(AN: For what it's worth, I liked this story at first, when the idea was fresh. Unfortunately, Gleeks and a certain rp-er on tumblr have made a Wicked band story seem stupid and born a special kind of loathing towards Elphaba within me. However, even before that, I knew that this story had to end in a certain way.)

Finale

The moment that lasted forever was now over. Glinda and Elphaba were lost amid cheers and cries for the encore. Suddenly, Glinda felt strong hands pull her out of Elphaba's arms and back toward the drum-set. She looked around and saw that two Gale Force soldiers had pulled her back to her drum-kit, where the wheel-chair bound Sir Chuffrey was hiding just off-stage.

"So," he spoke with frustration. "Thought you could pull one over me, did you? Hmm?" Glinda didn't respond.

"Get her out of here," he said to the guards.

"No matter what you do to me," she said, as they were taking her away. "I'll make sure all of Oz knows what you and the Wizard have done! I'll tell them all the truth about how evil you are!"

"Evil?" Chuffrey laughed. "Don't be so naive, dear. Evil is what I say it is, because I'm the one in charge. Besides, who'd believe you if you told them the Wicked Witch of the West was actually a friend and the Wonderful Wizard of Oz was their enemy? They'd just turn against you, make you their enemy."

"I don't care," Glinda replied.

"How about your friend?" he gestured to Elphaba, who was now addressing the screaming crowds. He then turned about and whispered something to the guards. He then wheeled back off-stage, while the guards kept Glinda in their grasp.

The crowds were screaming for an encore. Glinda's heart was racing within her chest as she felt something was happening. Another guard appeared, dragging the Glinda impersonator behind her and sitting her down at the drum-set. Glinda was feeling incensed: she wasn't even allowed to finish the show!

The encore was an original People of Oz song, though Glinda couldn't recall when she had heard it. Then again, there was a lot of things going on on the road that she didn't know about. Ramon and Elphaba were usually together, writing up lyrics for the songs they would play, Glinda rarely got to see what was being written. Then again, she herself had written a few numbers without those two, for obvious reasons... But she wasn't thinking about that now; not the song or its structure, or how beautiful Elphaba's voice was, even tired and forlorn, as it belted out the magnificent words. Glinda was looking at the front-row: those four, odd-looking people she had seen in the crowd were now muscling their way to the front. The metal one helped the little girl up onto the lion's back (she couldn't hear if it was a Lion or not, but then again, what with all the bans and the tight security, any Animal with a brain wouldn't make it known that he/she was anything more than an animal). The overwhelming glimmer and shine of the stage-lights caught on the smooth round barrel of something metal.

There was a loud noise, and suddenly Elphaba collapsed on-stage.

Sheer and utter mayhem broke out in Kiamo Ko. The sound of gunfire sent everyone running and screaming for their lives. People were being trampled to death in a mad rush for the exits, an owl and his donkey companion were hiding up against the wall, braying and hooting in fear, and the little girl and her friends were now missing. The Monkeys were gone, the Gale Force had disappeared, and that little blond trollop had ran off, screaming and whining like a frightened school girl. On the stage, Elphaba was not moving, but nobody seemed to care.

Suddenly, Glinda felt strong hands seize her arms as she was being dragged off-stage.

"Take your hands off me!" she screamed and cried with all of her might. "I...Let go of me! ELPHIE NEEDS HELP!"

Whether her own struggling finally won out, or whether something more than physical happened in that moment, is unknown. What is known is that Glinda pushed her way out of the guards' grasp and threw herself down in the direction of Elphaba, grasping at whatever her hands could reach. It only lasted for a moment, for as soon as she had fallen flat on her face (and chest, though she was in so much pain, she felt numb to anything else by now), the guards picked her up and dragged her away off the stage.

