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Madeleine Cadrasteia     Despite this world's general dearth of warpgates, its Washington, DC is host to not one but two of the transit hubs. One is natural and open to public travel, the other artificial, heavily policed, and reserved for government business. Madeleine opts to gather the crew of Elites outside the structure housing the public-access warpgate, halfway across the Capitol Building lawn toward the Library of Congress. She's dressed for (relative) comfort in a black tank top and matching cargo pants, weapons nowhere to be seen. "Got a long drive ahead of us, folks," she explains on the way to the parking lot, "And it's too warm for leather today besides." A familiar grey-green van waits in the lot, and Madeleine doesn't even try the little key-twirl this time before unlocking it and hopping into the driver's seat.

    Madeleine doesn't care about most of the seating arrangements, but offers Shinmyoumaru the front passenger seat so she can see the road at all. "You lot figure out back there for yourselves," the huntress says. This time around the van's less crowded, probably because it has to be more comfortable for the longer drive. In lieu of much of the camping equipment, there's a portable DVD player with its own folding screen and a magnetic chess set. "We'll be passing through the Radio Quiet Zone," Madeleine explains. "Something the locals set up to do space research or whatever. Point is, we won't have radio or cell signal while we're in, and it's a big chunk of the drive. We've got 'Attack of the Giant Gila Monster' and 'Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster' on the player, by the way."

    After a short drive down the length of the National Mall, past the Lincoln Memorial, and over the Potomac River into Virginia, the gang is on I-66 heading westbound and Madeleine still hasn't said anything about the mission. "We're not getting there til tomorrow," is her excuse. "I can fill you in in the morning." The city gives way to suburbia, and then to scattered towns, the highway cutting through rising hills toward the mountains. Before it reaches them, however, the route junctions with the southwesterly-oriented Interstate 81. And so the view of the right side of the car is the stunning Blue Ridge mountains, while the left side is consigned to the only mostly picturesque highlands surrounding the range.

    Fresh out of the gleaming capitol of an empire, you now find yourselves in the country, open fields and rain-rotted barns and scattered homesteads. "It kinda sucks when you think about it," Madeleine comments. "That they let people be this poor right by where everything's controlled from. Every time I see a new world I hope they take care of people a little better, and I get let down a lot. I guess they cared more about the coal under these mountains than the people who lived next to 'em. Mining is tragic stuff. Mountains are pretty, but they're all run through with tunnels now, like some kind of infection. I've heard they even blow the whole tops off the mountains sometimes to scrape up all the minerals."

    Despite the view, however, boredom is inevitable. What's everyone doing to pass the time?
Shinmyoumaru Sukuna Shinmyoumaru was specially invited on this one! In that Madeleine said that she had a big job and would like Shinmyoumaru's assistance, which of course made Shinmyoumaru pleased to be asked. She probably would have come anyway, though; she likes all the MCRD things she's seen so far, and she likes Maddie.

So here she is.

Shinmyoumaru only had a couple items which she put in the back, mostly her needle (in its bamboo scabbard) and bowl, which has its lid tied on with an X of rope that loops around the bowl. Everything else she brought is presumably in the bowl, except for the Mallet, which she keeps with her.

Shinmyoumaru has also not really mastered American clothes but she is wearing a lighter robe, both weight and formality. It's still red and pink and black but it bears more resemblance to a dress than the fancy kimonos she's often shown up in. Certainly it has skirts, though the top is still pretty kimono-like in cut and style.

As long as Shinmyoumaru isn't told *why* she's being offered the front seat, she is very happy to take it, though she spends at least some of her time twisted around in her seat so she can look at, and talk to, the people in the middle tier of seats (or Maddie, but she's driving). Or looking out the window, because it's still new to her.

"We've got some tunnels through our mountain," Shinmyoumaru says, before clarifying: "The one my castle's on." Or under, given it's upside down and flying. "But it's not really *mined*. And blowing the top off seems a bit much!"

The prospect of the Radio Free Zone doesn't phase Shinmyoumaru. She has a phone, because of the whole Kamen Rider situation, but she forgets to check it a lot of the time; she can do without the radio in general. She's perfectly happy to look out the window for a while, and talk for a while. She even tries magnetic chess if she can cajole someone else into it, but she has to double-check the rules a few times because she mostly knows how to play shogi rather than Western chess; she only tries once because she almost certainly loses badly, though fortunately she does not sulk about it for more than a couple minutes.

"Why is this country so biiig," Shinmyoumaru groans, sometime about hour three.
Dysnomia     After altogether too much time henpecking her choices, Dysnomia settles into what's coming to become a boring civilian standby to accompany Rita. A thick black hoodie, with a picture of a ringed planet that looked a bit like Saturn above its pouch, with a pair of tight, distressed jeans. Her eyes downcast and radiant hair pulled back behind her in a ponytail, she didn't look at all out of place next to Madeleine as she approached her little van.

    She assessed the seats, arms clasped in front of her, waiting until people had begun filing in and picking out their spots. She frowned, momentarily, at one of the middle seats, before climbing into the van to take the seat in front of Rita, scooting the seat forward to give her fellow Watchwoman a little more space. Still, Dysnomia had a lot of legroom to herself. ...Had she always been that small?

    As Madeleine explained the 'radio free zone,' Dysnomia tugged at the collar of her hoodie to keep it in place. "Huh. I thought this place looked dark," she acknowledged, cutting the air with sharp gesture, calling up a holographic screen. She absently flicked through menus with her eyes, then, tap-tapped at the air. "There you go. No more noise."

    Every time I see a new world I hope they take care of people a little better, and I get let down a lot.

    "There's something to that. You know, when I joined the multiverse, everything seemed so strange. So many terran enviorments. Casual full gravity, almost everywhere. No kids even do spacewalk training. But, the longer I look, past all that surface stuff, the more familiar everything gets." She couldn't decide if it was depressing or comforting. Maybe both.

    "Mining is tragic stuff. Mountains are pretty, but they're all run through with tunnels now, like some kind of infection."

    "That," Dysnomia gestured vaguely at Madeleine. "Is JUST what I mean. They say, back in Sol--MY Sol, I suppose--they say the ITA bored a hole right into what was Mercury's core."

    There's none of the grim gravitas one might expect, talking about the hollowing out of a planet. It's spoken with that same dry, unimpressed irritation one might comment on an intrusive municipal road. A relevant snippit of trivia. "It's all the same. Just a matter of scale."
Lilian Rook     Lilian, in Washington DC, atemporally fresh off/in the midst of planning for her American Adventure, exits next to the Capitol Building in blinking surprise. Having never been anywhere near the heart of USAmerican governance in her life, and furthermore, nowhere near a political person that wasn't a duke or a king of some sort, the thought that she is here for a road trip (for her own reasons, albeit) absolutely dizzies her.

    The proximity to something so mythical as Capitol Hill, and just beyond that, the White House, fills her with a surge of touristy energy that she succeeds in expressing only with a slightly dazed-awed "I could kill the president."

    Lilian clears her throat, and hurries along with her eyes down.

    Later, in the car . . .

    'That they let people be this poor right by where everything's controlled from.'

    "Let?" Lilian raises an eyebrow over her latest book. It appears to be a treatise on historical martial arts. Something about polearm groups. Unusual, for her, since she shows little interest in weapons and fighting as a topic for an Elite. "Are they supposed to swoop in and say 'no no no, you're doing it all wrong' and fix it up for them? I thought this was meant to be the Land of the Free, Home of the Brave?" she says. "If everyone keeps to their own and lets others live as they choose, obviously there will be winners and losers."

    She makes a sound of forlorn agreement about mucking up nature, however.
Calvin Nash      Calvin's truck rolls up and stops, the transmission's audible snarl serving as prelude to the fade-out of the engine's rumble-whine. Brown leather cowboy boots strike asphalt, hidden from the ankle up by faded pale blue jeans. Whump. The door is closed firmly by one of Calvin's thick arms--the one that wears his bulky COMP, that 90s scraptech portable computer/compendium. With the other, he lifts his cowboy hat in greeting as everyone approaches the parking lot, then striding over and smoothing the hem of his red-white flannel button-up.

     "This you?" he asks, nodding towards the van. "She's a beaut! Never seen one that still works."

---

     Calvin, seated in the middle left seat, doesn't mind not getting there until tomorrow--he even seems a little surprised. "Tomorrow? Well, hot damn. If I'd'a known we'd get there that fast, I prolly coulda just packed this here and my uniform, got by just fine," he says, tugging indicatively at the collar of his shirt. Hardly surprising, given the state of the roads on his world.

It kinda sucks when you think about it. That they let people be this poor right by where everything's controlled from.

     "It does," says Calvin, sans hat, mullet on full display. "And it don't make no difference to them people to hear it, but it won't be that way forever."

If everyone keeps to their own and lets others live as they choose, obviously there will be winners and losers.

     "I don't know about all of that, Ms. Lilian. The older folks back home all seem to think that freedom stuff was a crock of shit, anyhow. No, ma'am, all it takes is for people to see they got more in common with each other than with the people in that capitol building--or the people fucking them mountains full of holes. If they're lucky, they'll find that out and act on it without everything going to shit first." He watches a dilapidated barn pass. "If not, well." He gestures to himself, his self-supplied pinnacle of doing okay, or something. "Life goes on."

What's everyone doing to pass the time?

     Calvin makes conversation. "How's this baby do off the roads?" he asks Madeleine, patting the paneling on his left. "Ever take 'er muddin'?"

     Crrclacksp.

     Calvin sips a cheap beer. It can't be anything else by the smell. Worse: "You want one, Ms. Madeleine? Anybody? 'Sgot a blue ribbon on it, I figured that meant it'd be pretty good." Of course he managed to pinpoint the PBR.

