Glinda cringed to herself as she realized how much homework she really had left to do before tomorrow's first class. With a reluctant but resigned sigh, the little blond picked up her first textbook, but before she even got to open it, a green face appeared in her doorway.
"Thank Oz!" Glinda sighed as that green face stepped into the room and over to one of the two beds inside. "Elphie?" the blond asked the green girl. "Can you help me with my homework?"
"What? No!" Elphaba replied at once. "We've talked about this before! Don't you remember?"
"Of course I do! But it's just that you're so smart, and-" before Glinda could continue her attempt at complimenting her roommate into doing her homework, said roommate cut her off.
"Glinda. What did I tell you before?" she demanded, with a voice that silenced Glinda. "What did I tell you about me doing your work?"
"That if you keep doing it, I'll never learn and I'll fail," Glinda sighed unhappily, slumping over her desk again as her voiced dropped half an octave below its normally shrilly and happy timbre.
"That's right," Elphaba nodded sternly again.
"I just wish I didn't have so much," whined Glinda, heart sinking more as she realized most of it was sorcery work, which was the class she was struggling in the most despite all of her efforts, which were actually quite a few, to her credit.
But seeing that Elphaba was not going to cave in and help her tonight, Glinda only sighed once more as she picked up her wand.
"I wish I didn't have so much," she repeated glumly. "Or at least, I wish that I could find someone who would help me," she added, casting a look at Elphaba, but Elphaba was ignoring her at this point, settling into bed to do her own essays and such. Glinda, meanwhile, turned back to the tiny mirror on her desk and stared into it. Were those bags she had under her eyes?! Ugh! Staying up late to finish all this work would totally ruin her flawless complexion! "If only I had a little help," Glinda whispered again, but this time to herself, as she continued to stare bitterly into that little mirror. Then suddenly, the little blond got an idea.
One blinding pink flash of light later and, standing where Glinda had been pointing her wand, stood one perfect clone of her.
"Sweet Oz!" Elphaba gasped, actually genuinely surprised by what Glinda had done. She even managed to pull her nose out of her book, for once. It was a feat almost impressive as Glinda creating that perfect double. But Glinda didn't even waste time bragging about finally impressing her far-smarter, nerdier friend. Instead, totally ignoring the fact that she'd actually managed to catch Elphaba off guard, the little blond only waved her wand five times more. Following five more flashes of pink, five more Glindas stood in the little dorm room.
"Oh, Oz, this is a bad idea," Elphaba muttered, finally coming out of her surprise and starting to see where Glinda was going to try and go with this. Glinda, however, was still too proud of herself to even hear Elphaba speak. But the other Glindas, the six clones, all heard the green girl loud and clear and each, with the Original Glinda's exact same voice, protested.
"Oh, hush, Elphie!" one of them said, hands on her hips as she glared mockingly at the green girl.
"Yes! Leave us be!" a second agreed, crossing her arms instead of placing them on her hips.
"Don't worry! We've got this!" the third promised, raising her chin and tossing her golden curls boldly.
"You can trust us!" the fourth insisted, nodding earnestly, blue eyes glimmering brightly.
"It's just a bit of sorcery after all! Nothing too extreme, right?" a fifth asked, though whether or not she was serious was up for debate.
"I mean, what could possibly go wrong?" the sixth asked, laughing a little. It was a soft giggle that the others all echoed, filling the room with what sounded like layers of Glinda's same laugh, just played at different timing.
"Ok. That's creepy," Elphaba said, still looking straight at the seven Glindas, unsure of what else to say or do at the moment.
"No, it's not!"
"Don't be silly!"
"It's all entirely safe!"
"There's nothing to worry about!"
"Honestly!"
"Everything will be just fine!"
The clones all began to protest one by one in perfect order again.
"Ok. That's it, I'm out!" Elphaba interrupted before the fourth Glinda could finish her remark, then the green girl hopped right out of bed and, books tucked under her arm, bolted out the door. The Original Glinda, who had not said a word during this whole remark, finally spoke as the sound of Elphaba's retreating footsteps grew softer and softer.
