Author's Note: This chapter is short, but I just did not like how it flowed with the rest, so now this is all of chapter 22 and chapter 23 is the original chapter 23 and the last 2/3 of this one. So that'll be long. I just have to finish proofreading and editing. May not get posted within the next few weeks because I have finals and term papers and all that are a bit more important (NOT THAT I DON'T LOVE THIS STORY AND YOU GUYS).
Chapter 22
His dreamscape was horrifying, as some dreamscapes tended to be. But, his had never been this bad. Not even at the start of the war, when he spent 90 percent of his time blaming himself and then the rest of the time struggling on the battlefield to stay alive. Those first few vorns of war were hard for him, especially with his lack of experience. He had to lead an army on top of it all. Against the one mech he had trusted most. Everyone expected his dreamscape during recharge to be a haunting place, and it had been.
But this was much worse.
He was not entirely sure what was going on. It almost seemed like it was glitching out. There would be sudden loud bursts of static, and jumps and skips about. Like something was missing. It was bizarre. And what made it worse was everything was happening around him. And it was the same loop of activities. He could not get out of it.
And no one seemed to notice he was there. He tried at first to interact with the mechs in his dreamscape, but no one even looked his way. That was the horrifying part. He was used to being disregarded back when he was a mere archivist, but even then if he spoke to a mech they at least acknowledged him with a scowl or a harsh word or two. Never complete ignorance. He tried touching mechs, stopping them when he would get desperate, but he could not. His servo just passed right through them. It was as if he actually was not there.
Occasionally, when he attempted to stop someone, he would be granted one of those horrifying bursts of static. They rendered him senseless for short – or possibly long, he did not really know – periods of time. He curled in on himself each time, trying to block out the sensory assault. It never worked, but the static eventually passed on its own. Then, when he could online his optics, he would find himself there in that same swarm of mechs all over again. It was in the middle of some city (likely Praxus, although he had only visited the city after it was destroyed so he was not entirely sure), mechs milling about around him. At night, most of them would head to their dwellings, only to come back out in the day. This seemed to go on forever, sometimes jumping to another time, or lagging out a bit.
That made him start to worry. Something had to be wrong if his dreamscape kept freaking out like that. His processor could be shorting out briefly, or any number of other things could be happening. It could even be an issue with his spark, but there was no damage to his spark. His spark was perfectly fine.
Right?
He was not entirely sure anymore. He had spent so long in his dreamscape – or at least what felt like such a long time – and could not remember what happened before he slipped into recharge. He had to have been recharging for a few orns now; was Ratchet keeping him offline to work on him? The Prime did have quite a few injuries that needed to be looked at, but… But when had he last seen the medic? He had been on the run, or at least that was the last thing he remembered. He was going to be meeting up with Megatron in Mexico City in a few days. So why was he still stuck in recharge? He had not exhausted himself that much, had he?
It was starting to become an issue, but there was nothing he could except wait for his systems to be ready to come back online. He could try forcing himself out, but that sometimes caused even more problems for mechs. He would give it more time. If he did not wake from recharge soon, then he would force himself out. Megatron was likely worried about him anyway. It was not a good idea to ever keep the other waiting. Megatron could be terribly impatient.
As time passed, he began to notice things. There was smoke on the horizon, and fewer bots were spotted in the town's center. The smoke eventually faded away, but he saw the effect it had on the people of this city. Those who did enter the town square grew snappish and skittish whenever other mechs drew close to them. He gave up on trying to make the mechs notice him, instead just watching his surroundings. There was nothing else he could do. He tried leaving the city, but never got far before the world fritzed out and he found himself back at the city's center.
He had long come to terms with the fact that he was likely stuck here for the rest of his existence. Stasis lock, he concluded. That was the only possible answer. The only one that made any sense, anyway. It was getting harder to process things outside of the slowly declining hustle and bustle of the city's center. What could possibly be going on? What was the matter?
Something was not clicking in his processor, like it should have. He felt like he should have known where he was and what was going on, but he just could not grasp it no matter how hard he tried. It was not until the bombing and invading began that he final realized what was going on.
He was in Praxus. And he was witnessing its destruction all over again.
