3747/Panic In The Streets (or how I learned to love the goat-god without getting THAT close.)

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Panic In The Streets (or how I learned to love the goat-god without getting THAT close.)
Date of Scene: 27 January 2018
Location: Unknown
Synopsis: Ares did not punch out Pan. Pan turned all the kids back. Boring.
Cast of Characters: Yokai (Sakara), Ares, Nightcrawler




Yokai (Sakara) has posed:
Olympus was a different place 2900 years ago, and the gods of Rome, Attica and the Athenian Coalition were much more likely to interfere with mortals. Things happened since then, but there are still a few Olympians who are rather ... loose ... about the picky mortals.

In the fourteenth year of the reign of Tiberius, it was sent to one Thamus, a sailor, that he was to announce that the great god Pan is dead. Which, well, it WAS possibly the worst hangover ever. But it's finally over, and now the Pan is reincarnated, and he's in Central Park of New York City in the middle of winter, and he's, well, you could say playing with, but to keep your filthy mind out of the gutter where it trends, he's captured a number of high-school-age children and transformed them. As perfectly reasonable and not-terribly noticeable satyrs, these young hooligans are now being sent out into New York in teams of two and three to use their pipes to entrance the unwary, while the one NOT feepling on the flutes is lifting things of value to Pan.

The strange thing is, most of these things aren't especially valuable to regular people. Well. Except some of the jewelry.

Ares has posed:
Amusingly enough, Ares and Mars are the same person. Yeah...Ares tried going to Rome first. Funny how things turn out!

Ares was just walking through the streets that day, trench coat that fell to his feet trailing behind him as he walked, hands in his pockets...when upon a sudden, he sees Satyrs playing enchanting music. Though completely immunte to it's effects, he appears more irritated than anything. "What. The. Hell." he says then with a frown.

"Is pan back from the dead? Malaka. (Greek for F-bombs galore)." A sigh then. "Well...guess I better fix it...can't leave me in peace for one goddamned day." he snarls as he starts his satyr hunt.

Nightcrawler has posed:
Herr Wagner is not someone to call attention to himself when discretion is called for. While not ashamed of his mutant appearance, he occasionally enjoys walking through the city incognito. A stroll with nothing to bother him but his own thoughts.

And... the dazed people in the distance.

The blue elf frowns. "Was..." he mutters. His ears twitch slightly, as he peers through the store window where the entranced patrons sway.

"Mein Gott im Himmel..." he says quietly, and ducks back, trying to peer through the window to get a better grasp of the situation, while also trying not to be seen. His holographic image inducer at least makes him look like an ordinary man- far less noticeable than the blue elf who hides underneath.

Yokai (Sakara) has posed:
Roark Sakura is not a greek god. Not even technically a god, though some of his relatives might make the cut. While he looks human, though rather tall, he is not. He's a yokai. A monstrous being. An Oni to be specific. However, the illusion is not without basis. He's also got his human side, from his mother Mary O'Connell who taught English in Japan, and he's here as a student of art, and currently, sipping from a cup of something they call coffee that he's sure has been through the digestive tract of some sort of animal, probably not a civet cat, and he's making a perfectly normal human expression of disgust and loathing. He looks daggers at the man who offered him the taste, and asks for water and a napkin, both of which he uses to clean his tongue. Pleh. Ptui.

So he is NOT in any mood to be entranced or beguiled by a ... ok, they're cute, for yokai. Goat... sachurosu? No. They're locals.

"Pardon me," he says to the wide-eyed, staring man who isn't noticing him suddenly.

"S'cuse me," a perky young fellow with goat feet says, as he reaches past Rory to take the large thermal bucket of animal-intestine-originated coffee-like stuff, hefting it onto a shoulder like it were a keg of beer.

Rory decides to follow him and his piping companion, shifting the moment they turn away into an invisible form.

They carry the carafe of nastiness to a spot in nearby Central Park, where they put it on a bench, where there are already three kegs of some form of beer, and a folding card table is beginning to groan under the weight of a roast pig and five dozen hot dogs in foil and a dozen philly cheese steaks, pre-wrapped.

