Every one of Ian's movements echoed in the darkness of the deserted library. He couldn't see very far into the building, but he could tell by the echoes and the way it had looked from the outside that it was large.

"We should be safer in here, right?" Anthony said quietly from behind Ian, still too loud for the other man's preference.

"I guess." Yet Ian couldn't shake the feeling that they were being watched.

"Hey," Anthony said, his voice still low, as he put a hand on Ian's shoulder. "Relax a bit. I don't think we've been followed for the last half hour, at least."

Ian expressed his only sign of relaxation by swinging his shotgun onto his back and taking his pistol out of its holster instead. "I still hate being hunted."

"Well, me too," Anthony said, removing his hand from Ian's shoulder. "But seriously, we haven't heard anything in a while."

"You're right," Ian conceded with a sigh, dropping his pistol to his right hip but not holstering it. He stepped deeper into the library, between two tall, dark shelves that loomed over him like disapproving parents. His ears were trained to any little movement Anthony made, so that if he heard anything else, he'd know to be on guard.

They moved silently to a collection of tables at the end of the sea of shelves, where a lone book lay on the table nearest the wall, a layer of dust obscuring its cover.

Ian frowned. "Anthony? Why do you think this library's empty?"

"I don't know," Anthony said contemplatively. "It seems odd, doesn't it?"

"Not once you know anything about it," said a smooth, deep from somewhere behind them, causing Ian to jump and raise his pistol. He couldn't see anything in shadows of the bookshelves, and in the massive, echoing room, he could barely tell where the voice had come from. It did sound oddly, distantly familiar, though.

"Who the fuck are you?" Anthony asked, and though Ian wasn't looking at him, he knew he was readying a bullet in the chamber of his pistol from the clicks and sliding of metal against metal.

The mysterious man ignored Anthony's question entirely. When he spoke again in a slightly muffled voice, it sounded as though he were in a different location than he had been before. "We've been in control of this place for some time now, so it was abandoned a while ago. Of course, you can probably already see that." There was a soft sliding sound, and for a moment Ian assumed it was the preparation of a weapon before he realized it was the sound of a dusty book being removed from a shelf. "You shouldn't be surprised it's ours, though. After all, I wouldn't have let you come in here if I didn't want you here."

"Wouldn't have let us, huh?" Ian asked challengingly, listening to the slide and thump as the book was returned to its place. Where was it coming from, though? Almost directly in front of him, maybe slightly to the left…that would be between those two shelves, but he couldn't make out a silhouette.

"Were you trying to lose me?" the man chuckled, a surprisingly rich and cheerful sound. "I wouldn't have known…."

He had moved again! Why the fuck couldn't Ian track him?

"Are you going to come out of the shadows?" Anthony taunted, surprising Ian with his tone's lack of anxiety. "Or can you not fight like a man?"

"Pardon me," the man said with another chuckle. Ian nearly started again with the realization of the close proximity of his voice. "But technically I'm no more hidden than you are."

Ian could see the man's silhouette now. He was only ten feet or so from them, leaning up against the wall. Ian aimed his pistol. He wasn't going to shoot—yet—but he could threaten and he could be ready.

Then the game changed as the library lights flicked on suddenly. The brightness was too much for Ian's eyes, which had long adjusted to the dark. He involuntarily put his free hand up to shield his face before coming to his senses and dropping into a fighting stance, raising his gun toward where he'd last seen the man even though his vision was spotted with dark patches.

The clicks of two pistols being cocked froze him in place. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Anthony stiffen as well and turn his head slightly toward Ian in order to look behind himself. Their hunter was behind them. Fuck, behind them in only a few seconds, and with two pistols probably aimed at their heads?

"Drop the weapons, now," the deep-voiced man said calmly. "I see you've got quite a collection of them."

The voice was damn familiar, but Ian's scattered brain couldn't place it.

He saw Anthony drop his pistol and sling his rifle off his back, tossing it with some disgust to the ground.

Bitterly, Ian did the same, letting go of his pistol so that it would still be within reach if he needed it. He pulled his shotgun off his back and tossed it down as well.

"Well, I suspect you've got a lot more on you, but that'll do for now."

