Ben10 & Digimon Tamers
Heroes and Humanity
Part 02: Humanity and Heroes
The Beginning – Chapter 23
Originally Written: Tuesday, July 7, 2015 516PM to 1101PM
When Albedo entered Ryo's car he immediately felt Ryo's eyes on him. He stared straight ahead, pulling his jacket closed and wrapping his arms around himself. He shook as though someone left him in the snow in his underwear. He refused to check if Fridge, Swamps and Hugh were behind him, as planned.
"Al?"
Albedo stayed silent. There was no way he could do what Jenrya did. He had only looked at the lights out of reflex. That was the kind of argument he and Jenrya got into. He hadn't expected to blow out the lights like Jenrya had, and in front of three aliens who could tear his human form to pieces to boot.
"You're shaking bro..." Ryo spoke again.
He still felt his hands tingling. "J-just drive. I-I don't care where you go." He forced himself to speak for no other reason than the chance of being attacked. Maybe they had called the Plumbers or Jenrya on him in another attempt to help him. He shook his head and gripped his hair.
"Take a deep breath." Ryo spoke as he started the car. "Count back from five while you do it."
Albedo counted, "Five...Four..."
"Nice and slow."
He was vaguely aware of Ryo pulling out of the parking lot.
"Now exhale. Count to five."
He focused on his breathing. His arms dropped from his hair.
"Clear your mind. Let everything go. There's always time to worry about it later." Ryo continued.
Albedo stared ahead, breathing and counting. He slumped back into his seat, as though he were resting. His hands stopped tingling, and he stopped shaking as well. He closed his eyes.
"Inhale."
Black greeted him. No images of three aliens annoyed and frustrated with him. No Rika yelling at him as though he was evil incarnate. No Jenrya ignoring him. None of Tennyson's aliens attacking him. Just black. It was pretty nice, if he said so himself.
He sat like that for a while, as Ryo drove. He did not allow himself to fall asleep however. A part of him outside the blankness of his mind knew that would not go well.
When he opened his eyes, he recognized that Ryo had come to the food court. His eyes automatically drifted over to the familiar table. Saya was there, as well as Akira, overseeing faces he recognized due to how close Ryo had parked.
"I think sitting with them would do you good." Ryo chimed. "Not today though, unless you really wanted to."
Albedo nodded slowly. Cake and paper plates and cups sat on the table in the spaces between the teenagers textbooks, notebooks, pens and pencils. Albedo turned so he faced the window more. He rested his hands against the car door. "What are they...?"
Ryo chuckled, "They really miss you, and they're having a little bit of difficulty keeping the motivation going. I think they're trying out throwing a mini party to boost morale, or when someone does good on a test. I can't remember for sure."
Abedo eyed the two liter bottles of soda on the floor next to the table. "I see." He lowered his eyes. He wasn't sure before, but now he could easily tell from watching Saya walk around the table checking others' work. She had become one of the, if not the main instructor of the group and probably worked hard to continue whatever dream she believed he had. He turned from looking out the window and closed his eyes. He could only imagine how much Saya's grades had dropped. There was no way a simple human could look at others' work when they had so much of their own to contend with. It was one of the main reasons why he considered smaller class sizes such a big deal.
He tilted his head up and looked at the ceiling of the car. 'Help us, help you.' Swamps had selfishly demanded. So eager to get the ego boost from helping that they didn't see how much trouble they caused in the process. Just like Tennyson himself. What good was he to helping children when something was so off about him even those completely inadequate to assist him wanted to do so?
Something loudly knocked on his window making him jump. He looked out the window to see an odd white and black armored android wave to him with a large metallic silvery-white hand. He blinked at the creature, an odd mix of flesh of an unknown monster or creature and machine. It continued waving completely unaware or caring of how odd the situation now was.
"Just wave back." Ryo spoke, "He won't stop until you do."
