Elements of Harmony
Chapter 10: Fighting With the Heart-Muscle
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SOMEWHERE IN THE SEVEN DESERTS
"Nothing, nothing, and nothing," Aladdin sighed. "We've been flying for how long now, and still no sign…"
"We could start looking ahead of time," Twilight suggested. "You know, check out all the kingdoms in the Seven Deserts and see if they're there."
"We haven't got much of a choice," Jasmine admitted.
"Charting a course for the borderlands!" the Genie-jet announced. "We'll make a sweep of the whole area!"
Almost as soon as they turned toward a specific direction, they spotted the little gray dot on the horizon approaching them. As they grew closer to the dot, they realized it was a large, shaggy yak being ridden by a husky, bearded man sporting leather, animal pelts, and a horned helmet.
"Friend Aladdin!" he hailed.
"He's one of the Odiferan military," Aladdin explained quickly. "Genie, Carpet, let's make a landing!"
The group descended to meet the yak rider, who slowed his steed. "I've been sent to bring back help!" he said hastily. "Odiferous has been taken over by someone even stronger than all of the Odiferan military combined!"
Rainbow Dash began laughing. "I don't know who took over this guy's kingdom, but it's definitely not the guy WE'VE been chasing. Mozenrath, stronger than an entire military?"
"Magically speaking, it's possible," Twilight pointed out.
"Technically, it's the advisor to the new king who's the strong one," the Odiferan messenger clarified. "When he told us all that the person with him was our new king, Prince Uncouthma challenged them immediately. They both seemed such tiny men compared to us Odiferans! But the advisor transformed into a spirit with giant muscles!"
"Jafar," Aladdin hissed.
"He can do…that?" Rarity asked, trembling slightly at the thought.
"He is a djinni," Twilight reminded her. "Most of them do look more like our friend than like Jafar. I'm guessing he can switch between whatever bodies he likes."
"What's been going on in Odiferous since then?" Jasmine asked.
"It's horrible!" the messenger moaned. "The new king has overtaken our entire economy, and has threatened several times to cause a crash in it if we do not serve him! He has made us begin forging weapons to wage war on other kingdoms! And he has banished Prince Uncouthma and his family to the peasantry!"
"Why would he be wagin' war?" Applejack asked. "He done got control of everywhere!"
"Except for the rainforest, Getzistan, and the underground," said Twilight. "Let me guess. This kingdom…"
"Odiferous!" the messenger reiterated.
"…first of all," Twilight sighed, "probably smells terrible."
"How did you know?" the messenger asked.
"Yeah?" Pinkie parroted. "How DID you know?"
"Thesaurus," Twilight replied simply. "Second, Odiferous…is it one of the leading kingdoms in weaponry?"
"Of course!" the messenger said. "Odiferous has one of the strongest militaries in the world!"
"And I'll bet weaponry is the chief export!" Twilight concluded. "That's not only why Mozenrath went here next…not just to seize the arms-based economy…but to get back the places we took!"
"Oh, he definitely wants to wage war on the places you mentioned," the messenger corrected, "but our economy isn't based on weaponry. Our economy is based on cheese production! We can only buy the metal to make the weapons with the profits from our yak cheese!"
"Wait…what?" Twilight shook her head.
"Let's go," Aladdin commanded. "Don't worry, sir. We'll get things in Odiferous back to the way they were!"
The Carpet and the Genie-jet rose once more, speeding towards the northern kingdom ever quickly.
"A cheese-based economy," Twilight repeated. "Wow. Once again, that has to have made Mozenrath extremely…"
ODIFEROUS, THE SEVEN DESERTS
"…bored."
The yaks grazed in the fenced pastures, an idyllic accessory to the view of blue sky, green grass, and gray mountains on the horizon. Farmhands rushed between yaks, making sure to collect the milk as quickly as they'd been ordered. Watching the cornerstone industry of his new kingdom, Mozenrath sat on the fence, resting his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands. For the effect of atmosphere, he'd abandoned his usual blue robes for the traditional dress of Odiferan royalty: leather shoes, loose blue pants, a fur pelt draped over his shoulders, a bronze helmet with sharp horns, the usual gauntlet, and no shirt to speak of. "Still bored," he muttered. "Can't they forge weapons any faster? I should be launching a conquest on the lands we lost by now…not overseeing yak husbandry."
"Patience," Jafar reminded him. "Soon, we will have raised an army great enough to take on even the Al-Muddy. In the meantime, I suggest you not fail to manage the yaks. Your military only goes so far as you can control their economy. Should it become apparent that you cannot keep up production no matter what, they will have no incentive for which to follow your orders."
"They will if you keep besting them in their little wrestling matches," Mozenrath pointed out.
"To hold power in this kingdom is twofold," Jafar replied simply.
"I know, I know! Cheese production…this is even worse than gambling. Why do these kingdoms NEVER export elemental crystals?"
Xerxes sailed over the fields full of yaks. "Intruders again!" he reported.
"Aladdin and his Elements of Harmony?" Mozenrath asked, his interest piqued.
"Yes, yes!" Xerxes confirmed.
"Separate them," Mozenrath ordered Jafar. "I don't care how!"
Jafar bowed, smirking. "Your wish – "
"THAT WASN'T A WISH! Fine, I'll do it myself!" Mozenrath hopped down from the fence.
The Carpet and the Genie-jet sailed over the city walls, touching down in the main square. Odiferous was far enough north that it had avoided the desert climate, instead set amongst grass and mountains. The houses were made of gray brick with thatched roofs, and the streets were cobblestone of a matching color. Peasants hurriedly hustled carts piled high with cheese back and forth; they were mostly dressed in leather and furs, and the men sported copious facial hair. True to Twilight's prediction, the entire kingdom was pervaded by a sort of stink that mellowed out once one got used to the atmosphere.
"Well, I'll be," Applejack said, noting the carts of cheese flying by. "Now, my family tried our hooves at some cheesemakin' a while back, thanks to the generosity of some cows, but I'm lookin' forward to seein' how the professionals do it." She snatched a morsel away from a cart, popping it into her mouth. She made a face. "Now I'm no expert…but that ain't good at all."
The peasant wheeling the cart halted temporarily. "I thought everyone in the kingdom had heard!" he panted. "The great yak farm no longer belongs to Princess Brawnhilda! Instead, a man calling himself Mozenrath claims to be our king, and he has sped up production past the point of quality! He doesn't even know the first thing about caring for the yaks! However, if any of us slow down, we face the consequences! Now, if I don't deliver this on time, I'll be shocked or frozen by his magic! Or BOTH!" The peasant resumed his pace.
"Pssst!" a soft voice called from around a corner. A tall, muscular blonde woman sporting a red and white shirt and a short dark skirt was beckoning the group to follow her into a door down an alley. "This way!"
"Princess Brawnhilda?" Jasmine identified.
"Looks like she wants our attention bad," Applejack noticed. "Let's go!"
The group hustled down the alley and into the door through which Brawnhilda had disappeared. In an abandoned tavern, the aforementioned princess stood alongside an enormous man sporting a brown mustache and the garb of a peasant. A redheaded boy was there as well, small by the standards of the two adults beside him but actually over waist-high to Aladdin, Jasmine, and the Equestrians.
"Prince Uncouthma!" Aladdin greeted in surprise. "What's going on?"
"Friend Aladdin and Jasmine!" the man, obviously Uncouthma, replied. "You have brought even more friends!"
