Ah! So I'm finally back at it! I hope you haven't missed me too much! Sorry it's taken the better part of forever, college is a pain. This also means I'm going to start work again on "Too Hott" so if you have parings you would like to see, put a reminder in my inbox and I'll get to them hopefully in April! Love you all so much and thank you for your support. Now, let's see what our hero has been up to!

"You're not getting away with this." Zaylee's eyes narrowed at her opponent.

"I already have dear, and there's nothing you can do to stop me." The middle-aged woman leered at Zaylee from her balcony, surrounded by a menacing purple glow that shone from a huge computer behind her.

"Don't think so highly of yourself Erimda." The teenage vigilante growled. She closed her eyes, teleporting to the balcony with blaster raised, ready to shoot the villain.

"A little blaster, really? You think that's going to stop me?"

"I wouldn't underestimate me if I were you."

"I think you're the one underestimating me." Erimda grinned evilly. "I'll be sad to see you go; I've enjoyed these little skirmishes."

"Somehow I don't believe you."

"Don't blame you." Erimda smirked, shifting her shoulders so her cape gave just the slightest menacing movement. "You know, I had some scouts look into that Biotechnology Engineering and Enhancement company, and with your new enhancements shall we say, I think I know just what you need." One of Erimda's perfectly manicured purple fingernails tapped a white circle on the screen and suddenly Zaylee felt a sharp pain in her arm. She looked to see a dart had shot out of the computer console and embedded it in her bare arm. She glared back up at Erimda's pale face.

"How is this going to stop me?" She glared.

"You'll be dead before tomorrow." Erimda laughed. "And within the week all your little Shadow Clan buddies will be too."

"No…"

"And then all that land will be mine to control. I'll be the most powerful villain Slugterra has ever seen! No one will be able to stop me!" Erimda continued to laugh maniacally, her short bottle-blonde hair bouncing around her. "Have a nice fall dear." With that she touched her purple screen again and before Zaylee could load her blaster she was falling through the balcony. She transported herself back to her mecha. The evil witch had been serious. She could already feel the chemicals starting to take effect. She had to get to Xia or the Shadow clan fast. One of them would know how to save her.

She rode out as fast as she could, but her green eyes couldn't seem to focus on anything. She slowed her mecha to a stop, trying to focus on her surroundings long enough to get her bearings. She couldn't seem to use her abilities anymore to tell.

She had somehow stopped right in front of the Shane Gang's residence.

"How is that even possible?" Zaylee muttered. She hadn't talked to them since she got back from her trip in the western caverns almost two weeks ago. This new villain had been taking up most of her time. The Shane Gang wouldn't be able to help her, but they might be able to get her to the people she needed.

She stumbled to the door, feeling extremely weak. She hated it; she wasn't supposed to feel weak, let alone outwardly show it like she was being forced to do now. Zaylee slammed her fist on the door bell, unable to press it like a normal person.

"Hey Zaylee, how's it going?" Kord opened the door, his face transformed by worry when he saw his friend's state.

"I need to use your computer to call Xia." She rushed out, trying to sound as commanding as possible.

"Well sure… why?"

Zaylee just ignored him and forced her way to the huge computer that sat against the wall in the hideout's living room. She blinked a few times, trying to focus to find Xia's number in their call log.

"Zaylee!" Eli's excited voice echoed above her. Zaylee just winced at the loud noise.

"Hey Zaylee, why are you calling me from Eli's?"

"I got poisoned." Zaylee cut right to the chase, not even caring if Kord or Eli would freak out. "She said it had something to do with B.E.E and that it would kill the Shadow Clan. I need you to figure out what it was, and if possible find me an antidote."

"For you, anything." Xia smiled.

"Zaylee!" Eli's voice grated against Zaylee's now pounding headache. He no longer sounded excited now, he was clearly concerned. "What happened to your arm?"

Zaylee looked down at her arm where she was shot, seeing blue veins popping out in a spider web pattern spreading out from the initial injection site.

"Shit, that looks worse than I thought…" Zaylee murmured.

"What happened?" Eli asked again, letting Zaylee lean her head on his, as he looked at her sickly pale face.

