A/N: It's a chainsawed chapter, folks - the first of a new year! May 2017 be a whole lot better than 2016, and may there be more chapters, more reviews, and more discussion than ever before. The second half of this chapter will be en route soon; don't forget to review, though - your appreciation and criticism give me strength to continue. Read, review, and above all enjoy!
Somewhere out on the edge of No-Man's Land, the Hellion looked up at the bleached-grey sky, curiously sniffing the air: there was a new scent on the breeze, a think stench of grief and rage and a thousand petty resentments amplified to nightmarish proportions.
There was a new Doll-collector on the prowl.
No, not a Doll-collector, a Doll-breaker, something delighting in ruining what was precious – collectors and Dolls alike. There was strength to this new thing, power perhaps equalling hers, power enough to wreak havoc upon the Deviant Nations; like her, this new thing of blood and hate wanted something very specific, and judging by those furious whispered carried on the wind, it would do anything – kill anyone, destroy anything, despoil anywhere – to gather a Doll of its own into its arms-
-and shatter it into a million pieces.
HATE HATE HATE HATE YOU KILLED HER YOU KILLED HER YOU KILLED HER HATE YOU MAKE YOU PAY KILL YOU KILL YOU KILL YOU KILL YOU MAKE YOU SUFFER HATE HATE HATE HATE
The Hellion didn't know what to make of those unearthly cries, those sounds-that-were-not-sounds. On the one hand, they filled her with joy: whatever the Hate-Thing was, it wasn't after Dorothy… and if the timing was right, it wouldn't even notice her on the way to its own precious Doll: the Green Girl. She'd heard the Hate-Thing mention her name many times, and seen their intermingled past oozing across the skein of reality. Hopefully, she wouldn't need to wait long for the little green thief to get her comeuppance.
And yet…
It had been two days since she'd sent the severed tail, and with one day to go, Dorothy wasn't yet back in her arms. She could sense her through the cobweb of her collection, feel her waiting in Greenspectre, just out of reach, her mind awash in misguided fear: it could only mean that her ultimatum had worked and she was close to leaving, close to being sent back to her at long last… but was not back in her arms yet. If this Hate-Thing killed the Green Girl before the hand-over, then the Cripple might just refuse the trade: the Stuffed Lion was the perfect means of bringing a tear to the Green Girl's eye, and the Cripple Queen would do anything to keep her Emerald Trump Card in the deck. Without the Green Girl, she'd have no reason to hand over Dorothy.
Hissing furiously, the Hellion gathered the nearest of the Dolls into her arms and hugged it fiercely, shuddering in anticipation as the Doll's tiny porcelain fingers glided across the bloodied muscles of her back: if only it could be Dorothy hugging he. So close. She was so close she could taste it, but her lovely future Doll-to-be was not yet with her. So close and yet so far! It was cruel to be made to wait… but wait she must. She would wait and watch and take what was hers when the time came.
And if the Green Girl tried to double-cross her, then she'd find out just how far human sinew could stretched before it snapped, and the Hellion would bury her in the same grave as her little toy lion.
What the Hellion wants, the Hellion takes…
It had been two days since the dreadful letter had arrived, and Elphaba was still no closer to getting used to the interminable silence that had consumed the apartment. No music, no conversation, no clatter of plates or rustling of pages, no footsteps, no sound at all – not even the air traffic from beyond the windows – just void. And there was nothing that could be done about it: every time Elphaba opened her mouth to say something, her voice seemed to die in her throat.
By now, the blood had been scrubbed away and the Hellion's ghastly parcel had been cleared away – Dr Kiln hastily packing the severed tail in ice before carting it off to medical storage – but nothing could erase the shock that had permeated the room on that terrible morning: the shock had turned malignant, poisoning all attempts at communication that took place within the apartment. This was now a place where sound went to die. If anyone wanted to speak, they went out into the corridor and spoke out there, or else remained alone in sepulchral silence; with the shock and the looming death of the Lion weighing on her, Elphaba couldn't even sleep there at night. Instead, she wandered the palace hallways, sometimes accompanied by Glinda and Fiyero, sometimes by Vara and Kiln.
But Dorothy was never there: for the time being, she was under protective custody and forbidden to leave the apartment without a chaperone.
Her outburst in the aftermath of the morning's disaster had prompted the Mentor to keep her under guard for the time being – for her own safety. For now, Dorothy's state of mind was… in question: she'd already gone so far as to steal prescription meds and hide in the ventilation shafts in some madcap attempt to escape being captured. Now, with the Lion's life on the line…
Elphaba shook her head. She still couldn't believe what she'd been told: Dorothy couldn't have possibly meant what she'd said, not seriously. It had be stress, stress and a toxic quantity of guilt: after all, children often said and did things they didn't really mean when under pressure, didn't they? She couldn't honestly want them to hand her over to the Hellion, right? She wanted the Lion back, of course, and she was probably harbouring a great deal of guilt over what had happened to him. That was it. Nothing self-destructive about it, certainly nothing suicidal. Once they got the Lion back, the jittery little girl would be back to normal, giggling and joking like she had been on the night of the party, and everything would be okay.
Once they got the Lion back.
If they got the Lion back.
