Day two had barely begun, and it was already not going well.

In contrast to yesterday, Doug hadn’t bothered to bring the team together at all, instead opting for a glare at him and Emma, then just standing over to the side with his arms folded.

It was possible that he was trying to get the rest of the team to come to him, but, at least in the time that was allotted before their game began, nobody did.

Which didn’t help his mood any.

Not that Quince had anything against that.

Or at least, not in theory– it had had a very quick knock-on effect, leading to the team’s communication in-game being stunted as well.

And while Doug not talking was a step up in his book, it also meant that nobody else was talking, and therefore was basically playing like a particularly bad pick-up team from the lower ranks.

They were more effective on an individual level, of course, and Emma was doing her damndest to keep them in the game regardless, it was not enough to make up the difference. He’d been ahead of his lane opponent, but that alone was nowhere near enough to pull out a win against an actually coordinated team.

Before the late-game had rolled around, they pinned their carry to him and occasionally threw in mid as well, constantly forcing him to play things defensively while also building up their own lead.

With Doug refusing to back him up any, Greg not paying attention to anyone else on the team and just moving towards the largest collection of enemies, and Jonah being almost completely shut out of the bridges, the game was lost fifteen minutes before 6PiaT finally closed out the game.

And as always, the name “6 Pigeons in a Trenchcoat” added insult to injury.

The funny kind of insult, in his opinion, but that did not appear to be shared among his teammates.

Jonah looked uncomfortable, Greg was staring blankly at the table, Emma had yet to make contact with anyone in the room, and Jacob looked like he was trying to shrink back into his chair and hide.

Still, even with his pointed glares and obvious want for other people to ask for his help, Doug was the first one to speak.

Stolen story; please report.

Quince tried very hard to keep the smirk off of his face.

“Okay. Last game sucked. We lost all over the map. Quince, when you’re losing, you need to ask for help so we can pull you out.”

That was a weird angle. He and Jacob had struggled more than he had, and that was including the fact that their entire mid-game had them numbers-favored or even against people who weren’t even fed.

Which wasn’t to say that it was, as a tactic, ineffective.

“I got the help that I needed. I’ll admit that I got shut out later on, but they assigned two people to me, one and two halves to Emma, then one to you in south and two people trading off for mid and canopy.”

“Don’t try to talk your way out of it. We might not have done that well, but you’re the new guy here. I’m starting to think that you’re not a good fit for this team long-term.”

Tempting. It was oh-so-tempting to just agree with him and pull out then and there, screw the mark it would leave on his record.

But no, that was the intent. Having a team member leave in the middle of a set could be spun as not his fault, as something that the people Doug actually considered to be his team weren’t at fault for the poor performance.

“We could always try a different strategy. I’m sure that if I didn’t push as much, they’d be happy to leave me up against their north laner.”

Doug saw that for what it was. “No, you’ll do much better pushing things.”

Annoying, that he somehow managed to be both smart enough to see through things like that and still fail to get the second play or how to not be an asshole.

“Of course. But if you want me to be able to do that, you’ll need to keep their carry in her lane. Of course, from what I’d expect of you, she’s not good enough to stop that from happening.”

Keeping the air quotes out of his voice was more of an effort than he’d thought. The woman playing carry for 6PiaT had barely needed her support there to keep him pinned to the base. With the support, she’d been able to do it without taking basically any damage, because without a teleport or hard crowd control outside his ultimate, he was stuck unable to aggress over longer ranges.

Frankly, he didn’t expect this game to go much better than last one. All the posturing he was doing with Doug was just burning time so that the other team members didn’t need to deal with him as much.

Plus, it would reflect well on him when he was applying to another team.

Not that this was likely to be enough for a good team to pick him up. He’d need to find another team, one willing to take him on with little to go on beyond two good games and two games being shut out by force of numbers.

“She’s not, obviously. I haven’t seen any women who actually do the carry role justice. Obviously they’re much better supports and rangers, and can be somewhat decent northlaners.”

Quince’s eyebrows went up, but he decided that it was better to just shut up at that point.

He hadn’t actually expected Doug to say something like that. The bait had been there, but he’d mostly been trying to get him to admit that the other side’s carry was as good or better than he was.

Besides, with the way Emma’s posture had changed from nervous to a taut kind of angry, it was probably unnecessary.

With the way the other members of the team were looking at Doug, Quince was inclined to believe that, even had he not known the team’s history, he would have been able to guess it from that fifteen-second video clip.