Events or History: Was he taking pity on them, or just using more pawns from another dimension to screw with his doppelganger? No one knew, but ... the trio of detectives and the small squad of police and SWAT officers seemed to think that 'something' had happened and it had to do with that spooky guy with the weird voice and the penchant for adjusting his tie all the time. They were right, Lane had 'done something'.

Aperturth was still bustling, still brimming with weirdness after their own Resonance Cascade. It wasn't becoming a Nexus world itself, but the Barrier had been shattered in a few dozen, perhaps even a few hundred places, and Lane liked to be able to pick and choose where he lifted folks. These, however... He was a bit more than familiar with them - though the reverse couldn't really be said to be true. The senior detective, for instance, had investigated one of Aperturth's Lane's contacts several years before their incident. Another of the SWAT team had started her career looking for evidence that the same Lane was actually involved in shadowy deals with multiple agencies. None of them really understood that 'that' Lane was dead at the hands of the criminally insane founder of Aperture itself, Cave Johnson. This one, this living one, wasn't even from their dimension.

Of the bunch, however, a few of them were starting to come around to the idea that things weren't as they had been. Not just because of that massive sideways jolt to the entire world a year or so before. But now, just now, one of them said, "it smells weird."

He was correct - the air, or more specifically what was on the air, was fragrant in ways they had never encountered. One of the SWAT team recognized the tell-tale signs that a pot farm was nearby, but it wasn't that kind of smell at all. As they kept walking, it became fresher or weaker on the wind. Finally the group came to a halt, at the behest of their senior detective, holding up his hand and turning to face them. As a group, they were looking a little rough around the edges, but then everyone was a bit exhausted. They'd come on foot away from the main road several miles away, because their cars stopped working.

"Team, I think we have a bit of a problem," he said, and those who knew him already saw where this was going. He was a master of understatement. "Because there's a god-damned dragon in the tree over there, and I think we're surrounded."

Other Info: