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.

34. Of Terrors And Of Triumphs

A/N: Waaargh! New chapter finally released and my eyes are still spinning from the adrenaline arrgh!

Ahem, do excuse me. At long last, ladies and gents, the chainsawed segment is up and I hope it paid off - though as always, you'll have to be the judge. Thank you all for bearing with me in spite of my incorrigible tardiness, and I hope you enjoy the chapter; it's a very eventful one to say the least.

Nami Swann - Hurrah! Yes, for once my chainsawing actually produced something semi-decent! But to answer your question, Alphaba doesn't feel too conflicted about risking Glinda's life even if she is pregnant, though she is taking steps to keep her away from the action and out of the line of fire. This is partly due to their friendship (a minor consideration to Alphaba's empathy-divorced perspective), but mostly due to the fact that the soon-to-be empress recognizes Glinda's role as a media darling as a symbol - something to keep the people distracted while she lurks in the background, doing the actual work. Her pregnancy is just the next logical step of this role, the logical calumniation of her fairytale marriage to Fiyero and the first birth into a world without the Wizard - as Alphaba intends it, a sign that the world won't end if the Wizard's deposed. As time goes on, we'll see how Alphaba's feelings for Glinda play a role in her decisions - good or bad - but for now, time for the chapter!

Without further ado, the latest chapter - feel free to correct, nitpick, criticize and provide lovely long reviews of it; constructive criticism and engaging examinations are what get my heart started in the morning! Read, review, and above all, enjoy!

Disclaimer: Wicked and all its characters are not mine. Farfetched but true, I know.

---

For probably the first time in her entire adult life, Glinda finds herself utterly uninterested in the evening's festivities.

On the face of it, she'd have no reason to refuse her invitation, for the party warming up outside looks exactly like the kind of celebration she'd enjoy: tonight, the sky above the Emerald City is lit by dazzling showers of fireworks, each blast dyeing the streets below a thousand shades of red, blue, gold and (of course) green. Music blares triumphantly from dozens upon dozens of specially-prepared speakers, echoing along the boulevards and down the winding lanes, filling every corner of the city with thunderously bombastic marches and grand sweeping waltzes. Garish banners flutter from the streetlights and balconies, each one praising the Wizard and his most faithful servants, Elphaba, Glinda and Fiyero, each one recycled from an earlier celebration and restored at short notice by frenzied party managers. In just about every single courtyard and cul-de-sac in the city, improvised banquets are being held by the residents, some simple affairs of picnic blankets and food bought from the vendors, others more complicated affairs of trestle tables and cushioned seats with five-star food and drink on hand; one way or another, all gather around the magical viewing screens arranged for tonight's entertainment. But best of all there's a parade making its way through the city, a vast procession of deliriously gaudy floats slowly rumbling towards the palace, accompanied by perhaps a hundred thousand jubilant citizens in the grip of relief-fuelled revelry.

And yet, even with all the ingredients for a happy night out on display, Glinda has absolutely no interest in attending the festivities. She knows what the parade's carrying, and she knows perfectly well what will happen once it reaches the palace; after all, even if she hadn't been part of the exceptionally brief planning session for tonight's party, she couldn't have failed to notice the funeral pyre being built at the foot of the palace stairs. As vile and deranged as Morrible was, Glinda's pretty sure she doesn't deserve to have any more scorn heaped on her corpse; plus, the prospect of an old woman being cremated for the amusement of the citizenry makes her feel a little bit sick, truth be told.

But alas, she has her duties to perform, and as much as she wants to spend the night snuggling up to Fiyero, she's still one of the Wizard's most prominent mouthpieces, and as such, she's expected to attend the ceremony. So, here she is, dressed in her best silvery gown and glittering tiara, her hair strung with diamonds and her smile polished brighter than ever; here she is, cramped into a tiny corner of the makeshift stage alongside all the other dignitaries called to attend and speak tonight, all of them forced to the edge of the platform by the Wizard's gigantic face – and of course, the hidden control booth where the real Wizard is finally back at work.

Probably the only thing stopping this evening from being utterly joyless is the fact that Fiyero is sitting next of her, hand clasped in hers.

Elphaba is here too, thank goodness, and looking quite bemused by today's turn of events.

"What does all this mean for the coup?" Glinda had asked her a few short hours ago.

She'd sighed, as if recognizing a fresh bump in the road for her plans. "Well," she'd said wearily, "for now it means that we're in less danger of Ozian society collapsing in on itself… but we're not out of the woods just yet: I've still got to make sure that the Wizard actually recovers from whatever's happened to him."

"Any ideas on how to do that?"

"Well, I could have a word with the palace physician and cut off his laudanum supply… and put a lock on the cellar door. But maybe this celebration will be just the thing to make him clear up his act. Who knows?"

"And if it doesn't work, we're right back to the coup. Fair enough, I'll keep rehearsifying those speeches and get ready for the day it all goes horribly wronger than usual."

"Oh cheer up, would you? You're starting to sound like me on a rainy morning."

"Or a rainy afternoon. Or a rainy evening. Or a rainy weekend. Or a rainy weekday…"

"Glinda…"

"Or weekdays in general…"

"For Oz's sake, Glinda, don't you have a party to get ready for? Don't get me wrong, I'm glad you're smiling again, but don't you think that silk ballgown's feeling a tad neglected?"

Hours later, with the parade rumbling towards them, Glinda finds herself clinging to the memory of that conversation in an attempt to wring every last drop of reassurance out of it. She tries her best to keep herself occupied with thoughts of the happier aspects of tonight's festivities, but it's getting trickier with every passing minute: after all, it was only a few short months ago that one of these celebrations ended with the first public outbreak of the Plague. Three years ago, Elphaba's repentance ceremony had been held in this spot, and that could have ended with Elphie dead at the hands of a lynch mob if her magic hadn't backfired so beautifully. Now, another wicked witch is being dragged to her fate in front of another jeering crowd, and the only thing keeping Glinda from imagining Elphaba chained to the funeral pyre is the simple fact that Horrible Morrible is already dead. Not much consolation, but at this point, Glinda isn't too choosy.

Once again, she tries to focus on the happier side of the festival: the comically majestic shapes of floats wobbling down the road towards them, thankfully disguising the ugly black coffin lurking at the far end of the procession; the crowd below united in joyous songs in praise of the Wizard and his loyal servants, the chorus mercifully loud enough to blot out the screamed obscenities being flung at the coffin; the smell of freshly-baked pastries and cakes gently wafting gently towards her, courtesy of bakehouse vendors specially employed by the party organizers, every tray and basket filling the air with the mouth-watering scents of chocolate, blueberries, cinnamon, raisins, cream, and layer after layer of sugary pastry and honey-glazed crust… and then the happier side of the festival collapses in on itself as Glinda realizes that there's nowhere near enough chocolate in the entire world to compensate for the fact that she's downwind of the funeral pyre.

The look of disgust must have shown on her face, because Fiyero squeezes her hand reassuringly and Elphaba puts a calming hand on her shoulder. "You don't have to sit through this, you know," Fiyero reminds her softly. "If you want, I can just say you're not feeling well and track down one of your substitutes."

"Thanks, but no," Glinda replies. "It's a little late for me to back out now; I should probably just soldierify on. Besides," she adds with a grin, "I've got more than enough free time to look forward to in the next few months, so I might as well keep the people happy while I'm still available."

"And, once all the speeches are over, we've got the rest of the evening to ourselves. Do you have anything particular in mind?"

In spite of herself, Glinda laughs, and kisses Fiyero playfully on the ear. "Just you," she whispers.

"I wouldn't start early if I were you," Elphaba warns. "It looks like we're just about to start."

Reluctantly tearing herself away, Glinda looks up to see the first of the parade floats slowly crossing the threshold into the palace grounds; as one, both she and Fiyero shuffle back into position and wait for the floats to pass by. Perhaps it's just the hope of a happy evening finally working its magic, but the procession seems to take less than a minute, each float a colourful blur speeding past the stage. She vividly recalls the first of them, a depiction of the Wizard in what older citizens describe as "the first and most human of all his many forms": a proud, handsome-looking man dressed in a suit of golden armour, a thick green cape dangling from his shoulders, and a jewel-studded circlet adorning his brow; in one hand, he holds a slender magic staff topped with a glowing emerald sphere, whilst in the other, he wields a longsword wreathed in bright green flames. Of course, this is clearly based on another of the Wizard's grand fakeries, but at least it's captivating enough to draw Glinda's attention: she barely even notices the other three floats that whiz past the stage, and the fourth she only remembers because of just how offensively stupid it is – namely, a depiction of the Wizard striking down the Wicked Witch of the West and Elphaba the Redeemed being reborn from the ashes.

But then, as the five slowly trundle out of the plaza and back down the street, the last float shudders to a halt in front of the stage. Unlike the others, it's just a simple wooden platform with a lonely piece of cargo sitting atop it, but Glinda's been dreading the arrival of this particular cargo ever since she got her first glimpse of it being selected by the event planners; she doesn't know what demented carpenter supplied the damn thing, but if there's even the faintest scrap of dignity in his soul, he'll regret ever having dreamed of building such a monstrosity.

It's a huge ebony coffin, bought specifically to hold Madame Morrible's corpse for the duration of the ceremony; it obviously wasn't built for the occasion, for the casket would probably be about seven feet tall if stood on its end. And if the coffin's size wasn't ostentatious enough for the event, its glossy black surface is carved with dozens of grotesque decorations: human skulls staring out at the audience with baleful empty eyes, ghosts of damned souls swirling and eddying like human whirlpools, and a whole army of leering demons arrayed along the upper rim of the coffin, their tiny iron claws sunk deep into the lid above them – as if trying to prevent the corpse within from escaping. And as if these little details aren't grotesque or clichéd enough, the lid itself is carved with a life-sized skull positioned more or less directly over the occupant's face, its jaws yawning open in a silent scream of agony.

As Glinda watches with growing disgust, four impeccably-dressed guardsmen remove the coffin from the float and haul it into place on top of the funeral pyre. Within seconds, every single spotlight in the plaza is pointed squarely at the ebony horrorshow, and its image has been transmitted to hundreds of viewscreens scattered about the city, from the palace plaza to the very outskirts; the show is ready to begin.

And at long last, the Wizard finally speaks: "WE ARE GATHERED HERE THIS EVENING TO CELEBRATE THE END OF PERHAPS THE GREATEST CRISIS IN OZIAN HISTORY," he begins, amplified voice rippling out across the square. "TO PAY HOMAGE TO THOSE WHO RISKED THEIR LIVES AND MORE IN ORDER TO BRING THAT CRISIS TO AN END. TO COMMEMORATE THOSE WHO HAVE SUFFERED AND DIED UNDER THE REIGN OF THE PLAGUE. AND TO BID FAREWELL TO ONE OF THE MOST LOATHSOME FIGURES OF OUR TIME…"

A storm of cheering follows. Perhaps the Wizard's finally beginning to recover after all.

