Hello, I know I really should be writing my other stories and not publishing new ones, but that's what's happening. This is a work in progress that I have a couple different ideas for, so we'll see which one takes as this goes. I can tell you, I don't like Ben and Julie together, so they wont remain that way for the bulk of this story. This is a Ben X OC story. I hope you enjoy it and please tell me what you think.

I don't own Bent Ten

Galileo was put on trial and spent the last years of his life in prison for suggesting that the earth revolved around the sun. We think we have a pretty good understanding of how the universe works now, but what if we don't? What if we're wrong? What if everything we had been taught was wrong? The world was awoken with that terrifying realization when Benjamin Curtis Tennyson came into the spot light. The world was perfectly content with its blissful ignorance to the existence of other life. Many even wish to go back to that ignorance, and the rest just want to be living where that ignorance is reality. Yet there are some that are fascinated with this discovery, these are the people like Monica Harangue.

Monica stared ahead at the board taking distracted notes as the teacher talked about the development of the U.S. government, she had already read the chapter so she wasn't that determined to pay attention during this particular lesson. She glanced at the clock and internally groaned at how much time was left in the day before she could go home and pass out, her eyes fell back to the notebook on her desk and she looked at it curiously as she had started to apparently just write down random words. She shook her head and began erasing the last couple lines of notes on her paper when the door to the classroom suddenly swung open. She looked up and saw a very exhausted looking Ben standing in the door way bent over and panting with his finger raised towards the teacher who stood expectantly at the front of the room with her arms crossed and staring pointedly at him.

"I-I am sorry." He panted, "I had a late night." He tried but the teacher just kept staring at him, he looked at the floor nervously, "I'll just," he pointed to the back and sighed, "Yeah." He said quietly as he walked carefully to the vacant seat beside Monica, after he had sat down The teacher eyed him for a second more before turning back to the board and jumping back into her lesson.

Monica eyed Ben with raised eyebrows as he rummaged through his backpack looking through his notebook, by now she wasn't even paying the teacher the slightest attention as she watched her friend struggle with finding the right one letting a couple curses quietly slip.

Monica was a girl that had known Ben since they were in diapers and after he had returned from that fateful summer break when they were ten she had sensed something was different about him, but she never would have guessed that the watch was what it was. That is until about six years later when his face was plastered all over the news. That was the fateful day the whole world learned about the existence of aliens and Ben's ability to transform into many different kinds of said aliens. And that honestly fascinated Monica, and just like that so many questions that had plagued her were answered, why Ben was always disappearing for days at a time, why he always missed school, and why he was always so secretive about his adventures.

She snorted at his struggles but Ben either didn't hear her or didn't care to pay attention to it because he simply kept looking.

"Ah-ha!" He exclaimed excitedly as he pulled out his history notebook and slammed it down on the desk looking to Monica with a smug expression. She corked her eyebrow at him and closed her own notebook seconds before the final bell for class rang. Ben groaned and slammed his head on the desk as the students around him began to file out of the room.

Monica sighed and slid her notebook over to him, "Notes for today so you can copy them down." She said and Ben looked up at her from his position on the desk with a semi-relieved look. "Fifty minutes late to third period?" She asked and his expression changed to a scowl.

"I had a late night." He said as he grabbed her notebook and shoved it into his bag and followed her out into the hallway.

"You always have late nights," She responded incredulously, "When are you going to take my advice and just get into homeschooling?" She asked and Ben laughed.

"What, you mean you don't like tutoring me?" He asked in mock offence, raising a hand to his chest like he had been hit. "I'm wounded."

"You'll bounce back." She deadpanned, stopping in front of her locker and opened it while Ben slunk against the one next to her with a sigh, "Alright, let's hear it, what was it this time?" she asked as she began switching out her books for her next classes.

