The dust in the air made it all but impossible for him to see an inch in front of his nose. That is, if he had one to begin with. The little fish coughed, tasting the dust on his lungs despite the debris being safely situated outside of his bowl but thanks to that little antennae in his brain, he could smell things around him. It came in handy if there were fires, or if he was baking. In this situation, however, being able to sense those particles in the air around him only lead to coughing and watery eyes for the poor fish.

Things hadn't gone according to plan at all, no matter how well thought out the plan seemed.

Megamind had devised another brilliant plan involving explosives, fake puppies, and lasers. It had all seemed perfectly doable on paper but when they had captured Roxanne Ritchi for the five thousandth time (resulting in some fan fair and evil confetti) Metro Man had busted in on them. He and Megamind entered their usual brand of banter before push came to shove. Minion avoided the physical confrontations just as he had been doing for years, but hissed when he saw Metro Man an incredibly painful looking punch on his friend.

He remembered Megamind pulling out one of his many weapons and of course Metro Man had heroically gotten in-between the blast and Roxanne Ritchi who was tied to a chair with a bomb attached to her head. Funny how he did that, despite the fact that Megamind hadn't been firing at the woman. Yet still it had deflected off a powerful arm, ricocheted off of the man of strength's chest and hit something else entirely.

Then there had been the explosion, but not only one. They were numerous, sending plumes of smoke up towards the skies as fires licked at the electrical circuits that had birthed them. The stench of melted, burning plastic infiltrated Minion's glass home, and it made him feel sick.

"Sir? Sir where are you?" Minion called, managing to push what used to be a large control panel off of his body. It fell to the ground with a noisy 'clang!' which kicked up even more dust. The fish squinted his eyes, trying to see through the thick dust that still hung in the air. Whatever it was that Metro Man had deflected the De-stroy gun setting at had really gone off like a... well. Bomb. Maybe it had been one of the many bombs that littered the lair? Minion fretted about what kind of clean up job he would have to undertake to clear all this up.

Minion waved his hands in front of him, trying to make the smoke go away. It hardly worked, it was like trying to control the ocean and it continued to do as it pleased no matter how annoyed the fish could get. Coughing again, the fish walked around what had once been one of the walls of the base and he wondered just how he had survived. Surely the fish must have just been in the right place, at the right time. But it was when he happened upon some crushed Brain Bots did Minion's panic begin to finally grip him.

"SIR?" he called louder. "SIR? PLEASE. SIR, SIR WHERE ARE YOU I CAN'T SEE YOU." the fish called louder still, waiting to hear his friend answer back through the rubble and the smoke but there came no answer.

At least, not his own…

He heard Roxanne's gasp from across the room and the fish turned in his bowl first before his robot body turned to follow suite. Minion made his way over destroyed robots, crumbled walls and Brain Bots towards here he heard the sound. The smoke and dust was thicker around here, and he was vaguely aware of a fire burning in the corner but it wasn't his main concern. As he got closer he saw the woman standing there, hair an exciting mess, but with her back to him. The way she was holding herself she was perfectly fine, probably saved by Metro Man as usual, but her hands were covering her mouth.

"Miss. Ritchi?" the fish asked quietly, "Are you... are you all right?" he asked.

She couldn't answer him. Minion looked past her and he saw Metro Man kneeling amongst the rubble and for a fleeting second Minion thought maybe he was finally hurt. That his master had finally found a weakness in all this destruction and was about to land another blow against the hero but then Minion saw the black and blue material that was on the ground before Metro Man.

The hero, hearing the fish's words, lifted his head and stared at him with wide, horror stricken eyes. Minion was confused at first but then he realized just what was going on. On the floor in front of Metro Man, was Megamind.

A broken, bloodied... and dead Megamind.

He had to be dead. Minion prayed he was dead because his face was a bloodied, horrible mess that made it all impossible to tell it was him in the first place. Part of his head had been caved in, crushed by falling debris. His back was twisted in a horribly painful looking position, and bones stuck out through the spandex he had always felt so comfortable in. One of his boots were missing.

Minion stared, numb, deaf, and blind to everything else around him.

"I... I tried to..." Metro Man's voice was shaking, devoid of the usual pompous way of speaking he had when he was in control of a situation. He sounded shattered, broken, different.

"No." Minion said straight away as he pushed past Roxanne, uncaring he had almost pushed her over in his rushing forward. He fell to his knees of the suit that Megamind had built for him before the broken alien, heart beat racing within his body. "No. No. No, no, no, no, no, no!" his voice grew louder and filled with panic with every word leaving his mouth. What could he do? What could he do? His friend, his boss, his reason for living was laying there no longer moving and what could he do? "Sir, Sir come on. Sir, please. We, we have to, to get away." he was whimpering now, hands shaking as he reached out to Megamind but was afraid of where to touch him. Every part of him looked broken, despite his brilliant green eyes being open but lost amongst a sea of blood and dust. The sparkle in his eyes was long gone. They were only green now, green and lifeless.

"Minion," Roxanne's voice was shaking from her tears sliding down her face. "Minion he's gone, he's-"

"NO!" Minion screamed, turning in his tank to glare at the woman with angry, hate filled eyes. "He is NOT gone he is HERE!" he snarled, his sharp teeth gnashing in such a way that if he didn't have the glass between him, he very well may have tried to bite the woman.

