On instinctual reaction, Bloodhound and Crypto hit the ground and low-crawled through the dirt to the nearest cover: a boulder that had presumably fallen from the nearby cliffs some time prior. Another bullet glanced off the surface of the rock, barely missing Crypto's arm before the hacker pulled it in, closer to his body.
"Is that a Sentinel?"
Bloodhound shook their head in answer to Crypto's question. "A Longbow. The time between the sound of the weapon, and the impact of the bullet, is too great for a Sentinel."
The hunter peeked around the other side of the rock, through the scope of their rifle, and searched for the enemy sniper. "Northeast, somewhere- I cannot see the exact position."
"Cover me," said Crypto. "I'll see if I can spot them with my drone."
He took a fraction of a second to ensure that he was well-positioned behind cover, then unholstered the drone and activated the neural link.
Revenant's voice came over the commlink: "I'll draw them out."
"Negative. There is no need to take that risk. Crypto can locate the sniper."
"Revenant, acknowledge."
The commlink remained silent.
"Fjandinn. Hold your position!"
Bloodhound had to pull out their mini-computer and glance at the map to locate the assassin. They noted his marker, then stowed the mini-computer and searched for their teammate on the field through the scope of their Triple Take. Revenant was about one hundred fifty feet north of the others, making his way along a cement wall that shielded him from view of anyone further north.
As they watched, the simulacrum stepped away from the wall, into the open sand, and faced the direction that the enemy sniper had fired from. Feet shoulder-width apart, hands clenched into fists, standing tall with confident posture, he dared the opposing team to take him out.
The next bullet fired by the sniper struck him square in the chest. The kinetic energy of the projectile was damped by the particulate barrier of his body shield; he was met with an impact force that caused him to take a couple of unsteady steps backward, but didn't cause him any harm.
Bloodhound caught the glint of light from the enemy sniper's scope as they took aim. "Northeast, sixty-five degrees. Crypto, can you survey the surrounding area? We must locate the other team members."
"On it."
The hacker sounded distracted, distant as he sorted his body's sensory feedback from the information downloaded through the neural link. It took him a moment to figure out precisely what location Bloodhound had indicated, but he wasted no time in moving his drone that direction.
"That sniper is out of range. I'll try to locate the others."
As the drone searched the battlefield around them, Bloodhound kept a watchful eye on Revenant. The assassin had recharged his body shield behind an empty supply bin, and was facing the enemy in the open again, closing the distance at a slow, menacing walk. He existed for this purpose alone- to kill, and he lacked the human fear that his own life might be lost in the process.
He wasn't human. He was no longer bound by their weaknesses.
Another bullet struck him, only to have its energy harmlessly dispersed by shields. He shifted to the side to maintain his balance, and the sniper's next shot passed through the space between his arm and torso.
Revenant broke into a full-speed run across the open, dirt-and-sand-covered battlefield as the sniper took another shot and missed. The dust displaced around him provided some minimal cover as he closed the distance to the enemy.
There was a pattern that Bloodhound noticed as they watched the fight play out. The projectiles had a tendency to go beyond the intended target, further out than needed to connect. Each missed shot was accompanied by that glint of light from the enemy's position, which gave them away.
Whoever was up there was rushing their shots, losing control of the weapon's recoil when they fired at a moving target.
"The sniper seems unsteady- inexperienced in their technique. They may be a prospect."
Prospects were the highest performers of the Undercard games, brought into the Legends' arena to fill out uneven teams and attempt to earn the title of Legend for themselves. If a prospect stayed alive throughout the match and secured the win with their team, they were promoted to Legend status.
If they died, they weren't brought back to life.
Crypto wasn't thrilled at the idea of facing one. What he did in the Games - and what he'd done to get here - were already morally questionable. Killing someone who wouldn't be brought back took it to a new level.
Revenant won't mind doing the dirty work.
The fact that the thought had popped into his head made the hacker feel sick to his stomach. What was he doing here- taking the lives of others like him, whose worlds had been turned upside-down by the corporation? Playing the part of a pawn in their depraved mission? But he had to stay focused. He had to find Mila.
A beep from the drone sounded in Crypto's mind, alerting him to an enemy that it had detected. Gibraltar was kneeling on a raised wooden boardwalk along the other side of the cliff, out of line of sight from where Crypto and Bloodhound were holding.
At a nonverbal command from Crypto, the drone transmitted the enemy's position to his teammates' mini-computers.
"I revealed an enemy. Gibraltar. Check your maps."
