All Hell-Ows! Eve (Complete)

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 separately.

Bird-Feeding Minion nods, taking a quick pause to toss some feed to a set of exotic birds. “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 ecstatic 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 ever!”

“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-ow’s! 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! I know they got some lit ideas for this!”

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 no! 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.”

II: The Rather Not-so-bad Penal Tower

In only minutes, Super Maniac Minion takes his minion rabble across the realms to the infamous Penal Tower— where all the worst minions do hard time under the watchful eye of Corrective Administrator Minion.

The shoals of the bay glisten in welcome to the crew, who make land through the portal and rush off immediately to the storage sector.

“So, what’s the plan of attack?” a more-than-a-little excited Scout Minion asks, running alongside her temporary leader.

“Easy!” He yells with next to no volume control. “There’s at least twenty ways I thought of already, but most simple would be to go through storage, hit up the cafeteria, and funnel them all out after one of Saltpeter and Sulfur Minion’s explosions!”

“Wh- me?” The exceptionally poor-smelling Saltpeter and Sulfur Minion asks, looking up from his dense book on chemistry,  which he has been running with because there’s simply not enough time in the day to appreciate sulfur’s wondrous chemical properties otherwise.

“Yeah, dude!”

“I’ve never made an explosion in my life— except for that one time I mixed my saltpeter and sulfur at seventy-five and fifteen to a ten of charcoal,” he explains, uneasily shuffling the pack of nothing but saltpeter and sulfur upon his shoulders.

“That’s… really specific,” Scout Minion notes.

Super Maniac Minion looks back as they get to the side of the great gray tower’s cargo entrance.

“Forestry Minion,” he starts.

The tall, dark, and handsome Forestry Minion looks down to his leader. “How are you, Super Maniac?”

“I need some charcoal.”

Forestry Minion pulls out a small piece he often uses as a chalk. “Here, but why would-”

Super Maniac Minion snatches it out of Forestry Minion’s hand, and shoves his other hand into Saltpeter and Sulfur Minion’s pack.

“H-hey! Who said you could take my-”

“Tell me something cool about saltpeter, my dude,” Super Maniac Minion suggests, pulling out the right ingredients and mashing them up crudely in his hands.

Like a magic spell, Saltpeter and Sulfur Minion’s face lights up. “Oh! Did you know that back in the old days, saltpeter was made by putting horse manure into a barrel, peeing into it, and then filling that up with water? It’s true! I would do it myself but I can’t really pee because, well you know— but I’ve been able to get Drug-Test Minion’s help because he has so many sampl-”

“Wow,” Super Maniac Minion responds. “That’s super interesting, thanks,” he adds, lifting the crude mixture into his cupped hands. With everyone else watching, he sets the powdered mixture onto the enchanted lock which guards the interior of the tower, and looks over to Pyromancer Hell Minion— who ironically enough was both a hellish pyromancer in his previous life, and recruited into Chaos’ minionry from an actual hell dimension for pyromancers.

“It is something I can burn,” he states, small, scary eyes peering out from his hood.

“Do it!” Super Maniac Minion shouts.

With a quick, arcane word and flick of the hand, Pyromancer Hell Minion conjures a mystic flame at the point of the lock, causing a loud, antennae-shaking bang.

“He doesn’t even need a damn costume!” Super Maniac Minion declares, when the explosion blows past the actually quite-sturdy lock and sends the door flying open. The enchanted lock is entirely unharmed, but the door it was holding onto is quite gone.

The dust settles, and at the other side is none other than Prison Guard Minion— three times larger than the biggest minion in the group, and naturally with a great disgust for dirty, holiday-crazed lowlifes.

“Well well well,” his gruff voice reverberates in a very Chaos-like fashion, “I suppose we have some more…” he takes a deep breath, “degenerate scum wanting to join in the fun, eh?”

With a cremungiony, rather cute gait, Super Maniac Minion steps forward with his arms crossed and his back curled forward. “Well well well,” he mocks with a wry grin, “looks like this weenie boy here wants to know why we’re knocking! You better step aside or we’re gonna have to rough you up. This is a prisonbreak!”

Prison Guard Minion leans forward, his imposing frame casting a shadow over even Forestry Minion. His officer cap’s shiny Chaos-head emblem blinds the group when it gets into the sunlight. “I think that’s a perfect application to Mintuanamo Bay. Welcome!”

Super Maniac Minion steps aside to reveal the one minion behind him: Scout Minion. “Get this fool!”

She mutters in confusion just as Prison Guard Minion starts back in shock, turning tail at the sight of her.

“Wait, so you didn’t tell me I’d have to beat up minions on the job, dude.”

“Wh- Why is that important?”

“Well, Poppi gave them that job. Don’t you think it would be kinda wrong to-”

“Hey, you can’t be laming me out, kiddo,” Super Maniac Minion notes with a hop into the tower. “We all know Master Insanity ain’t got enough time to perfect all his rules.” He pats Scout Minion gently on the head, the large mob of minions passing by into the depths of the Penal Tower. “Rise above,” he says before turning into the recesses himself.

Scout huffs. “I’m telling you. If Poppi personally gave one of us a job I’m pretty sure he knows what he’s doing-”

“Blee blows blut bees booing,” he mocks with an insipid grin. “Trust me, I got plans that’ll blow his mind way outta this world.”

The group is moving fast, talking at a typical volume and stress, though they’re all going at Olympian speeds through the corridor.

“You gotta respect Poppi, my dude. Don’t you hear what happened to eh… Subspace… Observation something… Minion?”

He scoffs as they arrive at the back tunnel’s section for the cafeteria. “Time Keeping Minion—”

“Twelve fifty-eight,” the many-watch-having Time Keeping MInion says with a dry tone.

“Wh- I didn’t even ask you for the ti-”

“What the hell else do you people talk to me for?” He mutters grumpily, about as pouty and cute as a minion can be.

The Maniac looks aside in awkward surprise. “Uh, sorry, dude. I didn’t kno-”

“No one does. Let’s just get on with it,” he adds with a snippy inflection that Super Maniac Minion would expect to fit more with Teenage Drama Minion than anyone else.

He shrugs. It’s not like Time Keeping Minion is good for anything other than keeping time anyway.

“So lunch should be going on already,” Super Maniac Minion notes, peering through the solid concrete and into the mess hall. The group looks with him to see a few dozen minions sitting about in agonizing comfort as they enjoy only slightly-lower-quality food cooked by Prison Cooking Minion— who is basically a nasty, scarred up version of Cooking Minion, with a shady past and thick Eastern European accent despite it still being so squeaky and cute.

“Ready, Professional Asset Acquisition Minion?” Super Maniac asks, looking aside to address him with a gaze fiery in excitement.

