She's in a classroom, surrounded by teenagers sitting at metal desks. They look startled, but not particularly surprised per se, when a strange girl pops into the room.

Hey, are you alright? asks what might be a magical girl silently, putting down... her? book. (If they are a magical girl, they're high on points; they've got no face at all, they're seven feet tall, and there's wings and eyes all over their body.)

Rebecca blinks at her. "Um," she says. "Excuse me. Where am I?"

Dunn Hall. ...Whateley Academy, she continues when this does not immediately cause recognition. Massachusetts. America?

"Oh. I guess that's not too far."

Where were you trying to teleport to? the girl asks.

An adult at the head of the room clears her throat. "I'd like to continue with the reading, if you don't mind. Ananda, would you escort this young woman to the office so they can handle whatever she needs handled?"

Sure thing, Mrs. Wolfgang. Come on, uh- what's your name?

"Rebecca Arden. I wasn't trying to teleport, a cryptid did it."

Nice to meet you, I'm Ananda, says, apparently, Ananda, leading Rebecca out of the classroom. What's a cryptid?

"Do Americans call them something else? The thing you almost are, where you change too much stuff."

Um. I don't know about being 'almost' anything, I'd say I'm just a mutant. Like you, presumably.

"Do Americans call magical girls 'mutants'? Why?"

...Mutants aren't just girls. Anybody who gets powers is a mutant. Well, not everybody, there's origins and power gems and Dynahosts and all that, but that's mostly just irrelevant and confusing. But like, my sister's a mutant and it turned her into a dragon, I'm a mutant and it turned me into this angel-thing, a lot of folks are mutants and they just get really pretty or don't get changed at all.

"Look, I can read and stuff, you can't just say anything and have me believe it."

Um? I'm... not actually sure what you think I'm lying about.

"It's only girls! And none of those other things you said are real. And you have to change something and it doesn't just do it for you. - well, I guess maybe if you're a cryptid it might keep going without you? Are you a cryptid? Who talks and stuff?"

...okay, that's a big disconnect. I don't think I'm a cryptid but I'm still not quite sure what that means except that they're slightly more of something than I am.

They pass by a boy wearing denim shorts and not much else, covered in fur, with dog ears and something of a muzzle. Oh, Fred! Hi, this is, uh, really weird, but can you like, confirm that you're a mutant and not a girl?

Fred blinks. "I'm a mutant," he says slowly. "And not a girl, though you'll have to take my word on it. Is this... I don't actually have a hypothesis for what this is."

"...Well, I suppose I wouldn't have to look like a girl if I didn't want to, but I'd still be one."

"I don't think I can prove that I'm not a female shapeshifter," Fred apologizes. "Absence of a negative, and all that. What's this about?"

She believes that only women have powers, that all women with powers are shapeshifters, and that if you shapeshift too much you turn into something called a 'cryptid,' one of which teleported her here for some reason.

"...that doesn't sound like she's wrong, it sounds like she's from another universe."

It is pretty weird.

"No, like, non-figuratively from another universe. Like, we're universe A and she came from universe B."

"I'm from Birmingham, England. But I was in Boston a little while ago before I got on a boat. Then I was on the boat. Then the cryptid ate me."

"I guess another universe could have its own Birmingham in it," Fred muses. "And its own Boston."

This is getting weirder than it already was. Let's just go to the office so we can arrange a teleporter. Talk to you later, Fred, Ananda says.

"Oh, sure. Talk to you later."

What kind of boat was it? Ananda asks as she continues down the hallway.

"Big second-rate."

Huh. I meant more like 'cruise ship or freighter' but obsolete British naval terminology works too. 

"That's what they told me it was!"

No, I actually meant that, it's helpful. What year is it, from your perspective?

"My perspective? What are you, pagans?"

Well, yes, actually, I'm Hindu. I was actually saying that because we don't seem to agree about any facts about the state of the world so far, and I suspect we won't agree on what year it is either, because last time I checked it was 2012.

Yeah, that's kind of what I expected.

They exit the building, and Ananda sprouts some larger wings from her back. Do you want to fly to the main office? It's not that far, but, you know, flying is fun.

