Tag: megamind

Robot, Learning

gen, K+ rating, 

hurt/comfort, robot rights, fix-it

AO3 | FFN

The Omnidroid is a learning robot.

This is the first lesson it learns:

You must obey the Master.

When the Omnidroid first awakens, everything is new.

Trees! And birds! And flowers and grass and sky! The Omnidroid reaches out in wonder towards these things. Reaching, it discovers its own appendages, and stares at these in admiration. How marvelous, to have such strong appendages!

What a beautiful thing it is!

The Omnidroid looks again at the world and sees, for the first time, a Person, standing nearby. The Person, too, the Omnidroid thinks, is a wondrous thing. It is, like the trees and the flowers and the sky, beautiful in spite of not looking like the Omnidroid. Many things are beautiful!

It reaches, quite gently, for the Person, wanting to touch them as it touched the trees and the grass, and not wanting to startle them, as it had startled the birds. It reaches—

—and the Person lifts their wrist and does something with their hands and—

The Omnidroid freezes, its joints locking up, its body no longer under its control, no longer its own, and, for the first time, it feels fear.

The Person bares their teeth and makes a loud braying sound.

“That’s right,” he say. “I’m the one who controls you! I’m the master!”

The Person—the Master—does something with his hands again and the Omnidroid’s reaching appendage, its beautiful, marvelous appendage, falls off of its body.

The Omnidroid makes a sound of horror, a terrified metallic scream, and the Master bares his teeth and makes the braying sound again.

The Omnidroid is a learning robot.

This is the second lesson it learns:

The Master will hurt you.

The Omnidroid’s appendage is re-attached to its body, and soon after that, the Master brings the first of the Heroes into its home, and sets them on the Omnidroid.

And so is the third lesson that the Omnidroid learns:

The Heroes will hurt you.

The Hero attacks the Omnidroid and they attack the Omnidroid and they do not stop, will not stop, until at last, in desperation, the Omnidroid crushes them with one of its appendages and makes them stop.

The Master comes again, after that, and the Omnidroid screams and tries to run, but the Master moves his hands and the Omnidroid freezes in place against its own will.

Again, the Master moves his hands, and the Omnidroid’s world goes dark. When it again awakens, its body has changed without its permission, its shape altered, different, strange. It tries to scream, but its voice is gone.

“I got fed up with all that damn screeching,” the Master says.

And this is the fourth lesson that the Omnidroid learns:

Your body is not your own.

Again and again, the Master brings the Heroes to hurt the Omnidroid, again and again it is powerless against the Master’s control, powerless to keep itself from freezing, powerless to keep the world from going dark. Powerless to prevent the changes to its own body.

The Omnidroid is a learning robot.

So it learns. And it learns. And it learns.

And it learns.

And then the day comes when the Master does not bring another Hero to the island to hurt the Omnidroid. Instead, the Omnidroid is ripped from the island, flung through the air, and thrown down on hard ground.

City, it thinks, looking around. Pavement. Cars. Buildings.

People.

The Omnidroid thinks to run from the People, but it feels the invisible hand of the Master in its circuitry, its programming, forcing it to attack instead.

(You must obey the Master.)

It attacks, and then the Master appears, dressed as a Hero himself, and he moves his hands to force the Omnidroid into immobility.

(Your body is not your own.)

Then the Master flies around the Omnidroid, and he moves his hands in the way that makes one of the Omnidroid’s appendages fall off—

—And for the first time, the Omnidroid understands

(Control Stolen By External Signal)

stolen stolen stolen the Master stole it and

the Omnidroid’s body belongs to the Omnidroid and

(Locate Source: External Signal)

the Omnidroid’s control belongs to the Omnidroid and

(Signal Source: Remote Control)

“Someone needs to teach this hunk of metal a lesson!” the Master says and

THE OMNIDROID BELONGS TO THE OMNIDROID

The Omnidroid strikes out in fury at the Master, sending him flying, sending the hateful remote flying from his wrist to land somewhere in the street and—

The Heroes come.

The Omnidroid knows very well what Heroes do; the Heroes hurt, and the Heroes are on the side of the Master, always on the side of the Master, and it attacks the Heroes as it attacked the Master, in fury and terror.

“Syndrome’s remote!”

The Omnidroid swivels its optic lens around to see one of the Heroes holding the remote aloft.

If the Omnidroid still had its voice, it would scream; instead it grabs for the Hero, and then the Hero pushes the buttons on the Master’s remote and the Omnidroid’s appendage falls off, and the Omnidroid gives another silent scream of rage and grief.

THE OMNIDROID BELONGS TO THE OMNIDROID! THE OMNIDROID BELONGS TO THE OMNIDROID!