"MADAME MORRIBLE WAS ONCE MY MOST TRUSTED ACOLYTE: FOR YEARS, SHE WAS ENTRUSTED THE DUTY OF EDUCATING OZ'S BEST AND BRIGHTEST AT SHIZ UNIVERSITY, AND TEACHING A SELECT FEW THE MYSTERIES OF MAGIC. AS MY PRESS SECRETARY, SHE FIRST DREW OUR ATTENTION TO THE EVILS OF THE WICKED WITCH. AND, AS MY EMMISARY AND FRIEND, SHE HELPED DRAW THE WICKED WITCH INTO RIGHTEOUSNESS. BUT IN THE END, HER AMBITION PROVED TOO GREAT FOR HER SPIRIT, AND IN HER DESIRE TO SEIZE GREATER POWER, SHE FELL FROM GRACE. AS THE WITCH WAS REBORN AS ELPHABA THE REDEEMED-" Here, one of the spotlights lingers on Elphaba. "…THUS WAS MADAME MORRIBLE REBORN AS THE PLAGUE WITCH."

The great animatronic head bows in sorrow. "LET THIS SERVE AS A LESSON TO US ALL," the Wizard booms solemnly. "AS GLINDA THE GOOD HAS TOLD US-" And this time, the spotlight lingers on her instead. "…SOME ARE BORN WICKED, OTHERS HAVE WICKEDNESS THRUST UPON THEM… AND SOMETIMES, A FEW ACHIEVE WICKEDNESS BECAUSE THEY CAN SEE NO OTHER PATH IN LIFE. MORRIBLE WAS BLINDED BY GREED AND PRIDE, UNABLE TO SEE WICKEDNESS EVEN AS ELPHABA CLEANSED HERSELF OF IT. AND IT IS BECAUSE OF THAT WICKEDNESS THAT WE GATHER HERE TONIGHT: HER EVIL DIED WITH HER, AND IT IS TO ENSURE THAT IT CANNOT FIND PURCHASE IN ANOTHER CITIZEN OF OZ THAT WE NOW COMMIT HER BODY TO THE PURIFYING FLAMES!"

The applause almost smothers the second half of his sentence; by now, it sounds as though the entire city is cheering for him – and calling for the cremation to begin. Indeed, when the Wizard decides to add on a few elaborate personal assurances, Glinda can barely hear him over the increasingly thunderous chant of "burn the witch, burn the witch, burn the witch, burn the witch…"

In fact, it's so loud that the Wizard has to double the volume on his already-amplified voice just so he can audibly finish his speech. "NOW," he concludes, "LET THE PURIFICATION BEGIN!"

As he finishes this little speech, the eyes of his giant face suddenly begin to glow, casting an unearthly green light across the square. A moment later, the waiting funeral pyre ignites with a muffled whoosh, sending vivid green flames oozing across the dry timbers; staring at the borders of the pure, the flames then begin creeping inward and upwards across the mountain of deadwood, inching hungrily towards the coffin sitting atop its summit.

A few years ago, Glinda would have thought this sight impressive, maybe even magical, but after so much time spent watching Elphaba perform real magic and then watching the Wizard performing his carefully-arranged illusions, she knows that tonight's spectacle is nothing more than tricks and showmanship. After all, she'd seen the preparations for the show earlier that after, seen the gas jets being set up and the timbers being soaked in chemicals – though only because Elphaba had drawn her attention to it. The trick seems so obvious that for a moment, Glinda has trouble keeping the smile on her face when the inevitable standing ovation occurs.

Is this how Elphie felt? She muses to herself, as the applause sweeps across the plaza like a tidal wave. When she was rebelling against the Wizard, did she ever see people cheering at every special effect he showed off, and wonder what was wrong with them? Did she ever wonder if it was something wrong with her instead?

Glinda sighs, and gives herself a little shake. She can't be thinking about this sort of thing right now: in a minute or two, the flames will reach the coffin and then it'll be time for the inevitable speeches to be made as the smell of roast press secretary gently wafts about the square. And Glinda will be at the top of the schedule, ready to ramble on about how wickedness will never return and how important it is to build a better Oz – "for the sake of our children," she'll say, one hand "unconsciously" straying over her belly. Pure cheese, of course, especially given that she's only two months pregnant, but it's in the script nonetheless. Besides, the spectators like these sentiments almost as much as they like the special effects.

So she readies herself for the worst, smiling as broadly as she can even as she braces herself for the awful smell…

And then, an eardum-puncturing shriek splits the air, as discordant as fingernails raked across a blackboard but a hundred times louder harsher, a long, drawn-out metallic scream that instantly smothers the crowd's applause and plunges the thousands-strong audience into silence; even the Wizard himself is struck dumb by the onslaught, too startled to respond even though his amplifies could probably make him heard over the noise.

An ominous pause follows, as the echoes slowly die away and the audience slowly recovers. Then, there's a laborious fit of coughing from somewhere in the front of the stage, ending with a choked gasp for air and a hoarse whisper of "Is this thing on? Damnable piece of semi-enchanted junk…"

Glinda's eyes very slowly turn towards the source of the noise, and with a thrill of horror, realizes that the voice is coming from inside the coffin. And after spending Oz only knows how many years as her student, her underling and her mouthpiece, there's no mistaking the voice of Madame Morrible.

"Citizens of the Emerald City," the voice continues, audible even over the horrified gasps of the crowd. "If you're hearing this, then events have occurred exactly as I've predictiated: I'm dead… and you've decided to make my funeral a public affair. Well done." Mocking applause echoes from the coffin. "Yes, I'm dead. Captain Harnley and his men have me cornered even now; there's no escape, no chance of surviving the onslaught, and nothing left for me to do or say… except perhaps for a dying curse. You see, I know what'll happen: you're very predictatable people, led by a ridiculously predictatable Wizard. I know he'll want to dispose of my body in front of an audience, and I know you'll all be eager to see my corpse devourified by the flames. So, for your amusementation and edificament, I give you all a recording of my last words, primed to activate in the rising heat of my funeral pyre."

Suddenly, Morrible's voice isn't alone in the plaza, though it's still loud enough to drown out all the others that have sprung up around it: the audience has quickly descended into whispered conversation, most of them clearly unsure if they should stay and watch or just run for their lives. Most of the dignitaries are whispering amongst themselves as well, whilst Fiyero is urgently muttering instructions into the ear of the nearest guardsman; even Elphaba has joined the chorus of whispers, for at the moment, she's clearly trying to determine what spell Morrible had used to record her last words. "The Final Echo? No, fire wouldn't activate that…"

In fact, the only person not speaking at this very instant is the Wizard, who still sits mutely at the controls, his giant face remaining still and motionless.

"I think there been too much left unspoken between us," says Morrible, voice sounding almost glib in spite of the deathly cough. "In all my years of service as the headmistress of Shiz University or as press secretary to the Wizard, I don't think I ever made my feelings about the citizens of Oz widely known. So, allow me to be perfectly frank: you are perhaps the most disgustingly idiotic people I've ever had the misfortuation to encounter; I can honestly say that I've never met a bigger bunch of self-deluding hypocritical morons in my entire life, and the most damning thing of all is that I probably wouldn't have minded if you weren't so infuriatingly BORING. Whether I was teaching the snotty little brats at Shiz or presenting the Wizard's edicts to their inbred parents, you were always so very predictatably gullible: if the Wizard said it, it had to be right! I'm amazed that any of you accepted the Anti-Animal laws for so long without worrying you might be persecutified under them, gullible bleating sheep that you are!"

The glib tone is gone from her voice now, replaced by a low, menacing snarl. "And your bleating was in favour of the Wizard. Yes, the so-called wonderful Wizard. A charlatan, a fraud, a liar and a fool! Yes, in your eyes, he was more worthy of your worship than those with true power, because you didn't want true power on the throne – you wanted someone like YOU: cowardly, selfish and weak! You wanted safe, predictatable illusions that wouldn't dare make you feel like the powerless little drones you really are. You wanted a weak leader, even if you didn't know it, or if you didn't want to admit it even to yourself. In your heart of hearts, you didn't want someone who could protect you! You wanted someone who could distract you, someone who could entertain you and make the world seem safe! Look to the stage, ladies and gentlemen, look to the stage: I wager the Wizard's up there right now, and he hasn't said I word since I spoke, has he? You know why? Because there's nothing he can do to stop me. Because he's afraid. Behind that giant face, there's an old man with no power and no great designs except for those of his functionless machines, a dimwitted conman with no ambitiations beyond keeping his subjects fooled, a snivelling toady who offers nothing but parlour tricks and pomp! In my years of service, who was keeping the country stable while he went on appeasing and amusing? ME! I worked while he blustered! And now, I speak while he cowers!"

And sure enough, the Wizard remains silent, even over the growing rumble of discontent from the crowd.

"I could have given you safety. I could have given you strong leadership. I could have given you a future. But you didn't want any of it: you wanted illusions. I tried to wake you up, to show you the world beyond your control… and you rejected it; you didn't want to know what lay behind the illusion. So… fine, you win: you get to keep the Wizard. You get to live in your dull little world for a little while longer until a stronger nation invades and smashes it to pieces. But I am nothing if not a gracefulable loser: I have a prize for you, a final gift from the flames of my funeral pyre…"

Glinda blinks, and suddenly remembers that the funeral pyre is still ablaze; with a jolt of shock, she looks up just in time to see the flames engulf the coffin with a roar of igniting chemicals. As expected, there's a horrible smell, but not of roasting human flesh: it's something much fouler – a rotten-egg stink of sulphur mixed with a sharp whiff of raw alcohol, with just a hint of human vomit. But there's something else, too, something almost too subtle to detect…

Suddenly, Elphaba is on her feet and shouting at the top of her voice. "PUT THE FIRE OUT!" she hollers. "PUT THE FIRE OUT NOW, BEFORE IT-"

There's a muffled pop from within the blazing coffin, and suddenly the flames licking at its sides and rippling across its lid change colour, turning from emerald green to sapphire blue. Then, a thick cloud of oily blue gas begins pouring out of the charred coffin, seeping from under the lid and jetting from the open eye sockets of the skulls, rising higher and higher over the crowd as the pyre burns on. But the cloud doesn't disperse as it rises: if anything, it coalesces, growing thicker and thicker until it forms a single monolithic column of foul-smelling smoke hanging in mid-air above the guttering pyre; then, a moment later, it explodes, sending the gas roaring out across the plaza in all directions, into the city itself. Anyone in its path is instantly engulfed: the audience, the guards, the vendors, the few pedestrians left on the streets, the canny few who'd started running as soon as they'd seen the gas, and of course, the stage.

