The Land of What-Might-Have-Been

by Straightjacketed

After spending so many years wishing that things had been different, what happens when, halfway through their final meeting, Elphaba and Glinda find themselves unexpectedly plunged into the worst of all possible worlds? AU.

15. The Plague Of Transformations

A/N: Latest chapter time, ladies and gentlemen! Here, after weeks of wrangling, insomnia and grappling with the schedule, we finally have the Plague of Transformations; I'm sorry about the wait, and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. With any luck, I shall have the next few chapters prepared soon. Feel free to make jokes about how much time's passed in the dreamworld - including the one about Inception; I know somebody's going to use it sooner or later.

To WickedlyTragic, I'm happy that you find the story awesome so far. As for what happening to alternate Dorothy... well, you'll have to wait and see. MWAHAHAHAHA!

To the Sleuth Guest, your theories and predictions are still a joy to read. I hope the wait between chapters (which I apologise for again) hasn't dampened your enthusiasm and I hope that I can still keep you guessing as time goes on.

And finally, to Nami Swann... well, given that this alternate Elphaba is essentially a dictator, there's bound to be a lot of collateral damage and a lot of innocent lives destroyed in the intervening decades between the dream-memories and the main storyline. But as for wether or not Elphaba was successful in getting rid of her original opponents without destroying everything she's worked for... well, read on and find out. MWAHAHAHAHA!

So, without further ado, the Plague of Transformations! Read, review and above all, enjoy!

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Glinda can't help but smile.

It's been a year and a half since Elphaba was reintroduced to the people of Oz, and the span of that time has been happier than she could have possibly imagined: a whirlwind of hedonistic joy and all-night parties, of gorgeous clothes and bubbling champagne, of wild applause and awestruck onlookers, of romance and rekindled friendships, and best of all, of newspaper headlines singing the praises of Oz's favourite team: Glinda the Good and Elphaba the Redeemed.

Even after the spectacle of the reintroduction ceremony, Glinda hadn't expected things would have gone the way they had: Elphaba in charge of Animal Affairs and solving all the problems she'd hoped to solve back when she'd rebelled against the Wizard - in the space of a few months; Glinda finally able to work alongside her, just as they'd always wanted, both of them loved by the public and both of them loving every minute of it.

On the nights that the two of them aren't attending official functions and regaling the guests with their beauty (and magic, especially in Elphie's case), they're having all the conversations they missed out on in their long time of separation: complaints about work, excitement over the future, dances and dress salons that Glinda hopes to attend, museums and libraries that have caught Elphaba's fancy… occasionally, Glinda starts babbling on about fashion, and by way of retaliating, Elphie starts talking about magical research – which usually ends up with one of them wearing a look of utter bewilderment, prompting the other to burst out laughing, and the whole thing ends with them collapsed into their armchairs, giggling helplessly.

And, just a couple of weeks ago, Fiyero proposed to her: Glinda is due to be married! After so long after she first whispered her desire to wed the handsome new student – Oz it feels like decades – she's finally made this dream a reality. Even better, Elphaba was overjoyed at the news of the betrothal, and promised to conjure something extra special for the wedding to make it all the more memorable.

Yes indeed, Glinda can't possibly be happier.

So far, there hasn't been a precise date set for the wedding, but that can wait. Right now, there's other festivities to attend to: the Wizard is now celebrating the anniversary of his rise to power, and the Emerald City is once again enjoying the merriment of a week-long festival in honour of His Ozness. So far, there's been parades, carnivals, plays, concerts, great displays of magic engineered by Morrible and Elphaba (and whatever other aging magicians remain in the Wizard's service), sporting tournaments ranging from the bland to the bloodthirsty, and of course, many, many speeches. Now that they're halfway through the week, it's time for the official ceremonies before the next round of revelry.

The event scheduled for this evening is a banquet, prepared exclusively for the upper crust of the Wizard's court: the rich, the powerful, the well-connected, heads of state from one end of the Oz to the next, captains of industry, visiting diplomats, and of course the Wizard's most valued staff – including Morrible, Fiyero, Elphaba and Glinda. For the last twenty-four hours, the palace kitchens have been hard at work on the dishes that are to grace the tables this evening; by 5:30, the smell of roasting meat and baking pastries has become so tantalizing that Glinda can barely concentrate on anything other than asking for an appetiser plate.

Elphaba, bless her heart, keeps her attention focussed on getting ready. In turn, Glinda keeps Elphaba focussed on getting dressed appropriately: as cool-headed and cooperative as she's become since the operation, it doesn't seem likely that "The Redeemed" will ever gain a taste for fashion. After much giggling and squabbling, the two of them descend to the banqueting hall dressed their very best: Glinda in her magnificent blue dress and diamond tiara; Elphaba in the elegant white robes she's taken to wearing on formal occasions – essentially a much fancier version of the cheap linen rags she wore for her reintroduction, given to her as a birthday present by Glinda herself.

By the time they arrive, most of the guests are already there – though none of them have taken their places yet; there's about a hundred in attendance, and all too many of them seem to be in the mood for conversation on one thing or another. The two resident witches have barely taken two steps into the hall before the assembled bigwigs swarm over them: Glinda manages to keep her head and deal with the influx of greetings, questions and offers one at a time, but Elphaba is almost instantly swept away by the tide. From what little she can hear over the din of questions being yammered into her ears, it appears that most of them are asking "Miss Thropp" about what she plans to do next in the grand field of Animal Affairs; about half of them want to know if she can take measures to reduce standard wages for Animal employees, and the others want to see if they can "unofficially hire" some former professionals out of the ghettoes.

Glinda does her best to ignore it until she's got a chance to escape her interviewers; hearing this sort of thing makes her feel a little queasy – after all, Elphie always hated shameless politicking like this, especially the anti-Animal variant, and forcing her to put up with it now reminds her of those awful moments of crushing guilt she experienced back before the operation, when she helped Morrible's vicious little sales pitch along.However, once she's managed to tear herself out of the crowd, Glinda realizes that what's really drawn Elphaba away from her isn't the gaggle of businessmen and officials clamouring for attention. Right now, she's waved them all away in favour of two very recognizable guests – well, technically three:

Nessarose has arrived in the banquet hall, resplendent in a black silk dress and her hair tied in an austere-looking bun; sombre clothes aside, she actually does look pleased to see Elphaba all this time, as does the nondescript servant pushing her luxurious wheelchair.

In fact, the only one of the trio who isn't smiling is the haggard-looking man with the expensive-looking suit and the shiny bald head. It takes almost an entire minute for Glinda to realize that this is actually Frexspar Thropp, Elphaba's father: quite apart from the fact that it's been years since she last saw him in person – and then only for a minute or two – the man looks as though he's died once or twice in the intervening years, or at the very least given up on sleeping.

"… been worrying about you!" Elphaba is exclaiming. "Where have you been for the last few months?"

"Back in Muchkinland," says Nessarose. "Believe me, I wanted to pay you a visit, but the Correctional Authority are still pretty leery about seeing you and me together; they wouldn't even let me send any letters until they were sure that neither of us were planning something nasty. A few of them even claimed that I was planning to corrupt you!" Once the laughter's died down, Nessa looks at Elphaba with renewed awe. "It's still incredible, you know."

"What is?"

"You – how much you've changed since then. I mean, I've seen your photo in the papers, but I still can't believe it, I… what's it like being… being made normal?"

Silently, Glinda rejoices: she didn't say "being redeemed"! She didn't buy into the propaganda!

Out loud, Elphaba answers, "Very painful at first; I won't go into the specifics, but it wasn't the easiest thing in the world to endure. Once the pain was over, though, I started seeing the world differently, for lack of a better term: it's almost beyond description – everything feels calmer and quieter; I don't get anywhere near as angry as I used to; I think I've even learned a measure of self-control, though that could just be my imagination. But enough about me, what have you been up to these past few months?"

"Much the same thing as you, believe it or not. Government business suits us, apparently."

"Government b- oh. I… I see." Even from this distance, it's clear that Elphaba's noticed the sickly-grey pallor to Frexspar's face. "You've been acting as a substitute, then?"

"And a possible replacement as well," Frexspar acknowledges proudly. "Your sister has been learning a great deal about the work of a governor in the last few months, and if the Wizard will permit it, she'll serve as my successor when it's time for me to retire – which might be sooner than you think."

"Father!" Nessarose chides. "You know what the doctors said-"

"That I do. But in the meantime, I think your sister and I should have a little talk on the subject; I'm pretty sure that that some of the other guests might want a word or two."

"Father, they've been avoiding me ever since we arrived."

"Well then, I'm sure you and Boq have plenty to talk about, don't you, Boq?"

The servant pushing Nessa's wheelchair blanches. "Yessir," he mumbles helplessly.

"You see? Now, run along now…"

As the two of them trundle away into the depths of the crowd, Frexspar takes Elphaba by the arm and draws her as far away from the guests as possible; for a man in his condition, the governor moves at a very impressive speed, often stopping just short of elbowing unruly guests out of the way. It takes a lot of effort for Glinda to catch up without making her eavesdropping too obvious, but thankfully Frexspar doesn't start talking immediately, being too preoccupied with steadying his heartbeat.

"What happened to you?" Elphaba whispers, a distinct note of horror in her voice.

Frexspar glares at her, his jovial demeanour vanishing instantly. "Your rebellion happened," he says icily. "The news of you being declared the Wicked Witch of the West happened. Public opinion turning against Munchkinland happened!" He takes a very deep breath, and leans heavily against the nearest wall. "Heart attacks are not pleasant," he manages to gasp out, his voice an enraged whisper. "While you were into your third month of anarchistic gallivanting, I was in intensive care and your sister and my deputy were stuck trying to deal with the political disaster you'd flung at us. And that… for the longest time, I wanted to disown you for that: you've done much to shame this family, my girl, but I never would have thought you'd stoop so low as to betray the Wizard and leave us to deal with the backlash of your crimes! Every disgrace you brought down upon yourself, we ended up saddled with! When you were arrested, your sister made the mistake of trying to visit you – Oz only knows why she'd care – and she ended up getting punched in the face because the guards thought she was trying to break you out of prison!"

Much to Glinda's astonishment, Elphaba barely even reacts to the tirade: in the past, being on the receiving end of her father's condemnation would have left her hopelessly distraught, perhaps even reduced her to tears; but now, Elphaba remains eerily calm even as Frexspar's temper spirals further out of control. Eventually, the furious whispering dies away, and in the silence that follows, Elphaba murmurs, "Calm down, father; getting angry with me isn't going to help anyone or anything, your heart least of all."

"Your further crimes certainly didn't help it either; you're lucky you were captured so early into your reign of terror. Another attack would have probably finished me off." Frexspar sighs deeply. "But enough about all that; the Wizard's forgiven you for your crimes, and the rest of Oz is slowly following his example... and I might be prepared to do so as well, on one condition."

"And that is?"

"I told you that if the Wizard permits it, Nessarose will bypass the election and succeed me as Governor. That's where you come in: I've heard you've managed to gain some influence with the Wizard– Oz only knows how – so I need you to help our case along. Introduce your sister to him, make sure she makes a good impression, and try not to mess the whole thing up. Is that clear?"