"...okay."

Ananda soars up into the air, then swoops towards a brownstone building attached to a large glass-and-metal geodesic dome.

Rebecca gets up in the air and follows her.

Ananda lands and leads her into the building.

”Hello, miss Luthra!” says the cheerful blonde woman at the reception desk, looking away from a screen showing a heated game of Solitaire. “How can I help you today?”

Uh. Rebecca, do you want to try to explain the situation or should I?

"I have no idea what's going on, how am I supposed to explain?"

That’s super fair, I just didn’t want to talk over you. Rebecca was teleported into my lit class by a creature she called a ‘cryptid’, from what is as far as we can tell an alternate universe where certain women, and no one else, have magic which includes shapeshifting. Her home universe seems to be at least a century in the past, as well.

The receptionist takes this in her stride. “Well, that’s certainly unusual. I'll send Mrs. Carson a message and she can see Rebecca in a few minutes. You can go back to class, Ananda."

"Do... I just... wait here?"

"Yes, dear, just take a seat and Mrs. Carson will call you into her office momentarily." She taps away at her keyboard with superhuman speed.

Ananda waves goodbye and exits stage left. There are several places to sit, a good number of which are even appropriate for people with wings.

Rebecca sits somewhere appropriate for someone with wings and starts singing quietly to herself.

The receptionist nods along.

After a couple of minutes, the door to an office with a nameplate reading ELIZABETH CARSON opens, and a statuesque woman in a pantsuit opens the door and sticks her head out. "Miss Arden? Please come in."

In goes Miss Arden, blinking at the pants. "Um, hello ma'am."

"Hello," Mrs. Carson says once the door has closed. "I'd like to offer my sympathies for the abruptness of your visit. And I'm afraid I don't have very good news: if you had simply been teleported, we would be able to easily return you to where you were from, but since you're from another dimension - I confirmed that magically, I'm not just going off linguistic cues and your confusion at the concept of mutants - it would be very complicated and expensive to get you home."

"Oh. Um. Well, are there boats that I can hire onto... here? That need magical girls?"

"I'm not sure why a boat would need a magical girl," Mrs. Carson says apologetically. "Is that the usual job for magical girls in your world?"

"Well, boats need us because of the sea monsters. Sometimes there are land monsters but I think usually you don't have a dedicated job of that."

"Ah. Our world does not have sea monsters, is I think the key difference here. Before we go further into what you could do to pay your return ticket, I'd like to make it clear that, as a young woman from another world who is stuck here and who is visibly not a baseline human, we at Whateley Academy are prepared to offer you lodging, board, and education for four years, as part of our 'fish out of water' scholarship."

"Oh. Uh, that's nice of you. Do you have music classes here?"

"We do! We also provide a more general education in literature, mathematics and science, along with classes to help you control and refine any powers that you possess."

"But if you don't have magical girls you probably don't know how to help me do that?"

"...if you have to refine your powers through some particularly arcane means, then we might not, but most powers in my experience respond to practice and experimentation? Is that not the case for yours?"

"No, they get better when I'm prettier."

Mrs. Carson raises her eyebrows. "That's a new one on me. We don't have specific classes based around beauty enhancement, but we do have a series of Costume Design classes and they do cover principles of fashion and aesthetics, so you might end up taking that instead of Powers Lab. What powers do you have?"

"Ice." She makes a little hailstone in her hand.

"Interesting. Miss Luthra also mentioned some form of shapeshifting?"

"Well, yeah, but everyone has that... er, all the magical girls do anyway."

"Voluntary shapeshifting is a comparatively rare power among mutants. Much more common is the Exemplar trait, which causes them to transform into an idealized version of themselves but doesn't admit of further changes."

"This is mostly what I really look like, I'd want my family to know me if I ever did go back. I put on the wings and fixed my teeth and such."

"Reasonable. At any rate, would you like to get signed up as a student? I can handle the scholarship details while you fill out the form - that is, if you're literate. Are you?"

"Yes! I don't know that I'm very quick at it but I can read."

"Congratulations!" Mrs. Carson says with a relieved smile. "That's very important these days, I'm glad we won't need to teach you."

