Disclaimer: I do not own Ben 10 or its sequels, spin-off and related characters. All is the property of Man of Action and Cartoon Network. I'm just borrowing them for some non-profit entertainment.

Thorns

Prologue: Kevin

It was hard to tell time.

Solitary confinement cells in Null Void Incarceration were devoid of windows, so one could not see the light change. The cells artificial lighting was kept at a consistent dim, neither bright enough to illuminate the whole room, nor dark enough to plunge him into total darkness. The only indication that time past was that meals were delivered through a slot in the door. A small bar of nutrients at regular intervals.

There wasn't really much to do in solitary either.

Nothing except sit alone with your thoughts.

Damn thoughts.

For his first couple of year -at least, he assumed it had been years- he thought about what landed him in this cell. About his pathetic and failed attempt to absorb an infant Celestialsapien and gain its omnipotent power. About how he'd been stopped by one he considered to be a friend. About how, instead of sending him home to be with his wife and mutated son -people who needed him- he was sent back to the Null Void and locked away in a cell with no high-powered energy to tap into, walls, floor, and ceiling coated with a sealant to prevent him from absorbing them, and no contact with any other living thing. He didn't even know who delivered his meals.

He flip-flopped back and forth from hating his treacherous friend and planning his revenge, and dwelling on his wife and infant son and wondered how they were getting along without him. How was she handling the boy's Osmosian abilities without him? How old would the boy be by now? How was he getting on trapped in that hideous form? Was he being ostracized by his peers? Probably.

That was why he wanted the Celestialsapien's power. With that kind of omnipotence he could have cured his son of the mutation the boy inherited from him in the first place.

He blamed his failure on his friend's betrayal.

And he blamed the whole situation on himself.

And -every now and again- he blamed his wife. For being so freaking wonderful that he had to fall in love with her. That he couldn't live without her and simply had to marry her. That she had to get pregnant. That their son had to be like him.

It was all her fault.

It was all his fault.

It was all the friend's fault.

Then, after a while, that got boring. One could only dwell on the same things so long. His mind wandered to other things.

He thought about his troubled childhood. About his time spent on the streets. Stealing and fighting. How he ran away from a comparatively comfortable and safe home because he felt rejected do to his abilities. He had never been a normal child. Things were never easy for him for that reason.

But thinking of that brought him back to thoughts of his own son. The boy would also never be a normal child. Would he run away same as he had? He imagined the boy growing up resentful and surly, angry at the world, skeptical of everything and distrusting of others. Just like he was before he came to love the boy's mother. He saw the boy growing up the same as him which was something he did not want for his son. Again, the reason for his failed attempt to absorb the Celestialsapien's power.

He worried.

He dwelled.

He blamed.

He planned revenge.

And he got bored.

Then he expanded his musings into the uncharted territories of wider and more general meditation. He remembered his wife telling him about old men sitting on mountains with beards, meditating under trees or in waterfalls and gaining enlightenment. Gurus and sages. He didn't want 'enlightenment', it wasn't exactly his style. He was a subscriber to the 'pound the crap out of stuff' school of philosophy. As a philosophy it worked for him. There just wasn't a lot to pound on in his small, solitary, confining cell.

He had never been a particularly 'deep' person and so trying to find meaning in something outside himself was rather difficult. He thought he had found meaning in his family. But that was taken from him when he was thrown in this oubliette. He didn't know where they were. What had happened to them without him. Gone from his sight in the blink of an eye.

But then, that could really be said of everything in his life.

His early life with his mother crumbled like the rubble of their house around them as he brought it down with his power. His time on the streets, living by his own rules, not answering to anyone. No one being able to make him answer. Not until he met Ben. Not until he absorbed the power of the Omnitrix the first time. Not until he suffered his first horrifying mutation. That had earned him his first stay in a Null Void prison as well. But, like a drop of water in the ocean, that to had ended and was put behind him. Once again, he was out on his own, responsible for no one but himself. Answering to no one to himself.

His career as an alien-tech dealer was a sweet gig. The work wasn't exactly easy, but it was exciting -fun!- and lucrative. He would never be rich, but he had earned enough money to live what he considered to be a comfortable life. Then one of his deals was crashed and people he thought he'd never see again were thrown abruptly back into his life -this time to stay. His enemy became an ally of convince, then a proper ally, then a begrudging friend, a true friend, and finally a best friend. (Perhaps that was why the betrayal stung so much. It wasn't like he was a stranger to being stabbed in the back.)

That was also what threw her back into his life. He would follow her anywhere. Across every planet and every star.

