Veil of Shadows

Chapter 40. Temperamental Enders

"This plan is never going to work!" The general exclaimed as he read the orders from Shadow. "It's suicide! Insanity! A ridiculous waste of time and effort! It will never work!"

"It will work, and it's already been set in motion, so he expects you to follow through with it." Salia said. As she watched the general bluster and rant about what an insane plan it was, she debated slapping him at least four times.

"Just get your men where they need to go, and wait for the signal. How hard can it be?" Salia finally interrupted, and the general glared death itself at her.

"I will not risk the lives of my men in this ridiculous roulette. If Shadow is desperate enough to try something like this, the rebellion has already failed!" The general replied heatedly, then stormed toward the door.

It was pretty much the same response for the other two generals. This was definitely not going as planned.

For a while, Salia paced back and forth, trying to figure out a way to reinforce Shadow's plan. Then the solution came to her in the form of the first general returning to find a medal he had dropped.

When he left, he did so with his medal - but without the badge of rank that marked him as a general. Perhaps it was a drastic action, but there was no choice. The fate of the rebellion was balancing on the edge of a dime.

She pinned the general's badge on the upper left sleeve of her own jacket. If this plan was going to succeed, Salia would have to lead the soldiers herself.

~

"Come again?" Ranger asked, just to make sure she had heard him correctly.

"I came to turn myself in. Thought I might as well save you the trouble of coming to my base. After all, you are the Hero Squad. You'd find a way to get past my defenses, and even if you didn't, you have the entire Minecraftian army backing you up." Shadow repeated.

Wolf was thunderstruck. "You're serious?" She said incredulously, and Shadow turned to her. For split second, an unidentifiable emotion flitted across his face, but it was gone so fast that Wolf was certain she had imagined it.

"Yes. I'm serious. So are you just going to stand there gaping at me, or are you going to actually do something?" Shadow replied with a slight smirk. That sentence seemed to snap the group back to reality.

Almost instantly, Shadow was on the ground with a taut rope binding his hands together.

After they had hauled him to his feet, the group looked at each other as if to say, What now? None of them had thought that the mission would be this simple to complete.

"This is too easy." Toxic said suddenly, making direct eye contact with Shadow. "You have something up your sleeve, I know it."

Shadow stared at her for a moment, then sighed dramatically. "Alright, you caught me." He shifted his sleeve, and a glass calligraphy pen fell out. "Now, I understand that it's a potentially deadly weapon, but-"

"For the love of goodness, drop the sarcastic tone and shut up altogether." Wolf muttered and grabbed the calligraphy pen. "Why do you even have this? You don't seem like the artistic kind of person."

"I'll have you know that I am a huge fan of all kinds of art." Shadow retorted, looking somewhat offended. Wolf just waved a hand dismissively, hardly paying attention to his reply.

"Do you think we can get back to Notch's fortress if we all use our teleporting abilities?" Olivia said. "It might be difficult, since we would need to transport more than one person at once over a long distance."

"Something tells me it might not be that hard." Jaddie answered cryptically, as usual.

"You know what will happen when we return, right? We're practically bringing Shadow to his death." Ranger said quietly, not meeting their eyes. After all, the group had just discovered that she was responsible for demolishing a town.

Ranger wasn't sure that she had any right to put her opinion in just yet, but she did it anyway. From the blank stares she was given, she knew their answer. She pulled the hood of her cloak down and did this thing where she tried to exit reality.

Within a few moments, the members of the Hero Squad who were gifted with teleporting abilities - besides Ranger, who was in no mood to help them - had transported the entire group into the courtyard of Notch's fortress.