Rudy hadn't remembered much after he short circuited from his team up battle with Livewire against Superman. Everyone else thought he'd forgotten about that. But there was something different this time after his battle with that flying rat. Well at least they still let him keep the TV though. He guessed it was probably because they knew that they had Livewire under lock and key. Also since the rest of the bad boys and gals in this city know that he can drain them dry with ease. While he was enjoying his favorite tv show America's funniest videos before being interrupted by the usual uninvited guest Dr. Faden whose job is to torture Parasite with questions until he gets a response out of him. Rudy honestly was getting sick and tired of this whole rehab thing that they do with super villains. Parasite just roll his eyes but chose to continue to pay attention to the show as Dr. Faden came in with his clipboard on the other side of the wall and sat down in his chair pulling out his pen beginning to get ready take notes down. The doc hit the communication button on the wall Parasite still refused to acknowledge him.
"Good afternoon Rudy time for your session I'm going to have to ask you to please turn the television off please!" Faden politely asked.
Parasite just huffed continuing to watch the screen carelessly ignoring him. Faden noticed Mr. Jones refusal to comply. "Rudy I'll ask you politely one more time to turn that TV off or otherwise I'll have no choice but to have the warden to suspend your TV privileges permanently!"
Parasite's face quickly turned to shock with looks of fear racing all over. He honestly considered himself lucky the last time he broke out of this place and was put back in with it still here. But he wasn't about to push whatever luck he had left though. Rudy quickly grabbed the remote and hit the off button and the screen went black. Faden smiled kindly. Rudy just grunted to himself in frustration as he turned his body to face the doc.
"Thank you for your compliance Mr. Jones, now let's begin today's session then!" Faden said taking the pen from his coat pocket clicking it as he adjusted himself in his seat getting ready to write.
"Seriously Doc what's the point of all these boring sessions anyway is it because the freaks in this place need to be tamed or is it because it's to make us reflect on our lives and make us feel like we made mistakes in our lives and we can make up for them once we've finally had a change of heart!" Rudy asked sarcastically.
Faden looked at him with a look of disbelief and disappointment. Even though he was required to do this with Mr. Jones once a week and every time he would always resist and complain he had to try to get his patient to see the errors of his ways and make some progress in rehabilitating him.
"While your sarcasm is well noted Rudy, the point of these sessions is to help you realize the wrongs that you've done in your life and recent years with these powers you've been gifted with in this city against Superman!" He explained, writing down notes.
Rudy just rolled his eyes and put his hand under his chin slouching over giving a bored gesture.
"Okay then Rudy lets start with your origins of Parasite then, so you worked at STAR Labs as a janitor correct!" He causally asked.
Here we go again. Rudy thought to himself. "Yeah that's what told you the first times in the first hundred sessions during the past hundred sessions we had before this one, why do you need to keep asking me these questions that I've already given the same freakin answers to already!" He told him stressfully waving his hands.
"Because in order for me to get you to understand where you went wrong say like a stick that falls into a river it had to fall in at a certain point and flowed down the river hitting things and currents carrying it a certain way that caused it to go down its own stream that guides it through its life, and in order for you to truly understand you need to see the point at which you flowed down your stream that guided the way that caused you to become Parasite and made you thinking like a criminal that's all!" Faden calmly put into perspective.
Rudy couldn't help but be impressed with that analogy. But he still felt like he was wasting his time trying to make him turn into a good guy.
"Fine! Yes I did work as a lowly janitor at STAR Labs, I didn't exactly have a good education or a good job at finding better ones either my whole life everyone else had been given everything to them like a giant steak dinner on a silver platter, but I was always the one to be given the scraps every time once they were done!" Rudy explained irritatedly going down memory lane.
"How long did you work there for?" He asked writing down notes.
"About five years and it got old pretty fast though same old clean up routine, but I finally scrounged up enough pay to blow off some steam and have a little fun I also thought maybe at the same time increase my income pay at playing cards. Soon I realized it was an addiction I had with gambling so I ended up short on cash and in big debt with some not so friendly punks that had me cornered and were ready to mop the floor with me if I didn't pay up!" The memory made Rudy remember the stress it brought him.
Faden jotted down every word he was saying.
"So what did you do then?"
Rudy scoffed. "I did what any other poor miserable nobody that's cornered would do find any of the first openings and make a break for it and call for help, what I mean by that is I started to desperately search my contacts and a found an old buddy of mine that was crooked but he was the only option I had left his name was Martin LeBeau, Marty agreed to pay off the debts in exchange for swiping some of STAR's valuable supplies for him!" Although that memory brought back some regret if Rudy knew how it cost him everything.
"Anyways so I did a little exploring and found these drums of experimental chemicals of some sort, and I had only little time before someone realized what I was doing, so I took only two drums and loaded them into the back of his truck but considering what I was doing was a crime made me on the edge of nervousness!"
"What happened then?"
