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 . . .

CHAPTER FOUR

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Don't think twice,

You'll be dead in a second,

Turn your eyes,

From your hands to the heavens,

Kill your pride,

Turn your fear to a weapon,

And don't you forget it . . .

— Livingston

Emma was having the best series of dreams. In the first one, she could do martial arts. In the second one, a blue light gave the Autobots a power similar to Pretenders. And, in the third one, she was flying through the sky but, unlike when she flew on airplanes, she wasn't scared. Maybe it was because the wings were on her own back, and she was in control. Well, sort of. She faltered a little bit, and felt somebody squeeze her hand reassuringly. She glanced to her left, and saw a pair of optics, but … why were they red. . . ?

BEEP-BEEP BEEP! BEEP-BEEP BEEP!

Emma jolted awake. "What is that?!" She cried, hoping that it wasn't an alarm clock. If it was, then, a Great Clock Massacre was about to take place.

She looked around the big blue room that she was staying in while at the Sumdacs', and saw a small flashing light on the wall behind her bed, next to a small intercom-like thing.

Emma, feeling slightly important, pressed the button. "H-hello?" She stammered, wishing that she could have answered with a cool 'talk to me' or just said her last name like Kate Beckett in the TV show Castle.

"Ah, good, you are awake." Said Isaac's voice. "Emma, Captain Fanzone is here wishing to speak with you ... he says that it is most urgent."

Something about Isaac's voice alerted Emma to the fact that something was not right, and so she said: "Y-yes, o…kay … I'll be down in a minute . . . "

She waited for the beep that told her that the connection had been terminated, and then looked at her watch, which read nine-twenty. She'd only had fifty minutes of sleep. "Awwww..." She complained. I need a coffee...

Coffee was, thankfully, provided, but somehow, Emma wished that it wasn't - because, she suddenly wished that she was anywhere else but being ushered into a private room, where two surly-looking police bots and a fat police officer with a blonde mustache were waiting for her.

Emma's mind still blurry as she sat down, feeling confused, and took a swig of coffee, hoping that it wasn't laced with a truth serum or something. She wondered if this was about the Dino-Bots, or . . . ?

Her head snapped up. "I didn't do it!" She protested suddenly.

"Didn't do what?" The police officer was trying to figure out how to close the electric-powered door. His voice was slightly familiar, but Emma couldn't place it because she was both too groggy and too keyed up.

"Wh-whatever it is that you're a-accusing me of . . . " Emma trailed off, as the police officer succeeded in programming the door to shut, but he had left his hand in the door, and it swished closed on it.

"Gyaah!" He cried, wrenching his now throbbing red hand free. "This is why I hate machines!" He complained, turning around and marching back to the table.

Emma swallowed, suddenly realising that this man was the one and only Captain Fanzone. She eyed him over her coffee cup, and took another sip. Now I feel slightly better, but only a little bit ... I wish I knew what this was about, though … could it be . . . She slowly lowered her coffee cup. About where I'm from . . . ?

Fanzone answered her question just then, by throwing a familiar-looking card onto the table in front of her. He didn't say anything. It was just like in a cop movie.

Resisting the urge to jump and point at one of the police-bots, claiming 'she did it!' like Glen Whitmann in Transformers 07', Emma just set down the coffee cup shakily, and said: "M-my license?"

Fanzone raised an eyebrow. "Is it? Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but it says here on your license that you were born in the year 1990, correct?"

Emma nodded silently, knowing what was coming. How can I explain this?!

"Now, unless I'm mistaken, that should make you at least a hundred and sixty years old," Fanzone stated. "Unless this is a fake licence, which I am pretty sure it is . . . " He trailed off, as Emma counted on her fingers, trying to see if he was right about the whole age thing. Fanzone sighed. This was going to be a difficult one.

"Dad?" Sari asked him, and Isaac turned around from consulting with one of his assistants, Suzanne Soucie.

Only Sari could ever get away with interrupting the Professor. Suzanne just rolled her eyes. Isaac's daughter was the same age as her own daughter, but the two couldn't have been more different. Trisha was a smart, vibrant, and well-mannered eight-year-old with plenty of friends. Sari had been sheltered and protected, and lacked, shall we say, certain social skills? She was a strange child, to say the very least.

