Title: The Way It Wasn't
Author: Jade Tatsu
Summary: a series of unrelated ficlets dealing with some amusing, and some serious 'what might have beens' set in the MegaMind universe. Mostly featuring the Incredibly Handsome Criminal Genius and Master of All Villainy, MegaMind.

Arimos Sanchez groaned, holding his head in his hands as he looked down at the paperwork on his desk. He was the nominally appointed lawyer for the League of Heroes and in all his life, in fact, in all the history of the League no one could remember or had chronicled anything like the fiasco that was laid out in print before him.

It should have been simple enough. The resident super-villain of MetroCity, one MegaMind had finally defeated the super-hero, MetroMan and had in due course been arrested and imprisoned by the League of Heroes. The problem wasn't the fact that MetroMan had supposedly been indestructible, that he was rated as a Class S super-hero… these things happened. There were enough other examples of the supposedly undefeatable being brought low by a persistent or lucky enough villain. That wasn't the issue at all.

The issue had come later. And the issue came in the form of paper.

It had been polite at first. A slightly irate letter from MetroCity's Mayor and when that had been ignored, politely of course, it had escalated to what was before him; reams and reams of paper, all on High Court letterhead stating the case against the League.

In summary the League as a whole was being prosecuted for conspiracy to kidnap, unlawful imprisonment, and the League itself was being challenged with the statement that it was an illegal body and had thus unlawfully taken up the role of the Police and Military. Several high profile heroes, those who had actually taken in MegaMind were being specifically charged with assault, kidnapping, unlawful imprisonment, conduct endangering life and a whole host of conspiracy charges. If the situation hadn't of been so serious, he would have laughed. But when he'd arrived in Court, thinking that the case was a mere formality, or a misunderstanding, Arimos had realised exactly how serious this was, even if he was left more confused than ever as to what was up.

No city had ever wanted their super-villain back. And it wasn't that MetroCity just wanted MegaMind back. They were demanding that he be returned to them. Not to face charges, not to be imprisoned. Nothing at all like that. They wanted him back to be their super-villain.

The sheer idiocy of the entire thing was giving him a headache.

He'd spent the entire hearing in a daze and was only grateful that the Judge adjourned when he did so he could collect his thoughts and try to work out exactly what was happening.

Arimos had retained enough sense that he'd tried asking for a better explanation but the entire group that was representing MetroCity had simply snorted at him and strode past, ignoring his requests. One of the women, a pretty thing who he vaguely recognised as a reporter had glared at him with true hatred in her eyes and had hissed "You monsters!" at him before she collapsed and was led away by a large man weeping uncontrollably into his rather gentle embrace.

It wasn't until another reporter, someone covering the story of the LA Times, took him aside briefly that he even had an inkling of what was happening. They'd explained in short sentences and simple terms exactly why MetroCity was on the warpath against the League.

And the dichotomy between villain and hero had left him even more confused. The long and the short of it was that MetroCity didn't care that MegaMind had killed MetroMan. They didn't care that he had a reputation of being one of the most evil beings on the planet. It had been difficult for Arimos to wrap his mind around that, and then had come the kicker.

MetroCity wanted MegaMind back because he made the city safer!

A super-villain that kept the city safe? If that wasn't an oxymoron, Arimos didn't know what was.

He'd been left spluttering before the reporter took pity on him and explained further.

Apparently for all his schemes, and grand designs, MegaMind had never killed anyone… except for the afore mentioned indestructible MetroMan. Though, that alone, wasn't enough for MetroCity to be demanding their super-villain be returned to them. No, the real reason they were wanting him back was because he chased away other super-villains and as many other unsavoury characters as he could.

The League's lawyer didn't really believe it. It wasn't until he got back to his office and pulled up the crime statistics for MetroCity, those pertaining to damage and loss of life caused by super-villains, that he even began to understand. For the last twenty years while there had been extensive property damage, with the exception of MetroMan, no one had been seriously injured or killed by super-villain activity. And in that time, MegaMind had been the only super-villain of note in MetroCity. Others had popped up on occasion and just as quickly disappeared, usually to go terrorise some other city. Overall, for a city of that size and reputation, MetroCity had a surprisingly small population of super-heroes and villains.

It was so fantastically impossible that Arimos balked.

The entire thing came together for him when the black old style phone on his desk began ringing. He looked at it, trying to remember when Foundation of Evil or F.O.E. for short, ever directly contacted the League of Heroes and with great reluctance and no small amount of trepidation he picked up the phone.

The maniacal laughter resounding down the line did nothing to sooth his already unravelling nerves, nor did the whispered words, "The Foundation of Evil wishes the League of Heroes the best of luck in their fight against our newly declared unofficial Leader." And then the line went dead.

Arimos closed his eyes, holding his head in his hands, groaning as he remembered MegaMind's words to the Heroes who had dragged him off to their secure facility. They had been deceptively mild but their truth weighed upon him and now he began to see the real depth of the blue skinned alien's villainy. One of the heroes had taunted the super-villain, challenging him to escape from their escape proof jail.

MegaMind had just laughed, "I won't need to escape. You will release me." And after that he'd said nothing further.

How the hell had the villain known what would happen? How the hell had the villain made this happen? This plan absolutely could not have already been in place! And he had had no contact with anyone, not even his piscine minion!

He barely noticed the door open as one of the heroes in training, someone from one of the teen leagues brought in a stack of paper and balanced it on the others that were haphazardly spread over his desk. With a sigh, Arimos reached out and took the top sheet before he froze, the paper fluttering down to the top of the stack that was already directly in front of him.

This time the paper wasn't adorned with the letterhead of the High Court. No, this time it was adorned with the letterhead of the United World Nations. He didn't even need to read it to know what it would say.

The League had just officially been disbanded.

MegaMind had won.

Okay that's one. :D I've got a few more but I'm not sure when I'll be updating them. The next one isn't as happy.

Feed back is appreciated since I'm still working on getting the characterisations right.