Christmas Eve post. Not much else to say.

It was Friday of the fifth week of classes, and Karen, Agent (well, Probationary Agent) of the Protectors of the Plot Continuum, future slayer of Mary Sues (hopefully), self-proclaimed Cookie Lord and devoutly violent person…was scared out of her wits.

"Something terrible is going to happen today," Karen hissed to Anjilly, who was trying to get her partner to stop hiding in a corner. "I just know it! It's Friday the Thirteenth!"

"Karen, today's the first of October," Anjilly rolled her eyes.

"Friday the Thirteenth of October? Even worse!"

"The first of October, the first!" Anjilly groaned and rubbed her temples. "Why would you think it's the thirteenth?"

"It's the thirteenth chapter, Anj!" Karen gestured wildly with her hands, smacking herself in the eye. "Ow."

"Stop acting hysterical and get up," Anjilly sighed, choosing to ignore the "chapter" thing. "We need to make plans for the Mid-Autumn Festival…which we should have celebrated on September twelfth with the rest of the Real World."

"But this is an OFU fic," Karen shook her head. "We're in the Avatarverse. The lunar calendar here and the lunar calendar in the Real World don't match up. Also, the author is lazy."

"...What?" Anjilly asked.

"The author," Karen repeated, "is lazy."

One of the room's walls made an ominous groaning sound. Anjilly side-eyed it and gave a nervous laugh. "Author? What author? Whatever are you talking about, Karen?"

"Oh, come on Anj, you know exactly what I'm talking about," Karen said. "Anyway, isn't it about time for a scene change? We should be able to see the Zukomancers trying to glomp Zuko (again)…"

"KAREN—"

Zuko turned a corner into another hall, and paused. He swore he kept hearing giggling, and it came from all around him. The hallways either carried sounds like you wouldn't believe, or made it next to impossible to hear a person standing next to you. Zuko was in the former sort of hallway. And he could swear he was hearing…

But he didn't have time to think about that. Thanks to Karen's paranoia about this being the thirteenth chapter of the story, and the threatening shaking of the walls whenever that fact was brought up, Anjilly had asked Zuko to do a sweep of the school for any possible trouble.

Zuko...hadn't really understood the point. Neither had most of the other canons.

"Wait, why is today supposed to be worse than any other day?" Katara had asked.

"Because Karen insists it's Friday the Thirteenth," Anjilly sighed. "And thirteen is an unlucky number. Especially when combined with Friday."

Team Avatar exchanged glances. Even after several weeks, they still hadn't quite grasped the concept of this Fry Day thing, but they did know their numbers. "Wait," said Aang. "Thirteen is unlucky?"

"Of course it isn't," huffed Sokka. "That's just a bunch of superstitious mumbo jumbo. Like Aunt Wu's fortunetelling. Totally not real."

"Besides," said Toph, "I don't know why you'd say thirteen is a bad number. It's perfectly fine!"

Anjilly thought for a moment. "Ah," she said after a moment. "You're right. It's really only unlucky in Western cultures..."

"So, the Fire Nation?" Katara asked, looking at Zuko.

"Real World Western cultures," Anjilly said. "In the East, it's actually a pretty lucky number. And you guys' culture is based on the East... Yeah, I guess thirteen wouldn't be unlucky to you at all, would it? Huh. Maybe four would be, though, since it sounds like 'death' in Chinese...very unlucky number."

"We're the Four Nations," Zuko pointed out. "Our entire world revolves around four elements. I don't think we'd consider four unlucky."

"Right, right," Anjilly said. "Look, the point is that Karen's going crazier than usual and is convinced that something catastrophic is going to happen today. Can we please make sure nothing does?"

Team Avatar groaned. "Does it have to be us?" Toph asked. "We're the ones who get stampeded the most!"

Anjilly sighed. "Alright, never mind. Long Feng's been wanting to use the Dai Li as security, anyway - "

Sokka pulled out his boomerang. "LET'S GO PATROL SOME HALLWAYS, GUYS!"

The other members of Team Avatar had taken the best spots (read: places fangirls were unlikely to be found), leaving Zuko with the task of searching the classroom and student dormitory sections (which used to be the cell blocks and old prison staff section, respectively).

