Something was tickling her bare shoulder. "Time to wake up, Roxanne," Megamind's voice was smooth and quiet.

"Uuuuurrrrrggggg," she complained and snuggled deeper into the blankets.

"Oh, no you don't," he chuckled and pulled the covers back down. She tried to glare at him, but his smile got in the way. "There are those beautiful blue eyes I love! Good morning, Sweetheart!"

"It's too early to be morning," she insisted, rubbing a hand over her face.

"A faulty hypothesis, I'm afraid. It's a quarter past six ante meridiem, and that is firmly classified as morning."

She groaned.

"I have coffee."

"You'd better," she joked drowsily.

"Come on. Drink up and dress in something comfortable. We start training today."

"Training?" she sat up, swinging her bare feet to the floor, and accepted the warm drink. It was in a black cup belonging to Megamind's impressive collection of novelty mugs, this one sporting the words: "THINGS TO DO: 1.) Coffee; 2.) World Domination."

Megamind sat beside her and ran a gentle hand up and down her bare back. "If you insist on putting yourself in danger, you're going to at least know how to handle it."

"And it has to be this early?" She took a sip, relishing the smooth, rich flavor. It was strong and just a little sweet with lots of milk, exactly the way she liked it.

"Seven days a week," Megamind answered. "I do have other work to do, too, you know," he added with an expressive eyebrow in response to her protesting noise.

"I know. I've gotten spoiled and lazy, sleeping late so much here."

He leaned in to press a kiss against her temple, but his voice was full of wry humor when he said: "Well, then, consider this good for your moral character."

"Villain," she teased. "I don't suppose I could talk you into coming back to bed and keeping me warm?"

"I am sure you could, Temptress," he said, jumping to his feet, "Which is why I shall be waiting in the workroom, safe from your seductive wiles."

"Not fair."

He turned back at the door, grinning and holding his arms wide. "Then you'll just have to come and get me, won't you?"

"It isn't much," Megamind warned her as he opened a door and flipped on a light.

She looked around at the small concrete room— probably a large supply closet originally— with its single punching bag and floor pads.

"I've never needed more than the basics," he was saying. "I learned to fight in jail, after all."

"From Uncle Kip?" Roxanne guessed.

"Yes— well, he taught me boxing and mixed martial arts. I learned to fence from Ares."

"Of course he would like swords."

"Rapiers."

"Right. They're still swords. Where did he even learn to fence?"

"He came from a wealthy family, and attended an elite boys school before he decided murder was more his style."

"And Kip was more the hand to hand type?"

"He was a champion street fighter before he was arrested."

"Is that why he went to jail?"

"Sort of. His wife was killed one night— shot through the car window when she pulled into the driveway— and Kip found out the people backing his opponent in the upcoming fight had intended the bullet for him. They were poised to lose a fortune. Anyway, when he got into to ring, no one could stop him. He beat his opponent to death. After that, he went after the backers; caught one of them in a brothel behind a sleazy strip club, another two in a gambling parlor… I'm told both scenes were a bloody mess."

"That's… intense…"

"As I said, people didn't cross Kip, but he wasn't a bad man, not really. He protected me when I was small."

"Megamind, you just told me he killed four people."

"True, but I can't really blame him. I shudder to think what I might do if I ever lost you that way," he began stretching one arm across his body. "Which brings us back to the issue at hand," he continued. "Ordinary people think only big, buff bruisers win fights, but that isn't true. The secret is understanding your body and knowing how to use it. You, like me, have a small frame. To win, you need to be three things: quick, agile, and cunning."

"Okay, where do we start?"

"Basic self-defense. Our priority right now is to prepare you in case you need to defend yourself when Ares makes his move. If our guess about the daughter on school break is correct— and I think it is— she'll be going back on January 7th. That gives us only eighteen days."

"Eighteen? It should be nineteen, shouldn't it?"

