Slowly she started to come back to herself. She knew pain: her back, her arm, her head. Her head most of all. On the third try she managed to get her eyes open, but the glare of the suns quickly shut them once more. The snapped open again, just as fast. Two suns? Had the fall affected her vision? No, the rest of the world was normal. How could there be two suns, then? Looking up at them was making her head ache more, so she forced herself to stop. That was when she noticed the trees. She was surrounded by them, but there was only one tree that grew near her home. She struggled to sit up. Wait, what fall? And, come to think of it, these trees were not quite like any she'd ever seen before. How far had the tornado thrown her?

The fear hit her like a physical strike and it took her a moment to fight it down into the back of her mind. The storm had passed, she had to focus on the here and now. She blinked away the tears that had started to blur her vision and took deep, slow breaths to calm herself. Now, she looked about her, taking stock of her situation. She was laying on the floor of an unfamiliar forest, surrounded by debris that was the same color as her house. Her shirt was hanging half way off; her jacket hanging on a low tree branch not far from where she sat. One of her shoes, however, was missing completely and no where to be seen. Her white sock looked so odd next to the remaining shoe she was tempted to remove it, the shoe, but didn't. She righted her shirt.

DeeDee slowly got to her feet, leaning against a nearby tree for support as a momentary wave of dizziness washed over her. When it passed, the girl went to retrieve her jacket. Suddenly, she heard an oddly familiar rushing sound behind her and spun to face it, but nothing was there. After waiting a moment to see if the sound would repeat itself, she began sifting through the rubble. She thought she was looking for her shoe, but that didn't seem right. Her mom would know where the find the shoe.

The terror that hit her this time could not be forced back and it sent her to her knees, tears clouding her eyes and slipping down her cheeks. If the twister tossed her god knew where, then her mother… But no, she, DeeDee, was alive and relatively unharmed. Or at least she thought so. Perhaps she had been knocked unconscious in the storm and was dreaming. That theory was quickly discarded. DeeDee had only become aware she was dreaming a handful of times in her whole life, and each time the realization had been enough to jog her awake. But her head did hurt a lot. Brain damage? It was possible, but she didn't think so. There came that odd rushing sound again and she twisted around on her knees to face it, but again there was nothing there.

Seeing and hearing things now. The evidence for brain injury was becoming more and more compelling. A chance glance around her brought her eyes to what looked like a bit of shoelace peeking from underneath a board. She got to her feet again. As the girl bent to lift the board, the rushing sound came a third time, accompanied by what was unmistakably a strained whisper. DeeDee seized a branch near her feet and whirled to face whatever was at her back.

"Jesus Christ!" she nearly fell back over her feet in shock. Hanging by ropes that looked for all the world like a Hollywood Wire-fighting rig were what could only be described as small turkey men. DeeDee was perversely reminded of South Park and only just caught the words "Crab People" from passing her lips. Look like turkey, taste like people.

At first there were only two of them, but more descended from the canopy to surround her. They each held a small spear, while she brandished her stick like a samurai warrior.

"Watchful," the blue one (who was the largest, but still only about three feet tall) warned his comrades. "be watchful. I like not the look of her."

If she the one surrounded by spear-wielding poultry men, she would have found that funny. One to her right rushed forward, but she swung at him with her stick and he jumped back.

"Back off, Butterball!" she shouted.

"Gaze not into her eyes," Big Blue ordered. "For fear she may turn you into a scree."

"A scree?" DeeDee scoffed.

"Who are you?" this asked by the red-faced one who stood next to Big Blue.

"I'm DeeDee," she said, her voice harsh with anger. "Who the fuck are you?"

"I am Red Hat. We are resistance fighters of the Eastern Guild," he responded.

"Do not speak of who we be," Big Blue ordered, thought something about Red Hat told DeeDee that he was the leader and not this aggressive one. "We know not of her trickery."

His half-rhyming Yoda speak was starting to make her head ache more. "Trickery?" she snapped, her voice pitched high with incredulity. "I don't even know where I am! I'm just trying to find my mother. You-"

"Creatures do not fall from the sky lacking magic," Red Hat interrupted her. It sounded like an accusation. Magic?!

"Mo-bats fall from the sky," Blue corrected him.

"Mo-bats have wings," Red Hat hissed, obviously annoyed with the interruptions of his cohort.

"Wings or not, she's a spy," he accused, jabbing his stick towards her as he spoke. "A spy from the sky!"

"No," DeeDee said, exasperated. "I'm not a spy. I'm not a spy!"

They advanced on her and she backed away reflexively. She shrieked in shock as the ground suddenly fell away. But no, the ground had not fallen, she was jerked up into the air. She'd stepped into a net behind her that she had not seen.

"Get her to the camp," she heard Red Hat order from below her.

"Let me out of her, you little freaks!" she shouted. But, of course, no one listened.

They cut her down and dragged her through the woods, still in the net, shouting obscenities at them the whole way. After a time, they stopped near a stand of trees that looked like every other stand of trees in the forest, where what resembled a large, wicker bird cage waited. Her little captors removed the net and forced her, struggling, at spear-point through a hole in the bottom of the cage. She barely had time to notice the cage's other occupant, a dark-haired man who might have been tall were he not tied to the top of the cage, before the cage was whisked up into the tree tops.