Elphaba took a deep breath, and tried to imagine Brrr safe and sound: she imagined him as a cub, growling feebly as she and Fiyero carried him away from that awful, awful classroom. She imagined him as an adult, cowering behind the Scarecrow and the Tin Man, fearful but very much alive. And most importantly of all, she imagined him here and now: fresh from surgery, his tail reattached and his scars patched, he would be well enough to speak with her so they could finally discuss the fears that had driven him to take up the Wizard's cause, so she could finally apologise for not finding him a better home, so he could be with Boq and Fiyero and all the other ex-enemies she now counted among her allies… and she might actually be able to set aside her guilt for a while.
Maybe she'd even be able to get the Ruby Slippers back, just so she could finally forgive herself for what had happened to Nessa as well.
Oh yes, chortled a horrible little voice at the back of her mind. And you might just wake up from this daydream to find that you're back in Oz, the Wizard's surrendered, Animals have been given equal rights, and you're being celebrated as a hero. Wake up, you silly cow. You're never going to see Brrr again, and the same goes for the Ruby Slippers. You're never going to find absolution, and you'll never be able to forgive yourself: you'll just keep on stacking up failures and hating yourself for every single one of them. That little victory you had above Greenspectre? Flash-in-the-pan, Elphaba, a brief moment of hope before you sink back into defeat. Just you see how deep the well goes this time…
Elphaba gritted her teeth and tried to smother the whispers; in the end, all she could do was force herself to concentrate on something else – but there was nothing to focus on, because Fiyero was out of the apartment, Glinda was training with the Mentor, Boq's fear of seizing up had driven him to roam the halls in a fit of agitation, Vara was on business at the Chapter Temple, and now there was nothing to concentrate on except the silence-
The silence of progress, a hateful memory proclaimed triumphantly. In every corner of our great Oz, one hears the silence of progress!
It took all her self-control not to scream.
Exploding with voiceless rage, she got to her feet and stormed out of the apartment: she didn't know where the hell she was going, but it had to be better than sitting around, waiting for things to improve on their own. She took to her heels at high speed, fleeing blindly down endless corridors and hallways, flinging open doorways and doing her level best not to slam into anyone – but only on instinct; in that moment, her thoughts were empty save for one all-consuming desire to get away from the silence.
She didn't stop running until she found herself straying off the main concourse and out onto a balcony overlooking the colossal expanse of the western courtyard – which, by now, happened to be the nosiest part of the entire palace.
Dorothy was also here, rehearsing for her role as the centrepiece of a vast and highly improbable construction project, the bait for perhaps one of the riskiest and most audacious traps in history.
The moment Vara had reported the Hellion's ultimatum, the Mentor had once again refused to comply with the monster's demands; this time, however, she had decided that the Hellion's presence in the country had become an intolerable nuisance and was now taking steps to eliminate her once and for all. And for reasons that fell somewhere between sound logic and utter lunacy, the Mentor was now using Dorothy to lure her into a specially-designed trap.
The Lobster Pot, as the Mentor called it, was essentially a floating spider's web disguised as a derelict airship: a welded steel framework perhaps a hundred feet across, it had been adapted from designs and prototypes used to capture rare and dangerous life-forms out in No-Man's Land. Along with several hundred tons of sensors and hover-engines, it was equipped with emitters designed to broadcast Dorothy's location on a wavelength that the Hellion couldn't hope to ignore, along with a message claiming that the Mentor had agreed to surrender "the Doll" via an autopiloted airship.
In reality, Dorothy was to sit in a carefully-reinforced chamber at the heart of the Lobster Pot, accessible only by a door just big enough for the Hellion to fit through: when the target entered, the door would seal shut behind her and Dorothy would be ejected from the chamber via a carefully-made escape pod. While she escaped, the trapped Hellion would be immediately bombarded with high-voltage electricity, deadly hexes, immolating temperatures, high-velocity ordnance, explosive shells – everything that could be safely deployed against her.
If the chamber was in any danger of being breached, the Lobster Pot's sensors would detect it, and a layer of armour plating would enclose the chamber; in total, ten layers of plating could be deployed, one for every ten feet of the web. If necessary, the entire trap could self-destruct, hopefully taking the Hellion with it. In the event that this wasn't enough, the Lobster Pot was to be tailed by a fleet of specially-equipped frigates, both to provide reinforcements and to ensure that Dorothy was safely retrieved. For good measure, Elphaba was also to provide support on the scene.
The construction of the Lobster Pot wasn't much of a problem by the looks of things – in fact, despite the hordes of welders, electricians, mages, automaton engineers and other specialists still milling over the great steel spider's web, it was almost finished by now. Apparently, the Deviant Nation's craftsmen and builders were used to performing in record time, especially since they were usually accompanied by several magicians to help speed the process along ("How else do you think we keep patching our cities back together so quickly?" the Mentor had remarked. "Without magical reconstruction, we'd have been forced to surrender decades ago!")
No, the problem lay in the simple fact that nothing ever went exactly according to plan, and even with every single countermeasure, failsafe and emergency mechanism in place, something would almost certainly go wrong. What if the Hellion didn't take the bait? After all, they were clearly going against the terms of the ultimatum by sending Dorothy out on an airship. And even if she actually sprung the trap, would it be enough to kill her? And could the Hellion be trusted to let the Lion go upon sensing Dorothy approaching? True, she didn't strike Elphaba as a genius, but she might just have the cunning to keep Brrr captive until her prize was secure. Would that mean having to follow the dead monster back to her lair and rescue the Lion from a horde of Dolls – or would they just kill him the moment they learned the Hellion was dead?