For five heartstopping seconds, all Glinda can see is an impenetrable shroud of oily blue fog, her own body only dimly visible as the gas slowly envelops it, thick tendrils of stinking vapour curling around her legs, spiralling across her arms, pouring down her nostrils and oozing down her throat, blanketing her body so heavily that Glinda swears she can feel it crushing her.

But five seconds go by, and without warning, the gas cloud begins to lift: by the time she's started breathing again, it's already billowing away into the night, leaving the air across the city clean again.

And then the first scream echoes across the plaza.

---

Having been afraid for so much of his life, Brrr doesn't have much trouble with mimicking fear by now; even if he hadn't been given a month to rehearse for tonight's performance, he still wouldn't have needed much in the way of preparation for the scream he's just sent howling into the night.

As for what comes next… well, he's glad he got in all the preparation he could for the second half. He's going to need it.

Out of all the help Dr Dillamond brought to the Pottery, about forty-eight of them volunteered to champion the evening's display, including Brrr and Dillamond himself; however, as he was the first to volunteer (a fact that baffles the Lion even now) he was chosen as the performance's "leading man." Once Broil had finished cooking up a batch of the chosen potion, the volunteers were all given a dose for the sake of rehearsal and allowed some time to get used to the unusual mechanics of shapeshifting: how to alter their faces and features, how to shrink and grow and contract and expand, how to accurately mimic other life-forms, and how to return to normal. As the leading man, Brrr was given extra time to master the basics; and where the other performers were given permission to do as they pleased so long as it drew attention and didn't actually harm anyone, Brrr was given specific instructions from Elphaba.

And while he'd had trouble bringing himself to actually swallow the potion, once he'd finished worrying about spending the rest of his life inside-out, Brrr had found shapeshifting much less unpleasant than he'd thought. True, the sensations of his fur melting away and growing back had been pretty weird and he'd ended up with temporary vertigo the last time he'd tried growing any taller than eight feet, but other than that, his rehearsal transformation had been a breeze. At times, it had even been fun.

But all too soon, the rehearsals had ended, the fun was over, and the day of the coup had arrived. All forty-eight volunteer shapeshifters had been given tickets to the plaza show and instructed to wait for the signal: as leading man, Brrr had been sent to the very front of the crowd, right on the edge of the funeral pyre; since the transmitters for the viewing screens were aimed so close by, they wouldn't have far to look when the time came to focus on him.

When the flames of the pyre were lit, he'd taken the opportunity to down his bottle of potion; in all the excitement, it wouldn't have looked odd – just another spectator enjoying a refreshing drink as he watched the greatest criminal of the age go up in smoke. Broil had told him that the effects would last for exactly one hour, more than enough time for him to start getting attention.

And now, with blue fumes drifting towards the horizon and the echoes of his scream still bouncing around, he realizes that that those transmitters are indeed focussing on him – and now he's suddenly become the centre of attention for practically the entire city.

In that moment, time seems to stop.

Can he do this? He's been pondering that question ever since the coffin had been deposited on the pyre, and now the question is asking itself louder than ever: with stage fright and chronic cowardice gnawing at him, can he really do all that he'd promised? He knows that this performance is supposed to help people in the long run; he knows that if this all goes to plan, Animal Rights all over Oz will improve, and the Wizard will be replaced by a more competent leader. But already he's starting to shiver, his legs have begun the all-too-familiar "I want to be somewhere else" twitch, and as the eyes of the audience – of everyone in the Emerald City – suddenly weighs down on him, he can actually feel himself starting to freeze. But he has to act: it might be just a distraction, it might be a tiny role in a show dominated by Elphaba and the researchers, but he knows that it's a painfully necessary one. Without it, there won't be a coup, just an awful lot of aimless chaos spread out across the city – and all the pointless deaths will be on his conscience. He needs to act now. The question is, how in merry hell is he going to do that? How can he ignore all the eyes staring at him, mocking him, judging him for his disgraceful state – for being such an embarrassing cowardly failure of a Lion?

And then the answer hits him, and it's so obvious that he almost feels embarrassed for not realizing it sooner. How stupid of him to forget the most basic realities of shapeshifting!

Brrr isn't here anymore.

The Cowardly Lion hasn't been seen since he drank the potion.

He doesn't have to endure the piercing stares and the judging eyes, because they're not staring at him anymore. They're not looking at a cowering, shivering, nervous wreck of a Lion: they don't see his matted mane and patchy fur; they don't see his malnourished frame and scrawny limbs; they don't even see his terrified face.

They see a shapeshifter.

Suddenly, the moment has passed and the clock is ticking again.

It's showtime.

With a deafening howl of feigned agony, he topples backwards into the row behind him, arms flailing madly at thin air. Arms catch him just before he hits the ground, hauling him back upright, and mutters of confusion fill the air with statements like "what's happening?" and "why's the Animal making all the noise?" and on occasion, "Is he alright?"

And as if answering them, Brrr begins to change: before the stunned eyes of the onlookers, his body begins to wobble and quiver like jelly, great waves of flesh rippling across his front and coursing across his face. With a rush of sharp pinpricks across his body, his fur vanishes, sinking beneath his molten skin and leaving him bare; his mane softens from coarse fur to fine human hair lying flat against his skull; his tail shrivels back into his body, closely followed by his claws; his musculature shifts and shrinks, and suddenly the world around him seems much larger – not to mention a great deal colder. Then, with a series of deliberately exaggerated pops and crunches, his skeleton begins to visibly restructure itself beneath his skin, countless bones shifting, growing, and warping out of shape: his paws give way to hands and feet, his fangs dissolve into dull square teeth, his jaws shrink and wither away, and even the most basic shape of his face is compacted and crushed beyond recognition.

Finally, having completed the steps as instructed, he stops and stands before the audience – and, thanks to the viewing screens, the entire population of the Emerald City – as a human being.

He gives them a moment or so to gasp in horror and shriek in disbelief, to mutter "oh god, it's the Plague!" and "she's turned us into animals, now she's turned Animals into us!" and most popularly of all, "Oh Great Oz, save us all, help us, help us, help us…"

Then the ex-Lion continues the performance by giving every possible appearance of shock: he stares at his hands, he frantically pats his face, he feels his head for a mane that's no longer there, before finally throwing back his head and letting out a piercing wail of "What's happened to meeeeee?!"

He turns clumsily and staggers towards the crowd, reaching out for someone who might be able to stop him from falling, but as the script expected, nobody's there: by now, there's not a single audience member standing within arm's reach of the newly-minted shapeshifter. So, he topples bonelessly to the ground and lies there, clawing "helplessly" at the pavingstones as he struggles to stand. "What's happened to me?" Brrr asks again. "What's happening to me?"

Then, with the audience's confusion and terror having reached fever pitch, he transforms again. This time, instead of carefully sculpting himself into a new form, he simply relaxes every single feature of his current body and watches as it sags grotesquely out of shape: from head to toe, his skin loosens until it hangs off his bones in wobbling, ragged flaps; his belly oozes down his front like egg yolk, land at his feet in an almost-liquid puddle; flesh pours fluidly along his legs, growing thicker and thicker until – with a flex of his metaphysical muscles – they merge into single wobbling column. In desperation, (or at least, what looks like desperation to the audience) he reaches down and tries to force his body back into shape with his bare hands, scooping up handfuls of molten flesh from the ground and frantically smearing them back into his torso; but for every ounce of himself that he manages to retrieve, a dozen more leak out of his body and spill out across the ground. In the end, he can only reach out with fingerless hands towards the distant shape of the Wizard on the stage, and through a mouth that's currently sliding down his neck, whimper "Heeeeelp meeeeeeeeee…."

And he continues whimpering, even as his arms slide off his body and splatter wetly on the ground, even as his spine gives way and his upper body sags backwards into a moaning heap of featureless quivering flesh. But as he goes on giving every outward impression of panic, inwardly he remains just as relaxed as his shape: the experience of melting is almost absurdly soothing, the sensations of letting his body liquefy and flow away about as stressful as dozing off in armchair – and requiring about as much effort. In fact, he'd like to remain as he is and melt a little further just to see what happens next, but alas, the show must go on:

So, beneath the liquid remnants of his current body, Brrr begins to sculpt his next shape. He's glad his mouth is just a molten puddle by now, because otherwise he would have laughed at the tickling sensation rushing along his nerves as the new body takes shape; it's like he's knitting a large and extremely shoddy cardigan under his own skin, every loose strand of wool and every misplaced button tickling him in a dozen sensitive places he can no longer reach. But within a matter of seconds, the shape is complete enough to burst free of the half-melted mound and reveal itself: lean, two-headed, covered in glistening black scales, mounted on four clawed legs and framed by a vast pair of batlike wings (sadly incapable of flight, but the audience doesn't know that). With a reptilian hiss, he tears himself free of the former shape like a chick bursting free of an egg, and theatrically stares down at himself with all four of his eyes. Then, Brrr opens both his mouths and roars, "Help me, your Ozness, help me!"

Several rows behind him, Dr Dillamond lets out a yowl of faked agony and begins to transform as well, his crooked horns and white hair suddenly vanishing under a layer of leathery armour-plating; new muscles bulge across his crooked frame, and a fresh growth spurt leaves him towering above the heads of the audience around him. Moments later, the former goat looks out upon the world from a skull so layered with armour that its eyes and mouth are practically invisible beneath the folds of pachyderm skin and tortoise-like shell; but even with half its face invisible, it still manages to force out a low, sonorous call of "Your… Ozness… help… please… help…"

All around the plaza, the other volunteers are transforming as well, their bodies deforming and distorting as they shift wildly between Animal and human states. From his position half-slumped across the paving stones, Brrr can see a few of them on the viewing screen to the left of the stage: a wildebeest groaning loudly and quite dramatically as his head elongates and distends – until a misshapen human head and torso is sprouting from his neck; an ocelot writhes around on the paving stones as dozens of human arms burst out of her back, her own back legs slowly merging to form the colossal tail of an anaconda; a hound, now completely human except for his head, struggles to remain upright as all four of his limbs slowly grow and distort into separate human bodies – joined by their headless necks to his hips and shoulders; a woman, only vaguely recognizable as a mare by her long ears, topples to her knees as an entire tree erupts from her back and her limbs lengthen into roots and creepers. But whatever form they take, they're all calling out to the Wizard, all of them begging for help.

"This is my gift to you, ladies and gentlemen," Madame Morrible concludes. "A taste of the world you want to live in: an Oz without order, reason or sanity, where your only solace lies in the Wizard's illusions… and now the illusions are all gone, never to return. All you have left beyond the madness is a city on the brink of ruin, governed by a charlatan powerless to save you. Enjoy it, my dear friends: there's enough Plague serum concealed in my veins to cover the entire city, and more than enough strain to keep you changing until your minds shatter under the strain!" Mocking laughter shrieks across the plaza. "Goodbye, fellow Ozians! Enjoy the insanity you've earned!"

