Disclaimer: Based on characters and concepts owned by others. Written for fun, not for profit.
Rating: PG-13
Characters / Pairing: Ensemble / Megamind/Roxanne
Author's Notes: This chapter was extremely difficult for me for many reasons. Real life has had me on a bit of an emotional roller coaster lately, for one. Recent events may have unintentionally colored my prose.
Furthermore, I've had parts of this chapter actually written since June, but was never completely satisfied with the way it was coming together. I feel badly about the long delay, especially after the way the previous chapter ended, but I did not want to post something that I wasn't completely happy with. Even if no one else was reading this, I'd still want the end result to be something that made me proud to say I'd written it.
Many, many thanks to raywing, my marvelous beta, and also to Dani Kin, whose insight was particularly indispensable. I'm so grateful for all your help - especially with this chapter. Every suggestion, every discussion, and every back-and-forth e-mail really helped to tame this particular monster. Your assistance and support means so much!
I have a few additional notes, which I've placed at the end for spoiler purposes. (There are even a few more if you happen to wander over to my LJ. You know, in case anyone is interested in my further mental commentary on this story.)
Thank you, everyone, for your continued support. I hope you enjoy this part as well!
Rain on the Just
by Rummi
Chapter 11 - Spiraling
Well, she wasn't tied to a chair. But it wasn't a vast improvement either.
In fact, Owen hadn't given her anything to sit on at all - unless you counted the old, jungle-gym display in the corner, a climbing apparatus made to resemble a network of hollow logs and tree limbs.
At first, Roxanne had paced around the otherwise empty cell like a caged tigress, but after a while she resigned herself to sitting on the floor. She brushed her hand against the hard ground to clear away some of the dust and dirt - not that it helped much - and settled with her back against the one solid, concrete wall of the cage. There was a draft coming from an old steel door beside her which, when opened, likely led to an adjoining outside enclosure. There was a system of locks on it that looked as though they hadn't been opened in years. Roxanne turned her head away from the door and simply stared out through the thick iron bars that surrounded her on every other side.
The only thing that was keeping her from going completely stir-crazy right now was a passing comment Owen had made back at the café. Apparently, Megamind had not actually been in the lair when the young villain had stolen his equipment. Which meant that, as soon as Megamind discovered what had happened, he would waste no time coming to look for it - and for her as well. She clung to that one certainty, even as a nagging, apprehensive voice in the back of her mind wondered why he hadn't gotten here by now.
Roxanne opened the palm of her hand and stroked her fingertip lightly over the small, blue tracking device affixed there. Delicate, blue lines of intricate circuitry chased each other across its surface.
She realized that allowing herself to be kidnapped had been a risk. She knew next to nothing about Owen, and admittedly she hadn't thought far beyond trying to help Wayne, but she also knew this little chip on her skin would lead Megamind right to the person who had been terrorizing the city. Between Megamind's missing things and the signal being emitted by this device, Roxanne knew it was only a matter of time before he came crashing through the wall with an elaborate laser show set to a heavy metal soundtrack.
But time continued to pass. The fact that he hadn't arrived yet was a little worrying - enough to make her wonder if the tracking device was working properly. She had never used one of them before, but Megamind had told her all she had to do to activate it was press. And so she had - right before she had dangled herself as bait between Wayne and Owen.
Roxanne sighed heavily, tipping her head back slightly against the wall behind her. She tried not to let her mind venture into scary, uncertain places regarding the possible reasons for Megamind's delay. Instead, she looked down at the pulse of azure energy against her light skin again and focused on one thought:
He'll be here. She closed her eyes. Soon.
She opened her eyes and glanced around her, studying her surroundings for the umpteenth time since she had been brought here.
Most of the other cells lining the long hallway looked exactly like this one. And the entire room still smelled faintly of whatever animals had once lived here. Apparently, the ventilation system was as dated as the building.
The former Metro City Zoo, located in one of the older sections of the park, had been abandoned for a long time. It had closed years ago when the conditions (which consisted mainly of stark, barren, concrete and iron cages like this one) were deemed unfit to accommodate the animals. A new zoo was built just outside of town - a state-of-the-art facility with environments more closely resembling the animals' natural habitats.
Roxanne could still remember covering that story. Metro Man had been instrumental in relocating many of the animals. Footage of him sweeping across the sky with an elephant harness in each hand had replayed on KMCP for some time afterward.
After that, the old zoo had been closed, though it was never torn down. It had simply fallen into disrepair inside the park as the powers-that-be had attempted to decide what to do with it. There had been some talk a few years back about fixing it up for seasonal events, or for use in city fundraisers - perhaps as the site of a haunted attraction around Halloween. But the money required to improve the conditions proved to be too much, especially with the impending construction of the Metro Man Museum. Plans had been abandoned, and so was the zoo.
Though now, it seemed, someone had found a use for it.
Roxanne suddenly heard the high-pitched screeching of metal dragging against concrete. She glanced in the direction of the noise and scowled. Her captor was moving some things around a short distance down the hall. There was a large, retractable screen, which had been set up on a tripod, and a small projector on an old, rusty table. Owen was currently adjusting it by repositioning it in front of the screen over and over. Each time he slid the metal table across the floor, the shrill sound it made caused Roxanne's teeth to tingle uncomfortably.
Owen must have felt the weight of her eyes on him because his shoulders abruptly stiffened and he turned to look at her. He stood upright and brushed his gloved hands together, regarding her first, then the room around them. "So, you still haven't told me what you think."
Roxanne merely intensified her glare. She closed her fingers discreetly over the tracking device again.
"It's charming, Owen," she retorted. "If you like rat-infested cages and about a decade of dirt."
Owen frowned at her. However, he didn't seem nearly as fiercely bothered by her use of his first name as he had back at the café.
Well, she thought, he's minus an audience now.
A moment later Owen shrugged.
"I was pretty impressed with it, actually," he said in a bizarrely conversational tone, peering around at the other empty cages that filled the large main chamber of the old zoo. "I'm surprised it's never been used before, aren't you? I mean, it's spacious, it's got lots of cages . . ." He twiddled his fingers like spider legs. "And it gives off a creepy, tingly, super-villain vibe."
Roxanne scoffed and folded her arms across her chest. "You know, that tingling sensation could just be your body needing a few tetanus shots from being here too long," she quipped.
Owen glared at her with an odd, pouting expression. He squared his shoulders, then began striding the length of the cage-lined hallway toward her. He narrowed his eyes as he reached her cell. "Look," he said, his voice low, "I'm aware that it's a work in progress, but you could at least tell me what you think without being so snippy."
Roxanne raised an eyebrow at him from her seated position. Owen was making a very different impression now than he had in the café. The sudden disparity surprised her, but she wasn't about to reveal that to him. Instead she regarded her young captor suspiciously and said, "You're serious?"
