Roxanne watched, rooted to the spot, horrified at what she was witnessing. She had watched as M had thrown Megamind around the room like a rag doll, and had experienced a fleeting and conflicting moment of realizing she was both cheering on M mentally but also wishing he'd go easier on the genius. How she wished she hadn't tried to stall for time, asking him personal questions and learning just what he had gone through, what moments had molded him into the body he now wore. Nobody, especially an orphaned baby, deserved to be raised in such conditions. For what purpose did it serve? Medical advancements? The study of alien life? Seeing how different Megamind was to human beings?
And then she saw that he was bleeding, and striking white blood splattering from his shattered nose and dribble out of his mouth to land on both the floor and on his chest. Even she had to wince at that, since it would no doubt hurt getting your nose broken no matter who you were especially if it was broken by M who was known to have super-human strength. Could it be called super-human if he wasn't human? He certainly looked human enough, unlike Megamind, making her realize this anger might also have cropped up from the simple feeling of jealousy. That one could hide amongst a sea of people in every day life while the other stuck out like a sore thumb.
It suddenly looked like M could be winning this, despite a part of her judgment which wished she would leave the broken individual alone despite all he'd done. Roxanne wanted to shout at him to leave the blue man alone, that he had suffered already far more than either of them could imagine. They had cut his legs from his body when he was just a teenager, barely out of his childhood years, just because he had tried to escape. A friend, be it an imaginary one or had once been actually real, had been killed. Nothing but loss, pain and suffering. It was like a scratched record, this blue man's life.
But as Roxanne's mind argued with itself over what was right, and what was wrong, she watched as M suddenly began to crumble. The hero gasped for breath and clutched at his throat and face, and then he was down.
"What are you doing?" she screamed, her body shaking and trying to foolishly free itself from bonds she couldn't see. Roxanne's eyes were wide and with panic, watching as the hero continued to gaps for breath like a fish pulled out of water.
"Killing him." Megamind replied quietly as he walked hurriedly over to the crumpling man. "I'm cutting off the oxygen to his body. It's like a pocket of air right in his mouth and it's not allowing anything in. Or out." he further explained as he reached down as if he was going to touch the man, but then thought better of it and pulled his hand away.
"STOP IT!" Roxanne screamed, and she saw the blue alien shrink back at the scream like a little child being scolded by its parent and she suddenly remembered. He had seemed so fixated on her liking him before, the first time he had snapped was because she had called him insane. What if that could help sway things in M's favor? If not his favor, it might get Megamind to stop whatever it was he was planning to do once M was done away with. She had to stop this plan dead in its tracks. Quickly thinking she continued. "I'LL HATE YOU FOREVER IF YOU KILL HIM!" she shouted, getting her point across.
Megamind's eyes widened considerably with fear, before they narrowed with steel resolute. He wanted this alien man dead, dead and buried then dug up again, burned, melted into something smashable and then that smashable thing destroyed. But he wanted Roxanne too, in what way or fashion he couldn't properly understand but he wanted her to... to... something. Before he had laid eyes on the woman, he truly had despised every single human being in existence for living lives they had some control over. They had choices in things, their opinions were heard, and they weren't tested on like mice in a scientists lab.
And then he had seen her, late one night as he was flipping channels after doing some work on his future fish robot army. There she was, reporting live on the scene of a recent bank robbery conducted by Destruction Worker (half the proceeds were already in his possession). Megamind had never seen a more perfect specimen of a human being in his entire life before, and he had seen a lot of people in his life. The woman in the facility were of all shapes and sizes, skin colors and eyes, their hair at various shapes but after his first escape attempt hair was always cut short. Did they think he would pull on their hair? He didn't know... But her eyes were a bright sky blue color which seemed to stare straight into his soul, her voice that of an angel and her face... everything was absolutely perfect in his eyes. How he wished, for the first time in his life, that he was normal. That he could have approached her on the street to say hello, or to even dare himself to write her a fan letter detailing what a brilliant reporter she was.
A fraction of him had wondered if this was healthy at all, to fixate on a woman who was on a television screen, but his logic and reason had shriveled under years of pain and trauma in the alien's mind. All he saw was a beautiful creature that he could never truly have no matter how long he lived or what he did. Even if he turned everything around and set things straight, became a good guy and won over the people he had terrorized for years... would that win her? Would that bring that beautifully shaped woman to his arms, to feel an embrace for the first time in his life? Would it mean she would kiss him?
No.
But to be hated? To be seen as something lower then scum, and dirt? Could he stand that? To be hated by her? She was the only human being alive whose opinion mattered to him, and to know she hated him...
