Fanfic / The Unexpected Rookie

A crossover fic between The Transformers and Pixar's Cars. It can be found right here. The sequel story, The Gathering Storm, can be found here.

The Decepticons have come to the world of Cars, having a terrible plan in mind for Tex Dinoco and his company. To stop them, the Autobots have disguised themselves as denizens of the world, and have entered Hot Rod (under the alias Rod Witwicky) as a rookie racer in the Piston Cup.

---

Tropes found in this fic include:

• Actually Pretty Funny:
  • Optimus is actually amused by Ramone's Your Mom insult to Starscream during the first race.
  • Prowl of all 'bots laughs himself to tears after Mater, Sideswipe and Sunstreaker accidentally cause chaos via tractor-tipping.
  • Sheriff, likewise, is barely able to hold in his laughter after seeing that the Delinquent Road Hazards have gotten in way over their heads when they've been caught by the Dinobots.
• Alien Arts Are Appreciated: While car racing exists on Earth, neither the Autobots nor the Decepticons ever took an interest in it... until they got to the world of Cars and all get sucked in to the sport. Even Megatron drops a potential assassination to watch the last race.
• All-Loving Hero:
  • After his Character Development in the first film, McQueen is this. He cares a lot about his students (even forming a friendship with Hot Rod) and is the first car to side with the Autobots after they reveal themselves, convincing his friends and even the government (to a degree) to do the same.
  • The Autobots are this, as they make a point to protect sentient life wherever they find it (be it humans or sentient, non-transforming vehicles).
• And Call Him "George": Swoop isn't exactly gentle when he's examining Boost. Luckily, Boost isn't injured.
• Awesome by Analysis: Hot Rod attempts this while racing, as the Autobots believe one of the racers is a Decepticon spy. He analyzes the abilities of several racers before the Decepticons simply attack the race track, having never had a spy.
• Bad Boss: Megatron. He's as willing to hurt his own soldiers as he is to hurt Autobots.
• Bizarre Alien Biology: This is implied. Ratchet spends most of his time in Radiator Springs repairing Mirage (who took a severe beating in their fight at the Dinoco 400). Doc, having loaned him his clinic, watches the Autobot work, and seems to be fascinated by Cybertronian mechanics.
• Call-Back: At the end of the first Cars film, Tex Dinoco arranges for Mater to take a ride in the Dinoco helicopter. After Mater tows Dinoco to safety during the fight with the Decepticons, he thanks the millionaire for the ride.
• Commonality Connection: Part of why Hot Rod likes Lightning and dislikes Chick is because Lightning's sportsmanship, honor and loyalty reminds him heavily of the Autobots, while Chick's ego and dirty tricks remind him a little too much of the Decepticons.
• Crazy-Prepared: Somehow Sarge smuggled a machine gun into the racetrack, which he uses in the fight against the Decepticons. Why he brought this with him is never explained, but it comes to good use during the fight with the Decepticons.
• Deus ex Machina: The Dinobots, while shown in an earlier chapter, magically appear in Radiator Springs in time to stop Frank from wreaking havoc. Apparently, they followed Mater there.
• Dynamic Entry: The Decepticons make their entrance by rocketing onto the track from the sky, destroying part of the track (hurting several racers in the process), then shooting at the crowd with wild abandon.
• Easily Forgiven: While experimenting with new fuel for the Autobots, Wheeljack accidentally blows up Filmore's house. He's horrified by his actions and apologizes multiple times, but Filmore (being Filmore) isn't upset at all.
• Everyone Has Standards: Despite being a Decepticon soldier who's ready and willing to tear Transformers apart, Skywarp gets squeamish at car crashes and worries if anyone died or not.
• A Father to His Men: Optimus Prime for the Autobots. Also Doc to practically everyone in Radiator Springs.
• Gentle Giant: Applies to the Autobots. In their robot forms, they tower over every car in Radiator Springs, but are benevolent and quickly befriend the cars.
• Giant Robot Hands Save Lives: McQueen is taken out of danger at the beginning of the fight by Jazz. Justified, in that Jazz only pinned him to the ground rather than picking him up, and they're both made of metal.
• Grumpy Old Man: Doc can be this, distrusting the Autobots at first (before realizing that they were actually there to help) and being the first to snap at anyone disrupting his town.
• Hated by All: After what he did to the King at his last race, Chick Hicks is liked by no one... and doesn't seem to care so long as he still gets to race and insult Lightning, along with anyone who associates with him. The Autobots dislike him so much that a few of them are convinced that he's really a Decepticon spy. To their disappointment, they're wrong. At least, for now.
