"Tohma, you magnificent bastard!"
"Caspian, you delightful little freak!"
"VICTORY!" the two sang out, each dancing around the office in their own special ways. The lamp was sitting on Tohma's desk on a red velvet pillow, and Tohma kept petting it when he thought Caspian was too busy dancing to watch.
"Tohma, stop fondling the lamp, you're going to piss off the genie." Caspian warned from his cage, ceasing his hopping to snipe Tohma.
"Let him be pissed, doesn't matter, we have the lamp. And besides, unless he can hear me in there, he's not coming out. He still thinks he's with that street rat." Tohma shot back at the bird, adjusting his clothes and fluffing his boa back up. The celebrations had rendered him disheveled.
"I can't believe we pulled this off…" Caspian muttered after a while, tiring of Tohma's constant primping. "I mean, we have the lamp, we're not dead, the street rat is stumbling around blind, the Prince has no idea what's going on, and I repeat, we're not dead…"
"I know, Po, I know…" Tohma said in an awed tone, admiring the lamp on its pillow. "Shall we, birdface?"
"Let's." Caspian answered, flying over to Tohma's desk and alighting on the edge of the pillow.
"Okay, let's get this thing to Mika." Tohma said, scooping up the lamp and heading for the door.
"NO!" Caspian shouted, flapping onto Tohma's hand and biting ferociously. "After everything we've done?! It's OURS!"
"No, bird, it's hers!"
"NO IT'S NOT!"
"Caspian!"
"TOHMA!" Caspian retorted, violently, twittering madly and holding on for dear life to Tohma's hand. "LISTEN!"
"WHAT?" Tohma yelled at Caspian, trying to fling the bird off. "LET GO, DAMMIT!"
"We've worked way too hard to let her have it!" Caspian argued, releasing Tohma's hand and jumping back to the desk. "She didn't believe you when you said the street rat had it, she abandoned you in that throne room, hell, Tohma, she had you arrested!"
"So?"
"So?! She doesn't deserve that lamp! She doesn't love you! She's just using you!"
"That's not true!" Tohma shouted, scowling at the insolent parrot.
"It's not?" Caspian pressed. "Really, Tohma?"
"She does!"
"Has she ever told you that? Has she ever thanked you for anything?" Caspian asked. When Tohma didn't reply, he plowed on. "Who trekked across the desert for years, trying to find that cave?"
"I did…"
"Who found the right person to go in there?"
"I did…"
"Who tried to protect her from that lying, cheating rat?"
"I did."
"Who spent all that time trying to get the lamp back without worrying her, huh?"
"I did."
"Who drove himself insane trying to live up to her expectations?"
"I did!"
"Who got the lamp? Who has the lamp?"
"I did! I do!"
"Exactly! She didn't do anything for it! It's ours!"
"Yeah!" Tohma agreed, jumping up and down with the excitement of it all.
Mika had done nothing but insult him since the beginning of the hunt, and he'd received no thanks for his efforts. She'd called him a liar, she'd turned her back on him in front of everyone, she'd called him names, she'd ignored him when he finally snapped under the pressures of it all, she'd completely left everything up to him and blamed it all on him when it backfired. He had spent the last few years of his life devoted to her and had never once questioned it. Now that he was seeing the dark side of things, he regretted his blind following. He could have been using his resources for his own gain, not for hers, and his life could have been so much different.
"It's my turn…" Tohma muttered, the crazed look coming back into his face.
"That's it, Tohma, that's it!" Caspian cheered from the desk, thrilled with his meddling.
"Shut it, you." Tohma ordered, snapping his fingers and conjuring ropes around Caspian's beak. Now that he felt so free, so alive, he could feel the power coursing through him.
"MMMPH!" Caspian snarled, unable to speak and not happy about it. Now that he'd incited a peasant rebellion, he wanted to be part of the bloodshed.
"Show time…" Tohma whispered, picking up the lamp and holding it gingerly in his hand. He took a deep breath and pulled the trigger, waiting for his destiny.
"OI! What the hell do you think you're doing? You can't just summon me anytime you like, no after what you-" K ranted, billowing out of his lamp and glaring like a pissed off cat. "You're not Eiri."
"Obviously, genie." Tohma said, smirking with the thrill of it all. He was winning.
"Why do you have the lamp? Where's Yuki?" K questioned, pulling out his gun and aiming it at Tohma's forehead. "Speak."
"I think you're confused." Tohma stated, grabbing the end of K's gun and pushing it away. "I'm the one in charge, I own you now."
"NO ONE OWNS ME!"
"Oh really?" Tohma replied, smug as ever. "Let's test that theory, shall we?"
