(A multipart short I’ve whipped together for your reading pleasure. Starting on Halloween and continuing to November 4th. Enjoy, and let me know what you think in the comments, you opinionated reader, you! This here sheds some light on rare topics like: how minions decide what holidays to celebrate, Order’s silly dog, Parvo, and what would happen if Chaos ran a haunted house in a human town.)
I: One Holiday to Rule them All
Yes, that time again— when the leaves array and crinkle, snipping from their gentle homes in the breeze down and away, to go out and adventure. What was born in Spring waited patiently all till Fall, so that it may make its one great journey through the wind.
One such leaf snaps from its strong oak, and it says goodbye to its barkish parent, off to see the world.
Its flight across the ground and through the sharp autumn air only lasts a minute before it smacks into the face of none other than Holiday Event Planner Minion, here-to referred to as simply “Holiday Minion”.
His chaotic blacker-than-pitch antennae curled to the sky like antlers of praise, he lifts the leaf from his glowing eye and lets it fly onward.
“So, as I was saying,” he continues, addressing the group of minions surrounding him and his white board. “There’s a distinct lack of good Non-Chaosday holidays between Summer-Extreme and Kingsday.”
Contrarian Idea-Ruiner Minion crosses his arms skeptically. “Are you actually implying that we need another holiday? As if we don’t have enough?”
“Yes.”
“Yeah!”
“Hell yeah!”
“Obviously,” a slew of surrounding minions respond.
Regrettably, Contrarian Idea-Ruiner Minion forgot that he wasn’t saying this on the Internet; after a quick double take, he runs off into the bushes in embarrassment, making a straight shot for his laptop so he can complain about this self-caused humiliation on his blog with three followers.
“What an absolute commie-nutjob,” Space Defense Minion remarks through his cool space man helmet.
“Don’t mind him, Holiday. The rest of us think it’s a great idea!” Scout Minion says with a nod. “Especially if it involves punching people in the face!” she adds, slamming one tiny fist into a palm.
Raid Minion lifts a hand up for a high five, which she promptly accepts. “Hell yeah!”
“Can it have tasty things in it?” The rather-plump Hyper-Epicurean Minion asks, half-eaten scone in her grip.
Holiday Minion smiles. “W-well yes, I’m sure it can have all sorts of very wonderful things; it’s just not that simple, though. We need to have the idea approved by His Great Festiveness.”
“Eh,” an almost human-height minion lifts a hand in the back, his antennae like straight arrows. “I’m kinda,… new, so I’m curious to know the process— if that’s alright.”
Holiday Minion nods, the pair of little bells on his antler antennae jingling pleasantly. “Of course!… You’re um… oh dear…”
“‘Worry Minion’” he assists.
Bird-Feeding Minion nudges Worry Minion. “You could have asked me, you know.”
“Well, why don’t you explain for us, then,” Holiday Minion requests with a smile, “in case we have more folks that aren’t aware.”
She accepts the challenge and extends her hands in annunciation. “So, it’s more or less a panel every twice a year or so, sometimes less sometimes much more, in which Chaos takes suggestions from the minionry at large for how to improve life here at Towerne.”
“He’s so dreamy and cool!”
“The Overlord cares about us so much, I can hardly contain my gratitude!”
“I like geometric shapes,” ring in three smiling minions simultaneously.
Bird-Feeding Minion nods. “Quite. So minions assemble and present their ideas, but while he’s usually open to the ideas, a successful presenter would need to make it pretty… exciting for him.”
“Exciting?” Worry Minion asks.
“Yes dear, like… like in the case of a new holiday, we would have to decorate, bake, dress up, and actually simulate the holiday for him to properly care about it. Either way he’d probably say yes, but whether he remembers or not is another matter entirely. If we go forward with this, it would have to be a totally exstatic event.”
“Gotcha,” he says with a confirming cross of the arms. “So we gotta hit it out of the park, is what you’re saying.”
