Hey, guys!

I mentioned in Talida Prime: Fading Suns that I was considering doing a 'what-if' story concerning what if Jack found out about the Transformers earlier than he did in the series. I've gotten good feedback about the idea, so I've decided to go along with it.

I'm writing this as part of the new Talida Prime universe I want to set up. In this, Jack and Talida won't end up being half-siblings and a whole lot of stuff that happened in the original Talida Prime series won't be happening in this one (mainly because I look back at them and go, 'What the hell was I thinking?').

As for the story's title, I was listening to the song by Simple Plan A LOT and I felt it related to this. In this new series, I'll be naming my stories after songs. Chapters included.

I own nothing except for this plot and any OCs that appear in this story.

ENJOY!

...or not...

What is normal? They say that normal is conforming to a typical standard. In high school, normal meant being like everyone else. Essentially, being ordinary.

But it is as V.C. Andrews once said: "What is normal? Normal is only ordinary; mediocre. Life belongs to the rare, exceptional individual who dares to be different."

Talida Prime is definitely a rare, exceptional individual who dared to be different.

Many people around Jasper High School are willing to admit Talida is beautiful. Whenever she stepped out into the sun, her red hair would glow and whenever a breeze picked up the long locks that flowed down to the swell of her breasts, it would resemble a beautiful fire. Her blue eyes were intense, yet would remind one of an enchanting and delicate newly bloomed bluebell in a beautiful valley. Standing at five feet and three inches, her frame was petite with all the telltale signs of blossoming into a beautiful young woman. But that was as far as they would go with her.

They would say she was like Belle in Beauty and the Beast. Beautiful, but strange.

Talida wasn't like any other girls. The majority of girls at her high school obsessed over their looks, were afraid to do things that would potentially involve a trip to the local nail salon to buff broken nails; essentially, like those popular girls one would see in those cliched teen movies. Talida didn't care about the latest fashion. if she felt like it, she was not afraid to ditch her signature dark blue skinny jeans held up by a black belt, black tight tank top, black leather jacket and black knee-high boots for some ratty old clothes. Her favourite (and best) class was the male-dominated auto shop class where she could work on various engines and, on several occasions, beat the boys at their own game. She loved sports as much as the boys and is on equal level with them when it comes to cheering for her favourite teams.

Some would say that she was a boy trapped in a girl's body if they didn't know that she does sometimes like feminine things. Even if she rarely indulged in them.

"Hey, Jackie!" Talida beamed as she sat next to her best friend under a tree.

The aforementioned boy rolled his eyes at his best friend's nickname for him. At fourteen years old, Jackson "Jack" Darby felt he was too old for that particular moniker. However, the girl he had known since infancy had other ideas. She was also the only one who could call the raven-haired, blue-eyed teenager Jackie. Not even his mother was allowed to.

"You ever get tired of calling me that, Lida?" Jack asked with a slight sigh.

"Hey. We could be old and grey and fading to our bare bones and I'll still call you Jackie," Talida retorted with a smirk, elbowing the older (by two months) boy in the ribs, "You doing OK? You seemed pretty upset after leaving art class today."

Art Class had brought up a painful subject for Jack. As the school term was coming to a close, everyone was suddenly going crazy over Father's Day, which was a few weeks away. Unfortunately, their art teacher decided to take the opportunity to ask everyone to make a present for their fathers, bringing everyone back to kindergarten or at least the early years of elementary school. Unfortunately, Jack's father took off one day when he was young and even to this day, nobody knew where he was. As one could imagine, Jack struggled with the task of making a Father's Day present for a father who was no longer in his life.

The snide comments from Vince that sent Jack running out of the room almost in tears didn't help either.

"I'm fine. I just have to stop letting Vince get under my skin," Jack shrugged.

"Well, that's impossible," Talida scoffed, "You think he can't get to you and he finds another way to."

"Is he still making those comments to you?" Jack inquired.

Vince was known around Jasper High as the school bully. He didn't discriminate concerning who he targeted. He would just target anyone he felt was a worthy target. But one thing he was consistent on was how he talked to the girls, and that would always consist of disgusting comments, innuendos, and horrible pick-up lines.

"When doesn't he?" Talida sighed as she went to put the Father's Day present she had made - a special necklace with a unique symbol, wrapped with the card attached - into her backpack, before sighing in frustration, "Dude, you've got that dopey look again!"

Jack didn't listen to her. He was too busy staring at Sierra, his infatuation. Jack wasn't the only guy who had a crush on the cheerleader who was the favourite for becoming cheer captain the following year. But for Talida, Jack's crush was annoying.