All of those things made sense in the mind of Suzanne, who went about trying to figure out the problem with a certain client over the phone, until Isaac came back.

"Yes, what is it, Sari?" Isaac said.

"Where's Emma?" Sari wanted to know. "I thought she was supposed to be going rollerblading with me and Bumblebee today." She pointed across the huge lab room, to where the yellow speedster known as Bumblebee waved. Sari waved back, and then looked at her Dad. "So, where's Em?"

"Ah . . . " Isaac looked aside, not sure how his daughter was going to take this news. Sari had a temper, and she seemed to be very attached to her new nanny already. "Well, you see ... Captain Fanzone arrived earlier this morning to question Emma about her ... uh ... identification . . . "

Sari raised an eyebrow. "Why would he do that?"

Isaac sighed, knowing what was coming. "Because he believes it to be fake." He said, in a small voice.

Across the room, Bumblebee heard Sari's indignant and outraged shriek of: "WHAT?!" He watched the little red-head's pigtails stand on end, and then she said: "Where are they?! Oh, never mind, I'll find them myself - with my key!" Said key immediately began glowing, as if alerted by her words and, to the shock of everybody else, Sari ran from the room, letting the key lead her like some kind of a leash. Bumblebee followed quickly in her wake.

Meanwhile, Suzanne was still trying to figure out how to get the documents from the client who was on the phone.

"Look," she said, trying to resist the urge to scream. "The server is working justfinefrom our end of the email, so it's most likely yours that's got a problem."

"Can't you fix it?" The client asked her.

"No!" Suzanne snapped. "Call your IT guys, or … or, something! In the meantime, can't you just, oh, I dunno, fax the documents through or something?"

"Sorry," the client replied, somewhat curtly. "I can't fax from where I live."

"Where. Do. You. Live?" Suzanne asked, through gritted teeth.

"2150. I live in 2150, Suzanne."

Fanzone stared at Emma. In all of his time as the chief of police, he had never once heard a story at all like what she had just told him. For one thing, it had more holes than a block of Swiss cheese, and would have been completely unbelievable ... except for the fact that, what with the Autobots arriving from space, and seemingly impossible things recently becoming possible, it sounded almost ... plausible.

Almost.

Except for one thing. "Now, how do I know that you're telling the truth? Anybody could just come out and say that they come from a different time, and possibly a different universe . . . " He was speaking a lot more gently now, because Emma had that look on her face that some women got right when they were about to start crying - for real, not just to get sympathy - and Fanzone didn't need that right now. He had a teenage daughter himself, and he knew how difficult things could get when they started crying. He only hoped that boarding school in England would toughen her up a bit.

"I know," Emma wasn't looking at him, and hadn't been doing so since this session started, so Fanzone really didn't know if she was telling the truth or not. "B-but ... oh, wait!" Her head snapped up. "S-Sari's key!"

"Yeah, what about it?" Fanzone couldn't wait to hear this.

"She-she said that it was acting up when she and B-Bulkhead found m-me!" Emma told him, glancing at the police chief and then looking away. Her hand was at her throat as she stammered: "Th-the All-Spark brought me here, I'm s-sure of it!"

Fanzone considered this. "Just how much do you know about all of this?" He was trying to consider this situation from all angles.

"Umm . . . " Emma began, just as the electric door swung open, and Sari ran in, her key glowing. "S-Sari?!"

Sari ran to Emma, put her arms around her waist, and gave Fanzone a Look. "You can't arrest Emma, she didn't do anything wrong!"

Fanzone sighed, as Bumblebee peered into the room - the doorway was too small for him to fit through, which didn't happen very often. "Nobody's getting arrested - at least not yet." He added, and both Sari and Emma flinched. "I'm just trying to figure out if the story Miss. Pax told me is ... is, err . . . ?"

"Legit?" One of the police-bots supplied.

"Yeah, yeah, that's it." Fanzone said carelessly, before turning back to Emma. "Emma L. Pax?"

"Y-yes." She stammered, in a voice barely above a whisper.

"Born September seventeenth, 1990?" Fanzone went on, and watched as Sari gasped and looked up at Emma in shock.

Emma blinked back the tears that had threatened to escape, and nodded. "Yes."