Pan isn't exactly visible, but his _presence_ is somewhere near the picnic table area near the Lasker Rink.

Ares has posed:
Ares can sense Pan's presence rather easily...and thus does he start heading off in that direction, Though goats that are otherwise unaware of him that come near Ares noticeably likely back the fuck away from him....because that's the God of -War-.

Once he reaches that picnic area, he narrows his eyes, as if trying to find the most annoying deity he has ever met in his long...long..-LONG- life. "Okay pan...ollie ollie oxen-bitch!" he calls out as if to taunt.

Nightcrawler has posed:
Goat cheese. Honey Chevre, Garrotxa, Crottin dde Chavignol, Humboldt Fog, Sainte-Maure de Touraine, you name it, the Pan-pavans exit the store carrying armloads of the most delicious, succulent goat cheese as offerings. A few stragglers also carry with them the decorative leaf garlands that had remained from the Christmastime season.

Kurt shakes his head, completely puzzled, and decides to follow the group on his own, heading as it does towards that picnic area.

He notices the man who seems to be drawing people *away* from him, and that makes him even more curious in these circumstances. When the man calls out, Kurt decides to find a higher vantage point from which he can observe. Fortunately, a tree provides just that, and the mutant deactivates his holographic inducer in order to take advantage of the darker hue of his fur, and his ability to blend into the shadows.

Yokai (Sakara) has posed:
Somewhere under the Huddlestone Arch, a voice is almost audible muttering, the sense of the words being something like "wait why is he here? He sounds upset. Wonder if his mommy is giving him a hard time again..." except of course that the wind and gurgling water can't possibly make words.

Meanwhile at the table of offerings/party spread, Rory picks up a hot dog in one hand and a philly cheese steak sandwich in the other and takes alternating bites. To clear the taste of that horrible coffee. It also means the goatbois and goatfraus have to clear the table and re-dedicate it, and one of them decides to whistle her panpipes at the Oni. Another three of them consider feepling at Ares as he comes stomping past the currently half-melted skating rink, but then they figure it would take more than three.

"Oh lovely girl, do not make offers you don't want to keep," Rory says in what he imagines is a smooth voice, and leers at the satyress feepling at him.

"Hi, are you going to help with the offering?" says a nearly-too-young satyress from the bottom of the tree that Kurt's hiding in. She is looking directly at him. None of the others seem to have noticed him though.

"Let me alone, Ares," Pan's voice says from all around, with the faintest nervous whiny tinge, if a godly voice from all around can be said to be nervously whining. "I'm not here for fighting."

Ares has posed:
Ares hears the voice of Pan and he sighs a moment. "Do me a solid and get your godsdamned satyr's out of here? and turnthem back to normal please and thank you. I'm trying to live with a sense of normality -away- from the likes of all of you, ya know." he says then, recalling how he pretty much denounced the other gods and took off from Mt. Olympus.

Thankfully, he doesn't have to deal with the Satyr's because the man is terrifying, even to such lovely people. His eyes just staring forward as his arms cross. "So then, Pan. What do you want? Get drunk in revelry and ecstasy? dance around town? YOu always have some kind of weird plan that makes me just want to punch you."

of course, he said punch, not smite...so maybe he was in a good mood?

Nightcrawler has posed:
Kurt freezes, and then he looks down at the Satyress who was addressing him. He deftly slides down the tree and gives her his best, fangy grin. "Bestimmt! Of course. How may I... assist?" the blue elf asks, clearly trying to buy himself some time as he hears the exchange between the man and the strange voice. "Whom are we making an offering *to?*"

He thinks he heard the name 'Pan'. The goat feet and revelry start making sense now. He frowns. Pagan deities are.... problematic.

