//------------------------------// // Wrath: The Superior Intellect // Story: Dan Vs. The Magic of Friendship(Season 1) // by Barrobroadcaster //------------------------------// The edge of the Genesis Device slowly inched its way through the maintenance tube. The torpedo was heavy, and Dan was pushing it all the way while also trying not to touch it directly. Unfortunately, that part of his task proved too difficult to manage, and so he'd given up and was now just pushing the unstable protomatter bomb along its way through the ship. He pushed it down the corridor. The foodimals were all running past him. To what end or how they might be trying to help him, he did not know. He kept pushing until, "Prrrrrr!!" A group of foodimals formed a pile and stopped him. "Prrrrr! Prrrrrr!" they all prrrd. Dan looked at them. He realized what they were trying to tell him. "I don't have time to get it to the torpedo bay, do I?" The foodimals shook their heads, adorably. He looked around and saw what he needed: an airlock. Dan shoved the torpedo into the airlock and then went to the outer door controls. The lights on the display told him they were still functioning, a good sign. "Finally, some luck." *Kzzzzrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrtt!* A red beam of light shot from the side, collided with the airlock controls and exploded. Dan turned away at the last second, shielding himself from the shower of sparks and flames. When he opened his eyes, the control panel was nothing more than a smoldering black gash in the wall. Not but a few meters away was the source of the destruction: Khan holding a phaser. "WHY? WHY DOES EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING HAVE TO BETRAY ME!! WHY??" Dan punched the wall panel on the opposite side, which turned out to be the auxiliary airlock controls. His fist went right through them, breaking it to pieces. "DAMN IT!" "Step away from the controls, please." "You're an idiot. You realize that, right?" Dan said. "Now there's no way to jettison the damn thing and it's about to go off." "Oh, but there is," Khan said. He tossed a communicator at Dan. He didn't bother catching it, but Khan continued, "Pick up the communicator, call Twilight Sparkle and have her teleport the device to Ceti Alpha Five." Dan did not reach for the communictor. "She doesn't know where that is." "Time is a luxury we don't have," Khan said. "She can use magic to summon things, yes? Have her summon the planet here. Now." The pair exchanged glares. The taller, long-haired man was stronger and more knowledgeable than Dan. There was no way he could take him in a fight. Not only that, they only had scant moments before the Genesis Device went off. Still, Dan was not one to negotiate. "And how are WE going to survive the blast, hmm? We're not all going to be able to fit in the torpedo casing this time, even if we stack on top of each other." Again, Khan just smiled. "Fortunately, we don't all have to. I'll make this simple: pick up the communicator now, or I'll shoot you." Finally, Dan reached down for the communicator. One of his classic feints; he lunged at Khan instead. Instead of Khan firing or colliding with the augment, he simply stopped short of his tackling him. Dan knew what had happened right away. Khan was indeed very smart, very strong and in many ways, superior to the average human. Dan, being shorter than average, was stopped by the taller human's hand. Despite this, Dan swung in futility at his opponent while Khan held him at arm's length with a single hand. "Tenacity has gotten you very far, Dan." "ARRGAARRAAA BOMB ARRRGGARRRAAA AAARAA!" Dan's head in one hand and a phaser in the other, Khan pressed the barrel of the pistol against Dan's forehead. "You were a worthy opponent, Dan. More than many could say. But in the end... as expected... you were no match for the superior-" *Kzzzzzrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrt!* Khan dropped his phaser. Another *Kzzzzrrrttt!* phaser blast struck him in the back and he dropped. Dan looked down at Khan, then looked up at whoever had saved him. Even though he wasn't expecting to be saved, the person who had saved him was very unexpected to say the least. The new arrival ran to Khan's side. "Hey," Dan started, "Aren't you-" "There's no time. You've gotta get that bomb out of here." "OH yeah, that." The man quickly checked Khan's pulse, took the fallen augment's phaser and placed on his own belt. "I'm sorry you had to be involved. Great job, though." "Thanks. Could you uh, gimme a hand with-" "Right." The new stranger pulled the airlock's outer doors open for Dan and helped him get the torpedo into position. It was glowing brightly, only seconds left. "I'm sorry I can't do more. I'm not even supposed to be here. And neither is he," the stranger said. The man pulled out his own communicator. "So I'm not supposed to tell anybody you showed up?" The man quirked a slight grin. "That would help. But you can keep all of this stuff you've found either way. You probably need it more than we do, and Starfleet's already picked up the rest of the... Danfiant's original crew." "Thanks... I think," Dan said. He also thought to himself, shouldn't the bomb have exploded by now? "Anyway, good luck." He raised up his communicator. "Kirk to Enterprise, two to beam out." Both he and Khan were enveloped in shimmering light and then, they disappeared. There's a reason that friendship is magic. It's the foundation of a benevolent relationship. It incorporates the elements of harmony, it went even beyond magic itself, beyond simple principles. Friendship was a