Owen blinked at her. "Well, yeah," he replied. He made another shrugging motion with his arms that caused his waist-length cape to flare out slightly.
Roxanne finally stood up and approached the bars. "You mean you actually want to have a casual conversation about feedback with someone you tossed into a cage?" she asked incredulously.
Owen's face hardened and he scowled at her. "Excuse me for wanting an expert opinion," he retorted. "After all, nobody's been up close and personal with more villains than Roxanne Ritchi. I just wanted your impression, that's all."
Roxanne snorted. Honestly, was this kid trying to intimidate her or suck up to her? "Look," she drawled, crossing her arms again exasperatedly, "the last I checked, I wasn't exactly the Roger Ebert of villainy. And I know you didn't bring me all the way here just for a review. So why don't you tell me what you really want, Owen?"
Owen's scowl deepened. He waved his hands agitatedly in front of him. "No, you know what? Forget it!" he rambled. "And what did I tell you about my name? It's-"
"Fire Bug," Roxanne cut him off. "Yes, you've mentioned that." She groaned heavily. This young man was starting to seem less and less like a moustache-twirling, terroristic mastermind, and more like a tantrum-throwing teenager. Sure, he had put on a good show back at the café, but behind-the-scenes, the villainous façade was certainly cracking.
Roxanne narrowed her eyes at him. She may be able to use his agitation to her advantage.
She began slowly pacing the length of the cage, keeping her eyes locked on the young villain in the hallway. "You have to realize: it's not like this is my first kidnapping," she said. "The next time you want a performance review, you might be better off picking someone a little less jaded. 'Super-villain-show-and-tell' got old for me a long time ago."
Owen crossed his arms. He glowered at her. "Well, you don't exactly have a choice, Ms. Ritchi," he sneered, drawing himself up to his full height. "I'm the bad guy here, and you . . . you're my prisoner! That means you have to do what I say!" He fumbled with a few aspects of his costume, then pointedly crossed his arms again. "If you know what's good for you!"
He added a sharp nod to punctuate his statement.
Roxanne mimicked Owen's cross-armed stance as she stared back at him. "Look," she said. "I've been at this game for quite a while and you're right: I've seen my share of villains." She intensified her glare and looked him up and down. "Which is why I'm not afraid of a spandex-clad kid in swim goggles."
The young man scowled. His eyes crossed slightly as they swept upward in the direction of the protective eyewear perched on top of his forehead. "These aren't swim goggles!" he sniped. He pulled on the strap with both hands and settled the lenses over his eyes. He planted his fists on his hips and his chest puffed out a bit. "These are for my Fire Bug Vision," he informed her.
Roxanne merely blinked at him, and his posture deflated slightly.
"Well, they will be," he amended, "when I'm finished with them. I'm working on a set of 'fly-eyes'. You know, something that will let me see 360-degrees." He dramatically orbited his hands around his head to demonstrate. "The prototype isn't completely ready yet," he added. "These are just temporary." Owen slid the goggles back up onto his forehead and frowned at her before turning his face away abruptly. He continued to scowl as he looked absently down the hallway. "I was told it was a good design," he grumbled under his breath.
Roxanne cocked her head at him, fixing him with a dry expression. Owen's behavior right now was . . . strange, to say the least. He was acting unsure of himself, jittery, even childish. It was so different from the way he had seemed earlier that afternoon. At the café, Owen had been manic and devious - a textbook villain, even. But now he was getting very easily flustered. Roxanne had to admit: the inconsistency in his behavior was actually alarming.
She supposed that Owen could have been working from a specific plan earlier - strategizing his debut meticulously. The café had been his first public appearance, after all, so of course he had probably scripted it down to the last detail. (Most of what he had said had been pretty standard and unoriginal, as far as villainous speeches went.) But there wasn't any way Owen could have possibly planned it well enough to account for every potential variable.
Like Wayne.
An unexpected appearance by Metro Man would have - should have - stopped even the most seasoned criminals in their tracks - let alone an amateur villain in the middle of his very first rampage. Even Roxanne had been shocked by Wayne's actions, and she had known he was there.
But Owen . . . he hadn't seemed surprised at all. He had actually seemed thrilled.
That had probably been the most alarming part of the entire encounter in the café. When an invincible (not to mention presumed-dead) superhero suddenly appears, primed for a butt-kicking, most villains - however diabolical - would have undoubtedly been shaking in their shoes. Owen, on the other hand, had acted like Metro Man's appearance was the best thing that had ever happened to him.
In the time that Roxanne had observed him since then, however, Owen's attitude had drastically changed.
Most villains, for instance, would have been reveling in a victory over a hero like Metro Man, even if it was a lucky break brought about by a stolen weapon. But as far as she could tell, Owen wasn't gloating about it. He hadn't even mentioned it at all.
What he had been doing was acting like a cat on a hot tin roof.
As soon as they had arrived here at the zoo, Owen had had the spider-bot dump Roxanne in this cell, but she hadn't seen what had happened to Wayne after that. She could only assume he was in some other part of the building, still encased in the boa plasma and locked inside a cage like this one. She couldn't help but feel frightened for him; he had probably never experienced being so helpless before.
Afterward, the brief glimpses Roxanne had caught of Owen flitting in and out of sight, bustling anxiously around, and continuously fussing with his equipment hinted at how rattled he had become. And now, as she was speaking to him, she was really starting to notice it.
This was the person who had terrorized the city with explosives for over a week?
Perhaps Owen's earlier adrenaline was simply wearing off. Or perhaps he was just naturally jumpy. But to the reporter, it felt like much more than that. Roxanne's instincts told her that something was going on - something he was very nervous about. Something had him spooked. And with Wayne effectively neutralized, it had to be something else.
If she could keep him talking, however, she might be able to find out what it was.
It would buy Megamind some time to get here. And maybe . . . maybe it could buy Wayne some time as well.
"Okay," Roxanne said. She held up one hand in a calming gesture, but kept the other hand with the tracking device folded closed against her body. "Fire Bug?"
Owen stiffened, blinked, and glanced back at her. His eyes were a bit wider and his expression seemed both surprised and suspicious. If nothing else, the fact that she had willingly called him by the villainous alias he had chosen for himself had gotten his attention.
Good.
"You know what? You're right," Roxanne said, as gently as she could. "And seeing as how I'm a captive audience here," she added, indicating the cell around her, "can I ask you a question?" She kept her voice as calm and reassuring as possible as she spoke; her captor was already agitated enough.
Owen turned his body back to face her. He cocked his head noncommittally, but he didn't refuse. It encouraged Roxanne to continue. If there was one thing she knew about villains, it was their love of talking about themselves and their plans.
Roxanne reached forward and gripped the bars between them, still careful to keep the tracking device out of sight. "Why are you doing all this?" she asked. "Can you at least tell me that?"
