Chase was heading north as indicated on the world map that his aunt had given him and after a couple of hours of flight, the weather suddenly changed to extreme cold. He put his hood over his head but even though it was not enough to protect him from the cold, he didn't care.
Suddenly, a snowstorm emerged and there was nothing in sight. This could be quite dangerous as he did not know if he had reached main land yet and he didn't want to drop in cold water so, he started to descend slowly, trying to see if he could find at least a piece of land but there was nothing.
He decided to risk it and descended even more thinking that there was only water there but thankfully, his foot hit a piece of land making him silently sigh in relief. He was pretty sure that he hadn't moved an inch from his spot but he quickly found himself going downhill. And his descent was not stopping. He kept on going lower and lower as well as faster but he hadn't quite reached the bottom yet.
Trying to fly away would be a risk as there was no way of telling what could come down from above and his current position did not allow for him to do any kind of sudden movements. The snowstorm was not helping and the fact that he was rolling around in it did not make him happy but he had to deal with it until he touched solid ground. Finally, he finished his descent into nowhere and stood up, dusted the snow off of himself and took in his surroundings: The snowstorm was still fully visible and there was no telling of when it was going to clear or even where he had fallen from.
At least he wasn't dead... Yet.
Without warning, the snowstorm cleared up, but only in the area where Chase stood. Further ahead, it still raged fiercely. Chase looked around and finally got a clear view of his surroundings. He had fallen into what seemed like a pit, but it looked more like a giant bowl made of clear ice. The walls were intricately carved with a design resembling a pirate ship, except the eyes on the carvings glowed an eerie blue. Despite the newfound clarity, an uneasy feeling gnawed at Chase, making him instinctively wary of this strange place.
Before he could fly out, a soft howl escaped from the wind and a rumbling was heard, causing the snowstorm to reappear and block his view. Chase noticed that the blue eyes had gotten extremely close, even though he was at least 60 meters away, making him want to get out of there faster than ever. But, fear paralyses. Chase could not move at all and his senses seemed to have been blocked as he stared at the approaching eyes.
"Who dares trespass these lands?" A deep but booming voice asked. Chase heard a snarl and did not know what to think anymore.
Once again, the storm cleared and Chase saw a large bluish wolf menacingly standing in front of him, looking ready to attack.
The wolf's head was of a dark blue shade with three huge strands of hair going over his head. Its eyes were completely blue and it seemed to flare up. It had a black nose and his tail was white and blue. There were also ice shards floating around its neck and the rest of the wolf's body was white but it had some kind of ice markings on his sides and legs and his paws were a shade of blue. Blue white Wings were located at the wolf's side and ice could be seen sticking out of the wolf's legs. He was indubitably a fearsome predator.
"State your purpose!" The voice said again. Chase's period of fear had passed and he felt somewhat... calm. He didn't answer and looked the wolf dead in the eyes without a hint of fear.
'There's something unusual about him', the wolf thought to himself as he contemplated the boy in front of him. 'He doesn't appear to be frightened in the least.'
The wolf growled at Chase's face expecting some kind of reaction but there was only silence. The wolf started contemplating about his life and thinking about what he was doing wrong but, looking closely at the boy, he realised that his eyes looked lifeless.
'What is the meaning behind this boy's eyes?' The wolf thought again before deciding on what to do next. He focused on the boy again and its completely blue eyes changed to white and time seemed to have stopped.
"I see," the wolf said as his eyes changed back to blue. "The pain you felt was immeasurable". Chase didn't know how he knew about him but stayed quiet.
"You're probably wondering how I know about you." The wolf said, reading his facial expression. "In fact, I know all about you." Chase still said nothing and was looking quite annoyed at the fact that someone suddenly knew all about him.
"You-" The wolf was interrupted by Chase turning his back against him and started to walk away. He clearly wasn't interested in what the wolf was going to say and he didn't want anyone retelling him his past.
"Wait!" The wolf shouted behind him. "I got a proposition for you." Hearing that, Chase stopped walking and looked back at the wolf and waited for him to proceed.
"I know where you're going and i can help you." The wolf continued but Chase started walking again. "As you are right now, you'll get killed before you even step foot inside that place." The wolf said again. "But, if you listen to me, I'll be able to help you."
Chase knew that the place he was going was no joke and he knew that the wolf was not lying so he turned around and walked back towards the wolf.
"Why do you want to help me?" Chase asked as he stood in front of the wolf.
"I was sealed for centuries but once you set foot in this place, you broke it."
"That's very cliché isn't it?" Chase asked, "Am I the only one who can do that?"
"I'm not sure but something within you has lifted my seal." The wolf said, "Something within you resemblances my old master's from centuries ago and my seal couldn't be broken without his permission."
"Who was your master?" Chase asked, feeling skeptical about all this.
"My memories about my master have become fragmented." He explained, "The only thing I can remember is the resemblance in energy between the two of you which is why I have decided to make a contract with you."
"What kind of contract?"
"A Master-Servant one, you as the master and me as your servant."
A brown scroll appeared in front of Chase, titled: Master-Servant contract.
The wolf continued: "Read the contract and if you accept it, I will follow your commands but you can also refuse and if you do not want anything to do with me anymore, the contract can be cancelled and I will return to this place, sealed up once again."
Chase studied the scroll carefully and found that it had some interesting conditions in it, for example:
- Telepathy could be used between the two;
- If the master dies, the servant also dies but not the inverse but if the servant dies, it can respawn by using a great chunk of its power which takes a while to recover;
-The stronger the master or servant gets, the stronger the other one gets;
- The servant can regroup with the master wherever he could be;
"If you accept the contract, put a bit of your blood on the scroll at the bottom." Chase thought about it for a moment, shrugged and then cut himself a bit with a sharp stone that was at his feet before pouring his blood on the scroll.
