Author's notes: The flashback in this story is actually part of a larger story I'm working on called "Stepping Out," about young Megamind. Coming soon, to a computer near you.

Roxanne's Ex-Friend

Roxanne was curled up on a chair in the dorm's common room with a bunch of other students. The TV was showing the latest battle taking place in Metro City. She was glad to be out of all that craziness, safe in Ann Arbor. She'd already talked to her parents, and they were OK.

"Reports are indicating that the high school gymnasium roof caved in...graduation day ruined for hundreds of students and their families..."

It was a good thing she'd graduated last year.

The talking heads on TV were re-hashing everything again. There didn't seem to be any new information forthcoming. Idly she turned the pages of her magazine. Normally she would have chatted with her dorm friends but she didn't feel much like it right now.

Cheryl was holding court. She never seemed to get tired of regaling people with her "intimate" knowledge of the famous Metro Man. So what if they went to high school together? Roxanne thought. It wasn't like they'd ever hung out with him.

She could hardly believe they had once been best friends. College was supposed to expand your horizons, make you, I don't know, branch out, but Cheryl seemed unable to move beyond the petty gossip-mongering of their high school days. Admittedly, Roxanne had once gleefully participated in gossiping with her, about who was dating whom, who was cheating, who was boozing it up or taking drugs, all that. Now it just seemed kind of mean. But Cheryl did not seem to have developed any kind of compassion or sympathy for anybody. Especially for Roxanne.

Roxanne was one of her targets, now. It was enraging. Things she'd once told to Cheryl back in high school, swearing her to absolute secrecy, were apparently fair game. Roxanne especially regretted telling her about-

"Metro Man's not the only famous personality that Roxanne's met," Cheryl smirked to her fans. A few curious heads turned in Roxanne's direction. Roxanne lifted the magazine up to hide her face.

Shut up, she thought fiercely. Just shut up already.

"She met Megamind," Cheryl said, grinning broadly. A chorus of guffaws and denials met this declaration.

"No way!" "Yeah, when?" "At the prison/high school mixer?"

Everybody was clamoring to hear it. Roxanne knew Cheryl would play it up for all it was worth. She figured she better say something before her former friend blew it all out of proportion. Reluctantly she put the magazine down.

"I didn't meet him," she said defiantly. "He was running away from a robbery and crashed into me. Fleeing the scene. We just-knocked heads. He knocked me down, fell down himself, his robot-fish grabbed him by the arm, and he was gone. I didn't MEET him," she repeated. She glared at Cheryl, but the other girl wasn't done yet.

"She told me," Cheryl said, "that he had the most beautiful green eyes."

"I did NOT," Roxanne shouted, standing up amid the exclamations and giggling. Feeling that anything she said would be used against her, she stormed out of the room.

"I never said 'most beautiful'," she grumbled. "Mention one little detail and she makes a federal case out of it."

She slammed the door to her room and flopped down on the bed. It was a good thing Cheryl wasn't her roommate. Right now she felt like she could smother that brat in her sleep.

Roxanne and Cheryl were fifteen at the time of Megamind's first escape. He and Minion had been on the loose for weeks. The city was in an uproar for quite a while, as if the end of the world were at hand. She and Cheryl were rolling their eyes and making fun of the whole situation.

"What do they do except steal stuff, anyway?" she said.

"Yeah, they're the terror of delivery boys everywhere," Cheryl said.

"Soooo scary," Roxanne said, mimicking the concerned face of the anchorman on the TV. "Everyone must cower in their homes until the alien menace is contained." They doubled over with laughter.

Barely a week later, with her dad out of town for a conference, Roxanne and her mother went to their favorite Chinese restaurant one night. They ran into some neighbors there and ended up staying quite late. As Mom was in the doorway, saying good-bye to them, Roxanne stepped out onto the sidewalk. Roxanne was watching her breath fogging the air. There was a loud crash as a garbage can was knocked over and someone shouted-

"Hurry up, Minion! Can't you-"

And WHAM! Someone crashed into her at full speed and their heads collided. She landed on her seat and she put her hand up to her forehead. There'd be a bruise for sure. The other person was flat on his back, clutching at his own head. Mostly all she saw was a couple of skinny legs sticking out of a huge parka. Her mother let out a yelp. The other person finally righted himself and her jaw fell open at the sight of the alien, his dazed expression, his blue skin, and his startlingly green eyes. He was quite grubby, and very young. She'd heard a great deal about the danger of the alien, about his cleverness and craftiness, but somehow no one ever seemed to talk about the age of the alien. He didn't look any older than she did. He stared at her. A massive, metallic shape loomed abruptly over them and she nearly screamed at the sight. Now there was someone she wouldn't want to run into in an alley.

"Come on, get up!" Minion said urgently, reaching down and grabbing Megamind by the arm. He lifted him bodily and almost carried him past her down the sidewalk. Then they were gone, disappeared into the night. Roxanne noticed that Minion was carrying some bags. They'd just mugged the restaurant's delivery boy.

Roxanne sighed. He hadn't seemed dangerous then. Of course, that was before he started blowing things up.

When she was a Real Investigative Journalist, she would move to New York or Chicago or Washington and never have to go back to Metro City. Well, except to visit her parents. And maybe attend a reunion, if Megamind didn't blow up the whole school first.