Author's Notes: 

-By this point in the story, NRG does have the ability to go out of his Containment suit for short periods. The containment suit has a warning function that immediately sucks NRG back in when it senses that his radiation levels are becoming dangerous to the ecosystem or people around him that Ben can choose to leave on or turn off in the Omnitrix's advanced settings.

-In a fight against the Great Rabbit and Echo Echo, Echo Echo would win as his silicon body would actually poison the Great Rabbit if eaten, and his organic matter doesn't satisfy the 'flesh' condition that the rabbits feed upon, meaning not only would Echo Echo genuinely be ignored in an encounter, but Echo Echo can freely duplicate himself and destroy every single last rabbit. 

-The Ultimates vary in appearance compared to their Ultimate Alien versions not because of a difference in design, but because their evolution is a theoretical transformation of what would happen over millions of years of civil war in the Galaxy. Because of this, while most iterations of the Ultimates across versions of the Ultimatrix share the same abilities, sometimes they have a few extra powers, and varying appearances.  For instance, Albedo's version of Ultimate Spidermonkey has six gorilla arms, while Ben's version in this world has four gorilla arms and four spider arms on his back while Ultimate Echo Echo has vibrating plugs in his fingers, something his version from the Ultimate Alien cartoon didn't have at the time. 

-Certain aliens are all immune to certain properties of the three great Mabeasts. The Hakugei's (the White Whale) erasing mist does not work on Ghostfreak whose existence is 'beyond memory' nor on Clockwork who has a special 'temporal' existence.  

The Great Rabbit, as noted above, will not attack nor pay any attention to silicon based lifeforms or aliens not made of flesh and blood. 

The Great Serpent cannot affect energy based beings, which means NRG is immune. Biomechanical organisms like Upgrade are likewise somewhat not effected, meaning Atomix, Eatle and Armodrillo are also possibly immune. 

-While Vilgax is currently not as strong as Ben due to losing The power of 10 heroes that he stole after the end of Ultimate Alien, this is subject to change..  

-Albedo went missing about 2 weeks after Ben came to Lugnica.

"So, uh, we're not going to meditate today?" Ben asked as he followed Halibel into the wilderness. 

"No." said Halibel. "I think you've learned to calm yourself in the presence of danger to a reasonable degree, but there's still one thing we haven't solved."

Ben had just come back from work. So far, other than what happened to the unnamed girl, things had been quiet and he had been unable to find so much as a clue to what happened to her. 

And investigating her origins proved near impossible, for while Ben himself seemed to mysteriously remember her, everyone who knew her were forgetting more about her by the hour to the point that after he talked to the mourning family, they had already forgotten why they were mourning in the first place, being highly confused as to why they were crying. 

By the end of the day, everyone had forgotten there was even an incident, which was scary as hell. 

The only people who knew or remembered anything were Ben and the people he told, for even though they forgot the girl, they didn't forget anything about Ben, and therefore anything that Ben told them.

But why Ben never forgot he could never surmise. It was odd to say the least. But at the moment he couldn't focus on that. His training was important too. 

Ben and Halibel stood several meters apart in the woods. Rem was watching, several boxed lunches in her lap, sitting on a boulder a distance away.  Just seeing her there was an immense calming feeling. 

"While you can fight without stress in a normal battle of brunt force and little bloodshed, the hemophobia you developed from your past trauma it seems, is still quite strong." said Halibel. "Indeed you rarely exercise your full strength because you are afraid of making your foe bleed even a little bit."

"In other words, we're going straight to sparring, you want me to stop worrying about the bleeding part and go full out." said Ben. 

"Hmm, you catch on fast Ben-san!" Said Halibel, adjusting his kiseru with a smile. 

Ben nodded.  Over the past month he had been setting goals for himself over the course of his spars and meditations with Halibel. 

One of those goals he intended to achieve today: Beating Halibel fair and square. 

Halibel was good at throwing shurikan knives and the like, his main method of fighting was indirect and based on misleading the opponent thoroughly.  In other words aliens that relied on fighting things head on had a disadvantage, and yet if he could catch Halibel in a situation that could easily turn into direct confrontation, this also became an advantage.  