Back in the throne room of the Emerald Palace at the Emerald City, that odd little red-whiskered guard Omby Amby was red-faced with frustration and terror as he ran back from the main gate and into the throne room. The sight he found, however, was not a darkened throne with the terrifying Giant Head. Instead, he saw a great throne, empty of all save for a little old man. That scary, fish-faced woman was pacing nervously about, and Sir Chuffrey was glowering in his chair.

"This is all your fault!" Madam Morrible hissed at Sir Chuffrey. "You arranged that...Farewell Tour, and made sure that all of Oz knew about it in the process! I'm in charge of the press around here, if you don't recall!"

"Oh, everyone slips up now and then," Chuffrey dismissed. "This'll be forgotten in a week."

"A week?" she brayed in amazement. "Do you not hear the crowds? They're calling for our heads! Well, your head, to be precise!" She turned to the Wizard. "Oh, if you'd just let me kill her when we had the chance!"

"I never wanted to harm her," the old man sighed. "I really thought we might be able to convince her."

"Oh, this is no time to be sentimental!" Chuffrey barked at the Wizard. "She was your enemy, and Oz is better off without her."

"Thanks to you," Madam Press-Secretary replied. "All of Oz wants us dead! You let your little accident get broadcast across civilized Oz. You made the Wizard and his guards appear to be murderers!"

"Oh, why not?" Chuffrey replied. "She was a wicked old witch who got what was coming to her. The people of Oz will accept that if we tell it to them. After all, we still own the press, right?"

"This was a mistake from the start!" Madam Morrible groaned angrily. "You gave the Wicked Witch a platform to speak her lies against the Wizard, and then you killed her in front of their eyes, giving them reason to believe her! You, Sir Nicolas Chuffrey, have your hands full!"

"Well, well..." Chuffrey stammered. "Well, what about Glinda? Huh? She's still some kind of celebrity, A-Ambassador of Good and all. Why doesn't she go out and-and tell Oz that everything's alright? Huh? Tha-That Goodness has prevailed against wicked witches?"

"Yes, Glinda," Madam Morrible turned to the pathetic pile of soiled blue bubble dress in the corner. "Why don't you make yourself useful for a change?"

Glinda had not stopped crying since Kiamo Ko. Now she was huddled up in a corner of the Palace, clutching the one thing she could find of Elphaba's. She was taken away when the body was still on-stage, and now she didn't know what had become of her: probably looted and viol...thinking about what became of Elphaba's body didn't make the pain go away, didn't give her any sense of closure. It only made the tears come again.

"She's useless!" Chuffrey roared, then wheeled himself away. In a fit of rage, something came flying at the back of his chair. It missed, but as it hit the floor, something small rolled out of the depths of it.

"What's that?" Madam Morrible asked, gesturing at the missile.

It was a black hat, tall peaked and wide-brimmed. It had such a history: from Larena's mother to young Galinda's wardrobe, where it was gathering dust for being 'hideodious', directly into Elphaba's hands. She wore it while she was the Wicked Witch, and it was the only thing Glinda was able to take from where Elphaba had been shot.

What fell out of the hat, however, was a different story. It was the thing which Glinda had retrieved from Elphaba, now lying up and exposed for all to see.

The Wizard walked off his throne and picked up the tiny green bottle.

"Where did you get this?" he asked Glinda.

"From El..." she choked back a sob. "From her. Don't drink it! It'll do horrible things to you."

"Where did she get it from?" he asked, disregarding her warning as he examined the bottle.

"She said it was her mother's," Glinda replied. Suddenly, her eyes exploded to the size of saucers, and she rose up from her spot on the floor.

"I've only seen a little green bottle like one other time," she said. Her eyes did not leave the old man as she spoke. "It was here, in this room." All the memories came back into her mind as she approached him with a confrontational glare in her blue eyes.

"You offered me a drink from it!" she said to the Wizard.

The Wizard's hands were shaking as he held the green bottle in his hand, as if it were evidence of some great evil, of some horrible deed.

"Did you..." he muttered. "Say it belonged to...Oh, dear Lord!" He collapsed into a pile of weeping, as he held the bottle in his hands in sudden revelation and shock.

