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Recap / Ben 10: Alien Force S1 E13 "X = Ben + 2"

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Ben's newest transformation prepares to carry out a big motion.
When princess Attea, daughter of emperor Milleous of the Incursean empire, gets captured by Seven-Seven, the Incurseans ask Ben, Gwen and Kevin to help them retrieve her, to which they agree. The situation gets dire, however, and Ben has to use his tenth transformation: Alien X.
  • Adipose Rex: Milleous is notably fatter compared to his fellow minions.
  • Antagonistic Offspring: Attea actually manages to pay SevenSeven enough money that he goes on her side, after which she orders the Incurseans to imprison her father.
  • Awesome, but Impractical: Alien X is the ultimate example of all of Ben's transformations. He's a Reality Warper, but comes packaged with two split personalities that need a majority decision to do anything, even move, something hampered by the fact that they're complete opposites who prefer endlessly debating what to do over actually doing it. Ben finds that their most recent ongoing debate is whether to avert the extinction of the dinosaurs. After giving Ben a "freebie" to repair a broken dam, Bellicus and Serena render Alien X an immobile statue for the rest of the episode.
  • Bait-and-Switch: Bellicus brings up a tabled notion to save the dinosaurs from extinction.
    Serena: He’s against it.
    Bellicus: Just wait. I’m sure I can win you over.
  • Battle Cry: All of the Incurseans yell out “Glory!” in the midst of battle.
  • Bittersweet Ending: The Earth is saved and the Princess is recovered from captivity. But Ben has been left perturbed by his experience as Alien X and vows never to turn into him again.
  • Dirty Coward: SevenSeven runs off the second Ben-as-Swampfire hits him hard enough to make a hole in his armor.
  • Foreshadowing: Alien X's first action is precluded by an announcement of "Seconded!", before becoming unresponsive and frozen. This is because there are two other personalities that come with the transformation, who want a majority rule on any and every action before doing it. They only acted in the first place as a freebie because Ben was new.
  • Pluto Is Expendable: Milleuous destroys Pluto with his laser cannon as a demonstration for what will happen to Earth if he doesn't get his daughter back.
    Kevin: Look on the bright side, this’ll smooth out Neptune’s orbit.
  • "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Ben puts up with Bellicus and Serena for most of the episode, with their debates rendering Alien X immobile and essentially useless for most of the episode. Even when Ben convinces them to stop debating until Earth is saved they shoot down all his suggestions because of "the procedure". He finally has enough in the climax and chews them both out on their hypocrisy for supposedly representing love and compassion and anger and aggression but allowing bad things to go unpunished and being completely useless despite their vast power. He outright refuses their power and demands to be let out, since he can do the job better with any of his nine other transformations.
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni: Alien X's two personalities qualify as this: Bellicus is wrathful, while Serena is compassionate.
  • Running Gag: Gwen assumes that she and Kevin are done at various points, only for Kevin to assure her they aren’t. Gets Running Gagged with Gwen being ready for a fight with Mileous, only for Kevin to tell her “We’re done”.
  • Shapeshifter Mode Lock: Bellicus and Serena also need to vote on the Alien X transformation timing out, which they don't want to do because with Ben around they finally have a tiebreaker.
  • Skewed Priorities: Played for Drama. Within Alien X, Bellicus and Serena have no interest in helping out Ben and his allies, and want to debate on solving other unrelated issues like saving the dinosaurs from extinction. Ben gets so fed up with this that he eventually goes from trying to convince them to help and instead asks them to switch back to another alien form.
  • So Proud of You: In a twisted variant, Mileous commends Attea for dethroning him… before throwing her in stasis jail with her mother.
  • Suspiciously Similar Substitute: SevenSeven is nearly identical with Six-Six from the original series, but with a different design.
  • The Unreveal: It’s never been revealed who hired SevenSeven to kidnap the Princess.
  • Voice of the Legion: When Alien X speaks it's with the voices of all three personalities within him.

 
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Milleous destroys Pluto

Milleous destroys the dwarf planet Pluto to serve as a warning as what will happen to earth if his daughter is not returned.

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