The Null Oblivion

“It seems things never change, do they?”

“Indeed they don’t, Tennyson.”

“You’re going down, Infern.”

“You will be the one losing this fight, Tennyson.”

“I don’t think so, Infern.”

“I think you will, Tennyson.”

“Prepare for defeat, INFERN!”

“YOU are the one who should-”

Without warning, a shape darted across the quarry and grabbed the teenager by the neck, slamming him repeatedly into the asphalt, and then applying pressure on their grip until an audible crack was heard, for good measure.

“HUH?! What was that for, Effie?” On one side of the quarry, previously facing off against his adversary, was a bulky, viney humanoid. Magma intersected the gaps between the plates of mossy rock which made up its skin, and its face was embedded into a slab vaguely resembling a flower bud. Someone familiar with alien races may have struggled to place it as either a Pyronite or a Methanosian, but the short answer was simply that he was both.

Across from him, holding the corpse of the aforementioned adversary, the mismatched blue-and-green eyes of a cat stared back at him. It was not quite human, its too-pink desaturated flesh and the cartilage stretched in the form of a head - giving it the impression of a cat’s skull - giving it away, despite its body mainly resembling that of a taller adult. “Don’t call me that, Infern. It’s FF. You said to kill Ben Tennyson, so I did.”

“Well, yes, but you can’t just do it like that. The plant - Infern - stumbled over his words, “We’re supposed to have a fight and stuff and like... I’d win and then kill him.”

“Kay, but this is way simpler.”

“N-no? You can’t just snap a teenager’s neck. That’s gross.” Infern’s eyes flicked to what used to be Ben Tennyson, checking for possible signs of life. That’s how the cliche was supposed to work, right? Any second now, he’d be coming back with a bluff, and then they could have that fair fight.

“We’re villains. Speaking of which, the hell’s Jeff?” FF cocked their head towards the quarry edge. Outside of their movements, the entire area was silent, the grey afternoon sky lacking any wind, and nobody who they might have expected approaching.

“That’s not the point right now! The point is that you brutally murdered a child in the middle of us squaring up to each other, and now you’re worried about our idiotic teammate who’s always late anyway-” Infern was interrupted by a sudden flash, and a new voice cutting in.

“He was held up fighting me.” As Infern tried to place the voice, another flash - this time definitively green - enveloped his vision, and as he turned, Ben Tennyson stood across from him, very clearly alive.

“YOU are the one who should-” Before Infern had time to process anything, FF shot forward again, this time tackled down by another shape. FF kicked the dwarfish figure off, only for it to grab onto them again before Infern could figure out what was going on at all. He shot Ben a confused look, and Ben shot one back, neither moving from where they stood.

In another gasp of light, the smaller creature shifted into a green juggernaut which Infern had seen before - the form that Tennyson called ‘Ultimate Humungousaur’. Before the brute could move, FF had flipped onto its back, a series of flashes and cracks going down Ultimate Humungousaur’s shell; a hallmark of their signature ability. The hunched dino moaned, and took a heavy swing at FF, who had already jumped back in front of it, and was preparing to release a flurry of kicks

“Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait wait. Stop, both of you. I can barely make sense of this.” Infern shouted, and FF paused, turning to the hybrid with the same confused look as earlier. “First of all, didn’t you just kill Ben Tennyson?”

“Time reversal.” Both FF and Ultimate Humungousaur replied in unison. FF continued, “It was pretty obvious from the flashes, plus we know about Tennyson’s Chronosapien form.”

“Oh, okay.” Infern paused. “Wait, wait, how did you reverse time if you were dead?” Infern pointed at Humungousaur, who tapped their Ultimatrix symbol, releasing another green flash. In its wake, a half-familiar face stood.

The girl wore the same white-T-shirt green-jacket combo as Ben Tennyson, and her face was nearly identical, but her hair was fashioned into a longish ponytail, and a green streak ran down its side. “I did that.”

