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Isthmus	By : AwfulLawful Category: +M through R > Megamind Views: 3514 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Megamind or make any profit from this story, it was done purely out of love for the characters.

Chapter List
- 3
- 4
- 5
ANON: Yes, it is on my FF.net account - same username. Just look for AwfulLawful. ^_^
Blue Oyster Cult: I love how they verbally spar with each other, and you can look forward to future Ham-to-Ham Combat moments once they really get going here. Microwave of Evil indeed.
SilverSpiderArt: There will be consequences for breaking the rules. ^_^
silverbluerose: More past memories and things to interest you here!
ChCool: Interest in alien biology is what got me the idea in the first place. I am SO taking liberties with genetics here, you have no idea.
A Lot More Complicated
"All you really need to know for the moment is that the universe is a lot more complicated than you might think, even if you start from a position of thinking it's pretty damn complicated in the first place."~ Douglas Adams
"This is just unprofessional! Let go of me!" Megamind demanded, predictably irate over his predicament and twisting around to try and glare at the appropriate target rather than the rapidly dwindling landscape he was facing. The wind whipped at him mercilessly as they flew and he had to squint just to be able to see in it, lest the moisture over his eyeballs either dry or freeze and make things difficult until he decided to close and rub them, which he couldn't do because his arms were trapped in the grip of a man that he had literally seen squeeze coal into diamond.
Metro Man looked down at him moodily and nodded toward the icy water of the Great Lakes that they were passing over below. "Keep squirming and I might," he warned.
"Oh, pull the other one!" Megamind yelled. He knew damned well the man could hear him over the wind, but Megamind could barely hear himself over it and anyway it made him feel better to shout. "I might have believed that when you were sixteen; now it's just pathetic posturing for your petulant populace!"
"…okay, fair enough," Metro Man agreed. He definitely wasn't about to drop Megamind, but the suggestion normally made him hush. "But nobody's watching right now, are they?"
"So stop at 'pathetic' then," the smaller alien snapped. He had stopped struggling to either turn or get loose, knowing both to be useless, but hadn't given up on possible escape yet. He didn't know where he was going to land or what the terrain would be like, but he wasn't about to make this easy. "Where are you taking me?"
"Somewhere we can talk. Look ahead."
Megamind strained to do so through the falling snow that was drastically reducing visibility, then snorted derisively. "…I have an orbiting Death-Ray pointed directly at that observatory, you know."
"Sure you do," Metro Man muttered blithely.
Megamind mentally preened. Score one for reverse psychology. Thank science his rival was only as intelligent as the average human and not, mentally, any sort of a threat. It hadn't escaped him that his nemesis was flying at a speed that would keep the wind from being too brutal on his passenger, and had made certain, as if accidentally, to keep Megamind's cape wrapped securely about his body as they flew. Still, this was a level of rude he would not tolerate. Metro Man had broken so many rules today that he was well and officially exempt from courtesy for quite some time.
There would now be hell to pay. One way or another he would have vengeance for this indignity.
Though he would keep Miss Ritchie out of it, of course.
Once they landed (descending through the opening in the roof of the observatory and in the relatively protected dome) the first thing Metro Man did was hesitate to let his captured enemy go. This was presumably because he knew how cold it was, but Megamind was having none of it and snarled and struggled until he was released anyway, at which point he stood and glared and shivered at him angrily. There was a long moment of staring and mutual awkwardness before one of them broke the albeit windy silence.
"Why haven't you turned on the heater in that cape yet?" Metro Man asked.
"How do you know this is one my heated capes?" Megamind frowned.
"I can see the wires," he drawled. "Here-"
Before Megamind could stop him, Metro Man reached out and underneath the edge of the cape near Megamind's left shoulder where the control was. He just managed to turn it on before reflex allowed Megamind to snarl and yank himself away from him. The slight click of the dial heralded blessed comfort, but the blue man continued to be angry regardless. He'd had quite enough.
Megamind, face like thunder, then treated his rival with an admittedly well-deserved verbal tirade that conclusively proved three things; a) he was now well and truly furious, b) his pronunciation habits carried over into the entirety of his vocabulary and c) he had most definitely been raised in (and thus taught to speak in) a prison by a large number of generally impolite people from a great range of social and economic backgrounds who collectively spoke a wide variety of languages. Regardless of what percentage of the actual words Metro Man was able to understand, the tone and inflection was quite clear, and it was definitely not a banter session because Megamind hadn't left even the slightest opening for Metro Man to cut in. When it finally wound down, more because the villain had run out of breath than from running out of words, he simply stood there and tried to catch his breath.
Metro Man was momentarily stunned, but recovered enough to comment, "That was… impressive."
"SHUT UP!" Megamind snapped viciously enough to make the larger alien flinch. That said, he tactically waited just long enough for Metro Man to try speaking again, then interrupted. "I just got warm, too, after trudging through this hellish weather after you chased me out of my main lair, and you had to drag me back out here again," he finished with one last, and brutally true, complaint once he had the air to fuel it. "What do you think you are doing?"
Metro Man let out a breath, trying to be patient. "To be fair, I asked for a truce so we could talk. You refused."
