MVA Growing Out of the Genes

Author Notes: first chapter is a MAJOR spoiler for the movie, just FYI for all of those who have not seen it yet.

Chapter 1- Breakthrough

The time was 0100 hours, and one certain mad scientist was till going strong about his frantic craft. Under the pale light of the solitary red bulb that hung from the ceiling of the room, thin fingers flicked effortlessly over delicate wires and fragile machine parts; taking what was once the garbage of the world and transforming it into an ingenious ready-made-miracle. He had once believed that, for all his creativity, it would take a miracle to find the solution to his ever prevalent problem… But now…

Years ago, way back when they first drug him off to this dreadful place, he had struggled and agonized over this very thing. He had labored for weeks, months at a time, sometimes even forgetting to eat or sleep as he had searched and studied and experimented to fix the failure of what was supposed to be his greatest achievement. But despite all his efforts, all his tests and theories, nothing had worked. All experiments had resulted in failure, some more spectacularly than others, but still no change, no results, always a failure…

In some ways this could he seen as the prevailing success of his 'greatest achievement': it was one of the things that he had admired about the cockroach, its ability to survive and adapt. That was why he had chose to dedicate his life to harnessing those qualities for the betterment of all human kind… and now he was stuck, fully devoted to it in a way he had not desired to be.

But he got over it. Fifty years has a way of changing one's mind after a while, maybe not always for the best, but the benefits of his condition did by far out way its one great failure. He had stopped aging, his ability to sense his surroundings had quadrupled due to the antennae he had acquired, he had incredible dexterity and could literally climb the walls, his survival rates were off the charts, and he no longer contributed to the growing waste of society, now being able to eat it comfortably. In all, he had finally realized that it was merely vanity that kept him to his task, and an unnecessary vanity at that.

So he had put it away, resigned to his fate and took to other tasks. The arrival of his other cellmates proved a welcomed distraction and the daunting task of educating the Missing Link and later the proclaimed Benzoate Ostylezene Bicarbonate certainly had kept him very busy. And after a while, it wasn't so bad… He almost began to enjoy his new life as Dr. Cockroach, and being allowed to continue his studies was a welcomed blessing, as was his growing love for slippers as it helped smooth over the ruff edges. All in all, they had a good life here at this prison, and despite being rather dull no one could say that it was truly horrible… And he was content.

Until she arrived…

Susan Murphy, 49.6 feet tall, scared, confused and defiantly human. A freak accident with a meteorite had resulted in her unwilling change, and before you could say "here comes the bride" Monger and his men had showed up on the scene and carted her away from the church she had transformed in. She had a life waiting for her and it had been stolen from her in an instant, without regard or consideration to her feelings. He could relate.

That was why he agreed to the experiments. Contrary to what most would assume it was she who asked him if he could change her back. Once Susan had stopped flinching at the sight of them she had taken the time to get to know her fellow inmates, and upon hearing that he was a (mad) scientist, she had gone on her hands and knees and with tear-filled eyes, had begged for him to help her. But how could he refuse her? He had done everything in his power to go back to the way he was, or at least to some semblance of normality, and despite his pronounced lack of success he had still tried. Now here was Susan, in practically the same predicament as he and though he now considered himself a hopeless cause perhaps there was still hope for her…

He began to believe that he was cursed. There was no change, no positive results, only failures after failures. Susan was a good sport about it, never giving up the staunch belief that he would one day figure out a solution, and he tried to remain upbeat and positive around her so that she would not see his growing disappointment with himself. The day that she may have actually grown a few feet, due to another of his failed experiments, was devastating. He laughed as he told her, but on the inside, he could not have been more crushed.

And then they had been granted their freedom. Defeat one robot, and you get a 'get out of jail free' card, by authorization of the president. To say that their hopes had been high would have been an understatement, at least until they caught sight of the monstrosity. It had even caused the fearless Link to back up a few paces, and Susan into near hysterics. Only Bob had not quailed at the sight of it; it seems there are some benefits to being brainless.

