FixatedOnVerdigris
Three… Two… One… Elphaba cursed. She had been counting down the seconds, just as the Wizard, back at the palace, had been. She was still a good two minutes away, and her time was up. Abruptly pulling to a halt, the witch pulled the Grimmerie from her bag and began flipping through it, balancing on the handle of her broom.
Flying… Transformation… Explosions (and here, Elphaba winced before resuming flipping through the pages)… Aha, there it was. Protection. She found the correct spell and, clearing her throat, began reciting. Within moment, the spell was complete. Stephanie was safe. Now she just had to get there and save everybody else. They were in anti-magic cells, and Elphaba didn't… oh wait, she did. Carley had slipped her the key while at Kiamo Ko. But would she have enough time? She tilted her broom forward, speeding once again towards the palace.
Three... Two... One... The Wizard motioned to Pfanee, a wicked grin on his face. "I think you've caught on as to what you're to do now."
But Pfanee didn't hear him. She was busy staring at the floor, a thoughtful expression on her face. Glinda's words were running through her head. Plus, had this woman whom she was being ordered to kill done anything wrong? She had been in the same cell as Glinda, who Pfanee was certain had done nothing. And, on top of everything, the Wizard was acting less than wonderful.
Pfanee slowly slid her eyes over to Stephanie, whose own were horror-filled. But it was dead silent, nobody dared utter a sound in fear of causing Pfanee not to kill the woman.
But she did so anyway. Her mind had changed. Dropping her blade to the ground and swiftly pulling out her gun, she pointed it at the Wizard.
Stephanie fell to the ground out of relief, then immediately was back on her feet. "Why did you…?"
Pfanee scanned the room. The few guards weren't moving, most likely for fear that the Wizard would be killed. The same reason the Wizard was remaining silent, but with an enraged look on his face. "Open the main doors, I have a feeling your friend will be joining us." She glanced over at Stephanie, then in a slightly more commanding voice, continued. "I don't CARE if you don't trust me; just open it!" And then she made her voice louder so all could hear. "Nobody move, or his Ozness will be slain."
Stephanie frowned, but did as she was told to do. Hurrying to the doors, she pushed them open. As soon as she did so, Elphaba shot through, pausing in midair. Looking down at Stephanie, she muttered a few words underneath her breath and the woman disappeared. There was no magical block in this room, so she could do that. "Pfanee, I have no idea what you're doing, but whatever it is, keep doing it. I'll be right back." She then dismounted her broom and laid it near Pfanee. "Watch that, too." It'd be easier to get them out of their cells if she wasn't flying.
Running out of the room and to the cells, Elphaba pulled the key out of her bag, holding it so she could jam it into the nearest lock.
Elphaba slid to a stop in front of the first cell. All noise and sobs at whatever happened to Stephanie halted immediately. "I want complete silence. Get out, run up to the throne room and help Pfanee."
Elise raised her tail, her head tilted to the side. "Why are-"
Elphaba cut her off. "That qualifies as a question." She quickly opened the first cell holding Shoshana, Glinda, Elise, and many others. "HURRY." She kept opening cells, freeing actresses and fans, until only Kaylee and Holli's cell was left. She jammed the key in, and Holli and Kaylee hurried over from where they had been at the other end of it.
Holli looked down at Elphaba's hands. The witch was becoming more and more irritated, for the lock wasn't opening. "Just go. As soon as you left, the Wizard switched the locks." She smirked. "He hates us for helping you."
Kaylee thwacked Elphaba's emerald hands away from where she was still trying to open the lock and door. "No magic, wrong lock. Just go, we'll be fine!"
Elphaba looked up, her eyes slightly frantic. "I'm not leaving you, especially not after you two tried to help me."
Holli rolled her eyes shaking her head. "No need to play hero. We're buddies, we'll stick together." And then she and Kaylee spoke at the same time. "GO!"
And Elphaba did. Taking a few steps backwards, she let her eyes lock with Kaylee and Holli's, wordlessly promising they'd be alright. She then turned and sprinted for the exit.
