Fanfic / Egypt on Anur Khufos

Egypt on Anur Khufos is a Ben 10 fanfiction, set between the last two episodes of its third season, capitalizing on the scene where the main characters crash-land in Egypt. The titular planet has been afflicted with a mysterious disease crippling its newest generation of mummy aliens, and no cure is in sight. With an evil pharaoh ruling over the planet, the only hope of salvation lies in finding whoever bears the Omnitrix.

It can be read here on AO3.

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Egypt on Anur Khufos provides examples of

• A God Am I: The resistance group immediately bows and grovels to Ben when they see his Omnitrix, thinking The Prophecy has come true. Ben would've exploited this if his family members hadn't stopped him from going too far. Earlier on, Elastamun wonders why one would deify a person that barrels into combat without thinking, as Ben quickly does soon after arriving on Anur Khufos.
• Ancient Astronauts: In this story, the Egyptian Gods are actually Amun Khufans, the first sentient beings on Anur Khufos. They helped human Egyptians create their culture through a telepathic link with their pharaohs, and took on human forms to properly reveal themselves to the Egyptians.
• Ancient Egypt: Elastamun is fascinated by this from the artifacts his friend sells, and his homeworld turns out to the source of that culture.
• Ancient Tomb: Elastamun's hideout under the satellite pyramid of Khafre averts this, designed more like an underground Egypt-themed apartment. He tears it down in the epilogue, and visits Rehnenset's tomb to drop off his body.
• An Odd Place to Sleep: Wealthier Thep Khufans have the luxury of using sarcophagi as beds. Becomes especially odd for the Tennysons when they have to bunk in some overnight at the resistance base. The Golden Guard leaders also use theirs to recharge their transformation amulets.
• And the Adventure Continues: The story ends with the Tennysons returning to Cape Canaveral to continue their summer vacation, with Grandpa Max suggesting St. Louis as his next stop, leading to the last Ben 10 episode of Season 3.
• And Your Little Dog, Too!: When Rehk'Set deploys his Omni-gate, he programs it to link to Bellwood and threatens to unleash his Assimilation Plot on Ben's parents first if he doesn't turn into Ghostfreak for him.
• Applied Phlebotinum: Corrodium, a highly radioactive mineral native to Anur Khufos. The pharaoh had it mined to use as an energy source for his Evil Plan.
• Artificial Limbs: Marnor's right arm is robotic.
• Ascended Extra: Ben's original mummy form. Whereas he only used it once in the entire original series for a very short time, here he uses it twice in the same story, first to properly test its powers in combat training, and the second as a disguise while in Rehk'Set's palace. He also gives it the codename "Benmummy" due to being unable to think of a better title.
• Assimilation Plot: Early on, Valensen shows that the slave labor the pharaoh is getting is actually kidnapped humans, and it's been going on long enough for him to have at least more than one batch of several hundred humans.
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: At the last minute of the climax, Set stops fighting Ben upon seeing Ra's boat at sunrise, and turns around and flies toward it to meet the other gods. They punish him on the spot.
• Badass Biker: Elastamun travels between Giza and his home pyramid using a motorcycle.
• Badass Long Robe: Higher class Thep Khufans get to wear these, with varying colors depending on their ranks.
• Bathe Her and Bring Her to Me: Inverted. Rel'Hathor takes pity on Ben and decides to have him bathed on her own accord before turning him over to the guards. After that, he talks his way out of being turned in by using his own mummy form as a disguise, much to their shock.
• Battle in the Center of the Mind: When Ben is forced by the pharaoh to use his re-acquired Ghostfreak form, knowing that he might not come back. He plays Rehk'Set's ego, beats him up a little, and forces him to reveal everything, all while the real personality inside Ghostfreak tries to take over Ben's mind. Ben only survives by Set shutting down the Omnitrix prematurely.
• Beam-O-War: The finale of the climax, when Ben takes on Set alone as Heatblast, and both of them try to blast each other with beams of fire. This causes an explosion that sends both of them flying miles apart.
• Beast with a Human Face: An alien variant. The Golden Guard's lair is hidden under a sphinx in the middle of Mos Isis, with the body of a Wildmutt alien and a Thep Khufan face.
