Mark made his way to the house and knocked on the door. There was no answer, so he and Jack shared a look before Mark slowly edged the door open, although Mark had to take pause when a gun rose to meet his face.
Mark was surprisingly unfazed, rolling his eyes, "Relax, it's not as if a monster would knock on the door."
"You'd be surprised," a girl's voice answered back harshly. "The monsters here are very smart. That coupled with their knowledge on humans, I wouldn't put it past them."
Mark couldn't help but notice that she had not lowered her gun, "Well, I'm a human, so would you mind putting that gun down?" he asked pleasantly.
"No way. I'm not gonna risk it until you provide proof that you are who you say," she said coldly.
Mark chuckled nervously, "I'm friends with Jack and I helped him to defeat the cyclops."
The tension seemed to thicken and a boy's voice came from the other side of the gun, "I saw Jack get crushed by that cyclops. Nice try."
The gun began to whirr to life as a green light started to glow in the barrel of the gun. Mark began to babble nonsense, trying to explain himself, but from the continued increase in pitch of the buzz of the gun in front of him, he could tell that his diplomatic approach was less than successful.
"Hey diddle diddle the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over the moon!" Jack suddenly yelled behind Mark.
Mark blinked in confusion and turned a curious look back to Jack, only to startle when a black blur ran past him. He tried to make the girl out the best he could, but he didn't really get a good look at her until she stopped and kneeled down to look Jack over.
She looked about fourteen and was a regular Goth chick with a small black ponytail pulled up from the top of her head. She had a black sleeveless belly shirt with a purple circle on the chest and a green and black skirt over purple leggings that were tucked into black combat boots.
"Jack! Oh thank God! I thought that you had been killed!"
Mark looked at the two in confusion, but decided to address his friend, "Jack, what's going on?"
Jack gave him a thumbs up and smiled, "She's one of the people that I told you about when you first found me."
Mark rolled his eyes, "I figured as much. What I meant was why she reacted so strongly."
The girl stood up indignantly, "She can speak for herself," she said to Mark with a sneer.
Mark resisted the urge to roll his eyes again, but did put up his hands in a placating manner, "Well, excuse me," he drawled out, "You're free to answer for yourself, but most people introduce themselves to me before they try to bite my head off."
The girl huffed, "My name is Sam, and I was just concerned because we thought he was dead. Me and Tucker were extremely worried."
Mark blinked, but turned to Jack, who seemed unable to meet his eyes, "I see," he mused aloud and he turned back to her, "So you're one of Jack's teammates?"
Sam scoffed, "Oh please, our third team member was captured. We just helped Jack to escape Technus's minion and he decided to tag along with us. We were originally going to go hunt down the maniac who was responsible for this mess and save our friend from capture, but we ran across Jack and saved him from a life and death situation. May be you should be more thankful that we saved your friend from dying!"
Mark looked unimpressed, "I guess you must be one for the dramatics."
Jack started to look more and more uncomfortable as the two eyed each other in distain.
Sam growled, "You asshole! Where do you get off-,"
Mark scoffed to interrupt her, "-telling it like it is?"
Jack looked utterly mortified, "He glanced pleadingly back to the house and said, "Tucker is there anything you can do to help here?"
Mark heard the name Tucker again, and he couldn't help but wonder why it seemed so familiar.
However, he wasn't given much time to think on it because his thoughts were interrupted by another's interjection from within the house, "She probably just thinks your accent is hot and she doesn't want to admit it."
"Tucker!" Mark was once again passed by a black blur as Sam roared and threw herself into the doorway of the building and there was a lot of crashes heard intertwined with Tucker's yelps and shouts. A dust cloud drifted lazily out of the door as Sam exited, clapping the dust off of her hands as she yelled over her shoulder, "Stop whining you have more durability in this game, so that shouldn't have hurt at all."
"I know, I know, but it's the principal of the thing." Tucker spoke as he exited the door with a cough, and Mark immediately jumped into a fighting stance as he realized why Tucker's name was so familiar. His fight or flight kicked in as Desiree's minion stepped out of the door.
Sam and Jack did not miss his sudden hostility and the Goth girl got into her own fighting stance while Jack looked on confused. She pulled out a glowing green dagger while she wielded her gun in the other hand. "I knew he couldn't be trusted!" Sam yelled, "He was just waiting for us to drop our guard! Jack, it's like I told you. These bastards can transform into people you know to trick you."
