AN: For the record, I typically shy away from writing OCs in fanfics. You came here to read about Megamind and company, not anybody of my invention- that in mind, bear with me. I'm hoping to keep this one from taking too great a part, unless reviews suggest otherwise.
It was Roxanne Ritchie who first stumbled onto the situation, and, as anticipated, it was Roxanne Ritchie who brought it to light.
She'd been called in to do a piece on the cop killer that had made last night's evening news—though not without a bit of hesitation on the part of Mr. Jamison. He made very clear—wouldn't stop repeating it, in fact—that she was being given a choice on the matter. After all, the same gun-toting maniac would have shot her if Megamind hadn't stepped in and 'neutralized the situation', and so this was considered to be one of those stories to which Roxanne would be considered 'psychologically sensitive'. If it had been anybody else, Jamison would have sent her home to recover, but her boss knew her better than that. She'd been through worse and come to work the next day—but this?
This was a bit weird, even by Roxanne's standards.
She'd been escorted by armed guards through a jail cell before for her interviews—the solitary confinement cells were particularly familiar, though Megamind had been long since removed from the maximum security cell. The people there were always dangerous, and often insane… but even so, she'd never seen quite this much blood on these cell walls before.
The woman was of average height, average build, mid-thirties—the kind you could see greeting you at the grocery store. You know, when she wasn't hurling herself at the bars of her cell and clawing at the lock until her hands bled. Her hoarse shrieks, when they weren't filled with obscenities, were all variations of "You've got to let me out" and "I'm running out of time"—
Until her eyes fell on Roxanne.
Suddenly she became quiet and still. It was an addict's stillness—every fiber of her body was shaking, her eyes were wide with relief and terror at the same time. For a long moment the only sound was of breathing and the slow drip of blood from the woman's hands.
"You!" she cried when that moment passed, her voice that high pitched fusion of a laugh and a sob. Roxanne resisted the urge to take a step back. "You! You have to tell them—no." The woman shook her head so violently that something—tears or spittle, Roxanne couldn't tell which—scattered around her. "No. No, no, no. Don't waste your breath. Tell him. Tell him to—" Again she shook her head. "Just tell him. Tell him!"
Roxanne took a breath. Build rapport with the interviewee. That was the secret. Even if she had watched this woman gun down eight men less than twenty four hours before. Even if that same gun had turned on herself.
"Tell who?" she asked.
"Him!" the woman cried, hitting her forehead… no. No, she wasn't hitting it. Her hand never touched her face. It went slightly up and out. She was motioning a large head. Megamind.
"Him," the woman whimpered. Roxanne's mind was going a hundred directions at once as she mapped out the possibilities. This woman could either be high—or going through some seriously nasty withdrawal—or insane. Megamind was a public figure now, a household name to everyone in the city, so it wouldn't be too hard to imagine someone in this state wanting an autograph—or more, as some of his less appropriate fans had indicated. But something about this was off. Megamind had caught this woman—dehydrated her, after judicious use of an anti-gravity field—was she out for revenge? Or was it something else?
"What do you want me to tell him?"
For a moment the woman looked like a dog that had been offered a treat—every muscle in her body perked up—and then she looked around the room, and just as quickly she seemed to deflate. She sank to her knees on the cell, her bloody hands leaving red streaks on the bars.
"Your interview," the woman mumbled. Her voice was oddly devoid of life. "That's what you're here for, right? I have a therapist, you know. As of two weeks ago I showed no signs of mental illness or unusual levels of stress. The last time I touched any kind of drug it was pot in college. I only drink socially, and there's no history of mental illness or substance abuse in my family." As suddenly as she'd deflated the woman's eyes were back on Roxanne, boring into her soul.
"But you don't do what I did without a reason. And I have a reason."
Roxanne crouched down, bringing herself to the woman's level. "What is that?" she asked, but the woman just shook her head.
"Just tell him," she muttered. "Tell him. Tell him. Tell him."
"Do you have a statement to give the people of Metro City?" Roxanne asked, trying to assert herself. Even with two armed guards at her back, this was… unnerving. "Do you want to explain why you did—"
"Nothing," the woman said. "Just tell him. Please tell him." And just as suddenly the woman's mood shifted again, suddenly frightened and sincere and desperate. "Tell him to hurry."
She kept muttering it long after Roxanne left.