"I envy Aladdin so! He always wins and, look, he's got a babe too! It's just unfair!" The short, round man crossed his arms on his chest and glared at nobody in particular. At that moment, it felt like everything in the world had gone sour and someone had given him green spectacles. "Why does he get to win every time, anyway?"
Abis Mal frowned to himself and turned his glare to the hysterical Greek inventor by his side. The man was currently having the time of his life. Abis Mal suspected that it was the first time that the grouch was laughing out of joy. Why was Mechanikles having fun when he was feeling so miserable?
That thought triggered something in his mind and he realised that the situation wasn't making much sense. During the short and utterly unpleasant time he had known Mechanikles, he had learnt that if there was one feeling the man wasn't supposed to be feeling, it was joy. Anger, rage, arrogance and evil satisfaction, yes. Joy? No. And that made him ponder his own state. He got his butt kicked by Aladdin practically every other day. The kind of crushing jealousy he was feeling at the moment was out of proportion.
"Hey, you! Snap out of it!" he said and gave his temporary partner in crime a slap to the face. It only resulted in the Greek falling over to the rubble-filled floor. There was barely a pause in his laughter and Abis Mal felt himself grow severely irritated.
"He looks so happy. Why couldn't I get the white stone?" he whined to himself. Then he shook his head. He had to think clearly now. Pushing all other thoughts to the back of his mind -- not that it was hard, there was a lot of empty space in his head -- he gave himself a quick examination. Soon his fingers found the bug with the green stone, ripped it off his clothes and threw it as far as possible.
The change was immense. All of a sudden all thoughts of Aladdin's advances, which were quite numerous, vanished. Sure, the bitter taste of defeat was still there, but he was already used to it. Next week, he'd have a new plot ready.
Now that he was himself again, Abis Mal could have a real look at his surroundings. The mountain had collapsed on them and everything was in ruins. Rocks, pieces of machinery and dust lay all around. From the look of things, he considered it a miracle they were both still alive.
With that, he turned his eyes to Mechanikles. There had been no change in his condition and Abis Mal guessed that he'd better let the man out of his misery before anything serious happened. The Greek was already starting to look like he'd die of suffocation any minute now.
"Ha! Who's the clever one now?" he asked and grinned to himself before snatching the white stone off Mechanikles. Abis Mal let out a giggle and suddenly felt a lot better. Keeping the stone to himself felt tempting, but he found the strength to throw it away.
Mechanikles gasped for breath, coughed and slowly rose to his feet. He took a second or two to gather his thoughts. Then he noticed the utter destruction around him. They had seen glimpses of it before the stones had activated, but now the view was all too clear.
"My hideout! It's in ruins! It's... it's..." the Greek stammered, his wide eyes darting from one destroyed machine to other and taking in the piles of rock that had buried everything. He pulled at his hair and looked like he was about to go into hysterics again. Abis Mal prided himself for being the most sensible one of them at the moment.
"You! It's all your fault!" Mechanikles whirled around and pointed an accusing finger at Abis Mal. "If you hadn't been such a nonsensical fool, this would have never happened! I would have been better off on my own! Take a look at this place! Do you have any idea how long I spent cleaning and making this place liveable? And my beautiful pets! They're all --"
"Yeah, yeah, I get it. Stop making such a scene," Abis Mal said in annoyance. To be frank, he had no idea why teaming up with this unstable lunatic had seemed like such a good idea in the first place. At least when he failed alone, he didn't have to be in the receiving end of verbal abuse.
Mechanikles closed his eyes and shook with fury. "Why, you... Argh, just get out! I have to straighten this mess and I'll never get it done with your prehistoric presence around!"
"Gladly! Just let me pick up my mood stones. I'm not letting you keep them," Abis Mal said. He huffed to himself, walked past the irritated inventor and started searching for the stones. He quickly found the green and white ones and put them in the little box he had for them. Locating the rest would be a more difficult task, he knew, for the stones could have scattered anywhere when flying off their victims. For all he knew, they might have been crushed under the falling rocks.
"Well, I'm waiting," came Mechanikles' impatient comment. The Greek was standing with his arms crossed on his chest and tapping the battered floor with his foot.
"Hey, take it easy! I'm doing the best I can!" Abis Mal shouted at him and then went back to his work. "That stupid dolt. Who does he think he is, ordering me around like that?" The last phrases he muttered to himself, not wanting to get into another heated argument. He was feeling tired and wanted nothing more than to get something to fill his empty stomach and find a decent place to sleep at.
Some ten minutes later, he found the purple stone, his least favourite. "This is one I could have done without," he said and put the stone away before it affected him too much. If he wasn't being careful, he might end up like some people.
