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Erebus didn’t exactly hate the interstellar physics-breaking travel he’d had to get used to performing, but… stars, could it be disorienting.
Especially when following in the wake of a much larger body.
Especially when said body didn’t seem to have any care for letting you adjust.
He’d followed SIMP after she’d ordered him to, because he wasn’t dumb, but a glance around at the empty space surrounding them made him swallow hard, tucking Guillermo a little closer against his side. (Should he have brought the tiny reminder of a rock with him? Probably not. But where else would he leave him… with WISE? Ha! Erebus was learning to trust him more, but he had a long memory for being treated wrongly.)
“Cozy,” he whispered in Guillermo’s voice, trying to keep SIMP from hearing. “Did she bring us to the wrong galaxy?”
“It’d take much longer to travel galaxies,” Erebus corrected—yes, technically correcting himself, who cared—as he flicked Guillermo’s side gently before finally drifting forward, further into the suffocating grasp of SIMP’s gravity. “So,” he said, raising his voice confidently, “where’s our survivor? Hiding?”
SIMP didn’t say anything, and she didn’t turn to look at him either.
Erebus tugged at the lapels of his coat. “SIMP?” He knew this wasn’t going to be a friendly visit the moment SIMP had gotten someone to send for him, but he had, frankly, no idea what to expect from her. An explosion of anger? He could deal with anger, even if he was still a little wary about her threat of crushing him.
Silence was… a little creepier.
And harder to handle.
Was he supposed to keep talking and hope it didn’t annoy her into making true on her earlier threat? Shut the hell up and wait for her to decide it was time to speak? Whatever she wanted to speak to him about. Probably just another threat to keep himself in line for risk of punishment.
Or maybe this was just to keep him away from WISE.
She was looking less and less happy these days whenever she spotted the two of them together, probably because she knew he was at least part of the reason WISE wasn’t so much her lap-dog anymore. He finally had a conscience.
Wasn’t that nice?
Either way, he’d followed her through to somewhere he didn’t recognize, and now… he was realizing exactly how stupid of a decision that’d been.
“There’s no debris,” he said, almost thinking to himself. “And supernovas leave evidence. So either we’re here for a lone planet, your scouts are getting sloppy, or…”
And no matter what, why would SIMP be needed for any of it?
“Or,” SIMP interrupted, turning around with a smile that was definitely more triumphant than happy. “Or what?”
Erebus drew Guillermo a little closer.
“Tell me.”
Well. He was going to die.
What a sad, unhappy life. Ugh.
“What is this, a performance review?” he asked instead. “I’ve got some feedback of my own, starting with some about that onion follower of yours. He’s—”
“OGLE cannot lie,” SIMP said, her eyes still locked onto him, flat and black. “It’s his worst quality, but it makes it easier to keep him around.” She leaned in towards him. “I told him I knew he’d been tricked. Do you want to know what he said to me?”
Erebus set his jaw. “Can I say no?”
“He tried to make excuses for you, but he told me exactly what you did. What you told him, how you’re the one who sent him off to your solar system. You’re the reason he brought a star to our home and ruined all of our plans.”
Not mine, Erebus didn’t say out loud. Not anymore.
“Hey, uh—listen, SIMP.” He put his hands up, mouth stretching into a grin he knew probably looked nervous. “That’s… not what you’re thinking. I was trying to get him to bring the Earth back, not the Sun. I was trying to help.”
He knew that it’d probably lead to what it did, but… well, it’d be dumb as asteroids to say that aloud.
“Are you sure of that?”
He swallowed hard, mind scrambling for what else to say.
“I built a home for the abandoned,” she said, drifting closer. The distance between them grew shorter and shorter as Erebus barely resisted the urge to take a step back and free himself from the oppressive reach of her gravity. “I took you in when your original solar system failed you. I gave you a purpose, an audience chanting your name, a chance to save others, and what did you do for that? You manipulate one of my own and use him to put all of my subjects in danger.” She stared at him with something like sheer disgust in her eyes, her lips pulled back in a teeth-bared sneer. “You let a star find our home.”
“You were going to kill billions!”
“You don’t know that,” SIMP told him, unmoved.
“I watched that system for billions of years,” he argued, “I know exactly how fragile Earth’s life is. Do you have any idea what devastation it would have caused, to move Earth from the Sun? You’re not even thinking!” Her gravity closed tighter around him, an enveloping fist that crushed the breath out of him; and Erebus had felt it once before, but in comparison to this that was nothing.
Now, he could barely move, frozen in place and unable to even wince.
“Didn’t I warn you already?” SIMP said, menacingly, her gravity closing tighter. “It may have been about mocking me that time, but my threat—” He gasped on nothing, mouth opening silently. “—remains true for everything.”
Her gravity released just enough for him to speak.
“Yeah,” he gasped, “crushing me into a thirteen-centimeter black hole.”
SIMP lifted one eyebrow. “Yes. Now… convince me that your loyalty remains true to the rogue planets.”
