The trio was horrified as they all watched the innocent China Town burn. They wanted to do something, but they didn't know what, and it consumed them with guilt.

Guards tried to help but to no avail as the remaining winked monkeys caused havoc throughout the miniature town.

Eventually, one of the last guards forced them to leave the area, and there was nothing they could do about it. So they carried on to the left side of the Yellow Brick Road. All three had their eyes fixed to the road, disturbed from what they had just witnessed. None of them said a word. Bryson dared to try and break the silence once or twice, but he just ended up sighing instead. Was that man telling the truth? It seemed doubtful. To Bryson, it seemed like he was just trying to manipulate him into joining him or not trying to stop him. He was always open minded, but he still seriously doubted what the man was saying. But he couldn't deny that he was afraid, what if this guy couldn't be stopped? He had already fallen in love with this place and he didn't know what he'd do if it was destroyed. But he was pretty certain this guy was behind the recent mysterious reappearance of the Witch and different sites in Oz being destroyed, he thought as he adjusted the backpack he had kept from the forest.

Bryson stopped walking when the sounds of his friend's foot steps diminished. He looked over at the two, and then in front of him. There was a man that he assumed was a Winkie Guard dressed in all black and with green skin standing in front of a bridge.

"Uh-oh..." Finley muttered.

"What are we supposed to do now?" asked Bryson.

"Well... who's to say he's not a.. friendly guard?" Dorothy proposed.

"Eh.." Finley responded with obvious fear.

"Let's just... go talk to him... what's the absolute worst that could happen?" Bryson told them.

"He could take us captive to a place where we're tied up and have horrible experiments performed on us, leading to being tortured in a horrific manner and slowly having the life taken out of us to the point we wish for death, where our wish is slowly being granted, thus ultimately leading to our demise." Finley spat out. "Not to mention he has a sword!" Bryson looked over and noticed the sword in his hand and his eyes widened.

Bryson then smirked at Finley's mini little speech and shrugged. "Well... we're not gonna get to the Emerald City if we don't at least try. But I have a plan. One or two of us can go up to him, and he doesn't let us go through, the person who didn't talk to him can distract him... who wants to distract him?" Finley raised his hand. "I've been told I'm quite exceptional at diversions..."

"Alright... I guess Dorothy and I will go talk to him." Bryson and Dorothy walked up the guard, who looked at them and then he spoke up in a very deep voice.

"You can not pass through here, under Mr. Rabadan's orders."

Bryson didn't know who "Mr. Rabadan" was, but he could only assume it was the man who destroyed the China Town. And if that was the case, it looked like these guards were under his control now.

"You have to leave this area, kids." He ordered when they were silent. Bryson nodded at Dorothy and they walked back to Finley, who was hiding behind a massive brown rock. "Alright... distract him!" Bryson whispered. Finley nodded and slowly flew up to the giant rock. He then started making odd screeching noises, Bryson and Dorothy couldn't help but laugh at them.

The guard started looking around. "Uh... hello?" He called out.

"Mooooo!" Finley yelled.

Bryson bit down on his lip to keep his laughter from being heard. The guard obviously looked confused and walked around and held up his sword. Finley kept on with the strange noises and gestured at Bryson and Dorothy to get to the bridge.

They both quickly tip-toed to the bridge when the guard's back was facing them. The guard was now getting closer to the large rock and looked up at Finley.

"Uh... hello!" Finley called out, followed by a nervous laugh. "Uh..." He looked to make sure his friends had made it to the bridge, when he saw they were close to it he carried on. "Um.. well hello there! Uh.. sorry... about that... it's..." Finley cleared his throat and started pretending to cough, and violently. "OH MY GOODNESS.. OOOOH." Finley yelled, he then leaped off the rock and slowly used his wings to fly down a bit. He made it to the ground and kept on with the false coughing. "Oh wow... oh.." He kept on making the odd noises, causing Bryson and Dorothy to continue silently laughing. They crossed the bridge and wondered how Finley would across. "What do we do about Finley?" questioned Bryson.

Dorothy shrugged and turned around to see the beautiful flowers and trees. "Let's go behind one of those trees in case that guard sees us." Bryson nodded and they quietly moved behind the big tree. "I'm not sure about Finley..." she frowned and thought for a bit. Bryson sighed...

Should have thought that plan through... He felt like an idiot.

Finley was obviously asking himself how he was gonna cross to, as he carried on with his little performance it was clear to Bryson that he was getting a little worried. Finley stopped and rolled over, the guard looked seriously confused as he looked down at the primate. "Well uh... IFEELBETTERTHANKSBYE." Finley then sprinted across the bridge and was chased after by the guard, who growled in anger. Finley cried out in fear and leaped behind the tree with Bryson and Dorothy.

