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.

43. Trials, Tribulation, Triumph

A/N: Ow.

In a word, ow. It's not been much fun these last few weeks, ladies and gents: work's been getting by decently enough, but unfortunately, I ended up picking up the office bug along the way. I've lost far too much writing time to all the days I spent coughing my lungs up and sleeping off the cold meds, and even more time to catching up on work. I didn't intend for the chapter to go on for this long, but I was just so frustrated with how little I got done, I just kept piling on more and more until we have this. I sincerely hope I can be forgiven for this tardiness, and I hope you enjoy this latest chapter.

Nami Swann - thanks for reviewing; I hope the suspense holds, especially with a confrontation with an entire flotilla in the works as you say - plus much more! As for the transmission... there is so much more to say yet...

CJ: I love your overall reviews, and I'm glad you enjoy the characterization; I'm continuously worried than I'm overdoing things in terms of both evolution and counterparts, so your analysis means a lot to me. Vara's story and SP were a little worrying to me, too - I kept fearing that I'd blundered the drama or ended up enforcing some kind of ghastly gender stereotype in Vara's backstory - so I'm glad you liked it. Thanks so much, and I hope you enjoy this latest chapter.

Anyway, without further ado, the latest chapter! Feel free to review, critique and criticize - especially in the case of my perpetual hidden typos! Read, review and above all, enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own Wicked, and I don't own If I Only Had A Brain, either.

---

"Elphaba, what are you doing?"

"I'm currently doing my best to assure that we make it out of this debacle alive. Do you want me to be more specific, or do you want to leave it at that?"

"See, now I know you're nervous: you only get this snippy when you're really, really worried."

Elphaba took a deep breath, counted to the highest number she could possibly reach, and fought a powerful urge to headbutt the wall. "At the risk of sounding even snippier than usual," she said wearily, "can you really blame me for being on edge? We've got an entire army and a small air force stationed just above our heads; for all we know, we could be walking right into the middle of their encampment and we'll never know until the first gunshot sounds!"

"I'm no expert on armies, but I'm pretty sure they wouldn't make camp right on the edge of a giant hole in the ground."

"Good point," Elphaba conceded. "But the point still stands: we've got a full-equipped army and a small air force just ready to invade, and if Wolton can't raise anyone on the radio, it's going to be us – barely enough to qualify for a squad last I looked – against an entire enemy beachhead."

"We've still got Coil and Branderstove, though; they look like they could even their odds all on their own. What about Shenshen-Pfannee?

"They've abstained from fighting. Apparently, they don't want to let the Empress know the Amorphous League's been sneaking around the battlefield – zero presence profile necessitated, they said."

"And what about Kiln and the Tin Man?" Glinda plunged on heedlessly. "What about you? We're not exactly helpless, Elphie. But you still haven't explained what you're doing back here."

"I'm doing what I usually do in situations like this: I'm looking for stalagmites."

Glinda looked blank. "…did we just turn over two pages at once?"

"I'm trying to even the odds."

"…with stalactites?"

"Stalagmites."

"What's the difference?"

"Stalagmites are easier to reach."

"You still haven't explained how collecting limestone spikes will even the odds."

By way of an answer, Elphaba got to her feet and wandered over to the opposite end of the cavern. Here, the stalagmites were clustered just as densely as those on the northwest side, forming the great "stone rosebushes" that – according to Marchfly – the Lost God had planted during his travels beneath the earth. However, the "thorns" themselves were much more delicate, most of them no wider than a human finger. Kneeling down, she reached carefully past the rows of needle-sharp thorns and plucked one of the thinnest stalagmites from the rosebush, a slender tine of rock perhaps eleven inches long – more like an oversized knitting needle than anything else.

"Suffice to say that I copied this spell from the Grimmerie for a very good reason," she explained. "It hasn't been used in over a year, but I thought, 'you never know when you might need it.' You see, this is a relic of the few times I ended up in the company of fellow rebels during my time as the Wicked Witch: sometimes the Animals I'd rescued from the camps weren't interested in going into hiding and hoping for the best; sometimes I ran into cell of rebel Animals who'd be willing to shelter me. Of course, it never ended well: they'd end up dying, getting recaptured or just fleeing the country altogether, but that's not the point. One way or another, I ended up with allies who desperately needed weapons and no way to buy or steal them. So, I found a way to make them."

She set the detached stalagmite on the cavern floor, then drew her notebook from her pocket. For a few seconds, she flipped hurriedly through the dog-eared pages, searching for the correct spell: then, she began to chant the words of an incantation, each word of the spell subtly altering the stalagmite's chemical makeup and casting an unearthly glow upon the cavern floor. Raw magical energy billowed and eddied across the limestone as Elphaba poured the incantation and all the power it commanded into the stalagmite, imbuing it with a thimbleful of violent thaumaturgical puissance.

Ten seconds later, the light faded and Elphaba held up the newly-enchanted stalagmite for Glinda's approval.

"This," she said solemnly, "is a war sceptre."

"You just made me a new wand?" Glinda asked, awestruck.

"No; like I said, it's a war sceptre – completely different from a wand."

"How do you mean?"

"To begin with, real wands require a lot more time and resources to produce: even with the Grimmerie on my side, it'd still take hours on end to layer the enchantments properly. Remember that first wand you got back at Shiz? That probably took Morrible about three days to carve, infuse and enchant."

"Oh."

"More to the point, wands are for true magicians. War sceptres can be used by just about anyone. Plus, they need to be made of stone, without exception – hence the stalagmites. Of course, they're not as versatile as real wands, and they can only be used for a few hours before the charge runs out – probably one of the reasons why this particular spell never caught on in more advanced circles – but it'll do for now."

Here, Elphaba paused, trying desperately not to let her reluctance show. It had been hard enough to admit that she couldn't keep her friend safe forever, and now that the prospect of leading her into battle was staring them in the face, she was almost tempted to throw away the sceptre and have Glinda hide in one of the caves until the battle was over. But she knew it wouldn't do any good in the long run: for all she knew, Glinda might just find a way to the surface on her own and join the fight anyway.

"Since you've proved that you can at least put up a fight," Elphaba continued, "I think this will do adequately until you've been properly armed and trained. Just remember the swish-and-stab motion, and you'll be fine. Just remember: this isn't a proper wand; it can't heal, it can't move objects, it can't project illusions, and it most definitely will not boost your power. This is built specifically for hurting and killing people in a very straightforward way. It will not make you invincible. Got it?"

Glinda snapped a salute. "Yes, ma'am."

There was a snort of laughter from somewhere behind them; it was Wolton, still absently keying in commands on the battered radio set in front of him, still hiding a smile behind one hand. "We might just make fair-to-decent soldiers of you yet," he chuckled.

"What, and we weren't before?" said Elphaba, a little more defensively than she'd liked.

Wolton shrugged. "No offence intended, but you're both a bit on the maverick side, especially you. Not that it's unexpected or anything like that: in my experience, magicians are incorrigible showboaters, and Irredeemables love playing up their image as "the glamorous elite regiment" of the Deviant Nations' military. Erratic behaviour was expected from the moment I met you, even before I found out about that temper of yours. Again, no offence."

"None taken."

"Don't pay any mind to him," Vara chimed in. "The good Captain likes everything low-key and camouflaged; no grandstanding elites allowed in his book."

"Time was, we'd call it the professional approach, Vara. True, times have changed, but we can't all go into battle armed with nothing but tentacles and corrosive body odour: someone's got to keep up the boring but functional approach in this army."

"Wow. Captain Marl-"

"-god rest his soul-"

"-said you were the honest-with-yourself type, but I didn't realize you were that self-aware."

"Hey, that's just the motto of the DN Regulars: Boring But Functional. Only fair I should live up to it."

Elphaba cleared her throat. "Speaking of functionality, has there been any word from Loamlark?'

"Still nothing, I'm afraid. Maybe we'll be able to get a clear signal once we're on the surface, but it'll mean exposing ourselves to enemy attack while we call for backup. We still don't know just how far away this encampment is, remember."

"We'll just have to risk it, then," said Elphaba. "Come on: we'd best get going."

There was a muffled commotion as the small army began marching towards the colossal hole in the cave roof, Elphaba and Glinda bringing up the rear. Up ahead, Shenshen-Pfannee was slowly beginning to change shape once again, their body expanding and flattening into a colossal iron dish, their arms growing into an equally massive set of spidery limbs even as their faces sank beneath the surface of their inflating body. Even with this new shape only half-formed, it was clear that this metal dish was meant to be the elevator that would carry their little strike team to the surface – those of them who couldn't fly, at any rate.

Glinda tapped Elphaba on the shoulder. "Do you think there's any hope?" she asked – a more-than-noticeable trace of nervousness in her voice.

"What, of us surviving?"

"Of us winning. Not just this battle, I mean. This entire war, really. And maybe if there's any hope of us finding a way back to Oz – the Oz we came from, I mean – and… well, I don't know, getting the Wizard off the throne once and for all. The right way, I mean, not the Plague of Transformations coup detached thing kind of way."

"Glinda-"

"Elphie, please, I know I'm rambling, it's probably just nerves but…" She took a deep breath. "I need to know: do you think there's any hope at all?"

For a moment, Elphaba considered falling back on her usual pessimism: "probably not," "we need to look at this realistically," the utterly despairing "there's a finite amount of hope in the universe and it's all been claimed by someone else," or perhaps the old chestnut "wishing only wounds the heart." But at the last moment, she reconsidered. Elphaba hadn't the faintest idea why – after all, they were still heading into an enemy camp with less than the bare minimum of troops and arms and only the vaguest possibility of reinforcements; and as for the chances of somehow winning the war, let alone surviving it long enough to find a way home and successfully continue the attempt to reform Oz from the top down, words like "infinitesimal" or "non-existent" didn't quite do the odds justice.

And yet…

Things had changed – subtly, and yet too significantly to ignore: when they'd set out for Loamlark a few short days ago, Elphaba had been resigned to the fact that she couldn't save anyone, and convinced that there was precious little to hope for except revenge against the Empress. Now, she knew otherwise: now, she knew Fiyero was still alive because she'd saved him; now, that once totally-assured belief in her own fallibility was starting to wilt ever-so-slightly. And if nothing else, along with allies and weapons, however sparse they might be, they had a chance – a small chance, but that might be all they'd need. She'd felt her confidence slowly flicker back to life when the truth had hit her, but now it was starting to blossom. And now…

"Yes," she answered. "In spite of everything… I think we might just have a shot."

"Really?"

"Don't let it go to your head, Glin. I'm still expecting you to follow my lead."

Glinda rolled her eyes, actually managing to gasp out a semi-involuntary laugh. "Whatever you say, boss."

"That's section coordinator to you, private."

Captain Wolton's laughter followed them all the way up to the surface.

---

To the relief of all present, the camp was several hundred feet from the cave entrance, and the shrubbery surrounding it was dense enough to hide most of the group from sight. Doubly fortunately, the cave itself was situated at the top of a hill, allowing Branderstove and Coil a more suitable hiding place behind it, and allowing Elphaba and the others a good view of the clearing that was now their destination and target.

Below them, a small metropolis of tents and semi-portable buildings stretched from one end of the clearing to the next; largest of all the buildings was the manufactory, a towering assembly of burnished brass and whirring gears thundering away on the horizon, busily churning out a glittering ocean of freshly-forged engine parts. And milling around manufactory's base was a small army of magicians and engineers, Animals and humans, all of them swiftly piecing the components together into armaments, war machines, and airships – anything too cumbersome to make it through the portal. As for the airships, the last of them were already being towed over to an airfield behind lurking behind the manufactory, where they were promptly fuelled and prepared for launch along with the rest of the invasion fleet.

Even at a distance, the ships waiting on the airfield were an impressive sight: a vast armada of polished chrome and glistening platinum, their needle-sharp prows and silvery hulls gleaming brilliantly in the sunlight; at a distance, they looked more like the contents of an armoury scattered across the dirt – knives, arrows, swords, spears, shields, halberds – all of them gracefully streamlined and all of them bristling with armaments. Elphaba counted at least eighty warships before the bulk of the fleet vanished behind the manufactory, to say nothing of the hundreds of bombers and escort craft arrayed alongside them, dwarfed by their gargantuan cousins. And of course, at the head of the fleet sat the Harbinger of Perfection, fresh from its first test flight. Easily the largest ship in the armada, with its thrust-forward gunnery wings and prow, it looked more like a giant silver trident than anything meant to fly: three needle-sharp prongs pointed at the heart of the Deviant Nations, ready for the killing thrust.

But as impressive as the armada was, it was nothing compared with the army guarding it: from the barracks to the airfield, the place was abuzz with activity, every road and pathway clogged with soldiers, technicians, magicians, and other personnel – once again, a diverse mixture of Animals and humans that Elphaba could never have imagined seeing in any Ozian encampment. Even at this distance, it was worryingly apparent that the overwhelming majority of them were on their way to the grounded ships, no doubt readying them to launch. Here and there among the teaming crowds were the distinctive figures of the Purified, all of them armed to the teeth, many of them clearly magicians in their own right; there were even one or two leading patrols along the perimeter. Perhaps most daunting of all, however, was the sight of the Vigilant Eyes hovering back and forth across the horizon; there weren't many of them – maybe about a few dozen at this end of the camp – but that alone was bad enough. There had to be more on standby, perhaps waiting for redeployment… or perhaps already deployed on some mission into the wilderness beyond the beachhead.

Outside the reach of the camp, dense forests blanketed the surrounding wilderness, obscuring almost everything. Far to the south, the peaks of the Jagged Hills rose high above the canopy of trees, Loamlark too distant to appear as anything more than a faint smudge against the mountain pass. Small wonder that nobody had found the beachhead until now; even without regular bombardments and the Champion warding off unwanted visitors, the strike teams would have had to travel for miles on foot just to reach this place.

"Hopefully it'll be easier for our airships to reach," Elphaba mused aloud. "Once we've called in reinforcements, at any rate."

