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Chaos Byte Cursor, one code-engineered virus of three, turned around slowly, admiring the white dress as it flowed around her. Clinging in all the right places, loose in all the right places, she looked marvelous in it. Smiling happily, she waltzed about behind the big, red curtain.
Decimal entered from the right and grinned. "Lookin' good, Chaos." He gave her a thumbs up sign, before lightly tugging at the tie he had to wear with his suit. "When is this thing going to start?"
Jade skidded onto stage a nano later, and a nano after that, the curtains opened, revealing the blaringly bright lights. Chaos blinked, and decided to ignore that Jade's tie was backwards. Grinning madly, she waved to the crowd that she couldn't really see.
Jade smiled lazily and ambled over to the podium. "Ladies and gentlemen, sprites and binomes, virii and codemasters, welcome back to the Unofficial ReBoot Awards of 2003!"
Decimal sighed mentally as Chaos tugged him forward. He didn't want to be here. He didn't want to wear this outfit. ...Was Jade wearing leather pants?
The silver virus blinked and gave Jade's outfit a second look. The bastard was wearing leather pants!
Jade continued on, blithely unaware of Decimal's internal grumbling. Jade was not, after all, a mind reader. "We're here to present the awards for the Best Series and Best Ficlet. Now, normally, I'd give you a bit of back-story and a description for these stories, but as you can see from my tie-" Jade grinned and gestured towards his backwards tie. "I wasn't exactly given a lot of preparation time for this. But, enough about me. Decimal will introduce the series while I get my tie fixed."
Decimal scowled out at the audience impartially. They were laughing at him, he was sure. (They were actually laughing at Chaos attempting to fix Jade's tie. The normally teal sprite was turning an unappetizing shade of turqoise.) "Best Series is given out to the best set of stories meant to be read for the collection. The nominees this year were: the Beginnings Saga by WebMistressGina, the Guardian Saga by Dan Green,-"
"Enzo had better win!" Chaos called out from behind him. Growling, he continued on, overriding Jade's attempt to explain that it wouldn't be Enzo getting the award. "-the 'New Dawn' Series by AvA, Silence of the RAM by Kim McFarland, and the Viral Guardian Series by Jareth. All wonderful series or so I'm given to understand." He glared about, non-plussed by the few audience members he could see despite the blaring lights shining in his eyes. Scared pansies, the lot of them. "And the winner is...."
"Oops!"
Decimal turned around to look at his half-siblings. Jade had already face-palmed, while Chaos seemed to be feeling herself up. No, wait, she was pulling the envelopes out of her dress.
"Here they are!" Grinning madly, she handed him one of the envelopes.
"As I said, the winner for Best Series is.... The Guardian Saga by Dan Green!" Decimal took the oppurtunity given by the sudden eruption of cheers and clapping to shove Jade to the fore again. Unfortunately, that left him with his half-sister who was just so happy 'her Enzo' had won....
Wincing inwardly, Jade lounged at the podium, the envelope in his hands, while he waited for the furor to die down. He'd never have made the mistake of giving them to Chaos, no matter how fetching an envelope-bearer she might or might not be.
Ah, the audience was listening again. Time to move on with the show. "And now for the Best Ficlet. A ficlet is, by the way, a little single-scene story or vignette. Short and sweet. The nominees for this year are: "Something to Talk About" by Ryuu, in which Phong gets to hone his counseling of psychos with Megabyte. "Ryuu's S4 Therapy Fic" by, well, Ryuu, in which Bob and Dot get to forgive each other and have hot-spritely sex. Or maybe they had it before the story began, I don't really remember. Anyways.... "J'Etais" by Fidget, in which Daemon infects the Super Computer. "Charade" by E, in which Megabyte gets to be Bob in a disturbing way."
Jade raised the envelope so all could see it and opened it slowly, deliberately. "And the winner is...." He paused for a bit, smiled that killer smile of his. "The winner is "Charade" by E."
Once more, he lounged against the podium waiting for the furor to die down. An awards ceremony wasn't an awards ceremony without the giving out of awards, now was it?
The uproar died down on a questioning note as some of the members of the audience noticed he and his siblings were still on stage. He grinned, imagining the guardians giving half-whispered commands to their keytools. "I believe Chaos has the awards...." He half-turned to look at where she was swanning around. "You do have the awards, don't you?"
She nodded, smiled. Abrubtly, fires flared around her, light and heat mixing brilliantly, providing the kind of show that none of these yahoos had ever seen before. When the light faded, she not only had her arms around the authors of the winning pieces but she had their respective awards in her hands.
"Let's give it up for the winners!" Jade called out as he turned once more to face the audience. Smirking, the roar washed over him like an intoxicant. Ah, to know that one day, it would be he who they cried out joyfully for. For one day, he would be their master.
The End