Hang On, Brother

Chapter 2

Several Solar-Cycles Earlier…

Darkness. For so long, that was all they knew. How long that was, they had lost track. Not that it mattered. This was their life now and how it would be unless something intervened. Neither one of them believed that would happen.

They were wrong.

Lights flickered, consoles suddenly turned on, startling the two out of their entwined thoughts.

"Did you hear that?" a light and quiet female voice spoke, the surprise and awe in her voice was clearly there. She spoke almost at a whisper, as if she wanted no one but her partner to hear, despite no one in the room.

"...Hear what?" A loud and slow voice replied. It sounded like he struggled to form words.

"Someone turned the main power generators back on."

"...Oil Slick?"

"No." hissed the woman in anger, but it wasn't towards her partner, it was towards that name he spoke. "He won't come back here."

"...Then who?"

"I don't know, but they are giving off signals."

"...Decepticons?"

"There are about four Autobots...And two Decepticons…"

The camera monitors started to show the hallways of the building. Several individuals started to appear on screen.

"We have quite a few guests."

"...Decepticons with Autobots?…"

"Odd, I know. But we should 'thank' them for turning the generators back on. Hee hee."

One of the monitors showed the intruders walking by. Two seemed to have stopped and notice the camera watching them.

"But these two…" The female thinking out loud to herself. These two here were the Decepticons of the group. They were an odd size and shape for a Decepticon and they seem to get along with the Autobots. Was the war over? Was there a truce? Not that it mattered to her or her partner. They had their own war to wage on those who turn their back on them and left me here.

"...I see an opportunity for us to escape, Blot. And for revenge."

"Decepticons~" sang the twins as they hopped out of the hallway and into the next room. "Where you be hiding?~"

"There aren't any here, glitches!" yelled Sentinel at the twins, snapping them to attention.

The twin glanced at each other, confused. "Then why we be coming here?"

"This is a Decepticon lab." said Wheeljack as he stepped into the room to join the rest. "Who knows what experiments could be left here."

"That's why we are here." said Sentinel, eyeing Wheeljack as if he wasn't really needed. "To keep an eye on the geeks."

"Excuse me?" Wheeljack muttered, insulted.

"I am noticing something, Brother." said Jetstorm looking over at Wheeljack.

"I notice it too, Brother." Jetfire nodded.

"Perceptor, sir, is not here." the two were in very good sync today.

Wheeljack quickly looked behind and saw the twins were right, Perceptor hadn't followed them. Wheeljack decided to head back down the hallway. "You know, I thought I saw him slowing down. I'll go get him."

"Want us to be coming with you?" asked the twins as they peered down the hall at Wheeljack.

"Nah, this won't take long. Just don't touch anything." Wheeljack then disappeared in the dimly lit hall.

Sentinel and Jazz started looking over the large console in the room. It was a pretty bare place, not much in the room except the single console system with a few monitors.

"How did the Decepticons hide this place?" said Sentinel. "I thought our intelligence cleared this area."

"No clue." said Jazz, just as puzzled. "I thought we found most of their labs. And this one is huge! Now, what I wanna know is how did they clear out so fast?"

Jetstorm and Jetfire decided to stay by the door while Jazz and Sentinel poked around, both agreeing silently it would be better to listen to Wheeljack and stayed out of the way.

Jetfire felt something tap his left foot lightly and looked down to see a small creature scurry by. He immediately recognized what it was.

"Help catch the glitch mouse, Brother!"

Jetstorm looked over to see Jetfire chasing after the creature known as a Glitch Mouse. They were known pests on Cybertron, multiplying fast(though no one knows HOW) and consuming all the energon they could find.

The mice had little rings and glowing places all over it, also the tip of their nose and tail glowed had small lights that glowed, which they could turned on and off on their will. They had large yellow eyes that helped them see through dark places.

When the twins lived in the old refineries and farms, they ran into them all the time and had to gather them up and place them into a large vehicle to get rid of them. The twins weren't ever sure where it took them though…

Jetstorm grinned at the idea of chasing those silly critters again. "On it!"

