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Title: Declaration, Chapter 2: Justice

Author: Fearcat (Max Evelyn on )

Co-Author/Beta:dal_niente (megamind_movie Community)
Rating:PG-13
Summary:This is post-movie, the truth is out and the good citizens of Metro City are mad. Megamind promises to help someone truthly in need.

Author'sNote: I've decided to make a slight change in the layout of the story; hopefully it'll not change the flow.

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Suddenly, an officer of the Metro City Police Department pushed his way into the room and made his way over to Commissioner Jackson Cornwall, leaning forward to speak urgently into Jackson's ear. Since the doors had been pretty much locked by the brainbots, the police officer's entrance was fairly conspicuous. Megamind stood and reached for the watch on his left wrist, then stopped and turned to look at Wayne. "Right, looks like the city's coming for your blood."

Wayne blinked up at him for a second, then shot to his feet in a panic.

"What?" He looked over at the camera that was still filming, baffled. "How could they already know?"

Megamind sighed. He could feel a headache coming on, and he shut his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose "I told you this announcement was going to be shown live," he reminded the ex-hero wearily. "I told you several times. I'm sure of it."

Whether he had or not, Wayne looked absolutely horrified. "Live!" he repeated, aghast. "Are you out of your mind?" He jumped into the air and darted over to a window, where he saw hordes of people shouting, throwing things, and pushing at the police barricade. The camerawoman kept the camera on Wayne, zooming in on his pale face. "They're gonna kill me."

"Oh, please." Megamind calmly walked up to him and looked down, making a small, annoyed sound in the back of his throat. Keeping an eye on the horde outside, he said, "Just relax. I told you I made arrangements."

Wayne turned his body and tried to look him in the eye. He knew that tone of voice, and he knew the smug grin Megamind was wearing. "What kind of 'arrangements'?"

"Oh, I don't do spoilers," Megamind grinned happily, waving a hand at him. "Not to worry, though. I have a wonderful surprise waiting." His grin widened, but he still wouldn't meet Wayne's gaze.

"Megamind," Roxanne said warningly as she joined them.

Megamind pouted a little, then turned to her and heaved a huge sigh. "Fine." He lifted his wrist – the one with the watch on – in front of his face and pressed a button. "Minion, have you been watching the news?"

The fish's voice crackled into the room, earnest and amused. "Oh yes, Sir. I've been finding it very entertaining."

Megamind let out a noise that sounded suspiciously like a giggle. "Code: getthecar."

Jeremy appeared behind them. "You're running away," he said flatly. "I knew it. You're both cowards."

Both Wayne and Megamind stared at him for a moment, then looked at each other, but it was Roxanne who spoke. "You're calling them cowards? You're a moron. And blind as well." She was glaring at him. If looks could kill…

Jeremy lowered his voice and smirked. "Well, I've not been sleeping with space aliens."

Roxanne heard what he had said very clearly, and she stepped forwards and slapped Jeremy hard across the face with all her strength – considering she was capable of lifting and throwing heavy speakers, 'all her strength' was enough to send Jeremy to the ground. He looked up at her, shocked speechless for once.

Megamind stepped closer to her and whispered in her ear, "You're amazing, you know that," and then scowled down at Jeremy. "I never run from a fight. I knew the citizens of Metro City would act like this when they heard the news – this unveiling was bound to bring backlash, its human nature to protest things like this. No one likes being made a fool of, and perpetrating a hoax of that scale well enough to make everyone believe it is making them look foolish in a big way. And, no – I'm not running, thank you!"

"Then what are you going to do?" Alex called over to him.

Spinning on his heels, Megamind pointed at the man with a flourish, making him jump. "Ah!" he cried. "That, my dear Mayor, is the surprise! …Unfortunately, though, we're going to have to wait for juuuuust a few minutes." He looked over at the camera. "Can we cut to a commercial?"

Almost ten minutes had passed before Minion's voice sounded from Megamind's watch again. "Sir, I'm parked out the back, there seems to be a lot of very angry people here."

Megamind looked around at everyone and smiled just as there was a loud bang from one of the doors, making everyone jump. Megamind frowned at it and spoke into his watch.

