Parasite

Somewhere miles away from Metropolis…

Landing heavily in the snow on all fours to stop her momentum and causing a wake of turbulence to blow thick snow and underbrush away from her in all directions, Lois stood to her full height and raised her horned head high to sniff the air. She could smell it; the kryptonite was moving. Narrowing her eyes, she looked in the direction she was heading, another facility manufacturing weapons that could hurt her husband, but the scent… It was heading East, the opposite direction she was heading. Back to Metropolis. She could also smell a feinter scent of the same mineral much farther away heading in the same direction. All of it converging back in her home city.

“sniff… Sniff… What are you planning Luthor?”

The reporter in her wondered what Luthor was scheming, why he would essentially put all his eggs in one basket, there had to be some plot he was scheming. But another side of her, one that was gnawing at the tooth to bite into more of the green glowing meteorite salivated at the prospect of more to devour, and all in one convenient location. Bending at the knees, Lois jumped into the air again with inhuman strength, catapulting herself a mile into the air and landing several miles away from where she jumped. Causing another small tremor with her landing, she jumped again, heading back to Metropolis one leap at a time.

After a few minutes of travel, snow covered fields were replaced with the snow-covered roofs of the city. Quickly going from one roof top to the other with the same ease as a frog would jump from one lily pad to the next in a pond. Looming over the rooftop of a skyscraper that stood near Lexcorp tower, Lois nearly salivated at the scent, seeing trucks worth of the mineral and all its containment cells and fuel cannisters heading down the sub entrance to the building. Wiping a sliver of drool from her lip with the back of her scaly arm, Lois simply jumped off the roof of the building and raked her claws down the wall to slide silently to the ground fifty stories down. When the final truck entered the tunnel and the automatic doors began to close, Lois took this chance to charge.

Running with all the momentum she had behind her, Lois turned her shoulder and rammed through the thick metal door like it was a sheet of cardboard. Sheet metal and sparks rained out in every direction, scaring the wits out of the truck drivers, and loading crew who looked up at the towering 12-foot-tall woman who roared out and slammed her clawed fist into the side of the truck, nearly tipping it over and sending the driver into the passenger seat and out the other door.

“GET OUT OF HERE! NOW!!!”

Seeing them all vacate their forklifts and trucks and flee out the ruined door, completely ignoring the blaring alarm overhead, Lois smiled a fanged grin as she had the warehouse all to herself. Stomping her way to the one truck whose rear gate was open for unloading, Lois grabbed the first cannister of glowing fuel and pried the top off with the same ease as unscrewing the cap to a drink bottle.

“Hold it right there, lady.”

Slowly turning her attention to the lone guard standing at the loading bay behind her, Lois narrowed her eyes and sneered, lowering the cannister of kryptonite in her hand to give the man a look. Dressed in the tan shirt and black pants of the building’s security, his head was low, and his face obscured by his black security cap.

“Really? Luthor only hired ONE security guard to protect all of this? I knew he cut corners in safety, but this is laughable.”

Going back to drink her prize, she felt a hand grab hold of her wrist. Snapping her attention back at the guard who grabbed her, a sudden wave of vertigo struck her, and she found the cannister suddenly feeling heavy in her clawed hand. Staggering back, she found the small hand holding her arm did so with increasingly inhuman strength, propping her up after she fell to her knees. Snorting and shaking her head, she looked back at the guard who finally decided to look up at her face to face… Only to discover he didn’t have one save for a pair of beady yellow eyes and a toothy grin best seen on a shark than a security guard.

“WOW! Don’t know what’s been coursing through YOU babe but let me tell yeah, I haven’t felt this good since I drained Superman a year ago.”

“Parasite…”

His clothes seemed to grow tight over his body, his muscles swelling underneath the fabric as he leeched more energy and life from the towering woman. Very quickly the seams of his buttoned shirt burst open to reveal more purple skin underneath all the while he grew stronger and larger. The more he took, the more it surprised Lois to find she was getting smaller, going from 12 feet tall to 10, then 9, then 8, while he grew up and out to match.

“Stop it! Get OFF me!” Threatened the towering woman with a faint voice, her strength and size leaving her, being stolen by the growing monster who chuckled at her loss of strength with every second he kept a **** grip on her arm. Eventually she felt too weak to even stand, her eyes fluttering as it took everything she had to keep awake.

“Please… No more…”

She was having trouble breathing, her ears ringing painfully to the alarm still going off in the loading bay, everything was going dark, she believed this was the end until thankfully, the hulking brute finally let go of her arm and stepped back, leaving her to cough and breath raged breathes as she laid prone and defenseless. Aching all over and curling into a fetal position, Lois never felt so weakened, almost like she was sick.

“Don’t worry Lois, I’m not here to kill ya… Oh I know its you, so does my boss.” Chuckled the toothy parasite with a grin as he flexed his arm and looked pleased with the result. “Nope, Luthor’s been keeping an eye on you and wants to take a sample of ya, wants to know why you went and gone all… This.” He gestured with his hand, waving over her entire body as she laid there on the cold stone floor.

Turning away from the woman and heading towards a nearby office, Parasite was out of sight for almost a minute. During that time, Lois tried to drag herself across the floor, finally able to feel the stinging cold of the concrete underneath her and the biting wind coming from the hole in the loading bay she burst through earlier. Right in front of her was the diluted kryptonite fuel she spilt when she dropped the cannister, eyeing the glowing fluid, she extended her tongue, hoping she could get a taste and regain her strength. That is until she heard the giant purple skinned creature return with a briefcase and propped it open, revealing a large syringe the size of a calking gun in hand that he loaded with a glass cannister.

“Nu uh… None of that Lu Lu, I need you as weak as a newborn kitten for what Mr. Luthor has planned for you, as for me? There’s no reason we can’t have some fun first before we go straight to business. Who is this Mr. Mixelpicklicker or whoever? Sounds like someone I want to shake HANDS with.”

Turning to glare up at the grinning monster, Lois sneered in defiance. “You stole my memories along with my strength!”

“Yup, gotta love complex life energies, so full of vitality and chalk full of dirty little secrets. Does CLARK know about your little truce with the imp?”

Breathing hard and sneering fanged teeth back at the Parasite, it was all she could muster, having all her strength sapped from her. Eyeing the needle he wielded with both hands like a rifle, the brute chuckled when he turned on the drill tip at the end.

“Oh yeah, we’re gonna have a HELL of a time tonight.”