The look on Rayne’s face mirrored his own upon seeing an entire potential roster in the room before them, especially because they’d still been missing two of the positions when they’d last met.

Instead, they’d picked up a short blonde girl– shorter, even, than the other two girls who had already been on the team, and fairly noticeably at that– and a tall, though shorter than him, guy with a sharp look and an obvious interest in who he was.

He couldn’t tell if he was bothered by that or relieved by it, given his experiences with Jade and Nathan. It wasn’t so much that they were more threatening than people he’d dealt with in the past, but their ability to switch modes so completely and unexpectedly creeped him out somewhat. The fact that this new guy’s attention was so obvious meant that he could at least plan for it.

Whether it would help or not was a different question, of course, but it always was. He’d be doing his best not to let anything be too strange.

“I didn’t expect you to have a whole team today. You want me to approve these two?” Rayne asked, her arms crossed and leaning on the wall behind her.

Jade shook her head. “They’ll be pre-approved in the same way Jess was, but I only know that I want you to do that for Emma. Quince is on a trial run.”

“Why’s that?” Jeremy asked. Quince had definitely looked more certain when he’d appeared in Rayne’s desktop– not that that was saying much, when Emma had looked a bit afraid of her own shadow before Jessica had showed up.

“We haven’t seen him play mid yet,” Nathan said. “And while we suspect he’ll be okay, it’s not enough to actually say anything. What’s everyone’s rank, here? In the primary role you’re in. Jade and I duo most of the time, so we both hover around high-Master to low-mid Leader.”

Quince and Emma’s reaction to that was about what he’d expected.

“Wait, you’re real? Everyone thinks that you’re more AI plants.”

“For fuck’s sake!” Jade almost yelled. “I could easily be convinced that the only actual plants were Dimitri and Kaylie.”

“Are Dimitri and Kaylie. They were seen again over the weekend.” Emma corrected, quietly.

Both Nathaniel and Jade looked pained at that, but Jade was faster to actually respond. “I see. It would be nice if it marked its people.”

“Every time I think it’s going to go down…”

“Frankly. I think it does it on purpose.”

“To us specifically?”

“More a general thing.”

“Prob’ly”

“But anyways!” Jade turned away from her brother. “We have a full team here, so I wanted to try out a game or two with everyone. Given that we’re kind of shortening our time here… When’s the last time you had to use your mid, Jess?”

Jessica looked up for a moment, then shook her head. “Need to pull it up, but three, four days ago. Why?”

“Mind bringing it out for a short 3v3 with alt channels? Mids’ll be on team chat, but everyone else on general.”

Even across the room, he could see Quince narrow his eyes at her while Jess answered. “I can do that, but it means I’ve got to wait that much longer.”

“What exactly is this going to prove? Whoever gets the diver and ranger is gonna win, or you’re going to split them up and have a bunch of people who aren’t any good on off-roles. I can play three roles, but it’s obvious when I’m in my primary.”

Oh, that was not going to go over well. He could tell by the silence what was coming, and by Rayne’s face that she saw it as well. Jade’s face had gone from a slight frown, to a smirk, to frighteningly flat in under a second.

Her eyes went over to her brother, and he caught that they were signing something to each other, but not what it was, exactly.

A few of the words came though the game’s built-in translator, but much of it was lost somehow.

Strange, because he’d been on teams with deaf and/or mute people before, and it wasn’t usually that spotty. Still, it was obvious that they were discussing a few terms, finishing with Nathaniel’s ‘go ahead.’

“Nathaniel’s the other Ranger for our little… rehearsal, and we’ll be splitting the panels as if we were evenly matched, because he’ll be on a non-ranger set. Emma’s our usual diver, so Jeremy’s the ‘sub’ here. Choose your team.”

Quince was obviously a smart guy, because he didn’t instantly jump on it, instead looking between the other people in the room slowly, examining each of their faces.

Jade’s and Nathaniel’s were completely unreadable. Jess looked exasperated, if anything, and Rayne looked amused. Jeremy had made an effort at maintaining a blank face himself, but he could feel his composure cracking, letting some of the grin leak. Hopefully it just seemed like a smirk.

Luckily, Emma was new and therefore not really useful to Quince, instead looking worried. “Are you guys… sure?”

Jade nodded. “Absolutely. And no matter what team we’re on, mid’s in charge of calls.”

To his credit, Quince still hesitated a bit. Ultimately, though, the bait seemed like it was a little bit too much for him.

“Fine. Me, Emma, and Jade against Jessica, Jeremy, and Nathaniel. That’s what you’re pushing me towards, right?”

Jade raised her eyebrow in an imitation of magnanimity that, had he been the target, would have very quickly made Jeremy reconsider some-to-all of his life choices.

Or at least his game ones.

“You didn’t need to take it, of course. And we all would have respected it if you’d chosen something different.” The smile twisted into something strange. “But of course, the challenge was laid down. Let’s see how you hold up to it. Rayne, you’ll have some notes for us at the end of it?”

“That’s m’job. Probably won’t have any for Nathan, though, no matter how much I want to see how you apply that as a ranger.”

Nathaniel shrugged, blowing out a puff of air. “It’s almost there, just a bit… yeah. No spoilers for our newbie, though.”

“You know this doesn’t really mean much if you intentionally tank it, right?” Quince asked, staring at Jade.

“Of course! Beyond treating the panels differently, I’ll be trying my absolute best to get a win for your team. But… good luck! We may need it.”