"I like him already!" Pinkie Pie laughed. "Of course we're friends!"
"We've heard your kingdom is in trouble," said Rarity. "Let's just say that we're no strangers to the ones that have taken over your throne. I'm guessing you woke up to find yourself dressed like peasants while they claimed to be the new royalty?"
"Yes!" Uncouthma lamented. "And it seems like they deserve to be the new royalty!" He hung his head. "I don't deserve to hold the throne anymore."
"Why would you think that?" Jasmine asked.
"The throne of Odiferous has always belonged to the strongest family in the kingdom," Odiferous sighed. "I was the strongest until now. I tried to challenge Mozenrath for the throne, but his advisor…he was stronger than me!"
"And we had thought them both so dainty," Brawnhilda added. "Especially that Mozenrath, who is…alluringly dainty…"
"Don't tell me I've lost you to him too, my princess," Uncouthma sighed.
"No, never!" Brawnhilda insisted, putting her arms around Uncouthma. "Your frail heart-muscle will always be first to me!"
"I hear you were in charge of the cheesemakin' until Mozenrath and Jafar came along," Applejack interrupted.
"I was," Brawnhilda confirmed. "But now they have control of the farm, and are using the yak cheese to bring in money to forge weapons! They've also threatened that they could stop production at anytime, leaving us without cheese!"
"Control of Odiferous has two parts," Uncouthma clarified. "The strongest family takes the throne and controls the military and the laws. But the economy is controlled by whoever controls the yaks! Brawnhilda owned the largest yak farm in all of Odiferous. She had such a way with them, too. Nobody could make yak cheese like her…and even the yaks loved her!"
"Don't worry," Aladdin promised. "We'll get your throne back. Somehow."
"By smashing Mozenrath to little bits!" the boy insisted. "And Jafar too!"
"Trust me, kid," said Iago, "smashing Jafar ain't as easy as it looks."
"I don't get one thing," Twilight said. "You said the throne belongs to the strongest family. Mozenrath and Jafar aren't related."
"Well, Jafar said that Mozenrath was the king, and since he's the strongest, he can enforce that," Uncouthma replied. "Besides, we all thought Jafar was his father!"
"He only wishes," said Aladdin.
"Does the kid really not realize what's comin' to him?" Iago griped. "As soon as Jafar's done with him, he's gonna get dropped like an overripe date off a tree. That's just how Jafar works!"
"But Mozenrath has the lamp," the Genie pointed out. "And by subsection A of genie clause 136, that gives Mozenrath control over him."
"Doesn't matter," Iago retorted. "He'll find a way to throw him out. He always does."
"Am I sensing some kind of story here?" Rainbow Dash asked, having not been present during the ordeal in Getzistan, as Twilight realized.
All of a sudden, Applejack cried, "I got an idea! I know how we can get back at least one of the ways of controllin' Odiferous!"
"Great!" Twilight cried. "I knew we'd think of something! And when we take back the throne, I can look Mozenrath in the eye and tell him the speech I've been working on while we were flying up here." She cleared her throat, pointing at the wall as though it were her enemy. "Your time as king has come to a close, so you can just…KNOCK IT OFF!"
A silence fell over the tavern.
"I like it," Uncouthma said. "Simple, but effective!"
"I had thought it would be a bit wordier," Rarity admitted.
"I tried, okay?" Twilight defended. "So, Applejack, how are we going to defeat Jafar in – "
"Hold on now," Applejack said. "My plan's about the yaks. I got no idea how we're gonna beat Jafar!"
"The Elements of Harmony!" Pinkie remembered. "Even he's scared of what will happen if we're all together!"
"Can six go against one in combat?" Twilight asked Uncouthma.
"It's generally against the rules," Uncouthma admitted.
"You're thinking about RULES at a time like THIS?" Rainbow Dash criticized.
"Rainbow Dash is right," said Aladdin. "If they don't play fair, neither should we! Besides, a lot of us have a chance at beating Jafar! I mean, we have our own Genie!"
"Who experienced a significant downgrade in power after being freed," the Genie brought up.
"I can smash 'im!" the young boy insisted.
"You're too young, Bud," Brawnhilda said, though lovingly. "Though you are very strong."
"Maybe we should start with Applejack's plan," Fluttershy suggested, "and think about fighting big scary genies later…"
"What is your plan, tiny Applejack?" Uncouthma asked.
"Well," Applejack said, "the way I figure…"
Armed with ideas, the group, now with the former Odiferan royal family added to the ranks, left the alley and walked out into the main square.
He was already waiting.
"GAH!" Twilight cried, taken aback at the sight of Mozenrath in the Odiferan royal dress…lack of shirt included.
"Oh, were you having a little get-together?" Mozenrath mocked. "It's just too bad that I have to break up the party!"
"YOU DON'T KNOW THE REAL MEANING OF PARTY!" Pinkie screamed.
"And as of right now," Mozenrath replied, "you don't know where your friend is."
Before anyone could react, he clenched his right fist, throwing it out in the direction of Rainbow Dash and shooting a blue beam at her. Instinctively, Rainbow Dash reached out and clutched at the nearest living being to her: Iago. The two were engulfed in blue before they disappeared.
"WHERE DID YOU TAKE THEM?" Aladdin yelled.
"Don't worry," Mozenrath said offhandedly. "They're somewhere safe. What would be my use in destroying them now when I know you'll do anything for them? Go on, try to find them. They could be anywhere. They could be with the weapons forges, and you could find them if you joined up and helped me make weapons to take back what you made me lose. They could be in the yak farm, and you could find them if you took a pail and started milking. Now that would be entertaining…the once-mighty Aladdin and Prince Uncouthma reduced to farmhands. Or they could be in the palace, which you couldn't get to without going through Jafar…and you can't do that!"
"We'll never give in to you!" Rarity cried. She nudged Twilight. "Go on! Give him the speech!"
"Guh…" Twilight blinked, shook her head, and tried to recollect her thoughts from earlier. Instead of what she'd rehearsed, a rather unfortunate reversal came out: "Mozenrath, your time as king is a knockout, and YOUR CLOTHES ARE OFF!" She immediately realized what she'd said. "Wait, NO! I DIDN'T MEAN THAT!"
That sent Mozenrath into fits of laughter. "I'm actually looking forward to your next move, sorceress," he managed between laughs before vanishing in a blaze of blue.
"Rainbow Dash!" the Genie cried. "Ohhh, this is bad…"
"What if he destroys her?" Rarity wailed. "Of all the worst things that could happen, this is the! Worst! POSSIBLE! THING!"
"No," Twilight said, coming out of her shirtless-Mozenrath-induced stupor. "He won't kill her as long as there's something he could get from her. I say we go on with Applejack's plan."
"But what could he possibly want with Rainbow Dash?" Jasmine asked.
"Isn't it obvious?" Twilight said. "The thing that's been stopping him so far."
Mozenrath materialized in a flash of blue in the dungeons of the Odiferan palace, facing Rainbow Dash, who was chained to the wall by her wrists and ankles. Iago was locked up next to her in a single cuff that encased his entire body.
"YOU LET ME GO RIGHT NOW!" Rainbow Dash yelled, struggling against the chains.
"Or you'll what?" Mozenrath taunted. "To be perfectly honest, you have something I want."
"Awesomeness?" Rainbow Dash guessed with a smirk.
