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To the 10th
Looks like things have calmed down now on the LJ front (in that the Russian elections happened and there haven't been any more DDoS attacks). I'm not feeling well enough to write, so I may as well post.
To The 10th Power
Chapter: Julie
Note: May contain a surprise for "Derailed."
1
Courage
Julie isn’t exactly fearless, but she’s not the kind of person who won’t face her problems, no matter how scary they might be. There are certain things you learn when you do everything you can to help your boyfriend fight intergalactic threats, and a lot of them have to do with courage.
Case in point: visiting hours for Octavian Grand, better known as Captain Nemesis.
He sneered at her as he was led to the interview room, but she met his stare evenly. By all rights, she should have been at least a little concerned—even hateful. But no, she appeared the picture of professionalism, a young girl of sixteen against a man in his forties or fifties. Any and all contempt she felt—and there was a lot—was under a mask of absolute patience.
“I hear you’re planning on releasing a book,” she said.
“I have the right.”
“So did the Unabomber.” She said it calmly, but she couldn’t help but enjoy the cold look that he gave her in response.
“Smart little girl,” he mocked. “What do you plan to do? Tell your side? You and your boyfriend are the ones pressing charges. Your story is bound in the legal proceedings.”
“True,” Julie answered, “but Jennifer Nocturne’s isn’t. In fact, from what I hear, the only reason she isn’t pressing charges is because she hopes that her story might be able to help Ben.”
A look of sudden horror. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“See if I would,” she bluffed.
She left the meeting on that note, doing all she could to make Nemesis sweat. He didn’t know that she had no affiliation with Jennifer Nocturne, but if he thought that her impending interview with one of Will Harangue’s rival pundits had something to do with Julie, then he might think twice the next time he tried to mess with her or Ben again.
What Julie’s learned is that a good amount of courage is just pretending to act like you aren’t scared out of your wits.
2
Promise
Something Julie will never tell Ben is that she’s used the Omnitrix once—and only once.
He’d been knocked unconscious during an attack on them, and the situation was bad enough that Azmuth arrived. He was still angry with Ben, but he didn’t want to risk anything happening to the Omnitrix (or to Ben, Julie realized quickly, but Azmuth refused to admit it). He was ready to teleport Ben out of there when Julie suggested she could try to help. Azmuth hesitated briefly, but with weapon fire jamming his teleport frequency, he really didn’t have much of a choice. Julie really didn’t have any idea what she was doing when she transformed into Cannonbolt, but the rampant chaos did at least force the enemy to retreat long enough for Azmuth to port all three of them to safety.
There are two reasons Julie won’t tell Ben about this incident. The first is that when they got Ben home and in bed, she fully intended to give him back the watch, but Azmuth was reluctant to do so. He still wasn’t sure he could trust Ben with it anymore, and he reasoned that it would be better off back in his hands, where he could at the very least repair it and decide for himself if Ben was ready for the responsibility again or if he should entrust it to someone with more sense. Julie flat-out told him that wasn’t going to happen, which had stunned Azmuth, who up until that point had been under the assumption that she was a polite, reasonable young woman. He finally relented, and they made the switch while Ben was still out cold.
The other reason she won’t tell is because she promised Azmuth she wouldn’t, now that she knows how stubborn he is when it comes to admitting he actually cares about Ben.
3
Sympathy for the devil
Julie has met Elena before her fateful confrontation with the Hive Queen, and it went a lot better than most people would think. It wasn’t long after the original mission to save Elena’s father, and she was hanging around Bellwood for a little bit. She happened to run into Julie—or rather, she ran into Ship, whom Julie was chasing down—and when they realized they both knew Ben, they started talking.
Believe it or not, they had a few things in common besides Ben. For one, they were both athletes, though in different sports. Second, they were both the “normal” ones on the team and had to put up with Ben being worried about their safety and Kevin thinking they were a liability. And on a more enjoyable note, they had the same taste in movies—particularly ones that Ben hated. They spent a couple of hours talking, good-naturedly arguing, and laughing, and you’d never think that they shouldn’t have liked each other.
