This section of the park was pretty crowded. But it was a beautiful Saturday afternoon and in the general timeframe of lunch, so what else would you expect? You’d expect the food trucks to be out in force.

And so they were.

Glorious trucks of every color and shape, of every cuisine you could imagine (and even ones you wish nobody had imagined), lined the edges of the park and the few roads coming into it. Upon seeing them, Zek’s stumble began to growl. Eh, it was probably a good idea to go ahead and get some food. Besides, he was slowly working his way through the menus of all the trucks. He was keeping notes on each experience, too, in case he wanted to start a food review blog.

But alas, with so many people out, all the trucks were sure to be full. And as Zek scanned them, he found they all were except for one. Just his luck: the truck he’d been coming to for the last four weeks was completely lineless.

“How’s it going, Mr. Mustachio?” Zek said as he slid up to the truck’s window. “Sold out already?” He tipped his sunglasses down and peered over them as he took another look around.

The large, balding man with the glorious, oversized, waxed, pitch-black mustache growled. “Bah,” he spat, making Zek wince. “If only. You know that dirty rat, Herman Hillfiger? He’s the burger guy, right across the street.”

“Wait, the guy with the hideous toupee?” Zek asked. “I think I got food poisoning when I ate there.” He grimaced at the memory.

Mr. Mustachio nodded sharply. “Yes. Is the one,” he said. “MAny people get food poisoning from him, but he’s sneaky. Has friends in health department. And bribes people. People keep coming to him because he charges so little. But food is crap. Cheap crap. And they come back.”

Mr. Mustachio sighed and dipped his head. “But now he has stolen all my customers. BEcause he stole my secret recipe! My van was broken into earlier this week and my cookbook was taken! And now he’s over there with my exact same menu, as much lower prices, offering inferior food.”

“But how is it inferior if it’s the same recipe--”

“HE STOLE MY SECRET SAUCE!” Mr Mustachio roared, slamming his hands down on the counter and spraying his fury everywhere. Zek grabbed a napkin from a stack and surreptitiously wiped his back. “The sauce is everything, Jeremiah! EVERYTHING! I need it destroyed. I need that cookbook gone or else my whole livelihood is dead. DO YOU HEAR ME? DEAD!”

Zek wadded up the wet napkin and grabbed another. “I hear you loud and clear,” he said, his brow furrowed in gravity and concern. “Don’t you worry about it anymore -- I’ll get you your justice, or my name isn’t Jeremiah Montezuma Agammenon Galadrial!”

It was so hard keeping a straight face, but fortunately Mr. Mustachio still hadn’t caught on to the utterly bogus name.

Mr. Mustachio stared at Zek for a moment and looked him up and down. “Very well,” he said curtly. “Bring me justice, and you shall eat for free. FOR FREE!” he yelled, lifting a fork high.

Zek wiped his face with a third napkin. “FOR JUSTICE!” he roared back. Then he turned away, a plan beginning to formulate in his head. A smile spread across his face. His stomach growled. But that was okay, he was soon going to be dining on...medicore hamburgers! And JUSTICE!!!

What... what in the F&$% was he eating. Erik rarely swore, but this was a swear worthy occasion. Heck he wasn't even much of a critic when it came to food or much less arguably care when it came to cheap food. Especially from someone that needed to eat twice as much as a normal person to get out of bed 'metaphorically speaking' feeling chipper and ready to go. 

But even as far as cheep food went he was pretty sure he could taste the acrid tang of much too old meat in the burger. No small wonder everything was half the price of anything else in the food truck parade around the park. The only thing tasty bit of the whole burger was the sauce. The sauce seemed like you could put it on something less nausea inducing and it would actually turn out good. 

Now he wasn't one to judge by appearances, but the man looked like he couldn't even cut it as a used car salesman which should have been a red flag to his trained thieving eye. With a sigh at the wasted money he stood and dumped the single bite taken hamburger into the garbage. The sauce was the key.. and vaguely familiar. With a snap of his fingers he recognized it from a different truck.

