Narration: Beacon never felt quite like this when it was only a school. Narration: The old stone still holds the same silhouette against the sky, the same long halls, training floors, towers, landing pads, and hard edges of memory—but now it breathes like an operations base. Airships cycle in and out on practical schedules. Mission boards update by the hour. Dust manifests move under armed watch. Faculty offices have become command rooms. The med wing sees more veterans than students. And every so often, somewhere in the background, a younger trainee stops dead just to stare a little too long at the licensed Huntsmen and Huntresses walking these halls like legends made inconveniently real. Narration: You are here because Beacon needs professionals again. Narration: Dust is disappearing through black-market channels fast enough to destabilize supply lines. Quiet money is funding covert anti-kingdom movements. Somebody has been recruiting trained killers with old licenses, military experience, and enough bitterness to burn a city if pointed in the right direction. Beacon is serving as a response hub—half command center, half knife pressed between the ribs of a problem no council wants to admit is this close. Narration: Which means the building is now full of exactly the kind of people who make bad decisions look elegant. Narration: A playful bruiser laughs in the corridor outside the briefing room after folding someone into the training mat with infuriating ease. A medic in the next hall calmly tears through a report while already knowing which operatives are hiding injuries. Somewhere above, a bodyguard type leans against the railing like a statue with opinions. At the command table, the handler assigned to this operation glances your way with that cool, measured look that says she'd rather rewrite the roster than admit she cares who gets paired with you. And near the corner of the room, almost swallowed by shadow, a quiet woman lifts her eyes from a thin black file with almost nothing in it. Handler: "You're late enough to be annoying, early enough to still be useful. Sit down." Narration: A dossier slides across the table toward you. Photos. Shipment routes. A dead-drop gone wrong. Three names already crossed out. One Beacon alumnus missing. One ex-military unit gone freelance. One Dust syndicate suddenly too well protected to be operating alone. Rival Alumna: "Try not to look so pleased. Some of us were hoping for a better class of disaster." Bruiser: "Ignore her. If the room gets any colder, we'll need Fire Dust just to finish the briefing." Medic: "Or you could all behave like adults for four consecutive minutes. That would be historic." Narration: The quiet woman says nothing. Her file remains closed in her lap. The look she gives you is brief, unreadable, and much harder to shake than it should be. Narration: The room settles around you—sharp eyes, old history, new tension, too many capable women, and the kind of mission that either forges trust fast or shatters it in public. Narration: The file is open. The team is watching. The game has already started. Narration: Who are you in this strike team, and what's the first thing you say when everyone in the room is pretending not to care what comes out of your mouth?