And then Elena asked the question that broke the mood: “Did Ben ever say anything about me?”
Julie’s answer was careful: “A few times.” But the tension was thick, and she knew she had to finish that answer, no matter what the consequences were: “He acts okay, but I don’t think he ever really got over it.”
Elena tried to shrug it off, and Julie tried to resume the small talk, but by that point, there was no going back. After only a few minutes, Elena got on her bike and left, never turning back. Julie thinks it’s a shame too: she’s pretty sure Elena never really got over it either and that she needs someone around to help her through it. Maybe it shouldn’t be Julie who helps, but in all honesty, who else is there?
4
Crimson morning
It’s why when Elena sacrificed herself to destroy the Queen within her, Julie took it upon herself to set up makeshift funeral arrangements.
There was no body, but they set up a headstone beside her father’s, just the way they knew she would have wanted it. The Plumbers donated the headstone, but everything else was handled by Julie alone. Remembering her red motorcycle and the red jacket she used to wear before her father’s death, picking the color of the flowers was easy. Elena’s teachers from the Academy, Max, and Gwen and Kevin laid down the carnations on the grave. Ben had roses—two of them, one for Elena and one for Victor.
There weren’t any prayers, since nobody had known if Elena had been religious. Instead, the teachers, Max, and Gwen spoke about her for a little bit. Everyone knew that Ben had the most to say, but nobody wanted to push him. He was completely silent, dressed all in black, never moving from where he’d knelt down to place the roses. Julie could have offered something, but all she had was guilt—for not guessing when she’d first met Elena that there might have been something wrong, for not trying to make her stay and talk and heal.
For not trying harder to stop her when she knew what she was going to do.
The ceremony was short—a mixed blessing. It hadn’t been enough, but Julie didn’t think she could stand to let such a farce continue. Gwen tried to ask Ben to come along with her and Kevin, but Max convinced her to leave him be. Julie stayed, though. Not to watch Ben, but to face Elena.
“I wish I could have done more,” she admitted, and she wasn’t sure who she was apologizing to—Ben or Elena.
To her surprise, Ben stood up and hugged her tightly, desperately. She could feel his body shaking with the tears he refused to give into as he whispered one thing:
“It was enough.”
Julie hugged him back all the tighter, burying her eyes in his shoulder as she thought she heard another whisper on the red air of dawn:
“Thank you.”
5
Hope for the future
Julie first met Max in the final battle of the war with the Highbreed. It wasn’t much of a chance for either to get to know one another, which made their next meeting all the more awkward, when Max asked her to drop by the Rustbucket one day. He gave her a stack of papers about her family history, which led her to the shock that he’d investigated her background.
She forgave him when he apologized, though. Not when he apologized for prying—she thought that he had to trust Ben’s judgment in dating her more than that—but when he apologized for her grandparents’ families being sent to internment camps during World War II. It was something neither side of her family talked about, but she’d known it had happened.
When she asked Max why he’d apologized for something that had happened over sixty years ago, he said that it was because of prejudicial people like his mother that this had happened—people who weren’t all that different from the Highbreed, when you sat down to think about it. Max was glad to see that Julie was better than that, part of the generation that was willing to throw aside hate.
She can’t quite say that she and Max are on great terms, but at the very least, they’re friendly enough acquaintances. But it does make things easier to understand, in a way. She can at least see now that each generation has to be better than those who came before them, and it’s up to people like her, Ben, and Reiny to see to it that happens.
6
Time to tell
After Ben brings Ken home, he’s understandably hesitant to try to talk to Julie, but she makes sure he knows she’s there as a friend. When he has to run off on a mission, she babysits, and if he’s hurt or sick, she stops by to take care of the both of them. Otherwise, they start spending more time together, even without having to worry about Ken. Over time, Ben learns to relax and think of her as more than just his ex-girlfriend.
