The Sixth Announcement

[Megami*]

Ever since yesterday afternoon, Danya's headquarters had been in an uproar. Things hadn't quite gone as planned when Dorian accidentally inserted an old flashdrive in Kaige's belongings into the computer. In fact, they had gone horribly wrong. The flashdrive happened to have been contaminated with the same virus Jack O'Connor had planted in the SOTF systems during V1, except this time, the results hadn't been a minor annoyance.

They had been much, much worse.

For the past twelve hours, headquarters had all but dissolved into a madhouse. For a moment, everything had gone down -- collars, cameras, audio, everything that kept track of the kids. Between Achlys, Dorian, and Grossi, they had managed to get the systems at least somewhat stabilized. They were fortunate enough that between the short time they lost signal to the collars and the few minutes later when the signal was re-established, no one had disappeared. Unfortunately, that was where their good news ended. The cameras were down, and it looked like they weren't coming back up any time soon.

The collars still worked just fine, they could still pick up voice transmissions, but the problem was... there was simply no view of the game. Mr. Danya hadn't been happy about the incident at all. For the past twelve hours, their ratings had been non-existent, and he'd been on quite the rampage, trying to find the cause of all this nonsense. After all, what sort of show were they supposed to be running if America couldn't even see the game? Camera errors, things like that were supposed to happen in the test runs, not the live broadcast feeds.

And hell, even the test runs were being released on DVD now.

Even now, Danya was storming around HQ in a huff, and Achlys and Grossi were busy working away in some vain effort to get the computers back online. Dorian had taken a break and was now sitting in an empty lounge, his back to the door, staring into his cup of coffee. What happened if -- no, when -- Danya found out what he had done? It hadn't been his fault, he had just been following orders... well, somewhat. Danya had said to be thorough, and he had just been curious. He hadn't meant to send the whole system crashing down. Now, what would happen to him? Would he pay for it with his life, just like Kaige, Rice, and McLocke had paid for their screw-up.

Maybe I'll be seeing you sooner than I thought, Angelina...

Dorian let out a shaky breath, his eyes still staring dazedly into his coffee. The sound of footsteps echoing out on the tile floor caused him to jump, and he spun around to see who had intruded on his privacy. The woman standing behind him wasn't what could be considered a physically imposing presence by any means, but of every member of Danya's taskforce, she was only second to Mr. Danya in terms of people Dorian didn't want to see right now.

The rather petite blonde-headed woman moved into the room, a sly smile playing upon her lips as she leaned herself up against the vending machine. The smile made Dorian cringe. Cecily Lacoste was a woman who had practically bought her way into the AT with "daddy's" money. Since then, she had been perhaps the biggest brown-noser the world had ever seen, and had essentially weaseled her way into the higher-up ranks of the AT. She had even been given a spot in Test Run 8. Fortunately, Dorian hadn't been grouped with her. The smile grew wider, and finally, Cecily began to speak.

"I just wanted to say goodbye," Cecily cooed amusedly, causing the color in Dorian's face to all but evaporate into a shade of pale white.

"W-what?" he stuttered out, eyebrows raised, hands now shaking in nervous anticipation.

Cecily giggled quietly, her fingers twisting a loose strand of her braided hair mindlessly as she watched the color drain from Dorian's face.

"I know what you did, Dorian," Cecily mused with a cheshire grin, "I know you're the reason the computers are down. I saw you going through Kaige's things. I saw you reading her files. I saw everything."

Dorian stammered something inaudible, unable to find the words to say. Now, he was panicked. Things couldn't possibly get any worse for him.

"P-please!" he spat out finally, "I'll do anything! Anything you want. Just p-please don't tell Danya it was me! Please, please, please! I didn't mean to! I swear it!"

Moving further into the room and propping herself up against the table Dorian was sitting at, Cecily sighed quietly, "But you see, Dorian... that's the thing. There's nothing I want from you. So, why shouldn't I tell him?"

"Why would you do something like that?" Dorian stammered out, his eyes brimming with tears and his voice quivering in nervous anticipation, "What'd I ever do to you!"

Shrugging her shoulders and smiling to herself a bit, Cecily simply responded, "You're here."

Another figure appeared in the doorway, apparently having overheard the conversation from outside. Dorian wasn't sure just how long he'd been standing there. In fact, the only thing that alerted the cowering man to his presence was the quiet nose he made as he cleared his throat and walked into the room. The dark brown hair. The eye-patch. The face that Dorian had looked at for several years now, and the face that now, brought back memories he'd rather not relive.

"Sorry, but you won't be telling anybody anything."

