[center][h2]Kiryu Sento[/h2][h3]??? — ??? Plaza[/h3][/center]
Despite the brown-haired girl's immediate confusion, none of the names that she rattled off held any meaning to him. The fact that she was referring to a planet in that context was noteworthy unto itself, given how humanity hadn't achieved interstellar travel yet, but that didn't change that his answer remained the same. The other teenager seemed to have reached a similar conclusion to his own, though he had been the first to put the theory into words.

"Honestly, alternate realities seems to be the most likely answer," Sento replied with a brief nod. "The terms 'Penacony' and 'Xianzhou Fleet' are just meaningless names to me, and I assume that'd go for a lot of places you might try to quiz me on. Unless you know what the planet Earth is—the third planet in the Milky Way, if that helps any—then I don't think we're going to get anywhere with this kind of questioning."

With that, the scientist crossed his arms as a pensive expression crossed his face.

"A motive... I'm quite unsure myself. I might have been the first to arrive, but that doesn't mean much when the time between my arrival and yours was only a few seconds," he stated towards the young man beside him. "Putting aside the possibility of magic bringing us all here, I didn't see any technology set up to facilitate a transfer. The plaza was as empty as it was when I arrived, minus all of us."

With his explanation finished, Sento vaguely waved his hand towards the fountain nearby.

"At this point, it might be best if we consider fanning out and looking into... Eh?"

A strange noise coming from his flank—the same general area where he had gestured mere moments before—caused the scientist to turn his head out of curiosity. There, in front of the fountain where there had been nothing moments prior, Sento saw space itself seem to [i]twist[/i] and [i]warp[/i], folding into and out of itself before a perfectly rectangular gateway stabilized. There was a brief pause as tension seemed to hang in the air, and a few seconds passed before a white-haired woman wearing a black clean-cut blouse and dress with a coat draped over her shoulders crossed through and closed the gateway behind her.

"My apologies for the delay in greeting you," she said, bringing one hand to her chest as she gave a slight bow. "I had to finish some measures to stabilize your worlds."

"Stabilize our... Sorry, could you please elaborate a bit more on that?" the physicist asked, to which the white-haired woman nodded in response.

"Of course, Mr. Kiryu; I'll start with a brief introduction. You may call me Wynn. I am the arbiter of this space, while my brother acts as the administrator; together, we oversee a multitude of branching timelines across different planes of existence. I believe that you may consider this to be something akin to multiverse theory, if that helps your understanding any," the woman spoke in kind. "We noticed a multitude of anomalies originating from a few worlds that began to cascade out of control. As we cannot directly intervene, my brother and I made the decision to isolate the worlds from which you came and placed them into stasis so as to prevent their collapse."

"That would certainly be a problem," Sento said as he brought one hand to his chin. "But that doesn't quite explain why we're here."

"While the anomalies in your own home worlds place them at risk, utilizing those who had the highest likelihood of being able to intervene in our stead became a priority. Unfortunately, we could only move so many people at once without over-taxing our ability to maintain stability. It is a rather utilitarian explanation, I admit, but it is as succinct an explanation as I can give at the moment."

With a sigh, Sento crossed his arms and glanced at the others who had been so suddenly displaced before speaking again.

"Are you implying that we wouldn't have been able to resolve the situations on our own?"

"Unfortunately, yes. While I have no doubt as to the power that you and those you all worked alongside in the past, the problems plaguing your worlds are more fundamental in nature than even that," Wynn stated. "Now, before I proceed: are there any other questions you all would like me to address? I will do so to the best of my ability, but I cannot promise answers that will satisfy you."

[@VitaVitaAR][@Rune_Alchemist][@Raineh Daze][@Cmmelody]