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 Posted: Sun Dec 21, 2025 12:17 am
As soon as they arrived on the surface of his homeworld, Pyrrhus withdrew his arm, tucked his phone back into subspace, and adjusted his parasol to ensure it was fully covering himself.
The protection...wasn't really enough. Though it had done fine for Earth's sun, the harsh, beating light of the star the illuminated his world seemed much stronger, somehow--stronger and brighter, enough that he was sure he visibly winced. Although it had been nighttime on Earth, here it was harsh, violent day, illuminating a world bleached dead.
It took Pyrrhus a moment to orient in the blinding light and recognize fully where they were. Once, this had been a market square; the tattered remains of abandoned stalls still sat out, their decorative fabrics washed pale. The cobblestones under their feet were cracked, and even the buildings around them--in miserable disrepair--showed signs of sun damage. The fountain at the center of the square, built around a statue of Bael and Araush in loving embrace, both holding a dagger likely intended for an enemy's heart, was cracked in multiple places.
And there was no life to be seen, anywhere. Not a single weed grew among the broken cobbles. It was deathly silent, absent birds or insects ore any other signs that anything had ever existed there.
A dead town, through and through.
"My world used to exist in eternal night. You'll forgive my discomfort; my people did not evolve for....this. But the sun rose after Chaos came, and you can see what it did."
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Posted: Sun Dec 28, 2025 2:55 pm
The searing heat made Tyndareus begin to sweat almost immediately, and he loathed it. The sudden dryness in the air, even compared to the dryness in the winter on Earth, made him wheeze and cough, choking on it. He nearly stumbled, but managed to stay upright despite a little bit of sway to his stance. "Good grief," he said. After taking a moment to adjust to the heat as much as he could, he looked around. Damn... It really was completely, and utterly, dead. It couldn't even be called a ghost town. That would require ghosts. But nothing existed. A vast nothingness. No chirps or buzzes of anything living. Not a hint of green. No evidence that at the very least, nature was reclaiming the soil from the civilization that had tamed it. A shiver ran down his spine, despite himself. He wanted to deny the hand that Chaos had had in this, but... He could feel it. It was subtle, but if he focused hard enough (which of course he did, when he wanted empirical evidence that Chaos hadn't done this), he could sense it. It was a different shape than the Chaos he knew intimately back on Earth, with the Negaverse, but it was unmistakably some kind of raw Chaos permeating the atmosphere. "It suffocated everything," he whispered, shell-shocked.
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Posted: Sun Dec 28, 2025 3:11 pm
Pyrrhus nodded, a bitter little smile on his face. "You see why I can't just go back where I came from. There's nothing left of it."
The corpse of a planet, all the life scoured off its surface, it's people driven underground and driven mad by the loss of everything they'd had.
"We retreated into the caves under the planet, but it followed us there. Strange creatures down in the dark that hunted my people like prey. There was infighting. Violence. And now, I'm all that's left."
He looked over the buildings around them--there was one nearby whose roof seemed mostly intact, and he beckoned for Tyndareus to follow him, so they could at least get out of the infernal sun.
"And it's not just this world. Thalassa was taken by a plague of exhaustion. Despair brought Troilus's people to their knees. A disease no healer could conquer killed the people of Helene. All Chaos, in different forms. Every one ravaged a world."
He ducked inside, and sighed in relief to be in the shade, able to see again without miserable sunlight blinding his eyes.
"This is what Chaos does, Tyndareus. It hungers. And it eats. Until it's eaten away everything it can take. I can only imagine what having it in your starseed can do, because I have never heard of that before. Anywhere."
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Posted: Sun Dec 28, 2025 4:31 pm
Tyndareus listened, taking all the information in slowly as he followed Pyrrhus into a building. The shade granted some relief from the heat, but not much. He fanned himself, wishing he could take off parts of his uniform, or slice off the extensive hair that powering up gave him. The explanation of what had occurred to multiple planets had his skin crawling. People just dropping dead. The planets themselves suffocating under the weight of... Chaos. The very same Chaos that he had in his starseed. Poisoning him. What the hell was it doing to him, then? Of course, the Chaos on Earth had to be some very unique form, if it wasn't strong enough to bring all of Earth to its knees at the same time, but had enough strength to attack people starseed by starseed. "Well, damn," he finally muttered, for lack of anything better to say. "That... changes things."
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Posted: Sun Dec 28, 2025 4:38 pm
Pyrrhus smiled, a little bitterly. Well, at least it changed things. At least Tyndareus wasn't so foolish as to brush all of this under the rug, to insist it would never happen to him or his home.
....Maybe that was growth, across lifetimes. If it was, Pyrrhus did sort of have to appreciate it.
(And maybe things weren't as hopeless as he'd let himself fear. If Tyndareus could be made to rethink things...if he could see the better way in front of him....)
(Maybe Pyrrhus hadn't broken everything.)
"I'm glad you understand," Pyrrhus said. "I'd have been a little disappointed if I dragged you all the way up here just for you to tell me it didn't matter, or that you thought we were uniquely weak and stupid, or whatever."
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Posted: Mon Dec 29, 2025 8:58 pm
Tyndareus scoffed. "I'm egotistical, not an idiot. Of course humanity isn't the peak of evolution across millions of planets that previously held life. That's simply impossible," he said, absolutely disgusted with the notion that he'd think that humanity was anything near perfection. "Especially when you're considering everything as a whole." He hesitated for a moment. "On the other hand, individuals might be smarter than a few planetfuls of people," he said dryly. "Still, certainly not better than millions." He pulled at his long hair, lifting it and trying to cool off a little. The heat was horrific. He'd rather go back to freezing his a** off on Earth.
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Posted: Mon Dec 29, 2025 9:04 pm
Pyrrhus shrugged. "I've witnessed some incredible displays of ego among your people. You might have believed you were--what's the charming phrase?--built different." But he smiled, wry and a little playful, and extended a hand.
"Thank you. For coming, and for listening to me. But as you can imagine, I don't enjoy being here for long, now that the option not to be exists." In fact, he had not come back at all, and in truth sort of didn't plan to for a long time after this. But it had been necessary, to show Tyndareus the truth. "I'll take us back to Earth. And out of this cursed ******** sun."
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Posted: Mon Dec 29, 2025 9:06 pm
Tyndareus couldn't help a little laugh at that. Yes, that sounded like something some idiot would say, right before getting their a** kicked, as well. "Yes, I'd rather roll around in the snow bare naked than spend a second longer in this awful sun," he agreed, taking Pyrrhus's hand and trying not to think about how nice that felt.
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