THE MAID OF STEEL # 36

The explosion shouldn’t have hurt her.

That was what she kept repeating to herself over and over as she plummeted toward Genoa Lake, Midway City glittering brightly in the night to the south. She kept trying to tell herself that she shouldn’t be hurting like this, that it shouldn’t feel like every cell in her body was on fire from just a little explosion.

As Supergirl slammed into the lake surface and the pain multiplied by a thousand, she lost consciousness.

Night settled over Midway City.

In a penthouse on the 60th floor of the Midway City Ambassador Hotel, the Silver Scorpion had returned to her robbery.

“Now that Supergirl is indisposed,” She said to the bartender, “Continue filling my bag with money.”

“My offer of a million dollars still stands.” Kevin Yates said.

“Shut-up.” The Silver Scorpion said. A blast of pink energy spat from her wrist phaser and knocked Kevin Yates down, sending him sliding across the floor.

“Mr. Yates!” His personal assistant Ally ran over to him, helping him up.

“I’d stay down if I were you Mr. Yates.” The Silver Scorpion said, her wrist phaser still pointed at Phillip Decker. “The next bolt will be a little more lethal. A bigot like you deserves nothing better.”

“Some one needs to do something.” Mattie Harcourt whispered to Cutter West. “We can’t just let her steal all that charity money from the bar.”

“Supergirl will be back after she saves those people Silver Scorpion threw over the side of the building.” Cutter replied in a low voice.

“I just don’t understand what we saw fall by after the Silver Scorpion tossed those second two people aside. It came from a higher floor.” Mattie said, “It looked like a person.”

“Something tells me there is more to all of this than just a robbery.” Cutter said quietly.

She was floating. Floating in the darkness. It was cool here though, and that was good. It had been too hot just a few moments ago. But, here in the dark it was nice and cold.

“Linda…” A quiet phantom like voice floated to her through the darkness.

Linda turned toward the voice. In the darkness, a handsome young man glowed with a hazy white light as dark blonde hair gleamed with a heavenly light. His deep brown eyes peered out from pale skin. He wore a welcoming smile.

“Who are you?” Linda asked. The pain filling her was quite terrific, despite the cold holding her tightly.

“Surely you recognize your own brother, Linda Lee Danvers.” The young man grinned.

“Am I dreaming?” Linda asked.

“In a fashion.” The man replied, “You are unconscious. I am appearing to you in your dream.”

“I don’t understand.” Linda said, shaking her head.

“You don’t need to understand why I’m here. I’m coming to warn you. Daniel, the Lord of Dreams, has allowed me to come and warn you since you helped his grandmother escape Phillip Decker.”

“Am I dead?” Linda asked. Her brother Jan had been killed as a child. Murdered. They had never caught the guy that did it. His death had been the fracture that had nearly destroyed the Danvers family.

“You are not dead. You are severely wounded. Thankfully your abilities as Supergirl and the Earth-Bound Angel are healing you as you sleep. I’m here to warn you… the man who killed me is going to try to kill Mom and Dad. He’s going to try to destroy you. You have to beware. And, you have to be strong. There are dark times coming your way. And, if you are not strong—and let yourself cave into the darkness, you will fail when you face Lord Xenon.”

“I don’t understand.” Linda replied, gazing at her dead brother’s adult face. A face he’d never worn because his life had been ended so soon.

“You are waking up, Linda. There is no time for me to explain. I will see you again. In your dreams.”

She awoke with a gasp, surfacing from beneath the lake. All at once the pain filled her. She pushed herself from the water, using every ounce of strength she could muster to fly. She was half-way to the shore when she realized she was leaking.

“What?!” Supergirl felt woozy. She looked down to find her hands were a protoplasmic mush. She was loosing bits of protoplasm as she flew. She hadn’t seen this much protoplasm since she and Matrix had first merged.

“Oh God.” Supergirl landed roughly on the beach, laying there oozing from the shredded remains of her costume. She passed out again while using every bit of her consciousness to try and solidify.

