Jade had a lot of experience hiding how guilty she felt about things.

Which didn’t mean she wasn’t guilty. Even when she didn’t necessarily need to be.

It was almost certain that Selicae would have lost to the Pigeons anyways, but they also should have been putting up a lot more of a fight than they were.

Unlike last time, they weren’t even pitting the veneer of teamwork against what the Pigeons were doing, except for Emma and their northlaner. Those two were… sort of trying.

What they should have done was trade their own strength for holding the team together more effectively, separating the team into two primary groups of Ranger-North-Mid and Diver-Carry-Support, given Emma’s ability to fight down her first impulses.

Well, usual ability. With what she’d done yesterday…

Although the effect it had had on the north laner was also interesting. While she’d looked into him, Quince was basically an unknown outside of a few posts on set creation forums, presumably something he still wanted to do but was locked out of.

Which made sense. She’d seen him play north, Emma had told her he wanted to play mid, and his style suggested a pretty good knowledge of how the Diver would operate. He probably had all three of his sets locked up in those roles, and while it was certainly possible for one set to cover more than one role, it was also fairly uncommon.

Something about him was multiplying the effect, though. Emma was certainly cute enough to trigger people’s protective instinct without it necessarily playing into something existing, but the way he was acting…

Well, there was a good chance that it had something to do with him, personally, at least.

Good in that it would mean that he would almost definitely play the part in breaking the team dynamics that she’d intended.

Bad in that he might stick closer to Emma than she expected, meaning that she’d need to walk over to break them up and make Nathaniel’s role a lot harder.

That thought made her glance over at her brother, but if he was having any nervous thoughts he was keeping them to himself, instead leaning back perilously far in the folding chair, to the point that it was pretty surprising it hadn’t folded in and collapsed yet.

Actually…

Yep, he was actively keeping it from collapsing in on him with his core, legs and back holding a fairly specific angle.

The idiot.

As tempting as it was to take advantage of that to knock him over, she also owed him for this. And by the way she’d already soured her relationship with the target of this whole thing, she couldn’t even do the role he was going to be taking.

Jessica couldn’t for other reasons, and they didn’t have anyone else here.

On the screens, Quince traded his life to take out the Pigeons’ diver.

Jade winced internally. He looked like a good player, but…

Emotional.

Very emotional.

It was a decision made less for the good of his own team and more to punish them for their earlier aggressive stance against him and Emma.

Ahkex was already less useful than their teammates because of it, too. If Quince had made that trade for any other player it would have been neutral, and in a losing position neutral was positive.

He’d had choices, too, though it was possible he didn’t notice them. The carry was further away, but also was less tanky and would have gone down fast enough. The enemy north would have taken longer, but trading his life for it would have still gotten the kill, though it would have gone to Selicae’s carry instead.

Even the support would have been a valid target.

“Thoughts on his choice there?” she asked. Nathaniel would have a better idea than her.

“Should’ve gone for the support. Failing that, the carry. He’s mad, and he acted on it.”

“That’s what I got, minus the target selection. Why?”

“Luna’s holding their team together. Doesn’t exactly look it outright, but holding Null Pulse is what’s keeping Emma from going in. She gets hit with that after Shardbomb and she’s a sitting duck.”

“Think she knows?”

“Eh. Maybe. Might not know the interaction, might not want to risk it, might just be thinking in defense mode and not realizing she’s three perfect seconds away from a good initiation.”

“Almost definitely that last one.”

He shrugged, carefully. “She switched to it this time, so Luna knows it. It’s at least fairly suspicious, seeing as it made south harder on her.”

Watching the screens some more, she watched as Selicae’s support and Carry randomly broke off from the other three and were rapidly cut down.

“That or they’re so screwed this time around that they didn’t notice.”

“Even if they did, they’re not talking to each other.”

It was a fair assessment, even if they couldn’t hear the teams’ chatter outside the game. Unless they chose to make it public later, it would stay that way, but from the complete lack of coordination that they were engaging in, nothing else made sense.

And it also meant that the timetable was moving up.

“I’m still sorry for putting you in that position.”

Nathaniel let his chair back down without even a clunk as it made contact. “I’ve put myself in worse.”

“You chose those.”

“Most of the time,” he said, standing. “But us bailing ‘chother out ain’t new.”

“You sure you can talk her into joining us?”

He paused.

So he wanted to lie, then. Which, given who it was, probably meant…

“Yes. But I won’t do it.” He paused again. “Okay, I won’t try to do more than make it seem like a neutral option, instead of a bad one. But it isn’t a priority.”

That was probably the biggest concession she was going to get from him. As he walked out past the exit, lazily glancing at the people around, she kept quiet.

Her role was to stand somewhere obvious so that Emma left the venue, then continue standing there until...