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Fic: Rain on the Just (11/? - Part 1 of 2)
Title: Rain on the Just (11/? - Part 1 of 2)
Author: Rummi (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sharelle)
Characters / Pairing: Ensemble / Megamind/Roxanne
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: Total: 9,222 (This part: 4,132)
Summary: A former villain and a former hero each try to adapt to the new destinies they've chosen. It's not always easy . . . especially when a new danger threatens to blow everything apart.
Previous chapters can be found here. (Or at FF.Net.)
Author's Notes: This chapter was extremely difficult for me for many reasons. Real life has had me on a bit of an emotional roller coaster lately, for one. Recent events may have unintentionally colored my prose.
Furthermore, I've had parts of this chapter actually written since June, but was never completely satisfied with the way it was coming together. I feel badly about the long delay, especially after the way the previous chapter ended, but I did not want to post something that I wasn't completely happy with. Even if no one else was reading this, I'd still want the end result to be something that made me proud to say I'd written it.
Also, this chapter is the longest so far. (Just shy of 10,000 words.) Therefore, I'll be breaking it into two parts. I'm currently putting the finishing touches on the second half, and I promise that the wait for that one will not be long.
I hope you enjoy!
Toray_wing, a marvelous beta who always gives much-appreciated help and advice. And also to dani_kin, who offered insight, suggestions, and valuable food-for-thought for this chapter. I thank you both immensely! *HUGS*
Rain on the Just
by Rummi
Chapter 11 - Spiraling (Part 1)
Well, she wasn't tied to a chair. But it wasn't a vast improvement either.
In fact, Owen hadn't given her anything to sit on at all - unless you counted the old, jungle-gym display in the corner, a climbing apparatus made to resemble a network of hollow logs and tree limbs.
At first, Roxanne had paced around the otherwise empty cell like a caged tigress, but after a while she resigned herself to sitting on the floor. She brushed her hand against the hard ground to clear away some of the dust and dirt - not that it helped much - and settled with her back against the one solid, concrete wall of the cage. There was a draft coming from an old steel door beside her which, when opened, likely led to an adjoining outside enclosure. There was a system of locks on it that looked as though they hadn't been opened in years. Roxanne turned her head away from the door and simply stared out through the thick iron bars that surrounded her on every other side.
The only thing that was keeping her from going completely stir-crazy right now was a passing comment Owen had made back at the café. Apparently, Megamind had not actually been in the lair when the young villain had stolen his equipment. Which meant that, as soon as Megamind discovered what had happened, he would waste no time coming to look for it - and for her as well. She clung to that one certainty, even as a nagging, apprehensive voice in the back of her mind wondered why he hadn't gotten here by now.
Roxanne opened the palm of her hand and stroked her fingertip lightly over the small, blue tracking device affixed there. Delicate, blue lines of intricate circuitry chased each other across its surface.
She realized that allowing herself to be kidnapped had been a risk. She knew next to nothing about Owen, and admittedly she hadn't thought far beyond trying to help Wayne, but she also knew this little chip on her skin would lead Megamind right to the person who had been terrorizing the city. Between Megamind's missing things and the signal being emitted by this device, Roxanne knew it was only a matter of time before he came crashing through the wall with an elaborate laser show set to a heavy metal soundtrack.
But time continued to pass. The fact that he hadn't arrived yet was a little worrying - enough to make her wonder if the tracking device was working properly. She had never used one of them before, but Megamind had told her all she had to do to activate it was press. And so she had - right before she had dangled herself as bait between Wayne and Owen.
Roxanne sighed heavily, tipping her head back slightly against the wall behind her. She tried not to let her mind venture into scary, uncertain places regarding the possible reasons for Megamind's delay. Instead, she looked down at the pulse of azure energy against her light skin again and focused on one thought:
He'll be here. She closed her eyes. Soon.
She opened her eyes and glanced around her, studying her surroundings for the umpteenth time since she had been brought here.
Most of the other cells lining the long hallway looked exactly like this one. And the entire room still smelled faintly of whatever animals had once lived here. Apparently, the ventilation system was as dated as the building.
The former Metro City Zoo, located in one of the older sections of the park, had been abandoned for a long time. It had closed years ago when the conditions (which consisted mainly of stark, barren, concrete and iron cages like this one) were deemed unfit to accommodate the animals. A new zoo was built just outside of town - a state-of-the-art facility with environments more closely resembling the animals' natural habitats.
Roxanne could still remember covering that story. Metro Man had been instrumental in relocating many of the animals. Footage of him sweeping across the sky with an elephant harness in each hand had replayed on KMCP for some time afterward.
After that, the old zoo had been closed, though it was never torn down. It had simply fallen into disrepair inside the park as the powers-that-be had attempted to decide what to do with it. There had been some talk a few years back about fixing it up for seasonal events, or for use in city fundraisers - perhaps as the site of a haunted attraction around Halloween. But the money required to improve the conditions proved to be too much, especially with the impending construction of the Metro Man Museum. Plans had been abandoned, and so was the zoo.
Though now, it seemed, someone had found a use for it.
Roxanne suddenly heard the high-pitched screeching of metal dragging against concrete. She glanced in the direction of the noise and scowled. Her captor was moving some things around a short distance down the hall. There was a large, retractable screen, which had been set up on a tripod, and a small projector on an old, rusty table. Owen was currently adjusting it by repositioning it in front of the screen over and over. Each time he slid the metal table across the floor, the shrill sound it made caused Roxanne's teeth to tingle uncomfortably.
Owen must have felt the weight of her eyes on him because his shoulders abruptly stiffened and he turned to look at her. He stood upright and brushed his gloved hands together, regarding her first, then the room around them. "So, you still haven't told me what you think."
Roxanne merely intensified her glare. She closed her fingers discreetly over the tracking device again.
"It's charming, Owen," she retorted. "If you like rat-infested cages and about a decade of dirt."
Owen frowned at her. However, he didn't seem nearly as fiercely bothered by her use of his first name as he had back at the café.
Well, she thought, he's minus an audience now.
A moment later Owen shrugged.