Elphaba's response is drowned out a harsh voice whispering directly into Glinda's left ear; once she's extracted herself from the rafters and recovered from her own private heart attack, Glinda realizes that voice actually belongs to Madame Morrible, the last of the guests to arrive in the hall. Apparently, an invitation from the Wizard was the only thing that could drag her out of her room and the endless experiment within; unfortunately, Morrible's temper has been slowly souring ever since Elphaba was made director, and being frogmarched away from her "vital work" hasn't done much for her mood.

"Where have you been?!" the aging witch snarls. "I need your help controlling this situation!"

"What situation?"

"The situation concerniating your understudies making fools of themselves in public: Miss Lakefold is going to be a guest at this banquet, and I can't keep an eye on her all evening, so I need your help to make sure the gluttonous little chit doesn't empty the entire wine cellar. Plus, I need her to be ready for the photographers by the time main course is served – and you too. Is that clear?"

"Yes, Madame Morrible."

"Good. Now get over there and start moderatifying that damnable little sow's behaviour."

In all honesty, this was pretty typical as far as Morrible's reactions to Miss Lakefold went: Lizzelanti Lakefold, known to her friends as Lizzel and to everyone else as Lizzel the Lush, was another one of Morrible's high-profile employees; hired as another speaker for the Wizard, she's generally used for functions that Glinda herself can't attend, or for occasions that require the presence of more than one good-looking spokesperson. Though while she doesn't have Glinda's popularity and skill in magic, she does have enough charm and good looks to sell the message when required, hence the reason why she's been invited to this party in the first place.

Unfortunately, she's also one of the biggest spendthrifts in Morrible's employ: huge expenditures on clothing, cosmetics, hair products and jewellery are par for the course with the press secretary's underlings, but Lizzel manages to compound her wild spending sprees on these luxuries by also blowing vast sums of money on wines, spirits, cocktails, and almost any other kind of alcohol available to her, not to mention increasingly questionable forms of "medication." After less than eighteen months, she's managed to rack up a colossal debt - not just to the Emerald City's restaurants, bars and less-mentionable establishments, but also to the palace catering staff, numerous Munchkin wineries, and cleaning companies beyond counting.

Usually, the bill ends up getting sent to Morrible, resulting in many an apoplectic fit – plus an increasingly vicious array of nicknames for Miss Lakefold, announced to literally anyone in earshot: glutton, drunkard, sponge, squanderer, winestain, waste of space, waste of money, waste of skin, nuisance, whore, slut, bitch, and most frequently, pig.

Right now, Lizzel is on her fourth glass of wine, and knowing her, she'll have helped herself to a quick nip or six earlier in the afternoon. Thankfully, she's also very good at handling her liquor and even better at keeping up appearances: her gold silk dress doesn't appear to have intercepted any wineglasses just yet, her chestnut-brown hair is still elegantly braided, and her green eyes are bright and aware. Much to Glinda's bemusement, she's also managed to keep her petite figure even after all the binging, though that might just be due to also spending ridiculous amounts of money on dieticians and personal trainers.

One way or the other, she hasn't reached the belligerent stage of drunkenness yet, so Glinda doesn't have to use much effort in leading her away from the bar and back into the depths of the party.

"I swear," Lizzel trills, as Glinda steers her away from one of the nearby waiters, "It's like Horrible Morrible doesn't even want this party to take place at all. I mean, is there something wrong with me drinking to His Ozness' health? I mean, it's a party in his honour, isn't it?"

"Liz, I think one drink to the Wizard's health was enough; I'm pretty sure he won't mind if you lay off the burgundy for the rest of the evening. And no Powdered Jolt tonight, okay? Morrible doesn't want a repeat of what happened last time. Oh, and go easy on the sweetened cream; just because it's got brandy in it doesn't-"

"I know, I know, I'm not an idiot. Jeez, Glinda, I never thought I'd see you playing nanny."

"That makes two of us. Four of us, if you count Morrible and Elphaba."

Lizzel titters wildly. "That girl's been one hell of a bad influence on you, Glin; you've been around her so long that you're starting to soak up her work ethic. Soon, you'll be campaigning for Animal Rights and casting blinding white around too! I mean, was she always like that, or was she a bigger party girl when she was still wicked?"

"Leave her alone, Liz; Elphie might not be the life of the party like you, but-"

"Elphie?" Lizzel echoes. "You have a pet name for her now? Are you two in love?"

Okay, so maybe she's had a little more to drink than I previously thought.

"I think you should probably have some appetisers while you're still standing, Liz; they might take the edge off the wine."

"Glinda and Elphie sitting in a tree, K-"

"GOOD EVENING," booms a familiar voice from the opposite end of the hall, "AND THANK YOU FOR ATTENDING. THE BANQUET WILL BEGIN SHORTLY; YOUR PLACES HAVE BEEN MARKED FOR YOU…"

There's an immediate stampede towards the three great trestle tables prepared for the diners, dozens of richly-dressed men and women rumbling along the hall in pursuit of satin-cushioned seats before white linen tablecloth. Elphaba, Fiyero and Glinda all have places at the head table alongside the Wizard (or more accurately, the animatronic puppet representing the Wizard; he's undoubtedly in attendance, hiding in whatever concealed booth controls the damn thing and helping himself to a glass of brandy and a plate of sausages). Unfortunately, Morrible also has a place at the table, and the moment she sits down she takes the opportunity to gripe about the fact that for reasons that presently escape her, Lizzel has been seated on the upper end of the right-hand table, just out of Glinda's reach.

The entrees are served without incident: huge tureens of soup, plump olives by the hundreds, bowl after bowl of rich dark caviar, loaves of seasoned and spiced bread, and several dishes too posh even for Glinda's tastes – quail's eyeballs and swan's hearts have never really appealed to her. To Morrible's frustration, Lizzel gleefully washes her fill of heart down with her eighth glass of burgundy.

Meanwhile, Elphaba seems a tad downcast: it's not hard to see why; Nessarose and Frexspar are seated on the furthest edge of the left-hand table, a good indication of their social standing at tonight's festivities; worse still, Frexspar clearly understands this, and is now savaging his daughter-turned-director with a furious glare. After about five minutes of watching this tableau, Glinda pats Elphaba on the shoulder, and whispers "Relax; he'll come around in the end."

"I don't think it's going to be as simple as that."

"Why not? You're no longer green, you're important, and you're in a wonderful position to help him and Nessa. What could possibly go wrong?"

"Well there's always the fact that, as far as he's concerned, I haven't done anything good of my own free will: if I'd have worked for the Wizard and earned the right to be made normal, then maybe he'd be proud of me but… after everything that I've done, he's not happy. Add to that the heart attack and the fact that he's forced to rely on my influence, and it's not likely I'll be seeing any praise from him in the near future."

"That doesn't mean he's always going to hate you, Elphie; it just means that he's going to take a little more persuavity that everyone else. He'll come round eventually."

"And if he doesn't," Fiyero chimes in, "To hell with him; if he's not satisfied with having a daughter as one of the most powerful members of the Wizard's government, he won't be satisfied with anything. Best thing you can do is just give up on trying to impress him and do whatever you want with your life."

"If it was only a matter of impressing him, I wouldn't be so gloomy. What's worrying me is that if I make a mess of this, I'll have ruined Nessa as well. I mean, she's suffered enough on my account; the last thing I want is to ruin her life all over again – or drive father to another heart attack…"

There's a pause, as the servants arrive to clear away the dirty plates and goblets in preparation for main course; the waiters are all Animals, as are several members of the kitchen staff – another of Elphaba's great reforms. A few months ago, nobody would have allowed Animals within twenty feet of a kitchen (unless they were carefully silenced, Glinda muses with a shudder) or any other workplace for that matter. Now, the palace of the Wizard now boasts the highest number of Animal employees of any business in all of Oz, all of them payed and all of them commended for their services. True, most of them were still considered invisible men by the human population, but it was a start.

Most of them are completely ignored as they go about clearing the tables, but Elphaba thanks them for their services as they pass. She thanks them again when main course arrives: colossal savoury pies with glistening aromatic crusts; pumpkins the size of cartwheels, to be carved into portions suited to each guest by the waiters; a great steaming pot of mashed potatoes simmering in cream and butter, a rumoured favourite of the Wizard; vast platters of roast birds – chickens, ducks, geese, swan, and (in one special plate deserved exclusively for the Wizard's table) peacock; and of course, more detestable titbits: otter's livers baked in cheese, fried deer's brains, and "mountain oysters" (Glinda hasn't the slightest clue what kind of oyster could possibly survive on a mountaintop, but the fact that Elphaba very firmly declines a helping is all the encouragement she needs to also turn down a portion.)

Not too far away, Lizzel is helping herself to a bit of everything, including the things that Glinda's been too scared to sample; apparently all the wine has given her something of an appetite. However, she's still eating quite daintily, though that's likely her keeping up appearances for the photographers now lining up at the opposite end of the room.

Meanwhile, one of the dignitaries at the head table has leaned over and is now deep in conversation with Elphaba. "I have heard of your department's strategies regarding Animal integration," he's saying. "It's a most enlightened course of action…"

"Thank you."

"But I wonder, is it entirely wise? Not to disrespect Animals in any way, but the calamities that plagued Oz before the arrival of the Wizard are still fresh in living memory. Are you sure that they can be so easily trusted?"

"Sir, it's been decades since that time. The Wizard has forgiven the Animals for the crimes they've committed in the past and supported their return to society – I think we should respect his judgement."

Glinda mentally punches the air; she's known for a while now that Elphie's grown more and more efficient at playing the political game, but she's never seen her lie this smoothly about a subject so close to her heart before.

A few feet to her right, Lizzel is very subtly losing touch with her table manners: she's now digging into her slice of pie with ravenous abandon, shovelling huge spoonfuls of beef and pastry into her mouth without even noticing the gravy accumulating on her chin, and washing it all down with glass after glass of wine. If Morrible had been in a foul mood before, now she looks five seconds removed from a berserk rage, but there's precious little that Glinda can do: Lizzel isn't listening to anything except the sound of her own jaws, and Glinda daren't raise her voice any further in case the other guests hear.

"…so quickly isn't necessarily part of the clemency His Ozness has asked of us," the dignitary is saying. "All I ask is that your department's next decisions abide by practicality."

"They will. As you say, we've moved quickly in the past, but not all developments are going to be so rapid or so earthshattering; lately, my department's been dealing with the various addenda – long, slow and very meticulous work on..."

Lizzel is now licking the last of the gravy off her freshly-emptied plate, unaware that Morrible has borrowed a large knife from the nearest serving tray and is now carving obscene diagrams into the table. Glinda is now caught between trying to keep the press secretary from flying off the handle and trying to keep her future victim from acting up any further now that the photographers are almost ready (and acting up is guaranteed now that Lizzel has just asked for seconds).

