Less Than Ideal

Less Than Ideal is the first episode of the second season of Ben 10: Revamped, written by Roads, and the sixth episode overall.

Previously
We see the door in Azmuth's space station opening to reveal...

(Azmuth): Vilgax!

''Ben/Feedback drains the Box's power from Vilgax.

(Vilgax): I have a Plan B!

Cut to Will Harangue covering the events of Null and Void.

(Harangue): Dr. Animo has vanished without a trace, along with the vigilantes themselves.

(Vilgax, in his ship): I will kill Ben Tennyson and steal the Omnitrix for myself, with the only thing that can defeat him.

(Psyphon): What could that possibly be, Master?

(Vilgax): Himself.

The Unitrix turns into a Copycat clone, which Vilgax reverted to Albedo.

(Albedo): Hello, Ben Tennyson.

(Ben): ...Do I know you?

Albedo defeats the team and carries Ben up to the Chimerian Hammer.

(Vilgax): I am going to take the Omnitrix from you, and then I am going to kill you!

He took it and unlocked Master Control.

(Ben): Master Control!

(Vilgax): Now I can use all the aliens in the Omnitrix!

The room shakes as Gwen and Kevin fire on it.

(Vilgax, to Albedo): You're fired!

Vilgax and Albedo fought, and Ben escaped.

(Ben, over the communicator): Guys, I'm free! If you don't save me now, either one of them will win and come after me, or we'll all blow up!

(Kevin): We're on it!

We see the floor drop away as Gwen and Kevin pull open the hatch.

(Vilgax): TENNYSON!

Ben falls to the ground, and as the dust clears, we see that he is Humungousaur and so survived... and then changed back, in front of the news crew.

(Harangue): Hourglass, explain yourself!

(Ben, voicing over a shot of the ship's wreckage coming down towards the camera): Well, this is less than ideal.

Plot
Ben is running as fast as possible down a street in downtown Bellwood, being chased by a crowd of reporters and bystanders that had just witnessed him fall from the sky and change from alien to human at the end of the last episode. Then, the view froze.

''(Ben, narrating): My name is Ben Tennyson. How did I end up here? Well, *begin flashback* Once everyone started asking questions, Vilgax's ship exploded! Everyone looked up, completely ignoring me for just long enough to escape. After that, I ran like mad down the street, and here I am. *end flashback* The Omnitrix won't work either.''

The view unfreezes, with Ben still running and trying to transform. Eventually, the Omnitrix started working again, and Ben turned into XLR8 and zipped away before the crowd could realize what happened.

(Ben, narrating): Never mind, it's working now.

Theme song!

We see the entire team at Fort Soledad's secret Plumber base. Gwen and Kevin flew straight there in the ship after Ben "landed."

(Azmuth): Tell me, what all happened?

(Ben): Vilgax cloned me and tried to use the clone to get the Omnitrix. He failed and apparently blew up with his ship, but now everyone watching the news when Vilgax's ship showed up knows my secret!

(Azmuth): Well, this is less than ideal.

(Gwen, holding up her arm): Albedo also put these bracelets on Kevin and me that are preventing us from using our powers.

(Azmuth): These are a simple fix.

He hopped onto each of their wrists and popped the bracelets off. Gwen and Kevin tested their powers by Gwen making her hands glow, and Kevin partially absorbing the floor.

(Kevin): Finally, thanks!

(Azmuth, examining the Omnitrix): As for you, Ben, the Omnitrix is acting up because it just went through two default-form settings and a reset! Fortunately, Master Control was disabled in the reset, but so were the Galvanic Mechomorph and To'kustar.

(Ben, confused): The what?

(Azmuth): Upgrade and Way Big!

(Ben): Aw man, mind unlocking them again?

(Azmuth, grinning): Where would the fun be in that?

(Gwen): Still, none of this solves the bigger problem!

(Kevin): I guess we're just gonna have to put up with it for now.

After several days of avoiding people looking for him, Ben realized that a lot of people supported him. But then one day, he turned on the news to Harangue's channel.

(Harangue): It is quite clear from the evidence that the Hourglass, real name Ben Tennyson, is behind the disappearance of Dr. Animo, and the big ship in the sky.

