Author's Note: Only one chapter, this time — my Muse, Dementia, was kind and decided to spare my aching right arm, which is now in a sling for a bit. Don't worry, though: where there's a will there's a way, and Dementia has a lot of will when it comes to this story! There may be a bit more time between chapters, but so long as I don't overdo, the writing will continue. Thanks to all my readers for their patience, and to all my reviewers for their kind comments. Oh, and Dragon's Lover1: I believe you may now be Number Three. ;) Enjoy!
XIV
The Rendezvous
Less than twenty minutes later, the storm had passed, rolling off to the east like a grumbling, ill-tempered giant. While it was still in its death throes, flinging the worst of its rain and wind and even a few flecks of hail against the bluffs, Megamind had suggested that they sit on the stone slab through which the cedar tree and another like it had somehow managed to break through and grow. Even though sitting directly on the stone made the vibrations of the waves pummeling the bluffs more noticeable, it was a considerably more stable position, as it gave the raging wind and rain less of a profile to push against.
Feeling vastly more secure in that posture, Roxanne was better able to appreciate the power of the storm, as she felt herself now an observer rather than a victim. When she grumped about leaving her camera back in the car, Megamind laughed, pointing out that she had clearly gotten over the worst of her fear if she was able to gripe about not being able to take pictures of what had frightened her so badly just a short time ago. It was a valid observation that brought a smile to the reporter's face, and the droll admission that if she had brought it, the camera probably would've flown off the bluff or been smashed during the unanticipated rescue. After that, they settled down to wait out the remains of the storm, in much better humor.
When the rain had finally ended, the wind continued to blow strongly, though not as viciously as before, and they decided it was time to leave. Climbing back up the slope even at its most gently inclined spot was a challenging and overall ludicrous proposition, since there was still a lot of runoff rain keeping things muddy and slippery. But soon, the danger of slipping and falling into the still angry lake lessened without fresh rain creating an endless flow of water, and the difficulty quickly became a competition. Whenever one would start to make decent progress up the slope, the other would deliberately sabotage it, with both of them winding up right back where they'd started, often on their backsides, hurling harmless threats at each other and inevitably ending in laughter. Finally, when they were both a muddy mess and their borrowed jackets looked as if they'd have to be purchased due to permanent stains, they called an end to their good-humored skirmish and together found a way up the slope and back to the grassy park area.
After cleaning themselves as best they could without the convenience of a shower, they bundled up the soiled jackets, tucked them in with the grocery bags, and used the car's travel blankets to protect the seats before they climbed in and set off again. The storm had left leaves and twigs and some small branches on the road, but nothing large enough to block their way. With the sun out once more, Roxanne felt more herself again, and opted to drive, just to prove to herself that she was over her jitters. It was now around five, late in the afternoon, though sunset was still hours away.
"Well, do you think you're over your fear of storms?" Megamind asked as he wrestled off one of his shoes, opened the passenger's side window, and shook out a few pebbles that had worked their way in during their hillside battle. "Or did this just make it worse?"
"I thought it might've at first," Roxanne admitted, running one hand through her hair, which had managed to get damp and tangled when her hood had fallen back during their rounds of playing King/Queen of the Slope. "And I don't really think I'm over it, but it wasn't as bad as I'd been expecting, either. Nearly falling off the bluff, that was bad, and after that, the storm didn't seem quite so terrifying. Having you there helped, a lot."
He grinned impishly as he tossed the shoe onto the floor and pulled off the other. "All part of the hero service — with certain extra... ah... benefits, just for you," he said in his best silky purr. "I'm not sure that I'll ever be half as good at providing reassurance for anyone else."
"You'd better not be!" she warned, laughing. "I don't mind you rescuing other women who might be younger and prettier when they're in real danger, but if you're thinking about looking for a new professional damsel in distress as a publicity stunt, think again!"
Megamind's injured pout was almost as good as his kicked puppy face. "Roxanne, I'm wounded, right to the heart! Not only am I the hero, now, have I ever shown the least bit of interest in having anyone take your place, in any way?"
She made a show of considering the question. "I don't know, you seemed to be pretty interested in Cleo Matthews when she started filling in for me as a field reporter in April..."