With that, the recording ends and is replaced by a new sound altogether, one that's sounding from all corners of the Emerald City except the plaza itself: a chaotic jumble of bangs, crashes, gunshots, explosions, screams for help, shouted expletives, and agonized wailing; and leading the cacophonous symphony is a discordant series of barks, howls, screams, snarls, and roars, instantly recognizable as the myriad sounds of animals – insentient, fear-crazed and feral. These are the victims of the Final Strain of the Plague of Transformations, infected by the many Plague bombs scattered across the city prior to the celebrations.

Somewhere in the background, the funeral pyre finally gutters to a halt – not that anyone notices. Most of the audience is still staring in horror at the transformations unfolding around them, too scared to help and too fascinated to look away. Meanwhile, Commander-Administrator Fiyero has sent a few dozen guardsmen into the crowd in an attempt to get the situation under control, but they're having no luck getting through the throng. And to add to the confusion, a few people are pushing their way through the audience in a desperate attempt to escape before the Plague spreads – to no avail: two of the "Plague victims" have blocked the main road out of the plaza, one of them a quivering sea urchin with spines as sharp and deadly as harpoons and a bulk vaster than a five-story building, the other an immense growth of luminous purple fungi sprouting from the wall of the nearest building and pouring over the exit in a mountainous heap. Already, a panic is brewing as people struggle to find a way around the deadly spines and the fungal quagmire. But in reality other than the risk of trampling, the citizens have virtually nothing to worry about; having paid attention during the briefing, Brrr knows for a fact that the plaza is actually one of the few areas of the city where Elphaba hasn't planted a Plague bomb.

But as he continues to lead the growing chorus of "victims" in their attempts to call for help, he notices a figure pushing his way through the crowd – not out of the plaza, but towards the stage. Whoever he is, he's dressed in a tattered guardsman's uniform, and unarmed except for the splintered remains of his rifle.

"Your Ozness!" the man shouts, as he staggers past the charred remains of the funeral pyre. "Just got here from barracks… we've got reports of Plague outbreaks cropping up all over the city!"

The Wizard says nothing, so it falls to Elphaba to stand up and ask, "Do you know how much of the city's been affected?"

"Practically all of it, Madame Director: that gas Morrible sent out hit just about every single distict from here to the city walls. Fact is, the last broadcast from the main radio tower said that they'd seen whole herds of infectees running loose through the streets – hundreds of them at the very least."

"Can't you just corral them until we can distributify the Plague?" Glinda asks.

"I'm afraid that's not going to work, Your Goodness: there's too many of them, too many different kinds of them too, and they've got their fair share of predators among them. I've seen whole wolf packs roaming the streets out there – wolves, crocodiles, scorpions, jaguars, leopards, lions, tigers and bears, you name it! We've got stampedes of people trying to escape the infectees, we've lost the barracks on the westernmost end, there's a riot in uptown..." Once again, the desperate-looking guardsman beseeches the Wizard: "We need help now, Your Ozness!"

"Yes!" croaks Brrr, as his legs dissolve into a swarm of conjoined rats and a thousand bloodshot eyes open on the amorphous chaos of his upper torso, the shark heads growing from his shoulders snapping aimlessly at the air – how the many mutations tickle and tingle as they develop! "Help us, Your Ozness! Save us once more! Save us!"

"Save us!" cries Dillamond; he's barely three feet tall at the moment, his childlike body offset by the giant shoulder-mounted spider legs supporting his miniscule form. "Save us!"

And as the script dictates, the volunteers echo the cry – and before long, the rest of the audience start shouting it too. Within the space of a minute, the entire plaza is begging for the Wizard's help, a thousand voices raised in prayer to the giant face atop the stage.

And for once, the Wizard has nothing to say

On the other end of the stage, the dignitaries look to him with growing desperation; most of them are true believers, and the few who aren't are clearly too busy worrying about everything else: Commander-Administrator Fiyero shouts orders to the other guardsmen over the growing clamour, his face uncharacteristically grim; Glinda sits frozen in her chair, eyes wide with terror; and Elphaba… Elphaba just watches, face unsmiling and unreadable. But Brrr can easily hazard a guess at what she's thinking – perhaps something along the lines of "all according to plan."

For perhaps a minute, the desperate chant continues, the entire crowd imploring the Wizard to save them from the Plague and its growing army of victims. But fifty-seven seconds later, there's a muffled clang from somewhere behind the face, closely followed by the sound of footsteps hurrying away.

Out of all the disasters to befall him in the last few days, those loud footsteps are the last and possibly the most damning: if the amplifier hadn't sent those sounds reverberating across the plaza, the Wizard might have gotten away without anyone noticing; if the audience hadn't heard him running, the lighting crew mightn't have turned in his direction; if he hadn't panicked upon seeing the spotlight in hot pursuit, he might have had a chance to take a good look at where he was going – and he probably wouldn't have tripped on a cable, As such, when both the spotlights and the cameras catch up with him, Oz the Great and the Terrible is lying spread-eagled on the stage in an undignified heap, looking for all the world like an upside-down tortoise – not that he looks any better when he finally staggers to his feet.

In a matter of seconds, the chant slowly trails off and the audience falls silent as they get their first good look at the Wonderful Wizard's true self. Suffice to say, it's nothing like the heroic figure on the parade float; after so many months of deterioration, the Wizard's a sorry sight, to say the least: his clothes are dirty, stained and rumpled – almost as if he's been sleeping in them for the last few weeks; his posture is hunched and cowering, wracked with nervous tremors as the baleful stare of the audience transfixes him; angry red blotches mar his alcohol-ravaged features, dark circles surround bloodshot eyes, and over a month's worth of stubble coats his chin. But even with all this disarray in evidence, he might be able to salvage a little bit of respect from the audience if can actually say something in response – something dramatic, something theatrical, something warmhearted, even something funny. But he can't: all he can do is stand there, jaw flapping open and shut in horror, a deer caught in the proverbial headlamps.

Perhaps he notices the looks of anger and betrayal on the faces of his citizens; perhaps he hears the sound of Plague victims drawing closer to the plaza; whatever the case, something breaks the impasse and Oz the Great and the Terrible turns and runs for his life.

The audience is already booing him by the time he reaches the palace doors; by the time he finally forces them open and hurries inside, the riot is underway.

---

"Fraud!"

"Liar!"

"Coward!"

Glinda can only listen helplessly as the Wizard's once-devoted worshippers turn on him in a flurry of insults and expletives, hurling every single accusation they'd done their best to ignore at the Wizard's retreating back. It's not long before the inevitable shower of cold food and half bricks follow, bouncing off the walls and splattering against the steps, but by now, their target's already escaped indoors. So instead, they settle for attacking the giant face, pelting the abandoned machinery with anything they can get their hands on. And while they haven't started attacking the VIPs just yet, Glinda can tell it's only a matter of time: after all, Elphaba's warning about riots is still ringing in her ears. Question is, are they going to be the innocent bystanders, or the scapegoats?

Probably the latter.

Fortunately, the guards are already lining up on the stage in front of them on Fiyero's instructions, halberds drawn and helmets fastened; as one, they form a protective barrier between the audience and the terrified government representatives, the daggerlike points of their halberds hopefully being enough to discourage anyone trying to rush the stage. However, Glinda has a feeling that it won't be long before someone finds a means of breaking the line: there might be at least a few hundred guards on duty here tonight, but they're pitting against audience of several thousand people. And even if they do the unthinkable and actually try to deter the rioters by shooting at them, they'll have an entire city full of rioters to deal with next.

But just as she's starting to wonder if it might time to start running, a strident voice behind her shouts, "Glinda, Fiyero, over here now!" And as if on strings, Glinda obediently rises from her seat and – after climbing awkwardly over a two or three fear-paralysed dignitaries – totters over to Elphaba, who's already on her feet and marching towards the back of the stage.

"What do we do?" Glinda asks breathlessly.

"More importantly, what the hell do all these guardsmen do?" Fiyero asks. "I'd rather not find out what'll happen if they decide to join the rioters."

"Well," says Elphaba, "under the circumstances, I think we should put our preparations to good use."

"You mean stage the coup? Right now?"

"Well, our brave leader seems to have passed the buck, so we're not actually staging a coup at all." Elphaba grins mirthlessly. "But we've got everything we need, right? The guardsmen we need are stationed at the palace, the weapons are ready, and public opinion against the Wizard isn't recovering any time soon."

"Fair enough," Fiyero sighed. "What do we need to do?"

"Well, for a start, we arrest the Wizard. Good news is, I've checked his current array of hiding palaces and secret compartments: he doesn't have anywhere to go other than his quarters or the throne room, so it shouldn't take much more than a squad or two. But make this clear to your men, Fiyero: I don't want him harmed. He'll be confined to a cell and he'll stand trial when the time comes, but until then, he's to be left unharmed. Clear?"

"Perfectly."

"Good. You and the rest of your men will remain behind to help me get the riot under control: hopefully it won't take long – we're going to need the guardsmen to pacify the rest of the city."

"What about me?" Glinda asked.

"You head directly to the radio tower just south of here, and have them send a message to the Asylum; tell them we need the cure prepared for immediate dissemination, ideally as a gas - something we can spread across the entire city at short notice. Then, get onto the PA system and start making speeches – just a few innovations on the one you've been rehearsing."

"You really think that's going to be enough to calm everyone down? Just a few tons of Plague cure and a speech?"

"No," Elphaba admits, raising her voice over the growing hubbub of people trying to fight their way onto the stage. "It's a start, though."

"Maybe, but how am I supposed to get there with this crowd in the way?"

"They have a rooftop level for the sake of antenna repair, last I looked."

"And?"

A misaimed brick soars over the cordon, missing Fiyero's head by inches; even as it thuds to a halt on the edge of the stage, there's a muffled whoosh from somewhere worryingly close by, accompanied by the distinctive smell of smoke.

Over the sound of the firebomb exploding (and the sound of her patience being stretched to breaking point) Elphaba shouts, "Last I looked, you still had the option of using the bubble, Glinda."

In spite of the chaos around her, Glinda actually finds herself blushing a rich shade of magenta. "Aha," she laughs, almost as mirthlessly as Elphaba. "Forgot. Haha. Sorry." She raises her wand, readying the only spell she's managed to master in her years of practicing magic, and remarks offhandedly, "If this goes to plan… well, you'll know when you hear the announcement. And if I don't make it-"

"You will, don't worry. Now go, and remember – at the risk of sounding melodramatic, the future of Oz depends on you."

"Aha. No pressure, then."

