Chapter 11: Out of the Dream
"What did you do to Aladdin - where is he?" Jasmine demanded as she stared at Jafar. Though she was bound my magic binds of red light, unable to move, she couldn't feel more angry at the sight around her. Carpet was still very battered from their encounter, though he still tried to wake Genie from his slumber. Jasmine knew that she'd worn down Jafar to a degree with the effort it took to catch them, but she wasn't backing down even if he'd caught them.
Jafar smiled at her. "You won't have to worry, Princess. I've taken good care of him while he's engrossed in the nightmares that plague him. Unfortunately for Aladdin, he'll never wake again to see you. Pity you never had the chance to say goodbye."
"I don't believe you," she snapped. "Aladdin wouldn't fall that easily, not to you of all people."
Jafar scoffed. "Oh don't be difficult. You overestimate the power of that street rat. You deserve so much better." He used one hand to cup her face, but Jasmine pulled away quickly.
"Very well, it seems you've made your choice." He raised his staff, which emitted a red magic light from the eyes of the snake head. It struck Jasmine with equal force, throwing her back towards the center of the lake, then dropping her like a rock in the middle of it.
Jasmine was free of her binds, so she struggled to swim up to the surface, emerging to take a long breath. She was fortunate that she could swim, though she realized almost immediately after looking at her surroundings that swimming wasn't going to get her out of the latest danger.
The lake was starting to freeze over quickly, from the outer edges of the lake inward.
Jafar laughed. "It won't be long before you're frozen within the lake, Princess. You'd better hope you can hold your breath for a long, long time."
As he spoke, Jasmine realized long tendrils of seaweed wrapped around her ankles, and started holding her in place. She couldn't swim forward or toward the surface, it was enough that she could barely keep her head above water.
"No! Carpet, help!"
Carpet started to fly over, but Jafar used his magic to prevent him from helping, freezing Carpet in midair with red magic.
Genie, whom Carpet had still tried to wake, was still trapped within sleep.
"There's no one to save you now, Princess. Not even your precious Prince." His laugh echoed through the night, and Jasmine, just before being pulled under the surface, noticed the change in the sorcerer's voice, and realized the truth.
That's...not Jafar.
"No!" Aladdin's body tensed at Jatika's account of events.
Jatika laughed. "How quickly you forget your boundaries of fear, Aladdin. Let me give you a not-so-gentle reminder."
Aladdin's grip had relaxed on the staff, long enough for Jatika to take advantage of his hesitation. The staff in Jatika's grip glowed, and an explosion of red light flooded the area from the surge of power, sending Aladdin, Genie and Jatika yelling while flying backward in opposite directions.
Jatika recovered slowly from the blast. He'd taken a fair share of Aladdin's fear generated in the moment, but he hadn't realized the surge of power it would produce. The street rat must really care for the Princess to generate that much fear, the imp thought. Well, more power for me. Gives me enough to destroy the brat and his Genie for good.
But as Jatika recovered, he realized that Genie had recovered just as fast, and had caught him in a compromised position.
"Okay, first of all, taking power that's not yours and impersonating people is W-R-O-N-G! I can spell as well as a certain parrot friend of mine." Genie scolded Jatika, leaving the imp a little confused, so much so that he didn't realize Genie had taken the snake staff from him, which had been the source of his disguise in this dream world's power.
"Give that back!" demanded Jatika. "You don't know what you're doing, that power's irreversible - it belongs to no one but me once its converted!"
"Sorry, but you should've thought about that sooner." Genie slammed the staff into the ground, thereby breaking it, releasing all the magic that Jatika had gained from his fear gathering between Aladdin and Genie.
"No, no, no!" Jatika cried, as he reverted back to his original impish form. It made him much more miniscule to Genie's vision. And Jatika realized he didn't have enough power in this realm to transform or use his magic with the loss of the staff. He realized that he should've used a back-up power source here, versus out of the dreamworld. He recalled in one of his scans of Aladdin's memories that the boy had broken Jafar's staff when the sorcerer had tried to hypnotize the Sultan of Agrabah.
Jatika scolded himself for being so careless.
"Ring any bells of deja-vu? Oh yeah, that's right - you're not Jafar, as we can plainly see," Genie continued. "Second, I think you need a lot more punishment than this, but I have no choice right now but to tie you up, just until we can see what to do with you after we go rescue the Princess you're trying to drown."
"Wait, what are you doing?" Jatika cried, as the Genie used his magic to bind several ropes around Jatika to a nearby tree. The imp couldn't move against them, because they were magic and had him suspended a good distance from the ground. Jatika was used to shapeshifting so much that he was usually taller, but the height from the ground gave him a little bit of vertigo. He tried to wiggle out of his confines, but to no avail. Jatika also hadn't realized that the Genie had used his magic to file down the imp's claws.
"Hey, get me down from here, you stupid Genie!"
"Cranky, aren't we? You should've thought about that before you tried to scare AND attack us," Genie said with a slight grin. "All righty, Al - the imp's taken care of so let's...Al!"
As Genie's voice turned to panic, Jatika already recognized what the Genie had not. Aladdin had never moved since he'd been caught in the blast. The Agrabah Prince lay motionless on the ground, and in Jatika's perspective - had reached his limit.
"Hey, look, the magic's gettin' smaller and disappearing." Iago was the first to point it out. "I think we're doin' something right."
Warek cut his eyes at the parrot. "Says the bird who said it was no use two moments ago."
