fandomhigh | The Elements of Friendship, Thursday, Period 1

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friendship

The Elements of Friendship, Thursday, Period 1

Pinkie awaited the class in the Danger Shop once again, but this time, instead of Sugarcube Corner, the class would find themselves in a clearing on the side of a mountain in a dark and spooky woods. Pinkie waited for the class to gather along the narrow, grassy ledge, pointing out rocks and sticks to anyone not minding their steps. When it seemed as though everyone had arrived, she began.

"Hi everypony! I'm so glad to see you all back for another week to learn about friendship!" She started to pace back and forth in front of the class, giving little hops over the rougher patches of the ground. "The most important thing to remember about friendship is that it's not always going to be made up of parties and cupcakes." Yes, Pinkie had totally just said that. Even she was a bit surprised. "Sometimes, it's about facing your fears and helping each other through tight spots. That's why today we're going to go on an adventure here in the . . . Everfree Forest!"

A bolt of lightning flashed obligingly across the sky behind the students.

"The Everfree Forest is a forest on the very edge of Ponyville where everypony fears to tread. It's a dark, wild place, where animals run free and have to live out their lives all alone without anypony to help them make their nests or wake them up when winter's over or even control the weather! You never know what's going to happen in the Everfree Forest, or what kinds of spooky, creepy creatures you might encounter!" Pinkie shivered, clearly spooked out by her own lecture. "But don't worry, because none of you have to face it alone! You have all your friends here to help you! So find at least one friend and get ready. You're all going to travel through the forest to the ruins of the old castle, where a special surprise is waiting for you. Don't worry, you can't get hurt in here. But if anypony gets left behind, then nopony gets a gold star! Good luck!"

And Pinkie bounced firmly backward away from the students, just in time to avoid the sudden collapse of the cliff they were standing on.

Time to team up and see just what horrors Equestria had to offer.

[ooc: OCD is up! And I only paused to watch one PMV before finishing it!]

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Like your teacher just dumped you down a cliff!

Talk amongst yourselves, admire the spooky forest, wonder about the fact that the teacher is seriously creeped out by the concept of no one being in charge of the weather.

Where nature reigns supreme!

It's not a sheer drop, but it is pretty steep. Grab onto each other, grab for roots, learn to fly -- remember, if anyone gets stuck here, no one gets their gold star for the day!

At the bottom, you'll find a deep, gloopy mud puddle . . . and a path deeper into the forest. Form your alliances well. This might get bumpy.

As you're walking along the path, doing your path walking thing, you suddenly hear a ferocious roar from up ahead! A shadow looms up out from between two boulders, a hulking thing with wild hair, spectacular wings, and sharp, pointy claws. It's a manticore, and holy wow, does he look really really grumpy!

You've made it past the manticore, but as you continue on, it seems the forest just gets darker and gloomier. Soon, it's becoming hard to see where you're going at all. Who knows what you'll step in or stumble upon.

Like, say, those evil faced glowing trees that now surround you with leering, gaping mouths full of sharp, pointy teeth. Betcha weren't expecting those.

Once you're past the trees, it looks like things might be smooth sailing. Why, you can make out the ruins of the old castle from here! You just have to make it past the raging, rapid-filled river before you can get there.

Why is the river so high and rough? Well, there's a huge purple sea serpent with a faaaaaaaabulous flowing mane in the river, and he's bawling his eyes out.

You might need to take care of that before you can go any further.

You made it! There's Pinkie, in the old throne room, waiting for your arrival. She's wearing an odd little golden necklace with a little balloon gem in the center, and looking damn pleased with herself.

"Congrats!" she said. "You guys made it! What you faced out there were just a few of the obstacles my friends and I had to tackle when we journeyed into the Everfree Forest to retrieve the Elements of Harmony and save our world from eternal night. The six elements are honesty, loyalty, kindness, generosity, laughter, and magic, and with them, you can do anything. And you know what ties all those elements together? Friendship! Because friendship is the greatest, most powerfullest source of magic there is!"

She flung her hoofs into the air happily, then dropped back down to all fours.

"Now, have a cupcake! They have gold stars on them!"

She's around if you get into a jam, and of course she's available before and after your Everfree Forest adventure.

When they ping in, of course! They will hopefully also be around if you get yourself stuck.

No one wants to be deprived of their gold star, right?

I think I finally managed to use all my serious-faced Pinkie icons, today.

Also: Pinkie Pie is not well.

Chuck Bartowski

Chuck was... malcoordinated at the best of times. When the floor fell out under him he had a tendency towards panic and the grabbing at anything and everything. Rocks, roots, people.

If it turned out you were one of those people he was really sorry. Or would be once this was over.

Miley Ray Stewart

Miley was around. And alternating between amusement and alarm.

Every time a new obstacle was presented, people could hear her muttering "Oh, mud crunkies" under her breath.

"Teacher with a tail say what?"

And then the cliff went out and Miley screamed like a banshee.

Upon coming to solid ground, she glanced at her new boots and huffed in frustration. THEY WERE RUINED FOREVER.

Aaaaand Miley was immediately looking for someone who knew what to do in this situation, because she sure as heck did not.

