The New Girls Are Taking Over

Who: Alexis, Lily, and Breezy
When: After school
Where: MSHS gym

She'd only been a MSHS student for two days, but when Breezy heard about try-outs for the dance team... oh, it had just been too tempting. Her parents could absolutely never know, she'd just tell them she was on the chess team or something. This was her last year as a proper teenager, dammit. She was going to do it right. So she showed up, picked a spot on the floor, and dropped her shit to claim it to sit through the try-outs.

Lily hit up the gym after school for tryouts, already dressed in her dance clothes, though she was none too optimistic. Not that she couldn't make it, because she knew she could. The question was, did she want to? She'd seen a video of the MSHS dance team on YouTube and it had not been pretty. She was distracted from such potentially depressing thoughts, however, when she caught sight of a familiar-esque figure sitting on the floor. "Holy shit," she said as she walked over, dropping her bag on the floor next to Breezy's. "Do you dance, too?"

"Hey!" Breezy said, looking up to see Lily. That was a pleasant surprise. "Surprise seeing you here!" she said, sounding excited, though she tried to keep her tone at least somewhat low and respectful for the girl currently dancing. Or trying to. "I grew up in ballet, but I didn't keep up with it when I got to high school. Then it was just... party stuff and copying shit I see in movies and videos. You?"

Lily grinned and dropped down to take a seat next to Breezy, facing her so she could start stretching without kicking her. "Lyrical and hip hop," she said, following Breezy's lead and keeping her voice low. "Since I was little, I used to dance on a squad back home. Outside of school, that is. But they don't have that here, so school team it is. Although," she said, leaning close to Breezy so she could whisper, "I have seen this team on YouTube. It's depressing."

Alexis had checked out the possibility of joining the cheerleading team, but had been cut off when she realized that she needed to know how to tumble. Seeing as how she couldn't even do a graceful cartwheel, she began to consider other options. Try outs for the dance team were just what she was looking for, if she could make the team. After changing into her work-out clothes, Alexis wandered into the gym, her footsteps slowing as she watched the girl currently trying out. I can do that... she thought, and set her bag down on the ground. "What's the process here?" she quietly asked the two girls nearest to her. One of them looked familiar. Maybe they had a class together.

"Are they that bad?" Breezy whispered, disappointed. Man, this was supposed to be fun - not humiliating. She looked up at the other new arrival, a blonde girl she sort of recognized. "Have a seat," she said, nodding to the ground. "They're calling girls out one at a time. You get to do a routine of your choice. Past that, I dunno - that's just what I've gleamed for watching. I'm Breezy. I think we have algebra together."

"Sadly, yes," Lily said, "though maybe this year will be better, I don't know. But it's either this, the studio where most of these girls take lessons, or street dancing, and I don't know if I'm up for finding a popular intersection yet, so here I am." She gave a friendly smile to the girl who'd just sat down. "I'm Lily," she introduced. "And usually there's a group routine; they'll teach us a couple counts and we'll do it in small groups so they can start making cuts."

"Hi, I'm Alexis," she said, taking a seat with them to stretch. She felt kind of silly in her gym clothes, pulling her hair back in a pony tail. If she had to do a routine on her own, she was going to be pulling dance moves from a music video or something. She hadn't planned on doing an improvisational dance at the audition. She looked at the girl currently dancing. "Isn't the objective to move with the music?" she whispered. "Do either of you know how big the team will be? And do the girls that were in it last year have to try out this year? Cause..." Yeah, they were awful, at least from what she was seeing now. She just didn't want to say that too loudly.

Breezy was in the same boat as Alexis, having not actually planned on doing this until a few hours ago. So, gym clothes and randomness. "I have no idea. Lily's actually seen them. I can't imagine it would be too big with how small the school is." She smirked at Alexis' comment on the girl dancing now. God, that was painful...

