Chapter 14 – Sixth Academy: Ice

When we awoke the next morning, we found ourselves, not in the palace, but in the library of another one of the academies. "Not the 'tes macrinomb' spell again?" Dot whined. "When is this insanity gonna stop?" she then screamed at the top of her lungs. "Well, we might as well see what we need to accomplish here." Yakko stated with frustration in his voice. Then Yakko placed his hands on the door and immediately backed off and began shaking his hand like it was burned. "Yikes that's cold!" He exclaimed. Wakko and Dot went to feel the door as well. "It's freezing!" Dot said. "I think I might have just the thing." Wakko stated and then grabbed his gag-bag. He opened it up and jumped inside. The bag moved for a while as Wakko was fumbling around inside. When Wakko finally hopped out of the bag, he was wearing an Eskimo's outfit complete with fur mittens and coat. The others followed suit and they were able to withstand the cold temperatures of the doors as they pushed them open.

A flurry of cold wind and snow was all that greeted us at the door. The inside of the academy was like frozen tundra. Shelves and furniture were covered in snow, as well as snow covered the entire floor around ten inches thick. The walls looked frozen and it was definitely cold in there. "Uuuuhhhh, I don't think this is the Academy of Nature." Yakko deduced sarcastically. "I wonder if there is an 'Academy of Summer'." Wakko asked. As if you could hear the scratching of a record, every one stopped and simply stared at the small, bundled up Warner. Wakko looked around at the rest of the group and noticed that we were staring at him and he simply gestured to us and said, "What?" Yakko slapped his hand on his forehead and sighed.

Suddenly, a melodic inviting voice could be heard from inside the frozen academy. "I have awaited your arrival. Please enter, so we may speak face to face." It almost sounded like it was whispering gently as to make itself seem more inviting. "I have been awaiting the arrival of the Sage and his companions." The voice continued. "So, uuuuhhhhh, what should we do now?" Yakko asked the rest of us. "Since we're here, we might as well get this test over with." Dot stated and marched right in. The moment she had cleared the door's length, they swung closed and almost immediately swung back open. In that instance, Dot had simply vanished. We all gasped in slight shock then Yakko figured that she was simply playing a joke on us and walked in calling for her. "Dot, come on out we need to find the queen." The moment he finished his sentence, the doors swung shut and immediately swung back open, revealing that Yakko too had vanished into thin air.

I'll go in if you guys go in with me." Wakko said with worry and a smidgen of panic in his voice. We stayed as close together as we could while entering the academy. Ace and I on Runt's back and Wakko walking close to Runt's left side. When we entered far enough into the academy, the doors slammed shut and a dense fog enveloped us. The fog was so thick that we could barely see two inches in front of our faces. It was strange we walked through the fog for a time then, for some reason, runt stopped dead in his tracks. "Runt, what the matter? What are ya stopping for?" No answer. Suddenly the feeling of Runt's fur under my back paws vanished and was replaced by the feeling of sitting on a table. I took a look around after the transition of feeling and noticed that I was sitting on a table. "What the..." I exclaimed, in shock and confusion. What happened to Runt? Where did Ace go? I found myself alone in the cold, frozen academy. Even Wakko had disappeared. I had walked a short distance when I began to smell the scent of smoke rather than the cold bite of the fog. As a matter of fact, it was overall getting warmer. So warm that it began to feel like I was walking into a burning building.

When I finally got through the smoke, I noticed that it actually was a burning building. Mira's house as a matter of fact. Somehow, I was back on Earth and watching my new home burn to the ground. I instinctively rushed in to go and find out if Mira was still inside or not. My worst fears were realized when I arrived at the front door and saw Mira stuck under the collapsed door frame and bleeding from her head and having the left side of her blouse drenched in blood from another wound just under her ribcage. I was about to rush in to help save her until I heard Ace's voice from a distance calling me. "Mom, help!" He was yelling to me. As I turned around to look where his voice was coming from, I witnessed him pinned under the Zouriinkusu's right paw, claws extended.

