Jack Thunder's training session was going well. San was surprised; the little guy already knew so much about magic. He should have expected as much; the storm gremlin had managed to summon two Wind spirits with that staff, after all. He had the power and the skill. He just needed to learn self-control.
"Um... Mister San?" Jack Thunder abruptly cut out his spell. The rain cloud he had been generating with it dissipated. "I don't mean to be rude but... why are we doing this? I can already summon rain clouds without the staff. I've been doing so for years. I want to do something really big. Something really special."
"You heard what your sister said. She doesn't quite trust you to be able to handle this much power by yourself yet. That's what I'm here for."
Jack Thunder snorted. Of course. Frosti had to tell San about the incident. Still, he had the wisdom to keep his mouth shut. If San was teaching him at all, it meant that somebody trusted that he could learn to be responsible. And Jack Thunder didn't want to prove otherwise.
He took a deep breath, half out of exasperation and half to steady himself. "So, what's next?"
"It seems as though you're catching on to this. I assume you've learned the Wendigo Banishing Incantation?"
Of course he'd learned the Wendigo Banishing Incantation. How could he not have? Since the War, it had become custom practice to teach young faeries the incantation as soon as they were able. Frosti taught him how to use it as soon as he was able to speak. He nodded.
"Okay. I'd like to see you demonstrate for me. Pretend that rock over there is a wendigo."
Jack Thunder obliged. He pointed the prongs of the staff at the rock. He concentrated hard, and little green sparks began to form around the gemstone in the center. He began reciting the incantation:
"Back to the Flipside with you and your hate!" The sparks began to swarm like angry bees.
"You have no place in this Land of Dreams!" The center of the gemstone began to glow.
"We belong to Altairus, Altairus is ours!" The gem shone bright white, shimmering with all colors of the rainbow.
"Now, begone!"
As soon as he uttered the last word, the light in the center of the staff snaked around the prongs of the staff, blasting forward in a cascade of blinding light. The blast shifted to all colors of the rainbow as it enveloped the rock, continuing to blast forward in a straight line. As powerful as it was, it did not harm anything that it touched. The trees and grass it invariably enveloped in its light did not burn. Eventually, the light cut out.
"Oh, good. You already know the incantation."
"Of course. I learned it when I was just four," Jack Thunder affirmed.
"They're teaching it to everyone these days?" San had been so out of the loop for so long.
"Yeah. Something about it being safer if everyone knew it."
San couldn't disagree. The War had taken so many lives in part because not enough Altairians knew how to fend against the wendigoes. "So you already know what it does."
"Yeah. It strips all the power from a wendigo and throws them back into the rift they came from," Jack Thunder recited from memory.
"And it seals the rift they came from."
"When am I gonna fight some real wendigoes?"
Hopefully never, San thought. But he kept that thought to himself.
About a month later, Jack Thunder was sitting in his room, pouting. He had learned so much from San's teaching, but he still hadn't actually banished a wendigo! He had spent so much time perfecting his magic, learning how to use the staff, but he still hadn't put it to good use. He was so sick and tired of waiting.
"Razer, nothing I do is working! I've been studying and studying and I still haven't faced off against a wendigo! I feel like I've been doing this all for nothing!" Razer simply yawned and circled around before lying down and going back to sleep.
Even the wyvern was sick of hearing his ranting. Jack Thunder headed outside. Maybe a change of scenery would help him feel better. At the very least, sitting in his room feeling sorry for himself wasn't helping matters.
His nerves settled as he inhaled the smell of ozone. He thought he would have gotten used to the smell by now. But today, something was not right. The scent was... different somehow. He looked around. The village was the same as ever.
I'm probably just tired. This past month had been rather hectic for him. So many late nights up studying Air spells, mastering them one by one. Learning every tip and trick he could to finally face off against the wendigoes. All for nothing, he thought bitterly. He continued on his path out of the village.
As Jack Thunder made his way to Mt. Tempest, he couldn't help but feel that the air around him was colder than usual. He stopped, confused. It shouldn't have been this cold. It wasn't winter; the Summer Solstice had been but a scant month and a half ago. And Tempest Island was nowhere near the polar regions that saw ice and snow year-round. Besides, this wasn't the wintry kind of cold, the kind of cold that turned the rains of the island into snow flurries.
No. This was an unnatural kind of cold. An empty kind of cold, like the air itself had been robbed of life. Almost as if...
Jack Thunder snapped to attention and raced back to the village. If his hunch was correct, the village could be in real danger. Perhaps there was something he missed when he looked around for the first time.
He hadn't noticed it before, but the village was just as cold as the mountain was. Furthermore, he didn't see any storm gremlins anywhere. Normally, he could catch a few storm gremlins out riding on clouds or causing mischief, but today, he could mistake the town for a ghost town. Something was not right here.