Yokai (Sakara) has posed:
"Not done with them yet," Pan mutters. "I need to embody. I want to start younger, so I found some just-ripening mortals. All I need is them to make an offering."
Which, unfortunately, being Pan, he didn't actually ask them about, but hey, most of them won't be too scarred to be drafted. It's not like they have wills of their own at this age, right?
"Can't turn them back without getting a body," he says, though Ares may know that's a lie.

Rory, on the other hand, does know it's a lie, because it smells like illusion. But he's not sure how much of it is a lie. The girl feepling at him stops, and says, "Why are you still invisible?"

As Kurt descends the tree, the little satyress giggles as he grins at her. She takes his hand and grins engagingly, tugging to get him to go to the makeshift altar. It's a folding table from Swedikia. It's more sturdy than your usual card table. It's just finished being scrubbed and wiped down with lemon scented oils, and a white cloth is spread on it and the heaps of food are going back on, along with a keg of the beer.

"Great Pan needs us to offer food to him so he can get a body! It's ok! We can eat it afterwards, he only consumes the essence of the food!"

Ares has posed:
Ares keeps his arms crossed. Pan knows that Ares is no fool. "Bull. Shit." he says in response to Pan needing a body in order to release them. "Can't you just find the body of someone near death or something and take that?" Given, Ares is too skilled to have actually -died- before, so this one is a little vague to him.

Regardless, Ares knows that Nightcrawler is off being flirted with a satyr woman...always a fun time. totally. So! his attention returns back to Pan...then a Satyr speaks to him, and he turns his head -slowly- to flash the satyr in question with a cold and terrifying look that pretty much says 'Beat it before I choke you out with your own thigh.' before his attention returns to Pan.

Nightcrawler has posed:
Kurt tries to pay attention to the exchange, but it's distracting when a Satyress is talking to you. He has always been one to pay attention when someone is speaking to you, because it's polite.

"Ah, therein lies a problem, Fraulein. My own particular god doesn't like it when we make offerings to others. But perhaps I can help you in some other manner, ja?"

He steals a glance at Ares, and raises an eyebrow as if to make a commentary on the absurdity of the situation. He is also aware that this is quite a lot of stolen property, even if it is not exactly the most expensive or valuable. He needs to find a way to politely untangle from the young Satyress' conversation in order to interject. "Perhaps I shall ask him myself! Bitte, prepare your offerings, I will be back immediately, as soon as I have paid my respects."

And with that, he bows his head to her and tries to make his way towards Ares and the resounding voice, unless something impedes him.

Yokai (Sakara) has posed:
"Hello? If I wanted to inhabit a corpse and be a zombie I'd have been a zombie," Pan says with annoyance. Why did Hera insist on making this one by herself ... on a bad day?

The satyr who spoke to Ares flinches, but holds up a bottle of Unibroue La Fin Du Monde, one of the better Canadian beers.

"Here, have a beer," Pan says, "and let me explain how this works. I have granted my favor to all these kids. They, in turn, offer me the stuff I need to manifest into a body. Super simple. If you //insist// I can put them back afterwards, if they want me to. But they'd give up being eternally young."

Oh, this ancient goat-god is being a dick. Rory considers whether or not it's a good idea to let him manifest at all. Peeing on the altar is the commonest way to make it useless for a long time. But that's a last resort. He pulls his invisible-ness around himself tighter, becoming an intangible wraith, and walks through the circle of feeplers who are aiming their music at intruders, and walks under the arch of ancient looking stone, phasing into the conceptual space that bridges the yokai world from that of men. The goat-god essence is on the other side of the tunnel, a vast, older-than-the-continents sentience that is part of the nature-pantheons. That much is easy to tell. He waits to see if he's noticed.

Nobody tries to block Kurt as he approaches. The feepling is now some specific song, not terribly unpleasant but not structured like modern music at all. Ares has heard it before. It takes a while but once it's done Pan will be able to eat the essence of the food on the table.