Unfortunately, or fortunately whichever way you prefer to view it as, he was not brainless, and he would have to face this alien robot with all his wits intact. Building the rocket had been simple enough, the slight flutter or pride as it worked as he had wanted it too had done wonders to his self esteem, only for it to end up in the river along with the rest of them after they had 'caught' Bob at 85 miles per hour.

It was Susan who finally defeated the robot. Using her meteorite endowed strength to hold it off of herself and the bridge; she was an awe inspiring sight to behold. Even as he clambered up into the robot to disable the deflector shield, he could not help but admire her. Perhaps it was this minor distraction that resulted in his next failure; as instead of turning off the shield, he accidently caused it to beam light into Insectosauraus' eyes, causing the beast to become useless. Berating himself on his carelessness, he scrambled back to the generator, only to catch sight of her.

This Susan was strong. This Susan was confident. Hauling at the bound arms of the robot, she managed to change the giant automaton's center of gravity until it began to fall onto the collapsing bridge. He barely managed to shake himself out of his reverie and get out in time before the bridge finally gave and the robot was destroyed. He had just been so stunned, she had been magnificent, and he could not get it out of his mind.

On the plane ride to their freedom, Susan had been all excitement; speaking nonstop, an amazed smile on her face as she exclaimed with pride over her accomplishment. He could not help but be enamored with her, nor could he help the slight pang he felt when she mentioned her ever waiting Derrick. 'We could all do with a Derrick', he had said, and it was the truth. Perhaps if he had someone waiting for him like she did he would have kept up his search for a cure, but he had no one to return to, save for the so called Boards of Science, who had ridiculed him and called him crazy to pursue his chosen fields of expertise.

They had gone to meet him, only for him not to show and Susan had left them in the care of her parents and friends while she went to retrieve him. He had worried about her, as the sun slowly made its descent across the sky and they had unintentionally scared off the party goers. It was he who had convinced the others that they should leave and go look for her; and when they had found her, alone and depressed, the good doctor had been surprised at the wave of ill will he felt towards the man he had never met, for causing her to get her hopes up so.

He had watched, as her sorrow had turned to frustration to anger and finally into joy as she accepted her change. He marveled at her, for her to be so accepting of it. Indeed, she was no longer 'just Susan', but she had never been 'just Susan' to him, he realized, only to watch in helpless horror as she was taken away from them by an Alien Tractor beam.

Helpless that is what he was. And for hours he agonized over it. He didn't know what to do. For all his mind-power, for all his 'mad genius', he had no way to get her back. It took Link's impassioned speech to return his will to him, and to get him to convince Monger to lend them his jetpacks. But he did, and it was with renewed confidence and determination that they set off to rescue their captured friend.

It was a shock to see her small; both a small blow to his pride that a sinister alien could change her back and not he, and also elation that she was now back to her desired form. She was normal. She could go back to her life in society with her friends and family, back to the life she belonged to. Now all they had to do was rescue her so that she could enjoy it. He had blanched horribly at Bob's suggestion, but because he could not think up anything better they had gone with it, and to his disbelief it had actually worked. It seems the sinister alien's clones, for all the technological advancement, were not much brighter than Bob… if that much.

They managed to get Susan away from the clone guard with minimal damages. God, he had been so happy that she was safe, he had nearly kissed her, in front of Link and Bob no less. With her safe, he concocted a plan to rid themselves of their alien problem as well, his confidence boosted by the fact that the alien clones seemed notoriously stupid, until a single slip of the finger ruined all hopes of getting away unnoticed.

Running from the angry hoards of clones, they made it to the main generator, where he was confronted with something that lifted his spirits immensely. The ships computer was controlled by a hexadecimal color-code system, one very much like the one he had wasted endless hours practicing on when he was young and in college. Finally a success, he breached the security and set the ship to self destruct. But his elation was short lived, as the ship began to close the doors to the outside, cutting off their escape route. Link managed to grab one of the alien's hover crafts but with their combined weight, they were too heavy, and as they began to crash, Susan was the only one who managed to get thrown past the doors in time.

They told her to go, as she cried out in frustration at being unable to break the doors she had so easily smashed before, and he was glad that he had managed to save her in time. She was normal sized again and she could return to her home and family again. If anyone deserved to get out of this alive, it was she.

