Mikoto felt cold. It was as if her body could feel the darkness of this ever deathly world. She rode behind Tetrax on his hoverboard as he rode through the webs of rocks with Ben on his shoulder. It was a world of utter darkness. And they weren't alone..............
Ectonurites flew around aimlessly throughout the entire dark rocky void, occasionally stopping to watch as they flew past. Sometimes they would look at each other and hiss randomly, as if they could tell their master dwelled within Ben Tennyson. Mikoto tried to ignore them. Every single purple eye from the Ectonurites reminded her of GhostFreak........Something she did not like to think about.
"The Alter of Zs'Skayr should be around 12 clicks from here." Said Tetrax. "At the speed we're going....we'll barely make it."
"Don't tell me the odds." Said Mikoto. "Just keep going."
The Ectonurites hissed at the mention of the Alter of Zs'Skayr. Almost as if they could feel something stirring in them at the mention of that name. An old yearning to follow one dark lord. The yearning of a hive mind.
They continued to move for a few hours. Mikoto could feel herself counting down the minutes, like a ticking time bomb that would go boom any second. And if that bomb went boom, she could say goodbye to Ben forever. Occasionally she would hear Ben groan and his body would flicker, like it was trying to go intangible. The Omnitrix was now no longer returning to it's green color. Even parts of the Omnitrix that wasn't the face plate had turned purple. A small alarm would go off at 12 minute intervals, letting them know that another firewall within the device had been bypassed.
Time was running short........
Suddenly Mikoto heard a noise that sounded familiar. It was the sound of another hoverboard. "What is that?"
"That would be my contact here in Anur Phaetos." said Tetrax. "He's the one who let me know about Ascalon in the first place. He's a rookie Plumber who was stationed on this planet."
Suddenly a tall figure in proto-armor soared in next to Tetrax on a hoverboard of his own. He had a cat-like face with pointy ears and perrywinkle blue fur. He also had black and white stripe patterns on his face. "Greetings Tetrax sir, I am glad you have made it. I fear our time might be short...."
"Mikoto, this is Rook Blonko." said Tetrax. " A Revonnahgander. He may be just a rookie, but he's also extremely skilled."
"It is an honor to meet you master Railgun ma'am." said Rook. "I have heard many a legend about you back in the Plumbers barracks."
"Legends?" Mikoto said confused. "What legends?"
"Your many exploits with the legendary Ben Tennyson are famous." said Rook. "Is it true that you actually took on Vilgax single handidly when master Tennyson was injured during the Daihaseisai?"
"Well.....yeah." said Mikoto feeling surprised that word of her could actually spread throughout the Universe like that. "But I barely got out of there with my life."
"And of course there is the high controversy about you and Ben supposedly having more then just a friendly relationship that was on Intergalactic News Celebrity section the other day.........." Rook continued.
"That's enough now Rook." said Tetrax. "This is hardly the time for fan interviews."
Rook nodded. "That much is true. I will show you the way to the Alter master Tetrax."
Mikoto leaned in and spoke to Tetrax. "Since when have I been so well known?"
"Ben Tennyson is already an intergalactic legend." said Tetrax. "The fact that he has the Omnitrix, has defeated Vilgax multiple times, and once saved the entire universe is spoken about througout the galaxy in the forms of stories, over exagerated poems, and songs. It's only natural that someone like you who lives with him would be well known."
"Wait, he saved the Universe once!? I never heard about this!"
"Ben doesn't like to talk about it." said Tetrax. "Mainly because he actually has no memory of it."
"What?!"
Rook now joined in the conversation. "Indeed, I have heard of this story. It is when Ben Tennyson saved the universe from the aliens known as the Highbreed."
"Highbreed? Sounds like a weird Academy City science project."
"The Highbreed were a race of alien creatures that were racist against every species but their own." said Tetrax. "Because of their racism. Their inbreeding lead to a lack of resistance to disease as well as sterility. The Highbreed were on the verge of extinction. So they came up with a devestating plan. If they were going out, then they would take out the entire universe with them as well. One by one they infiltrated the planets of other intelligent life. After which they prepared to invade and 'cleanse' the planets of their 'mongrel insects'.
"Ben saved the Universe from that?" Mikoto said surprised. "And where was Earth in all this. I'm pretty sure I would remember if there was an invasion to 'cleanse' our planet."
"The Highbreed warships never made it through the hyperspace gateway that was built near Ben's hometown." said Tetrax. "Ben traveled through the gateway to the Highbreed home planet. There, instead of fighting the Highbreed, Ben tried to reason with them. He then decided the only way to stop this madness was to save them, so he set the Omnitrix to do an overload fusion."
