And from across the veil that separate universes something sees. and something reaches. and pulls.

There is a small flash of light and a small bit of quartz falls from the air and lands on skin.

And someone else blinks and finds himself somewhere new.

It is nighttime. He is in a glass-roofed atrium hundreds of meters across, with paths, streams of water small hills within it. Far past the wall of the garden, an enormous building- perhaps the same one as surrounds the atrium- rises up into a band across the sky. Half that band, illuminated by the sun shining from below the horizon, is the source of what light there is. Overhead, seen as though from above, the vast roof is broken by numerous atria and greenhouses.

(A guard robot registers an unexpected change in the contents of the atrium. In a control room aboard the Ravaia, Corporal Sayaveo glances at the footage of a mysteriously appearing winged man, commands the robot to tranquilize the intruder, and forwards the signal to his superior.)

Felix finds himself suddenly asleep.

Given the information they had, this was a sensible response. Given the powers that Felix had, this is probably not going to be the safest possible result.

As always, he starts dreamshaping as soon as he falls asleep. He immediately becomes aware of several things. Like the local gravity, which is much lighter than it should be and the absence of pocket dimensions around the world. There is just one small pocket dimension.

This can't be. This can't be happening.

But he can feel through the dreamshaping magic that wherever he is, it must be somewhere far away. Might even be a somewhen? He has no idea. The place looked high-tech enough and... Felix reaches out with the dreamshaping magic and there is new technology available for him to create.

Maybe he is in the future. Maybe he is just far away among aliens?

He reaches out with his dreamshaping are there new alien species available for him to create?

(Maybe he will never see anyone he loves ever again.)

There are no aliens. There are badly uplifted dolphins and elephants.

(officers check over the footage, confirming that it really does seem to show a winged man suddenly appearing out of nowhere.)

Felix puts his own pain aside and stares (or does the magical dreamshaping equivalent) at the uplifted creatures.

Then he turns his mind to the pocket dimension, still growing, fairly new. Likely started when he arrived. Dreamshaping is contagious? He doesn't know.

He tries to wake up. No luck.

(Either someone managed to hack the Army Robot Network or someone has much better cloaking than they knew existed in the galaxy. Either way they are dealing with an unknown actor with terrifying capabilities and entirely mysterious intentions. Either way, the winged man himself seems to be neutralised, although who knows what might be hidden on or in him.

They send a fully human unit (in case the bots are compromised) with orders to strip-search him, scan him, put him on vitanal and compliance, and take him to a biohazard facility to be interrogated)

There are no apparent weapons on his person. They will find a smartphone, some documents and a pamphlet written in English that talks about the "The Shattered Skies" off the coast of Florida.

At some point the winged mean starts coughing violently.

The documents- which none of the soldiers present can read- are scanned and sent to a signals intelligence team on the Yatzaidna. The smartphone is disassembled and thoroughly scanned.

When Felix starts coughing there is a change of plan- the atrium is sealed off and the interrogation will be done there. They are now operating under the assumption that the vitanal system is compromised and the winged man is carrying a biowarfare agent. Once the atrium is sealed two soldiers put Felix on his side and try to clear his airway.

As the compliance takes effect, Felix will develop a headache, a good mood, a lack of self-control and a difficulty thinking clearly.

The winged man eventually coughs up blood and then... a pebble, that starts dripping water and floating midair.

Felix's mind is not entirely in his brain at the moment, combined with the fact that he is definitely not in a good mood means that he is feeling a lot of extremes right now. He starts manifesting his pocket dimension, the lay-out similar to the space colony, but wildly different aesthetics.

He places portals around, both to the regular world and to the smaller pocket dimension, but he keeps them closed.

Scanning the pebble shows it to be a normal rock. Since it is clearly levitating, the physical scanning equipment must be also compromised. Somehow. Or maybe it's just levitating by totally unknown means that the scanner doesn't detect. The cyberwarfare team are confused and scared now. The atrium doors are sealed manually in case the biosecurity system is also compromised. The soldiers try blasting the pebble with concentrated plasma, then with armor-piercing bullets. When those fail to work the officers order for a warp shredder to be sent in. Since they aren't willing to break the biohazard protocols for this, it will take some time.

Eventually the tranquilizer will start to wear off and Felix will come to among a group of people wearing high-tech airtight armor. They are wonderful and he should help and trust and obey them. His arms have been tied behind his back, his wings have been tied shut, his legs have been tied together, and he is attached to two different machines via seven different cannulas.

The pebble does behave like a normal pebble under stress (that is, it gets destroyed). But it reconstructs itself very fast. It appears to be growing.

Felix wakes up and it's like crash-landing on an entirely different mental state. He blinks confusedly, before smiling.

