Legends of Chima: The Outlaw, Part 9 (Act 2)

(Continuing from here; ccb-18.deviantart.com/art/Lege…)

James’s mind whirled with possible ideas on how to avoid getting hit, then once again, the world slowed down, his hearing muffled and his body seemed to go numb. As if some past instinct seemed to guide him, James quickly ducked down forward till his chin almost touched the body of his speedor. His hat remained in the air, and Cragger’s lance passed clear through the gap in between. As Cragger passed James, everything went back to normal, and James could hear the crowds cheering and laughing.

Cragger was surprised at James’s manoeuvre, but was also getting annoyed. Both speedorz headed down the track till they were at the other’s starting point and turned about, skidding as they braked.

Cragger: Come on, James! Stop playing games!!

James: Who’s playing(?)

Cragger didn’t even answer that one; he just raised his lance and charged again before Equila had a chance to raise the flag again. James, smirking, also charged forward, but then a realised he had a problem. Now he was going down the other way, he didn’t have any more room to move – and that left Cragger with a clear shot to his face. Cragger had so guessed this and a look of malevolent glee was in his eye. James quickly looked around for something he could use. Then he saw it; a wrecked speedor that hadn’t been fully cleared away, but only moved to the side of the racetrack.
Quickly, James swung onto it, using it as a ramp. His speedor shot into the air, and barrel-rolled right over Cragger! The world slowed again, just as James’s speedor cleared the wrecked one. Again, James leant forward, and Cragger ducked down to avoid their heads colliding with each other.

James landed behind Cragger, right-side up, bounced three times, swerved a few times and straightened up as the world returned to the correct speed again, and skidded to a halt, turning once again to face Cragger. The crowd were really cheering for him, and Equila was commenting for James’s spectacular stunt. All this was starting to make Cragger very mad indeed.

Cragger: (Snarling) SHERIFF!! YOU’RE REALLY STARTING TO TAN MY HIDE NOW!!!!

James: Is that an invitation(?)
 
Equila then flew down to talk to the two, beckoning them to come forward.

Equila: Hey folks. Listen, great contest, but do you think we can wrap this up and get this over with? It’s starting to get late, and we don’t want to be here all night.

Cragger: Very well, then.

James: Fine by me.

The two turned and returned to their starting posts. Speedorz revved, the crowd cheered, and Equila took his place back in the air.

Cragger: Alright, James. This is it! Remember, this is the winning run! I’m gonna enjoy this.

James: Pleasure’s mine. And I’m gonna win this for Chima!

Equila dropped the flag with a final cry of ‘GO!’ and both speedorz charged forward for the last time that day.

Now, Cragger might’ve won if no one had counted on two things: the position of the Sun, and James’s breastplate.

As Cragger got closer to James, the sky had begun to turn yellow, and the clouds turning a dusty brown colour as the Sun began to set over Chima. As it began to dip over the western mountains and forest, one of its rays came down on James’s breastplate, reflecting off it like a mirror – and hitting Cragger smack in the face, so that his world suddenly became a painful, fuzzy white blur!

Cragger: (Screaming, and rubbing his free hand over his good eye) ARGH!! Help me someone! I can’t see!!!

Cragger put his hand over his good eye but, like Worriz, forgot to apply his brakes or realised he was still in high-speed motion. His speedor, with nobody controlling it, began swerving and weaving left and right violently, Cragger’s arms flailing like wet washing caught in a strong breeze. James saw his chance. He added on more speed, and approached Cragger as his speedor swerved towards the left. Just as James came into contact with Cragger, the same thing as with Razar and Worriz happened again to James; the world slowed down and his hearing muffled. The padded end of James’s lance hit Cragger in the diaphragm…

Cragger: (Slowed down & echoie) OOFF!!

…and with it James hoisted Cragger out of his speedor and up into the air like a pole-vaulter, before tossing the crocodile aside like an apple core. Cragger flew through the air and landed flat on his back at the side of the track. Everything then returned to its normal sped and volume for James, as Cragger hit the ground. Cragger’s lance landed just past his head whilst his speedor carried on uncontrollably. It raced straight towards the sidelines. People jumped, scurried and dived out of its way to avoid getting run over, but luckily it didn’t hit anybody. However, it continued on straight out of the arena and towards the Market Square – right towards the Raven’s Betting Stand. The Ravens then realised what was about to happen.

Razcal: Somebody stop that speedor!!!

But it was too late.

KER-RASH!!

Cragger’s speedor collided with the Betting Stand and stopped. Bits of pink paper and coins went flying into the air and fell down like hail and autumn leaves. Many people quickly scrabbled around the wrecked stand and began picking up the coins as quickly as they could, but the Ravens were soon wrestling with them, in desperate attempts to retrieve the money.

