Fights with this many people were less a matter of thought and more a matter of instinct.

For example– he hadn’t seen the fired grenade before it landed within the arena, blowing up a significant chunk of it, but he’d still managed to Blink out of its path immediately before.

That didn’t save him from one of the hardlight arrows from Jessica’s follow-up shot, but that was still enough that his shield stayed together.

With his attention already drawn in so many ways, between holding his penultimate’s portal open, keeping the Void Wall active, and trying to keep track of the bruiser so that Nathaniel could interrupt the water-guy if he got too close, he was almost too late to notice the enemy carry and mid coming over the lip of the arena, and barely managed to dodge the incoming fire from the midlaner’s plasma rifle.

It was a good thing that the plasma globs traveled slower than bullets, but he was still on the last dregs of shield. He could use the booster, but he only had two of those…

Nathaniel dropped the Void Wall, but held the portal open still, running as fast as he could to stay ahead of the four people who were now focused on him.

Support, bruiser, midlane, and ranger all focused him, and he couldn’t tell what was shooting where as he dodged to the best of his ability, before another hit knocked out his shields and the choice was made for him, throwing away a shield booster to bring them back up to half-strength.

‘Damian has been slain with [Challenger’s Callout: Strike]’

“Fucking–“ Nathaniel started, but cut himself off. That wasn’t helpful, and his shields were already going down anyways.

He fired off a Void Strike at the midlane and carry, trying to force them off their position more than trying to damage them, but the midlaner didn’t even flinch, instead continuing to fire at him, barely avoiding true friendly-fire, and often making contact with the massive amount of water that was chasing him around the arena.

The ping of a friendly penultimate told him that Jessica was committing to this fight.

Callout would be reset, so was it him or…

‘An enemy has been slain by Jessica with [Artemis (Aspect of Quick Death)]’

Jessica.

That woman was not having a good time. Both he and Jessica had had enough damage to render that particular ultimate useless on them.

She shouldn’t be playing it in a random game, anyways.

Still, there were five enemies and only two of them. He had to burn the next, and last, shield booster on diving through the bruiser’s water-wall again, this time to avoid a bolt from both the support and the ranger. He couldn’t tell where exactly they were aimed, but both did manage to pull some of the water out, at least.

Three crackles were like music to his ears.

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His allies had finally taken his portal, and he snapped it shut behind them, throwing up another Void Wall right behind him, whereupon he heard a crackle as the support ran straight into it, again.

Diane jumped straight in, turing into an icicle and flying right at the carry.

Another Ultimate sound, and he nearly jumped out of his skin as an enormous blast of plasma went tearing by him.

He wasn’t the target, though.

‘Helen was slain by [Contained Star]’

Apparently Kurt had gotten out somehow, but he was too busy to check on how.

‘An enemy has been slain by Kurt with [Target Lock: Strike]’

More ultimates started going off, but he finally heard the ones he was waiting for.

Tidal Crest and Form of Fire.

Both ridiculously powerful in their own right.

Also very, very easy to counter.

For him.

Another Blink, this time next to Jessica, nearly at the maximum range of the ability and setting it on the full thirty-second cooldown.

But also, as he slammed the spike down from his inventory, disconnected from everything from her link to all of his wards, and activated his own ultimate, entirely worth it.

Impossible Room appeared in an instant, grabbing both the bruiser and the carry in its radius as he got another notification that one of his allies had been slain, the midlaner taking Kurt.

Down to sixty concentration, but he still needed to dodge as she quickly changed targets to him.

He was a little bit shocked when Jessica stood in front of him, trading metal arrows for plasma bolts on her shield instead of letting him figure it out on his own. All he had to do was last the forty remaining seconds for both of the enemy ultimates to expire.

And with Diane and the enemy Support ulting, it was looking like that might be possible.

The support’s Zone of Safety make her midlaner invulnerable, but Diane’s Twin Stasis rendered her equally unable to attack.

It was a staredown from everyone, though he and Jessica, as well as the enemy support, still had the freedom to move.

Another Penultimate, now, creating an enormous block of ice over the enemy midlane’s head.

Followed by the midlaner’s own, blowing it out of the way with a blast of plasma. It wasn’t enough, though, and Jessica took her out with another two metal arrows.

His own count was getting low, though. He could technically maintain the Impossible Room for another twenty seconds, while the enemy ults would only last for another ten.

That wasn’t the plan, though.

He threw one high-use ward out, bringing his concentration to thirty reserved for the ward, twenty-seven free, and one hundred twenty low-priority reserved for the ultimate, maintaining the teleportation-walls around the two most dangerous members of the enemy team.

Ten seconds later, he threw out another high-use orb, reserving over the ultimate’s concentration.

The five walls exploded.

He could already see the carry, their body made out of flame but their shield now destabilized from some combination of the explosion, his ally's water, and Nathaniel’s passive, but that didn’t save Diane, a Shield Bash from the support knocking her into a Flame Wall, where a Salamander bolt knocked her out.

The carry flash stepped towards Nathaniel, and he ran through his options on instinc before throwing the last of the flash-bangs he had manually, teleporting a high-explosive behind the now-physical carry.

The flashbang blinded him, of course, but it also distracted the carry.

‘You have slain an enemy with [HE grenade]’

‘Jessica has slain an enemy with [Painseeker]’

Even though the game lessened the effect of flashbangs from what they’d be in reality, he still had difficulty keeping his balance, trying to track Jessica first with his fuzzy vision.

Fairly certain of where she was, he teleported again.

That might have been a mistake, though.

Instead of heading for her, like he had been, the bruiser redirected to him, activating Waverider again.

He closed his eyes in resignation before being hit by the wave.

The wave came, but it turned out his resignation may have been in error.

‘Jessica has slain an enemy with [Metal-infused Painseeker Arrow]'

'Eradication'

Instead of killing him, the wave broke his shields and carried him five meters back before dissipating onto the ground.

“Holy shit, we won?” Jessica yelled.