Hello, I decided to upload the prologue of my last Genie's and Jinxes story. It's sad to know this is the last big story, but be rest assured it will be a long one!

Don't worry if you are confused about things at the very beginning right now, it will explain itself as we go.

Okay, so you know the drill. I only own Alaric and other people you don't recognize the rest belong to Disney! Please enjoy this little teaser!

Prologue:

The sun was beginning to set and a lone figure stood on the balcony, taking in the scenery with a mixture of sadness and a calm acceptance. Today was the day he missed him the most. He could still remember the way he laughed and how much trouble he used to get into, things that seemed dangerous then, but exciting and thrilling now. Well, actually still were dangerous, but Genie couldn't deny how much fun they all had had.

"Unca, Gee!" A tiny voice called and the blue jinn turned his head to see a little girl in a pink satin nightie coming running out onto the balcony, clutching her seahorse dolly tightly in one chubby fist. "Unca Gee!" She smiled with glee and he chuckled at her, putting his melancholy feelings aside.

"And just what are you doing out here, little madam?" He asked, lifting her in the air.

"No sleep!" The four-year-old cried.

"No sleep?" He teased. "Why not?"

"Nate awake!" He turned his head to see a messy black-haired boy of seven standing there, looking tired, but had a stubborn frown on his face that was pretty close to his great grandfather's.

"And what are you doing out here, kiddo?"

"Grim's being unfair." Nathaniel huffed, narrowing his blue eyes that were a darker shade than his sisters. Something else he had inherited from his father. "He won't let me stay up." The adult chuckled.

"Now, Nate," He began. "You know that he's only doing what's best for you. Where's your mom?"

"Mother said that she isn't feeling well." The adult's face fell and he sighed internally before giving the boy a smile.

"Well, maybe I better go see for myself then." He stated, worry in his eyes. "Perhaps you and your sister should head to bed now."

"Would you tell us a story then? Please?" Anything to stay awake a bit longer.

"Oh, pwease, Unca Gee?" The little girl in the immortal being's arms pleaded and he sighed. How could he say no to that face? Or those eyes that were bright blue just like her mother's and her grandmother's.

"All right." He nodded and shooed them off to their room. As Genie left the balcony, the sound of the ocean became fainter and fainter.

Once the children were settled down, Genie sat in the chair that had been designed just for him by the children's father so many years ago. Sitting there almost brought tears to his eyes, but he knew that if he started he would never be able to stop.

"What you like to hear?" He asked gently and the little girl raised her hand. "Yes, Athena?" She had been named after her great-grandmother. Before she could say anything, the door to the bedroom opened.

"Hi, Uncle Genie." A chorus of voices stated and Genie smiled. It seemed that even his old pals couldn't stay away for this day. The oldest of the trio came in, his grin mischievous, and looked exactly like his paternal grandfather.

"What have you been up to, Ali?" Genie asked with a smirk and the twelve-year-old snickered.

"Nothing."

"He was teasing Grim again." The middle child stated, stiffing a yawn. He felt a tug on his arm and looked down.

"Caz, what's wrong with Auntie?" Cassim looked up at Genie. Out of the three of them, Caz was the most bookish and spent most of his time in the library. His brown eyes were full of worry and Genie shook his head. There was nothing he could do.

"Err, nothing Jade." Cassim said quietly and led his four-year-old sister to one of the guest beds.

"I was just about to tell Nate and Athena a story if you want to hear." Genie reclined against the chair again as the kids settled down.

"Sure." Ali shrugged. "What kind of story? It better have action."

"Is there kissing?" Jade giggled and Athena giggled too.

"Can it be about daddy?" She asked. The room fell silent. Athena, being too young to understand why everyone, but Jade, looked upset, just tilted her head and her long light brown curly hair bounced. "Can it?" Again, Genie found it hard to say no.

"Yeah," Caz spoke up then. "Dad hardly talks about him." Genie sighed.

"It's just hard for him to…" He said softly. "Hard for me too, actually. We loved him so much." The older children nodded, though Nate frowned at the bed.

"Please tell us a story about him." Ali stated. "The only ones we know are when he and Dad were battling with Jafar and a few others."

"Everyone knows that story." Nate added with a nod of his head, looking back up again. "I'd like to hear about everything." After a moment of pondering, Genie nodded.

"I think I can tell you about how he ended up marrying your mom." He told Nate. "It's a long story, but I think your mother wouldn't mind if I told you."

"Is it full of action?" Ali demanded. "I don't want to hear mushy stuff." The other two boys in the room nodded rapidly.

"Well, I can't say there isn't any mushy stuff, but it comes later." Genie teased and then he sighed. "I suppose I better start with what happened after Al and Jaz's wedding…That's when Alaric's troubles really started… He was only twelve at the time you know."

