Ben10 & Digimon Tamers

Heroes and Humanity

Part 02: Humanity and Heroes

Another Myself – Chapter 87 Part 2

Originally Written: Thursday, October 05, 2017 647PM to Saturday, October 7, 2017 459AM

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Albedo snuggled deeper into somehow warm, threadbare sheets. He lay in silence with his eyes closed, working to resist the feeling of waking up fully. He pulled the covers over his head. He curled up into the sheets, the bed squeaking loudly as he did so. He lay like this for what felt like a few more minutes, before giving up the fight.

He took a peek out from under the covers. A small lamp's light bulb flickered on a desk next to the wall. A book on the floor balanced one of the legs of the metal and wooden desk. The deep blue lamp looked like it was a desk lamp that was supposed to clip onto the edge of the desk. However, it seemed to be missing the clip section, and was set into a tall metal can with maroon paint chipping off of it.

He pushed himself to a sitting position. This small light was the only light in the entire room. The room's walls were a myriad of shades and tints of reds and browns. It looked like the wall was covered in painted leaves from the fall season. Albedo could only think how his mentor would like this.

He took note that someone had removed his shirt, and wrapped new clean bandages around him.

'Unknown substance detected on skin. No threats detected.'

"Thank you," He pressed a hand to his chest. He slowly ran his hand down the long jagged line of a wound down his torso. At least, where he felt it was. Without much concentration he could still feel the sharp, agonizing pain from that moment... He pushed himself out of bed and to his feet.

It did feel like there was something between the bandages and his skin. It felt like some kind of cream to him. It made his bandages cold, but not uncomfortable. He walked around the bed, looking for his sneakers, but he only found slippers a size too big for him. They looked new and clean, so he risked putting them on his feet.

He left the small room since he couldn't find his things, and padded along the bare floor. One look and he knew immediately why he was given slippers with a good amount of grip. The metal floor underneath him looked quite cold. It was painted a deep brown that reminded him of wood, but the paint and finish were chipping as well. He saw the dull, lifeless gray in the spots where the paint was chipped. The walls of the hall were painted a deep orange, shades of red, and yellow, some of the barest hints of blue and purple as well. It reminded him of the times he watched the sunset with Jenrya.

"Good morning." A thin almost frail looking Necrofriggian looked at him with large teal blue eyes. Their voice was soft, almost like a mouse squeaking ever so quietly, not wanting to be heard as it scurried through someone's house. Their pale, so light blue they looked white, wings wrapped around them. The black and white spots on their wings reminded him of a monarch butterfly. "I hope you rested well."

He nodded, "I did." He watched them curiously, unable to figure out who they were supposed to be. "Thank you." He looked off to the side, rubbing at his inner forearms as though reaching for sleeves.

"I had to wash your shirt and jacket. They were stained with blood." They turned, and motioned a hand under their folded wings to follow him. "Come, I will see if I can find something for you while they dry."

He followed the Necrofriggian. They appeared to be walking to the average person, but Albedo knew better. He knew of a Necrofriggian who levitated just a few centimeters off the ground just because they could. "You are Frigga."

"I am. And you, Albedo." They laughed softly, their voice light. "It would seem we know each other, and yet not."

"It appears that way." Albedo stopped and looked at the living room. A small gray couch sat off to the side, a small round coffee table in front of it. Some kind of scenery seemed to be painted on its surface. Albedo crossed the sea of red painted metal and looked at the table. He placed a hand on its surface.

"Do you like it?"

He nodded slowly, his eyes shut tight. Various tall buildings shaped in ways Albedo didn't recognize littered the horizon and foreground of the painting. Still, Albedo could tell where the painting was displaying, from the green sky littered with wispy gray clouds. He sat in the chair, studying the painting, taking in every detail he could. His fingers ran over the raised and flat sections of paint ever so softly, as even the paint here was chipping.

A deep longing for home filled him. Not his home on Earth. Galvan Mark II. He couldn't imagine why anyone would let him back there though. Especially not in this form. Who knew what Tennyson or even his foolish mentor had put in the minds of his fellow Galvan, all to bring him to ruin.

An oversized tee-shirt gingerly landed on top of his head, and a thicker blanket wrapped around his shoulders. A memory came to him, slowly but surely from when his first mentor came back from one of her travels. She treated him to chocolate covered crickets. She told him it was an idea from Earth, many years old, treated as a dessert or snack. It was the oddest thing he had tasted. Still he enjoyed the experience. So much that she had taken time from her work and his studies, to make it with him on Galvan Mark II.

She had ordered all the ingredients, and they had made a small party of the ordeal. He had added what she called cayenne pepper to some of her chocolate as a prank. She was cross with him for all of five minutes.

He rested his forearms against his legs, the barest hint of a smile on his face. Sometimes, he wished so badly he hadn't been so intelligent. Then she wouldn't have introduced him to his mentor. Sometimes he wished he was much more intelligent than he was now. He pulled the black shirt with thin red-orange horizontal stripes on properly, then burrowed into the small couch, wrapped in the blanket. Then he wouldn't have grabbed Eon's attention, and Ryo wouldn't be in danger and his mentor wouldn't be angry with him, and Tennyson wouldn't be trying to kill him and-

He curled into himself and cried so hard that despite the silence in the act, it still shook his very being and stole his breath away. His mentor wouldn't approve. Not at all. Tennyson would laugh at him, mocking him all the while. His tears rocked him to a silent lull, as he focused on the image painted before him.