"Hey, don't start getting ahead of yourself," Wolton remarked gloomily. "I still haven't raised anyone on the radio yet. You might as well make a checklist as long as we're sitting around waiting for the next patrol to blunder into us."

"Oh dry up, you. We've still got to worry about the artillery batteries that were guarding the path through the forest. And then there's the teleporter platform this little invasion force arrived through."

"You can see it from here?"

"See that path bisecting the camp? Take a good look at the far end of it – about a hundred yards from our position. They've obviously built that hangar over the gate to keep it shielded from weather and enemy attack, but I can still see raw teleportation magic shrouding it: that's our platform. We're going to need to get rid of that just to stop them from bringing in reinforcements."

"Or from fleeing," Branderstove rumbled.

Glinda took a deep breath. "So… we've got to blow up the gateway, take out the artillery batteries, stop the fleet from taking off, and we've got to stay alive until reinforcements arrive-"

"If they arrive." Wolton thought for a moment, and added, "See that prefab building on the other side of the parade ground, the one with the walled courtyard and the huge antennae? That's a radio building: if I could make it past the guards, I could use their equipment to get the job done – maybe I could even transmit our coordinates and call in an airstrike."

"…we've really got a very long day ahead of us, haven't we?"

"Oh, I wouldn't say so," said Branderstove with a grin. "With the way the afternoon's carrying on, it'll be getting dark soon."

"Very funny."

"I try."

Elphaba cleared her throat. "Alright, alright; it's time we got underway. We're going to have to split up if we want to get this done before those ships get airborne."

Wolton sighed. "I was afraid you were going to say that. I don't know about you, but I probably won't be able to get through those patrols alive on my own, let alone without raising an alarm. Even with half the camp marching off to the airfield, it's going to be borderline impossible. How are we going to do this?"

Okay, your Wickedness, it's time to see if you've improved on tactics…

Elphaba paused for thought, mind racing through the possibilities on hand. "Branderstove, Dr Coil, you're about the least stealthy of us: you edge around the camp and make for the artillery batteries. That way, if you're spotted, enemy reinforcements will be headed out of the camp – there'll still be on alert, but at least there'll be less guards to deal with back here."

"Fair enough," said Branderstove. "While I'm about it, I'll see what I can do about contacting my fleet."

"What makes you think your radio will work any better than Wolton's?"

"Let's just say I was prescient enough to have my commlinks waterproofed."

"Good. Erm… Wolton, you'll head for the radio building; with the army heading away from it, there shouldn't be too much opposition. Just in case, I'll provide backup and cover-"

"And me," Glinda chimed in.

"Likewise," said Kiln helpfully.

"And me," said Shenshen-Pfannee. "Fighting might be out of the question, but I can still get you across the parade ground without being detected; as long as we don't get too close to the Vigilant Eyes, I should be able to keep up the zero-presence profile."

"Fine. Is there anyone here with experience handling explosives?"

There was a pause, and then Dr Corone held up a hand.

"Good. Now, do you happen to be carrying anything particularly explosive with you here and now? I ask only because there's no chance in hell they'd be stupid enough to leave their munitions sheds unguarded."

By way of an answer, a small opening appeared at the base of Corone's neck, far below the curved beak that had replaced her mouth. Taking a deep breath, she let out a loud, retching cough and spat something into her outstretched hand. What with the dense coating of blood and other less identifiable fluids, Elphaba found herself at a loss to describe it at first; whatever it was, the object was roughly the size of a pinecone and livid pink in colour, its wobbling shape somewhat reminiscent of a water balloon – except for the oily black veins pulsating across its flank.

"What the hell is that?"

"Something I've been cooking up for just such an occasion."

"In your own body?"

"In a word, yes. You'd be amazed at the things you can do with your own stomach acid if you give it sufficient time and magic. What we have here is a pustule bomb, easy to use and even easier to detonate: all you need to do is puncture the membrane and expose the contents to air. Oxygen triggers catalyzation, gives way to chain reaction, combustion, then kaboom! Instant demolition within sixty seconds. Useful for clearing bunkers, levelling enemy fortifications, and discouraging door-to-door salesmen."

"And just how long have you been carrying this around?"

"Oh, for about two or three days, give or take; they only take about ten hours to formulate. I've got a few more in here in case, all held in stasis of course."

"And you went into battle with this stuff rattling around inside you? You were on the front lines at Mourner's Lake and you didn't think anyone needed to know that you were carrying a homemade demolition charge in your stomach? Hell's teeth, Corone, what if you'd been shot?"

Corone shrugged. "I'd have exploded," she said flatly. "Quite violently, I would imagine. Stasis spells and internal bone plating would have kept the bombs protected from small arms fire, but yes, a well-placed armour-piercer would have easily set off a chain reaction powerful enough to kill everyone within thirty feet of me… including the Empress, I would imagine. See, there's always a silver lining."

Kiln shook with laughter. "God-damn, Alyss. And here I was, thinking you'd lost the flair you had in your schooldays."

"Hey, we can't all end up as the Mentor's personal physician: some of us have got to make a name for ourselves the old-fashioned way. I suppose I could have just gone on a drug-fuelled rampage, but you beat me to it."

"I'm never going to live that one down, am I?"

"Not as long as the POWs are still whispering about it."

"Oh dear gods…"

Elphaba coughed loudly. "If we could get back to the point, if you please: Corone, is it possible for you to get as far as the teleporter without accidentally blowing yourself up?"

"Of course."

"Right. Then you have your orders: I'm counting on you to make sure we don't get swamped by their reinforcements; give us at least twenty minutes to make it across the camp before you trigger the bomb. If we set off any alarms, don't bother waiting. Just blow the damn thing up and run as much interference as possible until we can call for reinforcements."

"What about the airships? Shouldn't they be priority targets?"

Elphaba sighed, and thought again. "There's too many of them," she said at last. "If you've only got a sixty second timer and no way to remotely detonate them-"

"I could jerry-rig some sort of nerve-powered-"

"It'd still take too long to rig up all of them," said Wolton. "Besides, with all those technicians and soldiers gathering nearby, you'd be at constant risk of getting caught; one false move, and they'd sound the alarm and call for backup from just about anywhere – including the portal. We need to cut off their reinforcements and make time for ours to arrive."

"Fair enough. I'm ready when you are."

Elphaba took another moment to evaluate the plan (if you could call it that) one last time, before turning to the remainder of the group. "Vara? You tag along; make sure the way ahead is clear. And… Boq, Marchfly-"

"And Arkady and Gerhardt," Branderstove added pointedly.

The four of them immediately snapped to attention, the Terror Twins issuing brisk salutes as they did so. Boq was now wide awake, and his induced sleep had obviously done him the world of good: for one thing, he'd lost his manic twitch over the last couple of hours, and while the look of perpetual bemusement hadn't left his face, he at least appeared lucid enough to function in the real world. As for Marchfly, he was once again the proud owner of a complete set of limbs: now mounted on a set of spindly, backwards-bending legs, he was still testing the dexterity of his new arms, flexing the imposing muscles and slowly clenching the sausage-like fingers into mace-like fists. And as for Arkady and Gerhardt… well, if the prospect of facing overwhelming odds bothered them in any way, they didn't seem inclined to show it.

"You tag along with Vara, make sure Corone isn't disrupted. If there's any reinforcements arriving on the platform, you tackle them."

All four men nodded.

"And another thing for all of you: if all else fails and the alarm's raised, proceed directly to the airships and stop them taking off for as long as humanly possible. Got it?"

Nods, salutes, and mutters of agreement sounded from all members of the group – except one.

"What exactly am I supposed to be doing?" Fiyero asked pointedly.

Not for the first time that day, Elphaba's heart sank. "Well, I was thinking of keeping you in reserve just in case Corone needed any help," she lied; of course, she hadn't been thinking of using Fiyero for anything in this particular battle.

"In other words, you're keeping me out of the firing line."

"Can you blame me? You might very well never die, but that doesn't mean you can't be-"

"I'm not made of glass, Elphaba. I know the straw muscles aren't up to much, but I can still help out here and there."

"Besides," Glinda added helpfully, "I'm pretty sure we made it clear you can't keep everyone safe. And he's technically bulletproof, so he's got to be more useful than me."

"Look – both of you – this really isn't the time for this sort of thing. Fiyero, you have almost zero combat experience in this new body-"

"I wasn't proposing to fight, Elphaba, I was proposing to help. You need all hands on deck out here, remember?"

"Fiyero, I-"

"Shhh!" Wolton hissed. "There's a patrol coming in from the west – they'll hear you!"

As one, the entire squad hit the deck, flinging themselves into the long grass and hopefully out of sight; behind them, Coil flattened himself against the hill, and Branderstove sank as low as his bulk could manage.

Once she'd gotten her breath back, Elphaba lowered her voice to a whisper and tried again: "Fiyero, losing you the first time was bad enough; I don't want to lose you again. And yes, I know there's a logical limit to what I can do to keep you safe in this reality, but for Lurline's sake, it's only been a few hours since I-"

The words thought you were dead floated pathetically across Elphaba's mind, unspoken. So did Wolton's snarl of Oh for godsakes, what did I just say? They've heard us now!

"It's still too soon, I can't do this all over again," she continued breathlessly. "There has to be a better way."

"I know," said Wolton. "One of them might involve dealing with that patrol before they get any closer."

Elphaba fought a powerful urge to hit the captain with something heavy, and finally tore her eyes away from Fiyero. "How many of them are there?"

"Four."

"Any more in range?"

"Oh, only a couple of Vigilant Eyes with an entire battalion of them just waiting for that first automated distress signal. Nothing to worry about if you actually feel like spending the rest of eternity as a heap of charcoal briquettes, but something tells me that might just impede the mission a bit. Do you really want to bet that they won't shoot you this time?"

"I'd rather not risk it; for all I know, they've fixed that particular design flaw by now. Any suggestions?"

"Only one viable strategy at a time like this: lay low and wait for them to pass."

"We've already wasted enough time planning this out; if we wait any longer, the fleet will be off the ground long before we can call for help."

"What if we just teleport someone back to Loamlark and sound the alarm there?" Fiyero suggested. "Like me, for example."

Wolton shook his head. "Even if we weren't teleporting blind through god only knows how many miles of forest, we wouldn't be able to get you into the city: Loamlark was built back in the days when it was considered fashionable for brigands to have a gateway mage on hand, and the enchantments the old miners cast on the city's foundations are still potent enough to keep out even the most powerful teleporters – hence the reason why we had the opportunity to bail out the local yokels in the first place."

"I heard that."

"Oh shut up, Marchfly."

"Look, does anyone have any ideas that don't involve sitting around?" Elphaba hissed furiously. "And making even more noise than I was?"

Fiyero patted her shoulder reassuringly. "Don't worry," he whispered. "Everything's going to be okay. You'll see."

"We'll be fine once the landmarks in the group get going," said Marchfly, eyeing Branderstove and Dr Coil with undisguised contempt.

"And just what is that supposed to mean?" the Leviathan demanded. "And keep your voice down."

"Oh, they won't need to hear us as long as you're around, friend; they're already wondering about the massive lump in the side of the hill; any closer and they'll start to notice how the roots of the tree look like tentacles. The moment they see the cheeks of your colossal ass sticking out of the shrubbery, we're dead meat."

Branderstove's lips curled into a mirthless rictus. "Chief Marchfly, I already know for a fact that you're an idiot. You don't need to compound the issue by being unoriginal. And by the way," he added cheerfully, "they'll probably smell you long before they see me: apparently, a few hours in the river wasn't enough to wash the stink of molested goat off your tunic."

"Listen you f-"

"Would both of you shut up?"

"Ssssshhhh!" Glinda hissed. And then in the silence that followed, she whispered, "Where's Fiyero?"

As if in a trance, Elphaba slowly turned to the spot where Fiyero had been hunkered down for the last few minutes; sure enough, he was nowhere to be seen. Heart suddenly hammering faster than ever before, she rose to a crouch, peering as far over the grass as stealth would allow: still nothing – wherever Fiyero had gone, he obviously hadn't made the mistake of striding across the grass where literally anyone could see him. For fifteen agonizing seconds, Elphaba frantically scanned the hillside for any sign of the Scarecrow, to no avail; even if there wasn't half a mile of long grass in the way, Fiyero's burlap skin and muddied clothes would have made him almost invisible among the reeds – and however he'd left, he'd obviously been careful to keep his head down and his movements slow enough not to disturb the grass as he moved.

Then, just as Elphaba was considering vision spells, there was a flicker of movement on the edge of the grass about fifty feet from the hilltop; a moment later, Fiyero stepped into the clearing – where anyone who cared to look would see him, including the patrol. Then, without warning, he threw back his head and bellowed, "OOOOH I WOULD WHILE AWAY THE HOURS, CONFERRIN' WITH THE FLOWERS, CONSULTIN' WITH THE RAAAAAAAAIIIIIINNNN…"

The patrol, who'd been on the verge of scaling the hill in that moment, instantly turned around in mid-step and charged towards the source of the noise, closely followed by the trio of Vigilant Eyes.

For his part, Fiyero didn't appear to notice: he was still too busy drawing as much attention as possible. "I'D UNRAVEL ANY RIDDLE FOR ANY INDIVIDDLE," he caterwauled tunelessly, somehow even louder than before; technically, he wasn't even singing anymore – he was just shouting in tune in as tone-deaf a manner as he could manage. Every single stanza of the "song" was now accompanied by a wild leap in the air, just to make sure that the entire northern edge of the camp could see him as well as hear him; with every jump and every word, his arms flapped wildly in a spasmodic parody of his old dance moves at the Ozdust, legs kicking furiously at nothing as he lamented his lack of a brain to the growing audience of baffled guardsmen.

"Halt!" one of them shouted.

"OOOOH IIIIIII COULD TELL YOU WHYYYYYYYY THE OCEAN'S NEAR THE SHOOOOOOOOREEE…"

"STOP SINGING!"

"But I haven't finished my routine!" Fiyero warbled, arms still pinwheeling aimlessly. "I thought you'd be interested in the sales pitch, noble sir."

