"So Chief, how do you want to handle this...?"

Chief Burns leaned back against the wall, Officer Harris beside him as they looked at the two blonde-haired boys sitting in the cell across from them. Barely out of high school from their appearance, they squirmed and twiddled their fingers while avoiding eye contact with the two cops.

"Not the usual pair of boys we find breaking into places and stealing tech..." Chief Burns murmured, "...Much more nervous about being locked up, but that's no excuse."

"This is more personal to you than it is to me at this point. Do you want me to lead?"

"Go right ahead, show me what you're made of."

The younger officer gave a nod and then stepped forward, "Do you boys realize what occurred this afternoon?" Officer Harris' tone was calm, but firm. "You could have killed some people today with that driving, not to mention stole an officer's vehicle and drove it off a cliff."

One of the boys leaned back, "Well, technically we weren't in control of the vehicle when it went off the-"

Officer Harris slammed his hand against the cell bars, startling them into silence once more.

"You've been stealing tech from the museum, have you been taking it from deliveries to Griffin Rock's citizens too? Is that where it's all gone?"

The boys looked down at their hands again, not answering directly.

"Are video game consoles and bass speakers really important enough to risk lives, boys...!?"

"It wasn't our idea!" The other boy suddenly blurted, "It was some other guy! He said he needed the parts! A-And we'd get paid for helping him get them...!?"

Chief Burns' eyes narrowed, "Who?"

"We don't know! He just contacted us over the phone and said that he'd make it worth our while. We never meant to hurt anyone...!"

"Did he ever say what he needed the parts for, or perhaps a name?"

"...Virgil, I think? The signal was kinda spotty. He said Griffin Rock had all the parts he'd need to rebuild, but what, we're not sure. Something to do his job, that's all we know, I swear!"

"Well, that was easier than I was..."

The sudden stiffening of the old Chief caught Officer Harris' eye, and he turned to face him entirely. "Sir? You know something about this?"

"Perhaps... And if it's right, then we've got a bigger problem than just two teenagers stealing video game consoles."

The Chief motioned for Officer Harris to follow into the office.

"Sit tight, boys..." Officer Harris warned, and then followed his superior into the other room. "This guy's a repeat dealer for trouble, I assume."

"It's not so much a 'who' as a 'what.' Vigil was a program designed by Doc Greene to act as an extra safety measure on the island, to help us and the bots when we had multiple problems at once. But Vigil wound up becoming more of a hindrance than a help. He got to the point of trying to lock us all in our homes to gain 'one hundred percent safety.' We managed to stop him once, and then he came back with the ability to jump from machine to machine and tried to stop us by activating the dome and flooding the island with sleep gas. Only the bots were immune."

"So you think that this Vigil program is back and trying to resume its mission of defending the town by locking everyone away?"

"I hope I'm wrong, Ned. But if Vigil's the one behind this, and he's having those boys steal tech for him...Who knows what kind of plan he's got this time..."

____________________________________________________________

"...Waiting around like this is so boring."

Jolt looked over as Downpour drooped over the side of a crate, her tail dangling over her helm and between her optics, the end twitching back and forth like a cat's. "At least Jack's safe now. He'll be okay..."

"...Someone get some tannerite."

"Hell no!"

Snowblast looked up from his homework, "You wanna bring your father's rage crashing down on us all!?"

He then looked to Cassie, who was sitting across the table from him and had burst into a full cackling laugh. "What?"

"You...Your hands...!" Cassie gasped, holding onto the table to keep from falling backward in her chair. "You covered your ears...!"

Snowblast paused, pulling his hands back from his head where they'd apparently gone when he'd sworn. It was a funny quirk of his; he'd gotten so used to Blades covering his ears when someone swore that now he subconsciously did it to himself, even if he was the one swearing. He smiled back at her, giving his own giggle at the event.

"But I'm so bored...!" Downpour rolled over onto her back, "I need a fire to put out...! I'm surprised in all of the stuff that's happened here on the island, the Firehouse has never caught fire."

Snowblast began to frantically knock on the wooden table, and looked up as their parents returned from patrols. "Tell that femme to stop speaking disaster over our heads!"

Heatwave looked over to his daughter, "Downpour, stop it."

"You don't even know what I said, Dad!"

"I know what kinds of things you say though. Close enough."

The bots all turned as the door opened, and Chief Burns marched into the garage looking quite serious. "Chief?" Blades asked.

"Did you give them the what-for, Sir?" Chase asked.

"They're going to be staying in jail for a while, but they're only the errand boys. We've got a worse threat behind it all. One we thought was trapped in the EMP Zone."

The bots all looked at one another, and then Chase's fists clenched tightly, and a rarely-felt pulse of rage shot through to his daughter as she ducked behind him. "Vigil...!"

