Mid-Piano Presents: The Squad

*RED GARDEN — LOADING — "MID-PIANO PRESENTS." Transcript, unedited, as recorded on whatever was running in the garage that day.*

**TYLER:** Different kind of episode today. Not lore. Behavior.

**DUCK:** For legal reasons, before we start: whatever "behavior" means, I did not do it.

**TYLER:** Nobody's accused you of anything.

**DUCK:** I'm getting ahead of it.

**TYLER:** Okay. So. For a while now, whenever you all get put on a team and told to go take a contested node, something's been going wrong. Not losing-the-fight wrong. Standing-right-there- and-somehow-not-capturing-it wrong.

**UNICORN (TEXT CARD):** I noticed this. I stood on the flag for what felt like several geological eras and nothing happened.

**TYLER:** Right. So here's what was actually going on, and I want Gary to weigh in on this one specifically, because it's kind of his whole deal.

**GARY:** I'm listening.

**TYLER:** There was supposed to be one of you — an anchor — who'd ignore everybody else milling around and just walk to the exact spot and stand on it. Whoever got picked for that job was based on... which numbered slot you happened to be standing in. Not which node you were actually heading to. Just a number, checked against another number.

**GARY:** So the anchor could be assigned to a node nobody assigned to that job was ever near.

**TYLER:** Correct.

**GARY:** And everyone else just orbited it forever.

**TYLER:** Also correct.

**GARY:** That's the least surprising thing I've heard all week. I don't chase. I've never chased. My entire kit is "stand somewhere and don't leave," and I get told constantly that this is unusual, borderline concerning behavior for a teammate to have. Turns out it's not concerning. It's just correct, and the rest of you have been doing it wrong by committee.

**DUCK:** That's extremely rude and also probably true.

**TYLER:** It's fixed now. Whoever's actually closest to a node — actually walking there, not just assigned a number that happens to match it — that's who anchors it. Real reason, not a coincidence.

**GARY:** Good. "This isn't a track meet" was never supposed to be a punchline. It was a strategy.

**TYLER:** There was a second problem, though, and this one's less "one guy stands still" and more "all of you, personally." Once the anchor thing got fixed, the whole team just... walked to the same node. Every single time. The nearest one. Together. As one guy.

**DUCK:** I resent "as one guy."

**TYLER:** You're a duck.

**DUCK:** I'm aware of what I am.

**TYLER:** Ducks flock. That's not an insult, that's a documented fact about your species.

**DUCK:** I have telekinesis and I work for the government. I do not "flock." Flocking is what regular ducks do. I am, and I want this in the transcript exactly like this, *not a regular duck.*

**UNICORN (TEXT CARD):** You quite literally just moved toward a node because everyone else did.

**DUCK:** That was strategy.

**UNICORN (TEXT CARD):** It was ten of you standing on top of each other while four other flags sat completely unguarded.

**DUCK:** Coordinated strategy.

**TYLER:** That's the actual fix, though — so let's bring in the guy whose whole kit is basically about this. MnM.

**MNM:** Yeah?

**TYLER:** Explain your R to the room. Not the rap version. The short version.

**MNM:** Somebody's gotta take the hit so the shell underneath doesn't have to. That's it. That's the whole bit, mechanically and otherwise.

**TYLER:** Right, so — new system splits everybody into smaller squads instead of one big pile, and each squad picks its *own* node instead of racing the other nine guys to the same one. And within a squad, same anchor logic as before: one of you actually stands on the spot, everyone else holds the ground around it.

**MNM:** So basically what I already do. Somebody takes the hit, somebody else gets to keep moving.

**TYLER:** Basically exactly what you already do.

**MNM:** Then good. Glad the rest of the roster caught up to the shell.

**LOKI:** Can I say something.

**TYLER:** Go.

**LOKI:** You're describing this like it's new information — "stick with your small group, spread out, don't all chase the same shiny thing." That's just what a smart crowd does naturally. I've been doing the small-group thing since before there was a group to be small in.

**DUCK:** He wasn't in the group. There wasn't a group. He's saying this now.

**LOKI:** I'm saying it *retroactively.* That's different from saying it late.

**TYLER:** *(to camera, or whatever the garage has instead of one)* We're Mid-Piano. Spread out. Still hold the flag.