"I was pretty impressed with it, actually," he said in a bizarrely conversational tone, peering around at the other empty cages that filled the large main chamber of the old zoo. "I'm surprised it's never been used before, aren't you? I mean, it's spacious, it's got lots of cages . . ." He twiddled his fingers like spider legs. "And it gives off a creepy, tingly, super-villain vibe."
Roxanne scoffed and folded her arms across her chest. "You know, that tingling sensation could just be your body needing a few tetanus shots from being here too long," she quipped.
Owen glared at her with an odd, pouting expression. He squared his shoulders, then began striding the length of the cage-lined hallway toward her. He narrowed his eyes as he reached her cell. "Look," he said, his voice low, "I'm aware that it's a work in progress, but you could at least tell me what you think without being so snippy."
Roxanne raised an eyebrow at him from her seated position. Owen was making a very different impression now than he had in the café. The sudden disparity surprised her, but she wasn't about to reveal that to him. Instead she regarded her young captor suspiciously and said, "You're serious?"
Owen blinked at her. "Well, yeah," he replied. He made another shrugging motion with his arms that caused his waist-length cape to flare out slightly.
Roxanne finally stood up and approached the bars. "You mean you actually want to have a casual conversation about feedback with someone you tossed into a cage?" she asked incredulously.
Owen's face hardened and he scowled at her. "Excuse me for wanting an expert opinion," he retorted. "After all, nobody's been up close and personal with more villains than Roxanne Ritchi. I just wanted your impression, that's all."
Roxanne snorted. Honestly, was this kid trying to intimidate her or suck up to her? "Look," she drawled, crossing her arms again exasperatedly, "the last I checked, I wasn't exactly the Roger Ebert of villainy. And I know you didn't bring me all the way here just for a review. So why don't you tell me what you really want, Owen?"
Owen's scowl deepened. He waved his hands agitatedly in front of him. "No, you know what? Forget it!" he rambled. "And what did I tell you about my name? It's-"
"Fire Bug," Roxanne cut him off. "Yes, you've mentioned that." She groaned heavily. This young man was starting to seem less and less like a moustache-twirling, terroristic mastermind, and more like a tantrum-throwing teenager. Sure, he had put on a good show back at the café, but behind-the-scenes, the villainous façade was certainly cracking.
Roxanne narrowed her eyes at him. She may be able to use his agitation to her advantage.
She began slowly pacing the length of the cage, keeping her eyes locked on the young villain in the hallway. "You have to realize: it's not like this is my first kidnapping," she said. "The next time you want a performance review, you might be better off picking someone a little less jaded. 'Super-villain-show-and-tell' got old for me a long time ago."
Owen crossed his arms. He glowered at her. "Well, you don't exactly have a choice, Ms. Ritchi," he sneered, drawing himself up to his full height. "I'm the bad guy here, and you . . . you're my prisoner! That means you have to do what I say!" He fumbled with a few aspects of his costume, then pointedly crossed his arms again. "If you know what's good for you!"
He added a sharp nod to punctuate his statement.
Roxanne mimicked Owen's cross-armed stance as she stared back at him. "Look," she said. "I've been at this game for quite a while and you're right: I've seen my share of villains." She intensified her glare and looked him up and down. "Which is why I'm not afraid of a spandex-clad kid in swim goggles."
The young man scowled. His eyes crossed slightly as they swept upward in the direction of the protective eyewear perched on top of his forehead. "These aren't swim goggles!" he sniped. He pulled on the strap with both hands and settled the lenses over his eyes. He planted his fists on his hips and his chest puffed out a bit. "These are for my Fire Bug Vision," he informed her.
Roxanne merely blinked at him, and his posture deflated slightly.
"Well, they will be," he amended, "when I'm finished with them. I'm working on a set of 'fly-eyes'. You know, something that will let me see 360-degrees." He dramatically orbited his hands around his head to demonstrate. "The prototype isn't completely ready yet," he added. "These are just temporary." Owen slid the goggles back up onto his forehead and frowned at her before turning his face away abruptly. He continued to scowl as he looked absently down the hallway. "I was told it was a good design," he grumbled under his breath.
Roxanne cocked her head at him, fixing him with a dry expression. Owen's behavior right now was . . . strange, to say the least. He was acting unsure of himself, jittery, even childish. It was so different from the way he had seemed earlier that afternoon. At the café, Owen had been manic and devious - a textbook villain, even. But now he was getting very easily flustered. Roxanne had to admit: the inconsistency in his behavior was actually alarming.
She supposed that Owen could have been working from a specific plan earlier - strategizing his debut meticulously. The café had been his first public appearance, after all, so of course he had probably scripted it down to the last detail. (Most of what he had said had been pretty standard and unoriginal, as far as villainous speeches went.) But there wasn't any way Owen could have possibly planned it well enough to account for every potential variable.
Like Wayne.
An unexpected appearance by Metro Man would have - should have - stopped even the most seasoned criminals in their tracks - let alone an amateur villain in the middle of his very first rampage. Even Roxanne had been shocked by Wayne's actions, and she had known he was there.
But Owen . . . he hadn't seemed surprised at all. He had actually seemed thrilled.
That had probably been the most alarming part of the entire encounter in the café. When an invincible (not to mention presumed-dead) superhero suddenly appears, primed for a butt-kicking, most villains - however diabolical - would have undoubtedly been shaking in their shoes. Owen, on the other hand, had acted like Metro Man's appearance was the best thing that had ever happened to him.
In the time that Roxanne had observed him since then, however, Owen's attitude had drastically changed.
Most villains, for instance, would have been reveling in a victory over a hero like Metro Man, even if it was a lucky break brought about by a stolen weapon. But as far as she could tell, Owen wasn't gloating about it. He hadn't even mentioned it at all.
What he had been doing was acting like a cat on a hot tin roof.
As soon as they had arrived here at the zoo, Owen had had the spider-bot dump Roxanne in this cell, but she hadn't seen what had happened to Wayne after that. She could only assume he was in some other part of the building, still encased in the boa plasma and locked inside a cage like this one. She couldn't help but feel frightened for him; he had probably never experienced being so helpless before.
Afterward, the brief glimpses Roxanne had caught of Owen flitting in and out of sight, bustling anxiously around, and continuously fussing with his equipment hinted at how rattled he had become. And now, as she was speaking to him, she was really starting to notice it.
