jerks into her new form, her evil slitted eyes widened as she felt a power growing within. Suddenly she threw up her arm and fired a burst of laser light into the night sky, ‘cracking’ the air with thunder.
Still mostly a rat creature, Rat Roth was astounded as he gaped at her magnificence in awe, and gasped, “Such Power!”
The upheaval of their transformation attracted Celeste and her protective light bubble took off towards Morbella’s ray of light. Celeste glowing sphere descended and dissolved in a dazzling radiant mist, and before their very eyes she grew rapidly upwards into a tall elegant auburn haired cat-like woman in a shimmering silver gown
Frightened, Rat Roth shrieked. His whiskers quivered and his form suddenly wavered and shape-shifted as he completed morphing into a handsome blond man with dark swirls of green and gold skin. Fearful of Celeste and being a coward, he immediately hid behind Morbella.
Undaunted Celeste faced the malevolent creatures. “Your evil is at an end Dark Ones —You will never hold captive ANYONE again…” And with a twist of her wrist she said, “Now I will destroy you!”
Celeste then fired a ray of blue light that hit Morbella hard in the chest. Seemingly invincible, Morbella recoiled slightly, but stood up to the blast. She finally whirled aside and laughed wickedly as she coiled her long fingers, and materializing a searing fireball, she hurled it at Celeste.
Celeste quickly stepped aside and the fireball whizzed past her hitting a rock. Celeste fired again, this time striking Morbella in the stomach. Laughing, Morbella whirled away and fired with a greater force, a powerful continuous violet ray that hit Celeste squarely. Striding toward her, Morbella forced Celeste back. Celeste tried to fight the ray, but Morbella’s strength was devastating. As Morbella flooded Celeste with the violet stream, Celeste weakened and slowly her body began to flatten into a two dimensional sense. Horrified, she screamed as she felt herself beginning to drift apart in pieces of light waves. She was now a two-dimensional being! She could not see Morbella, but she could hear her hideous shrieking laugher and Celeste became terrified.
She knew she’d better do something quickly or she would be lost forever. Then she suddenly remembered the key. First, she calmed herself down and the fear left her. She totally focused herself. She ignored the shrieking Morbella and with great strength concentrated all of her power on pulling herself back together. Slowly her three-dimensional self began to reform.
Watching this, Morbella seethed in anger and her power weakened for a moment. Celeste seized that moment to shrink herself and re-materialize her protective sphere of light around her.
Quickly Morbella regained her strength and resumed firing the violet ray upon the light sphere.
Safely inside, Celeste knew that her light sphere was impervious to damage, but she soon realized it was not impervious to pressure, and as Morbella used more of her power the sphere flew up, up, and far away into the heavens. It flew at an enormous speed, out through space with time blinking past planets and stars until it reached Veri’s red jeweled planet. It was “Serendipity” because at that very moment the portal door on the Jewel of Arcturus mysteriously spiraled open and out whirled a white fluffy, teddy bear creature with his eyes tightly closed. A second later, Celeste sphere passed the creature and was thrust inside the open portal door. Not a moment later the Portal door quickly spiraled shut behind her and the sound of its slamming reverberated again and again throughout the universe.
Morbella’s violet ray continued on, sealing the portal door until it was securely locked. Celeste was now trapped inside the Jewel of Arcturus, as well as all the other worlds that resided there.
Back on the small planet in the Virgo Cluster, Morbella laughed hysterically basking in her vileness. But what she didn’t understand was that she had foiled herself. For just as she’d completed sealing the portal door, the excess of her new found power quickly drained her and became deadly. Suddenly weak, Morbella slumped back into an astonished Roth’s arms. The gold swirls of color on her skin suddenly caught fire and flamed upwards. Terrified of being burned, Roth shoved her away. Morbella fell to the ground screaming and writhing as the flames engulfed her, melting her like a wax doll. Soon there was no more left of Morbella than a bubbling liquid puddle on the ground.
In shock and horror Roth knelt beside the bubbling puddle. He tore at his hair and screamed, but after a moment his quivering coward lips began to curl into a snarl of an evil smile and he lifted his head upwards to the heavens and snickered. “Aheh… Aheh… Aheh.”
What Roth had realized was that Celeste, the only power strong enough to destroy him, was now trapped inside the Red Jewel of Arcturus. He was now utterly free to wreak all the havoc in the universe that he wanted. He snickered loudly, but then his snickering abruptly stopped. Roth grew afraid. You see, his fear was that someday, someone — a curious someone, an inventor like Jesse for instance just might find a way of re-opening that portal door on the Jewel of Arcturus —and then…well, that’s where our story comes in.
CHAPTER 5
THE THREE MUSKETEERS
It was a bright and sunny September-time day. High billowing clouds drifted above the high school and the students talked and laughed as they wandered towards the almost cathedral like-looking building.
Jesse and Parker sat on the steps pondering a Chess game. On the stoop beside them was a stack of the latest copies of the Martian News Letter that they had authored and near that was a hand written sign that read: “Register Here for the Chess Club.”
Spike Morgan, a red haired freckled face boy with an impish Irish grin, watched their game with interest. Nearby, Shorty Runyon, a rather scruffy looking gum chewing boy, shoved his hands deep into his pockets and leaned back in a laugh as he talked with Slug Sherman. Slug smiled slowly and unconsciously shuffled his army boot toe behind the heel of his other boot to shine it. Slug was a gentle tall thin boy with a droopy hound-dog look and wore his usual WWI Fliers jacket and cap with aviator goggles slung down around his neck. He was an admirer of the famous WWI flyer, “The Red Baron.”
Suddenly Jesse moved his Queen towards Parker’s King and yelled, “CHECK!” Chuckling fiendishly, he rubbed his hands together, emulating a vicious villain.
Parker nervously twisted a strand of his curly hair into a knot and studied the board looking for an out. It was an unconscious habit he had whenever he became pensive. You could always tell if Parker was pondering anything for very long as his head would be covered all over with small twists.
Suddenly the bell rang. Slug, Spike and Shorty slowly climbed the school steps. Parker admitted defeat, sighing loudly.
Just as they were putting away the chess set, a lyrical voice spoke up saying; “Okay boys, so, where do I sign up for the Chess Club?”
Looking up, awe washed over both of their faces, because standing before them was a lovely brunette girl with a long pageboy cut and the deepest emerald green eyes they had ever seen.
Emma smiled at them, looking from one to the other, and dimples appeared in her cheeks. Right then and there Jesse’s heart melted. Catching his breath Parker stood up and grinning wide, handed Emma the clipboard. “Sign here Miss…?”
“Emma LaCross,” she said, as she signed her name with perfect lettering. Handing back the clipboard, she gazed innocently into his eyes.
Parker’s knees went a little weak, and he read her name aloud. “Emma La Cross.”
Still speechless, Jesse stared at her in wonder.