"He's dead, Minion." Metro Man's voice was back, and the fish spun to glare at him now. "His... his lust for evil finally bested-"

"Murderer." Minion suddenly hissed, that cut the hero off and he honestly looked wounded and shocked by the word. "It's your fault. It's all your fault." the fish continued venomously. "If it weren't for you, turning people against us, singling Sir out all those years, taking everything good we ever could have had in our lives and keeping it to yourselves he would never have DONE this!" the fish continued, his metallic hands shaking so badly. He had barely noticed he was missing most of his digits due to the explosion, or that a lot of the fur on his body was caked with dust and grime. "You've been hauling Sir to that stupid naughty corner all our lives and now he's gone! He's gone…" Minion repeated the two painful words as if he had barely noticed he had spoken them.

He looked down at his friend, his master, and a great sob escaped him. "He's gone." Minion shuddered, his fins drooping in the water. "He's gone and nobody will care. Nobody will miss him. This whole city will celebrate. You'll be the hero all over again. Miss. Ritchi will be interviewed for being a witness to the final defeat of Megamind and there will be celebrations and parties… Nobody will mourn him but me."

"We will mourn Megamind, Minion, we-" Roxanne was talking, and he was vaguely aware she had drawn closer to him.

"You insult his memory by speaking his name!" Minion spat suddenly, his mood swinging violently as he turned around and looked at her, "You don't even know his real name! You never cared to even ask him that much! You never cared to wonder why it was always you he kidnapped and nobody else! You never saw how much he loved you, how much he had always loved and adored you! All you saw was an inconvenience to your life and a stupid little man who kept bothering you!" Minion was on his feet again, pointing one of his hands at the woman accusingly, eyes daggers and voice venom. "Don't you dare speak his name in my presence!"

"Hey, hey!" Metro Man was intervening, his strong hand grasping the fishes shoulder and easily pulling him away from the woman whose eyes were as wide as dinner plates, and face as white as shock from the shock. "Don't you talk to her like that or-"

"Or you'll kill me too?" Minion spat.

"I didn't kill him!" Metro Man shot back, voice cracking.

"Do you want to kill me?" the fish demanded. "Do you want to complete the set? Finally be rid of both of us so you can have your happy ever after? You got your happy ever after the second you landed on this god forsaken rock and what did we get? WE got nothing! We only had each other that's all we've ever HAD and now he's dead! He's gone where I can't follow him anymore!" Minion's voice was shaking, as was his small body from the fury and pain that was being let out all at once so violently he was scaring even himself. "Congratulations, Metro Man! Megamind is dead! You defeated the evil force that never put people's lives at risk! He never killed or hurt anyone in all his years of fighting you! You killed the alien you bullied in school from day one! I hope you're proud of yourself, I hope you're happy! Because I am NOT!"

It was apparent Metro Man and Roxanne were struck for words, and that made the fish feel proud, if shattered at the same time. Metro Man, who always had a witty banter to throw back at his boss, was speechless, and Roxanne Ritchi, the snappy reporter was silent from shock. He snarled at the two of them before turning away, and very carefully lifted the broken blue body into his strong, capable arms. Megamind had always been so skinny and slender, light to lift but here it felt so very different. His head lolled from side to side in the fishes embrace until it came to a rest between the crook of his arm and his chest and Minion saw just how badly the aliens head had been crushed. His skull had all but shattered, piercing his impressive brain, leaving a gaping wound that would cause anyone to feel sick over.

All Minion saw was the greatest loss he could ever face, as well as the loneliness that now presented itself to him in the form of his broken, dead friend.

"What... what are you... you going to do...?" Roxanne asked quietly, afraid to speak but she had to ask. She just had to.

"Do you care?" Minion asked.

"Of course I... I care..." she replied shakily, taking a step back as the fish turned in his tank to look at her with a dull expression on his face. "Minion, I do."

"What I'm going to do is my business and if either of you have one piece of shredded decency in your bodies left, you will leave me to do it and not ask me anything." Minion said angrily, before turning his gaze to Metro Man. "And this isn't over."

"What?" Metro Man asked quietly.

"This isn't over. I'm going to finish what Sir began but the rules have changed. The real game begins today, Metro Man. You have two options. One; let me go and let me give my only family the rightful burial he deserves. Two; kill me and deliver both of our corpses to the government for full alien autopsies. Be hailed the hero. But know in your heart what really happened. Which one can you live with?"

Metro Man stood there, and judging by the look on his expression he was obviously weighing which option he could go for. Roxanne reaches out slowly, and touches his arm. This causes him to almost jump, and he looks down at her, before looking to Minion. His answer is a simple step backwards, away from him, and a solemn nod.

"The one good thing you've ever done in your life will be the last." Minion whispered. "That's a promise."

And he was gone. Minion carried the alien out of the destroyed buildings, and the Brain Bots that were still functioning soon clustered around him with their glowing orbs seemingly setting themselves as a lower brightness than normal. They then began to lift, carrying the two aliens, one alive and one dead, away into the night until they were nothing but a distant star on the twilight sky that now bathed the city.

Roxanne could do nothing but cry.

The End