The Showdown, pt 3
Now *that* was a gag deserving of chakra-lingus
Previously: St. Lenny sends in the Heathens to inflame both the pro- and anti-cop crowds.
○ Opening Era: Spring, 2026, Brooklyn
This was shaping up to be one of St. Lenny’s best parties ever.
Sure, the Woodstock Revival he threw several months ago was spectacular. As was the city-wide pillow fight – a truly wonderful mess. But the Ren Faire, yes, the Renaissance Faire had changed everything for him.
It had introduced a lively new element to his art: rival factions! Of all the concepts that Lenny sought to dislodge – and there were millions of them – the concept of “sides” had to be one humanity’s most ridiculous inventions. Imagine: two groups willing to murder and die not for love or survival but for an idea! It was absolutely absurd! And very fun.
In particular, Lenny loved the way that warring factions secretly collaborated! Each faction needed the other: They defined one another and galvanized each other’s members. Few things were better for recruitment and morale than an enemy to defea––
Argh! He was yanked off his feet as the sedan he was standing on jolted in reverse. Lenny tumbled sideways. He hit the pavement, skinning his knee, just as an 18-wheeled shot forward, honking deafeningly. Through fool’s instinct alone, Lenny leapt straight up. Ha! Just in the knick of time! He landed with a thud on the truck’s hood. The driver, bearded and arm-tattoo’d, gaped at Lenny like he was the second coming. Lenny looked at him as if to say, can you believe that? He loved a good near-death experience! Then he waved goodbye, and climbed atop the truck’s trailer for a better view of his party.
Oh joy! His fellow Heathens were concocting the zaniest of hijinks, working in collaboration across these two “sides!”
One contingent had started a mini epidemic of barking. Now, instead of shouting words, the protestors simply barked at one another! Lenny thought that it made the warring sides much more honest. Woof! Ruff! Arf! Poor activists. Because of their ideas, they had decided to hate the other side before they could even sniff each other’s butts.
Elsewhere: Another group began an homage to St. Lenny’s famous ability to get down: they started a dance off at the dividing line between the sides. Oh me oh my, did that Heathen just bust out a backflip? Lenny would have to recruit that one to his dance troupe.
And––ah, yes, there was Nersi, one of the few Heathens who hadn’t disguised herself as one side or another. Sweet Nersi, skipping, smiling, freckled in her floral half-mask. She darted about, transforming protest signs into hallucinatory mirrors. The activists were confronted with funhouse caricatures of themselves, crazy-eyed with veins protruding, saliva flying like mouth-monsoons. Yes! Now that was a gag deserving of chakra-lingus.
Hmmm but if he awarded it to Nersi, it might cause court drama with the Marquis. Hmmm. (Lenny, of course, took great joy in starting court drama with the Marquis, especially when it came to knives, but he was now explicitly prohibited from doing so by his Prince, so there was that.)
Where was the Marquis anyway? Lenny glanced back to see the Marquis sitting sullen in his rusty old car car, unable to escape the expressway. Silly Marquis! That’s what you get for being no fun.
And what fun the man was missing. His party was…working! Ech, work––what a word, but yes, here and there, Lenny spied activists waking up to their own ridiculousness.
The weak-hearted ones reacted with anger, yelling things at his Heathens like, “Do you think this is a joke?” – to which, of course, a Heathen would reply, “Yes.” But here and there––indeed!––here and there a protestor began to laugh. Oh how glorious! There could be no more beautiful sight on the green and gray earth. At the edge of the elevated highway he watched a Heathen square off with a police-supporter. No, not square off––play! He skipped across cars to tune in. The two free associated back and forth: “Blue Lives Matter!” “Brat Lips Mutter!” “Bunnies Love Mothers!” “Big Lawn Mowers!” “Bros Look Macho!”
Then there was a distant whine between the honking of horns. Lenny craned his ear. Sirens! At last, the cavalry had arrived. Took them long enough, but of course these were busy times for the boys in blue. St. Lenny interthreaded his hands to crack his fingers. Soon it would be his turn to join the fun.
—
Crowley stared at the man who was skipping across cars back near Astra. He seemed to be conducting the action. Did he know this fellow? The man was too far away for Crowley to read his neural signature. But even at this distance, the man’s face was familiar. A name came to him: Leonard, but…that couldn’t be little Leonard, could it?
Sirens to his rear interrupted the thought. Crowley turned and saw the river of cars behind him parting. NYPD Strategic Response Group vans surged through the opening, flashing and bleating. The Blue Lives Matter activists near Crowley began to clap and cheer. The celebration spread: their generals had arrived to the battle.
Until a moment ago, both sides had been falling into disarray from the masked gang’s incursion. But now they recohered like a video of mirrors breaking in reverse. The right-wingers streamed to the sides of the cop cars smiling smugly, as if to say our side has the firepower. Meanwhile, meters ahead, the anti-police activists angled toward the new arrivals like iron filings aligned by a magnet.
An officer with a megaphone leaned out the passenger window of the frontmost van near Crowley: “You are in violation of public safety law! Clear the roadway immediately!”
The other side matched the volume of the megaphone with a boo. “All cops deserve to die!” one young man yelled.
Crowley felt the raw animal rage swirling around him. Abruptly, he became quite sober. Oh, he thought, as if waking up from a daydream. Something terrible is about to happen.
“Clear the bridge immediately,” the megaphone voice said again.
There was something peculiar in the voice’s tone, a barely restrained fury that was unusual for an on-duty cop.
Crowley searched for Astra’s eyes across the sea of protestors. They gleamed back at him from her Kali mask.
He shook his head: Get out of here.
“Clear the bridge right now!” The megaphone voice’s veneer of calm broke. “This! Is! Your! Final! Warning! You ungrateful motherfuckers!” Suddenly the police van’s engine revved up. The van accelerated. It shot forward toward the leftists, barreling into them.
Crowley went slack-jawed.
The van lost momentum before it could mow through the crowd. The leftists had it surrounded now. Crowley watched them move in uncanny synchrony, a forest of wind-rocked trees, pushing to rock the squad car back and forth. Then they pooled to one side of it to lift and tip. The van crashed to one side, the metal scraping against the asphalt.
Then there was a flame in someone’s hand. A Molotov cocktail. A red-bandana’d woman in a gas mask threw it straight at the exposed belly of the van. The cops inside leapt out seconds before exploded the van into a fireball. The force of the blast sent several protestors flying over the edges of the elevated highway.
Crowley stumbled. His strawberry cake flew end over end, as if in slow motion. Then it dropped and splattered against the roadway. For a moment, he forgot the surrounding chaos, staring at the pink smear. His face hung as he stared across the flames, to Astra.
He watched her mouth yell but the sound was drowned out by the roar of the battle. It was only at the last instant that he noticed an object arcing toward him out of the crowd.
It struck him in the brow. The world went black.
Next release: Astra tries to rescue Crowley.