They were together through the Highbreed Invasion. She stuck with him all the way through his second terrible mutation that left him trapped in a cold, unfeeling, body of stone and steel. They watched each other's backs during the Map of Infinity crisis. She didn't lose faith in him during his third mutation -the worst of them all- not even after he tried to absorb her. He shielded her during the Flamekeeper's Circle, protecting her from Dagon's control. They were there for each other for everything in between and after.

It only made sense to get married. He just couldn't understand why it took him so long to figure it out.

But then, it was a busy time.

The world was changing. Earth's technology was advancing, climbing ever closer to a level where they could finally join the rest of the universe. More and more aliens were coming to Earth. For help from the wielder of the Ultimatrix, to challenge the wielder of the Ultimatrix, simple and innocent exploration, and everything in between. The status of his love-life wasn't exactly a daily concern -for either of them, really.

Yet, when the engagement was announced, everyone was surprised that they weren't already married. Apparently, in everyone else's minds, they had been married for years.

Maybe that was one reason why there was no judgment when she got pregnant before the paperwork could actually be signed. The ceremony was pushed back -because apparently, she didn't want to look pregnant in her dress and that was a big deal. A little over six years together and he still never really understood why the most random things were important to her while other things she was ambivalent to. So they agreed to wait until alter the baby was born.

Those were the most terrifying nine months of his life. Just the normal new father jitters weren't enough. Oh no. Not for an alien pregnancy where both parents are two opposing species. It didn't get really bad until she was into her second trimester. It started off as just feeling uncommonly tired. Everyone thought it was just a semi-normal symptom of the pregnancy. It wasn't like any of their friends had ever had kids before. They were the first in their group.

It wasn't until she started fainting, her manna dangerously low almost all the time that they realized the fetus developing inside her was absorbing her energy. Eating its own mother from the inside out. He suggested terminating the pregnancy -forcing a miscarriage. If it meant keeping her safe. He could live a childless life. Might even be safer too. They didn't exactly live a conventional life and throwing a small child into the mix would just add unnecessary liabilities and dangers. But she would hear none of it and was determined to carry their child to term. There had to be a way they could make it work.

In the end, they decided on something that he (personally) considered to be a bit risky. As the child absorbed her manna from her, he would absorb it from the child and cycle it back into her at the same rate so that everything would stay balanced. It wasn't easy and every moment of it was a constant battle with himself to give back what he was taking and not keep it for himself. His Osmosian instincts screaming for him to gorge himself on the energy pulsing just under his palms, coursing though the fingers of one hand and back out again through the other.

Words could not express just how relieved he was when she finally went into labor. Oh, he was panicked and a little sick, sure. But also relived. Very, very relived. Their problems were over.

Or so they thought.

The baby tumbled out of her womb not just malformed but completely misshapen. Not even recognizable as human. Four arms, all mismatched. flimsy jagged wings, asymmetrical eyes -one large and round, taking up almost the whole upper part of the face and pushing the other to the side-, hands and feet ending in claws or talons rather than proper fingers, and a tail. It took him only the first look at his newborn son to realize that his form was that of his first horrid mutation. Apparently, even though he was back to normal -and had been normal for many years now- his blood still carried the mutation (possibly all of his mutations) and it was passed to his child.

It only seemed right that if he was the cause of this, then he should be the one to fix it.

That was where the plan to absorb the Celestialsapien came into play.

It was an old endgame by one of their enemies from way, way back. At the time, he and all of them thought it was crazy. Who wanted the power of a god anyway? But now he had a reason to need that power and the plan didn't sound so crazy anymore. Funny how none of them ever bothered to ask Aggregor why he wanted to become all powerful in the first place. Was he also trying to save a child?

It didn't matter. Aggregor didn't succeed and neither did he. They were both stopped and he was thrown in here.

Alone in the dark with his thoughts and regrets. Seemingly forgotten. His son doomed to live the life of a monster and a freak. And he and the mother never did get their chance to marry.

How old was the boy now…

He didn't even know his one son's age.

He didn't even know how long he'd been locked up.

So, it came as a shock when the monotony of his incarceration was interrupted one day by the door to his cell opening for the first time in he didn't know how long.

He was confused at first. His mind not really grasping what was going on. It had been so long since that door was opened that he was beginning to believe it just didn't do that anymore. He squinted at the open door for some time, the true, bright light of the corridor outside poring in and illuminating his form. He hadn't lost much muscle in his incarceration, there not being much to do in his cell except work out. But his hair had grown longer, falling down his back and over his shoulders in a wild main. Was he even recognizable anymore?

The man standing in the doorway sure as hack was easily recognized. The short auburn hair might be graying on the sides a bit, but other than that, he was almost exactly the same as the last time they saw each other. Even the Omnitrix was the same.

