Here's chapter four for all of your reading enjoyment. The last chapter will be up as soon as I can edit it. That might be tomorrow, or it might be four days, but I'll make sure it's here before Monday.
Yet another thanks to the wonderful reviewers who showed me that there are still people following this story despite its six-week pause.
Minion was getting worried. He'd known his boss for almost his entire life. They'd grown up together through trials, triumphs, and many, many disappointments. And yet, Minion had never seen him like this.
The first five or so times they kidnapped Janet, Megamind had been delighted at her genuine fear of him and how he could make her scream for help on cue. From sometime after that, though, there was a gradual change in him. Plans became less elaborate. His performances, while still over-the-top and full of dramatic gesturing and banter, lost a bit of energy. It had been weeks since he'd heard Megamind laugh wickedly.
Then, things suddenly got worse. After another escape from prison, Megamind plunked down in his high-backed swivel chair and stared off into space. Minion was a little concerned, but made nothing of it. Sir tended to get that blank look when he was trying to come up with ideas. Minion decided the best choice of action was to start a load of laundry and leave his boss alone for a few minutes.
When he came back a about half an hour later, Megamind was still sitting and staring from the same position. Now it was time to get involved. "Sir, what's wrong?"
Megamind didn't respond right away. He spun himself ninety degrees to the side, staring off into a new portion of the lair. "Thinking," he responded in a far-away voice. He fingered an arm-rest of his chair. "What's…what's the point of all this?"
Minion blinked in confusion a few times. "I'm not really following you, sir. The point of what?"
Megamind sighed, leaning back in the chair. "Everything. Kidnapping Janet, luring Metro Man into traps, getting defeated, going to prison, and then escaping later. It's a cycle. No matter how cunning my plans are, they are always destined to fail. I'm forced to follow the same routine over and over. There's no way out."
It was worse than Minion thought. "You don't think it's fun anymore?"
Megamind lost his blank look – which was a good sign – and turned to annoyance. "Fun? What could possibly be fun about repeating the same sequence of events for years on end?" He spun his chair around once in frustration, coming to a stop facing his Minion. "Maybe I should just give up and turn in my cape."
Minion remained stunned in silence for a few moments. Sir had always been full of wild energy, even after his most humiliating defeats. Now, he seemed dead, a shadow of his former exuberant self. His fiery determination was gone, doused in melancholy. He'd simply lost the spirit to keep fighting.
Minion's expression hardened with determination. No matter how long it took, he was going to get that spirit back. He'd dig a hole to the center of the earth if it meant making Megamind happy again.
"I can't let you do that, sir."
Megamind snorted half-heartedly. "And why not?"
Minion stepped closer to his boss, looking him straight in the eye. "You only feel this way because of Janet."
Megamind swiveled away, turning his back on the fish. "No, that's not it. Janet always makes the evil plots more fun. I can always make her scared of me. And she always stays out of the way when Metro Man and I are bantering. Then, she always-" Megamind stopped abruptly. He sat perfectly still for several moments, then slowly turned his chair to face his fish again. "You're a genius, Minion. It is her, isn't it?"
Minion glanced at his feet and his mechanical arm rubbed the back of his bowl sheepishly. "Well, I just figured, since you only began acting depressed after we started kidnapping her instead of Roxanne."
Megamind stood up from his chair. "You're absolutely right. Janet is always scared of me. I could give her a puppy and she'd still scream." He turned away from Minion, walking towards the cloud of note cards, blueprints, and newspaper clippings hanging from the ceiling. He glanced at his designs for his Hypno-Beam and the nearby news story of when Metro Man foiled his plan to use it. His expression immediately morphed into disgust. "She doesn't care what my inventions do, or how I kidnap her. She doesn't appreciate the hard work and genius that goes into a truly terrifying villainous plot."
He whirled around, turning his back on all the news stories, kidnapping schemes, and inventions he'd designed for Janet. "The solution is simple, isn't it? We remove her from the equation."
Minion hesitantly accepted this change in mood. While he was happy that the dead look in Megamind's eyes had left, he wasn't sure if it was gone for good. "But, without Janet, who will we kidnap?"
