A Daniel X Fanfiction

by Sakura Martinez

Author's Notes:

I was supposed to upload/publish this yesterday but...well, something came up.

Anyways, I kept forgetting to mention this:

If you guys want to learn about quick updates, news, upcoming fanfic and other such projects, you can read about them-and get the latest of these things-on my Twitter account (Sakura_Martinez), Tumblr account (sakuramartinez(dot)tumblr(dot)com), and/or in my blog: vis-ph(dot)com.

I usually post stuff there even before I post them here...so, yeah. That may save you some time wondering if I am going to have an update or not...and if I really am going to go through with writing a crossover fanfic *cough*Daniel*cough*meets*cough*Maximum*cough*Ride.

Anyways, enjoy this chapter-as well as your weekend!

Disclaimer:

I do not own Daniel X, or the characters in that story. James Patterson own the rights for them. What I do own is the idea of this fanfic.

Summary:

Daniel has long accepted what has happened to his friends Dana, Willy, Emma and Joe. But when he is suddenly ambushed by Number 2's second-in-command, Number 13, the young Alien Hunter finds a big surprise waiting for him.

Daniel X: Game Over

Chapter Thirteen

It was hard navigating through the game's version of an apocalyptic Manhattan. The debris that fell from the ruined buildings, the fallen billboards and street signs, the toppled cars and food carts, and upended trees made it hard to get from one place to the other. The large holes on the ground and the cracked streets added to the dismal effect of the environment.

Even though no other living creature was around, there was a sort of haunting soundtrack playing around us. The wind was blowing, creating a howling symphony with the sounds of wails, cries, and pleas for help. It was nerve wracking.

"This is driving me nuts," Willy whispered as we ducked inside an abandoned and almost-demolished office building. "Void's playing with us."

"Let him," I said, gritting my teeth. "I don't even care if he shows himself here. I'm actually waiting for that moment."

"You and me both, Daniel but we can't face him with just the three of us," Emma said, reminding me what Joe had also told us before we left him in the slums.

Void can't change the rules that he has given each of his players. Whatever rules and limitations he had placed on you, he would also have to conform with them. That's his power. I remembered Joe telling us. In this game, whatever he promised to be your prizewill be your prize. He can't change that. He's tied to the game much like the rest of us. If he so much as cheats, he'll feel the full repercussions of it. If it's bad for us, it will be twice as bad for him.

Then why did he bother with this game? I had asked.

Because that's the way he fights. It's the only way he can fight. Was the answer. Even so, if you fight him here...if he shows up here, you won't be able to defeat him. Void cannot be destroyed inside his own creation. To be able to beat him, you'd have to find a way out—we all have to find a way out.

I had nodded, and promised that, even if Void would show himself, I wouldn't go recklessly charging at him. I guess, I shouldn't have made such a promise because I wasn't sure if I would be able to keep it.

"We have to get to the old man," Willy said, huffing as he climbed up the barricaded exit.

"Old man?" I asked, following him.

But neither Emma nor Willy answered my question. I suppose it was one of those things that Void can't be allowed to know.

The other side of Manhattan wasn't any different from the rest. It was just as bad but there were no signs of hostility as far as the eye can see. I didn't know what the whole point of these levels are now. I thought, before, that they were all stages for gruesome battles and fighting, but I was beginning to think that there was more to it than that. That the game has much more purpose than that.

I kept that thought to myself.

"What are we supposed to be doing here again?" I asked, a couple of minutes later as we were making our way to who-knows-where (again).

"Waiting for something to happen," Emma answered in a hushed whisper.

Willy nodded. "We can't do anything except to wait for Void to make his move."

"I doubt it'd be anything as easy as before," I told them and they agreed with me. "Void wouldn't have set this up for me to see if that wasn't the case."

"You really have caused a lot of problems for the alien outlaws," there was a tinge of awe to Emma's voice as she spoke those words.

I shrugged, "There's only so much that I can do."

"Better than being stuck inside this game for years," Willy said, trudging along.

