FBI Warning: Good news, everyone! I now own Megamind. Or at least I will as soon as the state confirms my request to change my name to DreamWorks. So I don't have to worry about copyright anymore. From now on, all similarities to events, real or fictional, are purely deliberate. May contain traces of peanuts.
Roxanne sighed as she walked into her house and closed the door behind her. It had been a week since her saloon was all but destroyed and it felt like she'd been working non-stop trying to get it rebuilt. She'd already emptied her bank account and taken out a loan to pay for the labor. And if she stayed out of business much longer, she was worried she'd have to mortgage her home. Why did this happen to her? She'd worked so hard to make her bar a success, taken so much pride in how far she'd come, especially given the challenges she faced as a woman. Did God just hate her? No, it wasn't God. She knew who was to blame. Thankfully, she hadn't seen him ever since that day.
She made her way up the stairs and into her room. She was about to undo the ribbons on the back of her dress when a familiar voice said, "Buenos Nightos."
"Gah!" she screamed, turning to face the man who sat in the chair in the corner of her bedroom.
"Ah!" yelped Mentedor, startled by her sudden outcry.
Both of them took a moment to catch their breaths before Roxanne's frightened expression turned to a glare. She wasn't surprised that he'd managed to escape from prison, but he'd certainly never showed up at her home before. "What are you doing here?"
Mentedor cleared his throat, attempting to regain what he must have considered to be an evilly suave demeanor. "Miss Ritchi, I am simply..."
"This is my house!"
"I am aware of this. I was just..."
"Get out! You have no right to be here!"
"If you would only take a moment to..."
"Was destroying my saloon not enough? Now you have to come into my home?"
"May I please be allowed to speak?" he said with a touch of annoyance.
Roxanne granted his request with a silent glare.
"Thank you," he said. "First of all, I would like to say that the complete and utter destruction of your business was certainly not my intent. I have every intention of reimbursing you for the damage caused. But in the meantime, I think it's best that we not allow this to be a continued source of unpleasantness between us. It was a whole week ago, after all."
Roxanne was seething.
"But that's not why I'm here," he continued. "In light of recent events, I have decided that it's time to finally move onto Phase 2 of my plan."
"You're plan has a Phase 2 now?"
"My plan has always had a Phase 2. I'm just now getting around to it."
"Huh," she said, her anger being somewhat diffused by her curiosity. "I always assumed the whole 'plan' thing was just something you said to...well, to give people the false impression you actually knew what you were doing."
"Oh, no, seh-nor-it-a. My plan is quite real. You didn't really think my ultimate goal was to rob a few banks and destroy some abandoned buildings, did you?"
"So...what is your plan?"
"I cannot divulge that to you yet. However, you are going to play a critical role in the next step."
"Uh, yeah. That's not happening."
"Oh, but I'm afraid it is. You see, Miss Ritchi, my next target is going to be a train heading to Polis County. This particular steam engine will be carrying a shipment of valuable gemstones that just happen to be my favorite color."
"Blue?"
Mentedor blinked. "How did you...?"
"Lucky guess."
"In any case, as I've told you before, precautions are necessary to pull off a successful caper. The less variables that present themselves, the higher your chance of success. And what I need for this particular heist is..." he reached under his cape on the chair behind him and took out a couple lengths of rope, pulling them taught with a devious smile, "...a hostage."
"Wait. You came here to kidnap me?"
Mentedor stood up. "'Kidnapping' is such an ugly word. I prefer to think of it as a mutually beneficial arrangement."
"I don't think you understand what the word 'mutually' means."
"You're just going to have to trust me on this one, Roxanne. I assure you, you'll thank me later." He strode toward her casually, moving a finger in the air in a downward circle, "Now, if you would kindly turn around and put your hands behind your back, I..."
A chair crashed into his face and body, knocking him to the ground and sending pieces of wood flying. Roxanne held the remnants of the chair in her hand, looking down at him with great hostility.
"What are you doing?" he yelled.
"Defending myself. Now get out of my house before I do it again!"
He stumbled up to his feet. "Look, I'm sure we can reach some sort of understanding if you simply..."
She pummeled him with another chair, this time the one he had been sitting on before. This sent him flying across the room toward the top of the stairway as the chair splintering into pieces.
"I need to get more durable chairs," Roxanne noted to herself.
Mentedor stood up, looking angry now. "Miss Ritchi, I have no wish to harm you. But if you continue to..."
She hit him with a third chair, this time sending him and pieces of the chair tumbling down the stairs. He lay at the bottom with his cape over his head and for a moment she was worried that she may have accidentally broken his neck. But then he started to move again.
He lifted the cape and yelled, "How many chairs do you have in that room?"
