I've been talking to you all for so long with my narrating practices, but I've forgotten to introduce myself! How rude of me, and allow me to correct that mistake!

A pair of feet run as fast as they can around the corner.

I am known by many names,

The man turns another corner and picks up his already fast pace.

Peacekeeper Extraordinaire!

The man swiped his ID card by the security system attached to the door. "RETINA SCAN REQUIRED" a robotic voice spoke. The man whined worriedly and brought his eye down to the camera's level.

The leading expert on RWBY Shipology!

"ACCEPTED" The voice said and unlocked the door. He grabbed the handle.

Princess Canada! I've been called a legend on one or two occasions as well, but most tend to call me-

"GRAND HOSTESS MELANIE!" the man rushed in, out of breath with his glasses nearly off his face.

The caped woman who stood in the middle of the large room sighed. "Yes, Reggie?" she turned to face the breathless man. "I was kind of the middle of something?" She moved the papers in her desk around, mostly to hide the papers but also to seem busier than stating she was practicing her Hosting abilities by narrating random events in her head with random quotes.

The man, still bent over and out of breath, held up his finger as if to signify her to wait a bit.

'The nerve-'

"Grand Hostess! There's a complication in the Anomaly Portal Connection Machine!" He finally spoke up.

Melanie's eyes widened. "Next time, lead with that!" She detached her cape from her uniform, grabbed a tool from her desk, and began speed walking past the man and through the door.

"W-wait up!" Reggie reached into his pocket, pulled out an inhaler, and used it before running after Melanie. After catching up with the hostess he slowed his pace a bit, still trailing a respectful distance behind his boss.

"Alright, I can't go in blind." She looks back to him. "Reggie, tell me all you know about the issue." She pulls out a Net-Comm pad and pulls up a schematics diagram. She tosses the pad behind her without looking and Reggie fumbles to catch it. "What area is experiencing issues? The Power Core? The Locator? The Shortcut Maker? The HP Saver? The Viewer?"

"Uh…yes!"

"The Viewer?"

"Well, yes, a-and also a few more…"

Melanie stopped in her tracks. She turned to face Reggie. "A few more…how many more?"

Reggie nervously turns the pad over to reveal all the sectors highlighted. "All of the above?" He nervously says.

Melanie turns around and breaks into a full sprint. "FuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckFUCK!" she turns a few corners and makes her way to the Machine Room. She bursts through the door to find the area in chaos and disarray.

Engineers are rushing around the underground room with fear and determination, rushing off to fix up whatever was fixable with their limited knowledge of the problem. The programmers were tumbling over themselves as they worked on the computers to maintain the mainframe from further collapse. In the middle stood a towering machine of cogs and gears and metallic pieces, the Anomaly Portal Connection Machine. The large tower-like machine was making odd noises and creaking sounds and hissing steam every once in a while.

"PHYNX!" Melanie called out to a lady typing away furiously at a near computer. "Where's the issue?!"

The red-haired woman, Phynx, looked from the computer to Melanie. "We received 5 different foreign signals at around the same time all trying to enter the mainframe, it must've overloaded our systems and caused a malfunction somewhere in the machine. We were able to separate the user logs from the machine's mainframe so as to prevent any further attacks and we're working to fix whatever issues come up!" She goes back to typing.

Melanie froze. "So…this was intentional?!"

Phynx stopped typing as she hit enter and pulled up another program. She shook her head. "We can't eliminate the possibility. Either way, we need to fix this and soon or else not only will the machine break but it might also unleash portals throughout the Sub to Gods know where!"

"Well, which part of the machine stopped working? If we fix the first problem, we can follow the trail of destruction and fix it from there." Melanie looked up at the machine as a hiss escaped the tower.

"That's the thing! There were only 10 people who were in here when the APCM went crazy! 7 are inside the machine working to hold back the damages and the other three left to get help! I was called off my break just now, I don't know which part was damaged first!"

Melanie reached into her pocket and pulled out the tool she got off her desk earlier. The tool was simply called "The Key", it was powered by Bragg and can take practically any form so long as the user knows how it works. She stared at the small, rod-like object she held in her palm and felt an echo in the back of her mind 'No one ever dies…' She clutched the Key. "It's decided then, I'm going in!" She turned but was stopped by Phynx's hand on her shoulder.