Scowling, Ian shifted his body slightly and twisted his head around to get a look at their ambusher.

For the most part, he was surprisingly unintimidating. He wasn't quite as tall as Anthony, and he had dark, wavy hair that curved down onto his forehead above almond-shaped eyes the color of walnut wood. The rest of his face, however, was covered. He was wearing a black, almost Mortal Kombat-style mask with red accenting; it covered his cheeks and arced over his nose, reaching all the way down around his chin and jaw.

Recognition hit Anthony before it did Ian.

"Markiplier," he said suddenly. "Mark Fischbach."

The man's gaze flicked over to Anthony. His tone was surprisingly harsh as he said, "Just Mark." Then his expression and tone softened as an eyebrow quirked upward. "I'm surprised it took you so long."

Ian felt a least a hundred times less intimidated all of a sudden. "What the fuck are you doing, Mark?" He started to turn around, but in less than a second he felt a sharp force on the back of his knee. His legs buckled and fell to his knees with a grunt.

"Don't move, Hecox," Mark said, his voice still calm, but this time with a warning edge.

Ian could see Anthony tense. He didn't like Ian being threatened. Ian hoped he wouldn't do anything stupid and impulsive.

"Why are you here?" Anthony asked, venom reaching just the outermost edges of his voice. "Why are you working for them?"

"A long series of bad decisions on my part," Mark said, before pulling his arm back and hitting Ian in the back of the head with his pistol.

Ian's world immediately dissolved into blackness.

0o0o0

Mark didn't think too hard about hitting Ian Hecox in the head with a solid metal object. He tried not to, anyway.

All of this was still very hard for him.

He turned to Anthony, aiming both his silver-and-black pistols at the other man and stepping slightly closer to him, so that he was at his side instead of behind him.

"Tell me about the agency you work for," Mark demanded, his voice sounding slightly muffled through his mask. "Where it is. Who runs it. Talk."

Anthony's gaze snapped up from his fallen comrade and locked onto Mark's eyes. "I can't do that."

Mark's heart was pounding. He hated this so much…but he knew how to fake it.

He pointed the pistol in his left hand at Ian again. "You don't have enough motivation?"

Anthony's jaw tightened and his stare didn't waver from Mark's. "Fuck off."

That was when Mark made a mistake. He glanced away from Anthony.

He had a good reason for it. He was firing the pistol at Ian, not directly at him, but at the floor near him. He wanted anything but to actually hit the stirring man, so he'd looked over in order to aim correctly.

In retrospect, he shouldn't have.

Anthony moved with graceful speed, stepping behind Mark's line of fire and behind Mark himself—the worst place for an opponent to be—and locking Mark's right arm between his two fists, one behind Mark's elbow, ready to force it the wrong way, and the other pulling his wrist back toward Anthony.

Pain shot up into Mark's shoulder, nearly paralyzing his whole arm, but with a jolt of adrenaline energizing his whole body, he thought fast. He pushed himself toward Anthony suddenly, which freed his elbow and knocked the other man slightly off balance. Mark bent his arm to use his elbow as a weapon, shoving it back and hitting Anthony in the side of the throat. He spun away as the taller man doubled over, gasping for a ragged breath. Mark hoped against all hope that he hadn't hit him hard enough to do any permanent damage.

Ian was back in the game. He had swept a pistol off the floor and cocked it, aiming it with steady ease at Mark's chest.

But of course, Mark still had one of his own pistols—the other, he'd dropped when Anthony had caught his arm—and it was also aimed, the barrel directed exactly at where Ian's heart should be.

They stood in silence for a few seconds, Ian's gaze flicking back and forth between Mark and where Anthony was on his knees, only now starting to recover his breath.

Neither wanted to shoot. Neither was going to surrender.

And Mark wasn't going wait around long enough for Anthony to tip the odds against him.

So he ran. He broke the stalemate and the staring contest and sprinted back to where the shelves would obscure Ian's view of him. He heard the explosions of Ian's pistol go off twice, but neither shot came near to hitting him.

Mark may have been at the disadvantage in numbers—at least once Anthony recovered—but he had the advantage of knowing the maze of bookshelves better than the other two did.

They may have been able to outgun him, but with any luck, he could outsmart them.