uniting factor, a step towards coming together, and that is what allowed it to work the impossible. Life itself was made up of such unity. Every living being, no matter who they were, where they came from or how far they had come, they were all united by that same common factor. Friendship held the universe together. Dan stepped back from the doors. Reaching for the controls, whatever smile he had on his face faded when he realized they were broken. "HEY! HEY, COME BACK! The doors- they're still broken!" Dan pulled open the outer doors again, looking around for something, for anything that could fix them. But the auxiliary controls were destroyed, too. "DAMMIT!!" Dan punched the wall. "OW!" The room was beginning to fill with the Genesis Device's super-cooled vapor. Mist covered the floor, part of it hot steam and other parts of it cold smoke, a testament to the device's complexity that it could produce two different reactions at the same time, hot and cold fusion. "Prrrrrr." The foodimals were assembled behind him, all of them from the look of it. Even the ice cream cone spider hung down. Looking at their tiny, innocent faces, Dan knew what he had to do. "Oh, I'm gonna hate myself for doing this." Dan picked up the torpedo, took a step back into the hall and then ran against the door. He could've said something profound, could've said anything. In a way, he did. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!" And then he smashed the torpedo against the door. It crunched against the airlock's doors but did not pierce them. Thankfully, the torpedo itself didn't detonate but Dan spilled the last of the pink potion he'd gotten on it. Drops of protomagic hit the machine. "I can't... I can't get the doors open," Dan said. Then one of the foodimals said, "Prrrrr." And pointed to a release lever above him. "Oh. Thanks." Dan gripped the lever and closed his eyes. "Tell everybody I... I did this for them." "Prrrrr." "They know already. But tell 'em again." Dan pulled the lever. The doors exploded outward. In an instant, the entire deck was filled with vacuum and depressurized. The lever broke off in Dan's hand and he and the foodimals were blown out into space. Space was indeed very cold. It would've made his eyes water if he didn't feel like he was going to freeze. What little oxygen he had, he was desperate to hold in despite the pull of the void. The ice cream cone spider foodimal had attempted to wrap a candy umbilical cord around him before he pulled the lever but it had snapped. Candy wasn't very durable, unfortunately but Dan appreciated the effort. Once again, Dan felt like he was going to die. He didn't know how many times this had been but he hadn't really been counting. A million things were on his mind in his last few moments of life. He watched as the Genesis Device tumbled through space. Remarkably, it was heading straight for the center of the debris cloud that was Equestria. The planet's gravity well remained for just a bit longer, for just long enough. Dan did not blink as he watched the glowing bomb enter the center of the field and explode. The explosion of the Genesis Device was simple. Just a regular bomb blast, really, but one that carried with it a wave of raw and other-worldly energy. It expanded outward, overlapping the chunks of dead rock that had been the planet Equestria, changing them and pulling them in. Somewhere, high above it all, Dan watched and thought of Twilight and Chrys and Fluffle Puff and the others. Second chances are never a given. Sometimes you get one when you need one, sometimes you don't. And you have to live with the result either way. At times, you can get a second chance even if you don't really deserve it. Dan never really thought he deserved a second chance when he was somehow transported to Equestria, saved from death. But he proved he deserved it. Because he gave it back. Dan could no longer hold his breath. He exhaled... and suddenly found that he could breath. He looked around him and he realized the universe had turned purple somehow. And he knew what that meant. Twilight pulled him closer to her. Both she and Dan were enveloped in her magic, safe. "I... I really should... expect you to save me. After all this time." Twilight smiled. "No, you shouldn't." Dan nodded, smiling and exhausted. "Yeah, you're right." She teleported them both back onto the ship, back to the bridge. Along with the foodimals because yeah, we can't leave them behind. Phoenix and the others were on the bridge when they materialized. "Dan!" "Yes, me. Also Twilight." "What happened to you both?" Phoenix asked. "Where's Khan?" Dan steadied himself on a console. "Khan's gone, Nicky. He was using us... using us the whole time." "Yeah, kinda figured that," Phoenix said. (Didn't need the magatama to see that coming.) "That's nice, Nicky, that's really nice. The NEXT TIME you have a sneaky suspicion someone is going to try to murder us all for their benefit, can you PLEASE let me know?" Phoenix rubbed his neck as he usually does. "Sure, but, that's pretty normal for us." "Yeah," Twilight, Colress, the Doctor, Judge Judgey and Rarity all agreed. As did the Magic Gears. Dan slumped into the captain's chair. "So, did it work? Is Equestria fixed now? Also, where's the bald dude?" "I don't know about Equestria," Colress said, "but according to the sensors, something else is incoming." Remembering back to who he saw in the hallway with Khan, Dan assumed, "Oh, great. Well, it's probably just some friends showing up." Colress looked up at Dan. "I don't think so." Another ship entered the system. They weren't very friendly.