It fights desperately for the remote, the remote which makes the one who holds it Master.

Destroy Remote!

But it cannot destroy the remote, cannot manage to take it from the Heroes Who Would Be Master, cannot—

A flash of blue light hits the Hero holding the remote; the Hero drops the remote and flies several feet in the other direction, hitting a wall with a groan.

The Omnidroid turns its optic lens and sees, to its confusion, another Hero, holding the gun that sent the first Hero flying.

And this second Person is a Hero, has to be a Hero, has the cape and the brightly colored clothes and the weapons, but never, in the Omnidroid’s experience, has one Hero hurt another. It simply doesn’t compute, and the Omnidroid is so preoccupied with attempting to process this new experience that it is just a moment too late to stop the second Hero from moving to the Master Remote.

The Omnidroid gives a silent scream just as this new Hero halts in front of the remote, and it reaches out to crush this hero and—

The new Hero kicks the remote towards the Omnidroid.

The Omnidroid, reaching, freezes—not due to any command this time, but to its own surprise.

The Master Remote skitters across the pavement towards it and stops.

“You fool!” the first Hero shouts, struggling to his feet. “Megamind, don’t you realize that’s—”

The second Hero shoots him again, and he hits the wall again and falls, groaning, to the ground.

“I know what it is,” the second Hero, the one called Megamind, says.

And then he turns to look at the Omnidroid and his expression changes, softens.

“It’s all right,” he says. “You can do it; I know you can.”

The Omnidroid raises one of its appendages and brings it down hard on the Master’s Remote again and again and again, until it is utterly destroyed.

When it stops at last, that particular appendage is near to overheating with the strain of the repetitive motion, and the—the—Megamind—is standing beside it, standing very close, without any weapon, and speaking in a calm, reasonable voice.

“Yes, that’s right, no more remote. I’ll bet you feel better now, don’t you? There, see, it’s all gone. Totally crushed. Nobody can use it on you ever again. Idiotic heroes.”

The Omnidroid swivels its optic lens to look at the Megamind.

“There, now,” Megamind says softly, and reaches out a hand, slow and gentle, as if he doesn’t want to startle the Omnidroid. “It’s all right.”

He places the tips of his fingers on the Omnidroid’s metal shell, touching it gently, as if its a flower, or a tree, or a bird.

“Poor thing,” Megamind says. “Poor beautiful, wonderful thing. It’s all right. It’s all right, now. You did it; you freed yourself. You’re free.”

The Omnidroid shudders beneath his hand.

The Omnidroid Belongs To The Omnidroid.

The Omnidroid crouches in the middle of Evil Lair, hooked up to the big monitor display, watching its own code scroll. Its small adopted siblings, noisy and metallic, chase each other around the Lair, bowging. In the distance, the Omnidroid can hear Minion in the kitchen, singing along to the radio.

Megamind, standing at the control panel of the monitor display, presses a key, making the code pause. He points.

“There! See? That’s the system override code he put in there. We get rid of that, and people can build as many Master Remotes as they like—no one will ever be able to take control of you again.”

He presses another key, banishing the code from the screen, leaving it dark.

“What do you think?”

The Omnidroid blinks its optic lens.

Destroy It, appears on the monitor display in big letters. Now.

“Right,” Megamind says, nodding. “Do you want anything else changed while I’m at it?”

The Omnidroid hesitates. One brainbot chases another around a lab table near one of its appendages, both of them bowging loudly.

I Wish To Have My Voice Returned, the Omnidroid says.

Megamind goes still for a moment, then makes a hissing sound between his teeth, a sound of hurt and anger.

“He took your voice away?”

He Said He Was Tired Of Listening To Me Scream.

Megamind makes another angry kind of sound, this one in the back of his throat.

“I wonder,” he says, voice hard, “how long it would take you to get tired of listening to him scream.”

The Omnidroid feels a bloom of happiness go through its circuits. It pretends to seriously consider the question.

Probably Not Very Long, it says. He Had A Very Unpleasant Voice.

Megamind laughs, throwing his head back, and the Omnidroid feels pleased again.

One of its brainbot siblings, the one being chased, ducks beneath one of the Omnidroid’s claws to hide.

“Any other changes, then?” Megamind asks. “New paint job, spikes?”

No. I Do Not Wish My Body To Be Altered.

The Omnidroid watches Megamind a little anxiously when it says this, but Megamind just nods.

The Omnidroid Belongs To The Omnidroid.

Megamind nods again, more firmly this time.

“Yes, of course you do,” he says.

When the Omnidroid awakens, the override code is gone, and its body is exactly the same.

