BEN 10: ULTIMATE ALIEN
"Fault Lines"
A Fan-Made Episode Script — Written in the style of Dwayne McDuffie
COLD OPEN
EXT. BELLWOOD — QUARRY ROAD — 9:02 AM
Clear morning. A two-lane road cutting along the edge of the old stone quarry, guardrail on one side, sheer drop on the other. A cement truck grinds up the grade, engine laboring.
BEN TENNYSON rides his bike along the shoulder, in no hurry, enjoying the kind of morning that doesn't usually last.
The road CRACKS.
Not potholes. A single, clean fracture line splitting the asphalt diagonally across both lanes, appearing in under a second, like the road decided to have an opinion about something.
The cement truck's front wheels drop into the new gap.
Ben is already off his bike, already running.
BEN
(into wrist comm, sprinting)
Grandpa — Quarry Road just split open under a truck. I need the fastest possible version of "not a Tuesday."
MAX (V.O.)
(filtered)
On it. What caused the fracture?
Ben reaches the truck. The driver's climbing out the high side, shaken but clear. Ben helps him the last few feet onto solid road.
BEN
(scanning the crack, which is still spreading)
Working on that part.
Fifty yards down the quarry road, the asphalt SPLITS again — a second fracture, running perpendicular to the first, opening a rough X across the road's surface.
And through the intersection of the two cracks, something rises.
FRACTIS.
Built like a walking fault line — jagged, asymmetrical, his body a shifting collection of stone plates that don't quite align with each other, each seam glowing faint orange, like magma just below a crust that keeps almost-but-not-quite fitting together. He's not smooth. He's not built. He's broken, deliberately, permanently, and somehow still standing.
FRACTIS
(voice like two tectonic plates grinding)
Tennyson. Good. You're already here.
BEN
(watching another crack spread toward the guardrail)
You say that like we had plans.
FRACTIS
We do now.
ACT ONE
Ben slaps the Ultimatrix.
[TRANSFORMATION SEQUENCE]
Green flash — DIAMONDHEAD lands on the cracking road, pale green crystal against grey stone.
BEN (AS DIAMONDHEAD)
(assessing the spreading fractures)
Diamondhead. Alright. Whatever you're doing to this road, let's talk about doing less of it.
FRACTIS
(watching him, plates shifting)
I'm not doing anything to the road. I'm doing something to the ground beneath it. The road is simply where you can see the results.
He raises one jagged arm.
A new fracture opens directly beneath Diamondhead's feet.
Diamondhead leaps clear, landing on stable ground, but the crack keeps spreading, chasing the edge of the road toward the guardrail — toward the quarry drop beyond it.
DIAMONDHEAD
(landing, sharp)
Okay. Direct approach.
He fires a crystal shard-volley at Fractis's torso — clean hits, all three landing on the shifting stone plates.
Fractis doesn't flinch.
The plates simply shift, absorbing the impact by redistributing across the gaps between them, each plate taking a fraction of the hit and passing it to the next.
FRACTIS
(unbothered)
I am not solid. You cannot concuss something that isn't whole to begin with.
Diamondhead frowns, already recalculating.
DIAMONDHEAD
(retreating a step, thinking fast)
Alright. No structural integrity to punch through. What happens if I hit harder?
He charges instead, crystal fist connecting directly with Fractis's chest plate.
The plate SHIFTS on impact, sliding sideways along its seam, absorbing the blow by simply not being where the force expected it to be, then sliding back into rough position.
Diamondhead's fist passes through empty air where solid stone should have been.
He stumbles.
DIAMONDHEAD
(off-balance)
That's — that's cheating.
FRACTIS
(the plates settling back)
That's geology. Faults don't resist force. They redirect it. That is why they last.
He advances. Diamondhead backs toward the guardrail, aware of the quarry drop behind it, aware of the spreading fracture pattern still working its way across the road surface.
FRACTIS (CONT'D)
(calm, certain)
This quarry sits on unstable ground. It has for decades. Bellwood built roads and buildings on top of a fault system and called it stable because nothing had moved yet.
DIAMONDHEAD
(circling, wary)
And you're here to move it.