"But, you claim to come from a different world, and possibly a different dimension, correct?" Fanzone picked up at the ID.

Again, Emma nodded. Something about Sari's presence (not to mention Bumblebee's) was very comforting all of a sudden, and she felt confident enough to add: "It's l-like parallel, m-maybe . . . ?"

"Did you come through a portal?" Sari asked her helpfully.

"Oh!" Bumblebee spoke up. "You mean like she came through an unstable opening from either an alternate or parallel dimension to this one?!"

Everyone stared at him.

He blinked his big blue optics, and then looked offended. "What? Bulkhead's not the only bot who watches Star Trek!" He shook his head. "Anyway, Fanzone, you're not seriously going to arrest Emma, are you? She's such a good, sweet kid!"

"Hey!" Emma protested. "I'm thirt — I mean, I'm not a kid!"

Sari turned to Fanzone with tear-filled maroon eyes. "Puh-lease can she stay?" She begged.

Fanzone sighed, and turned back to Emma. "Okay, here's what we'll do." He couldn't believe that he was about to do this, and it was really going to be impossible to explain back at headquarters, but who was he to argue to an alien robot and a kid that could turn on the puppy-dog eyes better than his own daughter could? "We'll treat this similar to how we treated the arrival of you Autobots," he glanced at Bumblebee, before looking back at Emma and continuing: "We'll allow you to stay here, but under the same terms and conditions as them."

Sari was grinning, and she and Bumblebee gave each other the thumbs-up. Emma managed to keep her excitement down to a small, hesitant smile, but she asked: "What are these t-terms?"

Fanzone nodded to one of the police-bots, who opened his stomach-plate and took out a massive stack of papers from within. He dropped them onto the table with a loud THUMP!.

Sari and Emma just stared, as Fanzone took his leave, muttering something under his breath and leaving Emma's ID and wallet on the table behind him.

Bumblebee moved aside to let the police pass, and then peered back into the room. "Whoa . . . " He widened his optics at the sight of the paperwork. "What is all that stuff?"

Sari looked at him. "You don't know?" She sounded surprised.

Bumblebee just shrugged. "Meh, I let Prime and the others take care of all that boring stuff."

Sari grinned. "What a great idea!" She grabbed Emma's hand and tugged her away from the table. "Come on, we can deal with that stuff later! Right now, we need some major retail therapy!"

"And rollerblading?" Bumblebee asked hopefully.

"And rollerblading." Sari agreed.

"Sari, did you dad say anything about your l-lessons?" Emma wanted to know, as she and Sari waited in line to rent their rollerblades at the park.

Sari shook her head quickly. "No, he didn't." She crossed her fingers behind her back.

Emma saw this. "Sari . . . " She said, warningly.

"What?" Sari asked innocently. "I'm sure my dad's more concerned about me going out and having a good time while I'm still young."

What does she mean by 'while I'm still young'? Emma shook off the strange feeling she had, and let Sari order two pairs of skates and safety gear for them. She herself had never worn safety gear whilst rollerblading (and, there were times when she had regretted that), but she thought it might be a good idea not to press any underlying laws that there might be. She was thankful at being allowed to stay, that she probably would have done anything anybody asked her to do right then and there.

Bumblebee was looking out over the crowds of people that were skating, as Sari and Emma sat on a bench away from the crowds and strapped on their rented rollerblades. "Uh, guys, I don't think I'll be able to join you ... it looks too crowded out there for me . . . " He sounded thoroughly disappointed.

"It's too bad that the All-Spark can't — " Emma said, without thinking.

"Can't what?" Sari asked her quickly.

"Uh . . . " Emma gulped. "I-I mean … I … I had this dream l-last night, where the All-Spark - I mean, probably i-it was that - g-gave the Autobots the p-power to d-disguise themselves as humans . . . " She suddenly realised that both Sari and Bumblebee were just staring at her, and she cringed, blushing deeply. "Which is ridiculous— " She began, just as a brilliant flash of blue light came from the key around Sari's neck, and then split into a bunch of beams; one of them hit Bumblebee, and the othera arced off somewhere.

Thankfully, all of the skaters in the park who had seen what was happening were more focused on those beams, as were Emma and Sari, and so they didn't see it when Bumblebee was changed into a human.

