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.

29. Confronting Oneself

A/N: I'm back! Happy New Year, everyone! Congratulations to all readers and reviewers, for this story has now reached 100 reviews! (Grand Fanfare, Applause, Streamers Explode From Ceiling, etc). As always, I hope I can finish and upload more chapters per month than I did last year, and hope you all enjoy the story that emerges. A warning to readers this week - this particular chapter is very much concerned with the war effort, and such will feature violence, gore, and disturbing scenes; apologies to all who do not enjoy this, and with any luck, it doesn't seem too gratuitous or over-the-top (no promises on the latter, sadly).

Calliax, it's good to hear your praise of how I write the relationships - I'm always terrified of somehow turning these sequences into George Lucas hand-me-downs! I'm also glad you like it in spite of it not being a Gelphie; as I've said before, I would have written a straightforward Gelphie, but all my attempts to set it up felt forced and contrived. We'll see how I do with continuing character interactions in this story though...

Nami Swann: yep, the crystals were one of many ideas I chose for the fear factor - particularly the sort inherent in "power at a price." Glad you liked it!

Radiant Beam, it's okay: given that I tend to disappear for weeks on end, I can't criticize anyone for vanishing - though it is marvellous to hear from you again. Oh, and I certainly sympathize with you going to see Wicked live - I might very well be doing that again soon! Anyhow, I'm glad you like how Elphaba's characterization and the matter of the crystallization, and it will definitely be fun to write Glinda's reaction. Thanks so much for your review, and I hope the story continues to impress, astonish, and entertain.

Oh, and Lexie, I know you didn't review this particular chapter, but I'd just like to thank you for the review that tipped the counter onto the 100 mark. I'm glad you've enjoyed the story so far, and I'm glad you find it well-written. Thanks!

So, without further ado, the latest chapter. Critiques, constructive criticisms, corrections and advice are all welcome - reviews most of all, the longer and more detailed the better.

Read, review, and above all, enjoy!

Disclaimer: Wicked doesn't belong to me. You'll have to take this on faith.

6/1/15: Corrected spelling and a few mismanaged sentences, as well as one recurring continuity error.

---

Even on her better days, nobody in all of Oz would have been able to describe Glinda as "a morning person" – not with a straight face, anyway. A notorious sleeper-in since childhood, she'd rarely ever succeeded in getting out of bed before ten unless she absolutely had to, and even in the case of school and family functions, that was rarely a guarantee; after all, her ever-forgiving parents had usually been able to smooth over difficulties with irate relatives and exasperated teachers, so most of the problems had been conveniently overlooked.

At Shiz, though, nobody overlooked them: tutors grumbled disapprovingly, Morrible lectured her at length about the importance of punctualization and correctly arrangifying the schedule of one's life, and Elphaba was forced to shake her awake on no less than thirty-seven different occasions. On one particularly trying morning, she'd gone so far as to drop a handful of icecubes down the back of Glinda's neck just so she'd get out of bed; Glinda had retaliated up by soaking Elphaba's clothes in peppermint extract, Elphaba had enchanted Glinda's bedsheets to tickle her relentlessly all through the night, Glinda had flung her textbooks out the window and scattered them across the surrounding gardens, and Elphaba had followed that up by replacing Glinda's shampoo with green dye, and so on and so forth until the two of them declared a truce (and eventually, friendship).

And if her university days had curbed the tendency for oversleeping, her time in the Wizard's service almost ended it for good: sleeping through celebrations in praise of the Wizard was strictly forbidden, and looking even vaguely dozy at any point during one of the rallies would have resulted in a vicious earbashing from Morrible, so Glinda was forced to restrict sleeping in to her days off; true, she still spent roughly half an hour of every morning shambling around like a zombie, but after the first three cups of heavily-sugared coffee, she was awake enough to qualify as "presentable."

As such, when the alarm woke her that cold and particularly gloomy morning, Glinda's first response was to blearily open one eye and wonder exactly why she was conscious at a time when light was only just visible through the curtains. Eventually, she managed to locate the alarm clock and switch it off – no easy task with one eye still clenched shut and a pair of arms that felt as though they were made of rubber; unfortunately, reading the clock-face proved utterly impossible to her sleep-fogged senses, so against all logic and sanity, she found herself awkwardly hauling herself out of bed and tottering across the floor towards the nearest window. Glinda took one look at the fiery-orange sun making its slow but glorious ascent over the still-majestic sweep of Greenspectre's ruined skyline, and promptly decided that there was no way in hell she'd ever willingly get out of bed at this hour of the morning, the alarm presumably being a ghastly mistake on her part: so, without another thought, she tumbled back into bed, cocooned herself in as many blankets as humanly possible, and closed her eyes.

Two minutes later, the alarm sounded again, even louder than before.

Swearing quietly to herself, Glinda wrapped the pillow around her ears and wondered why she'd decided to set a second alarm. Not that the improvised earmuffs did any good: she could still hear the skull-piercing shriek of the clock gently drilling its way into her brain… and for some reason, she could also hear the sound of her front door opening and shutting.

For perhaps twenty seconds, she could only lie there, trying to force herself back to sleep in spite of the alarm and the confusion and the multiplying questions as to why unexpected visitors were barging into her apartment. Then, a familiar voice called out, "Morning, Glinda. Ready for your first session? The Mentor's waiting for you in the sparring chamber."

And suddenly, Glinda remembered: the talk she'd had with the Mentor, the training scheduled for the morning, the alarm she'd set the previous evening as per the Mentor's instructions, the second alarm she'd set after that as per the Mentor's instructions, Vara cheerfully mentioning that the Mentor would send her around just to make sure she got up on time… Glinda banged her cushioned head against the mattress. Oh sweet Lurline, how is it that the old hag can somehow be an alternate version of me and somehow resistify the urge to sleep in?

She sat up in bed with a groan and thumped the clock into silence. As an afterthought, she glanced at the clock-face, hoping that she'd been hallucinating the sunrise and Vara's arrival, that it was, in fact, actually a lot earlier than it felt and she could just go back to bed. No such luck: it was now exactly six o'clock. Oh well, at least Vara was readying some coffee, if that wonderful smell wafting from the kitchen was any evidence. For a time, Glinda sat there, letting the smell of brewing coffee waft over her, trying to convince herself that the Mentor's lessons would be worth it, and she'd be able to distinguish herself for once in her embarrassing education.

Then, the other memories came flooding back: suddenly, Glinda remembered what she'd seen in her last night's dream-memories, recalling every event with a clarity impossible even in the most vivid of real dreams.

After witnessing her other self's memories of the Plague of Transformations, she'd been secretly dreading her next sleeptime, half-expecting her dreams to feature another horrific outbreak, an armed uprising against the Wizard and anyone who'd made the mistake of believing in him, the other Elphaba finally revealing her insanity, or at the very least something involving a great deal of blood on the streets. But last night's experiences had been… wonderful. True, the Plague had still been a menace on the outskirts of Oz, it victims were still being delivered to the Asylum every other day of the week, and people were still living in fear of the threat that Morrible represented, but in spite of all the terrors and the conspiracies that had no doubt been at work behind the scenes, Glinda's other self – the future Mentor – had remained untouched. No more unexpected kitten transformations, no more detective work, no more anxieties over Elphaba's health, no more impromptu duels with Morrible, no more shouted arguments with Fiyero, no more uncertainty, and above all, no more unhappiness.

Somehow, this version of Glinda had ended up living the kind of lifestyle she'd always wanted: she and Elphaba were both employed by the Wizard, their friendship unopposed by the public; work didn't torture her conscience, nor did it pit her against her best friend; and best of all, Fiyero was there for her. There was no sign that he secretly loved Elphaba, or that discontent would seep into the relationships they treasured: no, Glinda and Fiyero were in love – undeniably, unshakeably, head-over-heels in love – and due to be married any day. There, in the paradise of the dream-memory, they really were perfect together.

Yes, it was only a dream; yes, that idyllic time had been over for almost fifty years; yes, the happy dream-memories were due to end in tragedy with the other Elphaba's transformation into the Empress, and the woman who'd experienced all that joy and contentment was now the Mentor. But funnily enough, Glinda couldn't bring herself to care: even if it was only a dream, she'd experienced more happiness in it than all her days in the Wizard's service, for alongside the all-too-familiar memories of parties, banquets, masquerades, official ceremonies, rallies, parades and other events that Glinda had attended and enjoyed (mostly), there had emerged such astonishing memories of her other self's time with Fiyero.

There'd been the moment when they'd rekindled their relationship in the wake of the Morrible's departure from the Emerald City, making love in a frenzy of ecstasy that was driven almost as much by sheer relief as it was by mutual passion – relief that the worst was over and that they'd escaped the chaos alive and unscathed. There'd been shopping trips when they'd wandered the streets and markets of the Emerald City, rejoicing in each other's company and revisiting familiar places with all the exuberance of the madly in love. There'd been summer days when they'd never left their apartment, sheltering from the baking sun in their luxurious quarters, spending the entire day asleep and nestled in each other's arms. There'd been that unbelievable afternoon when Fiyero had managed to secretly arrange an informal dinner atop of the highest tower of the palace, where they'd dined on cold meats and salads purloined from the kitchen, drank wine "borrowed" from the palace's extensive cellar, and of course, took in the wondrous sight of the sun slowly setting on the Emerald City: the sunset blazing across the gleaming emerald skyline, so vast on the horizon that it looked as though it was only a few miles away – as if Elphaba had been powerful enough to pluck the sun from the sky just for this; the gentle fading of the light as the sun finally drifted out of view, and the sky took on a hue of palest aquamarine as the day came to end; then, night descended on them, and Emerald City's own lights slowly flickered into life, the light quickly reflected and magnified by the gem-studded walls of the building until the entire metropolis glittered like a jewel.

It seemed as though every single romantic cliché that Elphaba had ever made fun of during her more cynical days had come true for Glinda and Fiyero. Glinda herself had spent every day of that month-long expanse of memories so buoyant with happiness that she probably didn't even need the bubble anymore – if she'd taken her shoes off, she could have probably just floated away on the breeze; she smiled even more often than her usual standard, an infectious, jubilant grin that would have taken half a year of dedicated hammering and chiselling to remove; and every experience was amplified and intensified a thousandfold, especially when she was with Fiyero. Every single kiss, every single embrace, every single gesture of affection – whether it was from Fiyero to Glinda or vice versa – was memorialized in exquisite detail… especially the last one she'd experienced.

But it had never happened to her in reality.

It had happened to the Mentor.

In her own memories, Fiyero had never kissed Glinda with the passion he'd displayed in the dream; he'd limited his kisses to the occasional peck on the check, and then only if the cameras were rolling. On every date he'd shared with her from the minute they'd left Shiz, he'd been thinking about Elphaba – up until the day he'd rescued her from the guards and fled from the Emerald City by her side. In hindsight, it had seemed so inevitable that it would come to that, so obvious that he'd been infatuated with her: why else would he have volunteered to lead the hunting parties? Why else would have always been at his most excited when his regiment was leaving the city, and why else would he have seemed so disappointed when they came back empty-handed? Why else would he have always seemed even angrier than her when the rumour-mill spat out another disgusting story about Elphaba? He'd wanted her from the very beginning, not because he hated Glinda, not because he'd wanted her to suffer… but simply because Elphaba had – once again – been better than her.

Unpleasant memories of Oz's great day of celebrations "in defiance of the Wicked Witch" flashed before her eyes, of the moment where Fiyero had stormed off in a fury when he'd heard the lies that had been told about the woman he secretly adored, and how Glinda had told the onlookers that she couldn't be happier – lying with every word she spoke, for even though she could never have imagined or admitted that Fiyero really loved Elphaba, she still knew that the marriage-to-be was already deteriorating and having to slander Elphaba in the name of the Wizard had left her miserable anyway.

Was there anything Glinda could have done to rekindle their relationship, just as the Mentor had? Or had Fiyero been out of her reach from the instant he'd helped Elphaba smuggle the lion cub out of the class?

