"YES! YES! YES! YES!"
Well this was turning out to be a downright horrible day for Seth.
Would any other returning superstars like to pledge allegiance to absolutely every other faction but the Legion of Ruination?! Daniel Bryan didn't even have the right body parts to align with the United Women's Alliance! They're cheating. Surely! Seth grimaces at the ecofriendly lovebirds, leaning over to growl at Nikki that he and Owens would need to have a long chat about the faction's future direction after tonight.
Nikki's distracted as she stares down Brie and her husband from the Legion's turnbuckle as they enter the ring. After a stunned moment, Nikki smacks Seth across the chest, ordering him to focus. Seth does what he's told, bouncing on the apron to psyche himself up before sliding into the ring, watching Bryan walk towards him with a hungry smile.
The bell rings and two men lock up so ferociously it sends shockwaves throughout the arena. Seth ducks around and hooks his arm under Bryan to try and put him away early. Revitalised from his time off and without time to humour Seth with his underhanded tricks, Bryan kicks out. They get into a back and forth, exchanging punches and kicks before Seth gets agitated, ending the rally to bounce off the ropes as Bryan catches him with a hip toss. Seth sits up, only to eat a succession of rapid kicks to the chants of 'YES!'. As Bryan reels his knee back for the final kick, Seth pops up to easily lift the smaller man on his shoulders and hits a turnbuckle powerbomb.
With Bryan in the Legion's corner, Seth holds his hand up and Nikki eagerly makes the tag. She ducks into the ring and crouches in front of Bryan with an unhinged grin on her lips. Bryan, not realising a tag was made, looks to retaliate but catches his fist before hitting Nikki. The Bella goads her brother-in-law before planting a thundering slap across his face. Bryan's fist trembles and squeezes his eyes shut to shakily inhale, suppressing his anger. He stands, shouldering past a smug Nikki to tag in his wife.
Brie is beyond furious, storming into the ring and aggressively attacks her sister with a Thez Press, punching her repeatedly until Nikki manages to throw her off. The two get into a surprisingly brutal back and forth with neither sister holding back like many had anticipated. It seemed like the Bellas had possibly matured past their petty rivalries but any who mirrored that opinion were being proven very wrong. For two girls who usually were so conscious about their stage presence, all had been thrown out the window and it seemed like they were genuinely trying to inflict pain on each other. When Brie starts getting hot, Nikki cools her off, ducking and backing up to her corner, allowing Seth to tag in.
Seth slithers into the ring to a chorus of boos, staying close to his corner and waiting for Brie to assumedly return to tag Bryan in. Infuriated, Brie shakes her head, advancing on Seth. "Tag her back in!" she yells, pointing to Nikki, "This is our fight, not yours. This is our match!". Seth doesn't take his eyes off Brie for a long moment before sighing, making a slow turn as if to make a tag. He suddenly swivels back to hook Brie and hit a reverse STO into the turnbuckle. Brie's head bounces off the buckle before she slumps onto the ringmat and weakly rolls out of the ring, limply falling off the apron.
Nikki stares at Seth in disbelief. Even she believes he's gone too far. Bryan immediately storms the ring and Seth turns around to eat a flying knee strike which tangles them both up in the ropes. Bryan shoves Seth's contorted body off him before using the ropes to pull himself to a stand. He glares at a conflicted Nikki before campaigning to her about how much of a mistake aligning with the Legion is.
Unhappy with being lectured at, Nikki tells Bryan to shut his goddamn mouth and reels a fist back to punch him. Before she can, Seth has used the time from their argument to recover and delivers a low blow to Bryan while the referee is distracted, calling for medical staff to check on Brie. Bryan falls back and Seth grabs his ankles before seating his opponent on the top turnbuckle. Bryan finds a little strength to fight back, throwing a few weak punches in attempt to halt Seth's offence. Seth elbows Bryan in the face, who slumps forward and Seth turns him over so he's hanging upside-down, back against the turnbuckles. He gives a smug eyebrow wag to a disturbed Nikki as if to say 'watch this'.
