Hi so here is where it kinda gets dark and dramatic, so if you're in it for fun and fluff, the rest of this story is not for you. For the rest of you, I hope you like it!
"Eli, we've got a major problem."
The young Shane craned his neck to look at his red-headed friend was furiously typing away at the computer.
"It's Blakk Industries." She continued lowly. "Their activity has gone from nothing to almost everywhere overnight."
"Impossible!" Pronto huffed.
"Call Zaylee." Eli told Trixie before looking to his other friends. "Gear up. We're going to find out what this is and put a stop to this before anything else can happen."
Zaylee rode quickly through the caverns with her best friends behind her and 30 of Blakk's lackeys on their tail.
"Where did they come from?" Dana asked again as she dodged a megamorph Thresher aimed at her head.
"Don't know, wish I did." Xia griped. She looked to Pulse who just shrugged and shook her head.
"Doesn't matter!" Zaylee yelled over the rushing wind. "We just need to get rid of them!"
Suddenly her communicator was beeping. Another distress call probably. She turned it on as she continued trying to blast the aggressive henchmen away from her and her friends.
"Zaylee Foxx speaking, if you are being attacked or terrorized by Blakk, please send your coordinates in and we will be there as soon as possible."
"Zaylee, it's me, Trixie."
"What do you need?" The older girl asked as she narrowly dodged an incoming Thrasher.
"Blakk Industries is making a comeback."
"Very aware." Zaylee moved out of the way of the screen on her mecha so Trixie could see the barrage of henchmen that were still attacking her and her friends.
"Oh… do you think you could meet us? We could really use all the help we can get."
"It's best to divide and conquer." Xia spoke up.
"Agreed." Zaylee nodded. "But give us like fifteen minutes and we'll meet you in Corkscrew."
Trixie nodded before signing off. Zaylee slammed the breaks on her mecha and spun it around to face the rest of the nasty henchmen.
"Alright girls, let's give 'em hell!"
Her friends grinned deviously in agreement, loading their blasters and firing at their assailants.
Eli watched the four girls skid to a halt in front of him ten minutes later, out of breath, and looking rather frazzled.
"Okay, so we've got five distress calls in five different caverns…" Zaylee began.
"Six," Xia corrected as her communicator lit up again.
"We've got a couple too." Trixie looked at the older girls.
"There's not enough of us to go around." Eli grumbled frustratedly.
"If only we could get them in one place, they'd be so much easier to take care of." Kord griped.
"You sure you want to take on that many people at once?" Dana looked at the Shane Gang skeptically.
"If it was all eight of us it'd be a breeze." Eli nodded, agreeing with Kord.
"I know a way." Pulse spoke up quietly.
Zaylee looked at her half-feline friend. "You really want to do that?"
"I don't think she should." Xia said.
"Do what?" Eli asked expectantly.
"I have an old communicator from Blakk Industries. I deactivated it years ago, but if I turn it on, they'll know it's me, and I can almost promise they'll all come for me."
"Well what are we waiting for?" Pronto looked at his girlfriend.
"I don't like this idea." Dana looked warily at the black and red communicator in Pulse's hand.
"Me neither," Zaylee sighed, "But I don't think we have a choice. There's no way we can deal with all of these distress calls, and more are just going to keep coming."
Just as Zaylee finished, Eli's communicator on his mecha lit up, confirming Zaylee's statement.
"Do it." Eli looked at Pulse with a mixture of command and pleading in his face.
Pulse sighed, looking down at the communicator apprehensively. She fiddled for something in her pocket, pulling out a battery and sticking it into the device. She flipped a switch and watched it spring to life, emanating an eerie red glow.
"Come and get me." She said quietly, trying to mask her fear with determination.
"Come get all of us." Eli spoke up loud enough to be heard through the device.
Erin shoved the communicator in her pocket, a look of distance taking over her features.
"Let's move to somewhere more open." Zaylee suggested, nodding at the surrounding buildings. "We need to get to some high ground before they find us."
Eli nodded in agreement and the 8 teens headed out of the cavern.
Zaylee pushed her goggles back up her head.
"They're coming."
Eli stood beside her, nodding grimly as he looked down from the hill they had parked their mechas on. Their friends and teammates fanned out beside them, making a smart V-formation.
"Any specific plan?" Trixie asked.
