The Shane Gang, alongside Twist and Dana, rode across the caverns, heading straight to the destination where no one would even think to step foot in. Considering the last time I was here I was literally killed, it was a weird feeling to willingly return to this sinful skyscraper.

Eli and I rode behind the group, overseeing the gang as they chatted casually, deep down knowing that things would be a lot different in just a matter of minutes. The basketball-sized beeping bomb behind Kord's mechabeast was a constant reminder of how dangerous the mission is.

"Hey," Eli called out to me through the gushing wind with Burpy perching on his shoulder. "How is Aurora doing?"

"Great!" I forced a smile out as Phoenix and Aurora both perched on one side of my shoulder. Aurora had grown into a teen, and was almost half the height of her parents.

Eli smiled charmingly as Aurora waved at him with a cheeky smile.

"So Ales, I'm thinking," he started and I could see blush surfaced on his cheeks. "Don't tell the rest of the gang but I got us both tickets to the movies tonight at Snowdance Cavern. Would you go with me? Or else I'll have to ask Pronto."

My eyes lit up and I smiled at him.

"The most famous slinger in Slugterra, Eli Shane himself, is asking me out on a date?"

"You can say that," he said, blushing even harder as he scratched the back of his neck.

He's so adorable.

"Yes! Of course I'll go with you!" I exclaimed. His eyes lit up and he smiled even brightened, before he pretended to put his focus back on the road ahead.

"Thank goodness. I don't have to listen to Pronto's disgusting slurps when he eats his popcorn throughout the entire movie," he chuckled. "And maybe after the movies, I'll take you to dinner at my favourite spot, if you'd like that."

"I'd love to go anywhere with you, Eli."

He wore the most genuine smile.

"I can't wait to defeat Doctor Blakk, to defeat the Darkbanes and whoever's with them, to let everyone in Slugterra live in peace once again. We can live in peace. We have so much more to explore in Slugterra and Snowdance Cavern is just one of them. Gosh just end this day already!" Eli said, slightly frustrated and I chuckled at him with rosy cheeks.

He turned to smile at me one last time, before our smiles faded when we noticed the notable change in scenery.

Plants transitioned from vibrant colours to deadly black, the atmosphere so demonic that you could almost taste it in the air. We emerged out from the last batch of living trees and Blakk citadel stood mightily at a fair distance.

"Gather up!" Eli instructed and we dismounted our mechas to form a small circle. Trixie pulled out the layout of Blakk's Citadel on her hologram in the middle of us and Eli pointed at the big square at the very centre of the diagram.

"This is where the Terraportal is. Remember, do not go near it under any circumstances, because we might need to set off the bomb immediately," Eli said, his finger shifted from the centre to the left side of the layout where the entrance was located. "We will attack from here. Ales and I will work our way towards the Terraportal and bring it down with the Elementals. We need everyone's help to fight off any goons or Darkbanes that gets in our way."

He then looked up and made eye contact with Dana.

"I know what I'm doing. I'll send Dalinda in when it's time," Dana said with a confident nod.

"Great!" Eli clapped his hands together as Trixie pulled back her hologram.

"Let's do this! Let's save Slugterra," Eli said with his signature smirk.

"That's a bold statement," Twist commented.

"You'll get use to it," Trixie smirked at him.

All of a sudden, the ground shook violently below us like an earthquake just erupted, so vigorous that we almost fell to the ground from it.

"What was that?" Kord asked hurriedly.

A bright ray of red light penetrated through the dark sky from the top of the citadel, forming a gradually enlarging ball of floating pure dark energy. Our faces went pale and jaws dropped.

"It's happening! We have to go now!" Twist yelled in fear and we wasted no time to mount our mechas. Eli gave me a hand and I hopped onto Lucky, before we sped towards the citadel in terminal speed.

The distant, ear-piercing cries of the Deep Cavern Eels, known as the High Plains' Monsters to some people, echoed through the deceased cavern. I spun my blaster over my head, and Cobra and Phoenix loaded themselves up in preparation.

"Get the Elementals ready," Eli instructed Burpy and the slug nodded before hopping into Eli's backpack to assemble the team.

"Ghouls!" Pronto screamed at the top of his lungs. Through the dusty air, an army of ghouls emerged through the smoke, screeching and glaring down at us. I spun my blaster and fired Cobra at them. She megamorphed, emitted strong waves and turned the ghouls away to rain on their own slingers, completely knocked half of them out.

I smirked playfully at the scene before me.

Maybe I was overthinking it.

This will be easy.

