Author's Note: My deepest thanks to all who have stayed with this peculiar set of tales, those who read, and especially those who review. Bless you all - and now, for the Grand Finale!

Fourth Movement:

Sense and Sensibility and Somewhere

It was February again, and like February the year before, the weather was pretty wretched. Work for Roxanne still had its share of headaches, although this year, it wasn't KMCP's anchor who was out sick; it was Roxanne Ritchi. Shortly before Christmas, she and Megamind had made the mutual decision to consolidate their living arrangements, and after a surprisingly brief day or two of consideration, the reporter had decided that she was ready to leave her apartment — beautiful though it had become since its renovation after the Titan incident — and move into the Lair. There were really many advantages to be had there: lots of room, no rent or utility bills, and the eminently desirable results of Megamind's odd but fascinating architectural hobbies. So before the end of the year, she had made the move, and hadn't regretted it since.

Well, maybe a bit on those early mornings and late nights and strange hours when the ex-villain's job as the city's defender or his work in the labs and machine shops of the lower Lair either woke her at some ungodly hour or wouldn't let her get to sleep until some equally ungodly hour. Megamind did try to be considerate about it, but he also tended to forget himself, so he had equipped the master bedroom with the same sound damping fields he used in the music room to keep the entire west side of Metro City from complaining about the noise. Roxanne was still wakened at odd hours when some emergency requiring his attention came up, but thus far, it hadn't happened very often. Of course, she'd only been living there a little more than a month, and the weather had been so miserable, even Megamind at his most villainous would have stayed at home and put off any nefarious plans until spring.

Early in the month, Roxanne had had the bad luck to catch a flu bug that was going around the station, and weirdly enough, it was being sick that made her very grateful that she'd moved. At the apartment, she would have been alone in her misery, which made her feel even more miserable. Being sick was bad enough; being sick and lonely and required to take care of yourself when your gut was rebelling and your hair hurt and even thinking about moving caused your head to throb was a thing she had always hated. For the week it had taken for the worst of the virus to run its course, Megamind, Minion, and even the brainbots had been attentive and solicitous, enough to make her feel comfortable and cared for, but not so much that she felt smothered.

After seven days of fever, aches, nausea, exhaustion, and all the assorted other unpleasantries of influenza, the pampering of bed rest, attentively administered medicines, and carefully planned light meals and beverages — all taken care of by her beau, his lifelong guardian, and one very solicitous pink brainbot — Roxanne was finally beginning to feel herself on the mend. When she'd first fallen ill, she'd feared that Megamind would overdo it with attention and worry, but to her relief, he'd learned his lesson after a few rounds of ordinary colds and allergies over the past sixteen months of their non-villainous relationship. He still fretted and was as attentive as he could get away with, but he was showing a remarkable amount of discretion over when it would and wouldn't be a good time to look in on her. Roxanne was pretty sure she could detect Minion's fine hand in this, and she would have to remember to thank both of them properly when she was back on her feet.

For now, she was just glad that she could be off them as much as she needed to get well. Early in the week, there had been an ill-timed middle of the night call for Metro City's defender, and after his wake up call disturbed Roxanne, Megamind had moved himself into the second bedroom at nights for the duration. The sound-damping fields had let Roxanne sleep soundly, but now that she was feeling better, she felt like she could do with a little noise. Taking her time, she went into the adjoining bathroom, showered, and washed her hair.

She was still amused by Megamind's genuine failure to understand the need for the mere existence of shampoo, although he had no problem with the existence of blow-dryers. She supposed it was a matter of software versus hardware, and though the blue alien could get into programming like any good geek, he was plainly more of a hardware person. Then again, he had his mad scientist chemist side as well, and after Roxanne had explained to him what she knew of why ordinary soap was not suitable for regular use on hair (even though it was okay for Minion's fake fur), he'd gone off to research the subject on the Internet and then had concocted a dozen varieties of his own for her use. Some hadn't suited her hair type, one made her scalp itch, and another had actually turned her hair dark blue (temporarily, thank goodness), but two or three were pretty good, and one treated her hair and scalp better than the expensive stuff she'd been buying from a salon.

The shampoo project had kept him occupied during a quiet week in early January, after Roxanne had moved in and while everyone, crooks included, were still recovering from the holidays. During the next two weeks, things got busier in both of their jobs, Megamind's due to a surge of activity from what appeared to be a large group of new villains. Their crime spree was a string of major thefts, bank heists and jewelry store break-ins, going for cash and precious metals that were easily converted to cash. Each robbery was performed in broad daylight, by a pair of armed costumed villains, one acting as the boss and the other the thuggish henchman. It was never the same pair, which was causing concern among the police, that an entire gang of villains was being formed to take the place of the now-heroic former supervillain.

Megamind had become suspicious of the whole thing around the time of the third robbery, and after that had set brainbots newly equipped with invisibility stealth modes to do 24/7 surveillance of all banks and jewelers. They missed catching the next theft because the pair of crooks — always a pair, never a single, which was part of what piqued the ex-villain's suspicion — went after a coin collector's shop that bought and sold gold and silver. Such places were immediately added to the surveillance list, along with check cashing and payday loan sites, ATMs, brokerage houses, and any business that traded in expensive merchandise, like furs, cars, and high-end electronics. The foresight paid off, as the next break-in was at a luxury car dealership. The newest pair of villains not only were after any cash on hand, but also planned to make off with one of the most expensive and lavish cars in the showroom. The brainbots had sent an alert to Daddy the instant the duo pulled up, driving a nondescript junker of an old Ford Taurus that had once been red and was now predominantly the color of rust.

The covertly observing brainbots had recorded it all. The crooks — bedecked in garish purple and orange outfits that looked as if they'd come off the rack of some demented sideshow harem, with the bizarre addition of orange winter parkas — made it their first order of business to round up all the employees and customers and lock them in the glassed-in cashier's office, which they boasted they would clean out after they had made their "selection." They were in the middle of bickering over which of the most luxurious vehicles they should take to replace their junker — disagreeing over the poshness of a Rolls-Royce Phantom and the roominess of a Mercedes SUV — when Megamind arrived. He'd flown in on a smaller, sleeker version of his hoverbike that was outfitted not only with its own invisibility mode, but also with a nearly invisible fairing that made the vehicle much more tolerable for use in cold winter weather. The showroom had been equipped with a set of massive glass doors that were used to move the bigger vehicles in and out of the building. On his cue, four of the invisible brainbots had opened them to let Daddy come flying in in style, the stealth mode dropping as the bike swooped in, right over the heads of the startled pair of criminals. The moment they recognized the city's defender, the duo had opened fire, and had been utterly shocked when the bullets had no apparent effect on him. He had apprehended them in short order, dehydrating them to put an end to any further shooting that might have endangered the captives, and had gladly turned them over to the police when they arrived soon after.

It turned out that the "villain gang" was nothing more than this single pair of men, who had been changing their names and outfits with each new heist to make it look as if they were a growing group, an up and coming evil league of evil to be feared. Megamind had noticed the similar M.O.s in the string of crimes fairly early on, as well as the suspiciously identical body shapes and sizes under the different costumes that had been caught by security cameras. Those details combined with the fact that they were trying to amass considerable cash assets told him that they were looking for ways to make their dream of a entire legion of villains and supervillains a reality. If they couldn't persuade others to join them with words alone, they would do it by buying other allies with cold, hard cash. It was really pretty pathetic, but if they'd remained unchecked, they not only might have eventually pulled it off, but they very likely would have hurt or killed someone even sooner.

Roxanne's own work had increased because of all those incidents and her assignments to cover the developing situation, and she'd been glad when the whole thing was over. She downplayed it in her own reports, but that final confrontation with the crooks and the recordings from the brainbots that had eventually been released to the press caused a considerable sensation in the media. It was a known fact that Megamind was not invulnerable in the way Metro Man had been, but the footage had showed him able to simply shrug off a storm of bullets from a pair of automatic weapons as if they were nothing more than a dusting of sleet pellets. That had caused a huge tsunami of surprise among the city's various news and gossip purveyors, along with a flurry of heated speculation as to how this had been possible.

The currently most popular theory was that the blue alien had found ways to give himself some of his ex-rival's attributes so that he wouldn't be killed in the line of duty, as Hal Stewart had somehow acquired the full range of powers to become Titan, but Roxanne knew the truth and didn't want it to get around. Ever since he had taken on the mantle of Metro City's superhero, Megamind had been working on improving and augmenting the protective materials and devices he'd developed during his years as Metro Man's enemy. The impact dispersing polymer that he had patterned after substances from his home planet had been refined so that the thin protective undersuit he wore beneath his outer costume was not only thinner and lighter and more flexible, but was even more capable of armoring him against almost any force that might be thrown against him. He'd even gotten Wayne Scott to help him in testing it, so that he could be certain of its capacity to handle genuinely super forces.

