A Most Abyssal Day – a short story

A Most Abyssal Day

Some months after the events of The Courts Divided, Entomology Minion draws back from his desk, holding his current specimen under the light-gray microscope.

The mid-height minion of about a meter and a half tall takes a long, drawing breath in his quiet laboratory cozy in a deep corner in the Pine Forest tower, just one of the probable thousands that exist the glorious inter-dimensional fortress of Towerne.

Spinning about his chair a moment, his stereotypical lab coat sways above his lifted heels while he looks up and out the quaint circular window lending a wonderful view of the woods outside. It is a very good view, but he has seen it many times.

With a sigh, he gives a stern, almost sacred nod to himself in confirmation.

“There must be something else.”

He gets up from his desk, and turns off to the one place he knows will have the answer he seeks.

---

 

After the thirty minute trek across two space gates and the three towers connected by them, Entomology Minion arrives at the desk to none other than Hyper Arcane Archivist Minion, but most minions just call her HAAM. He’s only seen her once, and it was during one of the Chaosday feasts held at all towers on the day.

He knew it was her, because of all of Chaos’ sorts, she is among the most likely to have her face completely and intensely buried in the pages of a book, and unlike Genre Fiction Minion, Rom-Com Minion, and Uppity Pseudo-Intellectual Philosopher Minion, her books are unwieldy in size, fragmented with wear, and smelling of that overwhelming vanilla that seems to accommodate the wiser books of the world.

Entomology Minion steps right up to her desk in The Special Towerne Archive and pushes up his just-for-show glasses coolly.

“Why hello there,” he starts with a lithe smile.

The enormous tome she’s reading is lowered just an inch at first, allowing her little wavy antennae to peek out, and feeling the air over the book she realizes that there is, in fact, someone trying to speak with her.

The book angles down to the table and connects with a thud.

She has glasses too; he never noticed.

Wide-eyed at his appearance, she clears her throat to speak. “Ahh, you’re that… that… that bug-”

“Yeah, the bug guy,” he says with a smirk, resting his elbow just barely on her desk due to it being made for creatures of at least common human height. “Actually about all that. I was wanting to take a look around the archive.”

She fully releases her book on advanced porto-dynamics from her grip. “Oh, well you know the special study is sort of… completely off limits to anyone who doesn’t have a pass,” she states matter-of-factly.

He winces but comes to a quick shrug. “E-eh yeah, it’s no big deal. How do I get one of these here… eh, passes?”

“Personal appointment and request via his High Archivistshi-”

“Whoa, like… Chaos?”

“The High Archivist is exactly who-”

“I know, I know… It’s like a thing for us all to give him our own cute little nicknames and all, but I need to know for sure if it’s him.”

Her eyes slant at his terse words. “Yes. It’s our overlord.”

“Ahh cool so-”

“Chaos.”

He clears his throat. “Right, so I t-”

“The only one that’s actually in charge of anyone here,” she adds with a curt tone.

He sighs. “Gotcha. Sorry. I didn’t mean to cut you off, it’s just-”

“I really think you did.”

“…It’s just I don’t think it would work out well with him. He sort of… I dunno, intimidates me,” he says, glancing aside, but not so far away enough to miss the expression on her face. He sees a glint of sympathy on her; he knows he still has a chance.

“Ahh… well it was pretty rude of you, but I can forgive it. Why does he intimidate you… if I can ask?”

Entomologist Minion shrugs while looking aside the other direction. “I… I dunno, ya’ know? He’s just so… tall… and excitable.”

She comes to a nod. “He does the same to me.”

He looks up as if surprised. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

“So you understand?”

She nods with a somber expression, her gaze finally trailing off to the archive’s large, stained-glass window, filling the gray stone exterior with a pinkish-blue light. “He’s always so motivated; so driven. Even when doing his hardest tasks he’s in a state of relaxation, like he loves even the hardest parts of his day… I can hardly sort books on shelves without panicking about doing it wrong, not because I’m scared of him, but I just don’t want to make him unhappy. When I look at him, I realize that becoming a person I’m okay with looking at in the mirror may not be hidden in books or secrets in a library, she may just be out there, hidden in the world through experience and danger… and pain, and I don’t like it. Every time I see our master I see a side of myself that I know is real, is a part of me, but will never have the strength to become…” Her blacker-than-pitch cheeks gain a gentle white hue during her pause. She’s realized how long she’s been going on for. “I-I’m sorry! I don’t know what came over me, it’s just… I guess I never get to talk about this sort of thing with anyone.”

Entomologist Minion smiles with a casual, permissive awkwardness. “No no,” he says with a frank tone. “I totally get it!”

Her already wide round eyes widen even more. “You… you do?”

He nods. “It’s all I can do to keep my head into my work and keep distracted; it’s the only thing that keeps me focused in on what’s real to me. I can’t freak out about him, but I’m forced to when I don’t have any projects.”

Hyper Arcane Archivist Minion gains a sympathetic smile. “I see, and that’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”

Not skipping a beat, he gives another graceful, apologetic nod. “I suppose you understand my predicament.”

She draws back into her chair, folding her hands into her lap while she thinks to herself. “You need to get in for a project.”

He nods once more. “That’s right. I’m rather embarrassed to say it, but I really need help, and I’m certain that you’re the only one who can fit the bill.”

Like any smoldering manipulator, he does this while keeping sly, though focused glances to her eyes, which are now shimmering with compassion.

A meek smile grows across her small jaws as she wrests herself from her seat and takes up her pass. The small wooden whistle tied by a silver chain to her right antennae clinks when she bounces back up to her feet. “I guess you’re right,” she starts. “Rules understood, this is something I could help you with, and relying on bureaucracy wouldn’t be helpful.”

He gives a quick, shallow bow. “Thank you! You have no idea how much this means to me!”

She walks past the security point with the quaint little wooden pass. Surprisingly enough, the point seems to be completely unguarded. He can tell the field is magic, but Entomology Minion thinks nothing of it. After all, he’s in. Now nothing can stop him.

“So what kind of book are you looking for?” she asks, her demeanor warming up quickly now that she’s gone ahead and committed to bending the rules.

He clears his infusia-mass throat. “So as you know I’m tasked with being knowledgeable about insectoid creatures for his Royal Limitlessness.”

“Indeed.”

“I have caught wind of an exceptionally-interesting species from Dimension Thirteen; a race so intelligent that they are capable of speech.”

Immediately her expression widens; this time in concern. “Ah- yes, yes I’ve heard of those— Trenchlings, right?”

He glances at her with an academic appreciation. “Why, that’s exactly right! How did you know?”

She fails to hide her incredulous, almost insultingly blank expression, as if she thought he was a maniac. “You know, Trench creatures are fairly well known, fairly infamous.”

“Yes, so I’ve heard.”

“They’re from master’s dimension, actually.”

He nods. “As I stated, Dimension Thirteen.”

“And he isn’t partial to them.”

He nods again, leading her to glance back down the way of the hundreds of dimensionally-folded hallways filled to the brim with bookcases. Like a kaleidoscope, each hall unfolds in a disorienting, pop-up-book fashion, as if solid three dimensional space were but paper to be manipulated to its handler’s will. There’s so, so many hallways and so, so many books, Entomology Minion guesses it would take a millennium of speedreading to even challenge the depths of this store of knowledge.

The spectacled minion hums, her antennae flicking about in thought. “But I suppose you just want a volume for reference.”

He nods again. “Yes, that’s right.”

Hyper Arcane Archivist Minion’s eye slant in consideration. “Then why would you need The Special Towerne Archive’s stacks for that?”

His expression gets serious.  “It’s not a simple reference manual I’m looking for,” he says, just as they round the corner into the appropriate section for life-forms.

“Well… what are you looking for th- oh.”

She stops when Entomology Minion stops, just below a shelf holding, snug between its row of books, sits precisely what he’s looking for, sticking out and held into the shelf by the pressure of the volumes sandwiching it.

Glowing purple out from its container is a nefarious, viciously-scripted scroll of parchment, its tendrils of light shifting about and through the book casings with a dark, dramatic flair.

