Several weeks into the training program, Sonya could not have been happier with how things were going. Her body was getting used to the rigours it was being put through, and more importantly she felt like she was learning more and more every day. Coach Purrazzo and Coach Paige really were excellent teachers, as was William Regal in promo class.
In her personal life, Sonya was as happier than she had ever felt before. She and Mandy were now at the point where they described what they had as a relationship, at least in private. They hadn't told anyone else yet, not even their families. As far as anyone else knew, they were housemates, friends and colleagues.
As with every morning, the ten recruits started their session by assembling as a group in the main hall, to find out what was lined up for them that day. On this occasion, all four coaches were standing there in front of them, while the members of the current NXT roster worked with each other in several of the rings. The recruits were now used to sharing training time with their hopefully soon-to-be NXT roster colleagues when they were not on the road for NXT live events.
"Good morning," Coach Bloom began. "Today you'll be doing something you haven't done so far. You'll be in the padded ring, working with Coach Kendrick and Coach Purrazzo on moves from the top rope."
Murmurs of excitement went around the group. "I've been looking forward to this," Mandy said to Sonya.
"Me too," she replied. While Sonya didn't see herself ever being a high flier, that didn't meant she wouldn't enjoy taking part in the lesson.
"I know this is a session a lot of you have been waiting for," Bloom said. "I have more good news, too. We're also going to start doing something else you've been looking forward to. The guys will be sitting down one on one with me, and the women will be sitting with Paige. We'll be working on creating your characters."
More excited chatter started in the group, including Sonya and Mandy. They had talked about their character creation between themselves many times, meaning that they had ideas ready to put forward. Sonya was also keen to keep Lucy Thorne's advice in mind. The boss wanted to see an MMA fighter character. With that in mind, going with something else would be foolish.
"Zelina, you'll go with Paige now, and Seth, you'll come with me," Bloom said. "The rest of you, follow Coach Kendrick and Coach Purrazzo to the padded ring. You'll be summoned when it's your turn for character creation. Anyone who doesn't get seen today will be seen tomorrow. Any questions?"
There were none, so Coach Bloom dismissed the group and headed off in the direction of the offices with Seth Rollins by his side.
Sonya spent the morning working with the rest of the women, enjoying practicing some simple moves from the top rope. She noticed that Charlotte Flair's extraordinary athleticism helped her a lot. For such a tall girl, she really could move gracefully through the air. It was something to behold, but Sonya knew better than to be jealous. Wrestlers came in all shapes and sizes, with all types of backgrounds. Charlotte was a gymnast. Sonya was a fighter. No one expected to see an MMA fighter doing moonsaults off the tope rope. Equally, they didn't expect to see a gymnast punching someone's lights out.
Every day, there was an hour break for lunch. The trainees were permitted to go upstairs to the kitchen and lounge, where they could cook and eat meals that they brought with them. On this particular day, the lunch break happened to coincide with Mandy's session with Coach Paige, meaning that she came upstairs more than fifteen minutes later than Sonya, who was sitting with Dakota Kai, rapidly demolishing a chicken salad.
Before coming upstairs, Mandy had retrieved a matching salad from her bag. She brought it over to the table and sat down next to Sonya.
"You guys even have matching salads," Dakota said in place of a greeting. "Serious friendship goals."
"Either that or it was all we had time to throw together this morning," Mandy said with a chuckle, deliberately playing down what Dakota had said.
"So how did it go?" Sonya asked Mandy, referring to her character creation session.
"Well," Mandy reported with a smile. "Like we said the other day, I thought it best that I was open with Paige, admitting that I expect a lot of people to judge me based on my looks when they first see me working events, or later on TV. We already experienced it with Sasha Banks that first time we met her, so god knows what the fans will say about me. Paige's advice was to embrace it and use it to build my character, so I'm going to be 'God's Greatest Creation, Mandy Rose'. It'll be what she called a blonde bombshell character."
"I love that nickname," Sonya said, annoyed that with Dakota sitting there she couldn't wax lyrical about Mandy's stunning looks.
"It is good," Dakota agreed through a mouthful of the sandwich she was eating. "What have you got for a finish?"
"A double underhook facebuster. It's going to be called A Bed of Roses."
"Love that name too," Sonya said. "I'm really pleased for you. Seems like you've got a great character put together."
"Thank you," Mandy smiled sweetly. "And guess what? You're up next, after break."
With that in mind, Sonya spent the rest of the lunch hour running through what she was going to say to Paige in her mind. By the time she followed Mandy's directions down to the office where Paige was waiting, she felt prepared.
Knocking lightly on the door, Sonya opened it and walked into the office, finding Paige sitting behind a desk with a bottle of water and a ham and pineapple pizza in front of her, eaten all but a couple of slices.
"Oh, sorry. I'll come back when you're done," Sonya said.
Paige gestured to the leather-clad office chair in front of the desk. "Don't be silly. Have a seat and we can get started. Have a slice if you like."
"No, thank you," Sonya said politely as she sat down. She couldn't abide pineapple on pizza, and she wasn't going to sit there picking at it in front of the coach.
Paige took one more bite from the pizza slice she was eating, then got down to business. "As I'm sure you can imagine, between us as a coaching team we have seen the strengths and weaknesses in your work. What this is about is giving you a character to portray that plays to your strengths, hides your weakness, but most importantly, we want you to play a character that you're comfortable playing. It needs to feel natural for you, otherwise it will look forced when you're in the ring or cutting promos. Now, I'm sure you've put some thought into this yourself, so while I finish this pizza, I want you to tell me what your vision is for Sonya Deville."
