The story behind the story:

Welcome, once again, to my world!

This story came to life during a time when I was reading Amanda Flowers’ "Aspect Elemental," and I came across the following passage in a book called Great Mysteries: Unicorns about unicorns in Chinese mythology: "..he was originally a representative of the earthy element as the phoenix represents fire, the dragon air, and the tortoise water. In Chinese myth these four animals all foretell future events.....The third animal, the tortoise or turtle, was thought to be an image or model of the world. Its upper shell curved like the heavens, its lower shell was flat the way the Chinese at that time believed the earth to be. They read the future in the pattern on the tortoise shell. Fossils of marine animals indicate that turtles may well be ancient animals that escaped extinction, for they can still be seen today." If you put these two concepts together, you can see quite plainly what sprang to my mind.

Why not another story about elementals--but this time, use the creatures from Chinese mythology? And why couldn’t the turtle be one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? I added my own ideas in as I went along, and it’s turned out very well, I think. I have adapted the dragon, phoenix, and unicorn from the legends and myths I know of them, plus a few original (I think) perspectives. I decided that I wanted to use Donatello as the water elemental. This was affected by the fact that in my stories, I usually cast Donatello as a seer, someone who predicts the future, and this fits in with the Chinese concept of the turtle. (Even though Donatello sees the future in dreams, not in the patterns on his shell.)

The fifth element, aether, was taken from the annals of fantasy and sci-fi, where the elements often play a role in magic. I adapted the definition of aether, and I wish to include my interpretation of it here. Where the other four elements (air, water, fire, earth) involve physical concepts, aether involves the spirit and the ethereal, particularly the astral plane, which has appeared before in TMNT. As the elemental for aether, I have chosen an astral shade, a creature I created, but it seems to rank on the same level as the other mythical beasts. Aether incorporates sithing (a form of mental communication that appears in some of my other stories), teleportation, the soul, and the astral plane. That’s quite a bit for one elemental to handle, but someone has to do it.

Keep in mind as you read this that this story, unlike my others, is without a date or time period. It is connected to my other stories only in the most perfunctory way, and is not actually on my TMNT timeline of events. So consider it a separate entity.

Also, this story is written much as if it were a round robin; it’s even in first person. But let me assure you, it is NOT a round robin. I do not yet have the skill or the time to undertake one of those. Still, you will note the format of rounds with first-person narrated chapters contained in each. Each round will have 7 chapters with the following narrators: Terra, Krideth, Fen, Dancha, Ghost, Donatello, and Splinter. (Splinter is there to express the outsiders' point of view.)

Terra, Master of the Elements of Planet Earth, is faced with a grand disaster.

The rebel Elementals of Mars revolted, killing their Elementmaster, and came to Earth to gain further conquest. They murdered Terra's Elementals, but the crystals (tools which hold the power of the Elements) are scattered. Terra rapidly assembles a new team of Elementals to find the crystals and destroy the Mars Elementals:

Krideth, a telepathic Dragon, will master Air.
Fen, a pyrokinetic Phoenix, will master Fire.
Dancha, a truth-divining Unicorn, will master Earth.
Ghost, a sithing Astral Shade, will master Aether.
And Donatello, a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, will master Water.

This story is rated G for general viewing.

"Crystal Queer" is copyright 1999 to Luna Azul.