I was just about to rush in to help him when Mira's voice called out to me. "Rita, help. I can't get free." I turned around and she was still in the burning building, trapped and scared. Each one then began calling to me. I shifted my gaze from one to the other watching in horror as with each second they both became in even more danger then the last. Confused and overwhelmed, I closed my eyes and screamed at the top of my lungs.

Yakko wandered around for a while lost and confused. Trying to figure out what the heck was even going on, he continued to walk until his face smacked into some kind of invisible wall. Still confused, Yakko figured that there probably wasn't anything else to see in that direction so he turned around to walk away, until he heard a faint thumping noise behind him. When he turned back around, Yakko watched as Dot was desperately pounding on the invisible wall and acting like she was screaming for Yakko's help. However, there was no sound what-so-ever that could be heard from beyond the invisible wall. Beyond Dot, Yakko witnessed as Wakko ran from a dark figure in the shadows, hurling anything he could from his gag-bag in that direction. A sense of déjà vu swept over him as he watched Wakko throw anything and everything he could at the dark silhouette. When it finally emerged from the darkness, Yakko recognized the silhouette's owner immediately. It was Coluv. "That's impossible!" Yakko exclaimed remembering that Dot had slain him whilst in her transformed state during the Blood Star Incident. Dot continued to pound on the invisible wall, panicking, screaming, and shedding tears in her fear. Wakko reached into his gag-bag and threw the largest anvil he had in there at Coluv. However, the tyrant simply used the Armageddon Blade to cut the anvil into a hundred pieces in less than ten seconds. Yakko watched helplessly as his brother and sister were panicking and doing everything to keep their distance from the genocidal psychopath.

Dot and Wakko were finally driven into a corner and Coluv slowly closing in for the kill. "No! Don't do it!" Yakko yelled, pounding on the glass as hard as he could. It seemed as if Coluv could hear the faint thudding of the invisible barrier, and turned around to see Yakko's face. Coluv simply gave Yakko that evil grin he always had when he wiped out creatures he deemed "unworthy to exist" in his new world. Coluv then turned back around and slowly continued walking toward Wakko and Dot. Wakko reached back into his gag-bag to find something else to throw at Coluv. However, when Wakko brought his hand back up, he was gripping the bag's insides and it simply turned inside out. Yakko realizing that his siblings were in desperate trouble, began to push against the invisible wall as hard as he could.

Coluv thrust the Armageddon Blade in through Wakko's inside-out gag-bag, narrowly cutting Wakko who dodged to the right. When he brought his sword back, Coluv grabbed the gag-bag's opening and pulled on it, slicing a large hole in the bag. He then tossed the bag into the air and swung his sword repeatedly, shredding the gag-bag entirely. Yakko, who was still pushing against the invisible wall desperately needed to help his siblings at this point. Even pushing with all of his might, he didn't seem to do anything to the unseen wall. Tears of frustration and panic began rolling down the boy's cheeks as hopelessness began to set in. "What's going on?" He screamed as he backed off, curled up his fist and slammed it against the invisible wall. "Why is he here?" He punched the wall another time. "What am I supposed to do?" This time when he punched the wall, first his hand began to throb and bleed. But at the same time, the invisible wall...cracked. Noticing this, Yakko quickly pulled out his mallet that he kept behind his back and smashed it against the crack in the invisible wall. Because of this, the crack expanded. He reared back and smacked the crack with the mallet again and this time, the crack expanded to all sides of the wall. He reared back again and swung the mallet as hard as he could into the crack and the wall shattered from the impact.

Surprised by the loud cracking noise, Coluv turned back toward Yakko only to see the mallet flying at his head. The impact knocked Coluv backward around seven feet, making him drop the Armageddon Blade. Yakko rushed in and picked up the sword and wielded it against the seemingly invincible tyrant. Yakko turned his gaze at the sword's transparent hilt and remembered what the crystal inside of it was capable of. Releasing the small lock on the bottom of the hilt, Yakko removed the red spherical gem and held it in his hand. Feeling it pulse similar to a heartbeat, it kind of freaked him out. However there was a strong urge in his head telling him to make Coluv feel what he felt when Yakko was stabbed by the psychopath during the Blood Star Incident. Yakko's mind was screaming for revenge, and Yakko began to grin at Coluv. Not that goofy grin he gives others when he's being coy or zany. It was the grin of blood lust and vengeance. While Coluv was recuperating from taking a mallet to the face, Yakko darted in close enough to touch the maniac. Taking the crimson marble in the first two fingers and thumb of his right hand, he shoved the crystal down the tyrant's throat.

