The Deadly Shack of Deadly Death
Author: Palgrave
Fandom: Megamind
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Not mine. Never gonna be.
Author's Notes: Started a while ago for "Canadian Shack 2011"; recently rediscovered, dusted off and finished. As ever, feedback and constructive criticism quite welcome. Enjoy!
Summary: It's Megamind's most evilly diabolical scheme of evil yet! And it even comes with beautiful surroundings (of evil!) and (evil!) dining.
All things being considered, Roxanne had to admit it was a very nice shack.
There was a gentle snowfall, outside the windows, bringing to mind the Christmas specials she'd used to watch when she was a kid. A log fire burning merrily in the fireplace, filling the place with warmth and a gentle orange glow. Solid oak furnishings, beautifully carved by a carpenter no doubt highly trained and sought after for their skill. There was even a bottle of wine on the table, and what smelt like a pork roast cooking in the oven.
All in all, if she hadn't been tied to a huge metal chair with some kind of pointy lasery wingdoodle aimed right at her, Roxanne would almost have thought it romantic.
"So we meet again, Ms. Ritchie," purred the familiar silkily evil voice a chair in the darkest corner of the room. The chair slid forward in a fashion it's occupant no doubt thought of as dramatic, revealing the long, shiny black cloak, the overalls, the huge blue head.
"FOR THE LAST TIME!" Megamind bellowed dramatically.
He laughed. It was a diabolical laugh. An evil laugh. A laugh that was so evil it made kittens cringe. A laugh so evil that flowers would have wilted had there been any around (it was the middle of the Canadian winter, after all). A laugh so evil that supervillains everywhere twirled their moustaches in awe. Did we mention it was evil?
But even evil laughter must end, and when it did so Megamind found himself standing in front of a rather put-out woman tied to a death-ray chair glaring at him and saying nothing. His face frozen into a diabolically sinister grin, Megamind's eyes began frantically flickering back and forth, like an actor waiting for a colleague who'd missed a cue.
"Um, Miss Ritchie?" a voice asked sweetly from her side. Roxanne looked up to find herself face-to-fish tank with Minion. The titanium suit loomed threateningly; the fish inside looked nervously hopeful. "Your response?" He prompted helpfully.
Roxanne sighed the sigh of the truly long-suffering. "You fiend, you fiend, you'll never get away with this," she muttered.
Megamind didn't even wait for her to finish (which was kind of insulting, really). "Pah!" he barked out. "This time, even that superfool hulk of a boyfriend of yours will not be able to thwart my diabolical plan!"
Roxanne rolled her eyes disdainfully. Inside, she felt a stab of annoyance. Bad enough that he kidnapped her every other week, but he should know well enough by now that it was... complicated between her and Metro Man. He wasn't her type. She was a Pisces, he was the last son of a doomed planet. It would never work out. She was into more intellectual guys anyway. For a moment there, she'd even thought there might have been a hint of jealousy in the way that Megamind said 'boyfriend', but she dismissed it as absurd. This was Megamind, after all.
"I want you to imagine it, Ms. Ritchie," Megamind began. Oh great, he was monologuing again. She'd hoped they'd be able to skip the monologuing this time. "A lifetime of planning and preparation, of burning hatred and genius, all building to this moment. The perfect trap, just waiting for my arch-nemesis to stumble straight into it like the fool he is, while we hide in wait, in the cold and dark, preparing to stab the icy fist of vengeance into the soft gullet of justice from this hidden, secret loca-"
"We're in Canada, aren't we?" Roxanne interrupted matter-of-factly.
Megamind was frozen in mid-sentence, finger in mid-stab to the ceiling, a flowering bloom of panic in his eyes. Minion's eyes flickered between Roxanne and his boss nervously.
"We are, aren't we?" Roxanne continued mildly. There was a fairly good chance that Metro Man had discovered she was missing and was listening out for her with his super-hearing by now. Meaning he'd probably be here in no time.
"I don't know what you mean," Megamind blurted out.
"You're hiding us in a shack somewhere in Canada. There's no sense in denying it. It's patently obvious."
Megamind laughed again. It was less convincing this time. "Ms. Ritchie, really. Your no doubt cold-and-fever induced panic hallucinations are playing tricks on you. I assure you, we are far from this so-called Canaidia of which you speak..."
"Canada, sir," Minion corrected helpfully.
