A/N: In this world, The Shield didn't split, so Roman didn't end up getting all the hate he currently does from a lot of fans. I'll also be tweaking who is on what roster when needed, but with the superstar shakeup only days away, I don't see that as a problem.
As always, I will be referring to wrestlers by their in-ring names wherever possible.
Three men dressed in black body armour walked out of a locker room. None of them looked very happy, particularly the scruffy-looking one in the lead of the trio.
"If this is about to go the way we think it is, I'm going to lose my cool," Dean Ambrose promised his two brothers.
"Dean, calm down," the much taller man who was immediately behind him urged.
"No, Roman," Dean insisted. "I'm not going to let them do it without saying my piece."
"Saying your piece is okay," the third man of the group said. "It's how you say it that you need to be careful about."
"Why, Seth? Huh?" Dean asked heatedly, turning and walking backwards along the hallway for a moment as he looked at the other two men. "Why do I need to be careful? Will they ruin our team? Oh wait, that's what they're doing anyway!" he exclaimed sarcastically.
"We don't actually know what Vince wants to see us for," Roman reminded him. "You're assuming. How about we wait to get annoyed until after we've heard what he has to say?"
"I don't need to," Dean griped. "You guys know the rumours as well as I do. It's been talked about for days. Since they added Nikki Bella to the new Authority stable, and The Shield happen to be feuding with The Authority, there's going to be a woman added to The Shield. You know what I say to that? Fuck no! The three of us are The Shield, no one else, and certainly not a woman."
Seth knew Dean didn't mean his comment in a sexist way, not really. He meant that he didn't see how the dynamic of the group could continue with a woman involved. There was logic to his concern, Seth had to admit. The years they had spent together on WWE's main roster as The Shield had been the best years of all of their lives. That made change a disconcerting prospect. Even so, going into Vince McMahon's office with a bad attitude wasn't going to help anything. It would likely make things worse.
"We both get that," he assured Dean. "We're just saying we need to hear Vince out first, then put our points across in the right way. It's not going to go well if we walk in there and tell him to f' himself."
Dean grunted. "You don't know how tempted I am."
As was often the case, Roman decided to take charge of the group. "No one's going to say anything until we've heard Vince out," he said firmly. "Then, if he tells us what we think he's going to tell us, we can try and change his mind."
Following his closest friends along the hallway, Seth found himself wondering if the rumours about Vince adding Charlotte Flair to The Shield could really be true.
Everyone in the locker room liked Charlotte, and respected her for how quickly her in-ring work had improved since she had graduated from NXT. The chance to join The Shield after several months out of action with a knee injury would be a tremendous, and arguably deserved opportunity for her. But that didn't mean it was the right thing for The Shield, and that was the big bone of contention the three guys had.
"Here goes nothing," Dean said when they reached the Chairman's office. He knocked on the door, then lead the team inside when McMahon's booming voice instructed them to enter.
"Ah, good," Vince said as the trio walked into the office. He rose from behind his desk and walked around to shake hands with each of them.
"We got word you wanted to speak to us," Roman said pleasantly after his handshake.
"That's right," Vince said. "As you know, you're working Owens, Joe and Balor as the second incarnation of The Authority for the foreseeable future. Nikki was added to their stable last week with her new businesswoman gimmick, so I want a woman with you, too."
Typical Vince, Seth thought. Straight to the point. "We heard that might be what you had in mind," he replied cautiously. "Honestly, we're not sure a woman is a good fit for The Shield. We think it might be better left how it is."
"That's not going to work," Vince said definitively. "The Authority have a woman now, so you guys need one, too. I can understand you have reservations about changing your successful dynamic, but I'm going to need you to go with me on this. There is a lot of potential in putting a woman with you, even after this angle is done. You know how big this women's revolution thing is. It was sceptical too at one time, but no, we have to get behind it. It's what people want to see. Besides, we have the right woman lined up for the job."
