Fiyero: ok YOU'RE doing the a/n

Fiyero: dont even ask me about it

Authors' Note: Ding dong the fic is dead…Which old fic? This Wicked fic! Ding dong the Wicked fic is dead…

Okay, so we've been neglecting this poor fic for a while, but for good reasons. Yes. Very good reasons. First of all, we both went to New York and saw Wicked, and then when we got back we were both…distracted. With…other things. Yes. Good reasons. But now it is alive again. Yay.

We hope you enjoy this chapter. Or at least I do, since Drew is not in any way responsible for this a/n.

=P Michelle

Chapter 6

"He's not going to just stand down there and wait for me, you know," said Jessa nervously. "He's going to send more troops up eventually. Or…"

"Or what?" asked Glinda.

"I don't know. But he'll think of something…"

"We need to think of something too," said Elphaba. "We need a plan of some sort if we're to stop Bo - the Tin Man."

"Like what?" asked the blonde ruler. "There's nothing we can do. If we escape, they'll find a way in and kill everyone in the Emerald City. If we stay here, they'll kill us too and get the Grimmerie."

Fiyero looked at Elphaba. "She has a point."

"Ah, but that's the trouble with your plans," said Elphaba, turning to Glinda.

"What is?" asked Glinda, looking puzzled.

"Both of your plans involve leaving them alone. We can't win that way."

"What else can we do?" wailed Glinda. "We're powerless!"

"The ruler of Oz sniveling that she's powerless…" said Elphaba disgustedly. "I never thought I would live to see the day. Then again, the Wizard was no—"

Fiyero elbowed her hard in the ribs, and she fell silent with a sharp intake of breath.

"What?" asked Glinda again, more urgently this time.

"What Faewas trying to tell you," said Fiyero pointedly, "is that we need to find some way to beat them while they're still here in the city."

"And that would be…how?"

"We could take all the suits of armor out of the castle," suggested Jessa, pointing at the one in the corner. "If we put them on and attack them, maybe we'll have a chance."

"There are too many," said Elphaba quickly. "They'd cut through us smooth as butter."

Glinda flinched at the graphic analogy.

"I could go out and try to stall them," suggested Fiyero. "They can't hurt me."

"No," said Elphaba again, before anyone else had a chance to speak. "I'm not going to let you take a risk like that."

Glinda cleared her throat uncomfortably.

Glinda cleared her throat uncomfortably. "Well, Fae, if you know so much, why don't you devise a plan?"

"I'm thinking…" Elphaba massaged her temples.

"Why is he doing this? Why would the Tin Man want to come to the Emerald City? He has nothing against us, does he?" Glinda plopped down on the bed, spreading her large skirt out around her.

Elphaba suddenly froze. "Dear sweet Oz…" She grabbed Fiyero's straw arm and pulled him aside. "Did I ever tell you about what happened? With Nessa and Boq? Who the Tin Man really is?"

"What?" asked Fiyero.

"Well nevermind, I can't tell you the whole story here…she'll find out. But…suffice it to say that the Tin Man is someone you and I knew and loved."

"Dr. Dillamond?" asked Fiyero blankly.

Elphaba stamped her foot irritably, causing everyone else in the room to jump.

"No! You really are brainless…"

"E—"

Elphaba clamped a hand over his mouth.

"Don't mind him," she told the others, too cheerfully. "All that straw, you know, gets in the way of his thoughts at times."

She turned back to him. "Boq," she hissed. "I turned him into the Tin Man - but I had a good excuse! It's a long story… but basically, Glinda, Nessa, and I wrecked Boq's life… That's why he's hear… he wants to get revenge on Glinda - he's already had his 'revenge' on Nessa and I - he thinks we're both dead. If Glinda dies…"

"…he'll feel his revenge is completed," finished Fiyero. "But how do we explain this to Glinda without revealing everything?"

"We don't. At least not for now."

"Then what do you suggest we do?" asked Fiyero.

Elphaba looked at the floor for a moment, chewing absently on her thumbnail. Then suddenly she smiled.

"I have it."

"What?" asked Jessa.

"As someone I used to know would say, 'a little change in the weather.'"

Boq the Tin Man was not a happy camper. He was not a camper of any kind, for that matter, seeing as how a sudden rain would make him rust beyond recognition; still, he thought the old figure of speech fit his current mood rather well. He had sent the girl up the castle wall more than half an hour ago. She was not back yet, and judging from the relative quiet inside the building, she had not yet managed to kill anyone or do any damage. Boq sighed and impatiently drummed his fingers on the hilt of his axe.

"That's what I get for trusting a girl," he thought aloud. "Little girls don't kill - not intentionally anyway. How could I have been such a fool?" He lifted his axe and threw it, watching it slice through the air and cut into the ground.

A low rumble could be heard overhead. The Tin Man looked up at the skies and saw dark clouds gathering quickly over the Emerald City. "Curses!" he cried. He walked over to his axe and pulled it from the ground. "Cover… I need to take cover before this storm hits!" He looked around frantically, but all he saw close by were fields of the impossibly-green grass, the emerald walls of the castle, a few buildings, all locked up, and hundreds of Winkies standing around lazily. He knew they would do nothing until he ordered them to. No one knew whether Winkies were too stupid to act on their own, or just plain lazy, but they never did anything unless someone of greater power told them to.

"If I leave," he muttered, "then I'll have to leave the castle unguarded. With the girl inside."

The thought did not suit him well. Since he had not seen any immediate results, he was not inclined to trust the girl. In fact, he thought, she was probably in there making alliances with them. That was the problem with little girls—well, one of them anyway. They were too stupid to get any job done right.

"Or too smart…" he groaned irritably.

Someone cleared their throat from behind him and Boq turned to find a middle-aged man fidgeting with his hat, eyes cast downwards. "Um, uh, Highness, there's a, um, a storm comin' and you need to find some shelter if you don't, uh, want to rust."

Boq looked at the man as though he had just said the most obvious thing in the world - which he had.

"And where do you suppose I should take shelter?"

The man continued to fidget, looking increasingly more uncomfortable at the attention he was being paid.

"Well, uh, there's a big building over there - a library, I think - and it's not closed up like the others."

Boq cringed at the thought of all those books. To him books would always mean school, and school meant Shiz. And Shiz meant only two things in his mind: Glinda. And revenge.

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