     "So, you're from space," he says to Dysnomia. "You meet the same space monster as that German fella Ms. Madeleine was talking about a while ago? Or do they not get out to where you're at?"
Petra Soroka     "Honestly, these kinds of rural worlds get on my nerves a little bit," Petra says, in the middle of downtown Washington DC, suitcase-less and dressed for a comfortable ride in loose, flared shorts and a tank top. "Like, what's your problem? Nowhere else has trouble getting warpgates all over the place. What kind of deficient-ass America is this, you know? I have to imagine something's wrong with it."

    But actually, she's in a great mood! She plops the cooler she's holding into the gap between the two middle seats, vaulting over it to slot herself into the back of the car. "I got water, snacks, sandwiches, whatever. I'm small, too, so I'll hop in the back."

    This is an environment that Petra is so intrinsically familiar with from a different era of her life that she practically becomes unrecognizable as the same person. Certainly not as an Elite-- the mission's barely even brought up, compared to easy and casual conversation about the mundane practicalities of a road trip. She seems just like a normal girl, actually, which is jarring because she talks about murdering people weekly on the radio.

    "You know, last time I was on a road trip was my-- my junior year, after the year ended, and it was just some lame day and a half's trip up to his-- the guy driving, I mean-- cabin for a week. Though, I guess we kind of do bits of road trips a lot, on the job? I mean, that space station safehouse we were talking about last night, I had to pack like six people into the Kana for eight hours, or something. But that was just through open space, which is a little bit like a highway, I guess."

    As others come piling into the car, and Petra already volunteered to be placed in the back, she quickly realizes the predicament she's placed herself into. With the front seats taken, Dysnomia and Calvin in the middle pair, and Petra left over in the back... she ends up wedged right between Rita and Lilian, thigh to thigh to thigh, for the upcoming full day of car travel. Heat begins to rise in her vicinity almost immediately.

    She's doing her best to be normal, which means squirming around to try and take up as little room as possible. "Oh, god, *magnetic chess*? I really should've brought something... well, I gave Qetra some books yesterday, but..." Petra glances at her bimboified reflection in the gleam of the DVD player's screen, and whenever anyone in the front seats look back at her in the rearview mirror, Qetra is who they see in her place too. But today, the adorned and purple-haired twin sister of Petra is almost fully obscured by a pile of garment bags draped over her head, precariously balanced when she moves around. "I don't know. Talking's usually better anyways."

    That doesn't end up being *entirely* true for her, though. Once the car's set out, her disdain for the childish entertainment options Madeleine provided evaporates away, and she props up a thigh to set the DVD box for 'Attack of the Giant Gila Monster' on it for her and Rita to read together. "'It might be slow, but it's huge, it's venomous, and it's in YOUR city. Do you think you could outrun the GIANT GILA MONSTER, or could you just run long enough for your friends to get eaten first? One brave military veteran and family man...' Oh, look, Rita, this is cute! It's got *special features*! I miss when movies had shit like that."
Petra Soroka "Mountains are pretty, but they're all run through with tunnels now, like some kind of infection."

    Petra squints up at Madeleine in the driver's seat. "Does this hurt the mountain?" She rolls her eyes and scoffs, looking at the mountain view out the window beyond Lilian's neck. Purposefully focusing her eyes on the window, while concentrating on the blurry skin in her field of vision, feels excitingly illicit in a way that's *also* reminiscent of road trips Petra had in high school.

    "Who gives a shit, really. The mountains are still pretty. You can't even see the holes. It's the *animals* that die, anyways."

"But, the longer I look, past all that surface stuff, the more familiar everything gets."

    "It's all the fucking same. Every America is the fucking worst, honestly. This--" The open fields, the mountains, the not-city outside the car, "Is the best part of it."
Shinmyoumaru Sukuna "I'll take one!" Shinmyoumaru says, immediately, when Calvin offers beers around.

Shinmyoumaru is four feet tall. Her build suggests 'fourteen, fifteen-ish' rather than, say, 'old enough to drink'; her face could pass for younger, she has kind of the round-cheeked look some children have. She still expects a beer.

She has no particular comment on the mining beyond what she's already said (who wants to blow up a mountain?) but she does think seriously about what Petra says. "I like the countryside," she eventually decides, "but I like the cities too, once I got used to them. The first time was a surprise though!"
Petra Soroka "So many terran enviorments. Casual full gravity, almost everywhere. No kids even do spacewalk training."

    Petra feels compelled to comment on this, for no reason besides bratty contrarianism. With a slightly nasally voice, she says, "Okay, well, I was born in an America and I was spacewalking at eight. So maybe you're just looking in the wrong worlds."

    She, of course, *left* America to do that. But that doesn't matter, when being bratty.

"You want one, Ms. Madeleine? Anybody?"

    "Buh. Gross. No. Not while we're *driving*." Petra scrunches up her nose at the smell, despite the fact that she's drank plenty of shitty beer herself before. Is she under the impression that you can't drink alcohol while in a moving car at *all*? On *that* note-- "Wait, wha? Don't-- don't fucking give Madeleine beer! Excuse me?!"
Rita Ma      Given two-thirds of her experiences with the Multiverse's many USAs, "leaving" is one of a few things Rita might like to do in Washington DC, and the only one that's legal.

     "I could kill the president."
     She pats Lilian on the shoulder sympathetically, as if this is a well-worn groove of pain for her. "It's hard, Ms. Rook."

     Her mood brightens the further she gets out into the sticks. The cool breeze from her half-rolled-down window flutters her spotted skirt around her knees, pinned down by the little cooler in her lap (separate from Petra's?). Blood red and bone white are normal colors for a cooler, of course, and they set off her short-sleeved shirt circumstantially too.

     Most of Rita's outfits benefit from a splash of red, really. That little crimson hair-ribbon finds its way into half of them.

     In the serenity of not-quite-boredom after her awe about the mountains ("they're really pretty on land!"), she drapes an arm around Petra's shoulders and rests her head on the shorter girl too. Her finger taps the DVD cover: "Isn't calling it a 'monster' sort of mean? It looks cute, in sort of a grumpy way. I bet it'd feel really squishy if you could hold it." Even so, she's smiling, cheek squishing against the side of Petra's head.

     "Go ahead and put it in, Ms. Petra! You just have to cover my eyes if the lizard's going to die, okay?"

     "but it won't be that way forever."
     Rita cranes her head forward to look at Calvin, piqued. "Are the people here doing something? Or is it just falling apart on its own?"

     "If everyone keeps to their own and lets others live as they choose..."
     "That's always just a way of saying that the worst people deserve the most." She doesn't look at Lilian while she says it, and it lowers her mood to do so, but there's no real hesitation either.
Calvin Nash Are the people here doing something? Or is it just falling apart on its own?

    Calvin looks over his shoulder. "Don't rightly know, Ms. Rita. I never knew nothing growing up other than what you saw when you came by, so I can't say as I know what's going on with these folks here. But I do know that people don't survive hard times by hoping that somebody's gonna come save 'em. Eventually, you gotta shit or get off the pot."

Every America is the fucking worst, honestly.

    "I like mine," Calvin shrugs.

Wait, wha? Don't-- don't fucking give Madeleine beer! Excuse me?!

    "*One beer* ain't gonna hurt nothing," he says condescendingly, waving a hand dismissively without looking back at Petra. And taking a sip of his own. "Besides," he says, then gesturing at the road passing by, "Out this way you can still see the lines on the road. Anybody could keep this thing between that. Hell, I could probably manage with two or three in me."

I'll take one!

    Calvin pauses. Drinking and driving is okay, apparently, but giving beer to kids (or people he presumes to be kids) is something only to be approached with the utmost caution. "Well, now..." And then something that will probably cause psychic damage to everyone, not the least Shinmyoumaru. "This here's... kind of an a-dult drink, and I only got a six pack, on account of us working tomorrow. Maybe you'd better try a sip of mine first just in case you don't like it."
Madeleine Cadrasteia     "Blowing the top off seems a bit much!"

    "It is," Madeleine says gravely. "Even if you only care about the view like Petra here, it's a damn shame to just blast a mountain down to rubble." She audibly grimaces as Mia explains coring out a planet.

    "Why is this country so biiig?"

    "When folks make a country they keep going 'til something stops them. Sometimes it's a river, sometimes it's an ocean, sometimes it's people with strong opinions about being there first. In this case the people weren't enough to stop settlers, so they made it all the way across the continent."

    "If everyone keeps to their own and lets others live as they choose, obviously there will be winners and losers."

    "Folks in power never just let others 'live as they choose'," Madeleine says, waving a finger to emphasize her point. "Always making laws to follow, telling folks where and how they gotta live. Way back there were huge fights over whether to even treat the miners here right, and whether there should be a mine at all was just a given. Buncha farmers get sent into the mine, all you get is a wounded mountain and a whole lotta sick folks and poisoned animals. Plus some rocks to heat your living room I guess."

    "And it don't make no difference to them people to hear it, but it won't be that way forever."

    Madeleine nods. "There is always a reckoning." That's pretty ominous.

    "How's this baby do off the roads?" he asks Madeleine, patting the paneling on his left. "Ever take 'er muddin'?"

    "Heck no. I mean, not by choice, even. It's a Concord van, I don't have Dorado Black clearance so I can't just pay for repairs or whatever out of my company account."

    "I got water, snacks, sandwiches, whatever."

    Madeleine snaps her fingers. "That's what I forgot! Snacks! Thanks, Petra, I may want a bite before lunchtime."

