Disclaimer: I don't own Ben 10 or any references to the Cassie Palmer Series, i do own Iggi, Jim, Bright, Iraah and Rya, though.
Chapter 2
Missing Person
Tap tap tap… tap tap tap. Ben sat up in bed, rubbing his eyes and squinting at his window. It took him a few minuets to register that it was Julie crouching on his roof, outside the window at two in the morning. As he climbed out of bed, embarrassedly pulled some pants on over his boxers and made his way over to the window, he tried to think of how she could have gotten onto the roof. He pulled the window open to let her in, "Julie, how did you get on my roof?"
"Um, that's not important right now." She bit her lip looking upset, "Ben I need your help."
He paused, "It's Ship isn't it?"
"Well, yes, but I'm not so worried about him right now, where ever he is, I'm sure he'll be okay." She whipped a tear from her eye, "But he was with my sister when he disappeared and now she's gone, too."
"I didn't know you had a sister." He nodded, "I'll call Kevin and Gwen and see if they can come over, it's really late, but a missing person is more serious than missing pets."
"I could call Iggi over, too," She offered, "She's pretty good at this kind of thing."
"Sure, give her a call." He nodded, pulling out his plumber's badge.
She flipped out her cell phone and dialed Iggi's number, "Hey Iggi."
"Hey, Julie." Iggi's soft, wispy voice sounded strained with worry.
"You know Ben, right?" Julie asked.
"The one in my English class?" Iggi confirmed, "Yeah I know your boyfriend, not well, but we get on okay."
"Well, I was wondering if you could come around to his house for a bit." Julie asked, Iggi's parents never minded her going out at odd hours.
"I don't know, Julie, it's late and I don't really want to put my make up on right now." Iggi's voice hinted to some other reason, but Julie decided to accept what she'd been told.
"Then don't put it on." Julie told her friend, "It'll be okay, I promise, Ben won't judge you by your looks."
There was silence on the other end of the line for a moment before Iggi responded, "Fang and Tink disappeared from the yard this afternoon."
Julie nodded even though her friend couldn't see it, "Iraah and Ship are gone, too. We really need you, Ig. Come on, it's a chance to get out of your house and spend some real time with other people our age… it'll be fun, an adventure. I promise."
There was another long silence from Iggi, "I'll be over in a few minuets."
Julie sighed as the line went dead, "Ben, we have two more to add to our missing persons list."
"What do you mean?" He asked frowning.
"Iggi's little brother and sister disappeared from her back yard this afternoon." Julie sighed.
A shadow passed in front of the window and a dark figure slipped into the room. The person was a head shorter that Julie and covered completely in a dark purple cloak.
Julie nodded to the cloaked person and smirked, "Hello Iggi, that was fast."
Iggi pulled her cloak off in one fluid motion; she wasn't dressed much differently than she did at school, a long back skirt, a long sleeved purple turtle neck, white socks and high heeled Mary Jane's. It was the rest of her that was radically different, he'd always thought that she looked rather odd, like her coloring was off and he was right. Her usually fake tan slathered skin was a silvery blue-grey color rather than bronze and her eyes, normally an odd reddish-brown color were deep red. The only thing normal about her was her purplish-black hair that was currently cut short and fell cutely around her face in a pixie-like style that fit her small build. She nodded and greeted them in her soft, feathery, but slightly dark voice, "Hi Julie, Ben. We'd better make this quick, I can't leave Patch alone for too long."
"Hey Iggi." Ben smiled, he defiantly liked her looking like this better, she seemed less fake and untrustworthy.
"Hey Ben, this had better be good." Gwen said as she opened the door to his room, fallowed by Kevin, "Hi Julie. You do realize it's just past two in the morning, right?"
"Whoa, Ben, who's your friend?" Kevin asked, ignoring his girlfriend and glancing at Iggi.
"Oh, Kevin, Gwen, this is Iggi Lives," He nodded, "She's in my English class. Iggi, this is my cousin Gwen and our friend, Kevin."
"So, why are we here?" Gwen asked.
"You called it Gwen," Ben frowned, "Missing pets… except now people are missing, too."
"Iggi's little bother and sister went disappeared from their yard this afternoon," Julie told them, "And this evening my sister, Iraah, said she was going to her friend Brightin's down the street, she took Ship with her because I had to go to the… I had to go out. She said she'd be back before dinner so when nine o'clock rolled around and she still wasn't home, I called Bright. They never even got to his house; they just vanished off the street."
"I've noticed…" Iggi cut in, "It's just around our houses, Lee, have you noticed that?"
"What do you mean?" Julie asked.
