Just How Far Hope Has Fallen. - Part 1

A knock interrupted them, "Addison, there is something you should see!" Dominique and Rafael spoke simultaneously, and they both sounded a little panicked.

Despite the severity of the situation, "We'll be out in five minutes!" Addison prioritized taking the time to kiss her wife, massaging her thighs with gentle kisses while she used a warm washcloth to clean their combined fluids off of Josie.

When it was finished, she vamp-sped to get herself dressed - and with a final kiss left Josie to get herself ready to join them.

"I checked on the kids, Lizzie is with them but they're still fast asleep," Rafael informed her almost immediately. She didn't speak, she wasn't sure what would come out if she did so she just gave a tense nod of recognition.

Dominique was sitting by Rebekah's still body as they walked into the living room. Addison faltered in her steps. She brought a hand to her mouth to hold in ... she wasn't sure if it was a sob or she was keeping herself from throwing up.

Her mama's body was burnt, nearly beyond recognition. Her once perfectly flawless skin was now nothing more than burnt black clumps nearly falling off of her body. Small patches of pink nerves were exposed between what was once flesh. Her long flowing blonde hair was now gone - her arms shriveled and wrapped around her baby bump where you could see she had tried to shield her unborn child.

Addison had known in order to dispose of her aunt, Hope had had to use the white oak stake - she had also known that both the stake and the vampire stabbed with it would burst into flames but seeing was believing. She could only thank all of her lucky stars that Dom had managed to put the fire out before Rebekah had been reduced to nothing but ash.

Josie came in a few minutes later, followed by Lizzie while Rafael stood by Addison's side as silent support.

"Hope did that?" Lizzie was the one to ask, having heard but not been involved in the original conversation. Her voice was a mixture of horrified and sad. Some anger buried under it if Addison wasn't mistaken. Lizzie, despite Caroline's reservations, had been close to Rebekah - just like Addison. Caroline was constantly away on "business" trips - even going so far as to miss the twin's birthday in her pursuit of information on how to prevent the merge.

"Yes," Addison nodded, "Hope did that." Her own voice was torn between anger and sadness - she allowed Josie to intertwine their fingers. Lizzie put a comforting hand on her back. They were family. Pack and Rebekah was one of their own.

"There's more," Dom was the one to reveal, finally looking away from his wife's burnt remains. Tear tracks stained his cheeks but he had stopped crying. His faith in his alpha was unrelenting.

"More?" Addison's own eyes finally looked away and locked onto Dominique's - he stood and handed her a tape that was marked with nothing more than her name written neatly across the front. Hope's handwriting.

"Who even uses VHS anymore?" Lizzie sniffed indignantly while Rafael wrapped a comforting arm around her waist.

"Your sister," Addison smirked, as Josie looked away from their raised eyebrows. She moved over to the TV where sure enough Josie had a vintage VHS/DVD player. With a deep breath she inserted the tape. Static on the TV before an image appeared and Addison sucked in a sharp inhale of breath.

-- Hope centered the camera, her head tilting this way and that while she ensured it was exactly where she wanted it. With a final satisfied nod, she turned and walked away. Her pace wasn't hurried or rushed. It was slow and taunting while she revealed those behind her.

Twelve individuals were chained to twelve chairs. Two of them being very clearly just children. Ropes wrapped around their arms and legs keeping them strapped to the chairs. By the slight sizzling that came off their skin and the pained hisses it was clear that for at least three of them - the ropes were soaked in vervain or wolfsbane. Hoods covered their faces as they struggled. Of the remaining individuals, six of them had magic blocking cuffs around their wrists - and the last three were clearly only human.

"Addison, my sweet baby sister!" Hope called as she circled the twelve like prey, her eyes devoid of any life or emotion aside from a sinister enjoyment that accompanied her smirk. She switched between watching the camera as if she could see where Addison was standing and eyeing the struggling captives. "I do apologize I couldn't get our dear Auntie Bex's death on camera but it was more of an impulse than a plan." ---

A hiss left Addison's lips before she could stop it, Josie squeezed her hand in support and wrapped a hand around her arm as if the restrain the Tribrid despite the fact she couldn't attack her sister even if she wanted too. Her reaction was mimicked by Rafael and Dominique whose wolves were reacting to the anger from their alpha. Lizzie had wrapped Rafael in a similar hold that Josie had on Addison.

-- Three of the twelve stopped their struggling immediately, their bodies frozen as they listened intently.

"I know, I know - how surprising! I never do anything without a plan!" Hope chuckled to herself, shaking her head. "For the sake of honesty, she was also supposed to be sitting here with the rest but she just wouldn't stop talking!" An exaggerated eye roll. "A thousand years of bed hopping and desperation, of course she finds a husband, gets knocked up and all of a sudden she's the pillar of innocence." Narrowed eyes accompanied her pacing revealing her annoyance. "She tried to scold me! Tell me I know what I'm doing is wrong, that I should leave you to your happy little suburban life with your step-ford wife and child." A dark chuckle. "How quaint. But - " A pause and a smile that was too smug for Addison's liking, "- she made me realize exactly how to get you to join me."

She paused behind the first chair, ripping off the hood and revealing a beaten, broken, bloody and disoriented Freya Mikaelson with duct tape over her mouth, "The way to get to you is to take away those you love," --

A growl, low and threatening. Addison may not have been as close to Freya as she was Rebekah but she was still her aunt. Hope knew the oath. Always and Forever. Even Klaus had never went as far as familicide. Surely Hope was bluffing but seeing as she could still smell the burnt flesh on her mama's body...Addison had a sinking feeling that she wasn't.

