They sped toward the first target area on their hoverbikes, cold wind stinging Roxanne's cheeks below the goggles and helmet her lover had insisted that she wear. She hadn't complained or even pointed out that Minion never wore that sort of gear. At least he had finally deemed her ready to take her craft on a real flight.

"This time, Sweetheart, I need you to be more careful," Megamind called to her over the noise, slowing his own flight to draw level with her.

Roxanne resisted the urge to snap back. He'd already said the same thing twice before, making sure she understood it was a strict prerequisite to her accompanying him. This was, she reminded herself, difficult for her lover. And he really was trying.

"I know," she promised, not daring to take her eyes from her flight path. "I will."

"And if I tell you to get out, you get out. No stalling, no arguments. Aright?"

"No unnecessary heroics. I promise."

"That's not what I said."

"Darling—"

"Repeat after me: if Megamind tells me to run, I will run."

She unclenched her teeth through sheer will power. "If Megamind tells me to run, I will run, unless he is about to get his stupid, brilliant self killed, in which case I will help him first!"

"Roxanne, that is not—"

"Yeah, well, it's the best you're getting; take it or leave it!"

Daring a quick glance at her blue lover, she could see his chest rise and fall with his sigh. "You are the most infuriatingly hard-headed and unsuitably reckless damsel in all Metrocity, do you know that?"

That stung a little and she opened her mouth for a sharp retort when she heard him add:

"But I wouldn't have you any other way. We're almost there." He motioned for her to slow, reduced his own speed, and dialed a number on his cell phone. "DeLeon, is everyone in position?"

"All good, Mastermind!"

"Excellent! GO!"

He kicked his hoverbike back into gear, and, after only a moment of fumbling, Roxanne followed suit. Several minutes later, as they neared the Metro City Museum of History, Roxanne could hear commotion: people shouting, sirens in the distance.

They sped toward the ground. Men all wearing the same shade of blue somewhere around their bodies—did they wear Megamind's color on purpose, or was it a coincidence?—were gathered outside the museum, facing off with another, smaller group. They were yelling insults at one another, but a few had guns in hand.

"You better take your greasy hands off my woman!"

"She ain't yours no more!"

"I told you I ain't never coming home no more!" a woman shouted. "Take your sorry ass off!"

"Fuck you, Bitch!"

"Don't fucking talk to her like that!"

"Shut the fuck up!"

"You shut up, you cheating piece of shit!" the woman shrieked. "I ain't got time for no two-faced mother-fucker!"

"Woman! I had about enough of you!"

"Yeah?" one of the other men demanded. "You gonna do something about it or you just gonna stand there like a fucking pussy?!"

Megamind pressed something on the insignia at his throat, and his voice boomed, suddenly amplified.

"ENOUGH! Break it up!"

"Shit!"

"It's the Mastermind!"

"Go! Fucking go!"

"Who's the pussy now?!"

One of the main combatants surged forward, and snagged one arm around the woman's waist, pinning her arms. He pressed a pistol to her head with the other hand and started dragging her toward the doors of the museum. Megamind leaped off the hoverbike and gave chase.

"Clear the building!" the hero called over his shoulder as police cruisers barreled into the parking lot and officers jumped out. They rushed to obey, shouting orders.

Roxanne followed her lover, pushing past museum patrons that were already pouring out of the doors. Inside, she caught up with him as he purposefully slowed down a little to give their quarry time to reach the agreed-upon destination. Police officers hurried past them, fanning out to herd people to "safety."

Megamind and Roxanne rounded a corner. The wide exhibition hall became a chaos of screams and movement as most of the partygoers fled when the man and his captive burst in. The brainbots had little trouble emptying the ground floor after that. Now there was little in the wide space besides abandoned wine glasses, eerie silence, and artifacts in raised modern glass cases. Fluorescent lighting affording the blue hero and his lover a clear view of the man pressing his "hostage" against the pedestal of a classical statue. The stone figure looming above them was male, dressed in armor and holding a shield before him.

