THE JOINING: The Cycle of the Shards Book One
Chapter 37

The light from the mid-day sun shone through the newly made holes in the ceiling of the school, reflecting off of the Sword of Kon, which still laid embedded in the still monstrous body of Pt’ron. Critock, exhausted from the effort of both fighting his enemy and then converting his body back into Kyle’s, had simply just rolled off the form, not even bothering to get up from his prone position on the floor.

Shanna, having been dropped unceremoniously from being held by her former acquaintance, was slowly picking herself up. The adrenaline and fear that she had rode was slowly ebbing, and was quickly being replaced with exhaustion, and a small chill of shock to what they had witnessed. She looked around, taking stock of her friends, who fortunately seemed okay, if a little shocked themselves. Phelps was shaking his head, muttering to himself, and both John and Jim were back behind the door, not coming in fully for fear that something else unbelievable would happen. She had escorted Claire to what she had hoped was a safe hiding place, and had returned because she had to see how it ended, no matter how foolhardy a decision that was to be. She had been surprised that the others hadn’t cleared off with Claire, the smart thing to do would have been to get as far away from here as she possibly could. Then again, nobody else involved in this seemed to have been making smart decisions, why start now?

Having caught her breath, she then remembered Critock laying on the ground, and quickly grasped what little energy she had left and ran to him, almost sliding as she kneeled beside him. “Are you okay? Is Kyle okay?”

Critock groaned and closed his eyes, one of them black, from a stabbing pain on his left side. “We’re fine, thanks. Everyone….” He stopped, grunting as one pain flowed into another, and collected himself. “Everyone else okay?”

“I think so…” She glanced around again, her eyes settling on a small round form, slowly rolling around in a shadowy corner. “Wait, Tom?” She called to the wisp, who had been so effortlessly knocked out of the fight.

“…Owwwww….” Was the only response, and Shanna stood up slowly, and made her way over to him. Critock shook his head back and forth clearly, trying to wake himself up. There was something important he needed to remember, but first he had to make sure nothing had happened to his partner. He didn’t want to be put in the awkward position of explaining to Quar’oti Alpha what had happened to their studious servant. He rose to his feet as quickly as he could, and slowly limped his way over to where Shanna had went, looking down upon the pitiful sight.

Critock bent down, picking up the wisp carefully. “I’ll say this for you, you can take a hell of a punch.”

Tomkari hovered in the air slightly above Critock’s outstretched hands, slowly coming back to his senses. “Ha. We win?”

“Pt’ron’s down. Everyone else is alive.”

Tom suddenly rose into the air farther, a note of alarm entering his speech. “Uh, where are the Shards?”

From behind them came John’s voice, who had crept over to see what was going on. “The Shards?”

Critock stood straight up, his pain forgotten. “THE SHARDS!”

What happened next happened extremely quickly with nearly no time to react. In an instant flash of solid blue light and electric arcing, Pt’ron’s spider-like form coalesced into a small sphere, roughly about the size and shape of Tomkari. The Sword of Kon, no longer stuck in the black body, clattered to the ground uselessly, its shape reforming into the small cylinder. Pt’ron’s sphere instantly moved to and into Daniel’s body, causing more electricity to flow through the room, forcing Critock, Tomkari, and the humans back. Pt’ron was still alive, and back in the form that he had become most accustomed to. Critock’s brief feeling of relief was snuffed out as he realized that the Shards had never been removed from Daniel’s body, and now Pt’ron was fully energized, fully powerful, and ready to continue the fight. Critock knew that they had no chance for anything else now but to keep him busy while the first missile was still coming, and while their deaths would be inevitable, locked into this small space when the armament hit, at least it would only take out this small area but not the entire planet. Critock stepped forward towards Pt’ron, as he rose into the air, red streaks arcing around him but not yet shielded. Pt’ron merely grinned, despite a small dark red spot beginning to form on his side. It was a silent look of victory, knowing that whatever happened next was completely under his control.