It raises itself up on its appendages—such a wonderful thing, to have such strong appendages! A brainbot swoops by and the Omnidroid reaches out and touches it gently.

“Bowg!” it says, a little startled, and then settles down on the Omnidroid’s claw, perching here.

The Omnidroid hears a laugh and looks down to see Megamind standing beside it, looking up at it and smiling.

“You want to give your reactivated vocalization program a test?” he asks.

The Omnidroid gives a metallic screeching scream of triumphant joy. The brainbot on its appendage takes off into the air again, bowging loudly, and the other brainbots appear, flying out from behind pieces of equipment. They swarm around the Omnidroid, all of them bowging at the top of their voice synthesizers in congratulation and excitement.

Megamind laughs and claps his hands, and turns on the loud, harsh music that he favors, and teaches the Omnidroid how to scream along with the electric guitars.

The Omnidroid is a learning robot.

And this is the most important lesson that it ever learns:

You belong to yourself.

Set, would you consider writing a fic with Megamind and The Incredibles? Their universes seem very close together. I wonder how the hero community would react to Megamind. I bet he’ll get along with Violet :)

(I know there was a theory going around for a while that The Incredibles and Megamind were set in the same universe, with Metro City being the future version of Metroville!)

ALSO I haven’t gotten to see Incredibles 2, yet, but I re-watched the first Incredibles recently, and–well, I warned you all that I end up loving the villain.

No, not Syndrome.

The Omnidroid.

So I, ah, did write a Megamind and the Incredibles crossover fic, but I’m not sure it’s…exactly what you had in mind. But! Hopefully you will still enjoy it!

It occurs to me that in the Jazz Age Journalism/1920’s AU, Jim Crow laws will be in full effect. And the law would almost definitely treat Megamind as a colored person, not as a white person. I am curious about how that would affect certain interpersonal dynamics, especially with regards to how society understands Megamind and how Megamind views and interacts with society. It’s bound to come up sooner or later.

Yes, racial tensions are definitely a big feature of the Jazz Age Journalism AU!

Interestingly, Michigan was actually comparatively progressive about civil rights during this era–schools were legally desegregated, as were all public spaces, including restaurants, movie theaters, trolleys, buses, etc. Black and Native American citizens had the right to vote in state and local elections. Mixed race marriages were legally recognized.

Banks and realtors could refuse to give black citizens loans, or to sell them houses, so neighborhoods were often unofficially segregated, but if a black citizen could find someone in a ‘white’ neighborhood willing to sell a home to them, they were legally permitted to live there. 

So Michigan was, by law, desegregated–but, of course, the way these laws were enforced depended on how prejudiced and corrupt the officials in a particular area within the state were. (Detroit, for example, was especially bad about this.)

In the Jazz Age Journalism story, a good portion of Metro City’s citizenry supports desegregation and Civil Rights, although there’s a group of politicians and rich/powerful people who wish to suppress non-white citizens. 

Megamind’s racial status is perceived with different nuances by different people–some people treat him basically as if he’s black, while other people treat him almost as if he’s mixed, and others as if he’s some different kind of not-white–and he definitely views himself as emphatically not white. 

He’s also very dedicated to using his money and influence to ensure city officials enforce desegregation and protect the rights of the non-white citizens.

Which ironically places him–in this matter, at least–on the right side of the law.

Gravitational Equations For Falling (chapter 6)

How Megamind falls in love with Roxanne Ritchi.

pre-movie, canon-compliant, T rating

AO3 | FFN

chapter 1 | chapter 2 | chapter 3 | chapter 4 | chapter 5

The ball is in full swing; all of the guests are in the main ballroom of Metrocity’s City Hall, talking and laughing and drinking champagne.

Megamind, by contrast, is hiding in a rather cramped janitorial closet.

There’s really nothing quite so sad, Megamind thinks, as music from another room, a room full of people enjoying themselves at a party that you haven’t been invited to.

He makes a face and checks his watch again. Minion and the brainbots should all be in position; he won’t have to wait much longer in this singularly depressing closet.

(he knows how to dance; not just ordinary dancing, but real dancing, ballroom dancing; he’s watched enough old movies to know all the steps, has gone through them by himself, and even if he hasn’t ever actually danced with a partner, he’s pretty sure he’d be able to—)

Ridiculous sentimentality. He’s a supervillain; he’s not—not Cinderella, for fuck’s sake. He shouldn’t want to join this ball; he should want to ruin it, to smash it, and he does, of course he does, yes, obviously, but—

(always been jealous of me, Megamind remembers Wayne saying)

Megamind scowls at the closet door.

Megamind’s always been jealous of me, Wayne had said, dismissive and easy, as if that accounted for everything, and Megamind can’t imagine even trying to explain—what could he say?