And with that, the walls of the bubble slowly fade into position around her, leaving Glinda peering out at the world through a quivering membrane of energy; then, she ascends, faster and faster until the crowd beneath her blurs into meaningless colours and shapes and eventually, vanishes altogether as the bubble accelerates out of the plaza and into the streets.

The city beyond the plaza is just a maddened as the reports suggest: fires blaze in parked carriages and flicker through the smashed windows of looted shopfronts; rioters fling stones and flasks of kerosene at homes, stores, and even government buildings; looters swarm in and out of the smouldering ruins, hunting for anything the last gang of thieves might have overlooked; squads of guardsmen try to restore order, without much success – most of them are hopelessly outnumbered by the civilian mobs, and the rest simply can't persuade the rioters to disperse without actually opening fire on them. After all, nobody's forgetting that they were the Wizard's chosen soldiers less than a few hours ago: now that the Great and Terrible Oz has been unveiled as a fraud, the guards' authority counts for less than nothing at this point. And of course, there's the Plague victims: packs of ravenous wolves and prides of lions on the hunt, elephants and rhinos stampeding down the streets in a fury, snakes wrapping themselves around lampposts as they wait for passing prey, bears lumbering along the alleys in search of food, and a whole host of sharks, barracuda, and giant squad infesting the waterways. There's even a few who've succumbed to more exotic transformations, becoming trees, rosebushes, great lengths of mobile vines and creepers, fields of grass as green as the Emerald City itself, even the occasional colony of neon-pink mushrooms. Whatever they've transformed into, though, almost all of them are aggressive – even the plants: something in this new strain of Plague has driven them into a frenzy of hunger and rage. Oddly enough, none of them appear to be attacking each other: all of their aggression is focussed on humans.

It doesn't take very long for Glinda to spot the first transformation in process beyond the plaza: as she swerves to avoid the sharp edge of a building and hastily stops in mid-air, she sees, far below her, the figure of a woman backed into a corner by a lone guard. Though she can't hear what they're saying, she can easily hazard a guess by the expressions on their faces: the guard has lowered his rifle and is attempting to persuade the woman to follow him to safety; the woman is refusing, either out of anger at the Wizard's government or simply not trusting the guards… but as Glinda peers closer, she notices the distinct figure of a small child hiding behind the woman's back.

Even at this distance, Glinda can clearly see that the little boy is already sporting the tufted tail of a lion cub.

The guard makes placating gestures, perhaps suggesting that they can take the infected child to the Asylum, but the woman responds with a roar of anger that can probably be heard on the other side of the city. "Won't let you have him!" she bellows, her voice deepening to a bestial growl as her jaws thrust forward and her teeth give way to massive fangs. "Won't let you hurt my baby!" Her hair is turning from coppery red to golden-brown, her glossy locks withering back into her skull to form sparse fur; her bones shift and warp, forcing her posture into a hunch as her hands give way to paws and a tail tears through the back of her dress.

By the time she leaps at the guard, the woman is already a lioness. Glinda hastily looks away, but not before getting an unimpeded glimpse of the enraged mother cat tearing a chunk out of the guard's throat.

And then she realizes that she can't look away: everywhere she looks, there's something worse – the rioting, the looting, the panicking guards shooting into the crowds, the lynch mobs attacking off-duty guards, or the next horrifying transformation. Already, she can see five more breaking out on this street alone. So, instead, she sets the bubble into motion again and ascends towards the skyline.

As she rises higher, the Emerald City unfolds around her, a glittering mountain range of luminous green spires set against a pitch-black sky – a sky without a moon or stars or even the vaguest hint of clouds. To Glinda's fear-crazed brain, it almost looks as if the city itself is floating through some vast unfathomable void, its gates leading nowhere but empty space, with the rest of Oz swallowed by the deepening shadows or having never existed at all except in dreams. The Emerald City stands alone in the nothingness, a glowing beacon keeping the shadows at bay, and perhaps the only life remaining amidst the infinite void. And yes, this isn't really the case at all: it's all in her mind, just her imagination working overtime in the face of the night and the riot and Morrible's last curse and every other terrifying thing encountered this evening. It's not real… but that doesn't stop it from being absolutely terrifying. After all, the Emerald City's always held itself up as the greatest city in all of Oz, not only for its beauty and grandeur, but for its strength: even if the Wizard had no power of his own, the guards that policed Oz received their orders from him; the Emerald City's never needed to call upon the aid of Munchkinland, the Vinkus, or even Gilikin Country– why would it, when it's the nerve centre of the Wizard's army? During her reign of terror within the city, Morrible had only been able to attack a few isolated targets at a time, unable to act against the Wizard and the guards; and after she fled the capital and escalated to a rampage across the outer reaches of Oz, not one of her countless Plagues and curses were directed at her former home; not even at her most destructive did Morrible dare to strike out at the capital of Oz.

And yet, in death, she's done exactly that: she's managed to bring the Emerald City to its knees with a pre-recorded speech and a coffin's worth of Plague potion. The Wizard is gone, his guards are outnumbered, his once-proud people are losing their minds, and nobody's going to be receiving outside help anytime soon – not because the city's actually the last remaining speck of life and light in the void, but because the status quo was for the Emerald City to bail everyone else out. Now, of course, the status quo is lying in a ditch with a tyre track through its middle and a few rounds of buckshot in its head. And right now, Glinda can't tell how this situation is going to end: maybe Elphaba's already been ripped to pieces by a public too angry to listen, and Fiyero is dying in agony on the palace steps as his men fire wildly into the crowd, no longer discriminating between rioters and bystanders. And even if they're still alive, there's no telling if the riot won't end with over a thousand people dead, or with the Emerald City burned to the ground, or with the Plague contaminating every living citizen before spreading to the rest of Oz. For all she knows, she could be witnessing Oz's final night in existence.

Here and now, only one thing's certain: nothing will be the same again.

Glinda doesn't know if her speeches will be of any use now, or even if she'll be of any use to anyone in the city's current state. But if nothing else, she'll try to help where she can.

After all, isn't time she earned her title?

So, taking a deep breath, Glinda the Good adjusts the speed of the bubble and soars away into the night.

---

"Right," says Fiyero, breathing a sigh of relief. "She's hopefully safe for the time being."

"Safe is a relative term in a riot," Elphaba remarks blithely. "But at least she's not in any immediate danger… and more importantly, she'll have a chance at getting this situation under control. So long as everything goes to plan," she adds.

Not for the first time that day, Fiyero finds himself gently massaging his temples and trying not to let the situation overwhelm him: quite apart from the fact that the rioters are now either beating the living daylights at each other or hurling rotten vegetables at the cordon, the possibility of the radio broadcast solution actually working is so absurdly remote that he can barely stop himself from rolling his eyes. But if nothing else, it's gotten Glinda out of danger… and out of Elphaba's presence; it's a shame to feel relieved about such a thing, but as much as he loves them both, he can't afford to get confused by their similarities – not at a time like this.

"What do we do now?" he continues, hastily driving thoughts of Glinda out of his head.

"You get your men into position around the plaza, and I'll begin placating rioters."

"I'm sorry, what?"

Elphaba offers her best reassuring smile. "Just stand by for further orders: I might not be able to calm literally everyone in the Emerald City, but as long as those cameramen are still transmitting to the screens and as long as some people are still watching, I'm going to be reaching a very broad audience. Now, tell your men to stand aside."

"But you can't – I mean, they won't… Elphaba, you can't go out there, they'll rip you to pieces!"

"They'll certainly try. As for whether or not they'll succeed, that's another matter entirely: unfortunately, risking death might just be my only way of convincing them; it's either that or stay up here and hide behind the microphone stand."

"But they're not going be paying attention!" Fiyero explodes. "They're too angry to notice – or too angry to care, maybe, I don't know. Point is, they won't even notice if you've decided to be brave or cowardly: they'll just kill you!"

But even as he says those words, Fiyero finds himself almost crushed by the profound sense of disappointment radiating from Elphaba; even though he loves Glinda with all his heart, even though he's long since understood that she's blessed with the same traits that had once made him fall in love with Elphaba, the real Elphaba can still make him weak at the knees with barely a glance. "You've spent far too much time guarding the Wizard, Fiyero," she says, almost sadly. "And I think these people have been applauding fakery for far too long: it's time I showed them real magic…"

Then, without another word, she strides past the barrier of guards and out in front of the now-ravenous audience. Fiyero makes one last desperate grab at her shoulder, hoping to draw her back behind the barrier or at the very least to grab the nearest guard and demand to know why the hell the ex-Wizard's finest have decided to let an unarmed civilian to walk past them into a horde of angry rioters – but too late, far too late: Elphaba is already descending the stairs towards the waiting mob.

"Fellow Ozians," she announces, her voice magically amplified until it drowns out even the noise of the rioting around her. "Your attention, please…"

Oh dear gods, Fiyero silently groans. Her only chance to calm the crowd, and she opens with a line intended for bored schoolkids. We're all screwed. Maybe if I have the guards fire a few warning shots over their heads, I'll be able to get her out before they break her other leg.

But to his surprise, the rioting actually stops – if only so that the mob can give their undivided attention to the target that's just appeared in their midst. True, there's still a few fist-fights raging in the background and some looters are still trying to break into the nearby buildings, and the rest of the city is still awash in rioting and Plague, but in that moment, the plaza itself is quiet.

"We have the situation under control," Elphaba continues, brimful of confidence. "As we speak, the Plague cure is being readied for distribution and will be delivered to all sufferers in a matter of hours; by the time the sun rises, the Emerald City will be purged of the Plague once and for all – so long as you cooperate and allow us to help you."

There's a rumble of discontent from the crowd.

"These measures are for your own protection: all reports indicate that many victims of tonight's strain of the Plague are aggressive and carnivorous, and this plaza simply cannot be practically guarded; for obvious reasons, we cannot order you to return to your homes, either. All I ask is that you allow Commander-Administrator Tiggular's men to escort you into the palace, where you can be guarded until the cure has been delivered and the emergency is over."

The rumble escalates to a roar: it doesn't seem as though anyone's in the mood to put their trust in the government right now, especially after the surprise reveal of the Wizard's fraudulence. In fact, most of the crowd seems to be yelling about him, many demanding to know why they should cooperate with one of the old conman's protégés – if not just baying for his blood.

"The Wizard will be dealt with in time," Elphaba assures them. "The guards have already ensured that he cannot escape the palace, and are already scouring the upper levels of the palace for him. He will not escape arrest, and he will not go unpunished for the crimes he has committed against Oz, against this city and against you. Until then-"

"How do we know you're not just like him?" someone in the front row screams. "How do we know you're not a fraud too?"

This seems to be a somewhat divisive opinion: on the one hand, it seems to have unearthed Elphaba's followers among the crowd, all of whom seem to believe that the magic they've witnessed from the Director is genuine; on the other, the overwhelming majority of the audience is still in the grip of paranoid suspicion.

