Chapter 50

The Sultan's Treasure Vault

"Just hold it steady, Spike," Genie told Sora, who was holding up a section of wall that had previously fallen when Sirocco took out chunks of the building. Genie transformed into a cement mixer truck and gathered up large portions of sand. He poured sand in areas around the wall, which fused together to create a stable wall. Genie continued this until the building was good as new.

Mickey, Kairi and Donald used Aero spells to gather sand up into wind funnels. Aladdin had whistled for the Magic Carpet, a sentient Persian carpet with gold lining and tassels at each corner, to fly in. They dropped the sand on the carpet, who flew around and spread the dust evenly around the street and dumped the excess outside of the city walls. Riku, Aladdin and Goofy helped the people put the broken stones back together, then Riku welded them together with magic.

By the early afternoon, most of the damage had been repaired. A couple buildings had been entirely demolished, but Genie simply conjured up new ones in their place, though the residents were quick to notice that the internal layout was not the same. Aladdin, Jasmine, Sora, Riku, Kairi, Mickey, Donald, Goofy, Genie, Abu, Iago, and Carpet reunited in front of the palace gates. Carpet stood up vertically, but the upper end slouched forward.

Aladdin looked around to make sure that nobody could overhear them. "So, what do you think it was that Mozenrath wanted to destroy Agrabah to get?" he asked.

"Perhaps it is whatever King Mickey said that Maleficent and her allies were searching for," Jasmine guessed.

Sora nodded. "You're right on that one," he affirmed. "We met Loki before, and he was definitely a part of Maleficent's gang."

"Mozenrath said that the artifact was in the palace," Riku said. "He specifically said they would sift through the remains of the palace, not just the city."

"Then perhaps my father would know about it. We should ask him," Jasmine said.

"He seemed pretty nervous when we brought it up," Goofy told her. "Seems like something no one wants to talk about."

"Well, regardless, we need to stop Maleficent and her club from getting to these things, and we need to know everything we can about them," Mickey declared.

Sora turned to look up at Genie. "Say, would you happen to know anything about this?" he asked.

Genie shrugged. "Maybe. Can you give me the run-through?"

Sora and Mickey explained the situation as best they could. Aladdin, Jasmine, Abu, and Iago's jaws dropped when they got to the part about the mysterious power being able to change reality to an even greater extent than what the Genie could do.

Genie rubbed the back of his neck. "Phew, that sounds like a doozy. Now let's see… I'm sure that none of my masters have told me about it directly, but would I have heard a mention of it?" he wondered to himself. After a moment, he shrugged. "I'm sorry guys. You're gonna have to check in with me on that."

"No worries," Sora reassured him. "But we should still see if we can figure anything out while we're here, especially in case Mozenrath and Loki decide to try something again."

"Then we should speak with my father again," Jasmine said. "Perhaps we can convince him to tell us what he can."

"And see if he'll let us look in the treasure vault," Aladdin added. Jasmine turned to look at him with a raised eyebrow. "Well, you know, if you want to keep something safe, hide it in the most secure room in the palace."

Everyone nodded in agreement. With their next course of action settled, they approached the palace doors and asked the guards to open the way for them.

Loki swatted the Crystal of Ix shard into his hand, but nothing happened. He banged it against a table, but that only chipped the table. Rolling his eyes, he pointed the crystal back over his shoulder and concentrated. He heard sparks of magic charge up in the crystal, which shot a beam out behind him. A green sphere of light expanded against a wall. When it faded, Mozenrath and Xerxes were splayed flat against the wall. A few seconds later, they dropped to the ground and slumped down. Mozenrath rubbed his wrists and Xerxes cricked his neck.

"You dare to demean me like that?" Mozenrath shouted in anger.

Loki turned to face him, his expression still neutral. "You're quite welcome," he replied flatly. "I had to get you out of there somehow. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to break off a piece from the Crystal of Ix without getting sucked in?"

Mozenrath stood up and brushed his robe down. "Where are we, anyway?" he asked.