He gave her a look. "The twenty-fifth is Christmas. Even I'm not evil enough to make you work on a major holiday. Anyway, the point is that I can't turn you into a fighter in that short time, but I can teach you some… sneaky techniques that use your opponents' weight and size against them. We can adopt a more gradual and thorough routine after Ares is behind bars. Be warned," he gently grasped her forearms and looked sincerely into her face, so close she could see herself reflected in his gaze. "Our time frame means I'm going to have to train you hard. It's going to be rough. If you're not up for that, you can tell me. I won't think less of you, but I will demand that you sit this battle out."

She nodded with determination. "I'm pretty tough. I can take it."

There was something almost like pride in his smile. "That's my girl," he said and kissed her gently. "Alright," he added, all business again. "Let's get started. Warm-ups and stretches. Follow me."

He hadn't been joking. Despite a decided distaste for dieting, Roxanne was physically fit. She jogged every morning, walked or biked most places, and, before Ares had interrupted her life, had been taking weekly yoga and Pilates classes. However, by the time Megamind finally ended their training session, nearly three hours later, she had decided that his regime qualified less as exercise and more as some kind of self-torture. She was soaked with sweat and aching all over. The terrycloth headband he had loaned her had long since lost its battle against her perspiration, and her eyes were half-blind and stinging no matter how often she wiped them. There was a tight, hot soreness on her back, and Roxanne was fairly certain she was going to have bruises. Megamind, although apologizing with each repetition, had relentlessly thrown her to the mat every time she failed to complete the move he was showing her. He insisted she needed to treat training as a real fight, and, apparently, the approach worked. In the end, she had been able to execute the maneuver several times: twisting around him, knocking him off balance with a kick to the back of the knee, and using her own leverage, along with his momentum, to send him sprawling backward.

Afterward, she stumbled back to the living quarters for a hot shower and a change of clothes. Roxanne was sorely tempted to crawl into bed and nap, but she gritted her teeth against the impulse. Megamind, apparently, trained like this regularly— although perhaps not always for quite so long— yet he still always put in a full day of work afterward. She would do the same.

Indeed, when Roxanne made her way downstairs, she found the blue hero already in the control room examining live footage captured by brainbots patrolling the city.

Minion came in dressed in his Kiss the Cook apron and bearing a tray. "Breakfast!" he announced, proffering two plates along with two cups of coffee. "I thought grilled cheese and egg sandwiches would be easier to eat while you worked. How was training, Miss Ritchi?"

"Pretty good. I beat your boss's butt," she answered, accepting one of the plates.

"She did not," Megamind retorted, eyes still on the monitor.

"Anything interesting, Sir?" Minion asked, nodding toward the monitors as he set his master's plate on the edge of the console.

"Nothing yet," Megamind answered, reaching absently for his meal. "Well, there were some youngsters who thought it might be funny the spray paint rude things on the back of their school building, but the brainbots scared them off."

"You didn't want to put the fear of you into them?"

Megamind finished chewing a bite before he answered. "Why would I? Hardly worth the effort. Just self-expression, really," he grinned. "Besides, for all I know, Principal Mike Slavinski really is a big-butt jerk-face."

"Right," Roxanne said, playing along as she sipped her coffee. "Maybe he's the one you should be worried about. You could go lecture him about— oh, I don't know— positive learning environments. And maybe carbs."

"Oh, no, I do a lot of things Metro Man did, but I draw the line at Public Service Announcements. Besides, carbohydrates are good for the brain," he added, tapping the side of his large head with one hand and lifting his sandwich in the other.

"Did they really write out his full name like that, too? When I was a kid a didn't even know my principal's first name."

"They looked to be first or second graders," he explained. "And they had an entire debate about whether they should be very clear about which Principal Slavinski they meant, in case there was more than one around town. It was actually almost endearing in a destruction-of-property sort of way. Ollo!" Megamind added and wheeled his chair closer to one of the monitors. "What's this?"

Wiping her hands on a napkin, Roxanne walked up behind him. On one side of the screen, she could make out three men sitting in a car in an alleyway. Through the alley opening, she could make out the word "Bank" on a building across the street from them. One of the men slid something black into his waistband as they exited the car.

Megamind turned to Roxanne and lifted an eyebrow. "Ready for some more action?"