Chapter Text
The evacuation alerts blared through the Herta Space Station. Annoying. Necessary, but annoying.
Herta—the real Herta, not one of her dolls—stood alone in her observatory, watching the researchers scramble into the last escape pods through the surveillance feeds. Her fingers drummed against the armrest of her chair with impatience. She'd calculated this moment down to the nanosecond. Predicted it. Prepared for it.
Well, prepared as much as one could prepare for their own annihilation.
"Herta." Screwllum's voice crackled through the comm system. "The final shuttle has departed. The station is clear."
"Good." She pulled up the navigational controls, her fingers dancing across holographic interfaces. "Now comes the fun part. Screwy, I'm transferring full access to the Curio collection and the Simulated Universe to you. Codes are already in your system."
"Herta, what are you—"
"Preserving my life's work, obviously." Her tone was matter-of-fact, but there was an edge to it. "I'm not letting Irontomb get its hands on centuries of research. It’s too valuable to lose. Make sure someone continues the experiments. You, preferably. You're the only one I trust not to mess it up."
"You're planning to move the station." It wasn't a question.
"To Amphoreus. Well, where Amphoreus is located, anyway." She began inputting coordinates, feeling the station's engines rumbling to life. The Space Station had been designed for mobility, though few knew it. One of her little secrets. "Irontomb will follow me. It has to—I'm an Emanator of Erudition, and the perfect bait. This way, I can face that thing somewhere far from anything I actually care about."
The silence that followed was heavy. When Screwllum finally spoke, his voice carried a weight that transcended his mechanical nature. "You know what you're asking me to witness. What you're asking me to...allow."
Herta's fingers paused over the controls. She understood. Screwllum had lived through the Mechanical Emperor's Wars—had watched as Rubert I's Anti-Organic Equation turned inorganic beings into instruments of annihilation, corrupting their consciousness until they had no choice but to destroy.
And now she was asking him to stand by while she became something just as monstrous.
"I know," she said quietly. "I know what Rubert became. What the First and Second Emperors cost the universe. But this is different, Screwy. Irontomb isn't driven by hatred of organic life—it's driven by hunger for the destruction of Erudition. If I don't intervene, if I don't give it... direction, it won't stop at half the cosmos. It'll consume everything Erudition stands for."
"And you believe you can control it? Redirect it?" There was no accusation in his voice, only profound concern. "Rubert I believed in its calculations too. Believed it was the only solution to organic imperfection."
"I'm not Rubert." Her voice hardened. "I'm not trying to eradicate anything. I'm trying to save it. And yes, the price is becoming something terrible, but at least I'm going into this with my eyes open. At least I can build in limits, failsafes. Make sure that when—if—you have to put me down, it's actually possible."
She heard the faint whir of Screwllum's internal mechanisms, the mechanical equivalent of a sharp intake of breath. "You've already calculated your own death."
"Of course I have. I'm Herta." She resumed inputting coordinates. "The calculations are absolute. Irontomb awakens. I intervene. The Third Emperor rises. And eventually, someone—probably you and the Astral Express crew—will have to do what Polka Kakamond did. Except this time, I'm making sure you'll succeed."
"Herta. You honor me with this responsibility," Screwllum said slowly. "But you also condemn yourself. There must be another way—"
"There isn't." Her voice softened. "I'm not Rubert, Screwy. I'm not doing this out of hatred or superiority. I'm doing this because someone has to, and I'm the only one in position to save Erudition."
"Herta. I'm not at peace with this." Screwllum's voice carried centuries of weariness. "I actively oppose Rubert. I continue to oppose what it represented. And now I must watch a friend walk the same path, even if for different reasons."
"Then promise me something," Herta said. "Promise me that when the time comes, you won't hesitate. The universe has seen enough Mechanical Emperors. Don't let sentiment make you slow."
"I promise." The words were heavy. "And Herta? For what it's worth...you are nothing like Rubert. You never could be."
She smiled, though he couldn't see it. "Let's hope that matters, even after I'm gone."
Through the viewport, she could see it now—a shadow against the stars, massive and inevitable. Irontomb. The thing that would unmake Erudition itself if she didn't intervene. THEY had known. Of course THEY had known. That's why THEY made her an Emanator, given her the tools she'd need for this exact moment.
The Third Emperor. After Rubert I and Rubert II, there would be a third. And this time, it would wear her face.
Too bad THEY couldn't have mentioned it was a one-way trip.