"Oh, what a surprise that your generous offer had no bearing on whether or not I had an actual choice in the matter!" the shivering alien sneered. "You may as well have kidnapped me without bothering with the niceties, Metro Man! Honestly it would have just saved time!"
"Now hang on. That's just uncalled for," Metro Man argued, disturbed by the word 'kidnapping'.
Megamind huffed and crossed his arms under the cape, which he refused to admit he was allowing to pool around him to block the wind. The charge was starting to filter through the fabric and heat the cape, at last, but it gave him little in the way of calm. They were inside the observatory, but had arrived after looters had gutted the place so the telescope and even the doors were gone, which left huge gaps for the cold to come in through. Megamind made a mental note to restore those before he used the orbital death ray. The place just lacked ambiance without them.
When the other didn't answer, Megamind turned away, looking out through the opening in the observatory roof where the sky shone through. "Now tell me what all this is about so I can go plot my revenge in proportion to how stupid it is," he demanded.
"Okay, okay," Metro Man sighed. Megamind was clearly not in a conducive mood for the inevitable reveal of the exact circumstances... but he was definitely owed at the very least an explanation of sorts; as close as Metro Man could get without giving himself away. The goal here was to get Megamind help and that just wasn't going to happen if he was too mad to agree to go to a doctor in the first place.
'Why couldn't you tell me where I was!? It's not as if I could have stopped you!" Megamind demanded irately when the larger male's pause went on for too long.
"Yes you could have. That DE-GUN setting," Metro Man began helplessly.
"Did you see much planning paper hanging in that lair?" he challenged. "Compared to the warehouse that place is a postage stamp!"
"I… didn't think of that," the hero admitted reluctantly. "And I didn't think you'd want to talk about this in front of Minion either."
"What would I not be able to talk about in front of Minion?"
Metro Man grumbled and palmed his face. "I'm sorry," he began as calmly as he could. "I don't know what made me break your last invention. I heard it and my vision just went red and I had crushed it before I even knew what was happening. I was not trying to chase you out of your lair and I didn't even intend to go in until I heard that horrible noise."
"You-" Megamind blinked, suddenly interested. "What? It affected you too?"
Megamind was engaged in the conversation now. Good. For the sake of a greater good Metro Man blurted out a lie. Not for the first time in his life, but the first time that he really knew he was screwing himself sideways. Eventually, inevitably, Megamind WOULD find out it was a lie - he was too smart not to - and there would be retribution. For now, it was all he could do to keep from making the situation explode into something he wasn't sure even he could deal with AND get Megamind help at the same time. Megamind had to agree to get help because, being an alien himself, Metro Man wasn't about to force the matter; it would feel like being abducted by scientists and experimented on. Even Metro Man had suffered nightmares about that, and he was bulletproof.
"I only went out there in the first place to check on you after the fight. It started out the same old routine," he started reluctantly. He decided to ramble a little to create the impression he was nervous about this whole thing… which was entirely accurate. "We were fighting, you were monologuing, Roxanne was just being herself, I was going to stop you… and then we started the battle and all of a sudden I could smell your blood and I KNEW I hadn't hit you and couldn't see any on the outside and-" Metro Man shook his head while Megamind watched him curiously. "I panicked. I thought maybe it was internal. Maybe I didn't hit you but something I had thrown might have ricocheted off something else and doubled back at you. So I decided to sort of... look into it."
Metro Man didn't leap back per se, but he had flown backward more than six feet by the time Megamind advanced on him with a shocked and decidedly scandalized expression.
"You mean look into me," The blue man hissed darkly. He backed away again after Metro Man lifted his hands defensively until they were practically on opposite sides of the observatory against the farthest walls they could manage. Megamind's awareness of the world centered on the matter at hand. "Is THAT why you kept chasing me!?" he challenged, clearly insulted. "You were on some misguided mission to save the poor villain!?"
Metro Man didn't answer for too long yet again; he merely hovered there on his side of the observatory looking uncomfortable, though a nervous cough did escape him.
"That is an entirely new level of cheating, Metro Mahn," Megamind informed him angrily. "And RUDE at the very least. So tell me, did you find anything interesting?"
Megamind expected another apology for prying into the obviously private matter, inquiries on how the injury had occurred, even an offer to help him catch whoever was responsible if the Hero even dared to think that the wound was a result of an assault. Instead his fury cooled a bit to make room for confusion when Metro Man finally spoke again.
"We match," Metro Man said quietly.
Megamind stood straighter as if it would help him hear better. "What do you mean we match?"
"Our insides," the man said sternly. "The organs, where they are, what they look like... the shapes and colors and-"
Megamind put up a finger and ticked it back and forth chidingly. "No, no, no, no, no, no, no," he insisted. "You know very well what you saw and unless you're going to tell me you have a similar feature like the one I've discovered then we don't match at all, do we?"
Well, now that Megamind said it Metro Man couldn't help but flush a bit at the thought of having a… an extra opening on his own body. At the very least he'd win a hell of a lot of bar bets with that one.
"Okay, fair enough. You're right I don't have that particular feature," he admitted, using the politer term Megamind had decided to use. "Sorry."
Yet another apology and Metro Man could see genuine confusion in those huge green eyes. He had the little guy off-guard already just from a few nice words and logical agreement? Yeah he was clearly in pain already but just being reasonable at him shouldn't be working this well. At least it never had before. "Look, I know it's weird that I know about it at all, but you need to go to a doctor to take a look at you if nothing else."