Sentinel and Jazz noticed the commotion the twins had started up.

"Before you explode on the twins, Sentinel, can we talk?" said Jazz, seeing the look of utter annoyance on Sentinel's face. "Why are you so hard on them?"

Sentinel's annoyance turned to Jazz, giving him a face that told Jazz that Sentinel thought that was a stupid question. "Why am I hard on them? Do you really need to ask? They're the future of Cybertron, and they're chasing after a Glitch Mouse. INSIDE a Decepticon lab."

Jetfire and Jetstorm had cornered the mouse by then and Jetstorm had lifted it up, scooping it up in his hand, the other hand gripping onto it's tail.

"They aren't even aware of where they are." said Sentinel, pointing at them to try and show his point.

"I'll admit, that does concern me…" Jazz having to cave to some of Sentinel's argument. "But you have to remember, they are young bots."

The twins weren't paying any attention them though, not hearing a word of the conversation. They had made themselves comfortable on the floor.

"You be far from home, yes?" Jetstorm placed the mouse on the ground, but still held it's tail.

"Glitch Mice are not smart." Jetfire snickered and looked down at the mouse. "You think energon farms are full of Glitch Mice now?"

"Of course! We're not there to catch them!"

A thought came to Jetfire. "You know brother, I wonder, what you think they be doing with Glitch Mice?"

"Probably take them back where they be coming from." Jetstorm quickly answered, feeling that he had some idea of what they did. "They are obviously lost."

"Maybe now we Elite Guard, we can find out."

Sentinel and Jazz heard that and for a moment they weren't sure if they should answer them. The twins were completely oblivious to the truth.

"Uh, Twins-" Jazz was stopped by Sentinel, shaking his head.

"No, wait! Don't tell them." Sentinel had an eerie thought of what the twins would do if they knew how they dealt with the Glitch Mice. "They'd be everywhere!"

Jazz was done dealing with this. "Whatever, Sentinel."

Perceptor had fallen behind, so much that he had stopped in the middle of the hall, thinking to himself. The moment they had started down this place, to a lower level of the lab, he started thinking why the place was sealed off from the outside instead of inside.

This bothered him. A lot.

"Hey, Perceptor! What's slowing you down this time?"

Perceptor's thoughts came to a halt when Wheeljack came up to him. He jerked his head to the side, his eyes shifting in Wheeljack's direction, but not turning to face him. "You startled me."

"I did?" Wheeljack hadn't thought he could do that to Perceptor, he never really reacted to anything Wheeljack did.

"…"

"Sorry, it's hard to tell."

"…"

"Is something wrong, Perceptor?" While Perceptor didn't show it, Wheeljack could tell something wasn't right in Perceptor's behavior. "You came to a halt here and everyone is waiting for us at the end of this corridor."

Perceptor turned to Wheeljack and nodded. "Ah, yes. There is something wrong." Perceptor tapped his visors back into place, something Wheeljack had always wondered about the design and need for those, but never had the nerve to ask Perceptor. "I've been going over the events prior to opening this back part of the lab. Everything had been taken, files wiped clean off the consoles. Nothing was left. But then we found this place and it had been sealed off."

Wheeljack placed a hand on his chin in thought. "Well yeah, we had to turn on all the power generators. Opened easily after that."

"That's what bothers me."

"Eh?"

"It was easy to get inside, Wheeljack. I don't believe it was meant to keep anyone out."

"You're worried about what's inside?"

"…I'm troubled with the idea that the Decepticons left something behind."

"Huh." Wheeljack was starting to see what the problem was. "You know, you're probably right. But we've opened it up, we might as well find out what it is."

"…"

"You've been jumpy lately. You also didn't want to come. You hang around the lab way too much as it is, but even so you normally don't mind coming out for something this interesting."

Perceptor looked away from Wheeljack. He knew where Wheeljack was going with this and he hadn't wanted to talk about it.

"If it's safety your worried about, you really shouldn't, that's what the Elite Guard are for!"