“That’s it,” Entomology Minion says with a smile. “The Underscript.”

She winces. “I’m… I’m kind of surprised I’ve never seen… or heard this anywhere before.”

The scroll just so happens to be hissing, by the way.

Entomology Minion nods with a serious gaze. “It’s an ancient text. Referenced in my older documents on insect creatures. This should be the true primary source document covering the birth and development of Trenchlings.”

“Oh that’s… nice. So you’re sure this is the o-”

“Yes, it speaks to me,” he says with a wide gaze that makes her feel markedly less comfortable.

“Ahh, how… wonderful… and you’re definitely just using this for reference, aren’t you?”

He looks back to gauge her expression. “But of course! I’m certain there’s all sorts of nasty graphics and incantations for who knows what in there, but this is to provide as accurate a picture as possible for our dark father.”

She looks him over a bit, searching his face particularly to parse out his intentions. His prior charisma has won her over, however; and she takes up the scroll container from its place with a tug. She presents it to him, but holds on a moment as he pulls it to him.

“Reference,” she reiterates.

He looks back to her and fires off the most genuine, honest, trusting smile he’s ever produced. “Reference,” he says.

She releases the scroll, and the two head out.

On the side away from her, he can’t help but smile with delight. It’s finally his, and it was so much easier than he thought it’d be!

He didn’t lie, of course. Minions of Overlord Chaos are far too honest to do such a thing… but then again, one can get “reference material” through all sorts of ways.

Back out from the secured barrier, Entomology Minion steps off with an excited wave. “Thank you! You’re the absolute best!”

And then he disappears down the hall, leaving Hyper Arcane Archivist Minion to simply stand there listening to the little clicks of his thin feet traveling down the hall.

Under that cold, professional exterior run all sorts of thoughts and feelings. She feels as though she’s not enough for the overlord, for the others, for herself, but right now the very antithesis of that worry is welling up in her. Perhaps she’s more than she thinks she is, and that’s precisely why, after she hears his footsteps fade off into the distance, she puts her own foot down.

Reaching up to her right antennae, she uncurls the little whistle that it’s tied around. With a breath, she raises the whistle up to her angular jaws to blow. It will take a great deal of explaining, but she’s pretty sure she can get him on her side, as much as he hates to make exceptions. She just has to make sure.

 

 

2

 

Trotting furiously for the summonarium, Entomology Minion holds the furled scroll tight under his arm. He does his best to ignore the weirded-out minion onlookers as he passes by; what he’s doing is for science, and that to him is its own excuse, its own moral.

He passes by a few more groups of minions, some racing about in their typical Minionry and others lazing about like any overlord’s minions would.

Then he feels a bump, and trips.

With a stumble, he hits into Venture Capitalist Minion, who was just doing his damnedest to scope out untapped market niches when Entomology Minion rammed into him. The financially-educated minion smacks into another passerby down the wide hall, and while onlookers were just giggling at the first mix up, this one has put everyone silent, some so worried that they immediately vacate the hall to the nearest room they can find.

Venture Capitalist Minion ran into none other than the legendary, the infamous, the legendarily-infamous Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion, who is far more than a mere enthusiast when it comes to the wonder of majesty of geometric shapes.

Normally this wouldn’t be a big deal, as Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion is in fact a pretty cool little dude that is not only friendly but the sort of person genuinely interested in everyone he meets… at least until they break one of his geometric shapes.

It just so happens that Venture Capitalist Minion bumped into him while he was transporting a precious batch of perfectly measured, perfectly shaped clay pentagons he was transporting from Pottery Minion’s workshop. Despite Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion’s cat-like reflexes and best efforts, he’s only able to save seven of the eight as the final one soars down to the floor, shattering to a dozen clay shards.

There’s a pause, all glowing gazes pointed to the point of damage, the noise of the shattering an unspeakably-damning sentence reserved for none but the most depraved of criminals awaits.

Before Venture Capitalist Minion can compose himself from his horror, Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion has already gently placed the rescued pentagons aside for safety before turning back.

In an instant, the wide-eyed Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion neutral expression turns to sheer disgust. “You… animal,” he starts with a tone far deeper than his tiny, adorable frame would suggest.

Venture Capitalist Minion grins in the perfect businessmanly sort of way, masking his fear with a trained charisma. “Ah! Pardon me there. It’s nothing that can’t be undone, of course. You know, just a little glue or perhaps a little more time in the furnace wou-”

“You separated a family from their youngest,” Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion says with a cutting bitterness. “They’ll never know what she was like… you killed her.”

Being one of the few minions authorized to wear full clothing for the sake of “fitting the role”, Venture Capitalist Minion struts back with his left leg casually while putting a single hand into his pinstripe pants. In his last move to calm himself down, he takes out his cigar case, shakes a smoke out and lights it with a quick match spell all in clean, handsome succession. He takes a few breaths while Entomologist Minion very, very carefully skirts by the two of them with his ancient scroll.

“Now, Shape Minion. I know you’re partial to shapes, I am too, but you need to look at this like a reasonable underling and understand that it’s an easily replaced piece of clay. There’s nothing overtly important or pressing about this. If you love it so much you can fix it, then if it proves to be too much then just make a new one. I feel bad so I’ll make it easy for you. I’ll even help you wit-”

“DON’T TALK TO ME OR MY FAMILY EVER AGAIN!” Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion spouts before going wild on the unfortunate Venture Capitalist Minion.

The cigar finds itself smacked, inserted into the rich minion’s skull by the time Entomology Minion exits earshot.

Venture Capitalist Minion’s screams overtake the hall while enforcement minions rush in, but none of them match the vicious might of a shape-lover scorned.

At what he feels is the range of safety, Entomology Minion cringes from the experience. That little guy is infamous around Towerne as one of Chaos’ most completely unhinged minions, but for some reason he’s never been successfully arrested by The Minion Disciplinary Committee nor Towerne Police; and of course considering Overlord Chaos is… Overlord Chaos, he doesn’t much mind a “sprightly young chap livening up the atmosphere” that being in his own words.

The scientist minion shakes his head from the whole ordeal, he needs to get his mind back on target. With a renewed pace he finishes his trek and winds up in the summonarium, his destination.

As always the typical trio of minions are there:

There’s Magic Minion, tall as ever, lazing about conducting some relaxed magic staff maintenance. Second is Chalk Art Minion, who loves sticking around just to draw up the summoning circles directed of him. Third, and the true staple of the summonarium is Summoning Minion herself, always, always concentrating on one of her long, dense notebooks of summoning circles and constituent directions for preparation. Before she became a minion to The High Overlord some three hundred years ago, she was considered to be Kanvane’s very best summoner and worth a seat on that most prestigious of High Councils. With the lifting of time’s malady and the constant practice of her craft she’s since gotten even better.

“Why hello!” Entomology Minion states with a smile. “I’m wondering if you can’t help me with something,” he adds, stepping right up to Summoning Minion, set up with ribbons, bells, scripts, and all forms of beckoning devices for the strange and the unknown.

With a winsome smile she looks up. “Why, it’d be a pleasure. Finally have that ‘thing’ you were wanting to pull up from nowhere?”

He nods and begins filing out the scroll from the container.

Chalk Art Minion, who’s in the excited process of picking out which color of chalk to do the presumably-basic summoning with, drops his neon green stick at the sight of the monstrosity of parchment unfurling at the brim of the ceiling.

Summoning Minion winces at the looming height of the hissing papyrus, and winces even more when she reads the first few phrases in its glowing script.

“This is… You do know what this is, right?”

Entomology Minion shrugs proudly, allowing the parchment to stand on its own, rather unnerving balance. “Of course. As a scholar as well as one who takes interest in all things insectoid, this is th-”

“No, I mean…” she bates her breath. “It’s bad, my friend, very bad. Would The Head Harkener approve of you having this?”

Entomology Minion does a double take to gauge everyone.

Summoning Minion is concerned, and obviously worried. He’s getting the feeling already that there’s no way she’ll do this. Chalk Art Minion, just before completely taken up by his work is now firing a sly, rather distrusting gaze over his way. Magic Minion, the last in the room, makes him the most nervous; he knows she has little tolerance for bullshit, especially if said bullshit happens to threaten her two best friends.