Mark suddenly felt very nervous as Jack reluctantly got into his own fighting stance and Tucker dropped into a different stance than Desiree's minion used. Maybe he had jumped the gun on this one.
Of course, he did not get a chance to think on this idea, because he had to quickly jump to the side to dodge a fast high kick from the girl. Before he could retaliate, he had to roll further as Jack dropped down where he stood. He jumped back and was about to pull out a weapon, but again, he had to move because he suddenly found himself on the receiving end of a huge blast of yellow light. With a glance to his third opponent, he realized that Tucker was holding a gun similar to Sam's. The barrel was leaking yellow smoke as it remained trained on him as he dodged.
Mark lost his footing as he jumped and rolled a few times. When he finally regained his bearings, he saw that the three had come together and Jack looked at him nervously while Sam and Tucker started charging their guns with him in their crosshairs.
He shrieked and ran as blasts of green and yellow rained all around him, "Jack! C'mon man! I'm Mark! Really I am! Just let me explain!"
His cries went unheeded and Jack seemed to have gained his resolve, because he suddenly appeared in front of him and Mark squealed as he threw himself to the side at the last second to dodge a slash from his green haired friend. "C'mon! I didn't actually attack you! I got into a stance cuz I thought Tucker was Desiree's minion!"
He shrieked as another yellow and green barrage barely missed him, but it suddenly got really quiet. The projectiles seemed to have stopped, but Sam and Tucker still had their guns trained on him.
Once the dust settled, Sam eyed him suspiciously, "What do you mean?"
Mark did not waste his chance to explain and spoke quickly, "One of my battles was against Desiree, this genie, and she summoned a bunch of weird monsters. When she finally brought out her most powerful minion, it ended up being a Jeckle-and-Hyde-like little bastard that looked like it was modeled after Tucker."
Sam still seemed suspicious, but she nodded then spoke with caution, "Alright. Prove it. But if you do anything I don't like, consider yourself Swiss cheese"
Mark cut his eyes to the left then the right. He leaned over and whispered something in Jack's ear.
Jack suddenly blurted out a single, "HA!" then he looked over to the two others. "He's Mark alright. No one else on the internet could know that, because we never posted it online."
Sam and Tucker shared a look. There was a silent communication between the two as they argued through glances.
Finally, Sam's shoulder's sagged and she turned to Mark. "Alright," she said tiredly. She eyed Mark with a scowl, "I still don't trust you completely, but both Jack and Tucker vouched for you, so I will back down for now. But if you give me even one reason, I will shoot you."
Mark put up his hands in mock fear, "Woah woah woah. Calm down. We're all friends here. We've all got the same goal."
Sam growled and started walking away, "Don't push it."
Mark's eyebrows reached his hairline and he shrugged and turned to the more agreeable two, "So Jack, how'd you get roped into it with these two?" he gestured to Sam and Tucker.
Jack chuckled nervously, "These guys saved my ass. I had just been ditched by my two asshole teammates and I was hiding behind a rock as some crazy little pirate wannabe kid kept shooting at me with cannonballs. Since I'm only a close range fighter, I couldn't really fight back."
Mark looked incredulous, "Why in the world would your teammates ditch you if teams were key to survival?"
Jack growled in irritation, "Those dumb fucks thought I was useless because I was a child avatar. They ditched me at the first battle. Luckily for me, Sam and Tucker found me in time to kick the shit out of that punk ass kid and while I didn't quite see what happened, I did see a flash of blue light and the kid was gone with Tucker holding a smoking soup container. I chose not to question it, and I would suggest you do the same. Or at least wait until we get out."
Mark raised a finger to question a few things, but paused a moment in thought before he closed his mouth again and lowered his hand. His shoulders fell in resignation. "So what was with the warm welcome?" he asked after a pause.
Jack winced and scratched his chin, "Sorry about that. They were in a bit of a tiff before they found me. They lost one of their teammates in a raid gone wrong. Apparently, the three had escaped their own levels and were trying to stop Technus from the inside."
Mark stroked his chin in thought and rose his eyebrows, "Oh, is that so?"
