Week One, Monday.

The AAA walked in a group with Whale as the spearhead, Generic to his right, and Sergeant Rade Blunner to his left.

Whale turned a corner and so did the rest of the group. "Generic, how did it go with explaining to the Ships the AAA's plan? I hope well?"

The Strategist nodded. "Yep! Everyone is on board and more than happy to accept the help and lend it whenever necessary!" He smiled as he pulled out a sheet of paper. "It was really easy as almost all of the Ships were considered Principalities and wanted a proper government! The only ones to not accept our AAA membership would be Very Useful Lesbian. They gave me a definite maybe, though."

Whale nodded with a smile. "Good job Generic, now remember to stay close and be on guard, today is the first match and it can always get hectic."

Strike, who was behind Whale, rolled his eyes. "You say that, but this is your first time doing Ship Wars too…"

"Yeah, why the hell are you leading the group again? Isn't Strike the one who has more insight into these things?" Rade asked, looking slightly annoyed.

"With that logic, shouldn't Jannis or I lead the group too?" McDouggal said from the back. The whole group stopped and turned to see Jannis smiling in the back next to a tired McDouggal. "What? Do I have something on my face?"

Torrasque broke the silence first. "No…it's just you two are the most likely not to show up for a meeting, so we didn't really think that you'd be joining us for today."

McDouggal sighed. "How rude, I'm almost always at the meetings." Blank stares. "I just, don't talk much."

Jannis nodded. "And I'm almost always taking care of my duties as Champion of White Rose! I'm always training my troops or praying to my goddesses or checking what our competition looks like!"

At this, Generic pops out from his spot in formation and rushes to Jannis' side. "You got intel on our competitors!?"

Jannis smiles at the Strategist. "Of course! A lot of people don't have much animosity towards White Rose or the church so people are pretty friendly with me!"

Generic smiles. "Mind sharing with the Strategist?" he asked.

"Of course! But! Only if you come along with me to a Church of the White Rose sermon!"

The Strategist reels back. Jannis laughs as he sees the young man going in circles in his mind about the decision.

Whale sighs. "Look, we only have an hour before the matches begin!" He pulls out a map. "I'm leading because I'm the only one who kept a pamphlet with a map of the Ship Hall! Generic, you can decide on questioning your religion later!"

Generic snaps out of it. "R-Right!" He turns to Jannis. "Uhm…definite maybe."

Jannis smiles. "That's all I ask." Generic nods and makes his way back to his spot next to Whale.

"Right then, enough dilly dallying,"

"Dilly Dallying?" Torrasque interrupts.

"-let's continue on to the Broadcasting Room!" Whale continued, ignoring Torrasque's remark.

Celtic walked through the Broadcasting Room. The room was large, with about twenty-one different stages set up so Representatives could broadcast their messages to the public and their troops. The stages were rather nice, a little elevation with a Net-Comm like floor to record all movement.

The Hacker sighed as he looked toward one of the particularly loud representatives.

"We need to Smokethe Bees out of this competition early!" He yelled, despite the fact the Net-Comm was going to broadcast this at an already high enough volume. "They are barely getting their troops ready! If we strike now, we may have the opportunity to throw them out before their power grows unbeatable!"

Celtic didn't recognize the man on stage, he brought his wrist up to look at his Net-Watch containing Carl. "Oi, Carl." ( ° u ° )7 "Try to hack into that guy's stage and see who the hell has the cojones to say that without the fear of being stung into high heaven…" The screen flickers as the AI disappears from the watch but soon comes back. A holographic display of a file pops up. "Hn…Stanley…"

"Yo, Celtic!" a voice catches Celtic's attention.

The Hacker turns to see Captain Outcast Munkee approaching him. He smiles. "Hey Munkee."

"Hey." He stands next to Celtic and looks up to the stage. Several other people have gathered around the stage to listen to the man. "So, who's the bloke?"

"According to this," He gestures to the holographic display. "A Captain of Smoke."

"Huh, I didn't think they had enough…support, to actually maintain a government." Munkee looked surprised, but tried to stay polite.

"Yeah, well goes to show you how determined rats are not to die." Celtic sighs and swipes away the user's profile.

"Woah, that's some hostility you got there." Munkee laughs.

"Yeah, well Smoke is like the number four rival to Emberald…"

"That low, huh?" He ruffles the Hacker's hair. "Yet you still hold a grudge as big as if he killed your puppy. Never change, man." Celtic glares, but doesn't stop as the man messes his hair up. Munkee turns around and begins to walk off.