Now, the pout vanished to be replaced by an extravagant roll of his eyes. "Oh, please, I wasn't interested in her, I was just curious to see what kind of person your station managers thought could be a suitable replacement for perfection! She's nothing but a skinny blonde bimboo!"
"Uh-huh. And why did I see at least a dozen pictures of her on your computer?"
"Because I was making precise scientific measurements to determine whether or not one of her eyes really is bigger than the other. And it is, her left eye is two millimeters wider than her right — it's also 1.4 millimeters higher, and 2.3 millimeters farther from the ridge of her nose. It's no wonder Minion keeps wondering if she was hired because she's a recovering stroke victim, and the station thought it would be kind to hire the handicapped. I've never asked, is she?"
He was so plainly serious, Roxanne's noble efforts to refrain from laughing met with utter failure in a matter of seconds. "Of course she isn't! Honestly, the two of you can be impossible! What did you do when I first showed up on KMCP, do exacting analysis to determine whether or not I slouch because one of my breasts is bigger than the other — no, don't you dare answer that!" she ordered as her blue boyfriend opened his mouth to answer. "I slouch sometimes because I have lousy posture when I'm tired, and that's the only reason!"
When she was met with silence, she looked away from the road long enough to see Megamind smiling at her in a familiarly charming — and playfully suggestive — manner. "Really, my dear Roxanne, don't you think I already know the answer to that?"
Her cheeks and ears suddenly flared red, realizing that she'd stuck both feet in her mouth, all on her own. The swat she aimed in his direction was weak, but not her chuckle. "Okay, I asked for that! And I guess I started it, too — I know you're not interested in anyone else."
"Very true," he agreed. "I've told you a million times, there's no way to improve on perfection!"
Roxanne might have argued with that estimation — especially in her currently bedraggled condition — but she wasn't keen to risk tasting her toes again, so she wisely let him have his way. Being thought of as perfect by one's significant other wasn't too much of a burden to bear, anyway.
The route she'd initially planned to take to return to Sister Bay was the fastest one, via highway 57, but as they were passing through Jacksonport, she spotted a sign out in front of a lakeside restaurant just up ahead, proclaiming that they were having fish boils tonight, beginning in less than fifteen minutes. She remembered then that they would pass several more such places if they stayed on this route. Megamind was currently in the process of putting his shoes back on after stripping off his all but ruined socks, so she made a last-second change of course before he spotted the sign and launched into one of his tirades on the barbarism of boiling poor unsuspecting piscines with onions and potatoes. The turn was a little less smooth than she would've liked, and caused her bent-over boyfriend's big head to smack the passenger's door.
"Hey, look out!" came his shrill protest as he twisted out of his very odd position and sat up straight, rubbing his head. "What was that all about?"
"Sorry, hon," she soothed apologetically. "I guess I took that turn a little too fast. I was just thinking that if we stuck to the highway all the way back, we wouldn't pass any of the farms you thought might be good turkey-spotting areas. I figured this would be a better way to go for that, unless you'd rather just head straight home."
"Oh, no!" he said, eagerly accepting her blithe alibi. "It doesn't make that much of a difference in the length of the trip, and I think you were right about this being a good time, with them wanting to come out to find food after the storm. Excellent idea!" Cheered by the prospect of a second turkey sighting in one day, he completely forgot about his bumped noggin and finished putting on his shoes. He sounded so excited by the possibility, Roxanne hoped they did manage to catch sight of at least a couple of the big birds, or she'd feel like a bit of a heel, using that as a way of explaining the turn that had whacked his head.
The storms had drenched the entire peninsula, though some areas appeared to have been less battered by the high winds. More people were out and about now, if traffic on the highway had been any indication, but the narrower interior roads were still quiet; only occasionally did they encounter another car. After heading due north for a bit, they turned off onto one of the even smaller roads that ran through both farm fields, orchards, and more heavily wooded areas. The road twisted about for a few miles, then came to a flat stretch where the broad, open fields of crops were neatly divided by narrower strips of woodland. One field was split between some low-growing crop and several rows of short orchard trees. It was still several hours until sunset, but the shadows were starting to get a bit longer as the sun started its descent toward the horizon. As the Corvette neared the field to the west of the orchard, strange black shapes moved across it, headed for the first row of trees.