"A weapon," Mozenrath corrected. "Xerxes tells me you used some kind of 'rainbow boom' to clear out the mud waves underground. That sounds a lot like what you used to take out my coatl."
"The Sonic Rainboom?" Rainbow Dash clarified. "You…want the Sonic Rainboom?"
"With a weapon like that," Mozenrath admitted, "I could probably take back the rainforest without using any Odiferan arms at all. Now, I don't currently have with me the crystal I use to steal others' magic, but somehow, that doesn't seem like the whole picture anyway."
"You need lots of speed to be able to pull one off," Rainbow Dash said. "Like, sooooo much speed. Enough to break the sound barrier! It isn't magic like Twilight's that just happens on command."
"That's exactly what I thought. Which is why you're going to stay under my control until I figure out how to replicate it."
"Riiiiiight," Rainbow Dash sighed.
"I suggest you get used to those chains," Mozenrath told her. "You're going to be there for a long time, Rainbow Dash." With that, he disappeared.
"Yeah, right," Rainbow Dash muttered. "Like I'm gonna stay down here."
"So what," Iago snapped, "are you just gonna break through these chains?"
"I wish," Rainbow Dash sighed. "I guess if nothing else, I know everypony else will eventually come find me. But I'd rather break out on my own. I'll just have to think of something." She paused, checking to see if any ideas sprang to mind immediately; none did. "So," she said to pass the time, "what was the big deal with you and Jafar?"
"We used to be business partners," Iago said sharply.
"Business partners?" Rainbow Dash faced her companion in capture. "You're sure that's it?"
"Yes! Why?"
"Because you're really defensive about it."
"We might have been friends once, okay? But that's over now! I was done with him, and he was done with me. Now I fly with Cassim. What happened in the past stays in the past!"
"Were you close?"
"WHY DO YOU KEEP ASKING?"
"I think it's important," Rainbow Dash admitted. "I kinda wanna know if we're fighting your friend."
"He WAS my friend," Iago informed her. "Not anymore. Yeah, we were close. ONCE."
"So he ditched you, huh?"
"More or less."
"I know how that feels," Rainbow Dash sighed. "I mean, maybe not to the same extent, but…I had this friend back home. Gilda. We grew up together, and I thought we were best friends. That was in our hometown. Then Fluttershy and I moved to the town where I met Applejack, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, and Twilight. Pinkie and I were just starting to get real close when Gilda came down to visit. I thought Gilda would get along great with all my other friends, but…she bullied them around. And she picked on Pinkie because of some stupid prank I pulled. That was too far. I told Gilda to get out. We haven't spoken since. I mean, there are a lot of times I miss her and how we used to play together when we were fillies. But she grew up to be such a bully! I couldn't let her push my friends around! So…yeah, I kinda know what it's like. Though Gilda hasn't tried to actually kill any of my friends. Yet. It's one of those things that's so long ago, it shouldn't matter, but it still hurts to think about, right?"
"Exactly," Iago confirmed. "Add into that the way I betrayed Jafar, and – "
"You betrayed him? Come on. I don't care what you did. I've seen that guy. I've seen how he acts. You didn't betray him any more than I betrayed Gilda. Gilda was the one that betrayed me, and Jafar was the one that betrayed you."
For once, Iago was struck speechless.
"But I'll go easy on him," Rainbow Dash finished. "You already know we're not planning on killing him. I don't care what anypony from Agrabah thinks. I'm not going to hurt your…Gilda."
"It'd only be what he deserves, you know," Iago pointed out.
"I know it's what he deserves," Rainbow Dash replied. "But as much as I'd like to serve him a big old slice of tail-kicking, he still meant something to you. And you're my friend now too."
"I don't have a good track record with friendships. Just warnin' ya."
"Well, I'm the Element of Loyalty. Challenge accepted."
Rainbow Dash sent Iago a broad, earnest smile, and he returned it.
The new farmhand slipped quietly into the fenced pasture, wearing a thick fur coat and a face-obscuring hood.
"I need to figure out how to weaponize her," Mozenrath told Jafar, sitting once again at his post of boredom on the fence.
"Your judgment differs from my own," Jafar admitted. "I would have destroyed her…but in this case, you actually have the better idea. A Sonic Rainboom of our very own…"
"Can't you just conjure one up? You're a genie, after all."
"Not without knowing its nature," Jafar admitted. "The amount of pressure required, the effect of her weather-related abilities…I could eventually, but this is magic the likes of which I have never encountered. Even then…perhaps it is best to leave her alive. Subject her to humiliation so long as she lives."
"At least as long as we have her, we still have our bargaining chip. I already used her to suggest that her little friends could join the smithy or the yak farm to try and find her, but they turned me down. Later, we could use her to drive a little bit of a harder bargain."
The farmhand slipped in between the yaks, sitting down at one with a bucket. Mozenrath was only barely paying attention to what was going on in the field. He certainly didn't notice that the farmhand was getting up to switch yaks every few seconds.
"Why don't we just take her amulet?" Mozenrath asked. "Isn't that the source of her power?"
"You do not understand," Jafar replied. "She embodies Loyalty itself. If we took her amulet, it would temporarily hinder her, but one day she would eventually figure out how to use its power without its presence. Were I to guess…she probably generated it herself."
"How do you know all this? The ever-mysterious Overtakers again?"
"We have long planned for a force like this to appear," Jafar said enigmatically.
"And…this is why, exactly?"
"It is none of your concern."
The farmhand sat down at another yak, milking only a few drops before getting up to move to the next yak, closer to the gate of the fence.
"I'd say it's my concern," Mozenrath argued. "After all, I'm not about to be overshadowed by these 'Overtakers', whoever they – YOU THERE!"
He pointed at the farmhand, who froze.
"Can't you fill that bucket any faster?" Mozenrath ordered.
The farmhand nodded before returning to work at the yak nearest the gate.
"You will have your place when the time comes," Jafar reassured Mozenrath. "It may be a larger role than even I had originally anticipated. In the meantime…"
"In the meantime, how do we make the rainbow one squirm?" Mozenrath asked with a grin.
The farmhand stood quickly, undoing the latch to the gate. The farmhand, looking back at all the yaks, turned to face the city of Odiferous and let out a piercing whistle. In response, a piercing whistle came right back, but this one caused all the yaks to look up.
By the time Mozenrath and Jafar realized something was going on, the yaks had already begun to thunder out of the pasture and move toward the city. "WHAT?" they yelled in unison.
The farmhand cast away her fur coat, smirking at the two men. "Man, your security sure ain't what it could be," Applejack said before taking off and running toward the city alongside the yaks.
"NO!" Mozenrath leapt down from the fence and tried to run alongside the yaks; he slipped and fell among the stampede, instinctively clutching his delicate right wrist so none of the yaks could trample it. Jafar lifted Mozenrath out of the fray in a beam of red.
The yaks and Applejack rushed down into the city, following the repeated sound of the piercing whistle through the streets. They pooled into the town square, where Applejack rested against a cart. Aladdin, Jasmine, Uncouthma, Bud, Abu, the Genie, the Carpet, Twilight, Rarity, Pinkie, and Fluttershy watched on.
Brawnhilda gave one last whistle. The yaks surrounded her, lowing appreciatively.
"Ya see?" Applejack said, gesturing to the yaks. "Even the yaks know who their real friends are. Now Mozenrath don't have any leverage…but you got the economy back!"
"But what if they capture the yaks again?" Brawnhilda asked worriedly.
