She hadn’t expected to be on the winning side in that game, but in a few places she hadn’t been entirely sure that that was actually going to be the case.

Quince’s shotcalling and decision-making had been on the level she’d expected, but the mechanical talent?

The mechanical talent was well and truly beyond what she’d been expecting.

He still most likely would have learned not to underestimate his opponents quite as badly as he had been, though it would have thrown her off a bit.

That said, she knew that Jess had been buying time for her brother to get his items and scale up, but…

That had blown her expectations out of the water.

Brigid’s Hammer, with its loadbearing and buffing on Creation-category abilities, had allowed him to destroy Quince’s pillars in a significantly cooldown-positive manner, and let him stay even with Emma when she challenged him, even without much in the way of piercing. She’d thought that that was the only legendary item he’d researched, at first, and had worried that Quince’s ability to take on both Jeremy and Jessica would have ended it.

Instead, he’d shown up with a Fragment of Varunastra, and not a single person beyond maybe Nathan had really been expecting what came next.

Keeping track of the six hammers that he’d been using up to that point had been difficult enough, and Quince and Emma were going about even with him– Quince because Nathan couldn’t afford to get into the ranges that he would be most effective in without either his penultimate to reinforce the plane he was using as a shield or his ultimate to reduce his target profile, and Emma because they were about the same speed and neither could really effectively damage the other without being distracted by something else.

When that changed to keeping track of six weapons that changed shape to whatever was most effective at the time, that had gone out the window.

Swords to pen her in, hammers to destroy Quince’s pillars, and spears to break into Emma’s shields. She was fairly sure that she’d also seen them go through chakram and pikes a few times. That might have been enough on its own, even, once Jessica’s ability to hit priority targets and Jeremy’s uncanny ability to shut down her own set specifically were taken into account, but Nathan had apparently taken some of her advice to heart– when he’d activated his ultimate, he hadn’t just used the effect it had on his body defensively, he’d used it as an extra weapon.

Combined with Jessica’s set’s ability to summon copies of weapons from her defeated allies, it was an absolute storm of weaponry from the other side, to the point that Emma had been overwhelmed and neither she nor Quince had had the ability to fall back in time.

Quince was the first one to speak when they loaded back into the desktop they were using to meet. “Well, I’m not much a fan of losing, but I see how that carry set works now.”

Both Nathan and Rayne snorted at that, though she was the one who followed up. “I’ll say. I’ll admit to being a little skeptical that you could pull it off, but it looks like you’ve got an actual, genuine, concentration-carry. What order does everyone want the criticism in?”

She barely had to think about it. “Take it least important to most, and stick me at the end no matter where I’d go normally. If anyone wants it privately, no judgement, just say it and get skipped.”

The murmur of assent wasn’t particularly quick or loud, but it got the job done.

“If everyone’s okay with it, then. Jeremy– stop taking free hits to power up your passive, unless you think it’ll put you in position for a kill. It’s playing with fire.”

He looked genuinely chagrined by that, and Jade had to keep her thoughts from showing on her face.

He’d been taking free hits?

“Other than that, you played well. It’s not great to be on that set as a diver, but you made it work. Next up, Nathan. I get that you’re used to playing information warfare against your own team but everyone here is actually going to listen to you. Tell them in advance when you plan to go in and they’ll be able to follow up better. That late-game was an absolute sight, and I genuinely look forward to seeing it in an actual game.”

Jade nodded at that assessment. Both she and Nathan would need to work on actually telling people things, given how built-in it was at this point to hide everything by default.

“Emma. Tell people when you think they’re making a bad decision. You might be wrong or missing some information, but so might they. Outside that, you’re probably the single most solid member of this team, to the point that I expect that if you’d been given free rein to play how you wanted this game, it would have gone the other way.

“So, Jessica– do you always hold yourself to your opponent’s level early on, or was this a one-time thing?”

Jessica’s mouth opened slightly, then snapped shut for a second before she started talking. “I… try not to do that anymore. It’s a bad habit.”

Quince looked a bit like he’d bit into a lemon, but Jess continued. “I wasn’t really holding back by that much this time, to be honest. I didn’t use the portable platforms, but it’s not like most people at our level would’ve bought them…” she sighed. “I’ll try to avoid that.”

Rayne nodded. “Do that. Your ability to pick up on and use people’s weaknesses is actually a little freaky. Don’t use it to give yourself a challenge.

“Quince.” Rayne paused, then, looking him up and down. “You’re obviously on trial here, though I suspect I know which way that’s going now. My biggest criticism is the reason Jade did this to begin with. You figured it out?”

Quince grimaced, but he nodded. “Yeah. It isn’t just my game that matters. I watched Nathaniel get ahead, but I assumed that Jade or I would be able to deal with him. That was… optimistic.”

“Not exactly optimistic, but conditional. Nathan?”

Her brother looked up from whatever he was paging through in front of him. “Jade could’ve three-shot me if Jeremy wasn’t there. With both him and Jess there? It goes from difficult to outright dangerous, because a success would have powered both of them up for the fight after. It’s a little counterintuitive, but poking the tank with the range advantage that burst-fire or single-shot gave you was probably your best bet.”

Rayne’s eyebrows went up, but she nodded. “And I don’t think you would have seen that, mostly because it’s not flashy, which is the other criticism. Despite that, you seem like you’ve got a good head for the actual fights, and you’re extremely good at keeping the pressure on and adapting to your primary opponent.”

Finally, their coach rounded on her. “And lastly, this whole game was a wildly unnecessarily antagonistic way to prove that point. You knew the flaws and some of the things he was good at, but you pushed him into it anyways. Do you want to explain why?”

Jade froze. Rayne was right, of course, but being called on that had not been in her plan. She’d been expecting something about the game, but the out-of-game social aspect? Not something she’d considered.

It was probably telling that Quince was supposed to be trying out for her team and yet she’d been so willing to throw him in the deep end with the expectation that he’d be losing, and that he’d need to figure out where it was his fault and where it wasn’t on his own.

It was just that that arrogance–

Jade cut that thought off at the root.

“I’d… rather not. Sorry. There were… better ways to handle that.”

“No shit. On a purely practical level, you also should have passively gained on your brother to actually even out the matchup, just because of your archetypes. Wouldn’t’ve changed the outcome any, but I figured I’d bring it up. Who has questions?”