They all winced at the sound of the guard's footsteps, and winced when he found them behind the tree. "What did I tell you? You can't pass!" He yelled in anger, stomping his foot. He aggressively grabbed Finley, then Bryson by the arm, then Dorothy, who all gasped in slight pain from his strong grasp. Bryson was outraged that he dare hurt his friends. The guard lifted up his sword, all three gasped and Bryson then thought of an idea. He held up his hands and exclaimed "wait!"

The guard opened his eyes and held down his sword, sighing. "Make it quick. What?"

"You realize who this is, right?" He pointed to Dorothy.

"Who?" The guard asked.

"She's Dorothy Gale." He squeezed his eyes shut and silently hoped and prayed this would work. He opened his eyes back up quickly when he was given no response.

"You know.. savior of Oz.. killed two witches..."

The guard shook his head in disbelief and studied Dorothy. "Wait... this.. this is Dorothy! I was in the castle when she killed the Witch! I can't believe I didn't recognize you! I'm so, so sorry!"

He then continued, "Listen... I could get into a lot of trouble for this.. but I'll let you and your friends pass, Mr. Rabadan might kill me but.. I need to show my graditude somehow. Repay you... I hope this is enough."

Dorothy nodded and smiled, then shook his hand. "Yes, thank you very much. My friends can cross too, right?"

The guard nodded. "Whatever you wish, Ms. Gale." He bowed to her and she smiled.

She shook his hand a final time and nodded, and the gang carried on traveling to their destination.

They walked on with optimism, not stopping until they realized their surroundings were slowly changing... gone the bright colors, green grass, exotic forests... now they seemed to be walking on a bright red road, but no bricks. Several gigantic red rocks, similar to the one Finley was standing on moments before surrounded them.

Dorothy raised her eyebrows and looked around. "That's... strange... I've never heard about or seen this part of Oz... but at this point I can't say I'm terribly surprised, considering what's been going on as of late.."

Finley scratched his head. "Even I haven't seen it, honestly. I'm kinda worried about this."

"Well... we gotta try." Bryson urged. Dorothy and Finley nodded in agreement and they carried on with walking until they came to a rock that blocked the path in front of them. They looked around and realized they had nowhere else to go, the rock was blocking them.

"Well that's just great. There's no other way to go. I told you guys we should have continued into the Dark Forest." Finley grumbled.

"Weren't you the one who was just begging to get out of that place? In fact, you suggested that we go this way." Bryson argued.

"Uh... well... I, uh...shut up." Finley stuttered.

Bryson simply smirked and shook his head. "We might have to go back that way unless we can get through this rock." For a short moment, Bryson thought about Finley flying them over it, but the rock was far to large.

Bryson sighed and shrugged. "Welp... guess we'd better go back."

The other two sighed as well and started to turn back, but then they heard the sound of rocks crumbling and falling down, a booming sound. They could feel the shadow of something giant and they all turned around and looked on in horror.

To their surprise, the rock seemed to have a face, it was giant.

They all got closer together in fear, Finley gulped. "Uh... this.. this is not... this is not good." Finley stated in fear, Bryson and Dorothy nodded.

It lifted up its hands and smashed the red road, they all yelped in fear. The rock monster then lifted up the piece of the road they were standing on. They fell down and started sliding down. They gripped on to the road fearfully and huddled closer together.

The monster took the road in his hand and put it up to his face, inspecting it and studying the shivering people on it. With the monster's free hand it smashed more of the rock, leaving less of it for the trio hold on to. They panicked when the beast dropped the piece of the road. They looked around as they quickly fell, Bryson looked over at Finley. "Finley! I know it hurts to keep doing this but can you PLEASE fly us right now?"

Finley turned his head quickly in a panic and shrugged with a very worried look. "I'll try my best!" He yelped, he hesitated, but then the monster opened his hands and spread them. It looked as if he was going to clap to smash the piece of road.

Finley turned to his two friends and hurriedly yanked them off the road, both of them yelping in both fear and surprise. They leaped off right before the monster clapped his hands hard, the tiny little piece of the road smashing, sending miniature little pieces of it flying everywhere. Finley mustered up all his strength as he held on tight to both Bryson and Dorothy, his wings slowly starting to flap. But just then, they both lost their grip on the primate and started descending to the ground. Finley cried out in dismay before Bryson managed to catch Finley by the foot. Dorothy followed after and gripped on to Bryson's foot. They all grunted as they gripped on to one another with all of their might, but Finley just couldn't carry the two heavier humans, and the speed of his wings flapping decreased and was noticeably more clumsy.