She pulls out a form; lightning-quick, she scribbles in a few of the more confusing boxes, crosses out a few more, and then passes it over to Rebecca. The form contains some relatively standard questions (home address [which has been crossed out], blood type, age, and gender [with a wide variety of options]), and less standard questions (tentative power ratings [Carson has put "Sh-5, Man-2a (ice)"], GSD/BIT/MATD irregularities ["wings"], age of manifestation, sexuality). It's not very long, but it is a bit dense.

"What's a blood type? And a sexuality?"

"Sorry about that, I still don't know what year it was in your home world, you can leave blood type blank if your scientists haven't discovered it yet, we'll find out at your medical checkup. Sexuality is whether you are attracted to men, women, both, neither, et cetera."

"1803. - I suppose I can't just say 'I'm a magical girl now'?"

Mrs. Carson blinks. "I'm afraid I'm not sure what-all that would mean."

"Well, uh, you kn- you don't know. Uh. People say we don't make very good wives unless you like to be left alone and... don't mind your wife being very close with some other magical girls."

"Magical girls specifically, or just women in general?"

"Oh, magical girls specifically."

"Alright, you can just circle 'other,' that doesn't sound like it'll come up since we don't actually have magical girls."

"Okay... why do you need to even know?" She circles 'other'.

"Some students require an environment more supportive of their sexuality, which we provide by putting them in a cottage with other students with similar needs. It also helps mitigate bullying by separating vulnerable students from those who might be intolerant."

"What does 'other' do then?"

"If you would like to be in Poe, with other students of alternative sexualities or gender configurations, you have the right to be there. Otherwise, we can place you in one of the standard girls' cottages. It's up to you."

"I... think a standard girls' cottage will be fine."

"Alright, we'll put you in Whitman." Mrs. Carson makes a note of this. "That should be all we need, then. Shall I summon a tour guide to show you around the school?"

"I guess if that's next!"

“I believe it is.” Mrs. Carson picks up her desk phone and dials a number. “Hello, I need a student ambassador for a new student. -sounds good, you can send her over.”

Within a minute or so, the door opens. "Hey!" calls the girl who opened it. "I'm told there's a new student?"

"- me, I guess!" In an undertone to Mrs. Carson: "I thought you said you didn't have magical girls here!!!"

Mrs. Carson raises her eyebrows and whispers back "We don't have magical girls as you know them; Ariel can't shapeshift, and her powers derive from a magical spirit rather than physical attractiveness, though she does have that."

Ariel dutifully ignores the whispering. "I love your dress. Where on Earth did you get it?"

"I made it!"

"Wow, you must be really talented. I could never make something like that. But, you know, that's why we have tailors, I guess. Come on, I'll show you around!"

She floats out of the office.

"Oh, I didn't sew it, it's part of my magic."

"Ooh! Did it come baked in, or did you still have to design it? My mom had this suit of black spiky armor made of ice that she manifested, but I think that's just how her power shook out."

"I designed it. I mean, not all of it, I didn't invent Greek dresses. I don't think black spikes would be very pretty! I have to be pretty or my magic doesn't work."

"Then you've got good design sense! What do you mean you have to be pretty - are you using some kind of obscure hipster magic I haven't heard of?"

"People are saying I'm from another dimension?"

"Oh, wow, shiny. So, prettiness-based magic, clothing manifestation - can you then take the clothes off and, like, sell them?"

"Nah, they disappear if I take them off, I can only do that with stuff that I shapeshift as like part of my body. I haven't tried it but people do that for cash if they don't want to sign on to boats or don't have good magic for it."

"Huh, okay." Ariel goes over to the receptionist's desk. "Hi Ms. Dawson! Rebecca needs an ID, can you print her one?"

The receptionist nods and taps some buttons on her keyboard. "Here you go, hon," she says, taking a small laminated card from a whirring printer and handing it to Rebecca. The card has a picture of Rebecca's face on it, with text reading REBECCA ARDEN, FRESHMAN, NO TEAM AFFILIATION.

"Thank you!" She closes her eyes for a moment to find a good place to put a pocket, and pockets it. "What's a freshman? And, uh, team affiliation?"

