Previously:

The caravan then helped the two of them find a transport wagon so they could continue their search.

"Bye, everyone! It's been a real slice!" Faith called from the cart with a wave.

"See you, onee-san. If you find something with a Djinn living in it, be careful because Djinns can be cowards." Aladdin told Leila.

"Oh?" said Leila.

"Make sure not to scare them with that scary face of yours!" He called pleasantly as the cart started to roll away, smiling brightly while he waved goodbye. Leila responded by throwing a metal oil lamp after them.

Chapter 6: His Name is Alibaba

It was a beautiful day, and the sun was shining brightly… which made faith very grateful for the shade of the covering over the top of the cart they were riding in. The sun wasn't always your best friend when you were a natural ginger.

"Wow…! The city is so tiny from here, Ugo-kun, Faith!" Aladdin said excitedly.

"Are you headed to the neighboring city too, young boy and young lady?" asked another one of the passengers, a mother who was traveling with little girl.

"Sure am!" Aladdin replied cheerfully.

"Oh my! Taking such a journey alone?" the woman asked, concerned.

"But we're not alone! See?" Aladdin said proudly, showing her Ugo's flute.

"?" The woman was obviously confused, but smiled politely in response.

THMP.

They all looked over to see that an apple core had been carelessly dropped in the floor of the cart.

"Hey! Quit moving around so much, kid, you're causing the dust to scatter." Said the culprit, an obscenely fat man who was seated amongst a bunch of barrels with a tray of apples and a cup of wine. "Ugh! This place is cramped, and the kids are noisy. Aren't you going to do something about this, driver?" he complained loudly.

'Geez, there's one in every group…' Faith thought, annoyed with his bitching.

"My deepest apologies, sir!" said their driver, a teenaged boy with blonde hair and amber eyes. "Sure my rates are cheap, but I always get the job done. Rest assured, I'll get you and your precious grape wine to the destination safe and sound! Okay?" He finished with a brilliant shit-eating grin plastered on his face.

"Damn straight!" said the fat man. "That wine is worth more than you'd earn in your miserable little life. Take your paws off my apples!" he snapped at Aladdin when the boy reached for one.

"Hey! Those apples are for the boss only!" the driver scolded the kid.

"Let me have one." Said Aladdin.

"Do you have money, kid?"

"Nope, I don't."

"Then no touching." The driver said sternly. "He's got money, so he's also got apples, got it?"

"N-Not fair…" Aladdin cried, visibly wilting with disappointment.

"Just let him have one. Don't be so stingy… Alibobo." Said Faith, already forgetting his name.

"It's Alibaba!" He snapped. "And we can talk apples when you've got a cure for your poverty! Right, sir?" Alibaba asked the fat man, sucking up to the money with all his might.

"Hahaha, you sure get it, don'tcha, driver?" said the rich fat man, laughing so obnoxiously hard that it made his chest jiggle. The familiar bouncing motion caught Aladdin's attention.

"I'll get some more apples." Alibaba told the fat man with a pleasant smile. 'Heh… Now this is the type of boss I like!' he thought. 'Danger's at a minimum, payout at the maximum… As long as nothing dangerous happens, I'm going to get paid for sure!' When he turned back around with the basket of fresh apples, Alibaba was so shocked by what he was seeing that his mind completely emptied of all such thoughts. The blue-haired kid that had just been bugging him about the apples was now rubbing his face against the boss's chest fat and fondling it like no there was no tomorrow. Once he got over his initial shock, a vein popped on the boss's head. He looked seriously pissed! Alibaba paled as he dropped the apples.

"Ojii-san? This is really weird…" said Aladdin. "You're a guy, but you have boobs! What's up with that?"

'Yeah, those are some huge bazoongas he's got there!' Faith thought, laughing so hard that her eyes had started to leak tears, and no sound was coming out of her mouth. It was so funny she couldn't breath!

"Hey, yooooou!!" Alibaba erupted like a volcano, immediately ripping Aladdin away from the angry boss's huge man-boobs in fear for his paycheck. "I'm so sorry!!" He apologized profusely, forcing a very confused Aladdin into a deep bow with him.

