Work Text:
Even as a child, Doflamingo had heard stories of the mystical Djinn of the Desert who could grant any wish. Of course, they seemed like fairy tales, but they had stuck in his young mind, having declared he would find it one day, much to the mirth of his family at the time. Better times, indeed. But the memories resurfaced when Doflamingo was looking over reports from his operations where one of his loan sharks had given money to an expedition to ancient ruins in the middle of a desert island. The loan shark agent had reported an easy mark to up the interest and had laughed about the researcher looking to find the genie’s lamp.
Doflamingo sat back in his desk chair, the memory brought certain nightmares forth, but he quickly pushed them away mentally. “The Djinn…” He muttered. Could it really be real? Devil Fruits were real, and some were just as fantastical as the idea of a wish-granting entity. Feeling curious and having an odd nagging feeling about this, he looked into the researcher’s proposal which the loan shark had included for amusement reasons, figuring someone else would also get a kick out of what they perceived as an idiot’s fantastical ramblings.
Of course, no research institution would fund an expedition to find the genie’s lamp. But the researcher seemed so convinced he would find it that he had taken a ridiculous loan from the loan shark. Easy mark, indeed. Doflamingo rubbed his chin thoughtfully. The research looked surprisingly legit; the researcher having found a book that traced back to the library from O’Hara’s Tree of Knowledge. It had spoken of an ancient powerful king during the Void Century called Solomon who enslaved demons and had sealed away the Djinn in a desert country that the researcher had figured out to be Madripoor.
It should all just be stories, but Doflamingo had a strange gut feeling about this, his young self’s proclamation blaring in his mind. One might say he already had everything he wanted or could get it himself, but someone like Doflamingo had desires that could never be truly fulfilled. What he could accomplish with a wish-granting genie… he could take his revenge at last. At the very least, he wouldn’t want anyone else to have that power.
His mind set, Doflamingo jumped from his seat and snatched up his feather coat, startling Trebol out of his nap in a nearby armchair. “Cancel my next month or so, Trebol. I am going on an adventure!” Doflamingo exclaimed gleefully.
“W-What!? B-but Doffy-“ Trebol was stammering behind him as Doflamingo cackled and simply leapt through his open window, snatching a cloud on his strings, launching himself high into the air.
Doflamingo took a ride on several ships to get all the way from Spider Miles to Madripoor. It took only a little asking around in the harbour city where the majority of that country’s people lived to hear that the expedition had gone inland and which direction they took. He packed away some water and food just to make sure if he had to search longer, then took off. It was a bit trickier to travel by cloud through the desert, so he had to switch between his usual method and marching through the desert sand. If this turned out to be a flop, he would kill that researcher nice and slowly. He got his best travel time during dusk and dawn, and it was at dawn that his high vantage point gave him a good view of the ancient ruins ahead. Doflamingo smirked seeing the caravan of camels and tents outside it. He found the place.
Doflamingo dropped lightly from the sky and tucked his hands into his pants’ pockets as he sauntered inside. It was easy to follow the excited exclamations from the researcher and his assistants. There was a rumble and he peeked around an ancient pillar to see them opening a massive stone door, the lights of their lamps illuminating treasures beyond. As one, they piled inside and Doflamingo quietly sneaked closer. He glanced through the door, seeing a massive burial chamber beyond. The assistants were gushing excitedly over the riches, but like Doflamingo, the head researcher, a chubby older man who obviously spent most of his life behind a desk, was interested in a greater prize.
It wasn’t hard to find, luckily. In fact, their longed-for prize was standing on display in the middle of the room, as resting upon a polished marble pillar was an ancient golden oil lamp. ‘ Is it really that easy?’ Doflamingo thought somewhat astonished. He carefully moved inside, staying by the wall to make sure he wasn’t heard, but stayed close by the exit. Old stories about these adventures were always full of booby traps and suchlike. As much as he wanted to reach out and snatch that lamp before the researcher got his grubby hands on it, he thought it wise to wait and see.
