A/N: And now, the second half of the chainsawed chapter - the dramatic conclusion!

Guest, I'm glad you like the Hellion's perspective moments - those are always a blast to write, not to mention a welcome change from finding ways to play with the text formatting. And I hate to say it, but I think you're going to get even more opportunities to hate the Empress. I mean, I didn't mean to make Alphaba a Hate-Sink, but I've given her plenty of opportunities to be truly reprehensible in the next couple of chapters.

Just A Guest, thank you for the lovely long review. Rest assured the Slamming Door and the Hellion's origins will be addressed very very soon - next couple of chapters soon, in fact. Obviously, I can't tell you how accurate the theories have been, but I applaud your efforts. Ditto the thing between worlds. Hope the reveal lives up to the mystery when the time comes.

And without further ado - the latest chapter! Read, review and above all, enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own Wicked. I don't own Oz. I don't own fiction. Fiction owns me.

Dorothy was well aware of the drama unfolding outside her escape pod, though she'd seen none of it in person. Having been given strict instructions to remain in her seat until the Hellion was in position, Dorothy had obediently sat and waited throughout the entire debacle, listening with nerves stretched to breaking point as the carnage played out across the radio.

She couldn't pretend to know what was going on outside her little birdcage, but judging by the screams and explosions, it couldn't be good. Because nobody had yet described the "Object" in detail, Dorothy's imagination had run rampant across her mind, flooding her head with visions of things that would have made the Hellion seem placid and tame by comparison. When the Admiral had finally started the ejection sequence, she'd been almost crippled by the bewildering mixture of emotions that had descended on her in that moment: she was guilt-stricken that she was once again safe while so many were dead or dying, terrified that she'd be open to whatever was attacking the fleet the moment she landed, and pathetically grateful that they hadn't forgotten her – that was going to escape alive. And then depression joined the mix as she'd realized that, now that the mission had failed, the Hellion was only going to continue torturing the Lion.

In the end, she'd been so distracted by her own nightmarish imaginings and muddled emotions that she'd almost forgotten to brace herself for the moment when her pod ejected itself from the Lobster Pot. The sudden drop left her stomach hovering somewhere about five hundred feet in the air behind her, and the immense pressure that overtook the pod as its booster rockets had kicked in left her almost crushed into her seat. But – according to the technicians who'd briefed her – it was worth it: the rockets meant that she'd be clear of the Lobster Pot when it finally fell from the sky.

If, she corrected herself, If the Lobster Pot falls from the sky. They're going to be okay: just because they're not doing so well right now-

A massive explosion split the air, the loudest of them yet. A moment later, something slammed into the pod at high speed. Dorothy couldn't tell if she'd crashed into another airship or if the shockwave from the blast had caught up with the pod; whatever had hit her, it was violent enough to flip the tiny escape craft upside down and send it careening off course.

Now cartwheeling aimlessly through empty air, her harness straining to hold her in her seat, Dorothy shut her eyes and did her level best not to throw up. Over the cacophony of a dozen lesser explosions, the pod spun onwards across the sky for another twenty seconds, before finally turning sharply downwards and burying itself in what could only be the ground.

It took a whole minute to unjam the harness and escape from her seat, and three more to force the escape pod's door open, but eventually Dorothy found herself tottering into the daylight – and the carnage it revealed.

The grassland was littered with wreckage, the charred and shredded remains of airships strewn from one end of the battlefield to the next; here and there, among the craters and divots and the crimson-painted husks of fallen ships, the bodies of their former crews and passengers could be found – shredded just as thoroughly as the ships had been. The sky was little better, fogged with thick black smoke as it was: here and there, a few airships too stubborn to have given up the ghost circled aimlessly across the plain as they struggled to remain airborne – barely delaying the inevitable; their less-fortunate cousins rained down on the grassland, smouldering derelicts and blazing deathtraps plummeting from the sky in great droves, hammering into the dirt like meteors.

Right ahead of her was the ruined Lobster Pot, its disguise stripped away and its intricate steel webbing torn in half. Riveted steel lattice lay scattered across the cratered plain in great heaps of mangled refuse, the experimental trap now little more than the beginnings of a junkyard, its mighty engines reduced to charred columns of ruined machinery, and all the delicate internal mechanisms that the Mentor's engineers had toiled so hard and so swiftly to produce had simply melted into puddles of metallic ooze. They were everywhere now: great lakes of molten circuitry, impassable mountains of scrap metal, and strange forests composed entirely of engine blocks, a new world carved out of the once-peaceful grassland.

