Author's Note: As things continue to progress in a most positive direction with my husband's recovery from surgery, I find I'm able to do a bit of writing in more sober veins, and so my Muse finally let me finish the next chapter of this tale. Sorry for the delays between postings, but as is said somewhere in this chapter, better late than never! As things improve in Real Life, I'm hoping that the writing will come more easily for both this story and my other WIP, "Pin Up Boy." Thanks as always to all my readers, reviewers, and those who have wished my hubby and I well and kept us in their thoughts and prayers — I sincerely wish I had the time and energy to answer each and every one of you personally, but I promise you, I appreciate every kind word and thought. Now, on with the story!

Chapter Seven
A Banquet of Consequences

Less than three months before their top scientists predicted the end of life as they knew it — only a few days over two months before Mykaal was due to begin his life outside the womb — Kyrel was in the garden of her home, meditating upon the fruit trees on the hill beyond, whose blossoms were now blown away in the late spring winds, the flowers grown into the beginnings of the season's fruit. It was more than a session of mere reflection; Toomia and Tori were with her, providing their support as she concentrated on guiding the energies of her body to sustain and nourish her growing and increasingly active son.

Toomia was in her usual cybernetic body, while Tori was in a small habitat bubble, held by Kyrel against the now considerable bulge of her belly. The young Potrell was not yet old enough to have the neural implant that would allow him to direct an android body with his mind, nor were his growing but still tiny fins and tendrils large enough to move the water inside the selectively-permeable ball to make it roll and move, but for now, he was content to be inside the sphere, gently cradled where he could feel not only Kyrel's affectionate friendship, but the bright warmth of the person eagerly growing within her.

Tori was speaking a little now, not in the language that both his own people and the blue humans spoke in the land above the water, although he understood much of what was said to him well enough. The Potrell's underwater tongue was only audible in those environs, and in his little ball, Tori could neither hear his mother speaking it from within her android body, nor could he speak it and be heard by anyone else. But oddly, this bothered him not in the slightest. When he was being held by Kyrel, his small habitat nestled comfortably against the curve of her gravid belly, he was only interested in what he could feel there, the woman's placid channeling of energy to her unborn son, and the strengthening presence of Mykaal in his pre-birth slumber.

"He tells me he can feel your little one wanting to wake up more and more each day," Toomia explained to the mother-to-be after she mentioned how very intent and eager the young ichthyoid was whenever they were together, especially during these meditative sessions. "But Tori knows it's still too soon, and so he tells Mykaal to stay asleep, to wait, and he'll let him know when the time is right."

Kyrel smiled softly, one long-fingered hand caressing the curve of little Tori's sphere. The young Potrell's golden-brown eyes were wide as he pressed the lower part of his face against the part of the sphere in direct contact with the woman's pregnant belly, his cheeks and lips moving against the clear substance as if he was attempting to speak to it in a tactile way. Kyrel could occasionally feel the faint vibration of hums and pops passing through the globe to her bare skin.

"Do you know what he's trying to say to Mykaal now?" the pregnant woman asked.

"Not entirely," Toomia admitted. "When he's with me and I ask him, he says he's encouraging your son to wait and to stay, but most of the rest of it seems to be only baby nonsense."

Kyrel's brilliant green eyes looked up at her friend. "Most?" she repeated, asking the greater question with her inflections alone.

The female ichthyoid smiled crookedly. "There's no precise translation for the other words he uses; most nearly, he calls your son 'little brother.' Tori loves his sisters, but he isn't as close to them as they are to each other, and there are no male younglings in our city in the Dusiomi who are near his age, all are older. He feels the sleeping presence of Mykaal, and thinks of him as the younger brother he is caring for, helping to keep safe until his time comes."

The woman's smile was wide and bright. "He does have the makings of a min'yaaun, doesn't he? Not of land or sea, but of another he knows only through feelings."

"He does," Toomia said proudly. "The protectors often show such traits quite young. Tori might have been truly great in his own way, if he'd had the chance." She sighed, her eyes dimming with sadness. "If the river of Fate continues to flow as we fear is inevitable, I'll be sorry to see it carry these two apart. I think they might have become close friends if given a chance, but that is not to be."

