Karen hesitated for a brief moment. A stranger, likely a super villain, was in her house, her parents waiting on him almost hand and foot. Her thoughts remace around her head, but led to one result- GET HIM!

She was dealing with a big time baddie, and her family was apparently the first stop. Why, she didn't know, but he had her parents! She couldn't just do nothing!

Karen reached for her collar, prepared to suit up and deliver as good a beat down as she could. Never before had she looked forward to it.

"Have a seat, please. It is your dinnertime, isn't it, Karen?"

He spoke again, gesturing to the chair directly across from himself, and her mind rang. Almost as if she was on autopilot, she moved, dropping her hands to her side, and making her way to the chair as he'd instructed her.

Karen blinked. Why had she done that? She'd been trying to attack, so why was this happening? Why had she obeyed him? Once again, she tried to reach for her compressed armor- and once again the sound of his voice stopped her.

"Please, Karen, let's calm down! At least let me tell you what's going on!"

The girl was stuck in a standby mode, her body refusing to fully obey her. She struggled to get something to work. Her legs didn't move out of the chair, and her arms wouldn't reach for her necklace. She couldn't even call out for help! She was at this rando's mercy.

The guy across from her turned to her parents, and gestured to her. Her parents, their faces blank, immediately moved, bringing forth two hearty, steamy steaks, sliced potatoes, asparagus, and broccoli. They placed them in front of Karen and their captor, along with neatly placed eating utensils, bowed to him, and stood off to the side, awaiting further instructions.

Karen couldn't take her eyes off them. And her 'guest' noticed. "Don't worry, I just hypnotized them." He gestured for them, leading the two to bow, and leave for their bedroom.

Karen whirled her eyes from her retreating parents to him. "B-but… how?! Hypnosis on any level hasn't been proven! How did you do this?! Any of it?! It's impossible!"

The boy laughed, removing his mask, revealing a mess of red hair, a… somewhat familiar freckled face. "Exactly. That's why I go by Doctor Impossible."

Karen blinked. Weird name, but apparently suitable. She was in trouble. But then something occurred to her.

"Why am I conscious? My parents..." She looked up towards their room, thinking of the blank looks.

"Well, for starters, I have it on good authority that you hero-types typically have an impressive sense of will. But I figured I could, by chance, try full hypnosis on your parents, and it worked! I got them when they sat down to watch a little TV together. The systems made that substantially easier, with the waves. But hey, " he said, waving his arms around a bit, "In this sense, you have utterly surpassed those who bore you! You have a greater sense of willpower than them! How cool is that?"

Karen shook her head. "That just begs the question- why am I doing what you say, then? If my will is so strong, why would I be subject to your words and commands?"

The boy looked at her, a smile on his face, leaning his chin on his intertwined hands. "Simple- I used a different method: subliminal messages. Not exactly a matter of dominance when you have an idea more thoroughly implanted into your brain."

The girl blinked. "But how did you- The payload! How would you deliver a message payload?!"

"Your helmet."

Karen blinked. "Wha- how would you even-"

She couldn't even finish her sentence. How had he done this? Her security was topnotch, and she never parted from her suit for too long. Certainly not long enough for someone else to take it, then place a code that complex.

"Well, I remotely hacked your computer system during the update patches, implanted some code while you weren't paying attention, and it immediately gained access to your brain the second you put on your suit, via messages I fed your visual acknowledgements." Doctor Impossible told her, as he began to slice up his steak.

Karen was floored. This was insane. He had essentially written some code and enslaved her family. It was… honestly, this was a nightmare.

She began to hyperventilate. Her heartbeat increased. She could feel herself losing her grip-

"Calm down and eat. Food's getting cold."

Without warning, Karen's mind soothed at his words. Her breathing soothed. Her mind steadily restructured itself. She picked up her fork and knife and began to eat.

More questions were piling up. She knew this. But she couldn't handle asking many more at the moment. Her mind was still fresh from reeling from the knowledge that this boy was now in command of her life. But one question burned in her mind. She had to ask this one.

"Why me?"

Doctor Impossible glanced up at her, almost finished with his meal. "Pardon?"

Karen, somewhat emboldened to speak, followed up.

"Why was I your target? Amongst others? My friends." She clenched her hand around her fork. "With what you said, I was always going to be the one you had in this position, right? So… why?"

