A Sweet Mistake

I

Life isn’t so bad for Flower Minion, on most days.

She wakes up alongside the lazy rays of the Forest Tower’s sunshine as they beckon gentle birdsongs from about the three-colored wood.

With a long stretch, the meter-high Minion of The Master of Unprecedented Cruelty takes up on her tiny pointish feet; her antennae twitch with the recognition of an approaching visitor.

“Now who could be visiting the garden on this wonderful da-” her pleasant manner falters as she just barely dodges the incoming frying pan, hurled directly at her face. There’s only one minion with a pan-hand that sharp.

“Shove it, pansy,” Cooking Minion snaps as he rounds the white picket fence next to the hydrangeas. “You got some serious explainin’ to do!”

“I-…” she picks up the pan, just in case, “I do?”

“Yeah! His merciless majesty was hungry, see?” he announces as he measures up his size to her, the two of them both comically short.

Her wide, glowing eyes squint. “Yeah?”

“And he asked for an omelet, right?”

“…I… yeah, okay?”

“Well I made the omelet, of course—and there was a bee in it! You hear?!”

Flower Minion hums. She knows where this is going.

“Cooking Minion.”

“Yeah?!”

“I’m not in charge of bees.”

Cooking Minion crosses his arms with a moody scoff. “Well obviously! But you sure as hell provided the dandelions.”

Her squint lets up in surprise. “I do remember you plucked some this morning. Dark Emperor wanted dandelions in his dish again?”

Cooking Minion nods with full authority. “You bet your petal-ass he did! He actually turned and looked at me and exclaimed ‘whoa, a bee! That’s not something you see every day!’ —as if it were no big deal! I’ve never in all my years been so embarrassed, and it’s your fault!”

Flower Minion sighs, her thin, gentle voice gaining a hint of crassness. “I suppose I’m in charge of Bee Minion’s bees, or your own care when plucking flowers?”

Cooking Minion draws back with animated indignation. “Wh- I mean… Are you trying to talk down to your authority?!”

She stretches, displaying the full inch in height she has over him like a divine crest of superiority. “Not at all, sir, simply pointing out certain people could do to be a little less careless as The Divine Impaler’s personal food boy.”

“Oh the food boy should be a little more careful?” Cooking Minion asks, waving his head about loosely.

“He certainly should.”

The two share a bitter glance, both smirking in that weird, semi-facetious ironic way so common among The High Overlord’s minions.

“Well you better back your case right up, young lady. I’ll have you know that his All-Crushingness has given me express authority to send naughty minions over to Minion Task Assessment and Reassignment Minion!” He leans in as he stretches up on his tip toes as best he can. “So I’d advise you choose your next words very carefully.”

Flower Minion looks away with a sigh. She would hate to be separated from her beloved flowerbeds, and she can think of quite a few jobs she’d rather not do. She knows he wouldn’t do it, though; she has the prime ammunition.

“Roger on that one, your brothiness, I will go and let Bee Minion know that her bees aren’t allowed near my flowers.” She couldn’t help herself.

Cooking Minion squints, a faint hiss exiting his adorable jaws. “You watch yourself.”

And she really cannot help herself now. “Only if you watch what you’re cooking. I mean, if you can keep an eye on a ten-inch pan, that is.”

He rears back. “That is it! I’m gonna tell on you-”

She draws back too. “Not sure that would be such a good idea.”

“Yeah?!”

“Yeah.”

“And why’s that you flowery-”

“I know,” she says with a rigid smile.

At once the darkness drains from Cooking Minion, revealing a hyper ghost-white exterior, as white and blank as paper.

“No. He said he’d never tell.”

She nods. “Well lucky for me the operator minions don’t like you that much, and everyone loves flowers. So unless you want me to revenge tell on you, you’re going to turn right around an-”

“Wait,” Cooking Minion says with a perplexed gaze. “The opertaters?” He laughs. “Oh, okay no.”

Finally, Flower Minion’s icy exterior feels a crack. “Eh, what?”

“Chaos already knew about that. He laughed it off, actually.”

“Wait, really?”

“Yeah, said he didn’t even care about that tower anymore. Mistakes into miracles, you know.”

Flower Minion draws back as she crosses her arms in clear disappointment. “Well I guess there’s nothing to do, then.”

Cooking Minion shrugs. “It’s cool. Just try to keep the bees away from your flowers from now on. I’m a busy guy and can’t be dealing with everyone’s garbage.”

She sighs. “You do understand that pollination is sort of… you know, important for the ecosystem?”

He shrugs it off. “Eh, yeah, sure. Just like… I dunno, tell Bee Minion to reel in them buzzers for like an hour before breakfast and an hour before dinner maybe—yeah!”

It takes her a moment to realize he’s being serious. “…Bee curfew.”

“Bee curfew,” he confirms with a grin as he claps his little black hands. “Now chop chop, or you’ll be an Animal Caretak-”

Her eyes spark with interest. “Oh, that would be kind of fu-”

“Office Cubicle Minion, I meant to say. We have tons of animal minions already.”

Flower Minion huffs with a juvenile puff. “Cool. I’m off,” she says, handing over the frying pan and starting towards Bee Minion’s Apiary with the two satchels that accompany her everywhere she goes.

“Cool, you’re off,” Cooking Minion affirms with a wry grin, watching her pass through the garden and pop over her white picket fence. Just as she passes the trees, he lets out a long, massively relieved sigh.

“How did she know? Alpha Minion, you Dingle-Ass Bitch, I’ll get you for this,” he mumbles under his breath, then heads off for the tower to prepare lunch and play the banjo.

II

The trek to Bee Minion’s hives is longer than she remembered. There seems to be so many new minions with their own little workshops and camps about, it’s almost as though the landscape’s changed entirely since she’s been here last.

She hops over a set of Lumberjack Minion’s logs as it hits her just how long she’s been Flower Minion.

She’s been picnicking with the High Overlord hundreds of times, with thousands upon thousands of flower arrangements made. She’s seen her fair share of faces, too. She’s seen them come— and a small, tiny amount of them go. Being ageless doesn’t stop some minions from getting themselves in trouble, like poor old Bites Off More Than He Can Chew Minion, or Will Never Turn Down a Dare Minion. They made mischief for years and years until, finally, they had their last.

She waves hi to Lumberjack Minion, who pulls the pipe to the side of his jaw to give her a proper smile.

“Nice day for a stroll, eh?” He calls across the field of downed trees.

“You betcha’, flannel man,” she says, not really sure how to respond to him, but definitely taking notice of his pipe.

She can’t remember the last time she had a good smoke.

After passing through the lumber camp, she goes by Explosives Minion’s test facility, Trap Minion’s workshop, and by Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion’s large polyhedral home, bless his little heart.

Finally, she reaches her destination. Those great golden hives stretch over the hill as the joint legions of bees hold fast to their towers of wax. They seem lazier than she remembers.

After a nice, long breath, she moves in to instill the bee curfew.

She readjusts the slings around her two planting bags— extra tight in the case of unexpected movement. “Wake up, ˆbeeyatch!” She shouts, taking no risk to miss the opportunity of a sweet pun as her voice echos up to the top hive.

