Warning: more gore, an explosion, death of a child.

I don't want to swamp readers with tons of names of background characters that only appear once, but sometimes I don't realize how often I'll use a minor character. Like the sewer guy. I only meant to use him as a way of informing Megamind of certain facts, and here he's shown up three times already. So I gave him a name, just so I don't have to keep calling him "the sewer guy."


"You might be right, you might be wrong, but you had to choose, knowing that the rightness or wrongness might never be clear, or even that you were deciding between two sorts of wrong, that there was no right anywhere. And always, always, you did it by yourself." -Terry Pratchett, Carpe Jugulum


Minion jerked back from the bullet's impact and sat down heavily.

The crew yelled and hit the floor. Minion looked at the hole in his left pectoral. "Aw, man, this is my best suit," he muttered.

Wendell, their main sewer expert, slumped against Minion's shoulder, whimpering in pain. Minion gathered him into his arms and stared in horror at the blood spreading over the man's shirt.

"I think the hovercraft got hit," Thao cried. He was trying to steer from under the dashboard. The hovercraft was definitely listing. People yelped and clutched at the tilting floor.

More bullets pinged off the hull. The brainbots and the two brutebots swooped close in a solid mass, shielding the hovercraft from the hotel. Some of them fired back with their lasers in a sweeping motion. The bullets stopped.

Minion could see that Thao was starting to lose it, even with the brainbots covering them. "Take Wendell," he cried at the others. Two of the crew eased him out of Minion's lap.

Minion crawled to the controls. "Okay, let go now."

Thao snatched his hands away. Minion got the steering wheel straightened out and peeked over the edge.

The brainbots paused in their laser fire. Immediately the sniper opened fire again. One brainbot got hit and spun into the hovercraft, sending up sparks. Two more went down, dropping silently out of the air.

The brainbots sent down another barrage.

"Damn it," Minion snapped. The hovercraft was still listing, though not as badly as before. "Keep firing, guys! Keep it up."

Nina, who had some army training, struggled to aim a laser rifle over the rail. "Can't you get straightened out? I can't see."

"No, it's no good, just let the brainbots cover us."

A brutebot bumped into the hovercraft, rumbling deep within its dome mournfully. Minion knew it must have been hit, too, by the way it was weaving back and forth.

Minion eased the hovercraft around the corner and brought it to within a foot of the ground before it dropped. People yelped as it jolted to a stop.

"Everybody out," Minion said. "Get behind it." He glanced back at the hotel, still visible across the street. The shooting had stopped so they were probably out of the line of fire, but the sniper could go to another window and start up again.

Seventeen brainbots left and one functional brutebot. Now that the hovercraft was safely on the ground, the 'bots swarmed around Minion anxiously. "Good 'bots, you're such good 'bots," Minion said, patting them. Some of them had cracked domes and a few were leaking.

Crouching low he hurried over to the other brutebot, lying in the mouth of the alley. It rumbled at him and lifted one of its huge tentacles. Hydraulic fluid pooled under it.

He patted it, making purple lightning flash inside it. "Good brutebot, such a good 'bot, Corduroy. Gonna get you fixed up, okay?" The 'bots didn't feel pain, but they felt sad when they got so damaged they couldn't fly or move. Corduroy was going to get extra play time with the wrench if Minion had anything to say about it.

Minion crouched low to make his way back to the crew. The damaged brutebot and the hovercraft made good cover, so long as they kept their heads down.

Wendell breathed in short panting gasps. He nodded at Minion with a satisfied look. "Knew this would happen. It's always somethin'. Bet I'll be dead before night. You'll see."

"It's his arm," one of the men said, holding a semi-clean rag to the wound.

Wendell frowned. "I'll bet the bone's shattered."

His caretaker peered at it. "Uhhh, I dunno, could be just the muscle."

"Yeah, well, bet they'll have to amputate," Wendell said indignantly.

