Chapter 1

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Hey! This is my first Joanne fanfic, and I don't usually write fanfics at all so sorry if this is trash.
Just wanna quickly write the ages of everyone in this story before we begin:
UK Team:
Joe - 16
Zoe - 17
Amy - 17
Jack - 16
Conor - 18
Anna - 12
AJ - 14
Kevin - 18
Neil - 16
Tanya - 17
Sophia - 15
Cinzia - 15

Australian Team:
Dianne - 16
Andrew - 19
Katie - 16
Jess - 15
Adam - 18
(Just assume any others mentioned are 15-18)

Canadian Team:
Briar - 16
Milo - 17
Ellie - 13
(Just assume any others mentioned are between the ages of 13-18)

South African Team:
Caspar - 16
Josh - 16
Byron - 17
Johannes - 15
Oti - 15
(Just assume the others are 14-17)

I think that's all you need to know for now but I'll add others along the way if I need to! For now just enjoy the story!

Joe's PoV
This was it, the beginning of the 2018 Elite Dance Internationals. We were the current reigning champions, and we'd only ever lost to Australia and Canada, our two biggest competitions. As long as this competition had been taking place, it had always been either Britain, Australia or Canada to win (except one time when Brazil somehow won, we still don't know how).

"ATTENTION! EVERYONE!" the studio owner and head of the British Dance Company (our studio) announced, clapping her hands. We all immediately went silent and looked at her. If there was one thing you learned while being here, it was never to cross Shirley. She'd been head of this studio for as long as it's been open. She co-founded the thing!

"Now, as I'm sure you're all aware, this is the biggest competition of the year," she said. "Obviously Nationals was also televised, but Internationals is viewed globally in almost every country, and scouts will look at you. You all deserve professional jobs at the end of this - you're the pride and joy of the British Dance Company, our best dancers, our Elite Competitive Team. We've been invited to perform on Strictly last year! We can take home this title for a third year running, as long as we remember we are a team, a family, and we stick together."

We all nodded. It was always the same pep talk, but somehow when she said it, it made us feel like we could move mountains.

———

"I'm actually really nervous," my older sister, Zoe, came and sat next to me on the coach to the airport. Internationals was being held in Australia this year, meaning we were going to be severely jet-lagged.

"Why?" I laughed. "We've done this tons of times! We've won the past two years!"

"Exactly!" Zoe exclaimed. "That means there's even more pressure on us to do well!"

"Look, at least you're not doing the solo," our friend Amy came and sat in front of us. "I've got that title to uphold."

"You've won the past five years, Aims, you'll be fine," I reassured her.

She nodded, taking a deep breath. As much as I like to say everyone on this team is excellent, which we all are, obviously, Amy is phenomenal. We probably wouldn't win Internationals without her. The only two dancers who'd ever managed to take her title were Dianne Buswell, the dance captain of the Australian team, and Briar Lloyd, the dance captain of the Canadian team. It was the same with me. The only people who'd managed to take my title before were Andrew Buswell from the Australian team and Milo Cook from the Canadian team. It was always Australia and Canada.

"You guys have to win the solos again," AJ, one of my best friends, came over and sat beside Amy. "I've heard Canada have been training super hard this year, so they're gonna be hard to beat."

"They're always hard to beat," Amy groaned.

"It'll be fine," I said, trying to keep everyone positive. That was my job as dance captain, to keep the team morale high.

"I hope you're right," AJ sighed.

"Look, we train 58 hours a week for this," Anna Maynard, our youngest member, took a seat opposite AJ. Anna was only 12, whereas the majority of us were 16 or over, but she kept up easily. Some called her a prodigy.

"We're not the only studio that work hard though," Zoe sighed. "It's anybody's game."

"Guys, it's always anybody's game," I laughed. "Remember that year that we got too cocky and Brazil won? Us, Australia and Canada were so focused on each other we forgot the other teams even existed. It was a huge shock when they won."

"None of us even got to the final that year," Amy raised her eyebrows at the memory.

"I know, weird year that was," AJ said. "I still suspect black magic."

We all rolled our eyes, but the topic of the chat soon dwindled onto something else, and everyone soon separated into listening to music by themselves or talking quietly. I put on my solo track, going through it in my head. It was probably the best solo I'd ever choreographed, and I had to admit I was pretty proud of it.

———

Most of us slept on the plane, like Shirley instructed us to. I always thought it was better to just get into the new timezone before we left, but she said she couldn't stress enough how much this just wouldn't work and, well, I trust Shirley more than anyone, so I listened and slept on the plane.

Obviously sleeping didn't last forever, so I decided to put on a movie. It must be said there wasn't a massive selection, but I eventually settled on Alvin and the Chipmunks. An easy watch that didn't require much concentration - exactly what I wanted right now.

Finally, many hours later, our plane landed in Australia. This was it. This is where it all began.

Holaaaa, hope y'all enjoyed that short chapter. It might be a bit boring but I wanna introduce all the characters first, ygm? The next chapter will be in Dianne's PoV :)

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