CHAPTER 4

As Shadow slowly took a step forward, Kiba immediately spoke out to him. "Hold it, hedgehog!"

Shadow immediately did as Kiba demanded and had given him his full attention.

"I want you to come over here alone and with no weapons."

Shadow had began to hesitate towards Kiba's requests. He looked back at Vector and remembered what he had told him that violence and death wasn't the answer to everything. He wanted to believe him. He wanted to give it a chance for Vector's sake.

Rouge's eyes widened when she saw Shadow taking his guns and knives from his pockets and setting them carefully on the ground in front of him. "Shadow, no!"

"She's right", Ker spoke. "It's a trap."

Shadow turned his head to the group of detectives. "It doesn't matter. They have Vector. I won't risk it."

Rouge took a step forward towards him, "I won't let you do this."

"Rouge", Shadow spoke in a serious and firm tone. "Stay back." He made eye contact with the rest of the group, "All of you."

They all did as they were told and tried to have faith in Shadow.

Rouge clenched her fists as she became aggravated with Shadow's decision. 'Shadow, what the hell has gotten into you?'

When Shadow tried to walk towards him again, Kiba had once again stopped him.

"Hold on! Take off your coat", he ordered with an evil smirk.

Shadow was surprised that Kiba had wanted him to confront him without his coat on. Perhaps Kiba knew that Shadow had hidden weapons inside of his coat pockets. Shadow formed a small sly smile as he took off his black trench coat and placed it on the ground. "You're a smart man, Kiba."

"Come now, Shadow. There has to be some good perks for sleeping with the guns girl."

Rouge crossed her arms in annoyance as Kiba gave her a clever look. She knew that Kiba wasn't wrong. Rouge always made sure Shadow always carried good weapons on him.

Everyone watched as Shadow slowly started to walk towards Kiba and the rest of the Silver Fangs.

Tikal clasped her hands together and hoped that everything would work out between everyone. "I don't like this."

Appex kept staring at the black tank that had the barrel of it aimed at the building. "…They have a fucking tank."

Espio couldn't understand what made Shadow want to cooperate with Kiba so easily. It was so unlike him but he wanted to have faith in him.

Tears streamed down Charmy's face when he saw Vector suddenly coughing up some blood from his injuries. He sniffled softly, "…Vector…"

Once Shadow approached Kiba and the rest of the group, the same bitter look never left his face. "Okay Kiba, what do you want?"

"Something I've wanted for a long time actually. I was just too blind to realize it sooner."

"…What are you talking about?"

"Dark had made everything so clear to me."

He paused as Kiba mentioned the demon lord's name. "…What? Dark?"

Kiba continued, "Long story short, I'm sick of you and the rest of your team going around acting like big shots. Making us look second rate. You beat my team…my family to a bloody pulp and you just want us all to just say sorry to each other and walk off?" He shook his head, "No, it doesn't work that way."

Shadow couldn't believe that Kiba was so upset about what had happened between them and the Silver Fangs years ago. But since he now knew Dark was apart of this, he figured Kiba and the rest of his team were under some kind of mind control. "Kiba, listen to me. Dark's playing with your mind. He's trying to turn us against each other."

Vector had wanted to just calmly talk to Kiba to snap him out of his outrageous thoughts. "…Kiba…" He flinched when Kiba had suddenly snapped at him.

"Shut up!" He pressed the cold barrel of the gun harder to his head.

Just by seeing Kiba holding the gun at Vector, Shadow had gotten more and more angry. "…You set Vector up didn't you?" He then saw Jessica holding a strange device up to her mouth.

Jessica had began to talk into the device. "Yes Vector, this is Mayor Wish. I'd like to see you down at my office immediately." Afterwards, she had giggled.

Shadow couldn't believe it. They had a device that made her voice sound exactly like Sarah's. "How could you? How could you do this? We called a truce damn it!" His clenched fists shook as he got even more infuriated.

Rouge saw how everything was going from afar and feared that things would take a turn for the worst. She turned to the group, "This isn't looking pretty. We have to arm ourselves."

After Rouge's suggestion, everyone thought it was a good idea to keep their weapons close to them in case something had happened.

Espio saw Rouge kneeling down behind an old huge scrap of metal. His jaw dropped when he saw her taking out a sniping rifle. He quickly kneeled down next to her. "Rouge, what the hell are you doing? You can't just open fire."

