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 notices 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 photographs 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 outstretched 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.

notes: Thank you for all of the 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!