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Well, Hel was dismissing Shun’s worries about ridiculous in a bad way challenges. This obstacle course looked kick a** and challenging, which was the best, really. Actually, this made her think of all the parkour training she had done with the Grim and she was thinking about how she could put this all to use! She got a little too excited though, and in her eagerness…she fell off the course right off the bat.

Oops.

The reaper ended up scaling her way back up as fast as she could, idly musing how fast it probably would have been if she could have ridden her familiar. Oh well. Now more focused, the ghoul took off down the course with some mishaps here and there, but she cleared the fire and avoided the drop. The next section was much better than the first. Scaling things was another skill Hel was rather adept at, climbing the reaper dorms all the time, though that slime did get her once or twice, but nothing she couldn’t recover from. The spiked hurdles were swept over, and the precariously rigged balls weren’t too much of a hassle either.

The next section caught Hel by surprise…she wasn’t expecting one of the obstacles to be an alumni. Getting swallowed and then spit out wasn’t much appreciated, and Hel was certainly not laughing once she was spit out. No, there were some choice words shouted followed by a bird being thrown around before she continued on. The bombs she bobbed and weaved around, but it was the crumbling pillars she had a real challenge with. She landed on one, and it crumbled underneath her weight. She ended up falling a good distance before she could catch herself, and then start that part over again.

Section four was a breeze. Apparently all that swimming she learned from Mac throwing her in the lake repeatedly paid off. Some poor sap got in her way while maneuvering this section and she pushed that student right into a mine. It was complete with a cackle. The last stretch was more or less the same. If she slipped and slide, it was used to her advantage to get across the finish line quicker…and she didn’t looked too perturbed once she made it across…even if she was covered in mud from the neck down.

Her fists were thrown into the air in celebration, getting mud on those who were unfortunate enough to be nearby.

Rosy was excited for the start of the House Cup events. She really wanted to do a good job and show how well ghosts could do. Her excitement soon turned to frustration however as she completely missed her mark and stumbled, barely saving herself from completely falling on her face at the start of the run. Shaking her head, she steeled herself and continued on.

However, she must have still been a bit shaken from her near fall, because she faltered again on the second part of the course, once again barely catching herself from falling off the track entirely. Taking a second to gather herself and collect her wits, she got up and started off again.

By the third stretch of the course she actually was getting a feel for the obstacles, and she didn’t worry so much about it. However another student pushed her into the spikey pit that was Steve and she tumbled around for a few minutes before she could regain her bearings.

At the pool, she managed to make it across without completely getting blown up by mines. But she did get tangled in nets a few times, and was almost nibbled on by a few of the larger aquatic minipets. Getting out of the water, she let it slide off of her and continued on.

The home stretch of the course she found to be quite the annoyance, but she managed to persevere and push through, even as she got bogged down into the mud. But she kept on, only stopping once she crossed the finish line.

Well it could have been worse? At least she finished!

Lizzy was pretty confident of her ability to go fast, but she did not have that same confidence when it came to her stamina... And the obstacle course looked like it went on forever. However, there was no time to hesitate, seeing how everyone else seemed to be in a very competitive mode; she would have to buck up quickly, or risk dishonoring her family.

And by family, she really meant "Team Demon".

Sprinting from the get-go, she had wanted to get a head start, but quickly realized that it was a bad idea for her to gash the way she did; not only was she going downhill, but there were really sharp corners to take. Unprepared for the first turn, she almost ran out of the track, and managed to stop only because she forced herself to stop, causing her to fall flat on her face.

By the time she was up and running again, she had fallen behind. It was a very dishonoring moment. Dishonor on her. Dishonor on her cow minipet. At least avoiding the wall of fire and sudden drop were easy; she was so behind that she knew what to do after watching the students ahead of her.

Climbing was no problem for her, but as she was getting into the zone and jumping over the spiked hurdles, she felt someone shove her from behind, causing her to fall. Again. Thankfully, she didn't hurt herself on the spikes, but it did cause her to fall back even more. Maybe that motivated her to not fall into the water while jumping from ball to ball... That, and because she had never gotten along with bodies of water.