"Minion, could you send us more brainbots?"

"Oh yes of course! Oh, and Sir?" Minion's tone had turned to one of concern. "Be careful."

Megamind smiled at his life-long friend's words. "I'll be just fine, Minion."

In a fast movement, he twisted the top of the watch and the image of his clothes faded out, revealing a new bodysuit. It closely resembled his others, but the colour scheme was different: it was mostly blue instead of black, with a silver lightning bolt on the front.

Everyone else was too distracted with the doors that were slowly being forced open to notice; Wayne and Roxanne seemed to be the only ones watching Megamind as he walked over to the window, opened it, and without warning, jumped out.

Roxanne ran forwards shouting his name, closely followed by Wayne, but two brainbots zoomed forward and caught Megamind before flying with him up to the roof. Roxanne sighed heavily.

Once on the roof, Megamind was glad he had told Jackson about this plan ahead of time. Brainbots floated around three police officers who had been stationed on the rooftop, and Megamind walked over to them, smiling. "Thanks for looking after…" he nodded at his machine. The youngest of the officers nodded in response, and then the three backed away from the mysterious object as more brainbots began to gather in a cloud around them.

######

Hours later, the city was still enraged about what had happened, but both aliens knew it would take the citizens time to adjust to the fact that Metro Man was still alive. Megamind had appeared on the roof of City Hall with millions of brainbots around him, and the once-evil overlord had silenced the crowd of citizens by having the brainbots pick him up and float him to the ground, where he explained his reasons for making Tighten – to have him be the city's new hero – and how that plan had failed. It hadn't been the explanation the crowd had wanted, but it was enough to placate them and make them think that things were being taken care of.

Shortly after that, Wayne had also appeared and simply floated next to Megamind, as crowd watched and listened to the blue alien talk. The citizens stood and listened to Megamind's plans for the future.

He had sounded reasonable enough, but as he had spoken, Wayne could tell that Megamind was still holding back the fury that he had been bottling up for some time. At that point, it had been very clear to anyone who know the blue alien well that he was going to lose his cool soon, so Wayne had agreed to help if a great enough threat ever came to the city and tried to guide the speech to a speedy ending.

Roxanne was lying back on the sofa in the Lair, happily reading a book, when suddenly a panicked voice calling her name filled the space.

"Roxanne! Roxanne?" Minion's worried voice echoed around the Lair, and the reporter sat her book down and stood.

She made her way over to where the fish was sitting, staring up at a wall of monitors. "What's up, Minion?"

"He's vanished!"

She looked at him oddly at first, then glanced at the screens before looking back at Minion. "Who has?" she asked. Then she sighed. "It's Wayne's night tonight, remember?"

"No, no, no," Minion said, then leaned forward and searched the screens desperately. "Whereareyou?" he muttered.

Roxanne looked at the screens again, and remembered that Megamind had given them all tracking devices. She scanned the screen in front of her, picking out Minion's orange dot and her green one next to it. The yellow dot was Wayne's, and Megamind's was blue. She had smiled when he had told them which colours had belonged to whom. But as she looked, she noticed that the blue dot wasn't lit up anywhere within the city, and that Minion had widened the focus to display all the area within a fifty mile radius around the city.

She let her eyes wander around the map on the monitors a little longer, hoping the blue spot would light up or that she had just missed it and would see it at any moment. She knew Megamind could handle himself perfectly well in any street fight, but that didn't stop her from feeling a little panicked as she looked back at Minion in sudden understanding.

He nodded at her. "Yes, it's Sir. He's just…vanished." The fish started typing something on the keyboard, then looked up at the right-most screen, which flashed the words:

{{Device Deactivated}}

Minion and Roxanne looked at each other again. Roxanne finally swallowed and said, "Why do you think he's turned it off?" She couldn't really hope that maybe Megamind did this every now and again; the look on Minion's face told her that this was not a regular occurrence.

"I'm not sure."

There was a pause. "I'm sure he'll be all right," they said in unison, and they both sounded a lot more certain than they felt.

