[COLD OPEN — ABANDONED SECTOR 8, SKYVAULT CITY]
Black ash falls like snow over the skeletal remains of an old SkyVault train station. Faint cinders burn among bent steel. Everything is silent—until a deep rumble breaks the stillness.
A fissure erupts beneath the rubble. Something shifts. A massive obsidian claw breaks through the surface, followed by a molten shoulder pulsing with crimson light. The creature growls deep, as if waking from centuries of slumber.
A monstrous eye opens. It blinks once, and the ash around it begins to swirl.
The metal signs above the station crack and collapse. Steam hisses from broken valves. Graffiti tags from an age gone still mark the walls: 'Savage Bratz,' 'No Gods Here,' and a faded Vanguard emblem scratched out in red.
[SCENE — VAN HQ WAR ROOM]
Kael stands over a digital map with Aurix, Yuna, and Echo-7. Blinking red signals surge across the west sectors. The tension in the room is heavy. Irion leans in the back, silent.
Aurix:
"Another pulse from the Rift Core. Sector 8 is lighting up again. Something's rising."
Yuna (quietly):
"Not Nullborn... but something born in the same breath."
Echo-7:
"Wavelength signature… similar to the crystallized remnants from the X-O-X skirmish. But fused with molten anomalies. I don't like it."
Kael:
"Suit up. All of us. We're not letting another beast climb into the city."
Aurix (firm):
"This one's different. Like it's echoing something ancient. We need all hands on this."
[SCENE — TRAINING BAY, VAN HQ]
Veya sharpens her dual pistols while Jax and Tari load up their equipment. The atmosphere is tense but electric. Crimsa meditates, her hands glowing faintly. Irion enters last, expression unreadable.
Jax:
"You feel that hum in the air? Like we're standing in the middle of a thunderstorm."
Veya (grinning):
"Means it's going to be fun."
Tari (to Irion):
"You alright? Haven't said a word since last mission."
Irion (flat):
"Quiet keeps you focused."
Crimsa:
"Funny. I thought silence was where secrets hide."
The group eyes her. She smirks.
Aurix (over comms):
"Everyone to the launch pad. Now."
[SCENE — DEPLOYMENT: SECTOR 8]
A dropship pierces the blackened sky. The Vanguards leap out, weapons drawn. What they find is worse than they imagined.
An obsidian colossus—half-crystal, half-magma—rises from the ashes. Its mouth opens like a furnace. Dozens of smaller minions crawl out of its back, screaming in metal tones. Pulsing veins of red-hot rock flow through its arms. It steps on an entire building and crushes it like paper.
Kael:
"Formation Delta! Crimsa, Irion—flank the right. Veya, with me. Echo, get eyes on the core."
They scatter. Crimsa moves like a whisper, slicing through molten beasts with her red-glowing blades. Irion lifts a wall of void energy to shield Yuna. Jax lands with a thunderclap, shaking half the sector.
Jax (shouting):
"You want fire? Here's a whole damn storm!"
He releases a sonic burst that vaporizes three enemies. Tari floats to a rooftop and begins calling out coordinates.
Tari:
"West quadrant, five hostiles incoming! Irion, cover six!"
Irion:
"Already on it."
A shadowy blast decimates a flank. Veya vaults over a burning support beam, double-tapping two Riftlings in the head before flipping to safety.
Echo-7:
"This isn't just a monster. It's... an echo. A Rift-born memory mimicking the Cinder Strain."
Tari (in comm):
"Then how do we kill something that remembers how to survive?"
Veya (panting):
"By outsmarting it. We improvise."
[SCENE — INTENSE BATTLE MONTAGE]
Crimsa takes down five enemies in under 10 seconds, leaping between shadows.
Irion shields Jax from a burning shard beast, then punches it through a train wall. His suit begins to glow a deeper violet as his Voidcast power flares.
Tari locks onto the creature's core and charges a full cosmic shot.
Tari:
"Clear my path! I need five seconds!"
Kael:
"Cover her! No matter what!"
Everyone rallies. Kael engulfs the creature in a wall of plasma. Veya uses ricochet shots to blind it. Echo-7 overloads a local power junction, stunning the beast. Crimsa backflips over its back and carves out a pulsating gem shard.
Tari (whispering):
"Starfall: Execute."
A beam from orbit strikes the core. It shrieks, fractures, and explodes into cinder shards. The light fades.
Silence.
[SCENE — AFTERMATH, SECTOR 8]
The Vanguards walk through the smoldering ruins, tired but alive. Smoke drifts over the rubble. A dead Riftling twitches, then burns out.
Aurix (on comms):
"Extraction incoming. Standby for evac."
Kael sits beside a broken pillar, blood on his temple. Yuna kneels beside him, quietly tending to his wound.
Yuna (softly):
"You always dive headfirst."
Kael (half-grinning):
"And you always catch me."
Crimsa (muted):
"He watched us. I felt it."
Yuna:
"Who?"
Crimsa:
"My real commander. He's waking up too."
Irion steps beside her. His voice is flat.
Irion:
"You never really left him, did you?"
Crimsa:
"Does anyone ever really leave a shadow?"
The camera pans to a hidden lens embedded in a shattered wall. A faint voice whispers:
Unknown Male Voice:
"One Vanguard falls... and the others will follow."
[POST-CREDIT SCENE — UNKNOWN SHADOW NETWORK]
Crimsa kneels before a tall, calm woman with violet skin, clad in a flowing mantle of data threads and fractal crystals. Other silhouettes move silently in the background, adjusting floating panels.
Unknown Woman:
"You found the first pillar?"
Crimsa:
"Right where your vision said it would be, Mother."
Unknown Woman — MOTHER NULL (smiling faintly):
"Good. The Vanguards are exactly where we need them now."
A console behind her shows blueprints of SkyVault's foundation... slowly shifting into something unrecognizable.
[TO BE CONTINUED...]