Infern stared. He blinked. He blinked again. “Huh.”

“We’ve met before. I’m Jen - or like, Jenny works too.” The girl held up her wrist, displaying an Ultimatrix identical to Ben’s sitting on it.

“It’s the sister.” FF started before Infern could utter his confusion again, “You know, from that one time we were poisoning the water supply.”

Infern remembered that, at least. They were going to dump toxic chemicals into the Bellwood water supply (FF had asked how this would possibly help kill Ben Tennyson, but Jeff was more than eager to do it), and they were interrupted by Tennyson himself, who had used a combination of his Sonorosian evolution and then his Biosovortian and Necrofriggian evolutions at once to foil his plans.

“You’re saying... that wasn’t clones... but another Ultimatrix wielder?”

“Yeah.” Ben walked forward from his side of the quarry, patting his apparent sister on the back. “Nice thinking with the time stuff, by the way. I would’ve been in deep if you weren’t there.”

“How long have there been like... both of you?”

“Huh? Always.” Ben stared at Infern like he was an idiot, which he most definitely, and totally, was not. “The Ultimatricies came as a pair.”

“Didn’t you see us on the news? I thought you went after us because you saw us on the news.” Jen added.

“Yeah but like... since when were there two of you?” Infern frowned. He was 100% sure this was a new thing.

“The news reports have always covered two aliens.”

“But I thought that was just your Sonorosian tactic.”

“All the time?”

“It’s useful. I don’t know why you would reserve it for just a specific episode of combat.”

“Well, yeah, but I don’t know why we’d use it every single time either. It’d get boring.”

“Fine, fine. So, now we fight?” Infern looked at FF, who grinned as much as they could with that weird skull for a face.

“Why are you here, anyway?” Jen turned towards Ben, both making sure to keep their hands hovering over their Ultimatricies.

“That dastardly Infern said that he was holding my girlfriend hostage! What else could I do?”

“Ben, why would your girlfriend be in a quarry?” Jen questioned.

“That’s where villains hang out!” He immediately answered.

“Ben, you don’t have a girlfriend.” Jen pointed out.

“I might have had some kind of fling I forgot about, I had no time to consider.”

“Ben, you’re gay.”

“Oh, yeah. Well... I had no time to think about it! People could have been in danger!”

“Is this fight going to start, or should I just leave?” FF sighed, “Apparently I’m not allowed to just murder you immediately, so I’m kinda pressed to start whatever trivial scuffle we’ll have so I can actually just kill both of you.”

“Of course you aren’t just allowed to kill me. It has to be fair. What, do you think I can just turn into Alien X and win everything?” Ben began to protest, while Jen began to discreetly scroll her Ultimatrix.

“You don’t have control over that form, I’m aware.”

“I might one day. Then I could just retroactively win every previous battle too.”

“It would be an incredibly poor decision to give either of you complete control of a Celestialsapien, especially considering that device of yours evolves every form immediately.”

“It would not! How do you know all of this, anyway?”

“Unlike Infern, I actually read up on my supposed nemesis. And given what I’ve heard and seen of you, you’d probably just punch or throw people around with all of that omnipotent power.”

“I would definitely not just punch or throw people around if I had full access to Alien X. Also, it’s nigh-omnipotent.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s just omnipotent, because-” The budding argument between the two was interrupted by a sudden rush of water, knocking both of them off of their feet.

“Ben, Arctiguana!” A voice from beyond the flood called, and as Ben changed, mist shot from within the water, freezing over. Infern’s legs were encased in the ice, while everything but FF’s head was trapped inside.

Its source was a colossal, crustacean shell, which Infern didn’t need to see the spiked Ultimatrix symbol on its hood to guess its identity. From its base form, its shell had changed colour to a pearly beige, and grown thicker by two fold. The alien arms - if any - could not be seen, both owing to the warm mist spreading around it from its vents, and to the six, thick legs beneath it.