Once the Silver Scorpion was long gone, and the police had cleared everyone to leave, Brains made her way down to the street contently, hailing a cab and piling in. The mission had been an unequivocal success. It had been great luck that Supergirl had shown up so quickly. She had figured that the Silver Scorpion would have had to menace more people and wrecked more things before Supergirl showed up and gave Brains’s hired hands on the roof the chance to throw the proto-bomb strapped to the dummy over the side of the building.

In the back of the cab, Brains looked at the display screen of the monitoring device she’d put together. It flashed with a map of Midway City, showing a small pinpoint of light blinking on the beach of Lake Genoa.

“Driver, take me to Lakeshore Drive please.” Brains smiled.

“Yes, ma’am.”

When Supergirl opened her eyes, she found that the moon in the sky was nearly full and there were stars just visible despite the electric orange glow from the city. She felt like she’d been run down by Doomsday, but she was at least able to pull herself to her feet.

She looked down at her hands, finding that they had reformed fine. Her legs also looked OK. She looked around, and frowned. There was still a bit of protoplasm littering the beach where she had passed out. She supposed she had been unable to reabsorb it, and that it was probably dead tissue. Supergirl frowned, wondering what exactly had been in that bomb.

She flew back toward Midway City, accelerating as quickly as she could despite the fact her body still hurt. Her destination was the Ambassador Hotel. When she landed on the balcony she found that there were still cops filling the room, questioning people. She saw her father Fred Danvers talking to Kevin Yates, Mattie, Cutter, Jocelyn Rogers, and Craig Morris.

Supergirl strode over them.

“Lt. Danvers.” She said, “Where is the Silver Scorpion?”

“She escaped the scene a short while ago.” Fred Danvers replied, “We’re questioning witnesses right now. We’ve let some of them go already.”

“Where did you disappear to?” Kevin Yates asked sharply.

“Excuse me?” Supergirl looked at Phillip in disbelief.

“One minute you were here saving people and then you just disappeared.” Kevin Yates said. “People were injured.”

“Including your ego.” Craig Morris scoffed, “You’re just ticked because the Silver Scorpion knocked you on your butt and didn’t bow to you when you tried to take control. There is no reason for you to attack Supergirl. You condemn her and other meta’s anyway. Why are you expecting that she should come back and save your sorry butt anyway?”

“Thank you Craig,” Supergirl smiled at him, “But, I don’t need you to defend me to Mr. Yates here.” Supergirl looked at Kevin Yates directly, “Someone threw a dummy strapped with a bomb over the side of the building. I had to get it out of the city to prevent damage. Hopefully that meets your approval Mr. Yates.”

“You’ve been gone nearly an hour.” Kevin Yates shot back.

“So sorry.” Supergirl replied, not wanting to admit to Kevin Yates and the group of people who had assembled that she had been severely injured by the bomb. It was something that shouldn’t have happened, but it did. She would have time to think about that later and figure it out, especially the fact that she felt like she was lighter.

From high above, Ellen Dalton stood watching Supergirl, the police and the various people assembled from the fund-raiser in the street in front of the building. She smiled. Everything had gone according to plan. Her contact stood near her, holding the bags filled with the proceeds from the party—as well as the wallets and jewelry she’d taken as an after-thought.

The ear radio in her ear crackled to life just as the news crews arrived down on the street below.

“Is the media there yet Ellen?” Brains asked across the scratchy line.

“They are just arriving. There was that small camera crew that showed up with that Linda Danvers person from Channel 8. But, because you blocked all signals in and out of the room, they couldn’t get a live feed out. Good job there Brains.” Ellen said, pulling the Silver Scorpion mask on over her face again, adjusting her hair so that it looked better than it should have.

“I want you to go back down there and fight Supergirl some more. I have an extraction team standing by to get you out of there if the going gets tough.” Brains’ voice continued to be cool across the static-filled line.

“Will do Brains.” Ellen smiled brightly.

“You should be sorry!” Kevin Yates shot back. “You’re so busy running around trying to protect people, but when it counted, you were nowhere to be found!”