As she got back into the groove, she once again felt someone shove her from behind, causing her to trip right into... A mouth?! She squeaked, eyes squeezed shut as she felt herself being spat out into the air, landing painfully on the other side.

... At least she got through.

After carefully navigating her way past the bombs, she found herself staring at her worst enemy - water. She hesitated by the edge, wondering if dishonor was such a bad idea after all... And then someone shoved her again, sending her falling straight into the water. Face first. Too bad nobody could taste the salt from her tears in that huge body of water.

She was more than happy to survive the water, even if she probably swam at snail speed - if the flailing movements she made in the water could be called "swimming".

With the finish line in sight, she did not want to be sabotaged again, and was extra cautious and wary of the people around her... Especially since the first obstacle was ice. She got along with ice as well as she got along with water - which is not at all. She managed to not fall on the ice, but once she set foot on the oil slick, she fell, getting her skirt covered in oil. As if that wasn't bad enough, having to wade through the mud caused her to lose one of her shoes.

But she had finished the race. She was dirty, beaten up, and exhausted, but she had finished. She had restored her honor.

Tanita stood at the starting line, looking determined and ready. When the START was called, she began to run, watching as best she could for other students, and the obstacles ahead. She pumped her legs, proud of herself for being able to run all right, given how often she preferred to fly, trying to focus on the goal ahead. As she made it around one of the hairpin turns on the down hill, another student elbowed her, really blasted hard, as they passed. She couldn't see who it was, or even if they did it on purpose... Largely because she slammed into the ground face first. She snarled and pulled herself up. It took a good moment to make sure everything was fine, but after verifying she had no worse then skinned knees, she moved onwards, trying to make up for this incident. When she got to the Wall of Flame, she couldn't help laugh a little. Sure, she wasn't built to be ENGULFED, but she did like fire, and wasn't scared of it. She launched through it, and, somehow, didn't land in the large pit on the other side. She'd made it to section 2.

That wall. She fought to dig her claws into the wall, despite the nasty green slime and the honest lack of spots to really do so. She even succeeded, making it up the wall, and she launched herself off, landing hard but not badly... After all, hard landings were natural to a flyer. She was VERY careful not to use her wings, though. She began to run again, and managed to leap over each of the hurdles with no issues greater then a bit of the cloth part of her skirt catching and tearing. Oh well, she'd ask some one to fix it for her later, if it was bad enough. But then she got to the red balls. Over water. Her nemesis, WATER. Oh gods. She shuddered and made the first leap. She even succeeded at that one, and the second too, though getting across these balls was hard. However, when she landed on the third, she went down again... a lot harder, and barely was able to cling on to it. Her ankle was throbbing in pain, and she was trying not to scream at the idea of landing in the water. She lost time, more of it then she might realize, panicked as she was. Finally, finally, she managed to calm enough to GET up and make her way across and leap to the next piece... Though her ankle hurt like anything!

Unfortunately for her, Steve was next. She didn't know Steve, she'd never been introduced to him, and she thought it VERY impolite of him to almost swallow her without even introducing himself! She thought, maybe, the swallowing was an accident, as he managed to stop himself... but it was very uncomfortable, she was covered in SteveSpit, and she lost another few minutes before he managed to spit her out, as he let a few others go first! Once back on the course, shuddering at the feeling of Spit, she ran on, managing to mostly avoid the bombs... A few came close enough that the spit dried, which honestly she found even MORE gross, but none of them boomed on her. The pillars... well crumbly and rocky as they were, they didn't prove too much a challenge. But she'd not forget that STEVE. He made her lose time...

She nearly lost her nerve at the sight of the water section. She really didn't know how to swim, but she was going to give it her best shot. After a moment, she dove in and tried to stay near the surface. She suddenly saw a fast moving mini pet, and had a brilliant idea... She grabbed hold and did her best to get it to tow her part way. It even almost worked, she got about 2/3's of the way across, before another student must have decided this was cheating(never mind she'd never swum before in her life!), because someone grabbed her and yanked her so that she lost her grip on the slippery minipet. Almost giving in to the urge to swearing, but only stopping because WATER OH JACK WATER, she floundered her way across the rest of the swimming section. At least she didn't drown or fall too much more behind, but that had lost her enough to frustrate her and convince her, once again, that swimming was evil! She dragged herself onto the next section of the course, looking soaked, raggedy, and thoroughly pissed off. At least she was no longer covered in SteveSpit, though.

