1. Earthshaken

GETZISTAN, THE SEVEN DESERTS

"Five more minutes…"

"Come ON, Rainbow Dash!" Twilight shook her friend's shoulder quite hard. "You can't sleep in today! We have to go reclaim another throne in the Seven Deserts!"

"Can't we do that tomorrow?" Rainbow Dash rolled over.

"Noooooo," Twilight groaned. "Are you really telling me you don't want to go on another adventure? Fight more villains?"

"All right, I'm up," Rainbow Dash groaned, sliding slowly out of bed. "Were there even any signs overnight of where your boyfriend went?"

"Not my boyfriend. And no."

"Then why are you getting me up so early?"

"So we can LOOK for signs!"

"All right, all right…" Rainbow Dash yawned.

---

SOMEWHERE IN THE SEVEN DESERTS

The Carpet and the Genie-jet sailed over the golden sands without direction until the rift happened.

The ground split in a wide crack; a creature, a giant man made of dripping mud, clambered out quickly.

"No!" another man yelled, grabbing the first by the back of the neck. "You'll dry out!"

True to the warning, the first man's arm hardened in the sun and cracked into millions of sandy pieces. He hurried back underground, and the two disappeared from sight.

"The Al-Muddy?" the Genie said confusedly, looking down at the crevasse in the sand.

"The who?" Twilight asked.

"Giants made of mud," Aladdin explained. "They live underground and lure humans down to eat them."

"I think that was our sign," Rainbow Dash stated.

"They were running away," Jasmine agreed. "And if there's something that could make the Al-Muddy run in fear…"

"It's Jafar and Mozenrath," Aladdin finished.

"As far as I'm concerned, we can let them have this one," said Iago. "It's about time the Al-Muddy knew what it was like for someone to torment THEM."

"Iago!" Fluttershy scolded. "That isn't right! If they're in trouble, we have to help them!"

"But they'll try to eat us," Aladdin reminded Fluttershy.

"I don't care," Fluttershy said, crossing her arms. "We can't let anypony down when they're in danger. It wouldn't be kind."

"KIND?" Iago screeched. "THEY EAT PEOPLE! YOU WANNA TALK ABOUT KIND?"

"We ate baby sheep," Applejack pointed out. "Ain't it the same principle?"

"No," Twilight sighed. "Do I have to go over it again? There are talking animals, animals with a lowercase A if you want to get specific…"

"What Applejack is trying to say, I think," Rarity clarified, "is that they can't help having a different diet. They're just as much sentient beings as you or me."

"You're…right," Jasmine realized.

"We're just gonna have to figure out a way to talk things out with them without being eaten first!" Applejack finished.

"Then let's go underground," Aladdin resolved. Down dove the Carpet and the Genie-jet, all the way down to the dark caverns below.

---

THE CAVERNS, THE SEVEN DESERTS

The group now moved on foot down the rocky passageways.

"These caves are huge," Twilight noted. "But then again, so were the Al-Muddy we saw."

"I'm just waiting for them to show up and eat us," Iago moaned worriedly.

"Relax," Rainbow Dash reassured. "Nopony's gonna just try and grab us without giving us a chance to – "

At that moment, up from the ground rose three of the men made of mud. All three glared at the group hungrily, and the one standing in the middle growled.

"Hi," Twilight said. "I'm Twilight Sparkle, and my friends and I are here to help you – "

"Look," the man on the right said. "A full-course meal!"

"This should make up for not being able to get at the ones in our palace," the one on the left said.

"I'm starving!" the one in the center moaned. "Let's get them!"

"Wait!" Fluttershy said hurriedly. "Can't we talk?"

The man in the center rushed forward to pick Fluttershy up in one great moist fist. "We don't talk to our food," he informed her. "Didn't your mom ever tell you not to play with your food?"

Fluttershy squealed in fear.

"FLUTTERSHY!" Rainbow Dash drew her swords protectively.

"That won't have any effect on them!" Jasmine warned Rainbow Dash.

Fluttershy swallowed hard before looking her Al-Muddy captor directly in the eyes. "Just because you're bigger doesn't give you the right to be so mean," she said coldly. "Put me down…NOW." She stared him down without wavering. He let go, and Fluttershy turned and ran as fast as she could in the opposite direction.

"Let's go!" Aladdin called out, waving the others on as they followed Fluttershy.

"How could you have let her go?" the man on the right chided. "She was right there!"

"She stared at me," the man in the center defended. "I didn't like it…it was scary…"

---

Down several twists and turns, the group finally stopped in a dark side tunnel. "Are we safe here?" Pinkie asked.

"This tunnel doesn't look like anyone uses it on a regular basis," Jasmine observed.