Sari and Emma looked back quickly, when they heard Bumblebee's voice exclaiming: "Hey! What'dya know?! It worked!"

Sari's mouth dropped open at the sight of the teenage boy who was standing there. "B-Bumblebee — ?!"

He nodded.

He had blonde hair with black tips, and was wearing a yellow jacket with black stripes down the sleeves, a grey t-shirt, black jeans, and yellow and black sneakers. A silver version of the Autobot symbol hung from his neck.

It might've been his sky blue eyes that told Sari that it was indeed still Bumblebee.

But, it was the silver Autobot pendant that drew in Emma's attention (mainly so that she wouldn't have to make eye-contact with him). It looked pretty much exactly the same as hers. She felt like that was a sign, but, before she could think too much on it, Bumblebee was excusing himself to disappear behind the skate rental shop building, to practice changing back to robot mode and back.

Sari was grinning wildly as she waited for him to come back so that she could rent him some rollerblades, and then she happened to notice how unnerved her nanny seemed. "What's up?" She asked her. "This is great, isn't it? Where do you think the rest of the light went?"

"To the others?" Emma asked numbly.

Sari's eyes lit up. "Too cool!" She cheered, as Bumblebee - as a human - came back.

Emma swallowed. "B-Bee?" She said, and he glanced at her. "M-make sure you ask the o-others if they got hit with some blue l-light, and if they c-can transform like th-this now, too, o-okay?"

Bumblebee nodded. "Sure, sure," he said, in a non-comitted way. "After we go rollerblading, that is!"

As it transpired, Bumblebee didn't end up telling the other Autobots about it until a few days later, and when he did he wasn't even with them - he told them over the com-link, and he only did it because Bulkhead had mentioned the blue light.

"Sari and Em called it a 'holoform'." He added cheerfully, before he hung up.

"That is the most useless thing I have ever heard!" Ratchet immediately cried. "A holoform?! Why doesn't he just become a human?!"

"Calm down, Ratchet," Optimus said. "Maybe this is just what we need to blend in here on earth even better. We can interact with the humans a lot better if we looked like them."

"Prime's right," Bulkhead spoke up. "Who knows? It could be fun . . . "

Prowl was silently agreeing with the both of them, and a part of him couldn't wait any longer to try out a holoform. A hologram was one thing, but to actually have thebodyof a human? He told the others that he was going to take a different route home, and sped off down a side-street.

The others were silent, before Ratchet grumbled: "He's gone to try it out, hasn't he?"

"Well, you know Prowl," Optimus would have shrugged, if he could whilst in his alt mode. "I think that we should all take his and Bumblebee's example, and embrace this new type of power."

"I knew that you were going to say that." Ratchet complained.

I probably just messed up the whole entire plot of Human Error, didn't I? Thought Emma, somewhat miserably, as she stood in front of the full-length mirror in her room, and tried on different tops with black jeans and boots. She and Sari had been invited out to dinner by Sari's dad, but Emma was feeling so unsettled that evening that she was almost ready to call in sick.

"Are you ready yet?" Sari asked her, as she came inn to the room without knocking. She stopped, and put a hand on her hip. "Blackagain?" She raised an eyebrow.

Emma glanced at Sari in the mirror. The little girl was wearing a yellow dress - a new one, but yellow nonetheless. "Yellow again?" She then groaned, and turned from the mirror, going over to the bed and sitting down on it. "However … I'm not feeling a h-hundred percent . . . "

"My dad called," Sari was saying, not actually noticing how unenthusiastic her nanny seemed about it all. "He says that he got reservations at The Last Lentil - you said you can handle some spice, and this place makes a really nice lentil curry, and then af the rewards were having a sleepover at the base — " She broke off abruptly, because Emma had just leapt off of the bed, and grabbed her coat off of the chair as she hurried past Sari at the door.

"Come on, Sari!" She called to her. "Dahl!"

Sari giggled. "Are you excited about the food or the sleepover?"

"Yes!"

"It's just a couple of blocks from here." Sari said cheerfully, as she and Emma walked along one of Detroit's many streets.

"Sa-ri . . . " Emma swallowed. "That's what you said … ten minutes ago!" She stopped to lean against a traffic light post.