"MMMPH!" Caspian screeched again, wanting to be in on the wishes. If it weren't for him, Mika would've had the lamp by now.
"Not you, it's my lamp, remember?" Tohma told Caspian, tired of the bird's incessant nagging.
"Genie, I wish for real magic. I want real powers, ones that don't change depending on my mood, the time change, or the altitude. I want to be the real deal, get it?"
"I…you…you're not…" K sputtered, trying to resist the call of the wish. The lamp bound him to his masters though, and he ultimately had no choice. He sighed, closed his eyes, and snapped his fingers.
Tohma gasped with the sensation of it; he could feel his feet leave the floor, and he could sense that something was different. He'd felt some of his powers return earlier, but this was entirely different. He landed a few seconds later, itching to try out his new powers.
"Oh Caspian…" Tohma cooed, rolling up his sleeves and advancing on the now-fleeing bird.
"MMMMMPPPPHHH!"
"Now, wait a minute…we need to go over the rules…" K suggested, wanting to get out of there as soon as possible. No matter how upset he was with Yuki, he didn't want Tohma to trample him while drunk with power.
"Silence!" Tohma commanded, miming a mouth closing with his hand and watching, delighted, as K's mouth snapped shut and remained that way. "Alright, bird, come hither."
In response to Tohma's words, Caspian involuntarily zoomed across the office and landed with a soft splat in Tohma's hand. He looked up at Tohma with a mournful expression, starting to regret all of his snarky words.
"It's alright Po." Tohma said after a few minutes of silence. He'd planned on permanently silencing the annoying creature, but one look into the bird's sad eyes had changed that. If any one creature had been there for him through thick and thin, it was Caspian. "Here, you can talk again."
Tohma tapped the ropes around Caspian's beak lightly with his pointer finger and they fell away, re-gifting the bird his gab. Off to the side, K rolled his eyes. He knew that Ryuichi could be pretty melodramatic, but these two took the cake.
"'bout time, you moron." Caspian immediately spat out, opening and closing his beak to make sure that all the binders were indeed gone. Once he passed his self-inflicted inspection, he flew off to his cage to put some distance between himself and the feathered sorcerer.
"Thanks a lot for the sentiment." Tohma replied, glaring at Caspian and shaking his head. "Guess I can't really expect much more from you."
"Obviously." Caspian answered, shaking off the episode. He'd known that Tohma would come to his senses before he did anything drastic, he hadn't worried once, hadn't even felt flustered. He cleared his throat and ruffled himself up to bolster his inner posturing. "N-n-now what?"
"Stuttering?" Tohma noted, smiling wide at the panicked parrot.
"Lies." Caspian returned shiftily, avoiding Tohma's eye. He had no idea what had saved his green ass, but he was glad for it. As much as he tried to reassure himself that Tohma would never turn on him, there'd been something different in his handling. Some switch had been flipped, and he wasn't sure if it was a good thing or a potential disaster.
"Whatever, we need to get moving. I have a bone to pick with our darling Sultana." Tohma told Caspian, fluffing his boa and pacing.
"Tohma?" Caspian questioned, leaning over the side of his cage and peering over at his owner. "You feeling alright?"
"Never better bird. This is how it's supposed to be, this is how it's supposed to work out." Tohma replied, feeling the fire rising in his gut. He hadn't felt so empowered in years, and he was loving every second of it. "We're done screwing up, Caspian, we're done taking orders from her, got it?"
Unable to speak, K was about to burst. Tohma's eyes were glinting in a weird way, and the bird looked like he was about to explode. K sighed silently and shook his head, wishing that Yuki hadn't been such a moron. He had no idea how the power tripping idiots had gotten a hold of his lamp, but Yuki was in for one hell of a lecture next time they came face to face.
"Got it." Caspian responded, inwardly rejoicing. Tohma had been like this in the beginning, and Mika had worn him down over the years. He'd become cowed, deranged, and incompetent under her influence. Now that Tohma had been given real powers and been unleashed upon the world, he couldn't wait to be a part of the dream team. "Have a plan?"
"We're going to crash her little party that we weren't invited to. Again. We're calling her out in front of her entourage, and we're nabbing that damned rat if he's stupid enough to show up there. Just kill all the birds with a gigantic stone." Tohma informed Caspian, ruffling through their old planning notes to see if he'd missed any good ideas. "Think that'll do?"
"With your new fireworks, we're set for life. Forget the old shenanigans." Caspian twittered, shaking with the excitement of it all. They were invincible now that Tohma had legitimate skills and a genie to back them up.
K rolled his eyes again, hoping that Mika could take what Tohma and Caspian were planning on dishing out. Knowing them, it could be anything from a booby-trapped fruit basket to a full-scale invasion complete with trebuchets.
