Ayane of the Corn! 🎃

[oichi]

The catgirl kept on running towards the house in the field. She could see it from a distance with the flashlight. She could also see that it was dark in the house, meaning that farmer went to bed sometime ago. The rustling and skittering from behind her kept increasing, it had confirmed that there was more on the way. It was all the more reason to wake him up. "Sir! I'm sorry to bother you at this time but there's a problem!" she said as she climbed up the stairs.

Ayane stopped in her tracks when the farmer opened up the door with a shotgun in hand. What got her attention more though, was his current choice of clothing, or more so his current lack of clothing. Her tail fluffed a bit as her eyes widened, processing this situation. Shaking off a light blush and the urge to scream, she began to finally speak. "Well uh sir. I have found a problem with why the corn's been less and it made a mess. They've been turning into little monsters like these and causing havoc." she said holding up one of the little corn monsters to the farmer. There was definitely more coming on the way there.

[mermalaide]

"Tōmorokoshi no obake!" He looked utterly surprised. "No no. It's alright, I'm a light sleeper miss." He scrunched his brow and stared out towards the field. The corns were coming out of the woodwork so to speak. They started coming out of the field and coming towards the house. "Hurry get inside!" He didn't know if they were harmless or not. They were certainly unsettling looking. Though in retrospect, it made complete sense.

He ushered her inside. "You might want to leave that lil one with it's kin, it looks right pissed! Pardon my language." He turned a little red with embarrassment. It took him by surprise. "Those things came over with the Dutch. Japan dinn't really have corn exactly. It's only a few hundred years old to our country." He took time to latch the door. The windows hopefully, were all closed. Something scuttled on the porch and then another thing until it sound like more than a few of them were on the porch.

"Where was I? Oh! So they bring these things, and when farmers started plantin' 'em, they ended up having yokai get in the corn and they made the tōmorokoshi. Shinagawa had a few cases of this back in the 1800s, you don' really hear of it often.. I don't know why I didn't think about it!" Fair enough, it was rare.

Weird but rare.

Things began to thump against the windows. "LEAVE US BE YA DANGED CUUUURN!"

[oichi]

Ayane threw the little corn like a football off towards it's kin behind them as she was ushered inside. Hopefully a few of the Tōmorokoshi no obake can catch it's own kin to not hurt it too bad. Going inside, it looked like a quaint enough little country house. It looked comfy enough other than the mounted deer on the wall and maybe a couple of cabinets where the guns could be.

Her ears perked up getting new information of where they actually came from for the first time. Yokai can possess objects and not just be born with it? That was interesting and also made her curious of why corn specifically. She can sympathsized with the fact that yokai hunted his farm as it was similar to how her mom's childhood farm got destroyed by different yokai. She didn't want that to happen with the farmer. "Sir. Is there a way we can stop the corn from destroying the farm?" she said as she hears the corn banging on the walls of the houses and the scratches of the porch. "If we can get these guys to go to sleep and stop spreading for the night and in the future, we can finally get some sleep." They had to figure out something.

[mermalaide]

The old man watched the corn get punted out the door. It landed on another corn and they fell off the porch! He started sniggering hard, and actually wiped a tear from his face. "Oh! Oh!" The corns were poppin' mad weren't they? Well, they had to do something right? "Well, I ain't a priest, but, we could try to purify them with sumthin'! Like Maybe sake, or salt?"

He had to think for a second. Of course the shot gun wouldn't work! They needed to be purified. "If ye kin grab inta that closet in the hall, There should be a box of squirt guns in there. The bigger in that box the better." He sounded like he was digging something heavy from the kitchen. "My grandchildren left a bunch of these here, bless 'em. We can use sake in them and I think I have a few boxes of salt!" 

He stuck his head out in the hallway with a mischievous grin. You could see gums a little. In his youth, he was probably a bit of the village troublemaker. If Ayane looked at some of the framed pictures on the wall, she would see a skinny kid in overalls and a hat, both far too big for him, that same (now almost toothless) grin, in black and white. He dragged a crate of sake bottles and a few boxes of salt into the hall, he also had a few funnels.

[oichi]

She didn't know much about the fact that sake was used to exorcise cursed yokai. Then again she's never done this before and she's a yokai herself, and she doesn't really want to be drunk. Ayane found it amusing that she was going to stop Corn war number however many times this actually happened. This was going to be like a water gun fight she had when she was little. It was to help her to not be so skittish of water.

She went over and dug in for the box of squirt guns. The bigger it was, the better. She grabbed a long thick one that can hold a lot of water and she grabbed another one that has two barrels that water can come out with. There was other ones that she thought were cute, like the little dolphin looking guns and some guns that looked like the wild west. She was figuring she can probably mix salt with the sake to make it stronger like salty sake. It probably wouldn't taste good to people but it's not for tasting anyway, or she thinks she can spread the salt on the ground, whichever one actually can work.