A thick-helmeted minion in the group wearing an E.O.D. suit comes up from the tunnel and sets a breaching charge into the wall and backs up. “Ready.” Professional Asset Acquisition Minion confirms with a calculated, gravelly tone.

“Hell did you come from?”

“Wait, we had explosives this whole time?”

“B-but my saltpeter and sulfur!” A few of the minions respond to the activity just as the steady, ready beeping of the charge ticks down in time. The group backs up, and with another, much bigger explosion, half of the floor to the cafeteria collapses into the service tunnels below.

The prisoner minions, driven half crazy from listening to pre-recorded readings of philosophy and encouragement provided by Overlord Chaos, look at the voided floor like news of winning the Towerne Lottery.

“What’s this?” Chemistry Minion asks, her tattered lab-coat draped over her bench and folding as she stretches to look over her table to the hole.

“It’s Super Maniac! He’s here to break us out!” Flower Minion exclaims, slamming her little hands upon her table.

“B-but the hole, it’s not circular,” the hand-cuffed Circular Shape Enthusiast Minion says with a truly demented tone, layer upon layer of zero-sided insanity bearing upon his tormented psyche.

“The shape doesn’t matter you dumbass, let’s get outta here!” Angry Ex-Hobo Minion yells, throwing his tray of fillet mignon and double-cooked mashed potatoes up into the air before dashing through the hole.

The whistles blow and the klaxons blare as the escapees join the mob and start out at a crazed sprint.

“I’m pretty sure this is totally illegal!” Scout Minion accuses with a wide gaze.

“Shut up Scout,” Super Maniac Minion spits back, his running form both hilarious and weirdly effective.

The group reaches the outside of the tower, and there he is— the infamous Corrective Administrator Minion.

He adjusts the brim of his officer’s hat as he oversees the group running out to meet him.

“I thought I might find you all here,” he says with a calm tone, his hands confidently drawn behind his back like a superior, pretentious commander. “Just what do you think you’re doing?”

“We’re gonna stick it to those clueless holiday nerds and make the greatest, scariest, deadliest holiday of all!” Super Maniac Minion shouts with an enthused glare.

Corrective Administrator Minion looks over the group, including Scout Minion, and smirks. “No, in fact you’re all going to come with me to processing, and I’ll see you all to your rooms.”

“N-no!” shouts one escapee.

“We’re not doing anything wrong!” shouts another.

“The rooms aren’t even circular!” another screams with violent indignation.

“Do or die time, Scout. Get this paper-pushing weenie-bitch!” Super Maniac Minion commands with an encouraging point.

Scout stares Corrective Administrator Minion square in the face, and she doesn’t see anyone other than Chaos.

“No.”

“Wh-” The mob of minions jolts in surprise alongside Super Maniac Minion. “What are you saying?!”

“This is wrong,” she turns for the space gate. “See ya.”

“Y-you can’t go! You’d be depriving The Head Maniac of the greatest holiday ever!”

“Not if it means breaking crimmies out of prison, dude. See you freaks later.” That’s the last thing she says before reaching the space gate and heading off to elsewhere in Towerne.

Super Maniac Minion scoffs, shrugs, and finally looses a confident, if shaken, “Heh!” “Who needs that dumb nerd anyway?”

“We do! Hell we gonna do against Corrective Administrator Minion?!” Shouts one of the criminions.

“Pffft, don’t worry, guys! It’s just one of him. What’s he gonna d-”

Super Maniac Minion stops himself, seeing an extra pissed-looking Prison Guard Minion emerge from the hallway into the tower.

Some among the group begin to scream and dash about in horror, some burying themselves in the sandy swampwater mix.

“We’re doomed!”

“Don’t hurt us!”

“Why do you guys hate the holidays so much?” screech a trio of the terrified underlings.

Corrective Administrator Minion steps forward with Prison Guard Minion coming in at the other side. “I don’t hate the holidays, but I do hate criminals that use them as an excuse. Do you not appreciate Seneca?”

“No!”

“He’s boring!”

“He doesn’t even have a degree!” Resound three of the minions.

With a click and a decisive *thwip*, Corrective Administrator Minion draws his baton. “That simply goes to say you have much to learn from him, now line up!”

Amidst the panic, Super Maniac Minion turns to the two minions that, past Scout Minion, he knows can get them out of this bind.

“Hey, Geometric Stuff.”

Polygonal Shape Enthusiast Minion glances over. “What do you ne-”

“Pretty sure Circle Guy’s binds aren’t geometrical.”

They both look over to Circle Enthusiast Minion’s chains, and then look back at one another with nigh-theological gazes. “Yes, I agree. However simply because it is not geometrical does not warrant its dislike. It may be objectively inferior to the symmetrical glory of the geometri-”

“Also, they hate octagons.”

“What.”

In an instant, Polygonal Shape Enthusiast Minion, straining along with Circular Shape Enthusiast Minion, tears open the shackles with a rending, powerful snap.

Super Maniac Minion looks at the two with a smug grin. “Hey dudes.”

“Yes?”

“Ci-circles— I mean, yes?” the two respond.

He reaches down into the dirt and starts packing down a ball of wet sand. “Did you hear that Corrective Administrator Minion hates shapes in general?”

“No, I was not awa-”

“He hates… c-c-circlies?!”

Super Maniac Minion tosses the spherical ball of sand at Corrective Administrator Minion who, with nary a blink, slices his baton through the projectile, obliterating it into particles.

Circular Shape Enthusiast Minion screeches with primal fury as he rushes his little body forward for the kill. He lunges forward to the prison warden, biting at his heels with the strength of a hundred bears.

Polygonal Shape Enthusiast Minion just shrugs. “I don’t see why this would concern me. It’s not really as though-”

“The ball was made out of sand,” Super Maniac Minion notes.

“Yes, and why would that be pertina-”

“Sand grains are geometric shapes.”

“…My god, and that… lunatic just smashed into them, perhaps separating them into even finer grains… some of which might not…” he seethes in confused disbelief, “-might not be geometric!”

Like a bolt, he slams brutally into Corrective Administrator Minion, and with their uneasy alliance forged in pure hatred revealed, the two shape enthusiasts make concerningly-short work of Corrective Administrator and Prison Guard Minions, thought of by most to be among The Overlord’s strongest.

Super Maniac Minion just laughs, always pleased at how easily-manipulated the two shape enthusiast minions are.

“We did it!” Shouts one minion that actually didn’t do anything.

“We’re saved!” Exclaims another that literally just had her head in the sand two seconds ago.

An uproarious cheer meets the dimensional heroes, rising up above the white-splattered unconscious bodies of the two orderly minions.

“Their shapes… have been scraped,” Polygonal Shape Enthusiast Minion says in a grim tone, standing beside his no-sided counterpart, who is convulsing on the ground in delirious excitement.

“Hell yeah!” Super Maniac Minion shouts, raising a victorious black fist into the air. “Now back to the hideout. We’re about to make holiday history!”

