Moments away from what would be their real televised debut, as they had come to refer to it, Sonya, Mandy and Zelina were standing backstage. They were not in the small Gorilla position, though. They were waiting for their cue to run through the door in front of them, and would then head through the crowd and jump over the ringside barriers.
In the ring, Bayley was about to win a match against a woman WWE had brought in for a one off match. It was something that was done from time to time if they wanted to have a look at a potential future signing. Indeed, Zelina had revealed to her new team members that had once had one such match herself, back in the very early days of NXT.
Bayley's current storyline was that she was being made to 'start from the bottom' if she wanted a shot at the NXT Women's Championship, after losing a number one contendership match to the now departed Lacey Evans prior to Takeover.
After Bayley got the victory, both her character and the audience were in for a surprise.
"Okay, go," Sonya and Mandy's road agent told them.
They ran into the arena, with Zelina not far behind. They had reached ringside before many of the fans seemed to notice that anything was going on. In the ring, Bayley was just getting her three count as Sonya and Mandy came piling over the barriers at ringside, wearing their new Golden Gloves attires, complete with actual golden gloves.
Mandy was first to hit the ring, amid cries of surprise and shouts of warning to Bayley from the fans. The warnings were not headed, and as Bayley stood up to start celebrating the victory, she was nailed in the back of the head with a vicious forearm, sending her collapsing to the mat.
As she joined in with Mandy, laying kicks and punches into Bayley, Sonya had to actively force herself to look mean and aggressive. Her instinct was to smile, such was the enjoyment she was getting from being there beside her girlfriend, working what would be a televised segment. But she had to focus and ensure that the beating looked savage. This was the first impression the audience would get of Zelina Vega and the Golden Gloves, and there was only ever one chance to make a first impression.
The decision to have Bayley be the first to suffer an attack from the Golden Gloves was a clever one on Hunter's part, Sonya thought. Although the attackers were a couple of unknowns, it didn't matter. Anyone attacking Bayley was going to be booed because of her popularity.
With Zelina screaming instructions, Sonya and Mandy continued to kick and stamp on Bayley, who was only able to crawl into a corner of the ring in a pathetic attempt to seek safety.
"Stay on her! That's it!" Zelina shouted as Mandy repeatedly stomped on Bayley's chest while she lay propped against the bottom turnbuckle.
Pointing was enough for Zelina to send Sonya across to the opposite corner of the ring, where she crouched down, lining up her signature move.
"Get her up," Zelina yelled at Mandy, gesticulating wildly to emphasise her instruction.
Grabbing hold of Bayley, Mandy hauled her to her feet.
When the moment was right, Sonya sprinted across the ring and launched herself into the air. Mandy moved aside, leaving only Bayley in the line of fire when Sonya hit a spear. She had done her best to make it look as much like Rhyno's Gore as possible. It was something she had worked on a lot with Coach Purrazzo.
After breaking Bayley in half, Sonya got up and yelled at the crowd. "Where's your hugger now, huh?"
Zelina wasted no time on celebration. There was still work to do. Directing traffic, she ordered Mandy to finish Bayley off, making a slamming motion with her hands.
Knowing full well what the instruction meant, Mandy scraped Bayley up off the mat and lifted her up into the air, in position for the Golden Slam.
"Take her head off!" Zelina screamed at Sonya.
More than willing to obey the instruction, Sonya ran at the defenceless Bayley, leapt into the air and blasted her with a kick to the side of the head.
At the moment of the kick's impact, Mandy slammed Bayley to the mat, completing the utter destruction of the former NXT Women's Champion.
Sneering down at the wreckage, Sonya imagined the commentary team talking up the dastardly act that had just been perpetrated.
Nodding slightly, Zelina looked satisfied with her team's handiwork. The decision had been made not to debut the Golden Gloves theme music in this segment, so the trio only had boos in their ears as Zelina gestured with her head for Sonya and Mandy to leave the ring.
First out of the ring, Sonya waited at the bottom of the entrance ramp for Zelina and Mandy to join her. Once they were all there, they walked backwards up the ramp, looking back towards the ring at the remains of Bayley.
At the top of the ramp, they stopped and posed, Zelina standing in between Sonya and Mandy, triumphantly raising their hands.
"This is what we're here to do!" Zelina shouted, mainly for the benefit of the cameraman who was standing in front of them to get a close up shot of the new team.
That was where the segment would come to an end, as far as TV was concerned. Zelina turned and headed for the back, with her two team members not far behind.
Walking through the curtain into the Gorilla position, Sonya saw Coach Paige and William Regal among the people there. Regal was busy talking, but Paige came over to them. The look on her face told Sonya that she was pleased with what she had seen.
"Awesome, girls," she told them. "I saw shocked faces in the crowd. No one expected Bayley to get an ass kicking like that."
"So it looked good?" Mandy asked hopefully.
"It looked great," Paige said. She looked at Zelina. "Great job. You left no one in doubt that you're the brains behind the operation."
"Yes, quite," Regal said in agreement as he walked over to join them. "Excellent work tonight, both out there and earlier with the promo."
