Hi everyone!

So, I've had an idea floating around in my head for a while now for a Mark/Dark and Jack/Anti fic, and I think I've now finally got it fleshed out enough to put it down into words. Please be nice! This is the first fic I've written using these guys and I've no idea of how it will turn out. Matthias also features in this story, with a couple of cameos by other people.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything relating to Markiplier, JackSepticEye or Matthias/Hi5 Universe. If you wish to use anything relating to my own universe, please ask first.

Enjoy!

Chapter 1: A Mysterious Invitation

Mark groaned as barking disturbed his sleep, turning over to glare at his dog. He stole a glance at his alarm clock and sighed. "Chica, it's 4 in the morning. Do you have to go out now?" he asked tiredly. His eyes opened after a large yawn to see his retriever staring up at him with adoring eyes, her tail wagging behind her. Chica padded over and gave Mark's face a lick before jumping away back towards the bedroom door. "Ugh, why are you so adorable? I just can't stay mad at you for long. Fine. Looks like I'm getting an early start today." With another large yawn Mark stood up and wandered downstairs, opening the door to let Chica out. She sped out without a backwards glance. "Jeepers, girl. Talk about being in a rush."

Leaving the door open for his dog to reappear when she was ready, Mark went and made himself a cup of coffee. Once it was ready he took a large mouthful, letting the caffeine do its job and get him ready for the day. What is it with her and needing to go through the night? She's never been guilty of it until the past two weeks. Just as that thought finished in his head Mark heard the object of his thoughts barking away again. He gave a suspicious stare, knowing that the door was left open and went over to look outside. A quick glance found Chica barking at a tree. "Chica, will you keep it down! It's ridiculous-o'clock!" he told her in an annoyed whisper. The dog turned to look at her master with a hurt expression before snarling at the tree again. Mark shook his head and went back inside. "I guess she's just in a very weird mood today."

Now semi-awake Mark went to his computer and started going through his daily routine. He smiled at the most recent comments for his videos before his mind began to wander. Realising he wasn't really up to doing anything serious at that stage of the day, Mark began skimming through his subscriptions to see what his friends had updated. Among the first few were Jack's latest videos and he smiled at seeing one which featured VR. Deciding that having a few laughs would probably do him the world of good after such a grumpy start, he clicked on it and sat back to enjoy.

An hour later and he was feeling much better about himself. A few laughs and cringes at some of the antics of his fellow Youtubers had cheered him up immensely. Then it suddenly occurred to him that he had left the door open for Chica. "Ah, shit. Hopefully whatever was bugging her has got out of her system now." He was surprised when he made his way back to the kitchen and found his dog hadn't gone back to sleep in her bed. "Chica?" he called, wondering where she had gone. Wandering over to shut the door he froze at seeing her still outside. "Chica, what are you still doing out here? Have you been here the whole time? Come on girl, let's go inside."

Chica turned to stare at Mark and padded over to him after a few seconds' thought, but not without turning to give the tree one last long look. Mark's eyebrows furrowed in thought. Hmmm, guess she doesn't like that particular tree for some reason today. Weird. "Did you find a ghost in that tree, Chica? Did you?" he cooed at his dog once she was back inside, kneeling down to scratch behind her ears. Chica instantly relaxed and rolled over, asking for a belly rub. "Aren't you just adorable? Yes you are!" He stood up again and went back to his computer, Chica going with him and settling at his feet and Mark returned to watching videos.

At the end of his latest one he noticed he had a new email had appeared while he was away checking on Chica and turned his attention to it. When he saw the title he was intrigued, but was mystified as to the sender.

Dear Mr Fischbach,

Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Damien Villaire, and I am the head of Digitalia. We are a relatively new company for focused on an enhanced version of Virtual Reality. As part of the research and development for our system, we were hoping you would be willing to help with the testing phase. We understand you are a very busy man and may not have the time, but with your standing, reputation and experience with other VR systems, we hope you could help our endeavours. I would be delighted with any response you could provide, even if only to decline our invitation.

Warm Regards,

Damien Villaire, CEO.

Mark sat back and thought over what he had just read. What the heck? How did this guy even get this email address? He stared at the short message again and wondered on whether anyone else had received it. Midway through preparing a message to send to some of the others, he noticed Jack appear on Skype. Perfect, if this thing is legit then Sean is bound to have got the same message. He started a video call and sat back waiting, wondering if he'd caught Jack at a bad time. About ten seconds later, Jack picked up.

"Hey Mark! This is a surprise!" greeted Jack enthusiastically. From the image which appeared Mark realised that Jack was out and speaking to him via his phone. Well it is nearly 2pm in the UK, not stupid 6am like it is here.

"Hey bud, yeah, you and me both. Trust me, being up at this god-awful time is not my idea of fun," responded Mark with a chuckle.

