Issue 7: "Interlude"

NEW GENESIS – PRESENT TIME

Extant watched Timeflux disappear after Gold, Blue Beetle and Skeets. He then turned his attention back to Linda Danvers.

“I think it’s about time for this to stop,” he told her. “You caught me by surprise at first, my dear Linda, but I’ve had just about enough.”

His hands glowed brightly and he blasted Linda off of him. She flew back about fifteen feet.

Extant stood up and looked around. The entire thing had gone wrong. Amazing that a little band of heroes he would have expected to fold like a cheap card table had actually more than held their own. If he wasn’t so close to putting his plans into effect, he might have actually let things run their course… just to see what would have happened.

However, he had little patience left at this point.

He disappeared from the hill he was on and reappeared right next to Big Barda. Before she could react, he blasted her. She crumpled to the ground. He blinked out again and did the same to Mister Miracle.

Their opponents down, Extant’s group of rogues picked themselves up and grouped together.

“I think we ought to off these guys,” Major Force said.

“That’s up to Extant,” Chronos responded. He was upset that both Gold and Blue Beetle had run off and he hadn’t been able to follow. He secretly hoped that Timeflux wouldn’t catch them. He wanted that pleasure for himself. “Extant, what do you…”

He broke off when he realized Extant was staring towards a bright light.

“Is that?’ Chronos began to ask.

“Brother Eye,” Extant replied. “It seems transforming his partner isn’t quite as simple as I had hoped.”

The brightness emanating from Brother Eye and Buddy Blank/Supernova was too much to look directly at for more than a moment. It was like looking directly into the sun.

“What is he doing?” Chronos asked.

“He’s performing laser surgery,” Extant told him. “Changing him back into OMAC.”

“What’s an Omac?” Intertia asked.

Almost as if on cue, the ball of light surrounding Brother Eye and Buddy Blank seemed to explode. The rogues all ducked and covered their heads. Extant did not flinch.

Now standing, where Buddy had been, was a tall figure dressed in a blue shirt and orange leggings with yellow gloves and boots. His dark black hair was formed into a mohawk. On his chest was a logo that resembled Brother Eye. On the ground near him lay the empty Supernova costume.

“That, to answer your question Inertia, is an OMAC.” Extant smiled. “Which stand for One Man Army Corps. Good work, Brother Eye.”

The satellite hovered above silently.

“You are the one called ‘Extant’, I presume,” OMAC said.

“Yes,” Extant replied. “And you are the final part of my rogue squadron.”

OMAC approached them. He looked everyone over, and then glanced at the fallen figures of Miracle, Barda and Supergirl.

“Let’s get rid of them and get moving,” Major Force demanded.

OMAC looked up and smiled. “Okay,” he said.

With that he delivered a powerful punch to Major Force’s chest, who flew backwards and crashed to the ground. OMAC lashed out with almost blinding speed and grabbed Inertia. Whipping him around, he threw him directly at Chronos and the two banged into each other violently.

OMAC turned to Extant, still smiling.

“How’s that?’ he asked wryly.

Extant seethed in anger, but held his position.

“Brother Eye, what is the meaning of this?” he demanded of the satellite.

“Once Buddy and I were reconnected, I was able to use our connection to burn out your tainted programming,” Brother Eye explained, his voice sounding very different from what it had before.

Extant nodded. He hadn’t expected that Brother Eye was self-aware enough to WANT to deny the programming he had given him. He clenched his fists.

“Then I’ll have to beat you both soundly enough to put in some programming that will stick,” he hissed.

“You are certainly welcome to try,” Brother Eye responded. He then emitted a laser blast from the center of his eye at Extant.

Extant threw up a beam of his own to shield him, but OMAC took the opportunity to throw a punch that rattled Extant.

A moment later, Waverider and Walker Gabriel appeared in the middle of the fray.

“EXTANT!” Waverider exclaimed, seeing him.

Extant stepped back, still holding Brother Eye’s blast at bay with one hand, and OMAC at a small distance with the other. The situation had deteriorated much too quickly. It was better for him to admit he had lost this battle and retreat. He allowed the energy inside him to build and slipped a little round dial into his hand from a compartment on his gauntlet.

“What’s he doing?” OMAC shouted to Brother Eye. Waverider was now rushing forward towards the evil despot. Before the satellite could reply, Extant let fly a tremendous burst of energy outward, throwing everyone to the ground.

Having had to do the same move just before, Extant was nearly drained. He knew he only had a few moments. He blinked out, reappeared next to his rogue team, and they all disappeared.

“We can track them if they time jumped!” Gabriel shouted, picking himself up.

“Let them go… We’re not prepared for a direct confrontation with Extant right now,” Waverider told him. He approached OMAC and looked carefully at him.

“Hello, Waverider,” OMAC said.

“You know me,” Waverider responded.

“For a while, you knew me as Supernova,” OMAC told him.

“Supernova?’ a voice asked behind them. They turned to see Mister Miracle standing there, leaning on his muscled wife.

“Mister Miracle. Good to see you are alright,” OMAC said.

“I guess it wasn’t so bad for Brother Eye to find you after all, huh?” Miracle said.

OMAC nodded and smiled. “Luckily, Extant was too distracted by the battle to be part of my ‘transformation’…” he explained. “It seems that Brother Eye has been attempting a resistance to his programming the whole time. Reconnecting with me was enough for him to burn that programming out.”

Barda made sure her husband could stand on his own, then went to check on Linda.