She sighed bitterly. The pain of losing Fiyero – first as a lover, then in seeing him dragged off to be tortured and executed – was still raw and fresh. Well of course it's fresh, idiot, her self-loathing sneered, it only happened a few days ago. You're still feeling the aftershocks of everything that's happened since then. I mean, just last night you almost had a heart attack when you saw that shadow over your bed – you thought it was Cataphlax and Ranse back from the dead, remember? And if it wasn't for the dream-pills, you'd still be having nightmares of what happened in Unbridled Radiance. Don't act surprised: you haven't recovered, not really.

There was a cough from the door, and Glinda looked up to see Vara standing there, eyeing her curiously. "You alright?" she asked gently.

"Fine," Glinda lied, hastily blinking away her tears.

"You needn't worry about your friend, you know: from what I've seen of her, she's a very capable witch, and she's got Harker there as her bodyguard; plus, word is that there's over three thousand troops at Loamlark right now – three thousand heavily-armed men and women around to help her keep the border safe. Chances are you'll be seeing Elphaba again in a few days – alive, healthy, and probably sporting a few medals too."

And now I'm back to worrying about Elphaba, Glinda thought wearily. This is turning out to be a wonderful start to the morning. And I've still got training to look forward to!

Tottering out of bed, she hurried through her normal routine as quickly as possible: she drank the first cup of coffee of the day and helped herself to a slice of toast, before sprinting into the bathroom for a shower that thankfully made some headway towards properly reviving her; after attending to what other steps in her morning ablutions she had time for, she hastily wrapped herself in a towel and hurried back into the kitchen for her second cup of coffee, before making a beeline for the wardrobe and hunting down something appropriate to wear in the Mentor's present. Once she was dressed and finished applying her makeup, she retrieved her wand from the bedside table, strode out to the kitchen and finished off her third cup of coffee – by which time it was 6:25.

"Where are these training sessions being held?" she asked, trying not to let her twitching fingers give away the caffeine rush.

Vara smiled mysteriously. "Check outside your front door," was all she said.

Opening the apartment's front door revealed that a glowing magical portal had been conjured right on the doorstep; past the haze of crackling magical energies that bordered the circular gateway, Glinda could see what looked like some kind of gymnasium waiting for her, complete with stark white walls, bare floors cushioned with training mats, and a number of exercise machines lined up in the distance – ranging from recognizable devices such as the stationary bicycle, the rowing machine and the punching bag, to complicated-looking arrays of copper wire and brass cylinders that Glinda could only guess the function of.

"The Mentor thought you might be a little late leaving your apartment," Vara explained, "so she set this doorway up just to cut down on the ten minutes you'd have to waste getting the training room. Have you got your wand ready, by the way?"

Glinda held up the gleaming silver wand in her hand by way of explanation.

"Wonderful. Now, off you go: have fun…"

---

By the time Elphaba and Kiln had reached the northern wall, the defenders were already assembled and lined up from one end of the fortifications to the next.

Over the course of the previous evening, Loamlark's already formidable walls had been heavily modified through the combined effort of Polyandrium's skeletal husks and a small cadre of architecturally-minded magicians, digging trenches across the road outside, reinforcing Loamlark's façade through runes and enchantment, telekinetically assembling collections of rebar into new watchtowers for the snipers, even expanding the battlements to allow the soldiers more room. From what Elphaba had seen of the construction process, it had taken several hours of work to complete, lasting well into the night; now, with sunrise dyeing the ramparts crimson and the construction finally finished, the wall was swarming with the assembled armies of the Deviant Nations and their temporary allies.

Down in the trenches, the husks were spread out across the front lines, ready to draw the enemies fire if need be; behind them stood mixed groups of regulars and Irredeemables, all of them armed to the teeth (often quite literally in the latter case), some of them accompanied by a repeating gun turret or two. Around the city gates, the hulking automatons of Ironmongery Peak had joined the amassed defenders on the ground, and now stood in perfect formation alongside their organic comrades, their brass chassis gleaming in the sunlight as they readied their colossal piston-powered muscles and shouldered rifles that could have easily doubled as carronades. Perhaps seeking safety in numbers – or perhaps out of morbid interest in seeing the mechanical brutes in action – the mercenaries had also joined the soldiers at the gate with a horribly enthusiastic Colonel Gloss in tow, his silver knife in one hand and a bandolier of grenades in the other. On the sturdiest of the battlements, the real artillery had been assembled: cannons, mortars, heavy repeaters, anti-vehicle arrays, and an assortment of bewildering machines that Elphaba could have only guessed the function of – and given that the construction materials appeared to range from burnished brass and copper, polished bone, and writhing vein-studded flesh, she probably would have been guessing for quite a while. Behind the walls stood the last line of defence: the few hundred soldiers, Irredeemables and magicians not arrayed on the ramparts or stationed down in the trenches had assembled behind the gates, ready to repel anyone who'd breached the gates; for good measure, a few of Marchfly's "professional" militiamen had been allowed to join them – partly to add to the defenders, but mostly to put an end to Marchfly's constant grumbling.

As for Elphaba, she was once again positioned atop one of Loamlark's towers with Kiln at her side; Harker, meanwhile, was content to pick off any of Elphaba's potential assassins from the window just below them. As for the others, the magicians of the Deviant Nations had been regulated to the uppermost battlements for the second time in as many days. This time, though, there were much more of them than before: across Loamlark's permanent watchtowers, the Deviant Nations' improvised sentry posts and the broader stretches of scaffolding, over a hundred and forty qualified battle magicians had gathered, ready to pelt the enemy with all the destructive they could muster. And once again, Elphaba was partly in command – this time over thirty of the visiting magicians now arranged either on the tower rooftop around her or on the battlements surrounding it.

"Enemy forces gathering on the forest's edge, Section Coordinator," one of the magicians announced, snapping a salute as Elphaba hurried across the tower.

"They haven't advanced yet," said another, "but scans suggest they're preparing to do so, Ma'am."

By now, she'd almost gotten used to being greeted with salutes and shouts of "something, something, Section Coordinator, Ma'am!" so this time, the first surprise of the day involved one of the quartermasters' assistants handing her a cumbersome lump of rubber and canvas that, once unfolded, looked more like a burlap sack with eyeholes than anything else.

"What the hell is this?" Elphaba whispered to Kiln.

"A gas mask; intelligence suggests that the enemy will probably be using chemical weapons." Kiln nodded in the general direction of the other magicians, most of whom were hastily donning masks of their own; a quick glance over the edge of the battlements revealed that most of the allied troops were doing the same.

"You know, it'd be a whole lot easier just to let me cast a few rudimentary air-filtering spells instead."

"Unfortunately, you're going to need to save your strength for the battle ahead; believe me, a gas mask costs a lot less energy than a set of filtering enchantments."

"What about the locals? Do they have any protection?"

"We've distributed as many masks as we can possibly spare to the townsfolk, and we've got a few magicians and mage-surgeons in the streets below to help out anyone who succumbs. Not a foolproof solution, but it'll work for now. Do you need any help with that mask, by the way?"

Elphaba took a deep breath, doffed her hat and wearily pulled the gas mask over her head. The drawbacks were immediately obvious: it was swelteringly hot, painfully tight, and so foul-smelling that it was a marvel that Elphaba didn't asphyxiate on the spot; worse still, the goggles attached to the mask restricted her vision so thoroughly that she was in constant danger of tripping over her own feet – even before the glass started fogging over. To add insult to injury, the thick rubber layered over her ears and the constant hiss of her breath through the air filter made it almost impossible to hear anything, and the filter made her own speech incomprehensible anyway.

Fortunately, most of the troops were communicating through the radio headsets worn beneath their masks, which meant that the only thing Elphaba had to worry about were the near-infinite array of enemies not broadcasting along the same wavelength.

"Relax," Kiln soothed, as Elphaba struggled to adjust the mask. "The sentries will see the enemy long before they get within earshot."

"And chances are I won't even hear them through all this static."

Kiln cheerfully tapped the microphone of his own headset with a long, serpentine finger. "Have a little faith in scientific development."

"And whoever manufactures these masks, too?"

"I'll be sure to pass on your commendations to the manufacturer if we survive this escapade, then."

"Oh hah." As an afterthought, Elphaba hastily scooped up her hat and fastened it on over the mask. There, she thought, at least now I won't look like a complete idiot. As an afterthought, she added aloud, "Incidentally, why the hell aren't you wearing a mask?"

"What makes you think I'm not?"

A quick glance in Kiln's direction revealed that the mage-surgeon was now sporting a fresh set of augmentations: a translucent mass of flesh had been carefully pasted over his mouth, his nostrils and the microphone of his headset; the skin on his face had taken on a faintly waxy sheen, and as Kiln straightened, Elphaba thought she could see the waxiness making its way along his jawline and down his neck; his eyes had changed too, the familiar murky-blue irises now almost completely hidden behind a cloudy set of nictitating membranes, like those of a crocodile.

"You know, it'd be helpful if you could just do the same for me and everyone else in the tower," Elphaba remarked.

"Nowhere near enough time, materials, or safety procedures for that matter. Plus, people tend to vomit the first time they try out the organic filter – not a good thing to happen inside a breath mask. Oh-ooh, eyes northwards, Elphaba: the guests are on their way."

Over the sound of Command offering similar warnings to the other troops over the open frequency, Elphaba peered out over the edge of the battlements and saw – with some difficulty – a faint glint of silver at the very end of Loamlark's northern road. Muttering a few well-chosen incantations, she amplified her vision through the goggles of the mask, effectively converting them into a pair of binoculars; focussing the telescopic lenses on the shapes gathering in front of the distant forest, she zoomed closer and closer, until the first row of enemy troops marched into view – fifty soldiers in total.

Then a second row, also fifty in total.

Then a third.

And then, just as the fourth row crept into view, two more companies marched out alongside them – leaving a grand total of six hundred heavily-armed figures assembled in the distance.

They weren't Penitents; that much was clear: in sharp contrast to the rabid, shrieking, slavering charge of the tumult they'd seen yesterday, these soldiers moved in well-ordered ranks at a slow but near-perfectly synchronized march. Instead of rifles or any other recognizable kind of firearms, they were all armed with long silver lances, and instead of the crisp white uniforms that Elphaba had come to expect from UR personnel, all of them wore identical suits of gleaming silver armour clustered with elaborate gold filigree and engraved decorations, the cylindrical helmets enclosed to conceal the face and almost featureless except for the tiny glass visors.

"What the hell are they?" Elphaba whispered to Kiln, as the battalion halted.

"Elite guardsmen," he whispered back through private channels. "The Empress's own heavy infantry; walking bullet sponges, for all intents and purposes. And before you ask, that's not armour they're wearing: it's a semi-metallic exoskeleton; pretty as anything UR puts on display, but cheaper than dirt to manufacture in bulk and even cheaper to bond to a guardsman's flesh."

Elphaba struggled with the urge to wince. "Is that a one-way process?"

"Not to my knowledge: last I knew, it was still common policy to dissolve the bonding after a battle… but getting the stuff on or off isn't exactly the most painless thing in the world, and it comes with some very interesting side effects. Some quite terminal in the case of the odd one in five hundred."

"Like what?"

"I've seen guardsmen die from allergic reactions to the bondin' agents," said a grizzled voice that most certainly did not belong to Kiln. "I've seen people try to remove their armour without the anti-bonding solvents, rip off half their flesh while they're about it; I've seen people bond to the armour so well, they just melt away once they're out of the armour; I've even seen armour sucked into guardsmen's bodies, and end up wrapped around their innards. If that doesn't kill 'em, their superiors will: they'll cut their throats and dig out the armour with an ice-cream scoop so someone else can wear it."

There was a horrified pause.

"Harker?" Elphaba hissed.

"Yep, that's m'name."

"Did you just make all that up just to scare me?"

"I can neither confirm nor deny," the sniper chuckled, and hung up.