He leads the charge back to the space gate, his retinue of festive lunatics dashing on with feverish anticipation.

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  from both of his cups 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 from what they see as sheer irony.

“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 More Than He Can Chew 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 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’re 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, secret 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 Hell-Ow!’s Eve seems so far away now. Super Maniac Minion should never have listened to Terrible Plan Minion, no matter how good he said his plans might be.

“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 a 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.

IV: The Powerful Awaiting Dread

It is now Greshert the fifteenth.

She had awoken with a start this morning— that immense, arcane pressure of a magic signature weighing down on her like a black-white mountain of grinning evil.

Royal Knight Order is sitting alongside her thirteenth cup of coffee today, mixed lazily with an edge of scotch as she maintains her perpetual stupor of wry, depressed hopelessness on her couch. Parvo, always small and dumb, is in full-relaxation mode beside her thigh as he sprawls out with a limp, pink tongue lulled before him. He is clueless to the feeling— but then again, so are most lifeforms. She’ll be ready for him, just like she’s ready for everyone else. On her other thigh is the dimensional sheath for Monument, a sword that can strike down a fortress with a single brush. Only its handle protrudes, inviting her grip to draw out the immense majesty of its Starlendic power— but not yet.

She sits quietly, listening to her clock tick away next to the piano across the room. She’s just feeling, waiting, making herself a still pond in preparation for a movement by The Overlord— as she has been biding for the whole of the morning, working her way through one drink after another. He’s so close, its palpable; she can practically taste his icy-black menthol fingers attempting to separate her heart from her chest even now. The matter is that it’s not just from a single direction, but from all around her. In every direction she can feel the chaotic essence pulsing— surely a ruse to catch her off-guard.

Releasing long, readied breaths, she finally decides to rise with one hand on Monument’s handle and take the initiative.  She’s been waiting on guard for hours, and it’s really getting to her now. Chaos does tend to stay quiet for no more than a minute before reaching his destination— but for hours? Her ancient opponent must be especially determined this time.

Order walks across in her dainty white nightgown with the profile of a breeze- she hasn’t had enough time to change, considering he could attack at any time— not that people would mind, really; it’s fitting for an old lady like her, even if she looks no older than thirty.

With a few subdued spells, she extends her sight outward, risking getting caught unawares from up close, but expanding her overall field of view. She magically feels her way through her house, then outside, and finally, she feels them— not it, not one, but many. In her mystically-extended perception, she can feel at least three… perhaps four dozen infestees… but no infestor. Chaos isn’t among his minions. He must have sent them to go do something stupid as hell, and of course none of the authorities have caught on. Her town: Frau is so completely out of the way of the main roads, after all; it has no significant economy, fort, or resource. Who but Chaos would think to attack this town, and who but Order would be expected to be the right person for the job of defending it?

She sighs, shakes her head, and under the gaze of a curious Parvo, she exits her house without a noise. It’s cloudy today, so she doesn’t much mind.

“Wh-there!” a squeaky voice yells out from one of her hydrangea bushes.

“Where?” calls another bush.

“Dude, the door!”

“Oh, wow she’s quiet as fu-”

“Raise the alarm!”

“Okay,” She hears a deep breath. “AHHHHH!”

“Dude, with your antennae!”

“Oh, well they know anywa-”

“So does she! Sunnovabi-”

“Afternoon,” Order says, peering around the bush.

Comic Relief Crony Minion stares up at her, his crooked antennae startling straight up at the sight of The High Overlord’s greatest enemy.

“W-… well afternoon there, ma’am! Just eh,” he looks nervously to the other bush, where Voyeurism Minion is waiting with his camera, “we’re here to check your… ducts.”

Order, a long, crass smile across her face, leans down with a cute, pre-school teacher-like squat. “Oh, my ducts?”

“Y-…” Comic Relief Crony Minion looks aside at her house, there are no ducts to be seen. “Yes?”

With a super-sonic slap, Order smacks off the Minion’s head, sending him soaring back fifty meters before collapsing pathetically in a heap onto her roof. Of course, the strike being unenchanted, it’s only a matter of time before his head finds its way back to his stupid body and recomposes to reform his good, old, incompetent self. Order finds their practical immortality to also double as a fun gag over the years; what a precious, slapstick existence they all must live, she thinks.

“Let me know what you find,” she coos using a parental snideness quite unlike her usual.

With a sigh, Order gets up and turns around to the bush on her right side. Her steps, usually professional and unassuming, have gained that infamous mix of forward volition and cattiness quite unique to her— like a lumberjack walking up to pick a petty fight with someone, simultaneously humorous and intimidating, simultaneously masculine and feminine. At times like this she can be allowed a little leniency in expression; she has very little patience for Chaos and his minions, after all.

“W-hey, lady, look— we were just-” he tugs nervously on his camera strap, its SD card filled to the brim with unsavory pictures for the sake of blackmail and personal research. “Just gaining an… insurance estimate on your house.”

She draws forward. “And why would you be doing that?”

His grin is trembling in perfect tandem with his body. “…To find out… how you… lost your ducts, ma’-”

Voyeurism Minion receives a kick Order usually reserves only for Chaos— though with the cold spill of white infusia across her foot, it feels close enough. The minion and his camera are utterly projected across her house’s white-brick siding, reducing him to a glowing smear of minion-matter and electronics.

Without even a scratch on her ultra-fortified ankle, she continues barefoot around her house, where she catches out more minions.

There’s a part of her that’s glad she’s alone, as she’d probably have to go through all the effort of arresting them if other knights were around to watch; just kicking the shit out of them until they leave is way easier– it’s less paperwork.

Making a full lap around her house, she locates and dispatches Stealth Minion, Jumpscare Minion, Overly-Enthusiastic Ninja Minion, Chainsaw Battle Minion, Isn’t Sure Where He’s Supposed To Be Minion— and finally Topiary Minion who, before he was found out, was spending his time quite helpfully improving the shapes of her bushes with his hedge clippers. She lets him off with a warning instead of disintegrating his face like the others; they’re not all bad, and that’s usually what makes it hardest for her.

She can feel the chaotic presence around her diminishing now, like a spiritual cacophony of insects chirping in a deep, black wood. They’re becoming quieter, and she can soon pick out the direction of where it’s heaviest. Now that the magical atmosphere has cleared up, she can feel it clearly; there’s a much, much bigger magical signature down the way, and she has no doubt its where most of the minions are. This must have been only a distraction for the main event.

With a blink-fast push, she flies down the street through Frau’s high-income quarter, past three blocks— only to find a line of people, all eagerly waiting for their turn to enter what looks to be a massive curtain of darkness.

The Masteress of Light just stares on in dumbfounded stupidity. Why the hell would they be channeling a magic darkness over a house lot in the middle of her town?

