Leon Ishige

Leon is an amnesiac, creator of Dr Juniper who's part of Grid Crimson and new member of Hack Breaker. He has same unique ability to warp into the video games he plays just like Tari.

His surname was given by Swallow.

It's revealed in "Digital Error" by Vector Varis that Leon himself is Dr. Juniper's A.I. program from Grid Crimson that merged with a fragment of Celestine Anderson's mind during an accident as he was being backed up, with his name actually being L.E.O.N (Linkage-artificial Electronic-turbo Over-rapid Network-intelligence).

Appearance
Leon wears graphite hooded jacket over a white t-shirt with his Meta Runner symbol at the back, black jean, dark brown belt, dark grey fingerless glove on his left hand, red socks and grey, blue and white boots. He has brown hair and crimson eyes.

His Meta Runner arm is on his left.

his hooded jacket has fire symbol on the back.

During his time as eXceed Corp. representative, his outfit switches to navy jacket over a crimson t-shirt, black belt, blue jeans and dark blue boots with laces.

Starting from Lockdown, once again, he wear his graphite hoodie over his eXceed Corp. uniform and leave Navy Jacket on the road.

Personality
He is kind, cheerful, calm, gentle, brave and intelligent boy, who really like video games, shown a pacifist, very skilled with Submachine Gun Steyr TMP and he willing to swing into action.

During his time in eXceed Corp., he is shown to have become more mature and "cooler" as stated by Tori due to learning from Paul, as well as more reckless and passive-aggressive as he taunts Emma to distract her during their fight in the corrupted version of Ultra Jump Mania.

Leon himself said that the fragment of Celestine's mind that merged with him is what made him "human" so it can be presumed that his sweet yet reluctant nature is actually due to her being a fragment of Celestine's personality (despite Celestine not sharing the same personality as Leon), being due to Celestine's mind mixing with a program.

History
Leon was originally a highly advanced A.I. program created by Dr. Juniper to get herself recognized in the gaming world, known as the Linkage-artificial Electronic-turbo Over-rapid Network-intelligence program. He was created to complete any videogame presented to him and was meant to be uploaded into a Meta Runner's arm to enhance their gaming performance beyond normal limitations.

The test subject for this project was Celestine Anderson, a Meta Runner at eXceed Corp who was hanging around the science labs for help due to her belief she wasn't relevant anymore compared to the likes of Jaden "Swallow" Lambert, Paul Rebellus, but after an accident, while he was being backed up, a fragment of Celestine's mind was merged with L.E.O.N. to create his current self.

It is unknown what happened after that or how Leon was given a physical body, but he was somehow placed in a medical room located in a back alley of Silica City.

He woke up in a damaged lab and noticing his Meta Runner arm. As he struggles his way outside, Leon experiences flashbacks of his creator, Dr. Juniper, with girl in the lab, before a malfunction caused the explosion.

He arrives outside into Silica City, the video game capital. As he explores the futuristic city, he was approached by citizens who praise his for being a Meta Runner, much to Leon's confusion. He later gets out of the crowd awkwardly, and arrives at the store owned by eXceed Corp..

he then notices the Meta Runner star gamer of said-company, Paul Rebellus, lose a speed run competition of Ninja Master Mania. Leon started playing the game, initially starting off as a mediocre player (which resulted in Paul oppressing him), he becomes better in a matter if seconds. Later, his consciousness got transferred into the game.

He meets the game's main character Tori Hirina, who initially treated like a "yokai" and a "boss". In the end, Leon manages to convince Tori that he's not evil. The pair venture through the game as Leon learns to use his foresight ability to get through obstacles. The two manage to bond overtime.

After defeating a bunch of yokai, the pair was approached Vector in the form of a glitched version of Tori Hirina. He offers Leon an opportunity to become part if his company, until the situation takes a turn as his arm burns in pain, due to the real life scientists placing a tracker in his arm.

Eventually, he glitches himself out of the game, unintentionally bringing Tori into the real world as well. He manages to escape from Vector with the help of Tori using her water elemental power on two guard.

