Disclaimer: I do not own Community.

Jeff liked to think that for his second mirror check, three minutes wasn't that bad. A time so low used to be reserved for the third or fourth self-inspection; he was improving. Maybe it was a reform of his character, learning from past mistakes, but it was equally likely to be a way to avoid Britta ranting about his vanity again.

He had remembered the name Offdensen, and after extensive searching through his saved e-mails, he realized this man had long ago (or maybe it just seemed like a long time) talked vaguely with him about Jeff being the lawyer for his band. No band name was even mentioned, and Offdensen's name was showing suspiciously spotty results on Google and number of job sites. At the time, on that late night with his high quality German beer in one hand and a computer mouse in the other, Jeff fancied himself quite skilled. Couldn't trick Jeff Winger with some legal scam, not with his expert Google-and-Monster-navigation. But – ironically – that incident very shortly preceded when Jeff lost his law degree and was declared a fraud. The band e-mails were quickly forgotten about.

And now that he had gotten nice and settled in to the idea that he – the clever and infallible Jeff Winger – had indeed made a mistake (and was in the process of fixing it at Greendale Community College with his misfit study group friends), someone who he had considered completely illegitimate wanted an interview.

The study group was not told about the whole online incident. Britta would rant to him about obvious it was that he shouldn't give this guy the time of the day. Shirley would worriedly reprimand him about undoing his progress. Abed would comment on how this guy was a classic shady-type, looking to con Jeff after calculating when he would be perfectly vulnerable. Troy would say something generic to the effect of "Sounds sketchy, bro." Pierce… Pierce's advice would have been disregarded, by the off chance it was relevant and coherent.

But that one thought clawed the back of Jeff's mind.

It's a job.

He sighed.

Perhaps he had put too much gel in his hair that morning.

Britta was done skimming through the superficial magazines the train had provided them with, crumpled up on the side of the chair. Now she turned her attention to her cabmates, Troy and Abed (Annie had gotten just too nervous on a rough train and had to go vomit, Shirley went to mother her, and Pierce went to offer thoroughly ignorant advice). "Doesn't this seem strange to you? A magical tournament drops out of the sky and gives us a bunch of fun games to compete in with unnamed teams. The prize is a paying job with a famous band. It screams scam to me."

"Of course," Abed stared at her with those big, emotionless eyes. "Everything about it is suspicious. For all we know, Jeff gave out our credit card information and permission for random drug testing. But I think we were all so bored post-midterms that we would have agreed if he asked if we wanted to do Outward Bound in Minnesota. Jeff has that tendency to talk something up so you don't realize the consequences until you're halfway through. Even I fall for it."

"Wait, random drug testing…? Credit card info? But I don't even have a- oh, wait, yeah I do." Troy put his feet up on the chair in front of him.

"Troy. You don't have a credit card." Britta pushed his feet off.

"Yeah, I do! They swiped this at the cafeteria and guess whaaat? I got some free chicken nuggets and a Nestea, beeyotch!" After clumsily digging around for a second, he thrust a plastic card at Britta.

She sneered at her friend's use of the word 'beeyotch' and looked at the card. "Troy, that's your Greendale ID card."

"Well, it worked."

"They thought you were mentally deficient," Abed said. "That's probably the same reason you got a football scholarship despite being shorter than me and not in any way overweight."

Annie reappeared and sat in the three seats across from them. "Do I look okay?"

"Good for someone who's been vomiting," Abed said.

"Wait, I thought she was puking," Troy said.

"Shirley, how do you feel about this tournament?" Britta chose to completely ignore Pierce when he entered their circle.

Shirley was the last to sit, ushering the others in before taking her own seat. "Oh! I think it's… a nice opportunity for us to do a little bit of traveling, spend some time in a big city." She thought for a second. "Oh, and games!"

"Games? Big city?" Pierce scoffed. "It's not the mall. This whole thing sounds like something dangerous and foreign. Jeff was right to try and investigate, but I don't know how smart it was for him to involve the rest of you."

"Oh, but it was smart for him to involve you?" Britta said.

"That's right. Even a bunch of commies would think twice before harming a high priest of a Reformed Neo-Buddhist colony."

"Pierce, a bunch of con men in suits wouldn't care that you're a high priest of anything."

"Where is Jeff anyway?" Annie looked around the train car with her usual worried eyes.

"He's not even in our train car! He said we'd be too loud." Britta slouched in her seat and looked out the window. "Jeff would rather have some more beauty rest than spend more than time absolutely needed with the people he's probably getting involved in a huge scam."

"Britta, please don't say that," As if anyone could deny Annie anyway, in her little cardigan and skirt set, multiplied by three when she was sickish. "This might benefit us. Jeff wouldn't betray us. We've been through too much together."

"Unless his character undergoes some sort of rapid transformation nearly overnight. Which could happen for any number of reasons."

"Abed…"

"You know it's one of hell of an offer."

"I do. It doesn't mean I should take it right off the bat."

"The tournament's in four days. Doesn't give you much time to think if you want to act properly."

Jeff smirked. "You did that on purpose." He sat up and nudged his empty Venti coffee cup to the side. "Where's the paperwork?"

"Taken care of. Just agree to do the tournament with your peers. I promise that if you perform satisfactorily, you will all be given transportation and board with your new jobs with Dethklok within a week after the final event."

"I don't like it when paperwork's taken care of. Is that weird?"

"Understandable. The more people shuffle your papers around, the more they might uncover some more interesting… facts. Like your fake Columbia degree being discovered, and your subsequent disbarment."

"Yeah, I saw that episode. No need for the recap. But I see what you're getting at. I don't think you know the real world very well, Charles. I could get a job in an instant if I could argue my way out of a paper bag, never mind these little degree issues that I could easily gloss over by calling them 'little degree issues'."

Offdensen waited patiently for the follow-up. "But your friends…?"

"I don't know how capable they are, necessarily, of snagging a job right after community college. Annie's smart, Britta's competent, Shirley's capable… even so. And the rest of them? Kind of screwed. I'll take this deal."

"You're making the right decision."

They shook hands. Jeff shook his hand out gratuitously after he left the Starbucks.