After fighting back the urge to vomit, DeeDee looked around. The view was spectacular, but looking through the whole in the middle of the cage floor made her queasy, as did the thought that all that held the cage up was a single rope which had been out in the elements for who knew how long. She didn't mind heights, never had; it was the falling that bothered her.

On level with the cage was what so closely resembled an Ewok tree village that DeeDee momentarily reconsidered her belief that she was not dreaming. Then Red Hat and Big Blue came strutting down the rope and wood catwalk that ran beside the hanging cell.

"Where will the Sorceress attack from, DeeDee the Spy? The east?" Big Blue demanded. The look of annoyance Red Hat shot him gave DeeDee the idea that the bigger man had been told to remain quiet, but had disregarded his orders.

"I don't understand," she told them.

"Will the witch attack from the east?" Red hat said, emphatically.

"I didn't mean that I didn't understand the question. I meant I have no idea what you're talking about," she clarified.

"Will Azkadellia-" he began again, but she cut him off.

"Who?"

"The Sorceress Azkadellia. The one for whom you spy," Big Blue said snidely. "From which direction will her men come? Will they walk or will they fly?"

She bit back a shout. "How many times do I have to tell you people that nothing you say makes sense to me?"

Red Hat rolled his eyes in annoyance. "Perhaps she is just a girl."

"Yes!" DeeDee agreed quickly. "I am. I am just a girl."

"Azkadellia has searched most all villages looking for the stone." After he said it, both turkey men looked at her expectantly. She could only stare back, blankly.

"Are we next on her list?" he asked, obviously losing patience.

"I thought we just established I am just a girl! How would I know?" She did shout this time. "If this is how you treat everyone, it's no wonder you've got enemies!"

Big Blue held up her locket, the one her mother gave her, the one she wore every day. She had not even noticed it was missing.

"Hey! Give me that back, it's mine!" she demanded, hotly.

"Our scouts spotted this woman being pursued by Long Coats along the Old Brick Route to Central City," Red Hat informed her.

"Or leading the Long Coats there," Big Blue added with a look that made DeeDee want to step on him. But news of her mother overrode any annoyance.

"Someone saw my mom?" she asked, grabbing the cage bars and leaning against them, as if getting closer to the two men would get her closer to her mother.

"You say 'mother', I say 'spy'!" Big Blue told her. DeeDee fell back in disgust, barely avoiding the hole in the cage floor.

"There's a shocker," she spat. "I say 'pinecone', you say 'spy'!"

He turned to Red Hat. "There's only one way to tell if she speaks truth or lies. Strap her to the flayer." He pointed to a small hut she had not noticed before at the base of one of the trees. "And she talks or dies."

Great, more rhyming. But, apparently, Red Hat agreed.

"Warm up the blades," he said ominously.

"Squeal as you peel, 'til the truth brings a deal." He held out her locket, taunting her, then let it fall to the forest floor below.

"Hey! You asshole!"

Neither bird-man responded. They just turned and left. They would torture her until she told them the truth? They would torture her until she told them what they wanted to hear, more accurately. It was this kind of ridiculous logic that fueled the Inquisition.

"You're out of your tiny, fucking minds! You know that?!" she shouted after them. I have to get out of here! she thought. She stood to get a better view of things and find a way out of this mess, and bumped her shoulder against the knee of the man she had fully forgotten was tied up behind her. She looked up and he averted his eyes as though embarrassed for her that he'd overheard her conversation with the half-retarded bird people.

"Why are you-"

"Up here?" he finished her sentence. "Little… Ankle-biters! … thought it would be funny to keep me hanging around."

DeeDee gave one silent chuckle at the pun, though she wasn't in the mood for humor. He apparently took this as a sign of comradery.

"Loosen that rope and I might have the last laugh," he said, wiggling his eyebrows conspiratorially. She chewed her lip, looking back at him indecisively.

"Come on, doll," he coaxed. "If Mommy is on the route to Central City, then you're falling farther and farther behind."

"You know the way?" she asked and could actually hear the desperate hope in her voice.

"Sure," he said offhandedly, as if it were common knowledge. "Though it's kind of hard to give directions like this," he added, pointedly. Then, sarcastically, "Unless you have a better offer."

Which, of course, she didn't. And really, in real world people behind bars usually did something to belong there. In this place, where ever this place was, all you had to do was be alive, apparently. So, she untied the rope and let him down. He sighed in relief and she wondered how long he'd been bound with that rope around his chest holding him up. Did he have bruises from it?

Now that his feet were on her level, she found she'd been right and he was rather taller than her. Close to six feet, give or take. Standing this close to him she could see his eyes were a light brown color, his hair black and in odd little dreads that stuck out from his head in layers. His nose was rather long, but it suited his triangular face. That, coupled with long thin limbs gave the illusion that he was taller than his true height. He was not unattractive. And he smelled like hay and earth and something sweet she couldn't identify; it was rather lovely, she thought.

Then the cage shifted and a shaft of light glinted off the zipper set into the middle of his scalp.

