"Looks like someone forgot to update their anti-virus."

Mark chuckled softly at Seán's side, entertained by the pun, but the Irish man found no humor in it at all as he watched on. His heart hammered loudly in his ears. Surely even his friend could hear it at this point. He couldn't tear his eyes away from the screen long enough to find out, though.

"I promised I would be back when you least suspected it, didn't I?" He sneered, seeming to glare right through the screen and right at Seán himself, making him shiver. "And I always keep my promises." The man in the video said, putting a particular emphasis on his words. He was referring to Seán's own hint to the character's return in a video he'd posted some time ago, but it also felt like he was hinting at more...

A devilish grin renewed on the man's lips, glitching now and then to show pointed teeth before returning to normal. The same effects Seán and Robin would often put into their own edits of Anti - giving him a constantly changing look so that all versions of the fandom's creation could be realized.

But it never felt as terrifying to him as it did now.

"Some of you may be wondering what I could possibly have up my sleeve." He paused, for the dramatic effect, surely. Allowing the audience to imagine any number of possibilities before continuing, "I assure you, it's nothing quite like anything you've ever seen before."

The air in Seán's chest constricted until he was breathing in short, fearful pants. As if someone had literally stolen the air from his lungs. He was hyperventilating - falling into a spiral of panic he couldn't get a grip on.

"That said, stop me if you've heard this one," A darkly twisted smile took over the man's face completely, making him look crazed to the very core, "I want to play a game." He tilted his head unnaturally before it glitched around with a demented giggle.

"Those of you who are paying close enough attention may just -"

Seán quickly clicked the video, pausing the man mid-sentence, unable to take listening to any more of his rant. He was sick to his stomach. And even paused, the image of his look-alike filled him with a dread he couldn't even begin to describe.

"What the heck? Why did you stop it?" Mark turned expectant eyes and grin on Seán before he faltered.

The look on Seán's face was... strange; skin paling impossibly white, eyes wide as he stared at the frozen image of himself on the screen.

"Seán?" Mark put a soft hand on the man's shoulder, only to watch in confusion as the Irish man nearly jumped out of his own skin as he turned those wide eyes on him now. And... was he... trembling? "Are you alright? What's wrong?"

Seán's heavy breathing did not calm at all as his blue eyes danced back and forth searching Mark's face, before turning back to the screen. Like it might jump out at him at any moment.

"Mark... I... I didn't post this." He managed to say. His mind was reeling with all the possibilities and implications of this video. But nothing quite made sense in his mind. No matter how he looked at it, this video was impossible.

There was a long silence before the half Korean snorted, "Alright, very funny - Try hard. You almost got me there for a minute. Tryin' to be all spoopy for Halloween." Mark rolled his eyes with an amused chuckle, hands waving around sarcastically.

"This isn't a fuckin' joke Mark!" Seán snapped and Mark flinched at his friend's unusual and sudden outburst.

There was nothing funny about ANY of this.

He was legitimately freaked out. There was even a part of him that was starting to get pissed. Someone was obviously trying to mess with him. But for the life of him, he still couldn't figure out how let alone the who. He almost didn't want to know who was capable of putting something like this together.

"A-are you serious right now?" His friend sounded skeptical at first - still sure that this was all some elaborate joke, but his tone turned concerned as the fear began to overwhelm Seán's face.

"I didn't post this." The Irish man, repeated. Turning back to Mark again, staring him straight in the eye and pronouncing each syllable deliberately as he tried to convey his point and fear through his words.

Mark blinked a couple of times, his expression shifting, making Seán think he was finally catching on, "Alright... well... if you didn't post it, who did?" he asked, his tone suddenly sounding serious.

Seán was silent as his mind ran in circles. All he could do was shake his head in response.

"Maybe it was Robin?"

That made Seán shake his head more vigorously at the thought, "No. Robin wouldn't have done something like this. Even as a joke. And even if he had, I don't even know how someone could have made this. I didn't record any of this dialogue."

"What do you mean?"

"All of my Anti skits are spliced together. The editing is what makes the character so creepy. None of this is my footage. Edited or otherwise."

