Chapter 1: Arrival
Disclaimer: I don't own Pitch Perfect.
Beca watches the bustle of people arriving on campus at Barden University, all in a rush, from the safety of her taxi, listening to one of her better mixes. She debates telling the cab driver to turn around and bring her home, but decides against it.
The cab pulls up to the curb. She steps out to retrieve her bags, letting her headset hang from her neck.
Seemingly out of nowhere a preppy blonde chick materializes, asking her which dorm she's staying in, giving her directions, and other pointless chatter. Beca tunes her out immediately.
Another car pulls up next to her, blasting 'Carry on Wayward Son'. The guy in the backseat sticks his head out of the window, playing his air guitar and singing along, before the car screeches away. Beca rolls her eyes, silently praying to avoid as many run ins with that guy—or people like that guy—as possible. Happy college people are near the top of her hate list, the top spot being reserved for Sheila the stepmonster, obviously.
Beca returns her attention to the annoying girl in front of her, who hands her a map and a rape whistle, urging that she not use it unless it's actually happening. Wonderful. Beca puts the whistle in her mouth, much to the greeter's annoyance.
While bringing her bags to her dorm room, Beca watches the mob scene going on around her. Panicked freshmen scuttle back and forth, dragging their overstuffed bags and annoyed parents along with them.
One girl's pile of boxes and bags tips over, spilling her stuffed animal collection all over the ground, sending her into a rage. A disturbing sight indeed.
Hopefully Beca's roommate isn't a collector of Beanie babies, ponies or anything else normally found in an eight year old girl's bedroom. Of course if it were up to Beca, she wouldn't have a roommate. She wouldn't even be here if she had her way. She should be in LA, getting her mixes noticed and working as a DJ to achieve her goal of producing music. Unfortunately, this is not LA.
After finally locating her dorm room, Beca steps inside. There's already someone in the dorm, a Korean girl. Must be her roommate, Kimmy Jin.
"Hey, um, you must be Kimmy Jin. I'm Beca," Beca tosses her bag on to her bed as she introduces herself.
Kimmy Jin just glares at her silently.
"No English?"
More silent glaring.
"Yes English?"
More silent glaring.
"Just tell me where you're at with English."
More silent glaring.
Beca decides to start unpacking her stuff, feeling unsettled by the menacing looks Kimmy Jin is shooting her way. She sets up her mixing equipment and her laptop and dives right back into her latest mix, while Kimmy Jin decorates her side of the room with modern art.
Bang, bang, bang
"Hey, this is campus police. Hide your wine coolers!"
The door to the dorm room opens, Beca's dad poking his head in. He laughs at his own joke, then enters.
"Just, um, just your old man making a funny…"
Beca simply raises an eyebrow before turning back to her equipment.
"Chris Rock, everybody."
Beca's dad turns to Kimmy Jin, still decorating her desk.
"Hey, you must be Beca's roommate. I'm Dr. Mitchell, Beca's dad. I teach comparative literature here."
Kimmy Jin silently glares at him before turning back to her golden tree decorating.
Dr. Mitchell raises his eyebrows in an "okay then" way before moving on.
"So, when did you get here? How did you get here?"
"I took a cab. Didn't want to inconvenience you and Sheila. How is the stepmonster?"
Beca has always made her hatred for the stepmonster clear. As they say, honesty is the best policy.
Dr. Mitchell scoffs, "She is fine, thank you for asking. She's actually in Vegas for a conference—"
"Oh, no dad I don't actually care, I just wanted to say 'stepmonster'."
Dr. Mitchell scoffs again, but moves on again, becoming slightly more agitated.
"So, uh, have you guys been out on the quad yet? In the springtime all the students study on the grass—"
"I don't want to study on the grass, dad. I need to move to LA, get a job at a record label and start paying my dues."
"And here we go again. You know, Beca, DJing is not a profession, it's a hobby. Unless you're Rick Dees or someone awesome."
Beca sighs, incredibly frustrated with her father's lack of understanding when it comes to her ambitions, no matter how she tries to explain it to him.
"That's not… I-I, ugh… I want to produce music, I want to make music dad."
"But you're going to get a college education first, for free I might add. End of story."
"I'm going to the activities fair," Kimmy Jin announces, rolling her eyes.
Beca takes the opportunity to escape her father's nagging, also noting that Kimmy Jin does speak English after all. "Me too. I'm going to the activities fair with my super good friend Kimmy Jin." She slips out with Kimmy Jin before her dad has a chance to get another word in.