This was the person who had terrorized the city with explosives for over a week?
Perhaps Owen's earlier adrenaline was simply wearing off. Or perhaps he was just naturally jumpy. But to the reporter, it felt like much more than that. Roxanne's instincts told her that something was going on - something he was very nervous about. Something had him spooked. And with Wayne effectively neutralized, it had to be something else.
If she could keep him talking, however, she might be able to find out what it was.
It would buy Megamind some time to get here. And maybe . . . maybe it could buy Wayne some time as well.
"Okay," Roxanne said. She held up one hand in a calming gesture, but kept the other hand with the tracking device folded closed against her body. "Fire Bug?"
Owen stiffened, blinked, and glanced back at her. His eyes were a bit wider and his expression seemed both surprised and suspicious. If nothing else, the fact that she had willingly called him by the villainous alias he had chosen for himself had gotten his attention.
Good.
"You know what? You're right," Roxanne said, as gently as she could. "And seeing as how I'm a captive audience here," she added, indicating the cell around her, "can I ask you a question?" She kept her voice as calm and reassuring as possible as she spoke; her captor was already agitated enough.
Owen turned his body back to face her. He cocked his head noncommittally, but he didn't refuse. It encouraged Roxanne to continue. If there was one thing she knew about villains, it was their love of talking about themselves and their plans.
Roxanne reached forward and gripped the bars between them, still careful to keep the tracking device out of sight. "Why are you doing all this?" she asked. "Can you at least tell me that?"
For a moment Owen simply regarded her, as though he was completely analyzing the question and weighing her intentions. Then his nose wrinkled disdainfully, he stepped toward the bars, and he lowered his voice. "Look," he said, "I have to, okay? I don't have a choice."
Roxanne's brow furrowed as she looked at him. Then her eyes softened. "There's always a choice," she appealed solicitously. "If someone is forcing you to do this, I know we can help. You just have to-"
Owen cut her off with a sudden bark of humorless, rapid giggling - jarringly inappropriate laughter that sent a shiver down Roxanne's spine. He lifted his face to the ceiling and let it tumble out of him for a minute or two before looking back at her and shaking his head. His eyes were overly bright, and his face was set in a chilling, rictus grin.
"You really are a silver-lining kind of person, aren't you?" he said, his voice still laced with strained notes of mirthless, unsettling laughter. "Poor, dorky Owen Lowry has to be somebody else's puppet, right? 'Cause there's no way he could handle something like this on his own."
Roxanne was a bit taken aback at that. This was the second villain to say something similar to her.
. . . So, naïve, Roxie . . . You see the good in everybody, even when it's not there . . .
The words, coupled with the memory, left her momentarily shaken.
Owen shook his head at her again. "No, Ms. Ritchi, that's not it," he said. "No one else is forcing me to do this, but I still have to do it." He frowned and repeated, "I have to." Owen turned away from her and began to pace erratically around the hall in front of her cell.
Roxanne steeled herself again. Her expression hardened and her previous sympathy drained away. She gripped the bars tighter and glared at Owen as he stalked back and forth. "No, you don't," she reiterated, more sternly this time. "You don't have to! If you want to, you can stop all this-"
"It was just supposed to be between me and him," Owen mumbled absently, remnants of his nervous laughter still evident in his voice. He wasn't speaking directly to Roxanne any longer, but rambling indiscriminately. "Nobody else was supposed to be involved."
"Nobody else?" Roxanne cut in, her voice rising in accusation. "What about all those buildings you targeted? What about all the people in them? Were they just 'nobody' to you?"
Owen shot her a hardened sidelong glare. His lanky frame twitched tensely. "It wasn't about the buildings," he spat back. "Or the people. It was about the message!"
Roxanne scowled in response. "Oh, trust me, we got your message," she said. "It was easy to see that the buildings were all connected to Megamind. And we stopped your last two bombings when we discovered your pattern of targets from the cards you left behind. So I think we-"
"You keep saying 'we '!" Owen interrupted with an incredulous sneer. "Like the message was for you. But it had nothing to do with you! Nothing at all!" He turned his back to her again and resumed prowling the hallway in front of her cage. His hands reached for his head and fisted into the haphazard curls of his sandy hair.
Roxanne was getting more and more frustrated - not to mention nervous. The young man's anxiousness was reaching a frenzied peak, and now he wasn't making any sense at all. She nearly growled to herself as she, once again, tried to get him to focus.
"Fire Bug?" she called out to him. "Fire Bug, listen to me!"
He merely continued his previous rambling. Even using the name he preferred wasn't getting his attention.
"Owen!"
"It just got out of hand," he muttered darkly. "It didn't happen on purpose. It wasn't supposed to happen that way at all. But he didn't give me a choice."
Owen glanced up at Roxanne finally, as though pleading his case. He pointed randomly to a spot in the air behind him as though someone was standing there. "He didn't give me any other choice!" he insisted. "And then, I had to do something big. Otherwise . . ." He trailed off as his shoulders tensed, then shuddered. "This will help, though; it has to."
"Listen," Roxanne tried to plead with him. "You may not think you have a choice, but you really do. I told you: there's always a choice. But you have to make it now before things go too far."
"It's too late for that," Owen muttered lowly. "It wasn't on purpose." He shook his head. "It wasn't. But I can only make up for it if I do something big."
He was still rambling, but at least he had directly addressed something Roxanne had said. That meant he was hearing her. It gave her a small amount of encouragement to continue.
"If you try to do something too big, you're going to be in over your head," she warned earnestly. "You're not well, Owen. Megamind's coming; you have to know that. And if you try to fight him like this-"
"Fight him?" Owen spun to face her. His expression was actually a grimace of panic. "I never wanted to fight him! I don't want to fight him! I was just trying to help him!"
Roxanne froze. She blinked at him several times, speechless. They had all assumed from the beginning that whoever this "Beetle-Bomber" was, he was targeting all those locations because of a desire to engage the city's new hero in a sadistic game of cat-and-mouse - to force an eventual confrontation.