"…sales pitch?"

"But of course, sir!" Fiyero boomed dramatically. "I represent the New Munchkinland Farming Consortium, and I am here on behalf of the masters of the Lollipop Guild, the visionary masters of our farms. It is on their order that I have been assembled from burlap and straw, brainless but wise, to offer our allegiance to the great and mighty empire of Unbridled Radiance!"

For a moment, the guardsman could only stare in bewilderment. Then he sighed, and drew a pair of handcuffs from his belt. "I swear, we've been flypaper for every idiot from here to Exemplar for the last three hours," he grumbled, roughly manacling Fiyero's hands. "I honestly don't have time for any of it: take him away."

"Where to, sir?"

"The stockades will do for now. If he gives you any trouble, just shoot him; we haven't got time for lunatics or vagrants today."

"We have much to offer you!" Fiyero thundered, as the patrol began hauling him into the camp. Even with his arms still shackled, he still gesticulated furiously, clenching and unclenching his fists with all the deranged fury of a man milking an invisible cow. "Our fields are bountiful throughout all seasons, and our crops are without blight or peer in this land, good sir! Our pastures are under the protection of the Guild's greatest members, the great and terrible Harvest Witches! All of them are possessed of magic beyond any in existence, magic that can wrench the stars from the heavens and reduce the moon to an alabaster waterfall, magic that can turn the pumpkin vines to deadly strangling creepers and inspire the waters of the lakes to stand on two legs and drown any army that dares invade us, magic that can animate me and a hundred others like me in defence of our land! And you would marvel at their power, sir, for they have been blessed by the spirits of the land and bear their favour with skin of purest green and beauty beyond mortal dreams! Their almighty high priestess, Elphaba the Magnificent…"

Elphaba hid her face in her hands. Of all the ways to get their attention, he'd had to use that one; now they'd never let him go, not once word of this disaster reached the Empress.

For his part, Wolton seemed positively buoyant. "Well," he said briskly, "It seems he's given us an opportunity. We'd best not waste it."

"But-"

"Don't worry – you said he was essentially bulletproof-"

"I didn't say that, I said bullets can't kill him! They can still tear him to shreds-"

"Then he's got nothing to worry about as long as he's of value to them, and as long as he doesn't make too much trouble, they won't use the Eyes on him. Besides, we can break him out once the mission's over. Once reinforcements are here, it'll be easy."

"…Easier said than done. Fine. We'll go ahead… but you'd better be right about this." She turned to the rest of the team, such as it was. "You have your orders: move out."

---

As it happened, Shenshen-Pfannee's method of getting the four of them across the parade ground involved tunnelling under it. First, the conjoined shapeshifters had taken the form of a colossal burrowing worm, fusing their already conjoined bodies into a slimy vermicular coil of muscle topped with a set of monstrous lamprey jaws – sharp and tough enough to chew through solid rock, SP had claimed.

The next step had been to swallow Elphaba, Glinda, Wolton and Kiln whole.

Needless to say, it had taken a lot of reassurances for the four of them to agree with this.

Fortunately, as SP had pointed out, the worm-shape was really just an oversized hose of muscle and chitin-armoured skin; with no internal organs, the three of them would be transported in perfect safety – if not in perfect comfort. All the same, that didn't stop Glinda from sweating profusely as the worm's inner skin stretched and pulsed around her; after her last run in with Unbridled Radiance's sarcophagi, confined spaces were looking even less attractive than usual these days. Still, Elphaba had done her best to comfort her, for though the rumble of earth outside drowned out all attempts at conversation, the two of them were just close enough to reach out and hold hands.

Thankfully, the journey under the parade ground took less than three minutes of claustrophobia before the worm disgorged them into the blinding daylight at long last, leaving them standing alone in the shadow of the radio building's transmission towers. Thankfully, SP had been careful to ensure that the building's courtyard had been empty before discharging their passengers and assuming a single-bodied form, so they were at least safe for the time being. All the same, Glinda felt a lot more comfortable with her sceptre at the ready; maybe it was just aftereffects of the journey, maybe it was just delayed fear over the inevitable battle, but something about the building before them filled her with an almost inescapable sense of dread.

"Do you think there's anyone inside?" she whispered.

"I'd be surprised if there weren't," Wolton replied. "Even at a time like this, they'd probably have at least two comms officers on duty. Hopefully, they won't put up too much resistance."

"…do we have to kill them?"

"Well, hopefully not," said Elphaba. "I know a few paralysing spells, but we can't risk them sounding the alarm."

Kiln patted Glinda's shoulder reassuringly. "No need to worry about killing: I'm a deft hand with a fleshjacket. Besides…"

He strode up to the front door, knelt down until his face was about level with the miniscule crack between door and floor; then, without warning, his right eye snaked out of his socket on a long, winding tendril, squeezing under the door and into the radio building. There was a pause, as the vermiform stalk flexed from side to side and the disembodied eyeball scanned the room beyond; then the tendril withdrew, snaking back under the door and slurping back into Kiln's socket. "The front room's clear," he said at last, absently rubbing his eyes. "The long-range broadcasting chamber's been locked down; no idea what opposition might be waiting there.

"Fair enough. Alright then, follow me…"

Slowly pushing the door open, Elphaba ushered the five of them inside as quietly as possible. The room was empty and silent; every single desk, workstation and radio terminal had been left vacant, and though Glinda had even less experience with radios than she did with combat, she could still tell that more than half of the machinery here was dormant – and had been for quite some time. And though most of the room was laid out with UR's typical sense of eerie cleanliness, Glinda couldn't help noticing the tangle of power cables and wires snaking under the door into the next room, and the cluttered array of machinery piling up on either side of the door. What could be going on in there? And why did it make the hairs on back of her neck stand on end?

"Where's everyone gone?" Elphaba whispered, her voice somehow even quieter than before.

"Probably making for the fleet," said SP. "All these are short-range transmitters for coordinating the away teams; they've given up on away teams and armchair coordination by the looks of things. From now on, everything's being coordinated from the flagship."

"Then what are they up to in the next room? What are they using this place for?"

"Communicating with Exemplar, probably. Either that, or-"

"People of Loamlark," whispered a deathly voice from the next room. "Your suffering is at an end. Hear my voice, and know that you now number among the ranks of the dead."

Glinda's heart froze, every single vein in her body suddenly turned to ice; she knew that voice – after all, she'd heard it echoing across her nightmares far too many times to mistake it for anyone else. If it wasn't the dreams of being cut open and Purified by Cataphlax and Ranse, or that awful moment when she'd first met the Empress, it was of being captured aboard his train; of being imprisoned in a sarcophagus and listening as his voice echoed in the crushing darkness.

It was the voice of Lord Paxton Hayfelt, her old captor.

"Your Mayor is dead," the ambassador proclaimed. "His faithful dog, Chief Marchfly, is silenced in death and defeat. Your militia has failed. Your strength is gone, and your defences only maintained by the outside world you so impotently deny. Your traditions are but ghosts and shadows, banished by the purifying light of Unbridled Radiance, your Lost God revealed as nothing more than cowardice and superstition. Ours is the only true religion, and our Empress is the only true God this world has ever known."

Elphaba, meanwhile, looked around nonplussed. "What the hell is going on in there?" she whispered.

"Final expression of displeasure," Wolton said softly. "I've seen it before: they've probably got a couple of speaker probes hovering over the city, just so Unbridled Radiance can tell them just how much they hate them – before the fleet bombs them into ashes, of course."

"Good. That means we can word to our fleet easily; now, help me get this door unlocked – quietly, if you please…"

"You could have been so much more," continued Hayfelt. "You could have shared in our glory and accepted the eternal bliss that the birthright of any citizen of Unbridled Radiance. You could have been beautiful. You could have been perfect. But you chose ugliness. You chose deviancy. You chose distortion. You chose damnation. The gates of paradise are forever barred to you, and any hope of mercy for your people has been lost… forever."

Now, there was an oddly resonant quality to his voice, something almost electric expressed in every word and syllable – something that could only be magic. And as he went on, Glinda recognized she'd heard this before as well; it was the same mesmerising tone of voice that Cataphlax and Ranse had used against her at the university museum, but the words were much stronger and more seductive than anything said by the long-dead mage-surgeons. Even behind the door, with the oratory directed at a target miles away, Glinda still felt the terrifying gravity of that voice.

"Hear my words, people of Loamlark, and despair. You have nothing else to live for. Surrender the air from your lungs. Leap from your windows to the void below. Open the veins of your arms and let the blood escape from worthless veins. Pluck out your eyeballs, you who would not see the truth. Cleanse the world of your aberrant beliefs. KILL YOURSELVES."

Glinda could tell that the others were horrified; she knew for a fact that Elphaba wanted to know if Hayfelt really could drive people to suicide, she heard Kiln hissing at Wolton to get the door open ASAFP, and even faintly discerned Shenshen-Pfannee's offer to pour themselves into the room via the keyhole. But in that moment, she was only dimly of it all; something in Hayfelt's rhetoric had thumped an override switch somewhere in the back of her mind, and now all she could feel was – what? – horror, fear, anger, desperation, and a sudden awareness of the sceptre still clutched in her hand.

Before she knew what she was doing, she'd pushed Wolton away from the door and taken careful aim at the lock; the first bolt of energy crumpled the lock into useless scrap, the second round snapped it in half, flinging the door open for good measure. She would have charged in, ready to take on whoever was waiting for her – if Elphaba hadn't promptly dragged her aside. "What did I say about letting me take the lead?" she hissed. Pausing just long enough to add, "Good job on the door, though," over her shoulder, Elphie almost flung herself through the open door, hands raised and ready to cast.

The room beyond was dominated by a monolith collection of radio transmitters and receivers, all gleaming chrome and sterile white – just like the mechanized areas of the Deep Sepulchre, most of it just as quiet, except of course for the unearthly hum of the machines – and the sound of two surprised-looking comms officers leaping to their feet.

One wall of the room was occupied by a large receiver screen, currently displaying a bird's-eye view of Loamlark… and seated in front of it, slowly turning to face them, was the Ambassador himself.

If anything, he looked even more impressive than before: with his sculpted, swept-back hair gleaming in the fluorescent light, his eyes gleaming like jewels set into the hollows of his skull, his elegant physique clad in a magnificently tailored white silk suit, he was every inch Unbridled Radiance's perfect representative.

"So it is you they sent," he mused aloud, regarding Elphaba with something not unlike contempt. "It seems Loamlark could not contain your vileness for long at any rate. Tell me, Abomination, is the company of deviants and distortions to your liking, or has their repugnance finally disgusted even you?"

One of the comms officers looked from Hayfelt to Elphaba in mounting panic. "My lord, the alarm-"

"At ease, corporal. They won't attack – not while they still wish to keep their intrusion secret. Time is still on our side." He turned to Elphaba once more, slowly rising to his feet as he did so. "So, have you realized the depths to which you've sunk, or are still content to wallow in ignorance and shame? Look at the company you keep: a degenerate mage-surgeon who blasphemes against perfection through the mutilation of himself and others; an unaltered deviant, a toadying captain content to hide in the shadows of the distorted instead of rising above them; and…"

His gaze flickered in Glinda's direction, and his smile grew.

"Ah, Miss Glinda, such a pleasure to see you again! I'd hoped we'd have a chance to discuss your future in greater detail once your interview with the Empress had concluded. But alas, you left so early and so suddenly! But perhaps there's still hope: your fear is still written plain on your face, but now it's the fear of the Abomination I see blossoming there."

And once again, Hayfelt's voice turned hypnotic and honeyed, gliding seductively across Glinda's senses like smoke. "You might join me in Purification, Glinda; you could walk the road to immortality with me as your guide and ascend to the glory that I have attained. Yours is a beauty that should be preserved for all eternity, and yours is an innocence that must be enshrined…"

And for what felt like eternity, Glinda could only stand there, entranced by the ambassador's voice while the others stood locked in impasse. Then, she saw what Elphaba and the others couldn't see from their angle – the concealed holster at Hayfelt's side, the mother-of-pearl grip, the gold-plated barrel, the perfectly manicured fingers sliding under the coat towards the holster.

Once again, Glinda acted almost without thinking.

Her first bolt swatted the gun out of Hayfelt's hand, taking several fingers with it; the second sent him cartwheeling helplessly across the room, crashing bodily against the viewing screen and landing in a crumpled heap on the control panels below, where he twitched once, then lay still.

Immediately, one of the comms officers made a grab for his own holster, only to be bowled over by an undulating barrage of limbs erupting from SP's torso. The remaining officer dived for the control panels, groping for what could only be an alarm button – and he might very well have reached it if Kiln's net hadn't landed on him. Suddenly imprisoned in a straightjacket of constricting muscle and glued to the floor by the adhesive flesh, he could only writhe helplessly as Kiln readied another length of webbing for the unconscious comms officer.

Glinda finally released the breath she'd been holding for the last thirty seconds, and then realized Elphaba was glaring at her with a mixture of annoyance and – to Glinda's surprise – admiration. "What did I say about staying behind me, Glinda?"

"I'm sorry, Elphie, I just- I got carried away and-"

"Relax, I'm not angry with you; you're actually doing surprisingly well for your first assault mission – and you'll do even better if you remember to actually stay behind me when people actually start shooting at us." She took a deep breath, and surveyed the rest of the team. "Wolton, get to work on contacting Loamlark; Kiln, make sure those restraints stay on; SP, watch the door."

A chorus of "aye-ayes" followed.

"Now, while we're waiting, does anyone know if Hayfelt could actually drive someone to suicide?"

"It's possible," said Kiln, "Even the linguistic augmentations of the Purified have limits; only a supremely gifted orator could be enhanced to such extremes. Of course, we've been chemically inoculating our citizens against the Purified voice for decades, so most of them don't bother trying… but unfortunately, Loamlark's been refusing these inoculations for as long as they've existed."

"So Hayfelt could have just kicked off a mass-suicide in Loamlark?"

"As I said, it's possible. According to our spies in the foreign ministry, he's supposed to be one of the greatest charm-orators in recent memory, so who knows?"

