I know I'm late but Happy New Year people! Vote, comment, and enjoy the chapter :D

"We are doomed! What are we going to do? There's no way we can beat them!" Mia said, petrified.

"Thank you for stating the obvious," I hissed, rolling my eyes. "Look Mia, we have to think. There must be a way for us to save them!"

Hero came out of my backpack and stood on my shoulder, cheering us on.

"Those goons, they have slugs! Ghouled slugs! And what did Trixie told us about them this morning? We can't just... punch them in the face!?" Mia semi-screamed. I sighed and shook my head.

"You're right, we are no match for them, we will only be adding trouble if we go against Tad's goons, but we can save the slugs! Everyone will be out on the field, battling the Shane Gang. No one will see us sneaking up into their trailers and that crappy building to release the captured slugs! Besides, even if we do encounter a goon, we can fight. We didn't get a black belt for nothing, right?" I said, self-assured.

"That sounds great, but how exactly is that supposed to save them from their demise?" Mia questioned.

"Well do you have a better plan? Saving the slugs is the most we can do."

Mia relaxed her shoulders and eventually nodded, putting on her game face while Hero squeaked happily.

Creeping up on the goons was the easiest task; we were at the side of the building in no time. Crouching down behind a bush, we investigated the situation before us. The two trailers successfully hid an army of goons at the left side of the building, all just chilling around.

Suddenly, the metal door, the only path that leads into the building, slammed open.

"The first person to bring Eli Shane to me ALIVE will be heavily rewarded!" the yellow guy spoke, emphasising the word 'alive'. And with that, the army of goons ran passed him into the building to collect their ghouls and blasters, prepping for the anticipated fight.

"This is our chance to get to the trailers," I whispered softly to Mia and she nodded at me.

"... Except for you two. Stay here. Guard this door."

The yellow guy added as he pointed at the last two goons in the group, before slamming the door shut. The two goons groaned, but still obeyed their master.

I looked over at Mia and she looked at me at the same time. We nodded our head concurrently. Being fully aware of our surroundings, we tiptoed to the back of the building and hid behind the wall, crab-walked towards the guards. I slowly peeked through the corner. The goons were chitchatting casually, unaware of the danger they were in. With my eyes locked on the guard nearest to me, I put up three fingers, signaling Mia to attack on my count.

Three, two, ONE!

Without hesitation, I jumped onto the first guard, sending my elbow to the back of his neck, and knocked him out instantly. Mia ran up to the other guard, kicked his balls and elbowed his face before he was able to let out a scream or pull out his blaster. With the slingers down, the ghouled slugs on their bandoleers leaped out of their red tubes, hissed at us, before they wandered off into the jungle.

"Those look disgusting," I commented, referring to the ghouls.

"They sure do. Come on Ales! Let's keep going!" Mia called, running towards the nearby trailers. I looked over at the guard I knocked out earlier. My eyes landed on his blaster.

I thought for a second, before unbuckling his blaster.

"What are you doing?" Mia questioned as I unloosed the second blaster from the other goon.

"Keep this. Might be helpful," I said and tossed the second blaster to Mia. We holstered the blasters on our new attires and sneaked into the nearest trailer. We unsecured the metal bars and got into the trailer.

It was dark in the trailer as there were no windows or any openings except for the metal bars. In the shadows there were around ten slug carriers in there, each holding up to forty slugs. The slugs looked up at us and chirped happily. Their loud giggles gave me a mini heart attack.

"Listen little ones! We are here to save you, but you have to be quiet!" I whispered to the slugs and they cooperated. "Okay so, how do you open one of these?" Mia asked as she examined the canisters, poking the nearest one curiously.

I looked over at Hero who was perching on my shoulder and it gave me a confident nod. He hopped onto one of the carriers and the blue canisters withdrew outwards, releasing the slugs. "Great job Hero!" I praised and it chirped happily.

All of a sudden, the trailer shook, explosions sounded thoroughly from outside. I glanced out of the trailer and saw the army of goons raced out from the abandoned building and onto the clearing, bombarding with ghouls. Eli and the others were taking cover behind some rock piles, clearly struggling and outnumbered.

"Quick! We don't have much time!" Mia said urgently as we hurried to free all the slugs. We hopped onto the next trailer and did the same thing: shushed the slugs and pressed onto the carriers. All the slugs escaped into the forest and we ran straight into the building through the metal door. After ensuring no one was on the ground floor, we ran up the stairs to find the slugs. 

Multitudes of explosions and crashes sounded from outside the building as ghouls and slugs were being fired. Our friends were in great jeopardy, but we can do nothing to stop it. Going out there was suicide for Mia and I.

"Please be okay," I mumbled underneath my breath with an unsteady voice and I hardened my heart.

No time to grief.

Focus on the mission.