"Well I picked up these posters on the way over and drew up this map of our street before I left home." She sat down, placing a pile of posters to one side and spreading out a map of the eight houses on their section of Barning Street, from # 238, Julie's house, to # 245, Mrs. Jennings house. Then she pulled out a pen and some posters, "Here we go, Mrs. Jennings is missing her cat, Freddie," She wrote this information down in the box labbled Mrs. Jennings, "Next door from her, Ruth and June Redmond are missing their three cats, Moxy, Mittens and Todd. Over one more house, The Johnston's are looking for their dogs, Old Jack and a puppy named Boomer along with their son, two year old Brandon. Last on the row, old Mr. Peterson's lost his old dog, Jen. Across the road is you, Julie, and your missing Ship and Iraah. We can skip the house in between ours because we can both confirm that Rocket the pony is still in the yard and poor little Annie is too sick to leave her bed, never mind being left alone outside long enough to get lost or kidnapped."
Julie nodded and picked up the posters, leafing through them, "Your missing, Trixy, Van, Tink and Fang." She watched Iggi write it down before moving on to the last house, "Brightin's family is missing their old mare, Nibbles. It's funny about that though, because she disappeared in broad daylight, the gate was locked and they only turned away from her for a minuet and she was gone."
"But that's not possible," Gwen knelt down with the two other girls on her cousin's bedroom floor, "horses don't just disappear into thin air… neither do people or anything else for that matter."
"Your right." Julie agreed, "Not without leaving some sort of trace, like a powder or a puff of smoke or something." Her friends gave her a strange look, "What? You've never seen someone travel from place to place with magic."
"There's no such thing as magic," Kevin told her.
"Really…" she raised one eyebrow, "So you've never heard of Necromancy, Clairvoyance, Nullisim…?"
Everyone except for Iggi shook their heads. Iggi on the other hand smiled, "I've more than heard of it… I've seen a necromancer work. It was kind of spooky."
Gwen thought back to her years of believing her powers were magic, "Necromancy, the ability to raise the dead."
"Right, you are, Gwen," Julie grinned, "Fascinating to study, but very draining to use… well, so is clairvoyance. In fact, I think Nullisim is the easiest to wield, you don't really do much, it's just there when you need it. Not very good against physical attacks though, best to also learn to fight as well."
"How do you know all this?" Ben asked her, thinking that he might not be able to refer to her as his normal girlfriend anymore.
"I've been studying magic since I was six," She told them, "I'm mostly done now, but the Circle still requires me to take at least four after school classes twice a week. I've already finished studying the use of Clairvoyance and Nullisim, but I have troubles with Necromancy, it's my worst physical skill and my weakest subject, so my teacher, John says I have to take a few more courses in it. I'm also taking Magical Creature Studies, which also covers homo-sapient-like beings such as Vampires and Werewolves, Demonology, Divination and a Magic based Chemistry class."
"Wow," Kevin stared at her in disbelief, "And here I thought you were the normal one."
"Uh yeah, not really," She laughed, "My "twin sister" Iraah is actually my older brother's clone. Some scientists stole some of his DNA when he was a kid and mixed it with the DNA of several animals, stuck it in a test tube and next thing you know thirteen year old Iraah's showing up on our back porch."
Iggi rolled her eyes, "Don't even get started on Ryaden, ugh, that kid creeps me out sometimes… reminds me of my Uncle Trygon."
"She can't help it, Ig," Julie shrugged, "She's just a kid."
"Yeah, a demon kid… who is living in your house." She shuttered.
Whatever," Julie rolled her eyes, "She's sorta cute. Anyways, that's were I was when Iraah and Ship disappeared. I can't take Ship with me to the Circle, the wards there short out anything electrical within a mile radius, he'd be toast."
"Maybe we should go check Bright's yard for some evidence of where Nibbles could have gone," Iggi brought them back on topic, "or we could look in my yard."
Ben shrugged, "Two back yards, twice the chances of finding something. We can even check out the street where Iraah and Ship would have disappeared."
She nodded, "We can check my yard tomorrow morning, but if we're going to Bright's or anywhere else, I'll have to put on some fake tan and all that."
"Why do you were that fake tan stuff?" Gwen asked, "And those contacts?"
"Because if I'm wearing loads of fake tan, people thing I'm weird." She shrugged, "But if I'm not, people know I'm not human. It's better to be weird than not human." She glanced at Julie as she headed for the window, "Come on, Lee, I'll fly you home."
"Hey, Lives, hold up a second." Kevin dug in his pocket for something before pulling out a small silver digital watch with a few extra buttons on the side, "It's a holo-watch," he explained, "It works better that fake tan, just push the green button on the side a use the other buttons to change your appearance… it also tells time."
She smiled, "Thanks, Kevin."
"Well, let's get going, Ig, Mom hates it when I shift in the house after dark." Julie smiled, winking at Ben before stepping onto a platform of what looked like dark purplish-black manna that Iggi had formed outside the window and floating away over the roof tops.
"Julie uses magic…" Gwen thought aloud, "Who would have guessed it?"
"Yeah," Kevin nodded, putting his arm around her shoulders, "Anyways, Gwen, I'll drive you home."
"Thanks Kev." Gwen smiled, "Night Ben."
"Night guys." Ben called after them and tiredly collapsed into bed.
