#team write

It was the seventh annual Villain Appreciation convention, and Vanitas was already ready to go home.  Void, he’d been ready to go home before he got here.  Xehanort kept telling him to “play nice” and “don’t spread the Unversed here” and “don’t eat too much sugar” and what was he supposed to do, sit in a corner and be quiet?  He’d tried to do that, but the trapdoor he’d tried to hide inside had led to… he really didn’t know.  Some kind of disco rave with alligators and too many lights.  So he’d dumped some Bruisers down there and thrown the door shut.

It wasn’t like he wanted to talk to anyone.  Frankly, he just wanted to lean dramatically against a wall near the snack table and cast his golden eyed glare over the assortment of Disney (and other animation studio) villains.  Not that glaring had much of an effect on people like Yzma and Drago, who looked horrifying enough without trying.  Maybe he could try to ride Drago’s dragon again… nah, the giant dragon was still in the fake observatory on the roof.  Vanitas didn’t want to get squished in the cramped space up there.  Plus, all the food was here, and who knew when Xehanort would take him somewhere he could eat again— 

“Ollo, fellow hu-maan. What is on the ceiling?” A man with a large blue head was sidling up to him, doing the most ‘I’m totally not suspicious’ walk he’d ever seen. (He was assuming the rest of him was also blue, but with how little skin the dude was showing, who knew?)

Vanitas looked up, frowning at the blinking dials and metal pipes and other assorted junk attached to the walls and roof.  He was pretty sure half a donut was caught in the space between two pipes.  Was that what the weirdo was talking about?  

“I’m not human.  I’m a heart of darkness,” he replied boredly, because Xehanort had let him know that often enough.

The obviously-also-not-a-human jumped. (What was wrong with him? How could someone look that suspicious, just standing there?)

“Oh! Of course!” He mouthed heart of darkness to himself, looking confused. “But I was meaning to ask about your more vertical state of being, of such a being as is yourself.” He seemed to be… wiggling? Did he even know how to stand still? You’d think being covered in that amount of spikes would lend to someone being at least a little careful of his surroundings.

“I’m… standing?”  He raised an eyebrow.  Was something getting lost in translation, or was the blue man just an idiot?  The whole “secret lair” was surrounded with a forcefield that allowed the villains from different worlds to understand each other, but it must be defective.  “And you’re also standing.  In the way.  Of the snack table.”  He enunciated each word clearly, like he would if he were talking to Ventus.

He reached for one of the cookies shaped like a severed finger—which was a little gross, even for him—and the blue moron finally moved over and promptly tripped over nothing. 

He looked semi-defeated when he stood up and turned back around—which was fair, honestly—but the exasperation also present seemed a little uncalled for. It wasn’t his fault the guy didn’t know what he was talking about. That large head obviously wasn’t filled with brains. He very clearly gave up and shifted to a new topic.

“I like your pants, they’re very… presentational.” What? “I was hoping to buy some new ones with bigger pockets, mine are a little… tight.” He paused for a moment to strike a pose, clearly trying to emphasize his… assets.

Vanitas staunchly refused to give him a once-over. Maybe he should be relieved that at least there had been no comment about his definitely-not-a-skirt.  

“Yeah…”  Could the blue guy just die from awkwardness?  It would save Vanitas the trouble of deciding whether or not stabbing him was worth it.  There was some kind of peace treaty at these villain conventions, Xehanort had said, but frankly he didn’t see the point.  What screamed villainy more than senseless violence?

He was just about to edge away, leaving the no-longer-a-safety-zone of the snack table, when the man got right up into his business. It was really looking like stabbing was gonna be his only option. A leather-gloved hand was shoved into his face, narrowly missing the cookie he’d just shoved in his mouth to avoid responding.

“Megamind, not at your service!” He looked proud of himself for the stupid greeting. Maybe Vanitas would skip the knife and just bite him. 

“Vanitas, leaving now.”  He brushed past Megamind’s shoulder—ouch those spikes hurt, but he wasn’t going to give the idiot the satisfaction of knowing that—in order to grab the last Capri Sun off of the snack table as he made his dramatic exit.

