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I thought that being on a vacation would make me write less. It turns out when I can't sleep because of time zones and weird mattresses, I do a lot of writing.

Cw: blood, violence, pain

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Mumbo's pov

Mumbo woke up to find everyone else except Scar and Grian already awake. He got out of bed, rolled up his sleeping bag, and walked outside to where the others were. Xisuma was giving people bonemeal to grow carrots.

Mumbo took a few good handfuls of the powder and began growing carrots on a block of dirt until he had enough for the day.

About 30 minutes after Mumbo woke up, Grian and Scar came out of their shelter. Scar still looked two thirds asleep.

"You two are up late. Did you not sleep well last night?" Xisuma asked.

Scar and Grian exchanged a glance. "We both didn't get to sleep until pretty late," Grian yawned. They both ate breakfast. Scar did his daily spells so that he could walk. Everyone began packing up.

"What was the not sleeping thing about? I'm assuming there's more to the story," Mumbo said. He was helping take down the shelter walls.

"Oh, um, nothing really. Scar and I just talked a little after you all were asleep," Grian answered. He quickly glanced over at the edge of the island.

"What about?"

"Uh, nothing important," Grian said quickly. Mumbo decided not to pry anymore.

Everyone helped pack up, and after an hour or so, they were ready to head out. Tango and False distributed the ender pearls they had gathered.

The seven continued their journey.

By the middle of the second day, they had gotten about half the way to the Entity. The group stopped for a break.

They were all sitting on the hard end stone ground, except for Pearl and Grian, who were laying on the ground starfish style.

Suddenly, an enderman attacked them.

False sprung up and drew her sword. It went right through the enderman. "What the heck? I just stabbed it! It should be dead! Why isn't my sword working?"

Xisuma got up too and swong his axe. Just like False's sword, it went straight through. Grian was looking at it with an expression of confusion and concern. The ender man kept hitting X and False. 

They must be on low health. What can I do, what can I do?

Thinking fast, Mumbo placed down the water bucket. The enderman quickly died.

"What the Notch was that?" Xisuma asked. He and False both ate to heal up. "It almost killed me!"

Grian sat up and answered, "That was no normal enderman. Its eyes were cyan. It looked like it was made of smoke."

"It must have been an enderman being controlled by the Entity," Mumbo said.

"Well, at least it didn't teleport away from the water, so we can use that," Tango said. After that, everyone kept a water bucket within a moment's reach at all times.

Xisuma's pov

The group gathered a few more ender pearls and headed off.

More possessed enderman kept attacking them. The attacks were getting more and more common the closer the seven got to the Entity, and the shadowmen, as Pearl had started calling them, were getting more and more powerful.

Tango's pov

Tango had decided that shadowmen were his new least favorite mob. Okay, so what if they're technically possessed endermen? They don't behave like endermen do. 

And they were annoying to kill. The closer they got, the more health they seemed to have and the more damage they did.

The red-eyed man was helping set up the camp when a haunting of the shadowmen charged Pearl, X, and him. They all dumped their water buckets at their feet. The shadowmen kept coming, and they weren't dying.

"They should be dead by now! What aren't they dead?" Pearl shouted, spalshing some of the water on the shadowmen closest to her. "Die you stupid things!"

One managed to hit Tango. It knocked him out of the water and down to two hearts. "Yikes, I'm almost dead!" he exclaimed as he jumped into the water. He scrambled back as a shadowmen loomed over him. Tango's back hit the wall of the shelter they had been working on. 

I'm dead I'm dead I'm dead!

Tango raised his arms, bracing for the fatal blow. None came.

Slowly he lowered his arms and looked. In the place of where the shadowman had been standing was Xisuma with an empty water bucket. X offered him a hand and helped him up.

"Thank you," Tango said. He was in shock.

"No problem. There's one left," the admin replied. He pointed at Pearl who was having an extreme splash fight with the shadowman.

The shadowman was at least four yards tall. Its smoke was slightly red and it's eyes were glowing light headlights.

After a few more seconds, Pearl killed it. The shadowman dissipated. A small cyan orb floated up and shattered in an explosion that sent Pearl flying back.

The sound hit Tango like a train. It sounded like the distorted screams of a thousand people being tortured. The shard's landing each sounded like a nail on a chalkboard. Tango jammed his fingers into his ears. 

"Make it stop!" he screamed. He fell on his knees, crying. It just didn't end. The noise of a symphony of out of tune piccolos and oboes playing their highest notes joined the cacophony. Tango jammed his fingers in harder to no avail.

He glanced up to see that Pearl and Xisuma were doing no better. Xisuma had ripped his helmet off and was pressing his hands so hard against his head he might crush it. Pearl was curled up in a little ball where she had landed with her fingers stuffed in her ears.

Suddenly, the sound shut off. Cautiously, Tango pulled his fingers out of his ears and stood up. There was blood on his fingertips from shoving them into his ears so hard.

Xisuma and Pearl both stood up. They all walked over to where the shadowman had been.

Xisuma's pov

Xisuma picked up his helmet from where he had thrown it and examined it. The visor was cracked. He sighed. He didn't have the supplies to fix it here.

Pearl's pov

Pearl looked at Xisuma. This was the first time she had ever seen him without his helmet.

He had scars all over his face. The scars were green and were glowing faintly. The admin's short, messy hair was dark brown with a slight bluish tint. One of his glowing eyes was a bright green, and the other was a deep night blue.

"The visor's broken," Xisuma said, "I don't have any glass to fix it with, so wearing it won't do me much good," he sighed slightly, as if preparing to be shoved off the edge, "This is what my face looks like." He gestured to his face and then looked down at the ground.

Pearl didn't know how to react. Luckily, Tango took care of that for her.

"Well, it's nice to be able to see your face," Tango said.

"Yeah," Pearl added.

Xisuma's pov

X smiled slightly. "Well, anyways, we should probably finish setting up camp," X said as he set down his helmet. His shoulders loosened and he let out a breath he had been holding.

That went well. They don't hate me!

The three finished building their makeshift shelter and went to talk to the others.

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I don't want this to be a bajillion words long, so the chapter ends here.

*Enters fourth wall door*

Hello

*Stares into your soul and reads your thoughts*

Also, sorry for the delay. I was going to post this three days ago, but I kept procrastinating on editing.

     -Meep

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