July 9th, 2012
Walt Disney Corporate Headquarters
9:03 P.M.
Silence had fallen.
To be brutally honest, in the face of all the destruction, that was the most horrendous occurrence of The Nothing's destruction: the silence.
An entire world, an entire universe, ceasing to exist and passing into the night without a sound.
In Egypt, the pyramids, eons old were deconstructed brick by brick as a tendril swept through the stone. Cairo swirled into a sinkhole as if caught in a drain as the Nothing ate the foundations out from beneath the city.
In Paris, the Eiffel Tower dropped into Nothing as untold masses of people slid into a hole of nothing. Screams without sound as reality folded in on itself.
The Great Wall of China was pulled into the Nothing, sucked into the void as if string was caught in a vacuum.
In New York, tourists pulled out their phones to record the incoming Nothing but were erased from existence as they were consumed.
In New Delhi, a husband pulled his wife close as a tendril slid through houses before they were wiped from existence.
Entire oceans were swallowed by the Nothing in a hole that claimed the deluge of water, animals panicked as they swam away but nothing they did stopped the advance of the Nothing. It held a never ending thirst for all this reality held.
Silent, enormous tendrils of ravenous Nothing swirled around the world, crisscrossing the planet, tightening like a net even as tendrils expanded out into the cosmos.
A never ceasing pursuit of destruction as the Universe was erased from being.
The screams of civilization echoing in defiance as The Nothing marched ever on were extinguished; rampaging vines of unchecked Nothing swirled through the cosmos as it sought to erase all that had ever existed.
But still one place resisted the advance and despite all The Nothing did, it could not erase one plot of land.
The Nothing growled menacingly at the defiant island that held against the end of all things.
A stalemate had formed.
A tiny bubble of pink was all that held out The Nothing and with all the limitless power The Nothing held, it was powerless in the face of this bubble.
But soon, The Nothing reasoned, soon it would destroy this bubble and the woman it housed. Soon its purpose would be complete and all would be at peace in Nothing.
July 9th, 2012
Walt Disney Corporate Headquarters
9:03 P.M.
Beepbeep
Wade Load looked at the blinking light on his wrist and touched the light with a single finger.
A sequence of holographic screens winked into existence in front of him with a series of charts and rapidly changing numbers swirling before his eyes.
He was silent in his study for a moment before tapping the center screen.
"Olivia," he called out to his wife, "Adjust the angle by three degrees."
A silent nod was all he received from his wife as she concentrated on spinning a holographic button that appeared from the display on her wrist.
He groaned as he rubbed at his eyes and took a deep breath, the numbers didn't lie.
A pause as the pair stood in front of a large cylindrical device that hummed rhythmically and with a final check, Wade nodded to his wife, "Tell Tam that the Hammer is ready."
July 9th, 2012
Walt Disney Corporate Headquarters
9:03 P.M.
The plush executive chair he was sitting in molded and contoured to his body, giving Tam Agmiln the feeling that he was being cocooned in comfort. His fingers rubbed the leather armrests, enjoying the sensations emanating from beneath his hands.
Leaning back in his chair, Tam enjoyed seeing his creator flustered and fumbling for words. It gave him a feeling of power.
Of, he grinned maliciously, control.
Yes, that was the word he was searching for, as he turned his grin into a sly smile that wormed its way across his face. For the first time in his existence Tam was finally in control, free of his Creator's path as his Creator was forced to submit to him.
"How?" a single word brought Tam's gaze back to his Creator.
Tam's eyes tightened as he leaned forward, "How what?" he asked innocently.
"How are you here?" Sidekick asked his doppelganger.
Tam wiggled his shoulders and fought the urge to gloat over his Creator, "You honestly thought she was the only one who could jump from fiction to reality?" Tam scoffed derisively, "You punched a hole in the very fabric of reality," Tam paused with a shrug, "and allowed fiction to mingle with fact."
Tam shrugged as his wrist beeped, "You opened the door, she tumbled through while being followed by the Nothing and we followed."
"You knew it would work?" Kim asked in disbelief, "Following The Nothing to find me?"
