Hello, I am sorry for this update taking so long, my life has been kind of hectic for the last couple of months and it finally crashed and burned last week, so I turned to writing to make it better. So far, it's helped a bit but not enough. I do hope you guys enjoy this chapter.

I dont own Ben Ten

Monica sat on her bed, trying to ignore the frantic text messages that were flying in from Ben. She hadn't answered him since last night and she had decided against going to school today at Kevin's advice that she lay low from Ben until they found out what the creature was. So instead here she was, in the middle of the day playing video games so she wouldn't have to answer Ben's questions. Sure she knew that it wouldn't last forever, Ben would most likely show up at her window after school anyways but she could at least use this time to try to think of a lie that he would believe for her weird behavior lately. However that was proving fruitless as well as she knew that any lie she told him he would never buy. She sighed as her screen lit up with the final flashes of her opponent's death as the deep voice sounded K.O. and closed her eyes waiting for the menu music to come on.

She had spent the better part of her morning going at it with her dad, who was adamant that her ailment was somehow Ben's fault, and that just spurred another argument on why he shouldn't hate the boy on any level. But he had simply doubled down on his refusal to accept that Monica associated with Ben, remarking again on how she needs to get over him and move onto a better prospect, like so-so's son from the office, the one that was going to college to become a politician and get people like Ben punished like they should be. Never mind the fact that the organization Ben works with is government sanctioned and helps protect the world from dangerous beings. Of course any argument or point she brought up was ignored until her father reluctantly went to work, making sure that all the windows and doors were locked first to ensure that no menus would gain entry to the house while he was gone. As if Monica couldn't just unlock the door or window to let him in.

Her phone went off once again, only this time signaling a call rather than a text. She groaned and looked at the screen; she picked up the phone and sent the call to voicemail as she made her way out of her room and to the kitchen to hunt for food. As she passed the window in the kitchen she froze and anxiously looked out the glass to her backyard, scanning carefully for the blue eyes that had been haunting her memory. However she saw nothing, just the trees and bushes lining her back fence and the clean cut grass reaching towards the clear sky. She sighed and let her shoulders fall, the paranoia was starting to get to her and she realized that she couldn't keep this up for long. She could only miss so much school before she would jeopardize her grades and she could only ignore Ben for even less time before she would have new problems on her hand. She looked once more out the window and lost herself in her thoughts as she watched the clouds slowly roll by overhead. It was peaceful enough that she could almost forget everything that had happened. She breathed deeply and closed her eyes, willing the stress in her shoulders to go away. But it came back full force when she was ripped from her stupor at the sound of tapping on glass and her eyes flew open to see a face staring at her through the kitchen window. Breathing heavily she looked closer and saw Kevin looking at her with raised eyebrows.

She glared at him but moved to the sliding glass doors in the dining room and opened them, allowing Kevin to slip past her into her house. "Couldn't use the doorbell?" she asked as she closed and locked the door behind him, refusing to meet his eyes.

"They want you to come in," Kevin said, ignoring her question. Monica didn't even need to question who 'they' were, she just sighed. "They know not to tell Ben, but Max is very concerned due to the nature of the creature and what they found at the site."

Monica looked up at that, concern filling her eyes, "what did they find?"

"Entrapment runes," Kevin said and Monica's stomach dropped at the words. She may not know much about aliens but she knew enough to know that if there were prisons of any kind it was not an alien she wanted following her everywhere she went. "Max has everything at the rust bucket, he just needs you." Kevin nodded his head to the door and Monica took a fortifying breath and opened it again, following Kevin out and back around to the front of her house where his car was parked. Silently the two got in and drove off towards where Max had parked the rust bucket till the next summer.

Ben looked down at his phone for the hundredth time that period and felt anger rise in him that Monica still hadn't responded to him, he could clearly see that she had seen the messages and even sent his call to voicemail. She was clearly trying to ignore him and Ben hated it. This type of thing had been happening more and more over the last couple of months, she would get really weird and then ignore him. The only difference is she usually gave up the ignoring portion within an hour; this had been almost a full day. And Ben was close to his breaking point.

He checked his phone once more and had to restrain himself from screaming as he saw that yet another message had gone viewed but unanswered. He glanced up at the teacher droning on about some equation that part of him knew he should be memorizing for the test but he rationalized that he could just have Monica teach it to him later. He groaned as he saw there was still twenty minutes in the class and he had two more after this. His leg began to bounce the longer the seconds dragged by and after another glance at his phone he finally gave up on waiting for a response from Monica and instead stood from his desk and walked out of the classroom, ignoring his teacher's cries for him to sit back down. He didn't care if he got in trouble; he had the easiest excuse in the world to get out of any and all punishments with the school.

