(c)Copyright 1998 Melissa McCook Melody Silver/Golden Eighth Note Ltd. TRANSFORMERS™ AND ALL RELATED CHARACTERS ARE PROPERTY OF HASBRO, INC. USED WITHOUT PERMISSION. THIS STORY IS NOT FOR SALE OR PUBLICATION AND IS NOT INTENDED TO CONSTITUTE INFRINGEMENT OF COPYRIGHT OR PLAGARISM.
Author's Note: The idea from this story is taken from a passage from "Facing Up" by Bobbi Carothers. Chassis is one of her characters, and "Facing Up" is an excellent story. If you like good fanfic, it's a must-read. To read more of her fanfic, please go with all speed to WHIZDOM CENTRAL at http://members.aol.com/blackrach/facing1.html This can also be reached through the TF Webring, accessible through any major search engine.
"DIE, AUTOBOT SCRAP!"
Skywarp loosed a barrage of laser blasts at his opponent, a young neon-green triple changer wearing a mindless grin. Though a horrific battle was raging on all sides around them, Skywarp felt a chill up his central neural pathway at the mirthless, crazed expression on Springer's face as the Autobot tossed away his spent laser pistol, but he charged ahead anyway.
"You first," Springer snarled in his opponent's face, and suddenly the big Decepticon realized that a hot, searing pain was stinging his midsection. Ruby optics inches from sapphire blue ones, the two swayed for a moment more, Skywarp's life-energon spilling over Springer's hand, which held the hilt of his sabre against Skywarp's gut. "Eat slag, Decepticreep." He then jerked the blade out of Skywarp, and energon dripped from the polished steel sabre to collect in a small puddle as the Autobot reset his battle stance.
Disbelief mixing with the pain on his face, Skywarp put a hand to his wound, fingers coming away slick with the viscous, sparkling fluid that sustained his life. "Uhhhnnnhhh," he moaned softly, falling to his knees after what seemed like an eternity hanging in mid-air. Springer pushed him flat on his face with a boot between his wings, cleaning his gleaming blade on the side of Skywarp's helmet before sheathing it and running towards the main conflict raging through Autobot City.
"Mm--must---f-find---Mm-Megatron," Skywarp stammered to himself, clutching his belly wound with one hand and somehow fighting his way to his feet. Springer's blow was the final sroke, and Skywarp's battered body could take no more. "'Cracker," he tried to yell to his flight partner, but the sound only came out as a feeble rasp, and he knew that no matter what, within a few cycles, he would be dead. He ran blindly toward the City after Springer, hoping to find his comrades--to die among his fellow Decepticons would be better than out here, like some turbo-rat--Springer's grin still before his bleary optics.
He had seen the shuttle from Cybertron arrive just as dawn broke, and Springer saw fresh determination in the faces of his comrades as the shuttle landed. Optimus was on that shuttle, and everything would be alright now; the greatest leader the Autobots had ever known was in their midst, fighting on their side, and every sapphire optic in the city gleamed with righteous rage as they beat Megatron's army back from their Earthside home. Then Springer had been more or less occupied with Skywarp, and as the triple-changer sped toward Autobot City, he noticed that the laser tracers had stopped arcing over the scarred towers of Metroplex. There was a scramble of activity on the plaza, the rescue crews taking away the dead, dying and wounded to emergency repair stations, and Springer was overjoyed to see Astrotrain taking off into the sun as he transformed at the edge of the square. "Yeah, alright, we did it!" he exclaimed, but with a sudden start, he realized no one else was enthused at all. In fact, now that he looked closer, everyone's face was haunted, as if they had just seen a ghost.
"Hey, 'Magnus!" he grinned, clapping the lieutenant commander on the shoulder as he ran past. "Looks like we got 'em good this time, huh?"
'Magnus stopped and looked at Springer like he was some creature from Venus with five heads, then shook his own head and hurried past. "No time....." he murmured to himself, going down the hall and into the repair bay.