While Abis Mal had been looking for the stones, Mechanikles had found something else to occupy himself with. He was currently going through the piles of rock to see if there was anything worth saving. There was something glittering under some of the debris. He picked it up and examined it with his mechanical eye piece.
"I think I found your --" he started, turning to face Abis Mal, and stopped abruptly. Signs of annoyance disappeared from his face and were replaced by a delighted smile. The Greek clasped his hands behind his back and stood straighter. Abis Mal watched the change with a lifted brow.
"I must apologize for my rude behaviour a moment ago," Mechanikles strolled over to him with that creepy grin on his face. "Really, I'm truly sorry. Would you care to join me for dinner later tonight?"
"Huh?" was the most intelligent thing Abis Mal could say at the moment. Had the freak managed to hit his head while he wasn't looking? The way the taller man was looking at him made him feel uncomfortable and he strongly considered running for it and leaving the rest of the mood stones behind.
His stomach ended up making the final decision for him. It let out a low growl and reminded him that he hadn't eaten properly in a long time. The little snack he had had earlier was nothing. "Uh, sure," he agreed then. After all, what could go wrong? The Greek freak was paying anyway.
"How wonderful!" Mechanikles clapped his hands together and gave him a wide smile. He looked like he couldn't have been happier. "Now, you just sit here and let me take care of everything!"
Abis Mal had nothing against that. He sat down and watched how the Greek resumed his previous work. It was sort of nice to be treated like this for a change, even if the person in question was someone he truly disliked. Sometimes, when he was actually a paying customer, he still got treated like dirt.
Mechanikles worked hard like an ant. Abis Mal congratulated himself for that amusing metaphor and chuckled to himself. "Hey, where's the dinner?" he bellowed then, just to see what the other man would do.
"It's coming shortly!" Mechanikles rummaged through the debris and found something that looked like it had once been table. Within an instant, he had rushed back to Abis Mal and smashed the suffered piece of furniture in front of him, almost breaking the thief's toes in the process.
"Watch it!" Abis Mal snapped. "I don't have more than these ten!"
Rather surprisingly, Mechanikles paid no attention to that, but went straight to polishing the table. Abis Mal watched. After a minute, he was starting to get irritated. When five had passed, he snatched the cloth from the inventor and threw it away.
"Knock it off! That's enough!" he said. "If we're going to eat, we might do it now. I've got a lot of planning to do if I want to get Aladdin killed this week." He was half expecting Mechanikles to start an argument about which one of them would kill the street rat, but the man only shrugged and continued smiling.
"Whatever makes you happy," he said.
Okay, this is really starting to creep me out, Abis Mal thought. Perhaps it would be the best to leave before things got too weird. Yeah. He stood up. "On second thought, I think I'll return to Agrabah. I have to watch my figure."
"What? You can't do that!" Mechanikles stared at him wide eyed as if Abis Mal had just slapped him. All his previous enthusiasm was gone, his shoulders slumped and he looked completely heartbroken.
"Why not? I thought you wanted me out of the way so that you could start 'cleaning this place'," Abis Mal said and imitated the Greek's upper-crust way of speaking. He frowned and glared at the other man, waiting for an answer.
Mechanikles gave none. He frowned slightly to himself. "I... don't want you to go. It would be nice if you stayed," he admitted then, rubbing the back of his neck with a slight flush on his face. He couldn't meet Abis Mal's eyes and the thief suddenly knew exactly what was wrong. Numerous people had called him stupid, and right now he felt like agreeing with them. How come he hadn't realised this before?
"You have the pink stone!" he accused angrily. "It's mine! Give it to me!" He didn't really think through his next action. If he had stopped, even for a second, he might have realised exactly how the stone had affected Mechanikles and what it would do to him when he got within the range.
However, he let his greed and possessiveness take over him and jumped at the inventor, trying to snatch the stone from him. He'd be damned if he let anyone steal from him!
They fell to the ground in a heap of limbs. For the first few seconds there was much fighting, kicking and shouting as Abis Mal tried to find out where the other man had hidden the stone. Then it turned into something else, though that's not to say it became any less intense.
Hey, what's he doing? What am I doing, he thought as he tried to put his thoughts together. It turned out to be an impossible task, though, and the only thing he could think about at the moment was the warmth, closeness and feeling of doing something wonderful with someone he wanted. It was wrong and disgusting and immoral and he loved it.
The first thing Abis Mal saw was darkness. It was thick and deep and he was unable to see any light anywhere. For a moment, he panicked and thought he had gone blind, but then he realised that his eyes were closed. He opened them slowly.
Suddenly, a horrified scream rang through the destroyed cavern and jerked him wide awake. Cold shivers went down his spine. It had sounded like someone's insides had just been ripped out of their stomach.
