Hi all! This story has been on my mind for years and thought why not just write it out. Hope you all enjoy!
"Tung look out!"
"There's no way out!"
"Say goodbye to the life you knew Dex"
"NO!"
Dex jolts awake. He sits up, whipping the sweat off of his forehead.
He mumbles "What a weird nightmare". He swings his legs around to stand up only for his feet to hit a wall. He looks at the wall confused, "what the?", then looks around at the rest of the room only to realise this is his old academy dorm room. He grabs his wrist communicator from the bedside table and checks the date only for it to read the current date. So if his not in the past why is he at The Science Academy and not the Habitat?
He goes over to his desk and activates his holo-computer and sees documents open of assignments for his final year but it doesn't make sense because he never finished his course to open the Habitat.
"Say goodbye to the life you knew" he mumbles, "no it can't be." Dex searches up Hamilton Habitat only to find newsletters of it closing down 10 years ago after his father disappeared. He then searches up about the Red Lava Swarm and himself only to find no results.
Dex learns back thinking about the last thing he remembers but most of it is a blur until it finally clicks that voice belonged to "Syrrus. He changed the past, but why change mine?"
He then searched Syrrus and gets lots of recent results. From what Dex could gather, Syrrus appeared three years ago and helped the government against alien insects. There were multiple attacks in many cities across Earth but Dex remembers those never happened.
He then finds a news video six months ago saying Syrrus has joined the military to fight the growing war against the Gordanian. The war isn't different but now with Syrrus part of it, this could be bad for all humans.
"I've got to fix this but how?" He says to himself. "No portal, ship, or team. Think Dex! There has to be a way." He continues watching the video of Sally Keener being given a tour of the military facility by Syrrus and a man with a metal arm until he spots something in the background. He pauses the video and zooms in to see it's Jenny.
If there is one engineer that can help Dex fix this it's Jenny!
He searches for more details about where the video was recorded and found out the base is located in Western Australia. He then goes through the draws until he finds the keys to the Habitat, "let's hope dads old ship is still there."
Dex flies over the desert in his dad's old ship. Thankfully it was still there and all it needed was to re-fuel. He uses the scans to try and find any buildings. It takes a while but he spots something metal just over a small mountain. He flies over and spots a massive facility. Circling back to the top of the mountain he lands and uses the ship's scans to get a closer look at the place. Sure enough, the place is crawling with military ships and soldiers patrolling the outer areas.
"This has to be where Jenny is." He hops out of the ship and makes his way down the mountain, laying low hoping no one spots him.
A fighter ship flies over Dex as he finally reaches the outer fence to a large loading dock and watches as the ship lands. Dex looks around trying to find a way inside but then he spots something blue.
It's Jenny, she's heading to the ship that just landed. She has the same blue hair up in a pony tail but she is wearing a military uniform similar to the others, however, she also has tools hanging off her belt and not wearing any goggles. The door opens and the pilot walks out handing her a clipboard. She looks at the information on the clipboard, shares a few words with the pilot and then he leaves to head inside. Jenny walks into the ship leaving Dex's sight.
He takes the chance of no one around and jumps over the fence and heads inside the same ship. There he sees Jenny looking over some systems in the cockpit not noticing someone else has joined her.
"Jenny! I'm so glad to find you." Dex says happily but Jenny doesn't have the same expression.
She jumps back putting her hands in front showing no recognition of the intruder. "Who are you? How did you get in?"
"Jenny it's me, it's Dex" She shakes her head, "Dex Hamilton."
"I don't know who you are." Without him seeing she activates a distress signal on her wrist.
"Don't you remember the habitat? The team? Habi bot?" Still, Jenny shows no sign of recognising who this man is or what his even talking about.
Before Dex could say anything else two guards enter the ship and point their guns at him. He brings his hands up in surrender. Jenny quickly runs behind the guards while one of the guards speaks into their wrist-com, "Sir, we have the intruder."
"Who are you and what are you doing here?" The other guard's demands.
Dex doesn't say anything, trying to think of a way to escape but with only one way out it doesn't look possible. "He said his name is Dex Hamilton," Jenny speaks up.