“Ultimate Water Hazard!” She announced, turning its green eyes towards the frozen Infern.

“Ultimate Arctiguana!” The other alien announced, digging through the ice that had inadvertently surrounded it. “You’re trapped, Infern!”

“Curses! I’ve fallen to your combo attack! Free me immediately!” The hybrid shouted, struggling against the ice.

FF rolled their eyes, “Infern. Think about why you might be able to escape from this.”

“Huh?”

“Don’t be stupid! Both of you are as good as popsicles.” Arctiguana boasted.

“Ultimate Water Hazard’s pressure is impossible to counter, even if you were to escape, we could just bombard you again.” She added.

FF sighed again, “Please. Infern. Please think about how you could possibly escape this. It’s very simple.”

“I have no idea what you mean, Effie.”

“We’re taking you both into custody. It’s the end of the line.” Arctiguana repeated.

“God, I have no idea why I work with any of you. Look at your body.”

“Uh huh. It’s encased in ice.” Infern observed.

“And what beats ice?”

“What, in Pokémon or... ?”

“I give up.” FF clicked their fingers, and a series of fissures broke out through the ice, before the whole block shattered entirely. They dashed to Ultimate Water Hazard, and placed their hands on her shell, before it began to break, violently decimating. With a scream, Jen reverted, and FF took the opening to repeatedly knee her in the stomach, grabbing her wrist to prevent her from transforming again.

“Get away from her!” Ultimate Arctiguana’s ice cannons aimed at FF and fired, who skipped out of the way and threw Jen into its path. The blast narrowly missed, and Arctiguana cursed, moving a paw up to its Ultimatrix symbol and switching into an alien with skin matching the gravel around them, thin magma vents intersecting its otherwise stone body. Heat radiated from it, enough that Infern could feel it.

“Ultimate Heatblast!” He announced, holding a cracked palm to FF. “Stop. Now. This fight isn’t fair!”

FF’s eyes narrowed. “First of all, whatever you’re going to fire, I can just dodge. Second of all, fights aren’t supposed to be fair! We are the villains, and I was told that our goal was to kill Ben Tennyson. I have done that once already now, and I’m perfectly willing to do it again, but apparently that’s not fair?”

“Obviously.” Infern stated as if FF should’ve known in the first place. “You cannot just attack random children while they’re defenseless, it’s not appropriate. If people bothered to attack him while he was unarmed, he would’ve died a long time ago.”

“Exactly! That is exactly what we are trying to do here!”

“No. I mean, it is, but like, fairly.”

“Both of them have transformed during this fight. I really can’t see how it isn’t fair at this point.”

Infern gestured to the crumpled Jen on the ground, clutching her stomach and attempting to scroll the Ultimatrix.

FF sighed, “Listen. Do you really want to kill Ben Tennyson, or do you just like fighting him?”

“Huh?” Infern was about to retort, but FF continued.

“You said you’d pay us for helping us kill him, right? But I did that, and you said I did it wrong. All this time, in our little team, we’ve accomplished nothing but petty crime. We tied him up at that train station, and he just rolled out of the tracks. We robbed that jewellery store, but none of us know how to sell stolen goods. It feels like it’s just day after day we come up with generic plots and nobody progresses anywhere. I stayed on for the bounty, but unless I get a good reason for why you still haven’t killed him, or even, why you want to kill him in the first place, I’m getting another job.”

Silence passed between the group. By the time Infern began to respond, Ultimate Heatblast had already lowered his hand, and Jen had transformed into Ultimate Swampfire and had begun healing, but FF either didn’t notice, or didn’t care.

“Well. Look at me. I’m a horrible hybrid.”

“Weren’t you born that way?” FF interrupted.

“Shut up! I’m a horrific hybrid, and I desire to be pure again. The Ultimatrix is my only hope at that... I can take the Pyronite DNA from it and reverse-engineer it onto myself. The device, however, is locked onto Ben Tennyson. So he needs to be dead, for me.”