For a moment Owen simply regarded her, as though he was completely analyzing the question and weighing her intentions. Then his nose wrinkled disdainfully, he stepped toward the bars, and he lowered his voice. "Look," he said, "I have to, okay? I don't have a choice."
Roxanne's brow furrowed as she looked at him. Then her eyes softened. "There's always a choice," she appealed solicitously. "If someone is forcing you to do this, I know we can help. You just have to-"
Owen cut her off with a sudden bark of humorless, rapid giggling - jarringly inappropriate laughter that sent a shiver down Roxanne's spine. He lifted his face to the ceiling and let it tumble out of him for a minute or two before looking back at her and shaking his head. His eyes were overly bright, and his face was set in a chilling, rictus grin.
"You really are a silver-lining kind of person, aren't you?" he said, his voice still laced with strained notes of mirthless, unsettling laughter. "Poor, dorky Owen Lowry has to be somebody else's puppet, right? 'Cause there's no way he could handle something like this on his own."
Roxanne was a bit taken aback at that. This was the second villain to say something similar to her.
. . . So, naïve, Roxie . . . You see the good in everybody, even when it's not there . . .
The words, coupled with the memory, left her momentarily shaken.
Owen shook his head at her again. "No, Ms. Ritchi, that's not it," he said. "No one else is forcing me to do this, but I still have to do it." He frowned and repeated, "I have to." Owen turned away from her and began to pace erratically around the hall in front of her cell.
Roxanne steeled herself again. Her expression hardened and her previous sympathy drained away. She gripped the bars tighter and glared at Owen as he stalked back and forth. "No, you don't," she reiterated, more sternly this time. "You don't have to! If you want to, you can stop all this-"
"It was just supposed to be between me and him," Owen mumbled absently, remnants of his nervous laughter still evident in his voice. He wasn't speaking directly to Roxanne any longer, but rambling indiscriminately. "Nobody else was supposed to be involved."
"Nobody else?" Roxanne cut in, her voice rising in accusation. "What about all those buildings you targeted? What about all the people in them? Were they just 'nobody' to you?"
Owen shot her a hardened sidelong glare. His lanky frame twitched tensely. "It wasn't about the buildings," he spat back. "Or the people. It was about the message!"
Roxanne scowled in response. "Oh, trust me, we got your message," she said. "It was easy to see that the buildings were all connected to Megamind. And we stopped your last two bombings when we discovered your pattern of targets from the cards you left behind. So I think we-"
"You keep saying 'we'!" Owen interrupted with an incredulous sneer. "Like the message was for you. But it had nothing to do with you! Nothing at all!" He turned his back to her again and resumed prowling the hallway in front of her cage. His hands reached for his head and fisted into the haphazard curls of his sandy hair.
Roxanne was getting more and more frustrated - not to mention nervous. The young man's anxiousness was reaching a frenzied peak, and now he wasn't making any sense at all. She nearly growled to herself as she, once again, tried to get him to focus.
"Fire Bug?" she called out to him. "Fire Bug, listen to me!"
He merely continued his previous rambling. Even using the name he preferred wasn't getting his attention.
"Owen!"
"It just got out of hand," he muttered darkly. "It didn't happen on purpose. It wasn't supposed to happen that way at all. But he didn't give me a choice."
Owen glanced up at Roxanne finally, as though pleading his case. He pointed randomly to a spot in the air behind him as though someone was standing there. "He didn't give me any other choice!" he insisted. "And then, I had to do something big. Otherwise . . ." He trailed off as his shoulders tensed, then shuddered. "This will help, though; it has to."
"Listen," Roxanne tried to plead with him. "You may not think you have a choice, but you really do. I told you: there's always a choice. But you have to make it now before things go too far."
"It's too late for that," Owen muttered lowly. "It wasn't on purpose." He shook his head. "It wasn't. But I can only make up for it if I do something big."
He was still rambling, but at least he had directly addressed something Roxanne had said. That meant he was hearing her. It gave her a small amount of encouragement to continue.
"If you try to do something too big, you're going to be in over your head," she warned earnestly. "You're not well, Owen. Megamind's coming; you have to know that. And if you try to fight him like this-"
"Fight him?" Owen spun to face her. His expression was actually a grimace of panic. "I never wanted to fight him! I don't want to fight him! I was just trying to help him!"
Roxanne froze. She blinked at him several times, speechless. They had all assumed from the beginning that whoever this "Beetle-Bomber" was, he was targeting all those locations because of a desire to engage the city's new hero in a sadistic game of cat-and-mouse - to force an eventual confrontation.
"That was why I went there today," Owen's shaky voice interrupted her thoughts. "I just wanted to show him." Then he turned to her suddenly, fixing her with such an accusatory glare that it actually made Roxanne instinctively step back. "He needed to see . . . but it wasn't supposed to happen that way. I wouldn't have taken his things if I'd had another choice. But after what happened, I needed them. There was no other way."
"So you didn't go to Megamind's lair to steal his things," Roxanne pressed, trying to decipher his ramblings. The young man was spiraling out of control, and she needed to keep him focused if she was going to learn what this was really about. "What happened then, Owen? How did you know what to take?"
"I remember what I see," Owen mumbled with a shrug. "His database uses pictures, and I remember what I see."
The weapons database, Roxanne thought. The one Megamind had been making to catalogue everything. Owen must have been looking at it.
"That's how you learned to use the things you took?" she guessed. "You studied the schematics?"
"I just got distracted by it," he started to ramble again. "That wasn't what I went there to do, but I didn't think it would hurt to look. I thought I was alone, and it was so fascinating." Owen's eyes darkened and he scowled. "I even told him so. But he wouldn't have believed me anyway - he wouldn't have believed that I was just trying to help."
Roxanne's fingers clenched tighter around the iron bars. She could feel the outline of the tiny tracking device pressing against her palm. Owen kept talking in circles and she couldn't quite follow the chain of his thoughts. She pressed her forehead against the cold bars for a moment in frustration. Her heart was fluttering anxiously. She would need to change tactics if she hoped to get a clear story out of the unstable young man.
"You said you were trying to help Megamind," she said, looking back at Owen again. "Help him how?"
That got a reaction, but not one Roxanne had been expecting. Owen shot her a glare that was so venomous she recoiled, letting go of the bars as he advanced on her.
"You think I would tell you?" he spat. "You're the problem here, Ms. Ritchi. And the sooner he sees that, the better."
"What?" Roxanne asked. She stared back at him tensely, feeling suddenly helpless and exposed as he pinned her with his scathing eyes. Her fingers twitched at her sides, itching to grasp something with which to defend herself, but the bars between them were her only safeguards.
"You think I don't see you, but I do," he hissed at her. "I know. I've known for a while." Owen's face pinched into a hateful sneer. "And he will, too."
Roxanne swallowed. She met his eyes with as much nerve as she could muster. "Know what?"
