BEN 10: ULTIMATE ALIEN
"Meltdown"
A Fan-Made Episode Script — Written in the style of Dwayne McDuffie
COLD OPEN
EXT. BELLWOOD — INDUSTRIAL DISTRICT — DAY
Hard midday sun. Steel and concrete. A water tower. Four warehouses in a row, all identical, all quiet.
Then one of them isn't quiet anymore.
The center warehouse BULGES outward — not an explosion, not a collapse, just the walls bowing outward like something inside took a deep breath and didn't let it go. Steel sheeting groans. Rivets pop. The roof lifts two inches and settles back.
Then does it again.
BEN TENNYSON coasts to a stop on the sidewalk across the street on his bike, watching the second pulse.
BEN
(pulling out one earbud)
That building is breathing.
His wrist comm crackles.
MAX (V.O.)
(filtered, tense)
Ben. Industrial district, Warehouse Seven. Plumber sensors are reading a sustained energy output equivalent to a small reactor going critical. Slowly.
BEN
I'm looking at it. The walls are moving.
MAX (V.O.)
Whatever's inside has been building pressure for forty minutes. If it goes all at once—
BEN
(already off the bike)
How far's the blast radius?
MAX (V.O.)
(a beat that says everything)
Six blocks. Minimum.
Ben looks at the warehouse.
Looks at the six blocks of residential Bellwood behind him.
Looks at the Ultimatrix.
BEN
(quiet, already moving)
Then I've got forty minutes of buildup to deal with in the next two.
ACT ONE
INT. WAREHOUSE SEVEN — CONTINUOUS
Dark inside, except for the source.
GRAVAX.
Eight feet tall. Crystalline body structure, deep red-black, like volcanic glass given a skeleton and a grudge. His entire frame pulses — not glowing, radiating, heat distorting the air around him in a permanent shimmer. Cracks run across his crystal body, orange-hot at the edges, and from those cracks, energy bleeds outward continuously, the warehouse walls absorbing it, holding it, very nearly done holding it.
He's not doing this on purpose.
He's dying.
Slowly, critically, his body unable to contain the energy his species generates passively — and in his distress, outputting more than ever, a feedback loop with a very bad ending.
He looks at Ben when Ben enters.
GRAVAX
(voice like a furnace door opening)
Leave. Now. While you can.
BEN
(stopping, reading the room fast)
You're not attacking the building. You're trying to hold it in.
Gravax says nothing.
Which is an answer.
BEN (CONT'D)
How long?
GRAVAX
(strained)
Not long enough for you to help. Leave.
BEN
(looking at the walls)
Those are reinforced steel panels. You've been pushing against them for forty minutes and they're still standing. You've been trying to contain this yourself.
A crack on Gravax's shoulder widens slightly, a fresh tongue of orange light bleeding out.
GRAVAX
(through his teeth)
I said leave, Tennyson.
BEN
(slapping the Ultimatrix)
Yeah. Not really my thing.
[TRANSFORMATION SEQUENCE]
Green flash — white-out — and NRG materializes inside his heavy lead-alloy containment suit, the Ultimatrix symbol on the chest glowing faintly through the metal.
BEN (AS NRG)
(voice filtered through the suit, steady)
NRG. Okay. Like to like.
He walks toward Gravax.
The heat distortion around Gravax bends differently around NRG — not repelled, just... acknowledged, the way two fires acknowledge each other.
GRAVAX
(watching him approach)
Your suit contains you. It won't contain me.
NRG
(stopping three feet away)
I know. I'm not here to contain you. I'm here to help you bleed it off before you go critical.
A beat.
GRAVAX
(wary)
How.
NRG
(raising one armored hand)
I run hot too. If I can give the excess somewhere to go — draw it off through direct contact — we slow the buildup. Buy time to get you somewhere this can release safely.
Gravax stares at him.
GRAVAX
If the transfer overloads your suit—
NRG
(flat)
Then I take the suit off.
(beat)
I really don't want to take the suit off in the middle of a residential neighborhood. So let's make this work.
He places both armored palms against Gravax's chest.
The energy transfer is immediate — visible even through NRG's sealed suit, orange light bleeding from Gravax's cracks into the suit's absorption panels, the panels heating, radiating, starting to glow at the seams.
The warehouse walls stop moving.
For about eight seconds.
Then Gravax shudders — a deeper pulse from his core — and the output doubles.
The suit's panels go orange.
Then white.
NRG staggers.
NRG
(strained)
Okay. He's outputting more than the suit can absorb.
More cracks split across Gravax's body, each one venting fresh columns of heat. The warehouse temperature spikes visibly — metal walls beginning to glow at the corners, the concrete floor cracking in radial lines from Gravax's feet.
GRAVAX
(desperate, something almost like fear entering his voice for the first time)
You need to stop. The feedback is accelerating it.
NRG
(holding on)
I can handle more—
GRAVAX
NOT YOU. Me. Your proximity — the similar energy signature — it's resonating with my output. Making it worse.
NRG lets go.
Steps back.
The suit is glowing at every seam.
He looks at his own hands.
NRG
(quiet)
My energy is making his worse. Like to like isn't the answer. Like to like is the problem.
He looks at the Ultimatrix symbol on his chest, already flickering.
NRG (CONT'D)
Then I need something that isn't like him. Something that doesn't resonate.
A beat.
NRG (CONT'D)
Something that absorbs the way a black hole absorbs. Not by matching — by consuming.
The flickering on the Ultimatrix symbol intensifies.
NRG (CONT'D)
(quietly)
Let's see if the upgrade figured that out.
[ULTIMATE TRANSFORMATION SEQUENCE]
The Ultimatrix symbol on NRG's chest SNAPS open.