"Send the robots in there," one of the crew said. "Get that son of a bitch."

"I don't know who's in there," Minion said. "Innocent people could be trapped on the ground floor, too."

"We don't know how many shooters there are," Nina said.

Minion nodded. "Right. Besides that, we..."

Thao tugged at Minion's arm and pointed. "Look."

A zombie lurched toward them. Another appeared, coming out of an apartment building. Then another.

"The other reason I don't want to send the brainbots off," Minion said. "Nice to have a buffer." He clicked on his comm. "Sir, we're in some deep shit. Hovercraft got shot down by a sniper, maybe more than one. Wendell got shot, too."

He felt air on his spines and water lapped against his back. What the...?

He looked up. The water level in his dome had fallen. The bullet must have punctured the lower part of the containment unit within the suit. Sure enough, water trickled down his torso and soaked into his leg fur. "You might wanna hurry, Sir. I sprung a leak."


Megamind came with five hundred brainbots, fifty brutebots, and a mixed group of cops, denizens, and Uncle Lenny. (Uncle Sid's knee was acting up again so he stayed at the Lair.) Minion had warned him about the civilians, otherwise he might have laid waste to the entire first floor.

Flying in from the back of the alley to stay out of sight of the sniper, he plucked Minion and the crew away from the growing crowd of zombies and transferred them to the rooftop of a car dealership a safe distance away from the hotel.

Wendell had lost a lot of blood but seemed to be stable. Megamind gave him the option of being dehydrated until they could return to the Lair but Wendell didn't want to miss any other disasters that might happen.

Megamind put Minion into his spare robot suit. Then it was time for a good long forehead press, placing his hands on either side of Minion's containment unit and getting his breath back. "You're sure you're all right?"

Minion placed a big hand over his gloved one. "Right as rain, Sir."

"Because I don't know how many narrow escapes with losing my loved ones I can stand in one day."

"I'm not going anywhere, Sir." A little furrow appeared on Minion's brow. "I wish my castle hadn't gotten wrecked. It got cracked right in half."

"Minion, he's going to pay for that. And you, my fine fish, are not so easily replaced."

Megamind turned his attention back to the hotel. After a careful sweep with infrared goggles and heat sensors he determined the only person on the first floor was the sniper.

There were zombies on the second floor. He counted ten of them, feeding on a few bodies. As he scanned the place, a zombie bashed out a window and made exploratory movements to climb out.

The upper two floors were crammed with people. The word 'sardines' sprang to mind.

He consulted with his motley group. "What do you make of this place?"

"It's so weird," Minion said. "Zombies on second floor but nowhere else?"

"You gonna kill him?" one of the cops asked, an eager glint in his eye.

Megamind regarded him with distaste. So he was one of those kinds of cops. "I'm going to talk to him," Megamind said. "Find out why he was shooting at Minion. Then I'll decide."

He didn't fuck around negotiating, but sent in two brutebots fortified with heavy armor and quick-moving stealthbots. These had black opaque domes made of soft polymer and collapsible metal skeletons, combining strength and flexibility. They could squeeze through small openings and also turn invisible, which they now did. He and Minion followed their progress on screens projecting from their wrist comms.

There the sniper was, lurking in a side window.

A gunshot sounded in the back of the building, where he'd sent brainbots to watch the exits.

"What's happening?"

Minion checked his screen. "A brainbot tried a door. But nobody's there."

"Could be booby trapped. Tell them to hang back, don't touch any more doors."

The brutebots crashed through the lobby doors, sending shards of glass everywhere. The sniper opened fire. Bullets pinged and ricocheted off their heavy armor. Stealthbots slipped in through a window. There was a brief scream, another flurry of shots, then silence.

"Got 'im," Minion said with satisfaction.

Four stealthbots, visible again now that stealth was no longer required, flew out through the ruined doors, the struggling man clutched securely in their pincers.

So this was it. This was the test.