    However, she turns out to not be as hungry as she thought - several hours pass before the topic of food comes up again from her, and by then it's to inquire about a full meal. "We're stopping at WaHo." A beat as she realizes at least two-thirds of the Elites won't know what that is. "Waffle House." She exits the highway at Waynesboro and the towering block-lettered sign announces the destination's presence well before the building itself comes into view. "I'll buy for anyone who wants," she says, then looks to Rita. "You wanna grab us one of the outdoor tables?" There's a few circular rubbered-metal tables outside the building, in addition to the indoor diner booths. When Madeleine gets inside she beelines for the jukebox and puts on some upbeat pop music - is that the Vengaboys? - before ordering the steak and eggs. What's everyone else getting?
Lilian Rook     'It's hard, Ms. Rook.'

    "Wh-what?!" Lilian startles. "I wasn't serious! I mean-- I was just thinking about how close we are! And the first thing that came to mind about presidents is assassination!" she gasps, losing it. "Don't make it weird!" It's already weird and she definitely meant it at least a little. She'd just never admit to that compulsion in front of Rita, who is a communist and would approve of it.

    . . . . . .

    Lilian, who is not at all a road trip person, except all the mission critical fucked up trips across terraformed no-man's land America, and also the one time she drove after making someone else do it the whole time, is properly dressed for warm weather in--

    Huh. Weird that every time she goes to an America she wears long sleeves and a longer skirt. Higher collar, too. The pretty spring colours are nice, though, wearing white and green and a little yellow-forest pattern.

    'but it won't be that way forever.'

    "Nothing is going to be any way forever." Lilian scoffs. "As time draws closer to infinity, the probability of anything occuring approaches one." Page flip. In addition to the spear fighting manual and surrounding context, her phone is sitting in the crook of her lap for later.

    ''Sgot a blue ribbon on it, I figured that meant it'd be pretty good.'

    Lilian makes a Face.

    'Honestly, these kinds of rural worlds get on my nerves a little bit'

    "Agreed." Lilian huffs. "But if I'm spending time sitting at a desk and reading, that's the time I may as well put towards inconvenient travel like this. Getting there on my own, faster, would be a waste of resources." Literally what resources?

    'that space station safehouse we were talking about last night'

    "God those people are so stupid. Watch towers are easy-come easy-go. The more forgettable the better. Rich idiots really never stop trying to create 'the Bunker' where they'll be safe." she says.

    'Wait, wha? Don't-- don't fucking give Madeleine beer! Excuse me?!'

    "Piss water like that isn't about to impair her driving."

    'That's always just a way of saying that the worst people deserve the most.'

    "Given the way the world works, I can only intuit that this is a feature, not a bug." Lilian says sourly. "If there is a God, he certainly built it that way on purpose."

    'But I do know that people don't survive hard times by hoping that somebody's gonna come save 'em. Eventually, you gotta shit or get off the pot.'

    "Or they simply die."
Petra Soroka "Rich idiots really never stop trying to create 'the Bunker' where they'll be safe."

    Petra snorts, tapping her hands on her thighs in a little excited fidget for making fun of someone who's almost certainly dead now. "Right?! It didn't even work. I mean, you never came by, but-- *I* got into the station after leaving the Watch, because her security sucked and she never changed the codes. And then I beat her the fuck up and threw her out into space. Take that, idiot."

"Isn't calling it a 'monster' sort of mean?"

    Petra still hasn't gotten used to Rita being taller than her, so being draped-over and leaned on is an even more nerve-wracking experience than usual. She gradually tilts further and further to Lilian for safety, but since she still has to hold herself up so that she doesn't disrupt Lilian's reading, she just ends up resting her cheek on *Lilian's* shoulder too, turning the back row of the van into a diagonal cuddle pile. As close as the three of them are together, the accelerated thumping of Petra's heartbeat is faintly audible.

    "U-um-- w-well, they're probably calling it a monster because of the killings, and stuff, but I guess it's hard to say who-- whose fault that is. It *is* cute. I pet a Gila Monster once, at a zoo-- like, a normal sized one, and then I-- I didn't know it was venomous until later when the ranger guy said, and I got really scared and was like, totally gaslighting myself that it'd bit me somehow. And I was going to die, right there. But-- this was when I was a little kid, like, really little. Six or seven, or something."

    After that episode of Fun Petra Facts With Petra Soroka, she puffs out a sigh, relaxing a little in Rita's arm and against Lilian, gradually letting the endorphins leak into her brain. "God. I hope it doesn't die. That's always the saddest part about Mothra, they kill her in every movie just so they can have her babies around. But I feel like we should just have both."

    Sitting up just a little bit so she can reach the DVD player, she tilts her chin up to look at Lilian for permission. "Um, is it alright if we watch the movie? It won't bother you?"

"Hell, I could probably manage with two or three in me."
"Piss water like that isn't about to impair her driving."

    Petra, who both has terrible alcohol tolerance and no drivers license, is fully defeated by the facts and logic of defending drinking while driving. Morally, though, she still can't accept it, and just nasally whines under her breath while shrinking down in her seat a bit. "But it's daaaaaangerous......"
Lilian Rook     'Folks in power never just let others 'live as they choose'. Always making laws to follow, telling folks where and how they gotta live.'

    "And I suppose you'd prefer there be no laws at all?" Lilian asks entirely rhetorically. "The president didn't come up with the idea to have a president. Aliens aren't holding the Earth at gunpoint and demanding they choose a representative. The urge to produce a leader, and to sacrifice freedoms to escape the burden of choice, is an inherent human need." she says. "People innately fear being responsible for their own fate, and dread taking responsibility for their actions. Even Elites are like that. So they put their own godforsaken little presidents in charge, and complaining about him when things go wrong is one of the critical luxuries he affords them."

    "It's hardly unique to Americans. Humans bred out their ability to care for themselves long, long ago. They're fully adapted to slavishly obeying the loudest, tallest, wealthiest man in the room, to the point they instinctively panic and muddle themselves into dead ends when they don't have one." Lilian flips the page again. The historical illustration is frightfully gory. "When confronted with someone who retains the ability to decide for themselves, humans are naturally overcome with an irresistible, primal terror."
Shinmyoumaru Sukuna Shinmyoumaru is pretty easy-going overall. She hasn't caused any real trouble aside from being a little bored and thus a little prone to ramble; she doesn't seem to *hate* just about anyone, and though she's expressed a dislike for youkai she hasn't generalized it to other kinds of monsters. Certainly she has made no objection to being in the car with a space dragon and a Rita, and she didn't object to Torrie either.

But she absolutely sees red when Calvin treats her like a young child.

"I'm an adult," she says, in defiance of - well, reality; she's still a teenager by any stretch of the imagination and in any world. "Don't treat me like a kid because I'm short. I'm an *inchling*," she informs Calvin. "I hate how people don't take any of us seriously! How would you like it if I didn't take you seriously because of your hair, because it was a style for children or something?" Mullets, apparently, do not meet Shinmyoumaru's fashion approval.

Pause. "And I've had beer before," she adds, though she has not had Pabst Blue Ribbon, and as it turns out she will *not* like it if she is given it... but she'll still drink the whole thing out of stubbornly refusing to be wrong.
Lilian Rook     'U-um-- w-well, they're probably calling it a monster because of the killings, and stuff, but I guess it's hard to say who-- whose fault that is. It *is* cute.'

    Lilian, paying more attention to Petra leaning on her, whispers 'freak' under her breath, and without her eyes leaving the page, subtly digs her fingernails into Petra's thigh just short of breaking skin.

    'God. I hope it doesn't die. That's always the saddest part about Mothra'

    "I've no idea what you're talking about." Lilian says, into a conversation that didn't invite her. "But of course they kill the monster. Do you expect the average viewer to be satisfied with anything but the death of the villain? The monster or the freak or the uncomfortable outsider; whatever. The viewers won't be convinced all is right with the world until someone dies. Even when an enemy is redeeming themselves, it can only ever be officialized by dying and getting out of everyone else's hair." she says. "I sort of hate movies for that reason."

    'Um, is it alright if we watch the movie? It won't bother you?'

    "Do I look like your mother?" Lilian rolls her eyes.

    'But it's daaaaaangerous......'

    "Said Petra Soroka, who had never done anything dangerous in her life."
Rita Ma      "If there is a God, he certainly built it that way on purpose."
     Rita seems a little relieved that Lilian, if harshly, agrees. "Mmmm. That's why it's up to us to build it different, right?"

     the accelerated thumping of Petra's heartbeat is faintly audible.
     During a lull in the movie, Rita's eyes seamlessly, saccade-lessly glide over to stare at Petra's heart through her chest. She swallows.

     Unfortunately, to everyone else, this just looks like staring at Petra's tits.

     "Oh, they're real?" she startles herself up into saying. "But I thought most worlds didn't have 'monsters'. Do they just call it that, then?" She sounds vaguely disappointed that this is just a movie about a really big animal after all, but then decides it'll still be fun, and shrugs it off. "I'm glad you think it's sad too. I get why the monster always has to die. But, it's also sort of the main character in these movies, right? On the screen, it always looks normal-sized, and it's the cities that look tiny. Like the camera is its friend, too."

     In the end, she does have fun.

     "Humans bred out their ability to care for themselves long, long ago."
     "I don't think I've ever had waf..." Rita's just starting to say, disembarking from the van. Then those words hit her. she looks around for their source; finds Lilian, as if it could have been anyone else; and right there in the Waffle House parking lot gives Lilian a look she's never given Lilian before.

     It's the conflicted grimacing look of someone who's disgusted, and really doesn't want to be. Breaking to your loved one that their cooking sucks. Hearing your little sibling say something sexist.

