THE JOINING: The Cycle of the Shards Book One

The first bell for the next period had rung, and the students who were scheduled to work in the office were beginning to file in, expecting the day to be like any other. Working in the office was seen as a privilege by the staff, but it was mainly seen as a easy way to get out of class by the students. Today, however, they were met at the door by the secretary with an even sterner look on her face than usual. She simply shook her head at them and gave each one a separate pass to join the Study Hall for the period.

Daniel was one of these students, and was far more curious than most of the others. He was met the same way as the others, with an upraised hand and a small piece of paper directing him to the library to sit in there. He glanced at the paper and shook his head. “What’s going on? Why is the office closed?”

She fixed her gaze on him. “Nothing you need to worry about. Please report to the library.” Daniel took a step back, but tried to peer around her, hoping to catch a glimpse of something going on. Frowning, and seeing that there were no more students trying to get in, the secretary closed the door in his face.

Not to be deterred from something as petty as a office secretary who he thought should have retired years ago, Daniel crept slowly to the left, and peeked in the window, careful not to expose his entire face lest he be caught and sent away, this time with a chaperone. He saw a figure being moved, the principal following with his hand on the body’s shoulder, or was he pushing? He couldn’t make out exactly who it was, but it appeared to be a boy, and he was struggling. Still being cautious, he put an ear to the window, hoping to make out something.

He could hear the boy yelling loudly, and almost didn’t need to have his ear pressed against the glass to hear anything. He couldn’t make out every word, but it was enough to get the gist across.

“HAVE TO…..ME GO.. …DEPENDS ON IT! EVERYTHING….END!” The boy was clearly worked up about something, and Daniel listened closely to make out the principal’s reply.

“Calm down, Kyle! We have to….” The group moved out of eyesight and earshot, and Daniel backed up away from the window. Kyle? What was he doing in there? He shook his head, unbelieving the changes that were happening to his friend. He was normal just a couple days ago! It was almost as if…

His thoughts were interrupted by the last warning bell. Thinking for a second, he turned down the hallway and started walking fast. He would have time to think on this shortly, for now if he didn’t hurry he was going to be late!

Critock was unceremoniously pushed into the small room the Nurse used to house patients that were overly sick, but as it was empty today it would be used as a cell. Critock turned as Principal Tompkins looked at him, and the short balding man cut him off before he could yell another entreaty.

“Kyle, please! You’re lucky we don’t have a resource officer here, otherwise you would be on your way to spend the night in jail. And I’m thinking that might be the place for you! You destroyed my office, broke a window…Do you know how much that window cost? How much taxpayer dollars you just ruined in your tantrum?”

Critock stared at the Principal, fighting the urge to grab him and choke him out. But even if he did that, he knew he’d never get out of the office. Tompkins was flanked by two larger teachers, one Critock could tell was fresh from the gymnasium. With his current strength sapped from his fight with the pirate, he didn’t know for sure if he could take all three of them, let alone be able to get out of the office and to his locker where he had placed the Sword of Kon. He tried one last time. “Please, if you just listen to me…”

Tompkins cut him off again sternly, not quite yelling but very close to it. “No more, Kyle. I gave you one chance already, and you repay me by using a poor innocent girl to break into my office and destroy everything you can get your hands on! And we have no idea where she went to! Do you understand how badly you must have scared her?”

Critock was silent, hearing the accidental truth in his words.

“It’s over, Kyle. We are calling your father to come get you. You are expelled from this school, and I will be thinking very hard as to if we press charges. As it is, you will compensate me for the destruction that you have caused!” Without warning, Tompkins spun around and marched out of the small room, still flanked by the teachers. The gym teacher grabbed the door handle on his way out, bringing it shut with some force. As soon as it shut, Critock was upon it, yelling in guttural Marconian every curse he could think of, no matter how much it was damaging the boy’s throat! He pulled as hard as his strength would allow, and when that failed, pounded his fists on the door. It was five full minutes before Critock, gasping from exertion and the lack of progress, stumbled backwards to the solitary bed in the room, sitting hard enough on the thin mattress that he could feel the lack of support from the metal underneath.

