The Joining: The Saga of the Shards Book One (The Cycle of the Shards 1)

by Chris Stephenson

  “He was supposed to be in the office….I went looking for him, just wanted to visit. I looked everywhere. Brian and those…They were going to attack me, and Daniel showed up.”

  Phelps looked at Critock, who narrowed his eyes.

  “He was going to fight all of them for me! And then…And then…”

  Critock kneeled on one knee, fearing the rest of the story but needing to hear it. “Please.”

  Claire looked at him, looked at Daniel’s friend, and told him the rest of the story. “They did fight. I didn’t know Daniel could move so fast! But they pushed him over the stairwell…and then…”

  Critock stood back up, his voice an emotionless monotone. “When he landed, he didn’t land on his back. He caught himself, on two large spider-like legs.” Claire nodded, not yet together enough to wonder how Kyle knew what had happened.

  Shanna looked up at him. “Cri-tock?” Claire did notice the odd name, and looked at her strangely.

  Ignoring her, Critock walked away slowly. “He was Daniel.” He whispered to himself, walking back down the hall. He looked at Travis’s body. “It was him all along…” He closed his eyes, then looked back at the hole in the glass, and the body beyond it. “HE WAS RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME!” Critock bellowed, and punched the locker near Brian’s body, a small dent appearing in it, and a patch of blood appearing on his knuckles. Critock was beyond feeling physical pain at this point. How could he have missed this? He started laughing.

  Shanna stood up, and Tom floated closer to Critock as Phelps kneeled and whispered to Claire that it would be okay. “Critock, are you okay?” Tom asked, worried that this added stress on top of everything else that had happened today had finally broke the bounty hunter for good.

  He looked at Tom wildly. “We missed it! He was right in front of us and we missed it! Ha ha ha, he played us for saps! Shanna, he used to be just as big of a bully as Brian, right?”

  She raised an eyebrow, confused. “Yeah…”

  “Until when?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know? About a year and a half ago? He started apologizing to everyone, swearing he would be better, and he’s been perfect ever since!”

  Critock had stopped laughing, but he still had a sad wild smile on his face. “That’s when Pt’ron got him. Who knows who he was before, but what better place to hide when you know they’re going to come looking for you than an innocent kid. Amazing.”

  Claire looked up, not yet noticing the bodies on the floor but trying to understand Critock. “What are you saying? That he wasn’t Daniel?”

  Critock shook his head. “I’m sorry Claire. Daniel hasn’t actually been Daniel for a long time.”

  “But…What are you talking about? Who was he?” Claire rose to her feet, Phelps steadying her.

  It wasn’t Critock that answered her, but another voice that came from farther down the hallway. “He was an alien, Claire. A body-snatcher. Just like Kyle here. Or whatever the hell your name really is.” Jim walked into the light, a look of anger on his face.

  Critock put up his hands. “Jim, look…”

  “Look at what you did! What he did! First Daniel, then Kyle, now these three! You killed our friends! You…” He paused, and then caught Critock off guard with a right hook. The blow didn’t exactly hurt, but it did send him back slightly. He looked back at the boy and knew that it wasn’t personal. He raised his hands again.

  “Jim, I’m sorry, I’m trying to stop the guy that did this.” There was a sharp scream from Claire as she finally noticed the bodies on the ground. “Kyle is fine, and I’ll be gone after I stop Pt’r….The one that’s inside Daniel’s body. If I don’t stop him, then everyone will be like this. But I need your help.” He turned around, noticing that Claire was now hugging Phelps desperately. “I need everyone’s help. We all know what’s going on now, for the most part. We need to find him. I need to end him. And then we’ll never bother this planet again. Will you help me?”

  The first thing that Pt’ron had done after slicing through the last bully was to pull his extra appendages back within himself. While a full change into his other form would expend far more energy than he was comfortable with, simply revealing himself partially was a much easier task and just as effective against these frail humans. He smiled, having retrieved the backpack that contained the Shards from his locker and moved down the nearby stairwell to remove himself from the scene of the crime. None of this was proceeding exactly as he had intended it to, but he wasn’t against making sure Brian Boyd and his cronies got what they deserved.

