***CONNER***

The first thing I think of when I see this other Kara drop in with her boyfriend Mon-El (there's another Kryptonian in this world?) is, rather selfishly, a jealous one. A thought along the lines of Why am I the only single one in this place? Cisco twitches, as if hearing my thoughts, and I amend my thoughts with a quick apology just in case his Vibe powers include telepathy. And then another revision, though back to the jealous realm - not just me lamenting my single-tude, but wondering, Why does everyone in my family have beautiful love interests and not me? I mean, seriously. Diana, Barry, Mon-El...maybe I'll get similarly lucky?

Perhaps with Jesse, if I stay here long enough. Of course, being back on the Earth where the Luthors used to torture me isn't doing my psyche much good, but so far I haven't exactly had an episode over it. Not even when Other Kara and Mon-El unveiled "Lexy" together. I might start calling him that too, to diminish the power this particular bugbear has over me. Could I maybe do the same with Lena? Call her "Lenny" or something?

Against my better judgment, I find myself drawn to Other Kara and Mon as they bring "Lexy" to some secret room for interrogation somewhere. They let Other Barry and his buddy Jax, as well as Jesse, take over said interrogation. In Kara's words, "He was here to screw around with you guys. We were just in the neighborhood."

"Yeah, we're not too proud to let you run point," Mon says with a wink. I take a step closer to him, and he turns around to see me. "Hey, dude. Who are you?"

"Someone with a little bit of, uh, personal experience with this guy."

"A score to settle?" asks Other Kara. "I'm almost tempted to let him in there."

Mon shakes his head, snickering. "Save the anger for a last resort, I'm thinking." He holds out his hand. "What's your name?"

"Conner." I shake his hand. "Or, in the, uh, old tongue, Kon-El."

"Haha, I like that name. Rhymes with mine. So are you a Kryptonian or a Daxamite?"

"Kryptonian," I say. "What's a Daxamite?"

"Me." Mon points to himself, drawing my attention to his broad chest. Body goals right there, perhaps when I'm more 100% finished pubescing as opposed to my current ninety or so. The last ten percent is the slowest, though, which really sucks.

"You don't know what Daxam is?" asks Other Kara.

"Was," Mon says. "Just like Krypton. Our planets are sisters."

"Oh." I frown at the thought. "No, I...I never knew about another planet. I don't even remember Krypton. I was a baby when it blew up, and then I wound up here after a side trip to the Phantom Zone..." I peer through the one-way glass separating us from the interrogation room. "This guy found me. I wasn't so lucky like my cousin and my brother." Looking at Lex brings back a few more bad memories, so I turn away. "So are your powers just like ours?" I ask Mon.

"Maybe not quite as strong, but very close to it, contrary to popular belief," says Mon. "Especially now I've been on Earth for a while and gotten my people's drugs out of my system for good."

"Super strength under a yellow sun?"

"Check."

"Super speed?"

"Hell yeah."

I make a mental note to advise Barry to challenge Mon to a race, see which Kara has the speedier boyfriend. "Kryptonite vulnerability?"

"Not to kryptonite, but to lead."

Doesn't make him much different from humans in that respect. And now for my personal favorite power: "Flight?"

"How do you think we took this guy out of the air?" Kara scoffs. "I didn't do all the work."

"We're a tag team of love and justice," Mon says proudly.

Kara pokes his nose. "You're such a dork."

"I prefer the term 'your favorite space bunny.'" With her finger still on his nose, Mon twitches it, and even I'm laughing. It sure helps cut the tension I'm feeling just from being this close to my old captor. Cut it, but it can't eliminate it entirely. "Haha, but you know who else you remind me of?" Mon says to me. "That one speedster guy we met on Earth...I forget which one. We travel between Earths a lot, me and Kara."

"I think it was Earth-44?" Kara says.

"Are you saying I'm like Barry?" I ask. "Or some other Barry?"

"No, this guy was Barry's brother," Mon says. "Nice dude. Very eager. Always laughed at even my worst jokes."

"'Cause he liked you," Kara teases him.

"Well, at least that was a better Earth than the one we were at before," Mon says, his face coloring just a bit. Mine too, only because I hope he doesn't think I like him. Not that I don't think he's handsome, but I know better than to mess with a preexisting relationship. "Earth-38, I can never forget."

"It wasn't that bad!" Kara cries.

"No, but the local versions of us had a psychic homewrecker getting between them. That might just be my worst fear."