It was quiet in the room, and Critock could hear himself thinking. Truly his thoughts were his own. Even through the struggle with the pirate and his subsequent dragging into this makeshift prison, he could hear no sign of Kyle’s consciousness reasserting itself or at least calling out to him. For the first time since he had arrived on this planet, he felt as if he was completely alone with himself.

He couldn’t blame anyone else for the failure of this plan, that was solely on his shoulders. It was him who decided to put all his hopes behind Shanna using the computers, and it was him that had waited so long in Kyle’s skin that he had actually gotten comfortable, and tried finding solutions to problems that had nothing to do with him and wouldn’t even matter if he failed his mission! And now…Here he was. He had waited too long and had been far too passive for this to have worked. The original idea was best, to charge into the school after hours and deal with the aftermath as it came. He had the sword of Kon after all, it wasn’t like there was going to be anyone on this planet that could come close to resisting him!

Surprisingly, he realized the problem that had informed his decisions since almost the first hour he had arrived. He was experiencing life outside of his own self for the first time in hundreds of cycles. Being trapped in this body he could see and think about the effects his actions were making on people that ordinarily he wouldn’t give the slightest thought to. Shanna, Tom, even Kyle’s friends would have to deal with the fallout of anything he would think of, and incorporating his plans into their lives had pushed him to hold things off and wait for the proper time, a situation that he was having difficulty getting used to.

Even now that Kyle had grown silent and hadn’t attempted as far as he could tell to influence his thinking, as per the agreement, he still felt for him. The boy who had no choice but to accept his body being commandeered by an alien from another world. And through him Critock thought about the planet itself, how its billions of inhabitants would suffer through the reign of Pt’ron, or how they would all burn in the fires of his own failure.

Ordinarily Critock wouldn’t have given Earth a second thought as anything more as their chosen battleground, a location where he could wage war unbidden and unrestricted as he had done for cycles before. But its fate was his fault now, the unexpected consequences of decisions made in haste and anger a thousand cycles ago, before this planet had entered its middle ages of civilization. He balled his hands into fists.

It was too late now, of course. Trapped in this room and without help, Pt’ron would have the Shards activated before he could find a way out. His father coming to get him? Richard would never understand what was really happening. He’d be moved from this room into another prison, probably at his own home, and he’d never be able to convince anyone until it was too late for all of them. There was nothing more for Critock to do but lay back and wait for the end to begin. If there was to be anything that could be done it would have to be done by others.

As Critock lay on the bed thinking his regretful thoughts, a small noise began coming from the door that kept him from his freedom. More accurately the sound was coming from the bottom of the door, where a small sliver of light would be coming in if not for something blocking the crack, and that something was moving while grunting.

It got loud enough that Critock could hear the slight scraping and grunting, and he sat up from the bed, his curiosity piqued. He could see a faint light from where the sound was emanating from, and after a moment the source of the disturbance was revealed.

Tomkari, having completed his struggles, shook off the grime that had accumulated during his movements, then flew up to Critock excitedly.

“Do you know how long it took me to find you? C’mon, we need to find a way out of here…” The wisp started flying about the room, searching desperately for something that could be used to effect an exit, not noticing Critock shaking his head.

“Is Shanna safe?” Critock asked, interrupting Tom from his flight, who turned around.

“Yeah, she’s fine, they’re looking for her though. She’ll have to lay low for a bit but she’s waiting for us.”

“I’m not coming.”

“Yeah, but we need to get out of here quick, the Shards are going to activate soon, and…”

“Tom, I’m not coming.” Critock laid back down on the bed, his hands behind his head, as the meaning of his words took hold of the wisp.

“What…What do you mean you’re not coming! We have to finish this! You looked at the pictures, Critock, you know which ones you haven’t seen, you…”

“I looked at hundreds of pictures today, Tom.” Critock pushed himself up, spinning his body and putting his feet flat on the floor. “They’re humans, they all look mostly alike. I have no idea which ones I saw and which ones I didn’t. It’s too late. We can’t stop the Shards from activating.”

