4379/Striking Ore - Foundations

Striking Ore - Foundations
Date of Scene:	02 August 2016
Location:	Avatar World <AW>
Synopsis:	Ziggy and Toph work on clearing up what will become the Beifong Metalbending Academy. Eventually.
Cast of Characters:	20, Ziggy Grover

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Toph Beifong (20) has posed:
    Students have been found, and the fact that Toph Beifong is one happy metalbender shouldn't come as a surprise to most of the Union. Finally she gets to pass on the art of metalbending! But in order to do so, she needs a place to teach her students. A proper academy.

    The building that Toph asked Ziggy to come to is everything but proper. It's sort of broken in places, with lots of old furniture inside and not to mention dirty. Cobwebs have overtaken some rooms, and there are some critters living inside here and there. Squirrelbats dangle from the ceiling, and it looks like it hasn't been cleaned in weeks. First though, all the junk needs to go out.

    As Ziggy arrives he will learn that Toph is already working on it... as a big piece of furniture comes flying right at his face from the open door.

Ziggy Grover has posed:
If he hadn't been paying attention to the entrance, Ziggy Grover well might have gotten bowled over by... whatever it was that turned into splinters on the ground. As is, he swings to the side, craning his neck like a gawky short-necked llama, staring at what had gone by.

"Um... I'm guessing that you guys have trash-bending out here, right? Or you're going to like, make a pit and swallow it up when you're done, right?" Ziggy comments, pointing an index finger at the pile while looking back in. Not that Toph can see, but you know, it's the gesture that sells his words for him.

"So uh, if you're going to break everything in there and throw it out, you don't need me to do anything, do you?" He peers up at the ceiling. "Though you know, this could make a pretty good haunted house if you threw everything back in here. Give people a good scare, like, for Halloween. You do have Halloweens, do you? Just get some pumpkins, carve them up, make faces, be a Jack O'Lantern."

Toph Beifong (20) has posed:
    Upon hearing Ziggy speak up, Toph blinks and turns towards the Green Ranger, grinning in greeting. "Spazlord, long time no see!" Oh yes, she's so witty.

    Trashbending... huh. Toph shrugs at that, biting on the inside of her lower lip a bit. "Nah, I was thinking of handing it over to some people in the city. Digging it down wouldn't work in this area considering the earth is going to be bended all the time," she points out. "Though we're gonna focus on metalbending, but still..." Even if she's a metalbender she still loves pure earthbending as well, and just the thought of having lots of junk in the ground doesn't sit right with her. It's like sweeping stuff under the rug but still being able to smell the stench it makes.

    For a moment she looks confused when Ziggy seems to think he isn't needed to do anything. Then she lets out a snort. "What? You think I just called you over here to crack jokes while I was working? Do your shadow puppets on the walls or something...?" It's a good thing he's looking at the ceiling, as she turns her face away just slightly. And that he's talking about Halloween. "There's no Halloween here in this world, though I celebrate it back in Malibu, Goldie and I usually go trick and treating together... I'm not sure how well it would work here, really. Mostly because the candy here sucks..."

    The blind girl does reach out to yank on Ziggy's arm though. "Now come on and help me get this stuff out! You could probably teleport it, right?"

Ziggy Grover has posed:
"Uh... teleporting this stuff...?" Ziggy winces. "No, no, no, if I burn off the energy teleporting, I might end up without the suit and in the middle of nowhere staring down a dragon with nothing to defend myself but a..."

Ziggy squints at what Toph is yanking him towards. "... flagpole? Actually, I suppose I could handle that. Just no suit."

Toph Beifong (20) has posed:
    So it seems Ziggy doesn't have the teleporting perfected yet, huh? Not that she can blame him, remembering how they ended up on that space station earlier this year. Though she can't help but roll her eyes. "Relax, the last dragons were killed decades ago in this world!" she reassures him. If only she knew.