Bee Minion flinches, or perhaps more accurately the mass of a thousand bees resting on top of her flinch, as if they’re fuzzy, katana-like extensions of her... beeing.

A second after the hive buzzes in recognition, Bee Minion rises up at the peak of the queen’s hive. Her silhouette against the tropical sun casts a divine image over from where Flower Minion’s standing, but she knows better than most that Bee Minion is just a huge bee-nerd.

“Who calls upon the queen of the be-”

“Me! Flower Minion! I come with orders straight from the food-dude.”

Bee Minion, her dense bee-keeper’s suit masking her regal poise, scoffs with a dramatic sway of her antennae, which are crooked midway just like a proper bee’s would bee.

“That horrible little banjo minion?”

“It’s ‘Cooking Minion’ and he’s our manager— like, I don’t know, our #2 boss.”

Bee Minion scoffs again, this time waving her head the opposite direction. “He has no power here. The bees do as they please!”

Flower Minion sighs. “Oh? Got it. Disobeying direct orders. You must like the idea of the Minion Wagon, then?"

"Meh," is all Bee Minion responds with.

"What is up with you today?”

Bee Minion guffaws with relaxed aplomb. “Now that I have the Holy Honey, I fear no such threats. The Minion Wagon is but a government deception, placed upon us by Chaos’ tyrannical regime. I have done the proper thing that any queen would, rebel!”

The garden tender crosses her arms crassly. “Wow, look at you. You’re so cool. Now how about you give Big O’ the finger by listening up and keeping your bees away from the garden around the hours of-”

“Pish posh!” Bee Minion waves away with royal blasé. “I’ll take no orders from the likes of you, weedling!”

Flower Minion draws back, only a nudge. Bee Minion clears her throat seeing Flower Minion’s demeanor change, for no one else in Towerne has a resting bitch face more powerful than Flower Minion.

“Okay.” Flower Minion says throwing up her hands gently as she starts walking away.

As any good minion knows, Bee Minion is no less certain that things are in fact not okay.

Flower Minion goes down a few folds of treeline before stopping behind a birch and reaching for her bag of weeds. It’s just when she gets to the zipper that she hears the intensely labored breathing and sees the piles upon piles of geometrically symmetrical objects.

“ANOTHER GEOMETRICAL SHAPE!” Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion screeches from across the clearing as he tackles into a very nice looking tissue blowing about in the wind.

Flower Minion smiles warmly at the other, more special minion. Chaos has such a soft spot for those that suffer. She can’t blame him; she’d probably be the same way if she could infest something and suddenly rid it of its problems.

She watches him tangle about like a kitten on the grass a moment as she thinks back to the first few moments after The Overlord infested her and turned her into a minion; it’s all so blurry now, but she definitely remembers how little she cared for living until she ran into him.

Just as Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion packs the small, symmetrical tissue away in one of his many geometrically-perfect packs, she decides to go ahead and recruit him for the cause. An unaware soul might think Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion to be the sort that’s easily bullied, but Flower Minion knows well he comes with his own unique brand of infamy around Towerne.

“How’s it swingin’?” she asks with a grin.

Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion, crawling about with a beast-like gait, instantly locks on to her and scans for any worthwhile shapes.

“Y-your eyes aren’t geometric shapes.”

Flower Minion’s the sort that has little lashes at the edges over her round glowing eyes; she never understood it until Ultra Wizard Minion explained to her that even though their bodies are taken over by Chaos’ magic essence, that doesn’t stop their minds and souls from shaping the exterior based on their personality: a living cage that melds to the whims of its hostage.

“Eh, yeah, great,” she says, as if she should be embarrassed for not having perfect pentagonal eyes like Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion’s, or perfect circles like most of the other minions.

“It can be forgiven. Does minion have other shapes?” he asks with a couple of jaunty hops from side to side.

Flower Minion smiles. “I sure do. More shapes than you could possibly imagine.”

He draws back in disbelief, tumbling over in polygonal shock. “Wh- Really?”

She nods. “But they’re all hidden by a nasty idiot and her stupid bees. They’ve trapped hundreds of innocent geometrical sha-”

“Say no more, we must save the shapes!”

Flower Minion scoffs, a little surprised he was so easy to sway. “Nice, okay. Just follow me then an-”

“WE MUST SAVE THE SHAPES!” Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion interjects.

“A-Right on! Let’s go!”

At that, the two rush back to Bee Minion’s hives.

III

“Alright!” Flower Minion whispers from behind the tree line. “See those big mountains there? They got the shapes in them.”

“I’ll save all the shapes.” Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion affirms in a way that doesn’t quite make Flower Minion comfortable. She’s going to need to tone it back a little.

“Well, not all of them are trapped, heh.”

“…Really?”

“Yeah, most of them are renting… condos, in those… uh... buildings.” Flower Minion winces the second she says it. There’s no way he’ll fall for that one.

“…Are the shapes being given fair rates by the landlord?”

Flower Minion’s expression is blank as she concocts a response. “Uh… Yes, except for… that one, with the fat minion on it.”

“… That Minion isn’t fat, it is only covered in bees.”

“… Bees that have cones on them!”

“You’re right… and cones are... geometric shapes!”

“Heck yeah! Go get ‘em, cowboy!”

“I’ll… I’LL TEAR THEM FREE!”

Flower Minion flinches. “W-whoa there, I don-”

“GEOMETRIC SHAAAAPES!” Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion cries as he busts out from cover and runs straight for the hives without regard.

He runs all the way past the millions of lazy bees, right straight into Bee Minion’s largest hive.

“Wh-what is the meaning of this?!” She exclaims; Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion’s many-sided war cries can be heard from inside the hive as a few bee swarms finally get up to try to defend their queen, albeit without much gumption.

Flower Minion scoffs in a fashion reminiscent of her overlord; she feels like after being infested, they take a little bit of him wherever they go— both physically and mentally.

“You foolish nerd,” she starts, “if you cannot accept a bee curfew, there will bee no bees! Now repent and yield to my demands, or your hives will be more like… p-pies!”

“THAT DOESN’T RHYME!” Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion screams out from the hive as he does battle with thousands of bees, punching each one in their pompous bee faces with individual hyper-speed strikes.

“Wh-” Flower Minion clears her throat. “Well whatever, I don’t give one damn! Instate the curfew! No bees around my flowers between the hours of-”

Bee Minion finally takes a rise as her bee subjects crawl upon her to give her a warm and buzzy suit of armor. “The only thing worth instating, you impetuous weedling, is my foot into your face!” Using the conjoined power of her honey-bound underlings, Bee Minion steadily takes off the ground in a shocking display of effort on the bees’ parts.

Flower Minion crosses her arms contemptuously. “Hey, Shape Minion.”

Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion smashes his head out from a honeycomb. “The hexagons are speaking to me.”

“Bee Minion’s been eating honeycombs,” she says simply as Bee Minion prepares to descend upon Flower Minion with a thousand stingers.

Amidst the now-wild buzzing of the swarms, Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion gets his well-known “Look”.

Somewhat humorously, all the minions agree that this expression of his is a perfect on-par expression to Overlord Chaos’ himself. They’re both about that loose, and about that violent, the minions would agree.

“So… she has the hexagons inside of her?”