He was right, though. No matter what had happened during my adventures, it was better than having everything in my world controlled by some demented alien outlaw. Unlike Emma, Willy, and Joe, I have been able to see much of the world, and have even returned to my home planet. I guess I really didn't think of that as a blessing before.

I really didn't think of anything as a blessing. I just took them for granted...

I sighed. That knowledge weighing heavy in my heart.

There was a lot of things about myself that I was learning in this place. Things that I hadn't thought about or even imagined I would learn.

You can't really tell what time it was in that stage. But, we did have to stop and rest eventually. We've learned that pushing ourselves to the limit can't always be good. Especially if we can't rest afterwards and are plummeted to another whirlwind of battle.

We took camp at another abandoned building. A building that was once a department store. Clothes were everywhere, like someone raided and overturned the closet. Shoes littered the ground, some of them missing the other pair but most of them were matted with dirt that even the most expensive shoes didn't look appealing. There were even shards of glass scattered here and there and we have to make sure that the place where we will be sleeping were devoid of such things.

Electricity still coursed through the dilapidated building, but with how badly the lights were damaged, all we got was a lot of flickering, flying sparks, and not much light.

I was lying on my sleeping bag, unable to sleep. My thoughts were swirling with a lot of 'What ifs' that I didn't know which one to start. I was too fired up that I couldn't sleep. The shadows on the wall were not helping. I had the vague sense that something was about to happen.

Emma and Willy, on the other hand, didn't have problems falling asleep.

I replayed the words that the other 'me' had said.

You just have to remember the answers.

For him to say that, wouldn't that mean that I know the answers to all the questions in my head but I had just forgotten them? Like an abandoned memory, a memory that had been boxed up at the back of my head awaiting for me to clear the dust and take them out?

I didn't know how long I was thinking of those things, trying to figure out the meaning behind those cryptic words, when Emma suddenly spoke from the sleeping bag beside me.

"Stop thinking too much, Daniel." She whispered.

I turned my head to look at her. I couldn't see the expression on her face, what with the lights flickering and all.

"I'm not over-thinking," I said.

She gave a snort. "Yeah, right. I may not know how much you've changed, Daniel X. But there are things about you that will always stay the same. Things that I will always remember. And this is one of them."

"This?"

"You taking everything in your shoulder," she replied and I could see her shoulders rise and fall, as if shrugging. "Even when we were kids you always think things too much by yourself. You don't let us help you out."

"That's...not true." I said, but somehow I wondered if it was.

"It is," then she gave a small laugh, just loud enough for my ears to pick up. "I remember that time, when we were kids. Some bullies came up and even though Willy could've helped you—would have helped you—you chose to fight by yourself. I guess you wanted to impress Dana even back then."

"I...what?" I said, surprised at what she had just told me. "I don't remember that."

"I don't blame you. It was a long time ago and a lot of things have happened since then," Emma said.

I gave a laugh of my own, "Yeah. There are...a lot of things from back when I was a kid in Alpar Nok that I can't remember but I feel them there...at the back of my mind."

"I think it's the same for all of us. I guess that's another thing that makes us similar to humans." Emma paused at the thought before adding, "You don't have to worry about Dana, Daniel."

I didn't say anything. What was there to say? There was no use denying it after all. Because in the end, thoughts of Dana—of how she was aiding Void in her own volition, of what could have happened to her, of whether she remembers me or not should I tell her who I am—were all that's on my mind.

When Emma saw that I wasn't going to argue, that I wasn't going to say anything to her about it, she added, "We'll think of something. We'll bring her back. You're not alone in this."

I nodded and with all sincerity said, "Thank you."

I woke up to the sound of heavy footsteps. It took a while for me to remember where I am and that was enough for me to completely wake up and be on my feet. Emma and Willy were already crouched behind a fallen pillar and they motioned me to stay low and to keep quiet.

I did what I was told.

As surprising as that is.

The footsteps were getting louder and I knew that whoever these people (or things) are, that they are coming closer. And that there are a lot of them.