"Uh," she said, backing away. "Uh. Anyone got an idea on how to field this?"

A cupcake! A cupcake with a star on it!

Yes. This class was turning out quite nicely, Miley decided, biting into her cupcake. She got frosting on her nose and totally failed to notice.

Squall Leonhart

Squall looked around, a little confused. It just seemed like a normal forest, to him.

That did NOT make Squall happy. Falling was annoying enough without some random person grabbing his arm, especially when it prevented him from reaching the root he'd been grabbing for.

There wasn't exactly time to argue about it, though. He tried to cast a Float* at Chuck and braced himself against the cliff as best as he could. "HANG ON!"

(* Causes you to inexplicably hover about a foot off the ground. Makes you immune to earthquakes and more vulnerable to wind, and doesn't really do much else. Feel free to mod it however you want, or decide it didn't take hold.)

Annie Edison

Jeremy Darling

Okay that? Chuck was not expecting. You'll have to excuse his girly squalk. It wasn't that floating was a bad thing, it was just that flail tendency kicking in again.

"Hanging, I'm hanging," he assured Squall. Still pitched way higher than a teenage boy should be proud of.

Squall managed to get enough purchase on the rock face, and their downward motion stopped. He clung there for a moment and looked around, trying to see if there was anything he could do for the rest of the class. "Hang less uselessly," he clarified.

Great. He was stuck being the hero, again.

"Yeah," Squall answered. "I do." It had teeth and claws; therefore he would kill it. He hadn't brought his gunblade to class, but he was decent enough at hand-to-hand, and he had spells at the ready. He stepped forward and glared at the beast, daring it to attack.

And then he remembered which class he was in, and gave an annoyed sigh. "...Do you want to be friends?" he asked grumpily.

Juliet Darling

But -- but -- that was no help at all!

"...You sure that's gonna work?" Miley hissed. "It looks mad."

Thank you, Miley, for that gem of knowledge.

Juliet was around and a bit horrified. She wasn't dressed for forest adventuring, and her slacks were positively ruined before she even dealt with anything but the cliff.

Less uselessly. Right. It was embarassing that Chuck actually needed to be told that, wasn't it?

It did inspire him to grapple with his own cliff holds rather than just cling at Squall, which was probably appreciated, and he calmed enough to offer a, "Sorry, I'm really sorry. I don't like heights." At least, not the kind that involved sliding downwards uncontrolled. The knowledge he couldn't get hurt in a class simulation didn't change that feeling.

Squall shrugged. "Of course not -- I'm going to kill it if it attacks. But Professor Pie seems like the kind of person who doesn't like violence."

Squall shrugged as well as he could. "I noticed." Most people didn't like heights -- it was perfectly natural. "Just stick with me. Can you climb down on your own?"

Well, Miley didn't like violence either, but she also did not like the possibility of being dead. It was a conflict.

"Okay." She nodded, and finally reluctantly looked up at the enormous monster thing. "Hey, I'm Miley. Want to, uh, be friends?"

Dana Scully

The manticore let out another horrifying growl -- though this one seemed far more whimpery than the one previously. There was something sticking out of one of its paws.

Okay. Scully had been through similar. Far too many times. She glared at the trees, and looked around for someone to walk with.

Jason Todd

Bobby Drake

Okay, the easy thing to do would have been use his powers to raise an ice-column up from the mud to catch him before he had time to really pick up speed, but a) he was still clinging to the notion that people didn't know he had powers and was doing his best to keep it that way and 2) he didn't even know if Danger Shop mud would contain anything he could work with. So he let himself fall into the mud, all the while thinking something along the lines of "asdlgjasdgjasdga WHY ISN'T WARREN IN THIS CLASS WITH ME?"

[ooc: shall be around in between & after rl classes, but in a SPish manner until evening.]

They probably heard Annie's scream outside the Danger Shop.

She wasn't the most coordinated of people, so while she was able to grab onto the occasional projectile and all, she'd still end up falling down. And getting covered in mud on one side.

Spock

Squall rolled his eyes and pointed at the paw. "See?" he told Miley. "Splinter. We're being attacked by a cliché."

Nico di Angelo

Rilla Blythe

"Awww!" she squealed, rushing forward. She opened her purse and presented a pair of tweezers she kept for emergencies, then bent to remove the splinter from the manticore's paw.

She could be resourceful! Sometimes! Okay, rarely.

The manticore let out a squawk -- then blinked in pleased surprise when the splinter was removed. It started purring.

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The Elements of Friendship, Thursday, Period 1

Sign in [9/8]

During the lecture [9/8]

In the Everfree Forest [9/8]

Fall down the cliff!

Manticore!

Spooky trees of doom!

The sea dragon

The ruins of the old castle

Talk to Pinkie [9/8]

Talk to your TAs

OOC

Re: Sign in [9/8]

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Re: Manticore!

Re: Sign in [9/8]

Re: Manticore!

Re: Talk to your TAs

Re: Fall down the cliff!

Re: Manticore!

Re: Fall down the cliff!

Re: Manticore!

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Re: Spooky trees of doom!

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