Lily was slightly more prepared than the other two girls, having known about tryouts yesterday, but after having seen the team's video, she hadn't put too much effort into her routine. She was just ganking one they'd been working on in her lyrical class back home and calling it a day. "That's definitely the objective, yeah," she said, shifting into a split. "It's just not happening." She didn't like to talk bad about other people, but... "The video I saw had them on the smallish side, but that's not to say they can't always expand. Usually you have to try out fresh every year, but who knows how they do it here?" She shrugged, bending forward until her head touched her knee, then switched legs to do the other side. "Honestly, are you that worried? Considering the competition?"

"No," Alexis said, unable to help smiling. "I'm pretty sure anything I throw out there can top that." She was careful to keep her voice low; she didn't mind Lily and Breezy hearing her, but it wasn't something she wanted to advertise to the whole gym. "How long have you been dancing?" she asked, watching as Lily did the splits. "It may take me a while before I can do that. Do both of you dance?" She didn't know if it had already been talked about, but with watching Lily, it seemed appropriate.

"Since I was little," Lily said. "I started with hip hop, my mom signed me up for girlier classes, and I kept up with both since then. You could probably get a split pretty fast if you practiced each day," she suggested. "My dance teacher used to tell us to do them during the commercials of whatever tv shows we watched. Figure like, a minute or so at a time a couple times a day and it comes pretty quick." Of course, they'd always had a ton of stretching in class, but still.

Breezy was going to have to try that. She wasn't sure if she could do the splits at current, she might just embarrass herself. "I did ballet until I was about thirteen or fourteen." Until it was too hard to keep up with when she was moving all the time. "I never had any training but I like hip hop and lyrical dancing. So it's mostly just me copying stuff I see on TV and youtube. How about you?" she asked Alexis.

Alexis had to remind herself not to be intimidated by Lily just because she'd had the training. It wasn't something she'd failed at; it just hadn't been available to her in the same sense. "I'm pretty much going with what you've got," she told Breezy. "I took some dance classes in elementary school, fourth and fifth grade, but I haven't taken a class since sixth grade maybe? It was all jazz, and pretty basic, but I can count music. Since then it's mostly been copying music videos and movies." It wasn't an impressive resume in the least, but if she'd never danced she wasn't sure she would have considered trying out in the first place.

"Well, it's pretty obvious that training doesn't mean much in here," Lily said quietly, pulling her legs in to sit indian-style, adjusting the hem of the calf-length tights she wore under her gray shorts. She pulled her illusion sandals out of her bag and slipped them on; they were nude-colored mesh on top and suede on the bottom, covering the balls of her feet with holes for the toes to show free, giving the look of dancing barefoot without ripping the skin off her feet trying to do turns on the gym floor. "I think if we can even half hold a proper rhythm we'll have it made."

Right around the time Lily said that, the current girl auditioning went for some sort of aerial that looked a lot more like a flail, and Breezy had to try hard not to laugh. When that didn't work, she stretched to touch her toes and hid her face in her legs. She was trying not to be mean, really she was. Right around the time she started acting like a total bitch she'd secure her fate and fall on her face. "What music are you guys using?" she asked, once she was able to pull off a straight face again.

Seeing Breezy's reaction, Alexis turned her eyes towards the dance floor, her eyes widening as she cringed. She knew she probably shouldn't be talking shit before she even got out there, but she knew her limits. She wasn't going to be pushing for something that would just look ridiculous, which was pretty much the current show. Looking back at the other two girls, she pressed her lips together and tried not to giggle. "Well, since I didn't realize I was gonna be breaking out a solo piece, I'm gonna have to go with something I know. Don't laugh," she warned them, tucking her hair behind her ear. "I think I'm gonna attempt Beep by the PussyCat Dolls."

Lily had to hide a snicker, if only because the music choice wasn't exactly one she would've thought Alexis would pick. Then again, she didn't really know the girl, either. "I can't really say much," she said. "I've got an acoustic version of Rihanna's 'Umbrella' that I'm using." It was the most recent thing she'd danced to; she hadn't felt like pulling out anything else and practicing older routines. "What about you?" she asked Breezy.