Sari sighed in an exaggerated way, as she continued walking across the street without looking. "Fi-ne!" She took out her phone. "I'll call one of the Autobots to come and pick us up. You're so unathletic." She added, rolling her eyes.

Emma swallowed again, as she leaned against the traffic light post, and closed her eyes briefly.

Sari was right, of course, and Emma herself had stated to be unathletic multiple times before, but it still kind of hurt. Sure, she could rollerblade just fine - she had surprised herself by still being able to do that - but walking was … different . . .

Sports in general, with a few exceptions, reminded her of … school. Of the embarrassment of not being able to run one thousand five hundred metres (the teachers could call it fifteen hundred metres all they wanted, it didn't make the distance any less) … of being the first person out during the beep test / shuttle run … of not being strong enough to do her part in paddling a canoe and her partner having to do all of the work … of nearly having her wrist broken by one of the other girls in her year (then again, Emma hadn't wanted to go to her next class, which was maths, so she had … pushed a little bit on her already injured wrist afterwards just to 'help' it along - but, apparently, the damage that was done couldn't have been done by her . . . ) . . .

Emma didn't realise that she was holding onto her now unbandaged left wrist now, nor that she had lagged behind, until she heard Sari calling to her: "Ems! Bulkhead might come to pick us up! Hurry up and cross before the lights change! There's cars coming!" She added.

Emma's eyes snapped open and, ignoring the fact that she definitely should have waited for a break in the traffic, she hurried across the road.

But, not fast enough.

And, suddenly, the car was bearing down on her . . .

One year ago . . .

"Did you enjoy the massage?" Lee asked Emma, as they made their way down the footpaths on one of the busier streets in Legian, Bali.

Emma, whose hair sported long hot pink extensions, nodded, although she kept on rubbing at her eyes, due to the cream that had gotten into them. Still, it had been a nice foot and face massage, and it was something that she wouldn't usually do. It had made for a very nice birthday present.

There was a lot of traffic on the roads that afternoon, but Emma and Lee had both been to Bali numerous times, and knew how to navigate the traffic.

Which is why Lee led Emma through a break in the traffic at a t-junction, and the drivers all stopped to let the two women cross.

With the exception of one.

The blueish-lilac coloured taxi had accelerated, and it was tough to say who was more shocked - the people watching, the driver of the taxi who realised too late just why everybody else had stopped, or the two women that he hit with his car.

"No!" She had cried.

That didn't stop the car.

The next seven minutes were almost a blur for Emma. From the locals who came running to the taxi driver who, after seeing that the two women were still alive at least, took off, to people leading the two women over to the side of the road and giving them bottled water - some of which Lee had had to use to wash the open wounds that were on both of Emma's arms, from where she'd fallen - to Lee calling her eldest daughter to come back and telling her why.

Sarah had come running back, pushing Opie's pram, and a local had called to her 'over here' … Emma had been crying, until she saw her then two-year-old nephew.

Emma something that her mother had had to do a few years back. It had been just after the sudden death of Haley, the forty-year-old mother of Emma's cousin's son and daughter. Lee had come into the house and spoken in a voice choked with tears - that is, until Emma's cousin's four-year-old daughter (whose mother was not Haley) had come into the room, and Lee had spoken in a completely normal voice. For the little girl's benefit.

Emma had applied that same technique after the hit-and-run, so that Opie wouldn't worry.

After all … kids didn't … need to know about bad stuff . . .

Sari had made it about three steps back onto the road, but now she just stood there, holding her phone rigidly up to her ear. She didn't even have time to shriek, as she saw the extremely scary-looking car collide with her nanny … except that it didn't.

The car - which wouldn't have looked out of place at a death metal concert - had slammed on its breaks, although it still came to a stop after the spot where Emma had just been standing.

Before she had somehow jumped, landing in a position that Sari couldn't actually put a name to at that point but she was suddenly so sure that it had one, on the hood of the car.

Sari's mouth was hanging open by that stage, even as she heard Bulkhead saying over the phone: "Sari? Sari?! What happened?! Sari?!"

"I-I'll have to call you back!" She said hurriedly.

"Sari, wait — !" The voices of Optimus and Ratchet joined Bulkhead's voice, and Sari realised that this must have been a four-way call or something, as she hung up on all three of them.