A voice on the guard's wrist com "did you say, Hamilton?"
"Affirmative Sir."
"Bring him into interrogation 1, I'll come down to meet our intruder."
The guard talking to the commander closes his com and walks over to Dex to cuff his wrists in front of him. They lead him out of the ship into the building leaving Jenny behind with confusion and questions.
Dex was led into a small room with a table and chair in the middle. He was placed in the chair and then the guards left him alone. Minutes past leaving Dex's mind to wonder. How come Jenny doesn't remember him? Why does he remember?
His thoughts are interrupted by a familiar blue man entering the room, "Syrrus."
There, stands the bug mad blue tentacle man only instead of wearing his signature navy blue coat his wearing a black military coat with ranks on his shoulders.
"Seems you do remember. That was always the possibility of happening but good thing I was prepared." He says with a smug grin.
Dex stands up, "What have you done?!"
"Maybe not all your memory. Don't you remember the time machine?"
Dex rolls his eyes, "yes I do, what I don't understand is why to change the history where you work for the military."
"Its simple really, I realised the reason I kept failing was because of you and your team of misfits. So I decided to go back and take out all of you one by one but when I did some local history first I realised I could do so much better. You probably saw the news of all the insect attacks a few years ago."
"Yeah, those never happened, not on that scale."
"I planned all those attacks on the cities. With the amount of destruction, the government were desperate to find anyone to save them so there I was. Soon enough I was in charge of all insect projects and programs by the government. With me, under control, I stopped the Red Lava Swarm long before they even thought of Earth."
"So they build your army and they don't realise it's a double-cross."
"They believe their enemy is a lizard species on another planet but is right under their noses!" He laughs.
Dex sits back down and thinks over the information. "But why make Jenny work for you?"
"Funny coincidence really, The Jenny Program was working in the same building as an insect weapon testing and when I recognised her, I knew using her skills would help me and soon enough she doubled my creature's strength."
Dex gets angry, "and the others?" Banging his fist on the table "what did you do to Zap and Tung?!"
Syrrus looks away seeming unbothered by Dex's reaction but is loving every second of it. "The green frog is working as a tracker for the Hunter Division and Zap…" He turns back to Dex, "you'll see soon enough."
Syrrus knocks on the door and two guards enter. "What are you going to do with me?"
He smirked, "Well protocol states that all intruders are killed on site but I believe you deserve something special." The guards look at each other in delight understanding what their boss is talking about. They take him out of the room and walk down a few halls with, Syrrus behind them until they reach an indoor loading dock but the main exit and other doors have all been welded shut and many items have been smashed and abandoned. The guards chuckle as they push Dex in and close the door behind him leaving the entomologist alone.
Dex hears the door open above him and notices the second level has a shield barrier making the only way out was the door he just came in. Off-duty soldiers fill the second floor. Dex looks closer and realises they are taking wages but for what?
He looks around at the broken items, taking a closer look and seeing a lot of claw marks. Syrrus walks into view and the realisation sinks in. They're here to watch him get killed by an insect.
The door opens and the soldiers cheer.
"10 bucks he screams like a baby."
"5 bucks he doesn't last a minute."
"20 if he breaks out of the cuffs."
Before the doors fully open Syrrus's voice speaks over the others. "It was nice knowing you Hamilton so I thought it deemed fit you die the way you were meant to on the first day we met."
At the door stands a creature with bright yellow eyes with a deep growl. The creature slowly steps into the light as the audience cheers.
Dex looks horrified.
"Zap?!"
There stood Zap but he looks very different. Instead of his pilot uniform, he is wearing the military pants, shoes, and navy undershirt the other soldiers wear. His green skin is covered in scars, bruises, and healing wounds. A large scar goes across the left side of his face from the small horn by his hair, through his eye making it blind, ending at the left pincer where half is missing. His purple wings stand threatening with small holes and tears at the tips, showing damage but not enough to prevent flying.
"Zap it's me, it's Dex." Said pleadingly. He takes a step forward but that was a big mistake as Zap roared and took an attack position. Dex steps back, "don't you remember? The Habitat, the ship, all the adventures the others and we went on?" Zap shows no sign of recognising what he is saying or is even listening at all.