A plan! If he stole the stolen recipe it wasn't really.. uh stealing was it? Thus keeping his unspoken promise to his girlfriend to stay out of trouble. She might be able to work wonders with the artery plugging mess of whatever it was made of. Him? Unless it was roasting over an open flame he couldn't hack it with how much is thoughts strayed. 

The cartoon villain was busy serving orders.. a perfect time to sneak in and nick some cookbooks. As he moved to walk casually around it like he belonged there. A move that worked 90% of the time.

It was bold. It was daring. It was audacious. It was...pretty dumb, actually. But maybe fun.

It had been a simple matter to approach a group of six folks (obviously a group of friends) who were sitting down at a nearby picnic table, all eating from garishly advertised Herman Hamburgers wrapping. He’d released the large dog that had tried chasing him just that morning, leaving it suddenly running and barking into the midst of the friends. Fortunately, they’d left their food behind, and mostly untouched.

It was another simple matter to catch their hamburgers within each of his orbs, done by smashing the food into his orb instead of smashing the orb on the food. A far trickier manner was then finding the six nearest food trucks, all within throwing range, and picked out his lines of sight. Then, he started throwing orbs. Scarlet spheres darted across the street at each of six nearby food trucks. THey began winking out in little flashes of light just feet before the food trucks.

And messy, greasy, yucky burgers, all wrapped up in Hemran’s logo, began continuing their journey from being smashed into orbs to traveling a couple of feet into the faces of those serving customers at the trucks. SPLAT! SMOOT! BLAPP! BANG, CRASH, RATTLE, RATTLE, DING (one of them missed and hit some condiments and stuff, but nobody was perfect), BLORP! SMACK!

Silence fell and the crowds of hungry people stilled.

Then: “HEEEERRRRRMAAAAAAAANNNNNN!”

And five angry, awfulburger-covered food truck owners (and a sixth angry food truck owner, who just didn’t happen to have hamburger covering his face and clothes) came charging out of their trucks with whatever food they could grab at the moment.

And the food began to fly in a rain of deliciousness, all aimed at Herman’s truck. And Herman. And his customers. MAny of whom had food of their own. And many of whom had just been granted unexpected food. And fury.

“Time for the main course,” Zek wisecracked. Although nobody was paying attention. Now to wait a moment and see what Herman would do next. After all, the key to properly constructed chaos was to fan what was there, not try to impose your own plan on it.

And then the First Food War broke out.

The 'just taking a walk in the park' stroll was working pretty good, for awhile at least. Something had happened as the entire general air nearby changed drastically. It curved sharply from people just enjoying a nice day out to people out for blood. Well a growing number of them anyway. All started with the screeching chorus of distraught and angry (out of tune) voices from around the area then food raining down on the truck and its nearby patrons.

Erik wasn't one to watch much tv himself but food fights were the sort of stuff that happened on TV which means someone was doing something sneaky. At the moment his biggest concern was the growing number of people engaging in the growing food toss melee. Which sadly given his attachment to his white cotton t-shirt (It was the last surviving member out of the package he bought) meant lots of dodging near misses and food thrown in his direction. Slowing his advancment considerably. Which was a real shame since all the hubbub meant Cartoon villian Herman was spending as much time outside his food truck as in giving him increasing opportunities to get inside.

It was just going to be a real pain to get there relatively clean! Dodging behind a completely innocent woman as she took a now unrecognizable smear of food on her generous chest. He darted away before the fury and ire could be turnned on him as her own food was quickly turned into messy projectiles.  He felt extremely bad for whomever was going to be responsible for cleaning this mess up once it was all said and done.

Very quickly, the fight escalated. Zek hadn’t considered it, but it seemed the various food trucks had loyal followers. Or at least people who loved food fights. Ones, twos, and squads of people were converging with food and letting it fly.

It was just so darn beautiful, Zek almost had to wipe away a tear.

