Chapter Text

Jaffar

Sorcery is a tedious business. Complex ingredients, endless experimentation, laborious drawing of patterns and careful incantations. It is a difficult and time consuming art. Even elementary tasks like constructing a seal of Solomon are an unbelievable amount of work.

At least, that's how it used to be. I waved my hand casually and Agrabah was surrounded by the largest seal the world had ever seen.

It would keep me safe from that insolent child and her Genie while I made my next move.

I looked around the court at my new slaves. A good start.

I planted my staff firmly into the ground and cast my power outwards. I could feel the world fighting back against my sorcery, but it was now a small matter to push it down. Clouds gathered in response, and there would be a great storm, but it was no concern of mine.

In this distance, first a murmur, then a rumbling, and finally my power had encompassed enough people that he words became clear.

"ALL HAIL JAFFAR. ALL HAIL JAFFAR."

I smiled. Now the real work could begin.

Jasmine

I looked back towards the city and could feel the power emanating from it.

Whose magic was it? It was Jaffar's, of course.

What was happening in the city? I couldn't tell. The seal blocked my vision.

How did he survive? Magic.

I stamped my foot.

"By Allah, that should have been the first thing I checked. I knew he was a sorceror but I didn't think about what that meant."

I could feel the power growing in the distance. This was bad. There was no time. What could we do now?

Ah, of course. Time. Time was much less of a problem now. I concentrated and the world slowed around the three of us.

"Jaffar's power is growing fast. He must be stopped. Will you two help me?"

The Genie looked at me like I was crazy. "Are you serious? That guy is a dick! I owe him some serious payback. Of course I'll help."

Aladdin shrugged. "Yeah, no kidding. I'm in."

"OK. Here's how I see it..."

Aladdin

We'd been talking for hours, going over assault strategies. Outside only moments had passed - I'd been tracking a sea gull that was in the air near us. By my count it had flapped its wings three times so far.

Jasmine's powers were... impressive. I don't know what she had wished for, but she was clearly better at this than I was. And the Genie was free now, which meant I couldn't use my second wish to catch up. Fortunately I wasn't the jealous type. Much.

The key question we kept beating our head against was this: How do you get to someone who has the power to trap you in an instant and is sealed behind an impenetrable barrier?

The barrier was easy enough. You just drop enough rocks on the seal from a great height. Bam, seal is broken, we swarm on through, kill Jaffar.

Assuming we don't accidentally trigger any traps he's left. Or pass over a seal that he's hidden. And that he hasn't set the outer seal to just recast as soon as we were inside.

The time trick would help, but apparently there are rules about that too and we can't move it with us. Moving we're faster than Jaffar, but only like two or three times faster. It wouldn't be enough given the power he likely had.

We had so many powers available to us and they were all useless because defending against arcane powers was one of the few things we were certain Jaffar was able to do.

The real problem was that we knew nothing about what was going on behind that seal, or what his powers were. The Genie was still bound by the rules on what he could say and couldn't tell us what he'd wished for, and the seal blocked all our arcane senses.

So how do you get someone who is protected behind a near impenetrable barrier that they have likely filled with traps for the unwary?

Oh, of course.

You stop thinking like a Genie and you start thinking like a street rat.

The Genie and Jasmine were lost in some detailed discussion of arcane fundamentals and how to bypass seals. I waited a few minutes for them to slow down and when they showed no sign of doing so I interrupted.

"Uh, guys? I have an idea..."

Jaffar

My control of Agrabah was complete. The city was mine, any any attempt to take it from me would be swiftly regretted.

Now for my next priority. The lamp. I waved my hand and a nearby window turned into a picture of where it was.

The shrew, the street rat and the Genie were all having a massive argument. The lamp lay casually on the ground near them.

And... incredible. She had turned herself into an arcane being as well. Did these children not learn? The cost of innate power is that it gives those of us who have earned it power over you.

This would be too easy. I checked for traps, and there were none. None.

Apparently they were just stupid. Oh, certainly they had a low cunning to them - the street rat had stolen the lamp, and the shrew had poisoned me, but they lacked the ability to plan that was the mark of true intelligence.

