III: The Spooky Few
“This is a disaster!” Holiday Minion cries, crunched up and holding his head down by his antler antennae. “If His Great Festiveness thinks it was my idea to let out the Meanion Gang, it’ll be me in Mintuanamo with them!”
“Probably way worse, dude,” Scout Minion adds with a shrug. “He’d probably take ya’ straight to the Minion Wa-”
Scout Minion’s simultaneously shoved by Bird-Feeding Minion as Holiday Minion lets out a shriek.
“No, please! You’re lying!”
Scout scoffs. “Well, he’s done it for smaller things is all I’m sayi-”
“I’m doomed! Absolutely doo-” his voice is muffled, pushing his face into his little knees.
“Hey now,” Bird-Feeding Minion says with a light smile. “I think he’ll understand. We just need to explain it to hi-”
“Does that really work?” Worry Minion asks with his usual bland, critical tone— so typical of him even when he was a human. “Like, isn’t the other thing he’s known for being, besides powerful, is… well, crazy?”
“Forgetful,” Bird-Feeding Minion corrects with a gentle tone but a stern gaze. “Be careful how you talk about him, dear.”
Worry Minion crosses his arms. “Right, sure. That said, it’s still a risk to bring it up with… oh.” Looking over the treeline, he notices a certain someone approaching.
“What?” Bird-Feeding Minion asks, just as Scout Minion’s antennae flick straight up in realization.
“Poppi!”
From around the redwood grove, High Overlord Chaos, the so-called merciless destroyer of planets and civilizations, steps forward daintily with tea-cups in hand alongside Mushroom Minion. The mid-height minion, despite having some fairly suggestive-looking antennae that only half of those that look upon them assume to be mushrooms, is quite a nice fellow and definitely one of the more pleasant of The Overlord’s “children”.
“Why, hello there my wonderful dreglings,” Chaos greets with a smile before sneaking a quick sip of pine-needle tea. “What could be all this I am hearing of The Penal Tower’s failure?”
Three of the four stutter in surprise a moment, one falling to his knees and one giving a long bow, but Scout Minion has a gift when it comes to appreciating the unique graces of his Overwhelming Destructiveness.
“Yeah, Super Maniac Mini-”
“D-don’t tell him!” Holiday Minion squeaks in despair.
His Intangible Enigmaticness grins wide. “I am well aware you wish to add a new holiday to our roster, but the celebration of fear and magical culture is simply not an appropriate object for our admiration.”
“Wh- but Poppi, don’t you use magic like, all the time?”
“And don’t you strike fear into the hearts of your enemies?” ask Scout Minion and Bird-Feeding Minion respectively.
Chaos hums, and it’s not so clear if it’s a pleased hum. “Magic is a necessary tool; it is not a good, though it can be used for such. I am not one to celebrate my weaponry, whatever form it may take. On the second count, I am certainly worthy of praise, but not in that I am feared. To be loved is preferable, and I feel it would be poor form to give anyone reason to feel otherwise.”
There’s a pause from the minions.
“Poppi, you’re like…” Scout Minion sighs. “Never mind.”
“Well, that may be,” Bird-Feeding Minion says, “but you do like… spooky things, sir, don’t you?”
Chaos draws back with collected poise at his underling’s words, “Why yes, I suppose I do.”
“And you like scaring the shit out of the Royal Blights, am I right?” a rather-loose voice screeches off somewhere in the distance.
The group looks to see none other than Super Maniac Minion and his retinue of crazed fellows, all high as a kite on the Halloween spirit and raring to lay down the scares on some unsuspecting humans.
Holiday Minion sighs hopelessly as the gang rushes forward to the little school-house glade.
“Ahh, why if it isn’t our little criminals and their band of merry tagalongs.”
“Yeah, ya’ fat nerd!” Bites Off Way More Than He Can Chew Minion jeers out from the group, staring down The Overlord with fearless, clueless confidence.
Everyone turns to look at Bites Off Minion, and then to their dark master, who is trying his best to figure out if it was a joke.
“Well that is no way to greet your overlord,” Chaos says beside a positively seething Scout Minion.
“More like ‘growupverlord!’ heh!”
This is the last thing Bites Off Way More Than He Can Chew Minion says today before Scout Minion casts his face across the grass with a single, decimating punch— knocking him out-cold for at least a two days.
“As if you could even speak to Poppi!” she exclaims, shaking her victim’s white infusia off of her fist.
Chaos in most states of mind is the heavy-handed sort— an administrator of some of the most unforgettable diplomacies— so he finds this altogether quite pleasing.
“Why, well done, Pout Minion! How dare he speak to me? The Nerve of i-”
“Th-that’s Scout Minion, Poppi.”
He looks at her with a frozen expression of quaint pleasure. “Truly? I am quite certain you are Pout Minion.”
Scout Minion stares forward blandly for a second. “R-right, Poppi. Sorry, I forgot.”
He grins with clueless glee, overshadowing his immense intelligence. “Ahh, well there you have it.”
“N-no problem, sir,” she steps into a combative, shinobi-like stance. “Now let’s clean up these criminions and get our holiday!”
