A few months later…

THE ARK

Spike walked through the Ark's corridors. He never thought he would say this as a human, but The Ark was starting to get cramped. He was looking forward to the eventual completion of Autobot City, where he heard that like other Autobots, he would have his own small area to himself in the massively-constructed barracks. Until then, he's had to wander off on his own if he wanted a bit of solitude. The forest surrounding Mount St. Hilary had become a favorite spot of his. It at least complied with Prowl's orders to stay as close to The Ark as possible.

The after effects of the mind transfer occasionally surfaced. Sometimes, he would tell Wheeljack and Ratchet about them - the headaches, the difficulty it took to still transform, how it sometimes felt his mind was in a fog. But some other maladies he kept to himself. Like today - he couldn't explain it. He knew his systems were at full power. He didn't want to greedily ask for more energon. But he sincerely believed he was starving.

He walked past the repair bay and down the corridor toward the command center where a few of the screens were displaying human television programming. His optics locked in and slowly narrowed on a pizza commercial. At that moment, he would have given anything to be able to again taste a crunchy, cracker-like crust with mozzarella, tangy tomato sauce, and basil. Then, he thought about nachos. What an absolutely beautiful concoction of crunchy, hot, cool, and spicy. In one dish. Jesus, just to have one more bite of this in his mouth. His hunger was near ravenous, but he didn't want to tell Ratchet or Wheeljack.

In college, he read about times where people were put on liquid diets, and he read about their yearnings for solid food. He also read about amputees who would experiencing severe "phantom pains." He didn't think he could ever truly experience that phenomena, but he believed his current hunger pains had to be similar, to a far less degree. But he was so incredibly hungry.

"This is exactly what you're going through right now. You're just mad that you're on a liquid diet, but you're full power - they've already done enough for you. Do you really think Ratchet has time to hear you bellyaching that you can't eat 'real' food? Be happy that you're alive. No one who'd be in your position would be complaining about this - they'd be too busy finding a way to pay back these guys for giving you another lease on life," Spike ruefully thought to himself.

It wasn't just the food though in the commercial that he was longing for. It was that "scene" - even if it was manufactured for a TV ad. To be in a booth, scrunched up with friends on a cold winter Saturday night, laughing. True, he usually kept to himself in college, but there were exceptions, Spike thought to himself. He loved the construction crew he worked with over the summer. Chip was a reliably great friend. And David from the journalism school. Unlike most of his fellow students, David grew up poor, just like Spike. David's father had a rare cancer that drained his family savings. He had just started to get to know him.

Spike paused to recall his last conversation with David. They were outside his professor's office, looking at their final grades before their summer break. David got an 82, Spike got a 79. As they walked out, both talked about being annoyed at hearing other classmates' stories of either trips to London or Rio over the summer, or the list of concerts they were going to see. Some were even taking weeks off to follow some of the bands they loved. Spike's summer was pretty much made up by his employer. David talked about how much overtime he was going to make as a line cook in the restaurant he worked at over the summer. Both laughed at the prospect of going back to school was going to be a vacation from the summer of long work hours they were facing.

He remembered trying to arrange a few days before school where both could relax and hang out. How was David doing in school now? He knew he lived in Olympia, and Sparkplug said David called him and told him he wanted to attend his funeral, but he couldn't get the day off. Had all of this only been five months ago?

As Spike stood in the entryway in the command center, he saw Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Mirage, Prowl, Hound, and Wheeljack huddled. Wheeljack waved a hand to Spike.

"Heyah! How's the newest Autobot today?"

"Uh…just fine, Wheeljack, thanks."

Spike looked on at Prime and Bumblebee and immediately wanted to be elsewhere. He had so much he still hadn't absorbed. And it was not the typical thoughts he'd want to talk with any of the Autobots about, even Bumblebee. Spike gestured over his back.

"I was just about ready to head out and do a patrol. Is that okay?"

Prowl folded his arms and gave a reluctant nod.

"That's fine, I suppose. Just make sure you're not detected. And be back here no later than 4 cycles."

Spike gave a confused look at Prowl, totally forgetting the time translations.

"Huh?"

Hound smiled sympathetically at Spike.

"That's five hours. He'd like you back in five hours."

Spike nodded and proceeded to walk to the entrance, but Prowl stepped in front of him.

"And I want you to radio us immediately if you so much as even think a Decepticon is in the area, even if there isn't, if you so much as detect. We don't want a repeat of what we had - "

Spike closed his eyes, immediately regretting the incident that just seemed to blow up in front of him before he had a chance to react.

"I know, I'll be more carefu - "

"And stay in your vehicle mode. Wheeljack has added some additional radar-evading enhancements to you, but they're not going to be worth anything if you're in your robot mode."

Spike's shoulders slumped.

"Right. I know. No transforming. Be back in five hou…four cycles, and call at the first sign of trouble. Are we done?"

Spike looked at Prowl and then looked at the entrance, now wanting to get out of the Ark more than ever. Prowl gave a begrudging nod and let Spike leave. He waited until he transformed, and saw him disappear from view as he drove out of the entrance before returning to the command center.