“Ok…Ok when they activate then, Pt’ron’s not going to be able to hide himself then. He doesn’t know we’re here, we’ll just surprise him, and…”

“And what? Unless we get very very lucky he’s going to see us coming a mile away, and I don’t have the strength to keep this going any more. I’ve already screwed up enough for one lifetime.”

Tom shook his head, and approached Critock slowly. “Critock…We can’t do this without you. This is your plan, you brought us here…”

Critock pounded a fist on the bed. “And what happened then? The plan is a failure. Shanna’s had to hide, I’m locked in here, and nothing has gone right. If Pt’ron doesn’t know I’m here, he knows something’s going on with the pirate’s ship and Tompkins’ office being wrecked! He may not even be at the school anymore.

“If I had done what I was supposed to do, Tom, Pt’ron wouldn’t have been alive to come here. We defied orders over and over just to find out who he was. Bakkara died, he came here, and now this entire world is going to die, and The Five knows what’s going to happen to the Empire! It’s over Tom. Let me stay in a corner like I always should have and maybe, just maybe, the universe will right itself without my interference.”

Tom slowly floated in front of Critock, who had slowly laid his head back once again on the pillows. “We were sent on a mission, Critock.”

Critock closed his eyes. “The mission’s done, we lost. Get Shanna someplace safe. as safe as you can. If the world doesn’t end today, then it’s going to be a very dangerous place to be for the next little while. I’m sorry, Tom. I’m sorry you had to get mixed in with my mistakes.” He turned and faced the wall, curling up to himself.

Tom thought about speaking again, but he knew it would likely be of no use. Critock, for whatever reason, had had enough of this. Honestly, really, who could blame him? The amount of stress and fighting that he had undertaken in the last two days was more than anyone could stand, least of all a former soldier who hadn’t done anything of this level in a thousand cycles. So instead of speaking Tom quietly floated back down, moving himself under the door in a slow squishing dragging style, and after a moment of grunting and effort, he had left Critock to his own devices.

After a minute had passed of pure silence, Critock turned onto his back, his eyes still closed. He began speaking, but the words were not for himself at all, instead they were directed towards the body that he was inhabiting, the boy who had no choice in his heroism but was a hero all the same no matter how much he resisted. How could he have expected any less of him?

“I’m sorry, Kyle. I’m sorry for coming into your life the way I did, sorry for sending Pt’ron to you. I tried. I really tried. He was my friend. Imagine if Daniel, or John…Or Shanna…Turned out to be someone that you absolutely hated. That they had worked their entire life to undermine you and destroy you. And you didn’t even realize it? That you had lost everything just because you trusted and loved them? Just imagine that…

“But that’s an excuse. The truth is, I came down here expecting everything to just work the way it always has. Nice and simple, I show up and take control, and any plan I come up with will be the right thing to do and it’ll all turn out okay, bad guy loses, we win, I leave, Universe loves me again. It’s a nice thought, huh?

“It didn’t happen, you know it didn’t. You’re a kid in the wrong place at the wrong time, and you have to deal with all of this in your head, and something that you should never ever have experienced in your life. You should have had the rest of your life the way you wanted it, whatever it was supposed to be. And now…

“I stole that from you, Kyle, and I can’t give that back. Not now. I can’t stop him anymore, I just don’t have any fight left in me. I want you to get out of here. Go with your father. When it starts, if Pt’ron stops the missiles and you survive, get as far away from here as possible. Find Tom and Shanna, and survive. If you’re lucky, he’ll find a way off this world without killing most of the planet to do it. And then live your life, and don’t ever let anyone control you again. I’m sorry. This wasn’t your war.”

With his last, Critock let himself go. He removed any mental blocks or restrictions that was preventing Kyle from accessing any part of his mind, and let himself just drift away, relinquishing his feelings and consciousness and just going limp. He felt the light from the room fade away, and then everything else along with it.