An offended gasp caught his attention, and, before he turned all the way around, a blue and black blur lunged into him, knocking him into the table and his drink to the floor. It took a moment before the thing in front of him made sense.

Megamind was shoving his way underneath the table next to him, butt poking into the air and waving obnoxiously. Those pants were rather tight, but who the heck even wore leather pants nowadays. 

“Ah ha!” A triumphant cry came from underneath the ugly plastic table cloth. “You are mine, fancy liquid container!” Megamind tumbled back onto his rear and held the pouch aloft before bringing it right up to his eye. “How do you get inside of that, little juice?” 

Was he talking to the Capri Sun? His Capri Sun, actually.

“Give me that!”  Vanitas demanded—not whined, he didn’t whine, and Braig could keep his ‘as if’s to himself—and dove for the artificially flavored fruit drink.  “It’s mine!”

Megamind scrambled back one-handedly. “It is not! Finder’s keepers! Roxanne told me it was the law!” He tried to stand up and slipped on his cape, landing flat on his big blue head. He let out a long pathetic groan.

“Well, I’m the finder now.”  He snatched the pouch from Megamind’s gloved hand and took off down a narrow passageway hidden behind some copper wires.  How in the Void had this happened?  He just wanted to take one sugary drink for the road, but apparently that would be too easy.

But it was his Capri Sun now.  No leather-clad hellion was going to take it from him.

A bludgeon from behind took him right off his feet, and possibly broke his nose. Why did bad things happen to bad people?

His attacker’s hand was digging under his chest what, and he swung an elbow back with a satisfying crunch.

“Ow!  My giant blue head!”  He groaned and fell back.  “What are your elbows made of?”

“Darkness.  And whatever else it takes to make you leave me alone.”

“Rude! I should never have let you into my secret lair!” The man was definitely whining now and still freaking on top of him. “All I wanted was the strouwbarrie bahnahnahnah pouch.” 

Vanitas blinked, briefly stopping his struggle.  “...Strawberry banana?”

“No? What does that even mean?”

Megamind, Vanitas decided, was a bigger idiot than Ventus.  He hadn’t thought that was possible, but here they were.

“...Do you even know what bananas are?”

The non-human growled behind his head, and rolled onto the floor next to him. Vanitas heard him mutter an ‘ow’ from where he lay.

“Ow? You’re the one wearing the freaking spikes!”

“And it is a personal choice.” Why was he the one who sounded offended?

“You’re stupid,” Vanitas said the words he’d been thinking this whole time.  Then he pulled the straw off of the front of the Capri Sun and jabbed it into the pouch.  After a scuffle like that, he deserved the sweet taste of victory.  The sweet, strawberry-banana victory.  

He should probably leave before Megamind decided to pull some other ridiculous stunt and made Vanitas actually stab him, but for now the cold concrete floor was just as comfortable as the Keyblade Graveyard.  

(Plus, he didn’t want to spill his juice.)

He slowly became aware of the sniffles coming out of the blue man-child by the wall. 

“But…” 

Megamind could not get any more pathetic. Was he seriously crying over a Capri Sun? Why were all the villains here so terrible at being evil?

“I host this event every year, you know,” he muttered through his stuffy nose.  “I’ve met villains from all over the worlds.  So… you’re not the first person—or heart of darkness, I suppose—to tell me that.”

Oops, he must have said that aloud. Now he almost felt bad. Almost. 

“Uhh,” He really didn’t know where he was going with this.  He took a deep slurp on his Capri Sun before lying, “I’m sure nobody else meant it.”

Megamind scoffed.  “Of course they did.  They’re villains!  We’re not exactly built with filters!”

“You’re right.  We’re villains.  Villains lie.”

He wasn’t sure why he bothered.  It didn’t matter if Megamind felt bad about himself.  It wasn’t like his sadness would manifest as physical creatures like Vanitas’s did.

“Yeah,” Megamind sniffed, “we’re lying on the floor right now.”

