Snowball glanced over at the nearby portal, where a collection of distressed voices were coming from. Annoyed, he strolled over and peeked through the tear in reality.

"...where did they goio?"

"They just vanished!"

"What happened??"

"Hey!" Snowball barked, startling Team 4 on the other side. "Quit your yapping! I'm trying to relax over here."

"No Snowball, you be quiet!" Fanny countered. "We've got a serious problem here, and it's bigger than your selfishness!"

"I'm going to cause a serious problem if you don't shut your piehole. Don't make me come over there!" He began to step forwards towards the portal.

Suitcase's eyes widened. She and everyone else shouted at him to stay back, to not enter. But of course, he didn't listen. The moment Snowball crossed over to the IIverse, he disappeared into thin air.

They stared at the spot where he vanished. Before anyone could say anything else, new voices filtered into the laboratory. Eleven bodies whipped around to see Team 5 file into the already cramped room. Lightbulb was on the phone with somebody. "...oh! I'm in Testy's labo now. I'll head through the portal and be there lickety-split."

"No!!" Baseball cried. He surged forward and slammed Lightbulb away just before she would have walked through. She spun around, somehow managing to avoid falling over.

"Hey!" Paintbrush stormed over and poked their finger into Baseball's face. "What's the deal? That was completely uncalled for!"

"It's the portal!" Balloony said quickly. "It's making anyone who walks through just... disappear!"

The room grew silent. "What?" Basketball asked quietly.

Bubble helped steady Lightbulb. "Whoever you woire talking to oin the phone, toill them to goio get Foiur! Or MePhone, or X, or anyoine! Oind make shoire you tell them to not walk throuigh the portal, no matter whoit!"





As Four held out his hand, the usual drum riff which accompanied the recovery of one or multiple objects played. Snowball and Teardrop landed on the ground with two soft whumps. "Now, what's going on here?" Four demanded.

They didn't move.

"Uh, are they supposed to be asleep?" Firey asked.

Four poked Teardrop, then opened one of her eyes. "Well, she's breathing," he concluded, letting her eyelid snap shut.

"Still, this doesn't look good," Pin said. "MePhone, what about the Cherries?"

MePhone, who had also arrived at the scene, opened his MeLife app and tapped on the Cherries' icon. Their bright red form appeared and they came back to life, but they, too, immediately flopped to the ground, senseless. "That's odd," MePhone stated, scratching his head.

"Hey Snowball," Four said, poking Snowball's near-lifeless body. "Hey Snowball. Hey Snowball. Hey Snowball. H-"

"Four, that's obviously not going to work," Blocky interrupted.

By this point, Teams 2, 3 and part of Team 1 had wandered/rushed over to see what the commotion was. As MePhone explained the problem, he generated a doorframe (complete with an open door) in front of the portal.

"What about your teleportation application, MePhone?" Microphone asked when he finished. "You were able to warp to here from our universe earlier. Why not try again?"

He considered it. "I guess it's worth a shot. To those on the other side, stand back. I'll need some room for my 'landing' spot."

They stepped back. None of them wanted to accidentally be in the landing zone and become some strange amalgamation. MePhone swiped around until he found the right app, entered the coordinates, and pressed GO. With a vwoop, he vanished.

He did not appear on the other side.

"Well, that's a bad omen if I've ever seen one," Eggy grumbled.

X glanced up at his host friend. "Four, what do we do?"

Four cleared his throat. "There's nothing we can do, X, seeing as how we're over here and the source of the portal is over there."

"We're over here!" Bottle piped up.

Four waved his hand dismissively. "Whatever. Anyway, until this is solved one way or another, the challenge is on hold. So go do what you do when you're not competing." He blinked away, taking X with him.

Most of the objects there simply looked at each other, or shrugged, or walked off, or did all three. After all, death wasn't permanent in either of their worlds, and many were certain that Snowball, Teardrop, and the Cherries would return to their senses normally.

The science trio stayed, of course. On the IIverse side, Lightbulb, Paintbrush, and Firey stayed as well. "Can you two take a look at the portal cannon and see if anything's damaged?" Test Tube queried. "This may simply be a malfunction with the wiring or some other part."

Lightbulb quickly inspected the machine. "Looks A-ok to me!"

"Is this weird crystal thing supposed to be glowing red?" Firey asked from further back.

"What??" They tried to get a better look, and indeed, the multicrystal was giving off a harsh crimson light. "That is NOT normal," GB concluded. She pulled out her phone and prepared to call Paintbrush's number. "Let's turn off the device for now, to be safe."

Paintbrush nodded and flipped the power switch to Off. Nothing happened. "Oh dear," Test Tube said simply.

"Unplug it," GB demanded. Lightbulb ripped the power cable out from the wall socket, but there was still no change.

"Maybe try removing the crystal?" Tennis Ball suggested.

Lightbulb nodded again and placed her hand on the gem. Her eyes widened and she yanked her hand away. "Ow ow ow ow ow! That is REALLY hot!"

TT, GB, and TB glanced at each other. "As far as we know, multicrystals cannot conduct heat. Can they?"

"Step aside, Lightbulby!" Firey pushed the bright light to the side. "Lemme show you how an expert on hot stuff handles these things."

He waggled his fingers and placed both palms on the crystal, gripping it tightly and tugging hard. Not only did the crystal not budge in the slightest, but a sizzling sound could be heard coming from it. It took Firey several seconds to realize that it was actually burning his hands, and when the pain registered, the screech of agony was enough to cause anyone in a mile-wide radius to wince.

"Jeepers!" Test Tube exclaimed after Firey's scream died down. He was blowing on his hands to cool them off, whimpering. "Literal fire feeling pain from extreme heat? I didn't think this situation could become any more unusual."

"Welcome to our world," Tennis Ball said.

Golf Ball felt someone tap on her shoulder, so she turned around to see Coiny standing there. "Hey, uh, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Pencil, Lollipop, Yin-Yang are in your factory."

"What!?"

As the word left her mouth, she heard the telltale alarms of her base's Intruder Alert™️ go off in the distance. "I'm going to kill that woodsicle!" she screeched, instantly breaking into a sprint. Tennis Ball, Test Tube, and, after a moment, Coiny, followed her.

"Oh, sure! Just leave us here with no new information as to the current crisis!" Paintbrush yelled after them.























https://youtu.be/9k1MX2uNcqg

I couldn't resist referencing this