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Syx chewed on his lower lip, it seemed this was going to require much more openness than he would generally offer. Rubbing his thumb over Harrison’s lips he debated if this was worth it. Worth exposing himself over. But then… everything was changing anyway… and this feeling… he couldn’t bare to deny himself this.

“My Wayne takes the safety of the city very seriously as well. So do I actually. We just have very different ideas about how to handle Metrocity,” he blew out a breath and stuck to the game, “There have only been three accidents in the decade I’ve been doing this,” he spoke softly, the deaths always weighed on his conscience. He had killed before and since, but those had all been pedophiles, rapists, serial killers, the world was a better place without them. Even then it was a last resort. These though… they’d been citizens, “Martin Anders, Susie McKnight, and Officer Brant Holmes. All early in my career. Anders and McKnight were teen runaways. They’d slept in the building I’d picked for the battle after I’d cleared it earlier that evening. It was winter and they were so cold the brain bots didn’t pick them up on the pre-battle scans…” he closed his eyes, no one had known they were there until long after the battle, “Officer Holmes got caught in an explosion.”

He let out a breath and continued honestly, “I take my battles very seriously. No one has gotten hurt since and we both abide by the time out rule during battle. Miss Ritchi has never suffered worse because of me than rope burn and once mild hypothermia.”

Harrison sat, quietly listening and mulling that over.  To his knowledge, no civilians had ever been killed in Wayne’s battles with his Megamind, though to be fair, he’d never actually asked either.  But if there would have been deaths, then he’s willing to bet that Wayne would have taken them as hard as Rapunzel’s.  He can also feel the sincerity behind Syx’s words, coupled with a not-insignificant amount of guilt.  It reminds him that the man in his lap really is a criminal, perhaps more so than any of the other Megaminds he’s known.  Does he really want to fuck someone with blood on his hands, no matter how accidental?  Then he thinks of his own accidents – a lab explosion at the first Megamind Inc HQ almost killed Minion and seriously injured several employees.  And what about the products that hadn’t worked as planned?  His first phone had a glitch that interfered with a certain kind of pacemaker and they hadn’t found that out until three people were dead.  He had paid off the families for their loss and had tightened product safety testing, but sometimes unforseen things happen….

“I think,” he finally said slowly and picking his words carefully, “that he’ll be less interested in your past and more interested in what you plan to do in this city from now on.  Metro is wonderful and I love that the dimensional rift has brought so many of our people together.  I can’t wait for you to meet Sheldon and Makk and ooh maybe even Vice and the kids….” he trailed off with an almost dreamy grin, having gotten distracted from the point.  Licking his lips, he refocused.  

“But the portals have brought a lot of instability here as well.  Magics, villains, demons, monsters, magic anons, and rogue scientists are something Wayne and I deal with on a regular basis.  A difference in how to handle the city is fine. As long as you’re serious about not putting innocent civilians at risk, it will go a long way towards convincing him that you aren’t a threat.”  

Syx nodded, chewing his lip, “The game with Wayne is just a game. What I want Harrison, is to control my city again. To fix the issues that have made this city a corrupt hell whole. There is a reason I rhyme this city’s name with atrocity. Because it is one. I’ve lived on these streets. I’ve walked in its gutters. Been the trash in them. I’ve seen the shadows that the happy citizens long to ignore. That’s fine. They can stay blind and ignorant, but that doesn’t make the issues go away. They just fester and grow worse.” 

“I want the ghettos to not be hell. I want people off the street. I want poor families to be able to feed their kids. For the shop owners in my neighborhoods to not fear their safety from random violence and robberies. I want people to be able to sleep at night with out fear of hearing gun fire. For the hard drugs to be off the street. I don’t want to see bruises on the prostitutes and street workers. I don’t want to see men and women starving on the street because of what they look like, where they were born, or who they were in the past. It’s inhuman and cruel. I don’t want to see men rotting in prison for stupid crimes. Good men who will forever be branded as criminals because of one mistake. Men who have come back again and again not because they are bad men but because there is no life for them, no jobs for branded criminals, no apartments they can rent. The only life they can ever have is in a gang. I don’t want anyone to have to choose between eating and thievery,” he took a deep breath trying to calm the tide of his passionate rant.

“I am fully aware how hypocritical that sounds. I was recently asked why I wasn’t a hero. The simple answer is that heros can’t do shit. All they are is pretty figureheads that rescue people from big threats while the rot continues. The only way to control crime, is to control crime, and to fix the issues that make people turn to it in the first place,” his passion burned through him like a fire that would eat his mind. The need to fix the injustices.

He had done many horrible things over the years to facilitate his role as the shadowy Mr Blue, king pin of Metro City’s underworld. Over half his control had disappeared with the merged universes, the rest quickly falling to chaos with the new powers in the mix. What this city was now wasn’t something he recognized. Worse then he’d seen it in years. All his work in the shadows undone overnight. It made him feel half insane.