Roxanne saw that she had, in fact, depleted her supply of bedroom chairs and so she decided to go to Plan B. She moved quickly to her closet and pulled out her shotgun, then began walking downstairs with it pointed in front of her. Mentedor was getting up and brushing himself off when he saw her and gasped.
"I mean it, Mentedor," she said, pointing the gun at his large head. "Get. Out."
"Okay, okay, okay!" he said, waving his hands in front of him. "You win. I'll just...be on my way now." He started to back slowly toward the door and Roxanne relaxed a little. "Just..." he added, "...one last thing..."
Roxanne listened, curiously.
He suddenly pounced across the room toward her, grabbing the gun. In her shock she loosened her grip, which allowed him to yank it away from her. He threw it onto the couch where it went off automatically, firing a bullet through one of her windows. Great, he really as wrecking her house too.
She hurried toward the gun, but he intercepted her, throwing her to the ground. She landed on her arm and let out a cry of pain as the skin between her shoulder and elbow hit the floorboards. She rolled onto her stomach and tried to get up, but he was quickly on top of her, straddling her lower back. Roxanne grunted and struggled as he grabbed her arms and pulled them behind her. She could hear him laughing a low, villainous laugh as he tied her wrists together with one of the ropes. He then repositioned himself and used the other rope to bind her ankles as she squirmed to make his job as difficult as possible. Once her feet were secure, he knelt beside her pulled a piece of cloth over her mouth and knotted tightly behind her head.
He stood and looked down at her as she wriggled on the ground like a dying fish. Then he pressed his boot against her side, turning her onto her back so that she was looking up at him. "HA!" he yelled, pointing a finger at her face.
She glared up at him, mumbling incoherently through the cloth.
He straightened and began pacing slowly back and forth, smiling. "You see, Miss Ritchi? If you'd simply welcomed me into your humble case-a and done as I asked, this whole ugly ordeal could have been avoided. I hope you know, I expect you to be on much better behavior during the train ride."
Roxanne grunted, angrily.
Mentedor let out a soft, dark laugh, tapping the tips of his fingers together. "Soon now. Very soon my plan will come together. And then, nothing will be able to stop me! Not the sheriff. Not the bounty hunters. Not all of Metro Conda-doo!"
He kneeled back along side Roxanne and leaned in, his face hovering closely over hers. "Oh ho ho, they'll see. Soon they shall all see. Yes, it won't be long now before the entire county is within my evil grasp!" On the word 'grasp' he clenched his open hand into a fist. He had intended to grasp at the air in a dramatic gesture, but apparently he miscalculated how close he was to Roxanne. His hand closed around her left breast and her eyes bulged.
He let out a startled yelp, letting go immediately, and jumping back a good two feet. He stood there looking at her in horror. She simply stared back at him, for a moment too shocked to be angry.
Mentedor's eyes darted nervously around before looking at her, apologetically. "Okay..." he said, raising a finger, "that was my bad."
Roxanne's initial shock had worn off. If looks could kill, everyone in the greater Metro County area would have perished right then.
Mentedor looked genuinely intimidated by her glare, and again directed his gaze elsewhere in the room. He rubbed the back of his neck and appeared to be trying to think of something to say. "So...uh...guess I owe you for the chairs too, huh?" He gave a small, nervous laugh and looked back at her.
Her hate-filled eyes continued to pierce into him.
"R...Roxanne, I, uh..."
"Señor!" cried a distressed voice from outside the front door. "Are you okay in there?"
"Mount?" replied Mentedor, moving over to the door. He opened it to see his friend standing there with a worried expression. "I thought I told you to stay hidden until I gave the signal."
"I'm sorry, señor, but I heard the gunshot and...and..."
"Everything's okay, Mount," said Mentedor, smiling and putting his hand affectionately on his companion's mechanical neck. The fish smiled back at him. "And look!" continued Mentedor, gesturing over at Roxanne with a huge grin. "Miss Ritchi has agreed to help us!"
"Oh, that's wonderful, señor!"
Roxanne tried yelling an objection, but the cloth only allowed her to grunt some muffled sounds of discontent.
"Well then!" said Mentedor. "We'd best be on our way." He walked over to Roxanne and, with more than a little effort, flung her over his shoulder. Mount bent down, allowing his master to climb on his back. Mentedor set Roxanne down in front of him and grabbed the reigns. "Hi ho, Mount! Away!"
"You got it, boss!"
And they were off.
Preview: In the next exciting chapter of The Successful Failures of El Mentedor: Mount finally gets a bit more screentime, a new derivative character makes a cameo, and the train departs from the station. Can Roxanne escape? Will Mentedor succeed in looting the train? Is there going to be sex at some point in this fic? Join us next time!