"Forever knights." Ben looked at her with his head tilted, "Kevin and I found a trail of them right as we were wrapping up patrols last night and had to hunt them down to stop them from whatever it is those guys do at this point." He explained and Monica ahh'd and nodded, "Well, as it turns out we interrupted a recruiting session and before we knew it the test became get rid of Kevin and I, which meant we had to go through a bunch adolescents before we could get to the actual forever knights. Anyways by the time I got home it was like four in the morning and I slept right through my alarms." He explained.

Monica shook her head and turned to him, "Ben, you can't keep missing classes like this, you-"

"Hello Ben." a happy voice piped up from behind Ben and Monica internally groaned as Julie came into view and kissed Ben on the cheek.

"Hey." Ben responded happily, throwing an arm around his girlfriend. The two seemed to forget that Monica was standing there as they began their disgusting display of coupley love.

Monica rocked back and forth on her heels for a bit before pointedly clearing her throat, Julie looked at her with an embarrassed look, "Oh, I'm so sorry, was I interrupting something?" She asked looking to Ben.

"Actually," Monica said before shaking her head and closing her locker, "actually I'm late for a meeting with my councilor so I should probably get going." She said with a wave as she quickly retreated away from the couple ignoring the confused look Ben gave her. She rounded the corner and slumped against the wall with a groan, her gaze cast up to the ceiling before she pushed off and headed towards her next class quickly.

Monica had had a crush on Ben since they were in the sixth grade, not that she would ever admit that to him, and it's not like he ever noticed. Julie had appeared out of the blue and as such she had pushed her feelings to the side and tried to be happy for them but after the first year she got tired of the lovey dovey act and suddenly started to avoid the two whenever they were together. Ben seemed to notice at least that much but Monica had gotten great at skirting the subject and not giving him a direct answer. It was sad how oblivious Ben was to it all, everyone else knew of her crush and everyone seemed to have an opinion on what she should do about it. She has chosen to ignore it and hope it goes away.

Monica continued to stare at the clock as the minutes of the day ticked away and soon she found herself impatiently tapping her leg as the clock slowly ticked to the end of the day. She was yet again not paying attention to her teacher as they droned on about something to do with how oxygen reacts to something... She thinks, when she zoned out that was what they were talking about. She wasn't even paying any mind to Ben who sat next to her giving her some very confused glances as she added in tapping her pencil on the edge of the desk to her fiddling.

Finally after about five minutes Ben groaned and grabbed her closed fist to stop her tapping. She felt herself being thrown out of her daze and turned to look at his hand confused before looking up at him, he leaned in closer and whispered to her. "If you keep that up I'm gonna smack you." He warned jokingly pulling his hand away and shooting her a smile before turning back to the teacher. She snorted before looking back the clock, being conscious not to begin tapping again. After what felt like forever the clock finally ticked to 3:00 and the bell rang and Monica swore she had never packed up and bolted from a class faster.

As had become the normal routine for her and Ben he followed her to her locker, "Eager to get out of here I see." He commented.

"Well, unlike some, I have been here since school started." She shot back without a thought and Ben simply laughed.

"What was it you were going to say this morning before Julie came?" He asked curiously.

Monica froze and took a quick breath of air to keep herself from screaming at the mention of Ben's girlfriend, "I can't really remember." She answered curtly.

Ben eyed her suspiciously, no doubt seeing through her lie, he could see that but not that she liked him, "Alright." He said slowly, still eyeing her every move, "We on for studying tonight?" He asked.

She let out a small sigh of relief at the subject change, "We can, but it will need to be at your house, Dad is gonna be home tonight, he's having a work party." She said and Ben seemed to flinch a little at the mention of her father.

Oh yeah, and then there was that, her father. Better known as William Harangue Newscaster and Professional Ben Tennyson Slander from channel 3. The man hated Ben, even before he became known as the alien boy, and as such has never liked the fact that Monica hung out with him, much less the idea of her dating him. So as far as her dad was concerned she didn't socialize with Ben, despite the fact that he remains one of her few and only friends. And of course the media was happy to portray that, it wouldn't very good for his public view if his daughter was caught hanging out with the Menus otherwise known as Tennyson.

