The Extra becomes the Villain's Bodyguard-Chapter 29: Finally done with Hell week

The morning sun peered through the haze of dust,

Brittle shrubs hunched in the cracked earth; their leaves dulled under a film of grime. At the head of the column, Bear led. Not once did he stop for a break or seem like he was having trouble.

They stopped at a tree, its twisted bare branches raised to the sky offering little shade. Behind them, other instructors watched in silence. The air carried the taste of iron and exhaustion.

"Listen up," Bear’s voice cut through the recruits’ heavy breathing and water chugging. "Out there, the enemy doesn’t care if you’re tired before he puts a hole in your brother."

He pointed toward the base of the tree: two steel poles, and a brown tarp, frayed at the edges. Their objective was to ferry their comrade to a medic at a safe point.

The recruits split into four teams, six men each. Their backpacks slumped in the dirt as they rested. They contained, weighed with sandbags, canteens, and small rocks.

Under the heat, they hurried.

"Lash the poles crosswise—it’ll hold better! "Recruit Six looped frayed rope in an X-shape. The team hoisted the stretcher... and the poles slid apart, spilling the bags from ’corpse’ with a thud.

"Try again, "Bear announced.

Second attempt. Recruit Fourteen yanked the canvas taut, knotting it around one pole. "Now Just run with it! "Recruit Nine barked. They made it five steps before the fabric ripped at the seams, scattering ration packs and a dented canteen.

’Second failure. You don’t have much time to waste the enemy is closing in,’ Bear said, flicking his stopwatch.

Third try. Recruits Three and Five argued, voices overlapping. "Fold the mat under the poles— No, over! "They hastily assembled a sling, but the weight slumped sideways, poles clanging like a death knell.

"Third failure," Bear said coldly.

"We’re running out of time!" Recruit Seventeen screamed. "Idiots!" Recruit Twenty-Two murmured but Number One heard it and got angrier.

Then... movement. Recruit Twelve lunged for the poles... and triggered a hidden ’tripwire’.

A sharp hiss.

Red paint exploded across Recruit Twenty-Three’s torso.

"Twenty-Three killed in action, ’Bear stated, bored.

Silence.

Then Number nine(Neville) voice cut through." Hey." He shoved the poles parallel, shoulder-width apart. "Stretch the canvas between them. Knot the corners... double knots. "

He crisscrossed backpack straps beneath for reinforcement." Lift from the poles, not the fabric. Now."

The team heaved. The stretcher held.

’’Move," he ordered.

Neville decided to carry 20’s ’corpse’. "Recruit 09, 10 extra points," Bear said jotting something down and the recruits quickly realized the dead were also to be carried.

They ran... well they tried to but the weight was no joke and they had to pace themselves to pass this test.

First hour: Team 2’s stretcher sagged, a poorly tied knot unraveling. Number 7 yelled, "Hold it! Hold it!" as bags spilled. They rebuilt, fingers trembling. But in the process, a member was shot.

Hour 5: Team 4’s poles screeched under stress, the canvas fraying. A recruit collapsed, vomiting from heat exhaustion. Bear watched, impassive, as they redistributed weight and trudged on.

Hour 7: Blisters formed. Voices groaning in pain and exhaustion. Team 3 lost a member, making number 11 shout, "Shift weight forward—balance, damn it!" 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

Team 4 fractured. Recruit 22 collapsed from heat exhaustion, his vomit spraying the stretcher. 20 panicked, abandoning the litter to drag 22 into the shade. Bear’s assistants moved in, marking their death with a spray-painted X on the dropped gear. But they decide to quit,

Team 2 reached Alpha grid with 39 minutes to spare, their litter intact but their hands bloodied from friction burns.

Javier’s team arrived at 7h37m, and the stretcher fabric was torn but still holding. Neville’s group stumbled in at 7h44m. And the ’corpses’ jumped helped as they were least tired. A total of 4 ’died’.

*********************************************************

The medic walked around the barracks, "Next!" she barked, voice slicing through the groans of exhausted men. Near the door, Recruit 11 convulsed on the cot as another medic peeled away his sock—revealing a toe turned inside out, (the nail torn clean off by the ocean exercise). The exposed meat glistened under iodine’s orange burn. "Sorry," she said apologetically seeing the man who had hiked with a painful toe for seven hours carrying a heavy load.

Javier leaned against the lockers, his bare forearms red and wet He got injured after falling in a ditch. A baby-faced medic pressed a cold compress to the wound. Javier’s abdominal muscles flinched, but his grin stayed.

She didn’t bother looking up. "Save the act."

At the far end of the bay, Neville sat statue-still on his bed, right knee’s skin split open. Gravel fragments studded the wound, each pebble dark due to dried blood. The medic palpated his massive calf cleaning the wound."

" I can’t feel anything in my legs when you touch them but I feel the pain."

"Can you feel this?" She tapped his leg with a penlight.

"no."

Her thumb dug into his calf. "Now?"

"Negative."

Then a needle went slightly deep into his smallest toe. Neville’s leg jerked back, not expecting that.

"Felt that?"

"Barely." His voice could’ve etched steel.

She wound the bandage tight enough to bruise, her whisper meant for his ears alone: "You report numbness if it persists. I think you are just tired but we’ll see tomorrow."

***********************************************************

Javier sat on a folding chair that groaned under the ache of his body. Across the scarred table, Bear sat quietly, flanked by two evaluators their expressions unreadable eyes covered by their shades.

A single file lay open between them. Its pages were blank except for one typed line: Motivation for service?

Through the thin walls came the muffled cry of someone getting stitches. Bear’s voice was gravel dragged over concrete. "Why’d you join?"