And at the centre of it all lay Elphaba, slumped motionless amidst a tangle of electric cables as thick as tree trunks. Hurrying over, Dorothy had to smother a gasp of horror at the sight of the witch's horribly battered body: it wasn't a pretty sight, to say the least – her bloodsoaked clothes reduced to rags, her stomach slashed and bloody, her arms twisted at odd angles and studded with shards of broken glass, her legs crumpled across the largest of the cables, her face discoloured with bruises, and her eyes clenched shut in pain. Occasionally, her eyelids would flutter, and a tiny trickle of blood would slid down the length of her face.

"Elphaba?" Dorothy whispered urgently, not expecting a reply.

But to her immense relief, Elphaba actually managed a groan.

"Can you hear me? Can you move at all?"

"Nnnnn. Srrrrry."

"What?"

"Ne…" Elphaba coughed, fresh blood oozing down her lips. "Nessa," she whispered deliriously. "I'm sorry, Nessa. I didn't… didn't want to… didn't mean to… I'm sorry, Nessa…"

Realizing she wasn't going to get much sense out of her, Dorothy reached towards Elphaba's arms, hoping that she might be able to haul her free of the cables and get her to a medic – an unlikely prospect, given that the witch was at least twice her size, but she had to try. But as she was struggling to get a grip on her shoulders and hoping that she wasn't making things worse, she happened to glance down – and with a jolt of mingled terror and disgust, she realized that a daggerlike length of bone had torn clean through Elphaba's left thigh just above the knee, and blood was pouring down her leg at a terrifying rate.

Dorothy knew next to nothing about medicine and even less about human anatomy, but she'd heard enough horror stories from the farmhands back in Kansas – men who'd seen fellow workers lose their legs in threshing machines or shatter their legs in falls from the roof. Lose enough blood in a short enough space of time, one man had drawled, and it don't matter how well the sawbones patch you up: you're dead.

How long did Elphaba have? Was it already too late? Was she going to die right here and now?

Tourniquets, she thought helplessly. They said you need tourniquets to deal with this sort of thing. But what the hell is a tourniquet and where can I find one? Where are the first aid kits? Where are the medics? Where's the rescue they promised? Oh god, oh no, she's going to die, she's going to die, she's going to die…

In a blind panic, she scanned the horizon for any sign of medical transports, or indeed any ship that might be there to help. No such luck: the few ships left in the area were either in midst of crashing or fleeing for their lives; there was no sign that anyone had survived a crash yet, and no sign of any local townsfolk mounting a rescue. Ahead of her lay an endless field of wrecked airships and shredded corpses; behind her, past a city of scrap metal, lay the deep forest and all the horrors it could possibly conceal. And unless there were friendly medics hiding behind those massive trees, she was undoubtedly alone.

She's going to die.

"HELP!" Dorothy screamed. "SOMEONE HELP!"

And unfortunately, someone heard her.

HATE, bellowed a voice – somehow loud enough to be echo across the battlefield without actually making a single sound. HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE

Dorothy spun around just in time to see the source of those inaudible screams bearing down on her, a shooting star rocketing across the polluted grassland at an unbelievable speed. She had no idea what this thing was, but whatever it was, it had teeth: a colossal gnashing mouthful of jagged fangs, each one longer than a human arm, each one needle-sharp and awash with rabid blood-red froth.

RUN WHILE YOU CAN, the nightmare howled. PROTECT HER AND YOU'LL DIE TOO

For three agonizing seconds, Dorothy couldn't move: fear, indecision and a dozen niggling doubts had left her completely paralysed. She couldn't just leave Elphaba to whatever this monster had planned for her, but there wasn't much she could do to stop it either, and putting up any sort of a fight would mean death… not that she was much good a fighting to begin with. She'd gotten lucky the last time the Dolls had come for her: they'd been preoccupied with capturing her and killing Glinda, so they hadn't been expecting her to fight back, let alone set them on fire. This was something much, much worse.