"… how can you expect people to trust Animals so readily? I mean, two wildly-differing people with almost no similarities-"

"None? I doubt it. In fact," Elphaba remarks thoughtfully, "You'd be amazed at just how alike humans and Animals can be-"

There's a clatter from the right-hand table; for some reason, Lizzel is having trouble holding her knife and fork: every time she tries to grasp them, it tumbles out of her hands. Looking closely, Glinda gets the strangest feeling that her understudy's fingers have started to grow and coarsen: even from this distance, they look thicker and clumsier, out-of-place on Lizzel's doll-like hands. After about two minutes of trying and failing, Lizzel tosses the cutlery aside, and without another word, she lunges at the plate in front of her and continues eating – this time with her bare hands. Oblivious to the disbelieving stares of her fellow diners, she gnaws her way through her second slice of pie, then the small pile of chicken and turkey, then her serving of pumpkin, before scooping up the remainder of the mashed potatoes and shovelling the whole buttery mass into her gaping maw. She's laughing as she eats, for some reason – and not her usually high-pitched titter, but a deep-throated, repetitive grunting chortle that ripples ominously across the hall, silencing conversations as it goes.

And then, just as Glinda's starting to think that the situation can't possibly get any worse, Lizzel pushes away from the table and staggers awkwardly to her feet. The bodice of her dress, already befouled with gravy and bits of food, now seems oddly ill-fitting, the fabric stretched tightly across her body – as if somewhere under all the finely-made silk, her once-petite frame is slowly bloating out of shape, her belly swelling with fat, her arms thickening until the sleeves of her dress threaten to rip open. And with a fresh thrill of horror, Glinda realizes she wasn't imagining things when she saw Lizzel's hands changing shape: her fingers are slowly merging together – the formerly-delicate nails expanding into a thick black shell, and the merged digits shrinking away into trotters. Her feet, now bursting free of her half-shredded shoes, are the same.

Without warning, Lizzel makes a beeline for the nearest plate of food, shoving the nearest guests out of the way; clambering onto the table, she virtually shoves her face into the pie, wolfing down huge bites of mince. In seconds, the meal is finished and Lizzel is now wobbling to her trotters once again; even from here, Glinda can see that the changes are becoming more apparent: her eyes are dull and unintelligent, clearly seeing the dozens of faces staring back at her but not recognizing a single one; past the mess of sauce and half-eaten food smeared across her chops, her mouth is fixed in an idiotic grin that's only widened by the tusk-like teeth slowly edging over her lips; her nose is turning upwards, at first widening and flaring into a pig's snout – then mushrooming outwards until her entire skull is drawn slowly out of shape with a sickening crunch of bone; her already-disarrayed hair is withering away into bare pink flesh, exposing her ears as they slowly shift from the side of her head to the top, growing large and ragged as they move; and her body is still fattening, her limbs, her stomach and her face now bulging with swinish blubber. There's a loud rrrrrrrip of shredding silk as the long-suffering dress rips apart at the bodice, and carries on all the way to the skirts, exposing a colossal wobbling belly and an ungainly body struggling to remain upright.

For twelve awful seconds, she remains on her back trotters, more pig than human.

And then the click of a shutter and a vivid flash of light shatters the silence of the banquet hall.

Suddenly, everything is happening at once: Morrible is on her feet, screaming at the top of her voice, "Stop! Stop taking pictures! STOP THEM FROM TAKING PICTURES!" Startled by the noise, Lizzel falls forward onto all fours - her transformation complete and all traces of humanity lost - and bolts with a grunt of panic, clattering away across the table at an impressive speed; Elphaba is shouting "stop her!" Fiyero is shouting at the guards to listen to her; the guards are caught between trying to stop the photographers from taking anymore photos and trying to stop the runaway pig; the guests are screaming and shouting and running around like headless chickens; and the photographers are recording every moment of the ensuing chaos.

Glinda is probably the only one in the room who isn't doing anything. Shock has frozen her to her seat and sewn her lips tightly shut; she can only sit there, watching the insanity play out around her and wondering how things could have possibly gone so badly.

Meanwhile, one of the guards is still chasing after the fleeing pig. The chase takes the two of them along the length of the table before Lizzel the pig finally clears the last trestle, clatters to the ground and gallops out the door. The guard immediately charges after her – only to slam headlong into the dessert trolley, showering the onlookers with chocolate sauce, blobs of cream, fresh strawberries, pastries, and most of the cheese plate.

The last thing Glinda sees, before she gently lowers her head to the table and closes her eyes, is the guard slowly emerging from the wreckage, now splattered from head to toe in pulverized cake and jelly, his uniform invisible beneath a heavy coating of molten chocolate and clotted cream. For a moment, it actually looks as though he's going to make it to his feet; then with a groan of exhaustion, he tumbles forward into unconsciousness, landing face-down in a lake of custard.

---

It takes almost five hours for the guards to sort out the ensuing furore. It's quite a job, to say the least: they have to calm down the panicking guests, stop anyone from leaving the area, confiscate the photographers' equipment and footage, and alert the staff to the fact that a celebrity-turned-pig might be wandering the corridors.

And in between all of that, Fiyero has to put up with the thundering advice of the Wizard, who's usually demanding that he and the other officers stop the guards from treating Elphaba so harshly – something that, in all honesty, Fiyero didn't need to be told to do. As he wearily tries to calm down the increasingly-hostile guardsmen, he finds himself wondering exactly how the Wizard is really reacting to the debacle: is he worried? Is he afraid that this transformation might cause the people to lose faith in his powers? Is he – just like everyone else at this party – wondering what caused the transformation? Or is he once again staring at the two little green bottles, as Fiyero's often seen him do in the last few months?

Of course, thinking about that only worsens Fiyero's mood: ever since he'd first eavesdropped on that meeting, he's been looking for some information on the bottles, trying to figure out what they might mean and why the Wizard seemed to think they might have some connection with his mysterious child… and so far, Fiyero hasn't had any luck whatsoever. He's searched in just about single archive he could access without getting into trouble, he's made inquiries among servants who might conceivably know about the green bottles or their current owner's private life, and at one point he even went so far as to secretly examine the draft of the Wizard's autobiography (which is so large and unwieldy that the only possible use for it would be as a doorstopper) just in case he decided to include a little honesty amidst the hokum. Maybe he'll have more luck asking Glinda or Elphaba – after all, they've actually spoken to the Wizard in person; maybe he told them a bit more about himself than they initially admitted to…

Perhaps an hour into the chaos, Lizzel the pig is found rooting around the garbage bins outside the palace kitchen; it takes three guards armed with leashes and cudgels to force the sow back to the banquet hall. Fortunately, by the time they get back, the pig is already halfway reverted to human form; unfortunately, this just leaves them with another terrified guest to deal with. Hunched, pig-snouted, and only just capable of walking upright, the half-transformed Lizzel squeals in panic for a whole minute before finally recovering her ability to speak – whereupon she screams hysterically until she finally runs out of breath and collapses, weeping in mingled shame and horror. In any event, she's given a seat in the corner, a blanket to cover herself with, and a glass of brandy; for good measure, Glinda decides to sit with her for a while and help her recover.

Then, at the Wizard's prompting, the investigation begins: under the watchful eyes of both his Ozness and the press secretary, Fiyero questions both the guests and the staff, the banquet hall serving as a decent if somewhat public interrogation room for the time being; one by one, all of them are asked if they had any idea how the transformation was accomplished, why Miss Lakefold was targeted, and by whom.

Unsurprisingly, several people blame Elphaba for the disaster, accusing her of cursing Lizzel for some perceived slight or simply out of well-disguised "wickedness." Glinda naturally comes to her defence, as does Nessarose, the Wizard, and – to the defendant's visible surprise – about half the guests. Frexspar Thropp also speaks up in favour of his eldest daughter, though Fiyero can tell from the grudging look on his face that the bloodless bastard was seriously considering otherwise, and probably only spoke up to preserve what little influence he had at court.

Even more surprising, however, is when Morrible of all people springs to Elphaba's defence as well: "Had the Director for Animal Affairs used magic, especially magic of that nature, I would be well aware of it," she reassures the audience. "To the best of my knowledge, she hasn't cast a single spell since she entered this banquet hall."

As the interviews carry on, Fiyero has his officers search the members of the crowd for anything magical or alchemical in nature, just in case the perpetrator was too slow to dispose of the evidence; then, at the prompting of both Elphaba and Morrible, he has a team of experts search the kitchens and examine everything that Lizzel was seen eating or drinking that evening. No luck there, either: nothing vaguely magical to be found except perhaps for the chocolate wineglasses, and nothing more toxic than the vinegar-pickled goose sweetmeats.

Eventually, it's Lizzel's turn to be questioned. By this stage, she's almost completely back to normal, apart from a rather distinctive set of ears and a vaguely swinish build. She's also stopped crying, but that doesn't make her testimony any easier for the stenographer to record: several times throughout the interview she comes dangerously close to breaking down, especially when the time comes to actually describe what she remembers of the transformation. Thankfully, she doesn't believe that Elphaba was responsible for it either; unfortunately, she's of no help whatsoever in turning up any useful evidence.

So, with nothing else to do, the Wizard is forced to bring the investigation to an end, loudly concluding that Miss Lakefold's transformation was nothing more than an elaborate practical joke – inappropriate, no doubt, but hardly the work of a terrorist. Under his edict, the guests are permitted (and encouraged) to retire to their quarters, with the remains of dessert to be sent them within the hour; Miss Lakefold is to spend a night in the infirmary, just in case she suffers another transformation.

But as the guests are slowly ushered out of their seats and out of the banquet hall, Fiyero can't help but notice that the press secretary doesn't appear to be in any hurry to leave: Morrible's still at the head table, not whispering advice to the Wizard as is usually the case, but writing on a notepad, her eyes fixed on the retreating figure of Elphaba…

---

Because the guests had been sworn to silence and all footage of the disaster had been successfully confiscated, Lizzelanti Lakefold's transformation remains a secret: no mention of it appears in any newspapers, and other than a few vague rumours about a magic display gone wrong, nobody speaks of it either.

In any event, the week of celebrations looks set to return to normal, complete with the usual array of parties, parades and balls… right up until a much more formal kind of invitation arrives at Glinda's door the next day.

That afternoon, there's to be a conference on industrial development and contracting, attended by government officials, factory owners, manufacturing magnates, technical experts, and financiers of every stripe. Given the issue of Animal workers being allowed into the factories, Elphaba is also invited to ensure that all of the attendees understand their new workers' rights – and, from what she tells Glinda, to subtly push for Animals to be allowed more important work.

Unfortunately, Glinda's also invited, apparently as the Wizard's representative to the conference: thanks in part to Morrible's growing disconnection from Ozian politics, the industrialists have requested that Glinda the Good attend instead of her, continuously insisting that "Her Goodness" truly speaks for the Wizard. Quite naturally, Morrible is not amused by this - and the fact that her experiments were once again interrupted by this announcement only sours her temper further, especially evident during the last-minute rehearsal: for most of it, she just grumbles like a burgeoning thunderstorm, pacing back and forth and occasionally pointing at a part of the script she wants Glinda to recite. Occasionally, she actually provides some advice – the most-emphasized of it being "Watch out for Mr Branderstove" and variations on this theme.