"What the hell?" DeeDee asked out loud, neat meaning to. He looked insulted.

"Hey. You ain't so hot at first glance either, honey,' he pouted. Normally, DeeDee would have blushed from the embarrassment of his insult, regardless of whether she took it personally or not, but not with the shock of seeing a man with a zipper set into his skull. Which happened to be open and, oh God, she did not want to look inside. She didn't think she could handle that. He noticed her gawking at him.

"Is there a problem?" he asked. She blinked several times to gather her thoughts and shook her head.

"No, but your… uh…" He looked at her expectantly and she barely caught herself from saying "XYZ". "Your," she paused and whispered, "zipper is open."

His eyes widened and he hurriedly closed himself up. "Sorry. Didn't mean to offend."

Right, she thought. Offend. Not freak the fuck out.

"Gotta be careful not to lose your marbles," he jokes. She wanted to roll her eyes at the corny joke, but he went on. "But, since the Sorceress had her Medi-coats take mine out… well, you flick the abacus."

Now that was clever. She rarely heard anyone use the term abacus and the fact that he had made her think she just might be starting to like him.

"They took out your brain?" she asked, astonished. "Why?"

"Because of what I know," he told her sadly. "Or used to know. Whatever it was."

For a moment he seemed to ponder his own sad fate, then he looked back at her.

"The name's Glitch. On account 'a sometimes my synapses don't fire right." He paused and repeated. "Sometimes my synapses don't fire right."

For a split second she thought he might be pulling her leg, but the lack of guile in his eyes and voice told her this was for real. It was probably the saddest thing she'd ever heard.

"You just said that," she told him, afraid he might say it again and then she might start crying.

"Did I?" he asked. Then laughed it off with the ease of lots of practice. "Well, there you go. Glitching again."

"And here I thought this nightmare couldn't get any weirder." she said, because she could think of nothing else. Glitch became suddenly serious.

"Oh this is no nightmare, this is the O.Z. The Outer Zone." He closed his eyes in a long blink and when he continued his face and voice was wistful. "Used to be a piece of heaven, too. Until Azka-D got her claws into it." The last on a sad note. Before DeeDee could ask who this Azkadellia was everyone spoke of, she was distracted by the sound of a horse whinnying. She looked towards the sound and saw a whole troupe of those men in the leather coats that had invaded her home.

"Long Coats!" Red Hat shouted an alarm off in the village somewhere. Little turkey men began scurrying around the treetops. If there was ever a time when her captors were distracted enough to escape this was it. DeeDee just hoped she had the balls to try it. The cat walk was not far away from the cage. She'd never be able to jump it, but if she could just swing the cell close enough, she and Glitch could make it out. She dropped down through the hole.

"What are you doing?" Glitch asked in alarm.

"I have an idea," she told him. He reached for her hand to stop her, but she brushed him away.

"Hello? DeeDee?" he said, his voice shaking with worry. "DeeDee it's too high to jump. I really don't think this is a good idea."

She began to pump her legs forward and back, trying very hard not to think about how Glitch was right and this was a very bad idea. The cage moved though, and if she could just hold on a few more seconds, they'd both be free.

"Come back!" he called down to her. "Come back right now!"

She wanted to reassure him, but could not get any words out. Her throat had closed in fear. She fought the panic that was trying to take her over, knowing if she let it win, she would fall. All at once the cat walk was beneath her feet and she let go. Had she waited an instant more, she would have missed it completely as the cage swung back and gone down and down and down and, Jesus, she needed to not think of that ever. Never ever. She turned back to Glitch, still in the cage, swinging away from her.

"Come on," she called to him. "We don't have much time."

"Wait for me," he called back. She nodded and held out her arms, beckoning him to her. What, am I gonna catch him like he's a fucking baby? If she needed to, yes. There was no way she'd let him fall. If for no other reason than she'd have to watch him drop away from her.

He dropped down through the hole as the cage swung towards her and held out one hand, making her heart stop. Don't let go, she pleaded with him silently. His hand was moist when she caught it, but not slippery they way they always were in the movies. She pulled him to her and he let go of the cage, grabbing the catwalk rope rail. She pulled at his coat with her other hand as he came over the rail, wishing insanely that she had another hand, because the more hands she touched him with, the less likely he was to suddenly slip away from her.

"Hurry," he urged and they ran on, from one catwalk to the next until they found a rope ladder than dropped to the forest floor below. DeeDee reached for it, only to find that she was still holding Glitches hand and had to concentrate for an instant to make herself let go. She almost slipped four times on the way down because of her one shoe on the rope ladder. The birdies were taunting their new enemies, but fell silent when DeeDee heard the unmistakable sound of a chainsaw. She wasn't sure if she was rooting for the right side, but she felt a perverse slice of pleasure at the slap of karma dealt her tiny jailers.

Having her feet safely on the ground was possibly the best feeling DeeDee had ever experienced in her life. Glitch dropped down the last few feet and took her hand again, leading her off into the woods, away from the crazy turkey men of the Eastern Guild and the mysterious Long Coats.

What was he leading he towards, she did not know.

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More tomorrow everyone. R&R.. or the babies get it!