Disclaimer: The familiar characters belong to DreamWorks. This work is made for free entertainment. I earn no money out of this. Miss Jane, however, is a name I made up for the nameless teacher.

For Megamind's childhood name, I used Syx. The name was made by SilverShepherd, in the fanfic 'Times Syx'. Metroman's childhood name was based on the novelization. ;)

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That night, the teacher reflected on what she had said to Syx. Regret tightened like rope around her heart, the pressure dizzying. Notifying him about her doubts helped ease her burden, only to put the weight on someone else's shoulder. It didn't help much to relieve her though, knowing that someone else's shoulder was smaller.

She was going through the students' daily assignments, reading the kids' prose of their family. Syx' work caught her eye. As she had expected from his advanced brain development, his work was more elaborate and complex.

There were only two characters in his story; him and Minion. That pretty much explained his aggressive attitude that morning, when someone from her class poured warm soup into Minion's bowl. That fish was his only family.

She wondered if she could make up with him with golden stars.

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"Ha hah!" As always, Syx bragged his three golden stars to his closest friend, Minion. He shoved his piece of paper towards the fish, who also smirked in delight. "Behold another proof of my supee-rior brainpower!"

"Awesomely magnificent as always, Sir!" the fish complimented, stroking his master's ego.

"Thank you, Minion. You have your share in this achievement also, don't you remember?" the blue alien suddenly quitted his flurry of dramatic glee as he picked off one of the gold stars in his paper. "Here, have a star." He stuck the sticker on Minion's bowl.

"Oh, oh!" Minion gasped, covering his wide mouth with his fins. "I never got a star before!"

"Well, you have one now," Syx chuckled as Minion adored his first gold star with goo-goo eyes. The fish' lower lip trembled. He suddenly cried.

"I love you, Sir!" the fish bawled, his mouth gaping greatly as he spoke. That was the first time Syx noticed his friend had a very wide mouth. Minion usually spoke gently, never boasting his huge mouth like then.

"Why are you crying, Minion?" a feminine little voice asked, announcing Roxanne's arrival. It was break time during school; the class was quite noisy. Still, Syx noticed and acknowledged her.

"It's happy tears," he curtly answered, to which Roxanne smiled.

"I'm happy if he's happy," she replied, "He looks so cute when he's happy. I just wanna rub his tummy."

"Err..." rubbing his hands nervously, the boy replied, "Not wanting to ruin the mood here, Roxanne," Syx uncomfortably explained, trying to soften his denial, "...but you can't. Well, he's a fish. He... could be a little slimy, you know."

"Don't worry about the slime. I'll wash my hands later," she moved towards Minion, "With soap."

Syx gave up on the topic. Nothing could stop her from touching, poking, or rubbing his fish. Not that he disliked it, though. The imagination was quite amusing.

Apparently she only planned to joke around, not really intending to pat Minion's underside. "I saw you bragging, Syx," Roxanne put her hands behind her. A glimpse of white paper in her right hand flitted across his sight. She was trying to hide her written work. "You were never modest, aren't you?"

It was weird how that slight movement perked his interest so much. "Yes," he replied, "I didn't see a reason to get modest over something so greatly done. I have reached an achievement, and rightfully proud of it." He closed the distance between him and the little girl, trying to take a glimpse of the white paper. "Is that your work, Roxanne?"

"No..." she lied, but decided against it and honestly said, "...yes, it is."

Syx pulled back, coy smile over his blue lips, "So? Do you want me to observe it?" he said, slowly coaxing her. His eyes were locked onto the paper behind her back, and continued, "Or are you too ashamed to let me?"

She turned her body, the paper completely hidden behind her slim frame. Syx walked around her, chasing over it, but Roxanne continued turning on her heels. His stubbornness was soon rewarded though. She gave into his persuasion, offering her work to his blue hand. Syx considered it as his first victory over her, rejoicing quietly in his mind as he eagerly accepted the paper.

"I've got two golden stars this time," she explained, blushing over her own words, "I think I suk-succeeded this time."

"Well, that's good to hear, Roxanne," he threw her a bright smile, happy for her. He gazed at her work, smiling all the way until the last sentences. The text was telling him about Roxanne's loving parents; the complete, happy relatives. "Your family seemed nice. And I certainly think you deserved to get the reward."

Her pleasant expression always managed to melt him. There it was, the acceptance Miss Jane had told him to acquire.

"Thank you, Syx," pink blush crept up her cheek when she accepted his compliment. "Would you lend me yours?"

Syx tensed up at her request. "Uh... No, I don't think you could understand... this. Your brain- I mean... you haven't matured enough to grasp the meaning..."

The girl gave him a pout, but shrugged. "...yes, I think you're right. I couldn't even spell Wensday right." The weather on her face kept changing over the course of their dialogue. One second it was sunny, one second later cloudy with a chance of storm.

Her friend stuttered at her sudden negative reaction. "N-no, I never intended to mock your IQ, Roxanne."

"What is IQ?"

"Intelligence Quotient," Syx remarked, getting a thoughtful nod from his close friend. "People used it to... measure someone's intelligence... cleverness."

Her nods became more frequent, her soft hair bounced on her face. "Uh-huh. I think you are intelligent, Syx. I bet your IQ is more than eighty."

It appears that she based her numerical assumptions from the maximum score they could achieve in school grades, ranging from zero to a hundred. Minion snorted in his effort to stifle laughter, little bubbles floated from his mouth towards the surface of his water.