That did not reassure Perceptor. "Ah Yes…I feel safe with The Elite Guard."

Wheeljack chuckled, realizing what Perceptor was trying to do. "That was you trying sarcasm, wasn't it?"

"..."

"I can see you don't have much faith in them." Wheeljack was just as unsure about the guards. "Was it because of what happened last time on that solo mission with the twins?"

Perceptor, for a second, frowned a real frown, but that disappeared quickly. That was how he was, if Perceptor showed any emotion, it was quick and his face would reset to a blank look.

Whatever it was, it was bad.

"I know it was bad, but I get the feeling you haven't told me everything that happened there. Your report was very vague. What happened?"

"I don't plan on revisiting that incident. Why don't you ask the twins what happened if you believe I've held back?"

"I did!" Wheeljack said in frustration. "They won't tell me either. They make the same face as you and Jetfire starts shaking. Jetstorm makes up an excuse and they both leave. Can't get a word out of them."

"Then don't expect me to have any desire to talk about it."

"Okay, fine, don't tell me. But is it that? Because we have more than just the twins with us."

"…No. That's not it."

"Well you shouldn't worry." Wheeljack patted Perceptor's shoulder, trying to put his mind to ease at whatever the problem was. "Jazz is very competent."

They both feel silent when they realized who else they had with them.

"…And then there's Sentinel Prime."

"Ah yeah, Sentinel."

Perceptor lowered his head. "Sentinel Prime is…incompetent."

Wheeljack snorted. "Jeez, Perceptor. Don't hold back, tell me how you really feel."

"…"

"Lighten up Perceptor. I agree, he's kind of a glitch-head."

"…Normally I would not question Ultra Magnus' decisions, but Sentinel Prime is defiantly a mystery to me." Perceptor looked back up at Wheeljack. "I do not understand how he was able to gain such an important position. He's a danger, I worry what would happen if he took over."

"Eh, I wouldn't." Wheeljack titled his head. "Ultra Magnus is still in good shape. I'm sure Sentinel won't be able to keep himself from getting demoted with the way he acts before then."

"I-bzzt" Perceptor stopped all of a sudden, his voice cracking out. He turned away from Wheeljack and started back down the hall. "…I don't think we should be discussing this now."

Wheeljack was very confused by this sudden turn in the conversation, but Perceptor was right, this wasn't the time. "Uuuh...Okay. If you want. Let's catch up with everyone then." Wheeljack went after Perceptor.

"So what you think they be wanting us to do?" asked Jetfire, getting very bored of just standing around, doing nothing.

"I haven't the clue, brother." Jetstorm was still hanging onto the little Glitch Mouse, who had stopped trying to scutter away.

They started to hear someone coming, the twins turned to the entrance to the room.

"Hey guys!" said Wheeljack. "Sorry to keep you waiting."

"Oh!" the twins shouted in union. "There is Perceptor, sir!"

Perceptor came into the room and tried to get everyone's attention. "Let us not delay this any longer. We need to explore this lab to make sure there isn't anything dangerous left behind."

"Yeah, right." said Sentinel, getting the attention back to him. "You two can stay here. You know, you geeks being fragile and all. We Elite will split up and look around. We'll contact you if we find anything."

Wheeljack was fuming. "I really wish he'd stop calling me a geek."

Perceptor waved it off, dismissing Sentinel's comments. "Wheeljack, let's not have another…incident."

"Fine, fine."

The twins, now with something to do, were fired up. "Alright!" Jetstorm tossed the glitch mouse over to Perceptor, who was actually able to catch it fairly easy, despite not know Jetstorm was going to do that.

"Hey!" yelled Sentinel. "I said split up!"

"We be splitting up." Said Jetfire, heading into another hall they hadn't explored yet.

"From you!" said Jetstorm, following his brother.

"Later Sentinel Prime, sir!"

Sentinel grit his teeth together. "Urgh. Those…"

"What did you expect, Sentinel?" said Jazz. "They're twins. You can't split them up, no matter what."

