[COLD OPEN — VOID OF STRINGS / MARIONETTE DIMENSION]
We drift through an endless black theater. Curtains of skin and silk sway in invisible wind. A haunting piano echoes as pale threads float in every direction. In the center sits a woman made of stitched sorrow: DREIVA.
Dreiva: (humming to herself) Tick the time, fold the flame, break the hero from their name…
She plucks a glowing thread, and somewhere, Kael gasps.
[INT. VAN HQ – NIGHT]
The team is relaxing. The city is quiet. Kael, Yuna, Tari, Jax, Niko, and Echo-7 are playing a card game while Mira laughs nearby.
Kael: (grinning) Full pulse. I win again.
Jax: (groans) Stop using your commander voice. That's cheating.
Yuna: You're just mad because your deck's still upside down.
Tari leans back, stretching.
Tari: A quiet night… weird.
Niko: Too quiet.
Echo-7 twitches slightly. His hand freezes over the card table.
Echo-7: Alert. Frequency anomaly detected.
Everything shifts. The lights dim. The HQ begins to shake. Echo-7 glitches out, and suddenly—
[REALITY FRACTURES]
A massive pulse shatters the scene like glass. Everyone is pulled in a different direction through a swirl of color and memory.
Narrator (V.O.): Dreiva doesn't kill you. She just plays with your timeline… until you're someone else.
[EPISODE TITLE: DREIVA'S WALTZ]
[SCENE 1 — KAEL / OATHFIRE'S TIMELINE]
Kael wakes in a ruined SkyVault — fire raining from the sky. His armor is blackened. He stands over the bodies of his team — dead. Alone. A hologram flickers beside him: Commander Aurix.
Aurix: The Vanguard failed, Kael. You failed.
Kael: (shaking) No… this isn't right.
A boy approaches — young Kael, eyes filled with hope.
Young Kael: Why didn't you keep your oath?
Kael: I did! I swore—
Young Kael: But you burned it. Just like mom.
Flames surround them. A monstrous mirror-Kael rises from the fire.
Mirror Kael: The oath wasn't for the city. It was for your pride.
[SCENE 2 — YUNA / PULSE BLOOM'S TIMELINE]
Yuna stands in a meadow made of glass petals. Mira is a child again, smiling. Everything is perfect… too perfect.
Mira: Don't leave, Yuna. Stay. Forever.
Yuna: (uneasy) This isn't real.
A swarm of spectral butterflies gathers. From them, Dreiva forms — half-beauty, half-scar.
Dreiva: Wouldn't it be nice? A world where no one dies? Where flowers never wilt?
Yuna: That's not life.
Dreiva: But it's love.
A mirror Yuna grows from the garden, vines wrapping around her arms like chains.
[SCENE 3 — TARI / STARBRINGER'S TIMELINE]
Tari is in a darkened sniper nest, surrounded by war. Explosions echo across a burning city. Lux Vein walks beside her, unharmed.
Lux: You never left the unit. You just rewrote it in your mind.
Tari: I left because we became monsters.
Lux: You were the sharpest blade. And blades don't feel.
Tari's hands tremble on the Nova Lance trigger. The world slows as she's forced to aim at her own teammates — marked as enemies.
Lux: Pull it. Do what you were made for.
[SCENE 4 — JAX / THUNDERHOWL'S TIMELINE]
Jax is trapped in a coliseum of sound. The crowd roars for blood. Across from him: his father, a legend, holding an identical weapon.
Father: You think rhythm makes you strong? Prove it.
Jax fights — his every heartbeat a sonic boom. But he's slowing.
Father: Without fear, your howl is hollow.
Jax: Then I'll howl with fear. That's what makes it real!
Jax screams — the arena collapses in waves of thunder.
[SCENE 5 — NIKO / GHOSTLOCK'S TIMELINE]
Niko is back in the orphanage. Alone. The world is gray. He can't phase out. Every door is locked. Every mirror shows him older, colder.
A child approaches: it's Echo-7, still human.
Echo-7: You left me.
Niko: I didn't know how to save you.
Echo-7: You always knew. You just didn't care enough.
Niko shatters a mirror and climbs into his own reflection, dragging Echo with him.
[SCENE 6 — ECHO-7 / BINARY FLUX'S TIMELINE]
Echo-7 finds himself in a museum of memory — each exhibit is a looped moment of pain. He walks past files labeled: "Termination Protocols," "Rejection," "Silence."
One screen plays: The moment he was first shut down.
Dreiva (O.S.): You are nothing but grief in code.
Echo-7: And still… I'm more human than you.
He hacks into his own memory matrix and ignites a pulse. The museum disintegrates.
[INTERLUDE — DREIVA'S THEATER]
Dreiva stands before a crowd of her own illusions. Each timeline version of the Vanguard kneels before her, puppeted. She curtsies.
Dreiva: Bravo! The Vanguard have performed. And now… they forget.
She lifts her hand to erase them — but something shatters the illusion.
Kael (V.O.): You made one mistake.
The real Kael steps forward, burning with light.
Kael: You gave us a stage.
[CLIMACTIC REUNION — REALITY STITCHED BACK TOGETHER]
The Vanguard appear one by one.
Yuna crushes the vines with blooming rage.
Tari takes Lux's hand — then lets her go.
Jax silences the arena with a final beat.
Niko unlocks the final door.
Echo-7 shatters the strings.
Kael: This isn't your story.
Vanguard (together): It's ours.
They launch a synchronized strike — their real forms glowing as one. Dreiva screams as her marionette body unravels into torn thread and memory dust.
Dreiva: You can't kill a song that hasn't finished… playing...
She vanishes.
[EPILOGUE — VAN HQ, SUNRISE]
The team wakes up on the floor of the war room. Disoriented. Whole. Mira rushes in, relieved.
Mira: You were gone for three hours. It felt like days.
Kael: It was days.
Yuna: (quietly) For some… it was years.
Echo-7: She tried to rewrite us.
Niko: But we chose who we are.
Tari: We remember everything now. Even the pain.
Jax: Good. I want to keep it. It makes us real.