“Do you know what’s going on here?” she asks to an older gentleman at the back of the line.

He shrugs. “Who can say, but it looks thrilling.”

“It’s a haunted house adventure,” the middle-aged woman in front of him says with a snide, expecting tone. “Apparently its all the rage in high omniverse society these days, so clearly its worth your time,” she adds in a way that makes Order want to slap her.

“Well, why would they be doing that here?” Order asks with a mute expression, though her eye color is turning steadily redder.

The woman guffaws with a put-on poise. “You longevai have no sense of what’s current! Clearly they’re doing it to culturally-enrich our society! They’re heroes!”

Order’s expression possesses the sort of knowing blandness that a tired god must look down upon humanity with. She knows she probably deserves this kind of treatment; it’s what she gets for spending all hours of her day in her house when she’s not at work. Dealing with the pretensions of human society gets pretty tiring if she has to make good impressions every generation— over and over and over again; dealing with the same putrid egos, but simply under different names and faces.

“Right,” she responds, “well I’m going to take a look ahead.” She starts forward, passing the old man and the lady, who instantly huffs with incredulous shock.

“You’ll what? Now just who do you think you-”

“Seeth’Eya,” Order says to herself. At once, the woman jolts back along with the elder man. Being a knight and a paragon of virtue is great and all, but she’s found over her later years that her skills as a witch are of better use. Playing fair with humans is perfectly laudable, until you’re old enough to figure out that the rules don’t really apply to you.

As the woman demands that Order show herself, she walks alongside the hour and a half-long line. She can see it would be unbearable if it weren’t for Tea Ceremony Minion serving cups alongside Kale Benefits Minion, who is passing along his disgusting vegetable concoctions on the sheer principle of them being free for people waiting in line. Order rolls her eyes, and puts forth every effort not to trip Kale Benefits Minion as she passes by; he can see her with her spell, after all, though the common public cannot.

Order marches all the way up past Definitely A Human Minion— who is just tall and clothed enough to pass by as a really cute-looking foreigner— and she moves in through the black, midnight-blessed curtain under the lazy cloudy sky of the afternoon.

Instantly, she sees what is hidden.

Aglow with neon decorations, windy sound effects, the meowing and howling of night creatures and more, is what appears to be a replica of her house. It’s not quite her house, however; the arches are painted in a nightmarish fashion, and its front columns are graffitied like a modern art piece. It’s to this house that the line of excited haunt-goers lead, small groups of one to three being let through at a time.

“Like it?” a squeaky, smart-voiced minion calls behind her.

She looks aside to see none other than Dimensionomancy Infrastructure Minion, one of Chaos’ very rarest. He only has part of his body visible as if in a constant state of dimensional flux, which most would find mysterious, but she’s well aware that he’s at work in multiple places at once on a regular basis. He’s much busier than her, and it kind of makes her feel bad to be less hard-working than one of Chaos’ stereotypically lazy minions. In fact, if he weren’t a minion, she’d look to make him a Royal Knight in a heartbeat— considering dimensioncraft is among the most difficult and sophisticated magics, and definitely the most valued magical school overall; even she has trouble with it.

It’s a strange dynamic for her, being able to collapse a dragon’s skull with a single punch, but still getting intimidated by this short nerd.

“Oh, it’s you,” she says. “Yeah, so what the hell is this, exactly?”

Only at the height of her shoulder, he smiles. “His Head Dimensionlessness thought it appropriate to have an appropriately-scary setting for his very first haunted house.”

She smirks. “Sure, but why here?”

He laughs. “Why not?”

Her smirk curls crassly. “Okay, I get it.”

“I’m sorry, but he was quite opinionated about it.”

“It’s okay. You can’t not do your job I guess.”

“Suppose not. It was a joy to do as well. It’s always nice to love your line of work.”

“Work sucks.”

He chuckles. “How long has it been, seven thousand ye-”

“Almost.”

“And you still haven’t learned to love your work?”

“Dealing with you assholes? No.”

Dimensionomancy Infrastructure Minion shrugs. “That’s not unreasonable, but it is unreasonable to yourself.”

“Yeah? Let me guess: I should just grin and learn to love it.”

He grins. “I think so, at least. I’m not as old as you. Perhaps there’s a lot to be said ab-”

“Trick or Treeeee-”

Orchard Minion, dressed up in a sheet from one of his apple crates, receives a kick from Order so devastating that it propels him out of the intersecting dimension and back into Frau.

“H-he was trying to get candy, you know.” Dimensionomancy Infrastructure Minion says with a parental mix of concern and crossness.

It makes her stomach churn that a minion can take that tone with her and get away with it. She sighs before replying: “What?”

“This is for All Hallows’ Eve!”

Her features sharpen. “That pagan holiday?”

“If that’s how you want to see it. It is a celebration after all, so I suppose you get to decide how you get to enjoy it, don’t you?” He says in his typically blasé, rather charming manner.

She scoffs. “Sure. Well this has been cute, but you need to get these people out of here and collapse the dimension, or Rayda help me I’m going to slam your-” She glances aside to gauge his expression, only to find him gone.

“Enjoy yourself~” he says, the last vestiges of his presence disappearing.

With a bitter, tired grumpiness she crosses her arms. She’s going to have to find the realm seal and do it herself. She’s aware that Dimensionomancy Infrastructure Minion is too busy to be tied down to one realm, so it’s probably placed somewhere inside the house. It should be just as simple as finding the seal and breaking it; then, like a gently-pricked balloon, the realm should start to lose coherence— to the point that the people and minions should just spill out due to lack of space. She’s not all that hot at crafting dimensions, but she certainly knows how to fold them back.

Order starts forward with a trot up to the front of the door; none other than Royal Knight Justice is near the head of the line.

“Ch-chief?” Justice asks, readjusting the reindeer-themed wool scarf on his neck. Of course he could see her, being magically skilled enough, and of course he would be dense enough to get tricked into something like this.

Order just looks at him. “…Really?”

“Wow, I’m so glad you’re alright! I thought you were having another one of your episodes!” he says, jumping out of line and embracing her.

She sighs. “I’m fine, but why are you here?”

He reaches into his autumn vest and pulls out a letter. “Don’t you remember? You invited me over!”

“No I didn’t.” She snaps the letter from his grip, unfolding it quickly to read:

– – –

Ey Justice,

O shit I got alllll dis fukkin coffe n I need some1 to drink it w/me. B a doll n help me th fuk out~

Thank

Ordz

– – –

Following at the margins of the letter is a surprisingly-good cartoon illustration of her dying underneath a massive pile of coffee cans— her eyes exed out comically with her tongue hanging out, and for some reason there’s also Parvo doing a radical skateboard kickflip over the mountain of ground roast.

Order looks up with a hopeless gaze, taking her time before looking back to Justice, who winces.

