The steam engine worked! It did the job it was supposed to, but I can’t say that it did a great job of it. The electric motors helped a lot in getting up to speed but the roads weren’t great to start with so I had to keep slowing down. The fastest I got up to was probably 30mph and I was terrified that my boiler was going to explode. On top of that, the temperature and humidity inside must have been pretty uncomfortable for Shea.

“I’m sorry Shea, I was hoping this would be a lot better for you than being on Cyclone...”

“Yeah, even with the windows down I’m sweating like a Hydro Fox. If it wasn’t so HOT and steamy, this would be pretty good.”

“I’m fine,” Elita remarked. “Though honestly, this ride is a lot more boring than being on Cyclone. It’s unfortunate that he can’t maintain speed without you inside Prime.”

Sparky wasn’t bothered at all, and was enjoying sitting at the window; watching the forest go by. It would be weird, I supposed, if a fire squirrel was bothered by a hot car.

“How about we take a little break?” I asked.

“YES!” yelled Shea.

I slowed to a stop and opened the doors to let them out. Shea flung herself out and onto the ground, gasping dramatically for air. Elita just got out and looked around, checking for danger. I opened up the hatch and climbed out. I couldn’t feel the heat in the same way Shea did but IronHide really wasn’t a terribly comfortable ride for me either. Before we go on another road trip, I’m going to have to figure out a better method of propulsion. I didn’t like the idea of building some sort of combustion engine for environmental reasons, but I also didn’t like the idea of being reliant on a specialized fuel. What I needed was to figure out a method to store large quantities of mana. I needed to invent proper “Energon” and batteries. As I tried to nudge my vague thoughts and ideas into one direction or another, Elita grabbed my shoulder and shook me.

“Prime, wake up!”

“Oh, sorry. Thinking about mana consumption and storage. What kind of materials do you think are the most conductive for--”

Elita grabbed my head to stop me from talking and physically turned me around by the face. What I was directed to, was a Stone Dragon that had been crossing ahead of us but now had taken notice of us and was dragging itself our way.

“Ah.”

“Prime, maybe we should back up and find another route,” Shea offered.

“I don’t remember seeing another road to take,” Elita countered, “But I don’t see as we have much of a choice here. Our water and lightning attacks aren’t going to do anything against that monster.”

“Don’t worry ladies, IronHide’s got it. Don’t you buddy?”

“Wait... It doesn’t... really??” Elita stammered.

On cue, IronHide’s armor plating shifted and broke apart. Some parts collapsed and folded in as new parts were revealed and took shape. An arm with a hand the size of Shea flung out from under the truck and punched down into the ground, pushing the truck body upwards. Legs unfolded from the back and the large boiler swung around and locked in on top of the cabin which was now compressed and accordioned into a smaller space. The legs stood the body up as the front engine area pivoted down and folded onto itself to form the chest and torso while the head rose from a hidden compartment and locked into place.

Before them stood IronHide in his humanoid form, towering above at fifteen feet. His head and shoulders pushed into the branches above the road and he had to lean over to keep from getting tangled up. He reached behind and pulled out a long gun made from several connected cylinders and connected by a thick hose to the boiler.

“You feelin’ lucky punk?,” IronHide said as he gestured with the gun.

“Easy IronHide,” I chided.

“Just kidding Prime, I just wanted to show ‘em my cannons.”

“Why are you like this?” Elita asked. “We know it’s you controlling both of those bodies.”

“I think he does it to deliberately mess with us,” Shea offered, completely nonplussed.

“Check it out, it’s a steam gun that can launch projectiles up to six inches wide up to one hundred meters!” I said, ignoring them, as I patted the gun via IronHide.

“That’s great. Do you need our help?” Elita panned.

“Wow. You guys are hard to impress.”

“Whose fault do you think that is Prime?!” Shea snapped at me “Now skooch! Go steam that thing away.” To emphasize her point, she made shooing gestures.

IronHide chuckled to himself as he knelt down and held his hand out for me. “Time ta bust some Decepti-chops.” I turned and gave him a glare as best I could without the ability to actually emote on my face.