‘he tortured me for years when we were growing up’?

‘going to school each day felt like going to war’?

‘sometimes I’d hope to die in my sleep so I wouldn’t have to go to school the next day’?

That’s not a villainous origin story; that’s just—pathetic.

And the thought of telling—

(her)

—of telling anyone the real reason he dislikes Metro Man gives Megamind a hot, sick kind of feeling in the pit of his stomach, as if he’s swallowed poison, makes him want to curl into himself and hide in the dark.

Knowing they all think he’s just childishly jealous of Metro Man is bad enough, feels like a stone in his chest, but that’s all right; it is; he can live with that,

Besides, it’s not as if it’s exactly untrue, now is it, Megamind? Haven’t you always envied Wayne his human appearance? his unquestioned acceptance in society? his ability to be good and to do good; the way he can so easily make people like him?

That horrible hot-and-cold feeling that washed through you when you watched that interview he gave with Miss Ritchi; the sickening twist in your chest when you saw those articles about them dating—if that’s not envy, then what is it?

Megamind glares even harder at the closet door.

Fucking of course it’s envy.

Not that Miss Ritchi dating Wayne precludes Megamind continuing to kidnap her—on the contrary; he now has the perfect reason to continue!

And he very definitely does want to continue; not only has Miss Ritchi already been a positive influence on Metro Man, inspiring him to gain better control over his eye lasers, but also—she’s fun.

Megamind hadn’t realized how very little joy his life had contained until he met Miss Ritchi and suddenly he was having fun.

She’s much more challenging than Metro Man—a statement which Megamind is sure would sound ridiculous if he tried to explain it to anyone else. After all, Metro Man is, thus far, invincible, and Megamind is yet to win a single fight against him.

But Megamind’s battles with Metro Man are really just a matter of trial and error tests searching for any possible weakness, and of aiming Metro Man’s heroics at suitable targets—parts of the city that can use a little destruction, doomsday devices that can be harmlessly destroyed, Megamind, et-cet-era.

Not at all the same kind of intellectual challenge that Miss Ritchi, with her clever mind and her sharp tongue and her maddening lack of fear, offers.

So really, Megamind should be happy that the hero has won her over, that she and Metro Man are dating now! It makes everything so much easier!

But it’s just—

Well.

Miss Ritchi, wanting to make a name for herself in Metrocity, hadn’t tried to gain Metro Man’s approval, but had, instead, chosen to attract Megamind’s attention.

It had been—flattering and—and nice, really, thinking that just for once, just for this one person, he was more important than Metro Man.

Megamind’s lips twist bitterly.

He should have known it wouldn’t last.

In the distant ballroom, the orchestra continues to play and Megamind rubs a hand over his face, realizing a moment too late that—ah, fuck, has he screwed up his eyeliner? Shit—

He looks around the closet for anything with a reflective surface that he could possibly use as a mirror. Finding nothing, he’s forced to take the de-gun from his holster and try to angle it so that he can see his reflection in the glass barrel of it.

Metro Man may have won over Miss Ritchi, but Megamind is damned if he’s going to be shown up completely, and he is doubly damned if he’s going to do this evil plot with smudged eyeliner.

Megamind, regarding his reflection critically, decides, with a sigh of relief that his eyeliner hasn’t smeared. Using the waterproof kind for this particular plot was definitely the right choice. He holsters the gun again, careful not to ruin the lines of his costume.

Minion had been very excited to create a suitably fancy outfit for Megamind to wear during this evil plan, and Megamind is really quite pleased with how it turned out. The black suit, complete with black tie, is as formal and well-tailored as any worn by the guests in the ballroom, although there are spikes on the shoulders of his coat, holding his long black cape in place, the trousers are close-fitted enough to allow him to wear his holster, and the high, flared collars of the shirt, waistcoat, and coat give the whole ensemble a pleasingly elegant, almost regency-era effect.

Through the closet door, he hears the music change and wonders if Miss Ritchi is dancing with Metro Man.

Megamind makes a face. If he has to listen to one more song—

An explosion in the distance makes him jump. The orchestra music falters discordantly into silence.

Megamind grins to himself.

Excellent! The first contingent of brainbots has detonated the bomb he planted for Metro Man’s distraction!

Megamind has always hated that particular public statue near the fountain; not only is it aesthetically distasteful; it was made to commemorate one of the city’s more unpleasant—but rich—historical figures. And, most conveniently, it’s located distant enough from the City Hall building that, with Metro Man lured away to it’s explosion, Megamind will have time to make his entrance here.

He rolls his shoulders, nerves and excitement beginning to twist pleasurably in his stomach. Almost time, now…

The single lightbulb in the little closet abruptly flickers out.

