"Dad, this isn't where I want to be," Beca said defiantly for the hundredth time.
"I know – you want to be out drumming for 'My Toxic Romance' or whatever, but that won't get you anywhere in life, Beca! Your mother and I both agreed you are to get a college education before you decide what career you enter into." Mr Mitchell was tired of having the same argument over and over again with his daughter. He knew it was a bad idea the moment his ex-wife brought home a drum kit for their twelve year old daughter, and six years later he stood by his initial feelings.

"But I'm just wasting time here!" Beca protested, "I should be out in LA, making music and playing with my band!"
"You need a band to play with for that! And I can't imagine anyone who would be distracted by that sort of music when they're just about to embark on a new chapter of their life at college!
"Stop making college life sound so damn poetic! It's not – it's full of crap, especially when you don't want to be here. And for your information I have a band. I found some people in online forums who are also starting Barden and we've met up loads over the summer to practice together already."
"Fine – do you know what? I'm just glad you're being social for once in your life. But I swear, Beca, if you fall behind in your education then this is the last straw and you give up drumming. If you prove to me you can cope with both school and music – then maybe I'll consider helping you move to LA at the end of the year if you're still determined that's the place for you."

"Great. I'm sure you'll follow through on that…" Beca replied sarcastically. Some people may say thank you if a parent said this to them, but her dad was the reason she was wasting time here anyway so she wasn't in any hurry to be polite and courteous to him. She began to unpack a few more boxes as her dad left her dorm room, but she was soon stopped by her phone ringing loudly in her pocket.

Before she could look at the screen, Beca noticed her roommate look up sharply with an irritated expression on her face. "I'll take this outside…" she said, stepping out of the dorm room whilst shaking her head at her weird roommate. "Hello?" she drew the phone up to her ear.
"Yo, Beca!" the familiar voice of Cynthia-Rose rang in her ear.
"Hey! You passed through the gates of hell yet?"
"Damn right I have! What dorm you in?"
"Baker Hall, you?"
"Martin Hall. You gotta get down to the quad though Bex – the rest of us are already here and we have an idea."
"Okay…" Beca replied ominously, "I'll be there in five."

Already in the hallway of her dorm, she headed down to the front door and tried to navigate her way to the quad. It wasn't too hard as it seemed every other fresher was on their way there to the activities fair, and all of them seemed a lot more eager to be there than Beca did. She only hoped that her bandmates had found a good drumming group for her, or somewhere to recruit them for a few gigs.

Her mind was running hopefully through the various possibilities when suddenly she felt someone jump on her back from behind. "What up pip-squeak!" a strong Australian voice said, and she instantly recognised it as Fat Amy – the enthusiastic guitarist for their band. "You're breaking my back!" her voice strained until Amy released her, and she turned to face the rest of her group. Standing before her were Cynthia-Rose, their lead singer, Stacie, the keyboardist, and Fat Amy.

"Where's Jesse?" she asked, wondering where their bass guitarist had got to.
"He's not here yet," Stacie answered, "But come on – we've got more important things to worry about!" The taller brunette grabbed Beca's hand, pulling her in the direction of some stands at the activities fair. In her other hand, Beca noticed a blue leaflet with musical notes all over it. Soon she realised that all the girls were clinging onto at least one.

"What's that?" she said, gesturing to the leaflet.
"There's these girls who run a kind of band – they practically forced these things into our hands and wouldn't take no for an answer until we signed up for auditions, and it wouldn't be fair if we joined without you so we're taking you there to sign up as well!" Stacie explained excitedly.

"Wait, what kind of band? I've already got you guys, why do we need some paper-pushing wannabe to recruit us as well?"
"They're… different. And we're obviously still going to keep the band going – this will just be something fun to do on the side."
"I'm not convinced."
"Come with us anyway – see what they're like and then decide afterwards. I mean, it's totally up to you what you do, but we're all signed up and it wouldn't be the same without you!"

Beca reluctantly agreed, allowing her friends to pull her closer to the activities fair until finally they fought through the mass of people to a very plain looking stand with two girls standing in front of them. One had a stern looking expression on her face, but she held herself well and had beautiful blonde hair. The other girl had striking red hair and was wearing a bright smile as she looked at the group of girls before her.

