Chương 19: Improvise

After that crushing humiliation, the rest of the day had flown by. I had spent most of it working out and practicing stances. In my mind's eye, I kept seeing how Tancred moved, and I kept applying different adjustments and refinements to try and consider how much it would have changed. Every time, it felt just a bit off. While I could withstand that jab to the eyes with my chin tucked, the issue was following through. I'd need to refine on follow-ups and evasion. Jairo mentioned ducking and dodging.

Sounded like that was the next thing to have to learn. That would require fighting something I'd have to dodge, however, and Sandy was likely out of commission from how I beat it. Come the following morning, I received a knock on my room's door. Heading up the stairs and opening it revealed to me that Christian stood there, carrying multiple plastic bags in his arms and a smile on his face.

"Got you some room-warming gifts. I didn't want to pick out anything big before you had a choice in it, but I know you've been in the same clothes for a couple of days." Not entirely the same. The shirt's been ripped up enough to be different.

"So, Perry gave me your sizes and I went out and got you a bunch of basic stuff just so that you can wear something else. Our meeting's gonna be in about an hour, so you should take this time to clean up and get ready." Chris reached out, offering the bags to me. By sheer circumstantial pressure, my only choice was to take the bags. Using my foot to close the door, I was left in silence with bags of loose clothing. My only choice at that point was to bring them downstairs and go through them.

Just simple items like shirts and pants. All solid colors. Pants were a mix of slacks and jeans. One set of cargo pants, which was at least useful. Among them was a bright orange shirt. Not touching that one. I assembled a set of clothing to dress up in, heading into the bathroom and showering off the past few days. Last time I had cleaned this thoroughly wasn't for a couple of months; I had to use a gym's shower after breaking in. This felt different, a little better at least.

A quick trip up the stairs to the common area afterwards showed the rest of the team were there, including Dr. Way and her kids. Actually a bit surprising. Couldn't help but comment on it.

"Are they making you go to the meeting too?" Dr. Way, who was squatting by her kids and fixing their clothing, nodded.

"I don't have an alter ego and there shouldn't be many times I need to go out, but I am actually one of The New Sentinels. And the kids are with me for obvious reasons. They've got a daycare nanny on the weekdays that's gonna pick them up in admin, so I'll be right behind you guys." Made sense. My gaze moved to the rest of the group, who finally had a word to get in edgewise.

"You look a lot better with sleeves," commented May, who was eating cereal at the island. What a nice comment.

"What, you didn't wanna go with the Sentinels colors?" asked Christian as he sat in a folding chair by the TV. Shook my head.

"You didn't get me a purple shirt." That was met with a shrug. Jairo, who seemed almost allergic to shirts given he was just wearing a vest jacket, just shot me a thumbs up from the foam cube pit that he was just lounging in.

"I think sleeveless is cool but I'm not you." Actually pretty reasonable response. I took a seat at one of the stools, leaning an arm on it.

"When are we going to the meeting?" Chris took the initiative on answering.

"Just waiting on Tancred right now-" The Devil didn't even wait until he was fully spoken of. The door to the upper floors was opened by the auditor, who had his arm slung in a cast. He didn't even look at me.

"Meetin' time, kids. Please act normal." He brought his good arm up, drawing a circle in the air with his finger before turning around and immediately walking back to the spiral stairway. We followed. Chris was at the front while May and I were next to each other. Jairo was behind us, bantering with the toddlers. The banter ended not long after we hit the first floor and the scientist broke off to head to the admin floor. Tancred, meanwhile, led us back to the room where I was humiliated.

It seemed cleaned up from before, though the heavy bag was gone. Must have worked overnight to clean that up after Jairo likely reported the issue, going by the yell I heard from him on my way out. Standing inside of it were two people, both adult men. The first was almost the definition of a mundane adult American man. Little bit shorter than me. Blonde hair. Polo and khakis. Blue eyes. The main features that stood out to me were how he was different from that mold.

He almost looked like a bird, with a prominent curved nose and deeply set eyes. Like a bird who magically turned into a man. The other man was in better shape, but a little older looking. He seemed almost wiry, the only reason I couldn't call him thin was the clear muscle definition along his forearms. His hands looked bulbous and out of place. Clear signs of repeat breakage. This guy hurt people before. A lot. His focus was on some papers he was holding that he was reading through. After the team, except for Dr.

Way, piled in, Tancred introduced us.

"Fellas, this is the team. Stringbean redhead there is Christian Lofield, team leader. Hero name's Flowstate. The girl next to him is May Hart, goes by Spectroma. The lanky sad-sack here is Leo Holt, his alter ego is Hercules." Don't remind me.

"And the kid with the aversion to shirts is Jairo, name's Teiú." Jairo perked up.

"You're really good at pronouncing that!" He commented. Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators! Tancred waved it off with his good hand.

"Kid, it's all in Roman letters. It's not like I'm reading Georgian or something." He then returned to his main topic.

"Anyways, you've got all your briefs in your papers there. Eliza went over curriculums and such, I'm gonna leave you to it." The agent then cast his gaze over us, his sunglasses hiding his eyes.

"Best behavior. You fuck up, I'll know." A very encouraging man. As he left, the blonde man spoke first, raising a hand to wave.

"Hokay, guys, my name's Martin Dyrdek. I received a master's in drama at Juilliard and I'm one of the advisors of UVA's program for majoring in drama. Between those two points I've been on Broadway, in Hollywood, and a lot of voice work in children's animation." May immediately spoke up.

"What shows did you voice?" The advisor squinted into the distance as he seemed to search for an answer.

