Yay! New story:Gasps: And so soon:)

Walking down the deserted streets of the dark Emerald City was a daunting task. Even for Elphaba. It had been twenty-four hours since she had left Glinda. This would be her second night alone in the city. And so much had changed..

Elphaba found that her once suffocating infatuation for the Wizard of Oz had slowly tapered to simple hatred. Well, not simple; hatred radiated from her emerald body in waves. She also had to wonder about Glinda. Rising into the air on that broom to evade to Gale Force had given her little time to think of the blonde's safety…Broom. Elphaba clutched the ordinary-looking broom tighter to her side. How had words of such simplicity prove to save her life?

Ah May Ah Tay Ah Tum Ditum

Elphaba chanted the words in her head, for fear of what they could do if spoken aloud. After all, she had seen the way those monkeys had looked as the wings had sprouted from their backs. Elphaba shuddered. Despite her amazing cynical ability, she wholeheartedly despised those who caused harm to animals or Animals.

If Glinda had managed to elude to Gale Force, she would be arriving at the Shiz gates soon. Elphaba had to allow herself some room to wonder what the students of Shiz would think. Would they believe the fabrication of her that the Wizard was undoubtedly printing? Elphaba decided that she didn't care. She loathed the majority of people at Shiz, and could care less what they thought of her..or if they were on her side, or not. Except a select few….Fiyero, in short. She wasn't sure she could bare it if he turned against her.

No! She couldn't let herself think of Fiyero at a time like this. She had to be strong. Besides, there had been no hope for the two of them anyways. There was no use in crying over spilled milk. Elphaba hated milk. So of course she wasn't going to cry over it. That would've been aberrant.

The soundlessness of the city suddenly struck Elphaba. The only sound happened to be the soft padding of her loathsome combat boots on the golden paved streets. The city that had once awed her beyond bedazzlement no longer possessed the same jaw-dropping quality. It was quite and dank and dark. She decided that she liked it better this way.

A cold, impetuous breeze blew into Elphaba's face, giving the first hints that a tremendous rainstorm was about to be upon her and the city of green. "Damn it," she whispered, wiping the icy water out of the corners of her eyes. Suddenly, the previous event's consequences shrouded her like a veil, and she felt her heart sink. What was she supposed to do? She had little money, she was a convict, and plus: she was green. Things seemed hopeless from her perspective.

As the rain began to fall faster and harder, Elphaba dodged onto a stoop of what appeared to be an abandoned building. She halfheartedly tugged at the door, expecting it to be locked. However, in an odd twist of fate, the door easily popped open. Elphaba stood for a moment, barely believing what she was seeing. "Alright," she murmured. "Maybe my luck is changing."

Stepping into the ancient building, Elphaba's nostrils caught a strong whiff of fish and old spices. The combination of the strength and integrity of the smell caused Elphaba to sneeze. She immediately righted herself, her eyes opening in heart-wrenching fear; what if someone had heard her? What if the building was not deserted after all?

Swiftly mobilizing herself after there was no protest to her sneeze, Elphaba walked drudgingly up the stairs, taking care not to stomp as she made her way. As she reached the top of the stairs, she was enlightened on the conclusion that no one was making house, and the building indeed was uninhabited.

Walking over to a corner, Elphaba wrapped the cloak Glinda had given her around herself and laid down. Her eyes begged to close, if not of weariness, then to hide themselves from the cruelness which existed in Oz. Elphaba complied, letting herself fall idle. Her breathing fell even, and she fell into a deep sleeping reverie.

As the morning sunlight fell the building's lone window, Elphaba sleepily opened her eyes. She gasped and jerked back, ramming her skull against the wall. Three pairs of glittering eyes stared at her, undaunted by her green skin. "Who are you?" Elphaba whispered, rubbing her head where she had banged it.

"We're not allowed to tell you that." The three young girls stared at Elphaba, probably more scared of the compassion in her eyes than anything else. "You should know that. Aren't you head of the cell?" Asked the tallest of the three, with intense azure eyes, and semi-wavy ebony hair that framed her elegant face.

"Head of the cell?" It occurred to Elphaba then what they were speaking of: Terrorism. She was not daft, she had read enough books to know that members of terrorism organizations referred to their meeting places as 'cells'. "No. I am not the head of your 'cell'." Elphaba stood to leave. She had no desire to belong to a cultish society cause.

The girl with the raven hair, however grabbed Elphaba's arm. "You must keep quiet about us being here! No one can know! If I find out you ratted out The Suffering…" The girl paused, knowing she had made a mistake. "Damn it."

Elphaba raised her eyebrows questioningly. "The Suffering? May I ask who exactly you are working for? And who you're working against. I'll find out myself if you won't tell me," stated Elphaba when the girl began to turn away.

She sighed and sat down. "I don't know who I work for, exactly. We're not allowed that sort of information," she said, nodding to her two companions. "But, I know that we're working against the Wizard." She winced away from Elphaba when she finished, not knowing how much Elphaba truly despised the Wizard.

Suddenly, this cult thing was looking better to Elphaba. "Why is called The Suffering?"

"I'm not really sure," she started. "Though I do have my own hypothesis. I think it banded together a long time ago-when the Wizard first came to power, if you can believe it. But our member count went up drastically when he placed those high tariffs and the Animal Banns."

Elphaba nodded, remembering something her father had said about tariffs that had been placed when she was only a child. And of course she knew about those Animal Banns.

"Well, it appears that many people couldn't pay those high tariffs, and lost everything they had. Suffering, if you will. I think that the cause has been around for nearly forty years, but was only secretly nicknamed recently."

"Nicknamed?"

"Terrorism cells don't have names. We would be easily caught if they did. But giving it a nickname makes it easier to talk about in public, without having to go to all the trouble of giving it an official name. We didn't choose to join this cult. We were forced to out of hunger and in need of a place to stay."

Elphaba's ears somehow perked up. Food? A place to stay? She need both of those things, and with a fierce passion, too. Elphaba looked to ebony-haired girl. "We're in the same boat," she acknowledged.

The girl nodded. "My codename is Skyla, that's Annaka, and that's Rivka," she nodded to each girl in turn. Then she turned and dug something out of her knapsack that was sitting on the floor. When she turned back, she produced a piece of paper and a pen. She looked at Elphaba, who nodded. "State your codename, please."

Elphaba had to think a moment. She wanted to find a derivative of her name, so that she wouldn't completely lose her pathetic sapling of an identity. Though why she wanted to keep it, she'd never know. Fae.

"Fae," she stated simply.

Skyla scribbled something down, and looked at Elphaba. "We have a meeting tonight at eleven. It'll be your initiation if you show up. Don't be late if you're really keen on this." With that, Skyla turned, and motioning to Annaka and Rivka, walked down the stairs.

When she heard the door shut, she let out an exasperated sigh. She hadn't realized she was holding her breath. She had just taken the first steps in avenging her perpetrator. She only hoped that she wasn't making a mistake.

Eh. Whatcha think? I kind of like the beginning, though I think that the ending is a little edgy...What can I say? I had to rewrite this three times. I got lazy.

Reviews...Ah, they make my day :)

Li