[center][h2]Kiryu Sento[/h2][h3]??? — ??? Plaza[/h3][/center]

Having not been given any further questions beyond Miku's, Wynn nodded her head in response to Qingque's and Shino's reticence about the situation before responding with one of her own.

"While I understand your hesitance, I can assure you that we've chosen you both for a reason," the woman replied as she briefly gestured toward the pair. "After analyzing a series of projected values and running through multiple simulations, we came to the conclusion that your collaboration would have the highest projected chance of success—especially when we considered the possibility of... Ahem, [i]corrupted[/i] variables muddying the waters."

Sento's gaze narrowed at the word "corrupted"—a change that was not lost upon the arbiter as she continued speaking.

"Deviance from expected values from multiple major entities were detected as a recurring symptom in each of your respective worlds, but they do not reflect the underlying cause," she said with a bow. "Thus why your assistance is greatly appreciated in resolving this matter."

Having heard that, the physicist could not help but grimace as the faces of a few of his past adversaries popped into his mind.

"I understand," he said with a nod. "Of course, I'll do my best to help where I can. So, where do we begin?"

"Before we can begin, I must inform you that we must unfortunately start with gathering resources," Wynn said as she raised her hand. Behind her, the same gateway she had reached them through re-opened—wider this time, and with a clear view to a different region of whatever space this was. "Please, follow me. I'll explain as we walk."

As Wynn crossed through the portal, Sento gave the briefest of glances towards the others before following Wynn through the portal. The marvel of science—or, well, he [i]assumed[/i] it to be science—that allowed her to create stable transfer between arbitrary distances like this was piquing his curiosity to the extreme, but for the moment the physicist managed to suppress his desire to pry further and instead looked upon the empty city that they were now walking through.

"While this used to be a bustling city, a past incident resulted in it's near-extinction," the white-hair woman said as she continued forward, "leaving it in the state that it is in now. A majority of the remaining energy is being diverted towards stabilization as mentioned prior, which leaves us wanting. As such, my brother and I have made the call to temporarily place deeper investigation on hold until we've determined that we have the leeway to do so."

As she finished, Wynn came to a stop in front of what seemed to be a rather unassuming three-floor building and gestured behind her.

"This is where you all will be staying between missions; please divide yourself among the rooms here as you so choose. I'll give you all time to speak among yourselves as needed, but when you're finished, please let me know. Your first order of business will be to retrieve resources from worlds that have been 'pruned', as a matter of speaking—ones that have encountered such catastrophic dead-ends that they have begun to collapse," she said.

Sento stared at Wynn with a barely-disguised look of incredulity at how blasé she had stated that last sentence before taking a deep breath and shaking his head.

"...I have [i]far[/i] more questions to ask you in the future, but I suppose they can wait for now," he said before turning towards the others in the group. "Right, then. I guess that since we're probably going to be living here for the foreseeable future, introductions are probably in order. Kiryu Sento—genius physicist and hero. I'll be in your care, everyone."

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