“That’s right—and if you can get to them fast enough they’ll still be symmetrical.” She says with a grin as the bees carry their queen down with a rapid, swooping descent.

The moment before Bee Minion’s high-speed foot smashes into Flower’s face, the hive bursts open— a certain shape-loving minion flashing a perfectly-even smile.

“I WILL RESCUE THE THEM ALL!” he exclaims with the power and emotion of the Light Brigade as he tackles into Bee Minion mid-air.

Flower Minion watches with her typical smirk as the battle rages for only the lesser part of a minute. As it turns out, Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion is very talented when it comes to removing the sides off of shapes— including person-shaped shapes. The bees scramble confusedly as Bee Minion’s white infusia splashes fresh upon Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion’s little body.

With a cry and a crash, the queen of the hives crumples up in agony.

“You…bitch. Using Shape Minion for your evil ga-” Her breath is halted as Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion slams his foot into her cavatied chest.

“That’s Gerometric Shape Minion to you, sideless one. Now return to me your prisoners!” He cries as he leans in to dig through her abdominal anatomy and fish out what would be some presumably very unfortunate-looking honeycombs.

“Oh, wow— h-hey dude,” Flower Minion says, accepting Bee Minion’s clear glance of defeat pointed her way.

“What could it be?”

“She’s a minion! Whoops! We don’t have stomachs. If she ate honeycomb is would just get hyper compressed back into… you know… magic stuff.”

Geometric Shape Enthusiast Minion pauses in thought.

“So what shape is it?”

“What shape is what?”

“Wherever food goes that we eat?”

Flower Minion crosses gazes with Bee Minion for just a second to make sure the score is settled.

Bee Minion nods; she's been bested.

“Like an asymmetrical angular thing—not even a real shape,” Flower Minion says with a shrug.

At once Geometric Shape Minion winces and starts off Bee Minion like she’s plague-ridden. “Augh, disgusting… W-wait— do I have something like that-”

“No! No... Yours is a square.”

He sighs in relief. “Oh, and that’s a geometric shape.”

“Yeah. So no harm done, buddy. Just take some honeycombs with you and head on home.”

“Oh, okay. Thanks Flower Minion,” he says, approaching her with a full coat of minion blood and honey on him.

“N-no problem, mate. Don’t put ‘em out in the sun, or they’ll become less geometric.”

He nods as if receiving sage advice from a mentor, and then hugs her, much to her chagrin. “They’ll be safe with me.”

“C-cool— whoa— yeah, you’re super sticky right now.”

“If I crystallize the honey it might form geometric shapes too!” he says, prolonging the hug as he trembles in excitement.

Flower Minion just nods as she finally peels him off. “Whoo, yeah; yeah that would be something. Well, I’m sorta busy, so I think we should part ways.”

“Oh, okay! Want to see my geometric shapes sometime?”

“Yeah! I’d love to!” she lies.

He sobers up. “What time would be good?”

She winces with a long smile. “Eh, you know I’ll just come in unannounced like I usually do, yeah?”

He nods with the full vigor of a hero— a hero that banishes unclean forms and ensures the eternal integrity of good shapes everywhere. “Yeah! I’ll see you later, then!” he says, picking up a few honeycomb chunks and rushing off to his mystical abode.

Flower Minion politely waves him off, smiling as he reaches the tree line of the clearing.

And then, her smile ridges into a grin as she turns about and looms over Bee Minion.

“Well?” She asks.

Bee Minion winces in pain as her infusia steadily creeps back into her, slowly repairing her body “This hurts a lot… Why did you have to do that?”

Flower Minion mimics Bee Minion’a haughty movements.. “Hohoho~ ‘Cuz I’m queen here, bitch! You have no clue the garbage I have to deal with every day, so I’ll let you off easy— but you’re going to rein in those damn bees, you hear me?”

“I… It’s just not fair. The holy honey gave me so much courage, and now I… This is just horrible,” Bee Minion wraps her little arms into the gaping wound in her side as Flower Minion laughs.

“Typical. Been chilling with insects for too long and now you get delusions of grandeur. What’s the deal, did your bees cross pollinate some weed and make tainted hon-…” Flower Minion pauses, looking up from Bee Minion’a pathetic stoop. “Hey, Bee.”

“…Yes?”

“When you got this so-called holy honey—what day was that?”

“Day before yesterday.”

“And which garden were the bees in when they harvested that pollen?”

“Naturally all of them, but most of them were in the fourth garden, where you keep your tropicals. It was only a few weeks ago.”

Flower Minion takes a long, drawn out breath. “And so you and the bees are just feeling… lazy?”

“How dare you.”

“No, really, like not all that motivated for stuff?”

Bee Minion looks aside, her eyes just barely visible under her netted hat. “…Well yes, I suppose so— but also really, really wonderful!”

Flower Minion’s expression blands to the point of being grim. “…You still have all the stock here, at the apiary, right?”

“Oh, heavens no! The moment I had a taste I just had to share! We brought in crates full and after tasting a little bit himself Porter Minion completely agreed and said he’d make sure every tower got a box.”

Flower Minion’s angled jaws steadily curl downward. “And this just happened, right?”

“Absolutely not! He got those boxes out in under an hour! I was very impressed but it really did seem that he was excited as I was!”

After a moment of silence, Flower Minion just nods her head. “Thanks for your time.”

“Yes… thanks. Please just ask nicely next time,” Bee Minion says, quickly regaining her superiority even after such a sound beating.

“Y-yeah, sure,” Flower says as she turns about back for the treeline, leaving the lazy bees and their lazy master behind.

IV

The moment she feels she’s sufficiently out of sight, (which is a good deal further than if dealing with normal creatures, considering how far and sharply minions can see,) Flower Minion reaches into her second satchel— the one containing all her weeds— and slings up the really good stuff, her prime stash of black gold. She casts a quick match spell to light her sharp little index finger, and then holds the tip to it to smoke up.

A thin, weird-smelling line of smoke rises from her joint, and with a flick of the wrist she extinguishes the match from her finger and takes a long, thick drag.

“Holy shit,” she mutters to herself as she casually leans back against her chosen tree. Mystically, the stress begins to lift off her as the THC does its very best to bypass her infused body and stain the primary centers of her actual human brain.

After a brief moment’s respite, she gets back to considering how she’s going to fix this situation.

“Ehhhhh, what am I going to dooooo,” she wails, as people who are high are usually fairly poor at internal monologues, and instead feel the pressing need to broadcast everything they’re thinking into their environment.

She sighs. “I’m gonna dieeeeeee,” she says with a gentle tone before slowly leaning off to the side of the tree and rolling into a little, miserable yet pretty-chill ball of weed and feelings.

“… If Cooking Grunch finds out, I’m gonna be deaa- *puff* deaaaad,” she continues in-between a sorrowful toke.

With a long, deep breath, she steels her will to stop the boxes— but then decides that her spot in the grass is actually pretty comfy, and thus also decides, or better yet decides not to decide, that everything is actually alright, and that she can just sort of let it all take its course.

About thirty minutes pass— or something like that, she has no idea— and finally someone in the island wood picks up on the thick, floral scent.

“Ay there,” a gruff, smoky voice speaks out as lumbering steps near her spot.

