Peer Pressure, part I

Ben

Ben and Gwen were sitting on a bench in Bellwood Park.

"You remember Julie, right? The girl we - Watch Boy and Lucky Girl - saved from a Squid-Monster. She plays tennis. I went to watch a match a few weeks ago, and we became friends. I talked to her about you, and she's interested in getting to know you," Gwen said, and Ben noticed she was trying to hide the sadness in her voice. He knew that Gwen herself hated this idea.

"Why does she have to be so goodie-goodie and responsible all the time?"

"Gwen, I want you." he caressed her face. Although the park was almost empty that morning, Ben still had the urge to look around to make sure there was nobody there who knew them.

Gwen let out a sad sigh. "Look what you just did, Ben. You looked over your shoulder before touching me. You know this wouldn't work. We would lose our friends, and our family would never accept us."

"I-I d-don't really care if people find out-"

"Ben, Julie will be great for you," Gwen interrupted him. "She is pretty and kind. You'll thank me for it later." She gave him a sad smile.

"What if I don't want to date any other girl besides you?" Ben asked determined.

"Ben... There's only one way we can get over this thing we have for each other... we need to find other people to love." Gwen took a deep breath, and Ben could swear she was holding back tears, "I want things to be easier for you. Let's make a deal. I promise I won't date anyone until you find a girl who makes you happy first. But you have to promise me that you will try, and the first thing to do is let me introduce you to Julie."

While Ben was terrible with girls, Gwen would have no problem finding a boyfriend that very same day if she wanted to - most boys she met usually crushed on her on at least some degree, even her own cousin. She was giving him the chance to 'move on' first. Ben let out a long sigh, and decided to accept Gwen's plan.

"Gwen ... What if she finds out about the Omnitrix?" Ben whispered worried. Ben and Gwen were watching Julie Yamamoto playing a tennis match.

"Julie is a good person. I'm sure she'll keep your secret if she finds out," Gwen replied.

The small crowd stood up to applaud. The game was over, with Julie's victory.

"Come on, Ben." Gwen grabbed him by his arm and led him to the court.

"Gwen! It's good to see you!" Julie said.

"Hi, Julie! Congratulations on the win! This is my cousin, Ben. I'll let you guys talk." Gwen took a few steps back and pushed Ben closer to Julie.

"Hi!" Ben chuckled nervously. "That was a great match."

"Thanks." Julie smiled at him.

"Err ... That's it. C-Congratulations." Ben always had trouble talking to girls. The only girl of his age with whom he managed to be more loose and natural with was Gwen. Near any other girl, he would began to stutter and he never knew what to say. "You're a great player. Err... Bye, and... I hope we can see each other again later."

"Bye! I hope so too," Julie said, still smiling.

Could 'I hope we can see each other again later' be counted as asking her out? Anyway, Ben slowly began to take a few steps back, embarrassed and shy, until someone - Gwen - shoved him back, not without whispering in his ear first, "Ask her out to dinner. At Le'Roys. Tonight, seven-thirty."

"Hi ... again," Ben said, a little embarrassed.

"Hi!" Julie said.

"Do you ... want ... to have dinner ... tonight? Of course you want to have dinner tonight, otherwise you're going to starve," he chuckled nervously again, "What I mean is, do you want to have dinner with me tonight at Le'Roys, seven-thirty?" Ben said, very nervous.

"Yeah, I'd love to," Julie said, sounding very happy with the invitation. "Come by my house, my father can drive us there."

Later…

Ben was in his bedroom, getting ready for the date with Julie.

Ben would have been extremely happy to go out with her ... before. Now, he couldn't stop comparing her to Gwen. Julie was cute, but Gwen was beautiful. It was cool to watch Julie's tennis match, but it was amazing to watch Gwen's karate competitions. Would Julie understand if he had to cancel a date with her all of a sudden because S.E.C.T. needed him to solve some alien emergency elsewhere? With Gwen, she would be by his side, kicking the butts of the aliens that ruined their date.

"I have to forget about Gwen once and for all. Julie deserves someone who values her. And I'm going to value her for what she is, without comparing her to anyone." Ben spoke to himself in a low voice, determined to make things work between him and Julie.