The feeling of the ice under her sopping foot had her shriek in startlement... but it had the bonus of making her suddenly start running even harder, wanting off that freezing, painful sensation it was causing her! She moved hard, slipping and sliding some, occasionally landing on a knee and scraping it, but managed to get to the... oh blast it the Oil. Her urge to breath fire on it was only held back by the sight of the other students. She didn't want to burn THEM up, too, and burning oil wasn't a joke. She, again, slid and skidded across this section, occasionally perhaps brushing against an equally unfortunate student in the process. She planned to take a nice long shower after this. Long. Very. This was enough to almost make her appreciate the previous, hated, swimming. When she slid off that and into the muddy mess, she just glared and slogged her way through, her hair sticking up in points, her eyes narrowed with both determination and furious irritation at getting covered in this. When she hit the finish line, she stormed off to one side, and waited for everyone to finish, and the next announcement. But UGH. Muddy and oily was a disgusting sensation!

In an effort to show as much House spirit as possible, the witch cheered her way to the starting line. Since a number of Reapers before her had seemed to do fairly well she felt satisfied in her enthusiasm and turned a determined face toward the obstacle course. But up close it looked really... Long and scary and full of crazy stuff. Goodness, the witch might have bargained rather poorly on this whole endeavor...
With a small cry she realizes the race has begun and rushed forward, stumbling a bit as she hurried down along the path. The wall of fire was noted simply by the smell of singed clothing as the witch moved on, glad she had changed into the cute track jacket provided to her with her name on the back.
The slime wall, however, is a piece of cake. Not wanting to touch the goo, Belladonna hustled her way up the wall and vaulted off the side to land in a perfect roll. Back on her feet she sailed across the hurdles and sang a fun song about a hop, skip and a jump as she pranced across the red balls. This was fun!

For all about two seconds until the witch stumbled and plummeted into Steve's waiting mouth. He must have enjoyed the taste for she flailed around for quite a while before she was spit out and straight under a bomb. Barely missing it, she hustled her way along only to splash into the water. Quite quickly Belladonna is disoriented, half by the fish that do their best to push her off course and the rest by the nets that try to drag her away. A kind alumni takes pity on her and shoves her in the right direction and though she tries to call out a 'thank you', the alumni is instead gifted with a gurgling witch.
With no time to dry herself off (her cute jacket nuuuuuu), the witch stumbles forward and slides across the ice only to fall into the oil. A shriek leaves her and she flails to be free, falling into the mud next and loathing how short she is. Practically swimming the last of the way, Belladonna emerges panting and frustrated, fists clenched as she stomped off the course.
"Happy House Cup." She mumbled through gritted teeth, throwing on a fierce smile before she left to clean up.

Running. Really. Running. Running

Running was the worst idea the Colossus had ever heard of. Colossus didn't run! They lumbered. They made scary faces and tried to step on you if you were pissing them off.

Running.

Sura made a low rumble as she began to move - slow but steady, at least - across the very bizarre challenge. The first area was easy due to her weight, as she just sat down at the top of the incline and slid down slowly, even able to take the time to lean into turns like in a racing game.

Rather fun, actually.

Climbing, however, was not. Sura was not a good climber to begin with, so it was something best watch others do. Still, it was fun enough..until someone used her face as a stepping block. Seriously? She rumbled disapprovingly and grabbed their foot to yank them back down before resuming her climbing unhappily.

Climbing was not fun.

Bombs and being a slow student didn't really work out for her, if she was completely honest. One of them tapped her and while heavy in body, that made it even LESS fun when she nearly got blown off the course to climb back up. So she just rumbled angrily at them as she made her awkward shuffle away.

Nobody is sure how Sura, who can't swim, got through the swimming portion of this trial.

But it was worse to come with that heavy body - cracking ice under her feet and nearly sinking into the mud.

It was really hilarious to watch her climb out when she was done.