Author's note: I've added links to some new pictures for this story on my profile.
One of them is of Ipos for anyone who's curious.

Previously:

"Dayaaaaammn!!!" Faith exclaimed/cheered as they watched Ryosai's body hit the ground, rolling like a limp ragdoll.

"Sweet Lincoln's mullet…!!!" Hope yelled, paling slightly in shock. She hadn't realized Djinns could be so dangerous! The human spine, legs, and arms were not meant to bend those ways!! Hakuei stared up at Aladdin and his Djinn in amazement.

"Young boy… Who in the world are you?" the princess asked as Ugo returned to his flute, and the twins hopped off the turban.

"Me?" Aladdin said. "I am…" he tightened his grip on Baba's staff as he remembered what she had told him about himself. "… A magi." He answered with a smile.

"Magi…!!" Hakuei gasped in astonishment.

Chapter 29: Paimon and Ipos

"Ugh…" Seishun groaned as he regained consciousness.

"You have awoken, Seishun." Hakuei said as she held him, relieved.

"P-Princess, are you all right?" he asked earnestly, surprised to find that both of them had already had their wounds treated. Fortunately, none of them had been fatal. "What happened to Ryosai, and them…!?" he asked anxiously, bolting upright despite his the pain.

"They have been subdued." She replied calmly. Some loyal soldiers had arrived to help restrain Ryosai's men so they could be taken back to base for punishment along with their leader. "Thanks to him." She added, gesturing to the young boy who was standing nearby with two identical girls at his side. "He refers to himself as a magi." She whispered.

"Huh?" Seishun said, surprised.

"Hey! Nice to meet you, I'm Aladdin. And this is Faith and Hope." The young boy said with a smile and wave, pointing to each of the twins in turn as he introduced them.

"Hi!" the twins said brightly with a wave, in perfect synch with each other.

"This is Seishun." Hakuei said, introducing her friend as well. "He is an old acquaintance of mine, and he has captured a dungeon with me as my assistant."

"!" The twins said, surprised.

'Her too...?' Hope thought. Was everyone in the Kou Empire's royal family a dungeon capturer?

"Dungeon? You two have captured dungeons before?" Aladdin asked excitedly. So that's how she knew so much about them!

"Yes." Hakuei answered with a small nod.

"My, now ain't that a coinkydink~!" said Faith. "So have we! My sister even got a Djinn!"

"Eh?" Seishun said as their eyes widened slightly in surprise, impressed.

"Did you really…" Hakuei started to ask, when her flabellum and Hope's ring both began to glow. "My fan…!?"

"Yeah! That's it!" Aladdin said excitedly. "Onee-san, will you let me touch that? Hope, too!" Curious, both girls held out their metal vessels for him. Feeling a little nervous, Aladdin carefully reached out and touched both vessels at the same time.

"Whoa…!" Faith exclaimed when they were suddenly enveloped in two massive glowing orbs of rukh, and something huge and powerful shot out of each vessel. Hakuei's Djinn came out in the form of a whirlwind that soon cleared to reveal an enormous blue, scantily clad woman with pointy ears and long nails, while Ipos leaped from Hope's ring with a mighty roar.

"!?" Hakuei and Seishun gasped in surprise. They had never seen anyone summon two Djinns like this before!

"Who is the one… who will become king?" Hakuei's Djinn asked in a booming feminine voice. "Although, I'm already on a contract… Oh well! Is everyone doing fine~?" Actually, most of the soldiers looked like they had been scared shitless. "I am Paimon, a Djinn created by Solomon from maniacal love and chaos. And thou are the queen… Ren Hakuei!!" she exclaimed upon spotting her master. "But where did you get enough power to summon me? Did a typhoon come, Hakuei-chan?"

"No, no. Look closer, Pai-san. It was obviously the magi." Ipos told her, nodding his head in Aladdin's direction.

"Oh, you're right!" Paimon said, surprised to see him there as well.

"…" Aladdin and Faith said, staring up at the Djinns in surprise.