Cobra flew back to me, returned to photoform before she landed on my shoulder. More ghouls charged at us from the rest of the goons' gattlers as we were closer to the citadel, but it was nothing to Eli. He swerved Lucky around skillfully, dodging their shots without needing to fire a single slug.

I aimed my blaster at the gattlers and fired Phoenix. She megamorphed and set a row of gattlers on fire, melting their weapons. The rest of the gang fired their shots until all the gattlers were down. The goons stood no chance against us.

The entrance was only a few feet away, when our nightmares evolved.

Darkbanes.

They emerged from the entrance, each with gattlers in both hands, aiming them straight at us.

"We're taking cover!" Kord spoke through his earpiece as one by one our friends hid in trenches and rubbles, firing their shots at the Darkbanes continuously. Eli dodged each ghoul with ease, but to get through the line of Darkbanes in front of the citadel would be close to impossible.

"We'll need a fusion shot to get rid of those Darkbanes," Eli said, his eyes never left his devilish enemies.

"I'm on it! I may need to borrow Banger," I said and Banger hopped out of the backpack at the mention of his name. He smirked at me, before he loaded himself up. On the other end of the blaster I loaded up Ram.

The ride was unstable. Ghouls were raining down on us left and right.

Once I got my balance, I spun my blaster at a slow pace, before accelerating it until it could no longer spin any faster, detached the blasters, and fired them in sync. Both slugs megamorphed and fused into one giant fusion slug. It knocked away all the ghouls in its way and was soaring towards the line of Darkbanes. They did not get out of the way in time and the fusion shot went crashing through them, and into the sealed up entrance door, causing it to tumble down.

Eli revved up his engine and we ran up the stairs. Before the Darkbanes recover from the attack, we flew past them and the rubbles of the door, and landed into the main hallway of the citadel.

I turned around to fire Jack at the entrance. He megamomrphed and created a thick ice wall to prevent the Darkbanes from entering.

"Nice job!" Eli complimented, before Lucky reared victoriously and pounded down the hallway.

"Thanks!" I said with a smile.

With a hand around his thick waist for support, I fired Slime at another Darkbane that was in our way and he was trapped in a puddle of slime, growling angrily at us as we sprinted past him.

"Could you get my wristblaster for me, please?" Eli asked as I fired Bondi at another Darkbane that was about to come in from one of the haunting doors of the hallway.

After scanning through the hallway and making sure no Darkbanes or goons were going to sneak attack us, I got his wristblaster from his backpack and helped him put it on, knowing exactly what he will use it for.

My sixth sense kicked in as I loaded Nerf up in a rush and fired him through a small opening of a door, where she successfully knocked down a whole group of incoming goons at the other side of the door.

Eli proficiently manoeuvred Lucky around the hallways, cutting through corners while I took care of the enemies in our way. When the door of the portal room finally came to sight, we barged through it and there it was, the Terraportal.

Eli pulled Lucky into an instant halt, our hearts dropped to the floor when we saw the deadly structure functioning before our eyes. The dark room was lit up by the gleaming red portal erected in the middle of the room, and the cries of the Darkbanes from the other end of the portal echoed into our ears. We could tell that they were coming through the portal, but there was still time for us to put an end to this.

"Dana! Bring in Dalinda-"

I was notifying Dana through my earpiece when a gunfire sounded and before we knew it, a Greneater exploded below Lucky. My body crashed into a wall from the sudden impact, before I dropped to the hard ground with a loud thud. I groaned as I looked up, my blaster firmly gripped in my hand.

"You're too late," the Goon, controlling Will Shane's body, growled at me. His haunting red eyes pierced through my soul as he loaded up another ghoul into his blaster.

I spotted Eli dangerously near to the Terraportal. He recovered from the fall, and fired Chiller, his Frostcrawler, at the Goon. Chiller megamorphed and managed to trap the Goon in ice, temporarily.

"Ales! Prepare Hero and the Fire Elemental! We need to bring this thing down right now!" he yelled across the room as he loaded up the Water Elemental in his wristblaster, and inserted the Earth Elemental and Doc in his blaster as a fusion shot.

The Goon broke free through the ice, taking us by surprise. He glared at Eli and I.

His frown gradually merged into an abnormal smirk.

I have a really bad feeling about this.

"This marks the end of one of you," he drawled. He raised his blaster, aiming it at nothing in particular, and fired a ghoul.

At the same instant, one part of the ceiling of the room collapsed and Dalinda charged in. She crashed into the Goon and forced him through a wall, getting him out of the room while leaving the bomb behind, rolling freely on the floor.