"You damned brat!" The boss roared furiously, positively fuming with multiple veins throbbing on his forehead. Aladdin flinched in shock when the man began kicking Alibaba in his anger.

"He didn't mean anything by it, sir! My deepest apologies!!" Alibaba said earnestly, doing his best to placate the boss as he took the beating with as much dignity as possible.

Once the boss had finally calmed down, their poor driver stopped for a break at a small oasis to take some time to recover emotionally and water his camels. And the first thing he did was grab the source of all his troubles by the scruff of his neck and pull him aside for a little chat.

"You damned idiot!!" a very beaten up and dirty Alibaba shouted angrily at Aladdin with a vein throbbing on his forehead and a dark expression on his face. "Just who do you think that guy there is…? He's the famous and wealthy wine merchant, Budel-sama."

"I don't care who that lard-ass is, he's obnoxious. People like that piss me off." Faith said bluntly, taking a bite out of an apple as she leaned against a palm tree.

"He may be an obnoxious lard-ass, but he's a rich obnoxious lard-ass. And where did you get that apple!?" Alibaba demanded.

"… Found it." she replied vaguely, taking another bite. Another vein throbbed on Alibaba's forehead. She better not have 'found' that in his stores!

"Anyway, you need to keep a closer eye on this kid… Where do you get off acting like you were completely uninvolved? I saw you laughing!" he snapped at her.

"I ain't his keeper!" Faith said defensively as she held out the apple for Aladdin to take a bite. "And trust me, you did not want me to get involved. That usually ends with someone winding up in a hospital."

"Hey, driver, just how long is your break gonna go!?" shouted the rich obnoxious lard-ass.

"Just a sec!" Alibaba called pleasantly with shit-eating grin before whipping his head back around to glare at Aladdin and Faith. "Whatever, you guys pull a stunt like that again, and I promise to kill you." He threatened them darkly before finally releasing Aladdin and heading back to the cart.

"Hah! I'd like to seem him try." Huffed Faith, tossing the apple core away, before following after him with Aladdin before they got behind.

"Geez, I almost saw my perfect life plan crumble because of that brat…" Alibaba grumbled as they climbed back on the cart.

"Life plan?" Aladdin asked curiously. Faith noticed the caravan that had been at the oasis when they pulled up was getting back on the road.

"I'm planning on being a treasure hunter that goes into dungeons and unearths artifacts." Said Alibaba.

"What's a dungeon…?" asked Aladdin.

"Seriously? You don't know what a 'dungeon' is? You really are just a kid. You don't even understand the worth of money…" Alibaba said jadedly. "Fourteen years ago, huge buildings erupted from the ground all over the place without warning. People went in and were shocked to find treasures from ancient dynasties in them. Eventually people coined the term 'dungeon' for these spots. The treasures within these things are incredible. Diamond crowns, sapphire thrones, golden palaces… even now there are plenty of artifacts we don't know of, specifically the mysterious magical ones! Cloth that flies! Urns that flow with wine! There are guys all around the world looking for artifacts like these! It's all the rage now! And who do you think is the one who's gonna all of those treasures first? That's right, me! Alibaba!! I'm gonna be the richest man on the planet!!" he declared proudly.

"Oooh… So that's how it is." Aladdin said flatly without any enthusiasm.

'Sounds like the premise for your typical mmorpg…' Faith thought boredly, staring at the ceiling of the cart.

"What do you mean 'that's how it is'?" Alibaba asked, chagrined. "Listen kid, when you have money you can do what you want. A house, a livestock, oh and servants? With money you can have it all. Time to eat, time to sleep, time to play… No worries about work, being able to talk about whatever… With money you'd have love and hope beyond your wildest dreams. Heck! After you get all that, you can even command people to walk where you want them to."

"Oooh." Aladdin said boredly, picking his nose.

"…" faith continued to stare at the ceiling as if it were the most interesting thing in the world.

"You're not listening to me at all, you jerks…" muttered Alibaba as a vein popped on his forehead. "Fine, if you hear me out… I'll feed you."

"Whoa? Did you say food!?" they asked excitedly, immediately perking up.