To that he had added an invisible force-field that covered the parts of his body not protected by the polymer, most importantly his head. It was so finely tuned, it was like a second skin, completely undetectable until it was actually touched. The field didn't have quite the armoring capacity of the polymer, not yet; it could be shorted out if overloaded. He was working on improving that as well, but for the time being it worked — and more importantly, to him, it worked for Roxanne and Minion as well. His greatest fear in taking on the job of a hero was the danger it presented to those for whom he cared. Minion had some defenses of his own in the big robotic gorilla suit that was his habitat, but Roxanne had no such protection. With his development of the subtle force-field shielding device, he was able to provide her with some measure of that protection, which came as a relief to all of them.

Fortunately, when the flu hit her right at the beginning of February, safety was not an issue. Here in the Lair, Roxanne had been able to let herself relax and get better as she'd never been able to do in the days of Megamind's ongoing war against Metro Man. She didn't have to worry about anyone showing up to kidnap her when she was under the weather — though even at his most clueless, the blue alien had at least demonstrated some consideration for her condition whenever he happened to attempt a kidnapping without knowing beforehand that she was sick. Usually it wound up as Minion calling the boss to suggest a postponement, with which Megamind never argued, though several times, he told Minion to stay and make sure Roxanne had whatever she needed to get well. Twice, the anthropomorphized fish had stayed for a day or so, admirably tending to her needs. On one notable occasion when Megamind himself had been present for the kidnapping, he had whisked her off to an emergency room, as during the previous night, her very bad cold had suddenly turned to acute pneumonia, and she hadn't had the strength or even the wits to reach the phone and call 911. Looking back at it now, she understood that he had truly been worried about her, and not just because she was his best pawn in the Game with his arch-rival. The hospital staff had freaked out when he'd brought her in, and she remembered him saying something about not making the mistake of letting someone else do it again. Now, she understood why.

It was a fair part of why she couldn't get upset with him when he worried about her being sick now. Really, during this recent bout, he'd almost underdone it, to the point that she occasionally wondered where he was. There had been that one middle of the night summons early in the week — a rescue assist at a nursing home fire, something the brainbots could, with direction, handle even more efficiently than a hundred human firefighters — but since then, neither Megamind nor Minion had mentioned any other calls, just routine patrols and catching up on a backlog of equipment maintenance and repair. Her beau had graciously withdrawn to the other bedroom at nights for her sake, but it was his unusual absences during the day that made her wonder just what he was up to. Minion hadn't been forthcoming, either, and though Pinky was about most of the time, ready to do or get or bring anything she needed, the little bot couldn't provide any answers.

Now, feeling cleaner and more herself than she had since this flu had kicked in (unfortunately heralding itself with a sudden need to give back Minion's excellent dinner, even more unfortunately all over poor Minion himself), Roxanne put on a fresh set of pajamas, her best fluffy pink robe and matching slippers, and decided to brave the halls of the Lair's living quarters to see if anyone was about. The assortment of smells that she'd come to associate with these rooms above the labs and garages and storage lockers below was still the same: wood, leather, various plants, coffee, and an underlying, lingering trace of what was either glue or WD-40, she could never be quite sure which. In the direction of the master bathroom, she could hear the bowging of some of the housekeeping bots doing their regular clean up rounds, and from the kitchen she could catch the whiff of a breadmaker at work. She was about to head for the kitchen to see if Minion was there when she heard voices coming from another quarter, the chamber between the library and the music room, which she tended to think of as a general purpose work room or study.

"Does this feel better than the last one?" Megamind was saying in the odd distracted tone that usually meant he was actually in a state of hyper-concentration. "There's more flexibility where it counts and greater length, but also heightened sensitivity and improved response time."

Roxanne felt her eyebrows shoot up and her face burn red at the slightly more than suggestive image that those words brought to mind. Get your mind out of the gutter, girl, she told herself with a virtual face slap.

"I agree," came Minion's reply a few seconds later. "Being longer is certainly an improvement, and the shape alone is much, much better. I think this will be a better fit, so to speak, and it's way better when it comes to recovery time."

"I know, it was frustrating, the performance was totally inadequate."

"Was I that bad? I'm sorry, sir, but you know, I'm still pretty new to this. I understand how the parts are supposed to work and what to do to with them, but I just haven't had enough practice using them, this way."

"Not to worry, Minion, I'm sure you'll get better with time. You just have to learn to trust your instincts a bit more."

"I know, I know, but I really don't want to disappoint you. That last time, I finished way before you did..."

Okay, that does it, something screamed in Roxanne's head. It was time to either be brave and find out what those two were talking about, or to be a coward and run the other way before she could see the proof of what it sounded like they were talking about. She actually took two steps away from the room before her nosy reporter side scolded her and made her turn back again. If this did turn out to be what it sounded like, it would be better if she found out now, before her imagination distorted things into being weirder than they probably were.

Fortunately, the door to the room was open, saving her the need to make a decision whether or not to knock first. This was probably one of the simplest rooms in this part of the Lair, with basic tables and chairs meant to handle the potential abuse of things like glues and solvents and oils and sharp or pointed tools. Even so, it had a kind of style, a sort of future industrial feel with a lot of steel and chrome and glass and bright lighting, offset by black enamel cabinet fronts and the black tile floor. Inside, Megamind was seated at the largest work table with a couple of brainbots hovering over him to provide extra light, and Minion standing before him with his right hand held out for his boss's examination. But the hand was different, not the heavy, thick-fingered gorilla-like paw that he usually sported. This was much closer to a normal human hand, with longer, more slender fingers that, as he wiggled them experimentally, demonstrated a higher degree of agility than his other robotic appendage. The gorilla paw was detached and lying on the table; thankfully, it looked more like a swapped accessory than a severed hand.

Roxanne released a huge sigh of relief. "Oh, thank God, that's what you were talking about!" she said with an excess of emotion. "It sounded like — never mind what it sounded like, forget I even said that!"

"Ms Ritchi, you're up!" Minion exclaimed with a smile while Megamind frowned for a moment, trying to figure out what Roxanne had meant. He suddenly turned purple as he reflected on what she would have overheard and how it must have sounded. "How are you feeling today? You're looking much better."

She returned the fish's smile as she entered the room. "Thanks, Minion, I'm feeling much better. Still not a hundred percent, but at least seventy. Are you getting fitted for new hands?" she asked as she greeted her still dumbstruck boyfriend with a kiss on his forehead.

The ex-villain finally found his voice, though it came out a bit spluttering at first. "Yes!" he said most emphatically. "It's not what you — I mean, these have a higher degree of manual dexterity, something Minion's been wanting ever since he started tailoring clothes for me."

"Oh, what I had before was good enough for that, sir, with the exception of some fine hand stitching. Strength was more important for a long time, and it still is, but not all the time. A few months ago, I told Sir I wanted to learn to play some kind of musical instrument, but the only thing I could manage with my usual hands was percussion, and that wasn't really what I had in mind. I liked the idea of a keyboard, but the fingers I had were too thick, and I kept breaking the keys. So Sir decided to make new ones I could use for that, and things like some of the finer work I do, both in the garage and for tailoring. It's a great idea, to be able to switch them, like having special tools for different jobs."

He flexed, then wiggled the fingers again, chuckling. "This is the third adjustment he's had to make, and I think this time's the charm. They had a bunch of bugs to be worked out at first, and though they were better on the second try, the responsiveness was still off; they worked way too fast. Sir was working with me, sort of a duet to test the timing, and I wound up finishing the piece in about half the time he did, much too soon."

"The control interface was off," Megamind grumbled to himself, poking and prodding the new robotic hand with a test probe. His embarrassed flush had faded, and he was back to his concentrating inventor mode. "They were trying to respond to your mental input as fast as you scanned the score rather than as fast as the tempo you directed. It just needed some fine tuning."

Roxanne was impressed. "That's very creative, both of you. Were you feeling left out whenever he went off to torture his guitar?" she teased the fish.

Megamind stuck out his tongue; Minion laughed. "Maybe, sometimes, though not when he's trying to work off steam — that is torture! I'm not saying that you're lousy, sir," he added hastily when his ward began to scowl at him, "just that you can get loud enough to shatter the glass on my dome! It's what you need to do, I'm not complaining! Really, Ms Ritchi, this was just something I wanted to try, to expand my horizons a little, and I like keyboard stuff. It's a lot easier to pick up than the violin."

That reminded the brunette of her beau's ongoing attempts to learn that particular instrument, and the fact that she hadn't heard any sounds of it, lately. "That's true. Did you give it up?" she wondered. "You've been doing pretty good with the Sherlock Holmes deductive reasoning part of hero work, like the way you put together the information on those serial robbers a few weeks back. But I haven't heard anything from the violin since way before Hallowe'en. Did it win the war?"

