"Not us." Ari muttered as Caleb walked back with a dejected expression.
"Awwwww, it seems that Ian is our winner. Better luck next time. D-class (1) are you ready?" The MC Ryan Leary laughed lightly as Ian's team organized themselves in a straight line in front of the judges.
As the heavy bass that signaled the beginning of the song came out, Ian and the rest of his teammates began to dance the choreography and sing their parts while maintaining the straight line.
When it was somebody's turn, the person stepped forward and then stepped back into the line when their turn was over.
The vocals and rap of the group were completely all over the place with some people making up words as they sang and rapped while others couldn't really hold a tune but there was no dead silence like the first team and everyone kept moving even if they made a mistake.
It seemed like the team had focused on really memorizing the choreography and ignored everything else.
And it worked because nobody stopped, stumbled, or made an egregious mistake.
Even when the music transitioned to the dance break, for the first time, crisp clasps and stomps that sounded like a unified body rang out.
Each person put their full strength into the stomps, jumps, punches, and kicks, truly embodying the song to the fullest extent.
Although the latter parts of their performance seemed to disintegrate as everybody seemed exhausted after putting their all into the nearly perfect dance break, Ari couldn't help but frown.
They were doing too good of a job.
This was exactly what he was afraid of and what he wanted to avoid.
His current team was attempting to accomplish everything at once, a jack of all trades if you will, and they could do none of it really well.
And the team with the same class as them had scrapped everything else but focused on executing one thing as best as they could.
Vocally, it was a complete mess, but visually, it looked pretty good.
If Ari was a judge, he would prefer the team that had cleanly accomplished one thing than a team that was trying to juggle everything without clear success.
And it seemed that the judges agreed with him as they began giving their feedback to the panting boys.
"Selena, since you mentored this class may we have your thoughts?" MC Ryan Leary asked Selena who was wearing a neat white dress with her hair in loose curls.
Selena looked over Ian and his panting team before smiling, "Well let's start with the good things here. I can see that each of you has put in time to learn the choreography. Although some moves were quite sloppy, it's clear that each of you has a good grasp on it. Additionally, you've had the best dance break so far. You're not quite perfectly synchronized but it's getting there keep working at it."
"Thank you." Ian bowed his head with a wide smile. It seemed that his gamble had paid off in selecting the best dancers for his team.
"Not so fast. And now for the bad. Even though you focused on grasping the choreography, you completely ignored the formations and transitions. Why?"
"Our team discussed it, and we figured it was better to learn the basics of the choreography first before adding things on to it. We've been working on it but decided to omit it for this performance since it wasn't worthy of being shown yet." Ian smoothly replied.
Selena narrowed her eyes at him for a moment before nodding her head, "If that's your decision, so be it but the reason for the evaluation is so you can be given feedback to improve. I just hope that your team doesn't begin working on it too late and run into issues that could have been addressed here. Either way good job."
"Thank you, Selena. Shall we hear some words from Larry Jackson, who was their vocal teacher?" The MC turned to Larry Jackson.
Larry tapped his chin once more, flashing the blinding watch at the camera once again before speaking.
"I'm sure you know what I'm going to say but I'll say it anyway. Vocally, that was terrible. You didn't memorize the lyrics, you sang in your own key, and clearly the only time you practiced was when you had your lessons. If all we wanted was your dancing skill, we would just hire backup dancers. We expect a complete performance from you all and you didn't deliver that at all. Do better in the future."
"Yes sir." Ian replied politely, even though he was internally surprised at the relatively mild critique (for Larry) that his team had just received. It seemed that he had been impressed by the dance break.
"Thank you, Larry. X-Ponent, do you have anything to add?" The MC turned to the trainer for rap.
"Not at all, I think my fellow judges covered it all and it seems that this team has a plan on how they want to accomplish the goal. I look forward to their results at the end of the week." X-Ponent cooly replied.
The three judges then briefly discussed before Larry stuck a laminated sheet with 'D-Class (1)' on the second lowest pyramid tier.
"D-Class (2), it's your turn. Please come up!" MC Ryan Leary called thier group up and Ari swallowed before taking off his snail mask and setting it on the ground.
As Ari walked forward to his position in the front, he caught Jamie giving him a thumbs up from the side.
Smiling lightly at Jamie, he got into position hoping that everything went right.
If it couldn't go right, he hoped that at least he wouldn't mess up.
He was confident in completing about 65% of the choreography but struggled specifically during the dance break that needed simultaneous use of strength, agility, and flexibility.
Once again, the urge to dump all his stats into dance surged through him but when that urged died when he saw Larry jackson smirk at him before speaking.
"I see that you're still painting your face strangely Ah-ri-el."
"Yes sir." Ari replied calmly before turning to glance back and make sure that everyone was in position.
Seeing that Caleb had encroached on Diego's space and was in the perfect position to be socked in the face because of the Diego's longer than average arm length, Ari gestured for him to back up.
"What?" Caleb glared slightly before fixing a smile on his face.
"You're in the wrong position. 2 steps back, 1 step to the right."
"I know I'm in the right position. Stop trying to boss me around." Caleb shot back.
Ari took a deep breath, repeating the words 'peaceful' and 'serenity' in his mind while keeping his face blank.
He was done caring.
If Caleb couldn't remember how many times he had to duck Diego's flying fist during morning practice, then he deserved to get a black eye.
He just turned toward the staff member who controlled the music and gave him a nod, "We're ready to start."