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Fic: Rain on the Just (14/15 - Part 2 of 2)
Title: Rain on the Just (14/15)
Author: Rummi (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sharelle)
Characters / Pairing: Ensemble / Megamind/Roxanne
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Drama, betrayal, and super-villainy.
Word Count: 10,660 total (6,114 this section)
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.)
Rain on the Just
by Rummi
Chapter 14 - Part 1
Chapter 14 - Boiling Point (Part 2)
For several seconds, there was only a profound, eerie silence in the stuffy air of the old zoo. Then it was broken again by a heavy, labored sound rising up from beside Megamind's feet.
". . . Little buddy . . ."
Roxanne looked down and gasped. Wayne had somehow managed to shift his position on the floor so he was now angled toward them. His face was lined with exertion. He must have put up a huge struggle against the boa plasma to move his body, even such a small distance, but he had managed to prop himself up and raise his head. His steel-blue eyes were focused intently on Megamind above him and his shoulders rose and fell with deep, strenuous breaths.
"Little buddy," he said again, his voice heavy with effort. "It's not . . ." he grunted, ". . . not what you think."
Megamind tilted his head to stare down at the prone form beside him. For a moment, his eyes appeared curious again as they regarded Wayne. Then, suddenly, a shuddering spasm went through Megamind's shoulders. His fists seemed to reflexively curl into themselves at his sides, his expression darkened, and his bright eyes narrowed angrily.
He shook his head and let out a small scoff. "Not . . . what I think?"
Roxanne noticed a distinct, biting aggression in his response. Hearing it sent a shiver over her skin.
Megamind refocused his eyes on Wayne and turned to face him more fully. Then he bent down closer to him. "You . . ." he continued, his voice rising slightly in pitch. "You think you actually know . . . what I'm thinking?" He gave another little, mock chortle. "I assure you: you do not have the slightest idea what is running through my head right now." His face hovered very close to Wayne's as he spoke, and his impossibly green eyes seemed to ignite like a solar fire.
Roxanne set her jaw and narrowed her eyes. "Megamind," she said steadily, pulling herself up against the bars again. "Please, you need to focus. Owen wants you to blame-"
A second quick, sharp scoff interrupted her and Megamind's mouth twisted into a sardonic, humorless smile. It was enough to startle Roxanne into silence. He didn't turn his head to look at her, however; he kept his full attention on Wayne.
"Oh, I'm very much aware of what the delinquent is trying to do," he replied. His eyes slid upward and fixed themselves briefly on Owen, who shifted nervously beneath the acid-tint of his glare. Megamind then straightened to his full height and refocused his eyes back downward onto Wayne.
"I am a superiorly intelligent being," he pointed out casually as he began taking slow steps around Wayne's body. "I can recognize a rudimentary attempt at mani-pul-ation when I see it. I cannot be swayed by such things."
His voice had noticeably lightened, but his body language acutely reminded Roxanne of a circling predator. Despite his claim, something about the way he mispronounced the word "manipulation" - with a longer "oo" sound in the middle than needed - created a deep, uneasy feeling in the pit of Roxanne's stomach. She swallowed hard against it as her eyes continued to follow him.
Megamind looked down at Wayne again and the muscles in his face gave a distasteful twitch. "But as someone with such advanced intellect," he went on, gesturing conversationally with his hands as he spoke, "it's a particularly thorny problem when I encounter a question I'm unable to answer. I admit, I don't like being faced with things I can't understand."
When he had completed his circle, he stopped, lowered his hands, and looked directly down at Wayne again. "This particular question has plagued me for years," he said. "For a short time, I actually thought I had moved beyond the need to answer it." His jaw shifted from side to side, as though he was grinding his back teeth. The fingers of one hand twitched and clenched, then relaxed again at his side. "It seems I was mistaken."
Wayne kept his focus on Megamind's face. He breathed steadily and heavily.
For a brief moment, Megamind continued to regard his former rival blankly, his lips forming a thin, pale line. Then his features darkened considerably and he leaned down closer to Wayne's level. "Perhaps you can answer it for me, old friend," he said coldly, growling the last two words out through his teeth as though they were a curse. He brought his face very near to Wayne's and hissed, "Is there nothing I won't lose because of you?"
Roxanne felt her insides squirm. "Megamind," she said. For an instant her voice was breathy and alarmed, but the she quickly added some force to it. "Megamind, look at me."
But he didn't. His eyes were burning as they fixed upon the man before him.
Wayne's jaw clenched. "Listen," he finally said in retaliation. His voice was gentle, but heavy with obvious effort. "I know how this must look, but-"
Megamind abruptly straightened, as though physically pushing himself away. "Oh, I don't think you do!" he exclaimed as he threw his hands up in a show of exasperation and backed away from Wayne. "I mean, honestly. Didn't you already have enough?"
Roxanne gave a start at the sudden shift in him. One moment, Megamind's entire body was trembling with a tight, seething anger, and the next he had all but exploded into a much more exclamatory, ranting kind of frustration. She was used to seeing such quick mood swings in him, but something about this one was different.
Then Megamind's brow furrowed and the corners of his mouth pulled down. He sighed, deflating. "Didn't you already have everything?"
The anger seemed to vanish completely, as quickly as it had come. Megamind's tone had softened, the reproach had left him, and the aggression had died. His last statement had barely been above a whisper, but Roxanne had noticed a distinct catch in his voice as he'd said it.
Her heart sank.
Wayne, however, frowned back. He shifted his weight as much as he could manage and his jaw tightened with challenge. "Everything?" he repeated. "You want to talk about 'everything'?" His words were still strained, but he was able to force some strength into them as he spoke. "Take a closer look, little buddy," he said as he managed to raise the fingers of the arm he was propped against and gesture to himself with them. "Does it really look like I have so much to brag about?"
Megamind stared back for a few seconds. Then his expression jarred abruptly out of neutral. Just as quickly as it had drained out of him, the anger was back.
"Oh, spare me!" he countered with a defiant snarl. "Don't pretend for a minute that you didn't choose this." He gestured widely with his arms. "What? Am I supposed to feel sorry for you? Just because things didn't turn out the way you planned? Please. You're talking to the guy who raised failure to an art form." Megamind narrowed his eyes and glared unforgivingly at his former adversary. "You may not be satisfied with the results, but make no mistake: this was your choice."
While Megamind had been speaking, Roxanne had caught a glimpse of Owen out of the corner of her eye. She turned her head to get a better look. The young man was simply standing there, looking both dumbfounded and intrigued by the scene playing out before them. He didn't look as though he had been expecting this, but he didn't appear disappointed by the spectacle either.
At least he didn't seem to be posing any additional threat.
Roxanne quickly turned back to Megamind. He was flourishing one hand in small circles through the air. "Why is it," he mused with a distasteful sneer, "that whenever the great Metro Man gets dissatisfied with his life, everything and everyone around him is just collateral damage?" Megamind fell into a crouch in front of Wayne. "Care to answer that one?" He leaned forward and insinuated himself deep into his rival's space. The two men were nearly nose-to-nose.
Wayne grimaced, but looked resolutely back at Megamind. "Little buddy-"
"Shut up!" Megamind cut him off sharply with an abrasive hiss. "Just shut up." He squeezed his eyes closed momentarily, and trembled. When he reopened them, they were once again alight with absolute fury. He straightened to a standing position, his spine poker-straight and tense. "Don't you dare patronize me," he spat. "At what point in our entire sordid history together did you ever get the impression that we were friends?"
Wayne's eyes widened and he seemed to recoil as though he had been struck.
Owen simply stood there - jaw hanging open as though it had broken a hinge.
Roxanne gasped at the undisguised venom in Megamind's voice. Over the past year, she had come to realize just how much he had actually admired his former adversary. And just a few hours ago, Roxanne had been so certain that Megamind would have been more than receptive to Wayne's offer of friendship. But now . . .
Now the sense of betrayal radiating off him was practically tangible. It was surreal and exceedingly unlike him. Which made it truly frightening.
"Our symbiotic relationship didn't exactly benefit us both, you know," Megamind continued, scoffing harshly. "Oh, you got what you wanted," he spat accusingly and began to pace the length of the floor in front of Wayne's body. "You always got what you wanted." His hands clenched and unclenched tightly as he stalked back and forth. "You set your sights on being a shiny, flawless hero-" Megamind shrugged. "-so I obliged. I was the perfect, diabolical yin to your yang, after all. All those years. The ideal Dark, Dashing Villain to your Mr. Goody-Two-Shoes. "
Megamind regarded Wayne with a sidelong glare. Sharp, angry lines marred the smooth planes of his face. "Until you got bored, of course, and decided you wanted a game change," he hissed viciously. "And, once again, it was all about what you wanted. For the record: I was perfectly fine with things as they were. But, no. No, you decided that you'd rather loaf around in your bathrobe, plucking guitar strings and growing unsightly facial hair."
Roxanne noticed a flash of confusion flicker over Owen's face at that last bit of information, but he remained rapt and silent.