Megamind saw the peculiar shapes, frowning as he tried to make sense of them. "Roxanne, do they have velociraptors in Wisconsin?"
"Not for at least few million years, if they ever did," she quipped rather than ask where that had come from.
"Are you sure?"
"Pretty sure. Why?"
"Because I can see five or six of them crossing that field."
Roxanne slammed on the brakes. "Are you pulling my leg?" she demanded, nonetheless curious enough to want to see for herself.
"While you're driving?" He wrinkled his blue nose. "I think we've risked our lives enough for one day. Look!"
He pointed to the alfalfa field outside his window. Roxanne leaned down and over to see what he was indicating. Sure enough, perhaps two hundred feet away was a group of large, dark creatures, much smaller than the unrealistically large velociraptors shown in Jurassic Park, but startlingly similar in shape and moving in much the same oddly bobbing fashion. As she squinted, trying to make out details, the reporter noticed that their shadows and the bright sunlight were distorting things, making them appear bigger than they actually were. She could also see that within the orchard were even more of their kind, poking around between the rows of trees.
She grinned. "Well, if the scientists who speculate that dinosaurs evolved into birds are right, then maybe you've found some of their descendants. Those are wild turkeys, sweetie, like the ones that almost ran us over earlier. They're probably stuffing themselves silly on cherries that were knocked down by the storms."
The alien's green eyes lit with excitement. "I want to get a closer look," he said, unbuckling his seatbelt.
"Not a problem," the brunette told him as she released her own seatbelt to reach behind the seats. "I brought the binoculars out with my camera. They should be right here under these grocery bags..."
"No, no, I want to get closer to them, not just squint at them through overgrown glasses!"
"I don't know if you can," she was almost sorry to say as she continued to pull out her optical equipment. "They'll probably run off if you get too close."
"The fox didn't," was his ever-so-logical pronouncement.
She chuckled. "Maybe not, but that was just one young fox, from what you told me. It probably didn't know any better. This looks like a flock of full-grown adults. They might be afraid if you came too close."
"It's called a rafter," Megamind corrected with a sniff. "And maybe they wouldn't be afraid of me. You never were, after all." The ex-villain sounded undecided as to whether he should feel proud or annoyed over what he'd just said.
Roxanne merely smiled. "Ah, but I was on to you from the start — even before I knew it. If you want to try, go right ahead. But I think I'll hang back here with my camera. One person might not bother them, but two could make 'em nervous. Besides, the event should be recorded for posterity: the first contact between turkey and alien in history! With both sides alive and uncooked, of course."
Her encouragement, such as it was, buoyed his spirits again. Now with her camera out and ready, Roxanne switched off the car's engine. "Try not to make any loud noises or sudden movements," she suggested as her beau was about to open his door. When the green eyes glanced at her over one slender shoulder, puzzled, she explained. "My dad used to hunt, I heard a lot of stories about what you should and shouldn't do in the field when he was complaining about the guys he went hunting with being incompetent jerks. Go on already, you don't need to waste time listening to me lecture!" She made shooing motions with one hand, urging him to get moving before the opportunity was lost.
Grinning, Megamind followed her instructions. Opening the door ever so carefully, he stepped out, one leg at a time, gingerly placing each foot precisely, so as to avoid any noisy crunch of gravel.
The birds — those still ambling across the field and the ones in the cherry orchard — gave no sign that they noticed.
Once he was out, he left the door open rather than risk making noise by closing it. He fairly tiptoed onto the weedy grasses beyond the pebbled shoulder, then paused as he came to a drainage ditch that ran parallel to the road. It was half-filled with rainwater, so with exaggerated care, he stepped across it, stretching his lanky legs like a cartoon stork attempting to cover in one step a distance just a little too long for his stride. He wobbled for a moment, one foot on each side, his eyes wide with the horror of an impending slip on the wet grasses, then sighed with relief as he managed to pull himself across the swale, still standing and reasonably stable. With the crisis narrowly averted, he steadied himself and continued on.
The turkeys still didn't appear to notice, or care, that he was there.
