Celtic stomped the halls of the Ship Hall with a determined glare. He could hear the AAA behind him babbling about something or other, but he still kept walking. He knew that if the Bee continued like this, with absolutely no sign of slowing down, the competition was as good as over. People would give up before they even faced the Bees!

He walked into the Broadcasting room and stopped to catch his breath, using this as an opportunity to examine the field.

On his right, several representatives were already talking about the matches going on in three days. He could see Stanley on the far back, near an exit, talking about Smoke being able to take the Bees on. On the left several were just voicing their opinions about the matches including some doing a live feed play by play. He could see the Bee Soldier killing off many more Smoke soldiers.

But he didn't want any of those second-hand stages, he was more concerned with the one being occupied by the weird man in a trench coat with a squirrel in his pocket. 'Another day, another day…' Celtic had to remind himself why he was here. He looked around a bit more.

The AAA caught up to Celtic as they were mostly goofing off with Slip Snap. "What's the matter with you, Celtic? First you tell us you want to hang with us, then you run off!" Rade spoke up as the group stopped around the man.

Celtic's eye twitched under the stress he was giving himself, but always one to give snide remarks, he turned around. "Okay, 1) I never said that, I said you guys are where most of the interesting stuff happens so, 2) If you guys are getting less interesting, I can and will ditch you." He turned around until he spotted him. Munkee. "And 3), this is bigger than your stupid club." He walked off to the Captain before the group began with their strongly worded complaints.

"Munkee! Hey!" Celtic walked up to the man.

Munkee looked bored. Like he would rather be anywhere else but where he was now. "Hey Celtic…" he turned to his odd friend.

"Munkee, I'll take you up on your offer to pay for my broadcast!"

The Captain rolled his eyes. "Gee. How generous of you." Despite this, he took out his wallet. "So, which one you buying for?"

Celtic smiled. "That one!" he pointed at the center stage.

"I already told you, no! That's way too expensive for a message that isn't even mine!" Munkee began to close his wallet.

Celtic held his hands up to catch his friend's attention. "I know, I know, but! I actually have something that will make this more interesting!"

Munkee stopped putting his wallet up. "Interesting? How?"

As if on cue, the AAA walked up to the two.

"I swear, if he keeps this up, we might just have to actually beat him up!" Rade huffed.

"If we beat him up, we'll be penalized." Torrasque reminded Rade, the Sergeant opened his mouth to say something but was cut off by the Tactician again. "-and yes, penalties transfer over to other participants and future Ship Wars." Rade deflated.

Munkee perked up at the AAA's arrival. "I don't think I've had the pleasure of introducing myself, I am Captain Outcast Munkee, of Eisberg!" he offered a hand forward, Celtic tried to grab Munkee's wallet but the Captain just dodged his hand swipes.

Rade, Whale, and Strike looked at each other before they all tripped over one another to shake the Captain's hand while introducing themselves as the defacto leader, Torrasque face palmed. Munkee's bored expression disappeared watching the group's antics.

Venom stepped forward and shook Munkee's hand while the three began arguing. "Good to meet you, Mr. Munkee. I am the AAA's leader, you may refer to me as Mr. Venom." He stopped shaking the Captain's hand and turned to the shocked three with the most shit-eating grin imaginable.

The three leaders stopped fumbling and stood up straight. "I-It's more of a, group rule." Strike said as he put a hand to his neck.

Rade nodded. "Right, we're a team, we don't need a leader!" he chuckled a bit.

Whale sighed. "I think we're all equal in terms of leadership capabilities so it's fine if we don't have one really good Cetacean leader!"

The AAA stood in awkward silence once more. Celtic broke the silence. "Munkee, just cover me this once! I can change the course of the entire War with this one broadcast!"

Munkee sighed. He turned from the AAA to Celtic. "I know how much you want to take down the Bees and stop oppression and all that, but you have to face the facts, the Bees are gonna win this war." Munkee's bored expression seemed to return.

