Chapter 23- A Way to Win the War

"Brooklyn!" Matt shouted. "You better have what I asked for ready!"

"Uh…" Drake could hear Brooklyn scampering around below them.

"That's what I thought!" Matt had reached the bottom of the ladder. Drake was right behind him. Brooklyn was frantically searching for something, but he looked up to see Matt.

"Wow, a casualty already? This is more bloody than I thought!" Brooklyn said.

"She isn't dead. Open the door, you moron." Brooklyn grabbed a doorknob that Drake hadn't noticed before and pulled a door open. There were a couple of white cots in the room, as well as some good medical equipment.

"You have a medical center down here?" Drake asked.

"Of course. I knew I might need something like this eventually… whether it was for me or for someone else was a moot point." Matt lay Julie's body on one of the cots. "Ah, that's better. She just needs some rest."

Flynn came in a set Helen's body on another cot. "So, we just leave them here?"

"Yeah. Except if Julie wakes up, we'll take her with us. We need as many experienced people as we can get. And when I say experienced, I mean people who have played a Shadow Game before." He turned towards the door. "Brooklyn! You had better have those things I wanted ready when I get out there." There was a loud and frantic-sounding shuffling outside. Matt smiled evilly and walked out the door. Brooklyn handed him a set of papers. "Damn it, Brooklyn, these are papers on the production of Swiss Cheese in Ireland!"

"Uh…" Brooklyn flipped through a few more papers. "Ah! Here's what you wanted." He handed them to Matt. Matt tossed the other papers over his shoulder and began to read the second set.

"What's that?" Keith asked.

"Some documents on suggested methods for winning this little game."

"Game? Who are you kidding?"

"No one. Everyone in the Shadow Realm thinks of everything as a game." He flipped through the packet. His eye narrowed. "You can't be serious, Brooklyn."

"About what?" Chris looked over Matt's shoulder. "Oh, that. Well, uh, that was the only thing I could think of. What did you have in mind?"

"Well, obviously not that. I thought we could just blow the arches up or something. This is a pretty drastic measure."

"Yeah. I thought so too, and so did S.C.A.N. and D.A.N. But they both said that it was the only way. Otherwise, these creatures could come infinitely."

"Scan and Dan? Who are they?" Keith asked, looking around as though he expected to see someone else in the room. Matt laughed.

"Oh, S.C.A.N. and D.A.N. are the supercomputer programs that me and my buddy wrote."

"Adam?"

"No, another Matt."

"Oh."

"By the way, Matt, what do we have to do?" Drake asked.

"Unfortunately, we have to actually enter the shadow realm to end this."

"WHAT?!?" They all shouted in unison.

"Yeah. Not a fun thing to do. But there is a good thing… at least all those people we 'killed' aren't going to be hurt at all."

"Come again?" Flynn said.

"Well, we have to go to the Shadow Realm, confront whoever is running this scheme, and vaporize him. As it turns out, there is someone or something in the Shadow Realm directing these attacks. Every time we kill a fiend, it doesn't actually die, but it returns to the Shadow Realm, and is reborn there. Every one of them."

"Fantastic. So we're fighting essentially infinite forces?"

"Correct. But! If we kill the mastermind, then his forces cannot come back. Then, we simply break the seal on the vault of souls, and everything is back to normal."

"Hang on, what about the people who we killed while they were possessed?" Drake asked.

"While it's a debatable thing, we…" he gestured to the computers around him and Brooklyn. "…believe that when the undamaged soul returns to the body, even if the body is almost completely destroyed, the body will be restored."

"Oh, good." Drake said. "I'd hate to have to explain all this to the government or something like that."

"I hear you, Drake." Keith said. "Talking to the feds is a right pain."

"Is that all?" Flynn asked.

"No, unfortunately. As some of us maybe guessed, every time we kill a fiend, it becomes smarter. As you saw back in the forest, the fiend reacted better to our tactics than any of his compatriots. And that also means that the intelligent ones will become better at dueling."

"Oh, lovely."

"Yes, it's an annoying problem. Unfortunately, this also presents another problem: if we do get to the mastermind, he can simply surround himself with all of his soldiers, no matter how many we kill, they will simply re-spawn right by him, effectively forming an indestructible barrier between him and us."

"But!" Brooklyn said, glancing down at a paper that had just printed out. "I have discovered a weakness!" Matt looked surprised.

"Wow, Brooklyn, you've actually done something useful for once! What is this mastermind's weakness?" he said.

"He likes to gamble. Just bet something against him in any game and he will accept."

"Ah, gambling. It is a vice I see all the time."

"Of course, he only accepts when the odds are in his favor."

"Naturally. Is that all you've got?"

"Yeah. I'll tell you when and if I get something else."

"Good. Everyone ready?" Everyone nodded. "Alright. That's good. You should always be ready for anything. Let's check on Julie and then we'll get going." They all walked back into the little medical center. Julie was still unconscious, but she was breathing easily and did not appear to be in any pain. Drake looked over at Helen.

"What are we going to do if she wakes up?" Drake asked.

"She can't." Matt said flatly.

"Huh?"

"She hasn't got a soul, Drake." Flynn said. "How can she exist?"
"True, I never thought of it like that." Julie gave a little cough and sat up. She looked around, dazed and confused.

"What happened?" she asked. "Where am I? I thought I was dead… did you guys all die too?" She coughed again and spat up some more blood.

"No, you're not dead." Matt said. "You came off on a the bad end of a Shadow Game, but you survived. Are you feeling okay?"

"Yeah. I feel a little tired, but I should be okay."

"Do you feel well enough to come with us again, fully knowing all that such entails?"

"Yes." She gave another little cough but thankfully did not spit up anymore blood. "Yes, I think I'm ready." She climbed off the cot. Matt smiled again.

"Good. Now we can go end this."