Chapter 7 – the event on Altair Hailstrom's blog post

Black and Gold
By Sam Sparrow

And all around these golden beacons,
I see nothing but black.

Armageddon's POV

"So I forced myself to stand in Supré for ten minutes," I explained.

'Have we learnt from that lesson, Army?'

Skullzy laughed, "Yeah, and when she came out, she was pissed. She ran right up to the next level, strangled me and demanded to know where Starscream was. It was as if she knew he was missing, even though we didn't have a clue."

"We split up and searched the place," Ya Mum Girl recounted, "When we couldn't find him, we came back to where we were watching Armageddon in all her terror. Being part Cybertronian, she was able to track Starscream."

"She just took off, didn't she?" Jumpy asked, getting nods from all of us, "she tore through the place and came right here. We followed her, taking our bags."

"And that's everything," Massacre finished, "everything from that day at Skullzy's to right now."

"Whoa," was the first thing Rachael said, "You guys have been through a lot in the past few weeks. Can I see the others?"

We unzipped the bags slightly so she could see the TFs inside. A look of utter awe crossed her face. She knew that absolutely everything we had said was true, even though seeing Starscream was enough proof.

I put Starscream back in my bag, we zipped them up and stood up. I took out my black flip phone from my pocket and said, "I'm not all that great with faces. We'll come back next Saturday and update you, alright? Is it cool if I take your photo so I remember you, Rachael?" I secretly crossed my fingers.

She nodded.

My phone had been designed and built by Jumpy, who was amazing with machines. Give her five undisturbed minutes with any gadget and she'll be able to take it apart and put it back together with her eyes closed. Being an assassin, I needed a weapon I could always carry with me. I went to the photo options and selected 'memory wipe', setting it to 'last hour', which was roughly how long we had been talking to her.

"Ok, smile," I said to Rachael, while briefly casting a look at my friends, who turned away and screwed their eyes shut when I said, "Say cheese." It was a warning.

"Cheese," Rachael said, not having enough time to react to my friends.

I pushed the button and there was a bright flash and she got a blank look on her face. I didn't have to close my eyes as I had sunnies.

We picked up our bags and walked away before the effect of the flash wore off. I put my phone back in my pocket and none of us looked back.

We stayed silent so as to not attract attention until we got out of Myers. Then when we were far away enough we chuckled quietly and high fived each other. Spilling the beans and then wiping peoples' memories never got old.

We bought some food and drinks and headed back out the front. Fanzone, Sumdac and Sari were already waiting there, looking impatient.

"What the hell were you doing?" Fanzone demanded.

"We ran into someone," Fyromaniac answered coolly.

"Did you check out the place?" Massacre asked.

They nodded.

"This place is pretty cool," Sari complimented our time, "but it's really different to Detroit, my time."

I grinned, "No kidding. There aren't any robots running around and this is the Bush Capital."

"Huh?" Sari obviously didn't know what that meant.

"The term 'Bush Capital' refers to Canberra because it has so many trees," Fyromaniac explain, being the smarty she is, "if you were flying over Canberra in a plane, you would see more gum trees than buildings."

We began to walk back to Grim's place. I offered them some of my chips and Coke, "Want some?" they nodded and dug in, so I just gave it all to them.

When we got further out, we let the TFs out again. This time none of them stayed with us and all went ahead. Prowl kept on spacing out and almost getting lost, so Fyromaniac had to put him on her shoulder so he didn't.

We didn't get high this time, as having more than one can of Samedi daily was deadly. Having any Samedi at all could be bad for you. We walked most of the way in silence, just watching the TFs. For a little while we talked to the Detroit people about their experience at the mall. They quite liked it there, but there wasn't really much to talk about. Sumdac asked us what we had done, and we said that we could tell him, but then we would have to kill him.

We almost got to Sparkle's place when we had to round up the TFs and put them back in the bags. We got there and went up to Fluffy's room and just chilled. Then we walked around her 10 acre backyard, talking, acting crazy and yelling random stuff like, "I got a jar of dirt! I got a jar of dirt! And guess what's inside it!" and "The baby of the future is a great alternative for basket balls!" and "I burn roads in the middle of rainstorms!"

We were generally random. Blitzwing got it and joined in effortlessly. Most of the others either pretended they didn't know us or just ignored it. Shockwave wouldn't stop giving us WTF looks, even though he didn't have a face. You'll be amazed what expressions someone with skill can do with just one optic. Guy's got talent.

When the sun went down, we had dinner and continued checking out her backyard. Slowly, it got so dark that our only light was the moon and stars. For a while we just sat on a cluster of rocks in utter silence, staring up at the night sky through the gum trees. Somehow even Bumblebee managed to stay put and shut up.

Out here, there was very little light from the city and we could easily see the golden stars. The sky was crystal clear as there wasn't a cloud in sight. I think that the TFs were so quiet because they hadn't seen the stars quite like this, framed by trees so dark that the sky looked strangely bright.

Who would've thought that ancient history could be so beautiful?

As we slept that night, no-one noticed the moonlight flood the room, turning everything silver for a moment, before the moon continued its orbit and everything returned to normal.

oOo

We got ready the next morning, getting changed, eat, etc. After breakfast, we all went back to Grim's room to pack up. We were all present in the room, as the TFs had to stay there. Then something extremely weird happened.

The entire room shone in a way that made it look like it was made of silver.

We were freaked, but no-one moved or made a sound, mostly because we were too scared to. The whole place exploded into blinding white light and I felt myself falling.