“I thought you were drunk!” he explains with a nervous tone as the people in the line look at him strangely for talking to someone they can neither see nor hear.

Order takes a deep, deep breath, and folds back the letter. “I don’t write like that.”

“Well, sorry chief but the handwriting was really on-key! But I will admit I was suspicious. You can’t draw nearly this well.”

She unfolds it again just to peek; it is really really close to her handwriting, especially her drunk handwriting. It must have been Forgery Minion, that devious arse.

“Well either way we need to close this dimension down. The seal’s probably inside.”

“So we gotta get inside and find it!”

“Yup. Come on.”

Order leads Justice all the way up to the front door of the fake, haunted version of her house, where Holiday Minion is dressed up like an undertaker. Of course, seeing only Justice step past everyone makes the line’s constituents more than a little indignant.

“Miss and mister,” Holiday Minion starts, “would you both please wait in line and wait your-”

To the line, it looks as though Holiday Minion’s head just projects into the porch by an unknown force— with the door mysteriously opening to let Justice in afterward. The door shuts, and the invisible Order and warm Justice enter the haunted abode.

V: Utter, Absolute Horror

Order cancels her cloaking spell once they’re inside. It’s not like she’ll have to deal with the line anymore.

“Chief, that was murder!” Justice exclaims with a cross tone.

“Minions don’t deserve anything else.”

“Wh-” his face pales. “That was a minion?!”

She doesn’t say anything in response to that, because there is no possible outcome she could produce in which it would not turn into a snide insult. The blood was very obviously not blood, but infusia. The minion is in fact not dead, but wonderfully asleep; like a free trial of death, and something Order wishes she could have more of.

“Come on, let’s find the…” she looks around the house’s foyer, a slim lie to her own place— just slightly, barely different. In fact, the lighting and colorations are so thoughtfully accurate she would have easily mistaken it for her own house if she didn’t know better.

“Whoa, this is spooky,” Justice says, looking around. “Where’s Parvo?”

“This isn’t my house, Justice.”

There’s a pause, and he squints in troubled thought. “…Wait, it’s not?”

“…Why would there be a line of people leading up to my house, let in by minions?”

“… I just thought they all wanted your help. I know it’s a lot of work being The Lord Knight General and a-”

“Are you fu-” She skews her words with a sharp breath. “Okay, let’s just… split up and-”

“No way, Chief! Don’t you know splitting up in a weird house is a bad idea?”

She squints miserably. “Uh, no. It’s efficient because we can find the seal faster.”

“B-” he looks aside nervously. “What if there’s something scary in h-”

“You have got to be joking.”

“No like, isn’t it weird? All this build up to find a normal room? There’s got to be something wr-” Justice stops himself as a slight creak groans from upstairs. “…what was that?”

Order sighs, finally giving in. “Let’s go find out,” she says with her sarcasm knob turned up so high that it’s practically indistinguishable from her regular speech.

Justice brightens up with a determined demeanor. “A-alright, Chief! Wow, you’re brave!”

“Yup.”

The two start up the stairs, and the lighting begins to darken with every step. For a haunt made by a bunch of stupid minions, she has to admit that the dread build up is pretty effective; she almost feels like she’s in actual danger.

“Wh- the lights? What’s going on?” Justice whimpers, readying his hand to cast a single spell that could level the entire house. He’s one of those people one might meet in their professional life whose talents and skill set do not in any way match their personality. In fact, Justice is probably among the most powerful magicians in The Knights— if he could only get his head out of his ass for a single second. Order’s not big for recommendations of bravado, but she thinks he is one of the few exceptions of a man that actually needs more of an ego.

The two reach the top of the steps into the second-floor hallway. The lighting turns a faint red, and the silence is deafening as the two look around: Justice with a worried, alert gaze and Order like she just walked out of the dive bar at three A.M..

“Pretty sure it came from that room over there,” he says, nodding forward to what would be her bedroom.

Order knows what she has to do, but she doesn’t want to go in there. In fact, she’s steadily losing the willpower to do anything at all today, because she’s starting to realize that this isn’t an attempt for her life— rather she’s seeing that its just another one of The Overlord’s stupid bullshit pranks. If the public knew how many times the infamous Slayer of Billions had acted upon his inner insanity and done nothing more than pose as a thorn in her side, his public image would be far less fearsome. Why, for every time Chaos and Order crossed their epic weaponry, there had to be at least ten instances of petty, stupid schemes— like opening boxes of moths in her house to eat her clothes, or having one of his minions sign her address up for every single newsletter subscription in The Omniverse. She winces in disgust, remembering the one time she had Meeo over and she accidentally saw an issue of Naughty Minotaur Magazine sticking out of her over-stuffed mailbox.

She sighs, nods, and leads the way forward into the suspicious room.

It’s another faithful reproduction— but this time her bedroom is covered in embarrassing sets of underwear; how tasteful of Chaos to have done this, she thinks.

“W-whoa, that’s very inappropriate!” Justice exclaims like a social service announcer.

“Those ar-”

“Are those yours?” Justice asks with a worried glare, quickly assuming that Chaos’ Minions have been invading her drawers for some reason.

“No,” she says bluntly.

“Well,” he looks again, entering the room and taking a knee as he inspects them closer. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. The animal patterns are really cute; that’s totally not your style– and now that I look at it the cup size is way too big for y-.”

“Please stop,” she says with a quick, bland tone, rubbing her face tiredly.

He looks back with an innocent, focused curiosity. “Stop what, Chief?”

She smiles to herself. “Nevermind.”

“What is it?”

“Nothing,” she insists.

It’s not nothing, of course.

“Well,” he gets up to his feet, “these are definitely not yours. I’m pretty sure you’re right and this isn’t your house.”

Her smile grows. “Oh, excellent. Now we know for sure.”

“Yeah, that’s a relief, because if it was your house that means they’d have gotten past your barriers.”

“Yeah, that would be a serious problem,” she agrees.

He nods. “No sign of what made that noise, though.”

Suddenly, the nearest closet door explodes to reveal Super Maniac Minion with a plastic-mold cleaver, dressed up crudely as a royal knight.

“PAY YOUR TAXES!”

“Chief look ou-” before Justice can finish his warning, Order kicks Super Maniac Minion into the wall so hard, that it makes a deep impression within its surface as his infusia is splattered across it like a fly.

“Whoa!” Justice exclaims.

“Asshole bitch,” Order whispers under her breath.

“What was that, Chief?”

“Nothing. The seal’s not here, so let’s go.”

No sooner does she turn to exit the room then does the door across the hall creak open, leading to the upstairs bathroom.

“Whoa, it must be another minion!” Justice explains.

Order just smiles and nods as they cross the hallway and go to the bathroom, because by this point why not?

The lighting is warm and safe-feeling in the bathroom, with a thick steam surrounding them in a pleasant jasmine aroma. The magic shower is on, pouring down a warm rain behind the tub’s curtain.

