Chapter 9 – First Academy: Fire

The sun peeked into the bedroom through the window that morning and Dot woke up before I did. She yawned, stretched, and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. Looking around at her surroundings, she began to recall the events that had happened throughout this journey of our and even recalled the proposal from Queen Angelina Contessa Valhalla. "The game" as she put it seemed simple enough, but if what awaited them at the other academies was anything similar to what they encountered before, then there had to be more to this game than anyone thought.

Just the same, Yakko was also awoken by the rising sun of this world. "This world is almost just like Earth." He thought to himself. He was right, too. The rising sun was golden yellow and transformed the morning sky from dark shadows, to a bright red hue, and finally to a light blue color with puffy, white clouds floating aimlessly through and forming various shapes. The landscape wasn't much different from Earth either, the green grass expanded through the hills, mountains with their snow-capped peaks off in the distance, a forest of trees off to the far left, hiding a vast number of creatures that weren't much different from the creatures of Earth. He found himself wondering if this could somehow become his home, and if his siblings would agree to this. He wondered this until he remembered that everything that once lived on this world is now dead.

He then began to wonder what she was doing now and imagined her arguing with Mr. Plottz about whether or not they would return and what they were going to do with the studio water tower. Chuckling at the very thought of Mira out smarting Plottz in the same manner she constantly out witted him, his brother and his sister, he suddenly realized that, no matter how frustrating it was, they needed to go back to Earth in the end. Yakko turned toward the room's sofa where Wakko lay fast asleep still and wondered what he was dreaming about. Suddenly, he witnessed his brother kick his legs just like a puppy during its dreams. He looked around for Runt who fell asleep near the bed on the side closest to the door and saw him doing the same thing.

Recalling the 'game' proposal from the queen of this castle, he went over to his brother and shook him awake. Wakko didn't awaken until he instinctively rolled off of the couch and landed with a thump on the ground. Afterward, he shot up like a rocket wailing in confusion. When he finally calmed down, he noticed his brother looking at him like he was clinically insane. Wakko simply stood up straight and gave his older brother a goofy grin.

They walked out of their granted rooms and met each other in the hallway. Yakko and Dot in deep thought about the thing they had wondered and thought about, Wakko shifting his focus between them while they stood there silently, trying to figure out what to say to the other. Wakko was beginning to worry about his siblings thinking that the earlier journey had taken its toll on them. "Hey Yakko..." "I was thinking..." they spoke at the same time. "You first." Yakko politely said to his sister. "I think we need to stay together for the duration of this 'game' the queen had proposed to us all." Dot solemnly said to her older brother. Yakko looked at his sister in amazement. "What makes you say that?" He asked her. "What she said about us being only able to cast one spell and that's it. Also what if there are more monsters waiting for us at the other academies?" Yakko thought about it for a while. "We can handle anything that comes our way." He exclaimed with confidence. "Yakko, now isn't the time for your pride to get in the way, this is serious. We need to stick together for this..." "And the rules are whoever finds the spell first, gets to use it, right?" Yakko interrupted his sister. "We can't just help Ace on this one. It's not just him playing. It's us as well. And I plan on winning and having my wish granted."

"And what would you wish for when you get the spell?" Wakko asked his brother. "I don't know!" Yakko shouted, getting within four inches of his brother's face and scaring the daylights out of him. Wakko's eyes began to tear up from the sudden outburst and he buried his face into his sister's chest and began to cry out loud. "What's the matter with you, Yakko? He just asked you a question." Dot scolded her older brother. Then she began to attempt to comfort the crying Wakko. "Sorry Wakko, I just have a lot on my mind." Yakko said sternly. "That's not exactly an apology." Dot continued to scold Yakko. "What do you want me to do? Get down on my knees and beg for forgiveness?" Yakko stated slightly flustered at his sister. "It would be a good start." Dot retorted. "Fine, then maybe it would be better if I went on my own during this so called game?" Yakko snapped. "Just go away Yakko. If you are gonna be rude, then just leave! We don't need you anyway!" Dot was shocked at the words that had just come out of her mouth. She gasped and slapped her hand over her mouth to prevent any more hash words from escaping. However, it was too late. Yakko was fuming by now and didn't need to say any more to her. He just turned around and stormed off down the hall until he disappeared from her sight. Dot, regretting everything she had said to her brother, slumped down in despair, Wakko now trying to comfort his sister, seeing that she truly regretted her words. Dot solemnly looked at her brother and said, "Now I know why Mira always did everything she could to prevent us from fighting like that. I hate myself now." Afterward, she closed her eyes and silently sobbed to herself.

