Some say the Stig is allergic to Mary Sues...

This story has come about through a general frustration with the sheer volume of badly written Mary Sues in Transformers fan fiction. While, granted, everyone has to start somewhere, there does come a point where enough is enough. This story is a reaction to this, and it's sole purpose, as stated in the summary, is to demonstrate that it is possible to create a character who is a normal teenage girl and is actually normal, who hasn't got a backstory full of angst or butt-length hair, and have her come into contact with Transformers and not die/be greviously wounded, be changed into a Transformer or fall in love with one.

Thanks to everyone on LJ and MSN who has been cheering/egging me on, offering full and helpful reviews, critiques, advice, the occasional bit of insanity and has suffered through my piecemeal posting habits.

BBBbrrrrrrrrinnnnnng!

The bells of Portland High rang for the final time that day and signaled the release of 500-odd teenagers into the bright spring sun of the unsuspecting outside world.

Mallory Kirke elbowed her way through a bunch of brain-dead jocks and their vapid-eyed gaggle of cheerleaders blocking off part of the stairs, stepped over the three-inch wide crack on the sidewalk that the council still hadn't fixed yet and threaded through the rapidly dispersing crowd to where Emma Reese was waiting under an oak tree that had had about half of it's branches neatly sheared off.

"Hey Em, another great afternoon in the great metropolis of Portland, eh?" Mallory asked. Emma snapped her gum and rolled her eyes, a smile twitching the corners of her lips. It'd been their standard joke/greeting since last year. Emma pushed off the miraculously alive tree and the pair headed towards town.

A red pickup roared past them as they walked, belching smoke. The driver honked the horn at the pair of girls while his passengers- a good chunk of the football team- hooted and hollered. Emma eyed the truck and it's contents disdainfully. "Jocks." She muttered. "And Staine's the worst." Emma announced, jerking her thumb in the direction of the the rapidly disappearing truck.

"I still can't believe Staine tried to take on Witwicky," Mallory commented as they walked into the outskirts of the city. "I mean, sure, he's not a jock like Staine, but he works on oil rigs over summer. That's gotta be tough. Plus he hangs out with those giant alien robots too."
Emma snapped her gum again and grimaced. "Remember what happened when Staine made that crack about Spike's mom? He deserved that black eye."
"Yeah. I'm just surprised it took so long for Spike to hit the jerk."
"Uh huh. If'd been me I woulda dodged the first punch and hit him right after that instead of spending all that time waiting."
"Mmhmm. It was kinda funny though."Mallory slid a grin at her friend. "Watching that two-tonne jerk trying to hit Spike and not laying a finger on him I mean."
"Too right!"

The friends shared a laugh outside the Killer Rig Auto Shop. "Here's my stop." Mallory sighed, looking up at the dented metal sign over the door. "I'll see you tomorrow in math, okay?"
"Okay Mal, see ya there." Emma tossed off a wave as she headed home, blowing another bubble of bright pink gum as she left.

Mallory turned towards the door, squared her shoulders and glanced up to the sky. "Please let him be out today. Please?" She begged, then carefully eased open the door.

"Mallie!"

She found herself snatched up in a crushing, oil-and-metal-scented embrace. "Uncle Jake! Ribs!"
"Oh, sorry." Uncle Jake, proud owner of Killer Rig, gently put his niece down and grinned at her. "Thanks for coming out to fill in for Gracie. Poor girl's down with the flu."
"It's no big problem Uncle Jake." Mallory straightened out her clothes and brushed herself off. "I can still do my homework, right?"
"Yep, just answer the 'phone and check off customers in the log book at the desk."
"And coffee! Don't forget the coffee! Four o'clock sharp!" Someone hollered from the workshop.
"Can it Monkey, you can make your own coffee for a week!" Uncle Jake yelled back, then offered an apologetic smile to Mallory. "That was Monkey, don't mind him, okay? He's just gotten a little too used to Gracie."
"Uhh..whatever you say, Uncle Jake." Mallory managed a hesitant smile in return.

Uncle Jake laughed and clapped her across the back. "That's my girl!" He chuckled, then headed over to the open door of the workshop and the various busy sounds of metal, machinery and rock music that echoed out from within.

Mallory made her escape to the reception desk and was pleasantly surprised to find that it was neat and tidy, with a little bunch of flowers in a porcelain vase and hardly an oil spot in sight. She'd only met Gracie a couple of times, but it was obvious that she was a very neat, very organised person.

