"Marcus here." Marcus activated his walkie-talkie as soon as he heard her words. "Listen, Keith, broadcast the agreed-upon message, have everyone head to the Saferoom, and the guards head to their assigned locations. You heard me? Over."

  "Heard you. Over."

  As soon as she cut her line, her voice sounded through the speakers,

  "Everyone, please drop whatever you're doing and head to the Saferoom. Please do so safely and don't make any trouble. All guards and supports, please head to your designated positions."

  All the while, Ricky was pushing the tender as hard as he could, none of them wanted to face what was coming towards them while they weren't on the Voyager. Fortunately, they weren't that far from her so it didn't take them that long to reach the ship.

  "How far are they?" Dan asked Keith through the walkie-talkie as soon as they made it to the Voyager.

  At the same time, he started running to the bridge, while Marcus led the other guards to prepare for the coming confrontation.

  "Two to three minutes away. We seem to be their target, they are heading directly towards us," Keith said through the speakers, for the sake of everyone who needed to know that piece of information.

  "Fuck!" Dan cursed as he ran.

  Red dots on Keith's skill mean that the creatures would be able to hurt them. Dan wasn't looking forward to seeing what two of those could do.

  "Voyager, do you see them?" he asked as he ran.

  Maybe sensing the seriousness of the current situation, the Voyager didn't try to speak with him, she just sent over an affirmation before linking him to the feed of one of the cameras.

  Dan had to lower his speed, falling into more of a jog as his vision split between what was in front of him and what the Voyager was sending. He was sure that if not for Advantage, he might have had to stop altogether, his mind not able to handle the weird situation.

  He didn't keep that jog though, what the camera showed made him push himself hard again, despite how disorienting moving was. Two stingrays like the ones they had been hunting were making their way towards the Voyager. They weren't really the same though, those two had wingspan of at least 30 meters, and instead of the three stingers their normal variants had, they had 20 at least.

  Watching them cutting through the water as they made their way to the Voyager, Dan felt his heart turn cold. He really didn't want to go against anything like that, unfortunately, it seemed that they didn't have a say in the matter.

  "Voyager," Dan called seriously. He wasn't going to make it fast enough, "Carry me to the bridge."

  He could feel the Voyager's hesitation after she heard what he said, but eventually, she didn't try to argue with him.

  Standing in place, Dan soon felt the Voyager's warm gentle aura stir, in the distinct form that it took when she used Aura Appendages. She then took hold of him, it was a gentle hold, as if a human carrying an extremely fragile baby bird in their hand.

  He stumbled a bit as he saw just the open air below him, falling into his backside. Fortunately, what he felt was the hard surface of the Voyager's aura. As his hands touched it, he realised that it had a cold metallic feeling to it, it even gave the same sound as he tapped it gently.

  Feeling the aura appendages covering him, Dan watched in amazement as he was moved from around the middle of the Voyager to the bridge in the 16th deck, then put gently down in the balcony of the bridge.

  "Thank you, Voyager," he said gently as he turned around and hurried inside.

  As he entered, Dan saw the people inside looking at him with expressions of bafflement and amazement. He didn't care about that as he asked Keith,

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  "You got an eye on them? You know what they are?"

  "Yes," she answered after pulling herself from the shock of seeing him fly into the bridge, "I was just about to tell Marcus and the others about that."

  "Good, use the speakers," Dan said. He then went to stand next to the screen connected to her skill. "We are moving?"

  "As soon as the tender was in place I started us," Freddie said, "We should reach max speed soon."

  In preparation of anything happening, they had already docked the Voyager in a position that wouldn't have them waste time on turning around, so they were already as ready to leave as could be. Moving at top speed put them with the problem of the Swarmers having trouble following them, but they could handle it for a while in their enraged state.

  Dan nodded, the sound of Keith broadcasting what they knew about what they were against seeping from outside. At the same time, his mind started going through what he needed and could do to help.