Kyrel understood her melancholy. "Nothing is certain, these days," she admitted. "Varaan and my father have been keeping us abreast of the efforts to collapse the vortex, and Eliaan has been working diligently to alter the probe into a suitable escape vehicle for our son, but there's no guarantee that any of our efforts will end as we wish. The wormhole continues to expand erratically, and the end may come too soon. And one of the two probes that should've been in storage vanished; the one that was left was the older of the two and requires more work to be properly adapted. I'm afraid that even if it's finished in time, it won't be as comfortable an ark for Mykaal as we'd like."

Toomia scowled. With her sharp teeth and the even sharper glint in her amber eyes, she looked capable of biting through the impervious metal of her android body. "Yes, and I'm sure it's all thanks to that excrement from Glaupek who started this entire crisis. It's bad enough that he'll destroy all our worlds and all their life out of selfish greed, but he had no right to steal that probe for his own brat, just because he heard how our Elders planned to save Mykaal! There's a good reason for your son to have a chance to live, but I'm sure the universe already has more than enough spawn of selfish, grasping, murdering thieves than it needs!"

The human woman clicked her tongue. "Such bitterness doesn't become you, Toomia — nor do I think it's good for little ones to hear. The Glaupek who started this disaster has gone before the Elders, and they made the decision to let him return to his family, for now. If the worst happens, they should be together to face it, and if it doesn't, his own wife has vowed to return him to us for punishment."

"But he stole the only means left to us to save another of our younglings!" the incensed ichthyoid cried. "All the starships are gone now, swallowed up in attempts to undo what that puling coward with more muscle than brains did — and you know as well as I do that without them, the chances of collapsing the vortex are nearly impossible! It would take an act of the Universe itself to spare us — and why should a child of the person who brought this down on us all be saved when—" Toomia abruptly choked off what she had been about to say.

But Kyrel knew what was left unsaid. "When one of your own children cannot be saved," she finished sadly. "I know that's what you've been thinking, old friend, and I must admit, I've thought such a thing myself, especially when I see how hard little Tori has been working to help Mykaal. And that's also led me to wonder: why can't we send them together?"

The elder Potrell looked at the pregnant woman, a glimmer of hope softening the anger in her eyes even as she spoke against it. "I know something of how this escape vehicle is to work, Kyrel. To reach the planet you and Eliaan have chosen, it will take a considerable hyperdrive jump and at least two full weeks of travel in normal space, and the life support resources will have little to spare by the time it arrives. Much as I want to save my Ootori, I couldn't ask this of you if it would risk having both of them die before they can even reach this haven on another world."

"I've been considering this," Kyrel admitted. She looked up at the trees for a few moments as she ordered her thoughts. "I don't want to send Mykaal all alone, and though there's no way to give the pod sufficient resources to sustain two children of my kind, I would take only a few minor adjustments to accommodate a child of the Potrell — especially one as small and young as Tori. That way, one of both of our peoples can be saved, to bring knowledge of who and what we are along with our history and those things we have learned. Our races are doomed as living creatures, thanks to the vortex, but if even one of us can personally go to give them the gifts our civilizations have to offer, then we'll at least live on in their memories as beings who truly lived and breathed and walked among them, not mere images or tales."

Toomia's wide eyes somehow became a bit wider as she listened before they narrowed in thought, her fins fluttering in anxious excitement. "If Tori can be sent with him... I would give my own life to save his, especially since it seems that he already has some emotional attachment to your son. But if we send him as he is, without the neural implant, it's doubtful that they will ever be able to communicate. Mykaal may be intelligent enough to find a way when he's older and has the resources, but that will take years. He won't even begin the Teaching until he's an adult. By then, Tori will have forgotten what he knows now for lack of use — and we've never made an implant on one so young. His body is still growing and changing so rapidly, placing the implant into his brain could kill him. At the very least, it's likely to impair his memory."

Kyrel nodded, as she was well familiar with these things. "I know it's safest to wait until he's reached the end of his second year before attempting it, but time is something we have in short supply. If we send him as he is now, the people of Terra will never think of Tori as more than an unusual pet fish. If we try to give him the implant and fail in the worst possible way, he would die here anyway, when all our worlds are destroyed. But if we try and succeed, both our sons will have a chance to survive, to become friends, and to achieve their destinies, whatever they might be."

For several minutes, Toomia watched her youngling as he intently burbled to the unborn child in the other female's womb. Tori's mood swung between childish happiness and a fierce concentration, a guardian intently watching over what he had been asked to protect and help, and yet enjoying the conversation only he understood as a youngling might enjoy a favorite game.

