Chapter 10
Gary POV
I looked behind me as I was sprinting to the village, lava was pouring out of the volcano fast. We were very far out from the village. I've lost track of how long I've been running, and my legs were starting to give out. I ignored the sting in my legs and hoped that Julia would wake up soon. She showed no sings of consciousness the last time I checked on her.
The previously cold air around me started to turn warm, it felt uncomfortable. I was adjusted to the bitter cold of the island when we first got there. After what felt like an hour of running, I felt myself getting dizzy from exhaustion, but I ignored it completely. I continued to run at my hardest, and that decision was the cause of me tripping over a huge, hidden rock buried under the snow.
Julia flew out of my hands and landed on the snow back up not even making a sound. My response was a "wahh!" and a painful landing on my stomach.
Panicked frustration ran though me as I limped to where my sister was laying. I shook her violently,
"Julia! Julia! Come on, you need to wake up!"
She still didn't respond.
"Come on Julia!"
"Please Julia! Wake up!"
Still no reply
I felt tears starting to come up, but I pushed the back as best as I could. I felt pathetic. I continued to shake Julia until a brilliant, yet cruel idea came to mind.
Some of the nearby plants caused poison ivy, maybe if I put them on my sister, she'll wake up.
I decided to use my plan and ran over to the nearest plants that looked like the ones' I used to make a latter on the volcano. I ran back to where Julia was laying and I rubbed them on her uncovered arms and hoped my idea would work.
Within a few minutes, I saw Julia's eyes squint. When she opened her eyes to me face, I could tell she could feel the effects of the "poison ivy" these plants caused. She leaped up on her feet and scratched her arms so hard that I could almost see the top layer of her skin flaking off of her. I really felt bad that I did this to her now, but we'd might be dead if I didn't.
Julia started talking to herself with light frustration, "Why am I so itchy?"
"Umm Julia, can you do me a favor?" I asked blankly as she continued to scratch herself.
"Sure, what?" her tone had lost all of its pervious frustration, as little as it was. I was surprised that she didn't blame her scratching problem on me by now.
I pointed at erupting volcano, "Can you fix that?"
She stopped scratching herself immediately and said, her eyes wide, "Woah… What the heck happened?!"
"Long story," I replied quickly, "just fix it, ok?"
"Ok!" she replied to me cheerfully.
I stood staring at the erupting volcano, and realized… that the lava… was almost on top of us.
Julia was taking her sweet time. She was stretching and warming up. I yelled at her angry and panicked,
"JULIA, JUST DO IT ALREADY!"
Julia stopped stretching immediately and worked her magic as soon as she saw the lava. She pushed her hands away from each other and downward and barked out, "Weather control, Earthquake!"
Right as I was squinting for the impact of the lava, the earth started shaking even harder and split entirely, allowing the lava to flow into it.
Both Julia and I sighed in relief. I fell on the snow and laid there looking at the milky sky. Julia fell back too and started making a snow angel. We both did small laughs in relief. When we were done with our fun, I said to Julia happily,
"Want to go and tell the villagers that we fixed the source of their weather problems?"
She smiled widely at me, "Yeah!"
We stood up and brushed the leftover snow on us and tried to resist scratching ourselves as we walked back to the village (I was way to tired to run). Julia was also questioning me about why she was so itchy, and she eventually coxed me into telling her the truth.
She exploded when she found out, "You gave me poison ivy?! Why on earth did you do that! Julia will be itchy for weeks now!"
"To get you to wake up! What other choice did I have? You saw how close that lava was to us!" I yelled back at her exasperated. I seriously didn't do that as a prank, I couldn't think of anything else at the time!
Julia rolled her eyes at me, "You sure you didn't do it as a prank? You could of splashed cold water on me."
I did not think about that…and it probably wouldn't work, "You're almost as resistant to cold as I am, do you really think that would of worked?"
She blushed a little, "No…I didn't think about that…"
I sighed and did a small growl, "See why I did it now?"
She looked to the ground and pouted, "Yeah… I get it…"
The rest of the walk back was silent.
…
Gary POV
When we got back to the village, we had to endure the ever-present stairs of the villagers. I could feel myself tensing up and going into a bad mood again. I really didn't like those stairs. They made me feel sort of feel unwanted.
We both decided that he first people to hear the news would be Helena and Sakan. I didn't think the chief deserved to hear the news first because he didn't care in the first place. I felt my gaze sharpen just by thinking of his attitude.