"... in a really well-hidden and secret location that's nowhere near Ottoh-wa. ("Ottawa," Minion interrupted out of the corner of his mouth) A place so devilishly well hidden, that it will take months - years! Centuries! - for that dimwit to even think of looking - and by which time, my fiendish trap will already have been sprung!"
"I never said Ottawa," Roxanne remarked.
She was ignored. "But worry not about Metro Man's terrible fate, Ms. Ritchie." She hadn't been worried at all, actually. "Concentrate on your own. For before you, you see a weapon so devilish, so fiendish, so terrible, that when you learn what it does you will lose your mind with terror. A weapon so horrifying, so evil, that you will beg for a fate worse than death in order to escape from it! For you see, Ms. Ritchie, this is non other than a -"
He was interrupted by a loud, cheerful 'ding!' from the oven.
"Oh, goodie!" Minion chirruped happily. "My roast is ready!"
He lumbered over to the oven, pulling on an apron that read "KISS THE CHEF" on the front and pulled it open. The smell of roasted pork that was already filling the cabin intensified; Roxanne suddenly realized how deeply hungry she was.
Megamind was watching Minion tend to his roast with a kind of blank fury. After a few seconds of being ignored in favour of dinner, he felt the need to speak. "Minion?" he inquired in a voice that only sounded pleasant.
"Hmmm?" Minion looked up, noticed his boss glaring at him, and realized. "Oh. Ah. Well, I, um, just thought that..."
"Yes?" Megamind prompted in a voice that could have cut diamond.
"Well, since we're here in the middle of the woods, and since we're going to be waiting for Metro Man to show up -"
"Waiting?"
"Not waiting, I mean not waiting, because our - your - plan is foolproof and Metro Man will never find us and we'll soon be laughing over his broken corpse as evil sweeps over the flaming ruins of Metro City. But just in case that doesn't happen, I thought we might take advantage of the situation and have a nice dinner."
There seemed to be a lot of emotions warring for control of Megamind's face at that point.
"You know... just the three of us." Minion continued hopefully.
"I am kind of peckish, actually," Roxanne offered. It was the truth, but it also needled Megamind so, you know, bonus.
Megamind threw up his hands. "I just..." he spluttered. "I... Dinner? It... I... evil!" he finally yelled. "We're supposed to be being evil! Dinner is not evil!"
"We could make it an evil dinner," Minion suggested.
"And how do we do that? Is pork evil now? Were the po-tah-toes roasted evilly? Are those demon baby carrots?"
"Well, no, but... well, what kind of evil genius kills their worst enemies without offering them a last meal?"
Megamind opened his mouth to furiously retort, then seemed to realize that Minion actually had a good point. At which point, what he would have said was replaced by a low, deep growl as his stomach protested. He remained frozen like that for a few moments.
"I suppose it is tradition, isn't it?" Megamind finally conceded.
"Tradition," Minion and Roxanne echoed.
"And it would prolong the terror in your mind, would it not Ms. Ritchie, to have the nightmarish purpose of the device you now face concealed until the last possible second, drawing out the agonizing wait until your inevitable doom?" Megamind continued, warming to the subject.
If it meant he'd shut up and she could eat, fine, she'd play along. To a degree.
"Absolutely," Roxanne replied mildly, nodding in a conciliatory fashion. "Ooh, the prolong. Terror."
"Very well," Megamind replied graciously. He pressed a button on a control panel. Loudly and noisily, the laser wingdoodle thing retracted itself. The metal chair Roxanne was in swung jerkily around so that she was facing the table, whereupon a pair of metal arms awkwardly donned her with a bib and clunked a knife and fork in front of her. "We shall dine, then, and as we dine, Ms. Ritchie, you shall ponder the inevitable horror awaiting you!"
He laughed, evilly.
Minion placed a plate in front of her, and she took a moment to drink in the wonderful smells in front of her. "And I remember you mentioned you were on a diet last time, Ms. Ritchie," he said pleasantly, "so it's all low-carb, low-fat and low-salt."
"Thank you, Minion," Roxanne replied warmly. He was sweet, really. And for her supposed last meal at the hands of a demonic criminal mastermind served to her by his diabolical right-hand, it was actually quite pleasant.
Roxanne never found out what the gadget she was tied to actually did, since Metro Man found them during dessert. Which was almost a shame, really, since the chocolate mousse was to die for.
