Chapter 2

Burning shapes ran through the flames as the sonic boom tore away the building around them, he continued to watch as the flames and debris claimed life one by one.

*BURNING

*AGONY

*SUFFERING

I awoke from the nightmare in a cold sweat, sitting up straight in a violent motion, my friend was almost flung from my shoulder, he looked at me in concern. Taking deep breaths I pushed the images into the furthest reaches of my mind and locked them up. Shivering from the vividly accurate dream I slowly forced myself to relax.

"It was only a dream, a dream, nothing more!" I told myself.

Slowly I calmed down as I grounded myself in the present. I was in the 99 caverns, I was an amalgamation of biker and sci-if hero, and I had met a slug that was the kindest person… slug? That I had ever met. Finally having gotten myself together I turned to the tugging sensation on my hair. My little friend was looking at me with concern bordering on panic, making my heart ache that he cared so much. Taking a sharp breath I stood it was "morning" so we needed to get going. Plus I needed to change the subject.

"Well big guy I can't keep calling you slug so we need to get you a name, any suggestions?" He was smart enough to realize that I was trying to change the topic, he didn't look happy about it, but thankfully he didn't press me for answers.

In response to my question of a name he shook his head in the negative. Rubbing my hand on my chin I started to contemplate it, as we set off into the thick forest. "Well you are a steel type slug so it has to be something to do with that," I pondered out loud, as he just nodded along with a look of deep reflection, smiling at my traveling partner's actions I went back to thinking aloud "Anan is like the Latin root for steel, or was it Stakh? I can't remember, either way it's your choice, sound good to you my guy?" His face was still screwed up in thought so I just let him think. The forest was thick and luscious filled to the brim with life and slugs we saw several Fandangos that hopped into the foliage, a flopper that just stared at us in confusion, and a couple of Diggrix, those two quickly disappeared into the earth as they burrowed to get away, but I didn't chase after them. I was a firm believer in the Shane way as I liked to call it, let the slug come to you. This whole world was based around the concept of friendship is legit. So I wasn't going to force any slug to join my team they would come willingly or not at all. There was also the fact that I had a dream team in mind. I hoped my little pal would decide to stick around after we found civilization, if so he would be my main attacker or my heavy hitter, then next on the list was a frostcrawler he would be a terrain builder to make the slug offs that I got into more to my advantage, also I really like ice slugs just a cool guy, third I wanted an arachnet it would be the best one to get us out of sticky situation it would also be an excellent crowd controll, the only other one I for sure needed was a sharp slug something like a makobreaker, thresher, or a dirt urchin, each of them had their advantages the makobreaker would shoot it's own teeth and was able to chomp through steel and other obstacles, the thresher was a powerful slug if common it also had a bite attack that it could use though it wasn't as powerful it made up for it with the other moves that it possessed it's buzzsaw like attack was vicious not to mention throwing saw blades from its tail, the dirt urchin was like a fag-grenade with its underground explosion attack it's midair explosion attack, and it just hitting the opponent as a giant porcupine ball was very good for the team, the other slugs would be for back up or becuse they were cool, not saying the other slugs were worse just that my optimal slugs were these and they would be the first ones I would go for I mean if I could find a slug similar to doc I would be over the moon my only hope for that was because of the goon slug.

A slug call from my shoulder gained my attention it seemed as if my little friend had finally decided on a name. "So what did you decide?" I asked he squeaked at me…

And I realized that I understood nothing of what he was saying. "Okay one squeak for Anan and two squeaks for Stakh," and with one squeak I finally met my first friend in this world Anan.