Chapter 1: Err…What Just Happened?

"I knew all along that she'd marry him." Prince Wazoo stated in his usual tone. The snooty prince sniffed as if smelling something awful and I sent him a halfhearted and irritated glare. I was much too tired to do more than frown though. Stifling a yawn, I leaned against the palm of my hand heavily, my eyes sliding closed.

"Street rats…" Prince Achmed scoffed and I frowned, opening an eye. Why were these too still at it? Give it a rest, already! It's probably well past midnight!

"Jasmine chose Aladdin and that should be good enough for you two." Sadira stated and I smiled. She was eyeing the two of them with aggravation. I grinned wider at the offended look on each of their faces.

"To hero Aladdin and the fair Princess Jasmine." Uncouthma shouted drunkenly from the end of the table long table. I hid a snicker, turning my face away as the only ones who were still mostly awake at the table raised their glasses half-consciously and made a noise that was the equivalent of one of Mozenrath's mamluks. Genie's party had lasted all night and surprisingly everyone had danced, even snooty princes one and two. I still didn't get why they were invited.

"Hooray…" The remaining guests moaned again and then things fell into silence once more. I felt my lids drooping again, so I didn't try to fight it again and my eyes slid closed.

"Come on, kiddo." A voice whispered in my ear and I tried to push them away. I had just closed my eyes! I wanted to sleep.

"No…"

"Yes." The voice laughed and I was picked up and slung over someone's shoulder. I opened my eyes to see that the table completely empty and the last of the guests were leaving for bed.

"Genie?" I asked groggily.

"You were snoring." He chuckled and I smiled a little.

"Oh." I said sheepishly. "I could've sworn that I just shut my eyes for a second." Genie's laughter vibrated through his chest and I laughed tiredly. "Can we party like that again? It was fun."

"Maybe." Genie stated with a snicker. "But I think everyone is partied out right now." He carried me down the hall and I just about fell asleep again.

"Hey, Genie?"

"What is it, shorty?" I thought for a moment and then frowned. What was I going to say?

"Never mind." I mumbled and he set me on my feet.

"Now don't do that." He stated, looking me in the face. "Don't block things."

"I'm not." I assured him. Where was I going with this conversation? "I really can't remember what I was going to ask…" I said, blinking and Genie snickered. Then I smiled as my stomach reminded me. "Oh, yeah…Can I have another cookie?"

"Absolutely." Genie said with a smile.

"Really?"

"No." He laughed as I pouted and pushed me into my room. "Go to sleep now." The happiness I had felt slipped away when I entered my room. Without Iago, it seemed too big and too empty.

"Short man?" Genie whispered. I probably looked stupid standing there staring at the empty cage. I turned to him with a reassuring smile.

"Sorry. Heh, it just doesn't seem like he's gone." I turned back around before he could say something else and jumped onto the bed. I was much too tired to try and even think about starting another conversation.

"Well goodnight, shorty." Genie stated and I waved at him, before diving under the covers.

"Night, Genie." I called out and he snickered at my muffled voice, before shutting the door. I rolled over in the bed and sighed up at the empty birdcage. "Good night, Iago." I said and closed my eyes. It would take some getting used to, but maybe I could learn to sleep without him in the room.

Two weeks later…

"Come on, Abu!" I told the monkey as I hurried to down the front steps. "We've got to see what's going on in the Marketplace today!" Rasoul scowled as Abu and I ran by him, ducking under his arm as he opened the gates to the city. I heard him mutter something under his breath, but I really didn't care at the moment.

Abu and I were hurrying to the stall we had declared as our own. It was smack dab in the middle of two of the Marketplace's busiest stands. The stall belonged to a guy named Babkak whom I had rescued from Amin Damoola just a week prior and ever since, he invited Abu and me to sit on his awning and keep "surveillance". Basically, we shoo the bad thieving customers away from his stand and got free stuff for our efforts. Nothing fancy like what Abu was hoping for, but with the junk I gathered, I was always able to find something to take back to the Sultan.

Abu and I arrived in time for Babkak to open shop.

"Good morning, my friends." He greeted and I smiled at him. Babkak was a thin dark skinned man, with broad shoulders and a deep voice that sounded almost out of character for him.

"Morning, Babkak." Abu tipped his hat to the man and then we climbed up to sit on his awning. The man setup shop and then came to peer up at us from the side of the awning.

"How did you sleep?" He questioned and I shrugged. Babkak and I discussed dreams because he had become interested in the few I had told him before and I had listened to his. Now we talked about them regularly, but I kept my newer ones to myself. I would never tell those to anyone. Ever.

"Not so well." I admitted.

"Same dream again?"

"No, I didn't dream anything different which is odd. It was still just….dark." I shuddered at the thought of it and looked down at the vendor. "And I just felt really restless."

"Hmm, that is odd."

