Psiah approached the large, foreboding metal doors. Every other room on the final floor had been checked, except for the one hiding behind these doors. Her eyes wandered to the keypad next to the door alongside a card swipe slot. She only had the low-level grunt's ID so she doubted it would give her clearance to the room containing the flag.

'Plan B it is'

Pulling her arm back, the Bee soldier took a deep breath in before flicking her wrist and sending her stinger into the control panel of the door. A jolt of electricity made its way up her stinger giving her a slight convulsion before the energy gave out and short-circuited causing the door to open up. Psiah cracked her neck before walking through the door into the room.

The room was dark, lit up only by a machine in the center of the room holding a tank with a slightly clear, green liquid suspending a disk-like object in the middle of it. The Flag. In all her years of fighting in these wars she knew that the flag could take any shape or form, but it was almost always giving off huge Energy signals. Still, she had to make sure. It would be defeat the purpose of her mission and statement to the world if she made it all this way and destroyed the wrong object.

Pressing a button on the side of her helmet, a simple heat vision feature activated making her vision a mixture of red, blue, and orange hues.

Several machines with monitors and tanks and large wires are placed to the wall, each giving off some heat as they power the main tank in the center of the room. The tank looked normal, and while the liquid in the tank was near freezing, the disc-like object was glowing hot red.

"Bingo." Psiah buzzed into her helmet.

The Bee soldier took great satisfaction as she looked around at the empty lab. The fact that no other idiot was running up to try to take her out indicated to Psiah that she either killed off all the pests or they learned their lesson and stayed away.

A loud roaring noise from somewhere alerted Psiah that she was not alone, and that whatever was coming at her hadn't learned a lesson. She back flipped in time to avoid a rather large ship crashing into the building, breaking into the Lab room. The whole building shook causing Psiah's balance to be thrown off upon landing, making her prone.

Psiah looked up from the ground to see the ship's latch open from the side as the dust began to settle. A man in a dusty grey uniform steps out from the ship before pushing a button on his watch, closing the ship. Psiah stayed on the floor, sizing him up.

He looked average, normal. Not even high-ranking by the looks of his jacket. A representative at best, medium level grunt at worst. But Psiah knew that it would be careless to underestimate a foe by looks alone, a concealed weapon is all it takes to foil this plan.

With an impressive burst of speed he rushes and looms over the fallen Bee soldier. "You've hurt so many of my people, this is your comeuppance, wretched Wasp."

Psiah looked at the man with a confusion. Who the hell?

Before Psiah can react with a swift stab of her stinger, he picks her up by the helmet, throwing her off guard by how easily he managed to do so, and throws her with great force at the ship blocking a huge hole on the wall leading to the outside.

Psiah feels the air get knocked out of her lungs as she hits the ship, she's surprised by the pain she's actually feeling, if the information the Hive had given her was correct, she should be unstoppable!

She doesn't have much time to think, however, as the ship creaks back because of the new force and falls back through the hole it had made upon impact. Psiah immediately kicks upwards to stand up and uses the falling ship as a jumping platform, barely allowing her to recover and avoid the 50-foot drop. Her hand grabs at a bent pipe hanging off the side, making her dangle on the side of the building.

"You're still alive." The man looked down at the Bee with a look of almost pity. "I saw the recordings, I recognized them all. My brethren, people I trained with all my life, all of them on death's door." He glared at the Bee Soldier and spoke through clenched teeth. "All because of you."

"…" Psiah remained silent.

"I don't know what I expected of you. More of a fight? More words? A plea or two? Pathetic. I forget that sometimes you Bees have had the emotions brainwashed out of you." His glare remained.

A plan began to form in the back of her mind as she looked at another pipe above the crater.

The face plates on her helmet pulled back showing her insect-like face and antennae. "Oh we still feel something. For example, I felt immense joy at every last one of your puny friends I sliced through while you probably cowered away from the action!"

The man's face contorted to one of rage. "Look upon my face Bee, remember it. For I, Stanley, will snuff out the Bees from this competition because of your arrogance." Stanley lifted his foot before bringing it down, aiming for Psiah's hand still resiliently holding onto the pipe.