"But..." Megamind started shakily, and Roxanne suddenly realized she could move her fingers for the first time since he got a hold of her, "But he... it's..." he trailed off into silence, and uncertainty.
"It's not his fault, Megamind." Roxanne used his name, it was important to make the connection with his name, to keep him grounded and focused on her and hearing his name. "It's those scientists who got their hands on you Megamind. It's their fault all of these things happened. If they weren't so blind to the wonderful person you really were and not just a lab experiment things would never had turned out like this."
"Really?" Megamind asked quietly and apprehensive, body still standing over the fallen M, his eyes locked on Roxanne's but his mind had floated away to think if possible alternate versions of himself that he might have become if he hadn't been treated like he had. The intense insanity she had seen in those eyes was melting like snow in the springtime, warmth slowly beginning to shine through those acidic green eyes.
"Yes, yes." she replied, "You're right, you didn't deserve it. Bad things happen in the world but sometimes there is nobody to place blame on, these are not one of those times though. They deserved what they got from you, Megamind, they earned it from only seeing you as a pin-cushion and nothing else." while she could hardly condone cold blooded murder, she wouldn't let him know that. It would ruin everything.
"Pin-cushion?" Megamind asked, having never heard of such a thing. "What is that?"
"Uh, it's a little small round cushion tailor's strap to their wrists to stick their sewing needles and pins in when they're working." Roxanne explained quickly, suddenly reeling at just how disconnected from the world the man had been.
"Oh." Megamind blinked before he looked down at M, who was shakily breathing again. When had that happened? He didn't remember letting go of the air pocket in the others mouth. If he didn't put it back M was going to get back on his feet and the pain and hurting would start all over again. But he didn't. While he didn't try to strangle him a second time, or to cut off the oxygen to his brain, or even disconnect his retinas in his eyes all he did was hold him to the ground with as much power as he could muster... and that was a lot.
It was so much power that the surrounding foundation began to slightly shake in reaction, as if fearing what was going to take place here. The tense and electricity in the air could have been cut with a knife and served up as desert to people in the city. Dust and rust flakes from the buildings supports began to gently drift down to the ground, and particles of dust in the air became more obvious and visible in the bright day light which was pouring into the building from the hole M had punched his way through. Megamind took a shaky breath, and then looked back up to see that Roxanne was actually free. She was no longer where he was holding her, she had moved but instead of further towards the exit of the building she was closer now.
His hearts began to race quickly, it felt as though they were preparing themselves to erupt out of his chest. Why wasn't she trying to escape from him? Anyone else would be running from him for their lives, hoping he take his frustrations out on the fallen hero who he could now hear grunting, trying to fight his way out from the hold Megamind's psychically had upon him. M wouldn't get anywhere, and he somehow knew it but his determined and bull-headed nature meant he wouldn't stop trying. Roxanne was trying to distract him, to pull him into somewhere vulnerable and weak to allow M a moment to break free and finally get his hands on Megamind. All he had to do was knock him out, if he was unconscious then the alien would be over powered easily.
"I know the world can seem like it's against you." Roxanne was saying as she took another bold step forward, hands hanging loosely by her sides to show she meant no physical harm to the blue man. "I can't blame you for feeling that way." she continued, "If I had gone through what you had, if I'd been treated like that, if... if I'd lost my legs, and my only friend..."
"Minion." Megamind whispered shakily, the realization and remembering his friend was actually long gone... possibly he always had been gone. Had the Minion he had seen and spoken to all these years been nothing but a hallucination? A by-product of his brain in an attempt to keep him sane, and in control? He found it painful to accept the fact, that he had been actually alone all along. His only friend had been created by a need to have him there, as if an extension of his soul and was now gone. Gone and lost forever.
Roxanne didn't expect the blue alien's shoulders to suddenly tremble, nor the tears to suddenly appear in his eyes. His tears were clear, just like a humans, and they poured down his cheeks, stinging when they made contact with his broken nose. Megamind gasped, and lifted a hand to his face, and felt the wetness there. "I-I'm leaking. Why am I leaking?" he asked shakily.
"You're crying." Roxanne said softly as she reached into a pocket and pulled out a tissue and held it out to him. "Here..."
Megamind stared at her outstretched hand and at the tissue she held. Carefully he reached out and took the tissue without touching her hand. He opened it and pressed it to his face, where most of it instantly burned away because of his blood still smeared on his face. He gasped and wiped at his sore nose with his fingers, the blood burning through his gloves but not his flesh, so he quickly wiped away the dried blood and tears. It looked as though his body healed itself quickly since the blood, despite how bad the injury was, had already stopped flowing. He bowed his head forward and shuddered, another harsh sob escaping his mouth.