Megamind shrugged. "We'll go back to using Roxanne, of course." Suddenly, he felt his heart begin to race at the prospect of kidnapping Roxanne again. Scaring Janet was no big deal, but finding a way to make Roxanne truly terrified was quite an accomplishment. It would be a challenge, but since when did he ever back down from challenges?
Of course, he needed a plan to kidnap Roxanne. He wasn't sure if the brainbots recognized her anymore, so he and Minion would have to complete that part of the plan themselves. Then there was the matter of deciding what to do with Roxanne while they waited for Metro Man to come to the rescue. And then, to be an actual threat, he'd need some sort of invention that could defeat Metro Man. There were also evil monologues to write, and he'd need to find a suitable place to execute the plan from, like the junkyard or an abandoned observatory.
Almost without bidding, his incredibly efficient and handsome brain generated several ideas to accomplish each facet of the scheme. A grin returned to his face. It had been a long time since he'd felt this inspired. It felt like every neuron was firing off new possibilities and his body was reawakening with the energy to act upon them. "Minion, fetch me my de-gun, a soldering iron, the smallest screwdriver you can find, and a box of donuts."
A smile crept onto Minion's fishy face. "On, it, sir. " He started walking to the tool cabinet to get those things, but after a few steps, he stopped short. Megamind was regaining his previous level of vigor and excitement, but he had to make sure his boss stayed that way. "Sir?" he asked.
"Yes, Minion?"
"You mentioned how Janet doesn't appreciate your work. Roxanne doesn't appreciate it either."
His boss glanced away thoughtfully. "I suppose so. But there's always a chance I can convince her to, am I right?"
Roxanne was extremely frustrated. The execs sent her an email last night with all the stories she would be covering today. Every single one of them was a reconstruction project fixing up the aftermath of one of Megamind's schemes. It had taken two months to happen, but she and Hal had finally assumed the reporting schedule a fresh newbie was supposed to have.
She had complained to the execs earlier about her slowly worsening reporting duties. They told her everything was fine, that they were only shifting around the reporting duties a bit and that she would be back on the exciting stories very soon. Today, she knew the execs were total liars.
She almost considered not going to work that day. She sat on her bed, staring at the opposite wall for quite some time, before convincing herself that she still needed to report on her stories, even if they were boring ones. After all, the only way she could go from here was up.
She originally became a reporter because of the excitement and wonder of reporting on things that no one had ever seen before. When she got a job offer in Metro City, Megamind and Metro Man were just starting out, but they still caused enough excitement for her to take the job without a second thought. Their escapades escalated, and soon she found herself reporting on bank robberies, death rays, and epic battles between Metro Man's superpowers and Megamind's amazing inventions.
Now, Janet had the privilege of having those kinds of adventures. Roxanne was left with stories that were far from new and exciting. There was nothing fresh about reporting on broken roads and buildings that had been wrecked before and will be wrecked again.
She entered the passenger side of her van, plopped down in the seat, and sighed in defeat.
"What's the matter?" Hal asked as he slid into the driver's seat. "Did I do something wrong?"
"No, Hal, it's not you," she said. "It's just that I can't bring myself to go report on yet another construction site. This is the first time I've ever hated doing this job." She rubbed her temples, trying to release the stress she could feel building up into a headache.
"It's not so bad," Hal tried to tell her. "Okay, yeah, the stories are dull and my salary is sinking through the floor, but there are worse places out there to work. Can you imagine how bad it would be to have Metro Man's job? He's always flying around and doing stuff, he doesn't get vacation time, and he doesn't get paid."
"At least he's where the action is," she grumbled. "He actually does something with his job. What's the point of reporting a story that everyone's heard a million times over? 'Oh, this road is closed because of Megamind's latest scheme. This building is being fixed because Megamind destroyed it. For full details, see the ditzy, airhead reporter we'll have on tonight!'" She sighed again and sunk deeper into her seat. "At least Megamind liked to vary his plans a little bit. Yes, he always captured me, and Metro Man always rescued me, and his plans always failed, but he always had a new invention. A brand-new plan, every single time."
A new sentence pushed against her tongue, and she resisted it for a few moments before she realized there was no point. "Maybe I should quit and go work at another news station. Sure, I'll have to start my career from scratch, but I can't see how it could be worse than this."