  It’s so close! His smile didn’t dissipate as he walked through the empty halls. He was glad that the classroom doors were soundproof, otherwise things would have gotten more messy than he was prepared for. It still wouldn’t have been a problem. He didn’t need Shards to take care of this planet. Hell, if he wanted to, he could have ruled it hundreds of cycles ago! But that would have eventually called attention to himself. While he flirted with the idea a few times, his sanity always won out. Far better to blend in with the locals and just be a human, albeit an extraordinary one. It had been nice being the strongest and fastest among the tribes and civilizations he had come in contact with, and he had taken certain advantages along the way. After all these years, though, finding this boy and living his life had been the hardest.

  As he moved through the halls he reflected on Daniel’s life. How it had been going nowhere until he had forcefully taken control of the boy, completely shoving away his consciousness and eventually ensuring it’s total eradication, lest years down the line it come back with a vengeance and put up another fight. It was better for him, he thought. Daniel was the most important host that Pt’ron had had, as it was the one that he would be inhabiting when the Shards woke from their dormancy. He didn’t know if he would remain in this body, after all he could have anyone he chose, Shard or no Shard. In the beginning he would jump around almost at a whim, killing the previous host and experiencing life for a day or two as the new person. Young and old, male or female, whoever it happened to be, Pt’ron experienced his lives to the fullest. It was a wonderful distraction from his past. Thoughts of the Mandragora and Critock never seemed to cease. But now, now everything would be different. The Shard wars would begin anew! And Pt’ron’s name would be sung across the universe.

  Even as he neared his destination Pt’ron allowed himself a few moments of fantasy. Earth of course would be the first conquest. He’d have a few slaves, some concubines, everything he needed to establish a fitting home with which to quietly build a home base. He would be a just ruler, introducing technologies that this planet wouldn’t dream of for thousands of cycles! And once he was ready, he would leave them, and spread his newly acquired Godlike powers across the cosmos. He would find the Mandragora, by now likely having forgotten her once loyal subject, and use all the command of the Shards he could to depose her, leaving her powerless and alone. From there he would ride across the universe a conquering hero! Only when he had overthrown all of the Marconian Empire would he find his enemy in whatever hole he had crawled into and make him watch as the rest of the universe fell to his rule. Critock would not be allowed to die, oh no. Critock would live as his servant, controlled by the power of the Shards to feed him while the universe burned around them! It was a fitting end to the General, after everything he had taken from him…

  He supposed he couldn’t be surprised that someone had found him. He knew the Shards, while dormant, would emit an energy that could be tracked, which only grew the closer to their awakening the time came. That the Qua’roti or pirates or whoever it was only sent one small vessel was not surprising. Even now at the end they still held to their precious non-interference rules. It was comical. If he had still had any power, his first act would be to wipe the Earth off of space completely! But that would have implied intelligence on the part of the Empire, and even this many cycles later that was too much to expect.

  But there was someone else here, wasn’t there? Pt’ron
had known that the sudden change in Kyle was too much of a coincidence to come so close to his ascension. He didn’t know why a boy had been chosen to be the vessel of whichever poor sap was sent here, but it amused him to toy with him all the same. He hoped he’d meet Kyle, or whoever it was, one more time. He wanted to see the face of the unknown soldier who was the Empire’s last chance and wanted to watch his hope drain from his eyes, along with his life.

  For now, there was one last thing for him to do on his bucket list before his time came. Pt’ron neared the office door, and pulled it open easily, gliding inside as though nothing in this world could stop him.

  Immediately the secretary rose to her feet. “Daniel! You’re not supposed to be in here! Go back to the library!”

