A/N: Back again at long last with a new instalment! Hopefully I can keep the pattern going from here on.

Anyway, without further ado, the latest chapter: read, review, and above all, enjoy!

Disclaimer: Wicked is still not mine.

"Have you considered Purification?"

Glinda blinks in confusion. "No," she says at last. "Why do you ask?"

"You were transformed into a kitten, remember? You were infected with the Plague of Transformations, so you're eligible for the procedure as a preventative measure… and considering what happened to the likes of Lizelanti and Branderstove, I'd seriously consider making full use of that eligibility sooner rather than later. Besides, you'll find the health benefits more than outweigh the invasiveness of the surgery."

"Er… it's not that I don't appreciate the offer, but… well, I hear rumours that Purification comes with some pretty hefty side-effects. Supposedly, relatives of the converted keep saying that people who've been Purified behave… differently. And some people who've volunteered as test subjects… well, supposedly they never came back from the labs."

"Just rumours, Glinda, nothing more. I mean, you heard the rumours about me during the Reign of Terror. They weren't all true, now were they?"

"No, no, of course not." Glinda's eyes narrow. "Hang on, what do you mean all true? None of them were true at all, Elphaba."

But Elphaba just smiles. "I've grown and changed so much since those days, Glinda. We don't have to lie for the sake of my feelings anymore: I was wicked then, wicked through and through, wicked and spiteful and doomed to failure. I mean, just look at what I've achieved in the relatively short time since I was remade: I built a new Oz for Animals, I stymied the chaos that might have consumed the land when the Wizard fled, and now I'm curing much more than the Plague; I'm curing the weaknesses of life itself. Could I have done this when I was still ugly? No. You see, it wasn't the bullets that brought me down; it wasn't overwhelming odds; it was my own ugliness that gave the Wizard the power to defeat me. That's why I could never defeat him; because my ugliness made me weak, made me feeble… and we all know it. So you don't have to pretend for fear of wounding my feelings, because I know the truth now: truth is beauty and beauty is strength."

The smile on her face is clearly meant to be reassuring, but Glinda finds no comfort whatsoever in it: there's something about the weird fixed quality to the lips and the unblinking fervour in her eyes that makes her shudder in growing terror. Glinda had never been afraid of Elphaba in her life, not even back in their early days as roommates: she'd been annoyed and angry and unimaginably frustrated with her, yes; she'd felt fear and nervousness and crippling anxiety for her… but she'd never found Elphaba herself inspiring genuine fear.

Glinda isn't sharing coffee with one of her oldest and dearest friends; here and now, she is staring into the eyes of a total stranger.

"Was there anything else you wanted to ask me about?"

"No," says Glinda, a little too quickly to be believable. "Nope. Absolutely nothing."

And in the end, she leaves – too afraid to even mention the disaster at Shiz…

Elphaba was dimly aware that her feet were carrying her off the airship, down the ramp and off onto hard ground; her broomstick was in her hand, her hat was carefully strapped to her head, a soft jerkin of blast-resistant hide had been fitted over her robes, and all around her, the thunder of armoured vehicles could be felt rippling across the ground.

Had she been in full possession of her mind and her senses, she might have recognized that she was marching into battle alongside the Irredeemables with a squad of battlemages at her back. Unfortunately, with the dream-memory still in progress, she had no way of knowing the difference between up and down: in that moment, Elphaba's body was on autopilot, walking, talking and fighting in accordance with a world she could no longer consciously see or hear.

Her conscious mind was several thousand miles and close to forty years away, immersed in the memories of the Empress…

This is the second emergency meeting that Glinda has requested this year. However, Elphaba is no longer the approachable Overseer, nor is she just Glinda's friend: times have changed and so has Oz. The country is no longer a collection of countries bound together by the authority of a ruler, nor is it an alliance barely kept stable through the promises of a dictator's heir… and it's certainly no longer a joke of a country ruled by a glorified con artist.

Now, Oz has become an empire.

Ev is fallen, as has Ix; Noland lies prostrate in the dirt, and Merryland has been cast down and defeated; the Nome Kingdom is already besieged by the newly-trained wizards and witches of Oz's newly-established War Academy, and soon even Roquat the Red will kneel before perfection – or be torn asunder. No more are the allies of Oz to be kept in line through vague warnings of dread power or elaborate special effects: now, the edicts of perfection shall be enforced through the might of its armies and the righteousness of its cause. Now, erstwhile allies who believed themselves safe from repercussions following the fall of the Wizard shall be humbled and made vassals of the Empire.

And at home, Purification shall be brought to all who prove worthy of it: those who have distinguished themselves in their fields shall be granted the blessing of immortality, unceasing beauty and relentless strength. Those born Distorted shall be cured of their ugliness and shown the path to Purification. Those who resist this sacred mission and Deviate in mind and body shall be cleansed from the world.

Naturally, there are some who protest this zealousness, but Elphaba knows how to deal with them. There are prisons filled with those who offered shelter to Distortions and Deviants, and even more who tried to deliver petitions to the highest offices in the land.

Even Frexspar had to be dealt with: he'd been showing signs of sympathizing with the wicked child he'd been forced to raise, showing signs of regretting his anger. But he'd been easy to... correct: an induced heart-attack had been sufficient to prevent him from reaching the blasphemous conclusion that might have led to him throwing in his lot with the dissidents of this land. His body may be dead, but his mind - his hatred, his distrust, his unfeeling politics - will be preserved forever in the Thinking Engine alongside the Wizard.

Unfortunately, Glinda is a different story.

According to the attendants on duty, she turned up in the waiting room barely fifteen minutes ago in a state of considerable anxiety: her hair is hopelessly disarrayed, she's barely had time to properly dress herself, and her eyes are haloed with dark circles. For good measure, she's brought little Allaran to the office with her.

The little boy is now walking just well enough to hold his mother's hand as the two of them bustle into Elphaba's office… and already he's showing signs of the Distortion that Elphaba detected at the moment of his birth. He's taller than most children his age – not immensely so, not freakishly so, but just enough to start drawing a few curious looks from people in the street. It takes all of Elphaba's willpower not to snarl in disgust at the sight of him: she can already see what he will become, the ugliness that will swell his frame beyond perfection and leave him with the face of a gargoyle. He is a reminder of everything Elphaba has cast aside; he is everything she has pledged to destroy. He is repulsive. He is disgusting. He is wrong.