Within 20 minutes of that ordeal, the rest of us had risen from your sleep and had made our way to the banquet hall where we ate breakfast and received a better map of this world. Annoyed and confused a little, I asked Queen Angelina, "So, why didn't you send us a photo of this map rather than giving us that..." I cleared my throat to think of the appropriate words to use, "interesting drawing?" "I found this after I sent you my drawn map." She replied a bit sheepishly. I nearly slammed my face against the table at the irony of the situation. Normally Dot would have giggled at the notion of the event that had taken place, but she was still in slight despair at the things she had said to her brother and barely noticed the hilarity of the situation. She turned to us and gave us a depressed courtesy laugh and went back to staring at the table. It was then I noticed that Yakko wasn't eating with us. "Where's Yakko?" I asked. Dot didn't answer, only widened at her eyes at the very thought at explaining her actions to everybody else and nearly panicked. "There was a disagreement, and he started the game without us." Wakko answered for her. Dot looked at her brother with a slight "thank you" in her eyes, and gave him a small smile.

"So, what are we gonna do?" Ace asked. "Well, I think the larger the group we have working together, the better chances we have at finding the spell of wishes." I said then added, "I've already used my one spell anyway. So all I can do is provide moral support from the sidelines." "That's not true Rita. You could provide distractions. Definitely, definitely distractions." Runt tried to reassure me with. Suddenly a small dragon-fly (literally) began buzzing around his head and he started chasing it to try to chomp down on it. "It doesn't take much to distract you, Runt." I said sarcastically under my breath. Normally Dot would have added her two cents in by saying something like, "Whoa, dumber than advertised", however she simply remained in her own little world. It was rather hard to watch her live in her own depression like that. Something definitely happened between Dot and Yakko. We had all agreed to stick together and were off, after Runt learned that a dragon-fly's bite hurt like 40 bee stings all at once and in the same place. It was rather cute to watch the large dog run away from a tiny pea-sized flying lizard.

We made our way across the northern plains, a familiar territory considering that we found out that the academy that we were attacked by the large black dragon was called the "Academy of Flames" and needed to check it off of our list as fast as possible. When we got there, we immediately got to work at looking through the various books looking for something called "the spell of wishes". We had looked for what seemed like hours when we heard a rumbling noise in the academy's arena. Suddenly the temperature of the room began to rise exponentially, almost up to 100º in 10 minutes. We decided to make our way to the arena before we died of heat stroke inside the room. When we reached the arena, in its center, stood a gigantic horse that looked like it was made from cooled down lava with a mane made of inferno flames and eyes that looked like miniature suns. When is spoke the inside of its mouth was alight with red flames and it generated a heat wave for every word said. "Who are you, who seek the challenge of the spell of wishes?" it said with an angry tone.