“You are so weird,” Elita said, rolling her eyes.

I hopped up into IronHide’s hand as he stood up, and opened up the chest hatch. I climbed in, closed up the hatch, and was fully enveloped in IronHide’s senses rather than my own. My sense of scale had become completely distorted. I didn’t feel gigantic so much as everything else just felt smaller. It might seem the same thing but there’s a distinction. Imagine walking onto an Ultraman set and seeing a bunch of miniature buildings and cars and stuff made of highly breakable materials. You wouldn’t really feel any different in your own senses, but you might feel extra clumsy when everything around you is so fragile.

I moved into the center of the road where I wouldn’t be caught up in the branches as much and the heavy weight of my footfalls caused slight shock waves through the ground, making Shea bounce slightly. Her eyes got as wide as plates as she slowly turned to look at Elita, who ignored her.

I readied my steam blaster and rushed forward. Maybe it was a side effect of the sense of scale shifting, but I felt really heavy. Sure there was a ton of weight on me from all of the armor plating and just being gigantic, but I felt like I was running through water. The feeling seemed to extend to all of my movements though as I jumped into the air. Despite the feeling of weight, my hang time felt like I was just floating along.

I took aim and fired a round at the stone dragon. The shot struck at the base of its neck, shattering one of its stone scales. Its head rocked to the side from the force and it staggered a couple of steps with it. I came down hard on it, swinging my blaster out of the way with one hand and punching downward with the other. My strike hit it squarely on top of the head, smashing its head into the ground. I almost felt like I was bullying a feeble creature made from paper mache. I could feel its stone scales cracking like pottery from the impact of my single attack.

It started to raise its head back up and I smashed my fist into it again, cracking more stone scales. This time, it didn’t get back up again. I looked down on the dead stone dragon, it barely came up to my waist. This was so easy, how were we ever afraid of this thing?

I picked up a limb and dragged it back to where Elita and Shea were standing. Both of them had open mouthed expressions.

“All too easy,” I said, dropping the beast at their feet.

“That’s... that’s not an easy thing to fight Prime... Even a full squad of Automata soldiers would need mage support to take one down,” Elita said in disbelief.

“Well, maybe you guys just aren’t as tough as you think you are.” I regretted the words the instant they left my mouth. Shea looked at the ground and started messing with her belt. Sparky didn’t seem interested and had hopped onto the dragon, inspecting its wounds. Elita looked like she was going to split me in half.

“Prime! You get down here, and I’ll show you just how tough I think I am!” she barked at me.

I transformed back into truck mode, opened the hatch, and climbed out. Elita was fuming, she hadn’t gone for her sword but that didn’t lessen the threat of violence coming off of her. When I got out of IronHide, my sense of scale shifted back. The trees were towering over me. The dragon was massive and towered over me. Elita, towered over me.

“I’m... I’m sorry... I’m not sure why I said that...” I apologized.

Without a word, Elita turned her back on me, drew her sword, and shoved it through a gap in the dragon’s scales in what might be its armpit. She pushed down and a small gush of blood erupted from the wound. She plunged her arm into the wound and pulled out the creature’s mana crystal and held it out to Sparky who briefly touched it. White lights whipped around the stone and into Sparky, who shook himself gently. Elita then held the crystal out to Shea who also touched it. Again, white lights spiraled around the crystal and then into Shea.

“Is that-” I started to ask.

“Not. Now.” Elita said through gritted teeth, glaring at me. “Now, we’re going home. On Cyclone.” She turned to glare meaningfully at Shea, who just nodded in agreement.

“Yes’m,” I agreed. I put IronHide into my [Inventory] and pulled out Cyclone along with the helmet for Shea. I couldn’t explain it, but the rest of the trip home I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Even in Cyclone or Carnivac I still felt like my usual self, but in IronHide I felt strong, powerful, invincible. But more than that, I felt like everything else was fragile, weak. Like the world was just a sound stage with little prop buildings and trees, full of little children.