Age of Reclamation Character Test - Ben and Virgil

Ben stood in silent reflection, staring at the massive Hostile Takeover logo, now wedged into the Mansions stage where it had fallen. Eli was gone, Andrew was gone, Luke was gone, Logan was gone, the Takeover Mansion was destroyed. It was over, they had lost.

"You seem concerned." A voice, Virgil's said from behind him. Ben turned and looked around the main room of the mansion, with splinters, rubble, and glass strewn about and then looked up at the skylight, with a massive hole in it allowing rain to fall in.

"I can't imagine why." He said, he walked towards Virgil, kicking a microphone on the ground out of the way.

"Not exactly a livable space anymore, is it."

"Pfft, no thanks to you."

"I already told you, I'm prevented from fighting by-"

"No Virgil, I get it." Ben angrily said, interrupting the annoyingly calm man. "I'm Virgil, I'm the man, look at all these things I can do that would be so helpful but I can't help because some crazy magic or some unrealistic shit like that."

"What world do you live in where Magic is the most insane thing you've seen?" Virgil countered, almost mockingly.

"Oh, so the magician has emotions after all. That's not the point. You brought us all together so we could stop what you called the greatest threat the world would ever face, and then you don't even help us fight."

"I'm prevented by-"

"I don't care what your prevented by! I don't care what your stupid rules are! They sent you back here to help, to stop something before it even began, so why would it make any sense to not help when you could. We could have one yesterday, this shit could have been over, if you had just stepped into help for one second." Ben angrily declared.

"I couldn't do that."

"Oh I know. I know you couldn't" Ben remarked sarcastically, "And thank god you didn't. Because now, the founder of fireside has left, the super soldier has left, the superhero is gone, and the time traveling future warrior is gone too. So what's the team we have left to save the world, Virgil? What do we have left?" Ben begged for an answer, but Virgil simply stared at him."

"We have the magic man who can transport himself through time and space, but won't use any of it to help. And we have me, the musician, the kid with no combat training that can't do any shit except rhyme words together. And me and you are supposed to go up against two rampaging A.I and their army of drones, forget about it!" Ben cried out, distraught. "It's over Virgil, we lost." He turned and began to walk off towards the door.

"You underestimate yourself." Virgil grunted. Ben stopped and looked back at him, a hint of a tear in his eye. "And it's pathetic." Virgil growled. Ben turned all the way around and outstretched his arms.

"Why even put me on this team? What did I have to offer when stacked next to the greatest heroes in history."

"What were you in high school?" Virgil asked.

"A student?"

"No, other than that. Before the Hostile Takeover."

"I guess, a nerd, a loner..."

"A runt?"

"Wow, thanks for sparing my feelings, but yeah I guess. A runt. The runt of the litter."

"Yet you, as the runt, set a goal for yourself. you wanted to do something, you wanted to perform music and you didn't want the world around you, the limitations placed on you to hold you back. And then you took it one step farther. You wanted to help others, you wanted to help them get to the same place you got, and you did it together. And in the end, you created a massive world famous super music group formed out of your own friends, because you gave them a chance and brought them all together."

"Yeah..."

"And that's why I brought you here. You thought you were the runt again, a normal person being leveled with super humans. But your much more than that. You're a hero in and of yourself Ben, that's why I brought you here, that's why you're on the team. Maybe you can't fight til your last breath, maybe you can't kill hundreds of droids, maybe you can't save hundreds of individual people, but you can do the most important part of this whole process. You can enable all those other things. You can bring us all back together." Virgil finished his speech and looked at Ben with longing eyes, hoping he'd make the right decision. "The question is, will you do it?"

Ben looked out the mansions blown open front door, the gloomy rain beckoning to him. Then he looked back at Virgil, as the man stood in the middle of his tattered mansion, Ben being his only hope left in the world. "I'm not helping you, if you don't help us." He said. Virgil sighed and turned away to face the stage. Ben sighed as well, but just as he was about to turn, he saw Virgil lift his arm in the direction of the stage.

A shimmer appeared above the fallen logo, a light breeze started blowing dust around all inside the mansion. Ben watched as the shimmer grew in size, and began to cover the logo, the stage, and then the room. The shimmer, now a massive ball of white light, continued to grow, inching towards Virgil and Ben. The light enveloped Virgil first, and then Ben was forced to watch as the same light covered every inch of his body.

After the light faded, what he saw amazed him. The mansion was restored, and looked even better than it had the night before. The stage was all in one piece, with the giant "HT" logo hanging back in it's proper place above it. The skylight was repaired, as were all the windows. In the middle of the room, Virgil lowered his arm and turned to face Ben. "When do we start?"