A Daniel X Fanfic
by Sakura Martinez
Author's Notes:
I apologize! I made a mistake with missing one chapter! It has been fixed now (added the 'Arguments' chapter before the 'Our Target: Undinogh!' one). Anyways, this fanfic is coming to and end now. Probably will upload the few remaining chapters within the week so that I can upload the Prologue for Armageddon. Anyways, sorry for that mishap again, and I hope you guys enjoy this chapter.
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 for the fanfic and this fanfic itself.
Summary:
After surviving Void's Game, being reunited with his drang, and learning the truth about Void, Daniel X leaves with Khadagh to prepare for the imminent battle between Number One and Two. But when both Daniel and Khadagh disappears, The Prayer begins his revenge, seeking the aid of a mysterious group. Now, it's a race against time our heroes to put a stop to The Prayer's latest scheme before it's too late and it will take everything in their power to do so.
Daniel X: Out of Time
Chapter Twenty-Five
The Dreadnaught
With both Joe and Daniel helping out the Varjians, decrypting the message that was embedded in the signal intercepted by the Varjian scouts didn't take long. They didn't breeze through it either. Daniel told me when he returned, hours after he left, that even though they cracked the message an hour after their arrival (thanks to Joe), they decided to recheck it and see if they didn't make a mistake. They didn't.
What the signal contained was the following message:
We will be heading at the designated spot.
Lord Undinogh will be riding with a small fleet to meet potential allies.
Their destination will be sector sixty-seven-gamma-zeta-five.
Time of arrival will be oh-eighteen-hours on the 23rd moon cycle.
Open all relays and secure all communication channels.
This is as ordered by The Prayer.
We had our target. We had our destination. We had also been handed down his time of arrival. It wasn't going to be hard which part of sector 67GZ5—which planet—Undinogh was going to meet their potential allies in. All we had to do was follow the open relays and the secured communication lines along those relays to find him. It may not sound easy, but for Joe, it was going to be a piece of cake.
We had everything we need and we still have ample time to get ready and get a move on. The 23rd moon cycle—according to the Varjians who apparently uses the same form of calendar—was still three days away.
But, even though we had so much time, we didn't waste any of it by dawdling away. As soon as we got everything we need, as soon as all the war-plans have been set and everyone knew what their roles were going to be, all of us—Daniel, Willy, Joe, Emma, myself, and the Varjians—all made our way to the relay station where we will be ambushing Undinogh's fleet.
We got there a day before Undinogh's scheduled arrival. Though we already found the planet he was heading to—which was the size of Pluto but with the same kind of ability to sustain life as Earth, a planet the color of blue and yellow—we didn't land on it. For us, that would be a bad idea. That was the planet that was thinking of allying itself with Undinogh and The Prayer, which means it was a potential enemy of ours and even though we have The List and Joe's Symbiote to tell us what we want to know about the planet, we still didn't land there.
Instead, we waited for Undinogh's fleet to pass through the relay station. Once it does, that was the time we were going to launch our attack. An attack that would be spearheaded by the Varjians and their shadow clones.
Our plan was simple. Get the Varjians to engage the enemy's fleet and, while that's happening, we board the ship, find Undinogh and defeat him, all the while wrecking havoc. Daniel had instructed Willy to "not hold back" on that last part. He didn't mind if Willy ended up destroying the whole of Undinogh's ship. I was even betting that's what Daniel wanted.
Waiting for Undinogh's fleet to appear wasn't as unbearable as I thought it would be. Sure, I was feeling anxious and a little bit frightened at the prospect of facing Number Two but I was also looking forward to our victory—because I knew that was what was waiting for us at the end of the day: our victory.
I stayed by our ship's cockpit with Emma, even when the guys were running around and making sure that everything was set. But, unlike before, the guys didn't ask us to just relax. We both chose it. The reason was that we had a feeling we both would be using our abilities till the end of this battle—me with my protective barriers and Emma with her affinity to earth.
With not having anything to do, I decided to tease Emma and maybe find something out about her and Joe.