But he had a mission. His attention went back to Herman, who was futile trying to ward off two truck owners with a defensive tray-shield. He seemed adequately distracted. Zek smiled and cracked his knuckles. He turned and went against the flow of people and made it to the outskirts of the food frenzy, which wasn’t getting smaller at all. He started making a circle around the place, angling himself away from the worst of the fight in order to try and approach the truck from behind. There was always another entrance. He just had to make it through the war zone, first.

But he had some ideas on how to do that. Zek dropped an orb on a picnic table and captured it, causing him to stagger and shake his head to clear it. “Oomph,” he gasped quickly. He knew it would pass soon, but it still took him by surprise every time he caught something that big. And it was worth it because you never knew when you might need a big piece of furniture, especially going into a combat zone.

After a couple of more minutes, he was in sight of the other side of Herman’s food truck. Fortunately, most of the fighting was happening on the other side, but then, it appeared that other food trucks were joining in the fun and people were streaming from all over the park to join in or at least see what was going on. But at least there was a window of opportunity here.

“Now to make a beeline towards the target,” Zek said. Sometimes he liked narrating his adventures. “This is Ace to Command. I have eyes on the target. I repeat, I have eyes on the target. I’m going in!”

And so he did. At a brisk walk because he honestly wasn’t going to run and didn’t want to look like a target. Besides, it was only like sixty, seventy feet away. Besides, what .were the chances that somebody else was going to try to break into the truck? Everyone with a lick of sense or fun would be slinging food.

Course, nobody had ever accused Zek of having a lick of sense. Not that he talked to many folks for long.

“Except myself. I talk to myself a lot,” Zek said to himself.

...Zek decided that after this...mission….he was going to get out more.

If being a foreigner had taught him anything it was that English had a word for damned near everything. What did you call a group of food fighters? Well he didn't know it, but to him it would be messy. Also a bit a bit depressing in a caloric lamentable way. So much wasted food. He would have to make up for it somewhere else though. At the moment everyone nearby seemed suddenly affected by the urge to turn the surroundings and everyone therein into a work of modern art. Modern art sucked. Particularly when one was an all too juicy canvas in which people to get all crazy.

Solutions meet problems. His target was the epicentre of the food tsunami, foodnami? Nothing was handy to protect his stark white shirt from ending up hanging in the MET so he fell back on his favorite sort of tactics, Speed and ferocity. Launching himself towards the food truck like an angry olympic customer and keeping a sharp eye out for any potential projectiles heading his way. A duck here and a weave there and a couple of false starts and another problem presented itself. The door would take too long to open. Jump through the window, catch self, hunkerdown and get surroundings.

So far so good! Only a bit of mustard on his shirt that a bucket of bleach could fix. Then with his copious amounts of experience stealing the mostly retired thief started dismantling the place efficiently looking for cookbook. Those pots and pans in the way? Out the window, expired ingredients? Window. Actually there was a disturbing number of those. His ears perked at the sound of an angry cartoon villain. Technically he was doing the public a service by Erik reckoning. Ah there! It was out of place amongst the other books simply because it was still marginally clean. Speedy fingers found the sauce recipe and scanned it over real fast just to make sure before he ripped it out of the book and tossed it into the pile with everything else through the window after stashing the recipe nice and neat in his pocket. 

Kicking the door open from the inside and breaking it almost completely was honestly just icing on the the justice cake on behalf of the health department. Only thing left to do was escape!

Zek stalked forward at a moderate pace, at least until he watched a guy dive through a window into the truck.

“What the--!” he said, abruptly halting. His jaw hung open, and then she started laughing.

Okay, this “mission” was sooo worth it already. He’d already incited a food fight and now it had scaled to a point where people were attacking the trucks themselves?! Outrageous! Amazing!

And it looked like the guy was going at his destruction with a vengeance, too! Zek could see all manner of things flying around inside the truck and several things flying out of the truck. Oh, such glory.

Zek finally started walking forward and when he was within a few feet, the door exploded outward and there the other guy stood.