Syrrus laughs as he sees Dex's poor attempt, "of course, he doesn't know you, in this world, I made sure he never left the program."
Dex looks back at the bug boy in panic, unsure what to do so he continues to back up and Zap matches his pace stalking forward until the entomologist's back hit a storage crate causing Zap to lunge for the attack.
Dex dodges to the right just in time as Zap smashes into the crate destroying it. Dex looks back, slowly getting up. Zap throws a price of the crate in frustration but Dex's attention is deterred when he spots something. At Zap's feet are scattered tools, one of them is a mini laser cutter that can free him from the cuffs, only one problem, he has to keep Zap distracted enough for him to grab the tool and escape.
The bug boy lunges again and Dex ducks. Zap saves himself from the wall by flying up. He swoops down and Dex runs. He ducks again but Zap's claws cut into his shoulder. Dex hisses in pain and looks at the damage while Zap lands on a pile of crates looking down at him smiling in joy. The crowd cheers.
Dex looks over and sees that the tool isn't far but Zap could still beat him to it. It becomes a standoff waiting for the other to make the first move. Syrrus gets impatient, "stop playing with your food and kill him already!" Zap looks over at Syrrus and then back at Dex, it's now or never.
Dex runs but Zap catches up quick and knocks him over fortunately, the force made him slide over to the broken crate. Dex grunts in frustration, the tool it right there but he can't reach it.
Then, Zap lands at Dex's feet and grabs his ankles, digging his claws into them. Zaps wings buzz as he starts to slowly lift up making Dex realise what's happening and using the movement to grab the cutters.
Zap flies higher and higher aiming to reach the top. The soldiers cheer on and yell "drop him!"
"Yeah smash his head open!" Dex doesn't have much time, he looks around and sees the pile of crates Zap was standing on earlier. "Sorry about this Zap." He breaks his cuffs and then swings himself forward enough that he uses his free hand to grab Zap's shirt. Zap hovers, confused by the sudden weight change but before he could do anything Dex uses the handle of the tool to his Zap on his back between his wings. Zap screams in pain as his wings stop moving. He lets go of Dex and they both crash into the pile of crates.
The entomologist holds his ribs in pain and slowly gets to his knees. He looks over and sees Zap also get up and looks at his wings. It takes a few seconds but his wings started moving again. Once he was sure his wings are fine he looks over at Dex with rage and roars.
He brings his hands up in defence, "I'm sorry for that but I knew it would hurt the least." Zap stalks forward ready to attack. "I know you're angry, spent your life in pain hurt by these guys." He gestures to the second floor, "but this isn't your life. You escaped and were allowed to be your own person."
Zap slows down his pace, seeming a bit curious about what he's saying. "You lived your life in the sky, free to fly wherever you wanted." The bug boy stops his pace and looks over at the hanger doors, "Have you ever seen the blue sky? Feel the wind in your hair or the sun on your face?"
The bug boy shows an expression of longing and sadness. This Zap has never seen a sunset but from what he's heard from the guards and scientist that torment him daily, the sunsets is something different every time making you feel the experience all over again and he is missing out on that. At night he dreams of what it must feel like but in the morning his reminded that dreams don't come true by a new test or beating. He will never leave this nightmare.
Dex thinks he's getting to Zap and moves slightly closer but the movement gets Zap's attention. He growls, grabbing Dex by the neck with his left hand and raising his right to strike. Dex grabs his arm in panic, and looks up at Zap, "I'm so sorry that all of this is happening to you."
Dex closes his eyes waiting for the blow but Zap freezes. Zap has heard those words but never directed them at him. Why was this man, his prey apologising?
The entomologist slowly opens his eyes as Zap lowers his arm. What he said got through. "You don't deserve to live in this nightmare."
Zap loosens his grip, feeling very conflicted. He's not sure why but something is telling him not to hurt this man. He lets go taking a step back. Dex is happy to see his friend is still in there but before he could say anything the metal collar around Zap's neck goes off.
