General! General, can you hear me?! Tally's voice was so clear and pained. Her eyes snapped open, immediately pushing herself off her desk, searching for the source of the voice. She peeled the tablet off her face. It was blank. Her head was slow to catch up with her now frantically racing heart. How could it have been in her mind. The link was severed. Tapping the screen back on, she sighed, relaxing instantly despite the fact that Tally in chains was not in any way shape or form a relaxing sight to her. She brushed the girl's voice in her head off as nothing more than residual dream energy and let the tablet fall back to the table.
After her heartbeat normalized, the thumping pain in her head made itself known again. If anything it had gotten worse. She pried herself out of her chair, managed the quickest shower in history, tried to get ready for bed but instead mindlessly put on a clean uniform and left the building on autopilot. She barely noticed that her biddies were right behind her, ready and waiting to go by the time she got out of the shower.
She knew she wouldn't sleep anymore after waking like that, and it was a good thing she didn't need to eat cause she felt like she would have just spit it all back up again if she did.
It had definitely been a mistake ordering Isadora to allow her to review the footage of the interrogation, even more so that she demanded a live feed to her office in the middle of the night. She had painstakingly stayed up, eyes glued to the tiny screen even when Tally was doing nothing, and what's even worse, now there she was, standing on the other side of the two way wall looking into the grey cell with the girl that had woken her from her restless sleep sitting chained to a chair in the center.
It was necessary. She had to remember it was all necessary. She repeated that statement in her head, and had her biddies repeat it to her as well, as if there was any chance in hell she could convince herself she made the right choice when every fiber of her being was now telling her otherwise. Groaning with pain and frustration, she willed herself to look away, to just go back to her quarters, or at least her office, but she didn't move, the extent of her will only allowed her to look as far away as the ceiling.
How had she not known the cadet was seeing these things? More importantly, why didn't she take the time to figure out what exactly she had seen? True enough the train wreck and camarilla and new witch testing had her preoccupied, but this was also crucial information that she neglected to obtain. Her first instinct had actually been to comfort the cadet, to sit her down, coax the information out of her over breakfast the next day. She actually had given it enough thought that it scared her. It scared her more than most things. It scared her so much that it was partly why she ended up ordering this whole manipulative scenario.
Not that she didn't trust Tally with her life, she did completely, she just didn't trust anyone with her past.
"General?" Isadora approached her tentatively.
Alder sighed at the interruption. "Yes?"
"I didn't expect you to be here," Originally when she convinced herself this needed to happen, she ordered most of the details be kept from her, allowing her some level of plausible deniability given that Tally could apparently experience any memory of hers at any given moment and therefore learn the truth. She threw all that out the window when Isadora showed her that first video though, and at this point, she just couldn't help herself.
She cleared her throat trying to determine the best way to explain it, not that she needed to explain herself, she was in charge after all. "Yes, well I wanted to see first hand how things were going,"
"She has not given away anything still, if that is what you are asking, but you chose an odd time, General, we took a break several hours ago," The necro responded firmly. "I can have them see what they can do now if you'd like, but afterwards since you are here, I would like to present the breakthrough we made on the Tarim disease,"
Alder gave a stiff nod. Isadora understood and linked one of the soldiers in the other room, and they both turned to observe through the glass.
Three soldiers pushed through the doors startling Tally with the abrupt noise.
"Feeling talkative yet?"
Her lack of response earned her a fierce backhand to the face. Alder would have let herself flinch had she been watching from her office, but not here in front of the necro.
"What if we try something else?" One of them suggested. "We have your girl, blondie, in the next room over, talk or we start on her, does that change your mind?"
"She's smarter than that," Alder scoffed, eyes still on the defiant girl, but Isadora gave her a serious look that compelled her to look her way.
"Prove it," Tally demanded in the background.
"We'll see. At your request, we utilized some typical spree tactics. Observe," Isadora handed the general a scry of a different room where a brown haired girl was being chained to the floor clearly for show. The one chaining her down handed her a lighter afterwards. Within moments, the girl looked just like their mushroom infested superweapon.