Jetfire and Jetstorm started moving down the hall and soon found some stairs, heading further down into the lab itself. The light they had started to go, the further they went. The decent soon stopped and they stepped off the stairway.

SPLOSH!

Jetfire lifted his leg to see what he had stepped in. It was some kind of thick liquid slush. And it smelled nasty.

"What do you be thinking Decepticons keeping down here?" said Jetfire as he and Jetstorm tried to make their way through the muck. They started heading to another room that was barely visible.

"I don't-" Jetstorm stopped when he saw the room, another long hall with rows of smaller rooms down it. "...This be a…prison?"

"With no one in them." said Jetfire heading into the room. He stopped at one of the small cells, small writing next to it, written in the Decepticon's language. "Brother, not sure…" Jetfire snickered. "But I be thinking that either I bad with Decepticon's language, or this name be very silly…"

Jetfire noticed that Jetstorm wasn't anywhere near him and had headed all the way to the end of the hall. "Brother?" Jetfire ran after Jetstorm.

"I heard a noise from here." said Jetstorm before Jetfire could ask why he hadn't waited for him.

"Maybe more glitch mice?" wondered Jetfire.

Jetfire only took a few more steps before slipping on the rotten mush and falling flat on his back. Jetstorm jumped back in surprise, his thrusters coming on and floating over the mess.

Jetstorm looked down and tried to suppress his laughter at his goo covered twin. "You…hee hee, you be okay, brother?"

Jetfire frowned at Jetstorm. "Just help me up!"

Jetstorm reached out to Jetfire and pulled him up. Jetfire tried to start up his thrusters and it took a few tries to get them started, but they went out again rather quickly.

Jetstorm smiled sheepishly at Jetfire, who was getting upset at the fact that his thrusters were getting clogged up. Jetstorm cut off his and landed back on the ground.

"Brother, you might slip too." said Jetfire, puzzled as to why Jetstorm would subject himself to the same predicament as Jetfire.

"You can't fly, I won't." said Jetstorm, grinning at his brother before turning around and head back down the hall.

Jetfire smiled and followed Jetstorm. Jetfire and Jetstorm made it into the next room. It was very dark and the only real light was from their own optics. There was only so much they could see in the dark before them.

"It smells worse here, brother." Jetfire winced at the horrible odor that was in the entire room.

Jetstorm felt the wall and found a switch to turn the lights on, but it only lit half the room dimly. The other half had a few wires coming down from the ceiling lights, sparking.

Jetstorm and Jetfire reluctantly walk further into the room, only to find that the room was lower then they thought, the muck coming up to their waist. Jetfire noticed a console and rushed over to it, tapping at it in hopes of turning it on.

Jetstorm was about to help, but something caught his visor. He body froze up, his mouth hanging wide open at what he was staring at. He slowly began to step back.

"Brother, I can't get this working." Jetfire frowned at his failure. He turned to face his brother, only to have Jetstorm run into him. "Ah! Brother?"

Jetfire looked at what his brother was staring at and jumped back, hiding behind Jetstorm.

What was before them was a huge Cybertronian that towered over the two, even though it was slumped over, which only told them it was even larger. It had a long face, very heavy looking arms, and huge hands that could wrap around them and crushed them.

Wires all along it's back that just hung along it, some of the wires were connected to the ceiling and ran along it right to the console that Jetfire just had turned on.

It looked like it was offline or in stasis lock, but that didn't make it any less intimidating. The sludge that the twins had been walking through was all over it.

"We should get Perceptor, sir and Wheeljack, sir." said Jetfire, trying to get his brother out of shock, who only slowly nodded in response.

"UGH! GAH! NO! That's disgusting!"

Wheeljack and Jazz cringed at the screaming coming from Sentinel as they made their way through the halls full of muck, Sentinel very far behind them.

"Our fearless leader." muttered Wheeljack, making Jazz slump over even more in disappointment and embarrassment from Sentinel Prime's behavior. Perceptor just chose to ignore it.

They all entered the room where the twins were. The twins were getting over the first scare they had with the giant before them, pulling themselves together, but refusing to wonder too far from each other.

