Eli Shane is the series' main protagonist and the current protector of the 99 caverns. Description Eli grew up on the surface, always hoping of the day his father would take him down to Slugterra to become The Shane - a slugslinging hero who protects this amazing underground world from bad guys! When Will Shane goes missing, it's up to Eli to make the drop down to Slugterra alone on his 15th birthday, and learn how to become the greatest slugslinger of all. Despite his young age, his natural ability means Eli is the hottest new slugslinger in town. Personality Eli Shane, (pronounced "Elai"), is generally an optimistic individual. As a teenager, he likes to joke around as well as enjoying to taunt and/or trash talk his enemies, and he is shown a couple times at the Shane Gang's house to be playing video games. He appeared mysterious and secretive about where he came from, but he opened up to the Shane Gang in A Distant Shore deciding that he wouldn't keep secrets from his "family" (the Shane Gang) anymore. Eli rarely thinks about money and seems to have no interest on being rich, as opposed to Pronto. He seems to value his friendships with his friends and Slugs more than money could ever give him. This is shown multiple times throughout the show as well as being directly stated by Kord and Eli that he doesn't really care much for money, no matter how much was offered to him. He is one of the only people to name their Slugs as he gets them, giving them each a unique nickname. Eli is shown to treat them more as a family instead of his ammo as normal people do. His bond with his Slugs makes him refuse to trade them in order to keep them close. As stated frequently throughout the show/slugisodes, almost all Slugs generally like Eli. He is also highly responsible and mature as he is able to care for himself at a young age without much guidance, but he still remains a reckless and adventurous teenager at heart. When Burpy had told him that his father had fallen, Eli didn't look too surprised and took this grave news very maturely for a boy his age, as well as confidently stating that he would go to Slugterra when he was ready. He is wiser than most his age an doesn't see himself as a young boy in an adult's eyes (a self-parenting trait). Although he is reckless and likes to take life-threatening risks, often putting himself and/or others in danger as well (as stated quite clearly at the end of dark as night). Eli is selfless and is willing to help others he doesn't know, as well as occasionally helping his rivals. He has a tendency to blame himself when something happens to people that he can't protect or fails to prevent a catastrophe. Eli considers the Shane Gang his family and is willing to do anything to protect them. He is shown multiple times hanging out with them and caring for each one of his team. When Twist temporarily joined the Shane Gang, he was extremely distraught when he betrayed him, as he thought of Twist like a sibling and equal. Although only interacting with Will Shane in "Return of the Elementals", it was shown that Eli was particularly close to his father, as shown through out the series, as he loved & looked up to him as a hero. Eli and his father promised each other that they would go down together to Slugterra and Slugsling together, but couldn't be upheld, as Will vanished when Eli was ten years old. He is shown to have a strong bond, but he was frustrated that his father always kept secrets from him. He eventually got used to it though, as stated in Inheritance, even though he wasn't "cool" with it. He is aware that his father expects him to do things that no normal teenager is able to do and is often pressured to be a good Slugslinger as he was. As revealed in Into the Shadows, Trixie reveals that Eli never talked about his life on the surface and seemed to much prefer the life down in Slugterra. Eli apparently enjoyed a good life with both his parents, before his father's disappearance and his mother had to leave. This led to Eli developing some abandonment issues and absolving to find a family in his friends and slugs. He states later on in The New Kid Part 2 that he misses his father a lot and wants to see him again. Given his expression as he states how his mother had to leave for unknown reasons, it is implied that he similarly misses her as well and loves her deeply. This probably means that his mother did not wish to leave her child behind, but needed to do something she knew was important. Appearance As a ten year old boy, Eli's hair was much shorter and his bangs hadn't grown yet. He had a baby face and was much shorter. He was briefly seen wearing a black rock star shirt and dark gray pants in The World Beneath Our Feet Part 1 and Part 2 Later on when he went to leave for Slugterra, he also temporarily wore an orange-gray hoodie and a sling bag. As a teenager, Eli has a fairly muscular, yet thin build. Despite so, he is much stronger than he looks. As stated by Shanai, in The Unbeatable Master, Eli was very skinny for his age and that he had "knock-knees" (thin and implied, weak knees). He has blackish-blue hair with long bangs that sometimes obscure the left side of his face. He has blue eyes that light up neon aquamarine when he is hit with Enigmo's power. In his casual Slugslinging outfit, he wears a lightly armored black t-shirt with a star that represents the Shane Gang, as well as a tool belt in which he can attach his Blaster. Eli wears a bandoleer, where he keeps slug barrels which holds his Slugs. He has a fairly small orange backpack that is strapped