But, before she could wonder about where Prowl and Bumblebee were, that was answered for her.

"Sari!" Bumblebee, in his holoform, suddenly appeared at her side, and dragged her off of the road. "Come on, you're holding up traffic!"

"Yeah, but what about — ?!" Sari looked up at him, already completely comfortable with his new form.

"Prowl's got her, it's fine!"

"Huh?" Sari looked back towards the road. She ignored the line of cars, and focused instead on the fact that Emma seemed frozen on the hood of the scary muscle car with the red-tinted windows - she only moved when Prowl, in his holoform, appeared seemingly out of nowhere and grabbed her by the wrist.

Because, there was nowaythat that wasn't Prowl in his holoform. Sari would have known it straight away, even if Bumblebee hadn't said it.

Prowl had succeeded in dragging Emma down from the hood of the car, and half guided / half had to carry her off of the road.

Sari could see them speaking to each other, but she couldn't hear what they were saying because the line of cars behind the scary car had started to express their frustrations at the hold-up via their horns.

As soon as they were out of the scary car's way, they heard it's engine almost seem to growl, before it accelerated and took off again at sudden speed.

Only then, as the rest of the cars were able to move forwards again, did things seem to return to normal.

Prowl's holoform was a tall, tan-skinned man, with long black hair in a tied in a ponytail and a closely-shaved goatee. He wore a gold headband and had sunglasses on his head. He wore a long black coat with a gold trim over a black t-shirt and black pants with black boots over them. He had a pair of black motorcycle gloves, and a silver Autobot symbol identical to Bumblebee's around his neck. His eyes were an almost electric blue.

"Cool holoform!" Sari said admiringly, and then she turned to her nanny. "And, wicked cool jump!" She grabbed onto Emma's free hand, which she suddenly realised was shaking. "Hey, are you okay? Are you hurt?!" She peered up at her nanny, as Bumblebee began to look concerned.

Emma swallowed quickly, and said: "Yes, Sari, I'm fine." In a voice that didn't shake, and she took a few deep breaths.

This surprised Prowl, slightly. Emma's voice - not to mention the rest of her - had been shaking quite badly when he'd helped her down from that car. And, he sensed that she was still quite shaken from her near-miss. So, how was she able to keep her voice so calm now?

Emma was saying: "I'm just surprised, that's all."

"Weren't we all?" Sari remarked.

"Yeah," Bumblebee nodded. "That was, like, totally cool! Like something Prowl would do!" He added.

"No," Sari shook her head. "I mean, yeah, it was, but who would've thought that Ms. 'I-can't-walk-a-few-blocks' would turn out to be, like . . . "

"The next karate kid?" Bumblebee suggested. "Like in that really old human movie? I think it's called, like, the lion position or something?"

"Tiger." Emma corrected him softly.

"Yeah, that." Bumblebee grinned. "You must've had a wise old teacher or something, huh?"

Prowl, who hadn't actually said anything since reaching the footpath, noted the way that Emma tensed up at these words.

Sari noticed it too, but what she said was: "No way, it's probably just instinct or something!" Her eyes were sparkling. "Can you teach me that?!" She asked Emma. "Pleeeaaase?! I mean, how did you do that?!"

And, Emma glanced at Bumblebee, meeting his gaze for the first time, before she looked at Prowl and did the same thing, and then she said: "I just … reacted."

"Thanks for tuning in to Channel 700 News." The news presenter was saying later on that night, as Optimus, Ratchet, and Bulkhead watched the TV.

Bulkhead seemed a bit sulky, though, because he had been supposed to go and pick up Sari and Emma that evening, until Bumblebee and Prowl had 'beaten him to it'. Sari hadn't even really explained what had happened. She'd just mentioned that they didn't need him to pick them up anymore, because Bumblebee and Prowl were there.

"But, before we go, Scarlet," the newsbot who was the regular presenter alongside Scarlet Garcia said. "Let's take a look at tonight's Amazing Capture, sent in by one of our viewers, a Mr. TA-36."

"These things are only sent in by humans who want to get their fifteen clicks of fame and make a profit on the side!" Ratchet complained, as he got up and left the room.

