Chapter 10: Cold as Mud

Iago and Carpet were not in a good mood, considering the U-Serpents delivering the news that Aladdin was dead. The last time Iago had heard something along that news was the time when Aladdin went up against Mozenrath and got caught in a dark sand quake just outside of the land of the Black Sand. Every single one of them, Mozenrath included, thought Aladdin had been buried alive after a tower collapsed in on itself. In reality, Aladdin had found an abandoned passage that took him to another distant kingdom. Jasmine and Genie had followed Mozenrath to prevent him from taking over said kingdom, an act of heroics done "in Aladdin's spirit," but they were surprised when Aladdin had greeted them and managed to thwart Mozenrath's plan in the nick of time.

"Ya really think Al's dead?" Iago said, plopping in a corner of their cell as far away from the U-serpents as possible. Carpet sagged at his middle, a gesture conveying his own sadness for Aladdin's fate. The two sat in silence for several moments, not sure what they should do or if it was even worth the trouble of escape.

A sound behind him caught the parrot's attention, causing a few stray red feathers to flare out from his wings. While Iago rarely ever saw a silver lining to any situation, his expression perked up at a familiar face that appeared a distance away, coming through a hidden passage revealed by a slightly disjointed brick. Carpet seemed equally excited, his knobs gesturing wildly.

"Monkey? How did you get here?" Iago said.

Abu put a finger to his lips. "Shhhhh." He crawled through the open space, looking cautiously around for any signs that he'd been discovered. He realized that the U-Serpents attention was elsewhere as he undid the binds from around Iago's wings.

"Do ya know if the kid's alive? Please tell me Al's alive, cause my blood pressure can't take it." Iago had grasped Abu by the shoulder and shook the monkey in a series of furious motions. Abu's eyes rattled around in circular motions, before the monkey sighed and nodded.

Iago took a step back, sinking to the ground. "Great, I was actually worried. Only for a second, though."

Abu made a series of furious gestures for Iago and Carpet to make a move to escape.

"Geez, ya don't have to tell me twice. I'm just glad to see we're not the only ones around here, particularly the kind that don't have muddy skin, scaly skin or annoying shapeshifting abilities."

Abu candidly pointed out (in a series of low screeches) that Iago had the ability to mimic voices, which made him stand out in oddity.

Iago frowned. "At least my talent doesn't take a toll on my complexion, okay? Let's get outta here." The bird seemed hesitant since he was keeping an eye on the U-Serpents. So far, the snakes hadn't noticed their scuffle for escape.

Iago had the bright idea to use his voice imitating abilities, flying to a perch not far from the shoulders of the three standing in the hall. He spoke the phrase loud enough for only two of them to hear, as Ajan stood a fair distance away looking down the pathway.

"You fools-s aren't even keeping watch like you're s-supposed to."

Garan was the first to march toward Ajan and grab the U-serpent by the neck. "You DARE to question our dedication, s-snake?"

Ajan looked startled. "I didn't s-say anything!"

Faran's expression was as equally dark as Garan's. "You can't fool us-s. We just heard what you s-said. You were s-standing right here!"

As the snakes argued, Abu scurried through the bars of the door that the U-Serpents once stood in front. He picked the lock with a soft click, one that didn't startle the U-serpents beyond their bickering.

It was when Iago tried to gently push the door open with a wing that it squeaked on its hinges, echoing through the hall and stopping the U-Serpents mid-argument.

"We have been TRICKED! After them!" Ajan hissed.

"Now would be a good time to fly - let's get outta here, Rug!" Iago squawked as Carpet scooped both him and Abu up to speed down the hall as the U-Serpents scrambled after them.

Jasmine screamed as the Al-Muddy grabbed her ankles, pulling her from her feet down to the mud trap coating the floor. It quickly wrapped her body in a tight cocoon, squeezing her breath and applying so much pressure she thought her bones might break. It happened so fast she could barely register feeling anything else but fear.

Paralyzing fear. Enough where she could feel the very life of her body being sucked out of her.

"Aladdin, help...can't...breathe..."

Even as her ears rang and vision blurred, she realized something strange. Aladdin wasn't moving and the Al-Muddy didn't seem to be interested in him at all. It was as if Aladdin was looking down at her. As if he were watching her die.

Or was her mind playing tricks because she was about to die? She couldn't tell in the moment, as her vision faded to dark.

Aladdin realized there was no time to spare as he entered the area just as Jasmine fell fully into the Al-Muddy trap.

"Genie, get Jasmine out of there as fast as you can. I'll deal with Jatika and buy you some time," Aladdin said, sparing no time for Genie to protest as Aladdin charged forward, exposing his identity to the imp that impersonated him. "The game is up, Jatika! I'm not as dead as you think I am, despite your intentions!"