He expected the attack from his oldest enemy, once his oldest friend. Or maybe it would be the spirited reluctant cheerleader, or even from his ‘girlfriend’s’ brother or her would be paramour. Maybe the teacher, who thus far had proved only a happy obstacle? But it was the one thing Pt’ron didn’t expect that caused him to lose his confidence quickly. Tomkari had watched this Marconian hold the most sacred artifacts to his order, indeed the most sacred artifacts that there could possibly be, and instead of using the probable building blocks of the entire universe to their ultimate potential, he was squandering them by killing indiscriminately and moving to spark an interstellar war once again, perhaps dwarfing the first War of the Shards that killed uncounted billions when these were just dormant pieces of diamond. No. No more. Tomkari shoved away his past, his vows, and any misgivings and trepidation he had left and he suddenly rushed forward from his spot next to Critock’s head towards Pt’ron, at a speed that exceeded even Pt’ron’s most recent rush back to his old body. Before Pt’ron could react to the unexpected assault, Tomkari’s soul form impacted Pt’ron’s human body. Instantly the two merged in a flash of blue and red, causing Pt’ron to fall to the ground, writhing in sudden mental agony as Tomkari assaulted him from the inside. Arcs of every color came off of the two as Pt’ron, or perhaps Tomkari, grabbed the back of his head as though to keep it from splitting apart and started banging it on the lightly carpeted floor. As he rose back up just to slam it back down, blood began to appear from his forehead where the impact was occurring.

Tomkari and Pt’ron were both screaming separately, both claiming the energy of the held Shard and both using it to try and force the other out of the body. Finally, as the others in the room looked on in astonishment, unable to help in anyway lest they get thrown across the room by a stray unpredictable electric arc, Pt’ron’s arm rose up, his fist tightly clenched. With every ounce of strength the Shard was giving him, despite being shared between the two of them, Tomkari reared back, roaring from unimaginable pain, and threw the activated Shard as hard as he could at Critock, who sprung into action, running back a few paces and leaping into the air with one outstretched hand, grasping the Shard and pulling it down, instantly recharged from its energies.

Tomkari let out a ear shattering scream from Pt’ron reasserting himself in a body that had truly become his own. The wisp was flung from the dead child’s body, crashing against the wall once again, and lay still, only a small gasping sound emanating from his form.

Pt’ron caught his breath. What had happened? How could this have happened? Where was the power? Where was the Shard? He looked up, rubbing the blood from his eyes that had dripped down from his forehead, the pain almost overtaking him. He saw Critock, traitorous evil Critock, architect of a thousand cycles of nightmares, coming at him, and this time it was Critock in a red bubble with the electricity flowing all about him. He had no doubt then what the vision of death looked like.

But it would not take him today. Not when he was so close! Not when the second Shard would soon activate! And not while he had one weapon left! Pt’ron dove away from his enemy and towards Shanna, his side screaming at him, his vision blurry. He wasn’t more powerful than Critock anymore, but he would always be more powerful than anyone else on this planet!

Critock paused his march as Pt’ron grabbed Shanna, whose exhaustion had slowed her to a point where she no longer had the energy to evade the grasp of the alien. He grabbed her from behind, wrapping an arm around her neck and revealing a small silver cylinder from his pocket, which Critock recognized immediately. The freezing device that had ended the principal’s life.

“STAY AWAY!” Shanna uselessly struggled against the mad Marconian as he backed towards the rear door of the lobby, still intact after all that had happened. “I’LL FREEZE HER!”

Critock groaned. “For the sake of the Five, Pt’ron! It’s over!”

“NOT YET! IT’S NEVER OVER! I STILL HOLD A SHARD! THIS PLANET IS MINE!” He grabbed Shanna’s arm, and quicker than she would have thought he was still capable to move, he pulled her out the back door, running with her as fast as he could, she having no choice but to be drug away, despite her struggles against him.

Critock lost every thought in his mind but going after his enemy. He had taken so much from so many, he would not get Shanna too! He began to stride quickly towards the door to follow him, when he was stopped in his tracks by a small voice, almost at a whisper but loud enough to catch Critock’s ear.

“The….Shard, Critock. Destroy it…Please…” Tomkari felt like he could barely breathe, but he could still stop this from continuing any further. If Critock took the Shard back out there, then there was a risk that Pt’ron could regain it, and then everything they had gone through would be for naught.

