1.

Somewhere out in the omniverse, the Inkrealm, or whatever you like to call it, one of Overlord Chaos’ many woodland towers stands up gloriously from the fall tress surrounding it.

This one tower has four long-houses that connect to the base, all of which interconnect around the center and twist up into a pleasant second story, among many more piling above it.

It’s on this second story, seated in rocking chairs on the porch and warm with cups of tea, do we find a pair of the High Overlord’s minions, watching the leaves fall on a quiet day.

Fall Addict Minion takes a deep breath of the crisp Autumn air, twisted wonderfully with the steam of pumpkin-spice tea set in her hands.

“I’m glad that it’s finally that time of year,” she says with a genuine smile, poking her white, angular jaws from over her huge, comfy scarf.

The one next to her, Druid Minion, takes a long, certain nod, the various pagan ornaments and spirit catchers swaying in unison upon her antler-like antennae.

“That it is,” she says, bringing her cinnamon tea up for a sip. “We wait so long for this time of year, it seems.”

Fall Addict Minion nods curtly and with complete agreement. “Not everyone gets that, though.” She glances down below. Under the unending fall of orange and yellow play a crazed set of younger minions. They’re running about, crashing through the leaves, tumbling and throwing them up in piles while they shout out their frenzied, playful cries.

Fall Addict Minion’s smile gains a further hint of warmth, something she’ll need to take with her for the Winter. It’s difficult sometimes, being like her. Some people get to recharge during the evenings, others during the weekend. But for Fall Addict Minion, she recharged during the Fall, so it has to last her the entire year.

“I guess we don’t have to worry about everyone, though.”

Druid Minion nods once more with a sage look about her, the many tattered veils draped over her providing an air of mystery to her appearance.  “The Head Practitioner understands the value in the turning of the seasons,” she says.

Fall Addict Minion shrugs. “He does, though it’s kind of creepy if you put it that way, I think.”

“Mmm.”

Fall Addict Minion looks forward out to the trees, appreciating the gentle way they sway and shed a dozen leaves at once. “Fall’s such a nice time. I don’t like taking things too seriously.” She glances over to Druid Minion. “What did you do in the Fall?”

Druid Minion slants an eye into a moonlit crescent. “We celebrated something called Samhain. The practitioners would all gather up and remind us that the ‘dark part’ of the year was starting. Everyone had a good time, but I was always scared.”

Fall Addict Minion squints awkwardly. “Whoa, now that’s… really something else, isn’t it?” She says, doing her best to avoid using the word “creepy”.

Druid Minion slowly turns her head in a muted distaste. “And just how did you appreciate Fall before you were turned?”

The scarf-loving minion takes a cute, contemplative sip of her tea, just as if she were still in her coffeeshop from ten years ago, talking about boys, and movies, and books with her friends.

“Well, nothing particular, I guess. We had Halloween.”

“That holiday seems prevalent in a lot of dimensions.”

Fall Addict Minion nods. “It’s weird how that is, isn’t it? Wonder who spread it around…. So we did that, and we picked pumpkins, and carved them, and put these little candles in them… it was all really fun. We drank toasty beverages, just like this… and then one Halloween I got in a fight with my parents, went out by myself and I…” her gaze sharpens in reminiscence: not necessarily good, but not particularly bad, either. “Then I met him, just walking about that night. I thought he was a creep, so I pepper sprayed him.”

Druid Minion scoffs gently against the rim of her tea cup. “And how did that go?”

“Not… so well. Let’s just say he didn’t have as much patience with me like he did the others. It didn’t hurt him, but he knew right away I was trying to. I guess I’m lucky he turned me into…” she glanced down at her squat, black and white body covered in layers, “-this. Better than being dead, anyway.”

“I would say that’s lucky, though he’s infested people that have fought him before in the past. He infests Royal Knights, after all, and they’re regularly out for his blood,” Druid Minion notes.

“Mmm, never met one. I don’t even know what the world is like outside Towerne, other than my home dimension, anyway.”

Druid Minion hums at the idea. “Do you ever miss back home?”

Fall Addict Minion smiles sweetly, but her eyes are just a little sad; it’s a complex memory for her.

“I wonder, sometimes, how my parents are doing, but Chaos said he sent them a letter saying ‘he kidnapped me due to their poor parenting, and that how he would raise her as my own!’ or something like that. I feel bad for them, but it’s not like I don’t like it here better.” She looks over to her antlered associate. “How about you?”

Druid Minion hums once more. “We were all summoning things to guard against darker spirits for Samhain. The head practitioner told me to go out and conduct a ground feeling in the woods before summoning, and then the words just came to me. I spoke them out, and a week later, the night of the festival, he appeared and started… celebrating.”

Fall Addict Minion smirks. “Really?”

“Indeed. We asked him about magic, and he told us many things, but they were against our teachings, so the practitioners asked him to leave… I followed him, and he invited me to come with him and join his family.”

Fall Addict Minion glances aside. “That’s… yeah, that’s a lot better than mine.”

“He loves you just as much, I’m certain. He leads the willing and the rebellious alike.”

The two share an appreciative smile.

“He’s a good guy, that’s for sure,” she notes right before the breeze picks up and swishes the leaves about in a swirl. A small whirlwind forms below, fluttering the leaves about in a cyclone of colors.

“Wonder what we’re going to do this year… probably going to be a Kingsday thing again,” Fall Addict Minion says with a slight puff. She takes a sip of her tea with a less-than-pleased look on her face.

Druid Minion hums, as is common for her. “You’re not a fan of the colder holidays?”

“I mean, yeah, but he usually only does one big thing a year for everyone. I haven’t heard anything about it yet, so I’m guessing it’ll be Kingsday related.”

Druid Minion squints slyly at her rocking chair partner.

“You know, we could go see him about it,” she notes with an intriguing tone.

“Wh-” Fall Addict Minion stumbles over her words for a second before getting her head back in sorts. “Does he like… take visitors?”

“He considers us all his children, doesn’t he?”

“He’s not exactly a… you know; the type of guy with common sensibilities. The idea of family probably doesn’t mean the same thing to him as it does for us,” Fall Addict Minion explains with a terse look.

Druid Minion shrugs. “I think you’d be surprised. He takes good care of us, doesn’t he? His definition’s the same as anyone else’s.”

“Yeah, but he also opens up portals to hell just to beat up demons, for fun. Does that seem like the kind of person that understands-”

“Nevermind,” Druid Minion concedes. “You have a point, but I still think we should try.”

Fall Addict Minion crosses her arms. “Okay, but how does someone even go up and find him?”

Druid Minion gains that glint in her glowing eyes that Fall Addict Minion knows too well.

“Well, we could put other minions in peril, he’d probably pick that up,” Druid Minion says, her gaze locking onto all the adorable younger minions below, stumbling about the leaves and dire in their cluelessness.

“O-Okay, but how much peril?” Fall Addict asks.

“A lot of peril,” Druid says with a very Chaos-like, open glare of abject cruelty.

Fall Addict Minion takes a short pause before taking a sip of her tea. “I think that’s not such a good idea.”

Druid Minion’s killer gaze dies out. “It’s a great idea. This society simply isn’t ready for my kind of wisdom.” She sighs. “So let’s go find him, then. I’ll reckon he’s up in the center tower somewhere.”

Fall Addict Minion gives a long, hesitant sigh. “It’s such a huge place, though. How will we find the right way?”

“We ask directions.”

“And what if we ask ‘Bad Directions Minion’ to show us the way? We’d be walking around confused for hours.”

