Chapter 15 – Seventh Academy: Nature
"I'm starting to get the feeling that the only way we will actually locate the queen is to complete this 'game' of hers." Yakko deduced. "Every time we make an effort to either cut her off or confront her, we get teleported to the next academy on the list." Yakko was right, the Queen was determined to have us complete this game, and if that last test was any indication, the next tests will be even more difficult. "So, where to next?" Dot asked slightly worried. "Unfortunately, I think we need to go to where we were thinking of going when we were going to head the queen off. The Academy of Nature." Yakko answered slightly frustrated at the irony. "But according to the map, the Academy of Metal is closer." Wakko began to complain. "Well, this would be a good opportunity to have Ace get the hang of using the tes macrinomb spell... Uuuuuhhhhhh, or we could wait for Runt to figure it out." Yakko stated sarcastically. Every one simply turned their attention to the large dog, who was simply staring off into space and panting happily. We all spoke at the same time, sort of making our words incoherent. "I like the plan involving Ace better." Dot stated. "Ace, definitely Ace." I said in a slight panic. "I think it'd be better if I did it." Ace admitted. "I want Runt to do it." Wakko stated slightly late. We all simply turned and stared at him as if he was crazier than Coluv. Wakko just stood there sticking his tongue out toward the right.
An hour, and 247 attempts later, Dot made the decision to traverse back into the ice academy and locate the "red book". Around twenty minutes later, she reemerged from the frozen sanctum and carried with her a large book with a bright red hard cover. Putting drama into the situation for one of her jokes, Dot stated to Yakko, who ran up to her to greet her, "Please sir, I must deliver this package to the prince." She spoke with a British accent. "You should've taken your acting lessons more seriously you know. Maybe you would have some talent." Yakko retorted. Dot simply gave her brother an evil glare for that remark. She then straightened up and walked over to the little kitten. She then slammed the book down in the dirt near Ace's paws and sternly said to him, "Study!" Ace simply dropped his ears to the sides of his head and sank his neck down into his collar bone, giving her the "big eyes" look. Within another thirty minutes, the small kitten had figured out what was wrong with his spells. "So, what are you doing wrong?" Yakko stated trying to keep any possible blame off of his back. "I listened to my annoying uncle!" Ace responded trying to get Yakko to make his words sound gentler. "Listen, I know Wakko has problems, but let's not rub them in his face, alright?" Yakko retorted to Ace's comment. Ace simply dropped his head into the book in frustration. Hearing his name used in vain, Wakko perked up his head to make an attempt to figure out who was speaking... and failed miserably.
"So, what was wrong with your spell casting?" I decided to take over for Yakko, giving him my ultimate death glare. "This planet's magical energies are a lot more abundant, making spell casting much more sensitive. I need to focus better and imagine the situation more clearly." Ace explained. "Oh, is that all?" I responded extremely confused. "Just trust me." Ace stated slightly frustrated at my lack of understanding his words. "Ok! Let's give it a try!" Yakko stated with fake enthusiasm. "You guys need to picture the place we are going to as well, unless you want to become trapped in a wall or something." "Where's a post card when you need one?" Yakko stated after gulping with worry. After a few attempts at teleporting shorter distances (say around 60 feet), Ace began to teleport us farther distances (around up to the horizon). It was only a matter of minutes before we reached the Academy of Nature. Our group flashed in front of the large wooden doors and gently floated to the ground from our average arrival height of six inches off of the ground. Ace seemed to be worn out from using all of that magic in just a few minutes, so we decided to take a rest before we entered the academy and faced off with the guardian.
