Morning in the Pit felt like an ambush.

The lights slammed on with a painful hum, and the metal doors screeched open. Vera Kaine entered with her usual stormfront energy, boots hitting the floor like gunfire.

“Up. Now,” she barked. “Today, we test your limits.”

Kael rolled out of bed, the weight of yesterday still smoldering on his shoulders. He glanced at the cracked blade Vera had given him the night before, still humming faintly with static. A reminder.

Reya groaned from the top bunk. “What does she mean by ‘limits’ this time?”

“Pain,” muttered Tomo, already pulling on his scorched jacket. “She means pain.”

The Detonation Room

The squad was led through a winding tunnel of rusted piping and blinking hazard signs to a locked chamber labeled: SUBJECT TESTING – DETONATION ZONE.

Inside, the room was bare stone and steel—walls blackened by past explosions. The floor was marked with faint circles and stains.

Vera stood before a terminal.

“One by one, you’ll enter the core zone. No weapons. No aid. Your only goal is simple—trigger your inner power… and survive the result.”

Kael blinked. “What if nothing happens?”

“Then you die slow. Next.”

Reya went first. Sparks flickered down her arms like living circuits. When she hit the core zone, she became lightning—zipping, slamming, bursting against the walls like a human thunderbolt. She collapsed afterward, twitching, grinning.

Silas went next. Shadows rose, hundreds of hands clawing the air. The air temperature dropped. Something whispered inside the stone.

When it was Kael’s turn, Vera’s stare sharpened.

He stepped into the circle. Instantly, he felt the pressure—like standing inside a pressurized storm, heat crawling beneath his skin.

“Let me burn.”

The voice again. Closer this time.

No.

He forced the heat down, but it pushed back.

His eyes glowed faint orange. His pulse roared in his ears. And then—

BOOM.

An explosion tore through the room—not fire, but force. A shockwave. Stone cracked. The steel walls groaned. Kael stood in the center, surrounded by a crater.

The flame hadn’t erupted like last time. Instead, it condensed into a shock bomb—pure kinetic energy blasted outward.

“Holy crap,” Tomo whispered. “He’s not a pyro… he’s a walking warhead.”

Aftermath

Vera walked into the debris, not impressed—interested.

“You didn’t just explode. You controlled it. Shaped it.”

Kael nodded, barely able to stand. “A little.”

She tossed him a pair of reinforced gloves, black with glowing blue runes.

“Then let’s shape it again. Every day. Until you stop being afraid of it.”

Kael clutched them, the warmth in his palms reminding him that this power wasn’t a curse—it was a weapon.

Later That Night

In the dorms, Tomo raised a toast with protein bars.

“To Detonation Boy Kael!”

Everyone laughed—except Silas, who just gave a ghostly thumbs-up.

Reya smirked, sitting beside Kael on the bench. “You realize you’ve just painted a giant target on your back, right?”

Kael exhaled. “Yeah.”

“Good. It suits you.”