Sitting in the invisible car, Megamind sighed as he looked out the window at the apartment building. He moved his hands off the wheel and reached down to set his watch. He had turned off the tracking mode some time ago even though he knew that if he did that, Minion would start to panic and worry. He would make it up to his friend later, somehow, but right now, he didn't want anyone to come looking for him. He needed to do this alone.

Moments later, blue light flashed and the image of a dark-haired man in black jeans and a blue t-shirt sat in Megamind's place. He sat for a moment, sighed, and then reached for the door handle and opened the door and stepped out.

Walking down the hallway of the complex, Megamind glanced down at the old, raggedy bit of paper he had brought with him, and then looked at the numbers on the doors. Then he came to a sudden stop. He was standing outside the door of the man whose appearance he had stolen for almost three months before he had ended up in the washing machine back at the Lair.

Megamind sighed again, then knocked three times on the door.

Silence briefly filled the hallway, but then there was a loud bang from within and then a muffled voice, and then the door flew open and Megamind looked at the owner, his eyebrows scooting up his forehead in shock.

Bernard didn't look anything like he had all those months ago when Megamind had first scanned his image. He looked a lot more stressed, more on edge, and he looked like he hadn't slept in days. His wild hair stuck out in all directions more than it usually did, as if he had just stuck his thumb in an electrical outlet.

Megamind just stood there, his mouth hanging open slightly as his own worry started to set in. He considered turning around and leaving – he wanted to turn around and leave – but he stood his ground.

Bernard narrowed his eyes at the dark figure and looked right into the man's toxic green eyes and nodded to himself. He poked his head out into the hallway and looked up and down, then back at the dark haired man. "Your friend's not with you?"

Megamind shook his head. He knew Bernard was talking about Minion, and he didn't find it odd that, out of everyone, Bernard was able to tell right away who he was under the disguise. It was actually kind of a relief to know that someone could tell he was still under there. "No," he said. "I'm alone."

"Come in, then," Bernard said in a weak voice, then turned and disappeared back into his apartment. Megamind swallowed, glanced over his shoulder – and followed.

Almost a month had gone by since Minion had found Bernard in the washing machine and used the forget-me stick on him. Bernard had later woken up in his apartment; Minion had taken the liberty of going through Bernard's wallet to find out where he lived.

Bernard had thought it was all a dream, at first. But he had found out from his boss at work that he had been missing for three months, and after doing some digging, he had been able to piece together most of the story: Megamind had stolen his life for three months while he had dated Roxanne.

It was pure luck that his boss hadn't fired him. Bernard hated to do it, but in some small way he thanked the madness that Hal…Tighten…whatever he called himself, the hero-turned-villain had wreaked on the city. Nothing said 'job security' like understaffing due to employees fleeing the city.

Minion was becoming more and more worried about Megamind. It was very late at night by this time, and Megamind still wasn't back and hadn't called and Minion still couldn't understand why he had turned off the tracking device. Roxanne had gone back to sit on the sofa, and a few brainbots were hovering around them making worried sounds while others drifted aimlessly throughout the Lair.

"Why would he turn it off?" Minion asked the monitors for the one hundredth time in the past three hours. "What's he doing? Where is he?"

Roxanne sighed, stood up, and walked over to him. "Minion" she said softly, and he turned to look at her. "He'll be okay. Trust me. I'm not sure where he is," she smiled sweetly, trying to reassure him, "but I am sure he's in good hands."

"But what if someone comes and attacks the city and we can't call him?"

Roxanne looked over her shoulder at the clusters of brainbots. "Oh, I think we can handle it." She turned back to him, her smile turning wicked. "Besides, that's what plan 'Music' is for, right?"

"Oh yes, Miss Ritchi." Roxanne's presence was extremely calming; it was moments like this that Minion understood why Megamind loved her.

The clock was getting close to midnight back at Bernard's apartment. Megamind had sat down on the edge of a scruffy-looking sofa, and was now staring anywhere but at the scruffy-looking human leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed. The ticking of the clock was obnoxiously loud – or maybe the silence in the apartment was just too pervasive. Megamind steeled himself, then looked up and squarely at Bernard. "Look," he said. "I'm – I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I stole your life, but you see, at the time everything was happening so fast and I panicked, and then seeing you, I mean, I didn't mean to leave it for so long but I just –"

"Its fine, Megamind," Bernard interrupted. "It happened, it's over. Let it go."

