Chapter 18

10:30 AM

The four foxes were sitting in the kitchen having idle conversation about this and that, Ecks was still amazed at Zivia's fighting ability, ever since he witnessed the vixen's fight against Krystal, he hadn't said anything except to answer a question with a yes or no, it was amazing how the vixen moved with such grace, all he had done was stare at the vixen for the last hour.

"Is something wrong?" Zivia asked him.

"No." He simply answered.

"Then why do you keep staring at me?"

"You're just so..." He started to say before becoming lost in his thoughts.

"So...what?"

"So...beautiful." Ecks said, the sides of his face turning a bit purple, chuckles could be heard from Krystal and Fox sitting at the other end of the table, Zivia rolled her eyes at the two and turned back to Ecks.

"Thank you Ecks." She said with a smile, embracing him in a tight hug, his face turned an even brighter purple now, even when the two were sitting down, she was still a bit taller than him as his head was pressing against the vixen's chest as she hugged him, his eyes were wide with surprise, he always seemed to get drawn into compromising situations with Zivia, he was enticed by the vixen's scent, he couldn't help but close his eyes as he felt the warmth of the vixen against him.

"We can always leave." Fox said, making Ecks snap out of his trance.

"No, that's fine." Zivia said, releasing her hold on the blue vulpine and standing up.

"We have another empty guest room, I had ROB configure it to open to each of your paw prints." Fox told her.

"Thanks Fox." Zivia said, walking out of the kitchen, Ecks quickly followed.

"Wow, he's like her little pet." Fox said to Krystal as he stood up.

"You were like that once." Krystal returned with a grin.

"I still am." Fox chuckled, before he left the kitchen he gave the cerulean vixen a peck on the cheek.

Fox showed the couple to their room, it wasn't long before they came to a large metal door, "Go ahead, try it out." Fox said, gesturing to the panel beside the door, Zivia placed her paw on the panel and it opened, to her surprise the room was large, a bed was already perfectly made for a couple, red sheets, two pillows for each head, there was also a personal bathroom and a large window for a perfect view of the stars, Zivia and Ecks walked in.

"This doesn't look like any normal guest room." Ecks said, turning to Fox who was still outside the room.

"Oh it is, but not for just any guests." The reddish-brown vulpine smiled before the door closed, Ecks turned to look back at Zivia, who was simply walking around the room, studying each set of furniture.

Zivia had found a good amount of clothes in the dresser beside the window, Ecks floated to the bed and sat down, then he looked at Zivia, who was removing her shirt with her back turned towards Ecks, the blue vulpine was surprised, "Zivia, what are you doing?" He asked, finding himself not able to turn his head away from the vixen.

"What does it look like?" The vixen turned around to face Ecks, "I'm changing my clothes." She said as she started to remove her bra, Ecks quickly turned his head away as the sides of his face turned a bright purple, Zivia noticed this but didn't care, after all he was only being a gentleman, a few moments later, Ecks felt the bed move a bit and he looked behind him, he saw the vixen laying there, wearing a pink tank-top and a bright red pair of pajama pants, Ecks quickly stood up.

"Come on, lay down with me for a bit." She said, patting the spot where he was just sitting with her paw.

"I don't know if I'm quite comfortable with this." Ecks said, turning his gaze away from the vixen.

"For me?" She begged, Ecks looked back at the vixen to see her eyes in a puppy-dog expression, he couldn't ever say no to that face.

"Yeah, just one thing first." Ecks said, suddenly Zivia started floating in the air as the covers on the bed started to seemingly pull themselves down, she was sat gently back onto the bed and the bright red covers were placed over her somewhat exposed body, then Ecks crawled onto the bed with the vixen and wrapped his arm around her, he placed his muzzle onto her neck as the two soon drifted off into the depths of slumber.

Krystal was in her room, fiddling with the small piece of metal that the team found on Corneria, after a half-hour of examining the small object, she noticed one of the ends of the object looked like a barrel, she didn't know how, but an idea came to her, she grabbed her staff and placed the far end into the odd piece of metal, it matched perfectly and looked as if it could be used as a cannon of some sorts, she decided to head to the new training area Slippy had designed specifically for her magic abilities, when she entered the room, she punched in a few codes on the panel beside the door, a moment later, a shape of Wolf appeared from a hole in the floor, it wasn't Wolf, it was merely a dummy, Krystal set herself into her fighting stance, she pointed the staff at the Wolf dummy.

"Alright, let's see what this does." Krystal said, a moment later, the end of her staff shot out a large blast of flames which engulfed the dummy, when the flames sub-sided, nothing was left, the only thing that remained was small pile of ashes where the dummy once was.

Krystal's jaw had dropped and her eyes were wide, "I...I have to tell Fox." The cerulean warrior said before leaving the room.

Cross was breathing heavily, he didn't know how much more of this he could take, "You must focus!" The black vulpine who stood before Cross said, "Chaos is faster, stronger, and a better fighter than you, maybe you should just let me take over again." He said with a smirk.

"Kiss...my...ass." Cross said in-between breaths.

Rage then lunged at the red vulpine, Cross ducked under the fist that came towards his face, and shot an uppercut up at Rage's jaw, the black vulpine moved out of the way and punched Cross in the gut, it was almost as if Cross didn't even feel the punch as he grabbed Rage's arm and pulled the black vulpine towards him, smashing Rage in the face with his forehead, Cros took his chance and swept Rage off of his feet with a sweeping kick, while Rage was turned sideways in the air, Cross shot a straight right into the black vulpine's chest, knocking him several feet back, Rage slowly stood up.

