Here's chapter eighteen!

Yes, slutty outfits, for lack of a better description... well, you'll see, lol. By the way, this part is mostly on Asali's POV. So enjoy!

Thanx to Moonbeam for her suggestions! I used one of them here!

Disclaimer- I don't own Shaman King or Moonbeam's tips

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0 Of Crazy Sultans and Slutty Outfits 0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

ASALI

We were loaded off the horses and a guard took Ramissa and me by the arm and led us into the palace. I shot Ramissa a look. Don't struggle. Do as you're told. She nodded and calmly followed my lead. I was about to give Kigali the same look but it was too late. Four guards dragged in a screaming Kigali by her arms and legs. I sighed. Ramissa shook her head.

"If you don't put me down IMMEDIATELY I will personally torture you to death! LET ME GO! NOW!!!!!!!! Don't touch me! You don't know whom you're dealing with! LET ME GO!!!! If I had my Nevermeltice with me, you'd be REALLY sorry."

She screamed and twisted so much that she failed to see her surroundings. The palace was breathtaking. It was even more stunning than the one I had lived on for the past five years. We were led... and carried, into a large chamber with a gold throne. A boy our age sat there, his fingers intertwined in ambitious thoughts. He smiled superiorly when he saw us come in. We were released.

"Kneel before the Sultan!" The guard yelled. We did as we were told, and you would too if you had a curved sword pointed at curved sword pointed at the back of your head. It was the smart thing to do. Unluckily, Kigali wasn't in the smartest of moods. She stood as tall and defiant as she could.

"I will do no such thing!" She glared at the sultan. He seemed amused.

"What a spirited girl! Are these the ones in the balloon?"

"Yes, sir."

"Fabulous! Fabulous! We will keep them! Tell the maids to set up a room for them! And I have a special treat for the one with the brown and white hair. She shall be one of my wives!" This was too much for Ramissa and I. We jumped up from our kneeling positions.

"WHAT????!!!!!" We yelled. Kigali's blue eyes blazed. She was about to pounce on the sultan when the guards grabbed her arms and kicked her knees into a submissive position. She screamed in rage.

"Umm... no... err... your majesty... you wouldn't want to marry Kigali... erm... you see..." Ramissa looked at me for help.

"Yes! You wouldn't! She uh... can't cook at all!"

"And she is very problematic!"

"And she is a definite slob!"

"And she wastes money like Niagara Falls!"

"She'd make a horrible bride!"

"No one can control her!" The sultan looked more amused than ever.

"The ceremony will take place promptly at dawn!" He announced, laughing loudly. "Take them to their rooms and lock them there until the morning! And give them their belongings back." He waved as we were carried off the way we came, barely understanding the large, new vocabulary of curse words Kigali was presenting him with. As the sultan ordered, we were locked into a super-fancy room with a canopied-bed and a golden window, which was unfortunately too high off the ground. They slammed the door in Kigali's nose. She slammed the door with her fists.

"LET ME OUT!" She sank to her knees and started to cry. Ramissa and I lifted her off the ground and set her down gently on the bed. She cried on my shoulder.

"What's wrong hon?" I asked her, patting her hair.

"I—I will NOT be treated like an object! I can't go through with this again!" She sobbed.

"Again?" I asked suspiciously.

"We know that! Don't worry, we'll find a way out... somehow..." Said Ramissa, holding her hand.

"You DON'T understand!!! I already HAVE a fiancé!!!"

"WHAT?????!!!!!" I shook her. "What do you mean???"

"It was Tabitha's stupid idea." She cried. "She said that in my past life I had fallen in love with Hao, so she got me a fiancé to keep that from happening again!" We had all heard that story before. How the goddess of water and ice fell in love with the god of fire and failed to kill him in the last Shaman Tournament because of that reason 500 years ago. I felt a tear slid from my eye. It seemed too sad, a wild spirit like Kigali locked in the cage of obligation.

"Oh, sweetie! I'm so sorry!"

