Alternate Battle for Dream Island

ABFDIA 2c: Get Scheming

The Announcer always hated this place.

The Battle for Dream Island was always, from the very start, from the absolute beginning, supposed to be run by a single person (well, machine), and a single person *only*. It was just a single metal box that fell out of the sky and down to the cursed Earth on that fateful day. It was just a single metal box that decided that everyone was gonna be competing for this fancy island. And it was just a single metal box that was supposed to decide the ultimate fate of the 20 or so hapless contestants. That's just the way things have always been run. That's the way things were supposed to be. A single host for a single competition, it's as simple as that. It was, in *their* opinion, the most efficient and effective way to get things going.

But when it turned out that the number of contestants he had hauled this time around was an odd number, a number that just *can't* be neatly divided into a satisfying arrangement of two teams opposing each other, some sacrifices had to be made. Reality, as it was wont to do, was always bound to disappoint, and there just wasn't enough time to find another person to complete the roster. With time continuing to pass, with that finite resource continuing to dwindle away, the speaker box just *had* to make do with what he had. And so, a hasty plan was arranged: two teams of nine, with one to sit the whole thing out and watch from the sidelines, given the role of co-host just to make them feel like they're not missing out.

On paper, it felt like a sound and reasonable plan. The Announcer had always done a *great* job of handling everybody, especially those that got in his way, even just a little bit. The co-host would be given a special title that made them feel unique and integral, and yet they won't actually be able to do *anything*. He'd give them a chore or two to do, but ultimately everything important was going to be dealt with by the box and the box alone. The competition will proceed as planned, despite this small hiccup. The numbers may be smaller, the plans less grand, but most plans don't end up surviving their implementation, anyhow. Things would be *fine*.

But this co-host turned out to be quite... *different*. The universe decided to pull a silly little prank, a small joke *just* when he needed things to go right. Golf Ball was selected because she claimed to know about everyone, and the hope was that that knowledge could be used to render them docile. But it turned out that she knew of a lot of *other* things, too. Other things that made her oppose the box more often than not. Other things that could potentially compromise the whole plan, the plot that was 2,763 years in the making. It just won't do. It just won't do at all.

And so, she had to be dealt with.

The Announcer wandered around the small complex that had developed for the sake of the Battle for Dream Island, this little place made their own. *Their* own. Every single thing reeked of the bossy-bot's meddling. She complained mightily about how having nothing but grass made them complacent and incompetent, unable to do much besides cause mayhem and mischief wherever they went. She whined about how keeping the eliminated contestants in a cramped metal box goes against everything they stood for, how it'd just make them unruly. They ended up having to spend vast amounts of resources, quite a good chunk of the budget, just to satiate these fools. These contestants.

The apartments were, by far, the biggest insult of them all. On the surface, it seemed to do some good. The competition *had* caused some of them to start waking up, to begin realizing that maybe this dull existence *was* not ideal in the slightest. The speaker box was more than able to keep those sentiments suppressed, constantly dangling the island over their heads, but Golf Ball, the fool that she was, always had other ideas. She had the whole thing built on her orders, claiming that it'd gather everyone up into one place, a place that they could easily lock down and ensure that they don't leave until they say so. Sort of like the PRISON, but just more... *effective*. It *did* do that purpose, and it did it quite well, but once again, it reminded them that things *could* be better. That there was more to life than just Battling for Dream Island, that they could do more than just frolic in the fields all day, pretending that nothing was amiss and that everything was *great*. Most upsetting of all, it was a move to try and take power away from him. From what he'd seen, Golf Ball didn't have the best relationship with the others, and that was part of the reason why she became the co-host. But with this gesture, she was hoping to turn that around. To get people to see things the way she did. To get them to like her. To get them to oppose *him*.