"You can't leave me here!" Hal cried out. His worried expression hung on his face for a few moments before he tried to compose himself. "I mean, they'd probably fire me if you left."
"They won't fire you, Hal."
"You don't know that," he shot back. "Without you here to protect me, they could easily fire me and replace me with an unpaid intern or something. Even if I'm not booted out, they'll probably hire a stupid newbie to take your place. If I'm miserable now, think how bad it'll be when I'm working with someone who doesn't know what she's doing." He stopped suddenly, like he deciding whether or not to say something, then continued. "And it will all be your fault."
Roxanne's eyes flicked towards him in surprise. Of all the things he had done with her – reporting, one-sided flirting, and sometimes even comforting each other – he had never acted angry, or even irritated at her. And yet, here he was, his voice raised and his eyes narrowed.
"My fault?" she asked, wondering what she could have done to tick him off like this.
"Yes, your fault," he repeated. "While the execs slowly bumped us down to construction stories, I was stuck here. I couldn't complain or they'd dock my pay again or fire me. But you? You just sat there! The execs would have listened to you if you complained about it."
"I did." Roxanne retorted. "And they didn't listen."
"Then you could have done something else! But you just sat on your butt and let them walk all over you. Now that things have finally bottomed out, you're running way and abandoning me. You used to be Roxanne Ritchi, the reporter who wasn't scared of anything, even Megamind. Now you're chickening out because of some stupid news station politics. What's wrong with you?"
Roxanne stared at him, not sure how to respond to an angry Hal. He was right about one thing, though. Metro Man never gave up, no matter how dire the situation was. Even Megamind, in his own way, refused to throw in the towel. Every time one of his plots failed, he just picked up the pieces and tried again. In the past, she'd believed that she was just as strong as these two figures, that she was not afraid to put herself in harm's way if it meant she could report the truth to the public. Now, she was running away from her station's execs to go work somewhere else, hoping that things would somehow get better.
What had happened to her? She needed to get herself back on track.
Hal continued in his enraged rant. "You could've fought so much harder. People still watch your reports. You could have mentioned all this on-camera, and then the execs would've had to do something about it. And even if you didn't want to do things that way, you still could've done something. Janet's so stupid that she'd have given up her Metro Man stories if you asked her to do it enough times."
Roxanne gasped. "Hal, you're a genius."
Hal stopped his rant to shoot her a confused look. "Huh? I mean, yeah, I already knew that. When'd you notice?"
An hour later, Hal turned the van onto Janet's street. They'd already checked the station headquarters looking for her, but she hadn't shown up to work that day. A few online searches had led them to this address. It was one of the nicer areas of town, filled with apartment complexes that had been newly rebuilt after Megamind's Mushroom Bomb reduced most of the buildings to piles of rotting boards.
Roxanne gazed out the window, squinting to pick out the address numbers on the side of the buildings. 998, 994, 990…they were getting closer, but just when they reached the building that should have been Janet's, they passed by a large, parked truck that blocked the address number from view. Roxanne tried to glance around it, but then the writing on the side of the truck caught her eye. Rapid Movers: When Speed is All You Need.
Hal apparently saw the truck too, as he slowed the van and parked it in the next free space. "Is someone moving?" he asked, but Roxanne didn't have time to answer him. She was out of the van as soon as it stopped.
She rushed across the well-mowed lawn and towards the building's door as fast as her high-heels would let her. She could see moving men at work, carrying a TV, sofa, and other pieces from a living room out to deposit them into the truck before returning inside to grab more. Just before Roxanne could reach her destination, however, Janet walked out the door with a clipboard in her hand, scribbling something down before handing it to one of the moving men.
He glanced over it before looking back up to her. "Uh, ma'am?" he said. "You wrote one too many zeroes on your check."
"Don't be silly!" she scoffed in her high-pitched, still-annoying voice. "Zeroes aren't worth anything."
"If you say so, miss."
"Janet!" Roxanne called out to her as she approached. "We need to talk."
"Rachel!" she called back. "It's nice to see you again. How's Hank?"
Ignoring the mangling of her name, Roxanne grabbed Janet's arm and pulled her over to the side of the yard where they would be out of the way of the moving men. She doubted Janet would be paying enough attention to listen to her, but this was better than doing nothing and putting herself at the execs' mercy.
