A/N: Hey guess what! I'm attempting a multi-chapter fic. This has the potential to end disastrously. Or be really really boring if you don't care about policy debate. So, here's what you need to know:

I kind of envision this as a Glee-type TV show. Starring some misfit high schoolers who happen to be incredibly attractive and very devoted to their favorite club. A few overarching plots, and some wtf character development. (A quick note about Nabulungi: she appears here differently than she does in the show. That's because I think a Nabulungi growing up in backwards, anti-progressive, Mormon American territory would have to be very very tough.)

I will include a mini-debate glossary at the end. I tried to make this as accessible as possible, in terms of debate references everyone would understand, but I'm not sure I succeeded. So, there you have it. I hope you enjoy!

Chapter 1

It was the third day of practice, and only the fifth day of September, when Nabulungi Hatimbi waltzed through the door and announced to the room at large that she wanted to join the MTC speech and debate team.

Kevin Price, who was the newly-appointed captain (despite many protests by two very vocal members of aforementioned team), turned around from his files with a frozen grin on his face.

"I'm... sorry?"

"You heard me." Nabulungi grinned, crossing the room, her bag slung over one shoulder. "I want to join this debate team."

Kevin looked around frantically. His fellow teammates were either way too fascinated by their Security K 2AC blocks, or very good at avoiding eye contact. Even Kevin's partner Arnold, who usually had to be pried away from his side with a crow bar, was offering no support, thoroughly engrossed in some pathetic Planet Debate DA he had found. Some best friend he was.

"Yeah! Sure! We'd, uh, love to have you! Uh, Nan... Nala... Nina?"

Nabulungi rolled her eyes. "Nabulungi. Thank you, Kevin Price."

"Sure. Sure! Only thing is, we have an even number of people right now. So, uh, I can't really offer you a partner at the moment. And, you, uh, kind of need a partner."

Behind him, James Church nodded in agreement.

"No problem!" crowed Nabulungi. "I'm sure Asmeret will join too, if I ask her. Can we start tomorrow?"

"I, uh... yeah, I don't see why not," said Kevin, trying desperately to think of a reason why not. "I mean, policy debate is a really complicated thing? Do you even know anything about... I mean, it took me years to even understand it, and I'm still -heh- not that good."

"Oh, please. You were nationally ranked last year. You had a TOC bid!" Nabulungi laughed, but it was an unsure sound.

"I- yeah! But only one bid! That's not enough! I don't know everything! I'm not, like, you know, actually good... Hang on a second, what do you know about TOC?"

Nabulungi smiled a gotcha smile. "My old school had policy debate, too. Didn't go to any national league tournaments, but I do know what a case is, and enough to know you're holding that one upside-down." She pointed at the red-head standing closest to her.

Sean McKinley looked at his backwards files and blushed.

Kevin didn't quite know what to do.

"Well, uh, Miss Nabulungi, I guess... thanks for stopping by. Here's a permission slip, here's a tournament schedule, and if you hang on a second, I'll get you the wording of the resolution-"

"The United States Federal Government should substantially increase its exploration and/or development of space beyond Earth's mesosphere. You're not the only one around here who can do research, Kevin."

"Wow! Uh, okay, awesome. Great to have you here then. You can get started... whenever." Kevin wasn't entirely sure what he thought of this new kid yet, but he had a feeling she already had an opinion of him, and he wasn't about to prove her right.

"What are we running this year?"

"We, well, actually, we haven't picked a case yet. You know, if you want to give us your input."

Nabulungi shrugged. "I'll leave that to the people who know what they're doing. It's nice to be a part of your team, Kevin."

"And it's nice to have you. Guys, can we give a warm welcome to our newest member?"

It was a historic moment of integration for the MTC debate team. Ten white, male faces met Nabulungi's triumphant smile with their own blank stares.

Not to be outdone by diplomacy master Kevin Price, Sean McKinley managed to add, "Hi, Nabulungi. I'm Sean."

Nabulungi gave him a grateful smile.


As he unlocked his bike from the rack, Kevin Price turned to Arnold, on his way to the bus stop, and said under his breath, "So? What do you think?"

"About my Star Wars K? Well, Kevin! I-I'm not done with it yet! I wish you'd stop tryna hurry me. We haven't even got a case yet, I mean, uhhh... ooh, Kevin, I found this super cool impact card yesterday though-"

"No, I meant about Nabulungi."

