The doctor checked Rena's pulse as she slept and shook his head, carefully getting up so as not to wake her and headed for the door, closing it quietly behind him. "She's still not eating, is she?"

Jasmine shook her head, her dark hair whipping about in its usual tethered sections. "She just keeps saying she's not hungry. Is she sick?"

"Not physically." The doctor said simply. "The broken bones have healed, her body is perfectly fine but I think she's just lost the will to keep going. I don't know what set this problem off, but if you have any ideas I suggest you find a way or you're going to lose her."

With nothing more to do the doctor left, just as disappointed with the prognosis as the rest of them were. Jasmine looked to Aladdin, eyes filled with worry. "What are we going to do? If she doesn't start eating again she won't last the week!"

Aladdin just stood there, peering in through the crack in the door at the husk of a woman lying in the bed. "This is all my fault. I told her he wouldn't come and he didn't care. Now that he's actually proving that statement she'd dying of a broken heart."

"I hate to say this, but we need Mozenrath."Jasmine seemed just as shocked to say it as her fiancé was to hear it. "Even if he tells her he never wants to see her again at least she'd have some closure."

Damn it to hell but she was right. As much as the idea turned his stomach they needed that robe wearing asshole or their friend was going to die. Without another word he turned and marched off, whistling for carpet that appeared on cue and taking off again with him riding along. "Alright carpet," he said, "head for the Citadel."

The place was in shambles, worse off than he'd ever seen it. Aladdin hopped off the floating carpet and tentatively looked back. The magic crystal alarms were going off at carpet's presence but no one had come to 'greet' them like usual. As he stepped in through the ajar front door a stench of death filled the space, making him nearly retch. In the corner of the room, leaning up against the wall was a mamluk, sitting there rotting away even more so than usual. The zombie was dead, not just undead but DEAD dead, like all the magic that kept it alive had been sucked out, leaving the corpse to be just that, a body left to rot. Sliding back onto carpet he lowered his head and whispered. "Something's not right, we need to hurry and find Mozenrath."

The rug shook a little in agreement, hastily flying past the halls riddled with corpses and the various rooms that had been left unattended. Oddly enough every door had been opened, like someone had been looking for something and couldn't seem to find it, each one was torn up worse than the last.

Following the destruction he passed through to the main chamber where the fight with Khartoum had happened. Nothing had been repaired or moved, everything was exactly as it had been when he and the other's had left except for a small rectangle-shaped burnt spot on the floor, roughly the size of a book.

An echo of noise caught Aladdin's attention. Following it brought him to the kitchen where a familiar eel was slithering about in the air, mumbling to itself. "No food, no food…where Rena keep food?"

"Xerxes!" Aladdin shouted, making the slithering thing squeak in surprise. "Where is Mozenrath?!"

The little pink thing tried to fly away, a panicked look on his face but Aladdin and carpet were too fast. He snatched up the eel much like Mozenrath liked to do and glared down at it. "Don't make me ask you again, Xerxes. Where. Is. Mozenrath?"

The eel gave a squawk, his eye bulging a little before blurting out. "Master in workshop! Master sick! Go away stupid Aladdin!"

"What do you mean he's sick?"

The eels went still in his hands. "Master no eat. Master no sleep. Master just yell and break things. Master kill mamluks. Look for Rena but Rena gone. Master gone mad!"

Gripping the slippery creature just a breath tighter he brought it nose to nose with his face, narrowing his eyes to dark slits. "Take me to your master."

The eel nodded hastily, slipping out of Aladdin's grip and barreling down the halls, leading the young man towards his enemy's workspace. The old wooden door had been blown off, it barely hanging on by a single upper hinge. The room within was dark and torn to hell. Tables flipped over, broken glass and colorful fluids littered the floor while dried herbs and other miscellaneous items covered the rest. The eel hastily disappeared into the shadows of the farthest corner from the light where a dark figure sat on the floor, legs bent up at the knee with his arms resting there and his head dipped down against his neck like he was sleeping. "Mozenrath?"

The dark youth slowly rose up his head, his face paler and thinner than it usually was; his hair was thick and greasy and there was a definitely smell of body odor like he hadn't left this room in days. Oddly enough he smiled at the young man standing over him. "Aladdin. To what do I owe this surprise visit? Is it my birthday?"

"I've come to get you Mozenrath." Aladdin said simply, trying not to let the anger push him over the edge. "Rena needs to see you."

"Is that where she went? And here I thought she'd run off and betrayed me just like Khartoum did. Huh, will wonders never cease." He shifted a little, stretching out his legs to the sound of broken glass getting shoved around and letting his arms rest on his thighs. Aladdin eyed the gauntlet ever present on the sorcerer's hand and frowned. Mozenrath caught him staring. To the urchin's surprise Mozenrath promptly took off the leather glove and tossed it at Aladdin's feet. "Don't worry, Aladdin. I have no quarrel with you today, so don't get your panties in a twist over it."

"Mozenrath, you need to get up. Rena needs to see you." He repeated, growing madder at the guy as the man in front of him just leaned his head back against the wall and looked up at him. If he didn't know any better he'd have said the young man was drunk with just how little he seemed to care.

"I'm not going anywhere with you, street rat." Mozenrath gave a little smile at the stick to his enemy. "She's better off as far away as she can get from a parasite like me. Just leave me like this."

"She's the one dying, you asshole!" Aladdin shouted, pointing out towards Agrabah. "She stopped eat days ago all because of you! Don't you get it? She's in love with you and has been waiting for you to come and you never showed up!"