Soon, Elphaba was back in the throne room. Moving to Pfanee, she spoke softly to her. "You'll be coming with us, I presume?" Seeing the other woman's nod, she turned to the frantic crowd. Questions were flying now, mostly asking if Stephanie was alright. Elphaba didn't answer these; they'd find out as soon as they got back to Kiamo Ko that Stephanie was fine. A bit hysterical, crying everywhere, but fine nonetheless.
Muttering her spell, there was a large flash of green light, and all Elphabas, Glindas, fans, and Pfanee had disappeared. The gun Pfanee had been holding clattered to the ground, going off with a bang in the opposite direction of the Wizard.
The gunshot caused the guards to move towards the Wizard to verify he was alright. As far as they knew, everybody had escaped. Nobody would check the cells for a while.
Back in their cell, Kaylee and Holli were depressed. But Kaylee tried to make light of the situation by joking around. "Dude, I swear, if they use us as a gosh darned ransom or something like that, I will be so MAD it won't be funny. I'll probably punch whoever has me" she made a face at the obvious reference to the fact that they were in a cell "in the face and make a break for it. Holli, you totes gotta do that too! We'll escape on our own!"
Holli grinned. "Yea, let's do it!"
And it would hopefully work.
TheLilyLaid
There was smoke and then it was gone. They were all familiar with the feeling of being transported magically by now and though it unsettled them, it did not totally distract their thoughts. As soon as the familiar drab walls of Kiamo Ko stared back at them, the rather large group of fans and players turned to each other and sprang into action. Hands touched, eyes met, and the silence betwixt them was deafening as they all assured themselves and each other that they were okay. Suddenly, a myriad of voices began to call out to each other in a cacophony of unneccessary worry and uncontained joy at their reunion.
The noise calmed as quickly as it began as they all looked around for instructions from their leader, Elphaba. She sat calmly, at least as it seemed to most eyes, near the edge of the room. She spoke softly, without her usual harsh wit, and her eyes searched the room for a single face.
"Why don't you guys get sorted back into your normal clothes, and then we'll come up with some sort of plan of action from there?" She glanced around and found Pfannee standing near Glinda. "Pfannee, Glinda can explain everything that's going on to you." She looked to Glinda. "Glinda, do you want to take Pfannee down to get some food and explain this to her?" Glinda nodded and she led Pfannee to a staircase and the two disappeared. The others remained silent for only a moment longer, then proceeded to sort themselves out. Elphaba remained where she sat, her eyes watching the room, searching for something they would not find.
Across the room, two lovers were quietly reuniting.
"Are you alright? I thought I'd lost you for a moment there."
"I'm fine. It's her I'm worried about."
"Her? You mean Elphaba?"
"Yes. call me crazy, but I just get the feeling something is wrong with her." Two pairs of lips met in a soft kiss.
"She seems closest to you, love. Maybe you should talk to her."
"What would I say? I don't know her."
"In our world you are her, and judging from the way these Ozians are reacting to the musical, I'd say there's more truth in that script than you think. You originated this character. In some ways, you've sort of created her, and the others have taken that idea and expanded it. You know who Elphaba is better than you think you do." Another soft kiss and a hug that was just slightly too tight. "Besides, someone has to try. You're that girl. I know it." They smiled.
"You do have a way with words."
"Well I have to don't I? Aren't I supposed to be your Winkie prince?" They laughed slightly and quickly sobered. "Go on. I'll go check on the others." They hug one last time and part, he turning towards the actresses and their fans, she turning towards the only green girl in the room who couldn't wash off the color of her skin. The gazes of the two women met. The emerald one stood and walked through a door. Her player followed. The door slid shut behind them. It was Idina who spoke first.
"Elphaba? Is something wrong?" The green woman grinned, but it was a sad grin.
"Only everything, Idina." Idina could see that something was bothering the woman and so she pressed on, not willing to let her suffer alone.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"Have you ever broken a bone, Idina?" It was a strange question, and ironically it was strange that Elphaba would ask it, given that the very bone she had broken had linked to the red tracksuit that happened to have saved their lives not too long ago.
"Yea. I broke a rib once. It was during the melting sequence, ironically." Elphaba's sad grin returned and she turned a very heavy brown gaze upon Idina.
