Author's Note: Well, thank you, all who reviewed. Your patience has been rewarded.
Bestia: I did not mean to insult to your love of slash. I am more or less covering any if not all unconventional pairings, especially the ones I had previously implied in my stories.
A Fiend in Need
Part 2: Interesting Developments
The bazaar was particularly busy today. The streets were more crowded than average, particularly concentrated in front of a fairly new and gaudily painted building in the corner. Upon watching, people filed in and, soon after, filed out with skin bags bulging and exuding mouth-watering, but lukewarm fragrances of spiced meat and pita bread. Outside, small children swarmed around its mascot, a saggy camel with large comical eyes and patches strategically sewn all over its body, like bees to an exotic flower.
"Agrabah has a Falafel Hut franchise!" Iago exclaimed, freed from the straightjacket and muzzle. "About time this one camel town got blessed by Gammy al Camel." As he said this, Gammy, or rather the unfortunate employee inside the costume, was fighting off seven little kids that had climbed upon him whilst crying out in agony.
"Why would you be excited about that?" Aladdin asked. Abu chattered inquisitively, suggesting that he was asking the same thing.
"It is my chance to get in on the franchise," Iago rubbed his wings, greedily, "A chance to get in on the money." He pulled out a flyer and handed it to Aladdin.
"'Falafel Hut careers'?" Aladdin asked as he read off the flyer. "'Become an owner/operator for your region's franchise'? 'Equal opportunity employment'?"
"Exactly!" Iago cried. "I will be rich beyond my wildest dreams, helming one of the most affluent franchises in the food service industry!"
"Oh, brother," Abu squeaked, rolling his eyes. Iago exchanged a glare.
"Well, I'm through with this visionless non-profit organization," Iago squawked as he flew off Aladdin's shoulder and into the crowd in front of Falafel Hut. "I'm off to get my fortune. Hey, move it or lose it, chrome dome!"
Standing, Aladdin and Abu looked at each other, somewhat bewildered.
"I...saw some dates over there by that cart," Aladdin recovered first, pointing to his left. Abu chattered excitedly as they made their way down that street. Suddenly, a squat little man jumped out in front of them. "Um, hi?"
The squat man executed an elaborate bow, his long gray-peppered beard touching the ground. "I am the Great Pestor," he wheezed, "and I have come to wreak havoc on-"
However, before he could finish, a great crowd of people swept him away as they ran past Aladdin and Abu. Abu squeaked, waving his small hand in front of Aladdin's eyes.
"That was kinda strange," Aladdin turned to Abu. "He reminded me of somebody, but-" Aladdin paused but waved his hand dismissively. "Probably not that important."
Abu shrugged and began to chatter excitedly again.
"All right, let's get some dates."
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Books were scattered upon the floor of the Citadel library, the howling still going full-blast, and Mozenrath was muttering angrily as he violently threw the books off their shelves.
"Since when did Destane ever borrowed books?" he grumbled, as he quickly looked through a book front to back and threw it over his shoulder. "He has enough in here to fill up three libraries! What could have he possibly needed that he didn't have already-"
He paused, noticing that it had become quiet. His ears didn't feel like they were bleeding anymore. He looked back to the last book he checked, lying on the pile of books. He picked up a text with a worn green leather binding. He opened to the title page and a look of shock appeared on his face.
"'A Thousand and One Arabian Nut Recipes!'" A vein popped on his forehead. "I'm seven hundred dinari in the hole because of a cookbook!" He threw the tome upon the table, angrily, and buried his face into his hands. However, the book's cover flew open, a tiny sheet of paper slid out. Mozenrath looked up and, approaching the other side of the table, picked up the sheet of paper.
"'-pick up laundry, prune the man-eating fichus, return book, kill apprentice and make it look like an accident (perhaps have him prune fichus), light supper at five,'" Mozenrath slammed the paper down. "I knew it." However, he picked it up again and looked at it carefully. Something in his mind connected. This was Destane's to-do list, but more importantly...
Mozenrath slapped his forehead, upon this realization. "Great, you could have picked any other day, but you just couldn't wait to usurp his throne." He crinkled the list in his hand.
"No, no, dwelling on the past doesn't help you move on," he sat down, calming down. "Let's just review what we have here. You have no powers and you have to collect seven hundred dinari, otherwise said powers are gone for good. You been through this before with Khartoum-" He shuddered slightly, "-and you got your powers back then, even though-" He looked at his gauntlet and then sighed, dejectedly. "That means I'll have to pay the...fine."
He shifted in his seat, tapping his fingers on the table. "Can't stage a robbery," he began listing off on his fingers. "It takes time without magic. Can't ask the other sorcerers, let's face it, they want to kill me and...I don't have the means to protect myself."
