"Ben 10: The Wintarian Race" Chapter 1
"They're going to hate me, I just know it." 15 year-old Ella Bates was picking at her breakfast as her mom was double checking her backpack to make sure she didn't forget anything, as if she were still in elementary school.
"Well, I think you're great."
She rolled her blue eyes at her mother's comment. "Of course you do. I'm you're daughter." Ella stood up and put her dishes away. "I just know that I'm going to do something ridiculous."
"Like what?" Her mother chuckled. "You don't have anything to worry about, I promise you. That's the reason we moved to Bellwood."
"Yes, Bellwood, the place where it is sooo normal for you to walk down the street and see aliens around every corner." Ella put her hands on her hips as she checked herself over in the mirror for the fifth time that morning. Her wavy chocolate colored hair was in place, her icy blue eyes sparkled and her clothes looked satisfactory.
"You would be surprised." Her mother laughed. Of course she would choose Bellwood over any other place. She was a Plumber after all. The only reason Ella was even born was because she and some alien had been scandelous on one of her many missions in the past.
She had been used to being able to make her features look normal. The only thing she wasn't able to shake from her alien form were her eyes. The eyes that reminded her that she wasn't a normal human girl. She was half alien.
At least she was one of the lucky ones. She had come across other half aliens in her time that she had been with her mother. There were kids that were half of a race that didn't even remotely resemble a human. Her mom had explained that the anatomy and appearance of her people were actually very similar to a human, so it was easy for her to be attracted to her father without feeling weird about being with him.
"You look great." Ella felt her mom rest the straps of her backpack on her shoulders.
"They're going to think that I'm a freak. I should just stay home with you and Brielle." Ella argued once more.
No one knew about Brielle. She was the whole reason her mom had moved them to Bellwood. It was Ella's own mistakes that had caused Brielle to be born.
"I told you." Her mother gave her a stern look. "I will take care of her while you're at school." She began to push her daughter out the door. "Don't worry about anything, El. You need to do this."
Ella stared at the closed door for a moment after being kicked out of her own house. She groaned and kicked up some of the dirt on her yard and began to walk to Bellwood high school.
"HEY WATCH OUT!" She heard someone yell in her direction.
Her enhanced reflexes allowed her to step out of the way before being ran over by a guy on his bike.
"Watch where you're going!" Ella yelled after him, blowing a strand of her hair out of her face.
"SORRY!" He looked back and appologized, then kept going forward. Great, he was going to the same place she was.
(Break)
"Good morning." Mrs. Burns greeted her class in the cheery way she always did.
"Good morning." The class repeated back in a monotonous mannor.
"I have some exciting news for you all today." She grinned with glee.
Ben Tennyson rolled his eyes. It was probably another pop quiz. English class was such a pain sometimes. He hated the fact that it was always his first one of the day.
"We have a new student who just moved to Bellwood." Mrs. Burns said, surprising the class with the information. No one ever moved to Bellwood in the middle of the school year.
"I hope you all can make her feel welcome." All the guys smirked at the second part of this announcement. A girl. Not from Bellwood. She had to be better looking than most.
Mrs. Burns opened the door and let the girl into the class room. All eyes were on her.
"Go on, introduce yourself using three adjectives."
Ella groaned and stepped forward. "I am the new student, Ella Bates..." She looked down at her feet and thought for a moment.
"Do you even know what an adjective is?" Mrs. Burns raised her eyebrow at the girl.
Ella narrowed her eyes at the old woman. "I am a swift, talented, and powerful athlete."
"My apologies." The old teacher stepped back, frightened by the look in Ella's eyes. "You should go and take a seat over there, by Miss Yamamoto and Mister Tennyson."
Tennyson? Ella wondered. As in the Ben Tennyson? She thought of all the stories her mother had told her of the child super hero. She always thought he was fake, until she had actually seen him on the news when she was a kid around that time.
Ella calmly placed herself in the middle of the two people that the teacher had directed her, making sure she didn't show any emotion.
"Hey there, I'm Ben." The guy next to her held out his hand. "Nice to meet you."
"I'm Ella." She smiled slightly, taking his hand. She gasped as the watch on his wrist shocked her. "Ouch."
"Sorry about that!" Ben appologized and began to mess with the watch. "This stupid thing always does weird things."
"New DNA detected." The automated voice said, muffled by Ben quickly sitting on it. He quickly looked up at Ella as she looked away, trying not to act like she had noticed.
New DNA? Ben wondered as he watched the girl next to him carefully. Could she be an alien? She doesn't look like it, but I better talk to her after school just in case.
"Hey, would you like to come and hang out with me and a few friends of mine after school?" Ben asked, tapping Ella's shoulder.