Impossible opened his mouth, but Karen carried on. "I'm not strong like Supergirl and Wonder Woman, not powerful like Zatanna and Green Lantern. I'm not even as resourceful as Batgirl. So why me? And don't lie. Please." She lowered her head, gazing at the table.

The boy raised his eyebrows. "Please?"

Karen chuckled lightly, before looking at him. "You hold all the cards. I can't make you tell me. But I want to know what made you hijack my life."

From her words, it sounded like he had broken her. But the look in her eyes, the fire, told him the truth. She was still in this. If he gave her too much rope, he would definitely be the one to hang.

He smiled at that behind his hands. He managed his face before he spoke again. "The truth, huh?" He teased her a bit. He tapped his chin, a smirk on his face.

He stood up, walking around, until he was right behind her. "Sure."

"The truth is, yeah, you aren't strong. You aren't powerful. You aren't the biggest gun on your team, that's for sure."

Every remark cut into Karen, but she simply shut her eyes and listened. She needed to hear the answer, for better or worse.

"But you are a genius."

Her eyes snapped open at that. She leaned back and looked up at the boy. He smiled warmly.

"Your armor did make you less of a threat, I admit. For, y'know, obvious reasons," Impossible gestured to the room. Karen understood his meaning. With a few lines of code, he currently ran her life. Taking her silence as confirmation, he continued. "But you built it, so you're much more resourceful than you think. I need a genius to help me. I have plans, ideas, but I have already failed to bring them into fruition. So, I need a second opinion. And your tech, and especially that big ol' brain of yours will most certainly help with whatever you help me cook up."

Karen blinked again. He needed her genius? Her tech? Why? Why would he need her when his technical acumen obviously exceeded her own?

Doctor Impossible continued, suddenly placing his hands on her shoulders. "See, back home, I had big plans." He sighed. "They tanked, big time, and I had to get out of there fast. I burned some bridges, if I'm being honest." He glanced down, noting her curious face. "Long story. I'll explain more later."

Karen's face twisted in a look of curiosity, but she remained silent. For now, she wanted to know more. She stared up at him more intensely than before. His focus was elsewhere, but he knew he'd piqued her interest.

"Anyway, it took me a while to find a moderately peaceful place to keep up my work. I tried, and it didn't fail. But…" The boy squinted, trying to figure out what to say. He shrugged after a moment, deciding to summarize.

"Well, here's the 'Too Long, Didn't Read version," he said, walking back around the table, releasing his hold on Karen. "I'm from another Earth. Earth-2."

Karen blinked slowly. "I'm sorry," she said, cleaning out her ears. "I might have misheard you. Did you just say that you're from another Earth? Another reality?"

Impossible nodded. "Yup," he confirmed, "an alternate reality. The theory of multiple worlds holds true. I've been to far more than just these two anyway. And your world isn't even Earth-1."

Karen's mind raced like never before. Another world? This was a serious development for a scientist, even one as young as herself. And he'd managed to make it through with science? Magic was one thing, but traverse through the multiverse with tech? Her captor was a treasure trove of mystery and information. She nodded slowly, before setting her jaw. Her curiosity had calmed her down, and she was suddenly hungrier for more information. This was the make or break. "What did you do on your world, your Earth, that was so bad, you left?" She asked bluntly.

The boy looked at her, surprise clear on his face, before he laughed, making his way back to his original seat. "Straight to the point, huh? I like that." He crossed his legs and laced his fingers. "I can't say I hate that." He mulled over his next words carefully, plopping himself into the chair. "I was arrogant," he admitted.

"Our original planet had died. Lost in a war with beings from beyond the stars. We'd lost people. Friends, family, you name it. And even then, after we found a new place to live, we were barely on our last legs. The planet we found was barely a shell, with no kind of fossil fuels, and energy was a then unreliable resource. Electricity was hard to produce, and we had multiple sun's, red and yellow. Changed too often to be reliable as ideal energy sources. Wind and hydro power only functioned as secondary sources. And fuels, like I said, were out of the question. The planet was a soon-to-be-tomb."

