Sandbox / Dark Mirror

"If there’s something I learned after twenty years in this business, it’s that... there aren’t really any heroes in this world. Just people making choices. [...] So no matter what others say, I’m not a hero. I’ve never been one. I’m just a guy with an alien watch, trying to do something good with it."

— Ben 10,000

On the first day of a summer roadtrip with his cousin Gwen and grandfather Max, a boy named Ben Tennyson finds an alien device called the Omnitrix, which gives him the power to transform into various alien species. Armed with his new powers, Ben fights to protect Earth alongside his new friends and allies, such as Kevin Levin, Dr. Animo, Vilgax, Charmcaster, Forever Knights, and others who can help him keep the Omnitrix safe from the evil clutches of the Plumbers.

...Wait, what?

Dark Mirror is a fanfic by Acidwing that can be found on Archive of Our Own and FanFiction.net. It takes place in a Mirror Universe of the original run of Ben 10 with some characters and concepts from the other installments of the franchise. Unlike the usual hero-villain reversals, the main characters are still on the side of good, which means that rather than remain on opposite sides, only with the alignments switched, the villains become allies for the team, leading the plot in a much different direction from canon.

The idea originated from Jalaras, who covered the first two episodes in their fic Ben 10 Dark Mirror that was later adopted by Acidwing.

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Dark Mirror provides examples of:

• Accidental Time Travel: Ben 10,000 admits that he didn't mean to bring the kids into the future, he just lost control over one of his transformations.
• Adaptation Distillation: Some filler elements have been removed, e.g. the Fountain of Youth from the episode "Don't Drink the Water" is only mentioned in passing and the main characters never visit it.
• Adaptation Personality Change: Even ignoring those brought by this fic's Mirror Universe status, there are other changes to the characters. Ben is both more mature and more affected emotionally by the things he went through, Gwen is much nicer to him but also more prone to angry outbursts, and Max's behavior can be... questionable.
• Adaptation Species Change: The retcons from Ben 10: Omniverse are ignored, so Osmosians are an alien species once again, and instead of a mutant human, Kevin is half-human, half-Osmosian.
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: Most villains are the good guys here (or just civilians trying to get by), but the main characters are also good guys, which leads to quite a few changes. Even characters who remained on the same side have different relationships: Ben and Gwen are much nicer to each other but don't trust Max, Hex and Charmcaster act like a real family, etc.
• Adaptational Badass:
  • Gwen starts her magic training a season earlier, and unlike canon, she has some proper instruction, so she actually knows what she is doing. She can also access some small bits of her Anodite heritage, which her future self has complete control over.
  • In canon, Vera Tennyson is an airheaded eccentric Damsel in Distress. Here, her responce to aliens invading her home town is to grab a shotgun and start shooting. She is also perfectly willing to read Max the riot act for his arrogance and secret-keeping.
  • On the villain side, Xylene, who in canon needed Ben's help to defeat a single robot, is powerful enough to casually smack around Vilgax.
  • Cooper, who was just a kid with some tech know-how in canon, is shaping out to be the biggest Earth-side threat.
• Adaptational Early Appearance:
  • Agent Steel and SECT appear as early as chapter 8, Charmcaster is introduced in the same chapter as Hex, and Xylene appears in season 1 finale. In canon, all of them debuted in season 2.
  • Some characters have been brought from later installments of the franchise, such as Psyphon or Will Harangue.
• Adaptational Expansion: SECT appeared in only one episode of the original series, but here they’re the main Earth-side threat. Kevin, while already a fairly important character in canon, gains a much bigger role, joining the main cast after his introductory chapter. Some other characters, like Kraab, also have a larger part to play.
• Adaptational Heroism: Since this is a Mirror Universe, the villains are now either heroes like Vilgax and Kevin, or just want to be left alone like Zombozo and his circus.
• Adaptational Late Appearance: Zs'Skayr is introduced in season 3 instead of season 2. Forever Knights are also late to the party (season 2 instead of season 1).
• Adaptational Name Change: Sweet-Eels Sparklefunk is now named Eellias. Snare-Oh is also renamed into Wrap-Up and Eye Guy into Bullseye.
• Adaptational Superpower Change:
  • Everyone in Anur System has magic powers now, while in canon only Zs'Skayr has shown magic abilities.
  • In canon Sublimino’s uses a Mind-Control Device watch. In this fic he's a mutant and his powers are an inherent ability.