After taking a few hours to rest up and have something to eat from Wakko's magic fridge, we were finally ready to go in. By this time the sun was beginning to set in the distance. Despite the seemingly short amount of time we took teleporting here, we actually used up nearly the entire day. It was then the large doors of the academy, slowly creaked open. Behind those doors, stood another female guardian. This one had a light green tinge to her skin, almost as if it was made of aloe. Her hair was short, green and stood up in rows like it was grass. She had dark green eyes and wore dark eyeliner to help bring them out. She wore a red dress that resembled a cross between a rose and a tulip. A triangular opening in the dress exposed her naval and stomach. The dress ended in a short skirt that had four pedals for the skirt design. Attached to the dress was a pink cloth that extended down to her knees in the front and down to the middle of her shins in the back. To complete her outfit she wore high heeled boots of a darker shade of pink. On her wrists were gold bracelets and she donned a tattoo of a vine climbing from her wrist and wrapping around her arm up to her shoulder. Attached to the vine was a single red rose. Did I mention she also had a giant red flower bud growing out of her back? She approached us with a calm demeanor and a kind expression in her eyes.
The Warner brothers did their thing once again when they meet up with a pretty girl, and she was definitely pretty, if you're into nymphs and dryads. Their backs stiffened up and they began panting like dogs until she had gotten close enough to the group. Then they howled, "Heloooo Nymph!" in unison and rushed to jump into her awaiting arms. Dot simply looked at the rest of us, crossed her arms and complained, "How come there haven't been any guys around for me to do that?"Ace and I simply rolled our eyes in slight frustration. "Excuse me, but would you folks prefer to come inside the academy? It's going to rain tonight and I'm waiting for the new sage and his group of friends." The nymph lady said. When she spoke, her voice flowed beautifully and she sounded very wise. Yakko and Wakko stopped kissing her cheeks long enough to speak, "That would be us!" Yakko exclaimed. The guardian stopped and looked at our group like she was confused. "The sage is right over there." Wakko added, pointing at Ace. The guardian looked extremely confused now. She dropped Yakko and Wakko on their butts and took a couple steps backward. "I was imagining the sage to be an extremely attractive Valkyrian, like Vuloc." She said acting like a teenage girl with her first crush. "That is, if you like all of that hair." Dot interrupted her fantasy. "Hey," the guardian retorted, "It might be big, but that was all of the 'rage' on this world. You'd fall head over heels for him too if you met him." "I have." Dot stated solemnly, "He saved my life." The guardian suddenly stopped being snippy and jealous. She lowered her head in slight shame and offered us the shelter once again.
Inside, we at least now had a roof over our heads, as long as we didn't head to the academy's arena. Once inside, we quickly set out our sleeping bags and built a warm fire using Ace's magic. The first twenty minutes of camping with the guardian of nature was nothing but awkward silence until the guardian spoke. "I must apologize for my words earlier. I guess I was expecting something much different and wound up living in my fantasies for too long." She solemnly said with still some disappointment in her voice. "I kinda know how that feels." Dot responded. With the initial conversation becoming quite awkward for the boys, they decided to get up and search the academy for a while. The campfire flickering gently, yet wildly in front of our faces another two minutes of awkward silence, then the guardian spoke a single word, "Nymph." "What?" Dot responded slightly confused. "My name." the guardian informed the little Warner. "My name is Nymph." "Wait, the guardians all have names?" Dot stated confused and confounded. Hearing Dot say that tidbit of interesting information, the guys rushed back to listen for any of the guardians names that they could poke fun at. "Yes, we all have names. Each of us were once Valkyrians, you know." Nymph said. "So..." Dot started, "What is the flaming horse's name?" She asked. "Vulcan." Nymph responded after tilting her head to think about it for a little bit. "The mermaid?" Dot asked. "Stella." Nymph answered. "The minotaur?" Dot asked shuddering at the memory of his attitude. "Lance." Nymph answered slightly worried as to figuring out how he must have treated Dot and I. "The ice girl?" Dot asked next. "Angel." Nymph answered. "That's a bit messed up." Yakko retorted remembering what she had put him through. Looking at him slightly confused, Nymph then said, "The dude made of lightning... His name is Lou." "You mean Lou-ser, right." Yakko joked remembering his crazy antics, every one began rolling on the ground laughing. "Anyway," Nymph interrupted and included the evil stare, "the air guardian's name is Angela, and the metal guardian's name is Ron." "What's the final guardian's name?" Dot asked inquisitively. "That no one knows." Nymph answered.