"So, fine," Megamind conceded with another exaggerated shrug. He prowled back up to Wayne and loomed menacingly over him. "I took your cast-offs. I let you cast me in the role you no longer wanted. And you know what?" He sneered. "I was good at it."
"I know." Wayne attempted a weak smile. "I heard."
Megamind leered spitefully. "So it seems."
Immobile as he was, Wayne actually seemed to rear back at that. Then his brows pinched together sharply and he, too, began to get angry. "Look, Megamind," he asserted insistently, "I know you're upset, but you need to get a grip. You really are getting the wrong idea about all this. Roxanne and I are friends - just like she said. You can think whatever you want about me, but you can't honestly believe she would-"
Wayne's words cut off by a sudden bark of unsettling laughter. It was a joyless, hostile sound that seemed to boil up slowly from deep within Megamind's chest. The sound of it prickled the hairs on Roxanne's arms and raised tiny bumps across the surface of her skin. It was noticeably different from the carefully-crafted evil cackle to which she had grown so accustomed over the years - those laughs had always been so full of exuberance, even delight. This one wasn't overly theatrical, but it did have a hollow force to it that somehow filled the small room, rolling off the walls with the same intensity as thunder over clouds.
Megamind fixed his angry eyes on Wayne again. "You actually think this is about me being jealous?" he asked. His voice was low and tight with obvious emotion, as well as the lingering remnants of his previous laughter.
Roxanne's lips parted slowly and her eyes narrowed. She shifted them between the two men. She wasn't sure she understood what was going on either. If this hadn't been a reaction to those photographs, then what was it?
Megamind shook his head and his features hardened. He leaned down further into Wayne's space once again. "No, this isn't about jealousy," he snarled. "In fact, I'm finished being jealous of you. This is about the detrimental effect your very existence continues to have on my life. It's about the fact that everything I've ever done, for better or worse, has somehow been influenced by you. And-" He straightened abruptly and thrust out an accusing arm, pointing severely at Owen, who jolted back. "-it's about the fact that delusional idiots like this one think my life is still defined by your presence in it."
Megamind's body went so rigid that he trembled, his pointing arm shuddering, even as his eyes remained steadily locked on Wayne's. Then he drew back the finger that was pinning Owen to the spot and lowered his arm back to his side.
The young man finally shifted, expelling a breath, as though he had been physically released from some invisible bonds. Megamind's hand curled into a trembling fist beside his thigh. He continued to scowl down at Wayne. His shoulders rose and fell slowly.
"The reason he came to my lair today was because of you," Megamind said, his voice softer, but with a noticeable quiver. "Except I wasn't the one who found him there."
Roxanne's body suddenly turned cold. Her fingers went loose around the bars in front of her. A moment later, both hands had slowly risen to cover her mouth. She had no idea how long she stood there, frozen.
"Oh, my God," she finally breathed. Minion.
Wayne's eyes went very wide. His jaw worked wordlessly for a moment before he could force out any sound. "You mean-?"
"There," Megamind affirmed with a curt nod, a riptide of tension churning beneath the surface of his skin. "Now you know what I'm thinking." His jaw clenched and a muscle in it throbbed like a pulse. "This parasitic pyromaniac may have been the one who pulled the trigger-" Megamind's eyes glinted. "-but you were the reason he was there."
For Roxanne, all the air was suddenly suctioned out of the room. Her wind felt cut off, as though she had been punched in the gut. Even the noise of the rain outside seemed to have been filtered away and the air of the old zoo hung thick with a mixture of eerie silence and a steady, phantom ringing in her ears.
Megamind was staring at Wayne, the green of his eyes roiling like a celestial storm. Then he glanced slowly to his left and back again. He straightened to his full height, set his shoulders back, and cocked his head to one side. The features on his face smoothed to a sudden and almost impossible calm. "And maybe I just don't want you influencing my life anymore," he said. "Hero."
Then he turned on his heel and stalked swiftly down the hall to his left - to where the dehydration gun had come to rest beside a pile of rubble. He scooped it up in a quick, fluid motion and strode with deliberate purpose back toward Wayne again.
Roxanne felt her insides jolt and she immediately reached for the bars again. "Megamind!" she protested, feeling the word tumble from her mouth before she was even fully conscious of saying it. Her brain had begun flying in several different directions at once . . .
. . . The paradox gun . . . the dehydration gun . . . the fact that getting rid of the boa plasma meant destroying whatever was trapped inside it . . . the suddenly horrifying memory of the lair's floor littered with small chunks of barely identifiable debris . . .
That last detail was what she had feared most ever since Wayne had succumbed to the blast from the paradox gun in the café. In the back of Roxanne's mind, however, she had never doubted that Megamind would work tirelessly to find another way to free him. She had even thought he would enjoy the fact that Wayne was entirely dependent upon him for help for once. Roxanne hadn't doubted this because she knew Megamind - his love of a challenge, but also the fact that he had never truly hated his former rival.
But the moment Megamind's fingers wrapped resolutely around the filigreed hilt of the dehydration gun, Roxanne felt a stab of doubt she had never felt before. Creeping fingers of uncertainty wormed their way into her mind, and her heart began to hammer mercilessly against her ribcage.
Oh God, what did he think he was doing?
"Megamind," she implored again, her voice nearly breathless. "Wait!"
The next instant, Roxanne swiftly shifted her eyes back toward Owen. While Megmaind's attention on him seemed to have become sporadic, Roxanne's certainly hadn't. Owen had remained silently dumbfounded throughout the prior confrontation, but Roxanne knew all that could change now that Megamind had reclaimed his weapon.
Owen, however, didn't appear as though he felt threatened. At least not right now. In fact, he looked positively enraptured by this turn of events. His brown eyes glinted in spellbound fascination and the clear hint of a cold smile graced his parted lips.
He was actually enjoying this.
Roxanne turned quickly back to Megamind, in time to see him halt directly in front of Wayne again. His thin, blue fingers were practically choking the handle of the dehydration gun as it hung stiffly at his side. His stony eyes glared down the length of his nose at the figure on the floor in front of him. Then, with a quick flick of his thumb against the grip of the weapon, the prongs surrounding the gun's barrel sliced open like talons.
Roxanne noticed that Megamind hadn't adjusted the gun's cylinder at all, which meant it was still on the same setting that had destroyed the far wall. Fear fluttered inexorably in her stomach as the bulbous gas chamber began to churn with an eerie, electric light.
"Megamind!" Roxanne called out to him. "Megamind, look at me!"
His eyes did not stray from Wayne. But a subtle clench in his jaw betrayed his shift in focus when she spoke - as though he was fighting to keep himself from glancing her way. Roxanne found some encouragement in that.
"Come on, I know you're listening to me," she said emphatically. "Megamind, you need to stop this." She swallowed and her voice softened. "Please."
Megamind inhaled deeply, but remained resolutely focused upon his rival at his feet. Wayne returned his gaze, looking boldly and silently back up at him.
Roxanne leaned her head forward against the bars for a moment and gathered herself, taking a deep breath of her own. Then she looked at Megamind again. "I know you're in pain," she said softly. "I can't even begin to imagine how much you must be suffering right now. But, please, you need think this through. You can't blame Wayne for what happened to Minion." She gripped the bars tighter. "If you do then you'll have to blame me, too."
Megamind pursed his lips into a grim line and seemed to be putting a great deal of effort into ignoring her. As he gripped his weapon, little fingers of electricity danced inside the swirling gas chamber.
"Wayne's not your enemy; he really isn't. Not anymore," Roxanne continued. "And he needs your help right now. The two of you may have your issues, but he didn't cause this." She fixed her eyes on him insistently and set her jaw. "Someone else did."
That got Owen's attention.
The spell of captivation he had been under was suddenly broken and he turned to Roxanne with a start, fixing her sharply with an angry glare. "That's enough, Ms. Ritchi," he warned.
Roxanne ignored him. She pressed herself as close to the bars as possible and focused only on Megamind. Once again, she wished more than anything that she could tear her way through this iron cage and actually do something. But with Megamind standing just beyond the stretch of her fingers, all Roxanne had to reach him with was her voice. It would have to be enough.
"I know you," she said earnestly. "I've known you for such a long time. And I know who you really are, Megamind - you're not cruel, and you're not ruthless." She offered him a dry grin. "Despite all your efforts to the contrary over the years." Then her grin faded and her brow furrowed as she took in the sharp lines of his hardened expression.
"You're hurting," she added softly.
Megamind still didn't look at her. Owen, on the other hand, had faced her completely, his eyes narrowing with aggression.
Roxanne turned her head to him for a moment, then defiantly looked away again - as though the young villain's growing hostility wasn't worth her concern. She focused back on Megamind.
"You're also a super genius," she said emphatically. "And I know that as soon as you sort through the million-and-one thoughts that must be racing through that brilliant head of yours, you'll see things clearly." She smiled wanly. "Then you'll take down the real guilty party with style, just like I said you would."
