So this "Wild Side" one shot is also based on the last chapter, specifically, Wheeljack.

You see, as his character has been somewhat merged with "Snarl" from "Transformers Cybertron" (and also slightly with Wolfang from Beast Wars), he has some things he has to get used to.

Like the fact that he can survive on more than energon now, which will actually lessen Ratchet's rationing concerns considerably...once he stops freaking out about the mutation.

"Something smells weird."

Wheeljack had returned to his normal, Wrecker frame, but parts of his armor were still shaped like Snarl's. He walked slowly around the base, frowning, repeating over and over, "What's that smell?"

Ratchet could only take so much, and ordered him out of the medical bay after only two minutes, leaving him to amble along the corridors, taking in deep draughts of the atmosphere. It sounded remarkably like a human or other organic animal sniffing, despite Wheeljack having no nose to speak of. The general consensus was that it was an ability garnered from his canine third (or was it fourth) form, and was therefore probably not some life-threatening anomaly that needed to be addressed.

At last, tired of the confusion of scent information without the Maximal-esque subroutines to guide it, Wheeljack crouched in the hallway and scowled at everything. Maybe as Snarl, he could make some sense of the tangled skeins of data? The Autobot mutant pondered how best to force the transformation for a few minutes before squinching his optics shut and trying to focus - not a strong point of his. Maybe if he simply thought about the forms changing, the way he did when he went into his vehicle mode?

It did not make the same sound as when he transformed from car to robot or vice versa. There were more muted clicks and buzzes and less metal crashes and clashes. At once, the confused onslaught of sensory input settled into something more recognizable as information.

"Whew! That's better," Wheeljack muttered in Snarl's voice. He hadn't quite gotten the hang of using two different names yet, but as long as he thought of it as a disguise, like in the movies the humans watched, it wasn't completely disorienting. Now the scent he had been trying to identify seemed almost like a visible trail, leading to one of the back storage rooms in one of the lower hangar chambers. Inside, Agent Fowler paced back and forth next to a parked delivery truck with blackened windows. He looked a little agitated.

"House and home," he muttered, "These Maximals are gonna eat us out of house and home."

Wheeljack - no, he corrected himself, Snarl at the moment - crept forward into the hangar, cautious of any strangers as the truck was not one he had seen in the base before. Warned by the soft rasp of fur against concrete, Fowler turned and jumped.

"Gyah! Don't do that, Wheelwolf - er Wolfjack - er - Wheeljack!" the man sputtered.

Snarl tried to ignore the tiny flash of hurt he felt at the human's reaction. Didn't he realize it was still him? He was still the same Autobot, just...packaged a little differently, that was all.

"So…" he began awkwardly, "What's with the truck?"

Bill coughed slightly, perhaps aware of having made the grey and blue mech uncomfortable. He slapped the side of the unmanned truck as he explained.

"One of the advantages of being a Maximal - though I'm not sure you're really a Maximal, technically - is...oh how did the lion put it...a greater variety of fuel sources." Fowler shrugged and, with a grunt of effort, opened the back of the truck.

Inside were several crates full of fruits, vegetables, and frozen meats. "The semi-organic system you picked up is programmed to process organic food sources into a reliable energy source via consumption," he unwrapped one of the steaks and held it at arm's length. "Don't ask me how though. I stopped paying attention when I saw the bill!"

Curious, Snarl sniffed at the piece of meat, and noted with a start that the man was correct. His systems were classifying it as a secondary energy source. He understood the process that would convert the organic matter into energon, as it was simply a variation on many normal Cybertronian inner functions, but explaining it to a human would probably take several hours. Besides, his tank was beginning to remind him that he hadn't fully recharged in quite some time, energon rations being what they were.

"So...so what? Do I stick it in my mouth like humans do? Or do I eat this in beast-mode?" he asked, taking the steak from Fowler and holding it between thumb and forefinger.

"I was left with the impression that the fuel-exchange process only worked if it was consumed in beast-mode," said the man. "I'd recommend eating it as a wolf."

He didn't even want to think about the grocery bills this mutation would generate. Snarl took his advice and was soon gnawing quite happily on the meat, hardly concerned with their frozen state at all. As Fowler left the hangar, he passed Bulkhead and Jazz in the corridor.

"Heyyyy it's the 'yuman-man!" Jazz beamed. It wasn't that he didn't know the agent's name, it was more like he'd chosen to refer to him as " 'yuman-man" as a sort of term of endearment. "You seen ol' Wheeljack anywhere? He ain't in the rest of the base."

Fowler pointed back towards the empty lot. "He's devouring the entire meat aisle of the grocery store at the moment, but please, be my guest." The sarcasm was good-natured, and there was no malice behind it, but he looked like he could use a decent cup of coffee.

"Thanks Fowler," Bulkhead sighed, then blinked. "Wait, meat aisle what?"

Yawning, Agent Fowler managed a half-coherent explanation of the way techno-organics used dual fueling options, then staggered away down the hall, muttering about a routine inspection of the inside of his eyelids. Chuckling, the Wrecker and the Spy strolled into the wide, echoing room. Snarl looked up at them with a slightly guilty expression on his long muzzle, the messy remains of three steaks and what appeared to be six heads of lettuce adorning his facial fur.