The next thing that Kyle knew is he had control to open his own eyes again. It was a thing that he, like most people, took for granted, along with the ability to move, stretch, even breathe, but Kyle appreciated every moment as he experimentally moved his limbs around, and sat himself up on the bed, and then rose to a standing position, testing his limits as he walked around the room. He felt soreness in his side where the Pirate had knocked his body into the bookcases in Tompkins’ office, but it was healing quickly. In his head he could hear himself think loudly again instead of the muffled noise he had experienced over the last day, and he found he could also pick up memories and stray ideas from Critock as well, even though as much as he tried to search his mind, he couldn’t find the Marconian’s unique mind anywhere. Here at the end of the world, he had been left wholly alone.

He was surprised to find that he wasn’t mad at the alien. While it was true that his mind had been taken without his will, and his body along with it, he accepted Critock’s apology and knew that it wasn’t his fault. It was just one of those random things, it could have been anyone standing in his way. He wondered that if it had been Phelps instead of him would the world have been able to be saved? Would Pt’ron have been able to be stopped before any of this had happened?

Kyle suddenly felt guilty. He knew deep down that it was stupid, it was no more his fault than anyone else’s. But if he had just simply not been standing in that spot at that time…Could he have doomed the world? A sudden wave of dizziness took him over, partially from the exertion his body had been through even if he wasn’t in control of it, and also from the realization that instead of being angry at Critock he should be angry at himself. He sat hard on the bed, trying to get to grips with being back in control and everything that had happened, when suddenly there was a knock at the door, and then the doorknob turned.

Kyle’s head shot up, prepared for anyone, or at this point anything, to come through the door. His eyes quickly met his father’s, who looked at him with a concerned look.

“Kyle?” Richard crossed the room and looked down at the boy. “Are you okay? What happened?”

Tears came to Kyle’s eyes unbidden, and he tried to blink them away. “Not now, dad, okay? I just want to leave.” He stood, and started walking out of the room, needing to get as far away from this place as he possibly could while he still could.

Richard had gotten the call that his son had needed to be picked up and that there had been some kind of incident. When he had quickly arrived at the school he had spent a short amount of time with the Principal who led him to the shattered office and tried to speak to him at length about how Kyle had become problematic the last few days and had snuck in and destroyed the room for no reason. Richard had nodded, but also wasn’t willing to speak to the principal or anyone else without having heard from his son, and possibly a lawyer. He simply asked to be shown to his son and that they would be in touch later. As much as the boy had seemingly changed over the last couple days, just as the principal had said, this was something far beyond what he could even be capable of! A whole window smashed? Computer destroyed? With what? How? None of this made any sense, and he wasn’t going to just hear one side of it. As he watched his son storm out of the room, he knew there was more to the story that the principal either wasn’t telling him or that he didn’t know, and he was going to find out what it was. He turned and followed Kyle out of the room, letting him work at his own pace.

The bell had rung, but Claire paid it no attention at all. Where was he? She had waited exactly where he always was this time of day, but for the first time in weeks he had missed their ‘appointment’ at lunch to get a quick make out in before the rest of the day took them away from each other. It was the final bell that signaled that class was to begin shortly and she should be in the class when she sprung into action. She knew that he typically worked in the office this time of day, and hoped to track him down there. She didn’t see him, but she did see Kyle storming out of the office door, followed shortly after by his father. She stayed back and watched as they both moved out of the doors of the school entirely. What had happened?, she wondered, but at this time, it wasn’t something that was of a pressing matter. She peeked in the window of the office, but Daniel was nowhere to be found. She folded her arms, and looked at the clock. Was that the time? She couldn’t believe she almost forgot… She suddenly moved towards the stairwell, her face filled with worry.

The class had just started, but already John’s hand was raised. It was unusual in itself to see his hand raised when there was a lesson being taught but at this point the teacher had barely opened her mouth. Sighing, not wanting to know what was going on but not wanting to ignore him either, she pointed to him.

“Sorry, Mrs. Mcallister, I need to use the bathroom.”

There was a smattering of giggles. “Now? Right now? We’ve only been in here for five minutes!”

“I know…but…” There was obvious discomfort on the boy’s face that could have been an act, but as it was just the start of the class, Mrs. Mcallister didn’t want the small chance that he was telling the truth to cast a wet pallor on the rest of the day.

“Go on, hurry.” She waved him off, and he quickly stood without a word and ran quickly out of the room.