"Well, I think we sure showed her!" the OG bragged and her six clones all nodded happily in agreement, each gushing about how clever she was. The OG basked in the praise of her clones for a few seconds more before turning her head back to her desk. "Anyway, ladies!" she said. "How about we get started on the rest of our homework? It'll go faster if each of us tackles a subject!" but all six of the clones began to protest again.
"No! Come on!"
"That's no fun!"
"Yeah, we ought to do something we like!"
"Let's go out and explore, or party!"
"There's so much to do here, why would we ever stay inside?"
"We've got an entire campus to explore, why let's go!"
Once again, each of the clones had her say, but before the OG could speak, the six had all darted out from her room, each running in a different direction, disappearing down a different corner or a different hall. The OG could only look on in despair.
"Maybe this wasn't such a good idea..." she mumbled, and even though Elphaba was no longer there, Glinda could still hear her snarky reply.
"Really? You don't say? What could've ever given you that idea?" and all Glinda could respond with was:
"Shut up, Elphie," then she began to wonder if she hadn't gone mad herself, talking to a green girl who wasn't even there.
Meanwhile, the six Glinda clones had somehow all reunited despite each taking a different route from the dorm. They, as one giant Glinda pack, ran across the darkening Shiz campus, startling anyone who saw them go by.
"What in Oz?!" one particular student, Fiyero Tigelaar, cried out as the six Glindas went running by. Meanwhile, the two Munchkins who were with him, Nessa and Boq, could only exchange a confused, concerned glance, each asking the same question that neither had the answer to. They could only stare on in confusion as six pink blurs got smaller and smaller every second. Shiz really was a very strange school.
"I think I'm ready to go to bed," Boq muttered and, for once, the other two agreed with him.
But eventually, the OG finally came to her senses and tore after her six clones, trying to figure where each of them might have gone...
"What in Oz is going on here?" a low, booming voice demanded as Glinda's heels clacked loudly against the wood floors. The little blond was stopped in her tracks as the large head-Shiz-tress, Madam Morrible, suddenly appeared and blocked her path.
"Madam Morrible!" Glinda grew even paler than normal as Morrible stared down her fat, flat nose at the trembling student.
"Ms. Glinda! I do believe that I saw you running past the Shiz fountain just moments ago, did I not?" she demanded, raising a well-done eyebrow.
"You did ma'am!" Glinda squeaked. "Or, well, you didn't... But you did!" the blond began to trip over her words, wringing her hands nervously as the Head Shiztress continued to glare down at her like a cat staring down a mouse.
"Ah! I see that you have missperformed yet another spell, haven't you?!" Morrible's dramatic, booming voice rang in Glinda's ears and the far tinier woman could only nod, ashamed. Morrible uttered another low, mocking scoff. "Ha! I always knew you didn't have what it took! But I thought that for sure, even a girl as stupid as yourself would know that conjuring clones is something that we would not cover until a far later semester! And did we not talk about how dangerous it is to attempt to pursue magic before your time? Well! Even if we did not then, I am sure that you understand why now," the woman tossed her bewigged head towards the window where another Glinda could be see spinning on by.
The OG trembled in shame and fear before Morrible.
"C-c-ca-can't you at l-l-least help me?" she stuttered, feeling tears burning her eyes and threatening to fall.
"Ha! Nonsense! I do not even know if this is the real You that I am talking to now, do I?" Morrible's voice continued to undulate, rising and falling in pitch on every other word as she added insult to injury, feigning ignorance about this Glinda's identity. The tears were really about to fall.
"Then what can I do?!" the tiny blond shrilled, voice impossibly high with nervousness and frustration.
"Figure out which of you seven is the real Glinda and reverse the spell yourself! I dare not do it myself," Morrible gave an ugly smile to Glinda. "Lest I mess up and attempt to... remove the wrong one of you from this existence. Shall I put it that way?" and Glinda began to shake again.
"But now, to offer some encouragement," Morrible's voice suddenly became sickly sweet and Glinda found herself even more frightened by this than when the woman had cackled at her, subtly threatening death if she dared. "If you do not fix it by dawn, you shall be expelled from my seminar, have your wand revoked, and be charged with disrupting the peace. Am I clear?"