Whatever way she looked at it, the situation did not seem promising. But what choice did they have? They could bait the trap in hope it would be enough to kill the Hellion, save the Lion and hopefully manage this without Dorothy getting killed… or they could do nothing and let the Lion die horribly – and while they were about it, they'd also allow the Hellion to carry on killing her way across the land, condemn dozens of isolated villages to be obliterated in the Hellion's next temper-tantrums, and effectively weaken the Deviant Nations in the long run.
Damned if they did, damned if they didn't.
Peering over the railing, Elphaba looked down at the heart of the construction going on below them: Dorothy was still seated in the nearly-completed alcove, surrounded by a small knot of specialists advising her on every procedure necessary to make this venture a success – hopefully. As expected, Dorothy was clinging to Toto like a security blanket, her face frozen in a mask of mild catatonia; also as expected, Dr Kiln was busy supervising the installation of some of the Lobster Pot's grislier traps.
And unless those massive electrical cables piled in the corner of the courtyard had developed a mind of their own, Dr Coil was also on the scene. But unlike the other technicians and specialists still at work on the Lobster Pot, he wasn't attending to his own phase of the construction process: he was staring down at the centre of the Lobster Pot, watching Dorothy with cold, reptilian eyes, his expression utterly unreadable.
"…And this is the eject switch. As you can see, it's well within reach of your armrest, but it's covered for now: timing is everything in this operation, so the switch won't work until something actually enters the door. Once the Hellion steps inside, all you have to do is press the button and the trapdoor under the alcove will do the rest. Now if something goes wrong on your end – a crossed wire or something like that – remote control will take over and engage the ejection sequence, so whatever happens, you'll be fine. So you see, Dorothy, there's nothing to worry about."
Dorothy nodded silently, not believing a word of it.
At this point, she was waiting for someone in charge to throw up their hands and just hand her over to the Hellion directly. It'd make so much more sense than wasting time with trapdoors and ejection sequences and Lobster Pots and god only knew what else. But apparently, the Mentor had finally had enough of the Hellion, and all but ordered Dorothy to play the worm on the end of a hook instead – and assigned a small crowd of people to make sure she didn't do anything stupid in the meantime.
Contrary to what her caretakers seemed to think, she wasn't going to wander out into the forest and surrender to the Hellion: she wasn't dumb enough to think she'd get as far as the city gates before getting collared by the guards. And she wasn't secretly on the verge of breaking down in tears every other minute of the day, either: true, she'd cried heavily and exhaustingly once she'd found some time to herself away from prying eyes, but after that, she was just numb. The shock she'd felt on that terrible morning – not to mention the horror of having the Lion's blood thoroughly rubbed into her face – had driven almost all of her old fears out of her mind, and taken any hope of ever escaping the Hellion's reach with them.
At this point, she wasn't going to complain if anyone thought of handing her over to the Hellion, and she wasn't going to kick up a fuss if someone found a better way of saving the Lion's life. She had no personal feelings on the subject whatsoever: she was just going to flow with the tide, go wherever it took her, and try not to think about Kansas.
Because there's nothing to worry about anymore, she told herself, again and again. This isn't going to be one of those moments where you can fight back, like when you first the Dolls: that was just a flash-in-the-pan, a moment of bravery you'll never get to repeat again. And this isn't something you can hide from either: no vents or pills for you this time. There's nothing you can run from, nothing you can fight, nothing you can do anymore. Just float away on the waves, because that's all that's left to do.
"Do you have any questions?" one of her attendants asked.
"Do you really think there's a chance of killing the Hellion?" she replied, before she could stop herself.
Kiln coughed politely for attention. "It's possible," he remarked. "She might be improbably resilient, but she isn't invincible; I've seen her badly wounded before, usually by overwhelming force of arms, and there's been quite a few attempts to get rid of her before – most of them too costly to finish. However, we've spent the last few hours leafing through their records, and found that they discovered certain rare metals that can cancel out the Hellion's defences and eat away at her nervous system."
Overhead, the enormous bulk of Dr Coil rumbled in approval. "In other words, Nultherite. As I recall, the Radiant Empress armed the soldiers of her great Purgation with Nultherite bayonets before sending them out to destroy the mutations created by the Slamming Door – including me, when my growth was discovered."
"Well, all research suggests that the Hellion is another one of-"
"Indeed, the fact that she is not dead suggests as much: only the ethereal distortions caused by portal radiation could possibly sustain her body beyond the injuries she has sustained in the past."
Dorothy blinked in confusion, curiosity suddenly overriding weariness. "What are you talking about?"
"Oh, ancient history. Nothing to worry about. Long story short, we couldn't find enough Nultherite for every gun in the fleet, but we did find enough to build some of the stabbier traps in the Lobster Pot." He pointed to the central chamber's entrance, where eight long spears were being fitted into a spring-powered mechanism just inside the doorway. Dorothy knew next to nothing about metallurgy and even less about Nultherite, but she could clearly see that each spearhead glowed dark blue in the faint shadows of the chamber.