"Don't give that walrus-faced plutocratician anything to work with," she tells her. "He's scheming, greedy, and worst of all, damnably good at dissectifying the fine print on our contracts. You are to stick to the script at all costs: no deviatification, no improvisating, and no letting anyone – Branderstove least of all – drag you off course. If you make a single mistake, he'll latch onto it and he won't let go until he's taken it to pieces and turned it to his advantage. If he gets an upper hand at this little debate, he gets the lion's share of government contracts and grants – and likely influence too. I can't…" Morrible's face twitches violently. "We can't afford to let this happen. Understood?"

"Yes, Madame."

Less than an hour later, the conference table is crowded with expensively-dressed men and women, all of them reeking of cigar smoke and money. They've come from all over Oz for this meeting, and every single one of them – from the governors to the factory-owners, from the businessmen to the technical advisors – is here to line their pockets. The one exception to this is Elphaba, who (thank Oz) is seated right next to Glinda for the duration of this meeting.

Unfortunately, Morrible has decided to attend as well after a fashion: though not officially present, she's watching the proceedings from a curtain-shrouded balcony at the far end of the conference chamber, not too far behind Glinda's seat.

Doubly unfortunately, sitting directly across from Glinda is the dreaded industrialist Mr Branderstove himself: a mountain of wobbling fat in a pavilion's worth of pinstriped black silk, buttressed by thick column-like legs, balanced by arms as wide as girders and dinnerplate-sized hands, the whole blubbery display surmounted by a broad, fifteen-chinned face with an impeccably-waxed handlebar moustache and a thick mop of curly red hair. Arguably the richest man in the entire room, this man is one of the few who doesn't smell of cigars and whiskey; if anything, the smell of money is even stronger around him – a not entirely unpleasant aroma of tarnished metal and old paper, augmented by a subtle whiff of ambergris. And as the two of them shake hands, Glinda can't suppress a shudder as she notices the way her hand appears to vanish into Branderstove's all-encompassing grip.

Sadly, she can't settle her nerves by comparing him to a pig; quite apart from the fact that poor Lizzel's transformation is still fresh in her memory, Branderstove seems to evade comparisons despite his weight: he's courteous, respectful, and even compliments her and Elphaba on the work they've done in the last few months. And contrary to expectations, he doesn't spend the meeting nibbling on complimentary snacks and washing them down with snifters of brandy; he remains focussed entirely on the conference, only ordering mineral water when the drinks tray arrives.

And just as Morrible warned, the man is terrifyingly astute. Everything Glinda says is questioned, investigated, and thoroughly dissected; what's almost infuriating is how effortlessly polite Branderstove is about the whole thing. He doesn't insult her, he doesn't imply anything nasty, and he doesn't even interrupt: he just leans back in his chair, steeples his salami-like fingers and asks, "How soon can the necessary upgrades be installed?" or "Is there expected to be any danger to our workers in installation? Beyond the natural hazards inherent to the process, I mean," or worst of all, "Is it possible to speak with the Wizard himself on this subject?"

Glinda finds herself struggling to keep the conversation on topic; by the halfway mark, she's pretty sure she's accidentally granted Branderstove an audience with the Wizard, and worse still, she can actually feel Morrible's glare on the back of her neck. So, Elphaba comes to the rescue:

"There's also the matter of Animal rights to consider," she says. "I've heard some of you here asking about the possibility of…" Her eyes narrow. "… cheap labour. Unfortunately, I must at this point bring up the fact that all Animals hired by the remodelled factories are extended the same rights and wages as human workers, so I'm afraid "cheap labour" is not what you'll be receiving."

"What about brawnier Animals, like oxen or carthorses?" one of the businessmen at the opposite end of the table inquires. "Are we permitted to hire them for heavy labour?"

"So long as the labour falls within departmental standards: you provide the safety equipment, you ensure they know the procedures, and you remember to pay their wages."

Branderstove downs his fourth glass of mineral water, and asks, "Is there any chance of employing some professionals from among the Animal population? I mean, menial workers and secretaries are all very well, but I would have hoped that we might be able to see some engineering experts at work by now."

"I'm afraid that's out of the question at present; the Wizard wishes to fully reintegrate Animals into the community before he starts allowing them to claim positions of authority again."

"A shame. I've done some research, and turned up some very impressive engineering qualifications among some of the older Animals; dam constructions, armament production, R&D projects, some very innovative works all in all. Such expertise would be most welcome at my factories."

Elphaba smiles. "A surprisingly progressive attitude, Mr Branderstove. You're more open-minded than some industrialists I've encountered in the last few months."

"You flatter me. But really, it's a simple matter of pragmatism: discriminating against potential employees on grounds that have no practical basis – especially when they have valuable experience to bring to the factory and can spare us the trouble of training a whole new set of skilled workers – helps absolutely no-one. It damages profits, it reduces workplace functionality, and induces problematic lines of thought among the workers. But I wonder, should the Wizard wait so long before repealing the last of the old laws? I understand his caution, but the renovation he suggests will require a great deal of technical knowledge, some of it only to be found in the ghettoes."

"I share your concern, Mr Branderstove, but unfortunately, I am not permitted to relax the laws any further. Of course, with this upcoming meeting with the Wizard, it might be possible to suggest the issue to him in person…"

Glinda is torn between thinking, "Hurrah, she's found a kindred spirit!" and "Oh crap, the bastard's got her!" Already she can feel Morrible's furious glare searing the back of her neck, and she knows that the press secretary is now losing her temper in as quiet a manner as possible: not only has the industrialist got a chance to twist things in his favour, but he's also arguing a point that Elphaba is bound to agree with – and one that promotes disrespect of the Wizard. This isn't just going to land Glinda in hot water, but it's going to do the same to Elphie.

"You know," one of the officials grumbles, "At some point, we were actually going to talk about industrial development. Does anyone remember that?"

Apparently, Branderstove is starting to feel the press-secretary's gaze as well, because there's now a very noticeable sheen of sweat on his forehead. Downing another glass of water, he continues: "The two issues aren't necessarily separate. Just because…" He draws a huge silk handkerchief from his pocket and mops the sweat from his sprawling brow. "Excuse me. Just because skilled labour isn't essential for the day-to-day work doesn't mean that the problem is automatically solved. This industrial development will require social development as well. It's a simple fact that the more we allow our priorities to be swayed by outdated laws and prejudices, the more money we lose and the more inefficient our factories become. I…" He blinks rapidly, and downs another glass of water. "I…"

"Are you alright?" Elphaba asks.

"I'm fine, I… can we have a window open? It's getting uncomfortably warm in here…" He struggles to unbutton his collar. "In fact," he adds, as he pours himself yet another glass, "I think we might do with another jug of water as well."

But as he sets the newly-emptied glass back down on the table, he seems to have difficulty actually putting it down; for some reason, the glass doesn't want to leave his hand. Eventually, with some effort, he manages to prise the reluctant glass free – and it pulls away from his skin with a loud pop. Staring down at the vacant hand, Glinda realizes that Branderstove's palm is now covered in tiny circular markings.

Apparently, Branderstove's noticed it as well, because his face immediately turns a sickly grey. "I… if I could be excused for just a moment," he murmurs. "I'll be back shortly." He pushes away from the table, gets to his feet and promptly collapses.

Seconds later, the entire conference is on its feet and surrounding Branderstove's prone but still-breathing form, trying to help him to his feet and all of them failing miserably. From here, Glinda can clearly see that his skin and hair are soaking, but not with sweat; if anything, this looks disturbingly like mucus. It could be her imagination, but he appears smaller than before, and not just because he's now lying down; his clothes themselves now seem a size too big for his body. And as Branderstove tries vainly to rise, she sees that the markings on his hand are larger and more protuberant now… and with a jolt of shock, Glinda realizes that they're actually suction cups – and they're swiftly spreading down his wrist and across his arm.

"Water…" Branderstove gasps. "Please… I need water…"

There's a pause, as the others notice the deformity; then, as one, all of them leap backwards. It takes all of fifteen seconds for someone to bring up the fatal words "magic curse," and a moment later, all of them are running for the doors. By the time the stampede is over, the only people left in the room are Glinda, Elphaba, the catering servants, two guests who were too brave or two stupid to leave when the opportunity arose, and of course the victim. Thankfully, this allows Elphaba room to hurry over and survey the scene. She very quickly examines Branderstove, taking his pulse, checking his temperature, and studying the suckers on his arm.

"Well," she says grimly, "At least this time we've got a good idea of what he's turning into."

"So it's another transformation?" Glinda asked.

"I should hope so – I'd hate to see what kind of skin disease would do this to a human being. He's obviously turning some kind of cephalopod, either an octopus or a squid. Probably the reason why he's been drinking so much in the last few minutes. We're going to need to get him to a large body of water, preferably before he finishes transforming: I've heard of octopi surviving on land for short periods of time, but I'd rather not find out just how long they can last. Mr Branderstove, can you walk?"

"That… that's what I was trying to do when got up from the table," Branderstove wheezes. "There's something wrong with my legs."

"In other words, we'll have to carry you." She turns to the rest of the group: "Does anyone have any idea where we can take him? Anything that has a lot of water, enough to keep a good-sized octopus in?"

"There's the old baths," one of the waiters pipes up. "It's basically a swimming pool, so it should be large enough to hold anything short of a whale."

"Where is it?"

"About ten minutes from here, ma'am."

"Good. You lead the way." She turns to the other remaining servant, a grim-faced butler gripping the drinks tray as if it were a life preserver. "In the meantime, I need you to fetch the Grimmerie from Madame Morrible's quarters and bring it down to the baths; tell her that it's an emergency, that Mr Branderstove's life depends on it more than her experiments do, that she'll be blamed if he dies from dehydration or from prolonged contact with freshwater – whatever gets her motivated. If she doesn't answer, you are fully authorized to break down the door and steal it. Understood?"

Without a word of protest, the butler nods, bows, and hurries off.

"As for the rest of you…" She turns to the baffled-looking officials, who are now leaning against the table in a state of shock. "You and you," she barks, "grab his legs; Glinda, take his left arm; I'll take his right."

"Can't you just levitate him to the baths or something?"

"Not a good idea. It's clear that this transformation's induced by magic: if I start flinging more magic at it before the process is finished, I could make things even worse, and waste precious time. Come on, get a hold of your limb. Now, one-two-three-HEAVE!"

It takes five tries to lift the businessman more than a couple of inches off the floor, and by the fourth try, Glinda's muscles are screaming and at least two of her nails have cracked. To the best of her knowledge, she's never had to lift anything this heavy in her entire life, and the fact that Branderstove now has the complexion of an entire fishmarket's daily stock doesn't make the job any easier. The other dignitaries aren't faring any better, passing the time by looking around for other servants to help them or just complaining about the weight, the smell, or the mixture of human sweat and octopus ink that's started to accumulate on their fingers. Glinda would have probably done the same had she not been too busy trying not to vomit.

