"We are now commencing Mission Rink Rescue," Nya said loudly, cutting through the chatter that filled her dorm room.
"We're what now?" Kai asked, looking up from the bowl Skylor had just handed him.
"Commencing Mission Rink Rescue," Nya said pointedly. "You know, the whole reason we gathered here today?"
"Oh, right," Kai said, slurping up a mouthful of noodles. "Commencing. I know what that means. Basically."
"Basically it means starting," Pix said, tapping the point of her pencil against a piece of paper.
Kai pointed at her. "I knew that. But thanks."
Nya sighed and fought back a smirk. Stay focused, stay focused, stay focused… "Anyway. We are now commencing Mission Rink Rescue."
"Why are all your missions called missions again?" Jay asked, kicking his feet in the air from where he lay upside-down on Nya's bed, his head dangling over the edge toward the floor.
"Because it's an effective way of referring to them," Nya said primly.
"Because she never got over her ninja-and-samurai phase from elementary school and she thinks calling her plans missions is a way of being a ninja-and/or-samurai in real life," Lloyd said immediately.
Jay cackled.
"Anyway!" Nya said.
"Wait, seriously, that's why?" Cole asked, sitting up a little straighter but still remaining fairly sideways-slouched in Skylor's bungee-cord chair.
"That's why," Kai confirmed with a gleeful grin. "That's when she started calling everything a mission, and she's never stopped it and she's never changed it."
"Anyway!" Nya repeated. "Mission Rink Rescue! It's commencing!"
Pix took pity on her. "Yes, it's commencing. What's our first step?"
"Our first step should be finding out information. How much it costs to keep up the ice rink each year, how much money it's making for the university right now, how many people use it on a regular basis, things like that," Nya said.
Pix began writing on her paper. "And do you have a plan for this first step?"
"A lot of times, a lot of things about public college budgets are out in the open," Cole pointed out.
"Yeah, they have to be," Jay realized. "They've gotta say what parts of their money they're using for what, so the government knows what they're doing."
"That sucks for them," Kai said. "I'd hate for people to be always looking over my shoulder like that."
"Kai, you're majoring in elementary education," Skylor said.
"So?" Kai asked.
"People are going to be looking over your shoulder like that all the time," Skylor said gently. "Administrators, parents, people like that."
"Well, yeah, I guess," Kai said. "But that'll be worth it to help kids learn."
"Anyway," Nya said, trying to steer the conversation back to where she wanted it. "That's the first step, or at least one part of the first step."
"What's the other part?" Cole asked.
"There are two other parts," Nya said. "One is to assess the interest of the university's faculty and staff for saving the ice rink. To do that, we'll need to reach out to as many people on the payroll as we can."
"You think that'll have a decent impact?" Jay asked. "If the faculty and staff were interested in saving the rink, wouldn't they have spoken up about it already?"
"They might have spoken up, or they might have thought nobody else on the payroll was interested and stayed silent," Skylor said thoughtfully. "Kind of like an opposite peer pressure situation."
Nya pointed at Skylor. "Exactly. Plus, they wouldn't have known about us and how interested we are in saving the rink. If we speak up, they might speak up too."
"And what is the third part of the first step?" Pix asked, still writing away on her paper.
"Assess the interest of the university's students," Nya said. "I mean, there's a whole bracket of teams of students playing intramural ice hockey each year, and plenty of other students come to watch it. It's big! And that's without mentioning the actual hockey teams and the figure-skating program."
"The figure-skating program isn't that big, though," Cole said. "Just six of us."
"But that's six more than there would be if the ice rink closed," Nya said readily.
Cole shrugged. "I mean, I've heard some talk they're planning on taking it to an arena a couple of cities away next year, but I don't know if I'll keep skating in that case. We spend a lot of time getting to competitions already, I wouldn't want to have to add that transportation time just to practice."
"Exactly," Nya said. "The figure-skating program would probably fizzle out without a rink right here, and the same might be true for the hockey teams who play between schools. So who's involved with those? Who can we talk to who'd be interested?"
"Hmm," Cole said. "Well, I can't say much about the hockey teams, but I can say plenty about the other figure skaters."
"Say it, then," Nya said.