"Yeah, don't die." Zaylee reached for her blaster, grabbing it tightly. She hadn't told her friends the number of henchmen that were barreling at them, and she had also left out who was leading the group. If they made it out alive, they'd be lucky.
"Is that Twist?" Eli exclaimed.
"And Nacho." Pulse grumbled.
"He shouldn't be in Slugterra!" Trixie gasped.
"Well, he is." Dana turned a judgmental eyebrow at the red-head. "So let's show him what we're made of."
Zaylee nodded in agreement. She whipped her blaster out of its holster, loading it with such speed that she almost cracked the cylinder in which her slug was nestled, ready for battle. She didn't hesitate to send the long-range Thresher at the battalion of henchmen. Her friends and the Shane gang followed with a volley of various slugs, all strong and powerful and ready to attack.
But they weren't strong enough. The teens frowned as all eight slugs were shot out of the air by angry megamorph ghouls and another round of ghouls came flying at them. Zaylee cursed, taking cover behind her mecha as the slugs exploded around her.
"What the heck?" Kord yelled frustrated, "I thought this was going to be easy!"
"Never said that." Xia looked at him hard. "We only agreed this was our best option."
"Come on guys," Eli tried to rally his gang, "We've done tons of difficult things, we can beat them here."
Zaylee disagreed with her best friend, but held her tongue, deciding to focus on the fight in front of her. She was again, kept from using her Shadow Clan abilities, and Blakk's army was closing in fast.
"We're out-numbered, and out-slugged, we need to get out of here." Pulse looked at Zaylee.
"Not yet, I think I have an idea." Zaylee winked, pulling out her Vampenkyeko.
She popped up from behind her mecha, shooting Styx across the cavern. A little hope shined in her eyes until Nacho shot the poor slug out of the air.
"Aw come on!" She yelled.
"Retreat?" Pulse asked again.
"If we don't stop them, they're going to go back to terrorizing everyone!" Eli yelled. "We don't have another choice!"
"I hate to admit it, but little legacy boy over here is right." Dana huffed, trying to get a shot in at one of the henchmen.
Eli rolled his eyes at the nickname as he jumped to the side to avoid an angry Hop Jack.
"We need to take the offensive." He looked to Zaylee.
"I'd rather not die!" She yelled back, screaming in frustration when another one of her slugs was shot out of the air.
"Well how are we going to win! I thought you were all about taking the offensive."
"Pulse is right." Zaylee sighed in defeat. "We're in over our heads. We need to retreat."
"We have to protect the people of Slugterra!" Eli argued.
"You can't do that if you're dead!" Xia reminded him, her megamorph Armashelt clashing with a ghouled megamorph Atacknet.
"Well, I've still got one trick up my sleeve." Eli grunted, jumping from behind his mecha and sliding down the hill.
"Eli!" His friends cried in unison.
Eli grabbed the fusion shot attachment out of his backpack. He looked down to his two strongest slugs, Joules and Burpy.
"You guys ready?" He looked down at them confidently.
The slugs nodded and hopped into the blaster.
Zaylee watched in awe as Eli preformed the fusion move perfectly. Nacho and Twist jumped out of the way but some of the other henchmen were not so lucky.
"Well, what are we waiting for?" Xia asked, starting to shoot at Nacho and Twist again as the two powerful slingers began to converge on Eli.
"I'm going down to help him. You guys stay here, and if things look bad, run for it. I have a way to get us out of here if all else fails." Zaylee looked at her friends before sliding down the hill and quickly running over to where Eli was.
"You're crazy." She reprimanded him as she began to shoot at Twist, her Shadow Clan abilities helping her to know where Loki's illusions were and where the actual teenager was.
Eli rolled his eyes and dodged another Megamorph ghoul.
"Eh, what do you have here Eli, a girlfriend?" Twist sneered.
"No." They both said too quickly.
Both the blonde and Nacho were closing in on them fast. Even their signature fighting style and the help Eli and Zaylee were receiving from above couldn't stop Blakk's left and right hand men from getting even closer.
Zaylee knocked a megamorph Harmashelt out of the air with Spike and Eli dodged an Amperling.
Twist yelled in frustration as Zaylee continued to shoot at him and not the multiple apparitions of himself that were surrounding the pair.
"How-!" He yelled in frustration.
