The Unknown Ghoul

Chapter One

The Ghoul name of Whopper belongs to Master-Of-Dreams on DeviantArt. Otherwise, I own the idea for this story. ^^ I sadly, do NOT own Slugterra. :(

"Normal Speech"

"Slug Speech"

/Thoughts, slug or otherwise/

No One's P.o.V.

He didn't have a name.

Of course, most wild slugs didn't have names. At least, not exactly. But the slug equivalent of 'Hey you!' or 'Dude!' probably didn't count now did it?

Either way, he was a normal wild slug before. Not a fancy or rare slug, just a nice and safe Flopper. He really liked being a Flopper too, it was amazing the amount of fun a slug could have if they're pretty much indestructible.

Floppers are always thought to be lazy, but they really aren't. They're the biggest adrenaline junkies in all of Slugterra, even more than normal slugs. If other beings could understand slugs they'd know such a thing as a known fact.

Now, most slugs could understand Slugterran, but there were a few that didn't bother to learn. Most Floppers didn't. Why go through the trouble? Slingers pretty much never chose Floppers for anything.

He was one of the few Floppers that knew it. This put him rather high above his brethren's level in most slug's point of view. He was happy to accept this. Coupled with his overall friendliness and higher than average thirst for adventure (even for a Flopper) he had a ton of friends scattered all over Slugterra. He visited them as often as he could, using the strangest back streets and craziest shortcuts to get places as fast as he could manage.

So it wasn't as much of a surprise as it could have been when a crying teenager and an inconveniently placed cliff side was his downfall.

Cliffs, were not his worst enemy. Every Flopper had rolled down worse, it was practically a rite of passage among them. In this particular case it was a small path on a cliff side, plenty of room for a slug.

Crying teenager on her Mecca beast? Not good. He wasn't scared per'se of slingers, but there'd been some disturbing rumors going around and he did have some sense of self-preservation. The main issue here was: small path + Mecca + slug = not compatible.

The girl was bawling so hard (over what he had no clue) that she didn't even realize that there was a slug on the path too. He intended to grab her Mecca's leg and catch a free ride, but that plan fell apart when the Mecca stumbled from a piece of the cliff breaking off underneath one of its feet.

"Huh?" The girl sniffed and lifted her red eyes when she thought she heard a small squeaking noise from her Mecca's stumble. She stopped it and looked around. When did she get here?! She should really stop riding when distracted... At least this time she didn't fall off anything...

The poor Flopper squealed in joy as he flew through the air. Oh I'm sorry, did I say poor? I meant lucky. This was WAY better than hitching a ride on a Mecca in his opinion!

He continued to fall, ricochet, and bounce off of random objects as he followed gravity. It was extremely fun, but just as he started wondering how he'd get back up he hit something metal instead of earth.

*clang!*

"Yowch," He grumbled, standing up and leaning against the pipe. "Wonder where this leads to?" He thought out loud.

There was an ominous rumble, causing him to look up and start trembling. Without a doubt he hopped down the tube to escape the miniature avalanche he'd inadvertently started.

And then he fell.

...and fell...

...and fell some more...

The pipe went straight down, with no turns or bends. He wasn't sure how long he fell, all he knew was that it was boring! What was the point of falling if you couldn't fall into things and hit stuff?!

...okay, he could admit that most Floppers could be seen as masochistic...

Finally there was a slight bend in the pipe. He had just enough time to realize that there was an opening before he was launched out of it. Being thrown wasn't the issue, it was how the exact moment he came out he faceplanted hard into the edge of a thick container.

He wasn't sure what happened after that, only that he'd been completely disoriented from the blow. He remembered slipping down the side of the container, and then the sensation of falling again...

And then a splash.

Blakk was not stupid.

When he began Ghouling slugs he made sure to take at least one example of every slug species he could get his hands on. Once he Ghouled them, his scientists tested and experimented on them.

Thus he knew the abilities of every Ghoul slug and where to best deploy them. He had, of course, had a Flopper tested on in the early stages of the project.

He'd been fairly excited. Floppers were so useless, surely their Ghoul counterparts were the opposite? That was after all the primary effect of Ghouling: a slug's biggest traits were reversed.

The testing was comprised of scientists examining the Ghoul and performing experiments on it, as well as the Ghoul being fired on a sitting target to document its transformation capabilities.

The Flopper Ghoul, named a Whopper, was in general the most unGhoul-like Ghoul any of them had ever seen. Violent? The thing had tried to cuddle with the scientists for crying out loud! Mindless? It was obvious even to Blakk that the Whopper was easily self-aware and intelligent. The only way it showed its Ghouled state was its changed appearance and that it acted strangely every once in a while.

Blakk was willing to overlook its oddities, if only the Whopper showed promise in the slinging field. He was sorely disappointed.

The Whopper never transformed, just like in its natural state. The only thing that happened was that it flashed a bright light when it should have transformed. Firing it seemed to actually exhaust it, causing it to be even more useless after only a few shots.