When they get to the activities fair, Kimmy Jin is immediately drawn to the Korean Students Association. Last time Beca checked, she wasn't Korean, so that obviously wouldn't fly. She had been planning to awkwardly hang out with Kimmy Jin the whole time, even though she's barely spoken two words to her. So much for that. With nothing better to do, she decides to just wander.
Chloe and Aubrey watch the Treble Makers showing off with annoyance, although it's clear that Aubrey is much angrier about it than she is. Chloe is worried, more than anything else. The Trebles seem to be at full strength, while she and Aubrey are the only current members of the Bellas, which does make her a little bit nervous. And after Aubrey's mishap at the ICCA finals, their notoriety could cause a serious blow to this year's turnout. What if—
"I will stop at nothing to take those ding-a-lings down."
The sound of Aubrey's voice brings her back to the present. That's when she recognizes a girl who had auditioned for the Bellas in previous years, Barb. She never made it in, not because she couldn't sing, but because she didn't quite match the "esthetic" that the previous co-captains had in mind.
"Hey Barb! You going to audition this year? We have openings!"
"Oh, now that you've puked your way to the bottom you might actually consider me? I auditioned for you three times and never got in because you said my boobs look like baloney."
Barb puts her hands on her hips, revealing her unusually large areolas.
"The word's out, Bellas are the laughing stock of acapella. Good luck auditioning this year, douche-b's."
As Barb walks away, Chloe's anxiety grows.
"Oh my god. This is a travesty. God, if we can't even recruit Baloney Barb, then we can't get anybody."
"Just take the dramatics down a notch, okay?" Aubrey replies.
Aubrey approaches a passerby.
"Hi, do you wanna…" The girl keeps walking.
Chloe follows Aubrey.
"Well, you're the one who got us into this hot mess."
"We'll be fine. I am confident that we will find eight super hot girls with bikini-ready bodies who can harmonize and have perfect pitch. Okay?" Aubrey approaches another girl. "Hi, would you like to be a member of…"
She gets blown off again. Aubrey sighs, "just keep flyering. We have tradition to uphold."
"How about we just get good singers?" It would definitely take some of the pressure off…
"What? Good singers? What?" Someone asks, getting Chloe's attention. A blond girl, with an australian accent and unique ponytail.
"Hi. Can you sing?"
"Yeah."
"Can you read music?"
"Yeah."
"Can you match pitch?"
"Try me."
Chloe sings the first note. The blond matches the note. Chloe sings the second note. The blond matches the second note. Chloe sings the third note. The blond matches the third note, then holds it, then starts making weird hand gestures, she keeps going...
"Yeah," Aubrey says, trying to make her stop.
She keeps going, and eventually trails off.
"That was a really good start." Aubrey compliments.
"I'm the best singer in Tasmania. With teeth."
"Love it," Aubrey comments.
"What's your name?"
"Fat Amy."
"Um… you call yourself Fat Amy?" Aubrey asks.
"Yeah, so twig bitches like you don't do it behind my back."
Wow… Chloe didn't see that one coming.
Aubrey hands Fat Amy a flyer and confidently replies, "I will see you at auditions, Fat Amy."
Fat Amy takes the flyer. "I can sing, but I'm also good at modern dance, olden dance, and mermaid dancing, which is a little different," she awkwardly sits on the ground, "You usually start on the ground." She makes a face and rocks back and forth on her hip.
Chloe is just watching the scene unfold in front of her eyes...
"Ooh…" Aubrey remarks.
"It's a lot of floor work," Fat Amy points out.
"I see that."
Beca is still just wandering around the fair, looking for anything she might remotely be interested in. Not that she's particularly motivated.
A sign catches her eye. Barden DJs. She walks over to the booth to check it out.
Another girl comes over to check it out. A blond chick with a distinctive ponytail.
"Aw yeah, DJs... Deaf Jews. Oh." The girl makes a record scratching noise.
Oops.
That's when the booth attendants notice them.
"Shalom!"
"That's not a real word but keep trying. You will get there." The blond girl says.
"Not a lot of Jewish people where you're from?"
"Ah… no. I did do Fiddler on the Roof, though, in high school. It was, like, me and some Aboriginals. It was really Jewish. It was full-on Jew." The blonde explains.
Beca nods her head and slips away while the girl continues to terrorize the poor booth attendants.