"V-Vigil, Dad...?" Jolt whimpered, "...That computer program that tried to take over the island and put the humans to sleep...?"

Chase reached behind him and pulled his daughter up into his arms to comfort her. "Nothing's going to happen to you, Jolt. I swear it..."

"We need to figure out where he's hiding." Kade growled, "And then take him out for good!"

"How?" Downpour asked, "If he's like you said before, he can be in any piece of Earth tech on the island, perhaps even off of it if he was able to contact these guys to do his dirty work!"

"I don't know, but we'll figure it out." Heatwave informed, "Even if Vigil's gotten more skilled, he's still just a program. A series of zeroes and ones floating in cyberspace."

"He must've gotten himself some of that tech Evan and Myles used on Quickshadow once that controlled their motor functions." Blades surmised, "Dangerous stuff."

"I just hope this is all over with by the time I go to Cybertron for the next phase of tests..." Boulder murmured.

"Are you sick, Uncle Boulder?" Jolt worried.

"Oh no, I'm not sick. I've just been chosen to participate in a new program on Cybertron to help other young bots... I'll be taking some in like a parent."

"You're gonna foster!?" Cassie grinned, "That's going to be exciting!"

"And hectic." Blades smirked, "We've got plenty of tiny bots running around this place as it is."

"Not to worry, I'm only taking one in at a time."

"So back to Vigil." Snowblast redirected, "There's more of us bots now than there were last time he antagonized town. Not even Blurr, Salvage and Quickshadow were here when he gassed everyone. We can handle this, right?"

"Of course." Chase informed, "But every bot under the age of 40 months is staying out of this."

Downpour pumped a fist, "I have never been so happy to be over 40!"

"But they hurt Jack, Dad...!" Jolt whimpered, "Why can't I help?"

"The fact that Vigil hurt Jack is exactly why, Sparkle."
Chase bent down to his daughter's optic level, "I can't have both of my children hurt... I need you to stay here and watch over your brother, alright?"
Jolt nodded hard, though she hated it and Chase knew it from her pulses. "You'll get to help out in rescues soon, I promise."

"Okay..."

"The rest of us will have to keep our guards up." Heatwave looked around at the team, "Like Downpour said, Vigil could be anywhere..."

___________________________________________________________

"Let me out of here!"

Jack's hands gripped the bars of the cage tightly, his optics flaring color as he fought to pull them loose. "You can't do this!"

On the contrary, I am now fully capable of performing this action.

Jack's optics narrowed as he faced down the flickering, red, humanoid silhouette that stood in front of him amidst dozens of crates and boxes. When he'd been yanked back into the darkness, back into his own subconscious, there had been arms pulling him, the arms of a living virus that had thrown him into a cage and left him while it fiddled around with other cages and boxes around him.

Vigil tapped one of the boxes with a long finger, The humans of Griffin Rock built me to protect them. I performed my duties effectively...Until your predecessor model and his fellow 'bots' removed me from my position... I could control all methods of protection for the human race, but not them...It took me many hours of analyzing before I discovered it was due to their abnormal programming and coding... It is so similar to design as a human's brain, very advanced...

"We're living beings, Vigil. You can't just lock up a living thing, that's not protecting them, that's enslaving them!"

Your programming is so advanced that you truly believe that you are capable of being alive...
Jack yelped as Vigil grabbed his arm and a sharp pulse of his energy washed through his circuits. His other limbs twitched involuntarily, but still, he glared at the virus.

...I wonder if your fellow robots feel the same. But you are simply a program with a physical form.

Jack dropped to his knees as Vigil released him, and he clenched his teeth to fight through the pain. "Y-You're wrong... I'm not just some program...! My family will stop you...!"

Perhaps they will...But they will have to destroy your physical form to do so... It's unfortunate that your weapons systems are not accessable, but perhaps with time I will uncover the encryption and be able to utilize it...

"What...What are you talking about...? What weapons?"

Vigil almost seemed to smirk, despite having no mouth, no optics. It has no need to be discussed...after all, you will not be here to use them.

Jack was shocked again, and he slumped over onto the ground. He wanted to rest, but he had to fight...He had to pull himself back up to the surface and warn them! "I won't let you do this...!"

Vigil glided off into the maze of boxes and crates once more, tugging on some of them. It hurt Jack's helm so bad, and he couldn't do anything about it. Your memory files must be here somewhere...Without those, you won't remember to resist any longer... Hmm...

"You keep your grimy, viral fingers out of my head!"

He pulled on the bars of the cage as hard as he could, and his optics widened as they budged just a little. He paused, looking back at Vigil for a moment to make sure he wasn't looking, and then pulled again. He had to get out of this thing!