Finally. It was ticking away. The final hour of the presentation. Rainbow Dash could taste the sweat freedom outside the school doors. Just sixty minutes held her back, luckily though, she had vowed to herself that after the last slip up she would not be the laughing stock of the class the rest of the day. So far she was doing good. Atlas hadn't really been asking questions, but when he did, Dash felt like she won the lottery when he didn't point to her.
Though the class had drudge through most of the book already, Twilight still smiling, everyone wondered what as going on, when Atlas closed his book. He set the book aside after ending another chapter, then walked out of the classroom. Everyone sat in silence for a minute. Just wondering what he was doing.
"Psst, Twilight." Dash whispered keeping the silence. "Is the class over or something? Can we go now?"
"I don't know. The presentation was supposed to last another hour...I thought." Twilight looked to another table, and asked if they knew what he was doing. It seemed that know one knew what was going on, soon though came a squeak that gradually grew louder outside the door. They could all hear something rolling closer and closer, finally Atlas opened the door and re rolled in a plastic cart.
"Okay class, gather around this cart please." He positioned it in the center of the room, and everyone made their way over. As Twilight and Dash made their way over, they could smell something weird on the cart. There was a wooden palate with something covered under a rag. Beside it were a few small sets of scissors, some scalpels, and a small pair of tweezers. He makes sure everyone is around before opening his mouth to continue.
"What stinks?" Dash asked with a hoof on her nose. Only a few ponies looked at her, not for being dumb, just for interrupting Atlas.
"Good question Miss Dash, allow me to show you. For the past few hours we've been going over Biology from the basics to the more detailed, but we've only talked about it. Now, I've decided it's time you all actually see what all of this is like under the skin." He pulls back the towel covering the wooden palate, and there was a stretched out, dead Bull frog. The stinky smell was released into the air and everyone was gawking at the dead amphibian.
Rainbow Dash bumped Twilight with her elbow and whispered. "Fluttershy would hate Atlas for this."
"Now before I continue," Atlas's eyes looked at all the students. "If you do not which to watch the dissection, I completely understand. If you wish to leave, I would rather you leave then pass out and fall and bang your head on the hard floor. This is also the rest of the lecture, so if you wish to leave for the day that's fine too, so think of this more as a little extra lesson." He looked around to see if anyone would leave. Which two ponies did, and he told them good bye.
Twilight glanced over at her friend who had sit through the whole thing, and she new Dash didn't truly want to stay longer then she wanted. Since she had stayed the three hours of lecture, the unicorn decided to let the Pegasus leave if she wanted to. Before she could give her a nudge to the door, Atlas spoke up.
"Miss Dash, since you decided to stay, would you mind helping me with this?" He asked.
"Uh..." She scratched the back of her head.
"Come on, it's very simple. I'll walk you through it." He stepped aside so there was a spot for her. Slowly she walked over and stood beside Atlas facing the frog. He held up a scalpel to her. "I want you to take this and make a cut from both of the frogs shoulders to the center of his chest in diagonal cuts. Down here from both sides of his lower stomach to the middle of his stomach, also in diagonal cuts, and then make a long cut from the point where the top two cuts meet, to the point where the bottom two meet. Okay?"
"Uh...alright?" She looks between the frog and knife to try and figure out a way to make the cuts. She puts the knife in both of her hooves, and puts her front elbows on the table. She moves them a bit and decides that this would work. She lowers the knife to the first corner and presses it in. It made a squishy sound and felt a bit rubbery to Dash.
"Try not to push to hard. Now, do a sawing motion to the center of the chest." Which she slowly did making more squishing sounds with each push down. It was the same for the other three corner cuts, rubber, occasional resistance from something, and many strange sounds. "Now make the final cut, only use the tip so you don't damage any organs." She pressed the knife into the first point until only a fraction of it was in. Dash pulled the knife down making a perfect cut to the second point, she drew the knife, set it down, and waited.
"Now that the cuts have been made, we can get to the nitty gritty bits. " He slowly and methodically pulls back the rubbery skin of the frog, showing off all that was underneath. Every bit of organ, muscle, fat, vein, and blood was on display for the entire class. To make sure they could all see he lifted it up and held it out to all the students.
