BEN 10: ULTIMATE ALIEN
"Mimicry"
A Fan-Made Episode Script (Original Story)
COLD OPEN
Place. BELLWOOD NATURE RESERVE — NIGHT
Dense trees, a winding hiking trail, motion-sensor research cameras strapped to trunks at intervals — a Plumber wildlife monitoring post. One camera's red light blinks steadily... then flickers, then dies.
A PLUMBER FIELD TECH walks the trail with a flashlight, muttering into a comm.
FIELD TECH
Camera six just dropped. That's the fourth one tonight. Either we've got a wildlife problem or a tech problem, and I'm betting—
The flashlight beam catches something at the tree line: a deer, perfectly still, watching him.
Except its eyes don't reflect the light right. They glow, faint and wrong, just for a half-second before the "deer" tilts its head at an angle no deer's neck should allow.
FIELD TECH (CONT'D)
(backing away slowly)
...Base, I need backup at the reserve. Now.
The "deer" shudders, its form rippling like water — and bursts apart into a writhing mass of dark, fibrous tendrils, lashing outward.
INT. PLUMBER HQ — SITUATION ROOM — NIGHT
MAX TENNYSON stands over the holo-table with BEN, GWEN, and KEVIN. A grainy recovered camera frame is frozen on the display — the rippling, half-transformed creature.
MAX
(grim)
We lost contact with a field tech twenty minutes ago. Last transmission mentioned wildlife behaving "wrong." This is the only image we recovered before his comm went dark.
GWEN
(studying the frame)
That's not an animal mutating. That's something pretending to be an animal, and not very well, right before it stopped pretending.
KEVIN
(arms crossed)
So we've got a shapeshifter loose in the woods.
MAX
Worse. Three other rangers reported similar sightings over the past week — always different animals, always just slightly wrong. This thing's been testing its disguises. Getting better at them.
BEN
(already standing)
Then let's go find out what it's getting ready for.
ACT ONE
EXT. NATURE RESERVE — TRAIL — NIGHT
Ben, Gwen, and Kevin move cautiously along the trail, flashlights sweeping the dense trees. Dead, fallen research cameras litter the ground every few yards.
GWEN
(scanning)
Whatever's draining these cameras, it's absorbing more than just light. There's a faint bio-energy signature bleeding off each one.
KEVIN
Bio-energy from a camera?
GWEN
From whatever touched the camera. Like it's collecting samples. Studying us.
A branch snaps somewhere off-trail. All three freeze. From the darkness, a low, distorted GROWL rolls out — not quite wolf, not quite anything.
BEN
(slapping the Ultimatrix)
Okay. Let's not wait to find out what "not quite anything" means up close.
[TRANSFORMATION SEQUENCE]
Green light wraps him. His skin shifts dark green and rubbery, limbs elongating, a long prehensile tongue flicking out as his form crouches low, frog-like.
BEN (AS SWAMPFIRE... NO — WAIT)
The transformation stutters oddly — flickers between silhouettes — and settles on something smaller, more reptilian, with a long whip-like tail and the ability to skitter on all fours.
BEN (AS XLR8)
(blinking, surprised)
XLR8! Huh. Wasn't expecting speed, but okay, I'll take it.
He's barely upright before the growling shape lunges from the treeline — and it's the creature, mid-shift, its form rippling between a wolf shape and something far less animal, all jagged angles and too many joints.
XLR8
(skidding back, alert)
Whoa. Okay. That's the thing that's been wrecking cameras.
ACT TWO
The creature shudders, and its half-formed wolf shape suddenly snaps into something new entirely — sleek, armored, eerily familiar.
GWEN
(stepping back, eyes widening)
Ben— it's not just disguising as animals anymore.
The creature finishes its shift: it's now wearing a rough, distorted approximation of XLR8 himself — faster, sharper edges, clearly an imperfect copy, but unmistakably modeled on him.
XLR8 (CONT'D)
(unsettled)
...Okay, that's new. And deeply unsettling.
CREATURE (AS ROUGH-XLR8)
(voice garbled, layered, mimicking)
F-a-s-t-e-r...
It lunges, genuinely faster than its first wolf-form, clearly having absorbed something real from the encounter. XLR8 barely dodges, skidding around a tree.
XLR8
(over comm, fast)
It's not just copying shapes — it's copying abilities it sees! It saw me go fast, now it's fast!
KEVIN (V.O.)
(over comm)
So don't show it anything you don't want it stealing!
XLR8
Bit late for that warning, Kevin!
The creature swipes, and XLR8 — testing a theory — deliberately fights back at half his usual speed, baiting it. The creature's "stolen" speed visibly dips to match, clearly tied directly to whatever it's currently mimicking rather than being its own innate trait.
XLR8
(realization dawning)
It's not stealing the ability. It's stealing the performance. If I don't actually commit to using a power, it can't copy what isn't really there.
The creature shrieks in frustration, its form rippling unstably, clearly straining to hold the half-finished copy together.
EXT. RESERVE — CLEARING — MOMENTS LATER
Gwen and Kevin catch up, finding XLR8 circling the unstable creature warily.
KEVIN
(eyeing the rough copy of Ben's alien)
Okay, that's deeply weird, even for our usual Tuesday.
GWEN
(scanning)
It's not malicious in the traditional sense — I think it's young. Possibly newly hatched. It doesn't have a natural form yet, so it's instinctively borrowing ones it encounters to survive.