"W-Why are you asking that now?" Emma stammered her reply. Her face began to turn red. "This is hardly the time to ask me that!"
"Not really, now's a good time as any to tell me what the real deal is between you two." I replied, smirking as Emma began to fidget. "Before Daniel and I got sucked into that portal, you two had been close...but not as close as you are both now. Did your brother finally gave his blessings?"
"N-No!" Emma replied. "And you're making it sound like Joe and I are already planning to...to..."
Emma couldn't even finish the sentence, but I knew what she was about to say. Or, at least, what she was trying to say.
"To get married?" I asked, a hint of laughter in my question.
The mention getting married to someone caused Emma's face to turn even redder. I wouldn't have thought it possible until I've seen it. I mean, she was already pretty red in the face before I mentioned the 'M' word to her. It was kind of funny.
I couldn't help but laughing at the expression on Emma's face.
"W-W-What about you and Daniel then?" She asked, trying to turn the table of awkwardness.
Still chuckling I asked, "What about us? Our relationship's not a secret, Em."
"Y-Yeah, but," Emma tried to think of something, the look on her face was a dead give-away. She sighed when she couldn't find anything to throw at me. "Fine. I give in. You're not wrong, but you're not exactly right either."
I stopped laughing then, confusion masking my face. "What do you mean?"
"W-Well, Joe finally had the courage to talk to my brother about, uh, us," she began.
"That's great then." I said, smiling at her. "What did Willy say?"
An annoyed expression took over Emma's face, "He said that the next time Joe mentions anything about dating me, he will put a hole on his head and would he wouldn't even so much as blink while doing so." Emma then began pacing, "I swear, my brother drives me crazy! He doesn't have the right to tell anyone that or get into the business of who I want to be with!"
"Well, he's your brother and he is Willy, what do you expect?" I said, "So, Joe backed down?"
Emma's face turned red again, "Um, not exactly."
"Oh?" My lips curled into a smile again. Her story was getting interesting.
"Joe was furious with Willy, they didn't talk for a couple of days. Those two idiots gave me a hard time." I didn't say anything, letting Emma continue with her story. "What happened next was something I didn't expect Joe to do."
"Okay," I said, I was at the edge of my seat, "This is clearly getting interesting."
Emma then turned to me, her eyes burning with intensity as she said, "You have to promise me you're not going to tell anyone about this. Not Daniel. You are not going to show any signs that you know about this even to my brother and Joe."
"Okay...?"
"No, Dana. You have to promise. Like, really mean it, too!"
"Okay, okay," I said, raising my hands up in surrender. "I promise, just out with it already!"
"Um, Joe, kind of, ended up asking Willy for the Duel..." She muttered, not looking at me.
"A duel?" I asked, wondering why this would be such a secret, until it hit me. "You can't mean—! Not that duel!"
Emma nodded meekly.
My jaw dropped to the floor. Figuratively.
I couldn't believe Joe—our Joe-Joe— would have the guts to stand up to Willy, of all people, and demand to have the Duel with him. The Duel, you see, is—as the name suggest—a battle between two parties. Back in Alapak Nor, the Duel is requested when one wishes to ask for a person's hand in marriage but someone from the family on either parties objects. It's sort of a way to settle things. If the person who issued the challenge wins, whatever he or she wants—whether to have permission to marry or be married, or to stop a marriage from happening—he or she gets.
So, Joe asking Willy to have the Duel with him was, basically, Joe challenging Willy for the right to marry Emma. That was, without a doubt, huge! Especially since all of us were not in that age yet. We weren't considered adults yet—not until we reached the age of 18, which was still a year from then.
"Holy—!" I was up on my feet when that sank in. But even before I could say anything, Emma placed a hand on my shoulder to calm me down. Because, apparently, her story wasn't finished yet.
"So, anyway, Willy accepted the challenge...even though he knew that we aren't really eligible for that yet, and, well, since this is my brother we're talking about." She went on. "I was furious, of couse. Especially since he didn't ask me first about it. He just went off and decided that on his own. They didn't even wait for a day, or a week. They fought right then and there. I thought I was going to have a heart attack."