After a bemused pause, Kiln finally remarked, "I honestly don't know what's scarier: the fact that I know he's telling the truth, or the fact that this is the first time I've heard him laugh in almost ten years."

By now, the glittering ranks of elite guardsmen had been joined by reinforcements, including several platoons of their lesser counterparts (easily recognizable by their more conventional white uniforms and plain but efficient-looking rifles) and several squadrons of armoured vehicles hovering in mid-air. A mixture of troop carriers for the lesser guardsmen and attack craft, they ranged from gleaming white airborne barges with cumbersome, whale-shaped hulls, to streamlined silver darts just large enough to carry their one pilot and the massive payload of weaponry in their nosecone. And hovering in the skies above them was a small cluster of Vigilant Eyes – hardly the colossal swarm that had attacked Loamlark yesterday, but still more than enough to pose a serious threat.

And yet, none of them advanced: the entire army remained motionless on the border between the road and the forest, remaining just outside of artillery range; scanning the assembled regiments through her telescopic lenses, Elphaba could see some of the guardsmen whispering to each other, the officers exchanging orders over radio headsets of their own, but nothing that might signal readiness to charge.

But it was the Vigilant Eyes that were the most concerning: for the past few minutes, they'd been swivelling back and forth in mid-air, as if searching for something; now, though, all of them were focussed on a single target, and unless Elphaba had misjudged the direction they were facing, that target was almost certainly her.

"What are they waiting for?" someone whispered across the open frequency.

Even with her hearing still muffled by the mask, Elphaba couldn't fail to hear the series of explosions that followed those words. Somewhere under the forest canopy, lights flashed and flickered in rapid succession, and the trees shook as something below them shot upwards, crashing violently through their branches and up into the sky: a moment later, the air was suddenly clouded with the smoke-trails of over a dozen mortar shells, all of them soaring across the mountain road and all of them descending towards Loamlark.

"All troops, brace for incoming bombardment!" the command post barked. "Maintain formation and keep those masks prepped."

One after the other, the mortar shells slammed into Loamlark's defences, some landing in the midst of the trenches dug outside, a few exploding gently against the fortifications, and others simply bypassing the wall altogether and crashing into the courtyard far below. One after the other, they erupted, sending out immense jets of gas across the northern front and filling the air with huge clouds of murky grey vapour; slowly, the gas billowed across the trenches and poured across the walls, pooling and puddling in the streets behind the gate, before finally rising to swallow the watchtowers. Elphaba quickly found herself surrounded on all sides by banks of toxic fog, plunged into near-total darkness by the dark clouds now blotting out the sun, and struggling not to trip over her own feet as the gas oozed around her legs.

But no matter how uncomfortable it might have been, Elphaba's mask worked perfectly – and judging by the all-clear sounding off from one end of the wall to the other, the rest of the army had also survived.

Kiln (who was just about the only member of her team still visible by this stage) was now peering blindly into the murk, his snakelike fingers spiralling fluidly through the air as they tested the gas surrounding him. "It's a paralytic," he murmured. "Strictly non-lethal, barring allergies. Funny, this stuff's normally used by UR's police, not the military."

"Maybe they want to capture us alive?" Elphaba suggested.

"Maybe so, but I can't imagine their plan for successfully restraining us before the gas wears off."

"Well, it probably doesn't matter now: we've got gas masks and this stuff doesn't appear to effect the skin in any way, so their strategy didn't work. End of story."

There was a whirr of static from the command post: "All troops, stay alert. They could be trying to use as cover for an uphill march towards us. Magician teams, could you see what you could do about clearing away the gas?"

"Aye-aye, sir," Elphaba replied. Tracing a series of magical gestures through the air and trying not to think about just how curiously viscous the atmosphere felt, she called up the strongest gust of wind she could summon without hurting any of the nearby troops, and sent it rushing into the gas-fogged sky. A few seconds later, the banks of cloud began to shift, allowing a few stray beams of sunlight to shine through the murk, miniscule against the clouds of vapour dominating the sky, but it was a start; Elphaba went on casting, summoning another more sustained breeze to widen the gaps in the fog and separate the cloud, the magicians on the other towers joining in with spells of their own.

But just as the sky was creeping into view, there was another explosion – this time directly above the wall: a moment later, screams rang out across the battlements, and Elphaba hurried over to the easter edge of the tower just in time to see one of the gun crews topple to the ground, their bodies pierced in a dozen places by a series of tiny, daggerlike shapes that could only be darts. Yet another explosion sounded over the battlements to the immediate west of the tower, and this time, Elphaba saw the flechettes in motion – a torrent of them raining down on the defenders like hail, sending engineers and magicians alike scurrying for cover. Anyone unlucky enough to be left standing in the path of the storm was instantly pincushioned, and fell to the ground – unconscious or dead.

Worse still, thanks to the thick pockets of gas still hanging over the walls, many of the troops clearly couldn't see well enough to avoid the incoming bombardment – probably the very thing the enemy had been counting on.

There was the distant wail of another incoming flechette shell directly overhead, and this time Elphaba launched directly into action: shouting a warning to her fellow magicians, she conjured the thickest possible shield of energies she could possibly manage on short notice and held it over her head, hoping that Unbridled Radiance hadn't created a dart that could pierce her enchantments.

But instead of exploding above her, the shell exploded behind her.

Instantly, there was a stabbing pain in Elphaba's back, accompanied by a jolt of force that would have toppled her if Kiln hadn't managed to grab her at the last minute.

From what little she could see through the eyeholes of her useless mask, the mage-surgeon had only managed to intercept one or two of the darts, and most of them were harmlessly embedded in the bone plating he'd coated his shoulders. The other magicians weren't so lucky: none of them had managed to escape the blast entirely unscathed, and fifteen of them had already collapsed – the rest apparently well on their way to losing consciousness as well.

And across the battlements, the clamour of exploding flechette shells filled the air once again, the other magician teams only just managing to shield themselves in time. Unfortunately, none of them appeared to be in any position to help her or the other magicians in any of the affected towers. Fortunately, Kiln was now frantically rummaging through the cavernous depths of his satchel for something that – hopefully – could help.

Okay, Elphaba thought, just stay calm. Just need to take a deep breath and try to think clearly. Give some constructive orders. Need to concen… No, no, don't nod off. I only woke up a couple of hours ago, I can't go back to sleep again this early in the morning. I'll be grumpy all afternoon.

She blinked rapidly. What the hell am I thinking? How badly was I hit?

Vision blurring, footing unstable, pain rippling across her back and mingling with the still-tender ache of the crystal growing there, Elphaba blearily turned and saw that there were at least twenty-seven darts protruding from her shoulders and spine.

Ah.

"Kiln?" she called. Her voice sounded muffled and far-off, and the periphery of her vision was starting to blur and fade. "I think you might want to start pretending to be a medic again."

"Just a second, just a second… I've got something that might work, if I can only find it…"

"I don't mean to rush you, but I think I might just be about to lose c-"

And then the ground lurched upwards to meet her, and Elphaba's world went blank.

---

From his perch atop General Stellham's command platform, the Champion surveyed the battlefield with something almost akin to interest.

With Loamlark now cloaked in a funereal shroud of paralytic gasses and the most dangerous of the city's defenders regularly hammered with flechette bombs, the Empress's army now moved upon the enemy: with the attack craft in the lead, they surged up the hill towards the gas-wreathed city in their thousands, followed closely by the Vigilant Eyes. From here, the Champion could already discern the sounds of combat echoing down the hill, of massed gunfire, obscene warcries, of magical incantations rippling with unleashed power, of explosions from both artillery and magic alike, of yells and shouts and calls for help, of crashes and collisions and detonations, and above all, the screams and sobs of the dying. All of it was audible through the command platform's sensors, audible even over General Stelham's commands to the troops, audible even over the triumphal strains of the music echoing across his mind.

But the sights and sounds of the battlefield were ultimately incidental, however gratifying they were: he had his duties to attend to, and the fraud was still at large somewhere in Loamlark; true, both the Vigilant Eyes and command's sensory instruments were scanning the city's defences for any sign of the monstrous charlatan, and the Empress was guiding him through the observation lens at his neck, but the green-skinned woman had yet to appear. The Champion was not troubled, however: the Eyes had yet to finish their sweep of the city and the dense cloud made close scans difficult, so until the results finally arrived, he was content to wait and observe.

And of course, he listened: with the voice of the Empress whispering into his ears in the real world, and the music swirling and eddying across the ordered landscape of his mind, he had more than enough to ensure his serenity for the coming battle. Though it was true that the Empress was busy fending off one of the Deviant Nations' more brazen attacks and could not aid him directly, she was always watching him, and for this mission she had blessed him with her direct guidance… and the certainty that only her voice could grant.

Remain vigilant, my love, she was murmuring. This woman may be a fraud, but she's also a very powerful witch if the reports are accurate: do not make the mistake of underestimating her. The Mentor would not have sent her to the front if she was only intended as an insult.

The Champion offered his agreement in a brief mental signal that echoed back across the gulf that separated them, and continued his observations.

For perhaps a minute and a half, the battle continued uneventfully, the familiar sounds of the war occasionally joined by the solemn chanting of General Stellham as he went about casting a spell of his own.

But then, as the cloud shifted back and forth across the walls of the city, one of the sensors on the control panel in front of him gave a faint blip; tuning the signal to maximum, the Champion peered down at the instruments… and saw her.

The fraud.

Her face was still hidden behind a gasmask, but the energy signature that the Vigilant Eyes had registered in yesterday's battle matched perfectly, and there was no mistaking the pointed hat either. There she was, cowering on one of the nearest towers of Loamlark, being helped to her feet by a mage-surgeon – weak, pathetic, flimsy, a failure even as a mockery of the Empress she'd sought to deface!

You know what to do, my love.

The Champion nodded to himself.

He knew.

He was already in motion, leaping nimbly over the control panel and into the command platform's private hangar bay.

The Empress would have her prize.

---

"You know, you could afford to slow down and take a breath for a moment: flechette toxin might not be lethal, but it's not exactly the healthiest thing in the world."

"I'll be fine," Elphaba gasped. "What did you just do?"

By way of explanation, Kiln held up the object he'd been rummaging through his satchel for: a hollow metal staff with a small trigger at one end and a tiny brass funnel attached to the other, overall somewhat reminiscent of a cattle prod. "It's called a Rude Awakening," he said. "It's really just a chemical sprayer for a very powerful stim – good for dispelling the effects of tranquilizers, including overdoses. It's also quite fast-acting: you were only unconscious for about a minute in total."

"Oh wonderful. Dream pills, witchcrystal, poison darts, and now this. Is it really such a good idea for me to have so many drugs in my system at once?"

"No, but given the current circumstances, I'm afraid your recuperation will have to wait until the fighting's stopped."

Elphaba's eyes widened in horror. "The battle!" she hissed. Instantly, she was in motion again, hobbling across the tower and over the unconscious bodies of her fellow magicians, towards the tower's edge. By now, the gas cloud had disperse just enough for Elphaba to see that the enemy strike force had finally arrived on Loamlark's doorstep. From here, she could just about discern the blurry shapes of airborne vehicles soaring with ease through the fog and over the minefield, disgorging their living cargos of guardsmen almost right in front of the trenches – the defenders pinned down with massed repeater fire from the troop carriers. Worse still, thanks to the flechette bombardment, the defenders were now missing a good deal of magical firepower.

Elphaba's mind raced. "Do you have another one of those Rude Awakening things?"

"Of course."

"Alright then, hand it over: I'll see what I can do about waking up the magicians in this tower, while you see if you can get the other towers up and running."

"…. I'm sorry, what?"

"Kiln, we need these magicians conscious and fighting again; even if I really am getting stronger, I can't tackle an entire army on my own. I'm going to need backup on this."

"At the risk of sounding even more disagreeable than usual, I'm supposed to be your backup!"

