JP - Disguises and Cars

When they got to the car, Clonestone made Bella comfortable in the backseat before getting in the driver’s seat. He turned his skin darker and wrinkly.

“Why you doing that?” Coral asked as she sat down in the passenger seat, happy to have shotgun. “It’s not a good look for ya.”

“Disguising myself. Making it a little harder for MegaCorp to find me.” Clonestone said as he started driving.

"Oh, that's understandable," Coral replied and smiled. "I've never left before, but any time I left my room I never got caught, so I'm not worried." She took a moment to look back at Bella, making sure the dog girl was okay. "You sure she's gonna heal up good?"

"I got her to take her medicine. I have more bandages and stuff. She'll be fine." Clonestone said, checking that there were tissues in the glove box as he drove.

Coral slapped his hand away with a string of water. “Not until later, you dummy. Eyes on the road!” She seethed.

“I was just making sure we had tissues!” Clonestone complained as he got on the highway and headed north. “I have places to stay all along the east coast so we can avoid hotels.”

“Good, I’m tired of being in boring stuffy rooms where humans get to gawk at us and do weird as fuck experiments on us.” Coral said as she looked through some of the other stuff in the glove compartment. “Ohhhh!” Grabbing the pistol hidden beneath a bunch of papers, she held it up. “Better than nothing!”

Clonestone had taken a few guns that he had stashed in his lair and shrugged. “Guns are a useful tool at times, but I prefer to-” He turned his skin rough.

Coral giggled. "Yeah, yeah, tough guy. I don't use guns. Why do that when you can slowly freeze them to death with water…or drown them?"

“I use guns sometimes.” Clonestone shrugged. Actually he had never used a gun, that had been the original Canestone. But as far as his memory was concerned he had done all that shooting, and intimidating victims into going to his lairs, with guns.

Coral shrugged and looked back at Bella. "Just be careful about your dog." She told him.

“I will be.” Clonestone said, glancing at the gas gauge. He took an exit into a city. “We should switch cars.”

"Want me to find it this time?" The watery woman asked.

“Try for something with good gas mileage.” Clonestone said.

“Duh!” Coral said with a laugh and was suddenly flooding out the window.

A gruff snort came from Bella as she looked up and watched Coral leave before trying to climb into the front seat.

“No- stay!” Clonestone panicked, afraid that Bella was going to break her stitches.

Whining, Bella kept trying to get to the front seat, pawing at it until she was sitting up front just like a dog would sit. She panted happily and looked at Clonestone as if this was the best day of her life.

Clonestone fretted until he checked Bella’s stitches and saw that they were still intact. “You can’t do things like that!” He gently scolded.

Bella gave a soft whine and tilted her head, making her cute ears flop a bit. At least he didn’t call her a bad dog.

Clonestone sighed and scratched Bella’s ears as he waited for Coral to get them a car.

Coral would soon return with a simple little car that was very good on gas mileage and waved from the passenger seat, her water threatening the poor driver as he put the car in park. Bella made a confused noise at the sight, tilting her head again.

Clonestone’s eyes widened. “Why the hell did you bring a driver?” He asked.

“I don’t know how to drive, remember?!” Coral said as she forced water into the man’s lungs, killing him and giggling.

“Oh.” Clonestone dragged the corpse from the driver’s seat and left him in the road. Let the authorities wonder how a man drowned in the street. He started moving stuff into the trunk of the new car.

Bella followed Clonestone out of the car and barked at the dead guy a few times.

Coral gently guided Bella away from the corpse. “Let's NOT sit in the road and bark at dead people, Bella…” She grumbled and got her into the back seat where she could lie down. “I’ll grab her stuff.” Going to the old car, she retrieved Bella’s things and returned to them.

“Stay.” Clonestone firmly told Bella, securing her in the seat with a seatbelt. He grabbed the tissues from the glovebox of the old car and walked away from the road.

“Your dad is an idiot, Bella.” Coral muttered as she waited in the car.

Bella whined and tried to get out of the seatbelt, even biting at it.