Special Case
Diana stretched her muscles under the shining rays of the sun, giving the backyard of the school one quick look to make sure that everything was in place for her final class. A faint hoot told her that they were on their way, and she knelt down to collect numerous papers from a duffle bag that rested at her feet. She stood up and glanced behind her to see her final class of the day walking towards her, being led by Athena.
"Greetings, class. Glad to see that you're all getting a little more used to listening to Athena," Diana said with a small chuckle as she held out her arm for the owl, who landed upon it and immediately fell asleep. A few giggles turned Diana's attention away from the owl and she caught some of the students giggling to themselves. "Is there something amusing?"
"Just...what you're wearing," one of the students said with a laugh that had failed to be contained. Diana glanced down at her sweat pants and workout clothes with confusion on her face, while other students began to chuckle as well. "Is this not the garb that one wears for outdoor activities?"
"Not since maybe the seventies," Crystal said with a laugh before realization dawned on her. "Wait a moment, outdoor activities? Just what do you mean by that?"
"I mean that today all of you are going to be doing a little outside work," she said. A smile crossed Diana's face when she saw the students' mirth at her outfit vanish and be replaced with groans (by most of them). "Since we have the field trip coming up next week, I wanted to make the most of the classes that we will be having this week. So I'm going to be testing you on what you've learned about gods. Athena, if you wouldn't mind?"
Athena grabbed hold of half of the papers that Diana was offering to her and aided the teacher in passing them out to the students, who gazed over the papers with either excitement or annoyance at what was written upon them. "Can anyone here tell me what this paper is?"
"It's a scavenger hunt!" Sunset said with delight in her voice.
"Correct, Sunset. Today all of you are going to be breaking up into teams of four and going on a little scavenger hunt," Diana began to explain to her students while Athena flew off to a nearby tree. "Around the school I have hidden items that relate to the Greek Pantheon, be they their symbols or weapons. Can anyone tell me how many members are in the Greek Pantheon?"
"Twelve!" Twilight called out without a moment's delay.
"Yes Twilight, according to your books there are twelve gods," Diana agreed before holding up the paper. "On here are clues and hints that will lead you to the items or animals." Diana couldn't help but smile at how the word animals made Fluttershy's face light up. "Working with your team and the tasks to claim the items will be easy. We go until all the items have been collected."
"Or until class is over," Crystal remarked, but the smile that crossed Diana's face knocked the smile off of her face.
"No, until they are all collected. I have permission from Luna to keep you here until I see fit, not until the bell has rung. However, those with special obligations may of course leave if they clear it with me. However, you will be glad to know that every other class found the items with time to spare. I am not cruel."
"When did you have time to do all of this?" Flash asked Diana from the back.
"I work quick."
"No, I mean when does a teacher have time to do anything besides grade papers and teach?" he said with a shrug, getting the class to laugh at his joke. "I also think they sleep under the desks in coffins." Diana frowned at his words, but chose to ignore them as she waved a hand to the students to silence them.
"Break up into teams and start to look around. The back of the papers have a checklist for those of you with poor management skills," Diana told them as they got into their teams. She wasn't surprised at all to see that Sunset, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy and Twilight were one group, while the rest sorted themselves out as best they could. "I will be grading you not only on what items you bring to me, but also how you deduced what items belong to which god. Because it may be possible that I left a few decoys out there as well."
"You did all that in-between classes?! You must be crazy."
"Detention, Sentry."
"What?! Why?"
"Because I'm crazy."
Diana stepped to the side as groups of students ran past her, each of them already singling out specific gods or areas in which they believed the items to be. Diana was glad to see that most of them were smiling as they ran by her, including Twilight's group, but to her surprise Sunset walked up to the teacher and held out the paper to her.
"Just a quick question. I couldn't help but notice with the list of the twelve gods, that there's half a blank space at the bottom of the page," she pointed out to Diana, who glanced at the paper to indeed see that there was a spot for another god that had been cut off by page restriction. "I was just wondering if that was an accident or if there's a thirteenth god."
"You heard what Twilight said, Sunset. According to the book, there are twelve gods in the pantheon," Diana replied. Sunset's eyes narrowed slightly at Diana's response before she walked off to join her friends, muttering under her breath about the gods.
''They look to be having fun," Athena said as she floated down onto Diana's shoulder.
"Indeed they do. And they already seem to be going faster than the other class," she said as she spied numerous students heading towards a lake Diana had found near the trees. "But I'm curious to see if any of them will do what the other classes I teach failed to do," she said as she sat down and kept an eye on all her students, wondering if any of them would impress her.
-wWw-
"Ugh, I can't believe that we're out here on such a hot day digging around the place looking for trinkets!" Crystal said with a sigh of frustration when she and her team of three walked across the back of the school with the trident of Poseidon resting on her shoulders. "Studying is boring enough, but add physical labor on top of it and it becomes unbearable."
"I fail to see why you're complaining. We're winning," Agatha reminded her teammate from underneath a helmet with ram horns upon it. "Besides, I like learning about these gods. Couldn't you imagine what it would be like to possess all that power and make the mortals around you squirm simply by looking at them funny?"