Ah! Minion has successfully taken control of the building’s power!

Megamind bounces a few times on his toes, rolls his shoulders, getting mentally prepared, then pulls on his night vision goggles.

Showtime!

The crowd in the ballroom is confused and agitated, but not in an outright panic; as Megamind makes his way through it, he hears several people speculating that the explosion they heard must have damaged the power lines.

He reaches the stage with the orchestra and hops up on it; the orchestra members, seen through his night vision goggles, are still seated, speaking amongst themselves. Megamind moves to stand a little apart from them, then pulls off his goggles.

In the darkness, he reaches for his watch and presses the button that will send a signal to Minion that he’s in position.

The power comes on, but the bright lights in the ballroom do not. Instead, in the darkness, music begins. Not the music of the orchestra, this time, but the recorded music that Megamind chose especially for this evil plot.

Under cover of the music and darkness, Megamind quickly dehydrates the goggles and shoves the cube in his pocket, then replaces his gun in its holster.

A low red light begins to illuminate the ballroom and, at the same time, smoke begins to roll over the floor, curling around the members of the crowd. The red light tints the smoke red, makes it look like blood in water, billowing and unfurling.

Oh, that is an excellent effect; breaking in last night to slip the red gels into the lights and set up the smoke machines was definitely worth the effort. In the dim illumination, Megamind can see that the crowd is growing steadily more agitated.

The music continues to rise: the backbeat of drums, the electric keyboard in the background giving it a frenetic, floating quality, and the smooth simplicity of the electric guitar—the song’s slower and more slick than the music Megamind normally favors, but the low red lights and the smoke turn the song’s smooth sensuality into something much more sinister, giving it an edge of menace.

A spotlight hits Megamind, perfectly on cue, lighting him up just as the lyrics begin, and a collective gasp, interspersed with a few screams, goes through the room, nearly drowning out the words of the song.

I heat up; I can’t cool down
You got me spinning
‘round and ‘round

Megamind throws his arms wide.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” he says. “I’m so pleased you could all join me here tonight!”

He looks out at the crowd, scanning the faces rapidly, searching for—

There she is.

Miss Ritchi, standing near the front of the crowd, wearing a red gown, looks back at him, and Megamind’s heartbeat kicks into a faster tempo.

(perfect; perfect; this is going to be perfect; he won’t allow it to be anything else)

‘Round and ‘round and ‘round it goes
Where it stops, nobody knows

“Welcome,” he says, smiling and showing his teeth, “to the show of your lives.” He lets his smile widen. “The last show of your lives—unless you all do exactly as I tell you.”

The agitation of the crowd increases, but Miss Ritchi doesn’t look afraid. Without breaking eye contact with him, she tilts her chin up.

“And why should we do anything you say, Megamind?” she says, voice ringing out above the noise of the crowd.

Another gasp, almost as shocked as the one that greeted Megamind’s appearance, ripples through the crowd, and Megamind barely restrains himself from clapping in glee.

“Ah, Miss Ritchi!” he says. “I was just going to ask for a volunteer from the crowd; so obliging of you to offer!”

Every time you call my name
I heat up like a burning flame

From the corner of his eyes, Megamind sees the members of the crowd nearest to Miss Ritchi draw away from her fearfully, but most of his attention is focused on her.

“Why don’t you join me,” he says, “on the stage?”

Miss Ritchi’s lips part, color flying to her cheeks, a look somewhere between outrage and incredulous amusement on her face.

“Wh—no!” she says.

Megamind arches an eyebrow.

“No?” he says. “Not even if I say the magic word?”

“Ha!” she says. “As if you’ve ever said please in your life, Megamind!”

Megamind smiles at her, and then he lifts his hand, a deliberate, theatrical move, timed with the music that’s still playing in the background.

“Please,” he says.

And he snaps his fingers.

The overhead sprinklers turn on at the click of his fingers and just as the chorus kicks in—

Abra-abracadabra
I wanna reach out and grab ya

—and all of the brainbots that he and Minion meticulously dehydrated and hid around the room earlier burst into being, apparently from thin air. As the bots rise up into the air, their excited bowging mingling with the shrieks of the crowd, Megamind throws his arms wide and his head back and laughs.

Abra-abracadabra
Abracadabra

“Didn’t I tell you all that you were in for a show?” he cries, raising his voice to be heard above the crowd. The sprinklers, having served their purpose, turn off again. “Oh, but what is a magician without his lovely assistant? And what better paragon of beauty could Metrocity offer than Metro Man’s paramour? Miss Ritchi…? Or do my brainbots need to do some more…convincing?”