Megamind approached slowly, De-Gun drawn. "Let her go," he growled, voice low.

"Make me, Defender," scoffed the man.

The hero gave him a dark predator's smile. "You dare challenge Megamind?"

He darted forward. If this had been a real fight, he would have dehydrated the man first for the woman's safety, but of course, real though it might feel, the entire thing was a ruse. After a very brief struggle— Roxanne could tell her lover was holding back— Megamind threw the other man to the floor and pinned him there.

A brainbot flew up, and Megamind paused.

"Operation successful?" he asked. The cyborg made an affirmative-sounding bark in response, and Megamind let the man up.

"Security cameras have all been shut down, and the building is completely cleared," he stated.

"'Bout time," the other man said. "Shit, Mastermind, you got to throw people around like that?"

"Apologies."

"Uh-uh, no," said the woman, but there was a wry smile on her face. "You ain't gotta say shit to him."

"Tanisha, let the man apologize if he wants."

"Not after you damn near jerked my roots out! You pull my hair like that one more time, DeLeon, and you're gonna need a surgeon to get my high heel out of your ass!"

"You see what I got to put up with, Mastermind?" the man laughed.

"Uh-huh. Yeah. Put up with. You just remember that when you're sleeping on the sofa all week."

"You always got to give me a hard time?"

"If I don't, who will?"

Megamind glanced up at his lover from where he crouched beside the statue's display pedestal. It looked like all the rest of its dully modern counterparts, but the hero had been carefully examining every inch with both his eyes and fingers. He paused in his work long enough to say:

"Sweetheart, meet DeLeon Davis, former enforcer and new leader of the Dragons, and Tanisha Sinclair, his lady-love and trusted associate."

"Sweetheart?" asked DeLeon.

"What? Oh, right." Roxanne deactivated her disguise.

"That," said Tanisha, "is off the fucking chain." She turned to the man at her side. "Why you ain't never given me any sick ass jewelry like that?"

"Do I look like the Mastermind to you?"

Tanisha made a show of glancing between the two. "You sure don't. He's cuter."

"Hey!"

"Don't let their dulcet endearments bother you," Megamind interrupted, grinning over his shoulder at Roxanne. "They're always like this."

"Nah," DeLeon laughed. "Sometimes she cops an attitude."

"High heel. Right up your ass. I swear to God." But there was teasing affection in Tanisha's eyes when she said it.

"You finding anything, Mastermind?"

"Not yet, but I'm certain it's here."

"How long do you think we have?" Roxanne asked.

"The Dragons and the police both agreed to put on a good show," the hero responded. "They'll keep up the distraction as long as possible, but their orders not to use their weapons might make it harder. Still, we should have at least fifteen more minutes, which will be more than—Ollo! What do we have here?"

He had found a hidden panel on the pedestal. "I need everyone to stand back," he commanded, then motioned with a hand. "Scanner!" A brainbot dropped an odd-looking device into the hero's palm. Megamind aimed a wide beam of light at the statue's stand and nodded. "We've got explosives. Gear!" Another cyborg swooped down and deposited a small metal case near him. Megamind opened it to pull out a thick, odd-looking pair of gloves as well as a chest piece, a protective helmet, and a face mask.

Roxanne couldn't help but tremble a little. She knew the materials her lover manufactured were higher tech than anything any military on Earth could boast, but she would have still felt better if he'd had a full bomb suit.

"Tools!" the hero was commanding now, and a third cyborg carried over a toolbox. The blue man carefully pried open the panel, angling his body carefully behind the door as much as possible. The entire room tensed for a moment.

Nothing happened. No trap sprung, no explosion rocked the air. That was good, wasn't it?

Or did it mean that they had the wrong location?

She heard Megamind growl. "He's attached an integrated sensor."

"And that means what, exactly?" Roxanne asked.

"It means that if I simply disarm this device, all the others around the city will go off."

