Ben10 & Digimon Tamers
Heroes and Humanity
Part 02: Humanity and Heroes
A Dream Deferred – Chapter 107
Originally Written: Monday, August 13, 2018 1048AM to 251PM
. . . . .
'Analyzing...'
Albedo jumped back as dark pink eyes looked back at him in the reflection of some kind of clear panel. His back hit a smooth surface, and he shut his eyes in a reflexive wince.
'Good morning.'
'Juggernaut?' He looked around, quickly gauging that he was in some kind of a clear tank. Memories flooded his mind, reminding me of what happened to him.
"How in the world am I alive?" He muttered, pressing his hands to his face. Machines beeped and hummed all around him. He quickly pulled his hands away, for they suddenly felt very uncomfortable against him. He shook out his hands and stared at them.
'Synchronizing.' Juggernaut informed him. He waited calmly as explanations flowed through his mind faster than someone could speak or explain to him. Wisps of blue violet mana flowed from him.
A female he didn't recognize sat at a desk in the distance, reading a magazine. He assumed she was a plumber, but he couldn't be sure.
She looked up from the magazine and focused on the computer screen. She turned back around and bowed to him. Bone straight black hair fell around her shoulders.
Albedo instinctively returned the bow, wondering how he didn't hit his head. He also realized how hard it was to bow without doing a somersault when your feet weren't touching the ground. He flailed his arms, trying to regain his balance. A blue violet haze surrounded him. Not heavy enough to impair the vision, but enough that it made him wonder why it took him so long to notice it.
The female pressed a button on the desk. "Good morning. How are you feeling, Albedo?" Her voice sounded muffled and washed out to him.
He looked up at the ceiling of the tank where he spotted the tiniest speaker hidden along the top of the tank, behind some more of the same clear surface making up the tank's sides. He took a few moments to think. "...Airy?" He replied, raising an eyebrow. An odd response, but he was finding a hard time coming up with how to answer her question.
He felt light as a feather, as though the smallest force could either send him flying or make him disappear. It was a very unnerving feeling, one that left him even more concerned of why he was in this large container to begin with.
"Where is this? Where am I?" He attempted to raise his voice, but found he couldn't produce anything louder than a whisper. He pressed his hands against the surface. Now that he was more awake, he could feel the slightest vibration of a hum or some kind of machine, and some kind of energy he couldn't make sense of flowing through the tank's surface.
He watched the female take a moment to process what he said. "You're at Hypnos. Returned from the Digital World." She turned to face him, waiting for any sign that he understood.
He nodded though he was confused, "And this...tank?" He rubbed at his throat. It didn't hurt, but he could feel the vibrations running through it, leaving him quite unnerved.
The woman shifted her eyes as she smoothed down her white lab coat with her free hand. "You've assumed what we believe is close to, but not quite the traditional form of an Anodite."
He nodded, looking at the dark color of his hands. He figured as much, and Juggernaut had confirmed such.
"However, you lack the magical prowess to maintain such a form. The...training, if you will." She continued calmly.
Albedo did his best to hold down his disgust and anger of having been insulted. He knew she was correct, and she didn't mean it as such. Intelligent people speak, if he would. He knew what he was capable of when it came to using mana and this was not one of those abilities. Far from it in fact.
"We've decided to relocate you from the Digital World as the risk of a digimon accidentally absorbing your data was too great. Juggernaut is working to stabilize your physical form, but the haze you are seeing is part of you." She continued as though she were telling someone the sky on Earth was blue.
He looked down at his hands again. How in the world did anyone in the universe work with mana? How did they all just not crumble to pieces, or fade away to wisps of nothing. "And I was placed here to lessen chances of me fading away."
"That's correct. I do, however, need to inform my coworkers that you are indeed awake now."
He nodded again. "That would be best." He desired to ask about Jenrya and the others, but he found an odd pain working its way from his throat to the rest of his being. He decided not to push it as he watched the woman step over to another communication device not far from when she was sitting.
'Foreign presence detected. Analyzing.' Juggernaut warned him.