"Broken bones heal in time, but the scars frm the break, the memories of the pain, they never fade, do they? They never heal." She looked away. "Did you wonder, when you finally came down from the high the medicines no doubt put you on, if you would ever be the same again?" Idina reflected on her days recovering, her most prevalent memory being the day right after her fall, staring up at Glinda's bubble and knowing she'd never see it the same way again.
"At some point, I think, the thought may have crossed my mind. Why?" So many things about that fall could have been different, Idina knew. She could have been injured far worse than she had been. Sometimes, she wondered if that day had been one of those moments people identified as being lucky to be alive.
"I find myself wondering if any of this is really worth it. Oz is much like your Earth you know. You can change the way some people think, but not all of them. Someone out there will always hate me. All it takes is one spark to start a fire. All this saving the world, I'm wondering when there will be time to save myself. Or maybe, if all I've really been trying to do in this, is save myself. No good deed goes unpunished, right?" Idina almost smiled at the reference.
"That spell, you said it was real. What does it do?" Elphaba froze. "Is it something bad?"
"It does exactly what Stephen Swartz meant it to do, and yes, that is very bad." Idina remembered very well what the spell did in the musical and she shivered at the thought of it happening in reality.
"Elphaba, are you afraid?" Brown eyes met brown eyes and in that simple meeting of gazes, the two women knew each other on a deeper level. "So am I."
Suddenly before Elphaba could reply her entire thought process was shattered by an ear-splitting scream. Her eyes once again met Idina's and from the shocked expression on the woman's face, she knew the scream had been her own. Pain, excrutiating pain rocketed through her entire body, pulsing with each beat of her heart from one centralized point on her body. As she felt her legs give way beneath her, her memory closed in on an unattended moment in time. The sound of a gunshot echoed somewhere in her mind and her hands fell unconsciously to the source of her pain. When she felt her hands connect with her body, the only registered thoughts were her sudden fear and a sense of time slowing to a screeching halt. She should've known, should've felt this long before now, but she hadn't, and once again her road of good intentions had led where all such roads lead: to catastrophe.
She saw Idina fly towards her, felt the woman catch her as she fell, heard the woman desperately pleading to her, knew that it was her name that left the singer's lips, but she could not respond. She was frozen, body trapped both by fear and immense shockwaves of pain.
no...no...by the Unnamed God NO!! Her thoughts darkened as the pain overrode her sense. The last thing she knew was the single tear that fell from Idina's brown eyes.
Idina held the green woman in her arms, her panicked screams having quickly subsided as she tried to keep Elphaba from passing out. The door burst open behind her and she knew she heard voices talking, and the faces of the others came to her. Taye reached out and helped her lay Elphaba gently to the floor, his dark eyes watching both her and the green woman she held.
"What happened?" Someone asked. Stephanie, Annaleigh,or Glinda, she couldn't be sure.
"I don't know. We were talking and then she just screamed and then..."She trailed off as her gaze found the place that Elphaba's arms had wrapped so securely as she had fallen. "Oh no..."
Taye's eyes followed Idina's gaze and he knew immediately what had caused Idina to suddenly stop speaking. A silence fell over the room as he reached forward to unbind Elphaba's tightly woven arms. He gently extracted the green limbs from their place upon her body and they all gasped as they watched the blood slowly discolor Elphaba's clothes.
Pfannee was the first to speak.
"My gun must have discharged when she transported us! Oh, Lurline, I am so sorry. I thought it was still pointing at the Wizard."
"It's not your fault. You couldn't have known." Idina whispered, her eyes still staring Elphaba's bleeding body. "We have to stop the bleeding." She ripped a piece off Elphaba's dress off at the bottom and tore open the dress where the darkened bloody circle widened. Forcing herself to move after a moment of dread inducing shock, she tightly tied the cloth around the bullet wound. When she had finished, she could only watch, heartbroken for more reasons than one, as the blood slowly seeped from the small open whole dead center in Elphaba's abdomen.
Beautifullywicked
Glinda looked down at her friend and she felt a tear roll down her cheek, "No," she said softly shaking her head, "No, this can't be happening." She knelt down beside her best friend and took her hand, "Elphie?" she said now letting the tears freely fall, "Oh Elphie."
