Chapter Twelve

Aftermath

Above the marketplace where the warriors lay defeated, Santos stirred on the rooftop and got up, looking at Elsa. She was still flat on her back. He picked up his knife and slung his musket across his back.

"Wait."

Santos turned around to see Elsa slowly getting up.

"Don't go." Elsa said, standing to her feet.

"I have to."

"No, you don't," she walked towards Santos. "You said you're not like the rest, and I don't know why, but I find myself believing you."

"I don't have a choice. He'll kill me otherwise."

"We'll fight him together." Elsa promised.

"We can't. I'm sorry." Santos turned to go. He stopped, and fished an odd looking stone out of his military vest and passed it to Elsa.

"I don't understand." She took the stone in her hands, confused. Why was this man giving her a stone?

"I don't have time to explain how, but I'll contact you when I get the chance." Santos explained as he walked away. "I have to go."

"Wait!" Elsa called out, as Santos opened the door handle of the building. "You never told me your name."

"Santos."

"Santos." Elsa echoed, and Santos closed the door, leaving Elsa alone on the rooftop. She placed the stone into her pocket and looked over the rooftop, which had parts of it chipped off due to the explosion of black magic. Her team was down, and the mercenaries were getting away!

Elsa aimed at the edge of the rooftop and created a slide of ice that winded down to the marketplace, testing it to make sure that it was wide and strong enough to carry her weight safely. She climbed up to the roof's edge, and got onto the slide.

Taking a deep breath, she pushed herself off the roof, and slid down the ice quickly. Reaching the ground and getting up swiftly, she looked at the Major and the mercenaries that were boarding their ship that was docked at the harbour. There was no way she could face them by herself and emerge victorious. It was more likely that Kane would either kill her or take her hostage to bait the rest of the warriors. She wasn't going to take that unnecessary risk.

Elsa looked over at her teammates who had begun to stir. She ran over to Melody who was slumped against the collapsed tables, looking the most worn out from battle.

"Melody," Elsa crouched down in front of her friend, pulling a couple of pieces of wood off from her. "Are you alright? Can you stand?"

"Yeah." Melody winced.

Elsa extended her hand towards Melody who grabbed on, and Elsa pulled her to her feet.

"Ugh…" Melody clutched her left arm. There was a dark bruise on her ivory skin, from where the Major had hit her. She quickly checked to make sure that her precious locket wasn't broken, and to her relief, it was still intact, hanging from her neck.

"I'm sorry I couldn't help." Elsa apologized.

"Where were you?" Moana demanded, weakly pushing herself up from the ground. "I thought you were supposed to level the playing field for us."

"I was," Elsa began, trying to explain. "But-"

"But you didn't. You let Kane get away!" Moana cut her off.

"Would you please let me explain?" Elsa raised her voice in frustration. Ice formed on the ground beneath her feet, spreading a few metres across the marketplace in all directions. "I was going to help out like we planned, but one of the Major's mercenaries spotted me and chased me across the rooftops!" She explained indignantly.

"Why was there a mercenary on the exact same rooftop as you?"

"How should I know?"

"And what happened to him?"

"He…got away."

"Should have seen that coming. And you!" Moana turned to Tracy, who had recovered from her daze.

She looked at Moana. "What did I do?"

"Whose side are you on?" Moana shouted at her, incensed. "You exploded with black magic and we lost the fight! This is the second time you let your powers get out of control!"

Tracy walked up to Moana and got up in her face. "So you're saying it's my fault we lost? The guy blasted me with black magic! What was I supposed to do?"

Moana pushed her away. "Get out of my face, witch. I should never have let you join us."

"You're not the leader of this little team. Stop acting like you're better than us." Tracy snorted.

"Guys!" The girls turned to Melody. "There's no point arguing now. What's done is done. The Major has escaped."

"What are we going to do now?" Elsa asked, trying to suppress her frustration to prevent her powers from getting out of control.

"Well, first," the girls turned to Maui, who was pointing at a group of royal guards approaching them quickly. "We have to deal with them."

Twelve guards armed with spears and body armour surrounded the warriors in the marketplace. They formed a circle and pointed their spears inward at the warriors, trapping Melody and the rest in the middle.

"Halt!" a strong voice boomed loudly, and the warriors turned to see the King riding on his white horse towards them. The King wore regal white robes, and had a thick grey beard and kindly eyes, which reminded Melody a little of her own grandfather, Triton.

"That's him, isn't it?" Melody whispered to Elsa. "The legendary King Aladdin?"

Elsa nodded, looking nervously at the guards pointing their spears at her. She was still trying to keep her emotions in check. If she suddenly lost control of her powers in front of Agrabah's King, things would get incredibly messy.

King Aladdin pulled back on the reins, bringing his horse to a stop. "Who are you? What are your intentions in Agrabah?"

Maui cleared his throat. "My name is Maui, the sha-"

"Queen Elsa of Arendelle," Elsa cut Maui off. It certainly wouldn't be in their favour for them to reveal that they had a demigod in their midst. That would make things so much harder to explain.