By the eighth try, the transformation has whittled away so much of his former weight that the four of them are able to haul Branderstove off the tiles and slowly manoeuvre him out the door, moving faster and faster as the process continues – and thankfully cutting down on most of the muscle strain too. Not-so-thankfully, this just gives Glinda a lot more opportunities to notice the grisly details. By the time they've made it out of the conference chamber, Branderstove's arm is already starting to feel slimy and boneless in her hand; and worse still, a glance down at the man himself reveals that the limb in question seems to be getting longer and thinner and – unless Glinda's started hallucinating out of sheer disgust – it actually looks as though the entire arm is splitting, slowly dividing from the merged fingers down into two new tentacles.

"Where am I?" Branderstove mumbles deliriously, as the corridor blurs around him. "What's happening? Where… what… what's happening to me?"

He's shrinking; it's a very subtle process, but as the industrialist's mass is slowly converted into longer arms, the rest of his body starts to slowly dwindle away – leaving his clothes to be hastily gathered up by one of the trailing servants. First, his shoes and socks grow loose, before dropping off altogether as his feet are absorbed into his growing arms; then, having already grown huge and billowy on his withering legs, his trousers slide off his now waistless body, leaving Branderstove dressed only in a huge, billowing shirt. What little of his body weight that isn't being diverted into his increasingly lengthy tentacles is slowly shifting up towards his head: his torso, already reduced to a shrunken, fleshy oblong swaddled in an oversized shirt and festooned with tentacles, is slowly drawing itself up into his head.

And his head itself isn't doing so well either: his hair has thinned and evaporated, his magnificent moustache vanishing into slimy octopus flesh; his mouth is slowly shifting away from his eroded nose and down his front, the upper and lower lips starting to harden into what looks like a fledgling beak; his eyes are about the only part of his face that appear to be improving, having grown terrifyingly huge. More than once, Glinda has to look away from that unblinking, slit-pupiled gaze and actually focus on where she's walking.

They're about two minutes away from old bathhouse when the increasingly incoherent mumbling from Branderstove slowly trails off into silence, his mouth suddenly vanishing beneath his tentacles. Even Glinda, who's never seen an octopus outside of the picture books she very briefly read as a child, can clearly recognize the fact that Branderstove's transformation is well and truly complete.

Finally, they pass through an archway and into a vast marble chamber, dominated by a colossal sandstone-paved swimming pool - according to their guide, it's about ten feet deep at the far end. On any other day, it actually might be a nice place for a swim; the water's warm and almost steaming in the chilly morning; soft-cushioned deckchairs border the pool, an inviting sight after almost nine minutes of jogging in stilettos; and the bath chamber itself is astonishingly beautiful, the walls painted with astonishingly-detailed images of oceans alive with fish and other creatures or littered with the wrecks of ships, the columns sculpted to make it seem as though sea-serpents are coiling around them, marble statues of impossible monsters in every corner of the room – there's even a fresco in the ceiling overhead, depicting the sky as seen from the sea-bed, with the sun still glittering down on them just beyond the surface. At present, Glinda can only sigh and try to convince herself that it'll only be a few more feet before she can set Branderstove down and collapse into one of those deckchairs.

The butler's already waiting for them at the edge of the pool, the Grimmerie clutched in his hands. "It took some effort," he says, "But I got it. Madame Morrible did mention that she'd like a full report on what you used it for however, Miss Elphaba…"

Elphaba smiles grimly. "Well, if this works, I'll be more than happy to provide one. If it doesn't… well, I don't think she'll need a report to know what happened." She opens the book, and after about thirty seconds of leafing through the pages, she finally seems to find whatever it is she was looking for: then, with all her attention focussed on the pool of water in front of her, she begins to chant.

The effects are almost immediately obvious: by the time Elphaba's finished chanting the first stanza of the incantation, steam is no longer rising from the pool and the temperature of the water lapping over their toes has begun to drop. As the seconds drag on, a very distinctive smell of saltwater fills the air; soon, the bath has been converted into a chilly pool of seawater – matching the decorations on the wall even better.

"Hopefully, that'll be enough to keep him stable until he transforms back," Elphaba murmurs. "Now, let's get him into the water…"

Lining up on the edge of the pool, the four of them very carefully slice away Branderstove's slime-sodden clothing with scissors, before gently lowering him into the water. For a minute, he lingers, resting just at the surface of the pool as he acclimatizes to the water and recovers from the dehydration; then, he vanishes into the pool, soaring away at high speed toward the deep end.

Glinda breathes a sigh of relief, and sits down heavily on one of the nearest deck chairs. "Tell me," she gasps breathlessly, "do you think Branderstove would mind if I washed my hands off in the pool? I really don't want this fish-slime-gunk stuff on my hands a minute longer."

"I don't think so. He might get a bit curious about why what you're doing, but I don't think he'll be terribly upset. Not now, anyway…"

She points to the edge of the pool, where the octopus has extended a fourteen-foot-long tentacle out of the water and is now in the process of investigating the pile of discarded clothes left under the nearest deckchair; eventually, it seizes one of Branderstove's shoes and drags it back under the water. For a while, Glinda can only stare in amazement as the octopus toys around with the size-twelve, undoing the laces, tying them into different knots, studying the pattern on the sole, and even trying to sit inside the shoe itself.

Eventually, she asks, "Do you have any idea why this happened?"

"Well, octopi are naturally curious animals. Be glad we aren't trying to keep him in a tank, or he'd be trying to find a way out by now."

"No, no, I mean the transformation: why would anyone want to do this?"

"Your guess is as good as mine. Perhaps this was some kind of assassination attempt, though if it is, it's not exactly the most direct method; maybe someone wanted our friend here out of the way for a certain period of time; maybe they wanted to scare him. But what baffles me is – if this really is the same magician behind Lizzel's transformation – why would anyone go after her? I can understand why someone would want to attack Branderstove: as friendly as he is in person, people in his line of work tend to attract a lot of enemies. But why Lizzel?"

"Maybe the magician just wanted to embarrass her in public? She certainly seemed pretty embarrasiated to me. But what I want to know is… is this sort of thing going to happen again?"

---

"Captain? There's something out here you need to see."

Fiyero, who'd been fantasizing about the wedding and the honeymoon that would follow (and doing his best not to imagine Elphaba as the bride), lets out an exasperated sigh. The guard standing in the doorway is none other than Sergeant Harnley; having been reassigned from to paperwork since the disastrous events of Elphaba's capture, the hateful scumbag's been wafting around the barracks like a bad smell and making a persistent nuisance of himself in his attempts to return to active duty. So far, Fiyero's been coming up with an increasingly creative array of excuses to refuse him, every single alibi intended to disguise the simple fact that seeing Harnley leading a group of fellow guardsman in beating the freshly-captured Elphaba to a bloody pulp had left a permanent stain on their friendship (not that they had one to begin with).

"What is this time, exactly?" he asks, through gritted teeth. "More paperwork you want deferred? Or just another suspicious consignment of whoopee cushions?" Or are you just here to once again remind me that you were the one who shot Elphaba down in the first place?

"No, sir; it's this morning's wall patrols. They're back."

"And?"

From somewhere behind Harnley, there's a loud bark, and the sergeant visibly cringes. "I… I think you should take a good look at them, sir."

Wearily pinching the bridge of his nose and trying not to think of how furrowed his brow is going to look by the end of the month, Fiyero gets to his feet and strides to the door; he knows this indulging Harnley isn't going to improve his mood, but quite frankly, getting him out of the way as quickly as possible will free up time that can be spent on more productive things, like deciding where to take his inquiries next, arranging more guards for the panicked industrialists from yesterday's diplomatic disaster, or just planning the wedding. So, he straightens his shoulders, brushes dust from his uniform, opens the door and barks, "Alright men, what- oh."

Of the eighteen guards haphazardly scattered in front of the door, only five of them are still capable of saluting - and most of them are tottering haplessly around on crooked, shrunken looking legs; they're a sorry sight, this quintet, all of them trying so desperately to walk upright – either staggering around in a pathetic balancing act, leaning against walls with all their might, clinging to their halberds with hands distinctly lacking in opposable thumbs, or just hanging onto the shoulder of someone who's already managed one of the above. One poor man propped up in the corner can only whimper helplessly in the oversized remains of his clothes, and try to cover the muzzle sprouting from his clean-shaven face with hands that are already paws.

The rest of them are dogs – or so far along with their transformations that there's precious little to identify them as human beings. Most of them sit obediently on the carpet, only moving to scratch themselves or grooming themselves in ways that will probably make them the butt of every single joke in the barracks once they recover; a few others are trotting aimlessly around, sniffing their companions' backside and woofing discontentedly.

From what little Fiyero can recognize, most of the former guards are Dobermans, Rottweilers and other large breeds, though there are a few beagles and bloodhounds scattered here and there. And looking at some of transitions at work, Fiyero barely manages to stop himself from grimacing in revulsion: Lizzel's transformation had been nasty enough, but seeing the face of a still-human guard melt and sag into the distinctive rubbery jowls of a bloodhound might just one of the most disgusting things Fiyero's seen in his entire life – and even worse considering that the poor bastard hasn't yet managed to grow enough fur to cover all the flaps of skin. There's also something distressingly funny and sad about the sight of the guards in the final stages of their metamorphosis, of the way they scrabble for a grip on the wall in a desperate attempt to stay upright even as their fingers shorten and gradually melt away into paws.

Tearing his eyes away from the bewildering sight, Fiyero turns to Harnley and asks, "Where did you find them?"

"I didn't find them at all, sir; they found me first. They were looking for help, you see. From what their squad leader told me, they'd just rendezvoused at the wine cellar after the first patrol of the day when they started changing. So, they went looking for someone who could undo this; first, they went to Morrible, but she didn't want anything to do with them – didn't even open the door. Then they went looking for the Witch, but she was away at some conference and they couldn't find her. So, they went looking for you and bumped into me along the way."

"And where's the squad leader now?"

Harnley points to a crumpled uniform on the floor, where a miniature poodle is now trying to extract itself from the tightly-buttoned shirt. Eventually, it notices that people are looking in its direction, and it sits up with a sharp yap, a look of comical dignity on its face despite the shirt collar tangled around its backside.

"It's all the Witch's doing," Harnley opines. "She's been waiting to do this ever since we started letting our guard down around her. You ask me, she'll be after the Wizard next. Best thing we can do is have her arrested and killed right now."

"With all due respect, sergeant, you're talking out of your ass again. And besides, I know for a fact that this isn't Elphaba's doing."

"And how's that, sir?"

"Because if she was in the mood to curse someone into a dog, the first person she'd target would be you, Mr Police Brutality."

By now, the guards have well and truly finished transforming, and are starting to behave in more or less the expected fashion as military discipline gives way to animal behaviour: though none of them have started fighting yet, a few aggressive-sounding barks can be heard in the crowd of canines. For a moment, a newly-transformed Doberman sidles up to them as if to sniff their uniforms, before squeezing past the two of them and into the office, where it nonchalantly cocks a leg against the nearest wall…

Fiyero's eyes twitch; suddenly fuelled by all the military discipline his instructors were able to instil in him, all his deeply-ingrained appreciation for luxury, and the last warning he got from the janitors over spilling things on the office floor, he launches himself at the dog with a desperate shout in Harnley's direction – a warning of "DON'T LET THAT TOUCH THE CARPEEEEEEEEoh never mind…"

He lets out a groan of exasperation, briefly hiding his eyes behind a hand. "Harnley? You know where the kennels are – take the dogs for a walk."