“Look man,” Ultimate Heatblast tapped his symbol, letting himself revert to Ben, “You could’ve just asked. There’s a-”

“No! In this form, I cannot ever be accepted in society. It’s the only way, even if, I don’t really want someone this young dead.”

“No, I mean, there’s a function here that I’m pretty sure can do what you want, like, right now without-”

“That is why I fight! If you cannot accept that, Effie, that’s fine. But despite my moral obligation to kill Ben Tennyson, it’s hard to actually bring myself to do it.”

FF attempted to speak, “Listen man, Ben is literally saying that he can solve your problem right now.”

“But Effie, you’ve invigorated me. I’ll do it. I’ll kill them both. For myself. Starting... now.” Before Ben could try to explain again, a fireball shot past him, and Infern charged, attempting to grab Ben as he hit down on the Ultimatrix and with Ultimate Big Chill phased through the angry, rather stupid villain.

“I actually do give up. Deal with him yourself, I’m finding less idiotic people to work with.” FF growled, turning to leave the quarry, and freezing. “On second thought. Both of you should probably...

Ultimate Big Chill shot upwards, before divebombing down and soaring directly into Infern’s palm and the fireball within it. Grabbing onto the moth alien’s body with his other hand, Infern slammed the Ultimatrix symbol, and watched the defenseless Ben fall to the ground.

“Moron. Now that I really will kill you, do you expect me to have any mercy?”

“You just answered your own question.” Hitting the Ultimatrix again, Ultimate Wildmutt pounced onto Infern from the resulting flash. Moving to get up, a sudden weight forced him back down again, and Ultimate Gravattack grinned at him from above.

“Too easy.” Both Ultimatrix wielders chorused. “Infern, I gave you a chance.”

“Curse you Ben Tennyson!” Infern cried, attempting to move to no avail. “I-”

“For the last time!” FF snapped, causing all three individuals to turn as well as they could to them. “This entire confrontation hasn’t made any sense at all, especially not whatever just happened between you. But that isn’t even important right now, somehow, what’s important is what’s outside this quarry.”

“Huh? There’s nothing.” Ultimate Gravattack shrugged.

“Exactly. Look, properly.”

And there it was. Or, wasn’t. The absolute absence of anything - not even empty space. From where Infern could see, there wasn’t even a horizon. “What’s... that about?”

“I don’t know. Anyone wanna chuck something in and find out?” FF gestured to the abyss, and Ultimate Wildmutt obliged, walking up to it and switching into Ultimate Echo Echo.

“Ultimate Echo Echo!” The blue robot released a disk, which had in an instant become a copy of himself. The clone hovered into the darkness and...

“Well?” FF waited. Ultimate Echo Echo stood, and said nothing.

“It’s gone. It got... erased.” Reverting into Ben, he stepped away, leaving FF staring at it.

“I’ve already checked, it’s all around us. And while you two were fighting over nothing, it’s been getting closer.”

“What’d you do, Infern?” Ben shot a look at the grounded hybrid, whose current situation left him without enough strength to even shrug.

“I did nothing! Effie, did you-”

“Obviously not.” They growled, “Whatever this is is someone else. And it might really be a problem. Ben, when you said your disc got ‘erased’, was it teleported, or anything like that?”

“Hey, hey, hey. We’re not on first-name basis yet. We’re enemies.” Ben began to protest, “Saying ‘Ben Tennyson’ angrily is different from just calling me-”

“I don’t have time for this right now, it’s very likely that all of us are about to be swallowed up, and that includes you. What did you mean by ‘erased’?” FF snapped, prompting Ben to get to the point.

“I meant erased. Gone. Not even reduced to atoms, but completely annihilated. That... nothing is going to erase us.” Ben stepped back in dawning horror.