In desperation, Dorothy made a grab for Elphaba's left arm, hoping that she might be quick enough to drag her away before the Hate-Thing reacted. Instead, a searing tendril of energy detached from the monster's comet-like body and lashed out at her, swatting her aside; Dorothy fell, bouncing painfully off the lengths of cable and landing heavily at the bottom of the pile.

Dazed and dizzy from the fall, she rose unsteadily, barely managing to claw her way upright. In spite of herself, she tried again, hauling her way up the mountain of cables and making another frantic grasp for Elphaba's dangling arm. Once again, though, the monster saw her: another tendril lashed out – and this time Dorothy felt her feet leave the ground as the sheer force of impact lifted her off the ground and into the air. For less than a second, she tumbled aimlessly through emptiness, the grassland and wrecked airships blurring together into a single grey-green blob as she spun wildly away. A moment later, she landed with a bone-jarring thud in a pile of shredded insulation, mostly unharmed other than a fresh round of bruises across her front and a stream of blood trickling from her nose.

By now, the Hate-Thing was advancing on Elphaba's helpless body with undisguised delight, its tendrils snatching up splintered lengths of metal and sharpening them into deadly spears as it advanced. Dorothy had never witnessed much violence in her life prior to Oz, but something about the beast's lazy advance on Elphaba gave her the impression that it wasn't going to kill her immediately: whatever the thing was planning, it was going to take its time.

And there was nothing Dorothy could to do stop it. This wasn't some caught-off-guard Doll, or even its nearest equivalent: this was as bad as the Hellion, if not worse. What could she do against anything this monster? Nothing – less than nothing, in fact: at least the Hellion wanted her alive-

Dorothy's eyes widened in shock as the realization hit home, her mind refusing to face the idea that had just tiptoed to the forefront of her mind.

No. I can't do that. I can't, I just can't!

But what else was there? What else could she do? This could be the only way to save Elphaba – and the Lion, too. Anything else would mean condemning both of them to a horrible death.

But it'll mean… I'll…

Her own mind couldn't bring itself to finish the sentence: doing so would mean admitting that the idea had merit, acknowledging the awful consequences of the idea. But she didn't have a choice. It was either this, or watch Elphaba die.

Somewhere in the deepest, darkest corners of her mind, a vile and poisonous little voice whispered, You don't have to do this, Dorothy. You're not a fighter. You're not a witch. And you're definitely not a hero, so don't bother pretending to be one. You're a child – weak and stupid and not even worth trusting with anything of value. You know what's expected of you: you're supposed to sit tight, settle down and wait for rescue, just like they told you before they ejected the pod. Besides, nobody even knows you're here – nobody will even know you could have saved Elphaba unless you tell them! All you have to do is go back to the pod, shut the door, and pretend you couldn't get the harness undone until it was too late; no blood on your hands, no stain on your conscience, just safety. Be smart: you know this is the only way you'll get out of this alive, just like you knew that hiding in the vents was the only way you'd escape being captured. Just keep your head down and you'll stay safe for the rest of the war, or at least until they can find a way to send you back to Kansas. Come on, you want to see Aunt Em, don't you? Just walk away. Admit that you're too weak to save Elphaba and just walk away: all you have to do is wait for that thing to finish playing with her, and you'll be back in Kansas before you-

No.

She couldn't hide anymore.

Yes, she wanted to see Aunt Em again – and Uncle Henry, and everyone she knew back at the farm and all the wide fields of Kansas – god only knew Dorothy missed them more than words could say. But if she did this, if she let Elphaba die when she had the power to save her, she'd never be able to look Aunt Em in the eye ever again.

She'd never know what Dorothy had done, of course – just as Glinda, Fiyero, Boq, Kiln and the Mentor would never know; there were other kinds of cowardice, after all.

But Dorothy would know… and she'd never be able to forgive herself.

Back in Kansas, she'd heard preachers talk of hellfire and damnation, the judgement of God and what awaited wicked sinners in the blackest depths of hell: she'd never really given much thought to heaven and hell before today, yes, but now she knew for a fact that if she let Elphaba die, Dorothy would deserve every second of that eternal punishment.

Elphaba had to live – even if saving her might cost everything.