It’s nothing as cliché as Ken calling Julie “Mama” or anything, but Julie knows that Ben thinks about it. She always sees it in him—the anxiety over trying again and second-guessing himself out of fear he’ll hurt her all over again. She knows that he wants to, and she knows that she’ll welcome a relationship again, though this time on different terms. She doesn’t want it to be a matter of them starting all over again from scratch, and at the same time, he just doesn’t trust himself to start or continue anything.
Julie’s patient, and she’ll give him his space. But she also makes clear to him that she can’t wait forever. Sometimes not making a decision is a decision in itself. But the day she steels herself to tell him it’s over, she finds a pale pink rose taped to her door, with a ring tied to it on a green ribbon. And it’s all she needs to know.
It’s not starting over. It’s finishing what they should have done a long time ago.
7
Stability
Julie’s greatest strength may just be the fact that she’s one of the few people they know that’s completely normal.
Or as normal as it gets for a girl whose pet is an alien symbiote. But most of the people the others know are aliens or are humans so caught up in the alien business that they don’t qualify as normal at all. And for those who are human? A ten-year-old with a fansite might be a great resource for intel, but he’s not the kind of person you want to talk to about more grown-up concerns. Former bullies aren’t exactly the guys you want to depend on for emotional support. And it’s more than a little awkward to confess your weaknesses in front of the students who see you as infallible gods.
Julie, on the other hand, is lucky in that she knew what was going on from fairly early on (at least as far as their current missions go), but she’s also on the outside looking in. The Galactic Code of Conduct and all sorts of written and unwritten rules of engagement throughout the universe are completely alien to her, giving them more perspective if she thinks that they’re wrong. It’s especially comforting to them if they think the same, but being new cops on a barely-interdicted world makes them sometimes wonder if they’re just being overly sensitive.
If it seems like Julie’s place in the universe is defined by her connections to other people? Well, maybe it is. But when the universe is so vast, it’s easy to feel insignificant, like what you do doesn’t really matter in the long run. You’re not even a footnote in history. Julie’s not looking for fame or recognition or anything, but she does want to help, to be able to make a difference in the universe.
And sometimes, that difference is making sure that you can help the ones history will remember to make their mark on the universe.
8
Strange
Julie’s the only one who’s never wondered what it would be like if they lived a normal life. If there were no aliens, no weirdness, nothing to redefine their perspective of the universe.
It’s odd because her life might have been the most uprooted by everything. Even though all three of them have alien heritage, Ben, Gwen, and Kevin lived relatively normal lives until a certain point. Before the Omnitrix and magic and the spark, Ben and Gwen would still have loving families and would still pick on each other. And before his powers made him lose control, Kevin would still have a hard time coping with his mother’s remarriage so soon after his father’s death.
But Julie knows that if she hadn’t been pulled into all of this, she’d still just be a smart tennis player, her only ambitions college and going pro. The others would still want to make a difference—Ben and Kevin would want to be heroes and Gwen would want to be better. Julie’s been given a lot more to care about: a boyfriend, good friends, and even an alien pet that can help her join in the battle even when she doesn’t have powers of her own. It’s given her the chance to see a whole new side to the world and realize just what it means to want to protect it.
Sometimes, she thinks that she wouldn’t even have gotten with Ben if not for the aliens, which is only one of the reasons why Ship is so important to her. She liked Ben to start, but that first date was horribly awkward, and she’s not sure if he would have had the courage to go out with her again otherwise. Sure, it’s been hard. They broke up because of all the times they barely saw each other, and every time Ben is fighting during one of Julie’s tennis matches or misses school because of an attack, she can barely concentrate over her worry for him. And sometimes that worry turns into anger in a flash. But she knows that no matter what, she’d be right there by his side when things went south. And it’s something she never would have had to consider before everything changed.
Sometimes, she thinks it’s strange that even without powers, sometimes she feels like she’s got the most to protect—a reason to never wish it would all go away. Sometimes, she thinks it’s strange that maybe she’s the one who’s changed the most drastically.
And sometimes, she realizes there’s nothing strange about it at all.
