A/N: I went to this camp...that's supposed to motivate you. And it did! But I think in the wrong way, because I was motivated by the evil (sorta) things we did there to write this story. :P Anyway, enjoy! (And yes, I know lots of people don't consider 'funner' a word but it iiiiiiis... at least I think so...)
"There will be a competition," Nero announced, standing at the podium in the main cavern in HIVE.
Instantly, murmuring erupted from the gathered second year students.
"A competition! Where we compete!" Laura gasped, turning to face Shelby.
"No duh," Shelby replied, before a giant grin spread across her face. "Yesss! Finally! A game!"
Nero tapped the mic and the feedback squealed out like a hamster dying a slow painful death. Everyone in the room winced. Even Nero. And even Wing. And possibly Raven, if she was there, but it would be hard to tell anyway, seeing as she was a moving shadow and all...
"Attention. A message regarding the competition will be sent to all of your blackboxes. You may view them in your own time. The competition will begin tomorrow. Dismissed." With that, Nero lay down the mic – gently – on the podium and walked off the stage.
Deep in the shadows, a black-clad figure slipped out. "Dr Nero?" she inquired, walking alongside him.
"Mm?" Nero prompted.
"How did you even come up with this?" Raven ventured, eyebrows raised in a quizzical expression.
Nero waved it away nonchalantly. "Diabolus helped. No wait. Really, it was all his idea. All."
"Diabolus? Oh. Well. Ok."
"Why?"
"I didn't really think it would be your own idea. Usually you just let HIVE run as it will. Other than the... little bumps along the road."
"Indeed. Competitions are pretty time-consuming. Anyway, Diabolus talked me into it, his reasoning being so the students would learn to sabo- excuse me, undermine others."
"In a normal school that would have sounded plain creepy, but..."
"HIVE is not a normal school."
"Of course."
"Comp. Et. Ish. Un!" Shelby cheered, dancing around the room hugging a pillow.
Laura sat cross-legged on her bed, tapping away at a laptop of her own design. "Wonderful." Her tongue stuck out the tiniest bit.
"Hey, what'cha even doing?" Shelby plopped down next to Laura.
"Just plans...stuff..." Laura shifted away, hiding the screen from Shelby.
"What? Show it to me! Why won't you show it to me?!" Shelby whined when Laura moved away every time she tried to take a peek at the screen.
"You know, 'cause they'll probably be grouping us and I won't be showing this to you unless you're in my group and I don't know whether you are or not because I haven't even looked at my blackbo- my blackbox!" Laura's head snapped up, zeroing in on the girls' blackboxes, lying side by side on Shelby's desk.
There was a moment of complete silence in the tiny room and then it was broken by the mad scramble towards the aforementioned desk. Tossing – gently, somewhat – her laptop off to the side, Laura leaped off the mattress with a grace she never knew she possessed and crashed down nearly right on top of Shelby's desk. The blonde, there a split second before her, shoved her out of the way, simultaneously snatching her blackbox and nimbly kicking hers right over the edge and into the crack between the table and the wall.
Shelby grinned triumphantly, waltzing over to her bed and flipping open her blackbox.
"Dammit Shel, did you really have to go and do that?" Laura muttered, squeezing what part of her hand that could fit into the crack. She somehow managed to knock the blackbox to the floor and scooped it up. Hungry, eager eyes devoured the message sent by HIVEmind to her blackbox the second it was opened. And the red-head sat down right where she was crouching, her chair turning out to be the wastepaper basket. She didn't even notice.
The competition, it seemed, had already started before the official beginning.
"Careful Otto – you're going to crash into the wall if you continue on like that," Wing warned. He watched his roommate stare at his blackbox and walk down the hallway towards Accommodation Block 7.
"I won't Wing. I've already memorised the layout of HIVE and the certain path I have to take in order not to run into anything."
"Well, then you just might run into someone," Wing replied, steering Otto out of the way of two Pol/Fi students similarly entranced by their blackboxes.
"Mm-hmm, yeah, that's nice, Wing..." Otto said, having obviously already stopped listening to the Asian. Then the albino winced. "Okay. That's not really a good thing."
"Of course. Bumping into someone is not only embarrassing, it could also cause injury to both yourself and the other," Wing acknowledged.
"No. I wasn't talking about that. It's this!" Otto jabbed a finger at the blackbox's screen.
"Which is?"
Otto looked up from his blackbox (finally!). "The four of us aren't in the same group."
"I see how that could put a dent in your day."
"Of course." A half-maniac grin spread across Otto's face. "But that does mean I can finally get revenge."
"On who...for what?" Wing looked a little rattled. Which was strange, seeing as he was a ninja.
The grin only grew. "For anything."
Two black-jumpsuited Alphas leaned over a single blackbox, carried by one of them, slowly walking down the hall. Barely even walking really; more like there was a couple of minutes of reading whatever was on the blackbox before they remembered to shuffle their feet forward a few steps and then pausing to read some more.
"Oh lookie! We can sabo each other in the competition!"
"Sabotage. Sabo – singlish – yuck. We aren't even in Singapore anymore. And stop reading over my shoulder."
"We're on an island. Surrounded by sea. Like Singapore."
"All islands are surrounded by sea. That's what makes them islands. Besides, does Singapore have a volcano? No? Didn't think so."
"Well, we still get to sabo people."
"No singlishhhhhhh!"
"Okay fine..."
"..."
"...sabo...!"
"Shut up."
"...sabotage...!"
"Yeah, this'll be fun..."
A/N: Hahhhhhhh yeah, I dunno why I added in that last part. 'Sabo' is singlish, a mix of...languages... I guess, that Singaporeans speak ('cept for me and my sis...and others)... Anyway, the last section is probably like a self-insert or something, of me and my friend, who is similarly obsessed with HIVE. One more will be coming in later, but I'm not so sure whether...I think I'll keep them as background characters.
Opinions? ;)
