Chapter 15: Trial By Fire
The world dissolved into screaming metal and blinding flashes of orange. One moment Cole was kneeling on what felt like gritty asphalt, trying to stitch a synthetic artery on a training dummy, the next the floor gave a violent lurch and tipped sixty degrees. He slid, the medical kit scattering, the dummy tumbling away from him.
“The building is compromised! Structural collapse in progress!” Aura’s voice boomed from nowhere and everywhere, calm and relentless. “Medic, prioritize your patient!”
A steel I-beam, a solid light-construct, groaned and buckled above him, threatening to crush them both.
“I’m a little busy!” Cole yelled back, scrambling on the slanted surface, one hand desperately clutching the dummy’s vest.
A chunk of concrete, hurled by an invisible force, slammed into the ground beside his head. Not a construct. Real debris. Maya. She stood on a stable platform across the chamber, one hand extended, her face a mask of focused concentration. “Combat zones aren’t sterile, Cole! You patch people up while the world is trying to kill you! Now move!”
He grunted, hauling the heavy dummy towards a semblance of cover—a low wall that flickered in and out of existence. His hands were slick with sweat inside his gloves. Every instinct told him to drop the dead weight and run. But the two guards from the power plant, their eyes rolling back in their heads, flashed behind his eyes. He kept pulling.
The holographic scenery shimmered, the collapsing skyscraper melting away into a narrow, rain-slicked alley. The sounds of distant sirens were replaced by the close, threatening silence of an ambush. The dummy in his arms was suddenly different—lighter, wearing a different uniform, with a deep, gushing wound in its abdomen.
“Scenario shift!” Aura called out. “Hostile meta-human suspected. Lacerations consistent with bladed weapons. What’s your first assessment? Talk me through it!”
Cole’s mind went blank. The shift was too sudden. The pressure was a physical weight on his chest. “I—uh—stop the bleeding… apply pressure…”
“The wound is too deep for direct pressure! You’ll need a hemostatic agent and a pressure bandage, but the enemy is still active! Make a choice, Capacitor! Treat or retreat?”
He fumbled with the kit, his fingers clumsy. He could feel both their eyes on him. Maya’s telekinetic shoves kept him off-balance, a constant, physical reminder of the chaos. Aura’s questions were a tactical assault, demanding split-second decisions he didn’t feel qualified to make. This was what Dr. Reed had wanted to prepare him for. This exact, terrifying mess. The memory of the cold bracelet on his wrist made him shudder.
He finally got the bandage unpacked, his hands shaking. He pressed it against the dummy’s fake wound. It immediately saturated with synthetic blood.
“Too slow,” Aura stated, her voice flat. The alleyway flickered and died, the room returning to its default state: a vast, grey space with marked floors and high ceilings. The only real mess was the debris Maya had thrown. “If that was a person, they’d be in hypovolemic shock by now.”
Cole slumped against the dummy, breathing hard. The adrenaline crash left him feeling hollow. “I can’t think when everything’s exploding.”
“You have to,” Aura said, walking towards him, her own light-constructs winking out. “That’s the entire point. Your power is useless if you can’t get it to someone in time.”
Maya floated down from her platform, landing softly beside them. “He’s getting better, Aura. His suturing on the move last week was a mess. Today it was almost passable.”
“Almost isn’t good enough.” Aura crossed her arms, studying Cole. “The dummies are a start. But they don’t react. They don’t scream. They don’t have a crashing blood pressure you need to feel with your hands. It’s not real.”
Cole looked down at the old, simple Reservoir on his hip. It was empty. It had been since the press conference. The thought of refilling it the old way, in the silence of his bathroom, felt suddenly pathetic. Inadequate. Dr. Reed’s words echoed in his head. You’re too frightened to find out.
“So what’s the answer?” he asked, his voice tired. “We find some volunteers to get stabbed for real so I can practice?”
Aura’s expression remained unreadable for a moment before a faint smile touched her lips. “Tempting, but the paperwork would be horrific.” She gestured toward the chamber’s entrance. “You’re thinking like a healer, which is good. But you’re forgetting you’re also a target.”
The heavy blast door hissed open, revealing Ron’s massive frame silhouetted against the corridor lights. He held two large combat helmets under one arm and a pair of heavily padded sticks in his other hand. He’d changed into simple grey training sweats, the fabric straining across his shoulders.
“Enough with the dollhouse surgery,” he grunted, his voice a low rumble in the vast space. He tossed one helmet to Cole, who fumbled it against his chest. “All the fancy tech in the world won’t save you if you can’t take a punch.”
Maya caught the other helmet Ron tossed her way without looking, her telekinesis making it seem effortless. “Be gentle with him, Ron. He’s had a rough morning.”
“The world isn’t gentle,” Ron said, his eyes fixed on Cole. “That meltdown was a walk in the park compared to what’s out there. You froze once. Can’t let it happen again.” He tossed one of the padded sticks to Cole, who caught it awkwardly. “We rest for now. Time for Ron to run you through his drills.”
