Perfect Pizza
Leon rubbed his sore cheek which had just been pinched by the Nonna. She was impressed with the pizza, as he was certain of. But did she have to express it in such a physical way? Stupid question, the answer was yes.
He was a bit behind the leaders in the race. His fame, even with the Sun King persona, was a double-edged sword. He got fantastic deals on premium pizza ingredients but lost time and energy when the crowd swarmed him. He couldn’t keep his pace; it's not as though he could simply push them away.
Singers and Saints were still in a good position after the first inning and Leon was in no mind to slack about. He ran to the portal immediately and jumped through to tag in Ayla for the Plunge.
But that wasn’t the end of the race for the Sun King. No, it was just the beginning. He had an ulterior motive; to run the rest of the race alongside the teams and make sure every team completed it. The Trials were for fun after all. It wouldn’t be fun to be eliminated from them.
Mushroom Maze
Leon had not expected to be using his magic this way, ever. When he came through the portal, someone had grown a dense wall of mushrooms right outside the entrance. He was sure that the Trial runner would have more foresight than this; it had to be cheating.
He spent the time doing slow controlled burns of the fungi and he was there a good while doing it. The leaders of the race had long since run out of view and by the time he made any strong progress destroying the blockade, only the lagging teams had yet to arrive.
It would be a while until Leon could catch up to spectate his team at this rate. But he reminded himself of his goal and carried forth.
Leon lost himself in the maze and stumbled across a contestant lying face-up on the ground with a half-eaten mushroom in their hand. The student only had their hands visible as they were mostly concealed by a large oversized green robe. Despite their state of twitching on the ground, the hood still hid their face generously.
Leon thought about revealing their face but then remembered his rule. If someone has gone to these lengths to hide their face, it's because they are horrendously ugly. Best to keep their veil in place. It is the moral thing to do.
He hoisted the twitching body onto his shoulder determined to rescue them from the maze.
“What are you doing? Fool! I was spectating the future!” The student piped up in a gravelly and hateful voice while being run through the maze turbulently.
“You can thank me later,” Leon replied with a jovial tone. “You aren’t done with the race just yet.”
Lost City
Chaos greeted Leon as he entered the Lost City. Some great big thresher was spinning and thrashing around destroying everything. What made it extra terrifying was that he rode a leftover Perrench thresher with a dud fin. There were too many close calls to count. But there were also too many students with calls too close. Bodies of students knocked out and knocked off their threshers floated in the sub-aquatic city.
A kinetic mage who was painted green from the Green Meanies, a mage dressed like a lion mascot from Indomitable Lions, a foolish mage dressed in full plate armour from the Knights of Justice, and what looked like an Ersand’Enise guard all rode on the back of Leon’s thresher. He tried bringing them back to consciousness as they waited out the thresher rampage.
Afterward, he returned them to their threshers to continue the race.
Invasive
Leon had a great time running around in the hot bamboo forest. Plenty of sun is all he could ask for.
There was no great distance to travel on this one. All of the teams ran around the same area, so he had plenty of ability to catch up to the front of the pack, despite how far back he was.
He caught up to Laska at the last minute following just behind her as she jumped through the final portal. The Singers and Saint had come first. Victory was theirs.
In his excitement, Leon ripped off the Sun King mask and slam-dunked it into the ground. He revealed to all of the spectators that this mysterious figure was the famed performer all along. What better time than on the victory podium for the Dragon.
Leon was not humble in victory. After finishing a brief victory dance, he ran up to Laska and hugged her. “You did so well I could kiss you.” He didn’t. He made no indication of attempting it either. He instead releases the hug. “That is a victory worthy of song. I’ll need to go get the others immediately.”
But it wasn’t immediate. He instead basked in the glow of victory a bit longer, then dashed off to find the rest of the team, turned a corner, and then just about passed out from exhaustion.