foolishwren | 032. Video

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Current Location: An undisclosed location near Azalea

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032. Video

_{[Beep beep! What's that, Lassie? An incoming message?! Oh, looks like it's coming from one Hal 'Otacon' Emmerich's PokeGear! How lovely. What does the nerd have to say toda-- .... HEY, THAT'S NOT OTACON!]

[The screen blips into life on a face that's bruised, scraped, and... freckled?]

[Once its owner is sure the thing is on, she withdraws-- making herself a little easier to identify. Sheepish smile and all.]

[Behind her appears to be a standard little camp set up in the woods-- nothing... really fancy. But she's not the only one there-- somewhere behind her, there's.... some shirtless guy wandering around and his indistinct bitching about something or other can be heard.]

[The mat-furred, sleepy Growlithe in her lap just looks content to be there, although it's obvious he's had it as rough as his owner.]}

So. Uh.

_{[Her voice is a painful-sounding croak-- hardly more than a shadow of what it is normally.]}

Apparently I'm a wanted criminal.

... Anyone know what I did? ... Was it awesome?

I love that mugshot. It's so majestic.

_{[Yeah, she's making light of it, but her heart's not... really into it. Though it's sort of hard to tell the difference between that and the plain old exhaustion that's obviously leaking into her every movement and word.]

[... Meanwhile, in the background, Liquid has noticed that the camera's on and has started flexing his manly man-muscles at it in true Photobomb fashion. Heather doesn't notice yet.]}

Uh... anyway... I'm not... sure how long I was gone, and my 'Gear is uh... pretty thoroughly broken-- Hal's off in town getting stuff to repair it with, so... if anyone... like, tried to contact me, m'sorry, I probably didn't get it...

I uh... really hope everyone's all right.

_{[She probably doesn't need to clarify that she's talking about that fog. Now that she knows what had happened wasn't real, and that others had experienced their OWN nightmares... well, let's just say she's really hoping she didn't knock anyone's skull in. ... And the question "DID I knock anyone's skull in?" is implied at the end of her statement.]}

......

_{[And around that time, her Heather Senses pick up on Liquid's trolling behind her, so she reaches out to turn the camera off while looking over her shoulder.]}

Liquid, get the fuck out.

_{[End feed.]}

[Locked to Kaito and Rise]

[Another video feed, a little later than the first one, but not by too long. Otacon apparently was able to fix the 'Gear enough that Heather could receive those two messages that had been waiting a good week and a half to be received by this point.]

[And... judging by her hardly-disguised guilty expression, she's more than feeling the weight of guilt for worrying her friends. Especially since she saw Rise just the previous day and hadn't... even known how ... candid a message she'd left days before.]

[After a couple seconds, she breaks into a sheepish, crooked grin.]

Uh... hey, guys...

... I got your messages...

[Locked to Harry, James, and Mary]

_{[This one's in text, because she knows good and well that James at the very least will be freaking out over how she looked in that video feed, and she's not sure she can take his quiet concerned expressions.]

[But she can't avoid sending this-- if she saw Silent Hill in that fog, then she's... pretty sure that they'd have seen something similar. ... Well, she's not sure about Mary, actually, but given the connection... better safe than sorry.]}

are you guys alright

(typing is hard, sorry for no caps)_

-heather

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[

um.]

...in a manner of speaking. [Spirit-channeling assistant. An entire case revolving around the false words of a dead man who testified through the body of said spirit-channeling assistant's mother. Kind of involved with the occult, really!]

_{[Close, but no cigar.]}

... Well, if you've ever dealt with an honest-to-goodness cult... you'll know that a lot of bad shit is usually going on under the surface, and that they're damn good at keeping it that way.

_{[The Order'd had a way of making those who opposed them disappear, and getting away with it.]}

Not...a cult, no.

[the Mafia? Briefly. Crazy prosecutors? Definitely. Crazy conspiracies? ALL THE TIME. So, really, he gets what you're talking about.]

