A/N: Ha-ha! I got the next chapter up within a month! In this chapter- shock therapy, shockwaves and schemes! Read, review, and above all enjoy, ladies and gentlemen!

Disclaimer: Wicked, and all the other titles of the Oz franchise do not belong to me, and if they did, the characters within would have done their best to reach through the pages and strangle me.

Far beyond the Land of Oz, a storm was brewing over Dr Worley's clinic.

Had Kansas been home to anyone with even a thimbleful of supernatural power, they would have noticed the subtle traces of magic about those ominous storm-clouds, and known that someone or something had conjured them… and more.

But, as Kansas had never been a home to practitioners of the mystical arts, nobody noticed anything out of the ordinary about it. Indeed, few people even noticed the storm at all: Dr Worley was too busy preparing his machines for Dorothy Gale's treatment; the orderlies were all engaged with their usual chores around the clinic; Nurse Wilson was down in the cellar, checking that the locks were secure; and Dorothy Gale, alone in her cell, was too worried about her upcoming treatment to look out the window and notice the clouds advancing across the horizon.

But down in the cellar, the unofficial patients noticed.

They were the earliest visitors to the clinic: some of them had been willing participants- sufferers of cluster headaches, epilepsy and other ailments, desperate for the cure that Electric Healing represented. Others had been "donations" from asylum directors who'd been eager to dispose of especially troublesome inmates. One way or the other, they'd all become Dr Worley's first test subjects. To his disappointment, all of them had been damaged before he could find a voltage suitable for positively affecting the human brain; rendered almost incapable of attending to their most basic needs, the patients were hastily removed from all official records, bundled into straightjackets and locked in the cage-like enclosures beneath the house. And there they'd stayed for the last few months, at least until Worley could refine the treatment well enough to cure them of their additional maladies. After all, he reasoned, it really was just a matter of controlling excess currents.

Had he been aware of the weather outside, he would have found it quite appropriate that they'd known of the encroaching thunderstorm. But at that moment in time, all he knew was that the damaged patients would need another dose of chloroform to quiet their screaming.

The spectral form of Ozma had also noticed the storm, and knew that it was another move in the King's overarching game. All she could do, however, was watch from the vantage point she'd managed to secure and hope that she could make her own, small move at some point; it probably would only be enough to prove a setback to the King's plan, but it had to better than sitting back and watching the King claim victory over everything. But whatever she was going to do, it would have to be sooner rather than later:

Not too far from the clinic, a portal was opening.

Meanwhile, on the western border of Oz, where the overgrown forest merged with the sands of the Desert, the opposite end of the portal began to open, sending a shockwave of mystical energies into the night and across the countryside at an incredible rate. In a startling display of synchronicity, people gave it almost the same amount of attention the thunderstorm had been given back in Kansas; the energies of the shockwave were so subtle and diffuse, few noticed it sweeping through them.

But amidst the many thousands of refugees, fugitives, collaborators, and prisoners that composed the population of Oz and the territories of its new ruler at that time, there were a rare few that felt the tingle of mystic energies upon their skin. Most of them were those who'd been exposed to powerful magic, or changed by it in some way; practitioners of magic felt it as well, only magnified a hundredfold- to the point that it was all but impossible to ignore.

But nobody in all of Oz or the Nome Territories- save one- could even guess at what had happened, or what it could mean.

Deep within the crumbling ruins of the Emerald City, aged and weather-beaten by its regent's experiments with temporal magic, Tik-Tok's tarnished body remained hidden within the vault, his works having long since wound down into dormancy. Once he'd been told what to expect, he hadn't been troubled by the long wait he would have to endure before reactivation; instead, he'd paced the room until his action ran down, then stood and pondered the situation until his thought ran down, and then finally drifted off to the clockwork equivalent of sleep. But as the shockwave swept through the ruins, it happened to permeate his oxidised copper shell, and deep within him, a few of his gears spun once more- if only for a split second.