Coluv swallowed the crystal with slight pain and was barely able to cough before Yakko started to bring the blade down upon him. Coluv rolled to the left to dodge Yakko's strike and the sword sparked as it sliced through the rubble underneath the insane Valkyrian. Yakko then came back at Coluv and the tyrant tried to dodge once again. However, the blade's tip caught Coluv's chest and blood began to drip down from the six inch long cut mark. Enraged, Yakko lunged at the evil alien and caught him by the shoulder as they both fell to the ground, Coluv on his back and Yakko pinning the Valkyrian to the ground. Yakko began to close the magic blade's gem in on the wound, but stopped inches away from pressing the scarlet stone on the sword's hilt into the wound. What stopped him was hearing his sister's horrified scream. He turned to look at his siblings and both Dot and Wakko seemed no longer afraid of Coluv, but of Yakko now. Settling down some, Yakko looked around and accessed the situation. Yakko had the upper hand in the fight, but began to realize that he was about to commit the very crime that created the Blood Star Incident in the first place. "Go ahead Yakko." Coluv taunted. "We're more alike than you think. Do it..." when Yakko looked back at the Valkyrian menace, he noticed that Coluv was wearing his face. "...and you'll be just like me." Coluv then finished. In fear, Yakko then stood up and began to step back with panic written on his face. He looked back at his siblings to see their panicked faces, and then looked back at the object in his hand, the demonic blade that was the root of their suffering.

"How would things be if this sword had not existed?" Yakko asked himself. He thought about it until his head began to hurt before he remembered me explaining something about the Valkyrie Star Sword being the one to separate Coluv from Vuloc in the first place. He began to hate the sword that helped his sister, he began to hate the Valkyrian race, he began to hate Vuloc, and he began to hate Ace. All the while, Coluv continued to taunt, "We are so much more alike, you and me. Things don't seem to make sense to either of us. We can't stand to be unable to understand, to not know what to say, to not know what to do." As Coluv spoke, Yakko began to hate thing more and more, making himself angrier and angrier. Images of the things he began to hate flashed through his mind. It was when an image of something Mira once referred to as a "family photo" flashed into his mind did he realize what he was beginning to hate. The photo was of the entire group, plus Mira. Yakko standing in the center of the photo with Mira placing her hands on his shoulders and leaning forward to close off as much space as she could between them. Dot was standing on Yakko's left side, holding ace in her crossed arms him hanging by his chest and simply grinning as big as he could. Runt was sitting at Yakko's feet staring forward, at the camera and panting with his tongue sticking out. Wakko stood on Yakko's right side with his arms open wide, as if he was posing grandly, and me standing on Wakko's shoulders, traveling behind his hat and neck as I always did. Upon closer inspection of the photo, each member looked genuinely happy to be where they were at that particular time.

A tear ran down Yakko's cheek when this image ran through his mind and he stopped hating things altogether. Coluv, still wearing Yakko's face was startled and confused. "What are you doing?" Yakko tilted his head back and realized that, without his recent experiences, his little "family" wouldn't be where it is today. "Here's where we're different." Yakko began to solemnly tell Coluv. "I'm not afraid." He then finished. Then without warning, Yakko made a mad dash for the opening in which he had entered from, and began to smash the Armageddon Blade flat sides against the walls of the cave they were in. "No! Don't" Coluv screamed and tried to tackle Yakko. Four more additional strikes against the icy stone walls of the cave and the blade shattered into a dozen pieces. The moment the blade shattered, Yakko's environment vanished from sight and he found himself in the center of the academy's arena. The structure's support beams donning snowflakes spiraling down left-to-right from top-to-bottom.

