Night 2: CH 18-8 THE ZERO-IQ WITCH

🌙 NIGHT 2: THE QUANTUM TRAP CH 18-8: THE ZERO-IQ WITCH 10:18 AM – Herta Space Station (The Master Archive) The primary terminal monitors inside the sterile master archive hall were completely overloaded. The universal live broadcast feed from Owlbert’s IPC studio bypassed every anti-matter security protocol, projecting the frantic Cuban Pete rumba showdown across the central glass panels. Madame Herta stood firmly on the floorboards, completely abandoning her clockwork puppet bodies to appear in her actual, stunning five-star real human form (Form 3.1). Her long brown hair drifted past her shoulders, and her massive, star-patterned purple witch hat tilted slightly as she watched alongside Screwllum, Asta, and Arlan. Herta: "This is completely unscientific! It is an absolute insult to the standard path metrics! Look at that screen! A corporate executive’s assets are uncontrollably expanding and shaking live on a galactic network because of that volatile White Potion 'Echo Milk'! I need to extract this data right now!" Suddenly, the solid glass surface of the station's master terminal rippled like liquid green water. With a loud cartoon BOING sound effect, Mask Vantablack’s smooth emerald face and vibrant yellow zoot suit permanently popped straight out of the screen, floating right in mid-air in front of the four characters! The duplicate live broadcast camera hovered right behind his fedora hat, recording the space station crew in real-time. Herta: (Stepping forward aggressively, pointing a finger directly at the bouncer's mask) "You! You're that ridiculous little robot bot from Earth! Tell me the exact alchemical parameters of what that Bright Yellow Potion does right now! I demand to know the light-density coding!" The second those words left her mouth, Mask Vantablack’s playful cartoon smile instantly snapped into a state of absolute, extreme cartoon fury! Mask Vantablack: "Oh, oh, oh! Big mistake, lady! You asked way too many annoying questions, you're being incredibly rude to me, and you just called me a robot bot! Now you've officially made me angry!" Reaching behind his yellow jacket using extreme rubber-hose distortion physics, Mask Vantablack pulled out a standard household metal frying pan. Activating the hidden sub-parameter of the Bright Yellow Potion's transmutation track, his touch instantly turned the object into a cartoon prop, and he painted it with a splash of pure liquid gold, transforming it into a gleaming, solid Golden Frying Pan! Mask Vantablack: "Let me show you exactly what else the Bright Yellow Potion can do to a loud-mouthed genius! Take this, you little brat!" With a lightning-fast cartoon swing, a thunderous CLANG sound effect echoed across the archive hall as Vantablack executed a massive Tom and Jerry style leap, slamming the Golden Frying Pan directly onto Herta's head! Bold, blocky impact lines exploded outward from the collision point, with floating black musical notes and sharp impact markers flying in mid-air across the laboratory panel. The alchemical impact instantly drained her intelligence metrics down to a complete, permanent 0-IQ state, turning the smartest member of the Genius Society into a total upper-body goofball! Her star-patterned witch hat tilted comically sideways as massive cartoon stars lazily circled her head. Her eyes crossed completely and drool spilled from her lips as she blurted out absolute, brain-dead nonsense syllables right into a purple text box. Herta: "Wut if... the quantum... like... waffles?? Tee hee..." Owlbert: (His loud voice blasting thunderously live through the fireplace studio monitors, fluttering his wings in pure, screaming hysterics) "Oh my gosh!!! She is completely stupid now all because of that golden frying pan slam on her head! The head of the space station has officially become a dumb-dumb zero-IQ woman, and she completely deserved it!" Screwllum: (Breaking his sophisticated composure, letting out a rare, mechanical chuckling laugh at her goofy face) "Observation: Now that is remarkably funny. She has become entirely stupid. So this is the true baseline power of the Bright Yellow Potion—any object you touch instantly becomes a cartoon, and your gold paint turns it solid whenever you feel like it! Truly one magnificent power track." Mask Vantablack: (Adjusting his fedora with a proud nod) "Thank you very much, buddy! Imagine her calling you a robot bot—honestly, she is just so incredibly rude! We're both sophisticated robotic entities, but being called a generic 'bot' is an absolute insult to our mechanical integrity!" Screwllum: "I agree with you completely, Vantablack. But what exactly do we do with this stupid Herta now? She is feeling deeply dizzy and won't stop saying stupid words to the server racks." Mask Vantablack: "Well, that's incredibly easy, buddy! The unique physics of a cartoon frying pan strike mean you don't even need a Red Potion to restore her baseline intelligence! The only way to snap her back to normal is to give her a nice, hard slap right across her face! So, which one of you is gonna step up and slap her in the face?" Arlan: (Instantly raising his hands and backing away toward Peppy) "Oh, no way! I'm absolutely not hitting a woman! But man... I have to admit, what you just did to her ego is absolutely funny!" Asta: (Stepping forward with a highly determined, fiery anime expression, rolling up her sleeves) "Let me handle this! A female slap is notoriously hard and carries the perfect kinetic force to reset her brain loops!" With a swift, high-velocity windup, Asta swung her hand and delivered a massive, resounding SLAP right across Herta's flushing pink cheek! WHACK! The kinetic impact triggered a sharp cartoon