Zap screams in pain, falling to his knees as electricity sparks out of the collar. "Zap!" Dex yells. He moves forward to try and help but the electricity hits shooting him back.
As this happens multiple guards rush in separating them. Two guards hold Dex while three others circle Zap pointing guns as the collar turns off leaving Zap breathing heavily on all fours.
"Leave him alone!" Dex struggles with the guards.
"I'm impressed." Dex stops and turns to the voice to see Syrrus, a man with a metal arm, and Dr Monagan. "My experiments are designed to have little weakness and yet you were able to not only figure it out but effectively disable his wings with no struggle. How were you able to figure this out?" The mad scientist asked.
"Lucky hit," Dex remarks sarcastically.
The man with the metal arm steps forward showing annoyance, "this has gone on long enough, let me finish him off and be done with it."
Syrrus seems frustrated but agrees with the man, "fine, take the experiment back to its cell." One of the three guards cuffs Zap while two more enter with metal poles that magnetically connect to the collar. Zap is then taken out of the arena by the five guards with Dr Monagan leading the way.
The man activates a blaster gun on his metal arm and points it at Dex ready to fire but Dex has other plans. The entomologist quickly elbows the guard to his right, knocking them down. He grabs the gun dodging the blaster, sets it to stun and shoots the other guard then the metal arm man. Syrrus turns into a swarm heading to Dex but before the swarm could hit he spots the queen and shoots causing him to reform and collapse.
Dex runs out of the door, and down the corridor before anyone else arrives but he enters a dead end. He looks back to the way he came from only to hear the guards are getting closer. He looks back spotting a vent at the bottom right just big enough for him to fit in.
Dropping the gun he quickly gets to work grabbing the laser cutter and opening the grate. He slides in, placing the grate back in place and watches as the guards move on. Dex sighs in relief but is unsure what to do next, he mumbles "I've got to get out of here but Jenny didn't remember me." He starts crawling through the vents looking into each room trying to figure out what to do next. "I was so sure I was getting through to Zap, there must be something that will make them remember."
He crawls until he comes across an empty room safe enough to leave the vent. He grabs the cutters and was halfway done when he heard a shuffling noise behind him. He looks back but sees no one there and the noise stops as he turns back to the grate.
"Dude."
"AHH!" Dex screams, jumping in fright and he falls out of the vent hitting the floor in the empty room. The entomologist sits up, rubbing his head in pain. The figure jumps down from the vents.
"Tung! Am I glad to see you?" The figure is the frog boy but he is wearing the military hunting uniform and showing no sign of recognising Dex.
"Who are you?" Tung puts his hands on his hips.
Dex sighs, "right you wouldn't know me."
"You didn't answer my question. Who are you, why were you in the vent and why do you smell familiar?"
"Wait you weren't sent to find me?"
Tung looks confused, "no, I could smell you in the vents. I don't know why but I needed to find out what it was." Dex ponders the information. If he was close to getting Zap to remember, maybe this is his chance to get Tung to as well.
"Ok, I know this is going to sound crazy but this world isn't real. Syrrus isn't your boss, I am, and we worked at my Habitat protecting bugs not hunting them down and weaponising them."
Tung only looks back at Dex with a blank stare. Dex sighs, "oh who am I kidding, looks like Syrrus finally beat me." He sits down on a dusty box in defeat, "I'm never going to get the Habitat back. You know it's funny because yesterday the only thing I was excited for was the hatching of the baby Sloth Crawler but now I don't even have a home to go back to." Tung could see the stranger was feeling down and should report the man to his superiors but something made him want to stay.
"What did you do with the bugs?" Tung asks.
Dex looked at him confused, "what do you mean?"
"Like do you fly through space or track stuff like me?"
Dex shakes his head, "No, no my habitat takes care of them, like a zoo. We would fly across the galaxy protecting insects and giving them home if there wasn't one on their planet. Sometimes we protect bugs from predators like -."
"Like five glow caterpillars from a Solar Mantis." Dex looks shocked while the frog boy feels unsure why that thought crossed his mind.
"Dude, why do I remember being attacked by a giant mantis on a top of a volcano?"
