Disclaimer, etc., in prologue.

Part Nine

He sat in the locker room, his legs stretched out in front of him, the three of them having decided not to make their presence felt until they showed up for their six-man tag match later in the night... The main event of the night, actually. Roman had seemed less irritable after he'd returned from getting the bottled water, the man having actually gotten enough for the three of them, which Dean took as a bit of a peace offering or whatever. He hadn't given Roman any explanation for the night before - hadn't even told him as much as he'd told Seth, but the big man hadn't asked. Maybe Seth had given him the information he knew; Dean wasn't sure. He really didn't care.

Shifting a bit, his eyes on the screen, Dean Ambrose watched as Aksana and Alicia Fox made their way down to the ring, Michael Cole explaining that the originally planned divas' match couldn't happen that night because AJ Lee hadn't been deemed fit to compete.

"Not surprising after the number Eve did on her last night," Roman intoned, and Seth snorted, shaking his head before taking a drink of his water. Lowering the bottle, he glanced at the others.

"Can you blame Eve for what she did? AJ deserved it, and Punk deserved the public dumping afterwards. I heard she slapped him, too, which... Good for her."

"True enough," Roman replied, the man shifting in his seat as new music played throughout the arena... The music of the Bella twins, though it wasn't just Brie and her sister Nikki that walked out. Eve Torres walked out as well, the woman apparently Brie's tag team partner for the night. Roman shook his head. "CM Punk is a complete idiot to cheat on that woman. I mean, just look at her," the man said, and Dean shifted a bit in his own seat at that, fighting not to show any change in his demeanor as Eve was shown on screen, the wrestler trying not to react to his teammate's words... It wasn't like Roman was saying anything he hadn't thought himself, anyway. He'd actually questioned whether Punk had received too many blows to the head recently when he'd been talking to Eve about it the night before, and he'd kind of meant it. Not only did he find Eve to be a lot hotter than AJ, but AJ seemed like a fucking loon, and Eve Torres was far from that.

"Well, you know, the guy has had a couple of head injuries in the past few months," Seth replied, unknowingly echoing Dean's words from the night before. "Staples to his head when Heyman hit him with the ladder at Money in the Bank, and I think Lesnar busted him pretty good once or twice as well, so... Maybe he's not thinking too straight. You think she'll take him back?"

"Eve?" Dean questioned, then scoffed. "Nah. She seems to have too much self-respect for that," he said, though the truth was, he couldn't be entirely sure. Despite what had happened between them the night before, he didn't really *know* her, not in the way that two people that spent real time together got to know one another, but that didn't change the fact that he didn't think Eve seemed like she intended to go back to Punk. She'd been angry and hurt and if she was going to try to get the guy back - or take him back, whatever - Dean didn't think she would have taken him up on his offer the night before and gone back to his hotel room... But she had, and he had the scratches and bruises to prove it.

"After what she did to AJ last night, if I were one of the divas, I don't think I'd want to be up against Eve tonight... Even if I had nothing to do with what happened," Seth said, shaking his head a little as another close-up of Eve was put on the screen. It was easy to see the focus and intense concentration on her face... Not to mention the anger.

Dean smirked slightly. "Dude, you *are* a diva," he tossed back, trying not to look too engrossed in what was happening on the screen, figuring a smart-ass remark would help with that, and Seth rolled his eyes at the comment, holding up a hand and flipping him off.

"You're such a dick sometimes," Seth stated, the man leaning forward in his seat a bit as the bell rang, the tag team divas match getting underway, and Dean found himself thinking that Seth might be onto something... Given the way Eve was taking it to Aksana in there, he had to say that if he was a diva, he might not want to be facing her tonight, either.

"Yeah, well, I try," Ambrose replied, flexing his hand slightly as he watched the divas' match... Eve was really taking her anger out on Aksana, enough so that the referee actually pulled her back when she had the other woman down in the corner and wouldn't stop kicking her. He could actually see Eve trying to gather herself as the referee admonished her, the woman stepping back and going to her corner of the ring, allowing Brie Bella to tag in, which was probably a good idea. The way Eve was going, she was going to get herself disqualified, and he doubted that the brunette wanted to lose her first match back in that way... Even if getting DQ'd for beating the ever-loving crap out of her opponent would be one hell of a statement to make upon her return.

Brie managed to keep the upper-hand for awhile, her in-ring skills having improved a lot recently, likely because she was supposedly spending a lot of time training with Daniel Bryan and well... Even if he didn't like the guy, Ambrose knew the man was good in the ring. It made sense that Brie would get better while training with him. Unfortunately for her, Alicia Fox wasn't above reaching out and grabbing a handful of her hair when Brie went to use the ropes for momentum, and the woman fell hard to the mat, giving Aksana enough time to gather herself and get to her tag team partner to make the tag... But despite the unexpected attack, Brie was still quick enough and smart enough to do the same, the woman lunging toward her corner and tagging in Eve.

The look on Alicia's face when Eve climbed into the ring was priceless. She looked like she wanted to turn right back around and tag back out... Clearly, after what had happened the night before - not to mention how Eve had started the match against Aksana - Alicia wasn't looking forward to facing the other woman.

And it looked like she had good reason to feel that way.

Eve was still brutal in her attacks, though she wasn't as uncontrolled as before. She kept Alicia out of the corner, keeping the other woman in the center of the ring as she took her down with kicks and strikes that seemed to be connecting pretty damn viciously. Even when Alicia did get enough offense in to throw Eve into the turnbuckle, Eve managed to turn around and get a foot up, kicking the other diva in the face when she went for a splash in the corner. As Alicia stumbled back, Eve followed her out of the corner, kicking her in the gut, then putting her in position for the neckbreaker that he knew the woman used as her finisher...

And that was when AJ Lee's music started to play.