But I've dealt with people who... [a slight hesitation] ...who would do anything to keep their crimes hidden. Anything at all.

Then I guess you know a little what these people were like.

_{[Except that they were so underground she wasn't sure they'd EVER been taken to court at all. Even the man who had attacked her and her father back in '94 had never been officially linked to the cult. Probably because they dropped the case like a hot potato as soon as they'd decided that Harry had killed in self-defense and hadn't bothered investigating why he'd been attacked...]}

There were investigations sometimes, but one way or another they were never linked to anything.

Most people just thought of them as yet another funny backwoods church and probably didn't question it much further. _{[Unless they were in on it themselves.... willingly or unwillingly.]}

[...hearing this story is...really, it's hard for Phoenix.

Because he knew that if HE was there, these cases would not be settled until they were solved. It was his duty as a awyer, and it's always shocked him, how other members of law enforcement are so...so stupid.

You can see the anger clearly in his expression, and the Pokegear shakes ever so slightly as his hands clench.]

That's...

That's ridiculous.

If they're going around killing people, then--!

[Ooh, yes, Phoenix is pretty damn furious atm.]

_{[Oh, Phoenix... If this is how angry you get just hearing a whiff of the story, you have no idea what you're in for should you have the patience to stick through this tale to its finish, with all the twisted little cul-de-sacs of murder, magic, and corruption. But for the moment, thankfully, you probably won't be getting anywhere NEAR the full story. Heather doesn't play well when it comes to the whole 'let it all out' concept... this is a case that Phoenix may very well need to wind up with a lot of patience for if he wants to eventually be able to piece together the whole thing.]

[But it's safe to say that he won't like what he hears.]

[This is just the barest of bones, lawyer-man.]}

What can I say... they're good at what they do.

_{[There's an odd little mirthless smirk twitching up one corner of Heather's mouth, but her eyes say that she doesn't actually find it too amusing.]}

A lot of it happens within the cult itself, and everybody knows they're strange-ass folks, so nobody really questions it. There's never anything to find when the cops DO poke their noses in, so why bother?

... Anyway.

We go back a ways, me and them.

[Well, Phoenix gets worked up about the smallest of things. Especially when they involve crimes, and whether justice has been served or not. Because he's that one lawyer that actually BELIEVES in justice, that one that no one believes exists.

...well, until that new show they have on CBS, at least, but either way. He came first.

...ALRIGHT TO BE HONEST Perry Mason came first, but HE didn't have to solve conspiracy theories on quite the scale that Phoenix does, but I digress.]

But, I mean--if they're a group that's already known for having, er..."questionable" actions, then it should be the duty of the police to investigate it as thouroughly as possible. _{There's always a clue somewhere. Murderers are far from perfect, right?}

[...he slowly calms himself down, shifting a bit so he can bring his knees clser to his chest, picking up the Pokegear and holding it instead of having it rest on top of his hands as he had before.]

...way back?

_{[Yeah, Heather hasn't had the luxury of meeting anybody like that in her world. To her, justice was something that either didn't exist, or had existed once but had been driven into extinction long before she'd been around.]}

There's clues. They weren't perfect at all. They're pretty damn sloppy, actually... they're just... good. They have people who cover up for them. Lots of people.

_{[The doctors had probably ditched them by this point, but at least back when she'd been Alessa, the local hospital had been a powerful ally to the Order. And Heather had no doubt that they weren't the only ones who were in it up to their necks.]}

I know there were a few police who tried to expose them. Find the drug rings and break them up.

But they weren't safe either.

_{[She'd never met Cybil... but Harry had told her the stories about his brave friend, and now Heather was old enough to have worked out that the policewoman had almost certainly died in the fray of what had happened on that horrific summer night eighteen years ago.]}

......

... My ... mother was one of their leaders. A... priestess.