The blue alien shrugged. "I've had other things to work on," was his evasive answer. He looked up then, and smiled, a disarmingly charming smile that Roxanne was sure was at least partially intended as a diversion. "I'm glad to see you're feeling better. I was beginning to worry that this virus was more serious than it looked."

"Nothing to worry about," she assured him even as she recognized that he was deliberately changing the subject. She let him, since she knew by now that it hurt him when she made too much of his failures. She'd been aware of that effect she could have on him years before the "destruction of Metro Man" incident, and though she hadn't cared too much about his injured feelings then, she did now, and regretted her past pettiness. If he wanted to avoid this, she'd play along. "I appreciate all you've done, both of you, letting me rest, taking care of me, even worrying about me. It's been a long time since anyone did that for me, and it helped, a lot. I think I still have a few more days to go before I can go back to my regular schedule, but with the way you two coddle me, I won't mind at all."

She was glad to see both aliens positively glow from her praise. "Not to seem pushy, now, but is there anything around for lunch or breakfast or whatever time it is? Nothing heavy, but more than the broth and toast and usual sickbed things. My appetite is definitely coming back, which is a sure sign that I'm on the mend."

Minion nodded and would've gone right to the kitchen, but for his mismatched hands. "Will it take long to switch back?" he asked his boss.

Megamind hummed thoughtfully. "Not very, and it'll be simple when I've finished all the adaptations. But I think you should just keep it for now, see how it works for you in direct comparison to what you're used to."

"Great idea, sir!" the ichthyoid enthused. "If this works, just think of all the different possibilities for attachments!"

"Let's get this one to work right first, Minion," the inventive ex-villain recommended. Roxanne was a bit surprised by his subdued attitude, until he added, "No torches or laser cutters or anything like that until we're sure there won't be any accidents with the control interface."

Minion accepted that without hesitation. "Of course, sir. I don't want to hurt myself, or you or Ms Ritchi! One step at a time! For now, I'll just see to getting something for lunch."

As he ambled off, whistling cheerfully, Megamind shooed off the brainbots that had been providing extra light as he set aside his tools. Roxanne looked at the stuff spread across the table, and smiled. "You know, this kind of thing could be an absolute godsend for amputees and people with certain birth defects," she pointed out, with pride.

"It could be," he allowed, "but it's nowhere near that stage of the game. Doing this with Minion is easy because his 'body' is robotic and the neural implants that allow him to transmit his thoughts directly into the AI controllers of the suit are already in place — but I didn't put them there, my parents did. I still haven't mapped out all the details of how that fusion was achieved, and I'm not taking Minion apart to have a closer look! Even if I could be sure of doing it without hurting him, I'd be afraid that I wouldn't be able to put things back together properly because I don't have the right tools."

"Aren't there non-invasive ways to do that?"

"Yes, but the equipment that currently exists isn't good enough to do a proper job of it. I've been working on improving some different kinds of scanners, when I have the time. There hasn't been a lot of that to spare, unfortunately."

Roxanne slipped an arm around his waist as he stood up, both as a more proper greeting and because she had missed being close to him. He smiled and kissed her cheek, which was as far as things would go, for now. Megamind tended to have a fairly strong natural immunity to a lot of human diseases, but when he did catch one, he could get distressingly sick. Neither of them wanted to take the risk of him picking up this current bug, so certain sensible precautions were taken. Until today, Roxanne hadn't felt up to much more than sleeping and occasionally half-sleeping through a movie or TV show, anyway. His remark brought a small pinch of a frown to her brows. "Has it been a tough week? I thought things have been pretty quiet on the hero front, since Monday."

"On the streets, yes, but there's always the repairs and upgrades and things waiting to be done. Not to mention some new projects the city wants me to look into, and some other stuff the governor's asked about. It's like you with your job. There're always the stories you want to do but can't ever seem to get around to because of the work you have to do." He let loose an immense sigh. "It was so much easier, being a villain. I could do what I wanted to, when I wanted to, and I didn't have to worry about letting anybody down or ruining my reputation."

She chuckled. "That's because you didn't have a reputation that could be ruined, sweetie. Everybody was counting you to lose, anyway." When he huffed, lower lip sticking out in a disgruntled pout, she took a chance and kissed it quickly. "We loved you, anyway," she admitted. "What would've been the fun in having a superhero without a supervillain willing to keep taking him on, even when he always lost? The only way you could've ruined your reputation is if you'd stopped coming back for more."

He could tell she meant it as an odd sort of compliment, but he continued to pout for a few moments, regardless. "Well," he finally conceded, "I suppose I did show that I had more staying power than Wayne, in the end."

"Exactly. And if you ask me, I'd say you're outshining him when it comes to being a hero, too." She could see the pride begin to light up his green eyes, along with a bit of puzzlement. She explained. "Metro Man was big on rescues and thwarting criminals and doing feats of strength and speed and superpowers, but that was the whole show, with him. You do the rescuing and the thwarting, too, but you also do detective work Wayne just never bothered to do, not unless he could manage it with superpowers alone, and your public service work goes a lot farther than his ever did. Design and build new recycling facilities to handle all the city's waste products and revert them into useable materials instead of putting it all in landfills? Wayne couldn't've done that, all he ever did was chuck the stuff into the sun once in a while, and then only if people asked. Come up with materials that will eventually protect all the police and firefighters, not just himself? Not a chance he'd ever do it, he just couldn't. Have brainbots patrolling the city, keeping an eye out for trouble, picking up litter, just generally being helpful? Hell, when you got them to start doing that while you were still the Evil Overlord, the city was safer than it had ever been while Metro Man was on patrol. He couldn't be everywhere, and not even in as many places as your brainbots are. And all those things are just the tip of the iceberg. You've done a lot more for this city and the whole region since you became the hero than Wayne did in all the years he was Metro Man. That makes you the better hero in my book — and in a lot of other people's, too. I know you, you'll find the time to make this neural interface thing work, sooner or later. It's just the way you are."

Now, there was an odd smile on the blue face, a charming combination of pride, vanity, and even a little abashed humility. "Well, yes, of course I will!" he agreed, as if thinking anything else was just plain silly. "It's what I do best, after all, never give up! Even Mr. Super Snot can't say that, because he did!"

Roxanne grinned. "He certainly did, and at just the wrong time. But that's in the past, water under the bridge. Has anything else been happening that I should know about?"

Megamind shook his head as he steered her toward the door and out of the room, headed for the kitchen, his arm around her shoulders while hers was still comfortably wrapped around his slim waist. "Nothing significant. Your boss wants to know when you'll be back to work, he's been trying to call and sending notes with Pinky when she goes to your office to pick up your mail. We should really set up a post office box for you, so your private stuff doesn't have to get keep getting forwarded to the station."

She snickered. "That may become a moot point if you don't outfit my car with a stealth mode, like the Invisible Car. I've been having to shake people off my tail for months to keep the paparazzi and other less well-intentioned snoops from following me, especially since it got around the station that you and I had moved in together."

He snorted. "Yes, well, that's one of the other things we've been working on while you were sick. That and trying to miniaturize the necessary components enough to fit in as a setting on the holowatch. The car should be done by the end of next week, but I'm afraid the watch thing's going to take a little longer."

"You'll work it out, hon, I have faith in you." She felt the slight bloom of heat under her lips as she kissed his cheek in encouragement. He was always a bit embarrassed by such open demonstrations of confidence in him and his abilities after so many, many years of failure, even as he reveled in them. "So, has Pinky been playing secretary with my mail, sorting out the junk from all the rest of it?"

"Diligently. There isn't much of 'the rest of it,' mostly notes from your boss, from the look of things."

Her eyes twinkled as she sent him a sly, sidelong glance. "What, you haven't been reading it for me?"

"Never," was the indignantly offered reply. "I had enough to worry about on your behalf, with you being sick. I didn't need to add worries about whether or not I should go dehydrate your boss and a few of your so-called fans."

"That's probably for the best," she admitted.

"Just don't be surprised when you find all the envelopes opened. Pinky got the idea that she could sort things better if she knew what's in them, but she's not much of a reader."

The image of the little bot trying to find some kind order in letters she could barely read made Roxanne laugh, and she was still laughing when they reached the kitchen. Her mail had been spread out on one side of the table, several piles that didn't seem exceptionally large, until she noticed the trash can full of junk mail alongside one of the chairs. It was amazing just how much of the stuff could pile up in a single week.

While she ate the lunch Minion had provided for her, easily digestible things with more solid protein and vitamins and carbohydrates than she'd been able to ingest during the worst parts of her illness, Roxanne idly sorted through some of the collected mail. The things from her boss, she noted, had been stacked according to the date received, so she decided to tackle them first. Most were just queries as to when she was coming back and generally dismissible news of what was going on at the station. One, however, was more interesting.

"Oh, I'd heard rumors that someone at KMCP was going to be buttonholed for this, this year," she said as she read the note and an attached letter. "But I didn't think it would be me!"