How she'd ended up working at Uncle Jake's auto shop was a complete mystery to Mallory Kirke.

Never the less, Mallory settled herself in, played with the chair settings until it was comfortable and dug the current bane of her existence out of her bag- Algebra.

Half an hour crawled by as she wrestled with quadratics, then the bell over the door tinkled as a customer walked in. Mallory looked up and pasted on a friendly smile. "Welcome to Killer Rig, how can I help you?" She'd been rehearsing the line in her head since lunchtime and hoped it came out right.
"Hi Grac..." He blinked. "Oh sorry, hey there Mallory."
"Spike?" Mallory flushed a little. Being recognised by someone from school had been her biggest fear about taking the job here, but she knew enough about Spike to know he wouldn't say anything about it, even though he wasn't allowed in Portland High anymore. "Gracie's sick, I'm filling in." She explained.
"Ah." Spike nodded. "I'm here to pick up an order, should be under 'Witwicky'."

Mallory nodded and bent over the thick log book of different jobs. "Let's see.."she murmured "that's the repairs for the Tan family... and the doctor's motorcycle...no, that's not it, that's about a Toyota Yaris...ah ha, here we go! Assorted auto parts?" She looked up at the slightly older Spike, curiosity clear.
Spike hitched one shoulder in a half-shrug. "Sometimes it's easier to get stock parts and modify them." He explained.
"Oh, that makes sense." Mallory nodded and picked up the 'phone to call the workshop. A few minutes of haggling with Monkey over the fact that no, she wasn't going to make coffee and he wouldn't like her coffee anyway, and she was able to report that her uncle had the parts and he was taking them out for him now.

"It'll take a few minutes for him to find it all." Mallory reported. "He'll take it out front to your..." she leaned out to look through the large reception window to see what vehicle Spike had brought with him...and saw a pair of giant black legs blocking out the afternoon sunlight. She paled, green eyes wide. "...is that..?"
Spike glanced over to the window and nodded. "Yep, that's Trailbreaker out there. He's a nice guy, do you want to meet him?"
"Meet him?" Mallory squeaked and shrunk back behind the receptionist desk and it's dubious protection. The memories of the incident that led to the principal formally requesting Spike to leave and finish his high school diploma from home were still fresh in her mind, even though it happened two months ago.

To her surprise, Spike walked around the desk, took her gently by the elbow and guided her out to the window. "He's one of the Autobots, the good guys." He explained gently. "He's just like a normal person, and he feels terrible when people are scared of him."
"But...he's so huge!" She watched with astonishment as her uncle walked out of the yard with a windscreen in his gloved hands. The robot... Trailbreaker, she corrected herself, reached down, gently took it between two blunt fingers...and the glass promptly vanished.

"What...what did he do?" Mallory stammered
"Subspace." Spike answered. "All transformers have what they call subspace 'pockets' where they can put stuff."
"Oh...sounds like something outta Star Trek." She laughed nervously, still staring up at the mech.
Spike chuckled. "Heh, yeah, you're right about that. Sure, they're aliens here, but they act so human I forget that they come from a different planet. They're regular people Mallory, nothing to be scared of. C'mon, let's go talk to him." He gently urged her.

Somehow she found herself outside, still with Spike's hand on her elbow (probably to keep her from running away screaming, mused the one corner of her mind that wasn't going "GIANT ALIEN ROBOT! AAAAHHHHH!" and running around in circles.)

"Hey Trailbreaker, there's someone here to meet you." Spike called up at the living mass of metal and machinery.
The big, black mech turned and smiled, kneeling down to get a better look. "Hey there, my name's Trailbreaker." He introduced himself, careful to not make any sudden movements.
"Hi." Mallory squeaked, nervously tucking a lock of brown hair back behind her ear "I'm Mallory. I used to go to school with Spike." Why she felt the need to say that, Mallory had no idea.
"Oh?" Trailbreaker chuckled. "Between you and me Mallory, I've never understood that place. Seems like a waste to spend so much time cooped up inside."
Mallory felt a weak smile creep across her face. "Heh, yeah. Especially in summer. It's just too nice outside." She heard herself say. The larger portion of her mind stopped screaming 'GIANT ALIEN ROBOT!' and switched tracks to 'I'M TALKING TO A GIANT ALIEN ROBOT!'