Mia and I kicked down the only door we see in unison. The room it led to was fairly dark. The only source of light was from the two broken windows at the side of the room. Our jaws dropped as soon as our eyes landed on the mountain of canisters further in the room. There were hundreds and thousands of slugs kept in here.

"Why do they need so many slugs for?" Mia exclaimed at the vast amount of slugs. "No wonder we can't find any for our project back then!" she joked.

"This is going to take a while," I mumbled before tapping onto each carrier like how my seven year old self would brush my hand through everything in a mall. The slugs were chirping contentedly, but the series of deafening detonation were ten times louder than them, so it was fine.

We went through the pile, making sure every single slug was saved.

"This is the last one," I said with satisfaction, releasing the last batch of slugs.

Mission accomplished.

"Alessia, look!" Mia exclaimed, looking out of one of the windows in the room. I ran towards the other window and looked down, shock crossed my face.

On the clearing, Tad's goons was corralling the Shane Gang, their cover was slowly destroyed by the constant ghouls' attack. There were not enough slugs to fight back the raining ghouls.

They were going down in flames.

"Ales, I think this is when it's wiser to save ourselves," Mia said, backing off from the window, terror-stricken.

I turned to her and shot her a disbelief expression. "We are not going anywhere!" I yelled at her, Hero squeaked in agreement on my shoulder.

"You are not thinking straight!" Mia shouted back at me with a frown. "I know you want to save them, I genuinely do too! But... what can we do? We are not slingers, and we don't have any slug other than Hero! There is no way we can save them! Let's just get out of here when we have the chance to before they figured out we released the slugs!"

"Look," I drawled, shooting her a stern look, "I know you're scared, I am terrified, but they are the ones who welcomed us into their home, fed us, took care of us when we most needed them. They trusted us, and did not gave up on us, and so will we."

I stared straight into her fearful eyes. "I will stay. I will fight with my bare hands if I have too. I will not give up on them until I breathe my last breath, so are you with me or not?" I asked. Mia frowned at me, biting her bottom lips indecisively, but soon gave in.

"What's the plan?" she asked.

"I figured the only way to stop them is by using one of these," I said, pulling out the blaster I stole from the goons guarding the metal door earlier.

"If only we can figure out how to use it," I continued. Mia face-palmed.

"Even if we did figured that out, we still need slugs! Lots of them to fight against such a large group of armed goons! But all of them escaped into the forest when we released them!" Mia replied. "And even if we have slugs, we have no idea what each of them does! How are we suppose to strategies?"

My eyes twitched when a muffled sound reverberated from the ceiling. Through the tiny gaps of what seemed like a vent, an orange head popped out.

"Burpy!" I exclaimed, running towards the vent. He chirped before falling into my palms.

"Burpy, what are you doing here? Shouldn't you be out there with Eli?" I questioned him, and Burpy pointed back at the vent. Tiny footsteps were heard before a crowd of colourful slugs fell out of the vent.

"The slugs we rescued came back to us! Well done Burpy!" Mia praised, our confidence surfaced.

"Okay, we need a plan. Think Alessia, think..." I mumbled to myself, trying to recall the incident when we first arrived in Slugterra.

The scene of the riders replayed in my head as we were running away from them. Everything was in slow-motion. I watched as they inserted a red tube into their blasters, aimed at us, before pulling the trigger.

"I think... I think I got it!" I exclaimed excitedly, before turning to Mia and the slugs.

"I have a plan," I announced. Mia smirked while the slugs chirped. "Mia, you and I are going to beat them by rapid-firing the slugs at them until Eli and the others are safe. It should be easy enough to fire a slug. Just slap in the tube to insert it, aim, and fire. Simple."

I then turned towards the slugs. "Burpy, Hero, I trust that both of you know how to strategies. Go. Organise the slugs for us to fire. Could you two do that?"

Hero and Burpy nodded before heading off towards the large crowd of slugs.

"I hope this is as easy as you say," Mia said, pulling out her blaster from her holster. "We have to give it a try. It's our only chance of saving them," I said. 

The twins let out a spine-chilling evil laugh and we bolted back to the window. Our hearts raced, horror-stuck.

"This makes me so happy! We finally got the Shane Gang! The Shane Gang! " the twins proclaimed and the goons cheered triumphantly. Below us, in front of the building, they had successfully corralled the Shane Gang at the center, their blasters pointing out at them, their hands raised in defeat.

"Let them go, Lorke. My friends do not have to suffer with me," Eli said with his hands above his head and he winced when one of the goons hit his waist with a loaded blaster.

My grip on my blaster tightened in anger.

The twins out on another evil grin. "Well, considering it was your birthday yesterday, I'll release your friends," Lorke said teasingly. "But unfortunately, Tad wants all of you dead."