"That was why I went there today," Owen's shaky voice interrupted her thoughts. "I just wanted to show him." Then he turned to her suddenly, fixing her with such an accusatory glare that it actually made Roxanne instinctively step back. "He needed to see . . . but it wasn't supposed to happen that way. I wouldn't have taken his things if I'd had another choice. But after what happened, I needed them. There was no other way."
"So you didn't go to Megamind's lair to steal his things," Roxanne pressed, trying to decipher his ramblings. The young man was spiraling out of control, and she needed to keep him focused if she was going to learn what this was really about. "What happened then, Owen? How did you know what to take?"
"I remember what I see," Owen mumbled with a shrug. "His database uses pictures, and I remember what I see."
The weapons database, Roxanne thought. The one Megamind had been making to catalogue everything. Owen must have been looking at it.
"That's how you learned to use the things you took?" she guessed. "You studied the schematics?"
"I just got distracted by it," he started to ramble again. "That wasn't what I went there to do, but I didn't think it would hurt to look. I thought I was alone, and it was so fascinating." Owen's eyes darkened and he scowled. "I even told him so. But he wouldn't have believed me anyway - he wouldn't have believed that I was just trying to help."
Roxanne's fingers clenched tighter around the iron bars. She could feel the outline of the tiny tracking device pressing against her palm. Owen kept talking in circles and she couldn't quite follow the chain of his thoughts. She pressed her forehead against the cold bars for a moment in frustration. Her heart was fluttering anxiously. She would need to change tactics if she hoped to get a clear story out of the unstable young man.
"You said you were trying to help Megamind," she said, looking back at Owen again. "Help him how?"
That got a reaction, but not one Roxanne had been expecting. Owen shot her a glare that was so venomous she recoiled, letting go of the bars as he advanced on her.
"You think I would tell you?" he spat. "You're the problem here, Ms. Ritchi. And the sooner he sees that, the better."
"What?" Roxanne asked. She stared back at him tensely, feeling suddenly helpless and exposed as he pinned her with his scathing eyes. Her fingers twitched at her sides, itching to grasp something with which to defend herself, but the bars between them were her only safeguards.
"You think I don't see you, but I do," he hissed at her. "I know. I've known for a while." Owen's face pinched into a hateful sneer. "And he will, too."
Roxanne swallowed. She met his eyes with as much nerve as she could muster. "Know what?"
Owen chortled darkly. "That's why I went there in the first place - to show him," he muttered, almost to himself again. "I knew he'd be angry, but eventually he'd see that I was just trying to help. I wasn't the one trying to twist him into something he'd always stood against. I wasn't the one trying to change him. With all those places gone, I thought it would help him to start over." Owen shuddered again. "I didn't mean to get distracted; I didn't know I wasn't alone."
His hands tightened into fists and quivered fitfully at his sides. "He would have tried to stop me, I could tell. He would have made me leave and not come back." Owen shook his head erratically. "I couldn't let that happen, or everything I did would have been for nothing."
He jammed his hands into his pockets, hunching over, looking as though he was curling in on himself. "What happened wasn't my fault."
Roxanne felt a chill creep steadily across her skin, even in the stuffy, stale air of the old zoo. "Owen?" she said softly.
"And now I need to make up for it," he murmured, staring at the ground. "But after what happened, it had to be something big. Eye for an eye." He looked up again and narrowed his eyes at her. "There was only one thing big enough to make it right. And I knew if I was right about you, Ms. Ritchi, you'd be the one to lead me to it." His body trembled a little, but he managed a mad smile. "And you did."
Roxanne's lips parted as realization dawned. Metro Man, she thought. That was the "something big". No wonder Owen had seemed so excited about Wayne's appearance in the café.
"Why?" she asked. Her mouth had gone dry. "Owen, what happened? Why would you need-?"
"God!" he interrupted in a shout. "Do you ever stop asking questions?"
Owen's body shook in violent agitation. He struggled to pull his hands out of his pockets - all elbows and wild gyrations, like an over-exaggerated pantomime. It might have been comical if the young man wasn't so clearly unhinged.
When he finally succeeded, Roxanne noticed something gripped tightly in his right fist - a small, pearl-handled revolver. The sight caused her to instinctively draw back away from him with a start.
"I told you, Ms. Ritchi," Owen said, grinding his words through his teeth, "I'm the villain here. So maybe you should start showing me some respect."
Roxanne pressed her back to the concrete wall behind her, eyes fixed unblinkingly on both Owen and the weapon. "Owen-"
The gun went off. A small chunk of old concrete exploded out of the wall, leaving a bloom of residual dust in its wake. Although the impact was far enough away from Roxanne, she still reflexively curled away from it with a scream of alarm, her hands automatically reaching to shield her head and face. A moment later, Roxanne blinked and cautiously looked back at Owen with wide, frightened eyes.
"I'm serious," he said, his voice quivering - but from fear or adrenaline, Roxanne couldn't tell which. "I didn't mean to do it before," he told her. "I really didn't. But I'll do it now." He adjusted the pistol's aim, moving it away from a random spot on the high wall and training it in her general direction instead. "It's not like I have anything else to lose."
Roxanne's blood felt as though it had turned to ice in her veins. Owen's threat echoed through her brain, but something about his rambling was beginning to click into place. Something was very, very wrong - she could feel it.
She only prayed that she was mistaken.
"Owen?" she risked asking in a soft breath. Her heart rate quickened. "What did you do?"
Owen's hand clenched around the handle of the gun so tightly that his entire arm quavered. Then his face suddenly split into a feverish grin and he giggled manically again. He withdrew the pistol and gestured randomly with it in a small flourish beside his temple.
"You know," he said, his voice casual, but still laced with mirthless, uncontained giggles, "that fish never liked me, anyway."
Roxanne's heart suddenly felt as though it had shuddered to a halt. Her wide gaze remained locked on the young man before her. He stared back for a moment, then he turned and began walking away from her down the hall, little spasms going through his tense shoulders as he went.
Roxanne rushed to the bars again, angling herself to keep her eyes on his retreating back. "Owen?" she breathed out, then fought to force more strength into her voice. "Owen!"
But Owen did not acknowledge her this time. Roxanne continued to stare in frozen horror down the length of the hallway, even long after the young man had vanished completely from sight. Eventually her knees gave out beneath her and she sank slowly to the dusty floor of her cage, her knuckles white against the heavy iron bars.