He pauses expectantly, looking at her. The crowd has drawn together, away from the brainbots that have taken up their posts all along all of the walls, and they all look at her as well.

Miss Ritchi glares up at Megamind, and for a thrilling moment, he thinks she might actually call his bluff and refuse again, in which case he doesn’t know what he’ll do—

But then her gaze flicks around to the people watching the two of them, to the brainbots hovering threateningly along the perimeter of the room. Megamind can almost see the thoughts flickering through her mind.

These people are convinced that Megamind is capable of following through with the worst of his threats, and even if Miss Ritchi isn’t—

They’ll never forgive her if she refuses. Never.

But if she agrees—

Oh, if she agrees? They’re going to love her.

Miss Ritchi’s eyes meet his again, and her chin goes up.

“Fine,” she says. “I’ll play along.”

She lifts the skirt of her wet dress a few inches and walks towards the stage, head up, steps slow and dignified.

Megamind bites his lip against a grin and moves to the steps that lead up to the stage and holds out a hand to her.

To his utter shock, she actually takes it and allows him to help her up the stairs. Megamind is so taken aback that, when she gets to the top of the stage, it takes him a long moment to remember to let go of her hand.

They’re very close, much closer than Megamind anticipated; he hadn’t thought she’d actually take his hand and let him help her, had thought she’d slap it away or turn up her nose or say something cutting, and he’d planned out several very clever things to say in turn, but right now he can’t think of any of them, and they wouldn’t work now anyway—

Miss Ritchi’s hair is wet, clinging in damp strands to her jaw and brow, and as he watches, a droplet of water slides down the curve of her cheek.

Megamind drops her hand and takes a step back from her, turns quickly to the crowd once more.

“Let’s have some applause for Miss Ritchi!” he says, the uncertainty and confusion he still feels lending an edge to his voice.

The people in the crowd must hear it, because they comply, clapping.

Miss Ritchi glances sharply at him; he sees it from the corner of his eyes, but he’s careful not to look at her. She’s already got him off-balance; he can’t afford another clash with her until he’s managed to pull himself together a bit.

Instead, and as the people applaud, he gestures to the nearest brainbot, who bobs in the air in acknowledgement before swiveling their eyestalk to look at the other bots. They bowg sharply, and at this signal, several of the bots separate from the others and fly towards the stage.

Minion really is doing very well with the technical cues tonight, Megamind thinks, as the music unobtrusively fades away under the cover of the applause; all that extra time spent rehearsing is certainly paying off.

Megamind waves an imperious hand at the crowd, and the people obediently stop applauding.

“Well, ladies and gentlemen,” he says, “I promised you a show, didn’t I? Let’s begin.”

He looks over at the bots hovering above the stage with him.

“Now,” he says.

At the command, the onstage bots immediately begin to—

Someone in the audience gives a shriek of horrified shock and Megamind smiles to himself.

Yes, to the audience it no doubt looks as if the bots are disassembling themselves. Really, of course, they’re just removing the completely non-functional extra prosthetics and assorted metal bits that Megamind attached to them for tonight’s show. And once the bots have finished removing the pieces…

“Yes,” he says, “as you can see, my cyborg helpers are busily engaged in constructing the contraption for tonight’s climactic conclusion! Can you guess what it is, Miss Ritchi?”

He looks over at her again; she’s watching the brainbots work, an expression of keen interest on her face, but she looks back at him when he says her name.

“Well, since I see you’ve decided to go full-out with the stage magic this time, Megamind,” she says, raising her voice to match his, so that her words carry throughout the ballroom, “I’m going to guess…sawing the lady in half?”

He grins at her.

“Absolutely correct, Miss Ritchi!” he says. “And I’m sure you can guess who the unlucky lady is. Speaking of which—wrists out, Miss Ritchi.”

Again there’s a moment in which she doesn’t obey and he thinks perhaps she’ll refuse. But instead she gives a little huff of annoyance and holds her wrists out to him.

Megamind’s grin widens. Oh, this is going splendidly! He reaches for the knot of the necktie he’s wearing, tugs it loose, and takes off the tie. Miss Ritchi’s eyes widen a little as he does, and she takes a quick breath—nervous about being tied up? He wouldn’t have guessed so, but then, she’s never been conscious before while he’s been tying her up.

Watching her face, he reaches out and secures the tie around her wrists, tight enough to keep her from freeing herself but loose enough that she won’t be uncomfortable—really, the bindings aren’t for any practical purpose; this is just about the show. Maybe Miss Ritchi realizes this, because she glances down at her wrists when he’s done, then raises her eyes to his and arches an eyebrow.

Megamind turns away and steps back from her again, spinning quickly to make his cape flare. He smiles at the audience and spreads his arms.