But she tolerates his presence in the office, nonetheless, even patting him sweetly on his head as Glinda introduces him to her. Thankfully, neither of them notices her hastily dousing her hands in raw alcohol. But once Allaran is sitting in a corner of the office, placidly tinkering with a set of wooden blocks purloined from the waiting room, Glinda gets straight to the point:

"This can't go on any longer, Elphaba," she says urgently. "I know that everybody's afraid to disagree with you know, but as your friend, I have to tell you that this mess has to stop."

"Whatever do you mean?"

"This Purification business! The Empire of Oz! The spying, the mass-incarceratifications, the police brutality – this can't continue! Don't you see what you're doing?"

Elphaba doesn't even frown at this. "What I'm doing is perfecting Oz: for too long, we've been maintaining an advantage over our neighbours through petty boasts and lies. As an empire, we have now proved our supremacy… and we have a means of stamping out the flaws of the countries we occupy. As for the arrests and surveillance, these are necessary to keep the people of Oz from doing irreparable harm to themselves and those around them. I mean, you saw the photographs of that poor demented young man; you saw how he cut his ears off. You can hardly tell me that he didn't need to be saved from himself."

"He was doing that in protest! I thought you'd at least acknowledge that some of these people have a right to protest against certain laws they disagree with – more of a right than they did under the Wizard, at any rate."

"They have the right to disagree. They do not have the right to commit crimes against beauty."

"What does that even mean?! You're acting as though beauty were more important than life or freedom!"

"And in many ways, it is. In many ways, it is the same thing as life: is a life without beauty worth living? Is freedom without perfection worth keeping?"

"For Lurline's sake, Elphaba, don't you see you're just repeating the past?"

"And how am I doing that, exactly?"

"You've become a dictator, Elphie! Can't you see that?! You're having people who speak out rounded up and put in cages! You're letting people worship you as a demigod! This is what you fought against back when-"

"Back when I was Wicked," interrupted Elphaba, smoothly. "And, if you'll remember, I also failed quite miserably at fighting those crimes; as I've established, I was ugly and imperfect, so I was doomed to fail. But what you fail to understand is that the only reason why the Wizard's actions were crimes at all were because they flew in the face of beauty and perfection. The Wizard's actions transformed intelligent beings into beasts, made a mockery of reason, and set himself up as a god for the sake of his own pride. Because those were acts of ugliness, he was doomed to failure. The acts I commit are in the name of peace, stability and perfection… and thus my deeds are sanctified by the natural laws of this universe."

For almost ten seconds, Glinda can only stare in utter bewilderment, as if unable to comprehend what she's just been told. "Elphaba, you were a hero," she says at last. "You fought against the Wizard when nobody else would. You didn't lose because you were ugly, you lost because you were one woman against an entire country; you'd have lost even if you were the most beautiful woman in the world. Now, I don't know where this crazy talk came from, but it has to stop right now: people are being hurt; people are disappearing; people are dying – by the thousands if what I've heard was true. If you still remember what it means to be a hero, you need to stop this now."

"Once again, you seem consumed by the delusion that I was a hero. By nature, heroes are supposed to achieve something of lasting import. What, as an ugly, unbalanced monster, did I achieve beyond giving the Wizard another scapegoat to solidify his rule?"

"You can't seriously think that-"

"I can and I do. Do you have any other questions or complaints while you're here, or shall we leave the matter for another day?"

"I know this isn't about curing the Plague anymore, Elphie!" Glinda explodes, her voice on the verge of tears. "The Plague is gone; the hospital's empty, the plague victims are either cured or gone, and there've been no reports of the real thing anywhere outside your official broadsheets. So why are you doing this? No more philosophical claptrap, please: I need to know what you personally get out of all the invasions, occupations, arrests, and surgical nightmares. What could you possibly get out of turning this country into an empire?"

"Because wickedness lies in ugliness, Glinda," the Empress replies, sipping coffee from a delicate porcelain cup. "Invasion ends the ugliness in the deeds of nations; Purification ends the ugliness in the body and soul of their people. That imperfection, that wickedness can be seen everywhere, Glinda, and just as I could only be cleansed by the scourging of my body, so to must the flaws of living beings be stripped away through Purification." Elphaba smiles. "You should accept that… and your own Purification."

"I told you, Elphaba, I'm perfectly fine the way I-"

"And what of your son? Is he perfect the way he is?"

"…Allaran? He's fine! There's nothing wrong with him! He's just… a little bit bigger than kids his age, that's all."

"Indeed. And will you still be saying that when his condition accelerates enough to become visible to the naked eye, I wonder? I performed the diagnostic spells myself, the best and most intensive known: I can see the way his body is developing, Glinda, and I can see what he will become in a few years. There are already imbalances forming in his pituitary glands, imbalances that will make him taller than you by the time he turns ten. Will you still deny his imperfection when he stands taller than any known man, or when he grows too big to sustain his health, when his own body begins to fail him?"

"Elphaba, I don't know what you're implying, but-"

"Allaran will grow up abnormal, ugly, monstrous. His condition will make him repulsive long before it begins impacting his health, and he will be an object of mockery and scorn in every civilized region of Oz. All he requires are a few operations to ensure he grows no taller than is normal and does not develop any of the facial distortions that would eventually develop. You have the power to arrange this for him, Glinda. It's not within my power to do it for you, given your status, so Allaran's fate is in your hands. But first, the question you have to ask yourself is this: do you want your son to be the ultimate symbol for everything that's wrong with this world?"

"…I beg your pardon."

"I'm asking you if you want your son to spend the rest of his life as an abomination."

Glinda blinks, as if confused. Very slowly, a look of dawning rage begins to creep across her face, growing more and more intense with every passing second. Then, without warning, her wand is in her hand and the coffee table sitting between them is flying across the room, sending coffee cups and saucers and all manner of other delicate crockery erupting against the opposite wall.

