The Joining: The Cycle of the Shards Book One

19: Home Free

     The last bell was still ringing as the last students left the school, Critock and Tom among them, but where most of them were heading towards home or the buses, the aliens among them were heading off, around and behind the school where few other kids were. As they stopped at a particular spot, right up against the back of the school under a window, Tom investigated a patch of freshly packed dirt while Critock glanced in the window and looked around, checking for any curious onlookers. As everyone else was uncaring about anything regarding the school at this point, nobody noticed a sudden cloud of dust appear and dirt flying through the air, though the boy standing nearest it wasn't interacting with the ground at all. If there had been any onlookers, they would have eventually seen a small hilt slowly be revealed in the ground, and then move up in the sky before eventually ending up in the outstretched hand of the boy.

"Pretty good hiding spot." Critock remarked, as the sword activated in his hand. He swung the sword around, re-accustoming himself to the lack of weight of the weapon.

"Quit swinging that thing around!" Tom hissed, swirling around Critock nervously and glancing around.

"Relax, no one is looking at us. Everyone's getting as far away from this place as possible."

"Which is exactly what we should be doing. You need to find a place to hide it. Someplace respectable, this time. It isn't right for the Sword of Kon to be buried in the ground."

"Isn't that where it was for a billion cycles before the Qua'roti found it?" Critock held the sword straight out in front of him.

"Well, yeah, and that was long enough, just undignified. How are you going to use it without anyone noticing?"

Critock chuckled. "All that learning about what it is and you never found out what it can do." He arranged his fingers specifically, and twisted his wrist. Suddenly the electricity stopped flowing, and the two blades moved together. Quickly, the blade retracted into the hilt, and within a few moments instead of an ancient sword, all it appeared to be was a metal cylinder. Smiling, Critock tossed the cylinder in the air, and then dropped it into his backpack. "And as an actual bonus, I doubt it'd set off the metal detectors. Whatever this thing is made out of, I don't think it's anything that Earth has any idea about." Whistling a Marconian tune, he turned in the direction of Kyle's home and began walking, almost leaving a stunned Tom behind him before he remembered to follow him.

It was about ten minutes before the pair arrived, Critock having led the way and reached it without a problem as if he had done it a million times before. He opened the door wordlessly, the two moved inside. Both stopped as they entered, Critock closing the door behind them, and Tom whistled.

"Classic Earth home. There's so much space!" He moved around from room to room quickly, wanting to see everything. Critock just sighed as he placed his backpack on the table. It was easy to get to the house now that he had nothing blocking Kyle's memories of treading the path so many times, but for some reason he had never thought to see what his house looked like. Now that he was there, despite how alien everything was he felt a sense of familiarity. Every sight and smell in here had a particular memory. The table where the meals were eaten had a slight tinge of regret and anger, and he noted looking at the pictures scattered around that his father still lived with him. No sign of anything to do with the mother, he realized, and thought that it was interesting that the pair may have something in common. Checking within Kyle, he was relieved to find that his father would not be home for some time tonight still, and that would give him ample time to get the information he needed from Shanna. He knew there was at least a couple hours before even she would arrive, so he started to walk around, taking it in though at a slightly less excited rate than Tom.