"What's going on?" he muttered to himself and looked around. Then his mind seemed to register several things at once. It was an admirable achievement for him. The first fact he realised was that he was currently sprawled on a coach and that he was feeling slight pain in places he'd rather not think about. He was wearing suspiciously little clothing as well.
Suddenly he saw something that he wished he'd never have to see again. Mechanikles ran from behind a fallen wall -- Abis Mal recalled that the freak had had a small bathing area built over there, for reasons he simply didn't comprehend because bathing once a year was fine for him -- stark naked save for a white towel around his waist.
"You... I... uh..." the Greek stuttered and the look on his wide eyed face was so terrified and disgusted that Abis Mal started to get worried, too. He blinked. He had the distinct feeling of doing something really stupid and reckless, but it took a while before all the images came back to him. When they did, however, his expression turned into a similar one to Mechanikles'.
"No! Oh no, no, no!" He felt ready to vomit. He had just done the sickest thing any man could do and with someone he despised, no less. He was going to burn in the deepest level of hell for this, he was sure. How could he have been so stupid and not get well away from the inventor and the pink stone?
"I don't believe it!" The nausea on Mechanikles' face mirrored Abis Mal's own.
"To think that the stone could make me do something like that! Betrayed by my own plot!" the thief wailed in disgust.
"Look at you! You filthy, dirty troglodyte! You must be carrying at least a hundred different diseases! I will never feel clean again!"
"That's what you're worried about? What about that we're both men?" Eew, Abis Mal could remember that detail all too clearly. He winced to himself. He half considered banging his head on the wall to get amnesia.
"Well, that's not particularly unheard of where I'm coming from," Mechanikles said matter-of-factly. "Though it's more common between men and young boys in any case."
Abis Mal thought he could have lived a happy life without that little detail. He made a mental note never to visit Greece even if his life depended on it. Several city-states filled with crazy lunatics sounded like a nightmare to him.
He gathered his clothes quickly and stood up, ready to leave. There was no way he was going to remain here much longer. He scratched his chin and wondered how he'd find his way back to Agrabah through the desert.
"Oh, don't tell me you've got fleas!" Mechanikles shrieked in panic.
"I don't!" Abis Mal snapped. "Well, many at least." He really wished the inventor would go and get dressed. His half-naked form reminded the thief of the previous night. He suddenly thought that perhaps he'd better get cleaned as soon as possible as well. Bathing was a practise he considered tiresome and unnecessary, but in this case he just might have to swallow his principles. For the first time in his life, Abis Mal was feeling filthy.
"Eh, you wouldn't mind if I used your place as well?" he asked, nodding towards the corner where he suspected the facilities were.
Mechanikles looked horrified. "What? I'd have to disinfect everything! And I just did it yesterday!" he said.
"Come on. This place is in ruins. You aren't going to use it anymore anyway," Abis Mal nagged. He didn't like the way the Greek was looking at him. As if he was some kind of rat or something equally disgusting.
The inventor rubbed his temples and groaned. "Alright. But then you get lost," he said.
"Nothing would suit me better," Abis Mal muttered and stormed off.
A few seconds later, he heard Mechanikles call after him, "Watch out for my tunic! I think the stone is somewhere in it." When Abis Mal got closer he noticed the red piece of clothing. It was hanging neatly from a hook and glaring at him. He crept past it, making sure he was well away from the stone's range.
He got himself cleaned more thoroughly than ever before in his life. It didn't make him feel less miserable, but he was already pondering about the future. Perhaps he'd let Aladdin be for a while and concentrate on other matters, such as proving himself and everyone else that he was a real man. He decided to return straight to Agrabah and get his hands on the first prostitute he could find -- no matter the age, looks or skills.
This plan was what he was still thinking hours later when the hot sun scorched him from above. A tiny voice in his head tried to tell him that what he had experienced the previous night was the best he had ever had. Another voice tried to point out that it was all he had ever had, but he was pretty good at ignoring them both.
Once left alone, Mechanikles felt a lot more at ease. The sight of that horrible caveman had made him truly sick. Now that he no longer had to torture himself by looking at such a cruel deformity of nature, he felt like he might be able to move on to more important matters.
He placed his hands on his hips and eyed the mess they had made the previous night. He sniffed to himself. "Ah, well. Better start cleaning up before getting to work on my next plan of world domination." He pulled out his scroll and began writing down. "Get rid of the coach and burn it, find a new secret hideout, kill Aladdin."
He stopped to think for a moment and crossed out the third one. "Stop picking up random objects that lead to passion-filled nights that only result in much embarrassment afterwards and then kill Aladdin."
The End