She had her choice of weapons, so she waited for the farmer to get the sake and salt. While she was waiting, she looked over at the framed pictures on the wall. That kid looked to be quite the troublemaker yet also adorable at the same time. That old man probably hadn't changed since then. "Let's get suited up. We gonna make the pounce on them as soon as possible!" she said getting the sake in the squirt guns.

[mermalaide]

He gave her a toothy grin and the big thumbs up! He took hold of the one she picked out and stuck a funnel into the loading end. There was a bit of maneuvering to fill the squirt gun with the sake, all the while, restless corn threw itself hard against the windows and doors. Much to the fact that they had to ignore it and not to let it intimidate them. At one point the old man flipped off the corn, and he had to apologies to Ayane. "Sorry bout that. I suppose I can be a little vulgar." He rubbed the back of his head.

The dolphin one was a little easier to fill up. That was his granddaughter's favorite too. He fills up to pistols for himself and passes her a few bags of salts to use a salt bombs. He gets a belt from where his coat hangs and puts it on, despite only having red, long underwear on, and use it as a securing for the salt bags and his pistols. He looks like a very odd choice of cowboy indeed.

"Alrighty! Let's drop the hammer and dispense some indiscriminate just-ace!" 

He unbolted the door and all but kicked it open!

One of the corns immediately tried to jump on him and he dodged, almost spryly, squirting at it. "We gotta head to the center of the corn and git the boss! I'll grab the extra ammo!"

[oichi]

Ayane had seen worse vulgar stuff traveling. She saw many good things that she had fun with and she saw bad things that she felt that she had to stop. It was just part of the world they lived in and flipping someone off was one of the lesser evils. "It's fine. They shouldn't knocked at the window" she said as she watched them bounce off the window. She was concerned if they even left a crack, air conditioning don't come cheap and neither do window repairs if anybody didn't want to just wing it.

She geared herself up like a military girl and a ninja combined. There was a bit of a break through when the farmer kicked the door wide open to get started to counterattack. Despite not knowing what the corn boss would look like, she had a small idea what it could be like. It might be bigger than any other corn monster, it could be a different color, it could have stronger vines. She didn't know but she had to keep going. "It's got to be near the corn fields! Maybe where you placed the first seed of corn i bet?" She said as she shot at some of the smaller corn monsters. "Do you remember where it was?" she asked, nearly avoiding one that sprang up at her.

[mermalaide]

The window was a little scratched, but it wasn't cracked thankfully. The house looked like it had seen a lot of things and children, so it had been patched up here and there. "Thank ya fer understandin'!" He grinned that toothless grin. When asked about where the seed that he first used had been planted, he furrowed his brow. It took him a second to register and a corn had jumped at him.

As it did so, he didn't even flinch or raise his eyes to look, he hit it from over the shoulder and it fell to the ground powerlessly. A spirit rose from the corn and fled, leaving a dried out looking cob on the deck. Some of them saw that and tried to run. "It should be to the center! I plant in a spiral coming out, I know it's weird but the grandkids loved the shapes and designs." He raised his guns and looked determined now. Yes, together they could save this harvest! Even if the corn was kind of funky afterward, at least it wouldn't be a complete loss.

He carefully bounded off the steps, an old man rushing toward the fray of a corn filled battlefield!

The two of them could clear a path straight through, spraying as they went. The old man wheezed a little. He was not a young guy anymore, but his fighting spirit was willing! He and his new friend Ayane would conquer this they just had to! Something large was moving in the middle of the corn, much bigger than the original things they had encountered!

[oichi]

Ayane stomped down at the corn that she narrowly avoided getting hit by, then shot at it, releasing it from life. She was thankful that she didn't have to go all the way in the back for the boss. It was a pretty big field to her and she had done plenty of running tonight. More importantly, she was concerned if the old man was going to hold out. He may be young in spirit, but he doesn't look like it anymore, and she wanted to get it over as quick as possible.

She kept up with the old man as she sprayed a path towards the middle of the corn field. It was kinda cute that he had it planted in shapes. It also was better that it was not that far. Soon enough she could feel some of the ground shift. Something much bigger than normal emerged from the sea of corn. It must have been 10 times the size of a regular corn on the cob with multiple eyes cascading down the top, under those was a bunch of oversized kurnels that formed a mouth. It had gained enough growth that its stalk and leaves to make it look like a chicken, sort of at least. "I think we found it!" Ayane yelled. The big monster made a roaring squeak and tossed some of the smaller corn monsters at Ayane. She hissed at the attack, before shooting a few out of the sky. "Yep. Lets go make him blind."

[mermalaide]

"Yeah!"

He pumped his guns and was spraying. He mainly was trying to keep the corn off of Ayane as she moved, mostly because she could move a lot better than he could. The corn was furious and it came up, launching a full fledged attack. This was tilling some of the field for the farmer. It teared up some of the corn stalks that were still untainted. The boss corn was loud and kind of terrifying. His eyes were wide and he tossed one of the sake bottles at it, splashing sake and glass on it. He threw a salt bag at a group of corns, which caused them to shrivel up and keel over.