Brian Boyd was outside the school, as the orders from the Principal made quite clear he was supposed to be. But he wouldn’t remain that way for long. He always thought he’d be kicked out one day, and that was fine with him, he had no interest in remaining in that mediocre little school, or even in this small town. He had a car, he had his similarly expelled friends, and they were all going to leave town tonight. Travis had a friend who said they had a place to stay out in California, and as long as they could make it there, it was theirs. He knew he’d be able to get whatever else he wanted. Wimps out there had to be as easy as wimps out here, right?

But he couldn’t let it go, it just wasn’t right for him to be publicly humiliated in front of everyone. Especially by him. He got lucky. That’s all it was. One lucky day. Well, his luck was over now. The three of them would find him, and when they did, it was all over for him. What could anyone do to them now? They’ve already been expelled, the worst was over. It was time for Kyle to pay by any means necessary.

Jim sat straight up as the teacher slapped his desk. Just a few minutes into class and already the boy was asleep? What was wrong with the student? Could it be the way that the lesson was being taught? The material was a little dry…No. No, it was the kids that were wrong. “JIM!”

“Yessir.” He mumbled, his mouth dry, a small string of drool hanging from his lip.

“We’re not going to be having this, son. You know the rules.” Mr. Fardue pointed towards the door. “To the hallway. Five minutes.”

Jim barely constrained a rolling of his eyes. The classroom was the last place he wanted to be, anyway. Especially right now. He stood up slowly, and with every eye in the classroom on him with barely concealed laughter on every lip, he moved towards the door and exited into the empty hallways where he sat, his back against the lockers. Sighing, he put his head back against the hard metal. It was boring out here, but it beat being in there and learning about why x doesn’t go into y when it’s traveling at the speed of sixty miles an hour or something like that. Maybe he’d just leave. What could they do to him?

His daydreams of abandoning the hallway completely to be free came to a surprising end as he saw Shanna Ewing walking quickly through the halls. Was she crying? Was she talking to herself? What was going on with her? He didn’t move, but just watched as she moved past him like she didn’t even see him. She did look like someone on a mission and he certainly didn’t want to get in her way. But his own curiosity won out as she approached the turn in the hall, and he slowly stood up, and started walking away from the class, and towards wherever she was heading. It wasn’t like he had anything else to do.

Shanna was indeed on a mission, and nothing Tom could say or do would persuade her otherwise. After hiding out behind cars in the parking lot for a few minutes while the day moved on and the next class began, she realized that Critock wasn’t coming back, that both he and Kyle were out of the picture and now she, along with her comet friend, were the only ones on the entire planet that knew exactly what was going on, and of course it followed that it was then their responsibility to do something about it. Tom had disappeared to do a final check on Critock, but she had already started her march to her destination by the time he reappeared, floating in front of her face as she walked back into the school.

“Shanna, you can’t! You have no idea how powerful he is. Even without the Shards, he’s just as strong as Critock is!” He had been trying to reason with her the entire way from the door to where they were now striding, having taken a turn and were now almost to where they were headed.

She didn’t break her stride, knowing Tom wouldn’t stop her. She knew that he was just as driven to get rid of the enemy as she was. “We can do it together. There’s nobody else left. You just said Critock isn’t going to help clean up his mess, so we’ll just have to take him down ourselves.”

“I’m a soul, Shanna, I can’t stand up to him! And you’re a human! He’ll tear you apart before you can blink!” Neither Shanna or Tom noticed that they passed by Phelps’ classroom, where Shanna was supposed to be right then. He had noticed her unusual absence at the beginning of the class, though, and could not miss the telltale red hair that had passed by the arm-length window of his door.

A few paces later, they had reached their destination. “What are we supposed to do, Tom? Just hide and hope he takes his damn Shards and goes away?”

Tom nodded his front up and down. “Yes! Yes that’s exactly what we should do!”

Shanna shook her head. “No, Tom. We stop him here, your planet is safe. Everywhere is safe. Maybe then you’ll give Earth people some respect.” She turned to the locker, and assessed the combination lock. “What’s his combination.”

“What?”

“We both know what’s in here, and we’re going to need a weapon if we’re going to fight him. Combination!”

