Disclaimer: I don't own Ben 10 and/or Ben 10: Alien Force and/or Ben 10: Ultimate Alien and/or any and/or all concepts and/or characters. They are copyrighted to Man of Action and Cartoon Network Studios.
I don't own Japanese folklore either. It belongs to…well…the Japanese. I had to say that because I don't want to be banished from visiting their wonderful country again. It's a nice place. Very Nice. I'd go there again, but I don't think I can with this economy. Oh well.
"I do, however, reserve the right to claim Klank and Orbus as my robot minions considering that I hired them after Zeo and Ohranger ended. But I don't own the shows they appear in.
I also own my OC, Jacques D. Schniezel, Even though his nickname is Snively. He is mine and if you want him to appear in your story, ask me, or if I want him to appear in yours, I'll ask you.
Just wanted to make that perfectly clear! Enjoy!"
-Count Kulalu-
Most legends of the kitsune becoming human and marrying human males end in tragedy. However, there is one I heard that does not end so sadly, and helps explain the origins of the phrase 'kitsune':
Ono, an inhabitant of Mino, spent the seasons longing for his ideal of female beauty. He met her one evening on a vast moor and married her. Simultaneously with the birth of their son, Ono's dog was delivered of a pup which as it grew up became more and more hostile to the lady of the moors. She begged her husband to kill it, but he refused. At last one day the dog attacked her so furiously that she lost courage, resumed vulpine shape, leaped over a fence and fled.
"You may be a fox," Ono called after her, "but you are the mother of my son and I love you. Come back when you please; you will always be welcome."
So every evening she stole back and slept in his arms.
From that day forward, the fox would return to her husband each night as a woman but leave each morning as a fox, which gave her the name Kitsune. For in the classical Japanese, (kitsu)-(ne) means 'come and sleep' and (ki)-(tsune) means 'always comes'.
Step 1-Admitting you have a problem. :)
Chapter 1- What did I…? Oh No! (Or When was the last time I saw a doctor?)
"Oh…where am I?" Julie Yamato asked groggily as she got up. She was rubbing her eyes and trying to clear the blurred images from her vision. Julie realized that it was morning, though she didn't see a clock to tell her what time it was. She looked around the room, taking note of all the thrown piles of clothes, the posters of Sumo Slammers and-
"Wait, what?" Julie suddenly realized that she was not in her own room, a second later it occurred to her that she was not even in her own bed. And as she looked at herself, she found that all to be the tip of the iceberg as she realized that the sheets that draped her were the only things covering her body. At that point, Julie was too horrified to scream. She hoped that it wasn't what she was thinking that happened. Fortunately, a series of snores next to her were able to break Julie out of her thoughts. Seeing the person that was snoring was enough to get her to calm down because lying next to her on the bed was Ben.
He wasn't in the sheets with her, nor was he out of his clothes. In fact, Ben looked like he fell asleep in them because he was too exhausted from doing something. Seeing Ben next to her like this reassured Julie that she didn't wake up to discover that she had been raped or had any sort of sexual encounter, but it still didn't answer why she is naked in her boyfriend's bed.
-Knock, Knock-
"Ben? Are you up yet? Breakfast is almost ready."
Julie immediately recognized the voice of Mrs. Tennyson. Seeing that Ben wasn't getting up to answer it, she stayed silent and hoped that her boyfriend's mother wouldn't come walking in to check on her son. The woman really thought of her as a good influence for Ben and Julie didn't want her or her own parents to think she was so…flimsy. Unfortunately, her prayers seemed to go unanswered as the doorknob slowly started to turn.
Julie tried to think if there was any way out, but her thoughts were all shifting a mile a minute in fear of the impending doom to her untarnished image. In all of her panic, only one thought came to her mind. "How did I get here?"
Some weeks ago
"Hahahahaha! Your Alien powers are formidable, fools, but they are no match for the mighty genius that is DOCTOR ANIMO!" The 'good doctor' laughed as he fired another blast from his strange gun. It seemed he was up to his old habits of causing chaos to society with one of his usual attacks to the downtown Bellwood area. What a coincidence it was that Ben was on a double date with Julie, his cousin Gwen, and Kevin.
"Does this guy ever shut up about his name?" Kevin asked as he deflected the blast with the metallic coating of his arms.
Gwen blocked another blast with a mana wall. "Kevin."
"What? It's true. It's always, 'OH I'm Dr. Animo this!' and 'OH I'm Dr. Animo that!'." He tried to move up close to Animo, but the doctor took another shot that had Kevin jumping back at the last second. Kevin just smirked at the doctor. "Seriously, I bet you can't even go one sentence without saying your name."
"A retched street monger like you has no right to insult the dialogue of the great Dr. Animo!"
Kevin just smiled at Gwen. "See, told you." Gwen just huffed in annoyance.
"Errr! Fine, but that still won't help you against the awesome might of my new DNA scrambler. With this, I will finally unite mankind with the animal kingdom." He laughed with glee as he raised the weapon for everyone to see it. It looked like the cross between a bazooka and a syringe. Never before was there a weapon that was so intimidating and yet so cheesy.