Brie pushes away the meds to stumble to her feet ringside and runs to the apron, grabbing Bryan's arm. She attemps and drag him off the turnbuckle as Seth climbs on the top rope. Nikki frantically glances between her sister and Seth and, on instinct, hits an apron somersault plancha onto Brie and the medical staff, causing a mess of human bodies outside the ring. Seth slowly raises up from a crouched position before jumping to hit a double foot stomp to Bryan. He police rolls to a stand and drink in the boos from the audience with a smarmy grin from ear to ear.
"That's right, that's right!" Seth yells to anyone who will listen, "The Legion of Runation are the greatest faction the WWE has ever seen! We have conquered any and every who try stand in our way." He walks back towards Bryan, "Where have you been all these months Goat Man? You can't just walk back in here. Times have changed! You don't know what we're capable of. YOU NEVER SHOULD HAVE COME BACK."
Seth starts kicking Bryan's limp body around, hitting him with some insulting slaps across the face and to the back of the head. All the attention in ring has distracted from the two girls at ringside, where Brie has stumbled across a second wind. "YOU'RE WRONG!" she yells, climbing onto the ring apron to glare up at Seth, "You've been so busy gloating in your own success, you don't even know what's been developing in the shadows behind your back!"
Nikki charges at Brie but is scouted, Brie moving out of the way as her sister's head bounces off the apron. Nikki collapses backwards to clutch her face in pain. Brie rolls into the ring, runs to bounce off the ropes and attempts a flying clothesline at Seth. Seth easily catches Brie and pauses to smirk and shake his head. Silly silly girl.
Brie flashes a small smirk of her own before countering with a tornado DDT which sends a shocked Seth rolling out of the ring. He slumps beside Nikki, also clutching his head. Brie scrambles to her feet and kneels beside her husband, who's starting to come to again. She gives him few quiet words of support which seem to inspire strength into the leader of the Yes! Movement. She helps Bryan up and he pulls her into a fierce hug to roaring cheers of the crowd. They pull out to stare lovingly at each other before glancing out of the ring in synchronisation to Seth and Nikki who have both sorrily helped themselves to their feet.
Bryan and Brie look back at each other, give a grinning nod before turning to run at the back ropes, bouncing off and charging for a perfect double suicide dive. Cheers erupt as Brie and Bryan get to their feet, pulling up their opponents and rolling them back into the ring. As Brie is still the legal woman, Bryan returns to his corner, pumping up the crowd with uproarious YES! chants.
"Fuck this," Seth disapproves, wearily shaking his head and tagging Nikki on the shoulder, "It's your family, you deal with this."
Nikki glares at Seth as if she's been betrayed before sighing angrily through her nose and sliding into the ring. "It's over Brie," she growls, trying to project over the annoyingly loud audience, "You can't win. I'll always be the better sister. I was and forever will be the longest reigning Diva's Champion."
"And you could be the longest reigning UWA Champion," Brie yells back, "Don't you want to be part of the revolution?"
"I DON'T WANT TO BE PART OF ANY REVOLUTION, I WAS HAPPY, BRIE. I WAS SATISFIED. Don't you get it?! Why was being a Diva such a negative thing? We could have elevated it to the highest tier. We don't need a new title to prove that!"
Nikki acts on her anger, charging Brie and hoisting her up over her shoulders for a Rack Attack. Brie struggles before wriggling off, running Nikki forward against the ropes before hitting a snap suplex. Nikki tumbles backwards, coming to a stop on her knees in the middle of the ring. Brie springs to her feet, taking a few steps back to stretch her arms out to roar, "BRIE MODE!"
Brie runs forward and strikes the kneeling Nikki across the chest with rapid kicks. "YES!… YES!… YES!… YES!" As Brie goes to deliver the final kick, Nikki grabs her leg and twists her sister into an abdominal stretch with chinlock. Brie grunts in pain, hands tensing away from the mat.
"TAP!" Nikki screams as Brie tries to furiously shake her head, pain written across her features, "JUST TAP!"
"NO!" Bryan encourages from his corner, slicing his hands in front of him.