If a wisp had the ability to look incredulous, Tom would have had that look. “Shanna, it’s the Sword of Kon. It’s a weapon of The Five! Made before this universe existed! Most people aren’t even worth enough to look at it! There’s only one person in the entire universe that it ever revealed itself to, and he’s locked himself in the nurse’s office! All you’re going to get is a useless hilt!”

“Then there’s no harm in me trying it out, is there? WHAT’S THE COMBINATION!” She yelled the last, and both of them turned quickly to see if anyone had heard them. The halls were deserted, thankfully, and both let out a breath.

Tom looked at her and saw the desperation in her eyes as she began crying heavily. “Tom, please. Maybe he’ll change his mind and he’ll need this. Maybe I’ll feel more comfortable with it cause it’s his. It doesn’t hurt anything to have it!”

He sighed. “Fine. Fine! 34-56-22. Be careful with it.” She bent and hurriedly spun the dials, opening the locker easily and grabbing the red and black backpack containing the Sword.

“What is going on, Ms. Ewing?” Both Shanna and Tom spun around to see Mr. Phelps, his hands on his hips, staring at her. “The whole school is looking for you, you miss my class…” He shook his head as he started walking toward her. “There’s so much going on, they tell me that Kyle is expelled because he destroyed the Principal’s office, and you were there…”

“Mr. Phelps…”

“Shanna, I need to know what’s happening. I’m not stupid, I know something very strange has been happening the last couple of days. With both Kyle and now you. I don’t know if it’s drugs, if there’s some kind of mental condition that we weren’t aware of, if he’s talked you into something that you don’t want to do, I can help you.”

She shook her head as Tom floated nearby, unsure what to do. “You can’t help with this.”

He folded his arms. “You don’t know that.”

She lifted her head to stare him in the eyes, showing him her running makeup, and the tears still streaming down her face as her voice was breaking. “You wouldn’t believe it. You can’t believe it. If you knew something that was so huge that nobody could believe it, what would you do?”

He sighed. “I’d get help, Shanna, please, you have to trust me. No matter what it is, I’ll listen to you. I’ll believe you.”

Shanna turned her head to Tom, who shrugged. At this point what harm could it do? To Tom, every moment she wasn’t going to war against an alien being more powerful than anything she could imagine, one that they still had no idea the identity of, was keeping her alive. He then shimmered, and revealed himself to the teacher, who’s eyes widened immediately as he took an involuntary step back.

Shanna turned back to Phelps, and started from the beginning. Everything she had learned over the last day. Everything that had happened. What had happened to his house, and what was contained in the backpack she now clutched to her as though her life depended on it. She was not silent about it, and she continued crying throughout. If there was anyone else in that particular hallway, they would have heard the entire story.

Unbeknownst to them, there was. Jim McClane stood, his back behind a long rectangular pole that extended from ceiling to floor, and listened as she told her whole story. He couldn’t see Tom, but he did see Phelps’ reaction, and heard a voice that didn’t match anyone else in the hall explaining how a being the basic shape of a comet was floating and speaking. There was no doubting the sincerity of her words, and no way of questioning whether it was true or not. The more they spoke, the more terrified he became.

The pickup truck rumbled down the road, with Richard behind the wheel and a sullen Kyle looking out the window, taking in each sight as though it was the last time he would ever see it. He hadn’t looked at his father since he had gotten in the car, nor had he spoken a word to him. In turn, Richard hadn’t said anything to him, and so as they got farther and farther away from the school, the Shards, and Pt’ron, the two played a game of chicken with their silence.

Finally, it was Richard that couldn’t take it any more. Even though he had his suspicions that Kyle had solely been responsible for the damage to the school, there had just been so much going on that it was impossible to be patient. He sighed, keeping his eyes on the road. “Damn it, Kyle, what the hell is going on.”

Kyle was quiet still, refusing to turn his head. Richard tried a second time. “Kyle, please, you have to tell me something. I don’t think you did what they’re saying you did. I don’t think it’s possible.”