"Never," Glinda snarls, "Ever talk about my son that way again."

And without another word, she takes Allaran by the hand and storms out of the office.

When next they meet, they meet in battle.

An explosion shattered Elphaba's brittle reverie, sending her plunging back into the real world. Suddenly looking at the world in a state of full consciousness, she had just enough to realize that she was now standing gormlessly in the path of a falling tree before hastily flinging herself to the left.

Immediately, memories began pouring back into the forefront of her mind, recollections of what her body had witnessed while her mind was on sojourn: disembarking from the airship, attending the briefing at base camp, setting out with a small force of warriors and magicians… and unless she was deeply mistaken, she was currently on a search-and-destroy mission.

Up ahead, she got her first conscious look at one of the mission targets: a whirring mass of coppers gears and silvery armour-plating in the shape of a man lumbering into view, an arm-mounted cannon belching flame in her direction. Parting the flames and smothering the source of ignition with a flex of willpower, Elphaba tore the arm off the mechanical soldier, then crumpled him into scrap-metal with a solid fist of magic.

But already, she could see other mechanized troops marching through the forest towards them, readying exotic-looking weaponry. Now that she was out of the dream-memory, Elphaba could dimly recall being told during the briefing that the enemy force was composed largely of obsolete models, but that didn't mean they weren't dangerous: they couldn't react as quickly or cleverly as the Tik-Tok men used by the Strangling Coils, but they could still aim and fire with deadly accuracy, and given that several of the larger models were wielding artillery pieces in the same way a man might wield a hunting rifle, they didn't need to react very quickly.

From somewhere up ahead, there was a colossal boom as one of the mighty guns opened fire, and Elphaba scarcely had time to dart aside before the ground next to her erupted in a spray of fire dirt as a massive artillery shell hammered into the soil. Barely managing to shield herself from the shrapnel, Elphaba waved a hand and scent a wave of emerald green light scything through the forest, cutting down at least three of the incoming combat engines and cleaving off one of her attacker's limbs.

There was a roar of approval from behind her; belatedly remembering that she'd been accompanied into battle by a squad of magicians and more than enough soldiers to hold the line, she watched in astonishment as the small crowd of magical specialists dashed forward from the ranks to join her, peppering the incoming war machines with fireballs, bolts of lightning, torrents of acid, stone fists, searing geysers, and even miniature volcanoes. Memories of the waking world still flooding back, Elphaba recalled that they'd been held back by the initial bombardment, had been forced to remain in line and shield the soldiers with their magic until the storm had passed… but of course, Elphaba had broken formation and gone on the attack.

And I did all that without even acting consciously, she marvelled silently. Sweet Lurline, even when my waking mind isn't at the controls, my body's still flinging itself into battle.

Still, the situation looked to be going remarkably well: from what little she remembered from the briefing her body had attended, the attack force had split up into teams in order to cause more havoc across a wider area; unless there were more units hidden in the undergrowth, the artillery engine looked to be the only remaining member of the team they were currently up against.

All she needed to do was stay conscious and avoid slipping back into the dream-memories; the last thing she needed to do was to end up distracted by yet another round of Alphaba's recollections.

And no sooner had the thought crossed her mind…

Looking down on the smouldering wreckage of the Emerald City's western wall, Empress Elphaba can only sigh in exasperation as the newest reports begin to arrive on her desks.

The protests have become rioting, and the rioting has exploded into civil war. Now that the rabble have Glinda as a figurehead, they cannot be so easily dispersed: she has rallied the malcontents from around Oz to her side and united the disparate factions of resistance into a united cause; the weeping parents, the cowardly businessmen, the self-mutilators, and all those who bleat over the loss of their freedoms now number among the ranks of Glinda's Deviant faction.

Empress Elphaba can only roll her eyes as the news slowly pours in from across the country: the same people who now complain of their rights being violated had once stood by the Wizard, never once raising a word of complain even as his own secret police walked the streets among them. But no matter. They shall be dealt with in time… though it may take longer than initially anticipated. Thanks to Glinda's unifying presence, the rebels now have possession of resources they would not have gained otherwise: money, airships, weaponry, magicians, spellbooks, and even a few decidedly influential figures among the governments of the Vinkus and Gillikin country. Thanks to these sympathizers, the rebels have also acquired safehouses, hidden fortresses, and access to factory complexes where they can supply their growing armies; for the time being, Glinda is beyond the reach of their troops, hidden away in some bolthole and planning the next stage of her degenerate uprising.

Most frustratingly of all, Glinda has taken Fiyero with her, oblivious to the fact that she wouldn't have her precious paramour if Elphaba hadn't gone out of her way to ensure that he remained faithful to her.

How can Glinda not understand how vital Purification is? How can she not recognize the fact that ugliness must be eradicated from society in all its forms? After all, she once took part in its destruction in more ways than one: she was the one who'd persuaded her to accept Morrible's offer, thus paving the way for Elphaba's purification from ugliness; she'd helped her to remove the Wizard from power, cleansing the ugliness of his lies from Ozian society. Why, having knowingly and willingly given her aid to the cause, did she falter now?

What had been the moment when Glinda had accepted corruption into her heart? Had it been the day she'd seen the Distorted being arrested for avoiding corrective surgery? Had it been some whining parent begging her for help? Or had it been the birth of her Distorted son? Certainly, Glinda might have been more open to reason before prioritizing her child's safety over perfection.

Allaran is probably close to his fifth birthday by now. Chistery and his monkeys have managed to catch a few stray glimpses of the boy fleeing across the country with his mother, and his Distortion is now proving hatefully visible: he's almost as tall as Glinda by now, and wearing clothes meant for a teenager. There's even been indications that he's actually been helping his mother in the resistance, lugging equipment and machinery that no child his age would ever have been able to lift… and Fiyero, annoyingly enough, is already teaching him the basics of hand-to-hand combat.

But he will be corrected.

All of them will be corrected.

The Slamming Door is already being prepared.