Owen growled a curse under his breath, and took a threatening step in Roxanne's direction.
This time, she didn't even acknowledge him as he advanced. She kept her attention completely on Megamind.
"This guy thinks he can bait you back into villainy by forcing you to do something vengeful - something irreversible," Roxanne said. "He thinks he knows you, but he doesn't. Not the way I do. And I know he can't pull you down to his level. Because you're better than that. You were always better than that, Megamind. Being a true hero is who you are."
The cold expression on Megamind's face did not falter. But his throat visibly tightened and his Adam's apple plunged deeply as he stood there, motionless.
Encouraged, Roxanne felt her thin smile warm into something more genuine. "You won't do this," she added with a soft confidence. "I know you won't. Because I have faith in you. You don't give up without a fight." She took in his profile with open affection in her eyes, and her heart thrummed in her chest. "And that's the man I fell in love with."
Megamind stiffened immediately - his shoulders and his body going rigid. His eyes were suddenly enormous as he - very, very slowly - shifted them away from Wayne and onto Roxanne.
A timeless, pregnant pause lingered in the room - only interrupted by the steady tapping of rain against the outside of the building and the occasional grumble of distant thunder as the worst of the storm began to roll away.
"What?" Megamind finally asked in a breathless murmur, his face dazed and slightly mystified.
"What?" Owen echoed derisively, his own expression pinched into an incredulous sneer.
At Megamind's unguarded, earnest surprise, Roxanne's face broke into a tender smile. She couldn't help it. As usual, his reactions had such an effect on her. The shocked, silent sense of wonder in his elastic face made her insides warm and her heart flutter. Despite the grimness of their situation, and the hardships continuing to loom over them, he still managed to make her smile. He always managed to make her smile.
Roxanne completely ignored the fuming, young villain who had stopped advancing a few feet to her right. She was entirely focused on the adorably befuddled, blue man who stood directly across from her. Roxanne's smile broadened and she beamed at him. "Oh, you heard me," she chided affectionately as her mouth curled into a gentle smirk. "I'm in love with you."
For a moment Megamind only continued to stare at her, dumbfounded. His eyes were double their usual size and so, so vibrantly green Roxanne swore they were glowing. His facial features had slackened and he even seemed to be trembling slightly - probably from all the built-up tension in his body. Then he lifted the dehydration gun level with his hip and glanced down at it as the churning substance in the electrified chamber faded to nothing. A moment later, he raised his eyes back up to meet hers.
"Roxanne," he finally said. His voice was breathy and thick with emotion. He looked away again, eyes falling somewhere on the floor near his feet, and shook his head slightly. "I- I'm so sorry."
Roxanne offered him another reassuring smile. It was okay now. He would be fine. They would all be fine. They would stop Owen, they would finally get out of here, they would find a way to help Wayne, and afterwards, whatever they needed to get through, they would face it together. Roxanne waited for Megamind to meet her eyes again.
When he finally did, the look on his face gave her pause. Some of the previous marvel had receded from his expression, leaving behind a strange sort of sorrow. A churning, uneasy sensation began pooling in the pit of Roxanne's stomach. Her smile slipped slowly from her lips.
"Megamind?"
He inhaled deeply - his shoulders rising and falling stiffly. His eyes were still lantern-bright, but the shocked emotion in them was noticeably gone.
"I'm sorry," Megamind repeated. "I truly am." He shook his head again. "I'm not sure I can ever make you understand why I need to do this." His thumb moved and the barrel of the dehydration gun sparked to swirling life once more. "I only hope that, one day, you can forgive me."
An icy finger of panic shivered its way up Roxanne's spine. Her blood ran cold. Her entire world seemed to have frozen on its axis. By the time her brain caught up to the sweep of dread that had taken hold of her body, Megamind had broken eye contact again.
"Wait . . ." she gasped - a desperate, disbelieving sound that seemed to lodge itself directly into the thick panic in her throat. "What?"
Megamind turned his eyes back down onto Wayne. One corner of his mouth curled up, but there was no joy in his smile. "Get up," he said coldly, and bent down to Wayne's level.
His fingers grabbed the collar of Wayne's white t-shirt. The viscous exterior of the boa plasma yielded to his grip as though his blue fingers were sinking into jelly. Then Megamind tugged upward. Wayne grunted as his legs were forced to trail woodenly behind the upward motion of his body. Once again, Megamind demonstrated how external forces were able to act upon the boa plasma: with a bit more effort this time, he managed to haul Wayne's huge torso upward. The rest of the former hero's body had no choice but to follow.
"No," Roxanne gasped out again. She tried to insinuate herself into Megamind's line of sight, cursing the bars that held her back. "Megamind, please," she said desperately. "Please."
Owen was once again staring, wide-eyed and spellbound, at the renewed altercation between the two rivals.
Once Wayne had been hoisted to his feet, Megamind took a step back and looked him up and down. Wayne's hulking frame stood with an ape-like hunch. Although he was now upright, his thick, weighty limbs pulled heavily downward from the force of the substance that clung to every inch of him. Megamind shook his head.
"That won't do," he said offhandedly.
He stepped forward again and moved behind Wayne. With a push to the lower back and a pull at the shoulders, Megamind was able to manipulate the large man's body out of the heavy slouch. Wayne grunted again through his clenched teeth as he was molded into position. Soon he was standing at strict attention: his spine straight, his chest high, his shoulders back. As a final touch, Megamind walked back around to Wayne's front and took hold of his arms, weaving them into an imposing crisscross over the broad expanse of his muscular chest.
Then Megamind stepped back and took a second look. Another small smile pricked at the corner of his mouth.
"There," he mused appraisingly. "That's more like it." His eyes glinted with real amusement. "No excuse for sloppy presentation."
Roxanne felt her stomach churn violently. She slammed one fist hard against the unrelenting iron bars that held her back. "Megamind," she cried out again. Try as she might, however, she couldn't force her voice into anything beyond a terrified gasp. "Don't do this," she pleaded. "Please, don't do this."
Horrifying recollections of the last time she had uttered that particular plea assaulted her memory. She had been just as trapped - just as helpless. That time, however, it had been her own doom that had been looming, and she had had nothing but her words to get through to her captor.
. . . I know there's still good in you . . .
Unfortunately, those words had been thrown cruelly back at her.
She had been wrong about Hal. So heartbreakingly wrong. But she wasn't wrong about Megamind. She couldn't be wrong about him.
She loved him.
Roxanne pressed her head to the cold bars and squeezed her eyes shut.
". . . Please."
Megamind regarded Wayne with a growing sneer. "You know," he said musingly. "I've always wanted to ask this." His eyes glinted. "Any last words, Metro Mahn?"
Wayne was able to angle his head downward. His Intense Scowl of Justice was once again evident on his face. Metro Man had unmistakably reemerged. "You're choosing the role of the villain, then?" he asked.
Megamind's eyes narrowed hostilely. "Not necessarily," he replied. "I've become a big believer in shaping my own destiny. And as I told you: I've been handling your job very well." He approached Metro Man's towering form and looked straight up into his face. "I can still be Metrocity's defender," he said. Then he shrugged and brought the gun up. "I'm just finished living under the shadow of its old one."
Roxanne gritted her teeth in desperation as she watched Megamind retreat backward for a few deliberate steps, leveling his dehydration gun steadily upon his enemy as he went.
Oh God, this wasn't happening.
Metro Man's mouth quirked ruefully. "You can't be a true hero without conviction," he said. "Otherwise, you're just playing a part all over again."
Megamind grinned. "All the world is a stage," he mused. Then his face sobered and he almost seemed to pout theatrically. "Though I admit: I'd always imagined we'd have a bigger audience for this particular scene." He raised an eyebrow. "Didn't you, old friend?"
A corner of Wayne's mouth curled upward in heroic defiance. "I seem to remember having the entire city at my last curtain call," he managed to quip.
Megamind smirked back, a dark sort of approval ghosting over his face. "Too bad," he replied. "It seems that Justice won't be getting much of an encore."
"A smaller venue is usually a more meaningful one," Wayne retorted.
Megamind's mouth spread into a sinister, Cheshire grin. "I always did love a captive audience," he said silkily.
Roxanne bit down hard on her bottom lip. She couldn't take this. They were actually bantering.
"Please," she said. Her voice sounded so small and raspy in her own ears. "Please, stop this . . ."
Megamind stared down the length of his arm to where the dehydration gun was trained unwaveringly upon Metro Man. "It looks as though I'll actually have the chance to say goodbye this time," he mused, his voice deceptively soft. Then he cocked his head. "Goodbye, old friend."
Metro Man lifted his chin in proud defiance, and Megamind pulled the trigger.
A sizzle of electricity crackled down the length of the beam that shot from the gun and struck Wayne solidly in the chest. Roxanne refused to scream, but she quickly averted her eyes with a small cry. She couldn't watch this. She had to be trapped in some sort of horrific nightmare. She squeezed her eyes shut and clutched at the iron bars tightly, waiting for the explosion she knew would follow . . .
