"Oh, don't worry. We'll start off with an easy one." The voice behind her promised
Cal could do nothing but grit her teeth in frustration at her captor's pleased giggle considering the only available mobility she had at the moment was moving a single finger along the three punch button options set up beside her chair.
The first pure Elinor's sick information was her 'Kill option": a picture of a sharpened silver spearhead crossed with a wooden stake
The next came "the fun option" that had the trust-up hunter rolling her eyes considering the image stamped to that option was a simple cross-head screw
The last was "The dull one" holding an outlined image of two interlocked wedding rings
"But first how about we give this baby a test run?"
At this Cal felt her stomach drop. She tried to twist her head in denial but just like all her previous attempts all she could do was stare straight ahead into the currently darkened room on the other side of what she guessed to be police interrogation room level glass.
"Sweeties be a lamb and bring up a plaything for us. Cal wants to see what this new toy of hers can do."
Just to have to listen to the sheer enjoyment layering Elinor's tone had the hunter fighting down her want to throw up.
What could have been only a single second later the lights in the outer room blazed to life as the door the room held opened.
At once Cal wanted to scream at just who had been chosen as the first 'test subject'
"Juliette!"
Her legacy was still as scantily dressed as she had been when the two had been surprised attacked by the swarm of black clade body armored masked figures all of them no real surprise had been paid off by a smug Elinor Fairmont.
Apparently, exhale had been too light a punishment as was the new Keeper's decision of somehow stripping the outcast legacy of her memory eraser abilities before the real shunning could begin. Not that Margot had seemed the least bit upset about taking that little power away from her elder daughter.
Sebastian was still trying to get a handle on just how to use it but at least now they could all breathe a little easier knowing it won't be used for anything truly evil.
"Dang, maybe I should start bed sharing with a hunter if that is the result." The elder Fairmont sister mused seeing that unlike the last time she'd seen her baby sister Jules was now nearly as lean and imposing as the hunter she held captive beside her. "You know I almost miss her annoying baby face." Elinor sighed looking over her more matured younger sister on the other side of the glass "but I guess that's what happens when you've been forced out for the last eight years"
Cal was struggling harder than ever now as she had to watch her legacy lover being stripped almost electric chair style to the seat right in the middle of the hunter's current sight line.
"Humm thanks, boys." Elinor purred into an unseen ear peace earning twin lovesick smiles from the two men doing her bidding on the other side of the glass.
That was until the struggling hunter realized she knew who both of those men were.
But no. that was impossible. They were just characters in a movie. They weren't real.
"That's what the rabble think about all of us so-called monsters that go bump in the night and yet." Elinor sighed dramatically as she sauntered around the back of Cal's chair like some board runway model. "Here we are."
The younger version of Billy Loomis and Stu Macher had soon finished their task and were now simply flanking the chair Jules was bound to as if waiting for their 'mistresses to tell them what to do next.
"Now let's have some fun." Elinor cooed scratching her neatly manicured nails over the first of the three now light-up buttons on the small 'choice pad' rigged up on the chair's armrest.
"Wakey, wakey, little sister." Elinor hummed forcing Cal's only mobile finger down hard on the crossed weapons of the first choice.
Like something out of a literal horror movie, a panel over the 'victim' chair slid back earning a pleased "Oh, this should be good." Smirk from Billy when the intended weapon was slowly lowered in front of the unaware target with an echoing "Yeah man" laugh from Stu.
The deadly sharpened spearhead was drawn back like a battering ram before being driven so hard into Jules's chest Cal could see the blood-drenched tip sticking out the back of the chair in the equally mirrored back wall of the second room as Juliette's agonized screams rang out around them.
"Oh, I think it works." Elinor concluded despite having only tested the rest of the machine's choice options. "Boys care to fetch Cal's other two options?" the banished Fairmont questions over the sounds of her younger sister's screams when the spearhead was just as forcibly ripped from her chest as it had been driven in before the bloodied weapon was returned to it's original 'hiding place' over the whimpering legacy's head.
"You know the boring live-action movies they made of Scooby Doo, right?" Elinor questioned blocking out Cal's sightline to her still bleeding lover when the door to Jules's torture chamber opened once more.
"Well since I know how hard my baby fanged little sis crushed on that nerdy girl that was always losing her glasses. I thought I'd at least let our not-so-innocent Julesy at least meet her crush before I let you decide what happens to them."
Cal's eyes flickered to the third body being buckled into the chair seated on her left her brow raised in her inability to ask who that one was. "Oh, that's Buffy. You know I thought I'd toss in a fellow hunter. Keep things interesting." Elinor shrugged at the same time a groggy Velma was attempting a questioning "Shaggy? Shaggy what's going on?" towards a puzzled but still giggling Stu Macher.
"Who the heck is Shaggy?" the sidekick questioned from his now seated place against a side wall.
Billy only shrugged with an angry "What are we getting to Sydney?" towards the mirrored window the same time a still groggy Velma was now attempting a rousing "Daphne?! Daphne?!" towards the blonde at the end of the tree person line up.
"Buffy, that's Buffy. For the love of Lilith, I thought you were the smart one of the group." Elinor groaned under her breath before turning her attention back toward Cal.
"Well go on." The banished legacy prods as on the other side of the glass the lights over Jules and Buffy's heads dim leaving only a nervous Velma cast in a hallowed ring.
Cal glared back in refusal.
