"I know exactly what the other team is going to do," William repeated, since it seemed like nobody heard him the first time.

He and his teammates were currently sitting in a practice room far from the other team, and the atmosphere seemed dismal at best.

Levi sat by himself against one wall, headphones over his ears, and the other contestants were spaced out in a semicircle, leaving the immediate area around William bare.

Despite the camera, nobody seemed particularly enthusiastic, and William was basically carrying the entire conversation by himself.

"I SAID that I know exactly what the other team is going to do," William repeated, forcibly smiling as he looked around.

"So? What the hell does that have to do with us?" Levi asked coldly.

"Don’t curse." William snapped, not in the mood to deal with Levi’s prickly personality, which had gotten even pricklier for some reason.

"Make me."

"Oh, don’t worry. I will."

The already cold atmosphere of the room dropped several more degrees before Carlos, the eldest in the room, spoke up in a placating manner.

"Okay, okay. Let’s all calm down. Levi, if you curse, the PD’s will make us redo the clips over and over again, and she might feel petty and put it in the episode, so let’s avoid that. Okay?"

"Tsk."

Levi clicked his tongue and looked away while Carlos turned to William.

"And William, what does the other team have to do with us? We need to come up with a plan for the song we’re going to create and the type of performance we’ll give. Jelissa and Larry Jackson plan to be in a song-making boot camp with us tomorrow, so let’s nail things down. Right?"

Carlos glanced around the room for support, and all of them nodded quietly in agreement.

Forcing a smile, William deigned to explain his thought process to these losers who couldn’t see the bigger picture.

"It matters because this is a competition, and we have to beat them to secure extra votes on the day of the performance. I don’t know about you all, but I plan on debuting by any means necessary."

"Don’t worry, we know. We’ve seen what you’re willing to do." Levi interrupted, causing a few people to snicker before hiding it behind a cough.

After shooting a furious look at Levi, who didn’t care in the slightest, William continued his thoughts, "As I was saying, our team performance is our time to shine and our time to snag as many bonus votes as we can. It pains me to admit it, but that other team is a bit talented in creating and executing performances."

"A bit? Between Ari, Justin, Jamie, and Benjamin, haven’t they lapped you each time there’s been a performance? All without cheating. You should be ashamed of yourself." Levi interrupted again, his sharp eyes glaring daggers at William.

Finally sick of it, William stood up and marched over to where Levi sat, looming over him.

"Do you have a problem with me?"

"You just figured that out? Glad to see your brain partially works." Levi shot back.

"Then instead of making slick comments like a little girl, come out and say it with your chest," William growled before snatching Levi’s headphones off his head.

"The next time you touch me or my things, I’ll make you regret it," Levi promised, standing up from his position and shoving William backward as he snatched the headphones back.

"You friggin-"

"Now, now, let’s all calm down. Calm down. No fighting." Carlos immediately got between the two of them, trying to calm things down while looking at the cameraman for help.

Unfortunately, the man simply shrugged while making sure to capture the scene carefully.

Sighing, Carlos began trying to reason with the two angry people.

"William, as the leader of the team, you need to be calm and take control of the conversation. You can’t behave like this or snap at people. Go take a water break and come back in five minutes. In-su, Jerome, why don’t you both go with him and help him calm down?" Carlos sternly interjected.

"Don’t tell me what to do!" William snapped.

"Okay. That’s fair. But you still need to calm down. Go get some water, splash it on your face, and come back. We really don’t have time for this, and you know it."

After glaring at Carlos for a moment, William dusted himself off and stomped out of the room while Choi In-su and Jerome Tyler ran after him.

With William’s exit, the tense room immediately got calmer.

Then Carlos turned to Levi, who was already sitting down with his headphones over his head, staring mullishly into the air.

As Carlos met Levi’s furious eyes, he was reminded of when his two little brothers, Antonio and Luis, got into huge fights and were just furious with each other.

Having gotten a bit closer to Levi after practicing for the surprise showcase, Carlos opened his mouth to give some big brotherly advice, but before he could say anything-

"Don’t talk to me. And don’t meddle in my business next time. That goes for all of you." Levi spoke to him coldly before looking away.

Carlos: "....."

Okay. Maybe he was the only one who thought they had gotten close.

With a deep sigh, Carlos began to miss Benjamin and Ariel.

Benjamin, because he would definitely know what to say to get everyone’s mood up, and Ariel, because he seemed to be the only one who knew how to handle the volatile Levi while getting him to cooperate.

Clutching the cross under his chest, Carlos fervently prayed that this last round would go smoothly.

After several minutes, the door finally opened.

But instead of William coming back alone with Jerome and Choi In-su, he came back with Wilford Forbes and PD Emily, who looked annoyed.

"Hello team, we came to listen to your ideas about what type of performance and song you’ll be creating for the finals. Has there been any trouble, or have you all been getting along?"

As Wilford Forbes gave them a bright smile and William smirked behind him, Carlos just wanted to sigh.

As someone who wanted to see the best in everyone, he truly hoped that William had learned his lesson from this past incident, but clearly, he hadn’t and had even called in-person support.

Now, it seemed that his dream of collaborating and delivering a strong final performance had been tossed in the trash. All he could do now was manage the fallout that was sure to follow and try to keep this already-fragmenting group together.

Smiling politely at Wilford, Carlos glossed over the incident before Levi said something crazy.

"We’re still working out the kinks in our communication style and haven’t really gotten to the meat of what we want to do yet."

"Really, because William told me that he had a great idea that he hadn’t gotten to speak on yet, for one reason or another. Mind explaining?"

"I’m that reason. Problem?" Levi raised his hand with a sharp smile.