“Oh. So, under normal circumstances you’re against super-heroes, but when a super-villain crashes your fund-raiser and robs your rich and racist guests, then you want me around to stop the super-villain. Who by the way isn’t a meta. She wears a costume. All of her powers come from the costume.” Supergirl knew that she shouldn’t be engaging this idiot like this, especially not with the media on the scene. But, her head still throbbed with a headache and her entire body ached from the bomb. And people like this Kevin Yates just annoyed her.

“She’s still part of the problem.” Kevin Yates’ face was growing red and his voice began to rise. “Part of the problem you and all the other metas are responsible for! You people aren’t going to be happy until you’ve killed the rest of us and your master race is the only one left!”

“Oh. Please.” Supergirl rolled her eyes. “Are you seriously trying to go there? The racist is trying to act like I think I’m a member of a master race?”

“You people think you are! You have super-strength! Super-hearing! You can fly! You people act like you’re gods!”

“You people? Do you have any idea how racist that makes you sound?!” Supergirl’s own temper was rising and she realized that she needed to take a step back before she hauled off and hit this idiot. Because she had super-strength and if she popping him one in anger she might break his face.

“I’M NOT A RACIST! YOU’RE NOT EVEN HUMAN! YOU’RE AN ALIEN FROM OUTER SPACE!” Kevin Yates was screaming now, spittle flying with each angry word. He jabbed his finger at her, the tip of his finger poking her just below her collar bone.

“Don’t yell at me.” Supergirl fired back, “And if you want to keep that hand you’ll stop touching me. NOW.”

“So you don’t deny you’re an alien from outer space?” Kevin said, his eyes narrowing.

“I’m not going to address outlandish and untrue rumors in front of the media when you are obviously trying to push my buttons and bait me.” Supergirl said, her anger trembling within her. A voice whispered that it would feel mighty nice just to let go of the anger and let the flames fly.

“We better do something.” Mattie said to Cutter.

“You sure?” Cutter asked. “I don’t think it would be that big of a loss if she rips his head off.”

“Cutter!” Mattie rolled her eyes, going over to where Supergirl and Kevin Yates were having words.

“You both need to calm down.” Mattie said, stepping between them.

“Get out of the way bitch!” Kevin Yates said, pushing Mattie out of the way.

“OH HELL NO!” Mattie exclaimed as she landed on the sidewalk roughly. She sprung up quickly, stepping between Kevin Yates and Supergirl. However, this time she got up in Kevin Yates’ face. “You did not just push me. I’m not Supergirl. I don’t have super-strength. So when I knock your teeth out you can’t cry to the press that you were only beat by a girl because she has super-strength.”

“MATTIE!” Cutter rushed over, pulling his fiancé away from Kevin Yates. He wondered how the hell everything had escalated so fast. Once he was within the area, he felt his blood-pressure rise and his temper swing. What the Hell?

Dragging Mattie away, he realized that when had her five feet away, his anger levels began to drop.

“What the Hell just happened?” Mattie asked, blinking. “Did I seriously just almost punch the CEO of the Meta-Research Development Group?”

“Yeah, you almost did.” Cutter replied. “I don’t think it’s your fault though. I think there is something weird going on over there.”

“You just pushed my friend!” Supergirl shouted at Kevin Yates.

“So what are you going to do about it?” Kevin Yates shouted back.

“Are you two going to snipe at each other?” A twinkling female voice called. “Or, can I join the fray?”

Supergirl and Kevin Yates spun toward the voice, finding the Silver Scorpion standing there, her silver costume glittering brightly in the bright lights spilling into the city street. She smiled wickedly at them, as the pink gem located between her eyes on the costume’s mask began flashing.

A bolt of pink energy exploded from the Silver Scorpion’s tail, knocking both Supergirl and Kevin Yates to the ground. As Supergirl slammed into the sidewalk, she heard people screaming and could see people running wildly in all directions.

Brains got out of the cab.

“Can you wait?” She asked the man. “There’s a twenty dollar tip in it for you.”

“Sure!” The man said enthusiastically.

