Chapter 5: Attempts Roll Over

Dark Markery ran towards you, catching you off-guard. You quickly equipped the laser gun the map had gifted you, shooting its bullets at Markery while also running from him. You were definitely not mentally prepared for this. Apparently, the gun had the ability to shoot backwards, without the muzzle of it facing behind you. A bit weird, but extremely helpful in this situation. Your AimPart was adjusted to hit Markery no matter where he went, although some bullets did manage to miss.

    You ran around the pedestal in the middle, Dark Markery still chasing after you. Most of your bullets managed to hit him, which was honestly gratifying, as you really didn't know what you were doing. At least you noticed that his HP bar was going down, bits of violet gradually becoming dark gray.

    Around 15 seconds after this phase started, you noticed that Markery was lagging a bit behind you. You thought this would be a chance to deal more damage, but to your disappointment, it wasn't. Instead, your opponent teleported closer, still chasing at the heels of you. This caught you off-guard at first, but you soon realized that this was similar to how he had disappeared after taking Purple captive.

    At one point, you felt something hit your left shoulder. You knew Markery had dealt a fair bit of damage on you, lessening your own heath bar. As much as you wanted to check whatever was happening behind you, you knew the game's code would heal you eventually. It was difficult, but you decided to ignore it.

    After about 30 seconds, Dark Markery fell to his knees in defeat. He started whining like a three-year-old, which you honestly found amusing. "No!" he cried. "No, no, no, no, no, NO!"

    You stopped running, your breathing heavy yet still managing to let out a light chuckle. "Let's go...!" you silently congratulated yourself. Raising your voice to your normal level, you began to speak to Markery. "So, now that you're all defeated and stuff, mind making all three of our lives easier and freeing Purple now?" In all honesty, you felt extremely proud of yourself. You didn't even know what you were doing, and you still did this!

    However, instead of agreeing, Dark Markery chuckled quietly. That chuckle quickly evolved into a maniacal laugh. Your pride began to melt into something more like confusion and fear. This obviously wasn't over yet.

    "Did you really think it was over?!" he exclaimed. He spun in a small circle before unexpectedly levitating, now with an additional flame-like purple aura.

    You were right — of course it wouldn't be that easy. What have you gotten yourself into? Oh boy, here we go...

    Lines of chainsaws came flying through from vertical, horizontal, and diagonal directions, marked before they came by a orange-red glow. You narrowly dodged each set, only having a split second to figure out where to run to next. The whole time, you were still shooting Markery, hoping to get this phase done with. You could see with the special GUI — of which only collectors had in their vision — that the HP bar Markery had before was only one for the warm up. His new one was now colored a dark red.

    After about 5 seconds, the stage switched, as well as Markery's position in the air. The same vermillion warnings appeared on the western side of the arena, where your opponent was. You quickly moved to the eastern border, chainsaws speeding in, before proceeding to shoot again.

    The same procedure occurred on the side you were on after an extremely short wait. You switched sides, getting close enough to Markery to the point where most of your bullets could hit him.

    After that, Dark Markery moved to the southwest edge of his corrupted dimension. For a few frames, you stood in the glowing warning signs coming from the west. When you noticed, the attack had already begun. Unfortunately, this is where you got damaged once again.

    You were a few seconds too late to leap over the chainsaws, resulting in your knees getting slashed a slight bit. Although an injury like this would've limited your movement, this wasn't real life, as you stated before. Therefore, you could run and jump like you weren't ever injured.

    As that phase closed to an end, the next one opened up. It was the same attack, except it was inverted — it was placed on the eastern side of the arena, and the chainsaws barged in from the north instead of the south. This time, you knew what to expect. With the limited amount of skill you had, you somehow managed to jump in the air, pull off an 180° turn, and land without any problems. That felt good...

    Afterwards, the western side of the arena was once again lit up with the orange-red warning signs, except there was a gap in the middle of it. A safe spot, you realized. Luckily, you were close to the gap, so running didn't have to be used.

    Once the warnings subsided, Markery decided to move to the northeast of the arena — the diagonal opposite of where he once was. The attack itself was insane; where the notices once were, a large amount of chainsaws were replaced in their favor. You were still trying to bring him down while all of this was happening; thank goodness for your quick thinking and multitasking skills. By this time, your health had been regenerated, much to your delight.

