Welcome to my first fanfic on this wonderful site! It's not the first fic I've written, but rather the first one I got around to putting up and the first one I'm serious about finishing. I'll hurry to put up the next chapter ASAP, but considering how wildly my college workload deviates, it could take anywhere between two days and two months. I'm trying my best to finish this story before the start of November, though. It'll be a two-shot or three-shot, nothing too long.
Pairings are what you would expect from seeing the movie, with the added twist of throwing a couple OC's in.
I write for my own enjoyment, for the enjoyment of others, and for my personal growth as a writer. Therefore, this story isn't making me any money. If you insist on paying me anyways, you can do so though constructive criticism.
It was quiet day in Metro City. Well, as quiet as a day in that city could get. Burglars breaking into a jewelry store at night and getting caught by an alien superhero wasn't part of the usual norm, but in a place where good and evil fought city-wide battles on a regular basis, this was a relatively tame event for Roxanne Ritchi to report on. She knew her interviews would be relatively straight-forward and simple – typical Metro-Man-saves-the-day material. Hal didn't have any problems parking the van on the same block as the store.
When the two of them exited the van and approached the scene of the crime, Roxanne realized that something was very wrong. For one thing, Metro Man was still there. It was at least six hours since he had captured the criminals, so he should have gone back to patrolling the city a long time ago. Secondly, someone was interviewing him, and that someone wasn't her. It was a blonde woman wearing a set of tight khakis over her skinny legs and a ruffly top that was just a few millimeters away from being inappropriate for public television. She would have looked gorgeous if she'd used a fifth of the makeup she was currently wearing.
Roxanne rushed towards the scene as fast as she could in high-heels. Hal yelled at her something about waiting for him to get the camera ready, but she wasn't particularly interested in him at the moment. She was struggling to catch the sounds of the interview.
"So, after hearing the alarm with my super-hearing, I flew into the shop just in time to see the two thieves grabbing up the last of the diamond earrings. Once they realized I'd caught them, they gave up the game pretty quick. The police showed up to take them to prison a few minutes later."
The blondie gave a giggle that was usually heard from small children. "Oh, Metro Man, you're so brave!"
And then, believe it or not, Metro Man blushed. Roxanne stopped in her tracks when she noticed the red coming into his cheeks. "Thanks, Miss. I was just doing my duty to the citizens of Metro City."
The reporter flashed an over-white smile to her camera. "And there you have it, folks. Once again, our superhero saves the day, and those meanie burglars get put behind bars. We're all so lucky to have someone like Metro Man looking out for us. Back to you, Roy."
The cameraman pressed a few buttons and lowered his camera, revealing his thick tortoiseshell glasses and his face of acne to the world. A set of braces showed when he smiled. "That was great, Janet. We'll be getting promoted in no time."
She giggled in that childish way again. "I know, right?" Then she turned back to Metro Man. "Thanks so much for the interview, Mega Man!"
The superhero winced slightly, but Roxanne could see how much he was hiding it from his new associate. "It's Metro Man, honey." Honey? "There's a supervillain in town called Megamind, and I'd hate for you to get our names confused."
"Okay!" Roxanne wondered how much coffee the girl drank to get her into such an excited state. "I'll see you tomorrow, Metro Man!"
Said hero gave her a silent salute and then launched himself into the sky. Roxanne watched him fly off for a few seconds before resuming the angry approach on her competitors. As she drew nearer, however, she noticed a familiar design on Janet's microphone – the very same one on the mic in her hand. She recognized the news van parked behind the cameraman.
"You two work for KMCP?" she asked.
Janet glanced over to her, looking confused for a second, then her face lit up, as if it had taken her a few seconds to realize that was the name of her employer. "Uh-huh! We just started working there. I'm Janet."
The cameraman waved a little and mumbled a soft "Hi."
"Oh, and this is Marvin," Janet added. "We just did an interview with a superhero! Isn't that amazing?"
"Stunning," Roxanne deadpanned. " Listen, about that… you're new to this station, so I can understand how you don't know this, but I'm usually the one who conducts all the interviews with Metro Man."
Janet tilted her head to the side. "Really? But I got a call this morning telling me to interview the superhero about the robbery last night. Did they tell you about it?"
"No," Roxanne replied as she grabbed her cell phone out of her pocket. Upon flipping it open, she noticed that she had a new text message from the news station. Sorry for short notice, we're letting some new blood do the MM interview this morning. Check back later in case Megs plots something.
Roxanne sighed and put her phone away. "Sorry, I didn't know."
