PARASITE

Rudy Jones, an army veteran working as a janitor to provide for his family, experienced a tragic accident that changed his life… for the worst.

Caught between the battle of the debuting 'Flying Man' and the extraterrestrial being who calls himself Lobo. The fight was beyond human and terrorizing due to the explosions that the bystanders had to go through. With the 'Flying Man' having an edge against the loud alien, a high technology bomb was used by Lobo to try and subvert the odds.

Out came a purplish substance that was inconsequential to the fighting duo but catastrophic to the entrapped Rudy.

The poor janitor becomes engulfed in purplish sludge that is meant to subdue the strengths of physiologically superior beings of the universe. When in contact with the wounded human, the sludge did not weaken as intended but formed an adverse mutation of grim results.

Rudy's internal change would go unnoticed until he is sent to a Metropolis-based hospital. The doctors noticed the disturbing failures of his organs and underwent operations to save the poor man and try to ease his worried family.

Things get more awry as Rudy awakens to be an instinctively inhuman man whose touched drained the operating team of their lives. Red veins glowed towards the disfigured janitor while doing so and the corpses that were strewn on was now akin to mummies without the trademark wrapping clothes. The act satiated a hunger from within and miraculously healed the damaged organs and wounds that stockpiled while the purple sludge merged with his physique.

Having his humanity regain consciousness, panic assaulted the man as he saw the effects of his actions, which led him to run towards the exit. Encountering his fellow citizens of Metropolis, Rudy ducks and weaves while trying to suppress the urge to suck them dry as what he had done to his previous victims.

His sense of sight was now akin to heat sensors and those reddish parts that dwell within humans were the only food that could satiate the hungry entity within him. The red energy would be the heat or more correctly, the life energy that powered humans to live and produce that heat.

Images that were previously unfamiliar to him were now playing in his head. He could only assume that this was from the doctors and nurses that were trying to save him during that operation. A horrible deduction that made the guilty man more guilty than he already is.

A stroll to the streets he was familiar with and his efforts to try and save himself from his horrible affliction led to more damage. It was pointless at this point as the mirror reflecting his gruesome looks drove the sane to insanity.

Lives fell as the remaining consciousness of Rudy Jones was directing his rage to the origin of the purplish outgrowths on his body, Lobo. The janitor turned into the purple orcish-monster snuck into the building that held Lobo and unleashed the rage it held with the sight of the caged alien that just underwent an interview with Ms. Lane. Lobo grinned at the presence of the purple intruder while being behind an energy field that trapped him.

A minor scuffle occurred as the monster was trying to get rid of the interviewer. Gunshots from behind but the resistance from the guards only served as a distraction as the bullet wounds quickly healed from sacrificing the life of one guard and the dispatching the remaining ones with relative ease.

At this point, the hunger within him dominated as the patches of red within Lobo were greatly appetizing to him than what the humans had. This could be attributed to the potency and quality of the life energy that the alien had.

"You… you did this!" Like a beast, Rudy or the instinctive Rudy charged ahead and pounced ahead while restating the blame regarding his anomalous plight.

"What is happening to me?" Questioned the purplish, orcish man as he punched away and touched the field producing electrical charges that only serve as another source of food for him. The purple substance became erratic and a morphological change occurred while the energy field exploded to nothing.

The humanoid Rudy was no more. A form that is reminiscent of the aliens in alien movies was what emerged from the ashes of the explosion. It was inexplicable to the spectators how such an abrupt transformation happened.

Maybe it was from absorbing the sheet of electrifying shield or from inadvertently absorbing Lobo's delicacy of alien energy or a transformation that came from the origin of the purple substance itself.

Not much scuffle broke out as the new Rudy laid weak on the ground from the transfiguration, Lobo took this time to leisurely escape. With its target of empowering food and anger out of sight when optimizing with its new self, the purple monster screeched loudly as it ravaged its way out of the place to drain whatever it could.

Distracted it charged through, not noticing the recording of one dedicated reporter. The phone recording would be dispersed to society together with the eye-catching rampage that damaged properties and reduced the red-blue champion of humanity to his knees. The pristine food pile was increased to three with Superman, Lobo, and Martian Manhunter on the list.

The event would further cement the atrocities of the purple monster that they dubbed as Parasite. With the powers of Superman and the versatile green alien, Parasite became the hopeless bane of humanity at that point.

While theories about the purple monstrosity being discussed, the humane Rudy's side of Parasite sobered the terror for a while. Visiting his home and spying on his family, he tried to find solace in his expecting wife and his young daughter.

A wave of nostalgia hit him as he surveyed the dining table in which he sat, appealing to the human him. However, the humanity that was coagulating could only collapse as he heard the shriek of horror that his daughter made because of seeing his monstrous exterior.

Perhaps accepting his fate and drowning in his existential struggle, Parasite resurfaced and wreaked havoc while being drawn in by a trap for his demise. Reaching a size that allowed it to tread the deep waters of Metropolis with deadly thorns to increase its menacing looks.

Time seemed to slow as the Parasite came to the enlightenment of his existence, or maybe it was the true Rudy Jones himself. Shrugging off the attempts of Metropolis' defenders like Lobo's self-implosion, staring down on the unwelcoming gaze of its once fellow humans, hearing some sympathetic speech of Superman, and noticing the unstable dome of nuclear energy from the local power plant.

'Since I am not welcomed by society, my family, and even myself. My very existence itself is unwanted, so why not cease to exist.' Parasite thought as he headed towards the deadly accumulation of energy for the end that he intended. His gigantic form easily reached the place and absorbed all the deadly radiation to end himself. Petrified after overconsuming past his limits, Parasite's rocky form crumbled and scattered with the wind.

After this event, Superman was hailed as the Man of Tomorrow while Parasite was the man with none.