"Oh, I dunno." Bulkhead shrugged. "That guy who crashed into the cactus shop was pretty lucky."

"Then why didn't they give him the prize?!" Ratchet called from down the hallway.

The footage rolled, and showed a human dressed all in black, who nearly got run down by the scariest-looking car that either Optimus or Bulkhead hadeverseen. The news made a point of showing again, in slow-motion and zoomed in, how the figure leapt up and landed safely on the hood of the car.

It was a combination of the zoomed-in image which showed the woman's shocked expression, of the man who dragged her down from the scary car's hood, and of the blonde-haired teenage boy who dragged a nearby and very familiar-looking young red-haired girl back onto the footpath, that made Optimus and Bulkhead stare in shock at the screen, because they recognised the two females on sight, and there was suddenly no doubts in their minds as to who those two males were.

"Congratulations Mr. TA-36," the newsbot on TV was saying. "You've just won yourself a five hundred dollar voucher for Maramba Brothers, Detroit's best one stop-shop for everything cars!"

"Shameless self-promoting." Ratchet muttered, as he came back into the room, which is when Optimus and Bulkhead noticed the Maramba Brothers logo that was on the newsbot's arm. "So, what'd they find a way to exploit this time?"

"Ratchet," Bulkhead turned to him. His optics were gleaming all of a sudden. "I'll bet you think nothing's gonna top that cactus shop, but — "

"Guess what!" Sari and Bumblebee both cried in unison, as the small yellow car that was Bumblebee sped into the base; he then transformed at the same time that Sari (with two overnight bags) hopped out, and together they said: "Emma's a ninja!"

"D-don't just decide that for yourself!" Came Emma's protest, as she and Prowl walked into the base.

"Anybody who can avoid getting hit by a car by jumping up and landing on the car's hood in the tiger position has gotta be a ninja!" Sari responded.

Emma was still wearing a motorcycle helmet, but she managed to somehow make her glare known to Sari, when she said: "I-I'm pretty sure that Bulkhead wanted to tell Ratchet about my near-death experience … wait . . . " She suddenly turned her head towards Bulkhead. She tilted her head to one side. "How . . . ?"

"It was on at the end of the news." He explained to her. "Some guy named TA-36 won a voucher for an auto supply store for sending in the footage."

"How come Emma didn't win it?!" Sari wanted to know.

At the same time, Ratchet asked: "A what store?!"

Optimus stood up. "Uh, why don't we have a look while we're out on patrol tonight with Bumblebee and Prowl?" He suggested. "Bulkhead, you can stay here with Sari and Emma."

Bulkhead looked disappointed to not be going out on patrol … that is until Sari exclaimed: "Yay! We can play video games and beat all of Bumblebee's hi-scores!"

"Hey!" Bumblebee himself protested.

"Plus," Sari went on, looking up at Bulkhead in anticipation. "You can show us your holoform!"

"Oh yeah . . . " Emma nodded, as she finally took off her helmet, and then she actually smiled. "I'd like … to see it, too."

Perhaps inspired by this, Bulkhead nodded and then, in a brief flash of blue light, he assumed his holoform.

Even in human form, he was big and bulky, but not in a fat way. He had a dark green haircut that made Emma think of the character Sokka from Avatar, but with no ponytail and more of a mohawk. He wore a dark green singlet and cargo pants, black gloves, black boots, and a black utility belt.

Sari was thrilled. "Cool!" She exclaimed. And, then she glanced at Optimus and Ratchet.

The latter immediately transformed - into his vehicle mode. "No way!" He told her, already guessing what she had been wondering, before he all-but sped out of the base.

"Well, you're no fun!" Sari called after him.

Emma, however, was biting at her nail - they had noticed that she seemed to do that a lot when she was nervous. She then said, unexpectedly: "He seems … unsettled tonight . . . " She said it very quietly, but Optimus heard her.

"I'll keep an optic on him." He promised her. He was a little bit surprised that she had noticed that Ratchet's demeanour was not his usual grumpiness - after all, she had only been here for less than seven solar cycles.

But, after hearing from Prowl what had happened earlier, particularly how Emma's reaction to the situation had changed when Sari had asked her if she was okay, Optimus realised something about their new friend.

She already cared.