The rest of the team sprinted after Spark as he ran down another long hallway. They were all alert, staying on their toes, ready for anything to happen.

A large trap hole began to form in front of them. Unable to break their pace so quickly, they jumped right over it. Rewarded by a flicker of light that led them to the next arena.

"Finally," Erika said, as she caught her breath. "We've been running forever."

The next area was an integrated forest in the ship. The team stumbled into trees that blocked their view of anything up ahead. Dense bushes grew on rocky, uneven terrain.

Before the energy shard users could gather themselves, they heard a loud noise in the distance. Something began running towards them from up ahead. The leaves above shook.

"Brace yourself," Mark said. "It could be our next enemy."

A creature jumped at them from the bushes. He stood like a unnaturally tall man and had human like features, but had a long, wolf snout, was covered in fur, and flashed sharp teeth. His yellow eyes held a threat.

"Well, well, well," Kaios said. "Look what we have here."

Erika approached him and equipped her weapon. Spark and Mark stared with curiosity.

"I haven't seen this before," Spark whispered. "I wonder what she can do."

"I'm not sure," Mark said. "But I think we're about to find out."

"My name is Kaios and I will be your opponent."

The enemy wasn't bothered by Erika's weapon. He charged right to her to start the battle. Erika quickly jumped away and dashed in another direction. As she was doing this, she placed small trap bombs on the floor and shot at her enemy.

Kaios easily dodged and reflected her shots. He also used an energy shield that protected him from damage.

"Try again little girl," laughed Kaios. As he ran, sure of his victory, he stepped on one of the traps. Red dust and smoke erupted into the air.

Erika quickly loaded her gun with her red impact bullets. Aimed and shot at the red cloud. When the bullet hit the red smoke, a huge explosion combusted.

Kaios was thrown back from the explosion. A loud crack reverberated through the forest. A moment later, Kaios struggled to get up, clearly injured.

"Gotcha," Erika said.

She began to set up her next attack and unleashed a barrage of bullets in Kaios' direction. Kaios, realizing that the same attack might happen again, began to set up a strong shield around himself.

Erika shot her last bullet and BOOOMMM!! The larger explosion went off.

Erika reloaded her pressure bullets and shot them rapidly. They exploded after a couple bullets land on the same target. All the smoke from the explosion got in the way and Kaios ran off into the forest.

"He's not that fast," Erika laughed. "I know I got him."

Excited from the battle, Erika looked back at her team. "Move on without me. I can defeat this guy on my own. There are more ships to conquer and I'll catch up."

Time was of the essence, so assured Erika would be alright, Mark and Spark ran through the forest and found the new door. The disappeared through it and onto the next ship.

Meanwhile, Erika slowly analyzed the forest for clues as to where her enemy may be. Out of nowhere a loud roar came from the distance. Kaios sprinted with tremendous speed towards Erika.

She shot but missed, giving Kaios the opportunity to land a vicious slash against Erika's arm. She bit back tears as she hid and searched through her bag.

"You don't stand a chance," Kaios laughed. "You weak, little human. No matter what you do, I'll just heal back up with no problems."

"So, that's your little trick," Erika mumbled. She finally found what she was looking for and pulled out a long bullet. "Let's see if you're ready for my scope bullets."

She looked into her scope to steady a shot with her new bullets. "I got you," Erika whispered. She pulled the trigger and Kaios ran off, deflecting the shots.

"Woah that was a close one," Kaios said.

As he was running, he ran over another trap. This time yellow fume choked the air. Erika saw her opportunity and dug in her bag. She took out her dark yellow electric bullets that could cause electrical damage to her enemies. Erika quickly set up her gun and launched a long distance shot to the yellow fume as fast as possible.

When the shot hit the fume, a combustion of electricity burst into the area. In a flash, a huge, bearlike creature with big diamonds on its back, jumped out of the forest and blocked the electricity attack heading for Kaios.

The electricity reflected and shot back at Erika. She was barely able to dodge the attack.

"Whoa that was too close," Erika said, as she scanned the trees. "But I know I saw something."

She looked around for Kaios but couldn't find him among the lush plant life. As she was searching, a large, black, energy blast headed for Erika from the forest.

Just in time, she rolled under a fallen tree, then jumped away as quick as possible. As Erika dodged the attack, she saw a black figure run through the forest. A figure that didn't look at all like the previous two.

Erika was now battling three enemies, outnumbered and confused. She raised her gun, realizing the battle had only just begun. She watched the forest on high alert. Heard footsteps coming from behind her.

She turned in time to see Kaios preparing an attack. Erika dodged the attack and dashed away. She placed more traps in her area.

"How did you dodge my attacks?" Kaios yelled, as he turned to try to flee back into the forest. As he was running, he stepped over a third trap and a blue fume rose into the air.

Erika pulled out a frost bullet and snipes a shot as fast as possible to the smoke. This created ice, which froze Kaios in a big ice block.

"Yes!" Erika cheered. "I froze him, finally."

