Given how nice-looking and not-exactly-nice-acting the stranger had been, he stayed in Nya's mind for a while. However, college kept her busy, and by the time of intramural hockey season, Nya had almost forgotten about the stranger. She had enough going on without thinking too much about someone she'd probably never meet again.

More than enough going on, in fact.

Like ending this stupid meeting.

"I really don't know," Nya said, trying to keep her calm. It wouldn't be good to blow up at her new advisor when Ms. Mistake was only trying to help. "I just can't think of a single major that actually fits me."

"Not a single one?" Ms. Mystake asked, raising her eyebrows.

"Not a single one," Nya repeated.

Ms. Mystake hummed thoughtfully. "What would fit you, then?"

"I just said I don't know," Nya huffed.

"Not as a major," Ms. Mystake said. "In general. What kinds of things fit you?"

Nya frowned.

Ms. Mystake elaborated after a moment, taking out a piece of paper and a pen and saying, "What do you enjoy? What are you good at? What are you passionate about? What can you endure doing without complaint?"

"Are you going to make me take one of those awful career interest tests?" Nya asked suspiciously, peering at the piece of paper. "Because-"

"No," Ms. Mystake said. "Just tell me. What things make you the person who you are?"

Nya thought for a moment. "I like… I like playing hockey?"

"Why?" Ms. Mystake asked.

"Why?" Nya repeated.

"Why do you like it?" Ms. Mystake asked, posing the pen over the paper.

"Well, because it's hockey. It's fun. I play with my friends, and we have a good time. And I'm co-captain, so I get to do a lot of the organizing and scheduling and leading, and those are things that can be hard, but they're things that I'm good at," Nya said slowly.

"What else?" Ms. Mystake asked, scribbling away.

"I'm a good teammate, I think," Nya said. "I get a little frustrated with everybody sometimes, but I get through it. I'm kind of a perfectionist. I like everything to work out the way I want it to. I like solving problems and helping out. Uh, I'm pretty good at finding things out, researching, coming up with changes to make and then making them, stuff like that. And I like working with people. I'm good at that too most of the time. Is that what you meant?"

Ms. Mystake nodded. She slid the paper across her desk and tapped it with her pen.

Nya leaned over and read the scattered phrases out loud. "'Interpersonal skills. Organizational skills. Leadership skills. Problem-solving skills. Advocacy. Knowledge. Flexibility. Communication.'"

"Does that match?" Ms. Mystake asked.

"I guess, yeah," Nya said.

"Take this with you," Ms. Mystake said, tapping the paper again. "Do some of that research you're 'pretty good at.' Explore careers that would use your abilities. And come back to see me in a little bit, by winter break at the latest."

Nya nodded. "Okay. Yeah, I can do that. Yeah."

"And take this with you too," Ms. Mystake said, spinning in her chair and grabbing something small off of a bookshelf.

Nya took the thing and peered at it. "A packet of tea bags?"

"Linden tea," Ms. Mystake said, like that explained everything.

It kind of did. Nya hadn't spent so much time with Wu for nothing. "For bringing calm to the mind and relief to the body?"

Ms. Mystake nodded crisply. "And insight to the spirit."

Nya smiled a little. "Yeah, okay. Thanks."

Leaving the advisor offices, Nya felt better than she had in a while. She tucked away the packet of tea bags into her bag and thought as she walked, heading to the ice rink. She and Cole had picked this time and date for the first hockey practice so that if Nya's advisor appointment went as poorly as it had with her past advisor, she could talk to all of their friends and work out the immense frustration through their time together. As it turned out, she didn't need that. There wasn't much frustration. In fact, she almost felt hopeful.

"Maybe this is a turning point," Nya said to herself. "Time to start a new mission. Let's call it… Mission: Studying Settlement. Yeah. I'll figure out what I'm going to major in, and that'll fix it all up. Everything's going to turn out fine."

She grinned and picked up her pace as the ice rink came into view. Her teammates were already visible, crowding around the front doors. They seemed excited, just like Nya was. They were all waving their hands around and talking loudly.

As she got closer, though, Nya realized they didn't seem excited. Their motions were too sharp, their voices too tense. Instead, they seemed… Angry?

"-Completely out of the question!" Jay shrieked, flinging his arms out. "They can't, you know, they can't just do this!"

"They can, and they are," Skylor noted darkly.

"There's gotta be a way around this," Kai said with clear anger.

Cole laughed roughly, sounding about as unhappy as Nya had ever heard him. "I want there to be, but I doubt it."

"It's nuts," Jay continued. "Absolutely nuts. How dare they do that?"

"How dare they do what?" Nya asked with eyebrows raised, finally getting close enough to make her presence known.

Lloyd stepped closer to her as he heard and saw her, and Kai and Cole both waved.

Still waving his arms around, Jay didn't even turn to look at her. "It's inhumane!"

"That's not exactly what inhumane means," Cole said.

"It is too!" Jay protested.

"It is not," Cole said, his tone lightening a little with the banter.

Jay's tone, if anything, became even more frustrated. "It is too!"

"It is not," Cole said.

"It really is not," Pix added.

"Fine," Jay huffed. "It's harsh, then! Heartless, even!"

