"…what's with the getup Anya?" Becky asked.

"This is how 'in-vesty-gators' dress." Anya said slyly to her friend as the limo escorting her and the rest of the Forgers traveled to the restaurant. "I had to change quickly. My notepad and magnifying glass at home-"

"Which means unlike the last time, you have nothing of value to leave behind on accident." Lloyd interjected warmly but firmly to his pink haired daughter. "You were lucky that Fiona found that magnifying glass at the hospital."

Anya gasped deeply as shock and embarrassment flooded her face. Becky let out a small chuckle.

Before the four of them knew it, the limo reached its final destination; the Bondman Café. Architecturally speaking, the restaurant had been outfitted to look like the League of Evil's HQ: the Subterranean Complex of Radicalism, Extremism, And Malice (S.C.R.E.A.M.). The wonders didn't cease as all eight eyes found themselves filled with (mostly) amazement.

"It's sooooo coooooooooollll!" Anya gleefully said upon charging into the souvenir shop and darting about the wares. "Plushy toys. Books. Shirts…(she gasps)…and sharks too!"

Before Anya could bolt to the triad of tubes making up the archway, Lloyd scoops her off the ground.

"Settle yourself Anya. We'll have plenty of time to look together as a family."

Becky, meanwhile, watched the interaction between the Forger family and upon drinking in the spectacle for herself, pursed her lips in ambivalence and boredom. On the one hand, she knew she did the right thing in salvaging the invite from her father's trash receptacle. Yet as she drank in the sight of faux foliage, a bar designed to look like elaborate security monitors, and rivers of magma "oozing" along the walls which flashed bright red every five minutes…it all felt so trite. As much as Anya was her friend and all, there were many things she never grasped about the girl; and Spy Wars was the encapsulation of all these consternations in one form or another.

"…sharky, sharky, Sharks. Sharky, sharky…huh?"

Anya's whispered chanting came to a halt as the joy turned on a dime into confusion upon seeing the specimens up close. In lieu of the fearsome saltwater beasts that threatened to turn Bondman into lunch in every tenth episode, the sharks here were short and comparatively docile in nature: possessing short wide heads with blunt snouts and stripes across their bodies.

"Don't tell me you expected them to have sharks like on Spy Wars." Lloyd begins as he looks at the confusion and letdown painting his little girl's face. "Hmm. Heterodontus marshallae-"

"Correct good sir. Color me impressed."

Lloyd, Yor, Anya and Becky look up to see Mr. Brazen and his family; a wife and two sons.

"So I take it you have a tank at home Mr. Forger?"

"No. I took a marine bio course as an elective. I take it you're Mr. Brazen."

"Ah! Yes, where are my manners? My name is Seamus Brazen. My wife Tamara T. Brazen, my eldest Seamus Jr. and of course you girls know Frank from Eden."

"Yes. I seem to remember asking Ms. Blackbell to dance at the end of term party last year." Frank said with a hint of petulance over her slight. "I guess the night had different plans for us."

*{This guy's a major/big-time creep.}* Becky and Anya thought in tandem.

"And of course Catherine." Seamus Jr. said as he gestured to a modestly dressed young lady with a shoulder-length bob, glasses and a painted on grin.

"Charmed." She said shaking the hands of the Forgers. Anya meanwhile stares intently as Catherine charms the Forger adults.

*{I hope mommy and daddy are happy because I sure as hell am not.}*

Anya gasps.

*{Never mind he's two grades behind me and has been ogling me the minute we met in Literature class, he's a Brayzen. The family will be set. Not like that aimless radical Rubin…sigh, I hope he's having a better night}*

"Miss Anya, don't be rude."

"Pleasure to make your 'ak-wain-tents' Cath-er-ine." Anya said flatly.

"Aww, aren't you a dear?" Catherine replied scooping the Forger girl into a hug.

"Excuse me, Mr. Brazen. If you and your family will follow me." Said one host.

"And you must be Forger party of four, please come right this way." Said a second hostess escorting her guests to their table, a stone's throw away from the Brazens. The evening for the four of them continued swimmingly as they enjoyed their food and drink as well as interactions with varied costumed characters. Naturally, as the entrees came out the chef was there to see to it that the guests enjoyed what they ordered.

"My goodness. Everything is just so delicious Rubin."

"Yes. This Hamburg Steak is just exquisite."

"You cook almost as well as Papa!"

Lloyd turned his head to firmly but subtly reprimand Anya for her comment, but instead the chef found it endearing.

"Well, I guess then I got competition Mr. Forger." Rubin said with a smile. "I do hate to be rude but there are other orders I must see to."

"Oh, no trouble at all. Thank you for a pleasant meal."

From the corner of Rubin's eye, he caught a glimpse of the Brazen family at Table 5 which at this point had been whittled down to Seamus Jr and a very bored Catherine who at this point looked ready for the sweet embrace of death rather than deal with her company any further.

*{Ah, my dearest Catherine. If I didn't need this job as badly as I do, I'd knock that pompous buffoon over the Berlint Wall and into the deepest heart of Westalis to win your heart. But alas, this is the disguise I must keep.}*

But little did the smitten sous chef realize that his thoughts were intercepted by a certain telepath he had just finished bringing a meal to…a certain telepath who at this moment suddenly found herself getting a new lease on love.

"Hey Anya, how do you feel about hitting up the gift shop again…Anya…Anya…"

A pinch on the ear bought the pink haired girl back to reality.

"Huh? Oh Becky! Just the person I need to see!"

"I've been right here this whole time-"

Anya gripped her friend's shoulders as if her life depended on it.

"No time for that Becky! What can you tell me about all that flirty stuff you're into?"