Albedo raised a hand and waved. The creature smiled showing off an odd mix of metal and white probably enamel coated teeth. He leaned back as Ryo rolled his window down. He blinked for a moment, name on the tip of his tongue.
"Hello friend!" It called happily.
Albedo squinted, thinking, "...Guardromon?"
"Yes yes!" The digimon nodded, "I am Andromon now though."
Albedo nodded in understanding. "I see." He looked past Andromon and realized that Ryo had parked right next to Kazu's hummer.
"Ryo!" Kazu called from the other side of Ryo's car. Albedo heard two odd hand claps and figured the two males were doing that handshake greeting that reminded him of two men about to play tug of war with each other's arms instead of rope of some kind. He turned around in his seat and looked out the driver side window.
"We were waiting for you to show up before we went to order anything." Kenta smiled. "It took you awhile to get here."
Something light landed on Albedo's head.
"Phoo! Phoo!"
Albedo relaxed and reached a hand up to pet the Digimon.
"Phoo! Phoo!"
"Yea," Ryo chuckled as Kenta looked into the car.
"New guy?" Kenta continued smiling as Kazu leaned into the car window as well.
"New recruit." Ryo looked back at Albedo, "Alex Strong. Showing him the ropes."
Albedo lowered his head. He felt something soft tap his head and he figured it was MarineAngemon again.
"He's a bit nervous."
Albedo moved his head a bit lower in response. "I was previously stationed in America." He spoke slowly, wondering if they would recognize his voice.
"Speaking perfect Japanese like that, already?" Kazu grinned. "You'll be fine. I'm Kazu, this is Kenta..." He looked at Kenta.
Kenta nodded, "I'm his boyfriend." He stuck his tongue out.
Albedo refrained from rolling his eyes.
Kazu laughed, "He's kinda weird about telling new people that." He shrugged his shoulders, "I don't get it, but MarineAngemon is taking a siesta on your head, Andromon is eager to speak with you for whatever reason and we were about to go order some delicious food. So, if you'd like, we'll get you something too!" Kazu pointed to the food court.
Albedo stared at the brunet. He forgot how energetic the male was. He still couldn't understand how Kenta put up with it. Living with Kazu 24/7 would drive him up the wall.
"I'll have my usual." Ryo rested his arm on the car door, his elbow sticking out the window.
Albedo almost said chili fries out of reflex, but that wouldn't have gone well, so he managed to stop himself, "Surprise me." He nodded, "As long as it's not a peanut butter seaweed smoothie, I won't be bothered with what you choose."
"Cool cool." Kazu saluted with two fingers and took the lead as Kenta followed him.
"He is very..." Albedo strained to think of the word.
"Accepting?" Ryo questioned.
"Phoo!" MarineAngemon cried out, "Phoo!"
Albedo shook his head.
"Super spectacularly awesome?"
Albedo looked back at Andromon. "Did he coach you to say that?"
"Phoo! Phoo!"
Ryo laughed as Andromon dropped his head.
"He is not not that to me." He replied in defense.
"Of course." Albedo studied Andromon further. "You can see me? Who I really am?"
"Oh yes." Andromon replied, "MarineAngemon can tell as well."
Albedo looked back at Ryo, feeling adrenaline starting to rush through his veins. He was not in the mood to be yelled at by any of Ryo's friends. He'd walk back to the apartment if he had to.
"You're fine. Not everyone's angry at you. May take a bit of convincing Kenta, but Kazu understands." Ryo nodded. He lowered his head. "If I knew Rika was going over there I would have stopped her." He shook his head. "She doesn't react well to people walking out on their problems or responsibilities, she calls it."
Albedo leaned back into the front passenger seat and stared out the windshield.
"It's complicated..."
"If complications were secrets." Albedo amended.
Ryo laughed halfheartedly. "Yea..."