"Key! Don't worry, we'll convince that guy against marrying you!" Said Ramissa encouragingly. Kigali wiped her eyes and laughed softly.

"Yeah, like you did just now?" we laughed, momentarily forgetting our worries.

Knock Knock.

"The door." I announced

"COME IN!" Yelled Ramissa out of habit.

"Are you crazy??? What if it's the sultan??? What if he—"

"Dresses up as a woman? Yeah, I bet he would do that." Ramissa rolled her eyes and pointed to the door. A maid was sticking her head inside the room, looking curiously at us.

"What is it?" I asked suspiciously.

"The sultan had ordered me to bring you this," She set our backpacks down on our bed, "And this." She held out three folded outfits and handed them to each one of us. I got a light-pink one, Ramissa got a lilac one, and Kigali got a sky-blue one. We didn't unfold them until the maid hurried off and locked the door behind her as if we were convicted criminals.

"I'll change in the closet." Stated Ramissa.

"Are you really going to change?"

"The clothes we have now aren't made for the desert, especially Kigali's. Besides, they're all sandy." She turned around and walked to the walk-in closet. I went into the bathroom to change. I unfolded my outfit and wished I hadn't.

"I'M NOT WEARING THIS!" Came a yell from the room. Ramissa answered from the closet.

"YES YOU ARE! You're the one that needs it the most, so put it on. Come on, it can't be THAT bad. Mine isn't." I feared to see what Kigali's would look like. Mine wasn't THAT bad... just a bit... revealing. It was a light pink color and had a tiny skirt with pink 'pants' made from that sparkly Arabian see-through cloth under it. The top was a short-shirt with a pink vest, and it had a matching sparkly veil and cute little pink shoes. It WAS a bit cute. Ramissa was right, Kigali's couldn't be THAT bad. I walked out of the bathroom and caught sight of Ramissa. Hers looked exactly the same as mine except for its violet coloring.

"Where's Kigali?" I asked her. She sighed and pointed at the curtains by the window.

"She won't let me see her!"

"Kigali! Come on out! You'll look fine! They're not so bad!" I encouraged her.

"Mine doesn't look like yours!" She said angrily, and then she pulled back the curtains and stomped out. "LOOK!" We did. She was wearing a blue bikini with the sparkly see-through clothing lightly covering her legs and arms. She had a sky-blue cape around her shoulders and a silver tiara on her forehead. A veil covered her mouth and she wore blue sandals. Her hair was tied up in a cute ponytail with a silver band. "I LOOK like a whore!" She yelled.

"No you don't! You look adorable! Ok, so maybe it's a bit more err... revealing than ours, but it looks great on you! And now you won't be hot anymore!" She crossed her arms and grumbled something.

"Now, for our escape..." started Ramissa. That got our full attention. We looked at her and waited for her to go on. "What? I can't figure out EVERYTHING!"

"Ok, first thing's first. Call Riomi and Denali so we can fly out this window!" Said Kigali. Ramissa and I exchanged looks.

"We sent them with Zoe..."

"Aww great! Ok, it doesn't matter, we'll just use the hoverboard and hang gliders to soar out the window."

"Won't work, look!" Ramissa pointed out the window. It seemed to glow in a yellow kind of aura. "It's magically locked, like a force-field. If we go out that way, it will alert the shaman who configured the shield. We'll be caught."

"I have an idea! Look!" Kigali grabbed her Nevermeltice and ran to the door. She closed her eyes and pushed it against the keyhole. It instantly turned into a key and stuck fast into the opening, then it clicked and the door creaked open.

"Good job Key!" We gathered our backpacks and tiptoed out the room.

"Keep your weapons at hand!" whispered Ramissa. I grabbed my Nimbus Blade and turned it into a sharp, curved sword.

"This way!" We were now running down the halls, past galleries of fine art and rooms loaded with gold and jewels (which we had to drag Kigali out of).

"Hey Missy, don't you think it's a bit peculiar that we haven't seen even one guard?"