And in all honesty, she should have done this a long time ago…

So, getting to her feet, she plucked up her courage and took to her heels at a brisk sprint. Thankfully, the plain was strewn with the bodies of crewmen and soldiers from the routed fleet, so it didn't take long for Dorothy to find a knife among their belongings; amusingly enough, it was Nultherite – though she didn't expect she'd ever get to use it on the blade's intended target.

All she needed was a knife, really.

Then she sped on, leaping over puddles of molten refuse, ducking under guillotine-like shards of metal and leaping across the vast hulls of fallen airships, navigating the ruins of the once-mighty fleet with the kind of grace and clarity that she could only achieve in the direst of emergencies. For once, she didn't trip, lose her balance, or fall: here and now, for once in her life, she was an acrobat, a tightrope walker on the high wire, a master aerialist defying gravity; here and now, she was Elphaba, soaring a thousand feet above the blasted earth, and nobody could pull her down.

Thirty seconds later, she vaulted over the prow of the final airship and slid down the lengths of its hull, leaving the graveyard of the fleet behind at long last. Now the path was clear of refuse, and ahead of her lay only the forest – deep and dark and choked with shadows, the thick canopy smothering all light within a few yards of the forest's mouth.

There, Dorothy skidded to a halt at the border between grassland and forest – at the very point where sunlight met shadow. For a moment, she paused, struggling with the urge to run: she couldn't afford to lose courage now – not with Elphaba and the Lion depending on her.

Then, she took a deep breath…

…the deepest breath she'd ever taken in her entire life…

…and with all the volume her vocal cords could muster, Dorothy shouted the word that would end her life as she knew it.

"HELLION!"

And as her voice echoed across the forest, Dorothy felt something inside her head tingle: she knew this sensation, but she'd only ever felt it in dreams, and even then only on the few occasions when the dosage of pills had slackened long enough for the Hellion to reach out to her along the cobweb of dolls and dolls-to-be. In that moment, with blood drying on her upper lip, sweat dampening her trembling hands and her heart hammering like an entire orchestra of drums, Dorothy knew that her message had been received: the Hellion was on the way.

Hurry, she thought. Please.

Less than thirty seconds later, the silence of the forest was split by a nerve-jangling hiss of unearthly shapes gliding through the undergrowth; somewhere just out of sight, an army of Dolls was lining up along the edge of the forest, ready to pounce at the slightest hint of deception.

And then the Hellion appeared, descending from the lightless canopy far above, at first just a tiny shadow oozing from the stygian darkness overhead, but in a matter of seconds blotting out everything ahead of Dorothy – a writhing, crimson tangle of skinless flesh and far too many limbs, wreathed in flickering afterimages and dripping with blood. And though it was difficult to recognize human expressions on that hideous face, what with the tusklike teeth and the gaping hole where the nose should have been, Dorothy could tell at once that she was delighted to see her.

"At LAST," the Hellion giggled. "At long LONG last."

Dorothy forced a lungful of air into her lungs and tried desperately not to panic: she needed to keep her wits about her; if she succumbed to terror now, Elphaba would die and this gambit would have been for nothing. Still, it was easy to tell herself that: far harder was the matter of keeping her hands from trembling as they strayed to the pockets of her dress, not to mention keeping the Hellion from noticing.

"Sweet little doll. Come to ME, now: your brothers AND sisters are waiting for you…

The knife was in her hand, and now she had to move quickly: if they saw her drawing it, they'd wrestle it out of her hands before she could get into position.

"Just a few more steps, dear sweet THING," the Hellion chortled, spreading her arms wide – ready to enfold Dorothy in all six bloodied limbs. Once upon a time, the sight would have filled her with unconquerable dread, but now, with knife in her hand, she felt only cold.

"What the Hellion wants, the Hellion-"

Without saying a word, Dorothy slipped the knife out of her pocket and put the blade to her throat – the razor-sharp edge resting just above the jugular, as Kiln had called it. One nervous twitch, and Dorothy would bleed out before anyone could stop her.

The Hellion's eyes widened, and for the first time since she'd first encountered the monstrous creature, Dorothy saw fear in those glowing yellow eyes.

"You wouldn't," the Hellion whispered, her face a mask of horrified incredulity.

"I would," Dorothy coldly replied.

Her hands weren't shaking anymore, she realized. After all the fear she'd felt while still under the Mentor's protection, all the paranoia and uncertainty she'd had to endure in safety, it was only now that she felt calm: somehow, with death a shiver away and no other prospects but capture and a fate worse than death, she nothing but cool, unshakable serenity.