"Right now, the people on the other towers need medical attention more than I do: I haven't seen any of the other mage-surgeons getting to it-"

"In their defence, they're a bit preoccupied down in the trenches – along with everyone else!"

He gestured vaguely across the chaos raging back and forth across the front line: though it was difficult to see through the miasma of dispersing gasses, the elite guardsmen were all-too-visible. Seemingly impervious to dirt and grime, their armour still gleamed as brilliantly as even, even as they disembarked from their transports and onto the blood-soaked road. As Elphaba watched, they raised their lances as one, and sent a barrage of searing magical energy at the barrier of husks – scything through the bone-sculpted armour and tearing into the troops behind them. As the defenders hurried to return fire – and the mage-surgeons struggled to assist the wounded – the guardsmen marched implacably onwards, moving slowly but surely towards the gate.

"Well then," Elphaba replied, "it's up to you to get the towers operational again, isn't it? You're the fastest runner in the entire section - you proved that much a few hours ago, remember?"

"Elphaba, if I leave you unguarded, I'll be in dereliction of my dut-"

"You won't be leaving me unguarded, not once I've gotten these magicians conscious. I'll be able to get the troops under my command awake enough to fight, you'll be able to rescue the magicians on the other towers, and together we might just be able to help win this escape without dying. Doesn't sound too bad, does it?"

Kiln let out a muted hiss of frustration. "First the Mentor and now you: why does this keep happening to me?"

There was a thunderous roar from beyond the wall: one of the larger gun turrets had just exploded, showering both the attackers and defenders with shrapnel. As the surviving gun crew fled for cover, a quintet of Vigilant Eyes slowly descended from the chaos overhead and opened fire – not on the retreating soldiers, but on the trench they were hurrying towards: fire blossomed across the hastily-dug entrenchment, stretching for almost twenty feet across the length of the defences before crashing against the nearest wall and finally petering; anyone too slow to clamber out the trench was instantly consumed – the gun crew among them. Elphaba caught a fleeting glimpse of hands desperately clawing at the lip of the trench for a handhold, and her headset briefly came alive with the agonized screams of unfortunate men and women struggling to escape the flames; a moment later, both were gone.

Kiln looked from the carnage playing out across the battlefield to Elphaba, and let out an exasperated groan. "Point taken." He handed her the staff. "I'll try to get in contact with the other mage-surgeons, see if I can direct them to the towers while I'm about it."

"What about the Rude Awakening? How do I operate it?"

"Oh, it's pretty simple: once you're finished getting all the darts out of the patient's body, just press the barrel against his neck and pull the trigger, like so." He pointed the staff at the ground and demonstrated, spraying a tiny jet of green dust onto the floor. "One spray to the neck, and move on to the next. And only one pull of the trigger, mind you: this alchemical blend is very unstable – one spray too many, and these magicians will… well, let's just say they'll be too busy screaming to be of much help. Unless they get violent. Pray they don't get violent."

"Is it a hallucinogenic?"

"Only in large doses. Actually, the symptoms tend to be a bit on the chaotic side, but they always involve a great deal of unusual behaviour. There's a vial of antidote in the grip, though: just give them a shot of that and they'll be fine. Got all that?"

"Got it."

"Good. And one more thing," Kiln added. "Try not to do anything reckless. Please?"

"No promises," said Elphaba, grinning beneath her mask.

Kiln sighed deeply. "No surprises, either," he muttered.

Then, without another word, he flung himself over the eastern side of the tower and onto the battlements below; landing on his feet with a grunt, he paused just long enough to adjust the muscles of his legs with a flourish of magic, before sprinting along the wall at an impressive pace, leaping nimbly over the wrecked machinery and corpses that littered his path. A moment later, he was gone, scrambling over the crennelations of the nearest tower and vanishing behind a thick plume of gas.

As soon as the mage-surgeon was out of view, Elphaba hurried over to the nearest of the fallen magicians and – after plucking ten flechettes out of the man's neck – applied the Rude Awakening as instructed. Then, once she was certain the man was starting to stir again, she moved onto the next. As she did so, an explosion rocked the city for perhaps the thirty-seventh time that day. Oh well, Elphaba thought, as she staggered across the rooftop towards the next magician. At least they're not targeting the tower, or this would have gotten really –

Beneath the filth-speckled lenses of her mask, Elphaba's eyes widened.

Mind racing, she hastily reviewed everything that had happened over the last few minutes of the battle: except for the initial gas bombardment and the barrage of flechettes, the enemy had almost completely ignored the towers; while the battle had raged on outside the walls, while artillery had pounded the battlements, while the Vigilant Eyes had incinerated entire squads of troops, the towers had remained conspicuously untouched. And out of all the shots that had been fired since Unbridled Radiance's army had marched through the gas cloud, how many of them had actually been aimed at the towers or the magicians that sheltered in them? None.

Why?

Were the enemy commanders really so confident that nobody would be able to wake up the magicians in time? Or was this an attempt to abduct someone, as Kiln had suggested? Perhaps there was someone up on the towers that the enemy wanted to keep out of the battle until they could be retrieved – someone important, someone valuable, someone like…

Oh dear.

And then, she saw the shadow looming over her.

Elphaba turned around just in time to catch a brief glimpse of a dark shape vaulting over the crennelations – a blur of silver and black rippling across the sky – before it slammed into her at high speed.

Already half-blinded by the dispersing clouds and the her own useless mask, Elphaba's vision now lurched wildly as her attacker all but flung her across the tower rooftop, sending her tumbling helplessly across the stone floor and into a heap of unconscious magicians. Struggling to her feet, Elphaba tried to focus on the figure now advancing on her – no easy task with her mask now sporting a cracked lens – readying the deadliest spell she could ready at short notice as she did so. But once again, her assailant was faster: lunging forward, he ducked elegantly under the first blast of magic and leapt straight towards her at a speed that once again reduced him to little more than a blur of colour and motion. A split-second later, Elphaba doubled over as a fist hammered into her stomach, emptying her lungs and cutting her next spell short; she would have toppled forward had her attacker not grabbed her by the neck and hoisted her off the ground.

For perhaps five seconds, Elphaba dangled helplessly in the air, dazed and barely conscious enough struggle. Then, as the pain in her stomach began to ebb and her eyesight returned to normal, she finally got her first good look at the man who'd attacked her: whoever he was, he was very tall – just shy of seven feet in height, if the space between Elphaba's dangling feet and the ground was any evidence. He bore the lean, muscular build of an acrobat, likely augmented through magic or prosthetics – probably both, for under the onyx-coloured fabric of his sleeves, Elphaba could just about discern the shapes of mechanical components and woven enchantments dotting his arms. But it was the uniform itself that drew her attention: apart from the pitch-black tunic and trousers he wore, the only splash of colour in the entire ensemble was the gold-plated scabbard at his belt, the tiny glass pendant affixed to his collar, and the ornate silver mask covering his face.

And then Elphaba finally realized who her attacker was; even after all the bedlam and the chaos of the last few days, she still remembered Glinda's description of that mask: the thin, unsmiling lips, the half-lidded eyes, the high cheekbones, and above all else, the expression of mediative calm.

The Empress's Champion had arrived in Loamlark.

For several seconds, her attacker examined her in detail, peering into her eyes and rolling up her sleeves to examine her arms. Then, just as Elphaba was starting to wonder what he was planning to do with her next, the pendant at the man's neck suddenly glowed, and a voice echoed through the air, somehow cutting through the noise of the battlefield, somehow making itself heard even through all the layers of rubber smothering Elphaba's ears.

"You know," said the voice, "if you didn't insist on wearing that hat, we probably wouldn't have been able to find you so easily. But then, the Mentor didn't craft you for stealth, did she?"

Elphaba blinked. Thanks to Glinda's testimony, she knew for a fact that the voice couldn't have belonged to the Champion, and besides, the voice that had echoed from the pendant clearly belonged to a woman. And more to the point, there was something curiously familiar about those dulcet tones…

"Imagine my surprise when I heard that the Mentor herself – the last worshipper of Elphaba the Unclean – had finally crossed the line she'd so religiously avoided for the last forty years. And once I learned that her newest creation was aiding the efforts of the resistance in Loamlark… well, you can understand why I wanted to see you for myself. I presume you've guessed who I am by now, yes?"

There was a deathly pause, as the realization hit home.

"The Radiant Empress," Elphaba whispered – at once shocked and utterly exasperated.

"Good," purred the Empress. "But enough about me: let's talk about you. What's your name?"

"My name is Elphaba Thropp – as you should know by now."

"I'm sure the Mentor would want you to say that if the two of us were ever to meet. But you needn't carry on with the ruse: why not tell me your real name?"

Elphaba groaned. It had been bad enough trying to explain herself to the Mentor even before she'd started giving her secret tests of character; trying the same thing to the Empress – to her own insane alternate self – while the Champion was gently crushing her throat and punching her in the stomach every time she tried to cast a spell made the ordeal nothing short of excruciating. The fact that hundreds of people were dying in brutal front-line combat less than twenty feet away from them didn't help much. "I've given you my real name already," she grumbled. "I'm not an imposter; I'm not some replica that was brewed up in the Mentor's laboratory; I am the real Elphaba Thropp. End of story."

"Oh well, I suppose it was hideously optimistic of me to assume you'd confess to everything so quickly. No matter: we can continue this conversation later, once you've had some time to acclimatize to your new home; perhaps a face-to-face discussion would make the situation more… agreeable. In the meantime…"

As if acting on a signal, the Champion reached up and all but tore the gas mask off Elphaba's face, leaving her suddenly exposed to the open air… and the clouds of gas still drifting through it.

"Why don't you take a deep breath and lie down for a while?"

---

"Shitshitshitshitshitshitshitshittyshitshit."

Not for the first time in his career – and certainly not for the first time that day – Doctor Kiln found himself wondering exactly why his patients felt the need to send him elsewhere when they clearly needed his services. It wasn't entirely unexpected, especially given how well he knew the two of them by now: the Mentor was a workaholic with a martyr complex that bordered on the suicidal, and Elphaba's unique blend of hair-trigger temper and irrepressible recklessness was the stuff of legends by now. All the same, he couldn't help but feel ever-so-slightly useless every time one of these jobs cropped up: after all, what was the point of being a private doctor if his employers never let him do the job they'd hired him for?

And another thing, why hadn't he bothered to check his receiver in the last few hours? Why had he left it in his satchel while he went about scouting the perimeter? He knew he might be expecting a few messages from the Mistress of Mirrors at some point, so why hadn't he brought it with him? Well, preoccupation, obviously, but it was still stupid of him. He'd checked the damn thing on the way to the Wall less than twenty minutes ago, and it was crammed with messages reading "Kiln look out, there's a member of the Amorphous League in the hotel," and "are you listening? There's a shapeshifter snooping around Elphaba." Lord only knew that the Spymistress would give him an earful for it.

True, it was an extremely petty line of thought to be focussing on at a time like this, but if nothing else, it kept him focussed on something other than the chaos he was currently wading through. All around him, the battle raged back and forth across the defences: explosion after explosion shook the fortifications; vehicles spun out of control and slammed into one another at high speed; artillery collapsed into scrap metal, either through enemy sabotage or simple mechanical error; magicians on either side battered each other with all the power they could muster, illuminating the walls with kaleidoscopic light and sending vivid bolts of energy spangling wildly across the front.

