Reality (Linstead AU)

Chapter 24

Erin entered the arena to begin the third segment of the Raw episode. As usual, her music was met with boos when it began to play. She limped out onto the stage looking like she was in pain and angry. Selling the pain to the audience required little acting on her part. Walking genuinely did hurt her quite a bit, Jay knew as he watched the show on the TV in the men's locker room.

When Erin entered the ring and took a microphone from the ring announcer, she began speaking in a tone that sounded as angry as she looked. Jay, not for the first time, found himself thinking that she was a talented actress.

"You can only imagine how pissed off I was as the Royal Rumble went off air last night, not with Kim Burgess victorious as I specifically instructed, but with Raquel Gonzalez."

The crowd noticeably cheered the mention of Raquel's name, showing that her babyface turn was continuing to work. Erin looked even more annoyed by the reaction.

"In fact it was Gonzalez who eliminated Kim from the match, after kicking her in the face and giving her a Chingona Bomb!"

The crowd popped again, but Erin continued her rant over the top of them.

"Then I got into the ring to demand an explanation, only for Gonzalez to give me a Chingoma Bomb and thrown me out of the ring, inflicting a serious hip injury on me in the process!"

Some of the fans cheered that, while others shouted abuse or jeered her. It made for a cacophony of unpleasant noise.

"You can all shut up!" she shouted at them.

Predictably, that only antagonised the crowd further. Then some people managed to get a new chant to catch on. Within moments, 'Fuck you, Erin!' was reverberating around the arena.

In the locker room, Adam Ruzek was sitting next to Jay. Ruzek laughed at the chant. "Jesus, she's got them in the palm of her hand."

"She's good," Jay agreed, hiding the amount of pride he felt in it. He did wonder how Erin was going to react though, in what was now an off-script moment.

His answer soon came. Erin shouted at the crowd even more angrily. "I own this company! This is my ring! This my arena, and you will treat me with respect! Or I'll walk out..."

She was cut off mid tirade by Raquel's music hitting, drawing a significant pop from the fans. Erin turned to face the stage with a furious look on her face.

Marching down to the ring, Raquel showed little sign of after effects from her remarkable performance the previous night. Other than the cut on her cheek and a bruise on her right upper arm, she looked ready to beat someone's ass. However, when she entered the ring, she went over to get a microphone.

Before Raquel could say anything, Erin went into boss mode and got in her face, snarling at her in a condescending manner. "Who the hell do you think you are?"

Raquel looked at the crowd for a second with a 'is this bitch for real?' look on her face before responding. "Who do I think I am? I'm the winner of the 2023 Royal Rumble. I'm also the woman who kicked your ass last night, and if you speak to me like that one more time I'll do it again."

The fans cheered, liking the sound of that. But then the music for the Lethal Latinas began to play, turning the cheers to groans. Raquel might have started to become popular pretty fast, but the same could not be said for Bayley or Zelina. They hurried down to the ring before Raquel had a chance to get physical with Erin.

Once the Latinas were in the ring, Zelina was the next one to speak. "Ms Voight, let me apologise for Raquel's behaviour. She can get carried away sometimes. If we can..."

"You don't get to apologise for me," Raquel snapped, shoving Zelina away from. "And I'm not sorry. Not sorry at all," she added, starting to walk towards Erin.

"Then neither are we," Bayley said. To everyone's surprise, the current Raw Women's Champion smashed Raquel in the back of the head with her microphone.

As Raquel went down, Bayley, Zelina and even Erin started laying kicks into her, with boos raining down on them from the fans.

In the locker room, Ruzek approved of what he was watching. "That's the face turn for Raquel completed for sure."

"Definitely," Jay agreed. "Any second now Sylvie will come out to make the save."

He was exactly right. Only seconds later, Sylvie's music hit and she came running down the ramp. Like Raquel, she got a nice pop from the crowd, showing their investment in the storyline. It was a testament to the writers, and more importantly to the performers involved, including Erin.

Before Sylvie even got to the ring, Erin had bailed out of it. Moving quickly had likely not done her injured hip any good, but it was better than getting her ass kicked by Brett.

The supposed doctor was progressing well with her transformation into a wrestler, and she hit the ring with real fire, quickly taking down Bayley, following by Zelina, then throwing each of them out of the ring in turn. Sylvie then helped Raquel up, now forming something of a new alliance with the woman who only weeks before had kicked her ass all around the ringside area on a Raw episode. Such was the nature of the fast-paced world of wrestling.

Erin, Bayley and Zelina regrouped up on the stage, and Erin still had her microphone. She was somehow even angrier than she had been before. "Right, I've had enough of this!" she raged. "I've had enough of this whole damn thing! Next week on Raw, we're going to have a tag team match. It's going to be the Lethal Latinas against Raquel Gonzalez and Sylvie Brett!"

In the ring, Raquel looked more than happy with that, wanting revenge against her two former teammates who had just attacked her. Sylvie looked less confident, but she picked up a microphone that had been dropped in the ring.

"Okay, Erin, I'll join Raquel and fight those two idiots next week, on one condition. If my team wins, I get a match against you at Wrestlemania!"

Now it was Erin who looked uncertain as the crowd cheered their approval of that idea. She didn't respond straight away, instead choosing to listen to Bayley and Zelina, who appeared to be telling her not to worry, they would kick Raquel and Sylvie's asses no problem.

After a few moments of deliberation, Erin reached a decision. She announced it bombastically, as if she would never have come to any other conclusion. "Okay, Sylvie, you have got a deal!"

To end the segment, Erin's music played and she left the stage with Bayley and Zelina in tow.

-----

A/N: What did you make of this segment, and the progression of Erin's storyline?

Next time, Jay will be accompanying her to visit the property that she is considering buying.