Various Ravens: Get your hands off that! No! Stop that! This is our money!! Put that down! You can’t have that!! Give us those coins!! They’re all ours!

The Lion Guards had to be called in to break it up, and soon left the Ravens with nothing but pink paper all over the ground, a few coins left in the dirt, and a wrecked betting stand with a smoldering Crocodile Speedor still sticking in it.

James, on the other hand, had skidded to a halt at the end of the track, and was unaware of what had taken place in the market. But he was aware that people were cheering at him. It took a while to sink in as his hearing took longer to return that time. He could make out that Equila was sounding rather excited as the crowd cheered wildly.

Equila: Unbelievable, folks! Sheriff James Levvet is today’s winner!! Against all the odds!! James is the Champion! James has won the tournament! James wins the Gold CHI!! (Doing an aerial backward somersault) YIP-EE!!!!!

This took several seconds for this to sink into James, then he realized that Equila was right. He had just won the tournament!
Turning to face the spectators, who were nearly making the bleachers collapse under their excitement, and revved his speedor so it reared up in the like a horse, and acknowledged them by holding his lance in the air.

James: YEE-HA!!!!!!

He then raced down the track and using his lance, bashed the gong that hung over the winner’s lane, smiling and laughing to everyone. He’d ever felt like this before in his life, or if he had, it was a long forgotten feeling, but he’d never even felt like this even after a successful, and bloodless, robbery back in the Wild West, and at first he couldn’t understand why.

If James was happy, his spectators were beside themselves with joy. Wonald and G’Loona were holding each other hands and jumping up and down on their seats. Gorzan was whooping and hollering and leaping in his speedor seat. Rogon had jumped off his speedor and was bashing his head against the wall. The Beaver Stewards had all joined hands and were doing ‘Ringa-Rounda-Rosies’. Furty was doing backflips. Bladvic was sleepily cheering, and looking through bleary eyes. Skinnet was leaping about on all fours like an excited fawn. Laval and Eris got off their speedorz, and embraced each other, Laval lifted Eris off the floor and twirled around with her, she then took Laval’s face in her hands and kissed him, first on both cheeks, then full on the mouth.

James rolled up the sidelines and hopped off his speedor as people gathered round, shaking his hands and thumbing him on the back.

Laval: James, that was fantastic!

Gorzan: You did it, dude!

Eris: And against Cragger and all!

James was about to say something when he hear the sound of running footsteps before something hit him the legs and knocked him down. He looked down and something dark grey and red looking up at him.

James: (Ruffling Wonald’s headfur) Hey, kid. Pretty amazing out there, wasn’t I?

Wonald: (Hugging James around the neck) I knew you could you do it! I knew it!

James: Well, I owe it all to you, bucko.

Wonald: Who, me? Why?

James: Well, if you hadn’t given me your breastplate, I don’t think I’d’ve gotten this far.

G’Loona: (Helping James to his feet) Well, it was still an impressive display of racing.

Rogon: Yeah, you really must teach us how you do that.

James: (Dusting himself off) Well, I’m not really sure how I did it…but you must admit, not bad for a first-time amateur, eh?

Laval: Well, nevertheless, come on James. Dad’s waiting for you.

With G’Loona holding his left hand, and Wonald his right, James walked up to the podium where Lagravis was waiting.

Lagravis: James Levvet, today you have made history as the first outsider to Chima to win one of our tournaments. You have played fairly and played well, and I hereby present you with your Prize; the Golden CHI. Use it wisely. Use it well.

Lagravis then handed James the precious orb. It was a big as a watermelon to James, and he could even feel the warmth from it through his gloves. James was lost for words. This was the first time he’d ever won anything legally or even fairly. He just felt so happy and proud of himself. But it was Eris who noticed something else first.

Eris: James, are you crying?

Holding the Gold CHI in his right hand, James quickly used his left hand to dab at his eyes with his bandanna.

James: Crying? Me, crying? Oh no, Eris. Just some dust in my eye. Well, I really don’t know what to say. I’m quite flattered actually.

???: Flattered?! You should’ve been flattened!

Everyone turned to see Cragger, flanked by Crug & Crawley as his walking sticks, (because though he could see again, everything was still fuzzy) push his way through the crowd and approach the podium. Cragger was still quite cross.

Cragger: You don’t deserve to win that! He cheated!!

James: (Tucking the Gold CHI under his left arm and putting his right fist on his hip) Oh, I cheated? I cheated(?) You want me to show the judges the padding on your lance, the button on Worriz’s and the nails concealed in Razar’s?

Lagravis: What was that?