"Janet, you need to give me the Metro Man stories back," she said sternly. "They were mine to begin with, and you stole them from me. I do a better job of reporting them anyways. The only reason you get more viewers than I do is because a lot of them are men who are only interested in staring at your-"
"Don't worry about it," Janet interrupted. "You can have Metro Man back. A news station in Lakeville offered me a job there, and I said yes. I'm moving there now."
With a crack like a sonic boom and a large gust of air, the famous Metro Man suddenly appeared beside the two women. He dusted himself off a bit and adjusted his cape so that it draped from his shoulders in its usual pristinely perfect way. "I came as soon as I heard," he informed them in his polite, official tone of voice. "I think my super-ears are deceiving me. Did you just say you were…moving?"
"Uh-huh!" Janet replied cheerfully.
The superhero's expression softened. "But, sweetie," he spoke gently, stepping forwards and taking one of her hands in his. "What about us? I can easily fly to Lakeville to see you, but with Megamind on the loose, I can't stay away from Metro City for too long." He squeezed her hand a little, being careful to restrain his super-strength. Roxanne would have found the situation touching if she wasn't still annoyed at Janet.
"Oh, honey, I thought about you when they called me," Janet responded, her too-made-up facing looking a little silly trying to fit into an expression of sadness. "But they made me a better offer."
"What could they have possibly offered you that is more powerful than the love we share?" he asked.
Janet grimaced a little, pulling her hand away from his. "They have a bat-themed superhero in Lakeville."
He didn't respond for a moment. "Oh. I see," he finally said, reverting back to his official-sounding voice and taking a heroically stoic pose.
"He's probably, like, the most amazing superhero ever," Janet admitted, snapping back to her usual, excited self. "He's mysterious, he has a troubled past, and he's really, really hot. I even think he-"
Janet would have continued gushing, but Metro Man chose that moment to leap into flight. As he burst into the sky like a gunshot, Roxanne could feel a few drops of water pelt her face. Metro Man was…crying? She'd never heard of that happening before. Then again, she doubted Metro Man had ever been on this side of a break-up.
Before she could say another word to Janet, the sound of another van pulling up made the two of them turn their heads. A KMCP van parked behind the moving truck and switched off as Martin leapt out of it and sprinted across the lawn. "Janet!" he cried, panic in his voice. "Where were you? You weren't at the news station, and we have a Metro Man announcement to report on in…" He slowed to a stop in front of his reporting partner, glancing around the yard and its busy scene. "Are you moving?"
"Uh-huh!" Janet joyfully proclaimed. "We've got a new job in Lakeville."
"We?" Martin gasped. "You didn't tell me anything." He spoke quietly, like he was afraid he would upset her. "When does the job start? I'll need to get my house ready for the move."
"Tomorrow!" she smiled. "Isn't that convenient, Marvin?"
The cameraman looked up in her eyes, his face flat. Then he snapped. "Convenient?" he shouted. "How is learning that I have twenty-four hours to move to a completely new city 'convenient?' I just learned how to navigate Metro, and you want me to go somewhere else where there are new streets and a new van and, ugh!"
Janet cocked her head, her eyebrows pressing together. "Why are you so angry, Marvin? Did I do something wrong?"
"Yes, you've done a lot of things wrong!" he replied. "You mess up my camera shots, you don't listen to my suggestions, and worst of all, you always get my name wrong. It's Martin, with a T! Martin Isaac Wilder! I'm not a no-name nerd in some movie who does everything a girl tells him to just because she's hot! If you had an IQ score larger than your age, you would have noticed that. I can't believe I was ever attracted to you!"
Martin suddenly turned to Roxanne. "I'm not going to shy myself out of admitting my romantic feelings towards you, Roxanne, not anymore. But there are three other guys fighting for you, so I'll just have to find myself a new girl, one who will have the ability to pay attention to me."
He resumed his focus on Janet. "Oh, and don't you think of telling the station executives about this so they'll fire me. They won't be able to do anything, because I quit! I hate running around all day chasing down stories as a cameraman. I'm going to do what I do best; movie-making. That's all I ever wanted to do anyways, until you recruited me and put me in the worst job I've ever had in my life."
