Loki stepped out of the tent and calmly reached the centre of the pitch where he had to be for the round to start.
He patiently looked around at the entire crowd that was similarly looking and analysing him. Eventually, his gaze landed on the judges and even on the man who was sitting beside Dumbledore.
Loki's eyes widened for a fraction of a second before he ignored them all.
When Loki spotted Ludo Bagman giving him the signal to go, he moved towards the Chalice like all the other participants. But unlike them, Loki didn't pick up the chalice directly.
Instead, Loki transfigured a few stones into a long thin fishing line which he tied around the chalice.
Then without delay, Loki tapped the chalice with his wand and used a simple charm, "Geminio!"
Under the gazes of all those present, the chalice suddenly started to duplicate into tens of hundreds as Loki poured more and more of his spirituality into the spell, creating a lot of copies of the chalice such that it filled the entire area.
The Baby Totem looked at the chalices when a few of them touched him but it went back to ignoring all of them as they did nothing other than touch it.
Loki then flicked his wand lifting all the fishing lines tied to the chalices and grabbed them out of the air, creating a thick bundle of wires in his hand.
With a flick of his wand next, Loki levitated all the chalices towards the gate and tossed them into its ethereal membrane.
Loki then pulled out his pocket watch and after exactly twenty seconds flicked his wand again.
As if listening to his command the fishing lines all drew taught before the chalices barreled out of the Gate. But before the Baby Totem could react or do much else, Loki flicked his wand and caused all the duplicated chalices to suddenly vanish.
Now normally this would've been alright and not done anything to the Baby Totem, except most of the chalices that were pulled contained souls in them.
*RRRRRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE*
So as soon as the souls were set free the Baby Totem grew exponentially in size while screaming like the sun had risen too early until it was large enough to capture the souls that had escaped from its gate, which was quite big, counting how the Baby Totem seemed to want to capture all the souls using its hands and push them back into the tiny gate.
Loki calmly pulled the chalice that was connected to the single fishing line in his hand.
In under ten seconds, Loki had the original chalice in his hand and placed it inside the circle that would end the test.
But Loki didn't stop there, Loki waved his wand and produced a corporeal patronus, of an owl, and used it to help the Baby Totem collect all the souls that had escaped.
The souls were collected in thirty more seconds and the large Gate Guardian Totem happily reduced its size until it became a Baby Totem and sat in front of the gate continuing to stare at it like it was before.
The entire stadium was left with only a collective silence that was stunned by Loki's methods.
That was when Bagman shouted and increased the simmering hype underneath all the shock and calm from the audience.
"....what a fantabulous trick!!! While all the other champions tried their best to fight the Gate Guardian Totem, our champion Loki finished the task in under two minutes by tricking the Totem with several souls!!! How ingenious!!!!" Ludo Bagman added with his commentary.
The entire audience burst into an excited round of applause as Loki bowed deeply to the audience and left the pitch, walking back to his tent.
Madam Pomfrey immediately pulled him into his section of the tent and pulled over the curtains as she began to examine him fully.
"How reckless!!!! You could've aggravated the Gate Guardian Totem!! How could you do such a thing!!!"
Loki only laughed as he stretched his hands and exclaimed, "I'm unhurt, aren't I? I even helped the Baby Totem gain back the souls that escaped. I'm probably the only one it likes."
Madam Pomfrey's lips thinned into an angry smile as she mimicked Loki's tone and teased him, "I'm unhurt…oh no even after trying to do such a risky thing that could anger something that could crush me like a bug I'm unhurt…wa wa wa…I'll make sure you never leave the hospital ward if you try to be so reckless once again!"
Loki smiled while sinking into his bed and relaxed as Madam Pomfrey turned around and left to tend to the other champions.
'THE HELLL!!!!!'
'Seirously!? That was risky!?'
'What about the Dark Lord that's literally watching the competition right now!?'
'Is he normal!??'
'That was Gelert Gindlewald, right?'
'Why was he there?'
'And why aren't other people surprised by his presence?'
'I almost fumbled when I looked at him earlier.'
'What's his deal anyway?'
'Did he get bored of his room in Numenguard and take a stroll to watch a once in a century competition or something?'
It wasn't long after that short outburst from Madam Pomfrey that Loki heard an announcement from Ludo Bagman.
"Now that the rounds have finished and each champion has achieved the goal in their own way, I call upon them to be scored by our infamed judges!! Let's face it, even if don't like it, this is a tournament and there have to be winners and losers."
Loki stood up from his bed and walked out of his curtains at the same time that the other champions also did.
Everyone in the room locked eyes with each other and burst out laughing.
"That was fun wasn't it?" Loki asked for everyone and they all nodded, with the adrenaline wearing off everyone had accommodating smiles on their faces as they made their way out of the tent.
Fleur's ice burns had almost vanished, Krum's swelling had reduced, and Harry was much more relaxed than he was a few minutes ago.
The two out-of-school champions looked at Harry and Loki in envy since they hadn't gotten hurt with Krum making the first comment as they left the tent, "Phew, I'm almost jealous how you managed to come out of it without hurting yourselves. You guys deserve to win."
While Fleur just rolled her eyes when she saw Loki giving her a smug smile, "Fine! I lose this time. You can have z'this victory. I'll win next time though."
"Haha~ as if. That's what you say every time you lose Fleur." Loki laughed as they finally arrived at the pitch that was now clear of the Gate to the Underworld, the Baby Totem and the Soul Capturing Chalice.
Under the gaze of the Judges, everyone stood calmly with confidence before Ludo Bagman started the scoring round.
"Let's begin with Miss Fleur! She was the first champion to step into the fray and was the third most successful champion! What do the judges think about this!?"
Madam Maxime was first to go as she waved her wand and caused a silver satin ribbon to shoot out in the shape of a ten! "I think she deserves the best because she was the first.", she said, justifying her score.
Kakaroff was next and he shot a dark mist that coalesced into an eight. "She got hurt." was all he said to justify his score.
Dumbledore went next and placed his wand in the air, shooting out a beam of light that bent to form a nine! "She was fantastic." Dumbledore praised but everyone could hear that his voice was strained, but without being able to spot the real reason for it, they just chalked it up to his old age.
Ludo Bagman just raised a piece of cardboard that read Nine as he praised Fleur for her quick thinking and action.
Barty Crouch raised his wand and transfigured the table in front of him into a large eight while simply nodding without much emotion.
"Finally! We have all the scores and Miss Fleur's score is forty-four!"
Krum's score was thirty-eight with Kakaroff giving him a ten since he believed Krum had gotten encased in ice after he placed the chalice in the ring for which he shouldn't be docked points as it was out of his control.
Harry's score was forty-five with Kakaroff only giving him a five since he felt that Harry had taken external help when he summoned the broomstick.
Nonetheless, Krum was a little embarrassed at the blatant favouritism.
And when it was Loki's turn, the entire audience rebelled when he was only given, "Twenty-five points." because of what he'd suggested previously in secret at their meeting with all the Headmasters after his name was picked from the Goblet of Fire.
So the standings currently were, Harry in the first place with forty-five points, Fleur in the second with forty-four, Krum in the third with thirty-eight and Loki in the last spot since he had only twenty-five points.
Kakaroff was unhappy with his prominent frown but everyone else seemed alright and all the champions soon returned to the tent under Madam Pomfrey's orders.
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