“Ugh,” she says, making sure the person knows she’s alive.

“What’s got ya’ bent up in the forest, Flower Minion? Did ya light up one of your herbs n’ get poisoned?” the tall, strong minion asks as he approaches with his usual backpack, hatchet, and other assortments of forestry gear.

“Ugh,” she reiterates, certain that this will make him go away.

“You know, I hear tell over the antennae that you’re being looked for,” he says, his small eyes peering down at her as his straight, manly antennae flinch up.

These words are what pull her from her trance. “Wh- Wait, what?”

“Cooking Minion’s been looking for ya’, says he wants to talk about some kind of ‘side project’ you been doin’.”

She groans. “Oh noooooo,” she mutters to herself.

“What?” The big minion asks.

“Like,” she coughs, “What if he finds out?”

“Finds out about what?”

“I gotta’ stop ‘em. That dumbass.”

“From what?”

“Finding my stasssh,” she says with an excited, mild hiss.

“… What stash?”

“My weed dummy! I’ve been growing a shitload of weed in the tropical plants section and,” she flinches, and finally looks over to see who she’s been talking to. “Oh, Forestry Minion, damn you’re so buff.”

He chuckles in a way that Flower Minion is sure she’d think was attractive if she wasn’t a minion and still had unsuppressed hormones. “Ah, thanks, ya. So what’re we talkin’ of?”

“Oh, yeah, my … my weed. Don’t tell anyone.”

“What’s weed? Like dandelions?” he asks as he shuffles his pack on his shoulders.

“Dammit, this is why I love you, dude. Can I get your help with something?”

“Eh?”

“Could you like, take me home?”

“Sure!” And with that, Flower Minion is wrested up light as a feather by Forestry Minion’s capable arms. She feels really nice for a second, until he promptly stuffs her into one of his pack’s super deep pockets. It’s comfortable, for certain, but it’s far less thrilling than being carried “princess style”.

He takes her in his pack through wood and trail back under sight of the tower, which is humming with a dire multitude of magical artifice and defensive spells. Even while curled up in his pack, she can feel a host of minions gathered up around the center garden, causing trouble and tripping over her seed beds.

“Here we are,” Forestry Minion announces. “Cooking Minion’s here too.”

“I knew it,” she says, squirming her head out of her comfy pocket to glare over in a mix of disgust and furtive caution.

“Do you still wanna get down?”

“Yeah, put me down! Th-thanks, my dude.”

“Uh, no problem,” he says with a humored tone as he picks her up like a child and puts her back neatly on the ground— only for her weird, high balance to set her off to a slight tilt the second after.

“Time to deal with this shit for real,” she mutters, dropping down to a crawl and entering the accompanying garden next to the one where her pursuers are searching.

With sneakiness on par with a mouse’s ghost, she slithers through the garden brush of prim, properly groomed plants; each is a model example of its species. It’s true she takes great pride in her work, and she’s not about to let that go to waste for the sake of a single batch of high-honey.

It’s only after a minute of crawling that she reaches the exotics— tall, twisting plants with mystic scents certain to conceal any suspicious figure, or plot, within its vicinity.

As the parrot calls screech in the miniature jungle, she creeps through an overgrown bamboo wall to find her secret: an immaculately cared for, magically-irrigated, wonderfully sun-kissed seven-meter by seven-meter plot of the most excellent weed to exist in any reality. She’s monitored everything— soil content, water intake, drainage, sunlight, fertilizer, pest solutions— all culminating in the most pure and platonic of all bud, her greatest creation: The Overweed.

She gives a few stalks a long, more-than-friends hug before looking about for any intrutions into her most sacred glade.

Standing a moment, she can’t see anyone— until she turns around.

“Why you huggin’ that plant?” Bread Minion asks with a gentle, friendly tap. His grin is lax to the point of trailing off in a steady drool—definitely high.

Flower Minion nods nervously as she realizes that she wasn’t really crawling sneakily through the garden, but rather loudly dragging herself. She looks behind her to see the long trail of upset dirt that she made getting here.

“Well, shit,” she says, now finally realizing that she’s just stoned enough to be an idiot, but not enough to ’feel’ the high.

Bread Minion draws back. “Shit’s why you’re hugging? Well shit, girl, sign me up!” he says as he brings in Flower Minion for a warm embrace, just as the other searchers follow the obvious trail into the sacred grove.

“Oh, there you are!” Cooking Minion says, now totally chilled the heck out along with the rest of her pursuers.

“Whoa, it’s her!”

“All hail the flower queen!”

“What the heck like… is this stuff?” A set of voices greet her, completely unaware of any other social interaction other than what they’re readily focusing on.

“W-well hey, guys,” she responds with an uneasy smile.

“We got the news from like, Bee Minion, man. Her bees got this like– ” Kale Benefits Minion pauses to pull his jar of THC-Honey from his fair-trade all hemp fiber coat, “—from you.”

Flower Minion doesn’t take the jar; she already knows what it is. “Well there’s probably some mistake.”

“Pffft, naw,” Cooking Minion says with a flop onto her shoulder. “Her bees got the pollen from this garden. What the heck kinda magic are you growing in here?”

“Yeah man, tell us your secret.” Kale Benefits Minion demands, literally right next to a meter-high cannabis plant.

“Look, I’m telling you I have no idea what’s going on. It must be on Bee Minion’s end— or else I just don’t know what’s going on with some of the plants. You dudes gotta turn around right now and just go-”

“There she is!” Chemistry Minion points with a shout as Combat Minion rushes in. At once little Flower Minion is caught in his grip and flung over his shoulder.

“Got’er,” Combat Minion says with his usual, completely-unexcited drone of a voice.

“This way,” Chemistry Minion instructs, her lab coat flowing due to her quick movements, “to The Head Director!”

Farried off without a word, Flower Minion has no choice but to cross her fingers and hope for the best as she’s spirited up into the tower, through the main portal-door to Towerne, and into the recesses of High Overlord Chaos’ personal abode.

V

Lord Chaos’ house inside of the massive tower is as quaint as she imagined. For all the vastness of his demesne, for all the dozens and dozens of dimensions she knows of that he holds territory within, he’s chosen a small two-floor cabin to be his place of residence.

She knows of all the of all the rumors: the horrific beatings, the corrective torture, the Minion Wagon; all are likely outcomes from a visit to this abode— at least, those are the stories. Chaos is well-liked among his minions for any number of reasons, but among these is his open door policy, allowing minions to simply walk in and voice their concerns— which are usually few and petty— so she’s heard, though she’s never tested it herself.

As a dutifully-trotting Chemistry Minion knocks on Chaos’ door, Flower Minion scoffs at the thought that, for all the many, many years she’s been here as a minion, she’s never really thought to sit down and talk with him; he always seemed too busy for small things like her.

“Sir! I’ve caught the terrorist!” Chemistry Minion proclaims with another knock, shooting a bitter glance in Flower’s direction, who just chuckles awkwardly.

“Come in,” a smoky, wonderfully-intelligent voice requests, causing the door to swing open and reveal the rich, rustic scents of his cabin.