He only stopped focusing on the image as strongly when a wooden tray covered the table. He looked up to see Frigga. They smiled at him apologetically. He watched them set up a hotplate and heat up a small pot of soup on the hotplate. They set a bowl and some spoons next to the device, also on the tray.

He ran his fingers against the outer edging of the painting. "Are you the only one here?" The soup steamed in front of him, heating slowly.

"For the moment. The others, Fridge, Swamps and Hugh should return soon." Their voice drifted from a different room close by, despite the softness.

"Hmm..." He watched them return with a glass of water. "Where are they now?"

"Working." The pale Necroffigian hummed a soft tune. They reached their hands out from under their wings and pressed the palms of their hands together. "We are street performers." Their eyes closed in a smile.

He blinked at Frigga, almost unbelieving. Street performers? He never would have imagined. As he thought about it though, he could see where the idea came from. If they had participated in Ben 10 Live as his trio had, it was indeed one of the next logical steps. Ben 10 Live had been nothing more than a street performance on a more grandiose scale.

"Interesting profession."

They smiled at him. "It is not our only one, but it is the most fun. Though Swamps says his would be his healing salve making, I know he does not enjoy seeing so many injured in his travels." Their smile dropped ever so slightly, "He never seems to have enough."

The duo sat, eating soup, speaking to each other softly. Albedo didn't know Frigga well back on his Earth, but it still felt like speaking to an old companion he hadn't seen for a long while. Though the Frigga he was more familiar with wasn't anywhere near as dainty and frail as this one seemed to be. They spoke of many things, despite Albedo warning them that they shouldn't speak of each other's Earths too much. The time space continuum did have ways of righting itself, and those ways were almost never kind.

After eating, he followed Frigga around the small house for a short while. Then he had to take a step outside. What had started off as a beautiful house covered in fall landscapes had quickly become a disturbing cell painted in red. All the rooms had red somewhere in them. Whether it was the painting of a sunset or a forest full of trees during the fall, or the red skies of a planet far away or thought of in one's imagination, it was red. There were other colors as well, but nowhere near as prominent as the color red. It was as though the home's inhabitants had made a shrine dedicated to the color red.

Albedo didn't want to think about what made it so, but it unnerved him greatly. He could not stay in that house for long. He didn't understand how any of them did either. It made sense when Frigga had explained that they, with occasional input from the others, had painted many of the rooms and objects in them. Frigga had painted a backdrop of UnderTown on the larger kitchen table. The only difference being that it was under Earth's sky, and not Earth's outer layers of crust. They had kept it so the buildings were just as dark as they were normally, creating a sharp, unnerving contrast between the sky and surrounding scenery. It made him feel cold inside.

He knew that Necrofriggians from Mykdl'dy tended to go a bit overboard when it came to liking and supporting things, but Frigga, for all her quiet behavior, seemed to have an obsession that made Albedo want to crawl in a black hole. How could someone so pale like red so much?

He shivered as he sat outside the small metal house. At least the outside wasn't red. He didn't quite realize how grateful he would be for such a small mercy until he had stepped outside.

He watched the lime green Methanosian sitting on a bench across the street from him. Occasionally he got up and disappeared into a small warehouse looking structure. A decently sized cardboard box was set on the floor in front of the old rickety bench. From what Albedo could tell, he was putting jars of some kind of pale green, nearly white substance in the box.

A small group of ten or so medium sized plants in clay pots suitable for their size sat on the floor surrounding the box almost protectively. A few of them were quite tall, and would soon need to be transplanted into another, larger pot, or even planted into the ground itself. The plants shook and shivered in their pots as though giggling.

A lime green Methanosian smiled at him when the green eyes looked back his way. They put another jar into the box. Black surrounded their large eyes. Their overall form reminded Albedo more of a tree than the plant he was used to when he saw a Methanosian. Still, he was able to tell that they were indeed a Methanosian.

The Methanosian waved and wiggled the fingers of one hand, while murmuring something to the plants in a quiet voice Albedo recognized as Methanosian language. The plants shook and shivered once more. Their petals opened and closed, as though giggling if the flowers were mouths, or blinking if they were eyes.

The Methanosian grabbed a jar sitting on the bench and walked over to him. "How are you feeling? Any pain?"

Albedo blinked at him. He was a good deal taller up close than he was at his previous distance. He was thankful the Methanosian hadn't walked up too close to him.

They pointed to his chest, "You were pretty banged up when Fridge broughtcha back. Like someone tried to slice you in half. Gnarly." They shuddered.

"You bandaged my wounds?"

They grinned wildly, puffing out their chest. "That's me!"

"Thank you, Swamps." Albedo smiled softly, "I am not in any pain."

"Woo!" He did a jig. "They really like that one. Says it works fast with little fuss."

"They?" He tilted his head. His mind worked before he shook his head. "Never mind. Frigga told me earlier, you provide healing for the injured." He looked up at the earth high above them, as though he were thinking.

"Heh heh," Swamps looked off to the side, flush noticeable on his lighter skin, "Something like that. "It's more the plants than me. They like me for some reason." He ducked his head.

"Someone has to put the ingredients together. The plants can't do that themselves. At least not the ones you have over there." Albedo looked at his striped sleeves as Swamps chuckled again.

"Here."

Albedo took the jar in surprise. It was much heavier than it looked. "Thank you." He set the jar on his lap, and held it between his hands with care. He bowed his head and ran a finger along the top edge of the silver cap.

"It's what friends do, yeah?" Swamps beamed at him.

A/N: If Necroffrigians had genders, Frigga would be female on both H&H Earth and this Earth.