Survival Of The Fittest

((Aliya Kimia Nemati continued from Take Five))

Aliya leaned her body sideways and planted her right hand down onto the ground, her left tucked behind her back. She felt the momentum take the rest of her body in an arc over her arm. After the longest feeling second her feet hit the grass of Mercy's yard and she was up on her feet again.

She resisted the urge to yell.

"Boom. Nailed it," She said as she pumped her fist. "Just, uh, ignore all the other attempts."

Aliya had been chilling with Mercy in her garden. They'd been practicing some tumbling and acrobatics based stuff. Mercy was proving to be a helpful partner to learn with since she actually knew what she was doing. She was also useful as a teacher for shoot style stuff. The second part was more due to her MMA more than anything, although Aliya did have the amateur wrestling experience that she drew from. It helped make her standout, after all, she and her sister were the only two girls on the local scene who really did anything like that.

Now, Mercy trained in legit fighting, but thanks to her wrestling—and the fact she had been training for longer—Aliya was able to fend her off. Not to say anything of the height and weight advantage she had. Maybe that was why they were friends, they were both girls that came from had their own goals and worked towards them regardless of what others thought. They also pushed themselves to be better at what they wanted to do, that level of hard work and dedication drew them together as well in a way.

At the very least, Aliya knew that if she went to the gym with Mercy she wouldn't be allowed to slack. Mercy would let her know about it straight away.

"So the next thing is the," She thought for a moment what the name of the move that Mercy had been showing her was. "Aerial right?"

((Mercy Ames continued from Sisyphean Self-Maintenance))

Mercy stuck two fingers into her mouth and whistled through them when Aliya (finally) stuck the landing. They might have just been casually working out in her backyard, but that didn't mean it wasn't good practice and hard work. Even casual wasn't really casual when you were trying to improve.

One might have thought that Mercy wouldn't "get" professional wrestling, but she saw a lot of similarity to cheer in it. Showmanship was a big factor. Aliya had a lot of the fighting down, and honestly she could probably school Mercy in the technique most days even if it was different from MMA, but Mercy had the edge in experience when it came to acrobatics.

"Yeah! It's actually pretty simple once you've got the different cartwheels down. You can start by doing a back cartwheel and then lifting your hands off the ground quickly- watch!"

Mercy bounced on the balls of her bare feet while she waited to be sure that Aliya was safely out of range, and then she raised her hands over her head, bounded forward, and rolled into a cartwheel. As she'd stated, she let her hands come into contact with the grass for only a split second before drawing her arms back and letting the momentum keep carrying her legs over. She stumbled a step on the landing, but didn't fall, and she let herself giggle about it. Aliya was a friend, not a judgmental fellow cheerleader.

"Start with that, and work on using your hands less with repetition. You need to get a lot of power in the first step so you can follow through."

Aliya watched as Mercy demonstrated how to do the maneuver. She stumbled a little at the end but that wasn't important. She nodded along as Mercy explained how to perform it. There was obviously a bit of nerves that came with attempting to perform an aerial. It was a cartwheel with no hands after all so if she did it wrong there was a chance she was landing on her head. It wasn't that she was scared of the pain because she wasn't. She had done a flip dive off the top rope in a scramble match once and somehow despite five people being below her none of them had managed to actually catch her. That—specifically her back meeting the floor of the community center—had been painful. Failing a fancy cartwheel on grass didn't quite have the same stakes.

"Yeah, that doesn't look so bad."

After Mercy had gotten out of the way Aliya made her first attempt. It was alright but a bit messy as she didn't get a big enough push, meaning instead of landing nice and straight she ended up in a stumbling crouch.

She grinned and laughed a little.

"Ok, not quite." She bounced on the balls of her feet a little before speaking again. "I think I know what I'm doing wrong though."

After a couple other attempts—which all gradually got better—Aliya turned to Mercy.

"So I'm getting there," She said as she collapsed down onto the grass for a quick rest. "But I think it's gonna take a bit until I'm as good at it as you are."

"Yeah, you're getting it." Mercy followed Aliya's lead and plopped down onto the grass.