  • Downplayed with Kevin. His powers are mostly in line with his original incarnation, but he is only capable of partial transformations and before his mutation, he had the same time-limit as Ben. Energy Absorption also doesn't affect his mind.
• Adaptational Villainy:
  • The Plumbers, who were the Big Good in canon, are the main villains in this fic.
  • While SECT was antagonistic in canon, they had a good reason to go after Ben who had been framed for various crimes. Here they are Knight Templar Men In Black who hunt down, abduct, and experiment on innocent people.
• Adaptational Wimp: Rojo is just a regular human, while in canon she was a superpowered cyborg (for a time).
• Alternate Timeline: Changing the past always results in creating a new timeline. Ben 10,000 notes that due to time travel, their world is no longer the kids' future: they share the same past, but they now exist in different timelines.
• Alternate Universe Fic: In this world, all the villains are now heroes and all the heroes (except Ben and Gwen) are now villains.
• Anti-Magic: Downplayed. The Anurians use "grounding circuits" as metaphorical lightning rods to absorb magic, which stops it from interfering with technology, but they are specifically meant for background magic, not active spells.
• Arbitrary Skepticism:
  • Max, who worked with aliens for decades, doesn't believe Vera that there are aliens in her town. However, this explicitly stems from his arrogance: Max cannot conceive the idea that a regular human like his sister could possibly know something that he, a Plumber Magister, doesn't. Vera rightfully calls him out on this.
  • Animo is rather skeptical about magic, though he doesn’t deny it exists, he just doesn't believe it's anything different from mutant abilities and alien powers. For example, he wonders whether Ledgerians like Hex and Charmcaster can be considered fully human, when they have lived for generations in another dimension with different physical laws.
  • Played for Laughs in "Framed". Phil doesn't believe that shapeshifting Illuminati lizard people are mind-controlling the government because Earth is too insignificant for anyone to bother with this kind of complicated schemes.
• The Archmage: The future version of Gwen calls herself an Archmage, and while it's never explained what this title actually means, she is shown to be very powerful.
• Artificial Gravity: All alien ships seem to have artificial gravity. During the battle with Xylene, Ben turns off the gravity on their ship to save energy.
• Bad Powers, Good People:
  • In his introductory episode, Sublimino only uses his Mind Control to make sure no one notices that his circus coworkers have superpowers.
  • Zs'Skayr possesses Ben to help him in battle and to deal with his insomnia.
  • Ben as Upgrade uses possession on cyborgs several times, either as a power-up for allies or to take down enemies.
  • Kevin is one of the nicest characters, despite being stuck in monstrous form and his powers being downright Lovecraftian.
• Big Bad: The Plumbers are the enemy of the entire galaxy, and many problems are directly or indirectly caused by them.
• Bioweapon Beast: The Tick is a Plumber bioweapon, described by Max as a living ecological catastrophe.
• Bishōnen Line: Kevin's mutated form is a horrible, assymmetrical mishmash of ten different aliens. His far more powerful future self has much sleeker transformations, one of which looks like just a human with wings and a tail.
• Bizarre Alien Psychology: Ben notes that while most aliens think the same way humans do, Mycelium is different. Because it's a Hive Mind and every living thing on its planet is telepathically connected, Mycelium doesn't understand the concepts of deceiving or deliberately hurting others.
• Blind Obedience: Max wasn't very big on critical thinking as a Plumber. As Vera has put it, if the High Command told him to jump, he had only ever asked how high. Thankfully, he gets better.
• Brown Note Being: Centivitrum are an alien species that exist in more than three dimensions. When Ben 10,000 transforms into one of them, Ben complains that he's painful to look at.
• Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp": The "data slate" that Phil gives the kids is essentially an alien tablet.
• Cast from Stamina: Since all magic is powered by mana, using too much can knock a mage unconscious, though it doesn’t seem to cause any permanent damage. Gwen has drained her magic to zero more than once, but all she needed to recover was some rest.
• Casual Interplanetary Travel: Everyone and their mother seems to have FTL technology. Except Earth. This causes problems when the kids are abducted into space and Max has no way to follow them.
• The Cavalry: When the kids are stranded in space on a damaged ship with the Plumbers attacking them, Vilgax arrives to help them.
• Circus of Magic: Zombozo's circus is full of superpowered performers, but they're just entertainers doing their jobs.