She goes back to aimlessly wandering. She had gotten excited for a moment, there.
"Hi, any interest in joining our acapella group?"
Beca turns to face the person speaking to her. The first things she sees are sparkling blue eyes, a dazzling smile and fiery red hair. Beca gets dazed for a moment. The redhead hands her a flyer, and Beca automatically grabs it.
"Right, this is like a thing now."
That's when she notices the blond girl next to her. Beca can tell that the blond girl has a stick up her ass.
The redhead speaks up, "Oh totes. We sing covers of songs but we do it without any instruments. It's all from our mouths."
Oh boy.
"Yikes."
"There's four groups on campus. The Bellas, that's us. We're the tits. The BU Harmonics,"
The redhead motions towards a group of people with ugly sweaters massaging each other's' shoulders. Creepy...
"They sing a lot of Madonna. The High Notes,"
A group of stoners, lounging around in the park.
"They're not particularly motivated. And then there's…"
She looks over to where a group of guys are standing around singing, until one poor guy gets nailed by a football. The girls smile at that.
"So, are you interested?" The perky redhead asks.
As nerdy as it is, the hopeful look on the redhead's face nearly causes her to say yes. Almost.
"Sorry, it just is pretty lame."
The look on the girl's face makes Beca immediately regret saying that, but you can't please everyone.
The blonde, on the other hand, looks ready to pounce on Beca.
"Aca-scuse me? Synchronized lady dancing to a Mariah Carey chart topper is not lame." The blonde laughs at the end, failing miserably at hiding her disdain.
"We sing all over the world and we compete in national championships," the redhead chimes in.
Beca can't resist, "On purpose?"
"We played the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Center, you bitch." The blonde snaps.
Beca raises an eyebrow, impressed by the blonde's feistiness.
"Oh!" The redhead tries to calm the blonde, "what Aubrey means to say is that we are a close-knit, talented group of ladies whose dream is to return to the national finals at Lincoln Center this year. Help us turn our dreams into a reality?"
The redhead bats her eyelashes, and for a moment Beca considers it. Geez, those eyes are killers.
"Sorry, I don't even sing, but it was really nice to meet you guys."
Beca walks away, continuing on her search for an activity of interest. As she walks away, she realizes that she never got the redhead's name.
"What are we gonna do?" Aubrey asks, to herself mostly.
Chloe, still a bit dazed after her encounter with the "alt-girl", doesn't answer. That short, spiky-eared brunette had caught her attention, leaving Chloe feeling wired. Whoever she is, she must be new. Chloe would definitely remember if she had seen that girl before. Her sarcasm, which is usually a turn-off for Chloe, was quite entertaining. Too bad she didn't catch the cheeky brunette's name.
Chloe and Aubrey go back to handing out flyers, trying to get more people to audition. A few girls sign up, one girl bouncing around so much she couldn't keep still. Chloe tries to entice girls to join, but the brunette threw Chloe off her game. Even now, with Aubrey talking up the Bellas to some very quiet asian girl, Chloe just looks around, hoping to catch another glimpse of the "alt-girl", with no luck.
As Aubrey describes where nationals are to be this year, the asian girl whispers, "Do you see the ghosts too?"
"What?" Aubrey asks. She looks at Chloe, who just shakes her head. The asian girl shrugs.
\/\/\/\/\/\/\
When they finally come home from the activities fair, Chloe just flops onto the couch.
Aubrey's eyes her suspiciously. "What's up, Chlo?"
Chloe, not wanting to get in an argument about her tastes, tries to hide her feelings. "Nothing."
"It's that rude girl from the fair, isn't it? The one with the ear monstrosities." Aubrey remarks.
Chloe opens her mouth to defend the brunette, before realizing that that would be a big mistake.
"How did you know?"
Aubrey raises an eyebrow at her. "Are you kidding? I could see that toner from a mile away."
Chloe blushes. "Was I really that obvious?"
Aubrey joins Chloe on the couch. "No, you were actually pretty subtle. I've just known you for too long."
"Did you happen to catch her name?"
Aubrey shakes her head. "Nope, sorry. Good riddance, I say. You can do better than some moody, sarcastic freshman, Chlo."
Chloe ignores Aubrey's opinion. Of course she wouldn't like her, they were on opposite sides of a battle. But Chloe just can't seem to shake that short girl from her mind…
A/N: Hello! Got a request for this fic, so I'm giving it a shot! Hope you enjoy, and feel free to leave a review! :)