If only because of her own feelings for him.

Yeah. She has feelings for her best friend. Hardly the first time that has happened. She realized she was in love with him just under tow years ago when an influenza epidemic spread throughout Jasper. Talida got sick, but was fine in a few days. Jack, on the other hand, didn't recover as fast as Talida had. In fact, he ended up in the ICU at Jasper Hospital. Seeing him struggle like that broke her heart and made her realize that, at the tender age of 12 years old, she was in love with him.

And it was obvious to Talida that he didn't feel the same way she does. After all, if he did have feelings for her, he wouldn't be crushing over Sierra the way he was.

"Jack... Jack... JACK!"

"Huh? What?" Jack stammered as he snapped out of his daze and focused on his best friend.

"Just figured I'd stop you before you started drooling. Again," Talida drawled.

HONK HONK!

"And that's my ride," Talida smirked as she stood up and sling her backpack over her shoulders, "You still up for that movie marathon tomorrow night?"

"You bet," Jack nodded as he stood up to hug her.

"See you tomorrow!" Talida called over her shoulder as she raced to her ride.

"Ugh. If it isn't the school freak."

Talida rolled her eyes and turned to face Sierra and her silent, nameless friend.

"There's nothing wrong with being different, Sierra. The world would be one boring place if everyone liked the same things," Talida pointed out.

"But girls shouldn't like boys' things," Sierra retorted.

"You might as well say that home ec should be for girls only," Talida scoffed, thinking of her other male friends who preferred home ec to auto shop, "Look. You and I are two completely opposite individuals. You like really girly stuff and I like some of that stuff too. I just prefer more stuff that's normally for guys. And you know what? That's OK. Just don't tear me down for being different. If anything, I'm being myself because everyone else is taken."

"Whatever. All I know is everyone has their role in society and everybody should conform to it," Sierra sneered.

"You are proof that evolution can go in reverse, Sierra," Talida shook her head disappointedly, smirking when Sierra struggled to come up with a response, "Well, this is disappointing. I was hoping for a battle of wits, but it appears that you have stepped onto the battlefield unarmed. So I hope you have a lovely day and that you don't ruin mine so I can have one too."

With a smile, Talida hopped into the passenger seat of the red Dodge Challenger, resting her backpack between her feet on the floor. Automatically, the seatbelt reached across her towards the buckle and latched on tight, making sure the passenger was secure.

"How was school?" a male voice asked casually.

"Same old, same old," Talida shrugged to the dashboard as the car pulled away from the curb, "We had to make Father's Day gifts in Art Class today, so Jack was a little uncomfortable. One thing that didn't help was Vince's comments."

If there were other people in the car, some people would think Talida was being rude in terms of talking to the dashboard instead of the driver. However, they would also realize that there was no driver.

That would lead them to realize that she was actually talking to the car.

"Is he still making those comments to you?" the Dodge Challenger asked with a slight growl in his voice.

"It's a daily occurrence, Cliff," Talida sighed, "I wouldn't worry about him too much."

Cliff, known by his full designation as Cliffjumper, unintentionally revved his engines in anger, "That guy should be taught a lesson on how to treat a woman. And as your honorary big brother, I feel obliged to give him that lesson."

"I doubt he would listen," Talida shook her head, "No matter how much you and Bulkhead intimidate him."

"Good point," Cliffjumper relented.

The conversation shifted to Talida's other classes - especially auto shop - and some of Cliffjumper's experiences of the day until they arrived at a disused missile silo hidden in the mountains surrounded by desert.

This was also where Talida differed from the other girls at Jasper High School. Unlike the other girls, Talida lived in the disused missile silo rather than a house or even an apartment. Her family also differed as well.

Other girls didn't have sentient beings as parents.

"Hey, mum! Hi, dad!" Talida greeted as she raced up the stairs towards the recreation area in the base's central hub.

Some would say that Talida was half-alien. In a way, she was. She just preferred the technical term for her species: techno-organic. A techno-organic is the result of one Cybertronian mating with a human.

Or the mating of two Cybertronians who were turned into humans, as was the case for Talida's family.

The Decepticons had stumbled on a gun that had the ability to transform their enemies into the indigenous species of the planet they happened to be on. Nobody knew how or where they found the gun until Optimus and Arcee were hit during a battle not long after Team Prime first arrived on Earth and they work up in sickbay human.