"What's harsh and heartless?" Nya asked, stepping right up to him. "Jay?"

Jay startled back, like he hadn't even noticed her until then. He probably hadn't.

"Jay, what's harsh and heartless?" Nya asked again.

Jay shot his arms out in front and to the side of him, gesturing wildly to a sign plastered over the doors to the ice rink.

Taken aback, Nya read it aloud, the single sentence cutting every piece of her former excitement into shreds. "'Due to budget cuts and lack of campus interest, the NNCU Ice Rink will close at the end of this school year.'"

"See?" Jay said. "Harsh! Heartless! Cruel! Callous! Vicious! Uh… A second word that starts with a 'v' but means 'terrible and terribly thought-out!'"

"They can't do that," Nya protested.

"I know!" Jay said.

"But they can," Cole said. "I mean, our figure-skating program is down to six people, me included, and I think the actual hockey teams aren't doing much better. Intramural hockey is fun, but it doesn't really bring the college any money."

"But so many people love this rink!" Nya said, then she said again, louder this time. "So many people love it! We love it!"

"There's gotta be a way around this," Kai said again.

"What way?" Skylor asked skeptically.

"I don't know," Kai admitted. "But a way. Some way. Any way."

"How are we going to find it, though?" Skylor asked.

Kai sighed. "I don't know that either."

"I might know," Lloyd said, speaking up for the first time since Nya had arrived, but speaking so quietly Nya almost wasn't sure she'd heard him.

Apparently that was more than most of the others thought they'd heard from him, because they kept on talking.

"The chances of convincing an entire university's committees and councils that they misjudged their own costs and interest levels are likely minimal," Pix said thoughtfully.

Cole sighed. "Yeah, minimal."

"But not zero, right? Minimal, not zero?" Kai asked.

"Minimal is more than zero," Jay said readily.

Kai shoved his shoulder. "I know that! I was just saying-"

"And Lloyd was just saying something too!" Nya interjected loudly once it was clear nobody had noticed Lloyd's contemplative face and soft words. "Because he knows something too. Something about saving the ice rink."

"Maybe," Lloyd said.

"Maybe is more than minimal," Jay said, nodding eagerly. "Let's hear it!"

Lloyd paused for a moment. "Well, to do something like that, something big and important, we'd need a plan."

"I'm with you so far," Jay said.

"A really good plan," Lloyd said.

"Yeah," Jay said, nodding. "Still with you."

"And that means we'd need a really good planner," Lloyd said.

"As in a notebook?" Jay asked. "Now you've lost me."

"I meant a planner as in a person who plans," Lloyd said.

Jay nodded. "Okay, uh-huh, with you again."

"A person who plans things super well, a person who plans a lot, person who plans…" Lloyd said, then he paused meaningfully. "Missions."

"Oh!" Jay said, lighting up with a grin so wide half of his freckles disappeared into the creases of his cheeks.

"Oh yeah," Kai said confidently. "I know just who that is."

"And who is that?" Nya asked, already knowing what he would say.

Kai held his hands up in front of him. "Me!"

As Nya laughed, Cole elbowed Kai in the stomach. "Nope."

"What?" Kai protested, backing away from Cole. "I'm a good planner of missions!"

"Tell that to all of the times you tried to steal a cookie from the cookie jar and your dad or Uncle Wu caught you before you even had the lid back on," Lloyd said.

"Who, me?" Kai said innocently. "Couldn't be!"

"You also couldn't be who Lloyd meant," Pix said.

Kai squawked in playful outrage. "Then who?"

"Nya, obviously," Pix said.

"Nya's the one," Skylor said at the same time. She held out a hand to Pix a moment later, and Pix slapped it with a high-five.

"Yeah, I meant Nya," Lloyd said.

Nya gave a theatrical bow. "Thank you, thank you."

"You'll have to do it," Lloyd said. "You'll have to be the one to save the ice rink."

Nya paused. "With all of your help, right?"

"Well, yeah," Jay said.

"Uh-huh," Cole said.

"All of us," Skylor said.

"Yes," Pix said.

Nya turned to Kai. "And you?"

"And me?" Kai asked, sounding offended. "Yeah, you," Nya said.

"Even though I'm not the one who plans missions super well?" Kai asked, giving an obnoxiously large pout.

"Of course," Nya said sweetly. "After all, who else will be there on the mission to do something super stupid like jump out of a moving car?"

"It wasn't that stupid," Kai said.

"The car was speeding up," Nya said.

"And going down a hill," Lloyd said helpfully.

"When you easily could have-" Nya began.

"Okay, yeah, it was a little stupid," Kai said.

"Super stupid," Lloyd agreed.

"We're not here to talk about whether stuff I did was stupid or super stupid," Kai said hastily. "We're here to talk about how to save the ice rink, right?"

"To talk and to practice," Pix said. "As the ice rink does have until the end of the school year, and the intramural games are fast approaching within that time frame."

Kai pointed eagerly at Pix. "Yeah! What she said! So let's go in and make the most of this time! We might as well, right?"

"We might as well," Nya agreed, then she frowned thoughtfully. "In fact, we really should. Because we don't know whether or not we'll get to have this time again next year."