CHAPTER 11

THE BATTLE FIELD

Espio's eyes widened with disbelief, "Lance! Wha! How did you do that!"

He laughed a bit as he walked towards them. "I had some time off to work out a bit."

Espio knew he was lying about where he had gotten his sudden power from. 'Liar. He been had those powers because he's an artificial life form and those things are strong. He's just finally showing his powers off. What a jerk.'

Maxcell and Zena ran up to them in a happy state.

"Lance, you came to save us", Zena said happily.

Maxcell smiled widely, "Wow, I didn't know you had powers like that, boss."

Lance made a sly smile, "Come on, guys stop it. You're making me blush."

Appex looked over to Kaliyah getting back off the ground. "She's getting back up!"

Lance looked over his shoulder and spotted the demon coming towards them again. He smiled and confronted her. "Come and get some."

Kaliyah's claws had extended out towards him and tried to stab him, but Lance had ran up to her and kicked her back on the ground with powerful force. He smirked at the way he was defeating the demon, 'Stupid demon. You should never mess with artificial life forms.'

Kaliyah got up once more and tackled Lance to the ground. Once she had him on the ground, she quickly sunk her fangs into the flesh on his arm.

Lance watched as his blood dripped all on his face, but he acted like he wasn't in any pain at all.

Zena screamed, "Ah Lance, no!"

Lance stared into Kaliyah's black eyes, "You like that don't you monster? You love the taste of delicious blood don't you?"

The demon paid no attention and kept taking blood from him.

The grey fox smirked, took his free hand and clenched it into a fist. With force he punched her in her face, knocking her back. He then used his boots and kicked her off his body.

Kaliyah feel to the ground unconscious.

He slowly got off the ground while holding his bloody arm.

"Boss, are you okay?" Maxcell asked worried.

He turned to them with a smile, "Are you kidding? I've haven't had this much fun since I last fought with Shadow. Which reminds me, where is he anyway?"

Zena's eyes shot open. He pointed behind Lance, "Lance, behind you!"

Lance quickly turned and saw a huge black demon behind him.

The demon grabbed him around his neck and watched his suffer for the longest time.

Espio stared at the black demon in sadness, "No...it happened."

The black demon's fangs had appeared from his mouth and sunk them into Lance's shoulder.

Lance shut his eyes tightly as he took in the pain. He felt his blood drip from his shoulder and onto the ground. He quickly reached for his dagger and once he found it, he positioned it at the demon's back. "Bite this, asshole!" He jabbed the blade into the demon and afterwards a loud screech of agony was heard from him.

The demon dropped Lance to the ground and stepped back from him.

Lance had a hard time getting back up, but he stood up perfectly straight. "Want more, demon!"

As the demon started to approach Lance, he heard a voice from the group.

"Shadow, stop!"

The demon looked over to a purple chameleon and growled.

"Shadow, don't you see? You're killing lives and it has to stop. You have to control yourself. Control the darkness within you. Control Darkness!"

The demon then fell to the ground and started to transform back into a black hedgehog.

Espio smiled with happiness and ran over to the black hedgehog, "Shadow!"

Shadow looked up at Espio with sadness, "Espio, I couldn't do it."

"You tried Shadow, and I know you did your best." He helped Shadow off the ground and saw Appex make his way over to them with an exhausted girl squirrel in his arms.

"Kayla", Shadow took her from Appex's arms and held her in his. "Even I couldn't prevent this from happening to her." He then walked away from the group with Kayla in his arms.

Espio decided not to follow him. He turned to the Street Punks and saw them walking away as well. He looked down to the ground and saw all three Chaos Emeralds being left behind. He picked them off the ground and looked towards Lance. "Hey, Lance!" He called.

The injured fox looked over his shoulder and at the chameleon.

"Aren't you going to take the emeralds?"

"Do you want me too?"

"Well, no."

"Okay then. You keep em. I had enough adventure for today anyway." He turned away from him and continued to walk away with the rest of the Street Punks.

Espio sighed and looked down at the three emeralds in his arms, "Well, at least now we have three Chaos Emeralds. I'd better give these to Vector."