Ben 10: Prime Directive

Ten-year-old Ben Tennyson was supposed to be an ordinary kid with a lazy streak, a love of video games, and a summer road trip with Grandpa Max and cousin Gwen. But the boy who wakes up in his bed one morning is not ordinary. Inside Ben's head is a second lifetime of memories: a past life, a future he knows by heart, and the chilling knowledge of what's coming. A mysterious watch will fall from the sky. It will choose him. And the universe is about to get very dangerous. In the original story, Ben stumbled into greatness by accident, mashing buttons and learning on the fly. This time, there's a head start. With the Omnitrix still years away, Ben decides he won't waste a single day. Behind the cover of a hyperactive kid obsessed with sci-fi and gadgets, he quietly builds a grueling regimen: Engineering and physics, so he can understand the Omnitrix, not just use it Xenobiology, so he can predict what every alien form can (and can't) do Martial arts and conditioning, so a hero's body can survive a hero's transformations Strategy and tactics, so he's thinking three moves ahead when the fighting starts He sneaks questions past a puzzled Max, borrows textbooks far above his grade level, and hides his training from his parents and a suspicious Gwen. Every step has a purpose: to become the greatest Omnitrix wielder in any universe. But preparation has a price. A childhood spent in training is a childhood not lived, and Ben starts to wonder whether he's preparing for the future or running from the present. Worse, the more he changes, the less he can rely on what he remembers. Small shifts ripple outward, and the "known" timeline begins to fray. When the meteor streaks across the night sky and the Omnitrix slams into the forest, Ben is ready. But Vilgax, the Forever Knights, and Dr. Animo don't know that, and neither does the watch itself. The hero the universe gets this time has a plan. The question is whether the universe will follow it.