"That's okay," Janet replied cheerfully. "I sometimes don't know what people want me to do either. This one time, I was working on a report in college, and the professor was totally-"
"I'm sure I'd love to hear the rest of that story," Roxanne interrupted. "But you should probably be going. The new reporters usually have to do the reports on construction, and they're going to start a major road construction project on South Street this afternoon. You should get down there before the traffic starts clogging up."
"Really?" Janet said in a chirpy voice. "Thanks for the tip! We'll head over there right away. Won't we, Marvin?"
Marvin sighed a little, his smile slipping downwards a little bit. "Yes, Janet."
"Good. Let's go!" the blonde reporter cheered, skipping off to her news van. Roxanne rolled her eyes as soon as Janet's back was turned. She wondered how likely it was that the new recruit would be fired before they could meet again.
Marvin nervously fidgeted with the camera in his hands, staring at the ground though his nerdy glasses. He mumbled something too quiet to understand, then he turned around and fled to his van before Roxanne could ask him to repeat himself.
As Marvin walked around the van to take the driver's seat, Janet rolled down the passenger-side window. "I'll see you back at the news place!" she announced at the van started to pull away from the curb. Roxanne watched them as they drove down the street, turned left at the end of the block, and drove out of sight.
Roxanne sighed in mild annoyance. She wasn't sure what it was about Janet that drove her up the wall – maybe it was the brain the size of a golf ball or the voice that could communicate with dolphins – but she never had any intent of meeting that reporting team ever again. For once, there was an upside to living in the same city as a blue supervillain with a tendency to wreck buildings and destroy public property. Janet would spend all her time covering the eternal reconstruction projects, and thus Roxanne wouldn't have to worry about having another nerve-grating conversation with that ditz.
"You look so hot when you're annoyed."
Roxanne stumbled a few steps away from the voice in surprise. While she was lost in her thoughts, Hal had taken the opportunity to sneak up behind her and get into an uncomfortably close proximity. "Excuse me?" she said.
"I mean, uh, you look really annoyed that it's so hot," Hal said as he struggled to save face. He casually took a few steps backwards to give her a polite amount of space. "The weatherman said this heat wave should have ended by now. I'm annoyed too."
She didn't bother to correct him that she wasn't offended by his words. She understood how he felt about her, but she wasn't going to scold him for feelings no one really had any control over. At least he was making an attempt to backpedal and be more professional about things. Just because she wasn't willing to punish him for his advances didn't mean she wasn't annoyed by them.
"So, that girl was sent to cover the story instead of us?" Hal asked, attempting to change the subject. "I don't get it. We always get the Metro Man stories."
"They're new workers for the station," she replied. "I guess the executives wanted to give her a chance to prove herself."
"That doesn't make any sense!" Hal exclaimed. "Everything sounds cool when Metro Man does it. That's why all the new guys get put on the construction stories, right? If they can make road work sound interesting, then the execs know they'll sound amazing when they report on bank robberies. That's why the station started putting us on the Metro Man stories. You've worked years to get all these exciting things to report on. What gives them the right to hand off your job to the new guys who haven't done anything yet?"
"Thanks, Hal," Roxanne responded, grateful that she wasn't the only one who was annoyed with the situation. There were times like this when Hal could be truly sweet and considerate. Unfortunately, they were too often interspaced with creepy displays of affection that ensured she would never be interested in him. "We should probably get back to the news station," she continued. "If Megamind doesn't plan on kidnapping me today, we might get to report on a couple events."
Megamind's breakout plan was ingenious on multiple levels.
He'd been moved to a new, ultra-secure cell recently. There was exactly one way in and out, and it was constantly being monitored by at least three different people at any given moment. His only connection to the outside world was a television screen mounted above the door and a remote he could use to change the channel. The walls resembled those of a preschool room, with flowers and ponies painted all over them. The complex background would make it more difficult to camouflage himself, which was the method he used to escape last time.
The warden assumed that the alien genius would take apart the TV, cobble together a ray gun from the parts, and escape the cell within twenty-four hours. But, Megamind was no fool. He wasn't about to destroy one of his only sources of entertainment at the prison. If he ever used that TV in one of his escape plans, they would take it down, so there was a surprising lack of ray-gun-building the first night.
Instead, he simply took the remote apart and put it back together. The warden and multiple guards examined it to make sure he hadn't just built an escape device from it, but they needn't have worried. He wasn't going to use the remote as an escape weapon. Instead, he used it to secretly transmit some new escape plans to Minion.
Four days passed while Minion prepared the components of the plan. Megamind waited patiently, toying with the warden every once and a while, watching TV, and silently planning out his next evil scheme. After the third day, the guards began to fall into a false sense of security. This was the only time since Megamind's first big fight with Metro Man that they'd managed to keep him in the prison for longer than seventy hours. Perhaps the ultra-secure cell would finally end his string of break-outs.