"I love those songs!" Breezy said, grinning widely. Although the Pussycat Dolls definitely were in her contraband music. If her parents even heard the name of the group they would probably be horrified. "Ciara's Like a Boy. I love the strings." she said. And even if the song was about something different, she could definitely relate to wanting to be able to switch genders once in a while.

"Those are both good!" Alexis said, excited to see the other girls dance. She had to admit, if she'd known she was going to be performing, she might have aimed for a song or dance that was a bit more school appropriate, but at least all the words were beeped out. Fabulous. "I'm nervous now, but I think we'll be fine," she said, despite the fact that she hadn't seen either one of them dance yet. For all she knew, they could be just as bad as the girl that was just up. Alexis was fairly certain that if she'd known how bad she was, she wouldn't be up there shaking her stuff.

"I like both of yours, too," Lily said, grinning at Alexis. "Good thing yours comes pre-censored, right?" She drew her right arm behind her head to stretch, switching to the left after a few seconds. "We're going to be fine," she said firmly. Unless they were bad, but it'd have to be pretty spectacularly bad to be worse than what she'd seen. She was confident, at least, and she was definitely rooting for the other two girls. "Any idea how far back in line we are?" She couldn't watch much more if all the auditions were this bad.

Breezy was wondering that herself, right around the time someone called 'next' and she realized a bunch of girls were staring at her. "Aw, crap." she mumbled, grabbing her CD out of her bag and pulling herself to her feet. "If I catch y'all snickering at me..." she warned, trying not to laugh. Of course she had the giggles now. Of course. She turned her music in and took center stage (er, gym floor), taking a deep breath and trying to shake out all the silly energy.

Someone watching Breezy dance might have said she had seen Save the Last Dance a few dozen times too many, and they'd probably be right. She incorporated some moves from the music video, but everything else rode the line between genres. A fellow Dreamweaver might have recognized the ethereal influences of glow-dancing, as well. It was a shame she didn't have a future to choose for herself - had she one, she probably would have dedicated it to dancing. If nothing else, she was confident that her own audition had been better than what they'd seen so far. Not that that was saying a hell of a lot.

Watching Breezy dance gave Alexis a much better sense of what the competition would be, though she didn't look at the girl like that. Instead she was hoping they'd be on the team together, should Alexis be able to pull off a comparable audition herself. Something about the dance seemed oddly familiar, but she couldn't put her finger on it. She'd said she'd learned a lot from YouTube videos and movies, so that must have been it. When she walked back off the dance floor, which was basically the center of the gym, Alexis grinned at her. "I'd clap, but I think that'd foster too much attention," she said. "Nice job! There was nothing to laugh at. You're a shoo in."

Lily, however, had no such problem with not clapping. She didn't do it too loudly, but she did it all the same. "Yay!" she cheered quietly as Breezy came back. "Yeah, you totally just beat out like, 99% of the other girls trying out." That, too, was quiet, so no one could overhear. She finished stretching as one of the aforementioned 99% bumbled through a crappy routine to some Eminem song, and then it was her turn. "Wish me luck," she said with a grin, shooting Breezy and Alexis a wink as she took her music and bounded out to the floor.

Her routine was purely lyrical and rather technical, full of extensions (she was bendy, might as well show it off) and turns. Short as she was, Lily had a great build for turning and she made full use of it, leaping and spinning over a good deal of the floor space marked off as the dance area. She'd been confident from the start, but it was still nice to be finished and get to chill while everyone else went.

Breezy was also a cheerer, and not so quiet about it. It got her a few dirty looks, but screw 'em. She liked these girls. It was a fun thought that they might all be in this together. That would make up a hell of a great year, she guessed. And Lily was amazing. She grinned and jokingly put her arm around Lily's shoulders when she got back, briefly pretending to glomp the girl. "'kay, Alexis, make us proud!"

With Breezy there cheering, Alexis was a little more willing to join in. How could she not? Lily danced beautifully, outshining everyone she'd seen so far. The only one who was even comparable was Breezy, but their dances were so different that Alexis didn't want to compare them. They'd both done great and would have no trouble making the team. Alexis wasn't quite as sure of herself, her nerves growing by the time it was her turn. "Try not to laugh too hard," she told Lily and Breezy as she rose to her feet. The three of them had an audience now, attracting the attention of the other girls trying out, though when the music started, the focus turned to the floor.