"No, I just think that these people are really stupid."

"HAHAHAHAHA!!!!! DO YOU REALLY THINK WE ARE THAT STUPID???" We whirled at the sound of the new voice. A guard was holding Kigali with a sharp blade against her throat and a hand on her mouth. The man who had laughed looked older (and uglier) than the others. He had a white beard and a strong aura.

"I AM THE SHAMAN FOR THIS TRIBE!!!! AND I WILL MAKE SURE YOU STAY PUT ONCE AND FOR ALL!!!!! HAHAHAHA!!!!!"

"How about you shut up!!!!!" Yelled back Ramissa. The guard growled and tightened the blade around Kigali's throat. She glared fiercely at him but didn't struggle. The shaman took something out of his pocket. He showed it to us.

"I had a feeling you might be shamans, so I developed this." He held out a metal choker with Arabic inscriptions on it. He opened it and clasped it around Kigali's neck, and something inexplicable happened. Her aura vanished. Sure, it was still there, but it had become extremely weak. She sank to her knees and her Nevermeltice became a silver orb.

"What did you do to her???!!!" I yelled, going to Kigali's side. She swayed like she was going to faint.

"Isn't it wonderful??? That choker contains all shaman power. She had basically become a human."

"NO!!!" I yelled. But he just smiled maniacally and took another choker out of his pocket.

"ASALI!!! LOOK OUT!!!" Ramissa warned me. Too late. He snapped forwards and locked the choker around my neck. Wha...? My head exploded in pain as my powers were blocked from me. I felt as if I was going to throw up. Nimbus Blade turned into a crystal orb, but I didn't do it. I reached for it and tried to turn it into a sword, but it just stayed in its round, spherical form. NO!

"My powers!" I cried.

"It is beautiful, no? And no matter how much you struggle with it, you can't take it off! Only one with great shaman powers can make it unclasp." He laughed his sick laugh again. "The sultan will be SO pleased! Turbine," He briefly turned to a man behind him, who was completely covered in Bedouin clothing. "You know whom you must tell. Master Asakura will also be very pleased." The man immediately set off.

Asakura??? I MUST have heard wrong! But I didn't get much time to think about it, because the shaman turned his attentions to Ramissa.

"Now it's your turn!" He said, pointing at her.

"NO!!! RAMISSA!!! RUN!!!!! RUN NOW!!!!!!" Yelled Kigali, who had mostly recovered. "We'll manage to get out, but you can't get caught! Take my hoverboard and run!!!!!" Of course! Without my wind, Ramissa wouldn't be able to fly the hang glider, but Kigali's hoverboard could work!

"Yea! Go for it Missy! RUN!!!" I yelled. Ramissa grabbed the hoverboard, her backpack and shattered through a window just as the guards had figured out that she still had shaman powers.

"No!" Yelled the shaman. He had been distracted for a second, and that's all Kigali needed. She grabbed a folded hang glider and smashed him in the head. The hang glider snapped in two and the shaman was knocked out. But the guards were not.

"Come on!!!" Kigali grabbed the backpacks and my arm. I was still dazed by the effects of the choker, but that didn't stop me from getting up and running after Kigali as fast as my legs could take me. We scrambled outside the palace with the guards on our tails.

"THERE!" called Kigali, pointing at some horses that had been tied up by the gate. "GO! TAKE THE BAGS AND RUN FOR IT!" she shoved them in my arms and pushed me on a horse. "I'll hold the guards off. Ramissa will reunite us, trust her!" She took a pocketknife and cut the horse's reins, and then slapped his side. The horse immediately broke into a run away from the palace and towards the desert. It had all happened so fast I barely had time to think.

"KIGALI!!!" I called behind me as I trotted away. The gate had closed, missing my ride by a few inches, but now Kigali was trapped inside! Kigali is an expert fighter, and you don't need shaman powers for that. I reminded myself, but that didn't keep out the biting fear of Kigali's fate.

