Wishing Upon A Star

Back in the palanquin, I took a last look at Jafar through the blinds as he stood on the palace steps watching us leave. He looked imperious and quite happy. More importantly, Iago stayed right on his shoulder. I thought the Vizier might have sent his companion to spy on us. Of course, he might still, but be smart enough to wait until we couldn't tell.

Which really didn't take long. As soon as the pole bearers had us up, they turned to follow the little fellow who claimed to own the carriage. He had been true to his word to wait for us at least, not that that was all that shocking with what I'd paid him already.

Once back into the crowd, Hilde launched herself across from the other seat into my arms with a passionate kiss as I caught her. Someone was quite worked up, and I didn't mind one bit. We spent a good chunk of the trip back enjoying each other. Finally, she leaned back to ask breathlessly. "Did it work, my lord?"

"One way to find out." Fishing my Company device out, I checked the pending captures, and there were both names. "Three days for the Princess and a full week for Jafar himself, hardly surprising even if he did buy the act. But yes, it worked. You were fantastic."

She chuckled. "I knew once he thought you had captured me, he'd be sure it would work on his Princess. Not that it was very hard to sell, since you have." She kissed me again, pressed up against me tight while sitting on my lap. "I am totally and completely yours. Master."

That was certainly a far cry from her begrudging servitude she had shown at first. And it was good to hear, if she was being sincere, though I was fairly certain the Queen would have been loyal to me just for eternal youth alone. "I am glad to hear it. You have a special place in my heart as well." And she did, though she was no Ella. "Partners are so much better to work with than slaves."

"If you had offered me my youth back at first, I might have taken up your offer without the need for trickery." I raised an incredulous brow at that, and she laughed. "Alright, probably not, but I should have. You have given me more than a lonely throne in a dying land. Speaking of, are we going to wait here the full week then?"

I shook my head. "Hopefully not. I have a plan that should cut down our wait time considerably if it works." And then it would just be a matter of gathering everyone in the house and cashing in on Exit Stage Left.

.

Back at the ship, I gave the carriage owner another couple of gems for the trip. Making sure some of his porters saw so they'd know to ask for a bonus. If they were smart enough. Of course, they might just pull the greasy little man into an alley and take the matter into their own hands. Well, not my problem.

Crossing the gangplank, Cass, Ruby, and Merida were waiting for me with a large sack on the deck between them, looking excited. "Any problems?"

The white haired woman gave me a crisp salute as Hilde raised the gangplank behind us, then made her way over to give Elsa the orders to take the ship around. "Just hunting through all that trash. I can't believe they have so much broken pottery just littering the place, and that's just one junk pile of it apparently."

I knew a little about that actually. "Grog, they grind up old pots to put in with the new clay to make it stronger. Don't know if it actually works though. Not a lot of trees out here, so they must go through quite a lot of pottery. So no one was at all curious about your going through the pots?" Maybe the shards were free to take for anyone who wanted them, seemed odd though.

"A guardsman, or maybe just some street tough with a sword, did nose about while I was on lookout." Ruby said. "Asked what a pretty girl like me was doing all alone in such a dangerous area."

Cassandra and Merida looked like that was the first she'd mentioned it. "Wha happ'en wi' 'im then?" The redhead asked.

"I just grinned at him while imagining tearing out his throat with my teeth. He left in a hurry for some reason soon after." I had to laugh, he was lucky she didn't have to do more than scare whoever he was. Probably was a guard though. I doubted anyone else would be allowed to wear swords here.

"Good job all around then."

I gestured at the sack, and Cass handed it over. "We didn't even take the bottle out of the pot we found it in, just put the whole thing in the bag." Perfect. "We could have just taken the pot, I suppose, but I was as worried about it falling apart and leaving your prize exposed."