He needs to think of something fast, and as per his practiced, disciplined mind in both looking at bugs and dealing with others, he finds his way to victory.

“Oh, bad?” he asks. “What do you mean?”

“Where did you get this?” she asks with a clear, but kind concern.

He clears his throat. “Ahh, the eh, Special Towerne Archive. I saw some documents point to the existence of it: an ultimate guide reference to the greatest species of insect to exist. I was certain The Head Entomologist would have gotten his hands on it sometime during his adventures, and I was right!”

“Well this is a summoning script for Trench Creatures. To say it would be frowned on for me to summon one of these things would be an understatement.”

“S-summon a Trenchling?!” Entomology Minion says with a gasp. “Is that really the only thing on here?” he adds with an incredulous, cheated tone.

She nods. “I’m afraid so. Simply detailed instructions on how to open a direct gate to Trench just long enough to assume one of its inhabitants and deliver it here. I’m glad you brought this here so you know, but Chaos would not stand for something like this being pulled into Towerne; depending on what we pulled up it could cause absolute chaos.”

“Hehe,” Chalk Art Minion chuckles. “You said ‘chaos’ twice.”

Everyone sighs. The others do like Chalk Art Minion, but not for his unnecessary verbal observations on things that only he finds funny.

Summoning Minion turns back to Entomology Minion with a relieved, almost thankful gaze. “That said, you best scroll this back up and return it. I don’t know what reference material you heard about this from, but it’s definitely a summoning script and that’s it. Sorry you didn’t get what you were hoping for.”

Entomology Minion glances aside with a disappointed hum to sell it, but he lightens up immediately to keep things positive. “Well… well I suppose that’s that then. Back to the drawing board.” He packs back the scroll, practically fighting it to pull it down from its glorious height and roll it back into its container. “Ahh, but now that I’m here, there is one other thing you could do for me.”

She grins, always eager to help. “What might that be?”

“I need to summon up a perfectly pentagonal container,” he says with a trustworthy, innocent grin on his face. “As a cage, if that makes sense.”

Summoning Minion’s wavy antennae perk up. “Why, it’d be a pleasure. Let me open a gate to The Object Realm and I’ll set you on your way.”

 

 

3

“He’s… so perfect,” Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion says, staring up with limitless admiration at a certain mathematically perfect pentagon plastic frame.

“It needs a good home after it was abandoned by its evil abusers,” Entomology Minion states with a very put-on, very genuine-looking face of worry. “Perhaps you can find a good home for him, seeing how you’ve taken care of so many.”

Like a relic, nay: like a precious babe newly born and wonderful in its delicateness, Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion accepts the palm-sized plastic object. His expression is quivering with an almost sacred delight.

“I accept,” he says with no small amount of awe in his voice.

Entomology Minion nods seriously. “I’m glad you’re up to the task… now about the topic of revenge.”

Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion’s off kilter, surprisingly imperfect, asymmetrical antennae perk up with a silent alertness. His little black body ridges at the ready, cradling the defenseless geometric shape in his arms with a combative preparedness. “Of course… those… those animals. They have no semblance, no clue what they’re doing to these poor things, simply because they do not understand them. We must devise a plan, take our time; wage a war of months, years if need b-”

“W-whoa there, buddy, years?”

Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion nods with a dark expression. “We must ensure there is no hole in our plans…. We will start with their society, breaking them from the inside with pop culture and a priesthood of planted celebrity intellectuals to sway the-”

“Did I mention they have the… uh, the King Geometric Shape?” Entomologist Minion says with a glance aside and a small scratch of the chin.

Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion’s eyes widen, and this makes Entomologist Minion feel as though he just said something horrible. He’ll have to back step.

“U-I mean, I’m obviously not certain as that’s not really my area of expertise; it was only a rumor, of cour-”

“It’s just like in my dream,” Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion says with a mystic tone. This makes Entomologist Minion feel both a little better and a little worse, simply in two different ways. He’s not sure at all if Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion had a dream about this, or if he sees anything close to a reasonable perception of reality, but for now, if it was in his dream, it was in his dream.

“Wh-… your dream?”

He nods solemnly. “I didn’t want to believe it, but if The Angle Lord has been captured by their non-Euclidian devices then I must rise to the occasion at once.” He turns to Entomology Minion, grasping his hand. “Can I trust that you’ll go this distance with me? They must pay; and they must pay immediately.”

Entomology Minion flinches from the strong touch of the short minion, but he doesn’t draw away. This will work out just fine. “Perfect,” he says. “Let’s get on them immediately.”

The door blasts open to The Summonarium, slammed open by the flying needle kick of none other than Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion.

“WHERE IS HE?!” he screams, spilling over a book-stacked table and sending summoning materials flying.

Summoning Minion and Chalk Art Minion exchange confused looks when the third in their group takes a stand.

Magic Minion, the unofficial bouncer of the summonarium for when other minions come barging in demanding Summoning Minion to pull up something weird like a taco or a dvd box set to some show they missed the initial run of, stretches at her feet, towering in height over the little minion.

“Hey, idiot,” she spits, her staff’s center gem alighting with a burst of emotion. “Why don’t you pick those up and get out of here before I make you.”

“Pocket spiders!” Entomology Minion proclaims with a dramatic entry and a slick, speedy deployment of spiders from his pocket. They instantly latch onto her face and immediately crawl just outside of her vision, who knows if they’ll bite or not; how creepy.

Magic Minion is reinforced by Overlord Chaos’ infusia like any of his underlings, but there are some situations warrant forgiveness for failure. Before she was infested by The High Overlord, Magic Minion was very, very afraid of spiders, and that hasn’t changed.

With a screech, she flails in horror, putting every futile effort forward to shake the arachnid menace from her body. Switching her plans immediately, she begins charging a fire spell to cleanse herself of the creeps, but Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion has been rushing forward this entire time.

He delivers a punch on class with Chaos’ most brutal, unhinged vassals, striking Magic Minion in her unfortunate face, the force of which sending her flying back into the wall in a black-white mess of spiders and symmetrically-precise injury. She keels over limp in the spot she landed, completely unconscious and with a look of sheer eight-legged horror frozen on her face.

Landing perfectly back to the ground from his jump to get at his first enemy, Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion rolls his head like a crazed beast at to the remaining two.

“If you don’t tell me, I’LL TEAR THE INFORMATION RIGHT OUT OF YOU!”

Chalk Art Minion takes a quick breath. “Dude you-”

“YOU DON’T DESERVE TO HAVE THAT MANY SIDES!” Summoning Minion screams over to Chalk Art Minion.

“H-hey man, I don’t know what you’re tal-”

“THE SHAPES CANNOT BE DECEIVED!”

Chalk Art Minion suffers a similar fate as Magic Minion: in a pile, with his pitch-black exoskeleton crushed, though not nearly as many spiders.

The two raiders turn next for Summoning Minion, who’s not much of a fighter, and not much of a talker when it comes to stressful situations. She gasps, falls off her chair, and prostrates against the nearest complete summoning circle.

“You,” Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion addresses with an uncharacteristically overlordly tone; a sound that strikes awe and fear into the hearts of those foolish and ungrateful enough to challenge his will. “Who ar-”

“Th-the ringleader!” Entomology Minion accuses with a dramatic point. “She must be the one that imprisoned the uh… king!”

Summoning Minion does not respond, but keeps to her speedy, practiced ritual of harkening, ringing her bells, scraping strange paints along the floor, and speaking stranger words under her breath.

Behind her, the small, and yet looming visage of Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion towers over her. His violent aura is as clear as day, and with a venom that could level a mountain.

“Stop what you’re doing, you angleless ingrate!” Just as he raises his tiny hand to strike with the force of a dozen men, he’s halted by the fast hand of Entomology Minion.

“Wait right there, buddy, we need her to release the uh, Shape King.”

Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion glances back to his comrade. “Shape… King?”

“Yeah!” Entomology Minion lets go of the little minion’s hand, for fear that he may reel back and strike him instead. “Like the uh… guy we’re trying to rescue.”

Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion enters a ready stance. “Don’t tell me you’ve been tricked by The Shape King to do your bidding. You told me we were here to save The Angle Lord, he who maintains the geometric elements of all shapes.

The two minions pause and look at one another searchingly. They both do this for entirely different reasons.

“But you are in fact… Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion, aren’t you?”

The smaller, crazier one nods with affirmation while Summoning Minion desperately works toward her goal at the circle.

“Naturally, but those of the angled variety are superior. Simple shapes are orderless, meaningless: the very dregs of geometric society. Angles, be they obtuse or acute bring reason, light, hope to the hapless masse-”

Entomology Minion just sort of tunes out at this point. He, like any socially-aware minion, knew that Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion was kind of a complete loon, but he had no idea that the little guy had a complete and in-depth lore and personal reasoning for why he does what he does. What an absolute weirdo.

“-in that, we must remain vigilant for all forces in The Omniverse that would subvert the laws of that accursed geometry, and abuse the power of The Tesseract for the sake of their-”

Well look at that, he’s still going on. Entomology Minion sighs under his breath and nods with as convincing an expression as he can possibly produce in the moment. He’ll admit that the infamous shape-obsessed minion is charming, if only in how completely obsessed and dedicated he is to his particular, very specific field of interest, but he has to draw the line.

Entomology Minion glances aside to find something to point out as an excuse to change the topic. It’s only here that he notices that Summoning Minion wasn’t simply groveling and being weird in front of that summoning circle, but instead conducting a ritual.

Don’t be too hard on poor Entomology Minion; he just naturally assumes everyone’s an unscientific idiot unwilling to make true sacrifices for science.

“Ser, on yer aires!” she yells into the now glowing, rotating, humming ring.

“G-stop her!” Entomology Minion shouts.

Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion needs no other push. He flies for her, his arm aside to deliver a backhand that would punish any and all foolish summoner that might dare question the undeniable authority of mathematical perfection.

In a flash, his backhand is caught, not by Summoning Minion’s face, but by the wide, ectoplasmic gauntlet that thrust up from the summoning circle’s gateway. Shoving the dog-sized minion back, the successful summon pulls itself up by ethereal coils of light and magic, ushering its body into Towerne’s plane of existence.

Unfolding from dark, musty corners of The Omniverse unfolds a phantom knight of some unknown origin, his scripted armor a parapet of defense against common, lowly physical attacks.

“Ahh, well here have we aught strange,” he says, his judge-like tone a rallying cry to the hopeless around him.

Summoning Minion, having just expended enough mana to render a common human summoner unconscious for many hours, pops up to her feet and behind her summoned servant. “Help me, ser knight. Crush these-”

“You wear armor to appear more shapely,” Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion says with a critical tone. “You’re a complete fake. I knew I would find your kind crawling around these places eventually.”

There’s an awkward pause while the phantom knight double takes between Summoning Minion and his apparent adversaries.

“Pray thee… is… is this small one of true? Dost he wish me to deign my blade upon him for such a simplicity as aesthetic understand-”

“Your armor looks stupid, you… bitch boy!” Entomologist Minion screams up at the floating figure, whose sword draws itself into his hand.

“They’re traitors. Please, ser knight!” Summoning Minion requests, bounding back to get cover.

“Say no more, fair maid. I shall deliver these scoundrels to their proper- wh, what are you doing-”

“Gate of the unknown void, retrieve my will!” Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion proclaims at another summoning circle, him having finished the incantation in a ludicrously fast twenty seconds.

Summoning Minion’s jaw drops with Entomologist Minion’s as the new summoning gate opens, ushering forth a spiritual vacuum that immediately consumes the phantom knight’s presence.

“C-curse ye! Curse ye and your counter summoning!”

“Those of immaterial qualities must be dealt with in immaterial ways. I am no novice when it comes to using different planes to my advantage,” Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion explains not so unlike a character from one of Nerd Minion’s weird animes.

The phantom knight disappears into the rift created by Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion, and the portal closes, leaving the three of them again alone in the room. “Now, release the Angle Lord” The tiny minion demands with a stamp of the foot and a stylish turn of the heel.

Summoning Minion, her various scripting’s and graphics, vessels and ingredients all readily available in her shop but useless without preparation, has no choice.

“W-w… well now just who is th-”

Entomology Minion reproduces the scroll for her, its papyrus heights unfurling by itself in a smug victory.

“All you need to know is right here,” he says with a weird tone. He sounds far less like the introverted friend she knows, and far more like a mad, obsessed scientist, bent on his singular task of discovery.

Summoning Minion brushes one of the summoning scripts out from her face. “You do understand how grave this will be if The High Beckoner finds out you’ve been attempting to wile up strange things in his doma-”

Entomology Minion shoves her toward a summoning circle. “I don’t care! It’s so boring looking at normal insects, I want the real shit! Real bugs. Reallll eight legged freaks!” he says not unlike a circus ringmaster, whipping up excitement from his crowd.

Geometric Shape Minion’s little antennae twitch at the ongoing conversation, but he doesn’t quite understand. He is dedicated, powerful, and willful, but more than that he is single-minded and innocent to a fault. Crossing his arms, the smaller minion watches the two taller ones talk it out.

Summoning Minion looks around for anything that might help her: any kind of quick-cast item, or even the lantern alarm, glowing blue in the corner of the room, but alas, she couldn’t possibly outrun that maniac attack dog Shape Worshipper if her life depended on it. She blames both her fanatical love of Towerne’s weekly taco nights, but also the little guy’s insatiable appetite for utterly crushing whatever he currently thinks is standing between him and his subjective, “objective” idea of the right thing to do.

“G-gladly!” Is all she thinks to say before shuffling over to the circle and tapping her hands along the soon-to-be portal. With a deep breath, the summoning begins, ushering up a pure, ingenious blue light from the chalken inscriptions along the floor.

She begins speaking a long, practiced set of words that ushers up beings from other spaces to initialize the sequence, and then adds in the phrases mentioned in The Underscript, which is now hovering helpfully and horribly next to her for easy reference.

Entomology Minion is practically giddy with excitement, his whole body popping up off the floor over and over in curt little hops.

“This is it, this is it. This is it!”

“We’ve finally done it,” Geometrical Shape Enthusiast Minion notes with a serious gaze as he leans over to give Entomology Minion a big, unexpected hug. “I never knew there was another defender of The Angular Spaces here… I thought the burden was mine and Chaos’ to bear; he’s always so busy battling for the right, however- we do not speak often. I never imagined that someone might be around to help me, to let me talk to them, to understand what I’ve been going through all these yea-”

The chalk inscriptions contort and alight in a malefic purple glow, matching the ferocity and hue of The Underscript’s lettering. “Hush, hush! It’s time! It’s here!” Entomology Minion says with an elated grin, far too excited to not hug back.

The portal begins to open, and all the lights in the room blow out apart from the lantern alarm, snug and magical in its protective glass and brass casement.

Stretching out with a wild, confused ejaculation of movement, a Trench creature slumps along onto the floor while the rest of its body is ushered uncomfortably through the dimensional tear. First it scrambles to regain its senses, its primitive mind in a state of shock from the complete change in sensation and light. Sporting its long, long Trench coat, the kind of thing no creature has any business wearing unless they’re into doing things that are highly illegal, it stretches up to a height that challenges even the floating Underscript.

Summoning Minion, drawn out from a lack of mana and trembling, can only stare up in horror at the enormous, coated invertebrate. Very quietly she works to close the portal before more usher out from the rift.

Entomology Minion looks on with glee, excitement ranging on the obsessive, and a wide, child-like smile.

Most interesting, though, is Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion. He didn’t know what to expect when the Trench creature crawled its way up to its full height, but now that it can see its eyes, those many, many eyes, each one a perfect, uninterrupted hexagon, he is suddenly at a loss for breath.

Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion does not often run out of breath.

“You are The Angle Lord,” the tiny minion says with complete awe.

 

 

4

The Trench creature clicks its mandibles together in thought, its pseudo pupils eying across the place with rapid, nervous movements.