To his side, Tucker answered for Jack, "Sorry for that, dude, but our friend Danny had just been taken by Technus and we were still kind of on edge. You see, not too long after our failed raid, one of Technus's partners in crime, Bertrand, disguised himself as Danny and tried to lead us into a trap. That might have contributed to our…" he trailed of as his eyes darted around the room in attempt to find a suitable word, "Harsh reception."
Mark resisted the urge to roll his eyes. He would have used a more appropriate description, like needlessly hostile, but that was just him. Although his distaste may have dropped a tad. Their greeting might have been a bit more reasonable since they were fooled before. He still didn't like it, though. He sucked in a breath through his teeth as he processed Tucker's story, "Wow. Technus must really dislike people escaping his game."
Tucker shrugged nonchalantly, "I would probably chock it up to the fact that Sam, Danny and I have been trying to stop him for months."
Jack interrupted, "Wait! I was under the impression that you guys just escaped your own levels!"
Mark blinked and his eyebrows shot up, "And the description of the game said that this game got new management only a few weeks ago, how could you fight him for months?"
Tucker remained nonchalant, "Well, we were never actually part of this game in the first place. We actually followed him in here because we were trying to stop Technus before he even started this ridiculous scheme."
Mark rose an eyebrow, "What, is he supposed to be some kind of supervillain while you guys are superheroes trying to stop him?" he then began to laugh obnoxiously to show just how ridiculous he found the suggestion.
When he got no reaction from the others, he paused and eyed the two suspiciously. Jack looked a bit nervous, and Tucker just looked sheepish. Mark paused to think about the past experience that he had. The suspicious behavior of each "boss" that he fought. Then the mention of both Tucker and Sam in two separate scenarios. Finally, Desiree's mention of her 'failed' world domination scheme. Mark's eyebrows met his hairline, "Holy shit! You guys are actual superheroes!" he threw his arms up, "Yeah! We get to save the world!"
Sam snorted in front of him, "YOU won't be doing anything. We've been at this long enough. We don't want to get civilians involved."
Mark looked indignant, "We civilians took down a giant cyclops that you two professionals were running scared from. You don't really have any place to say."
Sam snarled, "Listen, we know what we're doing, we've done plenty before. We can handle this!"
Mark's heckles rose again, and he was about to spit out a snarky retort, but he found his sight blocked from the Goth by a red beret.
Tucker had stepped between the two and he was frantically waving his hands to calm her down. "Listen Sam, He's got a point. The two of them were extremely helpful when it came to busting us out of the situation. Just think; maybe if we have extra manpower, Technus will be caught off guard and we can save Danny. I think that the cyclops might have proven a bit too much to handle. With Danny gone, we're short our heavy hitter, so we could kinda use the help."
Sam remained angry for a few seconds, but finally, after what seemed like an eternity, her shoulders fell in resignation and she turned to Tucker with a pleading look, "Alright. I'm sorry. I may have overreacted. It's just that Danny's never been captured and separated from us like this before. I just didn't want…" she trailed off and her eyes became watery. She turned away in a huff and stormed off to a corner of the coliseum to sit alone.
Mark looked at Tucker inquisitively, but luckily he didn't need to ask anything, because Tucker seemed to know exactly what he was thinking. With a tired sigh, Tucker took off his beret and ran a hand through his hair. He was quiet as he led the two to the house. The inside wasn't too flashy, but was definitely livable. There was even a sink and a stove. Tucker headed past them and pulled a kettle out of a cabinet. He then put water on to boil. When he was satisfied, he turned to address Mark's unasked question. "I'm sorry about that. Sam means well, but she can occasionally be a bit overbearing. I have a feeling that she blames herself for Danny's capture and is trying to push us away so that she won't get us captured as well."
Jack spoke up, "What makes you say that? She seemed relatively civil when we were working together."
Tucker shrugged and gave a tired smile as he began to prepare four mugs, "Before this whole incident, I was friends with a therapist and I was able to pick up a few things. From what I've seen, Sam has been under a lot of stress these past few days. She blamed herself for your supposed "death" and she felt powerless as the cyclops began to chase us. Our weapons did nothing and it ran through every barricade we set up. Luckily I was able to hack the game's code to make us this tiny but sturdy house. After months of dealing with this psycho, I've become familiar with his programing, so I was able to break the code. Then when Mark knocked on the door, she was terrified that it was another of Technus's minions. She was so hell bent on making sure that nothing happen to me that she acted a bit brash. I'm glad that no one got hurt, but your snark probably wasn't the best way to handle the situation," he turned his last statement towards the redhead.