Karen stared at him intently, enraptured by his story. Impossible noticed this, shot her a small smile, and continued. "I noticed that before almost anyone. When one of the heroes of my world, Huntress, asked me for my help to open a power source that might help, I was only too eager to try. But..." he trailed off for a moment, his face falling, "I messed up. I miffed it, and it blew up in her face. She got hurt. I could have done better, I know it. But Red Arrow, he called me a kid. He told me not to try the impossible."

"Hence the name," Karen interrupted, before covering her mouth. "Sorry," she said automatically. She hadn't meant to interrupt his tale.

The doctor shrugged. "It's no big deal, Karen. When you're right, you're right."

He then dived back into the story. "After that, Arrow's words… they set off something in me. I amassed an army of followers. I took out several competitors, villains. I caused a crazy amount of chaos around the globe. Then I made my move, my real move. If the planet was the problem, if no one else could find a solution, I would turn it into a Mother Box."

Karen looked at him, curious. The boy snickered. Her natural curiosity rivaled his own.

"A Mother Box is a device, a living computer designed by the New God's. They enabled many of the advances for the Gods of New Genesis." He explained. "I felt that only a few would survive the Earth. The second one. The lifeboat. And with everything going on, I admit. I lost it."

Karen could guess what happened. "You tried to terraform the planet, sacrificing a lot of people to power the box, leaving only your 'chosen', before the heroes of the world stopped you. Then you ran off, and steadily regained a semblance of sanity. Now, you want me to help you to ensure you have a better, and unstoppable plan."

The boy blinked. "I knew you were smart, but…" He chuckled. "Well, yeah. That's that."

Karen glared. "Maybe you could have just asked? Maybe me and my friends could have helped you. Maybe find a better way?"

Doctor Impossible sighed. "I'm still kinda insane! Besides, I don't exactly have a good track record with some of your buddies."

Karen's glare gave way to a confused look. "What?"

"Kara, the one in my world, helped stop me. And while Jessica isn't the same one, a Green Lantern trounced me. Just the name is a bit off-putting now. Traumas are real, folks!"

Karen looked down at her hands, clenching them into fists. She didn't know what possessed the boy, but she had to agree with him on one note; he'd clearly still had a few lost marbles. She breathed heavily, her rage boiling. She turned back to Doctor Impossible, her glare as strong as ever, prepared to yell at him, to scream at him.

Then she saw his face.

Since the moment she had arrived home, since she had met him, Doctor Impossible had exuded confidence, near to the point of arrogance. But not now. It became clear to her that his confidence, his arrogance, those were just a front. Because now, she saw a crestfallen child.

The boy put his hands on the table. "I was just a kid, y'know. When it all happened. I was… heh. I was working with the heroes of my world. The Wonders of the World. I… I was a child prodigy, a hacktivist, calling myself Accountable. I was… pretty good. People thought I was an entire organization, that's how good I was."

Karen stared at him, silent as he continued his tale.

"I was 12 or so, but I made a splash. I did big things, but the government eventually caught me. I wasn't in the big house for long. That's when the war started. I was center staged at some point. I got powers. And I tried to use them to fight. But in the end, we barely made it off the planet. I wanted everything back, but then…" He trailed off, pushing his plate away. He just kind of… shut down.

Karen's rage dimmed immensely. It was still there, but her sympathy, her heart, moved her. She rose to her feet, her conditioning not halting her. She pondered this for a moment, before she moved. Grabbing her chair, she slid next to the boy. He didn't seem to notice her. She sat down beside him and put her hand on top of his.

Impossible glanced at her slowly. His green eyes stared at her face, taking her in. "I lost a lot, Karen. My home, childhood. My humanity when I got my powers. I just… don't know what to do anymore. I just don't want to be doing... nothing with my life. If I don't keep moving… I might not get up again." His face fell, and he was silent once more.

Karen stared at him for a moment, digesting everything he had told her. She pursed her lips for a moment, her mind racing. She decided on her course of action: She needed to ask him one more question.

"What's your name?" She asked him softly.

He turned back to face her. "It's Doctor Imposs-"

"No, no," she cut him off, "what's the name that your parents gave you?"

He turned away from her. "That doesn't matter anymore. I'm not that kid anymore."

Without warning, Karen reached over and grabbed his face, forcing him to look at her. She stared directly into his eyes. "It does matter. What's happening to you, why you lost your friends, why you lost to them, it's all connected. It's because you forgot your humanity."