9
Silverstar
The only other thing Julie refuses to tell Ben is that she saw another boy after they broke up.
It wasn’t a date, exactly. To be honest, she doesn’t know what it was. But he’d invited her for a cup of coffee at his favorite café. In Japan. He didn’t explain just how they managed to travel to an entirely different continent on nothing more than a train, but somehow it didn’t matter. Julie felt comfortable with things that didn’t make sense; it all fit perfectly in her world.
Somewhere between the other boy overloading his coffee with sugar and Julie meeting the kind young woman who ran the café with her younger brother, they struck up a friendship. They talked about tennis and the stars. They discussed space travel and time travel. Aliens and imaginary monsters. Things remembered and things forgotten.
They didn’t talk about love. Or about Ben.
And for just a few hours, Julie forgot all about Ben and how he’d hurt her by breaking up with her. If it wasn’t a date, it was still the best time she’d had in a while.
They somehow returned to Bellwood on the train, and the boy shook her hand as he said goodbye. That’s how he slipped her two items—a ticket with her picture on it, marked with “No expiration date,” and a small, rusted, silver star-shaped charm. Julie looked at him in confusion, but he just smiled as he stepped back inside. But she knew somehow, someday, she would see him again.
It wasn’t long after that Ben apologized and tried to make things right, and Julie agreed to give him a second chance. But when he saw the charm and asked about it, she was evasive, not wanting to tell him where she’d gotten it. It wasn’t that she was afraid of hurting him; for some reason, she felt like she had to keep her friend a secret. It was something Ben wouldn’t understand, or even if he did, it felt like it really wasn’t his business. It was something just for her to wonder about while she waited to see if that train would return.
10
It’s only teenage wasteland
Sometimes, she doesn’t think she’s as strong as they think they are.
She’s not sure if it’s stress or hormones or what, but she can see herself saying things and doing things she can’t stand. And believing things she knows are false.
And she can’t stop.
And on those days, she wonders if it’s her fault. If she should have pushed harder so she and Ben could make time for each other. If she should have been more assertive to the cameras and fans to leave them alone. If maybe Ben did hear her right and what she said was wrong and that’s why they broke up.
And it fights everything that makes her rage that it’s not her, that it’s him, that it’s the universe, that it’s everything.
And she doesn’t know.
There are some nights when she cries herself to sleep, so softly that even Ship can’t hear her.
There are some days where she skips practice to be by herself, far from the rest of the world.
Because there are some days when she wonders if maybe she can’t be around anyone because she’s hurting them or pushing them away, and she doesn’t know whether it’s her or what’s going on or why.
And then there are days when she walks away and someone takes her by the hand and stops her.
It might be a pet.
It might be a friend.
It might be someone she can’t define to herself anymore.
And it makes those days of teenage wasteland just that much easier to get through.
This chapter is probably the best example of how long it’s taken me to write up this fic. Several of the chapters were written early into season 2 of Ultimate Alien or even before it—notably #3, which I hastily followed up with #4 before “Perfect Girlfriend” aired and jossed everything I’d written. #10 is my attempt to reconcile Julie’s characterization going all over the place throughout this current series.
The real name of Captain Nemesis in #1 is based off of Tony Stark, also known as Iron Man, of whom Nemesis is a clear evil tribute. Octavian comes from Octavius (also called Augustus), the son of Caesar, in contrast to Tony being derived from Antony, one of Caesar’s successors (particularly regarding Cleopatra). Grand is the antonym of “stark,” which otherwise means “bare”; I thought it appropriate to show that Nemesis is Iron Man’s opposite and to point out his grandiose display of wealth and fame.
#6 takes place in the same alternate future visited in the preceding chapters. #9 is a coda to an upcoming fic titled “Derailed,” a crossover between Ben 10 and Kamen Rider Den-O. The boy that Julie meets is Yuto Sakurai, also known as Kamen Rider Zeronos, who is her friend in the alternate timeline depicted in “Derailed.” And yes, they have a bit of ship tease going on between them. The title for that piece comes from the Eyeshine song “Silverstar,” as stars are a recurring motif with Zeronos and I felt the song matched up well with Julie’s role in the story.