"Shit," DeLeon hissed.

"My sentiments precisely," the blue man agreed. He was studying the statue above him. "Ares must really be desperate. He doesn't destroy art, and for him to be willing to risk a priceless piece like this..." he shook his head. "I don't like this. Desperate men do dangerous things."

Roxanne's mind was already racing. "So what's our next move?" she asked. "Can you remove it without destroying half the city?"

"Yes," Megamind answered after aiming a flashlight into the dark opening for a long moment. "I can do it, but it's going to be a delicate process. I need absolute concentration. DeLeon, can you and your Dragons make sure this area remains absolutely clear of any interference?"

"We're on it, Mastermind!" He started to move away.

"Roxanne, Love, I want you to with them."

"So that if you get blown up I can spend the rest of my life mourning you and wondering whether I might have been able to do something if only I'd been here?" she crossed her arms. "I don't think so."

"Sweetheart—"

"No, Megamind. You protect me and I protect you. We're in this together."

"If I'm worried about you, then my concentration might be divided."

"So I'll stand a little way off. But I'm going to be here in case you need me."

Megamind started to argue, but Tanisha spoke up. "Do yourself a favor, Mastermind, just accept that a queen don't leave her king to face shit like this alone." She offered Roxanne a commiserating look.

The blue hero sighed. "Right. Yes. Of course, Roxanne isn't a delicate china doll. Alright, Sweetheart," he added, glancing at his lover over his shoulder. "But I want you to stand away. Well away. You two," he nodded to a pair of brainbots. "Be ready to get my," he smirked, "Evil Queen out of danger if anything should happen."

The reporter rolled her eyes.

While Tanisha left to help DeLeon keep everyone away, Roxanne remained near her lover as he carefully, slowly pulled out what looked like a small, cheap black plastic toolbox trailing wires. There was a tiny plastic box similar to what they'd discovered in Sudmeister Brewery attached to one side. A few of the wires connect with it before curling back into the larger device. With a deep breath, the blue hero drew two small tools from his belt and went to work, his movements so cautious and delicate that his hands barely seemed to move.

It felt like a century passed. Roxanne realized she was holding her breath, cold sweat dripping down her spine. At last, Megamind successfully removed the smaller box, and, after a tense, nerve-shredding moment, he let out a deep sigh.

"Alright," he selected something from the toolbox previously delivered by brainbot. "Now to disarm this piece of junk." He went to work, and only a few minutes later he had the explosive safely disassembled. Then he frowned.

"There's very little here," he stated, examining the components more closely. "Far too little to destroy the entire building or even this entire wing. Something isn't right." He paused again. "Something's missing— it's… Wait." He sat back on his heels and looked up at Roxanne. "There's no second sensor, and the first had no denotative device."

"Are you… Megamind, are you saying what I think you're saying?"

He nodded. "This was a dud. A ruse." He gave her a meaningful look. "A distraction."

"But that means—"

"Exactly." He turned to one of the brainbots. "Get all the people in charge in here. Now." As the little cyborg raced off to obey, the blue hero pulled out his cell phone and dialed a number. "Reaper," he said into the mouthpiece after a pause. "Please tell me you've gotten something out of Gunner." He paused again, his expression growing dark. "Oh, did he?" the blue man growled, his voice taking on the silken sharpness that meant he was at his most dangerous... "Well, well, the little brat has balls after all. Tell him the Mastermind doesn't believe his utter bullshit for a single moment, and unless he wants those newfound balls of his crushed in a metal gauntlet, he had better start remembering very, very quickly." He was silent again as Reaper said something. Megamind rubbed one hand over his face and looked a question at Roxanne.

Somehow she understood. Reaper was asking for permission to do something, probably something painful and nasty, to jog Gunner's memory. We need answers fast, but Gunner's not talking because he's too afraid of Ares, she realized. He isn't going to tell us anything unless we make him even more afraid of us. Swallowing her distaste, she met her lover's eyes and nodded.