"Herta—"
"Screwy." Her voice softened, just barely. "I'm leaving something else for you. In my personal laboratory. A recording. You'll know when to deliver it, and to whom. Don't look into it—that's an order from a fellow Genius Society member."
"...Understood."
Herta stood, smoothing down her dress with hands that were—damn it—almost trembling. Unacceptable. She was Madam Herta, Genius Society member #83, the smartest person in the universe (her words, but also objectively true). Why was she nervous?
Because of him.
Ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. She was above such emotions; she attempted to communicate with an Aeon, built an entire simulated universe. And what had finally cracked her perfectly maintained emotional detachment? A Trailblazer with questionable fashion sense and a baseball bat.
She'd recorded the message three days ago, when the calculations had become certain. When she'd finally accepted there was no elegant solution that didn't end with her consciousness merged into something vast and terrible. It had taken her four tries to get through it without either deleting it in embarrassment or retreating into cold scientific detachment.
The station rumbled as its engines engaged fully. The jump to Amphoreus's coordinates would take hours. Hours to prepare. Hours to accept what was coming.
Herta walked to the observation deck, watching the stars streak past as the station began its journey.
When the station finally dropped out of hyperspace near Amphoreus's coordinates, she could see Irontomb's massive form emerging from the void, blotting out the stars. It was beautiful, in its way. Terrible and beautiful, like the end of all things.
She summoned her key scepter and raised it, feeling the power of Erudition flowing through her—Emanator's might, gift and curse intertwined. This would be the last thing she did as herself. The last choice that was purely Herta's.
"Well then!" she shouted to the cosmic entity. "Consider this an honor, being able to take in my inimitable beauty."
The station’s power surged and the foundations began to break down. Irontomb reached forward. And Herta’s vision went black.
Weeks Later
The battle had raged across three star systems.
When the Astral Express first received communication from Screwllum, they'd known something terrible was happening. Entire planets disappearing. A path of destruction that carved through space.
What they hadn't known—what no one had told them—was that the Third Emperor wore a familiar face.
"That's... that's..." Caelus's voice cracked as he observed the massive form before them. "That can't be—"
But it was. The silhouette was unmistakable even at this scale—Herta's distinctive profile.
"Madam Herta assimilated with Irontomb weeks ago," Screwllum's voice came through the comm.
Caelus felt sick to his stomach. He hadn't known. Hadn't even suspected.
"She made her choice. She calculated every outcome. This was the only way to ensure Irontomb didn't consume Erudition itself...didn't end the universe. She became the Third Emperor so that it might have limits. So that it might be stopped."
"Stopped. You mean killed."
"Yes."
Caelus stood, watching the Third Emperor tear through space.
"Caelus, we need you!" March's voice cracked over the comm.
His mind was somewhere else. Somewhere weeks ago, in her laboratory, when she'd called him "little one".
It doesn't matter who she used to be.
But it did matter. It mattered that those were her movements, her patterns, her genius turned into a weapon that was going to end everything.
They were all feeling it. The horror of raising weapons against someone who'd been their ally, their friend.
Against someone Caelus had—
He couldn't finish the thought. Couldn't let himself acknowledge what he'd been too scared to name before, and what was now too late.
"She's charging another attack," Welt said grimly. "Whatever we're going to do, we need to do it now."
...
When it faced Caelus directly, something in its attack patterns shifted. As if some buried part of it still recognized him.
The Third Emperor froze.
Around them, attacks ceased.
And all of a sudden, a beam of light shot out from Screwllum's fleet, striking the Third Emperor square in its core. Her massive form seized up, stuttering, locked in place by the weapon. The creature that had been Herta thrashed once, twice, then went utterly still, held in stasis.
"Holding her," Screwllum reported, his voice tight. "But not for long."
Fractures spread across the dark mask that obscured Irontomb-Herta's face—cracks that widened, then shattered. Part of the obsidian surface fell away in fragments the size of asteroids, tumbling into the void.
And there, beneath the cosmic horror, was her face.
A familiar face.
Beautiful and achingly familiar. And her eye—that deep violet eye he'd seen across countless debriefs and experiments—stared down at him with an expression that broke his heart.
Recognition. Grief. Love.
"C̷a̸e̷l̴u̶s̷." The voice that emerged was Herta's, distorted by the vast machinery of Irontomb but unmistakably hers. "Łīⱦⱦłē ꝋꞥē.. You should have... s̶t̷a̸y̵e̷d̴ ̶a̸w̵a̷y̶."
"I couldn't." His voice was barely a whisper, but somehow he knew she heard it.