• Color-Coded Wizardry: Raw mana is colored magenta, but when crafted into spells, it changes color into one specific for the mage in question. Charmcaster's magic is purple, Hex's is yellow, Zs'Skayr's is dark blue, Kuphulu's is shimmering white, and Viktor's is yellow-green. Gwen's magic stays magenta due to her being an Anodite.
• Combat Pragmatist: There is no such thing as fighting fair. Max shoots Xylene in the back and Kevin likes to turn invisible to sneak up on enemies.
• Commonality Connection: Kevin is excited when he meets Ben because they are both kids with superpowers.
• Conspiracy Theorist: Gwen notes that when the fact that aliens exist hit the national news, way too many conspiracy theorists came out of the woodwork, presenting such outlandish theories as Illuminati lizard people that are mind-controlling the government.
• Creating Life Is Bad: Downplayed. Gene splicing (the only way to create interspecies hybrids) is fairly rare, and Psyphon mentions that there is some stigma against lab-made beings, but it's not taboo.
• Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: Subverted. By themselves, cybernetics are value-neutral, but they give a way for an evil technopath to control you.
• Dangerous Forbidden Technique:
  • Gwen's future self warns her that while going Anodite can grant her more power, it can be dangerous if she can't control it.
  • Using corrodium can give Ectonurites a power-up at the cost of nonlethal but still nasty radiation burns.
  • Null Void Projectors are ridiculously powerful weapons, but they are so unstable, there’s a high chance that using one will just cause it to explode in your hands.
• Darker and Edgier: Since cartoon rules don't apply to fanfics, there are injuries, blood, death, and swear words.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Par for the course for a Mirror Universe.
  • Vilgax, Kevin, Zs'Skayr, and others might be good guys in this verse, but they can still be terrifying.
  • In a more literal way, Tempestus Tenebris is the only spell in the Tempestus group that's completely harmless to living beings.
• Deadpan Snarker: Many, many characters, although Will Harangue is probably the best example. Both his TV show and his internal narration are filled with snarky commentary.
• Death by Adaptation: The Grandpa Max from Ben 10000's timeline is revealed that have been dead for decades, unlike in the Original Series where he lived to see his grandchildren as adults and know Ben's son Ken.
• Decomposite Character: In the original series, Rojo is a human who has been (temporarily) turned into a cyborg. Human Rojo makes an appearance in this fic, but a different character becomes a cyborg in her stead.
• Defector from Decadence:
  • Red Cross are renegade Plumbers, who fight against their corrupt organization.
  • Zs'Skayr mentions that while most Vladats were happy to conquer the rest of the Anur System, there were rebels in their ranks who opposed the war.
• Designer Babies: With some rare exceptions, interspecies hybrids can only be created in a lab through genetic engineering.
• Dimensional Cutter: Centivitrum (alien centipedes with very sharp limbs) have the ability to cut portals between worlds.
• Disappeared Dad: Kevin's biological father abandoned him before he was even born. Kevin has no idea who he was or what happened to him, but he doesn't really care either.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: Ben will gladly put his life on the line to help people he doesn't even know, and all he wants in return is just an aknowledgement of his actions. Sometimes, he doesn't even get a "thank you".
• Dysfunctional Family: The Tennyson family has issues upon issues, starting with Verdona abandoning her children because they didn't inherit her powers. It's all downhill from there.
• Elemental Powers: Gwen's favorite group of spells, Tempestus, are all elemental attacks that include fire, water, ice, wind, light, and darkness.
• Eminently Enigmatic Race: Very little is known about the species inhabiting the Anur System, because the system itself is surrouded with gravitational anomalies that no regular spaceship can get through. Max even calls the Anurians "the boogeymen of the galaxy".
• Emotional Powers: Whenever Gwen feels any strong emotion (usually anger), her Anodite powers get stronger too.
• Enfant Terrible: Cooper is a cute friendly child. He also wants to dissect Ben, mind-controls innocent people, and doesn't give a damn about his allies dying.
• Enter Stage Window: When Kevin is helping Kai sneak out of her home, he flies up to her window.
• Entertainingly Wrong: Gwen assumes that Archamada Book of Spells uses hypnosis that only affects girls, because it ensnared both Charmcaster and herself. In truth, it affects fledgling mages that have the power but not enough control over it.
• Entertainment Above Their Age: Ben, Gwen, and Kevin (who are 10 and 11-year-old respectively) casually watch movies like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
• The Extremist Was Right: Agent Steel might be a Knight Templar who is prejudiced against aliens, but he was right to be wary of the Plumbers.
