13th September 2012
09:03 GMT -5
Dana looks around the semicircle of assembled Supergirls.
"Another one?"
"Hey!" New Kara raises her right hand and waves, smiling brightly.
"Yep. That's five. I'll take my free one now, please."
New Kara frowns at me. "Free?"
Angelika nods. "It is a common promotion in American cafés. Each time you buy, they stamp a card, and when you complete the card your next is free."
"But he doesn't own us."
I nearly make a 'what consenting adults do in private' comment, but I'm not sure that she'd get it, and I suspect that I'd be asked to explain it until we both became mortified.
"No. I was merely trying to derive humour from a strange situation. I do not own you, nor would I expect to own the next Supergirl who turned up, assuming that one did."
"Okay. As long as we're clear that slavery is bad." She zips forward into Dana's personal space. "Hello, I'm Kara!"
"Ah, hi? Paul, what's going on?"
"I was joking earlier, but we just acquired another Supergirl. I'm a little worried about how many times this can happen before we get an evil Supergirl."
That gets Old Kara's attention. "Are there a lot of evil Supergirls?"
Angelika awkwardly looks away, and I just as awkwardly look away from her. Which is a bit unfair as I don't think that she ever did anything evil. But… Yeah.
"I'd have said 'no', but I've been to a parallel where there was an Evil Mary Marvel. And if there's an evil version of her, then I can only assume."
Noriel sits down against the far wall, arms folded across her chest. "Why am I here?"
"If there is something that is bringing us here, then it is not limited to different versions of Kara Zor-El." Angelika shrugs. "I was made with genetic material taken from-."
New Kara's eyes widen. "You're a clone?!"
"Kara…"
"Ah..." She visibly squirms. "I mean… You're a clone?"
"No, I was born human and had Karl's… Ah, Kal-El's, genetic material added to me by a virus."
"So it's like you're his daughter?"
"Yes." Angelika nods. "Somewhat like that."
"That's completely different!" She spots me staring blankly at her. "Not that there would be anything wrong if it wasn't, but… It… Is."
"Nylor Truggs, Dana."
"What about him?"
"What happened to him?"
She frowns. "How do you remember that? It shouldn't have happened for you."
"Remember what, Dana?"
"You d-? Oh, damn it!"
New Kara looks at her sternly. "That's a naughty word. As a superhero and more importantly as a Supergirl, you need to set a better example."
"Who is she?"
"Kara-? Is it just Kara?"
"Not until I get married."
"I still can't believe that's actually how it works where you're from."
"Kara Zor-El. You know how this is parallel sixteen?"
"I… Think I remember someone saying that."
"She probably comes from somewhere else."
Though her mannerisms do spark a memory. Is this the Earth One Supergirl? The one who… Tried pushing the Earth out of the way of an asteroid manually in one of the more recent comics where her appearance was never really explained? Who was killed by the Anti-Monitor during the Crisis?
I mean… I knew that the main canon DC universe was out there somewhere, I just… Assumed that I wouldn't have to go anywhere near it.
I'm… Actually a little worried now.
"But Truggs. What happened with Truggs?"
"We-. They picked him up first. He was kinda obvious. He spilled his guts right away. He seemed to think that the whole mess was funny. At the time, the Legion didn't know whether all of the changes they picked up was you or him. He was the obvious source, but… He wasn't actually connected to a lot of things that had happened."
"I thought he was from before the Legion's era."
"No. It's the same era. It's just… Earth? It-."
"Is a backwater far from the centre of human civilisation. A Thanagarian protectorate, and not part of the United Planets."
"No, it's an actual part of the Thanagarian Empire. They've got a governor and everything. As far as we can tell, he stole the H-Dial he used to come back in time from a Legion vault."
"So they've still got him."
"Ah… No. What we did to erase… Your time in the future, that meant that he had to go back too."
"So he doesn't remember what happened in the future either."
"He shouldn't."
"Are your colleagues at least tracking him?"
"They were, but he's got plenty of friends in this era and he's really good at getting away."
New Kara perks up. "Have you got a picture of him?"
I shrug. "Yes." I use my ring to generate a hologram projector construct and create a three dimensional full colour hologram of Nylor Truggs. "That's what he looked like last time I saw-."
There's a blast of air, and she's gone.
Darn it.
"I'll get after her. Everyone else-."
Angelika nods.
"I think that we should come."