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Thorns (or Chesters) are human-Cheshire hybrids.
That's not to say they are somehow the unholy offspring of a human and a Cheshire getting intimate - that wouldn't work, they're not even remotely biologically compatible. No, instead, they're hybrids in a sense that someone has taken pieces from a human and pieces from a Cheshire and grafted them together artificially.
Usually, this 'someone' is Chimera.
Method of creation
In the broadest sense, Thorns are created using biotech. This is not a screwing around on a DNA-level, though, because Cheshires don't have DNA, but it is making the two species compatible with each other on a 'natural' level by simply replacing certain modules with interfaces to modules in the other component, e.g. carving out a bit of a human brain in favour of putting an interface to the Cheshire mind there, such as to grant the creature the kind of instincts that Cheshires have.
Broadly speaking, to make a Thorn, you need an actual live human being (or other animal). The Cheshire parts do not need to come from a live Cheshire, they can be synthesised.
Note that there is much variance in the degree of hybridisation. Even after Chimera got good at the process, a lot of hybridisation attempts (about half of them) just end in death.
It's worth stressing that almost none of the Thorns wanted to be in the state they're in. They've either been a victim of Chimera's initially, or they've been fed to Chimera in an effort to give Earth a better fighting chance. It's vanishingly rare that someone lucidly opts for hybridisation – not only is it a painful process, it destroys some of your self and doesn't really offer identity-continuity.
Appearance
Thorns universally appear like normal humans most of the time, but it’s not very different from a Cheshire whose 'at rest' corporeal avatar is a human being – they can adopt different appearances. However, unlike real Cheshires, their transformations are mass-preserving.
Abilities
Average abilities, italics relative to pure Cheshires:
- Take on any (similar mass) shape
- Pass through walls
- Dematerialise things (omnomnom), albeit at a less impressive rate than a Cheshire
- They cannot do space-time warping
- They cannot do shadow play
- Immune to the 'curiosity toxin'
Weaknesses
The have all the same weaknesses Cheshires do.
That said, one of the disadvantages Thorns have toward Cheshires that have nothing to do with any physical handicap is that, being rather human in their thought processes, including empathy, they are not really laid out toward differentiating Cheshires from other Cheshires other than by the territory that they claim.
This extends to their own kind, meaning that they would not, from appearances alone, be able to determine that a supposed Thorn ally they’ve had a year of experience with is actually a Cheshire spy since the past week.