• Before the Dark Times: Raht tells Ben and Gwen a story of how Anur Khufos began, and how the Ectonurites nearly destroyed their old culture. He adds that the enslavement was "dark in every sense of the word", since the Ectonurites had to block out the sun to survive.
• Big Bad: The power-hungry pharaoh, Rehk'Set. He rules the entire planet with an iron fist, and uses slaves to build his monuments like pharaohs on Earth.
• Big "NO!": When Set is about to brainwash Ahmed with another mask, Elastamun says this while trying to protect Ahmed with his own body. It doesn't work.
• Boom Stick: Minutes after Elastamun brings the Tennysons to his world, two guards show up carrying laser staffs tipped with ankhs. Max gets to steal one from them and shoot back for a brief moment.
• Brain/Computer Interface: The Neuromancer-style virtual reality decks, used to control drones and access cyberspace.
• Call-Forward: At the end, where Max's experience on Anur Khufos inspires him to go to St. Louis when returning to Earth. Ja'Kaal also warns Ben to protect the Omnitrix with his life, which plays into Ben's first reaction to Xylene in the main series.
• Came from the Sky: Elastamun sees Ben's Cannonbolt form crash-landing in the desert from orbit just after his grandfather foils Ghostfreak's plans. He also lampshades how poetic it is in relation to the prophecy he was told earlier.
• Captain Ersatz:
  • The four Golden Guard leaders are direct send-ups of Rapses' guardians from Mummies Alive!, with their personal flagship speeder, Hot-Ra, being derived from the titular car.
  • A Piscciss Volann soldier named Undyyne derives from Undertale.
• Citadel City: Mos Isis, where the resistance is headquartered. Ilais' description subverts this, as the city's walls were more to keep the elements and corrodium radiation out, rather than enemy soldiers, though it is equipped with at least one laser cannon.
• Cool Gate: The various stargates used for quick transport to and from Anur Khufos. Exaggerated with the pharaoh's 'Omni-gate', an Omnitrix-based portal that can connect to anywhere in the galaxy.
• Cool Ship: The Golden Guard's flagship, Hot-Ra, an ornately decorated speeder equipped with lasers and missiles.
• Collector of the Strange: Downplayed by Ahmed, who sells historical artifacts that museums donate to his curio shop when they can't be exhibited.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Thep Khufans' eyes and bandages glow in varying colors. Elastamun and Ja'Kaal glow blue, Raht and Benmummy appear green, and Rehk'Set and his minions glow red.
• Coming in Hot: This happens to Elastamun's stolen hover ship, after an enemy ship shoots out its engines with rockets.
• Computer Voice: The palace and resistance base have PA systems that use computerized voices for announcements.
• Cut Lex Luthor a Check: Some people are questioning why the pharaoh is using slaves to build monuments, when Anur Khufos is supposed to be a peaceful society, and that they have plenty of advanced technology that can do the same job with much less effort.
• Dawn of an Era: At the end, when Ra and several other gods arrive in their sun boat and teleport down to a crowd of people. Ra tells the people that a new era of prosperity is at hand, and Isis even frees the enslaved humans and sends them home.
• Dead Person Conversation: After Osiris allows Valensen's spirit into the afterlife, the latter turns around and asks Gwen to tell Elastamun that Valensen's death was not in vain, and that the scribe's knowledge of humanity will go to a greater cause.
• Deal with the Devil: Rehnenset did this with Set to make sure he'd get a trip to Anur Khufos even after death.
• Deadly Dust Storm: At one point, Rehk'Set's magicians channel the goddess Sehkmet to unleash a sandstorm on Mos Isis, under the assumption that the people inside will give Ben and his friends over to the pharaoh. All it does is delay the resistance's attack by several hours.
• Decoy Protagonist: The first two chapters imply that Elastamun is the main character of the story. But the Tennysons are valued as the most important, and most of the story is focused on them instead.
• Deflector Shields: After learning everything about Ben's capabilities, the pharaoh sets up a huge one around his palace, and dispatches guards around it.