"Well done," Alder was still disgusted with the notion of using the spree's work like this, but she commended the effort nonetheless. Alder brought her attention back to the Tally.
The one who made the threat quickly left, returning a moment later, scry in hand. "See for yourself,"
Tally did and immediately gasped and squirmed harder against the chains, but then she froze. She looked closer at the scry then stared off into the distance for a brief moment. "Do you have something to tell us about the general now?" one of the soldiers prodded.
"Yes, I think I do," Tally looked back at them curiously.
"Go on then,"
Alder sighed, more disappointed than she expected she'd be, but in all fairness, they had been at this for several days now and Tally had lasted this long. "Okay, call it, I want this ended now,"
Isadora nodded just about to link one of the girls when Tally spoke again.
"Not about the general you stupid bitches," Alder would admit, the cursing from Tally was something she hadn't expected, she had always known her to be polite, well, most of the time. "I was just going to tell you that that isn't my friend in the other room. I can see the magic you're using on her, whoever it is. It's good, but not good enough," She laughed at the confused and frustrated look on the three witches' faces.
"I don't believe it," Alder herself couldn't help but flash a small proud smile. "Belay that order, Isadora,"
"Yes, ma'am," Even the necro smiled.
"We will have to ensure she gets further training on that skill of hers, it is quite useful in the field, especially if she can see through the spree workings, we will need it," Alder continued, the pride still in her voice, but it all faded just as quickly when they heard the soldier's once again change their tactics. They were mimicking the spree after all.
"You caught us, but believe me, this next threat is not empty. We have people all over Fort Salem, even within reach of your precious Sarah Alder, whom you so blindly protect," One of them hissed at Tally and she physically flinched. The other two paced around her menacingly, while the other one got real close. "All it takes is one…"
"Or two,"
"Or three,"
Tally jumped as the other two had joined in over her shoulders.
"...Of her biddies to fall...and down falls general Alder, down falls Fort Salem, and down falls the army!" The witch laughed venomously. Tally's face fell.
Alder turns to Isadora with a smirk. "They are good, she almost had me nervous for a moment,"
"Uh I have a question," The three stared blankly at Tally, dumbfounded by her audacity. "If you have all these high and mighty plans to attack general Alder and her biddies, which are lovely women by the way, what do you need me for?" She paused to breathe, struggling against the collar. Alder felt the appreciation her biddies had for Tally's comment and couldn't help but smile slightly but it faltered with another backhand to Tally's face.
The redhead coughed, but pressed on anyway. "What kind of spree agents are you anyway?! Why was that your go to? You didn't want to try faking me out with my family first, hell you didn't even try to do any of that mind linking shit, you just went for the general, who is more powerful than any of your people and completely untouchab…" She trailed off and her eyes glazed over. Alder squinted through the glass, trying to read Tally's expression and she didn't understand what she saw.
"Hey!" The main soldier shook Tally by the shoulders roughly and Tally's whole body went limp in her hands.
All three of them appeared to jump back in surprise at the sudden change. "Don't just stand there! Wake her up!"
The other two sang a few different notes but nothing happened.
"What are they using on her?" Alder felt extremely unintelligent asking that question, because clearly they were doing nothing other than trying to wake her, but she needed the necro to confirm it.
"Nothing, ma'am, they aren't doing this," Isadora's tone was gravely serious.
"General!" … "General Alder!" Tally suddenly was screaming like she was watching a bloody murder, and by the sounds of it, someone was attempting to murder the general. The main soldier leaped back with a yelp at Tally's animation. Alder wondered which dark place Tally had been whisked off to so suddenly.
"Pull them out," Alder muttered, not tearing her eyes away from the scene for even a second. Apparently neither could Isadora, probably lost in the curiosity of it all. "Now, Isadora, pull them out now!" Alder whipped her head around, towering over the shorter woman. Right away Isadora linked with them to leave Tally in the room alone, and at the same time Alder stormed around her, she needed to see what Tally was seeing, this was her chance.
