Episode 20: The Absolutely, Positively, Really Final Showdown.

It came to pass the the Good Ones' pitiful senses of right, dignity and honour forced them to push the Mathia into a showdown. The Mathia had avoided one until now, not due to any benevolence, and certainly not fear, simply due to the fact that there were many more satisfying acts of gratuitous cruelty to be carried out, which they, of course, carried out, slowly and painstakingly, just to prolong the fun.

The Mathia had appropriated the Treehouse of Horrors for their base. It was now substantially larger and more luxurious. There was also a replica of the original further down the tree, in which the Wet Willie Glee Club made their home. Their function was to guard the Mathia, so that they would only have the fun of dealing with serious threats.

All serious threats had now been dispersed to the winds. The Mathia now had primary enjoyment in the pain of their captives and slaves. They would have even more enjoyment if the Good Ones numbered among their slaves.

It was about the time they realised this that they received a challenge from the Good Ones to a combat beside Pizza Hut.

The Good Ones were standing defiantly in their ragged, dirty attire when the Mathia arrived, heralded by several brass bands, in their full glory. The first obstacle which they would have to overcome would be the Wet Willie Glee Club. While they were now better trained, as guards of the Mathia, they were still no match for Discriminant Boy's poor study regime. Hyperbolia and Parallel Line-us finished them of promptly with a torrent of rotting limes. They were then relegated to the sidelines to watch the real fun.

The Mathia advanced and the Good Ones retreated. So far all was to plan. Their plan also included the seizure of Sensai Garden Gnome as a hostage, hoping that removing his advice would doom the Good Ones to rapid desolation and failure. They would, of course, have judged differently, had they studied the example of Episodes 15 and 18, but no matter.

The Mathia won by a heap, very quickly, and very painfully.

The showdown became a show of power before the Good Ones knew what hit them. Hell, the Mathia had strength, respect, glory, power... They had even joined Mathematics to their cause, thus neutralizing Discriminant Boy's powers more effectively than the best calculator or PC known to humankind.

One by one, the Good Ones met their fate.

Parallel Line-us went first, his own bike helmets turned into deadly weapons. He was pummeled with them to such an extent that his two halves joined into one and the very nature of his identity thus turned traitor on him. Spike Boy was first, terrifyingly, separated from Discriminant Boy, and then stuffed so full of cement that he sank five feet into the ground, where he was forced to remain, trying to carve his mottoes into his stomach with his teeth. The 70-ft Woman was deprived of her stock of Tim Tams and Smarties, and effectively removed by being forcibly resized to a point where she was a zero dimensional dot, and thus entered the realm of Discriminant Boy's parents. Hyperbolia received a sufficient blow by simply being made to touch our zero. After this, she was reduced to a quivering mass of nerves. Discriminant Boy, however, was now immensely happy, and needed a double blow to reduce him to the required state of mind. The first was seeing Hyperbolia's reaction to him (again), and the second was being tied up in a sewer and left to rot (again). Sensai Garden Gnome was given to Mandelbrot as a pet. Mandelbrot, being a strict owner, refused to allow Sensai any sprinklers, or watering cans at all.

The Mathia now were left in sole command for some time. The world was bound to servitude and bad Mathematics. The Mathia, and under them, the Wet Willie Glee Club, reached new epochs of Malevolence, never dreamt of even by them.

There's some age old theory that being too happy tempts fate to destroy your happiness. Not many people have the capacity to reach this happiness, and not many people who do actually get around to it, but the Mathia had.

Now, if they had spent some time interrogating either Sensai Garden Gnome or Hyperbolia, they would have found out why they had committed the strange act of repressing the story of the Mathia. This was in case, and I quote from Prequel 3, 'the Powers That Be discovered what a worthless shithole the Negative Dimension was and shut it down. For good.'

The act that drew their attention was, of course, Discriminant Boy's original transdimensional crossover. They had observed the Negative Dimension for a long time thereafter, but had seen nothing terribly wrong, just some typical indifferent Good and incompetent Bad at war with each other. They had been about to cancel the observation and turn their attention to some strange space-time topography in the thirteenth dimension when the Mathia recovered their minds.

The Powers That Be saw what followed, and lo, they discovered what a worthless shithole the Negative Dimension was and shut it down, for good, at the precise moment Ellipsia pointed out to Möbiusa and the Mutilator how perfectly happy and content she was in all her Deviant glory.

It is known that Discriminant Boy, Spike Boy, Sensai Garden Gnome, Hyperbolia, 70-ft Woman, the GrumbleBum, Parallel Line-us, Complex Father, Wet Willie, the Vampire, The Girl from Molong, Win Tin Tin/Multiator, Mother Derivative/Ellipsia and Sister Gradient/Möbiusa were all transported to a boring and average life in suburbia, where they all lived boring and average suburban lives under the new names of Dale C, Mitchell P, Mr. Tadeusz K, Natalie P, Mary G, Emma L, Linus S, Aaron F, Kate G, Melissa B, Jodie D, Emily W, Allison M and Emma R, respectively.

It is not recorded how they all performed in HSC Mathematics. Sorry.