Vanitas couldn’t help it.  He burst out laughing, a shocked, unused sound that felt weird in the back of his throat.  But… good, too.  Megamind was stupid— but maybe that didn’t mean he was bad.  Or good.  Or— well he was bad at being bad, clearly, and… whatever.  He knew what he meant.

He smirked up at the ceiling.  “Better than having a vertical state of being.”

“What is up?! I was trying to ask you ‘What is up?’. You humans—and human-like beings—are so difficult to connect with.” He was pouting, but at least he wasn’t leaking anymore. “I was going to bring my kazoo tonight, to groove with the younglings.” He spoke ‘younglings’ like it was a foreign word. 

To be fair, Vanitas had never heard anyone refer to teenagers as younglings, but what the heck, to each their own. 

“And… what was that supposed to accomplish?  You have music-related powers or something?”  Vanitas asked.  It would explain the ridiculous amount of speakers he’d seen peppered around the lair.

“No! Of course not, that would be silly,” absolutely ignoring the fact that Ember (one of the attending villains)’s only power was music related. “I’ll have you know I’m a prodigy at the kazoo. I used to be in a band called the Blue Hellions!” The way he said that made Vanitas smirk.

“And were you the only member of this band?” 

“No.” There was a guilty pause, giving away the villainous fib. 

“Sure.”  He snorted. Megamind sat up abruptly, and crossed his arms with a huff.

“Well, I’m sure we could have been great! Warden even came to see us! He said I was really good.”

“You can’t just use ‘us’ as a royal pronoun whenever you want.”

“Says you.”  Megamind smirked. It was unfair; smirking was Vanitas’s thing. But with all these villains in one place, evil smirks didn’t have quite the same effect.

“Well we are getting tired of lying on the floor,” Vanitas said.

Megamind struggled upright, tripping over his cape—again. Vanitas held out his hand, and Megamind pulled him to his feet. They stood there for a moment.

“You know, you’re pretty alright for villain. I don’t get to be around them much anymore, what with the whole ‘redemption’ thing.” He put legitimate air quotes around the word, for some reason using three fingers on each hand instead of two. Vanitas raised an eyebrow.

“Redemption?” Megamind seemed sheepish.

“I’m not really a villain anymore, I just enjoy having these get togethers every once in a while.” He hesitated, glancing once at Vanitas before looking down at the ground. “It’s nice to pretend I have friends.”

Images of Ventus and his friends flashed traitorously through Vanitas’s mind.  He wasn’t jealous of his lesser half—he didn’t need to be—but still…

“Yeah,” he said quietly.  “I bet it would be.”

It’s silent for a second.

“It can be, you know.” 

Vanitas made a confused sound, but Megamind was still avoiding his eyes. 

“You can… I mean, you’re welcome to come over.” He finally looked up. Hope was plain on his face. “Would you… want to be friends? I mean, conspirators.” He quickly corrected himself, and added pompously, “It wouldn’t do to be friends with a villain, of course.”

It wouldn’t do for a villain to have friends, either.  But...

“Conspirators,” Vanitas tested the word.  “I can work with that.”

He slurped the rest of his Capri Sun before they headed back into the convention.  

If he felt a little better, well, he could blame it on the sugar.

-----------------------End-----------------------

Prompts for the Team Write below.

Setting:

Fighting over the last Capri Sun

Tali:

Vanitas

“Do you know what bananas are?”

Matsu:

Megamind

“I’ll have you know I’m a prodigy at the kazoo.”

Buzzword:

Varis thought for a moment. “Main Street, right?”

“Yes. She hasn’t answered anyone’s calls, and you’ve heard the rumours, right?”

The rumours had been the bane of Varis’s work for the past three weeks. 

Phone calls from worried parents, children lost for hours, days at a time. Dogs howling at shadows, cats avoiding entire streets. The mice, all congregating around the park.

Checking in on a gran was going to be easy enough. 

“Sure thing, Jamie,” Varis answered, saluting Jamie with his cup. “I’ll make sure she calls as well.”

“Thanks Sheriff,” Jamie said, before turning to the next customer.

Such a shame he’s single.