I looked at the health gauge that was visible to me. I was fully healed thanks to Emma and her rations, and she and her brother were too.

Which means, we can go all out as long as we don't use up all of our healing items. Man, I amso not enjoying this.

It was only minutes later when we finally caught a glimpse of who—and what—we would be facing.

It was the terminator-esque guys. The very same things that attacked the mall I was in before I was captured. The very same things that had captured me even.

Well, they may not be the same group that had abducted me and put me into this predicament. But, that didn't matter to me. I was aiming for some payback.

"Those are the same things that got to me back in Shinjuku," I told Emma and Willy.

"We've never encountered them in the game before." Willy said, enunciating the words slowly. "But, we've seen them when Void captured us too."

"Yeah, I can feel that they're made of metal too." Emma supplied, though I already knew that. "But, I can't do anything about it. Something's stopping me from using my powers on them."

"That's...a first." Willy said, I could see the worry in his eyes.

"I don't suppose you have any weapons on you that can fire a gazillion watts of electrical power, or even one that can fire a torrent of water or something, do you?" I asked Willy.

Willy thought for a moment, then he looked at his holsters where his weapons lay and even in the pack he had carried, which was also full of all sorts of weapons from different planets. After a couple of seconds of digging, he shook his head.

"No, but I do have something that could help us. Something more...fun," He said.

Emma and I exchanged glances before Emma ventured to ask the question, "What?"

And that was when Willy procured three cylindrical weapons made of adamantine.

"Flame Sabers." He said before he handed Emma and I said weapons and grinning. "Lock and Load, people."

I couldn't help but think that "Lock and Load" wasn't the right expression that Willy should have used. He should have said "To arms!" instead.

It was strange seeing all three of us wielding swords with blades made of fire. It looks like a lightsaber from that movie Star Wars only that the blades aren't as precisely shaped as those weapons. It was hard controlling the flames but both Emma and I finally got the hang of it.

Using these weapons are harder than you might think. Even if the ones who were wielding said weapon were alien hunters like us. It's true that we have a bit higher heat and fire threshold than you homo sapiens but it doesn't mean that it doesn't bother us. Because, it sure as hell did.

I still haven't gotten past my subtle fear of fire after what had happened a couple of months back with Beta...especially that memory in my mind when I was in the car with Dana. I had to shake those thoughts from my head a couple of times as the fire caused our robot enemies to be cut into half before melting into a puddle of silver liquid before hardening.

Both Emma and I stayed on one spot, letting our enemies come to us. I couldn't say the same thing about Willy though. He was charging them with such fervor that he made the Spartan leader, Leonidas, look like a nice gentleman. I was even expecting him to cry out: "For Freedom!" or something.

It took a while before we managed to route out all the "invading" robots that had come to cause us harm. Of course, even with the "Flame Sword" (as Willy called it) as our weapons, we didn't really get out of that battle unscathed. Looking at my health gauge, I noted that I had a quarter of it cut down. Emma's health was a little bit higher than mine. Willy's, however, was verging on the danger zone.

"You better heal your brother," I told Emma, wrinkling my nose at the smell of burnt metal as I turned my weapon off. "We don't know if another wave is coming at us."

"Right." Emma nodded as she, too, let the flames of her weapon die down before running towards Willy to help.

She was still helping Willy when a notification sounded. I thought that they had heard it too, but when I turn to look at them, Emma was still helping Willy—healing his wounds and trying to calm him down. I looked around, wondering if it was just all in my head when, all of a sudden, this message appeared out of thin air, made first by a cluster of 1s and 0s before changing into normal texts.

I blinked, and then I read the message:

Nothing is as it seems. The truth will come out soon, young Alien Hunter.

But, until then, learn and remember.

~ K

To be continued...

Post Author's Notes:

What do you guys think? Love it? Hate it? Send me a review and let me know. I'm really running out of things to say in this author's notes section...so, I'll leave it at that. Be sure to check my website for updates and news, and to know when the next update will be!

Until then!