The monster corn let out a deafening screech! It was really unhappy! So, the massive corn-beast it charged the old man. The old man fell and rolled out of the way. He looked like the wind got knocked out of him. He gritted his teeth and pumped his gun. "Git outta here, ya dang currrn!" He wheezed and pumped is sake rounds into the corn. It was hurting it!

But was it enough?

The corn at this point looks very angry, but very flammable! 

[oichi]

The boss was mad and was only getting more intense as minutes go by, and Ayane has been keeping up pretty good despite the AOE attack that it had been doing. The field was inevitably going to be messed up from the attack, with all the torn plants and the glass that was shattered from the sake bottles and salt. It looked flammable to her as the sake shined on the corn. What was next, was going to be a risky move on her end.

She saw the old man on the ground fighting for his life, which caused her to get angry at the corn. Lightning crackled in her hands, slowly turning into her cat claws and losing her grip on her guns. With a great meow into the sky, she charged forth, claws out, ears back, tails fluffier. In great speed, she pounced on the boss. It was a little slippery with the sake but she held on with the claws deep in kurnel. She released lightning deep in its head and even more lightning spread by liquid. It might not be as much as water but it created at least sparks and those sparks made a flame. She jumped off and ran towards the old man. "Let's get out of here! It's burning now!" she said throwing salt at the ends of its stalks, then picking up the old man.

[mermalaide]

The smell of electricity hit his nose before anything. His eyes widened as he saw Ayane leap onto the Mega-Corn. She let out a meow and the sky opened up. His eyes were the size of saucers as lightening came forth. He pulled himself up and stood there gaping. The little corns that were left seemed like they were in the throws of being shocked by this too. The lighting that came sounded like the the crack of a whip. 

The exploding corn was on fire!

It was everywhere, and he watched as even the little corns were being taken out by flaming, falling debris! "Oh MY gawwd!" When she was running towards him, he looked at her dead in the face, "Well holyshit Ayane!" He felt himself picked up, and watched as the field was really starting to catch fire. More corn began to explode, there were cornlets running around on fire before eploding into a cascade of burnt, smelly cornels. 

"Whoooo that sure smells like toasted butt!"

He hated that his corn was on fire, but on the other hand he felt like he was in an action movie. All that was missing was Chuck Norris or Jackie Chan to Karate kick the massive corn beast's husk. The smoke was reaching high and somewhere in the distance, a neighbor had perhaps called the fire department, as there were sirens coming from a ways off.

[oichi]

It may have been a bit of a stupid plan, it actually kinda was, but she felt that she at least had a chance to end the invasion. While it was not that dangerous, it was certainly a lot annoying in the long run. Not just the big corn was on fire but so was the the little corn. They made a big popping sound as it caught on fire and it served to spread the fire on the sake covered grass. "Shi- I hope it doesn't ruin the fields completely." she panicked a bit, which honestly made her move faster with the old man in her arms.

In a couple of minutes, she, and in turn the old man, escaped the burning debris and she looked back at the smoke that definitely brought attention of neighbors and by the sound of sirens also the fire department. She watched as they began putting out the fire and got it under control. There were little scratch marks on her pants and some on her hoodie. The little water guns on her waist was still there though who knows what happened to the ones she was using. Ayane's ears drooped and she felt bad that she caused the fire. "Sorry sir. I just wanted to get rid of the corn monster problem. Good news is it's gone. Bad news is I don't know about everything else." she said as she sat on the ground.

[mermalaide]

He gave a laugh and patted her on the back. "Well, they are gone, so yeh kinda succeeded!" He gave a grin. A piece of popcorn flicked him in the forehead. "I think as long as the house didn't burn down it will be fine. He did have some insurance. Not against mutant devil corn, or yokai, but he did have fire insurance. "You know, maybe it's a sign to retire a little early this year."

He stood there in his red long johns near where she sat. A van pulled up, driven by a middle aged man in glasses. He seemed to fly out of the mini van. His wife kept the children in the car and they were pressed up against the windows. "Dad?!" He looked around and spotted them. The old man barely got two steps in before his son threw his arms around him. "Are you okay? What happened?"

The man chuckled as the son hugged him. "We saw fire trucks from the gas station!" The old man gave him a smile. "Oh, do I have a story. Ayane, why don't we all go into the house for the rest of the night. I think we could use some tea and there is a bath inside." He looked at his son,"Goodness if this isn't a surprise."

"You really need to check your email a bit more, Dad."

"Oh pish, can't figure that thing out anyhow. Y'all should have called!" He offered a hand to Ayane. "Boy do we have a story for you."

[oichi]

Ayane considered this job a successful one, a bit by the fact that she did stop the corn attack and helped the old man out. She did feel a bit guilty of setting the field on fire for that to happen, but it seemed like the old man didn't mind for it to happen. A middle aged man that was his son came up to his father and was relieved that he was alright. She purred at that, ready to just kinda relax for the rest of the night. "It was crazy for a while. Corn monsters were tearing up the fields but we at least managed to fend them off." she said, getting up to stretch. It was nice to finally get to relax and enjoy a bath and maybe another meal.

--Thread end--