"Alright then. Genie, let's get this show on the road." Tohma called out, signaling K. "We need a big entrance, I have business to settle with Mika and that street rat."
K looked over at Tohma and slowly blinked, waiting for Tohma to realize that he was still silenced.
"Genie? You deaf or something?" Tohma questioned, narrowing his eyes at the incompetent magical being.
K raised his eyebrows, rolled his eyes, and pointed to his lips when Tohma continued to stare at him like a child stalking a lollipop.
"Oh, right…" Tohma said sheepishly, shuffling around and looking at his feet. He cleared his throat and stared back at K, wondering how to un-silence someone.
"Tohma, let him talk!" Caspian ordered, feeling impatient. He was eager to knock Mika down a few pegs, and Tohma was hindering their sweet, sweet victory.
"How do I undo that spell?" Tohma asked K quietly, sidling over to him in the hope that Caspian wouldn't overhear.
K mimicked the hand motion that Tohma had used in the first place and performed the opposite, sighing heavily when it took Tohma a few go rounds to understand.
"Oh!" Tohma finally exclaimed, thrilled with his own brilliance. He immediately un-jinxed K and deliberately avoided Caspian's eye. The parrot was muttering something about how not even genies could fix some people and he really didn't want to hear the rest.
"Not going to help you unless you use a wish." K stated, feeling grumpy. He opened and closed his mouth a few times to regain the feeling in his jaw and watched Tohma, waiting for a response.
"What? You have to listen to me!"
"No, I don't, actually." K informed Tohma, sitting on the edge of the desk and picking at his nails. "Say your right words."
"You stupid genie! Do what I say!"
"Hmm, now, that didn't quite sound right…" K muttered, crossing his legs and jingling his foot impatiently.
"You!"
"Yes?"
"Dammit…" Tohma cursed, ignoring the laughing bird behind him. "Fine! I wish to takeover Agrabah! I want to call her out, I want to get the city, and I want you to protect me from her."
"Sounds good. Let's get this thing going then." K said, rolling up his sleeves. As much as he hated being attached to Tohma and Caspian, it would feel nice to get some revenge on Mika for all the hoops she'd made him jump through with Yuki. "What kind of an entrance?"
"Something with firepower, something with real pizzazz." Tohma answered, eyes squeezed shut and hands waving wildly out in front, drawing out his mad scheme.
"That's my specialty."
"And mine." Caspian interjected, sensing that he was in danger of being replaced. "I can make explosions!"
"We know, bird." Tohma replied. "I just want to crash that announcement, I want to embarrass her in front of the council. I need to make her look like a fool, just like she did to me for all of those years. I'm not her little jester anymore, I have real power, and she needs to regret taking me for granted!"
"Preach it, man!" Caspian sang out, jumping around on his cage. Once he ceased his celebratory dancing, he pulled out some sketches and flew over to K. "These need to happen."
"No, no, no, nothing that elaborate." Tohma said immediately, putting the kibosh on Caspian's scheming. Something was telling him that this needed to be a little more low-key. He had a feeling, and he knew from past mistakes that he needed to act on it. "No, this needs to be more personal, nothing too fancy. Seriously, bird."
"You didn't even look at them!" Caspian squalled indignantly.
"I don't have to!" Tohma shot back, crossing his arms and glaring at the bird.
"Let's play nice kids…" K attempted, used to Yuki and Ryuichi squabbling but unsure of how to deal with it on this level. He glanced through Caspian's sketches and breathed a sigh of relief that Tohma was overruling him. They ranged from song lyrics to catapult blueprints, and K was terrified of what would happen if Caspian were put in charge.
"Stay out of this!"Tohma yelled, cutting off K.
"Shut it!" Caspian screeched simultaneously, his voice getting close to cracking.
"Enough, bird. Listen – " Tohma started, wanting to explain exactly what he wanted to K.
"NO! You said you wanted pizzazz!"
"Yeah, but not your brand!"
"HEY!"
"I WANT TO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY FOR ONCE!" Tohma yelled, jumping up and down and spitting like a frenzied cat, successfully dislodging a few of his boa feathers. He hadn't been able to put legitimate emotion to the feeling until now, and it was one of pride. He wanted Mika to be genuinely scared, he didn't want to hear anyone laugh, and he would absolutely die if someone tried to mock him this time around.
"Gonna need more than me for that to happen…" K muttered, any enthusiasm he'd had for working with the dastardly duo fading entirely. "Why don't you compromise? Let him do one or two ideas? Maybe?"