To The 10th Power
Chapter: Julie
Note: May contain a surprise for "Derailed."
Courage
Julie isn’t exactly fearless, but she’s not the kind of person who won’t face her problems, no matter how scary they might be. There are certain things you learn when you do everything you can to help your boyfriend fight intergalactic threats, and a lot of them have to do with courage.
Case in point: visiting hours for Octavian Grand, better known as Captain Nemesis.
He sneered at her as he was led to the interview room, but she met his stare evenly. By all rights, she should have been at least a little concerned—even hateful. But no, she appeared the picture of professionalism, a young girl of sixteen against a man in his forties or fifties. Any and all contempt she felt—and there was a lot—was under a mask of absolute patience.
“I hear you’re planning on releasing a book,” she said.
“I have the right.”
“So did the Unabomber.” She said it calmly, but she couldn’t help but enjoy the cold look that he gave her in response.
“Smart little girl,” he mocked. “What do you plan to do? Tell your side? You and your boyfriend are the ones pressing charges. Your story is bound in the legal proceedings.”
“True,” Julie answered, “but Jennifer Nocturne’s isn’t. In fact, from what I hear, the only reason she isn’t pressing charges is because she hopes that her story might be able to help Ben.”
A look of sudden horror. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“See if I would,” she bluffed.
She left the meeting on that note, doing all she could to make Nemesis sweat. He didn’t know that she had no affiliation with Jennifer Nocturne, but if he thought that her impending interview with one of Will Harangue’s rival pundits had something to do with Julie, then he might think twice the next time he tried to mess with her or Ben again.
What Julie’s learned is that a good amount of courage is just pretending to act like you aren’t scared out of your wits.
Promise
Something Julie will never tell Ben is that she’s used the Omnitrix once—and only once.
He’d been knocked unconscious during an attack on them, and the situation was bad enough that Azmuth arrived. He was still angry with Ben, but he didn’t want to risk anything happening to the Omnitrix (or to Ben, Julie realized quickly, but Azmuth refused to admit it). He was ready to teleport Ben out of there when Julie suggested she could try to help. Azmuth hesitated briefly, but with weapon fire jamming his teleport frequency, he really didn’t have much of a choice. Julie really didn’t have any idea what she was doing when she transformed into Cannonbolt, but the rampant chaos did at least force the enemy to retreat long enough for Azmuth to port all three of them to safety.
There are two reasons Julie won’t tell Ben about this incident. The first is that when they got Ben home and in bed, she fully intended to give him back the watch, but Azmuth was reluctant to do so. He still wasn’t sure he could trust Ben with it anymore, and he reasoned that it would be better off back in his hands, where he could at the very least repair it and decide for himself if Ben was ready for the responsibility again or if he should entrust it to someone with more sense. Julie flat-out told him that wasn’t going to happen, which had stunned Azmuth, who up until that point had been under the assumption that she was a polite, reasonable young woman. He finally relented, and they made the switch while Ben was still out cold.
The other reason she won’t tell is because she promised Azmuth she wouldn’t, now that she knows how stubborn he is when it comes to admitting he actually cares about Ben.
Sympathy for the devil
Julie has met Elena before her fateful confrontation with the Hive Queen, and it went a lot better than most people would think. It wasn’t long after the original mission to save Elena’s father, and she was hanging around Bellwood for a little bit. She happened to run into Julie—or rather, she ran into Ship, whom Julie was chasing down—and when they realized they both knew Ben, they started talking.
Believe it or not, they had a few things in common besides Ben. For one, they were both athletes, though in different sports. Second, they were both the “normal” ones on the team and had to put up with Ben being worried about their safety and Kevin thinking they were a liability. And on a more enjoyable note, they had the same taste in movies—particularly ones that Ben hated. They spent a couple of hours talking, good-naturedly arguing, and laughing, and you’d never think that they shouldn’t have liked each other.
