New Recruits

Chapter 22

The door opened, and Zelina walked in, carrying a cup of tea. Sonya realised she must have arrived earlier, and had just been down to catering.

"Ah, here you are," Zelina said pleasantly to her two teammates. "I bet you didn't think we'd be working with these guys tonight, did you?"

Zelina had plainly been referring to Clem and Trish, which started Sonya's head spinning. "Working with... What are you talking about?"

"We hadn't quite gotten that far," Clem said, smiling. "After Trish and I have made our announcement about defending the tag titles on all brands, you guys are going to hit the ring and kick our asses."

"Pretty cool, huh?" Zelina asked Sonya and Mandy.

Sonya couldn't help thinking that someone was about to come into the room and laugh at them for falling for a rib. But no, she realised, Clementine was for real. That actually was what was laid out in the formats for that night. The Golden Gloves really were going to beat down Trishentine, as the popular team were unofficially known. There could be no doubt about it, Zelina and the Golden Gloves were being taken very seriously by management. Sonya wondered if Lucy Thorne had any say in it, or if it was Hunter's idea. Either way, it was a massive opportunity for the new team to make a name for themselves. Possibly the best part of all was that there seemed to be no reluctance at all from Trish or Clem to put them over.

"Why don't you get yourselves sorted out, and we can get together and lay something out," Trish suggested.

"Thank you, yes, we'll do that," Mandy said.

Following Zelina and Mandy over to their lockers, Sonya made eye contact with her girlfriend and they exchanged a 'holy shit' look. "I'm never going to question your intuition about anything again," Sonya muttered. "'I've got a feeling this is going to be a good night.' You weren't kidding."

"I can't wait!" Mandy replied, managing to put an exclamation on it even though she was whispering.

"I need to order more sets of gold ring attire," Sonya said to Mandy. They were walking with Zelina to Gorilla, not far behind Trish and Clementine. It was time for their second segment of the night, which would be a part of the second episode of three being taped that night. Earlier in the show, the Golden Gloves had attacked Elena D'Agostino while she had been giving a backstage interview. With Zelina issuing maniacal instructions, the NXT Women's Champion had been kicked and punched into submission before being smashed into a steel door and left lying on the floor in a heap. It had been quite a statement.

More was about to come, when Trish and Clem became the next recipients of a Golden ass kicking. Before the violence started, Trishentine were to go out to the ring, surprising the audience, and announce their intentions regarding their newly-won Women's Tag Team Championships.

"Your gear is fine," Mandy replied to Sonya. "But yeah, it wouldn't hurt to have another couple of sets to vary it up a bit."

"I'll have to get some on order, sooner rather than later," Sonya said. She knew she was babbling irrelevancies, it was coming from nervousness. The fact that they were going to work a segment with Clementine and Trish at only their second TV taping was still blowing her mind. But she had to focus. There was no room for looking or acting star struck. Out in the arena, the Golden Gloves had to treat the Tag Team Champions with utter disrespect and give them a serious beating.

Reaching Gorilla, Sonya made eye contact with Trish and they smiled at each other.

"This is going to be a lot of fun," Trish said.

"Enjoy, guys," Zelina said, with one of her dazzling smiles.

Trish and Clem always entered together, to Clementine's music. Moments after Zelina spoke, it began to play. Everyone waiting behind the curtain heard what could best be described as a roar of surprise and delight from the crowd. Main roster talent showing up on NXT was rare in the extreme, let alone main roster champions. Furthermore, the two in question happened to be among the most popular people to have come through the developmental brand.