Mark looked a bit sheepish, "You may be right. I'm sorry. I may have been a bit stressed as well."
Tucker shrugged and smirked, "I'm not really the one you need to apologize to."
Mark nodded in resignation, "You are right. I'll go talk to her."
Tucker nodded as the kettle began to whistle. He poured some water into a mug and stirred in some sugar. Once he added a tea bag, Tucker handed Mark the mug with a friendly smile, "Take this to her. She should find the tea relaxing."
Mark nodded stiffly. He moved outside and sat down next to the sulking girl. With a nervous chuckle he spoke, "I realize that I may have reacted a bit strongly to the situation. I was under a lot of stress, so I apologize. I understand that being sassy didn't really endear myself to you, but i wish to express my sincerest apologies. I swear I'm not that bad."
She huffed, but did not meet his eyes, "No, you're right. After some thought, I realized that I was wrongfully taking my anger out on you."
After a moment, Mark hesitantly sat beside her. When she showed no protest, he handed her the tea and she took it with a grateful nod.
She then began to stare into space as she sipped the tea. The silence was bordering on awkward and stretched out far longer than Mark was comfortable with, and he was almost about to stand and leave, but she stopped him as she began to talk slowly and steadily, "It's my fault he's gone, you know."
Mark blinked at her in confusion, though he felt like he might know where she was going with her statement, "What do you mean?"
Sam's shoulders fell, "It was my idea to raid that supply line, my idea to send Danny alone to investigate the explosions, my idea to have Danny fall into a trap and be captured, and my idea to leave Jack to fend off the monster only to watch him be crushed. I'm sorry for the hostility. I just don't want it to happen again. I appreciate you two saving us, really I do, but I really don't want to deal with the guilt of another's life on my hands."
Mark smiled sadly as she began to cry silent tears. He placed a consoling hand on her shoulder, "It's okay to worry. It's okay to be defensive for your teammates, hell, it's even okay to double check for imposters. What it's not okay to do is to alienate yourself from your friend and team."
She looked up at him in surprise, "How did you -" Mark smiled indulgently, "It wasn't too hard to see what you were doing. If you close yourself off, then you can't get anything done. No one can do it alone."
"But he could be dead and it's all my fa-,"
"My teammates are dead because they protected me." Mark's interruption caused her mouth to snap shut and her eyes went wide as she stared at him incredulously, "Yup! We were actually starting to be friends. They promised to protect me and I promised to get them home to their family. Now here I am. They kept their promise and I did not. But you know what? I'm not going to let it get to me. They would not want me to mope and have their sacrifice be in vain," he subconsciously reached into his pocket and clutched the scrap of paper from Anne as he continued. "My friends are actually dead, but they wouldn't wat me to blame myself. Your friend might actually still be alive, but do you think that he would want you to blame yourself?"
By this time, Sam had finished her tea and she was looking at him with more consideration than before. He stood and dusted off his pants. He thrust a hand down to her with a smile, "So, are you ready?"
She eyed the hand for a second but then she gave a small sad smile, but then it morphed into a more natural looking cocky grin "You're right. There's no time to mope around when we've got a rescue to plan."
Mark grinned like an idiot and pulled her up and the two walked to the house with a newfound determination.
End
Still my interpretation of Mark. He can be a bit obnoxious under distress. But Inspirational Mark is inspirational. He saw someone upset and inspired a more positive attitude. And now the two of Danny's crew have a reason to work with him. Also, Woo Jack!
Now I am relatively new to the YouTube scene, so I cannot make any Game grumps quotes that Mark and Jack are occasionally want to do in their collaborations. I have seen a few of the game grumps videos, so I know they're funny, but I don't really know any reference besides "FUCKING LEFT!" I understand that my constant reassurances in my defense of lack of knowledge may get annoying after a while, but I honestly don't plan on having anymore. Just please bear in mind that this is a fan made story and I am no expert on characterization of actual nonfiction people.
No more excuses! On to the next chapter!