A door hissed open behind them as Betty Director silently strolled into the room, "Of course," she answered, "We've been following The Nothing and finding you for several universes now."
"No."
Tam smiled at the statement, his mirth brought about by the flustered expression on his 'Father's' face.
"No, what?" Tam asked back in mock innocence.
"You can't be here," Sidekick argued as the implications of Tam's words resonated in him.
"Why's that?" Tam responded, mirth crossing his features.
"You're my shell, you can't exist without me," Sidekick pointed a shaky finger at his 'son's' face, "Who is giving you a voice? Kim at least took over Christy Carlson Romano's body, she had a vessel here but you," a shake of the head, "If you were to jump here you would had to have jumped into my body."
"And yet here we stand," Tam replied knowingly and gestured to his ornate chair, "Or sit in my case."
Sidekick's eye twitched as his mind raced, "How did you do it?"
"You're the author of this story," Tam goaded, "You tell me."
Silence.
Tam raised his eyebrows expectantly as he studied the range of emotions on his creator's face.
"I don't know."
Tam cocked his head and pointed at his ear, "Once more 'Creator'."
"I don't know," came the whispered reply.
"And why is that Creator?" A smirk graced Tam's face.
Sidekick's gaze conveyed the anger he felt but his silence betrayed his shame.
"Is it because you're no longer in control of this story?" Tam chided.
Silence.
"You don't control this story anymore and the fact that the Nothing escaped is proof that you're making it up as you go along," Tam accused, "You have no idea how to finish it and that fact is what's haunting you," he pointed at Kim, "It's what's chasing her."
"Oh and you know how to finish the story?" Sidekick replied in anger.
A subtle nod but it was enough for Kim to lean forward expectantly, "How?"
Betty Director leaned casually against a wall, "The Hammer."
Sidekick stiffened in terror as Kim appeared confused, "The Hammer? What's that?"
"It's a deus ex machina," Sidekick answered as he faced Kim, "One of the original ending solutions that I came up with to end the Nothing," he turned back to Tam, "One ending that I turned away from because it was too…"
"Creative?" Tam's eyes lit up.
"Cheap," Sidekick retorted, "You'd have to be an idiot to use that Hammer," Sidekick argued as he leaned over the table, shooting daggers at his 'son', "it was lazy writing and I discarded it early in the draft for the ending of the story."
"You give a MacGuffin a dark and mysterious sounding name that can end everything and you decide not to use it?" Tam taunted in disbelief, "This story really has gotten away from you."
"What is the Hammer?" Kim asked again an edge in her tone, "not a meta answer where you address the audience but truly, genuinely, what is it?"
"It's a cop out," Sidekick nearly shouted, "Once it's used the story and everything leading to this moment is voided. All morals and lessons learned are gone."
"Oh I think we're beyond the realm of lessons and morals don't you Father?" Tam mocked with hatred dripping from his words.
"What is the Hammer?" Kim asked again, her impatience rising.
"It's not just about finishing the story, you have to finish the story in a way that brings closure," Sidekick disputed, "You want an ending Tam? You want me to finish everything? Fine here it is," Sidekick raised his hands dramatically, "And they all worked together and stopped the Nothing and everything went back to the way it was and everyone lived happily ever after..."
July 9th, 2012
Walt Disney Corporate Headquarters
9:03 P.M.
Wade smiled as he watched the numbers continue to fall on his holographic screen. Next to him the tent flap opened as Kim entered holding a blue Kimmunicator.
"Wade, set the frequency of the radar dishes to emit a pulse of 38.97 microns," she ordered, excitement rising in her voice.
It was silent for a moment as Wade typed out a command and the two watched a screen with baited breath.
For a moment...nothing happened.
It started low, almost at a frequency no one could hear but then an all present roar through the entirety of creation as for the first time, The Nothing felt pain.
Wade's eyes lit up, "You did it Kim!" He laughed ecstatically, "Why didn't I think to scan the Nothing for any anomalous readings and reverse the pull of the Nothing to cause it to return?"
Across the cosmos, the Nothing screamed as the crack it entered reality from no longer allowed it to push through but instead, the Nothing was being pulled back.