"Oh, I see. And while we're there it would just make sense to take a few x-rays and do some tests to compare my alien-ness to yours, eh?" the blue man drawled suspiciously. "And I assume you're familiar with this doctor. And old family friend, perhaps? Someone specifically interested in alien biology?"
*Fudge buckets. He thinks I want him studied. *
Metro Man winced a little. How to handle this? It was uncomfortable, but probably much easier to deal with than trying to explain to Megamind that he wanted to get a checkup on his personal bits due to being the cause of the trauma down there to begin with. The echo of his first mental run-through of this conversation ("So I was watching you masturbate-") and the inevitable backlash of that could wait as long as Megamind actually went to the doctor. Actually, he didn't think he'd get halfway through that last word before the fight started.
"I have a family physician," Metro Man insisted. "When I was bor-" he winced and amended that quickly when Megamind's glare reached nearly nuclear levels. "-arrived on Earth my adoptive family had an expert hired to look me over since not many pediatricians have experience with kids that can fly and lift cars. He was eighty at the time and an expert in Exobiology and he's long gone by now, but his grandkid took over the job. Her name is Dr. Mardling."
"Of course it is," Megamind groused acidly, painfully aware of the 'her' portion more than anything else. This whole situation clearly wasn't humiliating enough, so fate gave him a female doctor. What an appropriate finish on this utter ruin of a day! Megamind wondered if this squirmy lead-gut discomfort was how women felt when a white-haired old man came in to perform gynecology exams on them.
"Can we at least compare a few things?" Metro Man asked. "I swear I know what I saw. We're too similar internally for it to be a coincidence. Maybe not everything, but really close."
Megamind stood very still and scowled at the ground for so long that Metro Man wondered if he was even listening or just plotting revenge.
In reality the blue man's thoughts were mostly focused on searing embarrassment and not a small amount of anxious fear. Megamind hadn't even come to terms himself with the mortifying incident that had revealed his body's hidden feature yet! He could only guess the orifice had a sexual purpose given his body's reaction to his experimental probing in the bath and the fact that pressing there had always felt amazing even before he'd known what was there. Not only had Metro Man known about it since at least that morning but he wanted Megamind to submit to some no doubt extremely overpaid quack poking at him and asking humiliating questions. And on top of all that he'd just had a distressing thought; if he had no external testicles, and they weren't behind that patch of skin he was always pressing on, where were they, or at least their biological equivalent?
Well, this was just mortifying. Of all the times for Metro Man to misuse his X-ray vision he had to do it now!? Admittedly he had done so due to a legitimate concern that plagued the man often - his fear of accidentally causing irreparable harm to someone - and was merely doing his sickeningly heroic best to help, but still. At this point Megamind might have forgiven the idiot for breaking so many rules to get to his ridiculous offer if the situation was less achingly embarrassing. As it was Megamind just wanted to get out of this conversation and go back to his lair where he could occupy his mind with anything else and try to forget this day had even happened. Maybe even have a glass of wine and just go to fucking sleep.
Megamind almost seemed to squirm where he stood while he thought, eyes trained on Metro Man as if he expected an attack. Metro Man wondered if the pain was bothering him that much and decided to ignore it for now. It was going to be hard enough to pull this off without making the proud idiot run the hell off as it was, he did not need the backlash he would inevitably receive if he did something stupid like ask if Megamind could use human methods of pain relief… and why had that question never occurred to him before this moment was now yet another source of guilt. What if couldn't do something as simple as swallow Tylenol without terrible side-effects? Would it even do what it was supposed to and even relieve the pain? A lot of the injuries Megamind had received in their past battles seemed needlessly cruel now, despite how Metro Man had tried to avoid them.
Eventually Megamind seemed to gather himself and sneered accusingly. "Tell me, Metro Man, how do you suppose the good doctor's examination will go, exactly?"
"That's your business," he said honestly.
"Yes, Captain Cop-Out, it certainly is my business," Megamind drawled. "Which is why I am NOT going to let your adoptive family's pet scientist satisfy her alien obsession at my expense. Honestly I wonder what makes you think I'd allow anyone with a medical interest specifically in extraterrestrials anywhere near me. You may not have to worry about the tin foil hat crowd itching to take you apart, but Minion and I do!"
"Hey!" Offended, Metro Man landed, the clamp of his boots on the floor making Megamind startle. "If all I wanted was to get you there so they could cut you up then why would I be standing here trying to get you to go on your own? It'd be easier just to kidnap you!" Metro Man said this quietly, ignoring how flat-out angry it made him that Megamind would suspect him of something that wrong.
"And you didn't do that just now?" Megamind drawled.
Metro Man conspicuously avoided answering that. "She's not like that and neither was her father. Besides, if all I wanted was to get you there so they could cut you up then why would I be standing here trying to get you to go on your own?" Metro Man said this quietly, ignoring how flat-out angry it made him that Megamind would suspect him of something that wrong.
