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A Head Start

Carter worked on his Nanowrimo project tonight while watching the elections, he decided to add a little presidential tension to his novel for the evening.

It was June 14th, the day of the presidential tournament. The winner would become the new president of Pole City. The Time Traveler decided to enter because he thought it would be neat to decide if he wanted to add on things to the Pole Scraper or not. He only had one opponent, because they only allowed two people to compete and the Time Traveler and his opponent were the only ones lucky enough to register early enough to do it.

The first part of the tournament was a race, through the middle of Pole City, swimming from Pole City all the way to Emerald City and running to the Emerald Hotel, and the first one to the Emerald Hotel wins the tournament. As a special privilege, anything goes.

BLAM!

The gun was shot and the racers were off. The Time Traveler got a head start. He raced through Pole City at extremely fast speeds with the aid of his scepter. He dove into the water and used his scepter to blast through the water. He went into the lobby of the Emerald Hotel at about the time his opponent was one quarter of the way to Emerald City. None of the other races got an “anything goes” privilege, so they would be harder.

For the next race, Barron Freeze didn’t care, so Pole City got permission to race across the water from Pole City to Barron Freeze’s castle. They both dove into the water. After lots of practice at the Ruby Hotel, the Time Traveler had gotten to be a pretty good swimmer, so he got another head start. He was halfway there by the time his opponent was a quarter of the way there. Speeding across the water, the Time Traveler realized there was another way. The brochure said this race was going “across the water,” it didn’t say “swimming across the water,” so the Time Traveler jumped up and raced across the dense water of Solariun seas. He won again.

There are only nine tournaments, and he had a two point lead. The next race was quite a bit harder. Free falling from the top of the Pole Scraper, first one to make it to the bottom unhurt would win. The Time Traveler had brought a collapsible sky-diving suit, so he scrunched it up, stuck it in his pocket and dove off the edge. He was scrunched up in a cannonball and falling a lot faster than his opponent.

The Pole Scraper is about ten miles up, so he had plenty of time to put on his free-falling suit. He pulled it out of his pocket and started to step into it, staying as close to cannonball form as he could. He was around 200 feet from the bottom and going very fast. He got it on around 10 feet above the ground and soared down and won the third tournament.

The Next tournament was almost as easy as the “anything goes” first race. It was an obstacle course. Cone were set up across the path from the conveyor belt, but the conveyor belt was still set going toward Solariun instead of away. They were to race through the cone obstacle course until they got to the conveyor belt, then race across the conveyor belt, and the first one to the platform wins.

This was disappointing for the Time Traveler because his opponent was the best runner in Solariun.

The runners took their marks, but being as tricky as the Time Traveler was, he didn’t race across the trail, he raced around the cones, just like it said, except he ran across the water using waves to boost him forward around the cones. He blasted himself halfway across the conveyor belt before his opponent had made it halfway across the path.

His opponent stopped, and thought he should go and tell the reporter that the Time Traveler should be disqualified for cheating, but then he thought out the instructions and realized the Time Traveler wasn’t really cheating but was just doing what they said, except in a different way than it was meant to be. His opponent liked to go the way he thought they meant for him to go, so he kept swerving through the cones across the path while the Time Traveler was five feet away from the platform. The Time Traveler made a dive for it and was two feet away from the platform. He leaped again and won the race.

The next race was to race up to the top of the Pole Scraper, run across the roof, climb all the way down, and first one to the beach on the other side of the island wins. His opponent got a head start and raced up to the roof of the Pole Scraper like lightning. The Time Traveler was so amazed he almost didn’t start, but then realized he wouldn’t win if he didn’t go. He raced in a spiral around and around the Pole Scraper, he raced across the roof right as his opponent was winning. He was halfway down the other side of the Pole Scraper when his opponent made it to the beach, winning the race. That made it four to one in the Time Traveler’s favor.

The next race was first one to make one hundred laps around the Ruby Hotel wins. The Time Traveler started off, knowing he would lose. He hoped dearly he was wrong. The race started out with the Time Traveler in the lead. He was halfway around the Ruby Hotel when he tripped on a root and his opponent gained two laps. Two laps to nothing. It went up to 10 laps to two laps in the opponent’s favor. It went up to around 80 laps to 20 laps in the opponent’s favor again. 90 laps to 50 laps. 96 laps to 89 laps. The Time Traveler was gaining. 99 laps to 98 laps, with the opponent still in front. 100 laps to 98 laps- the opponent won, making it four to two in the Time Traveler’s favor.

Though the odds were favoring him, the Time Traveler felt down. They missed halftime, so they got a half of halftime after the sixth tournament. He had an hour to decide how he was going to win the next tournament- catching 25 humdinger birds that roam in the fields of the Amethyst city.

The Time Traveler explored the Amethyst City, looking for the place with the most birds. He found a tree full of nests in the woods and marked it on the map without telling anyone. He had around fifteen minutes left so he spent them looking for a very large butterfly net and an even larger birdcage. Once he found them, he had five minutes left and he spent them scurrying back to Pole City to meet his opponent.

Once they were both back in Amethyst City, they were not allowed to look at where the other was going, so the Time Traveler was free to go get his birds. He pulled the map out of his pocket, but noticed the mark had been erased, so he didn’t know where the tree was. He searched around in the forest, and then realized his opponent must have found the tree too and erased the mark so he would win. The Time Traveler searched around in the forest and watched his scorekeeper, 24 to 2 in his opponent’s favor. 25 and his watch exploded and he heard beeping and saw small fireworks going off in the area where he realized his tree must be.

Then, his opponent revealed his secret and the Time Traveler gasped. He had found an entire grove, apparently, where they liked to sleep, so it was a full quarter mile across in every way circle of just humdinger birds, and it didn’t look any different when he had gotten all he needed because there were so many.

Next race would only be done by someone almost brainless, but it had to be done to win. It was to ride a drill-mobile through the molten core of Solariun and make a turn and come up in a fenced-off area in Pole City. They started off in Amethyst City and zoomed through the water, the opponent in the lead. The opponent blasted through the rock even faster than he had through the water, but the Time Traveler was tricky. He zoomed through the opponent’s tunnel faster than he could make it and burrowed around him, giving him the lead. Then, his opponent hit the accelerator button and a whole bunch of booster rockets came out the back of his drill-mobile as he blasted around the Time Traveler and won the race. The score was now four to four. There was only one race left.

The Time Traveler knew he had to win it or stay in the second coldest place in Solariun rather than in his cozy hotel. When he learned what the last race was, he grew extremely confident he was going to win. It was five laps around all of Solariun, across any surface possible. His opponent thought that he was going to win by running across the path and then climbing up buildings and then going over them. The racers were at their marks, and then they started.

The Time traveler ran as fast as he possibly could across the dense water of Solariun. He swerved around buildings and got three laps. His opponent was only halfway around the first one. Four laps- Five laps and the Time Traveler had won and was ready to become president. He raced back to Pole City and was declared the president.

He had three new sky scrapers built in Pole City and convinced the president of Amethyst City to build some more there. He convinced Baron Freeze to add a few buildings to the island he lived on and Barron Freeze told him he felt much happier that way. He convinced the leaders of Emerald City and Ruby City to add three buildings to the Emerald City and five buildings to the Ruby City. He even convinced the Amethyst City to build a new island and built three islands around the Pole City to add more buildings.

He got the Ruby City to add a few floating anti-gravity islands, he got the Emerald City to add almost 100 little island houses because they were the most populated city in all of Solariun and he even got Barron Freeze to buy a few islands, two hundred to be exact.