He looked around, waiting for someone to enter the room, but even after a few moments, no one did.
'Threat not detected.'
He felt a soft hum in what he thought started in his head, but he couldn't be sure.
'Oh, it's you again. Welcome back.'
He looked around in response to the foreign voice in his head.
'Am I really that forgettable?' The feminine voice questioned, sounding way more confident than he was comfortable with.
He took a few moments to think. No, actually this voice was familiar. 'You're the voice who coached me to use that spell.' He heard it before then, but he couldn't put his finger on when and from who just yet.
'That was impressive, but I shouldn't be surprised. I remember you always caught on to things quicker than others, even when we were younger.'
His dark eyes widened in surprise.'You! Why are you in my head?! Juggernaut! Why is she in my head!?" His eyes looked around in fear, darting this way and that. The haze surrounding him increased in thickness, and he slowly dropped to the bottom of the tank.
'Calm down. I'm not going to mention you to Ben or anything like that. I don't even know where you are. I can only hear you.'
He blinked slowly. He wasn't sure how he could tell, but he knew she was telling the truth. He felt himself calm down enough to realize he had curled into himself. Then he realized his hands had phased into his chest. He jerked quickly, pulling them out in a single quick motion, with a frown of disgust and horror on his face.
'Okay then.' He looked away, trying not to pay attention to the female looking at him.
"Are you alright?" She questioned.
"Yes." He ducked his head low, "I...startled myself." Oddly enough, he expected the voice to be laughing at him in his head, and yet, she was not.
She nodded in response, and went back to reading her magazine.
The female voice spoke odd information in his head. Despite the voice belonging to who it did, Albedo found himself much calmer than he expected. Was she in a class of some kind? The information she was reading didn't sound like information from a subject he was familiar with.
'Are you speaking to me...?.'
'Oh! Sorry! I'm reading from my textbook.' She replied sheepishly. 'You're still so loud and...everywhere. It's hard to not just...connect.'
'Connect?'
'Telepathically via mana.' She quickly explained. She laughed at Albedo's sudden silence. 'Yes, you can do that, if you have mana and know how.'
'I see...' He looked around the room once more. The display of gray and black machines occasionally littered with plumber badge symbols blinked a slew of multicolored lights his way. 'You said I was still loud?' Why was speaking telepathically much easier than speaking aloud right now? He pushed his theories to the back of his mind for later.
'I coached...Juggernaut, I think it..he? Called himself, into coercing your mana to not 'scream' so loud, and it's still screaming. At least it's not through a megaphone anymore.'
'Mana can scream?' He would have pressed a hand to his chin in thought, but he didn't want to see his hand phase through his chin in the reflection of the tank's walls.
'It's similar to telepathy using mana, but not with words. You can...transport complex feelings, base emotions, thoughts, general strength of the mana, etc etc. Like the wind brushing against you, but the breeze isn't next to you. It sorta just wafts your way.'
'Like the smell of chili fries when you're nowhere near a food court.' He smiled a small smile trying to ignore the implications of her words. Just what did he accidentally send her way? Luckily his sudden craving for chili fries temporarily overshadowed the concern and his embarrassment at making such a statement.
'Er...I guess. Anyway, inexperienced people, like yourself, scream with it. It still sounds like you're shouting in terror, even though you're currently okay, but I think that's more in part due to how you got your powers. Considering the whole "doing things you shouldn't be able to do yet" thing.' She waited in silence for a few moments.
Suddenly the feeling of reading an extremely boring textbook on a fascinating subject filled Albedo. It was faint, yet somehow overwhelming. He sighed and rolled his eyes at the sudden boredom and disappointment that engulfed him. "Jenrya?" He murmured to himself.
'Feel that?'
'W-What...?' He blinked. That was exactly like a weaker version of Jenrya connecting to him. Yet, it wasn't Jenrya.
'That was me. So much potential in this book...' She sighed.
'That's horrible! I don't want to feel you like that!' He clenched his fists and glared at the machines working diligently in front of him.