Similar news reports followed from various channels. People began distrusting him. Then, one day, on Harangue's channel...

(Not Harangue): I'm filling in for Will Harangue here in the heart of Bellwood, where a giant robot is terrorizing the city.

The large robot, about twice the size of Humungousaur, was shaped like Vilgax!

(Ben): That doesn't look good!

Commercial!

In the standard post-commercial repeat, we see the robot on the news again.

(Ben): That doesn't look good!

(Reporter): Military tanks are on the way, but at this rate, they won't get here fast enough, and we don't even know if they'll be able to— Wait a minute, it's climbing that skyscraper!

The Omnitrix suddenly started glowing.

(Omnitrix): Incoming call.

(Ben): That's new.

Ben tried turning the dial to see what it was doing, and a hologram of Azmuth showed up!

(Ben): Azmuth?!

(Azmuth hologram): Yes, it's me. I see you didn't know about the Omnitrix's communicator function.

Cut to Azmuth at the Plumber base. A hologram of Ben can be seen on an Omnitrix-like Plumber badge.

(Azmuth): As you probably can tell, a Vilgax-shaped robot is attacking downtown.

(Ben): Yeah, it looks like he's still alive after all...

(Azmuth): Gather the rest of the team and go stop it!

(Ben): But nobody knows about them yet, and it's probably best to keep it that way.

(Azmuth): You do have a point, but be careful! You might not be able to stop this robot on your own.

(Ben): How hard can it be?

Cut to downtown. The Vilgax robot is halfway up the skyscraper, climbing up very unrealistically. The tanks arrived, and fired missiles at it. They did nothing. The robot in return turned its head and fired lasers from its "eyes" at the tanks, blowing them all up one by one!

(Reporter, still reporting): It seems nothing can stop it! ...Wait a minute, look at the top of the building!

From the top of the skyscraper, a fireball was shooting straight down towards the robot, and hit it hard on the head, denting it. Zooming in, we see that it is Ben/Heatblast, who fired up his hands and pressed them on the metal of the head, turning it red-hot and letting him turn into Diamondhead to smash through easily. Inside was a mess of circuitry, controlling everything, though there was a lot of open space inside, as if for someone to be inside of it. But instead of finding Vilgax or someone else controlling it, it was entirely empty!

(Ben/Diamondhead): That's odd, it must be on auto-pilot or something. But why would Vilgax just send a robot here that I could easily beat, if it's even him at all? Either way, time to shut this thing down!

He turned into Feedback, hooked up his cable tentacles to various areas, and just zapped everything. Sparks flew all over the place, everything fried, and the robot shut down and just sat there, clinging to the building.

(Ben/Feedback, disconnecting): Yes!

Suddenly, though, the robot started tipping.

(Ben/Feedback): No!

Without any control, it was beginning to fall off the side of the building! It finally let go and just fell, sideways, to the ground. Everyone cleared out of the way as it crashed face-down with a loud

BOOOM!

As everything settled, everyone came in closer. The hatch on its back slowly crept up, revealing Ben, human again, crawling out in front of everyone.

(Ben): Oh, come on!

(One person): Ben Tennyson was behind it all!

The same replacement reporter came up and held out his microphone. A very faint footstep-like series of rumbles could be heard, gradually getting louder, from this point on.

(Reporter): Explain yourself: Why are you doing all this?

(Ben): I'm not behind this. I just came in to—

The rumbles became too loud to ignore. Everyone turned around. There was another robot, about half again as big as the Vilgax robot, marching down the street towards the scene. It resembled one of Vilgax's drones, but was all red, and had a large display screen where its face would be.

(Reporter): What on Earth?

(Ben): That's not good!

Ben stood, ready to transform. The robot, now close, stopped. Its screen turned on (for some reason in a CRT-like fashion despite obviously being a flatscreen), revealing a live feed of... Will Harangue's face?

(Reporter): Will Harangue?! What are you doing on that thing's face?

(Harangue/Robot): You're all a bunch of fools! I'm not behind this, Ben Tennyson is!

(Ben): What?

Commercial!

(Harangue/Robot, post-commercial repeat): I'm not behind this, Ben Tennyson is!

(Ben): What?