0o0o0

Anthony could breathe again, but every breath was a raw pain in his throat. Damn, why did it fucking hurt so much?

He saw Ian approach him from the side, his right hand holding a pistol at his hip. Honestly, Anthony wasn't really sure what had just happened. It had been silent for some time, then he'd heard someone fire a pistol and now Markiplier—or whoever he was now—was gone. That was as much as he'd absorbed through his distracting desperation for breath.

"Anthony, are you okay?" Ian asked, kneeling beside him.

Anthony nodded. "Yeah," he croaked, not wanting to say more just in case it hurt worse.

"I lost Mark," Ian said, as if sensing the unspoken question in Anthony's expression. "He ran and I didn't follow because I had to check on you. I suspect he's not done, though."

Anthony shook his head. It was so fucking weird that of all people to run across—particularly to be pursued by—it was Mark Fischbach, whom Ian and Anthony hadn't even known very well before they cut ties with everything YouTube-related.

Suddenly, Ian tensed, cocking his head slightly to listen for something. "I hear him." That was all he said before standing up and running back into the maze of bookshelves, deeper into the giant library. Anthony was left alone.

"Fuck you, Ian," he hissed under his breath, standing up and searching for one of his weapons on the floor. He grabbed his pistol, which was still locked and loaded, and looked for where Ian had gone.

He couldn't see anyone through the massive wooden shelves, but he could hear them. They weren't terribly far away, it seemed, though it was nearly impossible to tell in the library's vast space.

Anthony headed toward the sounds as a few gunshots filled the library with sharp, violent echoes. He couldn't help but wonder who was shooting. Would Ian actually try to take Mark down, or was that the masked interrogator attempting to kill Ian, which admittedly he could have done moments ago if he'd wanted to?

Anthony caught sight of a figure clad in black and red between the shelves, running back toward where Anthony was coming from. It couldn't have been Ian, so Anthony immediately changed direction and pursued the figure, whom he could see from two shelves away. Maybe he could cut him off at the end of the line of shelves….

He almost did.

Mark, having either not seen Anthony or decided to take the risk anyway, had turned left when he reached an aisle between rows of shelves. Anthony had been slightly behind Mark on their parallel paths, so he saw him briefly as he appeared at the end of the shelves in front of him. In a desperate move, Anthony lunged forward, trying to tackle the masked man to the ground—but he was late. He transformed the ill-directed motion into a somersault—which turned out a little better than it could have—and he came up one knee, raising his gun to see if he could fire a threat to Mark. But his target was nowhere to be found.

Ian barreled out from behind some shelves in front of Anthony and stopped abruptly, glancing around. "Where'd…he go?" he panted.

"Back that way," Anthony said, jerking his head in the direction Mark had gone.

"Dammit," Ian said without much force, since he was still trying to catch his breath. "Would we be better off just bailing the hell out of here?"

"Not until I have my rifle back," Anthony said immediately.

"You have other rifles, Anthony."

Anthony gave him a stubborn look.

"Ah, fuck, I want my shotgun, too. Fine. But let's be fast. I think we're better off not fighting him."

The library lights flicked out again.

"Goddammit!" Ian cursed, before Anthony stood up and put his hand over Ian's mouth.

"Don't say anything," he said under his breath. "We need to move so he doesn't know where we are."

Ian grabbed Anthony's wrist and moved his hand away from his mouth. "Don't touch me," he whispered fiercely.

Anthony didn't grace that with a reply. He crossed the aisle to the next row of books, trying to be as quiet as possible. He could hardly see anything, so he had to feel his way through in the dark, which unintentionally kept his guard down as he had to put at least one hand against the book spines.

He froze suddenly as he heard a few thumping sounds from somewhere above him. He didn't have any way to react when he felt the bookshelf to his left shake, accompanied by a few books falling down to the carpet at his feet.

He heard the rustle of clothing a split second before a dark silhouette dropped down in front of him. Anthony knew he wasn't willing to shoot, so he hardly moved. He barely got time to process the black mask and dark eyes before Mark's fist collided with the side of Anthony's face. Anthony's head snapped to the side and he had to put his right hand—his gun hand—up against the shelf to steady himself. Fireworks danced in his vision, slowing his reaction time. By the time he realized Mark was going to hit him again, he had no time to move.