     "They wouldn't like to hear you say that on Apple Tree Island, Ms. Rook," she says, skin-crawlingly slow. Eyes tensed, lips asymmetrical. "How about we stop talking about this now, okay?"

     In the end, she doesn't order anything but water. Lilian could make anything magically edible, but that'd take asking things of Lilian.
Dysnomia     "So, you're from space, you meet the same space monster as that German fella Ms. Madeleine was talking about a while ago? Or do they not get out to where you're at?"

<J-IC-Scene> Dysnomia looks to Madeleine "'German Fell uh?'"
<J-IC-Scene> Madeleine Cadrasteia says, "I think he's talking about Frankenstein."
<J-IC-Scene> Petra Soroka says, "... Frankenstein... isn't in space...?"
<J-IC-Scene> Madeleine Cadrasteia says, "If you watch the movie you'll find out!"
<J-IC-Scene> Petra Soroka says, "Oh, yeah, this schlock thing."
<J-IC-Scene> Petra Soroka says, "I guess Dysnomia kind of *is* a space monster."
<J-IC-Scene> Dysnomia says, "Ha."
<J-IC-Scene> Calvin Nash chidingly, "Petra."
<J-IC-Scene> Dysnomia says, "Never met Frankenstein, I'll tell you that."
<J-IC-Scene> Dysnomia shrugging, "Been called worse. It's fine."
<J-IC-Scene> Petra Soroka says, "You're the one who brought it up!!"
<J-IC-Scene> Calvin Nash says, "That's a woman. I figured a lesbian would know that."
<J-IC-Scene> Petra Soroka says, "Okay, yes, she's literally a woman, I know that. It's just--"
<J-IC-Scene> Shinmyoumaru Sukuna says, "Eeeh?"
<J-IC-Scene> Petra Soroka says, "Whatever. I didn't even mean it as an insult."
<J-IC-Scene> Dysnomia says, "Ha. Didn't take it as one.""

    "Anyway." Dysnomia laid an arm on her chair, looking right to Calvin for the first time. "There's a bunch of stuff you could call monsters, out in the ranar system. Doubt it'll have anything in common with THAT." She pointed a thumb back at the movie screen. "They're real particular, and a little more like animals than outright monsters."

    "God those people are so stupid. Watch towers are easy-come easy-go. The more forgettable the better. Rich idiots really never stop trying to create 'the Bunker' where they'll be safe."

    Nephra that werebrat had really driven their reputation into the dirt, if people were really comparing the Watch to THAT. Or...Maybe it was just Lilian? Dysnomia gave Rita a brief glance over her shoulder. It's only when she starts talking about a human desire to fall down in groveling servility that she turns straight ahead, eyes growing distant, staring at something that wasn't there.

    This takes her out of it, until the time comes that they finally come to a stop. She staggers from the van, mist twining and rearranging around--and through--her in an approxmimate of a stretch that she mimes out in real time, stretching her hands into the air, shifting from foot to foot. "Here? Here."

    She rapidly plucked the context of where they were and what they were doing from people's stray throughts. "I'll get it," she says, when Madeleine asks for a table, to buy herself more time to understand what they're here for. Food? Food.

    When she finally gets the menu and realizes what exactly is happening, she orders..."Waffles." When the waitress asks for something more specific, she blinks, momentarily, looking at the menu. "...With syrup?"

    Eventually, she orders the the Double Waffles because it's the first thing she sees when she sees under 'waffles,' and biscuits--mostly for the gravy. She spins up her suit's storage, pulling out some gold flecks of something--Is that ACTUAL gold? No. Who would eat that?--and mixes it with her syrup and gravy, before applying both, thickly, to the pancakes and biscuits.
Calvin Nash As time draws closer to infinity, the probability of anything occuring approaches one.

    "One what?"

Piss water like that isn't about to impair her driving.

    "I hate to say it, but I think you might be right. Whoever put this ribbon on here must notta known there's better beers out there. Guess it's okay if you got a lot of 'em. Which we don't."

Or they simply die.

    "Shit happens. Life goes on," Calvin repeats, as if it had any substance, let alone the philosophical weight he seems to give it.

But-- this was when I was a little kid, like, really little. Six or seven, or something.

    "Yep, that's just how it is," Calvin says with a note of fond reminiscence. "I remember when I was that age. Went swimming, felt something come up and," he vigorously pantomimes teeth clamping down with one hand. "Thought a demon or a shark or something had got me. Started waving my arms all around, hollerin'. Scared my momma half to death. Never seen her move so fast before or since." A belly-chortle.

    "Then she started laughing her ass off. Turned out it was a little old crab, 'bout like that," he says, holding out a thumb and looking over his shoulder at her with a grin. "Grabbed onto my foot and by granddaddies he wasn't letting go. World seemed a whole lot bigger back then."

I'm an adult ... And I've had beer before.

    "Oh. Well." Calvin pauses awkwardly. "Beg your pardon--thought you was a kid on account of. You know. You can have the rest of mine, if you want. It ain't much to write home about, though, let me tell ya."

    He passes her the half-full can.

The urge to produce a leader, and to sacrifice freedoms to escape the burden of choice, is an inherent human need.

    "Whoa, now. Starting to sound like an angel, there," Calvin cautions, in the same tone that one would vibe check a friend edging into racist territory.

The monster or the freak or the uncomfortable outsider; whatever. The viewers won't be convinced all is right with the world until someone dies.

    Calvin sits through the movie with the expression of someone trying to intellectually analyze jazz music and missing the forest for the trees. As the credits roll, he looks over his shoulder at Lilian, who sees the first harvest of the fruits of his mental labor. "So how come they didn't call it no slurs?" he asks, then looking between her and Petra like they can give him the answer for the upcoming test.

    After that scintillating (read: baffling) literary analysis, Calvin strides into the Waffle House, a place he's never been to or seen before, like he's done both a thousand times, lifting a hand in greeting to the waiters, the other patrons, and the chefs behind the counter.

    He settles in with Dysnomia. "Howdy," he greets the waiter who arrives to serve their table with a grin. "Lemme get two eggs, over medium, with sausage and grits. Thank ya much."
Shinmyoumaru Sukuna "Thank you!" she says to Calvin, magnamious in victory. The fact that she doesn't get a whole beer is fine, because it's because there's not enough to go around, not for any other reason. Probably. As long as she keeps thinking that, there are no problems.

She doesn't like it. She will never, ever admit this.

Even though Shinmyoumaru cannot see the movie from the front seat, or indeed really see the people in it very clearly through the middle row of seats, she doesn't mind joining in with the parts of the conversation she can hear: "Are all humans like that?" she asks, because she's not sure she believes it. "Anyway, monsters are just... around. If you can't see them, they're probably only hiding. I bet everywhere has them at least a little bit, though maybe some of them left and that's when they show up near me..." Not her, specifically, but Gensokyo.

She laughs at the story. "I go fishing sometimes and I find the little crabs! They like to pinch," Shinmyoumaru agrees. "I mean, they don't pinch me, but they'll grab anything else, really... once I caught a fish and a crab at the same time. It saw it going by while I was reeling, I guess, and went for it!"

Shinmyoumaru did in fact drink the part of the beer she was given, which means more than anything else, when the van pulls up to the Waffle House... she bails without saying anything to anyone else and runs, not walks, until she can find the bathroom.

Because Shinmyoumaru is, in some ways, not a good traveller, and also she expected Madeleine to pull over some time ago but was still too proud to ask if nobody else did.

She catches back up with the group some time later, once a table has been located. Shinmyoumaru hops up onto the chair like she's used to it (she's used to it) and only swings her feet a couple times before hooking them around the legs of the chair in an attempt to remind herself not to do that. She will forget about halfway into the meal.

Shinmyoumaru orders a full-sized meal: the All-Star Special (she likes eggs over easy), plus hashbrowns with cheese, mushroom and ham. Or, as she announces, "Covered, capped, and chunked!" because she thinks it's funny. She eats it, too; there are not going to be leftovers. For someone her size she sure can pack it away.

"You don't want any?" she asks Rita, a little uncertain. She always feels a little weird when somebody's at the table with nothing, even if it is apparently by choice. She also cranes over to see what Dysnomia is putting in her food but fails to identify it beyond 'sparkly'.
Petra Soroka "But of course they kill the monster."

    Petra, with Lilian's nails in her thigh, is now reduced to muffled pants of pain and babbling out foggy thoughts in a stream of breathy whining and occasional incoherence. "It's so fucked up. It's so fucked up, like, actuallyyyy! It really gets me about Mothra, because, even when she's good-- like, she's always good-- she's good and helps humanity and fights the other monsters, and she's pretty too, and she never does anything to hurt them, but they *always* kill her off because she's still a monster. It's fucked up. I think, one time, Mothra should fucking lose it when humanity's shitty to her and just wipe out the whole city herself and kill the bad monster too, and then when other people come to the city they just have to be normal to her or die too."

    Petra's joy in monster movies is eclipsed by the derealizing vertigo of just existing in this moment. Over the course of the movie, even while she eagerly responds to the destruction and action, and giggles at the cheesiness, and dutifully covers Rita's eyes when the foreseen moment comes, her thoughts are dissociatively locked on an external view on herself, here, snuggling up in the car with practically no problems at all and doing something as normal as watching a movie. As the hour and nineteen minutes pass, Petra gradually sinks further into the collective embrace, not calming down as if she'd risk falling asleep, but lapsing into a hyperaware state of distant mindfulness. It feels kind of greedy.

    Petra has beef with Waffle House for no reason besides classist cultural osmosis. When Madeleine declares that's where they'll be stopping, Petra scrunches up her nose in complaint, but doesn't actually voice any, besides a beleagured sigh. A sigh that's repeated, albeit quieter and more heartfelt, when they pull into the parking lot and she has to extricate herself from the girls in the back of the van.

