Once the fight was over, thanks to Damian’s work in pushing the minions up, they were able to pick up almost directly on a new wave, knocking out the two remaining bases in the midlane, breach the gate of the home circle, and take out the constructor, winning the game.

It was tight, and two members of the enemy team had come up by the time she and Nathaniel had taken off most of its health.

But then, they’d also managed to take off most of its health before they respawned, so those two members still didn’t actually have the time to stop them.

The postgame lobby’s gray mist room slowly faded in around them, dropping all of the items they’d purchased and leaving them with just whatever they’d chosen for their avatar’s clothing.

Jeans and a t-shirt for her, but other people often chose other things.

As soon as she had menu access, she sent a friend request to the guy who’d been supporting her.

There wasn’t even an acceptance message. He just appeared on her friends list.

Which made her smile widen slightly. It meant he’d had the same idea.

They just nodded at each other for now, though. They’d be talking after, but the post-game lobby was for shaking hands with the people on the other end of the field.

Well, assuming they weren’t jerks. And these hadn’t been.

“Good game.”

“You too.”

Finally, she got to the guy who’d been the serious trouble, the north-laner. He was actually pretty short, now that she was able to see him without water swirling around and distorting her vision.

He’d been a terror on the field, though, so who cared if he was short?

Shaking his hand, she also shook her head slightly. “That really could have gone either way up until the last second. Well played.”

He laughed at that. “Honestly, when south started talking about the physical carry over on your side, I was expecting a free win. Kinda glad it wasn’t.”

“Ugh, don’t remind me. Half the reason that it usually works is because they always get cocky. Happened this time, too, but over half the credit goes to my support.”

“Oh, yeah! I was actually gonna ask him about his build, gimme a sec.”

He walked over to where Nathaniel was awkwardly standing, near the rest of her team, just grabbing him on the arm and pulling him over to her while pointing.

She tried to avoid grinning at the gangly trip he managed on the perfectly flat floor.

She really tried.

He caught himself, though, and they ended up near her, with the opposing ranger getting close enough to listen without actually being part of the conversation.

“I been meaning to ask, what the hell is your build, man? Haven’t seen a caster support since I was in mid-alexandrite.”

“Why do you want to know?” Nathaniel asked, before waving his hand dismissively. “Doesn’t matter, I guess. Void Space’s Bias, Teleport Item, Blink, Void Wall, Void Strike. The theming buys you the known-theme penult-ult combo, then you obviously get travel and offensive/defensive. Needs a minimum one-forty concentration to really use the ult though.”

“Why that set, though?”

“I’ve only got a ninety in endurance and I’m lazy,” he said, with a lopsided grin. “Plus, it worked out this time! It never does that!”

The north laner scoffed. “Lazy. Yeah right. You whooped south’s asses, and mine too. Good game from you guys.”

“Eh, I’d give her seventy percent of south lane. I was just making the southside calls.”

The guy rolled his eyes. “I’m like four years older than y’all and I still want to call ya kids. Good luck with your next game together.”

He left to his personal desktop, leaving that sitting between them as they looked at each other for a second.

“My desktop or yours?” Jessica asked.

“Yours.”

It was fast enough that she wanted to ask why, but she decided that could wait, instead initiating the log to desktop and inviting him to join her.

She’d spent way too long setting up the city that they loaded into, making sure that the various signs of age that she’d put on the buildings actually looked real. She’d actually spent so long in that session that she’d been kicked out by the pod’s safety logout, booting her back into reality after ten straight hours spent in virtual reality and banning her from logging back in for two days.

It was worth it though, whenever she saw the awed looks on people’s faces, loading into the abandoned city around an empty-but-lit club.

And she definitely got her fix of that today. Even after she’d waved him in, he seemed to get distracted by the bike rack.

She had spent fifteen minutes playing with the settings to give it realistic denting. Not that she’d ever tell anyone that.

He shook his head as he approached her for real. “Never seen anything like a lot of this. Hell of a project, getting this to look lived-in.”

Jessica didn’t even bother to stop the silly smile that that brought out. “It was, too! You would not believe–”

He laughed, cutting her off. “I’d probably believe it more than you’d think. Next time is mine.”

“Confident that there’ll be a next time.”

“Yup.”

She stared at him for a second, then laughed, herself. “Okay, sure. Was it that obvious?”

“Do you know the last time someone beat my menuing in the lobby? It was six months ago, for reference, and my sister making a joke.”

“You play with your sister? Aren’t family usually…” She didn’t really know how to say that family members usually had similar statlines, making them less than ideal party members for a balanced team.

“Twin. And she’s a ranger main. Can play a mean support, too, but she ends up playing agi/calc-support assassin, so not really what people usually want.”

“Ugh, yeah, I can see that.”

The conversation turned into a scheduling session after that. They were luckily the same time zone, which meant that they’d usually be matching up in play times, but he was planning on leaving immediately after they finished here.

Finally, they didn’t have much of an excuse to keep talking, and said their goodbyes.

Jessica took a moment to wander her desktop for a while, but unlike the usual situation when she ended up on carry, she didn’t feel like immediately jumping back into a game to purge the last one from her memory.

Instead, she just logged out.