They enter through the doorway, finding the Overlord of Space and Time and Existence Itself laxing in his anti-gravitational hot-tub. Flower Minion’s been to the Hot Tub Tower before, with all its slides and games and surprise aromatherapy and endless buffets, and it seems like Chaos’ humble little tub is almost austere in comparison; such is his love for his minions, she’d expect.

“Now what sort of day are you all having?” Chaos says, leaning from the side of the wall as he takes a sip of his cup of tea— the latter not being anti-gravitational at all, but resting quaintly on a small table on the floor like most objects are supposed to.

“Pretty shit, to be real, sir—” Flower starts, “–got arrested by these dingo boys for literally nothing.”

“Not so, my dear Head Director,” Chemistry Minion notes with a gentle push of her completely unnecessary and large glasses. “This… this minionite has been disseminating illegal substances, and has been using Bee Minion’s apiary to do it!” She pulls from her lab coat a small sample of the THC-enchanted honey. “Have a go, sir.”

Chaos wastes no time in dipping a finger into the sample and stirring it into his tea. He takes a quick sip, and looks aside thoughtfully as he composes his opinion.

“S-sir, I can explain!” Flower Minion exclaims.

“Shut her up, Combat Minion,” she says with that mild, disapproving sneer so expected of Chemistry Minion.

“Sure.” He leans down to Flower Minion, assuming eye contact from the side. “Shut up.”

“Bu-”

“Nope,” he interrupts.

“No but I can ex-”

“No, shut up,” he cuts in again.

“Please if you’d just-”

“No, be quiet.”

“I do-”

“No.”

“…You are-”

“Nope.”

Flower Minion finally just turns to Chaos with a bitter, disgusted look as Combat Minion draws back to his full height. Suddenly, The Great Wall-Destroyer squints an eye with intrigue.

Chemistry Minion perks up. “Have you come to a conclusion, Head Director?”

“This is one of those basely human pleasures, used in their pathetic pseudo-magical rituals.”

“It’s weed!” Chemistry Minion asserts.

“Synthesized with the bees’ visitations; they provided tainted honey— how very humorous.”

“Whoa, is that actually possible?” Combat Minion asks, for reference, of course.

Chaos nods. “The humble honey bee is among the most complex and wonderful creatures in all my domain, naturally. I did not, however, expect to have to deal with such an unwholesome craft of that likes here.” He looks to give Flower Minion his full attention. “I suppose you have good reason for growing a human plant on Tower ground?”

She gulps. “Y-yes, sir. You see, I was devising a… a plan to get back at those smelly, coffee drinking knights!”

Chemistry Minion growls under her breath as Chaos draws back in surprise.

“You don’t mean…” His Almighty Destroyerfulness draws in subtlety. “A scheme?”

Flower nods vigorously. “Yes, precisely! I was going to… give them weed to cloud their judgement. Then we could graffiti their headquarters!”

He squints, as if this is the final test before his suspicion is lifted. “And just what would we graffiti on their headquarters?”

She takes a deep breath. This is it. She will have to use every fiber and faculty of her mind to create this, the perfect tag line. “… K… Kni… Knights suck.”

There’s a long pause as everyone looks at her with perceiving, serious gazes.

Finally, Chemistry Minion shakes her head in disgust. “Are you seri-”

“Hahahahaha! ‘Knights suck!’ So endlessly demure! I love it! Flower Minion, I have half a mind to bump you up to Sweet Insult Minion!” Chaos resounds joyously.

Chemistry Minion trembles in fury, her little black legs stomping under the large white coat. “No, Head Director! She’s a terrorist! She’s working with The Knights!”

Chaos hums with a father’s consideration. “And what proof do you have?”

“She’s been using this weed-honey on our own infused! Her entire tower’s workforce is in shambles because they’re all… all high!”

The High Overlord squints an eye over to Flower Minion. “Is this true? Could it be that perhaps you are high at this very moment as well?”

Of course, this is a reasonable question for even Chaos to ask, as he cannot see within his minions to discern their internal chemistry, and most of his minions will act like they’re under the influence of something, as its simply part of their personality to be so goofy.

“Well… ” She inhales sharply. “Technically yes it is but-”

“And she’s been making BOMBS!” Chemistry Minion declares with a wild glare as she pulls out another sample.

“What?!”

“Oh? Let us see.” Chaos takes up the small sample and only needs to glance at the bag to identify its contents. “Looks like dirt.”

“It’s fertiliz-”

“No,” Combat Minion says, interrupting again in his usual, weirdly calming manner.

“I found bomb-making components in her tool shack! Along with more weed!” Chemistry Minion says with a crazed tone as she pulls out a full bundle of the good stuff.

“Well!” Chaos exclaims as he inspects the Devil’s Lettuce, “this is certainly quite a surprise.” He looks again to Flower Minion. “What have you to say of this?”

Flower Minion sighs. “It’s true I’ve been stashing in my shed, but I haven’t been making bombs; that stuff is fertilizer! Chemistry Minion just has it out for me!”

Chaos smirks with rigid amusement. “And just what makes you think that?”

Flower Minion fires a single, vindictive glance in Chemistry Minion’s way. “She’s… she’s been cooking meth!”

“W- nonsense!”

“What’s meth?” Chemistry and Combat minions respond respectively.

Chaos grins. “Oh? Well certainly there must be some reasonable explanation for creating such a dangerous substance. What do you have to say for yourself, Chemistry Minion?”

“Head Director, she’s the one on trial here.”

“So you’re saying it’s true?”

“N-no, of course not!”

“Just check her pockets!” Flower Minion says.

Chaos peers through using his powerful gaze. “I do see some crystalline substance, yes.” He looks up to Chemistry Minion. “What could this be?”

She pulls out her pockets. “It’s candy rocks, Head Director! See! Different flavors!” She exclaims this with a smile, displaying the different colors of what is definitely, totally candy rocks.

There’s another pause, just as when conversing with Flower Minion.

“Do you truly believe I am so daft as to not know what food coloring is?” Chaos asks, his tone humoring, yet firm.

She peeps in shock as Chaos peers again at the rocks. “It seems as though these contain chemicals entirely unlike anything I have seen in Sweet Concoction Minion’s Laboratory. Perhaps it is you that has been dealing with all of these nasty substances.”

“No, Head Director! You have it completely backwards! These are candy rocks that I traded with Flower Minion in exchange for my sour apple experiment vials! I don’t know where she got them from, but they’re hers!”

Chaos squints a perceptive eye as he peers at his three minions, about the same time that Chill Out Minion passes into the living room.

“Hey, we still good for finishing up our sesh?” Chill Out Minion asks in his usual, friendly, free-loader type way.

Chaos nods. “Most certainly. This will only take another moment. I knew I would be taking more visitors, so I thought the anti-gravity hot tub would be the most fitting manner in which to greet my new guests; it’s properly casual, but intimidating, you understand— an image of both invitation and respect.”

Chill Out Minion nods, and rounds about to Chaos’ shockingly normal kitchen. “Alright, my man. Just let me know when. Is it cool if I make some chalupas?”

“Go right ahead my fellow.”

“Thanks, boss man!” he responds before turning the corner and searching out the microwave.

Chaos turns back with a smile on his jaws, and a perplexed look to his eyes. “Now, just where were we? Ahh yes! Hand over the candy rocks please—and now— alright everyone, into the hot tub!”