"Not as easily as right now! You're just rolling over and waiting to die!" Celtic yelled. He began hearing a banging in the back of his head so he began breathing to calm himself down. "…Look, I have something with me right now, that can make this fight much more interesting."

At the word interesting, Munkee's eyes perked up. "What do you have?"

Celtic looked around. "I can't tell you right now, but it involves these guys," he pointed behind him at the AAA. "So you know it will be interesting."

The Captain seemed to mull this over. "Fffff…fine." Munkee offered his wallet to the man but swiped it away at the last second before Celtic could grab it. "But! If you're lying to me and it's not interesting, I'll make you pay back double what you spent!"

Celtic hesitates before grabbing the wallet. "Thanks Munkee! I won't pay you back!" he ran off to the center stage where the shady trench coat guy was still promoting the Bees.

Rade shook his head. "Does that man have no honor?"

Munkee smiled. "In his own way, he does. If he says he's not paying me back, that's his way of saying he won't let me down."

The AAA looked at the captain in a funny way.

"Riiight…" Torrasque made a mental note to avoid direct talk with the odd captain.

Generic looked up at the Rodent Collective's psuedo-human representative on stage eloquently explaining this or that about the hardships the Bees have endured to get to his point. The audience, while listening, had this air of tiredness to them. Listening to this man explain how the Bees deserved this win while watching one brutally kill off hundreds of people was a little off-putting.

Celtic stealthily made his way to the machine next to the stage. The machine had a slot for a card and a screen next to it for entering pins and whatnot. He brought his Net-watch up to the machine and put interface to interface. "Okay Carl, do your magic."

A timer appeared on the interface showing how much time was left on the Rodents' broadcast. 35:42. Celtic backed up a bit from the number. He was buying 5 minutes at most and that was already going to be a hefty price! What kind of dough was this creep rolling in?!

Celtic rolled his eyes as a holo-display of the time and a dial appeared from his watch. He put his hand on the holo-dial and began turning it counter clock-wise, making the timer go down faster until only a minute was left.

As Celtic began to get himself ready for the stage Strike and Whale approached him. "What the heck do you think you're going to accomplish with this? The Bees have won, the report says that there's only a total of five soldiers in the Anomaly Zone anymore! Psiah's going to kill them all!"

The hacker looked concern for a bit before shaking it off and regaining his composure. "I have a plan." Is all he said before he walked to the stage's small staircase. He looked down to his watch and saw 30 seconds left on the man's speech, he looked to Munkee before nodding. Munkee nodded back.

A humming noise came from the machine indicating to the Rodents collective that their time was running out, this however, threw off the flow they had built up as confusion set in. The timer went off, cutting out the broadcast just as the rodents had realized what was going on. Celtic began walking on stage, having deposited Munkee's Karma Card in the machine's slot.

"That was a great speech! Truly, my heart goes out to all the poor Bees for having to put up with shitheads like me." Celtic made the smuggest of smirks as he approached the shady man.

The rodent collective however, didn't seem dissuaded by Celtic's presence. "The machine is broken, there's no way that was the paid time." A voice from the large coat calmly spoke up.

Celtic's smirk wavered for just a second. "Look, I don't know jack about computers and machines so I can't tell you if it's broken, but the thing said it's my turn. So Buzz off."

The disguised rodents didn't move. "But that's not fair. I already paid the amount, should I not get the time I paid for? Or at least a refund?"

"Take it up with administration, I don't make the rules, I just follow them!" Celtic lied.

A security guard approached as the two's discussion became more and more heated. "Is there a problem here?"

Celtic remained calm despite being glared at by the guard, a trick he had managed to teach himself in his line of work. The rodents however became uneasy as the guard looked their disguise over.

"No problem here, I…said what needed to be said. I trust that the people are smart enough not to give into fear and false hysteria." The shady man spoke before walking off stage.

Celtic smiled as he stood at the podium and thanked the security guard.