"Nabulungi? OHH! That's what she was saying her name was. Umm... Oh, I dunno. She was super way pretty, wasn't she? Like, her hair!"

Kevin gave his friend a doubtful look. "I, uh, didn't notice."

"WHAT? What? C'mon, how could you not notice? She's like- like- like that- hey Kevin you know that movie we saw last week? Like that girl who played, uhh... I don't remember but HEY KEVIN YOU KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT RIGHT?"

Arnold's inside voice was not something he had received favorable marks on in elementary school.

Kevin shrugged. "Yeah, I guess. I mean- what do you think she debates like? Do you think she's one of those K debaters? Or a slacker? Or maybe she smokes pot all the time? Or maybe she's one of those pretentious existentialist types? Oh, man, why did I let her in?"

Arnold stared. "Pot? Did you see her teeth! She is hot, Kevin. No girl with teeth like that is lighting up after school-"

"Yeah, well, your inexperience and objectification of females aside, I don't know if I made the right call. I mean, what else was I supposed to do? I know I'm captain but you guys could have given me some help there."

"Help? To do what?"

"To, I don't know. Help me make excuses for not letting her join?"

"Why wouldn't you want her to join?" Arnold looked so genuinely confused it was hard for Kevin not to be as well.

"Forget it. Never mind. I'll see you tomorrow, Arnold. Make sure you bring that flash drive with the Star Wars arguments, okay?"

"Yeah! Got it! I- the flash drive! Right! Of course! The flash drive, definitely won't forget the flash drive, how could I forget the flash drive, tomorrow I will bring the flash drive... the flash drive... yeah, okay. Bye Kevin! The flash drive..."

Kevin smiled fondly. Poor kid hadn't remembered the flash drive for the past week and a half; there was no way he was going to tomorrow.


Sean McKinley and Kevin Price sat next to each other in first period Government class. It was the only class they had together, and for some reason, their teacher had thought it would be a good idea to put her two top students together. Of course she had- she was one of those Teach For America grads who'd be off running a hedge fund in two years, but wanted to fulfill her community obligation and good person quota of teaching in a sheltered suburban school first.

The seating arrangement might have been a good idea, if those two students weren't Kevin Price and Sean McKinley. It wasn't that they didn't like each other (although, good luck trying to get either one to admit it), but it was very much like neither Sean nor Kevin knew how to shut up. But the teacher, far too stubborn and unwise in the ways of high schoolers, could not admit she made a mistake with her seating chart, and left them there. Together.

In a way, it was a perfect match. Sean read all of Kevin's essays before he turned them in, insulting them thoroughly and complaining about everything from "Kevin, did a cat teach you sentence structure?" to "Oh my goodness Kevin, you can't just repeat the same idea three times and expect it to be a paragraph." Kevin was the first one to see Sean's test grade- he grabbed the paper before Sean even had a chance to touch it- and teased him mercilessly if it was anything under his own, always perfect, grade. The teacher justified it by saying competition led to higher quality of learning. She was a capitalist like that.

It was about three times a day that Kevin and Sean put up with comments from their classmates like, "Could you guys shut up now? Some of us are trying to pay attention here," or more commonly "do you guys hate each other or something?" and of course the dreaded "Kevin, stop flirting with Sean and help me understand question four."

Kevin and Sean didn't hate each other. It was that magical, insane bond they shared- every Saturday, they rooted for each other to beat those pretentious private schools with lame arguments like 'condo good' and bizarre ones like 'solar energy causes alien invasion' and no two people who were as invested in each others' success as Kevin Price and Sean McKinley could ever really hate each other.

On one particular dreadful Thursday morning, Kevin was late to first period. And Sean, who didn't like to admit it, didn't exactly want to go through Government without his obnoxious, infuriating, neurotic, high-strung competition. It just wouldn't be as much fun. There was no one else in this pathetic class even remotely intelligent enough to serve as his snark bait. And Sean couldn't very well keep the sarcasm in his head -he might as well explode.

So when Kevin walked in five minutes late and was promptly handed a tardy slip and today's worksheet for his troubles, Sean felt himself sigh in relief.

"Where were you?"

Kevin grimaced at his tardy slip, which meant he now owed this insufferable teacher ten minutes of his lunch period.

"Ehh, I couldn't get my bike to lock."

Sean giggled. Kevin glared at him.