to his shirt. In his backpack, his Slugs are able to hang out as there is a small resting area for his Slugs when he's not in battle. His backpack also automatically reloads his Slugs from the pack to the jars so he may use it for combat without manually having to find his Slugs. He wears blue and black pants with strong metal-like boots. He wears black gloves that reach up almost to his elbow. As seen in the Inheritance, he seems to sleep with this outfit on as well. These clothes were picked by his father, Will Shane. In Club Slug, Eli is seen to be wearing a light aquamarine swimming shirt, as well as ocean blue swimming shorts while he going down the water slide. In the Slugball, he also wore a Slugball uniform for minimal injury when he was playing the rigorous sport, Slugball. Eli also briefly wore a green-gray hoodie, a sombrero-like hat, and a mustache during the events of King of Sling in order to disguise himself so he could help the King of Sling in battle. Multiple times throughout the show, Eli steals Blakk's goon uniforms to investigate Blakk's HQ unnoticed. Biography Early Life Eli Shane was born and raised up in the surface by his father Will Shane, who told him stories about Slugterra. Being fed this stories everyday, Eli yearned for the day that his father would take him to Slugterra and teach him everything he needed to know. However, disaster struck when his father suddenly went missing when he was 10 years old, leaving him devastated by his loss. Sometime after his father's disappearance, his mother was apparently forced to leave him (according to Eli, his mother had to go somewhere, and never came back), much to Eli's dismay. After the loss of both his parents. Arriving in Slugterra Five years later, Eli manages to get to Slugterra with Burpy, along with the help from the letter from his father. He picked up his first Blaster, as well as his first Mecha-Beast, Lucky when he found where his father had lived in Slugeterra. When checking out his Mecha-Beast, he found Pronto going around for scraps. After a short conversation, Eli recruits Pronto to help him track where to go. Pronto then leads him to a Slugslinging tournament. Along the way, a burglar is seen robbing an innocent man and Eli attempts to help him, but the robber punches him and when he was about to go in for the finishing blow, a girl, named Trixie, helps him. Before Eli could properly thank her, she takes off. Pronto then takes Eli, where they met Trixie again and Kord, who help train him. For the qualifiers, he meets and defeats Shock Wire. In doing so, he gains Joules. Eli then goes to the first cavern for the tournament with Pronto, promising to meet Trixie and Kord there. Eli and Pronto meet up with Trixie and Kord Zane at the first cavern for the tournament. Eli soon gains a good arsenal of Slugs in the process, due to his winning streak. This attracts the attention of a nefarious villain named Dr. Blakk. As Eli keeps winning his battles, Dr. Blakk decides to attempt to recruit him to work for Blakk Industries, but seeing the ghouled slug, Eli declines and tells him that he would get in the way if Blakk ever did anything wrong. Later during the final match, the opponent, John Bull was given ghouls, by Blakk so he could defeat Eli without much trouble. During the battle, Eli quickly gets the upper hand and John Bull hesitates to use the ghoul slug. Eli sends out Burpy and Bull decides to shoot out his Ghoul Slug, which easily takes down Burpy. This also takes down Eli, who is knocked away from the blast. Eli then realizes it was a ghoul slug, but John Bull declines taking one of Eli's Slugs as he wants more Ghoul Slugs. After the battle, Eli reminisces about the time he wanted to go Slugslinging with his father as he will be the one who will mentor him to be the next Shane and laments on the fact that he had to do it alone now. Pronto, along with Kord and Trixie, tell him that he's not alone and they finally form a team, the Shane Gang. Trading Joules Sometime just after Eli was forced to trade Joules to buy new gear and furniture after their hideout was damaged by Blakk's Henchman. They later find out that Joules and a whole shipment of slugs was actually being sold to Blakk and was being taken care of by Blakk's Enforcer El Diablos Nacho. They attempt to free the slugs by hiding in to the room but were confronted by Nacho which resulted in to a fierce battle. Nacho eventually defeated them but later after they headed to Dr. Blakk's Citadel. Eli went to meet with Dr. Blakk personally while Kord, Trixie and Pronto dug a hole in to Blakk's Fortress. At the Meeting Blakk tried to negotiate with Eli for him serving him in exchange for Joules but Joules shocked Blakk giving Eli time to grab him and then Eli engaged in a battle. While Eli fell out of the window, he used Suds so that he was not hurt. Then Blakk also jumped and landed and was backed up by his henchman. Kord, Trixie and Pronto then also jumped out and assisted Eli. Eli then used Burpy to escape. Skills and Abilities Eli is skilled in slug slinging, becoming one of the strongest slug slingers of all Slugterra. He has lasted longer than most people against people that are much stronger than him, such as Dr. Blakk. He has a vast amount of knowledge about Slugs and as his bonds grow stronger with them, his Slugs get stronger too. Since he is a descendant of a Shane, he has inherited his father's ability as a great Slugslinger. He is a critical quick thinker, which often helps him out of dangerous situations. As shown in the battle against