"I'm busy right now, skinbag. Handle it yourself. Or don't, and die- I don't care."
Revenant spoke louder than was necessary into the commlink. Crypto disengaged from the drone and turned to look at Bloodhound. "What do you want to do?"
The hunter had brought out their mini-computer, and was looking at the map. Gibraltar's position around the side of the cliff had been marked by a red dot. Bloodhound zoomed out on the map and panned upward, then marked the sniper's position across the open ground with a second red dot.
"The angle at which these two are positioned… I suspect I know where the third is."
The hunter spun around, facing away from the cliffs, and activated a scan of the surrounding terrain. Sure enough, Octane's scrawny figure was approaching from that direction, obscured by the trees and overgrown brush. He paused upon realizing that the scan had passed over him. The holographic outline faded.
"We must subdue Octane first. Cut left; use the cliff for cover from the others."
Something clattered to the ground behind the two competitors as they began to move. They turned around- and immediately sprinted away and dived for cover, arms protecting their heads. It was a frag grenade, thrown their way by Gibraltar. Bloodhound was forced to get up and start running again as Octane tossed a second grenade in their direction. They had moved further away from Crypto, whom the daredevil then charged at full speed, shotgun in hand.
Revenant dug his clawed fingers and the spikes on the bottom of his feet into the side of the cliff, effortlessly climbing up the vertical rock. As he closed in on the opposing team's sniper, they jumped from their perch and fell past him to the ground below. It was about a 70-foot drop- the lower gravity on Solace allowed the enemy to hit the ground at a roll, stand up, and run away.
The assassin pushed off the wall and dropped down after his opponent, aiming to land on top of them for an easy kill. The enemy had gotten too far away by the time his feet connected with the ground. He took off after them at a full-speed sprint. No way he'd let that kill escape him… Failure wasn't in his programming.
In a swift motion, the enemy turned around, brought the stock of their rifle to their shoulder, and fired a shot in Revenant's direction. They didn't stop to see if it had connected with its target- they turned and continued running. The assassin hadn't expected a scared little human to do something so brazen and stupid. The bullet connected with the outer actuators of his hip joint, which locked up. He stumbled and hopped on his unaffected leg for several steps, but that didn't prevent him from drawing his own weapon and taking aim at the opponent's back.
That accursed programming, which Revenant's self-awareness had advanced beyond, caused him to feel human pain upon being struck with the projectile. It wasn't instead of the flood of warnings and meaningless, broken data strings that a machine experienced in response to taking damage, no- it was in addition. Through the static, alerts, machine awareness in his processor, he looked down at his robotic body, and still felt human pain in his leg.
It infuriated him to no end that the idiotic skinbag who'd programmed him would give him human weaknesses. They interfered with his directive, and felt out of place- deeply and disturbingly so. Knowing that the sensation wasn't real - that it didn't belong to him - allowed him to largely ignore it in combat. When he aimed his Flatline at the enemy's back, he was fully focused on his directive: secure the kill.
Three bullets struck their mark between the opponent's shoulder blades, depleting their shields and knocking them to the ground with the force of the impact. In the tenth-of-a-second before the first bullet struck, they had fired a shot in the direction of Revenant's teammates- something that the assassin had no concern about.
Revenant was upon the enemy before they could recover. His cold metal fingers pierced the flesh of their shoulder as he flipped them onto their back. Sure enough, the simulacrum was looking into the eyes of the Undercard champion from the four matches played last month: a dark-haired male with a slender, athletic build, who appeared to have barely reached the age of adulthood. He looked up at Revenant with wide, terrified eyes. He'd made it this far, through the Undercard games, into the Legends' arena- for nothing. The last thing he saw - the last thing he'd ever see - was the business end of the assassin's shotgun, aimed between his eyes.
The final bullet that the sniper had fired struck a dead tree near the ongoing fight, sending a shower of dry leaves into the small, sporadic fires that remained after frag grenades had exploded. For a moment, those fires rapidly expanded in the air- then settled back down as they burned themselves out.
The lower gravity, lower atmospheric density, and higher percentage of oxygen on this planet had some interesting effects on fire: rather than drawing in oxygen as the flames climbed higher, the fire would expand outward, following the direction of fuel and oxygen without as much restriction from gravity. As it expanded, more and more of the heat was dissipated, until there was not enough left to keep the fuel at its ignition temperature.
As such, fires in the Apex arena started easily, but were not nearly as dangerous as one might be used to. They extinguished themselves quickly.