"Umm, how is this different from any of your other plans?" Gwen asked.
"Yeah, you always do this, you one trick pony." Ben said in the form of Fourarms. His smirk and crossed arms said it all. Kevin and Gwen couldn't hold back their smiles at this statement. Even Julie grinned as she and Ship were armed and ready in their battle armor.
"…At least I can keep focused on my style of work." That was technically true. The doctor may have been on a one track mind to mutate the populace, but at least he wasn't one of those villains whose plans went all over the place just to achieve world domination. "Arrgh, why am I bothering, you'll all be mindless beasts when I'm done with you!" The blasts came at them with more fury and vigor. This time they almost came close to hitting a Julie, but Ship was able to form jets on the armor to gain enough speed to dodge them. She noticed a particular burst from Dr. Animo's weapon was about to hit Fourarms with nowhere to dodge. At the last minute, she picked up Fourarms and started flying them away to give them more room to fight.
"How are you holding up, Julie?" Fourarms asked. Julie certainly seemed to be doing a good job at keeping up with them.
"Well, all things considering, I think I'm doing good so far." She hoped so. Julie may not be out saving the world from evil like her friends do almost every day, but she didn't want to be useless when they needed her help.
"Julie, look out!"
-Boom!-
A blast stuck Julie and sent her and Fourarms flying into the ground. As she crashed down, electricity was leaking from Ship as he dispelled the armor and skidded onto the ground. As Julie picked herself up, she saw that his lights were blinking dimly as he painfully cried out. "S-s-ship…s-s-ship…"
"Ship!" Julie ran over to her pet mechnomorph. She took off her pink sweater and rapped him up. "Are you okay, boy?" In her hurry to check over him, she was shot in the side by Dr. Animo.
"AAAAhhh!" She cried out. Fourarms ran towards her, hoping to stop her from becoming a mutant.
"Julie, are you all right?" Fourarms asked as he helped her up while picking up the unconscious Ship. She looked at where the blast struck her, but didn't see anything but a few burned rips on her clothes. Other than that, she looked perfectly fine. "I think so. Although, I'm definitely going to need a new shirt."
Dr. Animo was perplexed at this new development. "How could it not have worked? All my calculations showed that my device would be a success. How could it have failed? There can be no way someone with my intellect could have made such an error. There must be some mistake." He looked at the settings of his gun again to make sure it was working right, which left him vulnerable to an attack-specifically from Julie's super powered alien boyfriend.
"Mistake this!" Fourarms shouted as he jumped. He raised all four of his fists behind his head and then…
-Pow!-
With a double Fourarms Haymaker, to the head, the 'good' doctor was knocked out. Fourarms then grabbed the device and crushed it with the super strength of all four of his hands. "Heh, now that was easy."
In a green flash, he had reverted back to Ben Tennyson, the human and defender of the galaxy. The first thing he took note of was his girlfriend's condition and saw she was putting her sweater back on. He also saw that ship was better and had melded into his backpack form so Julie could carry him. "How are you and Ship?"
"We're ok. Right, Ship?" Julie asked her 'backpack' that happily blinked and chirped back. "Ship! Ship!"
"Are you sure you're alright, Julie?" Gwen asked. She ran a check on her mana, but didn't find anything out of the ordinary.
"I'm sure she's fine, Gwen. Animo's device must have been a dud. Besides, all the effects of his stuff happen instantly, right?" Ben reasoned.
"Hard to argue with that." Kevin picked up the crumpled up remains of Animo's latest invention. "I'll keep an eye on this, though. I may be able to sell it for a pretty credit like the other ones."
This brought up a question that Ben was meaning to ask. "You know, what do you do with his stuff that we collect?"
"Oh, mostly strip the goods for spare parts. Though I fixed up a few and sold them to some kids for a science fair once."
"What!" Gwen shouted. "You mean that was your fault?"
Julie agreed with Gwen. "That's was really irresponsible, Kevin."
Kevin shrugged his shoulder nonchalantly. "Let the buyer beware."
Seeing that the police would eventually get Dr. Animo to prison-again-the four decided to call it a day and head home. They all agreed that while the villain did come, it
If they looked closer, they would have seen that the spot Julie was scratching at was the same spot she got hit at by Dr. Animo's attack.
-To be continued-
Next Time:
Julie's got the feeling sickly blues.
"I'm sure it's nothing –cough- to worry about." Julie assured Ben as he walked her home.
Hope you get well soon Julie because a mysterious force is on the prowl.
"What could have caused these scratch marks?" Gwen wondered as she studied the remains of the knocked down tree. Kevin lifted up one of the branches. "Whatever it was, it was pretty strong to make this pile of scrap wood."
Could it be…?
"GHOSTS!" Jacques shouted as he made a run for it. Ben just stood there with a weirded out look on his face. "O-k-a-y, I'll take that as a no."
Well, no but tune in next time as we begin this story off properly:
Next Episode: Coming down with something awful while something awful this way comes…?