It was a nice day out, warm but not scorching and with a few fluffy clouds offering periodic relief from the sun. She'd start getting her seasonal tan going if she kept spending time outside like this. Spring and summer had always been the better half of the year, for her. She had the most energy when it was warm.

Mercy idly plucked at the grass. "Something I did to train myself out of putting my hands down was to practice the cartwheel while holding something, like a scrunchie." It was always a little nerve-wracking to do a maneuver that could land her on her head or neck, even now that she'd been at it for a few years, but she kept that to herself.

Aliya was pretty fearless anyway, pursuing what she did. Not just as a girl, but as a teenager, and a Muslim one in a mostly white, conservative area. Mercy was of the honest opinion that most Christians were good, and she loved her own church groups, but, well... She had an idea of what it could be like for people like Aliya's family when they were in the minority. That Aliya pushed past both that and her family's expectations to do what she really loved was pretty inspiring.

Honestly, Mercy would have told Aliya that she really admired her, but it would have seemed out of the blue and weirdly mushy for their friendship; most of the times that they hung out were casual like this. It was comfortable that way.

Anyway, this was kind of serious stuff to start thinking about while they were just having a fun and chill practice session. Mercy sighed and flopped back on the grass, stretching her arms over her head.

"Want to get a snack in a bit and then try some more? Or we can work on something else if you want to, whatever." She didn't want the afternoon to just peter out, but she was trying not to be pushy about what they worked on. Aliya was close to getting the cartwheels down, though, and Mercy thought she could probably nail it if they kept up.

"I think we can keep going," Aliya said as she stretched her wrist out, it was a little sore from the pressure being placed on it. "Not a good workout until you want to die right?" She said with a wink. She knew Mercy would appreciate that one. They both knew the struggle of having to push themselves to keep going. When your body was aching and wishing you stopped. When it started to stop working, muscles shutting down from overuse. That feeling when you woke up the next day and your legs or arms wouldn't listen to your brain, going on strike as a result of their mistreatment. But that was also when you knew you had pushed yourself and achieved something. It was when you could look at yourself in the mirror and see the difference. Then the next time you worked out you'd feel the difference.

She stood up and attempted the aerial a few more times, steadily decreasing the amount of weight that was placed on her hand.

"So, what're your plans for Swiftball?"

Another attempt and another question.

"And Prom I guess. You got anything in mind for that?"

Mercy sat and watched for a few minutes as Aliya gave the aerial more practice. She was starting to show improvement already, like Mercy had been confident she would. Eventually, she stood and dusted herself off so that at least Aliya wouldn't be doing all the work while Mercy just sat around.

"Dunno if I'm going to Mikki's party thing," she said. "I'm sure it'll be fun and all, but you know... the party crowd and all that. My parents wouldn't like it if they knew what kind of stuff people would be doing there." Truth be told, Mercy herself didn't know all of said "stuff" that would go down, but she had an idea. Whatever her parents could come up with would probably be worse. Mercy's expectations were in line with alcohol, weed, maybe someone taking pills if they were daring. Probably some couples getting handsy or even sneaking off somewhere. Her parents would probably think that her classmates were going to snort cocaine and get each other pregnant in full view of the rest of the guests.

"For prom, I'm probably going stag. I thought it'd be fun to get a group together for people who didn't feel like getting a date." Or couldn't. Mercy was content not knowing for sure which of those categories she was in and letting herself believe it was the former.

"What about you?"

"Yeah, I bet." Aliya nodded along as Mercy spoke about Swiftball. She made a good point. Zootopia had a bit of a reputation for the activities they liked to take part in. There was always going to alcohol and weed floating around, then there was the chance something a bit harder was there. You never really knew until you walked through the door. Aliya tended to need prior permission in order to attend parties and even then she downplayed the extent of them. Then on top of that, she had only recently had her curfew lifted. Not because of any particularly great reason, her dad just didn't give a shit about her anymore.

