"I still think this was a bad idea, Claire," Jim mumbled, pulling his hood up a little more in an attempt to hide his features as much as possible, only to realize how sketchy he must look, a seven-ish foot tall male wearing dark clothing with his hood draw to cover his features and hands shoved in his pockets walking with a petite, cheery teenage girl in a Papa Skull hoodie and leggings in the middle of the night.

"You running on the roofs wouldn't work this time, the buildings are getting too tall," Claire reached and tugged on his sleeve to get him to speed up as they were passing a fast food restaurant with a group of teens who were staring at them, she hated to admit it but she was glad that Jim was a slightly oblivious person and didn't seem to notice half of the stares that he got, "Besides, I've heard that there is a lot of peculiar crime in this city and I didn't want to come alone to such a big place."

Jim snorted "We both know that you are fully capable of taking care of yourself," he gazes down at her as she snickers and pulls his four fingered hand out of his pocket, weaving her fingers with his and swinging their arms slightly as they walk,

"Alright, you got me, I had you come because we haven't had any time alone together since you came with me to the laundromat in that small town in kansas about a month ago, and I really wanted to spend some alone time with you," she smiled up at him and he knew that if he was still able to blush, his whole face would be red, "Plus," she continued, a sly smile creeping onto her face and a spark of humor in her eyes, "I needed someone to carry all my bags," this caused them to both burst out laughing, lightening the mood and settling both of their nerves.

They walked for a while longer, Jim noted that Claire was right about the roofs, the buildings around them were slowly rising in height as they made their way deeper into the city. The buildings were getting closer and closer together, and the streets more populated, though Jim knew it was still far less crowded than during the day. Cars and people zipped pass them as they ran their errands, and they were stopped a couple of times, once by a police officer who was suspicious of the odd looking couple and once by a group of teens who wanted a picture. It was Claire's quick thinking that allowed them to escape the first situation unscathed, explaining Jim's appearance as a cosplay costume and saying that they were just running some errands on their way home from a convention. They stuck with this story when they were stopped by the teens and even allowed the group of teens to take pictures with them. Jim and Claire laughed once the group left, the teens chatting about how great Jim's "costume" was,

"That was brilliant, Claire, we should use that story more often, I could get away with being in public more often if everyone is gullible enough to believe that this is a costume," Jim stated quietly once the group was completely out of sight. He shifted the bags he was carrying into one hand and used the other to pull his hood back into place, having pulled it down for the pictures, and grinned down at the girl beside him, "Though not very often, we don't want me becoming some well known tourist attraction."

She laughed "Your right, though I think it would be really cool to go to an actual cosplay convention. It would be a fun opportunity to be normal teens for a night and would give us the chance to talk to some semi-normal human beings."

"Why only semi-normal?" he questioned

She glanced at him with a deadpan expression "No one that dresses up in a fursuit is completely normal. Jim." they both chuckled,

"Very true, anyway, what is our next stop?"

"The laundromat," she states, nodding her head to the backpack he has on is back as she pulls out her phone for directions, "This is my last even partially clean outfit and, though you may not sweat anymore, that does not mean that your clothes stay clean for long." Jim glanced down at the plastic Walmart bags in his hands, realizing with a whince that she had a point. He always seemed to be covered in grime by the end of the night and had no idea how, and the rising humidity the farther they traveled east was not helping the matter. They had made a stop at walmart for a couple of reasons, the first was food, both for Claire and for Merlin, the man seemed to have a bottomless stomach when he ate, through Jim supposed that was to be expected when the man hasn't eaten for a few centuries, the second reason was clothes. Jim had ripped through his cargo pants about a week ago and was forced to wear sweatpants till they could get some new ones, Though sweatpants were not very durable, to say the least, and Jim had already gone through a pair just in the time that it took to get to the city, so they had gotten him a new hoodie and a few new pants. While they were already shopping for clothes, they got Claire some new clothes as well, mostly some more weather durable clothing due to them traveling into cooler environments and the summer starting to come to a close. The other things were just the normal essentials, such as sunscreen, umbrellas, toilet paper and feminine hygiene products.

It had taken Jim nearly a week to calm down and accept himself enough for his armor to release, and once it had, he had finally started to explore his new body and all its changes. He found that not a lot had changed, other than his missing finger and a couple missing toes, everything was still present. He was more muscular and was bigger in every aspect, along with stone for skin, but mostly remained anatomical unchanged (which he was beyond grateful for), though his feet had change quite a bit, losing the pinky toe on both feet, toes becoming bigger and farther spread apart, ending in sharp claws rather than nails. He laughed the first time he saw them, they looked more beastly than human and the first thing he thought of was the jokes Toby would make about him having dinosaur feet, realizing that his friend would get a real kick out of it. Though the thing that changed the most were his senses, particularly his sense of smell. He had noticed that Claire's scent was always changing and had realized quite quickly why, he filed it away in his memory and had made sure to keep his instincts under control during her fertile period, but he had been extremely startled the first time Claire had started her period on their trip. She had come up to him, smiling like she always did and he was almost instantly assaulted by the overwhelming stench of blood. He panicked. He had nearly jumped on her, frantically checking her over for injuries and asking her a million question. Lucky they had been alone during this as it had lead to a rather awkward conversation and multiple admissions and apologies from both parties.

Jim chuckled quietly at the memory and turned back to Claire, "So how far away is it?" he asked, then a thought crossed his mind "Also, it is getting late, did you check if they are open?"

Claire hummed thoughtfully, "I didnt think about that, let me check," she proceeded to tap her phone and then groaned, "They closed at eight, which was two and a half hours ago"

Jim sighed "It's alright, we will work it out later, plus we just got new clothes so we can last a little longer if we have to."

Claire sighed as well, her shoulders slumping "you're right, let's head back and meet up with the oth-" her sentence was cut short by an explosion down the street and a building going up in flames.