Reality was resetting.
Planets were rebuilt as the Nothing roared in anger, nebula reformed as the cosmos gave a new song of creation.
Kim looked around the room at the rest of the team and marveled at how not too long ago they had been enemies but now had banded together.
As the Nothing retreated from reality the world rebuilt itself from Nothing. The Pyramids rebuilt themselves as Cairo reverse spun out of it's sinkhole.
In Paris, rain fell upwards as the Eiffel Tower reversed its destruction and lit up as electricity was restored to the city. People began to randomly appear, all returned from the Nothing's gluttonous behavior.
As the Nothing retreated back into the crack, Bob reappeared and turned to watch Mark reappear, wordlessly the two of them hugged in excitement.
The Nothing gave one last scream of anguish and reached out to drag any bit of reality into the nether but a final pulse drove the Nothing back through the gash and with a final scream was sealed away forever.
Kim felt a tap on her shoulder and turned to find Ron standing behind her, "Are you ready to go home Kim?" He asked, a weary smile tugging on his cheek.
Kim smiled and kissed him, she pulled back and laughed as she kissed him again.
After the entire ordeal, they were finally safe from the Nothing.
Everything was going to be all ri-
July 9th, 2012
Walt Disney Corporate Headquarters
9:03 P.M.
Kim tumbled forward, her body slamming roughly into the cold glass conference table.
"Oof," she gasped as she felt nausea flood her stomach and what felt like a hammer crack through her skull.
She looked up as she noticed Betty suffering the same fate as her. Betty kneeled with her head in a waste bin and the sound of retching could be heard in the conference room.
She looked up at Kim and slid an empty can across the floor to her as Kim felt her stomach flip one time too many and she quickly huddled over the empty can and vomited.
Several seconds later she looked up to find Tam and Sidekick staring at each other, neither blinking or talking…just staring.
Kim wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and spat yellow bile into the waste bin before standing to shaky feet.
"What was that?" she demanded angrily.
"An unearned ending," Sidekick answered, "If I ended the story just like that it cheapens the ending-"
"Which is why the Hammer was created," Tam interrupted, "You built the Hammer to end the story and now that you're here you don't want to use it."
"Ok what is the hammer and if someone doesn't tell me I walk out that door and I throw myself into the Nothing and end it all right here, right now," Kim's threat might have been sarcastic but her tone carried enough weight behind it to cause both 'Father' and 'Son' to stare at her.
Tam's eyes were hollow and cold, "The Hammer, a device capable of destroying the Nothing."
"That's great," Kim breathed a sigh of relief, "How do we do that?"
Tam turned to his creator, "You know how Father."
Sidekick nodded, "It's a controlled Universal Implosion."
Tam smiled silently as a hologram appeared in the room depicting a large bubble.
"The Hammer expands a universe rapidly, cracking the edges of reality before condensing and letting the entire bubble collapse in on itself, destroying the Universe and blocking the Nothing from following you," Tam explained as the holographic bubble imploded into a mess of pixels, "We Supernova the Universe and then Black Hole it, effectively blocking the Nothing from moving on."
"And what happens to you?" Kim asked, afraid to hear the answer.
Tam shrugged, "We ride it out in our little bubble here and find a new home in whatever reality is adjacent to this one."
Betty stepped forward, "Wade is confident that as there were infinite universes for us, there must be infinite universes here," she nodded, "we find a new one and slide into that one and no one there will know how close they were to being erased by Nothing."
Tam saw Kim's face transform into a look of horror, "If you're in a tunnel that is filling with water you're going to close the tunnel behind you and hopefully stop the water from drowning you."
"And the downside?" Kim asked although she already knew the answer.
"The only downside is that you destroy whichever Universe you detonate it in," The Real Sidekick answered in monotone, "But it stops the Nothing from following."
Kim's gaze turned to her creator, "How do you know so much about it?"
"Because I created it," Sidekick intoned in shame.
Kim shook her head in disbelief, "What?"