    The moment that attack had concluded, your adversary switched positions once more, moving to the northwest. Simultaneously, the next alerts for the upcoming attack flashed brightly. There was another gap between the lights, but you weren't anywhere near that gap, unfortunately.

    Although you attempted to reach that gap in time, you ultimately failed, losing two large bits of your health. It wasn't enough to kill you, though, and as soon as you reached the safe zone, you went back to shooting Markery down. You noticed that his HP bar was about halfway depleted now, which compensated for the damage that you had took. For your first attempt at this battle, you were actually doing better than you had expected!

    Like the one before it, once this attack had ended, another one took its place. Markery also moved again, this time back to the southeast. The vermillion warnings lit up, and judging by the noticeable gap between them, you knew that there was another safe spot.

    Despite your best efforts, you simply weren't fast enough to reach the protected area in time, and you got hit twice once again. You inhaled sharply, biting your tongue. After finally hitting the safe zone, you focused back on shooting Markery.

    What came next was something you didn't expect at all. The warnings appeared once again, except they were all facing the center. Markery shifted positions to the south once his attack started, which was extremely troubling on your end. The chainsaws were moving inwards, new ones spawning a couple seconds after each set was done. You had to whip your whole body around to face him, and that resulted in you taking another double-hit. You bit your tongue again, seeing your HP in the yellow, and Markery's with only about ⅛ left to reduce. You were so close... You felt like you should turn up your firing speed, just so you could get this over with; you found that hard to do — you were distracted by the increments of damage you took from the attack and your inability to find the suitable rhythm to dodge them.

    Eventually, your health went from yellow, to orange, to a painstakingly dangerous red. That definitely wasn't a good sign. To add a lot more salt to the wound, Markery decided now was a great time to move positions to the east. You barely made it to that said side, basically twirling in the air as you did. And even though you were nearing the end of this battle, your HP finally decided to give in.

    Time itself seemed to skid to a halt. The world slowly lost color, and your vision blurred intensely, now out of your control. The whole arena seemed to go dead silent, all sounds distortedly slowing. After a while, bright white began creeping into your vision. Once it flashed—

    Click.

    You were back at the beginning of the fight. Unscathed, unharmed, yet still harnessing the memories of your previous attempt.

    "Confused?" Dark Markery asked you, the warm up phase of his fight beginning. "To put it short it's—"

    "Time travel," you finished, picking up your pace and starting to shoot your opponent once again. He's a rogue time traveler with a high ego, of course he would show off his fancy powers.

    Markery hummed amusedly. "Nice to see that you catch on quickly."

    It would soon come to your realization that this process — going through the phases, dying, then coming back — wouldn't just happen once, or even a small handful of times. No, this would repeat over and over and over again. Countless attempts, countless close wins, countless trips to the Mainland to this dimension; you never made it.

    At certain points, you began to doubt yourself, considering logging out and just plain leaving. But you knew that leaving now wouldn't be worth it. Leaving now would mean that you gave up, and you didn't want to do that. Giving up meant leaving Purple in this dangerous position. The satisfaction and relief you'll get from freeing him and defeating Markery — those were the only two things fueling you to keep going.

    Eventually, the final attempt unknowingly rolled around.

    Part one: running. It was never really the hard part of the battle, and it only got easier with every attempt.

    You got the sense that Dark Markery was impressed by your increase in skill. He didn't say anything about it, but there were some moments in your previous attempts where you caught him humming in surprise; possibly even amusement.

    Before you know it, the first phase concluded, Markery's fake death playing out like it did the past few times. You bit your tongue, exhaling sharply. You knew what to do for the upcoming part, but this was the part that was truly mind-shattering. As Dark Markery began to float up again, that was the signifier to prepare yourself.

    While the chainsaws crashed in, you decided to pull out a trick you found from your previous attempts. If you stood in the correct place, you could just stay there unharmed, giving you a chance to deal a hefty amount of damage.

    Once that attack ended, the vermillion warnings lit up the west side of the arena, like they had did the previous seventeen times. You reached the opposite side just as the stage had begun, and Markery seemingly followed you... for some reason. No matter; this gave you a clear pathway for your bullets to hit him.

    The phase ended, the attack inverting itself horizontally. You halted your movement until the chainsaws started approaching. Once they had started coming toward you, you spun around the cracked pedestal, only barely stopping yourself from running into the weapons.