“I highly doubt there’s such a minion as th-”

“Hey, girls,” Ultimate Frisbee but only for the First Part of the Game until Everyone’s Tired Minion greets with a smile, radiating pretentious, outdoorsy energy, but only for as long as it stays cool outside, and for as long as he’s winning whatever it is he’s playing.

“Hey, Frisbee,” Fall Addict Minion says with an incriminating glare over to Druid Minion, who glances aside awkwardly.

“Nice to see you,” is all she says as he passes by.

“See?” Fall Addict Minion snips with a cute smile, “He’s got millions. I don’t even know who you could trust. Every day is like a dream here: I barely know anyone outside of our tower so it’s like I don’t get to know anyone.”

Druid Minion shrugs. “I’m certain, but that’s still an exception. I’m sure we’ll meet someone perfectly wonderful and willing to help.”

Fall Addict Minion looses a sigh, her inner sassiness steadily revealing itself with the pressure. “Druid, please. Just don’t make a thing about it. Nevermind. It’s not a big deal. I’m sure we’ll do a Halloween thing next year if he doesn’t forget again.”

“He’s not that forgetful,” Druid Minion says with glance from the side. “You just need to reach out and meet him, I’m sure you’ll see it otherwi-”

“Please! We don’t know who we’d a-”

“Sup, losers!” a maverick voice calls from above the porch.

With a swing and a spin, the dark-cut figure of a minion flies through the air, smashing down into the table holding the girl’s teacups. Tea and splinters project gloriously into the air as the new minion busts a sweet pose before dabbing on both of them.

“HAH! Bet you fuckin’ creeps weren’t expecting the likes of ME around here!” he shouts, giving them a second dab for good measure.

“You asshole!” Fall Addict Minion snaps. “Aren’t you like, supposed to be in prison or something?!”

The mysterious, wry faced minion gives a dismissive wave. “No way, that’s for losers. That was the old me. Now I’m Unhinged Super Maniac Minion!”

“Wh-, you classed up?!” Druid Minion asks with a start, as if impressed.

Unhinged Super Maniac Minion does a surprisingly smooth spin into a flourish ending with him pointing at himself in the way a full-of-himself cartoon character would. “You frickin’ bet, ya’ furry ingrate! Now I’m gonna tear out the jugulars of the system and deliver an All Hell’s Ows! Eve experience that no one’ll forget! I’m gonna go straight up to Big Cheese and give ‘em a piece of me he’ll never forget!”

“This is…” Druid Minion squints in thought, “this is perfect, actually.” She looks over to Unhinged Super Maniac Minion. “You’re going to Chaos, right?”

“Pfft, that loser?” he starts with a full buck-heavy confidence.

The two feminions just look him over patiently.

“Yeah,” he says, his smile deflating to reflect only a second of socially-normal, if somewhat animated, behavior.

“Could you show us the way? I have no clue where to find him in the central tower, and Fall Addict here’s never even been there, really,” Druid Minion says with a sway, causing her antlertennae ornaments to swing with her curt nod over to Fall Addict.

“Sure!” the crazed minion says with a friendly shout.

Druid Minion gets up, but Fall Addict Minion doesn’t.

“Something the matter?” Druid Minion asks her chair-glued friend.

“Look…” Fall Addict Minion sighs. “Can’t we just finish our tea, go down and get some more tea, then drink that? I like the idea of going out, but I just don’t know… there’s so much that could go wrong!”

Unhinged Super Maniac Minion crosses his arms wryly, his grin growing to cartoonishly wide proportions. “Yeah? Sounds about right for a total loser. You wouldn’t know adventure if it smashed through your pumpkin-spice stained skull- gah, idiot!” he says, interrupted sharply by Druid Minion giving his foot a decisive stamp.

“You should be in jail,” she says crossly before looking back to Fall Addict, who by this point is turned away in complete disinterest. “Come on. You’ll be glad you did.”

“No,” she snips with a bitter tone, glancing back from the rapturous sight of the falling leaves.

Druid Minion rubs her face for a short moment before trying again. It’s strange, but she feels a slight raising of magic in the air around them; or perhaps it’s just their emotions getting the best of them.

“Look,” she starts again, “you must come with me. There’s all sorts of great things we’ll see. It’ll be a million times easier than you expected, promise. You’ll see, really!”

“I won’t see, I think,” Fall Addict Minion corrects with a clearly uncomfortable tone.

“Hell you talkin’ about?”

“What?” Unhinged Super Maniac Minion and Druid Minion ask respectively.

The magic is so heavy on the air now that everyone’s antennae are pointing straight up at the feeling of it. Heavy magic isn’t uncommon at all around Towerne, there’s always some minion doing some kooky spell or enchantment, but this one feels especially large.

Fall Addict crosses her arms and looks away with an abrupt, cute bitterness. “I won’t, because I’m not goi- WHAAA-”

At this very moment, a brute-forced portal smashes its way through the compiled spaces of the dimension, allowing the three minions to fall right through.

2.

The trio falls through onto the baked hyper-stone floor in a completely different dimension; though as they’ll find, still in Towerne.

It’s a dark, magical-looking room, spread thinly with a few rows of desks and computer equipment, with a large group of infusiae looking them over from the heightened side of the room.

“All systems are nominal, as expected,” a positive, squeaky voice starts, punctuated with a few keystrokes on a keyboard.

Only Unhinged Super Maniac Minion caught himself in his fall and is already on his feet while the other two take a second to climb up. No sooner do they do so before they look up and flinch in shock.

“Wonderful,” a dark, deep, powerful voice of exquisite maturity says.

If one were to take a bottle of merlot, age it until the end of time, and then open it to appreciate the scent, it would smell like burning plastic in comparison to the smokiness of this voice.

“Your magic is wonderfully stable, my Head Dimensionlessness, sir,” Dimensionomancy Infrastructure Minion says with a cute smile to the tall figure next to him. He is standing right next to who else but High Overlord Chaos; the most infamous being in The Omniverse. Around the two of them are a slew of other science minions, taking notes, typing on consoles, and others playing solitaire on their advanced scientific machinery.

Fall Addict Minion’s eyes widen to perfectly-round white moons at the sight of the one that stole her away from her world, her dimension, her family, and everything she loved and hated.

His grin hasn’t changed one bit.

“Ahh, that’s quite kind of you to say,” Chaos says to Dimensionomancy Infrastructure Minion with an appreciative head rub.

Of course, Dimensionomancy Infrastructure Minion loves being rubbed by his dark master as much as the next minion, but he also doesn’t like mixing business with its rewards. He gently steps aside, out from the overlord’s grasp.

“W-why thank you, sir. Now, as we set it, the tracking system pointed out the highest concentration of criminal intent in the area and fed the projection to your memory via the telepathy node. This way we can find naughty people at an incredible speed: at least a hundred billion times faster than normal,” the scientist minion says with a proud, excited tone.

Chaos gives a slow, appreciative nod. “One hundred billion times, truly?” he asks.

Dimensionomancy Infrastructure Minion shrugs. “Not really, I just sort of guffed up the numbers into a super vague ballpark figure and then cited some works from paywalled, out-of-circulation sources. In fact, the calculations I went through are so arbitrary that no one could reasonably refute it unless they had the exact metrics I was using, which I of course will never submit in any journal, let alone to the public,” he explains with a calm, deviously handsome smile.

Chaos produces an understanding “Ahh,” before reaching a bit farther and rubbing the minion on the head once more. “As expected from one of my own. Truly a low-effort plan to climb the ladders of academia. I believe that properly aimed hard work is the key to a fulfilling life, but I will give you the freedom to make your own decisions.”

“Th-thank you, sir,” Dimensionomancy Infrastructure Minion says, pulling away even further as his black face blushes a bit white from the touch of The Extragalactic Destroyer.