"And just in case we actually have to risk a melee, we're also using the old-fashioned bayonets and combat knives of the stuff," Kiln continued. "Anyone likely to come into close contact with the Hellion will be carrying a blade of Nultherite."
Except me, of course, Dorothy mused silently. Nevermind, it's not as if anyone's going to let me carry anything sharper than a butter knife.
After that, the technicians quietly scuttled away to complete some last-minute work on the Lobster Pot's outer reaches, leaving Dorothy in the half-finished chamber, alone except for Toto, hoping against hope that someone might get around to adding a roof to her alcove before it took flight. And, in the silence that followed, a question suddenly occurred to her and she voiced almost on instinct:
"What's the Slamming Door?"
By way of an answer, a colossal shadow engulfed the chamber. "The final end of Oz and the beginning of the new world," Dr Coil replied. "The death knell of the world before Unbridled Radiance – one that I and my fellows in the Pottery helped to sound."
"What do you mean?"
"Ask Dr Kiln if you don't already know of the Pottery, child. In the end, it's a moot point: there's no clean hands anymore. Everyone's to blame for something, even if nobody remembers the crime, even if they only blame themselves – much like you, I imagine."
Dorothy's first instinct was to insist that she didn't blame herself for anything, but in the end, it was just another holdover from her days in Kansas; the days when she pretended not to be sad or lonely or angry whenever Aunt Em asked if she was alright. It was true she blamed herself for what had happened to the Lion (how could she not?) but at the same time, the sense of guilt was numbed by shock and weariness. At this point, she didn't what she felt about anything.
"You still haven't explained what the Slamming Door is," she said, quietly changing the subject.
"I ssssssuppose I haven't, have I? You'll pardon an old reptile for being elusive… but really, there's not much to tell: what Lintel built and what we improved was just another weapon at firssst… but we left wounds that bleed to this day. Just look at No-Man's Land if you don't believe me: look at the monsters that it produces. That'ssssss what our great work begat."
There was a pause, as Dorothy considered this. Then, realization hit her at high speed, jolting her out of her apathetic stupor: "Kiln said that the Hellion might be-"
"One of the mutations our weapon birthed when it exploded across Oz, yes. Does that mean we created the Hellion? Perhaps so. Perhaps not. I was reassigned to battlefield surgery that day, and I know for a fact that Lintel's lassssst great triumph claimed its fair share of mutilated corpses: maybe one of them was the Hellion, maybe not."
An odd little smile played across the giant python's face. "That was the one part of her life I didn't witness: her birth. Ever since I was distorted on the battlefield and forced to flee Unbridled Radiance, I've been studying the Hellion from the moment she appeared on the scene to the moment I was forced to start avoiding her predations. For all the long years of my exile, I've watched her, and something tells me that maddened flaying victim didn't choose you at random: she's after you for something very specific."
In spite of herself, Dorothy snorted with laughter. "Well, she wants to make me her doll. Obviously."
"No, no: I've seen her in pursuit of other dolls, and believe me, she'd never gotten quite this fixated. I've seen her lay waste to armies and drape herself in the entrails of the fallen – and I've seen her steal toys and cavort in fields of sunflowers like a starstruck child, for that matter – but never seen her go to such extents just to recapture a simple doll. There's something very special about you, my dear, something only the Hellion can see. Would that I could study it in detail…"
He paused, and glanced up at the construction still in progress.
"But that will have to wait until this operation's finished: it seems we're almost ready to go…"
Not for the first time that day, Glinda sighed deeply and hung her head in exasperation – or was that despair? "Remind me why they're assignifying you this mission," she muttered wearily.
"Well, I imagine because they want to throw everything they've got at the Hellion, including their trump card."
"I don't like it. There's something very wrong at work here."
In spite of herself, Elphaba almost laughed. "I thought I was supposed to be the suspicious one around here," she remarked, unable to disguise her amusement. "For once, I don't think the Mentor's up to anything underhanded: true, she's using Dorothy as bait in a very risky plan, but-"
"No, no, no; I didn't mean the Mentor, I meant… well, the whole mission really. Something's going to go horribly wrong: I don't know how or why, I just have this feeling that everything's going to go persimmon-shaped."
"Well, that makes two of us. But seriously, there's only so many things that can go wrong at this point: the Hellion's strong, but I don't know if she can stand up to an entire fleet. I mean, she can't be as durable as the Empress, right? I think if the worst comes to the worst, she either won't go for the bait, or she'll keep the Lion out of reach until it's too late."
"That's not what I meant either, Elphie. I… I've just got this awful feeling that you're going to be terribly hurt – or worse."
Elphaba paused. Once again, Glinda wasn't alone in this regard: everything about this particular mission filled her with dread for everyone involved – for herself, for Brrr, for the few hundred men assigned to this fool's errand of a deathtrap, and (strangely enough) even for Dorothy. Of course she'd been lying about the fleet's chances against the Hellion: she didn't know enough about the skinless monster's abilities to guess at their chances, and besides, it wasn't as if she could predict literally everything that could possibly go wrong.