Made confident by his success thus far — never mind that "thus far" covered perhaps ten feet, tops — Megamind continued his stalk across the field. It was rather an amusing thing to watch, Roxanne decided while she captured the historic event on video. At this point in its development, alfalfa didn't keep itself in neat little rows that one could easily step between; its mature upper growth formed a sort of huge and springy tangle that only horses and cows and creatures armed with sharp hoofs — or the splayed, claw-tipped feet of long-legged birds like turkeys — could navigate with any ease whatsoever. Not only did Megamind's big blue head and thin blue arms stand out against the largely green background of the field, his need to move with exaggerated mincing steps, trying to keep his legs from becoming hopelessly stuck in the living spider-web, was both obvious and hilarious. From her vantage, now sitting on the edge of the passenger's seat in the car, Roxanne found herself stuffing one fist into her mouth to keep from laughing aloud, which would certainly irritate her boyfriend and give the turkeys an excuse to leave.
To his credit, however, the slender alien managed to cover more than half the distance before any of the big birds noticed, or bothered to notice. He'd gotten one foot caught in a particularly tight knot of alfalfa and had needed to flail his arms to save himself from falling face first into it. The motion got the attention of one the birds moving toward the orchard. It stopped, raised its head, and looked in Megamind's direction. He saw it, and froze. Bird and alien simply stood there for several moments, the green eyes wide and awed, the black ones beady and curious.
The "standoff" ended with the bird blinking first — or rather, it cocked its wrinkly head, stretched its long neck, and gave a peculiar sound, something like a popping cluck and a low trill. In response, other heads came up, both from the turkeys in the field and in the orchard. The same noises came from some of the other birds as those in the orchard whose attention had been piqued moved to the edge of the field. Megamind, still motionless, now found himself the object of attention for ten pairs of beady black eyes.
He blinked at them, delighted and fascinated; they blinked at him, seemingly puzzled and curious.
He took a step forward, and their eyes followed him.
He took a step to the right, and their heads and eyes followed him.
He took a step to the left, and their heads and eyes followed him again.
This was great! They were showing signs of a classic scientific method type of thinking. Initiate action, observe reaction. Make test, study results. Perhaps these birds were as intelligent as the articles he'd read had claimed.
He took another step forward. They took a step forward.
Interesting. Imitation, or perhaps an attempt to communicate?
He took another step forward. They took two steps forward.
Or...
He stepped sideways. They took three steps forward. Toward him.
Uh-oh.
What was it Roxanne had said, about turkeys being the descendants of velociraptors?
He swallowed. She could hear it all the way back at the car.
He took a big step backward, one foot catching in the alfalfa, stumbling slightly. They took yet another step forward, and kept on stepping. Faster. And faster. Definitely toward him.
oh,no
With a yelp, Megamind spun about, suddenly not as thrilled with his notion of getting close to these critters. He remembered something he'd read about turkeys and literal pecking orders and how they would apply that treatment to humans, and now, the notion of getting back into the safety of the car seemed like a truly excellent plan.
The alfalfa, however, had other ideas. As he turned to put some distance between himself and the trotting turkeys, his legs and feet tangled with the almost knee-high forage plants. The alien tried to pull himself free to run, but only ended up compounding the problem, which came to an end as he pitched forward into the alfalfa, loosing a mighty, totally undignified shriek.
Roxanne was finding it very hard to keep from doubling over with laughter. Especially when out in the field, her blue hero's voice came shrilling, "Roxanne, they're coming after me! For the love of God, helllllllppp!"
He sounded truly frightened, which, between the entangling nature of the plants and his virtually complete lack of experience with critters in the wild was completely understandable. His girlfriend, however, wasn't sure what she could do, since she wasn't exactly close and the alfalfa would be as much of a problem for her to navigate as it was for Megamind — possibly even more, since she was not in as good as shape as he was, nor as inhumanly nimble. She was nothing if not resourceful, however, so even as she kept the camera aimed at the goings-on in the field, she looked around the shoulder for rocks, empty cans, anything she might use to throw at the birds and get them to scatter. She didn't have a professional pitcher's arm, but she knew how to use a sling, and one of the plastic grocery bags would serve admirably, with proper ammunition.
