The Streetcar to Andromeda. Celeste Hammond Streiff

      CHAPTER 4

      THE EVIL DARK ONES

      It is written in the Sacred Book of Origins that the universe is a battlefield between the forces of Good and Evil. In many different eons this battle has been fought and waged — by many different races — in many different struggles.

      In the drama that this story tells, years before Mars had become civilized The Evil Dark Ones came like a pestilence… fleeing through space, searching for a place they could conquer. For a very brief time these large devious Rat-winged creatures had found that place in the form of a small red jeweled planet that lay yawning in an unknown dimension of space. That small planet later came to be known as the “Jewel of Arcturus” because that’s where it had first appeared in Our dimension — two light years from the star Arcturus, but after that, it had inexplicably disappeared and like a lot of mysterious things, had become a Legend. Everyone knew that inside the red sparking exterior of the “The Jewel of Arcturus” lived several superior worlds, and one of them was the world of Demon Veri. The Evil Dark Ones had held captive the residents of the Red Jeweled planet to be their slaves and do their bidding, but then something went wrong for them and one fateful night the red-jeweled planet drifted into our dimension, near the star of Arcturus and its portal door mysteriously spiraled open.

      Suddenly out flew thousands of the Evil Dark Ones with a bright white glowing sphere of light hounding after them. Inside this shinning translucent bubble was Celeste, the Princess of Light, who could take many forms and was the only enemy powerful enough to destroy them. The Evil Dark Ones fled far and wide and then came upon a starry planet in the Virgo Cluster system. They swooped down upon a craggy mountainside near a rock strewn valley during a torrential sparkle storm. As the creatures dove amongst the rocks, Celeste hurled shafts of lightning strikes down upon them, destroying hundreds of the Evil Dark Ones at a time. One by one they crashed upon the jutting rock … that is all save two.

      As Celeste searched through the torrential skies, dark clouds passed over a blood red moon and the terrain below darkened... She cast her lightning shafts here and there amongst the rocky region to lighten up the battlefield. The two creatures that had eluded her were hidden, crouched and shaking beneath a high cliff. Their rat bodies shivered in fear as her lightning bolts struck loudly, flashing nearby.

      Suddenly the sparkle storm ceased and something very, very strange began to happen. The two rat creatures started to glow from inside and seams of light began to break them open, showering the air with shards of weirdly angled glass-like fragments that reflected rainbows of light.

      The female rat creature Morbella, screamed in horror. “Yeeee! What’s happening to me?”

      Her male counterpart’s eyes glowed red as he squirmed, shape shifting and squealing unintelligibly, “Euth —Euth —”

      It seems that out of their own dimension the Evil Dark Ones were subject to the physical forces of the dimension into which they had come, and were now taking on shapes far different.

      Morbella morphed quickly into the shape of a beautiful young woman with long black hair. Wriggling up, she shed her rat skin, revealing a smooth body covered in purple and golden swirls. Settling with 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