You wouldn't think walking across the parking lot of a Home Depot would come with significant hazard exposure to high-speed truck hazards.

Apparently, it does.

What the ---

Opalyn launches herself sideways out of the path of the truck but oh shit it's swerving it's gonna hit ---

There's only a split second for the truck to loom larger in Opalyn's vision, coming for her head.

And then, just before it hits -- she is somewhere else.

Indoors.

Inside a room of dark metal, lit by crackling arcs of green lightning.

Opalyn's eyes may take a moment to adjust to this from the outdoor daylight.

A man's voice is shouting something.

Opalyn was dodging to the side to escape the truck, before ---

--- and now she's on the floor, her shoulder a little wrenched, her hands scraped a bit from where she landed, blinking to adjust to the strange lighting, trying to make out the figure of the man,

who, while strange, is most assuredly NOT a giant truck ---

What in holy hells just happened.

And what does he mean, SECRETARY? Like, of STATE? Of DEFENSE? Of the TREASURY? It better be one of those.

He seems, after his final statement, to actually notice Opalyn and her disarrayed position.

"Are you all right, my new minion?" he says, in a voice that sounds like it would be drawn with jagged edges if it was a font.

"Minion?" Opalyn sputters as she stands up.

"Who the fuck are you that you think I'm your minion? Explain yourself."

He doesn't look at all offended by this language or this request, almost as if it's a very routine way of talking in his native culture.  "I am Doctor Disaster!  Builder and ruler of the glorious utopian city of Little Damar!  The mightiest spark that the southwest corner of the Black River region has ever known!"

Okay, he's just insane. No point in being indignant at him. She'll try asking nicely instead.

"I see! Nice to meet you, Doctor Disaster."

Uh, that came out a little skeptical. She clears her throat and tries again.

"If you really brought me here, and we're not just part of the same nightmarish delusion, please put me back where you found me. Er, correction, please put me back either a full minute earlier or else translated five meters south. Or both. Whatever. Just not in exactly the same time and place. But very nearby. Um, thanks."

"A ha!  I infer that the most intricate element of my design, to bring forth my new secretary from a moment when she would have otherwise faced a dire fate, has proven entirely successful!  Kindness is not unknown to me, you see.  I have made an extensive study of its most famous practitioners and their surprising effectiveness.  That is why -- in a stroke of genius that not one spark in a thousand could ever match -- I have summoned forth my future lieutenant under conditions that should ensure she faces me initially with gratitude rather than immense resentment for her permanent, irreversible, one-way summons!"

Permanent?
Irreversible?
One-way summons?

Bulllllll-shit.

To whatever extent this guy is even coherent, he would claim that there's no way for her to go back.

(Or at least, this is what Opalyn is desperate to believe, because if it's really true, then ugh.)

Opalyn does not have a lot of moves here. She's in a strange place with no resources and no local knowledge. This crazed loon is calling at least the next few shots.

"Well, now that you point it out, I CAN sort of see how kind you are! If I squint!"

"What do you have in mind for me, oh Doctor my Doctor?"

She wonders if he can even perceive sarcasm, or if he's the wrong flavor of narcissist for that.

WHY would he perceive SARCASM when his MINION is talking like a NORMAL MINION?

"If I'm going to take this job at ALL" -- not that she has a whole lot of choice here --

"I demand a better title than 'Secretary.'"

"Like... Supreme Sultana. Or the Zesty Czarina."

"I think that may be the most reasonable job benefit request I have ever heard.  You shall be known henceforth as the Supreme Sultana of Doctor Disaster, Miss... what was your name exactly?"

"Opalyn. Opalyn Miller."

She grudgingly admits to herself that being the Supreme Sultana of a castle and an allegedly utopian city sounds a little bit more fun than finishing packing her apartment and nursing a broken heart.

"Can you say more about what you expect me to actually... do?"

"If I knew how to run a castle I wouldn't need you."

Oh dear.

"Well, what are the things that are going wrong from your perspective, and what future state of affairs would satisfy you that the problems had been fixed?"

"So you're saying the people who work for you don't do what you want?"

Opalyn's top theory is that they can't figure out what he wants, if this is the way he tries to explain it to them.

"Precisely!"