As the pair manage to escape, Leon loses Tori for a brief moment until they hide in an alley. He explains to Tori about how her video game powers can't function in the real world. Their relationship grows even further with Leon saying sorry for slightly yelling at Tori. They decide to take shelter in a Streaming Pod building called The Hive.

Tori plays the game with enjoyment as Leon has more flashbacks concerning Dr. Juniper. When Tori starts her own stream, he immediately interrupts it, only to bump into Paul and some soldiers of eXceed Corp.. Tori used her water elemental power to splat on Paul's face and separates from Leon. He eventually got himself caught while Tori manage to escape.

Leon and Paul have a serious conversation in the van. Leon talks about how it's wrong to be forced into an environment that is flawed, while Paul talks about how he had to do what needed to be done to be adapted into the world where video games are everything. Suddenly, a car crashes into the van, allowing Leon to escape with Tori and with the help of Leo Travis in the car.

The chase ends with Leon using his foresight to evade a barrier of soldiers. They arrive at a curry restaurant, which was secretly the hideout of Hack Breaker, a group of three aiming to take down eXceed Corp., because the latter "destroyed their lives". The group includes the leader, Jaden "Swallow" Lambert, a hacker, Brina Anderson, Cassandra Mizuki and Leo. Swallow was hostile in the idea of recruiting Leon and Tori, so he challenges the him in a game of Speed Turbo Lightning Riders.

As he plays (albeit his consciousness in the game), he learns from Swallow himself in order to get better. The gang later take a rest for the night, bonding over different things. They later realise that Tori is glitching out, so they would need to find his old cartridge considering another copy wouldn't work. Brina reveals a plan called "Operation: Silent Knight". eXceed Corp. would be hosting a gaming competition focusing on the battle royale game Dragon Infinity. Leon would need to execute a glitch in order for Vector' files to be hackable. In the end, they might be able to order Tori's cartridge.

The gang later practice Dragon Infinity Game, as Leon learns certain techniques and skills in-game. At one point, he accidentally, yet humorously, killed Leo's character. The glitch requires his to jump from the top of a cliff and dive through the ground. He fruitlessly practices to the point where most of his friends got bored. Until then, Tori gave him a comment of support that ultimately motivates her to succeed.

On the very big day, Leon and the gang fight successfully through the game, fighting against a gang of other players. When going into the game, Leon saw a brief illusion of Celestine in a void. Leo and Tori got defeated. At the top of the mountain, the furious player reveals himself to be Paul, who also explains the truth of Swallow, who was formerly the commander of the eXceed Corp. Meta Runners. After he was defeated, Paul tortures Leon in-game to get information about Celestine's presumed death, in which he doesn't know. he takes the upper hand and initiates a battle against Paul. They constantly casted spells at each other in order to give a game over for the other. In the end, Leon succeeds in the dive. Under the virtual ground, he sees Celestine again with a burnt arm and a smile on her face.

The glitch started a panic in the building, which prompts the gamers to leave. The gang was later cornered into a room by Vector and his soldiers. They were beaten down with electric shocks from the soldiers and Vector bargained Brina's laptop in exchange for Swallow's life, even going so far as to breaking the latter's robotic arm.

A teary eyed Brina gives in the laptop, and completely breaks down when Paul reveals the her sister's "fate". Leon is further accused of murdering Celestine. Vector then reveals that he hacked into Tori's eyesight to use her as a spy. When he was about to take the gang back to a eXceed Corp. holding cell, Leon offered to work for Vector in exchange for his friends to be free, much to their dismay. Vector makes sure of this by crushing Tori's cartridge and gaining his consciousness as "collateral". As Leon was escorted away by Vector, he hears his worried friends saying that they will not forget him.

For the next six months, Leon was forced to work as a Meta Runner for TAS Corp. Following all of Vector's orders as he was partnered up with another Meta Runner, Emma Skyla under Vector' directions. This angers Emma as she feels all him years of work for Vector is for nothing as he focuses his attention on Leon.

