The canvas flap felt surprisingly smooth to the touch. Aaron stood there, mute and inanimate, heart pounding in his chest. His stomach felt like a bag of rocks. Gritting his teeth and steeling himself, he pulled the flap back, daylight washing over him like a curtain. Momentarily blinded, his eyes adjusted to find himself in the middle of a city block-sized clearing. Bare dirt travelled to the boundaries of the clearing where it met walls of onyx complete with ramparts, glistening under the lazy midday sun. Turning around, Aaron's momentarily still heart started beating in overdrive. The entire wall was a circle, seemingly with his tent in the centre, the ramparts manned by what seemed to be armoured humanoids. Much larger than a normal human. "Much, much larger" Aaron realized. Reason failing him, he backtracked unsteadily to the tent, only to find it disappearing into motes of golden light, leaving behind no trace. He heard footsteps. He turned to watch a nine-foot-tall woman, dressed from head to toe in alabaster white stride toward him. Ruby eyes bored into him. She came to stop a good twenty feet away. Not saying a word she seemed to take him in, all of him. Aaron had never felt a gaze so inquisitive in his short but unfortunate life.

"......... ... ..... ..... ...." the amazonian woman seemed to say in a voice that was as imposing as her stature. "What the fuck" thought Aaron. "What is she saying? Where am I?". Visions of falling through endless black assailed him. Nausea and vertigo embraced him as his knees buckled. Struggling to stay on his feet. He croaked through dry lips "Who are you? Where is this?".

The giant lady raised her eyebrow. She took a glass pane the size of a book from her cloak. " A cloak" he realized, horror gripping him. Visions of a green planet, a maw of black embracing him as he fell. Her voice interrupted his downward spiral " Who are you? Where is this?" she spoke, a perfect impression of him. The pane of glass lit up. Then nothing. "Tch," said the lady.

" YURII" bellowed a roar from above. Aaron craned his neck to see a ....a..........a............"A FUCKING LION MAN" falling towards them. Decelerating faster than seemed physically possible. The anthropomorphic lion took a stance. " The lion is expecting combat" realized Aaron. " This wasn't fucking earth" hit him right after that.

Yuri Andross was not an indecisive person. Neither was she prone to acting without thought. But excitement overcame her controlled disposition. Here right before her was a threat to civilization. Possibly cataclysm given human form. How would she measure against an agent of fate? A fabled Voyager. She had heard tales of Voyagers. The last one several hundred millennia ago. Only known as ABSOLUTE. Adrastea herself had to descend to defeat him. Or the fables say. Now a threat that required a literal deity to defeat would have scared the bejeesus out of most people, It just curdled visceral bloodlust in Princess Andross. The idea of testing herself against an unassailable bulwark of power almost sent her into a frenzy. Centring herself, she looked at the dimensional interloper. And. Nothing. No sense of danger, not a whiff of fear. The aura of the supposed apex predator felt like a muffled fart if it was muffled under a pillow. The kid could hardly stand. " What a disappointment, the idiot gods that summoned him must have finally let the rot go to their head. They fucked up.". "Yurii" roared Rex from above. Sighing she felt him drop beside her, ready to tear the alien into bits. The kid slowly started raising his hands. No grand spell, no summoning of forbidden energies, no maelstrom of power, there wasn't even a breeze because of the goddamn walls. Even Rex seemed lost. This was a thoroughly ordinary human. AUM didn't want to touch him. Forget a god, the empire's children would beat him black and blue.

" He's small" ventured the feared Xeral.

" Brilliant observation Rex" Noted Yuri drily.

"What do we do?" he asked.

" Slip on the biggest Leech-lock you have, the chronicle did not seem to have encountered his spoken language, we will have the Scribes communicate with him, see what he knows"

"Level of containment?" The Xeral barked.

"Me," she said as electricity pulsed from her fingers as Aaron dropped to the ground convulsing.

For the second time that day, Aaron woke up feeling like rancid shit.

This time he was strapped to a metal chair with what only seemed like a straight jacket. " Fucccccckkkkk" he groaned. Across him sat a man dressed in black Chinese-like cheongsam. Lennon spectacles adorned his face. He was holding the same plane of glass that the large lady was holding. Now that he thought about it, even this dude was large. Armed with slick-backed hair and an intelligent glimmer in his eyes. He pointed towards himself " ARJUN" he said crisply. He then pointed toward Aaron. " Aaron" he spoke slowly. " Aaron" Arjun smiled, he then pointed to various things in the room that looked suspiciously like a field hospital. " Table, chair, bed, floor, ceiling, tent were all spoken in quick time". Aaron felt his attention flagging severely exhausted he felt his attention flag and his head started to loll. Arjun got up and held Aaron's chin and slipped a square paper strip of some sort into his mouth. Energy welled up inside our spatial immigrant. Energy drinks could go fuck themselves, this would keep Aaron awake for days. For the first time since he came to this accursed land, Aaron felt free from pain and fatigue. With a big smile mirroring Arjun's, he opened his mouth to say something. A ground-shaking explosion shook the tent, wiping the smiles off both their faces.