"Buttonholed?" Megamind repeated after swallowing a mouthful of his sandwich, trying to wrap his brain around the bizarre concept of buttonholing. "Does someone want to cover you with buttonholes, or do they plan to try to turn you into one?" From his expression, if she said the latter, he was going to demand to know who had concocted this nefarious plan so he could go after them and use one of the less benign settings of the de-gun on him or her.

Roxanne laughed and patted his shoulder. "Neither, sweetie, so you can just unruffle your feathers. To buttonhole someone means to corner them and ask them for a favor. Happens all the time, especially in things like politics and the media."

"That doesn't sound much better," was the alien's opinion, still offered with a glower. "Who wants to ask you to do them a favor?"

"The annual Metro County Children's Benefit. Every March, they put on some kind of dinner and show to raise money for different groups that provide funding for underprivileged kids, usually a celebrity competition with the prize money given to the winners' selected charity. Last year, they did 'Metro Idol' and had a singing competition. I think you were in the middle of helping with the renovation of the subway system then, so they stayed off your back. Wayne was really ticked off about it, 'cause he'd been wanting them to do that for years, and when they finally did, he couldn't compete because he was still officially 'dead.' This year, they're going with 'Metro City's Got Talent.'" She snorted. "Betcha anything Wayne offered a big donation to talk the committee into it, just so he can get up on stage and have his act televised to the whole city."

The alien nodded. "Oh, yes, we know about that. Are they asking you to compete on behalf of the station?"

The brunette shook her head. "No, they want me to host it. They usually try to tap one of the local news reporters or interviewers for the job — I guess they figure we know how to handle ourselves in front of the cameras and interact with people. Last year, they got Mark Wilson from Channel 11 to do it, and it was someone from Channel 3 the year before that. I guess it was our turn in the rotation."

"Well, I think they made an excellent choice, Ms Ritchi," Minion said from the kitchen's central prep island, where he was testing the dexterity of his new hand when it came to feeding himself, tossing and catching lobster bites through the open top of his dome, like popcorn. "You've always had a wonderful presence on camera — it certainly had the boss captivated for years!"

"Minion!" said boss scolded with a devastating glare that his guardian easily ignored.

Roxanne allowed herself only the smallest chuckle, since he had already gone purple from the neck up. "It's okay, Megamind, he's not telling me anything I didn't already know. I do know how to recognize professional admirers when I see them, and even when I was pissed off at you for kidnapping me and turning my life upside down, I thought it was kind of sweet and flattering. How do you two know about the benefit? Have they been running commercials for it already? They usually don't start that up until about a month beforehand, so people won't have time to get sick and tired of hearing about it."

Megamind shook his head as his color returned to normal. He took a sip from his cup of coffee to clear his throat before tendering an answer. "I don't know if they are, I haven't had much time to watch TV lately — and it's never as interesting when you're not on it. No, they sent us invitations months ago, asking if we'd be willing to participate this year, since we are local celebrities."

Roxanne was admittedly a bit surprised, since it showed just how much some parts of the region were finally accepting the two aliens as the good guys. "Did you say yes?"

Minion looked at his ward before answering; the blue hero shrugged. "We told them we'd think about it," the latter said. "I mean, it's hard to make definite commitments for something sort of frivolous when you have to be on call for emergencies at any time of the day or night. Unlike my predesceasor, neither Minion nor I have ridiculously extreme super-speed."

The reporter didn't bother to correct his mild mispronunciation, as it was rather amusingly apropos. "That is true," she agreed. "And the benefit isn't until the twentieth of next month, so it can be tough to even try to make projections. They asked both of you, huh?"

"Is that cool, or what?" Minion confirmed most enthusiastically.

Megamind was remarkably calm about it, though he did come off as a bit smug. "We are a team, Minion, don't forget that."

The ichthyoid rolled his golden-brown eyes, since he knew quite well that his master forgot that very fact often enough. "Well, sir, I am just the sidekick. Without you, there wouldn't even be a team."

Roxanne was amused at their byplay. "Have you guys come up with anything to do, just in case you're available and can make it, or were you just planning to play the busy heroes card and avoid the whole thing?"

The ex-villain made the most peculiar noise Roxanne had ever heard. "I want to," he admitted candidly. "Wayne has some idea about engaging in a battle of the bands — which would be rather grossly unfair, since he has a band these days, and we don't."

"Oh, so you're saying you couldn't manage to get something together using the brainbots?" the brunette challenged impishly.

"Of course I could!" was the reliably cocky answer. "But he wants this to be on his terms, as usual. Every time we fought, he's always had the upper hand right from the start because he had the advantage with all his superpowers and invulnerability. Every single time, I had to try to find a way to even the playing field before I could even start thinking about having a real advantage. What do you think all those kidnappings were about?"

Roxanne's smile was lopsided. "Well, I'll admit, that's what it looked like for the first year or three, but after that, I got the distinct impression that it was getting to be more about being a weird sort of date. More and more, you sure didn't seem like you were in any big hurry to get Metro Man to come save me."

Megamind coughed; Minion sniggered. "She's got you there, sir."

"Oh, shut up," his ward grumbled, unable to really deny the accusation. "Perhaps I did start to enjoy your company more than a villain should have," he confessed to Roxanne, "but you have to remember that I and the rest of Metrocity were under the distinct impression that you and Mr. Goody Two Shoes were An Item. He never said anything to the contrary, so in the end, it was still partly about gaining some kind of realistic advantage over him."

Roxanne blinked, startled. "Wait, are you saying that Wayne never tried to tell you that he wasn't my boyfriend?"

"Of course he didn't. If he had, would you have needed to tell me otherwise when you thought I was 'Bernard?'"

Somehow, even though they had been together for over a year and a half, the implications of that particular matter had never occurred to the reporter. She frowned. "That muscle-brained creep! Do you mean to say that if he'd just told you flat out that he and I weren't dating, weren't anything more than friends, you would've left me alone?"

Megamind considered this while he finished his sandwich. "That's a possibility," he finally said. "I can't say for sure whether or not I would've believed him, since that's the sort of white lie even he would tell to protect someone, but if he had been able to make me buy it, it would have changed my perceptions. Of course, he would've needed to tell me fairly early on. I'm afraid that Minion's right, I did start to enjoy your company rather quickly. After that, I would've looked for other excuses to...er...well, you know."

"Yeah, I do. But it still ticks me off to think that Wayne never bothered to tell you we weren't a couple. I would've thought he'd do that just to try to get you off my back! The nerve of him, going around letting you think that we were dating or whatever he wanted to call it, I don't care if he thought he was protecting my honor or insuring my job security! He should have said something, right from the start — especially to you! That lame-brained, numb-skulled, over-muscled self-centered excuse for a hero! First he lets you keep right on thinking something about me that just wasn't true, and then he goes and walks out on us, and leaves the whole city and me to you and your hare-brained ideas! When I think how that whole mess could've been prevented if he'd deflated his male ego a little and just admitted that there was one woman in the world who wasn't all swooning over him, I could wring his bloody neck! Man, if I'd known he was doing that just so everyone would think he actually had a girl in his life, I would've headed for the nearest army base, borrowed their biggest rocket launcher, hauled it over to his stupid little playhouse on the beach, and shoved the thing right up his superheroic backside and launched him right into— what?"

The ex-villain watched her increasingly incensed reaction with startled interest, head cocked as if studying some unfathomably peculiar display of animal ritual. As she went on and on and got herself worked up more and more, a smile slowly spread across Megamind's face, followed by a chuckle which quickly built to full-blown laughter. It got the better of him for such a long time, Roxanne finally turned to Minion, at a loss.

The piscine sidekick had no better idea of what had set off his boss. "Uh... sir, is something wrong?" he asked uncertainly. "Are you having a seizure?"

The still laughing hero shook his head, unable to say more quite yet. Both his companions were starting to get worried by the time this strange bout of humor began to abate, and he wiped away the tears of laughter with the back of one hand. "No," he gasped out at last. "It's not a seizure — it's not really even all that funny, it's just—! Ridiculous, that's what it is! I thought I'm supposed to be the over-emotional one around here, not you, Roxanne! I don't think I've ever heard you blow your top like that — and when you're still getting over the flu! I'm glad this didn't come up when you were completely healthy! You might've grabbed the nearest missle launcher and taken out the entire north shore just to get Wayne's hideout!"

The absurdity of the situation got to Minion first, though he tried his best to hide his own laughter at the image of the usually sensible Ms Ritchi using heavy weapons to attempt getting even with the retired Metro Man. It took Roxanne a fair bit longer to get out of her outraged state of mind to begin to see how much she'd been acting... well, like Megamind in one of his more over the top moments, toned down, of course, by her currently marginal state of health. When she was able to think over all she'd just said, she couldn't quite keep the wry smile off her face.