"Now as you can see, Miss Dash has done an excellent set of cuts and we now have access to the entire anatomy. So now what we will do, Miss Dash if you'd like to assist me a bit more, we are going to remove a few key parts. So we'll...oh..." He is looking into the frog's open chest. "Oops, Miss Dash it seems you've punctured the little fella's heart. You can just see the tiniest trickle of fluids flowing down onto the stomach and lungs."
A heavy dropping sound yanked everyone's attention. They looked over and on the opposite side of the operating table was the purple pony company Rainbow had tagged along with had fainted. On her back, hooves in the air above her, and the only thing missing was three little yellow birds circling her head.
***
After what seemed to Twilight like only a few seconds, she opened her eyes slowly to see Atlas and Rainbow Dash with no one else in the class. Her head hurt a bit, she was sitting against a nearby wall, and her vision was a bit blurry.
"Hey, Twilight, are you alright?" Rainbow said with a slight echo to the unicorn.
"What happened?" The purple pony groaned.
"You fainted my dear Twilight. Right after we opened up the frog with Dash's precision cuts." The professor complimented.
"How long have I been out?" Twilight tried to stand up with help from both of them.
"About an hour. Everyone left class about ten minutes ago."
"Really? Oh I'm so sorry Professor. That hasn't happened to me before..." Twilight had a hoof rubbing the back of her head as she apologized.
"It's alright my dear, sometimes ponies just can't handle the inner workings, but think they can. However if I may ask, you did enjoy the presentation, yes?"
"Oh definitely. I've been waiting to see this one for a while. Even if I did miss the final portion." Twilight 's cheeks turned a bit red of embarrassment.
"I'm glad to hear, and I understand completely. Will I have the honor of seeing you again at the next presentation in Stalliongrad?"
"Absolutely."
"And, will Miss Dash be joining you for that one as well?" He looked to the Pegasus. It came as quite a surprise when she heard Rainbow say "Yeah, I'll be there." Maybe her fainting caused her hearing to be off.
"Well I look forward to it. I don't mean to kick you out abruptly, but since you are feeling better though I think it is time for you both to get going back to Ponyville, Rainbow said you have a bit of a train schedule."
"Oh right, thank you so much Professor Atlas. Thank you for your time." The two shake hooves.
"My pleasure Twilight Sparkle. The unicorn walked, slightly with a wobble, towards the main door. Rainbow Dash stepped up to say her thanks. "Miss Dash, I need to thank you."
"Why?"
"Because that was the best class I've ever had. I have never had such laugh filled lecture before. I'm sorry it caused you some embarrassment Miss Dash but I thank you still for making a lecture in biology even more enjoyable."
"So...you're thanking me for embarrassing myself?"
"In a sense, but I do mean it. Thank you Miss Rainbow Dash." He holds a hoof up, though not as a hoofshake. She laughs a bit at the strange compliment and returns the hoof bump.
"Anytime doc." She trots after Twilight and the two leave him alone in the class. He watches the door close for a second, with a smile of success, and picks up his things ready to go home."
"So what did I miss Rainbow?"
"Well a couple ponies, and myself, made sure you were okay. Then we went on with the whole frog thing."
"Really? Was I the only one who fainted?"
"Yeah," They burst through the doors they came in and headed towards the train station. "He had me do everything. It was pretty cool actually, I was really into it."
"Well that's good."
"I got nervous a few times. Like when I cut out it's stomach thingy, well, I pinched it a little too hard, and there was some yellow stuff inside it that shot out one of the tube things and hit one of the ponies there. She was freaking out and it was funny, she was holding her nose and kept saying "It went up my nose, it went up my nose!" so me and Atlas-"
A new sound made Rainbow stop talking immediately. It was a sound that could not be confused with anything else. She turned her head around slowly, and sure enough Twilight's head was shoved into a trash can near a bench with two ponies on it, who stood and quickly walked away from the unicorn. Rainbow Dash decided to to tell Twilight more of the details the rest of the way, they finally made it back to the train, and the now green faced unicorn was slightly thankful because she didn't get road sick easily.