The next feeling to cut through the hacker's consciousness was overwhelming agony. It radiated out from his core through his entire body in waves, and blocked out all other sensation. He found himself unable to tell which way was up, which way was down, or even where his own limbs were in relation to each other.

He was terrified that he had died, and this was eternal punishment for some wrongdoing he'd committed in his life- until the corporation brought him back in a new body, at least.

Or would he remain here with this suffering, while his clone went on to live his life separately from him?

But he couldn't be dead, because moments later, Crypto could feel the ground beneath his body again. He was finally able to locate his hands and feet, though he wasn't sure that he could move them. The agony began to subside at last, and was replaced with dull joint pains, muscle aches, and a general feeling of unwellness.

A voice grated against the inside of his skull: "Get up, skin-suit."

To add to his list of ailments was the giant pain in the ass of having Revenant as a teammate.

The world around Crypto was slowly coming back into focus. It became harder and harder to push the simulacrum's harsh tone into distance from his own thoughts. He sighed - not entirely sure whether it was a real, physical action or simply one that he'd imagined in his headspace - and opened his eyes. A gust of wind blew sand around his face, and he closed them again.

Revenant responded by gripping his shoulder, clawed fingers digging into his flesh. "Get. Up. I might just kill you here… Hmmm."

Crypto forced his eyes open and sat up with a soft grunt. His hand pushed the assassin's arm away. Revenant didn't resist- he'd gotten what he wanted for the time being.

He snatched up his R-301, which had been laid on the ground beside him, and checked that it was still loaded and in good working order. Then he looked around and took stock of his surroundings. He'd been moved from the location where Wraith had nearly killed him- they were a couple hundred meters west of that complex now, close to the edge of the Ring with only two small buildings for cover.

"Where is Bloodhound?"

The hunter was nowhere to be seen. Revenant took his time before answering; Crypto was beginning to doubt that he'd get a useful answer out of the assassin.

"Off somewhere starting a fight," the simulacrum finally explained. He took his time with his words- Crypto's impatience, and desperation, were somewhat amusing to him. "They're going to draw the action toward the center of the Ring. There won't be any cameras near us when we take over one of their ships."

Crypto nodded as he looked across the sandy battlefield, toward the group of buildings at which the fight had happened. "We'll need supplies."

"Already taken care of."

The assassin emptied the contents of his backpack onto the ground. He must have spent some time looting while Crypto was out of it- he'd gathered quite the supply of syringes and med kits. Knowing that they were going outside of the safe zone imposed by the Ring on this mission, he'd dropped all of his shield restores in favor of carrying more syringes. He'd only kept a small amount of ammo and a thermite grenade, on the incredibly slim chance that they'd have to fight someone outside the Ring.

Crypto did a quick inventory and divided the supplies in half, after which he dumped the contents of his own backpack onto the ground and sorted the syringes he had between the two piles. He quickly shoved his share of med kits and syringes into his backpack. Following Revenant's example, he picked up a single box of ammo and an arc star from the things he'd dumped on the ground.

"What will happen to you outside the Ring?"

Revenant shoved his supplies back into his backpack and zipped it closed before acknowledging Crypto. "What do you mean?"

"Well, you're… not an organic thing."

The pause mid-sentence was awkward; Crypto had taken his time to choose his words carefully. "The Ring wouldn't burn you, but it does use waves of energy that overload electronic circuits. Will it… kill… you?"

"If only it were that easy for me to die," Revenant grumbled. He spoke as casually as he might announce that there was ammo on the ground, yet there was a wistful undertone to his voice- as if he were daydreaming about a peaceful memory, something faded that had been taken away from him far too soon.

The assassin rose to his full height and tilted his head slightly to glare down at the human in front of him. "No, it won't kill me. You, of all skinbags, should know that I'm shielded from electromagnetic pulses."

It was clear that he wasn't going to give Crypto any information beyond that. Why should he? The more that the other competitors understood about the design of Revenant's mechanical body, the more they could use against him.

That was intolerable. He wouldn't allow it.

Crypto wondered if the Ring would do damage to the simulacrum at all. Perhaps Revenant wasn't threatened by the Ring, and merely moved into the safe zone to cooperate with the rules of the Apex Games- or because the human competitors were forced to participate there, which meant a higher likelihood of finding someone to kill. That explanation fit with what the hacker knew about Revenant.

"Will it affect you in any way?"

He tried one more time to press the question. Revenant ignored him.

The hacker sighed and pulled his mini-computer out of his pocket. He pulled up the map and zoomed out from their current position- the nearest beacon that they could use to call the drop ship was just over three hundred meters away.

Seems manageable, he thought. Then again, it's easy to think that now- while the Ring isn't burning me alive.

Before putting the mini-computer away, he checked Bloodhound's position on the map. True to Revenant's word, the hunter was dead-center in the safe zone. Crypto did a quick glance around him- he didn't see any of the corporation's little black camera drones.

So far, everything seemed to be going according to plan.

Except-

"Jenjang! We still need the banner card of someone who died in combat today."

His head turned frantically in the direction of the complex where the fight had taken place earlier. The competitors who'd survived had long since moved away from that location- it shouldn't be difficult to go back and retrieve a syncording from one of the bodies. In the time it would take to do that, though, the Ring would close over their current position. They'd have to travel through it even longer…

"Got it covered."

At the response, Crypto's attention shifted to Revenant. The simulacrum was facing away from him, right hand raised slightly above his head, with a data card held between the tips of his index and middle fingers. His head turned to make sure that Crypto had seen it; then he put the data card away.

Crypto breathed a sigh of relief, only for a moment. As he walked up to the transparent orange wall, he felt it crackle and spark with raw energy, and his breath caught in his chest.

"I guess there's only one thing left to do, then."

His voice came out higher than usual, words squeezed through a tight throat. He forced himself to inhale deeply and let it out slowly in an effort to calm his racing heart.

Revenant stood next to him, also inches from the deadly wall of energy. The hacker didn't know what should terrify him more- the pain he was about to experience from the Ring, or the fact that he was teamed up with a homicidal robot who didn't know the definition of teamwork, on a mission outside the rules of the Apex Games. A mission, he realized, that the corporation could easily choose not to bring him back from, if he died attempting it.

Before Crypto could allow his mind to form any more thoughts, he lifted his right foot and forced his body forward, through the orange barrier in front of him.