To clear his head, he decided he would fly to Julie's house using one of his aliens. Of course there was the problem of the clothes - every time he turned alien, his normal clothes were torn apart. Fortunately, S.E.C.T.'s scientists had discovered a new feature in the Omnitrix. The watch could envelop him in a substance that created clothes for him instantly, based on his thoughts.

Ben used the Omnitrix to dress up with a long-sleeved buttoned shirt, trousers and shoes and left the house after saying goodbye to his parents - who were very glad he had a date. Ben tried to focus on this positive detail: if everything went well, this would be a relationship that would make his family happy. The only possible way for his parents to get pissed at him because of a date with Julie would be if he failed to come home before eleven pm.

Ben got in the first dark alley he found and activated the Omnitrix, turning into a big insect with green wings, four pedunculated eyes, four legs, two arms and a tail with a stinger, Stinkfly.

Flying through the city was awesome. Stinkfly simply enjoyed that feeling for a few minutes ... until he spotted another alien flying towards him.

The other alien had a black exterior and green stripes that resembled electric circuitry all over him, which made Ben remember one of his own aliens, Upgrade. That one was probably of the same species, and had the same abilities to merge with machines. And it looked like he had merged himself with some kind of very technological and powerful battle-suit.

"Ship, ship, ship, ship ..." The alien spoke as he got closer to Stinkfly with great speed thanks to the propulsion in his jet boots.

He didn't look friendly.

Stinkfly tried to avoid him, but 'Ship' was able to grab him tight. But even partially immobilized, Stinkfly was able to stab Ship in the chest with his sting tail. Luckily, Stinkfly's sting was more resistant than the armor Ship had merged himself with, and that move was enough to stun Ship for a few moments.

Stinkfly took the opportunity to spit a green and sticky slime on Ship's boots. Stinkfly's slime was also adhesive and immobilizing, and that would surely make Ship have some trouble with flying.

Stinkfly was ready to continue the fight, but the Omnitrix on his face began to beep, glowing red. Stinkfly quickly flew down, looking for some alley where no one would see him turning back to Ben.

A few moments later, back to normal, Ben, fortunately, didn't see any signs of Ship. He used his communicator to tell Grandpa what happened.

After Ben finished the story, Grandpa Max said, "Ben, hide, and when the Omnitrix goes green again, you turn into XLR8 and run to the S.E.C.T. base"

"No way, Grandpa. I have a date now, and I'm already late," Ben replied worried about the time.

"Kiddo, your safety is a lot more important than a date! This alien might still be hunting you! Do what I said and-"

"I'm sorry, Grandpa, there's an interference with the communicator, I can't listen to you," Ben lied. "But I promise I'll be careful. I'll have to go now. Goodbye."

In the car with Julie and Mr. Yamamoto, Ben was quite nervous.

Julie was wearing a sparkly, knee-length blue dress. She wore light makeup that matched her dark chin-length hair. She looked very cute. She looked very beautiful, Ben mentally corrected himself. But the word 'beautiful' reminded him of Gwen, which only made things worse.

"Sweetie, don't get your hopes too high with this boy," Mr. Yamamoto said.

"Dad!" Julie protested, with a frown on her face.

"He was late-"

"Accidents happen, dad! And he explained everything." Julie frowned. Ben had come up with an excuse to justify his lateness, obviously.

"And I was there at your tennis match. I saw that your friend, the redhead, had to literally push this boy to talk-"

"He's just shy, Dad!" Julie folded her arms.

"I'm just saying this because you're my baby girl and I don't want you getting your feelings hurt. He doesn't seem very interested..."

"Mr. Yamamoto, I'm sorry. Your daughter is a wonderful girl, and I'm very interested in getting to know her better," Ben said.

Mr. Yamamoto almost jumped in the driver's seat. Julie also looked at him with wide eyes.

"Do you speak Japanese, boy?" Mr. Yamamoto asked.

"Er ... No," Ben said, a little confused. But he quickly understood what had happened. Julie's father was speaking in Japanese with her, and the Omnitrix was translating everything to Ben. "I mean ... I took some lessons a while ago."

"I didn't mean to offend you with what I said. I only want what's best for my baby girl, like all good parents do," Mr. Yamamoto said in a low voice.