The blonde was about to shove another leaflet into their hands before realising that most of them were already clutching several, and so she lowered her arm to her side. "Oh, is this your friend that you were talking about?" the redhead said, and Beca looked around at her friends as they nodded enthusiastically. This really seemed like their kind of scene, not hers. She was in the band to be a drummer - the last thing she wanted was to be centre stage, or to be surrounded by people all fighting for the spotlight which was exactly what this group seemed like.

Nevertheless, Beca shook the hand that was outstretched towards her and smiled at the girl who introduced herself as Chloe, and her friend as Aubrey. The first thing she noticed about the redhead was her voice; even as she spoke, it seemed melodic in a way. Chloe's voice was the only reason why she hung around and listened about the 'Barden Bellas' for so long, and in the end the reason why she put her name down on the audition list despite the evident hostility from Aubrey. If joining the group for a couple of weeks meant she could hear this beautiful girl sing, then maybe it was worth a couple of hours of her time.

"What halls are you in?" Chloe asked once the formalities of recruitment were over.
"Baker Hall. Where do you live?"
"Me and Aubrey share an apartment about five minutes away from campus, it's really cool."
They were about to continue the conversation, but a sharp 'ahem' from the blonde next to Chloe hinted that they should cut the chat so that they could both get back to recruiting more people to audition.

"I'll let you get on. See you around," Beca said as she walked away with her group of friends. They wandered down the path a bit further and noticed the Quidditch club, Dancing-in-circles club, and the Barden Deaf Jews, but it wasn't until they watched the small performance that the Treblemakers were putting on that Fat Amy suggested they get the hell out of there. None of them were interested in joining any other groups or societies, so they decided to just chill on the quad for a bit.

"Are you going to thank us for making you sign up?" Stacie asked, as if it was obvious.
"Why would I do that? Have you seen those girls? Correction – have you seen me? I'm not their crowd."
"But at least you got to chat to a hot girl today."
"Even I didn't get a look in," Cynthia-Rose said.
"She was kinda hot," Beca admitted, "But not hot enough to make me turn into one of their Barbies."

Her friends laughed off the conversation and allowed the topic to change onto something else, mainly how everyone was getting on with their new roommates. "Mine was already asleep when I arrived," Cynthia-Rose said, "Looks like she's going to be fun…"
"I'd take the sleeping one any day," argued Fat Amy. "My roommate was playing the trumpet loudly and badly. Honestly, I've killed dingoes that were quieter."

Beca was about to relay the story of her awkward roommate, but before she could, Stacie cut her off as she pointed out, "Hey look – there's Jesse!" They all turned to look where their bandmate was pointing, and sure enough, Jesse was standing with another guy watching the Treblemakers. "That'd be awesome if he joins that Bella group as well!" Stacie continued.

"Erm, Stace? I'm pretty sure it's all girls," Beca said patronisingly, making her friends laugh sympathetically at the keyboardist. She shouted Jesse's name across the quad to try and get his attention, but he was already in conversation with the person next to him and her attempts seemed pointless. "Anyway, tell us about your roommate," Cynthia-Rose encouraged Beca.

Beca opened her mouth to describe Kimmy-Jin but once again she was interrupted, this time by Stacie whacking her in the side. "Hey!" she cried, "What the fu-" But soon she noticed why her friend had hit her. Heading their way was Chloe, the redhead from earlier, and she was smiling at Beca.

"Hello!" she warmly greeted the group of girls. They all nodded or replied back to her, but Beca was the only one to broach another conversation. "You been released from duty?" she asked jokingly. Chloe laughed and nodded, moving her hands to rest on her hips. "Yes, thankfully. Aubrey was pretty pissed but as I can take credit for all you and your friends signing up, I convinced her I deserved a break."
"Well, no offense but she doesn't seem to have the most welcoming demeanour. I'm not surprised you've recruited more than her."
"She's lovely once you get to know her, but even I'll admit she's not great at first impressions."

One of the girls invited Chloe to sit down with them, but she shook her head. "Thanks, but I'm going to take my lunch break while I can. Any of you want to join me? You must be starving after moving in this morning."
"Sure, I'll come," Beca said, just as all of her friends shook their heads and made their apologies that they needed to finish unpacking/had to go sign up for Quidditch/had already eaten.

