A/N: Me: I'll upload the next chapter by New Year's.
Everyone Else: Well, we're waiting.
Seriously, I really fell off the track with this next chapter. To clear things up, I eventually sort of got tired of this fanfic about 40 chapters down the road, it was fun, but it was getting old. I kept writing, but again, at some point I knew I had to stop, and rather than stopping I just kept delaying it and here we are over a year since the chapter before the last.
But, I don't regret writing this. Again, everyone, thank you for making this fanfic possible and for reading it! It is the most well received fanfic I've ever written, and I do have fond memories of this.
Anyway, time to answer the reviewers one last time for old time's sake: thank you winterwind14, Guest (sorry to disappoint you, but it just isn't in me to keep writing this), DemigodSassReaders, Sage Nicholson (as always, you're free to work on your spin off or even a direct continuation of this concept, I don't mind and you don't even need to bother crediting me, this goes for everyone), and 64Felicity (thanks for understanding).
With Percy and Frank having already finished their turns, next up was the Valdez himself, who had been the one who had designed this competition in the first place, and so had agreed to let the others dock a point from his score in return for the fact that he had foreknowledge of what the apps were given that he had designed them.
"Wow, it's been an hour and no one's knocking," Leo said.
"Leo, it's only been five minutes," Percy said.
"Maybe he's just ugly," Frank suggested and shrugged.
"Yeah well-" Leo didn't get to finish his retort as he saw that someone was approaching his booth.
Taking a bet, Leo opened his arms and said, "Oh, you're approaching me?"
"I can't get to know your product without coming closer!" the guy responded.
Leo laughed at the JoJo reference, he had assumed, and was correct, in that there would be a lot of anime fans in this place.
"Wee-a-boo, wee-a-boo, wee-a-boo," Frank kept saying over and over. He said it like 'wee-woo' you would hear from an ambulance.
"So, what is it that you're doing?"
"Oh, that, we're just designing various apps, most of which are still in development phase," Leo said. "And we're just testing the general public's reaction to it, so could I interest you in seeing one?"
"Yeah sure I guess."
"Just a sec," Leo said and moved towards the back of the booth where there was the folder which he opened and then nearly face-palmed.
"Just my luck," he cursed. He had managed to get what was, in his opinion, the worst one. And that was saying something considering the fact he actually knew what each of them was.
So, he sighed, and began talking like he was in a television commercial, "Well, this app that I'm going to be pitching you is the 'Throw My Phone' app."
"Interesting title," the guy said.
"So, have you ever wondered how tall you are? Or how far away that building is? Or how tall a tree or a building is? Well, that's where this app comes into play," Leo said. "Using advanced technology, this app can help you measure distances and heights with up to approximately ninety-nine percent accuracy!'"
"Oh, that's cool," the guy said. "So what is based on? Like sonar? Or does it use light and advanced trigonometry or something?"
"No," Leo said. "Let me go ahead and demonstrate how it works. First of all, let's just say that I want to go ahead and measure how tall I am."
Leo turned on the app (ironically this was an app that he could actually make) and then he lifted it to about his height and then dropped it after pushing a button in the center.
The guy looked shocked, but Leo just picked up the phone and it showed a number. "See! It's how tall I am!"
Sadly, his height was censored in the video he made about this. Man, does he have a bit of a Napoleon complex.
"Uh," the guy said.
"And, that's not all," Leo said. "Let's say I want to measure the length of this room."
Leo then walked over to one wall, pressed the button, and then with all of his might threw the phone across the room. The guy flinched as the phone struck the wall.
"See?" Leo said, trying as hard as he could to smile. "It shows how wide this room is- twelve meters! It's foolproof!"
"But you kind of had to throw your phone to make it work," the guy said. "And you said you could measure the height of a tree?"
"Yeah, you could," Leo said. "You just need to climb all the way to the top, and drop it from down there."
The guy started chuckling. "How does that work?"
"Well, you know how apps that check how much you walk work right?" Leo asked. "As long as your phone has a motion sensor, this can work."
"Yeah, but man, no one wants to toss their phone around," the guy said.
"You could always buy a case," Leo said.
"But let's say you wanted to measure something really far away and lost your phone," the guy said.
"And that's why we also developed this new accessory," Leo said. He then pulled something out of his backpack which was lying on the ground. "It's called a phone boomerang, an accessory we decided to develop for use solely with our new app. You see, there's a slot for your phone, where you can lock it in, throw it, and then set the app to 'Boomerang Mode' and toss the phone and it'll come back!"