"Stupid. I̶n̷e̸f̴f̷i̸c̷i̶e̷n̷t̸. Exactly what I...expected from you." Something that might have been a laugh echoed through the void, fragmenting into mechanical screeching. "Always the one I couldn't █████."
"Herta, please. Let us help you. There has to—"
"There isn't." Her massive form shuddered against the restraints, and when she spoke again, entire phrases dissolved into static. "The calculations... are ████████. But I'm g̷l̸a̷d̶...glad y̶o̸u̷'̶r̸e̷ ̸h̷e̴r̷e̸."
A single tear formed at the corner of that vast violet eye. It swelled, crystallized, and fell—a droplet the size of a small moon, glittering as it tumbled through space. Even transformed into this, even trapped in cosmic horror, she was still human enough to weep.
Still human enough to grieve what she was about to lose.
"Ɇꝟēꞥ īӻ Ī ȼⱥꞥ'ⱦ...ēꝟēꞥ īӻ ⱦħīꞩ īꞩ ⱥłł ⱦħⱥⱦ'ꞩ łēӻⱦ."
Screwllum readied the Imaginary Implosion Pulse—a weapon whose secrets Herta herself had inherited.
"Farewell, Herta."
The weapon fired.
The light was blinding—a severing of divine connection, the rope between Emanator and Aeon cut clean through. Irontomb-Herta's form began to fracture, to come apart, vast pieces of cosmic machinery crumbling back into the void.
And Caelus watched as the Third Emperor fell, watched as Herta's sacrifice finally reached its calculated conclusion.
The massive form disintegrated, breaking apart into light and shadow.
And with it, the last fragments of Madam Herta.
...
Caelus stood alone in parlor car staring out at the stars.
The battle was over. The Third Emperor was gone. Herta was gone.
And he was supposed to just... what? Keep going? Pretend that everything was fine?
He could hear the others moving through the Express behind him. March's quiet sniffling from her room. The low murmur of Himeko and Welt discussing... something. Logistics, probably. What came next. How they moved forward despite the circumstances.
How did anyone move forward from this?
His hands gripped the railing hard enough to hurt. She transformed into that thing, and he hadn't known. Hadn't suspected. Had just gone about his missions, his life, while she'd been suffering alone in that cosmic horror.
"You should have told me," he whispered to the empty air. "I would have—I don't know what I would have done, but something. Anything."
But that was the problem, wasn't it? She'd known. Known that he would have tried something reckless, something desperate. Known that he'd throw himself into danger for her without hesitation.
So she'd calculated every outcome and removed herself from the equation entirely. Protected him by not giving him the choice.
"Stupid genius," he muttered, roughly wiping at his eyes. "Always thinking you know better than everyone else."
The door behind him opened with a soft hiss.
Behind him, Screwllum approached silently, footsteps deliberately audible to announce his presence. "I believe," the mechanical Genius said gently, "that you should see this now."
He held out a small data chip.
"She recorded it three days before her…assimilation with Irontomb. Left instructions for me to deliver it to you after everything was over." Screwllum's voice carried an unusual weight of emotion. "She was very specific. You were to see it only after the threat was neutralized. Only after you were safe."
Caelus took the chip with trembling fingers. "What is it?"
"I don't know. She sealed it for your eyes only. But I believe she wanted you to understand why she made the choice she did. And perhaps...what it cost her."
Caelus sat alone in his quarters on the Astral Express, the data chip loaded into his personal device. His finger hovered over the play button for a long moment.
Finally, he pressed it.
The holographic display flickered to life, and there she was—Herta, alive and whole, sitting in what looked like her private laboratory. She wore her usual confident expression, but something in her eyes was different.
"Recording. Private. For Caelus's eyes only—and if any of you try to peek at this before delivering it, I'll kill you."
Despite everything, Caelus felt his lips twitch. So perfectly Herta.
She took a breath. Started. Stopped. Started again.
"I'm not good at this," she finally said, and he could hear the unusual vulnerability in her voice. "Feelings. All that messy biological noise that gets in the way of research. I've spent my entire life avoiding it, actually. Very successfully, I might add."
She paused, and he could see her gathering courage.
"But apparently, you managed to be the exception to that rule. Congratulations, little one. You've achieved what no other being in the universe could—you made the great Madam Herta actually give a damn about something other than the pursuit of knowledge."
