breaking the game

The barrage comes at the worst possible time.

Crypto is left bleeding, shields broken, after fending off a head-on attack from Octane. He hadn’t had time to make it to cover to heal up before Gibraltar was raining down shrapnel and napalm on their team. His eyes scan the surrounding area, searching for something to protect him from what would certainly be a lethal blow. Behind him, Gibraltar’s bombardment shakes the ground and sends Crypto stumbling, tripping towards a nearby building and right into the path of yet another explosion of artillery.

And yet, before the assault manages to wipe him out, Crypto feels the warmth of a body slamming him into the nearest wall, knocking the breath out of him. He wiggles his hands free of where they had been involuntarily pinned to his sides, ready to jab a sharp elbow into his assailant’s stomach, before realizing who exactly was pressed up against him.

“What,” Crypto starts, staring wide-eyed at Mirage, who was leaning over Crypto and wincing as the stray ammunition and debris connected with his shield, “are you doing?” 

“What’s it look like? I’m saving your life.” 

Crypto’s eyebrows knitted together as he studied the other man’s face, looking for — he wasn’t sure yet. Mirage had pulled a thousand reckless stunts before, sure, but nothing quite like this. Nothing that risked their position and chance at being champions quite this much, especially when a resurrection beacon was so close. 

There was no need for it and yet, here was Mirage, taking hit after hit to make certain that Crypto didn’t fall prey to the enemy team. Bangalore was already giving them an earful over the comms, but Crypto couldn’t find the words needed to respond. 

Instead, he snapped out of his stupor long enough to grab a handful of Mirage’s scarf and yank him towards the building’s entrance, praying that luck was on their side for only a few moments longer.

“Idiot,” he bites as he drags the other man after him, jaw set and mind racing. “We could have both been killed.”

Under the safety of a roof, Crypto releases Mirage and settles back into his composure, breathing out with relief. 

The drone sent a crackle of electricity through the air and with it, scattered footfalls retreated into various directions.

“I got ‘em!”

Mirage’s voice rang out through Crypto’s earpiece as he returned the drone’s controller to his pocket. On the other side of the building, he watched as Mirage clambered over boxes, leaping from roof to roof to secure a kill on the last member of the opposing squad.

Wraith had cleaned the other two up, as quietly and as efficiently as she always did.

For a good portion of this match, Crypto had been content to sit in the background. He would maneuver the drone, point out enemies whenever he spotted them, and execute and EMP attack when it was needed. Kills had never been his priority, or his objective. 

But every now and then, even he felt like participating. Or, rather, he felt like getting under Mirage’s skin. 

From the container he’s perched on, Crypto balances the sniper against his knee and peers through the scope, following Mirage’s trail until he lands on a fleeing Octane. And just as Mirage is closing in on him, Crypto pulls the trigger.

Mirage comes to a sudden halt, face twisted into confusion before he turns and spots Crypto a few houses back. To make matters worse, Crypto gives him a lazy wave.

“Hey! I called dibs! You heard me — Wraith, you heard me call dibs, right?!”

Crypto slings the sniper over his back and hops down, jogging over to meet Mirage, who is too busy pouting to even consider going through Octane’s loot.

“You were too slow,” Crypto comments, shrugging as he crouches down to pick through the contents left behind. 

“That seems like cheating.” 

Despite his better reasoning, Crypto laughs — something soft and far less biting than the rest of his mannerisms. “Shame. You would have been the kill leader too.”

The first sign that something was about to go very, very wrong was his drone dropping at his feet, pierced by a sniper shot and gurgling static. 

He should have turned tail at that. Thermal Station was an irritatingly open area full of death traps. If the lava didn’t get someone, the large amount of people wielding guns surely would. Instead of following sound logic, Crypto shoulders through the nearest door, into Thermal Station’s center room.

Only to be met with the butt of a Peacekeeper, slammed into his nose with pinpoint precision. 

“Fuck,” Crypto hisses as he stumbles backwards into the nearest wall, one hand flying to the pistol at his hip while the other attempts to mop up the blood cascading down his face. 

His pistol, he finds, does little help when a shotgun is being jabbed into his stomach, forcing him to his knees.

The Wingman skitters across the floor as Crypto balances himself on one hand, spitting out blood and gasping for breath. Stupid. He should have known Caustic would have already claimed this area. And he would have too, had his drone not fallen a few feet short of the entrance.

Caustic’s crouched down in front of him, removing a canister from his belt and muttering something nonsensical under his breath. The willing must be tested, or something similar.

“I mean this with respect,” He starts, eyes trained on Caustic. “Your experiments are a farce.” Crypto spits blood at Caustic’s feet, wiping the back of his mouth with his free hand. “There’s nothing to learn from death in a place like this. We all die the same here. Even you.”