Death had...happened, sometimes, with his life or Minion's on the line during those bad moments when he and some other bastard were fighting over control of the gun or shiv or what have you. Megamind made sure he and Minion were the ones standing by the end of it.

This was a whole different kettle of monkeys. Killing in a fight when it was either you or him was one thing. This was a prisoner, tied and helpless. Hauling him off into a dark alley and shooting him in the head went completely against his usual mode of operation. It was so crude. Unstylish.

But he was the Overlord. It'd be an execution.

Without trial?

He scowled at the cops, who shrank back. No help there. They wouldn't try to stop him. That one particular cop had a faint smile on his face, an eagerness like a hunting dog about to leap. He'd probably join right in.

The sniper could have killed Minion and Wendell. Megamind had to take that into account. By the rules he'd laid down himself, the sniper had forfeited his life.

How should this go? Question the prisoner, then... then assign a shooter, he supposed. He could order Minion to do it. If he ordered a cop to do it...well, clearly there was one who was chomping at the bit, but the idea of cops killing prisoners made his jaw clench. Cops weren't supposed to do that shit. He despised crooked cops as much as he despised any other common murderer. Maybe even more so. Cops had taken an oath to uphold the law.

He might have to take Minion aside for a conference. He glanced at him out of the corner of his eyes. There was no real malice in Minion's features for the jerkwad who'd just been shooting at him, nor did he look unduly troubled by the prospect of possibly killing him.

The faithful henchfish had faced the same hard choices as Megamind at times, when at last it was kill or be killed, or watch someone you love get killed. Minion never hesitated, and he never seemed to suffer the residual guilt that Megamind did. Still, he didn't like the idea of ordering Minion to pull the trigger.

I'll have to do it. But from some place deep within, another thought surfaced that stirred uneasiness in his heart. What would Roxanne think? He wasn't sure he could face her with blood on his hands. Killing a prisoner wasn't just against the law. It was bad.

With a sinking sensation he realized he'd made a terrible mistake and broken one of the primary rules of supervillainy. He'd issued a threat which he might not be able to fulfill. There were plenty of threats against Metro Man he'd tried to fulfill, but failing to kill Metro Man was expected. The important thing was the attempt.

He'd already let two grievous offenses slide. He should've dragged Hal off right away, but he let Roxanne talk him out of it. Tony and Hank had gotten into a scuffle, but Tony had thrown the first blow which technically was assault, and should have earned him a one-way ticket to the pit.

He had to think about what kind of overlord he was going to be.

Damn Metro Man to the nethermost hell! Leaving the city in his hands and forcing him into these sticky moral dilemmas.

The stealthbots had almost reached the roof. The sniper locked gazes with Megamind and bared his teeth in a savage grin. A grenade pin dangled from his fingers.

"Grenade!" Megamind shouted, hitting the tar and covering his head. "Throw him up! STRAIGHT UP!" he shouted at the 'bots.

The explosion pressed him to the roof. There were a few more seconds of ear-ringing silence and then there were several wet thuds.

Megamind lifted his head. People were carefully getting to their feet around him. Megamind called the shaken stealthbots over to him. "There, there my ee-vil babies," he murmured, relieved to see all four were unharmed. "You did well. Such ee-vil little cyborgs."

The brainbots lowered him to the street while the others coasted down on the second hovercraft. They walked over to the pathetic remains, which covered rather a wide area.

"Why'd he do it?" Minion asked.

"He was dead anyway, he knew it," the trigger happy cop said.

"I'll be the judge of who's dead, " Megamind said. "It's not for you to decide, officer. Ever."

The cop's grin faded. Megamind could almost see the thoughts whirling around in the man's brutish little mind. But you said anyone who committed murder or attempted murder was gonna get thrown to the alligators, you said so yourself. But if he said that out loud it would confirm he was a dirty, rotten, crooked cop with no better morals than the thugs he was supposed to be protecting the public from, so of course he didn't say anything of the sort.