"There's this villain, her name's Erimda," Zaylee took a deep breath, trying not to puke on her best friend. "She's been trying to take the Shadow Clan's lands, and I was pretty good at stopping her in the field, but then I tried to ambush her at her lair, and she shot me with this thing, I don't know what it is, but she said she was going to use it on the Shadow Clan too…"

"Well how is it affecting you?" Kord asked, confused.

"I'm not entirely sure, but I am really connected to them, remember?" She looked at Kord, reminding herself that she had yet to tell them about her teleporting abilities.

"We can take care of you." Eli offered, frowning as he wiped the sweat off of Zaylee's brow.

"No, I have to get to Mfalme… I need… to warn him…" Zaylee closed her eyes tightly, her headache now a screaming migraine.

"You're in no condition to go out." Eli insisted.

"I have to go." Zaylee repeated determinedly trying to get up, only to collapse into Kord's strong frame.

"What are we going to do?" Eli worried as Kord put Zaylee on their orange couch.

"Dude, you have that Shadow Talker thingy! Can't you call the Shadow Clan using that?"

"Yeah! Let me go get it!" Eli rushed to his room where the Shadow Talker was stashed in his pack. He put the contraption on his head, wincing as its power surged through his head.

Shane… What do you want? The leader's voice rang through his head.

"Zaylee needs your help" He responded.

Suddenly he could see the feet of Clan members standing in his room.

"She's downstairs." Eli told them. They disappeared to the living room and Eli followed them downstairs.

"Why is the Shadow Clan in our living room?!" Pronto called to Eli.

"Just let them do their thing." Eli grunted, shaking off the strange effects of the Shadow Talker and making his way back downstairs.

Mfalme stood over Zaylee, examining her state.

It does not look good. Razbo looked to Mfalme.

No, but we may be able to keep her stable for an extended period of time.

Mfalme reached his hands out to Zaylee, putting two long fingers on her temple and two on the pulse point in her neck. Suddenly Zaylee jolted awake wide-eyed and sweating, breathing heavily as if she had just run a marathon.

My child, what happened? Mfalme frowned at his young ally.

The woman seeking to take your lands, she poisoned me, and she's coming after you next.

We won't let that happen. We'll stop her, and we will make sure you are okay as well.

No! You don't understand!

Mfalme removed his hands from Zaylee, letting her fall back into unconsciousness.

"What did you just do?" Kord almost yelled at the black creatures.

Mfalme just pointed to the Talker in Eli's hand.

"Huh, oh." Eli responded; putting the shadow talker back on.

She is not doing well. Mfalme informed the young Shane. We are going to have to take her back to our territory to maintain her state so she does not get any worse. Her friend is working on an antidote, but we have to trust you to stop this villain. We must protect our lands, and protect your friend. Do not fail us Shane, this is a time when Slugterra needs you more desperately than you know.

"Uh… yes." Eli stammered, not completely sure of what Mfalme meant.

With that the two Shadow Clan members disappeared with Zaylee.

"What did they want?" Kord asked quietly.

"We have to stop whatever villain Zaylee was going after earlier."

"Did you see what they did to her though? How are we going to stand a chance?"

"We'll figure something out. From what I can tell, it doesn't affect normal people, just those who have a special connection to the Shadow Clan."

"Yeah, so what about that thing?" Kord pointed to the Shadow Talker.

"I'll just leave it at home." Eli shrugged.

"And let's say this chemical or whatever does work on humans, or I don't know, cave trolls?"

"Let's just hope it doesn't. But we need to do more research anyways. When Trix gets home we'll do some digging on who this person is and what not. And we need to call Xia back too and see what kind of progress she's made."

"Alright dude, wherever you wanna start."

Trixie looked up from the holograph Eli had opened on the table. "From the information I've gathered, and what Xia can tell us, the villain is basically stealing B.E.E's tech, and is planning to wage chemical warfare on the Shadow Clan. Why it's affecting Zaylee, I can't say. What we do know is that the only entrance to her lair is here." Trixie pointed to what looked like a hole in the ground, "I still have no idea how Zaylee got in. We're going to see what Pronto can dig, and shoot what he can't and hope for the best. If all goes according to plan we should land here." She pointed to what looked like a storage room. "This is where we believe the chemicals are being stored. We'll then have to get them out using a pulley system- it'll be difficult, but it's the only way. We'll take them to Xia later for neutralization and disposal. She's still working on the antidote for Zaylee, but it sounds like we'll have it in time."