Unfortunately, the litter problem in this area appeared to be non-existent, and the gravel not much bigger than marble-sized chunks. She glanced again at her beau in the field and saw him flailing about to free himself from the web of alfalfa plants with the turkeys — now an even dozen of them — closing in fast. Noise obviously was no deterrent to them, given the sounds Megamind was making as he fought the Alfalfa Battle. She was about to go for the jars of jam and use them for ammunition — with the hope that she didn't hit the poor downed alien — when the big birds reached him. As they ringed him, bending their long necks toward him — looking for all the world like a pack of hoods poking at a cornered victim, sizing him up — Roxanne began groping through the bags behind the seats more frantically, searching for anything she could use as ammo. She heard a few frightened squeaks from Megamind's direction, not ones of pain — not yet — so she just grabbed one of the bags and pulled it out, hoping it had something in it she could use. She was looking down at the contents of the bag when new sounds came from the field.
Roxanne could only find two ways to describe the noises: "What the heck is this?" and "Hey, check this out!" Not words, but clucky, trillish, cackly bird sounds, curious, not threatening. The reporter suspended her search to look back at the field, camera still recording.
From Megamind's point of view, he was surrounded, ringed in by enemies — it felt like dodgeball in the schoolyard all over again. He couldn't get himself out of the dratted tangle of plant life fast enough to escape or even regain his feet before they had him trapped, and lacking any kind of weapon, he reverted to instinct: he curled up, covering his head with his hands, hoping that if he looked small and harmless enough, they'd just go away. That tactic hadn't helped him much over the years, but under the circumstances, it was the best he could do. The attack would come, any second now...
"Brrrrrrrrrt?"
"Dookdookdook drrrrrrrrrpt?"
"Brrrrt brrrrt brrrrt dookdook brrrrt!"
The odd sounds were coming from all around him, as the birds appeared to be discussing his fate. He'd seen punks doing this to their victims, debating how best to carve them up for punishment — God, why did he have to even think the word "carve?" — then move in for the kill, or at the very least the beating up.
But when something poked him, first on the shoulder, then on the butt, it wasn't sharp or pointy or painful. It felt like poking, the way one might hesitantly prod something when they weren't quite sure what it was, whether it was safe or not. And the sounds weren't at all threatening; there was something almost... amused about them.
Could birds be amused?
Whatever the birds were thinking or feeling, they weren't going away, and their conversation stayed at the same curious and nonthreatening level. Finally, realizing that he could be curled up here for hours if something didn't change the status quo — not a prospect he relished — Megamind loosened his tightly huddled stance to lift his head just enough to crack one eye and have a look at the situation.
"Brrrrrrrrrrt?"
He found himself looking quite closely at the odd face of a turkey, perhaps a foot or so away, its head cocked and black eyes regarding him with either total confusion or curious interest. Another head appeared nearby, wearing a similar look, and he could hear the odd clucks and purrs of their avian conversation all around. When he felt another inquisitive head butt his opposite shoulder, he glanced that way and saw three more heads leaning toward him, little black eyes inspecting him closely as the birds continued to cluck and thrum to each other. On the whole, they seemed vastly more curious than aggressive.
Okay, he told himself, time to decide. Either he could continue crouching there like a big-headed blue lump until the turkeys lost interest in him — risking serious damage to his public image, not to mention his ego, if people drove by and spotted the Defender of Metro City sniveling in the face of a bunch of birds — or he could move, get up, and either figure out what they were up to or get the hell out of there. The question was which would be worse, a potential bruise to his ego or the possibility of multiple bruises to his body.
"Hey, hon, are you okay?" Roxanne's concerned voice came floating over from the roadside.
He sighed. And there was the ego bruise of looking like a total wimp in front of his girlfriend to be considered, too. In the end, looking back on his twenty years of losing to Metro Man, he knew which would take less time to heal. "I'm fine," he called back, causing the turkeys to draw back just a bit, heads bobbing. Taking a deep breath, Megamind made his decision and slowly started disentangling himself from the alfalfa, preparing to stand.
The birds started clucking and trilling more vigorously as he very cautiously plucked his limbs free of the vegetation and got his feet under him again. Once he was upright, they moved a bit closer to him, heads bobbing and necks stretching and beaks poking about, not attacking but simply investigating. He noticed only then that all of the birds lacked the weird fleshy bits and red markings that so many people considered the "proper" turkey face, nor were they quite as large as the group that had run in front of their car earlier in the day. This was a flock of hens, not toms, and there was apparently something about him that intrigued them.