A now-simple spell and I appeared before them in a puff of smoke. A wave of my staff, and they were surrounded by seals of their own.

They turned to me in shock.

"Jaffar!"

"But how? I killed you!"

"Pah, fools. I am immortal now!"

Grandstanding, I know, but what's the point of having your enemies in your power if you can't have a bit of fun with them?

"But-"

"Silence!"

They both fell silent.

The Genie just glared at me.

"Oh, it's you again."

I picked up the lamp.

"Hello again, slave."

"Can we compromise on servant? Assistant? Aide de camp maybe?"

Something was off. The Genie seemed less sullen and more nervous than last time. I decided to use my wish quickly in case there was some subtler trap I was missing.

"For my third wish, I wish to have the ability to summon any magical artifact from anywhere in the world."

The Genie bowed.

"Your wish is my command."

He waved his hands, trailing smoke and sparks from his fingers. The sparks flew from his hands to me and I felt a rush of magical power.

"Ka-power! Done. No more wishes for you."

I reached out with my new power to summon the sceptre of the Oracle and... nothing happened.

"Genie! What is the meaning of-"

I felt a sharp pain and the world went white, and then black.

The last thing I heard was the Genie's smug voice.

"You know, that was way less satisfying than I always imagined it would be."

Jasmine

The Genie waved his hands and a man appeared. He looked like some sort of common labourer - a quick check revealed he was a miner from lands further West.

The Genie held out a large bag of gold.

"Here, this is yours if you pick up my friends here and carry them out of these seals."

The man fell backwards.

"Lord Jesus! A demon!"

The Genie sighed, waved his hands, and the man disappeared.

A few tries later and he'd found someone willing to overcome his fear of the genie and get us out of there.

I looked at Jaffar under the large anvil that had fallen on him. There was a lot of gore.

"You know, my way was a lot cleaner."

The Genie mimed gagging.

"I know. This was gross. But I've been using the anvil thing as an example for so long, and now that I could actually do it I just had to. I wish I hadn't."

How do we kill him? We find his heart and destroy that.

How do we keep him from harming people before we do that? Remove his head, put a spike through it, encase it in concrete. It won't kill him but it will stop him from coming back for now.

I grimaced.

"Well, it's not about to get less gross."

Genie

Jasmine and Aladdin were organising the work crews. They still couldn't enter the city proper - they'd destroyed the outer seal five times - five! - before it had stopped recreating itself, and almost every step you took inside the city a smaller seal would pop up.

Fortunately this was no great obstacle when you could summon people from all over the globe to work and fight for you, along with more than enough money to pay them.

The people of the city fought tooth and nail each step of the way, but fortunately Jasmine easily found the rites of unbinding, so "all" they needed to do was subdue people long enough to fix them.

It was going to be a long slog, but there was no doubt they'd get there in the end. They'd free the city without destroying it, and then they'd find Jaffar's heart, and the story would be done.

But I didn't have the patience to sit around for it. It had been ten thousand years, and I was finally free. I didn't think I could hold on much longer, and besides which they didn't need me any more.

I sighed, sucked it up, and put on a grin.

I disappeared in a poof and reappeared next to Aladdin and Jasmine - still can't help the flair for the dramatic.

"Hey kids! It's been a blast, but it's time for me to blow this popsicle stand!"

Aladdin looked confused, but Jasmine understood - of course she did. Nigh-omniscience is great for understanding millenia old slang, among its other less important uses.

"Of course. It's been incredibly kind of you to stay around for as long as you have."

She immediately put the lie to her formal tone by embracing me in a big hug.

"I'll miss you, Genie."

"Aww, shucks kid. I'll miss you too. Hey, Al, get over here. Big group hug time!"

I reached out an arm over the couple of meters between us and pulled him over. The three of us stayed in a silent embrace for a few minutes.

"Jasmine, I owe you big time. You need anything from me, any time, just give me a call. You'll know how to find me. Al, it's been great. I'm really glad you're the one who found my lamp. Ask Jasmine if you need to get in touch."

I disentangled myself from the two of them and stepped back.

