Eli's shadow

Chapter 2

Once the Shane gang got home, they collapsed on their couch.
"Well that went poorly." Kord complains.
Eli pipes up. "Not entirely. I was able to understand their leader. Said something weird. Called me a hybrid and said I was corrupted."
Trixie nods. "That makes some sense. You don't look like anything else in Slugterra." Eli's ears droop slightly in sadness. "Which is good." She quickly corrects. "You look nice." She smirks a bit as a blush envelopes Eli's features before turning to her pad to research interbreeding with the Shadow Clan.
Kord continues. "Yeah, and corrupted is obvious too. Our main lead is Darkwater and we all know how the Shadow Clan feel about that stuff. Only problem now is, we don't have any more leads to follow."
Eli speaks up. "My mom might know something. I hope."
Trixie looks up from her pad. "But how will you get up there?"
A determined expression crosses Eli's face. "I'm gonna climb."

*cue montage of Eli scaling the side of his house and falling over and over and over again before finally getting onto the roof before looking up at a giant mushroom 10 times the size of his house and signing*

Eli desperately claws his way to the top of the mushroom and collapses in exhaustion. "How long did that take?"
"About eight hours!" Trixie calls from the ground.
Eli peeks over the side. "How do I get down now?" He blinks and finds himself an inch from the ground before face planting.
Trixie stares in shock at the remnants of red and black smoke Eli left in his wake. "Well that's useful."

It starts getting dark and the Shane gang all head inside. Eli slumps on the couch and looks down at his hands, forming claws with them before letting them go slack. Burpy, seeing his friends/owners/masters(?) distress, leaps into onto his shoulder and nuzzles him a little. The familiar presence eases Eli's nerves enough for him to fall asleep.

He's in a dream. This one is far different from the others. His mother was in it, ironically. Beside her was a shadowy blur that felt like it should have been familiar to Eli. His mother was laughing. Eli looks over to the upper beaches of a tree and is suddenly in it. He laughs at the shocked face his mother makes before it morphs into pride as the shadowy blur appears next to him.

Eli wakes up feeling better than he had in a while. After a quick stretch, he gets off the couch but trips over his tails. Sighing to himself, he tries waking again while keeping an eye on his tails. Then he has an idea. It was an early morning idea so it didn't quite register in his mind properly but he thought of it. He gets down on all fours and looks back at his tails. The change in stature keeps them off the flour. He walks around like that for a little before jumping around a bit, Elmore agile than he usually is. Standing straight, he lifts his tails off the ground and nods before heading to the kitchen to have breakfast.

After changing into his still too big clothes, he heads into the garage to see his gang all ready to take him to The Drop. He rides on Kord's back again, this time using sticky powers.
On the way he thinks about his mom. 'How would she react to something like this? Does she know anything? Am I somehow adopted? I don't know. Guess I don't know a lot about myself these days.'
Trixie breaks him from his thoughts. "Eli, are you ok?"
He looks up and realises that his team is giving him worried looks. "Oh. Yeah, just zoned out a little."
Kord rolls his eyes. "You're lucky. Pronto spent the whole time singing about how great he is."
Pronto scoffs. "Your tiny troll mind is simply unable to appreciate the wonder of Pronto."
Eli laughs a little. "Don't worry about me. I'm completely fine." He looks up the cavern's wall as they approach The Drop. "Time to go home."

They pull up to the cavern wall just under The Drop. Burpy hops up onto Eli's shoulder and gives Eli a confident nod. Nodding back, Eli looks up at the hole and takes a steadying breath. "You can do this." In a puff of red and black smoke, he's at the entrance of The Drop, a inch or so away from the wall and almost falls back down, causing his friends to tense, but he manages to gain a hold on the wall. Taking another breath, he starts the slow ascent upward.
His team calls out to him. "We'll wait for you Eli!"
"Don't worry about a thing bro, we'll protect the caverns while you're gone!"
"Especially Pronto!"

Their calls steadily fade into echoes as he makes his way up. He was reassured by his friends promise to take care of the 99 caverns.
"Looks like my wall crawling is getting better. Guess falling a thousand feet is a great motivator." Burpy chirps in agreement. Noticing something weird, Eli looks at Burpy. "Hey Burpy, turn out the lights for a second." Extinguishing the flames, it is revealed Eli can see better in the dark. "Well that's useful." With not much else to do while he climbs, Eli thinks back to the letter his dad left for him when he came to Slugterra. 'Learn the secret about how to get back. Is this what you meant dad?' Eli takes rests when necessary, until he eventually sees concrete, and soon after, the vent he came down through. He crawls out of the vent and collapses on the damp concrete beneath him. Getting up, he starts crawling through the sewers, sticking to the ceiling in case of any sewer workers or adventurous teens. "I feel like a horror movie monster." Burpy chuckles at the comparison.

Eli finds a manhole cover and opens it to crawl out into an alleyway. It was broad daylight. "Damn. Any idea Burpy?" Burpy shrugs and hops into the ground to look around for something that might help while Eli tries to think of a plan. 'If only I could disappear.' He lifts a hand to rub the bridge of his nose in frustration, but notices that it's translucent with a red outline. He looks at Burpy who stares him in slack jawed shock for a few seconds before breaking into rapid chirps. "No, I didn't know I could do this. The Shadow Clan can't?" Burpy shakes his head. "Ok. Might as well take advantage of this." He takes off his clothes and runs on all fours through his home town. Burpy climgs to him, hoping he isn't seen. He finds his house and looks over the yard. "Still looks the same." He climbs up the wall and through his bedroom window, but it falls on his tails, causing him to cry out in pain and become visible again. He hears fast footsteps approaching and his mother barges in weilding baseball bat. He's never been so scared of his mom before. He raises his hands in a placating gesture. "Wait, mom it's me!"
She looks at him and her eyes widen. "Eli?" She drops her bat in shock.

Composing herself, she opens the window. "Quick, before someone sees." She looks outside to make sure no one saw and closes the blinds. She sighs as she turns to her son. "You might want to sit down."

In the living room, Eli's mom brought out some tea. Eli breaks the silence. "Since you're not surprised I guess you know something?"
Eli's mom sets down her tea cup, appearing sad. "I had hoped you wouldn't find out like this. I thought I had more time."
Eli holds his mom's hands to calm her down. "It's ok. Just tell me what you can handle."
His mother calms down before looking Eli in his red eyes. "Eli, you're... not a Shane."