He stared at her blankly. Karen continued, trying to drive her point home. "You still have your humanity. You never lost it. You were just a kid who lost his way in a bad situation. If it hadn't been for my friends… I probably would have been the same." She admitted. "I don't want to pretend. I'm small. I'm weaker than others, especially without my suit. But I hated being bullied, and I never had the courage to fight. I might have done something terrible because it would have felt easier than dealing with things head on."

She hesitated on that for a brief moment before she continued. "But the girls helped me see the best in me. Even when I couldn't. They saved me from becoming my worst, just by being there for me." She tapped his cheek gently. "Your friends went through a lot too. You said you got powers then. I guess with all the pain and changes, you forgot that you were a kid. They thought that with those powers, you weren't all grown up, and had to keep being a child still. But you wanted to suffer with them."

She glared at him sternly. "I'm not excusing you. You've hurt me going in." Her look cooled, and she sighed, her eyes dropping a bit. "But your friends didn't realize that you were hurting too. And you wanted to fix things, just to make it stop. You forgot that you were human to do it. But that ends now," the genius declared. "I'm going to help you get it back."

"So, I'll ask again," she said, her face more set than she'd known before, "what's your name?"

A little power returned to the boy's face. He swallowed, closing his eyes for a moment. He breathed deeply, before exhaling. "My name is James. James Olsen. My friends call me Jimmy. "

After a few moments with their… work on the boy's emotional and mental state, Karen and… Jimmy had opted to move to the family room. They sat on opposite sides of the couch, keeping a tense silence.

Karen lied on the side, trying to figure out how to proceed, how to function. What would be her new approach? And how different was this variant of Jimmy?

Rather than try and be violent and angry with him, she figured it would most likely be better to be civil, be kind. Guide even a fraction of his humanity back and hope to restore him fully. He was lost, and no one had thought to help him find his way.

Jimmy, on the other side, was… lost in thought. More confused than he'd been in a while. He kept glancing at her. He honestly didn't know what to do here. But he was fairly grateful to the girl for helping to ease his mental state. So, he made a decision.

"The message," he began, "was 'Aid and obey Doctor Impossible.'"

This caught Karen's attention. She stared at him, confused.

He continued, going into greater detail. "The message payload I put in your helmet. 'Aid and obey Doctor Impossible.' It's still active within your mind. I can make you do things, but nothing too far off from what you would do ordinarily. If I tried, it would most likely break your psyche."

Karen's eyes widened. "Why are you telling me this?"

"As thanks for earlier. It's disadvantageous, but I am allowing you to understand the parameters of your current limitations. I won't try to force you beyond what you can do. But I will require you to aid me in plans. I will require you to help me forward."

Karen let herself stare at him for a while. So that was why she could move earlier. Her mental programming had let her try to help him. She has been trying to help him get better, to 'aid' him, so to speak. So, she was enabled to move closer, to give him some tough love.

It made sense. But now, she realized, the healing had begun. And that was all she could do at the moment. Perhaps she really could capitalize on her current foundation, see her plans to help the boy completely through. Jimmy wasn't aware of that, either. That was an advantage, she reasoned. Help him without him figuring it out.

The boy in question stared at the floor as her thoughts raced. "You can go to bed if you want. You don't have to keep me company." He informed her.

She blinked. Was that what she'd been doing? She stood up, stretching. "Where will you sleep?" She asked him, honestly curious.

He patted the couch. "This'll do. I've definitely slept on worse. Prison, remember?"

Karen hesitated, before she left the room. Jimmy sighed, leaning back against the couch. His mind was… less of a mess than earlier, definitively. But still, Karen had left an impact. He sighed, his mind wandering for a few moments; right before he was hit in the face with a bundle of cloth.

He shot up with a start, looking down at the offending projectile, before he identified them. A pillow and blankets.

Karen cleared her throat, bringing his attention to her. She leaned against the doorway in her pajamas, a satisfied smirk on her face. "I might be mind controlled," she began, "but that's not going to make me a bad host."

She topped that off with a wink, walking off to her room. "Good night, Jimmy." Jimmy stared after her. Honestly, he was confused. Even as a New God, he apparently wasn't ready for girls. Because he was pretty sure Karen had just flirted with him a little.

He shook his head. "Nah," he told himself. Though, for the first time in a while, Jimmy allowed himself a very real smile.