Critock knew that Tomkari was right. He stopped, and looked at the Shard in his hand. So much power and energy was flowing through him. He could use this to destroy Pt’ron utterly, stop the missiles from hitting Earth at all.

But then what? Return them to the Qua’roti? A broken down barely functioning religion a thousand cycles past their prime? Or the Marconian Empire itself? With a King that still mourned a murderous Queen, and could barely hold off the almost once-a-cycle military coups?

Critock stared at the Shard, knowing Pt’ron and Shanna were getting farther away every moment. Would he become God himself? Become what he feared Pt’ron would be? Become what Pt’ron should have been?

“KYLE.” It was Phelps that called, with a stern voice well practiced in his years of teaching. It wasn’t to the alien, but the boy who the alien inhabited. The voice of the young boy, silent but supportive up until now since their return to the school, seemed to fill Critock’s head. He wasn’t tempted by the Shard. He wanted to save his people. He wanted to save the world. He wanted to save Shanna.

Critock nodded. The boy was right. This was going to end. But it wasn’t to be done at his hand. Looking at the teacher, he almost effortlessly tossed the glowing Shard to Phelps, who was so startled at the movement that he almost dropped the artifact on the floor. Even from the quick contact he could feel the otherworldly power flowing through him, and he looked at Critock, confused.

“DESTROY IT. THE UNIVERSE IS LITERALLY IN YOUR HANDS.” He knew he couldn’t stop Pt’ron and ensure the Shard’s destruction in time. If anyone in this room could know what would be at stake, it would be the man who spent his entire life learning and teaching others about what humanity could become. He had to trust him, for Shanna’s sake.

Phelps looked at the shard in his hand, still arcing small bits of electricity. He felt the energy surging through him…and he rejected it, pushing it back into the Shard as much as he could. He nodded at the alien, then looked at both John and Jim where they had retreated under the stairs in the middle of the lobby. “You two, with me. I need more eyes.” They looked at each other as he began to climb the stairs, and they shrugged, happy to have been given some sort of direction in this insanity, and followed him two stairs at a time to catch up.

At the same time, Critock felt a surge of relief, despite the exhaustion and pain reminding him that he had been through an ordeal that wasn’t over yet. Remembering himself, and with a “Thank you” to Tomkari, who could do nothing but remain on the floor at this point, he jogged over to the cylinder on the floor where it had fallen after Pt’ron’s last transformation. As the sword returned to life, he turned and followed Pt’ron outside as quickly as he could, knowing that despite his head start, Pt’ron would be slowed by the teenager, who was hopefully putting up whatever fight she still had in her.

The shadow of the first missile moved across the Moon, invisible to Earth’s radar and sensors. As soon as five minutes passed on the planet below, the missile would be in Earth’s atmosphere, ready to deliver its payload. So quickly built was it that even if the first Shard was destroyed, it would still emit its deadly gas instantly throughout the atmosphere, ready for the second missile to finish the job. Five minutes to apocalypse, the missile cleared Earth’s moon at incredible speeds, zeroing in on it’s target.

Inside the school, Phelps had moved as fast as he could to the one place left that there could be some kind of dangerous instruments left. It was the workshop room, and while it was nowhere near its former glory now in the age of lawsuits and injury, he bet there was still something in there that would be able to shatter a diamond, no matter what planet it came from.

With John and Jim tailing him, he entered the room, his eyes darting everywhere. Jim came up from behind him. “What are we looking for?”

“Something to smash this thing! Look around, quickly!” He didn’t tell them the entire story, not wanting disbelief or panic to enter their minds. In fact he didn’t allow himself to think about the outcomes of what was going to happen in this room. If the Shard wasn’t destroyed now, the world would end. How could anyone possibly be ready to accept such a burden?

“Uh…Uh…” John looked around frantically, not knowing what was going on but deciding to just go with it, knowing that destroying that little shining jewel was important. He reached out for the first thing he saw, and held up a hammer. It was old, but the head was metal. Phelps nodded, and underhandedly tossed the shard to him. Catching it without thinking, he was almost overwhelmed with the sudden feelings.