Glinda's brow wrinkled. "Hang on a minute – if he could just make everyone in Loamlark kill themselves, why didn't he try that the moment he figured out they'd sided with Elphaba? Why haven't Unbridled Radiance tried it again until now."

"I imagine because he was too busy picking bits of hillside out of his face during the first try. As for the next few opportunities, this ambassador's superiors probably hadn't finished rebuilding him yet."

"Oh."

There was a whirring from Wolton's terminal. "And we have a connection!" he whooped. "They've accepted my passcodes and are opening an audiolink in three… two… one-"

"This is Loamlark command," the radio hissed. "Where are you transmitting from, Captain Wolton? What is your status?"

"Status is very much alive, sir – for now. Elphaba, Chief Marchfly, the Leviathan and a few other survivors have emerged in hostile territory and are currently using enemy radio equipment. We've been receiving extremely worrying reports concerning current allied settlement; what is Loamlark's current status, sir?"

"Alive. Barely. Purified voice broadcasts just left the militia in a shambles; we've had about eighty-seven attempted suicides and about fifty successful attempts, and that's just from proper militiamen – the civilian casualties are even worse. The death toll is mounting, and we've been forced to use paralytic magics just to stop the effects of the voice from getting any more destructive. And for some reason, the mercenary fleet's decided to hightail it: they're heading north even as we speak, and they've given no explanation as to why they've broken ranks. Do you have any intel concerning this?"

"Affirmative: Unbridled Radiance has been assembling a fleet and are ready to embark on a full-scale assault on the Deviant Nations. Sir, we need backup effective immediately. I can only assume Branderstove has been successful in calling in his own fleet, but we'll need full air support from our own forces if we're to stop these bastards."

"Understood, captain. Will alert internal defence networks and scramble the 10th fleet. Keep this channel open: we can follow the signal to your current location."

"Understood, sir. I'd advise hurrying, though: I think they might just be ready to l-"

Somewhere in the distance, an explosion rippled across the camp. Back in the radio building, the heavily-straightjacketed ambassador began to writhe and twitch.

"Captain Wolton, we're detecting multiple explosions to the north. There appears to be a forest fire in progress."

"Not to worry, sir; hopefully, that was just Branderstove blowing up the artillery guarding the northern passage. Your path across the forest should be clear-"

The rest of Wolton's sentence was lost in a loud, wet rrrrrrrripp.

Hayfelt was on his feet and tearing through the straightjacket, razor-sharp fingernails shredding through the constricting sinews like wet paper. Kiln immediately charged over with another webbing of skin in readiness, but by the time he reached him, the ambassador had gotten his legs free of the jacket; one spatted foot lashed out, slamming into Kiln with meteoric force and toppling him to the floor with a sickening crunch of pulverized bone. SP's form turned fluid once more, their arms lengthening into needle-sharp lances as they advanced on Hayfelt, but once again, the ambassador was ready: reaching into his coat, he drew a tiny glowing marble from an inside pocket and threw it at the charging shapeshifter. Seeing the tiny grenade igniting as it hurtled towards them, SP had no choice but to dive in the opposite direction and let Hayfelt gallop on.

As an entire bank of radio terminals exploded into flame, the remaining three squad members opened fire on the fleeing ambassador, Elphaba scything the air with bolts of lighting, Wolton peppering the floor with a hail of bullets, and Glinda (cursing herself for not reacting sooner) belatedly firing her sceptre at anything that moved. But once again, Hayfelt was quicker, his Purified reflexes and augmented muscles allowing him to easily outmanoeuvre the barrage; sprinting across the room, he vaulted over a bank of radio equipment, scooped up his gun and dived for the door, pausing only to fire a hail of parting shots over his shoulder. Glinda ducked for cover, Elphaba's conjured barrier sparked and juddered under the onslaught, and Wolton's legs buckled in a spray of lead, blood and bone-chips, sending him tumbling to the floor in a screaming heap.

But somehow, all that was secondary to the sound of Hayfelt flinging the door open and shouting at the top of his voice, "INTRUDERS AT THE RADIO BUILDING! ENEMY SHIPS INBOUND! LAUNCH NOW! LAUNCH NOW!" And, as the echoes rippled across the camp, the unmistakable sound of an alarm followed.

Suddenly of one mind, Elphaba and Glinda charged for the door. By the time they'd gotten there, Hayfelt had already vanished beyond the courtyard, and the pace of the camp was already beginning to pick up speed: everyone needed aboard the fleet – soldiers, technicians, flight crew, mages – all of them were racing towards the airfield, a tidal wave of uniformed figures sweeping across the neatly-arranged beachhead. Everyone else who could be spared for basic security was now making a beeline for the radio building, and all of them were armed; Glinda wasn't exactly an expert with numbers, but she was comfortably certain that the army now charging towards their current position easily outnumbered them by about five to one.

Then, just as Glinda's heart was beginning to sink, there was a muffled phut from the far end of the camp, just loud enough to draw her attention. Then, with an eardrum-splitting roar of sound, a massive fireball tore through the hangars and huts along the outskirts of the camp, engulfing about a dozen parked vehicles, three squadrons of Vigilant Eyes and crowd of security personnel en route to the radio building; for good measure, the ensuing explosions pelted the the survivors with a volley of steel splinters, razor-sharp glass shards and globs of molten metal, whittling down their numbers even further. By the time the explosions had ceased, the entire northern end of the camp was on fire, and roughly half of the oncoming army had swerved off-course to try to contain the blaze – not that it mattered by now: judging by the multi-coloured clouds of magically-tinged smoke billowing up from the wreckage, one of those ruined buildings had once housed the enemy's portal.

Somewhere in the distance, carried on the breeze alongside the smell of roasted meat and burning aviation fuel, was the faint, unearthly sound of Dr Corone's laughter.

"Say what you will about her taste in storage," Kiln remarked airily, "But you have to admit she's a dab hand at demolitions."

"She's bought us some time, at the very least," Elphaba acknowledged. "Alright – is everyone okay back there?"

There was another scream, this time from directly behind them. "The son-of-a-bitch kneecapped me!" Wolton howled. "Of course I'm not okay! And while we're on the subject, since when do ambassadors carry guns and razornails?!"

"Since I punted one of them over a wall, I would imagine. Kiln, is Wolton in any danger of bleeding to death?"

"Not as long as he's wearing my tourniquets."

"Good. Now, I saw troop carriers parked outside, so at least you've got a chance of outpacing security; make straight for the airfield and meet up with the others – and above all, stop those ships by any means available. Glinda?"

"Yes?"

"Do you think you're ready to start flying again?"

---

"Left! Go left!

"No, no, that'll take us right into the middle of the Eye swarm! Go right – make for the fuel depot!"

"Are you insane? The fuel depot's on fire! Go left!"

"Not through it, you halfwit! Skirt around the fire, and aim for the-"

"We're losing ground, we need to catch up with Elphaba! Hit the accelerator!"

"For godsakes, we have the front-mounted guns for a reason! Shoot them before they shoot us!"

"Would you please try not to hit every single sodding obstacle?!"

"Chyort Vozmi!" Arkady roared. "HAVE I EVER TOLD YOU PEOPLE HOW MUCH I HATE BACKSEAT DRIVERS?"

Fiyero leaned back in his seat, grateful that he no longer had the ability to vomit. Scant minutes ago, he'd been in the stockades, handcuffed to a chair and trying not to let on that he could easily slip out of the manacles any time he felt like it. Then, the alarm had sounded and the explosion had rocked the camp, emptying the building and giving him all the time in the world to escape. Of course, he hadn't a clue where he'd go or what he'd do next, so it came as something of a relief when a small ground transport had crashed through the stockades' front door, with Arkady in the pilot's seat and the rest of the squad squeezed into the backseat – with the exception of Captain Wolton, who was forced to lie on the floor thanks to his shattered kneecaps, and Shenshen-Pfannee, who was now serving as a makeshift trauma harness for Wolton. Hastily squeezing Fiyero into the rear of the cockpit, they'd taken just enough time to explain the basics, and then rocketed away in the general direction of the airfield.

Fortunately, most of the Vigilant Eyes in the area were too busy chasing after Elphaba and Glinda as they soared across the battlefield; unfortunately, that still left a few hundred ground troops between them and the airfield, forcing Arkady to take a rather roundabout route between the buildings just to avoid getting shot. For about thirty seconds, the journey had been reduced to a near-constant series of bumps, crashes, thuds, explosions, and deafening spates of gunfire, as Arkady struggled to navigate the battlefield and Gerhardt returned fire via the passenger seat turret; occasionally, the transport would buck and judder wildly as the transport ploughed head-on into a group of enemy soldiers, every scream and crunch punctuated with a snarl of "yob tvoyu mat!" from Arkady.

And then, Branderstove's fleet arrived and the world went mad.

By now, the once-perfectly ordered camp had been reduced to utter bedlam: the entire north end of the camp was on fire, and thanks to the explosives Corone had planted in the fuel depot, it probably wouldn't stop anytime soon; enemy soldiers ran amok, some of them still trying to reach the anti-aircraft, other just trying to outrun the inferno that was consuming their defences. Far above them, the Strangling Coils' fleet was now hammering the camp and the airfield alike with all the ordnance they could muster: skimming across the treeline and over the beachhead, a quartet of house-sized bombardier-ships reduced anti-aircraft guns and mobile artillery to molten slag; wizards and witches from the mercenary army descended into the fray on disc-shaped platforms, pelting enemy airships with fusillades of comets, and duelling enemy magicians with longswords of razor-sharp shadow; troop carriers hovered above the airfield, opening their bay doors just wide enough to let their passengers open fire on the personnel below, mowing down scores of guards and technicians too slow to reach their assigned airships; hundreds upon hundreds of Tik-Toks rained down from the sky, hammering the Vigilant Eyes with massed repeater fire – and though dozens upon dozens of the cauldron-shaped mechanoids were melted into coppery sludge in the retaliatory blast, more came to replace them, until even the most resilient of the Eyes fell before the repeaters. And above it all, the Abyssal Titan exalted with triumphant blasts of its foghorn as it hammered the airfield with thunderous blasts of its main cannon, shattering airships like glass with every single impact.

But there were always more airships: Fiyero couldn't see how many there were from his angle, but according to radio chatter, there were at least four hundred of them – even after the mercenaries had thinned their ranks. And while many of them exploded without ever achieving liftoff or shattered into wreckage a few feet off the ground, dozens more rose above the treeline and soared away, their silvery hulls gleaming in the setting sun. Fiyero clearly recognized the Harbinger of Perfection in the lead, easily outpacing the Abyssal Titan as it weaved and spun through the growing hailstorm of missiles. Following close behind was a growing horde of warships, many of them just as nimble as the Harbinger, and though the Titan's guns swatted dozens of them from the skies, dozens more sped on to join their flagship on the horizon; in a matter of seconds, the trickle of enemy airships had become a stream of gleaming silver roaring across the sky.

With Branderstove's lumbering flagship too cumbersome to keep pace with the fleet, the rest of the Strangling Coils scrambled to intercept them, a swarm jagged red-and-black pursuers tearing through the sky towards the fleeing airship, looking for all the world like a plague of locusts leaving a devastated cornfield. And following close behind, darting in and out of the airborne horde and pelting the invasion fleet with searing blasts of magical energy, was Elphaba; even with the broomstick and it's two passengers almost out of sight (even through binoculars), there was no mistaking that halo of emerald light surrounding them.

And just ahead of their own little transport-

"Hold on!" Arkady shouted.

Fiyero had just enough time to glance out the window and see the attack barge looming out of the billowing smoke towards them, before the two ships collided side-on. Immediately, the transport swung wildly to port as the impact rippled across its frame, its hover-engines howling in protest as Arkady struggled to keep it from tipping over altogether. Unfortunately, either the attack barge was intent on ramming them into the ground or it had simply gotten tangled up in the transport's chassis: weighed down by the oncoming craft, the transport listed, tilted, and finally crashed into the dirt, taking the barge with it.

Too late, Fiyero realized he hadn't been wearing his seatbelt; as the window above him gave way, he found himself airborne, flying blindly through the shattered canopy and out onto the airfield. A moment later, Boq landed on top of him. As the badly-dented Tin Man creaked upright and helped him to his feet, Fiyero saw that the transport now lay alongside the attack barge in a crumpled heap, just thirty feet away from some of the smaller airships… and pouring out of the ruined barge were several angry-looking soldiers, already taking aim at the transport's dazed passengers.

There was a pause, as Boq and Fiyero exchanged glances. Then, as one, they charged, shouting as loudly as possible. As one, the soldiers turned and – almost on instinct – opened fire. Fiyero vaguely recognized the feeling of bullets ripping through his burlap chest and out through his back, but the sensations were so distant and painless that the gunfire might as well have been autumn leaves; in fact, the only sign that he'd been damaged at all were the stray tufts of hay pinwheeling from his ruptured body. As for Boq, he barely noticed the fresh pattern of dents emerging on his skin; he didn't seem angry or even vaguely concerned – his expression was perfectly neutral. Perhaps the metallic din of bullets ricocheting off his body was so predictable it had become soothing, like the gentle patter of rain on a tin roof.

But as the soldiers went on firing, the transport's canopy creaked upon, and the squad charged out with Marchfly in the lead, newly-implanted fists threshing the air before him. The first of the soldiers barely had enough time to realize that his rifle had been snapped in half before the second blow caught him under the chin; suddenly airborne, he flew for about three feet, slammed into the transport's bulkhead and slid down in an unconscious heap. The other soldiers turned, struggling to re-manoeuvre, but a hail of repeater fire from Vara, Wolton, Arkady and Gerhardt scythed through them, and a few well-placed bone darts from Corone and Kiln whittled down the survivors – until only one remained. The surviving trooper responded in a fairly rational manner – namely by letting out a castrati scream and dropping his rifle; fumbling for the sidearm at his belt, he looked up just in time to see Boq thundering towards him – right before the butt of the Tin Man's axe caught him squarely between the eyes. Down he went.

