Few Minutes Before BJ crash out
The triage center was a mess of white tents and dust. Hymeno was on the ground, the hem of her yellow jacket dragging in the grit as she leaned over a row of wounded.
She didn't look up as she worked. Her hands were deep in a medical kit, pulling out a specialized surgical stapler to close a jagged gash on a civilian leg. Around her, the air was thick with the smell of antiseptic and scorched metal.
"You," she pointed at a nearby medic without turning her head. "Get the oxygen flow stabilized for the three in the back. If their levels drop another percent, I'm holding you personally responsible for the failure."
She stood up, moving to the next stretcher.
She wasn't watching from a distance. She moved through the ward herself, checking scans, correcting treatments, and directing the entire recovery line like a battlefield commander.
her face set in a hard. She grabbed a scanner, checking a patient's internal hemorrhaging while simultaneously shouting to the reconstruction crew across the street.
"That pylon is structurally unsound! Move it twenty meters left before you drop it, or you'll bury my recovery ward!"
The work was relentless. She was mid-procedure, her gloved fingers steady as she extracted a piece of debris from a child's arm, when a nurse came sprinting from the direction of the palace.
The nurse skidded to a stop, her face pale and her breathing shallow.
"Queen Hymeno-sama! It's BJ! He was screaming in pain. We tried restraining him, but he only got more violent."
"We even tried sedating him again, but it only agitated him further."
"Every time we tried to hold him down, he pushed back harder."
"Now he's out of bed and tearing through the ward. The staff can't get near him. We can't contain him!"
"I leave him alone for a few minutes and now he's tearing apart my ward," she said.
She stripped off her bloodied gloves and tossed them into a waste bin as she headed back toward the ward. Her pace was steady, but her expression had already hardened into something cold and professional.
Hymeno arrived at the ward to find the heavy double doors hanging off their hinges. The clinical silence of the palace had been replaced by the sound of smashing glass and the desperate shouts of guards being shoved back.
The room was a disaster. BJ was in the center of the wreckage, his hospital gown torn at the shoulder, his breathing heavy and jagged. He wasn't just "awake"—he was vibrating with a raw, "juiced-up" energy that made his movements look erratic and twitchy. He had already cleared a circle around himself, with two guards slumped against the far wall and medical equipment overturned like toys.
He didn't look like the boy she had been treating. His eyes were wide, bloodshot, and scanning the room for the next thing to break.
Hymeno stepped over a shattered monitor, her expression tightening as she took in the scene.She just adjusted her jacket, her eyes locked onto his, waiting for the moment he would try her.
"BJ," she said, her voice low and steady. "That's enough."
The sound of his name seemed to snap his focus. He didn't settle down. Instead, he locked onto her, his muscles tensing for an attack that was no longer about escaping—it was about destruction.
BJ didn't hesitate, he just exploded forward.
He caught her completely off guard with a sudden, violent burst of speed. Instead of a swing she could parry, he lowered his shoulder and rammed into her with full force of his weight.
The impact was sickeningly loud. He drove her back across the room, her boots skidding for a fraction of a second before he slammed her straight through a heavy, glass-fronted medicine cabinet.
Metal groaned and the glass shattered into a thousand jagged shards as they crashed through it, hitting the stone wall behind it. For a heartbeat, the only sound was the debris settling and BJ's ragged, animalistic breathing as he pinned her into the wreckage of her own clinic. He was over her, eyes vacant, using his raw strength to keep her crushed against the ruins.
Hymeno was buried in the twisted metal of the cabinet, the jagged glass shards pressing into the back of her yellow jacket. BJ wasn't just holding her there; he was using his weight like a weapon. He pulled back just enough to gain leverage and began driving his shoulder into her chest with a series of heavy, rhythmic rams. Each hit was a dull thud against the stone wall, a reckless attempt to crush the air out of her.
Hymeno didn't cry out. She waited, her eyes tracking the timing of his shoulder as it moved.
As BJ wound up for his heaviest ram yet—putting his entire center of gravity into the blow—Hymeno suddenly stopped resisting. She let her body go limp against the wall. Without her resistance to brace against, BJ's momentum carried him too far forward into the empty space.
She moved with the fluid speed of a predator. As he overbalanced, she snapped her knees up into his midsection, using his own charging force to heave him upward and off her. As he stumbled forward, she dropped to the floor, sliding through the debris to get clear of the corner.
BJ scrambled to turn, his eyes bloodshot and his face contorted, but he was wide open. Hymeno rose from her crouch in one smooth, explosive motion.
Before he could reset his guard, she stepped into his space and delivered a short-circuit strike. The impact was clinical. BJ's eyes widened as the air was ripped from his lungs. He folded instantly, clutching his stomach as paralysis seized his body, leaving him completely defenseless.