"Well, we tried!" Iago squeaked. "We failed! Let's go!"

"No," Fluttershy insisted. "Not now!"

"We don't even know if the psycho-sultans are here!" Iago tried to argue.

"But we do," Twilight realized. "They said that they couldn't get to humans in their palace. Only one human could have turned up in the palace of beings that eat humans without being caught…and he'd have brought with him a djinni that looks human and a flying eel thing."

"Well?" Rarity threw up her hands in frustration. "How do you propose we get to them without being eaten?"

"We have to forge an alliance with the Al-Muddy somehow," Twilight muttered.

"Somehow, I don't think they'll listen," said the Genie. "After all…you did have the same plan with Saleen…"

"I know, okay?" Twilight snapped. "But she was one nasty mermaid. Not all the Al-Muddy are unreasonable."

"They just see us as snacks," Applejack reiterated. "We gotta let them know that if they don't eat us, we could help 'em out!"

"I'm trying to think of what a cupcake could do to me so I wouldn't eat it," Pinkie thought out loud.

"Great," Iago sighed. "We're in the hands of this genius."

"Let her finish," Aladdin chided.

"Hmmm…" Pinkie considered it. "I wouldn't eat a cupcake that was vinegar-flavored. That would be gross!"

"So if we taste disgusting," Aladdin realized, "no one would want to eat us!"

"What's disgusting to one of the Al-Muddy?" Jasmine wondered.

"Ever seen any of them eat an apple?" Applejack tried.

"Of course not!" the Genie scoffed. "EVERYONE knows that the Al-Muddy don't use plants except in seasoning! They can't stand the taste of fruit!"

"So you make us all taste and smell like apples," Applejack suggested. "Make us like walkin' apple trees. Then Fluttershy can finally get her wish."

"The young lady wants to be a tree?" the Genie asked with a wink. "Shall I make it literal?"

"Oh, not today," Fluttershy turned down. "Just making us smell and taste like apples will be fine."

"All right," the Genie said, throwing a great cloud of smoke over everyone. The sweet smell of apple juice soon filled the air. "Voilà! But don't ask for the recipe…I have to keep some things a secret!"

"Hey, everypony!" Pinkie cried. "Now I'm…APPLE PIE! Ooh, let's try it with your names too! Appleshy, Apple Dash, Twilight Apple, Applety, and…awww, it doesn't work with Applejack…"

---

"Figures that when we actually wanna get caught," Rainbow Dash sighed, "nopony actually comes out to get us." She walked along with the others down the same main tunnel as before.

"Give it time," Aladdin replied. "They'll notice us eventually…they always do."

One of the Al-Muddy, larger than before, loomed up in front of the group. Another appeared behind. "Well, look what walked right in!" the first said.

"Ewww!" the second cried, and it was only her voice that let everyone know she was female. "Don't you smell that? They smell like fruit! They're probably all sour!"

"Unfortunately," Aladdin said with a mock sigh. "It's our curse. To forever be sour and inedible."

Pinkie licked her own wrist for emphasis. "Ewwwwww!" she cried dramatically. "I taste so terrible!"

"This just isn't my day," the male of the Al-Muddy groaned. "First we get kicked out of the main village by humans that smelled ESPECIALLY delicious, and now we catch a bunch of them that aren't even any good to eat!"

"The ones that kicked you out," Jasmine inquired, "were they a young man dressed in blue and a taller man in red?"

"Friends of yours?" the female asked.

"Not exactly," Twilight replied.

"Delicious?" the male asked.

"Very," Iago said before Rainbow Dash lightly pushed him in chastisement. "What? It's not like they're on our team!"

"We've kinda been chasin' those two around the world and fightin' 'em," Applejack explained.

"They've been taking over all the humans' kingdoms too," Fluttershy asserted. "We've tried to help everypony get their kingdoms back. Including you."

"How do we know we can trust you?" the female asked. "Maybe you're planning to get into our resistance so we can take you to them and you can hide in the palace too!"

"Why would they do that?" the male chided. "They aren't even edible! They don't need to hide! And you don't just go telling people willy-nilly about the resistance!"

"Resistance?" Aladdin, Twilight, Jasmine, and Applejack said at once.

"See?" the male threw out his hands in frustration. "Now they know, and they probably want in on it!"

"We definitely want in on it," Rarity insisted. "They're our enemies as much as yours."

"Should we at least take them to Shale?" the female asked her companion. "Then he can decide what to do with them!"

"All right," the male sighed. "Let Shale make the decision!"

"Pardon me," Fluttershy said, "but what are your names?"

"I'm Feldspar," the male said, "and that's Andalusite."

"You probably haven't traveled through the ground before," Andalusite said, "have you?"

