Chapter 12 – Fourth Academy: Air
We decided to rest up for the rest of the day to make sure our injuries began healing properly. While we sat there trying to bandage our injuries, Ace went out to try to teach Runt a few magic spells. However, that proved more entertaining than fruitful. Runt never got the words to a single spell right and it was kind of cute to see Ace get all riled up and flustered. "No dad, it's 'tes macrinomb' not 'took mar-in-comb'!", "No! TES MACRINOMB! Not tender marinade!", "No! Tes Macaroni...Dah! Now you've got me doing it." To name a few bits of the things he said to Runt. Runt was nearly hopeless when it came to casting spells. We might as well see what happens to those who hold on to their magic reserves for too long. However, none of us were willing to move at this point. It hurt too much.
The sun finally sank below the horizon and the moon began to rise into the sky. Ace gave up teaching Runt spells, even if Runt got the words right, he would forget to concentrate and end up standing there panting. Ace, instead, used his magic to help set up our camp site by putting up the tent and rolling out the sleeping bags of those too hurt to move at the time. (Which the Warners obviously faked half of the time.) Ace started a camp fire and then began healing our wounds. After a while we decided to kill time by reading a few of the books here in the academy. Ace cast the translation spell and we all went off and each grabbed a book that interested us. Dot came back with a book on basic beautifying techniques and spells, Yakko came back with a book that described the many kinds of jokes an gags using magic, I came back with a spell book that describes transformation spells, Ace and Runt came back with nothing, and Wakko came back with a basic cookbook of this world. We each read segments of our books and explained how they interested us until we began yawning. Once that happened, we decided to set the books aside and Get our rest.
That night I had another nightmare about Ace trying to protect me and failing. This time in the dream, we were in the arena of one of the academies. Ace was battling against a giant silver praying mantis. Ditching and dodging the mantis' claws and avoiding a barrage of fireball spells, Ace weaved his way close to the creature's face and unleashed his own lightning spell in the creature's eye. The spell detonated on contact and actually did some damage to the creature this time through. In desperation, the creature turned towards me and fired an enormous lightning bolt at me. Ace flew as fast as he could to try and save me from receiving the spells impact, but wasn't fast enough. Just as the lightning bolt was about to strike me down, I shot up out of my curled position and this time screamed at the top of my lungs, nearly startling the dead from their eternal sleep. "Rita, what's wrong?" Runt asked. "Are you oh kay?" Dot said worried. "Mom, what's going on?" Ace said with slight horror in his eyes. I couldn't deny it. I was beginning to get worn down by these nightmares. It also was pretty apparent that they had me slightly disturbed as well. Again I was drenched in my own perspiration and I couldn't hide the fact that I was out of breath as well. Nor could I blame it on heat, it was only 47º out.
I looked around at their faces and all I could see in each of them was strict worry. Their eyebrows raised and aimed inward, some of them even biting their lower lip slightly every now and then. Trying to catch my breath I tried to speak. "I'm alright," I squeaked out. My voice was dry and squeaky. It was all I could do to speak loud enough for the others to hear. I cleared my throat and continued, "I'm alright. It was just a bad dream." Was all I was able to say. Somehow, my voice was worn and dry. "I'll be better after I get some more sleep." I weakly said. Ace seemed extra worried at this point and insisted that he take his time trying to heal me...just in case.
After a good healing session, my voice began to return to me. It was then I noticed that the rays of the sun were climbing into the academy from the arena. It was time to pack up camp and get a move on back to the Silver Palace. We were on our way in an hour. We decided that it would be best if I traveled on Runt's back, and I actually didn't have any complaints. I actually was exceptionally tired from being bombarded with nightmares. We had made it half way back to the Silver Palace when a bright pink beam of light engulfed us and levitated us around 2 ½ feet off of the ground. We witnessed as our scenery changed from having the Silver Palace in front of us simply 3 hours away, to being ten minutes away from the gates of another academy. When the beam of light faded away completely in what seemed like forever (but actually was around 15 seconds), gravity kicked back in and we dropped back to the ground in a pile of Warners and quadrupeds.
