The underground fortress is a slave-labour workshop where poor elves are forced to make toys for unsuspecting kiddies at Christmas time. Huge machinery dominates the place, and a smell of pollution and sweat. Nobody sleeps here. They work and work and work. It is a true metropolis of labour.

::Santa arrives from the elevator carrying Melinda. He glowers at the elfs and kicks one out of his way.::

"Make room and make space, fools! I have the Charmed One!"

(This will be a special Christmas.)

"No doubt her guardians will be here soon, so prepare the stations!"

::A team of eight elves wheel a majestic, comfy-looking bed over to Santa with golden silk sheets and oodles of cuddly toys. They peel back the duvet and lift Melinda from their boss' hands, sliding her into the bed for her to sleep in peace. They then push the bed over to the wall and start hooking it up to chains that climb up to the ceiling, seemingly attached to some sort of conveyor belt that runs up the wall.::

::Santa amuses himself by shooting elves at random with a huge laser blaster.::

::The elves doing the work are so far not dead. They strap Melinda down onto the bed and it's then attached to the conveyor belt. The mattress is pulled from the bed, with Mel, and pulled up the wall. It's a bit weird, really, and seems to be a lot of effort.

They then go about connecting some wires to a helmet which they get onto the Charmed One's head by stacking themselves on top of one another to the correct height.::

"Almost ready, boss!"

"Ho ho ho!"

::Santa holds his belly, then groans.::

"If only my evil laugh wasn't so... jolly... hook me up!"

::The elves guide Santa over to a stool and sit him down, putting a similar helmet onto his head. They nod.::

"Okay, throw the switch!"

[Just in the nick of time - surprise surprise - the elevator doors open for all the witches and whatevers to see Santa about to do something crazy involving his and Melinda's poor heads stuck in weird helmet thingies connected to one another and a big machine! Oh no!]

::Paige takes in the horrible sight quickly, her eyes flicking around the huge factory. They come to stop on her daughter, unconscious, strapped up to the wall on the far side of the room.::

"Melinda!"

::The whitelighter screams and her body disappears in a cloud of orbs which streaks across the room over to the sleeping Charmed One's body. They shoot up the side of the bed and swarm over the straps, struggling, before floating back down and reforming into Paige.::

::Jasmine steps out of the elevator and closes her eyes. She then opens them and points at a machine with a switch - the switch three elves are struggling to pull down.::

"There!"

"Stop them!"

::Santa booms, his voice drowning out Jasmine's as they yell at the same time.::

"Oh no you don't!"

::Petunius flicks out his hands and immediately surrounds one of the elves with a shimmering blue field of energy before pulling at it in order to pull the creature apart and blow it up.::

::That elf does indeed die and swiftly so. But there's millions more. A bunch of elves step in front of the elevator opening armed with guns locked and loaded on their shoulders. They aim into the elevator, but don't fire. From the sides, others arm themselves with large frying pans and wait.

Then one of them shoots Jasmine in the shin with a... pellet gun.::

::Jasmine jumps onto one foot and lifts up her knee so she can clutch at her lower leg.::

"AH you little ffff..."

::She refrains from finishing that word with respects to Lirie and Melinda.::

"Why is it always the shin? Always!"

::She puts it down and kicks one of the little bastards square in the stomach.::

"They're just toys, guys!"

::Andrea shrugs and runs forward so everybody has room to get out.::

(Okay, so they're little and ugly. What would Jesus do?)

::The telekinetic frowns.::

(... what would JULIE do?)

::She throws a sweeping wave of TK at a row of them and yells something offensive in Chinese.::

::A heroic elf runs towards a trampoline, clutching a frying pan in his hands. He leaps on it, bounces, and flies through the air. On his way past Andrea, he uses his momentum and body to twist and smack her in the face with aforementioned frying pan.::

::Andrea sinks to the floor in a comedy fall and starts spitting blood out.::

"HO HO HO!"

::Santa clutches his bulging belly and laughs heartily as his elves succeed in hurting two of the irritants. He then turns in his seat and glares at the three minions struggling with the switch.::

"Throw it!"