It wasn't like he could remember everything little thing he'd ever said during his videos - but there were no obvious cuts, no breaks in the script that would indicate that someone had spliced his audio together. Even when he posted Anti videos, they always came out a little choppy. But that was part of the process - part of the character.

And this... this had been one fluid shot. Even with the glitched effects added in, it was clear that whoever made the video had done so in one take - or at least, they were damned good at making it seem that way.

"Seán... that's crazy. You're telling me that none of this was saved footage? That this was original dialogue?"

Was that what he was implying? There was no other explanation. The video had been scripted, but none of it by him.

Mark let out a long breath, eyes betraying how much of a problem he knew this was, "holy shit... Alright, well..." he was at a strange loss of words now, no doubt trying to come up with a way to fix this. "We'll go through the process to secure your account. Make sure no one can get access and then report it."

Right. Securing the account was the most logical course of action.

"You should also probably take down the video and put out a statement."

Seán nodded. The video had been up for some time now. There were already over half a million views. He didn't even want to look at the comments. He had to put something out there to let people know.

They started with securing his account. Changing passwords and running diagnostics on his machine to make sure it was clear of malware. Once that was done and nothing suspicious came back, they went through the process of reporting the hack to YouTube as well as Google. Getting an immediate email from both with a ticket number and a generic 'it could take up to 48 hours to investigate' message attached.

But at least Seán felt like he'd taken the necessary steps to be safe again. He hated how... vulnerable this all made him feel. Someone had literally messed with his livelihood. It shook him more than he ever would like to admit.

Last, but not least was the content itself. Seán stared at it for a long moment before going into its options and pressing the "delete forever" button. Another prompt popped up asking if he was sure he wanted to delete the video - it was a permanent action, after all.

Yeah, he was definitely sure.

He clicked the 'yes' and breathed a small sigh.

Now all that was left was getting his own image back in front of the fans.

He'd planned on getting ready before recording but decided this was too important.

Quickly, Seán opened up the video options and chose the live stream, allowing for his camera to boot up and for a site-wide alert to his fans to go out letting them know he was 'live'.

It didn't take long for them to start pouring in.

Most of them saying hi over chat, a lot of them noticing Mark off to the side and freaking out about them being together. There were so many chats it was hard to keep up with them all.

"Hey guys...," He waved half-heartedly at the audience, biding his time until he knew enough people had made it into the stream.

"This wasn't what I planned on doing today. I still hope to do what we planned on doing," He rambled, suddenly feeling embarrassed for the announcement he had to make.

It was a strange feeling - to be the victim, but embarrassed to have to admit it. It wasn't very often that a major channel like his got hacked. And definitely not to this degree.

With that and a satisfactory number of viewers, he took a deep breath and addressed them all directly. "Look, I'm going to cut straight to the chase. By now, I'm sure most of the world has seen the latest video posted to my channel. I'm here to tell you guys that it wasn't me." He paused, glancing over to the chat to watch it catch up.

"I was hacked. And someone posted that video to my channel without my knowledge or permission. I know it looks like me. It's one hell of a convincing act. But I had nothing to do with that video." Again, he paused, watching the chat pour out with rage and sympathy for his plight. there were a number of individuals who seemed skeptical - like Mark, thinking this was all part of some elaborate skit.

If only he were that creative.

"So, it's been deleted and because of all of this, my account and channel are under review as we try to figure out how this even happened. Hopefully, this won't keep me from posting any of the fun content Mark and I had planned for the next couple of days." His voice died, despite his mouth open and ready to continue.

There was so much he wanted to say. So much anger and fear he wanted to share with the community. So much he wanted to tell (or yell at, given his growing irritation) the person who'd done this. But he couldn't find the words. For a couple of hours, someone had stolen his identity - stolen his channel.

"That's really all I came here to say," he mumbled with a shrug, glancing back at the comments in the thread. Reading quite a few of them saying things about how this meant he was never going to bring the characters back. That, someone, had ruined it for everyone else.

And he had to admit, he agreed.

At the very least, it was going to be quite a bit of time before he could readdress the egos without feeling like someone might try to take them too far again.

"Well, guys, thanks for tuning in. And we'll," he leaned over so Mark could lean further into the frame to wave at the viewers, "hopefully be seeing you all again soon."

With that, he ended the stream.