“It’s… so perfect!” Entomology Minion exclaims, barely constraining himself from jumping up and down in joy.

Summoning Minion draws back as much as she can while still being quiet. She doesn’t feel like she owes Entomology Minion anything after this, especially considering he already knows how ridiculously violent such creatures tend to be. Very steadily she backs away, averting her gaze toward the lantern alarm.

“Finally, now the true research can begin!” Entomology Minion says with a loose smile and a twitching eye. “This way. You can understand words, can’t you?” he asks up to the Trench thing while he starts for the door back to his study. “Come along!”

Like bones being smacked together, the horrible thing begins struggling to mince together words. From its strictly limited dialect, it pieces together a rather phrase that rather gets under Entomology Minion’s skin, as it has to do with his mother, and his daringness to order around a creature from the wonderous and ineffable Trench. Like much of Trench society, the thing’s words are direct, curt, and rude, their typical attitude when it comes to most activities, be it writing poetry or tearing open someone’s skull to get at their brains.

Entomology Minion isn’t phased by this, however, not in the least. He waves his hand dismissively with an endearing scoff, as if he were conversing with a child. “Oh, don’t you worry your tiny little mind about any of that. Just come along this way and-”

He’s cut short when the Trench freak snaps him up with a mantis-like, flick-fast movement. “Wh- hey now! I wouldn’t do that if I were you!” he adds, still in the creature’s grasp.

“Wuh… hie… iss… tahd?” it asks, its syllables delayed until each click finishes its previous tone. Entomology Minion assumes it means to be saying “why is that?”.

“Why, it’s not like I came unprepared! Now cease!” he yells the moment he whips out a can of bug-spray and spritzes the Trench beast in its horrific face.

The solution, sure to freeze up any insect Entomology Minion has encountered in the past, simply slides off like water against the creature’s slick, smooth exoskeleton.

“Ah… ah… ah…” it laughs, sounding far more like someone vocalizing their discomfort when struggling out of a thorn patch than laughter. In a snap, the creature slams the ever-living heck out of Entomology Minion, smashing part of his pitch-black exoskeletal armor and smearing his white infusia about the room. “Iss… tahd… pree… paird?” it asks mockingly, its toneless chittering sending a short chill through Summoning Minion’s spine as she scoots ever closer to the room’s lantern alarm.

“H-wow! That hurts so much! Holy crap… holy crap!” the little scientist spits in shock before turning to Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion, who’s simply watching the whole thing happen. “Yo… Shapes! Gimmie a hand, huh? Won’t you, please?”

Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion ignores the fair weather comrade plea, and instead steadily drops down to his knees, his gaze fixed on the gloriously tall, perfectly symmetrical form of the Trench thing.

“Show me the path of The Great Supplementary,” he squeaks in awe.

The Trenchling looms forward in curiosity. “Thee… grr… ate… supp-”

“Please!”  Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion falls to his hands and knees in a respectful bow. “I remember you from my dreams, my memories, my… my everything. The one with the hexagons in his eyes! You told me to… to wait for you! Yes!”

The Trench beast pauses at Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion admission, but rests its gaze over to Entomology Minion, who just shrugs.

“Heck if I know,” Entomology Minion says, bleeding horribly but in little true danger due to the unmagical nature of his injuries.

They both turn back to look at Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion.

“Arr… yoo… say… eng… tha… teh… yoo… wil… ser… vuh?” the Trenchling scrapes out through its mandibles.

“Yes! Of course! I was loyal since the beginning! I remember why I’ve been here this whole time; what I’m doing, it’s all for you, my lord! Flood your golden light across the land and deliver the sacred hexagon!”

The Trench beast has to look one more time to Entomology Minion, who again just shrugs. Neither of them really know what’s going on with this kid, and as such it forms an awkward connection between them.

“I… wihl… ak… sept… yoor… loi.. all… t-”

Again the Trench walker is interrupted, but this time by the alarming, sharp sound of glass being shattered at the end of the room.

The three look over to see Summoning Minion, the shattered frame of the emergency lantern suspiciously close to her.

“Wh- you idiot!” Entomology Minion yells with an indignant tone, as if she weren’t just trying to save everyone and he himself weren’t bleeding white all over the floor.

“I’m not going to let you endanger The Minionry for your insane research, dumb poop,” she says in a way quite uncharacteristic to how must people know her.

Entomology Minion, his one weakness being juvenile name calling, vibrates in fury. “You’re getting in way of my research! Shapes, get her!”

Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion gets to his feet the very moment the thudding, rapid movement of what sounds to be a massive four-legged animal overtakes the room.

Turns out, security arrived much, much sooner than Summoning Minion had thought.

Smashing gloriously through The Summonarium doors, a flourish of pitch black fur moves like a gust of wind, the two bright white orbs squinting furiously above the gaping maw of cloud-bright teeth. Like a storm unfurling across the sky, Hunt Minion rears his enormous, canine head onto the scene, with none other than Hyper Arcane Archivist Minion riding upon his back, holding on for dear life.

“It’s as you feared,” Hunt Minion growls, baring his fang-filled mouth, made ever sharper by Overlord Chaos’ essence.

“Entomology Minion!” Hyper Arcane Archivist Minion starts, popping up to address him. “What is th-” she starts back in shock, seeing the absolutely miserable shape he’s in, already nearly torn entwine by the Trench thing’s scythe-like grip.

“Be careful,” Summoning Minion says with a feint sigh, her especially curly antennae lowered in caution. “All I need is you to distract them.”

Hunt Minion gives a decisive, confident “tsk!” before breathing in through his snout to speak. “Distract? It’s only a Trenchling. In my days in The Knights, Courage and I took on dozens of these pathetic animals i-”

“See with your eyes, wolf!” Summoning Minion snaps, nodding her head to the Trenchling’s feet, rather than at the looming figure itself.

Hunt Minion looks over the very moment Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion’s fist collides with the center of the Chaos-infused dire wolf’s nose.

Again, black meets black, but this time the one receiving Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion’s punch can take a little brutality.

In a shake, Hunt Minion throws Hyper Arcane Archivist Minion from his back and goes for the pin on the minuscule, inordinately-strong shape worshiper.

The tussle throws up the nearby table, sending chalk, books and all manner of summoning regents soaring in the room while the two minions attempt to get a leg up on the other, the wolf trying to secure the tiny one my the throat, and the tiny one going for the wolf’s tail.

Hyper Arcane Archivist Minion takes the landing with only a stumble, and doesn’t waste a moment more to get over to Summoning Minion, who’s now creeping around a nearby book case for another summoning circle. Popping into cover along with her, she takes a quick peek around to keep an eye on the giant black wolf and the little black terror duking it out with rabid, crazed strikes.

“What in His Unchallenged Name happened?!”

Summoning Minion doesn’t look over to the archivist while she carefully scoots low under the case, but she does reply.

“Apparently Little Shapes likes the Trenchling,” she explains. “The eyes, probably.”

“Wh-” the glorified librarian draws back with a squint. “What?”

“It’s a giant bug, yes?” Summoning Minion asks, creeping to the edge of her cover and spotting out the two dueling minions, one ten times the size of the other but just barely a match.

“Uh, yeah, it’s a bug. What does that have to do with… oh.”

“Yeah,” Summoning Minion says with an awkward smile. “I guess it’s about that bad, eh?”

“What a complete lunatic,” Hyper Arcane Archivist Minion hisses with a sigh. “What does His All-Recollectingness even keep him around for?”

Summoning Minion takes a deep breath while extending her mana into the summoning circle just an inch away from her. “Who knows. He’s not a particularly old one, so I doubt it was a friend or something from when Chaos was still a person.” Summoning Minion gives a quick glance over to the bespectacled one crouched behind her. “He seems to care quite a lot about shapes.”

Hyper Arcane Archivist Minion stealthily corrects her glasses amidst the sound of slamming and smashing just a few meters away from them. “Probably picked him up from an insane asylum and felt sorry for him.”

