"I'm not sure what I think," Bayley said nervously. She was standing in front of a mirror in her hotel room, studying what was going to be the first image the fans got at the new heel Bayley. She was wearing dark blue jeans, a grey t-shirt under an open black leather jacket and black leather gloves. The new look was completed by a pair of long black leather boots, and by the fact that she was wearing her hair down, and had a pair of sunglasses perched on her head.
"You look totally badass, angel," Seth Rollins said, admiring the view from where he was sitting on the end of the bed behind her.
"You really think so?" Bayley asked, turning to face him with a nervous little smile on her face.
"Well, not so much with that look on your face. Come on, get in character."
Bayley did as he asked, replacing her expression with one more suitable for a person who was done wasting their career, and was going to start kicking asses first and asking questions later.
"That's more like it," Seth said approvingly.
"Good," Bayley said with some relief. "This was how Hunter said he wanted me to dress. I went out and bought a whole bunch of new clothes, so I at least need to know I can pull off what they're looking for."
"No doubts about that at all," he assured her. "Now, how about your new ring attire?"
"I'm not changing into it now. I'm going to go to the arena like this, now that I'm wearing it."
"Alright, but let's at least have a look at it," Seth urged, getting up off the bed.
"Eager beaver," Bayley giggled on her way over to her travel case. She took off her gloves and stuffed them into her coat pocket, since they wouldn't been needed until she was due to go on camera that night.
"Okay, here you are," she said as she pulled her new ring attire out of her case and laid it out on the bed. Leather was a theme for the new Bayley. Her attire now consisted of black pants and a sports bra. The pants had the word Bayley on the right leg in white lettering.
"Very nice," Seth said, nodding his appreciation. Naturally, Bayley had described the ring attire she had ordered to him, but this was his first time actually seeing it due to the fact that they had spent the past couple of days on different travel schedules, on WWE business.
"Thanks for recommending that company to me. They really looked after me, getting it made and delivered to me inside a week."
Seth smiled. "No problem. They're probably the best guys I've ever used for ring gear. They make good quality stuff as well. I've recommended them to everyone who has asked me since I first used them that time a few months ago."
"I ordered another few sets, with the 'Bayley' in different colours on each one. I've got a red, blue, purple and green on order."
"That'll be you all set then." Seth looked at her with a mischievous grin. "No matter what colour the writing on the leg is, you'll look hot as hell. I love it when you wear leather, and you know I prefer your hair down."
"I know you do," she said with a hint of sadness in her tone as she walked over to him and into his arms. "But I'm going to miss my ponytail, and I'm going to miss being the kid's favourite. That was the part of the job I loved the most."
"No doubt that's the toughest part of turning heel for you," Seth said, thinking all the way back to the first time Bayley had turned heel, starting an on-screen relationship with him at the same time. That first night, Bayley had been so heartbroken at losing her hugger character that she had crawled into bed with him, in dire need of consolation. A connection had immediately formed between them and they had never really looked back from that night. They were now happily living together and were engaged to be married, albeit with a date yet to be set for the wedding. "You'll get through it though, angel. And we both know it's the best thing for your career right now."
"Oh, I'm not disputing that," she assured him. "But that doesn't meant there aren't parts of my old character I'm going to miss. I'll get used to it. There's definitely a part of me looking forward to the reaction to my new character tonight."
"It will be a Bayley no one expected to ever see," Seth opined. "Much like Commissioner Martinez was. You looked hot in a suit, too, now that I think about it."
Bayley was glad that, as always, he had made her feel happy when that might not have been the case if he hadn't been around. She might have found herself dwelling on the negative aspects of her heel turn, yet here she was standing in her man's arms with a big smile on her face.
"Okay, I'm going to put you on the spot," she teased. "Business suit, or leather jacket?"
"Got to be the leather jacket," Seth replied without hesitation. "As much as I like suits on women, there's nothing like a hot chick in leather. I love this new image for your character." With that, he pulled her to him. Her jacket made what he found to be a very pleasurable sound that was somewhere between a scrunch and a creak. "Mmm," he moaned happily into her mouth as they started kissing passionately.
Later that day, Bayley and Seth arrived at the arena for Raw. The previous day, she had received a text from Hunter, asking her to come to his office to talk over a few more details regarding her new role on the show. After dropping her case off in the women's locker room, she decided that the best thing to do was get the meeting with the boss out of the way as soon as possible, before things started to get manic backstage.
When she approached Hunter's office, Bayley found the man himself standing in the doorway talking to Stephanie and a couple of backstage employees. Having no idea what the conversation was about, Bayley lingered a short distance away.
It wasn't long at all before Hunter noticed her. He laughed and clapped his hands in approval. "Bayley? Yes, that's exactly the look we wanted. Come in." He motioned for her to enter the office, then said a goodbye to Stephanie and the crew members, who headed off in separate directions to go about other business. Stephanie and Bayley exchanged smiles on the way past each other.
"So, I guess I can skip my first question," Hunter said as he closed the door behind them and followed Bayley over towards his desk. He offered her a seat with another hand gesture and sat behind his desk. "You obviously conjured up the same image of the new Bayley as we did. That's excellent."