She looked through the scope of the rifle and rested her finger on the trigger, "Why not? I'm a damn good shot. I could take Kiba out right now and end all of this." She watched as Espio forced her to lower her rifle. She angrily turned to the chameleon.

"I know this looks crazy but if we make a wrong move because we didn't follow orders, it's all of our asses. You got that?"

She sighed angrily and turned away from Espio as she continued to watch what was going on between Kiba and Shadow.

"To hell with your truce!" Kiba shouted, "All you and your team has done is cause us pain. You just enjoy making us look like absolute shit!"

"You came at us first! You kidnapped Tonya and you tried to kill us you crazy son of a bitch!"

Kiba noticed a green aura glowing around both of Shadow's clenched fists. He just knew that he was planning to attack him by using his Chaos powers. "Don't think about it! Don't you dare!"

Vector flinched as Kiba once again pushed the barrel of the gun against the side of his head.

"I'll kill him! I'll kill the old bastard right now!"

Everyone began to panic as Kiba's threats became even fiercer towards Vector.

Shadow's eyes widened when he saw Kiba's finger setting on the trigger of the handgun he held. He had then realized that Kiba wasn't bluffing and would kill Vector if he wanted to. "No! Stop!"

Once Kiba saw the green aura fading from around Shadow's hands, he took the gun away from Vector's head slowly.

"What do you want?"

"What I want? I want you to shut down your agency."

"…What?"

"You heard me. There's no room for the both of us. There can be only one."

Shadow had wanted to blast Kiba with his Chaos powers badly. His rage had set in and he was tempted to destroy them all in one blast. Before he could make his final decision about what to do, he heard Vector's weak voice call out to him.

"Sha-Shadow…"

Shadow's red eyes quickly shifted over to the green crocodile. He could tell that Vector didn't want anyone to fight or to get hurt. He figured that Vector thought that Kiba was still a good man deep down. Shadow once again set his anger aside and decided to calmly talk to Kiba as he knew Vector would have wanted him to. "Kiba, we don't have to do this. We can start over. We can work together."

Kiba and the rest of the Silver Fang detectives began to listen to Shadow.

"If we do this, we can be a bigger and stronger team. Can't you see? Dark is just trying to manipulate you. He's trying to turn you into something you never would imagine yourself to be. Don't become the monster he's trying to make you become."

Sky who stood beside him, had slowly turned his head to Kiba.

Shadow knew from how Vector looked at him, that he was proud of how he was handling the situation.

Sky saw the expression Kiba had made on his face and he thought that Kiba had realized that he was making a grave mistake.

Shadow had then saw the white wolf drop the black handgun onto the ground. After witnessing that, his nerves had calmed and thought that he had finally gotten through to him.

Kiba looked up at Shadow with a serious expression, "You know better than all of us. I'm not the monster here, Shadow…you are."

Sky had watched as Kiba snatched the scythe from his hands and without hesitation swung the blade into Vector's neck.

The air was filled with horrific cries and screams of distraught and devastation from the Chaotix detectives.

When Kiba took the blade out of Vector's neck, Shadow felt his entire body shaking and everything going black. The green aura had once again flowed around his shaking fists. "No!"

With it coming at him so sudden, Kiba's shoulder had been struck by the searing burn of the Chaos energy Shadow had hit him with.

Once he dropped the scythe to the ground, Rouge began to angrily fire her rifle towards the Silver Fang detectives.

The rest of the Chaotix team had began to fire their weapons at them as well with screams and sobbing.

Before Shadow could get back to the rest of the group, Zeak had shot Shadow in his leg making him fall to the ground. Even while on the ground, he still managed to crawl behind a piece of scrap metal that was setting near him. While he took cover from the gunshots, he winced in pain from the bullet wound to his leg.

As Kiba held his bloody shoulder, he angrily fixed his eyes on the Chaotix building that set in front of him. He groaned from the pain on his shoulder. Even though the rest of the Silver Fangs were already firing at the Chaotix, Kiba still yelled and spat out orders. "I've had enough of this! We will no longer become the weak ones! Kill them! Kill them all!"

Once they all heard his orders, they all began to march towards the Chaotix building with the tank leading the way.

In The Next Chapter...

Shadow: Dark…it's so dark…

Charmy: This isn't real!

Midnight: It's too dangerous!

Rouge: I should've taken him out when I had the chance…

Kiba: It's over!

Shadow: It's all my fault…

Rouge: Shadow, no!