_{[She made a sort of... nasty face as she said both the words 'mother' and 'priestess', like they tasted bad.]}

Even if they were sloppy. Someone--someone should have been able to put them together. Regardless of the danger, it's--_{it's only right.}

[...if you haven't noticed, Phoenix has no qualms about putting his life on the line for others. Especially clients, and ESPECIALLY friends. It's not that he misunderstands the degree of danger involved with this Order, but...hell, when you can stand (relatively) tall in the face of the mafia, you're either incredibly brave or incredibly stupid. In Phoenix's case, it's probably a mix of both.]

If these officers weren't..."safe", then shouldn't somebody have noticed? _{Like, I don't know--if this Order was as dangerous as you say, couldn't you get the FBI involved? Or something?}

[...and at the mention of her mother, well. It's...actually, it's a bit unexpected, being the most personal reveal Heather's given him this whole conversation. Remembering his own mother, bless her heart, Phoenix's expression softens.]

_{...I'm sorry.}

[Because it doesn't take a genius to figure out that being a priestess in this crazy shit was probably NOT a good thing.]

_{[Heather gives him a sort of hard look. She knows he means well, but... he is naive. SO naive.]}

A lot of things happen that aren't 'right' every single day.

It ran deeper than the police, all right? There was nothing normal about any of this. _{[Hell, it ran deeper than the people. It was the town itself. If the very land that place was built on wanted its twisted little following to stay untouched, it'd damn well make it so. But Heather doesn't know how to say that without sounding crazy. Sometimes it sounds crazy even to her-- if she hadn't experienced it all personally, she probably wouldn't have believed it herself.]

[She hadn't even gotten to explaining the monsters yet.]

[At Phoenix's apology, she looked aside and raised a dismissive hand.]}

No need to apologize... the bitch has been dead for a good long while now.

_{[Eighteen years, in fact. God rest her soul. NOT.]}

[Hey, he can't help it. He'd be heartbroken if he knew the police couldn't do anything.]

I never said it was "normal." Crimes are never normal. [a pause.] But just because it isn't normal doesn't mean that there's no way to handle it. [Conspiracies, conspiracies...if was sounding so much like one, to Phoenix, and boy was he used to having to tackle those.

--and at calling her mom a bitch, well. Phoenix visibly flinches. He can't imagine how anyone would be able to call their own mother that without a second thought, but...Heather's situation wasn't exactly normal. Distasteful as he thought it was, he's not going to mention it.]

...I take it you two weren't close.

_{[The Order had weaved an impossibly tangled web, even within their own ranks. It probably went deeper even than Heather knew-- Alessa had only been seven when she'd been... 'disappeared', after all... and after that, there had been little more than the walls of a basement hospital room and the depths of her own mind left for her.]

[Heather just shook her head, looking tired.]}

You're not from my neck of the woods, Phoenix.

Things are different there.

_{[And then, perhaps a little cruelly, she adds--]}

We don't have lawyers with shining briefcases to come save the day.

_{[SOB WHY COULDN'T SILENT HILL BE MORE LIKE ACE ATTORNEY.]

[Her tone is also chilly when she addresses the second subject.]}

That's one way of putting it.

_{[It's in bad taste, yeah-- although Heather has her reasons. They're some very justified reasons. If Phoenix wound up staying in for the long haul and got the full story out of her bit by bit, he would learn them. ... And he just might agree with her.]}

[His naiivette is being put to the test here, sure -- but no matter how much Heather denies it, he can't help but think that every problem has a solution. You just need to work hard enough.

...and at that second comment, Phoenix...just sighs wearily and responds;]

I wish you did.

_{Maybe I could have helped.}

[You would expect him to be angry, but, no -- he's far more upset by the fact that no one did help than Heather's cold remarks. Oh, Phoenix.

...and the sad look remains on his face while he responds to the mother issue. It's not pity, no. Just...sadness. And worry. Phoenix always worries.]

That must be...hard.