After sitting up and rubbing the headaches out of our skulls, we assessed our situation. "Was that the 'Tes Macrinomb' spell?" I asked in slight shock. "Looks like Queen Angelina wants us here next." Dot stated. We all looked at Dot in slight amazement and confusion. "How do you know it was the queen?" Wakko asked his sister. "Elementary my dear Wakko." Dot exclaimed after quickly changing into a detective's uniform to put emphasis on the gag. "Her aura is pink." "So?" Wakko said even more confused than before. "What's my favorite color?" Dot then asked her brother to help make the answer to the riddle more obvious. "I don't know." Wakko said. Then he placed his right finger on his right temple to help him think about it. "Green?" He finally answered. Dot slapped her right hand on her forehead, just above her eyes. "I give up." She said in frustration. Wakko turned to Yakko for an answer. "Uuuuuhhhhhh. Try pink. That might be closer." He said. "Oh, thanks." Wakko started, then stopped to think about it some more. "I still don't get it." This time Yakko was slightly flustered. He leaned over to Runt, Ace, and I and whispered, "I think he's still suffering from 'middle-kid-syndrome'." I whispered back in response, "I think he's suffering from 'lack-of-intelligence'." Then we both simply stared at him with worry in our faces.
We decided to drop the subject and take the queens dare. We entered the academy and notice that there were carvings on the support beams that looked like an air current of some kind. "Lemmie guess," Yakko stated upon inspection, "The Academy of Air?" "Looks like it" Ace said in response. Suddenly, we felt a huge gust of wind blow past us and then turn back in and slam the doors shut. At the same time, the current of air sort of guided us to the arena where another gorgeous female figure hovered around six feet from the ground. She looked like a human sized fairy, with enormous pink and blue butterfly wings. She also was clothed in what seemed to be an outfit that was created from pink tulip pedals for her short top and knee-long skirt. She also sported bright pink hair that extended down to the end of her buttocks. She giggled coyly as she floated down to the ground as graceful as a swan, her butterfly wings flapping back and forth slowly. Upon closer inspection, her eye color was even pink but she used a kind of lavender eye shadow to bring them out. Somehow, it worked.
Again the two brothers stiffened their backs and sang, "Hellllooooo Nurse!" in unison. Then they zipped up to the wind guardian in a flash and stared at her with their tongues hanging out and panting like dogs. The guardian didn't seem put off by this like most girls seem to be. (She probably hasn't had a lot of visitors for a while, so who can blame her for wanting the attention.) Dot was close behind them with Wakko's gag-bag that she had somehow snatched from him during their trance. Dot placed the bag on the ground, opened up the bag's opening, and pulled out a mallet that was capable of smacking them both at the same time. And that's what she did, they straightened up like two-by-fours and she grabbed her brothers one by one and shoved them into the gag-bag. She then tied a knot in the bag's opening so they couldn't escape, flung the bag over her shoulder and, waved her hand at the wind guardian and said, "Boys!" to her and walked back over to Runt, Ace and I.
The wind guardian blushed at her recent actions to the seemingly flirtatious attention. And she spoke with a high feminine voice, "Sorry about all that, I haven't seen a living soul in years, so..." She was like a teenager the way she talked. "I suggest you get straight to the test." Dot scolded the fairy. The wind guardian sheepishly laughed and the brothers jumped out of one of the random books lying on the ground nearby. "Well, you need to try and capture the wind." She said. We all just stared at each other in slight confusion. "I don't know how to capture the wind, but I can think of ways to break it." Wakko blurted out. Every one (including the guardian) gave Wakko a pained look, until Yakko kissed his hand, waved at the wind guardian and said, "Goodnight everybody!"
After that little bit of discomfort, the guardian went to work, flapping her wings and creating huge gusts of wind hurling at us and lifting us high into the air. After a few minutes, it stopped, and we plunged to the ground below. After around 20 or 30 feet of falling and screaming, we were lifted around 10 or 20 feet and dropped again another 20 or 30 feet. It was pretty apparent that we needed to figure out how to capture the wind before we hit the ground. Well, around 200 or so feet to go. Wakko, first tried to catch the wind with a butterfly net, Dot, tried catching it with her hands, Yakko let himself simply get blown around while keeping his arms crossed, Runt butchered a variety of spells trying anything he could think of, Ace mimicked Yakko, and I though as fast as I could to do think of something before we went 'splat'. Time went by and we got closer and closer to the ground. Yakko and Ace were simply crossing their arms the whole way down until we reached around 60 feet till the ground. Yakko then asked Wakko for his gag-bag, reached in and pulled out a simple jar. Reached in again and pulled out the lid to the jar, lifted the jar above his head and allowed the air to enter the jar and quickly sealed the jar with the lid.