"Grand Hostess! You can't go in there! The APCM is out of control, its movements are irrational, unpredictable! It's far too dangerous and we can't afford to lose you!" Phynx pleaded.

Melanie looked from Phynx to the machine. "My people are in that machine! I can't leave them to a fate like this, not If I can stop it!" she flipped the switch on the Key and the tip lit up a bright red, ready to use. Melanie moved from her friend's grasp and made her way to the entrance of the machine.

She grabbed the handle only to instinctively pull back from the searing pain. "Fuck!" she shook the pain away and eyed the door up and down before finally kicking it in, effectively breaking the door hinges off.

The normally blue shaded inside of the machine was an alarming red sending off major danger flags all throughout Melanie's mind, with a shake of her head she ignored it and made her way to the stairs leading to the first floor, The Locator.

She reached the top of the stairs to find two engineers fixing the gears- who were going in opposite directions and at a much faster pace-, and one programmer stretching himself thin by taking care of all three major terminal computers.

One of the engineers was the first to notice her. "G-Grand Hostess!" a burst of steam shot out of a crack as the engineer barely moved his head to the left to avoid it. "Gah! Y-you can't be here! It's-"

"-too dangerous, I've been told that already! Where's the fire?!" She pointed the Key to the steaming crack and shot a beam at it. The beam made impact with the surface and immediately it became a solid red crystal covering that stopped the steam.

The engineer reached into the tool box strapped onto his belt, pulled out a roll of tape, and rapidly began taping the area. "The fire is on the third floor, The HP Saver!" he called out and moved on to another pipe that seemed ready to burst. Melanie nodded and rushed up the stairs. She passed the second floor and stopped as she saw 2 programmers working furiously on the computers.

They both notice the new presence. "Grand Hostess Melanie?! W-"

"Can it!" She rushes to the stairs and begins making her way to the third floor. About midway up the stairs she notices a rise in temperature and an increase in a dark fog. "Gods!" she picked up the pace and finally reached the third floor.

When she reached the floor, she saw a huge fire erupting from one of the computer terminals. On the floor, passed out, were two of her engineers. "Fuck!" Melanie reached into her pocket and pulled out a handkerchief to stop the smoke from being an immediate issue. She hurried to the two workers. "Guys! Wake up!" she tried to shake the engineers awake but both were knocked out. "Damn it!"

The fire seemed to keep growing. Melanie ran back to the stairs and pulled out the Key to turn it into a grappling hook like tool. She swung it around her head and threw it at one of the unconscious engineers, it latched onto his belt as she pulled with all her strength until the engineer was at the stairs, she pulled him down a few more before one of the programmers helped take him down the rest of the way.

After getting him down she goes for the remaining engineer. She peeks up from the staircase to look at the scene above. The fire was growing still and nearing the unconscious worker as a hissing sound began coming from the other side of the room. Melanie didn't even think twice about it as she ran towards the worker.

The fire exploded. In a split-second, Melanie pointed the Key at the fire and moved her arm in an arc to form a hollow dome that fell on her and the unconscious worker as the flames approached. The dome fell with a loud thunk and through its crystalized transparency Melanie could see the flames wash over the dome. Immediately, the heat was unbearable and Melanie could hardly breath.

"Way…out…!" She located which way the fire was coming from and kicked the opposite side of the dome. She aimed the key through the opening and fired a grappling hook towards the staircase. After a definitive clunk, Melanie imagined the Key pulling the rope back causing the dome, her, and the engineer to begin moving rapidly in one direction. The dome hit the stairs and flipped. In the air Melanie reached out and shielded the engineer using her body. They landed at the bottom with the dome helping break some of Melanie's fall and Melanie's body breaking all of the engineers fall.

"Grand Hostess!" the worried programmer from before approached and moved the unconscious worker off of her. Melanie groaned and sat up. "Grand Hostess! You shouldn't-!" She simply shook her head and made her way up the stairs, leaving behind the cloth she was using to block the fumes from the fire. Melanie silently looked at the gigantic fire and pointed at it with the Key. A crystalizing beam shot at wisp of flame and in its place a splotch of shiny red crystal replaced it. The fire died down a bit. Another shot at a table that had found a new purpose as kindling, the table was soon encased in crystal. More of the fire quelled.

Melanie started firing at all possible directions with blind rage and extinguished more and more of the fire until the whole room was covered in a coating of bright red crystal.

