- falls into deep, impenetrable darkness. Even sounds around her are muffled. They also sound strange to the ear, as though she has found herself in a cave.

A running biped hits her side and falls to the (stone?) floor. Drops of water falling from above make it less likely that she is underground. A quarry, perhaps?

What the - is she in the shadow plane?

Aria carefully puts her front paws around the biped to prevent any unfortunate misunderstandings (it smells like a human but with many strange and unfamiliar scents on top of that) and asks, loudly and enunciating as clearly as she can, "Hello! I may have been teleported or plane shifted. Where am I?"

Mr. Jeffry Summers is a native Broctonite, born and raised. Which means that when he hears the distant, muffled voice, and feels the hot breath of a wild animal on his face, his first thought is:

Oh, what now.

His second thought is that this has got to be one of ... what was her name? Hellhound. Hellhound's dogs. And that, despite cooperating, this is going to be the end of him.

He lies deathly still, his breath coming in little panicked gasps, despite his best efforts.

His fear is easy to smell. "I'm not going to hurt you," she says -

And then Tora drops down on top of her, because the universe loves its little ironies.

It's not that much worse than their usual tussles, but a couple of dire tigers' worth of crushing weight might indeed be hurting the biped a little bit!

"Ow! Tora! Careful!" The slightly crushed biped probably isn't going to be helpful now. It's still breathing and she could heal it but she'd rather conserve her spells until she knows what's going on.

She can't see or hear well, and she didn't prepare echolocation. Can she at least smell something useful nearby? Or is she stuck healing and trying to talk to the local?

There are a lot of strong scents in the area!

She can smell: fear, not just from this man but from several people in the area; smoke of some kind, although not woodsmoke; lots of humans; several large animals, of a kind she has not previously encountered; the salty smell of the sea; petrichor, from the gently falling rain; rot and decay; lots of forged metal; tar; ozone, like after a lightning strike; and several more subtle scents that would take time to ferret out.

From the paths and distribution of the scents, she is in an open area that sees a lot of foot traffic.

Whether any of that is useful remains to be seen.

Oh good, there seem to be more people she can ask for help; she won't have to stumble around blindly for the rest of the day. And the smells aren't all unfamiliar and unnatural.

She walks towards what she hopes is the biggest group of people nearby.

... and clears the edge of the magical darkness to see an odd tableaux. She is clearly in a city — if an unusually bleak and foreign one. An array of adventurers in brightly colored costumes stand arrayed around the point of her arrival. Behind them, the light bends and warps like a soap bubble as ... something ... works to separate the area from the rest of the city.

The one in red is yelling at the frightened people who apparently proceeded her out of the darkness.

"... on the ground now!" he shouts, and the people comply.

She isn't flying at the moment and that's all he's going to get from her. 

"Hi! I may have been teleported by a trap. What's going on?" she asks brightly. Behind her, Tora pokes her head out of the darkness, gives a satisfied chuff, and walks out to stand protectively next to Aria. 

The adventurers will at this point notice that, unlike Aria, Tora is wearing quite a lot of magical jewelry.

"Aaah! Uh, I mean, stay there," the adventurer instructs.

"... can Hellhound control tigers? Talking tigers?" Vista quietly asks.

"Not to my knowledge. This might be a new cape — Clockblocker, see if you can stall ... her?" Aegis responds, his response concealed by Clockblocker's mask.

"Who are you?" Clockblocker calls. "Are you working with the Undersiders?"

"I'm Aria, and this is Tora. We're from the Verduran Forest, in Avistan, and the lands around it. I don't know who the Undersiders are. And I can assure you no hellhound can control my tiger, and if one tries I'll do more than control it."

"Your turn: where are we, what's going on, and why should we stay here?" In this horrible dystopian city, she doesn't add, because she does have some tact.

"Why, I'm Cl-, Aegis. Yes, Aegis! Leader of the Brockton Bay Wards," he exclaims, with a dramatic sweeping gesture. "We're here to stop the Undersiders from robbing that bank behind you. And — no offense — I'm sure you're a cat of your word, but you are a mysterious parahuman who showed up  unexpectedly on the battlefield, so we'd like you ..."

A woman mounted on a giant lizard-dog interrupts him by vaulting out of the darkness.

"Tigress, you take the left!" she barks, in the rote voice of someone who thinks this is a stupid idea.

Two more lizard-dogs follow her, running toward the adventurer's line.

Excuse me???

A giant lizard-dog! That's really cool, she's never heard of an animal like that! She still has no idea where she is, but maybe she should stay around for a little while before heading home?

She watches the lizard-dogs with avid interest, Cl-Aegis all but forgotten.

The man in white rushes to grapple with the nearest one, while some kind of spellcaster who can wear plate shoots glowing missiles to try and knock the woman off her dog.

Clockblocker moves to intercept Aria, but stops when he sees that she's not moving, and instead just circles to keep himself between the dogs and the small figure in green at the back of their party.

The dog-rider commands them with a series of whistles, ducking under the spells and having her mount tackle the man in white.

Aria likes helping people, but in a fight with adventurers it's impossible to tell who (if anyone) might be in the wrong. She'll... try to stop them if one side looks likely to kill more than one of their opponents, how about that. Or at least ask for more of an explanation.

Nobody here seems to be aiming to kill, although it can be hard to tell when that involves savaging people with dogs.

Her orders to "Angelica, maim!" seem suggestive.