[OPENING SHOT — NIGHT SKY, CITY IN RUINS]
Dark clouds swirl above SkyVault City. Glass shards float mid-air, suspended by some lingering residual force. Sirens echo below.
Narrator (V.O.): The day after the sky shattered, silence reigned. We weren't just heroes anymore. We were survivors. And something was still out there... singing.
[INT. VAN HQ – INFIRMARY]
Kael lies on a medical slab, breathing heavily. His suit is cracked near the neck. Monitors flicker. Yuna watches from across the room.
Yuna: (softly) You're lucky. That crystal nearly hit your spine.
Kael: (groggy) What happened to... the civilians?
Yuna: Most were evacuated. Seventeen… didn't make it.
Kael: ...Shard.
Yuna: He disappeared after the others came. Prismmaw nearly tore Jax apart.
Kael sits up, wincing.
Kael: We weren't ready.
Yuna: We are now.
[INT. VAN HQ – MISSION BRIEFING ROOM]
The team sits silently. Jax has his arm in a sling. Tari scrolls through city maps. Niko leans against the wall, silent. Echo-7 floats midair, glitching occasionally.
Commander Aurix (Hologram):
Vanguard. Yesterday was not a failure. It was a threshold.
Jax: (sarcastic) Oh, good. So we're officially in hell.
Tari: Shard wasn't trying to destroy us… he was testing us.
Niko: And we failed.
Echo-7: I've detected irregular audio pulses across the northern districts. Identical to the frequency Prismmaw used.
Kael: Then we track it.
Aurix: Be warned. This is not a confirmed combat zone. But the pattern is spreading. You deploy in one hour.
[TRANSITION SCENE — SKYVAULT CITY, NORTHERN DISTRICTS]
The Vanguard deploy on hoverboards and light runners. Buildings here are half-gemmed — crystal growths spreading like tumors.
Yuna: (touching a wall) These weren't here yesterday.
Jax: (sniffs) I hear it.
Kael: You mean smell it.
Jax: No. I mean hear it.
A soft humming drifts through the air. Distant… mournful… like a lullaby.
[INT. ABANDONED MUSIC HALL]
The team enters a dusty concert hall, seats broken, stage cracked. On the stage is a piano, untouched, glowing faintly.
Niko: Someone's playing it.
He phases forward. The rest follow, slowly. The air is thick. Suddenly—
VOICE:
"Do you remember her song? The one that made your eyes cry and your soul shut down?"
The sound spikes. Everyone covers their ears. From the shadows… appears Gravemind Vox.
Gravemind Vox: Welcome to the requiem.
He steps forward, dragging a violin made of bone and crystal. Plays one long, broken note.
Kael: (ignites blade) Stand down!
Vox: I can't stand anything. Not anymore. Not since they stopped listening.
[BATTLE BEGINS]
Vox plays the violin, each note creating sonic shockwaves.
Yuna protects the team with psychic blooms.
Jax amplifies his heartbeat into rhythmic bursts.
Echo-7 hacks the lighting system to blind Vox.
Tari: I don't have a shot — he keeps vanishing!
Niko: I'll pull him into the light.
Niko phases into the ground, appears behind Vox, and kicks him into a beam of spotlight. Tari fires — the bolt pierces his chest. Crystals shatter, but Vox laughs.
Vox: Pain makes the music sweeter.
He screams — the building shudders. Shard's voice echoes faintly.
Shard (V.O.): Do not kill them yet. Let them break first.
Vox vanishes in a burst of glittering ash.
[LATER — OUTSIDE THE HALL]
Jax: What the hell was that?
Echo-7: He was singing to something below us.
Yuna: Or someone.
Kael: We're not just fighting villains. We're fighting a choir.
Tari: A choir of monsters.
[INT. VAN HQ – WAR ROOM]
The team watches a new hologram. A map of SkyVault. Red zones spreading across the city.
Aurix: They're using sound. Emotion. Memory. They're converting SkyVault one district at a time.
Kael: Then we stop them one district at a time.
Yuna: (whispers) Before there's nothing left to save.
[EPISODE ENDS — CLOSE-UP OF THE GEM IN KAEL'S SPINE — PULSING FAINTER THAN BEFORE]