"I suppose you don't want me shooting up the place before they put me under for dissection," the blue man snarled right back. "I'm not going. NO!" he pointed at Metro Man's face just as the Hero opened his mouth to insist again. "If you had been paying attention to your senses before flying me all the way out here you would have noticed that the bleeding has stopped. I'm healing quite normally now and the problem has been resolved. And I would greatly appreciate it if you accepted my word on that and didn't 'look into it' again!"
Metro Man looked skeptical until he took a breath in through his nose and seemed to accept that. "Alright, I can't smell you bleeding anymore. But you should still see a doctor. There has to be a reason for that… space in there."
Megamind crossed his arms and his lips tightened into a thin, angry line… but Metro Man noticed the damning curiosity in his eyes even before the blue man spoke again. "What did you see exactly?"
"It's hard to describe," Metro Man said carefully. "Dr. Mardling could do a much better job than me. At least she probably wouldn't sound as stupid as I would trying to."
"That goes without saying," Megamind huffed. "But I am still not-"
"What if I go with you?"
"Still a 'no'," the smaller alien snapped, and turned to walk out through the doorless portal into the snow, already trying to figure out how to get a ride over the water without summoning either Minion or the Brain-bots to come and get him. With the heated cape he should be fine in the weather unless it picked up viciously, but still it'd take quite a while.
Metro Man glided over next to him and touched down, matching pace to walk right next to him. "I'm late for my own yearly checkup-"
"Ha. Does your mommy make you go every year?" Megamind teased.
"Yes," Metro Man sighed. "And I'm late. So let's make a deal."
Megamind turned and paused with a hand stroking his goatee. "Merely accompanying me there to ensure I'm not eviscerated for study won't convince me."
Metro Man sighed. "How about this; you don't have to do anything that I don't have to. Same doctor, same basic physical."
"Then she can't take samples of my skin or blood, since that is clearly outside her ability with you," the villain pointed out.
Metro Man shrugged. "We'll work that out when we get there."
"Meaning you intend to reason it out of me somehow. I'm curious; how do you plan to accomplish this? What could you offer me that'd be worth my cooperation on this matter?" Megamind challenged, starting to walk his typical villain rant circle around the hero. He had to stop though, since they had gotten too close to the doorway and nearly meeting the wall had forced him to stop. He glared momentarily at the offending barrier preventing his comfortable theatrical routine, then crossed his arms and faced his enemy again.
Look, Megs-" the DE-GUN was out and pointed before he even realized he'd used the disliked nickname, "Megamind. Nobody else on this whole damned planet knows what it's like to be the last of their kind. I don't have any fellow aliens to talk to. Just me and you-"
Clearly incensed, Megamind's leather glove squeaked a bit as his finger tensed over the trigger on reflex. "Add Minion or I'll shoot you anyway!" he seethed.
"-and Minion," Metro Man conceded. Apparently breaking the 'stay-the-hell-out-of-my-lair' rule was a pretty serious one, and for the most obvious reason, if the demand for Minion's inclusion was any evidence. "Just come with me to see Dr. Mardling. I'll even stay to make sure she doesn't experiment on you or anything. Maybe we can learn something about ourselves or where we came from. Please."
Megamind slowly put the DE-GUN back and seemed to stand there and quietly fret.
"Megamind?" Metro Man asked cautiously.
Unseen by the Hero, the villain's mind was whirling at top speed. Given what that speed was, it was a miracle a physical tornado didn't form around him. Only seconds later he asked a question… but it took quite a lot of thinking to get there from the Hero's "Please".
Why NOW?
Why was Metro Man suddenly so interested in him outside of the usual game? Something must have changed. After all this time the man couldn't have just recently decided to be curious about the other alien for no particular reason. There had never been questions like this before! Megamind had been the weird blue kid from prison, the delinquent, the enemy… but never an equal in any way.
Never, not once, had Metro Man ever bothered to acknowledge Megamind as a 'fellow' alien.
For a moment Megamind allowed himself to be angry over it. How DARE he decide to care about this NOW when they were in their mid-thirties? Why not when they were children and Metro Boy got his first lesson in planets from that abominable woman in shool? Even if Metro Boy hadn't suspected he was an alien then if his parents hadn't fessed up about it, why not when they were in Middle Shool and the idiot actually brought in the very escape pod he arrived in for show-and-tell and Megamind lamented aloud that he didn't have his own anymore because the prison had given it away for study? Why not when they were teenagers and Megamind was teased almost daily with being dissected in anatomy class by thugs!?
True, that last one Metro Dude had actually intervened on once or twice… for which Megamind refused to admit he was in any way grateful and he most definitely had not ducked behind the other's bulk to shield himself from them. He had simply been heading in that direction already and the brute had gotten in his way. Yes, that was it.
Not once in all that time, though, had Metro Man asked about Megamind's escape pod, or how he had wound up in prison to begin with at such a young age, or even implied to the High Shool thugs that dissecting aliens was wrong (he had merely said that doing it to students was definitely illegal). He'd never asked how Megamind healed so quickly compared to the humans they socialized with or voiced interest in their worlds when Megamind brought it up that they came from the same quadrant in his speeches during multiple battles.
Most people would have been curious. Mot Metro Man. He blew those things off like they hadn't mattered, and eventually Megamind had grudgingly accepted that belief and stopped trying.
There had always, always been that sharp divide between them.