The stick felt alien and heavy in Cole’s grip, a stark contrast to the medical tools he’d just been using. His muscles, already fatigued from the chaotic medical session, protested at the new demand. Ron simply stood there, waiting, his own stick held loosely as if it weighed nothing.
“Okay,” Cole said, his voice sounding thin in the cavernous room. He adjusted his grip on the padded stick, his palms already sweating. “What do I do?”
Ron didn’t answer with words. He moved. One moment he was ten feet away, the next he was inside Cole’s guard, the padded stick a blur. It cracked against Cole’s ribs with a sound like a gunshot. The force lifted him off his feet and sent him sprawling onto the hard floor.
The air left his lungs in a pained whoosh. He gasped, curling around the fiery bloom of agony in his side. Through watering eyes, he saw Ron standing over him, utterly impassive.
“Get up,” Ron said. His voice held no malice, no encouragement. It was just a fact.
“What the hell, Ron?” Maya shouted, taking a step forward. Her hands were clenched at her sides.
“He asked what to do,” Ron said, not taking his eyes off Cole. “Lesson one: stay on your feet.” He nudged Cole’s leg with his boot. “Up.”
Cole’s body screamed in protest. Every instinct told him to stay down, to clutch his throbbing side. The memory of the power plant control room flashed—the paralyzing fear, the feeling of being utterly useless as the world tore itself apart. That same feeling was here now, on this clean, cold floor. He pushed himself up onto his elbows, his breath coming in ragged hitches.
“Good,” Ron said. He didn’t step back. “Now, hold your stick like you mean it. Not like a teacup.”
Cole staggered upright, his whole body trembling. He hefted the stick again, tightening his grip until his knuckles turned white. He tried to remember a stance from some movie, anything that looked vaguely defensive.
Ron attacked again. This time it was a low sweep aimed at his legs. Cole instinctively jumped back, the stick whistling past his shins. He managed to stay on his feet, his heart hammering against his ribs.
“Better,” Ron grunted. He began to circle, a predator sizing up prey. “But you’re waiting. You’re always waiting to react. That’s why you freeze.”
He feinted high and came in low again. Cole tried to block, but his movement was too slow, too telegraphed. Ron’s stick smacked hard against his thigh, a line of pure fire. He cried out, stumbling but managing to stay upright this time. The pain was a bright, sharp clarity in the fog of his fear.
“You think your power is just for after,” Ron said, his voice a low, relentless pressure. “You wait for us to get hurt. You wait for someone to tell you what to do. That makes you a liability.” He swung again, a controlled, brutal arc toward Cole’s shoulder.
Cole barely got his own stick up in time. The impact jarred his teeth, vibrating up his arms into his skull. He was being herded, backed toward a corner of the training room. He could feel Aura and Maya watching, a silent, anxious audience to his humiliation.
“I’m trying,” Cole gasped, parrying another blow that felt like it was trying to break his wrist.
“Try harder!” Ron roared, the first real emotion coloring his voice. It was frustration. “Fight back! Or the next time, someone dies because you were too busy being scared!”
The words hit him harder than any padded stick. They echoed Dr. Reed’s cold prediction, the reporter’s knowing smile, the weight of the city’s expectation. The hollow feeling in his gut, the one that had been there since he first discovered his power, suddenly ignited into something hot and sharp. It wasn’t just fear anymore. It was anger.
Ron came in again, a straightforward, powerful thrust aimed at his chest. It was a move designed to overwhelm, to punish.
Cole didn’t try to block it.
He let it come. At the last possible second, he twisted his body, letting the padded tip slam into the armor plating on his shoulder instead of his sternum. The force was still immense, spinning him around. But he used the momentum.
He didn’t retreat. He pushed off the floor and lunged forward, inside the arc of Ron’s weapon. He was too close for Ron to swing effectively.
For a fraction of a second, he saw surprise in Ron’s eyes.
Cole didn’t swing his stick. He drove the butt of it upward, not at Ron’s face, but into the thick muscle of his armpit. It was a dirty, desperate move. Ron grunted, his arm spasming, his grip on his own weapon loosening.
Cole didn’t stop. He dropped his shoulder and slammed his whole body into Ron’s chest, a clumsy, full-weight tackle. It was like hitting a brick wall, but a brick wall that gave a single, surprised step backward.
The room froze.
Cole stood there, chest heaving, pressed against Ron, his hands still clenched on the stick he’d just used to strike a blow. The only sound was his own ragged breathing. Ron looked down at him, his expression unreadable.
A slow, wide grin spread across Ron’s face. It wasn’t a friendly smile. It was the fierce, approving grin of a shark.
“Finally,” Ron rumbled, his voice low and satisfied. He didn’t shove Cole away. He just stood there, accepting the contact. “There he is.”
From the sidelines, Maya let out a low whistle. Aura was silent, but a new, calculating respect had replaced the worry in her eyes.
Cole took a staggering step back, the adrenaline draining away, leaving his limbs weak and shaking. He looked at the stick in his hand, then at the man he’d just attacked. He hadn’t won. He’d barely landed a touch. But for the first time, he hadn’t just taken the hit.
He had fought back.