Chapter Text
If there was ever a time for Eight to take things seriously, it’d be now. They don’t even have the Membux to come back. One life, one man (soul?), one Octoling. A fight to the death. No holds barred. This truly is a Duel (Versus Repr-
“AYO EIGHT! You’re at your last life! What do we do now, dawg?”
Well it would be if Pearl didn’t ruin the moment.
“She’s not wrong. You’ll need to treat this carefully.” Acht’s voice radioed in through the device in Eight’s ear, dripping with seriousness “Take it slow and feel out Sisyphus’s attacks. You got the reactions down and know how to counter everything, it’s just a matter of pulling it off.”
“And don’t worry Eight,” Marina added, voice juxtaposing Acht with her kindness, Yes, juxtaposing, as in the writing technique where you put two opposing statements in meaning and/or tone right next to each other to highlight the two of them simultaneously. Eight does poetry, they’re a literature nerd, okay? They’re allowed to reference these kinds of things. “We’ll be with you every second of the way. Especially Acht, they were way more addicted to ULTRAKILL than I ever was.”
Taking a nice, deep grounding breath (and ignoring the bickering on the other end about how “500 hours isn’t even that much you know” and how “ridiculous it is that you don’t even know what a low income housing% speedrun is”), Eight hops onto the cage.
“Shush guys!” Pearl reprimands the two in the elevator, swiftly ending their argument, “Eight’s starting the fight!”
They land onto the arena, waiting. Normally they’d be happy about everyone else shutting up, but the quiet’s actually getting onto Eight’s anxiety a bit. Can’t be that long…
“KEEP ‘EM COMING!”
There it is.
Eight’s only real chance to get anything done before the fight truly begins. They learned the hard way that the best thing here would be to paint the floor a bit. And that’s because of-
“YOU CAN’T ESCAPE!”
That.
Squid rolling in the very recently placed ink to armour through the repeated attacks, Eight leaps over the final shockwave, taking the time to get in some cheeky shots before continuing to ink the floor for later.
Man, I’m gonna miss getting this breathing room once Phase 2 starts.
“BEGONE!”
Dodge to the left. Easy so far, but more often than not more stuff’s just around the corner. Like clockwork, Sisyphus performs (in order): A downwards chop (which Eight dodged), a teleport above and slam down (which Eight dodged), and a roundhouse kick (which Eight didn’t dodge. Ouch!). There’s more where that came from, too.
“THIS… WILL HURT”
At least that’s a free parry.
Punch. Yay.
Okay, that’s another good bit of health Eight just shaved off. Things are looking good so far.
“DESTROY!”
And why do they always have to ruin it? Eight can never react to that uppercut in time. At least it didn’t send them too far, only sending them a couple metres from Sisyphus and hardly even off the ground, so they won’t have to worry about any aerial shenanigans for the explosions. They guess they’ll just, like, shoot him while he horribly whiffs his spark thingies and stands there looking all stupid.
“Eight!” Acht yells through the communications device, “You can parry any attack that has yellow particles!”
What?
“Try it!”
Well there are yellow particles there and ever since the “This will hurt” incident, they do trust them on this kind of stuff. Here goes…
“Hmm”
Well, shit.
“Probably should’ve told you that earlier, but better late than never.”
Acht’s getting more than just a kiss, it seems. Anyway, with all the painted turf everywhere and with Sisyphus in stun, Eight decides it’d be smarter to really lay on the damage for a bit. Only a minute in and just about three quarters of his health to go, good pace so far!
Of course, the stun doesn’t last forever, and soon Sisyphus starts a new barrage of attacks. Punches, kicks, slams, it’s tough but it’s nothing Eight hasn’t seen before. Not a single scratch is on their body by the end of it, they’re getting pretty good at this fight! Plus, they managed to sneak in a couple shots between dodges, so now Sisyphus is getting quite close to his halfway mark.
“YOU CAN’T ESCAPE”
Perfect. Dodging the first couple of blows, Eight baits Sisyphus into slamming his foot on inked ground, thoroughly trapping it. They take the opportunity to shoot at him, right until…
“YES, THAT’S IT!”
Okay, now’s the time to really lock in. Taking another deep breath (though with how relentless Sisyphus is, they couldn’t really afford anything with any amount of grounding. It’s the thought that counts, they suppose.), they ready themself for the seemingly limitless volley of blows they will apparently face, according to the resident ULTRAKILL nerd(s).
“BEGONE!”
Dash to the side, ink the floor-
“Nice try!”
Can’t even be mad, that just lets me ink more
“YOU CAN’T ESCAPE!”
Squid roll everything… Alright, his feet are stuck.
“Hmm”
Okay, that’s like, a fourth of his Phase 2 down. Things are going well. He’s gonna be out soon, though, so Eight’s gonna stop shooting now.
“THIS… WILL HURT”
Oh shit!
This time he activated it just far enough away that Eight can’t parry him off the bat, but just close enough that they’d still be in the blast radius and would have trouble leaving in time even if they tried to run. And he activated it on uninked ground, so Eight can’t even swim for mobility.
Does he have an adaptive AI or something??
Sprinting towards him at full speed, Eight manages to parry him just in the nick of time. Pearl is yelling at them to get some quick damage in, but instead they decide to paint up the floor.
“YOU CAN’T ESCAPE!”
Good thing they did, too. While they could dodge around in Octoling form in an emergency, Squid rolling was simply the superior method for this kind of thing. Weaving through Sisyphus’s attacks, they again bait his foot into a patch of ink.