He made his way through the quiet hallways, occasionally passing by the odd student either one with a free period and wandering the halls or one that had a pass clutched in their hands all of them giving him odd looks though. He pulled out his phone and scrolled through his contacts until he found his cousins and hit the call button, not caring that she would be in the middle of class. At the very least he could leave a voicemail.

"This better be good." Gwen said angrily, shocking Ben when she actually answered.

"Have you heard from Monica?" there was a pause and Ben could almost see her pinching the bridge of her nose in annoyance over the fact that that's why he was calling in the middle of school. In his defense though, she didn't need to answer.

"Kevin said he was going to check on her," she responded after a moment.

Ben froze in the hallway at the words, something flaring in him that he couldn't quite place, "Why is Kevin going?" he practically spat.

Gwen remained silent for a moment before laughing nervously, "Well, you know, I'm in school, you're in school, Kevin skips school," Gwen tried to rationalize, "Plus Monica told him how crappy she felt and they are sort of friends."

"Wait," Ben said suddenly, "She told him, like today?"

"Well yea," Gwen said confused, "When else would she have told him?"

Ben growled lowly before hanging up and gripping his phone tightly before turning and punching a random locker as hard as he could. He might have accepted her ignoring him, but ignoring him and still talking to Kevin. Now that was different. Why Kevin of all people? What could she possibly feel more comfortable talking about with him than with her best friend? Ben felt anger begin to surface and his blood boiled as he made a beeline for the exit. His intentions clearly set on finding his friend and prying whatever is going on with her from her. He quickly walked to his car and practically ripped the door open as he jumped in and took off, not a care that he didn't even buckle his seatbelt. He had one goal in mind and he felt his foot weigh heavier on the acceleration as he drove the familiar path to his friends house.

When he arrived there he was quick to transform and fly to her window. Peering into her room he felt another pang of anger when he saw she wasn't there, meaning she was feeling fine. He knew Monica better than anyone and he knew for certain that if she wasn't feeling well enough to go to school she wouldn't be leaving bed until she could go back to school. She was avoiding something and Ben was almost positive he was that something. But why? What did he do? He once again growled as he changed his transformation to grey matter. He quickly unlocked Monica's window and walked into the room, releasing the transformation as he did so. He scanned the area and noticed that she had left her videogame turned on and as he walked to turn on the TV a thought occurred to him. If she knew she was leaving she would not have left the TV on, her mom was incredible anal about that. He quickly made his way out of the room and down the stairs, maybe she was just making food. He thought as he all but ran down the stairs and turned into the kitchen and felt his stomach drop as he saw the dining room sliding glass doors were unlocked. Something happened.

Kevin and Monica drove further into town, the trailer park being on the opposite side of town from Monica's home. As she watched the streets pass by she felt the silence suffocating her before she finally groaned and turned to her companion.

"How bad do you think it is?" She asked, earnestly wanting to know what he thought with his cast knowledge of aliens.

Kevin looked at her out of the side of his eye before sighing, "I don't know, the runes were pretty hardcore, it took a lot to break them. Whoever put them there didn't want this thing running around."

"Break them?"

"Yeah," Kevin said as he came to stop light and turned to face her, his expression serious, "We think that's why the Knights were there, they wanted to let the thing out," Kevin explained and Monica just stared at him wide eyed, confusion evident on her face. The knights had been running away, if they wanted to let the thing out why were they running from it and not trying to capture it?

Kevin could see the questions flash through her eyes and knew that she had to be wondering the same thing he was, why? He turned back to see the light flash green and they once again fell into a tense silence. The silence was broken by the sudden sound of Kevin's phone going off, making Monica jump as he pulled it out and answered, setting the phone to speaker.

"Levin," he answered curtly.

"Minor problem," Gwen's voice sounded from the other line and Kevin grunted in response, signaling for her to continue. "I accidentally let slip to Ben that you were seeing Monica, I didn't tell him why but he seemed pissed nonetheless."

Monica slowly turned to look at Kevin who was now glaring at the phone in his hand like it had curse him, and it very well may have. "You told Gwen?" She asked, her voice barely holding back a shot as Kevin shrugged noncommittally. "You dumbass!" She shouted as she smacked repeatedly at his arm.