Rather than dropping us fast, the wind gently carried us down and we safely touched down. The guardian fluttered over to our group and said with glee, "You did it, you captured the wind! Let me see it!" Yakko, unable to resist another gag, aimed the jar's opening at the guardian and unscrewed the top. When the top came completely off, a gust of wind knocked the guardian off of her feet and pushed her around 40 feet backward. When she stopped skidding in reverse, she ended up with her hair as stiff as planks of wood and jetting backward. Her eyes were wide open and she seemed to be in slight shock. "Wow! That was some strong wind!" she exclaimed. She then cracked a smile that stretched from ear to ear and congratulated us on our success. "That wasn't exactly one of the hardest tests we had to endure, you know." Yakko said to her. It almost looked as if the guardian took that as an insult and was about to cry until she zipped in and gave Yakko a huge hug, conveniently placing his face in between her breasts. Almost immediately, Yakko literally melted into a puddle of black ink. "Whoa, there's a first." Dot stated sarcastically pointing her right thumb at her brother's remains. The guardian knelt down and stared at the black puddle kind of feeling guilty, thinking that she had killed him, until Yakko quickly regained his shape and gave her a huge smooch on the lips and dashed off. The guardian then stood up and watched as Yakko ran around the building as hyper as a 4-year-old on a jumbo sized pixy stick. She then noticed Wakko nearby, with his arms outstretched like he wanted a hug as well. The guardian giggled with glee and snatched up Wakko and squeezed him between her breasts like she was holding a teddy bear with its tongue sticking out and sporting the biggest smile on its face.
"Oh, please." Dot retorted. "Excuse me, miss wind guardian? I don't suppose you have any cryptic advice for us before we get on our way?" The guardian then snapped back to reality and blushed heavily and set Wakko down. "Sorry, yes I do. Oh, what was it? The spell of wishes cannot be found materially, so look not upon these mortal shelves. Look, instead, inside thy selves...There we go. That's it...I think." She then gave us the same goofy grin Yakko gives when he is embarrassed. "Whoa, dumber than advertised." Dot said under her breath pointing her thumb at the wind guardian. "Oh," the guardian then said as if she remembered something important, "The queen mentioned something about going next to the Academy of Thunder. I think you can find her there if you hurry." She then giggled as Yakko and Wakko coyly waved at her with the fingers on their left hands and grinning. She acted like a shy school girl and then faded away into the wind leaving our group. The two brothers looked sad for a while and then shrugged their shoulders at each other in slight confusion.
Yakko then brought out the world map and we figured that it would take us just shy of two days to arrive at the gates of the Academy of Thunder, so we decided to get a move on and hurry to try and catch up with the queen. We traveled until the moon was high up in the sky and the Warners' watches read 7:30 pm, since their cell phones had died three days after our initial arrival into this world. (Hey, no electrical outlets that fit earth-type adapters. Think about it.) We decided to set up our sleeping bags and not the tent this time, it was a warm night and there wasn't a cloud in sight.
That night I had another one of those nightmares. It began with a sky view of Burbank. The place was caught ablaze, buildings burning to the ground, people running in terror, and Ace battling against a giant silver jellyfish, ducking and dodging its tentacles, throwing various spells at it. Even though, the spells had made contact with the creature the only way you knew whether or not they inflicted any damage was listening to the beast screech in pain. Ace threw lightning bolts at the creature and it finally collapsed near the water tower and on top of one of the nearby buildings. Ace charged up a powerful spell to take the finishing blow until the creature took a sucker punch at him and knocked Ace out of the air with one of its tentacles. Temporarily paralyzed by the tentacle's poison, the creature was poised for the final strike. Fearing the fate of the little kitten, I ran up to see if I could help him, but the creature swiped me with one of its tentacles and I wound up paralyzed as well. I could feel the prickling of a thousand needles coarse through my body. It was then I quickly opened my eyes and woke up from the terrible dream.
When I awoke from the dream, I allowed my sight to adjust from my sleep and noticed that all of the others were hovering over me with a worried look on all of their faces. "Mom, are you sure you are ok?" Ace asked. "I'm just fine Ace, it was just..." I started to say until I noticed that my body wouldn't move. Somehow, the paralysis from the nightmare, was actually affecting me in the waking world as well. "What in the...I can't move." I stated in confusion and shock. Slightly panicked, Ace began to use a healing spell to try to cure any injury I may have sustained. However, it didn't do anything. My body was still paralyzed and there was not much we could do for now.