Why the Shadow Clan warrior has come to meet me, I don't know. What I do know is that he's stopping me from reaching the hideout.
"Ryuno Shane. Come with me." I follow him, Noodle and Ash shocked into silence. "After today, there is something you must know." With the help of shadow traveling, we reach the Dark Periphery in under ten minutes. The Shadow Clanner holds out a Hypnogrif. I shudder, and the Hypnogrif giggles, its pink eyes spiraling round and round.
"Does it… have to be a Hypnogrif?" The Shadow Clan warrior puts the Hypnogrif on the ground, and lifts up an Enigmo.
"This slug shall suffice." He loads up the Enigmo, and slings it at me.
The Dark Periphery falls away, replaced by a scene in a cavern I've never seen before. The grass is green, and purple trees grow everywhere. I wander through the forest, and eventually come across a small house. The Enigmo on my shoulder seems to be doing a good job of standing up straight, so I go and have a look at the house. A woman who I recognise as my mum comes rushing out, holding a child with a shock of brown hair and tiny horns. A voice I know is my father's echoes through the trees.
"Trix! Get Ryu to the drop, and send Flare to get her up to the surface!" I wonder who Flare is, then a red slug pops its head out of a canister on Trixie's bandolier. It hops up to stand next to young me, and Ryuno (I'll just refer to young me as Ryuno and to now me as myself) laughs. Ash looks at Flare, then back at me and squeaks.
"You're Flare?" Ash nods, then goes back to watching the scene unfold. A slug jumps from a tree, and lands on Eli's shoulder. Trixie carries Ryuno and runs, just as Eli gains a zombie-like appearance. He loads up a Grimmstone and aims at Trixie, but she does a duck and roll and the Grimmstone misses her by a fraction of a millimeter.

I'm jolted back to reality by the Shadow Clanner.
"There is something else that you must know." My pointed ears prick up at this.
"What do you mean?"
"You are supercharged with light energy. This is why you can speak to the Shadow Clan and sense slug energy. However, there are downsides. Too much dark energy would have a devastating effect on you. We do not yet know what will happen."
"Waitaminute. If I'm charged with slug energy, does that mean I'm basically a slug, and therefore transform at velocity?"
"Again, we do not know. What we do know is that you are the first human to have these kinds of powers. Your… draconic features are a side effect of this."
"Can I go now?" The Shadow Clan warrior nods, and in a flash of black light I'm back at the hideout, with a dazed Noodle on one shoulder and an excited Ash on the other. I notice that the Enigmo somehow followed me, so I name her Double, after the way I've heard she makes you see. She squeaks, then topples off my hand and into my lap, waking up the Phosphoro. I name her Nightlight after she simultaneously yawns and starts to snore. Without much to do, I head into the hideout to get some sleep.
When I enter it, Tad is fast asleep on the sofa, so I creep past to get to my room, and I wonder how long I was out for. Nightlight, Ash, Double and Noodle all hop over to one of the slug houses to get some rest. However, after a few minutes of lying down on my bed, I find that I can’t sleep - which is odd considering I was a pig of a sleeper before this.
Too much dark energy would have a devastating effect on you. I wonder what the Shadow Clan guy meant by devastating effect. Sure, I get headaches and shivers whenever I'm around dark energy, but what's the worst that can happen?