Part 2 – 2008

Chapter 4 – it's Chatterbox's fault

The Sound Of Freedom
By Bob Sinclair feat. Gary Pine and Dolloman

Everybody's free,
Got to be free now,
Feel good,
Sing!
Got to feel good about yourself,
Everybody's free.

Armageddon's POV

Ah, the holidays. Best time of the year. You don't have any school, you can sleep in for however long you feel like, do whatever the hell you think needs doing… yeah, I love the holidays. What makes it even better is that these are the summer holidays, the longest of them all.

The only problem was that I was in my own personalized hell.

I have pink-phobia. I am terrified of all pink, frilly, really girly stuff. Which sucks, as I, Armageddon, am female and for some weird reason, everyone seems to associate pink with girls.

I was standing in Supré, some petrifying fashion shop with, get this, fluoro pink everything. My friends had forced me in here or they wouldn't give me any Samedi (which was an energy drink which had the equivalent amount of caffeine as 12 cups of coffee) ever again if I didn't either stay in there for ten minutes or buy something pink and wear it. That, or they'd kill my charges, depending on how long I could stay in here. But I couldn't wear anything pink, so I would have to just stand here.

So why else was I in here? Oh yeah, the schizophrenia. I got one voice in my head, just one, who I know only as Chatterbox. He isn't a bad voice, he just tells me to do random things. He's the reason why I'm weird and crazy.

No-one else knows about Chatterbox.

I felt like screaming and tearing the whole place down, but the dare was done and I couldn't leave now.

Stupid alcohol. Don't drink kids, I drank and I'm a retard. My friends drank and they're bitches now. But this happens when you're fourteen (and underage!). Well, I'm fourteen, Jumpy (The Jester) and (The) Grim (Reaper of Fluffy Bunnies AKA Fluffy) are sixteen, Skullzy (The Permanently Hyper Child AKA Strange, Strange, Strange, Child) and (The Person Who Will) Massare (You All) are fifteen and (Some Random Sticky Tape Obsessed) Fyromaniac (Maniac) is thirteen. We have very long titles. Grim has about 26 different nicknames (Grim, Grim Reaper, Grimmy, The Grim Reaper Of Fluffy Bunnies, Fluffy, Ya Mum Girl, Sparkles, Mrs. Edward Cullen (that's right), Provider Of Samedi, Samedi Girl, Emoth, Emoth DJ, #1 Linkin Park Fan (and by me only, cuz I'm the TF Guru) Meat Bag, Fleshling, Organic, Insect, Dumb Stubbie, Puny Flesh Creature, Loud Flesh Creature, Earthling, Earth Flesh Creature, Primitive Organic, Squishie, Loud Puny Primitive Organic Tiny Insect Flesh Earth Creature... but we don't normally call her Fluffy unless we have a death wish... nah seriously, she's an assassin, just like the rest of us and the rest of the Organisation...). Beat that! And I think she has even more...

'What did you get us into now, Army?'

Shaddup! I snapped, this was your idea in the first place! Why do I listen to you, anyway?

'Because I'm always right.'

How is this in any way correct?

'You'll see.'

I sighed out loud, cryptic as ever, Chatterbox.

'Insane as ever, Army.'

Duh. I'm schizophrenic because you're here. I thought that was a bit obvious.

These sorts of conversations are normal for me.

"I hate you all," I shouted to the best friends in the world, really, who stood a safe distance away from the shop as in on the next level. I swayed a little and pulled my black hoodie up over my head, covering most of my dead straight black hair and shadowing my pale skin. My eyes were silver and my right pupil was slit instead of round. I was wearing sunnies so that people didn't get freaked.

"That's why we're friends!" Grim Reaper laughed. Her red eyes shone like light bulbs (like Rudolf's nose), her black hair framing her laughing face. She always wore black, even on stinking hot days. She, like all of my friends except for Fyromaniac, also had pale skin. Fyromaniac's was dark.

True, very true indeed, I thought.

I wondered around, not touching anything in case I got burned. I'm not kidding. I first got scared of pink when I was 2 and got burned by touching a pink doll. I still have the scar. In fact, almost all of my skin is messed up. I don't really mind, I just wear hoodies a lot and never have my photo taken. It actually made global news, now my condition (more like disease) had been called pinkitus. I was hoping that there might be something black in here, being the happy (hyper, insane, crazy, random, strange, wired, odd, unusual, freakish, complete freak, freaky, completely freaky and freakish, utterly freaky freak-thing freak) emo I am, but there were only bright colourful things here.

My ten minutes were almost up, only thirty seconds to go. I swear, this phobia will be the end of me. 20… 19… 18… 17… damnit, this is taking too long. Woe, the agony! 10… 9… 8… 7… I didn't know how much longer I can keep the screams in, I have to get out of here! 3… 2… 1. Finally! The timer went off and I ran straight out of the hellish store, tearing right up the stairs.