Megamind watched as Bernard made his way over to the kitchen and the fridge, where he turned and said the four words Megamind so needed to hear. "You want a drink?"

Megamind smiled gratefully. "Please."

Over the years there had been lots of rumours about him and the way his body might or might not be different from a human's. One of them was about his ability to handle alcohol. Oh, it affected him, but not in the same manner it did humans. To Megamind, alcohol was like an energy drink, only stronger – five times stronger than Red Bull, he estimated. Coffee was one thing, but alcohol took effect much more quickly and was much more potent. Megamind drank when his thoughts became too much for him, when ideas or voices telling him about new inventions would rage into his mind too quickly for him to respond or drive them away. If it weren't for Minion's care, Megamind would become physically ill – he had found only one way of stopping these thoughts, and that was with alcohol. Minion had started mixing it into his morning coffee over the last few years.

He remembered the first time he had drunk alcohol. He'd had enough to put any human in a hospital for weeks, or worse. He had escaped the prison without Minion's help, afterward. He would never do that again.

He had come a cross a bar in one of the back streets of the city while trying to find Minion after one of their plans had gone south – he had heard police sirens approaching, so he had ducked into the darkened bar to hide. Once inside, he had looked around, preparing to run again if he had to, but no one had seemed to care who he was so he had shrugged and stayed. He'd wandered up to the bar and stood, unsure of what to do or say, until one of a group of four men had ordered him a round. And then another. And another after that. It didn't take a genius to figure out that the man had been trying to get Megamind drunk, have a little fun with him, but at the time Megamind hadn't twigged to what was happening until after he had sobered up the next day.

Unfortunately, the thug's plan had backfired in a big way. By the time Minion tracked his friend down, Megamind had been sitting in the empty nightclub surrounded by broken glass and splintered furniture, so out of it that he couldn't speak. Minion hadn't known what to do; he had never seen his friend like this. And he'd hated the idea but he had known that the prison would be a safe place for Megamind to sleep it off – the warden would look after him – so he had shoved his boss into the car and taken him 'home.'

The next day, when Megamind had woken up, he'd had one hell of a killer migraine and it had lasted for nearly a week. The warden and a few of the guards had looked after him while he had recovered, and of course word got around and the rumour that Megamind couldn't handle alcohol had started.

But the reality of it was that he could more than handle alcohol – he just had to be careful of how much he drank. Back then, he hadn't been able to remember how he had gotten from the club to the prison until the Warden had told him what had happened and Minion's part in it. Megamind had stayed in his cell for another week before planning and executing his escape.

The sight of a glass in Bernard's hand brought Megamind back to the here and now, and he took the glass and smiled. "Thanks," he said, and took a long gulp of the amber liquid.

"Hey, you want to go easy on that," Bernard warned him, flopping into an overstuffed armchair in the corner.

"Oh, I can handle this much better than you think," Megamind replied with a smirk, and pointed to his chest. "Alien, remember?"

Bernard looked over his glass at him. "Really."

Still smirking, Megamind sat back in the sofa. "It's Metro Man who can't drink alcohol. He thinks it would make him lose too much control over his powers. He hates that." He laughed, then leaned forwards, grabbed the bottle, and poured more into his glass.

Bernard narrowed his eyes. "Are you out of your mind? You do know you're talking about a dead guy as if he were alive, right?"

Megamind laughed lightly then looked at Bernard. He took another long drink, then put the glass down. His movements were no longer hesitant. "You haven't seen the news?"

Megamind watched Bernard shake his head. "Haven't had time. I've been working longer hours to make up for lost time, I just got back from work a little while ago."

Megamind sighed. "Ah, okay. Long story very short then – he's not dead. He never was."