In other words, Ben needed an alien that could both be indirect to lead Halibel into direct confrontation, and then have the ability to take him head on when it came to that point.

Ben grinned. 

"Hmm, I see you've already got a strategy in mind." said Halibel, stroking the fur on his chin. "Then let's begin shall we?"

Halibel's body shimmered and in an instant, there was four of him standing there instead of just one.  Clones, a staple Ninja technique in popular media that was for certain. 

"I wonder what alien he'll try today?" 

"Ah don't wonder, it'll become apparent in a second."

"Well Ben-san, any day now?"

All the clones spoke independently of each other, smiling at Ben in a sort of honorable taunt, but Ben's hand was already moving towards the Omnitrix. 

"Echo Echo!!" 

A small alien resembling a 3 foot tall robot with a large head, a wide mouth and rectangular eyes appeared. It's wrists and feet seemed to have MP3-like attachments with green glowing sound connection symbols, and it's head seemed to wear earphone like contraptions. 

"What you can do." said Echo Echo in a voice that sounded like a distorted soundwave from a microphone. 

Echo Echo's body glowed green as multiple identical copies of the alien numbering to at least 20 formed. 

"We can do better." said all the Echo Echos 

"Oho! So there are lifeforms out there that can naturally clone themselves without ninjutsu, and to top it off-." said one Halibel clone.

"-It seems this one's got a better limit than mine." said a second Halibel.  "But you should know, all four of me have identical fighting strength to the original."

"Us too!" said the Echo Echos. 

"Now.." Halibel smirked as one of his clones moved at such speed, that he almost appeared as blurred as XLR8, immediately zooming in and kicking one of the Echo Echos, sending him flying and exploding through a tree with a boom. "Sorry Ben-san, but I am observant after all, this is the origin-.."

"KAAPOWWW!!" Halibel's clone was forced to retreat as multiple Echo Echos converged and punched right at the ground where he had been moments before, rupturing the earth.

"Did I not knock the original out?" Halibel muttered. 

"Or.." said another Halibel.

"Your clones don't function on the same laws as mine." said the first Halibel.

"We're a biological defense mechanism, not a magic art of any kind." said the Echo Echos. "So when we clone, we're literally splitting up, not being created from an original. We're ALL the original."

"That in itself is a huge advantage, nice."  said Halibel with a laugh.  "That means as long as one survives, you can always escape a troublesome situation."

"Oh that's not all.." Echo Echo said. "Take.. THIS!"

The Echo Echos all opened their mouths, letting forth high pitched screams and hurled out a high powered sonic blasts with vibrations so intense, that they were visible as pulsating rings exploding at Halibel.

Halibel's clones let out a yell of shock, instantly finding themselves blasting into the ground, dragging gouges in the earth. 

It was all according to plan. 

Ben knew Halibel's style. He'd confuse Ben with attacks from the front at first, but then use the opportunity to escape into the woods and begin stealthily flying around from all angles, hitting him with long range knife throws. 

Wildmutt and Spidermonkey had been what he had used to try and get the drop on him before, but Halibel was so amazingly strong that even then he hadn't had much luck. 

But this time, Halibel was staggering from the unexpected sonic attack. Even if he could dodge the blast, the sound of Echo Echo's screams had probably put a real shock to his eardrums, taking him off guard so he'd take the full hit.

"GOT YOU!" Echo Echo exclaimed as the rest of his clones cheered and hi-fived each other. "And the fight barely lasted a sec-.."

"Urrrhh.." All the Echo Echos froze as they saw Rem was on the ground, clutching her head.

"Shit!" Ben hadn't considered that Echo Echo's screams would hit Rem's ears as well.

There was a flash of green light as all the Echo Echos remerged and turned back into Ben, rushing to Rem and putting a hand on her shoulder. "I-I'm sorry Rem- I.."

"POW!!" Rem's body suddenly exploded into smoke, turning into a smirking Halibel, who had a knife to Ben's throat now. "Oho? Did you lose?"

"HUUUH!?" Ben exclaimed as Rem appeared from behind a tree, smiling guiltily, earmuffs on her head. 