He began to rub his temples. "If I could just-"
Mozenrath stopped mid-sentence and, as if having an epiphany, shot straight up to his feet and ran out of the library.
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Aladdin leaned against a barrel, Abu sitting on his shoulder and stuffing dates into his mouth. He fidgeted, moving his foot up and down the barrel's side. Genie was out on his date, Iago was off doing his own thing as was Jasmine and Sadira, and, as far as he knew, there was no sign of Mozenrath or any of his other recurring foes. It was one of those rare days that he actually didn't have to run off from whatever he was doing to keep Agrabah from impending doom. It was actually peaceful for a change.
Scratch that. It was boring.
"I'm almost expecting Chaos to show up," Aladdin joked, Abu let out frightened screech.
"I said almost! Chill out." Aladdin chuckled. "Maybe you should cut down on the dates." The monkey shot a glare at him, but playfully swatted his friend's hand away as Aladdin reached up and scratched Abu upon the head. Chattering, Abu switched to his other shoulder.
"Though usually it's this kind of day that welcomes it," Aladdin added as he got up and began to walk around the corner. "Like something's gonna jump out and yell-"
"HELLO!" Abu shrieked and scrambled into Aladdin's vest as the familiar squat man jump out in front of them. Aladdin, slightly startled himself, stared at the man who had his arms up in a dramatic manner.
"Um, who are you?" Aladdin asked. The man looked at him and bowed.
"I am the Great Pestor," he started with a wheeze, but paused, looking around frantically. Looking relieved, he continued, "I am the Great Pestor and I have come to wreak havoc upon ye lives!"
Aladdin stared at Abu who, peering from underneath Aladdin's vest, exchanged one back. Looking back at Pestor, he asked simply, "Why?"
Pestor opened his mouth but he paused, scratching his head for a moment. "Well, the thing is," he began, "um, which one of you broke the Jewel of Khan Struck? Well, no matter, I've been freed from my imprisonment and, as protocol; I'm supposed to make life for whoever set me free unbearable. For it has been told to me by my mentor-" he turned to Aladdin, but to his dismay, the boy and the monkey had gone around the corner. He huffed and quickly waddled around the corner.
"Do you think Abis Mal had any other relatives?" Aladdin asked Abu as they walked through the crowd. The monkey gave a shrug, when he suddenly turned his head, hearing Pestor yell out "Hey!"
Sighing annoyed, Aladdin turned to face him, but was nearly knocked down as Pestor and his girth skidded to a halt in front of him.
"That was very rude," Pestor wheezed, "to run off while I was talking! You didn't even get to hear the part about my mentor."
"Listen," Aladdin said, trying to act as patient as possible, "it's not that your life story isn't interesting, it's that-well-"
"Yes?" Pestor listened on.
"You are...kind of annoying."
Pestor stared at him, very much in the manner of a small child, before giggling. Aladdin was taken back by the giggling, though the man very much resembled the Sultan, who himself giggled quite often, to some degree.
"That's what they all say to me," Pestor replied, when a dark smile appeared on his face "and then I show them." Before Aladdin could speak, Pestor pulled a lurid pink egg, about the size of a chicken's, from his pocket and hurled it at Aladdin. The street rat took a jump back when it landed at his feet and it cracked open. Instead the usual white and yoke, a strange dark violet liquid seeped, no, not seeped, crawled out the cracks and made its way towards Aladdin and Abu.
Aladdin took a cautious step back, Abu ducked back underneath the young man's vest with a frightened squeak. They did not like where this was going.
Sssssssssss)0(ssssssssssS
Squish, squish...
Panting and soaking wet, Mozenrath dragged himself up the steps to the front door of a cracked adobe building on the corner of an obscenely calm street.
"Next time, be more specific," he muttered to himself, grasping a small lavender colored stone. He did not like using enchanted stones for transportation. For one thing, in his experience, they were unpredictable and it took thirty minutes for them to recharge their power after each use, so they weren't very reliable for a quick getaway in his opinion. However, since patience wasn't the sorcerer's strong suit and it would have took two to three days to get to Para-moor after his quarry, he threw aside his prejudices and used them. He arrived in Para-moor in less than three seconds, but spent the next ten minutes climbing out of a well.
Glancing down at the glowing in his chest, Mozenrath pulled out another stone, this on pulsing with an iridescent pale green. For this one, he spent twenty minutes, following the blinking hunches of this jewel all over the city, notably into a dog pound and into a busy street. He held it to the door, it immediately pulsed more quickly. He smiled; the scrying crystal for once actually worked. He slid the crystal back down his collar, raised his fist to the door and knocked.
Proceeded by the sounds of frantic footsteps running up and down stairs, the door finally opened by a crack and a pair of round brown eyes peered out. Mozenrath looked curiously at Dondi as she opened the door a little bit more.
"A little kid?" Mozenrath thought, still staring at her. "Eden's master has a child?"
