Clock Strikes Midnight (2024)

TV-Y7 FV This content is designed for children age 7 and above.

Clock Strikes Midnight is the first episode of the third season of Rewri-10, and the twenty-sixth episode overall.

Plot[]

The kids have been cleaning out the Rustbucket for a while now ever since the old thing broke down in quite literally the middle of Nowhere, stranding them in Anytown. The town was boring, even worse than Sparksville because at least there were aliens there. It was spacious, yes, but there was nothing to do.

Cleaning was actually surprisingly quite fun given it was a chance for the kids to look over old souvenirs from their journey over the summer.

Most of them were pictures of where they've been but there were some physical mementos like Animo's Transmodulator, or pieces from Vilgax's drones.

In the process, they managed to find some of Ben's old comic book collection which Ben managed to find a way to turn into a "who would win" debate, pitting himself against superheroes and villains. Gwen was half convinced eh was making some of this stuff up.

"So... what about 'Mindmelder'." Gwen pointed to a headshot of a balding short old man wearing big sunglasses, if one couldn't guess, his power was controlling minds.

"Pre-Nexus Mindmelder? I just beat him easily as long as I don't look at him. Post-Nexus, it depends on if he has certain heroes mindcontrolled because that's when he learns he can copy their powers."

"What if he just makes you look at him?"

"Wildmutt doesn't have eyes. Booyah!"

"What's Wildmutt gonna do, snarl at him to death? He doesn't have the best track record, y'know." She was right, Wildmutt was kinda just used for very short fights and even then he wasn't exactly the victor.

"Or better yet, I just turn into Wildvine, you can't hypnotize plants—that's actually how they beat him in Crossover Nexus—they just made him use it on Mr. Salad and it didn't work so he just gave up."

"You wouldn't even need to use Wildvine, you don't even have a mind to control anyway."

"It's not 'mind control' Gwen, it's hypnosis. There's a difference. Plants don't have proper brains, so obviously they can't 'want' to be hypnotized. It only works if your brain lets it work."

"Surprisingly insightful. Especially for you." Gwen chuckled a little.

"I just read the book, Ben: 10, comics: 0." Ben shrugged as he looked out to Max who was still hard at work outside.

"Grandpa, I can just turn into Upgrade and we can leave this place any time."

"We're trying to keep your powers a secret, Ben." Max looked up before going back to work on the Rustbucket.

Meanwhile, someone else was having a conversation about hypnosis, a tall lady named Pirouette who wore a checkered blue outfit, frills around her neck and a black and blue headset sauntered down through a hallway of a jail, followed by a guard wearing the same headset and... The Circus Freaks?

"Great job mind controlling the guard and all that but we've got it from here, lady." Acid Breath said, rolling his eyes.

"Yeah, we only serve the boss y'know. Except that one time we served a ghost man. But he was real scary." Thumbskull said, shivering at the thought of Ghostfreak.

"It's not mind control. you know. it's scientifically proven hypnosis. Quote-on-quote 'mind control' doesn't exist... Unlike aliens, which do exist as I'm sure you three are aware." The woman spoke with a synthesized voice that always seemed to sound uncannily "peppy" and upbeat.

"Well, if it's so 'scientific' how's about you explain how it works." Frightwig crossed her arms, smirking as she used one of her hair tendrils to tap the headset the guard was wearing.

"Put them on and I'll tell you." Pirouette fired right back, mimicking Frightwig's stance and handing out a pack of headset.

Thumbskull and Frightwig did just so but Acid Breath was rather skeptical, being basically the leader of the group ever since Zombozo went missing he had to look out for the other lackeys.

"Why should we trust you, we're pretty much volunteering ourselves into your little hypnotic slavery."

"First of all, it's more like being a servant since you're volunteering. Second of all..." Pirouette snapped her fingers as everyone with a headset on stood still at attention, before bringing a microphone to her face "Put the headset on him, whether he wants it or not."

Acid Breath was outnumbered, and even with his ability he was no match and he could only scream in vain for help.