The research team wasn’t so careful. The researcher immediately stepped up to the pillar and picked up the lamp, the awe-stricken assistants moving closer. Doflamingo braced himself to run and come back for the lamp later, but … nothing happened. He glanced around, almost disappointed with the lack of explosions or cave-ins. These ancient people were rather disappointing, he thought. This adventure seemed too easy.
His mood was lifted though when the research team shouted in awe as the researcher rubbed the lamp to finally test the truth of what he came for. The lamp glowed in his hands and sand poured forth from the spout, spilling onto the floor and then swirling up in a dizzying miniature sandstorm. The sand convalesced into the most gorgeous creature Doflamingo had ever seen. Her skin was ethereally pale, contrasting with animalistic golden eyes with a vertical slit. Her gorgeous features were youthful and were only enhanced, in Doflamingo’s opinion, by the gnarly scar crossing her face like a crocodilian smile. She wore a tight black dress, and a long fur coat was draped over her shoulders, and instead of a left hand, there was a golden hook.
“You are the Genie of the Lamp? You grant wishes?” The researcher eagerly asked the mystical creature that appeared.
The tall being looked at the old man rather unimpressed, looking like a lioness wondering why this fly was bothering her, but then spoke, “Yes, that’s me. So, what is your wish?”
“I want to be forever young!” The researcher exclaimed immediately, looking at the djinn with barely contained glee. It was a good, if predictable wish, Doflamingo thought. At least he would be able to gauge the truth of the myth now if it came true.
The cold smile that formed on her face sent a shiver down even Doflamingo’s spine. “As you wish,” she said and snapped the fingers of her right hand.
The man’s eagerness and glee quickly turned to horror as his skin started to bubble “W-wha-“ His voice disappeared as his body warped gruesomely, becoming translucent and slime-like. The gooey monstrosity collapsed on the floor, making the research assistants scream. The goo shrank rapidly until it was mostly out of sight from Doflamingo’s view. The assistants ran for their lives from the chamber. Doflamingo inched closer, wanting to find out what happened.
The Djinn crouched down, looking at a spot in front of her and she grinned at the little blob lying in front of her. “Whoops. You forgot to mention being placed in your natural environment,” she taunted. “What is it? Don’t you enjoy being an immortal jellyfish? Ah, I suppose it’s hard to be so immortal outside of water…” She chuckled darkly to herself and stood back up, stepping away from the desperately flopping jellyfish. The djinn held up her hand, forming a cigar in it and placing it in her mouth. A little flame appeared on her index finger as she lit it, taking a deep breath of smoke and letting out a content sigh. The Djinn looked back over her fur-covered shoulder at the sound of slow clapping.
“Brilliant show,” Doflamingo said with a wide grin, stepping closer to the pillar, his foot crushing the little jellyfish under-heel. He stooped down to pick up the oil lamp and straightened up, giving the artefact a cursory glance. “This is quite an interesting challenge…” he muttered to himself.
She turned to face him, letting out a breath of smoke languidly. “And what would your wish be?”
“Ah-ah, I’m not stupid,” Doflamingo chuckled, “while I appreciate your style, I don’t want to end up like that idiot by uttering a wish on which you seem to have a great amount of leeway for interpretation.”
The Djinn smirked at him. “I can fulfill any wish you want though. And as many as you want.”
“Fufufu~ Tempting, tempting, that is if I survive the first wish,” Doflamingo returned and the Djinn just gave a ‘what can you do’ shrug.
“Well, if that’s all, I suppose I’ll get going then,” the Djinn said in a bored tone, seeming disinterested now that Doflamingo did not want to play her game.
Doflamingo tilted his head and glanced down at the lamp. “Isn’t it cramped in there?”
She gave him an utterly unimpressed look. “I’m not actually in there, idiot. It’s a portal to another dimension.”
“Oh-hoh,” Doflamingo looked more curious, “some kind of magical dimension full of magical beings?”
“Something like that,” the Djinn said, taking another draft of her cigar and walking over to the nearby stone coffin and sitting down on top of it, no doubt figuring she might as well get comfortable if this was going to take some time. “It’s more like an ethereal plane where beings made out of cosmic energy like me exist. Most of them just … exist. Keep gravity running and that sort of thing. Some, like me, sometimes enjoy being in the material plane.”