In the end, she could only offer a smile – an awkward, painful, half-hearted grimace – and make some desperate yet lukewarm attempt at reassurance. "Again, that makes two of us," she admitted. "But that's pretty much the risk with every battle. Really, though… I'm going to be fine."
"You're sure?"
"Positive."
"Can I come along-"
"No. Absolutely not, Glinda. You've still got your training, remember?"
"But still-"
"But nothing, Glin. We had a deal: no taking unnecessary risks, and absolutely no battlefield experiences until the Mentor and I have training, evaluated and graduated you. And at the risk of sounding nasty-"
"There's not a lot I can do if you and an entire fleet of airships can't deal with the situation, I know. I get that, but… just promise me you'll come back."
"I promise: I'll come home."
"You swear?"
"Without hesitation." And Elphaba offered the smile again, and this time just about managed to make it look and feel believable enough to convince even herself.
But then she went and ruined it by adding, "Everything's going to be fine," lying with every word in the sentence.
"Retarius command to Lobster Pot control, is there anything on the sensors?"
"Nothing at present, Retarius. Sensory horizon clear on all fronts: no signs of activity in the forest."
"Copy that. Continue progress eastward. Maybe we'll have more luck searching No-Man's Land."
Fifty feet below the source of the muffled radio conversation, Elphaba groaned, adjusted course ever-so-slightly, and smothered an expletive as another handful of pine needles cascaded down the back of her neck.
At present, the Lobster Pot and its escorting fleet were drifting several hundred miles south of Doorstep, just above one of the few dense forests to interrupt the endless grasslands of the Deviant Nations' eastern border. This region was supposedly the most prone to attacks by the Hellion, but so far, they'd seen absolutely nothing other than trees, birds, and the occasional rusting leftovers from old border skirmishes – ruined airships, malfunctioning automata, and the occasional glimpse of bleached bone half-devoured by vines and creepers. Of course, Elphaba had a much better view than any other member of the fleet, for she was easily the closest to the ground.
One of the major downsides of serving as the reinforcement brigade to a mobile deathtrap was the simple fact that she had to remain out of sight at all times. Normally, Elphaba would have been happy to make use of her extensive library of temporary enchantments, but the Mentor had insisted that she keep up her strength until the Hellion arrived; so, while the rest of the fleet remained hidden within their private, pre-arranged bubble of illusions, Elphaba had to hide among the branches of the forest canopy below them. At the time, she hadn't found this too aggravating: after all, the Hellion appeared to have some connection with the forests of her chosen hunting grounds, and it had seemed logical to assume she'd appear from the forest when the time came… but so far, there'd been no sign of her and no indication that she was going to tackle them from that direction.
Plus, the pine needles were really starting to get on her nerves.
On the upside, now that they were moving away from the forest and back onto the grasslands, she'd at least have a chance to venture into the open sky; if nothing else, she wouldn't run the risk of getting caught in the branches – or crashing into a tree, for that matter.
So, accelerating steadily upwards and wincing as a pine cone bounced off her shoulder, she made a beeline for the glow just beyond the uppermost branches of the trees; moments later, she breached the canopy and soared up into the daylight, towards the fleet. Of course, the daylight was another problem facing the fleet at present: as the Empress herself had proved, traps were easier to set at night; even the best of illusionists occasionally made mistakes, and the cover of darkness was a very useful means of hiding any faults that might appear in their creations. The illusionists of this fleet had to put every last drop of effort into their phantasms and hope that the Hellion was too busy with the Lobster Pot to pay much attention to that curious patch of emptiness hovering above it.
At present, the Lobster Pot was trundling merrily along the sky, its disguise complete: the intricate spider web of riveted steel and welded lattice was effectively invisible under the collapsible hull of a massive cargo freighter, a mask impenetrable to all observers unless they knew exactly what they were looking for. To all appearances, it was just a cargo barge – maybe a little wider across the middle than most, but otherwise indistinguishable from the real thing. In fact, as Elphaba watched the ugly pewter-coloured bulk drifting aimlessly along the sky, she had to wonder if they hadn't made it too boring. After all, the Hellion would probably check the edge of the forest first, and if she lost interest, then another chunk of the Lion's flesh would-
For godsakes, stop worrying about it, she told herself furiously. The signal's already being sent, the trap's ready, and the Hellion will be here any minute, so just stop fussing over what you can't control. Focus on what you can control – or better still, think of something else!
Sighing, Elphaba turned her attention back to the Lobster Pot – by now several hundred feet below her – and wondered what Dorothy was thinking in that moment. The girl was already in position at the heart of the web, just below the aft hatchway; from what little the Lobster Pot's technicians had said, she was coping well so far: no panic, no anxiety, and no tears. Of course, that could just be deer-in-the-headlamps terror, and having to leave Toto behind probably didn't help much.
But she's not thinking of doing something stupid, that's the main thing.
Hopefully.
Sweet Lurline, I really need a drink.
And probably breakfast as well; I really shouldn't have missed breakfast this morning. Come to think of it, I should probably have gotten more sleep last night.
Hopefully there'll be some rations waiting for me on the next interval. Good grief, is it already two o'clock in the afternoon? Have we really been doing this for four hours?
The radio crackled to life again: "Retarius command to Emerald Javelin: return to the hangarfor mandatory recuperation. We need you freshened up before we hit the next spot on the grid."