I didn't need to see myself to know that pure fury was written all over my face. I didn't know how I knew, but I knew that something was wrong. My friends must've seen it and took off as fast as they could, being drunk made them slower, while my anger made all the effects of alcohol temporarily fade. But then again, we had had 1/5 cans of Samedi each (which were all 500ml), so we were high and drunk at the same time. It's a weird feeling.

I wrapped my hands around Skullzy's neck, not realizing my own strength. I growled, "Where is he?"

She was tall, with brown eyes and short black hair. Only chokes escaped her mouth so I loosened my grip only enough for her to breathe and talk. She replied, "We put the bags down while we were laughing at you and now he's gone. At least the others are still here."

"Why'd you take our eyes off him?" I hissed, "You know the deal, we watch out for each other's charges."

Fyromaniac spoke up, "We were drunk, your fear was funny and we didn't think he'd escape. We're not perfect. Although, the alcohol has worn because of the Samedi, so more like we were incredibly high and crazy." She had dark skin, black hair and purple eyes.

I took it in, mentally examining the logic and released Skullzy. I looked at all five of my best friends: Massacre, Grim Reaper, Skullzy, Jumpy and Fyromaniac. Jumpy was fair skinned, blue eyed and had long red hair. Massacre had green eyes, wavy brown-blonde hair and pale skin.

"We gotta find him," I stated, fear and panic already beginning to well up inside me, but I kept a calm face on.

The Grim Reaper Of Fluffy Bunnies stepped in, being the leader of the Organisation, of which all six of us were the highest ranked, she began, "Massacre and Jumpy, you ask Lost and Found ask if they've seen him." she turned to the rest of us, "the rest of us will check all the stores. Everyone will ask random people if they've seen Armageddon's boyfriend. We'll meet back here in an hour's time. Let's go."

We spread out. I ran from store to store, searching each as fast as I could in my panic, asking everyone in each store I searched if they had seen him. When they said no each time, my fear grew.

After an hour of everyone frantically searching, knowing what might happen if we didn't find him, we all met back at the decided place. All my friends looked a little nervous, but I didn't care and demanded, "I didn't find him, have any of you?"

There was a moment of hesitation, but then they all slowly shook their heads. My shoulders fell and I sat down on the cold tiles. No-one moved to comfort me, they were smart enough to slowly back off and tell everyone else to stand clear. As with what happens with curious meat bags— err, humans, a small crowd began to form around me, all wondering what would happen, despite all my friends telling them that they had to go.

I closed my eyes. Being a part-Cybertronian, part-Earth cyborg, I could detect my guy's energy signal. I sat and concentrated, seeking his unique signature. It took me a couple of minutes, but I found him; he was in Myers, one of the biggest stores in the whole mall, taking up a huge space and going on all three levels.

My eyes shot open and I stood up. My vision was still what I had used to find his energy signature, so I couldn't even see anyone else, only him and structures. I sprinted in the direction of him, knocking over people I guessed, but I couldn't see anything carbon-based, i.e., organics.

I ran as fast as I could towards Myers, I could hear my friends chasing me as I knew they would. I skidded to a halt when I got close enough to him and switched my vision back to normal. My friends stopped beside me and asked, "Where is he?"

I pointed to a clothes rack and approached it, rage radiating off me. I shoved the clothes aside and saw him and some 8-year-old girl. I grabbed him by the neck and lifted him up so we were eye-to-optic and snarled, "Where the fuck have you been, 'Con?"

He glared back at me and retorted in that scratchy voice I would know anywhere, "You are way too protective. I'm a grown mech, I can look after myself." So vain. So hot, despite the pink.

My friends and I chuckled at that, "You could if you were your original size, not thirty centimetres tall."

"What are you doing?" a new voice inquired.

I looked down and saw that it was the kid who had spoken. I asked, "Who are you?"

"I'm Rachael. Is he that weird guy from Transformers: Animated? My brothers make me watch it every morning," she replied.

We laughed again, "He's not the weird guy," I responded, "He's the traitor, sometimes known as Squeaky the Jet." I held him close to my chest protectively, stroking his head gently. I was protective of all my charges, even though they all got on my nerves.

She gave me the 'WTF?' look and said, "Are there more?"

I exchanged looks with my friends, silently asking if I should tell Rachael. They nodded and I turned back to her and answered, "Yeah, they all jumped out of the TV. It was a bunch of fun to see, even though I was thinking I was on too much marijuana or something."

"Say what?" she looked confused again.

I sighed and my friends and I sat down, this was going to be a long story. Rachael got the idea and sat down too.

"Get comfy," I said, "it's a long story." Starsceam climbed on my shoulder, liking the feeling of finally being able to look down on a human again.