FRACTIS
I am here to finish what the ground already started.
He gestures at the spreading crack pattern — now branching, tributaries running off the main fracture toward the residential streets visible beyond the quarry's edge.
FRACTIS (CONT'D)
The fault runs under six blocks of Bellwood. I intend to let it run its course.
Diamondhead looks past him — at the houses, the streets, the ordinary morning continuing just beyond the quarry rim, completely unaware.
DIAMONDHEAD
(grim)
Yeah. Not happening.
He fires again — a heavier shard, aimed at the seam between two plates directly, trying to exploit the gap itself rather than the plate.
Fractis simply widens the gap, letting the shard pass clean through the space where his body used to be.
DIAMONDHEAD (CONT'D)
(watching the shard sail past, useless)
Okay. You're not even really there half the time.
FRACTIS
(advancing, patient)
I am a fault. Faults are defined by absence as much as presence. You cannot strike what isn't fully in one place.
Diamondhead retreats another step. The guardrail is close now.
DIAMONDHEAD
(low, to himself)
No structural mass to break. No fixed position to hit. Every direct approach just slides off or through.
He glances down at the still-spreading crack pattern.
DIAMONDHEAD (CONT'D)
I need something that doesn't hit him at all.
He looks at the Ultimatrix. Already flickering.
DIAMONDHEAD (CONT'D)
(quiet)
I need to be the ground he's standing on, not the thing trying to punch him off it.
[ULTIMATE TRANSFORMATION SEQUENCE]
The Ultimatrix symbol SNAPS open.
Diamondhead's pale green crystal deepens to a rich crimson red, the color spreading through his lattice from the Ultimatrix outward. His frame broadens and thickens, dark navy plating filling the gaps between crystal sections. Massive spiked crystal formations erupt from both shoulders, jagged and multi-angled, each spike a slightly different length. His hands extend into broad, multi-fingered crystal claws. The Omnitrix symbol settles green at the center of his chest, the only cool color against the deep red.
He plants both feet.
Wide.
Low.
Not a fighting stance. A foundation.
BEN (AS ULTIMATE DIAMONDHEAD)
(voice deeper, each syllable landing with weight)
Ultimate Diamondhead.
Fractis studies him — the broader base, the way his weight distributes differently, denser at ground level than the base form was.
FRACTIS
(carefully)
...You've changed your geometry.
ULTIMATE DIAMONDHEAD
(steady)
Yeah. You said faults redirect force instead of resisting it. Fine. Let's see what happens when there's nowhere left to redirect it to.
ACT TWO
He drives both clawed hands into the road surface — not at Fractis, at the ground itself, directly into the spreading fracture pattern.
Crystal growth erupts outward from the contact points, not shards fired as projectiles but a spreading lattice, crimson crystal threading directly into the cracks in the asphalt and the stone beneath it, following the fracture lines exactly the way Fractis's own body follows them.
FRACTIS
(alarmed for the first time)
What are you doing to the fault—
ULTIMATE DIAMONDHEAD
(focused, still driving the growth forward)
You said the fault defines you. Absence as much as presence. So I'm filling the absence.
The crystal lattice spreads through the crack system fast, following every branch and tributary, crystallizing the fracture lines from the inside — not sealing the road's surface, but bracing the actual geological fault beneath it, converting the gap itself into structure.
Fractis staggers.
His shifting plates, which relied on the fault's gaps to redirect force, suddenly have less gap to work with. The crystal lattice threading through his own structural foundation is filling the spaces his body depends on.
FRACTIS
(plates locking, unable to shift freely)
This is — you're crystallizing the fault line itself—
ULTIMATE DIAMONDHEAD
(advancing, calm)
You're not a creature standing near a fault. You're made of the same absence. Fill the gaps, and there's nowhere left for you to redirect into.
Fractis tries to shift a shoulder plate away from an incoming strike — the same trick that worked twice already — and the plate catches on newly-formed crystal bracing that wasn't there thirty seconds ago, unable to slide fully clear.
Ultimate Diamondhead's fist connects.
Full contact. No absorption. No redirect.
Fractis staggers backward, plates grinding audibly against the crystal lattice now threaded through his foundation.