"I reckon that as long as these yaks're still alive, they're gonna answer to your call," Applejack replied. "And ain't nopony gonna kill the source of the economy."
"Now do we smash the bad guys?" Bud asked.
As if to answer, a great red cloud of smoke appeared in the center of the yaks, and Jafar stepped from it angrily. "I would not recommend it," he growled. "How many times must I teach you that I am the one in control?"
His entire shape glowed, morphed. In a matter of seconds, he no longer resembled a human being, but instead a bright red genie, torso rippling with muscles, as large as an Odiferan house.
"Perhaps THIS will get the message across!" he cried, reaching down with one great left hand and slapping Uncouthma. Uncouthma flew across the yak-filled square, landing so hard against the cobblestones that they broke.
"UNCOUTHMA!" Brawnhilda shrieked.
"DAD!" Bud cried in response.
"The wise will leave," Jafar threatened, "before I have to destroy another one of you to prove the point!" He then disappeared in another cloud of red.
"That…" Twilight stared in horror at the place where Jafar had been. "That's what he looks like…for real?"
"This ain't the time!" Applejack chided, and everyone rushed to the side of Uncouthma.
"Uncouthma!" Brawnhilda nearly sobbed, kneeling before her unmoving husband. "My darling!"
"This can't be happening," Aladdin said in shock. "He…he can't really…"
To everyone's surprise and relief, Uncouthma slowly blinked his eyes open. "Brawnhilda…Aladdin…"
"You're all right!" Jasmine and Rarity chorused.
"Of course," Aladdin realized. "Because genies can't kill!"
"Every single muscle hurts," Uncouthma complained, "but I'm alive."
"Oh, my frail dear!" Brawnhilda clutched his hand lovingly. "How much does it hurt?"
Uncouthma attempted to rise to his feet, but was wracked with pain. "I cannot stand," he admitted.
"Don't worry," Brawnhilda said. "You need me. I will protect you." Her brow furrowed. She stood up, looking toward where Jafar had appeared and then vanished. "I will protect you…by making sure he can never hurt you again!"
"WHAT?" nearly everyone cried.
"I will fight Jafar!" Brawnhilda resolved. "He hurt my Uncouthma! I must stop him!"
"Didn't you see him?" Twilight asked in awe. "You can't possibly take him on!"
"I have many muscles," Brawnhilda argued.
"Maybe this is one of those times that calls for using your head-muscle instead?" Aladdin suggested.
"We could not fight him with the muscles in our bodies," Brawnhilda retorted, "and we cannot fight him with our head-muscles. I must fight him…with my heart-muscle!"
"Brawnhilda," Uncouthma said weakly, "don't! I lived, but you might not! And living without you would be even more painful than this!"
"I must," Brawnhilda insisted.
"I kinda get her point," Applejack admitted. "All y'all know that if any one of ya got near killed by somepony, no matter how magical, I'd go and fight until I knew y'all were safe again! In fact…that's what I'm thinkin' I should do now."
"We could defeat Jafar," Twilight pointed out, "if we only had Rainbow Dash. Then we could use the Elements of Harmony! If we couldn't defeat him that way, at least he'd run away again! As we are now, there's no way we could defeat him."
"You know a lot about magic creatures," Aladdin told Twilight. "Isn't there any way to weaken him enough so that we have a fighting chance?"
"Not unless we can put him in another jar," Twilight sighed.
"And we haven't a chance of finding Rainbow Dash unless we stumble upon her by chance…or somehow get Mozenrath to tell us," Rarity added.
"Hang on!" The Genie produced a scroll from almost nowhere. "I may have something! The imps' shop really did have a library of magic, including some texts I've never seen before! I…may have taken just a tiiiiiiny little scroll. Oh, come on, it's not like they didn't steal it from somewhere else! This scroll happens to be a compendium of magical and anti-magical items used by Mukhtars against genies!"
"Mukhtars?" Twilight was taken aback. "You mean the djinni's only natural predator?"
The Genie transformed himself into a bearded professor-type figure, pointing to a chalkboard suspended in midair. "In their natural habitats, Mukhtars can be seen overtaking hapless genies with all sorts of techniques!" He sketched on the board first what looked like a clamshell with teeth, then a rope with a weight on each end. "Everything from the living manacles to the magic-repelling bolas! Of course, these things are most effective on free genies. In their original milieu of confinement, the unfreed genie can often eventually break even the strongest of Mukhtar-built restraints."
"HEY!" Bud interrupted. "Why is everybody talking boring stuff? I wanna go smash the guy that smashed Dad!"
"No, Bud," Brawnhilda said softly. "You are too young and delicate."
"You're just a kid!" Pinkie added. "Why do you wanna go fight anyway? Jafar's all scary and dangerous!"
"He hurt my dad!" Bud insisted.
"Wait," Twilight said. "Things are…coming together!"
"What's that mean?" Aladdin asked.
"I'm using my head-muscle," Twilight said. "I think I have a plan so that Brawnhilda can fight Jafar after all! But we'll need to give her the proper equipment first…as well as a few other things."
"What must I do?" Brawnhilda asked.
"Just be patient for now," Twilight told her. "We have some magical gadgets to make. Genie, we can make these things, right?"
"In any traditional forge, provided they have the right kind of magic," the Genie affirmed, reverting to his normal shape. "Even the kind of magic a certain sorceress possesses…hint hint, it's you! According to the scroll, your repulsion and telekinesis powers are exactly what go into making these things!"
"Then we need to make both a set of living manacles and a magic-repelling bolas," Twilight said. "Maybe even a couple of the bolas."
"Even with that many restraints, Jafar still has enough power to eventually break them," the Genie warned her. "He is unfreed, after all."
"I'm not even thinking of using that many restraints on Jafar," Twilight admitted. Before anyone could ask what she meant, she turned to Fluttershy. "Fluttershy, I'm eventually going to need you on the field with us, but for now, you need to help Uncouthma. You always do really well with nursing animals back home back to health, and you even helped me set my leg the one time I sprained it."
"Right," Fluttershy said confidently. "Abu, are you with me?"
Abu squeaked happily.
"I will help you," Brawnhilda told Fluttershy. "After all…he needs me."
"You probably know more about healing broken bones than me," Fluttershy admitted. "Your husband probably has a lot of those."
"I will teach you how to set broken bones!" Brawnhilda offered happily.
"What about me?" Bud whined.
"Your part is gonna be important," Twilight assured Bud. "But first we'll need you to go through…training. Special training! Pinkie, can I see you for a minute?"
Twilight took Pinkie aside. "Pinkie, you're the best foalsitter of all of us. You always do really well with Pound Cake and Pumpkin Cake back home. We're going to need you on the field too, and once we have Jafar restrained, we might even be able to let Bud take a shot. But for now, letting him at Jafar is way too dangerous. Do you think maybe you could distract Bud for a while? Play a few games with him?"
"Playing games!" Pinkie gasped. "You've come to exactly the right Pinkie!"
"That's what I was hoping for," Twilight said.
Pinkie ran over to Bud. "General Pinkie Pie, reporting for duty!" she said with a great smile. "Follow me to start special training!"
"Oh, boy!" Bud cried as he followed Pinkie down one of the alleys.
"Do not worry," Brawnhilda told Uncouthma as she, Fluttershy, and Abu settled down beside him. "We will ease your pain."