Springer frowned, wondering what could be wrong. _Here comes Arcee, she'll tell me._ "What's going on?" he asked her, blocking her way when she would have followed 'Magnus. "Is someone injured?" Wordlessly, Arcee nodded, trying to push past Springer, but he caught her wrists. "Prime," she whispered, then choked and shoved her way around her bewildered friend.
"Prime?" HotRod was coming down the hall next, nearly at a full run. The young red racer almost knocked Springer over as he flew past, but Springer caught him. "What's wrong with Prime?" he demanded, but HotRod was in no mood to answer questions.
"I---can't. Please, Springer, let me go."
"Just tell me what the--"
"I said, let me go!" HotRod wrenched his way out of Springer's strong grip, stumbling down the hall and into the door of Repair Bay as the others had, leaving his best friend scared and confused in his wake.
Last to make the trek up the hall was old Kup, the aged Autobot walking like a transformer over-energized--banging into walls, knees and shoulders sagging, but not really seeming to care. When the ancient robot saw Springer, he nearly collapsed into the young one's arms, and Springer began to be afraid. If whatever had happend to Prime was bad enough to bring the toughest soldier he knew to tears, he knew it had to be very, very bad. "Kup, just talk to me. How bad is he hurt?"
Kup raised a tear-slick face to Springer, the trails of lubricant triggered by great emotion contrasting with the way he tried to keep the sobs in check. "It happened so fast," Kup murmured, clinging to his young friend. "It just happened so fast....Megatron...."
Springer felt his hand tighten around the hilt of his sabre, his energon running cold. "Megatron....I'll kill that bastard myself, once and for all." The steel of the sword rang a bright "Just shut up and listen, okay?" Kup couldn't believe he just told one of his closest friends to shut up, but it had the desired effect as Springer opened his mouth, then shut it again. "Megatron's dead. Prime killed him. It's over." Then he shook his head, the tears threatening to start all over again. "But at what cost...Primus take my spark right now, if I ever thought it would end this way..." Kup trailed off, gripping Springer in a tight embrace.
About the moment that Springer had convinced himself that everyone was totally crazy, HotRod appeared from the doorway of Repair Bay, his face so devoid of emotion it frightened Springer. "Kup, Springer, you'd better come in here."
The two Autobots in the hallway did as they were bade, Kup reassuming the part of stalwart warrior as they crossed the threshold. Springer watched as the old Autobot busied himself with helping to attach a myriad of sensors to Prime's battered frame, but Springer's breath caught in his chest when he looked at that same scarred, scratched hull. Dents, welts, scratches, burn marks--every blemish known to sentient machines appeared somewhere on Prime, telling in graphic, wordless detail of the battle he and Megatron had fought. However, what made Springer want to gasp in horror was the huge puncture wound in Prime's side, first made by a sword-like metal shard, then widened with a laser blast from a contraband pistol. Circuitry sizzled in the open air, the metal casing warped and twisted beyond repair, Prime's familiar colors burned away to reveal bare, machined metal, and Springer had to quell a sudden, violent wave of nausea.
_You are NOT going to be sick!_ he forcefully told himself, flicking his optics off, then back on again after a second or two. Springer's mind was so full of the horror of Prime's injury that he barely noticed Blurr slip silently into Repair Bay among his other friends, the normally hyper robot taking careful, measured steps toward the group. It was then, while Arcee and 'Magnus filled Blurr in on what had happened, that Prime caught sight of Springer and motioned him to come closer with a barely percepticble curl of his fingers. Springer felt himself go numb, and he felt as if it were someone else's legs that carried him to Prime's side, but he stood obediently as Prime gathered his strength to speak.
"Promise me, young Springer...that you will remember what I said....the first time we met. About Elita...and Chassis." Prime had to concentrate to keep from seeing two neon-green triple changers, but he felt it was important to remind Springer of their conversation.
