A Home for Heroes

[Mickey Mouse]

EPILOGUE

Two years later…

Nippur did endure, indeed.

Mickey Mouse and Proto Man disappeared from the New Babylon capital, but the memory of the two pint-sized primes responsible for the city’s destruction did not quickly fade from the minds of its citizens. In the days that followed their week-long excursion, rumors persisted that they remained in the shadows, lurking, just waiting to enact some new form of chaos within the walls of the glorious city of gold.

These rumors never came to fruition. After raiders had destroyed the West Gate, Proto Man slipped unnoticed out of the city, thus far never to return. Members of the Gold Cross, which had been melded with a new hospital complex established by Gilgamesh upon the gilded king’s return, whispered of the preteen machine’s goodness, and in some corners of the city, people began to believe it. But when the old leadership of New Babylon began to retake their holdings on the capital city, any such positive talk of their king’s assailants was squelched quickly.

After falling unconscious in his efforts to chase the street rat and his companions, Mickey Mouse had been shuffled to a secret hideaway, where Aladdin, Abu, and the Shadow Man presented him to his wife and Queen, Minnie. The pair had absconded in the dead of night, feeling themselves no longer welcome here—as if they’d ever felt truly welcome in the first place. As a parting gift, the young thief Aladdin sent the mouse off with a small brass lamp, one of the treasures he’d swiped from the Nippur stockholds, and his trusty magic carpet. Mickey would see it put to good use. While Blues might have resurfaced when large threats rose to try and stomp the Omniverse into submission, the mouse couple disappeared from all records, nestled deep on an uncharted island in the Vasty Deep, far away from those who chased them: agents of Nippur, agents of the Empire…

For his part, the street rat faded back into obscurity. Without the Queen, Simba, Mireya, or the Genie around, he and Abu found themselves marvelously unprotected and susceptible to all kinds of unfortunate accidents. He kept a steady patronage to the Porcelain Throne, to keep his ear on the pulse of the city, but for the most part left things well enough alone. Even when Gilgamesh returned miraculously from the Underverse and resumed power, he kept his head down.

He always hoped, deep down, that one day the mouse king would emerge from hibernation and return to Nippur. That he would see his Majesty again, under better circumstances. But after long enough, even that dream drifted into the background.

That thought remained dormant until the ninth Dante’s Abyss began, and the face of the one Nippur had come to know as ‘Murder Mouse’ was blasted across every screen, pitted once again against the King of Heroes.

For hours, most establishments tuned their televisions to Fight #5. The televisions in the Porcelain Throne in particular ignored all other New Babylon matches—Sasuke Uchiha’s, Victor Wolfe’s, etcetera—in favor of watching their captain of the guard team up with their worst nightmare to fight the king and some red-headed boy. They watched as the mouse king sparred on equal footing with their own monarch, neither seeming to have a consistent advantage. They watched as Gilgamesh transformed into a screaming demon. They watched as the kings began to… talk rationally with one another, just before Yu Kanda swooped in and guaranteed the mouse’s team the victory.

Aladdin watched, too, with bated breath. Mickey Mouse was alive and well, and back in the public eye. That could only mean good things, right? As demon Gilgamesh flew outside the ring, the young thief stifled a cheer—since the King’s triumphant return, even rebellious sects like the patrons of the Porcelain Throne had begun to sympathize with him, recognizing the effectiveness of his new policies.

In a booth over in the corner, a tall, lanky, hooded man entered into a rough coughing fit. Aladdin’s attention was drawn. “Long live the king,” the man said through hacking, raising a fist. Aladdin couldn’t figure out which king he meant.

He continued to choke on the bar’s seedy air, long spindly fingers bringing a jet black handkerchief to his face. As images of a downed Gilgamesh danced across the screen, commentary droning over them, the hooded man emerged from his booth and headed for the door, grabbing a long, bronze staff adorned with a cobra’s head from the wall nearby. A staff Aladdin knew all too well.

Jafar.

Without a moment’s hesitation, the young thief got up and placed himself between Jafar and the doorway. The former vizier paused, then reached up and removed his hood.

“So,” he said calmly, “We meet again.”

“Surprised to see you down here amongst us common folk, Jafar,” Aladdin replied.

“Surprised to see you still amongst the living folk, street rat,” Jafar spat. He stood up as straight as he could, but was bested rather quickly by another coughing fit. “Still sending your prayers to that false king?”

Aladdin smirked. “He’s a mouse, I’m a rat, we’re basically kinfolk.”

“You’re both trash is what you are,” the former vizier scoffed. “Incredible that he somehow managed to defeat the one true king. Probably has something to do with the traitorous captain of the guard holding back.”

“You speak like you’re still a member of New Babylon’s leadership,” Aladdin snarked.

Jafar’s current predicament only confirmed the rumors the young thief had heard; in the months before Gilgamesh’s triumphant return from the Underverse, the mustachioed man had been ejected from the high councils. Apparently his schemes had been unearthed, and his draw to the power structures of New Babylon revealed. Aladdin had always known that the man could only have eyes for ultimate power and not the good of the people, but he was happy to see that at least some of this faction, whom he’d thought pure evil for so long, at least had some limits.

So, it was true then: Jafar had been living in relative exile in the poor sections of the city for almost a year. He’d heard tell of it, but had never seen his face with his own eyes.

And now, perhaps, it was time to take care of him for good.

Aladdin reached into his belt and pulled out a curved knife, still perfectly silver since it had never before been used. He took a step toward Jafar but was met with a beam of flaming energy ejecting from the wizard’s staff that surged straight through his bare chest, leaving a burning, charred hole straight through him.

Back at his table, Abu began screeching and flailing wildly. Other patrons of the Porcelain Throne gasped and stood up from their seats, watching in horror as Aladdin crumpled to the floor, dead. Jafar, for his part, took a deep breath of relief and hurried past the young man’s smoldering form toward the door. He’d nearly reached it when that same curved dagger lodged itself in the back of his head, stopping him in his tracks.

Dark red blood oozed from the wound as Jafar’s eyes rolled into his head. Behind him, Aladdin took his last breaths, having used the final bits of his energy to destroy the evil wizard who’d haunted him for so long, in this world and his last.

Evening set on the lives of Aladdin and Jafar just as it set on Nipput and New Babylon. The staff of the Porcelain Throne hurried to sweep up the violence, wondering if it predicated another conflict between supporters of the mouse and supporters of their king like the one which had nearly cost them their city all those years ago.

They couldn’t know that it was actually the dying gasp of such a conflict.

They couldn’t know that within hours, the long-standing war between their two kings would finally be over, sealed with a song.

Nippur would survive. And thrive.