thenearshore | 23 - Crazy Cat Shuffle

[Celty turns, ready to fight when she hears and sees the impact to her side, but she's relieved that it's a friend. Even if that friend knocked out some poor crazed office worker.

Sirens...Someone else. RIGHT. Right the cops are the ones who can do this. But somehow she can't help but shake the feeling she'll get chased instead.

The crowd makes another surge but she raises her hands, summoning her shadows to push everyone back in a soft but urgent wave. The shadows wrap around the legs of the most forward people, clinging to them in sticky tendrils. It should hold them, or at least slow them, for a few minutes.]

[The shadows are definitely helpful in shoving the people back, so Shun turns his attention to the door of the truck for the moment. If he can get it closed hard enough, it's going to make people slipping by them a lot less of a problem.]

I might need your help getting the doors closed fully, if you can do that while holding them back. [Shun, for his part, doesn't hesitate to kick out hard at the one of the doors closest to him - it's slightly distorted in shape due to the crash, but it still shifts in a bit with the kick. It looks like it might take a few solid hits to get closed, though.]

[Celty nods and then gestures with her hand to push out another wave of shadow at the crush of greedy collectors. It will slow them a bit but it will work for now. However using her shadows to try to lock the truck would only be a temporary measure. They'd vanish with enough time, distance or distraction.

But for now, with her shadows making a wall of webs and obstacles for the crowd she turns her attention to the truck. Shun's kick is followed by her running into it, using her shoulder to try to push it in.]

[While the door is still unseated a little from the crash, Celty's ramming into it gets it closed most of the rest of the way. Shun follows up with another hard kick, which sinks the doors in not quite evenly, but probably well enough for his purposes.

He points to the locking mechanism on the doors - the bars are just a little out of line, but not enough that there isn't a shot at seating them.] Let's see if the locks still work.

[Celty nods and grabs at one of the levers, pulling on them to slide them into place. She could use her shadows to give them another kick if need be but fortunately it slides into place easily enough after a few seconds of just trying to get the thing to start moving.

The truck is secure...but what about the driver?]

[To make absolutely sure nobody's going to get into the back of the truck, Shun grabs hold of the locks as soon as they're closed, focusing his power as a god. Almost immediately, rust starts to spread from where his hands lie, melding together the locking mechanism beyond just about any human's ability to get it open.]

Check on the driver while I make sure this is secure. [It's starting to spread to the seam of the doors now, too, jamming them together.]

[Celty perks a bit as she watches the sudden degrading of the lock. She worries for a moment if he's going to make it too brittle to hold against assault but in the end it looks...solid.

But that sure is a scary sort of power.

She nods and uses a shadow to pull herself onto the roof of the truck,
heading to the front that way to avoid the crowd below.]]

[Shun keeps working on the door for a few moments longer, but he knows if he goes too far then it'll just roll over into breaking easily. He satisfies himself with a decent surface layer of rust, but enough left of the untouched metal beneath that it's not going to break under assault.

He also doesn't mind going through the crowd at ground level so much, merely tossing a few people out of the way as he heads towards the front. The driver side door is a little ajar from being dislodged during the crash.]

[Celty, fortunately for all parties, reaches the door before anyone else. By this point between the effects of the Ayakashi and the surging of the crowd the driver has been well wound up. The thumping overhead and then Celty dropping down next to the door makes him panic.

The door gets kicked open, knocking Celty back into the crowd. The driver hangs out, holding onto the roof of the cab while flourishing a boxcutter and yelling at everyone to get back. The crowd hesitates briefly but if nothing is done it might boil over.]

(ooc: almost made her get shot and then I remembered Japanese gun laws)

[And that is something Shun is absolutely not going to be dealing with the fallout of. Since he was far enough from the door to not get hit by it being forced open, he quickly grabs the driver's wrist and twists to disarm him before delivering a sharp hit to his neck to knock him out and lay him back inside the truck cabin.]

As if a boxcutter was going to hold off a crowd like this. [Someone tries to grab for the fallen blade, but Shun kicks them in the jaw before picking it up and turning back to look for where Celty fell.]

Are you hurt?

[Celty pushes herself to her feet but there's a hand at her belly. She wobbles a bit when she gets back to standing but then nods that she's fine. Her hand drops away from the spot and Shun gets a brief glimpse of her bare skin and a wound sealing itself as if it was a tape being rewound. The black of her outfit seals up just after that, as if the damage never happened at all.]

[Well, he supposes that's not too surprising considering what else he's seen of Celty's powers. Definitely useful, though, especially considering the kind of look she goes for and the kind of scene bikers tend to be associated with.

Kicking someone else aside, Shun pockets the boxcutter and hops up into the cabin.]

I'll check him over. He might be concussed or something, but I doubt he would've been waving that thing around if he was.

[Celty nods and leaves Shun to it while she keeps the crowd at bay. At this point she'll just be glad to have all of this done with.

But she's still not quite sure what they can do to get everyone to disperse. What they did to the truck will help, but the crowd still seems as...hungry as ever.

She looks around, in search of the Ayakashi that's the source of all of this. If it's dealt with then maybe everyone will just give up and leave?]

[Shun pulls the guy's eyes open to check for a concussion - it's a little hard to tell when he's unconscious to boot, but it doesn't look like he's got any signs of being concussed.]

He's probably fine. [As it is, Shun glances back towards the trailer.] Think they'll disperse if we destroy what they're here for?

[DESTROY?!]

That's a little extreme isn't it? Isn't an Ayakashi doing this? Shouldn't we deal with it?