As the timer counted down and the ship crumbled to bits about them, he had felt a sort of peace fall over him. This was it then, shaking hands with Link and Bob as the clock began its final count, he humored bob for what he thought was the last time. As a massive piece of the ship crashed down towards them, he had flinched; ready for the inevitable… that hadn't come.

It was Susan. Somehow she had regained the quantonium that had bestowed her with her massive size and strength, and had caught the falling debris and saved them. She had turned back, of her own free will; to save them when they had told her to save herself… she was truly magnificent.

He had watched on in awe as she ran through the crashing ship, smashing effortlessly through the metal walls and leaping fearlessly into the open air as the self-destruct was finally set off in a powerful explosion. She was, to use her own words, simply amazing, all 49.6 feet of her, and Derrick had been a fool not to see it. And he had watched her again with pride as, when they landed, she had turned down Derrick's oh so generous offer with all the flair that could be desired. She was wonderful.

As Derrick had crashed to the ground, Monger had in turn requested their aid in defeating a gigantic snail that was attacking Paris that very moment and he had watched as Susan's eyes light up in delight. And now they were back; only staying at their old prison for as long as it took for the new building that was to be their home to be built. It was to be by the coast, in a wide, sparsely populated area. Were Insecto could fly and Susan could stretch her legs with ease, and not at all like the cold, unfriendly place they had stayed at for the past fifty years. A real home.

Perhaps that was what got him stuck on the idea of his problem once again. The idea that he would be living in the same home as the woman the found himself unable to resist falling for. Yes, he could admit it now, he was completely enamored with her… but there arose his dilemma, or rather his insecurities. Who would love a cockroach, or someone with the face of one? If he could but return to just the barest semblance of a human face, his confidence would grow threefold, but as he returned to this long forsaken experiment, he was faced with failure yet again.

Days of failures turned to weeks, weeks to months, and he once again started to loose hope that he could ever separate the cockroach genes from his own. He'd tired nearly everything he could think of… the DNA strands were just too tightly bound. He could no more remove the cockroach genes than he could his own human ones. And he began to despair...

Until she gave him his breakthrough.

It had happened at lunch. In the prevailing weeks after the announcement of the building of the Monster House, as Monger so eloquently put it, the ongoing topic was about home life. Link was unsure about it all was worried that this would just become a 'nicer cage' and Bob, ever curious, asked all sorts of nonsensical questions about what he thought it would be like. Even he could not relate as his own home life spent was spent mostly in a lab; really it was only Susan that had any true experience with what a home was like. And naturally all these questions would lead her to reminisce.

That particular lunch had her talking about her child hood; laughing and joking about how, when she was really little she was always growing out of her jeans. Shooting up like a little weed, she wearing skirts and dresses just so she could keep in her clothes.

It was that one phrase: growing out of her jeans. It got stuck in his mind, repeating over and over like it was something important. It bothered him as he listed to the rest of her story with half an ear. Over and over: growing out of her jeans, growing out of the jeans, growing out of the GENES!

"EUREKA!" This was it! The solution to all his problems! And he leapt off towards his lab to begin at once.

He had originally made the experiment so that the Cockroach genes would fuse seamlessly to the genes of humans, giving them all the benefits of a cockroach's survival and etcetera. The side-affect of having the head of a cockroach was simply a factor of the two strands being fused together to closely. He had focused so much on removing the cockroach DNA, knowing that it was made to be tenacious, that he had completely over looked his own human genes. If he could somehow stimulate his human genes and make them grow, becoming the dominate strand, his face should return to a more human physique.

It was perfect! It was foolproof! It was fail proof! And he had Susan to thank as his inspiration!

Not even he could mess this up now…

AN: Here it is the first chapter of my epic MVA fanfic. It was a lot more focused on what happened in the movie than I thought it would be but I think that it ties into the story rather well. I am a full time shipper of Susan/Doc fan fiction, and it is also a key point in the story as well so we should be good. There isn't very much dialog in this chapter, I'm more of a descriptive writer than anything else, but there will be in more in the others. Anyways here it is, please review and tell me what you think!

Much Love,
Demimeg, minor goddess of insecure love