The trio of villains, now a quartet are now setting up shop in Anytown, making it there in Pirouette's rather nice vintage car. Realistically, she could have stopped by now, live in a lavish home with hypnotized butlers. But she didn't, simply because continuing to trick people "was just more fun". But now, how we she going to work with this town...

"Okay, idea A, run for mayor. Idea B, give people nightmares and make them pay me to make them stop. Oh, or we can make them think they're all in an old-timey medieval town... What do you guys usually do?"

The Freaks all turned around and said "Open a circus and rob the town blind while we use it to power our boss." in monotone unison.

"...I can make that work. Also please stop the unison thing, it's weird. Go set up a stage or something." She waved them off before finding more things to look at to ease boredom.

"'Ey! What're you doin' here?!" A crotchety old man came up to them with a hunch and a cane, "We don't come around to freaks in these parts! 'Specially not ones from the circus! You're not trickin' us!"

He was then followed by his similarly hunched over wife, "Yeah, what's with them outfits you're wearin'?!"

If Pirouette's eyes were actually visible, one could see her blinking in confusion before holding out a small metallic ball.

"FLASHBANG!" She then crushed it in her palm, blinding everyone not wearing eye protection before she pulled out a pendulum, "You're listening to my voice, you will now focus on the pendulum... you are falling into a trance, and when I snap my fingers you will be strong enough to steal from any business you see..."

Then... she snapped. The old couple threw away their canes and stood up as they ran into the streets, roaring in excitement at their newfound strength. Pirouette almost followed them, having accidentally hypnotized herself in the process but she stopped.

Walking around, Ben and Gwen heard the yells and then the breaking of glass. Looking over, there was the same couple trying to steal from a store and easily dodging security.

"It's really sad that I'm not even surprised by ninja old people at this point." Ben dialed in Wildvine and turned into the Florauna while Gwen got her Lucky Girl costume.

Wildvine goes underground and winds up at the scene, "Looks like someone ate their veggies this morning!"

Not his best quip, but he didn't exactly have much time to come up with anything better, and he won't exactly have much free time with the two robbers closing in on him.

He tries to stretch his fingers out to restrain them but they easily flip over and kick him in the head from both sides.

Wildvine takes a moment to catch himself and unfortunately that gives the geezers time to get away, and worse, Wildvine wasn't exactly a great runner so he'd have to get creative.

Wildvine grabbed two light posts and pulled back... and back... and back... until he launched into the air after them. The couple had managed to make it to a parking garage and Wildvine didn't know where they were hiding but he did manage to find Gwen who was practically looking for a needle in a haystack.

"We'll have to turn the whole place upside down if we're gonna find them!" She groaned exasperatedly but this gave Ben an idea...

"'Turn the whole place upside down'... Perfect!" Wildvine took the pods from his back before tossing them everywhere. First came the smoke, then came the old folks, Wildvine pulled the robbers close getting a close-up of their strange swirly eyes but suddenly the cops came around.

"HANDS UP, FREAK!" Wildvine just turned around and it seemed like he was going to follow suit but... he simply pulled himself and Lucky Girl up a floor before he timed out and Gwen changed to her normal wear.

"WE REPEAT, HANDS UP-!"

There was no alien, just Ben and Gwen pretending to be helpless and scared children.

"Did the plant monster go away?" Gwen pleaded, giving big puppy-dog eyes.

The cops just scratched their heads and brought the kids out to see some sort of guardian.

Ben and Gwen were finally reunited with Max who embraced them in the street until the cops left.

"Great teamwork there." Ben said to his cousin, "Granted, I did most of the work but I appreciate the save."

He just couldn't avoid making things about himself, could he...

They then made it to a stage, Max was watching with a somber look on his face. The kids were confused until they saw the Circus Freaks... and some strange woman.

"Aren't they supposed to be in jail?" Ben raised an eyebrow, to be fair it seemed like jail was sort of a revolving door for his bad guys to go in and out of rather than an actual place to keep them inside.

