Grimlock stood straight as Hot Rod lectured them on what the next training exercise would be. It didn't sound really hard; all he had to do was smash through several walls and deactivate a bomb. He could always deactivate the bomb by smashing it.

"Do you understand, Grimlock?" Hot Rod asked when he finished. Grimlock gave a dinosaur grin.

"Me, Grimlock, understand Hot Rod," Grimlock said. Hot Rod nodded.

"Okay Grimlock, let's see what you can do."

Hot Rod left through the door and Grimlock turned towards the wall in front of him. He punched the wall.

No dent. No mark. The wall didn't even look like it was hit.

Grimlock frowned slightly. He punched it again.

His fist might as well have been an insignificant leaf.

He started punching harder and harder, and still the wall stood solidly. It was mocking him. He could almost hear it laughing at him, taunting him with his inability to even faze it.

"Grimlock! Hurry up! The bomb is not a joke, it's going to go off!" Hot Rod called through the speaker. What? A live bomb? Why didn't they say this before?

Grimlock let out a guttural roar and started to savagely beat the wall. The room began to vibrate with the less-than-rhythmic beating. Still the wall stood without so much as a dent. Hot Rod started calling through the speakers to get to the bomb with more and more desperation. Why wasn't Hot Rod coming in and helping him?

He heard a loud boom, and flames burst forth, destroying the wall he had worked so hard to break. The explosion rocked Metroplex on its hinges, and Grimlock heard cries of pain from the other dinobots in the other room.

Grimlock felt himself thrown to the opposite wall, smashing through it and a few other things. Flames licked the metal that created his body, and for a scary moment he couldn't make sense of anything he was thinking. The room was spinning, and only after a moment was he able to steady his vision. There wasn't much to steady, though. Everything he seemed to be able to see was smoke.

Was this it? Was he responsible for all of it? Grimlock roared again and struggled against the darkness that was eating away at his vision. He could feel in his spark the other dinobots falling. No, they couldn't be dead. They couldn't leave him like their creators had, and he couldn't let the darkness take him too because he feared that if he offlined his optics they would never turn on again…

Grimlock woke up with a roar and accidentally kicked the bed above him, which housed Swoop. Swoop squawked and fell to the ground, and the subsequent noise woke Slag, Snarl, and Sludge. There was confusion, which ended with all the dinobots on the floor and Grimlock hugging them like he'd never let go. This caused even more confusion but Grimlock refused to say why the sudden show of affection.

---

"Well that reaction was… interesting."

"Oh, do you think he'll be okay? I didn't mean to scare him so much…"

The medic smiled sympathetically. "Wheeljack, he is going to have nightmares. It's better that they be dreams then something that he can't wake up from."

"I guess so…"

"Cheer up! If everything goes fine you can apologize to him in person."

Windcharger crossed his legs and propped his head in his hand. "Ratchet's right, Wheeljack. None of us really like scaring all of them (though their reactions can be funny), but it's the only way we can convince them to help us stop the destruction of Vector Sigma."

"I know, but it doesn't make it any easier."

"We understand, don't worry, we understand."

---

Why was he walking down this hall again? He knew what was on the other side of the door. He knew that Ratchet would still be dead on that floor. Yet he had the strangest feeling that, if he went fast enough, he could still save him.

He hesitated again at the door. The shape scratched into it never changed. He thought he heard voices, deep in the darkness out of his reach. An irrational fear came from hearing those voices that he couldn't understand, but he ignored it all and opened the door again.

Perceptor jerked awake from yet another nightmare. His pump beat was beating fast and tiny drops of coolant were on his armor. With a trembling hand he took a disk from the top of his desk and slid it into a port on his arm. He downloaded the contents to help prevent any shaky limbs or speech. When the download bar registered one hundred percent he slid the disk out of his arm and shuttered his optics.

He opened his optics again with a grimace. The latest image of Ratchet seemed to have been branded in his memory banks, and when he closed his optics the image just came back. Why is it he couldn't be desensitized to these dreams? It had been a long time since he had a dream about either of his old friends, and for them to come back with such gruesome vengeance was disturbing.

He shivered involuntarily and rubbed his optics. He had less then an hour's recharge in the last four days, definitely something to be worried about. He ran a hand down the side of his face and promised himself that if this continued he'd ask First Aid if he had a virus. That's right, it was probably just a nasty computer virus. Right.

He didn't even bother trying to concentrate on his work this time. He stood up from his desk and walked out into the corridor. Taking care to not fall asleep on his feet, wouldn't due to wake up shouting in the middle of a corridor before two in the morning.

He got to Metroplex's living room as though he were on autopilot. In the room he saw Jazz struggling to stay awake at the table and Grimlock sitting on the couch with a subdued sort of tired expression. Perceptor handed them both mugs of energon and he was greeted with murmured thanks. Perceptor sat in another couch, causing them all to form a triangle. No one talked, just sipped energon. That was, until three exclamations echoed from seemingly random bedrooms.

The three sleep-deprived mechs jumped in surprise. Perceptor did a quick voice scan and then sighed.