"Where is everyone?" he mused to himself. He began looking around, hoping to catch any glimpse of another soul around. With each passing minute, he became more and more unnerved. Was this some kind of trick? If so, this was the most elaborate prank he had ever seen any storm gremlin play on anyone. "Okay, very funny! You can come out now!"
The response was not what he was expecting. Instead of all the storm gremlins coming out and having a good laugh, he was met with a soft, pained groan.
He whipped around. To his relief, he had found another storm gremlin. Melanie Starstruck was her name. She wore a minty-green jumpsuit and bore the image of a star on her chest. At least her suit was green. Now it seemed to have been bleached to a sickly grey. It wasn't just her jumpsuit; her entire form looked to be drained of color, turning a joyless grey that was almost white. She staggered out the door, her eyes lidded and dull.
Jack Thunder rushed to her side. "Melanie! Are you okay? Things around here have gotten really weird! The air's gone cold, everyone is gone, and now you-"
"Jack...? You're still out...?"
"I'm still out? What do you mean? Where has everyone else gone?"
"Not just me... the others..." She fell to her knees, unable to support her own weight any more. Jack Thunder ran up to the window and peered inside.
It wasn't just Melanie. The entire inside of the hut had lost all its color. Inside, Jack Thunder could make out the form of her cousin, Ember Moonbeam. She was in no better state; she was slumped against a beanbag on the opposite wall. Her purple jumpsuit had turned a faded lavender, and her red eyes had lost all of their luster.
Jack Thunder ran over to the other nearby huts, looking into them one by one. Hut after hut was the same. Both the houses and the residents within had lost all their color and energy.
That's when it hit him. The smell of the ozone that morning. The cold. The empty village. Hut after hut, gremlin after gremlin suffering the same grey affliction. They all pointed to one thing.
Anima depletion.
Something was stealing all of Tempest Island's Anima. And Jack Thunder felt in his gut he knew exactly what it was.
He raced home to fetch his staff. This just might be his chance.
"San? Frosti? Where's the staff? I need it!"
"Wait, wait. What's going on here?" San turned from his map on the table.
"No time to explain! The island's come under a curse! I need the staff so I can find where it's coming from and defeat it! Now, where is it?!"
"What kind of curse? You're not thinking of banishing a wendigo on your own, are you?"
"Of course I am! I've learned so much! I'm ready! I swear!"
San stood up from his seat, grabbing the staff. "Jack Thunder, you shouldn't be so excited about the prospect of banishing a wendigo. It's a dangerous business. There is a reason why I didn't allow you to do it on your own."
Jack Thunder fumed. The collective frustration of the past month reached boiling point, and he snapped. "Then what was the point of training me then, huh?! I've been working and working for weeks on end, and you still don't trust me! I've learned every single spell about handling them! Banishing spells, ward spells, the whole nine yards! I'm so sick and tired of people telling me I'm not ready! 'You're not ready, Jack Thunder!' 'You'll understand when you're older, Jack Thunder!' 'Get out from under my feet, Jack Thunder!' Well, you know what? This time, I'm gonna do it! I'm gonna take care of this threat right here and now!" Jack Thunder moved closer and closer, eventually moving to snatch the staff right out of San's hand. "And there's nothing you can do to stop me!"
With that, Jack Thunder ran out of the house with the staff in hand. He ran until he had reached a small boulder near the outskirts of the town, where he hid. He didn't want San finding him. That's when he noticed Razer beside him. The weather wyvern had overheard the commotion and come out to join him on his quest. He looked at the storm gremlin with a lightly disapproving expression.
"I know. I know. I'll apologize to him later. Right now, I need to figure out where this thing is coming from. Now, what did he say about wendigoes? Something about how you can tell where they are by how Anima depleted the land is."
He looked around. The village was Anima depleted, all right. The colorlessness had spread to the outside of the huts now. It looked as if he were looking at a photograph and only a scant few of the huts had been rendered in full color. So... if the corruption had spread that quickly, the wendigo was not too far behind. Jack Thunder clutched Stormbringer in his hands and whispered an incantation for protection. He felt a wave of magic and calmness cascade over him. This should protect us.
That's when he noticed the gemstone in the center of the staff pulsing. He swung it over to his left, and its pulses slowed. He swung it to his right, and the pulses quickened. Before he could ponder what this meant, he noticed that there were more depleted houses to his right than his left. That's when he felt a pull coming from his right. It was not pulling on his body, but on his soul, trying to suck the life right out of him. The staff must be tracking the wendigo! he thought, putting two and two together.
He took off once again, this time to the right. Razer trailed behind him all the way.