"Hey, wait up!" Celtic calls after Munkee and follows after ruffling his hair back to the way it was.

The two walk alongside each other, making occasional glances at the stages and scoping some of the representatives out.

"So, you gonna go campaign some time soon? The only matches today are Bee-Centric, I would've thought you'd be one of the first ones up there yelling this and that about change?" Munkee says as he turns towards his friend.

Celtic rolled his eyes. "I've got a speech planned out," He looked to one of the stages and his eyes caught on a machine a little to the left of it. The machine needed Karma to buy time for Broadcast. "…but I'm kinda low on Karma right now…"

"Yeah, I heard. From Inferno. Did you have anything to do with his dumbass idea to make a ship about me?" Munkee sighs.

Celtic tried to recall but the only thing he could remember was his spat with Inferno on the first day and the fuzzy memory of a karma bill. "No…I don't think so."

"Meh, whatever. It's kinda cool." Munkee continues walking. "How about this, I spot you the Karma so you can broadcast today and you can pay me back at a later date? How's that sound?" Munkee smiled.

Celtic seemed to think it over. "Sure, other than Renora and Emberald, I have no other commitments."

"Great, let's get you a stage!"

Celtic shakes his head. "Those other stages suck, if I want my message to get across to the people, I need the Main Stage!" The Hacker pointed to the stage in the center of the room.

"No way! That's too expensive, you freeloader!" Munkee said but still made his way towards the Main Stage.

"Why not?! You said you'd spot me!"

"But I didn't think that'd you try to go for the bigger stages here! Actually, now that I think about it, I left my wallet in my room."

Celtic rolled his eyes. "Now you're just saying that so you don't pay for the stage!"

The Main Stage wasn't actually called that, at least not to the staff. It was a rather new addition and as such it was placed in the center of the room. Not only did it give Representatives the chance to get the attention of other Representatives, it broadcasted into one of the big screens set up in the center of the Capitol City. It nearly guaranteed a large increase of support for whoever took that stage. Only drawback to such an immense advantage was that everyone wanted it, so Grand Hostess Melanie Antiqua, in all her infinite wisdom, jacked up the prices immensely.

"It's not worth it if you're not even campaigning for one of your ships!" Munkee retorted.

The two stopped at a large gathering around the Main Stage. A man stood in the center wearing a large trench coat and a large fedora.

"-In times like this we cannot give into fear! Are we to attack out of spite every single time because someone is a threat? The Bees only want what we all want! Happiness for our Gods! Just because they've come closer than us, are we to attack them?! That's unreasonable!" The man pointed upwards but his arm moved jankily.

Celtic rolled his eyes. "This is what the Bees have as campaign material? Weak."

"Sush!" A female representative hushed Celtic, seemingly captivated by the man on stage's charismatic ways of speaking. Celtic looked at her in surprise.

A rather loud noise caught Munkee and Celtic's attention as they look towards the entrance of the Broadcast to see Whale and the rest of the AAA barge in, with the doors banging open. Some security guards came to chew the group out.

"Now those guys are interesting!" Munkee smiled as he felt that warm sensation from before.

"Those guys? They're a joke." Celtic said as he rolled his eyes. "That group is as uncontrolled as they come, there is just no way Rival Ships can team up and stay happy." He turns around. "Everyone wants what's best for them, only. Mark my words, that Alliance will go up in flames before this round is over."

Munkee laughed.

"What?"

"Oh, nothing. It's just, you want us to mark your words a lot!" Munkee began laughing but was also hushed by the same representative who hushed Celtic.

After the guards got off the AAA seemed to discuss something before dispersing into all possible directions. Whale and Strike went off to one of the stages on the side with Cyan and Sulfur in tow. Rade went around the Main Stage and scoped out one of the back stages. Slip Snap…disappeared, actually. Torrasque wandered around. Generic made his way to the Main Stage. Jannis went off to meet with some of his friends and McDouggal stayed near the entrance scrolling through his Net-pad

Celtic put on his cloak's hood to obscure his face and soon the Strategist passed by without noticing the Hacker. Celtic sighed as he looked towards the stage to the odd man giving his speech. "Damn shame they don't charge by the hour…" Celtic sighed but was once again hushed by the representatives. "Carl, add her to my shitlist…" ( ' v ` ) b

Celtic looked at the stage with a bored expression on his face as the odd man was giving his speech. He noticed that something seemed to be moving around in the man's chest. "What the-?" A fuzzy tail popped out of one of the holes between the coat's buttons. A small one, couldn't be there for more than a second and couldn't've been smaller than maybe a squirrel's tail.