• Fantastic Medicinal Bodily Product: The liquid that Elapidians can inject through their fangs has powerful regenerative properties, and their saliva works as an anesthetic.
• Fantastic Racism: Agent Steel and SECT are heavily prejudiced against both aliens and humans with extranormal powers.
• Fantastic Radiation Shielding: The damaged reactor on the Anurian ship that leaks corrodium radiation is surrounded by a magic shield, which looks like a wire pyramid with shimmering energy walls. The Anurian crew also has magic charms that protect against it.
• Finishing Move: Whatever it is Zs'Skayr does to defeat otherwise-unbeatable Ultimos needs a complicated setup and drains all his mana.
• Fire-Forged Friends: Ben and and Gwen gain most of their allies through fighting against a common enemy: fighting evil government agents alongside Animo, taking down Tetrax with Kraab and SixSix, and defeating Xylene with Vilgax.
• Foreshadowing: Almost every chapter is told from two or more different points of view. One chapter is fully narrated by Ben, which foreshadows that the other characters aren't real.
• Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: Max might sympathise with Donovan losing his son, but that doesn't make his decision to fund a rabidly anti-alien organization right.
• Gene Hunting: Kevin has been looking for information about his biological father out of completely pragmatic reasons: he hoped it would help him get a better grasp on his powers.
• Genetic Engineering Is the New Nuke: Genetic engineering is presented as very dangerous.
  • Dr. Animo created a device that can mutate any animal into a giant monster completely under his control. The military attempts to weaponize it, forcing Animo into hiding.
  • In this continuity, the Tick (a gigantic insectoid monster that can devastate entire continents) is a Plumber bioweapon.
• Gentle Giant: Despite spending over half of the story as a hulking monstrosity, Kevin is a Nice Guy who is very careful with his powers.
• Gondor Calls for Aid: "Ben 10 vs. Negative 10" arc begins with Ben and his team calling in all their Earth-side allies to fight against SECT.
• Happily Adopted: Kevin considers his step-father to be his real father. It's too bad that he's dead.
• Happy Rain: Kevin has always liked rain, especially thunderstorms, because he likes water and has the power to absorb electricity.
• Healing Magic Is the Hardest: Despite being able to use magic way above her skill level, Gwen doesn't know any healing spells.
• Healing Shiv: Elapidians are alien Snake People that can heal others by biting them.
• Heel–Face Door-Slam: Just when Donovan realizes his mistakes and declares truce with the heroes, one of his underlings betrays and kills him.
• Help Yourself in the Future: While they can't do much, the future versions of Ben, Gwen, and Kevin give advice and a few gifts to their past selves.
• Heroic Bastard: Kevin mentions that his mother wasn't married when he was born, because his biological father abandoned them.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: Starting with "Framed", the media is shown twisting the events to paint Ben and his team as the bad guys, such as blaming them for destroying a mall, when all they did was rescue the people trapped inside.
• I'm Not a Hero, I'm...: Ben 10,000 says that he's not a hero, he is "just a guy with an alien watch, trying to do something good with it".
• I Need a Freaking Drink:
  • Upon realizing that Ben, Gwen, and Kevin are children with superpowers, Driscoll morosely wishes for something stronger than coffee.
  • Rojo wants to find a bar after participating in a superpowered battle with an alien robot.
  • Max actually does get drunk after all the revelations in "Truth" turned his world upside down.
• Insignificant Blue Planet: Earth is located far away from anything important and no one cares about it, which is good, because it means that the Plumbers don't want to waste resources on conquering it.
• The Insomniac: Ben, Gwen, and Kevin are frequently suffering from insomnia. It gets to the point where Gwen has to use magic to get some sleep.
• Intergenerational Friendship: Kevin, Kai, and Charmcaster are the only people who are close to Ben and Gwen in age. Everyone else they befriend throughout the story are adults.
• Interspecies Friendship: The setting is full of aliens and the kids befriend a lot of them, such as Vilgax and his crew or Zs'Skayr and the Anurian rescue team. Even the kids themselves count, since Ben and Gwen are part-Anodites and Kevin is half-Osmosian.
• It's A Small Net After All: Gwen is often digging through the web, such as when she looks up Greg Shaw in "The Krakken" and finds information about the superpowered robbers in "Ready to Rumble". Ben even jokes that finding stuff on the internet is her superpower.