"Do what you need to do to get answers, Reaper," Megamind said into the phone. "I want the locations of all those devices in an hour, no more. If he remains uncooperative, call me." A wicked smile spread across the former villain's face. "I'll stop by for a little… visit."

"Let me get this straight, Defender," a police sergeant, who'd been introduced as Michael Perez, asked Megamind. He and two other senior officers had joined the hero, Roxanne, DeLeon, and Tanisha around the remains of the counterfeit bomb. "You're telling me that there are fourteen of these things hidden around Metro City, and half of them are fakes."

"That's right."

"And we don't know where any of them are, or which ones are real."

"I'm afraid so."

"And if anyone tampers with any of them, even the phonies, they all go off?"

"All the real ones, yes," Megamind was pacing as he spoke. "Curse Ares! Damn him! This complicates matters to such an extent— Damn him! What?!" he added, whirling on one of the other officers. "What could possibly be funny about this?!"

"It's not funny, Defender, not really, but… Now you know how we all felt dealing with you and your schemes all those years."

Megamind growled and rolled his eyes. "Yes. Alright. Karma is punching me directly in the balls. Can we focus on the issue at hand?"

Sergeant Perez was glaring at his fellow. "Walters, I expect more professionalism. And more respect for our hero."

"Oh, uh, right. I didn't mean… Sorry Defender. Cop humor, you know? You either learn to laugh about the shit you deal with every day or you find a new line of work."

Megamind let out a breath. "I get it. I do." He stopped as the opening riff of Grim Reaper's Rock You To Hell split the air, and the hero pulled out his cell phone. Roxanne didn't even need to ask who was on the line.

"Please tell me you've got something," the blue man said as soon as he answered. "Uh-huh? He did? That's the best news I've heard today. Well done, Reaper. Very well done. I believe I'm now the one who owes you a drink. Yes. I'll let you know if we need more boots on the ground. Now, I must ask a question: was one of them close to home? I thought as much. I'm sure you've taken the necessary measures? I don't blame you. It will be a priority. I— Well, that's true, I suppose. Very well. Gather your forces and meet us. I'll text a location. Indeed. Goodbye."

"Good news?" Perez asked.

"We've got the bombs' locations," Megamind nodded. "I have a strong suspicion about which of them are fakes, but disarming them is still going to require a great deal of care." Pulling out his cell phone, the hero drew a long, then cable out of his watch, plugged it in, and started typing. "Brainbots!" he said into the watch once he was done. "New task, high priority: access seven sets of recently uploaded coordinates! I want stealth teams checking out all of the locations and scanning the areas for explosive material! Specs are updated!" He paused, noting everyone else's stunned expressions, and shrugged. "Call it a hunch, but I think it's a good one." Turning to the sergeant, he added. "Another group of my associates is going to join our efforts. Once again, I must ask that Metrocity's Finest refrain from arresting any of them. This is going to be a major operation," he added, sweeping his gaze over the entire group. "To keep Ares from becoming suspicious, we're going to have to target some other areas as well, and we're going to have use disguises and subterfuge for some of them. If the same groups are clearly involved everywhere, it will make our efforts too clear."

"I got some people I can get to run the streets, make it look real good," DeLeon offered. "You name some spots, they'll set up like they're gonna catch a play, and the boys in blue can come help them make a scene."

"How about a violent protest?" the third officer, a tough-looking woman who had "military veteran" written all over her, offered. "My sister is big in a political advocacy group. If we could get them started at one of the locations, and get someone else to give them a hard time, no one will be surprised when a fight breaks out. That won't seem to be connected to any other, ah, group activities we have planned."

"Good thinking, McLean," Perez nodded. He turned back to Megamind. "You may want to call the Chief and let him know what's happening. The state legislature finally passed that bill hat allows precincts to skip the bureaucratic red tape and respond faster when a city Defender calls."

"It's about time."

