The Big Story

The Big Story is the 24th episode of Ben 10: Ultimate Alien and it is the fourth episode of the second season.

Plot
Jimmy is in a forest with his video camera saying he is following a tip about a meteor shower. Suddenly, a meteor is hit inside the cave, so Jimmy goes investigating. But he is shocked to learn that the object inside the cave is nothing but a "dumb space plant". The plant suddenly blooms and attacks Jimmy.

At a remote location, Ben, Gwen and Kevin are fighting Sevenseven. After Sevenseven defeats Gwen and Kevin, Ben defeats him as Rath and ties him to a pole. While the group was briefly celebrating victory, Jimmy appears and says he has a major story about an alien invasion. Gwen and Kevin leave as they don't believe him, and Ben is forced to go with Jimmy to go to the cave. Soon enough, Ben can't find the plant Jimmy was talking about, much to Jimmy's disbelief. He refuses to give up, so he finds some water graphs that show an increase in water usage in Bellwood. He then goes back to the cave, and finds Ben there, talking to the alien monster. He gets a blurry picture of Ben, and tries to show his evidence to Gwen and Kevin, but they still don't believe him, even when he shows them the increase of water usage, so he goes on Will Harangue's show to tell the people about the invasion, but Harangue twists the story that Ben is plotting an alien invasion. Gwen and Kevin finally get suspicious, and decide to investigate the cave Jimmy was talking about. At the supermarket, Jimmy encounters Ben, and he is creeped out by his unusually calm behavior. When he attempts to leave, he is attacked by Humungousaur.

Jimmy is chased through the supermarket by Ben, who causes a major wreck inside. When Jimmy manages to get away from Ben by going through a narrow alley, he calls Gwen and Kevin and tells them that Ben is attacking him, but they assure him they know what's going on and that they investigated the cave. Soon, Jimmy is chased by Ben again, this time as Cannonbolt. Jimmy gets away from Ben again and finds Gwen and Kevin's car, but he notices something wrong with them. Ben urges him to get in and they go back to the cave. It is revealed that Ben, Gwen, and Kevin are clones created from the plant alien and that they were made to capture Jimmy to find out how he is immune to their master's power. The plants plan is to make copies of everyone in the planet and create an Utopian planet without war, hunger, disease and fun. Soon, vines crawl on Jimmy and prepare to strangle him.

As the vines were tightening on Jimmy, a few packages of peanuts from his backpack fall out and land near some vines, who back away from the peanuts. Jimmy realizes that peanuts is the plant's weakness, explaining how he escaped from the plant before and frees himself and his friends. The Gwen and Kevin clones do not possess their counterparts' powers, but Ben's clone stole the Ultimatrix from him while he was captured. The plant Ben transforms into Chromastone, but Jimmy throws peanuts at him, changing him back.

Just as plant Ben was about to transform again, Ben takes the Ultimatrix from him and transforms into Swampfire. Ben kills the plant clones, angering the plant alien, causing them to all run out of the cave. Ben and team try to fight the plant alien, but it is too strong, but Jimmy throws his backpack full of peanuts inside the alien's mouth, weakening it. Ben transforms into Ultimate Swampfire and destroys it. Jimmy is depressed as he couldn't get any video of the battle, but they reassure him he is a real reporter and will take him seriously from now on.

Characters

 * Jimmy Jones (main character)
 * Ben Tennyson
 * Gwen Tennyson
 * Kevin Levin
 * Will Harangue (on tv)

Villains

 * The Plant Alien (main villain)
 * Plant Clones
 * Plant Ben
 * Plant Gwen
 * Plant Kevin
 * Sevenseven

By Real Ben

 * Rath
 * Swampfire
 * Ultimate Swampfire

By Plant Ben

 * Humungousaur
 * Cannonbolt
 * Chromastone

Quotes
Jimmy: I had a video but I think the plant must've taken it when it retreated into the cave. I'd figured you'd want to. uh, check my work.

Kevin Levin: Yeah, I'm out.

Gwen Tennyson: I have studying to do, Jimmy. Maybe next conspiracy.

Ben Tennyson: ...Okay, okay, I'll check it out. My car's still in the shop. Think you could give us a ride. [Kevin and Gwen drive off]

Jimmy: I can't *believe* you don't have a bus pass. That should be Plumber standard issue.

Ben Tennyson: Yeah, I'll make a note.

Ben Tennyson: [to the alien plant] You will is my command.

Jimmy: [Gasp] Ben's in on it?

Gwen Tennyson: Now you're saying Ben is part of the conspiracy? This is a shadowy blob. No credible person would ever take this as real proof.

Harangue: [Cut to TV studio] Welcome back to the Will Harangue Nation. Our guest today - Jimmy Jones. The 10 year old Jimmy, the boy who exposed Ben Tennyson for the menace he is.

Jimmy: Uh that-that's not exactly... Harangue: Don't talk over me, Jimmy. Now Jimmy has a new equally startling claim. Ben Tennyson is leading and alien invasion to take over the entire Earth.

Humungosaur: You can't hide from me, Jimmy. I only want to take you out for a smoothie - not crush you into a fine powder.

Jimmy: Why are you doing this? Humungosaur: I want to give you and exclusive. A real reporter would risk everything to get to the truth. Jimmy: A real reporter follows his hunches. And I have a hunch I wouldn't live to post my story.

Gwen Tennyson: It's okay, we checked out the cave, Jimmy. We know. Where are you?