• It's All My Fault: Ben blames himself for the destruction Xylene's robot army brings in season 1 finale. Both Vilgax and his friends disagree.
• Jack of All Stats: In "Ultimate Weapon", Ben starts wondering why everyone wants to get the Omnitrix so much, when more powerful weapons exist. Gwen says that what the Omnitrix lacks in raw power, it more than makes up in versatility.
• Knight Templar: Agent Steel and SECT protect Earth from alien threats by any means necessary, up to and including kidnapping, murder, and brainwashing.
• La Résistance: Red Cross are renegade Plumbers, who worked to oppose their evil organization even when the Plumbers were considered a legitimate interplanetary police force.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Max used to be stubborn, self-righteous, and did some pretty bad things in the name of greater good, while his former friends Vilgax and Phil tried to change his mind. After a change of heart, Max himself has to try to change the mind of his stubborn, self-righteous former friend Donovan, who did some pretty bad things in the name of greater good. Max wryly notes that it feels like karma in action.
• Living Legend: As one of the first people to stand against Plumbers, Vilgax is well-known across the galaxy to the point where some aliens act like complete fanboys in his presense.
• Mage Species:
  • Just like in canon, Anodites are a species of energy beings made entirely out of mana, thus they can use magic with ease.
  • Ledgerians are descendants of humans who spent generations in Another Dimension with a high level of background magic. As a result, any of them can learn to use magic.
  • All seven (eight, if you include the now-extinct Vladats) species that live in the Anur System have magic powers.
• Magic Harms Technology: Magic utilizes a type of energy that's harmful to electronic devices, making them stop working. However, there are ways to shield technology from these effects.
• Magic Mirror: After their first meeting, Charmcaster gives Gwen an enchanted mirror to keep in touch. It's pretty much a magic version of a cell phone.
• Magic Versus Science: Gwen and Animo get into a heated debate on the nature of magic and how it differs from technology. Funnily enough, Hex, who is the most skilled mage around, considers both magic and technology to be different branches of science.
• Magical Accessory: Enchanting objects, especially jewelry, for a particular purpose appears to be a fairly widespread branch of magic.
  • Gwen's bracelets create an illusory disguise.
  • Kevin gets a necklace that can turn him human after he gets stuck in his mutated form.
  • The Anurian rescue team uses magic bracelets as hazmat suits.
  • Hex gives Animo a Protective Charm that can keep his Transmodulator from affected by magic.
• Magitek: Magic naturally interferes with electronics. However, Anurians have solved this issue and widely employ magitech.
• Malicious Slander: The media really doesn't like aliens, and SECT is implied to be fanning the flames. The news claim that Ben, Gwen, and Kevin had destroyed a shopping mall, when an earthquake and shoddy construction were actually to blame, and the kids were saving the people trapped inside.
• Manipulative Bastard: Cooper uses lies, misdirection, and Crocodile Tears to manipulate his superiors and get what he wants.
• The Men in Black: Area 51, SECT, and Forever Knights (and the Earth-based Plumbers, once upon a time) are all in the business of protecting Muggles from various alien and otherwise superpowered threats. Their methods vary greatly.
• Mental Fusion: When Ben as Upgrade physically fuses with Kraab, intending to simply boost his power, their minds fuse too. Both consider it a horrible experience, though mostly because it was an accident and Ben didn't really know what he was doing.
• The Milky Way Is the Only Way: Travelling between planets is fairly normal. But travelling between galaxies? Phil mentions that an expedition to Andromeda Galaxy has been planned some time ago, but he doesn't know whether anything came out of it.
• Mirror Universe: The entire premise of this fic is that heroes and villains have switched alignments, with the caveat that Ben and Gwen (and Max, kinda) remain on the side of good.
• Muggle with a Degree in Magic: Dr. Chadwick isn’t a mage, but that doesn't stop him from studying Anurian magitech or using scanners that can detect magic. Although he himself admits that on Earth magic is poorly understood.
• Mundane Solution: When Ben ends up separated from Gwen and Max in "Washington BC", he is wondering how to contact them. Animo suggests using a cell phone.
• Mundane Utility: Water spells for clean-up, super-strength to move around luggage, super-speed for chores... With powers as versatile as Functional Magic and Voluntary Shapeshifting, the possibilities are endless.
• My God, What Have I Done?:
  • Max doesn't take well the fact that the Plumbers, the organization he worked for and considered the Big Good, were corrupt to the core and that not every mission he ran was against the bad guys.