Everywhere Kiln looked, people were fighting, bleeding, killing, and dying; and as tactics failed and as the carefully-constructed battle plans of the commanders slowly fell to pieces and the melee grew all the more savage, the fighting slowly degenerated from a battle between two established armies into a disorganized series of brawls, fracases and duels that just so happened to overlap from time to time. As he watched, a trio of Vigilant Eyes incinerated an entire squad of regulars, only to be snatched out of the air and stomped flat by one of the automatons; the brass giant was then felled by a barrage of missiles from the nearest attack barge, which was promptly swamped by a throng of husks and crashed nosefirst into the ground in its attempts to shake them off; the bone golems immediately scuttled off the wrecked barge in search of fresh prey, only to be picked off at long range by a band of enemy marksmen – who were then mowed down by a battery of heavy gun turrets. The artillery was promptly set upon by a section of elite guardsmen, their energised lances slicing cleanly through the turrets' armour plating and eviscerating the men inside; but no sooner had they found the time to cease fire, a platoon of enraged Irredeemables charged their flank, crushing their gleaming exoskeletons open with mace-like fists and hacking through the defenceless guardsmen beneath with bladed limbs and taloned hands. And above it all, Kiln was sprinting across the battlements, dodging stray cannon fire, leaping over the ranks of frantic gunners and engineers, scrambling over the wreckage of broken war machines, ducking hails of falling masonry and splashing through ankle-deep puddles of blood, all the while trying desperately to tip the odds in the defenders' favour – and swearing diabolically with every step of the journey.

He'd have found the whole thing bizarrely funny if the fate of the Deviant Nations hadn't been on the line.

So far, he'd managed to revive the occupants of tower east of his starting position, and they were already lumbering back into action, either summoning gusts of wind to clear the gas from the front or just bombarding the enemy ranks with as much destructive force as possible. But with so many damn towers left on the front and only a few mage-surgeons free to help out, it was uphill work.

So, pausing only to duck under a hail of gunfire, Kiln hurried along the battlements towards the next tower as his newly-augmented legs could carry him. Only a few left, he told himself. The gutted hull of a troop transport loomed out of the gas clouds ahead of him, and he hastily vaulted over it, landing heavily amidst a pile of dead guardsmen entangled in the wreckage on the opposite flank. Just two or three real towers on the wall, then the sentry post, he thought, hauling himself upright and kicking some of the more obstinate guardsmen aside. He broke into a run once more, weaving in and out of battered artillery positions – some of which were still active and struggling to fire – as he hurried on towards the gate. It won't take long, the reassurances continued, as Kiln flung out an arm now bristling with whiplike tentacles and latched onto an overhead pylon, swinging himself over the ruins of a smouldering bio-catapult. It won't take long.

No, he amended, as the tower came into view. It can't take long. An artillery shell dealt a glancing blow to the crennelations of the tower above him, showering Kiln with bricks and rubble; the hailstones barely even slowed him, bouncing harmlessly off his newly-conjured keratin armour-plating. The door at the base of the tower did, however: a tangled mass of ruined machinery had blocked it almost completely. Can't stop. Can't slow down. Redirecting his flesh reserves into his hands, Kiln shaped the upsurge of tissue into suction cups, the skin on his palms warping and puckering into a huge mass of suckers; for good measure, his fingernails grew substantially, hardening and sharpening until they were as serviceable as any piton. Need to get these magicians conscious, he thought, as he began to climb. Need to tip the scales in our favour. Need to make sure Elphaba's safe – for her sake, for the Mentor, for the Deviant Nations, for the Mistress. Need to move faster.

Up and up he went, scuttling up the walls of the tower as quickly as he could manage without losing his grip, barely paying any attention to the roar of gunfire in the distance. His mind was empty except for the desperate need to get to the top of the tower and revive the magicians – and a long stream of curses directed at whoever had decided to park a siege engine so close to the tower door.

A minute later, he scrambled over edge of the tower and onto the roof, close to breathlessness in spite of the adjustments he'd made to his lungs. Here, the magicians had been hit hard: whereas a few occupants of the last tower had been awake enough to descend the battlements and fight on, the magicians in this tower were unconscious to a man. They littered the rooftop in great piles, their wands, staves and spellbooks scattered around them; by the looks of things, most of them had succumbed within the first few seconds of their bombardment, only a few scattered members of the team having made it as far as the staircase before collapsing.

Drawing the replacement Rude Awakening from his satchel, he approached the closest of the drugged wizards, readying a jolt of stimulants to the man's neck as he did so.

"Halt or we fire!"

Kiln stopped dead in his tracks; peering over his shoulder, he saw a quartet of lesser guardsmen making their way up the staircase towards him – likely the survivors of yet another troop transport's charge on the walls. Of course, he thought bitterly. When the time comes for them to scale the tower, they didn't find the door blocked by rubble. Lucky bastards.

"Drop your weapon, Distortion!" one of the guardsmen barked, voice only slightly muffled by his gleaming silver gasmask.

Given that, as an experienced mage-surgeon, Kiln essentially functioned as his own arsenal, it took him a little longer than necessary to realize that they were actually talking about the Rude Awakening. "Listen," he began. "I'm-"

"You have one last chance to comply and surrender peacefully, or we will open fire! Give yourself up and you will be allowed a chance at redemption in the sight of the Radiant Empress; refuse, and we will cleanse your ugliness from the world here and now!"

Kiln sighed deeply. He probably had enough flesh reserves to soak up small arms fire at this point, but these young fanatics were clearly armed with grenades – incendiary issue, likely borrowed from Unbridled Radiance's other war with the Amorphous League: even after decades of study, fire was the one of the few things that he couldn't readily defend himself against or easily recover from. He couldn't afford to anger anyone at this point: he needed to be subtle, cautious and above all, prevent the guardsmen from doing anything stupid with the Rude Awakening.

"The device I'm holding," he announced carefully, "Is not a weapon." He was speaking in the unearthly monotone that he commonly used at work to put patients at ease, a soothing, emotionless drone very much unlike his real tone of voice. "It's a very delicate piece of medical hardware, and I need to make absolutely sure that it doesn't discharge when it down; more importantly, I need to ensure that nobody in the vicinity comes into content with the chemic-"

"OPEN FIRE!"

Shit.

Twelve bullets slammed into Kiln's chest, lodging deep in his armour and sending fresh ripples of pain racing up and down his spine – but leaving his internal organs mercifully untouched. Dropping the Rude Awakening, he held up a hand that was already wilting away into tentacles and launched it at the guardsmen; two of them were instantly felled, the first being knocked backwards over the edge of the tower, the other quickly ensnared in tendrils and slammed bodily against the floor. Of the two remaining guardsmen, one of them remembered his training on what to do when confronted by an enemy mage-surgeon, and immediately fumbled in his belt for a grenade; but before he could so much as reach for the pin, Kiln flung out a hand and sent a daggerlike shard of bone rocketing through the air and into the man's throat. Down he went, the still-pinned grenade rolling harmlessly away.

The remaining guardsman froze, suddenly aware that he was alone on the rooftop. Then, just as it looked as though he might be on the verge of surrendering or at the very least retreating, he flung himself across the floor – towards the Rude Awakening. Horror-struck, Kiln lashed out with his tentacles, hoping to grab the young man before he reached the staff – but for once, the inexperienced fanatic was quicker.

Seizing the Rude Awakening and aiming it carefully at Kiln, the guardsman pulled the trigger without second's hesitation – and held it down.

Kiln briefly registered the spray of chemicals raining down on his skin, before his tentacles shot out one last time towards the fear-crazed soldier, trying to snatch the sprayer from his hands; on instinct, the guardsman took a step backwards, and promptly tripped over one of the unconscious magicians. Half-turning, half-falling, he fell with the sprayer still in his hands, landing heavily on his front…

And right on top of the Rude Awakening.

There was a muffled crunching sound, followed by a loud hiss as the pressurized fuel canister ruptured, spraying Kiln, the guardsman, the magicians, and anyone left alive on the tower with alchemical stimulants. There was a pause, as Kiln looked down at the luminous green dust slowly oozing into his skin, permeating both the armour plating and the leathery hide beneath. "You idiot," he groaned, voice already beginning to slur. "You complete and total idiot."

The guardsman looked up at him, eyes wide and unfocussed. "Elephant utensils!" he said brightly, and promptly collapsed, muttering intensely to himself about how the paving stones were his best friends.

Bright orange lights flickered before Kiln's eyes, and a sound not unlike a duck trying to laugh through a fog of helium filled the air; the drug was already beginning to take effect, in spite of his best efforts to cushion his nervous system. He hurriedly ran through a long list of possible solutions, discarding most of them on the grounds that they depended on him being able to actually see what he was doing, and what with the chartreuse hippopotami now briskly marching across his eyelashes, it didn't seem likely that he'd be able to find anything he needed before he lost control. Plus, there didn't seem to be any sign that the antidote had survived the fall, anyway. In the end, he had only two options: tie himself down and hope that nobody would be stupid enough to untie him before the fit came to an end, or do nothing. With no rope, chains or handcuffs in reach, he'd only be able to restrain himself with his own body – which wouldn't be of much help now, considering what he'd seen other mage-surgeons do under the influence.

So, with nothing else to do, Kiln sat down and quietly resigned himself to whatever might be about to happen next. Oh well, he thought, I tried. It's not as if I didn't give them fair warning.

I just hope that whatever I do, it's not too destructive or giojdskngkfngijfsgfgnj

---

"You know," said the Empress, "You're going to have to breathe sooner or later; otherwise, you'll just pass out – the very thing you're trying to avoid right now, I might add. So why not just make this easier on yourself? Why not spare yourself the pain of holding onto that lungful of air? Why not just give in?"

Elphaba said nothing. She was barely listening to the Empress by this stage, her attention being almost consumed by the breath she'd been holding for the last forty seconds. Of course she knew it would be easier to give up: her body was quivering with the effort of stopping herself from releasing her breath, her eyes were starting to tear up, and her lungs… well, her lungs felt like they were about to burst, no surprises there. But she had to carry on: she wouldn't (couldn't) give the Empress – this other Elphaba – the satisfaction of surrendering.

But then again, she reflected, as she gritted her teeth against the growing pain in her chest, I also desperately need to find a way out of this bastard's grip, ideally one that doesn't involve me passing out. Magic was out of the question: the moment the Champion noticed her attempts at casting a spell through gestures he'd just hit her again; casting a spell through incantations required breathing, and working magic through purely mental means required concentration she didn't have right now. Kicking him in the chest didn't do much good either: not only did the Champion barely even react, but it felt more like kicking a solid concrete block more than anything else.

She blinked rapidly, struggling with the urge to take a breath even as she struggled not to lose consciousness. Flickering white spots danced before her eyes, and for a moment or two, she swore she could see darkness gathering around the periphery of her vision; she needed to think, she desperately needed to think, but there wasn't enough air – the pain in her lungs was almost unbearable and it was spreading upwards into her throat. Any second now, she was either going to lose her grip on the breath or pass out.

"You don't have to abide by the Mentor's commands any longer, child: you can sleep if you wish, and when you awaken, you'll find yourself in a world cleansed of all the ugliness you were forced to wallow in. There, we can discuss the truth of your existence – and the happiness I can offer you…"

Elphaba clenched her fists shut, slowly driving her fingernails into her palms in a desperate attempt to keep herself awake. But she knew she couldn't hold out much longer; another second, and she'd be just like the rest of her team-

Realization struck her like a bolt of lightning.

She slowly tilted her head in the direction of the nearest magician – the one she'd managed to apply the Rude Awakening to – and yes, he was just beginning to stir. He'd be on his feet soon… but he needed something to rouse him a little sooner.

So, with one last wrench of effort, she tossed her head to the left; her radio headset, already loosened by the removal of the gasmask, went tumbling to the ground, landing microphone-first on the floor with a loud burst of feedback audible to just about anyone still on Elphaba's frequency. Instantly, the magician cringed in pain, eyes flickering open.

"What was the point of that, exactly?" the Empress chuckled.

A moment later, a fireball exploded against the Champion's back. Startled but apparently unharmed except for a faintly-singed uniform (no doubt heavily enchanted to resist magical assaults), he turned to see the now-conscious magician standing upright a few feet away, another sphere of flame gathering in his hand. Without missing a beat, the Champion drew a long-barrelled handgun from his belt in another impossibly-fast motion and pointed at his opponent; next second, a gunshot rang out across the tower rooftop, and the magician crashed to the ground.