“I don’t think you’d believe me no matter what I did,” he said, his entire body aching. “So why even try, SIMP? I could pledge my life to you and you wouldn’t believe it.”
Not that he would. He was more likely to return to the solar system than ever do that.
“You’re right,” she said, head tipping to the side. “Because your life means nothing to you.”
“Harsh,” he shot back, unable to resist. “Who said that?”
SIMP’s gravity closed around him even tighter than it’d been before, strong enough that his arms pressed against his chest, pinned in place—and then she reached forward, and Erebus realized what she was doing a mere second after she’d already grabbed Guillermo, the blue-faced rock tiny in her grip. “H-He-ey!” he protested. “S-Stop it!” More pressure rolled through him until it felt like his very bones were compressing, the air around him heating up. His nails dug into his palms with what little movement he could manage.
“SIMP! Don’t t-to-ouch him.”
“Oh? And what will you do about it?”
Her fingers curled in around Guillermo, obscuring the blue-painted face. “Allow me to give you one more chance, Planet X.” Her eyes flicked coldly to him. “Destroy this asteroid, and consider yourself forgiven for your betrayal. Or you can choose it over your new home.” Again, her gravity released; the sudden lack of pressure made him stumble forward before he caught himself, chest heaving.
“W-What?” he choked out. “Stars, no!”
Uselessly, he tried to reach out and rip Guillermo away from her with his own gravity; of course, his attempt failed miserably, and instead all she did was tighten her grip until a crack filled the air and he froze.
Here, take him with you… as a reminder of your home.
Uranus’s voice rose in the back of his mind as he watched a crack score across what little of Guillermo’s painted face he could see. “No!” He took a stumbling step backwards. “Listen, SIMP, I’m sorry, okay? The other planets… they needed to return home. They belong there. That was the only way to do it. It won’t happen again.”
SIMP’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t believe you.”
Erebus gave a strained laugh, eyes drifting between Guillermo and SIMP’s cold face. “What else am I supposed to do? Show you a practiced dance routine?” His mouth snapped shut when SIMP released Guillermo and reached toward him, fist closing a second before her gravity snapped around him and agony burned straight through down to his very core.
“I find myself more and more annoyed by you with every word you speak,” she told him. “Perhaps it’s better to just get rid of you and consider this all a failed venture, a lesson learned.” Even tighter, the air heating up around him.
“So do it,” he choked out, vision dimming at the edges. “Kill me.”
Stars above, this hurt.
“You’ve been d-dying to, I can tell.”
“And make a martyr for WISE to mourn? For your little chanting crowd?” The pressure eased just enough for him to drag in one shaky breath, his chest aching anew. “You misunderstand me, Planet X. I don’t plan to kill you. The rules are rules, and you have betrayed our kingdom. You shall never have the chance to return… even if I have to ensure it.”
Her eyes were tinged red, now, something rising from the darkness.
“I will return alone to my kingdom, and I will tell them the truth; that you chose something else over us, a new stretch of the heavens for yourself.” She smiled cruelly. “You have a history of leaving, yes? They will believe it, and they will be disappointed. And they will eventually stop speaking of you, a traitor of such short time.”
He wheezed. “WISE won’t buy that.”
“WISE will follow me,” she said, placidly, even as her expression flickered. “And you will be in no condition to come and argue.” Her gravity descended on him before he could even think of something to say in answer—but this time, rather than a fist closing tight around his entire body, it was like a vise around his chest, narrowing and narrowing, every bit of crushing weight bearing down on his core and nowhere else. Erebus had just enough time to realize what she was doing and inhale sharply before something inside of him cracked.
He screamed, the sound tearing through his throat raggedly.
Though he couldn’t hear himself over the ringing that burst into existence a second later, high and shrill, swallowing up his own sound and anything SIMP might have said. His body jerked helplessly as he tried to curl up and hide from the pain. But hiding was useless. The pain was all he could feel, was all his body knew as her grip tightened.
“SIMP,” he choked, barely aware of what he was saying. “S-Stop, p-please.”
Jupiter and Saturn’s gravity—the memory of which had always felt so close at core—was nothing in comparison to this, was like a light hug compared to a full-body crush.
She didn’t stop—if anything, the suffocating pressure increased tenfold, his entire body frozen in her grasp. Everything blurred around him, his own focus going in and out… but he could see the tiny speck of Guillermo floating just between them, and for a moment his own desperation outpaced the pain tearing through him. He reached for him; he couldn’t lift his arms, could hardly move at all, but his gravity was still his, however weak it was in comparison to SIMP’s.
He stretched it out as far as it would go and tried to curl it around the rock and drag him back where he belonged.
SIMP’s hand closed around Guillermo first as she plucked him from between them.
“So, you picked the rock,” she said, the same ringing in his ears nearly drowning her out. She turned Guillermo over in her hand, her thumb brushing across the crack she’d left in his painted face. Erebus felt like that was his own core she was touching. “You would not break him to save yourself.” Her eyes found his, full blood-red now. “So I will do it for you.”
“SIMP,” he pleaded, all of his bravado wiped clean. “Please.”