Definitely better safe than sorry. "Good thinking." I opened the sack and looked inside. There was a plain earthen pot that did indeed look in bad shape, and nestled down inside was the purple glass, high-necked bottle. It looked old and was covered in dirt and grime. Still, it was obviously of high-quality glasswork, and the bands and bottom were made of yellowish metal that could have been gold, hard to imagine it had spent so long undiscovered, or left in a trash heap in the first place.

I lifted it out and held it up, careful not to rub its surface just yet. The ship was already tacking around in the open water, still some precautions were in order. I whistled, and suddenly both cheshires were in front of me. "I want the two of you on watch. Keep your eyes open for a red parrot or anyone or anything else spying on us." A little paranoia never hurt. After the cats faded from view, I walked over to the cabin, trailed by the threesome. Well, they could watch.

Once inside, I gestured to the door, and Merida closed it behind her. "The three of you must be dying of curiosity by this point, I'm sure." They murmured assent. "This bottle contains a genie. Once I free her, she will owe me three wishes." They gasped. "Yes, I know, powerful magic indeed. But that isn't her whole value."

I grabbed a rag off of the table and started to wipe down the bottle. The grime came off easily, leaving gleaming purple glass and bright gold. Before I could get it completely clean though, the stopper popped off, and thick green smoke poured out quickly filling the room. Just as quickly, it faded, leaving a tall, slim, pale-green-skinned woman with long black hair and pointed ears. Oh, and from the waist down was just thick dark green smoke. All she wore was a pink silk tube top with gold trim, which didn't do much to hide the shape of her full breasts, a pair of golden bracelets, gold hoop earrings, and a pink sash about her waist that hid the transition of her body to smoke. She looked about excitedly before her eyes latched onto the bottle in my hand, at which point she squealed excitedly and rushed forward, clasping my shirt. "What year is it? two thousand years!? I've been in the bottle for two thousand years!" She answered herself, looking stunned. "Oh, I must look a mess! She backed up and disappeared into a green cloud, occasionally showing various makeup items in way more than two hands, waving in and out of the cloud as industrial construction noises could be heard coming from inside. I resisted the urge to facepalm while the girls looked on in wonder. Disney genies... Soon she was done though, and looking exactly the same as before, primping into a hand-held mirror. "Oh, that's so much better. So you must be my new master then? I'm Eden, a genie."

"I know." She looked shocked. "I've been looking for you."

The mirror disappeared from her hand. "Well, that makes introductions easier then. So you know about the wishes? And the rules?"

And I knew better than to wish for more wishes, and a whole lot of other things I was glad not to have to worry about. Disney genies weren't soul stealers, or prone to twist wishes like a lot of their kin from other worlds. "I do. I also know that outside of wishes, so long as you serve me, I can make requests of you."

The pointy-eared ravenette nodded, looking pleased. "Sure, anything reasonable. I live to serve and all that. May I know Master's name, or would you prefer me stick to Master?"

"I am Prince Guy, and you can call me either as you wish." I looked through my pouch and pulled out a silver bracelet with a bright emerald inset. "And I would like you to wear this. All the women who serve me have one."

Eden took the bracelet from me and looked it over curiously. "This is very strong magic, stronger than even mine, I think. Where did you get this?" Looking at the others' arms. "These?"

"From the people I work for, and yes they have a lot of power. So will you wear it for me?" I really didn't want to have to waste a wish on this, but I would if I had to.

She looked long and deep into my eyes, hers nearly as black as her pupils, and her expression gradually looked more and more sad. "I am already bound." She held up her wrists, showing the bracelets on her arms that, while gold, were still clearly manacles. "But if you like, I shall wear yours as well." With a sigh, she clamped the Tempest Bracelet on her upper arm and did not look shocked at all when the clasp faded into the band. Interestingly, she seemed to know exactly what it was by just looking at it.

At that point my Company device went off with a sound more appropriate to a T. rex than its normal chip and vibrated violently with a notification I would be an idiot to ignore. "One second." She nodded, still looking sad, as I fished out the flat black screen. Still on the capture screen from before, I saw Eden's name was now listed, with only slightly more time now than Jafar, since he'd been slowly ticking away from max. I had alerts on the quests tab, and more worryingly a message with a bold red exclamation point. Shit. Had I broken some unknown rule of the Gauntlet here?

