Spontaneous idea at midnight. Not gonna hold a single PoV until I switch to first person. Apologies for any mistakes, grammar or otherwise.

Anyone thinking/talking telepathically (slight spoiler)

"Regular communication"

"Communication via communicator"

-Author interrupting the story-

Jack Darby stared at the Decepticon standing across from him, clutching where a shot from its energy rifle had gone straight through his chest. Faintly, he heard Arcee calling his name from somewhere off to the side. The last question he had as he blacked out from the pain of his destroyed lung was, how will… I… protect… her… now…

Arcee shot the Decepticon, giving it an immediate and irritatingly painless death, before she ran over and picked up her partner. She said over her com, "Ratchet! I need an emergency ground bridge now. Have a critical support med bay ready for Jack."

Ratchet, despite his usual sour attitude, seemed to comply as a green flash of swirling light emerged ten feet away from her. She rushed through, fearing that he would be dead before they could get him support. Ratchet grimly took Jack from her arms and placed him on the operating table.

Optimus Prime emerged from the ground bridge tunnel and shut it off for the preoccupied med bot. He turned as he heard his name called out by Ratchet.

Ratchet told him grimly, "We must do it now. Whether he likes it or not, it's go through the transformation or die."

Optimus' optics widened slightly as he took in what Ratchet was saying. They'd been privately tossing about the idea whenever Arcee would come back from a mission with Jack. Neither Autobot had given it serious consideration as the idea was so outlandish that they were sure the human would never accept it. Now though, with Jack borderline to dying, there was no doubt in their minds of what they had to do.

Optimus tapped his chest in several places, opening up his spark chamber that also held the Matrix of Leadership. He took the Matrix from his chest and looked at the boy now in front of him. Thinking of the possible consequences that could result from the two war veterans' actions, he tapped the Matrix to where Jack's heart would be, the other side of his chest opposite his now-missing lung. Jack, he thought to himself, I hope you can come to forgive and possibly even appreciate what is happening to your body.

A blinding white flash lit the room med bay as a small explosion knocked all five 'bots and Raf, Miko, and Jack's mother onto their asses. Optimus and Ratchet understood what was happening, although not quite sure how it was happening, while the humans could only watch in fear for their friend/son.

Ratchet had a pretty good idea of what was going to happen next so he shooed the humans from the room, telling them that if they truly wanted to know what happened then they would have to wait to see the recording so they could fast-forward through certain nightmare inducing parts. With the process begun, the only thing they could do now was wait, fidget, bite their nails, worry, or all four.

-Twenty-Four hours later; First Person, PoV Jack-

When I woke up, I was completely, totally, and utterly disoriented. I was literally seeing data scrolling in my eyes. Weight, height, armor strength… Wait, armor strength?! I reached up to feel my chest, but froze as I realized what had happened before I'd blacked out. I tentatively reached down and felt where the Decepticon had shot me. Instead of a 6" wide hole in my chest, I felt a metal plate. Before I could move to look at myself, Ratchet and Optimus came through the doorway. "W-what happened? Why am I not dead?" I asked.

Optimus silently came over and picked something up next to me. Before I looked to see what it was he said, "Don't move yet. You still need to adjust and Ratchet needs to run some scans." I froze in the position I was in.

"What do you mean, 'adjust'?" I asked. Optimus sighed and looked to Ratchet. His next words seriously freaked me out.

"Stay still for now. I'll explain what happened later. All I need is for you to keep calm and not do anything that might get you hurt." I did as he told me to, not even daring to flinch when Ratchet ran the scans.

After what seemed like ages but in reality was only ten minutes, Ratchet announced he I was fine. I asked him what he meant as, the last time I looked, I had a giant hole in my chest.

Ratchet sighed and called for Optimus. Instead of just Optimus coming in though, Arcee, Bulkhead, Bumblebee, Raf, Miko, and my mom came in too. From where I was, the three humans seemed oddly small. I looked inquisitively at the 'bots around me for an answer. Optimus stepped forward to answer.

"Jack," he explained, "when we got you to base, one of your lungs was completely destroyed. Honestly, it's a miracle you were even still alive. We had to act quickly or you would have died. I hold no regrets for what I did. You're alive and, though she has tried her best to hide it, Arcee is still capable of functioning. I don't believe she would be able to function after losing a third partner to Decepticons." Arcee glared at him. Despite his usual calm-headedness, he seemed to have a retort on the tip of his tongue. I intervened by asking a question.

"Optimus," I said to get his attention, "how am I still alive? A Decepticon shot me and took out my lung. To the best of my knowledge, humans are supposed to end up dead from an injury like that." I put emphasis on the points that were my biggest questions.