    "I *brought* sandwiches for everyone, you know... we could've just stayed in the van for longer...." The sudden reintroduction of breezy air in place of shared body heat lowers Petra's mood enough that she feels resentment to the concept of 'stretching your legs', and considers that she'd rather just have stayed there for the entire trip without moving once. Even though she knows, distantly, that staying sitting that long could risk getting a blood clot.

    Petra mutters to herself while looking down at her bare and reddened thighs, walking on the edge of the sidewalk curb of the parking lot. Her train of thought slips partway out of her mouth, with absolutely no context. ... Probably would've preferred it even if they had to amputate...."
Petra Soroka "When confronted with someone who retains the ability to decide for themselves, humans are naturally overcome with an irresistible, primal terror."

    Politics talk is the reluctant environment that Petra has to deal with instead of watching a goofy movie and cuddling, a fact for which she is radiating disappointment that she can't quite mask. Her sneakers scuff against the sidewalk melodramatically. "Well, yeah. The idea that anyone who's around now 'chose' to have a president or whatever, is just silly, because they just absorbed it and never developed the ability to fucking think otherwise. If you ask them what they prefer, then basically every single one will say that they prefer exactly the way things are, no matter how much it sucks for them, because they're just following cultural orders that got hammered into their fucking DNA."

"How about we stop talking about this now, okay?"

    Petra's lips press together and her mouth goes dry, suddenly far colder than the absence of literal body heat could account for. Without saying anything else on the subject, Petra slips into the Waffle House, watches Madeleine put a quarter in the jukebox like she's watching a kind of unimpressive bug in a terrarium at a zoo, and then quietly orders a ham and cheese omelette to return to the table with everyone.

    Awkwardly sitting there for a few seconds without touching her food, Petra defaults to a behavior that's more approachable than tending to her own bodily needs. "... Um, Lilian? Do you want your coffee now?"

    If she says yes, then Petra busies herself with her compact mirror while her omelette cools, pressing her palm to the surface and only getting the reflected palm matching her movement a few seconds late. She raps her knuckles against the reflection's knuckles, and complains, "Wake up, idiot,", before Qetra actually successfully hands over the reflection of the thermos filled with the coffee order Petra had memorized from the first time Lilian mentioned it.
Lilian Rook     'One what?'

    "One point zero odds." Lilian says, exasperated. "As in, guaranteed to happen." She restrains the volume at which she mutters about nobody in this car having finished highschool.

    'But-- this was when I was a little kid, like, really little. Six or seven, or something.'
    'Yep, that's just how it is. I remember when I was that age. Went swimming,'

    Lilian smiles faintly while reading, ostensibly enjoying the more quaint conversation. "Goodness. When I was seven--" Her mouth remains open, but stops moving. The words halt. She puts her lips back together without a sound.

    'Whoa, now. Starting to sound like an angel, there.'

    "And if you ask them, they'll tell you I'm the Devil himself, I'm certain." Lilian shoots back, oddly nonchalant.

    'So how come they didn't call it no slurs?'

    "What?"

    Lilian glances to the screen and back. "It's a lizard. It wouldn't even understand a slur."

    'Mmmm. That's why it's up to us to build it different, right?'

    "I wish it were plausible." Lilian sighs.

    'They wouldn't like to hear you say that on Apple Tree Island, Ms. Rook'

    Lilian, having bookmarked her page, slipped the tome back in her bag, and clambered out of the car, is partway through stretching her back, arms over her head, when she catches that. Looking down from her posture, then quickly correcting upwards, she freezes stiff when she sees that horrible look on Rita's face.

    Before she really gets it, her stomach drops out through the bottom, and her throat squeezes tight. "What?" is the first thing she blurts out, and charnel marches forward before thinking of anything more eloquent. "Why would I be talking about . . . ? Obviously that's completely different." Lilian says, and then struggles to articulate why. "The people there, I mean. In your world. That's-- I mean I shouldn't even have to say why that's completely different to the people living here. Even from day one, I was saying so. Aboard the Busan. They've . . . The whole world there is different. And they have totally different experience." Lilian scowls at herself from using 'different' so many times in a row.

    'How about we stop talking about this now, okay?'

    Lilian's heated, prickling silence-- the kind that comes from being too shocked and angry and guilty to say sorry-- is as close to an 'okay' as she can stomach.

    . . . . . .

    Lilian, who has never heard of a 'Waffle House', looks at the menu in stunned dread. Not any particular item, it seems, but just the visual design of it. The gaudy colours and bold impact font, the ridiculous names and cramped subscript; all of it, riotously loud and crass, fills her with forboding worry.

    Despite her misgivings, she ends up ordering steak; both because Madeleine did, so it can't be that bad-- probably-- and because it's the closest thing to a normal food item she can identify. T-Bone gives her the best odds of some of it being redeemable, at the largest, frankly sort of silly size, with a garden salad ordered separately to try and piece together a semblance of familiarity. Realizing it comes with hash browns, she scans the mini-menu and eventually, hesitantly, decides on 'scattered, diced, and peppered', with a look of incredulity, and then finally dares add mushrooms and onions to the steak itself. The drink is an afterthought; icd tea, which she doesn't think about.

    It takes 2d6 minutes for Lilian's heat meter to lower beyond the threshold she can talk to Rita again. "Come on. Don't be like that." she says, without making eye contact. "Please just order something. You'll feel terrible later, and then it'll be my fault."
Dysnomia     "You don't want any?"

    Dysnomia catches the Princess looking toward Rita and reaches out to put a hand on her shoulder. "She ate already," Dysnomia lies bare-facedly, as close to saying 'we don't talk abotu this' as she could without outright telepathy. "You don't want to eat this." She said, trying to distract the inchling with the bottle of shiny flakes. "This would probably tear up your throat."

    Don't look at Rita. Drop it. "I carved it out of an an asteroid in the kuiper belt." She didn't like talking about this. But if it gave the princess something else to focus on...
Lilian Rook     'like, she's always good-- she's good and helps humanity and fights the other monsters, and she's pretty too, and she never does anything to hurt them, but they *always* kill her off because she's still a monster.'

    Lilian forces her fakest smile of the entire year so far.

    'Mothra should fucking lose it when humanity's shitty to her and just wipe out the whole city herself and kill the bad monster too, and then when other people come to the city they just have to be normal to her or die too.'

    "That's a nice thought." says Lilian, already batting zero. "But we both know what would really happen is that the people would declare never-ending blood vengeance for this terrible tragedy, and swear not to rest until she's dead. If anyone step foot in the city it'd be with an anti-Mothra death ray that they spent ten years and a trillion yen developing."

    'I *brought* sandwiches for everyone, you know... we could've just stayed in the van for longer....'

    "We still have a long drive. We'll appreciate them later. Getting some oxygen is important." Lilian says. "And frankly, your heart could use a break."

    . . . . . .

    '... Um, Lilian? Do you want your coffee now?'

    "When I'm done with my tea." It doesn't take long, because now Lilian would prefer hot coffee, as if the caffeine would forcefully cancel out her drop in energy.

    'Wake up, idiot.'

    "You know, I've always wondered why you're so hostile to her." Lilian says. "I know they're nothing alike, but I think that if Exis was that helpful, I'd appreciate it quite a lot." she sighs. "Instead of a bottomless purse, all I got was odd cravings."
Madeleine Cadrasteia     The food is generally a little better than most of the Elites were expecting, but perhaps underwhelming for Calvin next to the home cooking he's used to. Madeleine sets to work on her steak with gusto.

    "Anyway, monsters are just... around. If you can't see them, they're probably only hiding. I bet everywhere has them at least a little bit."

    "Mh-hmm," Madeleine says with a nod as she works on her steak. Thankfully she finishes chewing before saying her piece. "That's kind of why I like MCRD work, gets me to a lotta different places. Though, Petra's right, too many folks would just see them gotten rid of instead. You think they'd just let the gnomes keep the mountain if we weren't coming to mediate? They'd call the National Guard and sweep them out. Ugly business, when people decide their world doesn't need some critter or another."

    "That's our job, by the way. Lookout Mountain's crawling with gnomes - the garden kind - and they're claiming sovereignty. Humans aren't too happy with that - like I said, they've got the National Guard on standby. We're here to work out a deal that's better for everyone than a turf war would be. And then make sure that deal actually *happens*."

    "I carved it out of an an asteroid in the kuiper belt."

    "Question, actually," Madeleine says, gesturing at Mia with her fork. "Do you need both? Normal food and the minerals, I mean. Or is it a matter of just needing the metal, but you still enjoy eating normally?"
Dysnomia     "Do you need both? Normal food and the minerals, I mean. Or is it a matter of just needing the metal, but you still enjoy eating normally?"

    "The second, I guess." She said, matter of factly. "Sometimes the texture is nice. But it doesn't taste like anything. And it burns up in my stomach." She tapped at her chest, thrice, gently. "It's like a forge down there."

    We're here to work out a deal that's better for everyone than a turf war would be.

    "And if what the gnomes say is something like, 'this is our home, don't carve it up with mining like you did those mountains back there...'" She tilted her head to the side. "...What's there to even bargain?"
Rita Ma      For 2d6 minutes, Rita holds her breath- metaphorically, mostly. Her thumbs rub circles in the condensation of the glass. Despite herself, the kitschy-cozy atmosphere permeates her a little, but never really enough.

     She can't look at Lilian, of course. She can't look at Petra either. Calvin and Mia are her allies, but she doesn't want to stance too closely to them either, because then that's like closing ranks, and that's projecting a lasting hostility that might keep Lilian from--

     "Come on. Don't be like that."
     Rita's sad brown eyes track up from the napkin she's picking at and startle wide.

