The intro all Americans had become all too familiar with blared across the major television networks, many not-as-major networks, and across the internet plus several streaming services.
It was game time.
"GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD evening America and welcome to this month's edition of Battle Royale! Thank you for choosing the Patriot Network for coverage of the game. I'm Randall Stewart joined as always by Jay Jags. Jay you sick bastard, how are you tonight?"
"Feeling way better after doing your wife Randy. BOOM! Alright let's get down to business. Our sources have confirmed that fifty students – that's right, we got a full set this month – were snatched up in Brookline, Massachusetts this morning and flown to this year's battleground in one of the artificial islands near Bermuda. As always, the island is a twenty-mile-wide restricted area, including airspace, and trespassers will be blown to smithereens. We don't want a repeat of Flight 61, do we?"
"No we don't Jay. And we hope this month's game is more entertaining than the last few. I mean my God, March's winner committed suicide just three days later, and we're still lamenting how such a coward managed to win this game. But, the master himself Douglas Marvin promises that he's picked a fascinating group this year. What's interesting is that this isn't a proper class, but rather it's students hanging in the cafeteria before the bell even rang."
"Always gotta be on your toes. Wait, hold on a moment." Jay paused and put his finger to his ear, receiving new information in his earpiece. "I've just received word that Mark Lance has arrived on the island and the game should begin any second now."
Randall nodded with a smile. "We'll keep you covered on each new development and as always, we'll be giving you game updates for as long as it takes. We've taken our trucker pills and we are in it for the long haul, right here on Patriot Network!"
…
Mackenzie Fellows (#14) was the first student to wake up, in a town hall meeting room. Normally she felt quite groggy waking up in the morning before school, but the gravity of the situation sank in fast and it ensured she was wide awake. She found herself lying on the floor next to Troy Durbin (#12), a fellow freshman whom she had known since kindergarten but to whom she was not especially close, and Vance Zalinski (#50), a sophomore with whom she had spoken only a few times. Her first concern was her two closest friends, Ashleigh Kimball (#26) and Kelly Wilson (#47), as she the last thing she remembered before the gas knocked her out was being with them.
Her ultimately successful efforts to find her friends woke up several other students, which gradually snowballed into the whole class being stirred from their forced slumber. As they awoke, most of their hands immediately went to their necks, where they felt the notorious explosive collar. The reality set in for everyone: this was Battle Royale.
Whitney Goldberg (#17) cried out in horror and her boyfriend Ford Remar (#37) ran to her side and comforted her. The Durbin and Jensen siblings found each other fast, the girls crying into their respective brother's arms. Juan Arteaga (#2) refused to look scared in front of his group. Cole Landry (#27) comforted the rest of his rap group, then found Wesley Thorn (#42).
"Find me," Cole said to them. "I'm gonna try to head west."
"I have a plan," Wesley said, which ended up being cryptic as he said nothing else.
While the students were initially laid out on the floor, the room had fifty metal chairs set up for each student. Cody Garrett (#16) rounded up his closest friends, including BR superfan Cal Lewis (#28), and they were the first to take their seats.
"Cody," Cal said.
"What?" Cody replied.
"Go south, we'll all meet up and strategize there."
Cody nodded, and quietly passed the word to the group he sat with in the cafeteria, with the exception of non-athlete Cooper Watson (#45), feeling he'd be a liability.
The scared chatter continued in the town hall, when suddenly the main entrance doors opened. Over twenty armed and armored soldiers entered the room, the last four of whom wheeled in two large racks full of duffel bags. Their entrance hushed the room fast as all fifty students turned their attention to them. Suddenly, a familiar voice rang out from behind.
"Boys and girls," Mark Lance announced, "welcome to the Hazard Prevention Act, otherwise known as Battle Royale. Please take a seat." Cody and a few of his more patriotic friends applauded Mark's entrance, while the rest looked on in silent horror. Regardless, each student listened to his orders and sat down.
"Very good!" Lance said cheerfully. "Let's see if we can maintain this level of attentiveness. Feel free to wave to the adoring public!" In the general panic of the room, few students had noticed the cameras mounted on the walls.
