Be-Knighted

Be-Knighted is the eighth episode of the first season of Ben 10: Alien Force, and the eighth episode overall.
==Synopsis==
The Forever Knights have secured an alien weapon that will help them kill a dragon they have held captive for centuries. After the dragon escapes, they must ask Ben for help in recapturing it. Ben agrees to help but soon discovers the real identity of the dragon along with its ulterior motive for wanting to return to the Forever Knights. Ben must use his head, not just his brawn, in finding a peaceful solution to the impending fight between the dragon and the knights.
==Plot==
The episode opens at a Forever Knight castle where King Patrick is addressing his fellow armored warriors. Particularly, Connor, the champion chosen for the thousand-year honor of slaying a real-life dragon imprisoned in the dungeon. Every weapon (human and alien) they've tried has failed to kill it, but Connor is presented with a Quantum Disassembler Cannon they believe will be different. The Knights open the dungeon gates and Patrick instructs Connor to aim for the heart and keep the beam from the weapon steady if this is to work. While he promises to do so, he asks what assurance there is the beast will remain still as he fires on. Patrick assures him that the beast is chained and Connor ventures down the stairs as they reclose the gates, his only light source being the power core of the rifle in that pitch-black chamber. When he comes to the room that monster is supposed to be, he notices the chain links shattered on the floor and the beast charges at him. He is just narrowly able to escape being crushed under its feet like a bug (save his helmet) but can't stop it from making its way up the stairs. The Knights try to hold the gates shut to no avail; the Dragon escapes the dungeon, flies through the stained-glass window of the throne room and escapes the castle into the night. While Connor watches the Dragon fly away, he quietly vows that whatever it takes, he will slay it.
Gwen is helping Ben train in various hand-to-hand combat at her school's gym to sharpen his skillset to go with his own proficiency with the Omnitrix. Kevin then arrives, declaring that he arranged a meeting for Ben with the Forever Knights. The Forever Knights need help in slaying the Dragon that they wouldn't be reaching out to Ben for unless it was urgent, and they go to the Forever Knights' castle.
There, the Squire tells the gang the full story behind their debacle, along with the history of the Forever Knights themselves. 1000 years ago, a handful of the king's greatest knights did battle with a giant fire breathing beast they could not vanquish. Instead, they trapped it and built a stone fortress around it that is today their first castle. Years went by and many far-fetched tales of the Dragon sprang up all the while the Knights passed the custody of the true tale of the Dragon to their children. To this very day, the Dragon remained invulnerable to every new weapon the Forever Knights could get their hands on, the latest being the alien Quantum Disassembler Cannon they gave Connor. They still have faith it'll work, but it escaped before they could find out, and that's what they need Ben's help for; catching and containing it so they can slay it. Ben is enthusiastic about being part of their "noble cause" while Gwen and Kevin are not since there is still much they don't know. The Squire then introduces the gang to Connor, who is determined to have the Dragon fall by his own hand and declares that they do not belong on his mission if they have doubts. He believes their honor to be tainted by enlisting the gang in taking down the Dragon, but Squire believes it's the only way and an alarm sounds. They have monitoring military frequencies for some time hoping to track down the Dragon and succeed when they intercept transmissions from two Northrop Grumman F-14 Tomcats in the process of intercepting the Dragon. They battle but are no match for the Dragon's fire before the footage cuts out.
When the group finds the Dragon, Ben transforms into Chromastone and attacks it, but when he realizes the Dragon is trying to communicate with them, the Dragon fights back. Connor takes aim at the Dragon with no regard for how close Chromastone is and fires on both Chromastone and the Dragon with the quantum disassembler. Doubting the Squire's loyalty to what the Forever Knights stand for, Connor demands him answer if he is or isn't one of them.
Gwen stops Connor with a mana disk and the Dragon uses the chance to fly away when the wayward blast beam from the cannon bombs an oil truck nearby. Chromastone reverts back to Ben and confronts Connor for using him as bait to stun the Dragon while he finished them both off, and he simply informs him that it wasn't personal and won't be so long as they stay out of his way. Ben transforms into Humungousaur to interrogate both him and the Squire. The Squire acts tough but is intimidated into revealing the truth when Humungousaur grows massively in size. All he can tell them is that the Dragon is heading to a warehouse where the Forever Knights have stored an artifact they couldn't figure out how to reverse engineer for safekeeping. On route to the warehouse, Ben explains that the roar from the Dragon was a pattern signifying communication than a simple beast's method of intimidation. Plus, what it blasted out of its mouth was more of a laser than fire. Gwen confirms that she heard the pattern too and they pull over to test a theory Ben has. Ben pulls a familiar alien device out of the trunk of Kevin's car which Kevin explains is a Galvan Universal Translator capable of turning any spoken language into any other that other beings would otherwise be unable to understand, very common alien tech. During the fight, Ben noticed the Dragon wearing one of those translators that appeared inoperable. So, the gang decides that their new mission is to find the Dragon at the warehouses and just replace the broken translator with this new one to establish communication.