Chemistry Minion stares on like a deer caught in headlights. “Eh?”

“Everyone, quickly now, no time to waste!”

The three minions, exerting a small amount of effort, pile into different sections of the hot tub. Flower and Chemistry Minion look at one another awkwardly, as Combat Minion, who is really perfectly relaxed, relaxes ever more so as he slinks into the aroma therapeutic heaven of the bubbly hot tub.

“Oooo! This is hella nice, sir. Thanks!”

The Overlord of Time and Space nods with complete certainty. “A meager display of my continual love for my minions. Now, yes— bring out Meth Hound Minion!” He exclaims this with a victorious tone, as if he had just hit the bell to open an executioner’s block.

Chemistry Minion would be trembling uncontrollably at this moment, however the salty, ph-balanced goodness of the tub serves too relaxing to resist. She remains silent while dramatic plumes of smoke billow out from all directions, a set of sirens dramatically proclaiming the arrival of Lord Chaos’ most trusted advisor in the very specific area of sniffing out meth.

Alarms blare, the lighting flashes, and as the smoke clears, a small Pomeranian wearing a tactical vest pants confidently in the center of the room.

Chaos looms forward with a superior grin. “Find it.”

“Berk!” Meth Hound Minion responds in the full positive. At once he gets to work, sniffing about cutely and turning a sharp nose toward the hot tub.

“Whoa, he found something!” Combat Minion exclaims.

“What could it be?” Chaos asks with a wholesome tone, “I demand a full report, Meth Hound Minion!”

Sure enough, the tiny dog makes a huge leap up onto the side of the hot tub; in its unique anti-gravitational case, it serves conveniently as a sort of physics-defying counter— allowing the minion to dutifully tap up to its suspected culprit: Chemistry Minion. With his prodding, ticklish nose, he probes about her side, into her lab coat, and then hops back at a start.

“Eh, see? I’m not the-”

“Berk berk berk berk berk be-” Like the alarms that ushered him in, Meth Hound Minion sounds off excitedly, dancing about his little space and looking back between the coat and Chaos expectantly.

“Well well well,” The High Overlord starts with a grin. “Just who did you think you were fooling?”

“Wh-I-Idon’t-”

“Would you be ever-so-good as to offer us a peek into the rest of your coat pockets? I’ve been able to see them this entire time, you know.” The Dark Ruler requests with a bright, leading stare.

She does nothing, frozen in horror.

“Ahh, yes I suppose that does say everything. Very well!” his looming frame towers over Chemistry Minion. “So you’ve been distributing illegal substances amongst The Minionry, have you?”

Snapping from her trance, she gasps fully in complete disbelief. “N-n-nonono Head Director I-”

“I’ll have you sorted out properly. Such darkly-natured evils have positively no place among my vassalage! Meth-Hound Minion!”

“Berk!” The minuscule Pom barks in affirmation.

“Take her away!”

The little dog taps excitedly on his forward paws. “Berk!” At once, he fixes his tiny muzzle onto the wet hem of Chemistry Minion’s lab coat.

“H-hey, no!” She squeaks as she’s dutifully tugged off to Mintuanamo Bay, nestled over at the usually quite-lonesome Penal Tower.

As she reaches to grab onto something, her gaze locks onto Flower Minion’s, which is as crass and as satisfied as a super villain with a successful evil plan.

“Begone, my wayward child. We will see you to be a good minion again one of these days! I shall visit often!” Chaos says with a loving, fatherly wave as if he were sending her off to Summer camp.

With a wide, complete grin, he turns back to the other two. “Now, isn’t that a surprise?” He seems to have completely forgotten that Flower Minion had anything to do with the weed, and she wouldn’t have it any other way. Her underground drug ring is safe… for now.

“Why yes, sir,” Flower says with a slow nod. “We were always at odds, her and I, but I never expected her to stoop to such a level as deception,” she adds with an obituary-like tone.

Combat Minion squints confusedly. “Wh-… huh.”

“What is it, Combat Minion?” Flower asks with a smile.

He sighs with a perplexed twist to his voice. “It’s just… I coulda sworn she was gifted all those candy rocks for secret overlord last Chaosday. Just… tryin’ t’ remember who it was that-” He glances her way in a moment of realization, noting her wide, innocent smile as she stares directly at him.

“Yeah, wonder who that could have been. Maybe it was someone that shouldn’t be crossed and wouldn't back the fuck down if played with,” she notes with a leading tone.

Combat Minion draws back with a slow, stern frown. “R-right.”

Chaos shrugs. “Ahh, well it will all have to be investigated soon enough. Perhaps Interrogation Minion will get something out of her. That said, now we must figure out some way to get rid of all these evil reason-defying substances!”

“Oh,” Flower Minion raises her antennae next to a shocked Combat Minion. “I suppose I could take ‘em. Bet they’d be good… uh, fertilizer for the gardens, and such like that.”

Chaos hums, stroking his chin in thought at the mention. “I cannot say I am all that thrilled at the thought of forcing our vegetation to partake in such loathsome practices— but perhaps if there is good enough reason, it could be forgone. After all, they do lack most of the biological processes that might make such substances harmful in the first place. Perhaps it would not be all that bad.”

Combat Minion’s heavy antennae twitch alertly. He’s not going to let Flower Minion do as she pleases.

“Ahh, well actually, boss.”

“Yes?” Chaos answers with a jagged smile the same moment Flower Minion fires off a fatal glare in Combat’s direction.

“T’would probably be for the best if we used them as a weapon. After all, humans are deeply susceptible to this kinda stuff.”

Flower Minion leans forward like a true mob boss while Chaos joins his hands together in quizzical musery. “I… yes, I suppose those humans would show some weakness to things like these— but how would we use such against them?”

Combat Minion arches a superior glance to Flower, who’s just now added Combat Minion to “The List”.

“Well, sir,” he starts, “maybe we could use them as some kinda distraction, you know, mix the honey and crystals into their water supplies or leave the collection in a cache that they’ll find. It’d be sure to weaken their societal cohesion and perhaps lead to in-fighting.”

“Wh- that’s evil!” Flower butts in with a put-on gasp.

Chaos shrugs. “Perhaps, but evil times could call for such intense measures. Too, however, I cannot say I am a big fan of harming them. They may be living garbage, but they do not deserve bad lives so long as I exist. In fact, we should heap blessings upon them once they surrender and accept me as the true High Overlord of their realm and emperor of Allkind. We will have to think of something else.”

*Ding* goes a sound from the kitchen, most likely Chaos’ microwave.

“Sir, that’s a super bad plan. We should keep the drugs here so we can keep them away from the general public. They’re… they’re too dangerous for any kind of application! You saw what they turned Chemistry Minion into!”

Combat Minion scoffs sharply. “It was you that mentioned using them in the first place. Chemistry Minion’s fine! The only one off their rocker here is none other than you, ya’ pansy-sniffin’ snitch.”

“Fat-butt idiot!” Flower exclaims, ridging herself forward into the minion that’s more than five times her size.

Chaos watches in perturbed silence while Combat Minion laughs out before leaning his head into Flower Minion’s. “Pathetic pipsqueak liar.”

“Fat boy.”