"As crystal, ma'am," Glinda quailed again, heartbreaking and pounding at the same time as half of her wanted to protest how unfair all of this was while the other only wanted to run away and hide, dreading the next sunrise when Morrible would be sure to make her expulsion from sorcery school as long, dramatic, painful and publicly humiliatingly as possible.
With that, Morrible gave one last cruel scoff before turning away from Glinda entirely, tossing her head back triumphantly and muttering about how Glinda as might as well pack her things now to spare herself the task of having to do it so early tomorrow morning. Glinda, meanwhile, only covered her ears as she retreated the other way, as far away from Morrible as possible. But at last, the girl came to a miserable halt at the Shiz fountain Morrible had been talking about earlier. There were no Glindas around here now, except for the original one. She sat on the fountain's edge, staring miserably into the rippling water, guilt, shame and general hurt coursing through her body.
"How am I ever going to round them all up and dispel them before dawn?!" she wailed, but her despair turned to shock when she received a reply.
"We think that we might be of service!" it sounded like multiple voices, except they all had the exact same tone and timbre. Glinda turned around slowly, hardly daring to hope... But sure enough, Glinda could see seven proud green girls a few inches behind her, all standing at the ready.
For the rest of the night, Elphaba's clones tracked down every single last one of Glinda's, each using a different tactic to lure their Glinda away from whatever it was she was doing before bringing her back to the dorm, where the whole mess began. Then, one chant and one satisfied Elphaba later, everything had returned back to normal. Glinda hung her head in shame.
"Gee Elphie, sorry about all this trouble," she blushed. The remaining Elphaba, the original one, only smirked.
"I hope you learned your lesson that cheaters never win," she said mockingly.
"Don't worry. I did," the remaining Glinda, the original one, nodded, head drooping even lower.
Seeing that struck a soft spot within the remaining Elphaba and she nudged Glinda's arm playfully.
"Don't get too down, ok?" she asked the blond. "I mean, that really wasn't half bad! Apparently, none of my clones had too much trouble finding yours! You're very predictable, you know?" the green girl continued.
"Is that supposed to make me feel better?" Glinda asked weakly.
"Sure it is!" Elphaba seemed not to notice how her remark had been a bit less than flattering.
"Well, thanks Elphie," Glinda sighed sarcastically. "Glad to know you can read me so well that even when I have six clones out and about, we still aren't very exciting or special and that all of us are all the same to you," she said, making her hints at Elphaba's insult a bit more clear.
"Don't say that!" Elphaba replied jovially, still appearing to miss the point. "You are far more special than you think, it's just because I know you so well that I've memorized all your hot spots, and so the clones knew where you would be as well. That's not to say you, as the original, are boring or interchangeable at all! No, you are definitely one of a kind," the green girl promised sincerely. "You're the OG! And that's more than enough for me!" and Glinda finally seemed to cheer up.
Right before the two fell asleep, however, Glinda had accidently let slip about how Morrible had threatened her during her attempt at catching her clones. Hearing this sent a blaze of fury through Elphaba's being, imagining that fat old toad insulting her beloved friend, but she managed to conceal that burning anger under a cool gaze.
"Well, why don't we prove to Morrible that you learned your lesson and were able to fix your mistakes, huh?" Elphaba asked, hopping out of her bed for a second time that night, only this time she wasn't going because of Glinda's clones...
"What do you mean, Elphie?" Glinda got out of her bed as well, but she couldn't see where Elphaba was going with this.
"I mean, let's prove to her that you really mastered the spell this time," Elphaba repeated as she left the door, and then it clicked.
The next morning, Madam Morrible woke up to hear bickering right outside her bedroom door. Annoyed, she rolled herself out of bed and opened the door, growling sleepily, but her eyes shot open when she realized the source of the arguing. It was six other Morribles, all standing there in her private suite, arguing over the best way to teach a student. Morrible, once she got over her surprise, was filled with anger and tried to magic them back out of existence, but when she failed to change a single thing, she realized then that an extra spell had been cast over them. Only the one responsible for creating these clones would be able to send them away again.
"Nooooo!" wailed Morrible, loud enough to drown the fit of laughter occurring under her bedroom window.
"Operation: More Morrible, complete!" cried Elphaba, but Glinda was laughing too hard to reply.
AN: Silly little fic that I think was inspired off of something my mom said to me once, not that I remember what it was.