A/N: This is the final chapter of my 'Heroes' series. I had this piece totally planned out before I even posted the first chapter of this. So please enjoy.

Disclaimer: I do not own anything related to Ben 10. Man Of Action owns it all.

Vindicated

My eyes flitted open, the darkness still lingering around me as a single light shone down from the ceiling. I winced away from it, thrashing against whatever held me to the chair I was stuck to. I let my eyes adjust slowly to this surrounding.

It was jet-black, shadows clinging to the walls for dear life. I couldn't see a door or anyway in or out. My eyes searched for any signs of a camera, knowing this was no prison, just an interrogation room. A well-built one. Meant to keep people like me trapped inside for good.

Energy cuffs were wrapped around my wrists and my powers were useless, every inch of exposed skin on me either too far from anything metal or covered up by extra cloth wrapped around my skin.

"Come on out," I snarled, thrashing at the bonds, knowing very well that I wasn't going to get anywhere. The chair was nailed to the floor and made of some of the strongest metals in the universe. "I don't bite." I ripped at the bonds, not ready to give up the struggle yet. "Much."

From the shadows, Magister Gilhil appeared in all his green glory. His eyes were shadowed and his features were clearly disapproving of me. Not that I expected anything less. He had hated me originally. What would change that now?

"Kevin Ethan Levin," he said, the words like venom on his tongue. "I always expected you to go back to crime." His eyes were glaring lasers at me. "Just not so soon."

I focused and I quietly realized I was on the other side of the interrogation room this time. My fingers gripped at the empty air of the energy cuffs. Nothing. Nothing to absorb. No way out. "Why is it that everyone thinks so little of me?" I growled right back, not afraid of what he could do to me. The Null Void was easily worse than anything the Plumbers would do to me.

"Levin," said Gilhil, shaking his head, "I even thought the Tennysons were changing you. I thought Ben had you run right. And Gwendolyn had immediate effects on you. She had you on the right side of town for the longest time." He moved his way a little closer to me with a familiar scowl on his features.

I thrashed harder against the bonds as Gwen's name rang through my head. I begged for her to be on Earth and not watching me. I didn't want her to see this. I hadn't done anything that deserved true punishment from the Plumbers. "You don't know what you're talking about," I hissed through gritted teeth. "You don't know who I am. You never knew, let alone cared. All you Plumbers see is a record and a sentence. There's nothing more than that to any of you. You can't even call me by my full name, Magister Prior Gilhil."

It was cold. Not just his voice, but the room. It was as if the whole place was being pumped with icy air to make me freeze. Goosebumps kissed my cold skin.

"We see people better than you. You just never saw the full extent of your initial punishment, Levin." His attitude was sickeningly hateful. He stared right through me like I was nothing to him. But I already knew I was nothing to someone like him, all high-and-mighty over the rest of the world. "The Null Void carries consequences."

I raised an eyebrow, feeling the fear light my obsidan orbs with a dark raging blaze of fire. "What are you talking about?" I snarled, still furious that he was detaining me for nothing at all. He was using me like a little tool in his twisted games as if I switched sides every day.

I had never switched sides without a damn good reason.

"You're only on parole," Magister Gilhil told me with a wicked smile on his face that made me want to tear him to shreds more than I already did. He was worthless as a Plumber. I could've done three thousand times better than him at his job. It was so simple.

I wanted to hit him. I craved the touch of my fist colliding with his jaw or his eye or his cheek. Anything to knock him down, to let some of this bubbling fury out before it all backfired on me.

"The Null Void has always been an option for you."

My stomach sank as I saw the truth behind his words. More than once, I had slipped up and I stared the portal of the Null Void dead in the eye of the swirling red and prayed that I could find another way out. And I was always on parole. But Ben and Gwen vouched for me. I had never been touched by them because I always had someone guarding my back and watching out for me, covering my steps and keeping me out of trouble. Without the Tennysons... I reverted back to just another criminal on the cruel, vicious streets of New York.

I struggled more, hoping once more for a miracle to come around and sweep me away from the dangers. "I'm vindicated. You can't touch me for my crimes." I stared him down hard, knowing I had so many reasons to stay out of the Null Void. But I easily had more than enough reasons to be shipped in there as well. "I saved Earth nearly single-handed and risked my life doing so. I helped save the entire universe too. I may be a murderer and I may be a con and I may be a crook, but you know that I would do anything to keep the universe safe."

His stare hardened and his knuckles cracked.

"I swear on my father's grave."

The words caught in the back of my throat as I said them as tears caught up in my eyes and I thrashed more against the energy cuffs that emanated the faint blue glow. I stared at him with a grimace painted across my face.

"Son," said Gilhil, looking down at me even more disapprovingly now, "You know that only buys you more time before a jury." He quietly knelt down to my level and stared at me. "I don't want to have to do this to you, but we have to send you back to the Null Void for breaking your parole."

I was leaning as far forward in the chair as I could get, my wrists aching as they pulled against the bonds. I could feel he tendons stretching in my neck. My voice was absolutely feral. "I saved billions of people. What more do you want?"

His reply was short, curt; it sounded as if he were secretly mocking me. "Justice."

I snorted, glaring at him coldly like the hypocrite he was as he rose above me again, showing me up once more as I replied, being a hundred percent honest for the first time in a long time.

"Yeah. Me too."

A/N: Thank you for reading. Please review.

~Sky