Just as she was about to throw open the door, Isadora grabbed her by the arm. "General, you can't!"
Alder glared at her like she had just committed treason. "Excuse me?!"
The necro was quick to remove her hand from the general's arm. "Forgive me, ma'am, but your previous orders were to preserve the reality of this exercise, if you go in there, she will learn the truth,"
Alder stared for a moment at the steel door in front of her, transfixed by the premise of Tally experiencing one of her own memories, while she herself was not part of it.
"General Alder! Get out of the way! Look out!" Tally yelled so loudly at the very top of her lungs that it actually made both of the officers jump slightly.
She reached again for the door handle, slowly.
"Think about this general," Isadora warned again. "I can give her potions for the memories, and for the PTSD that will undoubtedly follow this, but there is nothing I can do about your lies. The consequences of her finding out about what you allowed to happen here will be yours to live with, I cannot fix issues of trust,"
Enraged at such candor, her biddies hissed venomously. She was furious, but deep down somewhere, she knew the necro was right and she hated it. She did her best to control herself and school her features. "This ends today. Arrange for her to be dropped at the holding location in New York this afternoon, have someone interrupt Collar's incident debrief this morning with the good news, and we'll deploy them after," She paused. "Make ready your presentation and summon Anacostia. Dismissed,"
Isadora didn't need to be told again, she practically ran out of that hallway.
Alder silently commanded her biddies to remain outside while she went against every warning the necro had just given her.
Tally was still struggling, at one point she tried to duck, to cover her face with her hands but the chains prevented her. To Alder it looked like she was struck across the face, but no one hit her, there was no one there but them. When Tally's head rolled around, Alder's breath caught slightly in her throat. Seeing the cuts and bruising forming on her cheek and arms was jarring. Physical manifestations of her past harming this girl was unacceptable, and it tugged at the few heartstrings she allowed herself to acknowledge.
"Nicte...don't do this...don't hurt her…please!" Tally was flailing so violently again, it chilled Sarah to the bone. She knelt down in front of her, careful not to come into any contact at all. Her heart ached for her, knowing this was all her fault. Desperately she wanted to reach out, to take away her pain, but she couldn't.
"Tally, where are you?" She whispered quietly, as softly as she could.
Tally almost immediately stopped all movement and in probably her fastest reaction of all time, Sarah was up and out the door, leaving it just slightly cracked open to stop it from making any noise. She held her breath though her lungs burned as she waited and listened.
"Shhh, general, I've got you. You don't die here today," It was incredibly sweet sounding and it hurt her deeply that her cadet could still be this way after seeing and feeling so much of her past. Beyond all reason, she wanted to run back in there, to unchain her, take her out of this hole she put her in and protect her, but that would ruin things. She would have to wait and hopefully be able to do more of that later. She knew she could trust her not to give up if she was truly interrogated, so after they concluded the exercise, she could focus on the protection and comfort side of this, rather than the manipulation and torture she had so shortsightedly sanctioned.
She let the door fall closed and she leaned against it, her biddies watching and waiting supportively for the most part.
Alder allowed herself a few more minutes to observe the cadet as she came out of her episode, before she had to run off to hear about Isadora's revelations.
When Tally came to, she was near hyperventilating for some reason. She was covered in sweat and she appeared disorientated. Alder tried to keep mental notes of every detail. An entire half hour passed by before the general realized it, still engrossed in observing the girl.
Sighing heavily, she gave one last glance to Tally and left, feeling better knowing this at least this part would be over soon.
Somewhere much closer than anyone realizes:
"I have a location for you. The army's black site in New York, get the girl, and bring her to me,"
"Aren't we about to kill Alder? Why is this something we are concerning ourselves with rig..."
"SHUT UP! You are a fool if you think Alder can be killed so easily. We wont kill her this time, but we will weaken her immensely. Clearly this girl represents a different kind of weakness in the General and we can't afford to let any opportunity go to waste, now get out of my sight and make the final preparations!"
"Yes, Nicte,"