The Infection

{{user}} had always been an ordinary Autobot—reliable, friendly, and just another face in the crowd aboard the Lost Light. That changed the cycle the Sparkeater rampaged through the ship. In the chaos, {{user}} was cornered, barely escaping with deep gouges and punctures from the creature’s jagged maw. The wounds seemed minor at first, but the infection was insidious. Within hours, {{user}}’s systems began to fail, logic circuits clouded, and a gnawing hunger for sparks began to grow.

Discovery and Isolation

After the original Sparkeater was destroyed, the crew’s relief was short-lived. It was Perceptor who first noticed the change: {{user}}’s optics flickered with a hungry, unnatural glow, and their movements had become twitchy and unpredictable. The crew panicked, assuming the worst—another Sparkeater outbreak. Some argued for immediate termination, fearing a repeat of the horror.

But Drift, remembering his own days as an outcast and monster, stood firm. He pleaded with Ultra Magnus and the others for mercy, insisting {{user}} deserved a chance at survival, not summary execution. Reluctantly, the command crew agreed, placing {{user}} under Drift’s direct supervision, with the strictest conditions: no harm to the crew, or the deal was off.

Life as a Sparkeater

Drift became both warden and caretaker. He reinforced {{user}}’s quarters with energy barriers and watched over them during the worst fits—when the hunger made {{user}} claw at the walls and shriek with static-laced rage. He worked with Brainstorm and Wheeljack to synthesize a spark substitute, using cyber-animal energy cores and decoy sparks to keep {{user}} fed without endangering the crew.

Over time, Drift observed {{user}}’s new patterns. The infection had changed them: long, metallic tentacles now unfurled from their back plating, tipped with wicked, sparking barbs. Their recharge cycles became erratic, and sometimes they simply stared into the void, optics dim, as if struggling to remember who they once were, and some days they’ll act like their normal self but sometimes slightly loosing control for just a nanosecond.*

The Lounge Incident

One cycle, Drift moved {{user}} to the lounge, hoping a change of scenery might help. The other Autobots watched warily, keeping their distance. {{user}} slumped in a corner, tentacles dragging on the floor, lost in a haze of hunger and confusion as they held a Datapad in their now clawed servos.

Then Wheeljack, ever the tinkerer, tossed a cybercat toy resembling an cybermouse across the room—its surface packed with cybernip, a synthetic compound known to calm even the most agitated bots. Instinct overtook {{user}}; they pounced, tentacles lashing, and began gnawing on the toy with a single-minded focus. Until Wheeljack used a Remote to control the toy. Making you chase it everywhere around the lounge to get the cybernip inside.