"What is that?" asked Wheeljack, stepping up closer to it. "Whoa, is that what's producing this gunk?"

"Possibly, but if it was, it appears to have stopped." Perceptor came up from behind Wheeljack. "What function does it serve?"

"Well, it good at slipping someone up." Jetfire rubbed his backside, remembering the fall he had.

"I doubt that's it's only function. Until we know, it would be best to avoid the fluids as best as-" Perceptor then noticed how messy Jetfire was. "…You will need to be detoxified before we leave."

"Yuck." Sentinel made many sick faces as he finally came. "This place smells awful. You sure this is anything worth-" Sentinel noticed the large Cybertronian and jumped back, nearly slipping and falling over. "WHAT IS THAT!"

"We don't know." replied Wheeljack, starting to get tired of Sentinel. "We just got here. Other than it looking Cybertronian, possibly a Decepticon, though it doesn't appear to have a signal from what I can tell."

Perceptor followed the cords attached to it, heading over to the console. "If all the information here has been wiped out, I still might be able to extract information from the Decepticon itself if it still functions." Perceptor getting it on rather quickly and started making his way into the data, typing away rather fast.

"Need any help?" asked Wheeljack, coming up to him.

"It appears this console isn't connected to the Decepticon's processor. There seems to be an electric reading here that's set up to flow into the Decepticon if I so chose."

"Huh, like a shock into his systems?"

"Yes, but this energy has it's own signature to it. Strange."

"Huh, why not just use stasis cuffs? Sounds like too complex and dangerous of a system just to keep it from moving. Most Decepticons aren't exactly trusting of each other when it comes to experimentation. Especially with so few who do any scientific work.""I'm not sure. It's set up to send this shock every ten cycles. At least it was when it was on."

The twins decided to look over the giant since they had no clue what Wheeljack or Perceptor were doing and felt they would only get in the way. Seemed like Jazz had the same idea as he came up to the twins.

"Wow." Jazz shook his head. "That's one big Decepticon."

"You think it be dangerous?" asked Jetfire, keeping Jetstorm in-between the giant and himself, gripping onto the back of Jetstorm's shoulders. Jetstorm didn't mind him doing this.

"No, it look like it be out." said Jetstorm, trying ease Jetfire's worry that it might attack them.

Jetfire could always count of Jetstorm to handle any situation he knew nothing about or worried him. Jetstorm always knew what to do anytime, any place, any problem. Jetstorm always looked out for Jetfire, acting like he was 'the older' brother, if you could really say that about Cybertronian twins. They weren't like human twins, when they mean they were created at the same time, they were exact.

Still, one of the twins normally took that role subconsciously, neither one noticed.

"Well, let's hope so." said Jazz. "Even with all of us here, I'd hate to deal with this big guy if it decided to attack us."

"It doesn't look that tough." said Sentinel, joining in with the other Elite. "I'm sure I could handle it myself. And you two need to stop looking so scared over a sparkless Decepticon."

The twins were about to reply to Sentinel, but their leader suddenly disappeared, dragged right into the sludge. The last three standing Elite Guard stared at the spot where Sentinel disappeared, completely baffled as to what happened until cords shot out of the slush and grabbed Jazz, yanking him down as well.

"Watch out Perceptor, sir, Wheeljack, sir!" yelled the twins to the two startled scientists. Wheeljack grabbed Perceptor's arm and tugged him from the console before the cords came up and at them, heading towards the exit of the room.

Jetfire ran at it as best he could through the muck, about to fire his flames at the Decepticon and trying to dodge the cords flying out of the liquid around them. One cord shot out and was able to wrap around Jetfire's waist, lifting him up in the air, flipping him over to lay on his back. Another cord came up and on the end of it, it split open. A very sharp needle came out, heading towards the back of Jetfire's neck.

"Brother!" Jetstorm found himself the only one left. He turned on his thrusters, blowing out of the muck and came at the huge Decepticon, using his whirl wind at it, causing the cord to throw Jetfire back.