Varis turned, frowning. He’d heard someone speak, but no one was looking at him. Shaking it off, he left the cafe.

~~

It wasn’t worth driving to Main Street. It’d take longer to get his car out of it’s parking spot, and into the traffic of everyone driving home. Additionally, his car had been playing up again- he’d have to take it back to the enchanter and get it properly looked over. 

A nice walk on a sunny afternoon, latte in hand. What’s the worst that can happen?

He hummed to himself, nodding to people as he passed them on the street. As he passed the ferry terminal, there was a group of students, running to catch the boat across the bay.

Shitshitshit. I forgot my pass. I’ll have to jump the gates again.

Varis turned to look at the students, but none of them were paying him mind. 

“WAIT!” He called, running to get through the turnstiles. The students were through and on the boat, not paying any attention to him.

How’d he know?

What’s his problem?

In his attempt to catch up the teenagers he crashed into the turnstile. Time seemed to slow down as the cold metal winded him and his latte went flying from his hand. The almost nine dollar latte, the one he had barely taken two mouthfuls of smashed into the ground, the contents spilling dirt stained tiles. 

My coffee!

Laughter and a few sympathetic words echoed in his mind. 

A small part of him mourned the loss and as he looked up Varis spied the fare evading teenagers pointing directly at him as the boat pulled away from the pier. It was just his luck. He seemed destined to not be able to enjoy anything. He couldn’t wait to get back to Mars, at least coffee there didn’t cost him an arm and a leg. 

Check out those buns… 

Blushing,Varis straightened before he moved away from the turnstile. The voice had been female in tone and given the crowds it was impossible to pinpoint who it had come from. 

With as much dignity as he could muster he left the terminal and set back out on his initial mission. 

~~

As Varis rounded the corner onto Main St, the voices in his head seemed to quieten. Maybe he was going insane. Given his day so far, it wouldn’t surprise him. 

Maple trees lined the oldest street in Nowhere. The green lawns, charmingly weathered homes, and the odd child on a bicycle transported him from the twenty-first century to a Norman Rockwell painting. 

Alice Coulter’s house was marked by its sunny yellow colour and the overabundance of lawn gnomes that were set up in some elaborate story she would tell anyone who would listen. The first step squeaked as Varis stepped up to her door. A voice in his head begged for mercy, the Lord’s prayer running on a loop before silence fell. 

Disconcerted, his hand shook slightly as he raised it to knock on the door. No one answered. He tried again. Once more no one came to the door. Peering into the window, Varis couldn’t see any signs of life. 

I knew I should have gagged him. If I knew he’d be such a screamer I would have duct taped his mouth shut.

Frowning, Varis turned around to the sweet face of Ms. Coulter. A Betty White look alike, she wore a red leisure suit and the innocent smile of a well loved grandmother. 

“Mrs Coulter,” he relaxed, “Jamie sent me round to check on you.”

“Oh dear… I hope I haven’t put you out.” 

“No ma'am, but she’s been worried about you given all the disappearances in town lately.” 

“I’ve just been at the markets getting strawberries for my jam. This year Shirley Goldman won’t take gold.” 

Bit hard to take gold when you’re six feet under Shirl. 

Varis assessed the elderly woman critically. There was no evidence of her shopping trip and he could see dark red splatters maring her otherwise immaculate clothing. 

“Right…” He trailed off as he stepped down from the porch. “You haven’t seen anything in the area have you?” 

“Me?” She blinked innocently. “Nothing out of the ordinary unless you count Deidre Flock’s sudden win streak at bridge.”

Cheating hussy. You’re next.

Her lips hadn’t moved, but they might as well have. Her smile was as serene as it was when she first answered the door, but there were the beginnings of strain. 

“Does Mrs Flock not normally win?” 

“Never.” 

Stop asking questions. 

“Hopeless at the game.”

I don’t like to prolong it.

“We all take pity on her, you know.”

Could’ve been back to making the jam already.

“She hasn’t got long to live, if you take my meaning.”

Just like him.

Varis shook his head, barely able to follow the conversation. It felt as though two were taking place; the one coming from her mouth, and the one that wasn’t. 

