Disclaimer: This is going to go for the whole story, okay? I don't own IGPX or anything of the sort. (Although I kind of wish I did.) The only thing I own are my characters from Team Platinum and crew, including their awesome possum names. Party on.

CHAPTER 1
Meet the Rookies

The track was silent. Until…

"OH YEAH, BABY! IG1!" Jax shouted, punching the air with a fist. "Dude, can you believe it?" he then asked his fellow teammate, Beckem, elbowing him in the arm and causing him to give a subdued "ow" and rub the place of impact. But Beckem didn't yell at him like he normally would. Because Beckem knew Jax was right. And I knew Jax was right.

Although my excitement just didn't show.

I turned back around to face forward, looking at the home stretch before me reverently. In a couple of days, I'll be the one racing on this track, I thought, closing my eyes and taking in a deep breath. I let myself go and suddenly, I could almost hear the fans screaming in the stands and feel the rumbling of the mechs on the track. Benjamin Bright's voice was somewhere above me yelling something about, "Team Platinum…!"

"Come on, guys, it's almost four. We should get going," Beckem said behind me. I rocketed back to the present.

"Yeah, we should," I said quietly, turning to go while telling the track, I'll be back later.

---zoOM---

I hated this standing around on a stage for millions of viewers to stare at me and critique me while not aware that I was wearing high heels. The opening ceremony for the IGPX, I thought, even when I was a small kid watching it, was terribly boring. I had said to my dad, "I feel sorry for those pilots." And then in the same breath I had said, "I'm going to be a pilot one day." Which made my dad laugh and say with a small smile, "Sweetheart, don't be silly. When you grow up, you'll be doing something much better than racing…"

"The rookies this year is Team Platinum, standing right here to my right. Let's give them a warm welcome!" Benjamin said, gesturing to us with his usual gusto and flourish. Hey, dad, look I'm on TV. As what? An IGPX pilot! That's right!

After the applause, Benjamin approached us and I felt someone hit my left foot. I knew it was Jax, because he was on my left. It was like he was trying to tell me, aww man, look here he comes! I can't believe it! Just suck it up, I felt like saying.

"Forward Lotus Carmarand, what do you have to say about the tough competition your team will have to face this year?" I expected this. The meeting the whole team held yesterday, cutting into my soaking-up-the-track time, was just about how I was supposed to handle this question. How I was supposed to watch Benjamin Bright poke the mike in my face and how I was supposed to not puke when he did it. And how I was supposed to smile and say…

"I'm looking forward to it. We all are. We're going to try our very best to win our races, but mainly this is just our big chance to go up against the best. We'll learn a lot from this experience and if we don't do as spectacular as Team Satomi did in their first season, it doesn't matter. What matters is that we'll grow from the experience, individually and as a team."

"Wow! Encouraging and eloquent words from the rookie Forward." Benjamin Bright stepped away from me and the lights on me receded, allowing me room to take a deep shaky breath. Had I just said all that? Off the top of my freaking head?

Man, I was good.

"Forward Takeshi Jin from Team Satomi, what do you have to say about the rookie team and what do you expect of your own third season?"

The lights zoned in on Takeshi and I watched him smile easily. "I hope the rookie team is like us when we were in our first season, because we all love a good fight no matter what. As for the season, it should get a bit easier for us as we use the experience we gained from our previous season. It's still going to be tough and challenging, but perhaps the road to victory won't be as rocky as last season."

"And that's from Takeshi Jin, ladies and gentlemen. Give it up for the competing teams in the IGPX this year!" The lights came back super strong now, on all of us unlucky pilots that had been made to stand here like Barbie dolls. Smiling. Because you have to gather a fan base, said our knowledgeable manager, Mr. Karlen. Blah blah blah.

---zoOM---

"Why are you going to walk around barefoot again?" Beckem asked me in an urgent and hushed whisper. I could understand why he was a bit tense. True, we were rookies, but that didn't mean that we had to be meek and quiet and sit in a corner and only talk when we were talked to about it.

I held up my magenta high heels that matched my dress and shook them in his face. "Would you like to wear them for the rest of the evening?"

"Uh, no."

"I didn't think so," I finished, giving him a withering glance and then turning around to give them to a man waiting at the door to take coats and jackets. He looked me a bit weirdly before he took them.

"Come on, man," Jax said behind me to Beckem, "lighten up. We get to party!"