"I will," she continued. "If you don't do as I say."

"…What DO you want?"

"I want you to save Elphaba's life-"

"WHAT?"

"You heard me! Save Elphaba, get her to a doctor, give her back the Ruby Slippers, release the Lion, and…" Dorothy took a deep breath. Even with all the frost in her veins and the unnatural calm that had descended on her, these words were still difficult to say aloud.

"Once that's done – and only once that's done," she continued, "I belong to you. You can do whatever you like with me, just as long as Elphaba lives."

For twelve nerve-wracking seconds, the Hellion considered this.

Then, her face lapsed into a horrible smile. "Such a sweet, clever little DOLL," she purred. "I thought the Mentor might have broken you, gotten you caught in the tug-of-war with the Empress until you cracked AND tore apart. But here you are,bolder than any doll I wished for before today!" She giggled and clapped her hands with glee. "Oh yes. If it pleases you, MY SWEETHEART, then the green girl will live… and I know a healer better than any doctor you can imagine."

She paused, and peered over Dorothy's shoulder, as if she could actually see the carnage unfolding behind the barrier of wreckage.

"But we'll skin that cat once it's properly nailed down," she continued solemnly. "Sit tight, sweet clever doll: I've got a little green girl to rescue…"

And then she was gone, soaring into the field of debris in a blur of flickering afterimages and trickling blood – and leaving Dorothy alone except for the small army of Dolls closing in on her. Needless to say, she was very careful to keep the knife to her throat as she tentatively followed the Hellion up the embankment of mangled airships and into the field: she couldn't afford to lose her only bargaining chip… but as tricky as it was to scale the hill without cutting her throat for real, she couldn't afford to miss what happened next, either; she had to make sure that the Hellion actually rescued Elphaba.

By the time she'd reached the top of the embankment, the Hellion was already looming over the monster. Fortunately, even from here it was apparent that Elphaba herself was still alive: her attacker had actually gone so far as to bind her leg with a length of insulation before torturing her – whatever it was, it hadn't wanted her dying before it had squeezed every last drop of enjoyment out of the experience.

HATE HATE HATE WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU

"I could ask the same of you,"the Hellion sneered. "Boiled blood and grinding teeth, simmering hate AND fermented rage, all recognizable, but how do they fit together? You are dead and yet alive, machine and magic and things decayed past prime. What are you?"

HATE

"True enough, Dead Thing. Now…" There was a pause, as the Hellion drew herself up to her full height. "LET THE GREEN GIRL GO," she boomed.

SHE'S MINE SHE KILLED MY FAMILY KILLED MY WIFE CRIPPLED MY DAUGHTER BROUGHT SHAME UPON US KILLED ME KILLED MY DAUGHTER HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE

"I won't ask again, Dead Thing."

By way of an answer, the "dead thing" lashed out with another one of its tendrils, shearing through the hull of a derelict airship, igniting a vast swathe of grass, and leaving the intended target completely unscathed. The Hellion yawned, and replied with a blast of searing multi-coloured energies that layered the ground with pulsating growths of leprous flesh and burrowed deep into the "Object's" flank. With a scream of pain, the Hate-Thing reared back, its jaws stretching impossibly wide as it howled its agony across the grassland.

"Something wrong, Dead Thing? Feeling a little worn out? Hate wearing a LITTLE thin?"

MAKE YOU PAY MAKE YOU SUFFER MAKE YOU BLEED HAAAAAAAATE

"You're not my nightmare, Dead Thing. I SMELL the Empress's touch all over you, hear the echoes you were MADE to follow: the Radiant One built you to destroy the green girl, gave you the power to rend metal and TEAR FLESH, gave you power enough to torture her thoughts. But you weren't meant to bring down things like me."

YOU CAN'T KILL ME EITHER

"Maybe not, but you drink FROM the Empress's well, Dead Thing, and you're running dry: soon, you'll haveto go back to the palace for another mouthful. Hate BURNS YOU OUT, leaves you parched… but my desires give me strength. What the Hellion wants, the Hellion takes, little man…"

With a howl of rage, the Hate-Creature launched itself at the Hellion, teeth gnashing in fury. Once again, though, the Hellion was ready: waving a hand, she snatched up one of the smaller airships from the nearest piles of wreckage and flung it at the Hate-Thing; with much of the engine torn away and the hull open to the sky, the airship descended on the monster like a steel pail landing on a rat, pinning it down. Then, while the suddenly-trapped monster struggled to punch its way out of the fuselage, the Hellion scooped Elphaba into her arms and launched herself across the grasslands at a blinding pace.

