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STAT: AGL

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So he'd been through hell and back. Gio not only finished the first round, but he somehow didn't collapse after it, either. And because of that accomplishment, they expected him to do more. Maybe this was a mistake.

But, you know, too late for regrets. Not like he was gonna die anyway. Really, it'd be worse if he embarrassed himself. Still wanted to be the judge, not the judged.

There was a course to run, though. So what was on the menu?

He could only find out by diving right in.

Unsurprisingly, it looked to be a run-and-jump start. He knew the combo well. Gio took a running start, textbook process, and leaped to the first platform. It came up to his face and the two collided. Gio fell down, slamming onto his back. He looked up in a daze, before his face started to turn red. People saw that. People saw that people saw that ********> that.

Full of sudden ire, Gio ran and jumped again, and clung to the first platform. It swung a little bit under his weight, but at least he wasn't heavy enough to make it give out...for now. He wasn't jumping high enough, a testament to his smarting nose. And he was being timed. No way in hell was he going to let himself completely screw up the first obstacle.

Gio took a breath, and began his mad scramble to make it to the top. Rarely did he land perfectly on his feet; more often he had to hold onto the platform itself for dear life before pulling himself up on it and hope to god it didn't tilt and dump him off. His methods were desperate and messy, but with the sheer force of will he managed to make it.

At the end of the obstacle, he was puffy and red-faced still, but now that he was in it, he had to take whatever else was thrown at him. And no one...was going to laugh at him.

But he had to take it one step at a time. Gio looked over his next trial. Going back down, through some weird web. Looked easy enough, if weird. He swore he could see the glint of some wires... Not something he'd expect from your average obstacle course, but he wasn't going to question it. He just had to avoid it and not get cut up so early on, if at all. He'd definitely have to see later which losers fell into that, though.

As he made his way down, it became obvious very quick that going down was so, so much easier than going up. Gio took an only slightly less reckless approach; he had lost plenty of time already. He speedran as best he could, while also trying to be mindful enough to not get stuck or hurt. In the end he landed not too worse for wear.

What he landed on was, surprisingly, the next obstacle in and of itself. He started to spin as the gear turned. Neat! They looked to be set up platform-jumping style, with no other gimmick besides the turning. He timed it out, and jumped. He took a moment to let it sync again, and on. It wasn't until he reached the third that he noticed the real gimmick all along: they were starting to speed up. s**t. Before that could trip him up too bad, he jumped again, and only felt a little panicked and dizzy at the end of it. On the last gear, now, and all he had to do was get to the next part.

Still doing pretty well, despite himself.

Gio looked to the pipe ahead. Okay, that looked pretty mundane. He just had to avoid missing it, because the water below looked...well, not as okay as the water at the qualifying round. Weird. Don't flub this ********, Pyrino.

He positioned himself to leap, but noticed something right before he did. He jumped anyway, and landed in the pipe. Okay. He wasn't sure if there were things in the water, but he didn't want to find out for sure, either. Probably some prank stuff to make losers look even worse.

As his thoughts raced, he could swear that he felt something...weird. Oh. Was the pipe moving? Well, s**t. With a huff, he started to run. Gio tripped, pulled himself back up, and scrambled himself to get out fast as he could. He'd played enough games to figure that if the pipe sunk down enough, he wouldn't be able to reach the next bit.

He was lucky to get out before it started to flood.

Giovanni jumped to the next thing without really looking at it, and he was coming down from the pipe's adrenaline rush. Suddenly, he found himself in a difficult spot. The gears weren't too bad, but this was a whole new level of timing and movement and threat. Gio slipped a few times and he struggled so much to stay on board. And he hadn't even jumped yet! After he did, it wasn't much better. He just...had to get off...of this piece of s**t.

Hail Mary and jump!

He caught himself on a chain. It swung with him on it, so that was still movement he had to deal with, but it wasn't those ******** treads. His hands were sweaty, though, and that was a concern... But this part reminded him of a video game. Not just mechanics like a few of the other platforming puzzle-y trials, but a specific game. One with ropes and candles and yelling with each leap.

Yeah. He knew this one. No biggie.

Gio had to force the momentum to swing as hard back and forth as he needed, and quick enough that he wouldn't slip off. When he jumped from chain to chain, he absolutely let out a battle cry like a certain green-clad hero.

He even jumped off the last chain once he got to it, and almost looked kind of cool at the end of his run. Almost, for a greasy nasty boy who really didn't have the body or grace for this kind of thing.