Unfortunately, the attack barge hadn't been alone: bearing down on them from above was an airship, instantly distinguished by its scimitar-shaped hull; it wasn't much bigger than the sporting sloops Fiyero had seen back in Oz, but it clearly made up for its size in sheer firepower, for its glittering hull pockmarked with a terrifying array of gun turrets, missile launchers, harpoon cannons, flamethrowers and other unpleasant-looking weapons.

For a moment, the squad could only stare in horror, paralysed by the knowledge that absolutely nothing in their current arsenal could pierce the war-sloop's armour – and that at the rate that the Abyssal Titan was bombarding the airfield, they wouldn't be receiving backup until it was too late.

Just as Fiyero was starting to wonder how long it would take to run for cover, something huge and feathered rippled past them and hit the sloop head-on. At first, he thought it was some kind of crow or raven – assuming of course that crows the size of carthorses were commonplace and plentiful in this impossible world he'd blundered into. But the moment it struck the airship's prow, the giant bird changed shape, almost too quickly to be seen: the feathers became sizzling, viscous tar, which quickly dissolved into mist, which then condensed into a thick, cloying fog that oozed down through the airships vents and under its armour. Fiyero caught a brief glimpse of the pilot clawing desperately at the controls before the airship's canopy went black. Several seconds later, the war-sloop let out a muffled humming noise, audible even over the din of the battlefield. From the ship's rear engine turbines rose two flagpoles – and even from here, Fiyero could tell that the sloop was now flying the colours of the Deviant Nations. Then, a hatch in the sloop's lower bulkheads creaked open, and a rope ladder clattered out – followed closely by two very familiar faces.

"Do you need a written invitation or something?" Shenshen-Pfannee shouted. "Get up here! We haven't got all afternoon!"

---

Ten minutes later, the invasion fleet reached Loamlark.

Few of them paid it any mind: by now, the city was irrelevant, it's utility as a potential node of invasion long since exhausted by the completion of this very fleet. Besides, the ambassador had already done his best to depopulate Loamlark by radio, and with the guns at the wall too far out of range to stop them, the invaders had little reason to bother with it. So, they simply gunned their engines and accelerated over it without a second glance.

Beyond the reach of the mountain pass, the defenders of the Deviant Nations were already scrambling to intercept them: far above the foothills, an entire fleet of whale-like airships was gliding into view, all of them drawn from the northernmost reaches of the country. Ever since the war had once again thundered to life and the attacks on Loamlarks confirmed, the 10th fleet had been on high alert, waiting for the inevitable moment when the mercenaries fled or failed; now, they moved to block the path of the invasion, a horde of silent iron-grey behemoths lining up across the Jagged Hills, their cetacean flanks armed and ready to mount a vigorous defence. The admirals of the fleet knew that some of the fleet would almost certainly slip past them: it was logically impossible to blockade the entire mountain range from an aerial attack – but they were prepared to try. The state of emergency – and typical northern obstinacy – demanded nothing less.

Behind them, scattered reinforcements were already streaming in, their hulls still glowing red from the magical acceleration required to reach this place in time. Drawn from all corners of the Deviant Nations, they were perhaps the most varied fleet that had ever been seen in the North: intricate clockwork gearships and smog-shrouded foundry-hounds from Ironmongery Peak; stately air-barques and bone-sculpted dirge-singers from Polyandrum; exoskeletal air-chariots and undulating swarms of devourer-maggots from Gortrald.

Second and third lines of defence were already being arranged across the country, but here was where the fighting would be the most brutal. Here would be their best chance of clipping the enemy's wings before they got any further into the country.

Two minutes after the defenders had assembled, the invasion fleet hammered into them, instantly transforming the placid mountain skies into a brutal melee of howling engines, exploding ordnance, and reality-dismembering spells. Salvo after salvo of missiles from the 10th fleet whittled away at the silvery invaders, reducing finely-crafted hulls to airborne scrap metal; pneumatic jaws and gear-powered pincers tore through the gilded capital ships, lightning-casters and flamethrowers sweeping their decks clean of soldiers as they did so; bone-spars and harnessed shadows blotted out the sun and pincushioned enemy gunners, and many invaders found themselves being sabotaged from within by the reanimated corpses of their own crewmembers; sprays of acidic bile and geysers of caustic steam melted through the bulkheads of the warships, leaving their crews defenceless against the flood of burrowing maggots that followed.

But no matter how many dozens of warships fell, dozens more swarmed past; most of the invasion fleet didn't even bother trying to retaliate beyond a few parting shots, for though they'd clearly been equipped with a devastating array of weaponry, none of them had been intended for sustained ship-to-ship combat; so, they simply left the sustained battle to the throng of gunboats and interceptors escorting them. By the time the invasion fleet escaped the blockade, more than half of them had fallen, but with their escort covering their escape, the 100th fleet was too preoccupied to give chase.

So, the invaders sped on across the northern reaches, the Harbinger still leading the charge. Hastily dodging the battle over the mountains, the mercenary pursuers roared after them, closely followed by Elphaba and Glinda – all of them blasting the fleet with all the firepower they could muster, all of them seemingly oblivious to the hapless air-sloop struggling to keep pace with them.

---

Chistery hadn't had much interest in the events of the war so far; true, he'd worried a great deal for Elphaba and the members of the Irredeemables he'd befriended, but so far, the overall struggle hadn't much concerned him. Elphaba had told him that she didn't want to see him hurt or killed over the course of the conflict: why disregard her, after she'd done so much for him and the other flying monkeys?

(Of course, she also told him that once he'd finished learning to speak, he'd also need to drop his tendency towards "slavish loyalty," which made no sense to Chistery: it wasn't as if he obeyed her because he'd been forced into it, or because she held the whip; he obeyed her because she'd given him everything – wings, freedom, an escape from the inevitable loss of his sentience – and the rest of the flock felt the same way).

So he'd spent most of his time skylarking across the city, occasionally looking for any sign that the flying monkeys lived on in this weird reality. At Chistery's encouragement, Dorothy tagged along to help translate for him: now that Vara had left for the front and Glinda was abroad "on business," it was up to him to look after the strange and fearful child that had become his ward – and part of that involved getting her out of her apartment and into the sunshine at least once a day. But in the end, he found himself most at home in the rafters of the palace's colossal hangar, overlooking the ranks of the city's private air force; with the Mentor's permission, he'd even built a nest up there, where he could relax after skylarking.

As such, when the alarm bells sounded one fine afternoon, he suddenly found himself looking down on the busiest room in the entire palace. For a time, he could only watch in confusion as the docks clogged with technicians, pilots and soldiers, all making beelines for the well-armed airships. Eventually, though, a voice from below rose above the confusion: "What's the status on the invasion fleet?"

It was the Mentor, hobbling across the catwalks at an impressive pace with a small entourage of generals and other officials in tow. Curious, Chistery swooped down to one of the lower pylons to listen in.

"According to the 100th fleet, they've already made it past the first line of defence," said one of the generals. "They've taken substantial losses, but they're still carrying on towards the capital."

"Without manoeuvring past the defence fleets? Hrm. Not good: this wouldn't be the first time Unbridled Radiance arranged a suicide attack."

"Maybe not: it's possible that the fleet really was intended for a proper invasion; our operatives at the beachhead have found intel suggesting that the ships were to be outfitted with stealth enchantments prior to launch, but were caught off-guard by Elphaba's arrival. We still don't know the full extent of their mission-"

"That can wait until later. Our current concern concerns the fleet's endurance: can they actually get as far as Greenspectre before being destroyed entirely?"

"Prognosticators suggest a high probability of at least twenty capital ships making it past the final countermeasure and into the city itself. From there, probabilities get extremely murky, but it's possible that they might just destroy the capitol entirely."

"What of Elphaba?"

"We believe she may be in pursuit; chances of her survival are extremely low."

Almost on instinct, Chistery swooped closer, until he was perched atop a cargo crane almost directly above the passing entourage.

"How long do we have until the fleet arrives?" the Mentor continued.

"With current flight speed and the extreme likelihood of magical acceleration in mind, prognosticators estimate that the fleet will reach Greenspecte in less than half an hour."

"Then I propose we delay them. Pilot Xelwan? Take me to the second line of defence."

There was an immediate murmur of consternation from the gaggle of aides. "But Mentor," said one of them, "we already have at least a hundred expert magicians zeroing in on the rallying point already. Your presence would be better-"

"My presence is of little consequence here, Admiral Sarth. Current projections indicate that the next wave of reinforcements won't arrive in time to stop this attack, so there won't be much coordination done from this; we need to stop these bastards before they get any further, and the only way we can do that is to draw them off course."

"Mentor, with due respect, Dr Kiln left strict instructions that you shouldn't-"

"-Be engaged in active duty or even out of bed until my heart treatments are finished yes, I know. My health doesn't signify, least of all now. I'm going to give that fleet a target they can't possibly ignore: me."

Over the storm of disputation that followed, one of the generals managed to shout, "What of Elphaba?"

The Mentor sighed. "My orders to all lines of defence: if you can extract her without jeopardising fleet cohesion, then do so."

"But who could be spared from the fleets? How could any of them get close enough? With Elphaba following the invasion fleet, the attempt would be-"

"-difficult verging on impossible, yes! If there are any air-rescue craft that can be spared and the attempt doesn't risk irreparable damage to the Deviant Nations, my orders stand. If not-"

"Oook!"

There was a stunned pause, as all heads turned in the direction of the figure watching them from the crane.

"I volunteer!" said Chistery

---

Several thousand feet off the ground, clinging to Elphaba for dear life and shielded from the elements only by the web of spells and enchantments surrounding the broomstick, Glinda found herself pondering a rather elementary question.

"Elphaba?" she screamed, voice only slightly amplified over the roar of the wind.

"Yes?"

"Do you think you're up to actually disabliating these ships?"

"Well, I can certainly try! I certainly know spells that easily destroy airships like these – I mean, at this height, it's a simple matter of disabling the engines and letting gravity do the rest – but actually getting them to connect is another thing: these ships are moving too fast to me to get a bead on them!"

"Do you think you could do it sooner rather than later? I don't want to rush you, but I think I'm about to throw up… and the more I think about throwing up, I think about falling."

"Look, just try not to think about the drop, okay? We'll be- hang on a minute, what the hell…"

Glinda tore her eyes away from Elphaba's left shoulder, and saw that the fleet had briefly stopped shooting at the broomstick and the mercenary pursuit ships – and for some reason, bay doors and hatchways all over the fleet were now sliding open: as they watched, a stream of tiny grey oblongs tumbled out of the ships' cargo holds, raining down on the countryside below in a shower of unidentifiable debris.

"Are those bombs?"

"What would be the point? We're in the middle of nowhere right now – no settlements, no farms or mines or factories, nothing to justify a bombing run! I mean, just look down at the-"

"NO NO NO! I DO NOT NEED TO LOOK DOWN, I GET THE POINT!"

"No need to shout, I can hear you perfectly… hold on, they're slowing down... just enough for a decent shot. Glinda, hang on tight: I'm going to try casting a spell!"

Glinda closed her eyes and held on for even dearer life than ever before, trusting that the sound of crackling energy wasn't a sign that they were about to fall to their deaths; she heard the sound of Elphaba chanting, felt the pulse of magic as it rippled away from them, and heard the distant explosion as the spell slammed home – followed by the all-too-distinctive whine of failing engines.

"Yes! One bombardier frigate down!"

Elphaba let out another hiss of incantations, the broom briefly wobbling as she lifted a hand to guide the spell with a gesture; this time, Glinda didn't just hear the effects of the spell – she felt it. Elphaba's power washed over her with every word, every movement, every thought, every single action letting out another galvanizing pulse of energy; Elphie had always been powerful and the sensations surrounding her magic had always conveyed it – from the dazzling green light to the electric tingle in the air around her – but now it seemed amplified a thousandfold.

Glinda opened her eyes just in time to see two enormous hands suddenly grow in the hull of the nearest airship; as Elphaba continued chanting, several more colossal hands sprouted across the length of the ship; tearing into the hull, they swiftly began to dismantle the ship in mid-air, tearing off hull plates, rupturing fuel lines, disabling the engines – until the ship simply dropped like a stone to the tune of "A carrier down!"

Then, Elphaba stretched out a hand, and suddenly the air was split by the cacophony of two warships slamming into one another at high speed, propelled by Elphaba's telekinetic grip: there was a moan of engines struggling to keep their owners aloft, followed by a roar of igniting fuels and an explosion of missiles detonating inside their launching bays.

"Two Land-Leveller class destroyers down!"

Elphaba swept a hand through the air, sending an invisible blade racing down the hull of the nearest ship, slicing through its turbines and eviscerating its engines. As the ship futilely tried to right itself and return fire, Elphaba's magic rippled outward, brighter than ever before: gravity bore down on the struggling airship, forcing it towards the ground even as it crushed the few remaining engines to scrap. Back on the broomstick, Glinda could only watch in astonishment as the aura of energies swept over the two of them, feeling her hair stand on end as the current permeated her. By now, she was holding onto Elphaba so tightly that she could actually feel the crystals growing on her back, many of them digging into Glinda's arms, every jab of sharpened witch-crystal giving off another spark of raw, intoxicating power – so entrancing that Glinda almost completely missed the sight of the mortally-wounded airship plummeting towards the ground.

"And a dreadnought down!" Elphaba crowed, punching the air.

"How do you know all their names?"

"Because I read the official briefings! I… oh no."

"What?"

Elphaba didn't even bother to answer; she simply put her head down and sent the broom rocketing ahead of the fleet – and just in time, too. A split second later, the entire fleet accelerated dramatically; they'd already been moving quickly enough to outpace the broomstick, but now the ships of the fleet began rocketing across the sky fast enough to reduce them to silvery blurs on the horizon. For her part, Elphaba could only accelerate faster and faster, until the broomstick was only just managing to keep up with the invaders.

"Remember that clear run to Greenspectre they had?" Elphaba shouted. "I think they're taking it by magical acceleration!"