There was no doubt in his mother's mind that if their worlds somehow miraculously survived, Tori would someday become an excellent min'yaaun, very likely dedicating his life to the protection and aid of some cause or some one in the lands above the waters. He so clearly enjoyed interacting with the things and peoples on the surface of Ayalthis, and he had so eagerly taken on the task of offering his emotional support to help Kyrel guide her unborn son to survive to a healthy birth, Toomia felt quite certain that Tori was meant to somehow be involved in the life of this Natoshi'ana.

But to send him with Mykaal was a serious risk, no matter how one looked at it. Without the implant, Tori would be reduced to a mute animal who might never be able to properly communicate with anyone, much less become a true min'yaaun to his younger companion. And yet placing the implant was a delicate procedure, difficult though not dangerous to the adult Potrell, somewhat more chancy to the young who were at least beyond their infancy, but potentially deadly to one so young as Tori.

Toomia had no doubt that Kyrel would make absolutely certain that the neurosurgeons who did the work would be the most highly skilled and would take the utmost care in performing the procedure on Tori, but it would be a frightening thing for him to experience, no matter what. It needed to be done with the patient at least partially conscious, so that the neural pathways could be accurately traced and the fusions to the implant made correctly. And even if all went perfectly and Tori survived physically undamaged, because he was still so small and growing, he would need the better part of two weeks to recover, and there would very likely be negative consequences to his memories. He might lose only some, or he might lose all; he might experience confusion that could be temporary, or it might be permanent. There was no way of knowing the outcome of the procedure until it had been completed and the patient recovered.

Under ordinary circumstances, Toomia would not take the chance; there was no need for it, no matter how eager Tori might be to begin a life of his own upon the land. But there was no denying that the current circumstances were anything but ordinary, and if they waited too long to begin the preparations for implant, there wouldn't be time enough to do it and for Tori to recuperate before the escape vehicle must be sent away.

The elder piscine's golden-brown eyes looked up again at the blue woman, catching her brilliant green, thoughtful gaze. She sighed softly, creating a flurry of small bubbles within her habitat. "It feels like a terrible risk to take with my youngling's life," she admitted. "But I know that it would only be terrible if he were harmed and our world survived, and in the deepest part of my being, I know that it will not. But I can't make this wholly my decision, Kyrel. Notarr must have his say — and Tori, most of all."

Kyrel accepted this, indeed, had anticipated this response. "Will Tori understand what you're wanting to do, and why it's dangerous for him?"

Toomia pondered the question for a long moment. "Intellectually?" she said at last. "No, he's still a very, very little youngling, it would be quite beyond him. But emotionally, yes, I think he'll understand quite well. After all, he understood that your Mykaal was in trouble and needed help and support and love to find his way to safety, and that was some months ago. He's also asked about my implant, and his father's."

One of Kyrel's elegant black eyebrows quirked with interest. "Did he? Was he just curious because you had something on your bodies that he didn't, or did he have some idea of what they are?"

"Just curiosity," she was assured with a wry chuckle. "Notarr tried to explain how they work and I don't believe Tori understood more than a few words of it, but he did grasp that they're what let us talk clearly with you and Eliaan and the rest of your people, and what let us live in and work with these android bodies, what makes it possible for us to have a life above the waters. He'll understand that getting the implant now will be frightening and might hurt him, but he'll also understand that if he has this done successfully, it will eventually let him be a true min'yaaun for your son. I think he'd like to do that for his 'little brother,' but I won't assume it without explaining things as best I can, and asking if this is what he wants."

Kyrel smiled at the ichthyoid even as she touched the nearer of her android arms. "You're a good mother, Toomia. I wish that I could have a chance to be even half so good a mother to Mykaal."

The fish snorted expressively. "You've already been as good a mother as ever lived, my friend. You've done what everyone said was impossible; you've given your heart and soul and strength to your son to make sure he will survive despite all the odds against him, and you've enlisted more than half the planet into helping make your aspirations for him a reality. I wish we both could have more time with our younglings, to see them grow into their lives and their destinies, but if we can't do more than ensure their survival, it will still be enough to know that we did all that we could for them."

The blue woman nodded, impressed as always by her small friend's wisdom. "Then ask them, Toomia, and if they're both agreeable, I'll see to making all the arrangements as soon as possible."