Justice’s expression becomes fierce. “I think someone’s taking a shower, but why?”

Order clenches her teeth in frustration at his almost monumental stupidity. “I don’t think it matters, dude. It’s just another scare. They want us to pull up the curtain and then it’ll be something creepy.”

He draws back with a hurt look. “Wait, but that would be an indecent action. What if it’s a person behind there? That would be super inappropriate!”

“We are inside a- haunted- house,” she says, giving extreme, pausing emphases to hopefully make it more clear for Justice.

His expression doesn’t change. “Does that make it okay to violate the privacy of another person?”

She smiles and nods at him, her brows raised with unlimited sass. “Oh, you’re right. Well let’s just skip this one.”

“I think that would be the right thing to do, Cheif. Most people would feel uncomfortable if we were to look at them while they were nake-”

The lights click out. This of course would be scary to most people, but for the two of them it’s absolutely nothing. They can see in the dark.

“Huh, the lights,” Justice notes with the tone of a far-off observer, as if none of this were threatening now that he knows for sure that this isn’t really Order’s house.

Order’s smile has gained the sort of grandmotherly sweetness one does when she looks at playing schoolchildren, so full of hope and naivete. “Yup.”

The shower stops, leaving the only sound as a steady, eerie drip of water. Then, like an anticipating horror, the curtain starts to shift; Order steps toward the shower.

Audio Distraction Minion gives a disturbing smile from within the depths— but it turns to a face of pure terror when he sees Order waiting on the other side. With another single, swift kick, she smashes him across the wall to match his cohorts, like a fresh coat of paint.

“Ch-chief! Cover your eyes!”

“It’s gone now. Just another minion trying to scare us.”

“Oh! It is another minion?”

“Yes, it was, look,” she nods over to the wall, covered in the obvious, plain-as-day, glowing gore of the quite disassembled Audio Distraction Minion.

“…Oh, I thought it was like, the lighting or something. We’re learning more and more about this mystery!”

She laughs. “Did you even listen to what the people outside were talking about?”

“Huh? Well of course! It’s a knight’s duty to remain abreast of current situations!”

“And what were they talking about?”

“Some nonsense about a haunted house for fun. No doubt some sinful indulgence by the clueless masses. Who would want to get scared for entertainment?”

Order smiles sweetly once more, soaking with sarcasm. “Ahh, yeah that sounds pretty messed up.”

He nods. “Some people just don’t know what’s really happening in their souls, I guess. They just live their lives clueless from one day to the next. They need things like those diversions to fill the emptiness in their hearts, I bet.”

Order just nods, leading out back into the hall, and then to the guest room. “Yeah, some people are pretty clueless, a few shockingly so.”

There’s Surprise Party Planner Minion wrapped up like a mummy, moaning for brains— and Order slams her into mush too.

“Yeah,” Justice says with a wince, “kind of like alcohol, you know?”

She grins, recalling that he still hasn’t realized even after all these thousands of years. “Everyone needs something,” she says.

They swing back into the hall where they meet Cosplay Minion dressed up like some stupid anime character. He also gets the foot, and he also explodes from the resulting force.

“Maybe so,” Justice muses, “but I think the strength of will and positive attitude can overcome any obstacle!”

Again, she nods. It must be nice to have a simple life like Knight Justice, she thinks.

The two go through room after room, scare after scare, minion after minion, from the second floor back to the first, and then all the way through that. Order smacks Raid Minion, dressed up as a pretty princess, square across the chest in her kitchen, his sweet red face-paint and tutu drowned in the flood of white blood that covers him and the wall behind him. She destroys Circular Shape Enthusiast Minion who, dressed up as a giant red ball, left his scare point and instead went about collecting as many spherical objects as he could find. She even ran into Polygonal Shape Enthusiast Minion, and she decided to send him on his way, because he asked her very politely if she had seen some stupid hexagon he lost somewhere in the house. He was dressed up in a surprisingly-good recreation of Reinish regalia for some reason – she would have expected a tesseract or something like that.

The duo go all the way across the home until finally, after fifteen minutes of searching, there’s a scream from below— sounding playful more than anything, but a scream none-the-less.

“The basement!” Justice exclaims with a concerned whisper.

Order just rolls her eyes and steps around to the basement stairs. This must be the spooky finale.

The two go down the steps with a confident pace, mostly due to Order not slowing down for anything now, and just slamming minions wherever she can find them.

Into the dark of the basement-turned-laboratory, none other than Knight Love is strapped to an operation table— a sinister machine looming over her head. Its producing a slow, warm drip of pumpkin-spice latte; truly this a machine of torture devised in the very darkest minds of the lowest hell.

“M-” Order spits in surprise. “Meeo?!”

Coffee Drinker Minion, dressed in a mad scientist getup, jumps over to a lever. “Aha! You’ll be next!”

But she’s not next of course, because she vaporizes Coffee Drinker Minion’s skull with a single, instant hit— splattering his caffeinated infusia out across the basement— only to regenerate over a matter of hours, possibly days, with that amount of damage— she doesn’t much care.

“A-oh my, hiya there, Ran,” Love says with a nervous smile. “You weren’t supposed to hurt them, you know. You did sign the safety waiver, didn’t y-”

“What are you doing here?!” Order demands, tearing off the binds that are in fact just for show.

“Oh, well I was invited to be a victim in the haunted house— and I thought it would be fun.”

“With Chaos and his minions?”

Love sits up from the table, her operational garment soaked with fragrant, wonderful coffee. “Well you can’t very well say no to Request Minion, can you?”

Justice draws back in shock. “You were working with the forces of evil?!”

Order and Love exchange a quick glance before looking to address Justice. “N-no, sorry. I was kidnapped and then forced to sign a waiver to have coffee,” Love says with raised brows and a motherly smile; she knows he’s too one-track to get it.

“B-but why would they feed you coffee?”

Her smile gains a pitying twinge. “Because they think that’s scary,” she says.

There’s a pause as Justice looks down to the ground to search his soul. “Yeah… I guess they would find coffee pretty scary.”

Order sighs. “Okay, great, but…” She takes a slight pause for another slow, calming breath. “Do you know where the dimensional seal is?”

Love moves the dangling drip feed of the coffee to her mouth for a quick sip before replying. “Mmm! Mhmm. Its over here, behind the cabinet.”

Justice hums at the large piece of furniture. “Huh, looks pretty heav-”

“Ch’Ak,” Order casts, easily bypassing ninety-five percent of the incantation thanks to her myriad years of practice.

The cabinet explodes, and everything around the cabinet explodes, which includes the dimensional seal.

Instantly, the reality of the house begins to falter, the painting and shapes collapsing into a camera obscura of silhouettes and colors.

“Let’s go,” Order states.