Ben sighed, "We won't be able to it at my place tonight, my parents are having one of their weird "dinner parties" with some people from Mom's work. Guess we'll have to cancel for tonight." He said and added as an afterthought, "Maybe I'll see if Julie wants to go to the movies or something."

Monica forcefully closed her locker and turned to look at her shocked friend, "Yea, look I really need to be getting home so hopefully I'll see you first hour tomorrow." She said and turned to walk off before Ben even had a chance to respond. He watched as the girl practically ran out of the school with confusion, he had been noticing that she runs away anytime Julie comes into the conversation. Maybe they just weren't hanging out as much as they could. He walked off to another part of the school to find his girlfriend and talk to her about it.

Monica quickly ran out the doors and to her car in the back of the parking lot and jumped in, throwing her bag into the passenger seat and put on her seatbelt, she then gripped the steering wheel and stared at the entrance to the school as students poured out of the building. Her grip tightened on the wheel and she slammed her head on the wheel, narrowly missing the horn and sat that way for a few minutes. She knew she was being irrational with her reactions to Julie lately but she couldn't help it, just the mention of the girls name made her feel sick to her stomach. And lately she seemed all Ben could talk about. She needed a distraction out of her house tonight. She pulled her head away from the steering wheel and pulled her phone out of her bag. There were two people she could call and right now she wanted the one that wouldn't tell her to tell Ben how she feels. So she punched in the number to call him and waited for him to answer.

"Levin. How the hell did you get this number?" Came the curt response.

"What kind of people call you that that is how you answer the phone every damn time?" She asked before adding quickly, "And why the hell is my number not saved in your phone yet?" She asked incredulously.

"Oh, hey Mon, what's up?" Kevin responded chipperly.

"You doing anything tonight?" She asked curtly, "I don't really want to be in the house for my dad's work party." She explained.

"I'm just doing patrols tonight, but you know Ben doesn't want you going on those. Speaking of which, why don't you just hang out with Ben tonight?" He asked.

"Julie." She said coldly.

"I'll pick you up at your house at five, just don't tell Ben I took you on patrol." He responded without any further questioning.

"See you then." She said before the line went dead and she finally took off towards her home. That was one thing she could count on, Kevin understood her irrational hatred towards Julie and was always willing to offer distractions, even if it meant possibly getting killed by Ben. Ben seemed to have this fear that if Monica went on a patrol with any of them she would die. But he doesn't have any issues with Julie going. Maybe he doesn't think you're as capable as her. Monica shook her head at the thought and sped up to get back to her house quickly. She managed to do just that and she sat in the driveway staring at her garage door. She glanced down at her car clock and saw the time was 3:15, she still had almost two hours before Kevin would be at her house. She sighed and put the car in park, might as well get her father's interrogation out of the way sooner rather than later so she might actually be able get some homework done before Kevin arrived. She took a fortifying breath before grabbing her bag and opening her car door. She walked to her door and began mentally ticking off the assignments she had for the evening. She had been fortunate enough to knock out science during class as she had read ahead in the chapter, but math was worrying her, the teacher had decided to randomly spring an assignment that she hadn't been able to read in the chapter yet and she was struggling with grasping its concept.

She continued thinking on this as she unlocked her front door and stepped into her house. She looked around and realized her mother must have spent extra care with the cleaning today, no doubt for her father's party. For some reason his coworkers judged heavily if there was even a small speck of dust on the coffee table by the couch. Yet another reason she hated being present for these functions, everyone was so quick to judge for whatever slight they may be able to justify. Which was laughable coming from most of them. She shook her head and looked further into the house, realizing suddenly that her parents weren't home and she might actually be spared her father's anger filed rant about Ben today. She quickly made her way up the stairs and locked her bedroom door behind her, intent on not having any interruptions while she got her work done.