'Imagine sitting in class and the sudden overwhelming feeling of terror smothers your entire being.' She replied dryly. 'The entire room. The entire building. It probably hit everyone who could sense it.'
Albedo's eyes widened in horror. The haze grew thicker in the tank.
The woman sharply turned to look at him, her white lab coat whipping around her. "Albedo! Please calm down!"
He saw alerts in bright red text appear on the displays of the machines with screens.
'Shit.' The girl spoke mentally.
A sudden bored calm with an overshadowed hint of concern overwhelmed him. He blinked and looked at the doctor. He then looked at the screen, their error screens no longer flashing. He shook his head.
'I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to scare you.'
He pressed his back to the tank. 'I could hear the mass of voices in my head then. I could barely think or focus. Those were the thoughts and feelings of all the people who could hear me?" He looked around the room, eyes analyzing every detail his mind would let him. "How many do you suppose? How do I fix this horrible, unwanted invasion of privacy?'
The woman watched him, a hand pressed to her chest. He nodded to her and tried to smile a small smile. His reflection on the tank at least was telling him he was doing it right. She nodded and returned his smile.
'Practice. It's not that you're overly strong that made that happen. It's that you lack so much control your energy just spreads everywhere. The range of people who sensed, felt you, couldn't have been farther than earth. The amount of people who could have properly detected you to respond is even smaller. It's more likely that it seemed like it was so many because you're not used to so many voices mentally contacting you.'
He motioned as though he were sighing, yet he couldn't feel himself exhale any air. It left the act feeling quite unsatisfying to him. 'But, I could hear you just fine. It was as though you were standing right next to me.'
A feeling of absolute, certain, smug confidence brushed up against him. The feeling had him turning every which way looking for Ben Tennyson. But, no, wrong Tennyson. He could see her sitting there in his head, leaned up against the back of a chair with an arm resting on its back. A boring text book on an interesting subject forgotten on the nearby table. An utterly disgustingly confident smirk on her face and a glint of mischievousness and power that Ben Tennyson himself couldn't match hidden behind bright green eyes.
Albedo pressed his hands against the tank. 'No. I haven't forgotten who you are.' He spoke mockingly in his mind. His body tingled, a side effect from Juggernaut analyzing the feeling and storing the memory for later use. This feeling was the exact same as the one he sensed from Gwendolyn Prime. It was just as horrible too.
A sudden feeling of embarrassment flooded him. He found himself laughing, snickering behind his hands, giddy from a mix of amusement and nervousness. 'Y-you are in class!'
He was fully aware of the woman in the lab coat staring at him in wonder, the familiar orange haired, green eyed woman standing next to her with a bright, amused smile on her face, and Ben 10K Prime looking at him from near the doorway with a confused grin as though he were debating on stepping back out the room. However he was too overwhelmed to react to them as he should.
'Shut. It.'
He stopped suddenly, eyes wide in surprise and fear.
The orange haired woman snapped her fingers drawing a 'Z' in the air, a smirk on her face.
Ben 10K Prime rolled his eyes.
'Ooh, you have visitors.' Gwendolyn spoke in his head.
'And you have class.'
Albedo looked at the older Gwendolyn Tennyson standing in front of him. Now she was in his head! Was it her? Or someone else? He took some time to focus. No, it was her. 'What the heck!?' He found himself looking at Ben 10K with his jaw dropped.
The younger Gwendolyn sighed dramatically. 'The things I miss for education.'
"Are they having some kind of mental conversation?" Yamaki asked from his place behind Ben 10K.
"Yup. Creepy huh?" Ben 10K replied.
Yamaki nodded his head in agreement. He passed by Ben 10K, walking towards the female by the desk.
A dull powerful silence filled him, void of naught but his own feelings and thoughts. He smiled a small smile, feeling a near calm wash over him. Calm that was his and his alone.
"Thank you, Doctor Mazaki." Yamaki nodded to the woman standing at the desk.
She quickly bowed low, welcoming him softly. She returned to her seat and turned back around, quickly shuffling the magazine in her lap, hiding it under the desk.
