"What happens when you give the wrong person the right power?
That's Kevin.
But in this world… he didn't find the power.
It found him."
— Ben Tennyson
---
Brooklyn, New York – Underground BioTech Exchange
Dim lights flickered over rusted pipes and vibrating walls. The underground fighting ring buzzed with illegal tech — hybrid gear, gene injectors, null void suppressors. The Plumbers had shut this place down three times.
It just kept coming back.
Because he kept coming back.
Standing in the center of the arena, wearing torn gloves etched with circuit-burns and a cracked Plumber badge around his neck, was Kevin Ethan Levin — but not the one Ben remembered.
This Kevin wasn't angry. He wasn't laughing.
He was calm. Precise. Cold.
And he was absorbing a Xenocyte-enhanced techno-armor like it was made of cotton.
Spectators screamed. Credits flowed like water.
Kevin just smirked as his hand glowed black with energy-drain residue and the last opponent collapsed into a twitching heap.
> "Next."
---
The Rustbucket – Ben's POV
Gwen slammed the datapad down in front of Ben.
"Look at this," she snapped.
Ben took one glance — and his expression shifted. His Omnitrix flickered with involuntary pulses.
The feed showed Kevin draining three separate alien augmentations: a Tetramand's muscle graft, a Cerebrocrustacean brain enhancer, and a synthetic Vulpimancer tail. Not just absorbing them — stabilizing them.
That should've killed him. Or at least melted his DNA.
Ben whispered, "He's not just copying powers. He's rewriting himself."
Gwen crossed her arms. "He's you, Ben. The reckless version. The unbound one."
Ben didn't respond.
He knew she was right.
---
Flashback — Kevin's Discovery
Kevin had been 9 when the fracture occurred.
A burst of Omnitrix resonance from halfway across the galaxy had pulsed through the Earth's leylines — a ripple that activated latent anomalies in certain kids.
Most just got migraines.
Kevin got… clarity.
The voices in his head stopped screaming. The hunger — for chaos, for revenge, for destruction — melted away.
And something else took its place.
Purpose.
He began to hear frequencies. Feel energy. Understand what people were made of. Not just biology, but memory, emotion, trauma.
He didn't need the Omnitrix to become a monster.
He became the anti-Omnitrix.
A reactive core of stolen power and twisted will.
---
Present – First Encounter (Reimagined)
Ben and Kevin met again in an alley behind a collapsed warehouse, surrounded by flickering neon signs and the glow of weapons drawn but not fired.
Kevin leaned against the wall, arms crossed, eyes scanning Ben like he was dissecting him without touching him.
"You came," Kevin said. "Guess the myth was true."
Ben didn't flinch. "You've been absorbing alien tech. Why?"
Kevin's grin wasn't wide — just sharp.
"I saw something. Something under the surface. This world isn't real, Ben. It's stitched together by lies and reruns. Same battles. Same outcomes. Until you — and now me — started breaking the loop."
Ben stiffened.
Kevin noticed.
"Oh yeah. You remember, don't you?" Kevin's voice dropped. "That this isn't your first ride. That everything's been done before — but this time, you're trying to cheat fate."
Ben said nothing.
Kevin stepped forward.
"They call you the Chosen One. The Evolutionary Key. You think that makes you special?" He tilted his head. "It makes you a problem. And every system — magical, technological, cosmic — has one job: delete the problem."
Ben activated the Omnitrix.
Kevin lifted his hand — it shimmered with echoes of Wildmutt's claws and XLR8's blur.
A clash was inevitable.
But Kevin didn't strike.
Instead, he whispered:
> "You're trying to fix the world from the inside.
I'm going to break it from the outside.
And when the last law cracks, Ben?
You'll thank me."
Then he vanished.
No portal. No flash.
Just a burst of null void energy that tore space in a way the Omnitrix couldn't track.
---
Max's Warning
Later that night, Max patched into an old Plumber archive.
His face was grim.
"Kevin Levin's not just another kid with bad luck. He's a convergence point. Something... or someone is channeling energy into him from off-world."
Gwen frowned. "Alien influence?"
Max shook his head.
"Worse. Multiversal leakage. Someone's feeding him echoes from dead timelines. Ones where Ben failed."
Ben sat in silence.
He could feel it now — a faint tether from Kevin to something vast. Something ancient.
Kevin wasn't just dangerous.
He was a reflection of Ben's failure.
---
Final Scene — Kevin's Lair
In a dark chamber littered with broken containment cells and schematics, Kevin stood before a wall-sized projection — dozens of photos of Ben from various timelines.
The caption above them read:
> "Ben Prime. Ben Dark. Ben Infinite. Ben Omega."
He smirked.
"They always think it's about the hero."
He pressed his palm to the glowing interface. Tendrils of corrupted energy swirled around him, forming armor laced with DNA patterns Ben hadn't unlocked yet.
"They don't realize… it was always about the counterbalance."