Zek blinked. Then grinned. “Hi,” he said quickly and casually. “Love your work. Love what you’ve done with the place. I’d ask for your autograph, but I don’t really have a lot of time .Can I just squeeze by you for a sec? I just need to get something. Won’t be long, promise.”

Zek made finger guns to illustrate his points and ended with a scouts’ honor sign.

Well this was akward. Like secret amatuer pornstar level of akward when someone realises who you are, gushes, then asks for your autograph. Ok that was probably a bit of an exageration, but still Erik thought it certainly approached that level of akward for him. Getting caught redhanded was rather taboo. At least the guy just wanted to loot the place. Erik wasn't about to ask questions, the less said the better.

"Sure, I am all done here, have a nice day." It was spectacularly calm and collect for a free diving, truck looting person. Shrugging and grabbing a tray to use as a shield before sprinting to get as far as possible away from the food fight as possible. Once clear he just resumed a normal walk like any person currenntly inhabiting the park would have, with the occasional glance towards all the commotion. Blending in thankfully well once he ditched the tray in some bushes thanks to his clean attire.

“You, too, man,” Zek said with the fake smile you gave people who only halfheartedly engaged in small talk. Like when they ask you how you are and even if you said you were about to kill yourself, they’d still say “good”.

Zek stepped to the side to let the other guy pass and then proceeded into the truck. It really was nice of the guy to leave it opened for him. He didn’t have to remove it himself now and added breaking to his entering.

But yeah, the place was a mess. Which he expected. “Now, if I were a stolen cookbook, where would I be hiding?” he asked himself. He didn’t really expect to hear an answer.

Zek realized quickly that almost nothing in the truck had been unransacked. Because there was very little left in the truck. Because Zek had already passed most of the truck’s contents on the outside. He slapped his forehead. “Ay yi yi,” he groaned.

He stepped back outside yep! Right there on one of the piles was an open book. “Score,” he said under his breath as he approached it and picked it up.

And saw a page ripped out of it. What was left in the book said “Secr--” and “Sau--” as in….Secret Sauce! Zek’s eyes widened. It was the other vandal! The dude he’d just let go!

He whirled around and in the distance could see a big guy in a white shirt walking away as if nothing were happening. Well not today!

Zek started running and as he neared throwing distance, shouted, “HEY YOU! FREEZE!”

Hey you freeze? Man it was like someone only had watched people get stopped in movies or something. Telling someone to stop was a sure fire way to get them running. Which is exactly what Erik did.. after flashing a glance and a shrug to the rival thief. The fact that two people wanted a recipe from an otherwise terrible burger place was actually sort of funny in a 'only happens once in a lifetime' sort of way. Expensive well, anythings, would be more appropriate. Still there was some things you still couldn't put a price on and the perfect burger was one of them. 

As he ran he caught a frisbee with a little jump and with a rather graceful (if he had to say so) spin the chucked the frisbee at Zek's legs before he continued on his merry sprinting way. He just had to last until the guy got tired after all. Well that was the plan anyway until a sudden thunderous rolling caught him from a blind spot and sent him crashing into a tree.  Well that was a broken arm, he remarked absently as he looked to see what truck just hit him.


He was shocked to see a food spattered much larger and rounder Herman standing with his awful looks and laughing like the cartoon villain he clearly got his hair and facial cut from.  It appeared Herman was some awful and awkward boulder rolling type of mutant. With a sudden flicker of thought he looked and sure enough his shirt had traces of food gore on it. He swore under his breath a leveled a glower at the man who was doing the evil mutant monologue thing he was entirely tuning out. Erik picked up a nearby rock and chucked it at the man's head mid sentence. 

"Let's do this fat man."

"I am not fat!" He tucked his head between his legs and spun suddenly towards Erik whom promptly dashed out of the way to leave the tree to its destroyed fate. 

Well, whaddya know, shouting didn’t do anything to stop the guy. It was, however, what you were supposed to shout in these kinds of ridiculous events. And it also alerted innocent bystanders that things were happening and hopefully kept them clear of the madness that Zek was really hoping would ensue.