Making her way toward the lake shore, following the small blip on her tracking device, Brains came up to where the writhing pink protoplasm was.

“The bomb worked perfectly.” Brains grinned widely, she removed a long glass cylinder from the inside pocket of her trench coat. Unscrewing the metal lid, she stooped down, scooping the protoplasm into it. Sealing the cylinder, Brains returned it to her inside pocket.

Rushing back to the cab, she slid into the back seat.

“Kupperberg Plaza.” Brains said to the cab driver, unable to stop grinning.

“Sure thing.” The cab driver replied.

The nighttime sky was filled with a million stars as Silverhawk flew toward Midway City. His face was emotionless beneath his silver mask, but his mind was consumed with doubt.

“Don’t let the fear get to you.” He whispered. “You know that this is what you have to do. The Time Trapper thinks he’s calling all the stops… but he’s not.”

Rip Hunter and Wave Rider had come to him… months ago and revealed to him the Time Trapper’s plot. At first he had not believed them, but it had not taken long for him to realize that they spoke the truth. They’d given him the costume of Silverhawk and taken him to a safe place where he could train in it’s use.

While he’d remained in hiding, training at the Vanishing Point for the equivalent of ten years, less than two years had passed here on Earth. Time was funny that way in a place where time didn’t truly exist.

Despite all of his training, despite all of the time, he couldn’t shake all of the doubt. A little bit still lingered.

As he flew over downtown, he landed on top of Thorul building. Tonight was the night that Supergirl would have her final confrontation with the Silver Scorpion. Silverhawk grimaced, wishing there was some way he could warn her. But, he couldn’t. He’d been given strict orders not to tell Supergirl anything he knew about her future.

“One of the drawbacks of time travel.” Silverhawk muttered to himself.

Supergirl pulled herself to her feet, looking at the dent in the sidewalk. That kept happening…

“That was pretty good.” Supergirl said to the Silver Scorpion. “You’ve gotten better since that day at the parade.”

“Thanks.” The Silver Scorpion smiled wickedly, “I’ve been practicing.”

“It’s still not enough.” Supergirl said, flying toward the Silver Scorpion at full-speed. She could see the look of terror that briefly crossed the woman’s face, but it was gone in a second as a pink force shield materialized around her.

Supergirl slammed into it.

It wasn’t the strongest force shield, as the impact of Supergirl hitting it at super-speed sent fissures throughout. However, it was enough to keep her from getting to the Silver Scorpion. And the Silver Scorpion was still able to fire bolts from her tail through the force shield.

The blasts flew wildly, streaking toward pedestrians and innocent bystanders. It took all of her super-speed to prevent the blasts from striking anyone and knocking them down or worse.

“You people clear the streets!” Supergirl cried out. “She’s turning this place into a war zone!”

Another few volleys from her tail was what it took for people to finally snap out of their need to stand and watch the battle between Supergirl and the Silver Scorpion unfold.

Hidden in the Koulverian Royal Palace, Princess Ti Zoa tried to conceal her disdain for her mother and siblings. They cowered and cried, tears staining their face as they allowed their fear to control them. From the viewer screen installed here in their secret hiding placed, they had watched over the past weeks as the being who identified it’s self as Brainiac 2.5 had enslaved their people.

Ti Zoa knew it was only a matter of time before Brainiac 2.5 found this secret hiding place where she and her family hid. Her father had told her before he’d sent her here to her safety, that she should remember the evacuation protocol. Yet, after seeing Brainiac 2.5 take over their sky fleets, she had watched every attempt at evacuation stopped as cruisers and sky-chariots had been shot down one after the other.

Ti Zoa looked at the entrance to the space cruiser and the various smaller pods in there. The space cruiser would surely not be missed by Brainiac 2.5’s sky patrols. But the smaller pods…

The smaller pods could get her to the Moon Citadel. From all reports it had yet to fall beneath Brainaic 2.5’s might. So far the evil living computer had focused on taking over the planet. The entire royal nation had fallen and the southern continents were enslaved. Now according to the information coming through on the viewers, the Western Continent and the Desdarian Islands were fighting off Brainiac 2.5’s reign. Ti Zoa doubted that Brainiac 2.5 would turn her attention to the Moon Citadel until the entire planet was under her control.