Aliya shrugged when Mercy passed the question back over to her. She hadn't actually come up with a plan. She wanted to go but it seemed like a lot of effort. Still, it was a big party to celebrate getting through high school and she supposed that part would have been fun. She didn't really spend too much of her free time with people who were her own age after all. Most of the people on the local scene were a couple of years older than her at minimum. There were a couple of guys she had originally trained with but only three of them were left.

"I dunno. I don't have any plans for it. No ones asked me and I don't know who I'd want to go with anyway."

She stretched her arm across her body as she stood there, just so that she had something to do.

"The group idea sounds fun though, if you can get enough people for it."

"Yeah, I'd have to ask around to see who's interested. Maybe if there's a lot of people we could do something fun after? I know there'll be a lot of afterparties going on, but y'know... same issue as SwiftBall. My parents would be happy to have some people over for like, late-night snacks and a movie, or something."

Mercy absently swung her arms, mind drifting for a minute as she thought about it. It wasn't like she cared that nobody had asked her, but it was a little heartening to hear that Aliya hadn't been approached either. Maybe Aliya was a bit intimidating to guys, though. She was kind of tough and sporty, and the boys probably felt emasculated or something.

Mercy, on the other hand, would have to get something like a face tattoo to ever be regarded as tough. As in, a tattoo of somebody else's face over her face. She couldn't help a short giggle at the mental image of some Schwarzenegger-esque thug face on top of her body, and she quickly raised her arms and bounded into another cartwheel so that she could avoid Aliya asking her what she was laughing about.

Once she had landed and righted herself again, giggles out of her system, she said, "Well, if you want, you can come along. Even if it's just the two of us, it'll be more fun than just showing up and then going home by yourself."

"Snacks and movies can still be a good afterparty," Aliya said with a grin.

She wasn't lying, sometimes the afterparty they had for big shows ended up with them at someone's apartment or house watching Botchamania; because all wrestlers were super cool people. Aliya went into another attempt as she thought about it. It was probably a good switch honestly, there were many horror stories about the sort of things that wrestlers got up to, some of them as recent as 2002 and that was only counting the big things. Smaller crazy things happened all the time.

Aliya was halfway through taking off again when she heard Mercy's offer and her response was to spin on one hand into a crouch. It was honestly so cool looking that there was no way she would be able to do it again.

It meant more than she probably let on—weird cartwheel spin thing notwithstanding—but no one had asked her and while she truthfully hadn't been expecting anyone to, it still hurt that it had happened.

"Yeah," She said with a big smile. "That sounds fun, then we go home and eat ice cream and gossip or something." Aliya laughed at the mental image she had created.

"Can you imagine? Us just splayed out on the couch in our dresses, deep into a big tub of Ben and Jerry's?"

Mercy laughed too, both at Aliya's weird spin and what she said after. It was a funny idea, but it also just seemed fun. Hanging out with a friend or two, not taking things too seriously. That was what being a teenager was supposed to be like, right?

"I think it'd be great, actually. Way better than going out and getting drunk or, you know, finding some boy. No prom night babies for me."

Did that sound... prudish? Judgmental? Probably something along those lines, but Mercy knew where she stood. Boys were... well, something she didn't really want to bother with until some other time. There was always too much wrapped up in it, especially when everyone knew your business in a matter of days. Mercy didn't want to deal with boys until all the boys she knew were men, and she could have some reasonable privacy in her dealings with them.

"Do you have a dress picked out yet?" She asked, derailing her own runaway train of thought. She needed to stop getting so hung up on things she had decided she wasn't worrying about.

"Yeah wouldn't want a baby with most of the guys at school that's for sure."

God, who was there at George Hunter that was a good choice for that? Aliya didn't know, no one sprung to mind. Then again there were all a bit young for children anyway. So that would have been part of the issue. Plus guys would always do that guy thing of telling their friends as soon as they hooked up with someone and then it would be all around the school in a day. No way. She didn't want any part of that.

Aliya was broken out of her thoughts by Mercy asking her another question. This time it was about what she was planning on wearing. Aliya had been dreading that one.

"I've gotten it down to two." She said as she stood up to retrieve her phone. Once she picked it up she opened her images and scrolled through until she found the two pictures she'd saved. One was a dark purple backless velvet dress while the other was a more mermaid style brighter turquoise. She passed the phone over to Mercy.