    You dedicated the short moment of time you had into shooting Markery. You were 36 seconds into the battle, which was improvement from your first attempt. Stepping closer to your rival to gain a shorter range, you didn't notice that the next attack had started. It had already been too late when you realized, jumping too late and getting hit once. Markery had switched to the southern face of the arena; you got the feeling he was... following you? For what reason? Did he want to make your job easier or something? It was probably just coincidence — the attacks didn't signal where he was going to move; they changed each attempt.

    When that phase was over, its opposite-sided counterpart commenced. Now that you were conscious that it was going to happen, you tried timing your jump correctly this time, but you failed. You took another hit of damage. Dang it.

    Slightly cursing under your breath, you ran to the first safe spot of the upcoming attack. Your speculation of Markery following you was proven wrong, as he had transitioned to the northern side of the arena, just above Purple's cage. You locked eyes with the original Marker, a determined grin on your face. He returned your gaze with soft yet trusting smile. He believed in you. You could do this. You weren't sure if he remember any of your previous attempts, but you got the feeling that he was hoping this would be the winning one.

    Although your health was a solid green, with the coming of the safe spot attacks, you had a feeling that was going to change. That wasn't really your preferred option, so you tried picking up the firing speed a bit. The next attack had already flashed its warnings, and you were unfortunately in the danger zone. You realized where you were at, and sped over to the protected area, with low expectations of your own ability to make it.

    Somehow, you timed your jump at just the right moment, and you managed to bound over the chainsaws — no damage taken. You exhaled a surprised and proud chuckle; even Markery seemed to acknowledge whatever stunt you just pulled, raising his eyebrows in surprise, then switching to a mischievous smirk. He had already moved to the southeast wall of his dimension, so you were directly facing him where you stood.

    From what you could see in your GUI, Markery's HP was a little more than halfway down, which was honestly a gift. At the time of about 50 seconds, that wasn't too bad! You kept shooting as the chainsaws whizzed past, the realization of the phase you were about to face tingling within you. You shook yourself quickly, trying to rid of that uncomfortable feeling.

    Once the phase ended, Markery moved to the southern side of the arena, and you moved with him. You were in the wrong spot, literally standing in the warning signs. You shifted the gear to sprint, and rushed over to the secure point before the chainsaws could get you. Your HP was fully regenerated at this time; you were hoping to leave it untouched, saving it for the brain-breaking attack coming after this one.

    Again, the same miracle happened as it did before. Without even trying, you managed to make it to the safe spot in time. No damage taken whatsoever. You had to hold in your extremely joyous squeal to keep your focus intact. Markery once more acknowledged your pure luck, a semi-confused stare now placed onto his face. He didn't understand how you were avoiding those intensely close calls; honestly, you didn't either.

    You noticed that your adversary's HP had about ¼ left to tackle, which honestly felt good to see. You tried shooting faster, hoping that would help — which it did... somewhat. Unfortunately you weren't fast enough, and the attack you were dreading commenced. The last of the chainsaws sped away, Markery moving above Purple's prison once again; the warnings flashing in the circular pattern that was engraved into your brain.

    You turned to face your opponent, trying to gain the momentum and rhythm to not get hit. Your preparations didn't work at all, however, and you lost a good chuck of HP. It was difficult to both jump and hit aim your bullets at the same time, due to the change in altitude every second. You were getting closer to Markery with every jump, just to get a closer and better aim.

    Apparently, Markery didn't like that very much. As soon after you gained that close range, he decided to move to the southern side of the arena. Passing by you, he held up a 'L', formed by his right hand. He just had to rub it in, didn't he?! you exclaimed mentally, now attempting to rush to the adjacent side. This is where you started to take some serious hits. At times, you found yourself jumping onto the chainsaws instead of over them. Other times, you just flat-out missed the jumps. To make matters worse, Markery had decided to move to the eastern wall of the dimension. Just your luck.

    At this point, you were missing so many jumps, losing all of your previously stored HP. That shade of red meant you were going to die soon, and that really wasn't a good thing. Dying now — knowing you were about to win — would fill you with rage. Your anger would distract you, making you lose concentration. Loss of concentration would result in another death, and the cycle would loop until you regained your composure.

    Your terrible timing got you hit another time. One hit. One hit away from death. You held your breath and closed your eyes tightly, expecting your next loss. You were anticipating the click of your new reset, but it never came.

    Instead, you only heard a series of distorted noises, the front side of your body feeling a bit warm. You opened your eyes hesitantly. Your opponent was gone. The danger was over.

    You've won.

Word Count: 2868