"Y-you used a transformation technique to look like Rem, and then.. oh shit!" Ben smacked a hand to his head. "REALLY!? Okay, who ratted me out about using Echo Echo this time!?"

"Ram-chan, she was amused with your plan, but she said something to the effect of 'Dog Pee Boy's gotta learn to look for surprises on his end too, he's too confident.'" said Halibel with a laugh.

"Dagnabbit!" Ben moaned as Rem took off her earmuffs and patted him on the back. "But that's what I deserve for not warning Rem in advance I guess."

"Well it was a good plan." said Rem. "Sorry."

"Not a bad transformation." said Halibel. "I must say I like this Echo Echo form. The ability to overwhelm with numbers and even individually each clone is strong enough to take down an Alpha Wogarm in one blow. Utility is off the charts with that guy.  Now lets say we set back up shall we, don't hold back with me, I've got my means of surviving."

"Easy for you to say." Ben said. "I used to know exactly how much force to put up against my enemies, but nowadays, I either am too afraid to go anything beyond the minimum, or too panicked not to go overboard."

"Well then let us test that.." Halibel said. 

Halibel swiftly slashed a kunai knife over his palm, and red blood began to seep out.

"H-HEY!" Ben stammered leaping back, sweat starting to pour down his face. "Th-that's."

"H-Halibel-sama, that's harsh!" said Rem quickly. 

Ben already began to feel panic well up in him. It wasn't as horrible as it had been before when he was Chromastone fighting Elsa, but he could already feel a panic attack quickly expanding into something dangerous. 

"M-make it stop." Ben gasped. "P-put a bandage on."

"Ben, remember what I said." said Halibel. "Project it, the object that you decided on to distract you. Project it clear in your head. Wipe out all the trauma you associate with this blood and instead associate it with that replacement object. We had to take this jump eventually."

Ben took deep breaths over and over, trying to do what Halibel said.

Halibel had told him from the beginning of meditation to pick an object that he would make his "Ben Distraction."

It could've been anything from his big toe to the sound of the waterfall they used to meditate. This object was supposed to serve as his root, his anchor. Everytime something associated with his trauma turned up, he would train himself to only focus on that thing. 

What he picked though was something a little personal. 

Ben tried to associate blood to automatically trigger him thinking about this wonderful 'thing' that he had picked, trying to turn every trauma trigger into a reflexive trigger for thinking about it the 'thing' instead. 

But overall Ben could shake and sweat as he stared at the blood. Julie's screams filled his head, as her blood itself dripped from Halibel's fingers. Yes, not Halibel's blood, her blood.

And Halibel's face warped like a twisted illusion, turning into a black haired girl's face, plastered on the wolf man's body, her eyes leaking blood like tears as stared at Ben in horror.

"Why did you let this happen to me?" Julie gasped, her voice seemed to echo across the far reaches of Ben's mind.

"URRRRAAAAAAHHH!!" Ben fell back, clutching his head just as Rem grabbed a hold of him and hugged him close and Halibel withdrew his hand, swiftly bandaging it in no time. 

It took a moment to get his breathing under control as Rem held him there, stroking his back. 

She felt warm, and she smelled like fresh strawberries. 

"B-Ben-kun." Rem said. "Are you-?"

"I'm fine." Ben gasped. "Just a little feverish."

"Hmmm, this is why I had Rem here." Halibel muttered. "I didn't expect it to go easily the first time."

"I didn't either, but I didn't fly into a panic." Ben smiled tentatively as he stood up. "I've made some progress, and that's enough to give me hope."

"Yeah, just don't let that hope drop your guard." said Halibel. "Traumas aren't something we turn off at a whim, it takes focus and training to develop reflexive meditation distractions like what we're doing. Basically we're using your object as a blanket cover up the trauma, covering up every trigger with your meditation object. But if you find a new trigger you didn't even know you had, then the blanket flies off of all the others, and you might have to retrain from scratch. It's a hard fix and a fragile one."

"Right." Ben said. "I see."

"Which is why having the actual object of your meditation here with you is a good idea." said Halibel with a smirk as he looked at Rem.