Knowing there were still two more enemies, Erika took this free moment and ran to the tallest tree in the forest, climbed all the way to the top. She noticed fumes coming from two different directions and jumped down.

Erika bolted in the direction with the most smoke in the air, then hid in the trees and tried to be as quiet as possible to mask her presence. She slowly crept from tree to tree and soon found a black shadow sprinting through them.

She wasn't sure who it was but here it seemed there were only enemies, so she wasn't about to risk it. She chased the shadow down, shooting at it.

With no successful shots hitting, the black figure was able to find the big crystal creature. He jumped onto the back of the creature and hid himself in the middle of the creature to protect himself. There was no way Erika could land a shot on him now.

"There has to be a way for me to break this creature's armor," Erika said.

She continued to shoot him, but it her shots didn't seem to damage the crystal creature at all. As she was shooting, the shadow creature ran off in the opposite direction. Erika stopped, took a moment and finally settled on a new way to stop her opponents.

The ice that was holding Kaios soon began to melt and break. Once he was freed, he slowly crept up on Erika for an ambush. Just as Kaios was about to pounce on Erika, Ace jumped out and tackled Kaios. Kaios went flying through the air but was able to twist his body and land on his feet.

"Hey Erika," Ace teased. "Next time watch your back."

Ace jumped into battle with Kaios giving Erika time to concentrate. She found an open area and set up multiple traps on the ground. In the distance, she saw the crystal creature sprinting through the forest.

Erika crept into the trees and got her gun ready. She steadied her breath and began to shoot. The shots hit but did minor damage.

"Let me try something new," said Erika. She pulled out a larger bullet that had diamonds on it. She slowly locked onto the creature, ever so careful. Drew in a breath. Let it out. And shot.

This time shards off of the crystals on the creature's back fall off. The creature lets out a wounded cry.

"Yes!" Erika said, so happy she could cry. "I did it."

Erika jumped down in front of the shards. Gathered them up off the ground. "This would be perfect to use," she said. She placed the shards in her bag for future use. "Yes, it's time for a comeback."

While Erika gathered the shards, Ace was on the other side of the forest fighting Kaios. Kaios ran on all fours towards Ace. They engaged in heavy combat with matching strength.

Ace kicked Kaios back and he slid, moving forward with another attack. Kaios shielded the second attack and countered with his fists. He landed a blow, sending Ace straight up into the air.

As Ace went flying, Kaios created a dust storm and ran into the forest. Ace landed in the middle of the dust storm.

"This little dog is starting to make me mad," Ace said. He waited for the dust to clear, then looked around at his surroundings. He debated what the next best move would be. He was running out of stamina.

Kaios, not one to miss out on this opportunity, sprinted back into battle and jumped vigorously into the air. He landed behind Ace and slashed at him with his deadly claws. Ace stumbled back while Kaios grew strong.

"I will show you humans how strong we can really get," he said, as he began to boost his strength and his muscles began to grow.

Kaios ran at Ace, and the exhausted man grew slower with each blow. Kaios took advantage of this and was able to knock Ace to the ground with a large smack. Ace slid, his head hit a rock with a crack, blurring his vision.

As Ace laid on the ground, near passing out, he heard a faint voice. His belt started to glow red, and the glow spread over Ace as he became enraged.

As his eyes glowed a dark red, Ace got up. Floated to Kaios for a full-on attack. He landed a punch right in the center of Kaios' chest, sending him flying through the air. He ripped through trees and hit a wall. Fell to the ground, neck snapped.

Ace falls too out of exhaustion, right after assuring that Kaios was dead. He collapsed in the grass. Weak. Too weak.

Erika felt his strange energy and knew she had to finish off her enemy quickly to help Ace. She placed the crystal by her gun and it infuses into the gun, created a new kind of ammunition. She collected as many crystals as possible and put them into her bag.

Then, she dashed around in a circle, capturing the creature's attention. As he started chasing her again, she shot the new ammunition directly at the creature. The ammunition broke the crystals on the creature's back, weakening him.

"Finally!" Erika said, as she ran off into the forest.

She hid in the trees and among the leaves, spied on her opponents. She saw the head of the shadow creature, and waited until it ran over three different traps at the same time, just as Erika planned.

At the perfect moment, she sniped a shot that hit the creature directly in the middle of its forehead, causing a huge explosion to erupt from the three mixed traps. As Erika got closer to the bodies, she saw a glowing bracelet on the ground next to them.

Erika grabbed it, put in on her wrist, and ran to where she left Ace. She found him on the ground, the landscape around him destroyed. A mixture of blood splattered the area, both his and the creature's.

Erika examined Ace as a red glow came from his body. "I wonder what happened here," she said.

As she was trying to figure out how to help Ace, Diana showed up and began using her vine powers to heal him.

"Looks like it was a tough battle," Diana said.

"It really was," Erika admitted. "And if it wasn't for Ace, I would be dead right now."

Diana passed a vine to Erika. "Here hold this," she said. "It will begin to restore your health." Erika grabbed the vine and rested.