Glinda and her rebels cannot run forever, nor can they fight with barely a quarter of the country assisting them. One by one, their allies will be eliminated, their resources reclaimed, and their cause disbanded; those of them who have proved themselves worth of Purification will be cleanse of their ugliness and enlightened. Those of them who have wilfully defiled themselves in pursuit of imperfection shall be cleansed from existence.

Beauty cannot be denied, nor can it be stopped: this world will be made perfect – one way or another…

Where was she now?

She could vaguely recognize the long grass and flat plains from the journey into the Deviant Nations, but with no settlements in sight, this could be anywhere. In likelihood, this might be between Doorstep and the border. As far as Elphaba could be any judge, this would make sense: after all, as far as she could remember, the threat was crossing the border into the Deviant Nations on foot, so it would make at least some sense for her to be deployed in this area.

But how long had Elphaba been fighting while she was unconscious? She could tell that there'd been a battle of some kind, for the plains were dotted with craters and patches of burnt grass, and looking closely enough, she could just about recognize the shapes of broken mechanical men amidst the grass, some ripped to shreds, some melted down to slag, and a few visible disintegrating into vapour before her very eyes. Behind her, a sizeable contingent of soldiers, Irredeemables and magicians surveyed the grasslands, either plotting out the next course of action with the officers or picking off any remaining enemy troops still operational.

Meanwhile, Elphaba herself was caught neatly between wondering how long she'd been under and what she was going to see next: she'd already witnessed the collapse of Alphaba's relationship with the Other Glinda and the start of the civil war. What could happen after this? And what was to become of the Other Glinda's children?

More to the point, was there any way to resist the descent into dreams? Maybe, if she found a handhold somewhere in her mind-

The Slamming Door is in action.

The Emerald City is slowly drifting apart: buildings claimed by the Deviants and by the Loyalists are being removed from the area as quickly as possible, either levitated out of range or teleported to another part of the country.

The capital is dying… but the Empress knows that this was, in many ways, inevitable: with its long history of corruption and decadence, Oz could not continue to exist in its current state; it would have needed to be destroyed in order to be reborn with a clean slate. As frustrating as it is to lose control of the capitol, the rebels have done her an unexpected favour by forcing her hand: they've spared her the trouble of having to rename the country, abandon its legacy and re-educate its people. Now, all she has to do is begin again in a different territory of her empire: her subjects will accept the loss of the Emerald City as a valid reason to rename her society.

In the meantime, her magicians are claiming as much of the dying city as possible before the final explosion, taking key depots, warehouses, barracks and residential blocks; at this very moment, the specialists of the army are out on the streets, teleporting dozens of loyal citizens to safety. Everything that needs to be saved has been saved. Glinda, meanwhile, has claimed a few precious libraries and archives… and judging from the faint transparency to the outer walls, she's also attempting to steal the palace itself, but it matters far less than the leader of the rebellion believes: by now, the Empress already teleported away the Pottery, Paragon and all her most valuable resources. If Glinda thinks that she's somehow depriving the Empress of some vital asset, she's deeply mistaken.

Frankly, she's welcome to the decadent ruin, for all the good it will do her: from here on, the fighting will only grow more extreme and the struggle to survive will be all the more vicious now that the two factions will be hunting for a new centre of operations – or at the very least, a place to put all these buildings. However, the Empire of Oz has the advantage: Paragon's stochastic abilities have already proved invaluable in estimating enemy movements and calculating solutions to many of the shortages caused by the war; in the wilderness that will become the seat of the new empire, Paragon will give the evacuated citizens the edge they need to thrive. And with all the scientists and the magicians of the Pottery ready to lend a hand, rebuilding the nation will be exceptionally easy.

Unfortunately, Glinda has her share of magicians and scientists as well, and the Empress has learned not to underestimate her opponent's resolve.

Worse still, the damnable woman is pregnant again, courtesy of Fiyero's continued devotion to her.

But that can be dealt with in time: the Empress has already received word that the unfortunate guard captain has already been secured and is being moved to a secure airship at this very instant. However, before the Empress can attend to him, she must make sure everything is attended to. Time is, as always, of the essence.

So, with minutes to spare before the Slamming Door detonates, the Empress dares to leave the now-emptied Pottery for one last-minute sweep of the rapidly-vanishing palace, if only for the sake of thoroughness. She has already teleported scores of mage-surgeons, researchers, citizens, operation-critical buildings, and entire rooms of equipment; now she can afford to entrust the remainder of the work to her loyal attendants while she checks the building for anything worth saving.

Finding nothing, she turns to leave via the palace's grand staircase…

…only to find her path down to the Pottery blocked by a familiar figure.

"Dr Dillamond," she whispers softly.

"Miss Elphaba."

"I would have thought you would have left already, considering that you've already made your disloyalty quite apparent. Tell me, are Glinda and her band of self-mutilating Irredeemables really so desperate to kill me that they're willing to use you as an assassin… or are you just here to plunder what little remains of the Pottery for your new masters?"

The goat sighs. "I am neither an assassin nor a thief, Elphaba. I would have hoped you would have had the decency to think better of me after all this time."

"Considering your betrayals over the last few weeks, I barely think anything of you at all, Doctor."

"Why? Because I tried to speak up for one of my former students in a free and open debate between leaders?"

"Because you betrayed the cause. You once agreed to help me bring down the Wizard and make this country perfect – up until the moment I actually started making progress towards a brighter future, and then you suddenly lost your nerve."

"I hardly call kidnapping students out of their beds and forcing them onto the operating table 'progress towards a brighter future'."

"Only because you refuse to see: the Purified will not suffer the decay of their bodies or of their minds; they will not grow weak and ugly with age, nor will they be corrupted by time, or driven to support the madness of lesser rulers. They will not die. That is the gift that I have offered those who have proved themselves worthy: unyielding beauty, unceasing perfection, and a role in the construction of my utopia – a world where none suffer, where truth is sacred, where all races live as one and the ugliness of the past will never be repeated. Isn't that what you would have wanted?"

"Not like this, Elphaba." And for the first time since he appeared before her, Dillamond seems genuinely sorrowful.

"And why not?"