Before Dorothy could react, the Hellion was upon her again, snatching her up and tossing her onto her back. "Hold on!" she ordered – and this time, Dorothy could only comply as the hovering monster took off at an impossible speed towards the mouth of the forest. Behind them, the weakened Hate-Thing finally burst through the armour-plated hull, but by then it was already too late: they were into the forest, a thousand Dolls covering their retreat towards the nearest of the Hellion's great tunnels.

But even as they outpaced it, they could still hear – without hearing at all – the enraged roars of the Hate-Thing:

I'LL FIND HER AGAIN I'LL MAKE HER BLEED YOU CAN'T HIDE FOREVER HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE

Closer at hand, Elphaba stirred and whimpered, little more than a child in the Hellion's gargantuan arms. "Nessa," she gasped. "Nessa, I'm sorry… stay with me, please…"

Perhaps half an hour later, the three of them finally emerged from the depths of the tunnel to find themselves gliding to a halt atop a vast barren plateau spanning almost the entire horizon. In fact, the land was so wide, it wasn't until Dorothy happened to look to her left that she realized just how high up they were: below them, a sheer cliff-face stretched away towards a ground already hidden by a dozen smaller mesas and lost in a criss-crossing pattern of crevasses. Wherever they'd emerged, it was a desert, all bare rock and parched earth, no water, no plants, and – from what little she could see from here – no animals.

But as they drew closer to the centre of the plateau, Dorothy discovered that though the place was just as dry and barren as the rest of the area, it still had a lake – of sorts. Squatting right in the heart of the plateau were three massive pools of… well, it couldn't be water, whatever it was. It was a gleaming silver in colour and though it looked more like a brilliantly polished mirror at first, Dorothy soon noticed the ripples creeping across its surface, as if it really was a liquid.

"What is this place?" she whispered, clambering off the Hellion's back – careful to keep her knife at the ready.

"The Silver Lakes of No-Man's Land," her guide replied. "This is where we find a healer for the green girl."

"But there's no-one here!"

The Hellion giggled. "Look down, sweet little doll. Look into the mercury depths…"

Nonplussed, Dorothy stared down into the nearest of the lakes, at first seeing only her own reflection: but then, as she peered at the rippling quicksilver surface, she saw something just beyond her mirror image; it was the reflection of an enormous house, its black-tiled roof stretching endlessly towards the sky, its colossal walls reaching out towards the horizon. And as Dorothy watched in astonishment, she realized that there were people in the reflection as well, dozens of black-clad figures lining up around the edge of the lake to stare back at Dorothy, their faces blank and featureless.

"THIS is the home of the Mistress of Mirrors, little doll," the Hellion explained. "She knows the ways of mending flesh, and knows those who know more than even THAT. She'll help the green girl, lonely sweet thing that she is… and then we'll be together, just as you promised."

And without another word, she lowered Elphaba's body gently into the silvery waters of the lake. Instead of sinking to the bottom, though, she sank only a few feet before vanishing entirely – and suddenly becoming part of the reflection, appearing among the faceless figures lining the edges of the lake. In a matter of seconds, a stretcher had been prepared and the crowd was already carrying Elphaba towards the house – where the Mistress of Mirrors was presumably waiting.

"You're sure she'll take care of her?"

"Why wouldn't she? BLOOD knows blood knows blood. She takes in all sorts of waifs and strays, just like the Mentor."

"And the Lion and the Ruby Slippers-"

"WILL BE waiting for the green girl as soon as she returns to the Mentor's city. You have my WORD, little doll, my word as your mother and owner."

"And you'll give her my letter as well?"

"Of course, OF COURSE, best beloved. And now, my sweetheart, it's time."