Bulkhead stared for a minute, mentally gearing himself to talk to the mech. It wasn't that he was uncomfortable with Cybertronians who took an animal-based alt form. During the Cybertronian Exodus, they'd seen all kinds of unusual folk among the few of the 200 lost colony worlds they'd seen. On Aquatron, the inhabitants all took the shapes of fish and crustaceans. Of course, none of them had taken a techno-organic covering over their frames.

"Hey Wheeljack," he began, halfheartedly raising a hand in greeting. "What's it like, eating human food?"

The wolf swallowed and sat upright on his haunches, tilting his narrow head to one side. "Eh, the green stuff is only okay." A soft burp interrupted him, and he pinned his ears back, a little embarrassed. "The meat, on the other hand, is pretty good. It's a little like getting the Heavy Grade beryllium at Maccaddams, but chewier."

Spotting a scrap of meat that had miraculously gone undevoured, he gobbled it up, then shifted back into the wolf's bipedal mode.

Audial fins low, he ran a hand over the blue highlights framing his faceplates and sighed. "Bulk, you're...you're not supposed to call me Wheeljack while I'm using this body, remember?"

He didn't really like it any more than his friend. It was no simple thing to just drop an identity that he'd carried for almost the entire War. He knew mechs and femmes who could pick up a new name or frame at the drop of a hat, leave a past behind and reinvent themselves every other week or so. Like the poor guy who could never decide whether he wanted to be called Trailcutter or Trailbreaker. Wheeljack wasn't finding it so easy. He'd always been Wheeljack, his entire personality was wrapped up in Wheeljack (even if it wasn't really the correct translation of his Cybertronian name, it was the one that he'd chosen.) And if Bulkhead were to accidentally refer to him as "Wheeljack" on the battlefield, the Decepticons would know that the enemy had figured out their mutation program and the violence would escalate.

Still, on the bright side, it wasn't as though the name Snarl had been chosen for him. It had been his own decision, it was just hard to deal with having to be two people at once. He wasn't sure how Batman pulled it off. He offered his Wrecker friend a rough grin.

"Hey Bulkhead, what do you think ol' Ultra Magnus would think of my new look?"

Jazz and Bulkhead alike both made interesting stuttering snorts, like an engine turning over, as they tried to imagine the stern and socially awkward commander being introduced to the first techno-organic Autobot.

"Hold it, hold it, hold everything!" Jazz suddenly declared, "Ah think we just created a paradox!"

In a flurry of motion, the black and white Autobot cleared a space on the floor and dipped his servos into a rather squashed watermelon that had been added to the food truck for no justifiable reason. With the sticky pink juice and scattered seeds, he made a few crude diagrams that were rather hard to see as the watermelon juice kept drying.

"Look, you two," Jazz spread his hands apart in an oddly excitable fashion, "From what ya told me before, these "Maximals" come from a future Cybertron, where we decided to do what the colonies did and add a lil' greenery to the planet, right?" When Bulkhead confirmed this, Jazz continued. "They weren't always Maximals, right? They came from us."

"So?" Snarl asked.

"So, there had ta be a first Maximal!" the spy practically shouted, "Ya just made history, mech!"

It dawned on the other two after a minute and both sat there open-mouthed. In a daze, Snarl picked up the rest of the watermelon and chewed on it thoughtfully.

"So...what you're saying is, by going back in time and making me a Maximal, the Predacons just ensured that the Maximal species would exist in the future? Is that what you're saying?"

He pulled the fruit away from his mouth and made a face.

"Oh gross. Hey guys, if you ever decide to try human food, I got a little tip for ya. Don't eat the rind."

Snarl stood and stretched. "Well, my brain is full. Too much time/space...er...what is it Miko calls this kind of thing?"

Bulkhead snorted. "Wibbly-wobbly, Timey-wimey."

Jazz started. "Say what now?"

"It's from a show Raf and Miko watch," the green mech explained, "I've never seen it myself, but there's some time-traveling guy in a-"

"-Big blue box?" Jazz finished in an incredulous tone. "Oh stars, he's here too!" When pressed for answers, he refused to say anything more than, "Ah thought Ah'd left all those weirdos behind after the Death's Head incident!"

Snarl looked down at the remains of the grocery delivery and pouted a little. The beef had been surprisingly good, though frozen, and now he couldn't help wondering what it would taste like raw. Leaving Bulkhead and Jazz to argue paradoxes and alien diplomacy, he crept up to the main hangar bay, where Agent Fowler was flopped in the swivel chair, barely awake. A mug of steaming hot herbal tea sat to his right on the control board: June had vetoed coffee at this hour. So worn out was the man that he did not notice the Cybertronian crouching next to the human area until he turned the chair around and found himself staring into cheerful yellow optics and a smiling, fanged mouth.

"Hi!" the Wrecker said, hoping not to alarm Fowler, "Can I have a cow?"

Fowler reached blindly for the tea and decided that he was going to absolutely insist on the coffee next time.