"Great," Beckem replied, sarcasm blunt.

I walked into the considerably sized room in which the welcoming ball was going to be held. Approximately three more hours that I had to spend milling about with people as uptight as rival pilots. Whoever thought we would enjoy this little dance and proposed that it was a good idea must have been on drugs. And whoever had approved it…well…

I promptly traveled over to a group of chairs up against a wall and then sat, crossing one leg over the other resolutely, not planning on getting up unless there was a fire, stampede, or elephants storming my way. Beckem came to stand next to me awkwardly as Jax did the same, if only to first survey the crowd.

"Man, I don't know if this will turn out to be a party anyway. Look how quiet it is. Like, no one's talking. And the music's crap, so of course no one is dancing," Jax observed. "Then there's the fact that everyone here is pretty much everyone else's enemy…"

"You just figured that out?" I asked him, shaking my head. "That's why I refuse to go out there."

"Eh, whatever, I'm going. Beck, you coming with me?"

Beckem turned to look at me and immediately I was annoyed of him. "It's not like I'm going to get mugged if you don't watch me, Beck. I'm a big girl." He gave me a skeptical look and then turned to follow Jax. I took a deep breath and let it out shakily, watching him retreat.

Beckem Gerald was a good guy, really. He was sweet, polite, courteous, and funny. He couldn't beat Jax in the humor department for his life, but he was still pretty good, making the two of them together a comic riot. Beckem also wasn't that bad looking either. And I definitely saw all those things. But somehow, he annoyed me…very easily. He was very protective, and I wished that I could say he was protective of all his friends, but no, it seemed he was only protective of me. He also had anger problems and when he got angry, it was like he needed to be locked up in his own little cage with tranquilizers. He was a great when he got angry at the opponent though, because then he'd be a great Defender and I wouldn't have to worry about anyone or anything touch me for pretty much the whole race, or until his anger died down.

"Come on, guys, lighten up!" I heard someone yell pretty loudly. Without looking up, I knew who was making a fool of himself. I placed my forehead into my hands and sighed. Jax was something else all right.

"Hello, ladies," I next heard him say. Uh-oh. I looked up quickly and watched as he tried to entice at least one of the pilots from Team Skylark to dance with him. Fantine was, of course, probably already attached to Takeshi somewhere, but the other two were there and looking not amused. In fact, they looked like he was a fly that they wanted to swat. And I wished that Jax, being the rookie that he was, would try to at least save some face.

But it was Jax. My hopes for him went out the window long ago.

It wasn't that he was stupid. Ajax Foxtrot not only had the coolest name around, but he also was the best Midfielder around. If only he'd show his focused side more, in practice and in real life. The most trivial thing'd distract him easily, but in a race, he had a one track mind, which was good for us and bad for the other team. He was also excessively outgoing and, obviously, didn't mind being looked down on and thought of as a fool, as us being friends of his did so often. Mr. Karlen didn't like him and was always dropping hints about replacing him, but he knew that if he dropped Jax, he'd be losing us as well. And Beckem and I have probably been the best thing so far to happen to Mr. Karlen and his relatively new organization. We brought him to the IG1s, didn't we?

"Not the party type?"

"Hmm? What?" I said quickly, jumping in surprise. Unbeknownst to me, someone had quietly sat down next to me and was watching the milling about of the uneasy pilots with me. I turned and practically finished falling off my chair.

Alex Cunningham. THE Alex Cunningham. And I had thought he, because he always acted so cool, had special privileges to skip out on these kind of things to get in more practice time. Because that was probably the kind of guy he was. Victory focused, no fun, no parties, no laughing, no talking, no smiling, no nothing.

But here he was. And after the initial surprise, he didn't faze me one stinkin' bit. At least, that what I liked to think.

"Sorry if I scared you," he said gently, eyes still on the other pilots. He had an arm casually draped over the back of the chair to his right and he had one foot up, the ankle rest on his other leg.

"It's okay," I said simply, tearing my gaze away from him. Despite him being a big ego-centered guy with only one thing important to him (uh, winning, like I just told you), he was still pretty hot. And he definitely had a nice body. Not that I was looking.

"I saw your championship race in the IG2s," he said then. Again, he took me by surprise. I almost said, "You WHAT?" but then caught myself just in time. Instead, I tried to get back into my comfort zone of always having the upper hand in a conversation.