     "... Oh." Shy little smile. "Thanks, Ms. Rook." She puts a hand on Mia's arm, meaning both 'it's okay' and 'thank you', and looks to Shinmyoumaru: "You're right! I think I should have some. Ms. Petra, what do you think about the Texas Melt?" she says, indicating something that looks like an off-brand philly cheesesteak.

     The explanation about raw meat restrictions and Lilian's magical aid can wait 'til later, if ever. "Oh! How was the beer, Ms. Shinmyoumaru? Should I try some too?"

     Very slowly, she stabilizes. The sorta-cheesesteak helps a lot. She eats very politely, but in plus-sized bites: homph. By the end, her little legs kick happily under the table.

     The gnomexplanation is absorbed in that contented silence. Near the end, she pipes up: "Do those really count as monsters? Aren't they just--" Apologetic glance to Shinmyoumaru-- "basically little people? I think I can get in touch with some people to tell us more, though. I just have to make some calls in private."

     When she's finishing up her cheesesteak, something that nagged at her comes to mind. Her eyes drift between Calvin and Lilian. "Mr. Nash? What's a slur?"
Shinmyoumaru Sukuna Shinmyoumaru would be pretty satisfied with any answer from Rita; the fact that people are trying to distract her is actually making her think harder about it than she would otherwise.

So Shinmyoumaru hangs onto it long enough for Rita to make her feelings known. She nods cheerfully. "I always get hungry when I've been travelling," Shinmyoumaru says, though her brow furrows: "Though normally I have to do more than just sit in the car for that..."

How was the beer? "Uh..." Shinmyoumaru wasn't going to say it, but she admits, "It wasn't very good beer." She did drink it (though not enough to make her drunk, thankfully - it'd take more than a half can to do that) but it was, honestly, pretty bad.

But now she's absolutely going to take Dysnomia up on the line of questioning. She looks back at Dysnomia. "Is it a rock or is it metal?" she asks, because she knows what asteroids are made out of - which may be surprising, but it's come up before, somehow. "I don't think I'd want to eat that, no! But everything else doesn't taste like *anything*? That's really sad, I think. I wouldn't like not being able to try new food."

Madeleine also reveals their mission. "'Go away' can be something to negotiate!" Shinmyoumaru bounces in her seat a little. "Maybe they could only do some kinds of mining... or pay the gnomes to mine, or find somewhere else that's got the same kind of metal or whatever..."

Rita looks at her. 'Basically little people'... "I'm not a gnome," she says, defensively, though she briefly wonders: is that why Madeleine said she might be helpful on this mission? She fidgets, not sure whether she should be getting upset or not.

She decides 'no, for now'. "...But it doesn't sound like they're monsters either. Maybe they'd like to trade something? I know with the inchlings, the problem is that that people don't treat them like people - they take advantage of us because we can't do anything about it. So if we *did* - I mean, treated them right - wouldn't that help?" If Rita thinks she's like a gnome, well, she can at least describe how the inchlings would react.

Shinmyoumaru does not say what a slur is. ...does she know? She must know. But Shinmyoumaru always looks so guileless and like she'd be awful at lying...
Madeleine Cadrasteia     "And if what the gnomes say is something like, 'this is our home, don't carve it up with mining like you did those mountains back there... What's there to even bargain?"

    "Lookout Mountain's got some kinda tourist attraction on it, called Rock City? That's where the gnomes are holed up. I'm thinking we could do something like the Goatel, try to angle for the gnomes running the show there. But we're not really gonna know the full situation 'til we get there, so it's hard to plan for."

    "Do those really count as monsters? Aren't they just basically little people?"

    "Well, yeah, but that's why the MCRD talks about cryptids and not *monsters*, right? Like, on some worlds Mothman is kind of just a guy with an exoskeleton and wings. Some cryptids are monsters, some of them are people. A couple are both." A glance in Rita's direction, just for a split-second. Sending a message, or gauging her reaction?

    "I think I can get in touch with some people to tell us more, though. I just have to make some calls in private."

    Madeleine nods. "That'd be helpful, maybe when we're at the hotel you could make some calls?" A pause. "Speaking of, uh. How many hotel rooms are we gonna need? I was thinking four since there's seven of us..."
Calvin Nash They're real particular, and a little more like animals than outright monsters.

    "Oh, okay. Thanks for letting me know." He nods. "I like your accent," he adds conversationally.

You don't want any?

    "Might be she ate before," says Calvin to Shinmyoumaru, portioning up his little sausage pucks with fork and knife, as if he'd never left home, "And Ms. Petra did bring them sandwiches anyway."

Ugly business, when people decide their world doesn't need some critter or another.

    "Well, you got the right man for the job," Calvin says assertively, momentarily forgetting literally everyone else here. "I'm partial to people and to gnomes. And I'm good at getting both of 'em to see what's right in front of 'em, even when they don't know their ass from a hole in the ground."

Aren't they just--basically little people?

    "*Most* things people call monsters are just people but shaped different," says Calvin. "And maybe with different things they need. Sasquatch. Mothman. Trolls. Hell, you can even get along with bicorns, long as you know how." He taps his COMP, and further explains. "Before anybody could understand demons, everybody thought they were all as bad as the worst ones. The, ah... 'running programs,' that Brick fella called 'em. But it turns out if you take the time to try and meet folks where they're at, you spot the ones that mean you harm a lot quicker and easier than just figuring everybody's out to get you."

Mr. Nash? What's a slur?

    "Oh, Ms. Angela told me it's a nasty word you say to hurt somebody based on who or what or where they are. Not the kind of thing you'd say if you had any sense. I figured they'd call the lizard a slur on account of them two," he says, nodding over at Lilian and Petra, "Talking about how people treat monsters. But the lizard don't understand no slurs." Ad-libbing to sound like more of an expert than he is, "Not the ones for lesbians, or gay fellas, or even... Germans."

It wasn't very good beer.

    Calvin nods in agreement. "My momma said a blue ribbon means something won first prize. So, maybe we don't try no more from this here Earth, on account of that's the best they got. You come by the Last Resort, back on mine, they'll treat you right, yes ma'am."
Petra Soroka "If anyone step foot in the city it'd be with an anti-Mothra death ray that they spent ten years and a trillion yen developing."

    Earlier, in the van, Petra grumbles discontentedly at Lilian without disagreeing. She rubs her cheek into Lilian's shoulder, unconsciously nuzzling her while the movie starts up. Without quite not-talking-about-Mothra, but still a little bit not talking about Mothra, she says, "Fuck 'em. I'll fucking... build a big-ass mirror and reflect their death ray into them to protect Mothra. Maybe there could just be a nice movie that isn't evil for once where we get the little escapist fantasy of glassing the whole United States and killing the president for Mothra."

"And frankly, your heart could use a break."

    Petra looks up at Lilian with shock and horror like she's been caught in the middle of rifling through her underwear drawer. "My--! My heart's normal! I'm-- well, except for the evil parts, which I guess is most of it, but I'm--! I didn't do anything wrong!"

"You know, I've always wondered why you're so hostile to her."

    With the tension eased between Lilian and Rita, a massive amount of Petra's nerves vanish, shoulders slumping. She spins the thermos around on the table with one hand, and traces her fingernail around on the open mirror thoughtfully.

    "She's... I mean, I guess... 'she's stupid' isn't really the right answer, I think. And I don't really even... *dislike* her, at all? She's annoying and frustrating, I guess, but it's not like I don't *get* her. She's a stupid freak sometimes, but I don't blame her for..." She trails off and looks aside to mutter in an upsettingly vague way, "... Except for whatever the fuck with Hibiki...."

    Petra leans over the table and looks into the mirror, at the slightly eerie sight of having her expressions and movements perfectly matched by a 'her' that doesn't look the same, and inuitively registering it as 'having the light off inside'. "If she ever actually got really upset by it, then I'd feel-- kind of bad, actually. But she doesn't. She basically doesn't get upset by anything at all, really, and it's always super easy for her to say things and do things, and... I don't know, that pisses me off, a bit. Not out of jealousy, or anything. It's just a little... gross."

"It's like a forge down there."

    Petra's eyes follow Dynomia's gesture to her chest. She's absolutely thinking about something unacceptable, but it's definitely far weirder inside her head than what it looks like on the surface level, which is just staring at her boobs for a long few seconds.

"Ms. Petra, what do you think about the Texas Melt?"

    ! Petra is given attention and affection after a period of stress! She leans over the table to look at the menu, since she's not actually familiar with the term *and* hasn't been to Waffle House before. "Oh, that seems like it'd be pretty good, actually? I kind of-- I regret getting these eggs, a bit, now. That sounds way better now that I think about it."

"Mr. Nash? What's a slur?"
"Not the ones for lesbians, or gay fellas, or even... Germans."

    Petra is briefly dumbstruck at this interaction between a lesbian and a man known to not be versed in Lesbian Business. She takes a slow sip from her iced tea, blinks, and lets the words settle in for a few beats.

    With a dread air, Petra carefully opens up her mouth to start to explain, faster than her stalled thoughts even on a delay, "Like, you know, when you call someone a--" Miraculously, demonstrative of the healing power of the Giant Gila Monster, Petra catches herself. "Um. Words you shouldn't say. That're insulting. Like Calvin said."
Lilian Rook     Lilian looks dully back and forth between Dysnomia and Madeleine, and says without a moment's thought, "I'm astonished how quickly you both used and agreed to 'normal food'."

    'I'm thinking we could do something like the Goatel'

    Lilian stares around the outdoor table for clarification. 'Goatel' is silently on her lips.