  Pt’ron smirked, striding over to the older woman. “No.” With that word, he quickly grabbed her under her arms and threw her over her desk, flinging her towards and through the office window. His smirk becoming a grin as he heard the screams begin from outside, he walked away from the desk to the narrow hallway, and was met in his path by Principal Tompkins, his face red.

  “WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!” His face moved to look at the broken glass of his office, his secretary moaning and bleeding on the man floor as concerned students ran to her.

  Pt’ron put a hand in his jeans pocket. “You know, you really are a terrible educator. Look at those kids! So worried about tests and things that will have nothing to do at all with their eventual lives would be like!” He pulled his hand out, a small cylinder in it that appeared to be a pen at first glance. “Well, if they had any lives to come.”

  “Daniel, you’re never…”

  “MY NAME IS NOT DANIEL!” He yelled at the principal, who instinctively took a step back in fear. That felt good, Pt’ron thought. I’ve been waiting forever to say that. And for this. He moved his hand up, aiming his device at Tompkins’ stomach, and depressed a small circle. A blue ray shot out of the device, almost immediately striking Tompkins, As he looked on in terror, the Principal felt a wave of pure absolute freezing spreading throughout his body. There was a spark of pain in every cell in his body, instantly replaced by numbing coldness, which spread through his stomach, to his arms and legs, and finally his head itself. When the ray had completed it’s task, Principal Tompkins was immobile and completely blue, with chunks of ice and icicles hanging from him.

  Pt’ron continued to speak, knowing Tompkins could hear him despite his inability to react or move. “I know how it feels, Principal. You think you can’t reach these kids, so you get harsher with them? It doesn’t work, I know, so it’s an endless circle before you can’t take it any more. Expel them! Send them home! Let someone else deal with them. The military on my planet did the same thing with a lot of people. Abandoned people. Threw them away and left them in the worst place imaginable…” He shuddered involuntarily and glanced around. There were a few office workers and students watching him, to confused and fearful to approach him lest they end up as the principal had. He nodded towards Tompkins, the principal’s eyes fixed on the alien-in-disguise. “Don’t worry, he can hear everything we say. This ray…” He waved the pen in front of him towards the onlookers. “Is a prototype. Eventually, and maybe they’ve done it by now, it’ll knock out whoever it hits so they won’t have to go through the hell of permanently becoming a frozen statue. They’re still in a kind of numbing pain, though…And their mind never stops thinking…Never stops feeling! For cycles and cycles and centuries! You hear everything! You can’t move, you can’t react, you can’t scratch an itch! For as long as the Five decide the torture should last!” Pt’ron was sweating now, lost in a horrible memory. “In the end, there’s only one thing you can do! You have to show mercy! No one deserves this! No one!” With the last words increasing in volume to become a screech, he swung his arm across the midsection of Principal Tompkins. The results were immediate. His frozen body, made brittle by ice, shattered. Pieces of the Principal flew form the impact towards the onlookers who screamed and began to run off, some of them beginning to vomit from the incredible sight.

  Pt’ron shook his head. “This planet…These people have needed to grow up for so long.” He walked across the frozen pieces of the former principal, and walked back towards the rear of the hallway. As he rounded the corner, his eyes caught an image on a computer screen slightly flickering from a room marked ‘SECURITY’. The room was empty, and he imagined that Tompkins must have been in here doing who knows what. He walked towards the room, pushing the door open and saw an entire bank of televisions, all different places throughout the school. He glanced at the cameras, and flipped a couple of switches. Eventually the cameras flipped to the scene of where he had rid this planet of Brian and the bullies. Their bodies still laid on the floor, but surrounding them was quite a few people, including Kyle. And Shanna? Claire? Phelps? Even Jim? Was it just Kyle that had come for him or was it an entire squad?