With one hand, she caressed the curve of Tori's habitat; the youngling glanced up at her with his big amber eyes and wide, toothy smile before burbling more words that could not be heard. "You'll make a remarkable min'yaaun, little one," Kyrel said softly. "Not to protect the waters or the land of this planet, but to protect the last legacy of both our peoples on another."

Though he had given Roxanne the general gist of this tale during the drive home, Megamind waited until Minion had returned from the parade and the following festivities to tell the specifics. As they sat at the kitchen table, eating a light lunch the couple had cobbled together before the ichthyoid arrived, Minion was quiet throughout the telling, not from a lack of interest, but because the words stirred bits and pieces of very old, very blurry memories. When Megamind was finished, he remained still for a good minute more, then sighed softly.

"That explains so much," the fish said at last, glad that the others had respected his need for reflection. "Like why I couldn't remember any names until something else reminded me, not even my own. And why when you first told me about me and my parents when I was just a tiny baby, I remembered my mother's eyes, watching me so carefully when I was terribly frightened, trying to reassure me and keep me calm. That was probably when they put in my implant, wasn't it?"

Though Megamind simply nodded, Roxanne shivered. "Doesn't it feel awful to remember something like that?" she wondered. She'd done a few news items on brain surgery, and no matter how calm she could be during the actual report, she always felt incredibly creeped out by even the thought of it when the report was over. "Didn't it hurt?"

But Minion shook his head. "Not that I recall. What was frightening was how strange the operating room was. I wasn't underwater — I guess they couldn't do it that way?" He looked to his ward for confirmation.

The ex-villain provided it. "It would've made things even more difficult than they were — though from what I saw of the procedure through the recording, they made sure your skin remained hydrated properly, and that you had no difficulty breathing. It's good you're a lung rather than gill breather, or it might've been even more of a problem all around — though I'm sure they had extremely advanced facilities to keep your people completely safe during these procedures. It's what I would've done, after all. And it might sound disturbing to be awake through that kind of an operation, Roxanne, but the brain itself actually has very little physical sensation, in terms of pain. To someone that age, the experience of undergoing surgery could be quite frightening all by itself."

"I'm sure that's why I remember my mother being there with me, she knew I'd be scared and wanted to reassure me so everything would work out as well as possible." Minion's typically cheerful expression fell, though only to mere wistfulness, not deep melancholy. "I just wish I'd been able to remember her a long time ago."

Megamind did understand his feelings. "I wish I'd been able to remember a lot of things a long time ago — but better late than never. And really, it could've been worse."

Though she was in full sympathy, Roxanne couldn't help the snort that escaped her. "That's true, Minion. You could've had parents like mine and remembered every awful second of life with them."

She'd meant it as a self-deprecating joke, but the piscine took it somewhat differently, and surprisingly positively. "I suppose that's true. Sometimes, forgetting can be a blessing. If I'd remembered all of this from the start, I know I would've missed our home and my family so much, I wouldn't have made a very good guardian."

His boss thought otherwise. "Of course you would've, it's in your nature, like being a flamboyant show-off is part of mine. It does seem that the procedure did do some damage to your memories, but not much that probably wouldn't have been lost or diminished in the long term, anyway. What I learned last night did include some information about your people, and while mine tended to have exceptionally retentive memories as the norm, the Potrell's were much closer to those of Earth humans. Not many people here have memories of anything that happened before they were a year old, Minion, and you do. It may not be perfect, but it's still remarkable."

The fish accepted that with a faintly abashed but grateful smile and nod. "Thank you, sir," he said most sincerely as he started to get up to collect the dirty dishes since his kitchen helper bot, Madeleine, was in her recharge cycle, but Roxanne was quicker.

"I can handle this, Minion," she assured him before he could protest. "After all, I was a waitress back in college, and I wound up busing tables more often than I care to remember. I can do this in my sleep — one of my many hidden talents. I'm just surprised you didn't whip up a whole gaggle of brainbots to help you with menial chores like this, instead of just making Madeleine."

"We tried that a couple of times before you moved in," Minion told her. "They usually wound up either breaking the dishes or playing with them."

"Pinky and Madeleine don't," the brunette pointed out as she took the first load of dishes to the counter. "Since they manage without any problems, maybe you need to make a few more female brainbots, or at least give the regular kitchen helpers less dog-like programming."

