Previously:

"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.

Chapter 7: Faith and Aladdin and Alibaba

"Wahhh!! Is that a snake!?" Alibaba heard someone cry while everyone (aside from him and Aladdin and Faith) ran around in a panic like a bunch of chickens with their heads cut off.

'That ain't no snake…' he thought, staring at the giant blue arms. 'But wait, could that be… the legendary Djinn container…!?'

Eventually everyone calmed down by the time the sun had started to set, when they realized they weren't in any immediate danger, and they all split up back into their respective groups to continue their journey, which was much more peaceful with Buel still out cold from the shock of losing all his wine.

'To have a chance encounter like this is next to impossible…!!' thought Alibaba determinedly as he drove. 'This is perfect for my plans… but first I gotta get that kid to believe that I'm his buddy!!'

Alibaba figured the best way to do this was to win the hearts of Aladdin and Faith through their stomachs, so he volunteered to show them around once they reached the oasis city of Qishan and treated them to some snacks from the street vendors.

"Onii-san, it's great that you came with us! It's a huge help!" Aladdin said cheerfully.

"Yeah, that was awfully nice of you." Faith said, wondering why he was splurging on them, given what a tightwad he had been where money was concerned even before incurring the huge debt that was now lingering over his head.

"Of course I'd come~!" Alibaba said brightly. "I mean, you saved my life back there and even helped out against a common enemy! That makes us pals! Right, Aladdin?"

'I'd know that look anywhere. He's definitely scheming something…' Faith thought, unimpressed. She saw it all the time with people who wanted to borrow money off of her and her sister because their dad was rich. 'Uh-oh…' she thought, sweat-dropping, when she noticed the look of innocent joy on Aladdin's face upon finding someone new to call a 'friend'.

"Yeah!" the poor naïve little thing answered happily.

Since they were 'friends' Alibaba offered to let them stay at his place for awhile.

"Wow~!" Aladdin said excitedly as he entered his new friend's home. "You know, you're the first friend I've ever had." He told Alibaba, blushing with happiness.

"Is that so?" asked Alibaba with a smile.

'Hey, what about me and Ugo-kun?' Faith thought, raising an eyebrow.

"Just have a seat, buddy!" said Alibaba. "I'll get us some tea."

"Thanks!" said Aladdin, doing just that.

"I just bought some apples, wanna cut them up and eat 'em?"

"Yay! They look real tasty…!!"

"Shall I do the honors?" offered Faith. Alibaba handed her knife and watched as she chopped the apples up with frightening speed. "Here you go!" She said with a brilliant shit-eating grin, abruptly thrusting the knife back in his face with a piece of apple on the end.

"Ah, thanks…" Alibaba said, sweat-dropping, as he carefully taking the knife back. This girl made him nervous, and not in the usual way…

"Want a bite, Ugo-kun?" Aladdin asked the Djinn in the flute, offering him a piece of apple, while Alibaba finished serving the tea.

"By the way, there's something I wanna ask you buddy!" Alibaba said pleasantly.

"What's that?" asked Aladdin.

"What's the deal with the flute?" Alibaba asked seriously, putting on his game face.

'Ah, there it is…' Faith thought. Well, that didn't take very long for him to reveal his intentions.

"T…This?" Aladdin asked, a bit taken aback. "It's just a normal flute…"

"I'm talking about what's in it!" said Alibaba. "Flutes don't usually sprout arms!!"

"O…Oh! You mean Ugo-kun!" said Aladdin. "He's my friend too! Though you and Faith, and others seem to call him a 'Djinn' or something…"

'Score!' thought Alibaba.

'It's so obvious what he's thinking…' Faith thought, sweat-dropping.

"W… Where'd you find him? Oh, I bet it was a dungeon, right?" Alibaba asked, trying to sound casual.

"Du… Dungeon?" asked Aladdin.

"I just explained this yesterday!" Alibaba reminded him. 'Dungeons' are mysterious places where all kinds of secret treasures are sleeping! More specifically, there are some treasures with mysterious powers! They're from different countries like Reim and Partevia! People from these countries are looking to get them back too. The biggest treasure of them all is… the Metal Vessel, the Djinn container."

"That! That's it!" exclaimed Aladdin excitedly.

"What?"

"I'm looking for the 'Metal Vessel', that's why I came here!"

"Huh? But… you… well, already have it." Alibaba pointed out, looking a bit confused.

"Apparently he wants more." Said Faith with a shrug.

"No, this is different." Aladdin said, shaking his head. "I didn't find this in a dungeon, but a room I was in. When I left, this is what I received."