At some point in the back of Monica's mind she registered the front door opening and her father's loud voice sounded throughout the house, but she was too engrossed in her homework to do anything about it. She was sure she'd be getting an earful for locking her door but in that moment she couldn't care. She had finally, after an hour and countless internet searches, figured out her math homework. She wrote down the answer to the final question and looked at her clock on her desk. The numbers flashed brightly 4:52 pm. She sighed happily as she gathered all her papers and shoved them in her backpack before putting on her tennis shoes and heading downstairs. She was met by the sounds of dishes clattering in the kitchen.

"I'm going out guys." She yelled into the kitchen running to the door before she could get a response.

"With who?" Her father shouted back before she could escape.

"Not Ben." She responded as she opened the door. "Bye!"

The door slammed shut behind her blocking out whatever response her father was going to give. She sighed as she saw Kevin's car idling in the drive way, and she ran to the passenger side, hoping in and slamming her head against the head rest. Kevin eyed her as she slowly raised her head and silently put on her seatbelt.

"Hope you don't mind driving a ways tonight." He said, feeling it would be wiser of him to not immediately jump into asking the obvious question.

"Not at all, but why?" She asked as he pulled out of her driveway.

"Forever knights hopefully." He responded and she nodded in response. The car fell silent and stayed that way for the majority of the ride. Kevin would occasionally fiddle with his crime scanner, and would sometimes instruct her to tell him the number reading on his tracker. She enjoyed the silence, Gwen would try to ask her about Ben and Ben would do nothing but talk about Julie. Kevin on the other hand, didn't question her, didn't talk unless she started the conversation, and he never once brought up the elephant in the room- er car.

They continued like this until they lost reception on the crime reader and tracker started going berserk. Kevin pulled it from her hands and played with the dials a little before throwing it in the back seat. "Guess we're here." He said pulling into the old mining field they had arrived at. He shut the car off and got out Monica following his lead, expecting him to tell her to get back in the car. But instead he waited for her to join him at the trunk and he smirked before opening it up. Monica's eyes widened as she looked at the weapons that lined Kevin's trunk before looking back at him confused. "I know that you're able to use about half of these weapons, I've seen your combat training, pick one."

"You're actually gonna let me on the front line?" She asked incredulously already fiddling with one of the larger guns.

"I said I'd let you go on patrols with me, besides, having you by my side would be safer than leaving you in the car." He said and she smirked looking back to the trunk.

Her eyes scanned the assortment of guns before landing on a small handgun of sorts, it was the same size as a pistol but seemed to have the capacity to grow in size based on the paneling lining the sides, "Is all this alien tech?" She asked and Kevin nodded in response. She smiled before picking up the gun. "Let's go." She said and Kevin slammed the trunk down.

"I have one rule." He said, staring down at her threatening, "You do exactly what I say, even if what I say is run. Got it?" He asked and she nodded in response. "Good, now stay quiet." He said before turning and walking to the entrance of the mines, Monica close on his heels. He stopped and peered into entrance, his eyes scanning to see if he could find any traps. Once he had decided it was clear he gestured for Monica to follow after him and he carefully walked into the caverns.

Monica's eyes took a bit to adjust to the darkness but soon enough she found herself able to navigate close enough to Kevin to not lose him. She looked around and caught sight of some markings on the far wall that Kevin had evidently missed. She stopped in her tracks as she squinted to make them out better. She groaned before looking back to Kevin who was crouched down examining something on the floor. She bit her lip before shrugging and walking over to the wall to examine the writing. Her eyes might have adjusted but not enough to see what the writing said, so without much thought she pulled out her phone and turned on the flashlight shining it on the wall. Whatever the writing was it wasn't in any language she had ever seen before. Which, granted she didn't know very many languages but she was positive the one on the wall wasn't from earth.

"Hey, Kev." She called, turning her head to make sure he was paying attention, which thankfully he was. "Come take a look at this." She said and Kevin quickly made his way to her side. "What language is this?" She asked as Kevin studied the language closely.