We looked at each other confused and tired from the intense heat. Ace, Runt and I got down into a defensive position, however we were about to feint from the heat. Wakko suddenly came forward and said to the creature, "We are those who travel with the Sage. We seek the answers to rebuild the Valkyrian race." Then, just as fast as it rose, the temperature dropped to a mere spring day. "Here is your challenge. Somewhere in this academy is an item that does not belong. Find it and bring it to me. You have three hours. If you fail, I shall incinerate you where you stand." And with that, he disappeared into a burst of flames that shrank down to a candle flame and fizzled out. "Wakko, how did you know to answer that way?" Dot asked him. "Queen Angelina told me to say that before breakfast." He answered. Then he pulled out the magic refrigerator from his gag-bag and took out four one-liter sized bottles of spring water from it and we all drank to rehydrate ourselves. He then whipped out an entire five gallon jug of water for himself and chugged the whole thing down. We then began searching for something that seemed out of place.

After ten minutes of rest we all decided to split up and search the entire academy in sections. Ace learned a temporary translation spell for the rest of us so we could read every language in existence for approximately 4 hours. It would prove to be an extremely useful spell indeed. Each of us began to search our agreed upon sections and search for the "item that didn't belong". When Dot had reached her assigned area in the classrooms, who did she find there struggling to read the Valkyrian language, but her stubborn brother Yakko. Still feeling sorry about the things she said she went to her brother to apologize. "So... Whatcha doin?" she said shyly and with sadness in her throat. Yakko shot up with a start, "Dot? What are ya trying to do? Give me a heart attack?" he stated grabbing his chest from the shock. "Sorry Yakko. I didn't mean to scare you." She replied with her own surprise. "So, how do you plan on reading that book?" "Uuuuuuuh, I don't know. I guess I didn't think this solo thing through too well did I?" He said sheepishly. "Rrrrrriiiiight." Dot replied reiterating one of Yakko's famous lines. She did this to try to lighten the mood to bring in her apology. However, her plan backfired and Yakko took her impression as an insult to his very nature. "Did you come here just to mock me?" He asked her in frustration, the tension mounting up between them. "No, I..." Dot began, but Yakko decided to interrupt her and give her a piece of his mind. "Look Dot just because you are the only one of us, who can read this stupid language, doesn't mean you should throw it in our faces." "But, that's not..." She tried to defend herself. However Yakko interrupted and never allowed her to say much from this point on. "No, you listen to me, I'm not gonna sit here and hear you insult me any longer, usually I'd just insult you right back, but enough's enough and I'm putting my foot down on this one. Just leave me alone, 'you don't actually need me anyway', do you?" Listening to Yakko say those words as if he believed them, nearly crushed Dot's heart into a million little pieces. She dropped to her knees as he stormed out of the room and began to sob heavily, regretting everything that she had ever said to him that morning. Yakko actually listening to his sister cry like that stopped in his tracks, and turned around to see what he had done to her.

With his own heart breaking into many pieces, he tried to hold back his own tears at this point simply for the sake of his pride. Turning away from his sister, for a while he began to silently cry himself, mentally kicking himself for making her sob so much. However, his pride told him that he was in the right and there was no need to apologize for anything. They both stayed where they were at for around twenty more minutes, Yakko crying to himself and Dot sobbing out loud with her head pressed against one of the classroom desks, a pool of tears dripping from its surface. Yakko finally sighed off his own sob, and shook off the sadness. He then approached his sister and said softly, "Come on, I need help reading some of these books." Dot whipping off her tear stained face solemnly nodded and helped her brother read the books that he presented to her. Sniffling and whipping access tears from her eyes and cheeks, there was one book in particular that interested Yakko. The title read, "Basic control of the various elements of nature." They flipped to a random page in the book and Dot read to her brother the methods on controlling water in its entirety. Describing to him the concentration skills, and the fact that you needed to move your body as if it were one with the water, to fully control the surrounding water using the spell, Dot was happy that she at least could be useful to her brother, and her sadness was at last beginning to fade away.