Lance continued. "Yes, we've got the morning cafeteria crowd from Brookline High School in Massachusetts. Such a shame really; Massachusetts was where America got started, now it's just a hub of pussies and wretches. So many drugs and criminals and deviants, but then again what did you expect when you became the first state to make gay marriage legal?" Royce, Jonathan, and TJ all forced themselves to bite their tongues at his polite hatred. "LGBT…sounds like a tasty sandwich, but it's really just a bunch of nonsense by scumbags who think taking a dick up the ass makes them interesting. But enough about that. Whatever is wrong with your little town, Battle Royale doesn't care. It decided it was your time and now you're here to represent. One of you will get to make your school and your town proud for once. Regardless of your gender, your race, your politics, your opinions, your faces, each one of you has a chance to win this game. It's smarts and balls that make a winner. And yes, girls have won this game before so it's more of a metaphorical set of balls, but you get my point."
As Lance gave his lecture, Juan leaned over to his girlfriend Maria Gonzalez (#18). "Easternmost point of the island." One of Juan's talents was reading rooms, primarily to search for angles he could use to his advantage. He had studied the room intently and knew that alphabetically, her and Tino "Big T" Herrera (#19) were gonna leave back-to-back as that was always the order the participants were released in Battle Royale. "Wait for Big T when you leave, he'll be right after you." Juan then leaned the other way to his best friend Paul "Dez" Valdez (#44). "Easternmost point—"
"ARTEAGA!" Lance yelled suddenly. In a mix of hubris and being unsettled from being in the game, the one angle Juan hadn't weighed completely was the host catching him talking. "Is there something you would like to share with the class?" Juan merely sat upright in his chair and stared Lance down silently. "Yeah…I remember reading about you." Lance sighed. "I've been doing this so long that I can tell who's gonna be a nuisance. Why don't you stand up for us?" Still staring sternly, Juan rose from his seat. Lance stepped up to him. "Remind us all how many times you and your little gang have been arrested."
Juan smirked. "The cops don't like a bunch of brown kids hangin' out. Makes 'em scared."
"Yeah, you're all always victims, aren't you?"
"We don't commit crimes. We leave that to the cops." A few students had to suppress their impressed reactions to Juan's courage in saying that to the face of Battle Royale. But others, like ultra-patriots Carter Buckley (#4) and Dani Copeland (#6), sneered at Juan.
Lance, meanwhile, merely smiled. "I gotta say, I've always admired this particular level of cockiness. To skip so much school and yet still think you have all the answers to life."
"I'm sure you've gotten all our records, so you know we all have solid attendance levels. Problem is, you get mad at our generation when we go to school and actually figure out how to learn things. The REAL way."
Lance stared for a moment, and then broke out laughing for a solid ten seconds. "That's good! Really tasty propaganda right there!" Then, Lance took out his famous ivory-plated Beretta M92F and put it in Juan's face. Lance had been known to shoot unruly students before the game had even began; sometimes to wound, sometimes to kill.
"NO!" Maria screamed as she stood up. A soldier quickly moved in and restrained her. Dez and Big T stood as well, but another soldier pointed his rifle at them and ordered them not to move.
"You certainly have the balls I talked about," Lance said, "but your smarts are questionable."
"I ain't afraid of you," Juan said. "And I ain't afraid to die."
"Maybe." Lance smiled. "But are you afraid of losing her?" He then pointed his gun at Maria. He was not planning on shooting, but rather to put the fear in Juan.
But Lance underestimated how Juan would react.
Juan instinctively went for the gun and he and Lance wrestled for a moment. The soldiers who had been keeping Juan's friends in check got into the fracas and pulled Juan away…but not before the gun went off a fraction of a second before Juan's grip was broken. Everyone in the room ducked at the shot. As Juan was dragged back to his seat, Kate Denton (#10) screamed, and that's when everyone in the room finally saw it.
The bullet had hit Kate's best friend Hallie Nelson (#33) in her cheek, killing her instantly. Hallie's body was slumped over and slowly drooping toward the floor. An anguished and heartbroken Kate tried to hold her friend up, but ultimately, Hallie's corpse fell to the floor. Kate got down with her and wept over the tragic, accidental loss of her closest friend.
Juan saw her body fall and was finally shaken, feeling some responsibility for what happened. Suddenly, Lance grabbed him by his arm and dragged him over to Hallie's body. When he got him there, he shoved Juan to the ground right into the blood puddle that had begun to form around Hallie. To further twist the knife, Lance pressed Juan's head into the puddle.