"Can we keep up?"

"I can certainly match speeds, but it's already taking a toll: we're likely to snap the broomstick in half if we keep this up for much longer!"

"Then what do we do?"

"Well… uh, are you familiar with spells of intangibility?"

"No. How will intangibilizing ourselves help?"

"Don't worry about it – just hang on!"

And without another word, Elphaba swung the broomstick hard to the right, sending them hurtling towards the nearest airship at a terrifying speed. Glinda had just enough time to see the Harbinger of Perfection's trident-shaped bulk looming towards them before she realized – with a fresh thrill of horror – that the broom was locked on a collision course with the oncoming flagship. Normally, this would have been her cue to panic, but by then, Glinda's newfound fear of heights had driven all other competing fears out of her mind. Seeing the silvery hull racing towards them at several hundred miles an hour, she had just enough time to blink-

-but when she opened her eyes again, the chaos of the skies around them had vanished. They were now hovering in the middle of a large chamber, surrounded on all sides by sterile white walls; for a moment, Glinda was at a loss to where they'd ended up, but then she noticed the rivets in the walls and the faint hum engines, and realized that they were quite clearly standing inside the Harbinger.

"You could have warned me you were going to do that, you know," she grumbled, as she shaking dismounted.

"There wasn't time," Elphaba replied. "I had to start casting the moment we turned around, or risk bouncing off the hull. One way or the other, it worked: now we don't have to worry about trying to keep up, or about having to pick off the fleet from the air, for that matter. Now, we have a guaranteed method of taking the fleet by surprise – once we get to the weapon controls, of course."

"Do you really think it's going to be that easy?"

"In a word, no: now we've got to worry about getting caught by the crew and outnumbered, about getting jettisoned from this tin can at high speed, or just about misfiring the ship's weaponry and blowing ourselves to kingdom come. And we've still got to worry about getting shot down – except this time, it'll be our own side we've got to watch out for." Elphaba grinned mirthlessly. "Rule of thumb, Glinda: it's never easy – only easier."

Elphaba got off the broomstick and stretched for a moment, eyes scanning the room as she did so; realizing the logic, Glinda hastily followed suit – just in case there were any crewmembers watching them. Fortunately, they appeared to be alone for the moment: no alarms had sounded, the huge metal doors behind them remained shut, and none of the hatchways lining the bulkheads had opened yet. One doorway at the top of a nearby flight of stairs had been left open, but there didn't seem to be any sign of activity beyond it… or indeed, any activity at all, for the passageway at the top of the stairs was thick with shadows – an unusual sight in anything owned by Unbridled Radiance, to say nothing of the flagship of their prize invasion fleet.

Maybe they didn't have time to install the lights, Glinda thought absently.

It was then that Glinda turned around, and realized that the room wasn't entirely empty: stacked from one end of the compartment to the next were dozens upon dozens of usually-shaped objects, each one wrapped in diaphanous film, none of them bigger than the average house-brick. It took a while for Glinda to recognize them under the bright lights of the ship's interior, but once she'd peeled back the film and taken a good look at the nearest of these curious shapes, she realized that she'd seen some of these metal oblongs tumbling from the rear doors of this very airship.

And yet, Glinda couldn't shape the feeling that she'd seen these things long before today, but she couldn't recall when.

"Seriously, what are these things?" she asked aloud. "If they're not bombs, why would they bother with this stuff?"

Elphaba shook her head. "We can answer that later. We've got a ship to capture; let's get moving before someone finds us."

"Go where? Last I looked, we didn't have the blueprints of this ship on hand."

"Maybe not, but we at least know we're in the cargo hold. More importantly, I know enough diagnostic spells to figure out a path to the command deck… and maybe enough to get there without bumping into anyone. Easier said than done, I admit."

"What about the intangibility thing? Can't you cast that as well?"

"Not a good idea, believe me: we'd end up falling through the floor. Plus, that spell was intended only to last for a few seconds; any longer a-" Elphaba, who'd been turning to face Glinda in that moment, suddenly froze, eyes focussing on the bulkhead behind her – on what could only be the passageway at the top of the stairs.

"GET DOWN!" she yelled.

On instinct, Glinda complied – and just as well, too: a moment later, a beam of searing white light tore through the spot where she'd been standing, neatly disintegrating one of the cargo stacks. Next second, the entire cargo hold erupted in a dazzling exchange of magical firepower as Elphaba and the unseen assailant hammered one another with every single spell known to them. For the briefest of instants, the stalemate held in a deadly exchange of lightning and fire; then, an invisible scythe tore open one of the cargo stacks, showering Elphaba with a hurricane of metal ingots. Caught from an attack behind her protective aegis of magic, she could only duck for cover, her bare face and arms immediately blossoming with cuts and bruises. Suddenly consumed with concern, Glinda ducked out of cover with her sceptre raised, hoping to lend a hand – maybe even save Elphaba's life.

She had just enough time to realize that this might have been a bad idea, before the next blast caught her square in the chest and sent her flying. She landed heavily, all the breath knocked out of her, the back of her head smacking painfully against the deck; stars flashed before her eyes, entire constellations exploding overhead as galaxy after galaxy blazed and died in the air above her head. She was dimly aware of Elphaba screaming her name, the sound of gunfire and magical blasts, orders being yelled, the sight of magic once again tearing across the cargo hold – more fireworks, more stars flexing in their death throes.

Seconds later, something large and heavy leapt from above, landing with a thud right on top of Glinda; suddenly, the stars and the ceiling were gone, and all Glinda could see were two huge, luminous yellow eyes staring down at her. All she could feel, apart from the weight on her chest, was the touch of something sharp against her neck – two somethings, in fact.

"Get off her!" Elphaba roared. "GET OFF HER NOW, OR I SWEAR, I'LL TEAR YOU TO PIECES!"

The points at her neck briefly withdrew, and a curiously mellifluous voice purred, "Not before I tear out her throat, I think. Besides, even if you could stop me, I doubt you can stop my men as well."

Glinda was dimly aware of the sound of several dozen rifles being cocked… and the equally distinctive sound of several Vigilant Eyes readying their lenses to fire. She wanted to look up, but the thought of the points at her throat kept her frozen with fear (and what had those points been, anyway? A pair of daggers? A pitchfork? Tusks?)

"Or perhaps we could simply open this cargo hold and let gravity decide her fate, yes? You can fly perfectly well, as we've seen, but she… well, I imagine that at this speed and height, the impact will vaporize her skeleton on impact. So tell me, what would you prefer?"

"You're going to kill us anyway, in case you forgot."

"Not necessarily. I have it in my power to teleport this one to safety… provided you surrender. My advice to you: we are here to give our lives for Unbridled Radiance; consider that… and imagine just how much your threats are worth – and what you would give your life for."

There was a pause, and Glinda had the distinct impression that her captor was smiling. "You needn't try to surprise me, Abomination: the Empress has shared your deepest secrets with her inner retinue, and all the details of your warped existence are known to me. If you really wanted to die for a noble cause, if you really wanted to guarantee the rights of Animals, you'd let me win."

And in that moment, Glinda finally got a good look at the figure at her throat: the yellow eyes that had been staring down at her belonged to the biggest tiger she'd ever seen in her entire life, a gigantic mass of lustrous orange-and-black fur and coiled muscle ready for the killing bite. And the colossal fangs now levelled at her throat looked sharp enough to shear clean through a human neck with only the slightest of motions. But then Glinda noticed the peculiar gloss around the tiger's fur and the distinctive glow to his amber-coloured eyes, and something else occurred to her:

"Oh god, not more Purified."

The tiger laughed, a deep bass throb that automatically set Glinda's teeth on edge. "Yes, Miss Glinda," he purred. "More Purified. Allow me to introduce myself: General August Stellham, dedicated servant of the Empress, commander of this ship and this fleet…"

Suddenly, the airship jolted ever-subtly, and the rumbling of the ship's accelerated pace began to soften. Glinda saw Elphaba's gaze flick from left to right, distracted by the noise and motion – and in that moment, Stellham made his move:

One huge paw lashed out at Elphaba, too quickly to be seen, too quickly to react. A split-second later, a thick band of metal wrapped itself around her neck, and immediately began to tighten; gasping in pain and shock, Elphaba's hands flew to her throat, trying desperately to force the garrotte off, but the more she struggled, the tighter it constricted.

Stellham laughed again. "…and, of course, your executioner." He tapped a microphone pinned to his shoulder: "Pilot, open the cargo hold, please? We have an additional payload to deposit…"

---

Magically-accelerated speed couldn't be maintained forever: airships of all stripes risked engine failure, structural fatigue, spontaneous combustion, hull breaches, and even complete meltdown after prolonged "afterburning." Even the specially-made airships of the invasion fleet had to slow down eventually – and perhaps a third of the way through their frantic race across the country, they did so, gradually winding down to their normal breakneck speed directly over Pelagraeus Lake.

For a moment or two, the voyage continued undisturbed: no bases or guard stations marred the landscape; no alarms broke the near-silence; no artillery fire split the afternoon sky; no submarine activity disturbed the murky green waters of the lake. So, pausing just long enough to open their cargo bays, the fleet sent another round of mysterious objects tumbling onto the sweeping plains that lay just beyond the lake.

And then the second line of defence slammed into them at high speed.

With so little time to organize, this particular fleet didn't have nearly as many ships as the first, but what they lacked in numbers, they made up for in sheer firepower: these ships had been specifically designed to cripple and destroy capital craft, and quite a few of them were legendary veterans of Unbridled Radiance's last attempt at an airborne invasion; the Reaper's Dove, the Silence-Bringer, the Screech Owl, the Cthonic Choir, the Triumph of the Flesh, even Ironmongery Peak's celebrated factory/carrier Forge of Heaven – all had arrived to reprise their greatest triumphs. And alongside them, over a hundred battle-ready magicians had arrived, each one of them mounted on their own levitating pulpit; these highly-trained men and women were all graduates – or professors – of Greenspectre's College of Magical Warfare, and all of them had been given carte blanche to do their very worst to the invaders.

At first, it seemed as though the battle would be a simple repetition of the 100th fleet's defence: the defenders opened fire, cutting down huge swathes of the invasion fleet; the invasion fleet returned fire without stopping. Under the magical barrage, some ships lost entire dimensions as local space folded like paper, their bodies instantly compacted into inch-thick steel plates; others shattered like glass, dissolved into flocks of seagulls, or simply vanished as the waters of the lake reached up to consume them; one even dismantled itself in mid-air, time around the vessel rewinding itself just long enough for the ship's crew to fall to their deaths. But all the while, the rest of the fleet carried on.

And in that moment, the Mentor appeared.

Standing on the mage-podium of the Stalwart In Defiance, she seemed an unimpressive figure at first: an old woman made older by constant hardship and countless battle-scars, bent and frail under the weight of experiences too horrific to recount, her tattered robes as grey and withered as her hair. Even her prosthetic arm seemed old and tarnished, to say nothing of the corroding frame that supported her wasted body.

But then she looked up with fire in her mismatched eyes, and there was no mistaking the power this crooked figure held. Suddenly visible before every ship in the invasion fleet was the single greatest enemy ever known to Unbridled Radiance, flouting the supremacy of perfection by her presence alone.

It took perhaps five and a half seconds for the first ship to veer off course, guns blazing: the Wrath of the Empress, its crew having seen an opportunity to decapitate the Deviant Nations and win eternal glory, zeroed in on the Mentor, hammering her with all the firepower they could muster, from repeater fire to missiles. Unfortunately for them, she had long since mastered the art of shielding herself from heavy arms fire – and had the protection of the ship below her, the magicians that she'd brought with her, and in fact, most of the fleet; so, she simply let the storm wash over her, waiting for the inevitable realization to settle in, before she struck.

The Mentor's riposte tore both engine turbines from the ship's hull and reduced its bridge to a quagmire of molten metal and sparking wires.

As the Wrath of the Empress fell from the sky, two more ships left the fleet and launched themselves at their newfound target. The Mentor chanted a long string of incantations, traced a series of arcane designs across the air, and flung out her hands towards the oncoming ships: a moment later, the first of them groaned and shrieked as its hull warped, distended and deformed into a hideous new shape, the sudden transformation killing the ship's crew instantly. Now a great metal dragon borne upon wings of solid steel, it flung itself at the remaining ship, tearing through its bulkhead and feasting upon its engines.

The fleet's remaining gunships then launched itself across the divide, narrowly avoiding the dragon (still busy dining on turbine), and sent a volley of fletchettes razoring through the sky towards the Mentor. Briefly overwhelmed by the sheer number of darts, her shield wavered violently – just long enough for one them to tear through the barrier and lash across her cheek; undeterred, the Mentor stoically wiped the blood from her face, and focussing on the bloodstain now marring her one human hand, began to chant the words of another spell. Inside the oncoming gunships, the pilots and crew pulsated violently as the spell took hold; like ghastly balloons, they swelled, bloated, inflated, and finally exploded, painting their canopies a vivid shade of crimson. More ships fell from the sky.

Twelve more ships broke formation and charged the Mentor; dozens more followed – and all too many of them strayed directly into the path of the waiting guns. More followed, and more, until the airwaves erupted into a furious argument between the captains, some wanting to redirect the entire suicide attack on the Mentor, the others demanding they continue the mission the Greenspectre and finish offloading their cargo. In a matter of seconds, the well-organized charge towards Greenspectre had devolved into an undignified brawl, one that only became more muddled as the Purified commanders struggled to restore order; a few particularly desperate capital ships actually went so far as to wade into the fracas to in an attempt to escort their subordinates back into the relative safety of their suicide charge, only to get shot down along with them. And the dragon only added more confusion to the mix.

But in the bewilderment and pandemonium of the battle, nobody had noticed the winged figure soaring across the sky…

---

"What in the name of the Empress is going on out there?" Stellham demanded

It hadn't been much longer than a minute, but it felt like thirty years: the cargo bay doors still yawned open before them, but any plans of executing them had been lost in the chaos that had followed. All around the hold, the soldiers stood in silence with weapons at the ready, but the looks of determination were already beginning to fade as confusion set in. The General, meanwhile, was still pinning Glinda to the floor as he went on badgering the commanders of the fleet, scarcely paying any attention to his captives. Indeed, the Vigilant Eyes seemed to be the only crewmembers who'd retained their composure.