Unfortunately, a buzzing interrupted anything further that they might have said. Spike frowned and plucked a slim black object with a screen from his belt, looking at it. Trailbreaker tilted his head to one side and seemed to be listening to something neither human could hear. "Sorry Mallory, we've got to go." Spike frowned and put the thing back on his belt. "Something's come up. Tell Jake we'll be back tomorrow, okay?"
"Uh...okay." Mallory stepped back as Trailbreaker stood and moved to the road. There was a mechanical sound and a boxy vehicle rested where he had stood. Spike ran to him and climbed in the door that obligingly popped open, then the two roared off.

Still dazed, Mallory wandered back inside, picked up the 'phone and called the workshop to pass the message on.

Emma was never, ever, ever going to believe this.

0o0o0

The next day she was proven quite right.

"...I don't believe it." Emma gasped, eyes wide. "Oh. My. Gosh. You talked to one of them!"
"Yeah." Mallory nodded. "His name was Trailbreaker, he came to Uncle Jake's shop with Spike to pick up an order."
"Oh my gosh...what was he like?"
"What was who like?"

Both girls looked at the speaker- Victoria May, aspiring track and field athlete and fellow detainee of second period math with Ms Grichee (a.k.a Ms Grinch when she wasn't listening. No student was stupid enough to even think of saying it to her face. Not even the jocks.)

"Mallie met an Autobot yesterday." Emma informed her, albeit a tad smugly. No 'run of the mill' student ever passed up a chance to show off in front of a sports student, especially in a sports-orientated school like this one.
"You met one of those things?" Victoria looked at Mallory with disbelief.
"Yup. Trailbreaker, some kinda four by four looking thing, black."She replied. "He's nice." Mallory couldn't help but add, completely forgetting her prior fear.

"Huh." Victoria paused, thinking. "Hey, you guys remember what happened to Staine's car?"
"Yeah..." Emma frowned. "Why?"
"Well, it happened after the fight with Witwicky, right?" Victoria smiled. No sports student ever missed the opportunity to out think a 'brain' student, even ones as remotely 'brain' designated as these two. "You should ask that Trailbreaker guy how Staine's car ended up in there."
"Yeah, you should!" Emma chimed in eagerly.
"Uuh...okay." Mallory couldn't help a small feeling of worry coil in the back of her mind. Just what on earth had she gotten herself into?

0o0o0

When Mallie reached the Killer Rig that afternoon (on her own this time, Emma had flute lessons on Tuesdays) she couldn't spot Trailbreaker's boxy black vehicle form in the rough parking area. Instead there were two expensive looking cars with decals and racing paints all over them. She gave them a curious look and shrugged, pushing the door open to go and clock in for the afternoon.

"Oh, hey Spike." Mallory smiled at Spike, who was sitting in a slowly dying armchair with a clear view of the parking lot and thumbing through an auto magazine, looking pretty bored.
"Hey Mallie." Spike nodded back.

Mallory spent a few minutes organising the mess of receipts that had appeared on the desk and fished the Grinch's latest attempt to murder her class with algebra out of her backpack. "So, uh, where's Trailbreaker?" She asked. "I didn't see him outside."
"Oh he's fine." Spike kept his manner relaxed and calm, seeing no need to tell her that they'd been in a battle and Trailbreaker had lost an arm to the Seeker trine. Besides, it was true, Trailbreaker was quite fine in Ratchet's care. "I came with Jazz and Wheeljack this time."
"Jazz? As in the music?" Mallie queried, looking out through the window at the two cars.

One of them flickered it's lights at her and Spike chuckled. "Yep, that's him. Music nut, naturally. And yep, he can hear us. Very sensitive audios, ears." He added the translation at the last minute.
"Oh." Mallie wasn't too sure how to reply to that, and changed topics accordingly. "Hey Spike, did you hear about what happened to Staine's car after your fight?"
Spike sat up a little, interested. "No...he drove that black and white Mustang, right? What happened to it?"

Mallie tucked some hair back behind her ear, a little self-conscious. "Well...during the school centennial it kinda vanished out of the parking lot and they found it in the school pool. The gates were chained and no one could figure out how it got there."
Spike laughed and slid a look in the Autobots' direction. "Oh really? I wonder how that happened." He commented rather mildly, raising his voice a little just to make it obvious whom he was actually addressing. Outside, both cars seemed to sink a little lower on their wheels as if they were trying to avoid being noticed.