After reaching the warehouse, Ben transforms into Spidermonkey and confronts the Dragon. He tries to do things peacefully, but the Dragon maintains its aggression. Spidermonkey is able to replace the translators and successfully communicate with the Dragon. The Dragon tells them that he's here to recover his ship, which Ben deduces is the artifact the Knights were talking about. He explains that he's actually an interstellar cartographer, who landed on Earth all those centuries ago just for his work when he was ambushed by the Forever Knights who broke his translator and locked him away in the dungeon. Ben decides to make the Dragon take his spaceship and go home. However, the Dragon himself wants revenge on the knights for his unjust and long imprisonment away from his family. When the Forever Knights show up, Gwen and Kevin head outside to hold them off while Ben works with the Dragon. Gwen explains to Connor that the Dragon is really just an alien looking to go home, but Connor is stubborn and refuses to let him escape again. The Dragon finds his ship exactly how he left it and reveals his arsenal under the map he was making (which he honestly didn't think he'd need), readying himself to take revenge on all the Knights for stealing 1000 years of his life.
Gwen is unable to negotiate with Connor and the Knights, who have sworn an oath passed down 50 generations to destroy that Dragon. They close in for their final attack while Ben is still trying to reason with the Dragon. In a last-ditch attempt to make him stand down, Ben literally stands in his way, stating that in order to take his revenge, he will have to go through the only people who have been trying to save him. Ben finally manages to convince him to go home by reminding him that he is not the monster the Forever Knights have branded him as, but a cartographer on official business. Connor's strike team gets past Gwen and Kevin and prepare for their final assault right as the ship is taking off. Connor blasts it with the quantum disassembler which proves useless against the ship's energy shield. Connor fails to shoot the ship down when it blasts off and departs for space, so he drops the cannon and walks away in failure. Ben, Gwen, and Kevin on the other hand depart in victory, congratulating Ben on using his head instead of his fist (or his watch) to succeed.
Back at the first castle, Connor believes the Forever Knights have lost their purpose with the loss of the Dragon. Crestfallen at the failure of his sworn purpose, he prepares to leave the Forever Knights forever. Patrick tells him that the news of a world full of dragons exists, which renews their pledge to stand ready and fight against the dragons, should they ever return to Earth seeking revenge, as does their need to exact their own revenge on those who allowed it to return home. All the Knights cheer in triumph, except for the Squire, who has lost his faith in the Forever Knights he once thought honorable.
==Noteworthy Events==
===Major Events===
*The Dragon escapes the Forever Knights and is on his way to his home planet.
====Character Debuts====
*Squire
*Dragon
*Connor
*Patrick
====Omnitrix Alien Debut====
*Spidermonkey
==Characters==
===Main Characters===
*Ben Tennyson
*Gwen Tennyson
*Kevin Levin
===Supporting Characters===
*Squire (first appearance)
*Dragon (first appearance)
===Antagonists===
*Forever Knights
**Connor (first appearance)
**Patrick (first appearance)
==Aliens Used==
*Chromastone
*Humungousaur
*Spidermonkey (first appearance)
==Naming and Translations==
==Cast==
==Errors==
*When the Dragon is shot by the jets and starts falling, he lacks his translator.
*When the trio arrive at the destination where the Dragon landed, Kevin's hair is not shaded for a few seconds until the shading suddenly appears.
*Before Ben transforms into Chromastone, he twists the dial for a few seconds, but no holograms appear.
*Chromastone and Spidermonkey's holograms face away from Ben.
*When Kevin talks to Ben in the car, part of his sclera is of the same color as his skin.
*Before Ben transforms into Spidermonkey, he is missing a nostril.
*After Ben transforms into Spidermonkey, his shoulders are dark blue.
*When Spidermonkey shoots his webbing, his tail flashes with a blue light.
*At one point, Kevin absorbs wood, but is covered in metal. Furthermore, no sound effect plays.
*When Ben talks to the Dragon, the horizontal white stripes on his jacket are the same color as the rest of the jacket.
*In one shot, Gwen doesn't have her stockings.
*When Gwen holds Connor captive using a mana construct, her eyes are light green.
*In the end credits, Humungousaur is not listed and Clancy Brown is miscredited as the pilot.
BK (171).png|Missing translator
BK (191).png|Hologram error
BK (292).png|Eye error
BK (302).png|Hologram error/Missing nostril
BK (311).png|Shoulder error
BK (333).png|Tail light
BK (354).png|Wrong material
BK (399).png|Stripes error
Error Gwen clothes.png|Missing stockings
BK (501).png|Eyes error
BK (562).png|Humungousaur/Pilot credit error
==Trivia==
*It is unknown why the Dragon needed to replace a translator to speak to Ben because the Omnitrix and Plumber badges normally translate, though it could be either that the team didn't know this in the first place or they simply forgot, as was the case with Ben and Kevin with Galapagus in Escape From Aggregor.
*In the Original Series, the Forever Knights were like "Anti-Plumbers", exploiting unusual threats instead of fighting them.Ultimate Weapon In Alien Force, the Forever Knights are revealed to be highly xenophobic.
*At the end of the episode, the Squire seemed disappointed because of the Forever Knights' lack of honor.
*Dwayne McDuffie once claimed more of the Dragon's species would be seen in future episodes, but this did not turn out to be true.
==References==
===Crew Statements===
====T.J. Collins====
====Dwayne McDuffie====
===Pop-Up Trivia===
===Cartoon Network===
===Ben 10 Planet===
es:Caballerizado
it:Essere un Cavaliere
pl:Rycerz
pt-br:Ben Cavaleiro
ro:În ordinul cavalerilor
Category:Episodes
Category:Ben 10: Alien Force Episodes
Category:Ben 10: Alien Force Season 1 Episodes
Category:Episodes Directed by Dan Riba
Category:Filler
Category:Episodes Aired Out of Production Order