He is given experiments and exhibition matches along with Paul for Vector to examine him and his warping ability. On the ride back to eXceed Corp, Vector crticizes Leon's hesitation and expects his to improve on this before the showmatch in two weeks. After talking to Tori, he is left alone as he promises Swallow, Leo, Cassanra and Brina that he will figure something out.

The next day, Leon is in simulation while practicing for his showmatch in Super Shogun with Emma but is easily beaten by her and notices Paul shouting at Tori on the screen, wondering what is going on but he brushes it off.

Later, as Emma insults Leon for having the "charisma of a malfunctioning Bot-Boy", she bumps into a eXceed-Corp employee playing a game called Enchanted Moonlight, an anime dating simulator. As Emma criticizes the employee for being an otaku, Leon gets an idea.

Leon sneaks into Emma's room (and is greatly disgusted by the decorations) to get the game that Emma took from the employee. He gets caught by Emma, but is soon rescued by Paul, who pretends he "caught" Leon. Knowing very well that Leon was trying to contact Hack Breaker, He tells Leon that no one would care "because it's just a dating sim" before warning Leon not to get busted.

Leon warps into Enchanted Moonlight and meets Kotona Aihara, who introduces her to the game. Unable to guess Leo's screen name, Leon leaves his classroom and tries and fails to find Leo's class on his own. He then remembers that Leo was obsessed with an anime girl named Zoe-Chan and asks Kotona-Chan to summon her, but soon learns that he has to fill her relationship meter by taking her on dates first before he can get help.

After painstakingly filling the relationship meter (and breaking Zoe-Chan's heart afterwards), Leon finally gets Leo's screen name and is able to contact Hack Breaker. They introduce him a new member of Hack Breaker is Noah Declan, while talking with them about their next move, Leon is abruptly pulled out of the game by Paul, who had just obtained a copy of footage proving that Vector knew what happened to Celestine the whole time. After apologizing to Leon for believing that he killed Celestine, he sends him back into the game to convince the rest of Hack Breaker to let him join the plan. Although reluctant at first, the team agrees to let Paul in.

At the announcements right before the showmatch, Leon gets the signal from Brina and Noah and proceeds with the plan. After thanking "all of her friends" over the mic (he was really addressing to Hack Breaker, not the crowd) he "clumsily" trips over a wire, causing a power outage. Leo (disguised as a TAS-Corp employee) gets sent to fix the problem, but he instead swaps the Super Shogun cartridge with their own to collect the server data during the match. Afterwards, Brina and Noah turns the power back on, allowing the showmatch to commence.

During the showmatch, Leon attempts to stall Emma from killing the enemy players too quickly so that Hack Breaker would have time to steal eXceed-Corp's server data and rescue Tori, whom Paul was trying to get to beat the game so that Tori can leave it. Unfortunately, Emma catches Leon talking to Swallow and reports the situation to Vector, forcing Hack Breaker to use their backup plan.

While Brina and Noah puts Vector in the spotlight to prevent him from catching Swallow, Cassandra and Leo, The rest attempt to keep either team from winning so that they can continue to steal the server data. Swallow gets eliminated and he prepares for "when it's all over", while Cassandra and Leo stays with Leon.

Emma eliminates the rest of the players until only Leon, Cassandra and Leo are the only ones left standing. Emma tells Leon that she's figured out his power and that Leon's strategies have become predictable. She stuns Leo and Cassandra and makes Leon lose his weapon, making him seemingly defenseless. Just when Emma was about to deal the final blow, a mysterieous magenta glow merges with Leon, causing a sudden increase in skill and Leon quickly eliminates Emma, allowing Brina and Noah to safely finish the data transfer. When Leon gets rescued by Cassandra after Emma tries to stop Leon for ruining her special day, he realizes that Tori didn't make it out of the game, but is forced to leave anyway.

After Leon Escapes eXceed Corp. with Leo and Cassandra, he reunites with Brina. Noah introduce himself to Leon, Leon tells Brina that Swallow and Paul (and Tori) got captured and they cannot release the server because Vector will delete Tori if they do. Leon makes a decision to get her friends back, in an "All or Nothing" play. Brina then remembers that she brought Leon a new hoodie that looks exactly like his old one.