"I'm pessimistic by nature, I have an excuse," Iago said, folding his wings across his chest.
Warek ignored him. "Let's try once more. All together now. 1...2...3..."
Abu, Iago, and Warek yelled the same phrase at the exact same time.
"Aladdin, wake UP!"
Aladdin heard the voices loud and clear that time. And it triggered visions in his mind's eye. Iago, Abu, and Warek standing over him in the middle of the Oasis forest. Carpet trying to wake Genie at the Oasis entrance as Jasmine went under the water. Two distinct visions he wasn't sure were reality at first, but judging from Jatika's account earlier, and how vivid the visions were, he knew they were true.
They still had time to save Jasmine, but he now realized they had to break the illusion first.
Aladdin's eyes shot open, and he realized Genie was standing over him. "Okay. Whew," Genie said, wiping his hand across his forehead. "I don't think I can take so many of these close calls. Though it's his fault, really." Genie pointed his thumb in the direction behind them. Aladdin sat upright, seeing the imp squirming in his confines.
Aladdin raised one brow. "What happened to him?"
Genie shrugged, looking sheepish. "Eh - broke his staff, made him lose his magic, and tied him to a tree. You didn't miss much."
"We need to get out of here. You're closer to Jasmine right now enough to save her. She needs help fast."
"Huh? Okay, I'm definitely missing something. Did you hit your head a little too hard?"
Aladdin groaned, rolling his eyes. "No, I figured out the truth. Jatika's been keeping us under some kind of spell. We never really woke up from when the scorpions attacked us."
"No! Don't listen to the brat - no one can break my spell, no one! You hear me?"
Genie and Aladdin both ignored Jatika.
Genie's expression brightened. "You mean all of this..."
Aladdin nodded. "Was just a..."
Dream.
At the moment they both thought the word, the illusion broke.
Genie awoke with a start. But since it was relatively quiet around where he lay, he stretched his limbs and transformed out of his sleeping gear when he realized he was wearing it. "Okay, this totally explains why I hate imps and magic sleep-inducing scorpions. Definitely taking them off my play-date list."
A distance away on the sands, Carpet seemed to stir a little more excitedly when he realized Genie was awake. Genie's eyes took Carpet in, and he felt bad. No wonder Carpet wasn't really in any shape to fly.
"Oh, wow. He did a number on you Rugman. Carpet burns are nothing to mess with." He clicked his tongue. Genie summoned some of his magic to fix Carpet quickly, which seemed to revive him excitedly. Both of them noticed Jasmine surfacing in the middle of the freezing lake of the Oasis.
"Help! Please!"
Genie snapped to attention. "Hang on, Jasmine!"
Both Carpet and Genie started forward, but neither of them noticed the massive blast of magic coming from behind them until it was too late.
"Well, if it isn't Sleeping Beauty. Do you even know how long we've been trying to wake you?!"
Aladdin really wasn't happy about having Iago's voice the first thing he woke to. His head hurt more than he realized. But Aladdin welcomed Abu throwing his arms around Aladdin's neck. "I'm happy to see you guys."
Warek blinked a few times. "I can't believe we actually broke the spell. The orb disappeared without harming any of us." The merchant shook his head and helped Aladdin stand.
"Yeah, I heard you guys in the dream, but it took forever to get out of there," Aladdin's expression turned serious. "We've got a problem."
"Problem is an understatement!" Iago said. "Jafar put all of Agrabah under a sleeping spell. The Sultan and everyone else in the city is still under it. And Rajah just ran off a little while ago without telling us anything. Some protector he turned out to be."
"I didn't know Rajah was with you guys. He probably saw something and..." Aladdin's eyes widened. "Wait, what?"
Iago looked confused. "Uh, yeah - Agrabah equals Sleepyville. What problem were you talkin' about?"
Aladdin groaned. "Jasmine, Genie and Carpet need help. Jatika's trying to drown Jasmine, and I don't know how long it's going to take Genie to recover from the sleeping spell he was under. Carpet's not able to fly either. Come on, follow me - maybe we'll run into Rajah on the way."
Aladdin ran forward, heading back to the entrance to the Oasis. He knew where he was - right around the same place Warek had been when they found him, so it was a matter of getting to the lake as soon as the could.
"Who's Jatika?" Warek asked as they reached a clearing to catch their breath.
"I'm pretty sure he's the demon you saw from before," Aladdin said. "He had us all fooled."
"But what about Jaf...?" Iago was stopped when Aladdin clamped a hand over his beak to keep it shut.
"Iago, listen," Aladdin hissed. "Jafar IS Jatika. Jatika's a shapeshifting imp who feeds on fear. If he's got the whole city of Agrabah under a sleeping spell, he could use their nightmares to fuel his magic and shapeshift into who knows what else. And if he had any link to what happened in the dream world Genie and I were just in, then Jatika already knows we're coming."
Iago took the news all in, even as Aladdin released his beak. "Okay, good news, Jafar's not back. Bad news: we're doomed."
Aladdin smiled a little. "Nice to know you haven't lost your pessimism."
A pained roar from the distance made them all stand to attention. Iago visibly cringed in midair. Abu screeched and darted behind a brush. Warek's eyes darted around the area, visibly spooked by the sudden sound.
"Rajah." Aladdin's expression faltered a bit before he recovered and turned to the others. "Let's hurry."
Jatika was determined not to lose. As he looked down upon the injured tiger that had tried to attack him, he knew that part of his back up plan was already working. The tiger would be just one crumb for them to follow, and then he'd make his move.