A/N: This story is very slightly AU in that I've changed the ages of some of the characters. Regular readers of my work might also spot some familiar returning faces.

The WWE Performance Centre didn't look like anything special at all from the outside. In fact it looked like one of the hundreds of thousands of characterless industrial units across America. Sonya Deville knew, however, that inside the bland-looking building was the most state of the art wrestling academy the world had ever seen.

Stopping for a second before entering the facility, Sonya took a deep breath. She was literally moments away from starting a life-changing experience. Having recently signed a developmental contract with WWE, she was now assigned to NXT, and was reporting for her first day of training.

Ahead of time, Sonya had been told that she would be part of a group of five men and five women, all new recruits who were starting out with WWE on the same day. Although she had no idea who any of the others were going to be, she hoped that she would come into the process with a bit of an advantage over at least some of them thanks to the fact that she had experience as an actress, and as an MMA fighter.

Ready to begin the biggest opportunity of her life, Sonya walked through the door into the Performance Centre, carrying a kitbag over her shoulder. A small sign outside had directed new recruits through a door in the side of the building, rather than through the main entrance. She found herself entering the main training hall of the building, where seven wrestling rings were set up.

The group of her fellow new recruits were standing near to the closest of the rings. Sonya counted three men and two women who had arrived before her. At least she wasn't last to show up, she thought. She recognised two of the three staff members who were currently talking to the group: Matt Bloom, NXT's Head Coach, and Paige, the Assistant Head Coach who was in charge of training NXT's women.

Sonya approached the new recruits and immediately felt somewhat downcast. The first person who greeted her was a truly stunning blonde woman with a perfect body, including huge boobs, and a gorgeous face. Her appearance put Sonya totally to shame, in her mind.

"Hi. Mandy," the woman offered, introducing herself with a smile.

"Hi. I'm Sonya," she replied, returning the gesture. "So, do you have any wrestling experience?" she asked, trying to break the ice. It was no secret that WWE were starting to recruit people with no experience in the business, as well as snapping up wrestlers from the independent circuit.

"Nope," Mandy said. "I'm a bodybuilder and a model. How about you?"

"Actress and MMA fighter," Sonya reported. "No wrestling experience at all. I'm looking forward to learning. I assume you don't know anyone else here?"

"No, but I was talking to those three guys over there," Mandy said, gesturing with her head towards three men who were talking to Coach Bloom. "Roman, Seth and Dean. They're all wrestlers. At least, I think they are. Seth said he was."

That left only one of the recruits who had arrived so far without a name, as far as Sonya was concerned. A tall blonde woman was talking to Paige and the other female coach. Never one to act like a shrinking violet, she decided to go over and introduce herself.

As Sonya approached, Paige saw her coming and gave her a welcoming smile. "Morning. Your name?"

"Sonya Deville. Nice to meet you," she said, accepting a handshake.

"Good to meet you. I'm Paige. I'm in charge of training the women in NXT." She gestured to the attractive woman with long dark hair standing beside her, wearing a coach's t-shirt. "This is Coach Purrazzo. You'll get to know her well, as she'll be your primary trainer."

"Deonna," Purrazzo said warmly as another handshake was exchanged. "Nice to meet you, Sonya."

Lastly, the other new recruit introduced herself as Charlotte Flair. Although she made no claim to know all that much about WWE, Sonya figured she would have had to have lived under a rock for that surname not to mean anything to her in connection to wrestling. Ric Flair was one of the biggest names of all time. "Any relation?" she asked after introducing herself.

"Ric's my dad," Charlotte confirmed.

Well, you're in for a rough time, Sonya thought. Personally, she wasn't one to judge people and despised bullying. But that didn't mean she didn't understand how other people would act. They would assume Charlotte had used her family name to get herself this opportunity, if her father hadn't outright done it for her.

"Nice," Sonya said, hiding her thoughts behind a smile. "I guess you have a lot more experience in wrestling than the rest of us, then?"

Charlotte laughed self-consciously. "Quite the opposite. I see why you would expect that, but the truth is that I've never watched much wrestling, and I've never had a match or even a training session before. I'm here because I need a fresh start in my life, for a lot of reasons."

"Girl, same," Sonya said. She was beyond glad to be moving to Florida, away from her cockroach infested apartment in LA. At the time, moving there to train as an MMA fighter had been a dream come true. It just hadn't worked out the way she had planned, and she was now all but broke after the amount it had cost to drive all the way across the country to Orlando. She didn't have a place to stay other than in her car, and even then would barely have enough money to feed herself until she got her first WWE paycheck, when things would hopefully start to pick up for her.

Mandy walked over to join them. Walking with her were the final two female recruits of this particular intake. "Guys, meet Dakota and Zelina."

"Hi," Sonya said in a friendly manner, thinking that Zelina wasn't what came to mind when she pictured a female wrestler. She was much too short, standing at five feet if she was lucky.

The group shared a few minutes of the kind of awkward conversation that was common when people interacted with each other for the first time. Sonya was glad to find that her fellow female recruits and the trainers all seemed to be nice people. It was also a pleasant discovery that only Zelina, who looked the least likely, had experience in wrestling. She had apparently been wrestling ever since she finished school.

While they had been talking, the other male recruits had arrived. Sonya happened to glance across the room at the moment Triple H entered through a door that she assumed led to offices or something. The boss was here. At some point, this man was going to have the final say on whether each member of the intake had succeeded or failed in their training. Sonya knew which side of the line she was going to fall. She did not care how long or how hard she had to train, or what hoops she had to jump through. Now that she had her foot in the door with WWE, she simply was not going to squander the opportunity. She was going to make it to NXT TV, and go on from there with the sky being the limit.