"The fabled Snow Queen?" Aladdin asked, surprised. "Your reputation precedes you."

"As does yours, King Aladdin," Elsa replied politely.

Melody smiled. She knew that she could count on Elsa to diffuse a diplomatic situation, as she probably had experience dealing with other kingdoms, more than the rest of them had anyway.

"What are you doing so far away from home? Shouldn't you be present to govern your people?" Aladdin asked.

"Long story. In short, there is a kingdom wide referendum and I've been temporarily removed from power. I needed a sabbatical, and here I am." Elsa replied quietly, her cheeks turning red from embarrassment, having to recount her predicament in front of so many people.

"I see… So tell me, Queen Elsa," Aladdin dismounted from his white horse, signalling for his royal guards to stand down, and they lowered their spears. "What are you and your friends doing here in Agrabah? And what's with all this mess?" Aladdin gestured at his marketplace which was in ruins.

"We're…sorry about that," Elsa began sheepishly. "We came here to stop a warlord called Major Kane from getting away with something he stole from the Cave of Wonders." She looked at Aladdin whose face had turned pale. "We're not sure what he took though."

"I know what the warlord took," Aladdin said grimly.

"What did he take?" Melody asked.

Aladdin looked at her with dread on his face. "The most powerful and dangerous item in the Cave of Wonders. The Lamp of Jafar."

"How can you be sure?"

"Trust me, I'm sure."

The warriors glanced around at each other, and even the royal guards looked uncomfortable.

"That Lamp, it houses Jafar the Genie, doesn't it?" Maui inquired. He had known of the genie's existence, as it was the stuff of modern legend. What he had not known up till now was that the Major now possessed the Lamp of Jafar.

Aladdin nodded gravely, and stroked his beard. "Many years ago, when I was a young man, Jafar had overthrown the then king, and I tricked him into using his final wish to become a genie, and when his wish was fulfilled I trapped him in his own Lamp. I then cast it into the Cave of Wonders, and hoped that it would never surface again." He paused, and exhaled sharply before he continued. "That's why I passed a law forbidding anyone from entering the Cave of Wonders. Everyone who had entered the Cave perished, being deemed unworthy by the Cave's guardian. All except me."

"And now the Major too." Melody added.

Aladdin nodded. "I also passed the law in the hopes that it would increase the chances that we would never have to worry about the Lamp of Jafar any longer, but look where we are now."

"Wait, so what can the Major do with the Lamp of Jafar?" Moana asked.

"When Jafar became a genie, he had to abide by the rules," Aladdin began, walking over to the fallen tables in the marketplace, and the warriors followed him. "Whoever found his Lamp and freed him from his prison would become his master," He continued, picking up some of the tables that hadn't been destroyed, and set them upright. "And Jafar would have to grant his new master three wishes."

"And these three wishes can be anything he wants?" Melody asked.

Aladdin nodded gravely, turning around to face them. "With the Lamp of Jafar, this Major you spoke of is unstoppable."

Melody turned to look at her team. They all looked equally disturbed. "Things just got a whole lot worse." Melody sighed. She looked over at Tracy, who had remained mostly silent since her encounter with Major Kane. Tracy seemed as if her mind was a million miles away.

Moana turned to Aladdin. "Is there anything we can do to negate the powers of Jafar?"

Aladdin shook his head. "Now that this Major Kane has the Lamp, the world could be in grave danger, and there's no stopping it."

"We'll do everything in our power to stop them," Elsa assured him confidently. "I promise we'll bring the Lamp back."

Aladdin looked at her with gratitude. "Thank you. I appreciate that." He looked around at the warriors that stood before him. "Save us all."

Melody nodded and ushered Tracy away. Elsa, Moana and Maui also turned to walk back to the harbour, leaving King Aladdin and his royal guards alone in the ruins of the marketplace.

"How do you know we can really bring the Lamp back in one piece?" Melody asked Elsa quietly as they walked back towards their ship.

"I don't," Elsa replied sheepishly. "But we had to give the King some assurance. He looked really stressed out. And besides, we had to get going. The Major has a big head start on us."

Melody nodded and climbed to the deck of the ship, followed by Elsa.

"Wait, I don't get it." Moana frowned as they boarded the ship. "If Kane already stole the Lamp of Jafar by the time we confronted him, why didn't he use it?"

"He must have bigger plans for it," Maui undocked the ship from the harbour and pulled the anchor up from the water. "He probably has every detail of his entire quest planned out."

"And we have no idea what he's going to use the Lamp for." Moana finished.

"But we do know where he's headed," Melody said, and everyone turned to her. "After he wiped the floor with us, Kane told his mercenaries that they were heading to Atlantica. He mentioned getting the trident from Atlantica, remember? He's got to be headed there now."

"How do we even where this Atlantica is?" Moana asked skeptically.

"Half mermaid, remember? Atlantica is sort of like my home away from home." Melody reminded her.

"Okay, but Kane also mentioned the heart of Te Fiti." Moana continued. "We had an encounter with that two years ago. " She looked at Maui, who nodded, remembering the adventure they had shared together. "How's he going to get that? It's impossible."