"That's not the weird part though, my fingers were twitching."

"Really? Have you spoken to anyone about it?"

"Well, no…I mean it stopped…" Babkak rolled his eyes at me. He wanted me to say something to someone, but I wasn't about to start getting Genie worked up over what I'm pretty sure was nothing. For weeks, my dreams had been livid. Well dreams isn't the word I should use, they were nightmares. And always the same thing.

"You are a stubborn young man, you know that?"

I smirked at him and he chuckled before looking serious. "Best let someone know. It could be something dangerous." Babkak was fascinated with anything that had to do with danger, magic, or just adventure in general. Over the week that I had known him, I had told every adventure I had ever had and he was hooked on learning about deflecting harmful villains. I shifted on the stall.

"It's probably nothing."

"You might turn to stone."

"Nah," I said waving a hand. I knew he was referring to what I had told him about Abis Mal and the rock ifrit. "One thing you have to know about villains is that they don't repeat what they do…Usually. What they say, yes. But they don't sometimes act in the same way each time unless it's someone stupid like-"

"I am the great Abis Mal!" I heard someone call from further up the street and I stood up to get a glimpse of what was going on. Of course, Abis Mal was short, so I still couldn't see him in the middle of the crowd, nor could I really hear his boasting words. His right hand man, Haroud Hazi Bin, was glowering from beside him, his eyes sweeping in boredom over the crowd. He had obviously heard the fat thief's speech before.

"Like him." I finished my sentence. Abis and Haroud had come back to Agrabah not long after the incident at the Vanishing Isle, without the forty thieves…err, I mean whatever was left of them from Rasoul's raid at Cassim's place anyway. I had no idea what happened to the other thieves that were on the boat and there was no telling where Saleen went. Or Amin. But I didn't care where he was either.

"What's going on?" Babkak asked and I frowned.

"I don't know, but I'm going to find out." I jumped off the stall and made my way over, being careful not to run into anybody that might call me out. Abis didn't need to know I was there yet.

The fat man was standing in the middle of the crowd, his hand in the air and I tried to see what he had. I made sure to stay out of sight as I crept up behind Haroud.

"…And so with this magical artifact I will rule the land! Who'll join me!?"

"Not me." I said loudly and the crowd parted with low murmurs. Most of the townspeople knew me and Al by now so they assumed that stopping thieves was just part of our agenda. And it usually was.

Abis glowered at me. "Who asked you?"

"Well, no one." I shrugged. "I just gave you my honest opinion. So what's this magical artifact of yours?" He showed it to me gleefully. It was a rock. "A rock?" I questioned sarcastically, racking my brain for anything that had to do with magical rocks.

"Yes, a rock!" Abis shouted, not liking my tone. I rolled my eyes. "I got this rock from a very powerful sorcerer!"

"Uh-huh. Well, I think it's just a rock. And obviously a waste of good money that really, really should have been used for personal hygiene items." The crowd around us laughed and cheered me on and the fat thief's face reddened.

"Wh-? Why I oughta! Hurt him!" Abis snapped after his flustered moment, pointing at me, and I darted away with a laugh, snatching the rock from Abis' open palm.

It didn't take long for me to lose the fat thief and his men in the crowd of cheering people and Abu and I took a detour through a side alleyway to Sadira's. We dropped in on her every other day, mainly for something to do. Using the secret entrance, Abu and I dropped down safely to the underground tunnels that ran beneath Agrabah.

"So…you think this is really magic?" I asked, leaning on my elbows and pushing the rock towards the dark brown-haired sandwitch across from me. Sadira was around Jasmine's age and had at one time been a crush of mine. We were friends, but I still had some affection for her.

Sadira wrinkled her nose, her light blue eyes focused on the jet-black glossy stone in front of her. "No." She said after a minute. "It's just a polished rock. Where'd you get it?"

"Abis Mal."

"Ha, as if he'd know what a real magic stone looked like." She scoffed and got up from the rickety table. "Who'd he buy it off from?"

"Don't know." I shrugged and Abu poked at the rock with a finger. "But you'd think that he'd at least check and see if was even magic to begin with." I got up from the table to follow Sadira. She nodded her head at me as she finished stirring the pot that was sitting over the fire in the fireplace.

"That's true…What was he going to do with it anyway?"

"Err…He said something about using it to get in the palace."

"So...How are you? Really?"

"Sadira, I'm fine." I rolled my eyes and frowned. "Why does everyone keep asking me that? He's only been gone for a week! I'm perfectly fine!"

"Let's see…How about the fact that you don't mention his name, you've been having frequent nightmares, and your temper gets worse by the day." She said hotly and I flushed a bit.

"Sorry." I muttered and she sighed.

"Alaric, I know you don't like having everyone hovering over you, but you haven't been acting the same. Rasoul's even noticed it."