"Freshman means you're in your first year at the school, and teams are like - instead of school sports here we have play combat, and kids form teams to fight with to shore up their weaknesses, and a lot of the time that's who you usually hang out with too. I've got a team, we're called Star Force. You don't have to get one."

"Oh. Okay," nods Rebecca. "Is it a really big deal if I forget I have this card and stop having the pocket and the card's gone?"

"It's not a super big deal, but you'd have to come get another one printed and you don't want to have to do that every time you need it. And you need it to get into the cafeteria and buy stuff at the school store. So I'd advise against forgetting it."

"I'll do my best."

"Speaking of the cafeteria, are you hungry? Because we could very easily go there next."

"Yeah, I am a bit. How does the card pay for meals?"

"It's got - let's call it a signature, on it, that tells the machine that lets you into the cafeteria that you've got a meal plan included in your scholarship. So when you go to the cafeteria it'll recognize the signature and let you through."

"Wow, a scholarship."

"Yep! As a fish out of water you have a scholarship which waives the normal fees associated with attending Whateley and includes a meal plan and an account at the school store."

Giggle. "I'm not a fish! I was a mermaid for a few minutes one time but I've stuck with wings since then."

"I know, it's just a term for somebody who doesn't have anywhere else to go. You must've made a lovely mermaid."

They approach the cafeteria, which turns out to be an enormous glass-and-steel dome. The dome, once entered, reveals itself to have three levels, the upper level containing a fountain with waterfalls down to the ground floor. There are several different food lines, each delineated with a unique legend. "The carrot," Ariel explains, "is for vegan fare. The cheese is for vegetarians. The steak is for meat-eaters, not to be confused with the cow, which is for obligate carnivores. The geode is for people who eat rocks and minerals, the baguette with a line through it is gluten free, the banana is various fruits, and the cake is for desserts. You must try the desserts. Also, there's the specialty kiosk, which is for people with specific dietary needs, like blood, insects, or live prey. If you have such needs, you can inform the administration and they will be provided. I am going to go to the obligate carnivore line to get an entire rack of lamb, then to the dessert line to get some pie, and I'll be available on the first floor when you're ready. Okay?"

"What's a vegan and why is cheese a vegetable? And what's gluten?"

"Oh, vegans are people who don't eat meat or stuff that comes from animals. Cheese isn't a vegetable but it distinguishes the vegetarian line from the vegan line because vegetarians are willing to eat cheese, unless something else is going on like an allergy. Gluten is the thing that makes bread soft and delicious, but some people can't have it so they eat special bread that's kind of terrible instead."

"Oh. Are there a lot of people allergic to bread softness around here?"

"Not a ton, but some people. It's just bad enough and common enough that the school likes having accommodations for it. But I think people have been allergic to gluten since we started eating grain, they just usually died of it instead of getting special bread."

"Oh."

Rebecca looks around, decides she has no more questions immediately, and goes through the steak line to get whatever looks recognizable. And she swings by the desserts.

There's plenty of good-looking meat-based food in the meat-based-food line, pork fried rice and chicken casserole and hamburgers and shepherd's pie. There are desserts, cakes and pies and other forms of pastry and ice cream and something claiming to be a "dessert pizza", whatever that is.

She'll take shepherd's pie and a slice of cherry pie, since those look sort of normal.

Ariel waves her over once she has her pies. Ariel, as promised, has an entire rack of lamb along with a couple of hand pies.

"Find everything okay?"

"Yeah. How are you going to fit all that?"

"Some mutant powers require a lot of food to work properly. My powers do. So I eat a lot, but I don't really put on weight, it all just goes into the furnace. It's all very unfair to normal human women."

"Enh, I've never really sat down to dinner and wished I could have another one." She eats a bite of the shepherd's pie. "...this is lunch so that's still true." Om nom nomnomnomnom.

Ariel giggles. "Whateley food is really good, yeah."

Speaking of which: Whateley food! Ariel devours her lamb efficiently and with a minimum of mess. She easily cracks open the bones and licks out the marrow, her tongue leaving scratches in the bone.

