Scout knows he has a point, but he also just challenged her. She leans up just a bit, matching his height. "Oh, look who's a big shot now," she says with a smirk. "Little star chart boy thinks he can boss me around."
"Yeah—suppose I can."
There's a slight pause in the eerily silent passage, as if even the sound of the place was stolen away with all other signatures of life and magic.
"What are you here for, Scout? "Navigator asks, his eyes direct, punchable, and totally out of her accepted "Cool Zone."
"Well, obviously I'm here to—" She pauses, caught by the admittedly left-field question. Is she there to ensure the mission's success? Or is her job, as stated in most pieces of paperwork, to protect the minions who are supposed to ensure that success? Where exactly is the line drawn?
It's true that, right now, she's simply the enabling function for their brilliance, and she must do her job whether she likes it or not. She can't very well claim she can protect the others while using the excuse that rescuing Mime Minion would put them at risk. She's supposed to protect all of them, not just most of them.
She glances aside, looks back at him, then looks away again because of how infuriatingly direct his gaze is. With a short sigh, she finally speaks.
"All right, big shot. Let's go find our little entertainer."
Navigator Minion's prior bitterness erodes instantly, replaced by pride that his trust was well placed. "Alright, let's go," he says.
Explorer Minion, still on his back, stirs. "Whatthe devil?" he groans, wincing.
"Oh, look who's back," Scout Minion says, her relieved smile returning as well, though it's quite a bit nastier than Navigator Minion's.
"Oh, you're up," he starts, gently swinging Explorer Minion down, who swats him.
"I didn't need your help," he snaps. "I would have been able to fend them off just fine in my sleep!"
"You were totally out, man," Navigator Minion replies. "I think you should probably practice some humility in a situation like this, considering we can't see or hear what we usually can."
Explorer Minion scoffs and rolls his eyes. He brushes himself off, adjusting his hat with his free hand.
"Well, at any rate, let's go head back and get that skull," he says, immediately heading down the opposite direction.
The two minions flinch as they watch him march down the way.
"Are you kidding me? You want to go back?" Scout asks.
Navigator Minion hums thoughtfully. "I mean, now that I think about it, that might be where Mime Minion is."
Scout Minion shakes her head. "The place where we just got instantly knocked out? That place? What if we're not so lucky next time, eh?"
"Oh, Scout, you and your excitable female mind," Explorer Minion sighs with a knowing smile.
She has to admit he looks no worse for wear, which already wasn't that good, but at least he's smiling. "If the spirit wanted to kill us, it would have. It's clearly testing us. After all, it did say that… we were worthy."
Scout Minion scoffs. "You made it all up, dingus. It said something about, I don't know, 'feasting,' and that was it."
She flicks her antennae around again, trying to parse out Mime Minion's general direction. However, his mana signature is nowhere to be found. It's particularly excruciating that she's now deprived of her main mode of understanding and interpreting the world around her.
The two males look her over, and finally she crosses her arms with a sudden frown.
"But I guess it would be where he'd look for us—maybe," she mumbles.
Explorer Minion gets a superior twinge to his grin. "Exactly, my dear."
"But that doesn't mean he's there still. Wasn't there, like, a mural with all the dragon kin thrown into a big-ass pit or something?" she asks. "It's this way, isn't it?" she notes just as they reach the T-intersection from the very entrance of the structure.
They all look left and see the source of the enormous crashing sound right before all the lights went out.
"Oh, we're trapped," Navigator Minion notes with a wavering smirk.
"Well, bullocks," Explorer Minion says. "I, for one," he says, turning on a dime, "will be headed back to that relic. They've recognized our bravery, and they will simply give it to us once we've proven that we're not scared of whatever kind of aberration they're going to childishly summon on us."
Navigator shakes his head.
"No, I'm with Scout on this one. Mime would trigger the glow from before. He's probably not back there… and there's no telling if we'll walk out of that again."
Explorer Minion gives a slow, low chuckle as he waves them off. "Very well. Perhaps all of this was meant for just me after all! Toodleloo!"
"Hey! Stop! We have to stick together!" Navigator Minion snaps.
"What are you thinking, moron?!?" Scout piles in as they both watch Explorer Minion disappear into the magic darkness.
"I'm thinking that I'm going to be rich," Explorer Minion declares, stopping just a second at the rim of their vision. "I'm going to be the most important minion that Chaos ever had the gall to call an underling. In fact, once I bring this priceless item back to him, he will probably slap Invasion Minion right off his little chair and tell him to go back to writing his foppish little poems!"
Scout growls, her little antennae flexing so much they look like they might snap. Her compact musculature ridging to slam her fist right through this joker's skull. "Stop," she warns.
Explorer Minion gives a gentle guffaw and turns his back to her.
Scout sighs. "If you go ten more paces, I'm gonna pull up on you and drag your ass outta here!" Scout Minion says as the two fellow minions look at her.
"Are you serious?"
"Ah, positively Valkyrian," Navigator and Explorer Minion say respectively.
"You intend to force me out of here?" the explorer adds with a twist of his moustache.
Scout Minion puts her hands on her hips. "I'll smash your face in as many times as it takes to get you out of here. You know, so you can live," she says, slowing her emphasis just enough to make it clear she means what she's saying.
Explorer Minion scoffs as he turns away. "I brought you on this expedition to protect us, not to become an obstacle."
She takes a single, decisive step forward. "I was organized with you on this mission to make sure all of you live. If I have to dent your fat head to the size of a golf ball, then so be it. You're coming with us," she declares, her scarf billowing dramatically.
The wind is sharp, and all three minions look forward to the passageway leading to that golden chamber.
"Come feast at our table," a guttural voice calls out from just beyond.
Navigator Minion's light spell flickers. The three of them, in most cases, would be able to see through regular darkness, much like a five-year-old could spot a bag of marshmallows on a kitchen top. But in this darkness… this mystical darkness that can only be pushed back by spells, all they can see is the glowing reddened teeth of what seems to be a massive heraldic dragon kin.
"Oh, that's a—" Explorer Minion gulps excitedly, struggling to find the right words. "That's quite a large specimen."
"I've seen bigger," Scout says as she draws her blade, earning a weird look from Navigator Minion.
And then finally, it stands up. The ceiling rises with it. The walls extend mystically to accommodate the height of the creature—even the air seems to produce space as the area alights just enough to show the outline of the creature unfurling in the dark. The minions look up in awe as even Navigator Minion's light can no longer pierce the blackness to find the tip of the creature's chin.
Scout sighs as Navigator Minion gives her a sly look.
"Okay, congrats. Don't get weird about it," she mumbles.
"Feast!... Feast!" the creature bellows as its skull ignites into a grand azure flame.
"So uh… running, yes?" Navigator Minion squeaks.
Scout sighs. "We're not running, we're cutting this thing to pieces. I'm gonna merk this guy big time," she says.
She leaps up at it, head on, shouting and swinging down with her blades, known to humiliate legendary heroes, knights, and others of renown, but she's suddenly met with the rock-solid realization that she's just shattered her knives against the thing's arm.
There's a moment of complete stupefaction at her usually jet-black hue. Her super fatal, ultra cool, super-enchanted blades wouldn't snap on something as unthreatening as some half-dragon's arm. But she looks back up at it, and the half-dragon looks back down at her.
The lights from the skull earlier are there as well, and she can see its body now illuminated in all its glory. There's so much magic revealing at once that she doesn't know where to look.
"Are we running now?" Navigator Minion cries.
Scout hums flatly, looking back to see Explorer Minion already tearing down the hall.