JLA Watchtower (Archive)

The Parasite is very, very hungry. Having been locked up for the best part of three months since the entire Brainiac incident, he's not had any decent contact with a delicious metahuman since that time, and good grief does he want to taste some power. The fun thing is, nobody knows he's even escaped from Stryker's Island Penitentiary.

An anonymous benefactor had slipped a rogue agent into the Science Police; the group that patrol the Alcatraz-esque facility. This agent had waited since Parasite's initial incarceration through to this week, just for the ideal time to slip the villain out and morph into an identical clone of him, so that his disappearance wouldn't be noticed for some time.

Of course, Parasite was very keen on draining this agent of his morphing power, but he was more curious as to who the man's employer was. He wouldn't talk but to say "They'll contact you", and given the small time frame, Parasite made good his escape.

So now Parasite is in Metropolis once more. Hiding in a very old safehouse of the Toyman's... Parasite's horrific maw curls into a grin as he remembers Schott's fate at the hands of Brainiac. Maybe it's Brainiac who engineered his escape! "Hyur hyur hyuurrrr..." There's an employer who pays well, even if his ultimate aims seem a little far-fetched.

Sitting on a colourful toy box, Parasite looks down at his body. That morphing power really would have been useful. And he wouldn't have all of these fresh scars if it hadn't been for that duo of bitches, Ice and Fire. "Second rate costumed adventurers at best..." He's still smarting after his few contacts with the two metas. But oh, how he would love to devour their powers... Ideally while they're chained up. Maybe naked. screaming. "Hyurr hyurr....."

Maybe he should get their attention. If this employer wants him so bad, he can pluck Parasite from the brink of defeat if needs be. He gets up, and turns around to rummage through the toybox. Now, what has Winslow left here for Parasite to play with...

--

Two days later, and the heavily cloaked Parasite is walking through Midtown Manhattan having driven there in one of Toyman's novelty vans. As he reaches the front of the Empire State Building, he throws off his cloak to reveal his body, strapped with candy canes. "Everybody pile your damn wallets, cells and jewellery right in fronta me!! These candy canes are all radioactive isotopes an' I'll blow this island sky high if I don't get everything I want!"

And everyone he wants. He knows Fire and Ice operate in this area, so it's just a matter of time. "Hyurrr."

The spaceship, it's nice, he guesses. It's not the best digs he's seen, most of it not to his liking at all, but some of the decorations are tasty.

Take this plexiglass chamber.

In the ship's starboard bay, a dozen or so of these transparent cylinders have been set up, sort of like high-tech youth hostel bunks, only vertical. A couple others are occupied, one by this pudgy little puppet-looking prick and the other by some chick he doesn't know. But the third one, the one he's "guarding"? Yeah, that's what he's talkin' about.

Inside that cylinder, floating somehow, Brainiac's newest little prize is still sleeping like a baby. Most of the pancake goop and coffee got washed out of her hair and off her face, but the clothes were ruined. Out they went. Damn, that was fun. In their place, she is wearing a hospital gown, the kind that closes in the back with a tie.

He made sure that she was put in the cylinder with her back facing outward. The view, now that is nice. He moves a hand over the plexiglass closest to the captive's backside, a few inches away on the other side. Graaaaaa, almost close enough to fondle.

In Philadelphia, a man in a trenchcoat walks into a nuclear power reactor.

That's not the punchline. Parasite knocking out the wall and heading out into the street to cause some chaos - that's the punchline.

Awww, YEAH! Man, been a while since I got to knock back like this! Friggin' Metropolis! At least here they got a good cheese steak...