• Do I Really Sound Like That?: When a Tetramand guard loudly orders Ben (in disguise) to fetch the pharaoh's new cloak, Ben wonders if his Fourarms self sounds just as harsh.
• Doing In the Wizard: Minor example when Ben asks how Undyyne is able to make energy spears. Initially it's played up as magic like her counterpart from Undertale, but she explains at the end that they come from an implant that can create Hard Light constructs by thought, if on a limited scale.
• Dramatic Unmask:
  • Near the beginning when Elias Amsude returns to his lair under the Khafre satellite pyramid and removes his human disguise, revealing himself to be the Thep Khufan Elastamun.
  • When Ben (as Ghostfreak) forces Rehk'Set to remove all his clothes and possessions, then his mask that made him look like an actual Thep Khufan. Taken further when doing this turns him back into a human mummy, and the mask itself shatters, releasing the god of chaos who had used it to bond with his host.
• Elaborate Underground Base: The Golden Guard's stronghold, under Mos Isis. Comes complete with a training room, mess hall, library, vehicle bay, and a dorm that can sleep at least two dozen people. Originally it was built as a bomb shelter for the city, but the resistance repurposed it when the pharaoh took over.
• Electric Torture: When Ilais gets discovered, Undyyne orders Nimdok to zap her with his electricity, in order to make her reveal her undercover mission.
• Elite Mooks: The pharaoh's personal guards and Captain Drexel, being species not native to the Anur system.
• Enemy Scan: Undyyne's bionic eye can do this, which she uses on Ben the first time she sees him. It also helps her aim better in combat.
• Engineered Public Confession: Set up by the resistance, by hacking some of the drones to broadcast the pharaoh's actions over the planet's video network.
• Evil Mask: How the kidnapped humans are transformed into Thep Khufans, powered by magic and a little corrodium. This is used as a perfected method after The Virus threatened the latest generation of mummies.
• Evil Versus Evil: Ghostfreak, the maniacal Ectonurite who wants to use Ben for himself, versus Set, the Egyptian embodiment of chaos. The latter actually scoffs at the former's way of thinking, and shuts off the Omnitrix just to get rid of him.
• Eye of Horus Means Egypt: Taken to disturbing extremes where the pharaoh uses hovering drones that have the Eye of Horus where the camera is, which he uses to spy on the population. Horus himself sulks at these near the end.
• Fix Fic: To explain what happened after the Tennysons landed in Egypt, and before visiting St. Louis. It also fills in a plot hole as to why Ghostfreak was interested in the Omnitrix.
• Flying Car: Star Wars-esque landspeeders are a common mode of transportation, being the quickest way across the planet's radioactive desert terrain. Many of them come equipped with plasma guns and missiles, with a dedicated gunner's seat.
• Foreshadowing: Elias Amsude buys a pair of papyrus scrolls from Ahmed at the beginning and notices they were written as a journal by an unnamed source, describing Thep Khufans in Egypt at some point. Rehk'Set's confession at the climax reveals that he wrote them while as a scribe to Ahmenhotep I, and sought his rise to power from there.
• The Gods Must Be Lazy: The Egyptian Gods had been hiding in the Underworld since driving off the Ectonurites 30 years ago, on the decision to let Anur Khufos recover on its own. Isis regrets this decision at the end, feeling guilt for letting Set cause all the trouble during the recovery period, and leaving the religion in shambles.
• Great Offscreen War: The Thep Khufans call their past enslavement by the Ectonurites a war.
• Heel–Face Turn: Skaraab and Ilais work for pharaoh Rehk'Set throughout the story. But when Set takes over, they ally themselves with the heroes instead, knowing that Set would be impossible to reason with.
• Heroes Prefer Swords: Ben uses the pharaoh's khopesh to sabotage his shield generator, and arms himself with it to fight Captain Drexel during his escape. Elastamun is given a similar sword for the battle, and Raht uses a larger sword in his powered state.
• Heroic BSoD: Elastamun suffers one when witnessing Ahmed mutated by Ghostfreak's corrodium beam like everyone else in Giza. He tries to cope by playing an Arghul flute, and recovers when observing a space station where Ghostfreak and the Tennysons were at the time.
