I staggered over to the teenagers, my heart in my throat and my eyes most likely the size of dinner plates. I just – how could this actually be happening? I must've been hallucinating or something. There was no way the Pontiac was a giant robot in disguise. These were just ordinary vehicles. It was all part of some elaborate joke. My brother was probably behind it. Yeah, he was always into cars and stuff. He was messing with me.

Then the semi with its killer red and blue flaming paintwork kind of … split. Then it split again and again until the parts were shifting and changing, forming something else. It quite literally transformed. As well as got bigger and bigger. I wasn't sure there was that much inside even a semi to give a being such a large form but by the time it was finished morphing or whatever it was doing, it probably would still have needed to bend over to look through my window on the third floor. The two teenagers stared up at the massive robot; I was more focused on its feet. If he stood on me there would quite possibly be nothing left. I'd be human purée smeared on the concrete.

I spun in place as whirs and clanks and metallic sounds that defied description echoed all around us. I didn't particularly want to turn my back on any of them, but there five of them and we were in the middle of the ring these gargantuan beings formed. I grabbed the sleeves of the boy and the girl, drawing them towards me in some sort of primal need for close physical proximity with another human being.

I stared, wide-eyed as the Pontiac performed some fancy rap-video moves on his way back to his feet. I had thought him so immense before but he was easily the smallest of the robots.

The ground shook beneath my feet and I jumped, turning about to face what had once been the semi. This one was by far the tallest of them, though the search and rescue Hummer came a decent second. The alien robot had knelt down and hunched over so that it-he- wasn't looming over us from like thirty feet above. His eyes, or whatever they were called on robots, were the same luminescent blue as my buddy the sports car. He stared at each of us in turn before fixing his gaze on the teenage boy. The girl drew closer to him, his sleeve caught in her fingers. Now that the robots had stopped moving around so much it wasn't quite so terrifying. Or at least that's what I thought. I at least no longer felt the need to invade the personal space of the two teens.

"Are you Samuel James Witwicky, descendant of Archibald Witwicky?" Oh shit, this kid was there for a reason? Please tell me there wasn't some nefarious plan for worldwide domination being enacted. I lived in this world; I didn't particularly want to see it overrun by giant robots. Mind you, I would most likely be one of the first to die given the current circumstances.

"They know your name," the girl this Sam kid was with whispered in shock and disbelief. I took a moment to look at her and then tried to understand exactly what she was doing hanging around with him. Two and two just wouldn't go together in my head. I mean, even from a female perspective that girl was good looking and he was… well, geeky looking.

"Yeah?" Sam replied, craning his neck back to look at the massive being. No! I screamed in my mind. Don't communicate with it! Haven't you seen the Terminator? Or any of those other countless robot-domination dystopia flicks?

"My name is Optimus Prime," Great, giant robots with names as well as personalities. Why the hell not? "We are autonomous robotic organisms from the planet Cybertron."

Planet. Planet. Okay. Fine. Massive robot aliens. Why the heck not? At least it was a little easier to bear than to think of them as some freak, human experiment in engineering. I'd always entertained the possibility that aliens might have existed. I just thought they would be… smaller. Quite a bit smaller. Possibly green, squishy too. Not being able to hide among humans so easily would also be a plus.

"But you can call us Autobots for short," the one that had taken the form of the search and rescue vehicle said, shrugging his arms in a sort of 'that's the way it is' gesture. It was such a human motion to make. I wanted to curl up in a corner somewhere and just cry while my brain vacationed after this mental and emotional overload. I had a funny feeling it was all a long way from over yet though.

Can you really blame me for being on the verge of a breakdown? Pretty much everything I thought I knew about the world just got ripped to shreds and thrown out the window to decay in metaphorical rain. 'They walk among us' quietly echoed through one of the back corridors of my mind. Yeah right; I'm sure if they 'walked' among us someone would have noticed by now. The transforming into earth vehicles trick was pretty neat though. Who would ever guess that their car was secretly a robot in disguise?

"Autobots," The kid, Sam, breathed. This was so freaking weird. Little did I know that things were only going to get more messed up from there on out.