Just as well, really.
"Understood, Retarius Command," she replied. "Will be there shortly."
But then, just as she was accelerating towards the colossal bubble of illusions hiding the fleet, there was another crackle from the radio, and a panicked voice announced, "This is Hound Three to Retarius Command: we have incoming! Sensors have detected unknown object approaching at high speed from the east!"
"Hound Three, please clarify: is it the Hellion?"
"Definitely not, sir. Object does not match any known profile on record, and current tracking suggests that it's actively avoiding the Lobster Pot. And it's not being fooled by our illusions, either: all instruments confirm we are being scanned. According to prognostics, object is currently…"
There was a startled pause.
"Object now on intercept trajectory with Emerald Javelin! Repeat, unknown object has targeted Elphaba Thropp and is now increasing speed!"
"Confirmed. Elphaba, get back to the Retarius ASAFP! We can't afford to let whatever this thing is get too close before we can confirm what it is. All ships of the fleet, we are now at red alert: all hands to battle stations! Repeat, all hands to battle stations and prepare to adopt defence pattern Foxtrot Malingerer Lemongrass!"
"Retarius command, this is Hound Three, the object appears to be attempting to communicate-"
Hound Three's next words were abruptly lost in the barrage of nerve-rending stimuli that followed; it wasn't sound so much as raw, unfiltered information, incorporeal words gashed viciously into the substance of reality and forced into the senses of everyone unlucky enough to bear witness. HATE, it said. HATE
"What the-"
HATE HATE HATE IF YOU TRY TO SHIELD HER YOU'LL DIE TOO RIP YOUR LITTLE CANS OPEN AND SQUISH YOU TO PULP BLEED YOU AND GUT YOU AND FLAY YOU AND WATCH THE MAGGOTS FEAAST CRUSH YOUR BONES AND DRINK THE MARROW AND BURST YOUR EYEBALLS FROM THE INSIDE GIVE ME ELPHABA I WANT TO KILL HER AND KILL HER AND KILL HER AND KILL HER HAAAAAAATE
And it was at that moment, with the illusions collapsing into nothingness all around, her broomstick less than three hundred feet from the safety of the Retarius, and the clamour of non-existent sounds still echoing in her mind, that Elphaba finally saw the threat now bearing down on the fleet.
Billowing in from the deserts of No-Man's Land was a gigantic comet-shaped mass of ethereal energies, a searing ball of vivid crimson flames and searing vapour moving at speeds in excess of anything their little fleet could achieve – perhaps even faster than the broomstick, Elphaba realized with a thrill of fear. And as it drew closer, she saw that the oncoming comet had a face of sorts: just a mouth really, a colossal set of jaws bristling with long, needle-sharp teeth. The mouth was open wide enough for Elphaba to see the gaping abyss that was the creature's throat, almost as if it were screaming, but there was nothing to be heard except for the roar of incandescent energies blasting across reality like a gale-force wind. Whatever it was, this entity had no voice with which to scream, no functional vocal cords, nothing with which to produce sound.
So instead, it shredded a message into the living flesh of the world and sent it screeching into the minds of anyone in range, broadcasting its hatred on a frequency that nobody could ignore.
ELPAHABA YOU FOUL CREATURE MONSTER FREAK ABOMINATION LIAR TRAITOR DESTROYER OF FAMILIES RUINATION OF OZ YOU KILLED HER YOU KILLED HER YOU KILLED HER YOU KILLED HER MAKE YOU PAY MAKE YOU FEEL WHAT SHE FELT WHAT BOTH OF THEM FELT
Perhaps a million miles from the mind-pummelling onslaught, the Admiral of the fleetboomed, "FIRE AT WILL!"
Row by row, the carefully-arrayed airships obligingly opened fire, peppering the oncoming Hate-Creature with a devastating barrage of automatic gunfire, explosive ordnances, lethal hexes and offensive language. But if the entity was in any way harmed by the bombardment, it showed no sign of it.
Instead, it ploughed into the nearest airship, ripping it in half and sending the now-molten remains of the bow and stern plummeting towards the ground. The frigates that had been flanking it immediately refocussed and opened fire on the threat that was now sitting right between them, but the Hate-Creature lashed out with a searing tendril of energy that sliced through the hulls of the two frigates like a knife through a waterskin, tearing open their keels from fore to aft, allowing engines and crew alike to spill out and plummet to their doom. By this time, just about every single ship in the fleet was pelting the Hate Creature with everything from artillery to magic, regardless of collateral damage, but nothing so much as slowed the oncoming monstrosity down.
From her perch atop the broomstick, Elphaba flung spell after spell at the billowing comet of energies, trying desperately to find something that might be able to disrupt the semi-corporeal monstrosity: fireballs, bolts of lightning, razor-sharp blizzards, enormous grasping fists from the earth below, searing rainstorms of caustic acid and deadly toxins, light so intense it could sear flesh and denature matter, shadows dark enough to extinguish life at a touch, ethereal portals that quartered their targets from the inside – everything Elphaba could think of was cast and flung at it. But the Hate-Creature didn't even pause in its charge: it shrugged off a hailstorm of fireballs as if they were little more than errant raindrops, snatched up the stone fists in mid-flight and crushed them to dust, swept aside the devouring shadows like cobwebs – and that was when it didn't swallow the spells whole and vomit them back out in an all-consuming torrent of wild magic.