The tight-lipped faces of the other cops suggested they knew anyway, even though they'd never rat him out. Cops. Just another gang, only with better funding.

Zombies were still coming from all corners, shuffling their way up and down the street, lurching through the alleys, drawn by the noise of the guns, the shouting, and the suicidal explosion. The 'bots formed a loose wall around the perimeter to keep them at bay. The zombies hadn't turned into a horde yet, but it was only a matter of time.

He frowned at the remains. His statement that he'd decide who was dead was a little ridiculous, given the circumstances. Nobody was deader than this guy, no matter what he proclaimed. Hopefully he'd made it clear where the power of life and death lay. He wouldn't have his police force running around executing people on their own.

Despite the messiness, the sniper's head was still intact. He wondered briefly if the head would become a zombie all on its own even without the rest of the body attached, and decided he didn't want to know. He did the final shot and gave orders to the brainbots to collect the scattered remains into a bag.

They disabled the booby traps and exterminated the zombies on the second floor, including the one who'd gotten out the window and was climbing up to third. They cleared away the barricades to free the people trapped on the upper floors.

He greeted the ex-cons that had warned Minion, discovering the rest of the surviving prisoners and the last two night guards. He felt weirdly happy even though he barely knew them, as if they were long-lost relatives. Most of them knew how to handle themselves in tight corners, or had learned fast, a welcome addition to the growing number of denizens.

There had been two groups of ex-cons and guards, who had commandeered different prison vehicles. The two groups ran into each other some time later at the Sunshine Manor nursing home, to collect elderly parents. All but three of the staff were gone so the ex-cons and guards decided to adopt them, moving in as caretakers and defenders. Despite their best efforts, some of the frailer residents passed away, as medicine was used up, oxygen tanks ran out, and the air conditioning failed.

It was a nasty shock to find them up and about again some hours later, shuffling through the halls and smashing down doors with new undead strength, trying to eat people with toothless mouths.

They made the decision to move to the hotel a few blocks away, which looked to be more easily defendable against outside attack. It had taken hours to get all the residents with their wheelchairs, and walkers transferred, using the last of the fuel in the prison bus and vans. They sweated through the summer heat and in terror that zombies would cut them off en route, but they made it, and it seemed to be the right decision.

Until the sniper happened.

In a manager's office, Megamind heard the tale.

"He took over yesterday," said one of the ex-cons. "Started shooting people on second floor. We came down to see what was up. Thought zombies were coming in and he needed help. I don't know how many he shot. Thirteen, fourteen? We got forced back. It was one of them army guys."

Megamind's eyebrows shot up. "Army guys? How many?"

"Five of 'em. Kept to themselves, wouldn't talk to us. I think they're incognito, if you know what I mean." He tapped his nose.

"Bet they're spies," another ex-con said.

"I told you we shoulda offed 'em," one of the ex-cons muttered.

Stinson, one of the guards, objected. "You can't go around doin' that. They weren't bothering anybody. Well, 'til just, like, recently. And it was just one of them."

Megamind's head was starting to spin. "Wait. Spies? They were out of uniform? How do you know they're soldiers?"

"They had military style watches," Stinson said. "And one of 'em had dog tags. He came up the stairs, came back with food or something. I asked him what branch of the service he's in, and he got all wide eyed and ran back in his room." He sniffed. "Dumbass probably a buck private just got done with basic training. They're usually showing off their..."

The man's voice trailed away as he looked over Megamind's shoulder.

Megamind turned.

Out the window, a knotted rope of bedsheets appeared, trembling slightly. A pair of combat boots appeared next, then the rest of the man they were attached to. Apart from the combat boots, which didn't mean much since a number of people wore them, including Hot Flash, he didn't have anything else that screamed military, except for perhaps the practiced way in which he scanned the alley and the handgun on his belt.

"That him?" Megamind said.

"Yeah."

