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

[kokuyoyo]

That life of a bullshitter....

[With one more glitterbomb sent off, Chikusa takes a step back to observe their work.]

How easy are they to see?

[redotiertwo]

It's hard work if you really want to dedicate yourself. [Con artists, for example, don't really have an easy time of it when it comes to avoiding retribution.

At the question, he squints through the crowd a bit.] It's mostly when they get somewhere light hits the glitter that it actually gets easier.

[kokuyoyo]

So... paint next?

[They might as well properly fuck around.]

[redotiertwo]

Yeah, why not.

[This is an excellent plan and in no way likely to backfire horribly.]

[kokuyoyo]

[What do you mean, they're totally responsible teenagers. Chikusa demonstrates this by using a borderline to open up the paint can.]

....Dare you to hit one with your sword into this....

[redotiertwo]

Why does it have to be my sword, though. [And on that note, he's just going to try sniping a passing one into a paint tin with a borderline. It overshoots a bit, but he bounces it back in with another borderline.]

[kokuyoyo]

Funnier.

[What do you mean he should be treating that subject more delicately, maybe. Chikusa at least takes a step back when the ayakashi splashes into the paintcan, waiting for it to scramble out.]

[redotiertwo]

[Give the ayakashi a moment, it keeps sliding down the walls of the paint tin. Davesprite just watches it with the air of someone viewing a mildly entertaining television program.]

I dunno, if people could actually see these things I feel like this would be prime inane viral video content.

[kokuyoyo]

Ah... Right. I think something has to have a really notable catch.... or it gets completely ignored.

[Don't ask him how he knows this. Totally nothing to do with his romance novel he's told no one about.]

[For now, he watches the ayakashi struggle some more. Will one of them have to help this thing...]

[redotiertwo]

So basically it's just like how things work normally. [Or at least, he's pretty sure that's how it usually works with Near Shore residents seeing them.

After a few more moments of attempting, the ayakashi finally makes it over the edge of the paint tin.]

He's done it, time for a standing ovation.

[kokuyoyo]

[This time, with a swipe of his finger against his phone, there's some royalty-free applause.]

[redotiertwo]

See, this is the kind of occasion you always need to be prepared for. [Davesprite says that even as he watches the ayakashi scuttle away into the crowd.]

Yeah, that's a lot easier to spot, it's still leaving a trail.

[kokuyoyo]

It will until it dries, anyway...

[Tucking his phone away, Chikusa begins to shuffle after.]

See where it's heading?

[redotiertwo]

[Davesprite skims over the crowd, peering at the trail he can see from here. It's not that easy to distinguish a clear path, but it does seem to be detouring but then reconsidering at certain points.]

...I think it's going for the stores, but it looks like it's just decided against it a bunch of times so it's kind of hard to tell.

[kokuyoyo]

...That's... more thought than I thought it would use.

[It should be a clear cut decision, right? Frowning, Chikusa starts to make his way through the crowd.... cart in tow. What? It's good for ramming into people if they get in his way.]

[redotiertwo]

It might have something to do with if ayakashi are already there, maybe. Or if there's not any sweet juicy negative emotion happening there anymore.

[He skims over the crowd for a moment to check on the shops the ayakashi's refused to go for before coming back.]

Yeah, most of these look stripped clean. It's probably going for fresher shores.

[kokuyoyo]

So it will either go until it finds a store.... or it gets bored and returns.

...I hope it's the latter.

[He's going to steal a motorbike or something if this keeps up.]

[redotiertwo]

I mean, it might just find the nearest angry crowd and hang out there if all else fails. [He's still watching the ayakashi as he says that, and then it starts to veer off to one side.]

Hang on, I think this one's legit.

[kokuyoyo]

[Chikusa smashes his cart into someone's hip, ignores the yelling, and keeps moving on.]

Store?

[redotiertwo]

Yeah. [Davesprite follows the ayakashi at a short distance back, curving towards the store it's heading for. It seems to be a toy shop crammed floor-to-ceiling with just about everything imaginable on the front of toys and collectibles.

It's serving to hide away the machine in the back corner a little.]

Shit, they've got one of those stupid cat toy machines here too.

[kokuyoyo]

Those things again....

[One foot on the bottom rung of the cart, Chikusa starts to push himself along through the crowd. beep beep, asshole teenager coming through.]

If only this had been melted too.

[redotiertwo]

What the fuck got melted, that's not just a thing you say without context. [It's entirely possible he's forgotten some kind of similar previous instance, but right now it just seems like a non-sequitur.]

I'm gonna hope just one of these fuckers doesn't get people suddenly noticing this machine, though.

[kokuyoyo]

Someone was melting the machines outside on the street... and keeping people from using them.

[Which is a very handy skill, and one Chikusa wishes he could have. For now, however, he just watches Davesprite to se where he's heading.]

If worse comes to it.... We can just trap it and get it elsewhere.

[redotiertwo]

That. Is a way to handle the situation, I guess. [Melting, though? That's kind of fucked up and yet he also wishes he'd been there to see it at least a little, if only to see how it was done.]

Assuming others don't turn up to the buffet while we're kicking the first customer out.

[kokuyoyo]

[Chikusa could tell, but he doesn't as he comes to a stop in front of the machine.]

...Let's handle that...

[By which he means drawing a borderline, which he does.]

That's one direction covered...