Ben10 & Digimon Tamers
Heroes and Humanity
Part 02: Humanity and Heroes
A Dream Deferred – Chapter 108
Originally Written: Sunday, August 27, 2023; Friday, September 1, 2023 819AM to 943AM
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A/N: It seriously took me five years to get back to this story? Why am I like this? Sheesh.
Albedo stared at the reflection of himself in the containment tank he currently stood in. The unusual red eyes of his Appoplexian form, Rath, looked back at him. He wasn't too fond of this form, but considering his other forms were much more dangerous and powerful than it, Rath was the safest option. He could still see the unusual glow of bluish red outlining them. Younger Gwendolyn Tennyson, with deep orange hair in a long ponytail, and a typical school uniform of a blazer and skirt looked at him from outside the containment tank, as though studying him. Her hands glowed with vibrant pink mana.
Dr. Masaki, and a few other doctors and technicians he didn't care to remember the names of, walked around like little ants, making sure equipment didn't break and continued running smoothly, and keeping track of his own physical state and well-being.
He held in a sigh as Juggernaut told him his form was about to time out. He was starting to get used to how uncomfortable reverting was now. It felt like he was being pulled in many directions as his form shifted and changed. He closed his eyes, and concentrated as he waited.
"You can look." Gwendolyn told him after a few seconds.
He slowly opened his eyes. Ben Tennyson's face with deep red eyes and stark white hair looked back at him. He stared blankly as his reflection.
"I think you've-" She started to frown.
Albedo pressed his hands against the glass. The fingertips slowly turned from pale to dark purple. The dark purple spread up his limbs, and out from his chest. His hair shifted from white to a wispy blue violet, floating and shifting around him.
The equipment and machines in front of him continued beeping, showing no signs of anything being or having gone wrong or haywire.
"-Never mind." Gwendolyn pinched the bridge of her nose. Juggernaut spoke to him in his head.
"My mana is at ninety-seven percent remaining and at least I retained my clothes?" He rubbed his throat as his soft voice filled the room, seemingly echoing and bouncing off the walls, despite him still being in the tank. Though it was much less than when he first started practicing, wisps of blue violet mana still swirled around him.
The red jacket, black shirt, jeans and even the socks and sneakers felt uncomfortable and constraining against his non-existent skin. However, he couldn't deny that the garments were helping to keep his form restrained. In some way, they reminded him that he was a being with a physical form and not just wisps of mana. So he resisted the urge to immediately rip the clothes off.
The only garment that felt right was Justimon's scarf, which was loosely wrapped many times around his neck.
"Right." Gwendolyn dropped her hand. "Let's be positive about this. You're also maintaining physical contact with objects."
Albedo almost smiled at her. He didn't because, one, it was Gwendolyn, and two, she was giving him the same look Takato's mother would give him before trying to get him to down his weight in cream puffs. He still didn't know what that look meant.
Gwendolyn paced in front of him, murmuring to herself. She spoke in broken sentences at a speed that would even impress Azmuth, even though neither Azmuth or him could understand what she was talking about. She frequently shifted from thinking to speaking, sometimes within the same sentence. A seamless process between thought and speech. He envied her ability to ignore all the doctors hovering around him and shifting throughout the room. Many times, when they thought he wasn't looking or paying attention, he caught them staring at him. No matter what form he was in, at least one of them was watching him as though he were a scientific marvel.
"And you were able to eat the chili fries Henry brought you the other day." She stopped pacing, waiting for a response.
Albedo shifted his gauze. "Just the fries, not the chili itself." He fiddled with the end of Justimon's scarf, a hand slowly rubbing the fabric. "The chili made me… uncomfortable."
He was not sure that he or anyone else in the room would be able to properly describe or explain an anodite throwing up as food particles and liquid sauce fell out of parts of their body food did not normally evacuate from, but he wasn't going to be the one to try, especially not to Gwendolyn. It was a terrible mess that he did not want to relive nor experience ever again. It was also a sad day, as good as Matsuki Bakery cream puffs were, chili fries would always be his preferred snack. A snack he currently couldn't enjoy in its entirety.
"Okay...so solids only for now?" She looked back at a doctor holding a clipboard. The doctor nodded in response. "No other signs of digestive functions? Right. Got it." She tapped a finger to her chin while she continued pacing.
He focused on her so much that his mana started following her, wavering and shifting back and forth.
