Alpha turned on the lights at his hideout, revealing similar equipment from the Dollhouse he'd added himself. Alpha dragged the woman they'd kidnapped alongside them with the three dolls trailing behind him.
"Welcome to your castle, my princess and beloved princes." He told Echo, who grimaced in reply, and gesturing to his makeshift imprint chair, "Behold. Your throne."
"Oh… wow… Say, you got a bathroom?" She asked.
Alpha continued to look at the room, this time with a deadpan expression at her words. Why had he even expected a different response? He decided to move on and dragged the woman to the imprint chair he'd created.The woman gave muffled sobs as she was strapped down and electrodes were attached to her head. The chair began to descend as she cried into the duct tape plastered over her mouth.
"What is this thing anyway?" Echo questioned as she absentmindedly petted Oscar and Charlie's hair, "And what are we going to do to her?"
The two young men remained silent, watching their new handler and the sobbing woman in confusion.
"Everything, nothing. Not to her. She won't… be her…" Alpha replied with a laugh before he ripped the 'Wendy' name tag off her dress, "We won't be needing this will we, honey? Wendy is going away. She won't be here in a minute."
"Wait… what? It's like… a magic trick?" Echo asked with a smile, "We're going to make her disappear?"
"We're going to stick her in a wedge. We're going to wedge her." He told her aggressively.
"Oh… I don't get it."
"Of course you don't!" Alpha said as he slapped the table in front of him angrily before turning to her, "How could you? The mind you have been given is so tiny, so primitive that it is incredible you can even perform basic motor functions or form words."
Echo seemed to shrink into herself at each insult he hurtled at her before turning away, holding back her tears.
"Screw you, Bobby." She said with a trembling voice.
"Hey. Don't listen to him." Alpha said as he quickly stopped her before cradling her face lovingly, "You're perfect. I needed you just like this, just like this, not afraid of anything so we could get out of that place, make it here… and you were great. Jacking that car, getting that girl."
She smiled softly at his words, giving a small giggle as he praised her.
"You're perfect." He told her adoringly.
"I was." She replied softly, ignoring the whirling sound from the woman's direction.
"You're always perfect." He said before they began to kiss.
They ignored the zaps of electricity and muffled screams as they kissed one another. Soon enough, the two pulled apart and Alpha returned to watching the monitors. Eventually, the woman's screams stopped and Alpha laughed as he saw the data on the screens before him. Echo cautiously removed the tape from the now expressionless woman.
"She's not screaming anymore." Echo told him with a hesitant smile.
"Oh… she's screaming." He told her, amusement coloring his words.
Alpha winced as a massive headache cam and he held his head in his hand to try and stop the pain even the slightest bit.
"They're all screaming." Alpha mumbled to himself, "Must you always defend? Why can't you ever take my side?"
"I didn't say nothing." Echo replied, oblivious to the inner turmoil Alpha was currently experiencing.
"You always say nothing." He told her before lifting the wedge to his ear, "Shh… there she is. Listen."
Echo turned to him in confusion before saying, "Am I supposed to hear something?"
"Not yet." He snapped back.
"Bobby, you're scaring me." Echo said before glancing at the two young men that had come with them both and had strangely gotten attached to the pair rather quickly, "You're scaring the boys."
Alpha turned back to Echo then to Charlie and Oscar before turning back to Echo, "Little lambs… what have you three got to be afraid of? I'll tell you what. There's only one person that can hurt any of you now, just one… and that's what we're here to take care of."
He lifted up a different wedge and tapped the side of it, much to Echo's confusion. Alpha began setting everything up and began to imprint the now empty Wendy with Echo's original personality. Soon enough, Alpha's make-shift imprint chair slowly went back up and putting Wendy back into a sitting position as Alpha removed the wire attached to her head. Wendy opened her eyes and Alpha smiled.
"Hello, Caroline."
"Has it been five years?" Wendy, now Caroline, asked.
She looked around in confusion, this didn't look like the same lab she had been in at all. Her eyes widened as she saw Echo smile awkwardly before giving a nervous wave. Two unknown men watched her curiously and were obviously dolls.
"What is this? What am I doing sitting here… and standing over there?" She asked, trying to stop herself from panicking.
"Baby… meet yourself." Alpha said as he smiled at Echo.
"Oh God, the wrongness of this is so large. Whose body is this?" Caroline said, her panic escalating.
"It's just a body. They're all pretty much the same." Alpha said nonchalantly.
"Well, I think this one wet itself." Caroline stated.
"What did you mean 'meet myself'?" Echo asked in confusion.
"This whining, pathetic creature… this self-hating human… that was you." Alpha told her.
"Umm… what?"
"She's responsible for all the terrible things you can't remember!" Alpha yelled.
"My brain hurts."
"How do you think my brain… hey! That is my brain. I want my brain back! I want back in my brain!"
