He’d known, intellectually, that he was the lowest-ranked member of the team, but despite the fact that he’d gotten on it by recommendation more than notice, that fact hadn’t really set in until he looked at the other side and saw not a single player below Master.

It wasn’t really that surprising– being a team of six, they were matched up against another team of six, and having a couple of Leader-rank and a couple of Master-rank players completely outweighed his own Ruby placing in the matchmaking.

Still, he hadn’t been expecting there to be three Leader-ranked players on the enemy team, with the rest filled out by Masters. Not even a Jadeite as the halfway point…

And while two of those high-ranking players were going to be on the south side of the map, the other one was in his lane.

Just by the fact that they were there and they were doing well, he could almost guarantee the basics of what they’d be playing.

Unfortunately, that didn’t help much. He’d still he locked into playing back, putting off the end more than being able to do much of anything– until later in the game, the parrying upgrade on his spear would turn hits into chip damage more than negating them. With a skilled opponent, he probably wouldn’t even hit too many of them until he got the Rush nanites he’d need to run…

“North’ll be cocky. Jade, fake a north-side start from Emma around the time their diver’ll check. No need to kill, just leash it around the side. You two coordinate a double-gank on north around wave four. Jeremy, your buys are right for it, so chill back. You’re going to finish the kill after Emma and Jade set it up.” Nathaniel said, looking at him directly and stopping his thought process in its tracks

“All mechs north, two and five mid and south,” Jade said, plugging those numbers in and starting the spawn process. “I took an early sweeper instead of a ward, so you’re going to have to drop the south-side protective one.”

“Done.”

Jeremy had to cut in there. “Wait-wait-wait. That’s a lot of faith in northside. What if I screw it up?”

Jade raised an eyebrow at him for a moment, then rolled her eyes. “You won’t.”

He couldn’t argue with that.

Not in that he agreed with it, exactly. He was actually not all that confident about facing someone who was three ranks above him in his on-role, and thought that it was fairly likely that he would, in fact, screw it up.

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Instead, it was the complete matter-of-factness with which she’d contradicted him, followed by a turn away. He hadn’t even formulated a response before the next person was talking.

“We’ve been up against the support in south, so we won’t be able to play surprise.” Jessica said, “We should go even, but it kinda depends on how cocky their carry is.”

“I… don’t think it’s likely that she’ll completely ignore her warnings.” Emma near-whispered. “They’re a premade six too.”

Quince spoke up next, leaning his head on a fist as he paged through a strangely-sorted version of the store menu with his other hand. “I’ve gone up against their diver a few times, he’s got a particular habit for hammering in on mid. It shouldn’t be an issue if he keeps that up, but with a few Leaders in the mix he might get told to knock it off. If he focuses elsewhere, I’ll be trying to translate any leads I get to other lanes.”

“Exactly what we want to hear,” Jade said, nodding.

The barrier came down around them, disappearing with the meeting table, and they headed out to their lanes.

He made it to lane without any issues, listening to some chatter back and forth between Jade and Jessica as they lined up the south side of the map to let them know if the enemy team pushed into it, and turned his attention to the woman he’d be up against.

Fairly normal clothing, so that wasn’t where she’d spent yet, and a visible wand told him that he was up against a calculation-type, and the calm confidence of her movements confirmed what he’d expected about how she’d be approaching the lane.

She didn’t really see him as a threat.

That was fair, on its own. She’d need to try a lot less than he would to get similar results. He watched as he flicked the wand slightly, repeatedly, changing its point direction but not the rate at which it moved.

Even then, he almost missed it. Right at the beginning of another of one of those flicks, pointed at one of his mechs, a single extra hit slipped in between the pattern of her own mechs’ fire.

Travel time, invisible, and playing it confusingly…

Air user, probably an air elementalist caster.

Given that she was in northlane, and that the hit hadn’t pushed the minion away at all, he was fairly certain he knew what set she was running.

Difficult, because if she actually had Turbulence, Skystep, and Wall of Wind, he’d be unable to push into her effectively, and with Air Bolt being essentially invisible, he’d take a lot of damage for trying, too.

Even just stepping into the front line of minions, striking out from just behind them with his spear, she used some of those Air Bolts to whittle away at his and his minions’ shields, even while his strikes making contact with the enemy lines tried in vain to repair them.

Not completely in vain.

They did keep the wave out for just that little bit longer, allowing him to take out two of the back-line minions and secure the income they provided before his last frontliner fell, forcing him to Item-possess his spear back to the three remaining.

Just in time, too, as a Wall of Wind fell into place behind where he would have been, drawing the grass in the area flat.

And pointed towards her.

He resisted the urge to smirk as that confident smile fell slightly. An obvious trick like that wasn’t going to get him this early.

He only had a couple of waves before he’d need to be ready. The attacks were mostly invisible, and he couldn’t really afford to run her down on energy.

But she’d set up the batting cage- all he needed to do was learn what he was swinging at.