"I'd like to stick to what I know, as much as possible," Sonya said, using the exact words that Lucy Thorne had said to her weeks earlier. They had been stuck in her head ever since. "I'm a hard-hitting, badass MMA fighter. I see my offense being a variety of kicking and punching striking attacks, with submissions holds worked in. I picture myself as a heel who comes to the ring looking like she's going to tear anyone she comes across limb from limb."
Paige nodded thoughtfully while chewing on a bite from her last slice of pizza. "And your finish would be what?" she asked after a moment.
"A submission of some kind. I was thinking maybe an ankle lock?"
Eventually Paige was done eating. She took a hit from her bottle of water, and was then ready to give her thoughts. "You're not far away from what we were thinking, which is good. Unsurprisingly, given your background, your kicks and punches are possibly the best of the five women you're training with. You're well built, and with your hair up like that you look… fierce, I want to say."
"I'll take fierce," Sonya said with a big smile. "Fierce is good."
"It is for a heel, which is how we see you. You have the look of a heel. Please, take that the right way."
"No, I appreciate the comment," Sonya said openly.
"Regarding your in-ring style, I agree that your strength is in your striking. You've shown a wide and varied range of kicks already, and they can make up a big part of your arsenal. We'll work together to add some suplexes and slams, but it sounds like you already know most of what you should be doing. For a finish, I'm thinking of something like a triangle armbar, or maybe a chokehold. Something like the Tazzmission."
"This is awkward. I don't know what that is," Sonya had to admit.
"That's okay," Paige said, taking it in her stride. "It's a judo chokehold. I forget the actual name of it. Anyway, I can teach it to you tomorrow. We'll see how you go with and if you like it, then we can make a decision."
"Sounds great, thank you," Sonya said.
"We want you to use your real name. We think Sonya Deville is a very good name for a wrestler. We did consider calling you Daria, but on balance, we prefer Sonya Deville."
"Me too," Sonya said, thinking that Daria only came out to play in the bedroom, picturing Mandy bound and gagged on their bed. Shaking it off, she forced herself to focus on listening to the coach.
"The only other thing we need is a nickname for you. For example, we've agreed to call Mandy 'God's Greatest Creation'."
"Yes, she just told me," Sonya said with a broad smile. "It's perfect for her. I don't like the idea of people judging her ability as a wrestler based on her appearance, but…"
"It's going to happen anyway," Paige finished for her in a regretful tone.
"Yeah," Sonya sighed.
"You guys are close friends," Paige commented.
Sonya nodded, happy to leave her under that misapprehension. "We're housemates. I moved here with almost no money, nowhere to stay. I was going to sleep in my car until I was able to get a place somewhere."
"What?" Paige cried, eyes wide. "You should have said something when you signed, or to one of us when you got here. The company would have helped get you set up."
"I don't live on handouts," Sonya said simply. "I had a hard enough time with my conscience when Mandy offered me the chance to move into the apartment she'd just rented, since I couldn't contribute. I made her agree to let me pay her back."
"In a way, that's admirable," Paige said. "But if you find yourself struggling again, in any way, you make sure you speak to someone."
Sonya nodded, although she knew it wouldn't need to happen. She was settled in with Mandy now, and knew she wouldn't be going anywhere.
"Anyway, back to your character," Paige said after a sip from her water bottle. "What nickname are we going to give you?"
"In MMA, I called myself The Jersey Devil."
Paige considered that for a moment before nodding her head. "That's actually very good. It works with your last name, you're from New Jersey, and The Jersey Devil is a 'real thing'," she said with air quotes.
"My dad helped me to choose it," Sonya said proudly. "I really would like to use it. It would mean a lot to me, and it would mean a lot to him."
"You're close to your dad?" Paige asked. It was part of her job as one of the senior coaches to get to know her students on a personal level.
"Yeah," Sonya said, fighting off a wave of emotion as she thought about how long it had been since she had seen her family. She missed them all badly, and couldn't wait until WWE gave the trainees a few days off so that she could fly up and see them, hopefully with Mandy. "Dad has done a lot for me. He hasn't been afraid to tell me when he hasn't agreed with my choices or decisions, but he has been there for me nonetheless. Taking fighting, for example. He was against my decision to do it, but he supported me once he saw I was determined to have a go at it. He sat with me for like an hour on the phone talking over possible nicknames for me to use. And we came up with The Jersey Devil."
Smiling at the story, Paige said, "The Jersey Devil it is. And if we decide to go with the chokehold for your finish, we could call it The Devil's Grip."
"Yes!" Sonya said delightedly. "I love that. It's perfect. Teach me the hold tomorrow, and let's go with it. Thank you, Paige, this is amazing. I love it so much."
"You're welcome, and I'm glad you're enjoying it. It won't be long before you're having matches. That's where the real fun begins."
This is all getting so real, Sonya thought. Her in-ring debut felt like it was approaching so fast. "I can't wait," she said. It was the understatement of a lifetime.
A/N: Many thanks to everyone who left a review last time. You guys are awesome.
What do you think of what Paige and Sonya put together for her character? Let me know your thoughts.
In the next chapter it will be time for Sonya and Mandy to have their first appearance at an NXT live event! Given the NXT roster we were introduced to earlier in the story, who would you like to see Sonya work with?