There were no kicks in her dance, nor leaps or splits, but Alexis knew she had rhythm, which was far more than her competition. Though her nerves carried with her into the first few seconds, she easily shook them off once she started dancing. It was her first time to dance alone with an audience, and she was feeling pretty good about it halfway through. She couldn't look at the people judging her, though, and just pushed through to the end. It was a fun song to add attitude to, and she just hoped she didn't get disqualified or something for taste in music. When the music ended, she laughed to herself, hurrying back towards Lily and Breezy, sure she was blushing now. It was something she'd get over the more she performed, or so she hoped.

Lily didn't find anything worth laughing over in Alexis' dance - not that she would've, but still. She clapped and wolf-whistled when Alexis came back, grinning. "Hot mama," she teased with a wink. There hadn't been any technical moves, but she had rhythm and style, and that was two-thirds of dance, anyway. Technique could always be taught - style, not so much. "That was good!" Her voice lowered enough not to be heard by anyone outside their circle. "You know we're all in, we're the best damn three in here."

Breezy was right there with Lily, gleefully whistling and making cat calls. She wasn't sure if that would help Alexis' nerves any, but hell, encouragement was encouragement. Even if she was relatively certain that half of the other girls auditioning now hated the three of them with a passion. The three of them were going to completely take over, as far as Breezy was now concerned. A little jealousy was natural.

There was a little bounce to her step as she rejoined the group, feeling much better now that she was done and could tell that she'd done a decent job. "Thanks," she giggled, delighted that they'd liked her performance. "I so need to learn some of the moves you both can do, but I'm starting to think I'll get the chance. Do you think there's a team captain, or do you think we can self appoint?" Maybe, if they were lucky, there wasn't one. If that was the case, Alexis was all for voting Lily and Breezy in, so long as they'd teach her everything they could.

"Probably they've already got one. Usually it's an upperclassman, probably voted or selected at the end of last season," Lily said, shrugging. "But you never know. What I want to know is whose choreography position do I take over? 'Cause... yeah."

"If they've already been voted in, I say we demand a recount." Breezy said, quietly. "I am down for a hostile take-over." Now that they'd all gone, she felt she had earned the right to be cocky. Hell, they all had. "I'm not getting in just to make an idiot out of myself. Mutiny!"

"Maybe a hostile takeover won't be necessary," Alexis whispered. "It's kind of late in the year to hold try-outs. Maybe it's because they lost so many people? New year and all, but I've noticed there's people leaving. And people arriving. Like, this is my first year here. But maybe they don't have a captain." It was a thought, and one that, if proved true, could be rather interesting. "Either way, I say we weasel our way in," she smirked.

"I've definitely met a lot of new people," Lily agreed. "Not so much people leaving, but I don't really know anyone here so I can't say if they've left or not. But yeah, this is my and Breezy's second day here, it's crazy." She shrugged. "If they've got leadership spots open, I plan to take one. This team needs serious dance rehab."

"I'd support that." Breezy piped back in. "Don't know if me in a leadership position is a good idea, but as long as someone with talent has it I'm happy. I want to look good, dammit." She was going to have to find that youtube video when she got home to see if there was anything in the way of uniforms.

"I don't know if I can lead, but I can assist, and I'm a quick learner," Alexis added in. "And, you know, I can actually dance," she whispered, brows raising as she watched the final girl do something that was either throbbing off beat or having an seizure. Alexis wasn't sure, but since the rest of the room didn't seem too panicked, she decided it must be the former... sadly enough. "I think it's time for the group routine," she said, rising to her feet as everyone else did. "This should be a cakewalk."

Lily stood as well, nodding. "Pretty much," she agreed. This was what she did in class, after all, learn the counts as quickly as possible and then bunch up to show the choreographer in small groups. A little high school dance routine was going to be nothing.