"The one most people tend to mention to me when they recognize my voice is the horse from this show back in 2004, Stallionsworth. I also voiced a chicken in another movie. Like just an actual chicken." I looked over, exchanging a glance with Christian. He did not return it as much, and seemed outright excited. However, I couldn't say the same, as my curiosity took the wheel.

"A chicken?" Dyrdek glanced at me, then upwards as he noticed the height disparity.

"It was a gag role. And I still got an Emmy for it." The other man looked over at Martin with an eyebrow up.

"You won an Emmy for that?" The drama teacher responded with a dejected, quick addition.

"It was a daytime Emmy." The more muscular man laughed, patting him on the shoulder.

"Hey you got better than I did. I've got a Taurus but no one cares about those," he said before looking to the group and speaking. His voice was scratchy and boomy. Like there clearly was depth to it but perhaps years of screaming wore that away from him.

"My name is John Gabriel, former professional wrestler, stuntman, stunt coordinator, and coach. I've wrestled in just about every major promotion around the world, though I was most well known for my time in Stampede Wrestling up in Canada as Johnny 'Mr. Heart-Throb' Angel."

"I never heard of it," I admitted. He shrugged.

"That's okay. Two million people still saw me leg drop DJD through a giant wooden shed from 20 feet in the air." The former wrestler shifted his posture.

"Still hurts when it rains. But anyways, I left wrestling because of crap like that and I moved into more regular stuntwork and coordinating stunt sequences in TV and movies, but now I also participate in UVA's theater program as an advisor for physical choreo and stunt sequences." John clapped his hands together.

"Martin and I are going to be teaching you guys a lot of key things about theater-style acting, the idea being that since you're gonna be superheroes in public, it's all a performance similar to a stage play or a wrestling match except you're the only ones in on it and the bad guys aren't." That didn't sound very convenient.

"Since a theatrical experience is done live," Martin interjected, "There is a key factor of improvisation always being necessary. Things can just happen that no one can predict. An actor can break their ankle because they stepped off the bus weird, someone runs up onto the stage naked, the stage literally lighting on fire, anything!" Jairo made another comment.

"Has all that happened to you before?" The actor looked at him with a thousand-yard stare.

"You wouldn't believe the stuff I've seen, kid." The wrestler piped up.

"Naked people in the ring happen a lot more than anyone ever warns you. Beer makes everyone stupid." He wasn't wrong. Martin continued, rolling his hands.

"Additionally there's all sorts of little things alongside improvisation that acting can do, like give you good foresight and figuring out what has the most consistent impact to be heard. And wrestling, like with Johnny here, teaches you how to live your role but also how to switch in and out of it." John took over from there.

"When you're actively performing in the ring, and you have a character, you gotta really live like that character. It's why I advise more novice wrestlers to pick a character who's just got a few quirks and nothing too crazy. Otherwise you've gotta run around with sock-puppets that curse out people all the time." Chris chimed in, "Did you have to do that?" He shook his head.

"No but I know a guy who did and ended up penning a work that killed that entire character off. Now his new ring gimmick is that he just really likes fruit juices." He then clapped his hands together.

"Alright, so now with introductions out of the way we wanna do some one-on-ones just to get to know everyone, time 'em about fifteen minutes a pop. Rusty, you come with me," John noted as he pointed to Christian and gestured for him to follow. Martin glanced among the group before leveling a hand towards Jairo.

"I'll start with you, let's go." He went off to another corner. Christian and Jairo both wandered off after them to their respective corners, leaving me with May.

"I wonder if I've seen Martin in anything," was what she mused. Another voice broke out an answer.

"You could try and get him to tell you his whole filmography, but he'll probably try to keep the focus on you." Dr. Way's. Glancing over to see her, she was still in her lab coat and rainboots. I was worried she wasn't showering, but that wasn't a question you could just ask. Crossing my arms, I decided to participate in the conversation.

"Do you think you're going to get anything out of this, Way?" She tilted her head. My gesture had further spread.

"I mean, if nothing else I think it'd be fun to come up with more interesting presentation of my technology. Maybe I can finagle my way into a special effects program." May followed upon that.

"What, like you're gonna build something from a monster movie to show up along with us?" A hum was audible from the mad scientist.

"You know... I wasn't thinking of that. Now I am. The drone program could get real interesting now." The two of them continued to talk about their scheme for monster drone things. I wasn't particularly interested; I just wanted this meeting over with. The faster these days end, the faster the lockdown will probably end. Those tree men were going to come back at some point. We needed to be ready and we couldn't do that if we were stuck in this building. This was a good moment to think about it at least.

Mentally reviewing what that whole fight was like, there were some key things to understand. They appeared out of nowhere. Their insides are flammable but their outsides aren't. Just breaking their limbs off doesn't actually harm them, they'll heal from it by remaking their limbs with vines on the inside. Those vines must be the flammable part. When they left, a bunch of vines wrapped around them and pulled them into the ground. No holes were left by this. Had to be some kind of magic.

But the magic seemed specific enough to only take their living parts. That's how Sam got one of their limbs. They didn't seem very tactical, they were reliant on brute force. The tree men only backed away when they were lit on fire after being so smug about not being harmable. Everywhere I hit had nothing sensitive. Even when they made noises like they were in pain, it didn't seem like it was interfering with them that much. According to Tancred, a cult was in talks with them. Dr.

Way talking about drones stood out in that moment. Were the tree men-"Hey, beanpole, your turn." My concentration broke from the sound of John Gabriel's voice. Turning my gaze on him, my head cocked.

"C'mon, time for our one-on-one." I'd have to talk to Samantha or Tancred later about that line of thought.