"Show of weapons, people." Cops and ex-cons alike hastened to obey. On either side of him there was the click and ratchet of guns drawn and readied.

The alleged soldier's double take when he caught sight of a dozen guns trained on him through the glass was priceless.

Megamind waved and treated him to an ee-vil smile.

Several emotions ran over the man's face as he tried to make up his mind whether to bolt or grab his gun, but at last he realized surrender was the only option. Slowly he raised his hands.

"Brainbots," Megamind said into his comm, "back of building. Disarm and capture."


The remaining three surrendered quickly. Getting pounced on by a hundred growling brainbots tended to do that to people.

Megamind had them brought around front. One of the sniper's bloody boots had landed almost in the entryway. Megamind took a righteous sort of ee-vil pleasure at how quickly they averted their eyes from it. The brainbots gathered it up with the rest of the deceased sniper, and Megamind dehydrated the bag.

He would evacuate the hotel. With the front doors smashed it would be difficult to defend for even one more night. Besides, no one wanted to try to reclaim the second floor where zombies had fed.

They'd found that the sniper had booby trapped all the exits on the first floor with rifles, ready to go off when someone opened the door. The sniper might have hidden other nasty surprises around the place. Another good reason to evacuate.

The cops lined up the suspects against the outside wall and frisked them while other cops searched the soldiers' rooms. Megamind sent two brainbots to sweep for surveillance equipment and to sniff out bombs. One of the suspects had a money belt containing an enormous amount of cash, but none of them had any IDs whatsoever. No licenses or credit cards.

The police officers triumphantly brought him a set of dog tags they'd dug out of a wastebasket. Neither they nor the brainbots found any surveillance equipment or bombs. Or grenades.

Something bumped into the back of Megamind's knees. He turned to see that a brainbot had dutifully brought his swivel chair all the way from the Lair, to make sure he kept to his routine of sitting down every twenty minutes.

Minion, well-practiced in the art of presentation, made a big show of setting it up just right on the walk-up to the hotel so Megamind would have a good view of the prisoners.

"All set, Overlord," Minion said with a sweep of his arm.

Satisfied, he made himself comfortable, steepling his fingers and studying his prisoners. Three young men, one older. Two of them definitely giving off a military-ish vibe, the third not so much, though he might have been a clerk or something. The older man had the pinkest skin Megamind had ever seen, and a round face and belly, with white bushy eyebrows, reminding him of a pink snowman.

Megamind lifted the dog tags. "Which one of you is Private Gregory Becker?"

The presumed Private Becker flushed. The other military-type who had a square jaw shot a glare at him.

"Yes, I agree, not very smart," Megamind said, "throwing it in the trash. Should have tossed it in the alley. A little harder to pin on you." He frowned thoughtfully. "Are spies covered by the Geneva Convention, Minion?"

"Bet they aren't, Sir."

"We're not spies," the clerkish one burst out.

Megamind drew back. "You're not? Well, that's a relief."

The square jawed soldier-type glowered but the clerk didn't seem to notice. "How'd we get information out anyway? Everything's blocked," he said.

"You could get a signal out, if it was prearranged for a specific frequency to be open at a particular time. Or even a good old fashioned letter, delivered to a certain spot." He watched the worry grow in the clerk's face. His outrage appeared to be real; the man seemed truly surprised at the spying accusation, but you never knew.

Megamind said, "Care to explain why none of you, save Becker here, have any ID?"

Square Jaw swallowed. "Army's not too popular around here these days. Seemed safer to go without."

"What a sensible explanation. Which still doesn't explain why none of you has even a library card to his name."

Brainbots roared down the street, cutting down another group of zombies.

Megamind glanced at the carnage. "I think we're getting a little short on time so I'll be blunt. Why'd the army send you into my fair city?"

Square Jaw said, "Not with the army. Not anymore. We're AWOL."