“Now then,” Chaos starts with a smile, “just who are these creatures of mine?”

An exceptionally nerdy, very cute minion stumbles up with her tiny lab coat and stupendously-large glasses. “Head Director, sir! According to our intelligence this is Druid Minion and Fall Addict Minion from the Oak Woods Tower!”

“Thank you, Minion Identification Minion” he says before his features darken. Chaos strikes a nefarious, scorned pose of contemplation. He looks so unbelievably cool as he turns into himself slightly that the entire room echos with a slow, hissing gasp from the surrounding minions.

“Could it be, that you lot have been planning on engaging in… spurious behavior?” The High Overlord asks in a way that makes Fall Addict Minion’s infusia-infested heart curl into itself several times over.

“No, no not at all, sir!” Druid Minion explains with a flinch. “We only wanted to find you-”

“Exactly as I thought!” Horribly-Timed Baseless Accusation Minion shouts with an overly-emotional point. “It’s all because you three were trying to kill our master, weren’t you?!” Of course, he would be here at the absolute worst time.

Fall Addict Minion is gobsmacked and incapable of speech while Druid Minion unfolds her arms in explanation.

“Positively not. We’re all here to ask about the big holiday outing is all. Besides, you all were the ones that brought us here.”

Horribly-Timed Baseless Accusation Minion gives an insulting, face-punchable ‘tsk’ of pretension before responding. “I’m sure you would want us to host a human sacrifice or something messed up like that, huh? Well I’ll have you know that the only holiday you three are going to have will be Minionwagonmas!”

The three know Horribly-Timed Baseless Accusation Minion has no power to do so, but the thought of The Minion Wagon still causes a jolt of horror from each of them, including the usually fearless Maniac Minion.

Chaos hums with a rub of the chin with his matte black, ultra-sharp hands. “So, who is the last of you? I don’t quite recall your face,” he says.

Minion Identification Minion stands up on her tippy toes to look over the railing, and she peeps in surprise.

“Oh, I didn’t see him, Head Director! That’s Unhinged Super Maniac Minion. He recently got an extra adjective on his title via Naming Minion.”

Immediately a look of realization crossed over the Sharp King. “Ahh, well that explains all of the criminal intent,” he notes with a relieved smile. “All is as it has been, I suppose.”

“B-but sir!” Horribly-Timed Baseless Accusation Minion squeaks.

Chaos lifts his hand to the minion. “Nonsense. I forgot for a moment why I gave you that name in the first place,” he says, causing the little minion to cross his arms and huff grumpily.

“Now then, I suppose that will be enough tests of the equipment for one day,” Chaos gives a confirming nod of appreciation to his group of magitech scientists.

“Of course, Head Director.”

“Always a pleasure to test the limits with you, sir.”

“You can rub my head anytime sir… I mean, if you want to, of course,” are among some of the many addresses he receives as he laxly steps off in his typically smooth, mobile style of comfort.

“Now then, you three,” Chaos says, stepping up and leading them out of the tower’s seven hundred and eighty fourth laboratory, “I assume you really did want to speak?”

Druid Minion takes a deep breath, calming herself in a quick, efficient pull of air. “Yes, Head Practitioner. We wanted to ask about the big holiday outing this year.”

Chaos glances aside to his antlered minion. “Oh?”

“Yes. We would like it to be a Fall outing rather than a Winter or Summer one.”

Passing through the equally dark hyperstone hallway, rushing thick with all sorts of scientific and magical-craft minion, The Dark Ruler squints with consideration. “I suppose Kingsday has been getting a bit dry-”

“Yeah, celebrating that ancient fart’s so fucking old,” Unhinged Super Maniac Minion says, popping a surprisingly good imitation of a kick-flip for no perceptible reason other than that he must actually think it makes him look cool. “I have a way better idea.”

Druid Minion swings her gaze over to the maniac. “Wait, you do?”

He scoffs pretentiously. “How typical of a dirt worshipper to not even have a clue.” He swings his gaze back to Chaos as they pass by a window; Fall Addict Minion only needs to peek for a second to come to the shocking conclusion that the tower they’re in is actually suspended in the orbit of a planet; she had no clue in the slightest that Chaos owned dimensional towers in space.

“Yeah?” Druid Minion snaps back, “and just what would be this amazing plan of yours?”

He scoffs once more with an air of complete superiority. “Clearly it’s to make an even better holiday than All-Hell’s Ow! Eve!” He looks up to Chaos. “Head Maniac, I challenge you to a duel!”

The two minion lasses flinch, but Chaos’ demeanor doesn’t change at all. The only thing that changes is his grin: it’s growing.

“A duel?”

“Yeah, ya’ lanky scrub. If I beat your ass then we’d have a sweet holiday to remember you by! Everyone would feel so sorry for you for getting whupped to shit by me that it would be remembered Omniverse wide!”

Chaos’ grin is wide enough to encompass someone’s head in between his jaws. “Ahh… and you feel as though this act of clear disloyalty is something I would simply tolerate?”

Unhinged Maniac Minion waves his head around like a wild, crane-necked bird, grand-standing to impress mates and intimidate challengers. “Famous last words, weenie boy.”

The High Overlord chuckles. “Challenge accepted.”

“HA!”

At once, Unhinged Maniac Minion leaps upon Chaos, punching, kicking, biting and grappling to do anything that could even slightly be considered damage. “Summa dis. And some of THIS!” He yells in self-assured triumph.

Chaos just keeps walking on, leading the other two minions along with a steadily relaxing grin. “So, I presume this duel was not in your plans?” he asks.

Druid Minion shakes her head. Her antler ornaments jingling with pleasantly woody wind-chime sounds. “Absolutely not, sir. We simply want an enjoyable outing for everyone.”

Chaos nods while Maniac Minion attempts, and fails, to yank him to the ground; the little guy isn’t even swaying him. “That’s a reasonable desire,” Chaos says. “What did you have in mind?”

As if by the question alone, Druid Minion’s features darken as her eyes widen. “Samhain is soon, sir. I can think of plenty of people that we could use as reminders for why-”

“Why would I sacrifice perfectly good humans? They may deserve it, but that does not mean we are so lowly as to forget the value of grace.”

Druid Minion shakes her head, snapping herself out of it. “Wh- n-no, master! I mean… why is it that everyone thinks I’m about to suggest human sacrifices?!”

Chaos sharpens his gaze with a crass, but loving, look. She huffs with insult.

“Y- no, sir! Being a druid doesn’t automatically mean I’m some bloodthirsty forest creep that lays werewolves and eats kids! You’re very old, Head Practitioner. You know more about the magical way than I do, so you should know that.”

Chaos grins. “Well, I do, at least in that the magical way has none of that silly extraneous suffering in it. I never did understand the people of your city.”

“It was a village, sir.”

“Oh.”

“In the woods.”

Chaos glances aside with a wide, awkward grin. “…Ahh, well, there you have it. I apologize.”

Druid Minion sighs. “Now, all that aside, we want to have a Fall holiday. It can be anything, so long as you approve, of course.” She nods over to Fall Addict Minion, who’s been nervously observing the entire time. “Fall Addict here felt like Halloween would be a good plan.”

“There’s a thought,” Chaos says, looking down to the trembling Fall Addict Minion. “What did you have in mind?”

“Meeeep?” is the one smart answer she gives with a high-pitched, horrified tone.

The other two exchange a quick, bemused glance. Even Unhinged Super Maniac Minion pauses his assault upon the Dark Master for a moment just to fire off an incredulous look her way before redoubling his attack.

