Charge Up the Causeway

Armored all around, the cavalry of Fitz's offensive proceeds up the spiral causeway, to the High Pink Castle. There are tanks and elephants beneath that armor, among other things...

For this, Hobgoblin 2099 has loaded pumpkin mines into the causeway. He hovers near, aback his glider, and waits for the perfect time to detonate them...

Fore, the convoy marches upon a dead skunk. There are requests, throughout the convoy, to go around it...or to otherwise stop and clean it up, since there's no way around it...

"Keep going," Fitz orders. "It's just a hallucination."

They march on. Sure enough, the skunk vanishes into thin are, mere moments before it's run over by the convoy.

Next, they see a rattlesnake in the causeway. It perches, and bares its fangs, shaking its rattle, as the convoy approaches it...

Here, Ushari, a cobra from the Order of Slater, leaps from the gaps in the convoy's armor, lands in front of it, and slithers up to the rival snake. Both snakes sit high, upon their coils, and prepare for a duo...

"Christian," Fitz implores his old shipmate, "don't do it. That's just a..."

A pumpkin bomb detonates, within the causeway, blowing a part of Christian to bits.

Fitz sighs. "It's a delusion, AND a bomb. I swear they didn't teach me enough in recruit training... Keep going!"

They proceed. The dent in the causeway feels strange on some of their feet, but they try not to regard it.

Above, Hobgoblin watches, with a sinister look forged into his mask. He breathes like a snake...like the snake he just duped Ushari into killing himself with...

Just outside the convoy, it's a long way, from the edge to the ground. Some parts of the convoy straddle it...

A pink dragon meets them on the causeway, and bares its fangs. The convoy slows...

"KEEP GOING," Fitz orders. "IT'S JUST A HALLUCINATION!"

The convoy still slows. A furnace burns, just inside the dragon's mouth. It's flame gets brighter...

Mysterio flies around, shoots some bolts of pink lightning, and destroys the dragon. He lands in the causeway, and waves his arms.

"Turn around now," he orders, "and no harm will come to you!"

The bore of a big cannon slides its way forward, through a gap in the fore of the convoy's armor. It fires, blowing Mysterio to bits.

With Mysterio dead, the pumpkin mines start going off, all up and down the causeway. Lots of holes are blown into it.

Hobgoblin flies here and there, over the convoy, laughing evilly at its misfortune. Its laugh is only a little less scary, as usual, than Green Goblin's...

Up ahead, a chalk line is drawn, across the causeway. In Cyrus's vision, it separates the city right-of-way from legal High Pink Castle grounds.

Cyrus looks down upon it, from atop the wall, anxious. "Come on, Fitz," he mutters. "Come on, and cross that line. Come on up, and make me make a double-barreled widower out of you!"

High above the castle, a fleet of stealth aircraft fly past. Cyrus neither sees nor hears them... Their cloaking must be telepathy-proof, as well as invisible...

Back below, Fitz's convoy approaches the chalk line. Fitz is SO close to widowing himself twice in the same night...or whatever time of day this is...

Inside the convoy, Fitz gets a message, on an earpiece. He smiles, and relaxes. "Ah, what a relief," he mutters. "KEEP GOING!"

With that, the convoy crosses the chalk line...and keeps going.

Cyrus crosses his arms, looks down upon the convoy, and shakes his head. "Shame. I know I'm gay, but...I rather liked both women."

Novak narrows his eyes, and makes a move, to do something sinister...

Alas, he stops. He freezes. His eyes move from side to side.

The three men look at each other, confused. A convoy is about to crash their castle's front gate...and yet, they're all too stupid to command the defensive.

"Liv's gone," Ambruso whispers.

"Mellie, too," Cyrus adds.

"O'Reilly, too," Novak sneers. "Bless his soul. Who'd want to rescue him?!"

"Our leverage is gone," Cyrus moans. "We're on our own, if we still want this castle."

"Relax," Novak assures them. "We're some of the most powerful elephantfish on the whole damn planet. If we can't keep the president outside of his own mansion, then their really is no hope in transhumanism."

"Transelephantfishism," Ambruso whispers, correcting him.

"Transelephantfishism," Novak repeats, begrudgingly.

Out of mines, Hobgoblin starts shooting at the convoy, with missiles. The stone of the causeway, under its treads and feet, starts to crumble...

From a gap in the armor, the barrel of an energy rifle protrudes. It aims high, at Hobgoblin's glider, and shoots a beam of energy.

Hobgoblin yells in distress, spirals in circles down the mountain, lands in the field where President Hayes once hosted the first-ever Easter egg hunt, and blows up in a fiery explosion, glider, armor, and all.

"THAT takes care of the causeway defensive," Fitz mutters. "Let's just hope that smashing the gate is less costly."

With weaponry heavy in hand, the convoy slows, as it approaches the gate. Up here, it sheds its armor, and reveals that its vanguard is a treaded siege engine, with a battering ram.

Inside the gate, the Legion of Doom stands, in formation, facing the gate. Ares and Raven are at point.

"They'll figure it out," Reverb mutters. "I just know it..."

"Shush," Raven hisses.

Outside, the battering ram swings aft, and fore, and rams the gate. It doesn't give, of course. But then, it never gives the first time, does it?

"We're wasting our time," Agent Miller mutters. "The gate's illusory. For all we know, it repairs itself instantly, after each time we ram it."

Harold Nixon subtly nods, agreeing. He fidgets. He looks around...

He gets on his earpiece. "I'm going in," he says. With that, he storms towards the gate, and runs right through it, as if it were nothing. Behind him, Solverson (from Fargo), Schultz (from Django Unchained), Hayes (from Bad Company), Korshunov (from Air Force One), Sir Gawain, Dick Nixon, Singer (from Jack Ryan), Gunn (from Sahara), and Trudeau follow.

They all find themselves in a round room, facing away from one another. The air is illusory, and tinted with a rosy hue.

From vomitoriums in the wall, the six members of the Legion of Doom appear. They're armed. Fitz's vanguard company is armed...seemingly less. They're going to need a bright one, to get out of this...