After a minute or so of being checked out by the feathered ladies, he tried to take a step back toward the road. That seemed to stir them up a bit, not in an aggressive way, but with clucking and trilling and another sound that could only be described as a putting noise. When he stopped moving, they quieted a little, but did not stop. One of the hens came up behind him and nudged him in the butt, making him take another step forward. The sounds picked up again, and continued when he took another step, then another. Going slowly, taking care not to get tripped either by the birds or the alfalfa, Megamind kept moving toward the road, one step at a time.
His continued movement appeared to excite them for some reason, as the clucking and putting got louder. Several of the hens moved out in front of him, not trying to trip him but walking ahead of him, taking the point in the same direction. The one most directly before him began to vocalize up a storm, which seemed to irritate those on either side of it. The two pecked at the middle bird repeatedly, until she finally had enough of the mistreatment and went flapping off into the orchard. One of the two that had driven her off took her place, putting and clucking loudly, bobbing head held high, until the other bird and two more who came in from the sides laid into her, driving her off. This strange squabbling kept up until finally, they came close enough to the road for Roxanne to fling a small hail of gravel their way, convincing the girls to give up whatever they were trying to accomplish with Megamind and head off into the safety of the orchard. Some of the noises they made now were distinctly irritated and angry, but a second shower of gravel convinced them to retreat.
When he reached the drainage ditch and carefully made his way across it, the alien could see Roxanne leaning against the hood of the car, laughing so hard she could barely breathe. "Okay," he surrendered as he approached the car, thinking he understood what was going on. "So I made a fool of myself, getting chased by a gaggle of turkeys. But I was right; they weren't afraid of me!"
"That's true," she agreed between gasps for air as her laughter subsided. "They were trying to adopt you!"
He stopped dead in his tracks, blinking. "What?"
The reporter was now in better control of her voice, though she was grinning widely, eyes dancing. "That was a flock of hens, right?"
He didn't see her point. "Yes. So?"
"So, it's August, and they're probably all empty nesters, the babies they had in the spring all grown up now. You're the one who's been reading about wild turkeys, lately. Don't you get it?"
He considered what she'd said for a moment or two, then shook his head. "No. Why would they want to adopt me? I don't look anything like a baby turkey — which is called a poult, by the way. I don't have feathers..."
"And neither do the toms, on their heads. You probably don't look or even smell exactly like a human to them, but when toms get excited, their heads change color. Sometimes red, sometimes blue. At least that's what I learned back in the Scouts."
As this sank into his oversized head, Megamind's face purpled. "Are you saying they were trying to mate with me?"
Roxanne couldn't help it; she laughed again. "No, sweetie. I think they were trying to get you to recognize one of them as your mother."
That didn't lessen the color in his cheeks, but it brought a lopsided smile to his face. "My mother? Because I don't have hair and my head is blue?"
She shrugged. "Could be. It happens with female animals sometimes, when they've just recently lost the last of their babies, either because they've grown up or died. Maybe to them, you just looked like a big baby tom who needs a mother."
Megamind pondered this, then sighed. "Great, first I have a mama fish who isn't even female keeping tabs on me, and now I have wild hens wanting to be my mommy. If you recorded this, you will never, I repeat never show this to anyone but the two of us and Minion!"
The blue eyes sparkled. "What, not even to Wayne?" she asked impishly.
He was dead serious. "Especially not to Wayne! If he gets the idea that even wild animals think I'm suffering from the lack of a mother figure in my life, he'll try to foist his mother on me! Would you want Lady Scott pushed on you as a substitute mother figure?"
Roxanne shook her head at once, remembering a time when Wayne had attempted that with her, after discovering the poor relationship she had with her divorced parents. "Not for all the money in the world. I won't show Wayne or even tell him about this, I promise, not unless you ask me to. I wouldn't wish an afternoon with Lady Scott on my own worst enemy!"
"And who would that be, these days?" her beau wondered as she set aside her makeshift sling and returned her camera to its case.
Her smile was odd. "I promised I wouldn't even say his name for the rest of our trip," she pointed out. Which was all the answer Megamind needed. The less said or even thought about Stewart Mitchell, the better.