"Um," Dondi asked, awkwardly, "did you know you're glowing?"
Mozenrath's eyes quickly turned down at his chest, a dull green pulsing rapidly like a heartbeat right through his soggy shirt.
"Excuse me for a moment," he squeaked, grabbing his chest and turning his back towards Dondi. He angrily fumbled with the glowing crystal as he stuffed it into the belt pouch. "I don't believe this," he grumbled quietly. "Do the Fates just enjoy screwing with me?" He looked over his shoulder, noticing the child still there and with a very uneasy look on her face. He took a deep breath and, approaching her again, put on a genial smile.
"I am very sorry," he oozed, "but, I really needed to take care of something just then." He stuck out his hand. "Anyway, how are you this morning?" Dondi stared at it for a moment before looking up at him.
"Are you my babysitter?" she asked.
Mozenrath paused for a moment. "Well, why...yes."
"You don't really look a babysitter," Dondi replied.
"Really?" He crossed his arms. "Why would you think that?"
"It's just that Maryim, she's my regular sitter," Dondi explained, "didn't need a towel when she comes by."
The sorcerer bit his lip. She's not buying my bluffs, he thought frantically. Gotta speed up the search.
"Well, that's because somebody threw bathwater on me," he explained, quickly. Dondi merely looked at him like he had fire ants crawling over his face. "Say, why don't you hold this for a while for me?" Mozenrath placed the lavender colored stone in the girl's hand as he went inside. He looked around the sparsely decorated room, save for plump cushions and pillows strewn around a small fire pit in the center and colorful curtains hanging in certain parts of the room to section it. "Are you by yourself?"
"No," Dondi replied, casually as she held up the stone into the light, "my mom is getting ready to go on a date. It's just her boyfriend is running late. I think they're going to Atlantis or something."
"Yeah, fascinating," Mozenrath replied unconvincingly as he pulled a curtain aside and peeked in. He found nothing but what looked like bags of chick peas and assorted canisters of other foodstuffs. He frowned as he pulled the curtain shut. Dondi stepped lightly over the puddles of water the young man left on the floor as Mozenrath proceeded to the next curtain.
"Um, why are you looking in the closet?" Dondi inquired when the man gave a yelp as boxes and balls cascaded out of the closet. Watching the man getting buried in the assorted knick knacks for a minute or two, the girl finally jumped onto the pile and began throwing off the boxes until she stared into his face. "Are you okay?" she asked, sincerely.
Mozenrath merely scowled as he sat up (the stuffed camel that bounced off his head just then didn't help his temper). Dondi stumbled backwards, upon seeing him.
"Is there anything you need?" she asked, crawling off the pile. "'Cause it's no trouble-" Suddenly, Mozenrath grabbed her wrist.
"Well, there was one thing I needed," he explained, his good humor that he shown about to run out, "but, seeing that I can't find it, you'll have to do."
Dondi's eyes widened in fright as she tried to pull away from the young man's vise-like grip. Just then he grabbed her other hand, the one with the stone firmly in her grip.
"The Citadel, Land of the Black Sand," Mozenrath said into her hand and in a swirl of smoke, they vanished.
Sssssssssss)0(ssssssssssS
Aladdin stood on a barrel, avoiding the slime that seemed to be barking at him in the fashion of dog that had chased a squirrel up a tree. Abu was chattering angrily at the slime, but when the slime began to stretch up towards Aladdin, the monkey shrieked and dived back into Aladdin's vest.
I can't believe it, Aladdin thought leaping from barrel to barrel. I'm scared of a stupid piece of pond scum. No wonder Pester is getting a kick out of it.
Indeed the rotund man was guffawing on his back, rolling back and forth like an egg. Glancing at both Pestor and the slime, Aladdin smirked and suddenly leaped towards Pestor, like a squirrel to a tree. Pestor's laughter became a frightened shriek as Aladdin and Abu jumped on and off the man's massive belly like trampoline and somersaulted overhead, landing behind him. The young man then darted off, back into the crowd.
"Wha-oh, hey!" Pestor replied, getting very flustered as he struggled to get to his feet. "You're not very nice!" Before the man could add on to his complaints, he felt something cold and moving up his body. Staring frightened at the slime now on his chin, he let out a scream.
Aladdin panted, out of breath from running.
"Where did he get that stuff, Abu?" he asked the monkey. "It's like that stuff Mozenrath trapped me with a while back. It took a week to get it completely off-" Aladdin stopped as Abu cocked his head, puzzled. "Oh, I forgot," Aladdin added. "You weren't there."
