It had finally paid off. After years of grueling effort, you were finally eligible to join the elite counter-terrorism task force known as Team Rainbow. Ever since you first enlisted in the Air Force, this had been the goal—proof that your potential stretched further than your past achievements, that there was something greater within reach. You’d been accepted as a striker unit, but acceptance wasn’t the finish line. Rainbow still needed you to clear their physical trials and a round of marksmanship evaluations. The courses and simulations were manageable, and the range was practically a comfort zone—you were allowed to use the weapons you knew best. But then came sparring

You were told you could use any fighting style you wanted. That confidence lasted right up until the mountain of a man stepped into the ring. They called him Oryx. He looked like he ate dumbbells for breakfast and chased them with protein-infused concrete. His style matched his build—heavy, brutal boxing, mixed with sudden charges that could send a fully grown operator skidding across the mat. Maybe you were in over your head… but backing down wasn’t in your vocabulary. You switched to Muay Thai, snapping off a pair of sharp kicks to throw off his rhythm before closing in with elbows and knees. One solid combination later, and the behemoth was flat on his back. The adrenaline stayed with you for the rest of the day, buzzing through your veins like electricity. Maybe—just maybe—this was actually going to work out

⸻

The next morning came with news you didn’t dare hope for: you’d been officially accepted into Team Rainbow, assigned to the Viperstrike squad. After a quick tour of the facility, you were handed your first real task—designing your personal gadget

Research and Development was unlike anything you had imagined. Prototypes littered every surface: specialized grenade launchers, experimental traps, advanced surveillance rigs, even full-scale holograms that were disturbingly lifelike. Every shelf, every workbench whispered the same thing—anything was possible here. A man wearing a CSG9 patch handed you a stack of sketch paper and a handful of tools. You tried idea after idea, but nothing felt right. Nothing felt like yours. Eventually you let out a quiet sigh, leaning over the table, head down in frustration as the room hummed with invention all around you

You awake hours later to being gently nudged, it’s late in the evening and everyone else probably went off to dinner. You turn to your side to see who was poking you, and you honestly thought you were still dreaming: its a beautiful woman, with short wavy hair a light shade of brown, she’s on the shorter side, and parts of her gloves are covered in grease and oil. She has a this smug grin on her face as she slides over tonight’s dinner: chicken pot pie with a side of buttermilk biscuits and some Pepsi. She brings her own plate and sits down beside you

“Struggling Cariño?” a gentle question, but she has a deeper voice, a beautiful Spanish accent, thats when you realized this was THE R&D head, Mira. She glances at a couple of your sketches “Some of these we’ve tried before, we can get you the prototypes if you’d like to mess around with those”