Countless seconds ticked by.
The endless silence was almost too much for Roxanne to bear. The only audible sound was the intermittent echo of the gradually dying rain.
Roxanne's heart continued to race. Her breath was heavy and erratic as she clung to the bars of her cage. Still, the explosion did not come. Curiosity finally got the better of her and she forced herself to peek her eyes open.
Then she gasped.
Metro Man was still there.
. . . Sort of.
Roxanne opened her eyes more fully. She drew in another sharp breath and took in the new scene in front of her. Her first reaction was one of overwhelming relief: Metro Man's body had somehow not been obliterated by the blast from the dehydration gun. But that was only momentarily reassuring.
He now almost looked like . . . a statue. A motionless, white statue like the one that used to straddle the entrance of the original museum. That mental image almost immediately triggered memories of what, exactly, had happened to that statue. Roxanne shuddered at the thought.
But as she looked closer, Roxanne noticed something else. The substance that now surrounded Metro Man was less like solid stone than she had originally thought.
Roxanne blinked.
Whatever it was, it almost made Wayne look like a mummy.
That was the only way Roxanne could think to describe it. Even trapped several feet away, she could still make out what appeared to be crisscrossing bandages swathing Wayne's entire body. Countless, white strips intersected each other over and over, from his feet to the top of his head. They froze his form where he stood, and hid him completely from view.
Roxanne blinked again, then squinted. She began to notice several sporadic, gray patches dappling the "statue's" surface. They appeared damp. But they were also getting gradually smaller. It was almost as though the whole thing was drying - hardening into a more solid sculpture right before her eyes.
Confused, Roxanne finally forced herself to look at Megamind again.
He casually raised the dehydration gun to his lips and blew a quick puff of air across the muzzle. He twirled the weapon sharply on his finger and - in the absence of a holster lashed to his thigh - he shoved the barrel into the pocket of his trousers. Then he closed the few steps of distance between where he had been standing and Metro Man's frozen form. For a moment he simply stood appraising it, then he crossed his arms and turned back to face Owen. He regarded the young villain with a stony expression and raised an eyebrow expectantly.
Owen nearly jumped out of his spellbound trance as he suddenly seemed to realize that Megamind was waiting for a reaction.
"Oh!" he said with a slight start. "Oh sorry, Mr. Mind!" He focused on the statue that had once been Metro Man and dutifully raked his eyes over Megamind's handiwork - exaggerating his effort with a full up-and-down motion of his head. "Gee, that's . . ." he assessed with a nod and a shrug, ". . . that's cool."
Megamind's eyebrow arched a little higher on his forehead. "Cool?" he echoed dispassionately.
Owen jerked again, his hands fidgeting in front of him as he began to flounder. "Oh! N-no," he stammered. "What I mean is . . . it's, um . . . awesome?" He rubbed the back of his neck uneasily with one hand. "I'm sorry, Mr. Mind, really. I guess I was expecting something else. After reading your database, I imagined it would be more like a 'sonic boom' - less like 'frozen-in-carbonite'." He finished with a weak, unconvincing laugh.
Megamind let out a mild chuckle of his own. His expression lightened slightly - some of the deep, angry lines smoothing over. With his arms still crossed, he leaned back nonchalantly against Metro Man's mummified form.
"Oh, Owen," he drawled with a slight shake of his head, his eyes casually closed. "You know, you're actually amusing." He shrugged. "When you're not being infuriatingly annoying or violently psychotic."
Owen stiffened slightly. He didn't respond, but his lips parted and his eyes narrowed guardedly.
"Forgive me," Megamind immediately backtracked. He held one hand out in front of him as the other covered his heart apologetically. "What I mean is . . . this . . ." He gestured to the substance coating the immobile body behind him. ". . . is not a fictional cryonic alloy." He finally refocused his eyes on Owen and shrugged a second time. "It's découpage."
Roxanne found herself absentmindedly tightening her grip on the bars. She didn't know why, but her heart had begun to pound again.
Owen, on the other hand, merely looked confused. "Oh," he replied, before adding, "What's that?"
"Well-" Megamind pushed away from the statue and turned slightly to place one hand on Wayne's petrified bicep. "-it's the art of decorating an object by gluing strips of paper onto its surface. But that's not important right now," he said, brushing his hands through the air in front of him as though clearing the unnecessary details away. "What really matters is that you're absolutely right, Owen."
The young man still looked confused, but he craned his head forward expectantly.
"About my database," Megamind explained. "The 'sonic boom', as you called it, is indeed one of the only ways to dispose of the boa plasma."
Owen shifted from one foot to the other. "One of?"
The steady flutter in Roxanne's heart rapidly increased.
"Yes," Megamind answered, stepping casually between Owen and Wayne. "You can, of course, destroy it at a molecular level." He bobbed his head back and forth slightly. "Along with whatever is trapped inside."
Owen shifted again, his fingers twitching slightly at his sides.
Roxanne's eyes widened and she held her breath.
"There's another?" Owen asked.
Megamind glanced up and locked his gaze onto the young villain. A sly glint flashed through the penetrating green of his eyes.
Reflexively, Roxanne felt herself smile.
"The other," Megamind replied, "is to completely dry out the hydraulic base of the gel."
Owen took an instinctive step back. "What-?" he murmured breathlessly.
"The substance I created for this particular setting on my gun is not, of course, ordinary glue," Megamind explained as he patted the weapon now resting on his hip. "Like most of my inventions, it truly is fantastic."
Then his lips curled into a genuinely devious smile that made Roxanne's heart absolutely soar.
"It dries exceptionally quickly," he added.
Owen stumbled backward a step, nearly tripping himself on his own feet. "You mean-?" he countered incredulously.
"I mean . . . ," Megamind drawled pointedly. He raised his watch casually to his eyes for a quick look. "In the time we've been talking, that substance has been drying the boa plasma into nothing more than a fairly solid stone. Hardly a problem for the likes of Metro Man." He glanced up from his wrist and smirked shrewdly back at Owen. "In another few seconds, I'd say you're going to have a pretty super-powered problem on your hands."
Owen tightened his fists at his sides and stared back at Megamind with a growing venomous scowl. "So," he said, his voice thick and raspy with accusation, "you didn't destroy him."
Megamind shook his head with another small chuckle. His lips were quirked in amusement. "Well, you probably wouldn't have allowed me to retrieve my weapon if you didn't at least think I was capable of it," he replied. "But, no. No, I didn't."
Owen's body was now trembling with absolute fury. "Why?" he grated through clenched teeth.
"Oh, haven't you been paying attention?" Megamind said, raising his hands with mock exasperation. "All that time visiting my lair - observing everything - and you didn't notice?" He let out a small, dramatic groan.
Then his demeanor shifted completely; he focused his eyes on Owen with blazing intensity.
"I'm a hero now," he said.
An absolute thrill of happiness raced through Roxanne's entire body. Her face split into a beaming smile. "Ha!" she interjected triumphantly. "I told you!"
Owen shifted his scowl to her briefly, then back to Megamind. His shoulders were rising and falling in large movements. Flashes of rage, hurt, and absolute betrayal chased each other across his face.
Megamind crossed his arms back over his chest. Then his expression seemed to soften sympathetically as he looked back at his one-time fan. "Besides, Owen," he said in earnest, "and I speak from experience: destroying one's enemy is not always as fulfilling as you might think."
Owen's lip curled angrily. His eyes narrowed. "Well, Mr. Mind," he whispered harshly, "let's test that theory."
He quickly brushed his short cape aside behind him and reached back to his waistband. When he thrust his arm out again, the pistol was clutched tightly in his quivering grip.
Megamind suddenly froze, his eyes blowing wide.
Roxanne's heart immediately leapt into her throat. The world spun around her as she helplessly clutched the bars of her cage. She needed to do something.
So she did the only thing she could think of.
She screamed.
It wasn't just a quick cry of protest, either. Roxanne Ritchi let out a pure, horrifying shriek that echoed stridently through the small hallway. It was blood-curdling . . . it was ear-splitting . . .
And it was enough to get Owen's attention.
Startled, the young villain jerked. He shifted his aim away from Megamind as his body spun wide toward the sound. Roxanne felt a huge surge of relief. She had seen how nervous and erratic Owen had behaved all day, and the scream had certainly broken his focus.
But Roxanne's relief only lasted for a moment.
Because as Owen's attention abruptly shifted to her, so did his aim.
The dark, hollow barrel of the pistol trained upon her, and Roxanne also froze. At that point, she realized she had no idea what to do next.
What she hadn't realized, was how very quickly Megamind was capable of moving.
He was in front of her in an instant.
A deafening explosion erupted through the hall. A flash of orange fire flared for just a fraction of an instant from the muzzle of the gun.
Roxanne watched in helpless horror as Megamind's body slammed backwards into the bars and slid bonelessly to the floor in front of her.
Click here for the conclusion - Chapter 15.
Endnotes: No retcons here, by the way! Just lots of references to little details from earlier chapters - especially Chapter 2. (I love it when a plan comes together!)