So here he was, wandering the most student-filled halls of the school, himself the most lusted-after character. Something about that seemed wrong, but seeing as Sokka had drawn the longest straw, allowing him to assign everyone else a section of OFUA:TLA to deal with, Zuko didn't have much choice in the matter.

Seriously, he knew he was hearing giggles! Where were they coming from?

Zuko surreptitiously slipped a hand into his pocket, and brought out a bison whistle specifically modified to call his Misspelling Lemurs. At the first sign of fangirls, he would summon them. Zuiko and Zukko were feeling particularly bloodthirsty of late.

With a quick glance around—and a burst of more giggles—Zuko continued on his way. Despite the fact that this section of OFUA:TLA was where the most students could be found, the hallways were empty. This fact put Zuko on edge rather than at ease. This wasn't good empty. It was eerily empty. Terrifyingly empty. No-one-can-hear-you-scream empty.

The giggles weren't reassuring.

Maybe once he was done with this check, he'd go do something relaxing. Something to calm his nerves. Something that involved absolutely no students. Especially not Zukomancers or Zutarans. Something like...having a romantic picnic with Mai.

Actually, that sounded wonderful. Zuko promised himself he'd grab Mai once he was done with this patrol. She'd complain about how impulsive he was, probably, but she'd stop once they settled down in some quiet, secluded place with a heaping plate of fruit tarts. He wasn't sure where they'd go, exactly - he'd leave that up to her. This was the Boiling Rock, after all, and her uncle was the warden of the place, so it stood to reason that she knew more about it than he did.

Happy with his plans, Zuko nodded to himself and rounded a corner—

-and found himself face-to-face with the majority of the Zukomancer Club.

"It's Zuko!" Ashee Bieber screeched in excitement.

"Get him!" Christina Soh cried, lunging forward.

WHOMP!

"I haven't even blown the whistle yet," Zuko commented as his Misspelling Lemurs arrived on the scene. Jessica Carden and Fyre Elaine wailed in terror as Zuke, Zukoand, Zuni, and Zulo ganged up on them. The two were dragged off thrashing and screaming to whatever horrors awaited them. Zuko considered laughing derisively at the fangirls' pain, but decided against it. He was supposed to be a good guy now.

"Zuzu! Pleeease!" Scarlet Johnson wailed, reaching out to him. "You know I'm your true love! Leave that heartless bitch Mai and come to meeee!"

"As if! He's mine!" Amy Ochanian attempted to lunge at Scarlet, but the lemurs Zuku, Zuo, and Zuiko dive-bombed them. Both fangirls were dragged off screaming for Zuko to save them.

"No! Nooooo!" Izar Laun sobbed, clutching at Nathaniel Willowshaunt desperately. "Don't let them get me…don't let them get meeeee!"

"Get off! Before they take me too!" Nathaniel shoved at his fellow fanboy. Zuko'a, Zuku, and Suko took the opportunity to latch on, and pulled the boys away.

Lauphen Staar and Somariel, two of the brighter fangirls, had begun to run away the moment the lemurs appeared. They were closely followed by Cyrus Windfall, who was wailing about how he should have taken up Huanzhe's offer to attend the "The Fire Nation Is The Greatest Civilization In The World And The Only Reason Anyone Says Otherwise Is Because They're Too Primitive To Know Better" Club meeting. Zukjo, Zu,ko, ZUko, Ziko, Price Zuko, Sufi Zuko, and Auko took the three down.

Zuko smiled as one of his favorite Misspellings, Zzuko, landed on his shoulder. Zzuko began to rub his head against Zuko's cheek, giving a lemur-purr. The Misspellings would really need a reward after such a spectacular job…oh yes, Zuko shuddered as Meep Megdaline and Somariel clawed at the floor with their extra-long fangirl nails, trying to escape. A spectacular job indeed.

Lupe looked around the Fire Hall and frowned, wondering where Meep and Lauphen, not to mention half the female students and a few of the male ones, had gone. [-] kept glancing at the empty seat between him and Lupe mournfully, occasionally reaching out to assure himself that Meep had not simply gone invisible and was indeed missing.

"I'm sure they're just a little bit late," Lupe assured her friend. "Don't worry about them, they're off doing crazy Meep and Lauphen things."