It was beginning to get dark outside and indeed, just as Nymph said, there came a good sized storm. With the constant beating sound of the rain and the clashing of the thunder it was hard to get to sleep until, Nymph told us, "I can help you all get to sleep if you will permit me." "You had better have a gorgeous singing voice." Yakko stated sarcastically. Dot and Nymph both glared at him angrily, then Nymph sat up straight with her legs folded under her, tilted her head up slightly, closed her eyes, and folded her arms over her chest. Suddenly, the flower bud on her back bloomed and a light silvery-blue mist seeped out of it. The smell was calm and extremely relaxing. It swirled around her and enveloped us nearly completely. After breathing it in for a short while, we all began to grow extremely tired. Unable to resist, we all plopped our heads onto our pillows and fell into dreamland. "Now, little sage, my test for you begins." Nymph said under her breath and giving our entire group that gentle expression she naturally gives. "I am sorry for doing this, but I must see your dreams." She added, and then she sat back up straight, crossed her arms back over her chest and closed her eyes to concentrate.
The first dream she took a look at was Ace's dream. Entering it to confront him and possibly locate and find Vuloc, she passed through the veil that separates dreams from reality. When she had finally crossed into Ace's dream world, she simply found herself in a blank white space, void of any creations or objects. Looking around slightly confused and wondering if she had gotten lost somewhere while entering the dream realm, she finally noticed two figures a great distance away. She began to make her way to the two figures until one of them flashed right in front of her. It wasn't like teleporting. It was as if he simply appeared in front of her like watching a light bulb turn on from being off for a while. Gasping with a start, Nymph reared back and grabbed her heart as if she was afraid that it would jump out of her chest. The figure simply stood there and watched her stagger backward a few steps. "Are you trying to give me a heart attack?" Nymph said raising her voice. She was about to scold the figure some more until she finally got a good look at it. The figure who flashed in front of her and startled her was Vuloc.
Suddenly Nymph stiffened up and began acting like a teenage girl confronting her first crush. A large smile stretched across her face and pink hearts began beating in her eyes. She closed her hands into half-fists and brought them up to her face, resting her palms on her chin. Squealing with glee, she hardly realized that he was simply rolling his eyes. "Are you going to test us, or are you going to continue to crush on me all night?" Vuloc stated rather sternly. Nymph snapped back to reality when she realized that he said "us" and not "me". "Uh... 'us'?" She repeated. From behind Vuloc's leg trotted Ace, the little blue kitten with the light blue star mark on his forehead. Confused, Nymph pointed at the little kitten and stated, "You? How is that possible? I thought you were Vuloc in another form." "That is quite true." Answered Vuloc. "But, at the same time, it isn't true." He then added. Now Nymph was even more confused. "What do you mean by that, my sage?" She asked. Vuloc turned toward the small kitten and said to the guardian, "I am not the sage anymore. He is. I had used the forbidden 'spell of second life' and received its punishment. A new soul was born and mine was locked away for a time. As the children conquered the guardians, my bonds began to loosen until, I was able to get free and speak to my new soul." Remembering the harsh consequences the original sage had placed on the "forbidden spells" she finally began to understand just what had happened. "So, dear 'guardian of nature', what is your test?" Vuloc asked. Nymph simply dropped her head in sorrow and said, "I'll be back for you two. First I need to see the others' dreams." And she shifted from the sage's dream world to Wakko's.