Abu suddenly made a frightened squeak, prompting Aladdin to jerk his head around. Pestor, grabbing his chest, was slumping towards Aladdin, panting. Suddenly, he threw his head back and, with a monstrous snort, blew a wad of dark violet gunk out of his left nostril. The gooey projectile hurled through the air and landed smack dab in the middle of Aladdin's face. Aladdin recoiled violently as the slime oozed down his nose and into his left nostril. The young man shuddered, feeling it crawl up into his skull. Abu chattered, anxiously as his friend fell to his knee, grabbing his shoulders.
"Why am I so cold?" he asked himself. Pestor waddled up to him and, looking at Aladdin for a moment, kicked him in the chest.
"That's what happens when you run off," the portly man leered as Aladdin groaned. Abu screeched angrily, beating his fists on the ground. Pestor sniffed. "I'm not scared of you." The man picked up the struggling Abu by the scuff and stuck his tongue out.
Suddenly, there was a puff of smoke and, turning around, Pestor was face to face with Genie in a grey sweat suit and a wide leather belt.
"Hey, round girlie man," Genie bellowed in an exaggerated Austrian accent, "drop zee monkey."
However, before Pestor could oblige, Genie picked him up by his graying beard and began to shake him. As the man's girth began to wobble, Abu slid out of his grip and dizzily scampered to Aladdin's side.
"Oh, Aladdin," he chattered worriedly, shaking his friend's shoulder.
Meanwhile, as the portly man became green in face, Genie stopped shaking him. Pestor groaned as Genie looked at him.
"Das schwein es sehr roly-poly, ja?" Genie asked. "You need to burn off zee calories. Oh, Pelé!"
Confused by what he meant, Pestor watched as Genie morphed into a skinny young man in a yellow t-shirt and green shorts. Suddenly, the man found himself rolled into a ball and, in one swift motion, dropped and kicked. Genie, now in "normal form", watched as Pestor was hurled through the air, his screaming echoing above Agrabah's rooftops.
"Aaaaaaand it's point to Team Aladdin," he announced broadly. "And the crowd goes wild!" Indeed, the cheers of a massive crowd resonated in the alley and stopped abruptly as Genie made a sharp motion with his hand. "Sorry, it took so long, Al," he turned to Aladdin, "but Eden had to split, something about her Dondi-senses tingling, and-"
Before he could finish his explanation, he took a long, speechless stare at his friend. Even Abu backed away slowly from the young man, wringing his tail. Aladdin looked up, growing confused at his companions' behavior.
"Wha?" Aladdin asked. "What is it, guys?"
"Al, you're blue."
"Wha? What do you mean?" Genie held out a round, shimmering mirror to his former master's face.
"Whoa!" Aladdin jumped back in alarm as the reflection that stared back was indeed blue, the shade of overripe juniper berries.
Sssssssssss)0(ssssssssssS
Eden stood in the throne room, vigilantly scanning it. She wasn't particularly in a good mood, her fists clenched. Of course, when your date gets interrupted by news of your mistress/adopted daughter's kidnapping, delivered by an eel no less, you would hardly be in the best of moods either. Suddenly, her pointed ears perked. There was the sound of tiny little feet running quickly.
"Baby?" Eden asked.
"Eden!" Eden jerked her head around and saw Dondi running from behind a column. The jinni's face brightened as she knelt down and caught the girl in her widespread arms. The child wrapped her arms around Eden's waist, sighing with relief. "Oh, I was so scared!"
"Well, I was too," Eden replied, scratching the child's head, "Especially, considering what-"
"EDEN!" The jinni quickly looked up and saw...Dondi running towards her?
"Oh," the Dondi imposter grinned maliciously at Eden, "these are for you."
From her coat pockets, the child pulled out silver manacles, but suddenly, she found herself knocked to floor by the real Dondi. The pair wrestled on the ground, one screamed as the other pulled her hair. Suddenly, there was a metallic click.
Dondi (the one sitting on top of the other) stared stunned at the manacles, now gripped on her wrists. Eden's expression mirrored her master's as the other Dondi pushed her double off her roughly.
"You stupid little kid!" she screamed. "Why did you have to go and ruin it?" Suddenly, the Dondi imposter was lifted by the collar of her shirt.
"Looks like you need a time out," Eden growled at the Dondi double and suddenly dropped kicked her, sending the imposter slamming face first into a column. As she slid down, a small clear jewel fell out.
"This is like, what, two dates you've ruined for me so far?" Eden asked Mozenrath as he morphed out of his disguise, groaning. She then turned to Dondi who was reaching up to her, her expression softening. "Come on, bubeleh. We're getting out of here-"
However, when the jinni reached down to pick up the child, an electrical charge emitting from the manacles crackled, shocking her. Eden recoiled, vigorously rubbing her hand. Dondi looked up at her jinni fearfully.
"Eden?" she whimpered. Eden bit her lip uneasily when she heard Mozenrath's voice behind her.
"My," the sorcerer declared, "isn't this an interesting development?"