Chapter 18: Separation Anxiety

Genie had managed to finally create a new, stable hiding place for the people of Agrabah trapped in Karais, but it had taken a long time to round up many of the merchants and regulars because they had all scattered to places around the city in order to get away from the Scavengers trying to take magic from whatever sources they could find.

What disturbed him in the effort of doing so was the fact that he saw more of the city falling apart than before. Several of the buildings that had once been standing were now either bare bones or were reduced to complete rubble. The buildings closer to the tower were fine, but there were more Scavengers there than a little bit. Genie had to be extra creative to find a place that was safe and stable for everyone to be and stay hidden.

"Seems you were able to take care of things better than expected," Razoul remarked as Genie made sure the last two citizens of Agrabah made their way into the hidden area.

"Yeah, but they took a while to find. I think that's everyone now. I'm counting on you guys to handle things here while I go help Al, Jas and the others. How are you feeling?"

Razoul did seem a little better than he'd been before. His injuries weren't too serious, but Genie knew that a good bit whatever magic that had been within him had been drained by the monsters. That made the guard tired, but at least he was alive.

"I'm ready to defend this place as needed now. I'm glad to hear you were able to secure Agrabah based on your earlier assessment," Razoul confirmed. "But I would feel better if I knew the Princess and Prince were safe."

Genie blinked in surprise. He was not expecting Razoul to be so...honest? And not just about Jasmine's well being, but Aladdin as well. If the leader of the Royal Guard was so forthcoming, then Genie figured his concern was beyond anything than he could express in words. Far more than usual anyway. "Yeah, I'm headed out to the tower now to help them."

"I'll leave you to it then. We have no option for failure. If this place falls while we are all trapped here, then none of us are going home. I hope you are aware of that."

Genie nodded, his expression serious. "Believe me, I know."

As the two shared a silent understanding of the tasks ahead of them, Genie and Razoul nodded to each other before they went their separate ways. And Genie knew that regardless of what happened next, he needed to get to his friends. Mirage was not going to put another barricade in his way to get to them, not this time. But first he needed to figure out where they were. And he wasn't sure how far along they were. If it meant he had to search every nook and cranny the tall, ominous tower possessed, so be it.

Admittedly, Genie didn't like the fact that he'd been away from them for this long. It filled him with anxiety. But that fear - at this point - was more of a catalyst for him to act than anything else.

Iago exhaled a long, and very long sigh. "Is it just me, or does it feel like the further up we go in this tower, the more dangerous it gets? That fourth level was a doozy."

Siva looked equally exhausted. "Mirage filled that floor with so many traps that I think she might have overdone herself in her attempts to keep us from reaching here."

Aladdin looked over his shoulder at his friends as he stood beside Jasmine. "We made it here in one piece, at least. But we had no choice but to search every corner of that floor despite all the traps it had. We know now Carpet wasn't in any of the places we searched. Which means he must be somewhere around here."

Aladdin, Jasmine, Iago, Abu, and Siva had all made it to the fifth level of the tower. To say that the previous floor they traversed through was dangerous would have been an understatement, especially to Aladdin's recollection of events. Jasmine had almost had a pot of lava poured over her head and narrowly escaped the trap. Siva had managed to heal himself after several small spikes had landed in his left forearm. Aladdin had helped the merchant pull them out before they could do any serious damage. Abu had briefly fallen into a well full of biting fish that looked like they wanted to tear the fur from the monkey. His tail was still missing patches of fur, but Siva had healed the bites. Aladdin had nearly been choked to death by a vine monster they'd managed to chase away, thanks to Jasmine setting part of the living plant on fire with a torch. As for Iago, he was still recovering from being trapped in a room with a cluster of Scavengers and wasps that tried to sting him with their barbs. The parrot managed to outfly them all only by triggering a trap that squashed them all with a trap wall. Unfortunately, the trap had also crushed Iago's tailfeathers, which were still bent out of shape.

"Leave it to Mirage to make the Rug be the last one of us to find," Iago complained. "And after we climbed all the way up to the top floor."

"I think she did that to make a point. Still, he has to be behind one of these doors, along with Mirage," Jasmine mused as she pointed ahead to a collection of about six different doors arranged in a circular room around them. "Question is, which one do we go in first?"

"If we go in any of them at all," Siva mused. "I would venture this as a guess, but based on the traps we encountered on the previous floor, this may be a trick."

"We don't have any keys for these doors, either," Aladdin said. "Unless one of these doors leads to some kind of key room."

Correct as usual, Aladdin.

Aladdin startled as he heard Mirage's voice. But it looked like he'd been the only one to hear her.

This is for your ears only, your highness - I'll give you a hint of where you'll need to go and what to do.. Speak of it and I won't hesitate to punish you all accordingly. The only door that's open at present on this floor is the second door on the left. That is the room with the keys to the other rooms. There's one key for three of you.

"Six doors but only three keys?" Aladdin said aloud. He'd noticed the keyholes being only on three doors when he'd looked, but Mirage's words confirmed the motivation behind it. That statement made him the center of attention among his companions.

