Damon's Ascension

The wheel turned again, slower this time, almost as if the mechanism itself was deliberating carefully. It ticked past Self-Control, brushed against Redemption, and finally settled on a glowing segment the color of iron and ash.

"Resilience," Nyros announced, with a thin smile that betrayed nothing.

This time, Bane McGregor's name lit up.

He didn't react as his arms stayed crossed and expression neutral, his almost serpentine eyes calm and unreadable.

For most of the team, Bane had always been an anchor of quiet presence.

He was big, unshakeable, and seemingly immune to the mental and emotional whiplash that plagued others.

But until now, no one had questioned why.

The arena changed as the glossy tiles of the casino floor faded, replaced by dry soil and brittle grass. A scorching sun hung overhead, and in the distance, a lion's roar echoed through the sparse African bush. The scent of blood was faint, but present.

A young boy, no older than ten, ran barefoot through the undergrowth, stumbling and crying with his skin scraped, clothes torn, eyes wide with pure primal fear.

A small camp came into view with overturned cages still smoking. Two mangled bodies lay nearby, barely visible beneath claw marks and crimson stains of blood.

The boy fell beside them, sobbing.

And then… nothing. The scene remained frozen for a moment too long, as if daring the audience to sit with it.

Then it began, the landscape fast-forwarded.

The camp rusted away and the bodies vanished into the earth as nutrients, but the boy remained.

He was much smaller than the creatures around him in this sector and from their animal perspective, he was incredibly fragile.

The scenes showed him hiding from hyenas one time, then trembling as a python slithered past him at night at another moment.

The lad tried to eat tree bark, vomited it out painfully, cried in agony and frustration, then kept moving.

The next scene, a lion that was scarred, old, but still dominant emerged from the underbrush.

The young boy only had a rock in hand.

The scenario finally cut for the last time.

Now, Bane stood in the modern arena with no test prompt, no instructions. The only thing he could see was a plain question, written in heavy letters above his head:

"Was surviving a blessing… or a curse?"

Bane walked forward and stood in front of the projection of the young boy again, who was still locked in a trembling position against the prowling old lion.

For a long while, he said nothing… then he exhaled slowly.

"Does it matter?"

The arena remained silent.

"I didn't survive because I wanted to, I survived because I had to." His voice was deep, even, like someone recalling a fact rather than reliving a memory.

"I was scared, and I was weak. I cried every night, but I kept moving because dying wasn't an option."

He looked up toward the audience.

"You want some grand story? Some revelation? There honestly isn't one because the truth is simple." He said candidly as his lips twitched faintly.

He paused, then continued.

"I wasn't saved by a lion, nor did I get adopted by monks. No divine beast whispered lessons to me from a cave. I slept under trees and hoped nothing found me before I woke up. And every day, I learned something."

He turned away from the crowd, back to the boy.

"How to move silently. How to dig shallow holes for water. How to breathe through the pain."

He knelt in front of the projection, his kneeling height still slightly towering over that tiny, trembling young man.

Yet Bane felt that this young boy had more courage than the current him could ever possess.

Bane closed his eyes. "I also learned how to forgive myself for living when they didn't."

He stood and turned back. "Resilience isn't what saved me. Resilience is what I became."

The silence that followed was thicker than before.

Even the alien crowd, usually quick to murmur or analyze, held their collective breath. Pre-chaos beings were born in the chaos with no womb or mother, just coming into being. If they were lucky, they got a quiet corner of the void with no storms of energy or any predators beings aiming to devour them for a quick meal.

Their growth was filled with thorns and pain, so for the first time throughout this whole farce, they actually felt slightly moved and acknowledged Bane, because this was a survivor who had walked through the jungle and come out alive, just like they had.

Then came the wave of votes that glowed green, showing that Bane had passed.

The team stood quietly, each of them watching Bane return to their side like nothing had happened. No one spoke, not even Kyle.

Felicia gave him a long glance, as if re-evaluating something she thought was certain.

Damon said nothing, but when Bane stopped beside him, he gave a slow nod.

Bane didn't nod back as he simply crossed his arms again and got back into position as always.

The wheel did not wait long this time.

As soon as Bane stepped back into the line, the spinning resumed like the machine had grown confident in its rhythm. It passed over Empathy and Sacrifice, hovered momentarily on Hope, then landed decisively on a silver-blue wedge that rippled like water when the light hit it.

"Faith," Nyros announced, his tone interested.

Levi Thane's name lit up next.

The tall man exhaled softly through his nose and stepped forward, eyes narrowing faintly. Where Bane had been stoic and grounded, Levi was calm in a different way.

His seriousness was hidden beneath a kind of quiet intensity, a pressure that had always lingered under his words.

The casino shifted again, tiles replaced with polished stone, and an altar of black obsidian rose slowly from the center of the arena. Braziers flickered on either side, casting light over a circular symbol etched into the floor, one of a coiled serpent swallowing its tail.

Levi's shoulders stiffened.

A robed congregation formed behind him with their faces masked, bodies draped in ceremonial blue and white. Their chants echoed from the walls in a language none of the team could decipher, yet the weight of it was unmistakable.

Then, the vision shifted to one of years earlier.

A much younger Levi, maybe fifteen, stood at the edge of a temple carved into a cliffside. His body was lean, arms taut with muscle from training, and his eyes were burning with the fervor of belief.

Around him, children his age bowed low, while elders placed ceremonial garlands over his shoulders.

They called him 'Herald of the Depths'.

The image shifted again.

Now, Levi knelt before a massive basin of water, staring at his reflection while behind him stood a man draped in finery, a high priest whose mask bore the carved visage of a leviathan.

"You were chosen, you were born for this! The vessel of the Leviathan's Will! Do not shame us by questioning!!"

The younger Levi's lips moved, but no sound emerged.

Then the scene shifted again, flashing rapidly this time.

There were many lengthy rituals, intense periods of fasting, soul crushing solitude and intense training that broke his body.

The crowd of cultists rejoiced at every success and mourned every deviation. Through it all, Levi's face grew harder, colder… more hollow from his previous fervent nature.

Until the final vision.

Levi stood alone at the altar again, older now. The others were gone and the temple was in ruins, half-submerged in rising water.

The question appeared above his head in dark, flowing script:

"If they were wrong… then what were you?"

The audience leaned in.

Levi stared at the altar for a long time. Then he walked to it, slow and careful.

"That's the thing, they weren't wrong," He said after pondering for a bit.

A murmur ran through the team and Xela glanced at Levi, eyes wide with confusion.

"They saw something in me that even I didn't, that much was true. They were wrong in everything else… but not that."

He touched the edge of the basin, water forming around his fingertips, rising like it remembered him.

"I am not and was not their god, nor was I a messiah. Still, I was a vessel, but not of some cosmic serpent… rather one of purpose."

He stepped back and turned to the crowd.

"When I lost them, I could've discarded it all and buried the name, the past, the rituals… but I didn't. I let them become mine."

He paused, letting his words settle.

Then Levi raised one hand and formed a sphere of liquid in the air that floated around him like a happy baby.

"They believed in a false Leviathan. I forged the real one from what they left behind."

The water around him collapsed in a perfect spiral, vanishing into the floor as he released his control.

Silence.

Felicia exhaled heavily as Nicholas shook his head with a bitter smile. "So that's what's behind the whole 'stoic water god' thing…"

Kyle blinked. "He really was worshipped?"

Damon didn't speak. He simply looked at Levi as he rejoined the team, a look of cold calculation flickering behind his gaze as he realized something important about abilities that he suspected before.