Summoning Minion shakes her head. “I…” she sighs in desperation, her magical limit pushed further than she’s ever gone; two summonings in five minutes is a bit more than hard work, after all. “I talked to him once about it. He doesn’t remember much, but I think he’s one of The Knights.”

“Like Hunt Minion or Never Miss Minion?”

“Yeah.”

“What makes you say that? He’s not exactly-” Hunt Minion slams over their head into the wall, him catching himself successfully, but with not nearly enough force to stop the injury. He flails just a meter over the two lassies heads, his claws flashing over their vision while he attempts to regain his footing before rushing back to engage his little, ridiculously dense opponent.

Hyper Arcane Archivist Minion clears her throat while keeping a cautious lookout. “Well, obviously he’s strong, but he doesn’t really seem like one of those idiots. They tend to be a little more…”

“Aware?” Summoning Minion says while she continues the summoning, her tone deliriously weak.

“Mmm, no, I don’t think that’s a good word for it.” The archivist peeks around the corner again to watch the fight: Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion is making a mockery of Hunt Minion’s speed and size, cancelling both out with sheer, unadulterated fighting spirit. For every smart move Hunt Minion makes, his pint-sized opponent follows up with an aggressive, ambitious counter to close the distance. If asked about this bout later, Hunt Minion would never admit it, but it felt terrifying fighting something that was hunting him for a change.

“No, ‘aware’ isn’t a good word at all,” the archivist minion continues while she stretches a bit further around the bookcase to look for the Trench creature and Entomology Minion. “He’s plenty aware, he just interprets things weird… I wonder if his injuries may have been mental?” she asks, not looking away from the battle over to Summoning Minion to address her with a look. “I bet he had some trauma between the time Chaos infested him and the situation he got wrapped up in… I don’t know… what do you think?”

Hyper Arcane Archivist Minion pauses a moment, still observing the duel between the two skilled combatants while she waits for Summoning Minion’s reply. She doesn’t respond. The tired book sorter gives a tired squeak before turning slowly, quietly around to look. “Hey, you alright? Don’t tell me you fell asleep on the-… oh, hello there.”

Looming over the two is the Trench creature, its multiple limbs stored in its long coat emerging with all manner of knives, some of which are obviously, viciously enchanted to kill most anything- magic-reinforced creatures like Chaos’ minions included.

Summoning Minion is frantically trying to finish the incantation while the Trench beast, Entomology Minion now bled out and unconscious in its jaws, watches with a violent flame raging in its eyes. The look on the bug-collecting vassal’s face is pricelessly funny, though it really looks more agonized than anything else.

“I guess you didn’t want us… over… here?” she responds, readjusting her glasses once more, but this time out of pure horror.

In a flash-speed, simultaneous movement, the Trench thing drops Entomology Minion from its jaws and it flicks up its knives at the ready, all six… no, eight- wait, ten arms preparing to dice the two minionettes into a unprepared but well-cut filet mignon.

Responding the only way she knows, Hyper Arcane Archivist Minion leaps bravely forward using the only means she has to attack— classic literature so boring that it becomes forcefully canonized by academia of the time for fear of the work losing all relevance to the popular community as a whole.

A copy of The Pathetic Education of Oscar La’Coss is sent right into the oversized insect’s face, where its maw intercepts the book with a flick of the head before thrashing the volume’s pages back and forth through the air in a mess of paper and ink.

This did nothing to hurt it, but it did buy her time.

Hyper Arcane Archivist Minion continues throwing whatever she can find, popping up from her squat and drawing the creature’s attention away from Summoning Minion.

The creep just looks her way with its massive array of a thousand eyes. It’s not taking her very seriously; after all, she’s not the most threatening-looking sort.

“Get out of here you oversized roach!” she screams, leaping up onto a bookcase while she throws more books into its face.

Deliciously, the trenchling just gnaws one book after another in half before it brandishes its blades. It’s gotten tired of it all. It corners her, pushing her all the way to the edge of the room with its edges at the ready to cut her to ribbons.

“Eyye… don-teh… lie…keh… tru…bull-sum…cree…chuurs.” It says this with slow, stumbling phrasing, but even so it doesn’t fail to sound absolutely terrifying.

With a deep breath, its prey rallies up her final resolve to run in and attack… and then Hunt Minion flies into both of them.

“GEOMETRIIIIIIIC SHAPES!” Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion yells like a comic-book character using his prime ability, if that prime ability just so happened to be yelling about conceptual objects in planar space.

Hunt Minion’s massive body rams into the two of them, his huge weight slung off by the tail by the tiny shape worshipper.

The enormous wolf, enchanted by a ton or more of infusia, utterly crushes the two and puts an end to both fights.

Like a bug splattered on a windshield, the cool and deadly Trench creature is immediately obliterated between an enchanted wolf and a hard place when it impacts into the wall. Hyper Arcane Archivist Minion fares better, being able to survive such damage so long as it wasn’t magically charged, that said while she’s also crushed, she’s liable to pull herself back together unlike their unfortunate visitor.

Under all the stress, all the danger, the dust settles in the room right when Summoning Minion completes her cast.

In a readied deployment, Scout Minion pops up from the ground out of the summoning circle, the portal ushering her up just high enough for her to catch her little feet against the mystic aperture.

“Alright! What seems to be the problem here?” she asks with an in-charge tone and a long, Chaos-like grin. Glancing around with a high energy swing, she pauses upon seeing the ridiculous scene in front of her.

Entomology Minion is out-cold, maniacal grin frozen on his face.

Hunt Minion is currently seeing stars, resting uncomfortably over the crushed Summoning Minion and the absolutely-demolished Trench beast.

Summoning Minion is plopped over on the ground next to her, completely spent of mana and on the very edge of consciousness.

Of course, last but not least, is a dirt-and-paper-covered Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion, standing defiantly in the battle-made clearing within the center of the room. Breathing heavily, he shifts his iron gaze over to Scout Minion with a dangerous, deadly gaze.

While most minions would immediately gets the feeling of being “locked on” by an incoming warplane, Scout Minion is not like the rest.

“Sup, ya’ dweeb. You been rough-housing without me?” she asks with a confident glare.

“Get out of my way, Scout Minion,” he says with a sunken voice—loose, wild, and fatal. “The shapes call to me, and you will never see them my way.”

Scout squints an eye the second she snaps into a combat stance, looming and overwhelming in a way that makes her appear as large as possible. “Not happening, bub. Poppi put me in charge of Towerne’s security as a whole, and I ain’t gonna let ‘em down. Now relent, idiot!”

There’s a pause in the room, the last motes of dust settling from the previous battle. In the silence, the final speck of dust finds its place in the room, only to be upset the very moment it lands.

Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion and Scout Minion leap at one another with their little fists held high and ready to smash their enemy into oblivion.

Both of them throw their punches at a delirious, building-smashing velocity, only to stop mid air the second one more voice casts over the air.

“And just what is this that you’re doing?” asks a destroyed, elder, though always handsome and cultured tone of voice.

Everyone in the room reels, Chaos stands before them, and he’s caught them while in one of his exceptionally rare unpleasant moods.

“P-Poppi?” Scout Minion asks. “What are you doing he-”

“Am I not worth to you the words I spea-”

“N-no!”

“No sir! Of course not!”

“A-a tussle; just playing around!” Scout, Shape, and Hunt Minion all blurt out respectively.

Chaos, towering over even the Trench thing when it was at full height, squints his overpowering, lunar eyes in a crass dissatisfaction. “Within The Summonarium? I did not prescribe such an allowance…” he turns aside in bitter, self-hating thought. “At least, I do not think I did.”

His sharp sigh compels Scout Minion to speak up, her antennae perking helpfully. “I was summoned here to attend to a disturbance, Poppi. I don’t really know what’s going on.”

“And just what disturbance is that?” Chaos asks, rolling his gaze over to Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion, who’s still beside himself.

“They killed The Angle Lord!” he alerts with a frenzied tone.

There is a pause in the room. The Astral Dominator just stares down at the tiny minion with a bitter look. Another moment passes, then immediately and without warning, compassion washes over Chaos’ features. He crouches down to the tiny minion, who’s still shorter by inches in comparison even when The High Overlord lowers himself this much.

