Disclaimer: The familiar characters belong to DreamWorks. Miss Jane, however, is a name I made up for the nameless teacher.
For Megamind's childhood name, I used Syx. The name was made by SilverShepherd, in her fanfic 'Times Syx'. Metroman's childhood name is also based on the same fanfic, which is based on the novelization version. ;)
Synopsis: Not many fish could talk. The children are curious, and curious children liked to finger the things which interested them.
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"I love soup and vegetables," Minion spoke in the next two weeks.
His fishbowl was placed in front of the class; He was part of Syx' presentation that day, right after his master had showed the audience his blueprint of a fish language translator. "But mostly, I love boiled carrots, sprinkled with salt." His voice was light, humorous, and friendly. The students liked him automatically, charmed by his rounded face and body, also his warm personality.
"I told you so, Mark! Minion is not a goldfish murderer!" Syx exclaimed, twirling his index finger and eying his rival triumphantly. The pride in the little blue alien's face was as apparent as Mark's surprised gawk at the talking fish.
"...however, I will never deny the joys of eating steak. Lambs and veal, especially, but it's only on rare occasions we get to eat such expensive food," the fish continued, happily explaining his choice of food. It felt really good, finally being able to voice his likes and dislikes. "I'm not really a picky eater," he added.
Minion's master nodded to him. "Thank you, Minion. Questions, anyone?" Syx took over and point his index finger to the crowd, challenging everyone as he always did after presentations.
"What is veal?" a boy asked, dumbfounded by the gourmet phrase.
Syx was about to answer that question. "It's..."
"...red meat," Minion filled in his master's words, supplementing him with a more diplomatic answer. Knowing the little blue alien since he was eight-days-old, he was going to define veal as baby cow's meat, and that animal was considered an adorable animal. Eating an adorable animal would be considered cruelty, and that was bad publicity.
"Beef, meatballs..." the fish continued, ignoring his master's glare, who was displeased for being interrupted during speech. "...sausages..."
"Ooh, I love meatballs too!" the kid who asked the question exclaimed happily.
Several other hands were raised. One of them was Roxanne's. Syx gladly pointed at her, allowing her to ask the fish, "How do you eat soup?"
"Good question," Minion pointed with his fin, showing her how he usually drank his soup, "I swam to the surface, and used plastic straws to take slow sips from the soup bowl. I'm always careful not to spill any of it."
There were more questions about the fish' diet, but Syx felt that was enough, and stopped the Q & A session.
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During the break time, children were gathering around Minion. They were offering parts of their lunch, throwing questions to the fish while doing so. Minion warmly welcomed them, sometimes offering them entertainment by doing flips in his bowl.
It was one of the occasional times when Syx and Minion were separated, but Syx was in a very good mood that day, adoring the gold star stickers; which were all his. Miss Jane just gave them away, three at the same time, for inventing such a wonderful, yet civil tool.
She had put the stars in his palm, not sticking them on his chest, because she said the gold stars wouldn't match the orange prisoner's suit. So she left it up to Syx to decide, where would be the best place to display the proof of his achievement.
He was thinking about his wall of ideas in his room inside the penitentiary. His eyes drooped dreamily as he imagined seeing his trophy every night. His train of thought had to stop though, when he heard Minion's scream.
"Minion?" he called, but was blocked out by the crowd around his fish. "Minion!"
Somehow one of the children managed to uncover the usually enclosed sphere. From where Syx was standing, he could see a curious boy pouring soup into the opened fishbowl.
Minion swam in circles as he hysterically screamed, the water got murky by cream, cooking oil, and pieces of mushroom. Soon the glass sphere's filling was thick yellowish white, instead of clear transparent blue.
"Why is the fish screaming like a girl? I thought he liked soup," the culprit commented in confusion, "Buddy, the soup is delicious. Try it." He tapped his nail on the glass sphere.
Syx pushed aside some of the children in his effort to split the crowd, and when he reached his destination, Minion was already floating belly-up, with tongue lifelessly dangling out his lips.
He gasped and grabbed at the bowl, the water sloshing around as Syx poked his aquatic sidekick's belly. "Minion?" unsatisfied with the nonexistent response, he called louder, "Minion?" Then he turned to the criminal, asking in a disbelieving tone, "What do you think you were doing?"
The other boy gulped. "I-I... he said he liked soup!" His feet dragged backwards as Syx narrowed the distance between them.
Syx gestured at his unconscious fish with his eyes still set on his target. "Didn't you hear what he had said during the presentation? He sipped the soup with a straw! Minion never said anything about swimming in the soup! Why did you have to..." His eyes were displaying bafflement when he ranted. But then they narrowed down into aggressive slits when more assumptions arrived inside his bulbous head.
"Oh, I know. You've never heard a fish scream before. You were curious," the kid in orange prison suit cracked his fists. "Such... imagination is so tempting, no?" He continued in a melodic tone, the bizarre softness of the alien's face sending more chills to the guilty party's spine.
There were so many children present, but nobody dared to step up and stop the fight. Fear and silence was thick in the air.
"What? No! I-I..." his target drew a sharp breath, tears forming in his eyes. Syx' angered face promised a long punching session, and the anticipation alone was painful. He kept on moving backwards, until his back met the class' lockers, cornered.
Something snapped in the little blue alien's head, and with a war cry his blue fist flew to the locker just beside the culprit's ears. However, someone with super speed caught his knuckles milliseconds before impact.
"Please, don't damage the school property," Mark Scott, the super kid who intervened the fight said. The boy who poured soup into Minion's bowl slid down the lockers and crumpled near Syx' feet, trembling all the way. "Drop it, little fellow." Mark commanded the attacker in the mightiest voice he could muster with his young vocal cord.