"… That's your Djinn?" She asked her sister. A winged-platylion? That was undeniably cool…

"Yep." Hope replied with a nod. "His name is Ipos."

"I am a Djinn created by Solomon from Wisdom and Valor. It is an honor, magi." Ipos said, bowing respectfully.

"!!" Both Djinns gasped when Ugo suddenly came out.

"You are…!!" Ipos gasped, taken aback. Now here was someone you didn't get to meet everyday!

"Oh, my!" said Paimon. "What luck I've had to see someone extraordinary again. I wonder what today is!?" For a moment, the three djinns stood there in a Mexican standoff, eyeing each other carefully.

"…?" the humans stared, wondering what they were up to. The Djinns looked awfully serious… They weren't going to fight, were they? And then, suddenly, with a gleam in her eyes Paimon lunged at Ugo and began poking the startled Djiin repeatedly in the nipples until he had flushed bright pink from head to toe in embarrassment.

"Phew, safe...!" Ipos said, letting out a sigh of relief as he wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his paw.

'What on earth are they doing…?' Faith and Hope wondered, sweat-dropping. What kind of sexual harassment was that?

"Ufuh~! Don't think I've forgotten about you, Ipos-kun!" Paimon purred, sneaking up on the winged-platylion from behind to fondle his mane and wings. Apparently Ipos was very ticklish.

"St—hahaha—Stop it!!" he snarled as vein throbbed on his forehead, trying to control his laughter. "Haha—Don't—haha—make me—hahaha—bite you!!!" Ugo waved his arms nervously when Ipos took a nip at Paimon. The other two Djinns immediately stopped what they were doing to pay attention as he began making more hand signs to communicate with them.

'This again… I wonder what they're talking about?' Aladdin and Faith thought.

"What's he doing? Is that some kind of sign language?" Hope asked curiously.

"Who knows?" Faith said with a shrug as Paimon ran her finger up Ugo's abs, making the Djinn flinch nervously and blush furiously again. She and Ipos nodded as Ugo push through his embarrassment and continued to convey the rest of his message.

"I see. I understand the situation now." Ipos said seriously once they were done.

"Yes, you guys have had a lot of trouble. And there seems to be something unusual going on in the world." Paimon agreed with brief glance at Aladdin and the twins. "But you know… That makes no difference to me." She said with a grin, wrapping her arms around Hakuei as she pulled the princess close to her naked bosom. "I don't care what happens to the world. My only task is to help Hakuei, whom I've fallen for as a worthy King Candidate… That's the reason I was created."

"As irresponsible as always…" Ipos muttered as he and Ugo sweat-dropped, chagrined. Hope also sweat-dropped when she saw the envious look on her sister's face as she eyed Hakuei's position tucked between her Djinn's large boobs.

"King Candidate…?" Aladdin asked.

"A King Candidate is someone who has been deemed worthy to capture a dungeon and be chosen to receive the power of a Djinn's Vessel. You could say Hope is my King Candidate." Ipos explained proudly.

"My Hakuei-chan is better." Said Paimon. "She has beauty and intelligence!"

"Well, so does Hope. Not only is she a genius, but she's a skilled warrior as well!" he countered.

"My Hakuei has received training in swordsmanship, and she has a royal pedigree!"

"Well, my Hope—"

"Hey, yeah, sorry to interrupt… but we've got some questions." Hope said rather unapologetically, stopping them before it had a chance to get ridiculous. For such powerful beings, they were acting awfully childish. They reminded her of a couple of kindergartners arguing over who had the better mom. "You wanna go first, Aladdin?"

"Yes," Aladdin said with a nod. "Paimon-san, Ipos-san, tell me more. I'm a magi, right?" he asked. "What is a magi? Tell me, what am I supposed to do from now on?" Paimon and Ipos both flinched in surprise at the last question, clearly take aback.

"Oh, magi, such beings as we who were created by King Solomon from rukh cannot command you." Ipos answered with all due respect. "You must seek guidance from the great will of the rukh."

