Aladdin' the Assassin

Rufus Shinra stood in the Oasis of the Winds as he waited impatiently for the Keyblade Master's Gummi ship to arrive. His camel was almost half dead of thirst, and that wasn't a good sign. "Where is that damned boy?" Rufus yelled.

"Calm down" said the girl who was sitting on a rock near him. "It takes a while to travel across space like this. Okay, when he and his friends arrive, we throw ourselves down on our knees and beg for him to help us save the true sultan. Got it memorized?" she asked, tossing her red hair back.

"Yes, Lea" Rufus said. "What is it with that saying? You always say that."

"It's a catchy phrase" Lea retorted. "I don't see you coming up with anything better."

Rufus wiped sweat from his face. "Because I don't have any need to" he sighed. "Damn, it's hot here. I don't know how the people of this world stand it."

"Maybe it would help if you didn't wear a three piece suit all the time" Lea suggested sarcastically. Unlike Rufus who wore his trademark white suit, Lea wore a silvery vest which sparkled in the desert sunlight. Red and yellow bandages covered her chest, looped around her torso. Baggy red pants (sort of like the kind Penelo wears at the end of FF12) covered her legs, and she wore the traditional sandals of Agrabah. Her long red hair was pinned back by gold clips. Rufus snorted.

"You look like one of the exotic dancers my father hired for his fiftieth birthday party. And you have just about the same morals as well."

Lea's eyes narrowed, causing the black tattoos under her eyes to scrunch. "What are you suggesting?" she growled.

"Oh, I don't know…" said Rufus. "I…" he suddenly pulled out his shotgun and fired a shot behind Lea.

"What the hell are you doing?!" she screamed. "You could have hit me!!" she looked and saw a Luna Bandit disintegrate into darkness. "Oh…a Heartless." She smiled. "If you want to build the new HQ here, then you're going to have to get rid of the Heartless infestation we have going on."

"Another job for the Keyblade Master" said Rufus. "I wonder if he'll take payment. I've got plenty of munny. Just because my world was destroyed doesn't mean my bank accounts were."

"Wait. Here he comes" said Lea. She looked the Gummi Port which was beginning to shimmer. A few seconds later, a boy dressed in black and yellow clothing along with a dog like thing and a large white duck stepped out of the light.

"What do we do now?" asked Donald.

"Well, I think we should tell ask Aladdin if he's seen any Organization XIII activity. If he's Sultan now…then maybe we could ask him to look out for it."

"Sounds like a good idea to me!" said Goofy.

"Second thing" said Donald. "Then we talk to Yen Sid about Morgan."

Sora winced. "Ah…can we do that…a little later? He's cool and everything, but he kind of creeps me out."

Donald put his hands on his hips, and steam began to come from under his hat.

"Okay, okay!" said Sora. "We'll do it right after a quick visit to Aladdin!"

"Wait!" yelled a voice near the bushes. A man in a white suit stepped out. His blond hair was plastered to his face by sweat. "Are you the Keyblade Master?" he asked.

"Yes" Sora responded uncertainly.

"Then you must help us!" he said. "We are representatives of the true Sultan, Aladdin! We beg you to save his Highness from a terrible death!"

"What?!" asked the trio at the same time.

"If you do not hurry, Lord Aladdin will become dinner for a very nasty beast that is roaming the desert sands even now, waiting for its meal!"

"Aladdin's in trouble?!" Goofy gasped.

"Yes" said the man in white. "Two weeks ago, he was convicted of killing the Sultan of Agrabah, the father of the beautiful princess Jasmine. As punishment, Aladdin was sentenced to be fed to a terrible monster which lives in the desert. The time of the execution has come!"

"This is horrible!" Sora said. Aladdin, an assassin? Could he really have killed Princess Jasmine's father?

"We need to hurry, Rufus" said another voice, and Sora saw a red haired girl step out from behind the trees.

Axel! screamed Roxas from inside Sora, but Sora shushed him. "It's not Axel" he said out loud.

"Who?" said the girl. "My name is Lea Delosian. "I Rufus Shinra's assistant and soon to be vice president of Shinra Inc."

"Shinra Inc?" asked Goofy. "Say, aren't you that company that drains the life force of planets---"

"And we've changed" said Rufus, eyeing Sora. He was looking strangely at Lea.

"Are you guys from this world?" Sora asked.

"No, we're not" said Rufus. "I am from another world, far away…and Lea is from a world called Aquivale. She---"

"I can't really remember" said Lea. "My last memory is being in my uncle's store. Then it's a blank. Well, until Moneybags found me." She pointed to Rufus.

"She's hot" Sora muttered to himself. Roxas agreed with him. Sora had to force an image of Kairi into his head. It didn't help that Kairi, Tine, and now Lea had bright red hair. Yet she reminded him and Roxas so much of Axel…those tattoos, the hair…the presence was the same as always. But this was obviously not the Flurry of Dancing Flames.

"Well" said Sora, as he hefted his Keyblade over his shoulder. "Let's get going. We've got a Sultan to save!"

"Right on!" said Lea. She pulled out a pair of bright silver chakrams.

Chakrams?! Roxas said to Sora. "I know, I know" Sora said. "Jeez, talk about déjà vu."