The ghoul that was fired megamorphed into a monster that I have never seen before. It's antennae-like horns glowed in a dark red colour, before rings of glowing red circular waves were released from it.

What is that?

I saw from the corner of my eye Eli picked himself up and ran towards me. At the very last second before the unknown rings reached us, he crashed me into a hug, forcing us to the ground with him on top of me. He held me tight as the glowing red waves went past our bodies.

A second later, the rays were gone. The ghoul returned to photoform and everything felt normal.

"W-What was that?" I asked as he pulled away from me. He helped me to get to my feet and we scanned the room. Nothing was destroyed, except for that one part of the ceiling and that one wall where Dalinda took the Goon through.

"Are you okay?" he asked as I dusted myself.

"Yeah, I don't feel anything wrong," I said, and he looked just as confused as I am.

What did that ghoul do?

The ground shook again as the screech of the eels almost deafened our eardrums. I ran to the Terraportal, leaving Eli at his spot and carefully glanced down the portal.

I could see the Darkbanes and the eels clearly. They were getting dangerously close to Slugterra.

"The portal is still going. We don't have much time left!" I yelled as I stepped back to aim my blaster at the top of the Terraportal with the elementals loaded in it.

"Ready?" I asked and I looked back at Eli.

He just stood there, frozen. His gaze was fixed on the bomb rolling a few feet away from him.

"Eli?"

"We didn't think this through."

"About what?"

"That was a ghouled Xmitter, a Transplitter," he mumbled, and dropped the blaster in his hand. I took in a sharp breath and tried pulling the triggers of my blaster.

Nothing happened. My blaster was down.

"It... it's alright," I said and holstered my blaster. "We still have the bomb. We can activate it with the controller after we've dropped it into the portal!"

His heavy eyes gravitated to mine.

"That Transplitter generated electromagnetic pulses that disable electronic devices," he paused. "Including the activator of the bomb."

He pulled out the activator which has a level attached to it to activate the bomb, and it was already pointing to 'activate'.

The controller was down too.

"Eli! Ales!" I heard Trixie called out for us through my earpiece. "Doctor Blakk fired a failed fusion shot and all of our slugs are down! We're running away! Drop the bomb and get out of-"

Trixie's voice was cut off.

"Trix? Trix!" I tried to call out for her.

"Our earpieces are down too because of the ghoul," Eli said. I looked down at my bandoleer and noticed my slugs' heads were droopy.

They were all affected.

"What do we do then?" I asked as I was starting to panic.

Eli just stared at me.

"There is another way to activate the bomb," Eli said underneath his breath, his gaze shifted back to the rolling bomb.

"Kord installed a fingerprint scanner on it and only the members of the Shane Gang can activate it instantly. He installed it as a joke, saying that if something was to go wrong, one of us can heroically save Slugterra," he said as his eyes gravitated to me. "I guess it ain't funny anymore."

I looked at him in disbelief.

"No way, Eli. What about we drop the bomb and Burpy fires a fireball at it? It'll work!"

"We don't know if it'll work for sure. What if it doesn't? Millions of lives are on the line, Ales. We can't take any chances," he said as he looked at me, not breaking eye contact.

"Someone has to activate it manually."

We stared into each other's eyes as reality slowly hit me.

"No... no Eli, there must be another way. We can call the Shadow Clan for help, or get Kord to alter the bomb-" I was taken back when another ear-piercing screech of an eel shook the room.

"Our blasters and slugs are down, Ales. We even have the Elementals with us and they are not protected in any way. Once the Darkbanes get through this portal, we can do nothing to stop them. We need to break the portal before they come through, or else, Slugterra will perish."

I watched as he removed his backpack from his shoulders and dropped it beside his blaster. His exhausted slugs popped their heads out and chirped urgently at him, but he didn't budge.

His eyes was fixed on me.

"W-Wait! You can't just... go?" I said as I ran up to him.

I came to a halt in front of him. Our eyes locked. The ocean blue in his eyes turned greyish red from the reflection of the portal.

He stared at me, and I can start to see waters in his eyes. He stepped forward and hugged me tightly.

I wrapped my arms around him.

I didn't want to let go of him.

I wasn't ready to.

"T-There must be another way," I stammered.

"There is no other way, silly. There is no time," he whispered into my ear. He pulled back and his hands cupped my cheeks. A tear escaped and rolled down his cheek as he leaned in and kissed me on the lips.

Is this a kiss goodbye?

He pulled away and smiled down at me.

"We both know who will be the sacrificial lamb," he whispered, resting his forehead on mine. "Right?"