Megamind was an alien of the strange and unusual sort that didn't truly belong here. He was the pariah, the designated villain, the outcast. Metro Man belonged here despite the same status; still an alien, yet one that natives were willing to accept. It had been the standard social law since that first day he'd walked into the little red building by the prison and the other children gave Megamind a wide berth. Metro Man had never bothered to challenge it. Megamind had accepted it. It had been going on for three decades now, strong and steady.
So… what the hell?
This sudden interest felt insulting somehow. Like an aloof and stoic relative that finally begins taking part in family affairs and events - but only to impress their new mate. The effort was grudgingly accepted but you still knew the motives behind it were entirely selfish. If there wasn't that self-serving reason to do it they would maintain their distance and continue not caring whatsoever. Megamind knew Metro Man far better than to think there was no ulterior motive. He craved attention, and always got his way, and cared very little for anything else unless there was some benefit for him in it.
Yes, he was a generally nice person and hero and did lots of good things, but nice people can still be narcissistic self-serving jerks. It all depends on what methods they go through to get their desired reward. The fact that Metro Man craved positive attention in no way made him a good person at his core, just a person doing the necessary things to get what results he wanted. He'd been doing it since the moment he landed in his little golden pod under the Christmas Tree, the tale he had proudly told over and over again as a child to anyone that would listen, because he was her gift.
And after all that time, Megamind was a 'fellow alien' now?
No.
No way was he getting away with it that easily.
There had to be a reason. Metro Man wanted something. But what was it?
In the past couple of years Megamind had seen distinct changes in his rival. The changing color of his hair as the white appeared and expanded, an increase in aggression, and if he wasn't mistaken the man seemed to be growing larger. It wasn't just his muscle mass, though that was part of it, he seemed to be growing in the way children did – his entire frame was expanding all the way down to his bones… which meant he wasn't his final adult size yet and that was just damned terrifying to think about because when would he stop? His scale was already inhuman (metaphorically and literally) and much more of that would just put him even more in the category of those mythical gods from Rome that the people of this city kept modelling his statues after.
And if he was going through a growth spurt at this age… how long was his people's lifespan? It wasn't as if anything on this planet could kill him before he simply died of old age.
Megamind was well aware he was not immune to his own aging either, and this new opening on his body was just one more straw on an already heaping pile of confusion.
There hadn't been too much of a demanding pull to satisfy his sexual urges until the last six years – not until his late twenties. His body's insistence he relieve that stress was happening more frequently as those years passed. He'd been able to achieve orgasm after about fifteen (late for humans, but he didn't worry over that – he wasn't human after all) yet the actual urge to make it happen hadn't surfaced until twice that age. It was as if, for Megamind, puberty hadn't actually hit until he was almost thirty. Once again the question of lifespan came up… and the comparison with Metro Man was again similar.
More than once recently Roxanne had commented on his new cologne while they were waiting for Metro Man to arrive… but he never wore any. Even some of the more, ah, friendly inmates had asked him if he'd been smuggling spices out of the kitchens. Megamind knew his scent was changing, though he had paid it no mind. There weren't any of his own people to notice it, so why bother? It wasn't as if a rise in pheromones would do him any good.
With all of these questions and no real answers, perhaps it would be prudent to let an actual doctor with an interest in alien biology examine them both and compare. Much as he hated to admit it the brute had a point on this one. If Megamind didn't take the chance now, when would he get it again?
Whatever else was going on, one thing was clear; Metro Man wanted something.
Megamind just had to figure out what it was… then how to bait him with it like a carrot on a stick.
This new curiosity may have something to do with how their species' interacted. If this behavior was somehow instinctive, like their very different reactions to that damnable sound, then Megamind had to figure out what the nature of their species' interaction had been for clues. Were they friends? Enemies merely cooperating in a time of peril? Was one culture superior or simply have a higher level of command, or were they both more or less equal?
Their peoples had definitely interacted. Megamind had seen them, though he hadn't had the perspective at that time to know what was going on. An infant doesn't exactly have the experience to look at a situation and think, 'these are our planetary neighbors and they are trying to help us cope due to mutual oncoming doom that we are all very aware of and unable to prevent'. It was more along the lines of 'those people are a different color and huge and making angry sound from their mouths and why is everyone screaming?', and one had to judge events much later with the benefit of hindsight. Of course, having a stellar memory also helped… but there was still a significant difference between seeing and understanding.
He had never thought to examine his earliest memories in more detail before, though that reluctance to do so may have been a bit more deliberate than he wanted to admit. Honestly he'd just been having too much fun to worry about it as an adult and as a child had been too afraid of what he would see. The memories he replayed over and over again were all close encounters of his parents. He'd not bothered to view anything else too closely.
Both Megamind's and Metro Man's worlds were gone and there was no going back to them and no stopping it. His Reset Button project had failed horribly and convinced him there was no correcting the horrors of the past. He couldn't bring their worlds, or their peoples, back. So he had tried to move forward and not let it hurt him any more than it already did. Now, though, he had no choice if he was to figure out what was going on with his enemy.
Evidence was needed here. Unfortunately, the only existing evidence in the universe was in his head and he would have to scrape every last shred of it from the experience of an infant over only 8 measly days. Even though those days had been significantly longer than the 24-hour Earth days by, Megamind guessed, roughly 2.86 times, it was still very little to go by.