This left the guards unprepared when Minion walked in on the morning of the fifth day brandishing the Forget-Me-Stick. Minion thought it was rather rude to knock out all the guards and steal their keys and that it was very plain as escape plans went. Megamind explained to him that the simplicity was what made this escape so ingenious – this was the exact same method he used during his first successful break-out. He couldn't help but grin whenever he imagined the look of rage on the warden's face when he realized Megamind had escaped the new cell with a plan he'd already used.
The first thing they did when they returned to the lair was relax for a few hours and catch up on all the latest Metro Man sightings. Five days without a villain to fight had given Mr. Goody-Two-Shoes plenty of chances to show his heroism in other ways. He had rescued cats from trees, put out fires, and given a couple inspiring speeches to the citizens of Metrocity. Megamind's escape hadn't reached the public ear yet, and that was great news in itself. He had the element of surprise, but he needed to work fast to keep it.
"We're going to capture Miss Ritchi again," he explained to his brainbots. "The internet tells me that Metro Man arrested a pair of jewelry-thieves last night. Naturally, Roxanne will be reporting on this incident. Capture her after her report is over and bring her back to the lair. Make sure no one, not even her cameraman, sees you take her."
As the swarm of brainbots flew off, Minion couldn't help but asking his master a question. "Sir, don't we usually kidnap Miss Ritchi ourselves? Do the brainbots know how to do it?"
"Of course they know what to do," Megamind countered. "They've seen us do it countless times. They'll be able to handle it. Meanwhile, we can fine-tune the last-minute details of my plan. For instance, we need to make some adjustments to the Chair of Torture."
Minion looked at Megamind quizzically. "Nothing meant by this, sir, but the Chair doesn't scare Miss Ritchi anymore. Isn't it about time we scrap it?"
"That's exactly why it needs the modifications, Minion!" Megamind replied, an evil grin plastered onto his face. "If this next idea doesn't make Roxanne scream, then I'll turn the Chair into a pool table or something. But for now, get me a 7-16th wrench, a blowtorch, two C-clamps, and a box of donuts."
"On it, sir!"
A certain cameraman navigated the car carefully, trying to read the street signs without slowing down or accidentally swerving off the road. He wasn't that good at driving, and he could never understand why some people liked to do it to relax. However, the first time he let Janet drive a car with him inside it, they almost ended up at the bottom of a lake. He swore he would never repeat that mistake again, even if it meant driving her everywhere through a strange city with streets he barely recognized while Janet talked his ears off about how hot Metro Man was and how lucky they were to get an interview with him.
He was relieved when he finally made it to South Street. He had no idea how he got there, but at least he could take a break and get her to talk to someone besides him. He parked the van at a coffee shop about half a block from the construction site. "We can walk the rest of the way," he told her. "You find someone to interview, and I'll be with you as soon as my camera's ready."
Janet flashed him a wide, artificially-white smile. "Okey-dokey, artichokey!" She exited the van, slammed the door shut behind her, and began her merry walk to her next news story.
He unbuckled his seatbelt and slumped down in his car seat. He rubbed his tired eyes, trying to figure out why he became Janet's cameraman in the first place. He took up her offer for this job a few months ago, back when they were both fresh out of college. It wasn't as if he was able to say no to her – he thought she was the hottest thing on two legs, and he always had problems talking around attractive women. While he still couldn't bring himself to tell her to shut up already about Metro Man, the infatuation was definitely wearing off. Right now, his annoyance at her fawning admiration of the superhero was outweighing his attraction to her.
He took a few deep breaths to calm his heated nerves before opening the van door. He grabbed his camera from the back seat and looked down the street to see which of the construction workers she wanted to talk to. At first, he couldn't spot her, so he approached the construction site and looked over the area more thoroughly.
"Janet?" he called hesitantly. She was nowhere to be found. "Hello? Janet? Where are you?"
On the way back to the station, Roxanne noticed something unusual flying through the air. It was a squad of about seven or eight brainbots. Seeing them was a regular occurrence for this particular reporter, but the strange part was that they were carrying off someone else besides her. A sack was secured over the captive's head, but she recognized the barely-TV-appropriate ruffled top.
"Hal, we have a problem. I think there's been a case of mistaken identity."
There you have it. While I'm not going to take the route of, "I'll update when I have X reviews," reviews are still appreciated! They'll motivate me to finish sooner because I'll know people are waiting for me. Constructive criticism is the best kind of review because it will not only motivate me, but it will motivate me to do better.