Chapter 11 – Third Academy: Earth
A similar dream ran through my head that night. It was strikingly similar to the first one only the creature had changed shapes. It was no longer humanoid, it was shaped like a giant, silver lion and this time the battle took place in the middle of the Warner Brothers movie lot. Buildings were destroyed and lit ablaze, the water tower was knocked over and had crushed the Warner siblings, and Mira was lying next to me wearing the same outfit as the woman I found in the house in the ghost town. Ace was again fighting the humongous creature, mono a mono. He seemed to have the upper hand for a while, however it also seemed like his attacks weren't even damaging the beast. Ace flew by and threw a couple of fireballs at the creature's head and they exploded upon impact. However, the beast still didn't so much as wince at the attacks. When Ace had flown in front of the beast's face, the creature opened his mouth slowly and gave a huge, deep roar. With the roar, came out some sort of energy wave, destroying everything in its path and headed straight for me. Again Ace flew in front of the blast and tried to protect me with his barrier. And again, the barrier shattered no more than three seconds after the initial impact and we were both blown backward.
I shot up with a start, breathing heavily and soaked in my own perspiration. I rapidly looked around to find out if everyone was either dead or merely asleep. I soon discovered that they all were merely asleep, and I sighed in my relief. Looking around I could see that the only ones in the tent were Dot, Ace, Runt, and I. "Where are Yakko and Wakko?" I wondered. I also noticed that the tent door was unzipped, so I decided that they probably thought that they needed to go to the bathroom or something.
The silvery-blue moonlight shone through the unzipped doorway of the tent. Judging from the intensity of the light I figured that it was probably a full moon tonight. I quietly stepped out of the tent to see how similar the Valkyrian moon looked to Earth's moon. As I got closer to the door, I could hear a faint melody ringing from the center of the arena. Poking my head out to investigate, I saw the water guardian softly singing to the moon. Yakko and Wakko sitting closely in front of her listening intently nearly crying from the sound of the notes ringing through their ears. From what I could hear, the song was about a family she once knew and lost long ago. Silently, I crept up in between them and sat down to listen some more. Her singing was quiet, yet enchanting and somehow...sad, even in the song's end when she had found her lost family and won true love.
Her song ended solemnly and beautifully. The two brothers quietly applauded her so as to not wake anyone. My eyes were still watered up from the lyrics of the song, so I whipped them away from my eyes. The water guardian giggled and motioned a curtsy then floated down to the ground and folded her tail under her hips to sit up straight. "Thank you Yakko. Thank you Wakko." She then sighed and tilted her head back so she could bathe her face in the light of the moon. "It's been some time since anyone has heard my singing. I really appreciate you coming out here to listen to me." She added allowing a teardrop to fall from her face. "Why do you sing it though?" I asked, startling both Yakko and Wakko. "My mother taught it to me when I was little. Long before I became the guardian of water." She explained. "I sing it every night to remind myself of her." "What do you mean, 'became the guardian'?" I asked confused. "She explained that to us before she sang to us." Yakko answered. "You see the guardians of the academies apparently are all originally Valkyrians who agreed to protect the secret of the spell of wishes by becoming parts of the key that seals off the final test." "So, in order to retrieve the spell of wishes, we must pass the tests of all of the guardians first. Then complete the 'final test'?" I asked trying to figure the whole thing out. "Uuuuuuuuhhh," Yakko started then the water guardian finished for him, "That's exactly correct." "You don't suppose you could give us a hint as to what the other tests are?" Yakko asked coyly. "I can't." She said. "Please?" Both Yakko and Wakko this time opened their eyes wide and gave the water guardian a puppy dog look. "Now that wouldn't be fair, would it? Besides...I don't exactly know what my fellow guardians plan on for their tests. Each one is different." The Warner brothers gave her a saddened look of disappointment. Unable to withstand them looking like that, she gave in and said, "The only thing I can tell you is that the earth guardian is a bully to girls. Avoid letting your sister show weakness. That may be his idea of a test. But, don't quote me on that." When she next looked at the brothers, they were dressed like reporters from the 50's and Yakko had a tape recorder in his hand aimed at her mouth like he had recorded everything she said. Wakko had a pad of paper and a pencil in his hand and was writing down notes. They both realized that she was watching them and changed their looks to sheepish and put away their recording utensils. "Yah, sure. No prob.!" Yakko said sheepishly. The guardian gave them a dirty look and then slightly chuckled. "Alright, you should probably get back to sleep. You'll need all of your strength tomorrow." She said. "Why, what are we doing tomorrow?" Wakko asked. "The same thing we do every night Pinky, try to take over the world!" Yakko retorted sarcastically, mimicking Brain's voice the best he could. The guardian chuckled once again and responded, "If you seek the queen, you must head to the Academy of Earth. That is where she was headed next." And with that, she slowly turned transparent and evaporated into mist. The brothers simply looked at each other, shrugged their shoulders and made their way back to the tent where they slipped back into their sleeping bags and fell right to sleep.