"I see…" Aladdin said thoughtfully. "I did hear that a magi is supposed to select a king…"

"Ooh, then you get the gist." Said Paimon. "Yes, the king's selection is the path of a magi."

"It is normally a magi who chooses the King's Candidate to enter a dungeon… Though in Hope's case, she wandered in her own." Ipos added with a wry smile.

"Well, Hakuei-chan was chosen directly as a King's Candidate to be by the magi of the Kou Empire." Paimon said proudly.

"Eh…!?" Aladdin and the twins gasped in surprise.

"There are other magis beside me?" he asked excitedly.

'I wonder if Kouen was also chosen by this other magi…' Hope thought, frowning slightly. She hadn't heard anything about a 'magi' from him. Even though he had agreed to tell her 'everything' he knew, that obviously wasn't the case. What he had told her had been really vague bits and piece shrouded in mystery that raised more questions than they had answered… and he had been very careful to avoid answering too many questions about his own Djinn… So she had a feeling that he had been holding back on her, but it was a little disappointing to have it confirmed.

"Yes." Paimon answered Aladdin brightly. "Just like you their mission is to select King Candidates. How about you? Have you ever picked a king before? Just like how I contracted with Hakuei-chan in the dungeon?"

"… Ah…" Aladdin, Faith, and Hope said when it suddenly clicked as they recalled the adventure two of them had had with Alibaba in Amon's dungeon.

"Hey, you don't think…" Faith said as beads of sweat slid down the sides of their faces. Come to think of it, the Djinn kind of did seem to settle on a certain someone in the end…

'Alibaba-kun…' Aladdin thought, wondering if his friend was going to be all right. Did Alibaba even know he had a Djinn? Amon-kun had slipped in there rather stealthily as they were leaving…

'These Djinns are so arbitrary...' Hope thought, sweat-dropping.

Shortly after the Djinns returned to their Metal Vessels (unfortunately without revealing anything to the twins that they didn't already know), Hakuei and Seishun prepared to return to the army base.

"Would you like to meet him?" Hakuei asked their new friends as she mounted her steed. "Our country's magi?"

"…" The twins exchanged a glance out the corners of their eyes, keeping their poker faces firmly in place. Was it worth the risk? Faith decided to leave it up to Hope.

"Nope, I'm going to return to the village and head west." Aladdin answered immediately with a smile. "I have someone I want to see."

"Yes, thanks for the offer, but we'll pass too." Hope said with a wry smile. "We're gonna stick with Aladdin."

"Oh, I see." Said Seishun. "You already have your own magi."

"Oh, no, it's not because of that… right?" Hope said, sharing a smile with her sister. They had more than just a need to avoid being caught to motivate them to make that choice.

"Yeah, it's 'cuz we're friends! Right, Aladdin?" Faith said with a grin as she put an arm around him. Aladdin blushed a little as he looked up at them, feeling extremely touched.

"Yeah!!" he said happily, smiling with all the radiance of the sun.

"… Something wrong?" Hope asked as the three of them walked back to the village together. Aladdin had been awfully quiet for a while now. He looked like he was deep in thought about something.

"… I've been thinking about that incident in the dungeon, when we met Amon-kun…" he said after a moment, deciding to share with them. "I think that must have been 'choosing the king'… I'm not sure what's going to change if I meet Alibaba-kun. But I'm going to see him because I want to!" he said determinedly. "By moving forward, I've learned many things I wanted to know, and it never stops! I want to know! I want to know! I want to know more about who I am!" he finished excitedly.

"Yeah… I get what you're saying." Faith said with a wry smile. "Well, I don't know how long we'll be here…"

"… But as long as we're here, we're with you." Hope finished reassuringly.

"You can count on us!" the twins said with a grin, taking him by the hand as the three of them started to run. Aladdin smiled and laughed.

'You were right, obaa-chan…' Aladdin thought, overcome with a feeling of belonging. 'I think the three of us were meant to meet.'