Bernard closed his eyes and sighed, and the clock decided to remind them that it was still very late by ticking loudly into the thoughtful silence. Finally, still with his eyes closed, Bernard said, "Metro Man's alive. But…"

Megamind spoke carefully. "We both stood in front of the city today. I was angrier with him weeks ago. Couldn't even look at him, let alone get him to come forward. But after Roxanne talked to him, well…it was like she tired him out." He grinned. "And she made him face the music, as it were."

Bernard's eyes opened and he looked slowly around the living room, confused. "Why are you telling me this?"

Megamind looked down at his glass on the table, smirking. "Because of what I did to you. I think you deserve to know what's been going on. Get back into life, you know?" He looked up at the man in front of him.

Bernard actually laughed, which was odd. In all the time Megamind had known the man, he hadn't laughed once. The laughter faded fast and he was back to being his normal frowning self, and if Megamind hadn't heard it with his own ears he never would have believed it had happened. "Well, thank you, but I don't seem to be handling life well lately."

Megamind sat up and scooted forwards in his chair. "Can I help?"

Bernard's eyes widened and he looked at Megamind right in the eyes. He knew that Megamind had been working harder than ever over the last few months, trying hard to turn around his life and show the city that he was good. Bernard suddenly remembered the letter Megamind had sent him, thinking he would never come here – he had let himself forget about it.

"Well…you see, it's…" Bernard looked down, grabbed the bottle and his glass and filled it and took a long drink. Megamind smirked and did the same, then squirmed around until he was more comfortable on the sofa.

"When you used your gun on me…when you turned me into that stupid cube…" He glared down into his glass, hunching over in his chair. "My mother. She had just gone into to the hospital." He gulped down another mouthful of liquor, looking almost as if he had some kind of grudge against it. "She's sick. We didn't know how sick until earlier that day. She…" He ground his teeth, and Megamind was abruptly and uncomfortably aware that he was barely holding himself together. "She's got a few months left. Maybe a year, if she's very, v-very lu-ucky…oh damn." He turned his face away, shoulders shaking.

Megamind blinked at him – sitting there crying and trying so hard not to – and remembered all that his own parents had done for him. He had lost his parents early, but he certainly didn't blame Bernard for losing control like this; Megamind remembered what that had felt like. In spite of all the alcohol in his system, an idea popped into his head and he knew instinctively that it was a good one.

He carefully placed his glass on the table, and then he leaned forward and took Bernard's glass and put that on the table, too. Then he sat up on the sofa as best he could and coughed lightly to get the other's attention. Bernard looked at him, red-eyed and resentful-looking and stressed.

"Right then," Megamind said. "I'm not a doctor, but I think I can help."

Bernard's face was a picture of pure confusion. "What?"

"I'll design something to help your mother with her illness!" Megamind exclaimed. "All I'll need is her, your, and the doctor's consent to look at her medical files. I can help. I know I can help. And I owe you one anyway."

Bernard's eyes widened and he stared at the smiling blue alien across from him for a few seconds before discovering that he was suddenly speechless. As Megamind stood up shakily and made his way to the door, Bernard found his voice.

"Where…where are you going?"

Megamind turned his head and called back over his shoulder. "Back to the Lair and start working on this!" And without another word, he was gone.

Bernard just sat for a moment, open-mouthed, and then he jumped to his feet and followed Megamind out the door, shouting after him. "Wait! You crazy – you stupid – you can't drive like that, come back!"

Megamind had made it outside and was in the process of unlocking the car. Bernard came skidding out of the building and stopped some distance behind him, suddenly aware that he was still only wearing his socks. Megamind glanced back at him, finally fitting the key into the lock.

"You know drunk driving is illegal," Bernard said, and immediately wanted to slap himself. Of course Megamind knew it was illegal. He was Megamind.

Megamind grinned. "Thanks for your concern, but I'll be OK." He jerked the door open and stepped in, but poked his head out again before closing the door. "Bernard, get a hold of yourself by tomorrow morning – I'll be over to pick you up! We're gonna fix this, don't you worry!"

"O…okay?" Bernard's mind seemed to be swimming, but Megamind's enthusiasm was infectious – as he turned to go back inside, he realized that he was smiling, and he paused and watched as the car roared to life and drove off.

TBC…

Shattered Mind - Coming Soon