With a small gasp, Springer remembered the day when he and Prime sat and talked briefly about their tragic tales of love and loss, and in some small way, helped each other to heal a little more. Chassis' name brought back a flood of memories of the beautiful, blue-black armored femme, and a bittersweet echo of the love that they had shared before she was brutally murdered before his eyes. Optimus had wanted Springer,then a new arrival to Autobot City, to know that he was not alone in his misery, and that unspoken bond had stayed between them in the years that followed. The bond was still there, bringing back the nausea as Springer looked down into his commander's waning optics. "I will," he choked out, unable to say anything else.
"Lemme go!!" A shrill, young voice split the heavy silence like a blade, and Springer turned in time to see HotRod standing in the doorway, trying to bar Daniel Witwicky from the room. He walked over to where Daniel was straining to find a way past HotRod's forcefield generator, then the boy gave up and just let himself be scooped up into the red racer's powerful arms.
"I wanna be with Prime," Daniel said, tears streaming down his cheeks. "Springer, tell HotRod to let me go."
Springer shook his head, the human child's tears shaking him to his energy core with sadness. "No, Dano, maybe you should just stay with HotRod and me for right now, okay?"
Daniel refused to be comforted, and he squirmed to free himself from HotRod's gentle, but escape-proof grip. "NO! Lemme go! Prime's my friend, too!"
By this time, Arcee had heard the commotion, and she put a hand on Springer's elbow. "Just let him go, Springer. Prime's always been Daniel's hero. It's alright." Her clear blue optics were filled with sorrow, and Springer's chestplate threatened to burst with tightly packed emotion as Perceptor rushed past them into Repair Bay. Arcee turned to join the small knot of silent Autobots grouped around Prime, but Springer stayed behind near the door, watching as Daniel ran to Prime's side while Perceptor transformed into his microscope mode and began examining the battered, broken leader.
_Daniel's not the only one who's looked up to Prime,_ he thought bitterly, as HotRod slowly walked to where Prime lay motionless under Perceptor's diagnostic gaze. _What's gonna happen to us if Prime dies? Megatron might be dead, but if I know Starscream, he'll waste no time in coming back and grinding us to a pulp. Or if not Starscream, then Soundwave, or any other Deceptigoon who gets a wild hair up their tailpipes._ Thoughts came randomly into the triple-changers reeling processor, and suddenly the room dipped and tilted before his optics. A discordant scree filled his audiosensors, and a stronger wave of nausea tackled him like a linebacker. Springer put his palms flat on the wall in front of him, bowing his head between his outstretched arms to try and clear the dizziness, and an image of Chass choking her life out in Bludgeon's clutches sprang unbidden into his mind. _NO! Not now, not again..._
Too late to stop it, Springer was swept into memory, a glitch in his databanks triggered by his battlestress and grief playing before his unblinking optics. Again he saw Chass, Bludgeon's fingers ripping into the breaks in her helmet, finding the pressure points and causing her body to cramp so violently, she snapped her own exoskeleton in pieces. Again he saw her, lying discarded like a pile of trash, in so much pain she couldn't speak, her crystalline optics begging Springer to end her suffering. Tears slipped down Springer's cheeks as he remembered how he dragged his own laser pistol to the side of her head, so weak from his own wounds he couldn't even pick it up, and pulled the trigger--once, twice, three times--until the radio bond between them was silent.
Perceptor's voice, heavy with emotion, cut through the pain of Chass' memory like Springer's own steel sabre. "I fear the wounds are....fatal."
Suddenly, something inside Springer convulsed, and he stumbled from the room, arms wrapped around his midsection. He managed to make it outside before his holding tanks gave up their contents, and he fervently hoped that no one was watching as dry heaves wracked him again and again. Ultra Magnus would wonder why he wasn't present, being one of the top-ranking officers at Autobot City, but hopefully someday he could explain it to 'Magnus. Right now, there was only darkness as Springer blacked out, succumbing to a blessedly numb nothingness as his systems righted themselves again. The last thought he had before the world went blank was of Chass and Prime, looking down on him with compassion.
_I love you, Spring,_ he thought he heard a feminine voice say, then the darkness descended.
*THE END*
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