• Higher-Tech Species: The Transylians, Frankenstein-like aliens who recently introduced some of their technology to the Thep Khufans to rebuild their society after the Ectonurite war.
• I Come in Peace: When Elastamun first meets the Tennysons in the desert, they at first think he's there to attack them like Ghostfreak's Thep Khufan mook did. They stop when noticing he can speak English.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: Ja'Kaal sneaks Ben (as Gray Matter) into the palace by attaching him to one of his arrows...and firing it at a drainpipe several yards away without Ben's weight affecting the arrow's trajectory.
• Instant Runes: Worlock casts spells that appear as glowing hieroglyphs. Raht does this too when praying to the gods.
• Invincible Villain: Set, who shrugs off every attack the heroes throw at him and deals much more damage than they do. It gets to the point that they know they can't beat him, and all they can do is buy enough time for the other gods to arrive at sunrise.
• Invisibility Cloak: A common Khufan technology. Elastamun uses it to hide himself in the desert, it comes standard on hover ships, and Ilais uses it to sneak onto Undyyne's ship undetected and cripple the ship's own cloak. The concealment is flawless if the object in question isn't touched or detected by radar.
• Jumped at the Call: On the 15th year of Elastamun's research mission, Valensen finally breaks the news to him of what's really happening on his planet, and what the mission was truly for. Elastamun had grown incredibly bored with modern Egypt up to that point, partly due to Middle Eastern Terrorists in the area.
• Kick the Dog: Ahmed, Elastamun's human friend. He endured being temporarily mutated by corrodium when Ghostfreak attacked Earth, and ended up captured by Rehk'Set as a hostage, then nearly stabbed to death by Set. Fortunately, Isis mindwiping him at the end leaves him without trauma.
• La Résistance: The Golden Guard, whom Elastamun is given an amulet to find.
• Law of Chromatic Superiority: Several characters wear distinctly colored outfits that designate their rank. Raht even tells the Tennysons which rank goes with what color when reading from a scroll.
  • Elastamun and Neferti wear red.
  • The vizier Valensen and Skaraab, the pharaoh's magician, both sport purple robes, being in high rank to the throne.
  • Ja'Kaal wears blue, having been part of the pharaoh's military regime before forming the resistance.
  • Zigzagged with the pharaoh himself. He appears wearing black cloaks, but his face and eyes are red. Doubles as foreshadowing, as the mask is actually a vessel for the god Set, who is entirely red save for his head.
• Magical Accessory: Several Thep Khufans wear ornaments and wrist gauntlets that have special functions. Elastamun's necklace contains a camera that he used for his research, Ja'Kaal's base is located using an amulet that works as a homing device, and there's the Golden Guard's Transformation Trinkets .
• Mind Rape: Ben, as Ghostfreak, performs an Ectonruite brain trawl on the pharaoh to force him into confessing for his actions.
• Mission Briefing: Two of them, though the first is more of a debriefing over what the Tennysons came through, up to the present.
• Mistaken for Servant: Raht initially thinks Gwen and Max are Ben's servants, and Ben invokes this trope to sneak into the pharaoh's room.
• Motive Rant: Set delivers one during the climax, saying he will destroy either Earth or Anur Khufos out of revenge for being left in the shadow of the other gods, and humanity distorting his image from Ra's protector to being the same as Apophis, which even he dreads. Ben calls him a baby for that while inside a hover ship.
• Mummy: Thep Khufans are a variant on this, being no more than a mask-like head that sprouts organic bandages to form bodies. Rehk'Set transforms into a straight example when he takes off his mask.
• Mummy Wrap: Valerian catches Ben this way upon breaking into the palace, and again by Skaraab to be escorted to the pharaoh.
• Nightmare Sequence: Ben's off-earth nap becomes this, influenced both by his previous defeat of Ghostfreak and realizing the Omnitrix sampled his DNA again, and Raht's story of the Ectonurites.