The scroll lit up yellow and disappeared before 3 holograms appeared in front of Chase.
"Choose which object you'd like to have to represent our contract." The wolf instructed.
Chase analysed the three holograms: one of them was a silver stud, the other was a tattoo emblem that had a double sword design and a blue bracelet. He didn't like bracelets so he ruled that out. The tattoo was fire but he didn't want people to ask too many questions, so he settled on the stud.
Upon pointing towards the hologram, the other items disappeared and a materialistic, crystallised ice stud presented itself in front of Chase.
"It's not going to hurt your ear even if they are not pierced." The wolf informed him. Chase took that info in and pierced his left ear with it. To his surprise, it didn't hurt and no trace of blood was visible on his ear.
"Only you can pull it out of your ear and the moment you do that, the contract will be cancelled." The wolf warned. "Now then master," he started, "I would need a name."
Chase was about to argue as to why he didn't have a name yet but he liked having to come up with his own ideas so he thought about it for quite some time and finally decided on something.
"Tridius." He simply said. The wolf thought about it and bowed. "From now on, I, the wolf of the north and the god of ice shall be named Tridius." He said before bowing to Chase. "You are my master and I will follow you till the end of times."
The wolf stopped bowing and looked at his new master.
"I know where you're going and the moment you go there master, you will die." Tridius said, getting straight to the point without wasting time. "You're still too weak." The words were harsh but it didn't bother Chase since what Tridius was saying was true.
"What do you propose?" Chase asked.
"I'll train you." Tridius said, feeling confident.
"When can we start?" Chase asked.
"Right now." Chase placed his bag next to the wall and awaited further instructions.
"This training won't take long. It will only be for the place you want to go." Tridius said as he circled around the boy.
"Let's get this thing started shall we?"
*****
In the meantime, Maria was feeling quite cranky. She hadn't gotten anywhere with her 'finding Chase case' and it was doing her head in. It was 1:10pm and here she was, sitting behind her desk at school thinking about what to do next before a knock on the door snapped her out of her thoughts.
"Come in!" She exclaimed as she awaited the person behind the door to enter. "Hey there Lazuli!" She exclaimed brightly as she welcomed her niece into her office. "I get it that your mission is done and you're heading back to class."
"Yes." Lazuli said, looking very tired and bruised. Maria gestured for her to sit and she took a seat in front of her aunt. "But before that I wanted to talk to you."
"About what?" Maria asked, smiling.
"About the thing with Chase."
"Do you have any information?" Maria asked desperately, wanting to find her nephew.
"Lucas knows something."
"How would he know?" Maria asked. "You said that Chase had returned to the supermarket not that Lucas was there."
"Sorry," Lazuli continued, "I lied to you." Maria sighed heavily and looked at her niece in the eyes.
"You know that all this searching could have been avoided if you told me." Lazuli looked at her feet and said nothing. "Tell me what you know." So Lazuli started with how they were coming back from the supermarket and how Lucas and his friends coincidentally encountered them on the road and how they took Chase with them.
Maria listened but said nothing, waiting for Lazuli to finish. When she was finally done, Maria smiled a bit and finally spoke. "Thank you for telling me Lazuli, now tell Keiaa to come to my office and you can go back to class."
Lazuli stood up, said her thanks to Maria and left the room. 4 minutes later, a boy came inside the room, looking frightened out of his mind. Maria gestured him towards a seat in front of him and waited for him to sit down.
"Thanks for coming Keiaa." Maria unhappily said. The reason she called Keiaa instead of the main perpetrator was because of the fact that Keiaa was the easiest to break out of Lucas' group unlike the others.
"H-how can I help you Ms Pierce?" Keiaa said nervously.
"I heard that you were involved with Chase's disappearance." Maria said, straight to the point. Keiaa jolted and felt himself sweating. "I know that you don't want to get in trouble Keiaa, so tell me what happened." keiaa felt uncertain and Maria was about to threaten him but he started speaking.
"Would Lucas know about this meeting?" He nervously asked.
"He would if he saw Lazuli telling you to come here." She said, "But don't worry, this conversation is only between you and I." Reassuring him.
But Keiaa wasn't completely convinced and questioned her again. "What happens if I don't tell you the truth?"
Maria put her hands on the table and answered. "You would potentially get excluded and never get into another school again and because of my connections, your family might not be doing business anymore." She didn't like threatening people but in some cases she had to do it even though threatening to blow him up would have been easier, talking about his family's business made him queasy.
keiaa looked uncertain but started talking. He told her about everything that had happened and where he last saw him. Maria listened attentively, hiding her true emotions very well and when he was done, she pressured him to bring her to the place where they had left him. They exited the school expeditiously and flew for quite some time before coming to a stop in the middle of nowhere. Upon landing, Keiaa led Maria towards the area where they had left Chase and to their astonishment, there was no trace of him.
"So..." Maria started, "Where is he?" She looked around a bit and came to the conclusion that no one was there.
"I-I don't know Ms." Keiaa said, timorously. "The last time we saw him was here."
"But no one's here right now." keiaa looked nervously at the ground before a hand patted his shoulder in a comforting way. "Let's get you back to school."
"But-but-but aren't you going to check for any traces of him?" He asked.
"No need." She simply started before turning her back towards the kid and walking. "We won't be able to find him since the traces of blood have vanished, he could have gone anywhere or a monster might have eaten him whole." She started flying upwards and Keiaa followed. "I'll get a couple of government agents to spread out and look for traces of him but you need to keep a low profile since Lucas learning about where you were today may not end well for you." keiaa nodded but said nothing and with that, they headed back to school in complete silence.