On the cold streets outside, the petrified figures of the citizenry remained still and lifeless, their minds still mercifully unconscious- all except Boq, who merely drifted in sleep, thanks to Elphaba's assistance; now, he dreamt contentedly of a woman who he'd adored and worshipped for so long her face was all but engraved upon his mind. But then the energies that the portal had unleashed flickered through him, and suddenly, he no longer dreamt of Glinda; now, he could only dream of lightning.

Not too far away, the Wheelers lay asleep on the steps of Mombi's palace, huddled together for warmth. None of them awoke at the tremor of magic passing through them, even those impossibly rare few who were attuned to it, who only mumbled sleepily and spun their wheels without meaning to.

Above them, deep within her gallery, Mombi was reading the Lead Wheeler's report, and trying to resist the temptation to roll her eyes at it. So far, she wasn't having much luck: given that the idiot could only write with the pen clenched in his teeth, the text was almost unreadable, and more than half of what was readable was taken up with grovelling requests for drugs. The other half briefly mentioned that a gang of Ozian resistance fighters had attempted to reclaim the City's southern quarter before being ambushed and slaughtered by the Wheelers; then, it moved swiftly on to asking if the Beautiful and Wise Princess Mombi could please stop practicing time magic on Wheeler-inhabited areas.

Mombi snarled wearily, cursing the Nome King for denying her conquest into Munchkinland… and then she felt the shockwave as it passed clean through the walls of the palace. All around her, the heads of her collection stared at one another in mingled terror and confusion, and murmured anxiously to one another about what they'd just felt, until Mombi silenced them all with an angry wave of her hand. Tossing the scrawled report aside, she began the slow march downstairs to the City Square to contact the King; she didn't know what had just happened, but it almost certainly warranted attention.

Upstairs, in the palace attic, one of Mombi's oldest experiments lay in a half-collapsed heap, his spindly limbs disconnected from his wooden body, his jack-o-lantern skull gazing morosely at the ceiling. He'd been up here ever since Mombi had moved in, and most of his time had been spent worrying that his head might begin to rot if left too long; then, he felt the pulse of magic flicker through him, making vivid orange sparks flash before his eyesockets (for he had no real eyes, just holes cut into his head).

That was weird, Jack Pumpkinhead thought. I wonder if Mom had anything to do with it.

Out on the northern border of Oz, amidst the ruins of the once-prosperous Gillikin country, the War Council finally gathered.

It had taken them far longer than necessary to make their way here, having been delayed by skirmishes by human resistance fighters, by messengers from their subordinates, by Nome bureaucrats requesting their signature for one form after another, by the cataclysmic reforestation of all Oz, and- in one particularly harrowing case- a head-on collision with a chicken farm that had somehow ended up directly in the path of one of the generals as he hastened towards the meeting ground. But at long last, against all odds, they'd finally assembled to discuss the invasion so far.

Holding the right to customise themselves to whatever ends they fancied, the twenty-seven generals there assembled virtually glittered in the moonlight, encrusted with gems or plated with gold and silver as they were. A few had built themselves exclusively for combat, replacing their fingers with cutlass-like blades and barbed spears; some even carried trophies of their many battles, racks of human skulls and fluttering banners of preserved skin hanging from their shoulders. But the most extravagant out of all of them was Lord Resherenkor, the Chairman; he'd sculpted all fifty feet of his body from magically-reinforced gold and platinum, his knuckles studded with diamonds, his colossal shoulders and back coated with sapphire-eyed statues, all human in shape, and all wailing in despair.

"My fellow lords and generals," he rumbled, "I thank you for finding the time to attend this meeting; I understand that most of you have been trying to return to the palace, or else to try and reclaim the territory we have lost to the forests, but I feel we need to plan accordingly if what we have determined is true."

"Is this anything to do with Lord Scathelex's absence?" one of the lesser generals asked.