    'Well, yeah, but that's why the MCRD talks about cryptids and not *monsters*, right?'

    "Cadrasteia." Lilian says, with weight of brittle and dangerous gravitas, slicing through her steak. In dead seriousness, she asks, "Are you yourself a cryptid?"

    'Oh, Ms. Angela told me--'

    Lilian looks at Calvin, tiredly agog at the first few words out of his mouth. "Really now? After a nuclear war and the emegence of man-eating demons, what your culture forgot wasn't car models and years, but what a slur is?" she rasps.

    '... Oh. Thanks, Ms. Rook.'

    Lilian breathes out hard enough to carry a vocal tone. All is right with the world. She brightens up immediately.

    '... Except for whatever the fuck with Hibiki....'

    "What's this about Tachibana?" Lilian asks, lofty as she can between eating and focusing on Rita eating at the same time.

    'If she ever actually got really upset by it, then I'd feel-- kind of bad, actually. But she doesn't. She basically doesn't get upset by anything at all, really'

    "Ah, I see. So it's a little like why it's so easy to be hostile to you." says Lilian. "I don't know why that surprises me. For some reason, I think I'd assumed you'd be like peas in a pod with your own version of yourself."

    'Like, you know, when you call someone a--'

    Lilian looks at Petra fast enough for a light-trail. She can hear a shrill violin creak and perceive the word DEATH
Shinmyoumaru Sukuna "What's a German?" Shinmyoumaru asks, offhandedly.

Petra takes a death ray aimed from Lilian. Shinmyoumaru continues as if it didn't exist, which to her it may not have: "It's words like 'midget'," Shinmyoumaru says, with the tone and attitude of someone who is holding a nasty word at arms' length with a pair of tongs or something; it doesn't apply to her, she doesn't mean it, but she is showing it to someone before it goes in the trash where it belongs. "And if you ever use a word like that about me I'm going to poke your eye."

She manages to stay smiling the whole time she does it, chewing on a piece of bacon. Gensokyoans and casual violence, man.

About bedrooms, Shinmyoumaru hesitates. "I can just stay wherever," she says, because she doesn't want to admit in public that she's not even two inches tall when she's not cheating, and when she's asleep she's not cheating. Last time she slept in her bowl.

"...actually, maybe I should share rooms with Madeleine..." She already knows, after all.
Petra Soroka "After a nuclear war and the emegence of man-eating demons, what your culture forgot wasn't car models and years, but what a slur is?"

    "*Right*?!" Petra's indignation is intense enough to crack her voice, having the complete reverse expression of disbelief from Lilian. "In fucking Georgia! The *South*! Who the fuck are they *kidding*?!"

    "I was losing my *mind* about this to Cinder, a couple days ago! Who the fuck are-- it was just *fifty years* or something! Since the bomb! Fucking-- there's plenty of fifty-year-olds and more still *around*! How did they pass nothing down about *that*, specifically?! Did everyone get in a fucking circle and hold hands in the fucking nuclear wasteland and sing kumbaya and promise to never treat the fucking queers differently ever again?!"

    Petra is still sitting at a table outside of a Waffle House with numerous people who don't have a clue what the fuck she's talking about, so she settles down into more steady seething quickly. "It makes me feel insane. Everything feels so fucking fake, ever since way back then. It's the same thing with all the fucking Elites all deciding they're my best fucking friends too. God I hate them so much."

    She blinks and then, back down to her normal-girl tone as if none of that ranting happened, waves reassuringly at Rita. "Um, not you, Rita. I don't hate you at all." A similar promise is conspicuously absent to anyone else at the table, though Lilian's implicitly exempt.

"For some reason, I think I'd assumed you'd be like peas in a pod with your own version of yourself."

    Lilian's understanding and explanation immediately makes Petra feel a lot better about the thoughts she'd struggled to work out. She hadn't thought about it that way, but her own feelings make much more sense once put in a frame of reference comparing them to Lilian's feelings. That last sentence, though, catches her, and she stares confusedly at Lilian for a second before blandly reminding her, "... I've been trying to kill myself half my life?"

    "Well-- well, not anymore, of course. I'm normal now. But, like, you know, I just-- don't have the best track record with myself."

"Speaking of, uh. How many hotel rooms are we gonna need? I was thinking four since there's seven of us..."

    Petra would like very much to have input on this question, but her input is evil and unacceptable. After attempting to work out non-evil ways to explain her need to sleep with other people, and preferably specifically people she likes, and being absolutely certain she can't get away with singling out Rita for that, she just defaults to the option that always works best.

    "Lilian should tell me where to sleep."
Rita Ma      The cheesesteak that came Petrecommended is now surrendered to Petregret: the last quarter of it, Rita taps Petra on the shoulder, beams eyes-shut, and holds it out for her friend to take. "Here. I'm full, Ms. Petra! You don't have to finish your eggs."

     She does not realize that where she stopped eating is delineated by the shape of a comically clean and mildly horrifying bite-mark. It looks like a shark got ahold of it. It looks like she could small-teeth-humiliate Lilian.

     "I'm not a gnome"
     "Mm! I know. They have the..." Rita swallows the last of her food, still strangely giddy about it, and then makes a cone-atop-her-head gesture.

     A glance in Rita's direction, just for a split-second.
     Rita glances back at Madeleine too, lips-pressed coolly neutral. She doesn't seem to like the 'cryptid' concept much anymore. ... Why's she still working with the MCRD, anyways?

     "Cadrasteia. Are you yourself a cryptid?"
     Rita arches an eyebrow, but doesn't lift her eyes. It's suuuure an interesting question, she seems to languidly think.

     "*Most* things people call monsters are just people but shaped different..."
     "That's how it is where you are, Mr. Nash," Rita says slowly, "and probably with gnomes too, but bad things will happen if you always think that way out here. Sometimes a monster wants to kill you for no reason. And sometimes a monster will pretend it's your friend until it kills you." There's some personal anxiety and unease wound up in that. Suddenly her shoulders are drawn in.

     Then they relax. "You know, Ms. Rook, I really like Ms. Solace? I got to talk to her kids, Cheer and Soothe. Do you think you could get them a babysitter? Ms. Solace has to leave them to go on missions, and they get really bored... she says maybe they can come to Apple Tree Island through the warpgate, but it'd be nice if someone good could keep them company." Does Lilian know what a babysitter is? "... Like a maid."

     The slur-explanation nearly glides right over her head, though not for lack of trying. There's a bad word for lesbians? Wait, aren't gay folk and lesbians sort of the same? There's a bad word for Germans?! Her eyes flit helplessly between Petra and Calvin, trying desperately to find something solid to grab onto, until Shinmyoumaru finally gives it to her.

     Oh. *That's* the bad word for lesbians. "Okay! I won't let anyone call me a m-- that."

     She's only been partly paying attention to the Qetra conversation, so Petra addressing her takes her by surprise, but she takes it as a charmingly quirky compliment. Her cheek squishes into her hand, and she eyes-shut smiles. "Mmm! I don't hate you even a tiny bit either, Ms. Petra."

     Sleepover? Sleepover! Sort of! "Mmm! Four rooms should be fine, Ms. Madeleine. I could room with Ms. Rook, Petra, Ms. Mia, you..." Her gaze flits around. She gives Shinmyoumaru a self-conscious smile and wave, as if to say 'I would, but I don't think you want me'.
Shinmyoumaru Sukuna "...I don't think you have to worry about being called it, though?" Shinmyoumaru sounds confused after Rita speaks again. She scrapes up the last of her hashbrowns and doesn't worry about it too much.
Calvin Nash Really now? After a nuclear war and the emegence of man-eating demons, what your culture forgot wasn't car models and years, but what a slur is?
In fucking Georgia! The *South*! Who the fuck are they *kidding*?!

    "Well--" Calvin starts, exasperated. "You-- We-- Look, I'm about thirty. Now, I was born damn near twenty years after the bombs. What am I gonna do, go up to some old-timer and ask what the best word to piss off this neighbor or that neighbor?" His face actually kind of turns pink when he gets upset. Petra and Madeleine in particular probably noticed that when he was yelling at the blue arm-stealing goober with that business in the Everhood.

    "Those 'queers' are our neighbors. People that helped us stay alive after everything that makes even a half-assed restaurant like this work worth a quarter of a damn went up in smoke." He gestures at her with his fork. "No roads, no oil, no power, no planes, no big-ass trucks fulla frozen food. No president, no capitol building, no 'National Guard.' No hospitals, no labs for making medicine, no fire department, nothing. You understand? Jack and shit."

    "'Peckerhead,' 'dipshit,' 'dumbass,'" he says, lowering his utensils briefly to enumerate acceptable insults with his fingers, his voice raised to the point of other patrons probably being able to hear the conversation. "We got words enough to call somebody everything but a child of God for when you're pissed off, that don't come after somebody for something they can't do nothing about. Now I'm not saying nobody *remembers* those words, but in the Assembly you'd be hard damn pressed to find somebody with a mind to use 'em how they was meant to be used." He gestures admonishingly with the fork again.

    "I'm awful sorry we didn't hold onto the stupidest shit from back then in time for you to get back and catch both barrels. If it's that important, fine, Petra, you're a goddamn CHINAMAN!" He picks his fork back up and authoritatively shovels grits in. "There. You happy?"

    Then he gives one of the little packaged butter things the side eye, lifts it up, inspects it, peels it open, sniffs it, and finally decides it's okay to go in the grits, along with some salt and pepper.

I can just stay wherever.

    "I don't know from hotels," he says, as if he hadn't just ruined an impassioned speech with an antiquated word that's almost worse than a slur for how baffling it is (not to mention how loudly it was said). "Just put me somewhere it ain't gonna cause no trouble. And if you can't do that, I'll sleep in the van."