"I have no idea." He answered pulling out his phone. He snapped a photo of the writing, quickly stowing his phone away in his pocket. "But I'm sure someone at HQ can translate it for us." He said before looking at her phones bright light, "Be careful where you shine that." He directed and she nodded. He turned and started further into the mines, Monica following after, looking closely at the walls to see if there was any more writing.

And sure enough, her eyes landed on large red writing, this time clearly in English. She froze as she took the words in "GET OUT. IT'S HERE!" She had no idea what the warning was for, but based on the jagged writing she can only assume that whatever it is it's not something one would want to run into. "Hey," She shakily said and she heard Kevin's steps go silent, "How long has this mine been abandoned exactly?" As soon as the words left her mouth she felt her stomach drop at the sound of approaching footsteps. She turned too looked further down the cave and she knew that Kevin had heard it too as he had knelt down and turned into stone. Without thinking she raised her phone to shine the light down the cavern. A large shadow stretched down the cavern and began shrinking, signaling that the creature was coming towards them. "What is that?" She asked anxiously.

"Turn the phone off." Kevin commanded in a low voice. She immediately obeyed and quickly stowed her phone in her pocket. She gripped the gun in her hand tighter, raising it to a defensive position. "Remember," Kevin said looking back at her, "If I say run, you run." She nodded in agreement but the both of them knew deep down that she wouldn't. This is what she had been waiting for, months of Ben telling her she wasn't capable of holding her own against what he fought, she now had a chance to prove him wrong , and she would be damned if Kevin telling her to run would stop her from doing just that. She took a fortifying breath before stoning her face and looking ahead, waiting for whatever was coming to attack.

Both she and Kevin stood frozen in place as the sound of footsteps grew in volume and it donned on Monica that they weren't going to be facing one thing, but an entire squad. As they grew closer the sound of clanking medal hit her ears, and that confirmed that it was forever knights. She looked back at the message on the wall in confusion, had the knights left it there to scare off any prying eyes, or did they not heed the warning? As the knights grew closer a light came through the cavern, obviously they had brought something to light their way, which was good, because if she was going to fight them she would need to be able to see. As they rounded the corner the questions left her mind as the men froze at the sight of the two teenagers.

"Kevin Levin." One in front said, his voice muffled slightly by his helmet. "While we would love to kill you, we have more pertinent matters to attend to, so if you wouldn't mind." He said, waving his hand dismissively at Kevin.

"Nah, I was thinking more of beating answers out of you." He responded casually. The knights all jumped into defensive stances at his statement, "Unless you'd like to give them to me the easy way." He said cracking his knuckles, "But I'd much rather the hard way, personally."

"Men, dispose of this road block." Came the response and the knights charged at Kevin. Monica stood off in the back and watched in amazement as Kevin began taking the knights out with ease, on the news all anyone focuses on is Ben sometimes she forgets how strong Kevin and Gwen must be. She lowered the gun slightly as she watched him handle the small group of knights easily. She had the feeling he didn't really need her help, and until he said something she wasn't going to risk shooting him in all the chaos.

Her attention was drawn back to the warning on the wall when a shadow caught her eye. It was fleeting but she could have sworn she saw something move past the wall, which didn't make any sense as the Knights hadn't been able to make it past Kevin. Anxiously she raised her gun once again and slowly looked around her for any sign of whatever it was. The sound of the fight Kevin was having fell quiet on her ears as she turned and came face to face with a shadowy figure with bright blue eyes. She froze as it stared almost thoughtfully at her for a moment before a sickening grin spread across its dark face, white razor sharp teeth bared at her. As it stepped toward her she fired her gun, the bright green beam shooting swiftly towards the creature but, almost as if it had been watching in slow motion, it moved quickly to the side, causing the beam to miss and explode into one of the support beams holing the cavern open. She raised her arms above her head to stop any falling rubble from hitting her head, as the ceiling and walls shook she heard distantly Kevin yelling at her to be careful before resuming his fight. When the shaking stopped she turned back to where the shadowy figure had been standing, but it was no longer there. She frantically began spinning around looking for the creature again, her grip tight on the gun. She felt a chill run down her spine but before she could turn she felt cold arms wrap around her neck, she gasped in pain when she felt teeth sink into her shoulder. She quickly and forcefully jerked her elbow back into the abdomen of the creature, shocked when it actually reeled back in shock. She turned and before it could recover she shot at it again, this time the shot hit and threw the creature back against the wall. She raised her hand to her shoulder where the thing had bit her and she felt the wet stream of blood slowly pooling from the wound. She dropped her hand and looked back at the dazed creature, it slowly stood and looked violently at her.

