"Let the race begin!" the eagle announcer yelled, signaling for Leonidas to strike the explosive powder ball with his crossbow.
The racers took off immediately, Rogon quickly finding himself in the lead for some strange reason.
"How the hell did Rogon get up there?" Worriz thought to himself, passing up Eris and Gorzan.
This month's racing course was easier than normal. There weren't many of the more challenging obstacles there'd be in your typical race. It was instead filled with sharp, jagged rocks and rough terrain. Also, there was absolutely no water this time; good for Laval, but bad for Cragger.
Laval and Cragger were traveling at the same speed, directly aside from each other as they sped past Worriz and Rogon.
Worriz growled in frustration as he was left in a cloud of dust created from the friction of his superiors' speedors as they rode past him.
Rogon was in for a surprise as Cragger and Laval sped him up easily, leaving Gorzan on a collision course with him.
"Dude, pull back!" Gorzan yelled, trying to swerve away from Rogon.
"Oh, no!"
Their speedors hit each other head on, causing both Gorzan and Rogon to fly out of their vehicles.
Rogon landed face first on the ground, upside down. "I did rather good today, I guess." he said to himself, rubbing his head.
So far, the race was a breeze for Laval and Cragger, who were the top two in lead within a mere thirty seconds of the race's start. Cragger had the upper hand as he'd previously practiced speedor control and maneuvering for the past month. "I guess I'm the winner this time." he said, speeding past Laval.
Eris was left pretty far behind in the race, competing with a very aggressive Worriz as they both passed through a crevasse filled with very jagged, sharp rocks.
Sounds of cheering coming from spectators filled the atmosphere as Cragger was nearing the finish line. Eris had already passed Worriz by this point as he had crashed and flew into a puddle of muddy water and was about to pass Laval, but that's when she noticed something strange.
"Laval is going much faster than normal, but didn't Cragger just pass him up?" she thought to herself.
Laval's speedor was rapidly gaining velocity all of a sudden, which would normally be a good thing for him, right? He was starting to catching up with Cragger, though.
"No, this isn't normal…" Laval thought to himself, trying vigorously to put the brakes on his speedor.
"Something's not right here, folks, " the eagle announcer shouted.
"Laval's speedor seems to be gaining more and more speed for whatever reason!"
Longtooth began to look slightly distressed. "Hey, Lagravis, does Laval usually travel that fast when he's racing?"
"No, he most certainly doesn't."
"At that rate, he'll end up in a nasty crash."
Gorzan was out of the race, but he was still in the track. Laval sped past him far, far faster than normal. "Laval, you're traveling too fast, like, dude!"
"I'm trying to stop it, Gorzan, but it won't budge!"
'Laval, watch out for that tall wall in front of you!"
It was too late…
Laval crashed and flew out his speedor, flying head first into a very hard, rocky wall. He hit his head, and a very loud, horrible thud was heard as he fell back to the ground.
The entire crowd of spectators went silent, some even gasping as they saw him hit the ground lifelessly.
"Laval, no!" Cragger yelled, panicking as he jumped out of his speedor and ran towards him.
"Oh, god…"
A large pool of blood began to flow out of Laval's bruised skull, the lion showing not the slightest sign of movement. Meanwhile, many of the spectators in the crowd were screaming the moment they saw blood.
Worriz was still far behind in the race, so he was still clueless as to what'd happened.
"What's everyone screaming for?" he said to himself, starting his speedor back up.
Lagravis looked terrified, appearing to be nearly hysterical as he turned his head towards Leonidas and Longtooth.
"Leonidas, Longtooth, get the doctors, now!"
They obeyed him almost immediately, running past Lennox, who was giving a hand gesture to the eagle announcer to cancel the race."
The eagle nodded from a distance, waving back to Lennox as he lowered his microphone. "Well, citizens of Chima, there appears to have been a horrible, horrible accident and the race will now be canceled immediately." he said.
The doctors still weren't there yet. Cragger, Eris and Gorzan surrounded the unconscious, bleeding Laval, screaming and yelling at him, asking him if he was okay.
"His head's bleeding, dude!"
"We need to stop the bleeding before anything else, quickly!"
"Where the hell are the doctors right now?"
"Stop shaking him, Cragger, he's out cold!"
As worried spectators were talking about the accident, Leonidas and Longtooth were surprised to see that doctors were already on their way, stopping just near the entrance of the lion gate to see at least five medics prepared with a stretcher.
"Leonidas, help us carry this down the stairs." one of them commanded, trying to project their voice over the incredibly loud background noises of screaming and yelling coming from the crowd of spectators.
"What took so long, and how'd you already know?" Longtooth asked.
"Luckily, Lothar just so happened to be watching the race from the main gate, so when Laval crashed, he came to us immediately." one of the medics replied as he ran down the stairs.
Worriz was gently speeding towards the end of the obstacle course, still curious as to why he was hearing so much screaming. "An accident, and the race is canceled?" he thought to himself. "That sucks. I wonder which idiot crashed this time."
That was when he found out…
He put his speedor to a stop immediately as he saw everyone gathered around an unconscious figure.
"Oh… man… Laval…"
The doctors had finally arrived, prepared with a wooden stretcher and a kit that would help with the bleeding.
"Move back, all of you. We need to get him inside, fast." one of the doctors shouted, pushing Eris and Cragger out of the way.
Meanwhile, Lagravis looked out into the distance, trying to make out who was next to Laval besides the frenzy of panicked doctors.
"Okay, so Cragger, Eris, Worriz and Gorzan are there." he said to himself, squinting his eyes. "Cragger was the one directly behind him just before the crash, so he'll be able to tell us more about what happened."
Back at ground zero, Worriz sprinted over to Eris, passing the doctors up as they carried Laval away on their stretcher. "What happened to Laval, and why's he unconscious and bleeding out of the head?" he asked, scratching his head with a rather calm look.
"His speedor completely lost control and rammed into something, sending him headfirst into a hard wall." she replied.
"Ouch, that sounds like a painful way to go out."
"No, Worriz, it wasn't. He went unconscious nearly immediately."
Eris walked away without saying another word, nervous and frightened for Laval. There were lion guards surrounding Cragger, pointing their spears at him for whatever reason as if he'd done something wrong.
"Guards, calm down!" Lagravis yelled, aggressively shoving them away as he walked towards the crocodile.
"Lagravis, did I do something wrong?"
"No, follow me, Cragger. I just want to ask you a few questions about the accident."
Lagravis turned around and gave a gesture to Cragger to follow him, also gesturing for the lions to lower their spears.
The medics were taking Laval back into the temple, spectators were leaving, and Lagravis was about to ask Cragger questions about the accident.
Why'd Laval's speedor malfunction the way it did?
How much damage did Laval's head suffer?