"My parents will kill me if-"

"Oh, yeah, and someone's going to steal that here? In a place like this?"

"Well, you never know-"

Sean shrugged, then leaned over, a little too far onto Kevin's desk in his attempts to catch him up on the day's classwork.

"Here. We're analyzing the essay from last class. You only have to do the first three problems but make sure they're in paragraph form. And, uh, we got our Constitutional Law essays back so if you want yours you can probably ask for it."

Kevin nodded. "Thanks. How did you do?"

Sean shrugged. "Got a 93. Apparently she didn't like my overuse of flowery metaphors. I thought they were brilliant. Can you believe she actually called them 'overdone?' Crazy!"

Kevin laughed. "Told you you should have stuck with the first draft introduction."

"Ugh- that one was so Sparknotes. Whatever. I'm upholding my creative integrity. And a 93 is okay."

"Unless I got a 94," Kevin teased.

"You? Master of the overwrought purple prose? Unlikely, Kevin."

"Well, let me find out."

Kevin returned to his seat a moment later, livid.

'An 88? An 88? What- what on Earth- you know, this is the only class where I actually ever score something that's not an A. Ever. What does that tell you?"

"You're distracted by my charm and intimidated by my intelligence?"

"This lady can't teach. Or grade. My goodness, a B!"

"B+."

Kevin glared at him, then snatched Sean's paper from his hands. He read over it closely, disgusted that he couldn't find any errors and worse- that the essay was actually pretty good.

Sean shook his head.

"I agree with you, she's a terrible teacher. But I've been meaning to ask you- have you decided on our case yet?"

"I think... I'm feeling solar power this year."

"That's so common, though."

"You hipster."

"B student."

"Jerk."

"Slacker."

"At least I'm the team captain."

Sean shook his head. "A dreadful mistake. I expect to be promoted by December, when everyone realizes how actually incompetent you are."

Kevin swatted his hand. "Hey! You- well- you know what? Maybe I got it cause I'm better than you. Who won state finals last year, huh?"

"Well, who do you think's going to win states this year?"

"Oh... I dunno...two-time champions Kevin Price and Arnold Cunningham?"

Sean rolled his eyes. "Oh, Kevin. You're on."

"Huh?"

"There's no way you're going to win this year. It's Chris and my turn. We're going to destroy you."

Kevin laughed, a smug, irritated sound.

"And, when I win," Sean continued with too-devious smirk for that innocent face, "you have to promise me you'll at least give Friends a chance."

Kevin made the mistake of looking into Sean's eyes as he tried to think of a comeback. He found himself instead blushing furiously, so he settled for quickly engrossing himself in his B+ essay.


Arnold was not looking forward to telling Kevin his news. Not at all. It was the first tournament of the year, and he- he what? Couldn't go? Because of some fan convention that he had promised his friends- he had promised them years ago- this was not an everyday opportunity-

Yeah. That was going to fly with Kevin. Might as well pretend he had some family plans or emergency or something. An emergency that he knew about two weeks in advance, or something.

Yeah. That was not going to fly with Kevin, either. You could be bleeding out of your eyeballs, and have forgotten all your evidence at home, and that was no excuse for you not to go undefeated at a tournament. (Kevin's personal philosophy, anyway- it had come flying out of his mouth at the end of a very long, very tense, very infuriating debate practice with some novices last year who Kevin had scared off- probably due to his yelling about bleeding from eyeballs not being an excuse for skipping a tournament.)

So, uh, what kind of excuses did fly with Kevin? Immediate death. Religious holiday- no, no, that was no good. They went to the same church. Embracing his inner Judaism? Kevin probably didn't know when the Jewish holidays were... Arnold had the right hair, he could pass...

No, right, they went to the same church, okay, new plan then.

Family reasons. Family reasons. Kevin couldn't argue with family reasons. Right. Okay. Might as well do this now...

Arnold nervously tapped Kevin on the shoulder. Eye contact, Arnold. Eye contact. Kevin is your friend. He won't bite. Probably. I mean- you can tell him. Just- NO NOT TOMORROW. Just tell him.

"Yeah?" Kevin beamed. "Hey, look at this! I just thought of a way to write our plan text so we can avoid linking to the enviornmental neoliberal K!"

"...The what?"

"Oh, sorry, have I not showed you that yet? I'll do that today! It's some BS argument that Roosevelt cut... What's up, Arnold?"