"See this?" Lance said aggressively. "This is you! This didn't have to happen! But you had to act like Mr. Tough Guy. I wasn't even gonna shoot your little girlfriend. But because you had to act like an entitled little shit, Hallie is dead." Lance finally took notice of Kate's grieving. "I did my homework. This is Kate Denton. Hallie was her best friend, and you took Hallie from her. Kate, anything you want to say to the guy who killed your friend?" Kate merely wept silently, and refused to look at either Juan or Lance. "Yeah, I guess it's too soon to face him. Maybe you'll sort this out in the game proper." He then lifted Juan to his feet. "Now sit down." Without a word, Juan returned to his seat. Lance then put his hand on Kate's shoulder. "I know this is tough," he said to her, "but I'm gonna need you to take your seat as well." He then gently put his hand under her arm and helped her up, and she wordlessly sat down in her seat, still in tears.
With everyone seated once again, Lance shook his head. "Contempt. Disrespect. Aggression. Your generation loves these things. These things and drugs, that's all. And because of it, you all have to pay. You think you can be so against our great country and not pay the price for it. If you don't appreciate what our Founding Fathers and the men who've died in war did to allow you to even have a country in the first place, punishment needs to be served. And I know some of you in this room are fervent patriots, but you know what they say about rotten apples." He paused, and a student, without trying, caught his attention. "That said, I'm not an idiot. America is still the land of opportunity and people still take advantage of illegal opportunities and make a lot of money. And there are even people in this room that very nearly got out of this game for breaking the rules." His head turned sharply to the right. "Isn't that right, Troy Durbin?"
Troy's eyes widened. "Don't say anything," his older sister Shelby Durbin (#11) whispered to him.
"That's right," Lance continued, "this was your first day back at school after a three-day suspension. Just think, if you'd waited one more day to punch that kid, you wouldn't be here right now." Troy lowered his head, unable to look Lance in the eyes any longer. Unfortunately, Lance didn't appreciate that, and grabbed Troy's face and pulled him back into eye contact. "See what I mean about the disrespect? You look someone in the eyes when they're talking to you!" Troy began shaking; Shelby knew this was her brother's response to stress and she had long worried it would get him in trouble with the authorities.
"Please," she said, her voice cracking, "he understands. He's my brother, I know he gets it. Please just—" She was cut off by Lance quickly removing his gun and putting it in her face.
"I want your mother to at least have SOMEONE to root for. Be quiet." Shelby shook in horror from his comment, but stayed silent. Just then, a soldier came up and whispered in Lance's ear, and Lance laughed. "Oh…that's right. You don't have one anymore."
The Durbins' hearts sank. "What?" Shelby asked, terrified she already knew the answer.
"Yeah…" Lance said, dragging out the word. "We went to your house to give her the news that you were both here, and it was too much for her. She tried to fight it and fight it and fight it, so she was…silenced."
He saw Shelby's eyes flood with tears as the news hit her like a freight train. He then turned his attention to Troy. "If it makes you feel better," Lance said with a smirk, "it was nice and quick."
Troy was overcome with rage, and rose from his seat and punched Lance in the face. A soldier quickly pinned him and another restrained Shelby, who began screaming hysterically.
"NO! PLEASE! PLEASE DON'T!" But Mark leaned down to the still-pinned Troy and put his notorious pistol to his head. At this point, Shelby was merely sobbing uncontrollably.
Lance lingered over Troy for a moment, but ultimately took his gun away from the freshman's head. He then gestured with his head to the soldier, who got off of Troy. Lance then pulled Troy to his feet. "I'm not killing you. Because someone like you NEEDS Battle Royale. This game breaks people, and you need to be broken. You need to learn a few lessons. And let's start with this one: actions have consequences." He suddenly turned around and shot the first student he laid his eyes on: Ford. The wound was less than an inch up and to the left of a classic "between the eyes" shot. Ford's body jerked back and then slid off the chair. It took his girlfriend Whitney a few seconds to process what happened before she too began crying in horror.
Troy was horrified that Lance had killed someone else, this time because of him. Shelby grabbed his hand without a word.
Lance returned to the front of the room as Whitney continued to cry over Ford's death. "Now," he said with more than a hint of annoyance, "does anyone else want to exercise their First Amendment rights?"
48 Students Remaining