"I thought that's what we were doing," Pinkie admitted.

"No, no, no," Feldspar sighed. "Like this…"

He and Andalusite spread out their bodies, enveloping the group in mud before dragging them down into the ground.

---

Feldspar and Andalusite resurfaced far underground, and Aladdin, Jasmine, Twilight, Applejack, Fluttershy, Abu, Iago, the Carpet, Rarity, the Genie, Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie breached the surface of the soil.

"That was positively awful!" Rarity moaned. "Look at this! My clothes are completely filthy! And my…my…" She realized where she stood and swallowed her words.

The group stood in the center of a large cavern packed with Al-Muddy. There had to be roughly a hundred of them staring down from varying heights from twenty to seventy feet.

Rainbow Dash drew her swords again, but Twilight pressed both her wrists down, muttering, "Not now, Rainbow Dash…"

"Why did you bring them here, Feldspar?" one of the Al-Muddy groaned loudly. "They smell disgusting! Are those even edible?"

"They are not," Andalusite confirmed, "but they wanted to know about our resistance. It seems they know the humans that kicked us out. We thought Shale would know what to do with them."

The tallest of all the Al-Muddy worked his way to the front of the crowd, immediately identifiable as Shale. "What did you want me to do?"

"Let us help you take your throne back," Aladdin announced.

"I know you," Shale said. "You're Aladdin, are you not? You killed my father."

"He was trying to kill me!" Aladdin defended.

"Now, now," Twilight said, "I'm sure we can resolve this difference if we just talk about it. Obviously, Aladdin was intimidated by your father's desire to eat him, and – "

"I know," Shale said. "I also know this smell of apples is some sort of trick. However, at the moment, I care not. You know the pair that overtook our throne?"

"Unfortunately," the Genie confirmed.

"One of them's my personal archnemesis," Twilight added. "Just so you know."

"They ordered us out of the kingdom and turned our own mastery of the earth against us," said Shale. "The younger one has powers that I once had as ruler of the Al-Muddy and controller of the earth. We have tried time after time to remove them since their appearance this morning, but they thwart us constantly. As much as I wish we could recover our own throne, it seems we need a different tactic. An advantage, perhaps, in knowledge of our enemies' weaknesses. I am willing to forgo our past differences if we can come together on this point."

"But Shale!" one of the others of the Al-Muddy protested. "They're all humans! Well, and a bird and a monkey and something blue that looks like a human. Plus what looks like a walking dinner napkin. Are you sure – "

"I am sure that they can communicate with us," Shale retorted. "They are just as much sentient beings as you or me. It would be more to our advantage to enlist their help than to eat them. Perhaps after we reclaim the throne, we can consider it. Besides…the one who killed my father is strong and clever. That, we will need."

"So…you're not mad?" Twilight asked. "About…your father and all?"

"I'm incredibly displeased," Shale admitted. "But in the cycle of predator and prey, it often happens that one must live and one must die. For just this once, I will overlook what has happened. As I said, however, once we reclaim the throne…"

"How did Mozenrath and Jafar manage to force you all out of the main village?" Jasmine asked.

"We will show you," Shale said. Without any more warning than that, he melted into the ground. The other Al-Muddy did the same, and Feldspar and Andalusite washed over the small group of heroes, dragging them down on another journey through the mud.

---

They resurfaced at a cavern entrance that overlooked a vast underground chamber. Visible in this chamber was the great palace of the Al-Muddy, a monstrous structure with glowing crystals set in the walls and rocky spires that twisted up toward the impossibly high ceiling of the chamber. Dotted around the palace were small stone houses, accessorized by glowing crystals that had naturally formed in the spaces between them.

"How…how can anything this huge even EXIST?" Twilight gasped.

"Oh, now look at this!" Rarity griped. "These stains will NEVER come out!"

"The intruders have control of this entire cavern," Shale explained, "and over the earth element I once controlled."

"Explain controllin' the earth element," Applejack told Shale.

"We Al-Muddy have a mastery over the earth, so long as we remain underground," Shale said. "The king in particular has the greatest power. We use it to build oases on the surface world to lure in foolish mortals to eat, but more importantly, to construct our civilization here."

"You b-build oases that are traps?" Fluttershy squeaked.

"Yeah," Aladdin confirmed, "and we fell into one of them once."

"Using his new mastery over the earth," Shale explained, "the usurper has set up a defense to make sure none enter the cavern. We know not what else he plans to do with his newfound power."

"We saw a couple of you trying to climb to the surface," Pinkie remembered. "Were they on the run from him?"