The strike dug into Anthony's solar plexus, knocking the air out of him for the second time that day. He doubled over, clutching his stomach.

"I'm sorry," he heard Mark's smooth voice say quietly. "Just relax and stop fighting me—I'm not going to kill you."

Anthony glared up at him, thinking that it was awfully hard to relax when he could barely breathe. He also realized how strange it was that he hadn't heard anything from Ian this whole time.

0o0o0

Ian knew Mark and Anthony had no idea where he was. That was the plan, of course. He'd moved between the shelves next to the ones the other two were at—he could still vaguely see what was transpiring, but in the darkness, the likelihood of them seeing him was low.

He could hear Mark's deep tone, but couldn't make out what he was saying. Ian realized he would take a huge risk if he were try to shoot from here. He could tell where Mark was, but he couldn't quite see Anthony, so if he aimed wrong, he could hit him instead.

The opening he was about to shoot through wasn't large; it was only the space between the tops of one row of books and the bottom of the shelf above it. Hopefully it was enough.

Ian didn't want to shoot Mark. Previously, he'd always been under the impression that Markiplier was a very nice person. But 'previously' wasn't on his mind anymore. Mark was the one who'd been hunting them for the past two days, and he'd already beaten the hell out of Anthony. Ian wasn't going to let it last any longer.

He heard Mark cuss softly, probably because he'd lost track of Ian.

Not for much longer.

Ian raised his pistol and fired through the bookshelf. There was a split-second of silence before Mark let out a strangled cry of pain.

Ian winced. He was relatively certain he'd hit where he aimed—Mark's shoulder—but he was second-guessing his choice now.

He heard Anthony say something he couldn't make out, maybe just an exclamation of surprise, as Ian looped around the bookshelf to reach his friend and their fallen opponent. Mark was sitting on his heels on the floor, his head hung, drawing uneven breaths as he was probably trying to come to terms with his pain.

As Ian approached, a harsh white light switched on, making a cone of brightness in the dusty air. The source of it appeared to be Anthony's phone.

"What—why did you…?" Anthony started to say before Ian cut him off.

"I know, I'm sorry. I did what I had to."

Ian knelt beside Mark as he holstered his gun at his hip. He could see the shadow of dark blood spreading across the man's shirt from under where his hand was pressed to the wound, though it was somewhat hard to make out against the red and black material.

When Ian spoke, it was with calm confidence. He'd not only dealt with people who'd had gunshot wounds, but he'd had some himself, so he could relate to what Mark was going through. "Hey, Mark? Look at me. Try to breathe normally."

It took a few seconds for the masked man to look up. He first reached up with the hand that had covered the wound and tore off his mask and tossed it down, leaving a bloody handprint on the black leather. His eyes met Ian's, and with all of his face revealed for the first time, Ian could see more clearly the pain written into his expression.

Don't regret it, Ian scolded himself. It might not have been the best choice, but you had to do something.

"Just try to keep calm," Ian said, his voice still level. "I'll call a hospital in just a few minutes."

"God, it feels like fucking shit," Mark said, squeezing his eyes shut for a second before opening them and making a visible attempt to relax. His eyebrows remained curved upward on his forehead.

"I know the feeling," Ian sympathized. He looked to Anthony. "Go get our stuff, then see if you can get 911. We'll have to bail as soon as you call."

Anthony nodded and left. The area was dark again briefly before Ian turned on the flashlight on his own iPhone. He directed it at Mark's shoulder. "You should keep pressure on that. And yeah, it'll hurt like hell at first."

Mark cringed and looked down at his left hand, which was covered in strikingly red blood, then at his shoulder. Ian expected him not to do as he had been recommended, but then Mark took a deep breath and put his hand back onto the wound, pressing his palm into it as he shut his eyes again, sucking air in through clenched teeth.

"I'm sorry," Ian said, looking away from Mark and his scene of pain. "I just thought it was the only way I was going to stop our senseless fighting."

"Nah, I—I had it coming for me, really," the other man replied, his voice still tight.

Somehow this only made Ian feel worse.

