Symphony, Fourth Movement: Sense and Sensibility and Somewhere, part C
Aaaannnd, part C:
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!"
On to the conclusion….
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!"
On to the conclusion….