"The third wave of defense in the lineup was a pocket of magma that the usurper had managed to unearth before the palace," Shale explained. "Some of our resistance made it past the first two lines, and he chased them quite far with the magma. Had it reached them, he could have solidified them permanently and then broken them down. The surface must have seemed like a viable way of escape. However, once Feldspar came to his senses…"

"That was you?" Fluttershy asked Feldspar.

"My brother Chalcedony stopped me from going to the surface and found us an alternate route of escape," Feldspar admitted.

"But we saw you lose your arm!" Jasmine recalled.

"I made a new one," Feldspar said with a shrug. "Still getting used to it."

"So what are these lines of defense?" Rainbow Dash asked. "I bet I can pass 'em! Lava's no big deal!"

"It's only called 'lava' when it's aboveground," Twilight corrected. "Underground, it's mag – "

"Same difference, the hot glowy stuff!" Rainbow Dash groaned.

"The magma pocket was run dry," Shale informed, "but the other two lines of defense are still in place. Where do you think you're going?"

Rainbow Dash had spread her wings. "To check it out."

"You'll learn about the defenses the hard way."

"Don't care!"

Rainbow Dash lifted off, speeding out into the wide expanse of the cave before her.

---

The seat of the actual throne of the Al-Muddy was comparable to the size of a living room. That was why, instead of sitting on it proper, Mozenrath had turned the throne into a workspace, spreading out several sheets of parchment on it and crawling through the papery labyrinth on his hands and knees, sketching diagrams furiously with a quill pen.

"…and we would raise the levels here, turn this into a floodplain and fill it with water, start a series of earthquakes along this fault line…and before you know it, Getzistan is crumbling to pieces, Quirkistan is swimming, and Agrabah is tilted almost completely on its side. If that doesn't win me respect, I don't know what will."

"I had my doubts," Jafar admitted, standing over the mass of parchment, "but your ideas about how to use the earth powers of the Al-Muddy to your advantage are admittedly brilliant."

"They're still in the planning stage," Mozenrath replied, not looking up to give Jafar the benefit of seeing his smile, "but once I have everything balanced out…it's going to be my masterpiece. You'll regret ever having doubted me."

"Intruders!" Xerxes barked, sailing over the throne.

"Must they always interrupt me when I'm working?" Mozenrath sighed. He set down the quill pen and stood, closing his eyes and remaining perfectly still. In a sudden movement, he raised both hands and flicked his wrists outward; a shockwave radiated through the palace.

"Now go tell me if I need to activate the second wave," Mozenrath ordered, and Xerxes flew back to his observational post.

---

"Some defense," Rainbow Dash muttered. "I'm flying right out in the open and nothing's even – "

From the ground, a wave of mud bubbled upward, one far less sentient than the people who had lived in the now-empty houses. It shot up to the ceiling of the cavern, then arced downward like a tidal wave.

"WHA – " Rainbow Dash cried just before the wave of mud hit her. She was propelled all the way back to the edge of the cavern along with several tons of dirt. Once she hit the wall of the great cavern, the mud abated, and Rainbow Dash saw blearily that it had been a circular wave that had risen throughout the whole cavern so that no matter which way she'd come from, she would have been hit. She weakly winged her way back to the tunnel where the others watched.

"Okay," she admitted, "he has good defenses up."

"The wave has pushed back all but the strongest of us," Shale admitted. "His second wave of defense taps into the water resources we use to form the oases. Any closer to the cavern than the origin point of that wave of mud, and the lower half of the cavern fills with water…which dissolves most of us."

"Rarity!" Rainbow Dash suddenly barked. "Do you HAVE to do that now?"

Rarity had been wiping the mud from the wave off Rainbow Dash's face. "You're positively filthy!" she argued.

"So you can't cross the water," Aladdin thought out loud, "but the rest of us…we can. And the lava's run out, right?"

"Magma!" Twilight corrected.

"If we could just find a way to get through that first wave…" Aladdin trailed off.

"A little mud should be no problem for a Genie!" the Genie bragged.

"Hmm…" Rainbow Dash looked up to the high ceiling of the cavern, then down to the faraway floor. "There's an aw-ful lot of space here." She smirked. "Space to pull off another Sonic Rainboom! Hey Genie…you thinkin' what I'm thinkin'?"

"That hot cocoa would be really delicious right now?" the Genie guessed.

"That's what I'M thinking!" Pinkie announced proudly.

"Actually," Rainbow Dash explained, "I was thinking that if you did some of your magic at the same time that I caused a huge pressure blast with a Sonic Rainboom, we could tear a big hole in that wave and get everypony over to the palace!"

"Where you do what?" Iago challenged.

"Try the Elements of Harmony again?" Pinkie suggested.

"If I can get through the mud after blasting it," Rainbow Dash said doubtfully.

