"Friend Nova?"

"Give her some space to wake up."

"Guuhhh….What even happened?" Nova groaned as she struggled to sit up.

Jaina was the first to answer. "Kael's pyroblast hit some sort of toxic bomb. We all died. Painfully."

Brightwing shoved Jaina out of the way.

"Friend Nova! Look at what Brightwing caught!" she cheerily announced.

Behind Brightwing was one of the Lost Minions, tied up to a chair and struggling to break the ropes binding them. Their sword was on the ground, about 30 feet from where Nova sat.

"Interrogation time?" Jaina asked.

"Interrogation time."

She stomped up to the tiny humanoid, stopping at the chair and yanking their helm off.

The tiny girl looked up, her bob haircut hanging around her face.

"Okay, so, if you don't mind...we're just going to ask a few questions.

The girl only replied with a "Screw you, blondie!"

Nova pointed her sniper rifle to her head. "Just. Answer. The. Questions."

"Okay…"

"One, why do you hate Heroes?"

"Oh, well, THAT is lengthy! I could write a novel on it! You all fight in the battles, relying on your teammates, but using us and treating us not as your fellow team members, but as stepping stones, garbage, that meth addict down the street from Butchers Barbecue. When you all leave, you leave us behind. Us, who fought for you as well. Us, who, instead of you, got destroyed by the enemy's towers instead. We are forced to watch as, because the battle is over, our fellow minions disintegrate into dust, leaving only a special few alive. We have to crawl out of the Battleground and into a ditch somewhere just to live! We never wanted to fight! YOUR KIND MADE US!" She was screaming and crying now, clearly getting emotional at the fact that she had been captured by the Heroes who had used her as disposal once.

"Jaina? Can you conjure a few tissues or something?"

"Sure."

"Okay, now, just a few more questions."

As soon as the girl heard the comment, more violent sobbing ensued.

"Okay, I need you to tell me why you want us dead instead of just diplomatically working it out with us." She said gently to the sobbing girl.

"Because-" She sniffed in an attempt to get the snot back in her nose. "Because we want justice! Justice for the ones who were disposed as if they were garbage! Justice for the ones who did make it through the battle, only to die anyways! You've wronged us! ALL of us!"

Nova sighed. She knew what the girl was saying was true. Heroes didn't and couldn't give a damn about a Minion. They could've gotten to like Minions if they got to know one, but Battles never lasted quite that long.

"One last question." she whispered.

The girl looked up, tears, mucus and snot still streaming from her face.

"What's your name?"

The girl blinked, before rendering the question in her head.

"My name-" she took a shaky breath. "My name is Penelope."

"Last name?"

"Minions don't have last names... we make the first names up for ourselves, just so we can have a sort-of identity."

Nova heard Brightwing whisper "Poor friend…" and heard Jaina sniffing sadly.

"Okay. Thank you." Nova began to walk towards the others.

"H-hey! Aren't you going to untie me?!"

"Um, nah, nope. We don't want to run the risk of you attacking. What we will do though, is wipe your face up." Nova grabbed the tissue and…

"Jaina...why the hell is the tissue glowing blue?"

"Uh…it is magically created, so it must have some side effects, or…"

"...or what?"

"Or it's a side effect of the Mana-cola I drank 3 days ago at Butchers barbecue."

"Oh yeah, that's real ni- WAIT 3 GODDAMN DAYS AGO?!" she shouted.

"Yeah. You respawned at the same time as us, but you didn't wake up for 3 whole days…"

"Friend Brightwing kept poking you with a stick!" Brightwing happily giggled.

"Whatever." She grumbled, and walked towards Penelope with the glowing magic tissue.

"Don't touch me, you filthy scumba- Mrph!" Penelope was muffled by Nova's hand and the tissue. When Nova lifted her hand, Penelope exclaimed in a "Bleh!"

It was at this moment that Nova recognised where they were. They were at Dragon Shire, but it looked less beautiful. All the greenery was wilting and rotting as there were no civilians to water them. More clouds filled the sky than usual. The Dragon Knight's statue had a horn missing and it was cracking.

"What time is it?" Nova whispered to Jaina.

"About...one or two in the morning? Maybe?" was all that was whispered in response.

Nova looked to Penelope. She was out cold, lightly snoring, with her bob covering her face.

"She hadn't slept since she respawned with Brightwing." Jaina mumbled.

Nova looked at the moon in silence. Even though she had woken up, like, 10 minutes ago from a 3-day napathon, she was ready for another few hours.

"In the morning," She whispered to her allies, as to not wake Penelope and have her have another tantrum, "We head out and try to find the rest of our team."

Lucario: Your review got in late, I have no clue why, as the date said you posted it on Oct. 5, when I published chapter one. And in reply, approx. 4,568 stars aligned on the night of Oct. 5, so the chances were pretty high Brightwing was going to be a main character. Mana-cola is not spiced with anything tropical, it's just like regular sugary, sort-of-bad-for-you soda, except it has an absolute boatload of mana in it, so much of it that they were banned to be on the direct battlefield with Heroes, because they were smuggling them in and boosting their mana when nobody was looking. The color of the cans are a mix of Purple and blue, or they could be green and blue, or red and blue, depending on what type you get. And no, you are not annoying me. Thank you for the support! :)

Consort: Yes, they are being buffed by something, or, it could be someone, but I don't have any guarantees on whether taking them to a place where buffs are removed, or an area where magic is weak would work, though.