To Be or Not To Be
The cauldron bubbled ominously as the final sailor crystal fell into its depths. For a moment it was truly the alpha and omega, its insides trying to rip themselves apart as its contents fought to find their way free of their containment.
Internal battles raged inside the caldron as trapped crystals tried to escape while others tried to prevent some from being released. The caldron screamed against these actions, begging the stars and crystals to end their fight lest they all be destroyed. In a moment of weakness, the caldron began to trap some of the stars in order to end the warring. In the midst of this battle, a crystal of deep beryl held tightly to the light kunzite crystal, refusing to allow it its freedom. Around them the caldron began to close and the kunzite crystal began to cease its fight realizing that it didn’t have the time to make it through the quickly diminishing opening.
A golden light appeared before the two crystals, a bright star shining its rays on the kunzite crystal to help show the way. No sooner had the kunzite crystal found its freedom, the golden star began to lose its brilliance as darker lights began to encircle it. Slowly the beryl crystal began to take form into a tall, sickly pale woman with hair the color of red intermixed with shadows. Her hands enclosed around the golden star, reveling in her new prize.
As she began to laugh triumphantly, four other shadow figures began to materialize around her, each extending their right arm so that they could lend their strength in containing the star. During all of this the kunzite crystal had managed to drift nearly out of the opening. It saw the sacrifice that the star had made for it, but was unable to turn back as it was now caught in the contractions of the caldron being pushed towards the cosmos. The beryl woman saw that her former object of her attention was escaping from her reaches but did not concern herself - she was chaos incarnate, the most powerful manifestation of the entity, and she knew that she had time on her side to find it again - the cosmos was not large enough for him to find sanctuary.
And so the stars and crystals were freed from the caldron, each one bursting free from the caldron and racing towards the place where they would one day be reborn.
Mars shone brightly as the shooting star crashed into red sand. Mercury flared, its atmosphere bustling at the entrance of the blue streak. Eruptions broke out across Jupiter as the flash of green flew through the gaseous rings. A flash appeared on the Moon, the silver tinted warmth extending to encase all of the galaxies planets. Four sharp flashes from the four outer planets signified the home coming of their respective stars. The planet Venus remained lifeless, the noxious planet still turning its normal rotation as if nothing had changed.
On Earth a golden glow began to increase in size as it breathed life into the four crystals that finally found their way home after their long journey.
Side story: The Bubblegum Murders
Continued in: Starting Over