Bumblebee gave a weary sigh and looked at Prowl.

"Easy, Prowl. He's still adjusting."

Prowl looked at Bumblebee, then at Optimus Prime. Prime leaned against the wall in the command center and gave a nod to Prowl to tell the Autobot scout.

"Bumblebee, I have to be tough on him now."

Prowl looked at everyone in the room and revealed what Sky Spy and his intelligence team had gathered.

"Megatron is still livid. He still hasn't gotten over his humiliation in front of entire Decepticon army, including Starscream."

Prowl then turned to Bumblebee.

"While Megatron never explicitly said it before, he didn't deliberately target either Spike and Sparkplug when they were living with us. While he would say it wouldn't be worth his time or effort, it was implied that deliberately making an attempt to kill a weak species like Sparkplug or Spike was beneath even him. Collateral damage, sure, but not deliberate."

Bumblebee tilted his head slightly.

"But now… to Megatron, those safeties that protected Spike are now totally gone. To Megatron, Spike's just as much of an Autobot as you, me, or Optimus Prime."

Bumblebee frowned.

"Those protections didn't protect Spike in the first place!"

"Spike's death was an accident, Bumblebee! It wasn't intentional. But now - "

Prowl looked at Optimus Prime.

"Megatron knows how much Spike means to Optimus. And he knows that Optimus feels responsible for his situation now. And now that he's as strong and protected as us, all bets are off. He's going to target him because he knows that is one way to get Optimus Prime if he can't physically harm Prime."

Optimus Prime approached Bumblebee.

"I'm sure Megatron will recover from this, and will find a new target to terrorize, but I agree with Prowl. And that is why I'm recommending in the next few days sending Spike to Cybertron. Alpha Trion has informed me that a new battalion of Autobots has been created, and are ready to undergo combat training."

Bumblebee's optics widened.

"No! You can't send him to Cybertron!"

Bumblebee looked at Prowl and Optimus.

"Look, I know Spike. He's not a fighter! You can't just send him to an infantry facility to be trained to blast 'cons. He's not a Warpath. He's not even a Sideswipe. If anything, he's like Hound or Hoist."

Optimus gently raised his hand at Bumblebee.

"Do not worry. I've asked them to put Spike in the program they use for medics, after all, that is what he said he wanted to be when he's better acclimated here."

Optimus Prime looked down at Bumblebee.

"But even medics need military training. If he's out in the field, and he's tending to an injured Autobot, and he's being fired on - that is a likely, almost certain scenario, and he'll need the training to not only respond to it, but to psychologically handle it as it happens. To react when you're under fire"

Bumblebee clinched his fist.

"Fine, then we training him here. He knows us. Sideswipe and Sunstreaker can teach him infantry, I'll even handle most of his training."

Optimus Prime shook his head.

"As much as I want to keep him here, we're stretched thin enough as it is. We can't afford to train him, then discontinue the training while emergencies come up, and resume it again. He needs a sustained training regiment, like all of us went through. As I said, he won't be in the infantry wing, but I honestly believe that now he's an Autobot, he needs to undergo the same training that we went through. Not doing this only puts him further in danger."

Bumblebee lowered his head.

"Have you told Sparkplug?"

Optimus Prime nodded.

"I did. He agrees."

Hound approached Bumblebee and rested his hand on the scout's shoulder.

"It's one stellar cycle, almost six months in his time frame. And while I don't want him to lose that which makes him human, I think right now, it'd be good for him to be around other brand-new Autobots. He's seen the impact of this war, but this will absolutely give him a different perspective."

Bumblebee walked to one of the screens in the command center to see where Spike was. He was approaching the city. Per Prowl's instructions, in his vehicular mode, and obeying the speed limit. He let out a defeated sigh.

"I just hope it isn't too much for him to absorb."

Bumblebee looked at the others.

"I mean, just think about it. A few months ago, he was picking out classes for his next semester. Then, he had to deal with where he is now. And now… we're telling him he's going to have to leave everyone he knows here and go to what he knows as basic training."

Mirage frowned.

"A few months ago he died in front of all of us, he's lucky to even have this chance. No human on Earth has ever been this lucky to have what he has now!"

Bumblebee looked at Mirage in disbelief and raised his voice.

"He lost his life, everything that makes him human, and you call him lucky?"

Mirage looked directly at Bumblebee and pointed at him.

"Yes! Yes I am. Look at him now. Before us, he probably would have lived for what, 70 more years? Now, he could live as long as Kup if he played it safe enough! He could live millions of years longer than when his friends and family have long since passed!"

Hound gave a sympathetic smile.

"Mirage, humans aren't quite like us. Yes, I'm sure Spike's happy, elated in fact, to have this new body and this new 'life' - but he's still very much 'human' - and humans want to hold on to those things that define their lives. How would you react if you knew you would outlive every single one of us in here?"

Mirage shook his head and looked at display monitors.

"He's not a human anymore. You're going to have to stop treating him as such, Hound."