(Harangue/Robot): All this time he's been paying me off to make him out to be the big villain so that I could waltz in and attack myself, for him, while you were distracted by him! But I'm done with that nonsense.

(Ben): Every word of that is a lie!

(Harangue/Robot): Really? Then explain this!

His screen switches to a security camera's shot of Harangue's office, where Swampfire (!), Omnitrix and all, was making a deal with Harangue. (But Swampfire isn't even unlocked yet!)

(Ben): That's not me, I don't even have that alien!

(Reporter, not believing Ben): Yeah, sure you don't.

(Ben): I can still stop you, Harangue!

He slammed down the Omnitrix and turned into Copycat.

(Ben/Copycat): Aw man, I wanted Humungousaur. Oh well, I can still make this work...

He did his thing where he aligns his clones to form a giant Copycat-shaped thing, and started fighting Harangue/Robot. One punch from Ben shattered Harangue/Robot's screen, though it still worked.

(Harangue/Robot): Is this the best you've got?

Harangue/Robot hovered up with rocket boots and flew back about 100 feet, and then held his arms out, firing rockets from them that hit Ben/Copycats and exploded, flinging the clones everywhere. They all got together and merged before turning into Big Chill and flying up high. Harangue/Robot followed with his rocket boots. This was now an aerial fight.

(Ben/Big Chill): Can't catch me!

Harangue/Robot held out his right arm to fire a rocket, but Ben/Big Chill breathed ice breath on it, freezing the hand. But the rocket smashed right through. Ben/Big Chill turned intangible, and it flew right through him. When he became solid, the rocket, apparently heat-seeking, turned around and came right back at Ben/Big Chill, who turned intangible again. This time, the rocket went through him straight back at Harangue/Robot, hitting the head and blowing it to smithereens, leaving a bunch of cables and metal parts just sticking out of the robot's neck. This messed up the robot's control system and caused its rocket boots to fail.

(Harangue/Robot): No! NO!

The headless robot fell straight down towards the ground, crashing near the Vilgax robot with another loud

BOOOM! (Must be a new record.)

Ben/Big Chill landed. Everyone else had run away when the fight started getting dangerous. He walked up to the face-up robot, froze the chest stiff, and then punched through it. Inside was a massive airbag, which Harangue, pretty beaten-up, poked out of.

(Harangue): Ooh, my head... Tennyson!

(Ben, changing back): That's me.

(Harangue, laughing): You think you proved something by defeating me? No, you just showed that I revealed everything prematurely, and that you beat me up and left me out of anger. Better leave, though. The cops are coming. But a word of warning: Your ultimate enemy is coming, and you're going down!

(Ben): Yeah, sure.

He turned into XLR8 and ran away as the cops came and arrested Harangue.

Cut to him meeting Azmuth at the Plumber base.

(Azmuth): So you're being framed for all of this?

(Ben): Yeah, and Harangue mentioned that my "ultimate enemy" is coming. Who do you think it is? Maybe Vilgax wasn't killed after all?

(Azmuth): Hard to tell for sure. That robot was definitely shaped like Vilgax, but even if he did survive, why would he not just attack you and steal the Omnitrix? This isn't like him.

(Ben): I guess you're right. Something big is definitely coming, though.

(Azmuth): One thing's certain: you three are going to need to live here in the base until we can fix this.

(Kevin): Since our adventure clearly isn't over yet, it looks like Team Tennyson is going to have to stick together a bit longer.

(Gwen): I guess so.

Cut to the jail where Harangue was being held, with the previous conversation as a voiceover.

(Ben, voicing over): Looks like that "ultimate enemy" had better watch out!

Harangue was in his cell, when a guard walked by, stopping at his cell.

(Guard): Hello, Harangue.

(Harangue): Uh, hi?

The guard reached up to his own face, and pulled off an ID Mask. With a flash, he was suddenly the same Swampfire guy from earlier. He had red eyes, but no Omnitrix.

(Harangue): Oh, it's only you, Swampfire.

(Swampfire): You've succeeded, now everyone hates Ben Tennyson. But the thing is, I don't need you anymore. I'd pay you, but that won't do you much good in here, now would it?

He held up his right arm, and formed a fireball.

(Harangue, terrified): What are you doing?!

(Swampfire): I told you. I don't need you anymore...

THE END.