- Runner-up for "Best Overall Fanfic" 2005

Into The Pit

By: Omicron the IceQueen

I own Beast Wars not at all, this fic however is mine. This story was done for Sapphire’s fan fic challenge at her web site Beast Wars International bwint.net

Awareness came slowly, taking its time.

Where was he?

What was that noise?

Water?

No, not water. This was different

With a grunt of effort Depth Charge activated his crimson optics and sat up. As he did so, the limp form that was sprawled on his chest slid into his lap.

Depth Charge grunted again as he pulled himself back so his back was resting on the cave wall, at the same time trying not to let Cheetor fall off. He looked around trying to fine out where they were.

They were in some kind of pit (irony?), the smooth but slimy looking walls roes up into darkness and too step to climb. The place was bathed in a dim eerie glow that was coming from a type of greenish-yellow algae like substance.

But that wasn’t what made Depth Charge freeze in horror as he became aware of what was around him. It was what was draped over his lower half. Or, more acutely, who was draped over his lower half.

Cheetor laid still, his left leg must have caught on something during their unconscious fall into this Pit, so it was twisted in a way Depth Charge was sure Primus had no intention of being. Mech fluid, coolant and other internal fluids were dripped slowly and steadily out of a long gash down the cat’s right side. The Fluid ran down in little rivulets to his back before falling into a silver pool made of bother warriors’ internal fluids with a soft ‘splat’ on the stones below.

Depth Charge him self wasn’t much better. His right wing was broken in al lest four different places and twisted in a way it had no right to be in. He was also missing his right shoulder guard; it looked as if it had been torn off. More then likely the deed was done by the curtsey Rampage in the battle before the two Maximals were forced to retreat into a cave. A cave that Rampage, Megatron, Dinobot and Inferno had been more then happy to collapse on their heads.

Depth Charge groaned and rubbed his head with one hand, the other rested on the deep gash that ran across his middle to his right shoulder and missing shoulder guard. A soft blue glowing orb could be seen, lighting up his internal systems from within.

That’s when a few things clicked in Depth Charge’s mind. One, that glow was from his chest was his visible and now vulnerable spark. Two, the cat’s optics were dark and had webs of cracks in one and the other wasn’t even there. And three...

They were trapped, and it didn’t look as if they would get out of this one. A drop of mech fluid slipped out of the corner of Cheetor’s mouth and fell onto Depth Charge’s armor.

The ray’s head slowly bowed as he started to carefully moved the cat, but stopped. This was his fault. He had lead the kid into the trap, a trap he SHOULD have seen coming. But he didn’t, and now they were both surfing the consequences of the ray’s chose.

Depth Charge focused on Cheetor’s prone form and activating what little remand of his scanners aimed them at the younger bot. He cringed, even what little he could make out of the feedback of the scan, he wished he didn’t do that. The scan just confirmed what Depth Charge feared: Cheetor was going to die down here. Even stasis lock wasn’t working; he had and was leaking too much vital fluids to survive the day. Or was it night? Depth charge turned his attention inward and fond out that he had no true way of telling because his chronometer was smashed into his main internal repair circuits.

"Oh, this…is just…wonderful," Depth Charge rasped out, wincing at the sound of his voice. It sounded more like metal plates being put through a rock grinder then his normal deep bass. He shifted, trying to ease the pain in his broken wing as well as to shift Cheetor into his arms.

I failed again...the ray thought looking into the unseeing optics of the bot he held. You were so much like my son. I guess that’s why I didn’t want to be around you that much. That was true, it brought back to many painful memories of Omicron and of those he lost.

A sharp pain cut into Depth Charge’s spark when he looked at Cheetor and saw, not only him, but the ray’s son as well. They were so much alike, Cheetor and Downshift. Both had a cocky attitudes and were sure of their abilities as well as the fact that the females would no doubt love them. Yet now, as the Depth Charge shook his head trying to fight off the permanent stasis lock, it was the odd felling that over took and calmed him.

He was in the timeless pit a darkness so deep and vivid swirled and dipped around him tell he was completely disorientated. Then with out warning it snapped back into place so quickly that the ray almost fell over. The kid was slipping from his arms, as if somehow drawn to void of darkness.

Depth Charge blinked in slow surprise as he carefully caught Cheetor. His strength was sliding away, at the same time the silver pool grew around him. One by one his systems were slowing then fading into nothingness. Depth Charge’s head bowed as his motor relays sent a fair amount of feedback to his nerves system; then that system shut down as well, leaving the ray to his thoughts on a motionless body.

His audios gave out, his optics fallowing soon after. So paralyzed, blind and death Depth Charge was left with himself in a void of shadows that were slowly eating away at his spark and mind. He could feel his spark dissolving atom by atom, he could feel himself dieing.

All at once everything went up in a scorching blaze of white ‘fire.’ It curled around him, burning the very fiber of his being to nothing and at the same time sending him into an abyss of nothingness.

Oh Primus…NO! Depth Charge ‘yelled’ with his spark’s voice, for that’s all he was. A lone spark descending into Oblivion, a spark that failed to save the young bot that was placed under his command, let alone save the colony that was his to protect.

What...? Depth Charge pulsed and spun, trying to find the voice that went

A pin prick of light from below grew tell it consumed the spark in its radiance, drawing it into a place of hope.