He was alone against the whole world. With Minion with him it had somehow felt doable, as long as he had Minion at his back always supporting him with his unending devotion it could be achieved. Their vengeance, their destruction of the city which had caused nothing but pain and misery for the two of them. But now, he was alone. Totally and utterly alone on a world full of aliens who hated him.
Roxanne could feel her heart breaking as she watched him cry into the partly dissolved tissue. He suddenly seemed to small to her, despite all the heels and leather with the spikes. What stood before her wasn't a megalomaniac, or a crazed mad man Hell bent on a justice he would never truly achieve. What she saw was a lost, scared, lonely little boy who had nobody in the world to turn to. She looked at the fallen M, who was quietly watching all of this with an uncertain look on his face. He too didn't seem to know what to do, or how to comprehend the situation. His job was to do away with evil and while Megamind was all shades of evil, he was also something completely different.
"Why are you crying?" Roxanne softly asked, one hand still clutching at the tissues she had pulled from her pocket.
So that's what it was called. Crying. In all his years of life, despite what pain he had been in physically and emotionally, Megamind had never cried. Even when he felt the doctors strapping him down onto the operating table after his failed attempt at escaping his solitude for the first time. Despite feeling their tools of torture slicing into his flesh, muscle and bones to cut away the ruptured tissue and shattered bone from his fall down the elevator shaft he hadn't cried. Yes he had screamed at the top of his lungs, and had thrashed until they gave him a sedative to at least calm him but kept him awake, and aware of his surroundings and the pain in his body, he still had not cried. In all his years, up until this moment, standing over his fallen foe and realizing that everything he thought to be truth to be false and nobody else to blame but himself, he had never shed a single tear.
"I... I..." he started shakily, and lifted his gaze to look at her. "I'm alone." Megamind spoke quietly, barely above a breath of a whisper. Roxanne had to strain her ears to hear him, to hear the defeat in that single sentence once again ripped into her heart.
This was a man she should loathe and despise. Not only had he brought death upon countless people involved in his capture and life, but who knew how many others had fallen because of his puppeteering of the Doom Syndicate. Every day there were deaths in the city, through the gangs that were all connected through the Doom Syndicate. And today, just how many had been injured in his attack upon the city or the aftermath of that giant robot which had ran through the streets? On top of that he had watched her, stalked her, watched her, followed her home and who knew what else he had done what she wasn't even aware of. Yet despite all these points, she couldn't feel any hatred towards him. The only thing she did feel was sorrow and pity. He hadn't asked to become this way, he hadn't requested for a life of anguish and loneliness, for disillusionment and insanity.
She wouldn't even wish his life upon her worst enemy.
Roxanne was closer then Megamind remembered her being, since when he lifted his head finally she was right there in front of him. He normally would have jumped back and pushed any person who dare approach him so closely away in disgust but here he simply stared at her, his tired, exhausted eyes speaking volumes. What happened in the following moments though astounded him. Her arms lifted, the tissues in her grasp fell to the floor, and her arms wrapped themselves around his shoulders. Luckily for her majority of the spikes that he wore on his shoulder pads had been knocked off or bent at odd angles because of this fighting with M, but she could still feel the metal pinch against her arms but she didn't care. She rested her head against his, her eyes shut.
She could feel how still he was in the embrace, it felt as though his whole body had frozen up and was unsure of what to do in reaction. It took a moment or two but his arms finally slowly raised, and they wrapped around her back and he hugged her in return. Something spoke to him, quietly, that this was the first, last, and only embrace he would know. His eyes slipped shut and he knew that he had to remember this for however much longer he was for this world, to remember what it meant to have Roxanne holding him and him holding her. Was he being too stiff? She was holding him so warm and closely yet his arms felt in comparison to be so cold and unfeeling but he didn't know how to be soft, or loving. It was a totally alien concept to the alien.
"You aren't alone." Roxanne's breath was on his cheek, and flitted over his ear which turned only made him blush deeper then he already was. His face over his broken nose, cheeks and now his ears were a rich purple color one might expect to find on an egg plant and definitely not on the skin of a blue alien. Megamind opened his mouth to say something but found his breath had been stolen away because Roxanne was slowly pulling herself away from him, at least that's what it felt like at first. Her arms remained steadfast though, and he realized only her head was pulling back. Despite how calming and comforting her words were, he wanted to push her away and laugh at her foolishness. There was nobody else in this world like him, to work with him like Minion had. Even those clones he had made back in his true base were simple, single-minded fish who only knew eating, sleeping, and destroying things once told to and to always obey him. They would never be Minion, never in a million years.