Dex gets excited, "because that actually happened!"
"Wait did we get attacked by a spider or a scorpion under Metro?"
"It was the Water Strider, they infected the cities water supply, their toxin infected half the city including -".
"Including Jenny… Holy cheese balls I remember everything Dex!"
Tung jumps up in joy until Dex grabs him giving him a hug in delight. "Haha, you remember!"
"Yeah, this new world is weird. Aww"
"What?"
"I had a maggot burrito waiting for me."
Dex puts a hand on Tung's back reassuringly, "Don't worry, we'll get back to our world soon. We just need to get to Jenny and Zap then find the time machine."
Tung smiles, "Piece of cake, dude. I know where Jenny's lab is, follow me."
They sneak out of the room heading to find Jenny.
Two engineers exit the lab leaving Jenny behind alone fixing one of the military guns. She sighs as she put it aside unfinished.
Then the door to the lab opens and two people walk in. Jenny thought it was her colleague says, "I thought you guys just left for lunch." But when she turns around she realises it's the intruder and one of the scout trackers.
Jenny stands up surprised, "it's you again! What do you want, you have already gotten me in enough trouble." She looks around, trying to find something to defend herself or send an alert but the destress button is behind Dex and Tung.
"Jenny, I'm sorry but I really need you to remember."
"Look mister, I don't know what you're talking about but you need to leave me alone." Jenny shuffles to the right and then grabs a tool to attack.
Dex puts his hands up in defence, "wait, Jenny don't! I know you don't want to do this!"
"Oh really? How would you know that?"
Tung pips in, "because you hate the government for what they did to you and your sisters." Jenny stops and lowers the tool.
"How do you know that?"
Dex answers, "because this world isn't real, this timeline. Syrrus went back in time and changed the past so that we never met. We worked as a team protecting bugs, not hurting them like this."
"So my sisters and I don't work for the military?" Dex nods his head in response. Jenny turns back to the weapon she was working on earlier. "I had a feeling something wasn't right." She goes over and puts her hand on the weapon. "I never wanted to build these but Syrrus found me and threatened to expose that I'm a clone and toss me one of those cages."
"But non of that ever happened. What really happened was we met at The Academy when I was looking for Professor Stag…" Dex continue to explain their crazy adventure of locating the professor until Jenny's memories clicked in.
"That's how we found out about the Red Swarm bugs that made a nest under the earth. We saved them by leading the queen into the habitat." Jenny said in joy as all the memories start flooding back.
Tung jumps in joy, "woohoo we're back to normal!"
"Almost Tung, we just need to fix the timeline."
"Well it's a good thing we don't have to look far," Jenny responds, "Syrrus kept the portal here."
"What!" Dex says shocked.
"Yeah, guess he wanted to close if anything bad happened. It's in Basement level 2, room 18, we just need to get past the… oh." Jenny looks away worried.
"Get past what?"
Jenny turns to the computer and switches to the security cameras, "we need to get past the mutant bugs that guard the whole area." Sure enough, the camera shows at least 10 large mutant bugs guarding and patrolling the whole area. "It's where all the most dangerous and valuable stuff is stored so Syrrus made those bugs to stay watch at all times."
Jenny looks over at Dex worried they won't be able to get to the machine but Dex responds with a smirk, an idea already forming.
"That's not going to be a problem."
Jenny and Tung looked at each other confused, "did you not hear me tell you about the giant mutant bugs designed to kill on site?"
"Yeah I heard you but we know a bug that can easily take down those, or should I say, bug boy."
Tung responds, "you want to get Zap to fight the bugs?!"
"All we need to do is get me in the portal and the timeline will reset."
Jenny stands up, "Dex that's not going to work, Zap doesn't remember and it's not going to be as easy as Tung and I. This Zap has never left this place, all he knows is pain and anger like when he lost control and nearly destroyed half of Metro City."
Dex's confidence doesn't change. "That's why you and Tung are going to get Zap."
"What!?"
