Stand power. Not just the kitty and the doggy—that human had it too.
Yimi was beginning to understand how worlds could differ from each other. She seemed to have returned to the same world as the first one, though she couldn't figure out why the style was so different this time. Cars were everywhere now.
While the Boston-cat had wheeled around in a rage over the employee's comment and rushed to intercept Joseph's group, Yimi clamped the car key in her teeth and jammed it into the lock beside the door handle. Cars from this era didn't have the convenient remote unlock of the future. Fortunately, the kitty had studied hard to learn how to drive in the last world.
"Shit! That cat opened our car door!"
"Meow~"
Yimi stood on her hind legs in the driver's seat and slotted the key into the ignition, front paws on the steering wheel.
"Ngh—"
Her Stand materialized in the passenger seat, handling everything her stubby legs couldn't reach—like the gas pedal.
All that hard studying in the last world was finally paying off.
Yimi looked up and saw a car parked bumper-to-bumper in front of them. She checked behind—same thing, another car squeezed in flush against the rear.
This wasn't the Speedwagon employee's fault. Plenty of people dreamed of big-city sophistication without realizing big cities also bred bigger jerks. The spaces in front and behind had been empty when they'd parked. Someone had probably wedged in out of spite after spotting such an expensive car sitting there.
"Meow." Yimi worked her paws.
The car she was driving lurched forward and back with a series of grinding crunches, shoving the vehicles in front and behind out of the way.
"Congratulations to the Host for earning the achievement [Despicable Me]. Reward: 5% portal energy."
"Oh my god! It's driving our car onto the street!" Joseph cupped his face in both hands and let out a burly man's shriek.
"Joestar-san, help me!" The employee nearby was still getting mauled by that bastard of a cat. Even back when it was a dog, the creature's favorite move had been to leap onto people's faces and chew their hair, then fart on them for good measure.
"This is our chance—hold still!" Joseph shot out Hermit Purple's vines to snare the Boston-cat.
"Joestar-san, the other cat just drove off in our car! And there's something that looks like a Stand in the passenger seat!" Avdol spotted the anomaly.
"Son of a bitch! Two cat Stand users in one spot!"
"Oh lord, I must've had too much to drink to be seeing something this unholy." A Manhattan traffic cop rubbed his eyes repeatedly, watching a cat cruise past him at the wheel of a black sedan, paws positioned on the steering wheel with perfect form.
He looked down at the bottle in his hand. He didn't think he'd had more than a few sips. Maybe it was actually the cat that was drunk and just hallucinating that it could drive.
The cop swung onto his motorcycle and gave chase. "Requesting backup—a cat is driving a black vehicle heading toward... I am NOT drunk!"
"Meow?" Yimi checked the rearview mirror and spotted the cop tailing her.
She reached a paw out and flipped the lever thingy—she didn't know what it was called, but she knew what it did—then had her Stand hit the brakes. A flawless drift into the turn.
"Shit, that cat drives better than I do!"
These humans really loved making a fuss. Little cat turns into a person and grows ears—surprise. Little cat wears pretty clothes—surprise. Now the kitty drives a car and they're still surprised.
The chaos she'd caused on that stretch of road was considerable, but Yimi was eventually pulled over.
Cities were crawling with traffic cops, after all. In fact, for this particular era, some biker gangs and street racers treated shaking off police as entertainment.
But the kitty was an upstanding cat and a well-read cat. She'd learned basic traffic laws back in the Date A Live world. So she'd been arrested because she stopped at a red light.
The kitty now deeply appreciated that driving a car was often slower than just running on her own legs. Humans really were a species that invented inconvenient transportation for themselves.
A female officer lured her out with a packet of dried fish snacks.
"There we go. Paws on the wall." The officer held the snacks a little higher.
"Meow." Yimi stood on her hind legs and braced her paws against the wall, stretching up for the fish.
Taking the opportunity, the female cop patted her down.
Then she tapped a finger on Yimi's head. "Sir, you're under arrest for driving without a license. Please come with us. The estimated fine is one hundred bags of cat food. Please prepare yourself accordingly."
"Meow?"
You had to find a little fun in the monotony of the job.
"Hey buddy, guess what I saw today—a cat driving a car, and it got busted because it stopped at a red light. Oh, and I also caught my colleague drunk-driving during the response." The male officer standing in a phone booth shared the day's absurdity with a friend, then turned to her. "Catherine, get a photo of me with it. I'm telling you, I'll be the talk of Manhattan by tomorrow."
"Knock it off, John. Find whoever was actually controlling that car. I refuse to believe a cat whose legs can't even reach the brake pedal was driving."
"Excuse me, officers—we'll be purchasing this cat. All damages it caused will be covered by us." A disheveled Joseph straightened his hat as he hurried over, handing them his business card.
"Joestar-san!" Avdol seized his arm. "It wasn't part of our plan."
A normal cat couldn't drive a car. This had to be a person in disguise.
"It's fine, it's fine. These two cats are probably companions, right? Gesh just told me they looked pretty chummy back there."
"You delusional old geezer—who's chummy with that thing?!" The caged Boston-cat yowled at Joseph.
Joseph pointed at the cage. "See? It's agreeing with me."
Capturing this cow-patterned cat had been no easy feat. Its newly awakened Stand appeared to be only an embryonic form, but its nature was fundamentally different from theirs. The Fool's essence was sand, which meant damage dealt to the Stand didn't feed back to the user. In a real fight, it would have been a genuinely nasty ability to deal with.
But a Speedwagon employee had accidentally discovered the cat's weakness for the chewing gum in his pocket. That single detail had sealed the capture.
"Relax, little one. We don't mean you any harm." Not that it could understand him, but Joseph offered reassurance anyway. "Quite the feisty kitten, aren't you? How about we call you Iggy? I heard the locals you've been harassing call you that."
"Mraow! Mraow!"
"See, you agree! Good kitty, good kitty." Joseph reached out to pet Iggy, nearly getting bitten—good thing that hand was a prosthetic.
"We're more than happy to have you take responsibility. Please keep this kind of prank from happening again." The officer returned his card without pressing charges.
The Speedwagon Foundation was a globally renowned organization.
Joseph collected Yimi, along with the fish snacks the female officer handed over.
Compared to the cow-patterned cat, this little red panda of a kitten was far more docile. Held in his arms, she didn't fuss at all—despite having attacked them with enormous force just minutes ago.
Joseph flipped the cage around and, while Iggy was caught off guard, swiftly stuffed Yimi inside before Iggy could slip out through the opening.