"No, I don't think they did it." Spike replied when Mallie asked if they'd been the culprits. "But I bet they know who did."
"Are you going to tell anyone? I mean, it's against the rules, isn't it?" Mallory queried.
"There's no way I can prove it." Spike shrugged. "And there's no way that they're going to own up to it. I'm their friend, and these guys can be pretty protective of their own sometimes. The way they see it, Staine crossed a line when he made the crack about my mom. Sure, I gave him a black eye for it, but the school got me in trouble, so they decided to punish him for me."
"Ah. Kinda like the big brothers from hell?"
"Yeah, sorta." Spike chuckled.

Half an hour passed in friendly joke-swapping with Spike and the two Autobots via Spike's little black box from yesterday, described as a combination secure radio and pager. Privately, Mallory decided that the Autobots, as friendly as they seemed, were far less intimidating as cars than as giant alien robots that could turn you into street pizza if they tripped.

The intermittent stream of traffic kept the two Autobots from transforming to have a proper conversation as they would have preferred. Understandably enough, they liked to keep a low profile if they could, for their suppliers' sake if nothing else.

"Incoming, we'd better chill for a bit." Jazz advised from the tiny speaker.
"Copy Jazz." Spike put the radio-pager back on his belt and looked out the window to see who was coming. Mallory did too, and let out a loud groan when she saw the big red truck roar up and screech into the parking lot. "Oh kill me now, it's Staine!"
"Staine?" Spike's eyes tightened a little and he rose, the chair creaking it's protest. He pushed open the door just as the quarterback jumped down from his truck and sauntered out, two of his teammates flanking him.

Staine grinned maliciously when he saw the slighter built Spike. "Hey runt, I heard I could find you here."
Spike put one hand on Jazz's bonnet, then touched Wheeljack's as he walked towards Staine, silently asking the two Autobots to stay quiet. "Oh?"

Mallory meanwhile, bit her lip and called for her uncle. She had no idea how Staine found out about her meeting Trailbreaker, or how he found out that she met him here, but that didn't really matter right now. What mattered was somehow keeping the jock, obnoxious as he was, from being turned into a greasy red smear and keeping Spike from getting his jaw broken by said obnoxious jock.

Aforementioned jock had by now closed the distance and stabbed one blunt finger at Spike's chest, his flunkies leaning back against the truck and grinning in anticipation at the carnage they were sure was to come. "What happened to my Mustang, runt?" Staine snarled, putting on an impressive threat display.
Spike remained impassive. "What makes you think I had anything to do with it?" He asked mildly, arms hanging loose at his sides. "Do I look like I could pick a car up and drop it in a pool?"

The quarterback's brow creased in a frown. "You think you know everything, runt!" He accused. "Well lemme tell you something, you don't!" And with that, he swung one meaty fist at Spike's head.

What followed was an almost exact repeat of the now fabled fight of corridor five. Spike ducked and wove around the larger Staine, hands in his pockets and completely relaxed. Staine roared like an enraged bull, face red and mottled with growing rage as his target continued to effortlessly dodge his attacks.

Finally, seemingly bored by the whole charade, Spike sidestepped a lunge, stuck out one foot and sent Staine sprawling into the dust and grit.

Staine growled and worked his way to a kneeling position, spitting and wiping blood off his chin. Spike crouched, just out of arms' reach, and offered his 'opponent' a small smile. "Staine, a little piece of advice. I roll with giant alien robots to go fight other giant alien robots. A high school bully doesn't scare me."
Staine gave him a purely malevolent glare. "F-..."

"Don't even think about it."

Jake prodded the kneeling quarterback with a hefty pipe wrench to emphasise his point. Monkey (who was built more like a gorilla to be perfectly honest) stood nearby, arms crossed over his chest as he eyeballed the two football players, just daring them to come to the defence of their quarterback.

Uncle Jake hefted his wrench again as Staine got to his feet. "Clear outta here before I call the cops and have you pulled up for assault." Jake growled, looming threatening over the teenager.
"Whatever." Staine snarled and stormed back to his truck, livid.

Jake watched the truck roar out, then turned to his niece, one eyebrow slightly raised. "Mallie? Do you have something you wanna tell me?"

Mallie bit her lip, scuffing the ground with one foot. This...was not going to be pretty.

0o0o0

Second period math the next day, and Mallie was slumped in her chair, idly doodling in the margins of her workbook. Ms Grinch was sick so they had the baseball coach as a substitute. He didn't really care about algebra and gave them instructions to the tune of 'Siddown and zip it' while he worked on a pile of permission slips and other such things for a tournament he was sending the seniors to.