"Is that so? Hate to tell you this, but you ran the wrong way. This isn't Detroit." He tapped his fingertips together. "Why the shooting spree?"

"We don't know. He snapped."

The ex-con spoke up. "I heard him yell, 'you want zombies, I'll give you zombies.'"

Uncle Lenny cracked his knuckles. "You want we should talk to these guys in private, Blue? We'll get something out of 'em."

"Oh, let's keep things friendly a little longer. So his goal was to kill people and let them turn into zombies? Or so we're assuming. Very interesting that he seemed to know how the new virus works. I only sent out the flyers a few hours ago."

"Flyers?"

"Anybody have... ah, thank you, Minion." He brandished the paper. "A little informational piece describing how this new virus works, with my name on it so people know who to come to for help or complain to, that sort of thing."

He studied their faces. "But of course you've all been trapped in the hotel since yesterday, so you didn't see it yet. Hence my comment that it's very interesting your buddy figured out on his own how the new virus is playing merry hell with our lives, even though it's not actually fatal."

Square Jaw licked his lips. "Yeah. It-it's obvious. You just gotta look and see what's happening. Nobody's getting sick, not really. At least not with the zombie virus. Don't take a genius to... I mean, no offense, but..."

Megamind waved a hand airily. "None taken. And you're quite right. Simple observation could have given you clues. Your name, please."

His eyes flickered. "Bill Hanson. This is my dad, Bob."

The supposed Bob gave him a sour look.

Megamind raised an eyebrow. "Doesn't he talk?"

"Of course I can talk," Bob snapped.

"He's got Alzheimer's," Bill said.

Bob's bushy eyebrows just about leapt off his round pink forehead. He sputtered something under his breath, then stuck his lip out like a pouting toddler. Young Bill's face shone more sweatily than it had before, though the air was cooling off with night approaching.

That was...interesting. Another lie? Or the old man didn't like his son talking about his condition? "My condolences," Megamind said, inclining his head. "Terrible disease. Let's hear the last man's name. Or do you want to answer for him, too?"

The clerk shot a nervous glance at Bill as if for permission. "Clarence Nesbitt," he mumbled.

"Splendid," Megamind said. "Now, I never got an answer to my first question. Do I need to leave you alone with Uncle Lenny after all? Why are you in my city?"

"I came to get my father," said Bill. "Heard about the quarantine, so I came to get him out before they closed everything off but we got trapped along with everybody else."

"So kind of your friends to join you in exile. You all must be very close. For the time being, you'll be detained until I can figure out what to do with you."

The elder Hanson's eyebrows drew together into a solid bristling mass. "Now see here, are we under arrest? You can't hold us against our will."

"Actually, Mr. Hanson, I think I can."

"That's Dr. Hanson."

"Oh, really? We could use another doctor. That is, if you would consider..."

"I'm not that kind of doctor," Dr. Bob Hanson said testily. "And if you think for one second that I..."

"Dad," Bill snapped. He glared at his father and the old man subsided into grumbling again. Bill turned to Megamind. "He's not well, sir. Don't hold it against him. His memory comes and goes. He's not reliable."

Megamind gave himself a mental shrug. It had just been an idea. He wasn't sure he'd trust a doctor forced to work against his will anyway, especially one with a deteriorating memory.

If that was, in fact, the case. There might have been grains of truth in the story young Bill was spinning, but something didn't smell right.

"Let's get back to formal charges. It amuses me. Officers? Maybe you could help me out here."

They glanced at each other, and Megamind thought he sensed relief moving through their ranks, maybe because the Overlord wasn't immediately handing out executions. After learning of the people that the sniper had killed in the hotel, he might not have had any other choice but to make good on his threat. Dehydrating him until a trial could be arranged would have been too good for him. At least the vile criminal would help keep the alligators fed.

"Stealing bedsheets," one of the cops volunteered.

"Possession of some damn big guns without a license."

"Loitering in an alley and exiting a hotel without paying the bill."