“I mean, me?” she corrects after an awkward clearing of the throat.

Chaos glances back to Druid Minion and then back at her to give her a soft nod. “You are the one we were referring to, I believe,” he says with an understanding, fatherly sort of tone.

“Ahh, yeah. Yeah I was. So uh, I mean I wasn’t that opinionated on it, I mean, it’s just that I kinda, maybe feel a little bit like we’ve done Winter and Summer stuff too much. I’d like us to do a fall thing with everyone… if that’s okay with you, sir, master, I mean.”

Chaos smiles and gently rests his hand on Fall Addict Minion’s head while they walk along the hall. “I think that’s a fine idea, but we need something to do my dear,” he says as he gives her a relaxing rub around the antennae.

Of course, Chaos doesn’t own the title Razor Ruler just because it sounds badass, but because his body is so sharp he could split someone in half with a chop from his hand. People tend to understand this, as he’s chopped a great deal of people in half with his hands. To his minions, however, they’re made of the same stuff as he is. It’s like the fluffiest, loveliest, warmest touch caressing her.

She bends to his touch; his hand causing a closeness that proceed all other forms of contact in its wonderment.

“Don’t fret. I have all the time in the world,” he says, and that’s all that was really needed.

Immediately Fall Addict Minion realizes that there was nothing scary about him, it was just The Great Unknown surrounding him. He’s her dad, as he stole her away from her first parents many, many years ago; and she’s now finally accepting the situation as more than just a bystander – now she accepts him too.

“I’d… I’d like to take everyone trick-or-treating,” she says with a faint smile.

Chaos hums. “We have quite a lot of minions, you know. What street would we hit?”

“It would take at least a city,” Druid Minion says with a smile. “We’ll have to get a lot of candy.”

“This is true,” Chaos says with a nod before looking over to Unhinged Super Maniac Minion. “Do you have any suggestions, dearest challenger?”

Unhinged Super Maniac Minion is busy ineffectually ramming his fist into Chaos’ jaw, but he at least knows to speak when spoken to. “Suggestions? Surrender, obviously!” he cries with enthused violence.

Chaos hums. “I’ll consider it,” he says as they pass through into the center of the tower, a high-tech lift system rushing with magitech minions, mechatronics minions, and a slew of various engineering intern minions.

Druid Minion glances around with the same awestrickeness as Fall Addict Minion.

“So, I suppose we’ll have to make sure everyone gets costumes. I’ll have the Costuming Minion Group get on that,” he says, his antennae twitching to send out the message. “Bags for carrying our raidings… and of course the tricks we’ll need… now we simply need the location.”

“Frau was a big hit last time,” Druid Minion suggests.

Chaos nods, but his expression is still firm in thought. “Yes, however that was only a handful of The Minionry in comparison to the gayous whole of us,” Chaos says while they pass by one of the windows looking out into space. The cube-shaped planet they’re orbiting is in view, shaped thusly by some unknown primordial magic of Starlend’s forces. “it will have to be…” At once, Chaos gets “the look”.

“D-dad?” Fall Addict Minion asks with a bit of a blush.

“Yes,” he says with a deep, horrible glare out to the stars. “That cheeky, drunken, white-haired parasite won’t have the slightest clue. The beaches are peaceful at this time of year, a true community that revolves around the seasons. They will not suspect a thing, nor will they be prepared… truly, not that any society would be prepared for an invasion like this.”

Chaos’ antennae begin flicking and folding at wonderous speeds as he sends out dozens, and then hundreds of messages all across the Minionry. “We’ll need much more than I initially thought. In fact, this is even more ambitious than the Frau haunted house scheme…”

“Oh boy, you’ve got him started,” Druid Minion tells Fall Addict Minion with a nudge and a smile.

Chaos stamps his foot in violent excitement. “This will most certainly be the most destructive Hallows Eve any soul has ever witnessed! They’ll be lining the streets, strewn out in agony.”

“O-oh my.”

“You get ‘em, Head Practitioner!” Fall Addict Minion and Druid Minion note respectively.

Chaos laughs with an animated glee, his antennae still flickering in communication. “They won’t stand a chance,” he says with a sly sense of ambition. He has a plan, and it’s better than any other plan anyone else could make, all of his minions are certain.

“Yeah, yeah!” Druid Minion shouts, herself quickly getting wrapped up into it herself.

The Overlord leers forward “Those mistaken, misguided fools will be a fine example.”

“Hell yeah! Sacrifice ‘em all! Let’s get this started! String them up and burn the children! Those dirty Romans’ll get what’s coming to them!” Druid Minion screams with a murderous, grinning fervor.

This statement causes Chaos to squint in thought at her statement, and then look down to her.

“Pardon me?”

“Wh-… Uh.” Druid Minion clears her throat. “Just a thing we… we did back where I was… from.”

Chaos and Fall Addict Minion, glare concernedly at Druid Minion for a moment. Even Unhinged Super Maniac Minion, who is doing his absolute damnedest to break Chaos’ left arm, has to a pause a second at that one.

“Are you quite alright today, my dear?” Chaos asks.

Following is an awkward, apologetic conversation on Druid Minion’s side, in which she explains that thoughts of this time of year overexcite her from time to time as it reminds her of the time the Romans invaded her country and tried to take over.

Always the wise councilor, Chaos ensured he would always be there to help her deal with her heavy-handed bias against the S.P.Q.R. and that he would be there to talk anytime she needed him. He also said she wasn’t allowed to be left alone during the celebrations, because he was concerned she’d get carried away and try splitting someone in half on top of a stump or something.

3.

Royal Knight Captain Order, bless her heart, is slumped over upon her coffee table with a considerably large glass containing a lazily portioned Kanvanian Slip Bomb, and her face containing a lazily-portioned amount of “will to live”. She’s in nothing but her undergarment bloomers, sporting a cute froggy animal pattern.

Even being thousands of years old, there are some feelings that are truly without age. Among these, of course, are the honored wearing of animal-pattern undies.

“Autumns were your favorite, wasn’it?” she mutters drunkenly to herself, as if to the ghost of Meeo.

With a decisively-fishy sort of flop, The Bulwark of Western Civilization flips over onto her back, off the coffee table and onto the floor.

Life has always been hard for her, but it’s been especially bad in the past thirty few years.

She’d gone from the great mystic spires of Reinen, standing in unity with the knighthood that could challenge gods. Meeo was there, Danial was there, Rayda was there.

Now all three of them are gone, and she feels like she’s lost everything that matters to her.

“Eh, you’re alright,” Order slurs, weakly looking over to the spot where she thought Parvo was. Truth be told, Parvo got sick and tired of watching his owner rile about like a serpent of pure depression and alcohol. He’s now rolled up at the top of the staircase, because he likes how the wood feels up there under the rays of the skylights.

Order sighs, sounding more like a wheeze, and struggles to get up to her feet.

It’s so nice being too drunk to feel anything; then again, it’s not really a nice feeling, but it’s certainly not terrible.

She stands, and just when she is about to go get another drunk snack, her chat stone rings. She has many of the little things, but this one is the one.

With another long, gross sigh, Order snaps up the chain-attached chat stone from the hat hanger she left it on, and she raises it to her lips to speak. With a flicker of mana, she completes the connection and both sides can hear one another.

“What?” she mumbles.

The operator on the other line gasps gently, as if they’d never expect Order to be so upfront. “I-… Ma’am, sorry for the interruption, but Knight Justice would like to have a word with yo-”

“Yeah,” is all she says, not really an answer, and most of a statement of fact.

The young operator gives Order a quick, nervous apology, and then passes the chat stone over.

“Chief!” Justice cries.

