It would be fair to say that had had been skeptical of the ability for a physical carry to work.

It hadn’t helped, at all, that she’d then beat him in midlane, the place where physical carries were supposed to go.

On top of that, she’d spent the entire game so far being slowly pushed back, unable to mount much of an effective resistance to the more meta caster down there.

And, in one moment that burned itself into his mind, he got it.

Thousands of arrows from the sky hit the ground.

The ground moved, huge sections of it shoving towards him in a mass.

The second wave hit, and the flash of light that came with it blew away the darkness areas that the other carry had been building up.

Some of the light arrows definitely hit Emma’s shields instead, and a lot of them missed entirely, but the flash of light also was the sunrise that started the battle.

Cluster Blast, Viral Shade, Land of Darkness, Cyclonic Wrath, Lost to the Dance, Paragon’s Ultimatum–

A shot went up in the air, heralding destruction where it landed. He was cursed to spread a darkness attack over time; a growing, dark area started striking out at them; the Northlaner started throwing wild air bolts in their direction, especially towards Emma, Jessica disappeared from sight, and Jeremy’s already-impressive physicality seemed to expand into something just shy of strange-looking.

Emma and Jade flew into the enemy team, Emma stopping on the suddenly-duplicating ranger, dodging around the suddenly multiplying and teleporting bodies there as her ability to grab the carries in her ultimate was stymied.

Jade, meanwhile, blew right through them all with a penultimate of her own.

Touch of the Trickster, Infinite Halves, Gustrush–

Quince’s view of that side of the fight was cut off as two rectangles of blackness cut through each other to protect him as several clusters of grenades forced him to back up further, but and extra ding reminded him that he wasn’t out of the woods yet.

Momentary Light–

The penultimate of Starstrike, it would freeze him in place, so–

Radiant Overdrive–

The ability had a charging time, but, frozen by Momentary Light as he was, he didn’t notice it as his weapon suddenly lashed out with a torso-sized beam of plasma, tearing through the enemy diver’s shields and landing him a kill.

‘Jade has been slain by an enemy with [Looming Shade]’

‘You have slain an enemy with [Radiant Overdrive]’

Trading one for one would mean–

‘Jade has slain an enemy with [Echo Whirlwind]’

The void fields that had been behind him had at some point dropped, and Quince spun to see the fight while he personally ran north, trying to stay unnoticed due to his broken shields. Jessica was launching arrows with a speed he hadn’t seen anyone manage on a bow before, teleporting around the battlefield just out of reach of opponents. Nathaniel had at some point teleported to the middle of the fight, and was throwing some sort of consumable that made the ground around the enemies more difficult, while Jeremy was beelining for the midlaner.

Impossible Room–

Nathaniel had teleported forward, into the middle of the remaining four with Jeremy, and Emma and Jessica were locked out, though Jessica continued to lay arrows into it, teleporting with each that she launched.

The cluster bomb landed outside, heavily damaging Emma’s shields before they suddenly shot up in strength as the room exploded.

‘Nathaniel has been slain by an enemy with [Tri Shot] and [Power Shot]’

‘Jeremy has slain an enemy with [Frost Fair Blade]’

It wasn’t enough for her, though, as the barrage from the Northlaner suddenly seemed to find a weakness in her shields, tearing them apart in moments even while Jessica wore down on the other two, the wind user safe in the bubble of turbulence

‘Emma has been slain by an enemy with [Cyclonic Wrath]’

‘Jessica has slain an enemy with [Alchemical Infusion (Metal)]’

‘Jeremy has slain an enemy with [Frost Fair Blade]’

Not that turbulence helped against melee attacks.

In a final act of defiance, the enemy midlaner blasted the ground underneath his feet with some sort of incendiary ammunition, trying to catch both Jessica and Jeremy in its radius, along with himself, but Jessica had already teleported out by the time it went off the second time, sparing her the end.

‘An enemy has slain themselves with [Tri Shot] and [Power Shot]’

‘Jeremy has been slain by an enemy with [Refire], [Tri Shot] and [Power Shot]’

“And then there were two. Holy shit.”

Both of them were breathing hard, but neither he nor Jessica had any illusions about what they needed to do, rushing towards midlane with everything they had. He could even see Jessica firing off arrows into the sky like a catapult, even though they couldn’t see where they would be landing.

Less than two minutes later, everyone appeared in the postgame lobby.

The usual handshakes and congratulations went around for a second, then almost immediately turned to strategy discussion.

“How the hell’d you pull off that last fight?” the ranger asked.

“A combination thing,” Nathaniel answered, surprisingly upfront. “My carry’s abilities include something that works at long range and I’ve got a teleport. It’s not always something we can pull off, but when it works…”

“It works.” That was the opposing carry. “I thought you two were basically a non-factor at that point, then damn, that.”

A few people chuckled at that. “See you in another game?”

Jade cut in. “Probably not today. We were doing a team tryout, and the rest of the day is likely strategy talk and such. Gotta get on that grind, I guess.”

Three of the other side gave their midlaner aggrieved looks at that, but he just grinned. “Yeah, I know the feeling. Make sure you guys make regionals. I don’t want to be the only team that loses to the newbies, yeah?”

Quince smirked, “We’ll try to share the love. See ya.”

The other team popped out, rapid-fire, and Jade turned to the remaining members. “Welp. Time to go get yelled at. Or… aggressively but even-volumed scolded at?”

Jeremy smiled, rolling his eyes. “It’s Rayne. It’s gonna be that second one.”