Ben10 & Digimon Tamers

Heroes and Humanity

Part 02: Humanity and Heroes

The Beginning – Chapter 10

Originally Written: Saturday, June 2, 2015 1255PM to 216AM; Wednesday June 3, 2015 341AM to Saturday June 6, 201 229AM; Saturday June 6, 2015 232AM to 313AM

. . . . .

"Are you sure?" Jenrya asked Albedo.

The male sat at the kitchen table, "Yes, Jenrya." He held in a yawn, "I'm not quite tired yet."

Jenrya furrowed his eyebrows in confusion, watching the male's head droop ever so slightly. He frowned and fixed his nightshirt. "Will you come to bed soon?"

Albedo looked at him. His D-Terminal lit up the mostly dark room.

"At least," Jenrya murmured, "I'll take the floor if it's awkward 'cause we're in the same bed...," the male lowered his head, "or you can trade places with one of your friends."

Albedo openly glared at him.

"Okay okay!" He held his hands up in defense. "That's a bad idea. It came out before I realized it."

"I'm just finishing up some work Jenrya." He replied calmly.

"A cracked version of Crossy Road that works on D-Terminals is not work." Jenrya placed his hands on his hips.

Albedo stared at Jenrya blankly. Coming back to Japan was not a good idea in the least. Jenrya had a multitude of things to worry about. Albedo was sure he should not be one of them.

"No?" Jenrya lowered his head again.

"...I'm not tired yet." Albedo looked back at his D-Terminal.

"...Alright then...Good night..." He walked out the kitchen, headed to a warm bed covered in enough sheets to bury oneself in.

Albedo clenched the device tightly in his hands. His eyes drooped for a moment, but he quickly snapped them open. He set the device on the table as steam started rising from the kettle full force. He sluggishly prepared himself another cup of tea.

He sat at the table, sipping his tea, and beating his previous score in the game Ryo had recommended to him a while back. He wondered if Rika appreciated Ryo bothering with him at all.

He wondered which of Tennyson's aliens would take the glory of finishing him off when sleep did claim him. Upchuck could always eat him. Humongosaur could break his neck again, or maybe just his back, so they could all take their turns with him without having to worry about his escaping. He imagined that XLR8 trampling him would be painful, considering the potential heat generated by fiction from moving at such high speeds...

He covered his eyes, wondering if the tiredness would dissipate if he pressed on them hard enough. He stopped when that started to hurt. He uncovered his eyes and leaned his arms against the table. He read all the articles Ryo had sent him for the day. Jeri was at work at her family's bar. The games Ryo recommended were fun, but at this late hour were numbing his brain, only serving to make him dose off and die in game in the moments between his impromptu sleep sessions and when he woke.

He heard tapping, a telltale sign of Terriermon traveling throughout the apartment. The digimon climbed up onto the table. He looked at him, expecting a reaction Albedo either did not know of or care to give the creature.

"Henry says I make a good teddy bear." The digimon spoke almost as proud of that as he was not proud of being such a good Princess Prettypants.

Albedo stood up in silence and headed to the living room. Terriermon followed, feet tapping lightly on the wooden floor as though a ballet dancer combined the technique with tap dancing. He grabbed a blanket from the small linen closet. He did his best to ignore Terriermon's curious stare as he set himself up with his thermos and D-Terminal in the corner of the room. He caught Terriermon frowning, but was too tired to care. He made a mental note to himself to pick up some coffee or energy drinks, though he did not like either. He couldn't be sure if he'd even remember to do so.

Fridge whispered, "He'll sleep when he's ready." The necrofriggian took to resting with his head at what was designated the foot of the bed. It gave him a good view of Albedo and it ever so slightly mimicked sleeping upside down.

He pulled the cover up over his head. Perhaps if sleep did claim him, when the aliens saw him covered up, they'd ignore it. As he randomly tapped screens on the D-Terminal, the light making under the covers seemed too bright for sleep, Terriermon crawled underneath the blanket and shimmied onto his lap. Sleep claimed the teenage human boy, and though he died a horrible bloody death at the hands of Tennyson's Cerebrocrustacean form, "Brainstorm", he found a very odd comfort in the fact that a Gargomon died alongside him.