That smile on his face faded away and turned into a scowl. Mozenrath hastily got to his feet, wobbling a little like he hadn't stood up in a while and snarled. "I didn't ask her to fall in love with me. I didn't ask to fall in love with her either. Nobody even bothered to ask us if we wanted to live like we did. That stupid fucking curse came into play long before either of us were even BORN! Do you think I LIKED dressing up as a girl every day just to stay alive in that god forsaken palace? And then when I finally get out she shows back up 15 years later like some bad dream? I didn't want her here! I knew I should have kicked her out as soon as she showed up on my doorstep. Women are nothing but distractions but nooooo, she had to look at me with those big brown eyes and put me in my place just like she did when we were kids!"

Aladdin had had enough. In one step he had the other man pinned up against the wall with his forearm at his chest. Mozenrath squirmed against his opponents grasp but not a reverently as he'd done many times before. The fight just wasn't in him. "That woman spent 15 years thinking you were dead, Mozenrath. She's been in love with you since you were kids and yet you still push her away. She's the only one in this whole god dammed world who cares about you and you're not even man enough to be by her bedside while she dies of a broken heart YOU caused! Give me one good reason I shouldn't just leave you here and tell her you're dead just to end her misery?"

"Fine," Mozenrath choked out, still holding onto his opponent arm, the edges of tears brimming in his eyes. "Go ahead. Kill me. Tell her that her beloved Aaran is dead. He was dead the moment he crawled through that hole in the garden wall; if not then than Desdane killed him when he tore his mind to shreds just for fun. What she wants she from me she can never have because there's not enough left of him to love!"

"Then why can't you just tell her that to her face? Do you know how much anguish you'd save her? Just tell her the truth!" Aladdin snapped, almost seeing red at this point. "She loves you even as you are, not just as you were and for reasons I can't figure out has saved your ass more times than you're worth! Do you even love her back?"

"Of course I love her!" Mozenrath, finally getting his chance, got in a good hit to Aladdin's shoulder with his fist, knocking the other man back a few paces and letting his body drop to the ground rather unceremoniously. As he knelt there panting he threw his arms to the side, knocking things around and breaking already broken pieces even more. "She was everything to me! EVERYTHING! The world could have fallen to pieces and I wouldn't have cared as long as she was happy. SHE was my joy, my happiness, my hope and every other good thing that a person can be and then Desdane took everything from me! My name, my freedom, my memories, even my free will all for his sick twisted pleasure, just to watch how long I'd squirm!"

He flipped his lab table, hurling his stool into the corner with such gusto it broke into pieces. The pure fury and rage spilled out into a roar that made even Aladdin take a step back. The movement caught his attention and Mozenrath grabbed at his vest, staring the horrified man in the eyes as salty tears dripped from his own. "Do you have any idea how it feels to have someone worming their way through your mind like some parasite, eating away all the happiness and joy you ever felt and only leaving pain and misery?! He took away her name, her face, every scrap of innocence and light until all that was left was some reoccurring nightmare of her screaming for someone I could no longer recognize and still I wanted to find her. It's all I ever wanted!"

By then Mozenrath was more tears and blubbering then words as he sunk to his knees at his enemy's feet. Aladdin stood over his crouched nemesis and scowled hard enough to hurt his jaw. "I don't understand."

Digging his fingers, boney and otherwise into the dirt floor under him Mozenrath blinked back more tears trying to make sense a bit. "It's the one thing Desdane taught me that was ever worth something: go after what you want. I may not have been able to remember who she was but I knew she was important. It was like some string tied around my soul that kept pulling me forward into fog filled maze. I need to find her, even if it was just for the sake of remembering why she was so damn important. Even if I had to take over and burn every city in the seven deserts to the ground to find her."

"Then why go from that to taking over the world?"

Letting out a sigh the dark haired young man sat back on his feet and ran his fingers through is hair, sniffling and wiping his nose. "Because after so many years with dark magic pulsing through your veins it starts to take a toll on your mind. The gauntlet turned my desire to find into a desire to possess. I wanted more, needed more, until taking over the world consumed my every thought. After a while, I forgot what I wanted and only did what the gauntlet wanted. But then Rena showed up and everything changed. I found myself being torn between what I wanted and what the gauntlet wanted. It's why I went after both you and philosopher's stone: to give myself more time and to break my dependence on the gauntlet. But it all just made everything worse. Evil can't love, Aladdin. No matter how I feel, or how much my heart aches just at the thought of her. Aaran would do anything for her, but Mozenrath would get her killed. She's better off without me."

"Bullshit." Aladdin snapped. "You just took off the damned gauntlet."

Mozenrath began to chuckle, crawling back to his original spot, his original position and resumed leaning against the wall. "It's never just that simple. Even stopping the use of magic comes with a price and it's one I cannot pay."

"So you won't even go see her to tell her you've given up? You're more pathetic than I thought."Aladdin threw the gauntlet back in Mozenrath's face and turned away from that darkness, heading towards the door. In the doorway he paused, looking back to that dark corner where Mozenrath slunk in the shadows. "I may never understand what you went through growing up Mozenrath, but I can tell you right now that this isn't right. Even if you weren't tied together by some curse or string of fate I know she loves you and you love her. She's dying Mozenrath. If it were Jasmine, I'd at least say goodbye."

A large bottle that apparently survived the onslaught of Mozenrath's original tantrum came barreling out of the darkness to smash into the wall just next to Aladdin's head. It was the only response he received as he climbed back onto his carpet friend and left the land of black sands.