• Off with His Head!: Played with. Elastamun points out during a battle that the best way to weaken a Thep Khufan is to cut their Combat Tentacles near the head, since that's where they grow from. Later, Captain Drexel almost does this to Benmummy just before the watch powers down at the last minute.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Normally Ben acts like his usual Deadpan Snarker self throughout the story, but in one scene, he breaks down crying to Grandpa Max and Raht when explaining his nightmare, and very reasonable fear of becoming Ghostfreak again.
• Pet the Dog: After the gods assess Valensen's actions, they allow him to pass on to the afterlife regardless of his untimely death.
• Planet of Hats: Anur Khufos' hat is Ancient Egypt, though by the time the story takes place, the culture is weakly known.
• Plotline Crossover: The story opens in Giza, Egypt, where Elastamun is finishing up his work for the day. Everything seems normal until his superior on his homeworld breaks the news to him, and after being ordered to find Ben, he witnesses Ghostfreak's sun-blocking corrodium barrier from the surface, and even sees his best friend turned into a mutant. When he heads back home after everything cools down, the Tennysons crash-land in the desert, and the two plotlines converge from there.
• Posthumous Character: Pharaoh Rho'Tep, who mysteriously died to be replaced with his nephew Rehk'Set. Revealed later on that Set worked Rehnenset into his family as his adopted nephew, who eventually killed Rho'Tep to steal the throne for himself.
• Powered Armor: Undyyne spends most of the story wearing a slim suit of armor that allows her to breathe water in Anur Khufos' harsh climate, complete with a link to her targeting system. The four Golden Guard leaders also gain this trope when in their powered forms.
• The Prophecy: The legend of "the being of a thousand beings", stating that whoever possessed the Omnitrix would be sent by Ra to liberate the planet. It's even shown in religious imagery, though not everyone believes it.
• Really 700 Years Old: The pharaoh Rehk'Set turns out to actually be A human scribe named Rehnenset, who worked for Ahmenhotep I, around 4,000 years ago. He had been made immortal and revived by Set some time after his death, and made into a Thep Khufan to blend in.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Rehk'Set has this, as do his brainwashed slaves. His human self even has glowing eyes.
• Reluctant Mad Scientist: Several Transylians are like this, being forced to carry out the pharaoh's plans. When Undyyne's crew bursts into one of their labs, copies their files, and interrogates them into deploying the cure to the virus, they comply immediately.
• Rooftop Confrontation: The climax of the story takes place almost entirely on the roof of Rehk'Set's palace.
• Running Gag: The gag of Ben getting transformed into an alien other than the one he wanted crops up in Chapter 5 where Ben tries to turn into Fourarms to destroy one of the guard's landspeeders and gets Upgrade instead.
• Rubber Man: All Thep Khufan aliens are this, though most of them prefer to use weapons or magic.
• Shameful Strip: Valensen is stripped of his robes and Horus-themed headgear just before the pharaoh has him executed.
• Shout-Out:
  • Several people's names are based on something.
    • One of the palace servants has the same name of the main character from Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets.
    • A Transylian scientist is called Nimdok, named after the character from I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream.
    • Another Transylian is a female named Jek'yll.
    • A Loboan soldier, Lukaro, stems from the Pokémon Lucario.
  • The depiction of the Underworld was inspired by The Kane Chronicles.
  • Ben cracks a joke over Mos Isis' name, which Elastamun doesn't get.
  • The Omni-gate operates like the Stargate, and makes the five tones from Close Encounters of the Third Kind when connecting to a location on Earth. Set even considers using planet Abydos as a suitable place of exile for the heroes near the end.
  • The pharaoh's evil plan is called "Operation Xenomorph".
  • During the final battle, Set borrows a line from Sans: "On nights like this, children like you...should be eaten by Ammut!". Similarly, some of the attacks used were based on the associated boss battle.
• Spanner in the Works: Ilais is assigned by the pharaoh to sneak aboard one of the resistance's speeders and cripple its cloaking device. Only thing is, she was told to infiltrate the one Ben was on, and mistakenly boards a different speeder, getting captured by its occupants in the process.
• Speak of the Devil: Pharaoh Rehk’Set suddenly appears after his name is spoken by one of his underlings.
  Rehk’Set: Whosoever mentions my name is either in need of my presence, or is my enemy.