"Actually, the more obviously dog-like behavior isn't due to programming, it's a side effect of the cloned brain cells in their processors," Megamind explained. "Though actually, I can see at least a dozen ways of adjusting certain algorithms to compensate for the less agreeable canine traits, which would help to further 'domesticate' them — and though I haven't made any female brainbots other than Madeleine since the experiment with Pinky, I can see now that I made it harder than it needed to be because I went about the whole thing the wrong way, and if I'd just made a few simple adjustments in the cloning process prior to the point that determines a kind of rudimentary gender predisposition..."

"Just don't go making a whole army of female brainbots," Roxanne interrupted, seeing the beginnings of another babble fit. "That could wind up causing a whole new set of problems."

"But a few less temperamental bots to help out around the living quarters might actually be nice," Minion opined as he at least collected his own dirty dishes to hand to Roxanne. "Sir, were things like genetics and cloning part of the information the sleep teacher gave you last night?"

One could see the blue hero pull his thought processes back into the moment. "Hmm? Oh, no, not exactly, it's just that my brain seems to be defragging itself now, incorporating new data and cleaning up old."

"Then the sleep teaching wouldn't have this same kind of effect on Mrs. Roxanne and I if we did use it to see these things for ourselves?"

Megamind was confident. "No, I'm sure it wouldn't. My brain really is different, not just big. It's the main part of the genetic fluke that my grandparents saw in me long before I was even born. For you and Roxanne and anyone else who used it, you'd be shown the story of our worlds and what happened to them, and how we came to be sent here. For me, it was a little more, like it flipped the switch to start an engine that had just been idling, at best."

"Then once your brain gets used to this, it shouldn't feel so strange to you anymore," his wife observed as she carried the last of the dishes over to the sink and dishwasher. "That should be a relief, seeing how it's been upsetting you."

But rather than express evidence of being reassured, Megamind fidgeted. "Well... if this was all there was to it, I suppose it would."

Both his spouse and his fishy friend looked at him, curious. "There's more?" the latter asked.

The ex-villain nodded and fidgeted for a few moments more, then suddenly got up and left the room with a "be back in a minute" gesture. When he returned, he had with him the two boxes that he'd found in the pod the night before.

"This is the Master Teacher," he said as he set the boxes on the table and opened the smaller one. He lifted out the supple silver-blue band with its dark and intricate filigree designs and a single pea-sized data gem that had been in the box with it.

Roxanne had rejoined them at the table to have a closer look. She whistled softly. "That's what taught you all about your language and your people and everything while you were asleep for four hours?" she asked.

"It was actually three hours and thirty-eight minutes," Megamind corrected a tad sheepishly as he returned the items to their case. "Because it establishes a direct neural input to the student's mind, it works at whatever pace the individual brain is capable of assimilating the data."

The reporter grinned and kissed his cheek. "And you being so exceptional, it worked even faster than your father thought it would. That's great, sweetie, I told you I prefer brains over brawn, and this just proves I couldn't've picked anyone better. So this would work on anyone, just at different speeds."

The blue head nodded, relieved that she wasn't bothered by any of this. "This would," he clarified, tapping the data gem. "My father had it made so that the information could be given to anyone who wants it. But not this." He set his hand on the larger box, a shimmery dark blue case about a foot square and several inches deep.

As his gesture drew attention to it, Minion noted the design on the upper surface. "That looks like some kind of coat of arms."

"It's the emblem for the Ayalthan Ministry of Education," Megamind said as he traced the complex design with the tip of one long finger. "It's what my mother asked her father to have prepared for me, to be sent with me so I could have access to it when I was old enough to use it."

He hesitated, then laid the palm of his right hand on the flat metallic surface, covering the elaborate design. Beneath his hand, there was a brief flash of light, following the lines and curves of the emblem, and when he removed his hand, the surface split into four equal triangles that slid back into the corners of the box, revealing its contents. Inside were row after row of the tiny pea-sized data gems, glistening in the overhead lights of the kitchen. They were so tightly and neatly packed, they looked like columns of uncolored pixels, waiting to have their hue applied to make an image. There were at least a thousand of the stones visible, and this was plainly only the topmost layer.

The blue hand reached out toward the box again, but only hovered above the contents, not actually touching them. "All the knowledge and history and culture of my people and our world, recorded and keyed for me to use, to learn from and to pass on to the people of Earth." His voice was soft, his tone something of both awed reverence and nervous shock. "What I learned last night was what my parents thought I'd need to know before I decided what to do with this."

