He’d been pretty lose with his time estimate, really.

Closer than she would have expected for the almost zero-information guess that he’d given her.

She’d gone back to the base to refill her arrows at the two and a half minute mark while he had stepped into the mists to ward, and when they got back to the minions lines, it was less than a minute before a wall of stone appeared behind her, and a cluster of wood and vines shot out of the nearby canopy, aimed at her.

It was too far away, though, and she stepped to the side out of the way, nocking an arrow.

She wasn’t necessarily expecting to plan to shoot any particular target with it, but her passive required her to shoot to teleport.

That plan changed quickly, though– the support was charging her this time, and the enemy carry threw down another Flame Wall to completely cover her options.

Just the opposite of last time, but the same issue still applied.

Reducing her vision would only work if they could get both of them at the same time. Nathaniel had backed off slightly, marking both the enemy support and safe teleport locations over the link.

The link automatically corrected those, even, showing her a blue circle overlaid on the flame wall where the enemy support was.

Judging she had the second to spare, Jessica charged a new metal-infused arrow before firing it at the oncoming shield-user.

That stunt cost her about a quarter of her own shields, but it took nearly the same from her target.

Increasing to more when she teleported out, to the other side of the stone wall, and the shield bash carried the support through the Flame Wall again.

Really, that ability was usually fine, but going up against two people with teleports was handing it a hard time.

It was fast, dealt damage, had a low cooldown, and stumbled the target when it hit. It was also impossible to cancel without making contact with something, and didn’t bother with anything other than straight lines.

Jessica was already charging a second arrow, this time with fire. They’d be retreating, so…

She used her last basic ability, Reign of Arrows, and fired the Fire-infused arrow as straight up as she could manage, while Nathaniel teleported to just in front of her and fired his damaging ability randomly into the trees towards about where the Vine Shot had come from.

That done, she started the longer walk backwards to the base.

She had faster options, of course, and so did Nathaniel, but they used the plausible cover of saving resources to beat a much slower retreat.

When the stone walls closed in around them in a pentagon missing a single side, she couldn’t help but grin.

The trap was sprung.

As she turned around, she saw the enemy ranger was jumping off of a stone platform onto the ground, fully covered in what appeared to be a layer of stone held just off his skin, with the enemy support closing in quickly, having activated shield charge again.

“Better than I thought,” she heard Nathaniel say, his eyes tracking the arrow she’d fired.

Well, at this point, arrows. Fourteen seconds in the air, duplicating once every two seconds, meant over a hundred slammed into the ground around the support, tearing her shields apart in an instant. Not perfectly centered, but it had been a guess.

Another bolt from her support, another kill.

The other two were already committed, though. And there was a lot of fire around.

The enemy carry, coming to that same conclusion, turned into a blast of fire and flew forward, landing in the middle of it and raising his arms.

The fire on the ground quickly changed from the undirected grassfire into streams, heading directly at him.

Jessica grabbed another couple of arrows, this time two of the metal ones she’d been imbuing.

One shot directly at the Ranger, the teleport at an upwards and forward angle but reversing her facing direction, setting her up for the second shot and teleport that carried her to the lip of the arena that had formed around them.

That provided a much more enticing target for the Consolidating Flamethrower penultimate, and the carry almost instantly started blasting it at her.

That had been the point, though.

While she couldn’t see anything, her support marked a location just to her right and she jumped straight into it.

For a moment, everything twisted around her, and her mind was assaulted by what felt like her body suddenly deciding to go missing.

It wasn’t painful, exactly, but it still made her stumble and fall as the Void-space Tunnel dumped her out behind the enemy carry.

Her shields had apparently been partially replenished along the way, now sitting at twenty-five percent.

She could see through Nathaniel’s eyes as he threw down a Void Wall to the carry’s right, then stepped to the other side to swing his starter sword into his shields.

His reaction was admirably fast, but it also involved him stepping directly into the void wall, visibly distorting his shields.

While it wouldn’t keep hitting them, she could see the telltale shimmer of something damaging the shields even between her support’s continuing push. Probably a passive or something.

Nathaniel’s shields were going down noticeably, though, after he took the last bit of the Flamethrower and was now being hit with Salamander Bolts.

Jessica pulled another two metal-infused arrows, leaving the last one in the quiver, and took the shot in front of her.

It didn’t even graze her support’s shield, hitting the carry’s with enough force to nearly destabilize them, and Nathaniel’s next sword-swing finished the job.

Grimacing, the man used his flame-teleport again.

But while it was a fast movement skill, it also told her exactly where he’d end up.

An arrow was on the way before he even fully rematerialized, taking him in the chest before he managed to start running.

She turned to find the ranger already on another stone platform, rising back into the canopy.

Her first instinct was to chase him, but she fought that feeling down.

Two penultimates for one, and they’d still managed to come out of it with two kills and no deaths.

Both she and her teammate under thirty percent shields, but, as he’d said earlier– not dead.

They both put their hand on the base as the stone arena crumbled behind them, initiating the quick transport back to the home circle, almost seven hundred credits richer than she had been when the attempted gank had begun.

She was starting to think that this guy actually knew what he was talking about.