Author: Rummi (
sharelle)Characters / Pairing: Ensemble / Megamind/Roxanne
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Drama, betrayal, and super-villainy.
Word Count: 10,660 total (6,114 this section)
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.)
by Rummi
Chapter 14 - Part 1
Chapter 14 - Boiling Point (Part 2)
For several seconds, there was only a profound, eerie silence in the stuffy air of the old zoo. Then it was broken again by a heavy, labored sound rising up from beside Megamind's feet.
". . . Little buddy . . ."
Roxanne looked down and gasped. Wayne had somehow managed to shift his position on the floor so he was now angled toward them. His face was lined with exertion. He must have put up a huge struggle against the boa plasma to move his body, even such a small distance, but he had managed to prop himself up and raise his head. His steel-blue eyes were focused intently on Megamind above him and his shoulders rose and fell with deep, strenuous breaths.
"Little buddy," he said again, his voice heavy with effort. "It's not . . ." he grunted, ". . . not what you think."
Megamind tilted his head to stare down at the prone form beside him. For a moment, his eyes appeared curious again as they regarded Wayne. Then, suddenly, a shuddering spasm went through Megamind's shoulders. His fists seemed to reflexively curl into themselves at his sides, his expression darkened, and his bright eyes narrowed angrily.
He shook his head and let out a small scoff. "Not . . . what I think?"
Roxanne noticed a distinct, biting aggression in his response. Hearing it sent a shiver over her skin.
Megamind refocused his eyes on Wayne and turned to face him more fully. Then he bent down closer to him. "You . . ." he continued, his voice rising slightly in pitch. "You think you actually know . . . what I'm thinking?" He gave another little, mock chortle. "I assure you: you do not have the slightest idea what is running through my head right now." His face hovered very close to Wayne's as he spoke, and his impossibly green eyes seemed to ignite like a solar fire.
Roxanne set her jaw and narrowed her eyes. "Megamind," she said steadily, pulling herself up against the bars again. "Please, you need to focus. Owen wants you to blame-"
A second quick, sharp scoff interrupted her and Megamind's mouth twisted into a sardonic, humorless smile. It was enough to startle Roxanne into silence. He didn't turn his head to look at her, however; he kept his full attention on Wayne.
"Oh, I'm very much aware of what the delinquent is trying to do," he replied. His eyes slid upward and fixed themselves briefly on Owen, who shifted nervously beneath the acid-tint of his glare. Megamind then straightened to his full height and refocused his eyes back downward onto Wayne.
"I am a superiorly intelligent being," he pointed out casually as he began taking slow steps around Wayne's body. "I can recognize a rudimentary attempt at mani-pul-ation when I see it. I cannot be swayed by such things."
His voice had noticeably lightened, but his body language acutely reminded Roxanne of a circling predator. Despite his claim, something about the way he mispronounced the word "manipulation" - with a longer "oo" sound in the middle than needed - created a deep, uneasy feeling in the pit of Roxanne's stomach. She swallowed hard against it as her eyes continued to follow him.
Megamind looked down at Wayne again and the muscles in his face gave a distasteful twitch. "But as someone with such advanced intellect," he went on, gesturing conversationally with his hands as he spoke, "it's a particularly thorny problem when I encounter a question I'm unable to answer. I admit, I don't like being faced with things I can't understand."
When he had completed his circle, he stopped, lowered his hands, and looked directly down at Wayne again. "This particular question has plagued me for years," he said. "For a short time, I actually thought I had moved beyond the need to answer it." His jaw shifted from side to side, as though he was grinding his back teeth. The fingers of one hand twitched and clenched, then relaxed again at his side. "It seems I was mistaken."
Wayne kept his focus on Megamind's face. He breathed steadily and heavily.
For a brief moment, Megamind continued to regard his former rival blankly, his lips forming a thin, pale line. Then his features darkened considerably and he leaned down closer to Wayne's level. "Perhaps you can answer it for me, old friend," he said coldly, growling the last two words out through his teeth as though they were a curse. He brought his face very near to Wayne's and hissed, "Is there nothing I won't lose because of you?"
Roxanne felt her insides squirm. "Megamind," she said. For an instant her voice was breathy and alarmed, but the she quickly added some force to it. "Megamind, look at me."
But he didn't. His eyes were burning as they fixed upon the man before him.
Wayne's jaw clenched. "Listen," he finally said in retaliation. His voice was gentle, but heavy with obvious effort. "I know how this must look, but-"
Megamind abruptly straightened, as though physically pushing himself away. "Oh, I don't think you do!" he exclaimed as he threw his hands up in a show of exasperation and backed away from Wayne. "I mean, honestly. Didn't you already have enough?"
Roxanne gave a start at the sudden shift in him. One moment, Megamind's entire body was trembling with a tight, seething anger, and the next he had all but exploded into a much more exclamatory, ranting kind of frustration. She was used to seeing such quick mood swings in him, but something about this one was different.
Then Megamind's brow furrowed and the corners of his mouth pulled down. He sighed, deflating. "Didn't you already have everything?"
The anger seemed to vanish completely, as quickly as it had come. Megamind's tone had softened, the reproach had left him, and the aggression had died. His last statement had barely been above a whisper, but Roxanne had noticed a distinct catch in his voice as he'd said it.
Her heart sank.
Wayne, however, frowned back. He shifted his weight as much as he could manage and his jaw tightened with challenge. "Everything?" he repeated. "You want to talk about 'everything'?" His words were still strained, but he was able to force some strength into them as he spoke. "Take a closer look, little buddy," he said as he managed to raise the fingers of the arm he was propped against and gesture to himself with them. "Does it really look like I have so much to brag about?"
Megamind stared back for a few seconds. Then his expression jarred abruptly out of neutral. Just as quickly as it had drained out of him, the anger was back.
"Oh, spare me!" he countered with a defiant snarl. "Don't pretend for a minute that you didn't choose this." He gestured widely with his arms. "What? Am I supposed to feel sorry for you? Just because things didn't turn out the way you planned? Please. You're talking to the guy who raised failure to an art form." Megamind narrowed his eyes and glared unforgivingly at his former adversary. "You may not be satisfied with the results, but make no mistake: this was your choice."
While Megamind had been speaking, Roxanne had caught a glimpse of Owen out of the corner of her eye. She turned her head to get a better look. The young man was simply standing there, looking both dumbfounded and intrigued by the scene playing out before them. He didn't look as though he had been expecting this, but he didn't appear disappointed by the spectacle either.
At least he didn't seem to be posing any additional threat.
Roxanne quickly turned back to Megamind. He was flourishing one hand in small circles through the air. "Why is it," he mused with a distasteful sneer, "that whenever the great Metro Man gets dissatisfied with his life, everything and everyone around him is just collateral damage?" Megamind fell into a crouch in front of Wayne. "Care to answer that one?" He leaned forward and insinuated himself deep into his rival's space. The two men were nearly nose-to-nose.
Wayne grimaced, but looked resolutely back at Megamind. "Little buddy-"
"Shut up!" Megamind cut him off sharply with an abrasive hiss. "Just shut up." He squeezed his eyes closed momentarily, and trembled. When he reopened them, they were once again alight with absolute fury. He straightened to a standing position, his spine poker-straight and tense. "Don't you dare patronize me," he spat. "At what point in our entire sordid history together did you ever get the impression that we were friends?"
Wayne's eyes widened and he seemed to recoil as though he had been struck.
Owen simply stood there - jaw hanging open as though it had broken a hinge.
Roxanne gasped at the undisguised venom in Megamind's voice. Over the past year, she had come to realize just how much he had actually admired his former adversary. And just a few hours ago, Roxanne had been so certain that Megamind would have been more than receptive to Wayne's offer of friendship. But now . . .
Now the sense of betrayal radiating off him was practically tangible. It was surreal and exceedingly unlike him. Which made it truly frightening.
"Our symbiotic relationship didn't exactly benefit us both, you know," Megamind continued, scoffing harshly. "Oh, you got what you wanted," he spat accusingly and began to pace the length of the floor in front of Wayne's body. "You always got what you wanted." His hands clenched and unclenched tightly as he stalked back and forth. "You set your sights on being a shiny, flawless hero-" Megamind shrugged. "-so I obliged. I was the perfect, diabolical yin to your yang, after all. All those years. The ideal Dark, Dashing Villain to your Mr. Goody-Two-Shoes. "
Megamind regarded Wayne with a sidelong glare. Sharp, angry lines marred the smooth planes of his face. "Until you got bored, of course, and decided you wanted a game change," he hissed viciously. "And, once again, it was all about what you wanted. For the record: I was perfectly fine with things as they were. But, no. No, you decided that you'd rather loaf around in your bathrobe, plucking guitar strings and growing unsightly facial hair."
Roxanne noticed a flash of confusion flicker over Owen's face at that last bit of information, but he remained rapt and silent.
