Chapter Text
Far away from Earth, deep in the Warlock Moon Belt, Jenny slowly wakes up. As the effects of the sedative slowly wear off, she notices she’s lying on a cold metal floor. The engineer slowly sits up and looks around. Jenny is in a small dark cell of three metal walls and the fourth being entirely thick glass showing the hallway.
She slowly gets up and walks over to the glass. Looking around she can see the large hallway is still part of the mad scientist creepy mansion, with cells going along even across from her. The engineer looks around, finding no loose panel or vents to escape from. She looks down and sees all her tools have been removed, even if there was a vent she wouldn’t be able to get out.
With a sigh, she walks over to the furthest wall and slides down into a sitting position. She pulls her knees up to her chin and waits, hoping that Dex might come and save her.
As time passes, eventually, Jenny hears someone approaching. She stands up, believing it’s Dr Monagan and puts on a brave face, but to her surprise, it was the LadyBug Boy.
The boy stands there facing her but stays looking at the ground. In a small voice, “The Master wants your assistance.” He opens the cell but Jenny doesn’t move.
“Need my assistance for what, giving my DNA?” The engineer says sarcastically.
The Ladybug Boy slowly looks up at her with a pleading expression, “It’s better for all of us if you comply with what he wants.”
Jenny was confused by that and slowly walked out of the cell and finally see what he meant. Behind the boy was a tall blue mutant bug standing on two legs with four arms. Its piercing red eyes stared down at Jenny daring her to disobey. With a gulp, she follows Ladybug Boy while the large bug walks behind her as they head through the halls.
Eventually, Jenny spots the mad scientist standing outside a large open door watching what is happening on the other side.
Dr Monagan spots them arriving and he smirks at Jenny sending a shiver down her spine. “Ah, you came just in time. That will be all.” He shoos the Ladybug boy away without looking at him.
He turns but before he leaves he gives Jenny an apologetic look and then finally walks away. “I’m not going to help you in whatever mad experiment you have in mind.”
The mad scientist chuckles, “It’s a shame I’ll have to put my half-insect Jenny experiment on hold but I think you and I will both be very interested in this experiment.” The noise from the other room got louder drawing Jenny’s attention.
Jenny peeks her head in and sees the room is a loading dock and a military ship just landed. The door opens and a few soldiers walk out. Dr Monagan walks towards the ship as the Captain walks out. Jenny decides to stay behind the mad scientist to try and figure out what is happening.
The two men shake hands appearing to have known each other for a long time.
“Captain Hank, it’s been a while.”
“It sure has.” The Captain replies. “Caught one of your experiments causing trouble on Earth.”
“Hopefully not too much trouble.”
Their conversation continues but Jenny tunes it out as she sees a giant green bug being strapped down and carried out of the cargo bay. Jenny has never seen a bug like that but something seemed very familiar with it.
The soldiers move the bug through the same door Jenny and Dr Monagan just went through but go down the other end of the hallway. The engineer decides to follow the soldiers.
The soldiers bring the mutant bug into a large cell similar to the one Jenny was in earlier but this one was large enough to hold the green bug. The bug slowly shifts around but stays asleep as the soldiers remove the chains and replace them with some heavy-duty ones that are already in the cell.
The chains are connected to the wall opposite the entrance, wrapping around the wings and claws of the bug including a metal collar around the neck.
Jenny shakes her head, not liking seeing this bug chained up, “do you really have to chain him up like that?”
One of the soldiers turns to her, “If you saw the damage this thing caused tonight, you’d be wanting more restraints.” The bug stirs, shifting its head, “It’s waking up, let's move.”
The soldiers start moving out of the cell but Jenny stays in place.
“Man, it’s going to take Metro a year to fix all that damage.”
Jenny spins around, “wait, Metro? As in Metro City.”
Before the soldier could answer her, Captain Hank and Dr Monagan walk into the cell. The mad scientist speaks up, “yes, I would have thought you would recognise your friend.”
The realisation hits Jenny. That's why the bug looked so familiar. She looks back at the bug and spots on its chest the Habitat Pilot badge. “Zap?” Jenny couldn’t believe it. The giant mutant green bug in front of her is her co-worker, Zap.