A bemused smirk spread across Cecily's face as she eyed the new body in the room and she tilted her head sideways in curiosity, "And why's that? Are you going to go tell Danya I'm lying? Please, don't make me laugh. Like he'd ever believe you over me. You're nothing to him. Just a dog that he confines to these walls to keep you from revealing our dirty little secrets."

"Hmph," the man muttered quietly, "No, I'm not going to tell Danya you're lying. This game that you play with people, the way you try to climb your way up the ladder by knocking everybody else off it... I've watched you do it for a long time. Wanna know the problem with the way you do things? Well... the problem is, people can do it back to you."

His lips curled into a light smirk, and his arms fell across his chest.

"May 26th, 2005. That date ringing any bells? The final test run of the game before we went live. You should remember, you were there. So was he. So was I. And Rice, and Kaige, and McLocke. But you know, Lacoste, there's something else I remember about that game."

"Oh?" Cecily shot back with a bemused smirk, "Please, DO tell, what would what be?"

"Orsen. Wyndham."

Cecily's eyes widened drastically for a moment before the smirk once again overtook her somewhat flustered visage.

"Regrettable, wasn't it? I was so... traumatized... to watch him die."

"To watch him die, huh?" he mused quietly, though his face was beginning to turn red in anger, "You didn't watch him die, Cecily. You killed him. You killed him, you blamed it on those damned kids, and you took the glory for everything he'd done! I saw it, Cecily. I have proof!"

"LIES!" Cecily yelled suddenly, any air of composure she might have had shattering from existence in that moment, "You don't... no! You can't prove anything!"

"I have the tape," he stated flatly, "We were supposed to be videotaping our kills. Know what I was videotaping, Cecily? I was watching you kill Orsen. Orsen... was my friend, you heartless bitch, and you slaughtered him because you were on some stupid power trip. So tell me, what would happen to you if I turned this thing in to Danya?"

"GARNETT, YOU CAN'T!" Cecily screeched suddenly, "You can't! For the love of GOD, Garnett, I'll do ANYTHING!"

Rubbing the back of his neck and shrugging his shoulders coolly, Garnett simply nodded toward Dorian, "Then leave the guy alone. I find out you've said a word, you'll be the one that winds up like Rice, Kaige, and McLocke."

Lips trembling in nervous anticipation, Cecily glared at Dorian for a moment before spinning on her heel and exiting the lounge. Letting out a relieved sigh, Garnett turned toward Dorian for a moment. They had never exactly been pals, but Dorian's crush on Kaige had always been pretty apparent, and while he'd been the butt of a couple jokes at the office, Garnett had never really had any malicious intent toward the man. Especially not enough to send him to his grave.

"You'd better get back to work," Garnett offered quietly, "Don't want to have saved you from one situation to have you fall straight into another."

"Y-yeah..." Dorian stuttered out quietly, stumbling up from his seat and fiddling with it for a moment as it tilted to the side. Relaxing a bit after a moment, he pushed the chair underneath the table and let out a relieved sigh.

"Thanks man... you don't have any idea--"

"Yeah, I do," Garnett responded with a nod, "Go get those cameras back up."

"S-sure thing!" Dorian belted out before skittering out of the room.

Garnett sighed quietly before taking a seat at the table himself. Being back in Danya's HQ after having fled in fear of his life, it was almost too much to bear sometimes. During the first official game, he'd left four days in after a stupid move on the part of his friends had cost them their lives. He hadn't wanted to wind up on the island either. When Danya's men finally hunted him down, he was certain they would kill him. Instead, they had something much worse in mind. Come back to the organization. There was no ultimatum. There was no "or else".

Garnett had refused at first and had undergone months of painful torture because of it. The loss of his eye was one result of the torture he'd been inflicted. Eventually, he had broken and succumbed to Danya's wishes. That was how he'd found himself back at the organization, and in the company of a man named Lucas Grossi. Surprisingly, Garnett had found more in common with his "babysitter" than he would have expected. Still, even now, he was certain that unseen eyes were watching him, analyzing his every action. The thought of it made Garnett nervous.

He shuddered slightly, not just from the cold.

---

"Good morning, children!"

The rain no longer poured from the sky in torrents, but still kept on coming. It moved from a drizzle to a quiet rain and back again. The clouds rolling overhead seemed lighter, but the storm hadn't quite passed yet.

"I think it's been a long night for all of us, but never fear, the announcement is here! First and foremost, you can all thank Miss Anna Kateridge for this one -- Jessica Jones and Derrick Taggart, two of your lovely student council members, if memory serves me correctly, have had their collars detonated thanks to Anna's stupidity. What part of "don't destroy the cameras or I'll kill your friends" didn't you understand, Miss Kateridge? Continuing to destroy cameras will result in more deaths. Believe it."