Ares has posed:
Ares kept an eye on that satyr as he likely afraidedly offered him a beer. Of course, Pan knows Ares loves to drink, and he accepts the bottle, only to give it a light sip and that's it. "Not bad." is all he says of it. Though he knows the god is being a massive douchebag, narrowing his eyes. "Fine. They get the -choice-. No bullshitting. If anything, eternal service to you isn't much of a life to live." he says easily, knowing the past individuals who were under his charge.....

Then? He turns his head as he senses Rory. "...if you are going to be eavesdrop on Gods, you might as well attempt a more long-ranged effort." Ares notices him. hm. but Ares's attention is on Pan..since you never know who's gonna try to attack you from behind, so to speak.

Yokai (Sakara) has posed:
"If a cat can look at a king, then an ox-tiger demon can look at a god," Rory's voice echoes out through the arch. That catches Pan's attention, and the ground shakes ever so slightly as he jumps. (Seismometers register a .5 magnitude quake deep under the island.)

"I didn't see you there," Pan says. "And, you're a local enforcer for the Archons of the City and you're carrying a staff of authority. FINE. I'll stop if you insist."

Rory shrugs. He IS carrying a staff of authority, but it's to help out yokai who are being persecuted, not to stop a god from persecuting humans.

"As long as you don't turn them into yokai, and you don't get the city authorities upset, I have no reason to stop you. But taking them without their consent is bad karma," the echoey voice says.

The feepling finishes, and the goat-shadow steps past Rory, going over to the table. It's like watching the tasmanian devil from the cartoons. Perhaps there's some commonality in the dream realms, but that's farther than this near-ether that they occupy.

There's a sensation of something snapping, as Pan finishes the last hot dog. The presence vanishes from the overworld, and all the Satyrs bolt, heading in all directions. As far as one can see, they all revert to human forms, clothed, normal, before they go more than 100 yards.

Rory appears next to Ares, in the form of a tall lavendar-purple skinned demon with horns and a tail.

"You guys are brothers or something?" he asks. Because Ares doesn't seem to have hooves.

Nightcrawler has posed:
"Mein Gott... what an appetite." Kurt is aghast at the shadow's voraciousness, and when the manifestation suddenly stops, he turns to Ares, giving the man a curious glance, and then finally facing Rory. "You look..." purple, demonic. It was hard to gauge whether this meant this man was a demon, or family. "Familiar." He settles with that, before speaking on broader terms. "Your kin-god seems to have found his fill, Herr...?" he hasn't caught Ares' name yet, if it was spoken and there are too many gods to try and guess name by name in the Greek Pantheon. "Is he likely to become a more localized problem, Ja?"

Ares has posed:
Ares makes no reaction when Rory appears right next to him. "He might not insist, but I will. Knock off the shit, Pan." he says then pretty easily, before his attention moves to Kurt...looking at him, before he looks to Rory. "No. He's just a casual pain in the ass." he says before he turns heel...then stops, then points back. "If I have to come back for you, you won't be needing a body anytime soon."

Yokai (Sakara) has posed:
There's no earthquake. No response at all from the Olympian who has been around, on and off, since long before the Olympians were manifested, however that happened. The food on the tables is still there except for one hot dog and one philly cheese steak sandwich, the booze is still there, even the terrible carafe is still there with the black liquid of horribleness inside.

"I guess he won't be a problem," Rory shrugs, and looks at Kurt. The fellow does look familiar.

"You're not an Oni. Or if you are you're out of uniform."

Because Nightcrawler does not normally wear just a tiger-skin around his waist like a kilt and carry a big spiked club, which is Rory's curent attire, until he realizes and in a swirl of smoke he looks like a harmless over-tall human in jeans and a sweatshirt-hoodie.

"Take the rest of the beer with you," Rory suggests loudly enough to hear, as Ares passes the bench where the six-pack (now five) is sitting. Because there's no way they can re-sell this stuff.

Meanwhile Pan is just another tween kid being loaded into a bus by suddenly worried guardians who have just realized that it's past the time they were supposed to collect their wards and take them back to the Enrichment Center. Which is what they call "daycare for older kids who aren't in sports" now.