"Yeah, totally." Alibaba said as they each grabbed an apple, about to continue when Faith began making some remarks that she'd been holding in about his previous comments.

"By the way, only assholes do stuff like that." She deadpanned while munching on her apple. "And take it from someone who knows, love and hope are pretty much the only things you can't buy."

"Okay, no more apples for you!" he retorted shortly. "And What do you mean, 'from someone who knows'? How would someone without any money know about being rich?"

"I used to be rich." She said with a shrug. "I'm just currently cut off from my source of wealth…"

"And then we'll have babes too!" Alibaba told Aladdin, pretending he hadn't heard her.

"Pretty girls!!" Aladdin sang excitedly.

"Oi…" said Faith, annoyed that they were both ignoring her.

"Yep, all the girls you could ask for!" said Alibaba. "When you have money, you become a ladies man. All kinds of girls come looking for you. Gentle, supple, strong, big, small… big boobs… Whatever you want, you get it. And they'll be like 'We love Alibaba!!'"

"Supple girls!! Hehehe… I like that…" Aladdin said with a dreamy expression on his face.

"Right? Right!?" Alibaba said excitedly. "And they'll be totally all over us!!"

"Ahaha, really? I think I'm blushing!!"

"We love you Alibaba! Kiss-kiss-kiss!!"

"Kissing?" Aladdin asked, pausing for a moment. "Um… How does that feel exactly? How do you do it?"

"…" Alibaba suddenly stopped short, looking a bit nervous.

"Yeah, how do you do it, Alibaba?" Faith leered with a Cheshire cat grin, enjoying the deer-caught-in-the-headlights-look on his face.

"Um… well… that's… You go in…" Alibaba tried to explained awkwardly, making some really abstract and vague gestures with his hands in an attempt to demonstrate.

"You go in where?" asked Aladdin innocently.

"Pfft! Amateur…" Faith laughed with a knowing smirk. She was clearly looking down on him.

"Wha—!?" Alibaba started to yell incredulously when the mother they had been talking with earlier let out a quiet laugh.

"Hee hee, you three are a riot!" She said with a smile. "My daughter loves to hear about dungeons and the treasures found in them."

"Onii-san, are all those things really in dungeons?" The little girl asked curiously.

"He's busy working little one." Her mother told her gently. "Ask later." Alibaba smiled at the heart-warming scene.

"…?" Aladdin titled his head slightly to the side in confusion when he saw an unreadable expression flicker across Faith's face as she watched the mother and daughter. Was it just his imagination or did she look a little… sad?

"It's nothing." she said with a dismissive wave of her hand when she noticed the look on his face. "They just remind me of how my mother and sister used to be together…"

"Oh you poor people and your little dreams!" laughed Buel the fat wine merchant. "'Treasure hunter'? Don't make me laugh." He sneered. "Is there really that much pleasure in in fishing up sand rats in the desert for you? I know you're smarter than that, right driver?"

"… Yeah." Answered Alibaba, lowering his head slightly so that his eyes were hidden by his bangs. Faith frowned.

"Don't waste time with dreams that are out of your reach." Buel blathered on. "Mice should just live as mice rather than wasting their lives searching for garbage… right?"

"…" Alibaba's grip tightened on the reins.

"Right?" Buel repeated, furrowing his brow.

"…" Alibaba's smile tensed for a moment. He opened his mouth. "Oh yeah! Totally right, boss!!" he said with the most radiant shit-eating grin that Faith had ever seen in her entire life. "I've got my hands full just being a driver. Sad to say that my potential is only enough to be a mouse, right?" Aladdin and Faith did not miss how much his hands were shaking while holding onto the reins.

'Damn, someone's pissed…!' Faith thought, sweat-dropping. Not that she could blame him. If she were in his shoes, she'd have decked that big-mouthed fat-ass already.

Unfortunately, no one was paying attention to the vines creeping up on the cart.

"!?" Everyone cried our in alarm when a tendril suddenly wrapped around one of the wheels and pulled hard enough to overturn the whole thing.

"Wh… What's going on!?" The mother screamed in fear as they all fell out of the cart and onto the sand.