  • Donovan is horrified when he realizes that his organization hunted down and tried to kill a child.
• Mysterious Stranger: SECT first appears in chapter 8, but only Agent Steel and nameless Mooks are shown properly. The specialist, who is responsible for R&D, isn't seen until chapter 24, and the benefactor who has been funding SECT and giving them orders takes even longer to appear.
• Mythology Gag: While the fic is based on the original series and its sequels, there are some references to the reboot.
  • In "The Change of Face" the Rustbucket is magically reshaped and repainted, making it look similar to the reboot version.
  • In "Permanent Retirement" when trying to make up a name for TV show he and Gwen are supposedly going to watch, Ben comes up with Xingo, which is the name of an In-Universe cartoon from the reboot.
• Named by the Adaptation: Several characters that are only known by their aliases in canon (the circus trio, Sublimino, Driscoll, Enoch) are given names. Some alien species, like Toepick or Astrodactyl's, are also named.
• Nerds Love Tough Schoolwork: Discussed. Ben is convinced that Gwen likes doing homework, but Jonah assures him that no one likes schoolwork, and the "nerds" only do it because otherwise their teachers (or their parents) will be mad at them.
• No Biochemical Barriers:
  • Downplayed. Interspecies hybrids exist, but they can only be made through genetic engineering (with some justified exceptions).
  • Discussed in "Grudge Match". The kids refuse to eat alien food offered to them because they worry whether it's edible or not.
• No Warping Zone: The Anur System is surrounded with gravitational anomalies that only the Anurians themselves can navigate. Max mentions that passing too close to it during a hyperjump can pull the ship off course with lethal results, which is why Anur is called the galactic graveyard.
• Omniscient Database: Downplayed. Phil has a database on most alien species in the galaxy and he gives a copy to the team. It's implied to be standard issue for Plumbers. However, it contains only the most basic facts and it has almost no information about the Anur System.
• Once Done, Never Forgotten: Fifteen years after the fact, Ben 10,000 keeps being mocked for the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad names the media gave his Omnitrix transformations and for his attempts to correct it by yelling the names out loud.
• Original Character: While most characters are canon to one installment of the franchise or another, there are some new ones.
  • Robert Thompson is a rogue government agent, who endangers innocent civilians in his hunt for Dr. Animo. Later, he joins SECT and becomes a superpowered cyborg.
  • Elizabeth Grandsmith is the daughter-in-law of Donovan Grandsmith and plays the role of his Morality Pet.
  • New Omnitrix transformations are also introduced, such us Sailor Sol and Scatterpillar.
• Parental Neglect: Ben's parents tend to ignore his existence. While Gwen regularly calls her mom, Ben hasn't said a word to his parents for the entire summer.
• Past Experience Nightmare: The kids are constantly suffering from nightmares and insomnia ("Tourist Trap" actually shows one of Ben's nightmares). Having to regularly fight for your life can do that to a person.
• Power Crystal: Enchanted crystals can be filled with mana and used as magic batteries.
• Power Limiter: Gwen’s enchanted ring can keep her Anodite powers under control and her emotions from overwhelming her.
• Power Makes Your Hair Grow: In human form Gwendolyn has fairly short hair. In her more powerful Anodite form it's longer than she is tall.
• Protective Charm:
  • Crüjo is wearing bracelets that are a magic equivalent of a Hazmat Suit.
  • Animo gets a necklace that protects his Transmodulator from being affected by magic.
• Psychoactive Powers: Anodites are very emotional beings. They also have a lot of power. Attempting to use that power amplifies whichever emotion Gwen is feeling at the moment (rage is noted to be the easiest to tap into). It works the other way around too: any strong emotion can cause her Anodite heritage to come to the forefront.
• Radiation-Immune Mutants: There is a lot of corrodium in the Anur System, so the species inhabiting it have evolved some degree of resistance to its radiation. Ectonurites in particular can use corrodium to boost their powers.
• Rapid DNA Test: Psyphon and Animo can test DNA ridiculously quickly. Justified, because the former has alien technology at his disposal and the latter is a genius specialising in genetics.
• Reasonable Authority Figure:
  • Driscoll, the leader of Forever Knights, is fairly reasonable and understanding, if a bit weirded out about having to work with literal children. He is always ready to provide information and offer help to his allies.
  • For a ruler of an entire planet, Zs'Skayr is rather down-to-earth. He readily teaches magic to others, freely offers information about his home, and isn't afraid to get his hands dirty in a fight.