Owen chortled darkly. "That's why I went there in the first place - to show him," he muttered, almost to himself again. "I knew he'd be angry, but eventually he'd see that I was just trying to help. I wasn't the one trying to twist him into something he'd always stood against. I wasn't the one trying to change him. With all those places gone, I thought it would help him to start over." Owen shuddered again. "I didn't mean to get distracted; I didn't know I wasn't alone."
His hands tightened into fists and quivered fitfully at his sides. "He would have tried to stop me, I could tell. He would have made me leave and not come back." Owen shook his head erratically. "I couldn't let that happen, or everything I did would have been for nothing."
He jammed his hands into his pockets, hunching over, looking as though he was curling in on himself. "What happened wasn't my fault."
Roxanne felt a chill creep steadily across her skin, even in the stuffy, stale air of the old zoo. "Owen?" she said softly.
"And now I need to make up for it," he murmured, staring at the ground. "But after what happened, it had to be something big. Eye for an eye." He looked up again and narrowed his eyes at her. "There was only one thing big enough to make it right. And I knew if I was right about you, Ms. Ritchi, you'd be the one to lead me to it." His body trembled a little, but he managed a mad smile. "And you did."
Roxanne's lips parted as realization dawned. Metro Man, she thought. That was the "something big". No wonder Owen had seemed so excited about Wayne's appearance in the café.
"Why?" she asked. Her mouth had gone dry. "Owen, what happened? Why would you need-?"
"God!" he interrupted in a shout. "Do you ever stop asking questions?"
Owen's body shook in violent agitation. He struggled to pull his hands out of his pockets - all elbows and wild gyrations, like an over-exaggerated pantomime. It might have been comical if the young man wasn't so clearly unhinged.
When he finally succeeded, Roxanne noticed something gripped tightly in his right fist - a small, pearl-handled revolver. The sight caused her to instinctively draw back away from him with a start.
"I told you, Ms. Ritchi," Owen said, grinding his words through his teeth, "I'm the villain here. So maybe you should start showing me some respect."
Roxanne pressed her back to the concrete wall behind her, eyes fixed unblinkingly on both Owen and the weapon. "Owen-"
The gun went off. A small chunk of old concrete exploded out of the wall, leaving a bloom of residual dust in its wake. Although the impact was far enough away from Roxanne, she still reflexively curled away from it with a scream of alarm, her hands automatically reaching to shield her head and face. A moment later, Roxanne blinked and cautiously looked back at Owen with wide, frightened eyes.
"I'm serious," he said, his voice quivering - but from fear or adrenaline, Roxanne couldn't tell which. "I didn't mean to do it before," he told her. "I really didn't. But I'll do it now." He adjusted the pistol's aim, moving it away from a random spot on the high wall and training it in her general direction instead. "It's not like I have anything else to lose."
Roxanne's blood felt as though it had turned to ice in her veins. Owen's threat echoed through her brain, but something about his rambling was beginning to click into place. Something was very, very wrong - she could feel it.
She only prayed that she was mistaken.
"Owen?" she risked asking in a soft breath. Her heart rate quickened. "What did you do?"
Owen's hand clenched around the handle of the gun so tightly that his entire arm quavered. Then his face suddenly split into a feverish grin and he giggled manically again. He withdrew the pistol and gestured randomly with it in a small flourish beside his temple.
"You know," he said, his voice casual, but still laced with mirthless, uncontained giggles, "that fish never liked me, anyway."
Roxanne's heart suddenly felt as though it had shuddered to a halt. Her wide gaze remained locked on the young man before her. He stared back for a moment, then he turned and began walking away from her down the hall, little spasms going through his tense shoulders as he went.
Roxanne rushed to the bars again, angling herself to keep her eyes on his retreating back. "Owen?" she breathed out, then fought to force more strength into her voice. "Owen!"
But Owen did not acknowledge her this time. Roxanne continued to stare in frozen horror down the length of the hallway, even long after the young man had vanished completely from sight. Eventually her knees gave out beneath her and she sank slowly to the dusty floor of her cage, her knuckles white against the heavy iron bars.
The lair was silent, except for the water continuing to thrum rhythmically from the faucet into the sink. Megamind could also hear it occasionally splash against the floor by his knees as the basin overflowed. The brainbots were still hovering somewhere above him as well, making small, intermittent noises, though none of them dared to approach him.
Megamind had no idea how long he had remained kneeling on the floor. It felt like hours. Though, realistically, it had probably only been a few minutes - he was just starting feel the tingle of pins and needles prickling through his folded muscles. He knew he should probably get up - he knew he should probably do a lot of things - but he seemed to lack both the willpower to move and the brainpower to send the appropriate message to his immobile legs.
He was also soaking wet and shivering from head to toe, but only a distant part of him even registered any of the discomfort. Truthfully, he didn't feel much of anything. Nor did he want to.
Eye-level with the side of the sink, Megamind stared vacantly at the dingy, colorless porcelain. He lost himself in the blankness of it - an empty, sterile void of white nothing consumed him.
. . . It's a vacuum, isn't it?. . .
Staring straight ahead helped to keep him from thinking. Thinking hurt anyway. There was something inherently blissful about being completely incognizant.
But, of course, that wouldn't last.
He blinked as a stream of water fell past his line of vision, splashing upon his face and breaking the spell of nothingness he had woven around himself. Then the thoughts began flooding in again . . .
Minion.
Megamind squeezed his eyes shut as painful awareness returned. His hands shifted in the water above him - blue skin slid against smooth scales. He knew that he couldn't stay here forever, but whether mental cognition had returned or not, he still couldn't seem to will himself to move - couldn't bear to tear himself away from his friend.
He wished Roxanne was here - desperately. But his body still refused to move from this position - not even to make an effort to contact her.
Minion would be all alone if I left.
Absently, Megamind recalled that he was still wearing the formal suit that Minion had warned him not to ruin. He winced at the thought. No doubt, Minion would have been very disappointed with him, because that was precisely what he had done - at least as far as tonight was concerned. The dress shirt was soaked through to his skin, as were the legs of the trousers, and the suit jacket was currently stuffed down into the sink's old drain. Megamind could feel a slight, rhythmic brushing against his wrist where the excess fabric must have been floating up toward the surface. A piece of it, possibly one of the sleeves, was tickling against his skin over and over.
Megamind pressed his head against the cold outer surface of the sink. He closed his eyes again. He was emotionally spent; he had no energy left. He just wanted this nightmare to end, but he couldn't figure out how to wake up from it.
So instead, he tried once again to shut his mind down - to attain that thoughtless void where nothing hurt.
The water steadily churned from the constantly running faucet, moving in little spiraling eddies of current. Megamind focused on the rhythmic stroking the sleeve of the suit jacket continued to make against his skin. The touches were light and soothing - gently lulling him, once again, into a blissful, incognizant trance. By the time the water had caused the fabric to drift lazily around his wrist, Megamind had wrapped numbness around him like a cocoon once more.