“Lead the way,” Love says with a calm, if concerned smile.

Third in line up the stairs, Justice averts his gaze from Love’s backside as he ascends the steps behind her; it’s a backless gown.

The three make their way to the door at a prompt pace, the colors running from everything around them like a wet painting. Justice does the gentlemanly thing in their short amount of time, however, and pulls a coat from the rack and offers it to Love for the sake of proper decency.

“Oh, why thank you, but to be honest the breeze is kind of n-” Love stops herself, seeing Justice’s completely void expression. She takes the coat and puts it on. “Why, how considerate!”

Justice grins with radiant positivity. “My pleasure!” The two turn to Order, who is just watching the two exchanging pleasantries in a folding dimension.

“Are you two for real?”

“Public decency is important! Knight Love’s honor would be insulted if she were to be seen like that!”

Order and Love pass a knowing, almost embarrassed glance.

Order sighs with a smirk. “Right, well we don’t have time for this. Let’s get out of he-”

“Not so fast, nerd birds!” A peppy, energetic voice shouts.

The three swing to look at the door, to find none other than Scout Minion, dressed up as a kunoichi with her hands in the shape of one of those nerdy double-sigils that only a few of the most dejected of magicians are prone to using.

“Wait, what are you supposed to be?” Love asks with a tilt of the head.

“Wh- a ninja! And now you’ve come to die!”

“Ninjas aren’t really scary,” Order says with crossed arms. “Get out of the way.”

Scout Minion enters a combat stance while moving her hands about in more sigilic movements. “Nin nin!”

“What’s it saying, chief?” Justice asks.

“It’s just some stupid bullshit that ninjas say.”

“Nin!” Scout replies with a sharp enthusiasm.

“Well, I did warn you,” Order says with a done-with-it-all smirk.

“Toh-ninja-noh-jutsu!” Scout yells, disappearing into a puff of smoke and reappearing as a dozen Scout Minion copies, surrounding the three with their little tanto knives drawn out.

“This is so fucking dumb,” Order mutters.

“What’s that, chief?”

“It’s annoying,” she corrects, just as Scout Minion’s copies leap forward, but leaving enough room for the three to slowly get away.

Order just crosses her arms and waits. The ninjas do a bunch of crazy-threatening tricks, like backflips, knife catches and false starts, but ultimately they stay at bay.

“W-well? Run!” the Scout Minions say indignantly with loose, almost puppet-like movements.

Order just shakes her head gently as Love does her best to mock concern for the fun of it.

“Oh no! Ran, we’re surrounded! We need to go this way into the ki-”

“No.”

“Aww, but it’s fun.”

Justice is on pins and needles from the sight of all the minions, but he still has enough clarity to respond to Love. “There’s nothing fun about the minions of the High Overlord, Knight Love! We need to think about how we’re going to get past them, quick, or we’re going to be sliced and diced unt-”

Order’s seconds-long “giving a damn” timer clicks to zero again, and just propels her foot into Scout’s real body, concealed inside the wall to the side. At once, all the “copies”, the puppets, fall flat.

“Wow, chief! How did you know?”

“The wall was snickering,” she says plainly, her foot shaking vigorously to get the minion off. “Now let’s go.”

With the reality steadily collapsing about them, the group exits the house to see the minions leading everyone away in an emergency evacuation. It’s perfectly safe to get folded over in an intersecting dimension like this, but the thought of waiting around to see what it feels like isn’t an appealing idea to all the poor humans that thought they were going to have a good time. In a victorious, bored march, Order takes the two knights out from the dimension, and back into the town of Frau. They’re not greeted by the gentle cloudy sky of one P.M., but the lunatic moonlight of the late evening.

All around them is an orchestra of screams, cackles, and the occasional “trick or treat”. Mobs of minions are going door to door, asking for candy, and beating the shit out of anyone that dares open their door empty-handed. The sad thing here is that almost no one has candy lying about, because Halloween doesn’t exist in their dimension. House by house is looted of their goods, all under the minion songs of All Hell-Ow’s! Eve.

“…Well, this looks rather spooky,” Love observes with a smile.

“Wh-how did time pass so fast?” Justice demands in outward shock.

Order just shakes her head. Of course Dimensionomancy Infrastructure Minion would make time pass more quickly in haunted house dimension. “Chaos actually held an entire holiday… in my town,” she says matter-of-factly.

“That’s kind of an honor if you think about it,” Love says with a sweet smile, taking a witch hat from Costumer Minion and placing it atop her pillow of hair. No sooner does the witch hat touch Love’s head does Order slam Costumer Minion down with her foot, reducing the minion to a pile of black-white gore.

“W-” Justice spits, “Absolutely not, Knight Love! Who knows what other evils The Overlord could be up to?!” He makes a few very-magical, infamous gestures with his right arm, signifying magic from the exceptionally-violent school of Shadow Weight Magic.

“Hold up,” Order interjects next to a meekly grinning Love, “it doesn’t seem like it’s so bad that we’d need to resort to that kind of magic. Let’s just go through the town and clean them up like usual. I don’t even fe-” She stops. Order had spoken too soon, for in the instant she now feels that infamous, mythical pressure. “Get ready. He’s here.”

Justice readies an exceptionally nasty offensive spell as Love curtly adjusts her witch hat as if that would prepare her for combat.

“Ready, chief,” Justice affirms with a gaunt, deadly tone— the other side to his coin. Perhaps there is an advantage to him having such a black and white way of looking at things; Order bets he’s never even blinked when he’s had to kill someone— and to her, that is perhaps the greatest blessing of all. It’s easy to be remorseless if you’re certain you’re always doing the right thing.

“O-oh my. That seems all rather scary. Let’s bewitch some unsuspecting townspeople instead.” Love says with an uneasy smile.

“He’s definitely here,” Order says, her golden gaze peering deep into the writhing shadows of this moonlit night. There’s an impetuous silence from them as the sounds of trick-or-treaters and Halloween music fills the air— strange, eccentric instruments skilled at distracting ear and mind alike.

“He’s at my house,” Order educates with a stern, wide-eyed gaze before starting forward. The three take it slow; after all, when it comes to fighting The High Overlord and Slayer of Billions, it pays dividends to assume caution.

They reach her block, and the group says nothing at all— despite the immense shock awaiting them. Order’s home has disappeared.

The winds of the Fall evening blow past them with mocking excitement.

“Ch-” Justice clears his throat. “Chief, this looks a whole lot like where your ho-”

“Because it is my house, dude.”

“Well, was your house, Ran’,” Love corrects with a smirk and tone that isn’t quite appropriate.

“Wh-” Justice drops to his knees. “How?!” “Did you make any stops before-”

“No,” Order says plainly as Love kneels down to inspect the dirt around where the house should be. “I came straight to you… I don’t see how this could be, but I’m sure he figured out so-”

“Teleportation,” Love says, brushing the dirt from her fingers.