And then Elena asked the question that broke the mood: “Did Ben ever say anything about me?”
Julie’s answer was careful: “A few times.” But the tension was thick, and she knew she had to finish that answer, no matter what the consequences were: “He acts okay, but I don’t think he ever really got over it.”
Elena tried to shrug it off, and Julie tried to resume the small talk, but by that point, there was no going back. After only a few minutes, Elena got on her bike and left, never turning back. Julie thinks it’s a shame too: she’s pretty sure Elena never really got over it either and that she needs someone around to help her through it. Maybe it shouldn’t be Julie who helps, but in all honesty, who else is there?
Crimson morning
It’s why when Elena sacrificed herself to destroy the Queen within her, Julie took it upon herself to set up makeshift funeral arrangements.
There was no body, but they set up a headstone beside her father’s, just the way they knew she would have wanted it. The Plumbers donated the headstone, but everything else was handled by Julie alone. Remembering her red motorcycle and the red jacket she used to wear before her father’s death, picking the color of the flowers was easy. Elena’s teachers from the Academy, Max, and Gwen and Kevin laid down the carnations on the grave. Ben had roses—two of them, one for Elena and one for Victor.
There weren’t any prayers, since nobody had known if Elena had been religious. Instead, the teachers, Max, and Gwen spoke about her for a little bit. Everyone knew that Ben had the most to say, but nobody wanted to push him. He was completely silent, dressed all in black, never moving from where he’d knelt down to place the roses. Julie could have offered something, but all she had was guilt—for not guessing when she’d first met Elena that there might have been something wrong, for not trying to make her stay and talk and heal.
For not trying harder to stop her when she knew what she was going to do.
The ceremony was short—a mixed blessing. It hadn’t been enough, but Julie didn’t think she could stand to let such a farce continue. Gwen tried to ask Ben to come along with her and Kevin, but Max convinced her to leave him be. Julie stayed, though. Not to watch Ben, but to face Elena.
“I wish I could have done more,” she admitted, and she wasn’t sure who she was apologizing to—Ben or Elena.
To her surprise, Ben stood up and hugged her tightly, desperately. She could feel his body shaking with the tears he refused to give into as he whispered one thing:
“It was enough.”
Julie hugged him back all the tighter, burying her eyes in his shoulder as she thought she heard another whisper on the red air of dawn:
“Thank you.”
Hope for the future
Julie first met Max in the final battle of the war with the Highbreed. It wasn’t much of a chance for either to get to know one another, which made their next meeting all the more awkward, when Max asked her to drop by the Rustbucket one day. He gave her a stack of papers about her family history, which led her to the shock that he’d investigated her background.
She forgave him when he apologized, though. Not when he apologized for prying—she thought that he had to trust Ben’s judgment in dating her more than that—but when he apologized for her grandparents’ families being sent to internment camps during World War II. It was something neither side of her family talked about, but she’d known it had happened.
When she asked Max why he’d apologized for something that had happened over sixty years ago, he said that it was because of prejudicial people like his mother that this had happened—people who weren’t all that different from the Highbreed, when you sat down to think about it. Max was glad to see that Julie was better than that, part of the generation that was willing to throw aside hate.
She can’t quite say that she and Max are on great terms, but at the very least, they’re friendly enough acquaintances. But it does make things easier to understand, in a way. She can at least see now that each generation has to be better than those who came before them, and it’s up to people like her, Ben, and Reiny to see to it that happens.
Time to tell
After Ben brings Ken home, he’s understandably hesitant to try to talk to Julie, but she makes sure he knows she’s there as a friend. When he has to run off on a mission, she babysits, and if he’s hurt or sick, she stops by to take care of the both of them. Otherwise, they start spending more time together, even without having to worry about Ken. Over time, Ben learns to relax and think of her as more than just his ex-girlfriend.