"Because the world you want to create means nothing without free will. As far as I can see, it's just the old Oz in new colours, except at least the Wizard's greed was satisfied by a single country; you'll never be satisfied by anything, not as long as the world remains imperfect." He sighs. "And that's the final tragedy, I suppose. I've seen many idealists corrupted by the real world, dragged down into the muck and forced to support what they once despised… but I've never seen them become it before."

"Then why are you here?"

"Because I wanted to give you one last chance to draw back from the edge. Please, Elphaba: accept Glinda's offer; give up this madness right now and let these separatists leave in peace. I can't say if there's anything left of the brilliant, kindly young woman I met in my history class at Shiz all those years ago… but you don't have to be what Morrible made you. You don't have to be what Oz made you. You can be a hero again, and all you have to do is lay down your arms and put an end to the war."

But Elphaba can already see the teleporter charm clutched in Dillamond's right hand, badly hidden by his hoofs – and knows that this can only mean one thing: if she refuses, he intends to capture her alive. Glinda is consumed with the belief that her old friend has been possessed by something malignant, the better to avoid confronting the truth; now Dillamond wants to bring her back to Glinda, either to "cure" her or to kill her. In spite of herself, Elphaba can't help but feel the tiniest flicker of disappointment: her old teacher could have been a powerful ally in the construction of her new world. But then, that doesn't mean that he cannot still be of use to her...

Dillamond is still carrying on with his desperate entreaties: "Please," he begs, "for all our sakes, make the right choice."

"Oh, I already have," the Empress whispers, her voice as calm and cold and relentless as a glacier.

And without another word, she sweeps her hand through the air in a single, deft slicing movement. There is a flash of vivid white light, and Dillamond totters backwards, as if slapped hard across the face. For a split-second, his face registers confusion.

Then his throat opens.

Sliced from ear to ear, his neck is suddenly a gushing red fountain, pouring down his tattered clothes and befouling the fine marble stairs on which he stands. Gasping for breath, he stumbles, drowning in air; then he falls, tumbling backwards down the stairs, leaving a long trail of crimson in his wake.

Not a drop of it touches the Empress.

Unfazed by the carnage, she traces another magical gesture in the air; instantly, two of her attendants materialize on either side of her, eyeing the crumpled figure at the bottom of the stairs with undisguised disdain.

"Take him to Paragon," she commands. "His body isn't worth repairing, but his mind can still be of use to us."

Nodding shortly, they scoop the dying goat off the stairs and vanish into the ether. The Empress follows close behind, teleporter herself into one of the departing buildings just as the palace finally vanishes into Glinda's clutches.

Moments later, the Door Slams and the Emerald City is lost forever in a wave of flesh-warping radiation.

Less than a year later, Unbridled Radiance is born amidst the ashes of the war.

"Elphie, LOOK OUT!"

Elphaba lurched back into reality just in time to stumble out of the way of the incoming mortar shell; as it buried itself in the ground in front of her, it detonated spectacularly, sending a shockwave rippling across the battlefield and knocking Elphaba off her feet.

It took her a few seconds to realize that she was still somewhere on the fringes, except the grassland had long since vanished, replaced by dense forest. By now, a good deal of it was either on fire or littered with the corpses of Unbridled Radiance's mechanical army; thankfully, Wolton and his men were already in the process of mopping up the remaining enemy troops and putting out the fires, with magicians dousing the forest with conjured storms and miniature tidal waves

Dazed from the impact and groaning with fatigue, she struggled to upright herself – only to be helped to her feet by perhaps the strangest thing she'd witnessed in the last few days.

From the shoulders upwards, it was clearly Glinda; her face was unchanged except for a few stray cuts on her cheeks and the glossy black lenses she'd sprouted across her eyes. However, below the shoulders, things got a little bit weird: her armadillo-like torso was layered with natural armour-plating and leathery hide; her arms were dagger-tipped tentacles over twenty feet long; her legs – all ten of them – were column-like struts designed to support her form's armour-plated bulk

"What happened to you?" Elphaba demanded.

"I… got a little bit carried away," Glinda confessed. "Leoverus told me to come up with a battle form that I could keep stable; I'm managing the stability part, but I think I should probably head back to the drawing board as far as battle forms go. Oh, hang on-"

Without warning, Glinda's entire body contracted inwards: her legs oozed and merged into a single pair, while her tentacular arms reeled in like the tongue of a frog and straightened into a second set of legs. Her shape oozed and warped, casting off several tonnes of armour and flesh as it fell forward onto all fours, reshaping itself into the lithe, swift body of a wolf. In less than five seconds, her transformation had run its course; a moment later, the great wolf that Glinda had become lunged forward, snatching up a three-foot-tall gun platform in its massive jaws and crushing its delicate metal spine between her teeth.

"Good to see you're getting the hang of shapeshifting," said Elphaba, bemused.

As Glinda continued tearing the semi-active machine to pieces, a secondary head sprouted from between the wolf's shoulders: though it had no hair and its face was a hastily-shaped jumble of features that looked like they'd been assembled by a drunken sculptor, it still function well enough to see and to speak.

"I've had a lot of practice," the head explained breathlessly. "A lot more than I thought I would: ever since these tik-toks hit Warren, I've been employed on the front lines way ahead of schedulity, so Leoverus has had to kick the training up a notch."

"Is that why you aren't on the promotional tour anymore?"

"Don't you remember?"

There was a pause, as Elphaba hastily scythed open the flank of a passing mechanical tank before it could open fire, splitting clockwork innards all over the battlefield.

"Remember what?" she asked.

Glinda's secondary head blinked in confusion, mismatched eyes bulging. "Elphie, you were there: you saved me when Warren got firebombed. I mean, your broomstick's got the burns to prove it."

Sure enough, the handle of Elphaba's broomstick had been scorched pitch-black, and many of the bristles were charred at the end.

Elphaba tried not to look sheepish. "Something's gone wrong with the dream-memories," she sighed. "Apparently, I'm now experiencing them while I'm still awake: I've been drifting in and out for… oh gods, how long has it been since I left the palace? A long while at any rate. I only just woke up from the latest one a couple of minutes ago."

"Then how have you been fighting all this time? How have you been talking?"