"Yakko!" Dot's voice came from behind him. Yakko turned around to see his brother and sister as well as Runt. Realizing that everything he saw was simply an illusion and everyone else probably had to go through similar experiences he asked them, "Where have you guys been?" "It was horrible! I was all alone and everything was destroyed." Dot said to her older brother rather dramatically. Yakko ignored his sister's drama and turned to his brother who simply said, "I was surrounded by clowns!" Both of them realizing what happens when Wakko's phobia confronts him, they simply felt sorry for the clowns. Yakko looked at Runt thinking that he too would share his story. "I don't wanna talk about it. Definitely, definitely don't wanna talk about it." Was his only response. A long awkward silence, then Yakko looked around and asked, "Where are Rita and Ace?"

Speaking of Ace, he found himself in an ice cave battling four humanoid ice monsters. They were tall and lanky, but since they were literally made from ice they were stiff and walked around like zombies stiff and imbalanced. And, just like zombies, every time you knock them down, they simply get back up and keep coming. After a short while of dodging these creepy frozen creatures, Ace's idea bulb clicked on. "Fire melts ice!" he said to himself. Then he simply started throwing fireball spells at them. The fireballs struck each of the ice creatures and almost immediately melted their top halves, and they collapsed to the ground. Rather than simply staying down like good little destroyed ice soldiers, they combined together and reshaped themselves to form a larger and stronger ice monster. Ace simply rolled his eyes in frustration. "Fine!" he sighed to himself. He then inhaled as deeply as he could, closed his eyes tightly and held his breath. After a few seconds of that, Aces body began to heat up like a furnace. Soon his body began to glow bright red with heat and the surrounding ice cave began to melt from the rising temperatures. Even the large ice monster quickly melted and when it was all completely finished, there was nothing left besides a massive puddle of water. When Ace could no longer hold his breath, he released it in an exhale that unleashed a ton of heated steam. The kitten floated in place for a short time until he let out a small burp. "Oops, excuse me." He said, pretty much, to himself as he looked around the room and noticed the rest of the group.

"Uncle Yakko, Uncle Wakko, Aunt Dot!" He exclaimed as he floated up to them. "Hi dad..." He then said to Runt. Ace looked around for a while and noticed that I wasn't around. "Where's mom?" He finally asked. "I can answer that." The melodic voice from before answered. They all turned to look in the center of the arena (which was where they were the whole time), and there stood the guardian of ice. A beautiful female humanoid with cold blue skin and donning a kind of a grayish-blue outfit that made her look similar to Egyptian royalty. A tiara made of ice rested on her ice blue hair and a large necklace with aquamarine gem stones embedded in it decorated her head and neck. Her blouse covered her shoulders and tapered down into a single point and opened back up going down revealing her naval and coming to a point around the base of where her back meets her buttocks. She wore a metal plate belt that was similar to the metal belt of Queen Angelina's. The belt had a reverse apron connected to the back that covered her buttocks and had a loin cloth that extended down to her knees, covering her front. She wore high heeled shoes that had strapped across her ankle. A strap that connected to the back of her shoe extended up to the back of her knee and had three straps connected to it evenly spaced traveling down her leg.

Again, she was considered drop-dead-gorgeous to the Warner brothers. They stiffened their backs, leaned forward and panted like dogs with hearts in their eyes. Then they howled in unison, "Helloooooooo Nurse!" and tried to run up to her and give her a kiss, but when they began moving their feet, they noticed that they weren't going anywhere. Looking down, they soon noticed that they were simply sliding around on a patch of ice. "I'm getting the strangest feeling of déjà vu." Yakko stated sarcastically. When he stopped moving, Yakko slid forward gradually. Wakko on the other hand, tried even harder to run along the ice and ended up slipping and falling flat on his face.