"I can imagine," I muttered. It was true. Even if Emma wanted to stop the Duel, she can't. She's not allowed to. "So, who won?"
Emma sighed, "Surprisingly, Joe did."
I couldn't keep the laughter from erupting. Eighteen or not, Emma was engaged. And to Joe, no less!
Daniel caught me grinning like an idiot when he showed up in my room, unannounced.
He smiled at the sight of me, "What's with the huge smile on your face? Did something good happen?"
"You can say that," I said. Though when he asked me what it was, I kept my promised and kept my mouth closed. He tried prying the information from me, but I stood my ground. I didn't want Emma to get mad at me and think me untrustworthy.
"Fine, don't tell me then," Daniel pouted as he, unceremoniously, dumped himself on my bed. I shook my head.
"Pout all you want, Daniel," I said, sitting next to him. "That won't work. Not this time."
Daniel grinned then shrugged, "It was worth the try." Then he went all serious again and said, "I'm glad to see you smiling, though. I thought I'd see you somber again."
"Because of tomorrow?" I asked, choosing not to look at him.
There was a couple of seconds of silence before Daniel answered, "Yeah."
I turned to him, "That's strange. Whatever happened to the confidence you always have when dealing with the aliens on The List? I was sure you're going to say something like: 'we got this', 'Undinogh's nothing', or 'he's just a stepping stone to getting closer to finishing off The Prayer."
Daniel laughed, "Am I really like that?"
"You were," I told him, flopping down next to him. "At least, that's what the other Dana—the one you used to create from your imagination—told me. She even warned me about it."
"She did? Wait, what else did you two talked about?" The look of surprise on Daniel's face made me laugh. When he let us meet with his created versions of us a while back, I guess I never really told him what me and his version of me talked about. I wasn't going to tell him the whole of that conversation, but I was willing to share some of it.
"A bunch of other stuff, mostly about you charging in without thinking and letting your emotions get the best of you," I replied. "But, that's beside the point now. I'm just glad you're not losing your head over this."
"A lot of things are at a stake now." Daniel said. "I'm not saying that it wasn't like that before. It's just...now, I have to think about the people who are fighting along side me. You—and the rest of the drang—are real people, not just figments of my imagination. I can't just clap you or the others away if things end up going wrong. I can't just think of keeping myself safe. I have to think of everyone. And that...that sorts of keep you from doing a lot of stupid things. It makes you want to plan more and hope that everything goes according to that plan, you know?"
"I figured just as much," I admitted. "But, we can't argue that tomorrow maybe the hardest battle you'll ever fight, Daniel."
"And it will be the first real battle we'll have to fight with all of us together." Daniel added. Then he admitted to me what it was he was really worried about; what it was that was nagging at him. "I just hope it doesn't up like the same way it did back at that final level in The Game."
Undinogh's fleet came just in time. And true to what the intercepted message said, all he had was a small fleet—like, his main ship (which we learned was named 'Dreadnaught') and only four smaller convoy ships were with him. Admittedly, I didn't think the message meant the fleet was that small. I was expecting a couple of armada at least.
"Are we sure Undinogh's on-board that ship?" Daniel asked, all of us were gathered at the Bonvoyage's war room. Huge monitors and holographic computers were turned on, all of them showing reports on the various stations and teams we had scattered in the immediate space.
Joe turned his seat around. He was wearing a headset as he replied, "A hundred percent positive, Chief. That's Undinogh's ship, alright."
Joe has, also, taken a liking to calling Daniel 'Chief'—something that Daniel didn't like but couldn't keep Joe from calling him.
Daniel nodded, then turned to Willy, "Is everyone in position?"
Willy nodded, though he didn't turn his chair around to look at Daniel as he spoke with him, "They're just waiting for the signal."
"Right," Daniel sounded nervous, "Let's do this then."
"What?" Emma asked, trying to lighten up the mood, "No inspiring speech that would arouse us to fight and all that?"