They were sent flying downwards and to their surprise, there were now red walls on the side. They smacked into them, almost bouncing from the right side to the left. Finley flapped his wings for a bit every few seconds, before they all collided into a very large rock. It wasn't as painful as they imagined, but it still stung, and the impact caused Finley to drop the two.

Bryson and Dorothy fell, but were close enough to the big rock and managed cling on to it. But they looked up and noticed red debris falling from the rock they were clung to. They gasped and started rapidly climbing down from it in a panic. But as they did so, several different rocks, tiny and large suddenly started falling. They looked up to see what the cause of this was and could see not one, but about 6 different red rock giants towering over them. They didn't know what was wrong with them or why they were attacking them, but were to afraid to ponder on that.

The giants started picking up various pieces of road and other rocks that weren't alive, throwing them, any of them could easily crush and kill them. And at the least seriously injure them.

Finley was to weak and tired to fly, and crashed down on top of the rock that Bryson and Dorothy were currently attempting to get off of, and he also lazily started climbing down towards them. But the rocks started coming down like a hail storm, they all covered themselves in hopes of not getting sqaushed by a rock. None of them seriously came crashing, but a few started surrounding them and they started sliding down the rock onto the ground, the three huddled together as the rocks started falling next to them, none of them onto them, except for one final one that was coming right to them, they flinched and tried to move away from it, and just barley dodged it by a few inches, but were now trapped, and just when Bryson could feel another anxiety attack coming on, the floor literally started ripping apart! There was now what looked to be a crack they could slide down in. They looked at each other and nodded, when the hole was large enough for them to slide through, they leaped down in and were soon falling into a dark atmosphere, just before they thought they would plumit to their demise, they realized the drop wasn't too long and fell to the dirt, not to damaged from the impact.

Slowly, they eventually pulled themselves up, dusting themselves off. They looked at their surroudnings and they appeared to be in some sort of very large dark cave, giving off an exeptionally eerie vibe. Finley moved to Bryson's leg and tugged on his jeans. "I don't like this place... at all... what's gonna happen now? What if we can't get out?" Finley asked.

Bryson was worried of the very same thing, but still reached down to pat his small friend's back. "Don't worry... I'm.. I'm sure we'll find something. I mean... this place... it's huge. There's gotta be something."

Finley shrugged in response.

"Maybe we should take a look around." Bryson suggested.

"Should we split up?" asked Finley.

"Nah... I'd rather stay together right now... because if something bad happens well... the more the merrier..."

They looked around the dark place, and while it was dark, they could still manage to make out everything.

There were different boxes and crates of various color and size, and what looked to be a map on the side of the cave's wall. It was a map of Oz that included the Yellow Brick Road and various other landmarks such as "Winkie Land, Gillikn Land, Quadling Land, Munchin Land" and others that were more specific like "Dark Forest" and "China Country."

On the place of the map that had China Country on it, there was a red pin that penetrated through it. Bryson assumed the pen indicated places destroyed, considering what happened back there. There were also red pins around Quadling Land and Gillikin Land. But Winkie Land and Dark Forest had blue pins. And maybe Bryson was reading way to much in to it, but held the suspicion these colors meant something. Like maybe the red ones meant places totally destoryed, and maybe the blue ones were just ones altered, he didn't know for sure, but it seemed plausible.

"What do you think all this means?" asked Dorothy, her eyes squinted a bit as she examined the map.

"Well... maybe they're places that have been destroyed and altered. And you know what? I'd bet that guy we saw at China Town hangs out here, and that he's the one who put all this stuff in here. That or maybe someone who's working for him did it."

Dorothy chewed on her bottom lip as she thought about it, which seemed to be a habit of hers. (A habit that Bryson had come fond of, if he was quite honest with himself.)

She lifted up her head and nodded. "And I'd bet you're right..." Her eyes roamed the area for a bit until she came across a small brown journal. She dusted it off and picked it up. She opened it and started turning the pages. Bryson looked over. "Those look like different journal entries that he's written... but I can't even read it. It's so sloppy..." He wasn't the neatest writer in the world either, but at least you could make out what it was... this didn't even look like something from any language he had heard of, it was that messy.

Dorothy absent-mindedly nodded and kept searching through the book, until she came across an old black and white photo. She squinted and lifted it up, studying it. It was a photograph of different soldiers. It looked like something from the World War II era. They studied it for a while and then put it back in the book and flipped some more pages to find anything else interesting. Eventually, the pages became blank and they realized nothing else was written. They checked the back, looked over some more pages, and then laid it down.

"I almost wanna take it with us... just in case... but if someone came back and realized it was gone or caught us with it.. we could get into some tro-

"Guys!" shouted Finley.

The two looked over at Finley who was trembling in fear. "I think we have some company..."