"Ninety-five percent mana remaining." Juggernaut warned him.
He jerked right as Gwendolyn stopped walking. When and how did his mana drop? He hadn't even done anything? Another doctor was whispering to her. Since the speaker wasn't activated, he couldn't hear what they were saying. And he didn't care to focus enough to lip read. He was a bit annoyed that any time they wanted, the doctors and technicians could suddenly treat him as though he were deaf.
She smiled sheepishly, and looked at Albedo. He held up a hand, which was soon enveloped in bright pink mana. He watched his own mana swirl around him.
"Lemme help fix that. Sorry." Gwendolyn said, her voice filtering loudly through the speaker above him. "I'll guide it, you pull it back to you."
His current "room" needed to be airtight, not just standard leak proof. If air could escape, so could his mana. No one had to tell him, he knew he'd die if he lost all of his mana. Despite mana not having a physical DNA based form, his own mana contained as much of his genetic data as the Omnitrix he was bound to. He couldn't safely lose anything. Thanks to the technicians and Hypnos' foresight, instead of escaping when he lost his focus, his mana just swirled around him.
He cupped his hands as Future Prime Gwendolyn and current Gwendolyn, who taught him a very useful but dangerous spell, taught him. He focused. His bluish red eyes glowed a dim blue violet. The swirling mana coalesced into a swirling sphere in his hands. Slowly, it disappeared, fading back into his deep blue violet, nearly pure black hands.
He slumped back against the wall of the tank, allowing himself to side down. He was almost certain that the only reason he was able to do that easier was due to Juggernaut helping him out.
Gwendolyn smiled at him. "You're getting better at this. It's only been a few weeks. I'm impressed."
He instinctively nursed a headache he knew he should have, but didn't, his hands massaging his temples. "I don't have much choice to not improve. I can't do anything else unless I do."
Her smile wavered.
"I fear I am starting to worry the others." Albedo filled in the silence between them. "Why can I revert back to a human, yet not retain the form?"
She looked at him. "I-"
"You know right? If you tell me, it will make sense to me and then I can fix it." He pressed her, dropping the end of the scarf. He almost huddled against the wall of the tank, his wide anodite eyes focusing on her. The end of the scarf laid on his raised knees like a blanket.
She shook her head, "I can't tell you. Yes, I know why it's not working for you, but I can't tell you outright, because it's not something I figured out myself or you figured out for yourself."
"Future Gwendolyn Prime told you then?"
"Yes." Gwendolyn moved so she was standing in front of him.
His eyes glowed more intensely as she neared. He focused, catching his mana in his hands as Juggernaut warned him his focus was wavering.
"As I'm sure Paradox told you, the Universe will kill to keep itself properly aligned. So, this whole can't-change-back thing is something you need to work out on your own. I can help you, but it's not going to matter if I just tell you. You might wind up being stuck even further as an Anodite or worse." Gwendolyn kept her focus on him.
He lowered his gaze, "Is it something truly terrible?"
She shook her head, "Only if you can't get the basics concerning mana down. Anodites who can't hold themselves together..."
"Fade away, memories first. I know..."
Gwendolyn looked away, something on her mind. "...I've been thinking about this for a while. How about instead of focusing on getting you to maintain your human form, for now, how about we work on maintaining your anodite form?"
He looked at her.
"We can shift between the two abilities." Gwendolyn shifted to her own anodite form. Her bright lavender skin stood out to him most. Next, how quickly she had shifted. Curious bright pink eyes looked at him as she waited for his answer.
Juggernaut spoke to him, weighing the pros and cons in his head as soon as thought of them. The process was smooth, and he had to admit it helped him ease up his focus on more mundane things so he could actually focus on not fading away in the wind.
If he understood his anodite form more, he might be able hold it off better when in his human form. He'd be able to stretch and walk around outside his current "room". Juggernaut agreed. So he nodded. "Alright."
"Want to start now, or take a break?"
"I feel like I already took a break?" He tilted his head, a small smile of amusement on his face.
She shook her head. "You're a work-a-holic, like myself. That wasn't a break. That was us thinking about what we were going to do next while analyzing what happened."
He thought about it, and to his mild disgust, for the umpteenth time since Future Gwendolyn Prime needed to return to her own duties, he and Juggernaut agreed with Gwendolyn Tennyson. They decided on a bit of a longer break, and then resumed their practice with a different focus.