"Look, I don't mean any offense," Walters said. "But I have to play devil's advocate here. What measures do we have in place in case some of our, um, allies get out of hand?" he looked at DeLeon. "I'm not trying to be a dick or anything, but you've got to understand, if something goes wrong, it's our," his motion took in himself and the other officers, "necks on the chopping block."

"My boys'll do what I tell them," the gang leader assured him. "And here's the other thing: this is our city, too. We live here. Don't none of us want to see it blown to shit."

"Truth," Tanisha snapped, and Roxanne saw a defensive fire in her eyes. "And how do we know you ain't just going to arrest us all after we help you? You ain't the only ones taking a huge fucking risk here! Ever think about that?!"

"Tani," DeLeon said, laying a hand on her arm. "Don't. I'd have asked the same thing. Look," he added to the others. "This situation is all kinds of fucked up, and maybe we all got reasons not to trust each other, but we do this together or we don't do this."

"He's right," Roxanne informed them. "I think we've all heard the saying: the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Whether anyone here likes it or not, we need everybody to be a part of this for Megamind's plan to work. We've only got one chance, and I don't think any of us are willing to jeopardize it. Right now, keeping Ares from killing hundreds of people has to be our priority. Everything else pales compared to that."

As she finished, she noted with warm elation that Megamind's green eyes were full of affectionate pride.

"The lady's got a point," DeLeon was saying. "This guy is O.T.K. for real, and he don't give a damn whose guts his bombs scatter: your people, my people, or anybody else's. He wants to fuck this whole city up. And I don't know about you, but I ain't looking to get fucked by some piece of shit who thinks he can blow my home town all to hell. So," he turned back to Walters. "We good?"

"Yeah," Walters offered a grim smile. "Yeah. Here's to being the enemies of our enemy."

"If I had some juice," DeLeon said, "I'd drink to that."

"Drinks, yes," Megamind motioned a waiting brainbot over. "We're going to need coffee. Ridiculous amounts of coffee. This promises to be an extremely long day."

He wasn't wrong. First, there was a meeting between all of the leaders involved, followed by an extensive planning process as the team discussed which ploys would work best in which locations, which unlisted places were best suited for their own cover incidents, and which threats should be dealt with first. When Megamind insisted on several specific devices taking priority, despite their being scattered all over the city, Perez raised the question in everyone's thoughts.

"Defender, I thought you said the bombs would be somewhere connected with Greek stories? These are—"

"Not directly connected," the hero admitted, "but connected nonetheless. Ares likes patterns, and he likes sending messages."

"So the assumption is that if the one in an obvious place is fake, then the ones in the less obvious places are real?"

"That's a part of it, but I believe there's something else connecting these locations. We'll know soon enough."

"Your informant couldn't even give us addresses!" Perez objected. "I mean," he checked his notes, "'the basement level of a brick building somewhere off Heron Street, near the docks...' What are we supposed to do with that?! Start knocking on doors?!"

"No. We are supposed to deduce, Sergeant Perez, and that is exactly what I've done."

Perez looked for a moment like he might argue, but he was cut off by a roaring laugh. "That's the Mastermind for you!" Reaper, who in person was looked nearly as much like a bear as he sounded, clapped the hero's shoulder with one massive hand as he guffawed. "Always got to be the man of mystery! You know," he added to the blue hero with another laugh. "Sometimes the rest of us get real tired of feeling stupid when you're around! But if you say you got what you need, I believe it."

After a sort of mobile command center was set up in an unmarked police van, Megamind and Roxanne spent the next several hours planning, arranging, and managing distractions all over the city. The hero himself had to show up on location at each one—or at least all of those not meant simply to throw their adversary off the scent— disguised differently each time, to dismantle the explosives. The sun rose and the morning progressed. Most of the police involved changed shifts, although several opted to stay on for extra manpower. DeLeon and Reaper both sent some of their members home to rest and called others in.