James: If you examine those lances carefully, I think I’ll prove my point.

A quick examination was made. Worriz’s broken lance reveal the spring catch on the blade, and the nails on Razar’s were unraveled.

James: And if you check Cragger’s lance, you’ll find that padding’s been poisoned.

Everybody looked at Cragger. He could see there was no way of backing out of this one so easily.

Cragger: Okay, okay. So I put poison on my lance. But it was only a weak mixture. It would’ve just blinded him for a few days, that’s all. It would be like having your eyes soaked in lemon juice.

Rogon: Ouch. That would be painful.

Laval: Cragger, how could you? And after James saved your life. This is worse than stealing CHI right out of our pool!

Cragger: It was just payback for having my sister arrested. I just wanted him to suffer as she is right now.

Lagravis: Well, I think in the circumstances of this situation, and the next time James wishes to take part in our tournaments again, Cragger, you, Worriz and Razar will kept under a very close eye from now on. This proves that neither of you intended to play fairly when James stepped in. He has proven today that anybody can enter, or even win, our Gold CHI Tournaments, no matter what or who they are. And thanks to sheer arrogance, petite vengeance and over-ambitiousness, both you, Worriz & Razar have shown yourselves up instead. If this ever happens again, you three can consider yourselves promptly disqualified till the next tournament. That is all.

James: Hold on, your highness. If this was all about Crooler, I’d gladly let her go.

Cragger: You would?

James: As long as you paid for her bail. 3000 gold coins would do nicely as a start.

Cragger suddenly went weak in the knees and almost collapsed on the floor. Crug and Crawley had to haul him upright again by the arms.

Cragger: (Gagging & spluttering) Three—three thous—three thousand gold coins?!?

James: Yeah, I’m starting a benevolent fund. So any bail money or fines will go towards it.

Cragger: (Reluctantly giving in and wriggling free of his "walking sticks") Oh…very well. I’ll have the money ready in three weeks from tomorrow.

James: I shall be waiting, “your majesty”(!)

Cragger flounced off with his lackies, whilst Laval and Lagravis looked over at James.

Laval: Isn’t that much a bit extreme, just to let her go?

James: Nah, it’s just the sort of thing to keep those twins in order.

Lagravis: And what exactly do you have in mind for this fund?

James: Ah, now that was something I wish to talk to you about, sire. (To the crowds around him) But you know what I’m the mood for? A party!

He heard hurrying footsteps again and saw Wonald come running up, this time clutching the funny banjo. No one had realized that Wonald had slipped away again; they’d all been listening to Lagravis.

Wonald: I thought you might want this as well, following your success.

James: (Passing his Gold CHI to G’Loona before taking the banjo off Wonald) Aw, thanks very much, Wonald. You know, I’m in a mood for a good old fashion Barn Dance. Or even a homely Square Dance, if we don’t have any barns in these parts.

He looked around and saw that everybody was looking at him curiously.

Rogon: What’s a…“Barn Dance”?

Gorzan: Yeah, dude. And how you, like, square dance?

James: Well, let’s all go inside the Lion Temple and I’ll tell you all about my folk-dances. But be sure to try to keep up, these dances can get pretty quick.

With that, James tucked his newly-won Gold CHI under his right arm and shouldered his instrument on his left shoulder, and walked up the steps to the Lion Temple.

James: (Turning to Lagravis next to him) Actually, your highness, there is a proposition I wish to talk to you about. I have an idea to help the Children of Chima…

Still chatting away his idea of founding a school to help the less privileged cubs of Chima, James walked on with a great feeling of pride and joy within him.

Razar also had a great feeling growing inside of him. It was a feeling of loathing towards James. As his tribe began to clear up the mess that had been their betting stand, Razar watched the back of James climb up the stairs into the Lion Temple. This was the last straw for Razar. He now understood why Worriz and Cragger hated James too. The penultimate straw was when Ripnik showed him one of the ‘Lost-&-Found’ flyers that had been stuck up in the market. Now the Ravens understood what Eris and Equila had been on about. Why so many people had been coming and going in James’s office, and finally where James had gotten that breastplate.
For them, since James had arrived, business had gone bad for them. All their best schemes had been rumbled, thanks to him and his laws.
Razar despised James. He wanted him to be sent away. But how could he do it? James was so popular with everybody. They all saw him as hero, even though he still had a lot learn about Chima’s ways of life…

‘Wait, that was it!’ Razar thought to himself. ‘If I make James look like a traitor to everybody, they’re sure to kick him out of Chima for good! All I have to do is use his duties against himself.’ Razar smirked with triumph at the thought of it, and twirled his hook by his beak. ‘But how to go about it?’

Ah, that’s another story………….

(To be continued)