"It's just as you said, this Zap is like before. Back at the loading dock, I could see he wants freedom, the chance to choose, what he wants instead of the military determining his fate." Jenny doesn't look convinced so Dex puts his hands on her shoulders reassuringly. "If there is anyone in the galaxy that can get through to him it's you."
Jenny takes a deep breath, "ok."
"Great. I'm going to make a distraction to draw Syrrus and the soldiers away and then I'll meet you guys near the entrance to the basement." Dex leaves the lab while Jenny and Tung figure out how to get Zap back.
A guard leaves a hall of cells to continue on his patrol. Then Tung and Jenny sneak behind the guard and enter the hallway.
"Ok." Jenny whispers to Tung, "we have about 8 minutes till he comes back." Tung gives a thumbs up and they both head down the hall to find Zap.
They walk past a mixture of empty cells and ones full of various insect experiments. None of them paid any attention to the two as they head for the oldest cell occupant in the building. Zaps cell is at the very end of the hallway. The walls are covered in scratches and small punch dents, while the electric mental gate stays untouched.
The entrance has two layers of security. The first is the metal post fence preventing anyone from getting in or out, and the second layer is an invisible electric wall that anyone wearing the metal collar would receive a high voltage shock if any part of their body passes through it. The only way out is to have the keys and clearance for both.
As the two reach the bug boy's cell, Tung pulls out an all-access keycard, hacked and copied by Jenny, to deactivate the metal fence. The poles slide down to the ground fully exposing the room.
Zap is huddled in the right corner, his back to the entrance, appearing asleep. Jenny and Tung look at each other before slowly entering the cell. Zap doesn't move, showing no sign he realises someone is in his cell.
Jenny pulls out a key from her pocket looking for the hole on the metal collar that will remove it. With no luck seeing it she calls out. "Zap? Zap are you awake?" The bug boy doesn't move. Jenny takes a step closer while Tung stays back waiting for anything to happen.
She takes another step forward, "Zap?" Still no movement. Jenny starts to worry and goes to tap his left shoulder.
Just as she does Zap takes that moment to strike. He whips around, on his feet and grabs Jenny by the neck with his left hand.
Zap is taken slightly aback never seeing this person before, thinking the intruder was one of the regular tormentors. He shakes his head out of thought, an intruder is still an intruder. He lifts his right hand ready to strike her.
"Zap, it's me, it's Jenny." The engineer gasps. He replies with a low growl, showing he doesn't care and begins to strike. Jenny looks up in fear but then Tung jumps on Zap's back, landing on his shoulders and pulling his hair.
"Dude, it's us! Not cool to attack!" Zap lets go of Jenny and she drops to the ground catching her breath.
Zap and Tung struggle as Zap tries to throw Tung off and he swats his hands away. Jenny looks at the two and spots the keyhole on the collar. With quick thinking, she gets up, the key still in her hand, just as Zap grabs Tung and throws him in the corner of the cell he previously was and grabs the collar and goes to unlock it. Just as the key turns Zap grabs Jenny's arm to pin her against the wall again but freezes as he sees the control collar on her hand.
Without thinking Jenny drops the collar with a loud bang and Zap lets go, taking a step back but continuing to stare at the piece of metal.
Seconds go by and no one moves. The two are unsure what to do next, worried it'll make things worse while the other continues to stare at the collar. The first time seeing its full shape, so used to it being on his neck, believing it'll be on him his whole life.
He is so confused. What does he do? What does the collar being removed mean? Zap's breathing picks up as he starts to panic.
"Zap?" There's that word again. That man in red said that as well, what is a zap? He turns to the voice. "I know you've spent your whole life in this nightmare but I promise there is a better world out there." Zap tilts his head in confusion about what she is saying. "You now have a choice of who you want to be." It reels on him what she's finally saying. This is his chance to escape, a choice on how his life is going to be, a choice to find out of there is a world out there that accepts him and makes him happy.
He turns to the open entrance. It's there wide open, he just has to walk through but doubt and fear start crawling up again.
Jenny notices so she takes his hand. "It's ok, I can stand by if you want."
Zap doesn't know why but he trusts her, something about the blue hair and green eyes gives him the sense to believe she isn't going to hurt him.