"Gwendolyn Prime?" Albedo questioned.
"Pleasure." The older Gwendolyn nodded bangs flopping ever so slightly. "I'm here to help you return to your...usual more physical state."
"I see."
She walked up to the tank and pressed a hand to it. "Huh?" She raised an eyebrow in wonder. "You're actually not that powerful."
"That's what she said, the...other Gwendolyn..." He nervously shifted his eyes. Even without Gwendolyn in the room easily overshadowing him with her mana, for some reason Albedo couldn't discern, Ben 10K Prime had yet to actually raise any instinctual alarms as most younger Tennyson's did. It left him curious and confused.
"Can you help him return to his physical form?" Yamaki questioned warily, taking a step forward. "He may not feel powerful to you..." Yamaki looked at Albedo in an awe that made Albedo duck his head.
"He's really not. Less than average actually. He just feels stronger because his mana is wild and not really reigned in." Future Gwendolyn Prime placed a hand on her hip.
"She said that as well." Albedo muttered and frowned.
"How did you even manage to do this? Have you been practicing?"
"I was rudely interrupted by Eon repeatedly handing me my ass. Sorry." He glared at her.
She sobered quickly, moving to stand up straight. "Right. No, I apologize. That was uncalled for." She raised her hands, palms facing Albedo.
Ben 10K looked away, his arms folded tightly.
"I can help you change back. It's an easy fix. However, I don't recommend trying to return to this form without some more training. Not even subconsciously."
"Subconsciously?"
"Your emotions can trigger the transformation. It's rare, and harder to achieve and maintain that way, but it's possible."
Albedo nodded slowly, "I see."
She suddenly waved a hand, bright pink mana flowing around it. "Okay. This tank isn't doing it justice. Have you seen yourself yet?"
Albedo blinked in confusion, watching the mana flow around with ease.
"Like actually seen yourself?"
"Oh...no." He shook his head. A few strands of blue violet hair floated in front of his face. He moved to tug at a lock of his mana based hair, but his hand just went through it.
He ignored Gwendolyn frowning in concern at him. A mirror suddenly appeared in front of him. The back faced him, his appearance reflecting off the silver surface. "Do you want to? You don't have to, but it's much easier to change back with a reference."
He thought for a while. Memories of his human cage startling, scaring him filled his mind. Memories of his Galvan appearance worked to soothed him. He closed his eyes as he thought. He brought himself to nod. "Yes."
She turned the mirror around spinning it on the tip of a finger.
Dark pink eyes lacking pupils with the slightest hint of bluish red looked back at him in wonder. Deep dark blue violet, nearly black under right lighting, skin struck out intensely against the nearly completely illuminated room in comparison. A layer of blue violet mana coated his body. Wisps of energy flowed from him and circled around him. His usually white hair was now made of blue violet mana, and the shoulder length locks floated around him like one's hair would flare around when swimming underwater.
Thoughts and emotions he could not explain nor truly identify flowed through him. He reached a hand out and touched the glass.
"Peaceful right? Yet not." Gwendolyn spoke.
Albedo nodded slowly.
"It's only 'yet not', 'cause you're actually naked!" Ben 10K grinned and pointed at him with both pointer fingers.
Albedo watched a deep dark pink flush come to his cheeks in his reflection as his eyes widened. He glared at Ben 10K. Meanwhile Yamaki covered his face with a hand and shook his head.
Gwendolyn rolled her eyes. "I thought we weren't doing that." She sighed.
"Changed my mind." He replied quickly.
The flush deepened even more, and the haze surrounding him increased.
"I can see that. Dweeb. Angering him for no reason." She sighed.
A gentle prodding touched him physically, even though there was no one else physically in the tank to touch him. It coerced him to turn his head, so he did.
He took in Gwendolyn's deep lavender skin tone, and her tamed bright pink mana based hair. Her blue and black shirt, and the light blue scarf, as well as her pants and boots remained untouched. In comparison his complete and utter lack of clothing, made his own deep blue violet nearly black form stand out even more.
'Error detected,' Juggernaut informed him, 'Analyzing error. Recording event.'