Already seeing that they had come to fight a losing battle, Roman asked, "Charlotte, right? That's what we heard."
Vince looked confused for a second. "Charlotte? No. She's out another few weeks at least with her knee. Her rehab isn't going as well as we'd hoped."
"Who is it then?" Roman asked, noting the increasingly annoyed look on Dean's face as the news got worse and worse.
"We're putting Lucy Thorne with you," Vince announced, making it sound like he was handing them a generous gift.
"Oh, for fuck's sake," Dean groaned, throwing his head back theatrically. "Why her, Vince? A woman is bad enough, but does it really have to be her? All she's going to do is bring heat on us, and we're supposed to be face. Plus she's a nightmare to work with; everyone knows that. I don't want her on our team."
Seth wouldn't have been quite so forward about it, but he shared Dean's concerns. Lucy Thorne was not the right woman for The Shield, on or off the screen. The big problem was, however, that the English woman was the McMahon's favourite, especially Stephanie, who had originally scouted Lucy and talked her daddy into signing her a couple of years earlier.
That status as favourite had rapidly turned Lucy into the second coming of John Cena, at least as far as the negative aspects of Cena's career were concerned. Despite her limited moveset and her inability to sell for others, Lucy had been booked as practically unbeatable ever since she had debuted on NXT. Seeing what was going on, the fans had been quick to react negatively to it. Now, even though she was booked and written as a face, Lucy was booed heavily in every arena she set foot in, unless it happened to be in her home country.
Backstage, there were further problems. Being handpicked by Stephanie McMahon and then given a ridiculous push had only worsened Lucy's already abrasive attitude in the back, and she was now disliked by many on the roster, including all three members of The Shield.
While it was true that being five feet eight, dark haired and built like the side of a house gave her the right look for The Shield, that was the only way she was even close to the right fit for the team.
"Dean's right, Vince," Roman said. "Lucy's going to bring heat on us. Why would you want to put someone who's going to get booed with us, when we're working the top heel stable? It makes no sense."
"And besides," Seth decided to add, "she's not even that great in the ring, let's be honest about it."
"Part of the idea of putting her with you is to stop people booing her," Vince said, ignoring Seth completely. "They're not supposed to be booing her; she's supposed to be the new face of the women's division. Everyone always cheers The Shield, so this will be good for all involved."
"They boo her because you push her so hard," Dean said, almost managing to keep the sarcasm out of his tone. It was ludicrous at times how Vince couldn't see what was so obvious to everyone else.
"Enough," Vince said, starting to lose his cool. "You're going to be teaming with Lucy Thorne against The Authority. The decision has been made, and I expect you to make a good job of it. We've got high hopes for this rivalry leading up to Wrestlemania. Like I've told you all before, we plan for this year to be huge for The Shield, so don't make me change my mind."
The boss paused to let that sink in, the continued, "Now, you're all more experienced than Lucy, so I expect you to take her under your wings, if necessary. If you're going to be among our top guys, you need to be relishing this kind of challenge, and delighted by this kind of opportunity."
"I thought Lucy was injured, anyway?" Dean asked sullenly. He made is perfectly plain that he was anything but delighted about anything that was being discussed.
"She was injured. Now she's ready to come back," Vince said, as if explaining to a child. "She recovered really fast. A torn pectoral is a nasty injury, yet she's ready to go already."
"Okay, Vince, we'll take Lucy Thorne on as a member of The Shield," Roman said reluctantly, coming to the conclusion that this wasn't the hill he wanted The Shield to die on. "But if it doesn't work out during this rivalry, either on-screen or off, I want us to revisit the whole thing after Wrestlemania. Can we agree on that?"
"You got it," Vince smiled, now that he had gotten his own way. "Cheer up, guys. You've got the biggest star in women's wrestling on your team."
Seth managed to hold in a sigh, and then asked, "When is she going to debut with us?"