Dorothy took a deep breath… and very slowly returned the knife to her pocket. She'd imagined plunging it into the Hellion's heart a thousand times over the last few minutes, but in the end, these were little more than desperate fantasies with no chance of ever coming true. Even if she could have killed the Hellion, the Lion would still be a prisoner and there'd be no way of rescuing him from her lair – what with it being presumably infested with Dolls. No, this was the only way this little encounter could have ended. More importantly, it was the only way to save those who really mattered.

Besides, it wasn't as if she'd ever had a chance of seeing Kansas again, was it? Every step in her journey had taken her further away from home, from Oz, to Unbridled Radiance, to the Deviant Nations, and finally the depths of No-Man's Land. Every chance she'd had of returning home had been a lie, a fantasy, or a dead end: the Wizard had offered nothing but falsehoods, the Noplace Men were as lost as she was, the Mentor's researchers still hadn't found anything, and all the rest were little more than fruitless daydreams. Now, of course, she knew the truth: she'd never see Kansas again, except in her dreams and memories – but of course, if she was truly fortunate, becoming a Doll might just spare her from that. From what little she'd been able to see and hear of them so far, the Dolls didn't appear to remember their lives prior to being "collected" by the Hellion. Perhaps Dorothy was doomed to forget everything – Aunt Em, Uncle Henry, the farm, Kansas, even everything she'd experienced in Oz – and perhaps that would be for the best.

After all, what good had she done in either world? She'd been a puppet for the Wizard, a nuisance and a distraction to more important people, a millstone around the necks of her friends... and for a while, she'd gotten hundreds of people killed simply because she couldn't bring herself to surrender to the Hellion – and because nobody else in the palace had wanted to see Dorothy receive her just punishment. And once she was gone, things could only improve: maybe Elphaba and the Mentor might finally be able to win the war without all the distractions the Hellion had caused because of her; maybe Fiyero and Boq would finally be cured now that they no longer had to waste time saving Dorothy's life; maybe Vara would find charges worthier of her attention…

And maybe, just maybe, Aunt Em and Uncle Henry could live long and happy lives without her. Maybe they were better off without her. Maybe-

Why am I crying?

Perhaps this was the only way this could have ended: perhaps Dorothy had always belonged among the Dolls, with the only true family she deserved.

"Will it hurt?" she asked quietly.

"Only for a moment, sweet doll, only while the NIGHTMARE finally ends. And when you wake up, you'll never be lonely or hungry or sad ever again…"

The Hellion spread her arms wide, as if to embrace Dorothy. "Come to mother, now, dearest doll. Your new home awaits…"

And even with the old fear still gnawing a hole in her heart, Dorothy found herself smiling through her tears.

"There's no place like home," she whispered.

Then, like a sleepwalker, she strode calmly into the Hellion's waiting arms: immediately, the smell of blood closed in on her, smothering her nostrils and clogging the air with that all-too-distinctive coppery aroma. Then the Hellion's first pair of arms wrapped themselves around her, at once imprisoning and embracing her: her grasp was gentle, her hands warm to the touch, and though her skinless muscles wept blood near-constantly, Dorothy scarcely noticed. She was too busy realizing how lonely she'd been ever since she'd arrived in this world, how isolated and miserable she'd been ever since she'd had to cloister herself away in the Mentor's palace. After all that time, the Hellion's touch held no horror to her, even as taloned fingers glided through her hair and befouled her scalp with blood: if anything, it felt familiar – even welcoming.

As the Hellion's fingers brushed Dorothy's spine, she felt the familiar numbness spreading across her body as the familiar paralysis set in; but this time, there was no fear, no sense of helplessness. Limp as a ragdoll and helpless as a baby in the Hellion's arms, she felt only a deep and unshakeable calm: for the first time since she'd left Kansas, Dorothy was at peace.

"Sleep now, sweetlittle DOLL. Sleep now and dream of your brothers and sisters; sleep now and dream of life eternal…"

Dorothy's eyes flickered shut, her body acquiescing even faster than her mind. After so much time spent resisting, she didn't want to fight anymore: all she wanted was to sleep and forget everything she'd ever known.

Her last thought – before she sank into a deep and dreamless sleep – was of Aunt Em.

Then the darkness claimed her and unending void was all she knew.

A/N: CLIFFHANGER! What do you think of Dorothy now? What do you think will happen to her? Feel free to review and comment - nice long reviews are always welcome, ladies and gents, as are constructive critiques (especially on the typos that creep in at 1 in the morning...)