Optimus sighed and replied, answering the unspoken question that I figured the others wanted to know too, "I'll be blunt about this. I used the Matrix of Leadership to save you. To do that though, you were turned into a Cybertronian. Nothing human except you're personality is left of you. I won't even try to explain how that worked out though. Despite how long our scientists studied the Allspark, it still has many mysteries surrounding it."

I gasped and shot upright so fast I almost launched myself off the table. I exclaimed, "Say WHAT?!" Surprisingly, the only reason I freaked out was because I'd been saved from dying by being made into an Autobot. A darker part of my mind that I tried very hard to keep locked away broke out slightly and put an image into my head of how I could now fulfill my secret crush on Arcee, despite that I'd been a human when it had started.

Before I could do something that I would most likely regret later, 'Bee and Bulkhead jumped forward and held me in place. Optimus continued like I'd never said anything. "It's up to you if you want to help or not in the war but you can stay here for however long you need to. The one thing we will to do regardless of your decision is find you a vehicle form. It's up to you if you want to be trained to defend yourself. You can have a bit of time to think this over but you need to decide soon. Will you help in the field or not? If you choose not to then you should still consider working with Ratchet to learn or to be a med bot."

I didn't even hesitate to respond. "I'll help. Ever since I met Arcee, I've felt like my life is empty of any purpose other than to be doing something to help you guys. Strange as it sounds, I'm kinda happy about this. It means I don't have to worry as much about being seen by a Decepticon. Yes, I know I should still be extremely careful around them but regardless. That's my decision. All the 'Bots around me nodded as though they'd expected this.

"We should probably give you a new name so the Cons don't know who you are. That can wait until you have your vehicle form though." Bulkhead said. I wanted to argue but I knew he was right. Megatron would most likely stop at nothing to get me if he knew who I was.

I am forsaking apostrophes before bots, cons, Bee. Just thought I'd let anyone who actually reads this know.

I nodded my head in agreement and Optimus didn't argue with my quick decision. Instead he told Arcee, Bulkhead, and Bee to start teaching me the basics; standing, walking, and running. Everyone else meandered off, the humans too surprised to do anything else, Optimus needing to plan or whatever he actually did in his spare time, and Ratchet studying the data from my transformation.

Arcee quickly got me standing up and walking. The only problem I was having with that was that the height was disorienting me. As for running, she led us outside to the desert to get that skill down. With the basics learned, we headed back inside. Arcee sent Bulkhead off to tell Optimus where they were going and what they were doing before asking Bee to search the internet for the largest car dealership in the world. She'd explained to me that it was so I could have a wider variety of choices. Bee came up to us and gave Arcee the coordinates. She went to Ratchet and had him open a ground bridge to the dealership. Bulkhead was left behind as he got back just as the Ground Bridge closed. We appeared at the edge of the lot, thankfully around midnight in this part of the world, and looked for went to the highest hill top we could see so I could scan the full lot for something l liked.

I first gave a wide sweep of the parking lot before focusing on one section at a time. I looked at the motorcycles first. None of them fit with what I wanted for my vehicle form. Next I looked at the sports cars. As flashy and attracting as they were, the stats my scanner gave on them didn't with what I wanted in a form. I only gave the trucks a short glance in favor of leaving them for last. Compact cars were similar to the sports cars except that they were weaker. After an hour going through the areas again, I went over to the trucks with Bee and Arcee following, not even trying to lead me anywhere as I followed my gut instinct. I passed through the smaller trucks first, finding that, though I was happy with the strengths of having a truck form, none of them looked good to my eyes. I shook my head slowly as I looked at the last small truck. Next were them midsized trucks. The same happened as with the smaller ones; likable stats but unsavory looks. I growled to myself and skipped to the Semis. Again I liked all the stats but not the looks. Finally we got to the large, not-quite-contractor sized trucks. These I found an appeal to. Nearing the last few trucks, I saw one that I nearly fell head over heels for. Luckily, I didn't as, had I done so, I would have ended up crushing and ruining it.

I turned to Arcee and asked, "So how do I scan this?"

She blinked, seemingly confused by my choice of vehicle. She stuttered before regaining her composure and answering, "You've seen the beam of light that passes over us when Ratchet scans us, yes?" I nodded and she continued. "Then look at the truck, hold out your hand, and imagine that same kind of ray going back and forth over the vehicle a few times at walking speed."