"It is already better now that you are here," Uncouthma told Brawnhilda. "And you also have the tiny healer to help you!"
"We'll have you patched up in no time," Fluttershy said confidently.
"Okay," Twilight said to Aladdin, Jasmine, Rarity, Applejack, the Carpet, and the Genie. "Here's what I need the rest of you to do…"
Pinkie finished stacking the small, flat sticks in the tower shape on the table in the tavern. "First we test dexterity!" she said. "You have to get me to smash my tower by accident before you do!"
"Huh?" Bud was confused.
"Like this!" Pinkie removed a stick from the middle of the stack and placed it on the top so the tower was slightly off balance. "Now you try!"
Bud did the same, and the two continued their game until Pinkie drew a stick that caused the tower to collapse. This sent both her and Bud into fits of laughter, and Bud cried, "Again, again!"
Pinkie gladly reset the tower.
Twilight, Aladdin, and the Genie entered the forge, where a crowd smiths shuffled back and forth, pouring weapons into molds and then shoving them into fires. They worked quickly, filling every mold and every fire, though not in an orderly fashion at all – they often crashed into each other and dropped molds.
"We're never going to get anywhere if they're this disorganized!" Twilight moaned.
"HEY!" Aladdin yelled. "Aren't you all tired of making weapons for your new so-called king?"
"But we must!" one of the smiths insisted. "Or he will punish us severely!"
"What if you had a weapon that could best him?" Aladdin asked, but the smith had moved on.
"How could we get one of those?" another smith asked, putting a crudely forged axe into the fire.
"We happen to have—" Aladdin couldn't finish before the smith had moved away; the axe was shoddily constructed, but at least a complete entity. Aladdin tried again and again to speak to different smiths:
"Listen, if you could just let us—"
"We can save Odiferous if—"
"You can make the right weaponry! You just have to—"
"How would we even make those weapons?" One smith finally stopped to answer Aladdin's explanations. "We are all far too busy working on these weapons, and we wouldn't know the first thing about making those others!" He rushed away.
"All this disorganization is making me dizzy!" the Genie complained, his head spinning round and round for effect.
Finally, Twilight stepped into the center of the forge. "EVERYPONY…STOP!" she yelled.
Now all the smiths halted, looking at her.
"We have one chance to get Odiferous back from Mozenrath and Jafar!" Twilight commanded. "But we need to make special weapons in order to defeat them, and we need to make them fast! I'm going to need a set of cords, and you three" –she pointed at a trio of smiths—"are going to weave them together into the ropes for bolas! You over there, get me four molds for spherical weights and two for manacle cuffs, and start pouring metal!"
"Spherical?" one of the smiths asked.
"The circles!" Twilight barked. "You over there, start up the fires and don't move anything else into them! You, get me some cold water for standby to finish them! And you"—she turned to point to the Genie, but stopped, softening her tone. "Um…can I please see that scroll again so I know when we need to add magic?"
As the Genie handed Twilight the scroll, Aladdin gave her a laudatory smirk. "You really know how to get people organized, don't you?"
"Believe me," Twilight replied, "if I can get an entire town on track for clearing away the snow of Winter and bringing in the weather for Spring, I can handle one smithy." She turned back to the smiths. "Now, let's GET TO WORK!"
Uncouthma had been transferred to the bed of some willing civilians who reassured him they still recognized him as the true leader. Here, Fluttershy wrapped his limbs in bandages while Brawnhilda prepared an anesthetic of nightshade and hemlock, diluted well so as not to be poisonous. She soaked a sponge in the concoction before giving it to Uncouthma to inhale; he passed out.
"Now he will feel no pain," Brawnhilda told Fluttershy.
"You wouldn't happen to have any kind of plaster," Fluttershy asked, "would you? That would help the bandages keep the bones in place."
"We can find plaster easily!" Brawnhilda told Fluttershy. "I will find some. You stay here and keep tending to my darling's wounds."
Fluttershy dipped a rag in a bucket of cold water and began cleaning off the cuts Uncouthma had received from the chipped stones.
"Sky five!" Bud guessed, marking the position on the plank that stood upright before him.
On the other side of the plank, Pinkie cried, "You zapped my weather pony! You win!" She cleared the boards of the BattleClouds game. "You wanna play again?"
Rarity entered the tavern. "Ahem," she said. "Twilight, Aladdin, and the Genie are finished up in the forges, and we're about to move to Phase Two, so you might want to move to the next training arena…"
"Right!" Pinkie saluted. "Okay, Bud! We're going to take your training to the next level! Extreme hopscotch outside the castle!"
"All right!" Bud cried, rushing from the tavern.
Pinkie followed him closely. "Wait! Don't get too close to the castle! Just close enough that we can see the door! Um…training regulations! It's in the rulebook!"
"There," Fluttershy said, setting the last cast in place on Uncouthma. "Did…did I do all right?"
"You did wonderfully!" Brawnhilda congratulated. She looked over her sleeping husband. "My poor, dainty dear…I hope he knows that every wound only makes him all the more precious, but his life is the most precious thing to me of all."
Jasmine entered the room. "Everyone's ready," she informed Fluttershy and Brawnhilda.
Fluttershy squeaked, unsure if she could handle what lay ahead. Abu tugged on her sleeve; she looked down to where he stood on the floor. He swung his fisted paw decisively, giving a squeak that sounded vaguely like "You can do it!"
"Right," Fluttershy said. "Let's go."
Inside the Odiferan castle, Mozenrath drummed his fingers on the arm rest of the throne – a much smaller affair than that of the Al-Muddy. "Are you sure they're not just going to take that as incentive to fight you?" he snapped at Jafar.
"Who will fight me?" Jafar asked. "The boy who has failed time and again to thwart me?"
"Don't underestimate Aladdin," Mozenrath warned.
"What about the precious princess of Odiferous?" Jafar mocked.
"Don't…say THAT…either," Mozenrath shot back. "Take it from me: every time you say that there's no way the delicate little princess could ever defeat you…she figures out a way to make you hurt like never before."
"And the little girls," Jafar teased, "helpless without their Element of Loyalty, when even the most powerful of them is not even powerful enough to stand against a genie? Such a weak sorceress—"
"You didn't have your magic up against hers back in the caverns!" Mozenrath snapped. "She isn't weak."
"She was easily overtaken in the rainforest," Jafar reminded Mozenrath.
"Do NOT underestimate her either," Mozenrath replied without explanation. "Just be ready to take whatever they throw at you at a moment's notice. You know…" His lips curled into a smile. "I think I like the genie look on you. It's very dashing."
"A fact I well know," Jafar said with a returning smile. "For the record, shirts don't do you justice. Are you blushing, boy?"
"N-no!" Mozenrath hastily defended, turning to look at one of the coats of arms mounted on the wall.
Xerxes flitted into the room. "Aladdin is here!" he announced. "At door of castle!"
"What does he want?" Jafar said gruffly. "Who is with him?"
"Genie!" Xerxes informed. "And sorceress girl!"
"I shall make short work of this," Jafar resolved, striding out of the throne room.
"HEY, JAFAR!" Aladdin called out, pounding on the door of the Odiferan castle. "Do you really think you're stronger than everybody here?"
The door opened of its own accord; Jafar stood in the atrium beyond. "It is not so much a matter of thinking," he said, "as it is a matter of knowing."
"I bet there's someone in this kingdom that's stronger than you," Aladdin countered. "Why don't you come out and fight to prove me wrong?"
