Ben 10 - Smile

She hates everything about him.

Gwendolyn had prayed she was wrong. That the figure skulking about the outskirts of town was just a random drifter or a harmless vagabond and not the last man she ever wanted to see.

It was one of the few times she hated being always right.

She knew she should have alerted Ben and her grandfather, set the compound on lockdown, provide backup to her cousin and whatever security measures they had.

And yet here she was. Standing before the fugitive that was Kevin Eleven Thousand. Should she even be surprised he had managed to escape?

His arrogance.

“Stay away from my family,” Gwendolyn warns, her voice cold, eyes glittering with menace.

“Even Devlin?” Kevin, his voice amused rather than offended, eyes glittering with his own unique brand of malice, “The double-crossing brat is mine, you know. You can’t deny a father his right to see his son.”

Her brows knit together, the charms of Bezel aglow in anticipation, “From what I’ve heard, you were hardly a father to my nephew.”

His cruel, vicious ways.

Kevin cocked his head, “Nephew?”

He repeats the word. Once. Twice. Three times before laughing, openly, snidely, “From the way you said it, I could have sworn you said son.”

And his eyes light up in glee at the clenching of Gwendolyn’s fists, at the rage that briefly flits across the features she struggles to maintain blank.

“Aww, did I hit a nerve, Gwen?” he asks in mock concern.

He was baiting her, she knew it. She’s not going to give him the satisfaction of getting under her skin even if they are both well aware of his success.

His disregard for life.

“You can’t really blame the guys, Gwen.” Kevin declared, counting on his fingers, “For one: you’re a Tennyson and there’s the whole Plumber thing keeping you off-world. For two: you’re a strong, independent woman and most guys would probably piss in their pants if you so much as looked at them funny. And for three: You’re marked.

“No one lives to regret touching something that was mine.” He glowers darkly, “No one.”

And his smile. Especially his smile.

“Do you play surrogate mother to him? Isn’t that job supposed to be for Ben’s bitch?” Kevin continued, absently adding “You’d make a better mother for him.”

The softening of his eyes doesn’t fool Gwendolyn. Kevin knows how to push her buttons too well for her to think anything of his apart from malice and threats are genuine.

“Someone’s feeling chatty today.” A blatant segue but Gwendolyn doesn’t care, “What’s the matter? The voices in your head giving you the silent treatment for getting caught? Again?”

She emphasizes the last word, a barb intended to spur him into a rage.

Instead his lips crack into a grin.

Because she remembers what it used to look like.

Her blood chills at his reaction, it was not what she had expected but she maintains her composure. She doesn’t move an inch, even as he approaches her with an ominous nonchalance only he was capable of pulling.

“Funny you should mention the voices, Gwen.” He stops three feet from her, “Do you want to know what they’re telling me to do now to this dump of a city? To those ignorant citizens? To your cousin and those brats of his?”

And suddenly they’re a hair’s breadth apart when he whispers, “To you?”

When his arrogance had been smug confidence.

Gwendolyn refuses to back down, not even so much as blinking even as her heart races like mad.

“Don’t you tire of it, Kevin?” She ventures, gaze rising from his toned, muscular chest to stare into russet eyes.

“Depends.”

“We both know how this always starts, you seeking revenge for something that was your own fault to begin with.” She spies the clenching of his jaw, the cross-shaped scar stretching ever so minutely.

When his cruel, vicious ways had been merely selfish and self-serving.

“We both know how this always ends,” Gwendolyn states evenly, taking a calculated step backwards.

He quirks a brow, “Really now?”

“Yes,” she frowns, “Ben or my grandfather puts a stop to your madness and ships you off to the Null Void for the nth time.”

Kevin leans in close, so close she can feel his breath hot against her skin. “Should I take you not including yourself to mean you understand you can’t take me on?”

When his disregard for life had been a general disinterest for those not directly related to him.

She tilts her chin upward, tiptoeing until their lips almost touch and she whispers, breathily “No.” Before driving her magically strength-enhanced fist deep into his gut and propelling herself into the sky.

Kevin doubles over in pain, russet eyes flickering into an inhuman crimson as fangs begin to protrude from his lips.

Gwendolyn is not afraid of him, “You should take it to mean I will kill you if you so much as look at my family.”

She remembers it so clearly.

The dark-haired mutant just laughed, “Your cousin and that Way Big of his could only stall me. What do you think you can do to me?”

He roars, form shifting, expanding to the monstrosity that his evolved mutation gifted and burdened him with. A magma-infused tentacle shoots out, curling around empty air. His claw-tipped hand slashes after the red-head soaring just out of reach.

His smirks were commonplace, but his smiles were rare. A gift. A treasure. One he only shared with her and her cousin.

From behind him, he hears the resonance in her voice, feels the energy coursing through his body sputter before suddenly erupting in an explosion of sparks. He screams in pain, limbs lashing out, trying to catch the elusive sorceress.

“I’m not Ben. I don’t fight like him.” Gwendolyn narrows her emerald eyes, “I don’t need Way Big’s size or strength to take you on, Kevin.”

It was beautiful, in a roughish, charming way, and warm with the faintest hint of shyness.

“Always underestimated, eh Gwen?” Kevin chuckled in between pain-induced gnashing. His body reverts to his human shape, and this form is the only thing about the dark-haired mutant that Gwendolyn can describe as human.

His posture is that of a wounded animal, ready to launch an instinctive attack. His eyes were clouded in crimson, the edges tinged in obsidian.

And there was that smile.

A far cry from the twisted, feral version it was now. It had been warped by the insanity, the bloodlust, the rage.

Gwendolyn descends to the ground, a palm raised towards Kevin in warning, a potential promise that she can and will make good her threat to end his life. All he needs to do is simply give her a reason.

Kevin Levin was long gone, the man before her was the one who killed him. And for that reason she can never forgive him.