Siva picked up on the same. "Prince Aladdin, you're exactly right. I didn't notice that detail until you mentioned it."

"So this is some kind of game," Jasmine said, her eyes narrowed. "How do we know which doors to open and where are the keys?"

Aladdin kept his mouth closed, though the question in his mind was very clear. What are you planning, Mirage? He knew that Mirage couldn't read his mind, but her answer came so close to what he was thinking that she might as well have.

I won't tell you what key your friends should choose, but you, in particular, should choose the blue key. You'll know it when you see it. There are no dangerous traps on this floor, but there are hidden trinkets that may prove useful to you all. Find the door your key goes to, and go from there. I'll be waiting.

Aladdin wasn't sure about what she meant by trinkets, and he was skeptical about the lack of dangerous traps. He wanted to ask more, but it felt like a trap to even address Mirage's hints aloud.

Not to mention he'd missed out on whatever Jasmine had said. He startled when he felt her hand on his arm. "Aladdin, did you hear me? Are you okay?"

"What? Sorry, I didn't. I'm fine, just...thinking," he said quickly.

"What's on your mind?" she asked, frowning. Aladdin didn't want to bring up Mirage, but he did bring up another concern in his head, something that he felt he could pose to the group before they moved forward.

"We're finally on the last floor of this tower, and Mirage is definitely waiting in one of these rooms. Genie's still not here. First I thought we might want to wait for him to catch up, but we're already this far ahead. Stopping now doesn't make sense. Even if we did, we'd chance Karais falling apart in the interim. I don't want that to happen."

"Oh no," Abu said.

"Yeah, kind of a no-brainer that none of us want to be done in by a dying magic city. Nor at the claws of one of those Scavenger monsters," Iago said, flinching.

"We did agree to move forward, but I understand your concern, Aladdin," Siva said. "If it were a situation where we could afford to wait, it would be wise. But I fear that you are correct in what you said before. We do not have that time to lose."

"Then, if we're all ready, let's keep going." He looked at Jasmine, Abu, Iago, and Siva, all confirming their intent to move forward. When he was sure they were ready, he nodded. "Okay." He pointed to the second door on the left. "I think that door might be slightly open, so we'll go through that one first."

"Huh?" Iago said. "That one looks like it's shut tight to me."

Aladdin walked up to the door. He smiled as he opened the door with ease, but the smile didn't reach his eyes. "Appearances can be deceiving. Also it's good if you have an eye to the details. We need to pay attention to every bit we can here."

Jasmine knew something was off with Aladdin even before he'd opened the door, but she wasn't sure what was bothering him. Sure, he'd been telling the truth about worrying about Genie, but even she was surprised by how Aladdin had pointed out the next place they needed to go from a seemingly closed door. Maybe it was a detail she missed, she couldn't be sure, but as they walked inside, she could sense that he was looking for and expecting something specific - a detail they hadn't known about but somehow he had.

Sure enough, they entered an area where a group of keys hung in a straight line along the wall. Aladdin was the first to reach them. "Looks like we found the keys we were looking for. Three of them, to be exact. Just like the number of keyholed doors outside."

"That's convenient," Iago said facetiously.

"Should we each take one to the locks outside, try to figure out where they lead to?" Aladdin asked. He didn't hesitate to take a blue key in his hand, weighing the seemingly heavy key in his palm. "I've got this one."

"Guess I'll take this one," Siva said, picking up a gold key.

"And I'll take this one," Jasmine said, picking up a lavender key. Each key had a bold, bright hues that were a bright contrast to the drabby doors outside.

"That just leaves deciding who's going with who," Aladdin said. "There's five of us and three keys."

"We could all go through each door as a group, one door at a time," Siva suggested.

Aladdin shook his head quickly. "That would be the safest option, sure, but it would take us the longest time. And we don't have that much to count on."

"That would leave us with two options, then," Jasmine said. "We could have one group take two keys, and the other group one key. Or spread each key out among three groups, but that would leave one person going alone."

"I'll go alone." Aladdin said quickly, a look in his eyes that was so determined that he wasn't looking for an argument in the matter. Jasmine had to hold herself back from arguing with him about how dangerous that was. But she realized his attention was also off and the way he looked at her made her realize there was more to his decision than he was saying aloud. It made her realize the connection - Mirage was watching them. She didn't doubt that to be true, considering how much time Mirage had dedicated to watching Aladdin and the others while she remained captured in the tower. Had she communicated with Aladdin in some way? Threatened him? When?

The entire time that Jasmine had been held captive in Karais, Mirage's efforts had been focused on isolating Aladdin from everyone else. From him being the only one without powers in Agrabah up until that moment. It felt like an act of revenge that was personal. She had been trying to break him. Not even only to kill him, but break his spirit.