"But what if they're in some sort of trouble?" [-] sighed. "Meep doesn't have RoyRoy with her! She could get hurt!" Lupe rolled her eyes at the mention of Meep's rat, which Sofia Jayne Owens had declared was actually a Pikachu sometime during the fourth week of classes. RoyRoy had taken to roaming the hallways without his owner, shocking staff and students alike when they wondered what the small creature was doing. Literally, shocking. With the exception of Iroh, who, along with mastering the lightning redirection technique, was also capable of redirecting static electricity. Zuko, unfortunately, didn't have his uncle's reflexes, and had been dogpiled by a dozen students intent on "healing" him from the nasty static shock RoyRoy had given him. Mai had gotten quite a lot of knife-throwing practice in that day.

"We're all in trouble!" William GP leaned forward from the row of seats behind Lupe and [-]. His eyes were as wide as saucers. "Haven't you heard? It's GrammarBootCamp tomorrow! The bane of all Fanfiction University students!"

"I find that hard to believe," Daniel Clemens put in, reaching forward and pulling William back into his seat. "It's just another seminar. Karen'll probably ramble about cookies and lecture us about our grammar, then send us off to write a paper or something."

"I cannot wait to see your face during the torture," Shiri laughed. She was sitting in the row behind Daniel and William, polishing her staff (which sprung blades from each end when twisted just so). "I've heard stories. So long as you can answer questions correctly, you'll be able to make it through with minimum injury. Being strong helps, too. And all of those early-morning training sessions have really gotten me into shape! Check out my muscle!" Pulling back her sleeve, Shiri displayed a pale bicep that wasn't as soft as it had been upon her arrival.

"We're all getting more in shape," Daniel patted his arm with a grin. "It's the one good thing of getting up way too early in the morning to train. Master Piandao is starting me on basic cuts with my katana next week. He says I've started to get the hang of the basic motions with the wooden sword, so he's letting me use the real thing!"

"The real thing is heavy," Lupe scowled, thinking of her broadswords. While they were getting a little bit easier to carry, it was still murder to swing them around like she was supposed to during training. How did her Zuzu do it in the series?

"Still, it's almost time for class to start, and Meep's not here!" [-] fidgeted in his seat. "The resident Mary Sue could have gotten her!"

"Who?" Emma looked up at [-] from the seat in front of Lupe.

"Suki," Zuna sighed and slouched in her seat next to Lupe. "Everyone here thinks Suki is a Mary Sue, except for some Earth Kingdom student. I think he's delusional."

"I think your mom's delusional," Emma rolled her eyes. "And stop it with the goth act, will you? It's not making you any cooler for Zuko."

"I'm not interested in Zuko. I'm interested in Mai," Zuna sighed. "Why does nobody understand this?"

"I understand this," [-] leaned forward. "So, uh, if you ever actually manage to make out with Mai or something, do you think I could maybe get a recording of it…?"

"Me too, me too!" Daniel Clemens grinned. William GP snapped out of his "we're all gonna die a horrible death at GrammarBootCamp tomorrow" mood and stared dreamily into the distance.

"You disgust me," Emma wrinkled her nose. "When me and Azula get to third base, I'm locking the door to the room."

"They'll probably have cameras in it," Lupe groaned and rubbed her temples. "Or at least, the Staff will. And why would you want to get Azula when Zuko is perfectly good and sexy already?"

"Don't you want Zuko?" Owlson Pierce piped up from her seat next to Emma. "Wouldn't him having more lusters be giving you more competition?"

"No, because there's no doubt in my mind that once Zuko actually looks at me he'll fall head-over-heels in love," Lupe sniffed. "And seeing as I'm taking on a part-time job as Marshall Arts' assistant, I'm going to be spending time with the Staff. Don't worry, I'll say nice things about you guys to your lust objects. If you're nice to me, of course. I start next week."

"Shh, class is starting!" Shiri pointed to the stage, where Yue had just rolled Tui and La's fishbowl onstage. Hei Bai wasn't far behind, escorting an older woman with gray-streaked hair in yellow and orange robes. Lupe thought she seemed familiar—something to do with fortune telling?

"Everybody, today we will be examining a frequent theme that appears with spirits in fanfictions: Predicting the future," Yue announced. "We have with us Aunt Wu, a fortuneteller and expert in predicting the future, as a guest lecturer. She will be telling you all about her experiences with the mystical arts over the course of this class and the next week's classes. For today, we will start out with the basics of predicting the future. Aunt Wu?"