A folded scrap of paper appeared on her desk. Mallie took it, unfolded it and read the short note inside- You okay Mallie? What happened? She scribbled a short note back, explaining what happened yesterday, how much trouble she was in and passed it back.

A second note landed on her desk a moment later. This one just had two words. Victoria May.

0o0o0

They found her and cornered her at lunch, in her usual spot with all the other track and field/other similar sports stars. Emma wasted no time, marching straight to her and crossing her arms. "Did you tell him?" She demanded.

Victoria blinked and looked up at the two girls. "Tell who what?"
"Staine. Did you tell Staine?" Emma shot back.

There was a fairly uncomfortable pause.

Though normally no 'uncool' student would dare accuse a 'cool' student of anything, things tended to be a little different when the accuser was the Principal's darling granddaughter.

Victoria shifted a little, quite aware that if she lied, Emma would take her suspicions to the principal anyway and no one, not even a jock, dared to lie to him. "I... might've mentioned something." She hedged.

"For your information," Emma said, raising her voice just enough to let the next table hear it too, "Staine went and hunted down Spike and tried to attack him again outside the shop. The owner was gonna charge him with assault."

She paused, just long enough to let that little bombshell sink in, smiled sweetly and turned, tugging Mallie along with her. "C'mon, let's go." She said.

Once out of earshot, Mallie glanced at her friend rather warily. "You know the rumour mills are gonna get that all over the school by the end of the day...right?"
"Yep." Emma smirked. "Figured I'd use the rumour mill to my advantage for once. I've had enough of rumours getting spread about me."

Mallie gave her a mock-scared look. "Evil. Genius."

0o0o0

That afternoon, as Mallie approached the Killer Rig, she bit her lip and noted with mild concern the complete lack of cars in the parking lot, aside from her uncle's and Monkey's. There wasn't even a hint of something that might-be-a-Giant-Alien-Robot. The shop was strangely quiet too. No machinery, no rock music, no voices. Mallie frowned further and pushed the reception door open.

The tinkle of the bell was startlingly loud in the silence.

Chalking it all up to some sorta shop owners/adult thing she didn't know about yet, Mallie took her place behind the free standing desk and started sorting out the very messy pile of papers left there, not to mention the two tapes that someone had left next to Monkey's old boombox on the corner of the desk.

She was almost through the pile when she shifted a newspaper and found a very odd note scribbled on the desk itself in greasepencil.

It was a phone numer, followed by 'Mallie call now!'

"Huh...I wonder what this is..." Mallie sat and frowned at the number. It wasn't any number she knew, not her parents, any one of the numerous uncles and aunties from either side of the family nor any emergency contact that she knew about. She took one last quick look in the workshop (a mess, but nothing new there), Uncle Jake's office (strangely tidy) and the back room (neat as a pin). Still finding no one, her hand strayed to the telephone parked on the desk. "Guess I'd better try it." Mallie murmured to herself and picked up the handset.

Something on the other end of the line clicked a couple of times and then it started ringing. Mallie waited patiently, expecting an answer after five or six rings like usual, so she was rightfully surprised when after the second ring an authoritative voice (upon later reflection she decided he sounded like a male version of Ms Grinch in one of her moods) barked a brisk 'State your business' at her.

"Uh, I'm Mallie, sorry, Mallory..." She stammered a bit, caught completely off guard. "My uncle left a note at the shop for me to call this number..."
"What is your last name, your uncle's name and the name and location of his shop?"The Voice snapped at her.
"Kirke...and his name's Jake Kirke, and it's the Killer Rig Auto Shop, 54 Descat street..."
"Is your uncle there?" The Voice interrupted.
"...no, no one is, and it's weird 'cause his and Monkey's cars are out there..."

"Do exactly what I say," The Voice cut her off again, "put down the telephone, go outside and wait for Jazz. No one else."
That caught her right off guard. "Wait, Jazz? Are you..?"
"PUT DOWN THE TELEPHONE!"The Voice snapped. Startled by the force of whoever it was' tone, Mallie quickly hung up and reached for her bag.

Her delay was going to cost her.

Thanks to everyone on LJ and MSN who has been cheering/egging me on, offering full and helpful reviews, critiques, advice, and the occasional bit of insanity and has suffered through my piecemeal posting habits.