Well that put an end to that. He had no desire to know anything about her anyway. She didn't have a nice bone in her skeleton directed towards him, and he didn't mind in the least. Just another person to add to the long list of fools who thought he had nothing good going for himself. No skin off his back. He'll just have to prove her wrong too. He clenched his fists against his legs. "Why would Kazu understand?"
"Oh, it's not that he fully understands, or maybe he does. I don't know what you and him have been talking about before you left." Ryo shrugged, "Either way, he's more accepting in general."
"I see..."
Ryo grinned, "Lemme put it this way. Imagine you're a human taking your kid out to get their first vehicle. And your kid says 'Mom, Dad, I can't have a vehicle Guardromon can't fit in."
Albedo looked over to him. That made sense. Guardromon was a pretty large Digimon.
"So, you're taking your kid car shopping and you notice Guardromon's size. He's about the size of a tall, but still on the short side, adult overweight, closer to obese male."
Albedo nodded again.
"But," Ryo held out a finger, "that's not Guardromon's weight."
Albedo's eyes widened in understanding.
"People get on Kazu for being one of those snobs with one of those disgusting gas guzzling vehicles, but they don't realize it's not for Kazu, and he's not showing off."
"It's for Guardromon." Albedo looked back at Andromon who had bowed his head low.
"So Kazu's standing there, trying to tell these car dealers and his parents that you don't want Guardromon sitting in that car, even though it's a perfect fit for him. Guardromon sat in the first car, I think it was a pickup or something like that, and the frame crumbled under his weight."
Albedo covered his eyes with his hand.
"So, he had car dealerships and salesmen yelling at him, Guardromon and his parents even though Kazu kept making it clear that physical size wasn't the only issue. Then they told Kazu that Guardromon should just lose all that packed weight he has. It's not very profitable to do the amount of work needed on the vehicle just to hold Guardromon. Plus there's who pays for the damage to all these cars? The idiot car dealerships who told Guardromon to try out these lightweight vehicles or Kazu and Guardromon?" Ryo waited for Albedo as he processed this new information.
"That's ridiculous." Albedo shook his head, "There's a lot of research on Guardromon. If they can do research on someone's credit score, then why not take the time to do research on Guardromon. Or better yet, just listen to Guardromon's human partner."
"Right?"
"They were practically giving away the information, I gather?"
"Yea." Ryo nodded.
Albedo looked at Andromon, "I'm sorry humans are stupid."
Andromon smiled, "Kazu told me to act very dumb when they asked."
Albedo laughed for a long while. He could not grasp how Guardromon, being a machine, would not come across as heavy to humans.
"I think by the time they found not just a vehicle that Guardromon could fit in, but one he wouldn't break as well, they had wracked up well over 400-500 grand US." Ryo continued, nodding with his eyebrows raised as Albedo stared at him. "The dealerships were spreading word to keep Guardromon away from their cars. Anyone who liked or likes Digimon boycotted. Was a mini vehicle revolution in the making, but it didn't last long before Kazu got a benefactor who would modify the vehicle for Guardromon's needs."
"I see. It must have hit the news stations quite fast."
"Very fast. The benefactor stepped up to keep things from escalating." Ryo looked out the car window. "For a vehicle to fit Guardromon size and weight limits are important, but so is making sure that if Kazu gets into an accident, Guardromon doesn't fly out the vehicle or even land on anyone in the front seat if he's in the back, et cetera, et cetera."
"I do not desire to kill anyone." Andromon spoke, solemn.
"At high speeds it's likely you could knock down a wall. If you're crushing a vehicle, I can only imagine what you'd do to a human."
"Yes..." Andromon nodded. "Kazu said older cars are sturdier, but I could not fit in them."
MarineAngemon flew and landed on Andromon's head.
"So, the benefactor needed to make all these modifications." Ryo spoke, "It's how we found out Kazu's parents are loaded. Like, as rich as Rika was before she started singing, loaded."
Albedo looked at Andromon who nodded again. Then he looked at Ryo.
