She wasn’t entirely sure what she’d been expecting when Nathaniel had pulled her into the game with his sister, but that mess had very quickly devolved into something that there was no reasonable way for her to have expected.

Three players could very easily form a strong side and carry a game, it was true, but the enemy team had had another trio on it, matchmaking’s counter to the fact that three people who queued together were likely to have better inter-player synergy than three random people.

It hadn’t really helped them.

It should have. It really should have.

But that wasn’t really what she was doing right now. Instead, when she’d accepted the invite to the team, se was supposed to come up with a new ability set, completely separate from her carry and midlane setups.

Which was strange enough in and of itself. They hadn’t cared, basically at all, for her midlane setup. Neither of them was outright dismissive of the work she’d put into it, but both of them seemed to write it off as a bit of a waste.

Nathaniel had spent about a minute looking over the abilities before rocking his head back and forth in a motion that was neither against it nor affirmative.

Jade had looked at it for a maximum of twenty seconds before making a pained face and waiting for her brother.

They hadn’t said as much, but she was fairly sure that they just found it painfully boring. That would make sense, given that it was a simple adaptation of a fairly popular set.

The ults barely even changed, gaining lower cooldowns and manual aim in exchange for some damage and needing to manually aim.

But what they’d asked her to do…

Why would she even need a ranger set if, like they assured her multiple times was the case, she’d be primary in the carry role?

They’d also been very clear that Jade would be helping her with that transition, so they probably had a plan. She was sure it would make more sense when they stopped communicating in looks and half-sentences.

So, probably when more people were around.

That would be nice.

Not that she blamed them, really. Ari and Lex did the same thing, and it was equally annoying then.

Bigger things to focus on, anyway.

Nathaniel was sitting nearby, seemingly going through some emails or forum on his personal menu inside the testing grounds she’d spawned, seemingly without a care in the world.

A quick check of the time told her that she’d been distracted for almost ten minutes, completely ignoring both him and the task she was supposed to be completing.

Finally, exasperatedly, she addressed him. “I know I’m supposed to be making a ranger set here, but can you explain to me what that is, exactly? I know it’s mostly bruisers and tanks, but that’s not what your sister is, or something I’d be good at. So what’s the connecting line?”

He looked up from the menu, then minimized it without looking. “Was wondering when you’d ask. Jade thought you’d have picked out a bunch of poor fits first.”

“Me? Poor fits? Not in a million years. You’ve seen my carry set.” She said, half-sarcastic.

“To be fair, I’ve also seen your mid set,” he said, smirking, then dropped it, gesturing at her. “But I had my bets on you asking first. Can you pull up the ‘Antaeus’ set and my sister’s?”

Jessica did that, putting the two next to each other.

They were wildly different. Terra, Close Earth Control, Earthen Armor, Stone Wall, and Vine Bolt giving Earthen Arena and Antaeus. It was a close-range, earth-focused ability set that gave the user a lot of personal tankiness at the expense of damage, while also having quite a bit of situational damage through collapsing Stone Walls and significant CC.

On the other hand, Jade’s set. Decisive Strike, Psychic Creation; Duplicate, Trailing Vortex, Assassin’s Blade, and Jet Blast granting Gustrush and Reserve Force. It completely eschewed the survival mechanisms she was used to seeing in ranger builds in exchange for even more mobility and damage, though with shorter-duration, more repeatable CC.

Wait.

That was the key, wasn’t it.

“You’re pointing me at mobility and CC.”

Nathaniel was just grinning. “Well, I hadn’t pointed you at anything, yet.”

Jessica narrowed her eyes at him. That wasn’t an answer, and he obviously knew it. “But you were going to.”

“If I needed to.”

“What are you, testing me? I get enough of that bullshit from other people, thank you very much.”

“Whoah!” he said, raising his hands. “That’s not what I meant at all, sorry. Needing help or a pointer is fine, but if you know what you’re looking for on your own, it does you more good than if you’re dependent on someone else, yeah?”

That hadn’t really been what she’d been snippy about, but it was a fine explanation at least.

And it addressed the point she hadn’t been comfortable making, too. She wasn’t sure if that was intentional, but if it was… she probably needed to give this guy more credit.

She bit the inside of her lower lip, taking a breath in and out. “Sorry. Not really your fault.”

“Didn’t really think it was,” Nathaniel responded, “so it’s nice to have confirmation.”

She didn’t have a ready reply for that. “Okay. So, CC and movement. We know outright that I need to have enough concentration to have at least one ward, even with you or your sister on support, so, what? I can reserve forty without being basically useless?”

“Sixty if you practice.”

“That would leave me on thirty. Basically useless.” she said, narrowing her eyes. “More than basically.”

He shrugged at her. “Thirty’s enough to move, if not very well. Especially if you’re dealing with one big reservation over a bunch of little ones.”

“The hell kind of freak are you?”

He snorted with laughter at that, turning slightly away from her. “That’s probably reasonable, yeah.”

“So you’ve got an idea?”

“You’re pretty good with the bow.”

“I do try.”

“Well, play on that. I… have a really, really silly suggestion if you’d want it.”

He seemed almost embarrassed to bring it up. There was no way she’d let that pass, of course.

“Well let’s hear that first then.”

“It’s not CC, but have you looked at Icy Reply?”

She had seen the name in her abilities list before, but she had to look it up.

The passive had her blinking.

“And that’s useful how?”

He looked even more embarrassed now. “Well, you know Switch Counter?”

She put two and two together. “You’re joking.”

“Only… mostly joking.”

“I’m gonna do it.”

He looked horrified. “That’s really supposed to be used with non-user origin points…”

She grinned wide. “I think we can make it work.”