-- Hope moved to the next and did the same, "Ta-Dah!" She announced as if a gift when Caroline Forbes was revealed next, much like Freya she was beaten, broken, bloody, but worst of all her mouth wasn't duct taped. It was burning - a gag dipped in vervain shoved into her mouth. --

Addison pulled Josie into her side immediately, she saw Rafael follow her example. They weren't close. The twins and their mother - their relationship strained from years of neglect while Caroline prioritized finding a way to stop the merge over being a mother. Addison could see her point of view - if Alana was in that sort of danger, she would do whatever she could to prevent the loss of her daughter, but she wouldn't neglect her while doing it. That was the fatal flaw of not only Caroline but Klaus - in trying to protect their children, they failed at being parents.

-- "This little Harlot - do you know she spent years leading our poor father on? All for the sake of that pathetic hero haired loser Steven -" Caroline growled and Hope paused, "What was that?" Another growl from the blonde followed by a pained whimper. "Oh right, Stefan. Someone who was supposed to be dad's friend - pathetic." Quicker than the camera could catch Hope had grabbed her by the hair, pulled her hair back and bit into her neck. Caroline tried to scream around her gag. "Oops." Hope shrugged with a cackle, licking the blood off her now stained lips. "You'll join your precious Salvatore brother sooner than you thought there Mrs. Sal - is it still Salvatore if you're a widow?" Hope asked the blonde who was glaring angrily at her only to shrug and move on to the next.

The next chair revealed Kol Mikaelson - he was struggling furiously and it was clear he had been beaten worse than the rest, probably as a result of said struggle. "Kol - can we even call you a Mikaelson anymore? I'm sure you were ecstatic to hear about Dad's death. No more pathetic little black sheep Kol with no one to love him," Hope wiped a fake tear from the corner of her eye, her eyes slowly sliding from Kol's angered green to the hood next to his. As she moved toward it, he started to scream things from behind his duct tape, "Sorry," Hope hummed, with a tap to her forehead as if reprimanding herself. "One person to love him,"

Another hood removed revealed Davina, unconscious and from the looks of it barely alive. "I planned on having her be as angry as Kol, Addi. Really, I did but I couldn't take the chance with her being 'Davina Claire'" Hope spoke her name with annoyance and sarcasm, ignoring Kol who was practically frothing at the mouth next to her. "The itty-bitty witch responsible for putting our dad on his ass more than once. Personally, I would have just killed her but for all the talk of dad's ruthless ways - have you ever noticed how many people are alive that should be six feet underground by now?" With that she snapped the witch's neck, leaving Kol to scream helplessly as he stared at the dead body of his wife.

Two hoods were removed this time, revealing an unconscious Damon and Elena - both being human their wounds were clearly catching up with them. Duct tape over their mouths and blood coming from their nose, ears and wounds on their heads. "These two for example - how on earth did they get to live some happily ever after human life after everything they did? They literally killed Kol -" A pause. "- and Finn, who no one seems to give a rats ass about. They daggered Rebekah, daggered Elijah, killed dad, and if he hadn't been put in another body, he would have been dead," Hope casually listed all the reasons they should die on her fingers, "and as if that wasn't bad enough, they get to have a child!"

The next hood revealed an eleven-year-old Stephanie Salvatore - she was scared out of her mind, little chest heaving with her panicked breath's as she tried to look for her parents. Tears were rapidly falling down her face but thankfully, she didn't look as beaten as the rest. "Not just a child but they got to be parents to that child without having to send her away or spend years of her life ignoring her like she had the plague! I mean seriously, why should they get to have any of that when our parents didn't Addi?" As if waiting for an answer Hope actually paused and looked to the camera, then before anyone could blink, she had extended claws and ripped the poor girls throat out. "They shouldn't," Her voice was devoid of any emotion, colder than it had been even seconds before as she stared at the blood on her hand and watched Stephanie choke on her own blood.

Elena and Damon who had somehow managed to awaken were struggling with renewed vigor, most likely adrenaline, even if their attempts were futile while they stared at the dead body of their child. Tears falling down both of their faces to accompany Elena's sobs and Damon's screams of rage muffled behind duct tape.

Hope motioned to someone behind the camera and Landon without hesitation - dark bags under his eyes and a gleam as he watched hope with a grin. His eyes were filled with devotion, and if possible, lust. Hope moved behind the second child, much smaller than Stephanie and pulled the hood off to reveal Nik, Freya and Keelin's three-year-old son. "And for that matter what about this little bastard child? He's our cousin and we never even got to meet him - phone calls and half assed holiday cards," She moved so she was standing in front of the small boy, whose body shook with his fear. "Should I raise him myself, Addi? Activate his werewolf curse and then raise him to be a Mikaelson through and through?"

Three screams broke out, the first from Freya again behind her duct tape - most likely pleas for the life of her son. Landon ripped two more hoods off to reveal Keelin, Freya's wife and Nik's other mother and Vincent, Nik's biological dad. "Ahh the wolf and the sperm donor, I didn't forget about either of you,"

Hope moved to stand next to Keelin, circling her chair. "You know Addi, she was in the barn on the day we first met our father when we were seven? Can you imagine marrying the person responsible for kidnapping and torturing you for months? I believe Freya was literally milking her of her venom in case Marcel got hungry and decided he wanted a Mikaelson sized snack." In a blink Keelin's heart was in Hope's hand - the wolf dead and Freya and Nik crying their eyes out. She pulled a handkerchief out from her jacket pocket and began wiping off her hand casually, "Welcome to the family," She eyed the now dead wolf before she moved on.