She laughed, short and sharp. "Do you have any idea how annoying that is? I had plans. Experiments. Centuries' worth of research I wanted to complete. And instead, I kept finding excuses to have you run tests in the Simulated Universe. Kept engineering situations where you'd have to report back to me personally."
Her hand tightened around the armrest of her chair. "I told myself it was because you were an interesting test subject. That your unique connection to the Stellaron made you valuable. And maybe that was true, at first. But somewhere along the way..."
The words stuck. Even recorded, even knowing she was about to face oblivion, pride made her hesitate.
"Somewhere along the way, I started looking forward to seeing you. Started caring whether you came back from your missions safely. Started imagining—" She cut herself off, but pushed despite the unfamiliarity. "Started imagining what it would be like to actually have a future with someone. With you."
Caelus's vision blurred. He wiped at his eyes roughly.
"Pathetic, right? The great Herta, reduced to pining." But her smile was genuine now, tinged with regret. "I should have said something. Should have pulled you aside between Simulated Universe runs and just... told you. But I kept thinking I had time. That I could figure out the most elegant, efficient way to approach the problem of emotions."
Her expression shifted, became more serious. "But here's the thing about time, little one—it's not infinite. Not even for a Genius. And I've run out of it."
"By the time you see this, I'll be... something else. Something that used to be me, wearing my knowledge like a crown and my ambitions like a funeral shroud. The Third Emperor. Irontomb-Herta. Whatever you want to call it. Most likely start the third mechanical war."
She looked directly into the camera, her purple eyes intense. "And I need you to listen to me very carefully: Don't come after me. Don't try to save me. I'm choosing this. Someone has to stand between Irontomb and Nous, and I'm the only one positioned to do it. It's the most elegant solution to an impossible problem."
"I know you, little one. I know you'll want to find another way. You'll want to throw yourself into danger, to make some grand heroic sacrifice of your own. Don't. You're too valuable—to the Express, to the universe, to..." She swallowed. "To me. Even if I won't be around to appreciate it anymore."
Herta leaned forward, her voice dropping to barely above a whisper. "But I need you to know—before I become something that can't feel anymore—that you mattered. You matter. In a life dedicated to the pursuit of universal truths, you were the one I never predicted. The one I couldn't solve."
"I wish I'd kissed you. I wish—"
Her voice cracked, just slightly. "I wish we'd had more time. I wish I'd been less of a coward about all of this. I wish I'd told you that when you smile at me, it makes me want you. That's the kind of impossible thing you do to me, little one."
She straightened, pulling her usual confidence back around herself like armor, but her eyes remained soft. "You're going to keep blazing that trail of yours across the stars. You're going to be stupidly heroic. You're going to live enough for both of us."
"And maybe, sometimes, when you look up at the stars, you'll think of me. The real me. Not the thing I'm about to become. Think of the genius who thought she had everything figured out until a Trailblazer with a baseball bat showed up at her space station."
She paused, her hand hovering over to end the recording. Then she looked back at the camera.
Her smile trembled at the edges, and she drew in a shaky breath. "I love you, Caelus."
She pressed her fingers against her lips briefly, as if trying to hold back more words, more confessions that wanted to spill out. When she lowered her hand, her eyes glistened.
"Thank you for making the great Madam Herta feel something unfamiliar for once in her life. Thank you for being you."
She stood and moved closer to the camera. One final look—filled with all the what-ifs and might-have-beens she'd never find the answer to.
"Goodbye, Caelus."
She reached forward, and the recording ended.
Caelus sat in the darkness of his quarters, tears streaming down his face, the empty holographic display flickering in front of him.
His mind flashed back to the battlefield—to that single, vast violet eye, the crystal tear, and her voice, distorted and vast, calling him "little one" one last time.
"I would have told you too," he whispered to the empty room. "I would have said it back. I wish—"
But wishes were for alternate timelines. For other versions of reality where she didn't have to sacrifice herself to save the universe. Where two people too proud and too guarded could find the courage to be honest before it was too late.
On the console, another file activated—Herta's research notes, everything she'd learned in those final moments. A gift from beyond the grave. Knowledge purchased with her life.
Caelus reached for it, then pulled back. Not yet. He'd look at it eventually, would honor her sacrifice by using what she'd learned. But right now...
Right now, he needed to grieve. For the future they'd never have. For the words they'd never say in person.
Outside his window, the stars flickered, and somewhere among them, an echo of Herta's consciousness had scattered.
Caelus stayed. Watching the stars. Remembering purple eyes and an impossible smile and the way she'd called him "little one" like it was something precious.
Remembering Herta.