    "You're good at climbing, right? I'll bend us an earthen platform up to the roof, and then we work on getting the flagpole there down. We're gonna have some cool banners on the wall instead!" Maybe she can get the help from somebody not visually impaired to design them or something. "And then afterwards we can use my bending and your... Ziggyness to clear out the rooms that my lily livers will live in," she suggests.

Ziggy Grover has posed:
"I have to say, I'm not much for flagpoles, I keep expecting things to get run up there. There was this time I had my pants run up the flagpole when I was younger, and I had to get them down..."

Rambling as he goes along, Ziggy follows along, before something sinks in. "Wait... dragons? You had dragons? For real? Oh man, with my luck, there probably -is- one lying around somewhere, just waiting to hatch or something."

Toph Beifong (20) has posed:
    There is a pause before Toph arches an eyebrow. "Somebody put your pants on a flapgole...?" she asks, trying to contain an amused snort. "And stop worrying, the royal family of the Fire Nation hunted them down because they were insecure wimps who felt they had to kill dragons in order to feel manly or something." So no need to worry about running into dragons! "And don't be a big worry wart!"

    With that Toph kicks her foot into the ground, and the earth underneath them rises up to the roof of the building, and Toph steps onto it before she heads over to the flagpole. "Now just follow me, watch your footing and we're getting this flagpole down. I'll use my bending, and you hold onto it to make sure it doesn't fall on the roof and mess it up further... man, the list I'm sending Stuffy tomorrow is going to be long... I'm so glad I have money to pay for all of it..." It's going to be worth it, just to get a proper building for her metalbending academy.

Ziggy Grover has posed:
"Ok, ok..." Ziggy nods, following along.

It's not till he gets closer that the size of the flagpole becomes more apparent. "Um... maybe, you know, what you should do is just, well, soften the roof instead, right? Smear a lot of soft dirt around, then sweep it off afterwards...? No? Oh fine..."

Closing his eyes, Ziggy takes ahold of the pole. "Just so long as we're not doing any maypole dancing."

Toph Beifong (20) has posed:
    "If I soften the roof then it will fall together," Toph states, then points down at it. "We need to reinforce it too, this whole building needs to be as strong as a rock to withstand all the roughness this place is going to go through. Now stop whining, I'm not going to let the pole hit you or anything." Because Ziggy isn't one of her students. Only they get to say they've suffered real torment under Toph Beifong herself.

    "Yeah, just hold it like that, and hold onto it. I'm gonna break it, and then raise a pillar from the ground to intercept it, you just need to hold onto it for a bit and slow its fall!"

    The wooden pole is easily broken as Toph bends some rock into a sharp shape and cuts it with it, and then it slowly begins falling in one direction... towards Ziggy. It might be rough at first, but as she promised, Toph is quick with bending a pillar, reading Ziggy's body language to know just where the flagpole will fall and judging where the pillar needs to shoot up to stop the flagpole from smashing Ziggy and the roof.

Ziggy Grover has posed:
Cringing as it falls, Ziggy does what he can to hold it up. Which consists, basically, of shaking his hands, holding it up, strain with those chicken arms just long enough for Toph to react quickly. From the way he acts, though, it might as well be Atlas holding up the world.

Flexing and posing -after- it's all done, though? "Woo hoo! Look at those GUNS!"

Toph Beifong (20) has posed:
    Okay, Ziggy might not be the strongest of guys out there, nor is he bulging with major muscles. But he's strong enough to hold the flagpole up for a few seconds and ensures it doesn't crash onto the roof. Of course Toph doesn't miss how he flexes a pose, and as she walks past him to get back off the roof, she punches him in the shoulder a bit. "Yeah yeah, I'm sure you look impressive, Zigmeister. Now come on and help me clear out the junk in the living quarters! Hmmm, for now I should make sure we have some beds at least. And Peridot said she wanted to come stay here at times too and help with running the place, whatever she means by that..." Just how much paperwork will this place need? None in Toph's opinion, but oh well. If Peridot wants to help, she's welcome to do that.