Syx was about to correct her, but Minion cut him, saying, "You are right, Roxanne. His intelligence mark was above one hundred and fifty, last time we checked."

"I wish I could be as smart as you," Roxanne sighed, melancholy on her face, "If I was, I'd be able to stay longer here."

Her statement alarmed the boys. Syx approached her with a question, hoping she didn't really mean it. "What do you mean you couldn't stay? You are not leaving, are you?"

"I have to follow my Momma out of this town," her head bowed down to face the floor, "Momma and Papa had a huge fight."

"You were writing fake stories?" Syx inquired disbelievingly, "Because all I see in this..." he stopped upon seeing Minion's sign to shut up, and turned an empathic look towards her shaking shoulders.

"I don't have money to bribe Momma to not leave Papa," the girl explained, gripping at the edge of her pale pink dress, "And I'm not smart enough to argue Papa so he would stop Momma." Her lower lip trembled. A sniff escaped her as she had a sharp intake. She broke down to tears, wiping them with her arms but the tiny streams kept running down her rounded cheeks.

Syx and Minion turned to see each other, sharing a similar pity on their faces. Syx broke out of his daze first, offering the smaller girl a comforting pat on her shoulder. The girl noticed his light, nervous touch. She suddenly threw herself to him and hugged him tightly.

The blue alien was unused to such major physical contact, his eyes were widening, his arms frozen mid-air, body stiffening like log as she mumbled in his orange prison suit, "I told her I'd eat my veggies if she'd let me stay, but she won't let me," sometimes she choked on her breath, wiping her tears at his prison suit.

"Uugh!" she suddenly pulled back, irritated by the smell of his suit. "You're smelly!" she exclaimed, rubbing the tip of her nose and had a whiff on it. She stuck her tongue out and flapped her palm, as if shooing the aroma. "Did you ever bathe? Yuck!"

When she finished her sudden outrage and looked back at him, she caught his awkward pose. He was frozen like a scarecrow, his arms bending before him, seemingly intending to hug something, but stopped abruptly midway.

"He bathes every day, but we only have a limited amount of spare clothes, and fresh laundry comes only once a week, so he didn't change his clothes... often." Minion answered her, allowing his master distractions as he recomposed himself. The fish saw amusement in her face however, to his relief.

"Minion!" Syx exclaimed, "She doesn't need that much detail on our lives!" he turned to Roxanne then, offering her a seat. "Why don't you sit down and tell us more? I... We might be able to help you find an answer to this problem... teach you how to argue, maybe?"

"Thank you, Syx," she started, "But our house is already being emptied. It's already too late. I'll still be here for the next couple of days, though," she hurriedly continued, noticing his caught breath and unhappy look in his green eyes.

He was begging her not to go, and she indulged in his unspoken request. The girl sat down on the colourful seat he had offered. "Please teach me how to argue, Syx."

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Two days later, her classmates gathered before Roxanne's Mother's red SUV. Her class was upset by the loss. Not even Metroboy could stop her from leaving them. The kids cried upon seeing her car leaving.

The teacher also thought that girl was pleasant to teach, although a little slow-witted. Seeing something so precious leaving, not knowing if she'll see them again or not, had always been a classic tear-jerker for her.

"Roxanne, wait!" Syx cried, running out from the schoolhouse. He had been handling something in the quiet corner for some time; that was why he was late.

Luckily he managed to catch Roxanne in time, just before she drove off with her Mom to the red sunset. The little blue alien approached the front right window of the car, where she was seated, and offered her his hand-made snow globe.

The dome was made of fiberglass, placed on plastic platform. A rubber replica of Minion inside was flapping his fins. "I'm sorry I couldn't make you a more elaborate one, my time was limited, but I had configured this replica's texture and movements as fluid as I could to match Minion's, and this thing's glass is unbreakable; in case you bumped it into something, and it could be opened here," he demonstrated, opening a small hole below the plastic platform of the sphere, "The plastic part is entirely removable, in case you wanted to rub his... tummy. And it's solar powered, so you won't have to change its batteries! Just keep him near your windows."

The car was slowly accelerating as he spoke, and Syx had to widen his strides to keep up. "You-you can't leave. I mean, you... I... Don't you want to see my other marvelous inventions? I mean, I-I don't think I can... stop the car, please, Mrs. Driver!"

"Who is he?" Roxanne's Mom, who sat on the driver's seat, inquired, but stopped the car anyway.

Without turning to look at the look in her mother's face, she replied, obviously trying to imply that she didn't want to move either, "He's the reason why I hate to leave," Roxanne accepted the snow dome, stuck her head out of her window, much to her Mother's displeasure, and planted a kiss on her significant other's blue cheek. "Good bye, Syx, I hope I'll see you again!"

"It's a promise!" the alien waved at the speeding car, hopelessness tugging at his heart.

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I don't want this story to drag on and on and on, so the next chapter would be the last one, the epilogue. Thank you so much for all your support, I've never received as many clicks for my writing, and just the number flatters me. A LOT. Just knowing that readers kept coming back to read again and again boosts my spirit. Thank you again, you guys ROCK!

AUTHOR'S RANTS: And by the way, I was late in updating because I was working on a MM x RR fanart. I just can't get enough of this couple. Reading others' fanfictions pops so many imaginations, and I just have to... aw, I'm just... SQUEErabidSQUEE! XD *runs around screaming*