• Heroes Gone Fishing: For Prime and the Autobots, their entire stay in Radiator Springs is practically a vacation (minus a few incidents that usually involve Mater or Sunny and Siders).
• Hidden Depths: Apparently, Sunstreaker and Sideswipe speak Italian. As Sunstreaker informs Luigi, they consider it a prerequisite for having an Italian alt-mode.
• Human Aliens: Of a variant. So long as they stay in their alt modes and project holographic eyes and mouths on their fronts, the Transformers look exactly like any other inhabitant of the Car world. Most vehicles they come across don't even realize that they're aliens.
• Implied Death Threat: What the Decepticons wanted from Tex Dinoco is never stated, but it's heavily implied that Tex wouldn't have come out of it in one piece.
• Internal Reveal: While watching Lightning, his trainees, and Rod practice, Prime tells Doc the story of the war between the Autobots and the Decepticons. Acts as exposition for anyone who isn't familiar with the Transformers franchise.
• Jaw Drop: Lightning's response to the Decepticons showing up.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: Megatron decides that the battle at the race track is a lost cause after he suffers from a Zerg Rush courtesy of the Radiator Springs cars, and calls for the Decepticons to retreat.
• Laser-Guided Karma:
  • The Delinquent Road Hazards are trying to cause trouble shortly after the Autobots take up temporary residence in Radiator Springs. Unfortunately for them, the place they choose to plan out their prank is also the temporary camp site for Grimlock and the Dinobots. Sheriff, when he sees the scene, finds it very hard not to laugh.
  • For both Chick Hicks and the Stunticons. While trying to overtake the disguised Hot Rod in the race, Chick rams into Hot Rod, who acts on instinct and rams him right back. Because he's a Transformer, his shove has enough power to send Chick flying through the air. At that same moment, the Stunticons had been moving in and climbing the fence so they could attack the Autobots hidden in the pits. Chick accidentally takes them all out when he goes flying, and allows for Ratchet and First Aid to capture them.
• Literal-Minded: Prowl doesn't get that most song lyrics are meant to be metaphorical, leading to arguments with Jazz on what defines good lyrics. Stevie Nicks' "Landslide" has him thoroughly confused.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: Red has a moment of this when he jumps into action after Wheeljack's experiment makes Filmore's house explode. He switches from his normally docile, happy demeanor to dead serious in a second flat.
• Let Us Never Speak of This Again: This is the attitude the government has about the Transformers on their planet. As far as they're concerned, it never happened. The only reason the 'bots are allowed to stay on the planet at all is because they are the only ones who can ensure that the Decepticons won't cause another incident.
• Lighter and Softer: Minus the fight in Chapters 2 and 3 (and a lot of Cybertronian swearing), the fic on the whole is fairly light, mainly consisting of the Autobots forming friendships with the cars of Radiator Springs.
• Motor Mouth: Bluestreak. He has a minor role in the fic, but the few moments he has are spent talking a mile a minute to Red.
• Mundane Utility: When Mater takes them tractor-tipping, Sunstreaker (to his brother's annoyance) transforms to his robot form and uses a Cybertronian weapon to wake/scare every tractor in the field. Mater approves.
• Mythology Gag: Hot Rod uses the alias Rod Witwicky while undercover as a racer. In the cartoon, Witwicky is the last name of Sparkplug and his son Spike, the two humans that spent the most time with the Autobots.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Despite Optimus Prime and the Autobots saving countless lives by fighting the Decepticons, the racing officials simply want to cover up the incident and make it clear that they want the Transformers off their world as soon as possible. Luigi even grumbles about this, stating that the Autobots should be thanked for what they did.
• Noodle Incident: Not only is this not the first time that the Autobots have come to the world of Cars in disguise, but the last time they came Sunstreaker did something that landed Sideswipe and himself in an impound lot. Sadly, we're not given any more information than this (other than the fact that Sideswipe swears he was innocent).
• Not So Above It All:
  • Sheriff, when he sees Boost and the Road Hazards captured by the Dinobots, has a very hard time not busting out laughing.
  • The Decepticons initially plan to kill Optimus Prime by shooting him with sniper fire while he's distracted watching Hot Rod race against Lightning. However, all of them (except Starscream) end up enraptured by the race and put off killing Prime until it's over... which gets them all captured by Prime's reinforcements.