“Sup,” Order responds with a slant frown. “Why aren’t you calling from your direct-sto-”

“Spirakander’s under attack!” his voice crackles through the cool manor air.

As if by reflex, Order snaps her fingers alongside a spell. Instantly every trace of alcohol is removed from her blood and her mind sharpens with a readied dexterity. She talks over the stone while she marches over to get her things.

“Who?” she asks with a calm urgency.

“We don’t know! I’m there now and it’s like every hell and dark place in the Omniverse just dropped in on ‘em! Knight Trust is on duty there and he said music started playing and all these ghosts and demons and such started popping out from every which way!”

Order’s meticulously crafted magic armoring system compiles her with sheet after sheet of her armor, flying onto her body with perfect, padded speed as the long series of interconnecting latches click into place and secure each piece onto her.

“What are the assailants doing?” she asks, her armor snapping along her musculature like the embrace of violence upon a readied soul.

“The people are holding up in their houses, but the demons are getting in! They’re playing all sorts of horrible tricks on them and demanding any sweets they have. I just don’t understand i-”

“Wait,” Order says, stopping dead in her tracks, her armor still piling over itself, “sweets?”

“Yeah, like they’re raiding pantries for candy and pies and such. It’s horribl-”

“Not this bullshit again,” Order mumbles.

“What was that, chief?” Justice asks, his tone as pure and expectant of ‘chief’ as ever.

She sighs. “I’m on the way.”

“Thank goodness! I’ll be there alongside you!”

The chat stone’s light fades out until it’s the stones natural sheen, and Order angrily shoves it into one of her in-armor compartments.

He won’t get away with it this time.

Equipped with her two blades, armor, spell book, and all other whatchamacallits that she’s so apt to use as a millennia old legendary witch knight, Order rushes through her door and promptly makes her way for the town space gate.

If she didn’t already know who was behind this and what goofy schemes he’d be up to, she’d have hit that gate faster than a meteor into a dinosaur. Instead she just keeps a steady pace. After all, she can’t risk looking like a slacker when there’s always a fresh new generation of humanity to impress. The legends don’t precede her like they do Chaos. She lives with humanity, after all.

Inputting the coordinates for Spirakander’s space gate, she thinks back to the time she tripped over the ribbon she was supposed to be cutting during the grand opening of the Ragnivanian Central Library. It was very embarrassing; they introduced her with the title “Dragon Slayer”, the very moment she fumbled into the Ragnivanian king at the time.

With a sigh from her, the space gate sighs all in its own, shifting way.

The realms fold and a great multifaceted blue pours deliciously from the portal.

Order slams her boot into the floor of the pedestal, the force sending her flying through the gate and into the cool sea breeze of the Spirakandrin night.

She freezes at the sight.

4.

All around her are lights.

It’s not the typical lights of Spirakander with their colorful glass lanterns, nor the lighthouses dotting the coat.

It’s not like the flashing, brilliant lights of Whihelmish inviting patrons into their establishments of inequity and sin.

It’s not at all like the arcane, shifting lights of Kanvane and its million magical artifices.

A younger soul would say  it’s closer to the solemn temples of martial arts and war from the military kingdom of Ragnivan. Ragnivan is a lively place, but only during the day. Its people live every moment of their lives while the sun is up. When it’s down, they too are down in their beds, readied for the next day of achievement and adventure. While the other three cities gain a new-found life in the dark, Ragnivan is the only one that steadily dies out into a distant, gray, holy sleep.

But no, Order remembers before then; she remembers Reinen: that city of cities.

Like a kaleidoscope of light and magic, with a thousand spells and spirits swirling about the heights of the sky. It was a sight of great comfort to all the people below their watch. These are not those spirits, and not those spells.

Standing on the wind-swept, salty, sandy streets, Order sees a host of hovering, changing, dreary lights.

Ghosts.

Aberrations of all shapes and sizes fill the sky like a dreary auora borealis of beings past, saturating every space above her with the old, covered breaths of a million old souls.

Joyous, weird minion tunes play in the background as thousands of shifting black-figures run through the shifting deadlights of the wonder-cursed sky.

Order takes in a deep breath and closes her eyes to “watch”.

She can feel an abnormally-heavy infusia presence near the Western plaza. She makes out his signature the very moment she feels a gentle nudge on her armored thigh.

Looking down, she finds the adorable and quirky Buries Herself into the Ground for Safety Minion, masquerading as a paper mache boulder with an inexplicable pair of glowing white eyes poking out from the costume.

“Trick or treat!”

“I swear, you creatures just ask for it,” she says with a bland tone.

“Wha-”

With a boulder-shattering kick, Order sends Buries herself into the Ground for Safety Minion directly into the stucco wall of the nearby police station.

At least she’s safe buried in the wall.

Order shakes the white infusia from her boot and pushes off for the Western plaza.

The sights become ever more remarkable.

A sugar-crazed tidal-wave of minions is pouring over the streets and across the exteriors of buildings, some groups of them hanging up along the lantern lines and others still dancing and throwing candy from the roof.

House after house is ransacked, storehouses picked clean of anything sweet, leaving the boring, healthy, savory food behind.

For every costumed minion of Chaos is at least one spirit; not an illusion, but the real deal, joining in with the bands, the parades, and the dancing; it seems as though only the people of the kingdom aren’t having a good time.

Lastly, in the center of the plaza stands a tall, suited skeleton man, his wide mask grinning quite naughtily in the shifting lights of the spirits. His antennae flick in her direction; she knew it wouldn’t take him long.

He looks across the plaza to her, and raises up his bubbling tea beverage, attended and kept full by a toga-bearing, Traditionally Whihelmish-costumed Refill Minion.

“Why, hello there!” the oh so mysterious masked gentleman calls across before leaping high into the air and landing with only the gentlest tap on the street tile in front of her. “Have you come to appreciate the glory of the greatest of all Halloweens?” he asks, Refill Minion making a frantic dash to try and get up to the two of them before his master moves again.

Order stares at him blandly.

“I wonder, just what could you be costumed as?” Chaos asks with a facetious tone. He glances over to a few minions.

“A total nerd,” Fitness Bastard Minion, dressed like a large ape, says between sips of his whey isolate.

“A style-less freak!” Low Self-Esteem Minion notes, her floppy ears of her little bunny suit swaying with a sassy head nod.

“An at-risk working-class individual in the need of personal goals,” Capital Finance Minion coos, his suit converting easily to a spy costume with the addition of a snappy bow-tie.

Other minions chime in, not a single one with anything good to say.

Over the millennia, anyone can say anything to Order and it wouldn’t hurt her feelings, but even so, she has to cut this short and move this along.

Directing a god-crushing kick with the heel of her boot, she sends Impact Dummy Minion flying, his low-personality yelp punctuated the very second he slams into one of the high-up and far-off lighthouses.

The music stops, everyone looks her way, and a slow, vicious “oooooh!” passes around the crowd of minions and spirits.

“Come now, dearie,” a rather plump ghost says with a cough to clear some of the ectoplasm from his throat. “Life’s too short to get so frustrated. Let’s all-”

“Dissal’hain, freeay,” Order cuts in.

The ghost, and all spiritual pressures and beings for nearly a kilometer begin to dissipate in a ghastly, wonderous flourish of light.

“Party pooper,” the ghost mutters with a huff before evaporating up into the night sky.

“You need to pack this shit up and leave,” Order says with a clear, patient tone to the masked gentleman.

Order can see Chaos’ grin grow past his mask. “Oh? Does our beloved hypocrite believe she has sway over the holidays themselves? Do you have command over forces which do not concern you? Command over me?”

