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After the utter fucking catastrophe that was Nationals, Victoria has the Bellas pack all their things and get on the team bus immediately. She wants them all as far away from New York as soon as possible.
Aubrey and Chloe step forward to board the bus home, but they’re abruptly halted as Victoria slams her arm across the doorway. “Aubrey, you will have to find your own way home. You are not welcome on this bus.” Victoria then looks pointedly at Chloe, who glances at Victoria and then Aubrey before setting her jaw.
“I’m staying with Aubrey,” Chloe says in a slightly quavering voice.
“Fine. See if I care.” The door slides shut and as the bus pulls away from the curb, Victoria twists in her seat to watch two hunched figures standing at the edge of the road.
/ /
From what Victoria hears, it takes two days and a call to Mr. Posen for Aubrey and Chloe to get back to school. Victoria is pretty sure that Chloe missed a midterm. Serves her right for staying with that cow.
/ /
At the ceremony for the passing of the captainship, Aubrey and Chloe kneel in a circle of candles while the rest of the Bella surround them with crossed arms. It’s highly unusual for only two Bellas to be staying on for the next year, but that only shows how spectacularly shitty the past three years of a capella recruits have been if Aubrey and Chloe are the best the Bellas could get. The thought of the two of them sitting in her figurative throne makes her sick.
“Do you, Aubrey and Chloe, swear to uphold the honors and traditions of the Barden Bellas for as long as you remain captains?”
“We do,” Aubrey states for the two of them. As if they could.
“Do you swear to recruit only those who will fit the Bella ideal and continue our legacy?”
“We do.” Aubrey again. Honestly, it’s like Chloe has no spine at all. Jesus.
“I now officially pass on my title as captain to you, Aubrey and Chloe.” They look up at Victoria with what looks like hope and joy in their eyes.
Fucking.
Kill.
Her now.
Too much happiness and not enough fear in those eyes, so: “And if either of you fuck up again like you did at Nationals, I will come back and rip your vocal chords out myself.” Laura and Nicole giggle from their positions at her sides.
Aubrey swallows thickly. Chloe raises a hand to touch her throat gently.
Victoria smirks. She does enjoy it when her subjects fear her.
But it still smells like egg in here. Fucking Chloe.
/ /
When the group photo of the new Bellas is posted on Facebook, Laura nearly breaks her neck racing down the stairs to get to where Victoria is reading through sheet music.
“Victoria, you have to check Facebook right this instant. It is a travesty!” Laura has her hand pressed to her forehead, as if trying to scrub the image from her brain. She shoves her laptop into Victoria’s face.
An incoherent scream comes from somewhere within Victoria’s throat, followed by, “Were they high when they did the auditions? Did they get sudden onset blindness? Our uniforms were not meant for that.”
“Maybe some of them can sing?” suggests Laura.
Victoria can practically feel the aneurysm happening in her brain.
/ /
Laura’s little brother is on the Barden football team and Nicole’s cousin is in one of the frats, so Victoria uses them as informants on campus. Both are fucking idiots, but it’s better than nothing.
On the night of the SPT mixer, the only thing holding Victoria back from flying to Barden just to slap Aubrey and Chloe is the fact that she is due in a recording studio in the morning.
The idiot cousin even included a video in his email. This should be good. Sure enough, as Victoria watches it with Nicole, she can actually feel the legacy of the Barden Bellas crumbling down.
The choreography is abysmal, none of the harmonies are correct, their uniforms fit absolutely none of them (Aubrey gained at least four pounds), and Chloe sounds like someone punched her in the throat before she came out on stage.
Disaster.
They had an entire week to prepare and this is all the new tone-deaf Bellas could come up with? Pathetic. And exactly what Victoria knew would happen.
She’d be more self-satisfied if it didn’t mean the complete ruin of a cherished institution.
/ /
They got arrested at Regionals.
Arrested.
Or at least one of them did, which means that the Bellas are now host to not only horrible singers and poor leadership, but also a criminal delinquent who enjoys destroying private property. On top of the legacy she’s already destroying, of course.
And that last ‘soloist’ ripping her shirt open like some heathen on the sacred stage for everyone to see. In the comment section of the official YouTube video, Victoria doesn’t even finish watching before she starts typing. “Are you purposely trying to lose with this abomination taking over Chloe’s solo? Even with her mediocre voice, she sounds better than this screeching. Get it together. Now.”
Not to mention that they were nearly beaten by the Sockappellas, which is horrifying all on its own. Two point five points were all that separated them from those perverters of a capella.
Honestly, socks.
/ /
They lost the Semi-finals.
This is not surprising to Victoria in the slightest, frankly.
Aubrey lost control and completely mangled her solo, which is a real fucking accomplishment considering that she’s had the same goddamn arrangement for at least sixteen months now. The fact that she didn’t throw up on half the audience is really the only upswing to whole ordeal. It didn’t help matters that one of the new recruits - one of the juvenile delinquents, judging by her clear lack of authority - went off on her own and started singing something completely different.
Which was horrifying.
They were beaten by people wearing sky blue and white hoodies, for fuck’s sake.
