BEN 10: ULTIMATE ALIEN
"Static"
A Fan-Made Episode Script (Original Story)
COLD OPEN
INT. BELLWOOD COMMUNITY CENTER — GYM — DAY
Folding tables, crepe paper banners reading "BELLWOOD SUMMER CARNIVAL — VOLUNTEER SIGN-UP," and a general air of small-town civic chaos. GWEN TENNYSON, clipboard in hand, directs a small army of confused volunteers. BEN TENNYSON drags a folded dunk-tank frame across the floor, visibly regretting every decision that led him here.
BEN
(grunting)
Remind me again why I'm doing manual labor on a Saturday.
GWEN
(not looking up from her clipboard)
Because you volunteered.
BEN
I did not "volunteer." You wrote my name down while I was asleep.
GWEN
(small smile)
Same thing, really.
KEVIN LEVIN leans against a nearby wall, arms crossed, very deliberately not carrying anything.
KEVIN
I'm supervising.
BEN
(dropping the dunk-tank frame with a clatter)
You're standing.
KEVIN
Supervised standing.
A nearby volunteer, MRS. HENDRICKS, an elderly woman fussing with an ancient generator wired to a string of carnival lights, frowns at her handiwork.
MRS. HENDRICKS
(muttering)
This thing hasn't run since the carnival before last, and it sounded better then.
She flips a switch. The generator SPUTTERS, the string of lights flickering erratically — then, just for a half-second, all the lights in the gym dim in unison, as if something invisible briefly drank the power right out of the air.
Ben pauses, frowning.
BEN
...Did anyone else feel that?
GWEN
(glancing up)
Feel what?
BEN
(shaking it off)
Nothing. Probably nothing.
ACT ONE
EXT. BELLWOOD — VARIOUS STREETS — LATER
A montage of small, easily-dismissed oddities around town: a streetlamp flickering out as a jogger passes beneath it; a parked car's radio cutting to static for exactly three seconds as a delivery van drives by; a convenience store's freezer humming louder than usual, frost creeping unusually fast across the glass.
None of it dramatic. All of it slightly, naggingly wrong.
INT. TENNYSON GARAGE — EVENING
Ben slouches in a lawn chair, scrolling his phone, still in his volunteer T-shirt. Gwen sits cross-legged on the workbench, tablet open.
GWEN
(idly)
Okay, this is probably nothing, but I pulled the city's power grid logs out of boredom.
BEN
(not looking up)
Very normal way to spend a Saturday night.
GWEN
There's been a string of tiny brownouts all over Bellwood today. Like, blink-and-you'd-miss-it small. But there's a pattern — they're all happening close to wherever you've been today.
Ben lowers his phone.
BEN
That's either a massive coincidence, or deeply unsettling.
GWEN
(grim)
I'm leaning unsettling.
Kevin, sprawled on an old car seat nearby, cracks an eye open.
KEVIN
You're telling me Tennyson's been secretly draining the city's power grid all day and didn't even notice?
BEN
I would notice that.
GWEN
(scrolling further)
Maybe not "you," specifically. Maybe something that's been near you. Following you, even.
A beat. All three look at each other.
KEVIN
(standing up fast)
Okay, nope, not sitting still for that thought. Let's go find whatever's been riding shotgun on Tennyson's Saturday.
ACT TWO
EXT. TENNYSON GARAGE — NIGHT
Outside, the porch light flickers — once, twice — then steadies. Ben steps out cautiously, Gwen and Kevin behind him, all three scanning the dark street.
GWEN
(quiet, using a small mana-detector)
If something's been quietly skimming power off the grid every time you're nearby, it's either incredibly subtle, or incredibly patient.
BEN
(low)
Or it's not doing it on purpose. Maybe it's not even hostile. Maybe it's just... hungry.
A faint electrical HUM rises from the shadows near the garage's old fuse box — barely audible, easy to miss if you weren't already listening for it.
Gwen's detector spikes.
GWEN
There. Right there.
Ben slaps the Ultimatrix.
[TRANSFORMATION SEQUENCE]
Green light wraps him — translucent, glowing, circuit-patterned lines threading across new skin, form turning faintly see-through.
BEN (AS BITSTREAM)
(voice layered, faint digital stutter)
Bitstream! Okay, if something's been quietly snacking on electricity, I'm probably the right guy to go ask it nicely to stop.
He approaches the fuse box carefully, kneeling near the faint hum.
BITSTREAM
(gently)
Hey. I know you're there. We're not here to hurt you. Just... maybe stop borrowing my neighborhood's power without asking?
Silence. Then, slowly, a small, faintly glowing wisp of crackling energy detaches from the fuse box — no larger than a basketball, formless, flickering between shapes like static struggling to resolve into a picture.
BITSTREAM (CONT'D)
(surprised, soft)
...Oh. You're tiny.
The wisp drifts closer, curious, crackling faintly — then, startled by its own boldness, zips backward into the streetlamp overhead, momentarily overloading it into a bright flash before it dims back to normal.