The blue fist shuddered in Metroboy's stoic grasp. "You won't tell me to drop it if it was your kittens which were washed in hot soup."
Mark raised an eyebrow in acknowledgement, noticing the fury in his friend's expression. "It was unintentional. He didn't mean Minion harm."
"He unintentionally poured soup into Minion's abode. Yeah right," Syx' reply came through the clench of his teeth. "It doesn't sound really convincing."
"Minion is alive," Mark said again. Referencing to his super senses for further credibility, he added, "I can see his heart beating through my super vision. Can he live in standard tap water? If you allow me, I'll replace his water right away."
The tension in the blue alien's breath sank when he heard that his aquatic friend was alright, his shoulder blades decreasing. Mark's good will calmed him down. He sighed, both in shame and relief before retracting his fist from Mark's grasp. "Yes... yes, he can," he muttered.
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When Minion woke and fixed his position, his water was clear. No more mushrooms. However the world was dark. Through the darkness, he could identify the blue of his master's head and the shadows of a recognizable prison uniform. "Sir?" the fish called, hoping that nothing serious had happened during his absence.
"Hm?" Turned out the bigger one of the two was hugging Minion's bowl with his body. He uncurled himself, allowing more light to enter Minion's spherical housing. "Is the water good enough?" Uncharacteristic concern was thick in his master's tone, resonating with honest fear.
Minion tested the water, looking around as he spun in his bowl. Mark was standing far away from them, accepting more rewards from Miss Jane for solving the class' problems and for saving a kid from harm.
"A little sour, but it's fine," the fish' answer was meant for the question and tell his feeling. Noticing the distance from the crowd of little kids, Minion knew that they were being punished again. "What happened, Sir?"
"That's standard tap water for you," Syx replied with a smile, shifting his position to sit cross-legged, Minion safe on his lap. "A buffoon thought that you love to swim in cream soup of mushrooms. I corrected him," playful smirk went across the young alien's face. "Come on, ask me how I fixed his mistake."
Minion had bad feelings on this. Obviously his boss had corrected that guy in an incorrect method. He wouldn't be in the quiet corner without a cause. "How, Sir?" the fish obligingly asked.
"It's a secret!" his master cheerfully replied. "Scratch that. I was thinking of building you a robot body," he ranted, back to his plotting mode.
"A body, Sir?" Minion shook his body, not quite sure. Took him a week to get used to the fish language translator; mastering a whole robot body sounded like further harder work to him.
"Oh, Minion, don't thank me yet," Syx lowered his face and smiled at his Minion, faking a flattered expression, "I can't illustrate how broken hearted I was when I saw you swimming in circles around your bowl, helpless before the impending soup of doom," he teased, conveying hyperboles as he did, "So I decided to build you actual limbs, so you can run, cook your own favorite food, and feed yourself."
Upon hearing the cooking part, Minion suddenly thought that the idea wasn't so bad at all. In his bowl, he was so feeble, unable to help his master. Having limbs sounded like the solver of that problem. "That's a brilliant idea, Sir!" The fish nodded gleefully, suddenly excited to have limbs of his own.
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After the school hours had ended, Miss Jane visited the quiet corner and the usual occupant. Many students had reported this kid as the one who threw the first punch, but she had to make sure to hear the story from both sides.
"Syx," she called him, disappointment in her voice, "I believe you were more than capable of solving that problem without violence."
Syx stood up with a grin on his round face, Minion in his hand. "Yes, Miss Jane, I agree with you."
Miss Jane disliked the grin. It was an inappropriate moment to throw her a pleased smirk. She queried further, "I suppose you understood why you were punished, then. Are you ready to apologize to your friend?"
The genius kid raised an index finger. "Correction, I'm ready to accept his apology."
Miss Jane put a palm over her face. "You don't get why you were punished."
Syx wore an innocent smile. "Oh, no. I didn't solve my problem in a civilized way, but he was the one who harmed my Minion in the first place. I was provoked. Do you think I would apologize to the provocateur? No, I refuse, Miss Jane."
At this point, Miss Jane wondered if this little kid was influenced too by superhero movie villains or hid her perplexity by fixing the position of her glasses.
"There were no rules about harming other student's pets, so I will neither ask nor expected the culprit to apologize," the little alien said, still with his cunning smile. "I broke a school rule enforced by you, however, for fighting inside the school perimeter, so now I humbly ask for your forgiveness."
Her hand waved between them, stopping their conversation. "...you can go home now," Miss Jane replied quickly. She had had enough oddity. He wasn't the usually innocent kid. His words just then sounded like mockery; it was as if he had looked down on her, belittled her with his abnormally diverse vocabulary.
"We are truly sorry, Miss Jane," Minion spoke, his tone humorously light; a much needed comic relief.
Miss Jane nodded to her students, hands folded before her breasts. The fingers of her right hand slowly, forcefully massaging her forehead. "...yes, yes, I heard that. But somehow I'm not convinced," she spoke her doubt, "Seemed like you don't care much about adapting to the society. Especially you, Syx."
His cunning smile wore off as he lowered his big head. "...I'm trying, Miss Jane." His cerulean fingers toyed at Minion's glass sphere as he recounted the many failures he had. "I... I'm still working on that."
"You better try harder next time," Miss Jane reprimanded, before walking back to her desk and cleared her stuff. "...and try to avoid the quiet corner, will you?"
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Author's Note: If you think it was worth the time, please review! Thank you for giving me a chance, hope I didn't waste it. See you in the next chapter! :3
