High Noon in the Grey House with Red Trim

The elephantfish have got Fitz cornered. They point shards and hard points at him, telekinetically.

Instinctively, Fitz grabs an NAU flag, in an umbrella stand nearby. He uses it as a bo staff, and bravely deflects all of the three elephantfish's blows. The flag gets torn considerably... But then, the NAU loses more flags this way, doesn't it?

The trio runs out of ammo. So, they generate electricity, and electrify the flagpole. Fitz's hands burn. He yells, drops the pole, and flees into the master bathroom.

Inside, the three elephantfish telekinetically turn on the lights, and the water faucet in the bathtub. They plan to retire here, after they've killed Fitz; the fish tank is temporarily out of commission, after all...

Frantic, Fitz searches the bathroom for a last line of defense. He knows it's in here somewhere...

The trio swarms in, and forces Fitz to stand. They levitate a bath rag onto his face, and threaten to suffocate him with it.

IT'S OVER, PRESIDENT GRANT II, they say, telepathically. TODAY, WE HEREBY END YOUR DYNASTY, AND TAKE THE GREY HOUSE FOR OURSELVES. AND WHEN WE'RE DONE HERE, WE'RE GOING AFTER YOUR WIFE. AND WE'RE GOING TO SNARF YOUR LITTLE BLACK WHORE DOWN, AS IF SHE WERE A TASTY LITTLE CICHLID, FROM OUR PRECIOUS MOTHER LAKE TANGANYIKA.

All around, they close in on Fitz, ready to end him, with the gagging of the rags. They've even got tampons, poised to block both nostrils, as soon as they're ready.

Fitz's eyes narrow. From out of nowhere, he pulls up a hair dryer, and blows it in Cyrus's face.

Around Cyrus, much of his water vanishes. His breath grows short, and his telekinetic thoughts are more disconnected.

"NOBODY LAYS A CANE SWITCH TO MY LIV'S BACK BUT ME, YOU PERVERTED ELEPHANTINE RAPIST!"

Novak narrows his eyes, and charges Fitz. Fitz pulls up another hair dryer, and starts torturing Novak with it, too.

"This is for all officials, who you've raped and tortured," Fitz sneers, "in my mistaking absence!"

Ambruso hovers behind the two other elephantfish getting tortured, eyes gaping. He doesn't know what to do...

AMBRUSO, Novak pleads, with his shortened dying breaths, DO SOMETHING!

Alas, Ambruso releases his water cocoon, and falls to the floor, to die.

"FARSHAD," Fitz shouts, "IF YOU CAN HEAR ME, SAVE AMBRUSO!"

Above Ambruso, a portal opens. He's sucked into it, and vanishes.

Novak can't handle much more. At last, he falls to the floor, dead. Fitz smiles, and holsters that hair dryer.

Cyrus holds out for much longer, of course. He even takes up a razor, turns it on, and tries to cut Fitz's throat with it. Alas, he's weakening. The razor can't approach fast, or stealthily, enough...

With a simple flick of his finger, Fitz grins, and flicks the razor across the bathroom. Near, the bathtub is nearly full...

THIS ISN'T OVER, Cyrus's more and more disconnected thoughts still convey. WE WILL WIN...

"Fish like you are always destined to be reborn, Cyrus," Fitz reminds him. "But as a specimen, you will perish." Fitz rips a towel rod from its two mounts, and runs it through Cyrus's chest, like a tube-shaped sword. "I'll pay my surviving staff to make sure of that!"

With that, Fitz throws the impaled Cyrus into the air. Cyrus lands on his back, and looks up at the ceiling.

Over the ceiling, an old movie poster, for Mission: Impossible III, portrays a close-up of Keri Russell's bust. She's wearing a torc. Its pendant is actually a weapon known as the Rabbit's Foot...for those who don't know their Mission: Impossible trivia.

Down here, on the floor of the Grey House master bathroom, with gaping elephantfish eyes, Cyrus thinks his last thought. HOW ON EARTH, Cyrus thinks, telepathically, DID SHE CATCH THE VILLANOUS EYE OF PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN, WITH SUCH A FLAT CHEST?!

Fitz wastes no time. He shouts, grabs Cyrus by his tail, and flings him into the bathtub. He goes in with a splash.

He takes up a hair dryer, and turns it on full blast. He then hurls it, as high as he can, into the air.

Beneath the surface, upside down, Cyrus looks up. He watches, as the hair dryer reaches the peak of its hang time, and begins its descent, towards the surface of the bathtub water.

Cyrus gapes, and internally screams.

The ensuing explosion generates many sparks, and blackens many things in the master bathroom. The door is blown right out of the doorway, and lets loose smoke and sparks, from behind it, as it does so.

The bathroom door dances all the way to the foot of the master bed, bumps off it at its base, and falls over. It creates a bridge, more or less, from the foot of the bed to the bathroom entrance.

Inside the bathroom, it's dark. There's still smoke. Here and there, more sparks spray.

Cyrus's severed head flies right out of the bathroom doorway, bounces off the foot of the bed, and rolls to a stop, next to the fallen bathroom door. Never again, will its trunked self command such a villainous chief of staff, who takes more than a cheap gold watch to relieve of duty.

With that done, Fitz and Farshad crawl out from under the bed. Farshad teleports, and meets Fitz on his side of it. Once again, they shake hands.

Farshad pants, and looks down upon Cyrus's head. Fitz opens a drawer, in his bedside table, pulls out a semiautomatic pistol, and loads it with a single bullet. "Can't be too careful," he says, acknowledging Farshad's worried expression.

"Ah," Farshad wipes his brow. "Glad THAT'S over. It...IS over, isn't it?"

Fitz shrugs. "Only one way to find out. I'm just glad my Liv is safe."

Farshad studies him. "You know that for a fact?"

"Oh yeah. I wouldn't have risked coming this far, otherwise. I sent Ophir and her sisterhood to save her, Mellie, and the half-Vietnamese bastard, as we were fighting Cyrus's guards in the light of day."

Farshad scoffs. "PINK light of day. I never thought I'd say this, but it turns out a gay pink sky does NOT look good over the NAU's capital. I know you're a Melting Pot, but..."

"We didn't start out tolerating LGBT folk, just so you know."

"Of course. I know bits and pieces of your country's origin story. I just thought..."

"There was confusion about it, well into the 1960s. The courts have done everything they can to make the NAU an even more tolerating Melting Pot, but... Some societies, it seems, just aren't meant to be division-free."

"I can understand that. I just don't always understand it when villains like your chief of staff, there, use division as an excuse to steal an official's house."

"I won't always be mine. In fact, the law forbids that it never is. But you know, there was one, when the Founding Fathers were meeting, when Alexander Hamilton suggested that this country be an elected monarchy."

"Really?!"

"Yeah, he said something about how a president who gets elected, and serves for life, might just turn out to be less corrupt than either a king who serves for life and then leaves the throne to, most likely, his less-than-competent son, or even a president who serves for a few years, and then..."

Dramatically, Cyrus cuts this monologue short, by coming back to life, lunging and Fitz, and making one last effort to kill him. Without looking, Fitz aims his pistol at Cyrus's leaping head, and pulls the trigger, blowing Cyrus's brains out, and severing his trunk.

"Wow," Farshad gapes. "Just like Scream."

"Yeah." Fitz nods, and blows the smoke from his pistol's muzzle. "JUST like Scream..."