"Of course, you're right." Ben let out a nervous chuckle. He felt a little guilty. He would never be the 'best' for Julie until he stopped thinking about Gwen. But he couldn't make himself stop thinking about her.

Mr. Yamamoto dropped them at the restaurant and asked Julie to call him later to pick her up. Ben and Julie talked a lot during dinner. Ben was usually terrible talking to girls, but he found out that Julie was nice and easy to talk to.

Julie told him that she had competed in five professional tennis tournaments, and that her dream was winning an Olympic medal as a tennis player in the future. Ben told her about his 'internship' in S.E.C.T. - of course he did not tell her anything about the Omnitrix, but he said he aspired to be a great agent in the future, just like his grandfather. Julie then told him about the bad experience she had involving a Squid-Monster, and fortunately she was saved by two young agents of S.E.C.T. - Watch Boy and Lucky Girl.

"It's funny, when I arrived in town, I saw a sign that read, 'Welcome to Bellwood, the most normal city in America,' but in my first month here I was almost eaten by an alien monster, now I think that sign was pure sarcasm." Julie giggled.

"No, actually, things in Bellwood are pretty quiet most of the time," Ben said. "To have here in town a crazy Vilgax-worshiper with a Squid-Monster pet was an exception."

Suddenly, the restaurant door was ripped off by Ship, still fused with the battle-suit from before. "Ship, ship, ship, ship!"

"I have a severe case of bad luck then, because that's another 'exception' right there," Julie said, scared.

The people ran off frightened. Ben grabbed Julie by the arm and ran towards the bathroom.

"Let's hide in the booths. You hide in this one here, while I will stay in the next one." Of course he had no intention of hiding.

"Let's fight fire with fire," Ben thought. He changed his looks to Watch Boy, and then he dialed the Omnitrix to select Upgrade.

Ben slammed the watch, and turned into an alien with a black exterior with green electric circuitry-like stripes, and a green torso with black stripes.

"Ben?" Julie asked. She had probably noticed the bright green light that had shone every time he turned into an alien.

"Just stay where you are, Julie," he said, and immediately realized he had made a mistake. His voice was now Upgrade's voice, not Ben's.

Ship broke the bathroom door. Upgrade charged up against him, but he was blasted with an energy beam coming from the battle armor's chest, and was thrown against the wall.

Ship ripped off the booth door where Julie was and grabbed her.

"AAH, help!" Julie shouted. The battle suit opened up and wrapped itself around Julie. Crap, now Upgrade couldn't do anything against Ship without the risk of hurting Julie inside the armor. "HELP!"

"Ship, ship," Ship said, and Upgrade understood it as 'follow me'. Ship took off, breaking through the roof of the restaurant's bathroom.

Upgrade ran out, and merged with the first motorcycle he found. Upgrade could not only control the machine he fused himself with, he could also - as his name suggested - upgrade it. The motorcycle was now able to fly through the sky after Ship.

Upgrade regretted not cancelling the date like Grandpa Max had requested. In his recklessness, he didn't stop to think that he would be putting Julie in danger as well.

A few minutes later, Ship entered inside an abandoned building, and Upgrade followed him.

"Let the girl go," Upgrade said, un-merging with the bike. "This is between you and me, you crazy alien."

"Actually, this is between you and me," a voice spoke at the back of the room.

The lights turned on, and Upgrade saw that voice belonged to a small alien, a red-eyed Galvan - the same species as Gray Matter. He was wearing a black and red robe.

"My name is Albedo. You have something that belongs to me, human," The Galvan said, pronouncing the word 'human' with a tone of contempt and arrogance, "I want my Omnitrix back."

TO BE CONTINUED...

* "Peer Pressure" is an adaptation of an AF episode, "Pier Pressure". People who saw the episode are certainly noticing many similarities. Gwen literally pushing Ben to ask Julie out because he was too shy is actually one of them, so, sorry folks, it was not my idea to make Gwen do that.

* Sorry about the cliffhanger. This and the next chapter were supposed to be a single chapter, but it was getting way too long, and I decided to make it into a two-part arc. You will probably see the next part popping up soon.

* Thanks to all my reviewers, favoriters, followers, and to Aurora Nightstar and AmigoBwendolyn who edited this chapter for me.