"I just have one question." Twilight turned to Shale. "Does the mud do that on its own if you tell it to, or do you have to actively set it off each time?"

"It isn't automatic," Shale informed her. "The usurper would have to know whenever an intruder has arrived and set off the defenses at the right moment."

"So if we could somehow distract Mozenrath from the defenses long enough," Rarity realized, "then you could come back in and take your own throne!"

"Which shouldn't be hard to do," Rainbow Dash said with a meaningful glance at Twilight.

"What?" Twilight snapped. "What are you looking at me like that for?"

"You know why. You're the expert at distracting lover boy."

"He's my archnemesis," Twilight reminded Rainbow Dash. "Of course I'm going to be good at distracting him!"

"Technically," the Genie thought out loud, "isn't he Al's archnemesis?"

"Hey," Aladdin said with a shrug, "I'm always up for sharing."

Rainbow Dash turned to the Genie. "You ready to clean up?"

A vacuum cleaner materialized in the Genie's hands. "Genie magic is proven to clear away 90% more dirt than the leading brand!"

"Then let's go!" Rainbow Dash and the Genie took off flying. In the meantime, Twilight, Aladdin, Rarity, Jasmine, Applejack, the Carpet, Iago, Fluttershy, Abu, and Pinkie Pie began the climb down the cavern entrance, from which there was a slope to the bottom of the great cavern.

Rainbow Dash began with a climb toward the stalactites of the ceiling. Once at the very upper limits, she turned to look down and waited. The Genie was positioned much lower on the ground with the vacuum.

The group of heroes made their way on foot through the village of the Al-Muddy. "Any time now…" Twilight muttered impatiently.

The ground before them bubbled. The wave of mud began to rise, stretching up toward the ceiling. Seeing his cue, the Genie turned on the vacuum, sucking the wave of mud into it and creating a gap. Up at the ceiling of stalactites, Rainbow Dash turned to make her quick descent. Used to the process now, she more fluidly escalated her speed until another Sonic Rainboom was produced, blowing the gap in the wave of mud even wider. Her friends on the ground, save the Genie, proceeded through this gap at a run.

"YEAH!" Rainbow Dash cried just before pulling out of her dive to find herself faced with a towering wave of mud. Once again, she was hit and thrown back toward the wall, this time with the Genie alongside her.

"It isn't any less uncomfortable the second time," Rainbow Dash sighed when the wave of mud went down.

Meanwhile, the others moved on toward the palace. Now geysers of water were gushing upward from the ground, and the cavern that had seemed impossibly huge began to fill with water. The trek through the town was accompanied by the water level rising higher and higher; while at first the group had to wade, they were soon paddling through the water.

At last they reached the palace, the water levels at the height of one of the upper windows. Twilight and Aladdin took the lead, and the others followed them inside.

---

"Intruders past second wave!" Xerxes reported.

"AGAIN?" Mozenrath replied angrily. "They should have been melted! How did they do it? Did they build another boat to float across like those last two?"

"Not Al-Muddy," Xerxes said.

"What did you just say?" Mozenrath replied.

"Aladdin, Princess, monkey, parrot, flying rug, and five Elements!" Xerxes reported.

Immediately, a beam of blue caught the eel and dragged him down to Mozenrath's eye level. Mozenrath then released Xerxes from the beam and clutched him by the neck, shaking him roughly. "AND WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME THIS EARLIER?"

"Mozenrath never asked?" Xerxes squeaked.

Mozenrath cast the eel to the ground. "It doesn't matter," he muttered. "We'll just have to thwart them by covering the bases where previously we failed. After all, they don't have all six of the Elements."

"So long as you don't challenge them to another game," Jafar said casually, "defeating them should be easy."

"I'd think twice about that if I were you."

Mozenrath, Jafar, and Xerxes' attention was drawn to one of the great arm rests of the throne, where Twilight stood and looked down upon them.

"Too perfect!" Mozenrath cried. "I was hoping you weren't the one left behind. You're far too interesting, after all. Beating you will be all the more fun."

"Leave her to me," Jafar insisted, raising his staff.

Twilight pointed down at Jafar suddenly with both hands. Jafar prepared to block a spell, but then he realized she wasn't launching one. He figured out far too late that what she'd done was release the levitation spell she'd had on a great glass jar that had been hanging in the air over him. The jar, lifted from the Al-Muddy palace kitchen and large enough to hold three people, plummeted down and landed atop Jafar, where he found himself unable to break the glass with any amount of magical energy.

"It's a well-known fact that the powers of djinni are weakened when they're encased in unnaturally forged containers," Twilight said victoriously, crossing her arms.

"Very clever." Mozenrath slowly clapped, applauding her knowledge. "Coatls, genies…is there anything you can't beat? Well, besides me."