YOU CANNOT STOP ME, the Hate-Creature howled across reality. I WILL HAVE HER YOU CANNOT STOP ME YOU CANNOT STOP ME
Immediately, the radio was clogged with emergency broadcasts: commanders, crewmen, officers, soldiers, gunners, magicians, technicians – everyone with the slightest say in the running of the fleet was on the open channel and screaming to be heard.
"This is gun battery thirteen, coolant is offline and we are in danger of overheating-"
"-adjust course, we need to cut him off-"
"-there's shrapnel, the captain's been hit, the blood, it's-"
"-repeat, all magicians on the Ratcatcher focus on sealing the damn thing in position before-"
"Hull breach! Mayday, MAYDAY!"
"-double check goddammit, it has to have some kind of weakness!"
"Radio Doorstep immediately, we need reinforcements yesterday-"
"Retarius command to Emerald… oh screw it. Elphaba, get the hell out of here now: this mission is officially over!"
Oh you have got to be kidding me. "Not even remotely able to comply, sir," Elphaba snarled. "Too busy trying to save the lives of all present."
"This is no time to play hero, goddammit! The Mentor specifically-"
"To hell with what the Mentor said! This is the only logical option: if I leave now, that monster is going to follow, and I don't fancy my chances of outflying something that can travel that quickly. We either deal with this thing now or not at all!"
"Well, you've overlooked one very obvious solution, Elphaba. All ships of the fleet, prepare to cover her escape; radio in reinforcements from Doorstep, Warren, every city you can reach: let's just see this thing deal with everything the Deviant Nations can throw at it. Lobster Pot, accelerate to ramming speed and run this bastard down if you have to. Dorothy, stand by for emergency ejection: rescue craft will be en route just as soon as-"
The Admiral's voice abruptly ended in a burst of static as the Hate-Creature tore through the Retarius' bridge, its monstrous jaws making short work of the armour-plated command centre – and everyone inside it. Elphaba didn't stick around to see what happened next; as the Hate-Creature burrowed through the hull, furiously tearing the bulkheads apart as it went, she spun in mid-air and launched herself towards the distant shape of the Lobster Pot.
By now, the disguised trap was only just beginning to pick up speed, and taking even longer to turn in the right direction – sadly, no surprise: it hadn't been built for rapid acceleration, and the superstructure was so bloated that it steered more like a train than anything else. It might never be able to ram the Hate-Creature, but perhaps it could be used as serviceable piece of cover: the Lobster Pot's hull had been heavily reinforced to prevent the Hellion from breaking loose once the trap slammed shut – in fact, according to some of the technicians, it had more armour than most of the capital ships put together. With any luck, it might be dense enough to survive long enough for Elphaba to find a way of killing the Hate-Creature for good.
YOU WON'T GET FAR
Hissing an expletive, Elphaba put on an extra burst of speed; she didn't know how far away the Hate-Creature was, and she wasn't reckless enough to waste precious time by glancing over her shoulder to take a look. So instead, she accelerated onwards, trying desperately to blot out the screams of the dying, trying to ignore the screams of her pursuer – and failing at both.
RUN YOU COWARD RUN I WILL BLEED YOU TURN THE SKY RED
Faster and faster she flew, forcing every last drop of acceleration she could possibly force from the broom; the landscape blurred, forest and grassland blending together into an unrecognizable smear of colour, until Elphaba could barely see the distant shape of the Lobster Pot. Beneath her, the broomstick itself began to warp as the magical acceleration took its toll on its enchanted substance: by the time the faux cargo ship was within reach, she could actually feel the handle starting to crack and smoulder beneath her hands. She'd never gone quite so fast: even in her flight from Greenspectre to the border, she'd never pushed the broom quite so hard in such a short space of time.
But somehow, the Hate-Creature was faster: ten feet above the Lobster Pot's deck, a tendril lashed out with an eye-scalding blast of light, striking her right between the shoulders.
The pain was incredible: it was a bolt of lightning rippling up her spine and through her brain, a roaring fire consuming every nerve-ending from head to toe, a bilious toxin dissolving her bones and rotting her flesh from within; it was the sudden jolt of being shot, the penetrating, tearing agony of being stabbed, the bone-splintering impact of a hammer across her bones. It was every kind of pain imaginable, conveyed in a single blast of energy. It was so intense that Elphaba's senses briefly gave out under the strain and left her with nothing to see but grey static, and by the time she'd recovered, she was already falling.
Her grip on the broomstick lost, she landed heavily on her left arm and immediately felt something around elbow-level crack – but with every nerve in her body still burnt-out from the jolt she'd just been given, she barely registered the pain until she tried to claw her upright. By the time she was on her feet again, the Hate-Creature was hover over her, a rippling sphere of crimson vapours and energies simmering with rage, fresh tendrils of magic lashing the deck as it advanced on her.
GOT YOU, it laughed.
A tendril swept across the deck and snatched up the fallen broomstick; before Elphaba could react, the Hate-Creature snapped it cleanly in half with one monstrous flex.