As for Elphaba, she was still alive – but only just: every time she moved – even if it was only to speak – the collar around her neck tightened into a noose, leaving effectively unable to cast spells.

"Keep formation!" Stellham hissed. "I repeat, keep formation: the Mentor is of secondary importance! We have a chance to cripple her powerbase; without Greenspectre, her military strength will falter and the Empress can crush her directly; repeat, Greenspectre attack now top priority!"

Glinda was very much aware that they were only a few feet removed from falling to their deaths; if the ship were to shift upwards any further, the movement would be enough to send the two of them sliding out the doors and tumbling into emptiness – and with the broom out of reach and Elphaba's spellcasting effectively crippled by the collar, there'd be nothing to save them.

And then, just as she was beginning to wonder if hitting the ground at a couple of thousand miles an hour would hurt, Glinda noticed something rolling across the slanting floor towards her, and her heart briefly leapt as she recognized the war sceptre. Quickly and quietly, she let it slide into her hand, hoping against hope that nobody would notice it. But who would she use it on? Stellham would claw her face off the moment she raised the wand, and even if she did manage to get off a lucky shot, the gunmen and the Eyes still had her in their sights. And the crew themselves? That left her open to Stellham's counterattack – and attacking the Vigilant Eyes would be both pointless and suicidal.

Suddenly, the General's gaze turned towards the open doors, eyes narrowing in confusion. "What is that?" he said quietly. A moment later, the golden eyes widened in something not unlike horror: "It's coming right for us!" he shouted.

And in that moment, Glinda knew exactly where to fire: she didn't know just how powerful the sceptre was, she wasn't sure of her aim, and more to the point, she didn't even know if this plan made any sort of sense… but at that point, she'd just about given up on sanity. All that mattered was freeing Elphaba.

Raising the sceptre as blinding speed, she took careful aim at the collar around Elphaba's neck – and fired.

And then everything seemed to happen at once: the collar erupted into a shower of debris, leaving Elphaba to scramble upright; something huge and winged shot through the open cargo bay doors, tackling Stellham around the waist and sent him hurtling across the hold; a massive explosion rocked the ship, sending the Harbinger of Perfection on a sharp downward trajectory and leaving the now-alerted guardsmen to tumble aimlessly across the deck; and almost on instinct, Elphaba and Glinda began pelting them with all the magic they could possibly muster. The soldiers, disoriented and disorganized, returned fire as best as they could… and yet the Vigilant Eyes remained inexplicably inactive.

In the midst of the chaos, Stellham managed to tear himself away from his assailant, flinging the winged figure back across the cargo bay, before hastily vaulting out of the line of fire. "Target the intruders!" he commanded, over the thunder of gunfire and magic. "Cleanse this ship of their filth!"

There was an awkward pause. Then, one of the Eyes muttered, "Unable to comply."

"They're right there!" the General exploded, anger finally making itself heard through the dulcet tones. He pointed at the newest arrival, who was currently perched against a support girder, fluttering its wings and evidently getting ready to dodge the next volley of fire. "He's right there!" Stellham continued. "Shoot him! Purge him from reality!"

"Unable to comply," the Vigilant Eyes insisted. "Unable to comply: executive orders forbid it. Cannot fire upon those recognized as-as-as-"

"YOU WERE MODIFIED!" Stellham howled, Purified composure lost in a flood of rage. "YOU WERE MODIFIED TO TARGET THE ABOMINATION! HER TRICKS CANNOT EFFECT YOU – SHE IS NOT THE EMPRESS: OPEN FIRE, DAMN YOU!"

By now, all three of the Eyes were stuttering wildly, their lenses flickering and twitching as they tried and failed to process new orders. "The Abomination is-is-is not preventing – cannot comply – presence of Vigilant Eye material recognized in new target, forbidden to target material by executive order – cannot comply – logical inconsistency, mental circuit disturbance, built-in-commandments and orders in direct conflict! Cannot comply, cannot control, cannot cannot cannot! WARNING: ERROR. ERROR. ERROR. ERRO-"

Stellham had just enough time to dive out of the way before Elphaba's next spell hurtled across the hold and melted the trio into airborne slag. Leaping away from the carnage with a snarl of rage, the Purified tiger retreated, launching himself with feline agility out of the cargo hold and down the corridor – closely followed by a gaggle of surviving guardsmen.

As an afterthought, someone on the bridge absently remembered to shut the cargo bay doors, leaving Glinda and Elphaba to finally relax – as much as they were able to, at any rate.

"Are you alright?" Glinda asked, trying desperately to keep the panic out of her voice.

"I'll… I'll be… I'll be okay," Elphaba wheezed. "I've… just got to get my breath back… and I'll be fine…"

Frankly, Glinda didn't blame her in the slightest: Elphie's throat was now a lurid patchwork of purple-and-black bruises from where the collar had throttled her, and though she'd recovered with impressive speed once she'd escape, she hadn't actually spoken any incantations in the fight that followed.

"Nice shot by the way," Elphie continued breathlessly.

"Oh thank you, but I just got lucky. Very, very, very, very lucky."

"Yep… that's us in a nutshell, isn't it? "Lucky." Question is, who was it who- Chistery!"

"OOOK!" exclaimed the flying monkey, hugging Elphaba fiercely around the middle.

"What the hell are you doing here, Chistery? I left you in Greenspectre for-"

"Volunteer!" said Chistery proudly, snapping a salute. "Mentor looking for you, wanted to keep you safe! So, volunteered!"

"I think that's the most I've ever heard him say in a single sentence," Glinda remarked absently.

"You shouldn't be here, Chistery; it's too dangerous-"

"Um, Elphie, at the risk of getting repetitiative, it's kind of dangerous everywhere in the Deviant Nations. In point of fact, Greenspectre is about to be attacked. Besides, it's not as if he can just leave now, can he?"

Elphaba took a deep breath. "This really isn't my day for safety assurance," she sighed. "Alright, Chistery, you can tag along. Just… please, follow my lead and don't take any risks. Can you do that?"

Chistery saluted. "Ook!"

---

Somewhere along the line, the balance of power had changed: the crew of the Harbinger of Perfection, already deeply shaken by the unexpected boarding and the division of the fleet, had been caught completely wrong-footed by Chistery's arrival and the counter-counter attack that had followed; with General Stellham in full retreat and the two witches continuing their assault on a much more violent scale, the Harbinger's crew were left in a shambles. With the element of surprise no longer available to them and the odds swiftly turning against them, most of could only try to slow the oncoming witches down before being felled.

By now, the ship was in magical acceleration once again, but according to the blaring alarms, so were most of their pursuers; the second line of defence, the Strangling Coils, the hijacked sloop, all were still rocketing after them, now all united under the enchanted acceleration of the accompanying magicians. And as for the rest of the invasion fleet, they weren't doing so good if the screams from the radio operators were any evidence: some ships were already starting to break down after so many acceleration spells, their systems unable to continue compensating for the astronomical forces at work on their hull – until some simply dropped out of their air. A rare few exploded under the onslaught. And all the while, the pursuers went on nipping at the fleet's heels…

Meanwhile, the three intruders went on tearing their way through the ship: Elphaba took the lead, sweeping the corridors clean with colossal gouts of flame; from behind Elphaba's protective barrier of spells and enchantments, Glinda threshed the air with blasts of her war sceptre, clearing the rooms of any stragglers; and if any of them were foolish enough to rush the barrier, they found themselves quickly brought up short by Chistery – and very few of them were in the mood to continue attacking after a high-speed appointment with the nearest wall.

In a matter of minutes, the crew were left in helpless disarray, either struggling to rally, trying to flee, desperately attempting to keep the ship aloft, or just running aimlessly from one end of the ship to the next. They'd been well prepared, but not quite enough: the discovery of the beachhead had forced General Stellham to turn a surprise attack on the Deviant Nations as a whole into a sustained race towards Greenspectre, and then into a desperate attempt to repel the unexpected boarding party; he'd done well converting the specialized crew of the Harbinger and the few security operatives available to him into an army, and he'd done his best with the tools were available. He'd improvised as best as possible again and again and again – but in the end, there was only so much he could do before the situation spiralled out of his control.

And with the way ahead clear, Elphaba found herself leading the way onto the Harbinger's bridge. Even though it had emptied in the chaos and no sign of the fleeing general could be found here, it was still an impressive sight: this command centre had been designed and sculpted as a colossal amphitheatre of polished chrome and gleaming white-tinted alloy; each seat was ringed with control stations, each one facing the gargantuan windows at the opposite end of the room, through which could be seen the blurring landscape of the Deviant Nations. At the very centre of the amphitheatre was a huge throne of gold and platinum; situated just behind the pilot's seat, it was carved with hundreds of tiny expressionless figures, each one reaching up towards the seat cushion – as if to support the occupant's weight – whist the throne's back and headrest had been shaped into a intermingled mass of angelic wings and pinions, all outstretched in readiness for flight.

"It was intended for the Empress," said Stellham's voice. Elphaba scanned the room, but there was no sign of the tiger anywhere… but then, it wasn't as if there wasn't an overwhelming shortage of things to hide behind.

Meanwhile, the general went on rambling, his voice once again eerily calm; obviously, he'd had time to recover from the shock and regain some poise. "Not long ago," he continued, "it was intended that she would lead us on this invasion, just as she had lead the subterranean attack… but alas, Her Radiance was forced to abandon the plan in light of her rather… longwinded route back to Exemplar and recovery. And for that, I once again have you to blame."

"Must be disappointing," Elphaba called out, "Having to see your Empress's plans fall to pieces so many times in the space of a week, am I right? You've lost the element of surprise, you've lost two thirds of your fleet, you've lost control of your men… and at this rate, you'll be lucky if you can get as far as Greenspectre before the local airfleets shoot you down."

"Oh, we will get that far; rest assured, the Harbinger of Perfection was always meant to be the fasts and the most resilient of the fleet. We will have all due time to wipe Greenspectre from the face of this world."

"And then what? You'll die in the attempt, the Deviant Nations will live on, and your only legacy will be another round of property damage – maybe a little worse than the last round, but nothing to justify this many lives and ships being wasted. You've been forced to settle for second best, and your Empress's grand plans for an invasion have fallen apart."

Stellham laughed. "You know little of the Empress, Abomination, and you understand even less. An amusing paradox, considering the two of you share a past. But no, her plans have not failed: her plans will remain in motion long after my life's embers have gone cold – and that is the necessity of a war of so many decades. Plans must spawn plans. Calculation and improvisation, secondary stratagems and tactical manoeuvrability, foresight and flexibility, plans within plans within plans. You will see soon enough… or perhaps not."

Elphaba's brow wrinkled. "If you know who I really am, then how can you possibly support the Empress? How can you support someone who was never truly as perfect as she claims? How can you support a former Distortion?"

"Again, you understand so very little. The fact that the Empress was not born perfect does not surprise us; like the rest of the Purified, she was born into the feculence of the world before ours, befouled by its filth and depravity… but unlike you, she transcended ugliness, cast off wickedness to become the truest vessel of beauty and perfection in existence. Like us, she became something more, but by her own power, she became more than any of us combined."

There was a thud from the other end of the bridge: Elphaba immediately turned, readying a bolt of magic in one hand as she waited for any sign of movement.

"You see, we all began as something far less," Stellham continued. "In my homeland of Oalaviiir, I was hired muscle, a brute allowed to rise above the herd through my skill in violence and cruelty, haunted day and night by self-loathing and rage, and still beholden to the one true law that still governed my kind: "Animals must serve, not speak." No authority could grant justice to my victims, no redeemer could cleanse me of my sins… until the day the Empress liberated Oalaviiir. It was by her hand that my victims were healed of their wounds, and through her infinite mercy the atrocities against my own kind were forgiven. It was by the Empress's grace that was reborn into perfection, and it was by her benevolence that she freed my people. How can you – who devoted your life to freeing Animals from captivity – imagine me serving any other?"

There was a pause, and Elphaba had the distinct impression that Stellham was grinning. "You see Elphaba, if you wanted to guarantee Animals their rights, you'd side with the Empress. If you wanted to see justice and equality established in your world and mine, you'd swear fealty to her. If you wanted to see righteousness triumph-"

An orange-and-black blur dropped from above, almost too fast to be seen, too fast for the bolt of magic to hit; Elphaba had just enough time to see the iron cudgel before it caught her square in the stomach.

"-You'd let me win," Stellham finished.

As Elphaba doubled over, Glinda stepped up with sceptre ready to fire, only for the tiger to easily sidestep the blast; the cudgel swatted the sceptre from her hands, then lashed out to the right and caught Chistery a stunning blow to the skull. Then, as Glinda struggled to retrieve her sceptre, Stellham's claws lashed out, slicing open Glinda's left arm almost down to the bone.

"Sir!" the radio crackled, amplified slightly over the sounds of Glinda's scream. "We're coming up on Greenspecre, but the pursuit vehicles have caught up with us, and there's another line of defence lining up outside the city w-"

"Continue the assault!" Stellham commanded. "If but one of us makes it past those defenders, we'll have won the day! Press on, and-"

A solid stream of raw voltage tore through the room, obliterating the radio and flinging the general into the throne. He rose shakily, his fur smouldering ever-so-slightly. "Is that all you've got, Abomination?" he sneered. "What happened to the unlimited prodigy I heard so much about?"