The guy started laughing. "I'm just saying, maybe, you don't need to go that far. I mean, if it can check your height for you, that's still kind of useful."
"No, no," Leo said. "Let me demonstrate!"
He threw his phone with the boomerang, but it came back and hit him on the lip.
"And that's a lawsuit waiting to happen," the guy said.
The guy actually ended up giving the app a 0/10, combined with Leo's little disadvantage, this was reduced to a -1/10, giving him a negative score.
Last up was Jason.
"Can't believe Leo managed to get himself a negative score," Percy said.
"Well, there's a first time for everything," Frank said.
"Hey, I've already assumed that I'm gonna lose this one," Leo said.
"I mean yeah, there's no way for Jason to go lower than that," Frank said. "As a matter of fact, didn't the rules of the challenge state that you can only grade someone from one to ten?"
Suddenly Leo's eyes lit up. "Hey! That's right! I should get a zero at the very least!"
"Nah, let's keep it," Percy said.
As the three of them argued about whether or not Leo should get a negative point or not, someone walked up to Jason. He was a middling man in his forties.
"So, what do you do here?"
"Oh that," Jason said. "We're a startup that's making several new apps. The thing is that we have several app ideas that we intend to put forward on the market, and we're doing market research first. Would you like to see a demonstration and tell me what you think of the idea?"
"I guess I could spare some time," the guy said.
Jason went to the back of the room, opened his file, and groaned.
This was probably something that Percy would have liked.
"All right," Jason said. "The app that I'm going to be pitching to you is 'Friends With Fish' an app that helps you in fishing."
"Wouldn't that make it the opposite of being friends with fish?" Percy asked.
"Yeah, Leo, most of these titles don't make sense," Frank said while scanning through them.
"So if you're anything like me, you must love to fish," Jason said.
"Hey Jason, you can't see this, but Percy's glaring at you."
"And the problem is that sometimes, things just don't bite," Jason said. "And so, what our app does is that it emanates a noise that attracts fish to your location."
"Huh?" the guy asked. "Is that really possible?"
"Yes," Jason said. "Uh, in order to use this uh..." He trailed off.
"Come on Frank," Leo said as he got out of his chair. "There's something we need to get Jason."
"Uh, I'm just gonna demonstrate something real quick-" Jason began as an aquarium filled with fish was rolled into the booth by Leo and Frank. Jason wondered why they hadn't just put it there from before, but they probably had not wanted to let the cat out of the bag.
Jason then tied a little string around his phone, and to the man's horror, dipped it into the aquarium.
"Don't worry, the phone's waterproof," Jason said.
"Yeah Jason," Leo said. 'The iOS 7 update automatically detects when water touches the screen, and triggers an automatic shutdown of the system."
Frank and Percy looked at him strangely.
"Hey- it isn't my fault that you can't get that joke!"
"And now, the app starts working," Jason said.
As it activated, weird noises came from the phone- which he recognized. It was Percy's voice when he was talking to fish.
"Can technology work like that?" Frank asked.
"I don't know, let's see." Leo replied.
Sadly, the fish didn't move even though Percy's voice was calling out to them.
"Hmm," Jason said, knowing that this made him look bad.
"Oh wait," the guy said. "I just got a call."
He took his phone, walked away, and the thing was, after that he never came back.
"Guys it has been fifteen minutes and he still isn't back," Jason said.
"Does this count as an automatic loss?" Percy asked.
"No, I think we should just let him get another shot at this," Leo said and frowned. "Technically he didn't get a score, so he has to keep playing until he gets one."
"We're changing the app though," Frank said.
Jason paced around the booth. He didn't know what the next app was going to be about, but soon enough, he had managed to attract someone and began the usual pitch.
"So, this app here is called 'Dishwasher App' which is a photo editing app," Jason said. "Basically, if you're anything like me, you hate to do the dishes. And so, this app is perfect for you- what it does is that you take a photo of dirty dishes, and using photo editing technology it makes it seem as if the dishes are clean."
"But they'll still be dirty."
"Yeah, they will be," Jason said. "But then you can send the photo to whoever asked if you finished the dishes, and you'll get more time to do them."
"Seems like a funny idea."
Jason ended up getting a 5/10.
This left the winner as Percy, and everyone besides him got a negative point.
A/N: And so my final act concludes! I hope you enjoyed this little last bit of writing I did guys. Again, it's been great writing for you all, I did enjoy all of your support throughout this time.
And as I've stated before, this story is open for anyone to adopt or write a spin off of. I give anyone blanket permission to do so.
I wish you all the best.