An ally has been killed!

  The red message fshed on Stratus's monitors. It happened so uedly that everybody just stared at it with dumb faces for a while.

  "Shit!" Kai smmed oable. "How could you let this happen!?"

  "My apologies," Vi said. "The Absolute Duo took us pletely by surprise."

  "You should've warded better then."

  "Indeed, we should have."

  "Nah," Luke intervened. "an. You got nothing to apologize for. We warded plenty, didn't we?"

  "Clearly not enough," Kai criticized. "Luke, you warded the minimum amount to save resources, didn't you?"

  "Weeeeelp, maybe." Luke ily rolled his eyes. "I mean, I'm a DK, so I gotta be smart with how I spend, ya know?"

  "So, you’re saying that you were smart with your spending?"

  "Yep."

  "And, what did it cost you in the end?"

  "Everything..." Luke hung his head.

  Not only did the enemy kill Vi, but hey set their eyes on Luke. The dangerous duo came straight at him and chased him out of the area. The nerve of these hooligans!

  So, on top of losing a rade, Luke also missed some precious farm. This was a devastating early-game loss for a DK.

  "Again, I sincerely apologize," Vi said. "If I exercised more caution, then we could've avoided this tragedy."

  "Nah, o apologize, man," Luke said. "These guys just showed outta nowhere and ganged on you. And, I wasn't eveo help ya because I ran ahead like a tool instead of making sure we stick together. Nobody saw any of this ing, man."

  "Even so," Kai argued. "Even if it was ued and Vince was isoted, I still would've expected him to survive, at the very least."

  It was being increasingly obvious that this turn of events frustrated Kai and she was hellbent oing. Somebody had to step in and cut this discussion short.

  "That duo unched a very calcuted attack," Yuel said. "As much as the oute frustrates me too, I 't fault Vi on this one. If anything, it's my fault for failing to sider this turn of events."

  In all the past scrimmages bihe Leopards had only used an early invade once, and it was against a team that they’d already beaten to a pulp in the first two rounds. That particur py looked like a case of Winner and Challenger messing around just because they could, so it was hard to take that example seriously.

  But, I remember they executed that iremely well. Yuel thought. I should've taken a mental note of it. That one example showed us that this duo was capable of going for invades, even if rarely. There wasn’t enough evideo clude that the Leopards only use invades against teams they uimate.

  Or, could it be that the Leopards were uimating Stratus at this very moment? Even though they had just suffered a crushi in the previous game? It sounded absurd but there was no saying for sure.

  Maybe it was a calcuted termove against our Dark Knight. Yuel specuted. This doesn't sound like an idea Cato would e up with, but I definitely see him pulling something like this just to aggravate us.

  Either way, what’s uable was that Vi's death will be a terrible setback for the team. So, Kai had every reason to be frustrated and Yuel shared much of the same se. With that said, there was no point g over spilled milk.

  "Luke, stick around Top until Vi es back," Yuel instructed.

  "Oh, so I gonop Laner for a while? Funny because DK excels at that shit. It's like I was made for this."

  "I trust you know how to use Dark Knight in Top?"

  "Well, duh.” Luke nodded. “Memeiends beyond just jungling, ya know? I admit I didn't practice DK in Top nearly as much, but I know my stuff. As they say, if one is to uand the great mystery, one must study all its aspects.”

  "Good.” Yuel nodded. “This arra should mitigate our losses at least a little."

  "Worry not," Vi reassured. “I shall return to work before you notice! I apologize for putting you through this hassle, but I assure you that you’ll only have to tend to my ne for a single wave at most.”

  "No worries, man.” Luke gave a thumbs up. “It’s partially my fault too, so I kinda think of it as taking responsibility."

  "That's a surprisingly good mentality you have there," Kai ented.

  "Hey, what do you mean 'surprisingly'? I always got that 200 IQ mentality."

  "Yeah, sure." Kai rolled her eyes.

  "y dudes," Lars intervened. "I know ya having fun chewing each other out and all that, but we gotta move on. What's happened, happened. We 't get too hung up on that bad start. It’s only gonna keep dragging us down."

  "My man here spittin' facts."

  "Fair enough." Kai gave it a rest for now. She'll have more than enough time to watch this game’s repy ter aermine who was really at fault for that py.

  Perhaps, as Yuel said, the enemy was simply to and anized, so this oute couldn't be helped. But, Kai called bullshit on that. Stratus wasn't a team of amateurs. They were serious challengers aiming for the top of the petitive se, so there was no such a thing as an "unavoidable" mistake for them.

  Well, I'm sure Yuel will analyze that py to death as well. Kai cluded. So, if there's anything more to it, we'll surely hear about it in the five-hour-long match review session...

  With that sorted out, the team moved on with the game. Fortunately, there weren't any ued developments oher side of the jungle, so the trio over there fiheir opening routihout a hitd went separate ways.

  Meanwhile, Luke maop Lane because its usual caretaker was amiss. He was supposed to be a Jungler meme, yet there he ying Top as any normal Dark Knight would. Ironic.

  DarkestCymore