"You talk to Rasoul?" I questioned.

"Not the point." She said quickly and I arched an eyebrow. "The point is…after your encounter with Mozenrath everyone is worried about you." I sighed and shook my head.

"It isn't like he's not attacked me before." I pointed out and she pointed the wooden ladle at me menacingly which was dripping with whatever she had in the pot and it would have been funny if it wasn't a serious conversation.

"But he's never been in your head before either." She countered before getting a worried look in her eyes. "Babkak says your nightmares are getting…scary."

"If you have something to say, say it." I told her, folding my arms across my chest.

"Would you let me check you over? Make sure that Mozenrath didn't leave any trance of that bad stuff in you?"

"Why?"

"Because these nightmares are not good. No one has the same dream for a whole week, Alaric, unless it's trying to tell them something."

"Like a vision?" I asked slowly, my heart racing slightly. Surely she's joking… Those were just nightmares right? "Are you saying I'm clairvoyant?" She bit her lip, turning to face her cooking utensils again.

"No, but all the same…it's a little weird. Would you at least tell me what you're dreaming about? Babkak said he didn't know, just that you kept saying that you never acted like you wanted to say." Great even my friends were talking about me behind my back.

"Well, I'd rather not." I said stiffly and she frowned. "I'd like to keep it to myself."

"Fine. Whatever." She grumbled and poured some of her soup into a bowl. "Drink that, it'll relax your mind." I frowned down at the contents of the bowl.

"Um…no thanks."

"I'm not trying to poison you." She joked and I smirked.

"I know that." I looked back down at the bowl. "Having that necromancer in my head was one thing, Sadira. I really, don't want my friends in there too."

"And I get it." She said facing me again. "I really do, but Alaric...you have to see that you need it." I shook my head. I didn't want anyone seeing what I had seen.

"No. Not again." I pushed the bowl back into her hands and turned for the table where I had left Abu. "Thanks for checking the rock over, I best be getting back home."

"You've told me things about your past, Alaric. I don't understand how this is different." She argued, following me across the room.

"Because it's an invasion of my privacy!" I whirled to face her. "What that sorcerer did was against my will and now he…now he knows things, Sadira. Things that I would have never told him…or anybody for that matter and he saw them all." That made me nervous. I hadn't seen or heard anything about Mozenrath in the past few weeks and that too made me nervous. I didn't like it.

"You don't know that for sure." She said knowingly and I sighed. "He might not have. You said he had been looking for something specific, right?" She waited until I nodded at her. "Digging through memories would take hours even for someone your age and he was only in there for minutes. That's not enough time to get everything."

"No…but it was enough to get something I'm sure.

"What are you afraid of? What you're dreaming about?" I felt cornered by her questions and I knew I needed to leave before she convinced me to let her probe my brain.

"See ya, later Sadira." I said quickly and she scowled at me. "Come on, Abu." The monkey ran and darted up my shoulder.

"We are not through with this discussion, Alaric!" She called after me as I walked out of her home. "You have to face your fear sometime!"

"Not if I can help it." I grumbled and made my way out.

I got back onto the streets of Agrabah and headed for the old hovel, needing a thinking space and perhaps find a hiding spot for the stone, before I went back to the palace. Presently I felt Abu tugging at my hair.

"What?" He showed me the rock I had taken from Abis Mal and I stared at it. I took it and held it on my palm. "What do you think he wanted with this, Abu? It just looks like a dumb rock."

"There he is!" A voice shouted in triumph and I groaned. I didn't have to turn to know that Abis was there.

"Now what do you want?" I asked in irritation, turning my head. Abu hid in my vest and I was briefly reminded of Iago. "You want your stupid rock back? It's not magic."

"Yes, it is!" Abis shouted back. "And I want it back! So hand it over you stupid kid!"

"Yeah, all right fine." I snapped, feeling a bit angrier. Who did he think he was telling me what to do?! "Take it then and leave me alone." I tossed it at him and it landed at his feet. I shook my head and started off down the alley. I was suddenly cut off by a pair of thieves that worked for Abis. I could never understand how he managed to gain and lose so many supporters each day.

The thieves loomed over me, swords drawn to stop me from leaving. I scowled and turned back around.

"Look, fatso." I said angrily, clenching my fists. I felt extremely ticked off. "I gave you the stupid rock, now beat it!"

"You took it from me. Now you're gonna get it." He said gleefully and some of the thieves leapt at me. I shut my eyes preparing to be knocked to the ground when I promptly heard yelps and shrieks. I opened one eye and then the other in surprise. I was standing there unharmed and all around me were Abis' thieves lying scattered all over the ground.

"Did anyone get the license number of that caravan?" Abis groaned dizzily and I noticed that both he and Haroud were against the back wall of the alley.

"Err...what just happened!?"