While she'd tried to kill Aladdin several times in Karais, she still hadn't broken him. Not once. Not even using them all as pieces in her game to do it. He kept trying to tell them the entire time in Agrabah when magic was clouding everyone's judgment that something was wrong, came into the realm to save all of them when they were banished there, kept fighting for their sake even if in moments it meant sacrificing himself. And she realized that Mirage felt more than a certain type of way about it. That explained why she kept moving them all around and playing each scenario like pieces on a chess board.

Aladdin had once told her of the first time they met Mirage, back when she threatened a village from her realm by setting it ablaze from the direction of her fire cats. When her minions failed, Mirage realized it had been Genie, Iago, Carpet, Abu, and Aladdin who had saved the villagers. But her acts of revenge had still been directed towards Aladdin.

Scratch a hero deep enough and you'll find the coward inside.

I have an eternity to teach you fear. And even if it takes that long, you will learn fear, Aladdin.

Jasmine finally understood what Mirage's motivation for all of this was. Sure, Agrabah and other kingdoms beyond were a part of the aftermath of Mirage's plan, but her main goal was getting rid of Aladdin first. That had always been the first goal, everything else would come after. And if Jasmine had to say anything about it, she would not let that happen.

He was probably following her instructions because he didn't want any of them to get hurt. Jasmine decided that she'd go with her own plan, even if he was trapped in a scenario she knew little about.

"I'm goin' with Siva," Iago said, breaking Jasmine's thoughts. "Figure I'd stand more of a chance goin' with the healer."

"That means Abu's going with me," Jasmine said. "Aladdin, are you sure about this?"

"We can cover more ground if we go through each of the rooms. One of them's gotta lead to Carpet." She noticed he stopped short of saying that the other might lead to Mirage. And if she were guessing right, Aladdin had been quick to grab the blue key because he knew it led to Mirage's lair.

"Okay, then I guess we should go," Jasmine said. "I don't like any part of this, but the faster we can get through this, the better."

Siva seemed to pick up on the odd tension in the room at that moment. Even as Aladdin turned to walk out of the room, the merchant caught her glance, as if to ask "Are you sure this is okay?" She nodded, before moving forward, knowing that they were probably still being watched.

They were going to be separated, but not in the way that Aladdin thought. And if Jasmine timed it well, they could still help and buy time for Aladdin if they did things right. She only hoped that Genie could catch up with them soon.

As they returned to the room with the doors, Jasmine tried each of the locks before she found the door her key fit. "Okay, this is the first one."

Siva quickly found his door. "And I have this one."

"That just leaves mine," Aladdin approached his door. "Are we all ready?"

"Aladdin," she said, causing Aladdin to turn to look at her with concern. "You go first. We'll enter our doors after you go in. Just to make sure you go in safely."

He nodded, his expression relaxing. "Fair deal. You guys be careful. Look through every possible part of the rooms you're in. There may be things that can help us if you look carefully enough, and I'm sure that includes helping Carpet."

"Ya mean like before on all this treasure stuff Mirage was talkin' about when she had us lookin' for the keys to each floor?" Iago said. "Not hard, unless traps are waitin' for us like the last floor."

"Somehow I don't think we're going to have that problem this time," Aladdin said, his voice sounding sure. "But still, seriously, look everywhere you can." He paused a moment, as if his attention were elsewhere. Jasmine noticed his gaze shift away from them for a moment before returning. "I don't think it's traps we have to worry about as much as puzzles. That's the kind of thing Mirage would do at this point."

"Hopefully such puzzles don't take us too long to solve if we work at it," Siva said. "Aladdin, you need to be especially careful going in, especially being by yourself."

"I know. Count on it. If this all works out, then we can save Karais and return everyone to Agrabah. That's what I'm hoping." Aladdin looked at each of them one last time, before he turned the key in the lock and opened the door, going inside.

Jasmine knew exactly how quick she needed to be. She whispered in Abu's ear a quick message, to which Abu knew exactly what she wanted. He'd likely suspected Aladdin had been hiding something too. Abu leapt down, scurried across the floor, and darted inside the door before it could slam - magically - shut.

"Jasmine, did you intend for that to happen?" Siva said, surprised. "You shouldn't be going..."

"Alone? No, I'm not." Jasmine shook her head. "I'm going with you guys, but we need to hurry through your door first and see if Carpet's there. If not, then we'll return here and go to the room that my key opens."

"Um, what about Al's door? Carpet might be in there too," Iago said.

Jasmine shook her head. "Pretty sure the door Aladdin went through is straight into Mirage's lair. The same one she held me captive in. I don't have time to explain, but I'm very sure he was trying to protect all of us."

"What?" Siva and Iago said at once, but Jasmine wasn't waiting as she motioned for Siva to open the door.

"Please hurry. I told Abu to hide and watch what she does, stall for time if Mirage tries to hurt Aladdin. But if we don't move, they'll both be in danger." Jasmine's eyes narrowed and she spoke through her teeth. "I don't think Aladdin knows anything about what's ahead. But knowing that Carpet is the final piece to this whole puzzle, Genie still being gone, the layout of that room, and that this is the top of the tower, I know almost exactly how Mirage plans to kill my husband."