Javier’s eyes drifted to the buzzing bulb. The leaky pipe dripped in time with Bear’s watch. Then, blunt as a fist to the ribs: "Needed the benefits. Got a kid coming."

"Elaborate."

Javier leaned forward, his bandage hands dangling between spread knees. "No degree. No trade. Worked odd jobs and when I finally got a restaurant of my own, I lost that too. I needed a stable Job. My girl’s due in six weeks." His throat worked. "Medical fees will nasty. That’s all."

The silence thickened. When the right-hand evaluator opened his mouth, a glance from Bear snapped it shut.

"Dismissed."

The chair shrieked as Javier stood. At the door, Bear’s voice stopped him cold: "You pass probation, those benefits activate immediately."

No nod. No thanks. Just the quiet click of the door closing behind him.

Number 4 sat rigid in his chair, his tattoos telling stories the file never could, a jaguar coiled around his left bicep, the faded insignia of the cross inked above his collarbone like a brand. His long hair was tied back, his braided beard streaked with dust from the day’s trials. His eyes, small and red-rimmed, stared through Bear as if searching for something far beyond the peeling walls.

Bear leaned forward, elbows planted on the scarred table, his voice low. "Motivation." Not a question. A demand.

Number 4 cleared his throat.

"My grandfather. Sergeant Mateo Rodriguez. Third Battalion. I admired and respected him a lot."

"He raised me after my parents passed. He used to tell me about the men who had his back when he was in the army and how he’d trust them with his life. How he made a connection so complex many wouldn’t understand."

"After he died. I wanted to know what that felt like. What he experienced."

The evaluator’s pen scratched across the page. Bear’s stare never wavered. "And your fiancé? why’d she join?"

Number 4’s fists clenched, the tattoos on his forearms—thorned roses, winding like barbed wire—standing stark against whitened knuckles.

"She wanted to prove herself. Same as me. She also wanted to support me."

"She quit," Bear said, flat. "Why didn’t you? You could’ve been on your honeymoon by now making as many babies as you want."

"Because she hates quitters. Her win’s mine. Mine’s hers." His breath hitched, just once. "I finish this—we finish it."

Silence pooled between them. Bear leaned back, his gaze flicking to the evaluator’s notes" Survivor’s guilt."

"Dismissed."

The fluorescent light buzzed overhead as Neville sat across from Bear, his posture rigid, his face unreadable. The evaluators flanked Bear, their pens poised over blank files.

"Motivation," Bear said, his voice low.

Neville met his gaze. "To challenge myself. Become a better man—more disciplined."

The silence stretched. Bear leaned forward, his eyes locked onto Neville’s. Then, with a slow exhale, he said, "Bullshit."

Neville didn’t flinch.

Bear’s voice hardened. "No. 9, tell me why you’re really here. And don’t give me the textbook patriot answer—I want the truth. You said discipline? You barely had any issues following orders. Challenge? You aced every physical test—if you wanted to push yourself, you’d have gone to diving school. So why here?"

Another silence. Neville’s fingers twitched, just once, before he spoke.

"I had nothing. Lost my job. Relationships with family and friends were... bad. Then a recruiter knocked on my door." He paused. "So I joined."

Bear studied him for a long moment. The dead look in Neville’s eyes told him enough.

"Good. You may leave."

As Neville stood and walked out, Bee waited until the door clicked shut before exploding.

"Wait—you’re just letting him go? He could be a psychopath! What if he snaps and sabotages the others?"

Bear didn’t look up. "He follows orders. And that ’cool persona’ of his cracks every time Javier is with him. He’s also displayed concern. He’ll be fine."

Bee slammed a hand on the table. "We saw his file—expelled from bodyguard training, a suspect in the Blaire murder—"

"And we don’t know why," Bear cut in. "Right now, he’s a good soldier. Short-term, we need him. Long-term? Maybe we drop him. But the point is, we need every able-bodied man."

Bee’s jaw clenched, but after a tense beat, he backed down. "Understood, sir."

He wasn’t happy.

*********************************************************

They ate without tasting. Their hands ripped open MRE pouches, shoving cold beef and beans past cracked lips, swallowing hard despite the dryness. Some recruits skipped meals entirely, too spent to bother. Others gnawed halfheartedly on protein bars, their jaws moving on instinct rather than hunger.

No one spoke. No one needed to.

Number Three managed a few bites before his grip failed. His spoon clattered to the floor. He didn’t pick it up—his head moved to the barracks, breath whistling through swollen lips. No one reacted.

Showers were brief. The lucky ones had enough strength left to towel off before collapsing onto their cots. Others didn’t bother—dripping, half-dressed, asleep before their heads hit the mattress.

By the time the barracks fell into silence, only nineteen remained.

Yet dawn arrived all the same, with no mercy.

Bear stood at the doorway as the first gray light seeped through the windows.

He let them have those last few moments. Then he cleared his throat.

They were barely upright like puppets, muscles shrieking, eyes raw. But they were standing in seconds—backs straight, chins lifted. Not thought. Not choice. Instinct.

"Look at you," he rasped, voice rough as gravel. "Nineteen stains on my floor." He paused. "Nineteen who didn’t quit."

Silence.

"You carried dead weight. You bled. You pissed yourselves. And you didn’t stop." His gaze cut over them. "That’s all hell week is. Not strength. Not skill. Just not stopping."

A recruit’s knee buckled. He locked it.

"Rest today," Bear said. Then, quieter: "You passed."

He turned and left.

No cheers. No backslaps. Just nineteen men standing in the dawn light, sighing in relief.

They Passed.