I did as she told me and waited for a long list of information to finish scrolling past my eyes. After several minutes of waiting the list finally ended. Arcee and Bee were both surprised that I'd frozen for that long. I assumed it only took them a few seconds to scan a new form when the age changed and they needed a modern form. When I unfroze and turned to them, my gray, shapeless armor and become, for lack of a better term, bad ass. I was also lean, looking only a bit more muscular than Arcee was, making me thinner than the other male bots. Despite my thin form, I felt as though I had boundless energy. I asked, "Ok. First, how do I shift form? Second, when we get back, can we start on combat skills? I feel as though my body is going to bloat up if I don't release some of the energy."

Bee answered (I was surprised I understood his series of beeps),"We'll drive around for a bit to teach you to drive. Let's get out of this area first though. There's both too much chance of being seen and too much chance of you running into something while you're learning to drive like a Cybertronian. It's very different from driving a car as a human. You're lucky you didn't choose a vehicle with a stick shift. It was hell for me to learn how to shift gears when I scanned this form."

Arcee explained my new ability to understand Bee's speech. "Bee can only talk in Cybertronian after Megatron destroyed his vocal chords. Ratchet could only do so much to repair them. You can understand him now because you are a Cybertronian.

Bee explained Raf's ability to understand him. "I taught Raphael how to understand Cybertronian. His vocal chords, however, are unable to form the sounds required for the language."

Bee led us to a place a mile away from where we were, our large strides reducing the amount of time it took to get there. "So what do I do now?" I asked.

"Now you imagine changing into your vehicle form. You'll only feel the change enough to know it happened. Go ahead and try it now." Arcee answered.

I focused, imagining my body changing into the F-350 contractor flatbed truck. When I opened my eyes, I realized I was still standing at the same height as when I'd closed them. I looked to Arcee, silently asking her for a tip to changing.

She asked me, "What did you think of when you tried to transform?"

I answered, "I was thinking of my body shifting into the truck. Why?" She pondered this for a moment before perking up.

"I know!" she grinned, "Imagine the shift but focus on the feel of the grass beneath your tires, the energon fueling the hydraulics for your bed, the roar of your diesel engine. Now try to shift."

I did as she told me, imagining all the imagery I could think of for the contractor truck. I heard an engine roar to life in the moonlight. Fearing that we'd be seen, I quickly opened my eyes to find somewhere to hide only to realize that my eyes were level with where they'd been when I was human. I tried to turn to Arcee and Bee only to realize that something was amiss. I tried to run forward in reaction to the slight rev in the engine I'd heard when I tried to turn only to hear the engine roar to an almost deafening volume. When I realized I wasn't moving, I stopped trying to get away from the engine. Something clicked in my mind as I realized that I was the engine I'd heard revving.

Arcee and Bee stepped in front of me, Arcee grinning like a schoolgirl and Bee looking contemplative. "Nice paint job." Bee said to me. I grinned as he complimented my black paint job. It had white wolf packs on the left and right sides and a silver full moon on my hood. Silver-white dots on the hood served to imitate stars. An image of a wolf was positioned to howl to the moon. All in all, it was a damn nice paint job.

-If you can't tell, I love wolves. -

I focused on Arcee only to receive silence from her. I was offended for a second until I noticed her jaw open. She wasn't silent because she was mad. She was silent because she was shocked. I transformed back into my regular form and looked at the two for some sign of approval, disapproval, or just something. After several minutes of silence between the three of us, Arcee broke the silence.

"Damn Jack…" She breathed. "I think I already have an idea for what your name should be."

I looked at her quizzically, and asked "What do you mean 'already'?"

Bee answered my question for her. He said, just as confused as I was, "What she means is that she has a name for you already even though most bots go through training before they get their names. I'm just as confused as you are though for a different reason. What name are you thinking of?"

Arcee grinned in response. She gestured at my torso, arms, and legs where my vehicle mode's details could be seen and said, "I'm thinking something along the lines of Wolfheart. Wolf refers to his paint job. Heart refers to his strength, courage, and wolfish good looks. It fits, doesn't it?" If I could blush in my new form, then her words would have set my cheeks on fire.

Bee blinked, looking as though he was shocked his commander would have said something like that. Even if they never paid attention to rank, it was still a bit farfetched for someone like Arcee to say that. Arcee seemed to realize what she'd said as she turned around and quickly walked away to ask Ratchet for a ground bridge back to base.

In the short span of time before the portal would be open, I turned to Bee and asked, "Did you hear that too?"

I didn't have to point out what I was talking about as Bee nodded his head and said, "Something bordering on flirting?" I nodded and he continued. "I heard it too. Minus the last thing she said, she makes a valid point. You do act like a wolf." I looked at him, bemused by his comment. Seeing my expression, he commented, "You may not realize it yourself but everyone on the team can see what you're like on the inside." I was still confused but I chose to drop the subject for now since Arcee was gesturing for us to come through the ground bridge.