When Vector tries to wipe the data of the server from the Super Shogun cartridge, it turns out it wasn't the same one as the one Hack Breaker used to copy the data. Leon had warped into the cartridge and jumped into the server as soon as Vector tried to scan it. He lands in the glitched "crazy nightmare" version of Ninja Master Mania and quickly saves Tori from some monsters, causing Tori to ask when Leon became "cool" before they faced the quarantine drones and fought them off thanks to Leoni's newfound knowledge of the game's exploits which she learned from Paul.

The two proceed to make their way through the game, discovering new exploits along the way, when they spot the final flag in the distance. Unfortunately, Vector had given Emma access to the game in an attempt to prevent Leon from beating the game, having her appear in the form of a glitched monster made of all the characters in the game. Leon quickly discovers that Emma enabled an infinite lives cheat, making her unbeatable. Down to their last lives, Leon comes up with a plan and shares it with Tori.

Leon distracts Emma by facing her one-on-one. When Emma finally catches Leon, he drops the Ninjatō as he was using to fight Emma into the ground below "on accident" and gives Tori the signal. Tori is revealed to have been setting up a " Water Trumpet Jump" glitch and launched himself towards Emma. She throws her katana and "misses", only to reveal that she was performing another glitch with Leon's drop Ninjatō, trapping it in an infinite spin and dealt continuous damage, overloading Emma's arm due to her struggle to keep her balance. Tori reaches the flag, beating the game and resetting the cache.

After Leon sent Tori out of the game, he finally gets a chance to properly meet Celestine, who was revealed to be the magenta glow from earlier, "in person". Leon asks Celestine if he knew "what" he was, so Celestine told her everything she knew.

Leon woke up in Leo's car where her physical body was hiding the whole time. Glad to know that Tori was safe, he told Leo to move on to "Phase 2", which turned out to be the same tactic that Leo had used to save Leon in Season 1: crashing into eXceed-Corp's van. It works, but the recoil was strong and Leo comments that eXceed-Corp must have upgraded their vans after what happened last time before passing out.

Vector angrily threatens Leon, Cassandra, that he'll shoot Swallow if he didn't surrender the cartridge, but it was too late, the data was already released. When Swallow tells Vector that he's going to jail for being responsible for Celestine's death, Vector simply laughs and explains that Celestine wasn't dead, but they couldn't wake her up. Vector correctly theorized that her consciousness had been stolen by Juniper's A.I. program during the explosion. When Paul asks why Vector hadn't found the "A.I." yet, he reveals that he had, it was Leon the whole time.

Leon explains that while he was in the server, he learned that when the explosion occurred, Celestine's mind was fragmented; most of it ended up in the server while the rest got absorbed into the A.I., which eventually led to the creation of Leon's current self. He's still unsure how he got his body, but Leon explains that he thinks that he can still revive Celestine, she just needs to return the fragments of Celestine's consciousness to Celestine's body. Despite Leon's true nature as an A.I. program, his friends still accept his despite what he used to be.

Swallow's still fed up with Vector and waits for him to screw up, but Leon and friends manage to convince Swallow to put the gun down. Unfortunately, Swallow's arm malfunctions and points the gun back at Vector, causing Vector to confirm his thoughts about "the one behind it" before he's shot dead. Seeing how traumatized Swallow was, Leon tries to help him, but Leo tells Leon that they can't help him if they're all in jail, but Paul decides to stay behind to help Swallow while everyone else flees the murder scene. Just when the rest of Hack Breaker thought they were cornered, Blaze shows up and offers them a ride.

Goal

 * To find out his real identity (succeeded)
 * To take down eXceed-Corp (succeeded)
 * To revive Celestine

Relative

 * Dr. Juniper (creator)
 * Celestine Anderson (human side)

Like

 * Video games

Dislike

 * Tori wander off
 * His friends in danger
 * Vector

Trivia

 * He is Yusakupham7's first Meta Runner OC

Quotes

 * Who am I and why can't I remember anything?