70. [DREAM/DREAM/DREAM/DREAM]
[So while the rest of Johto alternately panics, cries, or rushes around trying to capture as many of the soulstealing insects as possible, there are dozens of souls floating around in that dream limbo, drifting in and out of each other's slumbering thoughts and visions. Whether it's nightmarish flashbacks or just those dreams where you're at school
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[So let's just say that when light blared down from above and what seemed to her to be the BIGGEST VOICE IN THE HISTORY OF EVER boomed out a command directly above her head... her heart came pretty close to imploding.]
[Later on, she would deny that such a shrill, squeaky noise ever came out of her-- but it would be a lie, because the first thing Heather Mason did was scream and whirl around in the spotlight like a terrified criminal, fumbling her handgun out of her pocket and aiming it straight upwards into the blinding light with arms that shake like leaves.]
[What was that. What was that. WHAT the everloving FUCK was THAT?!]
KHAAAAAUGH SON of a--!!
[She starts firing. ... Not that... handgun bullets... will probably do anything...]
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[Regular handgun bullets do no more harm to his armored exterior than flies would. Still, they're irritating, and he lifts a hand to shield his face out of reflex, snarling something indignant in Cybertronian -- a language Epps always swore sounded like a whale had mated with a dial-up modem.]
Put that down!
[Because that's totally going to help. Still cursing, the old warrior flicks off the high-beams, letting regular old headlight... light... flood down into the hole.]
Autobot! Ironhide! Put your weapon away, you wretched--eugh!
[The last is an irritated, grumpy huff of a sound. As only Ironhide could ever deliver.]
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[Being a good shooter-- and Heather is a good shooter, after being put to the test so ruthlessly two years before-- means next to nothing when the thing you're shooting at is BIGGER THAN GOD (literally. She's SEEN God.) and the bullets aren't even leaving dents. She pulls the trigger over and over, and it's at about the point where he starts with the Orca-on-Oldschool-Internet-Explorer noises that suddenly her faithful weapon just starts making clikclikclik noises when she tries to fire.]
[Shit.]
[Holding the gun up anyway (because disobeying that order in favor of keeping the ability to pistol-whip a face that's the size of the front of a schoolbus is so what's gonna keep her safe right now), Heather stumbles backwards hurriedly-- not that there's anywhere to go. She's like a mouse in a jar, with a pair of big bright cat eyes staring in at her from above-- or at least that's the comparison that her panicking senses spit out at her.]
S-STAY BACK! I'll shoot your eyes out!
[Her shout is thin, shaky, and unimpressive next to his, but to her credit, there's a lot of fire in it-- not that it means much, considering her next big ~menacing~ move is to topple over backwards with a small cascade of cardboard boxes when she abruptly backs into one of the displays.]
GOD DAMMIT!
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[But... then he stops. That voice is familiar again.]
[Slowly, he leans forward, rising up on his feet as best he can, in order to see better. He has to angle his head, letting his good optic do most of the viewing. But it's in time to see the figure fall over.]
[Ironhide... blinks.]
... Heather?
[He thought she said she was familiar with guns. What in the world was she just trying to do?]
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[When his face comes into better view, Heather's on her back amidst a jumble of brightly-colored souvenir containers, legs hooked over a crumpled cardboard cutout of one of the park's many mascots, eyes wide as saucers and whole torso heaving with the effort of getting enough air in to calm her heart, which is, as she'd put it, "totally spazzing out". And at the sound of that huge robotic voice speaking her name, she sucks in a wheezy breath and starts to scramble backwards-- ... only to stop.]
[The frightened, tooth-baring grimace that had been on her face before is replaced by a confused (and still pretty terrified) frown as the facts in front of her start to sink in. .... And then it clicks.]
[In the space of about three seconds, her face runs through a rather impressive array of emotions-- first bewilderment, then fear, then utter relief ... before finally settling on mad.]
[She opens her mouth a couple of times, decides 'Ironhide' has too many syllables, and just yelps--]
YOU!
[Rolling onto her side limply, she lets her head meet the floor with an audible THUNK.]
You almost gave me a HEART ATTACK! JEEZ! I thought you were-- ... DON'T DO THAT!
[EVER AGAIN. EVER AGAIN. Oh god, did she even have a heart anymore? Or had it just vibrated itself into antimatter by this point? Wheeze.]
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[Fortunately, his estimate of her intelligence was right. She catches on quick enough... and he just waits, watching with a neutral expression. Hopefully it doesn't look too much like a scowl, but with his face? Who knows.]
Yeah. Me.
[He tilts his head at her when she rolls over. Was... that a normal reaction? Or was she having some sort of muscle spasm? All Spark, how was he supposed to know? Where was Ratchet when you needed his unnecessary explanations?]
[Then she's berating him. Good -- she's coherent enough to yell at him. Ironhide huffs out a wash of vaguely mechanical-scented air through his vents.]
How was I supposed to know it was you? Hmn? Just saw the light.
[There's a quiet whir of components as he allows the cannons to power down. But not fold away. Not yet.]
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YEAH, well-- ... I-- just-- this place is dangerous, okay? You don't-- just-- ... lean in on people like that when you're like, bigger than Jesus!
[She kicks a box of marshmallow rabbits off to the side and finally starts to pick herself up, reaching out for the aforementioned flashlight in the process, which had gotten dropped in all the flailing. She clicks it on and off a couple of times to make sure it's not broken.]
I thought you were-- ... I don't even know what I thought you were.