"Wow, I'm flattered. What'd you think?" Yeah, what were you THINKING? Didn't you know that was precious time you could have spent reviewing race footage of Team Satomi or something productive like that? And most importantly, why'd you even bother with the IG2s?

"I wanted to get a real taste of the competition, which would be you guys," –he said it like I didn't know— "And besides, I hadn't been in a race in ages. I mean, watched one from the stands. I've been to more than I can count." I smiled when he finished speaking, inwardly satisfied that he had been doing it after all to help him win this season. Yep, I was right. There was a little silence before he went on, "I think you guys are going to have to do a lot of work before you can start really racing with us. Unless you want to get majorly embarrassed."

Oh of course. How he was using the intimidate-your-opponent-even-before-the-season-has-"officially"-begun tactic. How second grade. And yet even as he said it, I felt a sting of resentment and anger. "Thanks, I'll keep it in mind," I said in what I thought was a pretty cool and offhanded voice.

"Well, then, I'm flattered," he replied and immediately I turned to glare at him. I absolutely hated it when people mocked me. I fully intended to shoot flaming daggers at him with my eyes except, when I whipped my head around, it was like he had already expected me to do so, that he read my personality so well that he knew I was going to get extremely angry at him. My eyes got tripped up in his warm brown ones that were slightly dimmed by the dim room we were all in. I forgot my signature glare and just stared at him as he regarded me back.

It was then I realized that this was how it was going to be with him. He would always know my next move, no matter what I did, no matter what stunt I pulled, and no matter how fantastic or cool to look at it was. He would always be ahead by a step. He would always know just what to do to combat it and then draw me into doing another totally predictable action.

He was just that good. Damn.

"Don't soak me in too much right now," he said with a smile small, standing up. Gosh, he was tall. "You're going to be getting a lot of me these next few weeks."

Immediately, a part of me was all, oh, I don't mind at all. I scowled. "Don't be offended if I say that I'm not looking forward to it," I countered.

"Then don't be offended if I say that I'm not looking forward to the day our match is either," he said graciously, giving me a little bow. "See you around." Then he walked away and left.

I stared at his back and tried to sort things out. So, he had called my team crap, basically, and then just before he leaves he says that he's not looking forward to race us? What is that supposed to mean? He doesn't want to because we're good? Or he doesn't want to because we're just that terrible?

Wow, he had no idea how much he just made me hate him.

---zoOM---

"All right, guys, you have to pay attention," Addy Kelly said to us sternly. She was our coach and she was awesome and cruel at the same time. I loved her. "As you all probably know, our first race is against Skylark. Our first race also happens to be the first race of the season, because the IGPX seems to love to pick on rookies. But we don't care do we?" She got a collection of our heads shaking. "That's right, we don't care. And we're going to blow Skylark back into next week."

See why I love her?

The screens behind her flicked into life, all of them one part of showing us a larger picture: one of Skylark's mechs in action. Addy stepped to the side a little so we could see everything, as she gestured to the screens. "Meet Fantine's mech, Lotus. Her signature is the rapidly moving arms, capable of delivering tens of blows a second and deadly if you don't know how to properly block them. All of them have pretty powerful arms, and so avoiding them is your best bet. They are all designed to maximize drafting techniques."

All three of us watched, spell bound, as the screens in front of us showed us a collection of clips from Skylark's past races. I soaked in every word Addy said to us, absorbing the clips in front of me as well. This was my first race in the big leagues and someone was going to have to shoot me for me not to do a good job.

"Overall, Skylark isn't that hard of a opponent to beat. You just, like every team, need to know how to work them. Fortunately for you, this team isn't that hard to work." She smiled at us. "I have faith in you, Team Platinum. You just have to show the world what you got."

A/N: This is my first IGPX fic and I'm pretty excited about it. I have to thank dark-raven0 again, because she beta read this thing for me. (Check our her poem in IGPX. It's nice.) The title is temporary, though I might just get too lazy to change it down the road. And yes, it is another one of those stinkin' fics with a OCteam. Well, please stick this through with me. Hopefully, it will turn out to be a good story. With all of your support (flaming or not), I might just be able to finish this story through to the end. (What an amazing concept!)

P.S. I'm also planning on setting each race in this story with a song, kind of like a mini songfic. Hopefully you guys will like that too. Cheers!