"So, fine," Megamind conceded with another exaggerated shrug. He prowled back up to Wayne and loomed menacingly over him. "I took your cast-offs. I let you cast me in the role you no longer wanted. And you know what?" He sneered. "I was good at it."
"I know." Wayne attempted a weak smile. "I heard."
Megamind leered spitefully. "So it seems."
Immobile as he was, Wayne actually seemed to rear back at that. Then his brows pinched together sharply and he, too, began to get angry. "Look, Megamind," he asserted insistently, "I know you're upset, but you need to get a grip. You really are getting the wrong idea about all this. Roxanne and I are friends - just like she said. You can think whatever you want about me, but you can't honestly believe she would-"
Wayne's words cut off by a sudden bark of unsettling laughter. It was a joyless, hostile sound that seemed to boil up slowly from deep within Megamind's chest. The sound of it prickled the hairs on Roxanne's arms and raised tiny bumps across the surface of her skin. It was noticeably different from the carefully-crafted evil cackle to which she had grown so accustomed over the years - those laughs had always been so full of exuberance, even delight. This one wasn't overly theatrical, but it did have a hollow force to it that somehow filled the small room, rolling off the walls with the same intensity as thunder over clouds.
Megamind fixed his angry eyes on Wayne again. "You actually think this is about me being jealous?" he asked. His voice was low and tight with obvious emotion, as well as the lingering remnants of his previous laughter.
Roxanne's lips parted slowly and her eyes narrowed. She shifted them between the two men. She wasn't sure she understood what was going on either. If this hadn't been a reaction to those photographs, then what was it?
Megamind shook his head and his features hardened. He leaned down further into Wayne's space once again. "No, this isn't about jealousy," he snarled. "In fact, I'm finished being jealous of you. This is about the detrimental effect your very existence continues to have on my life. It's about the fact that everything I've ever done, for better or worse, has somehow been influenced by you. And-" He straightened abruptly and thrust out an accusing arm, pointing severely at Owen, who jolted back. "-it's about the fact that delusional idiots like this one think my life is still defined by your presence in it."
Megamind's body went so rigid that he trembled, his pointing arm shuddering, even as his eyes remained steadily locked on Wayne's. Then he drew back the finger that was pinning Owen to the spot and lowered his arm back to his side.
The young man finally shifted, expelling a breath, as though he had been physically released from some invisible bonds. Megamind's hand curled into a trembling fist beside his thigh. He continued to scowl down at Wayne. His shoulders rose and fell slowly.
"The reason he came to my lair today was because of you," Megamind said, his voice softer, but with a noticeable quiver. "Except I wasn't the one who found him there."
Roxanne's body suddenly turned cold. Her fingers went loose around the bars in front of her. A moment later, both hands had slowly risen to cover her mouth. She had no idea how long she stood there, frozen.
"Oh, my God," she finally breathed. Minion.
Wayne's eyes went very wide. His jaw worked wordlessly for a moment before he could force out any sound. "You mean-?"
"There," Megamind affirmed with a curt nod, a riptide of tension churning beneath the surface of his skin. "Now you know what I'm thinking." His jaw clenched and a muscle in it throbbed like a pulse. "This parasitic pyromaniac may have been the one who pulled the trigger-" Megamind's eyes glinted. "-but you were the reason he was there."
For Roxanne, all the air was suddenly suctioned out of the room. Her wind felt cut off, as though she had been punched in the gut. Even the noise of the rain outside seemed to have been filtered away and the air of the old zoo hung thick with a mixture of eerie silence and a steady, phantom ringing in her ears.
Megamind was staring at Wayne, the green of his eyes roiling like a celestial storm. Then he glanced slowly to his left and back again. He straightened to his full height, set his shoulders back, and cocked his head to one side. The features on his face smoothed to a sudden and almost impossible calm. "And maybe I just don't want you influencing my life anymore," he said. "Hero."
Then he turned on his heel and stalked swiftly down the hall to his left - to where the dehydration gun had come to rest beside a pile of rubble. He scooped it up in a quick, fluid motion and strode with deliberate purpose back toward Wayne again.
Roxanne felt her insides jolt and she immediately reached for the bars again. "Megamind!" she protested, feeling the word tumble from her mouth before she was even fully conscious of saying it. Her brain had begun flying in several different directions at once . . .
. . . The paradox gun . . . the dehydration gun . . . the fact that getting rid of the boa plasma meant destroying whatever was trapped inside it . . . the suddenly horrifying memory of the lair's floor littered with small chunks of barely identifiable debris . . .
That last detail was what she had feared most ever since Wayne had succumbed to the blast from the paradox gun in the café. In the back of Roxanne's mind, however, she had never doubted that Megamind would work tirelessly to find another way to free him. She had even thought he would enjoy the fact that Wayne was entirely dependent upon him for help for once. Roxanne hadn't doubted this because she knew Megamind - his love of a challenge, but also the fact that he had never truly hated his former rival.
But the moment Megamind's fingers wrapped resolutely around the filigreed hilt of the dehydration gun, Roxanne felt a stab of doubt she had never felt before. Creeping fingers of uncertainty wormed their way into her mind, and her heart began to hammer mercilessly against her ribcage.
Oh God, what did he think he was doing?
"Megamind," she implored again, her voice nearly breathless. "Wait!"
The next instant, Roxanne swiftly shifted her eyes back toward Owen. While Megmaind's attention on him seemed to have become sporadic, Roxanne's certainly hadn't. Owen had remained silently dumbfounded throughout the prior confrontation, but Roxanne knew all that could change now that Megamind had reclaimed his weapon.
Owen, however, didn't appear as though he felt threatened. At least not right now. In fact, he looked positively enraptured by this turn of events. His brown eyes glinted in spellbound fascination and the clear hint of a cold smile graced his parted lips.
He was actually enjoying this.
Roxanne turned quickly back to Megamind, in time to see him halt directly in front of Wayne again. His thin, blue fingers were practically choking the handle of the dehydration gun as it hung stiffly at his side. His stony eyes glared down the length of his nose at the figure on the floor in front of him. Then, with a quick flick of his thumb against the grip of the weapon, the prongs surrounding the gun's barrel sliced open like talons.
Roxanne noticed that Megamind hadn't adjusted the gun's cylinder at all, which meant it was still on the same setting that had destroyed the far wall. Fear fluttered inexorably in her stomach as the bulbous gas chamber began to churn with an eerie, electric light.
"Megamind!" Roxanne called out to him. "Megamind, look at me!"
His eyes did not stray from Wayne. But a subtle clench in his jaw betrayed his shift in focus when she spoke - as though he was fighting to keep himself from glancing her way. Roxanne found some encouragement in that.
"Come on, I know you're listening to me," she said emphatically. "Megamind, you need to stop this." She swallowed and her voice softened. "Please."
Megamind inhaled deeply, but remained resolutely focused upon his rival at his feet. Wayne returned his gaze, looking boldly and silently back up at him.
Roxanne leaned her head forward against the bars for a moment and gathered herself, taking a deep breath of her own. Then she looked at Megamind again. "I know you're in pain," she said softly. "I can't even begin to imagine how much you must be suffering right now. But, please, you need think this through. You can't blame Wayne for what happened to Minion." She gripped the bars tighter. "If you do then you'll have to blame me, too."
Megamind pursed his lips into a grim line and seemed to be putting a great deal of effort into ignoring her. As he gripped his weapon, little fingers of electricity danced inside the swirling gas chamber.
"Wayne's not your enemy; he really isn't. Not anymore," Roxanne continued. "And he needs your help right now. The two of you may have your issues, but he didn't cause this." She fixed her eyes on him insistently and set her jaw. "Someone else did."
That got Owen's attention.
The spell of captivation he had been under was suddenly broken and he turned to Roxanne with a start, fixing her sharply with an angry glare. "That's enough, Ms. Ritchi," he warned.
Roxanne ignored him. She pressed herself as close to the bars as possible and focused only on Megamind. Once again, she wished more than anything that she could tear her way through this iron cage and actually do something. But with Megamind standing just beyond the stretch of her fingers, all Roxanne had to reach him with was her voice. It would have to be enough.
"I know you," she said earnestly. "I've known you for such a long time. And I know who you really are, Megamind - you're not cruel, and you're not ruthless." She offered him a dry grin. "Despite all your efforts to the contrary over the years." Then her grin faded and her brow furrowed as she took in the sharp lines of his hardened expression.
"You're hurting," she added softly.
Megamind still didn't look at her. Owen, on the other hand, had faced her completely, his eyes narrowing with aggression.
Roxanne turned her head to him for a moment, then defiantly looked away again - as though the young villain's growing hostility wasn't worth her concern. She focused back on Megamind.
"You're also a super genius," she said emphatically. "And I know that as soon as you sort through the million-and-one thoughts that must be racing through that brilliant head of yours, you'll see things clearly." She smiled wanly. "Then you'll take down the real guilty party with style, just like I said you would."
Owen growled a curse under his breath, and took a threatening step in Roxanne's direction.
