So I’m “floating” in bed, just after I woke up, but before the stresses of the day have to be dealt with. Yesterday, I read a strip in Keith Knight’s “The Collected K chronicles”, where he’s giving up cable TV. In the first panel, his wife asks if he’s ready, and curled up on the floor, he retorts, “Is a man ever ready to face his demons?”.

This set off a little fantasy with the Ace of Hearts. He’s a guy who got transformed into a monster from One-Punch Man: A bright red giant with the power to blow things up by touching them. But Ace was not interested in acting monstrously. So he managed to talk that world’s equivalent of Ant-Man into making him a size-changing belt, which he used to shrink back down to human size.
Being super-dense rendered him mostly invulnerable, and he had the strength of a five-story tall giant. Besides the “blowing things up” outright superpower. So he got himself a bulletproof white tuxedo with a little red heart symbol on his breast pocket, with a top hat and cane. The top hat has electronics that stop mind-control shenanigans, and the cane is a maser, powered by Ace’s blast power - the much narrower focus of the maser beam makes this blast-power much more controllable and usable in public. Also turns his contact power into a distance weapon.

But Ace quickly came to the conclusion there were enough super-heroes already, so he tried to get back into his acting & standup comedy career. But his two careers keep interfering with each other, making both kind of….bumpy?
Still, his intro holds true: “I’m the Ace of Hearts, a man of parts! A song, a dance, some light romance!” (Usually accompanied by a lil' tap-dance, ended by a circular spin, with one finger planted on the head of his cane.)
….Although the “romance” part is mostly wishful thinking. His physique limits him to super-strong women to get jiggy with, and most of those are spoken for. Aaaahhh well, can’t have everything?

So this Mephisto-type character lures the Ace of Hearts into his mystic lair, and traps him in a room with his inner demons! Oh, the drama! Mephisto enjoys watching so-called heroes grapple with their evil sides, especially if “evil’ wins.
The “demons” are versions of Ace, with different sizes and color, according to their power. Because he doesn’t fear much since becoming effectively invulnerable, his ‘fear” is small and pale. Ace picks Fear up and puts him on his shoulder, so he won’t get trampled. Reassures him: “Hey, because of fear, I’m careful, and because I’m careful, we’re still alive! You’re a vital part of the team!”.
But where’s Hate? Since Ace is a good-natured soul that doesn’t really hate anyone, Hate must be tiny! Fear pipes up: “I’m afraid Hate is so small, he got stepped on!” Everyone checks the bottom of their shoes for Hate, but there’s no sign of him.

After some spirited conversation (hey, a chance to talk to aspects of your personality as separate people is not to be missed!), Ace announces: “I’m hungry! Let’s get us some fried chicken for lunch!” Lust pumps his arms and yells “Hell yeah! Let’s get us some hot chicks!”
Ace and his Demons easily knock down the door to their “cell” & trample the guard-spooks. But Mephisto’s mystic lair is a confounding maze - a maze with no restaurants! But panic not - the gates to the place have a guardian monster, a sort of alligatorish dinosaur with a huge maw filled with double rows of needle-sharp teeth.
“Chickens evolved from dinosaurs, didn’t they? So that there monster probably tastes enough like chicken to make it worth roasting for lunch. And there’s enough meat on them bones for everybody!”

The dinosaur-monster is distinctly discomfited by the arrival of Ace and his demons. Instead of running from it in panic, like normal people, the Aces surround the monster and close in, hungry grins on their faces.
But then Mephisto arrives, demanding to know what goes on.
“We’re gonna roast that there giant chicken for lunch”.
“THAT’S NOT A CHICKEN!! That’s Grimdark the Terrible, Monster of Nightmares!”
“Well, we’re hungry, and that thing is the closest thing to food we can find around here!”

Mephisto, cunning demon that he is, strikes a deal: If the Aces leave his monster be, he’ll fix ‘em a grand feast!
OK, that’s fine. Maser-cane cooking is hit-and-miss, frankly.
With a sweep of his cape, Mephisto reveals a large table full of the finest foods - meat, fish, vegetables, fruit, wine. But Ace is suspicious: Where are the mouth-watering aromas that are supposed to emanate from such delectables?
The illusion is revealed: The groaning board is made out of the same ectoplasm as Ace’s demons: When Anger picks up a bottle of wine, it fuses with his hand, since they’re made of the same stuff.
Ace is deeply disappointed: “It’s a trick! That’s not real food at all!”
Anger starts to loudly berate Mephisto for being a terrible host, using Ace’s florid vocabulary (Ace is a standup comedian in the George Carlin mold) to it’s fullest. Mephisto belatedly realizes the situation is ridiculous, and likely to get more so.

Bah! If Mephisto’s not having fun, there’s no point to the spectacle, is there? He decides to pull the plug, and dumps Ace & company through a mystic portal to the sidewalk in front of a KFC restaurant. Without Mephisto’s magic to sustain them, the demons that came with Ace start to evaporate.
Ace says a sad, hurried goodbye: “You’re all a part of me, so it’s not like you’re going anywhere! And it was great to be able to talk to you guys face-to-face!”

And that was the Ace of Hearts’ dramatic battle with his inner demons.

My brain spins stuff like this ALL THE TIME. It’s a little sad how rarely any of it gets written down.