Morning arose and we all had awakened from the light of the sun. We packed up the camp sight and figured out where to go from there. Yakko brought out the map and explained to the rest of the group that they heard from the water guardian that the queen was headed to the Academy of Earth. "So that is where we need to head next. I still wanna give her that piece of my pie!" Dot said kind of silly like. Yakko and the rest of us simply stared at her for a while. "You mean 'peace of your mind', right?" Dot tilted her head slightly to think about what she said. "I said 'pie', didn't I?" She sheepishly realized. "A little hungry?" Yakko retorted. Dot just gave a goofy grin to her older brother. Wakko then pulled out his magic fridge and every one pulled out food of their desire and we ate on the go.
It took most of the day to travel even half way back to the castle. We set up camp during the night and slept nearly peacefully, until a wind storm hit and nearly took the tent with its passing. We were almost about to crawl back to the castle we were so tired from that night. When we reached the castle, we simply made our way to our respective beds and fell asleep the moment our heads hit the pillows. Kinder dreams danced in my mind that night as I dreamed of the front yard of Mira's house. How it was mostly bright green grass and a few dandelions. Large flower beds in front of the house sitting on either side of the front door and working their way around the house's sides, all the way to the fence that divides the front yard from the back yard. I dreamed of me running around through the front yard, playfully being chased by Runt and Ace. The Warner siblings inside with Mira, teaching whatever it is she teaches them. Later they come out and we all go on another field trip.
Upon the rising of the sun, Yakko was the first to sit up in bed and stretch his arms. Looking around the room, he recalled the events of the past few weeks. Soon, Wakko arose from his slumber from on the nearby couch next. He slowly sat up on one side, turned onto his haunches and stretched out his arms. Still drowsy, he looked around the room to figure out where he even was. I arose from my sleep with Ace curled up beside me, who arose just moments after me. We yawned deeply to shake off our remaining sleep, stood up and stretched our front paws.
Dot arose from her sleep from our stirring. She apparently had slept on her right side, so she slowly pushed herself up onto her knees and turned around. She placed her hand in front of her eyes to block out the light until her eyes had adjusted. She then yawned, stretched and slid out of the bed. Each Warner made their way to what was referred to as a bathing room, cleaned up from their strenuous journey and made their way to the food court. Ace and I also made our way to the bathing room as well. I especially needed to clean up from the nightmares I've been having.
Afterwards, we all got together to figure out how long a journey we needed to travel to get to the Academy of Earth. Apparently, it was a half-a-day's journey southeast of the palace. We packed up our things, and began walking to the Academy of Earth. Dot looked back at the palace, feeling how empty and lonely it was and wondering if Queen Angelina had her reasons for this 'game' she had proposed. She was so lost in thought that she almost didn't hear Yakko yelling to her, "Hey Dot, hurry up or we'll leave ya here!" She snapped out of it and turned and ran to catch up to the rest of the group.
An exhausting seven hours later, we found ourselves at the front gates of the Academy of Earth. We first decided to rest for an hour and have a meal. "So, what do you think this guardian is like? The fire horse was hard to read and the mermaid was really nice, but she seemed kind of sad to me." Dot asked with her mouth full of chicken pie. (Cooked to perfection by Ace's magic.) "Well, the mermaid girl told us that he was a bit of a bully to girls. Just watch yourselves out there you two." "Don't worry about us." I responded. "We can take care of ourselves." "Oh, kay." Yakko said. Then we made our way to the academy doors. These doors were sealed shut, unlike the first two which were left wide open. Yakko and Wakko struggled to get the doors open. "Here, let me do it guys." Runt said to us. He had already backed up some distance away and waited for us to clear a path to the door. Runt then charged in as fast as he could and slammed head first into the large double doors. It may have knocked him silly, but he budged the doors inward about six inches.
A huge gust of wind then rushed inward into the academy. "This guy wouldn't even let air into his academy without his permission." I stated sarcastically. We then proceeded to push the heavy door in enough to let us slip through one at a time. The inside of the academy was designed just like the other two. The only difference was the details on the support beams, which were designed like the support beams in Greek ruins. In the Academy of Flame the supports had a flame-like design in them, the Academy of Water, the supports had a wave design on them, here they had moss growing on them and had the look of mountains carved into them.