• Renegade Splinter Faction: SECT was originally an Area 51 strike team, but their Mysterious Employer gave them enough funding to split off. Just like Area 51, SECT is on a mission to protect Earth against aliens. Unlike them, SECT doesn't care who they hurt in the process (or whether the aliens in question are a threat at all).
• Rogue Agent: Thompson is a government agent who was supposed to apprehend Dr. Animo. He was not supposed to shoot a rocket launcher on a crowded street.
• Role Swap AU: The main premise of this fic is that the heroes and the villains (aside from Ben, Gwen, and Max) have switched their alignments.
• Science Cannot Comprehend Phlebotinum: Despite having advanced alien science and technology, Plumbers don't have magic, so they don't have defenses against it and they can't replicate Anurian magitech.
• Science Wizard: Unless you have Anodite-level mana reserves, studying magic requires, well, studying. Hex can rattle off the atomic structure of silver and generally considers magic to be a branch of science.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: SECT gets their funding through shady means, which allows them to partially operate outside the government oversight. It's also noted that putting their Mysterious Benefactor behind bars might not be enough to get rid of him, because he's rich enough to buy his way out.
• Shout-Out:
  • Kevin comes from a town named Fawcett.
  • Animo calls his pet rat Rous, which stands for Rodent of Unusual Size.
  • Ben 10,000 named one of his aliens Sailor Sol.
  • In "Lucky Girl" the team ends up fighting a magic book that can fly and attack with crimson spears.
  • The inside of the Anurian ship is suspiciously similar to that of a certain traveler through hell.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: Kevin is only 11 years old, but thanks to living on the streets for a while, he swears more than any other character.
• Slap Yourself Awake: In "Last Laugh", Gwen bites her hand in an attempt to throw off hypnosis. Another time she slaps herself for the same reason.
• Snake People: Elapidians are a species of aliens that have scales, cobra-like head, and tail instead of legs, but humanoid arms and torso.
• Solar Sail: Tenebrocera are insectoid aliens that can travel in space thanks to their wngs that work like biological solar sails.
• Space Battle:
  • While Ben and his team fend off a robot army in "Secrets", Chimerian Hammer is engaged in an off-screen space battle with the Plumber who sent it.
  • In season 2, Ben, Gwen, and Kevin are trapped on a spaceship and end up fighting Xylene in space.
  • Season 3 mentions that the Anurian rescue team had to fight through the Plumber blockade around their solar system.
• Standard Time Units: The Plumbers, an interstellar organization, use some kind of calendar but it's nothing like on Earth and it's never explained how exactly it works.
• Sufficiently Analyzed Magic: While it's technically possible to use magic even if you don't really know what you're doing, it doesn't always work and requires tremendous amounts of energy.
  • Hex spends hours on calculations to create a transformation charm, and it's implied that transmuting materials requires knowing their atomic structure.
  • Gwen can cast some fairly powerful spells thanks to being part-Anodite, but she cannot manipulate them, because she doesn't understand how they work.
• Symbiotic Possession:
  • As Upgrade, Ben is capable of possessing technology, which includes cyborgs. He fused with Kraab twice in battle, increasing his power.
  • Zs'Skayr possesses Ben several times: first to give advice and show him a new skill during a fight, then to help him get some sleep when Ben is struggling with insomnia.
• The Stations of the Canon: Downplayed. Every chapter is named after an episode of the show and has similarities with either the overall plot or the characters of that episode, but only season 1 has the same episode order as the show and there are still plenty of differences.
• Take That!:
  • Everyone who has ever met Forever Knights makes fun of their medieval aesthetic.
  • Ben claims that fusing with a laptop as Upgrade can transfer him inside a video game, before laughing it off as completely unrealistic.
• Talented, but Trained: Gwen has a lot of mana, which allows her to punch above her weight magic-wise, but she still needs a lot of training to use her powers effectively.
• Team Member in the Adaptation: Downplayed. In canon, Kevin has only joined Ben and Gwen in the sequel series Ben 10: Alien Force. Here, he joins them immediately after his introduction.
• Teleport Interdiction:
  • During the season 1 finale, Chimerian Hammer cannot teleport Kraab and the kids to safety, because the enemy can reroute the signal.
  • In season 2, Taarteocis says that teleportation is impossible when the shields on their spaceship are up, though Ben still manages to pull it off when he uses Upgrade to boost the teleporters.