“Where are you going?” Queen Au Zoa demanded as Ti went into the tunnel leading to the pods and the cruiser.

“I’m going to try to get out of this place.” Ti replied. “I’ll send help once I find it.”

“Ti! No!” The Queen cried.

Ti calmed her racing pulse and took a deep breath. Despite her disdain for the weakness her mother was displaying, she could not bring herself to say any words that might wound her mother’s pride. Koulverians were raised to revere their parents and treat them kindly and with respect even when they were wrong.

“I love you mother.” Ti said going about her business.

Thirty minutes later, from the console of her pod, she managed to evade Brainiac 2.5’s sky patrols as they focused their attention on the Desdarian 3000 Space Cruiser and the pods immediately around it.

Ti did not allow herself a breath of relief until the bright yellow skies of Koulvera faded into the darkness of space and the bright emerald moon loomed before her.

Supergirl took blast after blast as she hammered at the shield surrounding the Silver Scorpion. Each blast stung and Supergirl wondered if she was feeling weaker due to the intensity of the bomb from earlier. She’d lost some of her protoplasmic make-up and that was part of what contributed to her near invulnerability and increased healing. Hopefully this was just a temporary side-effect.

“You better come out of there!” Supergirl shouted, delivering blow after blow. The energy shield was beginning to crack beneath the pressure.

Another blast from the Silver Scorpion’s tail slammed into Supergirl’s chest, sending rivers of pain through her entire body. Gritting her teeth, and feeling her anger rise, she felt her control over her temper slipping.

Your temper! Hold your temper! Supergirl’s inner voice shouted at her. Didn’t that stupid voice get that she was trying to hold it? It was just difficult. Her entire body hurt and her mind was not moving as quickly as normal. She needed to end this fight with the Silver Scorpion and get home to rest and recuperate.

The next bolt hit Supergirl in the face, causing her to whip her head back quickly as she screamed out in pain.

The pain added to the ache she was already feeling from the bomb and caused her to lose her tenuous grip on her temper.

The angel fire exploded from her eyes and back.

She heard people scream and start running. She normally tried to keep the angel powers on the down low. Most of the world was unaware that she had them. They knew about her TK blasts, her Kryptonian-like powers, but most of them did not know that she had the powers and abilities of an Earth Bound-Angel.

The fire that shot from her eyes in rivers of flame shattered the Silver Scorpion’s shield in a second.

“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU?!” The Silver Scorpion screamed, just barely avoiding being incinerated in the angel fire.

“Pissed off.” Supergirl replied calmly. The fire burning from her actually left her feeling relaxed and less tense. Her anger was burning away with it.

The Silver Scorpion ran and the crowds, including the police, parted so she could pass.

Supergirl followed after her calmly.

As Cutter and Mattie watched her go, they both remained silent, holding their breath.

Finally, Mattie said, “Shouldn’t we stop her?”

“She looks very pissed. I think it’s best we just let her be.” Cutter replied.

“What if she kills the Silver Scorpion?” Mattie asked.

“I don’t think she will.” Cutter said softly. “At least I hope not.” Cutter did not follow the sentence up with the thoughts that came after it. He didn’t want to verbalize the fact that over the past few months Supergirl had been growing more and more violent, and having a much harder time keeping her temper in check and resisting lethal force.

Brains got out of the cab, making her way up to her office. Once inside, she pressed a button on the desk, which caused the bookcases behind the desk slide away to reveal a secret chamber beyond.

Going inside, the bookcase slid shut, giving Brains privacy in her elaborate control room. Going over to the control console, she punched a sequence of keys which brought the massive monitor blinking to life.

Quickly setting the jar of protoplasm aside, Brains studied the images on the screen.

She wondered if Ellen realized the blinking red gem in the center of the silver domino mask she wore housed a camera that allowed Brains to record and monitor everything going on.