“Do the job, son, don’t lose it now.” Phelps called to him, and the power in this small thing scared him so much that John instantly put the Shard down on the table and out of his hands, and raised the hammer. With both his friend and his teacher looking on, he slammed the head on the Shard with all his might.

There was a bright red flash at the impact, and John flew back from the expunging of energy. The hammer itself flew as well, spinning end over end before embedding itself into the wall very near Jim’s head, who looked at the sudden appearance of the tool, and then back at the table, where the Shard was still intact, and seemingly glowing more than it had up until now.

With a quick look to John, who had hit a table in the back of the room but was getting back up from where he had landed, Phelps shook his head. “Keep looking! A saw, a nail gun, there has to be something in here!”

“…How about this?” Jim had jogged over to a table off to the left, noting the large strange metal U device attached to it and the handle on its side.

“It’s a vice. It’ll hold.” Phelps ran over, and grabbed the Shard, running it back to the Vice. “We need to close this, and it’s going to take all of us to keep the pressure on it.” He gestured to John, who was gingerly making his way back to the pair. Phelps dropped the Shard into the bottom of the U, and started to twist the knob. As the U closed together with the Shard in the middle, it began to become harder to move knob around and around. The Shard was resisting them, and now all three of them were pulling and pushing on the knob, the two sides of the container now touching the end of the Shard, and beginning to press on the surface.

The missile was very near the heat shield of Earth now, with no sign of slowing down. One minute, and Earth’s fate was sealed. The flames began to flicker on the front of the front of the missile, foreshadowing the planet’s fate below as the clock continued to tick down…

The Shard was holding its integrity as much as could be expected from one of the most powerful artifacts in the Universe. At this point there were small cracks appearing, but it was still intact, much to the dismay of the three struggling humans in one last desperate effort to save their world from the mistakes of the past. Phelps yelled at the two boys helping him. “ON THREE, GO AS STRONG AS YOU CAN. ONE…”

The Missile was now thirty seconds from releasing the expansion of gas from it’s innards throughout the air of Planet Earth. Flames overtook the entire craft. To anyone looking up across the East Coast of the United States, they could easily see a flaming fireball streaking across the sky.

“TWO…” Phelps felt a drop of sweat across his brow, not knowing if it was too late for the planet.

The internal sensors of the rocket focused in on the Shard, its distinctive radiation now plainly evident to anyone who was looking for it. It was so close now…

“THREE!!!” Phelps pushed the knob. John pulled it down. Jim pulled it back. With all of their strength, they moved the U shape closed one more centimeter. And finally, incredibly, and with only seconds to spare the Shard could no longer hold itself together from the immense amount of energy it contained and the stress from the exterior vice pressure. With a loud crack, the Shard simply exploded. The vice disintegrated, and the three flew back across the room, Phelps crashing against the wall and the other two sliding across the floor. Along with the vice, the table itself was annihilated from the powerful blast, which seemed to emanate outward in a shockwave that crashed into the walls and windows of the room, pushing them outward and breaking them.

Suddenly, the Shard could not be found! The radiation had completely dissipated from the missile’s assigned target! With the loss of any ability to track its mission, the missile’s demanded upon fail safes activated. Suddenly retro jets fired, and the missile changed course, making a curved U-turn in space and suddenly moving away from Planet Earth. After a full minute, it imploded in a large orange and yellow fireball that could be seen from anywhere on the side of the Earth facing it. The small green particles that made up the easily ignitable fuel, the fuel that would have ignited the Earth, caused the explosion to expand farther than a normal missile would, but within a moment or two, the last remnants of the first missile were completely burned out.

The Earth was saved. The Shard had been destroyed.

Critock stopped in his tracks when he heard the first explosion from the second floor of the school, and turned around quickly, just in time to see the windows explode outward from the corner room with a blast of red energy. Even with that evidence he didn’t let himself believe that they had finally achieved success until he heard the second and much larger booming from above, and saw the results of the missile’s explosion with his own eyes. He felt a smile come to his face unexpectedly. They had done it. The light of hope slightly dimmed, but not entirely, when he heard the yelling from Shanna, still struggling against Pt’ron’s grasp, not far away now. He didn’t lose the smile as he began to run again.