"You know what pisses me off the most about all this? Do you want to know what pisses me off about all of this?!" Cid's voice rose to a loud shriek of rage that echoed around his cell. "The thing that pisses me off is that those bastards knew about Nexumair this whole time and they never said anything to us at all!"

"Ranting and raving about our betrayal won't help us, Cid" said Cloud. He leaned back against the wall of the cell. "If we had been more careful in watching the house instead of so eager to cast the H.R.S., we might have been able to catch the spies." He pounded his fist against the bench that he was sitting on. "Damn it! My SOLDIER training seems to be going down the fucking tubes."

"We must find a way out of here" said Aerith. She was facing the corner of the cell like a child that has been bad, and she had not spoken since they had been brought down here. The dungeons were made from blank gray and white stone. It was cold down there and they could see their breath. The cells were huge and made to fit large groups of people. Cid Highwind was the only one who was in a cell alone. He had been taken that night. Suddenly, Leon was brought down the dungeon stairs by a group of grim faced Bastion Knights.

"In you go" one of them said, and shoved the brunette into the cell with Cid.

"Fucking traitors!" Leon yelled tearfully. His face was red and his hair stuck up in all sorts of different directions. He looked like a madman.

"Are you alright, Leon?" Yuffie asked.

"How do I look?" Leon snarled. "We've got major troubles. I don't know if they told you all this, but they're going to execute us…although how soon, I don't know."

"Execute?!" Cid yelled. "What the hell for?! I don't know what you guys got yourselves into, but I'm innocent!"

"It's too hard to explain right now" Leon said, and he sat on the floor of the cell.

Cid sat down next to him. "Well, I'm not going anywhere special today" he said. Leon sighed and explained to him the revelation of Tine's true nature, the H.R.S., Riku and her leaving for the Destiny Islands, and Maleficent and Pete's help. Then he explained his visit to Nexumair's office and how the young Nobody had told him of his transformation.

"Good God…" said Cid as he finished.

"So we're really going to die?" asked Yuffie. "Really and truly? If we are, I'd have been better off being crushed under that house."

"Maybe you would" said a sneering voice from outside the cells. They turned to see a blond woman dressed in the black robe and silver neck chains of Organization XIII. "If you died back there, then you wouldn't have to suffer the insult of being executed by the city you helped to restore." The woman walked closer to them and smiled. "It must be bad, isn't it? To see the city you spent blood, sweat, and tears hate and revile you for a crime you never committed…I can't imagine the pain."

"I bet you can't" Cid said harshly. "Your kind doesn't have hearts to imagine with."

"Larxene, don't antagonize the prisoners" said a cold voice as a Dark Corridor opened. Another robed Organization member stepped out. This one had long blue hair and an X shaped scar between his yellow eyes. He looked like a borderline psychotic if they had ever seen one. "Leave me to speak to them in private."

"Yes, sir" said the one called Larxene sullenly. She teleported away in a huff of annoyance.

The scar faced Nobody stepped close to their cells. He smiled in a bestial way that let them know that there was no mercy in store for them.

"How long?" asked Cloud suddenly.

"How long until you die?" Saix asked.

"No" said Cloud. "How long has the government of Radiant Garden been bowing its head to the Nobodies and Organization XIII?"

Saix smiled again. "This plot has been in place since our 'defeat' a year ago. At first we merely planted Nexumair here as a spy…in case anyone started getting suspicious if we were truly dead or not…but once Tine got involved in this, things changed."

"So you've been using us from the beginning!" Yuffie cried in anger.

"Indeed. Why do you raise your voice young ninja? We never intended to harm you…well, until your gunblade wielding friend decided to stick his nose into places in which it did not belong. Now we have no choice but to kill you all."

One of the Knights came in. He saluted when he saw the Luna Diviner. "Sir Saix" he said. "We're searching everywhere, but we can't find the wizard Merlin…his house is completely empty!"

"Guess Merlin's a little too tricky for you" said Cid smugly.

Saix frowned. "That may be, but you are still going to die…unless you cooperate with us."

"What do you mean?" asked Aerith. "Nexumair has told everyone that we Guild Leaders planned to seize more power for ourselves by inviting more Heartless into the world. He then said that we murdered an innocent girl after torturing her to death as a unholy sacrifice to the darkness. How do you plan to make people believe us innocent of those terrible crimes?"

"I will not" said Saix. "But we can smuggle you off this world, by means of the Dark Corridor. "After that, you will be free to live in peace on whatever world you choose."

"But…but Radiant Garden is our home!" Yuffie cried.

"Then die at home" Saix said. "It makes no difference to me."

"What do we have to do to obtain this reprieve?" Cloud asked. Of all of them, he was the least bothered by all of this. He had spent a good bit of his life wandering the universe and he wasn't afraid to go back. But the others…

"You must tell us where Riku, Kairi, and Kingdom Hearts went" Saix said. "Only then you will be saved."

"Never!" cried Leon. "We know what you'll do with it if you have it!"

Saix shrugged his shoulders. "You have twenty four hours to decide your fate. Talk amongst yourselves. Your next answers will decide whether you live…or participate in Hades' Necro Tournaments."