"That's it!" exclaimed Madam Morrible with glee. "That explains why she had such power!"

Suddenly, Glinda approached the Wizard, a look of revulsion and supreme purpose in her eyes.

"I want you to leave Oz," she said determinedly. "I'll make a pronouncement, that the strains of Wizardship have been too much, and that you are taking an extended leave of absence." The little old man was weeping, his head bowed and ignoring all else save for his pain.

"Did you hear what I just said?" Glinda returned.

"Yes," he sobbed. "Yes, Your Goodness."

"Well, then," she replied. "You better get your balloon ready." She waved him off, and the little old man shuffled out of the Throne Room, broken and guilty.

"GUARDS!" Glinda shouted in a voice that would make her younger, carefree self scream in shock and amazement.

"Glinda, dear!" Madam Morrible sang. "I know we've had our miniscule differentiations in the past, but..." Too late, the doors opened and a small platoon of Gale Force soldiers appeared, pole-arms at the ready. Glinda now looked Madam Morrible dead in the eyes, a look of disgust in her eyes.

"Madam," she said. "Have you ever considered how you'd fare in captivity?"

"What?"

"Captivity," Glinda mouthed slowly. "You know, what you've put the Animals of Oz into! Also known as prison!" Madam Morrible's already sheet-white face lost whatever color there was left in it as Glinda continued.

"You see, I don't think you'll last very long," she mocked, recalling an incident many years ago in the Oz-Dust Ballroom, what seemed now like the centrifuge of the entire change in her adult life. "My personal opinion is that you, Madam Morrible, simply do not have what it takes." She flashed the ex-Press Secretary a mocking smile. "I hope you'll prove me wrong. I doubt you will." She then turned to the guards and, in that commanding voice with which she summoned them, shouted out their orders: "Take her away!"

The guards disappeared, amidst her protests, into some dark hole in the Southstairs. Glinda, whatever she had done in her past, was not a murderer: even Galinda could not have actually killed anyone, despite her shallowness and general apathy for anyone other than herself. She would let old age (She's rather old already, she thought) take its toll on Madam Morrible in her life-time sentence in the prison from whence no one returned.

Just then, she turned on the last one left. He couldn't escape, as Madam Morrible was trying to while Glinda was passing judgment on her. The only place he could go was outside, and that was not looking to be a survivable option.

"Uh," Chuffrey smiled as Glinda walked towards him with determination. "I hope you bear me no ill-will, eh? I was just following orders, looking after the interests of my family and of my company. Just good business after all, eh? Please, don't kill me or...or imprison me!"

"I don't have to," she said. "You see, you used me, just as you tried to use the Farewell Tour to get all of Oz to follow your lies. Unfortunately, you made a mistake at Kiamo Ko."

"And-and what mistake was that?" he laughed nervously.

"You broadcasted the Kiamo Ko show live and unedited to all of Oz," she said. "Everyone got to see what you orchestrated before you could cover your tracks."

"B-b-but-but-but," Chuffrey stammered. "What does that have to do with me? It-It was Dorothy, wasn't it? That odd little girl from Kanzas, or wherever she said she was from! The Wizard asked her to kill the Witch, right? What do you have against me?"

"You used her as well," Glinda said. "But you underestimated something very important."

"What was that?"

"Her good nature," Glinda returned. "You see, not only would nobody believe that a little girl could kill anyone, but they also saw that it was not said little girl who killed her, but Gale Force guards acting on your orders!"

"P-p-Please, spare me! After all, we're together, aren't we? I'm your Chuffy-poops!"

"Toodles, 'Chuffy-poops'," she mocked. "Your public is waiting for you." She then rang a bell.

"Y-Yes, Your Goodness!" Omby Amby said, snapping to attention at the sound of the bell.

"Please escort Lord Nicolas Chuffrey out of the palace," she said. "Then shut the door once he is out."