"What the hell are you?" She asked darkly, but the creature instead chose to look behind her where Kevin was fighting the forever knights. That's when the silence of the cavern finally hit her ears and she turned to see Kevin pointing one of the Knights lances at the creature.

"You heard the girl." He said as he walked to Monica's side, "Why were the knights so determined to get away from you?" Monica looked back to see the scattered unconscious Forever Knights and realized that Kevin must has beat the answers out of them like he said he would. When she turned back to the creature she was surprised to see it smiling deviously at the very annoyed Kevin before, to the shock of both her and Kevin, it vanished into thin air.

"Where did it go?" Monica asked nervously, turning to look behind her.

"It went out." Kevin responded, gesturing to the way they had come in, "Whatever that was, those Forever Knights let it out and regretted that decision almost immediately." He said before turning and looking at her, "It got you." He said tilting her head to the side to look at the bite mark on her shoulder. "Let's get back to the car, I'll call clean up to take care of these scums, but right now we should get you bandaged. And prey the Ben doesn't notice." Monica nodded and followed after Kevin as they went back out to the car.

"Shouldn't we investigate where the Forever Knights found that thing?" She asked as he pulled out the first aid kit and pulled out the disinfectant alcohol. She winced as he rubbed her wound.

"I will, but not tonight, and not with you here." He said, "If you get anymore hurt than you already are I'm gonna be on the most wanted list that Ben keeps." He joked and she laughed as he tapped the bandage down on her shoulder. "Besides, the plumbers are probably gonna want to get as much force on this as they can. That thing had the knights pretty rattled, so I can only imagine what exactly it is."

"An ass is what it is." She said as the rubbed the bandage, securing it to her shoulder. She pulled out her phone and noticed that she had three missed calls from Ben and fifteen texts. "Uh-oh." She said and Kevin looked over her shoulder at the messages. They both shared a concerned look before she closed her phone and put it in her pocket again. "I'll just tell him I mingled with my dad's coworkers and he would've killed me if anyone saw me texting him." She said at Kevin's confused look. She shrugged before walking around and getting in the shotgun seat of his car. Kevin closed the trunk and got in the driver's seat. They drove in silence until they reached the busy roads of town again. "Does this mean that I wont get to go on anymore patrols?" She asked.

Kevin laughed, "After how well you held your own against that thing? Nah, I'm gonna start taking you out more." She smiled at that and did a small air bump at that. Kevin smirked as he turned onto her street. "Just make sure to keep quiet about all of this with Ben, he still doesn't want you out there doing what we do." He said as he stopped in front of her house.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." She said as she got out of the car, "Thanks Kev." She said as she closed the car door and walked into the house. She was greeted by her tired father, "Hey dad." She said and he turned to look at her skeptically.

"You weren't out with the menace were you?" He asked and she rolled her eyes.

"He is not a menace, dad, and no I wasn't." She said as she walked briskly past her father and upstairs, shouting back to her father, "I'm tired, I'll see you tomorrow!" When she got to her room she closed the door and finally pulled out her phone. She sent a text off to Ben letting him know her lie and told him she would see him at school the next day. As she began her nightly routine she received a text back, all it said was Ben had something important to tell her at school. She close the message and changed into her pajamas, quickly getting into bed and falling asleep, unaware of the blue eyes following her movements from outside her window.

And that's that, I don't know when chapter two will be up, but hopefully it will be soon. I hope you liked it. Until next time.

The freak is out of here :)