Tears of agony soak Brie's eyes. Nikki should have pulled something new out of the bag. Brie knew the submission hold well and how she might be able to get herself out of it. Brie pants her feet, shakily raising her middle into a bridge, transferring some pressure to Nikki. She keeps forcing Nikki backwards before her feet lift off the floor and Nikki's shoulders press against the mat under the weight of Brie. The ref slams on the ringmat for a count, forcing Nikki to kick out and break the hold. Brie scurries back into her corner finding a moment to recover, massaging her jaw.
Nikki crawls to the Legion's corner, leaping for a hot tag but finds herself falling flat on her face.
Seth jumps back off the apron, holding his hands up in defeat. "I didn't sign up for this," he concedes, "I don't want to be a part of this drama."
Nikki stares at Seth in horror, using the ropes to pull herself to her feet. Everything she's done for the Legion and THIS is how they repay her?! Fine. She didn't need the weasel's help.
Fuming, Nikki turns and blindly charges to take her anger out on Brie in any way possible, not seeing that her sister had climbed to the second rope to prepare her finisher. "BRIE MODE!" Nikki eats a missile dropkick and is rolled up as the ref counts 1..
2...
3!
Nikki kicks out a half-second too late and stares out in horror as Brie's music fills the arena victoriously. She covers her ears from the YES! chants, curling up to press her forehead against the ringmat in exasperation.
Finally, one for the good guys. A massive win to put the United Women's Alliance on the map. To show the rest of the WWE the new faction is not to be taken lightly.
Bryan runs into the ring to crash into Brie for a tight hug, the ref needing to peel them apart to hold up their arms in victory. Sasha Banks' theme pours through the arena and she walks out, flanked by the entirety of the UWA. Over her shoulder is the repaired UWA Championship in all its glory. Sasha isn't the Champion but she can't help but feel a special connection to the once battered belt.
Brie and Bryan make their way up the ramp to a welcome ovation by the UWA. Alicia bursts forward to hug both of them before all the girls crowd around in celebration.
The victory hugs are cut short at Kevin Owens runs out, pushing through the girls on stage and intercepting Seth on the ramp, who's grumbling to himself. "What the hell happened?!" Owens demands, "What's going on?" Seth grimaces and shoulders past Owens, who shakes his head in confused disbelief.
At this point Nikki has gotten to her feet and rolls out of the ring, with no effort to walk briskly as she'll have to walk past a no doubt gloating parade of UWA girls. She procrastinates by retrieving her black and silver Legion snapback from the announcers desk and drags her feet towards the ramp, where Owens is standing. Face red with humiliation, Nikki comes to a stop in front of the WWHC Champion, staring at the snapback in her hands. After a few deep breaths, she closes her eyes and slams the hat against Owens' chest. "We're done," she says.
Nikki sidesteps past Owens and gathers her courage to walk up the remainder of the ramp. The UWA falls silent, all eyes on Nikki as Sasha steps forward, halting the other girl in her tracks. She supposed the ten minutes Sasha wanted with her was going to be put on display for the entire Universe to see. Nikki stares Sasha down, though she looks as though she's compensating for the fear in her heart. Sasha extends a hand. Nikki blinks a few times, glancing at the hand in surprise.
"It's not a United Women's Alliance if we're not united," Sasha smiles sternly.
After a pause, Nikki takes Sasha's handshake gratefully, giving a small regretful nod over her actions with the legion. It's clear Sasha doesn't trust Nikki but the Bella is out of other viable options. As Nikki takes her hand back, she instead places it on the UWA belt over Sasha's shoulder. Nikki gives Sasha a look to say 'enjoy it while it lasts' before walking backstage, avoiding eye contact with the other girls.
Sasha retrieves her microphone, offering Owens a pleased smile as she strolls down to meet him halfway up the ramp. "Aww, that's too bad," she purrs, "The Legion certainly has made a habit of losing lately- don't you think?"
Owens' stares back at her with deadpan eyes, if she thinks she can intimidate him…
"Well.. I'm going to make sure you don't break the habit so soon." Sasha hooks her index finger under the WWHC title, gently curving the leather upwards before it slips back against Owens' chest. Sasha lets the microphone slide out of her hand before adjusting her BOSS necklace as her theme hits.
The UWA make their exit and Owens is left alone on the ramp, staring incredulously as Sasha saunters away.