“How is that possible?! You can’t teleport a whole house!” Justice exclaims, now way more occupied by the missing house than the throat-tight feeling of Chaos’ presence nearby.

“Ahh, but Chaos can I’d wager,” Love chimes with a curt wag of the finger.

Another gust passes them by with Order standing dumbly in the sidewalk. “They stole my fucking house,” Order says with a blunt, cold tone.

“Now now, Ran, langua-”

“Shut up, Meeo. Fuck’s sake. I’m so fucking done with this. Who knows what they did with it, who knows where it is n-”

And like clockwork, an enormous, house-sized rift opens up twenty meters over the housing plot. Her entire manor slams down into the dirt— shattering all the windows, splintering boards, and putting critical strain on the pillars. At least it doesn’t collapse from all the damage.

The three knights are once more left standing in dumbfounded silence.

“Thanks for letting us use it; our holiday demonstration was a huge hit with his Superior Dimensiographinizerness,” Dimensionomancy Infrastructure Minion says from what seems to be everywhere.

Order nods mutely. “…No problem,” she says with a calm, soulless tone, just staring at her wrecked home.

“See ya, and happy All Hell-ow’s Eve,” the minion adds with a chipper, superior tone.

“Goodbye,” Order responds brusquely.

“Yeah, have a-”

“Goodbye,” Order reiterates more curtly.

Dimensionomancy Infrastructure Minion clears his throat from the nether. “Eh… I guess th-”

“Goodbye,” Order says firmly once more.

There’s a sigh, and then Dimensionomancy Infrastructure Minion’s presence dissipates. They all feel the signature of the minions steadily weaken, each hopping away in one portal after another to escape; the mission has been completed, and The Knightess Paragon has been humbled once again by the tactical genius of His Interminable Overlordship. Even the KOed Minions are being whisked off, no doubt by any one of the Minion Rescue squads prepared for these such occasions, when Order is about and kicking minions in their poor faces.

Another bitter silence passes, and Love clears her throat. “W-well Ran, dearie, it’s not all that bad. A little bit of reversal magic could probab-”

“I bet they didn’t even check for Parvo,” she interjects. “I bet he’s-…” she takes a deep breath. “I’m going to go check.” Order starts forward with a slow, waiting stroll. She knows Chaos is somewhere around here, but right now she wouldn’t mind dying all that much.

“W- I’m coming with you, Chief!” Justice exclaims, assuming Love is following along as he helpfully opens the door to the house and lets The Lord Knight General inside.

Love joins her hands together sweetly, appreciating the blustery wind, and the scarce orange hues of a finishing sunset.

“This has been a very nice holiday,” she says to herself.

“I could not agree more,” Chaos says with his usual, award-winning grin.

Love closes her eyes with a long smile, and turns to look behind her. Overlord Chaos is dressed up as the late King Rayda, his gold-black armor and ornate cape shockingly accurate to the real pieces. It wouldn’t surprise her too much if that were actually Rayda’s armor he’s wearing, all things considered.

“Why, good evening there, you naughty overlord,” she says.

Chaos draws back. “And I suppose you are a witch? I’d judge you are the naughty one.”

“A costume does not the person make, you know,” she says with a decisive wag of the finger. “Why have you come?”

He grins victoriously as he gains an official air. “I have traversed the realms to pay insult to that most-misguided of ignorant fools, The Knight we know as Mortar!”

“Ahh, I believe you mean Order.”

Chaos blinks vacantly a moment. “Why, no, I believe I am quite right in that name…” He pulls from his dimensional jaws a small notebook. “Let’s see… Oh, how silly of me.” He closes the book and replaces it into his throat. “Order it is.”

“There you have it,” Love adds with a smile. “I liked the haunted house. Did you really decorate and teleport it all before Ranalie walked those few blocks?”

He grins. “It was a most exciting challenge. Many of the minions pitched in. Why, even Coffee Minion, who is usually in minion prison, found a purpose— feeding coffee to a-”

“That was me, actually.”

He stares blankly again. “O-… Are you quite sure?”

She nods, the clouds wrapping around the glorious full moon above. “I had a great time. You should do it again!”

His grin gains a cruel aspect. “I have decided on it. Every year, I shall take away her home, and then run my horrific hauntings through it! She couldn’t possibly survive the decade!”

“I think she didn’t much appreciate it.”

He joins his hands together. “Good.”

“She doesn’t have much other than that house and that dog, you know. You really shouldn’t play with her like that.”

“And why not?”

“Because…” Love sighs with a faint smile. She knows this is a losing battle. “By the way, where is her dog?”

He raises a finger in the air thoughtfully. “Ahh, yes. Thank you for reminding me!” The Dark Emperor says before reaching a hand into his jaws and scooping out a wide-eyed, trembling Parvo— who has seen things within The Overlord’s recesses that cannot be relayed to any soul. Chaos hands the emotionally-terminated dog over to Love, who quickly cradles the tiny animal and begins massaging the back of his ears.

“Thank you,” she says, holding gently as Parvo quickly shuts down with relief.

The Great Opponent nods with the pleasantness of a crane. “Of course, young lady. I hope you will take better care of it than that evil witch does.”

Love smiles. “Parvo will be safe with me.”

Chaos nods again, this time looking a bit perplexed. “But I could have sworn I had something planned with the dog… Oh, yes.”

From inside the house, the muffled exclamation from Justice can be heard:

“Chief! I found Parvo!”

This is followed by an explosion, clearing out whatever was left of the windows.

“What happened?!” Order shouts from inside.

“IT…” Justice takes a deep, mortified breath. “Your dog exploded, Chief!”

Love and Chaos share a gentle chuckle before he glances over to explain. “Plastic Explosives Minion was very adamant as to his part in the plan.”

“Plastic explosives sound very creative,” she says with an encouraging smile.

“Creative enough to make a bomb shaped like a dog, at least.”

There’s another laugh between the two, and The Overlord sighs with complete satisfaction. “I should be off. Do let her know that she has been bested by none other than The High Overlord, please.”

She smirks. “I’ll make sure she knows, but I’m pretty sure there’s no doubt to that.”

He nods proudly. “Very good. Have a wondrous Christmas Eve, young lady. I hope Rondi gives you many eggs this year.”

“Eh… pardon me?”

Chaos pulls out his notebook one more time. “Ah, Halloween. Pardon me, rather. I hope you get… candy and whatnot,” he corrects with a dismissive wave

She nods, her smile playful. “You are most pardoned.”

At that, he tears another portal through the fabric of reality, and steps through— leaving a pleased Love and a shocked-unconscious Parvo.

“Happy Halloween, Chaos,” she says before going up with Parvo to meet the soot-covered Order and Justice.

~ Fin, and Happy All Hell-ow!’s Eve to you! ~