She finally wadded up her napkin and threw it at her still-chortling blue beau. "Oh, all right, you, stop it already, it's not that funny!" she chided, flushing an attractive deep pink at her own atypical behavior. "I guess I did go a little overboard, but really, the whole thing with everyone from here to Timbuktu thinking I was Metro Man's girlfriend was a huge pain in the butt! And not just because of you and all those kidnappings! Having that reputation following me around was as good as hanging a DO NOT TOUCH sign around my neck to everything male — except you! If Wayne had really had my best interests at heart, he should've tried a little harder to convince people it wasn't true!"

Megamind had stopped laughing, but now he was eyeing his girlfriend with a mischievous, almost evil smirk. "So, you wanted him to go and find himself another reporter to date, to convince other men that you weren't — ah — taken?"

"That would've been nice, yes."

Now, he put on his sad puppy face. "And you would've been happy if I'd just gone away?"

She knew he was giving her that look on purpose, and it didn't matter, it got to her anyway. "Well, not in hindsight, no. I'm glad we got together. But I could've done with a few less kidnappings."

The mischievous smile was back. "Hmm, I can see your point — though it might not have made much of a difference, in the end."

"Then I was right!" Minion crowed in triumph. "Ha! You can deny it all you want, sir, but I just knew you were smitten even before that first kidnapping! And you kept telling me I was just a fish and didn't understand these things!"

Megamind suddenly seemed to fold in on himself like an imploding balloon, his entire head turning a shade of purple that Roxanne was fairly certain was bordering on ultraviolet. "What is this, Embarrass a Superhero to Death Day?"

Roxanne had the presence of mind not to laugh, and Minion had the decency to be chagrined. "I'm sorry, sir, I didn't mean to get carried away like that. But I've been trying to get you to admit that for years!"

The mortified hero pulled himself together enough to give the fish a withering look that would've literally melted anyone else. "Yes, well, just remember, if something just happens to 'come up' the night of that benefit, you get to go on for the both of us, all by yourself!"

That reminder wrung a huge gulp of dismay from the ichthyoid. Roxanne, however, was surprised. "Does that mean the two of you accepted the invitation? That you're going to give Wayne his battle of the bands?"

Megamind's complexion was slowly returning to normal as his lungs reinflated properly. He waggled one hand. "Yes and no. Yes, we accepted the invitation to participate, so long as nothing comes up to prevent it, but no, Wayne isn't getting the battle he wants. Some other time, maybe, when we have time to prepare a proper presentation."

"Does this have anything to do with Minion learning to play the keyboard?"

"After only a few months' practice? It's not strictly a music competition, after all."

"That's true." She scanned the letter from the benefit's board. "I was thinking of passing on this, but now, I've just got to do it, just to make sure I get a front row seat to see what you two have been cooking up." She paused. "I hope that's not what you're planning to do, cook up a bomb on the stage or something."

The blue alien had definitely regained his composure, as his response was an extravagantly indignant roll of his eyes. "Please, that would be totally unacceptable for a hero! We have something in mind, yes, but just for that, you're going to have to wait like everyone else and see it at the benefit. If circumstances permit."

Roxanne tried to give him her best persuasive "temptress" look, but he remained adamant. She figured it probably had something to do with her still recovering from the flu, and not quite being on top of her game. Give it a day or two, she felt sure, and she'd get it out of him. He was too much of a show-off to keep his plans quiet for that long.

But over a month later, when the day of the Children's Benefit had arrived, he still wasn't talking.

There had been a time when Roxanne would've been impressed by Megamind's newly demonstrated ability to play his cards this close to the vest, but she had to admit to being more than a little bit curious about the whole secret. Even Minion, who could often be counted on to spill the beans if properly wheedled (which could be as little as simply asking nicely) was no help. This time, he clammed up and sometimes literally ran the other way whenever she tried to bring it up.

Whatever they were up to, they kept any preparations confined to the hours when she was at work, as near as she could tell. There were a few evenings when one or the other of them went missing for an hour or so, but they always showed up again with a perfectly reasonable and generally provable alibi. Once in a while, she did catch brief noises that sounded like a guitar being tuned or drums being played, but it never lasted long enough for her to be certain she wasn't just hearing music being played in some distant part of the Lair.

Roxanne had to give them an A for effort alone. She still had her suspicions that they were planning something with electric guitar and either drums or keyboard, if Minion's lessons — of which she'd heard absolutely nothing — had come along sufficiently. She also had an inkling that there was some special costume planned for one or both of them as she'd seen a few of the brainbots tussling over scraps of what might have once been electric blue silk and some sort of silver fabric too shredded to identify the exact type.

Then again, she'd also heard sounds that had nothing to do with music, thumping and buzzing and banging down in the workshops of the Lair's garage level, and had caught some hints of what smelled a bit like gunpowder. All of that could have been work related, but given past incidents, Roxanne couldn't rule out the possibility of some kind of robotic or incendiary display, possibly both. She dared to ask about the noises and smells down in the lab, and had been told, "Upgrade and refinements for the jetpack. Could be very useful, come summer." And that was it. Given how Megamind was inclined to boil over with enthusiasm and show her all he'd done and all he planned to do whenever Roxanne asked about his inventive projects, she was definitely smelling a cover up. But no amount of poking, prying, snooping, sneaking, or cajoling would get him or Minion to reveal anything more. So she was forced to give her investigative reporter skills a rest and simply wait to find out.

Come the morning of the day of the benefit, she was definitely looking forward to that evening, and whatever it was that her beau and his fish had up their sleeves. The benefit would begin with dinner at five, followed by the competition and then the traditional celebratory ball afterward. Roxanne had to leave hours before the boys, as there were many technical, make-up, and wardrobe preparations she needed to complete before her portion of the live broadcast began, around seven. Around four, the celebrities and other guests began to arrive, and Roxanne was glad that she hadn't pulled the job of covering that, as red-carpet coverage was a foot-tiring, back-breaking marathon that could be even worse if the weather was lousy. Today was sort of an average March day in Michigan, which meant it was pretty cold and blustery, and generally not all that pleasant.

She wondered if Megamind would decide to grandstand and be the last to show, making a dramatic entrance; she was mildly surprised when he didn't. Oh, he put plenty of his trademark presentation into his arrival, with an able assist from Minion and a squadron or two of brainbots, but he showed up somewhere in the middle of the mass influx, and didn't bask under the admiration of the press and the crowds for more than the requisite few minutes. He swept into the hall with his typical flair, and when he doffed his newly designed cold-weather coat, Roxanne saw that he was wearing one of his usual "work outfits," no doubt because he knew that it would be expected of him. When a couple of brainbots made a little show of bringing Daddy his cape, the reaction of the crowd told the reporter that Megamind had read his audience very well indeed. She saw his eyes light up when he spotted her, and he excused himself to go join her as quickly as he could without being overly rude.

"Nice entrance," she commended after greeting him with a quick kiss. "But where's the de-gun? After last June, I thought you swore you'd never again leave home without it."

"Oh, I have it," he assured her with smug delight. "I'm just testing the miniaturized invisibility circuits. It seemed like a good time for it, since this is supposed to be a peaceful charity event and all."

"And you don't trust that it'll stay that way."

He snorted. "Would you?"

She considered the question for a moment, then shook her head. "With everyone who's here? Probably not. Oh, I was wondering who'd be the one to make the big last-one-here entrance," she added, looking beyond Megamind to the crowd just now coming through the doors, cameras whirring and flashing.

The blue hero followed her gaze in time to see Wayne Scott and a flock of fawning fans and paparazzi sweeping into the huge ballroom. "Figures," he grunted, just loud enough for Roxanne to hear. "He may have gotten tired of the work and responsibility of being a hero, but he obviously missed the attention of his adoring fans."

Roxanne kissed his cheek, softly. "Don't feel too bitter," she suggested. "You have plenty of fans of your own, and he didn't get the girl." That very pleasant truth brought a warm smile to the alien's face, and without another thought for it, he let the matter go.

As far as Megamind was concerned, Wayne's new Music Man persona had a lot less class and style than his stronger-than-dirt Mr. Clean presentation as Metro Man. The budding musician seemed to still be in the midst of an identity crisis of sorts, without a clear focus as to the kind of music he wanted to make his own. Rock? Country? Pop? Jazz? Though he was dressed in a white tux for the dinner, he was also wearing white cowboy boots, gold gloves, an Elvis style pompadour, and such a high-gloss shine on his teeth that they could be used as a mirror. It was amazing he wasn't getting requests to close his mouth from the photographers. If this was any indication of what lay in store for his performance in the competition, the ex-villain regretted that he hadn't thought to bring ear plugs, or nose plugs. He had little doubt that Wayne was going to stink up the entire western half of the state.

