A Home for Heroes

[Mickey Mouse]

PROLOGUE

For days, Nippur burned and no one batted an eye.

Battle had ravaged the streets. Where buildings once stood, now only rubble remained—whether ripped down by the savage members of LAW or the golden chains of the city’s own master, the architecture had seen better days.

Gilgamesh’s gilded throne sat empty. His place, occupied by a contingency of guards with no king to protect, operated on a slower pace than usual. Gradually, a council of some of the King of Heroes’ most trusted advisers formed and attempted to discern what direction the city could take in the absence of their monarch. Would someone step up and lead? Sasuke Uchiha, the king’s de facto second-in-command, had also disappeared without a trace in the midst of battle, leaving no clear successor to the throne. At the head of the council sat Anos, but even he felt some discomfort in the idea of seizing command of New Babylon.

What if Gilgamesh were to return? Would he be displeased to see his throne occupied by a mere mortal? The council could vividly imagine his response.

“You will vacate that chair immediately, mongrel.”

Alas, their leader fell to the likes of one of the very vermin he so detested. With his demise, New Babylon had lurched in pain. It still stood, albeit on very shaky legs, quivering in fear of the creature that had robbed them of their ruler. The armored mouse vanished, too, shortly following the battle’s conclusion, but his small shadow loomed large over Nippur in the days that followed.

The people of the broken city soon inducted the amalgamation of Proto Man and Mickey Mouse into their mythology. To many, his image loomed as a deadly threat, stalking them in the shadows at night, willing to banish them at any moment like he did their king. These rumors persisted, growing and growing until they’d reached a threshold that could only be described as ridiculous hyperbole—rumors of a lion with ferocity to match the king’s own lion, Ishtar, rampaging through the town. Most observers shot down these rumblings, but a few claimed to have seen the unmistakable silhouette of a lion making its way through the back alleys of town in the days since the battle.

To a number of the town’s inhabitants—a smaller contingency, but a present one nonetheless—the mouse-boy hybrid was heralded as a hero. A bard in one of the town’s darker taverns dared to compose a song of glory in the mouse’s name.

The era of tyranny gone,
Our monster’s no longer in fashion.
At the hands of a smaller one
Than any of us could imagine.

We wake to a blood-red sun
A new day is our prize!
At last, our evil is done
And the year of the Mouse arrives.

Perhaps as a symbol of his good will, the Proto Mouse had made one stop before separating into his parts and slipping unnoticed out of town. In his final visit to the castle to inform them of Gilgamesh’s banishment—news they did not take very well—he left the last remaining piece of their king: his sword, Ea. In the days that followed, a shabby memorial to the King of Heroes had been erected in the main hall of the palace with Ea at the center, encased in a giant glass case on one of the foyer’s ornate walls. Anos opened the room to the public, and many grievers poured in to pay, they feared, their final respects to their great ruler. Some scattered roses at the foot of the wall; some nailed notes of love and respect to it in remembrance of him; some sang hymns of mourning. Others still simply prayed for providence for him, wherever he may be.

But while the display may have served for some as a symbol of Gilgamesh’s everlasting glory, for others it simply proved a reminder of the bastard they had once lived under. The group of New Babylonians who despised the king certainly made up a very small minority of Nippur’s residents, but they relished in Proto Mouse’s victory, and deplored the erection of a monument in honor of a man they despised. In some of the darker corners of the city, whispers talked of a young man tasked with stealing it.

Naturally, the palace was on high alert.

Many more guards lined the castle walls than Aladdin had planned for. Since word of their scheme had leaked, Anos and the other council-members had beefed up security in the nighttime hours, which was an obstacle the thief had not anticipated. No matter; he would not have been selected for this job if the powers-that-be hadn’t thought him skilled enough to accomplish it. He would make it work.

He stood atop a building across the street from Gilgamesh’s palace—one of the few buildings on this block that remained completely intact, in fact—and observed the patrol of guards that had situated itself near the gates of the palace walls.

“Abu,” he whispered, and his monkey sidekick scampered up onto his shoulder, “Think you can take care of those guys for me?”

The primate nodded and squeaked out an unintelligible response, and then immediately took off running down towards the three guards that stood before the gates. Quickly, he made his way to the wall, and then climbed along the iron rungs of the gate until he was close enough to leap onto one of the soldiers. He attached himself to the man’s helmet, shutting the visor and causing him to stumble backwards. Another of the warriors noticed and began trying to shoo the monkey off his friend, and Abu leapt to the ground, scurrying off.

