[COLD OPEN — SKYVAULT MEMORIAL DISTRICT]
A wall of names. Fresh flowers. Civilians pray beneath a sky now webbed with glimmering crystal veins. The Gemspire pulses in the distance like a second sun. Echo-7 walks alone, silently placing a single mechanical lily at the wall.
Echo-7 (V.O.): We were built to protect. But some days… protection means burying those you couldn't save.
[INT. VAN HQ — WAR ROOM]
The Vanguard sits silent. Wounded, exhausted, changed.
Kael: Casualty report says 3,400 confirmed. 600 still missing. Ten sectors unresponsive.
Tari: And the Gemspire grew another 400 feet overnight.
Echo-7: Shard is embedding his architecture into the planet's mantle. At this rate, it will reach the SkyVault Core by sunrise.
Aurix: This isn't a war. It's a conversion. A rewriting.
Yuna: The civilians are calling it "The Glittering Plague."
Mira stands, pale but firm, projecting a structural map of the Gemspire.
Mira: We hit them now. There's a pressure point under the central core. If I phase in from the sewer lines, I can disrupt the primary field. Even a few seconds could collapse part of the Gemspire.
Yuna: That's suicide.
Mira: Then I'll bring back a miracle.
[FLASHBACK – MIRA'S MEMORY]
A younger Mira trains under Aurix in the shooting range.
Aurix: You're fast, Mira. But being fast won't stop fear. You have to choose who lives and who doesn't.
Mira: I won't let fear choose for me.
Aurix: Then maybe you'll live long enough to make that choice.
[SCENE — INFILTRATION TEAM: Kael, Yuna, Mira, Echo-7]
The team descends into SkyVault's sewage maintenance grid. Dim lights flicker. Steam hisses. The walls are crystallizing slowly, like veins of spreading cancer.
Echo-7: Crystal infestation has reached 63% saturation. Time is compressing around the core. Reality is beginning to bend.
Kael: We move fast and we don't separate.
They reach the crystalline under-core — a glowing, breathing heart of violet energy. Thousands of floating crystal pods contain civilians — frozen in mid-motion, eyes flickering.
Yuna: (choked) These were families…
Shard waits above the core, his silhouette illuminated like a god made of glass. He slowly turns.
Shard: Welcome to the end of time.
Kael: You're insane.
Shard: No. I am what's left when a city forgets its promises. When heroes choose politics over people. When love dies in the noise.
He turns to the pods.
Shard: They were going to die in fear. Now, they live forever. Beautiful. Unchanging.
He reaches down and touches a civilian. They awaken — eyes glowing like gemstones — and march silently forward.
Echo-7: He's converting people into proxies. Memory-wiped. Will-bound.
Kael: That's not eternity. That's slavery.
The team attacks —
Kael ignites his flame fists, launching at Shard.
Yuna summons massive, blooming vines that whip like whips.
Echo-7 sends code pulses disrupting the crystals.
But Shard's power is overwhelming. He reflects every blow through angled crystal geometry. The attacks fold back at the team. Kael is thrown into a wall. Echo staggers.
Shard: Your powers are mirrors. I am their master.
Shard suddenly appears beside Yuna, hand raised to convert her.
Shard: You'll make a perfect addition to my choir.
Time slows.
Mira dives.
Mira: NO!!
She shoves Yuna aside and intercepts the touch. Shard's hand meets her chest. A shockwave of violet light erupts.
Mira: I'm not… afraid… anymore.
Her body crystallizes from the inside out — pink and rose quartz. Her last expression is peace. She stands, frozen, shielding Yuna.
Silence.
Yuna: MIRA! NO! No no no no—
Kael: FALL BACK. NOW!
Echo-7: Incoming pulse! Gemspire surge imminent!
They grab Yuna and run, pursued by crystalline civilians and proxy soldiers. As they escape, they look back at Mira — still, proud, eternal.
[INT. VAN HQ – INFIRMARY]
Tari and Jax tend to wounded. Aurix bursts in with backup, his coat bloodied.
Aurix: You didn't just lose Mira. You lost half the core infrastructure of this city. The lower generators are gone. SkyVault is bleeding.
Kael: (quietly) Don't talk to me about loss right now.
Aurix: (softening) I trained her too. But we don't have time to grieve.
Echo-7: The crystallized population has doubled in three hours. Shard is preparing something massive. A city-wide activation.
Niko: Then we shut him down before he sings his final note.
[SCENE — CRYSTAL CITY CENTER]
Shard floats above the spire. Behind him, his new army — thousands of converted SkyVault citizens. Dreiva and Prismmaw kneel.
Shard: SkyVault is no more. It has no name. Only light. Only silence.
He places a shard into his crown — the final piece.
Shard: I am your Ashen King. Welcome to eternity.
[MONTAGE — WORLD FALLING]
Broadcasts go silent.
The SkyVault council is gone.
Children cry as their parents convert mid-embrace.
The Gemspire begins to shine brighter than the sun.
[INT. VAN HQ — NIGHT]
The team stands over Mira's preserved shard.
Yuna: I can feel her… in the roots. She didn't vanish. She just… changed.
Echo-7: The crystal remembers everything. Including love.
Kael: We light her memory with action.
Tari: And if we fall?
Kael: Then we fall with fire.
[CLOSING SHOT — FROM SPACE]
SkyVault is now almost entirely encased in glowing crystal. It pulses. Breathing. Becoming.
[TO BE CONTINUED]