Elphaba's only reply was a blast of kinetic force that split the throne down the middle and hurled Stellham into the amphitheatre; he landed heavily with a musical crash of shattering viewscreens and broken control panels, but before the sound had faded, he was on his feet once again. "Very well then," he said coldly. "If it's a battle of magic you want, I will not disappoint you. Let's see how well the Wunderkind of Oz does against one of the Empress's finest…"

There was a rumble from behind him, as magical current swept across the bridge: a moment later, just about everything in the room that hadn't been bolted down began launching themselves across the room, followed swiftly by several things that had been; chairs, desks, viewscreens, handheld devices, the two halves of the thrones, deck plates, all of them floated into the air and launched themselves at Elphaba in a hail of debris. Elphaba's magic flared outward in a nimbus of incandescent energies, disintegrating roughly half the storm before it even touched her; the rest was sent hurtling back at Stellham – but once again, the tiger was too quick on his feet. He somersaulted out of the way, ducking and weaving past the flying deck plates just long enough to launch another spell.

Frost bloomed across the deck in front of her, erupting into six-foot-long icicles sharp enough to puncture flesh and bone; fire roared from Elphaba's outstretched hands, melting the ice and sending a solid wall of flame racing towards Stellham. As he dived out of the way, Elphaba reached out towards the melted remains of the icicles and sent the water pouring back across the bridge in vast, boiling tendrils, gathering themselves into a huge sphere of bubbling water that swept Stellham away – scalding his body and pouring violently down his throat. But a motion of his hand send a meteorite of conjured metals smashing through the sphere, freeing himself and splattering his prison across the deck. As Elphaba batted the oncoming meteorites aside, she snatched up a large pile of papers from the debris pile and hurled them through the air, every sheet magically honed to a razor-sharp edge; the blizzard of paper hit the general head-on, slicing through his fur and into the flesh-porcelain beneath, one of them even shearing off one of his arm. Scooping it off the deck and fusing it back to the stump with a flourish of magic, Stellham spread his arms wide and sent a storm of his own across the bridge; lightning tore through the air, leaving molten craters in the immaculate chrome deck. Elphaba's aegis of magic simply swatted the bolts aside; then, she began chanting the words of a spell – forcing Stellham to abandon the storm and leap for his life as the very deck plates beneath his feet began to warp and twist into human forms. Polished hands reached out towards him from all angles, chrome-and-alloy tentacles pouring in from the walls to ensnare him, but once again, the general was too quick on his feet.

Enraged, he leapt across the bridge, hammering Elphaba with a rapid succession of deadly spells as he advanced on her: hailstones the size of cartwheels tore through the empty air, only shattered against her shield; space warped and twisted around her, threatening to slice her clean in half as reality attempted to divide itself – though all it did was knock her hat off and swat the broomstick from her hand; fire gouted from Stellham's hands, along with enough kinetic force to send catch Elphaba off guard. Toppling over, she felt the heat of the flame sweep over her, and raised her shield – but too late.

Elphaba had just enough time to smother the flames licking greedily at her back and at her hair, before Stellham pounced, bearing down on her with fangs bared for the killing bite. Suddenly weighed down by several hundred pounds of angry tiger, Elphaba crashed to the deck; claws raked her arms and back, tearing deep fissures in her flesh, and sabre-like fangs lanced down at her defenceless throat – only for a blast of the war sceptre to send the general flying towards the ceiling. Dazed and bloodied, Elphaba staggered to her feet just in time to see Glinda blasting away at Stellham, while Chistery pelted him with everything he get his hands on.

Howling with rage, Stellham spread his arms wide again, spitting a deadly incantation: wind whistled across the bridge, first a breeze, then a gust, then a gale, then a hurricane tearing through the amphitheatre and sweeping the three of them off their feet – towards the colossal window. Elphaba hastily swept her hat and broomstick back into hand and grounded herself as best as she could, telekinetically pressing herself to the deck with all the power she could summon; reaching out with her magic, she wrapped Glinda and Chistery in the same field, trying desperately to keep them from being swept away.

Behind her, she heard the glass crack, heard the sounds of gunfire and exploding airships pouring in from the outside world; out of the corner of her eye, she saw the distant shapes of buildings far below them, and realized that the Harbinger was actually slowing down just over Greenspectre.

Then, Stellham drew a gun from one of the nearby crew stations and opened fire on the three of them. Elphaba automatically raised her shield of spells around the others – only to lose her grip on the deck. Desperately, she clamped down again, but too late: from the corner of her eye, she saw Chistery zoom past her, spreading his wings and soaring out the window, just managing to recover his equilibrium before gravity could take hold.

Then, to her horror, Glinda followed; Chistery caught her just in time, but Elphaba could already tell it was too much for him: the last time the flying monkey had lifted a human being, it had been Dorothy Gale – and quite apart from being a child, Dorothy was quite small for her age. Unable to cope with the weight of a full-grown human being, Chistery wobbled, wavered, and fell, dropping Glinda -

Right into Fiyero's outstretched arms.

Hovering just below the window was an air-sloop, its hull battered and its guns almost molten from overuse, but the canopy had been opened just enough for Fiyero and a small knot of other figures to catch the flying monkey and his passenger.

Back on the bridge, Stellham was shouting orders: "To all remaining ships: drop final payloads and accelerate to ramming speed! Target the Chapter Temple! Target the palace! Detonate your engine cores and purify this cesspool with fire!"

Elphaba was already lunging towards him when the hurricane gathered itself into single tangible fist of force and slammed her against the deck.

"You cannot stop us," Stellham hissed. "Even if you stop this… plans within plans within plans, remember? We will make this world perfect."

And then the hurricane flung her out the window.

Elphaba barely noticed the sight of the strange objects tumbling from the Harbinger's cargo hold; she was too busy struggling to clamber aboard to broomstick. Somehow, she managed to upright herself and take flight, soaring far above the flagship as it bore down on the city below; along with the Harbinger, there were perhaps four ships left in the entire fleet, and though battles and constant acceleration had left their gilded hulls horrifically battle-scarred, these had been among most formidable in the fleet – and they still had more than enough firepower to exact a deathtoll in the thousands.

Could she take on five capital ships?

Did she have it in her to save this city – even with her arm torn and bloodied, her throat still purple with bruises, her eyes watering, and exhaustion clawing at her from all sides? Could she have done this even if she wasn't hurt?

She'd brought down a few ships, but nothing compared to this titans of engineering. Did she have the strength to-

No.

There was no time for this, no more time for self-doubt, no more space for second-guessing and pessimism, not with so many lives on the line.

There was only necessity and response.

Reaching out with all the magic she could possibly wield without incantation, she shrouded the Harbinger of Perfection in a dazzling field of her own intrinsic energies, vivid green light washing across the hull as her grip tightened around it. Suddenly, the flagship found itself unable to move; from the rear of the ship, she could hear the sound of the engines straining to free the Harbinger, to no avail; weapons stations roared to life, hammering Elphaba with repeater fire, missiles, rockets, energy beams from crystalline turrets, even magic spells, but their target was either too far away or simply too well-defended. Bolt after bolt simply ricocheted off Elphaba's shield, while hundreds more missed her entirely.

Then, she sent her energies pouring out across the rest of the fleet, cocooning the ships in her growing shroud of magic; as she poured more energies across them, she felt the crystals in her back sparking and pulsing as she drew more and more thaumaturgical power. It was beginning to strain, to hurt, even, but on she went nonetheless, shutting out the growing ache as best as she could. As the walls closed in around ships, some of them followed suit in their attempts to shoot her down, while others attempted to continue their assault on the city below them – again, to no avail: the field had been intended to be as inescapable as gravity, and not even the missiles travelled far before exploding against it.

One by one, the remaining capital ships fell silent as Elphaba's magical grasp closed around them like a vice. Then, with her power now encompassing the last of the once-great invasion fleet, she began to tighten her grip.

Across the fleet, bulkheads began to crumple; gun turrets snapped and burst; windows cracked open; engines already strained to breaking point whined and groaned in protest as the oncoming wave of force pressed down upon them. Then, gravity was joined by fire: hulls glowed cherry-red as the inferno blossomed within the cocoon of energies and fire rippled across the captive ships like water; turbines and wings bent and warped out of shape, before melting entirely; missiles exploded in mid-flight or simply detonated in their launches, spreading the blaze even further; mad, half-suicidal snipers clambered out onto the upper decks with rifles in hand, trying to shoot Elphaba down – only to be simultaneously crushed and seared from existence by a wave of heat and gravity.

Then, with her head ringing with exhaustion, Elphaba began to chant the words of spell as she poured another layer of magic across the dying fleet: magic rained down on them from all angles as blizzards, meteor storms, pulsing blue flame and great fists of stone; shadows consumed them, light blinded them, space folded and mangled them out of shape, and at last, the great cocoon of magic flattened the ships, compacting the ships down into husks of inert junk.

The last Elphaba saw of General Stellham, he was standing deathly still on the bridge of the Harbinger of Perfection, seemingly oblivious to the fires racing across the deck behind him, his jaws open in a silent roar of impotent rage.

Then the fire swept across him, and he was gone.

Crushed in gravity's fist and melted in the forge of Elphaba's magic, the flagship and its cousins groaned as they shrunk down into crumpled balls of molten metal, compacting smaller and smaller and melting further and further – until nothing remained of the glorious invasion fleet but dust and vapour.

At last, she released her grip and let the cocoon slowly fade away.

Elphaba was only dimly aware that she'd won, being almost too tired to realize it; fatigue was now making itself felt from one end of her body to the next, and her injuries hurt worse than ever. The cuts on her arms were easily the worst, but it wasn't as if the burns on her back and the bruises around her throat were any better. These could be easily healed… once she'd had some time to recover, of course. All she needed to do was just go somewhere quiet and lie down for a while. So, she began to descend, floating softly down to towards the waiting Greenspectre streets, hoping that someone might be kind enough to show her the way to the nearest hospital.

But as she gently lowered herself from the skies, she heard a strange sound echoing up from the city below her, a distant hubbub of voices shouting a single word, over and over again – accompanied by a dull roar of other voices raised in emotion. She couldn't quite work out what was being said or why, at first, but as she drifted closer and the spires of the tallest buildings slid past her, she finally recognized the word being chanted.

"Elphaba! Elphaba! Elphaba! Elphaba!"

Elphaba blinked in confusion.

People were… shouting her name? In jubilation?

No, no, no, this didn't make sense. This didn't compute on any level. She was hallucinating, she had to be: she'd lost too much blood, suffered too many injuries, and now her psyche had starting conjuring up nonsense as she floated closer and closer to unconsciousness. She shook herself, hoping to clear the fog of exhaustion before it got any worse, but the noise refused to abate.

"Elphaba! Elphaba! ELPHABA!"

Was she dreaming? Had she simply lost consciousness on her broomstick – or had this entire battle been nothing but a dream? Maybe in the real world, she was still underground with Glinda and the others, hoping for a miracle. Or maybe, just maybe, everything from Kiamo Ko onwards had been nothing more than a fever dream, the last gasps of her dying brain as she slowly passed away in the ruins of the fallen castle. Maybe so, maybe not – one way or another, she had to be dreaming. After all, nobody in the real world shouted her name in exaltation. Nobody cheered for her in the real world. In reality, nobody lined the streets to applaud her, and body ever would. This wasn't cynicism, it was just common sense: year after of year of life in Oz had taught her that nobody with a pair of working eyes would ever cheer for her.

"ELPHABA! ELPHABA! ELPHABA!"

And yet…

Elphaba glanced over to one of the nearest towers, and saw that just about every balcony in the building was crowded with people, all of them roaring and cheering and clapping their hands and cheering her on. Tentatively, she pinched herself, fully expecting to wake up; but the impossible world around her refused to vanish – as if she was truly awake. Perhaps she was. Peering out at the balconies, she saw tentacles and crab claws waving from the depths of the crowds, and jubilant faces crowned with horns and crests. Perhaps it was the Irredeemables who were applauding her? Yes, that made sense: after all, they'd been the first to accept her, and it was only natural that they'd cheer for one of their own.

But a closer look at the crowd revealed just as many ordinary citizens as Irredeemables; so why would any normal human being cheer for her?

"ELPHABA! ELPHABA! ELPHABA!"

She looked down, and saw the thousands upon thousands of people lining the streets below, all of them cheering and hollering her name. It was a regular carnival down there by now, but Elphaba simply couldn't understand why.

Finally, logic made it through the fog of exhaustion and denial surrounding her: they'd seen it all – the battle, the magic, the destruction of the fleet; they were cheering because she'd saved them. Because they didn't care that she was green, that she was unnatural and ugly, because they'd long since embraced such things; she'd known this ever since she'd arrived in the Deviant Nations, but she'd never truly believed it until now. Secretly, she'd always found herself believing that they'd be just like the citizens of Oz, that they'd mock her or betray her or simply discard her.

But no: they accepted her.

They loved her.

She was their hero.

She'd saved them.

She was a hero.

In spite of her exhaustion, she smiled… and then, as the roar of the euphoric citizens swept over her, she began to laugh as the realization of her victory finally hit home. And as she went on laughing, her power blossomed. Magic rippled out from her in harmless waves of glowing energy, transforming her into a beacon of emerald light; the cheers of the crowd grew even louder – they loved it! They loved her!

She wasn't even holding onto her broomstick anymore: she was simply floating, borne on currents of her own magic, drifting past the rooftops, past the upper stories, past the windows filled with awestruck spectators, down, down, down into the waiting arms of the crowd. There had to be over ten thousand people on this street alone, and all of them wanted to get a good look at her, to touch her; there were people hugging her, kissing her, shaking her hand, congratulating her, - everywhere she looked, people were enraptured by her very presence. Elphaba, still glowing vividly in the fading sunlight, could only smile, return the hugs and listen to the sound of her name being chanted by the populace of an entire city.

Laughing, tearful with joy, she let the crowd carry her away, leaving a trail of luminous energy in her wake. She'd never felt so happy in her entire life, all her moments of triumph seemed to pale in comparison; even the moment she had rebelled against the Wizard hadn't been as glorious as this, for it had still come at the cost of embracing the hatred of the people and leaving Glinda behind. This moment had destroyed every last vestige of her self-doubt and self-loathing, and in their place, Elphaba felt nothing but victory. More than that...

She felt transformed.

She felt transfigured.

She felt transcendent.

She felt…

Wicked.