36 The Team

The Wild Bunch, with the exception of Andres and Jeff, was standing in a line aiming down at a separate Ivan target. It was nice target practice. They needed the increase of firepower. Vanessa scored high, but Jaivva scored the highest. Whereas Logan scored second-lowest to Hakim. Regardless, they enjoyed their day of shooting at the range.

But what the hell is up with Logan thought the girls. For somebody so legendary, why can't he shoot? Vanessa and Jaivva took a break to help the boys. Dani smiled peaking over.

Their stances were perfect. So was their breathing. Vanessa couldn't figure out the problem.

Logan sighed, "Honestly, it's rare you would ever engage an opponent at this distance with a pistol".

"Can I see ya'lls gun skill boards? I'm curious," asked Jaivva.

Without hesitation, Hakim called a reality check. It took Jaivva a few minutes to realize his pistol courses were not completed. Her jaw dropped wanting to beat him. But she knew that grey-haired legend was just as guilty.

Logan answered her very thought, "Studying all day gets you nowhere. It's putting the material into good practice that wins battles. The game picks up on that. If you get the best scores in the shooting tests, great. But it's how you perform in battle which has more weight".

Jaivva wasn't having that crap. She threw on her gymnastics captain hat and chew into the boys.

Jeff dragged his feet into the middle of that scolding and called everyone in. Vanessa informed him that Logan's training idea helped them improve a lot.

He dismissed it all as trivial. Jaivva argued that their progress was nothing to brush off. In fact, everybody was now more efficient at 50-meters except Logan. He threw his hands to congratulate everybody.

"I checked the level for December's theme," said Logan as Jeff sighed loudly, "It was at level 3".

Jeff's eye widened, "What do you expect? This is what we are suited for and what we will do".

"How many levels are there?" asked Jaivva.

Vanessa answered, "Five".

"Shouldn't we be doing higher content? Like what level are the Paragon Sisters and El Chales doing?" asked Jaivva.

Hakim answered, "The Sisters typically do level 4 and El Chales level 5".

Jeff shrugged, "Okay. We are going to win this. But we need to take on what we can. Let's first do level 3. We will beat it. Then we can go back and beat level 4".

"If we have time," said Hakim.

Vanessa faintly smiled, "I won't be here long in December because I have to go visit my grandparents in Italy this Christmas".

"Look," said Jaivva while smacking her hands together for extra emphasis, "On my first day playing, me, Dani, and Logan got lost, killed a crap ton of aliens, and made a safe area".

Jeff was horrified as she continued, "Paragon Sisters blew us up. And the second day us three went back and shot them up. It was actually pretty easy. So don't think we are weaker than them. Because we are not".

Jeff's fury unleashed mere squabbles to the team.

Jaivva corrected him, "Oh no boo-boo. That was nearly three months ago. You are late-late on being angry".

Dani stood with her arms crossed, "Stop being scared. You said you were going to be a better leader, and pushing yourself is a part of that".

"Dani has spoken," said Hakim.

Jeff bit his lip as he called a reality check to change the Dember's team theme to level 4.

Though his lips were sealed, Logan couldn't thank the girls enough. Normally he would argue for hours to get maybe a decent challenge. But today it was all done by the team.

Dani knew Logan was happy. More importantly, she was happy as becoming a pro will set her on course to where she wanted to be.

Once the bickering died, Vanessa requested an announcement for the entire team. Funny enough, Dani led everybody outside. Jaivva and Vanessa were a bit shocked to see that this entire time he was outside with a beautiful brunette.

"Bye Lea!" yelled Logan.

Lea continued staring at Andres, biting her lips.

"Come on Logan," said Dani as she marched over.

Andres gave Lea a kiss before he ran over towards the team with his tongue hanging out.

Vanessa's jaw was dropped, "Did something happen between him and Iku"?

Everybody remained silent. Andres ignored Dani bickering to hear the announcement.

Vanessa rose her hands to her face, "Soooo, we were thinking and decided that it would be better for us to play if we had sponsors".

She saw the team smiling except Jeff, "So we are now going to make an Instagram account for the team where we post pictures, fighting, dancing, and all kinds of things so we can get sponsors".

Jaivva briefed them on the content added so far being what they accomplished since she and Vanessa joined.

Dani smiled big, "Y'all learned some things from the Paragon Sisters. That's what's up".

Logan began offering some tricks he knew to run a successful campaign. While he did believe it was too late to do so, he still felt it was worth the try. Dani began bugging him regarding the costs of obtaining battle clips.

It was expensive. Andres suggested it can only work if they work together. Vanessa and Jaivva glared at one another to figure out why the team never did it in the past. The two could not think of an answer but didn't see the value of investigating this.

Jeff scratched his head and noted that an Instagram account would be expensive to maintain, but that they can do it. He then proceeded to inform the team that the next month will be a high magic theme and that each member must be at their best for it.

Though dismissed, Logan wasn't done, "We'll coordinate later our fighting roles through the group chat. We should leave that to Andres and Hakim. Also, we'll be getting two temporary members assigned to our team for this event".

"Aaaah," said Vanessa, "Who"?

Dani smiled, "I don't know. But I'm excited to meet them. Their names are Mina and Leira".