In a small window of opportunity, Psiah kicked off the side of the building and released her grip on the pipe. As Stanley was processing this, the Bee soldier used her stinger whip to cling to the top pipe above Stanley and retracted it, slingshoting her back into the building

As Stanley looked up, he saw a combat boot enter his field of vision before he was sent flying back. After landing on the floor he looked up and saw Psiah standing at the crater's entrance. The sun began rising a bit behind her making her look like an ominous silhouette, her purple hair slipping out of the helmet slowly before flowing in the wind.

The last Smoke Soldier stood up. "I will defeat you."

Psiah's stinger became sword-like again.

"Blades, huh? I got one as well, state of the art technology too. Basically destroyed my 15 years' savings on it." Stanley took out what seemed to be a hilt of an antique sword, with a large hole in the middle. "The Smoke Sabre. Name aside, it's pretty badass." A hissing sound started to emit from the hilt, Stanly pointed the hilt downwards.

Small bits of rubble and dust began to gravitate towards the hilt before making a loose form of a long sword. "I can make a sword appear at anytime I want, and the more I destroy, the more powerful my sword becomes!"

Psiah stared him down as the Smoke Sabre began to compress more and more rubble, making a slight swirl of dirt and dust around the blade. "…you talk too much." She simply said as she took a battle-ready stance.

"...hmph." Stanley glared.

Stanley charged at the Bee soldier with his blade drawn. Psiah parried his attack, but with more difficulty than she'd expected. After a while of blocking attacks and parrying a few, Psiah began to make her own attacks. The Smoke Soldier, however, was keeping up. Psiah ducked under a swing before rolling away from a downward stab.

Psiah actually felt tired, this one soldier was almost matching her, which should be impossible unless… "You know as well, don't you? The cheat."

"Hm, yes I do. We happened to find a loose file here and there from a smug bird's nest." He smiled as he looked at the Bee. "But we only slipped in when something much bigger made a hole for us to slide by. So thanks for that, I guess." Stanley's blade continued to build and fix itself as Psiah's stinger blade had chipped off a lot of bits.

"…what are you talking about? The Hive experimented and researched Anomaly Portals well over 2 years before they informed us." Psiah glared at the man.

"Hmph, sure. Or, and hear me out on this one, they lied to you. I know for a fact that something powerful breached Renora's database. It's how we were able to get in."

Psiah's eyes narrowed down to a glare. "You speak lies."

"Or I speak truths and all you know are lies."

"ENOUGH!" Psiah yells as she makes her second stinger come out of her sleeves. "This has gone on long enough!"

Stanley smiled. "That it has." He pressed a button on his hilt as the rubble ignited into a bright spark before solidifying into a dusty and jagged crystalline material.

Stanley and Psiah charged at each other, each with their blades drawn. As Psiah tries to wrap her stinger around his neck, Stanley barely dodges by ducking but doesn't escape the wide slash across his torso, ripping off much of the Smoke Soldier's uniform. In between Psiah's wide swings Stanley chips away at the Bee soldier's armor around the abdomen with multiple stabs.

The two keep this cycle up for a while, Psiah's wild yet elegant slashes pitted against Stanley's powerful stabs until finally Psiah actually feels a pain in her stomach, she backflips away using both of her whip stingers to keep some distance between her and Stanley. Stanley cautiously waits for an opening in her whips.

In a split second Psiah slows down to look at her stomach, as blood begins to gush out of a rigid tear in her armor. That slow down was just what Stanley had waited for however and he presses another button on his hilt.

The jagged crystallized blade shoots out in a burst of speed slipping past Psiah's whips and plunging into the newly exposed gash. Psiah yelps in pain as the blade enters her, she stops her whips immediately and begins to clutch her hand around the wound and the crystal. Panic consumes her as the Smoke soldier begins to approach, a new Smoke Sabre already forming on his hilt.

"It's over, Wasp. When you wake up in the infirmary, shunned by your other worker bees for your loss, know it was because of your arrogance that you failed."

Psiah growled as she used her whip and once more aimed for the man's head. Stanley anticipated this, however, and brought his hand up, making the whip wrap itself around his palm instead. Stanley pulled hard on the whip, dragging Psiah's body up before he used his free hand to punch the Bee down immediately. Psiah left a small crater on the floor before coiling in pain.

Stanley's hand bled even more as he clenched his fist around the whip, crushing it before letting go. The machine in Psiah's suit, sensing a problem in one of the stingers, immediately recoiled both whips back into her sleeves.