"Stop teasing him, Emma," I said, even though I was smiling myself.
"Um, yeah. Let's just go and get this over with," Daniel said.
As far as rousing speeches went, that wasn't his best. But, we all just let it go. We didn't have time to joke around with each other.
After that, Daniel gave the signal and the attack began. The Varjians did their part, using their shadows to create an illusion that enveloped the ship. We could only imagine the panic that set down upon Undinogh's men, his crew. I even wondered if they thought they were betrayed by the people they were supposed to meet with.
The Varjians held the ships at bay as the five of us sneaked past the lax security that Undinogh had surrounding his ship. With Joe's Symbiote computer, he hacked the systems to allow us to enter without letting an alarm set off. Once inside, he downloaded (by hacking through the ship's mainframe) a layout of the ship, to make it easier for us to find Undinogh. All of that took less than a minute, a record even for us.
We continued sneaking as we made our way through. It wouldn't do us any good to meet the aliens on-board the Dreadnaught head-on. Sure, we can probably lessen the number of alien scums out their in the universe but we would also be risking ourselves, tiring ourselves, and we can't afford that, not when we have to face the second most dangerous alien on the face of the known universe. The success of our mission relied heavily on how much of our powers we could use when the time came. Out of the five of us, only Joe—and, from time to time Emma, especially when she's using her powers to move the metal around to create a hidden path for us—who could freely use their powers.
The aliens on the ship were a rowdy and frighteningly-looking bunch. They wore armor emblazoned with spikes that could easily cause an injury—intentionally or not. There were aliens who looked like warthogs walking on their hind legs. Aliens who looked like a cross between a crab and an octopus. Aliens who looked feral. Hairy aliens; scaly aliens, slimy aliens, jelly-looking aliens. There were, basically, all sorts of aliens and all of them were armed and dangerous.
They were moving in a flurry, trying to escape the trap that the Varjians had sprung on them while also trying to kick start their engines again—though I doubt they would be able to do much with their engines, after all, Joe and Emma both worked together to make sure to render their engines useless. What they were doing made it a little bit easier for us, though we didn't knew how much time we have before Undinogh just decide to use one of the escape pods and runaway. That was something we couldn't afford.
We kept on following the map—which, by the way, was pretty detailed until we finally ended up in a large hallway.
"You guys just need to go through that door then up a couple of staircase, down another corridor," Joe said, nodding towards the door that was at the far end of the room. "The door farthest from the right, on that corridor...That's supposed to be the cockpit. According to the data I've gathered from the mainframe, that's the last place Undinogh was before we attacked."
"Escape routes?" Willy asked.
Joe issued a couple of one-worded commands on his Symbiote before answering, "The escape shuttles over there," he pointed at the door opposite the cockpit." The escape pods are somewhere on the lower level of the ship. If Undinogh plans to escape—and he hadn't tried to, according to the mainframe—he'd have to pass through us." then he turned to Daniel and asked, "Do we stick to the plan?"
Daniel nodded. "Let's hope nothing goes wrong."
Joe nodded before running to the direction of where the escape shuttles were supposed to be with. He then stuck his Symbiote on the door's panel and began to hack it.
We were going to go through with what we had planned. At least, that was what I thought, before Daniel turned to me and spoke.
"You better keep him safe," Daniel told me, placing a hand on my shoulder, "We can take Undinogh with the three of us."
"Wait," I said, stepping away from him to get a better look at him, "You're leaving me on guard duty? Are you serious?"
"Yes." Daniel nodded. "We have to make sure Undinogh doesn't escape and we have to make sure that we don't have any casualties...at least, when it comes to our drang. We can handle fighting with Undinogh, you can keep both yourself and Joe safe. It's logical."
"I can hold Undinogh at bay," I told him, referring to my psychic powers. "And you want me to just create a shield for us?"
"You can hold him at bay if he tries to escape," Daniel said, turning around. Then, as if I wasn't in the hall with him any more, he spoke to Emma and Willy and they set out to fight with Undinogh. Just the three of them. I wanted to accidentally punch him...on purpose...