“Sh-” she looks around, notes the thousands of gazes on her, almost everyone more than a little dissatisfied with the fact that she just delivered a hundred graveyards worth of spirits back to their rightful places. With a sigh she nods over to a nearby building. “Can we like-”

Chaos scoffs. “Very well.” He holds his finger high to excuse his absence, and the two snap the hinges off the door to the nearest building.

5.

It’s residential.

A horrified family of eight buckle into a corner as they witness Chaos holding the door for Order, and then closing it behind her. Now, one is wearing a mask, and the other is wearing her helmet, so they couldn’t really be sure. Even then, it’s not as though anyone would believe them when they told them they saw the Chaos and Order, in their home no less.

“Now then, you wanted to ta-”

“Just what the hell is your problem?!”

Chaos squints. “Pardo-”

“You know these people don’t have any candy! They’ll starve if you do this!”

“Why, on the contrary, they have lots of sweets-”

“None of which is for you! Don’t you get it?! Do you really not see why this is a problem?”

Much to Order’s chagrin, The High Overlord appears to take this as a compliment. “You cheeky little parasite, you. I pride myself on being an enormous problem for people. I am the rightful overlord, you know. Sometimes even I must come down from my tower to manage my demesne.”

She takes a deep, stressed breath. “Yes but…”

“Now it is my turn,” he starts, leaning over her.

Again Order is very physically reminded of the vast different in height between them.

“Well? Say it,” she challenges; her bravery always in tact when it comes to a frontal challenge from him. It’s only when he’s not acting like a complete ass that it takes her off guard.

“You, dear, if you really are so concerned with solving the problems of our world-”

“Humanity’s world, Chaos, not yours.”

He scoffs. “If you care so much, then why do you allow people to go hungry here?”

Her expression flickers under her helmet. “That’s not up to me.”

“Yes, it is.”

“You can’t just have mages exhausting themselves all day with creation magic. The population is too high, and their infrastructure has had poor management for decades. I won’t let you point the finger at me and act like Spirakandrins aren’t responsible for the problems they’ve made.”

“And yet, you could deign your holy self to them and help solve their problems.”

“It’s massive overpopulation, Chaos. They filled up all the extra space, but they didn’t stop building, and the president doesn’t listen. They don’t have the systems in place for such a thi-”

“Then why don’t you sit down and make food for them?”

“For hundreds of years?! They’ll just take it and make more!”

“Small societies are good, big societies are wonderful, Order, but a fed one is the best. The only excuse you have is your unbased fear of me, which itself has no reasonable purpose.”

“Other than you murdering Rayda?” she shouts up to him.

“We both know he asked me to do it!” Chaos says with a firm tone, practically shoving himself into her.

Order freezes. “…Wait…”

“You and your knights should live out his legacy, do whatever it takes to solve the problem. That isn’t as simple as giving out food, I assure you. You need to be proactive. Create systems, prepar-”

“No, Cha-”

“You can’t close yourself away forever, you pale insect. I do-”

“Shut up.” she reiterates, her eyes flashing a quick, warning red under her helmet.

Chaos laughs, and he removes his mask, much to the complete horror of the family at the opposite end of the room. The High Overlord simply waits for Order to take one more, stabilizing breath before she starts again.

“What did you just say?!”

Chaos squints his wide lunar eye into a slick crescent. “Mmm?”

“Rayda asked you to do it?”

He looks about as if perplexed. “He did?”

“You just said it!”

In an uncharacteristically perplexed moment, Chaos’ usual well of untappable confidence is plugged while he crosses his arms in thought.

“Mmm… well, well yes, I suppose I did… Can’t say I really remember to be quite honest.”

“You…” Order grabs him by the shoulders; it’s a bit of a stretch for her. “You just said that Rayda asked you to ‘do it’. You were talking about you killing him?”

Chaos squints. It’s almost as though the answer has simply stepped aside in his mind, deep into a pleasant, windowless humidor to enjoy a fine cigar or two. Even the impression of the thought seems to elude him.

“I don’t… I cannot for the life of me be sure,” he says, now he himself confused.

He is, of course, legendary for his short term memory loss, but it seems to have a funny habit of popping up at the most inopportune times.

Order lets go of his shoulders and draws back with a sigh.

“Whatever, you were probably lying anyway.”

Immediately, Chaos’ aura of superiority regains itself. “Hah, as if I’d even need to lie. Dare you even imply that I would be afraid of you thinking ill of me?!”

Order turns away, clasps her hands against her face in a desperate, wordless prayer to whatever deity controls this horrible world, and she takes yet another long sigh before looking back to him.

“Okay, great. Just forget about it.”

Chaos nods. “So, do you understand now?”

“U-understand what?!”

“Why you shouldn’t let the turning of the generations get the best of you and why you must continuously do your best. The management of the knights has been placed on you, my dear. I’ve allowed you to stay in this seat of the knighthood this long because I know you can do it!” he says, placing his hand on her shoulder with a caring gaze.

Order’s completely beside herself. It’s almost as though Chaos’ mind has degenerated to the point where he’s completely incapable of holding a reasonable conversation.

“Look, I…” she glances aside to the horrified family, eyes meeting her gaze immediately like an opened warren of terrified rabbits. “Nevermind it. Just get your stupid minions out of the capitol. Spirakander has enough problems as it is, and you’re just making the problem worse.”

Chaos draws back defensively. “But I told them I would take them trick-or-treating!”

“By raising a country’s worth of souls and ransacking every house in the city?”

There’s a short pause while Chaos smiles at her. “Well, it is Halloween, after all,” he says with a shrug.

Her brow flinches. “…Is it.”

“Yes, at least, according to our calculations, it is. We don’t have the holiday in this dimension, so I had to have a chat with a few of my extra-dimensional time-management minions about the topic: ‘just when, exactly, would it be appropriate to schedule a holiday across another dimension?’ Would one place it as close as possible to the actual date of the holiday’s native dimension, or would you choose a new date, one more conveniently spaced so companies can measure out vacation time mor-”

“Rayda preserve. Chaos,” Order cuts in.

“Yes?”

“Go home.”

“Why?”

“Because The other Knights are going to be at this spot as soon as they can. It’s probably already too late.”

“Too late to have a good time? Never. I assure you, I am quite determined to reach the presidential estate. Those animalistic fools will all see, as the tides of my Minionry surround them, I’ll step right onto their fancy floors, dance to my heart’s content, and steal all their relics!”

Order’s expression is almost sleepy in its blandness. This comprehensive idiot is actually planning on raiding the Spirakandrin presidential estate; taking what few magical items they have.

She shouldn’t be all that surprised, she realizes. He loves rare items or things of value, especially if they have no practical purpose. Over the years she’s come to the conclusion that he enjoys stealing things of cultural value so much because it must ‘teach them a lesson’ about materialism or some garbage like that, she assumes.

Either way, this cannot stand.

“You…” she bows her head in defeat. “Okay, fine. I’ll make you leave,” she says, turning for the door.

“Excellent,” Chaos says, his tone immediately changing its polarity again into his typical violent excitement.

Turning back to glance at him, Order sees he’s already spat up The Kingdom Slayer halfway from his interdimensional stomach.

“No,” she says simply.

Chaos, his mountain-crushing black blade spilling halfway from his jaws, flinches in shock. “What do you mean ‘no’?”

“If I fought you the way I’d want to fight you, there wouldn’t be any city left, so have fun, loser,” she snips before slamming the door behind her.

Chaos is frozen in place for a moment. Order of all people called him a loser, and the irony is not lost on him unlike the majority of social cues he’s exposed to.

