Chapter 92: Explosion

While they were talking, the other recruits continued taking their turns one after another. At regular intervals, another detonation echoed in the distance, powerful enough to make the air around the training area tremble.

With every explosion, another recruit completed their turn and left the waiting area, gradually reducing the size of the group. Flash and Amadeus, who had still been talking only moments earlier, were now among the very last recruits who had yet to make their throw.

There was only one person left before them.

When her turn came, a young recruit stepped away from the group and joined one of the instructors responsible for supervising the throws. Together, they entered the designated training area, separated from the waiting zone by several protective barriers and far enough away that the others normally wouldn't be able to interfere.

During the many hours of training earlier that day, she had correctly performed all the required movements with the inert grenades. She knew the procedure. She had repeated it again and again, just like everyone else.

But now that a real grenade was in front of her and the slightest mistake could have very real consequences, something suddenly changed in her behavior.

Her shoulders tensed. Her breathing grew shorter and her hands began to tremble. All the confidence she had managed to maintain during practice seemed to disappear as she became fully aware of what she was actually about to handle.

The instructor noticed her condition almost immediately and moved slightly closer, experienced enough to understand that this was no longer simple hesitation.

— "Everything okay? You remember what to do?"

— "…Y-Yes."

Yet despite her answer, everything about her behavior said the exact opposite. The instructor watched her trembling hands for a few seconds, then her increasingly tense expression.

There was absolutely no reason to take even the slightest risk. If she was no longer in the right state to continue safely, her turn would simply end here.

— "Wait… I think it'd be better if—"

But before he could finish, several voices from recruits who had already completed their turns rang out from the area where the last few recruits were still waiting.

— "Hey! Everything okay?! Why aren't you throwing the grenade?!"

— "Yeah, hurry up!"

Another instructor standing near the group immediately turned toward them, visibly irritated.

— "Shut it unless you want to be punished."

The voices immediately stopped.

But for the young recruit, the damage had already been done. In those few seconds, the comments, the eyes fixed on her, and the feeling that everyone was waiting for her to make the throw had been enough to push her nervousness even further.

She didn't want to be the one who failed now. Not after all these weeks. Not after watching everyone else succeed one after another. She wanted to prove that she could do it too.

Seeing her condition getting worse instead of better, the instructor immediately stepped toward her. This time, there was no question of discussing it or giving her a few more seconds. The exercise had to stop, and he needed to take the grenade back.

— "Hey, give me your grenade."

— "N-No… wait, I can do it…!"

She hurriedly tried to regain control. But panic had already taken over. The movements she had practiced so many times throughout the previous hours suddenly lost all their precision.

Her hands were shaking, her breathing becoming increasingly irregular, and her mind seemed incapable of recalling the procedure she knew perfectly well.

Then, in a fraction of a second, everything went wrong.

The instructor immediately realized that something had happened and lunged toward her.

— "THAT GRENADE IS ABOUT TO EXPLODE! GIVE IT TO ME! NOW!"

Behind her, several recruits began shouting when they realized something was wrong, forcing the instructors to quickly intervene to silence them and try to restore order. But for the young woman, already terribly nervous at the thought of handling a real grenade, all those voices erupting around her only intensified the pressure she was feeling.

She knew what she had to do. She had repeated the same movements over and over again for hours with training equipment. Yet now that a real grenade was in her hands and the slightest mistake could have terrible consequences, everything she had learned seemed to be gradually disappearing from her mind.

Her hands trembled more and more, her breathing became short and irregular, and her eyes nervously shifted between the grenade and the space in front of her.

She tried to focus, to remember the movements she had practiced so many times before, but fear was now preventing her from thinking clearly. The shouting, the instructors' orders, the eyes of the other recruits, and above all the knowledge that the explosive could detonate at any second all blended together in her mind until they completely overwhelmed her.

In a panic, she finally threw the grenade. But her movement was far too rushed, sending it completely in the wrong direction. Instead of being thrown toward the designated area, the explosive veered toward one of the protective barriers separating the throwing zone from the area where the last recruits were still waiting.

