New Recruits

Chapter 24

It was Tuesday afternoon of the week leading up to Survivor Series. More importantly for the members of the NXT roster, it was the week of Takeover. While that fact made it an exciting time for their colleagues, there was no such emotion for Sonya, Mandy or Zelina. They were not booked to appear on the show, and indeed the Golden Gloves had still not been involved in a televised match on NXT.

After the final TV tapings before Takeover had been completed, Sonya's anger at the situation had come close to boiling over. She was so annoyed about the way they were only being used to inflict what by now had become tedious and repetitive beat downs on members of the women's division that she had wanted to go and speak to Hunter Helmsley about it.

As the more experienced member of the group, and therefore in some senses the leader of it, Zelina had stepped in, taking Sonya aside and talking her down, explaining that it was not wise to get hot-headed. She had reiterated that they had been told there were plans for them, and they had to show some patience and faith while waiting for things to develop.

Although she hadn't been happy about it, Sonya had relented, thanks in no small part to Mandy weighing in and calmly saying that she thought Zelina was right. Sonya had said that she would hold her tongue until the next set of tapings, after Takeover. If they were still not booked in matches then, she insisted on talking to Hunter and asking why their act was being allowed to go stale.

Partly due to her frustrations, Sonya had been working extra hard in training at the Performance Centre since the mini altercation with Zelina. In training the day after that, Sonya had laid into a punching bag without bothering to put gloves on, and had gone so hard at it that she had finished up with both hands bruised and bloodied. It had been painful, but it had felt good.

On this particular day, the Golden Gloves had been granted permission to have one of the rings in the main hall to themselves. They had spent several hours training their disciplines and taking it in turns to have practice matches, with whoever the third member happened to be acting as the referee.

During a quick break after one of the matches, Sonya went over to the water cooler in the corner of the hall. She filled one of the plastic cups with water and downed it all in one hit, savouring the refreshing coolness of it as it went down.

"Ah, Sonya, exactly who I was coming to find," a familiar voice said behind her. It was Hunter Helmsley.

Turning around to face the boss, Sonya told herself to suck it up and stick to what she had promised Zelina, avoiding complaining about Golden Gloves' creative. She put a smile on her face and said, "Hey, Hunter."

Hunter smiled back, but his tone was serious. "I gather you've been feeling a bit frustrated lately?"

Sonya's instinct upon being unexpectedly confronted on the issue was to deny it. "No, I'm good," she said in a positive manner, trying to brush it off.

"Show me your hands," Hunter instructed.

Until then, Sonya hadn't even realised that she had subconsciously hidden her hands behind her back. Even with the wraps on them that she wore for wrestling, the damage from the punching bag session would be easily visible to him. Left with no choice, she brought her hands around in front of her.

Hunter took each of her hands in his and studied the damage on each of them. "Looks like you've been working out frustration to me," he observed.

Sighing, Sonya took her hands back and grimaced. "You could say that."

"Let me tell you something, Sonya," he said calmly. "Nothing happens here or in NXT that I don't know about. Another thing to keep in mind is that I like honest answers when I ask questions. I'm going to take a guess, you're angry because the Golden Gloves have been on TV for a while but you haven't had any matches yet?"