FRACTIS
(genuinely alarmed)
Stop. If you crystallize the entire fault system, the pressure has nowhere to release gradually—
ULTIMATE DIAMONDHEAD
(not stopping)
Then it doesn't release at all. That's the idea.
ACT THREE
The crystal lattice reaches the fracture's furthest branch — the tributary crack that had been working its way toward the residential streets beyond the quarry rim.
It stops there.
Crystallizes the branch solid.
Seals it.
Fractis, staggering, plates locked half-shifted against the new bracing, looks down at his own increasingly rigid structure.
FRACTIS
(quiet, something like fear entering the grinding voice)
You're not just stopping me. You're ending what I am.
Ultimate Diamondhead stands over him, the crimson crystal lattice spreading beneath both of them now, the entire fracture system braced and locked.
ULTIMATE DIAMONDHEAD
(steady)
I'm ending what you were about to do to six blocks of people who've never met you.
He looks down at Fractis's locked plates.
ULTIMATE DIAMONDHEAD (CONT'D)
(quieter)
What you are — that's a different question. One that's probably above my pay grade.
Fractis's plates, unable to shift, unable to redistribute, simply hold still for the first time since he emerged from the fracture.
Genuinely still.
A long beat.
FRACTIS
(quiet, almost curious)
This is strange.
ULTIMATE DIAMONDHEAD
Being stopped?
FRACTIS
(a pause)
Being whole.
Plumber vehicles arrive at the quarry rim, alerted by seismic sensors the moment the fracture pattern started spreading. Ultimate Diamondhead reverts — green flash — and Ben stands on the newly-crystallized, newly-stable road surface, the crimson lattice already fading into something closer to ordinary reinforced stone as the Ultimatrix's effect settles.
He looks down the quarry road.
The crack pattern, everywhere the lattice reached, is solid. Braced. Stable in a way it wasn't an hour ago.
The houses beyond the rim — completely undisturbed, completely unaware how close six blocks came to a very different morning.
BEN
(quiet, to himself)
Yeah. Okay.
He looks at the cement truck driver, sitting on the guardrail, looking a little pale but fine.
BEN (CONT'D)
(to the driver)
You alright?
DRIVER
(nodding slowly)
...Better than the truck.
Ben looks at the truck, front wheels still down in the original gap, now surrounded by solid crystallized stone instead of open fracture.
BEN
(small, honest)
Yeah. That's not coming out easy.
TAG SCENE
EXT. BELLWOOD — QUARRY ROAD — LATER
Plumber engineers survey the crystallized fault line, running scans, taking notes. Fractis is contained nearby — not in a cage exactly, more like a careful geological study in progress, his locked plates held in a stabilizing field while xenogeologists examine him.
Ben leans against the guardrail, watching. Max's voice comes through on comm.
MAX (V.O.)
(filtered)
Preliminary readings say you didn't just stop him. You stabilized an active fault system that's been sitting under this city for decades. Bellwood's engineering department is going to owe you more than they'll ever know to thank you for.
BEN
(watching the engineers work)
Didn't really mean to fix the city's geology problem. Just meant to stop the guy made out of it.
MAX (V.O.)
Sometimes those turn out to be the same job.
Ben watches Fractis, plates still, being carefully studied rather than contained.
BEN
(quiet)
What happens to him?
MAX (V.O.)
(a beat)
Depends what he actually is. Xenogeology's going to be arguing about that for a while. Living fault system, sentient mineral colony, something we don't have a category for yet.
BEN
He said something. Right before I locked him down. Said being stopped felt strange.
MAX (V.O.)
(careful)
Strange how?
BEN
(looking at Fractis)
He said it felt like being whole.
A silence on the comm.
MAX (V.O.)
(quietly)
...Make sure the team hears that. Might matter.
Ben nods, even though Max can't see it.
He looks out at the quarry, the crystallized road, the ordinary Tuesday morning still somehow going on around all of it.
BEN
(to himself)
Yeah. Might.
He pushes off the guardrail. Picks up his bike from where he left it, still leaning against a fence post, completely unbothered by the morning's events.
Rides home.
FADE TO BLACK.
END OF EPISODE