"Glinda," Elphaba said obviously in pain, "the baby... please..." was all she could manage to get out. She tilted her head a bit towards a bookshelf. "Look... help the baby..." she managed, then fell back into unconsciousness.
Fiyero came rushing into the room at that moment, "What happened?" he said, panic filling his voice. Then he saw Elphaba lying on the floor motionless, "No!" he yelled, rushing to her side, "Oh no." he said, his voice now filling with distress. "Glinda... what?" he looked over to her, devastated at the sight in front of him.
"I... I don't know. At the palace... a gun... accident" was all Glinda said shaking her head. She looked at Fiyero letting out a sob before looking back. "Stay with me please!" she pleaded with her friend. She moved a piece of black hair off Elphaba's face. She looked over to the bookshelf that she had motioned to and one book stuck out to her. She got up and walked over, and grabbed the thick leather covered book, handling it carefully.
"Of course," Idina said looking up from Elphaba's pained face, "Glinda," she said looking hopefully up into her eyes, "do you think... could you?" She motioned to the book.
"I - I don't know," Glinda said, tentatively opening it up, shaking her head, "I still can't read any of this," her voice falling to a near whisper, "I - I don't think..." she shook her head looking into Idina's eyes. "I'm so sorry."
Idina got up and walked over to where Glinda was, "It's okay... it's okay," she said trying to calm her. She looked at the book, then with a confused expression looked over to Elphaba, then back to Glinda, "I - I think... I - I think I can read this," Idina said slowly in disbelief looking down at the Grimmerie's pages again.
All eyes in the room were turned to Idina. "You can read that?" Glinda said slowly, looking at Idina, and a look of hope crossed her face. "Can you... can you save them?" Fiyero asked almost pleading.
"I don't know," Idina said shaking her head, "But I will try. I will do everything in my power to save them." She said with a look of determination in her eyes. She started flipping through pages when something caught her eye. And then she started speaking slowly, but confidently, "Ah may, Ah may, eleka, nater, ah may. Ah may, ah may, eleka, nater, ah may." She bit her lip, looking at Elphaba, holding her breath.
Elphaba's breathing became more even, and the bleeding mostly stopped. Idina looked at Glinda as if saying This is the best I can do. Glinda nodded, weakly smiling at her, and mouthed 'Thank you'. She carefully took the bandage off and gasped at what she saw. The wound was closed, and healed. It looked like nothing had ever happened.
"You... you did it," Glinda said, smiling through her tears, embracing Idina who had a shocked look on her face. "Oh my Oz..." Glinda said taking Elphaba's hand. "Elphaba?" she said stroking her hair.
Elphaba moaned and blinked her eyes part way open, "Wha-"
"Oh Elphie!" Glinda said looking down at her friend, "you're... okay?" she asked.
"Elphaba? Love? Oh thank Oz," Fiyero said kissing her forehead, "we were all so worried... we thought you... we thought you..." but Fiyero couldn't even say it.
She looked up into her friends eyes, "I'm..." she paused looking around her, "I'm okay." she said, and then saw the Grimmerie lying open on the floor. "Did you?" she asked looking curiously up at her best friend.
"What? Oh... no." she said shaking her head, and she half smiled at her, "It was Idina. She's the one who saved you... and your baby."
"Idina?" Elphaba looked around her to the actress, "You?" with a look of disbelief and gratefulness she smiled at her. "Thank you. Thank you so much." she said taking her hand. "But how...?" she asked still curious on how she was able to understand any of it.
Idina shrugged, "I don't know." she said, "I was hoping that maybe you could tell me that," Idina said half smiling. "It just... it just kind of happened, but... I'm really glad it did." she said, her voice sincere, "I don't know what we would have done without you." She looked up at Fiyero who smiled at her, "Especially for some of us," she said nodding, "but you better rest now."
Fiyero carefully picked her up and carried her out of the room, whereupon there was a total silence. Idina exhaled slowly, and everything was calm and peaceful for that moment. But just for a moment.
"OPEN UP! IN THE NAME OF THE WIZARD OPEN THIS DOOR!" and there was banging on the door, and gunshots going off.