“Y-you deceptive, squabbling piece of-”

“Fat fat fatty boy.”

Combat Minion seethes in shock. “You… you idiotic, childish, comp-”

“Faaaaaa-”

“I’m NOT FA-”

“Hey dudes,” Chill Out Minion notes with a friendly, ever gentle tone.

The two, at each other's throats, look over to the kitchen’s direction alongside Chaos, who is more than pleased to see one of his most relaxed and fun minions reappear.

“What could it be, dearest Chill Out Minion? Could it be, indeed, that you have some easy solution to this issue?” The High Overlord and He That Vacations in Hell asks with a gentle smile.

Chill Out Minion shrugs— for he is the sort that will never directly oppose someone, and is always for the most well-intentioned, but evasively-worded advices. “I mean, I’m just Chill Out Minion, so ya knoooow... but hey, maybe instead of fighting, we could find a way to get The Knights, and use some of the less intense substances for a good purpose.” He says this in the same way a cicada would during the hottest, laziest time of a Summer's day: without direction, but altogether pleasant.

“Getting the knights once and for all is a good purpose,” Combat Minion grumbles.

Chill Out Minion shrugs again as he lifts up one of his microwaved mini-chalupas to his mouth and tosses it in. He chews for a second with his typical, relaxed look. The only thing that gets to him is negative vibes.

“I mean, yeah, you’re not like, totally wrong, dude, but I think they wouldn’t be too keen on having to deal with all that drug garbage. Let's just like… I dunno, put ‘em out for a trip on the honey and laugh at ‘em.”

"That's... that's totally silly," Combat Minion says.

"Eh, you're totally silly," Chill Out Minion offers unhelpfully.

Combat and Flower minions look at one another, instantly forming a truce just long enough to get rid of Chill Out Minion and his stupid ideas. Of course, this is just in time for them to hear Chaos, The Creator of Dragon Corpse Mountain and Puncher of the Twilight Mage Lords of the Yonder Veil, to chuckle like a giddy schoolgirl.

“Th-… There’s a bake off in new Reinen!” the overlord exclaims

The two minions in the tub with him glance at each other again, instantly recognizing their defeat.

Chill Out Minion nods with full chillness. “Yeah, great idea, dude! We could enter the contest, and do our best!”

“We’ll crush them!” Chaos screams with an enthused, tyrannical power behind him.

“Y-yeah,” Chill Out Minion says with an uneasy grin. “We could… alright yeah.”

“Those insignificant bi-pedal sounders of humans will reel in the majesty of my tactical genius!” Chaos leaps from the tub in a single, deliriously-fluid motion as he slips from the gravitational pull of the tub in but an instant. “To arms! Or should I say, to ovens!”

“Alright!” Chill Out Minion chimes with a smile, quickly shoveling the mini-chalupas into his mouth and leaving the plate on the coffee table before the two of them slam out of the cabin and rush off to Towerne’s Bakery of Undeniable Power.

Flower Minion sits quietly in the tub, both sigh in a mix of disappointment and bewilderment next to Combat Minion, who, after musing about it, just shrugs. At least Flower Minion didn't get her hands back on the weed honey.

“Well, I’m satisfied. Good enough for me, ” he says, staring out to space with a jagged smile.

She just sighs in response, struggling to enjoy the bubbly aromas of the tub. Sure, she got off the hook, but she hates it when good stuff is wasted on things like humans.

VI

Lord Knight General Order stretches uncomfortably under the sun of the New Reinen morning as she readjusts her large sun hat to shade as much of herself as possible.

“Does it really have to be me?” she grumbles to the well-suited man standing behind her: Lord Knight Captain Redemption.

He nods, taking a quick sip of one of the local tea blends at the Summer Festival. “What, you don’t like free food?”

“Everyone likes free food, Daniel— but judging people’s cooking isn’t a strong suit of mine. Don’t you think they should have, you know, an actual food critic to do the critiquing?”

Redemption shrugs, the small flex straining into his already considerably-tight button-up shirt. “Everyone wants to know what your tastes are when it comes to food. In fact all the bakeries agreed that they wanted to thank you for your hard work and make you one of the judges this year.”

She draws back in her chair while she glances over to the other judges, perhaps most notably among them: Knight Love, directly to her right. She knows Love enjoys competitions like this and wouldn't miss them for the world, especially if it's the type of contest in which she gets to eat everything in sight.

“I… I suppose it couldn’t hurt. Sorry, I’m just a little on edge," she says before leaning over coolly to whisper. "I feel him nearby,” she adds covertly.

Redemption starts up to a combative stance with the speed of a tiger. “Where?”

“N-” she shakes her hand dismissively as she raises a sip of wine to her lips. “Never mind it,” she says alongside her next breath. “It doesn’t feel… It’s probably just Prank Minion looking to pants someone again.”

Redemption takes back to Order. “Wait, who?”

“Forget it. He’s not a problem.”

He hums. “So you think it’s safe, then.”

She scoffs curtly. “Knowing him, he’d probably try to put on some stupid disguise and enter the contest himself.” She says this just as a tall, well-coated figure to the left-most judge's table flinches in shock.

Redemption almost chuckles. “That fool is truly one the most misled creatures to disgrace our king’s Earth.”

She shrugs. “Yeah, but it’s not as though he’d listen to that sort of reason. He’s entirely certain that he just needs to conquer the universe, and then suddenly all problems will cease.”

“Sounds like the fantasy of an adolescent.”

She waves out her hand with sarcastic emphasis. “And yet here we are, fighting an adolescent fantasy for what, seven thousand years?” She says this with a sharper smile than he finds comfortable.

“A little less, but I’m sure it’s somewhere around there. Keeping up with dates is sort of depressing for me,” Redemption says as he watches over the last set of bakers as they emerge with their hot cross buns. “A cool new thing with those color printing presses are the calendars with the pictures.”

“I saw a few going to a charity event. They look pretty,” she says.

“Yeah, imagery magic to preserve landscapes on paper, mass produced and distributed for the whole population- no mana required to operate. I opened one up to get a better look at some of the sights, but lo and behold, there showed the current year.”

“Yikes,” she says with an old, tired kind of sassiness that the two of them are particularly keen on.

He sighs. “It’s pathetic, but I don’t think I can help myself when I look at it and remember thinking what life would be like for people who lived in this time… Guess we know now.”

She nods slowly, her gaze trailing off to the side as the first group of judges tries out the hot cross buns. “Yup.”

“On the verge of war with The East,” he adds dully.

“Mhmm.”

“No idea in the slightest what’s happening in Liefland.”

“Mhmm.”

“Whihelmish turning into a haven for criminals and terrorists.”

“Yeah.”

“And if I hear about one more human-trafficking bust in Kanvane, I think I’ll finally lose it.”

Order nods as Redemption continues, not looking at the others at all, even as someone slouches out of their chair.

He sighs. “I keep telling myself: ‘Daniel, there’s simply no way they’ll mess it up again. But I guess that’s just me being an optimist, like always— and big shock, they mess it up again. I’ll be real. Rayda left some work to do, or better yet, his absence caused it all to spring up fearlessly. All these pathetic fools-’”

“Hey, Daniel,” Order addresses plainly as she takes up her own hot-cross bun.

