It's hardly a half-hour later before she has her next conscious thoughts. Briefly, she thinks she's dead and that this is the end… she would be consumed by this blackness forever. She feels something, however.
A sense of touch. Again, she's not sure if she's been bathed in darkness or if she simply lost the ability to see due to her injuries. But, she can feel something very clearly with her.
What she feels is like the grasp of one of those blasted royal knights of Reinen. It feels cold, like mithril or some other high-quality, easily-enchantable metal that has the magical capacity to maintain as many magical spells and alterations as a barrel can contain drops of water. It's an unmistakable sting, as if it could tear her adamantine body to bits at the slightest zealous opinion. It must be one of those hypocritical animals, surely. She hasn't the slightest clue how they would have found her, especially a cut-away madhouse like this place, but she's certain she knows the feeling of this metal clasping onto her.
Her tactical sense screams to remain quiet. Perhaps the Knight does not know she's awake, but the ego within her moves first, needing to get the last laugh. She won't be paraded around consensually, not by one of those hypocritical turds… this being her own terminology, of course.
"Feelin' lucky?" she asks snidely, expecting some kind of legendary blade to come splitting down into her skull, completing the kill. But the blade strike does not come. It simply carries her forward.
"What?" she says sassily, composing herself to be a nuisance even in her final moment. She does her best to take a guess with who she feels would be most likely to be wandering around by happenstance or perhaps sent on a direct mission. "Space? You always had this weird thing for drama," she says.
Nothing.
She clears her throat to start down the list.
"Harmony? Still angry about that blog post I put up, you dorky whore?"
…
"I'll never remove those pics."
…Still nothing.
"J-Justice?"
…
"Hmm, Law? Finally decided to finish what you started… ya' bitchass traitor?"
No answers, but the armored hand carries her along. She hums as a slight smirk crosses her face. She makes a very gentle movement over to one of the handles of her blades. She still has one of them and gets her grip on it with the conspicuousness of a butterfly landing on a leaf somewhere in a faraway forest—entirely imperceptible.
"So then, Knight," she pauses a moment as she scrolls through the titles and faces in her mind. "Knight Sensitivity. I know you've always liked us minions, but I think we can both agree this is a little much," she says, putting nasty emphasis on the last part. If she can't get the right one, she can at least throw insults that would, by proximity, embarrass the others.
But there's no flinch from the armored grasp, it just continues to carry her along. She can feel the cool air passing by her outer shell as they take another left turn.
Scout Minion gets a wicked smile. She knows exactly which button to push now that she thinks about it. "Now… that height," she starts, "that weakness of the grip..."
"It must be—'course, Order," she says, dropping the name of Reinen's most honored still-living Knight. "Naw, you'd be stumbling around drunk."
Her expression tightens as she receives ever more silence…
"Nice grip. Redemption give that to ya'?" she says, fishing again for a reaction.
…
"…He liked me more, by the way."
She waits for whoever it is that's moving her along to answer with some kind of whining rebuttal or just a long-delayed fatal strike, but it never comes. This, above all things, puts Scout Minion on edge.
"All right, I give up," she sighs. "Who are you?" she asks in a calm tone.
All at once, the hand releases her, having led her into what feels like a room several halls away, and departs her with a gentle pat on the head.
"Wait, what? What the hell?"
"Scout, is that you?" Navigator Minion whispers from somewhere nearby.
Scout looks around rapidly, attempting to ascertain the source of the noise. Her eyes aren't working, and her antennae barely function. She clicks as hard as she can to try to send out a signal, but it doesn't actually reach anything she can make out—it's like trying to find something edible in a vegan's house—at least, that's what how she would word it.
"Nav…" she says with a sigh. "Are you trying to tell me you pulled me all the way out here with those big cold hands of yours just to tell me you like me?"
"N… huh? Not at all. What do you mean? What are you talking about? I just found myself here," he explains.
"Now I really don't know what's going on," Scout says.
"Are we still… in it?" he pauses a moment. "The building… temple place, with the relic skull thing?"
She pauses as she ponders it over. "Yeah, that's right, the little skull with the feathers."
Navigator Minion's voice lets out a sigh. "Have you ever seen anything like that?"
"No, I haven't," she answers plainly.
"Are you—You've been all over the universe. Have you really notheard of anything like that?" he asks.
Her antennae flick again and this time she pulls something back. His voice sounds like he's groveling in a corner somewhere nearby—definitely him.
"No, I haven't," she reasserts. "I have no clue what the hell any of this is."
She steps around to try to get her bearings in the room, but she's not in any rush. "Hey, you still got that light spell?"
"Uh, yeah."
"Well, have you considered casting it?"
There's a pause in the darkness.
"Oh, yeah, I just… I just… what if there's some psycho thing waiting for us to light up the room?"
"…Like from a cartoon, Nav?"
"Y—" he clears his throat. "Uh, yeah?"
"…Grow up, dude."
"C-come on, Scout! You know I'm not a fighter!"
"Don't worry, if there's anything crazy in here, I'm going to take care of it," she reassures.
"What? Really? I mean, it's not like you did anyth—"
Scout Minion steps one foot, very firmly, in Navigator Minion's direction.
"I mean, of course you are the Scout Minion, after all." Navigator Minion chuckles nervously. He takes a moment, whispers a few old words, and thrusts his finger into the air.
"Lichtos!"
All of a sudden, the light re-emits from his finger, and they are bathed in just enough illumination to see a certain someone lying on the floor.
"He's… he's DEAD!" Navigator Minion screams, pointing at the collapsed body of Explorer Minion.
Scout Minion looks over and grins, as if it were true, but realizes right away that she's not so lucky.
"No," she says, giving him a kick that causes a jolt from the body. "He's asleep," she adds, disappointed. "Besides, if he was dead, the ether would have already detached from his body," Scout Minion says. "The loser within would be revealed, whoever it'd be."
Navigator Minion perks up. "Oh, he was actually an accomplished Eternum explorer before Chaos found him."
Scout glances over to her associate. "Why is it that you can care so much about stupid people?"
Navigator Minion winces. "Huh?"
She shakes her head. "Never mind." She picks Explorer Minion up and practically tosses him over to Navigator Minion. "I'm gonna need my hands free for this."
Navigator Minion fumbles with the snoozing, whimpering Explorer Minion, jostling him up over his shoulders. "Okay, sure!" he says.
Her eyes slant as she glances over the available passageways around them. "Now then… which way is out of this dump?"
Just then, the hallways grow a little colder. "Aren't we going to get Mime Minion back?" Navigator Minion asks.
Scout scoffs. "He's a big boy. He can handle himself."
She receives probably the most chastising look she's ever seen on the coated minion's face.
"Oh boy, what did I say?" she asks, with a wry smile.
"You know what you said!" Navigator Minion snaps. "You can be a spiteful little brat all you want when people aren't in danger. We both know that guy's not exactly what we consider, you know, independent."
"Pass," she sighs. "Dude probably waddled back out. Did ya' see how he was looking at the place? Probably mapped it out perfectly."
"And if he didn't?" Navigator Minion asks, still struggling to find a good grip by which to carry Explorer Minion.
Scout Minion flinches, and glances aside. "I mean…"
"He's going to need our help, Scout. We have to find him," Navigator Minion says, his eyes holding over her avoidant gaze.
She squints. "Are you trying to t—"
"Tell you what to do? Yeah, Scout, I am."