A sudden squeeze jolted him out of his self-induced stupor and his head jerked immediately upright.
For a moment, Megamind didn't move - he didn't breathe. The sensation had been slight, phantom-like, and faraway. But it was enough to catapult him back to himself - like the sudden, swift spasm that occasionally ejects a person out of the beginning stages of sleep. Megamind remained like a statue on the floor of the lair - his heart suddenly thundering in his chest.
When the gentle, deliberate pressure came a second time, he knew he hadn't imagined it. It was unmistakable, and Megamind didn't hesitate. He flew to his feet, completely disregarding the sharp, painful daggers in his leg muscles as he moved. Water splashed everywhere, but he was still careful to keep his hands steady beneath the surface. He peered desperately into the sink.
. . . Directly into a pair of weary, lidded brown eyes.
Megamind gasped.
Minion scrunched his eyes shut again before blinking them open a second time. "Sir?" he asked weakly. "What were you doing on the floor?"
Megamind remained frozen where he stood - wide-eyed and rigid - for another moment. Then he surged forward, a desperate cry on his lips, and he pressed his forehead to Minion's once more. Water sloshed in a wave over the side of the sink. Megamind's body began to tremble again as he squeezed his eyes shut and clutched his friend tightly, but gently, against him.
"Minion," he gasped. "You're alive."
They stayed that way for several long moments. When Megamind finally pulled back, dripping from being partially submerged in the water a second time, he glanced down to confirm that it was not the suit sleeve that had wrapped around his wrist at all. One of Minion's three elongated bothria had coiled around him in a loose spiral. Megamind felt yet another limp bit of pressure from the appendage before Minion finally unraveled it.
Megamind cast about for a moment, looking in several different directions before he finally settled his gaze upon the brainbots. "Turn it off," he ordered. "And get the bowl." One of the 'bots descended and twisted the sink's valve, finally halting the flow of water. Another flew off immediately toward a different part of the lair. Then Megamind faced Minion again.
He attempted to swallow past a thick mass that seemed to be stuck in his throat. "Are you . . . are you all right?" he asked. His voice was tight and quiet.
Minion's body managed to bob up and down slightly in a weary nod. "Better now," he replied. "Thank you, sir."
The brainbot returned quickly and hovered beside Megamind's shoulder. It was carrying a clear, spherical orb. Megamind glanced briefly from the 'bot back to Minion. "Will you be okay if I let go for a second?"
Minion nodded again in response. "I think so, yes, sir."
Slowly and carefully, Megamind moved his hands away from Minion's body, allowing the fish to float on his own. When he was certain Minion would be able to stay upright without help, he turned and grasped the globe the brainbot had brought. It was Minion's original habitat, but it would do for now - at least until Megamind figured out what had caused the robotic suit to fail. He opened the globe along a nearly imperceptible seam and lowered it into the water. Then he closed it securely around Minion and drew him out of the sink.
For a moment, Megamind simply stood there, clutching the sphere tightly against his chest. The cold, inanimate surface of the glass was hardly a suitable substitute for the reassuring sensation of Minion's body against him, but he knew that the globe would help Minion recover much more quickly than simply being in the sink. The technology for the old habitat included a filtration system in its membrane; it didn't work as quickly as the one Megamind had designed for the suit, but it would help.
Megamind took a deep, shuddering breath in and out, then looked down as he drew the sphere away from his body. "I'm sorry it's just tap water," he said. "It'll clear up soon."
"It's fine, sir," Minion replied with a weary smile. "Better than none, right?"
But Megamind winced at that. "Don't joke," he muttered. There was a hint of bitterness in his tone. He glanced away from his friend, avoiding his eyes as he quietly added, "I'm so sorry."
Minion was taken aback for a moment, then he frowned. When he spoke, his voice was stronger than before. "Sir?" he asked as he drew himself up inside the globe. "You don't think you did this, do you? No, sir, it was-"
"I thought I lost you," Megamind interrupted. He finally managed to meet his friend's eyes, but looked away again quickly. "Minion, I thought you were . . . I thought you-"
He pressed his eyes tightly shut again, unable to even formulate the words for what he had thought. He shook his head as he opened them again, staring at the floor. "I should have been here. Why didn't you call me when the suit malfunctioned?"
Minion stared at him. His expression still looked a little glazed, but suddenly there was an unmistakable flash of realization in his eyes.
"The suit didn't malfunction, sir," Minion replied. His voice was steady and resolute. "Not at all. You didn't do this." He looked insistently at his friend and master. "It was Owen."
Megamind stiffened. He slowly turned his gaze back to Minion. ". . . What?"
"I caught him in here," Minion explained. "He'd found the secret entrance and was snooping through the database. I tried to throw him out, but . . . He surprised me. I'm sorry, I- I didn't expect-"
But Megamind was already moving. With Minion tucked securely into the crook of his arm, he hurried back to where the downed suit lay. Gently, he placed Minion's globe on the floor beside it and stooped to inspect the tank.
At first there didn't seem to be anything wrong with it. Megamind placed his hand against the glass and the dome shifted slightly on its rear hinge. When it did, there was a tripping, metallic rattle - like a loose bolt tumbling around inside. As Megamind peered into the glass to try to spot what had made the noise, his attention was caught by what looked like a thin, silvery line on the opposite side of the tank.
Megamind's stomach turned. He hadn't seen it before; he had been far too panicked to notice before. His wide eyes stared through the tank to the glass surface on the other side. What, at first, had appeared to be a single thin crack led down to a cluster of others - like a silvery starburst upon the glass. Megamind's eyes continued to follow the hairline fractures to a point near the base of the tank.
There was a hole there - small, but unmistakable.
It probably wasn't much larger than the tip of his finger, but it looked positively enormous when magnified through the layers of thick glass. Megamind quickly disassembled the hinge and removed the entire dome from the robot body. He flipped it to the other side to examine it. As he did, he heard more staccato rattling.
Something tumbled out of the opening beneath the dome. It bumped against Megamind's leg and rolled to the floor with a plink. Megamind glanced down at the small, cylindrical stump of metal which had come to rest beside his thigh, then turned his horrified eyes back to the rear surface of the tank, where he could now see the nearly perfect circle that had punctured cleanly through one section of the thick glass. He raised his finger slowly to trace it.
"I didn't know what he was doing until it was too late," Minion said.
Megamind only partially registered the words. His horrified expression hardened into a fierce glare as he continued to stare at the hole in the tank. Megamind then reached down to pick up the small piece of metal that had landed beside him. It was surprisingly heavy for its tiny size. His eyes darkened. His hand clenched around it into a fist so tight that it trembled.
"This is a bullet."