"A storage building on the edge of the city," Loki answered. He wrapped the crystal shard in a handkerchief. "Should give us enough time to come up with a plan to fix your mess."

Mozenrath was indignant. "My mess? Don't you dare place the blame of our defeat on me, particularly when you failed to assist."

"Our failure with Sirocco was no one's fault. But you made a significant error. You blabbed about how the artifact was in the palace," Loki explained. "Now they will have increased security. Aladdin and the Keyblade wielders will almost certainly be in the vault, both in search of the artifact and waiting for us to enter so they can ambush us."

Mozenrath blinked. Xerxes looked at him worriedly. The trickster did indeed have a point. Mozenrath had been confident in his victory over the heroes, so certain that his trap would succeed, that he abandoned all caution. He had said too much. But he had really wanted to rub it into his nemeses' faces that everything they fought for would be lost. They were far more resourceful than he had considered.

"Fair enough," Mozenrath said in resignation. "We will simply need to keep them busy while we do our own search. All we need is a suitable distraction."

Xerxes floated up to a window and took a glance out. His gaze fell upon two figures crouched behind a row of pots. He was familiar with Agrabah's two most infamous criminals. A sinister smile developed upon his malformed face.

The Sultan scratched his beard, deep in thought. Sora and Aladdin had asked him for permission to search for the artifact that Mozenrath and Loki sought, and they were patiently awaiting his answer. Sora had trouble hiding how anxious he was for the answer, though.

Eventually, the Sultan sighed. "Very well," he said, much to the surprise of the nearby Razoul. "There may not be much that I can say to help you, but I can allow you to conduct your own search, and make sure those fiends to not get their hands on it."

Sora and Aladdin nodded. "Thank you," Sora said. They turned and exited into the hallway to the left, where their friends waited. "He said yes," he told them.

The group smiled. Mickey turned to Jasmine. "Well, lead the way, Princess," he said.

Jasmine led the group through a series of corridors until they reached a set of large double doors with a bar drawn across them. She addressed the guards who stood on either side of the doors. They immediately stood at attention.

"Let us in," she ordered. The guards blinked in surprise, but they did not question and instead did as she asked. They removed the bar from the slots on the doors and set it to the side, then they pulled the doors open. The party entered the treasure vault. Jasmine turned around and addressed the guards again. "Keep the doors sealed. Do not open them until I give the signal." The guards nodded and closed the doors.

Riku, Kairi and Donald's jaws dropped when they saw the inside of the vault. The room was absolutely filled with treasure and artifacts of all shapes and sizes. There were gold statues, silver ornaments, and enormous jewels of many different colors. While Riku and Kairi were amazed at it all, Donald's expression of shock slowly morphed into a smile. The others were not perturbed; Aladdin, Jasmine, Abu, and Iago had been in the vault many times, while Sora, Mickey and Goofy had seen other mounds of treasure and none of them were as greedy as Donald.

When they heard the bar slide back into place, the party huddled together. "All right, fellas. This is a big place. Whatever it is we're looking for, it could be anywhere," Mickey explained. "It'll take us a while to check everything, and Mozenrath and Loki could use that time to come in and look for it themselves. I propose some of us keep a lookout. Goofy, you're with me. We need to see the bad guys as soon as they show up. Everyone else, split up and search every corner. I don't know how we'll know when we find it, but we have to find it before our enemies do. Got it?" Everyone nodded. "Good. Now, let's get going."

Everyone nodded and quickly got to work. Mickey and Goofy patrolled the perimeter to count the number of possible entrances. There were only two windows as well as the door they came in from, though that might have been a bit too lax, so it should have been easy to guard all entrances. Meanwhile, everyone else carefully examined each item in the room. Sora, Aladdin and Jasmine picked up the smaller objects and studied them closely, while Riku and Kairi extended their dark and light senses around the larger objects to detect if they have some sort of power. A few times, they called to Aladdin and Jasmine when they thought they had found something, but they were quick to explain what it actually was and rebuke their guess.