"Munkee! Did you see that?! That man has a-"

"SHH!" The representative from before hushed Celtic once more.

"I will destroy everything you love!" Celtic's eye twitched.

"Calm down Celtic, you are being kind of rude to the guy on stage." Munkee puts his hand on his friend's shoulder.

Celtic shook Munkee's hand off. "No! Didn't you see it?! He has a rat in his-"

"SHH!" another person shushed Celtic. He turned to look at the Representative from before to see her completely focused on the man on stage. The Hacker looked around to see who dared shush him, his eyes locked with the AAA's Strategist.

The Strategist looked from the man on stage to Celtic. Generic pointed at him, then made a zipping motion across his lips, and then pointed up.

That little shit knew! That little shit knew what was going on with the Rats and the man, and he was keeping it a secret!

Celtic pointed his thumbs at himself, flipped Generic the double bird, pointed at him, and then pointed up.

The man on stage bowed politely and then exited the stage. Celtic grabbed Munkee's arm. "Let's go! Before some suspicious person beats us to it again!" The Hacker pushed past people in the crowd to make his way to the machine with Munkee still in his grasp.

Munkee looked to the stage. "Uh…I think some suspicious person beat us to it again." He pointed with his free hand to the tall Bee soldier taking stage.

"DAMN IT!" Celtic huffed in defeat.

"I believe that's Bee soldier, Psiah?" Munkee looked to his Net-watch. "We have less than half an hour, guess she's about to rally support for the Bees."

Psiah walked on stage and a holographic circle appeared in front of her, a mic. She pushed a button on the side of the helmet and the mouth cap reeled back.

A moment of anticipation hung through the air as people awaited what this mysterious bee soldier was going to say.

"I will be deployed by myself to fight our adversary this match, Smoke. I ask that while you still give Bumblebee your support, not to send any reinforcements. That will be all. Thank you." She presses the button again and the mouth cap seals the helmet off again.

A total silence from the whole room as Psiah stepped off stage.

"W-what the hell? H-how confident is she that she can win this by herself?!" Celtic turns to Munkee, but Munkee was concentrated on the Bee soldier walking away.

"To do something like that…" He smiled. "This year's really shaping up to be interesting!"

"You can't be serious!" Celtic turned as the crowd began dispersing. It'd be pretty hard to top a declaration that one Bee soldier was going to singlehandedly defeat an army. "This "Psiah" is being foolish, and will most likely get her entire Ship Eliminated early!"

Munkee shook his head. "You don't say something like that unless you have the power to back it up. If she pulls this off, Bumblebee will have immense support."

Melanie stood in her office looking at a bracket list. Today's two matches were interesting, as in that one of them was more interesting in the eyes of the public than the other.

She was not blind to the power Bumblebee had suddenly gained; it was obvious that tons of people would have their eyes tuned in for this match. Some to support it and some in the small hope that they fell. Bumblebee, after staying nearly dormant for two years, had grown into an absolute juggernaut. This match would set the tone for the rest of Bumblebee's conquer.

The door opened and in walked an assistant. "Ms. Antiqua! We have the APCM results connected to your office so you can begin your broadcasting!" The Hostess nodded.

"Thank you." She waited until the assistant left before turning to the large computer set-up on her desk. She turned the computer on and 5 different screens turned on. One displaying a desert island at night with two moons in the sky, the other was of a sky-scraper like building in the middle of a grass field with some traces of forest off in the distance. "Hmm…This looks like the Midnight Desert Anomaly and a new one…"

Melanie pressed a few keys on her computer's dashboard. Names flashed on the screen of the four competitors. And soon the matches were assigned a location and an objective.

'Bumblebee v Smoke: Capture the Flag' 'Chabeeleon v Fireball: Team Deathmatch'

"This should be interesting…" Melanie said with a sigh. She pulled up her microphone connected to the APCM technical room. "Prepare the Portals we will link to the two Anomaly Portals in the following locations." She sent the coordinates.

"Alright, await until I give the signal after my announcements, nothing different from the last 100 times we've done this."

Melane hovered over the Hall's speaker's button.

"IN 3..2…1…."