The programmer reached the top of the stairs to see the room entirely covered with a shiny Bragg coating. A gasp escaped her lips. "Wow…"

Melanie turned to the programmer. "That should stop it for now, I'm cutting off this area until we can get an entire team back here to repair as much as we can." The Hostess sighed in relief. "Thankfully we were lucky enough to stop the source and we can begin following the problems from here."

The first engineer Melanie had saved limped his way up the stairs. "The fire…happened after the malfunction…" He coughed.

"What?!" Melanie turned to the engineer.

"Yeah…me and Ifso went to investigate the weird noise upstairs but we saw a person. Before we could do anything…guh.." he coughed violently. "The person threw a bomb or something at one of the terminals and it exploded!"

Melanie growled. Someone was doing this on purpose! Someone was trying to mess with HER machine! Trying to put HER workers in danger! She bolted to the staircase across the room.

She passed the fourth floor, The Shortcut Maker, to find it in equal disarray as any other floor. She reached the staircase and then heard a noise from above her. A series of thumps in what can only be described as footsteps.

Melanie picked up the pace to the last floor.

She reached the final floor, The Power Core, and looked around the room. The room looked normal with no sign of anyone being up here...every computer terminal was working, every gear was turning in the right direction and at the right speed, and at the center of it all stood the gigantic, red, floating Bragg crystal that powered the whole machine.

In any situation, this would be fine. Right now, in this instance, this normal room was the most dangerous thing in all the machine. She pulled out her Net-Comm pad and scanned the entire room. A 3D model of the Bragg Crystal and the room was shown on the pad. A blip came up.

Melanie's eyes widened and she ran around to the back of the crystal to find something purple stabbed into the crystal. "Holy F-"

If I may cut in at this time.

In case it wasn't glaringly obvious, I am Melanie Antiqua, the Ship Wars Lady. I am in charge of this whole shebang!

…Er, right. This is why we practice, people!

Anyway, every year, Nations send in their Representatives, and Ambassadors, and Champions, and yada yada yada!

And I, am in charge of making sure there is control to the War. Almost Oxymoronic, isn't it? A controlled War.

It sounds so silly and impossible but this is something I do yearly. I have mostly one rule for keeping every year's War safe and fun for everybody:

No one ever dies in Ship Wars.

A group of three people all sit anxiously in a conference room around a round table. All were quiet as no one wanted to be the first to say anything about the situation. Just then the Grand Hostess burst through the door holding a high-tech box. "I bet you're all wondering why I called you in today!"

Silence. And then a hand was raised. "Because of the APCM malfunction earlier today?" a man with a lab coat and frizzled grey hair spoke.

"I have to apologize again Miss Antiqua," a voice spoke up from a strict looking woman in uniform. "As head of security I should've noticed any suspicious activity." She clenched her fist.

Melanie sighed. "It's fine, Orin. From the security footage, there was possibly only a miniscule second where an infiltrator might've had even a chance to break into the machine!" she pulled up the box so it rested atop of the conference table. "Which brings me to why I really brought you all here today." She pushed the button on top of the box and soon it emitted strange whirring and clicking noises until it unfurled to reveal a crystal.

The man in the lab coat spoke up. "Melanie! What the hell is that?!" he looked at the crystal presented in the high-tech box.

The crystal looked like a common Braggtonium crystal, save for the color. Where as Bragg is a bright Red, this crystal had a purple-ish hue to it. An immediate sense of dread washed over the room.

"I extracted this crystal from the Power Core's Bragg." Melanie pulled out her Net-Comm pad and swiped up to send a holographic image up so that everyone can see. The image showed the purple crystal that was on display at the table, only it was jammed into the surface of a much larger red crystal. Presumably the Power Core.

"From Ifso and Mack's testimony we can figure out a story. Person enters the machine, makes their way to the top undetected and so as to not set off the Crystal's security alarm, sends out five different signals into our Main Users System. From there, they break off some of the Power Core and jam this-" she points to the crystal. "into it when the system is recalibrating. On their way to escape they nearly get caught by Ifso Really and Mack Intosh, to which they cause an electrical fire on the HP Saver's terminal computer and escape in all the commotion."

A silence, the HP Saver being damaged was not a good thing.

Finally, someone broke the silence. "Question is…what is that?" The man in the lab coat reached out to touch it but his hand was slapped away by Melanie. "Ow!"