BEN (AS XLR8)
(thoughtful, backing off slightly)
A baby shapeshifter panicking in the middle of a forest full of Plumber tech and superpowered teenagers. Great. No pressure.
KEVIN
So what, we just let it keep wearing your face until it calms down?
XLR8
(shaking his head)
No — every copy it makes is unstable. It's not built to actually hold a form yet, just mimic the surface. If it panics enough, it could lock into a copy it can't control and hurt itself, or someone else, by accident.
GWEN
(grim)
Then we need to give it something safe to copy. Something stable enough that it doesn't tear itself apart trying to hold the shape.
Ben looks down at the Ultimatrix, already flickering with the telltale pre-Ultimate stutter — but this time, with intention.
XLR8
(determined)
Then let's give it something built to actually be heard clearly. No guesswork required.
He slaps the dial again.
[SECOND TRANSFORMATION SEQUENCE]
Green light. His form shrinks and splits — not once, but cleanly into two identical white-and-black humanoid figures, a single speaker-grille mouth on each.
BEN (AS ECHO ECHO) (BOTH, IN SYNC)
Echo Echo!
The creature freezes, clearly registering the new shape — simpler, cleaner, more geometric than XLR8's reptilian angles.
ECHO ECHO (1)
(steady)
Okay, little guy. Watch closely. This one's easy.
Both Echo Echoes emit a slow, simple, perfectly synchronized tone — deliberately uncomplicated, an easy pattern to mimic without strain.
ACT THREE
The creature's rippling form steadies, hesitantly copying the simple duplication and tone — and for the first time, holds the shape cleanly, without straining or distorting. Two small, blocky echo-creature shapes blink into being, chirping the same steady tone back.
ECHO ECHO (2)
(relieved)
There. See? Way less scary when nobody's panicking.
But the calm doesn't last. From deeper in the woods, a new, much larger presence stirs — heavy footfalls, cracking branches, and a deep, resonant ROAR that doesn't belong to anything either Echo Echo or the creature has shown.
GWEN
(alarmed)
That's not it. That's something else entirely.
A massive, hulking shape crashes into the clearing — a real, adult predator of unknown origin, drawn by all the noise and commotion, easily three times the size of the young shapeshifter.
KEVIN
(backing up, absorbing nearby rock for armor)
Oh, terrific. Mom's home.
The young creature, startled, panics — its stabilized Echo Echo copy flickering, threatening to destabilize all over again under real danger.
ECHO ECHO (1)
(fast, urgent)
No, no, stay steady, don't panic—
The adult predator lunges at the cowering young shapeshifter, clearly not maternal at all — more like the actual external threat the youngling's been hiding from this whole time.
ECHO ECHO (1) (CONT'D)
(realization, sharp)
That's not its parent. That's what it's been running from all week!
Both Echo Echo duplicates rejoin in a flash, slamming back into one form, the Ultimatrix symbol already flickering open.
[ULTIMATE TRANSFORMATION SEQUENCE]
Mechanical petals unfold and lock into place. Ben's frame stretches taller, more angular, the single chest-speaker splitting into multiple resonance vents, blue sound-wave patterns glowing across white plating.
BEN (AS ULTIMATE ECHO ECHO)
(voice layered, resonant)
Ultimate Echo Echo!
He plants himself bodily between the predator and the cowering young shapeshifter, resonance vents flaring.
ULTIMATE ECHO ECHO
(firm)
Not today.
The predator lunges. Ultimate Echo Echo unleashes a focused, layered sonic blast — not chaotic noise, but a precise, modulated frequency tuned directly to the creature's apparent sensory range, staggering it mid-charge without harming the smaller creature crouched behind him.
ULTIMATE ECHO ECHO (CONT'D)
(steady, advancing)
You want something simple to chase. Fine. Chase me.
He keeps the predator's attention with controlled, escalating tonal bursts, herding it step by step away from the clearing and the young shapeshifter, toward the open treeline where Plumber containment teams — alerted by Max — are already moving in with non-lethal capture equipment.
Gwen and Kevin help shield the young creature, now stable in its simple Echo Echo-mimic form, chirping anxiously but no longer dissolving into panic-shapes.
GWEN
(softly, to the young creature)
It's okay. He's got it. You're safe.
TAG SCENE
EXT. NATURE RESERVE — LATER
Dawn light filters through the trees. Plumber containment vehicles handle the now-sedated adult predator, while the young shapeshifter — still holding its small Echo-mimic shape — sits curled near Gwen, calmer now. Ben, back to human, stands with Kevin nearby.
MAX
(approaching, having overseen the capture)
Field reports make a lot more sense now. We weren't dealing with one creature causing problems. We were dealing with one young, scared creature being hunted by something much bigger.
BEN
(nodding)
And it kept changing shape because it didn't have one of its own yet to hide in.
GWEN
(gently scratching near the small creature's head, which chirps contentedly)
Give it a few stable encounters and a safe habitat, and it'll probably figure out its actual natural form on its own.
KEVIN
(watching, arms crossed, a little softer than usual)
You know, for a night that started with "shapeshifter monster destroying camera equipment," this got weirdly heartwarming.
BEN
(smirking, glancing at the Ultimatrix — calm, green, ordinary again)
Yeah. Funny how that keeps happening to us.
The young creature chirps once more, mimicking the steady Echo Echo tone, and the group shares a small, tired laugh as the sun rises fully over the reserve.
FADE OUT.
END OF EPISODE