Megamind grumbled to himself as he pulled up the zip on his one piece that ran the length of his spine, head arching slightly as he did so. Upon his feet were his usual boots, and his high collar and cape remained slung over the spare motorbike that he always stashed away in a secret location in case of emergency prison out breaks. Today was a day in which he needed to use them. Far behind him the sirens and wails of the prison security system were long forgotten, and he wondered if the Warden would actually report on his escape despite them not reporting his capture.

That had been a strange thing indeed. Like any prisoner Megamind was given a newspaper to read and he had been surprised, that morning, to find his picture not printed on the front page. Were they trying to be sneaky in an attempts to hide the fact just how easy it was for him to break out of prison? This would be an even greater insult because they had that 'high tech' hardware to monitor him and yet he had still broken out, just like any other time.

Besides, the Warden had it coming. Gloating the way he had, as if Megamind had finally been tamed like some weak-willed puppy. Still... he did feel a little sorry about showing him who's the boss by using his watch to make his escape. Maybe he should get him a new one, as both a gift and a tease?

"No time to think about that." he said to himself as he pulled his black spiked leather gloves into place before he grabbed his cape and pulled it into place. Megamind had somewhere important to be and if the remains of the Warden's watch were any indication he was very, very late. Hopping onto his bike he started her up, revved the engine once, and tore off through the streets.

The roar of the souped-up engine rippled through the streets as he rode. He ignored the speed limits as any true villain would, leaving only a burned tire tread and the smell of leather and fuel in his wake. Speed cameras clicked, far too late to get a picture of the speedster, the engine continuing to roar like a lion pumped full of steroids. It happened to be the first thing Carlos heard of the approaching doom, as he sat reading a newspaper in the security booth at the gates of Scott Manor.

He sat up in his chair as he heard the motorbike grow rapidly closer, only to be suddenly replaced by the high pitched squeal of tires grinding against the asphalt. Waving his hand only once to clear the air of the fumes Carlos opened his eyes and found himself staring into the green eyes of the city's number-one super villain.

Megamind stared at the dark haired man blankly before finally blinking and pointed to the gate. "You. Door attendant drone, open up."

"I... Who should I say is calling?" Carlos desperately kicked a pedal under the table.

"You're kidding, right?" Megamind asked, raising his eyebrows. "Who should I say is calling? That's what you're asking me? Me? Do you have any idea who I am? Oh I don't know, maybe I'm the guy who's been wreaking havoc upon this pathetic city ever since I was old enough to shave? No, even before that?" he asked, sitting up straighter on the bike and pushing his shoulders back, lifting his head indignantly. "As if I'm somebody who needs an introduction to begin with! Now open the door, now!"

"Carlos? You okay down there?" A fuzzy female voice said from a small communication unit, out of reach in the corner. "What's going on?"

Carlos gave a pleading look to the green eyed blue man, not even trying to make a reach for the microphone.

Megamind still stared at Carlos, the same piercing look that he had patented after years of practice. He then smiled slowly, unable to not enjoy himself at moments like these. "Well, aren't you going to answer her Carlos?" he asked, one of his hands slowly moving to reach at something hidden by his cape.

Carlos picked up the microphone and flicked a switch. "Linda? We have a visitor-" Megamind ripped the microphone from his hand and purred into it.

"Please tell Miss Scott that I've arrived fashionably late."

The machine crackled as Carlos, in a cracked voice said "Miss... Scott... She is not here."

Megamind seemed to literally freeze, if but for a second. He gripped the microphone in his hand so tightly Carlos could hear the squeak of the leather against it. Pressing his lips together tightly Megamind slowly swallowed before speaking again. "Not here?" he asked, doing his best to not let his voice shake.

"She is gone. I am sorry... She is gone..." Carlos backed away, sensing that it was not a good idea to deliver bad news to the villain or to be in such close proximity when doing so.

"NOT HERE?" Megamind screamed, throwing down the microphone in a show of rage not that many people were that privy to. "NOT HERE!" he echoed again as he pulled his spare De-Gun from it's holster. He was livid, that much anyone could tell. Being locked up was nothing out of the ordinary for the super villain, but being able to launch a break out so quickly and efficiently whilst being monitored by technology based on your own was no easy task. To think she wasn't here, waiting for him, like he thought she would was like a kick in the teeth.