To shed more light on the subject he began to pick out specific memories of Metro Man's people and how his own blue kin had reacted to them. Of course he had frequently reviewed the memories he wanted to – his parents and everything about them and anything he could take comfort in… but it was the background events he needed to concentrate on now. Not his doomed family, but what had happened around them.
And there it was. Panic. Anxiety. Sleepless, sad nights and frantic days of building his escape pod. Everyone was tense and panicked and generally irrational and violent. As they approached the Black Hole massive earthquakes wracked the planet from the gravitational pull stressing the lithosphere in unnatural ways, slowing the planet's spin still further as it only pulled to one side. Terrible weather tore across the surface for similar reasons, forcing many underground for hours while the tumult raged above them. Megamind and his kin had taken shelter this way six times.
He'd been born in one of those shelters, he realized, playing back the memory and looking beyond his father's brown eyes and grateful smile with the hazy and unfocused lenses of a newborn. Background information he had been ignoring until now screamed out at him; things he had never truly concentrated on because of how hazy the world had been to him then. Huddled blue people clad in white, some too still to merely be sleeping and surrounded by dark pools he daren't examine further littered the space. A large portion were alone, mottled with red and purple after being hit with debris on their way down. Megamind would never have guessed that was the reason as a newborn; now he knew what had caused those injuries and the still ones. It had been the storm. They hadn't been fast enough getting to the shelter. Others were more fortunate; merely blue and white blurs clutching smaller such figures, their own children, to them as fiercely as Megamind's own had held him. They had taken shelter much faster.
And then he noticed blurs of white and gold hovering above them. Why had he never noticed that detail? Perhaps they were robots like his Brain-bots? Or delivery drones of some kind to distribute supplies to those in the shelter? Whatever they were they bobbed and weaved and seemed to circle particular groups of the blobs; hovering around particular families rather than catering to everyone in general. It was odd, but more information than he'd had before.
Evidence gathered thus far; strange white hovering blurs.
Not very useful.
As he aged and his eyes began to clear Megamind could discern more things and he pulled those memories as well.
First, there were transmissions on those huge screens from the neighboring planet. Before the final days when a word he knew was some sort of final alert appeared. The peoples were speaking to one another and had a shared language and script, he knew that much. Entirely different languages tended to look and sound very unique from one another and from what Megamind heard and saw it was all too similar to be entirely separate. If Metro Man's people had a language of their own they must have been using the blue people's language as the primary method to communicate, because Megamind's own people had never switched as far as he could recall. Usually a common script and language, at least on Earth, indicated a level of interaction that made it necessary such as a shared government. Either that or one of the societies had been conquered and forced to adapt to the victor's culture. Given the differences physically it left Megamind with little doubt as to who the conquerors might have been.
He daren't dwell on that much.
The video communication with Metro Man's species had definitely not been the only contact. Megamind's father and Mother had met once with one of those people. Comparatively he had been larger than Metro Man himself and positively dwarfed Megamind's parents when he stood near them. He was covered in injuries – and WHAT had managed to injure him could have only been another of his own – and Megamind recalled how the hulking man had smiled down at him in his mother's arms.
Megamind didn't know what had been said but he assumed it was communication on the pod they were building, since it was in clear view when he landed and the man had brought them some of the crucial parts of it that he must have gathered at their request.
He seemed rather interested in Megamind, even reaching out to let the little blue hands grasp at his big fingers. Quite suddenly he was gone, though, and a loud sound much like an impact made his parents scream, and they had fled while a loud rumble made them all huddle together in fright. They fled with Megamind to an underground shelter again.
There, Megamind's focus went beyond his parents as he was trying to do, and for the first time he realized what those hovering white blobs were. His five-day-old eyes were no longer clouded and he saw them for what they were. They were children of Metro Man's people dressed in white and gold being cared for by some of the blue-skinned families and hovering around them. There were at least half a dozen. And yet the one adult that Megamind's parents had spoken to was the only one he ever saw in person until meeting Metro Man as their pods flew by each other.
At this point Megamind closed his eyes and took a breath after half a second of frantic thought and went towards the rest of the second half, wherein a lot of his conclusions came in.
That man had been helping them, defending them even, since that impact sound might have been him fighting off another of his own kind, which would clearly explain both the injuries and his sudden disappearance. That rumble had been a growl, hadn't it? Yes, he remembered even then how it made him cry and huddle closer to his parents and the way they had both jolted when they heard it.
He had been correct in his earlier guess. That sound was one that his own people had learned to fear, and Metro Mans people made it as a warning to herald when they were fighting, hopefully so that the blue people could scramble out of the way to avoid getting caught in the crossfire.
Here, Metro Man's own behavior rang in Megamind like a bell. All that growling in shool… and the sound that had made Megamind tense like a bowstring and tear through his own skin… that must have been him growling at something. Even from across town he would have heard it since his head contained cavities specifically meant to help him register that noise over long distances.
Whatever had made Metro Man growl like that had Megamind's pity… he had clearly been enraged at the time. Megamind couldn't even be angry that it had caused him to hurt himself at an embarrassing moment, because neither of them had known it was a possibility, because neither of them were aware at the time that their species had interacted so much that it had influenced their very evolution… or in this case co-evolution.