Chaos looks at her with all the clueless certainty of a senile grandfather. “Now why would we do something like that?”
“Wh-”
There’s a silence among everyone. The original plan of the criminals to beat the shit out of Chaos and demand the construction of a theme park tower while also politely asking for All Hells-Ow! Eve seems so far away now. Super Maniac Minion should never have listened to Terrible Plan Minion.
“I was under the impression that they wanted to make a new holiday, just like you.”
“Y-yes,” Scout Minion says, “but they’re all crazy! They broke out of the Penal Tower and have been beating up anyone trying to stop them!”
Chaos hums, and glances over to the group of criminals and their squad of normal minions, now all quite concerned about being slammed right behind bars. “We have a Penal Tower?” Chaos asks.
Again, a pause from all those shorter than him, which is everyone.
“Yes, Poppi. We… you know, criminals go there? Most of these dudes are wrong-doers.”
“Ahh, but who is to say what is right and wrong in the first place?” Chaos asks with a relaxed grin.
The criminal minions chime in with rapid-fire speed.
“I do!”
“The offended does!”
“Those w-without sides!”
“My fists!”
“Drugs.”
“Shut up!” Scout Minion barks at the others. “Look, Poppi,” she looks back to him with a desperate glare. “You can’t just let them run around like this! They’ll cause trouble. They’re complete nerds!”
The Overlord laughs whole-heartedly before crouching down to lessen their considerable height difference. “My dear, do not worry yourself with the actions of those so different than you. If they want to pitch their idea before going back to their little cells then that should be just fine,” he explains before looking back to the mob. “Alright, now tell me what you want.”
Super Maniac Minion jumps forward at the chance to save himself and his crew— mostly himself in truth, but you can’t always have perfect leaders. “We’re gonna make the scariest holiday ever!”
Chaos squints an eye. “So are you both lobbying for the same holiday?” he inquests, looking between the two formations of minionry with intrigue.
Holiday Minion pops up with a fresh wind of willpower. “No, sir! They want a flippant, foolish holiday that won’t even spare a thought to its proper cultural heritage an-”
“-aaaaaame,” Super Maniac Minion interrupts. In fact, he has been breathing out the word “lame” since the very second Holiday Minion took in a breath to voice his concern. Gaining everyone’s attention with his incredibly rude display, he clears his throat.
“Yo, Overlord. Royal Knights are dumb, we can all agree, and so is drinking coffee-”
“Hey!” Coffee Drinker Minion, among the most reviled and rejected of them all for his stubborn insistence on his beverage of choice, squeaks.
“Ooh, sorry, dude— but coffee is pretty lame.” Super Maniac turns back to Chaos, along with everyone else nodding with varying forms of agreement. “That said, if you really wanna get those no-class dingle boys good, you’ll heed my advice and hear me out!”
“No!” Holiday Minion yells at the highest pitch of his lungs. “This is ridiculous! I have never gotten to make a holiday! It’s always been my dream! I’ve been preparing for this for years! And to think you could just… just come up here and-”
“-aaaaaaaaame,” again Super Maniac Minion’s high-volume insult overpowers Holiday Minion’s squeak of a voice. “Hang it up, antler boy, we both know you’re not cool enough to make a real holiday.”
“A real holiday?! Just what would you know about real holidays?”
“Eh, for one thing they’re not fuckin’ gay.” Super Maniac Minion raises up his hands mockingly “Whew pumpkin spice latte whewwww whew whew whewwww-”
Holiday Minion’s bells jostle furiously upon his antlers. “Shut up!”
“Time to go to the store and buy some plastic bats for my lawwwwwn-”
“Shut up shut up shut up!”
“I guess it’s time to drop some stupid taffy into the bags of these stupid kids!”
“Shutupshutupshutu-”
“~GuEsS I’lL JuSt dResS uP lIkE a VaMpIrE aNd cOmPlAiN aBoUt PoLiTics WhIlE StuFFinG mY FacE wItH-”
“I believe I understand the situation now,” Chaos says, stopping the banter with a single, calm phrase.
The two snap their heads to look for The Overlord’s approval, and then he continues.
“It’s clear both of you want to enjoy two different sides of what may indeed be the same holiday.”
“N- no way!”
“For once I guess I agree with jingleass. We don’t want the same holiday, because his version… is stupid.”
Chaos crosses his arms, and the grin across his face makes an obvious declaration to all around him that he has a true, overlordly scheme, far beyond their dregling-level comprehensions. “Oh yes. Those Knights will not have a single flying clue as to what hit them.” He lurches forward with animalistic, and yet god-like intensity. “When does this holiday usually take place?”
“October thirty first by Omniverse calendar, sir, so that would hit around Greshert the fifteenth here,” Holiday Minion responds with nervous tone.
“Then our lot is set,” The Tower-Ruler speaks with a dark, certain tone. The day after tomorrow, we will strike!” With an expectedly powerful laugh, he fills the woods with his triumphant cries.
Cheers abound, but none could have known as to what depths The Overlord has planned at this moment.
– Tune in tomorrow for part four! –
Coffee... WRITING!... COFFEE!! 