Sonya smiled, thinking back to the promo he had mentioned.
Earlier that night, Zelina and the Golden Gloves had been instructed to record a promo which would be aired during the second of the three shows being recorded that night. Although their attack on Bayley would be on the first of the three episodes, it was not unusual for promos to be filmed out of sequence. It mattered not, since Zelina had been given pointers on what to say.
Zelina stood in the middle of the two wrestlers she had recruited to do her bidding. As soon as the light lit up on the camera to show that it was recording, Zelina launched into what she had to say.
"My name is Zelina Vega. You have seen me wrestling here on NXT for the past few months, but that's only one of my many talents. What really sets me apart from everyone else here is that I am much smarter, much more cunning, much more calculating than the rest. I did not come here merely to wrestle, I came to take over."
Standing beside her manager, Sonya put her best fearsome expression on her face. She liked the way she and Mandy looked in their Golden Gloves outfits. It could have looked like a really lame gimmick if they had got the ring attire wrong, but no, they looked the business.
"To that aim, I'd like to introduce you to a couple of people." Zelina turned to Mandy first. "This is God's Greatest Creation, Mandy Rose." She turned to Sonya. "And this is the Jersey Devil, Sonya Deville. Together, they are known as the Golden Gloves."
Sonya raised a clenched fist, in its golden glove. Her implication was that she could do a lot of damage with that fist if she was so inclined, or instructed to by her manager.
"As you saw last week," Zelina was saying, "I had the Golden Gloves make a huge statement. We showed up, we hit the ring and we beat the living hell out of a former NXT Women's Champion. It wasn't anything personal against Bayley, she was simply our first target. Anyone in NXT is fair game for the Golden Gloves, so consider this to be me putting the women's division on notice. You won't know if or when we're going to come for you, but Zelina Vega and the Golden Gloves will continue to strike as we did last week, until there is nothing left of the women's division apart from Mandy Rose and Sonya Deville. You have been warned. Let's go, ladies."
Zelina walked out of the shot. As they followed after her, both Mandy and Sonya glared into the camera.
"You did a great job with the promo, Z," Sonya said as they walked back to the locker room after their attack on Bayley and the conversation with William Regal and Paige.
"Yeah, you're such a good talker," Mandy said. "We're lucky that Hunter decided to put you with us."
"Don't, you'll make me blush," Zelina said with a chuckle. "Besides, I can talk all I want, it would make no difference if the two of you didn't make a convincing job of being the muscle of the operation. And Paige agreed with me that you did a great job out there with Bay."
Sonya smiled in appreciation of the praise and led the group back into the locker room. Thanks to their stop to talk to Paige and Regal, Bayley had made it there ahead of them.
"Great job, guys," was Bayley's friendly greeting when they walked in.
"Thanks, Bay," Mandy said.
"We appreciate you putting us over like that," Sonya said. "You made the beating look very convincing."
Bayley simply smiled. "That's what we're here to do for each other. I'm sure you'll do the same for me when the time comes."
"Absolutely," Mandy promised.
"I like your new team," Elena D'Agostino said from the back of the room, in her Italian accent that was so thick it was sometimes hard to understand. "Next time, you beat me."
Sonya glanced at Mandy and Zelina, wondering if they had a better understanding of what she meant. Due to the language barrier, he phrasing was a lot less than clear.
Elena's closest friend in the locker room was Becky Lynch. Somehow, even with Elena's strong Italian accent and Becky's strong Irish one, they had been able to form a friendship, and could understand each other quite well. It was often a source of hilarity in the locker room to hear them talking to each other, but they made it work.
"She's saying that at the next tapings, it's her arse you're going to be kicking around the ring," Becky advised them. "We ran into Hunter earlier and he mentioned it to us. It's part of the angle with Bay, where she's fighting to get a title shot."
"Ah, I see," Mandy said, smiling at the Italian.
Personally, Sonya was both delighted and nervous at the prospect. She was in no illusion that Elena was a level above everyone else in NXT, even Bayley. Her ability in the ring and the credibility her name had thanks to her work for other promotions was enough to make her a worthy main roster champion, let alone being NXT Women's Champion. Nevertheless, she had been assigned to the developmental brand, and that gave Sonya and Mandy a chance to work with her. Beating up on Daga, as she was affectionately named by her friends and fans, would be sure to generate more heat for the Golden Gloves.
"Looking forward to it," Sonya said.
Elena nodded an acknowledgement as Becky said, "Before that, you're working with me at the live events this weekend."
"Then we'll look forward to that as well," Mandy said.
For the first time, it actually started to dawn on Sonya that she and Mandy really were a part of the NXT roster. They were going to be appearing regularly on TV, and they would now be recognised names at live events, instead of unknown jobbers. They were now properly on the ladder that could, in time, see them climb to the main roster. It was going to be one hell of a journey, and the best part of all was that they would take the journey together, every step of the way.
A/N: Many thanks to everyone who left a review on the previous chapter.
Next time, we're going to see Sonya, Mandy and Zelina on the road together for the first time, since they are now traveling partners as well as teammates. What adventures would you like to see them get up to?