Indeed, a physical strike wouldn't be enough. It would only spill their ether essence. Magic alone isn't enough either, it will only damage the frame. The minion's ether will push the life form within to another part of the ether, extrapolating away endlessly in a quantum entanglement of potential magical possibilities.
But with a knife like this…
"Oh no," Explorer Minion sighs, like a ghost leaving his body. "No, it can't be!" he shouts. "I am the greatest explorer!"
"Shut up, moron!" Scout snaps back.
"I'm the greatest explorer!" Explorer Minion shouts again, on the verge of mania, earning a pleasured squint from the chieftain.
"Look, you could at least die with some dignity," Scout says.
"I am the GREATEST EXPLORER!" he shouts over her.
"So, you're the bastard that's been running around here," Scout Minion hisses as the chieftain steps closer to her.
"You could say that. I was shut away," he says. "Shut away deep in the earth, no one could hear me… And while I was down there, I realized that I had to share that experience with everyone else. Now you can know what it's like for nothing to matter… For your imagination to run rampant with terror... To envision things that are not there and give them the power to kill."
The chieftain's eyes widen and glow yellow in ways that should not be possible.
Scout, doing her best to beat back tremors, holds onto herself long enough to ask another question. "Yeah, so, if I hit you from over here, would that even matter? Are you even real, or is this some projection illusion bullshit?"
The chieftain grins, and for a split second, Scout Minion remembers her old days when she, too, was dragon kin, and found a large grin like that reassuring on her own chieftain's face as he takes a long, impossible step forward.
"There's no trick," he says, gliding the knife slowly along her skull. "Any second, a fatal incision awaits. There's no magic to it," he adds. "Or better yet, I give it all to you. I do not dampen by taking away. I dampen by drowning it out. I create magic. It's all around you. All you need to do is pick it up and throw it at—"
That's the last thing the chieftain says before an invisible spear of hard-toned nothingness smashes through his chest. He spins around to look at the assailant, still sure-footed... until another invisible spear keys him perfectly in the neck.
The chieftain's mouth moves as if to say something, but disbelief washes over his face, erasing all his words. He looks like a chess master who has had his one and only gambit solved the second before he collapses.
Everyone turns to the quiet corner of the room, where, just out of the corner of their own eyes, they see a pair of glowing eyes, slightly suspended by what seems to be nothing.
"Mime Minion?!" the three of them shout.
"Don't just stand there, moron! Come get us!" Scout yells.
Before Explorer Minion can scream again, the skeletons around them raise and animate, jaws gnashing for the chance to tear this new shadowy opponent to shreds.
Mime Minion, if it is truly him, leaps in for the kill, immediately opening fire on the crowd and destroying them all with invisible bullets shot from his totally real assault rifle.
A particularly large skeleton sneaks up behind him and swings with all its force, only to be caught expertly by something invisible right in front of Mime Minion.
The silent minion swings up as if holding a massive blade, cutting through the skeleton and sending its bones scattering across the floor like scorned maracas.
The three minions atop the skull are left gob-smacked as Mime Minion expertly dispatches wave after wave of leaping skeletons – it's like watching action minion do a stunt.
Mime Minion makes a motion as if racking a shotgun and then goes to town with what seems to be another invisible firearm, mowing down the waves of skeletons as he skillfully strafes around the area, jumping high and fast like a character from an old shooter game.
Scout, now past the point of being gob-smacked, can only watch in awe as he expertly destroys the entire crowd of these continuously reanimating skeletons. Against the backdrop, she hears Explorer Minion muttering something about him being the best explorer and how his mother always told him so.
It runs through her mind over and over. How is this possible? What is happening? Who is Mime Minion, and why does he look so cool right now?
In mere seconds, it's a field of bone dust with shattered calcified forms littering the ground around the ankles of the mighty Mime Minion, who, at the apex of his bloodshed, turns to look at Scout Minion and gives her a wide, goofy smile as he waves her way.
She waves back.
"The power of this shard," Navigator Minion says after a sigh, scanning the scene with a puff of relief. "Lets someone make thought forms out of their imagination!"
Scout's gaze flashes in realization only a semi-second before hiding it again. "Oh… uh, yeah, I mean it seems that way," she coughs.
Navigator Minion hums to himself as he glances up, squinting and looking over to the side before suddenly having a flash of realization. "We could create a radio that could contact Towerne!"