"I don't know!"

"We had a full-blown debate about tactics half an hour ago – and you're telling me your brain was checked out for the duration?"

"In as many words, yes."

"Then why are you still here? Why didn't you head straight to the medics?"

"Because I didn't have a chance; this is the first lucid moment I've had in god only knows how many days, and it's the only opportunity I've had to tell someone what's been happening to me. The rest of the time, I've been on autopilot… and I guess the autopilot version of me isn't interested in backing down until the job's done."

"I wonder where she gets it."

"Oh, hush."

Glinda sighed deeply and shook herself, suddenly lurching onto two legs as she reverted to human form: her fur dissolved away into bare skin, the muzzle retreated into her face, and the ears shrank back down to the side of her head – leaving Glinda well and truly back to normal.

Also, stark naked.

"Yeah, the clothes are a bit of a problem when I go back to human form," Glinda admitted, blushing a vivid shade of crimson. "I can manifest them if it's just for display purposes, but when I'm in combat, they never show up."

Elphaba unbuttoned her cloak and draped it helpfully over Glinda's shoulders, hiding a smile as she did so. "Look on the bright side," she said, airily. "At least you're not leaving a trail of empty robes and ripped dresses all over the countryside."

"Just as long as you remember to take this cloak back once we reach the medics-"

"SIGHTINGS AT THE BORDER!" a voice hollered from somewhere in the distance. "SIGHTINGS AT THE BORDERS!" As it turned out, the voice belonged to their team's radio operator, who was now hurrying the forest and urgently waving his helmet in the air for Elphaba's attention.

"We've just had a sighting of one major group of invaders at boundary marker 111827 – right at the border between the Deviant Nations and No-Man's Land," he told them. "Command wants you there double-time, Miss Elphaba."

Elphaba sighed. "So much for the medics," she grumbled. "No rest for the wicked, I supposed. Okay, Glinda, I'll see you again in a few hours…"

She was halfway through clambering onto her broomstick when Glinda grabbed her by the shoulder. "Just where the hell do you think you're going?" she demanded.

"I'm heading for the border, obviously."

"And what happens if you have another dream-memory while you're still awake? What if you fall off?"

"It hasn't happened before," said Elphaba, a tad more defensively than she'd have liked.

"Have you been on the broom since you started having these fugue states?"

"…not that I know of."

"Better safe than sorry, then: off the broom."

"And how am I supposed to get to the border, then? Walk?"

Glinda just smirked and unbuttoned the cloak.

Then without warning, her body once again fell forward onto fours, her hands and feet hardening into hooves, her body erupting with inhuman muscles, her hair unravelling into a long mane, her face jutting outwards, her eyes shifting to the side of her head, the colour draining from her skin… until, in a matter of seconds, Glinda had been replaced by a snowy-white mare.

She'd even manifested horseshoes, a saddle and stirrups.

"Showoff," chuckled Elphaba.

Glinda neighed proudly.

Moments later, she was galloping across the countryside with Elphaba on her back, the forests around them nothing more than a blur.

Elphaba would have liked to have stayed awake for the journey, if only because she hadn't been riding since she was a child – the result of the one family vacation in which Frexspar had been in a good enough mood to allow her to take part in the fun. But alas, barely a minute went by before Elphaba found her grip on reality once again slipping away.

And before she knew it-

Years have passed since the fall of the Emerald City.

Oz is long since dead and gone. In the months following the destruction of the capital, the magical fallout generated by the blast poisoned the soil for miles around, leaving most of the central region of the country reduced to barren magical wastelands. Once the Loyalists and the Deviants found new homes, the war continued by long distance, with magicians casting spells of unimaginable power at the distant cities and experimental mortars launching explosive shells for hundreds of miles in the hope of eliminating an enemy base. Miscast spells and misaimed shells were all too common in those days; caught right in the middle of conflict, the rapidly emptying nation of Oz took the brunt of the crossfire: helped along by the carnage of the early years of the civil war, the ruination expanded until at last nothing remained of Oz except for wastelands bordered on either side by impassable cliffs – the better to keep out the monsters that haunt the desolation. With all hints of its former nature erased, it is now No-Man's Land.

But does it really matter?

Looking down on her new home from the balcony of the newly finished palace of Exemplar, the Empress is content: Oz is dead, but perfection lives on.

Already, the Ozian Loyalists under the Empress's command have built themselves a new capital city far to the east of Oz. This is only the beginning, for engineers are extending their new home into dozens of ancillary settlements dotted across the countryside, from cities nearly as grand as their new capital to humble outposts guarding their border. Across the countryside, factory complexes unceasingly churn out new airships and weapons for the cause, while colossal magically-enhanced farms produce gargantuan harvests that can keep every city in the empire fed for years on end – and provide suitable charity to deserving vassal states. Needless to say, the population has blossomed over the last few months, fuelled by an influx of refugees and natives anxious to benefit from Imperial generosity: the army is swiftly replenishing its ranks, and with mining, logging and weapons development efforts increasing in leaps and bounds, they will soon have everything they need to continue the expansion of their mighty empire.

This is not Oz reborn.

This is Unbridled Radiance, a fitting name for their role in the world: in the years that follow, they will cast a light that cannot be ignored or hidden from, a light that brings beauty, peace, enlightenment and perfection upon any who are willing to look upon it.

Perfection cannot be denied.

Fiyero is proof of this: he stands beside her now on the balcony, his beauty preserved for all time in the undying shell of Purification. It took some effort and more than a little bit of invasive surgery, but eventually the Empress was able to drive his obsession with Glinda out of his head. True, he has almost no individuality to speak of anymore, but the sacrifice was a necessary one; now, the Empress is happy keeping him by her side, where he can no longer be distracted by the news of Glinda's latest exploits. For good measure, he now wears a mask – partly as a symbol of his new status but mostly so that none among the enemy can be tempted to befoul his beautiful face,

These days, Glinda is more commonly known as the Mentor, supposedly for her role in guiding her emerging nation of Deviants through the wilderness. But the Empress knows that this title is due entirely to her new role in preaching her blasphemous gospel of rebellion to the masses, driving them to greater excesses of self-mutilation in the pursuit of bodily freedoms. There's even been word of a church venerating the Irredeemables in the Deviant capital, no doubt revering Glinda as a saviour as well – delusional narcissistic cow that she is.