Munch, Eli manages to combat and endure many of Munch's vicious attacks using only two helper Slugs, Glimmer and Suds, while his other Slugs were missing and keep himself going against munch for what seemed to have been a few minutes or hours using the environment and slugs to the best of his ability. He is also able to figure out how to use even the most weakest Slugs (such as his Flopper, Noodle) for combat. He occasionally borrows his father's tactics, as seen in Roboslugs when he tries to repeat the same move his father had done. It has also been stated couple times, by heroes and villains alike, that he may have surpassed his father at Slugslinging and at being a Shane. As well as being skilled at being a Slugslinger, Eli seems to be well trained in hand-to-hand combat (possibly taught by his father, friends or through experienc). He is able to take on multiple opponents by himself before being overwhelmed and is seen to be fighting much larger opponents than him, like Munch, Ember, and Black although when he has been picked up by people stronger than him, and is usually unable to break out their grasp without help. He is flexible and able to leap from building to building without too much effort, as well as having a great sense of balance. In addition to being flexible, he also has extremely fast reflexes and can dodge most attacks that are thrown at him, no matter how fast or sudden it is. In Endangered Species, Eli is still able to avoid and attacks by a ruthless Slugslinger, Gerhard Stocker, even though he has heavily impaired vision. He coould still have a sense of what was happening on the battlefield without actually seeing it. Eli has a lot of stamina as he can keep running for a long time without getting too tired and is able to endure attacks that could potentially kill him most as seen in Light as Day when he is blasted through a wall and only coming out with minor injuries (although he took a while to recover from the blast). Other times he takes an attack hit head-on, gets up, and still able to run and/or jump around soon afterwards (usually being helped up first). He and his father were the only people able to use the Shadow talker in order to talk with the Shadow Clan, although the Shadow Clan stated that Will was never able to use the full potential of the device. Eli at first had a painful headache when he put it on and nearly lost his mind, but he learned to adjust and is able to now wear the shadow talker for however long he wants to with no pain at all. He is also the only person known other than Will Shane and Jimmo Shane, to be able to read using the Shane Code at ease without any aid of technology or another person. Trivia Although Eli's birth date is unknown, in The Slug Run, he states that he has started riding a Mecha-Beast sometime in January, so it is possible that his birthday is in January because he left the Surface a day after his birthday (as said in The World Beneath Our Feet Part 1) Eli is one of the only few Slugslingers in the show to name their Slugs. LK-E (Lucky) is his first and favourite Mecha-Beast. Eli has owned two blasters so far. His previous blaster broke because his Slugs were getting too powerful and he currently uses Defender Slipstream XVL, which is his favourite Blaster. But as seen in Slugterra: Eastern Caverns, he occasionally uses a Wrist Blaster like Junjie. Eli is the only other person other than Shanai that can perform a Fusion Shot. He is the owner of the only Double Barrel upgrade in existence, so his blaster is the only one that is currently operating and can do a Fusion Shot. (Shanai's was broken by Eli accidentally, and could only do Fusion Shots when broken into 2 separate blasters) He had a great uncle who was succeeded by his father before him. It was revealed in The Return that Eli owns an unnamed Geoshard. He also has an unnamed Flaringo that was seen in a few Slugisodes and an unnamed Rammstone which some people thought was Bludgeon. He and the Shane Gang were the first to use Megamorphs. Eli was the first person to shoot a Slug that can Mega Morph and use an Accelerator that didn't Mega Morph ghoul slugs. (Burpy was the first normal slug to be shot out of a blaster and Mega Morph with and without an accelerator) Eli is one of the two Shane Gang members to have their exact age stated, the second is Tad. On the website, it is stated that Eli's favorite Slugs are Burpy, Joules and Doc, although in the TV show, Eli treats all his Slugs equally and fairly, regardless of their skill and abilities. Eli's name has been often mistaken as a nickname for "Elijah" and "Elliot", but Nerd Corps had confirmed that Eli isn't a nickname. It is possible that Eli knew about the Deep Caverns and the Darkbane before the episode What Lies Beneath, from the episode A Distant Shore when he was telling his friends about The Drop. In Slug It Out, Eli has black eyes instead of blue eyes. Young Eli has the guitar shirt from the concept art. It is revealed in Slugterra: Into the Shadows, Eli's mother had to leave him for reasons unknown when he was 10 and he went to live with his uncle, Jimmo Shane. This is unlike the answer given by the Slugterra official Facebook page a long time ago, which once said that Eli had departed from the surface on good terms with his mother, knowing what he had to do. Also in the same page, was said that his mother probably threw an amazing 15th birthday party for him. At the end of Slugterra: Into the Shadows, Eli officially turns 16. Will left him a hologram that he pre-recorded for his son as a 16th birthday present.