"Do you honestly think bringing you into the real world was my first ending?" Sidekick responded as he failed to meet her piercing gaze, "What? That this," he gestured angrily at the world beyond the building that was being wiped from existence, "all this was how I wanted to end the story?"
"I…I don't understand," Kim answered.
"It's a hard reset Kim," Tam replied, "We wipe this Universe and act like it never happened."
Kim kept silent, disgust rising in her.
"You were never supposed to come here," Tam's words hurt Kim more than any of the trials she had faced thus far, "Your being here is a gimmick, a bit of showmanship for the fans."
Tam studied Kim's face as her features tightened, the thin strip that was her mouth tightening to a near imperceptible line.
"It doesn't matter what she's supposed to do," Sidekick's voice rose, "Her survival puts her above the rules. If you were me you would have understood that."
SLAM
"You've slipped so far from the show," Tam slammed his balled fists on the table in anger, "That you've forgotten what the point of the show was."
Sidekick shook his head and shouted back at his other self, "And what was the show about," a pause, "Tell me, since you clearly know."
"Hope."
That single word cut through all of Sidekick's defenses and hurt him more than any wound could have.
"Hope, friendship and most of all, it was happy," Tam passionately whispered.
Kim's eyes held a spark as she watched Tam speak.
"From the start of our story, we have been seeing nothing but darkness, loss and death," a pause, "Nowhere has there even been an inkling of the show's spark and happiness, instead we've been seeing the characters pushed and manipulated by you until they are nothing but names on a page. Ron alone for all eternity in that hell hole was not Ron, he was you struggling with your feelings of abandonment as you die. You feel alone in death."
Sidekick scoffed derisively, "That was one-"
"Lowardia's invasion of Earth was you giving one last defiant act before accepting your death," Tam interrupted, "Utopia was the hope you had because there might be a chance of stopping the Tumor," Tam stared hard into his Creator's eyes, "But there wasn't a chance of stopping it, was there?"
Betty Director leaned against the wall and watched Tam confront Sidekick.
"The only portion of this story that even felt remotely like a Kim Possible fic was the very beginning but even then you had to go and put your own touch on it as well," Tam pushed away from the table in disgust at his Father, "You forgot that the show was about her, not you!" He took a breath, "You broke the one rule of Fanfiction: Do not put the characters out of character! That is what Fictionpress is for!"
Sidekick was silent, the shame causing his head to bow.
Tam noticed this and continued, "You don't even realize why Kim was experiencing that euphoria, do you?!"
Sidekick's eyes loosened for a moment as he thought back to Kim's arrival to the Disney lot.
He turned to her as Sidekick recalled Kim's rapidly changing emotions, "Why did you feel that?"
Tam answered for Kim, "That elevator she rode in, the elevator I made sure Betty took you two on, was the very elevator she was conceived in," a pause as he remembered, "Kim Possible: she can do anything and her partner is Ron Stoppable: he can't do anything".
Kim and Sidekick remained silent at Tam's admission.
"That is the premise of Kim Possible as set forth by her Creators," Tam's face contorted in revulsion, "You've made her a monster in your image."
"Everything I did-" Sidekick began but was cut off.
"-You did for yourself," Tam interrupted, "And for your delusions of a legacy."
A beat of silence passed over the conference room.
Tam gestured to The Nothing outside the bubble, "You want a monster for this story," he waved his hands theatrically, "A big bad villain that Kim fights and defeats. There isn't one."
Sidekick stared down at the table silently.
"You brought Kim here and put reality itself in jeopardy just so you would be remembered," Tam's eyes pierced Sidekick's soul, "By definition a villain is one blamed for a particular evil or difficulty that the hero has to overcome."
His gaze traveled out the window where the universe was slowly being consumed, "You unleashed The Nothing on reality, you brought this evil into the world," he paused, "You want a villain, you want a monster," he leaned in until he was face to face with Sidekick as he whispered, "You became that monster the moment you put yourself ahead of everyone."
"No," Sidekick shook his head in defiance, "I'm not you. You're the monster here for even suggesting genocide of this universe."
Sidekick looked around the room as everyone looked at him with mixtures of disdain and disgust, "one man not wanting to die and trying to get out of it does not mean he's a villain, just human."