Generic walked after the disguised rodents. "Rodents!" he called after them. They turned the machine to face the young Strategist, holding a finger up to their not mouth. Generic immediately covered his mouth. "Oh, sorry!" he got close so he didn't need to yell.

The disguise suit stayed in place.

"I'm sorry about Celtic, Porcupine. I just met him, but from what I can tell, he's always like this…"

The disguise took the fedora off to reveal not a porcupine but a chipmunk in its stead. "Strategist, Porcupine would like me to inform you that he is not at the moment in the suit but rather in the collective's suite." Upon closer inspection, Generic could see a small earpiece on the chipmunk's ear.

"Oh…uh, cool. Can you tell him I said sorry about Celtic?"

A small, high pitched noise very similar to a babble came from the small earpiece. "Porcupine would like to inform you that he can hear you, so there is no need for that."

"Oh…cool. Well, it's been fun-"

"It has not."

"-…I'm…gonna go now…" Generic said as he began to back away. He didn't know what, but something told him that something was off with the small rodent. Or it could just be that he was still upset about the center broadcast stage.

Celtic looked at the Net-cast screen installed on the podium before hitting the Broadcast button. He saw a holographic sphere send itself out above the small crowd that had begun to form around his stage.

"Good people of the Sub, you know me, you know what I will say. It seems that for some people, this competition is as good as over." He made a quick glance at Munkee's direction before he began pacing on stage, the holo-sphere followed him a bit. "But! Are we just going to give the win over to the Bees because they might as well win this year? No! I don't know about you, but I'm not about to just bend over and take this!"

Some people began to walk away from Celtic's stage, having heard the same thing a million times from him or other representatives, today or in competitions past. It didn't take a genius to figure out that Smoke was facing an uphill battle, if this was just one Bee, imagine a whole army.

Celtic saw the people leave and could feel rage. "…FINE! Walk away! You leave because you don't think it's your problem, because Smoke isn't the best ship out there and they should fall! And they aren't the best ship and they should fall! But! You are dead wrong that this is not your problem!" Celtic walked over to the podium before inserting the SD card he made a few minutes ago into a slot.

A holographic video of the injured Smoke soldiers appeared. A gasp emerged from the crowd. The people who were leaving returned and people from other stages, including a few representatives began to gather around Celtic.

"Celtic…" Strike looked at the scene in shock. There, for everyone to see, was the AAA and Celtic looking at the harmed Smoke soldiers.

Murmurs indicated to Celtic that he had the crowd's attention. "What you are seeing is footage of the medical wing in our very own ship hall, not even thirty minutes ago. This is what the one Bee did to these soldiers. Many of them are in critical condition. Many sustaining deep cuts that will become scars." Celtic began pacing. "All that you see, is happening to these soldiers right now!" he pointed to the crowd. "AND IT WILL HAPPEN TO YOUR SOLDIERS TOO!"

The murmurs intensified. "And, if you're not in the same bracket, you will eventually be, at least if you wish to win this competition. You will have to face the Bees, and they will have you in this hospital room dying." Celtic spoke in a harsh tone

"The Bees are not suffering," he pointed to the video of the soldiers nearly dead. "THESE SOLDIERS ARE SUFFERING!" he yelled to the crowd. "Smoke may fall, yes. They're chances of winning are non-existent. But! If we stand up to these Bees, we can show that we will not just take this lying down!" he completely wrapped the crowd up with his words, they clung off of every last letter he said. "We can throw a rock at them and it will do nothing. But we can throw many rocks at them, and they will have to notice us, and we can damage them!"

A few agreeing whoops and yeahs from the crowd.

"You at home, those that cannot fight, have an even greater power; you can vote against these Bees! You can tell them to their faces, that they cannot just take what they want as if they have a right to it! If they WANT that prize, they will have to rip it out of our clawing, biting embrace!"

Many agreeing murmurs from the crowd.