"Yes, Your Goodness!" the little man with the red whiskers took the back of Lord Chuffrey's chair and started to wheel him out towards the on-coming crowds. His whining, wailing cries for Glinda's mercy were even more blood-curdling than Madam Morrible's hand been. Glinda averted her eyes from the long hallway that led out of the Emerald Throne Room.

It was his fault in the end, she realized. He let the last show be broadcasted publicly, letting all of Oz see the green girl for what she truly was, then executed her right before their very eyes. A certain kind of harsh, cruel justice was enacted here, Glinda realized: he who had been the Wizard and Morrible's strongest supporter had dug his own grave while digging her grave as well.

"Oh, Elphie," she sobbed out loud. "I wish I could have saved you!" She collapsed once again, her hand covering her hot, tear-stained eyes.

Somewhere in Kiamo Ko...

Avaric Tenmeadows was there at the bitter end. He saw the Owl and the Donkey, "fans" who had followed The Witch and the Flying Monkeys since the beginning, hide and cower when she was shot, then, after the smoke was cleared, brag about how they would have wrestled the guards down and saved Fae from death. It sickened him, how fake they were.

He, Avaric Tenmeadows, the one who had been the ass since the beginning, who had made being a member of the People of Oz a chore, was stepping out from the shadows of vagrancy and anonymity to do his part for the ones he loved. Yes, he loved them. He had wasted his life treating the only people who cared that much for him like crap, and now he would make up for it.

Wrapped up in a black sheet was the green woman's body. He had to find someplace safe to bury it. During the commotion after she was shot, he made his way onto the stage and opened a secret trapdoor directly beneath her. He would not let those who still believed the Wizard's lies loot and desecrate her body. Even the thought of what they might have done with her corpse was enough to make him lose what little he had in his stomach.

He was now dragging the sheet through the secret tunnels beneath Kiamo Ko. He was getting lost now; he only discovered the one trapdoor, he never had enough time to explore all the secret tunnels. Now was his chance: he could lose himself within here, find a place no one else knew and a suitable resting place for Elphaba Thropp. The green Munchkinlander, called "The Wicked Witch of the West", would have her final resting place in the Vinkus.

The tunnels were stiflingly hot, and he himself was weak and famished. He placed the sheet holding Elphaba's body down, then sat down beside it to take wind. He was out of shape and hadn't eaten in Oz knows how long. But he had to do this, for the memory of the People of Oz. Galinda was now Glinda, the "Ambassador of Goodness" in Oz and, though he knew it not, now the de facto ruler. Milla had returned to Munchkinland in the wake of the tragedy, back to her family with tales to tell her grandchildren. Fiyero was missing in action, and Ramon and Elphaba were now permanent members of the great beyond. He was the only one left to clean up after they had left or died: he would make up for how he had treated her before by now giving her, Elphaba, a proper burial.

After a while, he pushed himself up to his feet, then turned to the black sheet. He looked back at it, a look of surprise in his eyes. With two hands he opened the sheet up, finding a small puddle of blood coalescing at the bottom. He looked about in the dim light of the tunnel, and yet he saw no trail of blood. He hadn't heard anyone approach, and he would have heard anyone opening the sheet up. Yet here he was, alone in the tunnels beneath Kiamo Ko, with nothing more than a blood-stained black sheet.

Elphaba Thropp was gone.

(AN: There we go. The story is now done, and we can call this failed experiment over.)

(Like with "On My Own", the words from the Wicked finale were slightly altered [artistic license, and because this isn't song-verse], and the Owl and Donkey reappear: they're a kind of dark parody of the sudden love of a certain guitarist who also was killed on-stage. It's strange how, when people live, we are either indifferent or spiteful towards them, only to worship them once they die [usually prematurely].)

(We also get to see Avaric's return, and an open ending. You know, the whole "Not yet" thing from Maguire's Wicked. Leaves you wondering, doesn't it?)