He never got to do any of this though, for he felt soft warmth suddenly spread over his body and it originated from his lips. Green eyes flung themselves open and all he could see was Roxanne's eyelids and he realized what was happening. She was kissing him. She, the beautiful, talented, and confident woman was kissing him and it had been her idea. Was this pity for pities sake? She couldn't feel anything for him romantically or physically, so why? Why...? Why didn't he find himself caring? His mind, his amazingly complex machine of a mind that was normally thinking a million things in but a fraction of a second became alarmingly blank. No thoughts entered his mind. No fears, no concerns, nothing. It was almost a blessing, to finally hear silence between his ears and not the constant roll and crashing of thoughts like the waves on a beach crashing into the sand and rocks that met them.
He was crying again, since he could feel the sting of water against his still sore nose and cheeks but he didn't dare pull back to wipe at his face. That would mean he would have to stop this moment of perfect silence, a moment between two people and witnessing something that would surely never take place again no matter how hard he, or she, might try to replicate.
All good things must come to an end. It was a phrase he never truly understood until this moment in his life, for he felt her lips leaving him as well as her arms. Roxanne was releasing him back into the world, the desolate, lonely, and dangerous world. But he knew they couldn't stay together forever, not in this lifetime anyway. Megamind shivered and gasped once he found himself capable of and pressed his hands to his face, not wishing to open them and see what kind of world he was stuck in yet. As he blocked it out, Roxanne, whose own face was now deep red from a blush and tears upon her face, shakily rubbed at her face. What exactly had compelled her to do that was beyond her scope right now, maybe it would make sense in the aftermath of this maddening day, when she was safe.
She suddenly saw M begin to get to his feet. He looked, even by just seeing a clear shot of his mouth and jaw and nothing else, fairly confused and conflicted. Roxanne lifted her hands, and shook her head, silently pleading with him to not hurt him. Reading her expression, M gave her a confused look and held his hands out, questioning her actions. Despite all he had learned this day, the good and the bad, the twisted individual standing just to his right was bad. As bad as a person could go before being swallowed up by the darkness. He had to do something, anything.
It wasn't personal. It was just his job.
"Protect her." Megamind suddenly said behind his hands.
M was about to question just what he had in store now, when the answer came. The whole world seemed to suddenly scream, and shake. The ground beneath their feet began to crumble and crack as if it was made of paper, and the ceiling began to suddenly cave in, the foundation of the building having been pushed to its extremes by the battle within could finally take no more. The hero acted on impulse, he flew at Roxanne and the next thing he knew they were out of the crumbling building. M was totally unaware of just how fast he could go, having repressed his powers for majority of his life, so this was just as shocking for him as it was to Roxanne who was gasping for breath and gripping at his arms. She turned in his arms and looked to the building, her eyes wide with horror as the building folded in on itself as if it were a deck of cards. The ground crumbled and shook, and the groan of the dying building echoed long and hard around the docklands, enhanced by the sound of crunching metal and smaller explosions from within.
M used his cape to protect himself and Roxanne from the dust and smaller debris which shot out from the demolished building like a tsunami. It rained down around them, those larger parts of metal and stone bouncing off M as if they were made of felt material.
Soon it was quiet, and still. The building was demolished, and Megamind was gone.
"NO!" Roxanne heard a voice scream, and was astonished to learn it was her own. Despite the dust thick in the air and how it chocked at her throat and clouded her eyes she pried herself out from M's protective hold and staggered forward a few steps before stumbling over something and fell over. "NO! GOD, NO!" she screamed again, her shoulders shaking from a pain she had never experienced in her life. She felt like she could throw up, her throat was tight and constricted and her stomach was in knots and her eyes hot from tears and the dust.
Slowly M approached her, and knelt down besides her on the ground, and wrapped his arm around her in an attempt to stop her shaking but found it impossible.
"Is-is he..." she started, unable to stop the sentence. "Ca-can you h-hear him?" Roxanne lifted her tear streaked face to stare up at the man. "Can you?"
M lifted his head and he seemed to be concentrating. He listened. He heard the ground still shaking, though very gently, from the aftermath. Metal was groaning, and he could hear a small fire licking at some metal and wood from within the rubble and he could even hear the dust in the air. "No. I can't hear him."
Roxanne bent over and smothered her face with her hands, and sobbed.