::Leo has already orbed over to join Paige, leaving the others to the fighting.::

"How do we get her down?"

"I don't know. I tried to orb her but it wouldn't work."

::Paige grits her teeth, lost.::

(Goddamn.)

::She sighs and digs her fingers through her hair, turning around to look for inspiration. She pauses, then stares.::

(Santa?)

::Sharon pushes her own way out of the elevator and kicks one of the elves while trying to wrench the gun away from it. They may just be pellets but it looks like it hurts! She phases the gun and plunges it into the elf's stomach, before letting go of it. It should turn solid again inside the poor thing, which is why Sharon looks away with a bit of a grimace.::

::The elf squeaks as the gun solidifies, killing it. Now Sharon is left holding a weird elf gun made of elf. The trigger is poking out of the dead thing's stomach with the barrel protruding from its back. Now that's something for the kiddies.::

::Sharon squeaks and shudders, dropping the gun. She's so squicked she just stares at it.:

::Paz drops down onto one knee and points his fingers like a gun, sending searing hot lazers at the three little elf bastards trying to pull the switch.::

::Julie blinks over to Andrea still carrying Lirie in one arm, assuming Chloe will have flown off by now. She blasts away the small creatures with her super separating energy blasts and energy balls.::

"Are you okay?!"

::Chloe is pulling her best trick and flying about the room, using her talons to scratch and injure and hopefully pull out a few elf-y eyeballs. She takes a cue from Lirie and lifts and elf by the ears, hoping it's head will fall off. She flies a little ways with it and then drops it on a bunch of others.::

::Petunius captures another elf within a forcefield and crushes it to death promptly.::

:: Azura has no real idea what to do to the elves. Apart from wrinkle her nose in disgust at them and the whole set up in general. She can see Santa past the elves strapped up to something with some sort of helmet get up.::

(I imagined that he would look more sinister.)

:: No matter, she can try and attack from here. She attempts to give the jolly fat man one heck of a psychic headache.::

:: Surrounded by chaos and dying elves, Lirie cries out, wriggling out of Julie's hold and runs past the elves towards Santa, seeing him as the only beacon of light in this madness. ::

"Santa! Santa! Make them stop! Please, Santa! Santa!"

::Elves are dying left right and centre. But they're also shooting you bitches down, and attempting more frying pan attacks.::

"Out of my way, brat."

::Santa lifts a booted foot and kicks Lirie in the face, sending her flying back skidding across the ground. He then glares at Azura, knowing she's using her power on him but not showing much evidence of it having an effect.::

::Sharon gasps as Lirie gets kicked by Santa, shock propelling her through a hail of bullets to the little girl who she gathers in her arms, crouching over her. ::

"Lirie, are you okay?"

::Seeing a child get brutally hit like that horrifies her.::

"Do..."

:: Lirie mumbles and starts sniffling as she tentatively touches her nose and sees her hand come back covered with blood. It hurts like hell, but instincetively she feels that crying and sobbing would only make it worse. She looks up at Sharon in pure disbelief. ::

"Julie said he won't get mad..."

"Ho ho ho!"

:: Azura yelps as several pellets smack her on the arms and stomach. She can feel Santa's glare on her and while she holds her arms up in various defensive poses, she intensifies her power use. Santa will feel it, somehow!::

"He's a bad man."

::A frowning Sharon digs around hurriedly in her pockets for a tissue and holds it to Lirie's nose.::

::Santa gets up and begins to walk towards the switch, realising he'll have to do this by himself.::

::Paige instantly clouds herself into orbs and swings in front of Santa, reappearing before him and glaring up into his big, red face.::

:: Lirie tilts her head backwards, letting Sharon dab the blood away, speaking in a nasal voice. ::

"Bud he's Zanda-- owowow..."

:: Now there are tears. ::

::Santa stops walking and straightens up to his full, surprisingly tall, height. He beams down satisfactorily at Paige, obviously more than pleased to see her.::

"Well, well, well. If it isn't Paige Matthews, believing once again."