In Wakko's dream world, there wasn't a whole lot too it, unless you consider the enormous mountains of food a whole lot. "I'm not even gonna stick around for this." Nymph stated with frustration and annoyance. She decided to shift to Yakko's dream world which was filled with pretty girls and movie reels of all of their old cartoons. "This is just sad." She stated and shifted to Runt's dream world. She entered a large back yard where Runt was playing with a dream image of Ace and the Warners. He was simply being himself and running around. "Figures, he is a dog." Nymph stated and shifted into Dot's dream world. "You said that you had met Vuloc before, what were you talking about?" She mumbled to herself and waved her arms in front of herself. There appeared a pink book that had a photo of Dot on the front and was decorated with a variety of flowers. "This is cute." Nymph stated while turning the book around to get a better look at it. She opened up the book and flipped through the pages until the scenery around her changed to the scenes of the "Blood Star Incident". Stopping to watch the whole thing through from start to finish through Dot's eyes, Nymph at last understood what she meant by "saved her life".
Shifting over to my dream world now she began to shift through my memories. My book was grey and slightly tattered as well as it looked like it was cleaned up and taken care of recently. The first thing she flipped through was the scene when Runt had gotten mauled by the wild dogs in Eugene, Oregon. She witnessed as Vuloc, with his cloak covering his body and face tossed the wild dogs aside and eventually chased them off. She watched as he hovered over Runt's lifeless body and cast the spell of second life on him and transformed into the small kitten, Ace. Shedding a tear, she searched forward for any indication that it could have been anyone else. She found the memories of me reading Vuloc's sage's journal and finally confirmed that it was Vuloc who became the small kitten. Wishing that she still had the bliss of her ignorance, the guardian began to cry silently to herself, until the scene suddenly changed to a dark sky, full of ahs and smoke. The guardian tried to make an attempt to shift back to the sage's dream realm, but somehow she wasn't able to do it. And she witnessed my entire nightmare. This time the giant silver figure was merely blurred out, however I still could see that it was a giant quadruped animal. The body shape was even similar to a cat's or a dog's. Ace began to fight the creature all by himself. Somehow or other the Warners were knocked down for the count and Runt was completely buried under a pile of rubble and debris. Ace and I were the only ones conscious. The giant creature swiped at the small kitten with his large paws and Ace barely dodged each strike. Throwing a variety of different spells at the blurry creature, Ace made his attempt to deal damage to it. However, the spells merely dissipated the closer they got to the creature, as if it was negating Ace's spells without uttering a single word. Realizing what was going on, Nymph simply whispered under her breath, "No", unable to avert her gaze from the battle. She then witnessed as Ace was promptly obliterated by an enormous ball of energy that struck the ground right on top of me.
We both gasped as she broke free from her trance, and I woke up from my dream. Everyone else was startled awake as we both let out shrieks from fear. Everyone gathered around us as we tried catching our breath. "I saw..." Nymph started, "I saw your dream!" she then concluded her sentence. Slightly confused and still panting to catch my breath, all I could say was, "Huh?" The both of us were drenched in perspiration and nearly panicking from what we had seen. "I entered into your subconscious to learn what you had learned, and when you had your nightmare, some unknown force trapped my inside. That is some powerful magic to manipulate others dreams and trap me inside someone else's subconscious." Nymph explained. And what were you doing in our subconsciouses?" Yakko asked slightly annoyed. "That was my test." She admitted. "I enter your subconscious minds and search for any indications of evil desires." "So, uuuuuuuhhhhh, did we pass?" Yakko asked sarcastically. "The only evil I've seen was the evil manipulating your dreams." She said to me. Still panting I asked, "Am I gonna have this dream again tonight?" "Fortunately," Nymph replied, "Spells like that can only be used once every twenty four hours." She then leaned back to calm down a little bit and gave us her cryptic advice, "The spell of wishes cannot be found materially, but don't give up hope you are nearly there. The final test lies in the center of the star." "That helps a lot." Yakko stated sarcastically. "Just work with it." Nymph retorted. "It's still late and we all should get some more rest. And with that, she opened her flower up again and put us to sleep with its aroma. Rather than entering our subconscious minds again, she lied down on her right side and fell asleep close to our group.