"See, even now you don't see your error! Look around you! You are alone." Stanley gestures around at the empty and mostly destroyed lab room, the tank right next to both of them. Psiah begins to crawl back while keeping a death glare on the man. "You made your announcement to the whole sub, you would crush what you considered a weak ship with no help whatsoever. Well, look how that turned out for you!"

Psiah could feel some blood begins to build in the back of her throat, a bloody cough escapes her lips as she looks from the man to the crystal blade still lodged into her, if she could just…!

Stanley notices that she was reaching for the crystal before sighing and stomping on the jagged thing, further pushing it into the Bee Soldier. Psiah howls in pain as she could feel the jagged crystal sinking even more.

"You just don't know when to quit, huh? That's the thing with you Wasps, you think you're better than everyone else, even if you're on the losing side! Everyone is always wrong, except you. So you separate yourselves from the rest of the sub; being the first ship to acquire their own planet, not contributing to the Sub's economy when they need it the most, the Wasp Riots!"

Psiah barely focuses on the man's speech from all the pain, but talk of the Wasp Riots begins to anger her. "That was not The Hive's fault! We never condoned the action of those Bees!"

Stanley rolled his eyes as he lifts his boot before bringing it down again, quieting the Bee. "Well you didn't condemn them either! See, as far as the Hive is concerned, the rest of us can go fuck ourselves and die in a ditch for all they care!" he pushes more, eliciting more painful growls from Psiah.

"But sooner or later, you Wasps will need to recognize that you can never do this alone. Isolating yourself can only bring more and more people to see you as the enemy. Look around, if the bodies of my comrades stayed, you'd see hundreds of my comrades piling up on the floor. I wouldn't be alone, even in death. But you?" Stanley chuckles and glares down at the Bee. "Will fight and die...alone."

"That's what you think!" a voice calls out.

Stanley turns in time to see a bullet whiz past his ear, hitting the tank behind him letting a burst of green gas cover him. A growl of pain erupts from Stanley as the cold takes his side, he contorts away from it out of instinct loosening his step on the crystal, Psiah yanks herself out of the man's step, slightly dragging the jagged crystal down and cutting her more, but she avoids the freezing gas from hitting her.

As Stanley begins to reach out for Psiah he freezes on the spot with a cracking noise as a thick layer of ice begins to form around him

Psiah turns to the doorframe to see a small Bee soldier with a sniper rifle pointed at Stanley. Immediately she recognizes her. "B-3354598?! I ordered you to stay back!" Psiah tries to stand up to angrily scold her subordinate, the agonizing pain in her abdomen impeded her, however.

The Bee soldier rushes over with a med pack out. "Hold still Miss Psiah, you've been gravely injured!" she stands kneels down next to Psiah who's bleeding out.

A crackle begins to come from the Stanley ice statue. "B! Look out!" Psiah points behind the Soldier helping her.

The small Bee soldier turned around while taking a knife out of her shoulder sheath. Stanley burst out of his ice casing and stared down at the Bee soldier with an angry expression and battered breaths. She jumps up and makes a slash for the man's neck only to be backhanded by the juiced-up Smoke soldier.

B-3354598 is sent flying towards a back wall at fast speeds before crashing into her side. A sickening crunch sound is heard as she hits that wall, leaving a sizeable crater in it before she collapses on the ground. "AHH!" B-3354598 cries out in pain as she looks at her arm, a mess of jagged directions as the arm feels numb.

"YOU BASTARD!" Psiah yells from her place on the ground.

Stanley is barely able to react as Psiah, with a renewed spirit of vengeance lunges at him. Stanley breaks his feet loose and high kicks at Psiah only for the Bee soldier to duck and grab his leg. In a burst of strength, Psiah flings Stanley over her shoulder, throwing him closer to the hole on the wall leading to the outside of the building.

Stanley stands up, a little disoriented and unable to stop Psiah's tackle.

Both of the super soldiers begin to fall back into the outside. Psiah's wings activated, giving her a bit of a glide. Psiah punched the still disorientated Stanley down as she falls a little above him. Stanley comes to his senses after the fifth punch and reaches up to choke the Bee soldier wailing on him. Psiah reaches for the crystal lodged into her, air supply slowly cutting out, she pulls it out letting a torrent of blood gush out, and slices at Stanley's jugular.

The Smoke Soldier's eyes widen as a sudden pain is felt all throughout his body. He increases his strength on Psiah's neck but shatters into nothingness.