"Room?" Alibaba and Faith asked.

"Yeah, Ugo-kun and I used to reside in a room together… a sturdy room located underground." Aladdin explained. "For a long time I wasn't able to leave, but after some time I was able to escape. But Ugo-kun's head wasn't so lucky…"

"…?" Alibaba said, staring at the young boy with a puzzled expression on his face, not quite sure he understood. Just how was he supposed to react to something like that. This was not normal…!

"…" Faith stared at Aladdin for a moment before reaching out and patting him on the head. "Wow, you sure are different… Not that that's a bad thing." She remarked with a small smile.

"?" Aladdin tilted his head to the side in confusion for a moment before continuing. "Hey, do you think if we went to that dungeon we'd find a Metal Vessel!?" he asked earnestly.

"It sure sounds like it!" said Faith.

"I… I…" stuttered Alibaba, suddenly looking unnerved. He had been really thrown by Aladdin's story.

"Okay, then!" Said Aladdin, jumping to his feet. "You can lead me there!"

"And me! I'm coming too!" Faith chimed in. No way was she missing out on such a great adventure.

'What? Just what the hell are they talking about!?' Alibaba thought sweating nervously. Didn't they know how dangerous dungeons were!?

KNOCK! KNOCK!

"Alibaba!!" someone yelled through the door.

"Crap! It's the boss!" said Alibaba, scrambling to his feet.

"Boss?" asked Aladdin curiously.

"He's the guy who owns the cart that I use for work…" Alibaba explained as he moved to answer the door.

"Ah…" Aladdin and Faith said, nodding in understanding.

"Alibaba, why would you do such a thing!?" his boss asked anxiously when he opened the door. "Budel-sama's wine was completely wasted, wasn't it? He said in order to compensate for this, we owe him 1,000 dinal!"

"Oh, yeah. I was gonna come and talk to you about that later… hehe…" Alibaba laughed a bit awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck.

"This is no laugh matter!" His boss said urgently. "They're talking about making you a slave!"

"S… Slave!?" Alibaba shouted, alarmed.

'Damn, so they have slaves here…?' Faith thought with a frown.

"The man that drinks the grape wine Budel delivers is a lord with a fairly bad reputation… He takes delight in making other people his slaves, and causing them endless misery… and now you've gone and made him angry…!! What am I to do…!?" Alibaba's boss cried, sinking to his knees in despair.

'Wow, seems like the situation has gotten pretty serious…' Faith thought as she stood there watching with Aladdin.

"… Don't even sweat it, boss. I'm not gonna be that guy's slave." Alibaba said after taking a moment to consider his options, holding out a hand to help the older man up. "I'm gonna go dungeon diving, and pay that guy's compensation back!"

"Huh?" his boss exclaimed, flinching in shock. He was gonna what!?

"Hey, Aladdin and Faith, you guys still up for some dungeon diving?" Alibaba asked.

"Y-Yeah…" said Aladdin.

"Hell-to-the-yes!" said Faith.

"I'll take you then!" Alibaba said determinedly. "The only thing I'll ask for in return, is that you let my boss see your Djinn!"

"… Kay!" Aladdin agreed with a smile.

"…!?" the boss said, looking nervous and confused as Aladdin blew into the flute. Out came Ugo's entire massive body, so huge that it crashed through the roof off Alibaba's house. "…!?" the boss cried out in alarm as he fell back, staring up at the blue giant with a flute for a head in astonishment and fear.

"Boss, this is my bud, Aladdin… He's one badass magician!!" Alibaba declared boldly. "And my number one…" Aladdin smiled excitedly in anticipation of being introduced as someone's friend for the first time. "… Servant!!" Alibaba finished, much to the poor kid's shock.

"…" Faith deadpanned, regarding Alibaba with an extremely unimpressed look on her face. 'This little jerk-wipe…' she thought, kinda pissed off on Aladdin's behalf.

"Hahaha, boss sure was surprised!" Alibaba laughed as they left his house. "But since he's been looking after me all of this time, I won't let anything bad happen! Now let's hurry up and get the preparations for our dungeon dive in order! We'll need some food, some maps, and brand new knives… Man! Just thinking about going on an adventure makes the heart soar, doesn't it, guys?" Alibaba finally stopped and looked back, and realized that Aladdin and Faith were being strangely quiet and maintaining a sort of awkward distance from him. Aladdin looked strangely disheartened. "What's up Aladdin?" Alibaba asked, walking over to see what was wrong. Aladdin said nothing and promptly turned his back on him. "…?" Alibaba said, confused when the kid and Faith started walking away. "Are you mad at me?" he asked, following after them.