"Overload fusion?"
"Basically the Omnitrix would create a shockwave that would fuse every Highbreed on the planet with random DNA samples from the Omnitrix, and by changing their DNA, making them able to breed and resist disease again. But something went wrong. The Highbreed Supreme's (ruler of the Highbreed homeplanet) racism would not allow that kind of salvation. He attacked Ben just as he was about to start the fusion process. The Omnitrix malfunctioned from the attack and instead sent out a shockwave that had an affect none could predict......"
"What happened?" asked Mikoto, anxious to know more.
"All Higbreed who came in contact with the shockwave, including the ones on other worlds (the gateways were still open for the multiple Highbreed invasions) all dissapeared. Every single one of them completely gone without a trace. And when Ben came to from his brief coma after the incident, he had no memory of any of the incident. He didn't remember the Highbreed, or the invasion that had been attempted on Earth. He didn't even remember the new alien forms he had unlocked during his fight against them. You can tell, because he changed their names.
"Shocksquatch!!" said Mikoto now remembering. "He said he used to call him Electriyeti, but he didn't know why.........And he said he couldn't remember how he ever had unlocked Blackout* at all."
"Oh yeah......Blackout." said Tetrax. "That incident where he managed to scan the Noirsapien was not a particularly pleasant one. But you are right, Blackout and Shocksquatch were unlocked during the Highbreed war. The same went for Humungousaur and Chromastone.........but he called them both the same name anyways."
"So that's why he never talked about it!" said Mikoto. "He couldn't because he just couldn't remember what the heck happened."
Tetrax nodded. "It's probably a good thing he didn't remember though.......that war was not pleasent for any race, even you humans felt it's effects, thought the Highbreed never got their warships to your planet. World War 3 was actually partially caused by Aleister Crowley and the Highbreed working a deal to find a way to control the fallen Angel that had come to your dimensional plane."
So Ben dealt with memory loss too....just like Touma had when he had first saved Index from Necessarius's manipulative control. But to not remember saving the whole entire Universe. Mikoto actually wondered if anybody had actually bothered telling him he saved the Universe in the first place. Did Ben even know who the Highbreed were?
Suddenly Rook pointed out ahead of him. "It's there!! We have arrived!!"
Mikoto looked to find what looked like a giant platform of rock the size of a small town. In the center of the floating rock, Mikoto could see a simple stone cube with engravings on it. And sitting there with it's blade stuck in the center of the rock, was a sword. It was Ascalon, the very blade that had defeated Diagon The Destroyer and banished him from this dimension.
The group landed next to the alter. The rough cube of stone showed many pictures and carvings of GhostFreak sitting on a throne made of bones and Ectonurites luriking in a smoking flowing darkness.
"What do we do now?" asked Mikoto.
"One of us touches Ben against the blade." said Tetrax. "And the one who will journey into Ben's inner world must grab the hilt."
Mikoto nodded. "Lets do this......."
Tetrax shifed Ben's unconsious form over until his finger was touching the blade of Ascalon*. Mikoto stared at the sword for a moment. Finally.......after Ben had saved her so many times.......she was coming to save him.
Mikoto moved her hand over, and grasped the handle of Ascalon. And the world dissapeared. And the inner Omniverse of Ben Tennyson emerged....................
*Blackout is Ben 10's Noirsapien form, and the first OC fan made alien mentioned in this series (created by me of course). Blackout is a black humanoid shadow-like creature with glowing green eyes and a glowing green fanged mouth. Being completely made of dark magic, it is actually a wonder that Blackout has any genetic data at all. Since he is made of magic, Blackout's powers are more supernatural then evolutionary, meaning he doesn't have an Ultimate form. He can shapeshift and merge with shadows. Because of his ethereal shadow-like nature, he is completely immune to physical and energy attacks, but can be blown away and dissapated by strong winds. Noirsapiens are from the planet Mavrorecluse, which is on the edge of the Anur System. Mavrorecluse is actually not a planet, but a ginormous mass of Noirsapiens merged together in a planet sized glob of darkness.
*Ascalon, despite popular myth, is not magic. It was actually a sword created by Azmuth through science to control the fundamental laws of space and time. It was used by a knight named Sir George to defeat Diagon when he came to Earth eons ago. In this series, Ascalon was moved to Anur Phaetos by Azmuth after Zs'Skayr was trapped in the Omnitrix, as a means of discouraging others from searching for the sword."