Psiah takes a deep breath before leaning her body back to ease her landing a bit more. After crashing through some branches Psiah looked up at the skyscraper she just fell out of, she could feel herself weakening by the second as the blood kept pouring out of her. The Bee soldier activates her helmet once more before pressing the Net-Comm link. "B-3354598…ergh..come in…"

"Miss Psiah! Thank Goddesses you're alive! I was so-"

"SHUT UP!" Psiah growls into her Net-Comm before kneeling down on one knee. "Ergh…I don't have much time…B-3354598, destroy the flag…it's the orange disk in the tank…don't touch the freezy things…" Gods, she was feeling so tired. "Look, just…destroy it…" Psiah's legs gave out and she collapsed on the floor before closing her eyes and hearing a shattering noise.

"Well, it was a nice attempt but you still failed." Sergeant Rade Blunner said as he slyly handed Generic a 20 Karma bill. "So, Captain Munkee, how much does Celtic owe you exactly? I just want to know so I can make fun of him for it."

Munkee shook his head. "No need." He looked up at the screen as the remaining Bee soldier with the broken arm crawled her way to the disk-like object encased in ice. "That fight was interesting as hell and I have no doubt that Celtic will start rambling in a bit about how his master keikaku worked perfectly." Munkee smiled.

"Keikaku?" Slip-Snap asked with a confused look on his face.

"Translator's note: Keikaku means plan." Torrasque calmly explains while focusing on the screen as the Bee soldier begins firing shots into the block of ice, trying to hit the flag.

"Yes, it did actually go according to plan." Celtic says in a matter-of-factly way. "I knew that idiot Stanley would never be able to take on a juiced-up Bee. He got lucky if anything else. But what this showed is that they can be hurt." Celtic laughs as he stands up. He takes out a pocket watch and begins swinging it like a pendulum. "The Bees wanted to use this opportunity to show that they can easily take the prize, make a statement of how powerful they were. But with their "super soldier" dead thanks to the people's efforts and the only one left to finish the job is…well, her." Celtic gestures to the Bee soldier with a broken arm still shooting bullets at the ice with little success. "It sends an equally powerful message back!"

Celtic pulls back the watch and stuffs it into one of his cloak's pockets. "They might take the prize, but they damn well better expect us to put up one hell of a fight, leaving them like that."

A cheer erupts from behind the AAA. The members turn to see a large group of representatives cheering on Celtic with claps and whistles.

"Now that is impressive." Generic says under his breath as he sees Celtic walk towards the praise of the crowd.

As Celtic continues to accept the praise, Melanie and her group approach. The AAA and Munkee scatter. Melanie clears her throat. "*ahem* Mr. Crown."

Celtic turns slowly to the Grand hostess. "…shit…"

Psiah opens her eyes slowly. Several machines are attached to her, one checking her vital signs. She sits up with a groan.

"Oh! Miss Psiah, you shouldn't do that so soon!" A voice calls out from the bed next to hers.

Psiah turns to the source to find the Bee soldier who saved her life…wearing a large cast on her arm. "…How…long" she awkwardly points at the cast.

B-3354598 looks from her commander to the cast. "Oh, this? Just a month! I'll be back in tip-top shape and shooting bad guys in no-time Miss Psiah!" she says with a smile.

Psiah looks down at the cast before taking in a deep breath. Stanley's words of failure and it being her fault, replay in her head. "No…you won't." Psiah sits up straighter, despite the bandages and pain in her stomach telling her not to. "Soldier B-3354598, you disobeyed direct orders from your superior. I will have you barred until the 3 Round."

"What?! No, that's not fair! I saved you! You could've actually been seriously hurt!"

"Yes, and instead you were hurt for not following directions." Psiah coldly said.

"But Miss! I did it for you!"

"My decision is final. You will sit out any fights Bumblebee may be involved in until the Third round. If you cannot even follow these instructions, I will see to it that your entire career is revaluated by the High Commission. Am. I. Clear?"

B-3354598 looks down at the floor, trying to choke back some tears. "C-crystal…"

Psiah looks away from the sad Bee soldier's face to look out the window. The Anomaly portals slowly shrink, more and more. Psiah glares at the space where the portals stood. A deep, cold feeling rises from the pit of her stomach, as if someone was stepping on her grave.