Jimmy: North of Sav Cost. You can't miss me. I'm the kid on the red bike WITH AN ALIEN CHASING HIM!

Kevin Levin: I've said it before and I'll say it again. I would be happy to silence this creature once and for all.

Ben Tennyson: The master wants to know why it couldn't absorb him earlier.

Gwen Tennyson: If there are others with his natural resistence, we need to know how it works.

Kevin Levin: So I can take care of him *after*, right?

Jimmy: You're not Ben at all - or Gwen and Kevin!

Ben Tennyson: No, we're perfect copies, right down to our DNA.

Kevin Levin: But better than the originals which were lame.

Gwen Tennyson: We're in complete harmony.

Ben Tennyson: Soon there will be no war.

Gwen Tennyson: No disease. No hunger.

Kevin Levin: No fun.

Ben Tennyson: The world will be a garden. And everything will be a garden.

Gwen Tennyson: They don't have our powers.

Ben Tennyson: But my double has the Ultimatrix.

Ben Clone: Yes, I do. [Activates the Ultimatrix] Chromastone: Chromastone!

Gwen Tennyson: Ben, you've got to get the Ultimatrix back!

Ben Tennyson: Yeah, I'll work on that when I'm not getting shot at.

Gwen Tennyson: On against four. Well, it's clarly not a chicken salad.

Kevin Levin: Okay, stop. I can't let a battle pun be the last thing I hear.

Jimmy: [Groan] I didn't video any of this. Stupid! Who's going to believe me now?

Ben Tennyson: We will. Jimmy, you're a *real* reporter.

Gwen Tennyson: Yeah, from now on, we'll know to take you seriously.

Kevin Levin: No matter how nutty you sound. "Nutty," see what I did there? [Ben and Jimmy laugh]

Gwen Tennyson: Really? Why is it funny when he does it?

Ben Tennyson: I think it's the delivery.

Errors

 * When Ultimate Swampfire is telling the others to run away, his pupils were like Swampfire's.

Trivia

 * This is the second time Rath got interrupted while he's "gotta tell someone something". The first was in Duped.
 * This is the second time Humungousaur acts "sensitive", the first was in Duped.
 * This is the first time Jimmy is a main character, in all his previous appearences he was a minor/secondary character.
 * This is the first time Swampfire's ability to control plants failed.
 * This is the second time Swampfire is used against a plant villain.
 * This is Rath's first appearance since Hero Time.
 * When Copy Ben goes after Jimmy in the store and on the streets, no one seems to notice.
 * As of this episode, this is the shortest gap between episodes that an Ultimate Form has been used twice. The only exception is Ultimate Big Chill between Hit 'Em Where They Live and Escape From Aggregor.
 * As of this episode, Ultimate Swampfire is tied with Ultimate Big Chill for most appearances.
 * This episode is similar to the plot of the Ben 10 episode Permanent Retirement where clones adopt the bodies of their victims while keeping them in pods. This time, however, the aliens wanted to create a Utopian society and in Permanent Retirement the aliens were planning to eat the victims. As well that in this episode, Ben used Ultimate Swampfire to fight, like Heatblast in Permanent Retirement. Both are fire aliens.
 * The episode also has a number of similarities to Ben 10 episodes: Camp Fear and Permanent Retirement
 * When Jimmy is running away from Cannonbolt on a bicycle, he is apparently going at a similar speed as the cars around him, which is highly unlikely for a child to go as fast as a car on a bike. Plus, Canonbolt has been shown to go much faster than a car. However, this could be due to Clone Ben's lack of experience.
 * There is a running gag in this episode where Gwen tries to make puns based on the situation, only for Ben and Kevin to have no idea what she said. Also, at the episode, Kevin makes a pun and everyone laughs but Gwen, who is annoyed that they think his was funny and not hers.
 * This episode has the fifth clone of Ben, first being Albedo, second being Naljian Destructor, then the two Echo Echo clones in Duped and the plant clone here.
 * The plot is about similar to Invasion of the Body Snatchers except that the plant aliens knock their victims out instead of killing them. The aforementioned film has a sataire of communism and a cold war film; Kevin`s hand weapons were a hammer and a sickle, the symbol on the communist flag.
 * This episode was the first episode in Season 2 to air on Kids on Demand but not as a recording of its debut. The next episode after soon follow this pattern, first as a recording then as a full fledged episode.
 * Ben tells Jimmy that he occasionally has nightmares about Vilgax.
 * As seen when Ben grabbed the Ultimatrix from his plant clone, he didn't take it off of his clone but instead just touched it and turned into Swampfire. This could be shown as one of the ways to remove the Ultimatrix from the wielder. This episode is based on the episode Camp Fear.
 * The scene where Jimmy is chased by Humungousaur is similar to the scene where young Ben was chased by the mutant animals of Dr. Animo in the episode Washington B.C.
 * This is the third time that either plants attack, or aliens are attacking, taking over people's bodies, make clones of them, and keeping the real ones in pods. The first was in Permanent Retirement and the second Camp Fear.
 * This marks the third time Ben pried open an alien's mouth. The first was Decka in Fool's Gold. The second was Jarrett in Con of Rath.
 * The plant alien in the episode was mostly defeated just like the one in camp fear by his weakness.
 * This is the first episode in season two in which Will Harangue continues his campaign against Ben.
 * This is the first episode in which Jimmy is the main hero.