“Did they?” he asks with a truly interested tone, like an invested father to their excited child. Despite being an overlord, and cruel, a destroyer of nations and a smasher of armies, he still loves his underlings in a way that none of those blasted knights would ever expect… except Knight Love, of course; but she’s gone now.

“Yes!” the little minion shouts with a point at Hunt Minion and the massive splattering behind him that was the Trench creature. “What will we do now?! How will we deliver Caliburn?”

“Cali-what-now?” Scout Minion asks with a squint.

Chaos pats the little angle-maniac on his round noggin. “Ahh, do not worry, we will find some way to fix all of this. Yes, there’s no way he’s truly dead. Do not worry, and allow me to take care of him,” Chaos says with a certain tone, patting the little one on the head with a slow, calming rhythm.

“Am I… missing something here?” Scout Minion asks with a wavering smile.

“Be to your duties, valued Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion. Be to your duties and trust me to handle things from here… whatever it is that you are seeing, it is more than I can see, but I trust that the guidance you’ve given is enough. Be off, and let me do my best here while you go on to better things,” Chaos says with a final pat to the tiny minion’s backside, flickered with the infusia of Hunt Minion.

Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion draws in a deep breath and goes in for a quick hug, which Chaos does, after a moment’s surprise, returns. “Thank you! I knew you’d understand!” The little minion then turns around and rushes out. “I believe in you, Angle Knight!”

Chaos, the “Angle Knight”, gives a cheery wave off, sending his minion out on his way down the corridors and off to other crazy, asinine, shape-centric adventures.

“So long,” he responds.

There’s another long pause in The Summonarium while Chaos breaths in for a long, smiling sigh across from a dazed and confused Scout Minion.

“So… I guess he’s cool, then?”

Chaos nods.

“No Minion Wagon?”

Chaos shakes his head.

“Cuz, I’m pretty sure he just throttled Hunt Minion, and whoever’s behind ‘em,” she says, nodding over to the wreckage of her fellow minions.

Chaos glances around, noting Summoning Minion and Hyper Arcane Archivist Minion pinned and smashed behind Hunt Minion’s immense frame. The looks on their faces are hilarious. He looks next to Entomology Minion and his dumb, unconscious smile. The overlord closes his eyes in the scattered, trashed room.

“He can be forgiven. He sees the world in a sharper light than you or I, little scout,” he says, with a tone so fatherly, and so gentle, that for a brief moment Scout Minion knows that he’s still his old self, deep down. No matter what the knights did to him, or what he did to the knights, he’s okay on the inside.

“It…” Summoning Minion croaks, just barely awake despite her massive case of manadraw and her entire lower torso being crushed into a black-white mess of shards and infusia. “It was Entomology Minion. He tried… to summon a Trenchling.”

“Ohhh.”

“Hmm,” Scout Minion and Chaos mutter at the realization.

“Just why would our honored insect scholar do such a thi-” Chaos stops his question when Summoning Minion plop over unconscious, her injuries finally overcoming her.

Chaos sighs, and then Scout Minion clears her throat.

“So eh… how’s your day bee-”

“What a mess this is. It makes me feel sick to see such lunacy about the towers.”

“Aww, yeah: it’s dumb. Dumb as heck,” Scout Minion says in an amicable tone. “So what do you want me to do with all of them?”

“Retrieve Hospitality Minion and Bedrest Minion. Ensure they’re set back to health and then we’ll deal with them. I will admit I’m not in a good mood today, so I fear my judgement would not be sound.”

“Can we talk about that yet? How did it go? ”

Chaos squints his eyes. “I would rather not talk about it, thank you.”

She draws back with a wide, concerned gaze, a long-shot from her usual crassness. “But you… never-”

“Do not worry yourself on my affairs,” Chaos says with a dry tone. “I’ve come to collect reagents for some magic.”

Scout Minion hums. “You’ve been going back and forth on errands for… for weeks, sir. Everyone’s okay. No one died… so I don’t understand what has you so bothered. What are you looking for?”

Chaos looks over to through and behind Hunt Minion “The mind of a Trench-witnesser,” he says with a serious look while he steps over to the pile of minions and digs around for the exact body part he had come for. “Perhaps Entomology Minion is so in-line with my will that he knew I was going to request it?” The High Overlord asks, inspecting the brain of the giant, dead insect before tearing it from its cavity. The Trench thing flinches from the disconnect, and then returns to its limp state.

Scout Minion crosses her arms, now challenged for words. It’s not like Chaos will listen to her when he’s in one of his “focused” states like this- no one can get through to him, she assumes. Maybe it’s all an act, and he’s just coming up with some bullshit excuse to avoid the subject; she knows the lengths he’s willing to go in order to keep his minion’s out of harm’s way, even if said harm is purely of the emotional sort.

“Well… well yeah, Poppi. Maybe he did.”

Chaos nods. “Ensure he’s rewarded for his loyalty. Perhaps give him some nice ladybugs from The Garden Tower.”

Scout Minion fires off a peppy salute. “As you say it… and Poppi?” she adds, watching him turn to leave immediately.

Chaos stops at the door before turning around to look at her. “Yes?”

“Didn’t you come here for something else? You said ingredients.”

He smiles in a way that isn’t like his usual. Reassuring, but fake. She can spot that something’s wrong from a mile away. “Ahh, did I? I think this is all I really needed… along with the reassurance that you all are doing your best every day, of course.”

“D-dad?” she says, dropping all character, all pretension, and briefly flashing the little soul hidden underneath that smug grin.

Chaos focuses in on her.

“I’m… really worried about you. Is everything… all right?”

His expression doesn’t even flicker. “I have a lot on my mind. That’s all. The events of days past have tread on me in a way I never expected would happen. Things do not always work you the way we plan them to, after all, and there are times even the worst things become even darker than you had expected.”

Scout Minion smiles back, but it’s a pathetic, concerned smile.

“So something went wrong that day? I heard… rumors, but everyone’s been so hush about it… did that dumbass Order do something and-”

“I’m afraid it’s what she did not do is what weighs on me.”

The groaning of the recovering minions picks up through the room and Scout Minion squints her eyes with concern. “…So… not that I care, or anything, but is she like… okay?”

“She is fine. Or at least she believes she is. She’s gone on to her little home with her comfortable human counterparts, turning from duty at the final moment and crushing me.”

Her round eyes sharpen to crescents. “So she did do something!”

Chaos shakes his head once more before flashing her a very gentle, faintly sad smile. “Never you worry your sweet mind about it. Besides, I’m quite busy and need to be finishin-”

“You can talk to me, Poppi. If you need someone to kick her ass and set he-”

“I am quite busy,” Chaos restates, this time with a firm, short tone.

There’s an awkward silence in the room, punctuated briefly with the moans of pain at the side of the room from the several minions steadily coming to.

“I’m… I’m sorry.”

“That’s a reasonable feeling for impetuism. Good day.”

“Sir.”

With an eerily-smooth spin he turns back for the door and steps out. She knows for a fact he’s completely overtaken with something, but she can’t tell what it is. She knows for a fact something’s illing him, though, as if he were in his right state of mind he wouldn’t be walking around in a rush when he could simply tear portals everywhere and get everything he needs by simply reaching about.

She’s left alone with a group of slowly recovering, miserable minions and a smashed, brainless corpse of a Trench beast.

“Well I guess… I guess I best throw everyone in bunks or somethi-”

“hiieeeeeg- Ahh! Wow!” Entomology Minion wheezes out, his infusia having reconstructed his body just enough to grant him consciousness. “What was…” he looks around obviously in an attempt to screen his surroundings. Scout Minion’s sure he’s just figuring out how surprised he should act.

“Good afternoon there,” she says.

His antennae flick up before he slowly, painfully turns around to look at her. “O-… hi! Do you know what happened here?”

She smirks. “No clue. I was called in and all this garbage happened.”

“I… I think I was trying to summon up some small, uh, beetles for my studies with Summoning Minion’s help… and then…. And then…” he looks around to construct a story. “Hunt Minion burst out of nowhere saying he was going to kill everyone if he wasn’t summoned up a bone to chew on right that instant!”

