Anneia follows, taking the distance in several great leaps, bouncing off the sides of buildings.

"So you said something about a portal? Where are you from?"

Hmmm. Assuming that supers are as thick on the ground here as they are at home, and assuming that they're as varied as they are at home, sometimes with access to honest-to-goodness magic, and carefully not making any assumptions about whether the person she's talking to is generally on the up and up, and knowing that a bunch of people are going to die if they somehow get to Earth and invade, even given the Justice League's obvious ability to oppose them -

Oa can handle itself, surely.

"The Green Lanterns are based on a planet called Oa. We're a peacekeeping force that spans the galaxy, so we get called in to deal with anyone similarly powerful who wants to make trouble. Unfortunately, the troublemaker of the day has a portal gun, and apparently he can send people pretty far away from where he is. I'm gonna try to get home after this, obviously, but I'm not in such a rush that I can't stop for anything." 

"Uh, yeah, so there's no planet called Oa or Green Lanterns in this galaxy."

"Officially pretty concerned about the strength of that portal gun, then."

"We don't have anything like that, either."

"Oh, the portal gun is new, that's no surprise. Green Lanterns are fairly structurally normal, though, I expect that wherever we are is far outside Oan territory."

"I mean, unless half the galaxy is 'far outside Oan territory' I think you might be from another dimension or something." Or just actually insane but that wouldn't be productive to say. And there's the weird mask and the weird costume and the weird green glow and all that together adds up to a whole lot of weird.

"That's possible. Might honestly have been easier than transporting me a couple galaxies over, though I've heard of both things happening. Ohh, I know," she says, and gives a mental command to her ring. "This is - yep, nope, comms are dead. Different dimension or profound interference it is."

"Okay, cool. So now that we've established you're not a whitesider here to break our trap before we can spring it, do you mind if we walk and talk? 'Cause the tanks'll be rolling in in about five minutes and I was supposed to snap their line about fifteen blocks north of here."

"Fine with me."

"Great." She hops down to the street and sets off at a quick run.

Karen flies, though she flies very close to the ground. Flying is easier.

"Isn't that a waste of power?"

"Fairly negligible. If I wanted to turn the tide of this battle by myself I would have to run some serious calculations, but I'm pretty sure that trying to win a war that you know literally nothing about is against one of the cardinal rules of diplomacy anyway."

It would be worth thinking about if she didn't have her backpack on her and her lantern in the pack, but luckily her past self has done her a solid here.

"Huh." Okay, yep, running on different rules. "Well, it's not like you could actually win the war from here. It's just one planet. And the Compact doesn't care much about it or the assault would have more magical support than that girl down south. Of course, the Domain doesn't much care either or it'd be more than me and Cia."

"Sounds like a depressing state of affairs. You'd think they'd try to take places of strategic importance, but I guess it's different when you're dealing with a war spanning, what, your entire galaxy?"

"Yeah it's kind of existential. But the not-important places are good practice for the actually-important places."

"Everywhere's at least a little important, if people live there," she muses. "So you guys run on magic, you said?"

"Yep! Magical girls, that's us."

"Fascinating." Maybe it's not the annoying kind of magic. "I suppose I'll get a better sense of how your powers work in practice when I see you in action. Just girls?"

"Only girls. Dunno why, but boys never get picked."

"The magic itself picks you, or...?"

"No, the Imperatrix or the Polemarch visits you and makes you magic if you're good enough. Uh, they're the leaders of the Domain and the Compact and like, really strong magical girls."

"Cool, cool." So a pair of intentional evil matriarchies, insofar as anyone involved is an evil matriarchy. Unless there's some reason the magic only ever works for girls. Diligently not making assumptions, here. "Lemme know if the questions get annoying, I know you have a lot on your mind right now."

"Nah, just gotta swat some tanks around. Oh hey, we're here." 'Here' is an apparently undistinguished intersection.