"Me? Why me?"

"You're closest. Plus, you were the one who found them in the first place."

A mocking sneer etches itself across Harnley's face: "That's crap and you know it, sir: the only reason why you've been giving me all these stupid jobs lately is because I was the one who made sure your secret lover got some comeuppance for what she'd done."

Fiyero is opening his mouth to tell Harnley to go to hell when the words "your secret lover" finally connect with his brain and suddenly, it's almost impossible for him to think of a rejoinder; all at once, he's torn between simply denying the accusation, demanding to know how Harnley had figured this out, claiming that standing in the way of police brutality didn't mean he was in love with her, or just slugging Harnley in the jaw…

…And hovering rather embarrassingly over the whole thing is an absent-minded wish that Elphaba really was his secret lover.

---

The next morning, two visiting diplomats from the neighbouring country of Ev are on their way out of a meeting with the Wizard when they too are struck down by inexplicable transformations. Glinda, who'd been doing her best to catch up on some sleep at the time, doesn't hear about it until several hours after the pair have returned to normal, and then only because Nessarose ended up as one of the witnesses to the incident; much to Glinda's surprise, Nessa isn't just willing to explain the details of the incident to her, but if anything, she actually seems grateful for the company (Oz only knows why; she's still got her manservant to talk to, though admittedly he seems a bit gloomy and depressed these days) as they wander down to the banquet hall for lunch.

At the time, she'd been with her father, waiting patiently in the antechamber just outside the audience chamber and going over all the points they wanted to discuss in their eventual meeting with the Wizard; so far, things had been looking pretty rosy: Elphaba had assured the two of them that she'd put in a good word with the Wizard, the guards and the servants had finally stopped glaring at Nessa, and the proposal to be announced seemed reasonable enough for the Wizard to agree to. They'd been about three quarters of the way through their third rehearsal when Ambassadors Cuspell and Haspell had emerged, helped themselves to glasses of water from the refreshments table, and promptly started transforming.

Of course, because Nessa and her father were seated a good distance away from them, the first few changes went almost entirely unnoticed; the first hint that something was wrong arrived about ten seconds into the process, and it arrived in the form of the colour slowly draining from the diplomats' hair: suddenly, Mr Cuspell's neatly-styled black hair had begun to lose its orderly shape, tufts of unruly, almost feathery hair bursting free of the hairdo even as it slowly turned white; Miss Haspell's tightly-bound hair underwent a similar transformation, with the neat bun slowly unravelling into dark brown tresses that almost immediately paled and shrivelled into feather-like growths.

Then, without warning, the two of them had abruptly lost a foot in height: one minute they were standing around and looking slightly bewildered at the world around them, the next they were suddenly a head shorter than the other guests and getting steadily shorter. And as they continued losing height, their dwindling bodies sinking lower and lower into their increasingly oversized clothes, their hair – now clearly feathers – began to sprout across their faces and down their necks; their hands began to grow too, first erupting with white feathers, and then bending and twisting into the crude beginnings of wings.

Finally recognizing a crisis in process, the guard on duty had run up in an attempt to help the diplomats, only for the two of them to hoot incoherently at him from lips that were already puckered up (almost as if for a kiss) and hardening into beaks; in a panic, the two had leapt away from the guard and gone dashing down the hall, leaving their shoes behind. But they didn't get far: seconds later, their three-toed feet gave way and they tumbled into a heap of their own clothes, their shrinking bodies vanishing from sight beneath a billowing canopy of garments; for a few seconds after that, Nessa thought she could see movement under there - two vaguely human-shaped lumps struggling to escape, even as they went on getting smaller. Then, at less than a foot in height, the shapes appeared to collapse in on themselves, and the clothing finally went still.

Then at last, two confused-looking white doves emerged from the gaping collars.

"And they didn't fly away?" Glinda asks.

"Oh, they did. They probably would have flown into the audience chamber and tried to build a nest in the rafters if the guard hadn't shut the main door and told us to keep it shut until he could find a cage. Of course, getting them into the cage was a different story altogether: those birds spent an entire hour fluttering about the antechambers before someone finally lured them down, and by then they were already transforming back into humans." Nessa sighs. "And then the real mess started: they thought the Wizard had cursed them – and we only found this out once the guards had managed to get them calm enough to sit down and wait for a doctor; if they hadn't stopped them from leaving before things were explained, Ev might have got wind of the situation and declared war on us." She spread her arms wide. "Not exactly the sort of thing you expect to see every day, is it? Some spree prankster accidentally sparking an international incident between Oz and Ev."

"Spree prankster?" Glinda echoes. "Can you really call it that given that it could have started a war? I mean, some of the people who were transformed could have died if they'd been in the wrong place and time when they'd started changing. I mean, if those two had been flying when they'd turned back, they could have broken their necks!"

And Branderstove could have dried out if we hadn't gotten to the pool in time. She shudders, remembering yesterday's attack, and the awful feeling of the man's arms dissolving into tentacles under her fingertips; even after Branderstove had transformed back (and emerged from the pool like a breaching humpback whale) and thanked her and Elphaba for saving his life, she'd still been reluctant to shake his hand in case she felt suction cups on her palm again.

"Well, that's what the Wizard's calling it," Nessarose continues. "But people are getting worried, though: I know we're supposed to be keeping quiet about it, but it's not doing any good – it's only been a couple of days and I've already heard just about every single servant in the palace whispering about it. I've even heard people outside the palace talking about it; they think there's a rogue sorcerer wandering the Emerald City, "something we've never seen before," they say, just waiting to attack the Wizard himself."

Whew, at least they're not suspecting Elphaba, Glinda thinks. Then, suddenly remembering her manners, she asks, "So… how did the meeting go?"

There's an embarrassed silence; suddenly, all the energy in the air seems to have drained away.

"Not good," Nessa whispers at last. "The Wizard had to cut the meeting short."

"Did he say why?"

"Apparently, he was cancelling of his meetings for the rest of the day; but when father and I left the audience chamber, there were four people still waiting outside: Fiyero, Madame Morrible, and the two diplomats. They were all there for the same conference." She offers a sad smile. "I suppose I should be flattered that the only thing that could spoil my big moment was a war-in-the-making, huh?"

"But that doesn't mean that you're not going to get the job, Nessa-"

"I know that; the Wizard was at least kind enough to say that he'd give the matter his full attention once the incident was dealt with. But wars aren't dealt with quickly, and even I'm not stupid enough to think that father's ambitions for me are important enough to outweigh affairs of state."

"What about your father? How's he taking this?"

If anything, Nessarose looks even more miserable. "You've met him, Glinda; you know how he is. He wants me to take his place as governor, and even the Wizard refuses him, he's going to keep at it."

"But what about the doctor's orders to keep him from getting too stressed-"

"He isn't listening! This morning, the nurses told him he should stay in bed instead of attending the meeting, and you know what he said? "I pay your fees, you do as I say." If he wants to keep pressing the issue, he's going to do exactly that even if everyone including the Wizard says otherwise, even if it… if…" She stops, and seems to sag in exhaustion.

"You could always ask Elphie to talk some sense into him."

"Glinda, what makes you think that he'd even give her the chance to finish a sentence? In case you hadn't noticed, he hates her: he's hated her since the day she was born, and nothing she can say to him will ever change his mind. And besides," she adds quietly, "Elphaba's moved onto bigger and better things. She's not going to be interested in babysitting an invalid for the rest of her life."

And then, in a voice that's almost inaudible, she whispers, "And I can't blame her, either…"

For a minute or two, the hallway is silent except for the distant hubbub of voices. Glinda isn't sure how she can possibly respond to anything that's just been said: at first, she wants to reassure Nessarose that everything's going to be okay, but with the anxieties at hand, what could she say to make her feel better? Then, she wants to insist that Elphaba won't give up so easily; then, she remembers how cold Elphie was during her standoff with Frexspar, and suddenly she isn't so sure. She even considers just putting a hand on Nessa's shoulder, but the manservant pushing the wheelchair is now giving her a pleading look, as if to say "She needs a moment." (Though later, she wonders if the man wasn't trying to tell her something else).

Then, without warning, there's an ear-splitting yowl from somewhere not too far away; seconds later, three men hurtle out of a side passage, almost overturning Nessa's wheelchair as they turn the corner and thunder off towards the opposite end of the corridor. Two of the men are clearly guards; the man they're chasing however, is currently unrecognisable as a human being: his face is bulging outwards into a long, hairy muzzle, complete with a set of enormous square teeth that seem to be forcing his jaws wider and wider with every passing second. His body, already coated a thick layer of coarse grey hair beneath the tattered clothing, is now bending and twisting out of shape; as such the man's run alternating between tottering awkwardly around on two legs and galloping at a breakneck speed on all four of the hooves that have formed from his hands and feet. And the noise he's making is almost beyond description, because up until now, nobody's been able to combine a donkey's braying with a human scream.

Knocking over a laundry cart and shoving aside two shell-shocked valets, the half-transformed man canters awkwardly around the corner and out of sight, the guards in hot pursuit.

There's an awkward pause, as the echoes finally die away.

"Who was that?" Nessa whispers.

"I haven't a clue," says Glinda. "I think he might have been one of the assistant press secretaries, judging by the outfit, but I'm not sure."

"And where was he going?"

"The banquet hall, by the looks of things."

Another, slightly less awkward pause follows.

"You know," says Nessa thoughtfully, "I don't think we need to have lunch in the palace, do we? There's bound to be some nice cafés in town…"

---

Unfortunately for those still enjoying the around-the-clock party that the Emerald City had become, the week's festivities come to a rather abrupt conclusion two days ahead of schedule, on a warm, summery evening set aside for another public gathering before the palace steps.

Intended as a ceremony honouring the highest achievers of the Wizard's government, only the very best and brightest make it onto the stage: Fiyero, Glinda and Elphaba are among those to be awarded for their vital contributions to Oz, along with at least thirteen other figures from the length and breadth of the country – from glamorous figureheads of high society, to the favoured few among the captains of industry present at yesterday's conference. Quite conspicuously, Madame Morrible is not among the invited, being presumably still locked away in her apartment, immersed in her experiments – the details of which still remain a mystery (though passers-by insist that it involves a lot of explosions, foul smells, shattering of glass, and expletives screamed at almost anyone in earshot, especially Morrible's long-suffering maid/lab assistant).

Thousands of devoted Ozians cram themselves into the stands to observe the proceedings, outnumbering even the horde of onlookers that turned out to watch Elphaba's reintroduction. And unlike that momentous day, none of the audience members are booing their disapproval, not even when the reformed Wicked Witch of the West ascends to the stage; they cheer with a passion and intensity that was usually only reserved for Glinda and the Wizard, every single one of them looking up at her with adoration written plainly on their faces. This time, there's no doubt that "The Redeemed" has truly been accepted by the good people of Oz.