"Fine. Then I'll pick." Elinor scoffed her fingers skimming over the two yet-to-be 'tested' options the controls offered before she comes to her own quiet decision with a sigh "What the heck she's cute." Comment and press Cal's hand over the 'screw' option.
It wasn't hard to guess what the humming buzz was the selection triggered even when the one experiencing it was attempting to twist away despite her low appreciating whimpers as the seconds ticked by.
What the watching hunter hadn't been expecting was the immediate reaction of the once again dropping spearhead over a yet-to-recover Juliette.
"You picked someone else over her, hunter girl, ascetically you're breaking her heart here, Burns." Elinor sighed as Cal watched in horror as the still bloodied weapon was driven once again into her already wounded lover's chest.
The sound of Jules's pained scream masked Velma's much more excited shout as she was pushed over the edge.
"When do we get to Sydney?" Billy groaned seeing as Stu had been the one selected to unfasten a still spasming Velma and bring in the next already selected 'victim'
"This is what you get for falling asleep with the tv still running." Elinor groaned in Cal's direction "Honestly don't you hunters deal with enough blood and whatnot in the real world that you deliberately watch horror movies in your off hours too?"
It was then that Cal realized this was all a terrifyingly real feeling dream.
"Humm well hello there pretty kittey." Elinor cooed before Cal had a chance to attempt to wake herself up as another 'henchmen' had finished literally dragging the next unconscious 'plaything' into the room.
Carmilla Karnstein.
Like Buffy, Carm was a shared crush between the hunter and her legacy.
"Oh, you bad boy, you're making this so hard for our poor Callie to choose." Elinor sassed even when her hand was already hovering over the marriage button as her newest dream-created plaything was buckled into the open seat.
"What do you think? It couldn't possibly hurt her a third time could it?" Elinor taunts skimming her fingers along the only selection left unused. "Not that button. it is marriage after all. She wouldn't press that one."
Cal wants to close her eyes, to look away to do something other than being forced to watch as once again the red-coated silver spear was driven hard into her lover's chest.
"Oh you are a bad girl aren't you? I like you." at this Cal found she in fact recognized the newest of Elinor's 'helpers'
Damon Salvatore
"Humm oh this one isn't for you, hunty bunny." the blonde holding her hostage confesses as her eyes like Cal's forced ones take in every teasing flex of toned muscle under Damon's tight black tee-shirt as he circled around Jules' coughing form praising the damage. "Nope, this one is all my doing."
Before Cal had to be subjected to any more of Elinor's dream drooling the doors on either side of the glass window burst open.
On Cal's side her mother and Margot on Juliette's Oliver and Theo. Both newly arrived males had their fangs bared. Both looking the picture of 'ready to kill' as they rush the dream-created versions of Billy and Damon.
"Really, Elinor?" Margot tisked in disappointment when after a rather elegant trade of blows between mother and daughter the current Keeper of the Malkia had managed to subdue her hissing elder daughter the same time Talia got to work unfastening her own child from the restring confines of the 'torture chair'
"Jules?" Cal called jumping up at once and hurrying to the separating expanse of glass between the two rooms. "Juliette!?" the hunter called again when she realizes the chair that should have held her wounded girlfriend was empty.
"She's fine Callie." Theo steps in now the only one left in the other room. "or as fine as she can be." He amends rubbing a hand against his temple like she'd seen him do when he even thought about the one who'd turned him. "Carmen is with her. When you wake up call us. She can tell you herself." He offered before he as well as the room he was standing in faded like fire ash on the wind.
"What the hell was that?" Cal hears her mother demand as she muffles a scared gasp into her pillow before immediately scrambling for her cell phone.
"I have no idea." The rushing hunter hears Margot sigh in answer "but it seems Elinor has found some new abilities since I took away her own."
"Yeah, abilities straight out of a freaking Freddy Kruger movie." Talia fires back
"I'll call Sebastian have him-"
"Have him what?! Talk her down?" Talia cuts in "Did you not see what Elinor just did to my baby girl? To yours?"
Cal stopped listening after that in fact she made a point of slamming the door of her designated room loudly on her way back into it to block out the sounds of the two arguing yet again.
Lucky for her Theo picked up the call halfway through the second ring.
"Well hello to you too," the slightly better of the Fairmont twins greets having caught Cal's "Let me talk to her." Demand as soon as the call connected.
"Oliver, please." Cal tries again although part of her was wondering about the low rumbles of a speeding car in the call's background.
"Carm thinks this deserves a full coven to tackle." Jules's brother clarifies without needing to see her to guess the hunter's thoughts. "Jules woke up the same as you but there were lingering effects." He goes on
"What. Lingering. Effects." Cal demands through gritted teeth even when her heart was already sinking somewhere near the Earth's core by this point.
"Calliope?"
"Baby girl?"
Cal only close her eyes tighter at the twin questions at the same time her cell phone drops cracked and broken against the wall after the hard throw she'd given once her question had been answered.
"I'm…I'm." Calliope tries to get out her voice breaking as more tears fall from her eyes.
"I'll drive." Margot agreed holding out her free hand in offering. Her other one currently holding her cell phone to her ear to inform her husband she'd be unable to attend the rest of her already scheduled meets for the day. Although she didn't give a reason other than 'something came up' not knowing just how to explain even to her own husband what had happened.
For once Talia Burns didn't say a word at the sight of her upset little girl turning to another mother for comfort as she follows the two out to the car.