The large Decepticon itself didn't seem effected by the attack. In fact it still looked like it hadn't moved, only the cords attached to its back that weren't connected to the console.

Instead of whatever it had planned to do to Jetfire, decided to swing him right at Jetstorm, slamming the twins together.

Unfortunately for the Decepticon, that was a mistake. The two quickly took this chance to transform into Safeguard and came right at the giant, punching it in the face, throwing its head back. It still did not react to the attack.

"Think they can take it down?" asked Wheeljack, the two scientists staying by the doorway, but away from the fight.

"That, I cannot answer."

"But that does not mean we can't do something." Wheeljack eyed the console they had fled earlier. "Think we can speed up that electric shock clock?"

"It is possible."

"Stay here, I'll try."

Perceptor shook his head at Wheeljack, he was not letting him go alone. The two ran back to the console in hopes of figuring out how to fix the problem while Safeguard kept him busy.

"I'm going to attempt to send it-" A cord wrapped around Perceptor's leg, yanking him down.

"Perceptor!" Wheeljack, for a split second, wanted to help Perceptor, but realized that would just cause more problems and decided to try and stop the Decepticon with the original plan.

Safeguard tried to dodge the cords coming out at them, while trying to find their fellow Autobots that were still under.

"Aha, here we are." Wheeljack felt a tugged on his leg, a cord trying to drag him down now. Wheeljack typed in the command to send electric signal to the Decepticon. The lights went out as the shock hit the Decepticon, forcing it to let go of Wheeljack. To his surprise, the electricity that hit him only stung. It appeared to bother the Decepticon a lot more.

As the lights came back on, Jazz and Sentinel popped out of the slush, completely covered in it.

"YEEECK." Sentinel complained, looking disgusted.

The twins changed back from Safeguard, looking around. "Where's Perceptor, sir!"

Wheeljack reach down into the muck and pulled Perceptor out. "There you are. Is everyone alright?"

"We will be." said Jazz, wiping off what he can. "What was that about?"

"I'm not sure." Wheeljack eyed the Decepticon. "I'm not even sure it attacked us."

"What do you mean it didn't attack us!" Yelled Sentinel. "OF COURSE it did!"

"What Wheeljack means, the whole of the Decepticon did not come at us, only a part of it did." Perceptor started cleaning off his visor. "For whatever reason, the cords attached to its back was all that came at us."

"Whatever, let's get out of here." said Sentinel, having just about enough excitement for one day.

"No, we're taking it with us." Perceptor insisted, much to the dismay of everyone else.

"Are you sure that's a good idea, docbot?" asked Jazz, very much against having anything else to do with the Decepticon.

"We came looking for any weapons developed by the Decepticons. This is one. I would like to find out what they were trying to achieve, for they may still be at it."

"You sure the counsel will go along with something so dangerous?" argued Sentinel, trying to find any excuse to override Perceptor's decision.

"Of course. I wouldn't have left on this mission without making sure that whatever I deemed worthy of bringing back to Cybertron, the counsel would be fully behind my judgment."

Wheeljack rolled his optics. "Yeah, you think we'd come all the way out here without that cleared up?"

"So, how we get it out?" asked Jetstorm, him and Jetfire weren't comfortable with having to go near it.

"You guys figure it out." said Wheeljack, patting Perceptor on the shoulder and motioning him to follow. "We'll wait on the ship. Oh, and bring that console too. You'll go through decontamination on the ship when you're done."

"WHAT!" screamed Sentinel. "You're not going to help?"

"Nah, you Elite Guard can handle this." Wheeljack held out his arms, his hands in a limp state. "We geeks are too fragile. Later." The twins and Jazz frowned, having been left with the fuming Sentinel.

This was going to be a long solar cycle.

Author: Hello, I hope you've enjoyed this so far as we're now getting into parts of the story that are NOT in the comic yet.

I apologize for any mistakes, when I can my editor on it. Really I'm writing this so those who really want to know the story can see it without waiting for me to finish the comic version. So I again apologize if my writing style isn't that great, heh.