"No, sir. I am sorry sir." Carlos was cornered in the back of the gatehouse.

"No you're not. You will be. You will be." Megamind growled dangerously.

From the safety of the manor, if you happened to be glancing out the window at this certain point and looking towards the gate, you would have seen a sudden flash of blue brighten up the small area before vanishing as quickly as it arrived. Next the gates followed suit, burning bright blue for a split second before vanishing in an instant. There was the roar of the engine again and the bike tore its way up the long drive way and screeched to a halt on the gravel driveway as Megamind leaped off of it.

"Of all the rude..." he growled to himself as he used the gun again, this time on the door, and it slowly became a blue cube and he stepped over it easily. "As if breaking out of that stupid hell hole is a walk in the park-well it is but today was especially hard to do!" Megamind ranted to himself as his leather boots squeaked across the polished marble floors and he ignored his reflection that he could see quite clearly beneath his feet.

The manor was strangely still, lights on, a table askew in the middle of the hallway, doors swinging open, a ceramic vase smashed on the ground, with scattered flowers in a pool of water.

He stared at the smashed vase, and the remains of the flowers, his anger melting faster than a snowflake in July. Slowly, almost apprehensively, he approached it and looked down at the vase. It was Ming Dynasty from the looks of it, very expensive and here it lay shattered on the floor. His eyes slowly followed the trail of destruction, as he found more objects demolished until it led him to a large room.

A hole had been punched in the wall next to the door, which hung open on one hinge. The room had been a widely sweeping dining room with fancy chandelier, huge fireplace with a marble mantle, comfortable yet antique lounges in front of the fire, heavy yet handsome dining table and fancy table settings.

Megamind had only seen such extravagance in magazines, or in movies. He glanced around the room, awed at first by how... well. Fancy it all was. But on second inspection he saw what he had somehow missed. A white table cloth had been torn to shreds, and on the floor were remains of plates, glasses, and from the looks of things a bottle of wine. Swallowing shakily the blue man moved towards the shattered remains of a meal he would never have, and bent down to his knees and picked up the largest piece that had survived an obviously angry woman.

It was half a plate, everything else was too shattered to recognize, much less pick up.

"You did wait." he mumbled to himself before looking around the room again. Megamind swallowed a lump forming in his throat quickly and pressed the plate to his chest as if it was a security blanket and looked around the room once more.

The wide windows were smashed, and hanging open, torn curtains flapping out through them. Further inspection proved the remains of a chair had been thrown out onto the tiled patio outside the building. Something made him look up, and he saw rough round hole in the ceiling, leading to the rooms above. Perhaps this was where she had gone next?

He knew he had precious little time, so he quickly placed the half ruined plate back onto the table before rushing from the room. Finding some curved elegant stairs he raced up them, taking in just how damn white everything was. It was almost blinding him by how clean and white everything was. Finding the door that lead to the room that was directly above the dining room below, Megamind pushed the doors open.

A huge room full of musical instruments. Well, that was unexpected. Racks held guitars, a wide white piano in the window, another piano lurking darkly in one corner, a stage with electrical... things... and the two suitcases which Wendeline usually took to the Arms, standing in the middle of the room. One of them was open at an odd angle, and he looked inside to see her banjo and a pile of music books packed inside with padding. The ukelele she usually kept in there was nowhere to be seen.

The wall was a series of windows, all small glass panels held together with clean white painted wood, and Megamind walked up to the doors, placed his hands against the glass and then pressed his face against it as well. "Where are you?"

His quiet moment was destroyed by the familiar wail of sirens. Megamind gave the room one last look, before running from the room and eventually the manor. He had to get to his bike and get out of here as quickly as possible since he did not plan on spending more time in jail this week than he already had.

~*~*~

Metro Woman woke up with a crick in her neck and her left arm dead, curled up on her favourite old lounge. The television was showing a bright blue screen with "no signal" bouncing around in black. She groaned, and as she stood, pins and needles filled her arm. Muttering, she dragged herself to the bathroom.