Before they knew it their three hours had nearly gone through and when Dot had finally looked at her watch, she began to panic, realizing that they all would be burned to death if they didn't find the object that was out of place. Feeling like she had failed the entire group, she began to feel resentment for her brother in dragging her into a useless search for random spells. "Oh, what am I gonna do?" She shouted to herself. "Huh, what's wrong Dot?" Yakko responded to his now panicking sister. "Oh, I was supposed to look for an 'item that didn't belong' but instead, I wound up helping you read for three hours." She stated, panicking even more. "Why?" Yakko asked. "If we don't find it in three hours, the flaming-horse-monster is going to incinerate us alive!" She shouted, nearly back into tears. "Holy moley, why didn't you say something?" Yakko said in shock, beginning to help his sister look for something that might be out of place. "I was trying to apologize for saying that 'we didn't need you' earlier. I was wrong and didn't mean it. I...I'm so sorry, Yakko." She blurted out. Yakko stopped searching and simply stared at his sister in bewilderment. He then began feeling the guilt of everything he had said to her. However, before he could say anything, they heard an ear shattering horses neigh, and the large flaming horse burst through one of the walls of the classroom. "Aaaaaah!" they both shrieked and ran out the closest door, which led to the battle arena of the building. Outside the large flaming horse began to chase them until Dot stumbled near the center of the arena and twisted her ankle. Grabbing at the hurt limb she writhed with the pain of the injury. With the flaming horse closing in on them rapidly, Yakko had to think fast if he was going to rescue his sister. "Aquameisa" He shouted while bringing his hands down to the ground and slowly bringing them back up toward his face. Somehow he could feel the pressure of the water on top of his hands as if they were lifting hundreds of gallons. After a few seconds of struggling, he finally felt the pressure lessen to nearly nothing. During that whole moment, the ground beneath them began to rumble. And the moment that Yakko felt the pressure lift off of his hands, water pipes burst from several places around the arena and began to gush forth cold water. Remembering that he needs to move his body as if it were one with the water, he began to move his arms and legs as fluidly as he could and stayed in constant motion. Along with his motion, the sprays of water followed him like it was obeying verbal commands from Yakko, moving as he did.

Flinging his arms forward one at a time and pulling them back, Yakko flung large amounts of water at the flaming horse, striking it in the face. The clash of hot temperatures and cold water produced enough steam to nearly cover the entire arena. Yakko repeated this process, gathering more water every time he brought his arm back from throwing his initial wave. Several times he had struck the giant horse with the water and each time the horse was struck, it began to shrink slightly until it was about the size of a real horse. "Dot, I'm sorry too, I said some things that I didn't mean as well." Yakko said as he continued bombarding the flaming horse with water. "Things I regret, things I didn't mean." Yakko then thrust his hands as high into the air as he could, and spun them in circles, gathering as much water as he could around 20 feet above the flaming horse, who was dazed from the attacks. "I hope you can forgive me someday. Even if I don't deserve it." And with that, he threw his arms down toward the ground, bringing hundreds of gallons of water crashing down on top of the flaming horse. An enormous cloud of steam arose from the area where the water met the flames of the horse, and when it all cleared, the horse could be seen as no larger than a Christmas tree ornament, fallen on its side and breathing heavily.

Yakko, also breathing heavily, realized that it was finally all over and collapsed to his knees. The rest of us saw the battle from one of the balconies of the second floor and rushed to their aid as fast as we could. However, by the time we had gotten there, it was all over. Suddenly the flaming horse stood up and walked over to Yakko and Dot and spoke to them. "You have passed my test. You brought the item that did not belong and you showed it to me." The two siblings simply looked at each other in confusion. "But, we didn't show you anything." Yakko told him. "On the contrary, you showed me the tension mounting between two siblings, and you settled your disputes during our battle." The two simply looked at each other again even more confused. "Wait a minute... the tension between us was the item that didn't belong?" Yakko asked. "That is correct young one. Family is the most important part of our lives. Disputes between siblings should not tear that family apart. The fact that you were willing to put you pride aside to apologize to each other is very comforting." It stated. "The spell of wishes cannot be found materially. However, when six have become one, the spell shall be revealed." He then added and fizzed out like a candle flame in the wind.