In the High Pink Castle

In the entrance hall of the High Pink Castle, the Legion of Doom's got Fitz and nine other good men surrounded. All someone's gotta do is open fire...

Benny, from the Life is Hot in Cracktown universe, bursts in through the gate, appearing out of nowhere. He takes his place in the circle, beaming...until he sees the surrounding Legion, and frowns, as he cocks his weaponry...

Ares takes up his shield, and aims his spear. Raven's eyes darken, her head glows with a pink stone, and she generates black fumes all around her. Mirror Master darts from mirror to mirror, throughout the room, and ends up right back where he started. Reverb opens portals here and there, darting across the room in a way that makes Mirror Master look lame. Scarecrow generates gas, from his bony gauntlets. Enchantress hijacks June Moone, and assembles dark clouds behind her...

"Separate chambers," Fitz recommends, from Harold Nixon's body. "I get Raven."

Raven grins, creepily. "You would dare attack a little girl, Mr. President?"

"Only if she tries to keep me out of my own home, and kill my Liv if I try to come back."

Around Fitz, the chamber gets smaller. It's just him and Raven. The rest of his final brotherhood is lucky; they're each going to fight one of the other Legion villains as a duo, with someone to have their backs.

Yep; this is Cyrus's illusion, alright...

"I must warn you," Raven says, in a creepy voice, "that I'm a bit of a misandrist. Pardon me if I pull a nutcracker that lives up to its name."

"You'd dare crack presidential nuts?"

"Baby," Raven hisses, "I was BORN to crack such nuts!"

Around Fitz's legs, strangler fig vines conjure themselves. They're black...like Raven's magic. They're girdling up towards Fitz's scrotum...

Raven is impaled, from behind, via a green-glowing-tipped spear. The spear's owner revolves into view, as she moves her spear.

It's Ancient One...or so it seems. She looks like Tilda Swinton.

"Sorry, my dear Raven," she says. "But I promised my new friend, here, that I'd help him reclaim his home."

"Farshad?!"

"Sh," Ancient One/Farshad whispers. "The less the enemy hears, the less they'll suspect." She slides Raven's corpse off her spear, and cleans it, with a spell. "Much of the rest of the Legion has fallen, BTW. But your new enemy Cyrus seems to have other defenses in place."

"I don't care. I'll slay all of them."

Farshad nods. "I'll do what I can."

Fitz, as an alternate Harold Nixon in battledress, wanders off on his own, with an energy rifle at the ready. He imagines that his brother, who bears the likeness of Frank Langella, has slain the DC Ares by now. Or worse, that the DC Ares has slain his brother... But then, Frank isn't REALLY Fitz's brother... A brother in seamanship, maybe, but...

Fitz slithers through an arch, and steps down a step. He looks up, and around. He's in a dome. Beyond, an aquarium lies, far and blue...

In the background, Enya's "Less than a Pearl" plays...

A whale shark swims around, in the tank. Fitz has heard of the Atlanta Aquarium...but sadly, he hasn't had a chance to go there since his inauguration...

Shake it off, Fitz, Fitz thinks to himself. You're here to butcher your chiefs of staff; not to ogle at their imaginations. Soon enough, they'll all be too dead to imagine anything...

Around the top of the dome, a mermaid, who bears the likeness of Keri Russell, swims around. She wears a pretty pendant around her neck. Then again, it's probably just a rabbit's foot...or a pair of dog tags, from her war-robbed husband...

"Fitz?!" It's Liv's voice. She doesn't sound too pleased...as she usually doesn't. "This is inexcusable."

It's Liv, more adorable than ever. She wears a white coat, and has got a bitchy critical eye...like Fitz has always loved. She marches up to him. She's got a warpath in her expression...like on the day he first laid eyes on her.

"You need to stop this, Fitz. People are getting hurt. NEVER, in the history of our country, has our capital been in such turmoil. The War of fucking 1812 saw better days than this!"

Fitz laughs. "It's good to finally meet the real you too...Cyrus."

"That is NOT funny. I work my ass off to make you look perfect for the press, and yet, here you are, in your precious home, pretending like you're on Lake Tanganyika, fishing for tilapias."

"Your empathy's broken. You have no idea who I am."

"I swear, if you keep this up, I'm going to leave you forever. I don't care how badly I want the Grey House. If I ever get there, it'll be without you. And for what it's worth, I hope you don't get reelected!"

"It's always been like the real Liv to not believe in me, when I run for office. But the real Liv would never HOPE I wouldn't win...if she truly loved me."

"Your wife is a whore! You need to divorce her, NOW!"

Fitz grins, takes his rifle, and runs the bayonet through "Liv's" chest. She gapes, and looks sorrowful, into Fitz's eyes, as she dies... Alas, she doesn't die. In real life, a person wouldn't hover in life like that, for that long, before dying...

Right before Fitz's eyes, Liv vanishes into thin air. Fitz scoffs, and smiles at his bayonet. For once, he doesn't have to clean it...

"I must confess, I overestimated you, Fitz."

A man, bearing the likeness of Jeff Perry, stands in a pulpit in the wall, far above Fitz. "The Fitz I thought I knew," he continues, "wouldn't have the will to run his mistress through the chest with a bayonet. Nor would he take so much pride in posing as the dead brother of one of his predecessors."

"Cyrus," Fitz turns around, and acknowledges his head staff chief's figment. "Ordinarily, I would thank you for keeping my house in order in my absence. But as you might know, I just hate gay Nazi interior décor...and I'm pretty sure this country does, too."

"Homosexuality isn't illegal in the NAU, Fitz."

"How about kidnapping Liv? How about forcing public officials to rape one another, for entertainment? How about false imprisonment? I'm sure there's a whole list there, that only you and your two boon companions remember," he narrows his eyes, "if memory is even your talent."

Cyrus chuckles. "As much as I put you up against, to get here...how could you possibly think I don't have any talent?"

"Talent doesn't make you worthy of the Grey House, Cyrus."

"This isn't the Grey House anymore. This is the High Pink Castle. And it's MY castle. And you're trespassing!"

In a hallway, Danielle Moonstar appears. Her eyes glow bright green. She dresses in black. Illusory lights flash from her hands...

"Ooh, your share of the X-Force is here, I see." Cyrus bows out. "Don't miss the bear!"

All around, a wave floats over Fitz's surroundings, transforming them into the Wyoming wild. He imagines that, in Marvel Comics, this is where Danielle Moonstar grew up, before Professor X recruited her...

Eerily, Moonstar approaches Fitz. She grins, in a demonic manner...

Fitz scoffs. "I have no idea why Cyrus keeps sending me female members of his guard... He must really be a misogynist..."

Behind Fitz, something growls, and breathes heavily. Fitz turns, and aims his rifle at what approaches.

It's Demon Bear. His face is as big as the sky. His eyes glow. His teeth are bared.

"I killed your dynasty, Fitzgerald Grant," Demon Bear growls. "And soon, I will come to kill you!"