"Hello, Kevin. Long time." He crossed his arms over his chest in the door way. The shift allowing Kevin to see the young man dressed in a standard issue Plumber's uniform standing behind him.

"Has it been?" He growled. "I wouldn't know."

"I'm sorry about that." Ben assured him. (Kevin was not convinced.) "But it was really the only way to make sure you'd stay where we put you."

Yeah. If Ben had learned anything over their torrid friendship, it was that Kevin Ethan Levin and prisons were like oil and water -no matter what you did, eventually, they would each got their separate ways.

"So what brings you here now?" After an indeterminate number of years, Kevin found that he had no patience (not that he possessed very great patience to begin with).

"I need your help." Be said flatly.

There was a beat of silence.

Then, "No."

And Kevin turned around. Laid down on his uncomfortable bunk. Pulled the single blanket over his head. Where was Ben when his child was suffering, malformed and misshapen, and needed help? If the Omnitrix could heal other beings, why couldn't it heal his son? Kevin wasn't for a second willing to believe that that mutated monstrous body was his baby's 'natural' form and therefore incapable of being 'healed' by the Omnitrix. There was no accounting for himself, but Gwen's child should have been beautiful. There was no way in heck a baby with Gwen as a mother could be anything besides spectacular.

"You haven't even heard my deal!" Ben argued, sounding as indignant as Kevin remembered.

"Tennyson, you've taken away every reason I have to live for. What possible incentive could I have for wanting to help you?"

And surprisingly, it was not Ben who answered this question, but the young Plumber officer whom lurked behind him. Nearly shoving the older man to the side as he barged partway into the cell (but never far enough in to be within Kevin's reach), and snarled, "Because its the right thing to do!" Like any naive and idealistic fool that idolized Ben Tennyson would do. "Because its a chance to make up for the bad things that you've done!"

Kevin rolled back over to glare at the boy.

Little more than a teenager, really. Fifteen, maybe sixteen. No older than Kevin himself had been when he got his Plumbers badge. Long dark hair pulled up into a ponytail, a few sharp bangs falling down into his face, the sides of his head shaved, giving him a vintage cyber-punk look that Kevin was sure the kid probably thought made him look cool. But his eyes were a brilliant, bright, almost luminescent green. The same shade Gwen's had been. The same shade Ben's were. Was this brat Ben's kid? So, Ben and Julie had had a kid of their own. And theirs was whole, properly formed, and perfect. Well, fan-freaking-tastic for them! Kevin felt his anger begin to boil.

"The bad things I've done, huh." He snarled, low and threatening at the boy. "Do you even know what it was I did to land myself in here, kid? Of course not. How could you? You probably weren't even an ache in your mommy's belly when I was thrown in here!"

"I've read-"

"You've read the reports. Sure." Kevin scoffed. "I'm sure by now they must devote an entire class at the Academy to me. You don't know jack or squat!"

The kid looked like he was about to say more, but Ben placed a restraining hand on the kid's shoulder and pulled him back out of the cell. Probably for the best. The kid bothered Kevin and he wasn't above going after him to suck up a bit of energy before making a break for it. If he could get out, how far would he get before Ben recaptured him? Would he get far enough to see Gwen again? Would he be able to find his son? Was his son even still alive, or would someone have administered a mercy killing? If that was the case, Kevin vowed that not a single creature in the universe would be left alive once he was done.

"Why don't you go wait in the ship." Ben was saying to the kid. "It was a bad move on my part to bring you with me."

When the brat was gone, Ben returned his attention to his old friend. Former friend.

"I still haven't heard a compelling reason I should help you."

"How about to save Gwen." Ben deadpanned. "I can't do it alone and while I'm not exactly without back-up, why settle for the apprentices when I can get a master?" Then, as an afterthought, just to sweeten the deal, "Devlin is anxious to rescue his mom and I'm not sure how much longer I can convince him to be patient."

Devlin. At the mention of his son's name, Ben suddenly had Kevin's full, complete, and unwavering attention. "How- how is he?"

"Broody. Impatient. Stubborn. He's basically you. If you had Gwen's book-smarts. He's got Gwen's book-smarts." Ben laughed. A true and proper laugh of affection. So, to spite his hideous form, Devlin was still loved. By the whole family, not just Gwen. Good. That was good. That was more than Kevin had ever hoped for. "And he's scared and anxious right now. Gwen's always seemed kinda invincible to him and the fact that she's-"

"I'm in." Kevin was on his feet and halfway to the door before Ben ever realized he'd agreed.

"Wait, what?"

"I'm helping. Come on, Tennyson. Move your feet!" And without fan fair or incident, Kevin walked out of his cell.

It had been sixteen years.

...