"You should have thought of that before you vacated the premises."
"I don't even know this girl." Echo interjected.
"Do you know why?"
"'Cause we never met?" Echo asked with a small shrug.
"Because she abandoned you. She walked out on you when you needed her most. Time's got a little tough. The road got a little rocky, seas got a little choppy, and she thought: 'hey! I'll go to sleep. Night-night. See you in five years.'" Echo glanced at Caroline as Alpha continued to rant, "She left you to the jackals, to the wolves. To the predators. Isn't that right, Caroline?"
"She said that I would be taken care of and that I would be safe." Caroline replied softly.
Alpha began to laugh, "Do you feel safe? Huh?! Do you? You feel safe?"
Caroline chocked back a sob as Alpha continued speaking.
"Safe, do you feel? What do you feel?" Alpha asked once more.
"Confused." Caroline told him.
"I'm with her." Echo agreed.
"You are her." Alpha snapped before speaking to her softly once more, "But you don't have to be. You can ascend. You can evolve. It's in you, I've seen it."
Echo listened to Alpha, but glanced once more at Caroline. She was starting to feel uneasy with the direction her lover was going.
"And I can help you, baby. Just like I always have. She was never there when you needed her… but I was."
Echo swallowed nervously before looking Alpha in the eyes before nodding her head in agreement.
It's Bobby, she thought to herself, Bobby is always looking out for me. I just need to trust him.
Alpha smiled, "Thank you. Now, why don't you take the boys to the other room while I get our guest out of your throne."
Echo gave him a small smile before leading Oscar and Charlie into another room despite Caroline's calls for her to stop. Alpha untied Caroline and lifted her out of the imprint chair roughly. He quickly shoved he into another chair facing the imprint chair and began to tie her up once more. Soon enough, Echo re-entered the room with a skip in her step.
"I gave the boys some headphones and they're both listening to some relaxing rain sound now. They won't hear a thing!" Echo told them as she made her way towards Alpha.
She allowed Alpha to help her into the imprint chair and begin to attach a wire to her head.
"Do not let him do this to you, please." Caroline pleaded.
"You don't even know what it is I'm doing." Alpha told her condescendingly.
"It's not good. I know that." She snapped back, "I've been in that chair. It hurts."
"Just for a minute." Alpha said with a chuckle before turning his attention back to Echo, "You won't remember."
"I remember. It still smells like burnt hair in here." Caroline argued.
"He's going to make me a superior creature. An ascended being. Hmm." Echo told her in a superior tone of voice.
"Do you even know what that means?" Caroline asked exasperatingly, knowing her body's current personality was one that was easily taken advantage of.
"Do you?" Echo asked.
"No."
"Okay. So you're not better than me."
"Look where you are. You're in a lair, okay? An evil lair. And you're sitting in some messed-up dentist chair letting a guy who talks to himself attach wires to your head, which, incidentally, is my head."
Echo's face showed her doubts, but she still obeyed her lover as he gave her something to bite down on.
"Go ahead. Keep talking. I want you to. We all do." Alpha told Caroline as the chair Echo was sitting in began to lean back, "This is how it shall be. She will ascend. She will know. And then she will kill you."
"What?!" Caroline asked breathlessly, "Why?!"
"Because!" Alpha snapped, "That's what we need. A blood ritual. Yes, yes, we've got to have one of those. I mean, the Aztecs knew it. The pre-Hellenic Minoans knew it, for God's sakes. From the moment man first clawed his way out of the primordial ooze and kicked off his find, he's understood that the gods require blood."
Caroline listened in horror at the word's the crazed man before her spewed out.
"New life," Alpha gestured towards Echo before gesturing to Caroline, "from death."
Echo glanced towards Caroline in concern, beginning to have second thoughts.
"The ancients had it right, but the old gods are back." He muttered as the machine powered on, "Alpha? Meet Omega."
With his piece being said, he pressed the enter button on his computer to begin the imprinting. Echo arched back with a whimper and she began to remember everything. All her previous imprints flashed before her eyes as she cried out in pain. As the process finished, she remained completely silent as the chair began to lift her back into a sitting position. Echo's eyes snapped open and she ripped the wires off her head before she leapt out of her seat.
"Oh, God." Caroline whispered in terror.
"Oh, gods." Alpha whispered in awe.
"I get it." Echo whispered, briefly glancing at Caroline before moving towards Alpha, "Yup. Now… I get it."
Echo nonchalantly crouched down to pick up a pipe from the ground before standing back up and walking towards Alpha once more.
"I knew you would." Alpha crooned softly as Echo faced Caroline as she held the pipe.
"Oh, yeah." Echo said as she swung the pipe at Alpha rather than the woman imprinted with her original personality.
Alpha fell to the ground in pain and surprise.
"Now I understand everything."