“You spent billions of years in the dark, Planet X. You’ll spend billions more in it.” She held Guillermo up right where he could see him. “I hope that you’ll realize this is the result of your own actions.” And she let him go, the vise grip around his core releasing completely as he crumpled in place, curling in on himself with a gasping cry.
He fought through the pain to uncurl, finding Guillermo in her grip. “SIMP…”
She said something else he couldn’t hear, couldn’t understand, couldn’t even pay attention to. He was too focused on the little blue face peeking out from between her fingers.
A reminder of your home.
No, he thought, dim and desperate. No!
He tried one more time to reach out with his gravity… and SIMP closed her hand, fingers curling in tight as Guillermo shattered in her palm, chips of rock and dust scattering outwards. He could see one fleck with a tiny bit of blue drifting past him, and with the last of his gravity he reached out, bringing the piece in until he could weakly grab it and close his fingers around the remnants of his only friend, his only reminder of home.
Erebus’s vision darkened more, and more, and he slumped in place, eyes sliding half-shut.
SIMP’s gravity closed around him once more, a gentle grasp against the tight crush it’d been before. “You told WISE once you were comfortable in the dark,” she said, voice swimming in his ears. “Enjoy a lifetime in it.”
And then he was moving, drifting off with a single gravitational push as he stayed curled around himself, and SIMP’s figure grew smaller and smaller, and he—
The stars were moving when he finally dragged himself back into consciousness.
He watched them for a long time without understanding why, sparse handfuls sliding past in long, blurry streaks, disappearing off one edge of his vision and coming back around on the other, over and over and over.
Then he realized, abruptly—
Stars didn’t move like that unless he was the one moving, and he was: tumbling end over end wherever that last push of hers had sent him, with nothing to stop him, nothing to slow him. It was… it was like his ejection, sent flying off without any control over himself, and stars, was it disorienting. As much as the interstellar travel was.
But he couldn’t focus on that for long, because his core hurt.
The scar on his face hadn’t ever hurt this much, and he’d thought that was painful. His core throbbed with every breath, and every time he breathed deep enough it burned, striking agony through him enough to tear a whimper out of him that he couldn’t even hear over the still-lingering ringing in his ears.
There was no room in his head for anything besides the pain.
And not just the physical pain, because he remembered.
He remembered watching SIMP’s hand close around Guillermo, remembered watching the tiny little asteroid crumble into pieces, remembered—
Weakly, he looked down at his hand where it’d curled up close to his chest, fingers closed tight around something sharp enough that it pricked his skin where it laid.
Around what little he had left of Guillermo, no more than a sliver.
For a long time he couldn’t make himself open his hand. After all… if he opened it, it might drift away. If he opened it, he’d have to look. He’d have to fully face what had happened to all he had left of the only home he’d known for billions of years (even if that home hadn’t known he existed… or hadn’t wanted to acknowledge his existence). When he finally did just enough to see, the fleck of rock sitting in his palm was no bigger than a fingernail.
A smear of blue paint still sat on one side of it.
That was all that was left of him.
He closed his fingers around it again, gently this time, and tucked his fist against his core.
Then he tried to go after SIMP. He didn’t even think about it, didn’t even try to stop how he was still tumbling through open space; he just reached for the interstellar jump the same as he always had, gathered himself up to break the laws of physics and go, go after her, go make her—go—
The moment he reached for it, the crack in his core flared so sharply his vision went completely black, his consciousness falling under a second time.
When he came back, he didn’t try again.
What was he even thinking? He knew nothing about where to go. Erebus just curled his fingers tighter around Guillermo’s remnant and tried to keep himself from focusing too much on the pain. You shall never have the chance to return, she’d said. You’ll spend billions more in it. She had meant every word.
Oh.
He was stuck here, tumbling through the dark.
And he was probably—definitely—an incomprehensible distance away from… home.
Without the ability to use interstellar jumping.
SIMP would go back to the kingdom and tell everyone he’d chosen freedom over them; the little rogues who’d chanted his name would probably believe her, because it was what a planet with his record would do; WISE would follow her, just like she’d said he would. He might question it, but… it wasn’t like he could do anything. The Solar System, meanwhile, thought he was out here on purpose, watching their backs and doing just fine.
Nobody would think to look for him. Nobody was coming for him.
“Hey, Guillermo,” he whispered, still hearing the same ringing in his ears. His fingers curled tighter until the sliver pricked deeper. “Uh. It’s me. I think I... I really messed up this time.” And it wasn’t even his fault, not really. He hadn’t known this was coming. He hadn’t known she’d go after Guillermo. “I’m sorry.”
Erebus dug his teeth into his bottom lip and looked for the Sun.
He couldn’t find it in the stars sliding past him, dot after dot of faraway strangers.
“I want to go home,” he whispered, eyes burning, unable to say it any louder. “Please.”
(He’d told WISE once that he felt more comfortable in the dark. He’d been lying, even then.
The dark always reminded him of the first time he’d been thrown away.)