"Chaos is what happened next Doc! Just as were about to close up shop two security guards spotted us at first I thought that they were going to arrest us or something but I realized that they didn't know what we were up to one of them recognized me and thought that I was given authorization to the lifter so I just went with the flow and told him I was promoted to lift operator, but after he saw that my I.D badge still said that I was a janitor I knew that they were getting suspicious and they did, the other guard saw the pickup with the chemical drums in them and hinted if we were stealing, then to make matters worse they started asking me about my pal and how he got back there!" Rudy's tone became more in the mood as he was in deep thought.
"What did you two do then?" Faden asked with worried interest.
"Well Marty figured that the jig was up so when they questioned me who he was I didn't know what to say so Marty said that he'd explain it to them then he pulled a gun on them then all hell broke loose, he was about to pull the trigger but I didn't want him to kill anybody so I jumped down from the lift and slapped his arm down and the guards ran to take cover and Marty started firing shots at them causing an explosion the guards were okay but we got outta there so Marty and I took off in the truck I closed the tailgate and hopped in the back and Marty floored it!"
Even though Faden had heard several patients stories had heard several reideraetions of them every time he hears Rudy Jones's story he can't help but feel sorry for the unfortunate circumstances of his unexpected series tragic events that happened to him.
"So we escaped as Marty broke through the front gate continuing to speed like crazy as I was like a pin ball bouncing all over the back of his truck, as we neared the bridge the road started to get bumpy and rough I felt like I was gonna fall out so I was trying to yell at him to slow down but he wouldn't listen and just kept going then I don't remember exactly how but we hit this huge speed bump and caused me to fall on my front and caused the drums to knock over spilling the chemicals on my entire body as I fell in the only word to describe what happened next except The was burning, screaming and pain as the chemicals were soaking on me and I was screaming at the top of my lungs for Marty to stop the truck but he didn't listen and he ended up almost crashing into the bridge but he swerved quickly causing me to trip and fall out of the truck down the hill and I passed out!" Rudy concluded with emotion.
Faden finished jotting down the last words in his notes.
"So what happened when you woke up Rudy?"
He scratched his head trying to remember honestly it all happened so fast Rudy didn't even think he remembered what happened to him.
"Well don't really remember exactly word for word and play by play but I do remember suddenly feeling a surge of energy going through me like an adrenaline rush only a hundred times better and it was all at the touch of a finger, but anyways so I wake up like this I see my skin is purple and with white markings with what looked like a dead rat in my hand well that's because it was a rat then I realized what I did, and it was night out so I climbed up the hill and back to the street when it was night out and saw a car coming towards me and I decided to see who it was it turns out it was a cop who was just passing by but she noticed me and decided to ask if I needed help but I didn't answer I turned to her and she saw that I had something in my hand so she pulled her gun on me telling me to drop it and I did next thing I know I pounce at her and the moment I touched her I absorbed her strength her speed her energy her thoughts, memories and feelings and even her own voice!"
Faden thought to himself that from what he's saying he didn't mean to cause any harm.
"So I got in her cop car and I took off, and I started to track down my old friend who left me for dead you know doc it's also ironic because Marty always did call me a Parasite and now in a sense I am one and I wanted to show him what the new and improved Rudy Jones could do and I drained him and explained to him what happened to me, so Superman offered me help I tricked him I held him hostage as I planned to keep absorbing him after I realized that my drain was only temporary and he escapes blah blah blah, I end up in here blah blah blah so on so forth and teamed up with Livewire and plan fails and the end okay are we done now!" Rudy asked impatiently finishing his story getting ready to grab the remote to turn on the TV again. Dr. Faden nodded.
"Yes Rudy that's all for today although I do have one more question though!"
Rudy slammed his fist against his bed.
"WHAT!!"
"After reviewing all of your notes it seems you were well aware of the extent of your abilities but yet you chose as far as when it was regular people not to hurt them only drain their energy!"
Rudy was now interested where the Doc was going with this.
"What do you mean Doc!" Rudy asked more calmly.
"What I mean is that besides Superman and Mr. LeBeau you never wanted to hurt anyone, what I'm saying is that you have the potential to use your powers for good Rudy!"
Rudy honestly couldn't believe his ears at what the Doc just said.
"Seriously Doc you think that I could be a hero, okay let me tell you a few reasons why that wouldn't work out so well, one I'm not going to get the chance because I'm stuck in this joint for a long while, two does the name Parasite sound like a friendly superhero, and three even if I wanted to be a hero start fresh and make up for the things I've done still I'm a famous criminal villain it doesn't matter how much good I do if I tried to redeem myself because everybody in this universe will always judge my past and what I did in it and see me as nothing but a villain!" Rudy concludes.
"But how do you know Rudy you've never tried to be a hero so how could people judge you for trying to make up for your mistakes!"
Rudy sat up straight.
"Okay Doc tell you what the day everybody forgets who I am and what I've done like a clean slate then I'll try the whole being a hero thing!" Rudy said with seriousness in his voice.
"Well in that case I'll be off then have a good day Rudy see you next week then!"
With that Dr. Faden left closing the door. Parasite was left in deep thought though he knew he messed up a lot but those were mistakes but he knew that nobody believed in forgive and forget especially from him. He wished there was a place where he could at least get a chance to try being the good guy.