"And why is he going through all this trouble just to 'save humanity'?" Maui asked. "He seemed pretty okay with telling us his plan, in fact I think he wanted to, but he was rather tight lipped about his reasons."

"If I know these villains, they always have a reason, no matter how twisted." Melody replied grimly. "He said it was personal, I'm guessing it has something to do with his family."

"Maybe they're gone, and this is his way of coping with grief." Moana added. "In his twisted mind, that's probably logical to him."

"Someone hurts his family, he retaliates on a much larger scale. If that's true, then this quest is about honouring his family's memory, which means he'll do anything to make sure he succeeds," Melody folded her arms. "Our job just got a whole lot tougher."

"We'll worry about that later," Maui replied, climbing aboard the ship and untying the rope from the deck. "Right now, we gotta get to Atlantica before the Major does."

Moana walked to the edge of the deck, and raised her arms. She narrowed her eyes, staring at the water with every ounce of her concentration. The water behind the ship rose into a mini tidal wave, and moved towards the ship. The tidal wave pushed against the ship, pushing it away from the pier. Moana tensed up and the wave grew bigger, pushing the ship with greater force, causing it to be propelled faster through the water.

###

"We're nearing Atlantica. The Major and his mercenaries aren't that far ahead," Melody said, looking over the deck, before turning around to face the team. "Elsa, use your powers to create a cold mist that would hide our ship from being spotted by the Major."

Elsa nodded and stretched out her hands. Cold engulfed the atmosphere, turning the air misty and hiding their ship from sight.

"Tracy, you're up."

Tracy sat on the edge of the deck, looking as if she was lost in her thoughts, before realizing that Melody had called her. "Me?" Tracy asked.

"You're going to swim with me to Atlantica. We'll reach faster than Kane and warn the kingdom of the impending war."

"You sure that's a good idea?" Moana asked with uncertainty. "You know," she gestured at the sea witch.

"I'm standing right here, y'know." Tracy folded her arms in annoyance.

"Yeah. I know." Moana turned and looked her in the eye spitefully.

Elsa, Melody and Maui looked incredibly uncomfortable.

"If you got something to say to me, spit it out," Tracy said boldly.

"Frankly speaking, I don't trust you," Moana bluntly told her, and Tracy narrowed her eyes. "I saw you back in the marketplace. You enjoyed all that black magic, didn't you?"

"So what if I did?" Tracy spat back. "Like you said, I'm a sea witch, aren't I?"

"You see?" Moana turned to the rest, pointing at Tracy. "She admitted it! We can't trust her. Don't forget, she's the one who made us lose the fight against the Major!"

Melody sighed in frustration and placed her palm on her forehead.

Tracy stared at Moana intensely, and after a long silence, a subtle wicked smile began to form on her face. "At least I wasn't the one who let the Major destroy my entire village."

Moana was taken aback, and Tracy sensed that she had the upper hand in the argument, seizing the opportunity to continue. "And I wasn't beaten by the Major twice."

Melody shook her head, knowing that Tracy had purposely hit a nerve and Elsa hid her head in her hands, knowing fully what was coming next.

A tear welled up in Moana's eye, and she blinked it back in anger. She clenched her fist, and drew her tribal spear.

"Stop it, both of you!" Melody slapped the spear out of Moana's hand, and placed her other hand on Tracy's shoulder, holding them apart. "Look, we're not getting anywhere like this. We keep arguing amongst ourselves and we're so dysfunctional and uncoordinated." She glared at both girls. "It's no surprise that we couldn't even stand together against the Major back in the marketplace."

"Whatever," Tracy shrugged and walked to the other side of the deck to eat some of the fruit that she had stolen from the marketplace.

"She's not just a sea witch, she's also a thief," Moana hissed, glaring in her direction.

"I know that she's a little rough round the edges, but why do you keep trying to pick a fight? What are you trying to prove?"

"Exactly what I've been trying to prove to you since the beginning. We can't trust her!" Moana protested.

"Look, I'll keep an eye on her, alright? But she's coming with me to Atlantica. I need her." Melody reassured her.

"Don't say I didn't warn you," Moana picked up her spear.

Melody sighed, and beckoned for Tracy to get ready. "We're going to Atlantica now. I have no idea how this is all going to pan out, so just stay alert, alright? Keep a safe distance from the Major's ship, and get ready to ambush him if we fail to stop him and he returns from Atlantica."

Elsa and Maui nodded in acknowledgement, while Moana folded her arms.

Tracy gave Moana one last icy stare, before morphing back into her natural octopid form and climbed down into the water below.

Standing on the beam of the deck, Melody looked down. She grasped the locket that hung around her neck, and it glowed golden.

Although she was incensed over the spat with Tracy, Moana looked on with intrigue, as this was the first time she was seeing Melody transform into a mermaid with her own eyes.

The golden rays engulfed Melody, and she levitated a few feet above the deck. Slowly, the light faded, and Melody once again had her human legs replaced with her salmon pink tail. She dived into the ocean, disappearing below the waters.