"I beat you twice!" Twilight pointed out.

"This time is different," Mozenrath argued coolly. "There's no talisman that bears the ownership of the throne that you can take from me…and I know better than to challenge you to another contest. Far better. You'd actually give me a run for my denarii! And that's not something I can say of most people. Usually, I reserve it for Aladdin and the Princess. Speaking of which, I know they came here with you. Are you all going to give up and show yourselves, or do I have to call olly-olly-oxen-free?"

One by one, Jasmine, Fluttershy and Abu, Pinkie Pie, Iago, Aladdin, Rarity, Applejack, and the Carpet clambered over the edge of the arm rest from the other side, joining Twilight atop it. "Are you really going to take on all of us at once?" Aladdin asked tauntingly.

"Gladly," Mozenrath said, telekinetically swiping all his paperwork off the throne and clearing a space.

His opponents charged all at once. Aladdin sprang first, having worked out with the others beforehand that he would get the first shot, and tackled Mozenrath, pinning him to the ground until the sorcerer deftly kicked him away. Mozenrath quickly struggled to his feet only for Applejack to grab his right wrist and twist it behind his back, pinning down his gauntleted hand; she would have been able to keep her hold if Xerxes hadn't bitten her on the shoulder, causing her to scream and let go. Mozenrath then faced Applejack and fired three quick blasts of magic at her, which she deftly outstepped. Jasmine darted in from the side, taking hold of Mozenrath's right elbow and trying to peel the gauntlet away from him; the two of them struggled for a while before a zap of blue energy sent Jasmine reeling away with a shock.

Now Mozenrath turned to face Pinkie Pie, who grinned widely at him. "And what are you going to do to me?" he asked condescendingly.

"Say hello…to my PARTY CANNON!" Pinkie cried, swishing the fabric of her skirt. The cannon stood beside her, as tall as her waist.

"How did she even get that thing in here?" Iago asked in disbelief.

"Nopony really knows that," Fluttershy admitted.

Pinkie punched a button on the cannon, and it fired a blast of confetti, streamers, and glitter that sent Mozenrath reeling and disoriented him.

"STOP PLAYING AROUND, BOY!" Jafar screamed from his glass prison.

"I'm…not…PLAYING!" Mozenrath yelled in retaliation, regaining his balance and raising his right hand, blue energy crackling around it.

A small hand seized his wrist. "Don't you dare," Fluttershy said, staring up into Mozenrath's eyes. "Don't you dare shoot that at any…of my…FRIENDS!"

"Or you'll what?" Mozenrath asked tauntingly. His question was answered when Fluttershy's knee connected with his face. Reeling, he hit the ground once more.

"I'm sorry," Fluttershy said, backing off. "That looked like it hurt…I'm just going to go stay in the corner now."

Before Mozenrath could get on his feet properly again, he was swept into the air; Aladdin and Jasmine, riding the Carpet, had grasped onto the edge of his cape and were now dragging him along on the flight. "We know you're not playing," Aladdin said with a wink. "You're just not that strong."

"Put me DOWN!" Mozenrath cried, partially out of anger and partially out of fear; once the Carpet left the area above the throne, it was quite a long way down to the floor.

"Hmm," Rarity pondered, watching the scene while holding Xerxes back. "This is really making me think that capes aren't all that practical in battle situations…"

After dragging Mozenrath through the air for a fair amount of time, Aladdin and Jasmine dropped him back onto the throne; he hit the stone and rolled before standing once more.

"Release me!" Jafar commanded. "Don't be foolish anymore!"

Finally realizing he couldn't possibly take the onslaught on his own anymore, Mozenrath turned to the jar and prepared to shatter it with a blast of blue. He gathered the energy, shot it forward…

Twilight skidded in between him and the jar, firing a blast of pink that met the blue, and the two rays of magic met in the middle, causing an ongoing collision of deep purple. "Now, where have I seen this before?" Mozenrath asked sarcastically.

"Just give up!" Twilight replied. "No matter how many times you try and take over another kingdom, we're going to take it right back away from you! And fighting us all the time can't really be that pleasant, can it? We don't like having to fight you all the time."

"You're saying you don't know the thrill of victory when you send the one you hate to the fate they deserve?" Mozenrath asked, half serious.

"No," Twilight said honestly. "I fight to help people, not to hurt people! I don't even want to hurt you. And given what we've been through, that's saying something."

"It speaks to how sentimental you are."

"I'm going to take that as a compliment."

"In other circumstances, you could have been a powerful sorceress," Mozenrath informed Twilight. "You might have even had a shot at what I won."

"I don't want power," Twilight insisted. "I want friendship…I want knowledge…but I don't need to rule over anything!" She felt her hold on the pink beam begin to falter again.

