"I don't know the details. Not a scientist. Gravity isn't the same. We didn't have planets, the world is flat, I helped put it back when bit fell off. The Newton laws are the same though. And all the technology from my world I tried to bring here doesn't work at all. Not even a ridiculously simple cold rune."

Slow blink. "How'd you end up here?"

"I died, and respawned in Japan instead of where I was supposed to."

"Respawned."

"Yes. It's a standard part of the powers where I'm from. I'm not a parahuman because I'm not human anymore."

"Wrong word maybe. My body was destroyed, my home made a new one. If all my homes are destroyed I don't come back."

"Yes, that is the right word for this thing."

"...I don't know if it still works that way, though. And it's a bit strange how I'm telling all this to someone I fought earlier."

"I don't think there's any way this conversation could be called anything but strange no matter the circumstances, but I understand what you mean." Pause. "So you appeared—respawned in Japan, um, and then what? Why'd you come here? And how come you speak English—or any Earthly language, for that matter?"

"I tried and failed to beat up Leviathan. Slowed it down some at least, held on to the earth below and suppressed the quakes. Then Alexandria brought me here and found someone to learn my language and had a tinker translator made. Learned English by listening and comparing to what the translator said."

They're taken aback by the 'Alexandria' part. Somewhat starstruck? Maybe. "Okay... Alright, I'm not trying to be rude or anything, but how do you know you're not like one of those... you know, how do you know your memories are true?"

"Well, I don't have a gemma. How do you know your memories are true and not a product of your shiny new brain structure?"

"...I'm surprised you even know about the gemma, I've only heard of it from a bunch of academic papers. And, well, I don't have a discontinuity in my memories. I mean, everything's consistent, other people remember the same stuff I do, that kinda stuff. If I suddenly showed up in a world with very different physics than what I'm used to I'd definitely very seriously consider the possibility that I had hallucinated my entire past. Not having a gemma is pretty weird, though. Are you sure yours isn't just particularly small, or badly located, maybe? Those papers said that the location and size of the corona pollentia and gemma tended to vary from parahuman to parahuman."

"Protectorate gave me physicals. They made a big deal about how I didn't have a pollentia or gemma, even over the other ways I don't work like a human anymore. And besides, I really really hope my memories are true. But if they're not, what's different? I'm still here, I'll try to avoid dying just the same either because it really hurts or actual fear of oblivion."

"I'd normally expect fear of oblivion would instil better self-preservation instincts," they say dubiously. "Anyway, the other ways you don't work like a human anymore are all expected, or within the realm of the expected, for regular parahuman powers. Having all of that and not being a parahuman? Kiiiind of a big deal."

"I kinda have a million questions about your world, would you be too bored if I asked them?"

"I'll stop answering if I'm doing something tricky, and might get too bored of it eventually, but a few questions would be fine sure."

"So you said it was flat. How does that work? How large is it, what's under it and above it?"

"There are separate continents, more of them as far as you can go. Ocean, plains, forest, mountain. In between is just nothing. At least as far as anyone where I lived could tell. The one I lived on was maybe a hundred by by a hundred and sixty tiles, irregular edges. Er, a tile... The world comes in square pieces, each square is made of four triangles pointing to the middle. They were about... Three or four miles long?"

"They're... what, floating in the middle of nowhere? Where does stuff come from? Is it just endlessly generated? And why are there square pieces, what's important about them?"

Yeah, floating in the middle of nothing. Vela like me, make all the stuff. Stuff is most efficiently made in those square pieces, and only square pieces latch on to the- grid, I guess, and don't fall. But Legend told me not to try it here.

"You keep throwing these names around like that."

"What do you mean? It's true. I talked to them."