I blew out a breath with a prayer to gods I hadn't believed in in a very long time, and thumbed over to the message.

ALERT! You have (somehow) placed a Binding on a Tier X entity. Congratulations for having more balls than brains. As this tier falls outside the scope of your test, if you (somehow) manage to complete the capture they will be limited to only Tier 10 for the duration. If you should complete the test intact and still in possession of the entity by then, they will be unshackled at that point. ALERT!

Well, that wasn't ominous at all... Not. It could have been far worse though, and at 'only' a tier ten Eden was still really fucking powerful. Honestly, a lot of the Tier X stuff was probably the potential of her wishes, if I just used them up before she was captured they'd still be full power. So what was the quest stuff? Thumbing over there got me another quick answer

Hidden Quest Found! Speed Run: Capture a tier 10+ Companion on a tier 1 world. Reward: 100 credits and a free Binding upgrade.

Fuck that was nice, and Eden was already worth a ton of credits thanks to the 100% on Capture intensity setting.

Well, no time like the present. I took one of Eden's hands in mine, after putting away my device, and tried to give her a cheering smile. "Hey, if it helps at all, I plan to use one of those wishes to free you from your lamp."

Her eyes went wide in disbelief, and I kid you not fireworks launched out from behind her. They didn't do anything but make noise though, leaving the room unscathed. "Really? You're not just getting my hopes up?"

"Really, really." Her smile lit the room. I'd been thinking of this since Hilde had found Eden's lamp in her mirror. I knew what I wanted for two of the wishes, but was still blanking on the third. I could just wish a bracelet onto anyone I wanted, probably. The problem was that all the people I could think of to do so, I either already had them captured, didn't want them, like Ursula, or didn't know if they were in this shared Disney world. So tempting as that was, it was out. I couldn't just wish for company credits, as powerful as the wishes were, that would at best just not work and possibly rebound badly. Hmmm, well I had just gotten Soul Talent from my Dragon Heritage. How to carefully word a wish for learning magic though? Yeah, that could work. "Okay, let's get this out of the way so you can be free."

Eden was practically glowing now, no, wait, she was actually glowing. Sheesh. "Okay! Anything you want!"

Here goes. "I wish for a book of powerful spells that I can learn." That should cover the bases with a genie who wasn't trying to twist things. And no jumping the gun to just wishing to be a powerful sorcerer like Jafar would have done if things had gone differently. I wanted to learn it on my own and understand it.

"Easy peasy!" She blinked, and I was suddenly holding a large metal-bound tome. I had to laugh, spelled out on the front in draconic runes was 'Magic for Dummies.' That worked.

Just in case I flipped through some pages, the whole book did seem to be written in draconic, but it had sections of actual spells as well a a good chunk on theory and practical application. Excellent. "Okay, this second one is a bit more tricky. You can manipulate time, right?" She nodded. "Okay, I wish the last three people I gave bracelets to have been wearing them for a week now." Was I wasting a wish to jump ahead when I could just cool my jets for a week? Yes. But honestly, I was ready to finish up this world already and didn't care.

I wasn't actually sure she could do this since it involved a Company device, but manipulating time around them, or at least the people wearing them, was theoretically possible. "Okay." With a look of intense concentration, she blinked again, and my pocket chirped with several notifications. "Done." Eyes shining, she took my hands. "I love you, Master."

Hot damn, it worked! Now it was just a matter of selling off Jafar, collecting Jasmine, and herding everyone into my house for the endgame.

Oh, and of course, one last wish to make. "Eden, I wish you were no longer bound by your lamp." As the mist below her waist formed into silk-clad legs and the golden cuffs fell off her wrists, she wrapped me in her arms and kissed me quite thoroughly.

"Best Master ever."