by TheTimeTrust and The Eurostar
"Excuse me, fellas," said Dr. Henry Quantos as he rose. "I believe this old country doctor needs a bit of fresh air. Be right back."
"Want us to join you, Doc?" asked Edulcore Cicciotto.
"No, thank you, Ed. I may be one of the few norms in this place, but I don't think I'm in much danger. There seems to be a healthy respect between everyone in here. Very refreshing to see."
Dr. Quantos walked away from his table and down one of the corridors he had seen. In truth, he had to find a washroom, and he looked upon this as an opportunity to explore and gauge how large this place was.
He was taken aback at the sight of a bat-headed man groping a furry cat-woman in a loungelike area. Hmm... those sure didn't look like costumes.
Finally, he found the washroom, and he was impressed to find it written in more than one language. Ah well. I guess La Perdita is a very international destination.
After he had done his business, Quantos stepped out and began looking for a door. Due to the utterly chaotic way the place was set up, however, it was impossible for him to find his way back to the door the group had come in through except by using some kind of homing sense, something Quantos had never been gifted with.
The bar was a jumble of odd angles, pipes jutting out from nowhere, jagged walkways, strobing lights, differently sized booths, ceilings, and many other things no normal bar he'd seen had ever had. There seemed to be stairways leading up, stairways leading down, and corridors in the strangest places. It was almost impossible to navigate unless you were used to everything. And the people, if you could call all of them people, were too bizarre for description.
He wandered off, wondering if there WAS any end to this place. No matter how far he walked, he never saw an end to it. A couple of times he thought he saw a final wall, but they only proved to be a barrier beyond which lay more of the bar. They had certainly used this tesseract technology to their greatest advantage.
Finally, Quantos spotted a doorway and sighed in relief. It almost felt like he had been going in circles the whole way, and perhaps he had been.
As he stepped out to the door, however, he realized that this was not the same entrance the group had entered by.
"What the heck is going on?" the doctor breathed to himself as he stepped through the doorway, a bouncer nodding to him and stamping his hand for re-entrance as he went.
At first he thought that this must be a back entrance to Jake's Place, but everything was wrong, just wrong.
Quantos walked out from the alleyway he was at. He had a strange feeling of surrealism, and part of him was conscious of someone shouting at him from the doorway. The man was shouting something about getting back in as quick as possible. But Dr. Quantos was stunned and unable to move, his eyes fixed on the skyline.
Finally, a large hand grasped him by the shoulder and pulled him away and back into the bar. The bouncer shut the doorway behind him, saying some words of explanation to Dr. Quantos. But Quantos was not listening to any of this. He only continued to frown at what he had seen there on the skyline of what was supposed to have been La Perdita but could not possibly have been.
He had seen the Eiffel Tower.
In a few moments, the door opened again, and Quantos was let out. By this time, his knees felt like they were going to give. He looked out to the horizon but did not see any Eiffel Tower at all. It appeared, moreover, that he was now in a completely different city.
He had been here many times on business trips for Malvan-X, so he recognized it right away. He was in Tokyo.
"Good grief," Henry Quantos said to himself as he walked back to the door. He'd had enough air to last a lifetime.
"Too much for you, eh, norm?" he heard the huge, walrus-tusked bouncer say as he laughed and slapped him on the back.
Dr. Quantos smiled politely and started wandering back vaguely in the direction of his table.
Eventually, without really trying, he somehow located his table, returning with a strange look on his face.
"How are the toilets, Doc?" Edulcore asked, smiling.
"Forget the toilet, Ed. I've just found something unbelievable. It's not just a tesseract. This bar is connect to multiple places on Earth. I came out two times, and first I was in Paris, and then I was in Tokyo!"
Chance's eyes widened, beginning to elaborate on the finding in scientific terms. Danny Hearn dismissed the occurrence with a shrug, being nothing special in his own time. Much to his surprise, the first thing that came to Edulcore's mind was, "Paris? I have an appointment in Paris right for this night!"
"Mind if I accompany you there, handsome?" The voice was screeching, like a chalk over a blackboard. One of the waitresses, an androgynous, tall, bald, four-armed thing was smiling at him.
"Sorry, miss... do I know you?" Ed asked coldly. It was like all those years ago, when he could never could walk into a bar or a restaurant without dozens of teenagers coming to ask for signatures.
The smile on the face of the titan suddenly faded out. But she didn't leave with tears on her face, like he had expecting. She was a tough nut.
"OCTAVIA, GO AWAY!" a voice that was like the roar of thunder came from behind me. Edulcore turned, and his jaw dropped.
There was huge being, with a slight resemblance to a giant, bipedal turtle, all composed of decaying matter, clouds of insects flying around him.
"THE LITTLE EDULCORE! HOW MUCH TIME HAS PASSED FROM THE LAST TIME? YOU WERE ONLY A TODDLER BACK THEN!"
"Who... who are you?" Ed asked, startled.
"BHAGHHH-RUPTH, LORD OF THE FLIES AND OF THE ROTTEN LANDS, ED! HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN ABOUT YOUR UNCLE?"