"Thank you, my dear," Aunt Wu smiled at the assembled students, then paused. "Ah…I was under the impression there would be more of you…?"

"The Zukomancers tried to ambush Zuko earlier," Yue explained with a small laugh. "Karen won't tell anyone what she's done with them, but Sokka told me he heard screaming from Azula's dungeons."

Hei Bai grunted, and somehow the noises were translated by the students' brains to mean, "No, that was Freeranger. She was investigating a plothole and accidentally saw urple."

"Oh my," Aunt Wu gasped. "That is one of the most blinding colors known to fandom! Does she still have eyes?"

"Barely," Hei Bai shook his head. "Karen said she would laugh about it tomorrow, when it is no longer Friday the Thirteenth Chapter. She refuses to say what she will do if there is a scene at the end of the chapter that takes place tomorrow during GrammarBootCamp."

There was a rumbling noise, and one of the Fire Hall's walls started shaking. Lupe eyed it suspiciously. "Um...what's that?"

"Oh dear," said Yue. "Hei Bai, you really need to be more careful about what you say! We need the fourth wall to stay stable enough to at least last until the end of this chapter!"

The wall started shaking even harder.

"...Oops," said Yue. "Um...moving on. So, Aunt Wu. Fortunetelling?"

"Yes," Aunt Wu nodded. "Now, students, predicting the future is very tricky. You see..."

As Aunt Wu gave her lecture, the wall's shaking subsided. After a few minutes, it'd stopped entirely. Lupe wondered what that had been about.

"I now call the eighth meeting of the Boomerang Babes Sokka Lusting Club to order!" Isabella Rose shouted, banging the hilt of a dagger on a table. They were meeting in a spare room—seeing as Karen's redesign of OFUA:TLA had resulted in a lot of random space with no clear purpose, there were a lot of those.

"We're missing a few members," Elise. No last name. noted. "I think the Zukomancers have been gone since this morning. They were planning on ganging up to glomp Zuko."

"Indeed they are," Isabella Rose nodded. "And since Vice President Scarlet Johnson is gone, it seems that I, President Isabella Rose, will have to run this meeting by myself. That said, would our Chair of Fanart please present to the club her latest information?"

"Gladly, President," Moon Dragon stood up and stacked a couple of files. "Sadly, our attempts to create original fanart while at OFUA:TLA have resulted in failure. Few of us can do anything beyond stick figures, even with the actual characters standing in front of us. Those who can seem to keep being tackled or dive-bombed by Misspelling Lemurs the moment they start to draw."

"What about your attempts to convince Marshall Arts, the staff artist, to draw for us?" Isabella Rose inquired.

"We can't reach him," Moon Dragon confessed. "He's nowhere to be found when we go looking for him, and his student assistant refuses to ask him for Sokka fanart. The Zukomancers are being very smug about it."

"Hm. We will return to this topic at a later issue," Isabella Rose decided. "What are our plans for the Mary Suki?"

"Stabbing!"

"Burning!"

"Killing!"

"Attempt to understand her and gracefully accept her relationship with Sokka?"

"Zerkz, stop sneaking into our meetings!" Elise. No last name. snapped. "Can someone throw him out? Thank you. Geez, why can't he just start his own club…?"

"And without further ado, I call the Suki Fans Club to order!" Zerkz beamed proudly at his fellow club members. "Roll call! Sunan?"

"Here," the pantsless Waterbender grinned cheerfully.

"Great, everyone's in attendance!" Zerkz's smile faded a bit. "Everyone's here…" His shoulders drooped. "All two of us…" He hung his head and sighed.

"It would have been one if you hadn't promised to listen to my analyzation of the Water Tribe's similarities to the Inuits," Sunan pointed out tactlessly. He was rather good at being tactless.

Zerkz slouched into a chair with a dejected sigh. His newly-formed club's conspicuous lack of members was just a little bit upsetting to him. Sunan pulled out a book (written in Chinese, like everything else at the school) and a scroll, then started translating it into English. Other students were paying through the nose for textbooks they could actually read.