"When it hit the glass it was so loud, it felt like an explosion in my head; I must have blacked out at first."
"He shot you?"
"When I came around, he was gone, but so was most of the water. I don't know how long it had been like that."
"Owen did this?"
"It must have been a while, because I couldn't focus. I couldn't even manage to send more than one command at a time to the suit's receptors. I thought if I could make it to the sink-"
"Why? Why would he-?"
"-but I couldn't clear my head enough to make the suit stand. So I tried to drag myself there instead, but . . ." Minion shuddered. "I guess I didn't make it. If you hadn't come-"
Megamind turned his gaze down to where the fish sat on the floor beside him. Images of Minion's unconscious form, trapped and drowning inside his punctured habitat, stabbed into his brain like the blade of a knife.
"He could have killed you," he said breathlessly.
"I'm sorry, sir," Minion said. "I knew there was something about him that I didn't like, but I thought it was just because he was annoying. I should have noticed there was something really wrong with him a lot sooner. If I had, maybe-"
"Don't," Megamind stopped him. "Don't do that." He shook his head slowly; his expression was shadowed. "This . . ." he said, ". . . this wasn't your fault."
Megamind's gaze returned to his tightened fist and Minion shifted inside his bowl. He was about to respond when Megamind picked him up again and began striding toward the monitors.
"I want to see what he looked at," he said determinedly.
He placed Minion's globe on the table beside some of the evidence they had gathered against the bomber. He also put down the expended bullet. As he did so, he spared a cursory glance for the items assembled there.
Everything was as he had left it earlier: The remains from the detonation at the museum were carefully laid out. So was the Beetle-Bomber's card that the brainbots had brought back. It was leaning against Owen's abandoned blueprint. Seeing the roll of paper caused Megamind's vision to go momentarily red, and he nearly reached out to tear the thing to shreds. The plasma-encased bomb from the prison was still there as well.
Wait.
Megamind straightened. His brow furrowed as his eyes tightened their focus upon the objects on the table. Then he suddenly turned and glanced across the room to the information scattered along the idea wall. He changed from his initial path to the monitors and took a slow step toward the dangling paper instead.
"Sir?" Minion called from behind him. While confined in his old globe, he was trapped on the table. He angled his head to try to see what Megamind was looking at. "Sir, what is it?"
Megamind stared at the gently swaying cards they had collected from all the Beetle-Bomber's attacks so far. He counted them off in his mind, matching them to each target:
The restaurant, Metro Tower, City Hall, the apartment, the museum . . . one, two, three, four, . . . five.
There were five cards on the ceiling. Minion must have hung the one from the museum with the others. There was one still trapped inside the boa plasma.
From the prison.
That made six - one for each attack.
He turned back toward the table, a cold tingle sweeping over his skin. The card propped against the blueprint Owen had left behind days ago . . . was number seven.
Again, his stomach lurched.
"It's him," Megamind breathed. He stared for a moment longer, then his eyes narrowed darkly.
"Sir?" Minion asked as Megamind charged back toward the table.
Before answering, he turned to the brainbots that were still hovering overhead. "Sweep the lair," he ordered. "Now. Make sure he hasn't left us any more . . . surprises."
As they sped off, Minion gaped at Megamind. "Sir, you think-?"
"I don't think. I know." Megamind scowled. "This . . . all of this . . ." He gestured toward the evidence on the table. "It was him."
"He's the one who planted all those explosives?" Minion gasped. "Owen?"
"All this time," Megamind muttered with a snarl. His eyes fell upon the blueprint again and he snatched it up, crunching it across the middle in his fist. "That scrawny, two-faced, manipu-late-ive, little pyromaniac!" He was tempted once again to shred the paper, but stopped abruptly.
Why was it still here? Owen had come and gone - and left it behind again. He'd even propped the newest card up against it. Why-?
Megamind placed the blueprint back on the table and swatted it open with the back of his hand. The spool of paper unrolled across the table's surface and Megamind finally looked at it carefully.
It was nonsense - just as it had been the last time he had seen it. It was ridiculous. It was a jumbled, incohesive mess. It looked like nothing more than a combination of countless random lines, arcs, angles, and circles, precisely drawn but haphazardly situated across the page. Owen had led him to believe it was a plan for some sort of undeveloped invention - like that sketch the young man had shown him several weeks ago for a ridiculous set of panoramic goggles. But unlike that previous creation, this diagram was so childishly cluttered Megamind couldn't even tell what it was supposed to be.
But maybe . . . He narrowed his eyes. . . . maybe that was the point.
Megamind stared at the image like it was an autostereogram, focusing intensely on every aspect of it at once. The random arcs, the crisscrossing lines, the numerous angles, the intersecting spirals, the nonsensical equations lining the margins. There was nothing real there.
Until, suddenly, there was.
Hidden among all the zigzagging, intersecting lines that snaked across the page . . . was the now-familiar image of the flame.
Megamind's eyes widened. It felt as though he had been punched in the gut. He hadn't seen it. He hadn't even looked. He'd simply written Owen's efforts off as insignificant child's play. Granted, he'd had no way of realizing the blueprint's importance at the time, but if he had just looked at it, something may have registered in his mind - something about the whole Beetle-Bomber case may have sparked sooner.
And Minion wouldn't have been hurt.
Megamind winced.
Owen had even tried to get him to look at it! Twice.
Megamind's hand curled, his fingertips digging into the blueprint paper and dragging it inward until it was nearly crumpled in his fist. Then he stopped, blinked, and smoothed it out again. He'd made the mistake of not giving it enough attention before. He wasn't going to make that same mistake again.
He examined the area where the flame had materialized on the page. The entire effect was a rather rudimentary optical trick, and it was actually very easy to see the flame's image now that he knew where it was. No doubt many of the other lines and figures drawn onto the paper were merely for misdirection and camouflage, but there could still be more here that was of importance.
Megamind squinted, hunching over the surface of the table. Based on what they had learned so far, the flame was more than just a symbol on a calling card; it was also meant to encompass a particular area of the city, which would mean that everything around it could also represent points on a scaled-down map.
As Megamind studied the interior of the flame, he noticed that several of the lines crisscrossing within it seemed to intersect very deliberately in one location. He needed to know exactly where that was.
"I need to see the grid of the city," he said. Then he glanced downward. Minion's eyes looked up at him helplessly from the table. The fish was still encapsulated in his sphere; he couldn't physically do anything to help.
Megamind gave his head a quick, reproachful shake. "Sorry," he muttered. Picking up the globe with Minion inside, he made his way over to the monitors.
A blinking, blue light pulsed insistently on the main control panel. It hadn't been doing that before.
"Sir!" Minion must have seen it, too.