"What's crackin' lil bitches?" The deep voice was agonisingly familiar and I almost didn't turn around to look at the transformed Pontiac. He did a crazy flip and crouched, posing like he was in an old rap video or something. Jack. Ass.

"My first lieutenant. Designation: Jazz," Optimus Prime informed us as we all watched 'Jazz' prance about. I had to admit that his name suited him. He seemed like poser. But there had to be more to him than that if he was Optimus' go to guy.

"This looks like cool place to kick it," Jazz announced, throwing himself on the hood of an old car that may have had some life left in it. After he jumped on it though it was, well, rather flattened. Maybe Jazz's problem was that he suffered from a 'Little Man' complex, if alien robots can even get such a thing. I mean, he was the shortest of them by a huge margin and the Pontiac itself was a pretty cute, but small car.

"What is that? How-How did he learn to talk like that?" Sam stammered, staring at Jazz in shock. Must be that the Camaro wasn't as chatty as the ride I got dragged there in.

"We've learned Earth's languages through the World Wide Web," Optimus informed us duly as he stood, rising back to that rather magnificent height of his. He seemed nice. Serious, but in a gentle sort of way. Wow, I just applied the adjective 'gentle' to a huge metallic being who could crush me with a finger.

"Just forewarning," I said, meaning to speak to Sam only but my indignation towards 'Jazz' shone through once again and I have no doubt that everyone heard it clearly. Who knows, maybe the aliens had advanced hearing too. I jabbed my thumb towards where the certain silver robot was still lounging. "He's kind of an arsehole."

Sam sent me a shocked look at the words that came out of my mouth, seemingly terrified that I had insulted the Autobots. Heck, maybe I had, but I had suffered through a long and mentally debilitating day and my attitude was making me suffer for it. Someone would probably find a me-sized smear in the alleyway in the morning.

"Hey, come on now," Jazz jumped up from where he was 'kicking it.' I took an involuntary step backwards, fear suddenly rising in my chest. But he didn't seem mad, just … yeah I can't describe it. He seemed to be kind of amused and irritated at the same time. "I said I was sorry."

"What?" I snorted. "Uh, no, you really didn't."

I heard a loud hiss of air being depressed and what sounded like a frustrated groan. I glanced back to see their leader pinching the plates that formed his 'nose.' It was another of those totally human gestures that made me want to smile. And cry. At the same time.

"What did you do?" Optimus Prime asked and Jazz launched into a long and remarkably convoluted description of how he hadn't expected the road to be so slippery and had yet to become adjusted to his vehicle form and so on so forth.

"He ran me over," I interjected, getting tired of the way the silver bot was beating around the bush like a child trying to stay out of trouble. Jazz barked a solitary laugh.

"Well, I didn' run her over, 'else she would be flat, you hear what I'm sayin'?"

"And then he crashed into my car," I supplied as well, being on the receiving end of what may well have been a thoroughly unimpressed look from Jazz. It was hard to tell exactly what emotion his face plates were conveying though; the glowing blue eyes kept throwing me off. They were freaky.

"Jazz…" Optimus began and I felt a smile tug at my lips. Jazz being First Lieutenant or not, Optimus Prime looked and sounded like a tired parent fostering rambunctious younglings. I almost felt bad for the big guy.

"I know, I know," Jazz waved his hands about in a 'yeah, yeah I got it' kind of way. "We don't harm the humans, keep a low profile, limit direct contact. I got it, orright? That's why I brought her. She knows now. Figured you'd know what to do with her."

There was a beat in which there was silence and then Jazz took two steps forward and languidly crouched in front of me. I squinted at the silver bot through my smudged glasses.

"I screwed up. I coulda killed you lil lady. I'm sorry," he looked and sounded sincere and I guessed that it must have been a big thing for him to apologise like that. I know I likely wouldn't have had the stones to do the same.

"I'm just glad I didn't flattened, so…" I said with a shrug and he looked… relieved? I'm going to say relieved. I felt relieved that he wasn't pissed at me.

"She's seen us now," the black one said. There was a whirring sound and suddenly I had a huge weapon of some description pointed at me face, the barrel heating and growing orange. I gulped, feeling all the blood rush out of my face and pool somewhere near my feet. "We should just take her out; save ourselves the trouble later."

This was so not my night…