Chapter 15

Author's Note: Fifteen chapters, WOOOOO PARTY!!! That is all.

Song of the day if one was needed: Souls of Black - Testament

11:30 PM

Hax ran down the hall to Cross' door, Alexia right beside him, "Cross! We heard something, are you alright in there?" Hax asked through the door.

No answer from the other side.

"Cross!" Hax yelled, hoping for a response.

"Who is this 'Cross'?" A voice asked, it sounded just like Cross, but deeper, and somewhat demonic, "I am Rage."

As soon as these words were spoken, the door to Cross' room blasted open, Alexia and Hax jumped out of the way quickly, avoiding what could have been disaster as the metal door slammed against the wall with amazing force, "What the hell?!" Hax exclaimed, Cross walked out of the room, he turned to his right, where Hax and Alexia stood, something wasn't right about this, Hax couldn't tell at first, but when he took a longer look, the lupine noticed that Cross' eyes were now completely black, "You're not Cross," Hax said, glaring at the small vulpine and taking his fighting stance with his paws in his pockets, standing straight up, "Alexia, go find Fox and the others, I can't take him alone, but I can hold him off."

"But what if--"

"GO!" The lupine yelled, cutting Alexia's sentence off.

"Be careful." The she-wolf said before running off in the other direction.

"So, Rage was it? I don't know what you are, but I'm guessing you don't want a hug." Hax stated.

"I am all of the anger and hate that has built up inside of him, I am Rage, I am his 'flaw', as soon as Cross had enough hatred for Chaos, I took over his body." The vulpine said with an evil smile.

"Yeah that makes sense." Hax sarcastically said.

"My sole purpose is to destroy everything," An evil scowl appeared on the dark vulpine's face, "Starting with you."

Rage dashed at Hax, the lupine couldn't move out of the way in time as Rage pinned him against the wall by his throat, "It will take some time to get used to this body now that I am flesh, but it seems you lack the fighting ability to defeat me as I am."

"You think I'm this weak?" Hax chuckled, grabbing the paw around his neck, and pulling, surprisingly Rage's grip started to loosen, "You don't even know." Hax said before shoving the paw away and before Rage could react, the lupine's knee slammed into his stomach, causing him to gasp for air, then a fist landed square on the side of the vulpine's face, knocking him onto his back and rolling several feet away.

Rage jumped to his feet and looked at Hax who had slid his paws in his pockets once again ready for the dark red vulpine, Rage dashed at Hax again, but this time the lupine saw it coming and leaned back as Rage's claws slashed his shirt, Rage kept slashing at Hax, each deadly swipe coming closer, Rage was getting faster, and Hax couldn't keep this up for much longer, he had to do something drastic, the lupine moved into the attack, Rage's right claw became stuck in Hax's stomach, Rage grinned, but Hax slammed the vulpine against the wall with his left knee, causing blood to come out of the vulpine's mouth.

"Hax! It's me, Cross, I think you got rid of him." The red vulpine said.

"Show me." Hax wasn't sure if the vulpine was lying or not, Cross looked up at the lupine, his eyes were back to their normal golden shine, Hax took his knee away from Cross' gut, but as soon as he did this Cross eyes turned completely black again.

"How foolish you are." Rage said as ripped his claws out of Hax's stomach, causing the wolf to double over in pain, massive amounts of blood leaked everywhere on the floor as Hax fell to his front from the pain of the large gash in his stomach, "I would kill you here and now, but since you proved to be a challenge, I'll leave a present for Fox." Rage said with an evil snicker.

Ecks awoke on the floor of a very bright room, he couldn't make out the figures before him as his vision was extremely blurry, but the closest thing to him, he couldn't make it out at all but it was a very bright pink, "Okay, what exactly happened?" A voice asked, Ecks could tell it was Fox.

"I was changing my clothes and then I turned around and Ecks was standing there, I tried to talk to him but he didn't say anything, I walked up to him and he still didn't say anything, he just passed out." The voice answered Fox, it was obvious that the voice belonged to Zivia.

Ecks heard someone start to laugh, "He saw your ass!" The voice yelled, still laughing, it was Falco.

"Hmm, maybe the sight was a bit too much for him to take." Another voice added with a different accent, it was Krystal.