“Homerun!” The incredibly specifically-named Baseball-Analogy Minion exclaims with a slick twist of his helmet visor.
“Thanks,” Worry Minion says with a smirk.
“So that said, it should be a baseball holiday!” Baseball-Analogy Minion asserts with a furious swinging motion.
“It’s gotta be an Herbalism Holiday!” Herbalism Minion chimes in.
“POLYGONAL SHAPE HOLIDAY,” you-know-who interjects.
“Raiding and pillaging holiday!”
“Collectible card game holiday!”
“Tea-appreciation holiday!”
“N-now everyon-”
“Fighting holiday!”
“It has to be an eating tasty sweets hol-”
“Swimming Holiday!”
“A piano concert holida-”
“P-please buy my book holid-”
“People, please!”
“Raiding, pillaging, and fighting holiday!”
“Good idea, dude!”
“Hell yeah!”
“Baseball holiday, I’m telling you guys-”
“POLYGONAL SHAPE HOLIDAY.”
“Archery!”
“T-taking naughty pictures!”
“Harvesting my wee- eh. I mean harvesting flowers holiday!”
“WE ARE JUST IMPORTING ONE, FOR THE LOVE OF FUCK YOU ALL!” screams Holiday Minion at his absolute maximum volume.
Everyone takes a short breath.
“B-Couldn’t we have a piano recital in i-”
“No, not unless it would actually improve the mood of the holiday! Holy shit, dudes, are you all fucking real right now?”
“S-sorry Holiday, I just really like fighting,” Scout says with an apologetic squint.
“And I love eating!”
“A-and I love getting free publicity for my novel… Maybe we could make a holiday about that. By the way, you guys should really check it ou-”
“Self-publishing Minion?” Holiday Minion snips.
Self-publishing Minion corrects the ironic glasses on his face. “Y-yes?”
“Stop.”
The scorned minion turns away sharply. “O-okay. Sorry everyone.”
“Okay.”
Holiday Minion takes three long breaths, recites his mantra once or twice, and takes a sip of his Kingsday Peppermint Tea. “O…kay. So!” he restarts, calm and chipper as usual, “I figured we would know a winning holiday if people have been doing it for a long time, and I did some digging. All Hallows Eve is a super cool one; it’s actually the most-celebrated holiday in the Omniverse!”
There’s an awed coo among the group.
“Sounds very nice,” Tea Ceremony Minion says, her long, thin antennae perked up thoughtfully. “So you say hello to everyone you meet?”
“Well that’s gay,” Scout Minion says with a crass smirk.
“Both of you, please!” Holiday Minion requests with a gentle smile. “Allow me to explain. All Hallows Eve is a holiday when you dress up as something totally different, like in a costume— where you become something you like, or something scary!”
“Like Royal Knights?” a minion in the crowd asks among hushed whispers and agreeing nods.
“Exactly!” Holiday Minion points. “It’s a magical night, where children in costumes go about trick or treating— which is a way of getting free candy from old people!”
Hyper-Epicurean Minion gasps. “W-free candy?!”
Token Socialist Minion also jolts in shock. “C-coerced redistribution of capital?!”
Holiday Minion nods with a nervous squint. “P-precisely! They either get candy from the people living in the home, or they play a trick on them.”
Dastardly Traps Minion and General Creep Minion crack their knuckles and lick their jaws. “This’ll be rad,” Dastardly Traps Minion says, sounding exactly the way you would expect a traps-obsessed person to sound.
“Y-yeah. So costumes, trick or treating, and haunted stuff!” Holiday Minion explains; the red-yellow trees above shake with a crawling weight.
“Sounds fun!”
“Like the idea.”
“I like scaring people.”
“Geometric Shapessss,” respond a few minions amidst the briskly-scented fall winds of the woodland tower’s outside grounds.
Holiday Minion nods. “Wonderful! Now let’s come up with some roles for everyone and make sure that everyone is comfortable with what they’ll be doing for the presentation to his Most Festivene-”
With an instant, critical slam, a crazy minion drops down from the branches right onto the stage.
