Note: Chompy came up with the solution, not me. I suck at Math, even fictional math. ;)
"Les? Les!" - Said Abigail as she looked at her husband - "We've got a guest. Did you hear me when I asked you to set up another plate?"
Les put down the phone.
"I... Sorry, I got a few calls."
Les didn't feel like entering getting into details about mathemathics - especially seeing as they seemed to have a guest.
He looked at said guest.
"Hey." - Said Lucas, fairly uneasily - "I, er, was passing through..."
"Ah. Hello. Those candied nuts were quite a thoughtful gift." - Said Les, reflexively.
"No biggie..." - Said Lucas, smiling.
The family - and Lucas - sat to eat.
"Well, Miss Gordon, this meal was fantastic..." - Said Lucas, smiling - "I'm still a bit surprised you guys invited me like this..."
"Welcome to the Midwest." - Said Stacy, smirking.
"You didn't tell us, Lucas... How did you come across the, well... The secret?" - Asked Abigail.
"I... Well... I had some contacts teach me a few things." - Said Lucas - "I apologize if I'm vague, but I myself sometimes think it's all... I don't know. A dream."
"I got to know Jenny... And I helped her find Artemis." - Said Lilly - "She was, well... On the Moon..."
"Artemis is Harriet, a friend of hers." - Said Les - "She claims she went to the Moon..." - He added, apologetically.
Lucas smirked as she read the discourse.
"I see..."
"I wanna go there som'day..." - Said Lilly.
"Really?" - Asked Lucas, controlling the urge to smirk.
"Lilly, dear, you know it's impossible, right?" - Said Les, gently.
Lucas did a very good job of controlling herself so she wouldn't chuckle.
"Folks, you've been very nice to me. Would you accept a quick offer for me to reciprocate? I'll get you back as soon as you wish."
"Uhm... Sure?" - Said Abigail.
Lucas smiled.
The family barely felt a shift and was... Somewhere else. They were still sitting on their chairs, but they were now in a veranda - overlooking a modern-looking villa and a vast expanse of gray, deserted sand - and millions and millions of stars, unobstructed by anything.
And the Earth.
Lilly gasped.
"Is this..."
"It is!" - Said Lucas, smiling - "The Moon!"
"This can't be..." - Said Les - "This is impossible... People don't just teleport like this. And the Moon has no air, no atmosphere..."
"Les, honey, you're a scientist. I understand that and I admire it. I really do. As I admire you for trying to give people the option to change back. But there are some things that - as of yet - science cannot explain. Lightning was once one of those things. Whatever Lucas did seems to be another of those things." - Said Abigail - "Lucas saw fit to share with us something pretty big. Why don't we just enjoy it for now?"
Leslie blushed, paused and nodded.
"Very well..."
Lucas smiled.
"I have some contacts that allow me to come here, to two specific plots of land, where I can do lots of things - She smiled - "Lilly, yes, this is the Moon. I know this place may look a bit barren for your tastes, BUT... This isn't my only trick. I can control a lot of stuff here. For example..."
Lucas concentrated. A huge tree appeared, filled with niches and nuts. The perfect place for a squirrel to play in. Lilly paused for a moment and ran towards it, climbing it and looking around, both shocked and happy.
"Palus Somni, before you ask, Leslie. The Marsh of Sleep. Walking distance from the edge of the crater of Crile. I am sorry if I'm overwhelming you a bit, but..." - Said Lucas, not really looking at Leslie.
"Don't bother." - Said Abigail - "Look at him."
Lucas took a better look. Les was too busy examining the basalt stones with Stacy.
Lucas giggled.
"Scientist to the bone, eh? Listen, you guys have been swell. You can call me up and I'll bring you here whenever you like, okay?"
Abigail smiled and nodded.
"Sure."
Lucas walked to the tree.
"Enjoying, Lilly? I already told your parents you can come here whenever you like." - Said Lucas.
Lilly nodded.
"Yeah, thanks..." - She said, softly.
"What happened?" - Asked Lucas.
"I can do nuthin'..." - Said Lilly - "You can bring us to the Moon, Jenny and Artemis can do all those nifty things..."
"You did do magic against the Enemy..." - Said Lucas.
"Yes, but... I can't help them... I can't keep up..." - Said Lilly.
"Lilly, you are her friend. You're helping her through lots of huge things. And that's not including how you helped in the actual fighting. You kept them off Haru's eye... By itself, that may well have saved the Earth..."
"You're jus' sayin' that..." - Said Lilly.
"Lucas... We have a situation." - Said Neruite, as she appeared. Lilly was a bit startled.
Neruite looked at the whole family - a family that was a bit surprised at her sudden appearance.
"We have an issue with the irrational numbers. I and the others are keeping things stable, but we need it solved before we can no longer contain it. If we cannot, it will become reality..."
"What seems to be the matter?" - Asked Lucas.
"The irrational numbers, you say?" - Asked Leslie.
"You know something about that?" - Asked Lucas.
"Pi is rational now..." - Said Leslie.
"So?" - Asked Lucas. As a translator, her relationship with trigonometry was like her relationship with a crazy uncle she had: She knew it existed, she kept her distance from it and she only dealt with it when she absolutely needed to.