"Look on the bright side," he offered to his friend. "We can do whatever we want, and it'll be in the name of club activities!"

"We're supposed to be doing stuff about how awesome Suki is…" Zerkz muttered.

"Well, maybe we could try composing poetry about her?" Sunan suggested. "Girls like poetry!"

"I'm guessing you haven't had a girlfriend in a long time," Zerkz glared at Sunan.

"How'd you know?"

Anjilly Ka was more than a little angry with her partner, her fellow staff, the students, and the whole chapter in general. The fourth wall had been shaking dangerously all day, the result of Karen pointing out the coincidence of this being Friday the Thirteenth Chapter (of October, no less!) to everyone over the loudspeakers.

Karen had finally agreed to come out of her corner, after much cajoling and bribing with cookies. She was sticking as closely to Anjilly as possible, glancing around every so often in paranoia.

The two of them were currently walking through the student section, looking to see if anyone else was thinking about doing some glomping. Karen had a cookie at the ready, and was praying for nothing to happen.

Ironic Overpower being the Ironic Overpower, of course something happened. Several students noticed the Authors of Their Pain (quite literally the authors, especially Karen, and is that an ominous cracking sound I hear from the Fourth Wall?). And, students being students, they banded together and came up with a plan…

Without warning, as Karen and Anjilly passed by the Earth Hall, the doors burst open and a loose conglomeration of students poured out. "Quick!" Arizona Mason screamed. "Throw it!"

"For Azuuuulaaaaaa!" Nicole Jackson screamed, lobbing an annoying teapot at the Course Coordinators. Mai4, to be precise, in her teapot form. The plotholes had been feeling vindictive earlier that day.

Anjilly caught the teapot expertly, and raised an eyebrow at the students. "I'm sure there's a good reason for why you're throwing alternate forms of your fellow students at me," she remarked dryly.

"You…you're not being plotholed away…" Ishi Bananas blinked, then facepalmed. "I knew I should have gone to the library with Joe and Andy!"

"They're not studying anything school-related, you know," Carsten D sighed.

"See, Karen? Nothing terrible is happening," Anjilly turned to her partner. "Just the students, and a feeble attempt to take us out of the picture."

"I tell you, there will be horror!" Karen insisted. "There willbe blood!" She turned and narrowed her eyes, making the students cower. "Mostly from these foolish students who lobbed a teapot at us. Anj, care to join me?"

"Have fun," Anjilly said, rolling her eyes. "I'll go see if I can turn Ms. Tong back into a human being."

"Hooray for violence!" Karen cheered, pulling out a few sharpened cookies. "Students, prepare for pain! Yes, Ms. Midori and Ms. Ai Da, that means you too! Allison Doyle, Vera Moretti, Danish, why are you trying to run away? Whoops, were those my cookies? My goodness, I've no idea how that happened! Oh, Nathan Hofstad, whyever are you doubled over like you're in extreme pain? Could it be because of the overburnt snickerdoodle I just threw at your midsection? Surely not…no, senor dangao pickle, I'm not calling you Shirley. I am, however, pinning you to the wall with sugar cookie shurikens!"

"My partner is so very mature," Anjilly observed. "Karen, that's all of them. Stop advancing on Theodore James White threateningly and come with me. It looks like we need to find a plothole and toss Ms. Tong through it to reverse the damage."

"Aww, but Aaaanj…" Karen pouted.

"No buts," Anjilly said, tucking the teapot under her arm. "We'll go find Marshall and ask him to walk around with the teapot. She'll turn back into herself when he wanders into another plothole."

"He does that a lot." Karen tucked her baked weapons into her pockets.

"It's because he still doesn't have much characterization," Anjilly shrugged. "I think they'll stop targeting him once he starts to figure out what he's like."

"The other day he couldn't answer when Iroh asked him what his favorite flavor of tea was," Karen looked down. "It's a terrible day when you can't even tell what kind of tea you like. Terrible, I tell you!"

Anjilly raised an eyebrow. "Karen, I'm the tea lover, not you. You're the cookie freak. Since when do you care about tea?"

And the plothole struck.

