Monstrous

By Shahrezad1

Summary: Roxanne thinks it's high time she visited her cousin, especially after missing the girl's ill-fated wedding. Meanwhile Megamind follows with…monstrous results.

Disclaimer: Roxanne wears red, Megamind is blue. This Disclaimer is somewhat pointless, but please don't sue…I'm poor enough already. ^^;

~/~/~

Chapter 5

The desire for sleep fought with the realization that this might be her one chance at a shower, and unsurprisingly the shower won. Sure, afterward her mind wouldn't rest but she at least felt a little more whole, if sleep-deprived. And jet lag required that she hold off a little longer anyway.

Instead the woman, clean and newly dressed, began snooping around. It wasn't her favorite mode of investigation, but she wasn't completely above it, particularly when the mystery being solved involved her Aunt and Uncle. After all, the secret that was essentially being tossed over head like a game of keep away was a family secret and Susan had said that it was an emergency.

Her Aunt's regular tributary wall-o'-photographs was devoid of any clues to tip her off, or, interestingly enough, shots of Roxanne except for her high school graduation photograph. And there really was nothing more recent than the Murphy family trip, occurring just after Susan cut her hair, while the space that she assumed used to hold a shot of her cousin and ex-fiancé was conspicuously absent. You'd have thought that her Aunt would have filled in that gap a while ago, but all that remained was a bright square of contrast on the hallway wallpaper.

Still, it put Roxanne in mind of another white dress, one she'd saved in the back of her closet since she'd turned twenty, and a mental image of being arm in arm with a certain blue groom came into being. She blinked the apparition furiously away. Where had that come from? The reporter continued searching, but the image felt burned into her soul, a warmth seeming to wrap itself around her innards. Would a future like that really be so bad?

Respect kept Roxanne from entering into her Aunt and Uncle's room, but she held no such barriers against going into their daughter's place. The bed appeared to be well-laundered but unused, the sheets smelling of laundry detergent but nothing else. And the comforter was tucked in, bed skirts professionally placed below the metal four-poster.

She frowned, then continued walking.

The flowers on the bed stand were new, the clothes in the closet pressed, wooden floors varnished and shining. Everything was dusted and lovingly placed. But not lived in. And the cheerful yellow room—Susan's favorite color—felt more like a guest bedroom than the haven of a young woman. It was cared for and as ready for photographic opportunities as any professional showroom, but without the friendly presence of any owner, particularly that of the always-optimistic Susan Murphy.

Yet Aunt Wendy had said that Susie was back…so why wasn't she home? And why were her things completely untouched, in styles from two years past?

Returning everything back into its place, the reporter wandered back into the main community areas, taking a weary seat in the family room. And then she saw it—the only evidence of time moving on amid this living history museum.

It was a newspaper clipping, cut down to size either to focus on Susan's face or to shut out the other people within the image. She was wearing a military-style dungaree uniform along with a grin, although something seemed wrong about the perspective. And her hair…the former brunette looked like she'd been attacked with a bottle of bleach, turning her strands an almost platinum blonde. It oddly suited the girl, which Roxanne would never have imagined previously. But somehow it worked.

The end result of such a find was that she now knew what to look for within the Murphy home, snatches of framed black and white images standing out as clues to an eye trained at searching for patterns. They all seemed to be on the main floor, from the multiple images in the family room to the single one in Aunt Wendy's sewing room. But Roxanne really hit the mother-load in her Uncle Carl's study with full images and headlines, but no text.

'Local Girl Saves World!' sat parallel with, 'Californian Defeats Giant Robot!' while, 'Surprising Saviors,' caught her attention. All the publicity photos portrayed Susan full-out, whether standing or crouching on something furry. Several tiny figures, the size of toys, sat perched on her form or sticking out of pockets—and strange as it seemed, she thought she had an explanation for the image cropping down by her Aunt. She was sure that it was her Aunt, as Wendy tended to avoid anything that upset her overmuch, but even that minute satisfactory realization couldn't deter her from the realization that something was going on.

But there wasn't time to ponder further. The sound of a certain distinct automobile, the same one Mrs. Murphy had had since the start of her marriage, came up the street and to their little driveway. Roxanne Ritchi left the office in a shot, closing the door and rushing her way back up the stairs. And in those minutes, wearing comfortable jeans and a semi-casual flower-print blouse, she felt more like a teenager than she had in years. Namely, she'd almost been caught in the act, although this time there was nothing that she'd actually done wrong. Roxanne had gotten into more scraps at seventeen than she had in all her years as a reporter, kidnappings aside. There had just been something about the Murphy family that made her want to rebel. Or sneak out. Or borrow the car at three in the morning.