But it was all the distraction Elphaba had needed: drawing on every last drop of concentration she had in her brain, she let her magic blast outward with one vivid emerald flash of light, slamming into the Champion with meteoric force and sending him hurtling across the tower, into the crenelations; over the crunch of fracturing stone, Elphaba scooped up her hat and broomstick from where they'd fallen, and launched herself backwards off the edge of the tower – and out of the gas cloud.

Hovering down into the courtyard and tottering to a halt against the nearest wall, Elphaba breathed out at long last, finally sucking fresh air into her aching lungs. For what felt like years, she leant against the wall, slowly inhaling and exhaling as she wearily massaged her bruised throat; for Lurline only knew how long, she was deaf to any sound other than her own breathing, her mind almost completely blank except for the sense of sheer relief.

Then, the Champion leapt from the tower above her and landed elegantly on the tiles in front of her.

Okay, Elphaba thought. No rest for the wicked.

Her eyes frantically scanned the courtyard around her: the place was empty by now, all the reinforcements having left to help the defenders outside; it was also clear of the gas, thanks to the efforts of the other magicians, but she couldn't afford to take chances without a mask of her own. Gesturing swiftly, she draped a skein of air-purifying enchantments over her, enough to hopefully keep her safe from the gas. Then, she rounded on the Champion, who'd holstered his gun in favour of a handful of darts – all poisoned, no doubt.

"My, my," said the Empress – almost admiringly. "The Mentor certainly spared no expense in sculpting you: the same face, the same voice, the same personality, even similar magical talents. She even gave you a broom, I see. You've certainly learned your craft well... but I'm afraid this performance must come to an end. Surrender now, or my Champion will be forced to subdue you himself."

In spite of herself, Elphaba laughed. "And you're hoping that I'll just give up rather than risk a few broken bones? Do you even remember who you used to be, Your Radiance?"

There was a dangerous pause, and then the Empress replied in a voice so coldly serene that Elphaba swore she could feel icicles forming on the ledges and doorframes around her. "Elphaba Thropp is dead," she intoned. "Your Mistress knows it, and I know it – the main difference that she believes it to be literal truth. She could never bring herself to realize that the only death I experienced was that of my ugliness, and the only reason I cast aside the name she so adored was because I no longer needed it. Elphaba Thropp and all the ugliness she carried with her ceased to exist over a half a century ago, and this world will never see her like again."

Elphaba smirked. She might be an alternate version of me, but she's clearly learned a bit too much from the Wizard; she's fallen in love with the sound of her own voice… and as long as she keeps talking, she isn't ordering the Champion to attack. "And yet, I'm still here," she said, just smugly enough to sound annoying. "How do you explain that?"

"You are not Elphaba. You're a mage-surgeon's prize-winning sculpture, an actress trained to mimic mannerisms and personality traits the Mentor still mourns for, a clever imitation of a monstrousness that should have been forgotten. I don't know where she found you – the distorted ranks of her delusional fanatics, one of the colleges of magic, an insane asylum, the slums of her pestilent cities, or the laboratories of her deviant scientists – and it doesn't matter: you are not Elphaba. Now give yourself up or-"

"Have I lied to you yet?"

"What?"

"I know for a fact that you're familiar with spells that can detect lies: so tell me, am I lying when I tell you that I'm the real Elphaba Thropp?"

There was another pause, and Elphaba was rewarded with a horrified gasp from the pendant. "Didn't expect that, did you? So tell me, how do you explain this away?"

The Empress hesitated.

"Well? I'm all ears, Your Radiance."

"I don't need to explain anything away," said the Empress at last. "You'll tell me everything – in exacting detail. Now, surrender-"

"Or your pet bodyguard will beat me to a pulp. Why do you let him do all the work? You've got more than enough magical power to knock me out yourself and probably much worse than that… unless of course, you can't focus it through the pendant."

Dead silence.

"You can't, can you? You didn't think you'd need to use your powers during this little visit: you thought you'd get to save your strength for the next miracle you'd perform for your adoring public, or maybe for the next farcical act in this little war you've drawing out over the past fifty years. You thought the moment I saw your Champion closing in, I'd just throw down my broomstick and surrender in tears, didn't you? You thought, 'oh, she's a fraud, an impersonator: it's not as if she'll be able to actually fight back!' Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I'm very much in the mood for a fight: you see, your "Champion" hurt Glinda very badly while she was escaping from Exemplar, and I don't much appreciate seeing my friends hurt by the idiotic lackeys of sanctimonious, self-aggrandising cowards with delusions of grandeur."

There was an astonished pause.

"Who the hell are you?"

Elphaba sighed. "Are you deaf, Your Radiance? I'm Elphaba Thropp, the Wicked Witch of the West, the woman you tried to erase all memory of and failed… and I am in a very, very bad mood."

There was a hissed order from the direct of the pendant, and the Champion flung the darts with one elegant sweep of his hand. But Elphaba was ready this time: with a swift gesture of her own, a glittering shield of magical energy appeared in mid-air in front of her, leaving the darts to bounce harmlessly off it. Then, with the shield still hovering before her, she raised her right hand and sent out a bolt of lightning racing towards the Champion; caught off-guard whilst reaching for another weapon, the riposte blasted him off his feet and through the doorway of a nearby house. Rising with a grunt of effort, he lunged out of the house – only just managing to duck the guillotine of ice Elphaba had launched – and broke into a run.

But instead of charging straight at her, he began circling her, moving faster and faster until he was little more than a semi-tangible haze orbiting her, closer and closer with every revolution. Elphaba flung spell after spell into the blurring circle, from telekinetic blasts that left huge divots in the side of the buildings to bolts of lightning that filled the air with a vicious stink of ozone, from blobs of sulphuric acid that dissolved the cobblestones into smouldering crates to storm of miniature comets aimed at the Champion's undefended legs; but the target was once again moving too fast for the spells to connect. No matter how accurate her aim, no matter how quickly she cast the spell, the Champion either dodged it, or simply outpaced it altogether.

He somersaulted over the wave of fire, slid neatly under the trio of conjured spears, cartwheeled past the forked bolts of lightning, and with one last handspring, he was right in front of her. Elphaba caught a brief glimpse of a fist rocketing towards her face at high speed, and almost on instinct, she brought another shield flickering into existence just inches in front of her, neatly defecting the blow. Undeterred, the Champion swung again, this time aiming for her stomach; up went the shield again, and as the Champion's fist bounced off it, Elphaba retaliated with a gout of fire from her hand – only for her target to dart nimbly out of the way.

For perhaps a minute or two, the melee continued: the Champion would swing a fist or aim a kick at Elphaba; she would block it and instantly counterattack with a spell; he would dodge it, and the sequence would continue – a strange dance of deflections and retaliations that took them across the length of the courtyard. A cluster of needle-sharp stalagmites burst from the ground, only to be easily sidestepped by the Champion; a bone-shattering kick was aimed at Elphaba's knees, only to bounce off a quickly-conjured shield; the cobblestones beneath their feet sprouted huge, rocky arms and reached up to crush the Champion, but he was already somersaulting over them and over their creator too; another salvo of darts was flung at Elphaba, only to bounce off and fly off in every direction; a stream of deadly glass shards from all four of the nearest broken windows sliced through the air, but the Champion was already cartwheeling away, readying another attack on Elphaba – which she blocked yet again.

Elphaba drew her hands back and sent a cloud of angry hornets buzzing out of her fingertips, their inch-long bodies coloured fiery orange and glistening obsidian. Moving as one, they swarmed the Champion, stinging him viciously. Unfortunately, either the Champion's uniform was too tough to penetrate or he simply didn't notice the stings, for he instantly shot forward with a mule kick to the chest that sent Elphaba crashing to the ground.

She landed heavily, fresh pain razoring its way along her spine; head ringing from its collision with the cobblestones, she looked up just in time to see the Champion zeroing in on her, fist raised for a knockout punch – and instantly lashed out with all the force she could draw upon, trying to seize him, to crush him, anything. But while she could easily flick him across the courtyard, actually picking him up proved impossible: something in his uniform diffused her grip before it close around him. In the end, she could only slow him down while she struggled to her feet.

Just when it looked as though the melee was going to continue and the battle was going to be decided by sheer endurance, the sound of a gunshot rang out across the courtyard, and the Champion reared back as a bullet tore through his shoulder. Elphaba followed the source of the noise and saw that a platoon of militiamen had gathered on the battlements just above the gate, and all of them were aiming squarely at the Champion. In the lead were Marchfly, and to her surprise, Harker.

There was a pause, as the Champion stared up at the reinforcements; for some reason, his attention was focussed not on the guns or even on the heavily-armed lunatic leading the group, but Harker.

From the pendant, the Empress's voice laughed. "Oh, I was wondering when you were going to show up. After all, where would Elphaba be without her steadfast little soldier protecting her interests in the field? Tell me, are you still a captain, or are you back to being a sergeant? Did they at least let you keep your commission as a lieutenant? Or have you cast aside so much of your old potential that you're content to languish amidst the lowest of the unclean and irredeemable?"

What with Harker having no eyes, it was difficult enough to read the expression on the old sniper's face, and even harder now that he was wearing the tattered remains of a gas mask over the lower half of his face. But something about the gleam of sweat on his forehead and the trembling of his hands – normally so steady – made it all too obvious to Elphaba that Harker was, in fact, terrified almost out of his life.

For twelve dreadful seconds, the three parties stood in silence (or what would have been silence if the ruckus from the other side of the wall hadn't still been in process) waiting anxiously for someone to make the first move.

Then, there was a deafening scream from somewhere close by. From the same direction, a voice yelled, "NURSE, HELP ME RESTRAIN THESE PATIENTS!"

In unison, Elphaba and the Champion turned around just in time to see a small crowd of UR guardsmen dashing across the courtyard, their uniforms soaked with blood and their rifles nowhere in sight; but even if they had been armed, none of them would have been in the mood to line up and help their Empress's Champion, because all twenty-six of them were clearly too scared to stop running. From this angle, Elphaba couldn't see what was chasing them, but whatever it was, it was making an incredible amount of noise – audible even over the sounds of continued bombardment and battle from outside.

Then, just as they reached the opposite end of the courtyard, one of the soldiers tripped and fell; his comrades made no effort whatsoever to help him up, only sprinting onwards towards the nearest exit. But as the man left behind forced himself upright, a long, sinuous tentacle shot out from behind the nearest building and wrapped itself around the hapless guardsman's legs. As the tendril dragged the screaming figure away, the thunderous voice shouted, "SIR, YOU NEED TO CALM DOWN! YOU'RE RISKING MYOCARDIAL INFARCTION!"

"Oh sweet Empress, please have mercy on me!"

"HOLD HIM STILL, HOLD HIM STILL! SOMEONE PAGE DOCTOR HILDEBRANT, THE TRIAGE IS ONLY GETTING WORSE!"

"Someone help!"

"REMAIN CALM!"

"Motheeeeeerrrrr!"

"REMAIN CALM!"

A split second later, another guardsman sprinted back into the courtyard as if to help his fallen comrade; less than ten paces from the source of the noise, however, there was a muffled phut, and a large shard of bone erupted from the back of his head. Slumping to his knees, he fell forward, a look of comical surprise stamped on his perforated face.

"THIS MAN APPEARS TO HAVE SUFFERED A SEVERE HEAD INJURY!" the voice boomed, as another tentacle dragged the corpse away. "SOMEONE GET HIM ONTO THE OTHER TABLE AND SEE TO HIM! NURSE, WE NEED THREE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY CCS OF HEXOTRICHLOROTHARALIUMLITHOMIDE, STAT!"

The sound of a gunshot echoed across the courtyard, and the surviving "patient" screamed.

"HE'S GOING INTO ARREST! NURSE, GET ME THE DEFIBRILATOR!"

There was a loud crunch, and the guardsmen screamed, this time in pain.

"CLEAR!"

Another crunch, and this time, the agonized scream sounded distinctly desperate.

"CLEAR!"

Once again, the air was filled with the sound of splintering bones, and this time the man could only gurgle quietly.

"CLEAR!"

