Disclaimer, etc., in part 1.

Part Forty-One

It seemed that Teddy Long wasn't done with messing with them for the night. When Eve got back from talking to Kaitlyn, who she'd wanted to talk to about the battle royal, she learned that a stage hand had stopped by with another piece of news... She was expected to do commentary for the battle royal, which was going to be the second match on the show.

"We're not sending you out there alone to do commentary during that match," Seth told her, the man frowning as he looked over at her. "Not that we don't think you can handle yourself, but... Ryback's kind of made it clear he wouldn't mind taking you down, and we don't trust the guy."

Eve nodded slightly at that, the woman reaching up to run a hand through her hair, a frown on her own face as she thought about what had happened at the live events the previous weekend. The guys had been facing Ryback and the Usos again - she'd had a match earlier that evening and had successfully defended her title - and Ryback had suddenly reached over the ropes and grabbed her hair, trying to yank her up onto the ring apron. Seth and Dean had attacked him immediately, and Eve had stumbled backward, actually ending up running into one of the Usos... She thought it was Jimmy, but she wasn't sure. For his part, the Uso brother had simply steadied her, then moved away, the look on his face making it clear that he hadn't known what Ryback had been planning to do... Nor did he approve of it. So at least she knew that they were right in assuming that the Usos wouldn't likely try to use her against them, but it was clear that Ryback had no problem doing so.

"I can't bring all three of you out there. It would be kind of overkill, you know?" she said, looking at each of the men in turn, and after a moment, they nodded.

"We know," Seth said. "Plus, we didn't figure that they would let all of us go out there anyway. I just got back from clearing it with Booker T, and he said that one of us can go out there. And since Roman and I are booked in a tag match against the Primetime Players... That would leave Dean with no match, so... We figured it would be best if it was him that went with you."

"Wow, you guys have put some real thought into this... Without me."

Roman gave her a look. "It ain't like that, Eve. You know that. You just got back from hanging out with Kaitlyn, and we weren't going to track you down when you were with her. I think we all know that Kaitlyn is still afraid of us despite the fact that I told her we wouldn't hurt any of your friends... And that we don't hurt women at all."

"Yeah, she manages Team Hell No, one half of which is Kane. You'd think if she was going to be scared of anyone, it would be him," Seth said, and Eve shrugged.

"I'm not so sure that she isn't still a bit scared of him. She knows what he's done in the past... What he's capable of. Because of that, she understands why it is that I don't want to hang out when Kane's around. Daniel Bryan may have had his own douchebag moments in the past, but he's never terrorized me, so I'm mostly okay with him being around," the divas' champion said, then looked over at Dean. "What do you have to say about all this?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean... You've basically been volunteered to walk me out to do commentary during a divas' battle royal. Doesn't sound like it would be very... exciting... for you," she said, and the man shrugged.

"If I was out there doing commentary on a match and you had to be out there just because, it probably wouldn't be very exciting for you, either. But you do what you gotta do. And to be honest, I don't mind being out there. Not after the shit Ryback pulled the other day. I don't want him blindsiding you when you're out there trying to talk about a match," Dean said, and Eve snorted.

"You think they're actually going to let me talk about a match? Really? That's cute," she stated, then rolled her eyes at the look Ambrose gave her. "Have you ever really listened to King and JBL and Michael Cole during a divas' match?" she wanted to know, and Ambrose shrugged.

"I try not to listen to them ever, but that's just me."

"Smart man," Eve told him, then sighed. "Basically, King will make tacky comments and probably infer that he wants to sleep with at least one of the women in the match. He may also call someone a slut. Possibly me, because I'm pretty sure his mindset about why you guys are nice to me is pretty close to the things that Zack Ryder said that led to you beating him to a pulp in the ring."

"Well, then, he'd better watch his damn mouth this time around because I'm going to be out there listening to every word he says, and he won't like what happens if I get pissed off at him," Dean replied, and Eve arched a brow, then continued.

"Anyway... Even if King does occasionally notice a wrestling move or two, anyone that's watched shows from the attitude era knows how he really feels about the women. We're just there to ogle; who cares if we have skills or not. Oh, and let's not forget that there's a ninety-five percent chance that he'll start talking about his theory about all women secretly hating each other or whatever," she said, then sighed. "Maybe I'm painting it worse than it is, but... It's the way I feel, especially lately. And Michael Cole is an obnoxious creep who wants to pretend that he never went around interrupting divas matches to tell everyone how worthless we were and how amazing he was. He did that to me more than once, and I definitely haven't forgotten about it."

"And now I'm getting the urge to hit somebody," Ambrose muttered, and Eve shrugged.

"And maybe he has changed for the better since then. He was actually decently polite when I was commentating during your match against Zack. JBL was okay, too, but I swear, sometimes that man sounds like he's drunk when he's out there."

"Maybe it's the only way he can get through three hours of RAW and two hours of SmackDown every week. I mean, think about who he's stuck out there with."

"True. But anyway, he might not have been so bad when I was out there during your match, but that was when two men were in the ring instead of half a dozen women. His commentary when I faced Layla and Kaitlyn in a triple threat at Hell in a Cell was atrocious. I don't think he called a minute of the match."

"Then maybe it's a good thing that Dean's going to be out there," Seth commented, shrugging when Eve looked over at him. "Okay, so they're a bunch of chauvinistic douchebags... But given their sexist views, maybe having Dean out there glaring threateningly at them if they so much as step a toe out of line... Will actually cause them to do their damn jobs and announce the match," the man said, and Eve gave a bit of a smile.

"One can only hope."