Drone Ben

Drone Ben is a oneshot AU made by Ungrateful-Wolf/EnderJesse, rewriting the original franchise from the first episode, with a change: at the moment the Omnitrix falls on Earth, Ben finds one of Vilgax's drones instead and merges with it.

Plot
The story starts during the events of canon's first episode: Ben walks in the forest complaining that he's gonna spend the worst summer ever since Gwen came along.

Just like in canon, he sees the pod containing the Omnitrix in the sky. However, instead of it landing in front of him, it keeps going over the forest.

Then, he sees another light coming, which turns out to be Vilgax's drone. Mistaking it for an UFO, he manages to pick it up after a small fight, but it ends up merging with him (in a similar fashion to Rojo in the Original Series episode The Alliance).

Ben is amazed by his new abilities and gets eventually carried away, causing a forest fire he can't control or stop. Elsewhere, Vilgax discovers the drones were destroyed and that someone has merged with it. He decides to contact whoever did it.

Back on the campsite, Max managed to fight off the drones as Heatblast with Gwen's help. After a short talk about the Omnitrix and keeping it a secret, they both start looking for Ben, who's talking to Vilgax at the same moment.

He orders that Ben obeys him and threatens to destroy him, but Ben mentions Max while trying to fight back, making Vilgax realize who he's dealing with.

When Max and Gwen get where Ben was when he started the fire, Ben unwillingly attacks them with his new abilities, controlled by Vilgax. He tells them to get away from him, to which after a quick discussion, they concede to.

Time skip several days later, where Ben is on his own, looking for the Omnitrix. He spent several days working for Vilgax, being tortured and forced to act against his will, severely affecting his emotional health.

He's approached by Max as Upgrade, hidden inside a drone, who merges with him and manages to free him from Vilgax's control.

Another time skip happens, and Ben wakes up crying at night. He's been having nightmares for weeks, dreaming of killing his own relatives and working for Vilgax of his own will. Meanwhile, Max is looking for Cooper, who could possibly help Ben get over his nightmares with his technopath abilities.

Flash-forward to a few years later, when Ben is a teenager. He's now a student at the Plumber Academy.

Rook and Scout are discussing an earlier attack on the base. As it turns out, Vilgax attacked during a lesson, and he called Ben "his old soldier", in reference to the drone incident.

Unconvinced that Ben is a criminal, Rook goes to talk to him. Ben starts the conversation being passive and calm, the trauma from becoming Vilgax's drone making him withdrawn and more silent in his teenagehood.

Though after talking a bit, Ben opens up more and has a friendly chat with Rook, deciding to follow their conversation later after receiving a message from Hulka.

Rook goes back to Scout and assures him Ben couldn't have been a bad person before, but he does ask himself why Ben's behavior wasn't normal.

The story ends with Rook wondering what made Ben like that, unaware of what happened to him.

Major Events

 * Max Tennyson finds the Omnitrix as intended, while Ben merges with one of Vilgax's drones (later freed).
 * Vilgax meets Ben and makes him a soldier by force, taunting him when it fails afterwards.
 * Ben becomes part of the Plumber Academy in his teen years.

Minor Events

 * Ben meets Rook at the Academy and befriends him.

Characters

 * Ben Tennyson (in human form and as a cyborg)
 * Max Tennyson
 * Gwen Tennyson
 * Rook Blonko
 * Scout
 * Cooper Daniels (mentioned)
 * Xylene (mentioned)
 * Phil Billings (mentioned)
 * Magister Hulka (mentioned)

Villains

 * Vilgax
 * Drones (robots and Ben)

Aliens Used
By Max
 * Heatblast
 * XLR8
 * Upgrade

Allusions
Ben wondering if there's little grey men inside the drone is a reference to Grays, an alleged alien race that inspired the Galvans' creation.

The cyborg teen Ben thinks about is also an allusion to Cyborg, a character from DC's Teen Titans.

Trivia

 * Unlike Ben, Max does not name his aliens, mostly due to not having Ben's quirks and humor.
 * Gwen has a very minor role in the story due to having little to no involvement with the Plumber business.
 * Though they aren't properly present, Max mentions Phil and Xylene after the Omnitrix falls on Earth, suspecting they might have a role in it.
 * This AU is heavily based on the OS episode The Alliance, with Ben becoming a cyborg instead of Rojo.