"She knew the Wizard was a fraud!" others scream. "She knew and she didn't do anything about it!"

This time, the roars of anger overshadow the amplification spells: for almost a minute, Elphaba tries to reason with the crowd, or at the very least make herself heard over the din of the crowd – to no avail. And all the while, the riot is slowly warming up again, and this time everyone seems focussed on rushing the stairs, either to defend Elphaba or to kill her; the only thing stopping them from getting there is the simple fact that most of them are too busy fighting for the chance to reach the stairs to actually ascend them.

Then, out of the corner of Fiyero's left eye, he sees the first stone gently soaring through the air. He doesn't know who could have thrown it, and frankly it's a bit of a moot point given that roughly half the audience seems to have armed themselves in some way or another; right now, all he knows is that it's heading straight for Elphaba.

A split-second later, there's a sharp thud that somehow makes itself heard even over the deafening noise of the riot, and Elphaba recoils as the half-brick makes bone-splintering contact with the left side of her face. Frantically peering through the barrier of guards, Fiyero can already see the massive gash torn in her cheek and the distinctive shape of broken bones lurking under it, but other than that, she doesn't appear to have suffered any permanent damage. But Fiyero can tell this isn't going to be the last missile thrown in her direction: already, he can see several rioters taking careful aim at the wounded target on the edge of the stairs, and while Elphaba's supporters are clearly in the mood to fight it out with them, they're still too far away from the stone-throwers to make much difference.

Fiyero is about halfway through ordering the guardsmen to fire the first warning shots of the evening, when another chunk of masonry rockets through the sky towards Elphaba… but it never reaches its target: five feet from Elphaba's face, the stone simply bounces off empty air and tumbles to the ground – as do the next eight stones flung at her. The crowd doesn't seem perturbed by this; in fact, they don't even seem to notice the fact that all but one of their shots has missed their target altogether.

But when a ninth missile hurtles through the sky towards her, Elphaba looks up at long last, blood pouring from her ruined face; and this time, the stone doesn't just bounce off – it explodes in mid-flight, vanishing in a dazzling shower of sparks. As for the tenth one, Elphaba just reaches out and snatches it out of the sky without so much as glancing at it, before casually tossing it over her shoulder. And then, before Fiyero's stunned eyes, the wound on her face begins to fade: starting from the top, the ragged corners of the tear across her cheek pinch together and slowly meld, swiftly moving downwards, until all that's left is a scar and a cheekbone already moulding itself back into shape. Then, even the scar disappears, swept away with a single sweep of Elphaba's hand as though it were nothing more than lipstick; even the blood on her clothes has gone.

Suddenly, the rioters are silent: even the ones furthest from the stage are at a loss for words, having seen all they needed to on the still-active viewing screens.

Then, searing white light blossoms around Elphaba, almost blinding in its intensity; at first, it's only a halo around her skull, an aura taking shape around her body, but then expands to encompass the entire audience, the guards behind her, even Fiyero himself. Dazzled, Fiyero can only stagger backwards away from the searing radiance even as the energy crackling against his skin enthrals and intoxicates his senses. Then, a moment later, the light shrinks back across the plaza until it's once again a halo around Elphaba's head.

"I once spoke out against the Wizard," she whispers. "I once tried to overthrow him… and I failed. I was wicked, you see, twisted, vile and ugly: I couldn't hope to win even against a fraud. When I was purified, I lost my taste for bloodshed and death, and did my best to serve the people: yes, I failed to act against the Wizard, but only because I wanted peace in Oz – and still do. I can only atone for my service to a fraud as I atone for my past wickedness, by giving you the world that you were denied for so many years. For as you see, I have true magic at my command; if you would allow it, I would use my gifts to serve you once again and build a better Oz than the Wizard could possibly imagine."

Sighing, she begins to descend towards the crowd – not walking, but gliding gently down the stairs without touching a single step in her path. "If you want to kill me, I won't stop you," she murmurs softly. "You have every right to punish me for my failure to act, and for all my past sins. But if you choose to spare me, I give you my solemn oath that I will give you a world worth striving for, a world where ugliness is nothing more than a myth and sin a long-forgotten nightmare, a world where there is only beauty, perfection, and contentment. The Wizard once beguiled you all with the promise of a better Oz, but where he used it to achieve power, I need none: I have power. I am power. And so…" Slowly, she kneels before the mob, halo still agleam around her silky black hair. "I leave you to decide my function. Please: let me help you."

There's a long pause: for what feels like an eternity, Elphaba waits for the crowd to make up its mind, while Fiyero can only watch in deepest apprehension, quietly readying the guards just in case the riot starts again.

After almost five minutes of total silence except for the chaos from outside plaza, one of them steps tentatively forward and helps Elphaba to her feet. There's a few moments of whispered conversation between her and the audience, inaudible to Fiyero at this distance; then, as one, the crowd begins quietly filing towards the palace doors.

Elphaba, however, doesn't move: she just stands in the midst of the crowd slowly marching towards the door, smiling benignly at the shellshocked people streaming past her.

Looking back on this debacle hours later, Fiyero finds that this very moment is the one that truly refuses to be forgotten, remaining clear and unblemished even while all the other memories of that night gradually fade; looking back, he sees the moment in perfect definition: the emeralds walls of the city dyed red by fire; the smell of smoke, blood and a thousand different kinds of wild animal flooding the air; the sight of men and women who'd been on the verge of forming a lynch mob a few seconds ago, now marching obediently past Elphaba, their heads bowed in contrition.

But most of all, he remembers Elphaba herself, standing calmly amidst the awestruck crowd, her posture relaxed, her halo still casting its piercing light across the plaza, a beatific smile on her face. And as the ex-rioters march towards the palace doors, she whispers something to them that even Fiyero can't fail to hear:

"Thank you."

---

"How did you get in here?"

"By bubble, of course. How did you get in here?"

Nessarose visibly suppresses a blush. "I was on my way to the library when the Plague broke out, and then I got dragged off the street by Mr Chivalry over here," she admits at last, waving her hand in the general direction of the tower's lone radio operator.

By way of response, the radioman shrugs. "Just doing my job, ma'am: CA Tiggular's had us keeping an eye on anyone close to Director Thropp – including you – just in case someone tries taking hostages to get at her."

"Fair enough. But in the meantime, Glinda, what the hell are you doing here? I'd have thought you'd be trying to manage things back at the plaza."

Glinda sighs. "It's a long story."

It's taken her far longer than necessary to get here, for as impressive as it looks to passers-by, the bubble simply isn't meant to manoeuvre at high speed: every gust of wind, every burst of flame from below, every loud noise, every little thing had her veering wildly off-course, and the only thing that stopped her from crashing headlong into a building was the bubble's hover mode. Thankfully, after wasting about fifteen precious minutes on course corrections, she managed to land safely on the radio tower's roof – whereupon she wasted about five more precious minutes trying to convince the radio operator that she wasn't an airborne Plague victim.

But at long last, she's inside and the instructions have already been relayed. Now, all she has to do is wait… apparently.

"How long is this going to take?" she asks.

The radioman looks up from the tangle of complicated machinery in front of him, and remarks, "Just another minute, Your Goodness: just making sure I've got the wording and coordinates right before I send your message."

"Does it always take this long?"

"No, Your Goodness… but them, I'm only a junior radio operator. The real expert took the evening off, just like everyone else in this damn tower; not enough call for serious radio ops now that the Plague Witch's dead, they told me. So, they left me in charge. I can receive calls easy enough, but sending them's a damn fiddly business."

"What about using the public address system? Can you do that from here?"

"Oh, easily; system's meant to be user-friendly for the announcers, y'see – I've been playing these damn waltzes and marches for the crowds outside all evening. Getting access to the speakers outside the district shouldn't be a problem, if you'll give me a few minutes to rejig the controls." The hangdog face of the operator suddenly brightens as he presses the last few buttons on the console in front of them. "Aaaand… your message is away!" he says triumphantly.

There's a muffled explosion in the distance, and Glinda asks (with a little more urgency than she'd intended), "How soon can we expect a response?"

"Oh, it'll take some time, Your Goodness: the operators at the Asylum have to actually receive the message first before they start getting things done."

There's another explosion, accompanied by a distant shout from the nearest window – from Nessarose, Glinda realizes with a thrill of horror. Hurrying over, she finds Nessa unharmed and pointing at something just outside the barred window; several stories below them, a small crowd of desperate-looking people have clustered around the entrance to the radio tower, and are now frantically hammering at the door with a clamour that can be heard even from the fifth floor. A few blocks away, a horde of Plague victims are charging down the road towards them; even at a distance, even with most of the streetlights smashed, there's no mistaking them for anything other than a pack of timber wolves.

Visions of citizens left in the path of the rampage flashing before Glinda's eyes, she turns to the radioman and asks, "How soon can we get that door open?"

"Errr… we can't."

"What?"

"I barricaded the door shut after I brought Nessarose in here," the radioman confesses. "There's about five planked nailed over it, and a few crates of rifles blocking it too. Unless you've got a crowbar and half an hour to spare, we're not going to be getting it open anytime soon."

"Well, what about a ladder?"

"Nothing that'd stretch five stories."

"Rope?"

"None to speak of."

"Oh for Oz's sake! Isn't there a barracks in the tower? Surely we can use bedsheets from-"

"No time," Nessarose interrupts. "And I think I've got a better solution."

She rolls over to the window, and with a single wave of her hand, tears the entire pane of glass from its frame and sends it hurtling into the street below – missing the oncoming wolf pack by inches. Then, she peers down at the refugees struggling to get in, and shouts, "Hey down there! Hold still a minute: I'm going to lift you up to the fifth floor!"

There's a muffled argument below them, and a voice from the ground floor shouts, "How are you supposed to lift us? I mean, can't you just open the damn doooooaaaaargh!"

Ten seconds later, a very surprised-looking refugee floats into view; hastily tottering over, Glinda helps him across the windowsill and into the building, as Nessarose releases her magical grip on him and casts it back down to the next survivor.

"Well!" said Glinda, barely managing to contain her surprise. "I knew you were studying magic but I didn't know you'd gotten that far already."

"Not far enough," Nessa mutters through gritted teeth. "I can only lift one of them at time… and I've got another eighteen people to go. Glinda, how much magic do you know?"

"Well, I…" For the second time that night, Glinda finds herself blushing; is this really the time for her to start getting embarrassed over her limited magical knowledge? Probably not. "…let's just say I haven't mastered that particular trick yet," she finishes limply.

"Is there anything you can do to stop the wolves? Fireballs? Blinding lights? Illusions?"

"I… I… um…"

By now, the second refugee has arrived on the fifth floor, and as such, Glinda is forced to lean forward and whisper her next words into Nessa's ear: "I'm not exactly a magical expert, believe it or not."