Along with the glitteringly bejewelled medallions of distinguished service given to each of the dignitaries, toast after toast is raised in honour of the Wizard's chosen, and the applause arrives in vast waves that almost obliterate the fragile scaffolding on which the stage is built. There's also plenty of speeches, some of them dragging on for almost half an hour in the case of the more ponderous industrialists; of course, not all of the speeches are spoken by the chosen: every now and again, someone will leap out of the audience and "spontaneously" shower the awarded attendees with praise, honouring them for their loyalty/diligence/stunning good looks/business acumen/bravery/intelligence, etc etc, insert arbitrarily favoured attribute here, etc, etc, etc. Of course, they also praise the Wizard for giving the chosen few the blessing they needed to succeed and for building the society in which such success could have taken place, so there's no doubt who hired these supposedly random hecklers; in any case, the audience buys the performance and follows each showering of compliments with another round of applause.

The ceremony drags on for the better part of two hours, and it ends – along with the entire week of festivities – in much the same way that most interrupted celebrations do: with a disaster.

Given that Morrible is not in attendance, the duties of actually presenting the awards falls instead to the next best official that could be found at short notice; in this case, Maltus Gall, the Administrator for Public Veneration and Commemoration. An older man with a round face and a slightly bemused smile, he is a figurehead at the very most, saddled with a ceremonial position that amounts largely to placing brass plaques on buildings in the name of the Wizard and being inordinately rewarded for it. A year or two ago, Glinda would have been doing much the same job, but with the praise that had been heaped upon her for "redeeming" Elphaba, she'd been skyrocketed miles above these lowly duties, and now Gall stands in her place, draping medals around people's necks and doing his very best to look worthy of his astronomical income.

But as the next dignitary approaches to receive a medallion of his own, a very strange expression comes over Gall's face: his jaw slowly drops open and his eyes grow very wide, his posture going from militarily rigid to slump-shouldered and sagging in a matter of seconds. His arms go slack and fall to his sides; the award he was about to present hangs limply from his fingers for a moment or so, and then falls, landing on the stage with a thud that – thanks to the microphone – can be heard from the back row. Those sitting closest to him notice that there appears to be a thick sheen of sweat gathering on his forehead… and his eyes are very firmly fixed on the approaching dignitary's neck.

Fortunately, the man in question has already noticed the sudden change in Gall's demeanour, and is already slowly backing away from the slavering official. There's a frantic whispering on stage, as the guards hastily debate the quickest possible means of getting the entranced figure off the stage before the audience gets suspicious, with Elphaba, Glinda, Fiyero and several other dignitaries all furiously chiming in to demand that they stop talking and do something. Unfortunately, this doesn't help: with so many people with the authority to order them around doing so at once, the guards are left hopelessly confused and disarrayed as the transformation continues.

Gall's mouth is no longer dropping open: it's started to change shape; the structure of his jaw itself is starting to warp and twist, the chin slowly dissolving away and the upper and lower lips stretching open wider and wider. Bit by bit, the unfortunate administrator's mouth is slowly forced into a permanent gaping oval that, to the accompaniment of horrified gasps from the audience, slowly begins to encompass his entire face. His nose smooths and flattens into nothingness, vanishing into his increasingly slimy skin; his ears wither into blank flesh, smeared into the side of his head as if they were made of clay; his hair thins, fades, and finally vanishes altogether; his eyes are the last to go, disappearing with a single blink as his eyelids seal themselves shut. And with his features gone, all that's left of his face is a smooth expanse of flesh, dominated by a huge, round mouth.

By this stage, everyone who's heard the rumours or seen one of the previous transformations is now waiting for Gall to shrink out of his clothes. But he doesn't: if anything, he seems to be actually getting taller. True, his clothes appear to be growing baggy and loose as his body changes shape – and in increasingly extraordinary ways: the left leg of his trousers suddenly empties as its sole occupant is absorbed into his other leg, forming a snakelike tail that fluidly oozes out of his one remaining shoe. His right arm, briefly outstretched as if in some last desperate attempt at human activity, begins to shrivel and shrink away; at first, it's merely foetal and translucent; then, the fingers start to merge into a mitten-like blob of fused digits; finally, the entire distorted mess draws itself up into his sleeve and vanishes. The left arm, already dangling loosely by his side, simply latches itself to his flank and is absorbed into Gall's body through his clothing. And slowly, his shirt and trousers loosen even further as hips and shoulders begin to melt…

And then, Gall lunges; with a speed that probably took all of the human muscles left in his body, he launches himself across the stage at the would-be award winner, dragging him to the floor with a crash. For a moment or two, there's only confusion as the shell-shocked guards try to reach the two of them; then, the lucky award-winner kicks out and sends Gall flying backwards – off the edge of the stage, to land in the middlemost aisle between the first and second row of seats.

For perhaps five seconds, the crowd is silent. Then Gall rises, slithering free from his clothes in the form of a giant leech: well over eight feet long and built more like an anaconda than anything else, he lets out a gurgling hiss and oozes towards the audience.

Mayhem follows. Suddenly, everyone is trying to leave the area at once, leaping out of their seats, shoving people out of the way, climbing over chairs, even struggling over the heads of the amassed audience as they try to struggle through the gates at once; the hurry turns into a stampede – someone's just informed them that the leech is somewhere among the crowd and feeding – and among the people unlucky enough to be left behind with the only other emergency exit, there's a brawl as they try to reach it first. The guards try to restore order, but none of them can possibly make any difference at this point: most of them are too scared of the leech to approach, and those of them brave enough to risk it are hopelessly outnumbered by the mob. The dignitaries left onstage are caught between fleeing to the safety of the palace and trying to help diffuse the situation, and many of the latter half are already being forcefully ushered away by panicky guards.

There are a grand total of fifty-two people among an audience of thousands who aren't afraid in that moment: forty-eight of them are journalists, all of whom are furiously scribbling notes and photographing the chaos, as they have been for the last few minutes; two of them are Flying Monkeys, who later admit to being a tad baffled at the reason for the panic – after all, leeches aren't renowned for moving very quickly out of water, and besides, by the time it actually reached the crowd, the leech was visibly shrinking down to a size more common to its species.

Finally, there's Elphaba, and while not exactly overjoyed by what she's just witnessed, she does feel certain that the events of the evening have gone – for the most part – according to plan.

Gall was trickier than most of her previous targets: as the first truly public transformation she'd engineered, she'd wanted this one to be something particularly spectacular, and with that came the natural difficulties of modifying the vapour not only towards a new species, but towards a slower, more dramatic process of transition. It took her and the other researchers quite a while to get the mixture right – but then, the resident experts were happy for a challenge after so many years of unemployment.

And even with that work complete, there was still the issue of delivery: unlike the others, Gall didn't live in the palace apartments, so exposing him to a sufficient dose of the transfigurative vapour was not a simple matter, especially since none of his servants were Animals. She probably would never have been able to get to him by tonight had Chistery not volunteered to infiltrate Gall's house and plant a vapour canister in his bedroom – a task which had left Elphaba's heart in her mouth for the better part of the day; she'd almost hugged his wings off when he'd returned safely. But once that was over with, providing the catalyst was a simple matter: after all, what speech was complete without a glass of water ready for the speaker?

Of course, it's regrettably likely that Gall will be trodden on during the ensuing pandemonium.

Equally regrettable are the injuries liable to result from the stampede, some of which might even be fatal.

This catastrophe will probably disrupt the lives of her friends, too. On top of the stress and fear that would be expected for a state of emergency, their personal ambitions will suffer too: Father's plans for Nessarose will likely be dismissed as unimportant in light of the ensuing chaos; Glinda and Fiyero's wedding will probably have to be postponed until the all-clear is given, and that may take months.

But Elphaba, her thoughts coldly serene and rational, finds herself curiously unmoved: there is a vague feeling of sorrow at the loss of life and the grief that will result, but it feels distant and ephemeral at best; and while she does feel remorse, in that curiously glacial manner her mind has adopted over the last year, she finds herself seeing the dead and wounded of the evening as tragic but acceptable losses.

Gall's death was not an intended consequence of her plan, nor was it ever intended that he fall off the stage… but it does enhance the impact of tonight's disaster.

Nessarose' misfortune can be easily undone: if this plan comes to fruition, the post of governor is the very least that Nessa can be given.

As for Glinda's wedding… well, wouldn't the two of them be happier – infinitely happier – knowing that they were married not as fellow servants of the Wizard, but as free citizens of a country purified of ignorance and corruption? Wouldn't that be the best wedding present Elphaba could give them?

And what took place this evening is but the next step along the road towards that purification…

The previous transformations have laid the groundwork for this moment: the last five were meant to induce fear within the palace and among the Wizard's most influential followers; because the Wizard refused to officially acknowledge any of these incidents, he cultivated an atmosphere in which rumours could flourish if fuelled by misinformation; and while his official decree of silence prevented the faithful retinue from unveiling the truth, he neglected to include the servants – and indeed, how could he? Most of them couldn't be tracked down before they spread their stories, filtered through personal fears and misconceptions as most of them were. And Elphaba was able to augment the growing number of stories with a few outright lies, spread via the very same Animal servants that helped her plant the vapour and catalysts in the first place. Gradually, the stories escaped the palace and spread into the Emerald City: for the past few days, the rumour-mill has been grinding, spreading the story that there is a sorcerer at large and working under the Wizard's nose; the only reassuring element to all the gossip is that all of these transformations (real or invented) took place inside the palace itself, leaving the rest of the city unmolested.

Tonight's disaster confirms the rumours: with Morrible too preoccupied with her experiments to carry on with the duties of Press Secretary, there will be nothing to stop the newspapers from running the story; for good measure, an "anonymous source" will also kindly provide the Press with the photographs of Lizzel's sensational metamorphosis. And even if the guards crack down quickly enough to seize all the evidence and censor the headlines, it won't matter: thousands of people were witness to Gall's transformation, and they're already spreading their accounts of the night, each one more horrific than the last. The story is out: there's a new menace in Oz, and nobody can tell who it is or what it wants. Worse still, it's no longer operating outside the palace: nobody is safe.

Slowly, public faith in the Wizard will start to erode as it becomes obvious that the most powerful magician in all of Oz can't do a thing to stop the nightmare. Of course, it won't be as simple as waiting for him to be attacked and unmasked in public; there are other phases of the plan to prepare first.

How long will it take for someone to notice the connections between the victims and follow the clues to their logical conclusion? Perhaps, in the end, it will be Glinda: after all, she's the one taking orders from the real target of this exercise. All she needs is a little encouragement to get her invested in solving the puzzle – once the next few dozen victims are prepared, of course.

---

They call it the Plague of Transformations.

The name itself isn't an official designation – after all, nobody in the Wizard's government would be stupid enough to add fear of disease to the mass hysteria. No, this is a name coined by the people: they` saw how the next thirty instances of transformation all occurred in public places, often affecting dozens of people at a time; with the newspapers having spread the story of Gall's fatal metamorphosis (not to mention the leaked evidence of the transformations that came before it) and speculated that a renegade sorcerer is to blame, it doesn't take long for the citizenry to imagine a man capable of designing a magical disease and unleashing it upon the world. And the resulting fear spreads all too quickly as the second day of the Plague wears on.