"I'm leaning more towards the turquoise one but then I'm like I don't want to look too much like Jasmine y'know?"

Mercy let out a little snort-laugh at Aliya's comment about babies. "God, no. For sure." That was exactly the kind of thing her parents had been all worried about, banning her from dating until senior year. Personally, she thought they could have even extended it another year. Mercy didn't think of herself as reckless, but she could easily imagine someone who was running off and getting pregnant as soon as the ban was lifted, completely throwing her last year of high school and her future off the rails.

No, thank you. She was happiest on her own, for now.

Mercy moved to Aliya's side to accept the phone; maybe it was silly, but she always kind of enjoyed getting to coo over fancy dresses and stuff like that. "Ooh, the turquoise is so pretty, though! It'd look great on you, and that skirt... Honestly, I'm kind of jealous you can wear something like that. I'm too short." She laughed again, not really bothered. Her height was one thing that she had long since accepted, and honestly preferred, even if it made buying pants annoying.

"The purple would be pretty too, though, but I feel like blue is more your color?" She left her tone open-ended, a friendly suggestion and nothing more. No need to get pushy about something as inconsequential as prom dresses. Mercy hadn't had to do a lot of agonizing over her own outfit, so helping a friend out was kind of fun, but it was Aliya's choice in the end.

"It is pretty, but I'll look like I'm from Aladdin." Aliya wobbled her free hand. "And that's a risky venture."

While Aliya didn't have any issues with the dress besides the colour, she was aware that some of the people at school would likely make fun of her for wearing it. Still, Mercy was right, it was really pretty and it did suit her. Aliya was just rejecting it because she was worried about what others thought. But then a realization hit her, a realization with a very simple message.

"Ah fuck it. Yeah, I'll wear the turquoise one. Live a little."

Aliya lay back onto the floor, hands resting behind her head.

"Hey, you'll look great anyway, plus you can just kill anyone who says otherwise."

She was enjoying herself in a way. It was silly but she was having fun just indulging in looking at dresses and gossiping about prom. Plus they'd all be moving on soon. While she stayed behind.

"Man, I wish I could wear some of my sneakers to prom."

"Nothing wrong with going a little Disney once in a while, if you ask me." Mercy flopped down next to Aliya, leaning back on her hands with her legs out in front of her. "Not that I'm going to show up dressed as Mulan, but..." She laughed again at the absurdity. Her brain sure was coming up with some images today.

"We've picked mine out already, but it's at my grandparents' so my grandma can take it in some so it fits right. It's all..." Mercy fluttered her hands to illustrate the flow of the skirt's layers. "It's got that chiffon and lace, you know, and it's pink. And a halter top. I'm finally allowed to show my shoulders like a real adult woman."

She drew one leg up, wrapping her arms around her knee. "Wearing sneakers doesn't sound half bad either, honestly. If my dress was longer, I might go for it." She'd intentionally looked at shorter dresses just because she knew that anything floor length on someone of average height was going to drag the ground on her. To be perfectly honest, while the idea of just going in tennis shoes was tempting with the knowledge that her feet were going to be sore by the end of the night, she wanted the whole ensemble to match more than she wanted to be comfortable. She'd already been breaking in her shoes, anyway.

"Ah, well. Maybe some other time." It came out more wistfully than expected; there wasn't going to be another time, not one just like senior prom. At least Mercy was already secure that her outfit was going to be as close to perfect as possible.

"Everyone turns up as a Disney princess. Turn prom into a fancy dress party." Aliya laughed. "That'd be sick actually."

She listened intently as Mercy went through the details of her own dress, nodding along where necessary. There was something calming about the discussion despite what it represented for them going forward, Ut was the end of their time at George Hunter. It would be the last time they saw some people who they had grown up with. All of those relationships and connections being consigned to memory some fading even beyond that. It was the end of an era if she wanted to be extra dramatic about things.

She heard Mercy's voice as she seemed to come to the same conclusion.

There was a lengthy silence as Aliya contemplated what to say next.

"Just gotta make this time fucking awesome."