"I don't blame you." I smile at Mon, but that smile fades when I finally face my own fear. As it were. Seriously, Lex Luthor is actually facing this window, the better to see his own deranged reflection over Other Barry's shoulder, I guess. Does he see me too? I'm not at all unconvinced he can. I always felt like, behind his psychosis and intellect, the man had some kind of Kryptonian-type power. Maybe just the X-ray vision, because he doesn't look like he could rival my brother or cousin in strength, in any of their multiversal forms.

"Even for you, this reeks of unplanned and unfiltered chaos," says Jesse in measured tones. Measured, but if she's anything like me, and I'm sure he is, he wants to cut loose on his ass. "And you know, 'cause you did your thing at a sports stadium, I'm afraid I gotta ask, what's your endgame?" Yeah, she's a hell of a lot like me, or least I want to think she is.

Lex stares at the three people he can see for sure. He keeps his eyes mostly on Other Barry, probably because he sees him more as a reflection, being the one white man in the trio. But Other Barry does next to none of the talking, compared to Jax or Jesse.

"Listen, Baldy," Jax says with a finger pointed at Lex's face. "I could be off working out right now - can't forget core day, you know. Hell, I could go get a manicure 'cause they say the ladies love it when their man does it-"

"Is that true?" I ask Other Kara. "Or just in this universe?"

"He's just kidding," says Other Kara. Behind her back, in silent response, Mon examines his fingernails.

"But you know what?" Jax shakes his head. "Sometimes, we heroes have our friggin' hands full. Maybe not as much as our boy in Metropolis-"

"Or National City," Mon and Other Kara chime in simultaneously, almost giving me whiplash from the speed at which I fix them with the same creeped-out look, one after the other.

"But usually not so much here in Central City," Jax continues. "So my question is, why the hell do you wanna make us part of your reign of terror?"

Lex finally lowers his eyes, probably because he thinks it'll stop the interrogation team from seeing him laughing. It doesn't work, of course, and really highlights his mental instability - not to mention, it makes it easier for me to stop taking him as seriously as I did for the last eighteen years. He's not so much of a nightmare in broad daylight. Or, more accurately, STAR Labs interrogation room lighting, but you get the picture.

Incidentally, why does STAR Labs have an interrogation room? Is this Earth's version of the place a CIA outpost or something?

Finally, Lex speaks up again. "'Reign of terror,' you say. I just wanted to get back something I'd lost."

"Not something," I say fiercely as I realize whom he's talking about. "Someone."

"Mm-hmm." Jesse pretends to make a note on a piece of paper, like she and her people aren't already video-recording this whole thing.

Other Barry leans forward. "If you really lost something" - I don't want to correct him because I'm not even sure he knows I'm that someone, at least not yet - "you could've just called and asked us to check the reception desk."

Jax leans back, crossing his arms. Two halves of Firestorm, and I'm surprised they're not in sync, but then at the same time I'm not. They make such an odd couple anyway, those two. "Spared yourself a shit-ton of expense."

"That's just how important this resource is," says Lex. "I needed it-"

"Him." Involuntarily, I slap the flat of my palm against the glass.

Lex flinches, as if hearing the sound, then presses on. "I needed to know if there was a way to possibly stop Superman for good. Even after so long, though, this experiment didn't quite yield the results I needed." He pauses, then holds up his cuffed hands as high as they'll go, jingling the chains in a rhythm reminiscent of the one that mind-whammied me and Kara before. My Kara, that is, my actual cousin. You know what I mean. "If you're out there, Kon-El..." His voice turns dangerously soft. "You're probably craving your musical fix right now, aren't you?" He changes the rhythm of his chains, slowing it down but also keeping it at the right speed to make me think of what potential earworm could underlie it.

An earworm now threatening to eat my brain unless I hold it at bay.

"I need some air." Other Kara and Mon both try to ask me to come back, but I ignore them, almost fumbling my borrowed iPod and earbuds as I put them into place with an old disco kind of song playing. Bobbing my head to this much more classically beautiful beat a couple of times, I speed out of the building and start flying around the circumference.

In this, my first attempt at real flight since I joined Kara and Barry, I realize just how useful a Super-cape actually is. Lena once watched The Incredibles with me and made me rewatch the "No capes!" scene a ton of times, as if to send some kind of message. And for a while, it worked, making me fear my brother even more. But now, I get the appeal of the cape - it'd really help with my aerodynamics to have one.

Note to self: upon returning to Earth-1, get Kara's buddy Winn to design me a supersuit. Or maybe Cisco could do it. Either way, I hope someone will.