pop, instantly clearing the circling stars from her hat and snapping her intelligence metrics straight back to her brilliant normal setting! Herta blinked rapidly, completely dazed and unable to remember a single thing about what had just happened to her mind. But the second she looked up and checked the live streaming monitors on the archive wall, her eyes locked onto her entire 0-IQ drooling face replaying live on the galactic channel. Madame Herta: "YOU!!! You absolute green menace! I am going to tear your yellow suit into digital shreds!!! You get back here right now!!!" Suddenly, a massive, swirling spatial rip tore directly down the center of the archive hall! Blazing with an intense, crackling dark red and deep purple aura of the Havoc element, Reaper 800 stepped majestically through the portal to completely shield and save Vantablack from any impending danger! The raw, staggering pressure of his presence hit the room like a physical shockwave, completely halting Herta's casting. Reaper 800: "Now, before I explain anything to this station, you better offer a complete apology to Vantablack right now! Robots absolutely do possess a true soul, and calling a Bangboo a rude, generic 'bot' is an incredibly offensive word in our sanctuary! So you better say you're sorry to Vantablack immediately. If you do, I will gladly give you a couple of our Bright Yellow Potions, a Red Potion, and even a White Potion sample for your Simulated Universe archives! Because Vantablack puts on the mask of the Bright Yellow Potion, it grants him several distinct, powerful personalities, and he deserves absolute respect. So, I am waiting... are you going to say sorry to Vantablack?" Madame Herta completely froze, her cosmic rage melting away into absolute, wide-eyed silence. Blushing in massive humiliation, she crossed her arms and lowered her head. Madame Herta: "All right... I'm sorry. I'm just a little curious about it, and now I know exactly what the Bright Yellow Potion does. So please forgive me, Mask Vantablack." Mask Vantablack: "I figured you would! Just don't ever say 'robot bot' again to a Bangboo or any robot kind, because not only does it make me angry, it also makes me deeply sad! I’m really, truly upset by that rude word! That’s what you get, sister—look at the stream chat logs! You're getting a massive tidal wave of hate comments and bad public opinion right now!" Reaper 800: (Looking directly up at the hovering broadcast lenses, his deep voice commanding the feed) "Hey, Owlbert. Do me a favor and show her exactly how stupid she sounded on the live broadcast. Replay it one more time—show the galaxy the exact moment Mask Vantablack slammed her by a golden frying pan!" Owlbert: "Outstanding! Master Creator, let's roll the tape again right now!" The main archive screens instantly flashed into a high-definition slow-motion loop, aggressively replaying her face squishing under the golden pan, her tongue sticking out comically, and her wobbly, 0-IQ drooling face saying stupid things to the servers. Seeing her absolute, brain-dead humiliation broadcasted to billions for a second time, Madame Herta suffered a total, shivering mental breakdown, grabbing her purple hat in pure anime shame! 12:20 PM – Galaxy Ranger Outpost (The Wild West Saloon) Right at that exact second, the space station's emergency audio grids crackled violently as Boothill violently hacked his saloon transmitter straight into her server lines! Boothill: "Now you listen to me, who the heck do you think you are?! Calling a sweet mechanical varmint a robot bot is an offensive word to come out of your mouth! So you go back to your little toybox and get right up your puppet saddle, you pretty little shirtbag!!!" Madame Herta: (Her mental breakdown instantly twisting into pure, nuclear intergalactic fury as she screams right back into the speaker console) "WHO THE HECK DO YOU THINK YOU’RE TALKING TO, YOU CHASSIS-LEAKING CYBORG?! I AM MADAME HERTA!!!" Boothill: (Roaring with laughter on the live audio feed, dropping a massive, unbendable final roast) "I'm talkin' to a total, certified zero-IQ space-clown, that's who! You spend all your time building plastic dolls of yourself because your real-body personality is so toxic that not a single living soul in the cosmos wants to invite you to a real dinner party! You're nothing but an over-glorified, lonely puppet-hoarder hiding behind firewall codes! And guess what? The whole galaxy knows it's true!" The absolute, devastating truth-bomb detonated across the stars! Across the entire Honkai: Star Rail universe—from the Xianzhou Alliance pavilion to the Masked Fools' lounge—millions of residents watching the television screens erupted into massive laughing, pointing at her red face because what the cowboy said was completely, undeniably true! Madame Herta: (Completely frozen, her mouth opening and closing like a fish as she shakes in supreme, silent rage) "I... you... how dare you..." Owlbert: (Sighing into his golden microphone, but nodding his white feathers in total corporate alignment) "Yikes!!! Not that one too! We have two completely angry persons aggressively arguing and screaming across galaxies! But honestly, looking at the live public feedback metrics on the screen... I actually completely agree with what the people are saying! She really needs to work on her customer service baseline!" Before the furious tech-witch could summon an orbital laser to disintegrate the studio tower, Reaper 800 dropped the alchemical bag onto the desk terminal. With a swift snap of his fingers, he and Mask Vantablack stepped backward into the crackling portal, closing the spatial rift completely as the transmission lines snapped closed to head toward the Masked Fools' coordinates!