Gosh, those restraints are annoying and clearly no one here means him harm. There is no problem if he tries to melt htem off with fire, right? He is not sure if it will work, but there is no problem with trying.

This does not melt the restraints. It does, however, prompt one of the soldiers to tranquilize him again in order to check where the fire is coming from.

And Felix is out again. His mind rearranges itself into something more sensible as he starts dreamshaping.

He panics, briefly, but he sure panics. His mind can't be allowed to break.

Okay, okay, this is not permanent enough to resist dreamshaping, this means that Felix just needs to get rid of his current meat brain.

But there is the other dreamshaper.

Damn it. He can't let the other dreamshaper die, but if he finds a way to kill himself instantly- oh, wait.

He creates a robot with a slow-acting poison (among other interesting chemicals), puts it in a convenient position in front of a portal and...

The guards see a tiny portal open above Felix and then there is a bright red dart sticking from one of his wings. The portal closes immediately.

...okay, he has at most a day to wrap things up.

The station will also receive a signal informing them to let the winged-man go and to not brainwash him further.

Three soldiers spray the area the dart came from with bullets. One sprays it with dyed mist.

"Tii-Kho to Command. There's nothing fucking cloaked there, it just came out of fucking nowhere. Over."

"Deathir to Command confirming there's nothing cloaked there.

   "Vitanal says it's Leostoxin if we can believe that."

   "Ravaia 8 to Commodore. Enemy seems able to dart people out of nowhere, also to infiltrate anything, plasma the fucking traitor juice."

      "Commodore to all ships, wipe all autocon specs."

   "If they can dart people out of nowhere do we *need* to assume shit's compromised? They could have just teleported the rock into his mouth for all we know."

   "Could be the soldiers are compromised."

   "If that's true they straight up control our whole fucking fleet and we're fucked."

   "This makes no bloody sense."

   "City just got a signal demanding we let winged guy go."

   "Ask them what the hiss is going on."

They send a signal is sent to the origin point of the message. Meanwhile the soldiers nervously get back to checking if they can figure out where the fire came from.

Who are you and what is going on?

There is absolutely no sign of anything that could've produced the fire, there are not even signs of fuel residues.

It occurs to Felix that he has little to no means to actually get any messages from these people. At least not unless he is a bit clever.

Okay, he can do something creative with portals. He informs whoever may be concerned that his ability to receive message has been... altered. And as a result they are going to hear a lot of repeats of their own messages. Keep future messages short.

And then Felix starts the task of manually deciphering broadcasts through portals.

Autocon specs are wiped. Soldiers continue to stand guard around Felix and do not disconnect the compliance drip. Army robots continue sweeping the station, finding and destroying several caches of cunningly disguised robots programmed to infiltrate and reprogram redemption facilities.

And eventually Felix will wake up again. The soldiers are still here and still wonderful.

"Hi-" Felix says to the wonderful soldiers.

Then he shot and gassed from multiple directions with all manner of tranquilizing darts and devices coming from portals.

Actually too many tranquilizing darts.

Fuck. Felix thinks to himself, he wanted to stay asleep, but that's going to kill him very fast.

That wasn't very wise. You do not want to make an enemy out of me.

Who is the winged man and why should we defer to you?

A few minutes later he sends a reply.

He was me.

He sends and quickly follows by a correction.

He is me.

Felix realizes this is probably confusing. And they are probably spooked.

The thing is.... he is not sure the truth is more believable or less spooky.

Well, he can say that.

You wouldn't believe if I told you.

I don't actually mean you any harm.

I am just lost.

He wishes he had a way to facepalm in this state. Gosh, ominous much? He thinks to himself. He needs to think before he acts.

Is there a way to disable the various security measures and possibly lock down doors and elevators through some password that Felix can broadcast to the station?

Most of the security systems in the city-sized space-station are electronic and remote-controlled. Among the exceptions, however, are the seals on the doors to the atrium containing his body, and the armored and armed men standing guard around them.

We are willing to consider seemingly implausible claims. What are you? What would you need in order to return home? This is the space city Kyatji Mote in Star System JY-318751. It is currently undergoing chemical redemption.

Considering their capabilities, he does not like the term "chemical redemption".

Keep your messages short and to the point.

What I am is one of implausible claims. Call me Dalkaila.

What's chemical redemption? It sounds like something in serious need of being prevented.

We will not provide intelligence while you conceal your own nature and allegiances. Interfering with redemption will be considered hostile.

I am aware. I am entirely aware that I am invading what you must consider your lawful jurisdiction.

I just really don't like mind tampering.

Also, you don't need to send signals. If you write something down on a piece of paper with the words "To Dalkaila" I will know it is meant to me.

Felix shuts everything down. But if possible, he will let them receive signals so there is communication.