Pt’ron, of course, heard the explosions as well. He wasn’t surprised at the first. He had already written that Shard off as lost, knowing that Critock would never let it out of his sight again. It was a calculated risk that this second Shard would dwarf the other in power, and give him one last advantage, other than the constantly struggling teenager he was pulling along with increasingly slowing speed. The second explosion though caused him pause. The missile was meant for the Shard, he knew that much, and that meant Marconia was willing to wipe out a whole planet to stop him after all? Well, it certainly wasn’t the first time, but knowing this now gave him the advantage, one that he wouldn’t squander.

The pair slowly moved up a small hill, only the last vestiges of strength the first Shard had given Pt’ron enabling him to keep his grasp on Shanna, as she angrily yelled out entreaties to let her go. This he ignored, only needing to get far enough away to buy enough time before the Shard activated. They reached the crest of the hill, and he had just reached the middle of the peak when he heard an angry almost-scream from far too close behind him.

“PT’RON!!!” Critock had reached the hill too, noting it as the same hill that he and Shanna had their conversation on just a night before. If this is where it would end, then at least it was somewhere he recognized, and may have more of a strategic advantage against his enemy, albeit a very small one considering the landing at the top of the hill was just a bare patch of grass.

Pt’ron stopped and turned around, once again facing off against Critock. Instantly he pulled Shanna to him, forcing her to stand with her back against him. Again, he brought the small pen gun to her neck, and stared daggers at the bounty hunter, who in turn had withdrawn his sword, its orange fire shining in the sunlight.

“I told you to STAY AWAY FROM ME!” Pt’ron screamed at Critock, who noted the sweat forming on his brow.

“Pt’ron. It’s over. This is where it ends. Let the girl go and I’ll make it quick.”

“It’s not over!” Pt’ron frantically shook his head. “Not yet! I have the last Shard!”

“You have a dud, Pt’ron. You know half of those things have nothing to do with power. This has to stop.”

Pt’ron was too far gone to even consider the fact that Critock was right, that the Shard he had secured in his pocket was a simple Shard, one with a minimum amount of power or imbued with some other type of ability. No, this was the last Shard on the planet! The last free Shard known of in the Universe! It had to be powerful because it was HIS! He grinned an evil, insane grin as he replied to his enemy. “No….Not at all. You know nothing of the Shards. You haven’t held them in your hand for years, counting the days. They hear me, Critock! They hear us! They know us! This isn’t where it ends! This is where it begins! This is where I return! This is where I will fight!”

Critock couldn’t believe the depths of madness his former friend had fallen to. He had still thought he had it together, despite having been evil, during the fighting. But this…This was something else entirely. In his thought of how to handle this to extricate Shanna safely, he almost missed her signal to him. It was a simple wink from a girl who maybe wasn’t as tired as she was letting on, and who had just realized that she had a window of opportunity. Staring at her now instead of Pt’ron, trusting her after everything she had been through, he winked back, and then answered Pt’ron’s statements. “…And this is where you’ll get your ass kicked by a fifteen-year-old girl.” Before Pt’ron could parse Critock’s words, Shanna had thrown her elbow back directly into Pt’ron’s side, where they both could see the blood having spread. The impact from the wound caused him to inadvertently double over from the sudden pain, which gave her the opportunity to punch him in the face. While Shanna was never considered to be one of the strongest girls of her age even just in the school itself, the adrenaline and rage that she felt at this alien caused the punch to knock Pt’ron completely off his axis, spinning around and releasing his grip on her arm. Once released, she quickly moved away from her temporary kidnapper, running towards Critock, even as Critock was running towards Pt’ron.

“GET HIM!” Shanna called as Critock ran past her. Unneeded words as the sword was already in swing. Regardless of their past together, Critock knew this needed to be ended quickly. If the last hour had proved anything, it was that Pt’ron could not have another opportunity to escape. He advanced on his enemy, ready to deal a final, fatal blow.