Momentarily, Victoria was ready to hop on a plane to make a grab for Aubrey’s vocal chords, but Nicole reminds her that it’s honestly just too late. And anyways, Aubrey and Chloe’s collegiate a capella careers are over and after that fiasco, it’s not like any record label is going to be knocking on their doors.
But immediate consequences need to be made clear as well, frankly.
The Facebook messages read:
“Dear skank, we just wanted to let you know that we saw your ‘performance’ in the semi finals and thought that it was the worst fucking thing in the history of the Bellas. Let’s start with your vocals, before moving on to your fellow talentless loser, Chloe, and then to the rest of the gang of misfit toys you call Bellas.”
The word count hits over three thousand by the time they’re done.
/ /
Okay, so the Bellas are in the Finals.
But only on a technicality.
“They’re coming to New York,” Laura says, watching Victoria’s face carefully. “Are we going to the show?”
“What’s the point?” Nicole asks. “They’re going to suck and Aubrey’s going to throw up on the audience again. How that girl has still has stage fright after four years with the Bellas, I will never understand.”
“No,” Victoria says, resolutely. “No matter how truly awful they are now, no matter how far they have strayed from the traditions and ideals we handed down to them, they are still Bellas; they still wear the scarves and hold the name. Our pride is still on the line.”
“So you’re going?” Laura asks.
“We’re going to whip Aubrey and Chloe back into the Bellas they should be, possibly literally,” Victoria replies calmly. “I practically created them; they still owe me their voices and loyalty.”
And if it turns out to be impossible, then she really is going to rip their vocal chords out right on stage. As soon as she de-scarves them.
/ /
“Aubrey! Chloe!”
The two girls in question freeze in place while the rest of the ragtag group look around in confusion. Aubrey blindly reaches out, grasps Chloe’s hand and squeezes hard. They take a simultaneous breath and turn around, slowly.
Victoria, Laura and Nicole stand in the doorway of rehearsal hall B wearing power suits eerily familiar to the traditional Bella uniform and all three have the blue and yellow scarves around their necks.
“Victoria.” The name comes through Aubrey’s tightly-clenched jaw, but only barely, thanks to the sheer amount of noise coming from the rest of the team. Victoria snorts. This is Aubrey’s leadership, all right. And - dear lord, what is that accent?
A near-naked one with enormous breasts steps forward. Who does this girl think she is? Victoria tries to glare her into silence, but it doesn’t work. “So you’re the one harassing Aubrey on Facebook!”
“What are you wearing?” Victoria hisses, marching forward to get a better look at the jeans and tank tops and sneakers and - Victoria gasps - individually misplaced scarves. “Why are your scarves like that? That is not Bellas scarf protocol!” Her voice is getting closer and closer to hysteria, she knows, but there are more important concerns right now.
Aubrey and Chloe stand silent, wincing slightly in reflex at Victoria’s sharp tone. It’s the tiniest of comforts in this situation. Good. They should be scared.
Nicole looks up from where she’s flipping through the sheet music on the piano. “Victoria, they’re singing Jessie J, Simple Minds, Pitbull and Miley Cyrus!” Her voice is nearly a screech of disbelief.
Complete and utter silence descends on rehearsal hall B.
Closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, Victoria says, “You two ingrates can’t seriously be planning on singing that shit on the national stage. As Bellas.” Aubrey opens her mouth to respond, but Victoria shoots her a look. It wasn’t actually a question.
One of the freshmen steps forward at that, a sneer aimed at Victoria on her lips. “Who the hell are you to tell us what we can or can’t do?”
“Beca, don’t,” Chloe whispers in that not-really-a-whisper way she always does. Still no spine to speak of.
Victoria smiles in that shut-the-fuck-up way she always does and says, “Beca, is it? Well, Beca, you should learn my name, because I’m the one who built the Bellas, work you have singlehandedly destroyed in one fell swoop. I should have known, though, with the hacks I was leaving you with. It’s a shame there weren’t more junior members in the club, so I wouldn’t have to leave it in the hands of these two -“
“Shut up!” Aubrey yells, making Victoria take half a step back before she can think better of it. “Just…stop.”
Laura recovers first and sneers, “What are you going to do? Hurl on us?”
The one with the terrible accent raises a hand and drawls, “I wouldn’t provoke her; she might actually do it.”
Victoria shakes her head. “This time it won’t be Aubrey’s vomit that ruins you. You’ve done that all on your own. And I won’t allow it.” In one swift motion, Victoria states as she takes a step forward to grab at the sheet music. Before she quite knows what happens, her hand is in the vice grip of a girl with total lesbian hair and - oh god, that is definitely a switchblade. Two criminal delinquents, then.
“Lily, put that way before someone gets hurt,” Chloe says, gently pulling on Lily’s arm until she relinquishes the knife and the girl with lesbian hair lets go of Victoria’s hand.
Victoria stumbles away from delinquent #2, straightening out her suit. This was not going as planned. There’s only one card left to play.
Go for the weak one.