Exhausted though she was, Roxanne knew her lover was bearing the heaviest burden. No one else had the skill and expertise to disarm Ares' devices, and one mistake, one movement made too quickly or too rashly, could cost not only his own life but others as well. The constant fear that Ares would show up at one of the locations hung heavily over both she and Megamind. Despite his alien stamina, the strain was clearly wearing on the blue hero. True, he had told her that he had sometimes gone days without sleep while finishing an invention, but the exiting mental challenge of building something new was a far cry from the endless stress he faced now. So she refused to leave. Between using her status as a neutral party to encourage all the factions of their operation to work together smoothly, she offered Megamind every kind of support and encouragement she could think of, little though that seemed to be. Minion had had to return to the Lair after only an hour— they had a little girl to care for now, after all— so she tried to think of all the little things the aquatic sidekick had done during her past kidnappings to make things easier for his friend. She brought her lover coffee and sweets, kept track of all the information coming in, and offered him condensed versions of the reports.

By half past noon, however, she was stumbling with weariness, her eyes itching and burning, her stomach soured by too little sleep and too much caffeine. She thought with wry envy of her college years, when she could stay awake for two days straight finishing an important paper and still function reasonably well.

What did I expect? I'm not nineteen anymore.

Megamind looked at her with concern when he returned once again to the command center to gulp coffee and change his disguise. This time, he didn't suggest that she return home for some rest. He insisted.

"Please, Sweetheart, don't argue with me," he said wearily when she started to protest. "You've been awake for almost thirty hours. You need to rest. You can't help anyone if you're too exhausted to function. Minion will have had a chance to sleep. He can take over."

"What about you?"

"I've told you, I need less sleep than a human."

"Maybe so, but you're still starting to look a little… gray around the edges."

"I know, Love. But it's almost over. We've taken care of five of the fourteen devices. Six if you count the first one. Just two more to go and I can come home. Now, I am going to call Minion. He is going to come pick you up, and you are going to go home and get some sleep. I'll dehydrate your hoverbike and have him take it home with you, and I'll be there as soon as I can."

"Two? Wait, but—"

"You're dating the Incredibly Handsome Heroic Genius of Metrocity, remember?" even his smile looked tired. "It took me about ten seconds after hearing all of the bombs' locations to figure out which ones were real and which were fake. Once the real ones have all been dealt with, a bomb squad can simply collect the rest. This ordeal is almost over."

She felt she should argue, but the idea of finally shutting her eyes was a beautiful, siren-song temptation. At that moment, if someone had offered her the choice, she felt she would have opted for eight hours of unbroken rest rather than a million dollars.

"Alright, I'll go," she deactivated her disguise again, wrapped her arms around him, and tucked her head against his shoulder. "Just please, please be careful, okay? I don't think I could live with myself if something happened to you."

"I'll be careful. Believe me, if I feel I've grown too tired to do this safely, I'll call a halt and nap for a couple of hours before I get started again."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

He must have done exactly that because it was four in the afternoon when Roxanne woke suddenly— yet another nightmare of exploding flames and gun-wielding assassins clinging to her brain— and turned over to see Megamind stripping off his shirt.

She nearly sobbed with relief.

"Darling?" he came to press a hand against her cheek. "Are you alright?"

"I... I'm fine," she managed. "Just a bad dream. A lot of them. I was... I was so worried..."

"Oh, Sweetheart," he crawled into bed beside her, practically falling against the pillows. "My poor angel. Come here," he pulled her close against his bare chest. "Let me hold you. I'm safe, Roxanne. I'm here. Everything is alright."

She turned in his arms, staring into his green eyes while her gentle fingers explored his face. He smiled sleepily at her, leaning in to share quick, tender kisses before he tugged her tighter against him. With a sigh of soul-deep contentment, Roxanne snuggled down to nestle her face under his chin. She took comfort in his steady heartbeat and in the slow movement of his chest as he relaxed into the rhythm of slumber. That was the last thing she remembered for a long while.