It’s nothing as cliché as Ken calling Julie “Mama” or anything, but Julie knows that Ben thinks about it. She always sees it in him—the anxiety over trying again and second-guessing himself out of fear he’ll hurt her all over again. She knows that he wants to, and she knows that she’ll welcome a relationship again, though this time on different terms. She doesn’t want it to be a matter of them starting all over again from scratch, and at the same time, he just doesn’t trust himself to start or continue anything.
Julie’s patient, and she’ll give him his space. But she also makes clear to him that she can’t wait forever. Sometimes not making a decision is a decision in itself. But the day she steels herself to tell him it’s over, she finds a pale pink rose taped to her door, with a ring tied to it on a green ribbon. And it’s all she needs to know.
It’s not starting over. It’s finishing what they should have done a long time ago.
Stability
Julie’s greatest strength may just be the fact that she’s one of the few people they know that’s completely normal.
Or as normal as it gets for a girl whose pet is an alien symbiote. But most of the people the others know are aliens or are humans so caught up in the alien business that they don’t qualify as normal at all. And for those who are human? A ten-year-old with a fansite might be a great resource for intel, but he’s not the kind of person you want to talk to about more grown-up concerns. Former bullies aren’t exactly the guys you want to depend on for emotional support. And it’s more than a little awkward to confess your weaknesses in front of the students who see you as infallible gods.
Julie, on the other hand, is lucky in that she knew what was going on from fairly early on (at least as far as their current missions go), but she’s also on the outside looking in. The Galactic Code of Conduct and all sorts of written and unwritten rules of engagement throughout the universe are completely alien to her, giving them more perspective if she thinks that they’re wrong. It’s especially comforting to them if they think the same, but being new cops on a barely-interdicted world makes them sometimes wonder if they’re just being overly sensitive.
If it seems like Julie’s place in the universe is defined by her connections to other people? Well, maybe it is. But when the universe is so vast, it’s easy to feel insignificant, like what you do doesn’t really matter in the long run. You’re not even a footnote in history. Julie’s not looking for fame or recognition or anything, but she does want to help, to be able to make a difference in the universe.
And sometimes, that difference is making sure that you can help the ones history will remember to make their mark on the universe.
Strange
Julie’s the only one who’s never wondered what it would be like if they lived a normal life. If there were no aliens, no weirdness, nothing to redefine their perspective of the universe.
It’s odd because her life might have been the most uprooted by everything. Even though all three of them have alien heritage, Ben, Gwen, and Kevin lived relatively normal lives until a certain point. Before the Omnitrix and magic and the spark, Ben and Gwen would still have loving families and would still pick on each other. And before his powers made him lose control, Kevin would still have a hard time coping with his mother’s remarriage so soon after his father’s death.
But Julie knows that if she hadn’t been pulled into all of this, she’d still just be a smart tennis player, her only ambitions college and going pro. The others would still want to make a difference—Ben and Kevin would want to be heroes and Gwen would want to be better. Julie’s been given a lot more to care about: a boyfriend, good friends, and even an alien pet that can help her join in the battle even when she doesn’t have powers of her own. It’s given her the chance to see a whole new side to the world and realize just what it means to want to protect it.
Sometimes, she thinks that she wouldn’t even have gotten with Ben if not for the aliens, which is only one of the reasons why Ship is so important to her. She liked Ben to start, but that first date was horribly awkward, and she’s not sure if he would have had the courage to go out with her again otherwise. Sure, it’s been hard. They broke up because of all the times they barely saw each other, and every time Ben is fighting during one of Julie’s tennis matches or misses school because of an attack, she can barely concentrate over her worry for him. And sometimes that worry turns into anger in a flash. But she knows that no matter what, she’d be right there by his side when things went south. And it’s something she never would have had to consider before everything changed.
Sometimes, she thinks it’s strange that even without powers, sometimes she feels like she’s got the most to protect—a reason to never wish it would all go away. Sometimes, she thinks it’s strange that maybe she’s the one who’s changed the most drastically.
And sometimes, she realizes there’s nothing strange about it at all.
Silverstar
The only other thing Julie refuses to tell Ben is that she saw another boy after they broke up.