But now Megamind did.
And he considered that Metro Man might have the right to know, though he would keep the knowledge to himself just now.
HOW had they interacted though? Usually when creatures competed for similar resources, which the two peoples had inevitably done, it either resulted in one getting chased out of that area or going extinct… or they learned to work together somehow. It was quite obvious that Metro Man's people were territorial. It was entirely possible all of those flying infants had been his progeny that the blue people were looking after in exchange for him guarding them. Territorialism would also explain how effectively Metro Man looked after Metrocity – to him the city really was his. The presence of the blue people within that territory indicated nothing more than the fact that they weren't enough of a bother for the boundaries to apply in terms of keeping them out… but did that mean they were to be kept in them? Having their own planet didn't necessarily mean there were no permanent residents on the blue planet, it merely meant they had hopped over and set up camp.
Megamind reeled for a moment and took on another train of thought that rushed right next to the original and matched each other for progress.
Evidence gathered so far:
Metro Man's species was territorial and lived on the blue planet as well as their own.
The peoples had interacted for so long that they had co-evolved at least enough for the blue people to recognize a warning call on a physical and instinctive level.
Megamind's people were permitted inside of those territories and were, apparently, worthy of being protected within them.
The blue people would look after their protector's children should the need arise, like babysitters.
…and aside from the frantic activity of the last three days as the situation only got worse and led up to Megamind being sent away, he recalled nothing else of significance.
The co-evolution was the most interesting part of it all.
Perhaps the peoples had a sort of symbiotic relationship akin to… what was it? Oh, yes. Clownfish and Anemones. The colorful little things lived inside the protection of the anemone's toxic limbs for safety, and in return the fish would attack the types of fish that ate the anemone. After a bit more consideration, however, Megamind had to amend that. What sort of protection could flying-brick-man possibly need from creatures like Megamind's own people? It couldn't be the sort of equal service-service function of mutual protection. Much as he hated to admit it, Megamind settled on the far more logical conclusion.
Service-Resource interaction was a lot more likely. Much like plants would produce delicious and tempting fruit in order to get animals to eat them and… erm… disperse the seeds later after they had passed through their digestive systems. Still mutually beneficial, but in a different way than equal cooperation, instead it was more of a barter system. The plant provided a resource (food) and the animals provided a service (distribution). The behavior of Metro Man's people (at least the two adults that Megamind had personally encountered) still pointed to territorial ends, so they were surely providing a service; protection.
So what resource was Megamind's species providing in return? That was the hard part to figure out.
Perhaps the strain of guarding the territory was so taxing a chore that Metro Man's people had little time to gather their own sustenance? Then again, Megamind's waif-like intelligent people didn't exactly have the body type suited to the sort of hard labor farming or hunting required, and what sort of beast or plant was a match for the sort of speed and strength Metro Man wielded?
Or perhaps there was no specific resource provided as far as symbiosis went. The situation may not have been symbiotic at all. It was entirely possible that the brutes had ulterior motives for the apparent protection. Megamind's people may have been guarded inside those territorial boundaries, but were they guarded or GUARDED? In essence; could they leave? Did the blue people provide whatever resource or service they exchanged for that safety willingly or did they have no choice? Perhaps they WERE the resource. After all, even ANTS kept captive labor. From an evolutionary standpoint it was not simply possible, it was very likely.
Certain species of ants raided other colonies, usually weaker members of the same basic evolutionary branch family, and stole their children. They then raised them under imprinting. Some were facultative parasites… they could certainly survive without their captives; it was simply easier to have them on hand. Of course raiding other colonies was both for acquiring slaves and food, which neatly put those captured in their place when they witnessed their comrades being devoured, he was sure. In other cases, this was because the raiders were obligate parasites… in other words they were literally unable to survive without their stolen broods.
Go to any colony of European Amazon ants and take away their slaves and the colony's own offspring would quickly begin to fail without the proper care. Even the adults would begin to starve. In essence the colony was composed of a mess of social parasites entirely dependent upon their stolen and indentured workforce – a race of soldiers with only the ability to enslave that had no other skill set and had no workers, farmers, and gatherers of its own to support a basic social infrastructure.
In one experiment, Megamind recalled wryly, if only the raiders were put into an area with no captives they would starve to death even with a generous supply of food nearby and not even attempt to care for their own young. Introduce even ONE slave and suddenly order was established and they began to function. Even the queens of that type of ant established her new colony via hostile takeover; she would sneak into a colony of the designated 'lesser' species, kill the queen there, and usurp. Literally the only skill set those bastards had was raiding! And they even raised their own broods and captive broods in different nurseries, too, the evil things.
The evidence didn't quite match up there either. If that was the case, why had the male Megamind's parents interacted with seemed so fond of them? Why bring them things they had asked for to help them build the escape pod?
Perhaps not social parasites after all… but brood parasites? What if only the caretaker aspect was the issue! if Metro Man's people were so busy patrolling the boundaries of the territories, how were they to care for their young? Territorial defense was a dangerous job; one couldn't exactly take their kids along for that, especially not at the levels of power those battling possessed. This would certainly explain the children hovering around the blue families! That might be it. The exchange for protection and resources available within the boundaries was that the blue people raised their guardian's offspring while they were essentially off at war. AND that explained why Megamind's family had behaved amicably toward the brutish male that had spoken to them; they were a potential surrogate family, and the brute was a guardian.