Donald and Iago were less interested in locating a certain item, more concerned with taking advantage of the fact that they were in a room full of treasure. Donald began filling his pockets with whatever jewels and coins he could find. Iago snickered as he watched Donald try to stuff a ruby in his sleeve.

During this fit of giggles, he noticed something moving out of the corner of his eye. The parrot turned around and saw Abis Mal and Haroud Hazi Bin sneaking around the vault and stuffing their pockets with treasures. They must have snuck in through the window before Mickey and Goofy had completed their initial perimeter check.

"Hey! Hands off!" Iago shouted. Abis Mal jumped and fumbled with a golden idol, shocked at the sudden outburst.

"The parrot's here?" Abis Mal said in surprise. He looked around and gasped. "Aladdin's here? This is not what I signed up for!"

"Agreed," Haroud said calmly.

Donald finally noticed the criminals. He let out a battle cry and ran straight for them, though he was slowed down by the added weight of all of the loot he was packing. Abis Mal and Haroud saw the incoming threat and quickly turned around to run away. Donald and Iago pursued them, the chase weaving around the statues and display pedestals, neither party gaining the advantage.

The commotion drew the attention of Goofy, who was baffled to see the intruders. Nevertheless, he joined the pursuit. He threw his shield to knock a statue over in an effort to block the criminals' path, but they simply ran around it.

Sora and Aladdin looked up from the scepter and statuette they were examining and saw what was going on. Aladdin ran to join the chase, though it took Sora a few seconds before he recognized the thugs from the previous day, at which point he followed suit. Sora cast Blizzard to freeze the ground in front of Abis Mal and Haroud, but they simply slipped and slid across the stretch and continued running when they reached the end. Mickey soon jumped into the fray, as did Jasmine, and eventually so did Riku and Kairi. Within minutes, the chase degenerated into a line of people running after each other like something out of a cartoon.

While this was going on, Xerxes flew through the window. He saw what was happening and chuckled mischievously. He flew over everyone's heads and sailed halfway through the room. He had been watching the party search each item and knew where they had stopped. That left him to check everything else. Fortunately, Zeromast's explanation and Mozenrath's magic gave him enough of an idea of what he was looking for.

Riku tackled Haroud and pinned him to the ground, crossing the man's arms behind his back. Sora and Aladdin hopped over them and continued their pursuit of Abis Mal. Donald broke off from the line and ran around a different way to try to cut the thief off. However, he tripped and ran into Kairi, knocking her down and landing on top of her. Kairi tried to push him off but found that he was heavier than she thought. After a moment of struggling, she paused and glanced at his sleeve, noticing something red poking out.

"Donald, drop the treasure," she said sternly. "It's not yours to take." Donald sighed and started unzipping his pockets and taking coins and jewels out.

"Wow, Donald! Shame on you! I can't believe you would do such a thing! I mean, I would never…" Iago said, the tone of his voice decreasing until no sound came out of his mouth as Kairi pointed her hand at him and did the same pinching-and-turning motion that Riku had done earlier.

Xerxes returned to the middle of the room, frowning in disappointment. "No good, no good," he muttered to himself.

Mozenrath appeared beside him. "What do you mean, 'no good'?" he asked.

Xerxes pouted apologetically. "It's not here. None of these are it," he clarified.

"That's ridiculous!" Mozenrath then went around the room searching each and every artifact while carefully avoiding the chase. Fortunately for him, nobody noticed he was there. After several minutes, Mozenrath clenched his fists in annoyance. "It isn't here?! None of these treasures are the one we're looking for?" After a moment of venting by way of firing magic blasts at random and throttling Xerxes, Mozenrath calmed down. He glanced over at the party, which was still chasing Abis Mal. He rolled his eyes, amazed that they still had not noticed his presence. "Wow. They really are idiots," he mused.