"Ha. The only way I could do that is if you liked kids."
"You kidding? We love kids, right Julie?" Ben looked over Ella's shoulder to his girlfriend.
"Yeah, sure." Julie smiled slightly and turned her attention back to Mrs. Burn's lesson.
Ben rolled his eyes and smiled slightly back to Ella. "Really, you should come and hang out with us. Kid included."
"I guess." Ella sighed. "I need someone to bring me up to date on school anyways."
"Cool." Ben beamed at her. "Meet up at the Mr. Smoothie on 8th after school?"
"Sure, I guess." Ella shrugged. It wasn't every day you were invited to hang out with Ben 10.
(Break)
"Are you sure this chick is going to show up?" Kevin asked Ben. He and the rest of the group had been waiting for almost an hour now.
"I'm positive." Ben growled in reply. The omnitrix had been acting strange since the encounter with Ella that morning. It was glowing light blue and kept saying something about the new DNA.
"Face it, Ben. It's been an hou-"
"Sorry I'm late." A feminine voice came from behind the group, causing Ben to smirk at everyone.
"Guys, this is Ella. Ella this is Kevin and my cousin Gwen, and you already know Julie." Ben introduced the girl to the group.
"So you're the real deal." Ella laughed, slightly waving at them. "This is Brielle." She introduced the child she had on her hip. "The reason I'm late."
"Aww, she's so cute!" Gwen cooed at the little girl.
"Thank you." Ella smiled and put Brielle down into a high chair. "So why did you want to see me anyway?"
"This is going to be kind of a personal question." Ben said. Everyone was looking at Ella.
"O...kay?"
"Do you know anything about aliens?" Julie asked her.
"Uhm... Sort of." Ella played with a piece of her hair and laughed nervously.
"What about the Plumbers?" Kevin asked.
"My mom is one..." Ella admitted. "What does that have to do with me, though?"
"Well, we know that there's a lot of Plumbers kids who are part alien. The watch keeps telling me something about new DNA, and it started right after we shook hands earlier."
"Oh." Ella looked down and sighed. "It probably is because I'm half Wintarian, huh?"
"Wintarian? No way." Kevin looked at her wide-eyed.
"What's a Wintarian?" Ben and Gwen asked.
"It's this bad ass race of people who can control anything to do with water and ice. None of the weapons that I could ever get my hands on could match the natural power of those guys." Kevin explained with enthusiasm. "And that king of theirs. He's not someone you wanna mess with."
"And you're one of them?" Gwen looked at Ella in shock.
"Yeah..." Ella moved one of the cups next to her, causing it to leave a ring of water on the table. She waved her hand over it and the water spiked up and froze solid. Brielle clapped with joy at that.
"Cool! Cool!" She giggled, trying to do the same, but wasn't able to.
"Yeah, that is cool." Ben said in awe. "Hey, can I see your hand for a sec?"
"Uh. Sure." Ella held out her hand in confusion. Ben took it and placed it on the Omnitrix.
"Oww! It bit me!" Ella recoiled her hand and sucked on the finger that the watch "bit" her on.
"That's not nice." Brielle pointed at Ben.
"Sorry." Ben said, scratching his head. "It's never done that before."
"DNA analysis complete." The automated voice said, causing the watch to go back to its normal state.
Ben played with the watch for a moment, then a hologram of himself appeared on the watch.
"Why does it look like me?" Ben raised his eyebrow.
"The only real difference in the Wintarian's appearance is that their color features are a lot more wild than ours." Kevin explained. "Like her eyes. Those aren't normal."
"He's right." Ella sighed. "My natural hair color is really white as snow. Mom also said that I have my father's skin, which is why I'm so pale. There's another part of my race that has a pale blue colored skin. It differs with each part of the planet."
"Cool." Ben smirked, very intrigued by this new alien. "I'll have to try this one out soon."
"I'm hungry." Brielle whined, breaking the awkward silence in the group.
"Here." Ella dug around in her bag and handed the little girl a snack. "I'll get you something else when we get home, okay?"
"Okay." The little girl took the snack without argument.
"So how old is your sister?" Gwen asked, grinning at the child next to Ella.
"Oh... She's two and a half." Ella smiled nervously. "And erm... She's not my sister. She's really my daughter."
Everyone stared at Ella with wide eyes.
"But you're so young." Julie commented.
"I make mistakes, too." Ella shrugged and looked down. "That's why we moved to Bellwood. You fall in love one time, and it makes you the whore of the town, I guess."
"We don't think that." Ben reassured her. "You need anything, you can count on us."
"Thanks." Ella smiled slightly. Maybe the people here wouldn't be so bad after all.