"Hey!" Kevin responded as he tried to jerk away from her hits while still staying on the road.

"Why would you tell her?" She demanded, accentuating ever word with a hit on his arm.

"I'm his girlfriend." Gwen voiced through the phone as if it was obvious.

"She also scares the crap out of me when it comes to you." Kevin defended and Gwen snickered through the phone. "Why is it such a big deal?" He asked, the question finally getting Monica to stop hitting him and fall back in her seat as her phone once again rang with a call from Ben. Her answer to the question was to simply shove the offending object in Kevin's face with a glare. "Point," he said cautiously before addressing Gwen again, "we need to go, get back to class."

Monica stared at the ringing phone, unsure if rejecting the call again was the wisest course of action, she didn't even put up a fight when Kevin reached over and took the phone from her hand, rejecting the call himself and switching her phone off, throwing it in the back seat. Monica couldn't care less, as she looked out the window and caught the flash of a shadow again, following right alongside the car. She quickly closed her eyes and opened them again, happy to see that the shadow was gone. She had started to see it everywhere and the sooner they can figure out how to get rid of it the better. She faced forward and steeled her face, remaining silent as Kevin once again looked at her out of the corner of his eye, concern evident on face. Monica however chose to ignore it as she finally saw the trailer park come into view.

She hated all of this, she hated having to miss school, she hated having to go behind Ben's back, and she definitely hated lying to her best friend. She knew that by now Ben was probably going crazy and about ready to go on a murderous rampage. She knew that Ben was not going to like the fact the Kevin was with her, despite everything between the two he still didn't like Monica spending a lot of time with Kevin, although for the life of her she couldn't figure out why. Another level of his overprotection she guessed. She really wasn't looking forward to the earful she would get once she was able to stop ignoring him, the one thing Ben can't stand more than anything with her is when she hides things from her. That thought made her snort though, considering what she's been hiding from him for years, how would he respond to that little piece of information?

That was a question that always Monica stop, how would Ben respond if he found out that his best friend was in love with him? Knowing him he would probably just get awkward and try to avoid her until he felt that the situation had died and they could resume their friendship as normal. That or he would completely ignore her and drop her as a friend. And that's why she is never going to admit to this, the risk is far greater than what she's willing to give.

Her thoughts stopped when she felt the car jerk to a stop and looked up to see that they had parked in front of the Rust Bucket. Wordlessly Kevin got out of the car and began walking to the door, not bothering to see if Monica followed after. She sighed before throwing open her door and running after Kevin, meeting him at the door as it swung open to reveal Grandpa Max in his usual floral print shirt and a concerned look on his face as Kevin walked past him and Monica smiled softly.

"Hey Grandpa Max," she greeted with a small wave and Max nodded his head gesturing for her to come in as well.

"I'm going to need to know everything that happened," Max said as he led her to the far end of the trailer where a line of computers sat, Kevin already looking through them, "the slightest detail can be more important that you realize."

Monica sat at the table and sighed looking to Max as he sat across from her, "okay." As she began to relay the story of what had happened she was well aware of Kevin typing away at the computer and Max staring intently at her as she spoke.

When she had finally relayed all the information Max stood and walked over to her, "Can I see the mark?" he asked and she nodded pulling down her shirt sleeve so he could see her shoulder. She felt Max's hand pull her hair to the side and heard his soft hum as he observed it carefully, "When he bit you did the area around it immediately begin to turn black?" He asked and Both Monica and Kevin shot up at the question.

"What?" Kevin practically yelled as he rushed to look at the wound as well, "It didn't," he said and as Monica glanced over her shoulder she saw the two share a look of concern. Her stomach dropped at the look and she turned back to look at the table as Kevin gripped her shoulder tightly. "Don't let Ben see this," he warned and she nodded.

"I'm going to need to scan it," Max said and Monica turned to look at him with confusion, "we need to ensure that it isn't anything that will harm you."

"You think its poisoned?" she asked anxiously, her hands clutching at the bottom of her shirt.

"Or something worse," his words were quiet but Monica heard them nonetheless and her breathing picked up. "We won't know until we know what we're dealing with."

