He’d seen her in the last fight, of course, but Nathaniel was starting to have serious reservations about why this girl was getting matched with him.

Granduon’s matching algorithm was probably on the skew again, like it seemed to be every few months.

Because this was ridiculous.

The whole intention of his plan had been to take out the north-laner by piling on, two fed members of his team versus one hyper-fed member of the enemy team.

It was barely necessary for him to do anything. He’d stopped one wave while Jessica had been pulling new arrows out of her quiver and very little else.

Even that just saved a little bit of chasing space, though– she could just as easily have shot one of the hard-light arrows in the same time and kept up her fighting retreat.

Even worse, he couldn’t even get in to close range, like he wanted. The way the build worked, the water gathering around the enemy bruiser would have been much more effective at taking him down from close range, so he was instead relegated to disruption duty: throwing consumables, teleporting obnoxiously, and very occasionally managing to find an opening for just long enough to hit once and run.

Meanwhile, Jessica had managed to take almost three quarters of his shield and half of the water he’d built up with Protective Tides and Waverider.

And another fire-infused arrow followed by a light-infused fired directly through the burst of steam cut that down still further.

He was just here as moral support, really.

Which, given how she’d been earlier, might actually be necessary. You could be the best player in the world and if it came crashing down around you when something went wrong, it wouldn’t matter too much. That was Jade’s issue, too, and sometimes his.

His other issue was spite-induced refusal to give up, but usually that was the fault of his own team as much as it was a detriment.

Nathaniel finally saw another casting of Returning Waves that would be useful for him to block, signalling as much to his carry over their link.

That really was an incredibly useful ability.

One step forward and a Void Wall, while she continued to fire from behind him, using the hard-light arrows. With her about-ninety energy score, they were costly. More specifically, based on his count, she was only holding twenty in reserve, burning back to that number every twenty-some-odd seconds.

He dropped the Void Wall, stepping back next to her and coming to realize where they were.

The enemy bruiser was nearly dead, but had been retreating towards enemy territory while the majority of the enemy team had been pushed up right to their home circle.

Oh, shit.

They were out of their home circle, now– specifically, collapsing in on them. His teammates were following, but they had to maintain a respectful distance whenever they didn’t have visual through the mists, and several members of the enemy team had the ability to get onto the bridges while already well out of sight.

“Run north, instead,” he said quietly, while marking out one of the entrances to the mists nearby. It was the real test of whether the enemy team was on their way or setting a trap for a five versus four with the rest of the team.

If he was setting up for the rest of the team appearing, he’d probably keep pushing into them despite his lower health due to Rain’s ability to slowly repair shields and heal teammates in its area. If he was baiting them away for the five versus four, he’d annoy them, but not follow into the mists where it would be even harder for him to manage two enemies.

Nathaniel disconnected one of his north-side wards, throwing a new one out in the open past the wall as they ran. It wasn’t directly visible from the lane and would let him know instantly if someone followed, so despite its less-than-favorable position, it would do just fine.

Jessica continued to fire even while running, often without even fully turning around.

He wasn’t entirely sure how a bow could be used like that, but who was he to question that? The shots were less accurate, at least.

Not that they missed the extended damage range of the shields. He was beginning to think that that could be a serious issue.

The essentially living wave that was after them paused for a second in front of his ward, before starting right back up in following them, this time casting a long and thin Rain directly following their path, no longer limited by a more pressing need to dodge side to side.

What was that about? Did he not trust his teammates or something?

‘An Allied base has been destroyed.’

Oh. Or that, I guess?

“Visuals on that base?” he asked over team chat.

“Nothing, give me a sec,” Helen said.

Another thirty seconds went by. Now in the more twisting corridors of the mist, it was much more difficult to stay ahead, and he found himself basically blinking on cooldown to stay ahead. It was eating his energy reserves, but he luckily had the option of teleporting directly up to the bridges if it came to that.

And while that was true, part of it was that their pursuer had intentionally slowed down. They were getting closer to the enemy’s remaining midlane base with only a single member of his team pushing it conservatively.

At least they’d set up toplane for…

‘An Enemy Base has been destroyed.’

Not that that was incredibly useful, right this second. He and Jessica were still being pincered by at least some members of the enemy team.

‘An Allied Base has been destroyed.’

“What the fuck’s going on over there?” Nathaniel asked, incredulous. The only way they’d be able to do that…

“Carry and mid pushed through two, ran when the three of us got here. You’ve got four and Damian incoming.” Kurt responded, flatly. “Oh, and they’re running towards you.”

Low energy on us, moderately low energy and low shields on waterboy, plus whatever they managed to pull from the others, not that I expect much. Well, here goes nothing.

“Damian, shove mid as fast as you can. Burn resources for it, we’re gonna three vee four.”