Ecks was trying to shake the blurriness from his eyes, no one noticed that he was waking up, as his vision cleared, he looked straight ahead towards the ceiling, he saw a bright orange tail with red lines just inches away from his face, the familiar scent of oranges and berries was enticing, this was Zivia's tail, Ecks looked to his right so that the beautiful smell didn't make him pass out, unfortunately he looked straight at the vixen's posterior, luckily she had a pink pair of pajama pants on this time, when Ecks noticed he was looking at the vixen's backside, the sides of his face turned purple, he turned his gaze to his left which, and he thanked the Goddess for this, nothing but a wall was there, he loved the sight of Zivia, but he needed to look away for now so that he didn't pass out again from the sight.

"No, that couldn't have been why he passed out, could it?" Zivia questioned.

Ecks decided to speak up, "Yes Zivia, I saw your...backside and that is why I fainted." He said, embarrassed to admit it.

Zivia turned around with her full attention on Ecks, "Really?" She questioned.

"Yes, you're too beautiful for your own good." Ecks said, his cheeks were now a bright purple, they could now possibly melt ice.

"Aww, that's so sweet." Krystal and Zivia said at the same time, Zivia smiled at Ecks and sat down beside where he lay, she pulled him up and hugged him tightly, causing the dark blue vulpine to blush even more, if that was possible.

"He's only fifteen, and he's already better at talking to women than I am." Fox said with a chuckle.

Just then, out of nowhere, Alexia ran into the room, startling everyone, "There's something going on with Cross ! Come on!" She yelled as she ran out of the room and down the hall, the others followed.

The team ran down the halls of the Great Fox II, they came to Cross' room, a large metal door leaning against the wall directly across from the room, the door was a large dent in the middle of it, the team walked a bit further down the hall, cautiously, a few seconds later they found Hax, propped up against the wall, sitting up, the lupine had claw tears all around his chest and arms and had already lost a substantial amount of blood, Alexia ran to the lupine's side.

"Vaughn!" She yelled out of concern, tears streaming down her face, taking his paw in her's.

"Hey babe, what's up?" Hax asked, trying to keep his usual attitude, despite the fact he was on the verge of death.

"What happened to you?" The light grey she-wolf asked, her face still wet with tears.

Hax chuckled a bit, "You should see the other guy." He then passed out from the blood loss.

Fox examined the writing on the walls, it was in blood and read, 'Come to the gym, I need a challenge.'

"Slippy, Falco, take Hax to the medical bay, Alexia, you're going with them, Ecks and I will take care of this, Zivia, Krystal, you two stay here." Fox said.

"Wait, before you take him," Ecks said as a white ball of energy escaped from his paw and into the large wound on Hax's stomach, "That's all I can do, when he wakes up, the injury should be healed."

Falco and Slippy did as they were told, Alexia stayed for a few moments, "Will Vaughn be alright?" She asked, her sky-blue eyes still had tears in them.

"Yes, his injuries aren't fatal, he should be okay, but you need to be with him." Fox said in a comforting tone.

"Okay, be careful." Alexia then took off down the hall to the medical bay.

"We're coming with you." Zivia told him.

"I agree." Krystal said.

"No Zivia, I don't know what I would do if anything happened to you." Ecks said.

"I can handle myself, didn't you see what I did to that creep on Corneria?" She asked with a grin.

"But you don't know what my brother is capable of, I don't know what's going on, but my brother could rip you apart." Ecks pleaded for the vixen to stay.

"Don't argue with them Ecks, you'll always lose," Fox said as he started walking in the direction of the gym, "Let's go, I have a feeling this won't be easy."

The four foxes made their way to the gym, when they entered, they saw Cross standing by one of the punching bags, "Hello...brother." The red vulpine said with an evil smirk.

"I won't fight you Cross." Ecks said, stepping forward.

"I am not Cross," The vulpine said, placing his paw on the punching bag to his left, "I am Rage," He added, tearing through the bag with his claws, the sand spilling out onto the floor in seemingly endless amounts, "And if you will not fight me," Rage dashed at Ecks, Ecks didn't react however and was lifted by the throat, "Then you are weak." The dark red vulpine said, throwing the blue vulpine into the wall to his left, Ecks' body impacted on the wall with destructive force, making a dent the size of Ecks' body in the metal wall, the blue vulpine fell to the floor, unconscious.

