“How are you planning to introduce these other stones?” asked Tammy, trying to keep her daughter on track.
Willow suddenly slowed down a little to think about it.
“Well, like I said, these are all just ideas and they could change at any time, but for one of the stones at least, there has to be some spooky government conspiracy poking their nose where it doesn't belong. I just really dig that as a concept, and it's an easy way to bring in crazy stuff.”
“Like with The Avengers when S.H.I.E.L.D got a hold of the Tesseract” suggested Bill.
“Yep!” smiled Willow. “Or Men In Black, or The X Files, or The Grave of Gunner McNamara.”
“What's that?” asked Bill.
Willow's eyes narrowed.
“Seriously, Dad? My favorite movie? The first time Pixar and Studio Ghibli ever teamed up together?”
Bill caught himself and gave a fake laugh of contrition.
“Ah, silly me” said Bill, poking himself in the head. “I must be getting old.”
“Perish the thought” said Willow. “But yeah, I was thinking that at some point, Brad, Gina, and Tim become embroiled in government shenanigans. Maybe they cause some trouble that's too big to ignore, and they the Feds find out about the Grellstone. Maybe it gets confiscated by some other super secret XYZ agency in the process, and maybe they all end up in some scary black site where people disappear and are never found again. Maybe some goons are working on how to weaponize the power behind the stones and they accidentally release the creators. Maybe...”
“Wait...back that up” said Bill. “What do you mean the creators?”
“Oh...I don't know. I'm just spitballing here. But hey...gemstones...there's probably genies inside it, right? Like the genie in Aladdin? Me and some of the other animators are really keen on adding godlike characters into the story so we can go all meta with it when we feel like it. Every stone could be powered by a different god. Maybe more than one!“
Gloria, looked down at the gemstone she was holding in the palm of her hand. She stared deeply into it, wondering if the reason she had been so transfixed by it this morning was because someone was calling to her. She shook her hand, creeped out by the idea that somebody potentially was watching her.