Megamind quickly set Minion's globe on a level section of the console and furiously began twisting dials to call up the city map. He pushed a button just below the blinking light, causing a glowing point to materialize directly onto the grid. When Megamind added the superimposed image of the flame he had created the other day, the little light pulsed like a small heartbeat right in the middle of it.
The color drained from Megamind's face until his blue complexion turned almost ashen.
"Roxanne," he breathed.
Minion's eyes widened, and Megamind braced himself against the console. That light was definitely the signal from one of the tracking devices he had given to Roxanne a few months back. Considering how long she had spent as Megamind's frequent hostage, the irony of the gift had certainly not been lost on her, and she had gotten a good laugh out of it at the time. They all had. But Megamind had still wanted her to have them. He knew how villains thought, after all. In the end, she had humored him and kept them in her purse, though she had never used any of them before.
But after what Owen had done to all those buildings, and especially after what had happened here today, the fact that one of the beacons had suddenly been activated sent a stab of fear through Megamind.
"Maybe it's not him," Minion offered, reassuringly but hesitantly. "It could be something else." Even as he said them, though, the words rang hollow.
Megamind shook his head grimly. "There's an image of the flame hidden on the blueprint," he replied. "It's got a deliberate intersection drawn inside it. The locations match up." He tried to swallow, but his throat felt closed off. "He's got her, Minion. Somewhere in the park."
Minion opened his mouth to respond, when the three brainbots returned again. Megamind shook himself into action and quickly established a comlink through the control panel. Their report streamed across one of the side-monitors: no further explosives had been detected in the lair. While that, itself, was good news, it only solidified that Owen had had other reasons for coming here.
Megamind tried not to think of the robotic suit, lying still and silent across the room.
He moved to another section of screens and finally cued up the computer's history file to see a log of whatever Owen had managed to access. Megamind needed to know what he was up against.
Both he and Minion stared at the results. Owen had, apparently, viewed many of the items in the Weapons of Justice Database. With the flip of a few switches, Megamind transmitted the list through the comlink back to the brainbots.
"See if any of these are missing," he ordered them, and the robots sped off again.
It wasn't long before he had his answer: three pieces of equipment were no longer accounted for in the lair.
"The spider-bot's gone?" Minion said apprehensively.
Megamind scowled. That had the potential to be a real problem. Even more alarming, however, was that the paradox gun seemed to be missing as well. After learning more about what that particular weapon was capable of at the prison yesterday, Megamind could only imagine the prospective damage it could do in the wrong hands.
As he looked at the third missing item, Megamind raised an eyebrow. "He took the sonic cannon, too?"
Considering the other, far more lethal, weapons in the lair, that one was a strange choice. Granted, it was very intimidating to look at, and it emitted a palpable wave of energy with enough force to push a large man off his feet, but it wasn't actually dangerous. At worst, it knocked people over and made a lot of noise. Its main purpose had always been showmanship.
But if Owen had taken these things, he must have had his reasons for doing so. And after everything the young man had already done, Megamind did not want to imagine what those reasons might be.
For a moment, Megamind simply stared at the screens laid out before him, feeling bombarded, overwhelmed, and more furious than he'd ever felt in his life. He thought of all the buildings that had been targeted by the bomber - by Owen. That two-faced liar had actually grinned vapidly at Megamind in this very room only a few short days ago. He had probably remote-detonated the explosive at City Hall from here, too.
All those places that had been lost, and the places - the lives - that could have been lost because of what the young man had done. All the anonymous citizens Megamind was now sworn to protect, all the people at the prison who truly meant something to him . . .
. . . Even his best friend.
Megamind looked down at the sphere beside him. Minion still seemed slightly pale - at least as pale as a fish can look. Then he turned his head to stare at the pulsing beacon on the monitor.
And now Roxanne.
Megamind's jaw tightened and throbbed, and his fists clenched as he leaned against them upon the monitor console.
Owen had done this. All of this. Megamind recalled all the occasions when he had permitted the young man to visit the lair - often for uncomfortably long periods of time. He may not have relished Owen's company, but he had offered him nothing short of friendliness. It was far more than had ever been offered to Megamind when he had been young and looking for approval.
Besides, showing compassion was what heroes were supposed to do, wasn't it? And the ones for whom you showed compassion weren't supposed to turn around and try to destroy the things you loved. That wasn't how it was meant to happen.
Megamind already knew what it was like to lose everything. However, the first time it had happened, the cruel force that had taken away his family and his home had been the gravitational collapse of a dying star. His options for revenge had been few and futile.
But Owen? That was decidedly different. That was something he could rage against.
Megamind grit his teeth. A white-hot fury lanced through his brain. Owen Lowry was going to pay for this.
"I'm going after him." Megamind pushed away from the console. He yanked his soaking wet tie open and loosened the top buttons of the waterlogged shirt that still clung to him like a second skin. He strode purposefully across the floor of the lair.
"Yes, sir!" Minion called from behind him. He glanced up at one of the hovering brainbots. "I need a new tank for the suit right away," he ordered, and it sped off to comply.
"Override."
The brainbot stopped where it was.
Minion froze and stared at his friend. Megamind turned back to face him.
"Sir?" Minion asked in hesitant confusion. "What . . . what are you doing?"
Megamind fixed Minion with an impassive glare. "You're not coming."
Minion's eyes went impossibly wide. "Not . . . what? What do you mean? Of course I'm coming with you!"
"After what happened?" Megamind countered. "Out of the question."
"No, sir, I'm fine now. Really!" Minion insisted adamantly. He tried to push the globe forward in his resolve, but if he got any closer to the edge of the control panel, he'd roll off. "And there's nothing wrong with the suit. It's fully functional; it just needs another tank. I can-"
"No!" Megamind advanced on Minion. His eyes were steely as he leaned down to his friend's level. "After what he did to you, I'm not letting him anywhere near you again." He straightened. "Or anyone else I care about . . . ever."
Something about the unusually dark tone in Megamind's voice caused Minion to pull back within his globe. Something was wrong. Frighteningly wrong.
"Sir?" Minion said. His voice sounded very small all of a sudden. "What are you saying?"
Megamind's eyes were practically burning; the over-bright jade flashed. "I'm saying that Owen Lowry is going to pay for everything he's done," he replied. "To the people of Metrocity, to you . . . And if he so much as touches a hair on Roxanne's head . . ." He trailed off briefly, then he steadily met Minion's eyes. "I'm saying that I'm going to find him, and when I do . . . I'm going to end him."
Minion blinked. At first he simply stared, as though he was processing one of Megamind's overly elaborate plans, or attempting to decipher a haphazard new arrangement of notes on the ceiling. Megamind's words lingered in the troubling quiet that suddenly hung in the air between them.
Minion blinked again. "Sir," he murmured softly. "You can't mean-"
"What?" Megamind snapped. "Was I speaking in code?"
Minion physically recoiled. Not because Megamind had become so sharp with him - which had been known to occasionally happen - but because he actually sounded as though he meant what he had said. Literally.
