23 - Crazy Cat Shuffle

[godsoffortune]

Who: Everyone!
What: Crazy Cat Shuffle
When: September 20
Where: Shibuya & Ikebukuro, as well as the Far Shore
Summary: The new Crazy Cat mascot keychains are sparking real passion in Tokyo's hot spots. Brawls have broken out over the extra-rare versions, and all of this angst is attracting ayakashi. The gods have been asked to step in before things get out of control.







Crossing Crisis

The Shibuya scramble crossing is always busy, but it's especially wild today. Ten new Crazy Cat vending machines have been installed at the mouth of the alley across from Shibuya Station's exit. Rumors are flying that these machines have extra Blue-Star Cats in them: the very rarest kind! A crowd of hundreds of excited fans have gathered, but the people at the front of the lines are buying lots of cats, and the mood is starting to grow sour as the people at the back of the lines begin to wonder if there will be any left by the time it's their turn.

This crowd needs crossing guards... or just someone who can snag some of those ultra-rare Cats and sell them to the back of the line for crazy cash. Everything a god does is righteous, after all.

Sunshine Struggle

Crazy Cat machines dot the Sunshine City complex in Ikebukuro. The machines here are attracting some particularly nasty ayakashi: jealous little purple creatures with too many legs that stoke buyers' envy and need for more and better collectibles. Under their influence, it's not just the Cats going fast. The local stores are selling out of everything cute on the shelves.

Worse, some of the ayakashi victims are turning to theft when they run out of pocket money. Time to exterminate those bugs before they start a new crime wave.

Taking Stock

Accident? Sabotage? No one's telling, but a delivery truck carrying boxes of new keychains to restock the machines blew a tire and overturned on a major street. Under the influence of those greedy little ayakashi, collectors are descending on the wreck to snag their favorites before the police show up.

The dazed driver doesn't know what to do, the crowd is starting to get violent, and those Cats do look amazingly cute. And appealing. And, for that matter, valuable.

Bad Kitty

The cat keychains are super cute! Even gods or shinki might be tempted to buy one and take it home, but taking these keychains back to the Far Shore will give away their hidden secret. It's not just human envy that's attracting ayakashi to the Crazy Cats. There are ayakashi hiding inside this batch of cute kitty dolls, and bringing them through a shrine to the Far Shore will force the hidden creatures out of their plushie prisons.

They're big, they're mad, and they're hungry. And the Heavens are full of souls that smell delicious.

The ayakashi escaping from Crazy Cat dolls on the Far Shore resemble gigantic (taller than a person at the shoulder) versions of the cute plushie cats, with very real and sharp teeth and claws. They run and attack at random once released from the dolls, so even gods and shinki who did not bring the toys back could be faced with a fight. The patrolling shinki will do their best to hold them back with borderlines, but they need help to rend these crazy cats before they do too much damage!

In Summary:

• Placate the crowds
• Squash bitty ayakashi
• Struggle with temptation
• Defeat the cat invasion
• Have fun~

Comments

Bad kitty, no biscuit

[letteropener]

[The sun descends from the sky.]

[Well. Perhaps not. But Celestia's swooping descent is an easy thing to mistake for a star falling from heaven, wreathed in golden light and summer warmth as she is. In that instant, she is as the god whose name she possesses, and all darkness in the world must flee before her.]

Rend.

[A small ring curled around the base of her horn gleams silver to her gold, in that moment before all the magic of an alicorn seems to set the world balanced on the razor's edge between one moment and the next. The spell that lances out from her horn is almost anticlimactic, a beam of light no wider than a human's little finger, but the moment it touches the ayakashi, the cat dissolves as if a divine hand had simply brushed it away from reality.]

[sageprincess]

[In the truly ancient legends, from before even the founding of Hyrule Kingdom, it is said that when the White Goddess, Hylia, took to the field of battle, she shone with such a brilliance that soldiers and demons alike would weep at the sight of her glorious retribution. Even when Zelda herself was a young girl, she held her doubts regarding those parts of the stories, thinking them victims of embellishment and hyperbole in the thousands of years between Hylia's time and her own.

As Zelda shields her eyes now, squinting from underneath her fingers to watch Celestia's banishment of the ayakashi, she thinks perhaps there was greater truth to those stories than she thought.

And yet... a feeling of inadequacy settles itself upon her shoulders. Hylia is said to be her ancestor, after all, but her own light seems like a candle's flame compared to Celestia's star.]

... Thank you, Princess.