In their blind fury, the two chased off after him, leaving their buddy to tend to the gates by his lonesome. As he looked off after them, desperately calling for their return, Aladdin hurried by, stealthily slipping in between two of the bars on the gate and reaching the courtyard of the palace without being spotted.

He pressed up against one of the castle walls as the lone gate guard turned in his direction; he slowed down his breathing, inhaling and exhaling as quietly as he could until the man’s focus left him, and then he hurried away, making his way as silently as he could manage up the steps and slipping through the just slightly open palace doors—they hadn’t been able to completely close them since the locks had been ripped off mid-battle.

Inside the palace, silence reigned. Ea hung on the wall opposite the entrance, surrounded by all sorts of gifts dedicated to Gilgamesh’s memory. Aladdin tried his best not to notice them—it honestly disturbed the boy to think about how many people had looked up to the tyrant. He had only lived within the walls of Nippur for a few short weeks under the king’s rule before Proto Mouse had deposed him, but he had seen the man’s character come out. He had claimed to be fighting for the greater good, but Aladdin had seen no evidence of it. In no way did the boy think Gilgamesh could compare to the Sultan of Agrabah, back home, or the King that ruled even above him.

A King he’d never met, but had always heard so much about. Perhaps one day soon, he would come face-to-face with the famous Mickey Mouse himself.

And this, he knew, was step one.

Slowly, the boy approached the sword, hanging ever-so-delicately on the wall. If he could steal this, the last evidence of Gilgamesh would disappear from view. And perhaps, they would be able to find a clue to the whereabouts of the Saviors. He reached up, placing his hands on the glass casing and preparing to lift it off.

“Stop where you are!”

Drat. His fingers curled into fists.

“Heh,” the guard’s gruff voice snickered, “It’s you again, eh? Didn’t I catch you stealing some bread last week?” Aladdin remained silent, facing away. “Looks like you’re either itching to get thrown in jail, or you’re just not a very good thief.”

The boy spun around to face the hulking guard, who had a large battleax slung over his shoulder. A twinge of fear slithered up his spine.

“Good enough to not get caught,” he snarked back.

“We’ll see about that.”

The soldier swung his axe toward the boy, but Aladdin proved his worth—too agile for the guard, he ducked beneath the weapon’s trajectory and dove past the man, landing into a somersault on the other side of him. Without pausing to see what his guard buddy was up to, he stood and broke into a sprint, slipping through the crack in the door and making a break for the gate.

The doors of the palace swung creakily open behind him, and the guard’s booming footsteps echoed against the hard stone of the palace steps. Aladdin leapt up onto the gate, clambering to the top and flipping over. He barely landed upright on his two feet, and after taking a split second to regain his balance, began to run for the cover of buildings. He maneuvered through the alleyways of a nearby cluster of still relatively-intact shops and, eventually, lost his pursuers.

But he’d also lost his prize. His bosses would not be happy.

Once he was sure he wasn’t being followed, he returned to the Porcelain Throne, the local tavern where a few wayward souls dared to try and formulate a plan to sweep all memories of Gilgamesh from the city. Though at this time of night the bar’s patrons mostly consisted of those too unhappy to return to their own beds, a small room in the back contained a few secondaries—and one prime—conspiratorially huddling over lanterns.

He stepped into the dimly lit space to see Abu sitting on the edge of the table, having beaten him back here. The monkey’s expression drooped when it became clear his master had returned empty-handed. Aladdin looked to the head of the table.

“I’m sorry,” he started, “I was discovered. The guards knew we were coming; they were on higher alert than normal.”

“Disappointing,” the voice of their female leader squeaked.

“We must prepare more thoroughly next time,” the red-maned lion just to her left resolved. “If we’re ever going to find the King, we need more information on what happened here, and we won’t get anything else from the citizenry. We’ve exhausted what the common folk know.”

“With all due respect, Lieutenant Simba,” Aladdin said, sliding into a chair at the table, “…is it possible the King had nothing at all to do with what happened here?”

“Absolutely not,” the girl at the head of the table and the only prime in their contingency growled, “The people I sent out to search for my husband said there was no mistake: he and Blues were here. And I bet they still are, hiding away somewhere, or worse, locked away by some of that awful man’s soldiers. Oh, I can’t bear to think of it.” Her large ears bristled with frustration. “We will find him, Aladdin,” she glared at the thief, “He is here. Now, let’s get back to work. Okay?”

“Yes, Queen Minnie,” Aladdin nodded, “Of course, Your Majesty.”