• Storming the Castle: Just before the climax, where the entire planet's resistance forces charge into the pharaoh's palace after Ben takes out its shield.
• Sufficiently Advanced Bamboo Technology: Anur Khufos has shades of this. Egyptian culture and architecture is prominent, and magic is integral to that culture, but advanced technology is everywhere, ranging from speeders and plasma guns to computers and portals. Justified in Higher-Tech Species above.
• Talking the Monster to Death: Elastamun does this to Set when asked when Egypt began to confuse Set with Apophis. He answers, then points out that neither humans nor his species ever have uniform opinions, which is part of why chaos and order are so important. It works, but only enough for Set to alter his plans.
• That Was Not a Dream: In the epilogue, Ahmed thinks his brief lapse of consciousness while held hostage by Rehk'Set was a dream, due to being mindwiped by Isis. Elias Amsude partially tells him that it actually happened, though he frames the event as Ahmed being wounded by a terrorist on Earth, since he knew the truth would be too crazy to believe.
• To Be Continued: The penultimate chapter ends with this after the Tennysons are transported back to the John F Kennedy Space Center and Gwen asks where to now and Grandpa Max suggests going to St. Louis as it's an old vacation spot of his and the Tennysons being glad to have the diversion to spice things up after the crazy dark place and that they'd saved Earth and another planet from destruction and who knows what's to come next:

  In order to find out, the Ben 10 series continues in the Season 3 finale: “The Visitor”!

• Transformation Sequence: The Golden Guard does this once Ben takes out the shield around the pharoah's palace. Marnor even lampshades about how similar it is to the Omnitrix.
• Translator Microbes: Elastamun has to wear a Universal Translator on his neck to be able to speak to the Tennysons, and he buys more for them later on so that they can talk to other people on Anur Khufos. Otherwise, Thep Khufan speech just sounds like low-pitched screeches to them. Subverted in the beginning in that Elastamun himself learned Arabic during his mission, which the local people speak in Egypt.
• The Underworld: Raht takes Gwen here during the assault on the palace, in hopes that they can talk to the gods. It's implied to be an alternate reality where dead souls go.
• Unwitting Pawn: Zs'Skayr/Ghostfreak, first manipulated by Set into enslaving the Anur system, then by Isis to leave the planet in search of the Omnitrix so that the other Gods could remove the remaining Ectonurites.
• Villain Ball: Rehk'Set holds it a third into the story, relying on a covert agent to cripple the resistance' flagship, rather than sending troops to thwart them. This gives the resistance grounds for attacking the palace in full force. He does show a bit of foresight when analyzing Ben Tennyson's background, though.
• The Virus: A sickness that's killing off the latest generation of Thep Khufans, and the pharaoh's solution is to steal humans and fuse them together, which somehow keeps both alive. Deconstructed when it's revealed to be a Synthetic Plague developed by Transylian scientists to make sure that no one would know that humans were those slaves. The pharaoh had developed a cure when he came up with the newer method, and considered applying it to the dying Thep Khufans, but Valensen's betrayal made him change his mind.
• Voice of the Resistance: When the resistance finds a security room in the palace, Elastamun hijacks the planet's video network to reveal the pharaoh's plans to the public, and promises the people that they will be free by sunrise.
• Weaksauce Weakness: Thep Khufans are highly vulnerable to fire. The pharaoh has a Pyronite mook in the dungeon for incinerating dissidents, Ja'Kaal's soldiers have to put themselves out with an extinguisher when a cobra spits fireballs at them, and Ben weaponizes this when turning into Heatblast to fight Set at the end.
• "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: The epilogue shows Elastamun and his new girlfriend Neferti tying up loose ends on Earth and spending a week-long vacation in Egypt, before returning to Anur Khufos for a new life together. The Tennysons' adventure is also recorded in statues and murals.
• You Are Grounded!: At the end, Ra carts Set off to Osiris, who punishes him for his crimes by magically locking him to his assigned duties, from rowing Ra's sun boat, to battling Apophis, which he'd skipped out several times while controlling Anur Khufos.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Anyone who disobeys the pharaoh or his guards is immediately executed. Comes back to bite him when Set kills his host upon separating from his body.

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