After a pause, he looks back to the horrified family. “Did she really just say that?” he asks, The Kingdom Slayer still halfway down his throat.

The family exchanges some awkward gazes between one another, but he doesn’t give them time to cook up a response.

“Yes?” The bravest among them, the six year old Lanti, answers with a cough.

“How incredibly rude of her!” he says, gulping back his sword with a single buck of the head.

6.

She won’t allow this to go on. She just needs to figure out how she’ll stop him. He can’t just have his way with everything, no matter how stupid and petty it might be.

Order’s storming along the streets to the jeering, cheering waves of minions, when she hears a frightening ruckus from a connecting alleyway.

Glancing around, she scarcely dodges a flying Cooking Minion, who soars straight into the wall behind her in a blast of black-white infusia. Looking down, she sees the white-blood-covered hand of the man who did it, same with the other seven dozen minions utterly broken in the small fountain plaza.

The second he sees her, Knight Justice’s intense, deadly focus devolves into his usually friendly, Labrador demeanor. He’s dressed in a comfortable sweater: he didn’t even have time to equip himself for the fight, it seems. “Chief!” he exclaims, “thank goodness you’re here! These guys almost had us overrun!” he says, giving her a confident shake of the hand.

“I can… see that,” she says, taking off her helmet and glancing past his broad shoulders to see the piles upon piles of groaning, moaning minions. She also spots someone else, standing by the fountain and quite beside herself. She can hardly believe her eyes. “Had ‘us’ overrun, you say,” she mutters as a rhetorical question.

The tall dark elf has been looking Order’s way this entire time, her arms crossed pensively and her expression the same flat, desperate focus just like Order remembered.

It takes Order a moment to pull the name back up from her mind to her mouth. It’s been decades. “Salaina.”

Salaina of the now-destroyed Garland’s outer territories, known these days to the public as Lord Knight General Space, nods her way in a simple, solemn greeting. The only difference Order can see is that Space isn’t wearing outdoors gear anymore. She’s finally settled for casual clothes.

“Ranalie,” she addresses, her contrastingly sharp blue eyes like cold daggers in contrast to her warm complexion.

“Isn’t it great?!” Justice says with a wide grin. “She was just hanging around when the whole thing started!”

Space steps up to the two with a slow, almost soulless walk. “Nothing to do but go for walks now,” she says with a raised brow. “But I’ll say, Chaos’ bunch do know how to have a good time,” she adds with the smallest smile, nodding over to the mountain of half-conscious minion bodies.

Order needs a moment before responding. She just stares at Space while she collects the words. For Order, seeing her is like the sighting of a rare and famous bird, a mythic perching of a time long past; a reminder of a history that has been lost. It is simultaneously wonderful and horrible to witness.

“So… taking a break?” Order asks.

Space’s smile dies out. That’s all that really needs to be said, but she’ll say more. “It… won’t work. I’ll never get him back. The only thing I can get revenge on the one took him from me,” she says with a bland tone. “I wanted to prevent this, but now all I can see is Chaos. He haunts my dreams.”

Justice’s immediately loses his ‘pumped uppedness’ as he realizes what they’re talking about. He was there too, despite his apparent but fiercely protected innocence.

Order nods curtly. “If there was anything in his head to begin with, is… so completely fragmented that I don’t think we can ever get a straight answer out of him.”

Space nods back, her gaze set up to the stars of the night.

“All we can do,” Order continues, “is our best. We have to… keep things running as best we can. We won’t get Rayda back, but we can keep living the way he’d want us to,” she says. “The Knights won’t die just because he’s gone. We’ll find the Planar Sphere, we’ll find Caliburn.”

Finally, the first stroke of negative emotion manifests upon Space’s brow. Order knows it’s not what Space wants to hear, but the two of them have had to deal with Rayda’s loss in their own way. Shockingly enough, Order’s path was the more constructive one despite the oceans of alcohol included.

“If you say so,” Space says, her unbelieving tone still familiar to Order’s ears. “I can be patient. I’ll get my shot when I’m ready,” she adds with an intense tone as she looks back down to the short, white-haired Lord-Knight Captain.

Order’s eyes flush into a distasteful blue. “You’re better off not even trying. He’d crush you in a wing-beat, and he’s only kind to his own birds,” she says.

“I have to try,” Space says with a hollow breath.

Order and Space stare one another down, and this makes Justice a little uncomfortable.

“Right… soooo are we going to arrest these guys or wha-”

“No,” Order says, not lifting her gaze from Space. “There’s way too many.”

“Then how will we get them all away?” Justice asks.

Space reasserts herself. “Kill their leader,” she says as if referring to a simple raider or looter, rather than the one extradimensional public enemy number one himself.

“The mere attempt would cost millions of lives in a place like this,” Order snips back.

“Better than letting that bastard get away with what he did.”

The time, Order imposes herself, stepping right into Space’s personal area. “Rayda’s gone, Salaina. He’s dead.”

“Really, Ran’? Do you take me for a fucking child? I of all people would know that,” Space rebuts, winning a shocked gasp from Justice.

“Y- Salaina! Rayda wouldn’t want you cursing like that, though!” he butts in.

The two ladies are completely beside themselves. Justice can be such an incorrigible idiot at the very worst times, and at such times is so completely devoid of common sense that they both expect he’d navigate across the world if someone simply asked him to go and pass the salt.

Order purses her lips and takes a long breath. “He’s right, though,” she says.

Space scowls at the mere thought of someone telling her what “Rayda would want”, but deep down, she knows it to be the truth.

The dark elf slickly looks aside with a deceptively agile crossing of the arms. “So what did you have in mind?”

Justice laughs as if she were joking. “Three top-class Reinish knights against a slew of that fool’s wrongdoers? It’ll be easy! Let’s arrest them all and throw them into Keruz’s bottomless tower!” he says, his grin returning the second he thinks it appropriate.

Space raises a brow at what she thinks is an obvious question with an easy answer. “We could kill ‘em-”

“We’re moving them somewhere else,” Order decides. “If we get Chaos out of his ‘element’ here then there’s no telling what he’ll do.”

Space scoffs. “You’re the Chaos Slayer.”

“That’s a title, not a guarantee. It’s not like I can just pull out Monument and suddenly fix everything. We just need to banish them off somewhere.”

Justice crosses his arms in thought, his eyes squinting pensively. “Yeah… but how will we get all of those minions in a portal? Who could even… wait…” Justice’s face lights up like a firework of excitement.
Order rolls her eyes and Space keeps her tongue bitten firmly down while he turns to her with a dramatic flair.

“You could do it! You’re the greatest portaleer we have!”

Space’s eyes are expressionless, but she does give a gentle, bored smile.

“Fine,” she mumbles before look to Order. “So where are we putting these… creatures?”

“Somewhere with lots of cheese!” one of the few minions that are on the verge of consciousness cries out with excitement.

At once, multiple other minions moan in pathetic agreement:

“Yahhhhh!”

“Uguuughhhh cheeeeseeeee.”

“Ch-chesse, plesse,” are some of the barely intelligible things the three hear from the heap of minions.

Order hums for a second in thought. It would have to be somewhere nearby, as the mana requirement to maintain a portal for that long and to accompany that much mass would be considerable; and somewhere far away would make it exceptionally difficult.

She looks across the main street to the horizon, and a real smile crosses her usually cold face.

“I got just the place,” she says.

7.

Fitness Bastard Minion is walking laxly along with Genuinely Interested in Everyone Minion. They’re parading with the others in the streets as teams of minions knock on doors, play horrible tricks, and scare the living-daylights out of people

“-so then I was like, yeah, I could do like fifty more sets, so I did, and the loser totally cried!” Fitness Bastard Minion claims with a wide, angular grin while he curls the fourteen bags filled to the brim with sweets that he’s carrying in his left arm.