"Well, that didn't take long." Terriermon tumbled off Albedo's lap. He spit the tail of his ear out his mouth and lifted himself upon his paws.

Albedo directed his eyes downward at the digimon.

Terriermon looked at wide, blank eyes, tormented by something he couldn't identify. "Albedo?" The digimon stood on his feet. Unfocused blood red eyes stared at him unforgivably. "You're not going to puke on me are you?"

"Terriermon?" Albedo's voice sounded barely above a whisper.

"If you're gonna puke, don't do it on me."

The blanket from the night before sat crumpled next to them, partially pooled around Albedo's feet, and the floor. The cool apartment only served to remind Albedo of the cold nights of his dreams. He curled up his legs underneath him, watching Terriermon watch him. His D-Terminal fell off his lap onto his blanket. He placed a hand on the Digimon's head, careful of his horn.

The digimon's face scrunched up in discomfort. "Gah!" He ran out from under the human's hand. "I wasn't ready for that!" He spoke quite loudly standing up straight and tall in an attempt to look intimidating.

Albedo looked at the digimon with soft eyes. He saw the Cerebrocrustacean's pincer grip Gargomon tightly around the Digimon's torso with no remorse to be had as the Digimon fired multitudes of machine gun bullets at it. The alien curiously examined Gargomon as he broke up into millions of the tiniest sparkles with a horrible heart wrenching scream, instead of falling to the tell tale sounds of bones breaking and crushing, grinding together, and flesh and organs being squished, sliced apart, and squelched like grapes in a wine producing factory.

He pushed himself up to his feet, standing hunched over, as he trudged to the bathroom, or at least where he thought he remembered it being, with his arms wrapped around himself in the least comforting hug in the universe. He caught Terriermon's question of "He's gonna puke isn't he?" As he closed the bathroom door behind him.

He pressed his back against the door, and slid down it. He still felt the cold hard pincer on his person, forcing his own flesh, muscles and organs into places they weren't meant to go or be in, as the Cerebrocrustacean clenched it's secondary weapon tightly around him. He lifted up his shirt, and examined his sides with a tender hand, softly running over the pale skin. A hot numbing pain, that dulled as soon as he had heard his own spine snap loudly in his ears.

He dropped his shirt and shut his eyes tightly, as he covered his ears. He remembered not wanting to even see the pieces of him he had lost, and the alien being kind enough to not let him know. His head pounded loudly in his skull, a reminder that the alien had used it's other pincer to guide it into crushing and piercing Albedo's skull next.

He tapped his bare feet on the ground, anything to distract himself from the residual sounds in his own head. Gargomon's machine gun hands firing a spray of bullets into the hoard of creatures entrancing Albedo through the human knew the attempt to be futile. He sat for a while, as frozen as he had been watching the alien take down Gargomon with ease, Albedo didn't think an alien would ever have against an always slowly evolving bit of code turned full program.

He stood, taking a long deep breath. He turned on the water at the sink, making it a bit hotter than he was comfortable with. He splashed some of it on his face, steeling himself for the subtle burn from the steaming water. He looked at the mirror. His face curled into disgust, red eyes narrowing and lips sinking into an undignified bestial scowl. "How anyone willingly supports a moral-less monster like you, I will never know."

He stared at red eyes and white hair, standing out against a background of pale skin. He rubbed at his eyes in small circles, then he splashed more water on his face. He shut off the water, and blindly reached for a random towel. When he grabbed one, he turned and dried off his face. He took another deep breath as he hung up the towel.

He exited the bathroom, returning to the corner of the room to retrieve his belongings. Terriermon watched him, silent for once in his life. Albedo folded the blanket in half and flopped it over the back of a chair in the kitchen. Hugh looked at him as he returned for his D-Terminal and thermos. Albedo looked back at him in return, as he headed to the kitchen once more. Terriermon kept watching, only keeping distracted enough to keep himself from being stepped on, or covered with a blanket.

"Go back to sleep." Albedo spoke from the kitchen, looking at the clock over the stove, noting the 4AM time.