NO ESCAPE NOW LITTLE MONSTER
Another tendril coiled towards her – but this time, Elphaba was ready. This time, she hit it with her own intrinsic magic: blast of dazzling emerald light sliced clean through the oncoming tendril; two more writhing coils shot out, only to be repelled by a solid wall of wild magic, their "flesh" withering and burning as they recoiled.
The Hate-Creature roared in pain, but no sooner had a smile appeared on Elphaba's face, the monster was already recovering: fresh tendrils sprouted from its ethereal hide, and the burns that her magic inflicted on its flesh vanished almost as quickly. For thirty terrible seconds, she hammered and burned the Hate-Creature with every last drop of magic she could muster, to no avail.
And then, just as Elphaba was wondering if she could win this fight through sheer attrition, the Hate-Creature spoke in a voice that nobody in the world could possibly ignore.
YOU KILLED MY LOVE
What?
YOU KILLED MY MELENA
Elphaba's heart skipped a beat.
YOU KILLED MY NESSAROSE
Oh sweet Lurline.
I SHOULD HAVE SMOTHERED YOU IN THE CRIB STRANGLED THE LIFE OUT OF YOU THE DAY YOU WERE BORN
BUT I LET YOU BE PART OF MY FAMILY AND YOU DESTROYED IT
YOU KILLED YOUR MOTHER
YOU CRIPPLED YOUR SISTER
THEN YOU KILLED HER TOO
YOU KILLED THEM YOU KILLED THEM YOU KILLED THEM YOU KILLED THEM
YOUR FAULT YOUR FAULT YOUR FAULT YOUR FAULT
And Elphaba could only stare in horror at the nightmare that Frexspar Thropp had become, suddenly paralysed with a fear she hadn't felt since childhood. In that moment, her mind was all but blank save for the torrent of memories that had flooded it, all of them painful recollections of times she'd tried so hard to forget and failed.
Here was her first encounter with Frexspar's legendary temper ("What were you doing outside? I WON'T HAVE YOU SHAMING THIS FAMILY IN PUBLIC!"). Here were the barely-restrained snarls, the whacks across the knuckles with a ruler, the blame whenever something in the house broke. Here was the day when a photograph of Elphaba had made it into the pages of a local tabloid and he'd kept her locked in her bedroom for a week as punishment – and would have kept her there forever if mother hadn't talked him out of it.
Elphaba briefly clawed her way back to consciousness like a drowning swimmer finally reaching the surface; she was backing away now, trying desperately not to lose her grip on reality altogether, but Frexspar/The Hate-Creature hissed again and sent another tidal wave of shoddily-buried memoires racing across her mind.
Here was the very moment when Frexspar had started "treating" mother with milkflowers and made sure Elphaba heard the reason; here were all the suspicious looks he'd given her when mother had first started to sicken; here were the awful moments of silence as the day drew near.
And here was the day when mother had died, when Frexspar – eyes full of tears and hands balled into fists – had dragged her into the bedroom and made her look at the body. The label "murderer." The diagnosis that proved, conclusively, that her newborn sister would never walk – another crime on her conscience.
That first night – when Frexspar had gotten drunk, locked Elphaba in her room and thrown a bottle at her for good measure, and she'd been so frightened she could only sit there in silence with broken glass in her hair and spilled booze drying on her face, shivering and crying and wishing she could be someone, anyone else. The next morning when, still drunk, he'd dragged her out of her room and demanded to know if she was happy now that mother was dead, or she'd never be satisfied until the rest of the family followed her into the grave; Elphaba had cried and told him she didn't want to kill anyone and she wouldn't kill anyone, but he hadn't believed her – he'd shaken her, gripped her arms tightly enough to leave bruises. His wordless anger and fear when she'd manifested magic for the first time. That hurt, grief-stricken look of hatred and fear on his face, even as the servants had shepherded him away.
The moment when he'd caught her sitting guard by Nessa's cradle, at first angry, then merely suspicious, then grudgingly accepting, but never proud. The moment when the nanny had let Elphaba hold little Nessa for the first time, and Frexspar had watched her for every minute she'd had the baby in her arms, not trusting her with her own sister's life. The moments when little Nessa had first tried to walk and failed, forcing Elphaba – almost crushed with guilt – to carry her.
Nessa's first wheelchair, how Frexspar had made Elphaba push it despite Nessa's insistence on moving under her power, and the look of bitterness that had consumed his face whenever Nessa wasn't looking – whenever Elphaba looked at him.
IT WAS YOUR FAULT
YOU DID THAT TO HER
YOU KILLED MELENA YOU RUINED NESSA YOU KILLED HER YOU DESTROY EVERYTHING YOU TOUCH
Suddenly back in reality, Elphaba reeled back, caught between one nightmare and another. She had to fight back, she had to run away, she had to do something… but she couldn't. Childhood fears had frozen her in place, and guilt – fiercer and deeper than anything she'd felt in adulthood – had left her incapable of raising a hand against the Hate-Creature even if she wanted to.
She could only stand there and await her just punishment.
And as the deckplates peeled away and the Lobster Pot's superstructure erupted around her, she knew that she deserved every minute of it.
A/N: Will Elphaba escape the Hate-Creature's clutches? What will become of the Lion? Feel free to review and speculate!