She saw Kevin hand him what looked like a bar code scanner and she felt a warm beam on her shoulder as a scanning noise entered the quiet space. It only lasted for a moment before it stopped and Max and Kevin walked into her line of vision again, both staring intently at the device. She pulled her sleeve back into place and folded her hands on the table, staring intently at her fingers as the silence grew. Every time a new development was met with this it just seemed to get worse and worse for Monica. She didn't know how much more she could take.

Finally after what felt like an eternity, the little device beeped and Kevin sighed in relief, "I take it its good new?" Monica asked hopefully and Kevin nodded with a grunt.

"Not anything that's going to help us though." Max stated matter-of-factly, "we still don't know what that thing was."

"Whatever it was, I don't think I can handle seeing outside my window again." She muttered to herself and Max looked at her with sympathetic concern. She sighed and laid her arms out on the table and let her head rest in the crooks, and closed her eyes. The silence stretched between them as she listened to the typing of keys as Kevin tried to find answers in the Plumbers archives and Max tinkered with some machine. "How long do I have to be here?"

"You said it's been following you?" Max asked and she grunted in response, "Then I want you to stay here tonight, if nothing else I don't need Ben showing up at your door and trying to fight this thing when he finds out what's happened."

Monica looked up from the table and sighed before nodding and standing, "Kevin I need to get my phone out of the car, I can't lie to Ben but my dad is a lot easier to fool." She said and Kevin nodded, tossing her the keys. She easily caught them and made her way out of the rust bucket and towards Kevin car. She unlocked the door and pulled her phone out of the backseat, with an anxious look she turned it back on and stared at the notifications from Ben. She groaned before pulling up her contacts and calling her mom. She sat by the car waiting for her mom to answer the phone and looked around at the trailer park they were in. It was definitely a nicer one, kind of felt like a long term RV park over a white trash trailer park. Finally the ringing stopped and she heard her mom.

"Hey sweetie, you feeling better?" Her mom asked sweetly and Monica smiled, hating that she had to lie to her at the moment.

"Hey mom, I am. I'm actually over at Stacy's, we have to finish planning some things out for Homecoming next week, so I'm gonna spend the night here." She said and her mom voiced her agreement before quickly ending the call, much was the woman's typical call form. Monica turned off her screen and turned from the car to go back inside the trailer and froze when standing no more than ten feet away from her was the alien.

She felt her heart race as it just stood and stared at her, she was frozen in place, couldn't move or even speak as its glowing blue eyes bore into her. Why was it here? Why it was it obsessed with her. She thought about asking it when she heard a door open behind her and Kevin shouted her name. She still couldn't turn away from the thing though even as it started moving towards her. She knew as it stepped closer that she needed to turn and run, she needed to get away from it but something was holding her to the spot, almost as if the thing had control over her somehow. She stood on in horror as it smirked, its white teeth a stark contrast from the shadowy darkness surrounding them. She heard Kevin's footsteps get closer before the thing vanished from in front of her and Kevin pulled on her arm to make her face him and she felt herself being yanked from her trance.

"Monica!" he shouted and shook her slightly, "Why didn't you move?" He asked, anger and concern mixing in his voice as Max joined them.

"I-I-I couldn't," she said, looking anxiously at the two, "It's like it had a spell on me, I couldn't move." She tried to explain and the two shared another concerned look.

"Let's get you inside," Max said, wrapping his arm around Monica's shoulders in comfort and leading her into the rust bucket. "Kevin, I need you to distract Ben, you know at some point he will show up her and try to have me track her."

"What?" Monica asked incredulously.

"Don't worry, I wouldn't."

"That's not as comforting as you think it is." She said, looking behind her at Kevin's smirking face.

"I'll keep Ben away, you keep her safe, and at the first sign of trouble call me." He said seriously and both Monica and Max nodded. Kevin gripped the girls shoulder tightly one last time before turning and walking out of the door and jumping in his car. Monica sat at the table and pulled out her phone as it once again lit up with a call from Ben. She stared at the name as the phone continued to ring and Max sat across the table from her.

"He's just going to keep calling if you don't answer." The man said and Monica sighed.

"But if I answer he's gonna figure out what's going on." She said before muting her phone and putting it down. "He'll kill Kevin if he finds out."

Max sighed before standing, "Try to get some sleep, there are pull out beds in the back. Kevin will pick you up in the morning." Max said before sitting down at the computer and scrolling through files again. Monica stood and made her way to the back, unfolding one of the beds and collapsing on top of it, ready to finally wake up from this nightmare.

Well, there it is. Please let me know what you think of it. Until next time.

The Freak is out of here :)