• Oh, Crap!: Wheeljack's reaction when he realizes that the Delinquent Road Hazards are heading right for where the Dinobots are camped out. He has this reaction again when one of his experiments accidentally blows up Filmore's house. Sheriff and Prowl get one when Mater, Sunstreaker, and Sideswipe anger Frank so badly that he breaks out of his pen and looks ready to rampage through Radiator Springs.
• Older Than They Look: The Transformers are all millions of years old... and most of them are still young for their age. The cars express shock and disbelief at this, and Lightning states that he's done making jokes about Lizzie's age.
• Outside-Context Problem: The cars, naturally, have no idea what's going on when the Decepticons show up and Hot Rod (along with his pit crew) suddenly turn into giant robots and start fighting. The same thing happens later when the Road Hazards are caught by the Dinobots.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: The only thing the Autobots do to disguise themselves is transform into their alt modes and put on holographic eyes and mouths. This is justified, however, as they don't need to do anything more than that; in a world of living cars, their appearances don't attract attention (unless they transform into robots of course).
• Reasonable Authority Figure:
  • The government agent who shows up after the battle with the Decepticons proves to be this, as they simply make it clear that they want the incident covered up and the Autobots off their planet as soon as the rematch race is over.
  • Optimus Prime counts. When they are guests in Radiator Springs, Sunstreaker and Sideswipe cause chaos with their hijinks. Prime makes sure that they clean up every mess they cause, and allows Doc Hudson and Sheriff to punish them how they see fit (although it's nothing worse than a night in the impound and community service). He also doesn't hold Wheeljack's mistakes against him (namely bringing the Dinobots to Radiator Springs and blowing up Filmore's house), knowing that the former was ultimately a good call as the Dinobots can be loose cannons and the latter was a genuine accident.
• Relationship Upgrade: In the last chapter, Lightning proposes to Sally. She says yes!
• Screams Like a Little Girl: Chick has this reaction when the Decepticons first land, and is the first car to flee the stadium.
• Shout-Out:
  • Vince DeLorean, one of McQueen's racing students, is all but stated by the author to be one to Back to the Future. No time-traveling shenanigans here, though.
  • Lightning and Mater take down Megatron in a similar fashion to how rebels would take down an Imperial Walker. The movie is mentioned in universe as "Car Wars".
• Stuffed into a Trashcan: While rebuilding Luigi's tire tower (that they knocked over), Sunstreaker and Sideswipe get into an argument with Luigi and Guido, which they end by stuffing Guido in a dumpster. Prime has them spend the night in the impound lot for this.
• Take That!: Ramone gives Optimus Prime a paint job that's not too dissimilar from the one he'd have in the Michael Bay movies. He politely states that he doesn't like it (Prowl agrees while Jazz laughs). He manages to convince Ramone to cover it with something more akin to his old paint job (although Ramone insists on metal-flake paint).
• Tempting Fate: When Wheeljack speeds up to Prime, panicking (because the Road Hazards have just been captured by the Dinobots)], Prime wonders why, as he hasn't heard any of Wheeljack's trademark explosions. Guess what Wheeljack does later.
• Too Annoyed to Be Afraid: the Delinquent Road Hazards are trying to plan an act of vandalism they can play on Radiator Springs — and accidentally get themselves caught by the Dinobots. While three of them are understandably terrified (as they're being held prisoner by dinosaur robots and Swoop is holding Boost a little too tightly), Wingo is shown to be more annoyed than scared.
• The Unseen: Several Autobots (such as Mirage) are mentioned or have one line, but are never actually met by the Cars characters. Considering the sheer number of Transformers characters, this is understandable.
• Wham Line: When the Decepticons openly attack the track and civilians, Prime shouts his catchphrase, officially dropping The Masquerade: "Autobots, transform!"
• Wham Shot: When Jazz reveals his robot form via keeping Lightning from going after Skywarp.
• Your Mom: While distracting Starscream, Ramone shouts out "Your mother was a Cessna!" Prime admits to himself that it was a good one. Gets a Call-Back in chapter 6 when a grumpy Thundercracker refers to Starscream as "Cessna-spawn".
• Zerg Rush: This is how the Radiator Springs team gets Megatron to retreat. Optimus doesn't try to stop it, as Megatron admittedly deserves it.

---