It wasn’t a date, exactly. To be honest, she doesn’t know what it was. But he’d invited her for a cup of coffee at his favorite café. In Japan. He didn’t explain just how they managed to travel to an entirely different continent on nothing more than a train, but somehow it didn’t matter. Julie felt comfortable with things that didn’t make sense; it all fit perfectly in her world.
Somewhere between the other boy overloading his coffee with sugar and Julie meeting the kind young woman who ran the café with her younger brother, they struck up a friendship. They talked about tennis and the stars. They discussed space travel and time travel. Aliens and imaginary monsters. Things remembered and things forgotten.
They didn’t talk about love. Or about Ben.
And for just a few hours, Julie forgot all about Ben and how he’d hurt her by breaking up with her. If it wasn’t a date, it was still the best time she’d had in a while.
They somehow returned to Bellwood on the train, and the boy shook her hand as he said goodbye. That’s how he slipped her two items—a ticket with her picture on it, marked with “No expiration date,” and a small, rusted, silver star-shaped charm. Julie looked at him in confusion, but he just smiled as he stepped back inside. But she knew somehow, someday, she would see him again.
It wasn’t long after that Ben apologized and tried to make things right, and Julie agreed to give him a second chance. But when he saw the charm and asked about it, she was evasive, not wanting to tell him where she’d gotten it. It wasn’t that she was afraid of hurting him; for some reason, she felt like she had to keep her friend a secret. It was something Ben wouldn’t understand, or even if he did, it felt like it really wasn’t his business. It was something just for her to wonder about while she waited to see if that train would return.
It’s only teenage wasteland
Sometimes, she doesn’t think she’s as strong as they think they are.
She’s not sure if it’s stress or hormones or what, but she can see herself saying things and doing things she can’t stand. And believing things she knows are false.
And she can’t stop.
And on those days, she wonders if it’s her fault. If she should have pushed harder so she and Ben could make time for each other. If she should have been more assertive to the cameras and fans to leave them alone. If maybe Ben did hear her right and what she said was wrong and that’s why they broke up.
And it fights everything that makes her rage that it’s not her, that it’s him, that it’s the universe, that it’s everything.
And she doesn’t know.
There are some nights when she cries herself to sleep, so softly that even Ship can’t hear her.
There are some days where she skips practice to be by herself, far from the rest of the world.
Because there are some days when she wonders if maybe she can’t be around anyone because she’s hurting them or pushing them away, and she doesn’t know whether it’s her or what’s going on or why.
And then there are days when she walks away and someone takes her by the hand and stops her.
It might be a pet.
It might be a friend.
It might be someone she can’t define to herself anymore.
And it makes those days of teenage wasteland just that much easier to get through.
This chapter is probably the best example of how long it’s taken me to write up this fic. Several of the chapters were written early into season 2 of Ultimate Alien or even before it—notably #3, which I hastily followed up with #4 before “Perfect Girlfriend” aired and jossed everything I’d written. #10 is my attempt to reconcile Julie’s characterization going all over the place throughout this current series.
The real name of Captain Nemesis in #1 is based off of Tony Stark, also known as Iron Man, of whom Nemesis is a clear evil tribute. Octavian comes from Octavius (also called Augustus), the son of Caesar, in contrast to Tony being derived from Antony, one of Caesar’s successors (particularly regarding Cleopatra). Grand is the antonym of “stark,” which otherwise means “bare”; I thought it appropriate to show that Nemesis is Iron Man’s opposite and to point out his grandiose display of wealth and fame.
#6 takes place in the same alternate future visited in the preceding chapters. #9 is a coda to an upcoming fic titled “Derailed,” a crossover between Ben 10 and Kamen Rider Den-O. The boy that Julie meets is Yuto Sakurai, also known as Kamen Rider Zeronos, who is her friend in the alternate timeline depicted in “Derailed.” And yes, they have a bit of ship tease going on between them. The title for that piece comes from the Eyeshine song “Silverstar,” as stars are a recurring motif with Zeronos and I felt the song matched up well with Julie’s role in the story.