Fortunately, there was no need for them to sit together during the dinner portion of the event, and the competition would be held in the adjoining auditorium. After they'd first entered, Minion had disappeared for a bit, to leave some of their gear in the backstage room that had been assigned to them, but he joined them in time for the dinner. It was a fairly uninspired affair, which was typical of many benefits, intended to raise interest and funds with a certain minimum expenditure. The food was passable, but the inevitable speeches during the meal were positively soporific. Both Roxanne and Minion had to nudge or occasionally kick Megamind under the table to get him to keep his running commentary either to himself or keep it so quiet that it couldn't be heard at the adjoining tables.

When he looked back on that particular evening, the former villain had to admit that a large part of what had made it endurable for him was watching Roxanne perform her duties as the Mistress of Ceremonies. It was, he thought, a good thing that she hadn't been asked to be one of the judges, since he couldn't imagine how someone of her exacting taste and exemplary judgment — second only to himself, of course — could possibly lie through her teeth to say something kind to many of the appalling celebrity "talents" that were put on display. That seemed to be the way of it with the three people chosen to act as this year's judges: the mayor's wife, the director of the Metro County Children's Benefit Association, and the superintendent of schools for Metro City. Since the event was for charity, no matter who won or who lost, the ex-villain supposed it would be incredibly rude for them to do anything other than praise the contestants, especially since the whole thing was being broadcast live. But lord, some of these dog-and-pony shows — and one of the acts actually was a dog and pony show, or more precisely a show with poor dogs dressed up to look like the sappiest ponies imaginable to the most sugar-addled five year old's mind — went beyond terrible and awful and horrible into realms of sheer badness beyond description. And that was bad in the most genuinely bad way, not the least in a good bad way. Thus far, the best thing to step out onto that stage was Roxanne in her beautiful blue and silver evening gown, and Megamind was quite certain his opinion was completely unbiased.

Wayne Scott and his band — now reimagined under the moniker of Wild Wayne and the Rockets (which Megamind simply had to deliberately misprounce in his own thoughts as "Wild Wayne and the Wockets") — was scheduled to perform second to last. He had initially wanted the final spot, no doubt to have a chance to wow the judges after all the others had fizzled out, but the show's producer had felt that since Megamind was now the city's actively on-call defender, he should have that particular honor, simply because if he did get called away on business, it would be easier to end the show one act early than to suddenly tell those who might follow him that they had less time to prepare than they had anticipated. Wayne had conceded to that logic, and decided that he preferred it this way, as it was as close to a battle of the bands with his former nemesis as he was going to get this year.

Just before the retired hero took the stage, Minion headed for their assigned room to get ready. Megamind had intended to follow, but something held him back. It started as a desire to see just how Roxanne introduced her so-called former boyfriend — with the cheerful politeness her job as the MC required, but little more, he was pleased to note — but he stayed a bit longer, admittedly out of curiosity to see whether or not Wayne had improved at all over the past almost nine months. He lingered in the wings between several heavy black leg curtains, the shadows concealing his presence quite well even as his position allowed him to look out across the stage.

When Scott sauntered onto the stage, the blue genius clapped one hand over his mouth to smother the gagging sound that threatened to burst out, loudly. As his dinner dress had indicated, he was really in a serious state of artistic confusion. His performance costume made him look like the demented lab-experiment love child of Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, Rick Springsteen, Willie Nelson, and Frank Sinatra, birthed, no doubt, by Dolly Parton. If he was honestly determined to keep pursuing a career in music, Megamind decided that either someone had to convince him to remain behind the scenes, or he at least needed to give him the loan of Minion to help design a decent wardrobe. He also needed to do something to tone down the reflectiveness of his teeth when under the spotlights, or he'd find someone asking him if he'd like to moonlight as a disco ball.

"Thank you for that great intro, Roxie!" his old rival began, with a mile-wide cheesy grin, as shown by the glitter of reflections that skittered over the faces of the audience. Megamind frowned, making a note to remind Mr. Muscle Brain for the umpteenth time that Roxanne really hated that nickname. "I'm happy to be here tonight, playing for all the wonderful people of Metro County, and especially for the folks at the Arts in Our Schools Society, who will receive the prize money when — I mean if I should be lucky enough to be picked as tonight's winner!" From the way the crowd laughed, it was obvious that he'd given them his trademark broad and somewhat smarmy wink, to say that he really meant when, for there could be no doubt as to the inevitable outcome. Just for old time's sake, Megamind was sorely tempted to go find a few smoke bombs and a backstage microphone, to interrupt his big show and upstage him.

The music — a song Wayne called "The Metro Country Star-Spangled Rock 'n' Roll Blues" — had just started when Megamind dismissed the thought of pranking his old rival as delightful, but something he really shouldn't do unless he wanted Roxanne to move out again. He turned to head back to the room where Minion was waiting, sighed — and on the next inhale caught the distinctive noxious reek of cigarette smoke, both fresh and stale, combined with a sulfurous scent that was stronger than any mere match. He felt rather than heard the pop of several small explosives going off at once, and suddenly, the entire stage was being flooded with thick, rolling clouds of noxious smoke and fumes, in shades of sickly green and gray.

Well, he thought even as his well-honed instincts and hyper-sensitive nose had him moving to a safer place amid the many drapes and curtains and scenery flats around the edges of the stage, at least no one can blame this on me — those are so not my colors!

"Minion!" he whispered into his watch comm as he ducked behind a much thicker set of curtains that were enough to block the horrible smokes and gases that had choked Wayne and his band to a halt. "We've got trouble!"

"What's wrong, sir?" the fish answered at once. "What sort of trouble?"

"A visit from an old would-be competitor, I think. He's got the entire stage flooded with smoke and gas, and I don't think Wayne will be able to get rid of it without blowing his cover."

"Oh, no!" came the disgusted groan. "Not Nico Teen again!" The person Minion mentioned was a minor villain whose brief heyday had been during their own years of villainy. A surly sixteen year old more than a decade ago, Nico Tinsdale had dropped out of high school to pursue a career as an obnoxious petty criminal whose trademark was the use of smokes and increasingly more noxious and poisonous gases to cover his crimes, mostly theft. He hated Metro Man for being powerful and invulnerable to his skills, able to walk through them unharmed to haul him back to reform school until he finally got old enough and his crimes serious enough to land him in a regular prison. And he hated Megamind as well, simply for being so obviously an alien, who, in Nico's opinion, should've been sliced and diced and tossed out with the trash the moment he'd landed on Earth. "I thought he went in ten years ago on a fifty year sentence!"

Megamind's scowl was a succinct opinion of the current so-called criminal justice system. "Last I heard he was, but you know how eager they are to parole some of these petty criminals just to ease up the overcrowding in the prisons. I can't use the de-gun through that garbage he's got spewing out; if I accidentally dehydrate one of the band members in the wrong kind of fog, it can mess up their cellular structure but good."

"What are you going to do, then, sir? If he's using poison gases...!"

"I know, I know, I can't just walk in without killing myself, not without the right gear! I'm hoping Metro Twit has enough brains to protect his own band members. Call in the nearest group of industrial fire and rescue bots and have them enter the upper stage area through the rear catwalk entrances. I'll keep this idiot distracted until they arrive."

"You've got it, sir!"

Trusting that Minion would act as quickly as possible, Megamind sidled along the side wall behind the curtains, far enough forward to see the front of the stage and beyond. Roxanne, thank goodness, had had the common sense to leave the stage at the first whiff of trouble, and had evacuated those in the orchestra pit and the people in the first rows of the audience, including the judges, so that they were clear of the fortunately slow-spreading heavy clouds. Through sheer luck, he managed to catch her eye as she kept glancing around, looking for some sign of who had done this, and why Wayne and his group weren't escaping it. Megamind had a pretty good idea of why the retired hero hadn't fled; from the smell, the gases contained some incapacitating and potentially lethal elements. So long as he couldn't reveal that he hadn't really lost his superpowers, Wayne couldn't leave; he had to remain hidden within the thick smoke to protect his possibly semi-conscious fellow musicians.

Roxanne sent her beau a meaningful look. You?

He shook his head, and mouthed, I'm on it. It was at that moment that the sound of raspy, half-coughing laughter echoed over the sound system. "Well, well, well," a rough male voice wheezed. "If it isn't my old, dear friend, Metro Jerk, all back in business as a half-assed singer! Oh, what a pity, I heard you lost all your powers a year or two back — ain't that just a stinkin' shame, Waynie boy? That means you can't do nothin' about that nice sweet phosgene gas that should be startin' to eat away your little lungs, just about now. Guess I'll be the one to actually pull off killin' Metro Man, not that half-assed little blue twerp, Megamouth..."

A truly disturbing laugh rolled from the auditorium's sound system as Megamind laid hands on a backstage mike after passing on the info about the specific gas to Minion and the brainbots. "Would you care to get a second opinion from the little blue twerp, Nico Teen — oh, I forgot, you're hardly a pimple-faced teenager anymore, are you, Nico Teeny? Tell me, have you grown since the last time we met? You were always at least half a foot shorter than me — they do say that smoking stunts your growth, and from the look of things, you must've started when you were still in the womb!"