“Wh-” Holiday Minion stumbles back in the flurry of disrupted leaves. “Just who is-”
“Did somebody say, Extreme?!” the heavily scarred, grinning minion yells.
“N-no, nobody said-”
“Well this is about to become the most extreme holiday presentation ever!”
“It’s Super Maniac Minion!” one minion yells.
“Somebody, catch him and put him back in his cage!” calls another.
“His ideas are too dangerous!” cries one more.
“Heh!” Super Maniac Minion crosses his arms with pretentious confidence. “All Hallows Eve? More like All Hallows… sleeve!”
“That’s not even fu-”
“Shut up, dudes. Let me tell you how we’re going to make this the most extreme presentation yet!”
“I-I say, Maniac, you can’t just barge in here and mess up our meeting with your ridiculous pla-”
“Check this out,” Super Maniac Minion asserts, extending his hands out with visionary flair. “Instead of ‘All Hallows Eve’, how about ‘All Hell’s-ow! Eve’!”
There’s a cheer among the crowd. That name is way cooler.
“Whoa, like every hell in existence?”
“That’s so spooky!”
“And people would totally say ‘ow!’ when they experience it!” say three minions from the crowd in uproarious agreement.
“P-please, everyone! Don’t be derailed by-”
“You!” Super Maniac Minion cries with a point down at Baseball-Analogy Minion.
“Me?”
“You can smash the shit out of people in the haunted house display!”
“R-” Baseball-Analogy Minion’s features darken with realized dreams of depraved eldritch violence. “Yeah, I could,” he says, pulling down the visor of his helmet edgily.
“And you!” He points to General Creep Minion.
“Eh?”
“You like tying people up in unsafe places before shaking them down for money, don’t you?”
A hideous grin crosses General Creep Minion’s jaws. “Yeah.”
“As I thought! Turns out I have sweet jobs for everyone! The Head Maniac’s gonna be blown the hell away by what we’re about to sho-”
“Don’t you dare take this from me, Maniac! This is my job!” Holiday Minion bashes his little fists against Super Maniac Minion, but all the days of enjoying peppermint tea and reading comfy Kingsday stories to the very little minions is not the sort of activity that prepares one for a fight with Super Maniac Minion.
“Pffft.” With a single, critical cross of the fist, Super Maniac Minion sends Holiday Minion flying in a spin off the stage— his white infusia twisting through the air before he crashes down into an unconscious, brutalized heap.
“Nerrrrrd,” Super Maniac Minion scoffs before turning back to the now-enthused crowd. “Come on, my bros. Let’s go rescue the other maniacs!”
There’s a silence. It’s considered an act of treason to break minions out of Mintuanamo Bay in the Penal Tower— but Super Maniac Minion has a way with inciting action toward the darker directions.
“You guys don’t wanna be like that jingle-ass goon, do you?”
Silence and negatives from the crowd, ushering him on.
“Hell yeah! So we’re gonna make this the scariest holiday ever! You guys think normal All Hallow’s Eve is scary? Just wait for what I’ve got in store!” He flips a white-scarred hand up like a eureka. “But first I know everyone with the best ideas will all be in that shithole Mintuanamo! Let’s go!” With a crazed leap, Super Maniac Minion executes a stylish flip in the direction of the nearest space gate. In a display that would dishearten The High Overlord, nearly seven tenths of the group actually rush off with him, hooting and cheering with violent excitement.
Watching the maniac and his retinue disappear around the tree-line, Bird-Feeding Minion and Worry Minion exchange a quick glance.
“This is going to end poorly, isn’t it?” Worry Minion asks.
“Yeah, it’s gonna be bad.” Bird-Feeding Minion nods with a relaxed, however displeased look. “Let’s get Holiday back on his feet.”
“Right.”
To be continued in part 2, publishing tomorrow!
Coffee... WRITING!... COFFEE!! 