"There, proper charges, nice and legal," Megamind said.

His wrist comm crackled and a nervous voice said, "Hello? Hello? Is this the right button?"

Another voice interjected, "I thought it was this one."

"No, that's the intercom. Right?" The voices began arguing and talking over each other.

Megamind sighed and spoke into the comm. "Overlord here. Who's this?"

There were muffled whispers, then the first voice cleared his throat. "This is Kevin. Um. It's...well... We got a call from Hot Flash. At the water plant. There's a zombie."

"A zombie. As in, one zombie? Is this a problem? Tell her to shoot it in the head with one of the many guns I've provided and I'll send a brainbot to collect the corpse."

"But it's...kinda little."

Megamind was about to make another smart remark, but there was an undertone in Kevin's voice that stopped him. "I'm going to need a few more details."

"It's a baby."

Megamind rubbed his forehead. Shit.

Kevin coughed. "And there's a mom."

"And she's...still alive?"

"Yes, sir, and she don't seem to understand that the kid's dead, you know?"


Her apartment building was quiet as a grave. Roxanne went around to the other apartments on her floor but no one answered her knocking. The other denizens asked if they could search them.

Her first reaction was to refuse, but she checked her anger. They couldn't afford to pass up any food or other supplies they might need. She couldn't bear to watch, however, as they broke down the doors and rummaged through the belongings of people who might not be coming back.

What if some of them had merely been delayed, as she had been? They'd come back to ransacked apartments. She left flyers and maps to the Lair in every place they visited, and promised herself to send brainbots every day to see if anyone had returned.

Roxanne packed up as many clothes as she could squeeze into a suitcase and took everything even remotely useful from the bathroom. Gabby went to the kitchen and bagged up all the non-perishable food items.

"This is a nice place, Miss Ritchi," Gabby said.

Roxanne ran her hand over the back of her couch, feeling the weight of the darkened apartment. It was just as she'd left it all those weeks ago, only dustier.

She took one last look at her photos on the wall, her bookshelf, her cozy kitchen. Wiping her nose with a tissue, she picked up the suitcase and went out to the hovercraft.

As the hovercraft, loaded with towels, bedding, food, and the random contents of medicine cabinets, floated down toward street level, the sound of a diesel truck backfiring caught their attention. Vehicles that were still operational were getting rarer.

"Let's see who it is," Roxanne said. "Maybe they need help."

The men in the truck, however, didn't appear inclined to stop. Roxanne caught a glimpse of wide-eyed faces, and then the truck fishtailed as the tires squealed.

"Hey, those are Destruction Worker's goons," Tony shouted. He grabbed a laser rifle.

Roxanne shoved the gun barrel to the side. "What the hell are you doing?"

"But, miss, they're sittin' ducks!"

"So you're going to just shoot them?" Roxanne snapped.

Tony shuffled his feet. "Well...can't I shoot at them a little?"

"No. Besides, they're leaving."

The truck disappeared around a corner.


"Is he following us? He comin' after us?"

"I'm telling you, it's not Megamind. I didn't see him."

"Of course it was him, who else has a fuckin' hovercraft? And fuckin' brainbots? And that was Roxanne Ritchi there."

"Maybe she stole his stuff."

"Don't be a fuckin' moron. The blue man probably moved on her as soon as he saw Metro Man wasn't coming back."

"Struger seen Megamind a couple of days ago, riding around with a bunch of people. He must've hired them or something."

"He's got brainbots all around the water plant. He took that over, no problem."

"So how come Hot Flash is still there, then?"

"He must've, like, got her to swear allegiance or something. I think I saw Tony Pirelli back there."

"She's gonna pay for turnin' her back on the Doom Syndicate. Just you wait."

"Hey, Leroy, who you rather go up against? The army, Hot Flash, or Megamind?"

"Who the fuck cares? Destruction Worker's gonna decide. Let's get this stuff back, he's hungry."