"You said you know where my mom went. I wanna know! Where is she?" Ace demanded. "She is right here." The guardian stated stepping to her right. Once she stepped aside, she revealed a large chunk of ice with me encased inside it. "Mom!" Ace exclaimed in slight horror at my condition. "What have you done to her?" "I tested you all to find the weakest link of your group. She was the only member of your group to fail the test. By weeding out her as a member of your group, I have thus made you overall stronger." The guardian of ice stated rather intelligently and coldly. "What does that mean?" Yakko interrupted. "It means that Rita will remain here forever, frozen as a warning to remind others to weed out their weaknesses." "I'm not leaving her here!" Ace yelled furiously. "Brute force won't do anything for you little sage." The guardian responded. She then thrust her arms forward. Ice began to rapidly form and extend in their direction and reached them in a matter of seconds. The ice continued to extend until it pushed them out of the academy. The ice abruptly shattered into ice dust just as the academy doors slammed shut, locking them out.

"That was far too easy." The ice guardian thought to herself. Suddenly a loud explosion shook the academy's very foundation and another one destroyed the doors and blew them right off of their hinges and the doors flew in and nearly dug themselves into the academy walls. When the smoke cleared, Ace was standing in the doorway in his sage mode and clearly furious with the guardian. "Looks like I underestimated you, young sage. But to acquire her, you'll need to be much more than just flashy." As she spoke, she slowly pulled her arms in front of her, crossing them in front of her face. She then thrust her arms back down to her sides and tilted her head backward to look up to the sky. As she did this, an ice skeleton of what resembled angel wings sprang from her back. The initial wings were of small size, each section around the same length from her elbow to her fingertips. The "feathers" were all sharp ice crystals that floated close to the wing-shapes, the four middle ones around her entire arm length from her shoulder to her wrist, one on the top of the wing around the size of her forearm, another one near the bottom of the wing that was the size of her forearm and the last one that actually was at the bottom of her wing that was nearly the same length as her leg. (And that was simply describing one wing.)

Utterly confused, the Warners and Runt simply stood by. Still furious with the ice guardian, Ace simply charged in, silvery-blue light shining brightly. Rather than charging in and fighting Ace directly, the ice guardian maintained her demeanor. The floating shards of ice (other than the largest ones closest to her sides) turned and aimed their sharpest ends toward the small kitten. Then almost immediately after shifting their aim, they shot off like arrows flying at high speeds directly towards Ace one right after the other, zooming at the little kitten rapidly like large ice bullets from a machine gun. Each time one of the floating shards was fired at Ace, a new one simply formed in its place almost instantly and fired again. It was a barrage of icicles aimed directly at the young cat. Ditching and dodging the best he could, Ace quickly avoided the deadly rain of ice. Being flustered with his current outcome, he began to use that heat-up spell that he used to defeat the ice monsters before, however with the barrage, it proved difficult to focus on the spell and dodge at the same time. Receiving a few grazes from three of the shards, Ace decided to teleport out of the line of fire before he continued the heat-up spell. He disappeared from the constant rain of sharp ice, and reappeared behind one of the support beams with snow flake carvings that were inside one of the academy's classrooms. He began to concentrate on the heat-up spell once again until the sound of the flying icicles turned and got closer in a hurry. Ace ducked down under one of the desks and narrowly was made into a Swiss cheese kitty when the shards punched through the thick stone wall like it was paper.

"She is obviously not gonna let me use any intense heat spells. How do I get close to her?" Suddenly the light bulb clicked on inside his tiny little head. He concentrated for a short time and mumbled the barrier spell to himself. A sphere of solidified energy surrounded the kitten and Ace then levitated himself quietly back through the classroom. When he reached an opening, he made a mad dash for the guardian. Surprised by his maneuver, she was barely able to turn herself to catch him back into the barrage before he slammed into her left side, knocking the ice-cold wind out of her. "Now, free my mom!" Ace demanded at the top of his lungs. "A lucky shot is all. I guarantee you will not get another." The ice guardian stated with the utmost confidence in her voice. She then reached back and touched her hands to the two largest ice shards that draped close to her sides and they reshaped themselves into English broadswords made of condensed ice, one in each hand. She then lunged at the small cat and swung the sword in her left hand at him. Ace backed off enough to avoid the blade as it ripped through his barrier shield like it was a marshmallow. Suffering the damage, the barrier dissolved back into the energy it had come from, leaving a dumbfounded Ace vulnerable for a strike from the next sword. Rather than the sword striking the small cat, suddenly the guardian stopped in her tracks, looking like she was struggling to even stand up straight. Grunting and struggling to even move, the guardian slowly turned her head to see little Wakko aiming his palms at her. "What is this?" she grunted, and then she collapsed to the ground as if she had a 2000 pound vest plus two 500 pound bracelets. Struggling to rise to her feet, the guardian asked the small boy with great frustration, "What did you do to me?" Rather than answering her, Wakko kept his gaze on her, intense and fearless, still aiming his palms at his target, the ice guardian.

