The new tournament

The former leader

"Where's Fat Amy? I thought you said you would call her." Chloe asked Beca, as they sat in some chairs.
"I did, but she went to Australia for the holidays. She'll be back next week."
"That's a pity, I was looking forward to seeing her again." said Emily.
"Don't worry, she'll be here. Now let's get it going." Beca took out a little notebook and a pen. "Which girls from our group do you think we should get in?"
"How many people did you say had to be on the team?" Aubrey asked.
"Twenty two, including Jesse and me. With Bumper, Donald, Benji and you three we are eight already."
"Nine with Fat Amy." Emily pointed out.
"Ten, I talked to Lily and she's also in." Beca added.
"Stacie and Cynthia-Rose have to be on it, too." Chloe said. Beca wrote everything on her notebook.
"Twelve already, we are half-way there." She made a little pause to order her thoughts. "Who else?"
"What about Jessica and Ashley?" Asked Aubrey.
"I talked to them but they said they weren't interested."
"Oh, that's too bad!" Chloe said. "What about Flo?"
"She went back to Guatemala."
"Well, I guess that would be all from our generation." Beca said. "What about your girls, Emily?"
Emily didn't answer right away. She remained quiet for a few seconds, thinking.
"Emily?" Beca asked again.
"I don't know, Beca." she finally said. "I mean, let's be honest, you guys are the standard; they are all good performers but no one is as good as you."
Aubrey, Chloe and Beca couldn't help but smile at Emily's compliment.
"But there must be someone special, right?" Chloe said.
"Ther are a couple of girls that are pretty good, they stand out from the others. I'm gonna ask them if they are interested. Her names are Hannah and Mindy."
"Okay then, so we have two potential new members." Beca wrote their names down on the list.
"Tell you what? I'm gonna ask them right now. I'll be back later." Emily said, and then left the building.
"Well, now it's your turn." Beca said, while turning to Aubrey and Chloe.
"What do you want us to do first?" Chloe asked, as cooperative as always.
"You two are some sort of Barden Bellas official biographers, aren't you?" They both laughed. "So, I want you guys to help me scout previous Bellas. You saw, what? Three generations more than me? Surely there were lots of good singers in those."
Aubrey and Chloe looked at each other, uncomfortable.
"Well..." Aubrey said.
"What?" A rather awkward moment of silence came next.
"The truth is, although the Bellas have existed for a long time, there were barely any good members until a few years ago." Chloe finally said, mortified.
Beca laughed, but immediately shut up after realizing it was not a joke.
"Come on guys, are you telling me that in 40 years there is no one worth mentioning but us? At all?"
Again the two friends looked at each other, visibly embarrassed.
"Are you kidding me?"
"We were a golden generation, one of a kind." Aubrey said. Beca couldn't believe it.
"Come on girls, think!" Beca insisted. "There must be at least one. Aubrey, don't fail me on this."
Aubrey stood up and started walking in circles, followed closely by Chloe. After a brief moment, Aubrey turned to look at Beca. It seemed for her expression that she had a girl in mind.
"I have someone! What about Alice?" Chloe immediately looked at her, fiercely.
"You can't be serious." She said. Beca was confused.
"Alice? Who is her?" She asked.
"Come on Chloe, you know she's good!"
"I don't care how good she is, it's out of the question."
"Guys..." Beca tried to intervene, although she soon realized they weren't listening to her anymore.
"Just because she was a little bit obsessed with order doesn't mean—"
"'A little bit obsessed', you say? She was crazy!"
"Guys..."
"I know you never liked her, but—"
"Don't be a hypocrite, Aubrey. You hated her guts and she hated yours, too! Besides, don't you remember what she did to me?"
"There's a thing called objectivity, you should try it from time to time!"
"Guys, knock it off!" Beca yelled. Aubrey and Chloe stopped arguing and looked at her. "Thanks. Now, can you please tell me who the hell is Alice?"
Although she was visibly angry, Chloe was the one that cleared it out for her.
"She was the Bellas' leader when Aubrey and I first got into the group. A real bitch."
"Chloe!" Aubrey yelled, trying to stop her. However, Chloe continued with her burst of anger.
"I'm sorry Aubrey, but she was a bitch. She might have been the one that recruited us but she was also a crazy-ass perfectionist who turned the Bellas into her little army of monkeys."
"Oh my God." Aubrey mouthed. Beca rose an eyebrow.
"Really?"
"Yeah. Ask Aubrey, even when she's trying to re-write history and pretend they were the best of friends. Alice treated her like shit, she treated all of us like shit!"
"Aubrey, is there anything you'd like to say?" Beca asked her, as Chloe sat on her chair and crossed her arms.
"It's true she had her temper, but what she did for the Bellas was groundbreaking." Chloe growled from her corner, but Aubrey ignored her. "The group sucked before Alice arrived. It had never won anything, it was terribly organized, there wasn't a stablished hierarchy and there was no strategy to follow; she changed all of that when she became a Bella on her freshman year. She made herself leader, keep the Bellas' uniforms but gave us new songs, new choreography–"
"So she's the one that came up with the 'The Sign/Eternal Flame/Turn the Beat Around' mashup?"
Aubrey nodded.
I bet she's the one that created the oath, too.
"She also created the oath..."
There, I knew it.
"Got rid of all the sophomores, juniors and seniors and formed a new team from scratch."
"That's when she recruited you two?"
"That happened the following year. She was the one that determined that the Pitch Pipe was to be carried around by the leader, she turned it into some sort of 'symbol' of authority."
In that moment, an idea crossed through Beca's mind.
"Wait, don't tell me she's the one who wrote the Bella Building Blocks..."
"Yes. Although Chloe and I made some modifications she practically wrote the whole thing."
"Wow, I didn't know that! Damn, she was really important to the group!" Beca said, visibly impressed. In that moment, Chloe angrily stood up.
"No, no, no, no, don't fall for it, Beca! Yes, she might have been the one that leaded the Bellas to a National Championship for the first time and the first actual leader of the group, but that doesn't stop her from being a—"
"A bitch, yeah. You've said it already!" Aubrey said, visibly exasperated.
"She always told me my breath smelled like egg."
"Which it did..." Aubrey said in a whisper, but it didn't go unnoticed by Chloe.
"I had freaking nodules!"
Beca was starting to get tired of Aubrey and Chloe's discussion, so her mind started drifting towards a possible solution to the problem until she completely managed to isolate her friends' voices, who kept arguing in the distance. If that girl Alice was as good as Aubrey said, then Beca definitely had to try to get her into the team; on the other hand, although she considered herself to be pretty good when it came to dealing with bitches, for the way Chloe depicted this particular one she seemed like a special case.
What to do? She started saying in her mind. What to do?
In that moment, it all became crystal clear.
Of course! How couldn't I think of that before? It's a brilliant idea!
She slowly came back to present time, in which Aubrey and Chloe were still driving each other crazy.
"Hey!" She yelled, and successfully shouted them down. "Listen up, I've got a better idea. What if we invite your little friend to the auditions?"
Aubrey and Chloe looked at each other, and then at Beca again.
"Auditions?" They said at the same time, confused.
"Yes, auditions." Beca said, giving them her mischievous smile.