"You still feel ill, same as when I first met you, but if you so decide you want to pursue the Anodite form properly, which I see or sense no reason why you wouldn't be able to, your goal is this. Well, something like this."
"Ill?" Yamaki questioned, placing his hands in his pockets.
Albedo narrowed his eyes in confusion.
"I don't know if it's due to how you received your powers, or if that's just the appearance of Anodites in this timeline. I do know for certain though, that you are naked. Technically." She waved her free hand as though she were trying to explain something she could not.
"Is it better or worse? The ill feeling?" He pressed his other hand against the side of the tank along with the first hand.
"It's not, 'you're sick and dying' ill. It's 'this Anodite doesn't feel like other Anodites. Reflexively wondering if this Anodite is ill,' ill." She shook her head and sighed, "I can't go into any more detail than that."
Albedo somehow managed to lock eyes with her, gauging her response. He had the feeling it had to do with her eyes no longer being green. The faintest feeling floated from her, deep underneath the surface. So deep he wasn't sure if he even felt it, but still managed to unnerve him. "Why are you two helping me so much?"
"Geeze. As full of yourself as the other one." Ben 10K rolled his eyes.
Albedo narrowed his eyes. Then he lowered his eyes, dread overcoming him. "I am not your rebound victim to make you feel better about what Eon did to Albedo Prime."
"No one said that." Ben 10K held up his hands. "No one's even thinking that."
"Then why are you so cordial with me? Albedo doesn't like Ben Tennyson and vice versa. Yet, your presence..." He clenched his fists. "I don't even want to smack you in the face with mana, like I know I'd want to if you were any other Ben." He looked at Gwendolyn. "Why would you want me to be in more control of this mana?"
"Your 'screams'." She replied calmly.
"Not any other Ben." Ben 10K muttered. A wide wrap of bright pink mana suddenly surrounded Ben 10K's mouth, wrapping around the circumference of his head.
He looked down at his feet. The haze of mana still circled around him, taunting him with threats of what could happen if he truly lost what little control he currently had. Was she just saying that because she heard younger Gwendolyn from this timeline, or did she actually mean it?
"You're an enemy of Eon, that makes you our ally against him." Gwendolyn continued. "And I'm telling Kai to get a taser for you, Ben."
Albedo watched Ben 10K's shoulders shake as he laughed.
"That is classified information, Ben." Yamaki circled in front of him. "Classified information he is not to know. I don't even know how you know."
"Why wouldn't you be able to tell when you are looking at yourself?" Albedo questioned, trying to rub at his throat with no success. His eyes shifted, avoiding Yamaki's gaze. "He's not stupid, you know. He knows. He knew before anyone told him, and knew before you and the higher ups told him not to tell anyone." He lowered his eyes. "I think he would have understood if you told him about Eon, but Eon isn't his enemy. He's Ben Tennyson's enemy. How confusing." He muttered. "But, that doesn't explain me."
'You fascinate him.' Gwendolyn replied mentally.
'Why?' He looked at her, and reached out with his mana best he could. He didn't find or sense anything. She had closed herself off like level five shielding surrounding a building.
Yamaki ran a hand down his face. "My hands were tied, Albedo. They still are."
"You don't need to explain to me. I know all about how stupid Plumber bureaucracy can get. You didn't explain it to him though, and I don't know if he'll listen now." He sank to the bottom of the tank, mana flowing above him.
Yamaki's pristine shoes clicked against the tiled floor as he stormed out the room.
"Look, we can worry about this later. I'm pretty sure it's spoilers for Ben and I anyway. I don't want you accidentally fading to mana wisps, so let's focus on that first, okay?"
Albedo nodded, though he was feeling lost and confused. Feeling as though he were the butt of someone's joke they had yet to inform him of.
. . . . .
A/N: I originally was going to have young Gwen help Albedo defeat Eon. Part way through this chapter I thought of it being Charmcaster, but I decided to stay with it being Gwen because that makes things simpler. I may throw Charmcaster in the story somewhere however.