"Good." Eli breathed.

"Eli, you need to be prepared if she runs out of time…"

"She won't." Eli snapped, "The Shadow Clan said they'd keep her stable. We just need to do our part. We move out in an hour; everyone get ready." He rushed off to his room, ready to do anything for his best friend. And because the other feelings he had for her weren't going away anytime soon.

If there was one thing Pronto was good at, it was digging. He had a tunnel big enough for even Kord to repel down reaching all the way to the top of the lair in less than five minutes. However the reinforced steel was something the skilled Molenoid could not penetrate.

"How stealthy do we have to be?" Eli asked.

"How many guards do you want to have to fight off?" Trixie responded.

"I'll take my chances." Eli shot Punch at the steel roof, jumping down as the sirens began to wail.

"Get the chemicals out of here! I'll hold them off!"

"Eli, are you crazy?! We don't know what they're packing in their arsenal!" Kord yelled at him.

"I'll be fine, just get the chems out of here!"

He raised his blaster as men clad in black suits with purple ties and purple insignias on their coat pockets ran into the room.

"Classy attire for fighters…" Eli mused as he began to shoot at them.

He took them out in less than two minutes which made even less sense. These guys were armatures, how Zaylee could have taken a hit that could kill her?

"Hey bud." Xia's voice suddenly came from behind Eli, almost making him jump out of his skin.

"What are you doing here?"

"You scare really easily ya know." She laughed at him. "I need to do some clean up. Whatever files Erimda has, she shouldn't, so I'm going to delete them off her computer. Wanna come with?"

"Sure. You guys doing good over there?" He called back to his teammates.

"Yeah, we've got this." Trixie gave him the thumbs up before continuing to load the hundreds of chemical barrels onto the pulley system.

Eli followed Xia cautiously down a hallway and into the main computer room of the lair. The screen emitted an eerie purple and was covered in all sorts of documents and equations.

"What is all this?" Eli asked quietly.

"Mostly stolen information," His friend responded, jamming a device into the keyboard. Moments later the screen was completely blank. "I can give you some of this info when we get home, but this needs to be destroyed. The database on here is too dangerous, especially in the wrong hands. Now let's get out of here."

Eli started back towards the chemical vault, but he heard the click of very high heels behind him. And he knew Xia did not wear heels.

"And who might you be?" A blonde woman asked as he turned around. "And more importantly, how did you get in here?" She raised her upper lip in disgust, her fingers resting on the keyboard of her large computer.

"That's her, that's Erimda." Xia whispered lowly.

Eli suddenly felt a wave of unbridled anger towards this bottle-blonde, make-up plastered, caped, middle-aged woman. He didn't even hesitate to shoot Joules at her, none of his usual banter able to express his emotions. All he knew, all he needed to know, was that if Zaylee died, it was this woman's fault.

Erimda easily sidestepped Joules, smiling as she clicked a button on the keyboard. She frowned, confused that nothing happened. She then looked to the screen, screeching in anger as she saw it completely blank. She turned back to the two teenagers seething. Xia just gave a sly grin before dragging the equally angry Eli off the balcony and back to the Chemical Vault. She shot her blue Infurnus, Luna, to create a firewall, separating her and the Shane Gang from the furious Erimda.

"That's the last one!" Kord called.

"Great, then let's get out of here!" Xia rushed towards the rope that would serve as their exit.

"I'm not done with her yet…" Eli growled, staring at Erimda through the wall of blue flames.

Xia looked at Kord. "Yeup, I've got him." He sighed, grabbing Eli by the shoulder and dragging him up the hole.

"We need to stop her." He growled as they got out of the lair.

"We did." Xia gestured to the wagon of various chemical containers Pronto had loaded. However, she could tell her friend was not convinced. She shrugged it off- she usually had the better judgment on these sorts of things. "Well, Pronto is going to follow me back to my lab and help me with these chemicals."

