known this was beyond me. As I mulled over this, I came across even more information, facts that floated to the surface without prompting.

I knew her.

Swift Ryde Hedgehog. Ultimate Lifeform experiment and Project 15 under A.I.R.'s Angel Experiment. The soon-to-be proclaimed "Knight of the Angels". Daughter, sister, wife, and mother… and the one who will guide me through this trial and judgment bestowed upon me.

My Guardian.

I promised myself from that instant on; I will take on the form of the Loyal Retainer and learn all I can from her: my Mentor, my Hero…

My Redeemer.

My Angel.