At that moment, Donald threw a jewel at Abis Mal, hitting him on the head and knocking him out. Everyone stopped to catch their breath, the relentless chase having finally come to an end after several minutes. Aladdin saw something out of the corner of his eye and looked up. He was taken aback to see Mozenrath standing several feet away from him.

"Mozenrath!" he shouted, alerting the others. Sora, Riku, Mickey, and Kairi summoned their Keyblades while Donald summoned his staff and Goofy brandished his shield.

Mozenrath held up his bare hand. "Don't bother. It's not here anyway," the sorcerer said. A Corridor of Darkness appeared behind him. "Now if you don't mind, I'm going back to base, and we'll try again another time. So long." He walked through the portal, followed by his eel, and the shadowy doorway closed in on itself.

After a moment of silent confusion, everyone dismissed their weapons. Sora turned to face his friends, only to find that they all shared the same expression as him.

"I guess these two dunderheads were a distraction while Mozenrath searched the vault," Riku surmised, gesturing to Abis Mal and Haroud, the latter of whom Riku had immobilized with Stopga while Jasmine tied him up. She had just finished right before they had noticed Mozenrath, so both thieves were incapacitated and secured. "Nevertheless, they still escaped custody and attempted to commit theft."

"Turns out it was a moot point, anyway," Kairi added. "Whatever we're all supposed to be looking for, it's not here."

"Could he have been lying to throw us off?" Donald asked.

"No. Mozenrath actually called a draw. Mozenrath. He never gives up, and he's too arrogant to even fake it," Aladdin said.

"Aladdin's right," Jasmine agreed. "Mozenrath has no idea where to look next. His original idea was to destroy the city and not worry about searching every corner. Since that failed, and searching the most secure place in the palace proved to be fruitless, he's out of better options."

"So, I guess we call it a day?" Sora guessed, crossing his arms.

"Looks like it," Mickey answered. He extended a hand to Aladdin and Jasmine. "Well, it's been nice meeting you."

Jasmine knelt down and shook hands with Mickey, and Aladdin followed suit when she was done. "Likewise. Thank you again for assisting us against Mozenrath," Jasmine replied.

She turned and walked up to the door leading out of the treasure vault. She rapped her fist against the door, and a few seconds later they heard the bar being slid out of the slots. The doors opened, and the party stepped out, at which point the guards closed the doors again. Jasmine led them down the hall, but they stopped when Genie appeared in front of them.

"Any luck?" the blue spirit asked. Aladdin shook his head and explained what happened. "Well, sit tight, guys. I'm sure I'll remember something. Oh, I take it you're looking for a way back up to your ship?" Aladdin and Jasmine looked at Sora quizzically. They knew that they traversed between worlds, but they were not made aware how. Ignoring this, Sora, Mickey, Donald, and Goofy nodded. "Well, then follow me! I know the way to the nearest Safe Point!"

They all followed Genie through the corridors until they reached Jasmine's bedroom. Mickey approached the balcony and a spiraling green circle materialized around his legs. Jasmine and Aladdin flushed self-consciously when they realized that their guests could appear there at any time, though Sora quickly said that they would not even land inside the palace.

"Well, see you real soon," Mickey said.

"Good luck, all," Genie returned with a wave.

"You are always welcome here," Jasmine assured them. She shot a quick glance down at the Safe Point. "But do please knock first."

"We'll keep searching for that thing Mozenrath was trying to find," Aladdin promised.

"Great seeing you again," Sora said. He shook hands with Aladdin and Jasmine in turn, as did Riku and Kairi. Donald and Goofy waved good-bye. Kairi lifted Donald's hat off of his head and grabbed a sapphire which he had hidden, then tossed it to Jasmine, who caught it.

Mickey punched a few commands into his device and a pillar of light materialized around him, Sora, Riku, Kairi, Donald, and Goofy. A moment later, the pillar of light vanished and they were gone.

Iago tried to start up a conversation with Abu, but no sound came out. He started silently panicking as he remembered that he was still Silenced.

Aladdin, Jasmine, Abu, and Genie laughed. "Music to my ears," Genie joked.