"Glinda, I don't mind if you're a prodigy or a magical dunce, and at this point it doesn't really matter if you're an expert or not: do you know anything that can stop the damn wolves from chowing down on the people we're trying to rescue?"

"No!" Glinda hisses desperately. "I'm out of practice with just about everything except the bubble, and that can only transport people through the – oh."

"What? What?"

It's been a very long time since she's ever had to adjust the size of the bubble, given that nobody's been interested in joining her for a tandem flight; even Fiyero politely declined a lift in the bubble. But she still remembers how to expand the bubble. Blinking in amazed realization, she asks, "Do you have anything to fight off the wolves with?"

"I know a few hexes and curses, and if all else fails, I can always throw things at them. But in case you didn't notice, I'm a bit busy lifting these people to safety."

For the first time in a very long while, Glinda smiles. "Let me take care of that; you get rid of those wolves: I think I might actually have the perfect spell for the occasion…"

That night, the radio tower became legendary among the citizens of the Emerald City: there were many safe havens for refugees to seek shelter in, from Elphaba's grand gathering at the Wizard's palace to the barricaded ghettoes arranged by the Animals, all of them renowned for the part they played in saving the lives of the citizenry. However, the radio tower became legendary in no small part thanks to the improvised defence-and-rescue plan arranged by Glinda the Good and Nessarose Thropp. After all, where else in the Emerald City could the refugees have been carried to safety by a giant pink soap bubble and seen hordes of ravenous wolves driven off by blizzards of broken glass?

---

"Captain Tiggular! Captain Tiggular!"

Fiyero looks up to see two bedraggled figures staggering over the threshold towards the palace stairs. By now, the plaza's almost empty except for his guards, most of whom are lined up at the foot of the stairs, halberds raised and rifles ready to ward off any Plague victims on the rampage. Since ushering the last of the citizens into the palace Elphaba has ordered that any Plague victims lucid enough to seek help are to be helped into a secure enclosure until the cure arrives.

Refugees alerted to the palace's current status as a safehouse by the latest round of speeches, on the other hand are to be escorted inside the palace as quickly as possible – and it seems as though the refugee gathering has two new arrivals.

"Fiyero, you have to help us!"

The two women now hobbling across the plaza towards the cordon are dressed in the tattered remains of a very expensive duo of silk dresses, and one of them appears to be missing a shoe; their hair is tangled and filthy, and looks as though it's been combed with a thicket, and both sport a bevy of cuts, bruises, abrasions and other minor injuries – all in all, pretty standard as far as partygoers-turned-refugees go. But as they draw closer, Fiyero can't help but wonder if he hasn't met these two before: quite apart from the fact that they're apparently on first name terms with him, they actually do look quite familiar.

By now, the duo have finally made it through the cordon and now hurried towards Fiyero – almost collapsing in front of them as they continue begging for help. "You can help us!" they shout, almost in unison, "You have to help us! You know Glinda and Elphaba – they can undo this!"

There's a pause, and then Fiyero finally realizes where he's seen these two faces before: Glinda's posse from Shiz, the girls who were always trailing after her up until she and Elphaba became friends – what were their names again?

"It's Shenshen and Pfanee, isn't it?" he asks hesitantly.

The two nod.

"Well, would either of you care to explain what I'm supposed to be helping you with – or what Elphaba's supposed to be helping you with? Don't get me wrong, I'll be happy to help you and I'm sure Elphaba will be happy to help you, but I'm afraid we're both a bit busy right now in case you hadn't noticed." He pauses for breath, and realizes that the two of them are still reeling from the effects of whatever happened to them and not exactly in the right frame of mind for conversation; sadly, this isn't out of the ordinary as far as refugees go. So, Fiyero turns to the brunette of the duo and asks, "If you could please explain what's wrong… Pfannee?"

"No," says the chestnut-haired girl in the black dress. "I'm Shenshen."

Fiyero takes a deep breath and quietly buries his face in his palm for a moment. After all the stress and confusion of the riot so far, he's in no condition to start picking through all the memories of his university days; as far as he recalls, Shenshen had black hair and a slightly rounder face than Pfannee, and she preferred wearing white when out of uniform. Other than that, he can barely anything about either of them other than the fact that they were incorrigible fashionistas, dedicated gossip-mongers and – up until that night at the Ozdust – practically inseparable from Glinda.

And then Shenshen drops the other shoe: "But I look like Pfannee!"

"What?"

"It's the Plague!" Pfannee wails. "We've been turned into each other!"

Fiyero's eyes widen in understanding. Sadly, this isn't the first instance of human-to-human transformation that's shown up on their doorstep in the last few hours: from what Elphaba tells him, it seems there's a specific variant of the Plague strain released tonight that targets individuals travelling in pairs; instead of just converting the targets into a pre-arranged species of wild animal, it causes them to exchange physical traits. So far, the guards have seen workers who've become their bosses, husbands who've become their wives, parents who've become their children, and a whole series of vice-versa; most of them have been very confused, especially the younger victims (several of whom have had to carry their own parents through the streets towards the palace; thankfully none of the more aggressive Plague victims seem interested in attacking them).

However, Shenshen and Pfannee seem even worse – barely functional, in fact: they're dazed, unfocussed, barely able to remember where they were when they were infected, and quite oblivious to what they've been doing in the last few hours. They swing wildly between speaking in perfect unison, finishing each other's sentences, or just repeating themselves long after the relevant topic died away. And when an aide shows up to escort them into the palace, the two almost immediately trip over their own legs and topple over, mumbling something about not knowing which foot to use first.

But as they help each other to their feet, their arms merge: Pfannee's left arm oozes through Shenshen's right arm as if it was made of syrup and stays there, remaining embedded in Shenshen's body no matter how hard Pfannee tries to extract herself. Indeed, as her escape attempts become more and more frantic, she actually manages to merge her right arm with Shenshen's chest, whereas Shenshen's attempts to escape just leave both her hands fused to Pfannee's shoulders. Now screaming, the two kick and shove at each other with all their might, ignoring Fiyero's desperate shouts to hold still, even ignoring the simple fact that they're only hurrying the process along: their legs fuse together, their arms and sides ooze into one interconnected blob of limbs and flesh, their tattered dresses are ripped away, and last but not least, their faces merge together into a single writhing conglomeration of disjointed facial features. As one, they scream – and then collapse to floor in a hopelessly merged heap of flesh.

Fiyero can only look down at the creature lying at his feet, and marvel at the fact that it's somehow still alive. It's even breathing normally, through probably only because it's lost consciousness by now.

He looks away, trying to force the sight of the merging out of his head; no luck – it's there for good, in no small part because it's starting to remind him of his difficulties with Glinda and Elphaba. It's bad enough that he's having trouble telling the two of them apart when they're together, even worse when he starts having those confusing visions of Glinda's skin turning green, but having the sight of Glinda's university friends abruptly merged together permanently embossed on his brain is nothing short of hellish.

Sighing, he does his best not to imagine Glinda and Elphaba merging together, and calls for a stretcher.

Hopefully, the release of the Plague cure will solve this particular problem before it gets any worse.

---

"That I did not expect," Dr Coil remarks.

Dr Ailing shrugs. "What do you expect? That particular ancillary strain was meant to be used on distinct individuals; I hardly think those two qualify as distinct in any sense of the word."

"In other words, a freak accident caused by too many similarities. Mr Heart, you knew those two back at Shiz; did they seem so indistinct back then?"

Mr Heart reluctantly tears his eyes away from the screen, and scours his memories of his time at Shiz: truth be told, he can barely remember Shenshen or Pfannee with any degree of distinction – he was too busy obsessing over Glinda to notice her two closest friends. Like many things from his life as Boq, he looks back upon this mental myopia with a great deal of embarrassment and shame; but as disgraceful it is to admit such a thing, even if the two weren't overshadowed by more prominent students, Shenshen and Pfannee barely showed any sign of personality beyond their shared interests with Glinda – and more to the point, they were virtually interchangeable as far as personalities went anyway.

So, he can only nod.

"Appropriate," Emma/Morrible grudgingly admits. "Definitely appropriatory to their arrangement as a duo, but not to their true personalities. I would have thought transforming them into cows would be more fitting."

"Why?" Heart asks, one eye still pointed at the bank of viewscreens. "Do you really hate your former students that much?"

"Only you and the Director, young man. No, I don't hate those two: I just think they're better suited to life spent as cows. They'd be happier that way, for a start."

"Let me guess: you think they're so shallow and so wilfully stupid they'd actually welcome the uncomplicated lifestyle of a grazing animal."

"Well there's that, and the fact that the prospect of having their tits groped by a strapping young famer every morning would probably be a dream come true for them."

Even Miss Turnkey laughs at this.

As for Dr Coil, he and Ailing are still peering down at the ongoing replay of Shenshen and Pfannee's transformation. "Hmmm, interesting," Coil murmurs. "It'll be worth studying in the event that she's quartered at the Asylum."

"Don't get your hopes up: if the cure all goes well, the Asylum's going to be empty by dawn."

"That doesn't mean the victims won't need medical attention after the cure's been dispensed – or before. Anyone up for a quick jaunt to the palace?"

"Sit down, you dingleberry," Ailing laughs. "They're already loading the cure into the evaporators."

There's a cough from the other side of the room, and Broil adds, "We've also just received word that the Wizard's just been captured. You'll probably be sent for within the next few hours."

"Ah well, so much for interesting diversions. Mainspring, is there any popcorn left in the bowl?"

---

Its midnight now, and the Plague cure fogs the streets of the Emerald City, shrouding every building from the city centre to the outskirts with dense grey clouds. They glow faintly in the dark as the magic of the vaporized potion silently rains down on the many victims of the Plague. All around the city, those transformed by tonight's Plague are slowly returning to normal, along with the many victims of previous strains, at long last purged of their long-term symptoms by the Asylum's carefully-crafted antidote.

Astonishingly, less than three hundred people have died tonight, and very few of them at the hands of the Plague victims. True, the Plague-beasts did manage to claim several victims, ultimately, most of them weren't smart enough to hunt for their prey indoors. No, the majority of the casualties this evening were victims of the riot, found as charred carcasses within the blackened skeletons of their homes and workplaces, or dangling from lampposts uses as temporary gallows by the lynch mobs. One by one, the bodies are slowly being cleared from the streets by the reinvigorated guardsmen, now joined by civilian volunteers – most of them cured Plague victims; for all the wounds the city has suffered, it's already beginning to heal itself.

Soon, heroes are already emerging from the shadows to inspire the citizens to rebuild: Glinda the Good and Nessarose Thropp, the defenders of the Radio Tower and the rescuers of countless terrified civilians; Commander-Administrator Fiyero Tiggular, the man who'd coordinated the guard in the capture of the Wizard and the final dispersal of the riot; and last but not least, Director Elphaba Thropp, the Redeemed, the creator of the Plague Cure, the peacemaker who'd first quelled the rioters, the saviour of the Emerald City, and undoubtedly the only possible replacement for the Wizard of Oz.