Three drinks in and Crypto is starting to feel something oddly similar to regret, among other things. It wasn’t regret that had him forcing himself to stand, hurriedly grabbing his coat and moving towards the bar’s exit with remarkable speed; it was — something else. He couldn’t place it.

It was how at ease he felt around Mirage, as if he could let his walls down brick by brick and not feel anything other than safe. It was the unchecked laughter that Mirage had pulled from him time and time again, soft and hidden but too unusual to go unnoticed. It was the way Mirage had stared at him moments before, fond and a little surprised.

It was the warmth Crypto felt in the tips of his fingers, now, as he shouldered the door open and stepped out into the wind’s cold chill.

“Wait, wait, wait!”

He could hear Mirage stumbling after him, desperate to pull Crypto back into the bar and towards the overwhelming sense of longing he had left at his barstool. Some other time, years ago, Crypto might have let him.

“Thank you for the drinks,” Crypto calls over his shoulder, unperturbed and unwilling to stop. At least until he feels Mirage’s hand at his elbow, light and cautious. 

“Hey, look. Don’t leave.” 

When he turns, Crypto finds that he can’t hold Mirage’s gaze any longer than he has to. He could deal with Mirage’s incessant whining, his nervous chatter, and all of the showboating he did to maintain his image. He found, however, that he couldn’t endure the gaze Mirage had currently fixed on him — disheartened and questioning and wanting. 

“Mirage,” Crypto replied with as much composure as he could muster, gently removing the hand that hovered near his elbow. “Let me make this simpler for you.”

The ‘and for me’ went unspoken.

“You won’t find what you’re looking for.” He couldn’t let him. No matter the wants or the needs or the desires, Crypto’s walls were more than just brick and mortar. They were hundreds of locks, barred gates, and ravines that sat at the edge. No entry permitted. “Not here.”

He chanced one final look at Mirage before shrugging into his jacket and turning back towards the path in front of him.

For all of his numbers and statistics, Bloodhound was uncharted territory for Crypto. He had uncovered little about the other during the time he had spent researching the other champions, before the tower fell. Just mentions and scrambled data that had left Crypto at a loss — no name, no age, nothing.

But whatever past Bloodhound had kept carefully hidden, Crypto was determined to dig up. Nothing could stay hidden forever. 

What he knew so far, however, were two simple things: Bloodhound was a hunter, and a talented one at that. They could track any sort of beast, human or not, with pinpoint precision. They had a keen eye too, one that was a near match for Crypto’s drone. 

The other? Bloodhound was faithful, no matter the circumstance. They spoke of the Allfather often, when blessing the dead or when asking for luck on a particularly difficult hunt. For the most part, Crypto said nothing. Religion had been lost on him for some time now, but that didn’t mean it had to be the same for others. Perhaps, in another time, it would have been different.

So, Crypto says nothing — at least until he’s prompted to.

Bloodhound was crouched over the body of an enemy contestant, carefully closing their eyes out of respect. Over the static of his drone’s audio input, Crypto had heard bits of pieces of the comments the other legend had made before their death. About Bloodhound’s Allfather, and about how it wouldn’t save them from what was coming next.

That was before Pathfinder had put a bullet between their eyes.

“I suppose that’s true,” Crypto shrugs, crouching to rifle through the discarded loot for ammo. Once found, he begins carefully loading it into the Wingman kept at his hip.

“But some gods are cruel.” He pauses, thinking. Thinking of Mila’s disappearance and how little she had deserved her fate. Thinking of what had become of himself, after his hand had been forced.

Unlike some of the others among the drop ship, Crypto was familiar with picking his fights. He knew his limits, and he knew when to push them. He knew which legends he was strong against, and which he might fold easily under due to difference in strength or something unobtainable. 

Drifter was someone he preferred to avoid, if he could help it.

But it would show nothing more than cowardice to turn down to her offer to train together, especially after he had only just arrived, not a drop of sweat on him. The pros were that it was only training and that he was sure to learn a thing or two from her. Information was endless and could be obtained at any time — it was best not to turn down an opportunity that would provide it.

The cons? Her knee pressed into the small of his back, and her calloused hands twisting his arm behind his back at an odd angle.

“Try again.”

She released him as quickly as she had grabbed him, leaving Crypto to push himself up on slightly shaky arms. He already knew that her words held little more than a simple statement, but that hardly stopped the frustration from bubbling up. 

He sucks in a breath.

“How?”

Crypto watches her cock her head in curiosity, allowing him to continue.

“You keep beating me when I least expect it. Tell me how.” 

wraith: you were flirting with crypto

mirage: so what? he’s my boyfriend