Troy took the first chance he had to change Lancer back. He was a bit shocked to see the small anthro cat walk out of the dressing room, but there was no way he wanted that to be what Lancer looked like. "Close your ears," Troy ordered. Lancer did as he was told and Troy whispered "Shape" as quietly as he could, thinking about humans. But to his surprise again, Lancer didn't turn into a human, rather his Leonin self.
His bright orange fur quickly shifted to a yellower color. Except around his face as fur turned brown and grew rapidly into a massive mane. The short stature quickly towered over Troy as with each step Lancer grew taller and taller. His muscles bulged out as he took up more of the sidewalk. Anything about the small housecat had changed back into the massive lion. Same with his clothes as the dark blue sleeveless shirt he was wearing strained against his new muscles. Same with his black shorts as the two globes of an ass pressed hard against the fabric.
"Good?" Lancer asked as he pulled his fingers out of his round lion ears.
"Good," Troy answered. Even though he'd wished that he'd been paying more attention to just how far the 'Mass Half' spell actually reached. When they'd stepped out of the store, Troy had noticed several other anthro cat creatures walking along the sidewalk. It was obvious that the female employee would have turned into a snow leopard and the other customers turn into assorted house cats, but Troy hadn't thought about people outside. Or about people who could have been in the next store over. Or even people above him. How many had been changed? And how far did it reach? He quickly shook it off and continued to the game store.
When they arrived, Troy was glad that he had put it in his GPS. Even though he'd been down that street dozens of times, he'd never seen a game shop there. That's simply because it was a literal hole in the wall. There was only a small sign lining the railing that led into someone's basement saying, 'Random Encounters.' Beyond that, there was absolutely no way to know a store existed here. Everything else on the street was residential apartments, while this was a basement with a metal storm door that looked to be from the 1950's and a green door with paint chipping off from it.
Troy looked to Lancer for support as he held the golden handle. The lionman could only shrug. It's not like he knew where they were at. But Troy pushed it open and was surprised to see what was inside. Despite the rundown nature of the exterior, the interior was fully loaded with comics, games, and all things nerdy. Several large glass displays held anime and DnD figures that ran $100 upwards. Same with an entire section of comic books that lined numerous bookshelves. But in the back were a couple of booths with walls that reached the ceiling and several tables that had card games ready to be played on them.
"Don't see many guys like you around here," a female voice said.
Troy looked around to see a woman dressed in all black resting her arms on a glass counter. She had a long sleeve fishnet material running down her arms that wrapped around one of her fingers and a tank top right above it. Her jean shorts barely covered anything but the fishnet stockings running down to her combat boots must have been enough to fill the dress code. "Uhh... Yeah..." Troy nodded. "Never been here before."
"Not talking to you bud," her black painted lips twisted into a smile. "More talking to your friend." Her hips seemed to sway as she spoke. Meanwhile, Lancer was having a bit of trouble fitting into the building. The top of his mane slid along the ceiling and he bumped into a hanging display.
"You break it, you buy it," a surly man behind the goth woman announced. He didn't even bother looking up from his comic book. He just turned the page. Though, it was hard to see how a man like that could enforce a rule like that to someone like Lancer. He barely looked to be 5'3" and there's no way he weighed even 100 pounds.
"Okay...?" Troy nodded. He pulled Lancer closer to him, forcing him down to his level. "I'm looking for Mark Vender. We're supposed to be playing DnD with him tonight."
"Mark?" the surly man raised his voice again. "Tell him if that shit head come by to tell me and I'll take care of it."
Troy felt himself nod. But didn't feel like he got an answer to his question. "Is he here?"
The woman spoke up, pointing to one of the booths. "He's over there. But you don't have to leave yet..." Her hand reached over for Lancer's arm, who instinctively went to Troy as a shield. "Ooo!" her devilish smile only broadened, showing off very pointed white teeth. "I rarely get to see this outside of the internet. You two need to come by," she made a show of letting her long black hair with a red stripe in it down, "a girl can get so lonely..."
Thoroughly made uncomfortable, Troy and Lancer made their way over to the booth she had pointed to.