The snarl that answered was spoiled by a lot of heavy coughing. "That's real funny, I'll just bet you were a million laughs back on that weird-ass pile of rock you came from. Is that why they threw you out with the trash, Megatwerp, 'cause you were just too lame for the room, or was it 'cause you were a little blue freak, even back home?"

It took considerable effort for Megamind to maintain his self-control and not de-gun the entire stage on the destruct setting, just on general principles. It was bad enough when people taunted him about his obvious physical differences, but he hated it when they dragged in his lost homeworld and by inference his parents. "Very original, Nico," he managed to say in a fairly evil-sounding strangled laugh that came out through clenched teeth. "I'm sure I've only been called a little blue freak...oh, two or three hundred thousand times before. What's wrong, does your gas mask need a new filter, or is that big green cloud really just your natural aroma, overpowering that subatomic-sized brain of yours?"

The hacking cough and laughter had a leering edge to it, this time. "Why don't you come on in and find out for yourself, Megaloser? Better yet, why don'tcha send in your new squeeze? She can't be too picky, if she'll go for a dork like you. I'd like ta catch me a piece of that action — though I don't know if it'd feel right, gettin' it on with some alien dog lovin' bi— shit!"

All of a sudden, the dense clouds that had been lurching thickly across the stage parted like the Red Sea, thanks to more than a dozen brainbots equipped to safely suction off and neutralize a wide variety of deadly smokes and gases from the sites of structural fires and industrial explosions. The lifting of the impenetrable fog revealed a stage filled with all the equipment from Wayne's band, but no people — save an almost shockingly short, ratty-looking man who was at best in his late twenties, though he looked closer to his late fifties, from his sallow, wrinkled skin and dull dishwater-colored hair. His face was covered with an old war surplus style gas mask that had been fitted with an amplifier for his voice. His outfit was a dated teenaged rebel get up from over a decade earlier.

As the thick smoke curled and drew away, vanishing up to where the working brainbots hovered among the riggings above the stage, the dissipating fog revealed Megamind as he detached himself from the shadows of the rear curtains, a truly unsettling smile on his face and the glowing de-gun in his hand. "Sorry, Nico," he said with mock pity. "Michigan's a no smoking state now, and it's time you kicked the habit." He fired, and the hapless crook collapsed like a pile of wet noodles, de-bilitated rather than de-hydrated.

With the threat now effectively neutralized — all the more so with the diligent brainbots busily seeking out and counteracting any traces of the poisonous gas, easily neutralized with simple ammonia — the facility's security guards came forward to take charge of the limp villain. From out of the wings, Wayne and his group appeared, led by a typically chipper Minion.

"Everyone's safe and sound, sir!" the ichthyoid announced to both his boss and the audience as he came forward to join his friend. "It seems Mr. Scott and his band knew the stage well enough to slip out through the trap doors in the floor at the first sign of trouble."

"Always pays to keep on your toes when you know you've got some enemies out there, waiting for a chance to get a little payback," Wayne quipped with a broad smile and a wink. He showed admirable restraint in clapping Megamind's shoulder only hard enough to make him stumble ever so slightly. "Great job, little buddy, couldn't've done it better myself, back in the old days."

The audience, who had been clapping and cheering for both the apprehension of the would-be killer and the safe reappearance of Wayne and his band, finally calmed down. As they finished their work on the stage, the brainbots moved down the orchestra pit and the seating areas, checking for and cleaning up anything hazardous. They made quick work of it, and returned to hover around Daddy and Minion, waiting to be praised for a job well done. A couple even attached themselves to Roxanne as she returned to the stage, hoping that their new "Mommy" might also be counted on to give them a few strokes and pats of praise.

"Well, it looks like you found an... interesting way to liven up the act, Wayne!" the reporter said as she indulged the pair of eager brainbots nudging at her hands. "Or was this whole thing actually your act, Megamind?" She was grinning and more than half-laughing and so clearly teasing for the benefit of the eagerly watching viewers, even her sometimes touchy beau couldn't take offense. As she was still wearing a live mike, the studio audience laughed with her, adding a smattering of applause.

"Mine?" the blue alien said with extreme, and not very exaggerated, indignation. "Turn the serious work I do every day into a silly seedshow? No way, that would be cheating! Not to mention very unimaginative! No, no, if this was planned, it was all his idea!" He pointed an accusing finger squarely at Wayne, who merely smiled and shrugged.

"Not that it wasn't a pretty good show," the retired hero admitted, "but that's too imaginative for me, little buddy, especially when I went and wrote a whole new song just for this gig and didn't even get to finish singing it!"

"I think a do-over can be arranged," Roxanne suggested, looking at the judges and the stage manager and the producer in charge of the broadcast for their approval. When all of them nodded, the producer adding several gestures to give her added instructions, she nodded and turned to her following camera. "Then that's a go!" she told their watching television audience. "We'll be right back after this break with the final two entries in the Metro City's Got Talent Annual Competition for Charity. Don't go away!"

With help from the stagehands and a few willing brainbots, all was prepared for Wayne's second try, while Megamind and Minion disappeared to prepare for their own. The staging for their own presentation was quickly arranged, so while the judges were offering their remarks to Wayne and his group and the stage behind the now closed front curtain was being reset, the pair of waiting alien ex-villains fidgeted in the shadows of the wings.

"Are you as nervous as I am, sir?" Minion whispered, anxiously twitching and wringing his hands.

Megamind managed a small, not too strained smile. "I doubt it, Minion. If you keep that up, you're going to ruin your new hands before you even have the chance to do what we designed them for."

The robotized fish immediately pulled them apart, but couldn't keep them from continuing to twitch and tap. "I guess I'm just worried because I'm so new to this. I've never performed in public, and I only got it completely right for the first time on our last try!"

"I know, but trust me on this: if you make a mistake and fall apart, they won't blame it on you. If I make a mistake and fall apart...! Well, let's just say it's likely to be pretty ugly. Even if I don't completely blow it, just a few flubs at the wrong time will ruin the whole thing."

Minion had to concede that point. "You do have the harder job, sir, true. Maybe we should've just gone with our first idea and done something we're both a lot more comfortable with..."

Megamind cocked one eyebrow. "And come off as totally predictable, yet again? I'm willing to take the risk. After all, I've had over twenty years of practice when it comes to looking like a complete fool and taking it gracefully — more or less."

"More less than more — sorry, sir," Minion apologized when the arch looked started turning to a glare. "I guess you're right, better to come off like fools with style than safe and predictable and completely boring."

"Exactly. And I can guarantee you, nobody is going to expect this."

"That's for sure," the fish agreed, then took a deep breath when the applause following Wayne's departure from the stage led to their introduction as the final entry of the evening. "I guess that's our cue," he sighed as the main curtains opened. "Good luck, sir."

The ex-villain grinned impishly. "I believe the correct phrase for the occasion is 'break a leg,' Minion."

"Maybe for you, sir. I hope I don't jinx it, then, 'cause I don't have a leg to break!"

"Then break a fin." He nudged his old friend out onto the stage first, as they had planned.

From the point of view of the audience, the curtains parted to reveal a very stark and minimal set up on the stage. It was, not unexpectedly, dark, the lighting and curtains and backdrop such that it appeared entirely black, save for a single blue spot that fell on a traditional grand piano. That, the standing mike for the contestants to use to announce their charity and their act, and the glow of three rather subdued brainbots hovering above the stage was all that could be seen.

From her vantage on the opposite side of the stage, Roxanne was a bit startled, but not all that much. She'd suspected that whatever they were planning to do, keyboard might somehow be a part of it, though she did wonder about it, given that Minion had only recently started to learn, and for all she knew Megamind knew little or nothing of the skill. The minimalist look of the staging and the presence of the brainbots made her highly suspicious that some kind of light show was in store, which could do a lot to cover up any novice mistakes that might be made. When Minion entered, bowing to the audience and the judges before taking his seat at the piano, Roxanne was mildly amused to see him wearing an electric blue silk bow-tie around his considerable neck and silver brocade cuffs fastened with black onyx links at the wrists of his new interchangeable hands. That explained the scraps she'd seen the brainbots tussling over. Okay, a formal laser light show.

But the whole idea was blown six ways from Sunday when Megamind entered a moment later, stepping first to the microphone. Rather than any costume she might have anticipated even in her wildest dreams, the reformed villain was dressed very...differently. Almost... normally.