“Let me try to push it back.” Ultimate Gravattack released her grip on Infern - prompting a sharp gasp from him - and held her arm out towards the void. Nothing. “It’s like... there’s not even something to push back. Like an absence, an...”

“Incomprehensible abyss.” FF finished, before stepping back again. The abyss had gotten closer, and Infern attempted to process how much time they had left. The void was only apart from them by few meters, at most. “Celestialsapien, now. Alien X, whatever, just become it, both of you.”

“Huh? I don’t take orders from you.” Ben retorted.

“He means we can’t.” Jen added, “There are keys to unlock the form which we need, and they’re held by our cousins.”

“Cousins who are currently swallowed up by that, assuming it isn’t just some big wall around us.” Ben frowned.

“Although... the Ultimatrix does have a failsafe function, to prevent mortal danger. If something can stop that wall of nothing, it’ll figure it out.”

“Didn’t work that well for you a few minutes ago though, did it?” Infern mumbled, receiving a jab from FF.

“There is a time and a place for banter, and the threat of death looming over all of us isn’t one,” they lashed. “even if we’re still ‘enemies’.”

“You were the one who did it! Plus, it’s a valid criticism. He died without anything activating.” Infern returned, before Ben cut in.

“Mine was off. They have to be manually turned on, in case you just get turned into aliens in random situations.”

“What kind of ‘random situations’ could be mistaken for mortal danger?”

In response, Ben shot a very strange look, which Infern really couldn’t describe, and then suddenly turned to where Jen was. A place that was now home to the void.

“Ah, crap. I’m not gonna process whatever just happened for a while, probably too late, so I might as well give it a try.” Ben started to scroll his own Ultimatrix, before it began to flash teal, and he held it out to the nothingness. It let out a series of beeps, before a flash surrounded Ben, leaving the form of... himself remaining.

“Huh?” Ben tapped the watch a few times, causing it to beep in response. “Alien X is inaccessible.”

“What do you mean, inaccessible?” Infern snapped.

“It says it’s unlocked, but the transformation doesn’t work. But that’s impossible. Alien X is an entire universe.” Ben continued to tap the Ultimatrix, receiving the same series of beeps in response each time.

“You mean, the universe which is being erased right now?” FF gestured to their lack of surroundings.

“Well... there has to be...” Ben hit the watch, transforming him into a slim, golden robotic form. Gears turned in its centre, and a key spinning on its head. “Ultimate Clockwork.” He announced, with less than enthusiasm, and held his hand out to Infern. “I’m going to send you to another timeline. Both of you. Please...” Ultimate Clockwork trailed off, prompting looks of concern from Infern and FF, who knew all too well what he was going to say. “That can’t be right... it’s like, there aren’t any other timelines either. They’re all gone. But-”

And then there was nothing. Ultimate Clockwork’s back entered the void, and the rest of him stumbled backwards with it, as Ben Tennyson ceased to exist.

“Oh.” FF said. And Infern had to agree.

“What now?”

“There’s an abyss around us which will erase us any minute. The two people who might’ve saved us are gone, and while doing that they proved that even Celestialsapiens aren’t available for whatever reason, and time itself is gone too. At this point I should be asking if you have any last words.”

“Well...” Infern looked around at the non-existence surrounding them. It would reach them both at any second. “I thought I’d have more time to think of stuff. Uh... do you?”

“I’d need more time as well.”

“Oh. Well, I suppose here’s to Ben Tennyson, for being a neat adversary, and giving me something to do for a few months.”

“That’s fair enough.”

“I feel like we should be more dramatic given that we’re about to both die, though.”

“That’s also fair enough, but I’ve either already accepted it, or don’t have time to process it, or both, I don’t have time to determine that either.”

“Yeah.” Silence passed for a precious second. “Oh, wait, I just realised.”

“What?”

“At least now we know where Jeff went.”

Those were the last words spoken before everything was nothing.