The Oyster Bar had been an iconic piece of both Grand Central Terminal and Manhattan - Rhiow had lost count of the number of times she'd slipped into the kitchen to beg quietly for a piece of tuna, or some of the shellfish the bar was named for.

Now, however, the usually crowded restaurant was silent. Rhiow sat one one of the tables just inside the door. Bizarrely, they were still set and covered like they would have been if the bar was expecting a day of business - white tablecloths, unlit candles in the center, napkin-wrapped silver. Rhiow's tail lashed side to side, sometimes landing in a wine glass.

She waited for the people she had paged to arrive - if Iniss was going to convince certain members of the crew that he was abiding by the Council's ruling, he would need to be able to show some progress on the false body prospect. And that meant that actual progress would need to be made.

[Closed to Luis, Billy, Angie, Nanoha and Querl]

Eva has been having a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad week. Although she might argue that she's having a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad decade.

After having been possessed, figuring her kid probably flunked his psych eval, watching a beloved friend get reinfested by a Yeerk, coming out on the losing side of a textual battle with said Yeerk, and possibly setting a nuclear bomb off on one of her few egalitarian friendships on the ship, she can't find it in her to sit around and wallow in self-pity. This is not the time for tears; this is the time for a baseball bat.

There's something very primally comforting about hitting things with a glorified metal stick.

The worst thing about Yeerks, she thinks, is that if you try to take your rage out on representations of them, you just end up beating up holograms of their hosts. That even when you're hating the slug inside, the face you associate with them is an innocent victim. Some days if she relaxes her face just the wrong way in the mirror, she sees Edriss again.

So she doesn't conjure Taxxons or Hork-Bajir or Iniss in Tom's body. Instead she conjures mirrors and panes of glass. And it's still profoundly unsatisfying to smash them all to pieces.

[OOC: Trigger warning as content will be dark, and there will probably be swearing.]

A scream of raw, Viking fury ripped through the hallways cut painfully short and then a sickening dull "Thud"

To any who happened to be close enough to watch it happen a smoldering blackened bundle of flesh and hair came flying out of a suddenly open hole in the wall, that just as suddenly closed behind her. A trail of smoke followed the screaming roaring body as it shot across the hallway and slammed into the wall before falling backwards to the floor and laying there dazed.

Ruffnut looked and felt like she had been on the receiving end of a burn ward's top ten list as lightning crackled and raced along her body. Her fists were balled up so tightly the knuckles were white.

As an after thought, GLaDOS re-opened the portal Ruffnut had made her abrupt exit from and spat out her helmet which clattered loudly next to her.

Uttering some words that her parents would have smacked her if they'd heard she lay there smoking as she caught her breath and regained her strength. Not yet aware that she had finally escaped the tests that she'd been abducted for RIGHT AS SHE WAS LEAVING THE SHIP TO GO ON THE MISSION WITH EVERYONE!

So full or rage...and ouch. Rage and ouch.

Breathe in, breathe out.

Matt was in a rather unorthodox position on the ground. Instead of being in one of those lotus positions that people come to associate with meditation, Matt was flat on his back with the lights lowered to a gentle hum. He was laying on a training mat and his breathing was slow, and his eyes closed. It looked like he was sleeping if it weren't for the cool glass of water in his hand.

He was dressed oddly even for Matt, in a rather feminine suit of armor, chestpiece and all. He didn't wear the helmet, but once in a while his hand would go out and touch the item that was at the side. He had rarely taken off Aqua's armor for the time being, just until he got everything under control.

In, breathe out. Sip water. Repeat.

From awkward to ARGH-worthy. That's a good way to put things into perspective for Sasami's current situation. After the mission, Sasami had returned to her initial set of work - trying to fix up the restaurant. While she wanted everything to be in working order so when she did open it, there wouldn't be much of a problem.

However, things had gotten worse before it got better.

She had decided to make a list of what was inside the dual freezers and found herself dragging and hauling out a lot of it. Outside the store and a bit inside were boxes and boxes of what was labeled as meats and other foods, but had actually been other things - random scraps of metal, guns, everything but food. By her guess, the restaurant was probably someone's front for some sort of rebel group.

At the moment, Sasami stopped to relax and warm up. Tapping in a brief message on her omnicomm for some suggestions, Sasami sat on a box and began to ponder her situation.

This crew was certainly proving to be a fascinating one. And given their recent mission and said revelations, there would probably be a lot on their minds. On his as well, but right now his job was to pick the brains of the rest of the crew.

Speaking of which, his next appointment was arriving at his office now.