[Not that they know where it is. Destroying their focus certainly is the simpler solution but the prospect certainly makes her concerned.]

[Shun seems a little confused by her reaction, though at least he's not already jumping onto the back of the truck to do it.]

The keychains are just merchandise. Destroying the ayakashi is a permanent solution, but we need a temporary one until we can find the thing.

[As far as he's concerned, it's better than leaving the people to their own devices in this scenario.]

['Yeah but'. She slowly turns to look at the truck again. It might be for the greater good, sure but the sheer amount of property damage is still a bit offputting.

But then she looks back at the crowd and knows that he's right. They have to do SOMETHING before more people get hurt.

She nods more firmly now. She'll help. She waits for him to take the lead.]

[Since Celty isn't protesting anymore, Shun takes that as a go-ahead. He doesn't want to reopen the back of the truck just yet after they went to so much trouble to get it closed in the first place, but there's a reasonably wide grate at the back of the truck's cabin that looks into the trailer.

Pushing the unconscious driver aside, Shun runs a finger around the edge of the grate. Metal is always easy, and with some focus, the edges rust under his finger, dropping the cover into the trailer and leaving a hole the two of them should be able to fit through.

Shun slides through it first, beckoning to Celty.] Come on, before any of them try to follow you.

[He can close it up again behind them, since opening the back once they're done is an easy way to show the crowd they're wasting their time.]

[Oh! He means to destroy the shipment itself! She was worried he meant he wanted to destroy the truck. Somehow it didn't seem that far flung from what he was capable of, though now she feels a little embarrassed that she made such assumptions.

In any case she nods and wiggles through the offered opening.

In the trailer of the truck there appear to be a good few boxes with all of the toys and trinkets the mob is after. A few have been knocked over, spilling their contents across the floor. Was it because of the driver's behavior or...

It's hard to tell in the dark of the truck, but are they alone in here?]

[Destroying the truck, while certainly within his means since metal tends to decay easily, would take time and energy he doesn't want to waste in this situation. Destroying the shipment seems much more straightforward to him.

Once Celty wiggles through the hole, Shun holds the grate back up and runs his finger around it again. Where it goes, the rust reverses and the bars become intact again, making sure no particularly adventurous humans can try following them through.

Shun scans over the contents of the trailer - it's dark, so he can't make much out, but the fallen boxes don't seem too out of place considering the truck did crash. Still, he's cautious as he crouches down to the nearest one and places his hands on the box, letting the decay creep out over the cardboard and then to everything within it, as it starts to slump into dust and grit.]

Keep an eye out. [Something is drawing these people to the truck, so he feels more comfortable with the idea of having someone on watch.]

[Shun's powers really are impressive. Celty will later, once she's able to think about all of this, hope that he doesn't have the ability to do that to people too. She also hopes she never has cause to find out.

Celty nods as she looks about in the darkness. She has no ability to feel with shadows that aren't hers, but her instinct still tells her that something is lurking in the darkness.

And again, it's good that Celty is the one keeping watch, because she's the one the lurking Ayakashi chooses to target first while Shun is busy destroying its precious bait. The head height impact is hard enough to send Celty to the floor as her helmet skitters off to the back of the truck.

The black catlike creature snickers through its knifelike teeth as it clicks its long claws in satisfaction. For all it knows, it just decapitated her. It's going to be sorely disappointed as soon as she can get back to her feet.]

[As soon as he hears that impact, Shun turns his attention from the box, letting it fall inwards into a pile of nondescript particles as he spots for the cat ayakashi. In a fluid motion, he reaches into one pocket and slips on a bracelet under the sleeve of his coat - immediately, his vision in the darkness sharpens a little, and he can make out the shape of the ayakashi much more easily.

While Shun knows full well Celty is probably fine, he figures the ayakashi thinking she's down for the count can only be an advantage to them, so he doesn't give any indication he thinks she can get back into the fight. Instead, he pulls out his canteen of blessed water and hurls some at the ayakashi, aiming to get its attention onto him instead of her so she has time to recover and potentially surprise it.]

So that's why they're so focused on this place. [He murmurs that to himself as he dodges a side-swipe from the feline and splashes some more blessed water up into its face from point-blank, sending it reeling back.]

[The Ayakashi snarls at the splash of the water, dodging the most of it but still struck enough to make it turn its attention to Shun while simultaneously scurrying to the side. Its own movements prevent it from noticing Celty's hand twitching, her body shifting slightly.

Her fingers flex, ready to make a borderline even from this undignified position. When Shun sends it staggering back once more she makes her move, rolling onto her back and using the motion to slash her hand across. A burst of light sweeps across the Ayakashi's midsection, cleaving it in half!]

[Moving the blessed water canteen to his non-dominant hand, Shun reaches for the sword at the back of his belt once he sees Celty's borderline slash through the ayakashi. It's not a shinki, but it is a weapon created by a god's power, and he's known it to at least give ayakashi pause for thought in the past.

With Celty already having hit it once, though, he follows up quickly and brutally, cleaving upwards to split the ayakashi into smaller pieces. It's not going to kill it, but the segments scatter to different places, so it should need a little bit of time to recover.]

That should keep it down for a minute, at least. [Shun heads for the next box, starting to decay its contents as well.]

[She rolls back up to a crouching position, waiting until they're clear of this to take stock of any damage. At least she doesn't feel like she's been cut open or anything but she'll have to check for blight later.

She doesn't bother with her phone right now but her shoulders and neck twist up towards him as if to ask 'Now what?']

23 - Crazy Cat Shuffle

Re: Taking Stock

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