"Not really." Aladdin answered quietly while Faith remained stubbornly silent.

"Why are you acting weird?" Alibaba persisted. "Don't you want to go dungeon diving? Does your stomach hurt?" Aladdin shook his head and kept walking. "Hey, what's up with him?" Alibaba whispered to Faith.

"Figure it our on your own." She retorted bluntly without mercy.

"…" Alibaba sweat-dropped. What was her problem…? "Oh, wait! I get it!" he said suddenly, causing Aladdin to stop short. "You're worried about your cut of the reward, huh!" Alibaba said brightly. Faith deadpanned, and she and Aladdin started walking again. "That is important." Alibaba continued. "There's no need to get mad about it, though…"

"…" Aladdin and Faith remained stubbornly silent.

"No worries, guys. There'll be a mountain full of treasure. So you can have your Metal Vessel… and I'll just take whatever's left. How's that? Cool, huh? So don't be mad." Alibaba said, patting Aladdin on the shoulder. Aladdin stopped.

"I said I'm not mad." He stated moodily without even looking at him, gripping the sides of his pants tightly in his little fists.

'You're totally mad…' Alibaba thought, backing off a bit warily. 'Ugh, I don't want to deal with an annoying brat or this stuck up bitch…' he thought with veins throbbing on his head, kinda pissed off at the way Faith kept staring at him like he was the biggest idiot in the world. 'But if he says 'I don't want to go anymore', that'll be a problem… I know I made it look like no big deal to Boss, but there's nothing easy about dungeon diving… Dungeons are places where an army goes in, and in the best case scenario, one guy comes out… Getting new supplies is one thing, but I need his magical powers to seal the deal! I've gotta do something!!' he thought anxiously, biting his thumb. 'Think… Think Alibaba!! What will get this kid interested again…!?'

In the end he decided to try bringing the kid to a pleasure house, because he knew that was his best bet at getting everything he would need to get back in Aladdin's good graces: food to die for, and pretty women! Alibaba hadn't forgotten how much the kid had lit up when they started talking about food and women the previous day.

'I'll put you in a good mood, just you watch!' he thought determinedly. He was sure his plan would work, until he looked over and saw that Aladdin was still sulking with his face buried in the couch they had been shown to while they waited for the women to come. The kid refused to even look at the food. "…" Alibaba was speechless. 'Dude, this is what you wanted, right!? Why are you being so stubborn!?' he thought with a vein throbbing on his forehead. 'This is the first time I've been to a place like this, and let's not even get started on how much all of this is costing me! Not to mention…' He cast an annoyed glance at Faith, who had made herself right at home on the couch opposite them. "What are you doing in here!? Don't you know what this place is!?" He demanded. Why did he end up having to pay for her too!?

"Of course!" she said with a Cheshire cat grin, popping a grape into her mouth. "What, you think just because I'm a girl, I can't appreciate a nice rack? Bring on the babes! I'll have you know that I'm a connoisseur!"

'Wait, so she likes other girls…? I can't even begin to understand this chick...' Alibaba thought, chagrined. "And, you," he said, turning back to the sulking Aladdin, "quit being annoying… if you've got a problem, just say it."

"… Well, I'm just your… servant, right…?" Aladdin sniffed, trembling as he cried into the cushion.

"What?" Alibaba said, sweat-dropping. That's what this tantrum was about? "I just said that to look big in front of the boss. I can't believe you're getting bent out of shape over a few words… Geez… Fine! Fine!" he said with a sigh. "You're my partner, my buddy… my friend. Aladdin's ear twitched upon hearing that last word, and he immediately perked up, turning to face Alibaba with joy on his face and tears in his eyes.

"Your friend…?" Aladdin asked hopefully with sparkling eyes.

'Huh?' Alibaba thought, a bit taken aback by sudden complete turn-around.

"Really? We're really friends?" Aladdin asked excitedly, grabbing his hands.

"… Yeah." Alibaba answered a bit awkwardly. 'You're one weird kid…'

"Aw, look at that, we're all friends again… Now let's play, Aladdin!" Faith said with a grin. "The girls are here!"

"Yay! Girls!" Aladdin cheered.