Click here for Chapter 11 (Part 2).
Author: Rummi (
sharelle)Characters / Pairing: Ensemble / Megamind/Roxanne
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: Total: 9,222 (This part: 4,132)
Summary: A former villain and a former hero each try to adapt to the new destinies they've chosen. It's not always easy . . . especially when a new danger threatens to blow everything apart.
Previous chapters can be found here. (Or at FF.Net.)
Author's Notes: This chapter was extremely difficult for me for many reasons. Real life has had me on a bit of an emotional roller coaster lately, for one. Recent events may have unintentionally colored my prose.
Furthermore, I've had parts of this chapter actually written since June, but was never completely satisfied with the way it was coming together. I feel badly about the long delay, especially after the way the previous chapter ended, but I did not want to post something that I wasn't completely happy with. Even if no one else was reading this, I'd still want the end result to be something that made me proud to say I'd written it.
Also, this chapter is the longest so far. (Just shy of 10,000 words.) Therefore, I'll be breaking it into two parts. I'm currently putting the finishing touches on the second half, and I promise that the wait for that one will not be long.
I hope you enjoy!
To
ray_wing, a marvelous beta who always gives much-appreciated help and advice. And also to dani_kin, who offered insight, suggestions, and valuable food-for-thought for this chapter. I thank you both immensely! *HUGS*by Rummi
Chapter 11 - Spiraling (Part 1)
Well, she wasn't tied to a chair. But it wasn't a vast improvement either.
In fact, Owen hadn't given her anything to sit on at all - unless you counted the old, jungle-gym display in the corner, a climbing apparatus made to resemble a network of hollow logs and tree limbs.
At first, Roxanne had paced around the otherwise empty cell like a caged tigress, but after a while she resigned herself to sitting on the floor. She brushed her hand against the hard ground to clear away some of the dust and dirt - not that it helped much - and settled with her back against the one solid, concrete wall of the cage. There was a draft coming from an old steel door beside her which, when opened, likely led to an adjoining outside enclosure. There was a system of locks on it that looked as though they hadn't been opened in years. Roxanne turned her head away from the door and simply stared out through the thick iron bars that surrounded her on every other side.
The only thing that was keeping her from going completely stir-crazy right now was a passing comment Owen had made back at the café. Apparently, Megamind had not actually been in the lair when the young villain had stolen his equipment. Which meant that, as soon as Megamind discovered what had happened, he would waste no time coming to look for it - and for her as well. She clung to that one certainty, even as a nagging, apprehensive voice in the back of her mind wondered why he hadn't gotten here by now.
Roxanne opened the palm of her hand and stroked her fingertip lightly over the small, blue tracking device affixed there. Delicate, blue lines of intricate circuitry chased each other across its surface.
She realized that allowing herself to be kidnapped had been a risk. She knew next to nothing about Owen, and admittedly she hadn't thought far beyond trying to help Wayne, but she also knew this little chip on her skin would lead Megamind right to the person who had been terrorizing the city. Between Megamind's missing things and the signal being emitted by this device, Roxanne knew it was only a matter of time before he came crashing through the wall with an elaborate laser show set to a heavy metal soundtrack.
But time continued to pass. The fact that he hadn't arrived yet was a little worrying - enough to make her wonder if the tracking device was working properly. She had never used one of them before, but Megamind had told her all she had to do to activate it was press. And so she had - right before she had dangled herself as bait between Wayne and Owen.
Roxanne sighed heavily, tipping her head back slightly against the wall behind her. She tried not to let her mind venture into scary, uncertain places regarding the possible reasons for Megamind's delay. Instead, she looked down at the pulse of azure energy against her light skin again and focused on one thought:
He'll be here. She closed her eyes. Soon.
She opened her eyes and glanced around her, studying her surroundings for the umpteenth time since she had been brought here.
Most of the other cells lining the long hallway looked exactly like this one. And the entire room still smelled faintly of whatever animals had once lived here. Apparently, the ventilation system was as dated as the building.
The former Metro City Zoo, located in one of the older sections of the park, had been abandoned for a long time. It had closed years ago when the conditions (which consisted mainly of stark, barren, concrete and iron cages like this one) were deemed unfit to accommodate the animals. A new zoo was built just outside of town - a state-of-the-art facility with environments more closely resembling the animals' natural habitats.
Roxanne could still remember covering that story. Metro Man had been instrumental in relocating many of the animals. Footage of him sweeping across the sky with an elephant harness in each hand had replayed on KMCP for some time afterward.
After that, the old zoo had been closed, though it was never torn down. It had simply fallen into disrepair inside the park as the powers-that-be had attempted to decide what to do with it. There had been some talk a few years back about fixing it up for seasonal events, or for use in city fundraisers - perhaps as the site of a haunted attraction around Halloween. But the money required to improve the conditions proved to be too much, especially with the impending construction of the Metro Man Museum. Plans had been abandoned, and so was the zoo.
Though now, it seemed, someone had found a use for it.
Roxanne suddenly heard the high-pitched screeching of metal dragging against concrete. She glanced in the direction of the noise and scowled. Her captor was moving some things around a short distance down the hall. There was a large, retractable screen, which had been set up on a tripod, and a small projector on an old, rusty table. Owen was currently adjusting it by repositioning it in front of the screen over and over. Each time he slid the metal table across the floor, the shrill sound it made caused Roxanne's teeth to tingle uncomfortably.
Owen must have felt the weight of her eyes on him because his shoulders abruptly stiffened and he turned to look at her. He stood upright and brushed his gloved hands together, regarding her first, then the room around them. "So, you still haven't told me what you think."
Roxanne merely intensified her glare. She closed her fingers discreetly over the tracking device again.
"It's charming, Owen," she retorted. "If you like rat-infested cages and about a decade of dirt."
Owen frowned at her. However, he didn't seem nearly as fiercely bothered by her use of his first name as he had back at the café.
Well, she thought, he's minus an audience now.
A moment later Owen shrugged.
"I was pretty impressed with it, actually," he said in a bizarrely conversational tone, peering around at the other empty cages that filled the large main chamber of the old zoo. "I'm surprised it's never been used before, aren't you? I mean, it's spacious, it's got lots of cages . . ." He twiddled his fingers like spider legs. "And it gives off a creepy, tingly, super-villain vibe."