"No, because I'm not a psychopath like you," Crystal snarled as she gazed over her shoulder at Boulder, who was smiling at his reflection in a disc shaped like the sun. "Boulder, why are you staring at yourself? You're not a pretty sight, trust me. Make yourself useful and go find another of these artifacts."
"And what will you do?"
"I'm going to take a well-deserved rest," Crystal said as she impaled the tips of the trident into the ground before sitting under a tree, sighing while she shielded her eyes from the sun. Agatha sat down under another tree, pulling out a book and starting to read. Crystal's eyes narrowed into slits when she spied Sunset's group across the field from them. "So, those are some of the students that Cinch wants us to keep an eye on, huh? Don't see why, they don't look so special."
"According to the rumors, those students are magical in some way," Agatha said as she gazed up from her book. "Apparently that's how they were able to tie us in the last Friendship Games."
"I heard about that. Of course, the only way this joke of a school could win is if they used magic," Crystal snarled to herself before she glanced around her. "Where did Boulder get to?"
"Probably to do what you told him to. For someone who isn't a psycho, you sure seem to enjoy bossing others around."
"What can I say, I was born for the role," Crystal smiled as she closed her eyes and began to rest. Agatha rolled her eyes and tried to get back into her book, but then she glanced up in time to see something interesting. "Well, that's unusual."
Crystal cracked open her eyes to see what the fuss was about. She sat up with interest though, when she spied Sunset and her group glancing around suspiciously before they began to walk very quickly away from where the students were. "Now what are those four up to?"
"Seems they're trying to sneak out of class."
Crystal narrowed her eyes at those words before a devious smile crossed her face and she gazed at Agatha with a sinister look in her eyes. "Well, we can't have that, can we. Students shouldn't be sneaking off during class. We'll have to inform the teacher about this."
"Do we have to? I just got comfortable."
"Of course we have to! This way we can get back at them a little for the Games!" Crystal said as she grabbed Agatha and pulled her to her feet, dragging her across the yard to where Diana was still sitting.
"Three items? Your group is doing pretty well for itself," Diana observed as the two drew closer.
"Thank you, Diana, but we've got something urgent to tell you," Crystal began. "See, we were trying to discern the location of one of the items when we spied Sunset's group...leaving the school grounds." She pointed in the direction of Sunset's group as she said this, getting Diana to glance over to see that indeed the four students were trying to sneak out.
"I do not know why they would want to be leaving the grounds, but a teacher cannot let students just walk out of class, can they?" Crystal asked as Diana rose to her feet.
"Sunset Shimmer." despite being nearly a full field away from their teacher, Sunset heard the words from Diana almost as if the teacher had been standing next to her. Very slowly, the girl and her friends turned around to see Diana glaring right at them, motioning with her index finger for them to join her. The students slowly walked over to Diana doing their best to hide their guilt, with some having better success than others.
"Crystal here tells me that you and your friends were trying to leave class. Is this true?"
"Yes," Sunset blurted out before holding both hands to her mouth with shock. Her friends gave her a quick look as Diana's eyes narrowed, pretending not to hear Crystal snicker as she asked her next question.
"Would you care to tell me why you are trying to sneak out of my class, despite your group only having two items?" Diana asked with a neutral tone.
"Because there's a mon-" Sunset began, but in a flash Rainbow Dash had covered Sunset's mouth with both of her hands before giving Diana a small laugh.
"That Sunset's a real kidder. We, um, we..."
"There's something urgent that we need to take care of," Twilight said when Rainbow faltered, all three of her friends agreeing with her at once.
"Something urgent that requires all of you. Care to tell me what could be so urgent that you felt you needed to sneak out of class?" Diana asked them with a raised eyebrow. The girls all shared similar looks of concern for a brief moment before Twilight took a tiny step forward.
"We...actually...can't say," Twilight replied meekly. Diana's eyebrow went even higher as Crystal snickered from behind her. For a moment, Diana just gazed down at the four girls that were smiling nervously at her, before she let out a small sigh and waved to them.
"Very well. Go deal with whatever is so urgent," Diana said, getting all sets of jaws to drop in surprise. "Just know that if you leave now, then your team won't win the hunt." The four nodded to her with dumbfounded expressions before racing off, Diana watching them go with a hidden smile.
"That's it?! No punishment, no scolding, no...nothing?!" Crystal asked with sheer bafflement in her voice.
"As I said, those with previous obligations may leave if they clear it with me," Diana said as she then looked down at Crystal. "And shouldn't you be getting back to the scavenger hunt? Another team just found their fourth item."
-wWw-
"Come in," Diana replied after hearing a knock at her door, looking up from her desk to see Sunset poke her head in with a small smile on her face. "Hello, Sunset. I hope that you and your friends took care of whatever was so urgent," Diana greeted as she glanced back down at her papers.
"We did, actually...thank you for letting us take care of it."
"We all have urgent matters that can spring up on us when we least expect it," Diana wisely said before gazing over the top of her glasses at Sunset. "I just wish that you would trust me enough to tell me what the urgent matter was. Perhaps I could have aided you?"