_{[It definitely is-- if it can last through the whole story once he eventually hears it? Then it's the stuff of legend because that's A PRETTY IMPRESSIVE FEAT.]}

... I doubt it. But I guess it would've been nice.

_{[Maybe.]

[She shrugs her shoulders a little.]}

Not as hard as you'd think.

_{[It was being CLOSE that had been the hard part. Dahlia was poison to everything she touched, and it was safe to say that Alessa had been the one most often on the receiving end of that.]}

Anyway, Dahlia-- ... that's her-- ... _{[Because she sure as hell wasn't going to refer to that batshit old witch as 'mother' any more...]} ... she tried to ... invoke powers she shouldn't have messed with.

[Hey, Phoenix is practically the stuff of legend as it is -- would not surprise me one bit!]

...once we get back home, if there's any way I can help... [He leaves it hanging there. Because, really, Heather's been using past-tense, so he FIGURES the situation has been dealt with already...but you never know.

--and then his expression visibly PALES at the mention of a woman named "Dahlia." Ooh, boy.]

D-Dahlia...

[He looks away for a second, a momentary look of sadness in his eyes -- befor ehe shakes his head a bit and turns back to face the camera.]

She messed with..."powers?"

_{[That particular catastrophe is long since over-- although the repercussions still echo onwards, as repercussions often do. The offer tugs Heather's heartstrings a little-- enough to make a brief ghost of a smile flash on her face. It's sweet even if she thinks it's futile. But it disappears when he turns white as a sheet at the mention of Dahlia.]

[OBVIOUSLY he doesn't know her, but generally you didn't have THAT kind of reaction unless the name had some significance. Which makes her curious.]}

... Yeah.

She wanted to summon the ancient god of the town.

_{[Her voice took on a sarcastic snarl.]}

I guess because she had nothing better to do.

_{[IT GOT BORING IN SILENT HILL ON WEEKENDS OK.]}

The..."god" of the town?

[At this point, he gains the first signs of dubiousness he's shown for the entire conversation, and even then his more curious than everything else. Anything with the words "summoning" and "god" in the same sentence can't end well.

...and he's still looking a bit sickly because of the mention of Dahlia. Considering the irony of it all, you can see a bit of a sardonic grin tug the corners of his mouth.]

Yeah. _{[He'd heard her right.]}

... Even I don't know ... everything, but... there's something wrong with that place. Has been for years. It's not like a haunted house or some dumb Ghost Hunter shit like that. It's... hard to describe.

... But anyway, she wanted the power. Or maybe she just wanted to dick with the world. Hell if I know.

So she and some of the cult's allies decided to try.

...if it's true that there was a...a "god" there, then maybe it was just...sacred. [He says the word tentatively, furrowing his brow as he says it. This is certainly not his area of expertise, and it shows.] But, if there was something wrong with it, why didn't you move somewhere else? _{Don't tell me you weren't able to?}

...power, huh. [Wasn't that, ultimately, what his Dahlia had wanted? dicking with the world, that is. She ruined so many people's lives for her own selfish means. Maybe it was revenge, but Phoenix had never thought she would have that petty a motive.

...but in the end, there were so many things that he hadn't known about her. She was practically alien to him, despite having dated him for a whole six months. It was crazy.]

It was sacred. ... According to history, anyway. It used to be considered hallowed ground by the native people who lived there before European settlers drove 'em out. Or something.

_{[Her father, long after the fact, had done quite a bit of research on that town... the notes were all he'd really left behind.]

[The question just got... sort of a look. Which was answer enough for the question. Sort of hard to just move somewhere else when you were a seven-year-old girl, Phoenix. ... Even harder when you were the charred remains of a seven-year old girl, strapped onto a bed and being kept alive in the basement of a hospital...]}

In order for the god to be brought into the world, someone had to ... be sacrificed.

_{[That was a kind term, as it implied they just needed to die. The truth was a lot worse. And she's not sure she wants to share it with Phoenix. Not yet.]}

...some kind of Native American folk curse? _{Or something?} [This is sounding more and more like a horror story every second.