Bayley gave a relaxed smile. She'd had a working relationship with Hunter for so many years now that she felt totally at ease around him. "I don't know if you plan to have me wrestle tonight, I only just got here and haven't seen any formats, but I had some new ring attire made and delivered already just in case."
"Already? That was fast," Hunter said with raised eyebrows.
"Seth found this new company that were starting up a few months ago," Bayley explained. "He decided to give them a shot and was very impressed by the service and the quality of what they made for him. I called them, and of course they saw Raw last week and understood the urgency. They promised to get me something in time for tonight, and they came through."
"Well, that's excellent," Hunter said with another smile. "Now, we already talked last week about what's going to happen in terms of you and Sasha building your rivalry. What I wanted to speak to you about now was mainly what we want from you outside of the ring."
"I'm listening," she said with some caution in her voice.
"As I said before, we have ambitious plans for you. Last time we changed your character, I think you did an amazing job as Commissioner Martinez, and I made no secret of the fact I thought it was a shame Vince called time on it. But what that run taught me is that you're very versatile; you can adapt to whatever we give you. This time, we're not putting you in a suit and having you run Raw with an iron fist. This time, you're going to be a real nasty bitch. You're going to be mean. You're going to be a bully. You're going to terrorise people for no other reason than you like doing it. And as for how the audience react to that; by hating you? You're not going to care in the least because you're going to hate them right back."
"Oh, man," Bayley breathed, finding that a lot to take in.
Hunter barely paused, enjoying describing what he wanted them to bring to fruition. "Your new tagline is going to be 'I don't care anymore'. You feel like the fans weren't there for you when you brought the hugger back. They let you down. You feel Sasha Banks stabbed you in the back multiple times when she was supposed to be your friend. You reached breaking point, and came to the realisation that Bayley is the only one who cares about Bayley. No one cares about you, so you don't care about them."
"I don't care anymore," Bayley repeated. "I kind of like that. It fits, if I'm going to become some kind of lone wolf, attacking who I want, when I want and not caring if I'm booed for it."
"We're going get you a couple of new shirt designs with the tagline on them, along with a remake of your old logo. This time there will be no ponytail on it and it won't be smiling and hugging, it will have sunglasses on and it will be looking angry."
Bayley had to giggle. "That sounds really cool to me!"
"We've also licensed a theme song for you," Hunter went on. "It came to me when we were discussing the tagline, and we decided to go with 'I don't care anymore.'"
"You've got me the Phil Collins song?" Bayley guessed. "It was the first thing I thought of when you said it. Seth has a guilty pleasure for eighties music," she explained.
Hunter chuckled. "I'll have to remember that. It's always good have something you can hold over someone when you need a favour." Bayley giggled as he continued, answering her previous question. "Anyway, yes, that's the song we've got for you. Needless to say, it's an edited version to make it more fitting as entrance music. You'll debut that next week, after you've delivered the line for the first time on the show tonight."
"Okay, sounds good," she agreed easily.
Hunter leaned back in his chair. Something about his demeanour told Bayley he thought she wasn't going to like the next thing he had to say. Since they knew each other so well, she had to assume he was correct.
"There's another aspect of your work outside of the ring that we need to talk about," he said, choosing his words carefully. "As I said, we want to make you the most hated heel on Raw. That's a much easier thing to say than to do, but what would help a lot is if you maintained character at all times. I know that's a tall order," he added as he saw Bayley's mouth fall open slightly.
"You're saying… I mean, I'm happy to give it a try," she stuttered uneasily.
"I was thinking that for a start you might go onto your Twitter and Instagram and unfollow everyone," Hunter suggested.
"Alright," Bayley agreed, wondering if she would have been better to have never said anything about turning heel to start with.
"And when you go to meet and greets and things like that, I want you to keep character there, too. Obviously I'm not saying be rude or obnoxious to fans; after all they are our consumers and they will have waited in line for hours to see you. The key is to keep character without going as far as offending people. Honestly, while I know it sounds daunting right now, I think you'll find yourself enjoying it when you've gotten used to it."
If I get used to it, Bayley thought, saying nothing. After a moment, she realised that the emphasis was on her to speak. "Got it," she confirmed. "I'd be lying if I said I felt comfortable with what you're asking, but I understand why you're asking me to do it and I'll do my best."
"Good," Hunter said, appearing satisfied with that commitment. "As you know, you're scheduled for one of our Cricket Wireless meet and greets next week. That will be your first test as far as this is concerned, so maybe after you've done that we can get together and talk about how it went, if you'd find that beneficial?"
"Yeah, maybe," Bayley said aloud as she considered the offer. "Thanks, Hunter. I really do appreciate you always doing your best for me, and for everyone else in the locker room."
"My pleasure," he said simply.
Within minutes, the meeting was over, leaving Bayley to turn her attention to the upcoming Raw show, where the audience were going to get their first experience of the new Bayley - the Bayley who didn't care anymore.
A/N: Thank you to everyone who left a review on the previous chapter. The response from you guys was fantastic, and it really meant a lot to me.
What do you think of the appearance of the new Bayley, and the way WWE are going to have her portray her character?
Given what you've read in this chapter about her character, today's prediction question is what do you think is going to happen between Bayley and Sasha on the upcoming Raw episode, after the beat down that happened the previous week?