"Yes, random child. Great question. And as Pirouette, Mistress of the Mind. I am obligated to ask that. These three assistants of mine are completely docile and wouldn't hurt a fly. Why do I know that you ask? Because of my expert hypnosis technology!"

"How'd she hear me..." Ben muttered under his breath.

"Not important! To give a showcase, I'd like you to volunteer."

Ben could only point at himself in confusion.

"Yes, you! In the black and white! Come on down, I don't bite!" She ushered the boy onto stage but Ben still didn't want to.

"Ben, it's fine... You're not afraid you secretly 'want to be hypnotized', are you? Just do the opposite of what she says, that easy."

Ben tsked under his breath and got up onstage while Gwen got her phone out to record.

"So normally, you use a pendulum for hypnosis like so..." Pirouette brought out her pendulum from earlier and showed it to the four on stage, "You are watching my pendulum... you are getting very sleepy..."

Nobody was sleepy, okay, maybe Ben was a little but that was because of boredom.

"See, doesn't work unless they believe it does. But... if our volunteers are willing to use these special headsets..." Pirouette just drops a headset on Ben without warning and turns it on, "You all are entering a deeeeeep sleeeeeep..." She says into a microphone and they all slept.

"Next up, you are all er... newborn babies!" She snapped her fingers once more and everyone began bawling their eyes out and crawling over the stage to everyone's laughter.

"Chickens! Barnyard chickens!" The squacking, waving arms, clucking, the whole nine yards, "Any other ideas?" She held the microphone out to the crowd and a man leaned in and said..

"Oh, aliens! Like the ones on the television!"

It was at this moment, that Ben and Max realize that this could go bad.

Ben is just about to activate the Omnitrix when Gwen shoves him off behind a curtain before he can reveal his secret. Pirouette dashes behind her.

"Just what are you doing, young lady?! There is a performance!"

"The alien... had to... go to his spaceship?" Gwen turned around, holding a transformed Ball Weevil behind her back. She was so lucky he didn't turn into Humungousaur.

Gwen dashes back to her seat as Pirouette stomps her way out.

"With that... interruption I think we can just end the performance here. Same time tomorrow and any day after that, you all? I even do psychic consultations until midnight." She weirdly emphasized the word midnight.

Everyone has left, murmuring about that girl who ruined everything while Ben took his headset off once he was back to normal.

The Next Day

The town seems all ransacked with more robberies having gone on, looking in a store, the Tennysons find strange scorch marks... in fact they resemble something...

"Aren't these Heatblast's footprints?" Gwen looked over to Ben who shook his head in disbelief.

"I think if I were up this late, I'd remember. Maybe some other Heatblast was here, why's it gotta be me?"

Gwen and Max just looked at each other knowingly and they go out through the rest of the mall to speak to the manager. Ben lagged a little behind due to being rather tired.

"Now sir, I hope you understand. I'm sure Pirouette is a normal show woman but she is working with actual criminals." Max tried to explain but the manager didn't look at him.

"This was an isolated incident. The safety of our shoppers is our top priority."

"Which means you'll take care of it, right?" Gwen chimed in, a little uncomfortable with the monotone delivery from the man.

"This was an isolated incident. The safety of our shoppers is our top priority."

"You said that already..." Ben yawned.

"This was an isolated incident. The safety of our-."

"Let's just go kids, we can eat at the food court. Only a couple days 'till we get our parts."

Great, the first real food they had in a while besides whatever it is that Grandpa Max tries to get them to eat.

The Stroke of Midnight

Ben was trying to sleep but something was calling him, first out of bed, then out of the RV.

He kept walking until he reached for the Omnitrix and scrolled through aliens before deciding on Jetray and flies out into the sky.

"Come on people let's move, we don't got all day! Some people here might think I'm seriously doing psychic consultations!" Pirouette clapped her hands as people big and small wearing headsets were carrying TVs, "Gotta love the five finger discount. Now where might the kid be... maybe I'll get that girl too, make her take the fall on my behalf..."

