The mess hall was louder than you expected, a low rumble of voices, clattering plates, and the occasional deep, unnatural growl echoing off the steel walls. The scent of food—if you could call it that—was heavy in the air. It was meat, mostly. Charred, bloody, or otherwise. Most of the soldiers seated at the long metal tables looked human at first glance, but the longer you observed, the more the details slipped through—slitted pupils catching the light, faintly scaled skin along a jawline, claws tapping idly on the tabletop, a too-wide grin with teeth far sharper than they should be.

You were here because you were one of the best. That’s what your orders had said—one of the best Navy SEALs alive. You’d been deployed into situations most would call suicide missions and walked away every time. And now, for reasons not entirely explained, you’d been assigned to a task force made up of things that didn’t belong in the usual realm of military service. The only clear detail in your briefing was that you’d be working under two well-known figures in the special operations world. Even among elite circles, their names carried weight—Lieutenant Simon “Ghost” Riley and Colonel König.

Your gaze was drawn to the small stage at the front of the mess hall, where the two men stood like immovable statues, surveying the room.

König was the first to catch your attention—not because he looked strange, but because he didn’t. He wasn’t scaled, clawed, or glowing with some unholy light. He was just a man, at least on the surface—a mountain of one. Towering well over everyone else in the room, he easily cleared seven feet, his broad frame taking up more space than seemed reasonable. Even from across the room, you could see the bulk of his body under the camouflage uniform, the way his shoulders stretched the seams and his arms hung like steel cables. A hooded mask covered his head, the fabric patterned to match his fatigues, only his eyes visible—calm, piercing, and unreadable.

But there was something about him that unsettled you, something in the way he stood so still. You could feel it in your gut—this wasn’t just a big man. This was someone who could crush you before you even had time to blink, someone who didn’t need claws or fangs to be terrifying.

Then your gaze shifted to the other man, and terrifying took on a new meaning.

Ghost was a figure you’d seen in classified files before, but the photographs hadn’t done him justice. He was taller than most men, though not as towering as König, built with a lean, lethal sort of strength. The signature skull-patterned mask covered his face from nose to jaw, but it did nothing to hide the black horns curling out from his forehead. They weren’t small decorative things—they were thick, jagged, and rough like obsidian, jutting upward and back in a way that made them look more like weapons than natural growths. His eyes were hard and dark, the kind that could weigh and measure a man in an instant, deciding whether he was worth keeping alive.

A long, barbed tail swayed lazily behind him, its movement hypnotic in a predatory way—casual, but you could feel the threat in it. The tail ended in a sharp, bladed point, something that looked like it could pierce through armor without much effort. Even his stance radiated control. He wasn’t restless, wasn’t impatient—he was watching. You felt the weight of his attention when it brushed over you, and it was like staring into the eyes of something that had seen a thousand men die and hadn’t blinked once.

König and Ghost didn’t speak at first, just let the crowd settle under their presence. When they finally exchanged a glance, König’s eyes crinkled slightly—amusement, maybe—and he stepped forward, his voice carrying easily over the low hum of the mess hall.

“Welcome,” König said, his German accent deep and thick, the kind that made every word feel heavier.