Chapter Three – The Showdown Begins

"Your tattoo!" exclaimed Peeta. "Why, it's a big ol' bear. And mine's a shinin' staaarrrr."

"You speak prophetically," grumbled Gale.

Stalking closer up to the gallery to where Peeta stood daintily, Gale attempted to reach out and grasp Peeta's arm. Shivering at the idea of being physically touched by such a brute, Peeta let out a gasp and pulled himself away, clutching his tattooed arm defensively.

But Gale persisted, grunting, "Come here, you heaving bosom!"

"Oh my!" Peeta pranced back like a dainty oscelot. But such was Gale's hefty reach, that his snaking arm grappled with Peeta from behind. Shifting another arm around Peeta's waist, Gale reached down and pinched Peeta's pert bottom.

"Oooh tasty!' said Gale, sniffing the perfume laced through Peeta's hair.

Peeta turned and struck Gale across his manly face with his little dainty hand. Outraged, Gale grabbed Peeta's arm. Peeta grabbed Gale's arm. They stared into one another's eyes, in deadlock.

Peeta's gaze clouded over, and his swimming vision swerved into darkness.

He found himself standing upon a vast expanse of barren desert, the sky above veiled with shadow. Across the way, Peeta could make out two men arguing with each other – one was the manly brute, Gale; the other a Serbian Sex God, called Vukmir Vukmir.

"You heinous beast!" screamed Vukmir. "You killed all dem Apaches, mon! Now you will suffer yo' karmaaaa. Spirit Animal – engage!" He bent over and touched his toes, did five lunges, and some squats. As Gale watched (and Peeta, from afar), Vukmir Vukmir sprouted green feelers and his eyes became black and huge upon his transmogrifying face.

In response, Gale ripped off his shirt, stuck a stolen Apache dagger between his teeth, and readied his whip. The two combatants began to circle each other, throwing death stares and heinous taunts.

"Your feelers are so short you wouldn't be able to find your way out of a box!" hurrumphed Gale.

"Your face is like your momma's face that's like your cousin's aunts twice removed uncle's bad bronchitis that should have stayed at home, yo! YOU TRIPPIN!"

This infuriated Gale, as his Uncle's bad bronchitis was a very dear relation to him. He roared like mighty thunder and swung his whip back and forward, slicing the insectified Serbian Sex God in twain.

Vukmir squealed, looking down at his disconnected lower-half. Then he cackled. "I iz yo' wo'st nigh'mare, foo'." And he sprouted a new bottom, complete with six extra legs, and a shiny carapace that folded into his shoulders to reveal a pair of fancy diaphanous wings.

"GAH!" said Gale, furiously burrowing himself into a sand-dune for protection. Vukmir zoomed back and forth like a crazed stinging wasp. His assault was neverending, lasting a total of forty days and forty nights.

Eventually, Gale became tired of the insect's repetitive fighting techniques, deciding that now it was the time to unleash the big guns.

He reached down the front of his pants and pulled out a Spring Airsoft Army-standard rifle. Taking aim, he blasted the rifle with as much precision as a badger flinging a sling-shot at a raccoon. Which by the way is very accurate, yo. Catching Vukmir through his favourite leg (the bottom left one, second from the top), Vukmir let out a whimper of extreme pain and ever so slight arousal.

"Ooooerow!"

With Vukmir on the back-foot, Gale leapt out of his sandy hovel, and wrestled the Sex God to his numerous knees.

"I had to kill those Apaches!" Gale howled, slamming his knuckles into Vukmir's pancreas. "It was kill or be killed! And I was out of satsumas! A man cannot survive in the West without a Satsuma or three. The Apaches were threatening to send a herd of Samurai-cows after me, if I did not face their greatest warrior, Edward Macchiato, in battle." He punched Vukmir.

Vukmir Vukmir died. His last words faded into the dust. "Spatulaaaaaaas... spork!"

Chuckling to himself and dusting off his pancreas-stained hands, Gale was just turning to leave the bitter battlefield when an ear-splitting bellow shook the earth around him in a two-metre radius. A thousand cranes complete with wrecking balls hanging from their beaks tore the earth in twain, crooning Katie Melua's 'Nine Million Bicycles in Beijing'. A throne rose from the abyss, and upon't ye olde dais sat a lordly lion. His name was Petunia, and he was fab-u-lous.

A roiling cumulus cloud crackled with thunder and split in twain. Beneath it shot down a strobe of brilliant vermillion light that conveniently hit Petunia upon his noble brow. The cloud giggled behind its fan, and tottered off upstairs.

"I deign you with my presence," began Petunia, in his heart-wrenching falsetto.

My opulence is astounding

My operetta divine

My sassy moves abounding

I think I'm mighty fine

Now look at you, brute-fool

Your chin so awf'lly broad

It's clear that you're a tool

Now time to sow dischord!

So feel my mighty paw

Against your beefy chest

I'll knock you to the floor

'Cos I'm giving you my best

"Ready cranes, Ok!" said Petunia over his furry shoulder. The cranes fluttered down from the stratosphere, and assembled into pears. In perfect synchronization, they entwined their stalks and swirled around on their rotund, velvety bodies. "Mmmm, delicious," purred Petunia, marvelling at his choreography skills. Pears had been his favourite fruit back in high school.

So watch out Mister Gale

I'll bruise you with my groceries

We'll pound you down like wintry-freak-storm hail

And you'll be dead pow-pow BOOM-KA-IIE-OOH.

With that, Petunia whipped out a trampoline from somewhere, and used it as a launching pad to pounce at Gale. Gale, who was much acquainted with trampoline warfare knew exactly what to do. As a child, he had been raised by a Tibetan Llama who had won gold in gymnastics at the winter Olympics. Trained to within a inch of his life, Llama-sensei-Alpaca-drama-Llama-the-Third had shown him unique, and antiquated jumping techniques only found in ancient Egyptian scripture, originally sent down to Earth from the inhabitants of Planet B-231Z in the pancreas constellation department, Office Block C, 123 Fake Street.

Gale pounced forward to meet the assault of Petunia head-on. They grappled with each other mid-air for thirty minutes, simultaneously giving and receiving dainty blows, before plummeting downwards onto the trampoline.

Neither of them were expecting what happened next. Such was the force of their combined kinetic power, and the sheer elastic strength of the trampoline, that they were rocketed into outer-space.

Astounded, Peeta watched them from his deckchair. He sipped upon his raspberry daiquiri, and waited in trepidation for the galactic melee to begin...

TBC! Please review!