Tam turned and looked Sidekick straight in the eye, "People die Sidekick, get used to it," he shrugged and turned away, "This Universe needs to be sacrificed to save the other universes."
He stood and started to walk away as Sidekick called out to him, "I can stop you."
Tam stopped mid-stride and nodded to Betty and she left the room, "Of course you can. You can stop me, but the question is, will you?" he took a step towards the husk of a man sitting at the table, "I know you think that I'm just an evil master mind born in your brain when you were suffering from writer's block, but it's actually a lot simpler than that."
He took another step forward, "Something can't be created from nothing Sidekick unless there's a supernatural touch," he shook his head, "Everything that exists in this universe came from something. Something came from something which bore something."
Sidekick's eyes narrowed as he whispered, "What are you saying?"
Tam was an arm's length from Sidekick, "I'm saying that I'm you. If I'm angry, it's because you are," he hissed angrily, "If I'm jealous it's because you are. I did not spin myself out of the ether"
"I."
"Am."
"You."
Tam grabbed Sidekick by his shirt and hauled him roughly to his feet so they were face to face, "What?" Tam mocked, "Sound familiar?"
Sidekick gulped nervously, "How did you know that monologue?"
"Because I was there when you wrote it," Tam whispered in a detestable tone, "Every dark and evil thing that you've done has only happened because I was there."
Visions of Paris filled Sidekick's mind as he saw Tam walking between bullets in the ruins of Paris, "When you were destroying Paris and killing all the people, that was me urging you on, but you listened."
An image of Tam digging through the ruins of a castle looking for the flag, not noticing a horrific creation of DNAmy sneaking up behind him, "Building the kingdom of Middleton only to tear it all down so viscerally? That was you, you just listened to me when my voice was a bit clearer."
"That's all I am Matthew," Tam stood to his full height, framed against the horrors outside, "A tiny voice in your mind that urges you to do the wrong thing. The destructive thing. That voice urging you to take what you want," he leaned forward and whispered in Sidekick's ear, "You can stop it right now, this entire story right now you can finish it." He gestured towards the window, "You can stop the Nothing and rewrite the story as you see fit."
He waited as Sidekick remained silent, "But you know what?" he pulled back, "Do you know why you won't do it?"
Sidekick shook his head, "No."
"Because you're scared. Scared that if the story ends, you're done, and you won't have anything but a forgotten story to be remembered by," Tam pulled back as Betty entered the room with a laptop computer in her hand.
He opened the computer and the program instantly booted up a writing program, "Here's a computer, write the ending and finish this all."
Sidekick slowly reached for the computer and laid his frail hands on the board for a few seconds before he meekly pushed it away.
Kim stared at Sidekick incredulously, "Why did you do that? You can finish this!"
"I'll tell you why Kim," Tam said as he approached Sidekick, "Because deep down doesn't want to see what's on the other side. He's scared of what he'll see," Tam looked at Sidekick and for the first time felt pity towards his Creator, "You know about the man behind the curtain but you don't want to see the man because you want the illusion to continue, that's why you're going to let me, the dark and dangerous voice take over. You don't want to know the truth," Tam took a step back towards the door, "The truth is that you're a monster. A monster just like me and until you realize that, you'll be trapped in here."
"You like to think yourself the hero of this story," Tam looked Sidekick directly in the eyes, "But your heart is as black as mine."
Sidekick refused to meet Tam's gaze and lowered his in shame.
Tam turned to Betty, "Get him out of here, let him think on his sins."
The Real Sidekick didn't say a word as he felt hands lifting his frail body from the chair and out of the room.
So what did I miss?
I don't know what else to say, it's been almost 10 years since I last updated and I'm sorry for making you all wait for the conclusion of this story. I won't be updating every Monday as I used to do, I'm getting back into this whole writing thing so for now I'm going to try and update once a month until the end. Rest assured, there is an end and it's coming very soon.
Truthfully, I'm just glad to be back and I hope some of you who've been with me since the beginning enjoy the story and hopefully it lives up to the wait.
As always, At the Author's Side,
The Real Sidekick