Julia was the first to the house and she knocked on the front door excitedly. Helena answered it in the matter of a second. She gasped to us, sounding exhausted,
"Did you fix it?"
Julia gave a wide smile, "Yeah! I think so, I was passed out for most of it though."
Helena blinked a little when Julia said "passed out", but grabbed us and pulled us inside anyway. She could barely contain her happiness.
"Sakan!" she called to her brother excitedly, "Gary and Julia are back! They beat up whoever was messing the weather up!"
A few seconds later I saw Sakan with a bath towel on his head walking slowly to the living room with a green robe on. He probably just got out of the bath. He looked at us sheepishly and to us without any tone,
"So you guys fixed whatever was screwing up the weather?"
Helena glared at her brother for who knows what. Helena motioned for him to sit on the furniture as she pressured me into telling her exactly what happened, I started,
"We walked right to where we thought they mountain you told us about was, and we realized that the mountain is actually a volcano." Helena's eyes widened after I said this, but she said nothing.
"We saw that there were large water magic circles coming from the base of the volcano and that they were adding moisture to the snow cloud and that the water froze once it reached the atmosphere. That was what was causing the snow."
Helena nodded, and I continued, "There was a small cave with another water circle in front of it, and I told Julia to clog it using her water magic, causing half of the volcano to explode. Then a small figure attacked me with fire magic and then started to attack my sister with earth and air magic. With Julia still in the air, he whispered to me, "Volcanic eruption…" and then the volcano started erupting."
Julia and Helena's eyes widened when I said this. Sakan had no reaction to anything I was saying, Helena said to me with surprise, "I didn't know there were volcanoes on this island…."
I nodded to her and continued explaining, "Julia conveniently fell into my arms and I ran as fast as I could towards the village. Julia had passed out, and to get her to wake up so she can save us, I sort of gave her poison ivy…"
Sakan's eyes widened and Helena gave me a disgusted look. I glared at her for a second before continuing the story once again, "Julia finally woke up and prevented the lava from killing us, you guys, and the villagers. Then we walked back here with the news. I don't really know what happened to the kid though…." I felt a little guilty and disappointed that he got away, but there's nothing I can do about it now.
Helena gave me a soft smile and Sakan gave me nothing. Once Helena processed this, she asked Sakan to take us to the chief so he can know what happened and we can fix the weather on the island with our magic. Then we could go home.
Sakan slowly got up and did what his sister ordered. He changed first and then we were on the way to the chief's tent. I wonder if he'll even appreciate that we helped him and his villagers out…
Sakan barged in to the tent like he did last time and for once the other villagers didn't stare at us. I stiffened a little at the thought of talking to the chief again, but my sister put a hand on my shoulder that silently told me to calm down. I did a small growl but listened to her.
The chief hasn't even changed his position on his carpet, "Chief Oren," Sakan told him formally, "the wizards have in part dealt with the weather issue."
I glared at Sakan saying, "in part", but I kept my mouth shut.
The old man looked at us in shocking surprise, "You two really fixed the root of our problem?"
Julia nodded at him happily and I looked to the side angrily. I spoke to him in a softer tone, but lightly frustrated tone, "We managed to bust him and drive him away, but we couldn't defeat him sir."
"Is he going to come back again?" He questioned me softly.
"I don't' know, " I admitted, "but I don't think he'll come back anytime soon that's for sure."
The old man smiled at us, and said, "Well, thank you for at least driving him out. I didn't think you two could do it, but you did! All you have to do is fix the island, right? Go and do that. I'll get your pay. You can come back anytime. The villagers will be so happy."
Despite what I felt about the old man… chief, before, we couldn't take his pay without completely finishing the job. I said to him softly,
"We cannot accept your pay, sir. We didn't compete the job."
The chief looked at me surprised and said, "Can I at least give you something? I didn't even believe that you before now! At least let me give you something!"
Julia chimed in now, "It's ok. It would be bad for the reputation of our guild if we took your reward. We're happy to help out."
The chief surrendered and we went outside to fix the island, Sakan followed. The villagers were so happy when they learned the news. They made me regret everything I previously thought about them. It took a few hours of blood, sweat, and magic power, but the island was returned to its former self. It was sad to leave Helena and Sakan behind as Sakan brought us back to our port. Sakan even gave us a clear, wide smile for our help. On the bright side, at least I had a great story to tell the guild when we get back.
But I did promise Julia that she'd be able to lead us back to the guild, didn't I?