'I don't really get what's going on here, but it looks like I'm out of the woods! Now we can get ready for the adventure!! Just gotta get the supplies, and then we ship out!!' thought Alibaba with a grin. 'And soon, I'll be seeing a dungeon… I'm so excited I could just explode…! Soon I'll be there… If I could I'd do it right now…! To put my life on the line…! To bet against life itself and come out the winner…!' A bead of sweat rolled down the side of his face as he smirked, clenching his fists. 'It looks like I've repaired our partnership too. But man, is he really just a kid? Why does he have such manly interests then…? And that girl's a natural…! Why is she so popular with girls when she's a girl herself…!?' he wondered, sweat-dropping, as he watched Aladdin burry his face between a beautiful woman's breasts, while most of the women he had ordered flocked to Faith, waiting on her hand and foot as if she were a queen. 'It wouldn't kill me to have some fun, would it…?' he thought, blushing. 'Yeah, I want to have some fun!!' he decided, getting pumped.

"Sorry to keep you waiting…" a very soft and feminine voice called out to him.

'She's here!' Alibaba thought excitedly, whipping his head around to see what his girl looked like. Contrary to the sound of her voice, the woman was extremely tall with a muscular build and an extremely 'unique' face. Alibaba was stunned speechless.

"My name is Elizabeth." The beefy woman introduced herself with that misleadingly silky voice. Alibaba just stared, not sure how to react. "Since you paid so much, sir, they decided to send me to you; the most beautiful and competent of all our hostesses. Pleased to meet you." She explained, as she seated herself beside him on the couch. She picked up a wine jug, sliced the top off with one swift strike of her bare hand, and poured him a drink. Alibaba paled. His hand shook nervously while he tried to sip his wine. He was way to scared of this woman to reject her now.

"And now what you've all been waiting for! It's service time!" announced the owner. "Everyone, take your time and enjoy yourselves on us~!"

"This is place is soooo much fun!!" Aladdin cheered.

"Haha, you said it~!" Faith agreed with a smirk as her beautiful hostesses moved into position to give her a lap dance.

"I love it~" Aladdin sang blissfully, rubbing his face repeatedly against pretty his hostess' boobs. "Loooooooooove it~!!"

Neither of them paid any attention to what was happening to poor Alibaba as Elizabeth moved in for the kill.

"I had so much fun!" said Aladdin when they left once they were done partying.

"Yeah! I've never actually been to a place like that before, but I'm beginning to see the attraction!" said Faith. It was like she had her own harem in there!

"Say, when our adventure ends… do you think we can come back here, onii-san…" Aladdin asked excitedly as he turned back to face Alibaba, trailing off when he saw the state the older boy was in. He looked like he had just been through a war. His clothes were ripped, and he had lipstick smears all over his and chest. Elizabeth had ravaged him to within an inch of his life.

"… Pfft!!" Faith laughed, unable to help herself.

"!" Alibaba flinched.

"The power of friendship!!" Aladdin cheered, pumping his fist in the air.

"Whaaaat? The power of friendship my ass!!" Alibaba snapped incredulously with a vein throbbing on his forehead as he gave the kid a good whack on the head.

"Don't you hit him!!" Faith yelled, kicking Alibaba in the shin.

In the meantime, while Faith had been busy playing around with Aladdin and Alibaba, away further east her sister Hope was dealing a few issues of her own. Hope had been really anxious and worried about what would happen to her at first, but fortunately, Kouen was treating her fairly well, considering the fact that he was keeping her captive. She had been given a sparsely furnished (but private) tent, and they fed her three square meals a day. When he wasn't questioning her, she was allowed to research their world, but she often needed help reading the materials they provided her with since the written form of their language was completely different from its spoken form, which sounded like English. Sometimes Kouen himself would read them to her, when he wasn't busy running his army. At the moment, Hope was scribbling away in her dimly lit tent, doing her best to calculate the trajectory of Faith's fall in order to figure out where she might have landed based on her the path of her own fall.

"Aghh…!" she let out a sigh of frustration as she let her head hit the desk with a marvelous thumping sound, which Kouen arrived just in time to witness.

"… What are you doing?" he asked, entering without bothering to ask permission, as usual.

"Mmn. I'm trying to figure out where my sister might have landed… but there's too many unknown variables…" Hope groaned, massaging her sore head. "I know we entered the atmosphere somewhere around here, because of the view I saw of the continent as we were falling..." she said, making an 'x' on the map between the plateau and the desert. "And I landed here…" she circled the dot that had already been added to mark where they found her and Ipos' dungeon. "So, assuming she didn't encounter any particularly strong wind currents, and we fell at the same speed and velocity… I've estimated that she probably landed somewhere around here." She concluded, circling the area of the desert just outside the oasis city of Utan.