Very quickly, emergency measures are enacted in the hopes of catching whatever sorcerer's behind this insanity: guard patrols are first doubled, then tripled, then provided with the right to perform surprise inspections; the Flying Monkeys are called back from their usual scouting grounds and redeployed all over the city, surveying the streets all day and all night; a nine o'clock curfew is established, with harsh penalties for anyone caught outside after hours; finally, as serious injuries and deaths start to arise from the transformations, the roads are slowly clogged with an increasingly vicious array of roadblocks, checkpoints, and armoured vehicles – none of which are popular with the citizens, who are already enraged at the loss of the Ozian nightlife.

With Ozian stability on the line and no progress in the search for a culprit, the most that the Wizard can do is send Glinda to bind the metaphorical wounds as best as possible. In other words, visiting the recovering victims in hospital, and reassuring the crowds with sugary-sweet platitudes. She tells them that all will be well, that the Wizard will prevail, that Elphaba is not to blame for the disaster, and that Captain Fiyero and his men are doing all they can to stop this newest enemy of Oz.

(What she's not allowed to tell them is how little success they've had in that regard: from what Fiyero's told her, even though the palace has been laboriously searched from top to bottom, none of the guards have been able to track down any evidence that someone in the palace has been practicing illicit magic. Despite the paranoia of some of the guards, Elphaba's quarters contain only the registered magical instruments that were afforded to her as part of her contract, none of which could be used for the transfigurations witnessed. Morrible refuses to allow any guards to enter until she's finished the latest stage and even then she doesn't grant them access to any of the experiments – going so far as to use her influence with the Wizard to get the search warrants dropped. And whoever the perpetrator is, he or she obviously isn't stupid enough to act in broad daylight with the Flying Monkeys watching the city.)

And that's the way Glinda's routine goes for the next few weeks: if she isn't trying to patch up the damage from the latest incident, she's usually reading about it – or, given the rumours flying around, hearing about it. By the third day, transformations are cropping up all over the city, from the highest spires of the palace to the deepest regions of the warehouse district; there are reports of transformations into almost every possible kind of animal, all of them with their own potential for either public humiliation or death – though only three out of the forty-seven victims have actually died.

Whatever this curse is, it doesn't discriminate on social class either: the list of the afflicted include factory workers, household servants, shopkeepers, bureaucrats, government officials, and even the nobility; no-one seems safe, the inhabitants of the palace least of all.

By the end of the first week, she's been witness to no less than three complete transformations, with five or six minor sightings of an attack in progress – perhaps a brief glimpse of a man bent double under the weight of the hedgehog spines sprouting from his back, a woman's arms stretching out into the wings of an albatross, or one unfortunate soul wobbling and quivering as his body slowly collapses into the transparent bulk of a jellyfish. At one point, she even sees a man absently swatting a cockroach with a rolled-up newspaper – only for a pair of bloodied human legs to erupt out of the flattened mess.

But for all the nightmares that Glinda ends up with thanks to the spit-second glimpses, the ones that truly give her the most grief are the three incidents that she witnessed from beginning to end; quite apart from the fact that they're usually just as disgusting as the minor sightings, she invariably has to provide a testimony of what happened to the guards, to the Wizard, to Morrible (assuming she's actually in the mood to do her job), to authorized journalists, and finally to her friends – by which time the shock and fear she felt during the transformation itself will have given way to exhaustion and a desperate need for something mind-numbing.

Worse still, several of the victims in these incidents are prominent officials and celebrities, which usually means that she'll be hearing about them for days on end: first, there's the radical political campaigner Mr Horston, who's transformed into a mongoose; given that the campaigner was already a Munchkin he doesn't have much distance to shrink and the growth of fur just adds to his substantial beard, so the transformation itself wasn't that nightmarish; the pain of this particular incident arrives when Glinda makes the mistake of trying to pet the mongoose – and ends up getting bitten.

She's still sporting a sizeable bandage on her hand when the next transformation rolls around, this one involving an investigative reporter for The Emerald Emissary by the name of Miss Pritcham being transformed into a wasp – especially nasty because Glinda's being interviewed by her at the time. Doubly nasty is the fact that, like the late Maltus Gall, the victim doesn't start to shrink until her transformation is at least three quarters finished, and Glinda is afforded a stomach-churning view of Pritcham's skin hardening into a hair-studded yellow and black exoskeleton, and her eyes turning black as they bubble out of their sockets. And the buzzing of the wasp's newly-grown wings, that hellish nerve-shredding hum amplified by the creature's ridiculous size, will probably stay with Glinda for the rest of her life.

But the worst is yet to come: the last and by far the most unpleasant of the transformations she's forced to bear witness to is that of the Treasurer, Mr Lopford, who is transformed into a hippopotamus - and a very angry hippopotamus at that; once he's finished swelling up like a balloon, tearing free of his clothing and sprouting a jaw large enough to accommodate a pony, Lopford the hippo goes on a rampage that results in at least seventeen life-threatening injuries (three of which turn out to be fatal). Glinda manages to get out of the room at the expense of her best shoes, and even then the only thing stopping the hippo from chasing her down the corridor is the arrival of Elphaba – who manages to subdue the beast long enough for the guards to arrive.

And is if things couldn't get any worse, on the third week the symptoms of the plague change – only slightly, but enough to frighten the public even further: the transformations, formerly only lasting a few hours at the most, are now prolonged for days at a time; worse still, victims who've apparently made a full recovery begin to transform again, and – as if to add insult to injury – some even continue to manifest animal traits for hours after they've returned to normal.

All of this chaos invariably carries with it a small mountain of emotional baggage: Nessarose and her father are reduced to recluses in their apartments as the fear and the paranoia at work in the capital spirals out of control; Elphaba's work for Animal Rights is put on hold, leaving her gloomy and depressive; and Fiyero… well, as the captain of the guard, Fiyero is naturally swamped with work, all of it to do with coordinating the manhunt; and with no additional manpower, next to no evidence to be found and even less sleep, it doesn't take long for frustration to set in. Arguments become depressingly frequent; the most common target of his bad mood is Sergeant Harnley (the fact that Harnley keeps demanding that Elphaba be arrested doesn't help), but as time goes on and the pressure from the Wizard increases, it quickly expands to just about anyone. And – to Glinda's sorrow – it even results their first screamed argument.

The postponement of the wedding doesn't help.

In fact, the only thing keeping Fiyero from a complete mental breakdown are the few hours of sleep he's allowed – generally the only time Glinda sees him away from work – and most of that's spent tossing and turning, muttering disconsolately about "bottles" and "not enough time, wrong questions."

And Glinda can't criticize him, because she's in almost the same condition, except with the added bonus of being worried sick about Elphaba. After all, with such widespread fear of another magical enemy roaming the city, it's only a matter of time before someone blames her for this debacle… and once faith in her is lost, how long will it be before their adoring public turn on "The Redeemed?" How long until they storm the palace and have her lynched on the very spot she was reintroduced to Oz? And with this in mind, Glinda can't help but wonder if it might be a good idea to steal the Grimmerie and try to remake the enchanted broomstick – just to make sure that Elphie has a way of escaping the city prepared if the worst comes to the worst.

Of course, that would mean risking Morrible's explosive wrath, and by extension, risking death. Even getting within eavesdropping distance of her door has become something of an adventure, especially given all the alarm spells that have been placed around it. Looking back on the brisk and cheerfully callous demeanour the press secretary was known for back at Shiz, Glinda has to wonder if it was all an act. But then, it'd be hard to cover hard to imagine the old headmistress flying into a magic-flinging rage at the slightest interruption, or forcing a maid out of her room violently enough to bruise the poor girl's face. Perhaps the experiments she's performing really are vital enough to merit such temper-tantrums; or maybe she's just lost her marbles.

Given how bad things are going without Morrible's hand on the tiller, the latter seems much more likely.

But what is she up to, really? What has her muttering furiously over "non-decaying tissue samples" and "cerebral readings?" What the hell is a "psycho-thaumaturgical emotional influencing technique", and why is Morrible so upset about it not working?

---

They call her "Daydreamin' Dorothy," now - sometimes affectionately, sometimes harshly, but always true.

She's always lost in thought, always staring into the distance with her mind a thousand miles away from the job at hand; Uncle Henry remarks that she needs to get her head examined, and Aunt Em jokes that she can easily get a job as a semi-convincing fortune-teller if she keeps that hazy, far-off look on her face much longer. For her part, Dorothy just does her best to keep up with working and learning and living: there's always animals to feed, meals to help prepare, floors to sweep, books to read, and always some place she needs to get to in a hurry.

And through it all, she's trying valiantly not to get herself too distracted by her fantasies… or by the other things she sees when she lets her mind drift far enough. Usually, it's a long, winding road of yellow bricks leading her towards a vast city of glittering green towers and turrets, of crowds gathering to watch beautifully-dressed women conjure tiny thunderstorms and swirling mists, and people singing the praises of a Wizard and a being they call "The Redeemed."

Sometimes, the visions are darker: sometimes, she sees men and women writhing in pain as they slowly turn into farmyard animals, or the sky darkening with hundreds of winged figures scanning the landscape below; she sees doors being kicked in and men with guns forcing their way into rooms full of cowering figures; crowds fleeing in terror from something unseen; and more often than not, a vast metal face screaming its displeasure at the tiny audience beneath it.

Sometimes, she even sees a crooked old woman toiling over a desk covered in delicate glass instruments, muttering and swearing as machinery sparks and rumbles around her, furiously smearing makeup on her face to cover the discoloured blotches and weeping sores that mar her skin. "Come on!" the old woman often raves. "You're not supposed to be thinking like this: this is not a logicalitic rational frame of mind, not in the most remotified sense of the word! Stabilize, damn you, stabilize! JAVE, HAVE YOU BEEN DRINKING OUT OF THESE BEAKERS AGAIN?!"

The most persistent of the visions are of a huge underground chamber filled with weird equipment and tanks full of bubbling liquid, a room staffed entirely by animals standing on two legs. Watching them from a balcony is a woman, pale-skinned and dark haired, with eerily piercing eyes; she smiles as she observes their progress and compliments them on their hard work, never angry with them, never deriding them, never even raising her voice… but somehow, Dorothy finds her more terrifying than anything else she's witnessed in these dreams.

She isn't entirely sure why she's seeing any of this, but at times – when she's fast asleep, deeply immersed in her dreams and as far away from the real world as possible – she gets the most peculiar feeling that a door has been opened somewhere not too far from Kansas, and she's just hearing the noise echoing from next-door.

But it's in these dreams, where the real world can't dissolve her fears, where she finds herself truly worrying about the future: something tells her that the noises from next-door are getting louder, as if one of the "neighbours" is approaching to see what's on the other side of the door. Whoever gets to the door first, whether it's the crooked old witch or the woman with the soul-piercing eyes, it's not going to end well either way.

And something tells her that the door can't be so easily shut.

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A/N: We're going to be taking a break from the dream segments and allowing the main characters to do stuff while conscious for a bit; quite apart from the fact that we need to get on track with the main storyline, I think Elphaba and Glinda have slept in for long enough. To those of you who've been really getting into the backstory, worry not: we'll be returning to the dreamland soon. Until next time, be generous with reviews, opinions and critiques!