Cole grinned. "Well, I've told you all plenty about Vex and Boreal, I think."
"They're both total jerks and we really hate them," Jay said promptly. "We hate them with all of our might."
Cole snorted. "I mean, pretty much."
"Even though they're jerks, do you think they'd be interested in saving the ice rink?" Nya asked.
"Probably not," Cole admitted. "I mean, they've both been talking about transferring somewhere else, and this'll probably be the last straw for that, so there's no point in trying to get them involved."
"So not Vex or Boreal, then," Nya said. "What about the other three?"
"Well, Harumi only skates at the college ice rink on really rare occasions," Cole said slowly.
"She's the richie-rich one, right?" Lloyd asked.
"Yeah," Cole said. "She literally has her own ice rink."
Kai groaned. "Ew. Rich people."
"Ew," Lloyd agreed, but he had a thoughtful look in his eye.
"What are you thinking, Lloyd?" Nya asked.
"I mean, if she's that rich, she could be a big benefit in trying to get money to save the NNCU rink, right?" Lloyd asked.
"If she wasn't a selfish, stuck-up snot? Yeah, she could be," Cole said. "But she is who she is, so."
"Man, is everyone in the figure-skating program a rude, obnoxious, disgusting waste of space?" Jay asked, rolling over and propping his head up on his forearms.
"Dude. I am sitting right here," Cole said plainly.
"Obviously I meant everyone other than you," Jay said quickly.
Kai laughed. "Are you sure?"
"Are you saying Cole's rude and obnoxious?" Jay asked.
"No, I'm saying you're saying that," Kai said.
Jay stuck his tongue out at Kai.
Kai threw a balled-up napkin at Jay.
Before Jay could retaliate at all, Nya said, "Anyway! Nobody thinks Cole's a waste of space, and we're moving on."
"Thanks, Nya, that makes me feel so much better," Cole said sarcastically.
"We love you, Cole. And we're moving on," Nya said. "What about the other two people in the program? There's two more, right?"
"Yes, that's what happens when you subtract four from six," Cole snarked, like he still felt hurt from the earlier comments.
"Cole, focus, please?" Nya said. "Jay and Kai were just being idiots."
"Like that's different from usual," Lloyd said in a mock-whisper.
"Hey!" Kai said.
Jay picked up the balled-up napkin Kai had just thrown at him and threw it at Lloyd.
Lloyd batted it away easily.
"Focus, please?" Nya said again, not really expecting it to happen but wanting to at least try for it.
"Right, yeah, there are two other people who skate," Cole said, thankfully getting back on track. "And they both actually might be interested in helping us."
"Oh good, allies," Nya said.
"Potential allies," Pix agreed. "What are their names?"
"One's Fim, and he's pretty cool but kind of… I don't know, flighty? He doesn't stick around with anything for too long, but maybe he'll stick with the program long enough to want to help us," Cole said slowly.
"And the other one?" Nya prompted.
"Yeah, that's Zane," Cole said. "He's kind of serious, and always really busy, but he's got a good head on his shoulders and he seems to really care about the program. He's actually got an athletic scholarship for figure-skating, I'm pretty sure. He'd be a good one to try to get on helping us save the ice rink."
"That's great!" Nya said. "Okay, so we've got the three parts of our first step. Cole, I think it's obvious that you should talk to Fim and Zane, and the hockey teams too if you can."
Cole nodded. "Makes sense."
"Then the rest of us should either talk to faculty and staff or do research on information," Nya said.
"I'll talk to people," Skylor volunteered.
"Me too," Kai said.
"I can do some research," Lloyd offered. "I don't really know any of the staff yet."
"I know a lot of the professors," Jay said. "I'll talk to some of them."
"I'll research with Lloyd," Pix said.
"So will I, then," Nya said. "Okay. That's settled. Good."
"First step of Mission Rink Rescue, check!" Kai crowed.
"No, not at all," Nya said. "We just came up with it and assigned tasks, we're not even close to checking it off the list of things to do."
"Yeah, but the first step is really actually coming up with the first step," Kai said.
Nya squinted at him.
"It makes sense if you think about it," Kai said, like that made any sense at all.
Nya sighed. "You can call it that if you want."
"Cool," Kai said, and he slurped his noodles loudly.