Both Roxanne and Minion looked at the sparkling gem-like stones, amazed. "They expected you to learn all of this?" his wife finally asked. "That would take years, even if you could!"

"I can," the blue genius replied without hesitation and with unusual modesty, not sure how he knew, but fully aware that he was speaking truthfully. "But they didn't expect me to. They offered this to me, and hoped I'd be able to decide what I wanted to do with it when the time came, for myself, and for Earth."

The whole thing was quite mind-boggling to the reporter, who had seen a lot of very boggling things over the last ten or twelve years. "And do you know what you want?" she asked, trying hard not to pressure him, but undeniably curious to know what he was thinking. This was something huge, after all, the Destiny he'd always talked about now very present and looking them right in the eye. Megamind had always displayed an intense hunger for knowledge, and now he had a massive banquet set out just for him, a banquet that would take years to be consumed, and would certainly change all their lives — and could possibly change him in ways Roxanne wasn't sure she wanted, but also couldn't deny him.

Fortunately, after only a moment's pause, he shook his head. "Not yet. How could I know? I just learned that this exists, and exactly why my parents wanted so badly to save me. I haven't had even a day to take it all in, or think about what it might mean, how it could impact all our lives. It's going to take time to figure out what I want to do with it, and I'm not going to leave either of your feelings out of my decision."

Roxanne was immensely relieved to hear it. "I'll be behind you no matter what you choose," she told him with sincere affection. "Just don't forget there are people counting on you to be there for them — and not just as a superhero."

His answering smile was small, but earnest. "I won't forget," he promised.

"Are you even sure these things work?" Minion wondered, indicating the small stones in the box. He was less concerned about his ward's choices, since he'd lived with the notion that Megamind had some kind of important destiny all his life. He was mostly glad to finally see proof that it was something positive rather than being a supervillain. "They might've gotten damaged or erased on the trip here, or during all these years of storage. And did they come with some kind of index to tell you which one has what information? They all look the same to me."

"They're not," his ward said confidently, remembering some of what he had learned during the night. Very carefully, he extended his finger to one gem and touched it with the very tip. It instantly began to glow softly, much like the data sphere with the recordings from his parents. "Quantum Thermodynamics." He touched the next stone. "Extragalactic Astrophysics." The next. "Magnetohydrodynamics. Nucleosynthesis. Chromodynamics."

He lifted his hand and waved at the rest of the data gems in that part of the box. "This entire section contains instruction on a very wide range of advanced physics related subjects. All I have to do is touch the stone, and it sends me information on the contents. It won't do it for anyone else because they were all made specifically for me, to respond to my unique genetic code. I learned all of this from the Teacher last night," he added, explaining just how he knew these things.

"That actually makes a lot of sense," Roxanne opined after taking a few moments to absorb all she'd just heard. "If these things are keyed only to respond to you, nobody else could take them and use the information in ways I don't even want to think about." Her shudder was most eloquent. "Advanced technology in the wrong hands — they'd either use it to destroy the world or make us all slaves. But without you and that sleep teaching device, these are nothing but a lot of shiny little marbles."

She looked at the artfully elegant band that sent the information from the data storage stones to the sleeping mind of the student, and smiled. "I thought this was a bracelet or a necklace when you first picked it up. I have uglier expensive jewelry, y'know. After seeing this and your de-gun, I think an artistic nature must run in your people — even when it goes the spikes and studs and leather route."

"I think it was in both our peoples," Minion said with a nod. "I may not have a lot of clear memories from before we left, but there are things I've seen in my dreams all my life, of a beautiful place underwater, built by my people and Sir's working together. The place has a lot of the same kind of intricate and elegant shapes and designs, just made out of different materials, for different uses. I used to think it was just some kind of fantasy, but now I think it's probably bits and pieces of things from our homeworld that I remember best when I'm asleep."

Touched, Roxanne patted the nearer of the ichthyoid's robotic shoulders. "I wish I could've seen your world with my own eyes, but I'm glad you have good memories, even if they aren't clear. Your planet really must've been a beautiful place."

"It was," Megamind said wistfully, touching the sides of the bigger box to close it. "By the time I saw anything of Ayalthis, everyone knew the end was definitely coming very soon, so most of what I remember has very intense feelings connected to it, either fear or resignation. But I do remember one thing that was incredibly beautiful, so beautiful that I'd wondered if it was a true memory, or just a dream — until last night..."

To be continued...