"I could take on this entire kingdom and come out on top, boy!" Jafar boasted, striding out of the castle as Aladdin moved aside.
The area before the castle was cleared; most of the civilians, hearing what was to happen, were gathered in a circle around the great space where Aladdin and Jafar stood, waiting to see what would happen.
"I don't suppose you are the one with the claim to greater strength," Jafar taunted. "We have unfinished business anyway, don't we?"
"Yeah," Aladdin agreed, "but I'll have my chance to beat you again later. Right now, the one you need to worry about…"
"Is me!" Brawnhilda stepped through the crowd, and the Odiferans gasped. Aladdin stepped aside, merging with the populace.
Jafar burst into raucous laughter. At last, he managed to gasp out, "The princess? Oh, how I tremble in fear! Not even a muscle-bound hulk of a woman like you could match powers with me!"
"I shall still try!" Brawnhilda asserted. "You hurt my love, and now he needs me to make sure you will never do it again!"
"Just try me, Princess." Jafar morphed into the shape of the red genie. "Let the rest of your people see what happens when you challenge the true strength of Odiferous!"
"Hey Jafar!" Twilight's voice rang out from the crowd. "Didn't anypony ever tell you to fight fair?"
Jafar glanced downward, to the ring of spectators. Aladdin was at the very inner edge of the crowd, Twilight and the Genie to either side of him and leaning an arm on either of his shoulders. Aladdin held a small casket in his hands, and Twilight and Genie each had a free hand on the casket's lid. Upon the signal of a nod from Aladdin, they pulled the lid up sharply. From the casket erupted two strange objects – like hairy, tooth-lined clamshells in appearance, and flying upward to Jafar, clacking their teeth all the way. Before Jafar could react, one of them bit his left wrist and transformed into a metal cuff. He instinctively shook his left arm to see if he could rid himself of it; this turned out to be a mistake. The other one clasped his right wrist, also becoming a cuff, and because of Jafar's reactionary flailing, both his hands were behind his back when the chain appeared between the two cuffs and shortened, drawing his wrists together. Jafar then felt an enormous draw upon his inner energy, flowing from his soul into the manacles. He could no longer keep the form of the great red genie and instead shrank back into the human form he was given in his original mortal life, the manacles shrinking as well so that his wrists could not slip free.
"What trickery is this?" Jafar hissed.
"Living manacles," Aladdin said casually. "Standard genie-hunting fare. Of course, you're so powerful you can hold your own even without all your powers…right?"
"YOU WILL PAY!" Jafar made to run at Aladdin, the Genie, and Twilight, but Brawnhilda stepped in front of him.
"You will not hurt my friends!" she insisted in her soft voice while dealing a hard punch to Jafar's face: and so the battle began.
"What was I thinking," Mozenrath asked Xerxes as he rose from the throne, "letting him go out there alone? He's probably already in some kind of trouble from underestimating our enemies. Xerxes, he might actually need me." He couldn't help but clasp his hands and smile. "I could end up saving his life! He'd have to be grateful for that, right, Xerxes? He'd learn not to underestimate Aladdin or Twilight, and, more importantly, he'd learn not to underestimate me. What do you think, Xerxes?"
Xerxes regarded Mozenrath with confusion. "Certain?"
"Of course I'm certain! He'd have to be grateful to me! I'm surprised he isn't already, for me holding that lamp of his so no one can destroy it. But I'm wearing him down, Xerxes. He may have given me the cold shoulder at the beginning, but he's starting to see what I'm really made of. And in a short time – "
Mozenrath was interrupted when three women came flying through the windows of the throne room, feet first, via pole-vault. Jasmine, Rarity, and Applejack landed on the stone floor.
"What do YOU want?" Mozenrath snapped. "I don't have time for this!"
"Now that's just too bad," Applejack said, taking a coil of rope – a bolas – from her waist and flinging it at Mozenrath. "'Cause we're about to hold you up a few more minutes!"
Jasmine also whipped out a bolas, flinging it at Mozenrath. The two ropes collided, wrapping around him tightly.
"You think that can hold me?" Mozenrath growled, his gauntlet surging with power. The magic rebounded on him, shocking him with a painful blue aura. Through his yowls of pain, the words "NOT AGAIN" were audible.
"This's happened to him before?" Applejack asked Jasmine.
"Technically, one bolas would have been enough," Jasmine admitted. "It held him last time. But you're an even better throw than me."
"Your throw wasn't bad," Applejack complimented. "Heck, we could sure use rope-throwin' like that back on my family's farm!"
"Well…I had a little practice with a whip. There was sort of an incident where I thought I was the most powerful villain in the Seven Deserts…"
When the blue energy abated, Mozenrath toppled to the floor, struggling against his restraints. Rarity stood over him. "I suppose we've defeated you quite properly now," she said. "After all, you can't get free of those restraints on your own, and you can't use your magic. We've won!"
"Not by a long shot," Mozenrath growled. "Jafar is still unbeatable, I still have Rainbow Dash in the dungeons, and soon I'll have enough weaponry to take back the kingdoms you stole from me!"
"Twi was right," Applejack said in astonishment. "He really does brag up a storm when ya push him to!"
"WHAT about Twilight?" Mozenrath asked.
"Oh, this was just part of her plan to reclaim Odiferous for Uncouthma and Brawnhilda," Jasmine told Mozenrath.
"Tying me up does nothing!" Mozenrath replied angrily. "There's still Jafar!"
"We know that, dear," Rarity said with a wink. "We just needed a way to get you to brag about everything you'd done…including where you put Rainbow Dash."
"To the dungeons!" Applejack cried, and she and Jasmine took off.
Mozenrath, realizing he'd been outsmarted, gaped at them as they left. Before Rarity could follow, he yelled, "You! The one with the purple curls."
"Yes?" Rarity asked with a sigh.
"Just tell me one thing. Did Twilight really orchestrate an entire plan to take back Odiferous?"
"She's quite the organizer," Rarity replied. "You'll see soon enough. Oh, and one more thing…leather gauntlets are NOT in vogue this season." She then took off after Jasmine and Applejack.
After lying on the ground stunned for a while, Mozenrath rolled over so that he could look up at Xerxes, who floated overhead helplessly. "I'm beginning to think she's really a match for me," Mozenrath told the eel.
"Mozenrath's perfect match!" Xerxes agreed.
"NO! I MEANT HER POWER IS A MATCH FOR MINE!"
"Whatever Mozenrath say!"
The battle was largely one-sided. Jafar's only advantage was his reflexes; every now and then, he could dodge a blow. However, Brawnhilda's fighting skill was far superior to his own; she kicked out, threw punches, knocked him to the ground.
Yet the manacles were beginning to loosen. Jafar dared not give up the fight, as he could feel the cuff on his right wrist beginning to split, to turn back into the clamshell.
The Genie noticed it as well, having been watching it by extending his eyes into blue binoculars. "Uh-oh!" he announced. "We got a malfunction in the right manacle!"
"Stay here and keep an eye on them!" Aladdin commanded the Genie. "Twilight, let's go!"
Aladdin and Twilight charged through the crowds until they found Pinkie and Bud standing before a hopscotch board marked out on the cobblestone with charcoal.
"That's not hopscotch, silly!" Bud said, erasing a few squares. "THAT's a hopscotch board!"
"So THAT'S how you play with only two feet!" Pinkie said in realization.