Memory of the day before slowly filtered through to her consciousness. "Oh no." She leaned delicately against the bathroom mirror. It felt nice and cool on her forehead. "Ough."

Her gig at the bar hadn't gone as well as it normally had. She had been angry, upset, so she had made a fair few more mistakes then she normally ever would. At first she had thought he was just arriving late to be fashionably late, to make a game of it which they could snipe at each other back and forth over later. But her gig had ended, and he still hadn't showed up. Just how many men had she approached in the bar, trying to find out if one of them was him in disguise, was plain embarrassing.

He had stood her up.

Why? Because she had left him on that roof top? Or that she hadn't been there when he had arrived to drop off her music gear? Was he that pathetic and childish?

It seemed he was.

She had eventually stormed through the mansion in a rage, grabbed her ukelele and some spare clothing, and told the staff that she was OUT. She had then flown to her beach house, pulled out instant pizza, Pride and Prejudice, and a serious amount of alcohol. Which had made her feel no better, but was probably slightly less destructive to the house and grounds.

After brushing her teeth and giving her face a quick wash with a hand full of water she walked back through into the decorated room and picked up her remote control and flicked it from the DVD player to the regular channel.

"-scene of devastation this morning at Scott Manor." the news reporter behind the desk was saying, obviously read from a teleprompter off screen. "We go now to Roxanne Ritchi on the scene. Roxanne?" he asked, turning his head slightly.

Metro Woman stared, wide eyed, as the image moved to the gates of the manor. One of the tall gates was missing entirely. There stood Roxanne holding her ever faithful microphone. She was wearing yet another fancy-looking dress, the sort one would normally expect to see on a red carpet somewhere, rather then reporting the news.

"Thanks Steven." she nodded before beginning a slow walk over the ruined gates. "Chaos, last night, is what welcomed the workers here at Scott Manor, when Megamind launched a surprise attack. As you can see, most of the gates have been removed entirely." Roxanne gestured to what was left of the gatehouse. "According to the security cameras Megamind broke in through the front doors ahead. We currently know that one staff member has vanished, and the police are searching for him, or any witnesses to this crime."

Metro Woman had dropped onto the lounge, watching in astonishment as the News showed her house and grounds, still shots of the inside of the house with holes in the wall and ceiling, another still showing the destruction of the dining room windows, then back to a picture of the police standing next to the gates. She dropped the remote on the arm of the seat and rubbed her face with the heels of both hands, stared at the ceiling, and then looked back at the Television.

On the screen Roxanne was now talking to a worker Metro Woman knew, Linda. She was another one of the security personnel, anyone can tell by the security uniform she was wearing.

"So the Scotts weren't home last night?" Roxanne asked.

"No, lucky thing too." Linda answered nervously, not the type of woman who liked being in the spotlight at all. She glanced at the camera before back to Roxanne. "Lord and Lady Scott are on business in Sweden right now and Miss Scott wasn't in either. Something to do with a night with Mr. Darcy, whoever that is. Either way we all count ourselves lucky she wasn't here, less he kidnap her or something..."

"Being kidnapped by him is a bit of a pain and I can see how it would cut into Miss Scott's time, I'm sure." Roxanne said with a faint smile. "So do you think that was his plan, to kidnap her?"

"I don't see why else he would come out here." shrugged Linda.

Metro Woman growled angrily "To gloat." she answered. "He would have come to gloat." She punched a pillow next to her, and glared at the screen through a haze of feathers.

At the other end of the city, Megamind was snarling at his own television, a wall of monitors in the heart of the evil lair, waving a large wrench at the news whilst holding the legs of a large machine together. Behind him a row of hopeful Brain Bots watched his every move, moving every time he waved the wrench angrily at the monitors.

"Mr Darcy? Who on earth is MR DARCY?" He finally threw the wrench at the monitors. Before it reached the screens, it was caught by several overexcited Brain Bots. The slower bit the legs of the faster brain bot, and they swirled in an angry bowging swarm, fighting over who would return it to Daddy.