Jatika was momentarily taken aback from his task of taking energy from Jasmine through her fear. His eyes went completely black, and his fangs exposed even as he still embodied Aladdin's form. "YOU! WHY WON'T YOU STAY DEAD?"

Aladdin smiled, but only a little as his voice took on a taunting tone. "Maybe you underestimated me this whole time? Sorry, but since I'm alive, I'd like my identity back. You weren't exactly doing a good job of being me, if I'm being honest."

Jatika ground his fangs. "I had everyone fooled up until the time you showed up. Even your precious princess didn't figure it out in time, and it seems she's hovering on her last breath. The fear I'm feeding from her is more than enough to end you!"

Aladdin barely dodged a beam of magic that emerged from the imp's hand. He found a rock to take shelter behind, but realized he couldn't use the hiding place for long. Two Al-Muddy guards emerged from the sandy floor not far from him, attacking with sharp weapons made from hardened dirt.

Dodging the weapons felt like a dance. The hard mud blades rushed past Aladdin's skin and clothes in a flurry. He twisted his body in time with their attacks - a swivel at the waist, an arch of his back, a well-timed head duck that caused a blade to decapitate one of the Al-Muddy soldiers - at least until the soldier regrew his muddy head.

Aladdin was so focused on defending that he almost didn't notice Jatika inching his way behind Aladdin. Jatika readied a magic blast between his palms meant to slam into Aladdin's back. That didn't happen as Aladdin took the opportunity to use one of the Al-Muddy's heads to vault his body into the air, flipping upward as the blast reduced both of Aladdin's Al-Muddy attackers to nothing but regular sand.

Aladdin landed with little difficulty, though had some lingering pain as his shoulder throbbed. He recovered enough to grin at Jatika over his shoulders. "Thanks, Jatika. You took care of those guys easily. I thought you said you wanted to destroy me, not help me."

Aladdin realized he'd gone too far with his taunting as soon as he saw the imp's flashing teeth. "FOOL! Die by those words." Jatika unleashed another blast that would've hit Aladdin's chest if he hadn't dodged at the last second. Aladdin ducked behind another rocky pillar.

He's good at launching magic attacks from a distance, Aladdin thought as he tried to plan his next move. If I'm gonna have any advantage in this fight, I have to fight with him close-range. Easier said than done.

Genie wasn't having an easy time getting to Jasmine in order to help her. Jatika hadn't noticed him with Aladdin's appearance and distractions, but the Al-Muddy flocked to Genie like semi-phenomenal catnip. (So he thought.)

Even as he managed to toss some of the muddy beings out of his way, it still wasn't enough to get rid of the mounting group that moved in front of him to block his path to the princess. He transformed into two different objects: a mini sun and a giant magnifying glass. Considering this was a method that worked before to harden the skin of the Al-Muddy, Genie aimed the magnifying glass at the group, causing all of the Al-Muddy to freeze in place.

Genie transformed back to his usual form, wiping a bead of sweat down his brow. "Whew, that was a more heated encounter than I was expecting - literally and figuratively speaking." He moved past the frozen Al-Muddy, searching for Jasmine among the frozen mud. He found her struggling to breathe, cloaked in what looked like a muddy coffin.

"Hang on Jas!" Genie used his powers to loosen the mud around her, pulling her out to safety as she struggled to breathe.

"Genie...you're okay! I thought I was going to..." she coughed furiously as Genie helped her to her feet.

"Yeah, you and me both, kid. Those Al-Muddy don't mess around. More like they muddy around, but still..."

Jasmine rolled her eyes at Genie's joke, but her humor was short-lived, her demeanor turning to panic. "Where's Aladdin? Is he okay?"

Genie looked over Jasmine's shoulder, his own expression turning to one of concern. "Well, 'okay' might not be the word for it since Al's fighting for his life with an imp that looks a lot like him. And from this distance, I can't tell who is who."

Jasmine looked over to where Genie pointed, seeing two figures that looked like Aladdin fighting each other at close combat. "Wait, do you mean he's fighting with Jatika? Why is Jatika trying to be Aladdin?"

Genie winced. "Where to start? I feel like I have to give the 90 second or less version, if Al has that long. Let's just say that the Al that you, Iago, and Carpet were traveling with wasn't the real Al." Genie started acting out the entire adventure with shapeshifting puppets on his hands. " I was kidnapped while on Palace Patrol. Jatika shapeshifted to look like me, attacked Al, then took Al's place with the help of the U-serpents. Abu broke a curse that was supposed to kill Al while he was locked in Jafar's old lair. The U-Serpents attacked the palace, but Al and Abu took them down. Then they came to find me. Abu got captured by a tree, Al got chased and attacked by a blood sucking ogre when he freed me, but I chased that guy off. After getting Abu back from making a deal with the tree, we came here while knowing Agrabah's under a sleep spell because Jatika's using their fear to keep his form as Al cause he was planning on capturing and killing you guys off one by one." Genie's hands transformed back to normal as he finished the story. "Does that make sense?"