"Shit!! What is that thing!?" Faith yelled when she saw the huge flower-like thing that the tendrils belonged to at the bottom of the deep sand pit that they had crashed on the edge of. It reminded her of that thing from Star Wars, you know, the monster in the sand that almost ate Luke in the movie with Leia dressed as a hot slave?

"A desert hyacinth!" Alibaba shouted, turning pale, as it began attacking the caravan too. "It's a meat-eating plant indigenous to the desert! You fall into the hole, and you're lunch! Forget the cart and get out of here!"

"Hey! Grab the wine!!" Buel yelled at him.

"Of course, sir!!" said Alibaba, starting with the closet barrel. 'As if I'd let my cash cow get eaten!!' he thought determinedly.

"!" the little girl with their group cried out when Buel squatted down to pick up a barrel and bumped her just hard enough to send her and a barrel of wine falling into the hyacinth's trap.

"Ah!!" Alibaba and Faith gasped when they realized what was happening. Faith and Alibaba both rushed to try to grab her.

"My wine!!" Buel shouted, pushing them out of the way to grab the falling barrel. Faith's eyes widened when she felt herself falling.

"!!" Alibaba and the mother gasped, staring in horror as Faith and the little girl fell right into the center of the hyacinth with a splash.

"Faith!! Oh no, Faith and that little girl are…!!" Aladdin cried. He quickly grabbed Ugo's flute and blew. "!?" He gasped in shock when nothing happened. "Huh? The flute is full of sand and Ugo-kun won't come out… He's not coming out at all…!" Aladdin exclaimed nervously, starting to panic.

"Oh, thank God it's safe…" said Buel, clutching the barrel as he breathed a sigh of relief. "Hey, you! Start moving now!!" he barked at Alibaba.

'Hey, someone save them!!' Alibaba yelled in his mind as he stared down into the flower trap, stunned.

"This is our chance to get out of here! The desert hyacinth is eating its prey! Let's go!" shouted Buel.

'They're going to die…'

"It won't be long until it's done with those little morsels! So let's run with my wine now!"

"Screw you, fat-ass!!!" Faith screamed angrily up at the merchant as she resurfaced with the little girl, fighting to keep to stay afloat with all the wriggling tentacles trying to pull and push them down.

"Someone… Someone, please!" The little girls mother screamed with tears streaming down her face, fighting with all her might against the men holding her back, going out of her mind with desperation to save her daughter.

'Someone…!!' Alibaba screamed in his mind.

"Hey! We've got wine to store!" Buel told him, giving the shell-shocked teen a shove to get him moving. "How about this, if you be a good little driver and work extra hard, I'll double your pay… or wait, I'll triple it. How about it!?" Aladdin stared at the man with cold eyes when he heard that. Alibaba was trembling. "Ah! Quit crying, woman!" Buel snapped at the distraught mother. "If that child was worth so much to you… how about you make as many as you'd like with me?"

WHAM!

The next thing Buel knew, Alibaba's fist was slamming into the side of his face.

'Screw waiting for someone else!!' thought Alibaba while Aladdin and everyone else stared in astonishment. He'd had enough of this crap! "Take your dirty wine!!" He yelled, seething with righteous fury. "You can't buy a person's life, ass-face!!" Alibaba grabbed a barrel of wine and slid down into the sand trap. "I'm coming to save you guys!!" He called to the girls. "Dammit… It's got me!! There's no way I can do any better than this! But this isn't the time to think that way!!" Alibaba scolded himself, gritting his teeth.

"You little fool!! Die! Die! I hope that monster eats you alive!!" Buel yelled furiously with multiple veins on his head. "Hey, driver! What are you doing with my wine!?"

"Bottoms up!!" Alibaba shouted at the deadly flower as he raised the barrel above his head and threw it in. "The part of the desert blossom where the meat is digested can get drunk too! And while the alcohol runs through its system, it returns underground!! That's our chance to get out of here!!" he said, grabbing Faith's hand to pull her out while she held onto the little girl. Together the three of them scrambled back up the sandy slope, and Faith helped Alibaba lift the frightened little girl up and put her back into her mother's arms.