Roxanne scoffed and folded her arms across her chest. "You know, that tingling sensation could just be your body needing a few tetanus shots from being here too long," she quipped.
Owen glared at her with an odd, pouting expression. He squared his shoulders, then began striding the length of the cage-lined hallway toward her. He narrowed his eyes as he reached her cell. "Look," he said, his voice low, "I'm aware that it's a work in progress, but you could at least tell me what you think without being so snippy."
Roxanne raised an eyebrow at him from her seated position. Owen was making a very different impression now than he had in the café. The sudden disparity surprised her, but she wasn't about to reveal that to him. Instead she regarded her young captor suspiciously and said, "You're serious?"
Owen blinked at her. "Well, yeah," he replied. He made another shrugging motion with his arms that caused his waist-length cape to flare out slightly.
Roxanne finally stood up and approached the bars. "You mean you actually want to have a casual conversation about feedback with someone you tossed into a cage?" she asked incredulously.
Owen's face hardened and he scowled at her. "Excuse me for wanting an expert opinion," he retorted. "After all, nobody's been up close and personal with more villains than Roxanne Ritchi. I just wanted your impression, that's all."
Roxanne snorted. Honestly, was this kid trying to intimidate her or suck up to her? "Look," she drawled, crossing her arms again exasperatedly, "the last I checked, I wasn't exactly the Roger Ebert of villainy. And I know you didn't bring me all the way here just for a review. So why don't you tell me what you really want, Owen?"
Owen's scowl deepened. He waved his hands agitatedly in front of him. "No, you know what? Forget it!" he rambled. "And what did I tell you about my name? It's-"
"Fire Bug," Roxanne cut him off. "Yes, you've mentioned that." She groaned heavily. This young man was starting to seem less and less like a moustache-twirling, terroristic mastermind, and more like a tantrum-throwing teenager. Sure, he had put on a good show back at the café, but behind-the-scenes, the villainous façade was certainly cracking.
Roxanne narrowed her eyes at him. She may be able to use his agitation to her advantage.
She began slowly pacing the length of the cage, keeping her eyes locked on the young villain in the hallway. "You have to realize: it's not like this is my first kidnapping," she said. "The next time you want a performance review, you might be better off picking someone a little less jaded. 'Super-villain-show-and-tell' got old for me a long time ago."
Owen crossed his arms. He glowered at her. "Well, you don't exactly have a choice, Ms. Ritchi," he sneered, drawing himself up to his full height. "I'm the bad guy here, and you . . . you're my prisoner! That means you have to do what I say!" He fumbled with a few aspects of his costume, then pointedly crossed his arms again. "If you know what's good for you!"
He added a sharp nod to punctuate his statement.
Roxanne mimicked Owen's cross-armed stance as she stared back at him. "Look," she said. "I've been at this game for quite a while and you're right: I've seen my share of villains." She intensified her glare and looked him up and down. "Which is why I'm not afraid of a spandex-clad kid in swim goggles."
The young man scowled. His eyes crossed slightly as they swept upward in the direction of the protective eyewear perched on top of his forehead. "These aren't swim goggles!" he sniped. He pulled on the strap with both hands and settled the lenses over his eyes. He planted his fists on his hips and his chest puffed out a bit. "These are for my Fire Bug Vision," he informed her.
Roxanne merely blinked at him, and his posture deflated slightly.
"Well, they will be," he amended, "when I'm finished with them. I'm working on a set of 'fly-eyes'. You know, something that will let me see 360-degrees." He dramatically orbited his hands around his head to demonstrate. "The prototype isn't completely ready yet," he added. "These are just temporary." Owen slid the goggles back up onto his forehead and frowned at her before turning his face away abruptly. He continued to scowl as he looked absently down the hallway. "I was told it was a good design," he grumbled under his breath.
Roxanne cocked her head at him, fixing him with a dry expression. Owen's behavior right now was . . . strange, to say the least. He was acting unsure of himself, jittery, even childish. It was so different from the way he had seemed earlier that afternoon. At the café, Owen had been manic and devious - a textbook villain, even. But now he was getting very easily flustered. Roxanne had to admit: the inconsistency in his behavior was actually alarming.
She supposed that Owen could have been working from a specific plan earlier - strategizing his debut meticulously. The café had been his first public appearance, after all, so of course he had probably scripted it down to the last detail. (Most of what he had said had been pretty standard and unoriginal, as far as villainous speeches went.) But there wasn't any way Owen could have possibly planned it well enough to account for every potential variable.
Like Wayne.
An unexpected appearance by Metro Man would have - should have - stopped even the most seasoned criminals in their tracks - let alone an amateur villain in the middle of his very first rampage. Even Roxanne had been shocked by Wayne's actions, and she had known he was there.
But Owen . . . he hadn't seemed surprised at all. He had actually seemed thrilled.
That had probably been the most alarming part of the entire encounter in the café. When an invincible (not to mention presumed-dead) superhero suddenly appears, primed for a butt-kicking, most villains - however diabolical - would have undoubtedly been shaking in their shoes. Owen, on the other hand, had acted like Metro Man's appearance was the best thing that had ever happened to him.
In the time that Roxanne had observed him since then, however, Owen's attitude had drastically changed.
Most villains, for instance, would have been reveling in a victory over a hero like Metro Man, even if it was a lucky break brought about by a stolen weapon. But as far as she could tell, Owen wasn't gloating about it. He hadn't even mentioned it at all.
What he had been doing was acting like a cat on a hot tin roof.
As soon as they had arrived here at the zoo, Owen had had the spider-bot dump Roxanne in this cell, but she hadn't seen what had happened to Wayne after that. She could only assume he was in some other part of the building, still encased in the boa plasma and locked inside a cage like this one. She couldn't help but feel frightened for him; he had probably never experienced being so helpless before.
Afterward, the brief glimpses Roxanne had caught of Owen flitting in and out of sight, bustling anxiously around, and continuously fussing with his equipment hinted at how rattled he had become. And now, as she was speaking to him, she was really starting to notice it.
This was the person who had terrorized the city with explosives for over a week?