An enormous amount of pressure began to run throughout her body, the fear of being crushed beginning to fill her mind, the guardian began to witness her hovering shards shatter as they struck the ground from the enormous gravitational pressure. "Gravity Cage?" she exclaimed to herself. "Where in the world did this boy find the book containing the 'Gravity Cage' spell?" Ace then began to form a fireball of enormous magnitude. The fireball itself was approximately twenty feet in diameter and nearly reached degrees of 230 Fahrenheit. With rage still in his eyes, Ace was just about to launch the fireball, the guardian wrought with fear. "A fire spell like that, would wipe me out of existence!" the ice guardian thought to herself. She was beginning to suffer from the intense heat already, her powers being derived from cold temperatures. She wouldn't be able to survive the attack, even if she was deemed to be immortal. Out of intense fear of her own destruction, she screamed out, "Alright, you win! I surrender!" However, with Ace still blinded by rage, the fireball was launched. As it closed in on the helpless guardian, she began to envision her own life flash before her eyes, until she witnessed Yakko place himself in the fireball's path between it and her. Spreading his arms out wide Yakko simply stared down the enormous ball of inferno.

Witnessing Yakko's sudden act of bravery, Ace snapped himself out of his blind rage and used another spell to quickly dissolve the ball of inferno flames. He then slowly floated down to ground level and turned his head away from the ice woman like he was ashamed. Wakko, as well, released his gravity spell from the ice guardian and lowered his head in shame, looking solemn and sad. "Why would you do this for me? I sent you away without one of your friends, planning on keeping her here forever. What makes this one so special to the sage?" The ice guardian asked Yakko who was still standing in front of her with his arms out stretched. Yakko didn't respond, instead he slowly toppled backward and fell to the ground unconscious and sun burnt. Dot ran up to her brother and looked over his burns. "I have no idea how to move him without touching his burns..." She stated expanding on the initial gag set up by Yakko. "I ask again, what makes the one you call Rita so special to the sage? Her capture simply caused him to try that much harder. No one has been able to defeat me in battle until now." Dot lowered her head and solemnly closed her eyes at the very mention of the question. "We don't usually place too much value on the sappy and corny stuff. But, he places the same value on all of us for one reason alone. We're his family." The ice guardian began to recall her family from ages ago, before she volunteered to be the guardian of the Academy of Frost. "I see. Then I wish not to separate your family. Rita may go with you. You have all passed my test." She said. "Why did you try to take her anyway?" Dot wondered. "My tests involve strengthening the sage and the companions he/she travels with. I guess I lost sight of where true strength comes from." The guardian responded solemnly and in deep thought.

Yakko had finally woken up from his brush with a flying incinerator and Ace began doing his thing healing the wounds of his "family". Still leery about the ice guardian, it took Dot a while to convince Ace that she was a good person at heart. I was finally released from my icy prison and Ace did everything he could to get me to stop sneezing. After a small bit of entertainment at watching my fur fuzz out at every sneeze and a few of Wakko's pranks, the guardian gave us her cryptic advice. "The spell of wishes cannot be found materially, however if you find yourself knocking on a silver door, repeat the phrase of the family lore. This is all I can say to you young adventurers. May fortune favor your final test." And with that, she dissolved into snow and scattered with the wind.