She rounds on Chloe, who is still playing peacekeeper. “You could’ve stopped all this, Chloe. You could’ve been a real Bella. But you were too much a fucking coward to --”
“Hey!” Delinquent #1 - Beca - has stepped forward, at the same time as Aubrey. They both flank Chloe now. Chloe, for her part, doesn’t look all that scared. In fact, she’s glaring back at Victoria, which is entirely new.
“I’d like to introduce you to someone, Victoria,” Aubrey says coolly. “Our real leader.”
Victoria shifts her gaze to Beca, who waves. Her other hand is wrapped tightly around Chloe’s. Victoria’s eyes narrow. Were there always this many lesbians in a capella?
“Beca’s the one you should be after,” Aubrey continues. “She arranged our set this year, not us. She’s the one you should be pissed at. She’s the one that changed the Bellas.”
Beca shoots Aubrey a look as Victoria turns slowly to face Beca directly. Chloe starts to move instinctively between predator and prey. “Um - Aubrey -”
“And she’s the reason we’re going to win.”
Victoria snaps to attention. “What did you just say?”
“Our traditions were leaving us in losing place and we were boring, Victoria. From our hair to our uniforms to that set list we performed every single time, we were boring and predictable. This time, though – this time we’re going to be aca-awesome.” Aubrey is smiling now, a smile that Victoria has never seen on Aubrey’s face before.
It’s fucking nauseating.
The rest of the girls fall into line beside their captains and they look about two seconds from all joining hands and singing kumbaya.
Which is even more nauseating, honestly.
Victoria straightens and twists her face into a disgusted scowl. “Whatever, you’re never going to win with that shitty pop monstrosity, mark my words.”
Beca snorts. “Did you really just say ‘mark my words’? Are you a Disney villain?”
Aubrey actually giggles, and it’s enough to make Victoria want to set the entire building on fire. Instead, she collects her dignity and storms out of the hall, Laura and Nicole in tow. She pretends not to hear the laughter following her down the hall, Aubrey and Chloe’s laughter sounding loud in her ears.
Fuck this shit, they are so going to crash and burn.
/ /
Victoria sits in the sixth row to watch the performances – Aubrey only ever barfs up to the fifth row – with Laura to her left and Nicole to her right. She crosses her arms as soon as she sits down and doesn’t uncross them to clap for anyone, especially not the fucking TrebleMakers.
Assholes.
When the Bellas walk on to the stage, Victoria can feel the shock ripple through the crowd as they react to the lack of perfected uniforms and high heels. She wants to bury her head in her hands, but this is one trainwreck she just can’t look away from. She will die from embarrassment, facing it knowingly, and head on.
The opening few lines go by well enough – no bad notes, no terribly choreography – and she thinks that maybe this won’t be so bad after all. The scarf choices were regrettable, of course, but maybe it won’t be so bad.
Then the beat-boxing starts.
And the worst thing happens.
She likes it.
The girl with lesbian hair has this rasp to her tone that sounds amazing. The girl with the terrible accent makes the entire audience roar in approval. The girl not wearing nearly enough clothes can actually dance really well and even drops into the splits at the end. The criminal delinquent – and Chloe’s girlfriend or whatever – actually sounds amazing on her solo, and if she’s really the one who put this whole thing together, probably has a good future ahead of her in the music production busin-
Wait.
No. No, they are destroying all that is pure and good about a capella – and more importantly, the Bellas - with that tribute to shitty pop music. This will go down in a capella history as the time the Bellas tried something new and it totally bit them in the ass. There’s no improving perfection, nor tradition.
Her companions don’t quite get the memo. Nicole jumps up at the end of the performance to clap, but Victoria grabs her wrist and yanks her back into her seat with a glare. Laura just looks uncomfortable and afraid that Victoria will notice that her foot had been tapping in time for the entire performance.
No way were the Bellas going to win, not this year. Not with that.
/ /
They win.
The emcee announces, “And this year’s National Champions are…The Barden Bellas!” The entire audience goes insane and the Bellas scream and jump around on stage like hyperactive toddlers.
Nicole and Laura look at Victoria, then at each other. They both stand in unison and clap for the new champs, waving their Bella scarves in the air like flags.
Victoria closes her eyes and sucks in a deep breath.
She had dreamed of hearing those words for her entire college career and had fallen at the very last hurdle. She’d had the perfect group, the perfect faces and perfect bodies and perfect pitch, and she had never won. Now this year’s Bellas, this band of misfits and outcasts, are the ones to win?
It hurts, like picking at a healing wound, to know that Aubrey and Chloe have done what she didn’t, couldn’t do. They changed the Bellas, loosened the scarves and modernized the music, into something almost unrecognizable. Something that apparently doesn’t suck, according to this year’s judges. Clearly amateurs.
But when Aubrey glances into the crowd and meets Victoria’s eyes, Victoria is the one to look away first. She raises her chin and shoulders her way out of the row, heading for the exit. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see Aubrey smirk before turning back to Chloe and Beca, who are obviously making out on stage.
Whatever, invest in some breath mints, you mouth breather. Take some for your girlfriend too.