They couldn't have known that at that very moment, back in Metro City, an increasingly frustrated Stewart Mitchell had just finished a conversation with one Martin Nowicki, the cameraman who had been Hal's permanent replacement. He and Roxanne had gotten along very well, partly because he was a genuinely nice person, and partly because being a gay man in a long-term, very committed relationship, he was not interested in Roxanne in any way but as a friend and co-worker and never would be (which, after the very creepy and eventually genuinely evil Hal, was a considerable relief and reassurance to Roxanne). When she had been promoted into the new position as an in-depth reporter and feature interviewer, Roxanne had asked to continue her working relationship with Marty. Given his own designs on the woman, Mitchell had considered Marty an excellent choice, since he would never present any possible competition, and had agreed to it.
After Roxanne had blown up in his face, Mitchell's first reactions had been entirely angry, toward her and anyone even remotely associated with her. When Jack Kincaid, the head of the station, had suspended him, pending a full investigation into allegations of sexual harassment, Mitchell had regretted his own foolishness in assuming that he'd had enough time to make Roxanne see the error of her ways. He simply hadn't been directly involved with her long enough for her to understand on her own that she'd been wasting her time with that blue freak and should instead take a chance with the obviously superior choice: a real man, namely himself. His timing had clearly been off, and he'd made a bad choice in trying to force her to stay rather than continue cajoling her after she'd refused to take her vacation with him. He could've waited; after all, things were never going to change. Megamind would always be a skinny alien thing, an ex-convict without the proper kind of resources and wealth that someone like Roxanne should enjoy, while he, Stewart Mitchell, would always be a person with means and options that would be forever denied the blue creature because when all was said and done, he wasn't even human.
Why a sharp cookie like Roxanne Ritchi hadn't already seen this was beyond him, but since she hadn't, he should've bided his time and waited a little longer before presenting her with plans that she couldn't yet appreciate. Still, he didn't believe that it was too late. If he could only talk to her, try to explain to her that he hadn't meant to pressure her that way, that he'd just sounded a bit harsh because he'd been confused and maybe a little upset, he knew he could persuade her to end this idea of pressing charges. If she was capable of showing pity to a monster that had kidnapped her and endangered her life on a regular basis for nearly twelve years, she could surely show him some sympathy for having made just one thoughtlessly rash mistake. He firmly believed it.
Trouble was, he couldn't get in touch with her, no matter how hard he tried. He'd done everything he could think of to contact her, but for over a week, all his attempts had dead ended with her voice mail, no matter where he called from, no matter what kind of persuasive messages he left. He was eventually convinced that she'd turned off her phone and was simply letting her voice mail pick up any calls until she returned from wherever she'd gone, so he'd abandoned that approach. He knew there was no way he could try to contact her via Megamind or his ridiculous henchman; even if he knew how to call them, he was quite sure that Roxanne would've told them what had happened at the office, and he had no desire to invite revenge from that crazy blue alien. But he did need to talk with her — if not for the sake of the future they might have together, then for the sake of his own endangered job.
Once Kincaid had suspended him, though, word of the reason had spread like wildfire, and he soon found that no one at the station would talk with him, there or elsewhere. The only reason he'd been able to do so with Marty had come about through pure luck. He spotted the cameraman apparently walking home from the station after work and had stopped to offer him a ride. Marty hadn't been happy to see him — like everyone else, he'd no doubt heard the rumors, or had even been given details by Roxanne — and had bluntly refused the lift. When Mitchell tried to tell him that the whole situation at the station was a huge misunderstanding that he honestly wanted to clear up, Marty had said that he wasn't going to play devil's advocate for him, and if Mitchell had any explaining to do, he'd just have to wait until Ms Ritchi came back from Wisconsin to tell her.
Bingo.
Granted, it wasn't much, but it was a lot more specific than "just about anywhere in the world," and it was close. Even though he was in trouble at KMCP, Mitchell still had connections, and he was dead certain that there was no way in hell that Megamind could go for an entire month without causing some kind of trouble, no matter where he was. It was only a matter of time before someone in their bucolic neighboring state reported an incident involving the skinny little blue twerp, and when they did, he'd have his chance.
Yes, indeed. It was only a matter of time before he had his opportunity to work his personal magic, and if things went as they naturally should, the perfect Mrs. Stewart Mitchell would finally be his.
To be continued...