"Grimlock takes Bumblebee, Jazz Cliffjumper, and I Beachcomber?" he asked. Again, the answer was mumbled but all of them went off to the room's they were assigned to drag out the resident minibot.

Perceptor rubbed his optics again and tried to walk down the corridor as quietly as he could. He was less quiet then he normally would be, he blamed lack of sleep for that, but he was quiet enough to not wake up anyone else.

He typed in a code for Beachcomber's door and it slid open easily. Inside there was a confused and slightly disorientated Beachcomber. Perceptor was slightly surprised he wasn't traumatized, like all his other nightly companions were, but then again nothing could traumatize the geologist.

Said geologist looked up from his recharge berth. "Hey Percy. Did I wake you?" he asked in his usual laid-back voice. Perceptor shook his head.

"Don't call me Percy and no, I was up beforehand. Was your own awakening caused by nightmares?"

"How'd you guess?" Beachcomber smiled up at him. Perceptor motioned for Beachcomber to follow him and he did without protest. The geologist looked at the scientist up and down, frowning slightly.

"Percy you don't seem to have gotten a lot of, like, recharge. Are you okay?" he asked. Perceptor didn't bother protest the name again and he sighed.

"No, I've been suffering from nocturnal disturbances as well."

"You mean you've got nightmares too?"

"Yes."

The rest of the walk was in silence, probably because Beachcomber saw that Perceptor was too tired to keep up a conversation. The got to the living room fast, and Perceptor motioned for the other mech to sit on the couch. He did so and they both turned to the corridor at the slight sound of metal scraping against metal.

On cue, Jazz appeared in the hallway literally dragging Cliffjumper behind him. The minibot in question silently fumed while the saboteur grinned slightly.

Jazz pushed Cliffjumper next to Beachcomber, and Grimlock came into the room carrying a protesting Bumblebee. Beachcomber grinned a little at the sight and Grimlock dropped the spy next to Cliffjumper. Beachcomber grinned serenely at the crowd. Cliffjumper just glared.

"What was that all about?" he hissed.

"What was your nightmare about?" Jazz asked immediately. Bumblebee looked at them confusedly.

"How do you know about that?" he asked.

"Maybe it has something to do wit' the fact we also have been having nightmares," Jazz said. Cliffjumper let out the cybertronian equivalent of a snort.

"Ever heard of coincidence?"

"Does your dream have something to do with some sort of doom, dying, or being brought back from death?" Perceptor asked. The expressions on the minibots were answer enough. Bumblebee looked at his hands.

"I don't get it. I just remember that we were walking in a park on Earth, and there were sparklings playing together. Everything was normal, but then I think there was a solar eclipse, and then…" he frowned and his optics dimmed. "The sparklings dropped dead. No screams, no cries, no nothing. They just died."

Perceptor shook his head and leaned against the wall. "If history has anything to tell us, these nightmares won't end soon. I suggest we go to First Aid in the morning."

"It's just a couple of nightmares! We'll live!" Cliffjumper snapped, but the scientist didn't hear him. Jazz glanced at Perceptor. He seemed to be looking at something none of them could see. Jazz nudged him gently and Perceptor snapped out of his thoughtful daze.

"These aren't just a couple of nightmares, 'Jumper. We've all had them, and we can't take much more," Jazz said as though nothing had happened.

"How long has this been going on?" Bumblebee asked.

"It began four nights ago. I seem to have been the first to get them. How long for you three?" Perceptor asked.

"Just two nights ago," Cliffjumper mumbled, still convinced that it was nothing. Jazz sat in a chair and propped his head on his elbow.

"Me, Grimlock, tired. Grimlock want nightmares to stop!" Grimlock said. Jazz sighed.

"We all do, Grimlock. I say we see First Aid abou' it. The lack of sleep is goin' to effect our performance if we're not careful," Jazz said. Cliffjumper crossed his arms and assumed a stubborn position.

"It's nothing! They'll go away on their own!" he said. Jazz, Perceptor, and Grimlock gave him death glares. (Perceptor's was the worst. Who knew that the scientist got so cranky with sleep deprivation?) Cliffjumper shrank into his seat.

"You are going to the med bay with us, or so help me, I will deactivate you and carry you myself!" Perceptor snapped, sounding spookily like a certain deceased medic. Everyone looked fearfully at the normally pacifistic scientist.

"You're bluffing," Cliffjumper challenged, though he didn't sound very sure.

"Am I?" Perceptor asked dangerously. He narrowed his optics and leaned closer so that his face was an inch from the minibot's. Cliffjumper shrank further into the couch. He seemed to ultimately decide that going to the med bay would probably be easier than facing the scientist's unheard-of wrath.

"Well, that's decided then," Perceptor said. "If you excuse me, I will attempt to get some more recharge. With any luck the nightmares are done for tonight." He turned around and left the room, everyone staring as he left.

A/N

Okay, I don't think there's much for me to say here, except that I'm sorry for the delay in updates and I hope I'll be able to get the new chapters up sooner. (By the way, I'm worried I'm making some of the characters a little OOC here. Am I?) Review please!

Disclaimer: I own nothing.