Still nothing from the boy. Looking at the road, and making a quick decision, Richard realized he couldn’t deal with the silence and keep driving. Hitting the breaks and turning the wheel to the right, they quickly pulled off onto the side of the road. Hitting the hazard lights, he turned to Kyle, only to find his son already staring at him.

“What’d you do that for! Are you trying to kill us!”

At least he can talk. Richard thought to himself. “Kyle, for the love of Christ, what the hell is going on! You get into fights, you talk completely different, you act different, and now all of this! It’s like you’re a completely different person!”

“You don’t know the half of it.” Kyle said, mostly under his breath, but not silent enough for Richard to not pick up on it.

“So there is something! Kyle, c’mon, is it me? Did I do something? God I know I tried to raise you right and not…whatever the hell is causing this. Your mother gone., having to take two jobs just to keep the lights on, I’m sorry…”

“It’s not you.” Kyle interrupted softly, more for his father’s dignity than anything else.

“What?”

“It’s not you, at all. You’ll know in a little while, anyway.”

While he was relieved that, at least according to his son, he wasn’t the cause of whatever destruction was happening in his life, his response didn’t answer anything. “That’s good, but please, Kyle. I’m your father. Something happened to you, I need to know, I can help…”

A battle began to rage within Kyle’s mind, but not within Critock and himself. No, Critock was still miles away if he was still listening at all. It was Kyle, and Kyle alone who was fighting with himself. Could he help? Could there still be a chance to save anything at all? What could he do? Why even try? But what if he didn’t try? What happened to Critock? What would happen to him? What would happen to the planet? What right did Kyle Edison have to keep himself involved in this? Critock was gone!

The battle stopped as suddenly as it began. Critock was gone. Kyle was the only one left. Kyle knew that he couldn’t do it by himself. The student couldn’t fight a war. The soldier could. But there was only one way to get the soldier back.

Kyle lifted his head. “If I tell you, will you listen to me?”

Richard narrowed his eyes. “Of course! Why wouldn’t I?”

Kyle shook his head back and forth. “I mean listen. Hear me out completely with whatever I say. And believe me.”

Richard took a breath. “Just tell me, Kyle.”

Kyle looked in his mind for the words he needed. “I’m not Kyle.”

As the father looked upon his son with confusion, The boy began to tell the tale of the last few days, and even beyond that, it was the story of a soldier. How thousands of years before there had been a war over two very small ancient artifacts, and how the soldier had not only failed to recover the artifacts, but also failed to ensure that his former friend would never hurt anyone ever again.

It was the tale of how just days before all parties had found their way to Earth, and had once again begin fighting what was both a public but also a very secret war that was even now threatening, at best, the destruction of not only their planet but a thousand others. It was the tale of a young cheerleader’s bravery, a damaged religious being’s redemption, and a bounty hunter who was finally ready to face the consequences of his past, no matter what those consequences may be. And it was the tale of two small red crystals, both easily fitting within a single hand, yet their power dwarfed suns.

In the end it was a tale as true as a story could be, yet it was also a lie, because it wasn’t the bounty hunter telling his own life story, it was the teenage boy that had unwittingly stood in the wrong place at the wrong time, had fought bravely but futilely against the occupation of an alien being, and in the end had come to realize that though he was more than ever very small in the face of such a big universe, he was still a part of something much bigger than could possibly be imagined.

At the end, Richard sat back in his seat, his mind swimming from the influx of information that he was having trouble comprehending. Kyle waited patiently despite the time-sensitive nature of what was happening. Finally he spoke. “Kyle…Cri..Wha…How can I possibly believe this?”

Kyle shook his head. Already he could feel Critock’s consciousness returning to life, and could feel the surprise from him. Kyle looked his father in the eye. “You saw the ship, Richard. You said I was different, you said it yourself. If I’m lying, fine, you’ll find out soon. Throw me in my room, lock the door, throw away the key, and nothing bad happens. Ever. But if I’m right, if this is the reason I’m a different person like you said, and you keep me in there, this world will end. Hundreds of worlds will end. My name is Critock from Marconia. I am over two thousand years old. I’m here to save Earth and a thousand planets like it. And I need your help. You have the power to help me or stop me. What will you do?”