After saving the universe for the umpteenth time, the Awesome Yotta Man nodded his head slightly and descended to the ground. In the distance, he could hear the approaching crowd swelling with louder cries of "Yotta! Yotta!! Yotta!!!" His feet touched the ground as gently as though he were a feather, and at that moment he thought about the previous day's events -- when the United Nations Security Council had admitted there was nothing they could do without his help. Their praise, if accurate, had been too great. Now, with the deed done, at last he could return to concealment. Spotting a deserted alley nearby, Awesome Yotta Man ducked into it rapidly as the crowd neared. When they reached this part of Massive City, they would find only the unassuming Kent Parker: part-time coach of high school athletics. He had made this change many times, but this time something went wrong with the transformation.
He removed his helmet first as usual, but this time at normal speed. He stood motionless, jaw agape, for what seemed like several hours before coming to the full realization that his powers had ceased to function. For reasons unknown -- perhaps the whim of the Gods of Fat -- he was now fully ordinary. He finished the switch to his secret identity, not knowing whether it would matter, and stepped into the street. A large party had begun, with hundreds (if not thousands) of citizens celebrating the salvation of their planet. His visage alone was downcast. He alone was unhappy.
With the revelry still going on outside, Kent Parker downed another shot of Criptonoff Vodka. The elation around him was unable to assuage his own sorrow, or prevent him from crying openly as other drunks laughed at his expense. Then, the bartender called for Parker to settle his tab, and he realized he had no money. He had never needed it before, since his only home had been aboard the Yottalite Space Station, and he had never been hungry. Fifteen seconds later, his rear end was on the sidewalk outside Plusky's Bar. Three more seconds passed, and he vomited all over himself. Again the lingering crowd laughed loudly at him.
Kent clawed his way to a standing position, still sobbing, and began to stagger down the street. He had nowhere to go, but at least he could escape the celebration that conflicted with his mood of depression. He stepped in three consecutive piles of fresh dog manure, but what reason was there to scrape it from his boots? He kept walking, finding little purpose in anything else.
Out of the corner of his right eye, he noticed a tattooed drug dealer selling something to a teenage girl. She must have been fifteen, and the drugs were obviously one of the "harder" varieties. Two days ago, he would have flicked his pinky finger, with that simple gesture knocking the dealer backward into the nearest police precinct. Today he felt differently. Today he felt like scoring some heroin. He meandered over to the dealer, reeking of vomit and feces, and begged for a shot of heroin. "Twenty dollars," was all the dealer said as he looked away in disgust.
Kent Parker begged for a fix. Everyone on the street looked on with disbelief, disgust, and annoyance. Someone mumbled that the Awesome Yotta Man should rid the planet of scum like that. He ignored the reference as best he could, tugging on the dealer's arm. The dealer nodded, not toward Parker but in the direction of several members of his gang. Within a minute, a small crowd had gathered, cheering as the gang kicked and beat him. "Loser," they yelled repeatedly. As he lay in the street, bleeding and broken, a dog -- perhaps the same one whose scent already coated him -- stopped to urinate in his face.
"This was the greatest injustice in the universe," he thought as he righted himself. His anger grew until eventually it consumed him. Now on another block, lost and disoriented, an enraged and odoriferous Kent Parker marched up toward a prostitute and demanded sex. She winced and stepped away. With what little natural strength he possessed, Parker pushed her to the ground, where she lost consciousness. Onlookers called the police as he forced the streetwalker to do what she would have reviled. Who would have wanted to be him at this moment? Surely not the homeless, toothless man who kept mumbling, "I just don't believe it." The tone of his disgust was palpable. As he later told the police, "I'd have stopped him myself, but he was so violent...and he smelled like a sewer."
The police arrived and soon surrounded him in the street. Parker barely noticed them -- so consumed was he in his own misfortune. Several young men stood behind the officers as they closed the circle around Kent Parker. These were wearing Awesome Yotta Man pins, and among them was Chip Thomas: president of the Worldwide Awesome Yotta Man Fan Club. "Get him," Thomas encouraged the cops. They moved forward, spraying pepper spray. Parker's eyes stung like truly never before, and he let out a loud roar. Another officer employed a TASER, and Kent shivered -- falling headlong onto the pavement.
As the officers grabbed at his clothing to handcuff him, they tore open his shirt, revealing his costume underneath. The surrounding people gasped in astonishment, and with the speed of the Internet the video of the disgraced Awesome Yotta Man went viral. It was not thirty seconds later that children in Taipei began burning their Awesome Yotta Man comic books. Rather than suffer the further humiliation of a trial, the Awesome Yotta Man hung himself in his jail cell, unaware that he had caught a venereal disease from the hooker that he had raped. He perished utterly, being sick, broke, homeless, disgraced, humiliated, and powerless. "A Truly Wretched Man," proclaimed the Sludge Report the next day.
For the next two years, scientists studied his case. Psychiatrists debated how a man could so quickly degenerate into everything he had hated. The saddest commentary came from the physicists who had observed his salvation of the universe. "It was a glitch caused by his direct contact with the nuclear event and the blazing sun. His powers would have returned in six hours."