Lilian should tell me where to sleep.

    Calvin makes a small 'hm' and files this away under Lesbian Business. This category will grow hopelessly, uselessly large until every bizarre thing Petra does is contained within and it no longer adequately serves to provide any understanding of lesbians or perhaps even women at all.
Madeleine Cadrasteia     'Goatel'

    Madeleine doesn't notice Lilian's confusion, instead busying herself with her steak.

    "Cadrasteia. Are you yourself a cryptid?"

    The huntress freezes, fork midway to her mouth. "...Nnnno," she says, eyes sliding to Rita. "Rita asked me this once, you know. It's like, how did I say... I passed the sniff test? Like, I'm not on file at the MCRD because I- because they didn't think I needed to be. I guess it's kind of a human-centric term? We haven't found a planet where bigfoots are in charge yet but I'm not sure who we'd call the cryptids in that situation."

    She sets down her fork. "But honestly what I think and what the MCRD thinks aren't always the same. If you ask me... I'm a person, and probably a monster, but not really a cryptid. Maybe if I like, lived in the woods and ate people and there were spooky stories about me, but I have a house."

    sleeping arrangements

    Madeleine idly counts off on her fingers. "Me and the Princess, Rita and Lilian, Petra and Dysnomia, Calvin on his own? That'd be four rooms." Isn't that a little sexist?
Shinmyoumaru Sukuna Shinmyoumaru is content with this division of rooms. Madeleine already knows her not-very-secret secret so she won't have to tell anyone else or make any awkward explanations or anything. (And Maddie gets to have no arguments at all about the bed.)

"I don't see why you wouldn't be a person!" Shinmyoumaru nods, firmly, to herself if nobody else. She files 'planet of the Bigfoots' away for later thought. Maybe she shouldn't tell Madeleine what she wants to do... it sounds like she'd support the youkai and not her -

'If it's that important, fine, Petra, you're a goddamn CHINAMAN!'

Shinmyoumaru flinches, more out of volume than anything else. "What? What? She's not from China," Shinmyoumaru says, absolutely baffled. "And she's not a man, so it's all wrong, even if you are trying to insult her! Which you SHOULD NOT," she says, firmly.

"Anyway, you don't have to sleep in the van, hotels have beds and things. And showers," Shinmyoumaru adds, happily, because she likes them and her castle does not have much in the way of indoor plumbing of that kind. "And sometimes food in the morning."
Rita Ma      "...I don't think you have to worry about being called it, though?"
     "Oh," says Rita, slightly dazed, but doing her best to follow along. "Okay!" Do I look especially 'heterosexual'...?

     "What? What? She's not from China..."
     "And she's not a man, Mr. Nash," says Rita, at almost exactly the same time as Shinmyoumaru says it. Little un-looking nod of solidarity.

     "Cadrasteia. Are you yourself a cryptid?"
     "... but I have a house."
     "I have a house," Rita says, without really thinking it through. It's fueled by annoyance, though not annoyance at Maddie. She realizes after a second that, even if Petra-safely vague, it's cutting things a little too close, and suddenly becomes very interested in the remaining few fries and meat-juices on her plate.

     Her tongue probes the inside of her mouth. She dredges back for anything else to talk about.

     "... The Goatel was a themed hotel, Ms. Rook. They found a nice goatman to perform for them- Mr. Johann- and everybody liked him. But they wanted to keep expanding. He didn't know it, but they cloned him to grow more goatpeople, and treated them really badly."

     Fry-nibble. Tiny homph. "So we freed the clones, got rid of the old owners, and put Mr. Johann in charge of it himself. That was the last road trip. That's all."
Lilian Rook     '... I've been trying to kill myself half my life?'

    "That doesn't necessarily mean self-hatred. Sometimes it's apathy. Sometimes it's loving yourself too much to be able to stand the sight of what the wold does to you. And even then, whethr you'd hate your reflection is another thing entirely."

    'Speaking of, uh. How many hotel rooms are we gonna need? I was thinking four since there's seven of us...'

    "Huh?" Lilian blurts out, raising her voice to that nasty anime heather tone. "How do you fucking figure? If there's seven of us then we get seven rooms."

    'Lilian should tell me where to sleep.'

    "Christ."

    'You know, Ms. Rook, I really like Ms. Solace? I got to talk to her kids, Cheer and Soothe.'

    "Her what?" Wait how did Lilian not know that? "A . . . I suppose?" she says. "That's reasonable enough. I'll have to get her consent, of course, but the headquarters should be safe."

    '... Like a maid.'

    "No they're not."
Petra Soroka It looks like she could small-teeth-humiliate Lilian.

    Petra takes the sandwich delicately, trying very hard to not overtly look at the teeth marks in it. Her avoidance of thinking about that also conveniently occupies her brain enough to bypass any lingering weirdness she might have about sharing food with Rita, so she just has to turn the sandwich to the side and start nibbling on it. "Um, thanks a bunch, Rita."

    She can't help, though, a not-inconspicuous glance up to Lilian's own mouth, quietly comparing sizes. She doesn't think anything is necessarily *wrong* with Rita, though-- sometimes girls just have bigger sizes than average, and that's okay. Maybe even better than okay.

"Those 'queers' are our neighbors. People that helped us stay alive after everything that makes even a half-assed restaurant like this work worth a quarter of a damn went up in smoke."

    Petra scoffs and rolls her eyes, derision undercut by taking another mouselike two-handed bite from the edge of the sandwich. "Yeah, dumbass, that's always been true and it's never mattered before. Do you think I'm fucking arguing that it's fucking *better* to be stupid and insular and shitty? No, idiot. I just don't believe it. It doesn't feel like it can be true based on what I know about the world. You're a fucking thirty-five year old wannabe macho cop and you should have a dictionary of slurs to call me downloaded into your brain automatically."

"If it's that important, fine, Petra, you're a goddamn CHINAMAN!"

    "But-- but that's-- that's not one...?" Petra struggles to process this turn of events, when his tone so clearly indicates a full-throated shouted slur in frustration, but the word that comes out of his mouth is... "... I'm a normal girl? You can see that, right?" Being echoed and supported by other people with, apparently, the ability to see the real world, reassures her a bit.

"And even then, whethr you'd hate your reflection is another thing entirely."

    Thoughtful again, Petra has to stray from the comfortable territory of agreeing with Lilian and into the difficult realm of synthesizing new thoughts that are coherent enough to be understood by her. "Um... but I don't really hate her, I think. Wanting things to be worse for her and being annoyed when she has it too easy is... I guess she doesn't *need* things to be worse in the same way, but *that's* what feels wrong. She gets a free ride to acting like a weird freaky idiot slut. So I can't just let her."

"Christ."

    After negotiating (through whining) for rooming with Lilian by switching with Rita-- though she would've preferred sleeping in the room with both of them, Petra puffs up in protest at Lilian, mostly just to justify herself. "But it's fine! It's fine! I can just sleep on the floor or something! It doesn't really make a difference, to me, it's just-- I don't, really want, a hotel room to-- to myself."
Calvin Nash I'm a normal girl? You can see that, right?

    Calvin huffs. "Yes--"

What? What? She's not from China...
And she's not a man, Mr. Nash.

    "I *know!* I'm *awful sorry* I *don't* have a goddamn dictionary on hand to use the right one!" spits Calvin, indignantly spearing his egg. "Why are we talking about that? That's not the goddamn *point,* don't y'all get it? Why ain't we talking about how *she's* the one acting like *I* should be up *her* ass. Me, and my whole town. Because we're from Georgia. Because it's not 'real' enough."

    His eggs finished, his utensils clink down on the plate, and he looks at Petra. "You got *problems,*" he says, pointing an index at her accusingly. "You hear me? Big problems." He flips open his COMP, flips through the menus, and out comes a credit chit. He presses it down on the table in his best approximation of calm, which isn't very good.

     "I'm done. Going back to the van."
Madeleine Cadrasteia     "How do you fucking figure? If there's seven of us then we get seven rooms."

    "Hey, I know from outside the Concord's made of money, but the MCRD's honestly a bit of a small fry. We just had a budget meeting, but I'm technically still running on last year's dregs while the paperwork clears. If we end up with more than four rooms, the folks on their own are gonna have to pay for some of it."

    "I'm done. Going back to the van."

    "Well now look what you've done," Madeleine says, immediately siding with the more audibly aggrieved party. "I'm gonna head inside and pay the check. Anybody want a slice of pecan pie while I'm up there?"
Madeleine Cadrasteia     Tensions are a little high as the gang gets back on the road, but Madeleine does her best to drive like nothing is wrong. Despite her lack of effort, the inherent camaraderie of being stuck in the same car for two days re-establishes itself at least a little.

    "Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster" proves a remarkably somber experience, detailing the journey of a scarred astronaut (Frank Stein) across an alien-haunted Puerto Rico. What's more, he only meets the space monster for a two-minute battle at the very end of the film, no doubt a letdown for several among the audience.

    As the afternoon creeps by, a sign of trouble emerges: an unfamiliar rattling nose joins the chorus of normal engine sounds. "Ah, damn," Madeleine says. "Might have to stop a little early to get this looked at. We'll have to make good time tomorrow. Keep an eye on the exit signs for me, we'll want a decent hotel."

    Around 3 PM the huntress takes the van off the highway at Abingdon, Virginia (population 8,376), just shy of the border with Tennessee. After stopping in at a hotel to drop off the other Elites she takes the van to a local auto shop for a look over and returns on foot. "It'll be set this evening, but I don't think we should drive through the night," she texts to the group. "There's some kind of county fair on, if you're looking for something to do the rest of the afternoon."