The bug slowly stirs awake. Jenny takes a step forward standing right in front of him. As Zap slowly opens his eyes he spots a blue hair girl in his vision. He shakes his head a little trying to focus on who’s there.
“Zap?” Jenny asks in worry. His vision clears and he recognises Jenny.
‘Jenny? It's me!’ Zap moves his head a little closer to her. Jenny takes another step forward and reaches out her hand to him. However, before Jenny could touch him Zap spots someone walking up behind her, he looks over and spots Dr Monagan.
In a panic, he roars, stands up and pulls himself against the chains. Jenny doesn’t know what caused him to freak out and tries to get his attention but in doing so, Zap swings his arms out hitting Jenny causing her to crash into the metal wall.
Satisfied that the chains are properly holding Zap, Dr Monagan turns to the Captain, “Thank you for returning my experiment, until we meet again.”
“Hopefully not anytime sooner.” With that, the Captain and the soldiers left leaving Jenny with the mad scientist and a still-panicked Zap. The engineer gets up, rubbing her shoulder, watching Zap try and break out of the chains.
“Well,” the mad scientist says, “it looks like we will have to wait a few hours for it to get used to being back home.” He turns to the exit and stands at the door control. “Come on, let’s not waste any more time.” Jenny turns to look at him but doesn’t move. Dr Monagan raises his eyebrow, “really you want to stay and get yourself killed?”
Jenny takes a step deeper into the cell but not any closer to Zap, “I’m not leaving Zap.”
“Suit yourself.” With that he closes to cell leaving Jenny locked in with Zap, “It doesn’t matter to me if I collect your DNA from you alive or dead.”
The mad scientist leaves and Jenny turns her attention back to Zap who seems to have calmed a bit with him leaving but is still trying to break out of the chains.
With a deep breath, she slowly walks toward the mutant bug. Zap is too busy trying to break out he doesn’t notice Jenny until she calls his name, “Zap?” He looks down at her and growls but doesn’t attack her. “Zap… I know you’re scared. I’m scared too.”
The mutant bug boy stops struggling. “I don’t fully know what’s happening right now and things don’t seem to be getting better. I don’t know if you can even hear what I’m saying but right now I really want my friend back.” Tears start to well up in Jenny’s eyes. “I know we can get out of here, back home to the Habitat but I can’t do this on my own.” Jenny puts her hand on his claw, “please, I need my friend back.”
Zap doesn’t understand but something inside him burned. He screams in pain, grabbing his head. Jenny steps back and watched Zap struggle in pain. To Jenny’s surprise, Zap starts shrinking, and the chains around Zap loosen as he gets smaller until they fall off him, hitting the floor. He continues to shrink until he mutates back into this human-green skin form. He falls to his knees still grabbing his head.
Jenny runs forward sliding onto her knees in front of him. With a final grunt of pain, his wings turn sky blue, his skin turns white and his eyes turn from buggy yellow to blue.
Slowly, Zap moves his hands from his head and looks down at them while slowly sitting up.
Jenny was shocked, she couldn’t move, not sure what to do but when he looked up at her she had to say something. “Zap?”
He replies, “Jenny” with a tired breath. The engineer lets out a breath she didn’t realise she was holding. The now back to normal bug boy looks to his right and sees the heavy metal chains on the ground, then looks around remembering they’re still locked in the cell.
Zap goes to stand up and Jenny follows suit but Zap falls but down on the ground, the exhaustion of everything has finally caught up to him.
Jenny quickly catches him and moves behind him so he can lie down on his back. She sits on the ground with the metal wall against her back and places his head in her lap. “It’s ok,” she says placing her right hand on his left shoulder for comfort.
Zap tries to stay awake, “I’m sorry.” He mumbles out.
“It’s not your fault. We’ll get out of here in the morning.” Zap gives in to the exhaustion and falls asleep. Jenny leans her head back against the wall staring out into the cell.
Jenny doesn’t know how but she knows they will get out of here and back home.