And the ballad of The World's Unluckiest Guardsman ended with a loud, wet pop.

"OKAY, HE'S STABLE FOR NOW! NEXT PATIENT!"

With that, the source of the noise finally lumbered into view, dragging the half-assimilated remains of the two dead guardsmen with it. Mounted on a pair of semi-humanoid legs still encased in a tattered pair of standard-issue trousers and combat boots, a colossal lump of distended ribcage and misshapen limbs swung awkwardly from right to left, peering out at the world through a cluster of at least thirty-six bloodshot eyes ringing its shoulders like a necklace. Whatever it was, its eerily-pale flesh looked more like melted wax than anything else, and a good deal of its original features (if there were any) were lost amidst oozing lumps of flesh – including the creature's miniscule head, which was almost invisible beneath the overflowing muscles of its shoulders. And here and there, across the monster's vast chest and gorilla-like arms, Elphaba saw what looked suspiciously like warped human limbs and faces protruding from the molten chaos… but it wasn't until she saw the World's Unluckiest Guardsman slowly absorbed into the creature's back that she finally realized the truth.

For a small eternity, it stood there, slowly digesting its last meals and staring out at the defenders with something not unlike hunger. As it waited, its flesh warped seemingly of its own accord: its blubbery fingers lengthening into snakelike tentacles, fanged mouths opening and snapping shut across its torso, porcupine-like quills of bone surging out of its back, and fresh eyeballs oozing up from the depths of its flesh like periscopes emerging from an ocean. But new organs weren't the only thing that bubbled to the surface; a whole host of inanimate objects now shifted across the creature's body, protruding from his back, arms, and chest in various states of disrepair: charred timbers, chunks of glass, fireaxes, rifles, bayonets, bandoliers, gloves, boots, uniform buttons, chunks of armour, gas masks, crumpled last wills and testaments…

And a crooked metal staff that could only be a Rude Awakening.

Kiln?!

But before Elphaba could call out to him, the Kiln-thing drew himself to his full height and spoke at a volume commonly reserved for conversations held between people trapped at opposite ends of a crowded stadium. "SIR!" he hollered, pointing a tendril-festooned arm at the Champion. "WE CANNOT ALLOW VISITORS IN THE OPERATING THEATRE AT THIS TIME OF THE DAY! NO EXCEPTIONS, SIR!"

The Champion said nothing, somehow managing to convey utter bewilderment without having a face to do so with. Instead, he levelled his gun at the former mage-surgeon's head.

"I'M GOING TO HAVE TO ASK YOU TO LEAVE, SIR!" Kiln insisted, and took a lumbering step towards him. Without missing a beat, the Champion opened fire, scoring direct hits on his advancing opponent's chest and arms. For his part, the Kiln-creature didn't appear to notice the gunfire or the injuries he was quickly acquiring: he just stood there, gently rocking back and forth as the bullets ripped into him. Then, as the Champion stopped to reload and the bullet wounds began to vanish behind new growths of molten flesh, the Kiln threw back his misshapen head and roared, "SECURITYYYYYYYYYYY!"

Utter bedlam broke out.

Kiln lunged towards the Champion, yelling something about the hospital code of conduct and the Hippocratic Oath; the Champion drew his sword and began hacking through the deranged mage-surgeon's outstretched limbs; Harker, Marchfly and the rest of the militia finally made up their minds on who to shoot first and opened fire on the Champion; and Elphaba, who'd long since given up hope of fighting a semi-orderly battle, flung everything she could muster in the Champion's direction.

Once again, however, their target demonstrated an uncanny ability to simply not be there when the attack was due to connect: bullets whizzed harmlessly past him or into Kiln's ponderous bulk; magic spells charred the spot he'd been standing on a moment ago; any tentacle that tried to curl around his legs was instantly sliced through; and on the rare occasion that one of them moved quickly enough to actually hit him, the damage was simply absorbed or deflected by his improbably tough uniform.

Worse still, the retaliations were swift and merciless: deft swings of his sword tore huge chunks of flesh from Kiln's warped body, severing countless tentacles and piercing the blubbery torso in at least a dozen places – not that Kiln seemed to notice all that much. Grenades and gunshots whittled away the militiamen, dispersing the group and forcing many of them to scurry for cover, many of them also being picked off as they ran. Even Elphaba, who the Champion clearly wanted alive, didn't escape unscathed; more than once, a thrown dart grazed her cheek; more than once, a kick aimed in her direction connected, sending her tumbling away.

And then, just as the first minute of the brawl came to a close, just as Elphaba was beginning to think that the Champion might just be able to maintain the stalemate until his opponents collapsed out of sheer exhaustion, a deafening noise split the air, sending more than half of the surviving combatants toppling to the knees, hands desperately fastened over their ears. It was almost like a foghorn, only much louder; Elphaba could feel the air around her trembling as the sound rippled out across Loamlark, across its defences, and across the surrounding mountain range.

There was a pause, as the echoes died away, and an unearthly silence descended on Loamlark. Even the noise of battle from outside withered away, the brutal melee temporarily crushed under the weight of the noise.

The horn sounded again, this time much louder, and much closer, too. And as the mind-flattening noise thundered out across the city once again, Elphaba caught a brief glimpse of someone among the disorganized militiamen frantically pointing upwards; heart hammering, she followed the path of his quivering hand towards the sky – just in time to see the source of the noise hover into view.

By now, the magicians had clearly been able to sweep away almost all of the gas cloud, and the skies over Loamlark were clear enough to see the massive airship that now hovered less than a few hundred feet above the city.

A lumbering conical warship rendered all in black, its gargantuan hull easily outsized any of the airborne frigates Elphaba had seen patrolling Greenspectre's skyline, and while it couldn't blot out the sun as completely as the toxic fog had done, the shadow it cast over Loamlark left the entire town mired in gloom. Looking up at the mechanized eclipse, Elphaba found her eyes drawn to the batteries of weapons that clustered the underside of the vessel: gun turrets larger than a four-story house, complicated arrays of copper and crystal bristling with destructive magic, dozens upon dozens of launchers for missiles and torpedoes great and small, and gaping hangar bays – all occupied by the tiny shapes of attack craft, troop carriers, and the squat, ugly shapes of bombers. But weaponry wasn't only thing decorating this monstrosity's hulking mass: as the airship rumbled ponderously onwards through the sky, she caught a glimpse of a symbol emblazoned on its underside. Looking closer, she saw – painted in deep crimson and stark white – the stylized figure of a man dangling from a curiously-shaped noose.

The Strangling Coil's flagship had finally arrived as promised.

Once again the foghorn roared, and this time, the mercenaries on the ground answered with a howl of exaltation. "The Leviathan!" Colonel Gloss shouted, his distant voice amplified with a megaphone. "The Leviathan is come!"

Across the hull of the gigantic warship, the hangars flashed brightly: seconds later, the air was filled with a hail of what looked like meteorites, hammering down on Loamlark in their hundreds. But when they impacted the ground, there was no explosion, no smashing of masonry, just a blast of cushioning magic as the payload settled. Two of them landed on the wall just a few feet away from the cowering militiamen: at first sight, the objects appeared nothing more than riveted spheres of burnished copper and steel; but as each one settled, there was a loud ticking of clockwork winding to life, and suddenly, the spheres suddenly expanded. A pair of column-like legs deployed from beneath them; a duo of spindly arms emerged from their upper halves – along with a very powerful-looking rifle; finally, a tiny copper skull embellished with a crude humanoid face emerged from the topmost portion. It was difficult to tell from this distance, but it looked as though the faces were decorated with jointed metal moustaches.

"For-the-Strangling-Coils!" they shouted through tinny mechanical voiceboxes.

Instantly, the sound of battle filled the air again, this time augmented with the rattle of the copper soldiers' rifles, and the clanking of copper feet marching into the fray.

Elphaba looked up in amazement at the airship as it its army of clockwork troops descended: by now, the hailstorm of spheres had slowed to a trickle, the sky now being dominated only by the flagship and one remaining sphere falling to earth – slightly larger than the others, unless she was surely mistaken, and getting steadily faster-

"Ia! Ia! Leviathan descends!"

Without warning, a building to Elphaba's right exploded. It was, by far, one of the most surprising detonations she'd ever seen in her life: one second, the building was there, a respectable-looking two-story house that had somehow managed to escape most of the fighting untouched, the next second it was an expanding cloud of bricks and timbers. Dust and debris rained down on the startled onlookers, and a pitiable scream of "My silverware!" rang out across the city, muffled slightly by Kiln roaring "SOMEONE HAVE THIS PLACE DISINFECTED, I CAN'T WORK IN THESE CONDITIONS!"

Then, with an earthshaking succession of footsteps, something marched slowly out of the ruined house.

Whatever it was, it was well over eight feet tall and probably just as wide: a behemoth of a man, mounted on thick elephantine legs and framed with immensely long, muscular arms, his bulk dominated by a vast, wobbling belly. Almost every inch of the man, from his tiny head to the titanic gut, was layered with rough plates of dense black metal, the smallest of the plates coating his belly in a flexible mail; his face was concealed with a helmet of similar material, but much more polished and certainly much elaborate, for it was constructed to resemble the body of an octopus: a smooth, bulbous dome, two large eyeholes shielded with glass, and a curling mass of metal tentacles covering the mouth like a beard. But as it happened, tentacles weren't limited to a choice of armour: as he drew closer, Elphaba realized that the man's left arm was gone, replaced by a cluster of tentacles – not the crude tendrils hastily moulded by Kiln and the other mage-surgeons, but actual tentacles of dark red octopus flesh, studded with suction cups and carefully layered with armour just like the rest of him.

The Leviathan looked the cluster of defenders up and down, and then turned his gaze to the Champion. Then, he raised his right arm – revealing that he was, in fact, armed with what appeared to be a heavy field gun only slightly less imposing than its owner.

Given that the man likely didn't operate unless the Empress gave him an order, Her Radiance must have been in shock over this little debacle, because the Champion hadn't budged since the mercenary airship had arrived. But now, the Champion moved. For a moment, it looked as though he was honestly considering an attempt to fight all four of them: the hulking artillery-wielding Leviathan, the drug-crazed, flesh-warping Dr Kiln, the heavily-armed remnants of the militia reinforcements, Elphaba – all were given looks of open appraisal. He even raised his sword and crouched down as if to pounce on the nearest one of them. Then, the Leviathan fired the field gun, carving a sizeable chunk out of the cobblestones in front of him, and the Champion actually took step back.

And with that, the courtyard defenders attacked as one: Harker and the militiamen opened fire, peppering the Champion with bullets – most of which either embedded themselves in their target's uniform or pinged off his mask; Kiln surged forward, a storm of flailing tentacles, daggerlike spines and flying bone chips that the Champion only just managed to avoid; two more volleys of cannonfire from the Leviathan sent him ducking hastily out of the way; and finally, Elphaba reached out with her magic, slowly seizing as many loose objects as she could possibly levitate– bricks, timbers, glass shards, dead bodies, wrecked carriages, the very shingles from the roofs of the nearby houses – and flung them at the Champion.

Dazed, battered, and pelted by a solid stream of shingles and broken glass, the Champion turned and fled, obediently following the frantic warnings echoing from his pendant. Without so much as a second glance, he sprinted away down the street, leapt onto the battlements with one lunge of his augmented legs and somersaulted elegantly out of sight.

"WELL DONE, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN," Kiln bellowed. "THE PATIENT IS NOW BREATHING NORMALLY!"

Elphaba took a deep breath, and sat down heavily on the steps of one of the least-damaged houses left in the entire courtyard.

"Are you okay?" Harker called.

"I'll be fine," she gasped; now that the adrenaline rush was starting to wear off, she was starting to notice her injuries at long last – the bruise from where she'd been kicked being the worst of them. "I just need a minute."