Suki leafed through the papers in her hand as she walked down the hallway, trying to determine which one was her class syllabus for the next week of "Bestiology and You." Kenji the Ba Sing Se zookeeper was essentially illiterate, knowing only the characters for his name and those of some animals (as well as the one for "snickerdoodle," but he didn't use it very often), and Aang had important Avatar duties to tend to-namely, cooking Katara a romantic, vegetarian dinner. Thus, Suki was the one saddled with all the paperwork and planning for their class, even though she was the one who knew the least about animals.

"I cannot wait for this semester to be over," the head of the Kyoshi Warriors muttered to herself. Maybe a little training would help with the stress; she'd been somewhat lax ever since OFUA:TLA started. And for someone used to training for hours a day, every day, paperwork just wasn't fun.

"…can't, Yue."

Suki's ears immediately perked up. That had been Sokka's voice just now. And he had said "Yue." From what she could tell, her boyfriend was in a spare room up ahead—talking to Yue.

"Sokka, I know how hard this must be, but please think about the situation!" Yue's voice drifted to Suki's ears, tone pleading. "Have you really forgotten about me?"

"You know I could never," Sokka said firmly. "Yue, I will always think of you, no matter where I am or who I'm with. But…you're the Moon Spirit now. We can never be together."

"We can be here, Sokka!" Yue cried. Suki pressed herself against the wall and inched over to the slightly-ajar door to the room, peering in as best she could. Yue and Sokka were sitting on a couch, Yue's hands firmly clasping Sokka's.

"This place won't last forever," Sokka tugged his hands away. He looked down at the floor, expression unreadable. "I don't want to do that to Suki—only be with her when I can't have you. She doesn't deserve that sort of man."

"Sokka, we can stay here, together, as long as we like," Yue placed a hand on Sokka's cheek, turning him to face her. "We can be together as long as you like. Karen told me yesterday when I asked that we could live here for the rest of our lives, the rest of eternity if our fandom lasts that long, and be together for all of that time." Sokka's eyes turned away. "Don't you want to be with me forever?"

"I do!" Sokka exclaimed, voice hoarse. Suki thought her heart might break, and silently clapped a hand over her mouth to keep herself from making any noise. Tears threatened to spill out of her eyes. Sokka…her Sokka…was he going to leave her?

Suki wouldn't be surprised if he did, honestly. She'd always known he still loved Yue, from those nights he spent watching the moon or reading sappy love poems about the moon. When they'd first watched the Ember Island Players perform "The Boy in the Iceberg," Sokka had been in tears while watching the scene about his parting with Yue. If Suki tried to tease him about making out with the Moon Spirit, he'd go quiet, and not talk until the subject changed.
Her Sokka…would he leave her? Suki had heard enough. She tiptoed away, completely missing the rest of the conversation.

"I can't do this to Suki, Yue," Sokka insisted. "Yue, I love you, but I love Suki too. And even if we could stay in this crackfic forever, the constant attempts at humor and breaking of the fourth wall would get old." The wall behind him had a sudden shaking fit, but neither of them paid attention to it. "We'd want to leave, and then where would we be?"

"Sokka…" Yue whispered, voice cracking.

"I can't betray Suki like this," Sokka told her gently. "I'm sorry. But I won't betray one woman I want to spend my life with to have a little time with the woman I can't be with forever." He put covered Yue's hand on his cheek with his own, and squeezed. "I love you."

"I love you too," Yue choked out, tears threatening to spill over. "But you love her more."

"No," Sokka said firmly. "I love you both the same. But Suki's the one I've made a commitment to now, and she's the one I have to pick."

Yue began to sob. She stood up and dashed out the door, running the direction opposite the one Suki had taken.

Sokka half-raised himself off the couch, then plopped back onto it. "I suck with girls…" He moaned.

Karen was munching on a cookie. Marshall Arts was scribbling something on a piece of paper with a stick of charcoal, both of which he'd produced from inside his gi. Anjilly was desperately trying to figure out where they were and how to get out, and wondering what to do with the annoying teapot she was holding. The plothole had dropped the three - four? - somewhere deep inside the bowels of OFUA:TLA.

"Is nobody else here concerned at the fact that there's no door?" Anjilly demanded, sweeping a hand around at the eight-walled room. "Or windows, or basic food supplies, or a bathroom…"

"Not really," Marshall shrugged. "Don't forget, we got here by plothole. We'll get out as soon as one of us needs something not conveniently available here. That, or that something will get thrown in here with us. And we do have food supplies. You'll notice Karen's eating a cookie?"