He moves forward till he stands in front of the invisible wall. In the past, he would be zapped by the collar. He slowly brings his hand forward until it was completely outside the cell. He lets out a breath he didn't realise he was holding.
He takes the first step, then the next, until he was out of the cell and standing in the hallway. He turns back to look at the cell as Jenny slowly walks out as well to join them.
He did it. He finally has a choice and he chooses freedom.
Then Zap gets a wave of vertigo. He leans to the wall hand on his head. Jenny and Tung worry something wrong has happened but what is happening is all of Zap's memories are flooding back.
Zap shakes his head as he turns to the others. In a small raspy voice, he calls out, "Jenny?"
Jenny is shocked. "Zap is that you, are you back?" The bug boy looks down at his hands and thinks, working through his memories.
"Yeah… yeah, it's me." He gives a small smile which comes out as a horrifying tooth grin but Jenny doesn't care. In joy, she goes over and gives him a hug. Zap is taken back by surprise but when she said, "it's good to have you back." He hugs her back.
"Dude why are you still green?" Tung interrupts. They both open their eyes shocked to realise what they're doing and quickly separate. Tung doesn't sense the awkwardness, "are you trying to steal me theme cuz not cool."
Jenny looks at him and sees he hasn't physically changed. "I'm not sure," he replies voice still getting used to talking instead of growling.
"It doesn't matter right now because there still is a chance to fix it. Dex is making a distraction and we need your help to get Dex to the infinity portal to end this nightmare." Zap nods and they all turn to the exit only for the guard from earlier standing there.
"Hey, You can't be down here!" He charges his gun aiming at the three. He goes to activate the alarm on his communicator but Jenny and Tung part for the guard to see Zap is out of his cell. Zap cracks his knuckles. "Oh no…" The guard says. Before he knew it Zap flew forward and knocked him out. He tossed the guard into his cell and raised the bars.
Zap looks back to Tung who picked up the gun and then to Jenny who got an alert of an intruder on the other side of the basement entrance.
All three head over to meet up with Dex.
Jenny, Zap and Tung weave through the hallways avoiding guards until they reach the entrance to the basement level. They hide behind a pile of boxes and barrels watching as the guards leave the area heading to Dex's distraction. All that is left are the two mutant bugs blocking the entrance.
"Where's Dex?" Zap asks and on cue, Dex appears behind them.
"Hey guys, you ready?" They all nod.
Zap jumps out and roars at the bugs. The mutant bugs, in response, charge at him and a fight ensues.
The first one charges at and Zap flies over it and punches the second as it also leaps. The first one comes back swinging its claw at the bug boy but Zap catches it and uses his strength to swing the bug at the second one knocking them both out.
Zap lands and turns to the other three as they come out of hiding and head down to the basement.
As they reach the second level more bugs block their path. Zap flies ahead and fights them. He holds them back allowing the others to keep going. Once they reach the right room Jenny unlocks it and they head inside.
There stands the time machine. Covered in dust but looking to be in perfect condition.
"Ok," Jenny says as she heads to the control panel, "I'll just need to start up the machine and then put in the date."
"Great, how long will that take?" Dex asks.
"About five minutes." A big bang and other sounds could be heard in the hallway.
Tung looks out the door, "uhh, we might not have that long."
At the end of the hallway, Zap is finishing up the last bug when ten soldiers come in. Seems the distraction didn't last as long as they hoped.
Zap dodges their fire and attacks them but more soldiers keep arriving leaving Zap no chance but to retreat into the room.
Tung covers Zap but tasering a few of the soldiers until Zap gets inside, Tung locks the door.
Dex turns to Jenny, "You've got two minutes to start the portal." Jenny starts typing faster as Dex joins the boys. There is a loud bang on the other side of the door. They all wait until the door is smashed open by one of the mutant bugs. It roars but it doesn't enter the room. They all look at each other confused.
Tung asks, "why isn't he attacking?" Before Dex could answer Zap puts his hands on his head withering in pain.
"Zap!" Dex yells in worry but before he could go to him a swarm of blue bugs enter pushing Dex and Tung against the wall.