There was a muffled series of thudding footsteps, and Elphaba looked up to see that the Leviathan was now standing over her, close enough to cast an impressive shadow over her and most of the building behind her – at least he would have been if his flagship hadn't already eclipsed the sun. As he leaned closer, Elphaba noticed a strange smell about the man, a not-unpleasant aroma of salt water and busy fishmarkets wafting about him – accompanied by a subtle but noticeable whiff of ambergris.

"Thanks for the reinforcements," she panted.

"Oh, it was nothing," said the Leviathan. His voice was low, calm and surprisingly mellifluous despite his fearsome apparel. "So sorry we're late, but we ran into a few unexpected obstacles on the way over. But here we are, ready to provide assistance as agreed… and to investigate a mystery."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, a little bird told me that a girl with green skin was aiding the Irredeemables in their defence of Loamlark. I didn't think much of the news, up until I also heard she arrived on a flying broomstick; and once that little bird made mention of that rather distinctive hat and the magical powers on display, I just had to see what profitable insanity the northernmost territories had in store." The Leviathan leaned forward, somehow managing to keep himself from toppling over in spite of the immense weight of his own belly. "I never met the Wicked Witch in person," he murmured, "but I remember her rampages across Oz. More importantly, I met the woman she became after they arrested her, and last I looked, she was still sitting on the throne of Unbridled Radiance. So, the question is, how can you be here… and how can I take advantage?"

The Leviathan's tentacles glided upwards, gently lifting the helmet from his head: underneath, his moist, rubbery skin was a dull red in colour; smoothed, barely-human features loomed out of a skull almost as bald and bulbous as his helmet. Elphaba found herself looking up into eerily protuberant eyes with slot-like pupils, and suddenly being struck by an inexplicable sensation of familiarity – inexplicable, at least until she saw the distinctive scarlet handlebar moustache sitting under the Leviathan's nose.

"Mr Branderstove?"

"Oh, bits and pieces of him, to be sure. More cephalopod than man these days, but that's just how life goes for businessmen, I suppose: you can only get so far in the private sector without turning invertebrate." He chuckled, a thick, watery gurgling at the back of his throat. "It's good to see you again, Miss Thropp."

"How the hell did you end up running a gang of mercenaries?"

"Please, they're not just mercenaries; they're private military contractors – an important distinction, believe me. But I'll be more than happy to detail what happened, on the condition that you explain how you came to be here."

"This isn't going to involve another secret test of character, is it?"

"No, of course not: all you have to do is explain to me why you're working for the Deviant Nations and how distinct you are from the Empress, though I should probably warn you that failing the latter question will probably end with me ripping your spine out. But business before pleasure: you and I have the remains of a battle to attend to!"

"IS ANYONE IN THE MOOD FOR A FISH DINNER?!" Kiln roared at absolutely nothing in particular. "I DON'T KNOW WHAT IT IS ABOUT TRIAGE SITUATIONS, BUT THEY ALWAYS GET ME IN THE MOOD FOR SEAFOOD!"

Branderstove winced. "Okay," he conceded, "I think we might need to see to your friend first…"

---

"Begin again. Concentrate."

There was a pause, as the magic gathered in the air around the target; a moment later, the vase rose slowly and shakily into the air. For around thirty seconds, it continued to rise, levitating steadily upwards towards the ceiling. Then, perhaps five feet above its pedestal, it stopped in mid-air with a jolt.

"Higher."

Wobbling violently, the vase ascended perhaps another twenty-three inches before stopping once again.

"And further, if you please."

The vase rose one last time, wobbling noticeably as it continued its ascent. Then, for the fifth time in as many minutes, there was yet another musical crash of shattering crockery as the vase slipped from the magic grasp enveloping it and fell to the ground.

Glinda took a deep breath, and lowered her wand. "How long have we been here?" she asked wearily.

"Just over an hour," said the Mentor. "Why do you ask?"

"It feels like three months," she sighed. "And I still haven't managed to get it right!"

"Really? You're telling me the vase just happened to rise of its own accord? I've somehow acquired a case of sentient levitating crockery with a penchant for suicidal depression? Is that what you're telling me?"

"No, but I can't make it reach the ceiling!"

"Glinda, it's your first day: of course you can't make it reach the ceiling! This isn't a case requiring perfectionism; it's an elementary test of how much control and power you can exert so far. So far, you've avoided crushing the damn thing in your grip, and you've avoided tipping it off the pedestal while picking it up – pretty decent by beginners' standards."

"Yes, but you said this was training for battle along Elphaba: how is lifting a vase six feet in the air going to help her or anyone else?"

"Do you remember what I told you specifically not to do while levitating?"

"What, the flicking thing? Yes, I remember it. Why do you ask?"

"Try it out on the next vase in line."

"But w-"

"Now!"

Startled into obedience, Glinda focussed her willpower on the vase directly across from the one she just smashed and pointed her wand at it, readying herself to levitate once again – but instead of hoisting the target into the air, she flicked her wand sharply upwards. Instantly, the vase was catapulted forward, flying for a good twenty feet before smashing into a rowing machine.

The Mentor offered her familiar ghastly smile, her scarified lips curling upwards to reveal weathered grey dentures like tombstones. "You see? Not as useless as you might think. Straightforward levitation doesn't really become useful until you've learned how to maintain horizon motion, unless you need to stop something from falling, of course. Until then, use the catapulting technique… though first, we need to determine just how much weight you can deal with at present. With any luck, you'll at least be capable of shifting the weight of an average human body – I certainly was at your age… but anyhow, let's bring in some heavier objects just to be sure."

As more equipment began sliding out of their alcoves and into position around them, Glinda found herself wondering how the hell she'd even managed to get as far as successfully levitating anything after the rocky start she'd had.

Having only just managed to escape arriving late thanks to the Mentor's precautions, she'd immediately gotten yelled at for being inappropriately dressed to what was supposed to be a serious training session. In hindsight, wearing the white silk dress and the high heels had been a boneheaded move, but Glinda had been operating on autopilot while she'd been getting dressed and hadn't the faintest idea what to wear to a private magical training program anyway; in truth, she'd been subconsciously working to the rules of Morrible's magic classes, where they'd been allowed to wear anything they liked so long as they actually did the assigned work and payed attention. Admittedly, Glinda had been shaky on both points, but then again, this wasn't meant to be anything like Shiz's thaumaturgical coursework, as the Mentor made very clear: instead of being held in a stuffy classroom cluttered with unoccupied desks and battered textbooks, an entire gymnasium had been arranged just for her – complete with equipment meant to exercise either her magic or her body. This, the Mentor had explained, was going to be a very practical session: no place for frocks, no place for silliness.

So, she'd given Glinda a plain grey jumpsuit and a pair of running shoes, then told her to wash off her makeup and get changed ASAFP. Acting on instinct, Glinda had almost protested before she realised just how ridiculous she'd sound for insisting on wearing her usual fashionable fair to a gym; so, trying not to grumble, she'd gotten dressed into her new uniform and started warming up. As it happened, the Mentor required her to exercise both magically and physically ("You're preparing for the battlefield, don't forget"), so she'd had Glinda warm up by first jogging the length of the gymnasium, before giving her wand back and telling her to perform a rudimentary light spell. Though there was a certain degree of testing involved in seeing how bright she could make the light and how long she could maintain it, this was just to get her thaumaturgical muscles ready for the trials ahead. Because most of the spells Glinda had managed to successfully cast tended to involve a lot of spectacle and theatrics, the light spell was easy enough – in fact, it was one of the few things she didn't screw up on a regular basis when it came to magic.

Then, she'd been shown in the direction of a training dummy and asked to show off what she knew of magic. After demonstrating the few simple spells she knew well enough to cast, along with her improvised "Ballgown of Fire" trick, the Mentor had put her to work on casting without the aid of focussing words. "As useful as the Ballgown was," she'd said, "It's still only a focussing word, not a real incantation, and focussing words can easily be countered by skilled magicians. You need to make use of more sophisticated techniques if you want to perform battlefield magic." And that was where the levitation exercises began, thirty extremely crowded minutes ago.

It had taken no less than twenty-six consecutive tries for Glinda to even lift the vase a single inch above its pedestal, each time learning a little more on how to properly harness her desire to lift the wretched piece of crockery, each time learning how to channel the magic through the wand. The first time that it had actually rose an inch or two off the pedestal, she'd been so happy – and rejoicing naturally disrupted her focus and sent the vase crashing to the ground. Sixteen further tries, her sense of victory had drowned in a puddle of sweat as she'd struggled to lift the next vase a little higher than her last attempt.

As she'd done so, the Mentor had lectured her at length on how magic could be channelled: whether it could be found as ambient energy, in batteries and reservoirs, or within oneself, it could be manipulated and channelled in a variety of ways, so she had explained. Rituals, incantations, gestures, even pure thought were all valid means of manipulating thaumaturgical current, though some, such as the spells of the Grimmerie, were more powerful than others. In any case, a variety of instruments could be used to help channel the current if a practitioner – for whatever reason – couldn't manipulate it on their own: medallions, rings, bracelets, gloves, robes, shoes, knives, swords, axes, staves, sceptres, and of course, wands. And for those who had difficulty forming the correct mindset for casting spells, there naturally existed a wide variety of mental techniques for doing so (none of which had ever been needed for Elphaba's tuition).

Oh, for a really fashionable pair of magic shoes, Glinda had thought wistfully.

But while the last half hour had been productive and informative, if a little disheartening, there was one thing that had been nagging at her, something left over from last night's dream-memory. She'd wanted to ask the Mentor about it, but then, she hadn't the faintest idea how to even approach the point. After all, how were you supposed to ask aging, horribly-scarred, one-armed, half-crippled alternate versions of yourself about anything, let alone the events of their past? So, she'd carried on practicing, burying her questions under her efforts to raise the vase just a little bit higher.

But as the weights glided into view, the Mentor turned around and said, "Is something bothering you, Glinda?"

"Was it that obvious?"

"Have you forgotten? We're the same person: I know those tics and twitches of yours; you only start twisting your index fingers when you want to ask a question but can't work up the nerve to do so – a measure to keep your curiosity from reaching your face, I recall. Well, ask away if you want to know something."

Glinda swallowed. "Did… I mean, you…" She tried again. "It's about something I saw in the dream-memories last night. It was… I mean… do you have any children?"

The Mentor blinked. "Oh," she said quietly. "You've reached that memory. The morning sickness; the doctor's office; Fiyero's reaction, yes?"

"Yes. But you haven't answered my question: do you have any children?"

A deathly silence abruptly settled over the gymnasium, growing steadily deeper and eerier as the seconds dragged by.

"You don't need to know the answer right now," said the Mentor at last; her voice was soft, almost a whisper, but Glinda understood perfectly. "You'll find out for yourself sooner or later. Suffice to say, you need to understand the world that Oz became, the monster that the false Elphaba revealed herself to be, and the reasons why I've changed so much – reasons you've been pondering for quite some time now, I imagine; the only way you'll ever truly take the lessons of my life to heart is if you witness those lessons for yourself. You need to experience what I endured to truly understand."

She took a deep breath. "I know this won't be of any satisfaction to you – after all, I remember what I used to be like at your age. But it'll have to do for now: you've seen Unbridled Radiance from within already; now, you need to see its creation in detail, and you need to see the madness that produced it. You'll see it all within my memories… and much more."

She closed her eyes for a moment, as if lost in thought. "But enough of that," she said. "I have other lessons to teach, some of them more pertinent than you might think. Follow me…"

As the Mentor slowly marched away, Glinda couldn't help but notice a faint metallic scratching sound slowly filling the air: glancing down at her alternate self's hands, she realized that it was emanating from the Mentor's prosthetic fist, now clenched so tightly that the fingers were now carving deep grooves in the metal.

There was a muffled whispering from the radio speakers overhead. "My lady," a voice called. "We've received word that stations #1 - #40 are calibrated, loaded, and ready to fire on your command."

"Good. Tell the stations to begin firing as soon as the barrier falls."

"Do you have any further commands, my lady?"

"Just one: tell them to see to it that Exemplar burns."