Scout Minion scoffs and shrugs. "I mean, it's better than whatever this is."
Navigator Minion starts shaping the form of some kind of radio with his hands, along with a dial and antennae. In only a few seconds, he begins tuning it, pressing the invisible earpiece to his base antennae as best he can.
"Hey, this is out party 348," Navigator Minion says, glancing over to Scout Minion to gauge her expression as he speaks. "Yeah… I hear you," he responds to what sounds like a little voice in his ear piece.
Everyone, even Explorer Minion, looks over in incomprehensible surprise, except for Mime Minion, who's juggling, decimating, and strafing around dozens of enemies.
Navigator Minion nods before speaking again. "No. Yeah, it's real. I think the source of the void signature is a shard of Ohrine," he explains. "We need help, like right now!" he says just as Mime Minion wins a few seconds to come over and free the captives.
The trio stays quiet atop the teeth of the skull as Mime Minion works to heave the jaws of the great dragon open. With only a second of effort, he swings open the skull, flinging the top half into the back of the massive room, crashing into the dark.
Rather than say anything, which would be decisively "unmime-like", he simply flicks back his arm with his thumb pointed over his shoulder—a quick, silent way to say, "Let's go!"
At varying speeds, they comply:
Scout Minion, perfectly used to a little bit of ether loss, pops right back to her feet and is down on the skull next to him, a thin trail of white infusia stringing along to return to her body.
Next is Navigator Minion noticeably taxed, who stumbles along a little before sticking the landing.
It's Explorer Minion, however, who rises the slowest. His eyes are wide with something akin to horror, but also a sort of malicious energy, as if some kind of demonic cause has been placed in his heart.
All of a sudden, his mind is awash in the possibilities of its potential. "So, a shard of Ohrine…" Explorer Minion scoffs. "It must be... After all, how could he do all this?"
Explorer Minion says, holding his injury as he waves with his free hand out to the absolute carnage of the skeletons before them.
"I mean, I think most of us can do that. You know, being a minion of the High Overlord does come with some advantages," Scout Minion says with a sarcastic smile.
The joke isn't lost on any of them. That being a minion of the High Overlord is probably one of the best things one can possibly be anywhere in the universe. But even with all of those blessings, it seems little in comparison to what Mime Minion is doing now.
"Yes, yes," Explorer Minion says, quickly regaining his poise as he smiles and looks away, like he's talking to a child who just gave him an amusing answer. "But of course… you could do much more, Scout. You know, he's not the kind of person that we would assume should be capable of such things... and yet, with the power of his mind, he's able to give himself these abilities," he says after a short pause.
While Navigator Minion continues to communicate over the invisible radio, Scout hums and Mime Minion ignores them as he continues looking down the dark hallway leading out of the chamber.
"Maybe you're right," Scout says simply before glancing over to Mime Minion, trying to see what he's looking at and noticing nothing particularly important.
She thinks back again and realizes there's something very specific he did when they entered the temple. She begins forming some circles with her hands.
"What is this?" Explorer Minion asks as Scout makes little pits about the size of some big minion eyes, and then something resembling a strap along the ends of it. It's hard to manage, and her curiosity gets the best of her.
She lifts the little lens to her eye. Her expression flinches, and her antennae shoot straight up in surprise.
"Well?" Explorer Minion asks.
"Whoa," she mumbles. "He really had this whole thing figured out," she says.
Explorer Minion hastily tries to do it himself, failing a few times and can't quite manage it. "Rubbish. What is this?"
"You need to calm down," Scout says. "You need to actually visualize the things in your hands, like… Mime."
Explorer Minion gets on his knee and very deliberately begins shaping things piece by piece.
Scout watches him for a moment before Navigator Minion speaks up, turning from his radio. "Hey, Scout, they want to talk to you."
Scout looks over and steps to the radio. "So, where is this thing?"
Navigator Minion helpfully pops the earpiece out from around his antennae and puts it around hers instead.
It's real. She can hear the voice of someone on the other side, and it's the voice of the person who's arguably the rarest to gain an audience with in all of Towerne—an individual Scout Minion simultaneously scorns, despises, and yet respects and admires more than all others in the Minionry. It's someone that does not "show up" unless he thinks it's a supremely big deal.
"Scout," says the voice with an even, matter-of-fact tone.