"Looks like it's you and me then, kid," Chloe said jokingly. Beca stood up smiling and brushed down her jeans before turning briefly to her friends, glaring at each one of them to try and analyse whether they were leaving her alone with Chloe on purpose. She was grateful her friends were trying to hook her up, but she didn't want Chloe to catch on to what they were doing. "I'll see you later," she finally said to the girls before turning and walking off with Chloe.

They fell easily into conversation about what they were studying: Beca – philosophy, and Chloe – engineering. Chloe was only too happy to talk about the Barden Bellas and what they got up to, and likewise Beca was eager to share stories about her band and what they had been doing over the summer. Shortly they arrived at a café, ordered their food and drink, and then sat down at the window seat.

"So are you excited? To audition for the Bellas, I mean," Chloe as she finished the last of her pasta. Beca contemplated for a moment whether or not she should lie, until eventually she decided it would be best to be honest. "I'm not even sure if I'm going to go," she confessed. Chloe raised her eyebrows in shock and stared at Beca for a moment, trying to figure out if the younger girl was joking or not. "Why not?" she eventually managed to ask, "Your friends all said you could sing really well!"

"They were lying," Beca said with a scoff. "I'm the drummer of the band for a reason – I'm a mediocre singer at best. Cynthia-Rose is our lead singer and she kicks ass at it, you'll definitely love her."
"That sucks," Chloe replied. After a moment she asked, "Why drumming?"
"Excuse me?"
"Drumming. Why that? Why not play guitar like other teenagers? I mean I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it, I'm just saying it's a curious choice and I wonder why you got into it."
"My mom bought me a drum kit when I was twelve years old, and I've been in love with it ever since."
"Birthday or Christmas present?"
"Neither," Beca replied, "Divorce bribe. Two weeks after she bought it for me, my parents split up. I think she liked the idea that if I drummed loud enough I couldn't hear them arguing about it."

"I'm sorry," Chloe said tentatively, reaching out comfortingly as she rested her hand on Beca's wrist. The action made Beca smile inside, not only because Chloe was beautiful and drop dead gorgeous, but also because her concern showed that she clearly had a kind soul as well. "Don't be," she said eventually, "I know some divorces really screw the kids up, but I saw it coming. I was happy about it, actually, because I knew that my parents would be a lot better off if they weren't together. Plus I got twice the presents, although saying that, my mom was always better at giving me gifts. She gave me a drum kit, and my dad gives me a free education at this shit hole."

"Hey, Barden isn't that bad," Chloe said defensively.
"I know… I didn't mean to badmouth it on my first day here. It's just not what I want to be doing."
"And what do you want to be doing?"
"Making music in LA. Drumming for big name bands or forming my own one."
"You're really committed to drumming, aren't you?" Chloe asked, her hand still resting on Beca's wrist.

"You're damn right," Beca replied, "It stopped being merely a hobby very quickly for me. It's all I ever want to do." Chloe smiled at her answer. It was refreshing to find someone with so much passion for something – most college students had been forced into an average lifestyle already where they were settling for what their schools had told them too, but Beca was full of rebellion to her core. Not necessarily the smoking, drinking, hair-dying rebellion to piss off mom and dad, but more the kind of rebellion in which she rebelled against the system. She already knew who she was and what she wanted, and she was ready to stand her ground against anyone who questioned it.

"I have an idea," Chloe suggested with a knowing smile. Without waiting for Beca to question it she continued, "There's an open floor night at the Victoria bar tomorrow, I think you should come along."
"Open floor as in…"
"Like an open mic night, but it's not just singing. They have a ton of instruments in the back for anyone to use and show off their skills on the floor. I think you'd love it."

Beca was definitely enticed by the idea; she loved performing, and knowing there was a drum kit waiting to be played was almost too good an offer to resist. However, her mind was made up when Chloe continued, "I'll be going. We could go together, maybe? Make a date of it?" Beca couldn't help it. A huge smile spread across her face at the word "date", and she was sold. Chloe didn't have to say another word to get her to agree to it. "It's a date," she replied with a smile.