“Supergirl?” she asked as she offered her help getting up.

Linda looked up and accepted the hand. “Linda is fine Barda, thanks. I’m not too comfortable using the Supergirl name right now.”

“Why is that? It is your title, is it not?” Barda said.

“Well… yes… but… with all that’s happened… the name is a little… sensitive to me,” Linda told her.

“I think,” Waverider told them all, “that we should get out of here before Extant returns with a much larger army.”

He glanced down at the time band on Miracle’s wrist, then looked up at his face.

“That’s one of Hunter’s. Where did you get that?” he asked.

“From me,” OMAC responded.

“Do you know where Booster is?” Miracle asked Waverider and Gabriel.

“Gold? You know Gold?” Waverider asked.

“Know him? We’ve been working with him to find Rip Hunter,” Miracle responded.

Waverider and Gabriel looked at each other.

“I think we all need to fill each other in on some details,” he said.

RIP HUNTER’S LAB – THE TIMESTREAM

“… and then you two appeared. You know what happened after that,” Mister Miracle said. He had just finished filling Waverider and Walker Gabriel in on the events Booster Gold had involved them all in.

“I wonder why Booster neglected to tell us any of this,” Waverider questioned out loud.

“Well, some of it was because I was convinced that someone working for Rip wasn’t what they appeared to be,” OMAC replied. “I told Booster that.”

Waverider nodded. “That makes some sense. I’m guessing you thought that Walker here and myself were possible culprits?”

“Yes,” OMAC responded. “But I saw the look on Extant’s face when you both appeared. I’m prepared to believe neither one of you is.”

“Which still doesn’t explain who is,” Gabriel said. “Or where Booster is now.”

“Do you think he managed to find this Rip Hunter?” Linda asked. “I tend to believe he would have come right back if he hadn’t.”

“Time travel is a funny thing, Supergirl,” Waverider responded. “Booster could have been gone for a year and still come back to check on you all. I tend to think that something is occupying his time at the moment.”

“Or maybe he just didn’t want to get nailed by Extant,” Gabriel joked.

“Hey!” Linda hissed. “He didn’t WANT to leave! If he was able to, he would have come RIGHT back! He wouldn’t have just abandoned us! Finding Hunter was more important… WE told him that!”

“Whoa! Relax!” Gabriel said, his hands up in protest. “I was only kidding!”

“I agree with Linda,” Miracle said. “As much as I thought the guy was a clown, he proved a lot to me today. I think… I HOPE… he found Hunter. He seemed fairly confident that he knew what Hunter’s ‘secret’ message meant.”

“If he has reunited with Rip Hunter, I’m sure a plan is in place… and since they have not returned here, I’m also sure that secrecy is paramount,” Waverider told them. “Which means now he was two choices.”

“What are you talking about?” Barda demanded. “Explain yourself.”

“All of you are heavily involved at this point. One way or the other… this isn’t about to just go away,” Waverider explained. “We need to decide if we continue to hunt for Rip… and Booster now… or if we trust that Booster has found Rip and they are working towards something that we should NOT interfere in.”

“Rip always has a plan. He’s a pretty sharp guy... even if he IS a wet blanket most of the time,” Gabriel told them. “If he hasn’t come for US, then there is a reason. If we go looking for him… and find him… we could screw that plan up.”

“So… then what? Go home and hope for the best?” Miracle asked.

“No,” Waverider said. “Like I said… you are all heavily involved now. If nothing else, we could use your help here.”

“Help?” Linda inquired.

“The timestream is falling apart,” Waverider said, “and we pray that Rip has a way to fix things… but we still need to try and keep things correct as much as possible. That’s why we were recruited by Hunter in the first place.”

OMAC folded his arms. “I agree.”

Miracle looked at his wife who nodded slightly. He turned back to Waverider. “Okay, we’re in.”

“Supergirl?” Gabriel asked.

“I’ll help. I have nowhere to go anyway. Extant destroyed my world,” she said. “Only… here… I don’t know if it’s such a good idea calling me Supergirl.”

“You mentioned that you weren’t Kryptonian before,” Miracle remarked.

“I’m not,” Linda explained. “I’m from Earth. I came across the dying form of an alien being and somehow she became bonded to me. This alien… she was a matrix hybrid of someone who had… had connections… to Superman. Whenever I changed… I found myself wearing her outfit. Once I met Superman he approved of me keeping the outfit… and the name… but he… he’s not YOUR Superman… and I was never quite comfortable with the name… I hadn’t earned it. There was… well… there’s a lot to explain.”

“Maybe your Superman survived,” Barda said.

“No… he… you see…. Oh God… there’s so much to tell,” Linda said, biting her lower lip. “After all of this…. that name and I… I don’t deserve it.”

“Your Superman seemed to think you did,” Barda replied. “Enough that he also approved of you wearing his symbol.”

Linda looked down at the ‘S’ shield on her chest. “I know what you’re trying to say, Barda. But still… Superman and I have one thing in common only… and that’s this ‘S’.”

She hesitated and smiled a sad smile.

“Then again…” she said, “my world is gone. I guess Superman and I have one more thing in common besides an 'S'. I'm now the last daughter of Earth.”

“Well for now, the story will have to wait,” Waverider told them all, getting up. “We can avoid calling you Supergirl if you prefer.”

Linda looked up. “For now, just call me… Matrix.”

“Matrix it is,” Waverider agreed. “Now if you all don’t mind, let’s go over what we need to do.”