Blakk had ordered the Ghoul to be disposed of and the experiment a failure. Floppers were officially completely useless to him, and none of his workers were allowed to use them - Ghouled or otherwise. It was simply a waste.

His mistake was not testing it in an real battle.

The Flopper woke up to extreme pain.

Every fiber of his body burned like acid. He took a small breath and went into a coughing fit as what felt like water got into his lungs.

He lifted his head slightly, antennae waving around sporadically in his disorientation. He was laying in a puddle on concrete floors, large crates and containers around him filled with...

He gasped, choking again. What were they?

Definitely not slugs, or at least not anymore. "Hey, where are we?" He called out weakly to them. He jerked back in surprise when instead of an answer several of them hissed and snarled at him.

/So whatever did that to them must have taken away their minds too.../ He thought. He groaned as he head pounded. Why was he hurting so much and what in the world was making the water stink like that?! He brought a pointed hand up to his the spikes on his head in an effort to alleviate-

...hold it.

Back up there.

Pointed?! Spikes?!

He gulped and slowly looked down to his hand. While slugs didn't have fingers in their protoforms their hands and arms were easily flexible to make up for it. But slug's (and especially Flopper's) hand were NOT SHARP.

His hand was... exactly that. Pointed, almost like a giant claw. What truly worried him was the color. No longer was it a lightly colored green, it was a sickening toxic sludge that had a faint glow to it.

He gaped at it before hauling himself up. He tripped and stumbled over to a spot where the foul-smelling water was deeper. He stared in horror at his reflection, at the terrible changes done to him.

His head angled downwards at a dull point, four long spikes extending down his spine. Where there were previously small dots there were now four thick spikes above his eyes. A pair of dangerous fangs stuck out from his mouth where numerous smaller fangs peeked out from behind his lips. His antennae weren't curved and limp, flopping in random directions. They stood stiffly at a sharp angle and bent further back at the halfway pint to run parallel to the ground. The splashes of color around his eyes and covering his stomach were pointed instead of curved and were a deep and poisonous purple.

His eyes... they were what threw him off completely.

Gone were his wide pupils and light green colors. A pair of fierce black slits stared at him from pools of disgusting brown, strange stripes of black crossing the brown.

"What is this stuff?" He whimpered in horror. It was easy to tell that the creepy water was the cause of it, seeing as once he got a closer look he could see the water swirling with a strange dark light.

"Hey! Look, one got out!" He jerked as a voice sounded above him. He had just enough time to look up before a slug tube was slammed over him.

His first reaction was mental, his subconscious squeed in excitement that he, a Flopper, was in a slug tube! Almost like he was on a slinger's team!

His second reaction was fear, because he did not want to be anywhere near the people who'd made the disgusting water.

His third reaction... wasn't entirely his. It felt like a whole new being inside of him, it snarled and bared his fangs viciously. He shook his head, feeling the presence settle reluctantly into the back of his mind.

"Well, i''s a nasty un a'ight." Another voice was heard. A small board was pushed under the slug tube, forcing him to jump up and become trapped. The presence stirred at his ensuing panic before he forced it back down again.

It seemed to be some sort of living instinct, reacting in response to his emotions. Which was really not good because he was trying very hard to calm down before he had a panic attack.

Ghoul's P.o.V.

"What kind is it?" The human holding my slug tube looked at me curiously through the red glass.

"No clue," Another face joined his.

"Back off!" I huddled into the opposite side of the tube, shaking.

"Nah, Ah take it back. This un ain't mean. Look like ya caught a wimp!" The second face cackled.

"I didn't! I bet this one's stronger than any of yours!" The man boasted.

"Yew don' e'en know what it is!" The second man sneered.

"Well then why don't we learn? I can beat you while I'm at it!" I gulped as I was suddenly loaded into a blaster. What was going on?! This human wasn't serious was he?!

"Ha! Ah'd like ta seeya try!" I whimpered at the sound of another blaster powering up and saw the other man through the tip of the blaster I was in.

"Duel!" Both called out at the same time.

I felt a slight warmth from beneath me and then I was blasted out the nozzle. Time seemed to slow.

I could literally feel my speed increasing bit by bit. Time was pretty much slowed down for me. It was how slugs could pull off their tricks and maneuver so well when fired. Our brains sped up when going at high speeds, making time seem to go slower.

I didn't have much of a choice in what was going on, I was already in the air, so I decided to try and enjoy it. There was a chance...

70...

Everything about me had changed, after all...

80...

Maybe this would too!

90...

Now I was really eager!

95...

Just a little..!

100!

...

"Dangit!" Disappointment filled me when I didn't transform.

But then I hit the other slug.

It was changed too, and had a scary looking set of wings on its arms. I was pretty sure it used to be a Tormato. It snarled at me from midair and the instinct inside me bristled.

When we collided I felt a painful pull. There was a bright flash of light and I only just realized that it was coming from me when pain exploded throughout my body.

Please read and Review to let me know what you guys think of the story so far! ^^