"Sir-" Minion said, trying to force strength back into his voice. He swallowed and forged ahead. "Just think about what you're saying."
Megamind's body was as taut as a drawn bowstring. His entire thin frame quivered. "Think about what, exactly?" he replied. Even his voice seemed to shake from the tension in his body. "That man targeted places that were linked to me, and he went after people that I . . ." He blinked. ". . . that I love."
He pointed across the floor to the empty shell of the robotic suit. "He could have killed you, Minion," he said. "And he has Roxanne." His fists clenched tightly as he dropped them to his sides. "I'd say I'm done thinking."
"But you have to, sir," Minion persisted. "You can't go in there muscles-blazing like Metro Man. Owen left a card; he has to realize you'll figure it all out. That means he'll be waiting for you - with your own weapons. You need to-"
Megamind sneered. "Minion, the only thing I need to do is go to where he's holding Roxanne, look that contemptible liar in the eye, and then tear him to pieces."
"Sir!" Minion pleaded, aghast. This time the fish did move forward in his globe, balancing it precariously on the very edge of the console. "Sir, please . . . I know you don't want to hear this, but please take a step back and think!"
"There's nothing to think about!" Megamind shouted, advancing abruptly.
Minion flinched back in alarm.
"I thought you had died!" Megamind cried out desperately. He was immediately crouching back down to Minion's level. His voice shook, his eyes glistened, and his hands trembled as he clutched both sides of the globe, looking directly into his friend's face. "I thought you were gone! Do you know what it would have done to me if that had happened, Minion? Do you know how lost I would be without you?"
The raw emotion in Megamind's declaration caught Minion by surprise. His own words suddenly failed him. It was almost as though his best friend was breaking right before his eyes, and Minion had never felt so helpless.
"He left you suffocating on the floor of the lair," Megamind said. "I was a villain for most of my life, and I still can't even begin to fathom that kind of evil." He stood back up again and narrowed his eyes as he lowered his voice to a growl. "And now he has Roxanne."
"I know, sir," Minion floundered. "I know, but listen-"
"I was going to confess my love to her tonight, Minion. If he takes her away from me, like he almost did to you-"
"We can stop him, sir," Minion countered. "I know we can! But you need to focus. Ms. Ritchi needs you to focus. Remember how it used to be with Metro Man." Minion looked imploringly upward at Megamind. "He'd walk into our traps all the time, but he always knew what to do when-"
Minion's train of thought was abruptly cut off as Megamind's shoulders began to tremble. His green eyes closed, his face contorted. He looked as though he was having a convulsion. And then, suddenly . . . he was laughing.
"Sir?"
Megamind wrapped his arms around himself as the sudden fit of laughter died. His face remained twisted into a humorless grin - more like a grimace of pain than a smile. He shook his head and finally opened his eyes.
"Metro Man?" Megamind mused, his voice still colored with traces of unsettling laughter. "Weren't you the one who said I needed to stop trying to be so much like Metro Man? That I should do all of this my own way?" he asked darkly, clenching his fists at his sides once more. "Maybe this is my way."
"No!" Minion countered desperately. "I know you better than anyone! And I know you're a hero! You just need to clear your head and remember that!"
"I'm not feeling very heroic right now, Minion." Megamind snarled. "You think I'm going to let Owen just get away with-"
Minion pulled himself up fiercely within the sphere. "This isn't about Owen!" he countered sharply. "This is about you! Looking out for you is the most important thing in my entire life. And . . . just look at yourself, sir! Listen to what you're saying! This isn't you!"
"Maybe you don't know me as well as you think you do," Megamind hissed in response.
Minion flinched. "Sir, I know Owen turned out to be a monster, but he's still a human being. This isn't like it was with Titan, or even Metro Man - if you do something drastic trying to get revenge for what he's done, you won't be able to come back from that. Please . . ."
Minion's eyes shimmered beseechingly as he stared at his master . . . his partner . . . his friend.
"Please . . . you're the hero now."
For a long moment, Megamind only looked at him. The fish seemed so very small and helpless outside the confines of his hulking, robotic suit. Megamind always knew that Minion took his role as a protector very seriously.
. . . My sole purpose in life is to look after you . . .
Even now - though Minion was essentially powerless and trapped inside an immobile glass ball - he was still fighting with every fiber of his being to continue to be the guardian he thought Megamind needed. Not a single ounce of the fear and anxiety currently radiating off his small body was because of what had happened to him earlier today. In fact, none of it was for himself at all. It was all because he was terrified that Megamind would do something desperate and irrevocable in a misguided quest for vengeance.
Megamind's heart twisted. Knowing that just made this harder.
Gently, he placed his hand on top of Minion's sphere. The fish pressed himself upward against the inside of the globe, as though seeking the reassurance of Megamind's touch through the glass. Megamind's eyes softened somewhat as he looked down at him.
"Minion," he said. His voice was thick and plaintive. "You are my best friend. I haven't told you that nearly enough. And today I came very close to losing all my chances. I am sincerely sorry about that." He swallowed past the lump that was forming in his throat. "I've always admired the extent of your compassion. I wish I had your capacity for forgiveness." Megamind shook his head lightly before meeting Minion's eyes again.
"But I don't," he said. "And I'm sorry about that, too."
Without another word, he swept away from the console as though his long cape was still billowing behind him. He could hear Minion's continued protests at his back, but his mind was made up.
This game was over.
Megamind strode with purpose across the floor of the lair. He didn't look back.
.
.
.
.
.
To be continued . . .
Endnotes:
- The old Metro City Zoo is based, in part, on a local zoo in my hometown. It was abandoned for similar reasons, and was once ranked as the 4th worst zoo in America. Not something to be proud of, but it sort of made the place perfect for my purposes!
- I do try to respond to signed reviews whenever possible. It means so much when readers take the time to give a little feedback on my stories. Unfortunately, real life commitments and overall crazines kept me from getting back to everyone last chapter, but I certainly wasn't prevented from absorbing and appreciating every review. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
- I know many readers weren't necessarily surprised by the reveal of the villain, but I do hope I've managed to make him interesting enough to make up for it. There is a short supply of characters from which to choose a villain in this canon universe, and I'm not fond of parading a multitude of OCs in front of readers just for the purpose of being misleading. It bogs things down, and I don't like doing that. I'm pleased that, as original characters go, Owen seems relatively well-received so far.
- I did want to respond, specifically, to alagaesian, who reviewed anonymously and whose feedback was so thorough and thoughtful that it left me smiling for days. I truly, truly appreciate it! (And I agree that my beta does a wonderful job!) I know the turn of events in this chapter negates one of your guesses, but I hope it did so in a satisfactory way, and that you continue to enjoy the story!
Thank you again, everyone! So very much! I hope you enjoy what's to come!