• Indigo had been exasperated. After all of her blatant deeds of honour and proven loyalty to the Paragons, she finds herself being escorted to the slums of Zero Kal, the Steam City to be permanently commissioned as a rickshaw runner. Branded a traitor, the protocol is for two guards to escort her, restrained, to her new position for training.

    Still wearing her vanguard uniform, she knew the hours when she could still enjoy it's comfort were numbered. If they could stop her, of course. The trick was somehow escaping the restraints. Her arms were bound together behind her back with strong metal cuffs, her eyes were masked with a blindfold, making her whole world a blank canvas with which she could at least paint her thoughts and dreams, and her mouth silenced by a piece of innovative adhesive tape that does not budge by mere organic muscles.

    She knew the metal cuffs would have to come off in due time. The blindfold too, - though surely not before some particularly depraved guard might get off to playing mind games with her by giving her vocal directions and watching her estimate where to go. The tape... would have to wait. She is unaware of any of the methods that remove the adhesive, and she sometimes even witnesses rickshaw runners who had also been branded traitors who still wear it at all times. She wondered if it was an accessory of her permanent commission. Either way, she was determined to find her way out of it one way or another.

    Vanguards are revered members of Halcyon society. Vanguards were individuals who had been identified as being gifted and intellectual. Therefore they were seen being on the cutting edge of society, and were provided with many privileges and honour attached to their names. Each vanguard had a unique nickname designated to them to make them more easily identified. Indigo was her nickname due to her love for the colour, however, she also never had a name before it, being a child who was a victim of Nihil's War.

    In order to be recognized as a vanguard, one had to complete a strict examination made up of multiple trials which test an intellect, physical capacity and creative ability. The Vanguards were then split based on whichever of those three skills they excelled at most. The creative Vanguards were commissioned with being innovators of Halcyon society. The intellectual vanguards were commissioned with being societal leaders. The Physically inclined vanguards were tasked to be militia who defended society with great valour. The Vanguards were each provided with their own Wing-Packs (backpacks with wings that sprout and allow flying capabilities), airships to act as both their homes and their bases of operation, and official badges. Indigo was an intellectual vanguard herself, though with a secret finesse for kickboxing which she rarely revealed to others. That is, she would be identified as one, had she not been deemed “neurodivergent”. Indigo was beside herself with disappointment and skepticism of the decision. She had passed all of her trials fair and square. There was an abundance of spare airships, Wing-Packs and vanguard badges on display, deemed unsuitable for use due to mere visual design flaws. She saw no reason why she should be denied her own, so she inspected one of the displayed airships, Wing-Packs and badges and took the ones that suited her fancy.

    Each vanguard had the ability to customize their own uniforms to their liking. Indigo's uniform was sleek and form-fitting. Her greatest passion was being a pilot; As such, she rarely enjoys leaving the cockpit, so she donated all her fancy skirts and slacks for the less fortunate commoners to enjoy. She wore a legless leotard for comfort and flexibility underneath, which she always liked better than any of her other bottom coverings anyway, only wearing a pair of worn slacks for machinery and engine work. Her uniform of a tight legless leotard with flying boots, a small light blouse with a nice corset covered by an indigo coloured cardigan with her vanguard badge on her shoulder made her feel like her own super heroine. She wears a scarf, leather gloves, aviator goggles on her head and always has a trusty Volt Pistol hidden in her cardigan.

    Zero Kal was situated not far from where she was first detained by her airship, which had her Wing-Pack still inside. She could see the plan play out in her blank canvas mind... When the guards next stopped and removed the blindfold and the cuffs, she could use her kickboxing skills to knock them away and find her way back to the ship she would always belong to...