"What are you doing? Those bastards sabotaged my group, and if you give them a chance they'll sabotage yours!" Ryan said, as he began to struggle against Sonja.
"You idiot, why would you think that? The only thing the blues have done is reach the fourth phase first. None of the first batch received any difficulty. Are you going to accuse Red or White next? Or maybe Yellow, the only group in your batch which isn't having unforeseen difficulty," Sonja said.
"Just look at them! They think they're so superior! They look at us like ants!"
"And right now, they are! But if you shut up and continue according to plan, you can get your group to the same level soon enough. Your issues haven't been anything serious, and if anything all it does is slow you down so that you'll go with the other members of the second batch, like you're supposed to."
Ryan glowered, but stopped struggling. "So we're just supposed to sit down and take this tampering?"
"No, but right now there's nothing we can do about it. I think this came externally, not internally. I'm not even sure how someone here could tamper with the process. Now just calm down and make sure Grayson doesn't try anything before Donna's complete. The Blues will move on soon, and you won't have to deal with them anymore. Remember, until we get through this, we're all in this together."
Ryan scowled, but made no move to charge the blues again. It was clear attacking them would be pointless, even if they were responsible.
With the fanfare of the Blue's return and Ryan's attack past, Iwalani turned his attention back to the rest of the pool, looking around to see how the various groups were progressing.