"Burpy! Hero! Hurry up! We don't have much time!" Mia yelled for Hero and Burpy, and they hopped towards us with the other slugs following closely behind. Hero went to my side while Burpy went to Mia. Hero instructed a blue, hairy slug into my blaster, while the other slugs got into their own little blue canisters on the ground, ready to be fired. I raised my blaster and targeted it at the goons nearest to Eli, but Hero thought otherwise. He jumped onto my blaster, adjusted it so that it was now aiming directly at Eli and his gang.

"You sure about this?" I asked concernly. Hero gave me a confident nod.

"Alright, if you say so."

I looked over at Mia. A similar slug was inserted in her blaster and Burpy directed her to aim at the Shane Gang as well.

"On my mark," I said to Mia. "Roger that," she replied instantly.

Closing an eye, I tried to aim my blaster at Eli as accurately as possible. I can't mess this up. It was a matter of life and death.

"Any last words?" Lode questioned as the gang glared at him.

"Ready," I whispered to Mia, powering up our blasters.

"So long, Shane Gang," Lode drawled, before raising his blaster at Eli.

Eli must've noticed the sound of our blasters powering up as he looked up and saw me at the window. His glare faltered, and turned into a teasing smile.

"Uhh... Lorke? Why is he smiling?"

"NOW!" I yelled as Mia and I fired our slugs. I watched in awe as the two slugs transformed into even hairier monsters with blue horns. Together, they shot out ice from their mouth and formed a tall, unbreakable defensive ice wall around the Shane Gang, and froze a quarter of the goons. I was truly amazed by the power of the slugs, but we had no time to waste. I loaded up my next slug and fired.

"Ambush!" one of the goons yelled before they were scattered around in chaos. Without ceasing for even a millisecond, Mia and I pounded Tad's goons with countless slugs of various species, with the rest of the slugs jumping off the window on their own, transforming and charging towards the goons when they reached a certain velocity.

It was quite entertaining to watch the goons ran like cowards in the midst of the complete pandemonium, even though most of our shots were super off target. At least it did the job of scaring them away. Some of the unlucky goons were burnt, others were electrocuted, webbed, blinded, slimed, and many more.

A red slug with blue ram horns broke through the ice wall and flew out, causing a section of it to collapse. The Shane Gang came out from the shelter and begun battling the goons with us.

Hero squeaked as he hopped into a canister on the floor. I picked him up and inserted him into my blaster while Mia inserted Burpy. "Show them what you got, Hero!" It smirked, and I pulled the trigger.

Hero and Burpy transfigured in sync, and to my surprise, they somehow fused together! My eyes widened as they transformed into a large pillar of fire. On the battleground, Eli freed his blaster and swung his hands in the air, as if he was controlling the fire. He sent them roaming towards the goons, scaring the life out of them.

"Did you see that!?" Mia exclaimed and first-pumped the air.

"That was awesome!" I cheered.

"Retreat! Retreat!" I heard Locke yelled from a distance, and the goons ran into the forest for their lives. Once the goons were out of sight, Mia and I went out of the building to be reunited with the gang.

"Are you guys okay?" I asked, approaching the gang with Mia. "Yeah, just a few cuts and bruises," Trixie replied, "but can we talk about how badass you two were!? Come on! You must've slung a slug before!"

"Great job! I couldn't imagine what would have happened to us if you two weren't around!" Kord exclaimed, giving us both thumbs up.

"Thank you, for risking your lives to save us," Eli said, putting on a warm smile, "we really appreciate that."

I smiled back in return. "Don't thank us, it's a two-way street," I chuckled and Mia nodded her head approvingly.

Soon enough, the slugs came back to their respective slingers. I crouched down and gave Hero a hand. He jumped onto my palm and onto my shoulder, chuckling with a huge grin.

"Great work pal," I praised, caressing his chin. He squeaked and pointed towards the ground. I looked down and a few slugs were standing below me, chirping and leaping happily.

"I see that you've made a couple friends," I said and Hero chuckled. "I'll love to have all of you to join me! But the road ahead might be dangerous and I may need you to safe my butt very often, so make your choice wisely," I teased. The group of slugs cheered in excitement, before all of them came up to me and snugged their tiny heads into my cheeks.

"Looks like we've found ourselves some new slugs," Mia said as a few slugs were perching on her shoulder.

"And once again! Pronto the magnificent saved the day!" Pronto said, very randomly.

"Yeah right. Let's get back to the hideout and have some rest. It has been a long day, and on our way home I want to know every single detail of how the two of you managed to sneak up on Tad's goons and do a fusion shot!" Eli said with a very proud smile.

"Yeah, but first," we all turned to Trixie, "let's take a selfie!" she sang before pulling out her camera. We giggled, and posed casually in front of the camera while Pronto posed rather heroically.

...
What slugs do you think Alessia recruited? I shall reveal them later in the book

Till then, have a great day and I'll see you in the next chapter!