They arrived at the qualifying arena, a few platforms of stone above molten lava. The crowd cheered as Shockwire walked down the tall steps confidently while Eli walked down from the other side carefully. Most of the crowd was cheeringwas cheering for Shockwire. Only Pronto, Kord and Trixie were supporting him. Both of them hovered their hands above their blaster, getting ready to fire.

Eli quickly fired a Flopper, which did not transform, and it landed on Shockwire's chest before dropping to the ground.

Eli gave an awkward short laugh. Shockwire inmediately shot a Tazerling at Eli, which he dodged by jumping off the platform to one way below and ran. Shockwire angrily jumped off his platform too and went after Eli. Eli then dogded another Tazerling's Tazerwing attack. He jumped off another platform and put a barrel with another Flopper into the ammo feed. Burpy was waving his hands and trying to get his attention that he should just use it instead.

Eli then fires the Flopper before running aside to avoid getting struck by another Tazerling's Tazerwing attack. Shockwire jumped off and fired another Tazerling. Eli jumped sideways and rolled to dodge it. He fell off the platform and held on with one hand to avoid dropping into the lava below. The Tazerling which had just changed back to a slug looked dizzy but Shockwire put it into a barrel anyway. While he pushed the barrel into the blaster, Eli grabbed on with the other hand.

Eli let go as Shockwire fired. Shockwire kept firing as Eli ran to dodge the Tazerwings.

Eli jumps off the last platform onto the rocks which were partially-submerged in the lava. He jumps from rock to rock as Shockwire continued firing Tazerlings at him. Eli got onto a tall rock and climbed to the top.

The Tazerling in Shockwire's blaster backfired and electrocuted Shockwire instead while in the barrel.

Burpy chirps and nods his head.

Eli fired Burpy at Shockwire. Burpy transformed at velocity and used Flamespire, surrounding Shockwire with spiral rings of flames.

The host was very surprised as Shockwire conceded defeat. Burpy changed back to a slug and landed back onto Eli's hand. The crowd cheers loudly for Eli.

Eli climbs up to the nearest platform, the one Shockwire was on.

He held up a thumbs-up for Burpy. Kord, Trixie and Pronto rushed down to congratulate him.

Kord grabbed Eli and messed his hair excitedly. The host then came over to the group.

He waved over to Shockwire for him to go over.

Shockwire walked over, looking defeated.

Reassuring Kord, Eli walked towards Shockwire.

Only the middle Tazerling looked interested, while the other two showed no interest in Eli.

The center Tazerling jumped out of its barrel and Eli held out his hand. It then happily hopped onto Eli's hand. He patted the Tazerling with his thumb and it enjoyed it.

Joules jumped up excitedly in agreement. Eli held up Burpy with the other hand and introduced it to Joules.

Both slugs shook hands and Joules shocked Burpy as a prank. Burpy smiled awkwardly at Joules when the shock stopped.

He points at a few guys behind who were standing at the spectating area. They looked strong and scary. Eli, Trixie and Kord were worried.

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Meanwhile at Thaddius Blakk's citadel, one of his henchmen, Maurice, walked into his office.

Maurice held out a phone and showed him a video of Eli beating Shockwire.

Blakk took the phone and took a look.

Blakk was referring to slugs which he had altered by corrupting them. He had corrupted hundreds, if not thousands of slugs.