Shortly after the conclusion of the second Teenage Rebellion Dissipation Act, the winner Harmony Tate was found murdered in her makeshift bedchamber. The news came as a relief to the students of the Rebellion, a surprise to the adults of America, and a blow to President Timothy Bellows. Counting on Harmony to run the Rebellion into the ground one way or another, he now found himself with another year of dealing with an anarchic, yet passive, cancer to his nation.

What had originally started as a sadistic scare tactic to coerce the teenage rebels out of San Francisco had taken on a new dimension. Upon her return, Harmony was treated as a celebrity, and was quickly able to use her newfound status to take control of the Rebellion and unite the volatile schools into one army. Knowing full well that someone as angry as Harmony could never use an army, no matter the size, to their advantage, Bellows decided to wait and let her attack. With this attack, a select number of forces would be able to destroy the kids and bringing an end to the bloody Rebellion that had already plagued the country for two and a half years.

This attack never came, however. Harmony, though she was originally welcomed into leadership, proved herself a cruel, despotic tyrant. Scarred by her experiences on Freedom Island, she took joy in the misery of others. Often killing for no reason and ordering people close by to complete pointless or humiliating tasks, Harmony quickly fell out of favor with her former friends. One week after she crowned herself the Queen of the Rebellion, she was found murdered. The kids close to her let out a sigh of relief, and the kids that cried for her stopped immediately upon hearing of her cruel tactics. Her body was unceremoniously cleared away, but not before one anonymous kid took a picture of her death and added it into the Rebellion's cult book of photographs, Anthony's Album.

The following year was an uneasy one for Bellows. The public still supported the School Spirit contests, and the tickets they sold when broadcasting the event in stadiums nationwide were a great help to the sluggish economy. However, the public was gradually losing patience with the Rebellion, hoping that the end would come soon. Bellows, though a genius in the business world, was a weak military leader, and couldn't effectively order military strikes against the Rebellion. With the order for a siege, the kids managed to get by on what they could grow in makeshift plantations. With the order for an attack, the incoming troops would find the city nearly deserted, only to find themselves in an ambush later. No matter which course Bellows looked to take, the teenagers of the Rebellion found ways around it.

With no way to destroy the Rebellion open to him, Bellows bided his time attempting to salvage the nation's economy, still reeling from a depression in late 2002. While Bellows was well underway in solving many problems of poverty and unemployment, the nation still had a ways to go to a complete recovery. Social programs that had been, in essence, cancelled were slowly starting to find their way back into everyday life. Few people could afford them, but the mere fact that they were making a comeback gave Americans hope for the future.

One man, however, argued that the accomplishments in the American economy and the war on the Rebellion weren't coming along fast enough. Aaron MacLeod, another independent, announced his bid for presidency early in 2007. He started his campaign in a hard way, comparing America's current economy with the economy just ten years before. Showing the American people that though things seemed to be getting better, they were far below the standard of living they had fallen from, he then promised to return America to its former glory. Citing that President Bellows was an inefficient, complacent sloth, MacLeod promised the American people a completely revitalized economy, a hard-working president, and a final end to the Rebellion.

With the public becoming more aware of his message of efficiency, Bellows began to feel more pressure for this to be the final School Spirit contest. He knew he had to quickly find a kid who would be able to take over the Rebellion and run it into the ground, and he had to make sure they would win. He quickly designed and implemented more devious traps than in the previous contests, able to be controlled remotely. Now, with greater control over the contest, Bellows would be able to find a kid violent enough to take over the Rebellion, much like Harmony did. Knowing that this contest must be a success at all costs if he was to quell any public support of MacLeod in the next election, he quietly bided his time, waiting for when the next class would be taken.

When June of 2007 arrived, every kid within San Francisco was thrown into a frenzy. It was well-known by now that the contests were to be held on June fifth each year. To make matters worse, adults had been periodically spotted in the city, and rumors were flying as to who would be taken next. June first rolled around, then June second, then the third, and finally it hit the 5th, and everybody knew they were safe, even hoping that the contest had been called off. They hadn't noticed that fifty-four students from a small Wisconsin school had been already taken.