Pt’ron’s side and face were still erupting in pain, and knew that he had lost the girl, and also knew that Critock would be upon him soon. Pushing away everything else, he focused, turning back, and used the one weapon he had left to him. The fact that the pen gun had just been used a few moments before didn’t seem to effect anything, as a straight white laser beam shot straight out of the front of it and directly at Critock. Thinking quickly, Critock caught the beam with the blade, and instantly a freezing coat of white began to spread up to the tip and down towards the hilt, which caused him to drop the sword before it could begin working its magic upon him. He didn’t, however, stop moving.

Before Pt’ron could even think to fire another shot, Critock reached him. Grabbing his wrist, Critock wrenched it up and away just as his thumb depressed the firing tab, sending a freezing shot harmlessly into the air. With his other arm, he laid a punch directly on the other side of Pt’ron’s face, causing him to fall to the ground, Critock on top of him.

The two struggled as they fought, Critock distracted by the pen gun that he had to keep from targeting him and Shanna, Pt’ron distracted by trying to aim the pen gun at any of his enemies while praying for the Shard to suddenly activate and put these two out of their misery. They rolled around, trading punches with their one free hands, looking for all the world like two teenagers in a meaningless fight instead of two powerful aliens fighting for the future of the galaxy. Finally, Critock gave up on punches and used both hands to wrap around Pt’ron’s wrist, and slammed it to the ground once, twice, three times before the added pain caused him to release the grip on the weapon, sending it flying through the air.

If Critock had expected this to make the battle easier, he was sadly mistaken. The weapon being released caused Pt’ron to regain his free hand, and instantly used it to slam Critock in the same eye that had already turned black, the force of it causing him to roll off of Pt’ron. Before Critock could shake off the stars in his eyes, Pt’ron was on him, raining a series of painful blows upon his enemy, not daring to let up until Critock raised his legs together, and using what strength he had left in his legs he pushed Pt’ron back off of him, who flew through the air slightly before landing hard on his back.

The string of battles was almost too much for the two of them as instead of instantly being right back upon each other, they both slowly rose to their feet. While their energy had ebbed, their hatred still burned in their eyes for each other. After a silent moment where they stared each other down, they both launched, meeting in the middle and again trading punches and struggling against each other.

Critock was tired of this. Tired of everything. A thousand cycles of fighting and struggle and loss because of this. He was as worn down as Pt’ron, but he had the advantage of being the most recent holder of a Shard, which gave him just enough energy to quickly move around his slowing enemy and grab him from behind, an arm around his throat and another punching him in his painful side. Pt’ron roared in pain, and threw an elbow backwards into Critock’s stomach. Critock grunted with each return blow he received but he couldn’t give up, he wouldn’t give up. But he just wasn’t going down, and he knew it was only a matter of time before this other Shard activated, and the chances of it being something that would give Pt’ron an advantage was just too great to allow! He tried to tighten his arm around his throat, squeezing, trying to knock him out, but he was just moving around too much to allow that to work. This was hopeless! Unless….

He saw the sunlight reflect off of a silver cylinder. Saw where it was pointed. Saw the determined look in his friend’s eyes. He chose again to trust. Critock released his arm suddenly, and before Pt’ron could react, he was pushed directly forward…Straight at where Shanna Ewing was pointing the pen gun that she had retrieved as soon as she had saw it fall. “FREEZE, YOU SON OF A BITCH!” She yelled as she depressed the trigger, the white beam coming out instantly.

Pt’ron barely had enough time to know what was happening to him, but it was heartbreakingly familiar all the same. The sensation of absolute zero cold moving through his body, slowing his temperature. From where it impacted his chest, it spread quickly to his arms and legs bringing his motion to a complete stop. He looked up, a mixture of panic and anger filling his face, as the white ice coating covered his face. After a moment, there was no sound, no movement. Two thousand years later, Pt’ron was again frozen in place.

Critock was breathing heavy, and almost bent over from the weariness. But maybe now it was all over. He looked at Shanna, standing still, her mouth agape at what she had caused, and then she turned her head to look at him.

“NOW will you kill him?”