"A week from tonight," Vince said. "The night after the Rumble. All three of you will be eliminated from the Rumble match by Authority members, with one of those eliminations coming thanks to Nikki getting up on the apron and hitting a low blow. That sets us up for the two month program going into Mania, with the four on four feud."
"And who's going over in this feud?" Dean asked, ready to explode if he was told he would be going through two months of this shit to put the other team over at WWE's biggest event of the year.
"You are," Vince smiled. "A Shield win over The Authority will be a Wrestlemania moment."
"Okay, thanks, Vince," Roman said politely, hiding his irritation perfectly. "We'll get going, if there's nothing else?"
"Thanks for stopping by," Vince said, with the typical look he got in his eyes when he won a battle.
The complaints didn't start again until The Shield were back in their locker room. This time, Dean was the last one through the door. "Well that went well," he said with heavy sarcasm after slamming the door closed. "Why do I feel like we just rolled over and had our fucking bellies rubbed in there?"
Seth was wondering the same thing. They had gone into McMahon's office not wanting a woman on their team, only to find out that it was even worse than that. They were getting pretty much the only woman in the company who they didn't even like as person. Yet, the conversation had totally not gone their way, and they had ended up agreeing to it.
"Vince's mind was made up," Roman said, with some degree of frustration in his voice. He walked over to a steel chair and slumped down onto it. "He was telling us, not asking, and it wasn't our hill to die on, guys," he sighed.
"But it's Lucy fucking Thorne," Dean complained bitterly. "Charlotte I could have lived with if I'd had to, but Lucy? To hell with her, man. They call that stupid finish of hers Thorne in the Side, now she's a thorn in our side. And before you say it, I know that's not funny."
Again, Seth had to agree with Dean. "I'm with you, bro. She's an egomaniac, doesn't care about anyone else, and she's a bully, too, from what I've heard. I don't want to team with that kind of person. I mean, look at this injury she's got; a torn pec or whatever it was. She got that against Sasha, when she was the one doing a move at the time. Then, somehow, Sasha gets the heat for injuring her. It made no sense. Steph's got a woman crush on this bitch, so we're all supposed to love her. The fans are supposed to love her…"
"Right," Dean cut in. "The only problem is, no one other than Steph, Vince and maybe Hunter actually do. She gets shit on all the time because she can't wrestle. She has, like five moves she does regularly, and she can't even sell for others worth a damn."
"It's just because she looks tough," Seth griped. "She's got the badass look, she's got an awesome body, and Steph talked her dad into beating UFC to her signature. That's why they're pushing her to the moon. It's really dumb, even when you try and find the logic in it."
Dean wandered over to his case, which had been left sitting on the bench at the back of the locker room, and angrily tossed it aside. "You know what?" he asked no one in particular. "I bet she'll show up next Monday thinking she's doing us a favour or something by teaming with us. I'm just going to tell her straight to her face that I don't like her, and I didn't want her. She can fu..."
"Okay, ladies, that's enough," Roman cut in irritably. "None of us are happy about this, but we're not going to start talking to Lucy like she's a piece of garbage when we see her next week. I'm not having that. Like it or not, she's our partner now, and besides, she's a lady. You can't just talk to her like you would one of the guys, Dean."
"She wants to be glad about that," Dean muttered under his breath. "A woman in The Shield. This is a joke."
Standing near the door, Seth found himself taking a stance somewhere between his two brothers. He agreed with Dean about not wanting to work with Lucy Thorne, but he agreed with Roman that there were fundamental differences about how a woman should be spoken to, compared to a man. Shrugging, he said, "I guess we're just going to have to wait and see what happens next week."
Little did Seth know, Vince McMahon had been a lot closer to giving the role in The Shield to Charlotte Flair than he had made out. It had basically been a coin flip decision, eventually being decided by the fact that Lucy was fit to return from injury first. That coin flip would eventually come to change Seth Rollins' and Lucy Thorne's lives forever. It would be quite a journey.