The side effects of the gun lasted for one year. During that year, Optimus and Arcee, who had always hoped for a biological child since they first bonded, but always struggled to, finally had their miracle in the form of Talida Hope Prime.

Not long after the side effects wore off, the Autobots claimed the gun themselves and locked it away so that it could never be found or used by the Decepticons. Talida found it when she was eleven in one of the vaults and changed the mechanics of it so she could use it as a weapon.

But already, Talida differed from other techno-organics. She is an incarnate of the very first techno-organic - the Ruler Rayna - vessel of Primus and Cybertron's ruler until her mysterious disappearance mere weeks before Cybertron finally went dark. She inherited more than her looks (which were also, coincidentally, nearly identical to her mother's) from Rayna. She got her powers, which were just coming to light and she was still struggling to control.

"Hey, Tally," Arcee responded as she kissed her daughter's head, "How was school?"

"Bulk and I need to discuss giving Vince a few lessons on how to treat a lady!" Cliffjumper answered before Talida could.

"My fists have been itching to give that kid a bit of a pounding," Bulkhead smirked as he pounded his two fists together.

"Is he still saying those comments to you?" Arcee sighed in frustration.

"Yeah. I've gotta admit it. If I knew I could have gotten away with it, I would've decked him. Or thrown him in the trashcan. Or shoot him," Talida mused, earning a disapproving look from her mother, "He pissed me off!"

"I would disapprove of you using your immeasurable talents in a way that would result in you sinking to your opponent's level, Talida," Optimus rumbled.

"Well, thank you for ruining my mood following a gratifying one-sided battle of wits with Sierra," Talida grumbled.

"Oooh, you always love those!" Cliffjumper cackled.

"Even more so when I actually have a worthy opponent? Why do you think I am sort of upset Megatron suddenly disappeared last year?" Talida asked rhetorically.

Everyone wasn't surprised by her remark. Since she stumbled onto the battlefield at the tender age of seven, she has had a bond with Megatron. A bond nobody could explain. Even if they tried. They were compatible matches in terms of sparring - both with wits and weapons. There was also the strange behaviour where Megatron always tried to avoid hurting her if he could and he stated that kidnapping her was off-limits to the other Decepticons.

However, they didn't worry about that bond - or Megatron manipulating it to his own advantage - too much. There was a higher chance of Megatron deliberately hurting Talida than Talida defecting to the Decepticons. She was too much like her father in that aspect.

"You got any homework?" Bumblebee bleeped.

"Nah. The actual homework I got assigned, I was able to complete in study hall, and the rest of my teachers said that the homework would be the leftover classwork we didn't finish during the lesson," Talida shook her head, mulling in disappointment over how lazy a lot of her teachers were.

"Perhaps you would like to go scouting with Cliffjumper if your schoolwork and revision for the day is completed," Ratchet suggested as he handed her a scanner, "You will be heading to The Dark Hedges in Northern Ireland today."

"Yes! Another place that's on my bucket list!" Talida crowed happily as she pulled the piece of paper out of her bag and crossed the place off from her extensive list.

"What is on your bucket list exactly, sweetspark?" Optimus inquired.

"Go backpacking around Europe, climb the Sydney Harbour Bridge, see a Broadway show, help Fowler become less of a jerk, help Ratchet realize he doesn't have to be so grouchy all the time," Talida began listing.

"I am not grouchy! I am a realist!" Ratchet protested.

"So am I at times and you don't see me acting like an old grouch," Talida threw back.

"She's got you there, Ratch," Bulkhead chuckled.

"Well, as much as I would love to continue this battle of wits, Cliff and I have a date," Talida smirked as she grabbed the hover board that was leaning on the wall, hopped on it and slung the strap of her gun over her shoulder.

"Be careful, kid," Bulkhead warned.

"Always am!" Talida scoffed as she and Cliffjumper traveled through the GroundBridge portal.

Little did the Autobots realize that it would be the last time they saw Talida for a while.

Whatcha think? Could it be better? I struggled over this one FOR MONTHS!

Before I go, I should point out some changes.

Talida is Optimus and Arcee's daughter. It'll be kinda like Strange Beginnings...except they don't leave their infant daughter on a doorstep. Bumblebee is Talida's adopted brother and they will not get together. Jack's still Talida's childhood best friend, but they're in love with each other. They just won't admit it. For one thing, Jack hasn't realized he's in love with her yet.

Also, I'm hoping to make Talida and Ratchet's relationship a little bit more amusing.

And yes. I'M BACK, BABY!

BYE!