Perhaps Owen's earlier adrenaline was simply wearing off. Or perhaps he was just naturally jumpy. But to the reporter, it felt like much more than that. Roxanne's instincts told her that something was going on - something he was very nervous about. Something had him spooked. And with Wayne effectively neutralized, it had to be something else.
If she could keep him talking, however, she might be able to find out what it was.
It would buy Megamind some time to get here. And maybe . . . maybe it could buy Wayne some time as well.
"Okay," Roxanne said. She held up one hand in a calming gesture, but kept the other hand with the tracking device folded closed against her body. "Fire Bug?"
Owen stiffened, blinked, and glanced back at her. His eyes were a bit wider and his expression seemed both surprised and suspicious. If nothing else, the fact that she had willingly called him by the villainous alias he had chosen for himself had gotten his attention.
Good.
"You know what? You're right," Roxanne said, as gently as she could. "And seeing as how I'm a captive audience here," she added, indicating the cell around her, "can I ask you a question?" She kept her voice as calm and reassuring as possible as she spoke; her captor was already agitated enough.
Owen turned his body back to face her. He cocked his head noncommittally, but he didn't refuse. It encouraged Roxanne to continue. If there was one thing she knew about villains, it was their love of talking about themselves and their plans.
Roxanne reached forward and gripped the bars between them, still careful to keep the tracking device out of sight. "Why are you doing all this?" she asked. "Can you at least tell me that?"
For a moment Owen simply regarded her, as though he was completely analyzing the question and weighing her intentions. Then his nose wrinkled disdainfully, he stepped toward the bars, and he lowered his voice. "Look," he said, "I have to, okay? I don't have a choice."
Roxanne's brow furrowed as she looked at him. Then her eyes softened. "There's always a choice," she appealed solicitously. "If someone is forcing you to do this, I know we can help. You just have to-"
Owen cut her off with a sudden bark of humorless, rapid giggling - jarringly inappropriate laughter that sent a shiver down Roxanne's spine. He lifted his face to the ceiling and let it tumble out of him for a minute or two before looking back at her and shaking his head. His eyes were overly bright, and his face was set in a chilling, rictus grin.
"You really are a silver-lining kind of person, aren't you?" he said, his voice still laced with strained notes of mirthless, unsettling laughter. "Poor, dorky Owen Lowry has to be somebody else's puppet, right? 'Cause there's no way he could handle something like this on his own."
Roxanne was a bit taken aback at that. This was the second villain to say something similar to her.
. . . So, naïve, Roxie . . . You see the good in everybody, even when it's not there . . .
The words, coupled with the memory, left her momentarily shaken.
Owen shook his head at her again. "No, Ms. Ritchi, that's not it," he said. "No one else is forcing me to do this, but I still have to do it." He frowned and repeated, "I have to." Owen turned away from her and began to pace erratically around the hall in front of her cell.
Roxanne steeled herself again. Her expression hardened and her previous sympathy drained away. She gripped the bars tighter and glared at Owen as he stalked back and forth. "No, you don't," she reiterated, more sternly this time. "You don't have to! If you want to, you can stop all this-"
"It was just supposed to be between me and him," Owen mumbled absently, remnants of his nervous laughter still evident in his voice. He wasn't speaking directly to Roxanne any longer, but rambling indiscriminately. "Nobody else was supposed to be involved."
"Nobody else?" Roxanne cut in, her voice rising in accusation. "What about all those buildings you targeted? What about all the people in them? Were they just 'nobody' to you?"
Owen shot her a hardened sidelong glare. His lanky frame twitched tensely. "It wasn't about the buildings," he spat back. "Or the people. It was about the message!"
Roxanne scowled in response. "Oh, trust me, we got your message," she said. "It was easy to see that the buildings were all connected to Megamind. And we stopped your last two bombings when we discovered your pattern of targets from the cards you left behind. So I think we-"
"You keep saying 'we '!" Owen interrupted with an incredulous sneer. "Like the message was for you. But it had nothing to do with you! Nothing at all!" He turned his back to her again and resumed prowling the hallway in front of her cage. His hands reached for his head and fisted into the haphazard curls of his sandy hair.
Roxanne was getting more and more frustrated - not to mention nervous. The young man's anxiousness was reaching a frenzied peak, and now he wasn't making any sense at all. She nearly growled to herself as she, once again, tried to get him to focus.
"Fire Bug?" she called out to him. "Fire Bug, listen to me!"
He merely continued his previous rambling. Even using the name he preferred wasn't getting his attention.
"Owen!"
"It just got out of hand," he muttered darkly. "It didn't happen on purpose. It wasn't supposed to happen that way at all. But he didn't give me a choice."
Owen glanced up at Roxanne finally, as though pleading his case. He pointed randomly to a spot in the air behind him as though someone was standing there. "He didn't give me any other choice!" he insisted. "And then, I had to do something big. Otherwise . . ." He trailed off as his shoulders tensed, then shuddered. "This will help, though; it has to."
"Listen," Roxanne tried to plead with him. "You may not think you have a choice, but you really do. I told you: there's always a choice. But you have to make it now before things go too far."
"It's too late for that," Owen muttered lowly. "It wasn't on purpose." He shook his head. "It wasn't. But I can only make up for it if I do something big."
He was still rambling, but at least he had directly addressed something Roxanne had said. That meant he was hearing her. It gave her a small amount of encouragement to continue.
"If you try to do something too big, you're going to be in over your head," she warned earnestly. "You're not well, Owen. Megamind's coming; you have to know that. And if you try to fight him like this-"
"Fight him?" Owen spun to face her. His expression was actually a grimace of panic. "I never wanted to fight him! I don't want to fight him! I was just trying to help him!"
Roxanne froze. She blinked at him several times, speechless. They had all assumed from the beginning that whoever this "Beetle-Bomber" was, he was targeting all those locations because of a desire to engage the city's new hero in a sadistic game of cat-and-mouse - to force an eventual confrontation.
"That was why I went there today," Owen's shaky voice interrupted her thoughts. "I just wanted to show him." Then he turned to her suddenly, fixing her with such an accusatory glare that it actually made Roxanne instinctively step back. "He needed to see . . . but it wasn't supposed to happen that way. I wouldn't have taken his things if I'd had another choice. But after what happened, I needed them. There was no other way."