The fire, during its short-lived existence, forced Octane and Crypto to drop to the ground for safe, cool air as it passed over their heads. Octane was the first to get back on his feet, a little too soon as the fire singed the back of his neck and shoulders before it dispersed. He didn't care, though- he had a shotgun to Crypto's chest and was gunning for the win.
The hacker hooked his foot behind one of Octane's robotic knees and tucked his leg in toward his chest as hard as he could, pulling the daredevil off balance. The shotgun blast that would have ended Crypto went up into the air instead.
A well-placed Triple Take shot by Bloodhound struck Octane from behind and depleted his shields. The adrenaline junkie jumped over Crypto and scrambled for cover. Bloodhound steadied their stance, aligned the crosshair of their scope with the back of Octane's head, exhaled and held their breath-
Crypto shouted: "Josimhae! Look out!"
Gibraltar deployed his shield over Bloodhound from behind, blocking the kill shot on Octane. The hunter spun on the heel of their front leg and fired at Gibraltar instead, shattering the smaller, rectangular shield that he held in front of him.
Crypto had risen to one knee and brought the stock of his rifle up to his shoulder. He lunged forward, inside the shield, and emptied the full magazine into Gibraltar's chest. Gibraltar's body shield was depleted, leaving him fully vulnerable to the next projectile headed in his direction, but that didn't stop him from unloading his own weapon into Bloodhound.
The hunter's body shield was rapidly depleted of charge, and two of the bullets passed through their torso. The impact dropped them to the ground. They maintained their grip on their weapon, something that Gibraltar hadn't anticipated. As he moved in to finish the job, a shot from the hunter's rifle penetrated his left shoulder.
Gibraltar fell to his knees. He shouted in surprise and pain, right hand automatically going to his injured shoulder. Crypto reloaded his R-301 as quickly as he could- this was critical time; the hacker needed to end Gibraltar before he could recover and pick up his weapon.
Revenant was closing in on the fight, dragging one leg behind him as he sprinted across the arena ground. The damage he'd taken didn't prevent him from moving at a terrifying pace.
Crypto aimed at Gibraltar's chest. Before he could squeeze the trigger, a wall of searing sparks erupted in front of him- Octane had thrown a thermite grenade. The hacker dropped his rifle and backed up as fast as he could. He'd avoided the worst of it; a small amount of the sparking, molten substance had gotten on his forearm.
He was quickly realizing the fact that thermite was not a normal, accelerant-fueled fire.
It was already burning into his flesh even though it had only gotten on the outside of his jacket. He dropped to the ground and struggled to smother the flames- it wasn't working. His arm was still burning. Pain and panic were overwhelming the programmer's ability to think rationally through the situation. That long, loud, inhuman scream hadn't come from his own mouth- had it?
Gibraltar's hand closed around his dropped weapon just in time for Revenant to reach him. The simulacrum grabbed his wrist with a force just barely short of separating the bones- and Revenant knew precisely how much pressure he'd need to apply, if he wanted to make that happen. He pressed the end of the shotgun in his other hand to Gibraltar's elbow and fired. The skin, muscle, and ligaments holding the joint together disintegrated, and despite his impressive stature, the pathetic human's forearm tore off in Revenant's grip.
More screams - impossibly loud, long screams - echoed around the battlefield. Dozens of the corporation's camera drones hovered in the air around them, broadcasting the Apex Games from as many angles as possible. The distant hum of the Ring intensified as it drew closer, an ever-present reminder to competitors and viewers that the fights needed to be ended quickly.
From where they lay injured on the ground, Bloodhound said a silent prayer: Allfather, if it is your will, I ask for the strength to win this fight.
Octane's footsteps drew louder- the daredevil was closing in on them, getting ready to secure the kill. As the hunter struggled to orient themself in space, to feel solid ground beneath them and crawl to safety, they heard the call of a raven. The small, black figure circled once overhead. It dropped an object - something metal that gleamed in the sunlight over the arena - then flew away, vanishing into the distance.
With effort, Bloodhound forced themself forward and grabbed the metallic object. It was an arc star. They pressed the button that would activate the energy pulse just as the enemy caught up. Octane grabbed the hunter by their shoulder and flipped them onto their back. They heard his voice say, "Thought you could get away, did you?"
...but they weren't paying attention to that. They had attached the arc star to the center of their opponent's chest. The adrenaline junkie gave a startled, "Oh, shit-!"
Electricity pulsed and crackled, then everything around the hunter went black.