This time, she didn't even acknowledge him as he advanced. She kept her attention completely on Megamind.
"This guy thinks he can bait you back into villainy by forcing you to do something vengeful - something irreversible," Roxanne said. "He thinks he knows you, but he doesn't. Not the way I do. And I know he can't pull you down to his level. Because you're better than that. You were always better than that, Megamind. Being a true hero is who you are."
The cold expression on Megamind's face did not falter. But his throat visibly tightened and his Adam's apple plunged deeply as he stood there, motionless.
Encouraged, Roxanne felt her thin smile warm into something more genuine. "You won't do this," she added with a soft confidence. "I know you won't. Because I have faith in you. You don't give up without a fight." She took in his profile with open affection in her eyes, and her heart thrummed in her chest. "And that's the man I fell in love with."
Megamind stiffened immediately - his shoulders and his body going rigid. His eyes were suddenly enormous as he - very, very slowly - shifted them away from Wayne and onto Roxanne.
A timeless, pregnant pause lingered in the room - only interrupted by the steady tapping of rain against the outside of the building and the occasional grumble of distant thunder as the worst of the storm began to roll away.
"What?" Megamind finally asked in a breathless murmur, his face dazed and slightly mystified.
"What?" Owen echoed derisively, his own expression pinched into an incredulous sneer.
At Megamind's unguarded, earnest surprise, Roxanne's face broke into a tender smile. She couldn't help it. As usual, his reactions had such an effect on her. The shocked, silent sense of wonder in his elastic face made her insides warm and her heart flutter. Despite the grimness of their situation, and the hardships continuing to loom over them, he still managed to make her smile. He always managed to make her smile.
Roxanne completely ignored the fuming, young villain who had stopped advancing a few feet to her right. She was entirely focused on the adorably befuddled, blue man who stood directly across from her. Roxanne's smile broadened and she beamed at him. "Oh, you heard me," she chided affectionately as her mouth curled into a gentle smirk. "I'm in love with you."
For a moment Megamind only continued to stare at her, dumbfounded. His eyes were double their usual size and so, so vibrantly green Roxanne swore they were glowing. His facial features had slackened and he even seemed to be trembling slightly - probably from all the built-up tension in his body. Then he lifted the dehydration gun level with his hip and glanced down at it as the churning substance in the electrified chamber faded to nothing. A moment later, he raised his eyes back up to meet hers.
"Roxanne," he finally said. His voice was breathy and thick with emotion. He looked away again, eyes falling somewhere on the floor near his feet, and shook his head slightly. "I- I'm so sorry."
Roxanne offered him another reassuring smile. It was okay now. He would be fine. They would all be fine. They would stop Owen, they would finally get out of here, they would find a way to help Wayne, and afterwards, whatever they needed to get through, they would face it together. Roxanne waited for Megamind to meet her eyes again.
When he finally did, the look on his face gave her pause. Some of the previous marvel had receded from his expression, leaving behind a strange sort of sorrow. A churning, uneasy sensation began pooling in the pit of Roxanne's stomach. Her smile slipped slowly from her lips.
"Megamind?"
He inhaled deeply - his shoulders rising and falling stiffly. His eyes were still lantern-bright, but the shocked emotion in them was noticeably gone.
"I'm sorry," Megamind repeated. "I truly am." He shook his head again. "I'm not sure I can ever make you understand why I need to do this." His thumb moved and the barrel of the dehydration gun sparked to swirling life once more. "I only hope that, one day, you can forgive me."
An icy finger of panic shivered its way up Roxanne's spine. Her blood ran cold. Her entire world seemed to have frozen on its axis. By the time her brain caught up to the sweep of dread that had taken hold of her body, Megamind had broken eye contact again.
"Wait . . ." she gasped - a desperate, disbelieving sound that seemed to lodge itself directly into the thick panic in her throat. "What?"
Megamind turned his eyes back down onto Wayne. One corner of his mouth curled up, but there was no joy in his smile. "Get up," he said coldly, and bent down to Wayne's level.
His fingers grabbed the collar of Wayne's white t-shirt. The viscous exterior of the boa plasma yielded to his grip as though his blue fingers were sinking into jelly. Then Megamind tugged upward. Wayne grunted as his legs were forced to trail woodenly behind the upward motion of his body. Once again, Megamind demonstrated how external forces were able to act upon the boa plasma: with a bit more effort this time, he managed to haul Wayne's huge torso upward. The rest of the former hero's body had no choice but to follow.
"No," Roxanne gasped out again. She tried to insinuate herself into Megamind's line of sight, cursing the bars that held her back. "Megamind, please," she said desperately. "Please."
Owen was once again staring, wide-eyed and spellbound, at the renewed altercation between the two rivals.
Once Wayne had been hoisted to his feet, Megamind took a step back and looked him up and down. Wayne's hulking frame stood with an ape-like hunch. Although he was now upright, his thick, weighty limbs pulled heavily downward from the force of the substance that clung to every inch of him. Megamind shook his head.
"That won't do," he said offhandedly.
He stepped forward again and moved behind Wayne. With a push to the lower back and a pull at the shoulders, Megamind was able to manipulate the large man's body out of the heavy slouch. Wayne grunted again through his clenched teeth as he was molded into position. Soon he was standing at strict attention: his spine straight, his chest high, his shoulders back. As a final touch, Megamind walked back around to Wayne's front and took hold of his arms, weaving them into an imposing crisscross over the broad expanse of his muscular chest.
Then Megamind stepped back and took a second look. Another small smile pricked at the corner of his mouth.
"There," he mused appraisingly. "That's more like it." His eyes glinted with real amusement. "No excuse for sloppy presentation."
Roxanne felt her stomach churn violently. She slammed one fist hard against the unrelenting iron bars that held her back. "Megamind," she cried out again. Try as she might, however, she couldn't force her voice into anything beyond a terrified gasp. "Don't do this," she pleaded. "Please, don't do this."
Horrifying recollections of the last time she had uttered that particular plea assaulted her memory. She had been just as trapped - just as helpless. That time, however, it had been her own doom that had been looming, and she had had nothing but her words to get through to her captor.
. . . I know there's still good in you . . .
Unfortunately, those words had been thrown cruelly back at her.
She had been wrong about Hal. So heartbreakingly wrong. But she wasn't wrong about Megamind. She couldn't be wrong about him.
She loved him.
Roxanne pressed her head to the cold bars and squeezed her eyes shut.
". . . Please."
Megamind regarded Wayne with a growing sneer. "You know," he said musingly. "I've always wanted to ask this." His eyes glinted. "Any last words, Metro Mahn?"
Wayne was able to angle his head downward. His Intense Scowl of Justice was once again evident on his face. Metro Man had unmistakably reemerged. "You're choosing the role of the villain, then?" he asked.
Megamind's eyes narrowed hostilely. "Not necessarily," he replied. "I've become a big believer in shaping my own destiny. And as I told you: I've been handling your job very well." He approached Metro Man's towering form and looked straight up into his face. "I can still be Metrocity's defender," he said. Then he shrugged and brought the gun up. "I'm just finished living under the shadow of its old one."
Roxanne gritted her teeth in desperation as she watched Megamind retreat backward for a few deliberate steps, leveling his dehydration gun steadily upon his enemy as he went.
Oh God, this wasn't happening.
Metro Man's mouth quirked ruefully. "You can't be a true hero without conviction," he said. "Otherwise, you're just playing a part all over again."
Megamind grinned. "All the world is a stage," he mused. Then his face sobered and he almost seemed to pout theatrically. "Though I admit: I'd always imagined we'd have a bigger audience for this particular scene." He raised an eyebrow. "Didn't you, old friend?"
A corner of Wayne's mouth curled upward in heroic defiance. "I seem to remember having the entire city at my last curtain call," he managed to quip.
Megamind smirked back, a dark sort of approval ghosting over his face. "Too bad," he replied. "It seems that Justice won't be getting much of an encore."
"A smaller venue is usually a more meaningful one," Wayne retorted.
Megamind's mouth spread into a sinister, Cheshire grin. "I always did love a captive audience," he said silkily.
Roxanne bit down hard on her bottom lip. She couldn't take this. They were actually bantering.
"Please," she said. Her voice sounded so small and raspy in her own ears. "Please, stop this . . ."
Megamind stared down the length of his arm to where the dehydration gun was trained unwaveringly upon Metro Man. "It looks as though I'll actually have the chance to say goodbye this time," he mused, his voice deceptively soft. Then he cocked his head. "Goodbye, old friend."
Metro Man lifted his chin in proud defiance, and Megamind pulled the trigger.
A sizzle of electricity crackled down the length of the beam that shot from the gun and struck Wayne solidly in the chest. Roxanne refused to scream, but she quickly averted her eyes with a small cry. She couldn't watch this. She had to be trapped in some sort of horrific nightmare. She squeezed her eyes shut and clutched at the iron bars tightly, waiting for the explosion she knew would follow . . .
Countless seconds ticked by.