Terriermon headed to Jenrya's room and Hugh laid back down when Albedo got up and stood menacingly in the kitchen doorway with his arms folded.

"Told ya." Swamps said as Albedo sat back down. He propped his head up on his arms, resting his elbows on the table. He stared at the clock, glowing and silent, focusing on the green. He yawned as he tapped a finger against his cheeks.

Albedo glanced at Jenrya as the male sat down next to him. A few minutes of staring at the clock drove him mad, so he snuck out of the apartment and sat on the roof, watching the sun rise. Jenrya set a small, simple breakfast down between them. He paid it no mind, adjusting the folded blanket wrapped around his shoulders.

"There's something peaceful about this."

"Hm?" Jenrya looked at him, a fork still hanging from his mouth, only steadied by the hand holding it.

"Sitting like this."

Jenrya set his fork down, "Mhm. Dad always took one of us out to the roof when we were younger. My siblings and I. He either had us practice our Tai Chi or just sat with us like this."

"Hm." Albedo looked down at his folded legs. They tired a long time ago, but it didn't bother him for the moment. His joints felt stiff, but like this, in the near silence, somehow much more peaceful with the rising sun, he could pretend he actually treated himself to proper, nourishing rest.

He redirected his eyes back overhead. Clouds floated on by lazily, too few in number to effectively overcome the sun. It felt like there were things he should focus on, as his mind reached and wracked itself to access what those things were, but his mind couldn't generate the list for the life of him. Jenrya pulled him from his searching thoughts by running the side of a finger against his cheek.

Words came to his mind but he could not bring himself to speak them, 'I am undeserving of your touch.' He settled for staring out into space instead.

"Did you rest at all?"

He heard the tiniest taps, and looked down to see Terriermon idly sneaking food from the plate with a small plate of his own in those tiny paws of his. "It was decent."

"Shoo! Shoo!" Jenrya spoke calmly, waving his hands at Terriermon.

"I can't believe you didn't save me any." The digimon moaned, dodging Jenrya's hands.

"Just decent?" Jenrya jerked, grabbing his plate before it fully slid off his lap.

Terriermon grinned at him, waving a fork with a few pieces of sausage on it.

"You weren't up for the record." Jenrya answered Terriermon.

"Decently adequate." Albedo focused on the sky once more.

"Oh, I was up. Up since like 4AM." The digimon proclaimed loudly. "Hmph. Smelled these sausages too!"

He felt Jenrya's eyes on him as Terriermon continued his rant as he walked off with a "I'm going back to sleep." He glanced down for a moment almost against his own wishes.

"Busy again?"

Albedo remained silent.

Jenrya leaned against him, careful of his plate on his lap, and the second one between them. He raised a hand, and ran his fingers through Jenrya's hair. "Where'd you go?" Jenrya asked softly.

"To America." He replied calmly.

"To Bellwood."

Albedo lowered his eyes. He just barely imagined a faded image of Jenrya shaking his head and yelling at him in unprecedented rage.:

'You mean to tell me, you crossed the ocean, pretended you were homeless, purposely befriended me, and got into my friends and circle, in the hopes that I would free you from your situation, and then when you were free, you were going to throw me to the side and run back the way you came to fight some more, probably lose and wind up right back in the situation you just got free from!?'

He held in a shudder, as Jenrya lifted his head.

"You are angry at me."

"What makes you think that?" Jenrya ate another bite of food.

"Logical outcome." He murmured.

"So why did you go back there?" Jenrya lifted his head. The duo sat in silence before he spoke again a bit later. "I'll be leaving in a bit. I have an appointment at Hypnos."

"Hypnos?"

"Mhm." Jenrya stood. "And then I have work."

Albedo lowered his head as he focused on Jenrya's receding footsteps. "He didn't shock me." He murmured. It seemed the list of reasons why coming to Japan was a bad idea continued to grow, plaguing him. He laid down on the roof, next to the plate of the food.

He reached for the fork, and ate a few bites, with his arm propping up his head. Jenrya's cooking soothed him, warding off the thoughts and the guilt as he realized it wasn't one of the reasons.