S6.220 - Status Breaker

SERIES 6 INDEX

The Story So Far: After leaving Fractal City, personified math must deal with a wormhole that could bring them to Statistics... help point the way back home... or destroy them outright.

"I've got a bearing!" Signum called out.

"I've got a distance!" Maud added.

"Student's t is served!" Para said breathlessly, emerging from the gazebo with a cup and saucer in one hand. She jumped down onto the ground.

"30 seconds until I must blow out the wormhole," CanTor noted. "Meaning this whole area will get consumed pretty quickly... including that unstable temporal crack. Which would be bad."

Nisano adjusted his glasses. "You know, it occurs to me that we'll be centering mathematics on ourselves merely to have the entire subject get swallowed up by hyperspace. That would also be bad."

"Unless we transfer the wormhole away at the same time as we channel mathematics here," Hyper countered, putting her hands on her hips. Everyone turned to stare at her. "What? So long as you're using statistical magic to rewrite the laws of physics, you might as well handle the wormhole too. Surely it's a free action?"

"No, we can't!" Maud protested, stepping back from Signum. "What about Versine? And all of Q's people in math? They'd be doomed!"

The jewel on QT's bow pulsed. "It's okay," the polynomial said, expelling a breath of air. "Sigma says we can pull any existing personifications back here at the same time as I transfer the wormhole!"

"Ah, hate to be a killjoy, but there's hardly enough room on this isle for US, particularly with that Hyper Jumper in the way," Para remarked, setting the t-cup onto the ground. "How will you fit in anyone else?"

"Not HERE here, but back where it's safe, at the cliff edge," QT clarified. "Except if I'm going to do this, I need to start NOW! It will take ten seconds to build up a charge!"

"You have 15 seconds," CanTor noted.

QT jammed the end of her staff into the t-cup. The length began to vibrate and crackle with energy. A pair of wings sprouted out at the forked end, near to the jewel. Sigma's electronic voice came again. "Count IX. VIII. VII..." All of the energy in the area began to be drawn in towards QT. She began to glow faintly.

"Maud and Signum! Coordinates!" QT shouted. No sooner were the responses given, then a stray energy pulse hit the flux capacitor. It exploded. Nisano moved quickly to shield Hyper from the blast, and Maud pulled Signum back out of harm's way. The sparks of crackling energy continued to collect around the quartic function, now swirling around her, moving faster and faster.

"III... III... III..." Cosine shook her head to clear it, wondering if she'd really heard the count of 3 three times, or if the problem was in how space and time were starting to distort around all of them, the flux capacitor no longer regulating the rift.

"II... I... Count Zero." A large magical circle appeared under QT. She angled her staff forwards.

"Status.... BREAKER!" QT shrieked.

NaNoHa

A huge ball of light appeared, and four beams of bright pink energy shot off the forked tines of the staff. Which is when CanTor's hand came down on the detonator. The Jump Gate ring shuddered as one of it's rails got blown off, and the wormhole, on the verge of collapsing down, thereby sending it's destructive shockwave back through hyperspace... instead had it's horizon expand out. Where it was immediately caught by two crackling pink energy fields. The other two energy fields were currently blasting a path deeply into the crack in reality, zeroing in on Maud's coordinates.

"Nnnn... NNNNGH..." QT gasped, sweat popping out on her brow, her whole body shuddering as the air continued to crackle with energy. She sank to one knee, but kept the staff aloft.

Hyper checked ArcSin for a pulse, then pushed him off of her. "I have to help," she murmured. "If I can. Too much pink energy is dangerous..." She pushed herself up, stumbled towards QT - and was repelled by the glowing energy around the magic circle.

Is it a victory?

Which is when Hyper noticed that Para and ParaB were phasing back together. They had already begun sliding towards one another, not of their own volition, and now the two bunny girls were beginning to overlap. Each quadratic stared at the other in shock, seemingly unable to prevent what was happening. "The Peabody-Sherman Effect," Hyper deduced. "Polynomial and conic, becoming one body again, as the infinite improbability field is undoing the effect of my Z-Axis Points Module!"

'I... I can't stop this!' Para thought at her counterpart, realizing she was becoming the dominant mind, ParaB's awareness getting submerged. 'I'm sorry!'

'It's okay... don't fight it, you might get hurt!' ParaB thought back. She swallowed. 'After all, it's as Koch said to me. If you go to Stat'st'cs, you won't die... and I didn't go. So I'm going to die.' A tear ran down her face. 'All I ask is... about QT... oh, QT, I'm so sorry! Para, please take care of her... I don't care if it's against our laws, I-I love--'

And just like that, the overlap was complete. ParaB was gone.

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