"Did you really think this silly little plan would work?" Syrrus' voice is heard in the swarm. Then the swarm turns into the ugly tentacle self. "I've worked too hard for this. Took me years to grow this army so Earth would be mine, you are not taking this from me!" He says in anger.
Two mutant bugs fly in and grab Tung, "Give up or I'll kill the frog."
"Don't do it Dex!"
Dex looks between Tung and Syrrus. He could go back in time which will ensure Tung doesn't die but he would never leave a team member behind.
He lowers his hands in defeat, "you win." Syrrus smiles from the words. "But tell me the truth, are you really going to help the government fight the Gordanian's?"
Syrrus laughs. "In the beginning, yes. The Gordanian's have been a threat to all of these beautiful insects, but once they are gone I will turn my insect army on them and rid the galaxy of humans. Two birds, one stone."
The portal powers up and the gate opens. "What?" Syrrus says, "How did you-?" Jenny comes from behind the machine.
The engineer smirks, "looks like bringing us together under your watchful eye was your downfall."
Syrrus gets angry and is about to shout something when Zap comes flying out of know where and knocks out Syrrus.
Dex smiles but it's cut short as soldiers head inside the room. Jenny yells, "Hurry Dex get in the portal!"
Dex runs over as Zap and Tung fight the bugs and soldiers.
Just before he jumps in he looks at Jenny and she looks back reassuringly, "don't worry, we'll see you on the other side."
Syrrus gets up just in time to see Dex jump through the portal.
"NO!"
Dex slowly wakes up to the sound of his alarm. He jolts up, and tries to look around his room but his vision is still blurry.
He whips the sleep out of his eyes and turns off the alarm. He looks back around to see his in his room but not the dorm and the academy, it's his room at the habitat.
He throws the blanket off of him and sees his normal red uniform with the golden beetle on his chest. He turns on his wrist com and it reads the next day. It's the day after the team found Syrrus with the time machine.
"We did it! It's all back to normal!" He says to himself. He heads out to the main lab, hoping that the others made it back as well.
The door opens and there stands Jenny in her pink and yellow uniform checking today's tasks on the computer.
Jenny notices Dex walking in, "hey Dex, Zap and Tung are already sending out the morning food, shouldn't you be with them?"
Dex doesn't respond to her question but instead sits down in the spare chair and looks through the cameras. Just as Jenny said, the boys are transporting barrels of leaves to the insect enclosures in Sector 12.
He is happy to see both the frog and bug boy look normal, well normal in their own weird way. No military uniform, no metal collars.
"Uhh, Dex, are you all right?" Dex sees her concern but gives her a reassuring smile.
"Yeah, I'm just happy we stopped Syrrus and put everything back to normal."
Jenny is confused, "Syrrus? We haven't seen that guy in months."
Dex looks at her surprised, "you don't remember?"
"Remember what?"
Dex groans, "Oh no, not this again." Since Dex was the only one that went through the portal he is the only one that remembers. "It's a long story. Remember when Syrrus went back in time to prevent humans from existing?"
"Yeah."
"Well yesterday he did it again but this time to prevent us from meeting and becoming a team…" Dex tells Jenny all the events that happened. By the time he was done it was already lunch.
"So everything is back to normal?" Jenny asks. She starts to type some things and brings up the news from the past few days for Dex to read.
Dex skims through the titles and sees no differences, "yeah, it all looks the same wait-" Dex spots a man with a metal arm standing in front of Metro City Hall making a statement.
"I saw that guy with Syrrus but I never knew who he was."
"Really? That's Hartley Hunter, has been trying to shut us down for nearly 6 months. He has interfered in a few of our rescue missions."
Dex was surprised to hear this, "looks like things aren't fully back to normal but I know with the team together we will get through anything."
Jenny smiles in response, same old Dex with his hero speech.
Zap and Tung enter the lab to have their lunch break.
Tung speaks up, "dude, where were you? I had to carry all the food to the bugs myself."
"No, I had to carry all the food, you just had to empty the bags."
Dex laughs at their banter, "well guys it's a bit of a long story, you may want to sit down."