"In part, yes: given that he was last seen on approach to the King's new palace, it would be safe to assume that he is being held against his will. In the meantime, the few of us that have been able to unite thus far have determined that the spell that covered this land in forest was not from a group of magicians loyal to the King, as we thought- but a single magician."

"What magician of our kind would dare oppose us?"

"Perhaps it is not a Nome at all," suggested another general. "Perhaps it is the witch that the King's warriors brought back from the Emerald City."

"Or the one that the King has employed to run the Emerald City."

The Chairman coughed for order. "Whoever this magician is, the King is obviously using him or her to support his own delusional whims, which clearly run contrary to this council's ongoing work. Furthermore, our operatives and underlings within the Dominions report that the palace has been declared off limits to civilian personnel- clearly an attempt to restrict our influence. Because of this, I am declaring the King potentially unstable, and intend to see him removed from office pending a full appraisal of his mental health- once we have determined what he had planned to do with this magician, of course. This meeting is to decide on how we will approach the Dominions: after all, we have the main bulk of the army to contend with, along with his personal guard, and this witch he has in his employ, so we cannot wholesale slaughter our way into the palace without incurring unacceptable damage to the stability of government."

"My Lord Chairman," one of the other generals murmured, "Is it all possible that the King himself performed any of the magic we have attributed to other magicians?"

Once the laughter had died down, the Chairman replied (in the same tone of voice more commonly used for speaking with small children and the terminally brain-damaged), "I very much doubt it; after all, we were very thorough when we performed our first test of his powers: he can barely even cast a simple illumination spell. As for the…"

There was a pause, as the shockwave vanished into the distance.

"Did anyone else feel that?"

On the outskirts of Munchkinland, the refugee camp lay in the shadow of the giant Nome's corpse, fast asleep- except, of course for the watchman on duty.

Despite the argument and the depression that had followed it, most of them had gone to bed in the most optimistic of moods; after all, a few of them had reasoned, they were still alive, and now they had a way of protecting themselves from the Nomes that didn't rely on an ornery witch and a supply of explosives that felt like it was going to blow up in their faces every time they used it. It wasn't much, but it had to be worth at least something in the guerrilla war that was due to begin tomorrow.

When the shockwave swept over the camp, none of the sleeping refugees awoke or even reacted to the pulse of energy that had just breezed past; Brollan carried on muttering obscenities at nobody in particular, Rasp continued jogging directionlessly in his sleep, and Woolwax snored at a volume more commonly associated with industrial accidents.

Elphaba, meanwhile, sat bolt upright; she'd been working with magic for far too long not to recognise magic when she felt it. And the dream she'd just awoken from- the vision of that basement, crowded with people in manacles and straightjackets, screaming in mindless fear as thunder rumbled in the distance- was there any connection between the two events? Was this somehow tied with whatever the Nomes were up to?

She sighed, gathered the thickest blanket she could find, and staggered out towards the campfire. This couldn't wait until tomorrow; she needed to analyse it, now- at least once she was warm enough to think straight…

"HHHHHHHNNNNNNKKKKK. KKKRRRRRRRRRRRRR. HHHHHHHNNNNNNNNNKKKKKK."

…And once she'd worked out a way of shutting out Woolwax's damnable snoring…

Across the Nome Dominions, several hundred million unsuspecting Nomes looked up in confusion as the magical shockwave finally dispersed itself in the skies far overhead. Magicians among the civilian populace immediately began studying it, trying to determine its source: none of them had much luck, though- the energies were far too diffuse to be examined in detail- but whatever spell had caused this tremendous shockwave had clearly been one of impossible power.

Had Glinda been in contact with any of them, she would have agreed. She, too, had been awoken by the wave of energy collapsing above the palace, and had taken a break from translating just long enough to try and guess what it was and where it might be coming from. Of course, with the need to finish the work still weighing upon her, she couldn't afford to waste too much time on trying to figure out the specifics of the shockwave, and in the end, she gave up long before any results arrived. She'd even turned down Basalt's offer to head upstairs and ask the sentries what had happened; after all, what was the point of trying to study something that might just be local weather, when there was much more important work to be done?