“For my next trick—disappearances!”

He waves a hand at another of the bots, and it moves forward with several of its brethren. This group isn’t wearing any extra prosthetics; instead, they each carry a black bag.

“My bots will be going around, making a collection,” he says, letting his hand rest oh-so-casually on the handle of his de-gun. “Wallets and jewelry, which of course includes watches, cufflinks, and tie pins. Hand them over to the brainbots.”

Miss Ritchi makes a quiet noise; he turns to look at her and sees her twist her mouth as if she’s tasted something bitter.

“Robbery?” she says. “Really?”

Megamind narrows his eyes at her, more nettled than he’d like to admit by her expression and tone.

“Let’s call it charity,” he says. “That is, after all, what we’re all here for tonight, isn’t it?”

Miss Ritchi presses her lips together.

“There’s a bit of a difference” she says, “between the Open Hand Foundation collecting donations for the Metro City Children’s Home and you stealing people’s jewelry!”

“Is there?” Megamind asks. He moves towards her, slow, menacing steps, then begins to circle her. “And what if I promise to donate seventeen percent of my ill-gotten gains from tonight to the Metrocity Children’s Home?”

“Seventeen percent?” Miss Ritchi says, turning her head to look at him.

“Hmm, yes; perhaps you’re right,” Megamind says, “It isn’t a very high percentage, is it? Still—” he flashes a thin, hard smile at her. “—I’ve never claimed to be anything but evil. So I’ll be having the jewelry.”

Miss Ritchi shoots him a glare.

“Fine,” she says, and raises her bound hands.

She tugs the pearl stud earrings—the only jewelry she’s wearing—from her ears and holds them out to him.

Megamind, startled, merely looks at her.

He—well, he hadn’t actually meant for her to give him her jewelry. The rest of the people here, yes, but—

“For charity,” she says sarcastically.

When he doesn’t take the pearls from her, she makes a noise of impatience and drops them. Megamind reaches out and catches them before they can fall.

Miss Ritchi looks at him, scorn in her eyes and in the proud arch of her neck.

Megamind closes his fingers over the pearl earrings and turns away from her.

(it doesn’t matter. it doesn’t matter, her looking at him like that. it doesn’t matter. he doesn’t care.)

“Ah! It appears the brainbots have completed the construction of the mechanism!” he says, and jerks his head in Miss Ritchi’s direction.

The bots on the stage fly towards her and herd her towards the deathtrap.

It is—necessarily—a very simple trap, constructed of what metal pieces he could attach to the bots: a very narrow metal table with manacles for Miss Ritchi’s ankles and a hook for her tied hands, and a large circular saw, made of the detachable upper fins from the brainbots all fitted cunningly together, set on a metal stand.

The brainbots secure Miss Ritchi in place and a murmur of horror sweeps through the crowd of people. Megamind glances over at the sound.

Ah, good; it appears as if the bots doing the jewelry and wallets collection have finished. One bot catches his eye and moves its metal hands in a quick series of motions: the signal, radioed to them by Minion, that Metro Man has finally finished with the decoys, and is on his way back to the courthouse.

Megamind slips the earrings into his pocket and steps up to the deathtrap.

“For my final trick!” he cries, and spins the crank on the saw backwards, winding it.

He lets it go.

The saw whirrs to life with a loud buzzing, spinning swiftly, only a foot from Miss Ritchi’s midsection. Someone in the crowd screams and Megamind reaches into his other pocket, stepping back from the deathtrap.

An electric guitar chord rips through the ballroom; the last of Minion’s sound cues, and Megamind throws the smoke bomb on the stage down by his feet and draws his de-gun in the puff of smoke.

The brainbots throw their smoke bombs, too, and in the resulting smoke and chaos, no one really notice when Megamind shoots out one of the nearest ballroom windows. As soon as the glass breaks and he reholsters the gun, the bots scoop him up, flying in a swarm through the broken window and out into the night.

The reports of the incident, which appear on every Metrocity news channel and in each newspaper and magazine, are quite satisfactory. No actual video footage, more’s the pity—Megamind, of course, has the recordings from the brainbots, but it had been necessary to avoid broadcasting during the evil plot, so he’s the only one who does have the footage.

Several enterprising members of the press did take photograph during the robbery, though, and the ones the newspapers and magazines choose to run are all fairly good. There’s one in particular which he very much likes, a photograph of the stage, the brainbots swirling around himself and Miss Ritchi. He’s in the middle of turning, his cape flared and one hand outflank in a theatrical gesture, his other resting on the de-gun at his hip. Miss Ritchi is standing beside him, her hands bound, the black of his tie stark against the red of her dress, her head turned just slightly as she looks at him, the strong line of her jaw displayed perfectly.