"And that's what makes you so interesting," Mozenrath admitted. "Foolish…but fascinating. Of course, it shows that you haven't tried to gather power. You're not nearly as strong as me, after all. You're about to break right about…"

She slipped; the pink beam broke. She ducked so that the blue wouldn't hit her; the glass jar shattered.

"It's about time!" Jafar hissed, storming forward to take on the many opponents.

"I'd say so," Aladdin said as he stepped off the Carpet onto the plateau of the throne. "Just enough time for…"

The floor shook. The members of the Al-Muddy resistance rose up in a great wave, staring down at the throne and growling at the usurpers.

"YOU FOOL!" Jafar snarled at Mozenrath. "How could you have let down your defenses?"

"It's not like you were reminding me!" Mozenrath countered. "Xerxes, watching for intruders was YOUR job!"

Xerxes couldn't answer, as Rarity was spinning him round and round by the tail while humming the Levan Polka. Eventually she let him go, and he soared through the air in a graceful arc.

"We've come to reclaim what is ours," Shale announced. "As the rightful king of the Al-Muddy…I suppose it's my right to have the tastiest morsel."

"NO!" Mozenrath cried as Shale swept him up in one giant fist; he struggled, but Shale's grip was unbreakable.

"You're scrawnier than the fare I'm used to," Shale told him, "but I'm sure you'll taste the same."

Shale's fist exploded in a great blast of magic; Mozenrath dropped to the throne below. In a burst of red, Jafar transported himself, the young sorcerer, and the flying eel quickly away before the other Al-Muddy could attempt to make a meal of them again.

"Now that we've set things right," Shale said, "the natural cycle can take its course. Unfortunately, that means you are all on the menu as well."

"But we JUST helped you out!" Twilight protested.

"It's only the natural food chain," Fluttershy said softly.

"But…but…we taste all apple-y!" Applejack argued.

"The scent is likely a trick," Shale replied. "I let it go because we needed to work together."

"Now, let's not be hasty…" Aladdin said tentatively, backing away.

At that moment, the Genie, again in the form of the jet, sailed through the window, Rainbow Dash seated in her usual spot. "Come on!" she yelled, understanding the situation. Pinkie, Fluttershy and Abu, Rarity, Iago, and Applejack immediately climbed aboard while Aladdin, Jasmine, and Twilight boarded the Carpet, and both crafts lifted off, speeding away from the Al-Muddy, out of their palace, out of the cavern, and eventually up to the great expanse of desert above ground.

---

SOMEWHERE IN THE BORDERLANDS OF THE SEVEN DESERTS

"I don't need to hear it," Mozenrath sulked, crossing his arms as he sat on the stone throne of the next kingdom. "I should have let you take control earlier. Rest assured…I won't make that mistake again." It nearly killed him to say, but he knew that had he released Jafar earlier, he would have come from the last battle victorious.

"Finally," Jafar sighed, "some sense. I see great potential in you, boy. Your plans to reshape the desert only proved it. I would hate to see that go to waste."

"So you'll work with me," Mozenrath restated, and this time he couldn't hide his expression in time; Jafar caught his quick but earnest grin.

"Yes," Jafar relented, "but you must realize that here, you are the inferior. I am the one with the phenomenal cosmic powers and the knowledge that comes with experience…not you."

"But you still have a soft spot for me, old man," Mozenrath teased, feeling it was safe to point out what he thought was obvious. "Or you wouldn't have saved my life from that Al-Muddy rebel."

"I haven't the faintest what you're talking about," Jafar replied in confusion.

"Don't act like you don't know!" Mozenrath snapped. "It was just before you brought us here!"

"While I don't want to waste what potential you have while living," Jafar asserted, "it would have made no difference to me had you been…" He smirked proudly. "What now, are you crying?"

"NO!" Mozenrath screamed – he hadn't been aware that the unvoluntary tears had been visible. What a silly thing to cry over, he thought, not quite understanding why that had been his initial reaction and determined to stop it from happening. "I just want to know one thing. If you didn't do that…then who did?"

---

SOMEWHERE IN THE SEVEN DESERTS

"When I said I didn't want to hurt him," Twilight said softly, "I meant it. I don't want to really hurt anyone. I don't want to see anyone die. And Shale's hand was going to grow back anyway, just like Feldspar's arm. That's why I did it, okay?" She wrung her hands, looking down at them. "That's the only reason…why I saved him. And Rainbow Dash, if you're going to make any more jokes about him being my boyfriend, you can just…NOT SAY ANYTHING!"

"I wasn't going to," Rainbow Dash replied somberly. "I get it, Twilight. I wouldn't have wanted to see anybody get eaten either. I'm…kinda glad you did it."

