Ben 10 Alien Force

The Nothing Place

Chapter 1

Missing Pets

"Gwen!" Ben called, looking for his cousin, "Gwen come on, Kevin won't wait forever you know. If you want a ride home you'd better hurry up."

"Yeah, I'm coming!" he yelled back, tearing herself away from the telephone pole she was looking at and running over to him.

"What were you looking at anyways?" Ben asked.

"Missing pet posters," Gwen explained, "There are a lot of them right now. I saw at least six on one telephone pole."

Ben snorted, "Yeah, whatever."

"What!" Gwen snapped at him, "I just thought you should go warn Julie to keep an eye on Ship."

"Come on, Gwen, we're talking people losing track of their dog or cat," he rolled his eyes, "Ship is a non-organic creature who can transform himself into an alien gun-ship."

Gwen opened her mouth to retort nastily, but was cut off by Kevin yelling at them to hurry up.

Later that evening, Ben went to see Julie about Ship.

"I just think maybe you should keep an eye on him," Ben said, "Even if I don't think there's much chance of some thing getting him, I mean, Ship's pretty tough, right?"

"This actually might be more serious than it sounds," Julie bit her lip nervously, stroking Ship's head, "I have a friend… a sort of different friend, you may know her… Iggi Lives, I think she's in your English class…"

"Oh yeah," he nodded, "The girl with the purple hair who wears all the fake tan?"

"Yeah, she lives a few houses down." Julie nodded, "She'd sort of like you guys… except I think she's full alien… anyways, she had these two alien dog like pets, called Pepexes. Trixy and Van were really smart, loyal animals, they never tried to run away or anything and could take care of themselves, but they disappeared a few days ago. Iggi's little brother and sisters are really upset."

"Alright," Ben nodded, "I'll look into this. Keep an eye on Ship."

"Thanks Ben." Julie smiled and kissed him on the cheek before letting him out. Sighing, she went back to her room. There was a girl the same age as her perched on the end of her bed. Julie and the girl could have been twins, but the girl had longer black hair, pulled back in a ponytail, light, powder grey ears poked up through her hair, large and pointed like a cats with a matching, long, slender tail; her nose was slightly turned up at the end and more triangular than human shaped, she had twelve whiskers, six on each cheek and the corner of her full, round lips curved up in a playful half smile. Her light mauve, hawk like eyes watched her quizzically as she absentmindedly ran her fingers through the feathers on her large hawk wings. Julie sighed and slouched on the bed next to her "twin sister", "I wish I could tell him, Iraah."

Iraah nodded, "Secret keeping is hard, huh?"

Julie examined the strange girl who'd become part of her family. She'd met Iraah when she was thirteen; the girl had been running for her life from the scientists who'd created her. Iraah, who had an incredible memory, told her, her brother and her parents that she was a test tube baby, grown from human DNA mixed with that of various animals. Julie's father, a doctor, had taken a DNA sample from the girl to see if they could find out who she belonged to. It had been a shock to all five of them when the results came up with her brother Ari as the DNA match. It had turned out that all of her friends, the other experiments, also had families within Bellwood. In fact, the girl who's DNA had become Iraah's friend Airanna went to school with and was a friend of Ari's, Annaria Nithgrib. Annaria lived down the street with Airanna, her brother, Joshua, and the boy who'd come from Josh's DNA, Brightin. "Yeah," she sighed again, thinking about Iraah's many secrets, "Yeah its tough… maybe I could talk to John, I think I could get him to reconsider swearing me to secrecy, after all, Ben's a good secret keeper and I am John's best student. I think I might even be his favorite."

Iraah laughed musically, she loved Julie, they were two of a kind, "Aw, Lee, you're a gem, you know that. You always manage to find away around everything."

"Right back at you, sis. I think I will talk to John." She decided, watching the other girl fiddle with her large hoodie as she tried to make herself look normal and heading for the window, "You know, it's been getting harder to hide these days, especially Ryaden's gift, she's been so restless. And coordinating it so that Ben is never in the house at the same time as Rya or in the same room as you is a nightmare. There's only so many times a week I can ask Ari to take her to the park for a few hours, especially when she gets angry and tries to maim the other kids. I think John will understand all this."

"Well, good luck with Mr. Grumpy." She grinned, thinking of the other misfit girl who'd come to live with them. As a half pain demon, half mage, three year old, Rya had been powerful and lacking a conscious when she'd come to live with them, but in the past two years her work with John and Julie had begun to turn her into a proper, human like little girl and she was excited to be starting kindergarten soon. Iraah turned to the window and propped it open with a garden stick.

"Where are you going?" Julie frowned.

"Bright's house." She shrugged.

"Alright, I'll tell mom." Julie glanced around, "Here, take Ship with you. I need some one to keep an eye on him while I'm out."

"Why don't you just take him with you?" She frowned.

"Wards," Julie explained, "He'll short out."

"Alright, I'll pet-sit the blob," Iraah smiled, "Have fun. Come on Ship, we'll be back before dinner."

"Sure thing." Julie skipped down the stairs and into the kitchen to where her mother, Joy, was cooking dinner with Ryaden playing at the kitchen table, "Hey Rya, mom, Iraah's gone to Bright's for a while, she'll be back before dinner and I'm going to the Circle for a bit to see John, kay?"

"Alright," Joy sighed, "But you remind Mr. Pritkin that he promised we could have you all this week. I want you home for dinner for once, Julie."

"Yes, Mom." Julie rolled her eyes, pulling out the small stone that she carried everywhere with her. She rubbed her thumb over the symbol on the top of it, "Eo Ut Argentum Orbis."

Joy hardly even blinked as her daughter disappeared in a puff of smoke, "He says we can have her and yet every evening, she's gone again…"