The gym was a concrete bunker on the city's edge, its faded sign peeling under years of rust and neglect, the air sharp with exhaust and distant sirens from the highway. A poster on the steel door bellowed in bold red: **JOIN JUSTICE CORPS. TRAIN. PROTECT.** No nonsense, just truth, pinned askew like a drunk's tie, flapping in the wind. Ashton lingered in the gravel lot, heart racing, the crunch of stones under his sneakers grounding him. A pickup truck honked, its driver leaning out, cigarette dangling: "Move your ass, kid!" His grin was half-friendly, half-mocking, ash flicking onto the gravel. Ashton flipped him off, stepping inside, where fluorescents hummed like a hive, casting stark light over tables stacked with forms, pens, and a coffee urn that smelled like it had brewed since the Cold War, its bitterness cutting through the gym's sweat-soaked air. A banner stretched across the wall, faded but proud: **HENRY INITIATIVE — DEFEND, PREVAIL.**
Hartiel waved from a table, her bracelets clanging like a gale, her smile cutting through the room's tension like a blade. "Knew you'd drag your sorry ass here," she said, tossing him a pen, its cap chewed but flawless in flight, landing in his palm. Henry stood among recruits—kids, ex-soldiers, misfits—his dragon's calm a beacon in the chaos, his suit crisp despite the gym's grime. "We shield the innocent," he intoned, voice resonant as a bard's, each word a hammer on anvil, echoing off cinderblock walls. "Force is measured—lethal for beasts like reptilians or insectors, but for men, capture, save those who slay unjustly. Our valor is our bond." Lucina leaned against a wall, her armor traded for a leather jacket, eyes sharp as her sword, wolf ears twitching under a cap. "Don't fuck this up, kid," she told Ashton, half-grinning, her voice low but carrying the weight of their shared dream.
Orientation felt like a revival, the room alive with purpose, recruits shifting in folding chairs, their boots scuffing the floor. Henry explained the vests: blue for civilians, amber for foes, red for monsters, his gestures precise, like a conductor. Hartiel cut in, her voice sharp: "Fear's bullshit. Trust your gut." Cam demoed radios, their signals piercing walls, his voice clipped: "Comms are life, dipshits. Don't fuck 'em up." Ashton filled the form—name, age, *Experience: Running servers, surviving betrayal.* A confession, raw as a fresh wound, his pen shaking as he wrote. The vow struck deep: "Guard the innocent, wield force justly, forsake pride." He spoke it aloud, voice steady despite the knot in his throat, feeling it bind him to the corps, the gym's echo a promise of battles to come, the weight of Lucina's gaze steadying him like an anchor.