[That inevitable sense of fatigue that always occurs after a surge of panic is starting to creep in, and Heather lets her arms hang limply as she looks up at the robotic face outside the skylight, her temper starting to drain away.]
A UFO, maybe.
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[His head cants to one side, scanning through databanks. Then he looks around, taking in the sight of the decimated, rusting amusement park. The lifeless structures. And back to Heather.]
Yeah. This looks deadly.
[Your sarcasm is unhelpful, old man. He shifts in place, part of him wanting to reach down and offer her one huge, scarred hand, and the other part informing him that even if he was big enough to reach all the way in, his joints probably wouldn't let him bend that way.]
Was one. At one point. Landed in a pool. Hmn.
[He gives the area another wary look around. Despite his earlier words, he is still clearly on guard.]
What is all this?
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[In a way, that had almost been a relief... that numbness may have been what allowed her to keep going without suffering a total mental breakdown, but it had also made her feel inhuman. Fear was very human. As much as she hated being afraid, that first post-Silent-Hill nightmare she'd woken up in drenched in sweat and spluttering from had been sort of like getting cancer tests back negative, except instead of 'Congratulations, it's not a tumor', it was 'Congratulations, you're still a person, not a broken emotionless automaton'.]
[... But that was quite awhile ago. Right now, the fact that her heart had been pumping so hard that her ribcage hurt was just annoying.]
[Huffing, she leans down to start picking up all the various odds and ends that spilled out of her pockets when she fell-- bullets, band-aids, more keys than anybody would know what to do with...]
Yeah, yeah, easy for you to say... you're the size of a house. Some of us are a little more bite-sized and meaty than a walking junkyard... [Her voice gets a little lower in volume on those last couple of words, because as cheeky as Heather is, her survival instincts are shaking their heads and mouthing 'no' at the thought of mouthing off to something that could squish her like a gnat.]
This is a themepark. What's it look like?
[She knows that's not what he meant, but ... how exactly does one explain something like... well, this? Hell, she's not even sure how he GOT here...]
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[Though, had he been more in-tune with his human comrades, he probably would have known what exactly he was looking at. And then understood.]
Watch it. This 'walking junkyard' can still take a few faceplates.
[Yes, that's right. Take a few faces. Optimus had to learn it from somewhere -- although Ironhide hasn't seen that part of his timeline, yet. He doesn't sound angry, though. He's too used to dealing with attitude. His most recent student was practically made of it. And so was Cliffjumper.]
Noticed that. A theme park where?
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Hmph...
[Stuffing the mess of seemingly-random bits and pieces back into their respective holding places, Heather bites her lip briefly in indecision. ... But it doesn't last long. He was HERE and that meant she couldn't dance around the truth. At least not as much as she often did in Johto.]
Maine. Rural. Way out in the boonies. An old historical town that hardly anybody except historians and honeymooners've heard of. S'called Silent Hill.
[... And then, after a brief pause, she adds--]
My hometown.
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[The name earns a blink, and a scowl. It's not in his databanks, and, if it was in rural Maine, it should be. Unless the maps he'd downloaded had been completely off.]
Yeah... never heard of it. Not in any of my databases.
[Her hometown? Her 'bad neighborhood'? Another slow look around -- and she really wasn't kidding. Their new prison was a true improvement, as far as he could tell.]
[Unfortunately, tact isn't something he has to spare. When he speaks again, it's direct, and blunt as a rusty spoon. As usual, pretty much.]
... Your hometown looks worse than mine.
[And Megatron had worked Metrotitan over good. Corpses hanging from the buildings and everything.]
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[She waves a hand, slightly dismissively.]
S'all right... honestly, I kinda figured that'd be the case. Your Earth is probably a little different than mine... seems to be the case with a lot of the worlds people are from... [And it's kind of a relief to hear that Silent Hill doesn't exist in every world... even the ones that shared most everything else.]
[The second comment actually makes her snort. It might be blunt, but hey, it's the truth! And it's not like there's any love lost between Heather and this place... well, from Heather's end, anyway.]
That doesn't surprise me. S'not always like this... but then, far's I'm concerned, 'this' is the only thing that matters. [You couldn't pay Heather to venture back to even the normal Silent Hill, the one on the surface that most people saw, never knowing or feeling everything that lurked, just a thin layer of reality away... but then, she supposed she didn't HAVE to be paid... she seemed to get dragged back here in her dreams often enough, whether she wanted to be or not.]
Look, I'm gonna come out of the building, all right? Don't-- uh, go anywhere.
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[Especially if the Autobots and Decepticons aren't brawling across Egypt in her world. Someone had to have heard about that little escapade, after all.]
[He frowns at her comment, looking around again. Personally, he doesn't see anything important. Unless the girl has a secret passion for rust that she never let on about. If that was so, he'd have to show her his right foot. That canine and its lubricants... eugh.]
What is so important about this place? Hmn?
[An empty desert was more important than this place, it seemed like. But at her request, he nods, and turns his attention back to their surroundings. Empty as it looked, he didn't want to let his guard down too much.]
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[She emerges from the doorway a few seconds later, picking her way down the narrow stairs with some difficulty-- it wasn't particularly obvious while she was flailing around in the store, but she's moving with a bit of a limp.]
It's ... a really long story. ... And not a very nice one, m'fraid.
Unless you're a horror enthusiast.
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[But it doesn't seem like she's fairing all that well either. He studies her, one knee to the ground, his elbow resting on the other. Both cannons are still unfolded, clearly on display.]
Stories from 'bad neighborhoods' rarely are. Probably heard a lot worse.
[He waves a hand toward her.]
What happened to you?
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