The Spectacular Exhibition (S3G2) [Round 2: Space - Abridged]

Originally posted on MSPA by Pick Yer Poison.

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Jean-Luc Bartleby slammed his hands down on the counter. "Quantos, where are those orders? I've got hungry customers out here waiting for their food. I swear some of them are already turning red."

"Maybe they're runaway lobsters, Bartleby!" Jean-Smith piped up from the end of the kitchen, where he was carting dishes around.

The chef, despite somehow simultaneously stirring three pots, managed to shrug in Bartleby's direction. "Listen, pal, I've seen more action than you or your customers ever will. They can afford to wait a few more minutes for their seafood to be cooked to perfection."

Jean-Luc Bartleby waved his hands around irritably. "Listen, whatever. Just get that food ready. I'm going to go stall some more." He turned towards the entrance, straightened his tie, and pushed the kitchen doors open just in time to gather a stomach full of lead from one of the machine gun arms of Red, who had just appeared in the french seafood restaurant. Quantos watched the waiter's body fall to the floor and pulled out a watch from his shirt pocket. He looked carefully at it, then snapped it shut and placed it back in his pocket. With a crackling noise and gust of wind, he was no longer there. Jean-Smith quickly followed suit, albeit with a good deal less theatrics.

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Red was furious. He'd never liked those sly french folk, but displaying his kin trapped in a tank before they were brutally murdered to feed a bunch of tourists crossed more lines than he had bullets. The moment he realized where he was and what was going on, which didn't take long, he activated the machine guns in his arms and began firing at the residents in the restaurant. To his surprise, a few of them simply vanished just before the bullets hit them, while others vanished just after, but the majority of them were too taken by surprise to do anything, and were turned into swiss cheese.

Once he was the only living, sentient creature left in the restaurant, Red clattered over to the lobster tank, ignoring the obvious fright the lobsters within it were experiencing. Gripping the sides and bracing himself, he hefted the tank off the table, then carefully walked out of the restaurant. Have to find water for them, he thought, looking down at the crazed crustaceans. He then looked up, surprised to see a number of other planets strangely close to the one he was on. A quick survey of that planet showed that it was only just large enough to hold the french restaurant he'd found himself in - a curious fact, but then again, thought Red, in a trans-dimensional battle to the death, most facts were curious. He looked around until he saw a planet that appeared to be full of water, then gently pushed himself off towards it, easily breaking free of the gravitational pull of the planet he had started on despite his spidery mech legs only being capable of a weak push at best.