"You're not in the clear yet, Alibaba!!" one of the men shouted in alarm.

"!!" Alibaba and faith gasped as more tendrils shot up to grab them.

"Not this shit again!?" Faith yelled, cursing in frustration as they tried to break themselves loose.

"That wine wasn't enough!!" Alibaba shouted, drawing his blade. "Damn!" He cursed, cutting and slashing at the tendrils. His eyes widened in shock when he glanced over at Faith and saw her use a burst of insane strength to rip one of the thick tendrils in half. 'No way…! cutting it was one thing, but pulling it apart like that by hand should be nearly impossible…!!' he thought. Who was this girl!? "!" he cried out in pain when one tendril slapped him hard on the back of the head. "Ugh… I can't… die… he…re…" He groaned starting to loose consciousness.

"Hey, keep it together, man!!" Faith yelled. "Aladdin! If you're gonna do something, then do it now!!" Aladdin didn't need to be told twice. He ripped off his turban.

"Fly, magic turban!!" Aladdin shouted, taking off with the rest of the wine barrels. "Don't give up, onii-san!" He called down to Alibaba, who was on the verge of passing out.

"!!" Alibaba gasped when he opened his eyes and saw Aladdin floating above them in the sky on his magic turban with all the wine.

"He's flying!?!?" the others shouted, flinching in shock.

"Hell, yeah! Now that's what I'm talkin' about!!" Faith cheered. It was about damn time, too!

"Lying's not good, onii-san!" Aladdin said with a smile. "You still have to tell me more about money, wine, and other things you can't buy!" Alibaba stared up at the young boy in amazement.

"Aaah!! Stop that!!" Buel yelled. "What are you doing with my grape wine!? Stop it, or I'll make sure you regret it!! That wine is expensive!! It's worth three hundred people, way more than one stupid driver and a mouthy brat!! Think real hard about it! Between those brats and my wine… which do you think is worth more…!?" The rest of the passengers and the caravan glared hatefully at the greedy merchant.

"You know, my sister would say there's something fundamentally wrong with you as a human being if you have to think about something like that!" snapped Faith with a scowl. "Bombs away, Aladdin!"

"Stop it, I beg you to stop!!" Buel cried desperately. "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!" He screamed as Aladdin dropped the entire load into the flower. "GYAAAAAH—Kkh!!" tears spurted from his eyes as he choked, keeling over in shock.

"Thank you for saving my daughter…!" The mother thanked Alibaba earnestly once he and Faith had safely escaped from the clutches of the hyacinth, which had gone dormant thanks to all the wine Aladdin dumped in it.

"You even saved our caravan…" said its leader. "We'll be glad to pay the compensation for that grape wine…!" For a moment, Alibaba was really tempted, but…

"Thanks, but seriously it's fine." He told them with a smile. "I've decided that smacking that old bat was worth way more than the money… I'll just work hard to replace it myself." Despite the brave face he had put on for them, Alibaba was seriously worried about his future now, and he drooped visibly as he turned away from them.

"Wow, that was really big of you." Faith praised him. "Good luck working off such a huge debt!"

"You could at least offer to pay for part of it yourself!!" He snapped, bristling like an alley cat. After all, half of that wine had gone towards saving her, too! "What have you two been up to this whole time, anyway?" For some reason Faith and Aladdin had been fiddling around with a flute the whole time the others were thanking him.

"We're having some technical difficulties." Replied Faith.

"Hmm… He won't come out…" Aladdin said disappointed.

"What?" Alibaba asked.

"Ah! There we go!" Aladdin said, perking up when he finally managed to blow the sand that had been blocking up the flute clear. "Come on out, Ugo-kun!" And out he came. Ugo's giant blue arms shot out of the flute right on cue.

"There you are, Ugo! We missed you." Faith said with a grin as Alibaba and everyone else stared in shock, frozen in place like statues with their eyes as wide as dinner plates.

"GYAAHHHHH!!" They all screamed in terror.

"Ahahahah!!" Faith laughed. That one never gets old!

"?" Aladdin said, the very picture of innocence as he wondered why everyone was so freaked out.