He finally glances over. “Yes?”

She takes a quick nip of her bun. “There’s something wrong with this bread.”

Redemption draws back as if offended on the part of the bakers. “Please don’t say it needs to be dipped in alcohol,” he notes sternly while taking up a brownie from a rather short baker of an alarmingly-dark complexion passing out generous amounts of the stuff.

“No,” she says, taking one more bite to be sure of her suspicions while sitting next to Redemption, who takes only a small nip of his chocolate delicacy.

“Then what is i-” just when he turns around, he can clearly see the scene unfolding:

Drowned out by the cheers and games and music, the judges have begun displaying some rather peculiar behaviors. Famous officials and celebrities among the judges begin acting strangely, or rather, more strange than they are usually known for.

“Oh my!” Meeo exclaims, holding her bun so high that some crumbs fall into her lacy, drooping sleeves. “The bakers have certainly improved upon their craft quite a bit this last year!” She exclaims this while rolling sideways onto the table with a huge, ridiculous grin— as if her youth had just returned to her in an instant, not that it's ever all that far away for her in particular.

“This is… no way… the swamp?” Uurd The Swamp mutters the moment before she leans back in her chair lazily to stare up at the sun as someone breaks out into excited convulsions next to her.

Redemption and Order share a quick glance as the judges’ tables transform into miniature ballrooms, cafes, palaces, and race tracks— throwing the entire place into disarray.

Order snaps her fingers, casting up a consecration spell and removing any malicious chemical from her body in but an instant.

“Someone tainted the baked goods,” she says with an unexcited tone.

Redemption nods as he thoughtlessly nips off another part of his brownie. “What’s wrong with them?”

“They’re high, Daniel, come on.”

He raises a brow as he finishes off his brownie and reaches for another one on the plate of the smiling little baker, his hat far too big to see his face.

Redemption hadn’t explored that side of life since his assassin days, and that all ended once he became a knight— so it’s not such a surprise that, after all these thousands of years, he might have forgotten how it feels to be zoomed out with drugs. “What makes you say that? Have something to admit to alongside your drinking?” he asks with a superior smirk before biting off a huge chunk of the brownie.

“I’m on FIRE! I HAVE ASCENDED!” A rather well-known mage screeches as he tears off his clothes and begins rolling on his judge table, knocking about all manners of baked finery and pastry.

“He has ascended!”

“Praise Rayda! He’s returned!”

“Somebody help me find my ears! I can’t hear ‘em!” Are a few of the responses from various, quite-looped individuals.

“This is terrible,” Redemption says with a scoff, as if it were suddenly all a joke. “Holy shit.”

“What’s the matter?” Order asks, finally glancing back to see the ridiculous look on his face.

“These brownies are just so fuckin’ good!” he exclaims, before slamming another one into his jaw, practically inhaling it in a single, unnerving motion.

Order glances over to the little baker next to Redemption as Meeo pulls out her crayons and begins drawing a treasure map on the tablecloth.

“Where is he?” Order asks.

The little baker, practically more puffy baker hat than anything else, flinches. “W-where is who madam? I am but a humble baker of fine delicacies, most distinguished from the common-”

“Chaos, what’s he planni-”

“You foolish fool!” The judge sitting at a far left table exclaims as he takes a stand, his large coat flowing in the breeze dramatically.

Order winces. “What’s the big id-”

“How very typical of you to not see me coming as I parade under the very noses upon your regrettable visage” the cloaked figure exclaims, his hat broad enough to conceal his antennae, though those white eyes are clear enough for anyone to make out.

“I only have one nose, you idi-”

“I see two,” the baker minion next to her says in curt backup to his master as he hands another brownie to Redemption, who gladly takes it and chows down.

Order laughs. “Well no one asked yo-”

“And verily, I see three noses! How very simple it was for me to sneak past you, you fattened pale calf of inequity and darkness!” Chaos continues, shearing off his cloak and tossing it dramatically into the wind, which promptly directs it into the face of a Kanvane Magic Council member.

She groans, irritated that she can hardly go a month these days without him comprehensively ruining some occasion. “Leave me alone, you idiot. Just let me be depressed in peace!”

“Haha! You hear that, Baker Minion? Our tactics are so indecipherable to her pathetic lower-echelon mind that she’s driven to melancholy!”

Baker Minion spins dramatically, pushing off his hat and throwing it to the wind also, at the same moment flinging his be-weeded brownies across the fairgrounds. “I have, Head Chef! What a most well-buttered plan!”

“‘Well-buttered’?” Order mocks with a scowl as she places her hand upon Monument’s dimensional hilt. “That is literally unbelievably stupid; an absolute new low of stupid for you.”

Baker Minion strikes a sinister, rat-like pose. “Maybe you’re literally unbelievably stupid!”

She shrugs. “No, that doesn’t ma-”

“Haha! Yes, I agree! She is such a pathetic fool! Now you have no choice but to declare me the winner of the baking contest!”

Order doesn’t lift her gaze from the overlord. “What?”

Chaos turns to the other judges, too zipped to properly understand anything. “Good judges, have I won your favor?”

“Who?”

“Yeah, man.”

“This is the best bread ever.”

“I loveeee youoouuuuu!”

“It’s like… better than drugs!” Are a few of the resulting responses. Several of the judges even possess enough motor-skill clarity to hold up their number signs, most of them displaying a ten.

Chaos laughs triumphantly as Order stares on in awe. “So it’s true then! You admit me as your superior in the craft of baked goods?!”

He receives a confused cheer— the kind delivered by people who currently have no idea what they’re cheering for, but everyone else is doing it, so sure, whatever.

With another laugh and a leap across tens of meters, Chaos seizes the trophy for himself, holding its brass glory high for all to see in the warm sun of the day.

“Victory is mine!” he exclaims the second the guard platoon assigned to the fair rushes in.

“There he is!” the front-most guard yells, raising his enchanted crossbow for the fire.

“Hold it,” Order says, her hand still on the epic weapon’s hilt, but her other hand propping up her chin with a regal distaste.

The guards hold back as Chaos tears open a portal, allowing himself and Baker Minion a quick escape.

“Remember this day, puny humans!” He finally removes his hat. “For it was I Chaos, who stole the trophy this day! Now begone with you all, you fat peasants! You're all complete losers! Ha!” At that admonition, he disappears into his trans-dimensional portal to who knows where as his sidekick tosses the final spare loaf of tainted bread at the guard captain before warping into obscurity.

Order just sighs, appreciating the final echoes of The High Overlord's laughter, simultaneously inspiring and dread-inducing.

The guard captain rushes up next to her and Redemption, who is now laying out on the grass in a wonderful trance. “Ma’am, I had a clear shot. Why'd you give the order to hold?” The guard captain asks, his brown eyes tensed with concern.

Order shakes her head and reaches for her half-finished hot-cross bun. “Wasn’t worth it with all these people around. He does this stupid crap all the time.” She takes a bite. “Damn-good bread, though.” She then takes a short, quiet breath.

The guard captain looks around, seeing that everyone’s more or less okay despite the chaos, and turns a gentle, fatherly smile.

“Guess you could say that we got… bak-”

“Don’t.”

“Y-yes ma’am.”

~ Fin ~