That's sort of alarming! "You didn't even just shapeshift that on purpose, right? It just happened and now you have a... sharp... tongue?"

"Oh, my tongue isn't actually sharp per se, it's- my main power is that there's a force field around me that I can manipulate in various ways, and I can make parts of it sharp for a little while so I can get the marrow out, or extend it around something and then pull it back so I can get the meat off the bone. I can also do other things with the force field, my powers are not actually primarily about consuming meat."

"Those'd be weird powers if they were! What do you do with it usually?"

"I use my force field to fly, protect myself from rain and mud and bullets, and enhance my own strength - I can lift about ten tons. And it's not my only power either - I can manipulate gravity, and fire blasts of icy force, and I have a natural talent for hermetic magic."

"What's hermetic magic?"

"It's the most common kind of magic. You visualize something happening in a certain way, do some things with your mind and your Essence, and it happens. -Essence is just the stuff you do magic with. There's a bunch of other kinds of magic but hermetic seems like the most convenient kind, to me."

"Is that 'cause you have a natural talent for it?"

"Yeah, probably. But, like, there's theurgy, which is all about calling on gods and spirits, and you've got to worry about what if they don't want to answer? And there's chaos magic, where it does what you want without having to focus on it, but if you feel strongly enough about something it might act on its own, and that just sounds like a clusterfuck. And erebeal magic is kind of like hermetic magic but a little easier and a little creepier, but its strength depends on the lighting conditions, and that's way too situational for me. Hermetic? Just works."

"A lot of these things sound very pagan."

"I... guess? Is it still pagan if you're calling on powers that actually exist? Or is that even worse?"

"...I'm not sure but probably worse."

"I know a girl who calls on saints instead of gods, works the same way but it's Christian. Well, Catholic, I dunno if that's any better come to think of it. I'm an extremely secular Jew myself, I'm not really up on all that."

"I'm Catholic."

"Ah. I didn't mean any insult, I just know that Catholics and Protestants get very... very, about each other. Still, could've worded that significantly better. I'm sorry."

"Yeah, they do. Is it mostly Protestants here?"

"America's largely Protestant, yeah, though the school itself is a little more diverse than average because they take students from all over the world. Uh, for a value of 'diverse' that for some reason doesn't actually match up very well with global demographics or American demographics - Jews are hugely overrepresented, f'rinstance, the global percentage is less than one percent and we make up about fifteen percent of the school. Nobody's sure what's up with how many Jews get superpowers. -question, right. Mostly Protestant but we've got Catholics, Muslims, Hindus, I think at least one Zoroastrian."

"I don't know what some of those even are."

"Nobody expects anybody to know exactly what's up with every religion they might encounter, you just wanna be a minimum level of respectful. Like - you probably shouldn't use the word 'pagan,' now that I come to think of it? It's kind of offensive, it's like - implicitly saying they're wrong. And you shouldn't tell people they're wrong about God, because how would you like it if they did that to you. Golden rule stuff. Sorry if this is coming off condescending, I have no idea where you're starting from and I'm trying to play it safe."

"...okay..."

"So, topic change because that whole mess is awkward: what's your home dimension like? I know you've got prettiness-based magic and clothing generation and don't have or at least know about mutants or vegans, but you're Catholic which means the histories can't be too divergent. What're the glaring differences so far?"

"I don't know what things are because it's the future and what things are because of the different magic," she points out. "Uh, I think you don't have swarms and sea monsters."

"Oh, huh, I guess your dimension being in the past would explain a lot - when in the past? We don't have sea monsters or anything that's just called a 'swarm' instead of, like, a swarm of wasps or grackles or something. What're they?"

"1803. They're black monsters that can change shape, and sea monsters are big ones and swarms are new little ones that travel together."

"Weird! We definitely don't have those. If it's 1803 where you're from that'd entail a lot of differences - there's no more slavery, is a big one, and less war, and most places are democracies to a greater or lesser extent and everybody can vote including women and non-landowners and people of various different colors. Unless having more magic meant women could already vote?"

"No? Why would it mean that? Anyway not many people get magic and not every girl who gets the option takes it."