"Ecks!" Zivia yelled, then turned to the red vulpine in front of her, "You BASTARD!!" She screamed, charging at the vulpine.

"Zivia wait!" Fox tried to stop the enraged vixen, but it was too late, she was already running at Rage, with no intent to stop.

Zivia ran at Rage with the intent to kill, Rage took a swipe at her head with his claws, however the vixen ducked underneath his arm, Rage was surprised at how quick the vixen moved, he never even saw the bright orange foot that connected with his chin, Rage stumbled a few feet backwards, trying to catch his balance, Zivia didn't stop with that kick no, she started an onslaught of many punches to the red vulpine's head and stomach, alternating between them, it looked as though Zivia's anger could propel her to victory, that is until Rage caught one of her punches in his paw, he landed a heavy fist into the vixen's mid-section, lifting her up as he did so, and slamming her onto her back on the metal floor, Fox and Krystal charged at the vulpine next, but he flipped over the two foxes, Krystal reacted quickly as she pulled out her staff, pointing it at where Rage was going to land, a fireball started to build at the end of the weapon, growing larger and larger, the large fireball was as big as Rage's head, it shot towards the vulpine, but Rage was light on his feet as he dodged the large ball of flames that would've certainly killed him, as soon as Rage landed on the ground, he turned into a red flash that dashed around the room seemingly at the speed of light, Krystal and Fox stood their ground, anticipating when the evil vulpine would strike, Fox saw the red flash moving towards Krystal, he jumped into the air and landed a heavy roundhouse kick to the side of Rage's jaw, sending him several feet and crashing him into a wall, Krystal dashed towards the red vulpine, hoping to freeze him as an extremely cold burst of wind and frost started to shoot from the tip of her staff, but Rage grabbed the staff as soon as the blue vixen was close enough.

"No magic today." Rage said, pulling Krystal towards him by her staff and landing a heavy punch to her chest which sent her flying into a weight machine, knocking her out.

"Krystal!" Fox yelled as he was the only one still able to combat Cross' alter-ego.

Rage ran towards Fox at incredible speed, Fox did a handspring back-flip just as Rage was close enough, the toe of Fox's boot hit the red vulpine's jaw, sending him into a back-flip of his own, Fox quickly took his chance as he landed his heel in a spin-kick on the back of Rage's skull in the middle of his flip, causing his momentum to make flip forward, Fox wasn't done with his attack as he shot his right straight up, slamming square into the red vulpine's muzzle, it looked as if Fox had won the battle as the red vulpine lay with his back to the floor, seemingly defeated, a sigh of relief escaped Fox's muzzle, but it was too soon the celebrate, Rage jumped up quickly, grabbing Fox by the throat and punching him in the gut twice with extreme force, as Rage held the light brown vulpine by the throat in his right paw, he pulled back his free paw with his claws bared, ready to deliver the final, deadly slash, but then a heavy object hit Rage hard on the side of his head, he dropped a limp Fox and held his own head in pain, he looked to see a dumbbell on the floor next to him.

"We're not done asshole!" Rage looked behind him to see the one who threw the object at him, it was Zivia, she was breathing heavily and in no shape to fight.

"That foolish mistake will cost you your life." Rage said as he leaped into the are, his claws bared, Zivia could not defend against this as she was in too much pain but, just as Rage was inches from delivering the killing blow to Zivia, an unknown force held the vulpine in the air, and slammed him head-first to the ceiling, Rage was then slammed against the floor onto his back, as he slowly stood up, he saw Ecks floating in the air, his arms were held out to his sides as a white aura surrounded the dark blue vulpine's body.

"You may be my brother, but I'll be damned if I let you get away with hurting Zivia," Ecks said, closing his eyes, "IT ENDS HERE!!" Ecks screamed as his eyes opened, they were now completely flushed over with a pure white, a battle of extreme proportions was about to commence. Brother, against brother.

Author's Note: Oh noes, what's gonna happen? Wow, fifteen chapters, I'm so happy. This was extremely fun to write, I hope I did a good job with the action here, I really hope you enjoyed reading this chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it. Damn, I love action. Sorry about the chapter being short. Anyway please review if you liked it or not and until the next update, later.

Ignorant? Me? Ha, I don't even know what that means ~Metallic Soul