"Moving along to the kills that weren't caused by someone else's stupidity, the first person to die yesterday morning was the one, the only, the infamous Nathanial Harris, although I think you all might know him better as Blood Boy! Boy, this was sure an exciting moment in SOTF history. Picture, if you will, the lookout tower. The area is becoming a dangerzone, when out of nowhere, Blood Boy attacks! Neil Sinclair, Dominica Shapiro, Corbin Arlen, and Matt Wittany were suddenly fighting against time to save their lives! Man, this was intense. Well, it ended with Neil, Dominica, and Matt all shooting Blood Boy, but not before he inflicted a fatal wound on Corbin. That brings me to my next death, of course, Corbin Arlen died of stab wounds inflicted on him by Blood Boy's poisoned sword. Oooh, it was SO exciting!"

"Next down was Reg Robson, who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and got a bullet put through his skull by the infamous Bobby Jacks. Fourth was John Cox, who thought it'd be a bright idea to go after Keith Jackson, who was armed with a shotgun. Unfortunately for Mr. Cox, he was the slower draw, and got pummeled with buckshot for his troubles. Number five was Benni Davidson. Stupid cow stayed in a dangerzone for too long. Hoo hum."

"But that's not all! Jake Henkie was killed when he walked up behind Jeff Thorne yelling like an idiot. I guess poor Jakie-poo scared Jeff, so Jeff turned around and shot him! After that, Joey McHaimond was killed by sweet, innocent, Cara Scholte when she stumbled upon him trying to strangle Maxie Dasai. Who'd have thought she had it in her, folks? I certainly didn't. Herman Johnson was up next. After being the cause of some freak accident that left our lovely little siren Melina Frost halfway disfigured, she axed him in the chest. Bravo, Miss Frost!"

"While all this was going on, it was time for Trish McCarroll to get some good ole' revenge for her buddy Jake's death. She definitely didn't waste any time tearing Jeff Thorne apart with her gun! Francis Temple was next to die. The idiot fell down a well at the cottage and was trapped when it went dangerzone. BOOOM!"

Danya stopped for a moment, letting the loud noise reverberate into the microphone for dramatic effect.

"His head exploded! The next person to die was the beautiful miss Olivia Swan, but don't worry guys, after Branca Braunstein killed her, she named herself the new Olivia! Trish McCarroll scored her second kill of the day afterward, shooting Sloan Henriksen. Bobby Jacks went on his own little killing spree after that, shooting Arty Williams and Andy McCann before slitting Ivan Roeghmills throat and heading for the hills!"

"Meanwhile, Aidan Kelly had a very unfortunate run-in with one of the old booby traps in the jungle and bled to death, but not before declaring his love for Elizabeth Priestly! Aww, how romaaaaaantic!"

Danya stopped and laughed, then got quiet, taking a few seconds to regain his composure.

"The rest of these deaths, well..."

Danya wasn't about to tell the students that they'd lost the feed for a while and weren't really sure what happened to them, so he decided to simply tell them nothing at all.

"Just add Josh Novikov, Dennis Bernard, Lucy Arber, Pascal Stonely, and Antonio Legarda to your list of dead students. I'd tell you who killed them, but... I don't have to. Besides, making you guys guess is fun! Now then, time for the dangerzones. The cottage, lookout tower, and mess hall are cleared. The Hospital will remain a temporary dangerzone while our lovely little trio of Matt Wittany, Dominica Shapiro, and Neil Sinclair come pick up their prizes for scoring the most exciting kill of the day! Congratulations, Mr. Sinclair! You and your group are coming along quite nicely! Also, the lagoon, airfield, and jailhouse will be going dangerzone momentarily, so run, little warriors! Run away! Good luck to you all, and just think, you've made it halfway already!"

---

All that Pesky OOC Stuff:
First of all, congratulations to Theseus, Ciel, and Mitsuko2 for winning this month's BKA. They've won the Sphinx 3000, the Khaybar KH2002, and the Ithaca 37, respectively. Also, congratulations to Dinah, who has won a roll nullification card as a prize for this month's BDA. Now comes the fun part.

Rolls:
Harry Tsai Cara Scholte
Jim Middleton
Shawn Waits
Leo Curtis Ryan Gilbert
Will Sigurbjornsson Nullified
Afra Jacinth

These characters have been rolled to die. You have three RL days to begin the death and five to complete it. Once you've started their deaths, you'll need to link the location they're going to die in this topic. If you want to swap this character for another, or if someone else is going to use their hero card or roll null for you, let me know ASAP. As always, happy hunting!