"Bud!" Aladdin cried. "Training's over! You still wanna smash the guy that beat up your dad?"
"YEAH!" Bud yelled.
"Well, come on!" Aladdin beckoned Bud to follow, and the two ran towards the scene of the fight.
"You wouldn't believe how much fun we were having!" Pinkie gushed to Twilight. "We played BattleClouds, and—"
"Pinkie," Twilight interrupted, "we need to line up. Applejack and Rarity could find Rainbow Dash at any minute!"
"Ooh, right!" Pinkie chirped. "General Pinkie, awaiting orders!"
"I need you to go find Fluttershy and bring her here."
"Okie-dokie Loki!" Pinkie promised, running back toward the house where Brawnhilda had left Fluttershy and Abu to look after her husband.
Back in the battle ring, Jafar was stunned when the redheaded blur that was Bud rammed into him headfirst and knocked him over.
Jasmine, Rarity, and Applejack found the dungeons easily: in the basement of the castle, sealed by a door with iron bars inset in a small window up top and a thick metal padlock on the handle.
"Good thing Abu didn't mind me borrowing this," Jasmine said as she produced a lockpick and used it to force the padlock open. She repeated the process on the door of the first cell and opened it to find Rainbow Dash and Iago inside.
"I've…almost…got it!" Rainbow Dash grunted, tugging at the cuff that held her right ankle. "I can feel it!"
"You got nothing!" Iago criticized.
Rainbow Dash suddenly noticed her rescuers. "Jasmine! Rarity! Applejack! How'd you find me?"
"Mozenrath's a motor-mouth," Applejack answered.
"Here," Jasmine said, setting to work at the locks of Rainbow Dash's chains. "We'll get these off you."
"And here I was half expecting Rarity to saw off the chains with a nail file," Rainbow Dash joked.
"Getting an all-purpose file wouldn't be a half-bad idea…" Rarity considered.
Soon Rainbow Dash was free of her chains. "Let's go!" Applejack told her. "We need all six Elements of Harmony up for the big finish!"
"No!" Rainbow Dash protested. "Not until I'm sure Iago's okay!"
Jasmine had already begun to work on the cuff holding the macaw. She bested the lock, and he fluttered into the air. "Stop worrying about me, kid," he barked, "and GET OUT THERE BEFORE JAFAR TURNS US ALL INTO ROAST FILETS!"
"Right!" Rainbow Dash said, and the five rushed out of the dungeon.
The right manacle broke.
"It looks like your time has run out, Princess," the highly bruised and battered Jafar told Brawnhilda as he felt his power resurging; he struck her shoulder with a handful of red energy, and she fell, hitting the ground hard.
"Any time now…" Twilight muttered. As if in response, Pinkie and Fluttershy skidded in at her left.
"I have still beaten you!" Brawnhilda insisted. "You are not the true ruler of Odiferous!"
The other Odiferans in the crowd began to murmur their assent. Their princess had, in their eyes, proven her strength over the usurper's advisor.
"It doesn't matter," Jafar told her as the left manacle broke. He rose before her in his genie form.
Rarity, Applejack, and Rainbow Dash ran towards Twilight from her left, panting from having hurried.
Brawnhilda, now on her feet, rushed toward Bud, kneeling over him to shield him.
"Protecting the child?" Jafar taunted. "How touching." He gathered an enormous sphere of red between his hands, preparing to throw it.
"NOT SO FAST!" Twilight yelled.
Jafar looked down in horror to see all six of the Elements standing in the Odiferan crowd. "No…it can't be…"
"Let's do this," said Rainbow Dash.
As the six glowed with bright light, their amulets growing, Jafar snarled, "HOW CAN THIS BE?"
Still doubly tied up, Mozenrath laboriously hopped out of the castle's front door. He began to warn, "Jafar! They found—"
"I CAN SEE THAT VERY WELL!" Jafar screamed.
The Odiferans gasped as the six Elements' feet left the ground. The rainbow burst forth from the light that surrounded them.
"NO!" Just before the rainbow could touch down, Jafar performed another escape in the nick of time; he and Mozenrath were gone in a cloud of red as the rainbow connected uselessly with the cobblestone.
The light subsided; the Elements' feet touched ground. "He got away again!" Pinkie groaned.
"I thought we had him!" Rainbow Dash growled.
"That doesn't matter!" Brawnhilda cried joyously. "The usurpers are gone!"
"Brawnhilda has proven herself stronger!" someone yelled from the crowd.
"Uncouthma's family should really be the rulers!" someone else cried.
"Looks like we won another one," Aladdin remarked. "Nice thinking, Twilight."
"Oh, it was nothing," Twilight said embarrassedly. "It was just a set of lucky ideas, that's all."
"Oh, but even Mozenrath was impressed with your ideas," said Rarity.
"He was?" Twilight asked excitedly. "I mean…that's good. He should know that I haven't given up on beating him. And next time, he better not distract me again by not wearing a shirt! Seeing that would make ANYPONY mess up!"
"Thank you," Brawnhilda said. "You are forever friends to the Odiferans! Oh, and Fluttershy, how is…"
"He woke up," Fluttershy reported. "I told him you were fighting for him. He was very worried for you. He loves you a lot, Brawnhilda."
"I must go and tell him I am all right!" Brawnhilda cried anxiously, and she took off running for the house where Uncouthma was held, the others following.
Soon, Uncouthma was transferred to a bed inside the castle, and Brawnhilda and Bud had moved back in where they belonged. Applejack had helped Brawnhilda guide the yaks back to their pasture, and now the group just waited inside for the chance to part.
"I cannot thank you enough!" Uncouthma insisted. "You all have shown that you have very strong head-muscles and heart-muscles, even if you are all frail! In order to thank you, I have had the guards place several crates of our finest vintage cheeses outside the castle door for you to take on our trip!"
"I…don't exactly think we can take all of that with us," Aladdin said hurriedly. "But thanks anyway!"
"I don't want General Pinkie to leave!" Bud whined. "She's the most fun general ever!"
"I had fun with you too!" Pinkie said honestly. "But we have to go save the rest of the Seven Deserts!"
"I won't forget what you taught me," Fluttershy told Brawnhilda. "Nightshade and hemlock!"
"Good luck on your journey!" Uncouthma wished.
"We'll need it," Iago sighed.
"Nothing we can't handle," Aladdin said casually. "We'll see you sometime, Uncouthma."
With that, the group left the upper chambers of the castle, working their way down.
"Twilight?" Rarity nudged her friend gently. "You've been awfully quiet. Is everything all right?"
"I'M FINE!" Twilight burst out, blushing heavily. "I'm just thinking about…how we can get Jafar to hold still while we fire the Elements at him! And the next speech I can give to them! You know, something like…things may be heating up, but it's time for you to cool off!"
"I'd avoid anything that might involve the word 'hot'," Rarity said. "Just a suggestion. We don't want anything to be misconstrued again, is all."
"Right," Twilight said, trying to force from her mind the image she'd been trying to picture when Rarity had interrupted her – how exactly it must have looked when Mozenrath was tied up in the throne room, still without a shirt.
Crates of cheese were indeed stacked up at the front door. Applejack took a morsel out of one of them, popping it into her mouth. Her eyes widened. She swallowed. "Now that…THAT'S GOOD STUFF!" she complimented. "Okay, I gotta take some of this." One of the crates held small crocks of the cheese; Applejack chose just one.