The next few days will be tumultuous indeed as the rebuilding continues and the new government slowly emerges from its glistening chrysalis. But even in a time of such great uncertainty and fear, one thing comforts Elphaba here and now: it all went according to plan.

The Wizard has been removed from the board, the public's faith in him lies in ruins, countless dispensable members of his government have met their end at the hands of the rioters, and a more capable government with a more capable ruler is already taking their place. Best of all, the people of Oz have been granted uninterrupted glimpse at the ugliness that Elphaba will save them from: she might have exposed them to it, conjured it into physical reality via the Plague, but that ugliness was in their hearts long before the Plague was ever dreamed of. One day, it will be her solemn duty to cleanse them of it once and for all… but for now, she has one last meeting to attend before the night is over.

And thus, she finds herself back in the Pottery, drifting past the cubicle maze, past the plates of half-eaten party food and the spilled pitchers of beer, before finally arriving in the white-tiled holding cells tucked away at the far end of the complex. Having been warned in advance, the guards have opened one of the cells in preparation for her arrival, and now wait on either side of it – just in case the prisoner decides to make a run for it; however, this particular prisoner has nowhere left to run and no means of finding a way out, so the guards are little more than a formality.

Inside the cell, the Wizard sits alone on his bed, lost in thought. Officially, he isn't here: all records can confirm that the Wizard is currently confined to his palatial quarters until a date for his trial can be decided, and over a hundred reliable witnesses among the guards can confirm that he's still pacing aimlessly around a kitchen table. Much like the Pottery itself, his transportation into the catacombs beneath the city has been kept secret from virtually everyone in the palace – a secret enforced through the use of Dr Mallistran's illusions.

Elphaba looks down at the sad little figure on the bed with a mixture of pity and contempt. Once upon a time, he'd held sway over an entire kingdom, earning the faith of millions through nothing more than cunning, charisma, and ingenuity – and of course, a great deal of trickery; now, had Elphaba not lived through those hallowed days, she'd never have believed that the tired old man sitting in front of her had once been capable of such things. If he'd looked pathetic a month ago, now he looks downright wretched: here and now, the Wizard's eyes are closed, his brow wrinkled with herculean concentration; perhaps he can't bring himself to look at the world that's turned against him, or perhaps he's trying to force himself to awaken from the nightmare he's found himself stranded in.

Whatever the case, he doesn't realize he has a visitor until Elphaba asks, "You wanted to speak with me?"

The Wizard's eyes flicker open – and then widen as he notices the figure standing over him. Instantly, he's on his knees in front of her, begging for mercy at a rate of about a thousand words per minute: "Elphaba I'm begging you please don't do this to me I know you're running the show now and I know you must be holding a grudge from everything we had to do to help you but I swear I never meant it to hurt you so badly and it was all worth it right so you don't have to kill me I can still be useful to you so please don't kill me!"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Look I know I'm officially deposed and I've got no power to speak of and I'm in no position to be making requests but I'm just asking for a reprieve pass so when it comes time for the trial just give me a life sentence I promise you I'll be more useful as a jailed man than a condemned one so please just spare my life that's all I ask."

Elphaba sighs. She'd agreed to this meeting as a courtesy to the Wizard, a final favour to the condemned before leaving him to the surgeons, and she's already starting to wonder why she even bothered. "If you're not prepared to be coherent, then I'm afraid there's not much we can talk about. Good evening."

She's already turning to leave when the Wizard shouts, "Elphaba, listen to me – I'm your father!"

There's a distinctly awkward pause, and then Elphaba finally turns to face the Wizard once again. "Would you care to repeat that?" she asks coldly.

"I'm your father," says the Wizard; the panic is gone from his voice now, replaced by weariness and exhaustion. "I know it might sound hard to believe, but it's the truth," he continues. "You're my daughter. I mean, you have my coat in storage right now – didn't you notice the two green bottles stashed away in the pockets? One of them belonged to me, the other belonged to-"

"My mother," Elphaba finishes; by rights, she should feel astonished about this claim, perhaps even outraged… and yet, all she can feel is a curiously detached sense of calm. "Explain."

And with that, the Wizard leans back against the white-tiled wall of his cell and explains himself as best as he can: he tells Elphaba of his life prior to ascending to the throne, back in the days when he'd still occasionally used his real name of Oscar Diggs – Oscar Zoroaster Phadrig Isaac Norman Henkel Emmannuel Ambroise Diggs to be specific. He tells her of the welcome he'd received upon his arrival in Oz, of how he'd begun acquiring supporters and followers among the local government, and how they'd begun paving the way for the coup d'état that put him on the throne. However, until they'd finished making inroads to the throne, he'd been free to wander the Land of Oz in disguise, seeking profit and pleasure in the role of a travelling salesman. Under this persona, he'd peddled dubious elixirs of his own design, euphoric potions and cheap aphrodisiacs that would seem attractive to the jaded housewives that comprised the overwhelming majority of his customers – most of whom he'd ended up bedding. It was on one of these routine door-to-door sessions that he'd met Melena Thropp; bored, frustrated, and deeply disillusioned with her marriage to Frexspar (or so the Wizard claims) she'd enjoyed a brief but passionate affair with Oscar before his schedule forced him to leave Munchkinland behind, during which the two had helped themselves to several droughts of his homemade green elixir.

After that, Oscar had moved on, forgetting all about the lonely young woman he'd spent that balmy summer night with, and completely overlooking the fact that he'd left a bottle of elixir behind. With nothing to anchor him, he'd rambled around the countryside for a few more weeks, drinking, gambling, womanizing and generally making an ass of himself… and then his new allies had showed up with the promise of a throne. Charmed by the flattery of the "true believers" he'd acquired and eager to make something of himself anyway, he'd accepted their proposal and ascended to the throne.

For the next twenty years, Melena Thropp had remained forgotten. Then, after a few months of wreaking havoc on the re-education camps, Elphaba had been captured and imprisoned; with most of her belongings confiscated, the Wizard had taken the opportunity to indulge his curiosity and rifle through her things.

There, he'd found the little green bottle.

Even the Wizard – who, by his own admission, was an expert at self-deception – couldn't fail to grasp the implications. Elphaba was his daughter and he'd almost killed her in his attempts to preserve his kingdom. Needless to say, he'd spent the next few years struggling to admit the truth to his newly-redeemed daughter, and failing every time: whenever he'd come close to revealing the truth to Elphaba, his courage had failed him and he'd been left helplessly flapping his jaws at nothing. So, instead, he'd lavished her with privileges, high-paying jobs, and other compensations for his earlier neglect, all the while cursing himself for his failure to speak up – until now.

There's a pause, as Elphaba slowly digests this information. Once again, she feels that curiously detached sense of calm settling over her: thoughts of anger or disbelief are nowhere to be found inside her mind, leaving only a cold and perfectly logical examination of the facts.

"I believe you," she says at last.

"You do?"

"The evidence adds up, as you've said: the bottles, my birth defect, your behaviour following my purification, even all the gifts you provided me with. It makes sense… but I'm curious as to why you brought it up now. What do you hope to gain, exactly?"

The Wizard sighs. "All I ask is that you spare my life," he says simply. "I'll be happy to spend the rest of it in a cell, or working off my debt to society; I mean, you'll still have some use for me and my talents. Just don't have me executed."

Elphaba considers this for a time.

Then, she asks, "Did you remember what you said when we first met?"

"Sorry?"

"Do you remember what you told me during our first meeting? As I recall, you said you longed to be a father and you treated every citizen of Oz as your sons and daughters. Now tell me, do you still long to be a father?"

"Yes," says the Wizard, without hesitation.

"If you were given the chance, would you serve the people of Oz as any good parent would serve their children? Would you help them seize their true potential, give them all the chance to fly?"

"Yes."

"And if I offered you the chance here and now, would you take it?"

"Of course I would," the Wizard babbles excitedly. "I wasn't lying when I said I was a sentimental man: if there's anything I can do for you then I'll be happy to do it, Elphaba; I know the truth's arrived a bit late, but I promise you that I'll help the people of Oz in any way I can – and I'll prove my worth to you as a father, I mean it."

At long last, Elphaba smiles. "Then I think it's time we began, don't you?"

"What do you-"

There's a pause, as the Wizard's eyes roll back and he crashes to the ground in an unconscious heap. Elphaba gently releases her magical grip on her father's nervous system and hauls him back onto the bench, before almost absently turning towards the door: there, the surgeons are already waiting – Dr Coil and Mr Heart to handle the surgery, Dr Mainspring to handle the augmentation.

"You may begin, gentlemen," she whispers. "He's given his full consent to this operation, and he wants to make a difference for the people of Oz: let's not keep him waiting, shall we?"

---

Hours later, the Wizard's body is escorted back to his quarters: by now, the mechanisms that Mainspring implanted in the vacant hollows of the carcass are already in motion, moving the limbs of the empty body as if it were still alive; as such, now that the scars have been carefully erased by Mr Heart, nobody will ever know that the Wizard now roaming aimlessly around the chamber is really just a complex array of clockwork sheathed in dead flesh.

As for the mind of Oscar Diggs, it's already been incorporated into Mainspring's mechanical gestalt; once he regained consciousness, the former Wizard had screamed for almost an hour before the emotional programming kicked in, silencing him in a matter of seconds. This is not unusual: after all, the last three or four minds to be connected to the machine had screamed once they realized what had happened to them, and none of them understood the blessing that had been bestowed upon them like Diggs does. After all, this isn't a punishment, but an opportunity to redeem himself of his crimes against Oz.

This, after all, is an act of mercy.

This way, the Wizard's memories and personality will live on in the databanks of the machine, immortal and unaging, immune to the ugliness of time. This way, all the illnesses and maladies that he would have suffered, from his tortured liver to his steadily weakening heart, will never trouble him again. And best of all, his intelligence will at last be freed of everything that hampered it in life: his obsessive need to appease and profit will be forgotten, allowing him to act for a greater cause; freed from selfishness, his creativity will no longer be hampered by the desire to exploit and can now serve the greater good in perfection; best of all, his intellect will be purged of cowardice, allowing it to move beyond the stifling domain of the status quo in search of greater achievements. All that was imperfect in Oscar Digg's soul is slowly being burned away by layers of emotional programming: all that will remain is that which made him good – and that which will make him perfect.

All that will remain is a Paragon.

Smiling, she reaches out and presses her right hand against the buzzing machinery that now houses the Wizard's purifying consciousness – which is currently asleep while the programming slowly edits the flaws from his personality.

"Good night, father," she whispers softly. "Sleep well."