Jack laughed. "So why are you awake at 6am? And so alert at that?"

"Chica decided she wanted outside. Where the dog barks, her master goes."

"I swear she's got you wrapped around her paw."

"True, but you can't resist her when you come and visit either."

Jack chuckled. "So, what can I do for you, Markimoo? I'm guessing it wasn't just a chat."

Mark's smile changed. "Yeah, not quite. Did you get a strange email?"

"Um, unless it was in the past hour I don't think so."

"I got mine about twenty minutes ago, so you may well have done."

"Hang on." Jack started fidgeting with his phone and Mark saw when his face changed. "Wait, what's this?" Mark sat patiently as he saw Jack reading. "What the fuck is this? Is this a joke?"

"You didn't get an email from a guy from a company called 'Digitalia', did you?"

"Yeah, I did. This is weird as shit…"

"Glad it's not just me then."

"I've never even heard of Digitalia. Are they even real?"

"Gimme a sec." Mark brought up a new tab and searched for them. "Well, they've got a Twitter account, but that's about it."

"Anything on it?"

"Not of note, but it does have the same name as the guy who sent the email."

"Hmm, sounds like this thing might be legit then."

"Maybe. I'll admit it's got me intrigued. An enhanced VR could be pretty neat."

Jack's face lit up. "You're telling me! And being involved in the testing could be really interesting."

The enthusiasm was starting to spread to Mark and he began smiling. "It would be awesome to see the mechanics behind the technology. Might just make us a bit pickier on the bad ones though." Laughter was Jack's response. "So, what are you going to respond to it?"

"I think I'm gonna ask a little bit more about it, see what they say. I'm guessing it would be in the States, so I'd have to get organised before coming over."

Mark's smile grew. "Well, if you're looking for a place to crash you are more than welcome to come here. You can even do some recordings over here if you want, depending on how long this thing is. I don't want you to burn yourself out to prep for a trip like you did last time."

Jack smiled back at him. "That would be awesome, Mark, thanks. You know what, I might take you up on both those offers. And we could get a few collaborations done together while I'm over there."

The idea was growing on Mark by the second. "I'm liking the sounds of this. All right, well if you make first contact with the guy I'll send some messages out to see if anyone else has heard from him."

"Sounds like a plan, dude. Right, I'm gonna dash for now, but I'll catch you later, Mark!"

"Take it easy, Sean. Have fun!"

It turned out Mark and Jack weren't the only ones contacted by Digitalia. The next day as he looked through all the replies he had received Mark noticed that Matt had said he was not only contacted, but had already gained a response on arranging a potential meeting. Deciding that he should probably speak to his old friend about this face-to-face, Mark drove over to Hi5 for a surprise drop in. As luck would have it, Matt was outside trying out what looked like a one-wheeled hoverboard for a video when he arrived.

"What the hell is that thing?" he muttered under his breath, shaking his head at it. Bryan was behind the camera and noticed Mark but said nothing, though he kept glancing over at the new arrival while Matt was busy with the hoverboard. Bryan ended up bursting laughing when Matt fell over and Mark took the opportunity to come closer, though he made sure to stay out of not only Matt's line of sight, but also out of camera shot.

"So, now that we've tried it out for a bit, I think we should set up a course and try this bad boy out. What do you think, Bryan?" Matt asked the camera, while looking at his team. By this point everyone had twigged Mark was there and all held straight faces as he crept up behind Matt.

"I dunno, bro. Hey, why don't we have Mark go first?" Bryan suggested teasingly.

Matt stared at Bryan like he had grown an extra head. "Mark? What Mark?"

"This Mark," came a deep voice from behind Matt. He shot up with a screech at the voice and jumped away, holding his chest as everyone else dissolved in laughter. Even Mark had to hold on to his stomach in mirth as Matt's reaction. "Wow, Matt. That was special."

Matt glared lightly at everyone before turning back to Mark. "Seriously, dude? I think you scared five years off my life there."

"I'll get Amanda to bill me. That was just too priceless."

Now over his shock, Matt shook his head at the situation before clapping Mark on the back. "What are you doing down here, man? I'm surprised to see you."

"Yeah, normally I would have called first, but I just felt like taking a trip down here seeing as I had the time. Have I picked a bad day?"

"Nah, it's cool. I've got one more shoot to do for Battle Universe, then I'm all yours. Might ask Bryan or Joey if they're willing to grab us some food, that'll give us some more time."

It was safe to say that Mark's visit soon became the talk of Hi5 studios and he was introduced to everyone he hadn't met before, as well as catching up with a lot of those he hadn't seen in a few months. It saddened him slightly when he thought of how long it had been since seeing everyone but they all led incredibly busy lives. Late morning led to Mark watching in great amusement as the Battle Universe team shot another episode of NERF Hide and Seek, and he couldn't help but wonder if he could organise something like this when everyone had the time.

