"Where are we going?" Tori asked.

Blake continued to tug her gently across the grass. "Don't you know?"

What, was she psychic now? She looked around, considering the site of last year's Action Games, wondering what about it would... oh. Blake squeezed her hand, and she knew. But she didn't know why.

The question didn't even slow Blake down. "Don't you want to make sure that everything's cool? That it's still closed?"

Tori rolled her eyes. "Gee, let me think. I just handed off my afternoon class to someone who's utterly unqualified for the sole purpose of spending some rare quality time with my long-distance boyfriend. Do I want to trade that for an afternoon spent poking around the Abyss of Evil? Surprisingly, no!"

Shane found that he had really come to enjoy Kapri's company. She was so different from everyone that he knew. Possibly because she was an evil space ninja with relatives straight out of the Three Stooges' version of a horror movie... Cam not being much of an exception.

"Oh, it's on now!" Dustin didn't think before retaliating, just flung water in every direction he could manage. Shane, Kapri, and Marah were quickly drenched, but they weren't the only ones--surely the students had all been wet before this?

He ducked away in horror as they all turned on him. Being the subject of a water ninja attack, first years or not, especially when they were surrounded by their element, was not something to be envied. He hid behind as many of his friends as he could, deliberately dragging them into the fight they had started. Before long every ninja was fully occupied by a water war that allowed Dustin to slink off to one side and consider the end result of his "teaching."

"Yeah," he said aloud, listening to the chaotic shrieks of Tori's usually well-disciplined class. "This went well."

"Blake!"

He heard Tori calling his name, and he looked up at the distance between him and the surface. This was not good. His history with climbing wasn't so great to begin with, and here he was stuck in the Abyss of the Absolutely Awful.

"Blake!" Tori called again, her voice quieter this time and a lot more... scared. He couldn't let her sound like that because of him.

"Tor!" he shouted, hoping she could hear him. "Tor, it's okay! I'm right here!"

"Blake!" Now he could see her, leaning over the edge to stare down into the darkness at him. "I'm going to see if Wick's delivers this far out! You want anything?"