Ian looked back to Mark. "How did you end up here? I mean, fuck, I would've assumed you were still on YouTube."

Mark's eyebrows shot up and he chuckled briefly before wincing and carefully adjusting his hand on his shoulder. "I would think the same of you. What happened to Smosh? You guys were like the kings of YouTube."

Rather against his will, Ian let his expression slip into something sadly nostalgic. "It's a long story. A long, shitty story."

Mark frowned. "You didn't want to give it up, did you?"

Ian didn't really want to talk about it, but he saw that he was distracting Mark from the pain in his shoulder, which was one of the best things to do right now. "No," he sighed. "We—I—got mixed up in some shit and had no idea what it really meant for us. We had to give up YouTube and Smosh."

"Goddamn. I'm sorry."

"Me too. So you mean you're still keeping up your channel?" Ian asked, noticing that he could hear Anthony talking on the phone now. That meant they were going to have to leave in just a few minutes.

Mark nodded. "Of course. But I fucked up my schedule because I've had to do this, and I feel like I've been failing my fans lately."

"Well, you're still there for them," Ian said, trying not to sound bitter. "Even if that's the best you can do, it's still something."

Mark took Ian's tone a little more to heart than Ian had intended. "Yeah, yeah, I know. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have been complaining. I get to be done after this assignment anyway—I'm actually really fortunate. I realize that."

Ian wasn't going to argue.

Anthony's light appeared as he approached them. "Ambulance will be here in just a few minutes. Ian, here's your gun."

Ian stood and took the firearm from Anthony, swinging it onto his back once more. He felt a little better with the reassuring weight of it there. He turned back to Mark and held out a hand to help him up.

Mark hesitated for a moment with a slightly raised eyebrow, his eyes flicking between his own blood-covered hand and Ian's outstretched one.

"Don't worry about it, dude, I've touched other people's blood before," Ian told him. He pulled the younger man to his feet, doing his best to ignore the sticky sensation of blood on his hand. Blood that he had caused to leave Mark's body.

Stop it, Ian. Get over yourself.

Mark paled slightly upon standing up, though he remained on his feet. He looked to Anthony. "Hey, sorry I hit you in the face, man. I was just trying to do what I had to do."

"It's okay—it's nothing. I've had worse, I promise." Anthony frowned. "What happens now that you don't have the information you needed? Because we're still staying silent about it."

Ian understood Anthony's train of thought—if the two of them had ever failed a mission in such a way, the organization they worked for would be pissed as fuck.

Mark lifted his uninjured shoulder. "I won't get paid. There will be other—complications—but this was the last thing I had to finish for them, so there's really nothing they'll do."

Ian cocked his head, listening. "Anthony, we should go. Now."

Mark studied them for a few seconds, then gestured toward one end of the library. "Leave out that door. It goes to the parking lot in the back of the building. No one will be able to see you from the street."

"Thanks," Ian said, readjusting his shotgun on his back. "Maybe we'll meet again someday on better terms."

Mark smiled slightly. When he spoke, his voice was weary—his wound was starting to take its toll on him. "Should we ever find ourselves in such a position, I think we could make an interesting team."

Ian nodded and looked to Anthony. "Now let's get the fuck out of here."

0o0o0

When they were outside, Anthony could hear the ambulance siren nearing the library. He hoped no one noticed them, but he wasn't too worried, since Mark was right—the parking lot was obscured by trees and other buildings.

"That ended better than it could have," Anthony commented as they made their way quickly across the expanse of asphalt, ready to try to lose themselves in the labyrinth of the city.

"I guess," Ian said, looking ahead of them instead of at Anthony. "I wish I wouldn't've had to shoot him."

"Well, me too. But things could have been a lot worse," he offered.

"True," Ian conceded, stopping to look at Anthony.

Anthony ceased to walk as well, frowning in confusion at Ian. "What?"

Ian didn't answer. He reached up with his right hand—his other was shoved in his pocket to hide Mark's blood—and lightly traced the side of Anthony's face. "It's already bruising," he said, dropping his hand and turning away, starting to walk again.

Anthony touched his own face, staring after Ian, then started to jog to catch up with him. "Yeah, it'll look like shit. But it'll go away." He looked at his friend. "They always do."