"They're kinda hippy and wanted to teach Kazu the value of money." Ryo waved a hand.
That made sense for why he never would have considered Kazu to be well-off. Especially since he knew the kind of apartment he and Kenta lived in. Then again, Kazu had told them they only live there so they could save money faster. Hmm...Albedo folded his arms.
"I know you've been in it, but ever take a real good look at Kazu's hummer?" Ryo grinned widely, resting a hand on the steering wheel.
"No, I have not."
"It's a fucking beast. If you get into an accident with Kazu's hummer, the hummer will win. Pretty close to 100% of the time. When the benefactor first did the upgrades, the car could carry him without crumpling to bits after a short while, but the engine caught fire the second Kazu tried to drive."
"Shit." Albedo murmured.
"So, they solved the issue by decking his vehicle out with alien tech." Ryo continued grinning.
"Plumbers were the benefactor?" Albedo looked at Ryo surprised.
"Specifically asked by Hypnos. It'd be chaos if a digimon single-handedly disrupted the entire vehicle business globally. All Kazu and his parents had to do was pay like 50% of the dealership damages. Mostly to get them to shut up. Kazu still has to pay for gas and upkeep. You can't do that without money." Ryo shook his head. "Lots of money. Let me tell ya, he can't wait until they can mod his car to be electric. Thing guzzles gas like an alcoholic does wine."
Albedo looked at Kazu's vehicle. "I can only imagine."
"So folks get mad, like he made an entire big deal just to have a hummer. Cause the whole thing was resolved kinda hush hush." Ryo waved a hand. "Anyway, if there's a human who understands an alien being put through the runner and being just done, it'd be Kazu." Ryo looked out the windshield, watching customers head to their cars.
"I see. I presume you're not Guardromon often?" Albedo looked at the Digimon.
"Andromon is just an easier form to get around with. One dealership asked why I could not just be built as a Guardromon using lighter materials."
Albedo slowly looked at Ryo who had a hand to his face while he shook his head. "Would that not require your entire code being rewritten? Lest if you ever changed from Guardromon to another form, you'd look and weigh just as you did before when you returned?" Albedo clenched his fists.
"Yes," Andromon responded, "but I like my Guardromon form. Kazu says my size and weight as Guardromon make me who I am."
"How do you not break anything just walking around normally as Guardromon?" He questioned. It was a bit of a silly question, but it was better than letting himself stew on the fact Andromon told him that humans believed turning Andromon into a different digimon was a better solution than just catering to him as they did to other human's needs without complaint.
Andromon just stared at him.
"Probably the same way elephants can walk down the street without the whole thing caving in. Weight distribution." Ryo spoke for the tall digimon. "As Andromon, all he has to do is remember to duck when walking through doorways. I remember when Kazu was quite down that although Guardromon could enter places, there was no guarantee he could reliably move around." Ryo leaned into his seat.
"Would you say you and Kazu are grateful for the Plumbers?" Albedo asked tentatively. Knowing Kazu essentially had a debt he could not pay back to them did not make him feel secure. It made him wonder if Rika would turn him in, and Kazu would back her, despite all that Ryo had said suggesting otherwise.
"I would." Andromon nodded, "I can fly, but I'm quite slow. Kazu used to walk everywhere because he didn't want to leave me behind. I would like to be more useful for him."
"Aww, c'mon dude." Ryo spoke. "You know we don't like you saying things like that. You're fine the way you are."
Albedo watched Kazu and Kenta make their way to the car, holding a few bags of food. "I tend to agree, though I have only known you for a short while."
Andromon beamed.
Albedo watched his students longer, even after Kazu and Kenta arrived with the food. He pushed thoughts of the incident between himself and Swamps, Hugh and Fridge to the back of his mind, where they sat with thoughts of Rika and nonacceptance of people as who they were. As Ryo said, there's always time to worry about these things later.
