The next evening found Megamind preparing to deal with the Dragons once more, this time in his role as the Criminal Mastermind. Roxanne pouted playfully at him when he informed her he'd have to leave again, making sad puppy noises that startled him into laughter. Her unhappy expression turned more sincere, however, when he gently refused her offer to accompany him.

"I'm sorry, Sweetheart, I really am, but it just isn't possible this time," Megamind said as adjusted his high cloak. He gave her a rueful smile, seeing the look on her face. "The Dragons are jumpy as it is; I did just put several of them, including their leader and one of his enforcers, behind bars, after all. This isn't the right time to introduce someone new in a meeting, especially when that someone is Metrocity's best-known reporter."

Roxanne dropped her hands from her hips. She really couldn't argue with his logic. "I guess they'd get suspicious," she stated more than asked.

"I'm afraid they would, and distrustful, nervous people with guns are never a good thing."

"Can't you wait until things cool down?"

"Darling, things will not cool down until they have a new leader in place. In fact, they'll get worse, probably violent. That's the point of this meeting: to select a new leader for the Dragons without bloodshed, and in doing so remind them who really runs things. I want to make sure whoever I leave in charge doesn't get the same wayward ideas as his predecessor."

"You will be careful, won't you?"

His arms wrapped her tightly. "I'm always careful, Love, especially now that I have the best reason to be: you." He kissed her, lips pressing and caressing until she opened her mouth to deepen the contact. His tongue tangled with hers, and Roxanne's hand moved up from his shoulders to slid beneath his high collar, stroking the back of his neck.

"Uh-uh-uh," he chided gently, stepping back and capturing her hands. "You know I love it when you do that, but I can't show up to this meeting with a bulge… It doesn't exactly scream: 'dangerous and powerful Criminal Mastermind,'" he smirked.

Roxanne made a disappointed noise, and he chuckled. "Temptress," he brushed his lips against hers again. "Hold that thought. I promise to make it up to you at the first possible opportunity. I love you."

She hugged him close for a moment. "I love you, too."

When Megamind was gone, she brewed a pot of coffee and poured herself a cup— this time into a red mug with black letters spelling out: "Evil Genius at Work." Settling herself at one of the supercomputer terminals, Roxanne started searching out old tax records. (She was finally getting the hang of the Unix commands, although the longer custom command codes Megamind used for higher security tasks were still elusively complex.) She'd been looking for information during her spare time for days but had little to show for it. Today, however, after an hour of following up on leads from previous documents, she had at least gained some information, but none of it was of much use. The Little Gifted School, it turned out, was owned by a trust she'd never heard of: SBF. That, in turn, was owned by another anonymous trust, MLS, which was incorporated into an LLC that she couldn't find any record of anywhere else.

"Curiouser and curiouser," she muttered to the screen. Someone clearly didn't want their involvement with the school to be known.

Checking the time, she gave Andro a call.

"Hey, Roxie!" Andro was leaning back against the upholstered brown fabric of his couch. The distinctive blue light of a television shone across his features, and the muffled sounds of music and dialogue played at the edge of hearing.

"Hello," she said. "I'm not bothering you, am I?"

"Nah, you just saved me from the most depressingly bad movie. If you're ever tempted to rent Letters Left Behind, don't. I can't believe I actually wasted a Netflix disk on it."

"What, the World War Two movie? Where the guy starts collecting and sending letters he finds with casualties? Aw, the previews looked so good!"

"I know, right?! I was expecting action and drama and all these heartfelt personal stories… What I got is possibly the worst script ever written. I mean, how do you make World War Two boring? Literally half the movie is just this guy complaining to everyone he meets. It's awful. The worst part is that it's such a good premise, but they totally ruined it!"

"Wow, that is depressingly bad. Why don't you just send it back?"

"Boredom and insomnia. I'm having one of those nights when I just want to veg. And I already watched Rose and Thorne twice this week. That one is good, by the way! I didn't expect too much from an Urban Fantasy— just thought it would be fun— but wow! That was one of the best mystery dramas I've ever seen, and the whole magic thing was really well done! It definitely didn't get the attention it deserves!"

Roxanne smiled. Her friend was an unapologetic cinema buff and could become absolutely rhapsodic when he found a movie he really liked.

He could also become loquacious, so she interjected before he could really get going. "I'll suggest it to Megamind the next time we have a movie night."

"You should. But you probably didn't call to hear my film recommendations, though," he grinned. "What's up?"

"Well, I may have a cure for the boredom, at least. I was wondering if you could help me with something?"

"That depends. Does this involve something crazy like recapturing a rampaging dinosaur Big M cloned from a fossilized egg or something? Because I am really not big on running."

"No, no dinosaurs," she laughed. "I'm doing some research into who owned a small private school in Metro City for a few years. The Little School for Gifted Kids."

"Never heard of it."

"Most people haven't; it only had ten or twelve students total, and there's something fishy about it." She explained what she'd found so far. "The thing is, someone's made sure there's very little about it online, and right now I'm kind of limited on where I can go."

"A weird school with only one grade and fewer than twenty kids owned by some mysterious corporation? Chica, that is way beyond fishy. That's bonafide horror movie territory!" He thought for a moment. "I've got a friend who works in the Vital Records Office. Count me in, Nancy Drew! I'm on the case!"

She laughed again. "Did you seriously just call me Nancy Drew?"

"What? You'd rather be Miss Marple?"

They spoke for ten more minutes before Roxanne disconnected the call and returned to her own fruitless research. By the time Megamind returned two hours later, all she'd gotten for her trouble was a headache.