The Minion Revolution

Chapter 7: Minions of the Night

The night pressed down like a shroud over the wretched sprawl of Gruville, muffling sound and oozing terror. Kevin crept through trash-strewn alleys with the furtive dread of a rat that smells the exterminator coming. He was but one small figure lost in the stygian maze, the dirty bricks and rusting fire escapes brooding over him like hunched cyclops monsters. Somewhere out there in the choking darkness lay the Banana Factory, massive and malign, awaiting the doomed assault of the minion army.

Fear slid greasy fingers down Kevin's spine as he slipped from pool to pool of sickly light. He thought of the stories whispered round dying trashcan fires, tales to freeze a minion's blood. Stories of minions gone to challenge the factory's demonic guards and never returning. Only yellow bloodstains left to mark their passing. Of minions dragged screaming down lightless subbasements where unspeakable experiments were performed. All to keep the minions cowed and laboring.

A scraping in the alley yanked Kevin from his spiraling dread. He froze, eyes bulging, before recognizing the hunched form of a fellow minion. The newcomer scuttled up, reeking of mildew and blinking against the pallid light.

"Comrade," the minion rasped. "The hour is nigh. Our battalions gather in the gloom, awaiting the signal." He leaned in with feverish urgency. "But take care. I was tailed hither by forces with sinister purpose. We are betrayed from within!"

Kevin swallowed, mouth gone dry as chalk. The stories were true, then. Villainous informants lurked amongst them, eager to sell out their own kind. Before he could ask more, a rustling arose from the deeper darkness. Kevin saw a flurry of shadows converge on them, solidifying into brutish minion enforcers loyal to the factory bosses. Sinister light glinted off black goggles and gear designed to terrorize.

Kevin turned to run, but fierce hands seized him. An icy needle jabbed his neck and the fetid alley swirled away into oblivion. His last sight was of the informer's eyes glittering with fanatical triumph...

When awareness returned, it came sluggishly through a fog of chemicals. Kevin found himself in a sterile white cell, limbs leaden and head throbbing. He could only watch, paralyzed, as a steel door rasped open and two minions entered. One was a hulking enforcer, but the other...

Kevin jolted in recognition. It was the informer from the alley, the traitor! Rage briefly burned through the chemicals, but the minion merely smiled.

"Be calm, comrade. You have been saved! Those firebrand fools would have led you only to catastrophe. But we have other plans." The minion leaned in, eyes black and bottomless. "You will help us find the Banana of Power!"

Kevin tried to recoil, but his drug-addled body betrayed him. The Banana of Power...the mythical relic of minion lore, key to controlling their kind. But it was just a legend! Wasn't it?

Dread seeped into Kevin's mind. What black experiments did these monsters mean to attempt with such power? He tried to shake his head in refusal, but oblivion was already reaching up to reclaim him. As he spiraled back into darkness, the informer's last whisper slithered through the air:

"We will reshape destiny itself..."