TRANSFORMERS ANIMATED

Re:Animated

Rewrite of 'Grey Matter, Silver Lining'. At the same time as Megatron reawakens, a woman falls to earth and Sari manages to convince her father to let her become her nanny. Emma doesn't talk much, and certainly isn't saying she knows them from a cartoon! But when the All-Spark shatters, it makes her question everything . . .

ACT I

Re:Ally

~Parental Warning~

This chapter contains the following, which may not be suitable for young people:

. Low level coarse language

. Low level animated violence

. Adult themes

. Implied drug-use

Reader discretion is advised.

CHAPTER ONE

Prologue

Any moment, everything can change,

Feel the wind on your shoulder,

For a minute, all the world can wait,

Let go of yesterday . . .

— Hilary Duff

A woman walked across the carpark, with a handbag on one shoulder and her phone in the other hand. She was listening to music through her earphones, and every so often, she would check the time.

She couldn't afford anymore delays, not on this very important day - she wasn't even supposed to be out, but, she had made the decision to go out, and if she didn't get home before her parents then she would have to face the consequences … what consequences? She was fairly certain that things were different than they had been up until a few years ago, and that her parents would probably just be surprised that she was driving again, but she could never be too sure. So many times over the past ten or so years she had gotten in trouble for going to the shops and buying things that she wanted.

Like Transformers action figures.

The thought of that made her pick up the pace a little bit, and she even smiled slightly. True, there weren't any Transformers Animated action figures being sold anymore (she was still trying to get the ones that she owned out of the shed, but, that was an issue in and of itself), but she had been bitten by the bug when she'd seen Transformers One with her friends, and now she wanted a new action figure.

Probably listening to her favourite song, New Divide, which had been featured on the Revenge Of The Fallen soundtrack, wasn't going to do anything to stop her, although that little voice in her mind actually made her stop for a moment.

'There was nothing in sight, but memories left abandoned . . . '

What if they take it off of you, just like when you bought that Blurr one?

'There was nowhere to hide, the ashes fell like snow . . . '

They won't if I don't let them see it, just like I got away with buying that thirty dollar Kirby plushie.

'And the ground caved in, between where we were standing . . . '

Look up.

"Huh?" The woman, Emma Pax, said out-loud, as a shadow fell across her. Probably just the sun going behind a cloud … wait, what cloud? There weren't any . . .

'And your voice was all I heard … that I get what I deserve . . . '

The thirty-four year old could only stare, at the very large black shape that was above her … either she had been watching too much Transformers, or this was a very real and very evil one, right here.

The red eyes were what told her this one was evil.

The force with which it hit her was what told her it was real.

She automatically closed her eyes before that happened, however, and so she didn't see what happened, as she felt what seemed like claws digging into her left arm and, for some reason, she thought back not to a similar incident that had occurred the year before, but to a very random but nonetheless upsetting one that had happened over ten years ago . . .

Fourteen years ago…

"Do you know why you didn't get that job?" Leonie "Lee" Pax asked her youngest daughter, arms folded across her chest.

"Why?" Emma's hands were on her hips, and she was glaring right on back at her mother. Though they didn't look a thing alike (Lee was a larger woman, with olive skin, platinum blonde hair, and dog-brown eyes - Emma was petite, with fair skin, messy dark red hair, and hazel eyes), their glares were mirror-images, as were the tones of their voices. Emma's, however, threatened to go high-pitched, which had earned her the nickname "mouse" within her family. "Is it because I didn't study my questions? Yeah, I know, Dad keeps saying…"

"No!" Lee interrupted her, and a spark of annoyance flashed through Emma's eyes. "It's because of this!" She swept her arm across, motioning to Emma's room. It was messy, with clothes slung across a desk-chair and books stacked messily against the bookcase, which could not accommodate them any longer due to the large number of Transformers action figures that were there. "How can you expect people to employ you if you continue to act like a little child? If you do that, then people will treat you like a kid!"

"That's what you and Dad keep saying, but you're wrong!" Emma exclaimed, trying to keep her temper. She was usually pretty good at it, unless she was upset. She'd been trying to get a job for months, and it just wasn't working out for her. If only she hadn't messed up on her TAFE course last year, then none of this would be happening. If she hadn't failed her parents and lost their respect…if she hadn't been on that medication…if she wasn't so worthless…

"You need to spend more time learning about the world, instead of watching these fucking cartoons and wasting your time drawing pictures!" Lee yelled.

Emma bristled, and shut off, the way any young person will when their parent speaks to them this way. It was a mark of the amount of respect Emma had for people that, despite living a very messy and disorganized life with next to no social skills and a habit of daydreaming all the time, she would never use certain words or insult people the way she was used to being spoken to. Her parents were just concerned about her life but, at the time, this wasn't making any sense to her.

Lee pushed past Emma then, and grabbed a pile of artwork off the floor, along with a Transformers action figure (Blackarchnia). "What is this shit, and why is it on the floor?!" Lee didn't understand how Emma could live in this way – didn't she realise that it was nearly snake season?

"Hey!" Emma yelled, lunging for the precious items, and managing to grab Blackarchnia. "Give them back, they're mine! You have no right…"

"This is my house, and I say that if things are on the floor, then I do this to them!" Lee shouted and, with that, she began to rip up the pictures, all of the painstakingly detailed drawings of characters like Prowl, Bulbasaur, Sanji, and Sailor Mercury. "This. Won't. Get. You. A. Job." Lee snarled with each rip, as the first-ever picture of Prowl in his alt-mode that Emma had ever drawn was destroyed forever.

Emma watched in horror, before turning and running, her feet carrying her down the hallway at a pace she'd never have been able to run at if she wasn't upset. She clutched Blackarchnia to her chest, and didn't stop running until she reached the shed out the back of the five acre bushland property. There, she collapsed into the seat of the ride-on-lawnmower. Leaning her head over the steering wheel, so that her then-brown hair covered her face, Emma Pax began to sob…

In the present time, that same woman almost smiled.Imagine, Mum … if it did . . .