And the fight was on. A group of masked attackers came out from the other end of the hallway, gagging her so her screams weren't loud enough for anyone else to hear.

To her credit, she fought like a banshee, clearly using what she'd learned so far from Four and Cassie, but she still wasn't experienced enough to take on several attackers at once, after being surprise jumped.

They hissed threats and horrible things at her, although one of them hung back, hesitant. They started to dangle her over the railing, and the hesitant one hissed, "What are you doing?! I thought we were just going to scare her, not actually hurt her!"

Tris managed to rip off that one's mask as he rushed in and actually tried to pull the others off her, revealing Al's wide-eyed face.

Raph was the one to reach them first, quickly kicking Tris' main attacker into the others, knocking the two most aggressive ones down, and grabbing her by the arm and yanking her back over the railing to safety in one quick movement.

He tsked at them.

"Well, what do we have here? You idiots know taking out the competition is the coward's way up the rankings, right? But hey, you being pathetic is why you're at the bottom of 'em to start with, so why am I not surprised?"

Al backed away, horrified, but the other two got up, prepared to fight.