"I don't think so," I whispered, my right palm slid into his left.

"Let's not make this more painful than it already is, okay? Tell the rest of the gang I love them," he said and softly squeezed my hand.

I pulled away from the hug, and took a step away from him. He was no longer wearing his smile. My hands that were resting on either side of me slowly turned into fists.

"Tell them yourself," I growled, and sent a roundhouse kick straight to his abdomen. He crashed to the ground from it and groaned with a hand on his stomach.

This is it.

I picked up the bomb that was rolling on the ground and gave Eli one last smile.

"Tell my friends I love them for me."

A tear escaped my eyelid as I diverted my gaze towards the Terraportal. I took in a deep breath, before I sprinted full-force towards the portal with all the energy I had left in me, not holding back. Eli was yelling for me to stop, but I did not allow it to be registered in my mind.

The Terraportal was five feet away, then four then three then two. I took a giant leap into the portal, when Eli jumped in with me and snatched the bomb away from my hand.

I gasped and instinctively grabbed onto the lip of Terraportal with one hand and grabbed Eli's left wrist with the other.

Before my mind could even process, we were hanging at the exit of the portal. I held onto his wrist like it was the last thing I do, yet he didn't even care to hold onto me. The bomb on his right hand beeped as seconds past by. The horrifying creatures lurked underneath us were ascending, their cries gradually getting louder and louder.

I couldn't help it.

Tears slid down my cheeks when it finally registered in my mind that he wasn't going to make it.

"Ales," he called out to me, wearing the same assuring smile.

"Eli please!" I screamed at him, tears streaming down my cheeks. "Please! Don't go! I can't lose you again! I can't let you go!"

"I can't let you go either," he said. "It's okay, Ales. This is my job. This is what I'm destined to do. It is going to be alright."

"No it's not going to be alright-"

"Let me go, Ales."

"Eli please don't go. Don't do this-"

"Promise me that you'll be the next protector of the 99 caverns."

"Eli please!"

"Ales," he said sternly. His eyes were lifeless as he wore a forced smile. "Promise me."

The eels stretched out their tentacles towards us, their glowing red eyes locked on Eli's dangling body. They were getting dangerously close to us, close to Slugterra.

This will be the end of Slugterra if I don't let go-

No.

There is no way I'm letting go of him.

"Please don't do this," I breathed.

I tried to pull him up with all of my strength but he was too heavy, and my arms were already hurting just from holding onto him. My tears started to blur my vision as I sobbed quietly.

"I... I love you, Ales."

My heart stopped beating when I heard his words. His last words.

He swung his hand harshly, breaking free from my grasp.

Everything was in slow-motion. I felt myself tearing apart when I saw him falling into the portal, falling into the hands of the enemy.

"Eli!"

The screeching of the monsters faded, the voices in my head silenced. I watched as he fell deeper, the distance between us grew as the distance between him and the Darkbanes shortened. He wore a sad smile and closed his eyes, avoiding eye contact even in our last moment together.

"No no no no no! ELI!"

My mind went completely blank.

My hand let go of the Terraportal and I allowed gravity to pull me towards him. I reached out to him. I want to get him out of this, or at least touch him one last time.

I knew it was too late when a shadow consumed me.

A pair of claws grabbed me by my shoulders. I was being lifted up, away from him.

I felt my soul left my body when I saw with my own eyes, the tentacles of the eels wrapped around him, devoured him whole, before a blinding light was shown from where he was. The explosion was like a growing sun. It burnt to death the Darkbanes that went near it, and destroyed the portal connecting the two worlds.

He succeeded.

Dalinda let out an ear-piercing cry as she took us out of the room through the broken ceiling. The portal did not close in time, the explosion expanded and blew up the entire citadel. Dalinda and I barely got out of the way.

I watched as the building exploded into pieces from a higher altitude. The uncanny explosion shook the grounds of Slag Rock Cavern and lit up the initial dark sky. It was as if it gave life to the cavern.

The citadel collapsed to the ground and I could hear the cheers of the rest of the gang from a distance. Dalinda flapped her wings unusually quieter, keeping us in midair to take in everything one last time, before she turned around and brought me to the rest of the gang.

She placed me down on the ground, and dropped his backpack and blaster beside me, before she landed on the ground and nudged her head into my abdomen, almost as if she felt guilty for what she did.

My feet froze to the ground, my mind still recalling what just happened. The gang ran up to us, but paused when they realised something went wrong.

Something went very wrong.

"Ales, where's Eli?" Kord asked. I looked up at him, at them. For the first time, I did not know what to say.