His outfit was primarily black, which was almost the only thing about it that Roxanne could have called with both eyes shut. But it wasn't leather or spandex or polymer of any sort, nor did it have spikes, chains, buckles, studs, or any of his customary accouterments. What it appeared to be was a stylized version of a classic formal morning coat-style cutaway suit. The black slacks were closely tailored but otherwise ordinary, while the black coat itself showed all the signs of careful redesign to suit its wearer. The lapels were so narrow as to be virtually absent, while the collar flared up, but only at the back of the neck, not out to the sides. The tails that swept back from the tapered waist were somewhat longer and fuller than was typical, giving the whole thing an overall effect of a sweeping cape that had been tamed and tailored to wrap itself around the alien's slender body, to excellent effect. The traditional vest that peeped out from beneath the single-buttoned jacket was of the same silver brocade as Minion's cuffs, and the shirt beneath that of the same electric blue silk, designed with a simple stand-up collar meant to be worn without a tie of any sort. The pin that held it shut at the throat was in the shape of Megamind's logo, large enough to be picked up by a camera zoomed in on his face but otherwise just a glint of silver.

When the applause of the clearly stunned and uncertain audience died — and Roxanne had to admit, she was as stunned as any of them, though something uneasy began to stir in her gut — Megamind managed a reasonably self-assured smile before speaking. "I guess this is where I'm supposed to explain myself. I'll admit, it feels a little strange without the glaring lights shoved in my face and the third degree." The mild joke defused some of the tension, which was wholly a product of surprise. "When Minion and I were invited to be a part of tonight's competition, we weren't sure about anything, what we should do or which charity we should choose. Then we did a bit of research on the Internet, and found that the second decision wasn't hard at all, and when that was made, it led pretty naturally to the first. Tomorrow, the twenty-first of March, is the United Nations' International Day for the Elimination of Racial Prejudice. Being the only two of our particular races left in existence — and obviously alien races, at that — we both have been all too familiar with racial prejudice, and the harm it can cause, especially to children who are trying to discover who they are, and what they can be.

"With that in mind, we chose as our charity the Metro County Council for Interracial Understanding's youth initiative to provide awareness instruction along with funding for educational opportunities for underprivileged children of all races. As our entry, we put together a presentation of a song I'm sure many of you know, but almost none of you think I would know! But Minion and I believe it's appropriate, given the charity we've chosen, and — well, let's just see how it goes. We're both pretty new to this!"

There was polite applause and some light laughter at his final remarks as he moved to join Minion beside the piano. As he glanced up at the hovering brainbots and nodded to them, he picked up something from the piano that Roxanne only then noticed. When she recognized it, she winced, now understanding what had stirred the uneasiness in her gut. It was a violin, not the basic student version she'd heard Megamind play for her rather inexpertly a good nine months ago, but a black solid bodied electric type that somehow suited him very well, at least in its highly stylized, sleek appearance. But she had to bite her lip to keep herself from groaning. It had been hard enough, smiling and pretending to be pleased with Wayne's improved but still pretty awful performance; she didn't know how she'd manage to pull that off if the butcher this time was her own boyfriend. Why couldn't he have just stuck with the electric guitar? Everyone at least expected that to be some kind of weird torture...

Then the music started. Two chords on the piano, lightly played, a pause, then repeated. Another pause, then a repeat extended into a longer, but still quiet passage, the final sustained chord fading as the bow finally touched the strings, Roxanne braced herself for the worst—

—and nearly fainted to hear the remarkably sweet sound of a brief but well-executed introductory cadenza that gracefully segued into the melodic line of Leonard Bernstein's old but very well known song from West Side Story, "Somewhere." As piano and violin together spun out the poignant song — astonishingly well — a collage of video images flickered to life behind them against the black backdrop of the stage, the brainbots' projections sometimes artfully rippled by the texture of the heavy drapes that acted as the screen. Images, both still and motion, of the city, the lake, the skies, the people — some random, some specific, some very specific, in moments of wonder, of sadness, of doubt, of joy, all shown in a carefully, lovingly crafted video montage threaded with precisely timed images of the words of the song for those who did not know them:

There's a place for us,
Somewhere, a place for us.
Peace and quiet and open air
Wait for us, somewhere.

There's a time for us,
Someday, a time for us.
Time together with time to spare,
Time to look, time to care.

Someday, somewhere,
We'll find a new way of living,
We'll find a way of forgiving,
Somewhere.

There's a place for us,
A time and place for us.
Hold my hand and we're halfway there.
Hold my hand and I'll take you there:
Somehow, someday, somewhere!

When the final softly sustained notes faded and the last image slowly dissolved to black, the stunned silence that followed was deafening. Roxanne couldn't have said if any mistakes had been made in the playing; all she knew was what everyone who listened and watched knew: a connection had been made, a deep emotional longing communicated, an even deeper universal wish and hope spoken without words. There wasn't a dry eye in the house, her own included. And as her beau lowered the instrument to take his bow and the applause finally began, she threw all notions of her job and on-the-air caution to the wind and ran across the stage to fling her arms around him, hugging him for dear life.

Megamind briefly glanced at Minion, who was grinning with relief that they had both successfully pulled off something so utterly unlike their expected norm. The blue alien answered with his own smile, willing his shaking knees to keep him upright. He wrapped his arms around Roxanne, careful to avoid poking her with the things still in his hands, yet he was immensely gratified by the reaction of the one person for whom he had truly poured out his heart and his soul. Winning for himself or for the charity was immaterial, so long as Roxanne understood. And she clearly did.

When the other contestants and the judges came onto the stage to join them, Wayne, who was perfectly used to being "on" for the cameras, grinned broadly as he tugged Minion up from the piano bench to join them. "Well, little buddy," he said clearly enough to be heard by everyone in the room, even above the standing ovation, "it looks like you finally whupped me but good in a fight, fair and square!"

Over the laughter and smiles and back thumping and abashed grins that followed, the judges declared that momentous event official.

"Megamind, I am never, ever going to call you predictable again, as long as I live — longer!"

In the afterglow of the competition and its many unexpected twists and turns toward the end, Roxanne's job as the MC was finally finished, the video cameras were off, and everyone was returning to the ballroom which had been cleared of the dinner tables and was now set up for the celebratory party. The ex-villain, still in his formal performance outfit, was hanging back near the edge of the stage with Roxanne while the bulk of the crowd moved to the other hall and Minion ducked backstage to make sure anything they'd left behind was collected up and returned to the Lair, along with Daddy's violin. Megamind favored the now off-duty reporter with a satisfied but wry grin. "Seems to me I've heard that promise before," he remarked with an exaggerated roll of the eyes. "At least a dozen times!"

Roxanne took the teasing as warranted. "And if I say it again, you will be well within your rights to say 'I told you so,' as often as you like! Did Minion design your outfit?"

"Who else? There's no point in looking for another tailor or a designer when you already live under the same roof as the best on the planet." He struck a perfectly vain and only partially feigned preening pose that made Roxanne giggle. "So," he asked, waggling his eyebrows for effect. "Do you like it?"

"Positively dashing," she declared. "And incredibly handsome. I'll be the envy of every woman at the ball!"

"Then they'll just have to stay jealous, since this was all for you. All of it," he added, dropping the dramatic poses and exaggerations. "I started learning the violin for my own reasons, the whole Sherlock Holmes thing, but I kept at it until I was good enough to stop offending people, for you." When the brunette's response was a thoroughly puzzled expression, he explained. "When you kept asking how things were going, even after you'd heard me playing that first week when I was still dreadful, I didn't want to disappoint you, if you were really interested enough to ask."

"I wouldn't have blamed you for giving up, sweetie," she said, gently. "That's a very hard instrument to learn at all, especially to learn so well. You really must've been working very hard, this last year, to have come so far. I've heard professionals who would've done worse."

"You have no idea how hard I worked, and how hard it was to find time to do it!" he admitted with a groan. "I went through a lot of trouble to make sure you didn't hear me while I was still lousy. When Minion and I got the invitation back in September, we had an idea of doing this, so I worked twice as hard, whenever I could. I am good with my hands, after all; it was just a matter of time 'til I got the hang of it — which was less than two weeks ago! Though Minion did fib a little when he said he's never played a keyboard before. He learned years ago, but he just didn't keep at it when we were at our busiest, at war with Wayne. He had to get back into shape again, so to speak. The new interchangeable hands helped."

"A lot," Roxanne agreed, hearing the anthropomorphized fish returning from back stage. She smiled. "Do you plan to take your act on the road?"

Megamind shook his head. "You've seen our one and only public performance. It wasn't actually important to me whether or not we won — I would've given the charity I picked that much of my own money, regardless. I just wanted to do something that you'd be proud of. I know it can be kind of tough for you, having me as your... well, I don't think 'boyfriend' is exactly the right word, these days, but I can't think of anything better."

Her smiled turned mischievous. "I can — but I think we should save that discussion for some place a little less... crowded. If I ask for a private performance, can I have it?"

His answering grin was equally wicked. "All you have to do is ask," he promised. And the reward for willing surrender, he later discovered, was much sweeter than even that of victory.

Finis