Before anyone could stop him, Martin stormed across the lawn back towards the van. About halfway there, he turned back to face his former reporting partner. "Oh, and if you still have a job and a salary when you're forty and your looks are gone, go see one of my films. I'll make one based on a poor, sympathetic cameraman who gets stuck with the most idiotic, inconsiderate reporter I've ever had the displeasure of knowing."
Roxanne was too stunned to say anything as Martin got in his van and drove off. She wasn't surprised at his attraction towards her or that he was just as annoyed at Janet as she was. Rather, she was shocked that such a shy person would have the spine to shout both those things to the sky. Then again, like she always said, you can't judge a book by its cover.
Hal waited in the van for a solid half-hour while Roxanne talked to Janet. He couldn't see them from his view in the van, but he was able to watch the moving men walk back and forth, packing more and more furniture into the truck. It sure was taking Roxanne a long time, but he was willing to wait. Even if it took all day for her pleas, arguments, and possible rants to make an impact on Janet, getting the exciting stories back was worth it.
After waiting for that half-hour, though, Hal began to get worried. Why hadn't Roxanne come back yet? Had something happened to her? Should he come to the rescue?
Hal got out of the van and made his way towards Janet's building. The moving men were still working, but they had already handled all the big items and were now packing away smaller pieces – stools, bedside lamps, and the like. He glanced around the yard, but he couldn't spot either of the reporters. Maybe they were in Janet's apartment?
He slipped in through the front door as the moving men were carrying out a load of packing boxes. He followed the trail of workers to a staircase near the back of the complex. Luckily, he was just in time to catch Janet coming down the flight of stairs.
"Hi, Hank!" she said cheerfully. "I'm moving to a new reporting job in Lakeville. Isn't that wonderful?"
"It's you?" Hal gaped. "You're leaving Metro City? And KMCP?" He couldn't believe it. The universe had spent the last two months giving him the worst luck he'd ever had to deal with, and now it was cutting him a break. No, it was cutting them a break – both him and Roxanne. He was so happy that he didn't even mind Janet getting his name wrong. "This is awesome!" he cried. "Roxanne would love to hear this."
"I already told her," Janet said. "Then Metro Man showed up and I told him. Then Marvin showed up and I told him, but then he got really mad at me for some reason."
"You already told her," Hal repeated. "Okay. Where is she?"
"Oh, she left," Janet responded. "I think she went back to the news station."
"But I drove the our here," Hal told her. "I was waiting in it while she talked to you."
Janet cocked her head to the side and stared at him like he was a quantum physics equation. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Hal sighed and pressed a palm to his forehead. "She couldn't have gone back to the news station because she had no way to get there."
"Oh." Janet said simply. "Well, good luck looking for her!" She turned to go back up the stairs.
"Wait!" Hal cried out. "Won't you-" It was too late. Janet dashed back up to her apartment, completely oblivious to his call. "…help me? Darn it."
Hal searched everywhere – inside the building, on the lawn, around the parked cars. She was nowhere to be found. He talked to some of the moving men, but none of them had seen where she went. She was gone without a trace. He eventually trudged back to the van, disappointed. He couldn't leave Janet's apartment building to look for her – what if she came back and found herself stranded?
Then, an interesting thought came into Hal's head. Before Janet and Marvin took over, Roxanne used to disappear like this every few days. Why hadn't he realized it before?
"Yes!" he exclaimed, pumping his fist in the air. Janet was leaving and Roxanne was being kidnapped again, so there was no way the executives could keep her and Hal from being the Metro Man reporters again. Things were going back to the way they used to be. Nothing could ruin this moment!
Wait. Janet was leaving. Roxanne would need rescuing. She was going to be Metro Man's reporter again. Their relationship would go back to the way it used to be.
"Noooo!"
I suppose I should take the time to mention that this story takes place well before the movie starts - a couple years at least. This is why Megamind didn't have feelings for Roxanne when this story started. Whether or not he does now is up to your interpretation. The time gap also explains why things like the Invisible Car, certain settings on the de-gun, and Holo-Watch haven't been used - he hasn't invented them yet.
Think this is the end of the story, that things are going to go back to normal? Not quite. There's still a few loose ends to tie up in the final chapter.