Science and Math (21 May 2013)
As the entry period for ACVIII gradually draws to a close, the last remaining teams continue to slowly trickle into Altador. The first such team to arrive today was Team Brightvale, and they showed up at the Colosseum with a pair of young neopets in tow. "A lot of teams have to hold raffles to make enough neopoints to travel to Altador every year," team captain Montecito told reporters as they watched the Acaras take turns trying to kick a Yooyuball past goalie Orie Dinelle. "Since all of our expenses are covered by King Hagan, we decided to hold a charity auction instead." He went on to talk about the various gifts donated by the team, from signed game jerseys to caps bearing the Brightvale logo, and even a pastoral scene painted by forward Kayn Hireck. "You'd never guess it by looking at him, but he's really quite talented. Anyway," he continued, "All of the winning bids were put into a grand prize drawing, and the winners of that drawing got the opportunity to travel with the team to ACVIII." After the twin Acaras exhausted themselves, the gathered media finally got the chance to ask them how they felt about being with the team for the entire Tournament, and the excited neopets spent the better part of an hour babbling about being in the BV locker rooms and being able to watch every match from the sidelines until an assistant coach showed up and dragged them away, much to the reporters' relief.
It was a rough season for the champs of ACVI last year, and this season hasn't started out much better. "Someone spilled an entire can of Achyfi on our spaceship's control panel just as we were entering an asteroid belt," Virtupets defender Sela Pretore grumbled during the team's press conference. "Thankfully, our ship was outfitted with a manual override, so the captain was able to guide us through without too much damage." However, it became apparent later on that the Xweetok had been downplaying the severity of the situation, once reporters mentioned it to the head coach. "I'd like to say we came out unscathed, but that really wasn't the case," he said. "We did avoid a head-on collision, but the ship suffered several glancing blows, and almost everyone wound up with at least minor bumps and bruises." The biggest problem, though, came from the fact that most of the damage suffered was in the storage area of the ship, which happened to be where the team kept robot players Goltron Mk I and XL Striker 3.8 for the trip down to Altador. "Goltron was mainly okay," the coach said, "With most of the damage being cosmetic. But XL Striker was decimated, and it's going to take our technicians pretty much all of the time remaining before the Cup to fully repair him." In the meantime, the team is reportedly going to practice with a back-up robot brought along from Virtupets with specs similar to that of the downed robot.
Only a few locker rooms still remain empty, and the halls of the Colosseum are beginning to fill with stands holding every kind of AC souvenir imaginable. Eager fans are already lining up outside of the ticket office, hoping to be the first to snag one of the few precious seats right on the edge of the Yooyuball field.