*I am not affiliated with World Wrestling Entertainment or NXT 2.0. This story is fiction, and did not happen.*
*So...Obviously, this is a wrestling fanfic, but this is not a Chapter of BCW. It does not take place in the BCW "Universe," so to speak. I dunno...I confuse myself too sometimes.*
It had been eleven days since Roxanne Perez and Cora Jade were at the Performance Center, at the same time. Eleven days since, once best friends, Cora turned on Roxanne. The absolute roller coaster--from winning the NXT Women's Tag Team Titles with Cora one week, to having an NXT Women's Championship match the following week, to being attacked by her own partner before *and* during the match--devastated Roxanne.
While she was still hurting emotionally, and mentally, eleven days later she was in the Trainer's Room, proving she at least had no physical pain. Roxanne and the Medical Trainer walk out and tell, coach Matt Bloom she's officially clear. Exactly what Roxanne wanted to hear.
"I'm happy for you, but, we gotta make one more stop before you get back down to the rings and get back into the swing of things." Coach Bloom says. They walk down one of the hallways lined with posters of past WWE and NXT Premium Live Events, and Takeovers. Roxanne is a bit nervous as four other officials are walking behind them.
Always an optimist, Roxanne's first thought was when she was going to get another shot at Mandy Rose's NXT Women's Championship, given that Cora screwed her out of the last one. She was hoping that was the reason she was being called into one of the offices in the building. Surely she couldn't be in trouble for anything. Bloom walked her to a closed door and opened it.
In the room, sat the person Roxanne was looking forward to seeing, and dreading seeing at the same time. She balled her fist as there sat Cora Jade, the woman just a year her senior, who shattered a skateboard across her back after costing her the title. Neither were the type to do it, but, both did wonder if they'd start throwing hands on sight the next time they saw each other..
That next time was now, but the officials walk in and make a barrier between Roxanne and Cora. There's an empty chair next to Cora that's clearly meant for her, and another chair facing them. "There'll be no fighting in this room." Coach Bloom says.
"Roxanne, if you could sit please." Coach Sara Amato says. Roxanne listens, but has a sour look on face, staring coldly at Cora, who's staring right back. Cora looks like she had anticipated Roxanne coming in.
"Ladies, you know the company has a lot of faith in both of you, and see a lot of potential in you both." Coach Robbie Brookside says in his British accent. "So we wanted to address this issue before it becomes a larger, more dangerous implosion." Roxanne didn't even know if she even wanted to talk this out. She wanted to talk it out even less so now that she was cleared to face Cora in the ring. But, if this was what they wanted, she'll go along with it.
"Yeah, after everything between Cole and O'Reilly, you know, borderline life-threatening attacks on the other, we want to get ahead of something like this now." Bloom says. Roxanne and Cora both nod.
Roxanne Perez and Cora Jade were once like sisters, that's how close their bond had gotten, up to winning the NXT Women's Tag Team Championships. Now, they was so much anger between the two towards the other, that people needed to intervene. Roxanne was furious with Cora, but both of them were a tad spooked by how the coaches sounded. That the higher-ups would think the situation would escalate, to the point where one tries to do something as dangerous as run the other off the road, or run into the other's ambulance to try to continue fighting the other.
"Here's what's gonna happen." Bloom began. "In a few seconds, someone else is gonna walk in here. We thought they were the perfect mediator for you two, and we flew them out here. So I hope you two don't waste their time. When they enter, we'll all leave, but we'll be right outside in case things get out of hand."
"It won't get out of hand though." Coach Amato said, "That's why we're trusting you two, and our special guest, to have you three in the room alone."
There were a few moments of silence as they waited. The silence just amplified and built up Roxanne's anger. Cora sat there with more of a cold look on her face. In her mind, she had no intentions of apologizing today.
Finally, there was a knock on the door. One of the officials opened it, and in the doorway, someone who had known both girls longer than anyone else in the building. Someone who meant a lot to both Cora and Roxanne... A.J. Lee, the retired, multi-time Women's Champion was here, in the P.C. to both of their surprise.
A.J. Lee was one of Cora's biggest inspirations. She was one of Roxanne's biggest inspirations. All three, represented the perfect counter to the typical "Diva" archetype that the WWE Women's Division was once flooded with. Cora and Roxanne were smaller, scrappier, feisty, A.J. was someone girls like them could relate to. Cora dressed similarly to A.J. There were hundreds of Mandy Roses for every one A.J. Lee, Roxanne Perez, or Cora Jade, trying to make it in the WWE.
They both started wrestling training at an early age. That early head-start helped them get here, to WWE's NXT, at the age of just 21. A.J. took notice of both women, seeing the drive in them. Roxanne carried so much hype that she was nicknamed "The Prodigy," and may not be in that room if it wasn't for A.J.. Cora, grew up in A.J.'s husband's hometown of Chicago. All of that, brings her here...
A.J. walked in, Sara and Matt shook her hand, then she looked over at Cora and Roxanne. She obviously wished she was seeing them under different circumstances, but, she appreciated the officials asking her to come down.
The veteran walked in between the two chairs the younger women were sat in. Once she did, she looked back at the small crowd. The officials all looked at Cora and Roxanne, and nodded. "A.J.," Sara began, "We're all gonna be right outside, if anything happens." Sara was really hoping the two wouldn't come to blows with only a retired wrestler, one roughly the same small size as the teammates, to break it up if they did.
"Thanks Sara." A.J. said.
"No, thank you." Sara said. "Girls," She then looked down at Cora and Roxanne, "Please." Trying one more time to affirm that everyone wanted them to save their actual fighting for the ring.
When the door closed, A.J. was left alone with Cora and Roxanne. All three had different degrees of scowl on their faces. Everyone, even A.J., knew that repairing the recently fractured friendship was a tall order, so even if A.J. couldn't do that, she wanted to at least prevent 15 years of the two being at each other's throats.
There are pictures of A.J. with each of them when they were as young as 12 years old. Almost half their lifetimes ago, and they both started training to become wrestlers at a super-young age. So A.J. liked to jokingly call herself Cora and Roxanne's 'mother.' Maybe because of that, the first thing A.J. said to either girl, was when she looked straight into Cora's eyes and sternly said, "Well, obviously I'm really disappointed in you." Cliché, yes, but plus, it was true right now.
"Well." Cora just shrugged. "I'm not sorry."
"How can you call *me* the selfish one?!" Roxanne finally said to Cora. "What you did to me two weeks ago was the most selfish things I've ever seen."
"Okay. Well, then you challenging Mandy a week after we won the titles was the most selfish thing *I've* seen so..." Again Cora shrugged her shoulders.