Mrs Coulter tilted her head. “Are you okay, Sheriff? You don’t look well.”

All that exercise. You need some fat on you. It’s good for the brain.

“Why does everyone keep commenting on my body?” 

Mrs Coulter frowned. “I didn’t say a word.”

A sheriff who can read minds, is not long for this world.

Varis straightened up, taking a step back from Mrs Coulter. “Mrs Coulter, it is an offence to make a threat against an officer of the state.”

“Didn’t say a thing,” she answered, all sweetness gone.

Varis realised that, no, she didn’t say anything. 

A sheriff who can read minds, is not long for this world- that was her thought. And the law hadn’t quite caught up with the idea of using telepathy as evidence. 

Nothing Mrs Coulter had said or done was in any way suspicious. And the fallout from arresting a ninety three year old? Unthinkable. 

Go on home, before you think of taking a look around my home.

Varis put a hand to his head. “I don’t think I’m feeling too well, Mrs Coulter. Do you mind if I use your bathroom?”

Blast, I can’t just say no. What will people think?

“You know where the bathroom is,” she said, stepping back from the door. “It hasn’t changed since you were last here.”

“I’ll just be a minute,” Varis muttered, quickly making his way to the bathroom before closing the door behind him. 

Get a grip on yourself, Varis. He stared at himself in the mirror. Besides the look of a man who had spent all day on his feet, he didn’t look too bad. And nothing had happened to suggest that he would spontaneously develop telepathy today. 

He got out his phone, thinking to call his doctor. 

They’ll stop you from going to Mars.

That thought stopped him. After all, maybe he didn’t have telepathy, and all of this was just a side effect of not having had enough caffeine for the day.

He put his phone away. No one would get hurt if he waited a day to talk to a doctor. 

He ran the water, splashing some on his face. As if some catalyst, thoughts came into his head that were not his own.

He’s taking too long. I’ll just go check on my other guest.

Oh no, she’s coming back. She’ll see that I broke free, and- ohshit.

He knew he should investigate. After all that's what good Sheriff's do. Except he knew if he poked his nose where it didn't belong he would end up with an axe in his back or worse.

No no noooo… 

And he so desperately wanted to return to Mars. His last sojourn there had been too short a mere five earth years. It was unfair really. 

No. Varis steeled himself and came to terms with a decision he decidedly would have to live with for the remainder of his life. 

Drying his hands on the hand embroided hand towel Varis waited for that pleading voice in his head to go quiet. It took all of fives minutes. 

He'd counted.

Mrs Coulter liked to take her time. 

His stomach rolled at the thought and he desperately hoped she wasn't lurking behind a wall somewhere ready to pounce. 

"Thank you!" Varis called out as he left the bathroom, "I'll tell Jamie you're doing fine. I really must be going now."

He received no response but he still ran as fast as his long legs could carry him. Should he tip someone off about the elderly woman with the dimpled smile and the cold blood of a seasoned killer? How long had she been doing this? Who would even believe him?

As he briskly walked back down main street, everything seemed a little darker, a little less Rockwellian.

His phone rang, the ringtone a tinny version of My Humps that came straight out of 2005. His sister had programmed it as a joke and three years later and about a million online videos later he was no closer to figuring out how to change it back.

Unknown number.

It was either a scam or work, neither worth his time at the end of his day. With a sigh he answered anyway.

"Hello?"

"Ah… am I speaking to Varis Katsumoto?" A female voice he didn't recognise asked. 

"Speaking."

"Mr Katsumoto, my name is Maria Liu, I'm one of the physicians at Startech Laboratories. I believe you have been attending every two weeks for the past six month to prepare for the Gamma V expedition to Mars."

Frowning, Varis couldn't recall ever meeting someone with that name. "Correct."

"Well… This is a little awkward," she paused for a moment, seemingly trying to gather her words. "You see you've been given the wrong serum and have been from the start. Unfortunately you won't be able to launch with the Gamma V. The next scheduled date for Mars is in three years, we are more than happy to-"