In a further insult, Glinda has given birth to a daughter: named Alyssiana Tiggular, the child was born without deformity or any potential for Distortion. This is perhaps the most galling fact of all: had she been able to capture Glinda as well as Fiyero, she might have had a chance to rescue Alyssiana at the moment of her birth, even given her a decent home and a proper upbringing that might even end in Purification. But instead, Fiyero's sweet little blonde-haired angel will be brought up among traitors, criminals and Deviants, corrupted into believing that her loathsome brother – Allaran the giant – deserves to live uncorrected.

But if Glinda hopes to expand her family any further, it won't be with Fiyero: no more abominations or corruptions will be spawned through his abuse. From now on, Fiyero will be the beloved champion of the Empress, and though he may never understand the wonders that the two of them have accomplished together, their union will birth a new generation of perfect beings to lead the expanding territories of Unbridled Radiance.

They've already made a start.

The Empress smiles at Fiyero, gently guiding his hand to her swollen belly. He's a long way from understanding what the gesture means, but he will learn – and at any rate, he does not protest; he is instantly pacified by her presence, his guarded nature relaxing at her lightest touch. He may not know that he helped plant the seeds slowly blossoming inside her, but now he is free to love her with an intensity his former self never could, and he will protect his children better than mortal father.

"Soon," she whispers to him. "Soon."

Within her, the twins kick ever-so-slightly, and the Empress grins in delight.

She already knows everything about them, though they are still a month from being born; she knows their health, their sex, their potential – and she knows they will be perfect in every way, blessed in a way that no mortal offspring could be. Her two daughters will be the firebrands who will lead her armies and rule the frontiers of the empire while their mother maintains its capital: they shall call command the hearts and minds of people yet unconquered, while she will ensure that Unbridled Radiance itself remains undimmed.

She's already prepared names for them: Elarose and Essella. Beautiful names for beautiful girls.

Perfection leaves nothing to chance.

"What the hell is that?"

Elphaba blinked, stumbling back into reality. For a split second, she could only glance around her in confusion as she took in all the myriad sights and sounds, trying to figure out where she'd awakened. Fortunately, it seemed as though they'd arrived safely at the border: Glinda was beside her (once again in human form and draped with Elphaba's cloak), while several soldiers and mages were hastily trundling up on a small fleet of battered-looking personnel carriers.

Ahead of them lay the first of the markers that made up the border: this tiny cylinder of metal and glass marked the network of spells that helped protect the Deviant Nations from magical intrusions, shielding the country from teleporters, supernatural plagues and other remote threats. There were loopholes, as Unbridled Radiance had proved in their Clarity bombing of Greenspectre, but for the most part, the enchantments at the border and around each major city kept the country safe.

For good measure, the outward-facing enchantments made it possible for magicians within the Deviant Nations to cast spells of their own at Unbridled Radiance without having it blocked by the border protections.

It took a while to recognize what Glinda was looking at, for it lay beyond the marker – and beyond the enchanted borderline. It sat on the edge of the cliffs that marked the end of the Deviant Nations and the beginning of No-Man's Land, a small bronze disc almost lost amidst the long grass bordering the precipice. Less than a foot across, it was carved with archaic symbols and marked with about a dozen subtle signs of enchantment, but other than that, there honestly wasn't much that was notable about this tiny lump of metal.

In fact, Elphaba wouldn't have noticed it at all if it hadn't been for the mechanical wreckage that surrounded it: several mechanical soldiers lay in heaps around it, some partially melted to slag, some shredded down to their tiniest components, and others just crushed into compacted scrap metal. By now, Elphaba was getting used to the intrusive dream-memories, so it was probably safe to assume that she'd been responsible for the carnage.

Question was, how had the plate survived the bombardment? What had the tik-tok men been doing with it?

Unable to contain her curiosity, Elphaba stepped closer to examine the artifact. Passing over the marker, she stepped across the barrier of spells and out onto the cliff… and in that moment, the bronze plate began to glow, erupting in a torrent of dazzling white energies.

Before her stunned eyes, the sky itself seemed to split in two, revealing a faintly translucent portal hovering perhaps twenty feet in the air over the disc. On the other end of the portal, in a vast granite hall, a familiar figure dressed in immaculate white robes stood in readiness, gazing imperiously down at Elphaba, a smirk etched from ear to ear.

The Radiant Empress inclined her head in mocking greeting. Then, she raised her hands, the magical energies of a spell roaring to life around her.

Too late, Elphaba realized she'd been lured into another trap: the disc was a conductive portal generator, designed specifically to project and conduct magical energies to the portal's destination; the Empress couldn't physically travel through it, and neither could Elphaba, but spells could.

This could only have been built specifically to allow Alphaba a means of assassinating her other self. And because there'd be no guarantee of the damn thing working inside the border protections, the mechanical soldiers had probably been ordered to leave the portal generator here to draw Elphaba's attention, lure her out of safety and into the range of the portal. And infuriatingly enough, the Empress must have known it would have worked: from personal experience, she knew Elphaba was headstrong, knew she could be reckless and foolhardy and all-too-curious for her own good… and worst of all, she knew Elphaba was a slow learner when it came to traps.

And now…

A searing wave of incandescent white light billowed from the portal, and Elphaba had just enough time to jump out of the way before the patch of grass she'd been standing on erupted into flames. Landing heavily on her side, she staggered upright, briefly caught between running for safety and standing her ground.

Conventional wisdom told her that the best option would be to duck behind the border and hope that the Empress hadn't somehow grown powerful enough to just punch right through it. But showing her back to the enemy would be suicide at this point… and besides, Elphaba still recalled what the Empress had done to Dr Dillamond and Fiyero.