Perhaps Megamind's parents had even raised a surrogate child for him and his mate before Megamind had come along.
THAT possibility was far less nerve-wracking and a lot more pleasant. Despite all their intimidating power, Metro Man's people were just a bunch of big, needy, cuckoo birds! Hopefully without the 'eliminate the competition' bent the fledgling cuckoos often employed, but there had been a pair of children with one couple that Megamind could recall; a female blue and another male mini-metro.
And, after all those possibilities, Megamind had to admit he had a poor basis for comparison because he was trying to judge alien behavior based on how life had evolved on one little blue watery speck in a big, big, BIG universe. Some of them could have been applicable to varying degrees, but it was also entirely true that none of them could be applicable AT ALL and the reality was something he couldn't conceive of simply because he hadn't encountered that type of behavior on this planet.
Earth was a very small world and hadn't had, comparatively, a lot of time to evolve its lifeforms to more advanced stages. He had no idea how old the star the three occupied worlds of his star system had been before it collapsed in on itself, but if creatures like Metro Man had evolved it must have been quite a while indeed.
Yes… he wanted more information just as much as Metro Man did and to get it he would have to submit to this mortifying medical procedure, and he would have to provide much more of an examination than Metro Man himself was even capable of.
Resigned, he decided to allow it.
BUT-
"Why has it taken you so long to become interested in our respective alien biology at all? You must know we came from the same quadrant. I've told you that many times. I told you about my own escape pod and that we arrived on the same day a long time ago. Two decades ago, in fact. Why decide to be curious now?" he demanded.
Blindsided, Metro Man blurted out the first thing that came to mind.
"I never wondered why you were here," he snapped. "It seemed weird that I was here because the world felt strange around me, but it never felt like you were out of place."
*Oh. Because I belong in your territory and the rest of these strange creatures don't.* Megamind thought immediately. *But you don't know why, do you?*
Now it was Megamind's turn to feel guilty. He'd had this information for the entirety of their interaction and just hadn't analyzed it and shared it with his 'fellow' alien. And he knew damned well that Metro Man didn't have his mental capabilities and likely didn't remember anything at all about his earliest days.
God damn it.
"There may be a reason for that," he admitted. "I've only just figured it out, though."
Metro Man took a step forward and looked curiously at him. "You lost your mad there, little buddy. What were you thinking about?"
"Don't call me that," Megamind argued. "But I have a deal to propose."
"I'm listening."
"I agree that we should discover as much about ourselves and our worlds as we can. We are the only surviving evidence they existed at all and even if all we can do is know it ourselves that would be doing a sort of justice to our first families," he said.
Metro Man nodded sadly. "Yeah. I mean, I know I had a family before, I just try not to think about it too much." He started and gave Megamind an apologetic look, as if he just now realized he had the same problem. "Ah. Sorry."
Megamind continued. "I will agree to go and see this Dr. Mardling on two conditions. One; we will both submit to every test she asks of us. I will not be humiliated alone."
"Yeah, ok," Metro Man agreed.
"Two; I am to be given an additional set of every piece of evidence and every set of tests results the good doctor does."
Metro Man crossed his arms. "So you can figure out how to destroy me?" he asked wryly.
"I've known how to destroy you since I was an infant, Metro Man. A Black Hole will do the trick because I've seen it work on both of our worlds and peoples. Besides… if I killed you I wouldn't have anything left to play with, now would I? You and Miss Ritchie both," Megamind said with all his usual villainous flair. "Call it cat-and-mouse syndrome if you will. It just wouldn't be very smart to break my favorite toys."
Metro Man gaped at him, then laughed after deciding being offended would be pointless. "That is the most convoluted, irritating, and twisted logic I've ever heard. But I'll be dag-nabbed if it doesn't make sense.
"Who taught you to swear?" Megamind asked flatly. "I'd like to kill them."
Metro Man chuckled and held out one fringe-gloved hand. "I'll ask Dr. Mardling when she has an opening for us. Will you let me take you back, or are you going to call Minion?"
Megamind rolled his eyes and let out a suffering groan, but took the offered hand.
He tried to ignore that it was larger than he remembered.
That went… better than I expected, honestly.
Much as HUMON is the goddess of helping us think of animal reproduction strategies from a human standpoint, I have equal fascination with the social structure of animals in general. Imagine the Polyergus refescens as a group of humans; an entire race of huge, hulking raiders with no other skill set to the point where they will literally starve to death while sitting within inches of an easily acquired food source without someone slightly smarter nearby to shove it into their mouths for them. Meanwhile bring in ONE captive and suddenly order is established; young care for, homes built, storage settled, and everyone properly fed. The raiders, obviously, are in charge but they're complete and utter morons that need basic survival instructions from a tiny, intelligent, bossy indentured servant. ^_^;;
Gods, somebody needs to draw that.
Personal Note: The first time I watched the movie and Megamind lamented the impossible science of the Reset Button, I immediately thought it was from trying to bring his parents and home world back, not Metro Man.
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