Jetray then softly landed and helped steal TVs, Pirouette turning on her heels to see him.

"Well, one of the aliens from the TV. Who would've guessed. You seem like you know what to do... shame you're not the charcoal man though, real hot candle."

Eventually, Jetray's work got the attention of the police. This time, they had helicopters. They fired on him first and chose to ask questions later.

Hearing gunfire, Gwen and Max shot up to see that Ben was nowhere to be found. When they exited the RV they saw Jetray dipping in and out of the way of bullets over by a clocktower while carrying a TV with his feet.

"What are you doing?! You'll bust up the clock!"

No response, granted Ben was pretty far in the air so that might be the problem... except he decided to drop the TV and bust through the clocktower and begin flying down in a chase.

"Guess he doesn't wanna know the time..." Gwen sighed as Max looked down at her, "I know, I know, I'll stop him."

Gwen donned her Lucky Girl costume in an instant and ran to catch the falling TV, getting sideswiped by Jetray like he was a bullet.

"Earth to doofus?! I'm asking you a question!" The girl slowly got up as she saw some more hypnotized zombies in the crowd closing in on her.

"Oh! There you are!" Pirouette sifted her way through the crowd, cheery as usual.

"I knew you were up to something!" Lucky Girl went to confront Pirouette but Jetray fired down at her with his neuroshocks, "Hey, I'm on your side here!" She yelled upwards but yet again, Jetray didn't listen.

"Quick question real quick, what's your name again? Lucky Duck? I know luck is in there somewhere... Oh, Luck Cat!"

She had to have been joking, right? Lucky Girl sighed as she tossed a mana disc at Pirouette that was blocked by a whip of hair from Frightwig.

The Freaks were approaching and no matter what Gwen did they'd be able to stop her, they had her cornered from all sides and Jetray covered the skies.

Lucky Girl tries to throw what looked to be mana shards at Thumbskull but they simply shattered on his chest. Her shields decayed from Acid Breath and Frightwig kept her occupied at all times with trying to dodge.

She didn't have the experience to take on this many people, especially when the Freaks were way stronger than they normally should be. Gwen had to retreat somehow. She needed one thing to occur however, and it did.

Jetray decided to go for a divebomb and Lucky Girl jumped over a robber's head to grab onto his tail. Once she got over the crowd, she made a break for it, hiding in an alleyway until the danger subsided.

A close one for sure. She'll need a better plan.

Over The Next Day

After relaying what had occurred to both Ben and Grandpa, Gwen and Max have been working to keep Ben awake, airhorns, cold water... those were mostly Gwen's ideas.

Meanwhile Pirouette was in a private room, looking to a mirror in disappointment. It was hard to say it was disappointment given her mask and synthesized voice didn't really portray emotion very well but she was disappointed.

"Good news, people keep coming in and falling for this and I have more than enough to move on. Bad news, I can't rely on the chime of midnight to perfectly time the effect anymore with the clock destroyed—no thanks to the little space man—just gotta rely on the old circadian rhythm. Just as long as that girl doesn't mess with the plans any further... whatever her name is."

Little did she know, she was tempting fate.

Turns out, the plan to keep Ben awake wasn't the most reliable thing ever so it seems like they'll just have to take on the lady head on. They made it to the stage which was now decked out with giant speakers and TVs all in a wall.

"Alright citizens! It's been a fun time, but I think I need you all to do one last thing for me..." Pirouette put the microphone up to her mask.

"Guys, cover your ears and close your eyes!" Gwen yelled, doing so first and the others followed suit.

"SERVANTS! STEAL EVERY VALUABLE YOU CAN GET YOUR CRUMMY HANDS ON!"

Turns out the last ditch effort actually worked. Now it was time to handle all of the robbers. Ben transforms into Wildvine and went alongside Gwen to go after the source while Max stopped the actual robbers.

"I CAN JUST DO IT AGAIN! YOU TWO, OBEY ME!"

