[OPENING SCENE — SKYVAULT CITY, MORNING]
Golden light spills over a hovering skyline. SkyVault City, a glistening urban giant floating high above the mainland, stirs into life. Neon rails hum. Hover-buses glide between towers. Civilians walk glass bridges sipping cloud-coffee, reading holo-feeds, unaware of what sleeps below.
Advertisements flicker in the air: new tech releases, clean energy drives, and even a children's show about miniature robots. But in the background, faint warnings echo through small corner broadcasts — "power flickers," "data breaches," "disappearances near the underlevels." Most scroll past.
[CUT TO — VAN HQ, ROOFTOP GARDEN]
Kael sits quietly on the edge, watching the sunrise. His coat flutters gently in the wind. Behind him, Jax jogs in with a protein smoothie in hand.
Jax:
"Brooding again? It's breakfast time, not brooding time."
Kael (without looking):
"Sky's quiet. Too quiet."
Jax:
"I swear if you say 'a storm's coming,' I'm jumping."
Kael smirks faintly. The HQ buzzes to life behind them as the others begin their morning.
[CUT TO — INTERIOR, VAN HQ COMMON FLOOR]
Echo-7 projects a holographic interface, its face shifting between different avatars — an old film actor, a cat, a constellation. Tari reviews long-range surveillance, Yuna pours tea, Aurix gives orders in a separate room.
Echo-7:
"No alerts overnight. Unless you count the pigeon that tried to steal my faceplate."
Yuna (softly smiling):
"Let's enjoy the peace for once."
Tari (not looking up):
"Peace is never peace. It's a pause between alarms."
Aurix (entering):
"She's right. Alarm's due any minute."
[SCENE — DOWNTOWN SKYVAULT, MIDDAY]
Meanwhile, on the edge of the East District, a young man exits a compact apartment building. A long coat, bag slung over his shoulder, and a half-eaten protein bar in hand.
This is Irian.
He's just… a civilian. Or so it seems.
He walks to his small job at a bookstore tucked under a neon bridge. On the way, he stops at a fruit stand.
Vendor:
"Back again, Irian?"
Irian:
"Routine's cheaper than therapy."
He flips a coin, buys a plum, walks on. He's quiet. He notices things others don't — a broken lamp, a flickering sign, a rat sprinting from a vent.
In the bookstore, Irian shelves rare old books — not digital. Real ones. The store is dim, quiet, the owner mostly asleep. Irian reads during lunch — poetry, war memoirs, manuals of obsolete technology.
He's not part of VAN HQ. Not yet.
[SCENE — VAN HQ, COMMAND FLOOR]
Aurix addresses the team.
Aurix:
"Good morning, Vanguards. As of this morning, crime reports are down 40%. The city's stable. That won't last."
He clicks a projection.
Aurix:
"New group cropped up. Small-time, but loud. They call themselves the Savage Bratz. Street-level tech-hackers, smugglers, sometimes armed. Run by a ganglord named Krakk — used to be a stunt-racer, now runs the back alleys of East Vault."
Tari:
"Savage Bratz? Seriously?"
Jax:
"Do they graffiti their name in glitter too?"
Aurix:
"They've hijacked two rail-lifters, siphoned fuel from a Shield Core, and scrambled five drone patrols in one week. Laugh now, bleed later."
Kael:
"What's the call?"
Aurix:
"Observation. Let them move. Echo-7's been tracking their signal threads. We don't spook 'em yet."
Echo-7:
"They're messy but smart. They're hiding something. Underground signal spikes keep flaring near their hangouts."
Yuna:
"That… could mean a reactor leak. Or worse — tampered core tech."
Aurix:
"Exactly. That's why we don't trigger them yet. I want eyes everywhere."
[SCENE — NIGHT — BOOKSTORE ROOFTOP, EAST DISTRICT]
Irian stands on the roof after work. He gazes out toward the western towers of SkyVault.
He sees something others don't — faint light trails, like motion shadows of the city. As if every path, every action, left a glowing echo.
His fingers twitch. He jots in his journal. Draws a pattern.
Below him, a flicker — four people in masks sprint down a lower street. A van turns its lights off mid-drive. No sirens. No response. It vanishes under a bridge.
Irian (quietly):
"They're moving too fast to be civilian."
He closes the journal. For now, just an observer.
[SCENE — VAN HQ TRAINING ROOM, NIGHT]
The Vanguards train together — synchronized strikes, coordinated powers. Yuna heals Kael mid-movement. Jax overloads Echo-7's sound grid for fun. Tari pierces a dummy with a lightshot without blinking. Kael pushes harder than usual — his fire burns brighter than needed.
Jax:
"You know we're training, not going to war, right?"
Kael:
"Muscle memory doesn't care. We stay ready."
Yuna:
"There's tension in the city. Even the silence feels different."
Echo-7:
"Emotion spikes on all four districts. Crime low. Paranoia high. It's like everyone's waiting for something."
The lights dim. The training grid fades.
[FINAL SHOT — UNDERGROUND, UNKNOWN LOCATION]
Krakk slams his fists on a table. A bunch of low-tier thugs surround him. He grins with gold teeth. Around him, a cluttered base filled with modified tech, LED scrap, black-market weapons, and stolen power cells.
Krakk:
"The Vault's gotten soft. Let's remind 'em who runs the alleys."
A stolen pulse-grenade ticks on the table beside him. The Savage Bratz cheer.
He turns to a monitor showing live camera feeds of parts of the city — including, unknowingly, one not far from Irian's rooftop.
Krakk:
"Tomorrow night. No more hiding. Time to rattle the gods."
[FADE TO BLACK]
[TO BE CONTINUED]