Readying a spell of her own, Elphaba returned fire, sending a wave of searing emerald light blazing across the cliff and through the portal – transmitting it right back into Exemplar. The Empress immediately swatted the blast of magic aside, but not without her face contorting with the effort; hissing an incantation of her own, she grabbed Elphaba by the shoulders with a solid fist of telekinetic power and slammed her bodily into the ground, tossing her aside like an unwanted toy. Rising awkwardly, Elphaba replied with another spell – and then things got a little confused.

For the next forty seconds, the two duelled back and forth across the cliff, blasting each other with spells that no other magician in Ozian history had ever mastered. Elphaba's enhancements gave her additional strength, but the Empress was still the stronger of the two and undeniably the more experienced – leaving them almost at stalemate:

Elphaba conjured a handheld lightning storm and flung it through the portal, only for the Empress to catch it in one hand and send it right back as a solid bolt of lightning that came within inches of splitting Elphaba in half. The Empress called upon the grass around Elphaba to sprout into creepers and strangle her to death, only for Elphaba to easily shear through them with a scythe of energy. Elphaba tore a chunk of rock off the edge of the cliff and flung it at the Empress, who simply shattered it to atoms with a wave of her hand. Many times, Elphaba tried to destroy the portal generator, only for another spell from the Empress to block her progress, forcing her back into the duel.

Finally, Elphaba gave up on being subtle.

Drawing on all her reserves of power, she felt the crystals on her back erupt with fresh energy, conducting her magic swifter and easier than ever before: her hair stood on end, her feet left the ground, and her body itself began to glow, a haunting nimbus of emerald light shrouding her from head to toe. With a howl of exhilaration, she sent a solid wave of kinetic force cannoning through the portal with the impact of a runaway freight engine.

The blast caught Alphaba off guard, knocking her clean off her feet and sending her hurtling backwards for several dozen feet. Hastily righting herself through levitation and sheer willpower, the Empress she lunged forward, readying another spell – only for Elphaba to beat her to the punch: fire gushed from her outstretched hands, billowing through the portal and washing over the Empress in a scorching tide of flame. Once again caught off guard, the Empress had no time to shield herself from the firestorm, and for several seconds burned as readily as the grass at Elphaba's feet before she finally managed to extinguish herself.

Her clothes incinerated, she rose from the ashes a charred ruin of a human being, her flesh seared red and black in some places – and almost melted off the bone in others; her eyes had been boiled white in their sockets, her hair was gone, and her face hung in molten tatters from her skull, her lipless mouth frozen in a hideous skeletal grin.

Then, as Elphaba watched in disbelief, the burns began to vanish. Scorched flesh healed in a matter of seconds, the molten skin fitting itself back over the muscles like gloves, her hair beginning to sprout again. Within a matter of seconds, she was almost intact enough to smile properly.

Howling in frustration, Elphaba cursed the Empress with every spell she could think of. She called upon a spear of ice to impale Alphaba through the heart; she summoned a swarm of monstrous birds with knives instead of feathers to lacerate the Empress to death; she conjured up her ethereal scythe and sliced away at her opponent's limbs; she called upon the ground beneath the Empress's feet to crush her to death; she breathed fire; she spat acid; she screamed sonic blasts that should have liquefied the brains inside Alphaba's head.

But somehow, the Empress always recovered – either blocking the spell with her own magic or soaking up the damage without flinching, trusting in her innate regenerative powers to heal any of her injuries.

Finally, Elphaba lashed the air with a solid wave of ethereal blades: ten, twenty, forty, eighty, a hundred and sixty – they multiplied in a glittering storm of floating knives and poured themselves through the portal: the smaller ones covered first, peeling the skin off her bones one piece at a time. Then, as the Empress tried to swat them away, larger blades swept in, slicing away her hands, cutting through her legs at the kneecaps, trimming her arms down to the elbows, scything so much of her body away that even her healing powers had difficulty keeping up.

Then the final blade whistled through the air, decapitating the Empress in a single blow. And in the confusion that followed, Elphaba focused her attention on the portal generator at long last – and reduced it to molten metal with a single blast of flame.

The last thing Elphaba saw, before the portal slammed shut, was the still-healing Empress neatly reattaching her head to the stump of her neck.

Several exhausted seconds passed in silence.

"Are you alright?" Glinda panted.

Elphaba took a deep breath; very slowly, she took a deep breath, tottered back over the border, and slowly sank to the ground.

"I think so," she said at last. "How long have I been on autopilot? I mean, from the sounds of things, I'm not able to speak while I'm under the influence, so how long has it been since I said anything?"

"About half an hour, I think."

"That's not too bad, I guess."

"Yeah, but from what Wolton's told me, you've been drifting in and out for nearly four weeks."

"Four weeks? You mean, I've been having these waking dream-memories for a fortnight now? I've been almost dead silent for the last month and nobody thought that something might be wrong?"

"Well, there has been a lot of fighting, and there hasn't been much of an opportunity to stop and relax. Besides, the troops thought you were in a bad mood, so they didn't want to bother you in case something exploded."

Elphaba blushed a rich shade of avocado. "Really?"

"In their defence, you are a little bit scary when you get mad. Now, as fun as it's been putting my powers to the test, I think we should probably call it a day and head back to barracks."

"No way," said Elphaba, firmly. "The fighting's over for now, so I'm heading straight back to Greenspectre for a checkup, and I am not going back to the front lines until Kiln can figure what the hell is wrong with me: I don't know what's causing it, but I know for a fact that I can't keep on having these dream-memories while I'm awake."

"Sweet Lurline, is it really that serious?"

"Glinda, I've been off speaking terms with reality for a month. The only reason why I'm here right now is because my body was operating on autopilot, and at least intelligent enough not to walk off the edge of a cliff. That's not something you can just dismiss out of hand, believe me. We need to find out what the hell these dream pills are really doing to me. And besides, I've got to have a very serious discussion with the Mentor about something else."

"What's that?"

"I think it's time we talked about how we're supposed to kill the Empress, because I just saw her survive flaying, dismemberment and decapitation without so much as losing consciousness! Unless we have a prison cell that's strong enough to keep her under wraps, this war is going to go on quite literally forever. So, back to Greenspectre – double time! We've got an assassination to plan!"

A/N: Up next... just guess :)