"You'll notice I'm not offering to share?" Karen finished one cookie and pulled another out of her pocket.

"Oh, I noticed," Anj grumbled. "You won't share your cookies? Fine. I won't share my emergency tea stash." She pulled a wallet stuffed with teabags from her pocket and waved it at Karen. "Now hopefully we can get out of this place before I have to use Ms. Tong to make my tea." She frowned at the annoying teapot in her other hand. "I have no idea why she didn't turn back into a student when we went through the plothole. Maybe it's for the best, though. I'd hate to be stuck in a plothole with a student for company." She look around. "Granted, I hate being stuck in a plothole anyway."

"Don't freak out, Anj; we're just stuck in a plothole. It's really not that bad—or, wait, is this your first time? Cuz I can understand you being freaked out if it is."

Anjilly stared at Karen for a moment before smiling sweetly. "Karen. I've been an agent of the Protectors of the Plot Continuum for years. I am very used to falling, jumping, or getting pushed into plotholes."

"Oh, good!" said Karen. "You shouldn't be too freaked out, then!"

"Just because I'm used to it doesn't mean I like it! Valar, this is worse than the time I was stuck in a plothole with Elrond's Other Daughter with nothing but a spork to defend myself with—"

"Actually, Anj," said Karen, interrupting before the PPC agent could start rambling, "I've been meaning to talk to you about something. Suki's been giving me threatening looks every time I go near her, and I think Sokka's starting to feel the stress of having a Kyoshi Warrior and the Moon Spirit fighting over him. Make it go away."

"You're the one who insisted we bring Yue here 'for teh drama,' remember?" Anjilly growled. "Shouldn't you have anticipated this?"

"Um, has nobody else noticed that weasel-thing in the corner, staring at Anjilly's tea stuff?" Marshall asked suddenly. The two Agents ignored him. "Nobody?"

"The only thing I need to anticipate is when a cookie will next be in my hand," Karen smiled dreamily at the word "cookie."

"Oh, Valar," Anjilly grumbled. "You know, you could try to anticipate at least a littlemore than that. I mean, planning ahead is important. Especially if you want to become an official PPC agent. Planning ahead could make all the difference in a life-or-death situation!"

"Seriously," said Marshall, "that's a freaky looking weasel-thing. And Anjilly, I think it's stalking you with its eyes. Creepy."

"I do plan ahead!" Karen insisted. "Do you have any idea how much planning it takes to make all the cookie dough I need daily?"

"Mmph," said Anjilly.

"Marshall," said Karen, abruptly changing the subject, "whatcha drawin'?"

"Nothing important," Marshall Arts blushed and tried to roll up the paper before she could peek. Karen, being Karen, immediately threw a sugar cookie shuriken and pinned Marshall's arm to a wall labeled "6." The picture in his hand unrolled, revealing a very accurate rendition of one Lupe Gabriella Hernandez.

"Aha!" Karen gloated. "You are the Designated Love Interest of the story!"

There was a moment of silence. It was broken by a sudden, ominous CRACK. And then another. And then a series of smaller noises - crack, snapple, pop, bad cereal joke - until, finally, the entire wall behind Karen collapsed, shattering into a million, pulverized little pieces.

Anjilly whirled to gape at it, a look of abject horror on her face. "Karen - !"

"Oh, don't worry," said Karen, toeing some of the wall sand.

"Don't worry?" Anjilly repeated. "You just broke the fourth wall!"

"Sure it wasn't the fifth one?"

"Yes!" Anjilly shouted, turning to look at the octagonal room. "See, they're numbered. There's one, two, three—and a kriffin' gaping void where number four should be!"

"Oh, please, it's nothing to get upset about," said Karen. "We've been building up to it all chapter long!"

There was another CRACK from down the hallway, and the unmistakable sound of rubble hitting the floor.

"KAREN!"

"Hey, it isn't the end of the world..."

"At least think about the building's structural integrity!"

"Chillax, Anj," Karen said, pulling out a cookie and idly nibbling on it. "I specifically designed this place so that even if every fourth wall fell over, there'd still be plenty of support from the other walls."

"You expected us to lose twenty-five percent of our walls?"