• Terrifying Rescuer: In his mutated form, Kevin is a huge terrifying monster. In "Ready to Rumble", the people he's saving from superpowered criminals are more afraid of him than the villains.
• Religious and Mythological Theme Naming: All Quicksilver and Menagerie subjects have codenames based on Greek Mythology: Ares, Phobos, Medusa, etc.
• There Are No Therapists: Discussed. Enoch and Driscoll note that the kids went through a lot of trauma and plan to send them into therapy before they crack. Gwendolyn also suggests that Gwen looks into therapy to get a better grip on her Psychoactive Powers.
• They Would Cut You Up: Thompson is disturbingly happy at the idea of vivisecting Ben. And so is Cooper. It is also the reason Kevin ran away to live on the streets: he had overheard the caretakers of his group home planning to send him to a research lab.
• Too Good to Be True: Ben realizes that nothing is real in "Ghostfreaked Out" because everything has been going too smoothly, from Gwen and Kevin gaining control of their powers to Plumbers and SECT being defeated without any issue to Grandpa Max reconciling with Vilgax.
• Transformation Horror: Downplayed in "Benwolf". While Ben considers his slow transformation into a Loboan to be mostly just annoying, the Omnitrix shifting through his body seriously disturbs him.
• Transformation Trinket: Inverted. Instead of giving him superpowers, Kevin's necklace allows him to turn human when he is stuck in his mutated form.
• Transhuman Aliens: Ledgerians are descendants of the humans who had lived for generations in a dimension of magic. Animo raises the question of how human they actually are. So far, the main difference seems to be their higher magical aptitude.
• Translator Microbes: Universal translators seem to be standard alien technology, though they can't translate some languages like Sotoraggian and Vulpimancer. Zs'Skayr can achieve the same effect with magic.
• Transmutation: How did Hex and Charmcaster get rich enough to afford a mansion in Las Vegas? Charmcaster is good at creating gemstones and precious metals.
• True Companions: Ben, Gwen, and Kevin stick together through everything. Twenty years later they are still best friends.
• Unequal Rites: While all magic is based on manipulating mana, different magic systems exist, though the ones presented (Ledgerian and Anurian) are similar, using spoken words and written glyphs for spellcasting.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Using magic usually requires a lot of knowledge and skill. Usually. Being part-Anodite grants Gwen so much mana, she can use spells way above her skill level.
• Unstable Powered Woman: Downplayed. Gwen's Anodite abilities are tied to her emotions, amplifying them (and vice-versa). Gwendolyn warns her that trying to tap into these powers can be dangerous, though Gwendolyn herself can easily switch between human and Anodite form.
• Unwilling Roboticisation: Project Quicksilver boils down to using alien technology to turn people into cyborgs. Whether they consent to this process is irrelevant.
• Villain with Good Publicity: For a while, the Plumbers had been considered a legitimate interplanetary police force, because they kept all their dirty deeds covered up and encouraged blind obedience in their own agents. However, once the truth was revealed, the entire galaxy turned against them.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: SECT was originally part of the defense force against extranormal threats. They still are, technically, but they no longer care who they hurt in the process and their definition of "threat" is closer to "whoever doesn't want to work for them".
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: When SECT manages to capture Ben, Agent Steel is uncomfortable with the idea of dissecting him, until he sees the Omnitrix circuitry growing through his body. After this, Steel immediately dismisses him as an inhuman monster.
• What the Hell, Hero?: The kids aren't shy about calling out Max on all the things he had done and the secrets he had been hiding, such as concealing Ben and Gwen's status as part-aliens or trying to murder his former friend just because his superiors told him to.
• What You Are in the Dark: After Kevin is shot in his introductory episode, Ben hunts down the gang who attacked him, surrounds them with flames, and coldly contemplates just turning around and leaving them to burn alive. Ultimately, he lets the gang live and just drags them to the cops.
• White Sheep: Gwendolyn notes that the Anodite side of her family is full of jerkasses, but her cousin Sunny is decent.
• Wizards from Outer Space: Magic is rare but not unheard of in the wider galaxy. Anodites are the most well-known example of Mage Species, but everyone in the Anur System has magic powers too.
• Wrong Time-Travel Savvy: Kevin worries that knowing too much about the future can cause paradoxes and make him start disappearing like in Back to the Future. Ben 10,000 says that this isn't how time travel works: trying to change the past will only split off a new timeline.

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