"Now boarding Genie Air, flight number twenty-two, destination unknown!" the Genie announced, transforming into the jet once again. Applejack cradled her new treasure as she climbed aboard. Everyone took their seats again on either the Genie-jet or the Carpet, and the two lifted into the air until they were nothing but a blur on the horizon to the Odiferans.
Chapter 10:
· Originally, I was going to include something about the peppermint lizards in Odiferous, but I didn't have the time/place.
· While the episode "The Way We War" suggests that Odiferous doesn't actually make its own weapons and instead buys them from imps, there is canon evidence that they had metal mallets, maces, and cheese-bombs before the imps ever got involved. Ergo, I don't think it's too much license to say that they make weapons.
· I…have no idea why Uncouthma and Brawnhilda are still called Prince and Princess. They're obviously the rulers, so why not King and Queen? That's the ATAS writers' plot hole, not mine! Anyway, those two are huge characters in the Aladdin canon (figuratively and literally), and Bud got an episode, so I say he's important too.
· Notes on Odiferous: canonically, it's based on barbarian tribes (who I have no qualms with making fun of, since that's probably my heritage as far back as you can trace it), and they all value strength above every other quality. The cheese thing is canon, Brawnhilda having the yak farm that's the hub of the economy is canon, Brawnhilda's thing for weak men who need her protection is VERY canon, and everyone in the kingdom is huge, so they refer to foreigners as "dainty" or "frail" all the time. The royal family has the verbal tics of calling all friends by the title of "friend _" and by referring to the brain as the "head-muscle" and the heart as the "heart-muscle".
· Okay, I HAD to get some Brawnhilda/Mozenrath shipteasing in there, even if it's just a temporarily one-sided observation from her. I wouldn't want to break her up with Uncouthma – they're too cute – and I have better people to ship Moz with in the long run, but I ship him with FREAKIN' EVERYONE, and since he always ends up in danger, I figure Brawnhilda would find that attractive.
· For the record, Al is WAY off when he thinks the relationship Mozenrath wants with Jafar is "father". But you all knew that.
· The outfit I describe for Mozenrath is pretty much what Uncouthma wears, which is why I decided it's royal dress. Of course, I added the blue, since he needs blue on him at all times. And let me pause to accentuate one more time: MOZENRATH IS SHIRTLESS. Okay, so that's pretty much just Author Appeal…
· Yes, Moz has the power to teleport people places, and I'm trying SO HARD to eliminate any circumstances in the plot where anyone could ask, "Well, why didn't he just teleport _ to _?" If I miss any…I'm only human.
· "The! Worst! POSSIBLE! THING!" is Rarity's catchphrase from "Lesson Zero". She says it whenever some little bad thing happens, such as her forgetting to bring the plates to a picnic.
· I made up the rules about Moz not being able to directly leech RD's powers off her. Mostly because it would be a story-breaker if characters could just Sonic Rainboom whenever they wanted without having the right expanse of sky to pull it off.
· The Gilda thing is from the ep "Griffon the Brush-Off", and I added nothing. That's how it went.
· The thing about the six not needing the amulets is part fanon, part canon. They did cause the amulets to originally appear by embodying the concepts they represented, and used that alone to defeat Nightmare Moon. However, they needed the amulets to beat Discord, and failed to beat Chrysalis because they couldn't get to them. It was my belief that the amulets are just physical constructs that represent the essence of each bearer, and that the six just don't know that they don't need them. S4 Jossed this, but I'm going to keep running with it anyway for the sake of the story. (And for the record, I DID like how S4 had the Mane Six have to give up the Elements, and the premiere and finale were both beautiful. I just can't use S4 in this story as it stands.) Jury's out on whether AJ overheard Jafar say they didn't need them at that moment. I'll decide that later.
· If yaks really do have no sense of loyalty, I apologize. Artistic license.
· Genies can't kill. It's a rule.
· Soooooo…the imps having a directory of Mukhtar gadgets that can be forged with Twi's level of magic is totally me pulling a Deus Ex Machina…the Mukhtar is a character who lives to hunt genies, and the living manacles and magic-repelling bolas are both canon things he wields, albeit from separate episodes. The manacles were perfectly effective on the Genie, but he's downgraded in power. Since Jafar still has full powers, I decided he could break the manacles so as not to have a plot-breaker (you know, they get the manacles on him, he's defeated, storylet over). Also, I'm going to take huge liberties with what mythical creatures Twilight could encounter in Equestrian bestiaries.
· Fluttershy is a healer partially as a reference to the ep where she tries to care for Celestia's pet phoenix and partially as a reference to the fandom idea of pairing her romantically and/or platonically with the Medic from TF2. And yes, if I get there, I'm going to take full advantage of that crossover as well.
· Pinkie is a babysitter because of the ep "Baby Cakes", where she does take care of the two foals named.
· And Twi's ability to mobilize people into organized fashion is an homage to "Winter Wrap-Up," where she discovers her main talent is organizing others to do big projects.
· There actually is an ancient Arabic technique of anesthetic by soporific sponge using mandragora and hemlock. I use the term "nightshade" instead of "mandragora" because in this crossover universe, "mandrake" is usually the living kind.
· "BattleClouds" is the game from the MLP ep "Read It and Weep." It's basically a weather/pony-themed Battleship. The game was never named in canon, probably because no one could think of a good pony pun for Battleship. "BattleClouds" is the best I got. Jenga, on the other hand, I think can exist in Equestria without the need to pony-theme it.
· Every time Moz calls Jasmine the dainty/precious princess in canon and implies that she's weak, she kicks his ass. This has happened at least twice. I figure he's learned by now.
· I really wanted to emphasize that the women in this story don't need to be saved by the men. Like, REALLY EMPHASIZE IT. Hence RD gets an all-female rescue team, and Brawnhilda is the one to fight. I'm sort of a girl power advocate. I'm not going to short the male heroes or anything, but I want the women of my story to be very active.
· In canon, Mozenrath was caught up in the Mukhtar's magic-repellent bolas in the ep "The Hunted." It had the same effect there too (actually, I went easy on him; in canon, he knocked himself unconscious that way).
· Jasmine really is canonically a whip-wielder. The ep "Forget-Me-Lots" had her go amnesiac and think she was a villain, and honestly, she quite possibly could have been the most powerful villain in all the Seven Deserts at that point. Funny trivia: when she thought she was evil, she changed her outfit to one the same shade of blue as Moz's. And this was many episodes before his debut.
· The "Royal Canterlot Wedding" ep did feature briefly a hopscotch board with several extra squares for players with four hooves. I don't know if it actually could have functioned, but bronies did take screens to point it out and ask, "HOW DOES THIS WORK?" So we know they do canonically have four-footed hopscotch.
· Abu is known for having a ton of lockpicks. They're used as Deus Ex Machinas in ATAS canon all the time, so I have no shame about doing this here. The only shame I have is not figuring out an actual way for RD to break her chains before her rescue team showed up, but that couldn't be helped.
· DID I JUST MAKE A REFERENCE TO TWILIGHT BEING INTERESTED IN BONDAGE? I think I did. I…couldn't help it. TIED UP AND SHIRTLESS. SOMEPONY HAD TO BE INTERESTED. (I still think the animators totally knew what they were doing when they had him encounter the bolas with his shirt ON in The Hunted…)
· Interesting trivia: the next place we visit, I was going to have last, but I switched them out because the plot worked better to have the one I was originally going to do last.