"You're getting much bet--" Rage was cut-off but a knee to the stomach, knocking the wind out of the black vulpine, Cross then shot an uppercut into Rage's jaw, this time he connected with the attack and sent Rage high into the air, Cross leaped high, and drove his fist into the black vulpine's gut, driving him down into the invisible floor below them, Cross jumped away from the beaten black vulpine, Rage tried to stand, but began to cough up a few chunks of blood, Cross dashed at the injured Rage, a look of ferociousness covered his face.

"Cross!" An unknown voice yelled, making the red vulpine stop instantly.

"It seems that our fight is over, you win," Rage said weakly, coughing a bit more, "You have become more powerful than I, so therefore I will leave you alone, my fate is sealed, I will never be reborn." He ended as he faded away into the darkness.

"Cross!" Fox yelled, the red vulpine suddenly jumped out of bed, startled, "Get ready, we're leaving for Katina in a few hours, I'll explain everything on the bridge." Fox said before leaving the room.

Cross was a bit happy that he had finally bested his evil half, but something was wrong, he couldn't rid the feeling that it wouldn't be his last encounter with the black vulpine.

Zivia and Ecks were sleeping soundly, each of them were dreaming about the same thing, they were on a beach, just the two of them as Sol was setting, making the skies a luminous color, the two leaned in to lock muzzles with each other.

"Ecks! Zivia!" The two foxes were startled by the sudden shout as each of them woke up at the same time, jumping as they did so, "Get to the bridge, we'll be leaving for Katina in a few hours." Fox told them before he left.

"That could've lasted longer." Zivia thought to herself.

"Yeah." Ecks agreed, clearly reading her thoughts.

3:00 PM

The crew was ready to leave for Katina as they met in the docking bay, Fox had explained Krystal's discovery and also told the group that he activated the small device they recovered from the dead enemy soldier, Katina was the planet that was glowing this time on the unique map, so that's where the next part would be, "Is everyone ready?" Fox asked the group, everyone was dressed in layers of heavy clothing as they each knew about the ice cold wasteland, everyone except for Ecks and Cross, Ecks wore a dark blue tee-shirt, a pair of light blue-jeans and his black sneakers, as Cross wore a black tee-shirt, a pair of black jeans and his white sneakers.

"You two need to get more clothing on." Fox said.

"Why?" Cross asked.

"Because Katina is an ice planet, if you don't have the proper clothing you'll freeze."

"Oh is that it?" Ecks said, "That's fine, we can't freeze, I can manipulate my body temperature and the cold really has no effect on Cross."

"It's true" Cross said with a smile.

"Don't worry Fox, we'll be fine." Ecks assured him.

"Alright then, your choice." Fox shrugged as the team prepared to leave for planet Katina which was now a short flight away as they had went into hyperspace so it only took a couple of hours to reach the planet's orbit, needless to say, Cross was still tense as he crawled into Fox's Arwing, shaking.

The team made it to Katina, Cross jumped out of the Arwing quickly and onto the cold snow, luckily for them, a blizzard wasn't happening so at least this would make their search a bit easier, Ecks had decided to ride in Zivia's unique aircraft as he wanted to be close to the vixen at all times, Fox had found out that the small spherical device also was a compass of some sorts, he pushed a small button on the object, and a bright light pointed them to a direction, they followed the bright light, an hour of walking passed until the team came to a cave, the light pointed directly into the mouth of the cave.

"Well, it looks like this is it," Fox said, "Let's go."

Ecks and Cross were in front of the rest of the group, a half-hour of walking past until Fox heard something, "Wait." He said, stopping the others, Ecks and Cross didn't hear the light brown vulpine as they proceeded a bit further, but then, all of a sudden, a part of the roof of the cave fell and crashed onto the ground, seperating Ecks and Cross from the others.

"Ecks! Cross! Are you guys alright?" Fox yelled.

"Yeah we're okay." Ecks answered.

"We'll try to find a way out, you guys stay there." Fox said.

Ecks felt a familiar presence making him turn around, "Hello...Chaos." Ecks said as he glared at the cloaked black vulpine, beside him stood a bright blue vixen who also wore a cloak, Cross bared his fangs as he growled viciously at the black fox.

"Nice to see again, son." Chaos said with an evil grin.

"Don't ever call me that, you worthless piece of shit!" Cross yelled.

"You can't defeat us, we're going to kill you right here, right now." Ecks said.

Just then, without warning, Cross dashed at Chaos, his claws extended, just before he was within range of the black vulpine, a force caught him and lifted him into the air, suddenly, Cross' body shot back towards Ecks, the blue vulpine reacted quickly and caught his brother with his telekinesis, "I see that I'm not the only one with this power." Ecks said, looking at the blue vixen who stood beside Chaos.

"Either way, both of you are going to die." Cross said coldly, he set his feet to dash at the two foxes again, but suddenly he fell to his knees and grasped his chest tightly, a black aura started to escape from his muzzle ad traveled over to where the blue vixen stood, the black aura started to form into a shape, moments later, a black vulpine appeared, a vulpine who Ecks and Cross knew all too well.

"I am reborn," The vulpine said with an evil grin, "I am Rage."

Author's Note: OH YEAH SHIT JUST GOT REAL!!! Anyway this chapter was a bit short, and I know that the last few chapters have been a bit slow, but the next will be full of action, I don't have much to say so I want to thank everyone who has read my story and reviewed and I hope you've enjoyed reading this as much as I have enjoyed writing it.

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