By the time Triple H reached the ring that the recruits were assembled in front of, everyone had noticed him approaching and had fallen into a respectful silence, knowing that he was going to address them. There was another man with him, wearing the same kind of coach's t-shirt than Purrazzo had on.

Triple H entered the ring to stand in front of the group, and the coaching team got into the ring to join him. Sonya felt a little daunted at being in the presence of one of the biggest names in WWE history and the man who had masterminded NXT from its very conception to where it was today.

"Good morning," Triple H said loudly, his voice carrying to all of them easily.

There were some muted, nervous replies, including one from Sonya.

"I said good morning," he tried again in a more upbeat manner.

"Good morning!" Sonya said along with everyone else.

"That's more like it. I'd like to welcome you all to the Performance Centre. As I'm sure you all know, I'm Hunter Helmsley. With me I have Coach Bloom, Coach Kendrick, Coach Paige, and Coach Purrazzo. These are the guys who are going to take you ten hopefuls and turn you into WWE wrestlers. Ten people, out of a field of over fifty thousand applicants. You've done incredibly well to make it this far, but you haven't even started yet. For all of you, this is day one. This is the day where you get to meet the people you're going to spend more of your life with than your own families: your fellow recruits. Let me be clear, this is not a reality show, this is not Tough Enough. You will get a lot further by helping each other than by trying to tear each other down."

Sonya took note of that point. She had wondered how competitive the training was going to be. While she had no doubts about her ability to succeed, she wouldn't have enjoyed having to get bitchy with the other women to try and get ahead.

"The first thing you're going to do is change into your ring attire," Hunter continued. "Coach Bloom and Coach Paige will show you to the male and female locker rooms respectively. You have all been assigned a locker, as you'll see when you get there. Get changed and report back out here for your first drill of the day. Everything clear?"

Everyone confirmed that it was, then Sonya found herself walking next to Mandy on her way to the locker rooms. "Exciting, isn't it?" Sonya said, feeling herself literally buzzing to get started, hoping to make a great first impression.

"I'm shitting myself," Mandy confessed quietly. "I feel like I'm the least experienced person here, and I already see people looking at me and making assumptions based on the way I look. Dean and Seth were both getting an eyeful."

Well, you do look like the stereotypical diva, Sonya thought. She was too kind to say it, and in any case she didn't want to judge someone she didn't know anything about. She knew first hand how hurtful that could be. "You'll do fine," she said reassuringly. "We're all in the same boat. Apart from Zelina, none of us girls have any wrestling experience."

"Thanks," Mandy said, appreciating that there had been an attempt at reassurance, even if it hadn't worked.

At the front of the group of women, Paige had reached the door to the women's locker room. "Here we are, ladies," she said as she led the way inside.

Entering the room last of all, Sonya saw that the new recruits all had lockers on the left side, all five in a row. A black WWE shirt was hanging in each locker, backs facing outwards. The shirt backs had the surnames of the trainees printed on them in red lettering. Sonya saw the word Deville in between Flair and Rose. For a moment, she didn't know who Rose was, until Mandy walked over there.

"Looks like you're not going to get rid of me," Sonya said, walking over and putting her bag on the bench by her locker.

Mandy had put her bag on the bench also, before picking up the WWE shirt with her name on it.

"A little welcome gift for you all," Paige said, referring to the shirts. "See you all out here in a few."

"This is a nice touch," Mandy said, looking at the shirt as Paige left them to it. Taking the hanger down revealed a space for the locker's owner to write their name. The previous occupant's name was still there, and Mandy gasped. "Sonya, I got Trish Stratus's locker!"

"Wow!" Sonya exclaimed. Trish was the current Raw Women's Champion, and undoubtedly one of the best female wrestlers ever. Having her locker was such an honour.

Wanting to see whose locker she was taking over, Sonya took her shirt. She saw the name Clementine, with the words 'good luck' underneath, followed by a quick drawing of a heart. "Aww, I have Clementine's locker," Sonya said, picturing the popular Smackdown roster member. "And look what she wrote. How sweet of her."

"That's lovely," Mandy said as she started unpacking her gear.

Sonya followed her example, not wanting to be the last to get back out to the ring. Triple H might have said it wasn't about competing with each other, but of course it was, at least to some extent.

"So where are you staying? Do you have a place sorted out yet?" Mandy asked.

Feeling embarrassed, Sonya cringed. "No. I actually don't even have money to get a place yet. I'll be in my car for a few weeks."

"You will not!" Mandy said quickly. "I've just rented a small apartment. To be honest, it's a dump. But I'm not going to have you sleep in your car. Please, share with me. We can split the bills and stuff."

"I have don't have money," Sonya reminded her. "Not that I don't appreciate the offer. It's very kind of..."

"I meant we can split the bills once you have money. I have a bit to get by. I don't know anyone in Florida, let alone Orlando. Having a housemate would probably stop me going insane. So yeah, I'd like it. And if it doesn't work out? You can always move on to your own place when you're ready. What do you say? It's got to beat living in a car."

"That's really very sweet of you," Sonya said, feeling humbled by the kindness. "I'll make up my share as soon as I can. Thank you so much, really."

Mandy grinned. "Don't thank me yet. You've not tried living with me yet."

Sonya laughed. "Good point, well made."

They quickly finished changing into their ring attire, which in Sonya's case had previously been worn in three MMA fights. With that done, it was time to head back out to the training rings.

"I wonder what they have in store for us?" Charlotte said, just finishing changing at the locker to the other side of Sonya.

"I don't know," Sonya said, turning to her. "But we'll soon find out."

A/N: Thank you for checking out this first chapter! I hope you enjoyed it.

Sonya met the other recruits and possibly started making a friend. Now it's time to get down to business. What do you think the first test will be?