Leslie sighed.
"Lucas, if irrational numbers were altered, this has huge implications. It alters all of mathematics as we know it... Lucas, with a rational pi, with certain constants and variables changed, lots of basic laws would change in unpredictable ways... The universe as we know it cannot exist!"
Neruite nodded.
"The universe needs a bit of uncertainty. The Enemy was more invested in that Moon than we could have foreseen... Without some of that uncertainty back, the Universe cannot exist as we know it..."
"You know..." - Said Lucas, sighing - "To me, it all sorta seems like a sign... A big one that says 'I HATE the Enemy'... What do we do now?"
Lilly watched that with interest, but not understanding much of it.
"Uh... Lucas, if you can't solve it, we could call Jenny... She and Artemis..."
Neruite shook her head.
"Jenny is a force of certainty. So is Artemis. They can help, but not by themselves. We need someone to add duality and uncertainty..."
"I'm the Angel of Chaos. You want uncertainty? Ya got it..." - Said Lucas.
Neruite, again, shook her head.
"You are not of certainty OR of uncertainty, Lucas. You know that. You can help as well, but not by yourself. Plus there must be balance. There is only one person that carries both in equal amount. Perfect symmetry..."
"Well, tell me who they are and I'll get them, Neruite." - Said Lucas.
"Lilly."
"Me?" - Asked Lilly, incredulous. The other Magical Girls had already been brought over.
Lucas knelt in front of her.
"Lilly, I know it's something big. But you can do it."
"Well, Sis..." - Said Stacy - "You wanted to help save the world. Go ahead. I trust you."
Lilly nodded.
"'Kay... We need numbers three, one, and four to do this," said Lilly. "You all stand there."
The three numbers took position to the instructions. Jenny looked at Lucas and Lilly as if they might be crazy. Still they had no 'sane' idea to fix Pi... in theory if they fixed this one constant, all the other constants should work again.
"Okay an' Lucas... er.. you need to take point?" Lilly said a little perplexed. It made sense when she thought of it.
"Okay..." - Lucas drew her sword, 'taking point'... it was quite a surreal metaphorical world they existed in, at the edge of this paradox.
"Three point One Four..."
Lilly drew her magic stick as she drew the circle around the numbers and Lucas. She moved with huge speed, faster then she had ever run before. Even when wolves were chasing her, even when everything happened to her. This was not going to go any different.
It became a perfect circle, as Lilly moved. The weapons of the magic girls began to glow, as did the sword Lucas held. The little squirrel girl beamed with excitement. This was working!
The Pi constant was forming around them. All the digits mankind had mined out of their machines and computations, or even just from the human mind itself. Each number transcended into the tenth, then hundredth, and millionth digit... until finally, they saw the strange stability forming at the very end. A stability that was at odds with the randomised nature of Pi, and had to be restored to true randomness.
Lilly looked at magic girl Two and nodded.
"One Two!" shouted Morgan.
"Square!" Lilly called, as she drew a square now around Morgan. Two was squared becoming another four... Morgan moved quickly to the other magic girl as the 'square' she was now part of, joined within the circle.
Lilly pulled and pushed at the circle and square. They could not stop being a circle, nor could they stop being a square... and with Lilly, it could not stop being symmetrical...
Both areas were going to be the same, and the new paradox was forming to replace the old.
Suddenly The Pi constant started to shower itself, explode in different multitude of numbers... as if something had finally gave, when they returned it to normal space. There was an explosion in the numerical force, as the uncertainty of Pi was restored.
"We... did it," said Jenny.
Lilly looked as yet another portion of her stick, quite a large piece was now gone. It was about the size of a desk pointer. She frowned a little but nodded. "Yeah..."
Leslie walked up to Lucas in private, smiling.
"You know, you had me going for a moment there."
"Whuh?" - Asked Lucas.
"You somehow created this situation to make it so Lilly didn't feel left out, didn't you? Even the calls I got... That was very nice of you..." - Said Leslie.
"Oy... Leslie. I understand why you would think that I just did it to make her feel better. I really do, it's perfectly normal. However, that was real. This wasn't a child's play or a game or anything. I very nearly accidentally destroyed the Universe again and Lilly had a very specific trait, unique and exclusive to her, one that allowed her, and only her, to prevent it. Picture all of those precious constants that depend on an irrational Pi, on an irrational square root of 2, on an irrational anything going out the window and picture the results. Picture it happening in the entirety of creation, Leslie, because that is precisely what Lilly prevented right here and right now. She changed the rules of mathematics back to normal, back to a normal that allows our continued existence. I changed the face of international politics, I saved the passage of time on this small solar system of ours, and that is nothing compared to what Lilly just did. It wasn't a trick to make Lilly feel better." - Said Lucas - "Leslie Gordon, your daughter saved the universe."
Leslie paused, finally grasping it. He could no longer discount these kinds of things. He believed Lucas.
"I... I see..."
"You guys are one heck of a special family. One of the leading natural scientists of the world and the savior of existence." - Said Lucas, smiling.
Leslie smiled a bit.
"It's overwhelming, to be sure..."
"I know... Trust me. I know." - Said Lucas, smiling.
Julian's house.
