The Joining: The Cycle of the Shards Book One

41: The Never-Ending Battle

     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.