"You sure you want Pronto for that job?" Kord raised an eyebrow at her.

"Pronto is more than capable!" The Molenoid argued.

"He'll do just fine." Xia confirmed. "You guys need to get this to the Shadow Clan as fast as possible." She handed Eli the antidote in a small black steel box before riding off on her old mecha with Pronto following behind.

"Let's hurry." Eli commanded; his eyes glued to the black box.

He revved up his mecha, heading towards the closest Shadow Clan territory he knew, hoping that's where Zaylee would be.

Everything was going good so far, until Eli recognized two mechas that belonged to two of his least favorite people. Ex-Blakk Industries employees; Locke and Lode.

"Well, well, what do we have here brother?" Locke chortled, loading his blaster with a Hop Jack.

"I don't have time for you right now." Eli groaned, trying to move past the siblings without a fight.

"What, you think suddenly you're too good for us?" Locke spat.

"We've always been too good for you guys." Trixie retorted.

"Hey, that's not very nice!" Lode whined.

"You're right brother, it ain't. So you know what we're gunna do about it?"

"No, what?"

"We're gunna shoot them."

"Seriously?!" Eli exclaimed, dodging a Thresher. He seriously needed to get to Zaylee. Like now. He hopped off his mecha, loading Banger into his blaster, immediately followed by Joules and Burpy. He did not have time for this. But the brothers were still standing when the smoke cleared. Lode hit him straight in the chest with a Rammstone, knocking him clear off his feet and knocking the metal black box out of his pocket.

"Well, well, what do we have here?" Lode repeated his brother's words from earlier.

"It must be mighty important if the Shane Gang has it."

"Yeah, and I bet it'd get big bucks on the black market!" Lode exclaimed.

"Don't you dare." Eli glared at the two as he got up, blaster raised.

"Oh, just try and stop us." Lode smiled, holding a Neotox slug in his hand.

Eli narrowed his eyes, extremely peeved at this point. He shot a Bubbaleone at the two, the large bouncy pink bubble knocking them back a few feet, before shooting his Arachnet to grab the black box as he mounted his mecha. "Let's go!" He yelled to his friends as he switched to bike mode and rode away from the two idiot brothers as fast as he could.

Eli switched back to ride mode as soon as he got to the edge of the Shadow Clan's dark territory, hearing his friends do the same behind him. He pulled the Shadow Talker out of his pack, putting it quickly onto his head. He winced, but he was too focused on Zaylee to really care.

Where is she. He asked.

Follow me. Belatra walked up beside their mechas before going ahead of them.

Eli followed the female Shadow Clan member through the heart of the territory, just wishing she would go faster. Eventually they reached a building that Eli assumed was an infirmary. The gang dismounted and followed her inside the odd shaped building. Eli had to squint his eyes as they went inside. Everything was extremely dark, the only light offered from green lanterns on the wall. Belatra led them into a room and Eli felt his stomach drop. Zaylee looked much worse. The blue spider veins stretched across the entire right side of her body now, despite the Shadow Clan's mystic attempts to help her. Eli felt another surge of protective anger, but kept himself in check, not wanting to embarrass himself in front of the Shadow Clan.

He produced the Black Box to Mfalme, who took the syringe out, and pulled off the cap. He stuck the large needle into Zaylee's arm and pushed down the plunger in a strangely elegant way.

The gang frowned, feeling slightly unnerved. Eli watched intently as the veins seemed to creep back to the injection site, until disappearing completely. Zaylee's eyes fluttered open and she tried to sit up.

"How did I get here?" She groaned, holding her head, "I feel like crap." She let out another groan before falling back down onto the bed.

"Zaylee, you're okay." Eli breathed a sigh of relief, rushing over to envelop his friend in a less-than-platonic hug.

"I guess so." She mumbled, still slightly confused as she returned Eli's hug. "But it's not over yet." She looked up at Mfalme.

No, it is not. But from what I understand, your friends have put our enemy quite a few steps back.

Zaylee pulled back to look Eli in the eyes. "Thank you," She smiled, "For everything."

"I'm just glad you're okay." Eli smiled, hugging his best friend again.

Thanks for reading! Don't forget to read and review!