  The first thing that came to mind was taking control over the dark oppressive aura the Voyager had, honestly, it was the only thing that came to mind. Everything else was too weak to hurt what was coming their way. After all, the next best thing he could do was get one of the AKMs and join with the guards.

  The dark oppressive aura though, he felt that that would be of great help to them. There was just one thing off about that, how reluctant the Voyager was about using that aura of hers. Dan didn't know why that was the case, but the Voyager never even used her Aura Appendages skill with that aura.

  He had a guess, and it came to him from how he felt when he took in that tiny bit of aura the time before, and how much it hurt him. He doubted it hurt the Voyager in the way it did him, but it most likely affected her in one way or another.

  "I'm here," he saw Diana run inside breathlessly as she took her place next to the broadcasting station and started bringing her breathing under control.

  Dan didn't pay that much attention as he had to deal with things on his side.

  "Voyager." Deciding that using it was better than just waiting to be attacked by those monsters, Dan called for the Voyager, "I want to take control over the dark aura, like we did when we fought the Ghostly Lantern."

  Again, he could feel the Voyager's hesitation before he suddenly felt both of the Voyager's auras start seeping from all over her body. He was sure that if anyone could see the auras, it would appear as if a dark cloud had suddenly started leaking from her, covering her and the whole area around it.

  Dan watched as the auras cocooned him and soon, he once again had full control over them. He noticed how it wasn't as hard as before, most likely due to Advantage and how much stronger his body was.

  With the sight given to him by the aura, Dan, for the first time, could see what the Aura Appendages looked like. To him, they looked like eight huge tentacles, 4 meters wide at least and 60 to 70 meters long. Probably due to her agitation, they were flailing and waving around in the air. The sight was so eldritch and breathtaking that he found himself freezing for a second.

  It didn't hold his eyes for long though, he soon saw the gigantic stingrays just a few tens of meters away.

  "They are on us," he heard Keith relay over the speakers, "They are separating, each of them is taking a side."

  Dan waited with bated breath as he watched the stingrays catch up to them, for a split second, they were right by the Voyager, just outside the range of her protective aura. Dan hated to say it, but it was quite the sight, seeing those creatures keeping up with them as they cut through the water.

  They soon passed them though, going just a bit faster than the Voyager. Dan's heart relaxed as he noticed that they weren't breaching into the Voyager's protected area. That didn't last long though.

  "WATCH OUT!" he shouted as he watched each of those stingrays raise two to three of their tails and flick them towards the cruise ship.

  With that flick, long spikes flew towards them at an unbelievable speed. Fortunately, it wasn't him who had to intercept them or they would have been in huge trouble.

  Before those spikes could hit the Voyager, Dan watched as she moved two of her metallic tentacles and knocked the spikes out of the air. He cheered internally at the sight, but that happiness didn't last long, those creatures didn't have just those tails after all.

  "Incoming!" he shouted again as he saw the stingrays' tails start quivering, as if about to shoot. He hoped that Keith was relaying his messages.

  As Dan feared, a volley of spikes flew their way. The Voyager did her best to stop what she could, but a few of them still made it through. Seeing them cut through the walls and floors as if foam, Dan felt his heart turn cold. He brought his attention to the guards on the decks, only relaxing once he realised that they were all alright.

  At the same time, Dan noticed Diana's song start playing, unlike before, he knew that she could now also add true magical buffs to their attacks. He hoped that she and the other supports would be of help in levelling the field between the guards and the stingrays a bit.

  Dan's newfound happiness that the stingrays wasted their shots for nothing soon disappeared, as he noticed them growing new spikes in speed visible to the naked eye. They didn't have long before they would shoot at the Voyager again.

  Through their connection, Dan finally noticed something he should have noticed a while ago, the Voyager was really angry. He watched as her metallic tentacles started pulling many of those spikes and throwing them back at the stingrays.