Doflamingo blinked slowly as he took in her words. “Why?” he asked curiously.
“Mortals and the physical realm are entertaining, generally speaking. And there’s some things you can only enjoy in a physical form,” she said, holding up the cigar. When his face turned into a leer, she rolled her eyes. “Sure, that too, but I’m not just going to lay back for you. If you try anything, I’ll give you a far worse fate than the jellyfish. And if you think of wishing for it, you’ll find out just how much leeway I have.”
Doflamingo held up his hands in a harmless gesture. “Don’t worry, I would do it only if you want it. I don’t feel like getting my soul sucked out through my dick.”
“Good boy, you’re a fast learner,” the Djinn said with a sardonic smile.
“So, er, I have to ask, what’s with the wishes then?” Doflamingo asked, leaning against the coffin next to her.
Her expression soured a little and she let out a soft sigh, tapping the ashes off her cigar on the stone lid of the coffin. She hesitated a moment longer, but then seemed to figure she might as well pass the time while enjoying the rest of her cigar. “Ancient magic. Once upon a time, I was free to do whatever I wanted, lay waste to any land, destroy anything and anyone I wanted. My kind are beings of chaos, and when we get to fighting each other, entire worlds fall.” She smiled wistfully at that. Then she sighed and shrugged, continuing “there was a powerful sorcerer king in this world who had figured out how to enslave demons of hell to do his bidding. I guess he didn’t take kindly to me playing around in his world. I destroyed a lot of them but er…” She glanced at her hook with a slight grimace. “Eh, there were a lot of them. In my weakened state, the old bastard sealed me away. Now to materialise in this world, I have to be summoned through that lamp and my powers are highly limited unless a wish is made,” she explained.
Doflamingo hummed. “Huh. Fascinating. So, you can interpret the wish any way you want? Didn’t this old king figure that part in?”
She grinned in return. “Ancient magic does require high specificity, and no, he was just interested in sealing me away and putting conditions on my use of power in the material realm. He didn’t quite count on how much of a spiteful bitch I am.”
“Or how clever,” Doflamingo chuckled.
The Djinn rolled her eyes. “Flattery isn’t going to get you anywhere. Besides, he wasn’t interested in wishes. The owners of the lamp afterwards however… eh, I have to get my kicks somewhere.”
Doflamingo looked thoughtfully, scratching at his chin. “So, say if I asked to be rich…”
She chuckled amused at his question. “Oh, that was the last owner’s wish. He wanted to be as rich as a king.”
Doflamingo tilted his head. “What happened to him?”
The Djinn patted the coffin’s lid. “I put him in here,” she said with a smirk.
Doflamingo glanced down and caught on quickly. “Oh. Hah. Nice one. A king’s burial chamber.” She turned out to be quite the challenge indeed. But as far as he saw it, it wasn’t quite the case that he needed to outwit an ancient, malicious being with careful wording. There was always leeway in interpreting words’ meaning. For example, to be rich without context could mean rich in anything. He could think of plenty of ways just saying ‘I want to be rich in gold’ could be twisted to a gruesome end and she could probably think of many more with all her years of experience.
No, he had to play this differently. Brute force wasn’t his style anyway. He won people over in different ways. “Sooo… What if I asked you to destroy this country? Would I survive that?”
She looked at him, a more interested and gleeful glint in her inhuman eyes. “That depends on how fast you can get out of the blast radius.” Doflamingo knew it, she had a ‘now you’re speaking my language’ look about her now.
Doflamingo smirked widely in return. It always worked. You just had to find out what people wanted, and then find a way to twist that need to your own purposes. She would take a lot more careful steps on his part than usual. “Alrighty, let’s take a walk~” He stood up, tucking the lamp away in his coat. “What do I call you anyway? Just… Genie of the Lamp?”
The Djinn huffed as she stood up, tossing the cigar end back onto the coffin lid. “You can call me Crocodile.”