"No one judges you for it," Jasmine reassured Twilight, placing a hand on her shoulder.

"LIES!" Iago barked. "BLATANT LIES! It's like Al and Shale's dad. It's a jackal-eat-jackal world out there, and it's gonna come down to either us or them. Why are you giving THEM the fighting chance so that they can eventually destroy US?"

"Because we don't work like that," Rarity countered.

"If no one can die," Twilight muttered, "if no one has to…"

"If I had powers like yours," Aladdin admitted to Twilight, "I would have done the same thing."

"Really?" Twilight met his eyes.

"Really. I even did try to save him once before. He…kinda took advantage of it to try and kill me, but I wouldn't have done any differently. Looking back on it, maybe, deep down…part of me knew. Who he was." Aladdin shrugged. "Anyway, it hardly seems right if some disaster isn't impending over Agrabah. He's one of those disasters I've just come to expect."

"Nobody thinks you did anything wrong, Twi!" the Genie added.

"And if I've been too hard on you with all the teasing," Rainbow Dash said, "I didn't mean to make you unhappy. I'll stop, okay? You don't have a crush on the bad guy. You just saved him from being eaten 'cause you're a hero!"

"Thanks, everyone," Twilight said. Still she stared out to the horizon. Everypony else, she thought, was convinced that she had blasted Shale's hand and stopped him from eating Mozenrath out of her general respect for others, out of her general hatred of harming others. Everypony else was convinced that she really didn't have any strange feelings, special ties toward him. The only one not convinced was Twilight herself.

---

Chapter 9:

· And invariably I dig myself into the moral dilemma hole by using the Al-Muddy. As previously stated in my tirade about Changelings, I hate the whole "evil race" concept. The Al-Muddy have generally been monsters in the Aladdin canon because their natural diet is human beings. However, they – or at least one of them – have human sentience and the ability to speak to humans/other sentient beings. Also, I couldn't really justify their human-eating the way I could justify the Changelings' love-eating this time, since there's really just no way around that. So I tried my best to write it as…debatable. The point was just to get the Al-Muddy and a group from aboveground to work together just the once in the spirit of friendship and doing the right thing.

· Why did I pick the Al-Muddy in the first place, since they're only in about two episodes proper? Because in "The Citadel", Mozenrath's intro episode, he offhandedly lists it as one of the kingdoms he wants to conquer. NOT having him do so if he had the chance would just have felt like an oversight. (Slight spoiler in that when it comes to where else is on my list…)

· Fluttershy's scary stare is canon. She's stared down a dragon and a cockatrice, and both were so freaked out by her scary stare that they stopped attacking her friends. It's totally canon that she's the Beware the Nice One.

· The thing about Al-Muddy hating fruit? Made it up. I just figured that creatures of the earth with a taste for meat…well, I don't know what that kind of being would find disgusting, actually. Might as well be apples.

· As far as I know, the one Al-Muddy that spoke didn't have a canon name. I had to give the ones here names, of course. Meet my OCs who I promise are only here because OCs were needed to fill in the space: Feldspar, Andalusite, Chalcedony (referenced only), and Shale. I figured rock-themed names were probably the most accurate.

· Since the one Al-Muddy who spoke lived in the giant castle, I assume he was the king. He was killed at the end of his ep by going up to the surface and drying out in the sun.

· There actually aren't houses in the cavern. I made that up. It just makes more SENSE if there are. I mean, where do they live if not in houses near the castle? Maybe creatures of mud just kinda live in puddles. But in that case, why the castle with the incredibly well-stocked kitchen? My fic, my rules, I put houses there.

· It's never clear exactly how much control over the earth the Al-Muddy have…I took some liberties. In his monologue, Mozenrath obviously thought their kingdom more magically valuable than Agrabah. And the oasis trap is canon.

· Also canon that genies, even free ones, can't get back out on their own if you put them in a jar/bottle/etc.

· Writing the battle scene was difficult but fun. The Mane Six probably aren't big fans of violence, but I'm kind of a battle-minded person by nature when it comes to facing down villains. And there used to be a pretty popular fangame in development called "Fighting is Magic" where they had fight movesets, partially inspiring some of the skills I gave them here. (Fighting is Magic was eventually destroyed by a copyright debacle.) Canon: Fluttershy is a martial arts expert (though she prefers to use her powers to massage giant animals), Applejack has ridiculous muscles, and Pinkie never leaves home without her party cannon

· Rarity spinning Xerxes is a reference to the Leekspin meme. 'Cause I felt like it.

· I feel like I'm making things ridiculously over-emotional with the love triangle, but…I like writing drawn-out tsundere romances.