“Why is she running?” Brains muttered, pulling up a seat and settling in, as her fingers danced across the keyboard. A small icon appeared in the corner of the monitor screen. It was an hourglass and in it’s center it read 3:00. As a second ticked away, it dropped down to 2:59.

As the Silver Scorpion spun around, Supergirl appeared on the screen, fire dancing from her eyes and back.

“What the Hell?” Brains gasped. She had read reports that suggested that Supergirl’s powers had evolved and changed after the testing she’d undergone at LexCorp. There had been notes, scribbled in Luthor’s own handwriting, that stated there were rumors of “supernatural powers.”

Brains looked at the protoplasm writhing in the jar. She wondered if that protoplasm had any genetic coding that would reproduce that weird supernatural fire.

The thought was fleeting as Brains turned her attention back to the monitor with it’s countdown. The counter had reached 2:37.

“Don’t!” The Silver Scorpion screamed, throwing her hands up in front of her. “Please!”

“You’ve made me angry.” Supergirl whispered, watching as the Silver Scorpion erected her force shield again. The round globe of energy crackled and flickered, apparently not as strong as it had been earlier. The angel fire had shorted out the circuitry that powered it, making it weak.

“Look! Don’t do anything rash!” The Silver Scorpion said, stammering. “This isn’t personal. It’s just a job. I was hired to make you look bad!”

In her secret room, Brains lifted an eyebrow, “Oh. Really? You think ratting me out is going to get you any further in the Slow-Demons?” Laughing coldly, Brains shook her head in disgust. “You’ve made it all that much easier.”

The timer had reached 1:47.

“Not much longer.” Brains grimaced. But, would it be quick enough to prevent Ellen Dalton from babbling anything more to Supergirl?

“Who hired you?” Supergirl asked, moving closer and closer to the Silver Scorpion.

Several police officers appeared several yards behind Supergirl.

“Don’t go any closer to her Supergirl!” One of them screamed. According to the label on his uniform his name was Lt. Danvers.

“I asked who hired you!” Supergirl was screaming, the fire from her eyes contorted with the anger that mangled her features into a horrible mask.

Ellen Dalton’s heart began beating faster beneath the silver material making up the Silver Scorpion costume.

“Her name is Brianna. But, she goes by Brains. She’s in charge of the—“ Ellen’s lips froze and her eyes went wide.

“Time’s up.” Brains whispered, her eyes not leaving the monitor screen.

Even after a bloodcurdling scream ripped from Ellen’s mouth and the screen went blank with a powerful explosion.

At the scene, Fred Danvers ducked as soon as he heard the explosion.

When he pulled himself to his feet, Supergirl was gone and Silver Scorpion was laying headless on the sidewalk, smoke rising from the remains of her neck.

“Linda?” Fred whispered, searching the sky for signs of his daughter. She was nowhere to be seen. He looked over at the Silver Scorpion’s dead body. Had Linda done that? Quickly, Fred pushed the thought away. He didn’t want to think about that. Surely Linda wasn’t capable of that.

“That was entirely unpleasant.” Brains said, snapping the monitor off. She turned her attention to the protoplasm in the jar. “And now my friend… what are we going to do with you?”

Epilogue:

As the flashing lights swirled around and the crime scene division scoured the street for clues, Lt. Damian Jacobs watched with barely concealed delight. This was going to be good for them. Supergirl probably had not killed the girl, according to the medical examiner there was some sort of explosive in her suit. But, the media was already hinting that perhaps Supergirl had somehow triggered the explosion. This was even better than Dynamic had been.

Jacobs cast an eye toward Lt. Fred Danvers. Jacobs suppressed a scowl. He loathed Fred Danvers. But, that was something he would deal with later.

Stepping away from the circus around him, Jacobs dialed a number on his cell phone.

“I need you to make the necessary arrangements. I want to rent Chemo.”

THE END

NEXT ISSUE: As Supergirl feels the repercussions of the death of the Silver Scorpion, Lord Xenon sees through the veils of his Hypertime prison and unleashes as threat upon Supergirl and Midway City in “Crisis In Midway City.”

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