Jasmine stared at him, wide-eyed and not sure how to respond as her mouth started to move, but she found no words fitting to what she wanted to say.

"I'll take that as a yes." Genie said with a sheepish grin.

Jasmine collected herself enough to focus on the present danger. "I know there was a way to reveal Jatika for his true self, no matter what form he takes on, but I can't remember how. A reflection in something..."

"A mirror?" Genie conjured a fancy mirror in one of his hands and looked toward it with a furious intensity. "Show me the BEAST!"

"No, not that kind of reflection!" Jasmine thought for a moment. "Wait...water! A reflection in water! That exposes Jatika's disguises."

Genie snapped his fingers together. "I knew that. Hang on, I can make that happen in a flash of lightning."

Aladdin had moments where he had an upper hand in his close range fighting with Jatika, but not enough to fully fall in his favor. Jatika's form appeared more like Aladdin than before, returning to a likeness even down to the Prince's shoulder injury. Jatika gained confidence playing off Aladdin's fear, and the prince could tell Jatika wasn't anywhere close to being done with the fight.

Aladdin realized that was also meant to throw off anyone witnessing their fight. If Genie and Jasmine recovered enough to come help him, they wouldn't know who was friend or enemy at first glance. What made it worse was that their scuffle was getting closer to a ledge with a sharp drop off. It made the hair on the back of his neck prickle to think of the sharp descent into rocky darkness.

Jatika was focused more on fighting Aladdin than speaking, the imp taking advantage of Aladdin's injury in spaces, but Aladdin expected it and fought with the stronger side of his body, using his feet instead of his arms to give the imp a hard time with several kicks to the imp's legs and torso.

The prince found an anti-magic bottle to use against Jatika. It had been a part of Aladdin's initial plan to trap the imp, but he couldn't seem to get the upper hand enough to lure the imp into the trap.

At least not until the moment when large amounts of water dumped on them, mid-fight. Aladdin was caught off-guard by the rush of cold water that flooded over him, making his teeth chatter. Yet Jatika suffered the same distraction.

"YAAAAAAAAAAAASSS!" Genie yelled from above them, sitting on some rather wide and dark stormclouds. The semi-phenomenal being pointed down at Jatika with a wide grin. "EXPOSE HA! EXPOSE HA!"

Aladdin wasn't sure what any of that meant, but the gesture made him look down at the muddied ground beneath their feet, damp with pools of water. And in one of them, Jatika's reflection revealed him to be the impostor that he was.

"No! Why would you do that?!" Jatika said as he suddenly returned to his impish form.

Aladdin took advantage of the momentary distraction, opening the anti-magic bottle at his side and rolling it along the ground to where it struck Jatika's disfigured feet. "To expose you for the fraud you really are! This game is over, Jatika!"

Jatika shrieked as the anti-magic bottle sucked him in. Aladdin was swift to close it as he'd opened it, picking up the bottle from the ground as the imp struggled within. Aladdin looked down at Jatika's unhappy expression with a wide grin. "Ultimate trickster, itty bitty living space."

Genie gave Aladdin a thumbs up. "Nice touch, kid. Looks like your plan ended up working after all."

Jasmine threw her arms around Aladdin. Aladdin winced in part for the surprise of her approach and the small impact against his throbbing shoulder, but he returned her embrace eagerly. She didn't seem to mind that he was also soaked to the bone, his skin pebbled with water and hair still dripping.

"Aladdin, I'm so glad you're all right," she said, looking up to study his face. Her expression turned to one of horror. "Oh no, I didn't know how badly you were hurt. I'm sorry."

He shook his head. "It's fine, Jasmine. I'm just glad you're okay. Jatika didn't hurt you, did he? What happened?"

She shuddered, notably from the realization of events and all the things Jatika had done to the group to fool them into thinking he was Aladdin. "It's a long story. The more I think back to everything that happened and the way he reacted, the more I should've known that it wasn't you. Jatika had us all fooled and we didn't see it."

A sudden shriek from Genie above them startled Aladdin and Jasmine. "I hate to break it to you kids, but we've got a little more company than expected."

Jatika might've been trapped in his magic confinement, but he cackled with glee as Aladdin, Jasmine, and Genie's expressions fell to horror at the sudden upcropping of angry Al-Muddy marching toward them. Aladdin drew Jasmine closer to him as he realized they were outnumbered, at least 40 of the screaming creatures to just the three of them (not counting the imp in the bottle).

Jatika's words were equally biting through his laughter. "I may not be able to feed from your fear in my entrapment, my pretties, but I certainly will revel from watching these mud creatures bury your cold corpses."