...which would make sense.]

..."sacrificed?" [That look spoke volumes upon volumes, and while Phoenix...has a fairly good idea as to what she's hinting at, he doesn't want to mention it unless Heather decides to bring it up herself. For being a lawyer, he's awfully respectful of other's privacy.]

Could be. Beats me, I guess. I don't think anyone'll ever know for sure. _{[That much was lost to the depths of history-- though it would explain a lot... all the strange things that had happened there throughout the centuries... Horror story indeed.]

[Heather's quiet for a moment. She'd been... fairly frank with Otacon and Kaito, but then, she knew them better than Phoenix. ... And neither of them were lawyers. ... She'd go for the short version and he could figure the rest out for himself.]}

I was seven.

_{[... And that, Phoenix, is why she called her mother a bitch.]}

...maybe that's for the best. [Because sometimes, just sometimes, secrets are better left as secrets. Which is pretty rare, considering that he's a lawyer, but, really, he was pretty out of his depth here in the first place.

--and, well, that pretty much clinches it for him, and that purely sad look returns to his face. Poor Heather. What had she done to deserve that?]

_{I'm sorry.}

In this case... yeah, I think it is. _{[Maybe it would mean that for the rest of its existence, people would continue blindly living out their lives on that land, perhaps getting snared and sucked in by its darkness, perhaps escaping it like she had (though she had helped to shape it into what it was...), or maybe blaze right on through life without ever even knowing how close they were to the poison, like a bullet only just missing a gas tank.]}

.... s'all right. It was a long time ago.

_{[The answer was nothing. Nothing but being a little strange, and having no friends outside of the cult who might have been able to actually cry foul when the papers said that fire had been accidental, and maybe being born with a sociopath for a mother. Those had been Alessa Gillespie's only crimes.]

[That look on his face is one she's never seen on a lawman before (apart from Douglas, but then, HE really HAD a reason to apologize to her... a BIG reason...) and it kind of tugs on her heartstrings a little. It's honestly a little weird, from her perspective, to see someone in Phoenix's line of work (not that she knew any, just had a mental image of them along the same lines as every other lawful institution that had been so utterly unhelpful to her and Harry throughout everything) show this kind of emotion. And have it be... y'know, sincere.]

[... So she'll spare him the details of what that sacrifice really entailed. Not that she'd been planning on sharing them anyway, but she kind of didn't want to see that sad look get worse.]}

You would know best. [...you say this, Phoenix, but in all likelihood, were you back at home, you would be digging into this like a dog on meat. Without telling Heather, of course, because she's done with this. He wouldn't want to drag her back into it...so he makes a mental note to head for Maine once they get back home, and drops the subject.]

...that doesn't make it any better. [And that sad look? Now it's more...pained, almost. Empathetic. Because some wounds have a nasty way of never healing -- and you know this all too well, don't you, Phoenix? It's a given that he definitely hasn't been through nearly as much bullshit as Heather, but his scars run deep regardless.]

[video; private; Me neither, tbh! And then it turns out Phoenix was a wild kid in college--]

[video; private; FFFFF OH PHOENIX. Heather's just JADED AND HAS A PERVY SENSE OF HUMOR SOMETIMES]

[video; private; IF ONLY I'D APPED AS HOBO!PHOENIX. YOU TIHNK HEATHER'S JADED? PFFFFT]

[video; private; FFFF awww hoboPhoenix. ;-; Does he really lose his BRIGHT-EYED NAIIVETE?]

[video; private; S-SADLY, THIS IS TRUE. ;__; He becomes like a whole nother person it's so SAD]

[video; private; DB oh man poor bb]

[video; private; I knoooow ;___; /pets him]

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[video; private; aaah sorry I almost lost this again ghlljhhjk]

[video; private; IT'S OKAY I STILL LOVE YOU <3]

[video; private; D-DO YOU REALLY ;; ]