"Until we know what this thing is, no touching it!" Melanie pulled out a small Bragg crystal. "But so far, we do know one thing about this." She tosses the Bragg at the purple crystal and it lands on top of one of its flat surfaces.

Upon contact the Bragg begins to lose its shine and slowly it turns into a shade of purple similar to the crystal it was touching.

The whole room stares in shock.

"…" Melanie swipes up on the pad once more to show a photo of the Power Core's crystal without the foreign element jammed in. Around the crack where the purple crystal was, the Core crystal was turning duller. The whole thing still shone, yet the spot where the crystal was placed in was starting to dull out. "Thankfully, it appears there's a straight correlation of affects over time depending on crystal mass."

Orin stood from her chair. "We have to report this to the Mod Council immediately!"

"At ease, Orin." Melanie spoke calmly and stayed silent for a moment to think before she spoke. "I say we don't."

"What?! B-But this is serious! Lives could be at danger! We-"

"-would have the Mods breathing down our necks." Melanie interrupted as she took a seat. Orin also sat down. "The Mods would want to run an in-depth investigation and that'd hold off Ship Wars for who knows how long." She reached out and pressed a button on the box to reseal it. "Tensions have been running high for a while after Volume 6 and things might get even more violent during Ship Survivor if these Nations don't blow off steam. These people are eager to fight, if we hold that off for even one more day, we'd be putting this whole sub in danger…but this one being a destruction from the inside..."

Melanie sighed as she seemed to recall a rather annoying event that happened recently. "A Nation destroyed by its enemies can always be rebuilt," She looked from the crystal to her companions with a deathly glare, "but one destroyed from the inside, can never recover."

Orin stayed silent. "This still feels wrong, whoever did this is still out there!"

"And if the Mods come out and investigate that person might retreat into whatever rathole they're hiding in and we lose them. Forever possibly. Or worse, they leave and come back one day knowing what they know and possibly with reinforcements. Or even worse, the Mods shut us down."

A silence falls once again over the conference room. "I'm guessing since no one else is arguing with me, we all agree to keep shut about this."

"…" a large, sturdy man cleared his throat as he was silent since the beginning. "I-"

"So what happens to the faketonium?" Orin interrupts

The man in the lab coat stands up and speaks. "Let's leave the naming to the professionals, please." He picks up the box. "As for the crystal, I believe it'd be most beneficial to bring this to the research and development department, with me. We need to analyze this top to bottom and figure out what to name it." he makes his way to the door.

"Torv! You better not spend all day naming that stupid crystal!" Melanie warns as the man exits the room.

"I'll try!~" He waves as he exits the door.

Melanie sighed as she reclined on her chair.

Orin stood silent for a second. "So…what do we do now?"

"Business as usual, I'm afraid." Melanie stands up. "Seth," The large man with an eyepatch stands at attention. "inform some of the guests that we will begin the write-in registration soon. From there, the news will spread fast."

The silent man nods and exits the room. "Orin." The woman stands. "I'll need you to increase security around the entrance and any exits we may have. I also want at least ten security personnel in the APCM room at all times."

Orin nods.

"Whatever attacked us just now, is something that isn't supposed to be here, something that doesn't belong. Whatever that is, it'll reveal itself to us pretty soon." Melanie stands up. "And when it does, we'll eradicate it."

If I can be 100% honest here, the tales people tell about me are mostly exaggerated. For instance; I didn't punch two Inter-Dimensional Dartvoles. I didn't survive two years in an Anomaly Portal with little to no resources and escape with the Power Core Bragg. I also didn't build and program a flying suit of armor powered by Bragg! Don't know where that one came from…

All these tales hold some truth -except that last one- though with so many iterations people tell about it, the details begin to blur. Do I correct these people? No!

They've come to respect me because of these tall tales and by correlation, the contest. By honoring the contest this ensures peace for the main sub and other similar subs. If people think me a legend, that's just an added bonus!

We're nearing the conclusion of our first arc and with that I feel I should reiterate my main rule that I try to maintain for this Contest:

No one ever dies in Ship Wars,

A silhouette walks through a dark room. This…figure, holds no defined shape and shifts constantly, making it even harder to define its shape. A laugh escapes it with a growl.

The shape begins to constrict and compress taking form of a cloaked figure.

No matter how much they deserve it.