“Eight!” Acht shouts from the radio, “Don’t make that same mistake again!”
Don’t worry, I won’t.
Instead of going in for some damage, Eight this time decides to intently watch Sisyphus so they don’t get caught off-guard. Which is good, because Sisyphus just appeared above them. Hopping out and really wishing they brought Dualies along instead of a splattershot, they are yet again pounced on by a Sisyphus who lacks any form of stamina or restraint.
“DESTROY!”
Eight dodges though, to their surprise. They then watch as Sisyphus horribly whiffs his explosions, but in their shock completely forgets to parry him.
Woah, I didn’t even think about that one. Normally I’d get hit by that.
“Great dodge Eight!” Marina’s supportive voice rings out, positively delighted, “You’re getting better at this!”
“Agreed.” Pearl concurred, “You’re doing way, way better than your first attempt. I know I wouldn’t have improved nearly this much by now.”
“Yeah,” Acht decided to throw their hat in the ring, “Take it from me, you’re doing much better than I did against Sisyphus when I played P-2. You’ve got this.”
Eight loves their friends. So much. With a smug grin on their face and the fires of resolve in their eye, they face Sisyphus, ready for their ultimate challenge to finally come to an end.
“YOU CAN’T ESCAPE”
Dodge, dodge, dodge. Got a couple shots in.
There were many times where they felt like dropping that boulder. Just letting it roll down the hill.
“DESTROY!”
Dodged again! Alright, now let’s parry him.
“Hmm”
But they didn’t, they persevered. They kept pushing, kept struggling.
“THIS… WILL HURT”
Free parry, nice! Now I can get in a bit of healing.
“Yo, Eight! He’s halfway down! Keep it up!”
And now the peak is in sight.
“Nice Try!”
More free damage, nice!
“You can do this, Eight!” Marina’s voice cheered.
They can do this.
I can do this.
“YOU CAN’T ESCAPE!”
They’ve got the movements down now. Squid roll after squid roll, followed by a preemptive stop in preparation for whatever thing he’s gonna throw at them next.
I should write all this down, that’d make a good poem.
“BEGONE!”
Woah! Maybe later, though.
“He’s nearly dead Eight! Just a little further!”
Only a couple more shots to go. This is it.
“DESTROY!”
Eight dodges, though just barely. In the rush, they forget to bait the explosions away, but manage to run far enough that they don’t disintegrate instantly. However, they are flung considerably far away, into an area with no ink on the floor. Looks like they’ll have to focus on pure dodging for a bit.
To make things worse, Sisyphus decides to do a bunch of un-telegraphed attacks all in a row. Eight, fully focused on the fight and forced to depend entirely on their reflexes, bobs and weaves through the endless torrent of destruction. While they have definitely had their action-packed moments, like in the Metro, they have never had to fight in such close quarters before. The feeling’s new, definitely, but not necessarily bad. This goes on for nothing more than a couple seconds to all observers, but to Eight it feels like ages. With them already being in a damaged state because of the explosion, a single slip-up would spell doom.
Finally, it ends. And Eight couldn’t be happier. They never even got to fire a single shot, entirely focused on pure survival.
“THIS… WILL HURT”
Oh thank fuck… it’s finally over.
And with one final parry to end it off (Those deal percentage damage by the way, did you know that? does now since Acht mentioned it, though not of their own choice), Sisyphus finally, finally , goes down. Everyone else is ecstatic, cheering loud enough to hurt Eight’s ears, plus having to go through the crappy radio device. Eight, on the other hand, is just tired, yet also supremely satisfied. As the adrenaline wears off for all parties involved, the true weight of the situation hits. For Eight, it’s being free. For Sisyphus, it’s being defeated in battle. And for everyone else, they just realised how utterly terrifying Eight’s fighting prowess truly is.
“Ah…” The Prime Soul in question starts, clearly shaken by the loss yet oddly calm, “So concludes the life and times of King Sisyphus. A fitting end to an existence defined by futile struggle. Doomed, from the very start…”
Yeah, get in line pal.
“And I don’t regret a second of it.”
Woah there, buddy.
“HAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHA ”
As he laughs, light as bright as the sun itself eminates from his body in oddly defined beams. Starting slow yet growing exponentially, the beams increase in number and size, soon engulfing the entire arena in stark white light. Eventually his body shatters, and in an explosion worthy of someone who commanded the power of Greed’s Sun, Sisyphus is no more.
Eight fell to their knees, body pushed to its limits, pain and soreness hitting all at once. Then cheering, lots of it, combined with Pearl flying under Eight's arm. Standing up (though very slowly and painfully), they march over to the cage that then carries them up back to the elevator.
As they step onto the raised platform, Marina and Acht rush out of the elevator and help Eight to walk in. Cobbling along, they get inside and sit themself into a corner. Everyone takes a step or two back (or in Pearl's case flies backwards a few metres), giving them their space. Concern dons their faces as Eight regains their strength. A few dozen seconds pass before they grab onto one of the handrails in the elevator and hoist themself up, looking up at the crowd and trying to pull the best smile they can.
The elevator air was filled with celebration and congratulation after that, everyone proud of what Eight just accomplished. Internally, they were ecstatic, but just couldn't show it due to how much pain they were in. However, something was brewing in the back of their mind.
Ugh, I still have to go get Smollusk after this...
The grind never ends. After all, one must imagine Eight happy.