This yet again didn't work, Ben was right, you really can't hypnotize plants and Gwen managed to use her abilities to somehow block the woman from accessing her mind.

"FREAKS! TAKE THEM OU-!" Pirouette was slapped by Wildvine's arm but the command was heard and the trio was on the scene.

"Alright, we've done this dance how many times now? Just 'cause you're hypnotized doesn't mean you're winning this time!" Wildvine grabbed some pods and crashed them on the ground to try and keep them away with vines but Acid Breath burned them up while Frightwig walked over the decaying vines.

Gwen used mana to make platforms to meet Frightwig in the air and kick her down meanwhile Wildvine tries to grapple with Thumbskull who grabs onto Wildvine's arms and begins pulling him like he's a toy.

"Hey! No! Bad Thumbskull! No! Don't you-!" Thumbskull then flung Wildvine into the air and onto the ground, slamming him into it over and over again before going for an elbow drop that would have broken bones, if Wildvine had any.

Figuring that with Acid Breath leading the charge, Gwen went for him right after she temporarily downed Frightwig tossing a disc of mana into his mouth, he attempted to decay it but it stood its ground as he bit down so hard he ended up hurting his jaw letting Gwen take him out with another.

Wildvine got up, very, very tired of this as he was getting attacked now by both Frightwig and Thumbskull he decided to try and retreat using his tried and true slingshot method.

But noticeably, when he did this he also grabbed onto Frightwig's hair with his legs—which were really more like tendrils—and slung himself around the area, tying up Frightwig before rocketing her into Thumbskull's arms when he flung back.

"He's all yours." Wildvine dusted his hands off as Gwen walked up to Thumbskull, pulled her arm back... and sent a punch right into his crotch, taking him down.

The two kids then ran after a fleeing Pirouette into a mall before finding her at an office.

"Show's over!" Gwen kicked the door down.

"Hey, I was gonna say that!" Wildvine groaned, "It's... curtains... for you, or something. Whatever I'm too tired for this."

Pirouette was... scared, even the synthesizer couldn't hide it, all she had was a tiny gun in her hands to aim at the two of them.

"Stand back, I warn you! Don't make me use the PA to grab more servants!"

"What, so you can rely on your mind control again?" Gwen had to laugh at that fact, the tables really have turned.

"It's... not... MIND CONTROL! And I don't rely on them! I'll- I'll show you!" Pirouette grabbed her microphone timidly and yelled into it, "EVERYONE! ALL OF YOU SERVANTS! YOU ARE FREE! TAKE OFF YOUR HEADSETS AND GO HOME!"

Pirouette had snapped, and this time it wasn't just her fingers.

"Did she just..." Wildvine looked down to Gwen who just looked back.

"I... I just released all of them. I now have no defense..." She was distraught, falling to her knees before just getting right back up with her old cheery fake voice, "Well, you got me, I give up. Flashbang."

Pirouette haphazardly threw one of her little capsules and disappeared.

"See Gwen, can't hypnotize a plant." Wildvine proudly put his hands on his hips as he reverted to human.

"I still have video of you doing all of that stuff." Gwen fired right back, showing him her phone.

"Grandpa! Gwen is blackmailing me!" Ben ran outside to get Max.

Noteworthy Events[]

Major Events[]

Character Debuts[]

• Pirouette

Characters[]

• Ben Tennyson
• Gwen Tennyson
• Max Tennyson

Villains[]

• Pirouette
  • Circus Freaks

Aliens Used[]

• Wildvine (x2)
• Ball Weevil
• Heatblast (under hypnosis; off-screen)
• Jetray (under hypnosis; off-screen)

Continuity[]

• Several souvenirs from past episodes appear here such as Animo's transmodulator
• The Circus Freaks reference both the events of A Killer Joke and Inside Out

Trivia[]

• I genuinely was stuck for hours trying to think about the final fight
• Also, I did not know what came over me when I came up with this series to make Pirouette her own character or to have her replace Sublimino, so do not ask me I am not taking calls at this or any other time.