[She is grateful, despite her shame, however. As the dust settles, she pulls herself up; her body aches, and her side stings with the residual blight, but her pride won't allow her to remain laying in the middle of the street like a common drunkard in front of Celestia.]

[letteropener]

You'd do the same for me, were our positions reversed. Of the two of us, I was the one who had her shinki close to hoof.

[Celestia intuits more of what Zelda is thinking and feeling than Zelda might entirely be comfortable with, and in her usual serene manner works to blunt any feelings of inadequacy or failure. The statement is no less than literal truth, after all -- had Celestia not called her soulless shinki, she could no more have rent the ayakashi than Zelda could have.]

We must see to getting you healed, though. I know how much that must hurt.

[sageprincess]

[okay yes but there are many points to be given for style--]

It... is not as though it is unbearable. [She assures unconvincingly, a hand reaching up to cover the blight from Celestia's sight before halting midway through the motion. Touching it would probably make things worse, huh.] And it should be a simple enough thing to mend, correct?

[This... might be her first real encounter with an ayakashi, whoops.]

[letteropener]

[That's a matter of practice. Celestia has had more than her fair share. And Zelda would likely have found the pony's first real struggle with blight unstylish indeed, since Celestia had ended up in shocking amount of pain from unwittingly letting firefly-sized ayakashi land on her.]

We need to treat the blight with holy water. I have some at my temple, though there may be some closer to hoof that I'm unaware of. I can take you there.

[sageprincess]

That may be for the best. With the way the roads change around here, I cannot be sure my temple is in the same place I left it.

[The baby god struggle is real.]

Thank you, again. ... I have run up quite the debt with you, haven't I?

[letteropener]

Not in the least. There are no debts between friends.

[Celestia does not regularly use the powers of a god to teleport; she is far more comfortable with her own spells. So rather than that simple transition, Celestia sweeps them both up in a flash-crackle of light.]

[When it faded, which it does nearly instantly, they are outside the temple of Inti.]

Please, come inside.

[sageprincess]

[Zelda blinks, but the surprise wears off quickly enough. Teleportation has been a familiar thing to her even before her awakening in the Heavens, though the tips of her ears and fingers tingle with the sensation of unfamiliar magic even after it has faded.

She follows dutifully after Celestia into her temple.]

... Even so. [She's... new to this friend thing, really.] You have aided me so much in so little time, I would like to return the favor one day.

[letteropener]

And I have no doubt you will, without needing to seek out chances to do so deliberately. [Celestia smiles over her shoulder as she paces down the hallway, the light from the stained-glass windows casting different hues over her pale fur.]

[sageprincess]

[She hums a reluctant assent, glancing about at the stained glass rather than keeping eye contact.]

Please forgive me if I remain unsatisfied until then.

[letteropener]

We'll work on that.

[In deeper they go, out of areas suited for public display and into quieter back hallways more suited for actual living. Celestia opens a door with her magic and leads Zelda in, revealing a bathing room beyond.]

Here we are. I will uncover and warm the water. [She motions to a covered tub, which the cover is already lifting off of thanks to the pony's magic.]

[sageprincess]

My... it is quite different from the holy spring in my own temple...

[She hasn't seen a bathing room like this since she was a child, honestly. But she bites that comment back, not wanting to seem any less un-princesslike in front of Celestia than she has already. She steps forward to glance into the tub.]

Is there anything special I need to do, or it is simply a matter of washing the blight away as one would do with dirt?

[letteropener]

Just bathing, fortunately. Holy water is an excellent cure for blight. You might wish to start carrying a small amount with you, if you can -- just in case.

[The tub shines brightly for a moment, then begins to steam, instantly filling the room with a gentle, humid warmth. The effect is already soothing, even if holy steam isn't quite the treatment its liquid counterpart is.]

[sageprincess]

I believe I will be following that advice from now on.

[Aaah... the steam does feel really nice, even beyond the holy properties. After a moment's pause to breathe it in, she pulls off her long gloves, sets them aside, then dips a hand into the water, cupping a small amount to wipe down her other arm with. She watches with awe as the blight that stung at her skin seems to just... melt away into nothingness as soon as the water touches it.]

Remarkable...

[letteropener]

Oh, let me go get you a towel. [Celestia won't be satisfied with less than a full cure to be certain, but she understands most people get twitchy about disrobing. Even around a pony. So Celestia paces off, putting some distance between them so Zelda can treat herself properly.]

[Also she really does need a towel.]