"Thank you, but we handled it." Sunset then sat down in front of the desk and reached into her backpack, pulling out a picture and placing it on the desk in front of Diana. "It's a fireplace, one that I found when I searched the schoolyard after our...problem."
"Yes, it does seem to be that. Why are you showing it to me?" Diana asked, but a coy smile spread across Sunset's face that made Diana smile in reply.
"The book does say that there are twelve gods in the pantheon. But in class I remember you saying that you didn't like to follow the book. Just how I also remember the myth you told us, about how it was decided which gods would be a part of the twelve. And how to avoid conflict, Hestia chose to allow Dionysus to have her seat instead."
"And what does this have to do with the fireplace?"
"Because a fireplace, or hearth, is the symbol of Hestia. The thirteenth member of the pantheon that gave up her title," Sunset replied with a smile that made Diana believe she was looking at a small sun. "And that's why there was a thirteen spot that was cut in half. Technically, she was a part of it."
"Very clever, Sunset. A+."
Sunset then stood up and began to walk towards the door, but as she reached it she glanced back at Diana with a sad look upon her face. "Diana, I am really sorry that I had to cut class today. Truth is I really like you as a teacher. You're far different from the other ones and seem to really enjoy teaching us, even when some of us don't even care to be here. Not to mention what you did to help me with my nightmare problem...I wish that I could tell you everything, but I can't."
"It is fine Sunset, I can respect your need for privacy," Diana said with a comforting smile. "But I also want you to know that I am proud of what you have done this semester. You are quick-witted, have a curious mind, and seem to be the only one who picks up on these little problems I like to give out. You are one of a kind, Sunset, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise."
"Thanks, Diana. I guess then I'll see you on Monday for the field trip," Sunset said with a wave as she began to exit.
"Sunset." Sunset glanced back around at Diana, who now wore a look upon her face that made Sunset widen her eyes in surprise. "During the field trip on Monday, I want you to stick close to me. Can you promise me that you will do that?"
"Um, sure Diana. I'll do my best." Diana then nodded to Sunset and the girl left the room, leaving Diana to cross her fingers and practically stare a hole through the wall across from her.
"Care to tell me what that was about?"
"I have a feeling, Athena. A very bad feeling."
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Wow, that was a great lesson! There is more then 12 Greek gods, it was just the 12 big ones. Thank you Percy Jackson!
Hmm, a mention of Hestia eh? Possible foreshadowing?
Oh great...the writer is destroying all my childhood, making all my previous teachers look lame. Diana is the best teacher ever !
7020761 That, or just being fathful to Diana's character.
PS. Personal favorite: Hephaestus, anyone else want to share their's?
7020785 I like nemesis, goddess of revenge
7020785 Hades from "Dresden Files" actually.
7020785 Just from the 13 or all gods? If only the 13, I'd say Athena, though I also have a fable for Artemis.
If we include all gods however, I'm also a fan of Eris and Persephone. Not necessarily a fan of everything they did, but I find them rather intriguing.
Hmm...
7020785
Chaos, aka apophis in egyptian or where everything came from.
Hades mainly cause he was the least assholish of all the Greek gods
I hope you aren't planning on killing off Flash. The guy maybe be boring, but he doesn't really deserve the level of hate the fandom gives him.
But I am LOVING the WW/Sunset mentorship.
Hah! Finally someone mentions Hestia. Sometimes it feels like I'm the only one who still counts her as part of the pantheon even though she gave up the title.
7020785 In no particular order: Hermes, Hestia, Poseidon, Hercules (yes he counts because when he died he became a god), Helios (even though he is really a Titan), Prometheus (also a Titan).
It's the Smooze....nobody stops the Smooze.
Best part of the chapter!
KO awesome chapter, hope that Diana will protect Sunset and her friends from Hades.
That was pretty hilarious, not gonna lie.
Crystal and Agatha are certainly twisted, but I'm kind of hoping Boulder, at least, becomes a good guy when everything is said and done.
Good picking up on Diana's exact words and knowing how she operates, Sunset! You seem to be smarter than even Twilight...well, the EqG version of Twilight, at least.
Oh boy, that ending though...if Diana's got a bad feeling about the trip, it might be the occasion where she is forced to let people know about the existence of Wonder Woman. Can't wait to see if anyone besides Sunset can make the connection between Diana and Wonder Woman.
Oh, good chapter. Though I suspect secrets shall be revealed in short order.
And liking the Crystal Prep guys less and less. Elitist snobs. CHS tied because your jerkass principal decided to try and make Twilight go Carrie.
7020820 Who doesn't?
7020828 Yeah, me too. It's one of the few modern mediums to portray him as he actually was in the original myths; though Percy Jackson (books, not that gods-awful movie) did a good job too. And of course, no one can deny the hilarity of James Woods doing a Disney Hades.
A little nitpick with your short description. Hades isn't Death. He's God of the Dead and the Underworld but Death itself is Thanatos.
Now... I wonder precisely what is making Diana's equivalent of a Spider Sense fire off. Beyond the very obvious signs that the Force of Darkness are gathering their pieces on the board.