"I have my secrets, and you have yours." She winked, but frowned as Twist still outmaneuvered her crafty shots.
"Zaylee, we're getting low on ammo up here." Pulse's voice buzzed in her ear.
"We have to give them all we've got." Zaylee argued, somersaulting out of the way of an angry Frostfang.
"I don't get it." Eli looked worriedly at Zaylee. "Together we're usually unstoppable."
Zaylee shook her head as she tried to get another shot in at the sly teenager and the powerful Dark Bane in front of her. "If I knew what the issue was, I would have solved it by now."
They were low on both ideas and slugs, and their opponents were anything but, grinning at the pair with hungry revenge-filled eyes.
Suddenly Zaylee stiffened. She sensed an immense darkness making its way through the army of Henchmen. Twist's and Nacho's grins got even wider, and she knew exactly what that meant.
"Blakk…" Xia's gasp confirmed her assumption, followed by a series of "No, that can't be's", and "I swear I saw him sucked into the Dark Realm myself!" claims.
"If we don't run now," Zaylee whispered to Eli, "We are going to have our butts handed to us and then hauled off to Blakk Industries to suffer who-knows-what."
"We can't run now." Eli hissed back.
"We don't have a choice."
Eli opened his mouth to protest, but Zaylee just grabbed his arm, gave the two opponents a sheepish grin and ran back up the hill with Eli stumbling behind her.
"Let's get out of here!" She yelled, hopping on her mecha and throwing the silver machine into over-drive, not thinking whether or not her friends could keep up.
They all trailed behind her, trying to keep up with her speeds as Blakk and his henchmen went after them.
"We need to lose them!" Eli yelled.
"Any ideas?" Pulse looked to Pronto.
"Yes!"
"How about one that doesn't take us through the flumes?" Zaylee glanced behind her at the Molenoid.
He closed is mouth, pondering if there were any other options.
"Could you hurry up Pronto?" Trixie asked, worry seeping into her voice as hundreds of red dots quickly approached their group.
Zaylee looked up and eased off the throttle slightly as the teenagers approached a desert-type area, with towering red colored rocks and clouds of sand that the mecha beasts kicked up beneath them.
Pronto was still pondering until he suddenly decided a plan. "Go left!" He yelled.
Zaylee looked at the path he was suggesting and frowned. "You sure about this?"
"Have I ever led you astray before?"
"I can name a few times…" Zaylee grimaced.
"We don't have time to come up with another plan, let's go!" Dana yelled as the sound of transforming ghouls could now be heard behind them.
Zaylee held her grimace but followed Pronto's directions and steered her mecha left, through a very narrow crevice in the rocks. She slowed her speed to try and avoid hitting the sides of the cavern. Amicus would never let her hear the end of it if she scratched the paint job.
"Are they following us?" Pulse asked quietly.
"Doesn't look like it." Trixie looked down at the electronic map on her mecha.
There was a collective sigh of relief.
"Alright Pronto, get us home." Eli smiled.
"With pleasure!" The Molenoid declared.
The Shane Gang along with Zaylee walked into the Shane hideout quietly, still mulling over the day's events. Zaylee's friends had gone their separate ways, but Zaylee had opted to stay with the Shane Gang for a bit. They were all still slightly shell shocked to see Blakk standing in front of them again, and the question on everyone's minds was "How do we stop him?" Blakk Industries was more powerful than ever and the fight today proved that. It was going to take more than 8 teenagers to stop the mayhem that was upon Slugterra now.
"Hey, what's that?" Kord's question broke the silence. He was pointing to a letter that had been shoved under the front door.
Eli shrugged and went to pick it up. He let out a small gasp as he read the address on the front.
"Who's it from?" Trixie asked.
"My… mom." Eli's voice was full of surprise.
"I thought there wasn't communication between the surface world and Slugterra." Trixie murmured quietly.
"There usually isn't." Zaylee spoke darkly. "It costs a lot of money and it can take months for a letter to get here."
Eli had opened the letter and was quietly reading it as he walked out the back door.
"Should we go after him?" Trixie asked Zaylee.
"Give him his privacy for now, he needs it. We have bigger things to worry about right now."
Trixie nodded in understanding. She spread out a large hologram on the table and Zaylee sat down, trying to push the worries about why someone would need to send a letter from the surface to Eli.