  It was no matter. He saw Kyle speaking to them, undoubtedly making a plan of attack. So the game was on, then. The invader in Kyle knew that Pt’ron was here, and that Pt’ron was Daniel. Claire wouldn’t have left that part out, even if Brian would have. He knew that whatever he did now, there would be a confrontation. Good. Let them come. He hadn’t had a worthy fight in millennia! He walked back outside the Security office, and noted that there were a few braver students that had come in to admire the ex-principal’s remains. Pt’ron cleared his throat as he reached a hand to a red handle on the wall. The students looked up, surprised that they were being called to.

  “It’s time to run.” Pt’ron pulled down on the red handle to his right, and immediately there was a piercing shrill sound that seemed to invade every sense that he had. Pt’ron shook it off, knowing that if it was that much of an annoyance to him, it certainly would be worse to the interlopers that had entered what was now his office. As he looked, they covered their ears and stared at him. He stared back, and his face took on an angry sheen.

  “RUN!”

  34

  The shrill ringing of the fire alarm sounded out through the hallways almost as if there was an air raid imminent. Accompanying the loud constant alert was a voice announcement to calmly exit the building, and a slow flashing strobe light that seemed like it could cause a seizure to an afflicted student, which would be problematic if it had happened during an actual fire. Used to these type of things being drills, and sometimes announced ahead of time, the students obeyed the calm message, following their teachers instructions, save for one. The teacher that had exited his classroom at the wrong time and witnessed Pt’ron’s rampage simply and quietly walked to his door and turned the door lock, thinking correctly that if this was a legitimate emergency, it was certainly not a fire.

  In all other cases, students were led by their teachers to the doors of their respective classrooms in straight and orderly lines. Most of the controlled exodus went without incident at the beginning as they entered the hallways and proceeded towards their exits. The first issues began when the other classrooms in the upper west hallway opened, releasing the students into the hallway to witness the unmoved bodies of Brian and Travis, obviously killed quite recently and horribly. Nobody paid any attention to the students and the teacher in the middle of the carnage, especially when every sprinkler in the school came to life, erupting from the ceilings to literally rain upon the scattered groups.

  It was just one student that started the rush, a small girl that nobody paid a whole lot of attention to. When she saw the bodies of the boys she didn’t know, she screamed, and the screams spread throughout the hall. Now fearing for her life in addition to her annoyance at being drug out of class for another fire drill, she started to back away from the bodies, and backed right into a large football player, who was near throwing up at the blood splattered on the floor. It was then when the sprinklers opened, and that was the needle that broke the camel’s back. As the screams echoed throughout the hallways, she began to run, and seeing her run just inspi
red others to flee as well. Two students were already dead, what else was going to happen! From there, the chaos spread. Students running into friends from other classrooms spread the word of the deaths, and the screams and panic soon encompassed the entire school, both students and teachers alike.

  While the normal order in the school was breaking apart, Pt’ron exited the office area, satisfied that he had made his point to the monkeys that had encountered him before. Running away was the only future they had left, after all, best for them to learn early. He had no intention of taking part in the mad rush outside. Now that he knew who his adversaries were, he wanted no part of leaving them behind. He wanted them to see his ascension. After all, they had come from the other side of the universe to find him and see the Shards for themselves, why should he deny them this opportunity? So instead of following the panicking crowds that were rushing the doors to freedom, he began to climb the stairs, pushing his way past the teenagers that were moving down them.

  In the hallway that started everything, Critock was only momentarily in a standstill. Here, in the middle of chaos, he was in his element. He made his way through the flowing mass of students to where Claire was still hanging onto Phelps desperately. “HEY!” He shouted to be heard over the shouts and screams.

  Phelps turned to him, as Tom flew down and Shanna followed in his wake. “WE NEED TO COVER THE EXITS. FIND ME IN THE MAIN LOBBY IF YOU SEE HIM. TAKE WEST.” As the teacher attempted to extricate himself from Claire’s desperate arms, Critock turned to Shanna. “GO EAST.” She nodded and began to head off, still wearing Kyle’s backpack. Critock didn’t notice, and glanced at Tom, and then yelled at Jim, who was separated from his sister by the crowds but was not brave enough to move forward to her. “JIM.”