"So! People of this good Subreddit, who believe in the sacredness that is the spirit of the competition! The thrill of the fight! Let's give em' hell!" Celtic said with great spirit, getting the crowd caught up in it too. Many took their Net devices out and began to vote.

As Celtic realized his five minutes were almost up, he raised a fist in the air, and the crowd did the same. He walked off stage and was greeted to Munkee with his arms crossed. "Well, that was interesting." He smiled.

Celtic returned the smile. "I always aim to please."

The AAA walked up to Celtic and Munkee.

"Impressive." Rade said as he nodded.

"You did always have a knack for rounding up people for hopeless causes." Strike shook his head.

Celtic smirked. "Oh really?"

Strike rolled his eyes as he pulled up his Net-pad and showed it to Celtic. "Yeah. The last Smoke soldier died in the middle of your speech, now all those votes are going to nobody."

Celtic made a motion to follow him, Munkee and the AAA did as such.

"Hey Strike, or Whale I honestly don't care at this point, do you know how much of a boost in Bragg Renora got because of the Mech scene?" Celtic smiled.

Whale spoke up. "Well, near-canonization and a very intimate moment, I would guess around at least a million Bragg units."

"Close! At the end of Volume four we decided to use the Investor Clause that the Mods offered." He smirked as he led the group through a pair od double doors to the outside showing the parking area. "From the looks of it, we were the only ones in the Big Four to actually comply."

"Investor Clause?" Rade asked to no one in particular.

"Around the end of Volume 3 we saw a widespread of deletion and just outright desertion for many ships. The Sub's economy went down drastically, and so the Mod Council needed Bragg." Generic began explaining. "They offered a plan that promised the return of their Bragg units with interest depending on how far the Ships would go canon wise. The main problem was that the prices to begin were high and the decision for what was canon is decided by the mods."

"And the mods each might have a different idea of the worth of each canon moment, so the value you invested might not be as big as you thought." Jannis added in.

Generic nodded. "The Kingdom of Lancaster voted and we decided to do so around the middle of Volume 4. We still have the investment in, we're waiting until we become canon, and then we'll have enough Bragg to fully afford another planet and maybe even a Spot in the Big Four!" Generic smiled.

The Arkosians and Jannis became slightly uneasy, but it was actually Rade who stopped the young Strategist from rambling.

"Yeah, sure you are, ya' nut!" Rade ruffled the Strategist's hair, much to his protests. The relaxed ambient returned.

"If you guys are done with your family values," Celtic interrupted as he stood behind a ship, his personal ship. "Watch this."

Celtic pantomimed a remote control in the palm of his hand. "3…2…1…GO!" he pushed the fake button and a ship took off towards the Smoke portal.

"What the hell!?" Strike asked as he looked at the ship disappear into the Anomaly Portal.

"Now then, the Kingdom of Renora decided that if we are to have a leg up in future competitions, we need to study the competition itself." He began walking back inside, ignoring the confused group. "So I sprung for a brand-spanking-new research program, this one centered around the study of the Anomaly Portals and their mysterious ways, we even took out our investment to fund some of its more…advanced tests."

Celtic walked past the entrance of the Broadcasting room, the AAA and Munkee following behind him, curious as to where this was all going.

"Now, I won't tell you all my findings as I will have to charge you a small providence for the info but I can tell you that a few months into the project, we had a security breach." Celtic walked into the Commons area. "Well, two actually. One I was unable to trace back but one was so obvious, I almost felt bad for the crappy thief, until I realized I could gain more from what the little pest than if I just went and eviscerated him myself." Celtic made an evil sneer as he arrived at the AAA's table.

"What did they find that's so important, and who found it?" Strike looked down at the hacker.

Celtic kept his eyes on the screen. "The Anomaly Portals have an odd factor in their basic composure; they can distinguish sides and decide certain factors to collect their Bragg, but only if they have certain energy amounts in them. We carry that energy from our world into the Anomaly Zone with our bodies, and that's how an Anomaly War can have sides."