KEVIN
(watching, unimpressed)
That's it? That's our big mysterious power-drainer? A confused ball of static?
GWEN
(thoughtful, scanning)
Maybe. Or maybe it's young. New. Possibly displaced from wherever it's actually supposed to live.
BITSTREAM
(quietly, to the wisp)
You're not from around here, are you.
The wisp flickers — and for a half-second, projects a faint, garbled image against the side of the garage: jagged structures glowing with the same crackling energy, vast power conduits stretching endlessly, nothing like Bellwood at all.
BITSTREAM (CONT'D)
(quiet realization)
That's not Earth.
EXT. BELLWOOD — DOWNTOWN — LATER
Bitstream, Gwen, and Kevin follow the wisp as it drifts erratically through downtown, drawn instinctively toward larger and larger sources of power — streetlights, an ATM, finally the looming bulk of Bellwood's central power substation, humming behind a chain-link fence.
GWEN
(uneasy)
If it's drawn to bigger power sources out of instinct, and it actually reaches that substation—
BITSTREAM
(grim)
It could overload the whole grid trying to "eat." Not because it's malicious. Just because nobody ever taught it how much is too much.
The wisp drifts faster now, agitated, crackling brighter, clearly losing whatever fragile control it had.
KEVIN
(already moving)
Then we cut it off before it gets there.
They sprint after it. The wisp reaches the substation fence and, in a surge of overstimulated hunger, LATCHES onto the main transformer housing, the entire structure beginning to whine and spark dangerously, lights across three city blocks flickering in sympathetic distress.
BITSTREAM
(urgent)
Okay. New plan. Can't talk this one down. Gotta out-eat it.
The Ultimatrix symbol flickers — the familiar pre-Ultimate stutter, faster this time, more deliberate.
[ULTIMATE TRANSFORMATION SEQUENCE]
The symbol on Bitstream's chest SNAPS open, deploying glowing mechanical petals. His sleek, translucent frame sharpens further — circuitry patterns brightening into solid, controlled lines of light, a small secondary core glowing steady at his chest, his form now humming with contained, stable power rather than flickering, borrowed light.
BEN (AS ULTIMATE BITSTREAM)
(voice resonant, steady)
Ultimate Bitstream!
He presses both palms against the transformer housing, not to fight the wisp directly, but to open a clean, stable channel of his own — offering the overstimulated creature a controlled, safe amount of energy to draw from instead of the raw, overloading substation.
ULTIMATE BITSTREAM
(calm, focused)
There. Slow down. Take it from me instead. I can actually handle the portion sizes.
ACT THREE
The wisp, sensing the cleaner, steadier source, hesitantly detaches from the sparking transformer and drifts toward Ultimate Bitstream instead, drawing a careful, metered trickle of energy directly from him rather than the dangerously overloaded grid.
The substation's warning lights steady. The citywide flickering stops. Gwen exhales, lowering her scanner.
GWEN
(relieved)
He's regulating it. Giving it just enough that it doesn't have to panic-feed anymore.
KEVIN
(watching, almost impressed)
Didn't know "patient babysitter" was one of the Ultimatrix's settings.
The wisp, finally calm, settles into a soft, steady glow, no longer flickering with desperate hunger — just gently pulsing, content, hovering near Ultimate Bitstream's shoulder like an exhausted kid finally getting a proper meal.
ULTIMATE BITSTREAM
(gently)
Better?
The wisp chirps — a small, clean burst of static that somehow reads as a yes.
TAG SCENE
EXT. PLUMBER HQ — LOADING BAY — LATER
MAX TENNYSON oversees a small, specially insulated containment unit being loaded into a transport vehicle — comfortable, softly humming with a stable trickle charge, clearly built more like a temporary home than a prison. Ben, back to human, watches with Gwen and Kevin.
MAX
(closing the unit gently)
Best guess, it's a juvenile energy-based lifeform, displaced from somewhere with an entirely different relationship to power than anything on Earth. We'll find it somewhere it can actually grow safely instead of starving in secret.
GWEN
It wasn't trying to hurt anyone. It just didn't know how much it was allowed to take.
BEN
(quiet)
Yeah. I get that. Kind of.
KEVIN
(raising an eyebrow)
You "get" being a confused ball of static?
BEN
(smirking)
I get showing up somewhere new and accidentally causing problems just trying to figure out the rules. Sound familiar?
Kevin opens his mouth to argue, then visibly reconsiders, shrugging instead.
KEVIN
...Fair.
The transport vehicle pulls away. Ben glances down at the Ultimatrix — calm, green, ordinary again — and then back at the carnival banner still visible a few blocks away, crooked but cheerfully lit.
BEN
(to Gwen)
We still have to finish setting up that dunk tank tomorrow, don't we.
GWEN
(already walking)
Every bit of it.
BEN
(groaning, following)
Saving the city's easier than community service.
Kevin laughs, climbing into his car as the other two follow, the streetlights behind them finally, steadily, normally lit.
FADE OUT.
END OF EPISODE