Basalt, meanwhile, suspected that whatever had just happened was the next stage in the King's escalating plan. Not that there was much point in reflecting on it, given that he had even less means of determining what had just happened than Glinda; if the dissipated energies had been part of the plan, then heading upstairs to meddle- with two high-ranking spies following his every move and reporting them to the King- would not be among the safest potential moves. After all, the only thing that had kept him from being executed a few hours ago was the King's utterly incomprehensible generosity (he hadn't even bothered to order Basalt away from his investigations!). So, he remained in Glinda's cell, on watch, hoping that the truth would become apparent soon.

Several stories below, Fiyero was thumping on the wall and asking if one of the guards could please explain what had just happened. Of course, it wasn't likely anyone could hear him, except perhaps for the mysterious Pinhead in the neighbouring cell, so he tried to guess at what he'd just felt was: maybe it had something to do with Elphaba; maybe she'd finally arrived in Nome territory, and was bombarding the palace with literally every single combat spell she could think of; maybe she'd already defeated the Nome King in single combat; maybe he would be free in the next few minutes.

No harm in wild fantasies, I suppose, he mused, sadly.

Next-door, "Pinhead" barely reacted to the curious electric sensation that had flickered through his crooked bones; once he'd collected his thoughts enough to think carefully on the subject, he presumed it was some new illusion that the Nome King had devised to play with his senses, a brief distraction from the avalanche of monstrous visions and noises that were no doubt due to assault his senses. But then, he'd experienced so too many of them since his life sentence here had begun all those…

… all those…

… how long had he been down here? Had he really been imprisoned beneath the earth so long that he'd actually forgotten when he'd arrived? Had the King really managed to make them feel as though each hallucination was as fresh and painful as his very first?

Pinhead sighed, and once again tried to imagine he was somewhere else.

As always, it didn't work: the real nightmare never gave him a chance to escape.

There was only one man in all of Oz and beyond who'd had the slightest clue where the shockwave had come from and what it signified. Of course, it wasn't as if the Nome King was actually in a position to spoil the surprise.

True, he could have dampened the energies of the shockwave, prevented anyone from even feeling the magic that the portal had unleashed; but after so many years of waiting, he couldn't resist letting this miniscule glimpse of the future reach the minds of his enemies.

It was, he decided, a herald.

… a sign of the ending still to come.

Soon, Dorothy Gale would be led through the portal and back into Oz; she'd follow the clues that had been left for her, travelling across the ruined country and into the Emerald City, where Mombi would keep her in captivity until all the components of the ritual were assembled. Then, it would be a simple but delicate matter of persuading Dorothy to take part in it- of her own free will; once it was finished, the King would be human, and the reality-distorting powers of the artefacts would belong to him.

Of course, if the ritual failed, or Dorothy simply refused to take part in it… well, there were two very capable witches in the area that could provide the transformation. Glinda had already agreed to help, although it might still be several weeks before she'd finished translating the spell. Once she arrived at the palace, Elphaba could definitely provide the spell without having to waste time translating, but it would be very difficult to persuade her to do so.

Difficult- but not impossible.

And from there, who could know what would happen? Even the King couldn't guess at exactly what he'd do with the power he'd obtain, beyond a few basic ideas for the future of his fellow Nomes.

One thing was certain, however: Oz would no longer exist.

It would be expunged from history itself, the foul and corrupt society that had festered at its heart purged and forgotten by all; the crime that it's people had dared to commit against Nomekind would never have happened, the perpetrators of the deed would never have been born. The land itself, forests, mountains, ruins and all, would be rolled up like a carpet and flung into oblivion.

And at long last… his mistake would die with it.

Next chapter- The Attack On The Nome Dominions!