"That's basic Anomaly theory at this point, nice use of your Bragg uni." Whale smirked.

"Okay, then I'm guessing it's also Basic theory that certain things we bring in also have energy signals that transfer to specific things in the Zones? Or that the Anomaly Portal Connection Machine can and has been sending energy signals to Anomaly Portals to give power ups to both sides? Or that those energy signals can also change the way the game is played?"

Whale's smirk went away.

"Yeah didn't think so." Celtic shook his head. "I had a hunch but that ship leaving just now confirmed my hunch, I found my two thieves." Celtic glared at the screen.

Several confused looks from the group. Generic's eyes widened. "The Bees and Smoke."

"Hey, you do have a brain in there, Newbie!" Generic sighed at the man's remark. "But yeah, I know for a fact that Smoke took some of my data, but this match with the Bees confirms my suspicions." Celtic pressed on his Net-watch making a holo display of a paper pop-up. "Turns out this energy that gets sent into the portal is dispersed evenly into the soldiers participating, it can boost their physical prowess."

Celtic realized that there was still some food left on the table from before the AAA embarked on their little side-quest, he picked up an apple off of Vaniellis' plate and took a bite out of it. "Nmph.." he swallowed. "Now," he repeated without the food in his mouth. ", what do you think happens to all that energy without many soldiers to disperse evenly into? What if there's only one?"

"Then the one soldier gets the strength of what a thousand would have…" Vaniellis speaks up.

"They'd be on par to almost one of us." Cayde looks to Vaniellis and Whale.

Whale shakes his head. "No…I think with as much energy as the Bees can muster up, they can surpass us…me…by a lot." The aquatic mammalian king looks down at the ground and clenches his fist. "Damn it. Those soldiers in the infirmary, no wonder their pain transferred the way it did."

"If they got hit with as much as they did," Torrasque put a hand to his chin to think. "it would make sense that their injuries would transfer over much more gravely than a normal fight. And if what Celtic says is true, then what little energy Smoke has on its own-"

"-is keeping them alive." Venom cut in.

Munkee looked at the group with a raised eyebrow. "Do you guys normally do that?"

The group turned to Munkee. "Do what?" Strike asked as he looked around at the group.

"That. The whole, everybody shares some information in order, type of thing…you guys don't see that?" The AAA looked at each other before shaking their heads. "Huh, interesting."

"Hey, can we go back to you guys realizing how much of a genius I am?!" Celtic called the group to attention. "Now, if I'm correct, and I am, that was Stanley's personal ship and all the votes that I just collected for him, will power him up." Celtic turned back to the screen. "Who knows? Maybe he'll actually put up a fight?"

At that moment Torrasque's Net-Pad went off. "Uh…one sec, got to take this one." He walked away from the group as they all turned to the screen in anticipation. Torrasque picked up the call. "Hello?"

"Ah! Torrasque! Thank GODS you picked up, we've been trying to reach Mr. Blunner for 15 minutes!" Samshazam's hurried voice spoke from the other end of the call.

Torrasque looked behind him to see Rade focused on the screen. "Yeah, Rade often leaves his Net-Pad in the AAA conference room. What's up?"

"W-well, Mr. Slip Snap showed up a while ago d-dragging in a-"

Torrasque sighed. "A bear corpse, yeah. So sorry about that." He looks behind himself once more to look at Slip Snap focused on the screen. "Look, we'll be there the second the Bee-Smoke War is over, just…don't get it on the carpet, make sure not to touch it, and please, for all that is holy, keep it away from Rade's personal fighter jet!"

"Tortilla!" Celtic called out. "Come on! We're about to watch shit hit the fan!"

"I gotta go, good luck!"

"But si-" the call cut off. Sam looked at his Net-pad before sighing. "No luck guys, Torrasque said we just need to keep it away from our stuff."

"Well we can't do that!" Slip Snap said with a smile as he stood atop of the bear's corpse. "How else are we going to have Bear Stew if we can't touch the cooking supplies?!"