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

[artificialrose]

....Komaeda?

[fortunesmiles]

Hm...? Ah, don't worry about any of that. [Komaeda smiles brightly, casually.] It's not really important.

[artificialrose]

Isn't that kind of thing really important?

[fortunesmiles]

Mm...in the context of my life, not particularly. Like I said, that sort of thing is pretty normal for me.

[artificialrose]

....We have to do something nice for you.

That isn't that.

[KOMAEDA HE IS CONCERNED]

[fortunesmiles]

Hm? You do nice things for me all the time, Garry.

[artificialrose]

I feel like it's the bare minimum....

[fortunesmiles]

Oh, no! The bare minimum would be nothing at all. That's the normal amount of nice things people do for me.

[artificialrose]

...Komaeda, that's not "nice".

[HE'S GETTING WORRIED, BUDDY]

[fortunesmiles]

No, but 'nice' isn't the bare minimum of anything to begin with, is it? That's why people appreciate it - because niceness isn't necessary, or even expected. It's more than people have to give you, and so it means something when you receive it.

[artificialrose]

But there's common courtesy, isn't there...?

[fortunesmiles]

People always call it that, but how common is it, really...?

[artificialrose]

...Fairly common?

[fortunesmiles]

Really? I haven't found it all that common...but then maybe someone like me doesn't experience it as much as other people do...

[artificialrose]

...That... might be it. Some people have different experiences, after all...

...Anyway, do you want to go home now? To rest up after all of that. [It sure was unbelievably stressful, being in that crowd of people.]