The containment suit doesn't fall away.
It transforms.
The lead-alloy panels reconfigure, layer upon layer, each one restructuring into something denser, stranger — not designed to simply contain what's inside anymore, but to actively process what comes in from outside. Intake vents open along the arms and torso, not releasing energy outward but drawing inward. The suit becomes an engine of consumption rather than containment. The Ultimatrix symbol on the chest, now exposed at the center of the reconfigured suit, glows a deep, steady amber.
Silence.
Then the intake vents activate.
And the air in the warehouse begins to move.
Toward NRG.
BEN (AS ULTIMATE NRG)
(voice deeper, the filter now working both ways — pulling in as much as it ever pushed out)
Ultimate NRG.
Gravax stares.
GRAVAX
(barely a whisper)
What did you become.
ULTIMATE NRG
(walking forward)
The thing that eats what you can't hold.
ACT TWO
Ultimate NRG places both hands back against Gravax's chest.
This time, the transfer is different.
Not resonance. Consumption.
The orange light bleeding from Gravax's cracks doesn't interact with Ultimate NRG's energy signature — it gets pulled, actively drawn into the intake vents, processed and contained within the restructured suit's deeper absorption layers.
The cracks on Gravax's body begin to dim.
The warehouse walls cool.
The floor's radial cracks stop spreading.
GRAVAX
(feeling the difference, stunned)
You're — it's actually—
ULTIMATE NRG
(focused, steady)
Don't talk. This takes concentration.
The energy draw continues — steady, controlled, visible in the way the air around them slowly clears of heat distortion, the shimmer retreating back toward Gravax's body and then getting pulled from there too.
Three minutes.
Gravax's orange cracks dim from white-hot to orange to a dull, stable red.
His body stops pulsing.
The warehouse is hot — very hot — but no longer moving.
GRAVAX
(slumping slightly, exhausted)
...It stopped.
ULTIMATE NRG
(carefully releasing contact)
For now. Whatever triggered the cascade, your output is back to baseline. You're stable.
He steps back.
His suit's intake vents are visibly saturated — the panels a deep, contained amber, heat radiating off them in steady, controlled waves rather than dangerous spikes.
GRAVAX
(looking at his own hands, cracks dim and stable)
Why.
ULTIMATE NRG
(flat)
Because six blocks of people didn't do anything wrong today.
A long beat.
GRAVAX
(quiet)
You absorbed enough energy to level this building. Inside that suit.
ULTIMATE NRG
(looking at the suit's glowing panels)
Yeah.
(beat)
I really need to put this somewhere safe in the next few minutes.
ACT THREE
EXT. WAREHOUSE SEVEN — MOMENTS LATER
Ultimate NRG walks out of the warehouse into the hard midday sun, both arms slightly out from his sides, the suit's panels radiating steady controlled heat, the air around him shimmering.
The street is empty — Plumber clearance, six blocks in every direction.
He walks to the center of the industrial lot.
Stops.
Looks at the empty space.
Looks at the Ultimatrix symbol on his chest.
ULTIMATE NRG
(to himself)
Grandpa's going to have opinions about this.
He opens the intake vents in reverse.
All of them.
At once.
The release is silent for exactly one second.
Then it isn't.
A column of pure energy erupts straight upward from Ultimate NRG's position — not an explosion, a directed output, everything the suit absorbed in those three minutes releasing in a controlled vertical beam that hits the sky and disperses in a bloom of orange-white light visible from twelve miles away.
Four seconds.
Five.
The beam narrows.
Dims.
Stops.
Ultimate NRG stands in a circle of scorched asphalt, the industrial lot's surface cracked in a perfect radius around his feet, every piece of metal within thirty yards heat-warped.
The suit's panels are dark.
Cool.
Empty.
He looks up at the sky where the beam was.
Clear.
Just sky.
ULTIMATE NRG
(quiet)
There.
He reverts — green flash — and Ben stands in the center of the scorched circle, jacket slightly singed at the collar, completely fine.
He looks at the circle.
Looks at the sky.
Looks at the warehouse, still standing, walls no longer moving.
BEN
(to himself)
Six blocks.
He glances at the Ultimatrix.
Calm. Green. Ordinary.
BEN (CONT'D)
Worth it.
TAG SCENE
EXT. WAREHOUSE SEVEN — LATER
Plumber medical units work inside the warehouse, stabilizing Gravax for transport to a proper containment facility with the right atmospheric conditions. Ben leans against the outer wall, talking to Max on comm.
MAX (V.O.)
(dry)
You fired a nuclear beam into the sky over Bellwood.
BEN
Upward. Straight up. Away from everything.
MAX (V.O.)
The FAA is going to have questions.
BEN
(looking at the sky)
Tell them it was a weather balloon.
MAX (V.O.)
Ben.
BEN
A very energetic weather balloon.
A pause.
MAX (V.O.)
(despite himself)
...How's Gravax?
BEN
Stable. Whatever cascade he hit, it's over. He needs somewhere he can vent safely without ending up in a warehouse next to a neighborhood.
MAX (V.O.)
We have a facility. I'll arrange it.
(beat)
You could have gotten out of there.
BEN
(quiet)
Yeah.
MAX (V.O.)
Six blocks of residential—
BEN
(quiet)
I know what six blocks means, Grandpa.
A beat between them.
MAX (V.O.)
(simply)
Good work.
Comm closes.
Ben looks at the scorched circle on the asphalt.
At the warehouse, walls still.
At the sky, clear.
He picks up his bike from where he left it across the street.
Rides away.
The industrial district goes quiet.
FADE TO BLACK.
END OF EPISODE