Or even snoop around the house searching for clues rather than actually asking her Aunt what was wrong.

Just as the woman in question turned the lock Roxanne did a swift turn-around at the top of the stairs, combing her damp hair as though she'd just left her room after showering and changing. Wendy seemed not to notice it, humming an off-tune rendition of a recent pop song, and the thirty-year old relaxed marginally.

"Oh, Roxie! There you are," her warm smile was tempered by some other unknown emotion, and the reporter nearly stumbled as two slim boxes were shoved into her arms. They were roughly the size of pizza boxes, but she could already smell chocolate chip wafting from inside.

"Your Uncle won't be able to join us tonight, so it'll be just you two girls."

"What, you mean just Susan and I?" the reporter blinked hard in surprise, "I thought that you were…"

"Oh I was, Roxie," Roxanne fought the urge to cringe, "but, well," manicured hands were thrown into the air in a deliberate display of forced nonchalance, but Wendy Murphy wouldn't make eye contact, "I don't like to be without Carl for long. And besides, Susan can always give you a ride back. Or one of her little friends."

A noticeable twist came to Mrs. Murphy's smile, but by the time she had registered her niece's double take she'd smoothed it out.

"Yeah, sure."

Which was how Metro City's star reporter set off on her next interview. The two women sat in the car in silence until her relation turned on the radio. But when Wendy began tapping her fingers on the wheel Roxanne noted that it wasn't even close to the beat, her drumming fast paced and emotional.

Suburbs and industrialized areas passed them by along with landmarks and statues. She recognized one or two from her years spent in the small city—well known edifices of paperboys and film characters. Better listeners, all of them, than the woman sitting beside her, she acknowledged with resignation. But hadn't that always been the case?

Soon rolling green hills came into view and as if on automatic Roxanne looked to her right, expecting to see the town church house as the city's final farewell before fields became their only diversion. But only bricks lay in its place, rubble the only sign of that stalwart soldier's last stand. She gaped as the noble ruin, memories flashing a slideshow across her view as she recalled every event she'd attended within its walls.

Every prank she'd ever pulled.

When had this happened? Roxanne opened her mouth to ask her Aunt, then immediately closed it. There would be no help from that corner—the only person she could ask was Susan.

Wendy's mouth remained pursed and tight as they crested the hill and continued till they were hardly in Modesto anymore.

Fifteen minutes later she could see a building slowly rising out of the horizon. Truthfully, it looked like an army bunker, a cement and metal monolith complete with military logo presented on the outside face. A moderate-sized window existed near the roof in a path directly parallel to a similar-sized one near the ground, and outside existed a wide, enclosed yard that ran roughly half the length of a football stadium and two mailboxes. One was nondescript, while the other was the size of a garbage can.

Roxanne blinked but didn't quite know how to remark on the strange object. Thus didn't.

What in the world?

As they closed the final distance, however, a song she was familiar with played in the background, and Roxanne absently listened to the tune, but part of the next verse gave her pause, particularly when her Aunt abruptly switched the radio off.

"…and she said, we are all just prisoners here of our own device."

"We're here!"

~/~/~

AN:

Sorry, it's kind of a Roxanne-centric chapter, and a boring one at that. ^^; Erm, Sorry. As a note, it may be a while before anything else gets posted—I don't have anything else written on paper, except for excerpts that occur later on down the line. Plus, um, I'm kind of working on three stories at the same time, which you may have noted. XD So if you want me to work on this one, make sure to send me a line! :)

Also, I know that the Monsters Vs. Aliens (ha! Big reveal, in case you didn't make that connection previously) Halloween special exists…somewhere out there. ^_^;; And I know that there's apparently a scene that shows where Susan and the guys now live, complete with furniture large enough for her form. But I can't find it anywhere. So if anyone knows where I might find that data, then I can probably be more accurate with the interior. ~_^ Otherwise, I'm totally making everything up. :D Seriously. Making it up.

The song Roxanne is listening to is, "Hotel California," by the Eagles, by the way. The story is that the lyrics were originally written with an insane asylum in mind, "you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave."

Aka, "don't think of this as a prison. Think of it as a hotel you never leave because it's locked from the outside!" (Courtesy of General W. R. Monger.)