Genuinely Interested in Everyone Minion, dressed as a little angel, gives an impressed “Oooh!” while she thinks of something to make him feel appreciated and validated; which is, of course, what a person like Fitness Bastard Minion needs more than anything, obviously.

“That’s so impressive! I can’t believe you did fifty more! You must be so unbelievably strong!”

He chuckles as if it were all nothing to him, but naturally, it’s actually everything to him.

“Yeah, it ain’t nuffin’. Pretty light for me to be honest.”

“Oh, but I bet it must be a lot of wor-”

“Oh well yeah. Yeah I gotta work super hard to maintain this bod,” he says, flexing his right arm in the douchiest way possible. “I mean it’s easy when you’re this fit, but like, working out and getting there: that’s the challenge,” he explains, skillfully navigating the possible mix up of him looking shallow and lame.

Her supportive smile doesn’t even flicker. “Well that’s wonderful! I’m so happy you’ve found a constructive outlet for your energy.”

He shrugs. “Yeah, thanks,” he says, his gaze trailing spitefully by Combat Minion, one of the other few in the Minionry that hits the gym all the time. Dressed up as a barbarian, Combat Minion just gives a sneer at Fitness Bastard Minion, who returns it in kind.

“You two really don’t like each other, do you?” Genuinely Interested in Everyone Minion asks the very moment the magic lifts sharply in the air.

Fitness Bastard Minion shrugs coolly. “It’s whatever. Not everyone wants to take fitness seriously. I recommended that guy so many exercises you could fill a textbook with it, but he just kept doing his own thing and now his upper body is complete shit, like really.”

Genuinely Interested in Everyone Minion snaps around to look at Combat Minion’s excellent musculature. If one were to ask her, she’d say he has the better looking frame in a heartbeat, but she prizes care and politeness over honesty any day. “Well, if you say so,” she says with a wide-eyed gaze before catching up to his side.

The huge fitness Minion gives a slow, self-absorbed nod before pulling up his bottle of pre-workout and taking a massive gulp. “Yeah, I do say so. He’s a complete…” he squints at the distance. The streets in front of them are gaining this strange translucent quality, and it’s sweeping fast across the city.

“Now just what the hell-WHOOA-”

The second the spell sweeps past them, the two fall through the stone tile and through a very complex set of portals.

The two swing with thousands of other minions, all at the same time, out and then into the great Northern Canyon.

Thousands upon thousands of screams, cheers, and laughs overtake the night sky while they all plummet into the chasm, nothing waiting for them but the hard dirt.

At once, Chaos rides in on a massive ghost laden with looted artifacts and relics from the presidential estate.

“Oh, great idea!” he says without another thought. He has no clue who did it, but he likes where this is going, and he’s not one to disappoint his minions when he’s set out to spread the holiday spirit.

Soaring across the sky he tears a fissure with his hand, opening up the dimensional pathways to what else but the Fall Leaf Dimension.

No one knows why it’s there, really. It was discovered via space gate as just an enormous, eternal realm of fall leaves. Explorers have since climbed up and through the seventeen kilometers of leaves to find the massive trees that bore them and a few of the most inexplicably charming tea houses in the omniverse which sit pleasantly along the boughs.

An effortless tidal wave of leaves begin pouring into the canyon, covering the minions and replacing any discomfort with ever more laughter, all with the exception of Summer Minion, who hates everything related to fall and wishes the world would just burn up.

Still being attacked by Unhinged Super Maniac Minion, Chaos soars along on the ghost, headed straight for the sunrise as it blues-up the horizon.

“Happy all hallows eve, each and every one of you!” he shouts down with festive cheer.

“This is the best!”

“All hail the overlord!”

“I like leaaaaves!” are only a few of the cheers aimed up at their great destroyer of worlds and denier of death.

Chaos laughs off into the sunset, his ghost mount carrying tons of priceless treasure for him to show off some other day.

Order and Justice, at the edge of the precipice, share an accepting nod.

“You know, chief, it looks like this worked out fine,” he says, watching the thousands of minions wrestle in the torrent of leaves below.

Order shakes her head about a bit. “Yeah, I guess it did, I’m sure they’ll get bored of this in a while and run off.”

“I mean, Chaos left. He must not have even thought we were a problem,” he notes. “Pretty confident of him.”

Order nods while Space races up. “We’re just that small to him. I don’t think we’ll ever understand it. For now we just need to co-exist as best we ca-”

“And he added leaves,” Space says with a cold, killer tone. “This’ll be almost too easy,” she says.

“Eh, what are you talki-”

Before Justice can finish his sentence, Knight Space casts a massive conflagration into the pit, lighting the billions of leaves into an immense, reaching fire.

At once all of the minions are wreathed in the unbelievable heat of the canyon-wide furnace, but they don’t stop celebrating.

“Wow, fire!” says one.

“It tickles, haha! Dad’s crazy tonight!” says another.

“Oh nooooo~ We’re all burning to deaaaath~” yet another says with an ironic giggle.

“Now this is more like it,” Summer Minion notes laxly as he flicks on his melting sunglasses.

Order and Justice look over to Space, who’s beside herself with shock.

“Wh-… They’re fireproof?!”

“Wow, it’s almost like they’re Chaos’ minions,” Order states with a bland, disappointed look. She thought Space was better than this, if only by a small bit.

Justice nods. “I mean, Chaos did get thrown into a star and survive,” he notes helpfully. “Not really a surprise they could handle a… little bit of fire, at least.”

The portals above closes, and Space just sits down with a disgusted huff. “I can’t… I don’t… sonnofabitch!”

“You gotta watch your language, Salaina!” Justice chastises as he takes a seat next to her.

“Shut up! This was my last chance to get even! To give him the pain I felt!”

Order, still standing, just looks at Space with a blank, reminiscent gaze. Space is so much like her when she lost her family to Chaos; she understands her better than anyone else, she realizes, and so she’ll need to be there as best she can.

She also knows that, like herself, the elf is too much of a shithead to listen to the advice of her peers, but Order does know having someone there to complain to makes the sting a little softer.

The white-haired knightess steps over to the other side of Space and takes a seat. “It’s Chaos. There’s always next time,” she says. “This is a marathon, you know, not a sprint,” she adds as she looks down to the enormous fire below them, reflecting off her golden-hues eyes.

Space gives Order a single hurt, indignant look before turning back to her knees, holding herself together with a hug.

“Aw, come on, Space!” Justice says with a smile and a hug, “we’ll get these guys out of here and save the populace in no time!” he adds, completely missing the reason as to why she’s so upset.

Order sighs, smiles, and just gives her a little nudge.

“Let’s just watch the leaves,” she says, turning back to watch the thousand black, dancing bodies playing about in the gigantic fire; among them: Fall Addict Minion and Druid Minion, having a genuinely-wonderful time.

On the other side of the canyon rests the southernmost dragon-kin reservation.

They have no clue what to make of it, but they’ve received a powerful reminder this evening that non-dragons are completely, unbelievably nuts.

By the glimpse-time of the sun, the minions had all piled away: singing, hugging, and cheering along through various gates using Chaos’ immensity of portaling magic. The candy melted, but most of them were full by that point anyway.

Surprisingly, most Spirakandrins of the day reflected fondly of the event, with the exception of President Mirano Kayanu and his cabinet, who were actually planning on declaring a cold war with Ragnivan with the relics they’d bought from Overlord Greed’s black market – funny how that stuff works out sometimes.

It was a good Halloween.

– Fin –