"...Well, it is an OFU fic."

CRACK.

"KAREN!"

"On the plus side," said Marshall Arts, heading for the gap where the fourth wall had been, "we now have a way out of here."

"True, but—" And it was at that moment that disaster struck. The small weasel-like thing, which had previously been hiding in a corner, being ignored, launched itself at Anjilly and managed to wrestle away both the teapot she was holding and the wallet full of teabags. With a scarily Karen-esque laugh, the weasel dashed out of the hole in the wall and into OFUA:TLA proper.

"MY TEA!" Anjilly screamed.

"Come to think of it, that teapot was rather annoying…" Karen muttered to herself, then paused. "Oh. Wait. Anj, wasn't that Mai4?"

"My…my tea…" Anjilly blinked in shock, looking down at her hands. "It…it took my tea…"

"And a student," Karen added. "Don't forget the student."

"Should we send out a rescue mission or something?" Marshall asked.

"Pfft!" said Karen. "No, of course not. If I was going to rescue the students every time something bad happened to them, well...it wouldn't be as entertaining, would it? Just make a note that Mai4 was kidnapped by a creepy tea-stealing weasel thing so the teachers don't get confused when they take role."

"Tea…" Anjilly cried forlornly.

"She's not going to be functioning again until she gets some tea into her," Karen sighed. "Come on, Marshall, help me guide her out of here..."

"Tea…"

"Faster!" Anjilly snarled at a group of students. "Do you want the lemurs to catch you? Now conjugate 'bend' in first person singular!"

"I bend, I have bent, I bent, I had bent, I will bend, I will have bent," Lupe panted. The rest of her group groaned out similar answers. "I would bend, I would have bent…bending, bent…"

"I bended?" some poor unfortunate soul said.

"WRONG, Mr. [-]," snapped Anjilly. "While 'bended' is indeed a real world, it's used as an adjective, not a verb! Ten laps around the island! GO!"

"I don't think I've ever seen Ms. Ka so angry," Sofia remarked as poor [-] took off running. "Anyone know why she's acting this way?"

"I heard her tea got stolen," Freeranger shrugged. "Iroh's been trying to hide his stash. And several of the students think they've seen Swiper the Fox around campus."

"Wait, the thing from Dora the Explorer?" Ari Mason frowned. "I heard it was the weasel from Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide."

"Is someone gonna be a janitor and become its arch-nemesis?" Emma joked.

"You lot!" Anjilly stormed over. "Since you're just standing around talking, clearly you have time to do a hundred sit-ups while telling me the forms of 'drink'!"

The students groaned, and started the exercise. "Drink, drinking, drank, drunk…"

"I'm not sure if I should be scared or delighted," Karen eyed the students. "I approve of the torture you're inflicting with all my heart, naturally, but this does seem a little…unusual for you, Anj. You're normally a much gentler person."

"I don't have my tea," Anjilly growled, "and until I get my tea back, the students will suffer." She pulled a small bottle out of her pocket, pulled a small white pill out of the bottle, and popped it in her mouth.

"Is that...?" Karen asked.

"Yes," said Anjilly. "I sent a message to my friends back at HQ, and they were happy to send me a few bottles. Alright, Miss ihaznoideawuttowrite. Use there/their/they're in a sentence!"

"Uh...um...There over their with they're dog?"

Anjilly stared at the student for a moment before popping another white pill into her mouth. "That," she said, "was abysmal. Ten laps! Go!"

ihaznoideawuttowrite took off running, pursued by lemurs.

"Wow," said Karen, "that wasbad."

"The pathetic thing is, I've heard worse," Anjilly growled. "And why aren't you paranoid anymore?"

"It's Saturday now," Karen grinned. "Saturday the Thirteenth isn't a very scary day. Actually, did you know that Friday the Thirteenth of October is feared so because of a massacre of the Templar Knights ordered by the King of France on that same day, back in…oh, the 1300s?"

"I did not know that, and unless it will help make the students miserable, I don't really care," Anjilly wheeled around to face the yard full of exercising students. "All right you lot! Everyone give me a sentence using an adjective/preposition combination followed by a gerund!"

"A what?" came the general reply.

"And another fifty push-ups for each of you!" Anjilly added.

The students groaned. Anjilly without tea was a force to be feared indeed.