In the arena was a giant minotaur-like creature lying on its side and snoring away. Yakko decided that it would be in our best interest to wake the beast-with-huge-muscles-and-horns rather than allow him to continue peacefully and search for the queen while he slept. "We could search for the queen and ignore the great-hulking-beast, but that wouldn't be funny then would it?" He said traversing up to the enormous creature's back. Tapping the minotaur in the spine he asked it, "Uh, excuse me, but we're looking for..." Suddenly the creature began to roll over onto its back and Yakko's ears dropped to the sides of his head just before the beast's giant shoulder landed on top of him. First Yakko struggled to pop his head out for a breath of fresh air... if he could catch any. "A little help here, please?" he begged short of breath and sounding as though he was being choked. Dot, Wakko, and Runt ran up to the minotaur to try their hand a pushing him off of Yakko. No such luck. It seemed like he weighed around 17 ½ tones and wasn't moving an inch. So, I decided to try my paw at getting the thing to move. I decided to jump onto the monster's side and climb up until I reached his nose and then give it a scratch. That'll wake him up. Or, at least I was going to until he began to giggle while I was around his kidney area. Change of plans, I went to work, shifting my paws up and down his ticklish spot until he sat up laughing so hard. When he did, Wakko and Dot dragged their brother out from under the creature and got him as far away as they could. Yakko was panting, trying to catch his breath. "That is not what I had in mind when I said 'funny'!" He said in slight frustration and relief at the same time.
Now fully awake, the guardian noticed me tickling him and plucked me off of him like plucking off a tick from a human's scalp. Pulling me up to his face he gave me an evil look like I looked appetizing to him. All I could do was give him that goofy grin the Warners give people when they are slightly embarrassed. Instead of eating me right away, he brought me closer to his face and sniffed me. He then turned his nose away from me and snorted, "Ech, eew! You are a female!" Then he simply tossed me back to my group of friends, right into Dot's stomach, to be precise. We both somehow ended up slightly embedded in a wall located behind us. Dot was somehow able to pull herself from the indent she made in the wall and cracked a joke before she collapsed onto her stomach. "I never knew I could make such an impression." She said.
"Hey, you can't do that to my sister!" Wakko said to the beast approximately 150 times his size. "Complete my test and you all can go. Then I have no reason to embarrass your sibling." The minotaur stated to Wakko. "Oh, kay. What do I do?" Wakko asked. The minotaur grinned and said, "Overpower me!" Wakko suddenly felt about a quarter of his miniature size as the minotaur stood up and moved over to little Wakko. "I'll even go easy on you by only using my left hand." It then added, placing its hand down in front of the tiny Warner. Wakko stood no taller than the creature's palm. Wakko placed both his hands against the minotaur's palm and when the creature said, "And...Begin", he started pushing against the creature's hand with all of his might. The minotaur stood there and said, "You are fairly strong little one," then suddenly pushed Wakko straight into the wall behind him. When the minotaur pulled his hand back, Wakko was embedded in the wall with stars circling around his head, mumbling some strange random song to himself. Finally, gravity took a hold of little Wakko and he collapsed to the ground. "But not strong enough." The creature then added.
"Eech!" Yakko exclaimed in slight disgust. "You are next little one." The minotaur said, pointing at Yakko. Gulping down his nervousness, Yakko pressed against the beast's hand just like his brother had done. And the same result occurred. Yakko was eventually shoved into the back wall right next to his little brother. He groggily began to sing to himself, "United States, Canada, Mexico, Panama..." then collapsed on the ground unconscious. "What about you?" He asked pointing at Runt. "No! It's my turn now!" Dot shouted. The minotaur was surprised to hear Dot speak up to him. "And what would a weak little girl do that her brothers could..." And with that, Dot brought out a mallet around the same diameter as his head and smashed it down on him, burring the creature half way into the ground and straightening out his horns in the process. When she brought the mallet back up she noticed that an indentation of the top of the minotaur's skull was imbedded in the head of the mallet. "As I said," The minotaur continued groggy and delirious sounding, "What can a weak little girl do that her brothers..." Dot brought the mallet down again. The minotaur was shoved another eight feet deeper into the ground. He was even more groggy and delirious, "What can a girl..." Down comes the mallet again, buried eight feet deeper into the ground and even more delirious and goofy sounding. "Oh, kay! Oh, kay!" He finally said, "You win!" And then the minotaur's top half (that wasn't buried in the ground) collapsed forward in a heap of what looked like dirt for his skin and moss covering his shoulders.
Two hours had passed and they were still treating our injuries. The minotaur had finally awoken from the trouncing he received from Dot. "I've never been bested by a girl before." He said. "Perhaps girls aren't as weak as I thought." Dot simply glared at him still angry at what he had done to her brothers and me. (She was also mad that he still sounded sexist.) Then he stopped and said, "The spell of wishes cannot be fund materially, but upon the last if he should fall, give heed to thy friends to break his wall." He looked around and finally bid us his farewell by saying, "I must leave you now. You will need your strength in the trials ahead." Then he shifted into huge clumps of dirt and moss and the pieces of him rolled and crawled away.