After that was done Matt brought Mark up to his office. "So, I'm guessing the timing of you appearing down here isn't a coincidence, Mark?" asked Matt once they had a bit more privacy.

"No surprise there. This Digitalia thing has got my interest, and I can't help but think it has yours too if you are looking at setting up a meeting," responded Mark as he took a seat.

Matt sat down behind his desk and started bringing up his correspondence. "I'll admit, it had mine from the moment I read that email. I did a lot of digging to make sure it wasn't some sort of hoax but I couldn't find much about this company; Damien gave me a lot more details when I got in contact with them." He beckoned Mark over to have a look at his screen. "Here, check this out. I've swapped a few emails with Damien so far."

Mark took his time in reading the details. According to Damien, they had been working on the project for 3 years but had only managed to create the level of technology they were looking for in the past six months. Included was a weblink which led them to their group's website. Mark stared at everything intently. "Hmmm, they seem very private, but I think this could be the real deal."

"That's what I was thinking. I'll admit I spent a lot of time thinking about it yesterday and this morning. I was quite glad to see that you'd been contacted by them too. Do you know if anyone else has heard from them?"

"Yeah, a few people got emails, but the only other one I know is interested is Sean. I spoke to him about it yesterday and he sounded pretty keen. I wonder if he heard back from Damien as well." On the off-chance Mark checked his Skype and found Jack was online. "Well, would you look at that. Why don't we ask him?"

Matt moved over to allow Mark to log on to his Skype account on his computer, and barely two rings had gone by when Jack picked up. "Yo, Mark!" came through the Irish accent as the video began to catch up. This time Jack was in his recording space, which made for a much easier conversation.

"Hey, Sean," replied Mark warmly, "I've got company this time."

Matt waved at the camera. "Hey, dude, long time no speak."

Jack smiled as he waved back. "Hey, Matt! It's been a while."

"No kidding, how long has it been since we've seen each other?"

"Too bloody long, but you're a big bad CEO now! How you have any time to yourself is beyond me."

The three chatted for a few minutes about innocuous topics, swapping a few stories before they reached the main point of their call. "So, did you get anywhere when you replied to Digitalia, Jack? I've managed to get a bit of a correspondence going," started Matt.

"Yeah, and the more I speak to him, the more I fancy going ahead with this, actually. What do you guys think of it?" answered Jack

"I think this could be the real deal, Mark hasn't said anything in response yet."

Mark took that as his cue to jump in. "I've spoken to a lot of the others and most of them either don't have the time, or have too many suspicions. It sounds like it could just be the three of us that may end up becoming involved in this."

"I wonder why they picked a bunch of Youtubers?" questioned Jack aloud.

"Damien was pretty open when I asked him why he got in contact with me, and he said it was due in parts to both my experience with VR technology, and also the fact that we are Youtubers. If we publicly endorse something like this, it'll have a great effect on their product. We'll connect with people a lot more than just some reviews in magazines."

"Hmmm, never thought of that. Guess it makes sense then. So, are we going to go for it then? I think for me it mostly depends on how long they would need us for."

"I'm the same, I couldn't really be away from Hi5 for too long. With enough warning I could bulk record enough videos to last a couple of weeks, but I wouldn't want to push it any further than a month."

"Know that feeling. Much as I enjoy coming over to the States, I couldn't be gone for too long."

Mark hummed in thought. "Let's send Damien a message and see what he says. Depending on how long he says the testing may take, we can either go separately or together."

Matt nodded in agreement. "That sounds like a good idea. What do you think, Jack?" They received a nod from the Irishman. "Right, who's going to co-ordinate this then? It'll probably get really messy if all of us have separate email conversations with him."

"Matt, you've got enough of a workload here at Hi5 and Sean has the small issue of the 8-hour time difference. I suppose for expedience it's best if I do it," suggested Mark.

"I'm cool with that."

"Same here. This could be a lot of fun!" stated Jack with a small clap.

Mark nodded with a smile on his face. "Yeah." He turned to smile at Matt before switching back to the screen. "I get the feeling this could be something big we're getting involved with."

Matt raised an eyebrow at him. "Mark, you have a habit of jinxing things."

Jack roared in laughter. "So, if things go tits up we're blaming Mark. That sounds like a plan to me."

The half-Korean glared at the pair of them. "Why is it always my fault?"

"Because you have a habit of attracting trouble and/or ending up in the hospital?"

Matt roared with laughter as Mark scowled. "Haha, very funny, Sean."

Jack winked. "Just recounting history, my friend. Leave your curse at home and we'll be all good!"

So, this is the first chapter of my Dreamscape series. I hope everyone enjoyed it. Please let me know your thoughts!

See you all next time!

*Smooch*