The grenade struck the barrier, violently bounced off the ground, and continued rolling for several meters before finally coming to a stop dangerously close to the opening. Only a few meters away from Flash and Amadeus.

At that moment, everything seemed to move in slow motion. Flash and Amadeus had both witnessed what happened, and their eyes landed almost simultaneously on the grenade that had just come to a stop near them. They immediately understood what was in front of them and the danger they were in, but before Amadeus could even truly react, Flash was the first to move.

For a fraction of a second, an image flashed through his mind with such force that it seemed to erase everything around him: Spider-Man. The hero he had admired for so long. The man he had watched throw himself into danger again and again to protect others, never stopping to wonder whether he would come out of it unharmed.

Flash didn't have time to think any further. He didn't wonder whether he would succeed, or even what might happen to him. His body reacted almost entirely on instinct. He immediately threw himself at Amadeus and shoved her away with all his strength to get her as far from the grenade as possible, while trying to move away from it himself in the same motion.

But the few seconds they had left were already gone. Flash barely had time to make his move before a violent explosion tore through the air around them, brutally sending a thick cloud of dust and debris into the air that swallowed both recruits.

The detonation immediately left everyone stunned. For a very brief moment, some of the recruits remained completely frozen, unable to process what had just happened, but the instructors reacted almost instantly.

Several rushed toward the affected area while the others kept the rest of the group at a distance and tried to secure the scene amid the screams and confusion. Orders were being shouted from every direction, but in the middle of all the chaos, Amadeus was unable to understand what was happening around her.

Completely dazed by the explosion and by the force with which Flash had just thrown her to the ground, she desperately tried to regain her senses, but her own body seemed to refuse to obey her. Her ears were ringing so loudly that they drowned out almost all the screams and voices echoing around her.

Her vision was blurry, the shapes in front of her seemed to blend together, and every time she tried to lift her head or fully open her eyes, a violent wave of dizziness almost immediately forced her to stop.

She no longer even knew exactly where she was or what had just happened to her. The last thing she could clearly remember was Flash suddenly throwing himself at her.

After several seconds, she finally managed to regain some awareness. The dust thrown into the air by the explosion was slowly beginning to settle around her and, with tremendous effort, Amadeus forced her eyes to remain open.

The shapes surrounding her gradually regained their outlines until a figure finally appeared through the cloud still hanging in front of her. Someone was lying on the ground nearby.

It was Flash.

He was completely unconscious.

Still disoriented, Amadeus stared at him without immediately understanding what she was seeing. The first thing she noticed were the strange red stains spreading across the ground behind him. For several seconds, her mind, still stunned by the detonation, was unable to understand what they actually were.

Then her vision gradually regained some clarity, and her gaze instinctively traveled down her friend's body.

And she understood.

The explosion had struck Flash with horrifying force. By throwing himself at Amadeus to get her away from the danger, he had taken the brunt of the blast in her place. She seemed to have been miraculously spared the worst of it thanks to his intervention, but he hadn't been nearly as fortunate.

Both of his legs had been severed by the force of the explosion and thrown a short distance away, while a large amount of blood was already spreading across the ground around him. Where Amadeus's eyes should normally have continued following the length of his legs, there was now nothing beyond his knees.

Amadeus remained completely frozen at the sight. She couldn't look away, nor could she fully process what she was seeing. Only seconds earlier, Flash had still been standing beside her.

They had simply been waiting for their turn. They had still been talking together, just as they had so many times since they first met. And when that grenade landed near them, he hadn't hesitated for even a second. He had pushed her out of harm's way, taking in her place the consequences of an explosion that could have killed her.

Between the shock of what she had just discovered, the detonation still ringing inside her skull, and her body already completely disoriented by the explosion, Amadeus finally reached her limit.

Her breathing grew weaker and weaker, Flash's outline blurred in front of her, and her vision slowly began to darken. She tried to remain conscious, but her body wouldn't allow it.

Before the instructors who had rushed to the scene could even properly tend to her, the last of her strength abandoned her and Amadeus lost consciousness.

TO BE CONTINUED.