After meeting Levi’s eyes, as someone who was familiar with the kind of temper he had, and even worse, the kind of temper his father had, Wilford just chose to ignore him.

"I recommend you calm down before you do something you regret, Mr. Temple. If you continue being disruptive, even your father won’t be able to help you in time. Now, William, what were you saying? The floor is yours."

As Wilford backed up, William stepped forward with a smug smile and, for the 100th time, began his spiel that nobody wanted to listen to before.

"As I was saying earlier, I know what the other team is going to do, and we just need to beat fis-, the French one at his own game."

"The French one has a name, so use it. And I keep asking the question, and you never give me an answer. What does that team and what they plan to do have to do with us?" Levi interjected once again, shooting Wilford Forbes a look as if daring him to do something.

"Pick up a book sometime, Leviticus, instead of voicing cartoons all day and listening to nonsense. You might actually get smarter. The basics of war are that if you know your enemy and know yourself. Since...HIS performances are always well-received, and he’s our enemy this time; we should take a page from his book and try to beat him at his own game. Obviously. Any questions?" William asked smugly with an expression that said he thought what he said was profound, and now he was waiting for someone to actually ask him something.

The room was silent for several seconds until Rex accidentally caught the eye of Wilford Forbes, who began signaling for him to say something.

Holding back a sigh and forcing a smile, Rex raised his hand.

"Yes. Go ahead, T-rex."

"It’s Rex. No T. What exactly do you mean by beat him at his own game?"

"I’m so glad that you asked. I’m glad to see that somebody has a winners mindset. Now," William paused to look around dramatically, "if you look at all HIS performances, you can tell he loves the dramatics. And he especially loves the white-to-black color scheme. It’s basically like his signature at this point. From the very first performance with the water and white shirts, to Like Swan with the white outfits painted with paint that turned black under the lights, to the pirate song, to this time in Korea with the fallen angel theme, he loves the transition from white to black or from black to white on stage. He loves that cheap shock-value, and he’s reused it so many times, and the audience keeps falling for it. If you look back on it, you’ll see that I’m right, and if you remember in the very beginning, what did he look like? He had thick white face paint with black designs on it. He’s not creative, that’s his schtick, and he’s been recycling it this whole time!" William explained passionately with an almost crazed look in his eyes.

As they thought about William’s words, everyone thought about Ari’s previous performances, which people always mentioned, Williams words were mostly right.

White, white and black, white again. There was a red outfit in between, but he really liked a dramatic white-and-black color scheme.

And when it was connected to Ari’s original makeup that he used to wear 24/7, the theme was even more apparent.

Seeing that everyone was actually listening and considering his words, William spoke with even more confidence.

"And as for his style of music. From the things he’s arranged for his team to the stuff he’s created, the pattern there is even simpler because he’s not particularly creative. He usually just has a basic melody and adds lots of vocal layering, harmonies, and has a story within a story. Literally copy and paste across all songs. That’s the breakdown of his performances. Trust me, I’ve done the research, and I’ve done the math. That’s the winning formula that we need, and since we have the pieces rap, vocals, dance- we can do the same thing and even better," William said passionately.

"So...what you’re saying is you want us to copy Ari’s past performances? I don’t like that. We should come up with something of our own." Mathew asked with a confused expression.

"Why is it copying? Did he invent those concepts? Was he the first one to put it together? The first to use it in history? Of course, he wasn’t! Were you all saying this when you all used the waterfloor concept in one of the rounds? No, you didn’t, so get off your high horse and have the mentality to do whatever it takes to win. Besides, what I’m saying is what every company in the world does: collect data, identify trends, and use those trends to make an informed decision. These are the trends that fans who come to watch us like, consistently vote for, and talk about. We’re just using that data to help guide what we’re doing for the finals, which is the most important performance of our lives."

"No matter how you spin it, twist it, and justify it, that’s plagiarism, which is stealing. You didn’t get in enough trouble the last time, so you want to do it again?" Levi interrupted once again.

Truly sick of him, William decided to hit Levi back where it hurt.

"Aren’t you tired of talking? I’m sure you’ve used up your vocal quota for the week yapping in defense about someone who didn’t even choose an antisocial loser like you for his team and certainly won’t look your way when you’re not around."

"What did you say?"

"You heard me. anti-social, troublesome loser! It seems that you forgot you only got on this show because of me, so you’d better check that attitude, Levi! These people may think you’re big and bad, but I don’t. Besides, it’s not plagiarism because we’re not copying the past performances one-to-one. It’s just extrapolating ideas from gathered data, right, PD?" William turned to her with an expectant look.

"I mean, technically, you’re right." PD Emily answered with a shrug, causing William to smile wider.

"Then it’s fine. Based on past patterns, Ari’s team is probably going to do some grandiose storytelling performance again, following that white or black theme, so we just need to come up with a song and concept that fits that vibe, work with Jelissa and Larry, and we have a sure win on our hands, so we can get extra votes that will literally define our future. What do you all say?"

William asked as he watched each person’s expression, which seemed quite contemplative.

It seemed that his uncle was right, and the work he put into memorizing this speech was worth it.

Everyone seemed to approve of his analysis and would probably agree with his idea.

That is, everyone except-

"I say you’re an idiot, a thief, and a crook. And I won’t be involved in this nonsense," Levi announced before getting up and slamming the door.

BANG!

CRACK!

Staring at the broken door that fell to the ground with ripped out hinges and one of the mirror panels that had cracked from the force of Levi’s hit, Carlos let out another tired sigh before standing up.

Benjamin! Ari! I miss you both!

"I’ll go get him."