The vortex opened up in a Men's room's empty stall. The sliders TemporalFlux, Brand_S and HunterD_Raven fell out of the vortex, only to bruise themselves on the pot."Aaugh!" S groaned. "It smells in here!" With a burst of energy, the trio opened the stall door and scramble out of the can.
"Things just seem to be getting worse all the time," TF said.
"Yeah," S agreed. "What next? Blinker the Mad Circus Clown?"
"I'd rather not think about that," TF replied. "Hey, Hunter, what are you going to do about your sword? Are you going to wash it off in here?"
"What?" Hunter looked down at his blade. The steel was covered in blood. "Clean my sword in a public restroom?"
"You'd rather carry it around with all that royal blood?"
"Daaaah!" Hunter groaned as he turned towards the sink and washed his blade off. "How much time have we got here?"
"Two hours, nineteen minutes," TF said as he and S turned and looked at each other's new outfits. "Definite improvement."
"I wish I could say the same for you," S cracked.
TF was about to counter when he finally realized there was a loud roar coming from outside. He looked out the restroom and couldn't believe where he was.
"Uh, guys?"
"What is it now?" Hunter asked as he wiped his sword dry.
"We're in a baseball stadium."
"No shit?" S asked. "You guys want to go watch? What are the chances something bad could happen here?"
"I think something similar was said on the Titanic," TF replied.
"Old joke," Hunter countered.
"Oh, shut up, Hunter. Come on, let's go watch the game."
It was easy to find seats since the stadium was only half full and managed to find some seats behind the home team's dugout. From the look of the place, the three realized that they were in Tiger Stadium.
"Nice place they have here!" S said.
"Wasn't this torn down on our Earth?" Hunter asked.
"Yeah," TF said. "I'm hungry. Do you think our money might work on this Earth?"
"Maybe," Hunter replied. "Hey, S, do you want anything?"
"I could go for a hotdog," S said, hearing a nearby hotdog vendor.
TF stood up and motioned to the Hot Dog Guy. "Yo, three dogs over here!"
Rather than pulling out and preparing hot dogs, the vendor reached into a pouch and pulled out what looked like three tubes of toothpaste, then fired them at TF like a quarterback. Unprepared, TF missed all three as they bounced off his head and into S's lap.
"That'll be fifteen bucks, Band Boy!" the vendor shouted, remarking at TF's new duds from the last world. One could only wonder what people were thinking about S's military uniform. TF passed the money over as S picked up and opened one of the tubes. He squeezed the contents into his mouth.
"It's like astronaut food!" S exclaimed. "And it still has all the flavor!"
TF opened a tube and ate some of the AstroDog. "Not bad!"
Hunter tried his and frowned. "They didn't put any mustard on mine!"
"What do we do when we run out of cash?" S asked. "Did anyone bring their ATM card?"
TF reached into his wallet and pulled his card out. "I did."
"What do you know!" Hunter remarked. "Things are starting to go right for a change!" At this point, a foul ball was hit and would have decapitated Hunter had S not caught it.
"YES!" S shouted triumphantly.
"Who hit that?" Hunter asked. The three looked over at home plate, then the Jumbotron, and nearly flipped out.
"cc_deville?" S shouted. "Holy shit!" The three looked back at the Jumbotron. "Dude! Those are hall of fame numbers!"
TF and Hunter gaped in awe. "Whoa!" they said in unison.
"We've got to watch this game more carefully!" TF said, eyes glued to the field.
"Does this mean he won't try to kill us?" Hunter asked.
"He nearly took your head off with the foul ball," S said.
"I mean on purpose," Hunter corrected.
The conversation went on like this for a good hour until the game was over. The final score: Tigers 5, Blue Jays 2.
At the end of the game, the three sliders rushed to the dugout as cc_deville came off the field. S held out his baseball. "Dude, could you sign my ball?"
"Do you have a pen?" cc_deville asked. S, Hunter and TF scrambled to find one, and as luck would have it, TF found one in his band uniform. cc signed the ball, made some comments about the diversely clothed trio and walked back to the dugout.
After the excitement wore down, TF checked the timer. They would have to slide out soon.
Meanwhile...
Queen Slider_Sarah was sitting on her throne as her leading theoretical scientist, BritSlider, entered the room.
"You called, Your Majesty?" BritSlider asked.
"You did as I asked?"
"Yes, we analyzed the field left behind by the portal. It leads to another dimension. We've been working on this technology for sometime and have come up with a machine that will allow us to guide their next transport, or 'slide' back to this dimension."
Queen SS rubbed her bandaged midsection. "Excellent. Carry on." BritSlider bowed and returned to his duties. As he left the Throne Room, he could hear the familiar laugh of the queen.
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