Megamind pulled a nut out of his pocket, and threaded it into place, then reached up and was not surprised when the winning Brain Bot placed it in his hand. He tightened the nut, checked the next bolt in place, then threw the wrench into the air in a different direction.

So that was where she had gone? Had she just been playing with him all along, as a means to get to him emotionally rather than physically? Make him believe she had even an inkling of... of... whatever it is that women feel towards blue handsome men, only to rip his heart out? Who was this Mr Darcy? How long had she been fooling around with him? Long enough that the foolish drone who worked for her family didn't see it as strange for her to go out on a date with him.

The anger was already petering out like a dying motor and he leaned against his latest machine of chaos and shut his eyes tightly.

It had worked. Damn it all to Hell, it had worked. He felt horrible. He had never felt this way before, this aching, painful feeling in his chest and this strange, odd desire of wanting to cry was alien to him as he was to the people on this pathetic planet.

"Well done, Metro Woman." he said to himself, voice shaking. "You win this round."

"Sir?" Minion walked in carrying a tray of something which smelt like food. At first it smelt amazingly good, and then nauseating. Why did Minion never seem to understand that food was not what he needed?

Megamind had just been wiping at one of his eyes with the palm of his hand, and turned to look at the fish, sniffing quickly as he did. "What?" he asked.

"I thought perhaps you could eat something, sir. These only just came out of the oven, they're piping hot..."

The blue alien turned his head away, shutting his eyes. "I'm not hungry." he said as he grabbed another nut and began working it into place, focusing on the task at hand and pointedly ignoring any other feeling his body was giving him.

Minion frowned. His master had arrived in the middle of the night, sopping wet, on the spare motorcycle, spinning out between ranting and bursting into tears. He had refused any food, and any offers of a nice place to sleep, and refused to talk about the entire situation. Minion had tried to explain that he had been working desperately to get Sir out of the prison, but this, it turned out, had not been what had caused the fury. Instead it was missing the date with Metro Woman. Minion had been horrified to find out that it appeared that Metro Woman had had no idea that Megamind was imprisoned again, and had expected Megamind to be at their pre-arranged date.

And now, according to the news, it appeared there was yet more confusion. Mr Darcy? Surely … Minion had several theories as to what this actually meant. He had been calling Metro Woman desperately from the kitchen whenever he could, but she wasn't answering her phone.

And he hadn't slept either. Instead he had found one of his blue prints hanging from his idea wall and had spent all night tinkering away at it, obviously trying desperately to keep his mind preoccupied on something that wasn't associated with the woman too much. This device had a lot of spikes and harsh, sharp edges. A design built from nothing but anger, hardly the well thought out devices Megamind normally made.

The strain was beginning to show, though. Minion could read his Master like a book, and those dark rings around his eyes along with the hollow look he had to his face told him things were getting worse. He had even made mistakes with the machine that Minion could see, and that had just been from glancing at the plans without really understanding the purpose or meaning behind it. Megamind only made flaws like this when he was emotionally and physically exhausted.

His stomach then defied his stubborn attitude by suddenly groaning loud enough to echo throughout the evil lair. Megamind paused in his working to stare down at it, before lifting a hand and rubbed his face and growled.

"Sir, you really should eat something." Minion walked closer, showing a tray of flaky crusted meat and cheese pies and carefully selected sugary treats.

Megamind looked at the food as if it was radioactive toxic waste, or worse, broccoli. His eyes squinted accusingly at the food before he glowered the same expression at Minion. That tired expression on his face changed to that of utter misery as he suddenly let out a loud sob. He reached out and grabbed his friends furry shoulder and leaned forward slightly, eyes shutting tightly before his legs finally buckled under his slight weight. "Down I go..." Megamind mumbled as he did just that.

Minion caught his Master in a practiced manner with one hand while he set the tray down with the other. He picked Megamind up gently, and walked over to a nearby couch. His Master was soon wrapped in several warm grey wool blankets, and Minion gazed down at him sadly. "Oh Sir. What am I going to do with you?" he muttered to himself, returning to the tray of delicacies. "And Wendy, where on EARTH are you?" He carried the tray away. Perhaps he could blindside his master into eating when he woke up.

~*~*~

Meanwhile, in Scott Manor, the Police had left the servants to deal with the cleanup. Roxanne Ritchi was cutting short interviews on the lawn outside the front door. A chorus of yells from the workers inside caught her attention and she turned her head and was surprised at what she saw.

Wedged against the double doors of the manor was... the iron gate from the front. It was on its side, well and truly stuck. Not only that but it looked as though they had found the missing worker, Carlos. The man was swearing in Spanish, waving his arms and looked not only wet but infuriated. The other workers were trying to calm him but the man was obviously shaken. He stormed away from the manor, grabbing his hat and throwing it to the ground as he stormed away.

"Man what a mess," sighed one of the workers. "How are we going to get this gate out of here?"

Roxanne and her cameraman walked with fascination up to examine the thoroughly jammed gate. It made for some great footage.

~*~*~

Twelve hours later, Megamind, still wrapped in grey blankets and on the couch, stared vacantly ahead blinking slowly. He had woken up around ten minutes ago, but it was obvious that he still wasn't anywhere near his usual bright eyed alert state. Collapsing from lack of eating and physical exhaustion took it out of a regular person, but Megamind had the body mass that really caused it to knock him for six.

Minion was kneeling next to him, with a determined expression on his fishy face. He held another spoonful up to his masters lips. "Another one, Sir."

Megamind looked at his fish with a tired expression before he obediently opened his mouth, breathing through his nose as he did. "Ah." he said as he did, tongue sticking out of his mouth.

He swallowed mechanically when Minion fed him spoonful after spoonful of warm broth. Minion was reasonably certain that Megamind wasn't really even aware that he was there. A small bowlful of broth, and he gently pushed Megamind to make him lie down again. "That was very foolish, Sir." All he got was an unintelligable grumble from the alien as he was pushed down onto the couch again, shutting his eyes tiredly.

Megamind curled around the warmth in his middle. The scolding was coming through to him as a muffled tone, smothered by cotton wool and blankets, but he knew it was there. He could safely ignore it. He felt so hollow...

...and it just wasn't going away. He was aware of a day passing, and moving himself from the couch to his bed. Minion had been there, ghosting along behind him and asking him questions like 'are you all right?' and 'are you sure you're not hungry?' It fell on mostly deaf ears. Megamind had never felt this way before, he hated it, and he wanted it to be gone but he just couldn't shake it.

So here he was, laying on his bed and staring at the wall while the world continued to carry on its merry way without him. He had the vague idea that several days had passed. Sometimes Minion would force him to eat. Sometimes he would let Minion feed him, sometimes he would throw the food across the room. Usually it was just too much trouble. The wall was blank, just like his head, and he felt so calm. He slowed down to one thought every now and again. Slow thoughts like clouds. He could cope with clouds. Clouds were nice and friendly, except for when they were grey and brought rain and lightning. Then clouds could get bent.

Lightning. He liked lightning. The memory of catching lightning in an early experiment flashed through his head. Lightning was powerful. But... not powerful enough. No... He needed something more powerful... something... like... What was more powerful?

The sun.

The words of the letter ran through his head. Megamind blinked, slowly and carefully, holding onto this thought. Holding onto it before it got away. He slowly rose from the bed, like Frankenstein's monster, and dragged his feet across the floor to his set of drawers. Pulling one open he pushed his extra pyjamas aside and pulled out a pink envelope. Staring at it blankly for a minute he felt as though his legs would buckle again but he forced himself to stand firm, and pulled it open.

His eyes trailed the letters words, despite having dedicated it to memory. Her writing was neat, loopy, and fancy. But in that opening paragraph her choice of words stood out as if they were as tall and plainly written as the Hollywood sign.

He frowned, and glared at the letter until his eyes watered, then closed his fist, scrunching the paper into a ball. He stalked towards the door with determination. "MINION?"

Minion ran up with a "Yes, Sir?"

"I need paper. I have a … plan."

Minions face lit up. "Oh. Of course Sir. Right away, Sir."

To be continued