"I, uh, oh, well, see, it's like, uh, Kevin, I kinda got some bad news for you," Arnold stuttered.

"Uh-huh?"

"I'm, uh, yeah, well, I'm not going to make the first, uh, heh, tournament. Oh, okay, I'm sorry, it's like- uhh, well, I've got this thing going on, see? This thing- this family thing- this fan-ily- I mean, family thing and I can't help it I tried to get out of it but it's like all day, right? So, uh, yeah, I can't come ohmygoshpleasedon'tkickmeofftheteam."

"...Arnold?"

"...Yeah?" Arnold looked shamefully up from his shoes.

"Why on Earth would I kick you out? Then I wouldn't have a partner, which would be counter-intuitive and completely useless seeing as I am planning to debate this year."

"I dunno. Maybe you have a strict rule about coming to the first tournament or something?"

"Arnold, I may be the captain, but I'm not the coach. I can't kick you off the team. And I don't know why I'd want to. Then who would I have to take offensive theory in the 2NC?"

Arnold grinned sheepishly. "Good point."

"Yeah, I... dammit."

"What?" Arnold was alarmed.

Kevin sighed. "Oh, it's just... Chris told me today he had something the day of that tournament too. Some really big soccer game or something? I didn't make a big deal out of it because, well, I know he's upset that I'm captain but- but, damn, Arnold, besides us and him and Sean, no one else's going to be ready two weeks from now. And we REALLY need to go to this tournament. Otherwise we won't have enough points to qualify for nationals and-"

"We have to go to this tournament?"

"Yes! I mean, well, the school has to be there. Like, we need someone to represent us so we can put this tournament on our roster, it doesn't matter how we do, we just need to make it..."

"You can always go with Sean."

"I... what?"

"With Sean. You and Sean can go to the tournament together. You'd work well enough together, let's face it, Kevin- you guys are the best two on this team. It'd be like the dream team of the century. You and Sean! You guys- man, you'd blow up the place."

"Yeah, what about when we can't stop screaming at each other about our 2NR strategy? There's no way I'm going with Sean. We'd kill each other, and then what would you do? If I was dead and you were crying over my grave? What would happen to this team? How would we get to TOC then?"

"Heh, Kevin, I always knew you had your priorities s-straight. But, uh- don't you think like you could maybe put that aside and like just for one weekend maybe try and get along with Sean so we can have enough points to-"

Kevin sighed deeply. "Alright, okay, fine. You're right. I can't believe it. I guess this is one sacrifice I'll just have to make."

Arnold grinned. "Your ballots are going to be awesome!"

Kevin resisted the urge to hit something. Now, he just had to break the news to Sean.

Fun.

A/N: So, um, this is more about debate and less about BoM characters than I was intending. I'm really sorry about that (I just get so excited about debate, honestly- it's like my other fandom) and I'll try and focus more on the characters in the next installment.

So, um, policy debate. There's an affirmative team that defends the resolution and a negative team that tries to knock them down. Here is some vocabulary I used explained in a clumsy way:

Security K—A philosophical argument that essentially says when the country focuses only on preserving its security, bad things happen

2AC blocks—The outline of the arguments one would make in their second speech as the affirmative team

Planet Debate—a website that's basically the dregs of policy debate- like mary sue fic is to fanfiction, planet debate is to policy debate

DA—disadvantage; an argument that says, more often than not, we will all die as a result of nuclear war

TOC—Tournament of Champions; the most prestigious debate tournament

Case-a basic affirmative argument. For example, under the resolution Nabulungi mentions, one case could be Let's Go To Visit Mars And Live There

K—a kritik. Essentially, a philosophical argument; comes in way too many forms and makes my head hurt

Impact—the part of your argument that mentions everyone dying

Card—a piece of evidence

Condo good—An argument that says conditionality (where a neg team can drop arguments they've already brought up) is good for debate

Environmental neoliberal K—I just made this argument up. It sounds terrible; anyone who runs it is probably an asshole

Linking to—when the arguments you make cause something (either good or bad) to happen

Offensive theory—arguments about which arguments are fair to make, with a voter attached. (A voter is a reason for the judge to give you the win-'the other team is being unfair because they didn't follow x rule' is such a reason)

2NC—the second negative constructive—it's a speech that the negative team gives

2NR—second negative rebuttal-the last speech given by the negative team, where they choose their final strategy in terms of what arguments they believe can win them the debate