"E-eh!?" Rem went pink. "Wait, I'm -?!"

"Halibeeeeell!" Ben moaned, going red as the setting sun. "Don't TELL people!! I told you it was personal!"

"hahahaha! Forgive me!" said Halibel. "I just think you both are too good together!"

Rem smiled and clasped Ben's hand in both of hers. "Ben-kun I-."

Rem stopped talking, her expression changing rapidly as her eyes went wide from the feeling of something approaching with rapid bloodlust. 

A hooded figure leaped from the trees, drawing out a sword in a rapid flash. 

The sound of Iron biting an object made of solid energy, something which sounded like the combination of a clang, and a sound reverberating through echoing rubber, resounded throughout the forest rapidly as Rem's prototool activated its morningstar mode, the flail's energy chain deflecting the sword's rapid bites of steel.

The hooded figure withdrew as Ben looked stunned, and Halibel, without wasting a beat moved like a shadow flying across the grassy earth. Her dimunitive form seemed to speak of a woman of some sort. 

The assailent moved her sword like a viper executing swift rapid strikes of darting metal flashes, deflecting the shurikans fired from Halibel, who moved behind the woman with ease right after, slashing his wolven claws at her.

But she deflected the claws with another few flashing darts from her sword before whirling to face Ben and Rem once more, ignoring the strong shinobi behind her.

Her blade glowed with immense light as she sent it slashing forward, and a massive wind blast exploded towards Ben and Rem like a slicing blade. 

There was a sudden flash of green light as the wind blade neared. 

"Eatle!!" 

Eatle appeared, wrappingn Rem in his armored embrace, the wind blade glancing off his tough metallic exoskeleton. 

"He transformed so fast, without even missing a beat." Halibel muttered. "Just goes to show you how much experience he has. Now, as for you young lady, you must be quite the assassin to even be able to hide your presence from me. I'm impressed."

"Likewise, honestly I wouldn't attack if I knew that Halibel of Kararagi was accompanying these too." said the assailant in a solemn voice.  "Perhaps I should change tactics."

"Tell that to him not me." said Halibel with a chuckle. "He seems ticked."

The woman turned just in time to see Eatle charging at her head on, his horn lowered like a rampaging rhino.

Trees flew into the air as the woman barely leaped over the alien in time and the powerful humanoid insect smashed through several thick ancient trees, his horn carving through them like paper. 

Eatle grabbed one of the massive trees in both hands and opened his tremendous jaws, chomping into the wood and devouring the tree in mere seconds before letting out a huge burp. 

"Vmmmmmmm!" The woman's eyes widened beneath her hood as Eatle's horn began to glow. 

"Shit!" the woman swung her blade which now glowed again, and this time a far more massive wind blast erupted at Eatle while at the same time, the alien fired a tremendous green blast from his horn. 

"KAAABOOOOOOOMMM!!!"

Rem coughed as Halibel dove in, shielding her from the shockwave while a dust cloud shrouded the area for just a moment.

The assassin rose from the dust cloud, shaking her head rapidly to get over the shock of the close range collison between attacks, right as Eatle erupted from the dust, his two bottom arms grabbing the woman and holding her, as his two massive upper arms whipped her sword from her hand. 

"Got you!" Eatle exclaimed. 

"Do you!?" The woman kicked Eatle in the chest, and a powerful blast of wind pressure erupted from her foot, sending the alien flying, letting go of the woman. 

Eatle's feet dragged a gouge in the earth while his heavy body regained its footing as the woman grabbed her blade.

"That technique you used just now is quite familiar." said Halibel with a nod. "The one you used to deflect Eatle's attack, ahh right, the famed 'One Blow, A Hundred Felled' I imagine, quite unlike you to attack in disguise hmm? Crusch Karsten."

"Wh-what!?" said Rem. "Crusch, as in-?"

"The Princess candidate!? And the girl who Wilhelm wanted me to spar with when we first met!?" Eatle finished. 

The woman chuckled, as she sheathed her sword and pulled her hood away to reveal her beautiful features and dark green hair. "Well, Wilhelm didn't exaggerate about your eyes seeing battle.  You performed admirably."

"Can