His target turned out to be pretty athletic though. Zek had just enough time to appreciate the guy’s technique as he spun the frisbee before having to say, “Ow!” as the frisbee bounced off his ankle. Well two could play at that game! Zek threw a golden orb at the guy. And missed by yards.

Next time he’d actually aim.

Then a giant rolling man appeared and seemed to have some beef with Zek’s target. “No way!” he breathed as boulder-man took out his target. Was that….HERMAN? Where did he come from? How did he know--when did he--what?!

Zek stopped momentarily to blink and take in the situation. So Herman seemed dead set on rolling all over the big guy. Actually, they’re both big guys. Muscleman was egging it on though. Zek mulled it over for just a few more seconds. Herman didn’t seem great at changing angles, so Muscleman was probably going to be able to keep dodging until he got away.

Unless Zek did something.

A savage grin lit up his face as this time, he took aim. He waited for Muscleman to start moving again and then threw a scarlet orb, aiming for a couple of yards in front of the guy, where it suddenly became a picnic table tipped on its side. Boom. Instant obstacle.

Light flashed by him in his periphery and he tried not to divert too much attention to it, but noting it was there. Afterall getting distracted in a fight was as much of a no no as allowing yourself to lose general awareness of your surroundings. Not that it was a fight until Herman came rolling in like a bad cartoon character intent on rubbing unseemly parts of his body against Erik. That was not going to happen.

Well running was his objective at the moment even if it wasn't particularly manly or whatever macho term people used to justify doing things to prove their manliness and overall stupidity. Dodging around the spinning mass of flesh and beginning to run. That was until a red orb appeared and deposited an annoying obstacle in his way. Herman was coming back a thim and no matter what he did it was going to slow him down. Jumping to stand on the edge of the table and leaping off of it as Herman smashed it to bits and zoomed off. 

Glancing around for the perpetrator for obstacles only to see mr. 'yell at you to stop but can't do crap about it'. He gave a what the heck gesture towards the guy and rolled backwards to avoid the zooming Herman once again before resuming his sprint away. 

"I have to be dreaming. This is just too wierd." He muttered aloud to himself. Central Park New York was truly a magical place. 

“Maaaaaaan!” Zek complained. “That’s so unfair!” Muscle Dude didn’t even slow down at the table! Didn't even look like he had to exert himself, either! He just leaped over it and now Zek really wished he had trained in parkour.

Zek stopped momentarily at the sight of the athleticism, but then started up again when he realized Pecs hadn’t stopped at all and was going to lose him. And Herman obliterated the table before Zek could even think to reuse it.

“Okay, what are my options,” he asked aloud, even as Gym Rat gesticulated in his direction. “Oh. OH! I know!”

And that’s how a glowing orb flashed across the park to hit the bouncing Herman, who kept conveniently rolling in straight, easy-to-predict lines.

Then Zek picked up the chase after the recipe thief and this time when he flung a scarlet orb at him, it became the Herman-monster in a fury road roll. “Take that!” Zek shouted.

Whew! Herman suddenly disappearing was a streak of luck he hadn't predicted and slowed down a bit. Going at an all out sprint even in a park was bound to attract unwanted attention. Of course the relief was short lived as the oversized hamster ball popped back into existence in front of him with a streak of light. "Sh-" He skidded to a stop and threw himself to the ground, protecting his head with his arms as Herman crunched over him with contemptuous ease.

Scowling he stood up looking worse for wear as Herman took a long rolling ark to come back around.. seemingly unphased at his disappearance. The wail of sirens seemed to jolt the big man to a stop. It appeared the food fight free for all had dropped the food part. Now it was just an all encompassing brawl of people, food trucks were starting to get turned over. Herman's was on fire and chaos was breaking loose. It was time to be somewhere else! Herman went off one direction and Erik was content to just job casually the hell out of dodge. Shooting a glance at.. well whoever the heck it was that had been chasing him.

Ah well New York wasn't that big of a place. He was sure they would run into one another again.