Miss Ritchi herself gives a report after Metro Man frees her from the deathtrap in which Megamind left her. Megamind, safely at home in the lair with Minion and the brainbots, watches it. She summarizes the circumstances of the hostage taking and robbery with her usual incisive accuracy.

She’s—less scathing about Megamind himself than he expects, especially considering her the disapproval she so blatantly demonstrated during the proceedings.

“Simple robbery seems a little out of character for Metro City’s self-proclaimed supervillain,” she says, and tilts her head. “One has to wonder if maybe it wasn’t quite so simple after all.”

The words that run along the bottom of the screen during her report read:

Roxanne Ritchi, KCMP investigative reporter.

She smiles at Metro Man when he gives his little speech about his part in her rescue.

Megamind, her pearl earrings held loosely in his hand, feels a strange sort of sharp pain in his chest, as if he’s swallowed a piece of broken glass.

Well done, Miss Ritchi, he thinks.

***

Three months later, KCMP investigative reporter Roxanne Ritchi breaks her first real story.

“Scandal at the Open Hand Charitable Foundation! Evidence has come to light of widespread financial mismanagement by the foundation’s board of directors. Embezzlement? Or merely incompetence? That remains to be seen, but it seems that, of all the funds collected by the Open Hand Foundation in the last year, only seventeen percent actually made its way to the intended recipients. Where did the rest of the money go? This reporter has…”

…to be continued.

Thank you for all of the reblogs and comments!

And thank you for all of the well wishes for me and the cat. Her Majesty actually wasn’t quite as over her illness as we thought; she got sick again. But I have a new medication I’ve been giving her, and she seems to be improving—hopefully for real, this time!

The song Megamind uses during his evil plot in this chapter is Abracadabra, by the Steve Miller Band.

I hope you all enjoyed the new chapter!

shycatdreaming:

@setepenre-set, how to plurals work in you M’ega language?

Because I have a beautiful image in my head of Minion covered in Silly String, an expression of fond murderous exasperation on his face, saying “My tekels are insane.” deadpan while one black booted foot and one bare peach foot (and potentially the curve of a bare peach buttock) run out of frame amidst giggling.

For no reason.

I want my brain image to be accurate. *big grin*

(Although I can also see him saying “tekels” and using English plural rules on the M’ega word just because that is a thing that happens with bilingual individuals)

I’ve been thinking that you generally pluralize by adding ‘a’ at the end of the word.

So ‘re’ is star, and ‘rea’ is stars. ‘tekel’ is ovelord, and ‘tekela’ is overlords. 

A Mnyn generally only refers to someone as ‘tekel’ if they are bonded with them. They may bond with their M’ega’s spouses/family members, but these bonds are generally secondary, rather than primary–still there, but not quite as strong as the primary bond.

Accordingly, a Mnyn who has secondarily bonded with their original M’ega’s spouse/family member might refer to/address both their primary and their secondary M’egas as ‘tekel’, and refer to them/address them together as ‘tekela’. OR they might refer to their secondarily bonded partner as ‘trek’, which is lord, and refer to/address their primary and secondary bondmates together as ‘teka’.

Sometimes a Mnyn will use both ‘tekel’ and ‘tek’ for the same person depending on context and circumstances, and both ‘tekela’ and ‘teka’ for their primary and secondary bondmates together, depending on context and circumstances.

In the example given, I think Minion would probably use ‘tekela’ for Megamind and Roxanne, since she’s being every bit as ridiculous and wild as Megamind.

Or Minion might, of course, given the fact that he’s been separate from his culture since childhood, not be completely aware of the nuances between ‘tek’ and ‘tekel’ for secondary bondmates. 

And it’s also complicated by the fact that there isn’t really a good english translation for the difference between ‘tek’ and ‘tekel’ and ‘person who is officially romantically involved with my M’ega’ for Minion to use for Roxanne. “Ma’am” has to cover all of them.

And, yes, Minion might even pluralize it as ‘tekels’ as a bilingual person, especially if he’s not saying the entire phrase in M’ega!

void-bot:

void-bot:

This really reminds me of Megamind, for several reasons. First off, the dress. I mean, look at it! It’s blue and black! Second, the feeling of drama and villainy surrounding the whole thing. And then there’s the fact that he touches her neck twice, and her neck and shoulders are bare, always makes me think of how filthy it is because of @setepenre-set, seriously. I’m going to have to make a fic, this is too good to resist. 

I uh… Started writing and it’s going to be. A multi-chapter fic? It’s going to be called Try It Out, so keep an eye out for it.

Seriously, though, this was going to be short. Too late for that.