"Looks like home," Mikey remarked to no one in particular.

Leo, deciding that he would be the no one in particular to whom Mikey spoke, answered his remark with a comment of his own, "Smells like it too."

Because their destination cavern was so far away from where they were, Eli had suggested that the turtles and Shane Gang take The Flumes to get there. Leo and Mikey had agreed, having no idea what The Flumes were and thus having no compelling reason to avoid going there.

Amazingly enough, Mikey was right.

The Flumes were somewhat familiar and that was oddly comforting. Even the menacing shadows couldn't dispel the subtle comfort of the familiar, and the seasickness was only a mild distraction. They were, as it turned out, a network of watery passageways beneath the caverns of Slugterra, not unlike the New York sewer system.

"Press that," Kord said to Mikey, pointing to a button on the Mecha Beast.

Mikey did not have to be told twice. Leo wasn't sure that Mikey should be encourage to poke buttons, even if they were the correct ones, but said nothing. The Mecha Beast, in obedience to the pressing of the button, transformed itself into something which resembled a jet ski. Leo wasn't at all convinced he liked the comparison, and he was fully convinced that he didn't like Mikey's driving of it.

However, at least Leo could now get seasick on the water, which is the only respectable place to become seasick. Motion sickness had never been a problem before but, then again, Mikey had never been allowed to drive anything that had four limbs that functioned independently of one another before. Wracking his brain, Leo was pretty sure Mikey had never been permitted to drive at all, for precisely the obvious reason.

"Keep an eye out," Eli said, "Sometimes the things in here aren't so friendly."

"Things?" Leo cried, but was drowned out by the motors of the Mecha Beast jet skis as they lurched out into the water, "Did he say things!?"

"Don't worry about it, man," Mikey called over his shoulder to Leo, who was sitting directly behind him, "Michelangelo is on driving duty. Nothin' is gonna hit us."

I'm more worried about us hitting something, Leo thought, but didn't say so.

As they roared along, vague shapes and shadows flitted along the banks of The Flumes, things which were indistinct except in that they were distinctly menacing with a dash of unfriendliness added on for good measure. Leo tried to pretend he couldn't see them.

Still, even in spite of Mikey's tendency to turn left when he should go right and hit the accelerator when he ought to be tapping the breaks, Leo felt more relaxed about things than he had since arriving.

He wanted to ask how long before they arrived, but realized this would be a wasted effort. Even if he could make himself heard over the roar of engines and rush of water, it was unlikely that he would be able to hear the reply, especially if Mikey chose the moment of answer to make another one of his bad decisions about turning left or right.

Leo decided that, if it was at all possible, he would try to meditate to pass the time.

It wasn't, so he didn't.

While Leo, Mikey and the Shane Gang were hurrying to get to the cavern where Blakk Industries had suddenly abandoned their debatably scientific endeavors and indeed the entire cavern itself, Don was in something of a rush to get very much farther away from it.

This was partly because he had exhausted the head crashing potential of it, but mostly because he had found a holding area full of ghouls who, on seeing him, smashed their way out of their containers and began to chase him.

Having no pressing reason to stay, Don hurriedly gathered up all the things he intended to take with him, put them in a trailer attached to a Mecha Beast, mounted the aforementioned Beast and ran away. It wasn't something he was proud of, but he also didn't feel particularly ashamed about it. It wasn't as though he'd run away and left people in danger. He'd merely run away from an evil installation full of evil little monsters that wanted to eat him in an evil way. There was no shame in that and, anyway, he'd been wasting time exploring new technology when he could have been finding the device for sending himself back home.

Unfortunately, as he approached the exit he wanted, he came across a trail of black slime. This wouldn't have been much of a problem except that his Mecha Beast slipped on the slime and slid away into a different tunnel from the one he intended, and then promptly fell down a hole.

This was not so much an exit passage as one of those naturally formed tunnels, and one that had not come into being with traveling Mecha Beasts in mind. Mecha Beast, turtle and trailer tumbled down a narrow shaft about fifty feet deep, rolled down a steep incline and very nearly sank into a swamp.

Floundering about in the mud took a good eight minutes, largely because Don had been spun so many times on the way down that he wasn't sure which way he'd come from, or if he wanted to go back that way at all. He eventually maneuvered his Mecha up onto a suitably sturdy island of semi-dry land.

He took stock of the situation.

Replaying everything in his mind, he took a guess at where he'd come from, then realized it didn't matter because there was absolutely no way he was getting back up the shaft down which he'd come. It was too deep. Really, he should be grateful he'd managed to get down in one piece. This could largely be attributed to his protective shell, but no small amount of credit goes to the jutting rocks in the shaft which had been crashed into and thus slowed descent to something less than lethal velocity.

The trouble was, he didn't really know where he'd landed. He'd downloaded a map to a laptop he'd swiped, but the shaft he'd fallen down wasn't on it. He took a wild guess at where he was, a cavern that was almost directly beneath the one he'd just left. He then estimated where he must be in the cavern, and from there determined what direction and distance it was to the nearest exit.

