She’d never admit it, of course, but playing without her brother on the team was usually so much more difficult to manage that Jade was willing to bet she’d never have made Competitor rank without his help.

It didn’t usually make that much sense, of course, given that he was the support and she was the canopy ranger- really the two roles closest to each other in terms of purpose, but with wildly different strategies and very little direct effect on one another.

While the support took the team’s Viewfinder, a passive income item that gave them a few credits when another ally killed an enemy while they were nearby, the ranger would take the Panel Key, allowing them the ability to fight for the panels up in the canopy– specifically, the panels that controlled the many bridges up there, as well as some of the robots.

Unlike the divers who, while not in a lane, still got money from killing monsters, rangers could only get money by controlling more of the panels. And therefore, by extension, the bridges.

Jade noticed, from her clone’s perspective, the other ranger moving in on her territory.

The clone was fairly taxing on even her concentration, and she was no slouch in that department, so instead of fighting a delaying action with the clone, she instead moved it back, jumping off of the bridge and into the tree, hanging onto one of the larger branches, then focused back on herself.

It wasn’t usually that big of a thing she needed to do, but given that she was playing solo she couldn’t rely on Nathan to psychically predict where the enemy mist diver would be– which meant she’d bought and was using her own two wards, instead of one.

Having under thirty concentration unreserved was a very good way for a bad distraction to make you fall on your face. While she’d managed to get good enough to manage about forty unreserved in the course of normal play, it still wasn’t enough to seriously fight on.

A problem she fixed by cutting off the ward that was further away from the enemy mist diver. It was a waste of credits, sure, but she was about to make that back up.

Jade jumped off of the bridge she was on, letting her momentum and gravity carry her below the large tree limb before activating Jet Blast, blowing wind behind her and throwing her back up onto the bridge without needing to go nearly as far back as she would have.

Looking through her duplicate’s eyes, she saw the enemy ranger plug his Panel Key into the nearby panel, starting the thirty-second takeover process, and she started marking the dagger she held with her third ability, Assassin’s Blade. She already had the starter dagger marked, giving her a mental image of where it was and the ability to teleport to it, but given how far away she was from her clone– holding the original starter dagger after she’d swapped them– she was better off manually running there while marking the Disruptor she currently held.

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Not that that should be immediately important, Jade though to herself, turning around the trunk of another tree to get a visual on her target.

“Yo, guy!” Jade cringed internally. That wasn’t a very good opener at all. It was obviously–

He turned to face her, suddenly grinning, and she had to fight to keep from laughing as he threw his hand up, pulling some of the metal from the bridge into a rectangular shield between them.

She could still see him, obviously, from the eyes of her copy, but she still cursed on autopilot as he stepped slightly back from the wall to watch around the edges, having seen her use Jet Blast earlier in the match to beat him to one of the panels.

He hadn’t challenged her then, but it was mostly over an abundance of caution she couldn’t actually enforce. Then again, she hadn’t needed to.

Instead, she drew closer to the wall, intentionally slamming her feet down on the bridge and yelling to make him more certain of her current impotence as she waited for Jet Blast to fully come off cooldown before committing.

From behind him, her clone could see his grip on a submachine gun of some variety. It looked like an energy model– cheaper to run in the long term and much more personal ammo capacity, but sacrificing power to get that. Plasma-power crystal weapons were an exception, but, well… nobody used those, at this level.

Switching her attention mostly to her clone, she jumped from her hiding place, driving the copy’s Disruptor into the guy’s shields and visibly reducing their strength.

The clone couldn’t use her active abilities, but given that her primary damage source was her passive, building up stored damage up to a cap while she wasn’t attacking, the hit still ripped through almost 50% of his shield strength in an instant.

Unfortunately, the same ability meant that the followup strike, delivered as he spun to face the clone, dealt only a tenth of the damage.

Still, he seemed substantially spooked, using his phasing ability to go through her clone, ending up two meters behind her, already firing.

The clone’s shields didn’t even last a full second, taken by two high-damage shots and a third lower damage one.

Instead of just letting him take out the clone, she ineffectually threw the basic knife just over the top of his head, then dismissed the clone.

From experience, Jade knew that he’d be checking the ground for any signs of her having gone invisible, and she indeed heard two more shots hitting the wall he’d raised.

But she was already teleporting.

Appearing with the beginner’s dagger in her left hand and slightly off the ground, she drew it back (now that the mark was expended, it was basically a prop), striking forward with the Disrupter.

This time, his shield bubble fully popped, and she activated Echo Whirlwind, dropped her dagger, and used Jet Blast in quick succession, inflicting him with a damaging whirlwind and throwing him off the bridge, even while she started falling herself.

Unlike him, though, she still had a movement ability to get back onto the bridge, ending up bent over, but safely on the bridge with the dagger in her hand.

The game’s informational voice spoke in the back of her head, confirming the kill with the weapon ‘fall damage.’

She flipped the dagger over in her hand, pausing for a second to check the map.

North lane was looking overextended…