When the sparkles finally faded away, Alibaba smirked, very happy with his work. He had kept things appropriate, playing with Leon's very name. In front of the genie now stood a lion. The king of beasts. Of sorts. Because in truth, lions were more of a macho man's wet dream. They slept all day, just sat on their butts and just looked impressive once in a while. In the meantime, the females did all the work, hunting and taking care of the babies. Alibaba loved to play with mortals and his pangs of guilt never lasted long. After all, tricking humans with their own wishes and desires was poetic and above all entertaining. True, Alibaba sometimes rewarded a good soul and stopped pretending to have not understood a wish. He wasn't overly cruel. He just claimed to have followed a strict wording when in truth he could not be so completely stupid. This transformation was just a demonstration of his power to a foolish young mortal. These humans!... Always demanding proof and so disbelieving!... It wasn't like this in olden days. Back then, no one needed proof of him being a powerful genie. His mere appearance, presence, and his coming out of his lamp were proof enough! The respect of mortals for genies was really going down the drain. Luckily, he was there to place back respect were it was owed. To him, mainly.
As for Leon, he was looking at himself all over, taking in his new appearance. New appearance which was going to leave him with quite a few surprises, and not all of them good...