"So you didn't go to Megamind's lair to steal his things," Roxanne pressed, trying to decipher his ramblings. The young man was spiraling out of control, and she needed to keep him focused if she was going to learn what this was really about. "What happened then, Owen? How did you know what to take?"
"I remember what I see," Owen mumbled with a shrug. "His database uses pictures, and I remember what I see."
The weapons database, Roxanne thought. The one Megamind had been making to catalogue everything. Owen must have been looking at it.
"That's how you learned to use the things you took?" she guessed. "You studied the schematics?"
"I just got distracted by it," he started to ramble again. "That wasn't what I went there to do, but I didn't think it would hurt to look. I thought I was alone, and it was so fascinating." Owen's eyes darkened and he scowled. "I even told him so. But he wouldn't have believed me anyway - he wouldn't have believed that I was just trying to help."
Roxanne's fingers clenched tighter around the iron bars. She could feel the outline of the tiny tracking device pressing against her palm. Owen kept talking in circles and she couldn't quite follow the chain of his thoughts. She pressed her forehead against the cold bars for a moment in frustration. Her heart was fluttering anxiously. She would need to change tactics if she hoped to get a clear story out of the unstable young man.
"You said you were trying to help Megamind," she said, looking back at Owen again. "Help him how?"
That got a reaction, but not one Roxanne had been expecting. Owen shot her a glare that was so venomous she recoiled, letting go of the bars as he advanced on her.
"You think I would tell you?" he spat. "You're the problem here, Ms. Ritchi. And the sooner he sees that, the better."
"What?" Roxanne asked. She stared back at him tensely, feeling suddenly helpless and exposed as he pinned her with his scathing eyes. Her fingers twitched at her sides, itching to grasp something with which to defend herself, but the bars between them were her only safeguards.
"You think I don't see you, but I do," he hissed at her. "I know. I've known for a while." Owen's face pinched into a hateful sneer. "And he will, too."
Roxanne swallowed. She met his eyes with as much nerve as she could muster. "Know what?"
Owen chortled darkly. "That's why I went there in the first place - to show him," he muttered, almost to himself again. "I knew he'd be angry, but eventually he'd see that I was just trying to help. I wasn't the one trying to twist him into something he'd always stood against. I wasn't the one trying to change him. With all those places gone, I thought it would help him to start over." Owen shuddered again. "I didn't mean to get distracted; I didn't know I wasn't alone."
His hands tightened into fists and quivered fitfully at his sides. "He would have tried to stop me, I could tell. He would have made me leave and not come back." Owen shook his head erratically. "I couldn't let that happen, or everything I did would have been for nothing."
He jammed his hands into his pockets, hunching over, looking as though he was curling in on himself. "What happened wasn't my fault."
Roxanne felt a chill creep steadily across her skin, even in the stuffy, stale air of the old zoo. "Owen?" she said softly.
"And now I need to make up for it," he murmured, staring at the ground. "But after what happened, it had to be something big. Eye for an eye." He looked up again and narrowed his eyes at her. "There was only one thing big enough to make it right. And I knew if I was right about you, Ms. Ritchi, you'd be the one to lead me to it." His body trembled a little, but he managed a mad smile. "And you did."
Roxanne's lips parted as realization dawned. Metro Man, she thought. That was the "something big". No wonder Owen had seemed so excited about Wayne's appearance in the café.
"Why?" she asked. Her mouth had gone dry. "Owen, what happened? Why would you need-?"
"God!" he interrupted in a shout. "Do you ever stop asking questions?"
Owen's body shook in violent agitation. He struggled to pull his hands out of his pockets - all elbows and wild gyrations, like an over-exaggerated pantomime. It might have been comical if the young man wasn't so clearly unhinged.
When he finally succeeded, Roxanne noticed something gripped tightly in his right fist - a small, pearl-handled revolver. The sight caused her to instinctively draw back away from him with a start.
"I told you, Ms. Ritchi," Owen said, grinding his words through his teeth, "I'm the villain here. So maybe you should start showing me some respect."
Roxanne pressed her back to the concrete wall behind her, eyes fixed unblinkingly on both Owen and the weapon. "Owen-"
The gun went off. A small chunk of old concrete exploded out of the wall, leaving a bloom of residual dust in its wake. Although the impact was far enough away from Roxanne, she still reflexively curled away from it with a scream of alarm, her hands automatically reaching to shield her head and face. A moment later, Roxanne blinked and cautiously looked back at Owen with wide, frightened eyes.
"I'm serious," he said, his voice quivering - but from fear or adrenaline, Roxanne couldn't tell which. "I didn't mean to do it before," he told her. "I really didn't. But I'll do it now." He adjusted the pistol's aim, moving it away from a random spot on the high wall and training it in her general direction instead. "It's not like I have anything else to lose."
Roxanne's blood felt as though it had turned to ice in her veins. Owen's threat echoed through her brain, but something about his rambling was beginning to click into place. Something was very, very wrong - she could feel it.
She only prayed that she was mistaken.
"Owen?" she risked asking in a soft breath. Her heart rate quickened. "What did you do?"
Owen's hand clenched around the handle of the gun so tightly that his entire arm quavered. Then his face suddenly split into a feverish grin and he giggled manically again. He withdrew the pistol and gestured randomly with it in a small flourish beside his temple.
"You know," he said, his voice casual, but still laced with mirthless, uncontained giggles, "that fish never liked me, anyway."
Roxanne's heart suddenly felt as though it had shuddered to a halt. Her wide gaze remained locked on the young man before her. He stared back for a moment, then he turned and began walking away from her down the hall, little spasms going through his tense shoulders as he went.
Roxanne rushed to the bars again, angling herself to keep her eyes on his retreating back. "Owen?" she breathed out, then fought to force more strength into her voice. "Owen!"
But Owen did not acknowledge her this time. Roxanne continued to stare in frozen horror down the length of the hallway, even long after the young man had vanished completely from sight. Eventually her knees gave out beneath her and she sank slowly to the dusty floor of her cage, her knuckles white against the heavy iron bars.
Click here for Chapter 11 (Part 2).