"Chow, kids. Sayonara. Auf wiedersehen. Gooood byeeeeee."

One final dramatic exit. No puffs of smoke this time, just the smoke from my exhaust trails as I turned into a rocket and blasted out of there.

Jasmine got the reference of course. Good kid. A bit scary, but a good kid. She'll go far.

I'd see them both again, I was sure of it, but for now I needed to find a way to recover from 10,000 years of servitude without blowing too much up.

Jasmine

It took us more than a month to clear enough of the city to find Jaffar's heart. It would have been faster, but fighting a war without killing the enemy is hard.

After that, it was a simple matter. All I had to do was ask and I knew the complex ritual to unbind it.

Instead I just glared at it until it turned to dust (after checking that that would suffice).

After that, things became easier. The remaining enchanted all fell into a deep slumber. We had to proceed cautiously still, but we were no longer being fought every step of the way and after only another week we had reached the palace.

Which left only the final, hardest, task.

Only humans could invoke the rites of unbinding, so I stood well back as one of our men recited the prayer and waved his hands over the latest victim.

The sleep takes only a moment to pass, and the victim's eyes opened. He looked around, at first confused, and then his gaze settled on me.

"Hello, daddy."

Aladdin

Jasmine was incredible. It's not that she was vastly more powerful than me - except the perfect knowledge thing, which I admit I was still a bit jealous of - but power just came so much more naturally to her. I'd watched her grow into it over the last year and I was increasingly awed by her.

Which made it easy to forget that she was also a 16 year old girl, barely a year younger than me. She had been so nervous about finally meeting her father again, and so I had come along for moral support despite the fact that I'd really rather be almost everywhere else.

When he woke up I took a step back and stopped listening to give them a bit of privacy, which is why I was a bit a bit surprised when he came over and started shaking my hand vigorously.

"Well done, my boy! You saved our city!"

I must have looked completely blank.

"What? No. Honestly, that was mostly Jasmine. I-"

"Nonsense, nonsense. Humility is all very well but you've got to take pride in your actions, my lad!"

"I, no, really, she did-"

"Of course, you two must be married at once!"

"What?"

"Daddy, I'm not marrying him!"

I hadn't even really thought about it before then, but I must admit that hurt.

"Well, not yet, anyway."

I'm reasonably sure if I'd still had a human body I'd have been blushing intensely.

"Oh, but, I thought that seeing as how he saved the city and you two seemed to be on such good terms that you would want this."

"Your majesty, seriously, it wasn't me. Jasmine saved me. I had the idea that got Jaffar in the end, but none of this would have been possible without her."

He stopped pumping my hand and blinked slowly at me.

Jasmine stamped her foot.

"Ugh. Daddy, stop and listen to me for once in your life."

He let go of my hand and turned to her. His voice was very quiet and subdued.

"All right, Jasmine. I'm listening."

"Our forces have freed the city and we're returning it to your control. Which means I'm done here. I came to say goodbye."

"Goodbye? But where will you go?"

"Wherever I want! I have all this power now, and I want to learn to use it, and to explore. I can't be confined to this one place. Agrabah has been my prison for too long."

"But I need you here! Someone has to inherit, and I don't have any other children!"

She huffed dramatically.

"Right! You distracted me and I almost forgot. I have a gift for you."

And just like that, the Sultan's hair began turning black. His skin smoothed out, his belly receded - though not as much as I expected - and within seconds he looked like a man forty years younger.

Wow. I hadn't known she could do that. I checked, and it turned out that I could do that too. Neat.

"Goodbye, daddy."

She disappeared. Reflexively, I grabbed onto her trail. I did not want to be left alone with the sultan.

We ended up in the desert outside Agrabah.

She turned to face me.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you, Aladdin. I wasn't sure myself until I talked to him, but then agh. He makes me so mad."

I ran my hands through my hair awkwardly.

"That's OK. It's your life, Jasmine. You can do what you want with it. I'll miss you though."

She smiled nervously back at me.

"Actually I was hoping you would come with me. I know what's out there already, but it's different when you can see it and share it with someone you, uh, care about."

She held out her hand to me.

"Please? I want to show you the world."

And she did.