"Be careful, Key." I whispered as I rode into the freezing desert night.

NORMAL

Kigali stood on the other side of the gate, looking at the retreating cloud of sand. Well, at least Asali was safe. But now she had a whole new problem to deal with. She half-turned in defiance to the guards, who were running to her as she thought. A plan. She needed a plan. It would be difficult, with no shaman powers. She looked at the stables. They were against the wall, and its roof was near the top. I she could just climb it...

"Hey you!" A guard stepped up and pulled out a sword. No time to think. Kigali dashed to another guard and quickly took his sword out of his hilt. It was so unexpected that everyone was stunned for a moment, trying to figure out how a sword had appeared on the girl's hand, but that moment was all Kigali needed to make it happen. She ran into the stables.

"There she goes! Get her! Bring her alive!" Kigali climbed up a rickety ladder to the hay-bale storage platform, close to the roof, then she grabbed the sword and stuck it in the ceiling. She started to desperately wedge out the wooden planks. Creak. Someone in the stairs! Swish. A sword missed her by millimeters. The young guard looked at her, impressed.

"You dodged."

"I know my way around swords." She unstuck her sword from the roof and charged at the guard. Swish... clang... swish. Kigali swung the sword at top speed, mostly in offence, making the guard back off.

"AHH!" A gash appeared on his shoulder.

"That's for kidnapping me." Then she grabbed his sword and went back to the hole in the ceiling. It was JUST big enough for her to fit through and... YES! She was OUT! She squeezed through the hole and onto the roof, then on the thick wall. She had to jump. It was somewhat high. She hesitated.

"YOU WON'T ESCAPE!" She looked backwards. An old guard was pressing himself into the hole. Hesitation gone, she jumped clean off the wall and landed hard in the warming sand. The sun was coming out.

"COME BACK!" They called to her, but she wouldn't hear any of it. She just ran. Ran as fast as possible. The sun rose. The sand burned through the sandals, but she kept on moving. At midday, Kigali slowed to a walk. She was as thirsty as she had ever been.

"Great, without my shaman powers, I can't have any water. Ramissa was right." She sighed and kept on walking. Here in the desert, one couldn't just give up on life, she had learned, one had to keep going until you couldn't keep going and endure until endure you could not. No water. Burning sun. Exhaustion. This was the way she was going to die. It must have been late afternoon when she found a pile of bones that had once been a horse. Her stomach flipped. That would be her by tomorrow night, but she couldn't give in. Tabitha's training had made sure of that. Most normal humans would have collapsed in the scalding sand a long ago, but beating some record wasn't going to help her survive.

The sun was going down. She sighed and put one leg in front of the other. Again... and again... and again... she lost track. It was very hard to believe that yesterday at this time she had been flying high on a balloon, with tons of water and her friends. Now she was alone. The temperature went down fast. Very fast. A degree a minute. The sky became dark as the sun hid away from sight. The sand was now as cold as ice. Never mind the scalding death of being fried alive, she would die here, in the freezing cold, just like her home in the north. She fell to her knees. This is how it would end. No shaman powers... no spirit... no friends... was Asali going through the same as she was? She didn't know. All she wanted was to lay down and rest... just for a little while... then she'd keep going... but even she knew that morning would not come. If she could only see the northern lights one last time... just once more... her eyes closed serenely.

The sudden changes of temperature plus exhaustion and lack of water had put her in a coma-like state. She didn't feel the bitter cold as midnight crept by. She didn't feel the shifting sands as they accompanied the winds on their journey south. She didn't hear her friend's calls several miles away. She didn't see the dark silhouette shadow her unconscious body, blocking the moon and all its light from sight. She didn't feel the two strong arms that picked her up. She didn't feel a thing. Only darkness and tranquility. Only that.

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So? Can you guess who it is? Can you? Can you? Lol, yeah I bet you can. I made this chapter longer to make up for the past ones! Review if you can and brush your teeth every day!

Next chapter- We Meet Again