"NO! This needs to be perfect!" Tohma countered, straightening up and glaring at K and Caspian. He wiped the froth off of his face and re-adjusted his boa, making sure that he still looked impeccable.
"I'm not helping if you don't!" Caspian yelled, puffing up in response to Tohma's posturing.
"Bird." Tohma said through gritted teeth, trying to stare down his parrot.
Caspian stared back, unwilling to give up the compromise idea. He wasn't thrilled with K's inclusion into their plotting, but at least this way he might get some say in their grand takeover.
"Fine, fine, I don't care anymore…" Tohma conceded, sighing and shaking his head. "Just…whatever."
"OK! I want an outfit! If we can't blow things up, I at least want to look snazzy." Caspian replied, flipping through his sketches. He'd never had an occasion to dress up, and Tohma was always getting to put on all sorts of things. For once, he wanted to be in the spotlight. "That one!"
"An outfit? Bird, you don't even know what that is." Tohma sniped, feeling pissy now that his plan had been trod on.
"Okay, I can do that…" K told Caspian, taking down some notes on the sketch. "Anything else you want to do?"
"When we call out that lying rat, I want to make a huge deal about it. I want Mika to know exactly how much of an idiot she was for trusting him, and I want to make him look like a fool in front of everyone that manages to stay in the room…" Caspian mused, flipping onto his back and staring at the ceiling. "I know he's already out to get us, but I want him to really want the kill after this one. Especially now that he can't do anything about it."
"Vengeful much?" K asked, casting a worried glance at Caspian. He'd dealt with maniacs in the past, and Yuki hadn't been a pleasure cruise, but he wasn't really sure if he could handle the combined lunacy of vizier and conure.
"You stayed with him for a while, what'll piss him off?" Caspian asked K, remaining on his back and feeling extraordinarily calm for such bloodthirsty plotting. K was warm, and his shoulder made an excellent napping spot.
"I don't know, you want annoyed or livid? Embarrassed or scarred?" K pushed, falling into a chair and chewing on his writing utensil.
"All of the above."
"Only one thing to do, then." K said quietly, leaning back and remembering some of Yuki's worst times. The first time that he'd met the unfortunate street rat, he'd tried to sing him a song and he'd almost walked away from his wishes. Whenever Ryuichi tried to sing about anything, he'd leave the room or hide from embarrassment, and he was still convinced that the breaking point for the poor guy had been when he and Ryuichi had composed and carried out his parade song. "You gotta sing at him."
"What?" Tohma asked incredulously, popping up from behind his desk. He'd been ruffling through old paperwork for lack of something better to do, and had been purposefully avoiding joining the conversation as a protest. "You've got to be kidding, I said serious! I'm tired of being the comic relief in this place!"
"Calm down, it'll be terrifying." K said in a dull voice, getting used to Tohma's squalling.
"It'd better be!" Tohma huffed at K, disappearing behind his desk again.
"Which song do you want to go with? You have several possibilities here…" K asked Caspian, poking him with a quill. "Hey, don't fall asleep up there."
"Hmm?" Caspian murmured groggily, rolling himself back over to prevent drooling. "I like the third one on there…"
"You actually wrote songs? Caspian…" Tohma sighed from his desk, wondering if he could exchange Caspian for a goldfish.
"That sounds like a plan, then." K said loudly, clapping his hands and getting out of his chair. "You can have a cool costume, a jaunty little tune, and you can have a seriously frightening entrance. OK?"
"Alright." Tohma agreed, speaking for himself and Caspian, who immediately started marching up and down K's arm and shoulder, humming his song to himself.
"Doesn't sound too bad, shouldn't take long." K responded to Caspian, trying to decide how to feel about this. He and Yuki weren't especially close, and he didn't feel the need to make up and play nice, but then again, working happily with Tohma didn't quite sit right with him. He glanced over at the parading parrot on his shoulder and really wished that Yuki hadn't been so careless with the lamp; this wasn't going to end well for anyone.
It's always nice to see the crazy ones get their day, right? Well, it's coming, that's for sure. Just a warning, the next chapter (which is somehow magically already written) actually made me cry. Granted, I cried at How to Train Your Dragon and I bawled like a baby at Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron. Not to mention what happens to me if you even show me the case for Fox and the Hound. *tears up* Dang it.
Anywho, I was not planning on this next chapter at all, it was one of those things that just pours out of you one night. Knowing sappy ol' me, I'll be the only one that feels anything from it, but whatever, it is what it is. Enjoy guys, and know that I'm serious when I say I'm almost done with this monstrosity. As of now, I'm sitting in microeconomics, typing away at the intro to the big fight scene where Tohma magically turns into something spectacular. :D
Over and out,
Amaya