Some manner of many toothed creature gurgled up out of the swamp water, snapped a fly out of the air, and went back under with a splash. Don didn't like the thought that there might be a bigger fish in there that ate the one he'd just seen. He checked the online guide to Slugterra he'd found to see what it had to say about crossing swamps, most particularly this swamp.

Don't, advised the web-page, unless you have an aquatic mode on your Mecha Beast, an experienced tracker, a minimum of three types of slugs on the Swamp Traveling Slugslinger list (the guide advised him to click the link below to see the list) and... the list went on.

Don dragged out the blueprint for the Mecha Beast he had with him. It had an aquatic mode. He checked the list of required slugs and compared it with the ones chirping at him and found he had over half the ones on the list. The one thing he did not have was an experienced tracker.

"Well," he said aloud to himself, "I guess I'll have to do this without one. Unless one of you guys is an experienced tracker?" he glanced at the nearest cluster of slugs, who chirruped and shrugged, "Yeah... I thought that was too much to ask for. Alright," he sighed in what he hoped was a resolute manner, "I can do this. We can do this. Let's go."

He set out on a more or less straight course away from where he'd started.

If Don was making a straight line, Raph was making a rather drunken looking squiggle. He also was moving away from his starting point, but he was following the opinions of Friender and Diego about which way he should go. He was also taking their advice on foraging.

It was bland fare, and might have been poisonous to a human, but turtles (box turtles especially, though this is of little relevance) frequently snacked on mushrooms which could kill a human person, and Raph had retained at least some of this immunity to toxins. In any case, it was better than algae and worms, which had been the primary diet of Raph and his brothers for fifteen years of their lives.

The slugs were intent upon finding the safest places to forage, perhaps more for their sake than for Raph's, though their motives were at best unclear.

They were also guiding him to the one person they were certain would help. Word travels far and fast in Slugterra, especially between slugs, even wild ones. Friender and Diego knew where Eli Shane and his gang hung out, and had every intention of bringing Raph there.

If anyone could help their turtle friend, they were certain that The Shane would be that one.

But they weren't making the straightest possible beeline for the Hideout. The main reason for this was that Raph was traveling on foot, and it would behoove them to guide him into caverns rather than between cavern areas where they might have to go a long time without food or water.

But there was also the matter of dangerous hoods on the roads, and the two slugs wanted very much to avoid these unsavory characters. They did not doubt Raph's ability to fight, only to sling slugs. They were especially aware that he would likely favor Friender over Diego, which could be a mistake that would cost him his life. Friender had very limited battle capabilities, being a Fandango and all.

It might seem surprising that Raph was willing to blithely follow wherever his slugs pointed, but the truth was that he didn't really enjoy all the thinking that being a leader entailed and, since nobody was around to make fun of him, his pride wasn't at stake. In the moments when he was honest with himself, he knew also that he needed far more knowledge of Slugterra than he had if ever he was going to make a reasonably intelligent decision about where to go and what to do when he got there.

He had also built up considerable trust in Friender's abilities as a guide. Friender hadn't steered him wrong once, always having understood what Raph wanted and also where to go in order to get it. He'd even found Raph a second slug, and having two was somehow very reassuring. Friender had even inadvertently shown Raph where the true value of slug companions lay.

But there was another limiting factor on their progress, and that was Raph's bad leg, which periodically threw a tantrum, folded up under him and refused to come out until he'd regained his senses. Arguing with one's leg has historically been proven to be a futile pursuit, so whenever his leg gave out, Raph decided that it was time to rest. As he didn't know where he was being led or what he was meant to do when he got there, he felt there was no reason to hurry.

Had he known what was tracking him, he might have been a little more aggressive in debating with his leg about whether or not it would carry him just one more mile...

The Demon Ghoul was experiencing a sensation to which it was unaccustomed.

It had just had a thoroughly exhilarating time burning down a series of huts while the owners of the huts looked on helplessly with tears in their eyes, and then it had spent a further pleasant hour batting aside the slugs which the town's residents fired at it. It had followed this up with a delightful meal of frightened domestic slugs, which were much easier to catch than their wild brethren. It had then settled in the middle of the smoldering main street of the town and had itself a lovely nap.

It was now feeling... a certain lack of something. The natural state of its highly unnatural form was to be extremely angry about everything. After this day's achievements, it was feeling almost satisfied, and it is is very nearly impossible to be satisfied and angry at the same time. One typically excludes the other because one cannot truly be angry when satisfied due to anger sprouting almost directly from dissatisfaction with something. And, since anger is not satisfying (though a number of psychologists have spent a great many years debating whether or not having just finished being angry is satisfying), it seldom does anything to resolve the dissatisfaction that caused it in the first place.

The Demon Ghoul pondered the satisfied feeling. It poked and prodded it. It decided that it didn't really like it, and then became angry about that, thus effectively snuffing the satisfied feeling from existence as one would snuff out a fly with a swatter.