The endless silence was almost too much for Roxanne to bear. The only audible sound was the intermittent echo of the gradually dying rain.
Roxanne's heart continued to race. Her breath was heavy and erratic as she clung to the bars of her cage. Still, the explosion did not come. Curiosity finally got the better of her and she forced herself to peek her eyes open.
Then she gasped.
Metro Man was still there.
. . . Sort of.
Roxanne opened her eyes more fully. She drew in another sharp breath and took in the new scene in front of her. Her first reaction was one of overwhelming relief: Metro Man's body had somehow not been obliterated by the blast from the dehydration gun. But that was only momentarily reassuring.
He now almost looked like . . . a statue. A motionless, white statue like the one that used to straddle the entrance of the original museum. That mental image almost immediately triggered memories of what, exactly, had happened to that statue. Roxanne shuddered at the thought.
But as she looked closer, Roxanne noticed something else. The substance that now surrounded Metro Man was less like solid stone than she had originally thought.
Roxanne blinked.
Whatever it was, it almost made Wayne look like a mummy.
That was the only way Roxanne could think to describe it. Even trapped several feet away, she could still make out what appeared to be crisscrossing bandages swathing Wayne's entire body. Countless, white strips intersected each other over and over, from his feet to the top of his head. They froze his form where he stood, and hid him completely from view.
Roxanne blinked again, then squinted. She began to notice several sporadic, gray patches dappling the "statue's" surface. They appeared damp. But they were also getting gradually smaller. It was almost as though the whole thing was drying - hardening into a more solid sculpture right before her eyes.
Confused, Roxanne finally forced herself to look at Megamind again.
He casually raised the dehydration gun to his lips and blew a quick puff of air across the muzzle. He twirled the weapon sharply on his finger and - in the absence of a holster lashed to his thigh - he shoved the barrel into the pocket of his trousers. Then he closed the few steps of distance between where he had been standing and Metro Man's frozen form. For a moment he simply stood appraising it, then he crossed his arms and turned back to face Owen. He regarded the young villain with a stony expression and raised an eyebrow expectantly.
Owen nearly jumped out of his spellbound trance as he suddenly seemed to realize that Megamind was waiting for a reaction.
"Oh!" he said with a slight start. "Oh sorry, Mr. Mind!" He focused on the statue that had once been Metro Man and dutifully raked his eyes over Megamind's handiwork - exaggerating his effort with a full up-and-down motion of his head. "Gee, that's . . ." he assessed with a nod and a shrug, ". . . that's cool."
Megamind's eyebrow arched a little higher on his forehead. "Cool?" he echoed dispassionately.
Owen jerked again, his hands fidgeting in front of him as he began to flounder. "Oh! N-no," he stammered. "What I mean is . . . it's, um . . . awesome?" He rubbed the back of his neck uneasily with one hand. "I'm sorry, Mr. Mind, really. I guess I was expecting something else. After reading your database, I imagined it would be more like a 'sonic boom' - less like 'frozen-in-carbonite'." He finished with a weak, unconvincing laugh.
Megamind let out a mild chuckle of his own. His expression lightened slightly - some of the deep, angry lines smoothing over. With his arms still crossed, he leaned back nonchalantly against Metro Man's mummified form.
"Oh, Owen," he drawled with a slight shake of his head, his eyes casually closed. "You know, you're actually amusing." He shrugged. "When you're not being infuriatingly annoying or violently psychotic."
Owen stiffened slightly. He didn't respond, but his lips parted and his eyes narrowed guardedly.
"Forgive me," Megamind immediately backtracked. He held one hand out in front of him as the other covered his heart apologetically. "What I mean is . . . this . . ." He gestured to the substance coating the immobile body behind him. ". . . is not a fictional cryonic alloy." He finally refocused his eyes on Owen and shrugged a second time. "It's découpage."
Roxanne found herself absentmindedly tightening her grip on the bars. She didn't know why, but her heart had begun to pound again.
Owen, on the other hand, merely looked confused. "Oh," he replied, before adding, "What's that?"
"Well-" Megamind pushed away from the statue and turned slightly to place one hand on Wayne's petrified bicep. "-it's the art of decorating an object by gluing strips of paper onto its surface. But that's not important right now," he said, brushing his hands through the air in front of him as though clearing the unnecessary details away. "What really matters is that you're absolutely right, Owen."
The young man still looked confused, but he craned his head forward expectantly.
"About my database," Megamind explained. "The 'sonic boom', as you called it, is indeed one of the only ways to dispose of the boa plasma."
Owen shifted from one foot to the other. "One of?"
The steady flutter in Roxanne's heart rapidly increased.
"Yes," Megamind answered, stepping casually between Owen and Wayne. "You can, of course, destroy it at a molecular level." He bobbed his head back and forth slightly. "Along with whatever is trapped inside."
Owen shifted again, his fingers twitching slightly at his sides.
Roxanne's eyes widened and she held her breath.
"There's another?" Owen asked.
Megamind glanced up and locked his gaze onto the young villain. A sly glint flashed through the penetrating green of his eyes.
Reflexively, Roxanne felt herself smile.
"The other," Megamind replied, "is to completely dry out the hydraulic base of the gel."
Owen took an instinctive step back. "What-?" he murmured breathlessly.
"The substance I created for this particular setting on my gun is not, of course, ordinary glue," Megamind explained as he patted the weapon now resting on his hip. "Like most of my inventions, it truly is fantastic."
Then his lips curled into a genuinely devious smile that made Roxanne's heart absolutely soar.
"It dries exceptionally quickly," he added.
Owen stumbled backward a step, nearly tripping himself on his own feet. "You mean-?" he countered incredulously.
"I mean . . . ," Megamind drawled pointedly. He raised his watch casually to his eyes for a quick look. "In the time we've been talking, that substance has been drying the boa plasma into nothing more than a fairly solid stone. Hardly a problem for the likes of Metro Man." He glanced up from his wrist and smirked shrewdly back at Owen. "In another few seconds, I'd say you're going to have a pretty super-powered problem on your hands."
Owen tightened his fists at his sides and stared back at Megamind with a growing venomous scowl. "So," he said, his voice thick and raspy with accusation, "you didn't destroy him."
Megamind shook his head with another small chuckle. His lips were quirked in amusement. "Well, you probably wouldn't have allowed me to retrieve my weapon if you didn't at least think I was capable of it," he replied. "But, no. No, I didn't."
Owen's body was now trembling with absolute fury. "Why?" he grated through clenched teeth.
"Oh, haven't you been paying attention?" Megamind said, raising his hands with mock exasperation. "All that time visiting my lair - observing everything - and you didn't notice?" He let out a small, dramatic groan.
Then his demeanor shifted completely; he focused his eyes on Owen with blazing intensity.
"I'm a hero now," he said.
An absolute thrill of happiness raced through Roxanne's entire body. Her face split into a beaming smile. "Ha!" she interjected triumphantly. "I told you!"
Owen shifted his scowl to her briefly, then back to Megamind. His shoulders were rising and falling in large movements. Flashes of rage, hurt, and absolute betrayal chased each other across his face.
Megamind crossed his arms back over his chest. Then his expression seemed to soften sympathetically as he looked back at his one-time fan. "Besides, Owen," he said in earnest, "and I speak from experience: destroying one's enemy is not always as fulfilling as you might think."
Owen's lip curled angrily. His eyes narrowed. "Well, Mr. Mind," he whispered harshly, "let's test that theory."
He quickly brushed his short cape aside behind him and reached back to his waistband. When he thrust his arm out again, the pistol was clutched tightly in his quivering grip.
Megamind suddenly froze, his eyes blowing wide.
Roxanne's heart immediately leapt into her throat. The world spun around her as she helplessly clutched the bars of her cage. She needed to do something.
So she did the only thing she could think of.
She screamed.
It wasn't just a quick cry of protest, either. Roxanne Ritchi let out a pure, horrifying shriek that echoed stridently through the small hallway. It was blood-curdling . . . it was ear-splitting . . .
And it was enough to get Owen's attention.
Startled, the young villain jerked. He shifted his aim away from Megamind as his body spun wide toward the sound. Roxanne felt a huge surge of relief. She had seen how nervous and erratic Owen had behaved all day, and the scream had certainly broken his focus.
But Roxanne's relief only lasted for a moment.
Because as Owen's attention abruptly shifted to her, so did his aim.
The dark, hollow barrel of the pistol trained upon her, and Roxanne also froze. At that point, she realized she had no idea what to do next.
What she hadn't realized, was how very quickly Megamind was capable of moving.
He was in front of her in an instant.
A deafening explosion erupted through the hall. A flash of orange fire flared for just a fraction of an instant from the muzzle of the gun.
Roxanne watched in helpless horror as Megamind's body slammed backwards into the bars and slid bonelessly to the floor in front of her.
Click here for the conclusion - Chapter 15.
Endnotes: No retcons here, by the way! Just lots of references to little details from earlier chapters - especially Chapter 2. (I love it when a plan comes together!)