"… So what's the problem?" Kouen asked, eyeing all of the complex physics equations she had scratched out on the sheets of paper splayed out beside the map with interest.

"The problem is, this relies on the reasoning that when we were pulled apart, we flew away from each other in a straight line… but as we were spinning in a sort of spiral when we were falling, so I can't know the exact angle of her trajectory, which means she could be anywhere in here…" Hope explained with a frown, outlining an area that would include hundreds of more miles. "And taking into account Faith's personality… I bet she's already started wandering around looking for me at random, so wherever she was, she isn't there anymore." She finished with a sigh, leaning back in her chair. Hope saw the way he was staring at her work and straightened up. "So, what did you come to talk about?" She asked, putting on her best business face. "Are you still unconvinced that the King Solomon from my world is different from the King Solomon that you're interested in?"

"No, though there are some uncanny parallels, it is obvious now that your two worlds are very different. And the key variant is… the lack of magic in yours." He replied, setting her iPhone down in front of her. "The magicians that I had examine this have all agreed with your statement that this is not a magic tool, but something far beyond their understanding… Since it appears to have stopped working, I will return it to you."

"Yeah… I'm not surprised." Hope said with a frown when it wouldn't turn on. "The battery's dead."

"Battery?"

"A container of one or more cells in which chemical energy is converted into electricity and a source of power. This battery can't hold a permanent charge, so it has to be recharged via another source of electricity, or it'll stop working, like this." She explained, tapping her phone. "I'm not surprised they couldn't understand how it worked. To someone who isn't used to this level of technology, I imagine it would seem like magic, but this machine is a product of centuries worth of scientific knowledge and advancement. Aside from the magic tools, I'd estimate from what I've seen so far that this world is at least 800 years behind the one I came from technology-wise."

"You seem to have a decent understanding of the way your own technology works… could you get it working again?"

"Well, I could with an electric generator, but I only know how to make one theoretically from what we learned about electricity in science class, but I'm not an engineer. I'm only in the last quarter of my senior year of high school."

"…" Kouen regarded her coolly for a moment. "In other words, you can do it. You just don't want to try."

"That's right. This isn't my world. I don't feel comfortable with the idea of contaminating it with outside technology that it might not be ready for yet." She answered seriously. "I've read too many stories about how doing that can end in a terrible disaster to want to take that risk."

"That was fiction." Said Kouen, furrowing his brow.

"I used to think that about alternate worlds and magic, but here we are." She retorted with a frown. For a while they just stood there staring each other down, until Hope finally looked a way with a sigh.

"… You look tired." Kouen remarked.

"I am." Hope replied honestly, grabbing one of her plastic orange medicine bottles. "I'm tired and stressed. Being held captive and constantly questioned while your sister is God only knows where, getting into God only knows what kind of trouble, will do that to you."

"If your sister is anything like you, I doubt you have need to worry." Said Kouen, watching as she popped a small orange pill into her mouth.

"Thanks." Hope said with a wry smile once she had finished swallowing her medicine. Was he trying to comfort her? "But it's not just her I'm worried about… It's the people around her. Faith can be really reckless sometimes…" she had a bad feeling just thinking of all the mayhem her sister could cause if she got her hands on some of the magical items she'd heard about… Faith was dangerous already enough without help.

"What kind of medicine did you just take?"

Hope blinked, a little surprised by the sudden change in topic.

"It's a pill to help me sleep." She replied. "I've been battling insomnia ever since I was eight. It doesn't start working until about an hour after you take it… but once it does kick in, it knocks me out so hard that I could sleep through a hurricane!"

"And you feel safe enough to take that here?" asked Kouen. Didn't she realize how vulnerable that would leave her?

"Sure, why wouldn't I?" Hope asked, furrowing her brow slightly in confusion. "It's not like I've given you a reason to hurt me…?" She was surprised when he reached out and carefully brushed a stray hair away from her face.

"Hmph." He smirked, leaning in closer. "For someone so intelligent, you're very naïve, aren't you?" the prince whispered in her ear, making her blush.

"W-W-What's that supposed to mean…!?" she asked, clamping a hand over her ear as she shot across to the other side of the room in an attempt to put a safer distance between them. She could feel her cheeks and ears burning. Kouen simply continued to smirk as he turned to leave.

"It means… you should be more careful…"

Once he was gone, Hope released a breath she hadn't even realized she had been holding.

'Uwah… That guy's really bad for the heart…!' She thought as a bead of nervous sweat rolled down the side of her cheek, chagrined. 'Why does he have to get such a kick out of messing with me…?'