Scout feigns surprise. “Whoa, no way.”

“Yeahhh way! I thought we were all gonna die!”

“Especially considering he says he hates those.”

“I… I know, right? Soooo unlike him!” Entomology Minion answers with a friendly, sociopathically-skilled tone.

She nods. “Well we can talk to him about the whole thing later. What’s up with the bug?” she asks, deciding to stop diddling about and just get on with carrying folks to the tower’s Infirmarium. She’ll start with him. Taking the bug-maniac up, he droops over her arms to the point that his feet nearly drags on the floor.

“…What bug?” he asks with the fakest-sounding tone she can imagine at the moment.

In a natural reaction to this level of weakness in a deception, she rolls her eyes. “Ahh, just some thing from Trench. No idea why something like that would show up.”

He clears his throat with a rapid, nervous cadence. “Y-yes! How strange! I guess Shape Enthusiast Minion was there too?”

“Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion,” she corrects as they step through a hall flushed with colorful light from the stained glass windows above

“A-of course!”

“Yeah, he was there, causing some trouble.”

“Oh yes… oh my what a shame… what a- what a troubled individual he is to do such a thing!”

“Do what?” Scout Minion asks with a snide look on her. There’s no way she’s going to last the five minute walk to The Infirmarium with this loon.

“He… I mean… I  don’t know because I was unconscious, but I’m pretty sure that… knowing him, he would have had something to do with all that Trench summoning business.”

Scout Minion stops dead in her tracks, and Entomology Minion can feel her grip tightening around him.

“Uh, Scout?”

“And now I wash my hands of the whole affair,” Scout Minion says peacefully, more to herself than to him.

“Wh-what?”

With a spin, she swings him upright and through the air, aimed straight for one of the windows. The window shatters with a dense crash, sending a cracked rainbow of shards flying in all directions while Entomology Minion soars down on a brief adventure towards the pinewoods below.

“WHAT DID I SAYYYYYyyyy-”

A slamming sound is heard below at the base of the tower. To add insult to injury, she makes a deft hop up to the frame of the shattered window and stretches out to shout down.

“Let me know if you find any cool bugs down there!” she says with a laugh before returning to the hall and about-facing back to The Summonarium.

“Playing dumb is one thing, but blaming that wierdo for the whole thing is a completely different ball game, kiddo,” she adds for herself.

Scout Minion heads back down to the summoning chamber, where she see, even to her surprise, High Overlord Chaos, standing over a summoning circle and drawing up strange, raw elements of increasingly lurid and peculiar formations.

“…Poppi?”

Chaos looks back fully to her with a look of surprise. “How may I help you… erm… Doubt Mini-”

“Scout Minion, sir. We talked like… two minutes ago.”

Genuine surprise crosses his face. “Ahh, well I suppose you can count that up to my bad, then.”

The gentle hum of Chaos’ summoning provides an oceanic light through the windowless room. She looks to the others, all of them completely out of it except for Hyper Arcane Archivist Minion, who impressively enough seems to be recovering to the very brink of consciousness.

“So… what are you up to today?” she asks.

He looks back to the summoning circle the moment an exceptionally gelatinous compound bursts up from the floor in a neat, viscous blob. In a snap, he captures the entire entity in a bottle he had handy, corking it and setting it aside all in the blink of an eye. “I… I believe I was just in the middle of preparing some… ingredients?… for a… barbecue?”

Hyper Arcane Archivist Minion gasps in a breath of air, convulsing back to life. “G- M- W-ww-w-w-”

“Good afternoon, Hyper Arcane Archivist Minion,” Chaos says with a smile, formally beginning the conversation for her.

Scout squints an eye with a crass smile. Sure, she remembers her name this time around.

“I-… I” the bespectacled minion stutters on senselessly, her round glasses cracked in three different places. “I… I know who’s behind all of this!”

“Entomology Minion?” Chaos asks. “It’s not the first time he’s tried to do this.”

Scout Minion jolts in shock. “W-wait. How much do you remember again?”

“What do you mean?” he says with a superior grin. “I never forget things. I am The High Overlord after all.”

Scout Minion stares on with an incredulous smile. He’s so stressed out today that he simultaneously remembered and forgot two entirely different sets of knowledge.

“R- of course not, sir.”

He nods. “I would expect you not to forget something like that, hmm?”

She smiles back at him. “My bad… so you’re gonna get Cooking Minion to make us some Barbecue or somethi-”

“Please, listen!” Hyper Arcane Archivist Minion bleats. “Entomology Minion did the whole thing! He got Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion to crash the place and-”

“I am aware,” Chaos says, his smile entirely untouched. “But I didn’t want to hurt his feelings.”

Scout Minion glances over to Hyper Arcane Archivist Minion. A shrug is exchanged; they’re both confused.

“So… is that it?” she asks. “He summoned a Trench thing into the tower, you know!”

“Ahh… ahh yes, he did, didn’t he?” With next to no warning, his gaze sobers up. He looks to Scout Minion. “Pardon me, dear. Did you take care of him?”

She smirks. “You bet I did.”

He nods pleasantly, takes his last object from the portal, and leans down to pick up Summoning Minion, Chalk Art Minion, Magic Minion, and even Hyper Arcane Archivist Minion in his wide arms.

“I’ll leave Hunt Minion to you,” he says, his tone unchanged even under the weight of four of his minions.

Scout Minion heaves the massive wolf over her head with nary a huff. “Got ’em.”

The multitude starts moving out, Hyper Arcane Archivist Minion hyperventilating in horror to be held by her overlord while the others just sort of slump about in a stupor of recovery.

“Are you really just going to let it all slide by?” she asks the moment she builds up the strength to speak up.

Chaos slants his gaze forward while they traverse the several staircases about the tower. “I… I usually know exactly what to do, my dear Hyper Arcane Archivist Minion. Just as you know how to take care of your ancient volumes, so do I tend to know how to take care of matters of The Minionry and my realms… but this time… I don’t know how to react.” His expression flickers in a sacred reminiscence. “I love her-”

The two conscious minions snap their gazes to him in abject shock.

“Y-y-y-”

“Who, Poppi?! Like love love?!” the two resounds simultaneously.

Chaos’s grin shrinks down with a confused blandness. “I do. She’s so precious to me… or at least… at least she was. I do not know anymore. I think, rather, she has died now.”

“Y-yeh… eh-”

“Died?! Poppi! For the love of you, start speaking sense! Who is this girl?”

Chaos shakes his head sadly while ascending the next staircase for The Infirmarium. “It matters not anymore, dear children. She is truly lost to me now. I’ll cast her word from my heart forever and forget.”

While Hyper Arcane Archivist Minion stutters in senseless disbelief, Scout Minion, who’s more well-rounded than the vast majority of Towerne’s inhabitants, just draws out a sigh. “You really know how to lead a girl on, dad.”

Chaos chuckles with a pathetic smile on his face. “I didn’t mean to torment you with my woes. Let’s get these derelict souls up and then we can start the cookout.”

“Wait, like a real cookout?”

Chaos shrugs, causing his load of minions to sway gently in his grip. “Of course. It is ordained by myself, after all. Those knights can do as they please, but we… we shall barbecue.”

Scout’s antennae pop up. “Oh yeah? So… what are we eating?”

The Overlord grins. “Wouldn’t you believe it, I just so happened to come upon some Trenchling brains a few minutes ago. I’m not sure how it came into my possession, but I hear they can be quite tasty in the hands of an experienced chef. We shall go and see how Cooking Minion feels about the prospects of such a dish, mmm?”

Scout grins mischievously. “Sounds good. Make sure he tastes first it to be sure.”

Chaos nods in certainty. “Naturally. Now this way, you two.”

And the two carry the others off, somewhere deep in the maze of The Pine Forest Tower.

They didn’t talk about it, of course, but everyone got the distinct feeling that they didn’t quite get what they wanted at all today….

Everyone but Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion, of course, because just an hour after all of this, he drew a picture of a pentagon and then he was as happy as can be; some people are just that simple.

 

-fin-