#(issue 42)

Nautica and Skids are still on the Vis Vitalis, and boy howdy are they having a time. Not a “barnacle zombie” sort of time, a “private dance party” time. Skids dips Nautica (I think. All the friggin’ kibble is getting in the way of seeing any hand that might be on her back) as he comments on how good of a dancer she is. Nautica deflects, saying that she’s been too shy to really do much dancing prior to this, and it’s not like the Lost Light has many opportunities to break the boogie out between universe-ending crises.

Skids really just went in and flirted with someone without knowing their gender. What a Bicon.

It turns out that Nautica’s home planet of Caminus has a major focus and prioritization of the arts. Firestar flourished in that environment, seeing as she’s an acrobat, actor, and dancer, while Nautica was more of an outcast, what with her being a quantum mechanic. Needless to say, she was pretty eager to go when Windblade called on her to help with the Metroplex thing.

Nautica then reveals that the only reason she’s besties with Firestar is because over on Caminus, if you’re a loner past a certain age, you’re labeled as a social outcast. The actual term used is “persona non grata” but I’m assuming it’s not being used in the legal sense. At least, I fucking hope not. Firestar didn’t have a bestie at the time either, so, perhaps as an act of desperation, she nabbed Nautica, the biggest nerd on the planet who also didn’t have friends. Nautica, not wanting to commit social suicide, rolled with it, despite not totally loving Firestar’s personality.

Wow, Skids is divorced? Never would’ve pegged him as the sort to tie himself down in the first place, but damn.

On Caminus, platonic divorce is seen as the worst thing you can do to a person, and it’s highly encouraged that you work it out instead. Considering that it’s socially unacceptable to be single beyond 10 mega-cycles after your creation, there must be a swarm of folks in loveless friendships over there.

Actually, let me look up how long a mega-cycle is in IDW2005—

Oh, you can’t be serious. No wonder Nautica is miserable in her queerplatonic relationship.

While Nautica’s been explaining the shitshow that is Caminus, Skids has had himself a little sit, and seems to be slowly losing consciousness. Nautica notices this, and straddles the man before she notices the barnacle zombies surrounding them.

Because Skids is very weak right now, it’s up to Nautica to save the day. She readies for fisticuffs, getting promptly clocked in the face for her troubles. The sight of a woman being harmed causes Skids to pass out, and the two are quickly swarmed.

Over in the morgue, Nightbeat and Getaway are still dealing with their own collection of barnacle zombies. Nightbeat’s trying to work through what the fuck is going on, and Getaway gets snippy with him while avoiding getting smooched by a zombie. Nightbeat tries to return the snark, but gets his tit slashed while he’s distracted.

While he’s knocked on his ass, Nightbeat works out that the barnacle zombies were using Countdown as an incubator, and took just a little too much from the guy, thus killing him. This is also the fate that awaits anyone infested with these nasty little things. Better watch out, Getaway.

A rocket blast gets one of the zombies behind Nightbeat, and we finally see where Ravage got to. Ravage had torn into the morgue to try to get away from whatever was setting off his attention deflectors, but they had stopped pinging once the barnacle zombies had been revealed through the power of Nautica’s magic wrench. Here’s a quick rundown of how this works, pulled from last issue.

So whatever’s going on with these barnacle zombies works on the same principle as Ravage’s cloaking.

Getaway would very much like to get away from all the zombies, but Nightbeat needs to look at that famous corpse again, this time with the wrench light properly on it. As expected, it’s covered in barnacles.

Over in the Medibay, Minimus, First Aid, and Velocity are being assailed by the zombies as well, though Velocity seems perfectly capable of putting up a fight, as she fastball-specials a chunk of medical equipment that’s half her size into the throng of creatures. Firestar and Skystriker walk in to see what all the hubbub is about, only for Skystriker to immediately be torn to two. Also, everyone keeps calling him Skystalker, who is a completely different guy with the same color scheme. Looks like someone pulled an oopsie during the editing process.

They have First Aid check the vitals on Skystriker’s lengthways-ed body, as if he doesn’t have enough bullshit going on with Ratchet having run off to go get plowed by a 30-foot tall weeaboo. Luckily for First Aid, and everyone else, the hero of all hours has finally gathered the strength to do what must be done.

Ladies and gentlemen, please give a round of applause to… him.

Nobody does it like you, babe.

As they’re escaping, Velocity notices that the barnacle zombies are having some sort of reaction to Thunderclash. A manifestation of lust, perhaps, for the most beautiful Cybertronian? No time for theorizing, we must flee.

Back on the dance floor, Nautica’s crawled out from under the pile of zombies to stick her fingers into an electrical socket, electrocuting them all and allowing her and Skids to escape. The Vis Vitalis might need a visit from an electrician to make sure all the wiring’s up to date, that seems like quite the surge.

Firestar and Velocity run in at this point, while the fellas seem to have opted to drive. Nautica and Velocity catch up real quick, while Minimus tries to shut the door manually, seeing as Nautica’s power outlet trick likely blew the power. First Aid tries to rouse Skids to help, but honestly, considering how fucking strong Minimus is, I think we could probably let Skids take his nap.

Nightbeat and Getaway speed through the gap, Ravage riding on Nightbeat’s back. Between this and Cyclonus tucking Tailgate into his pilot’s seat, I’m beginning to think that letting someone sit in your driver’s seat is a lot more intimate than one might think at first blush. Earth must have taken some getting used to.

Or maybe a lot of getting used to.

Nightbeat waves the wrench around to check folks for barnacles, while giving everyone an earful on his working theory on what the hell is going on. He thinks that the barnacle zombies are a sort of super-chameleon species, that can become completely undetectable for the purposes of feeding on their hosts.

Then Velocity remembers a sentence structure issue so slight that I’m sure Minimus briefly considered marrying her on the spot for it, and we find out that Firestar is a fucking liar. She’s not the first officer of the Vis Vitalis at all, and she certainly didn’t save this ship from certain doom— in fact, it was the opposite that happened! After Nautica, Chromia, and Windblade fucked off into space for Metroplex reasons, Firestar, Velocity and the rest went to go look for them. They crashed into an asteroid and their pilot died on impact, necessitating Thunderclash come save the day.

Skids wakes up briefly for this news, and also probably because Nightbeat just shone a bright-ass light in his face looking for barnacles. Needless to say, Skids has them in spades. Now we just need to find out why exactly only certain folks are getting infested with parasites.

Now, what do Getaway, Skids, Thunderclash, a star athlete, a military general, and the star actor pilot from Firestar’s crew have in common? If you said “being hot”, that’s… actually not that far off.

Personality ticks are native to the planet of Marasma, which is where Firestar got her hair dye from. They snuck onto the ship and latched onto the pilot, who was one of the greatest actors of her time, which is why she immediately expired when the crash happened. Then they got ahold of Thunderclash when he came to the rescue, because he is the most beautiful, wonderful, charismatic, giving, kind, stunning, generous and understanding creature to ever grace the galaxy with his presence. This is why he had such a slow decline into near-death, despite his spark injury being fixed. His spark injury that was fixed by one of the personality ticks themselves!

I don’t think that tick was licensed, but let’s roll with it for the sake of getting to keep Thunderclash around.

Still, knowing how all this happened doesn’t automatically fix the issue, as Getaway and Skids are still dying, and god knows how Thunderclash is faring, considering that his paint job was already pretty sepia-toned at the start of this arc. Minimus tells everyone to shut up, his mustache turning into an arrow briefly, before he gets pummeled by the door exploding open. The personality ticks are here for blood.

Velocity goes into attack mode while Firestar cowers in the corner. Nightbeat gets his tits slashed again. Nautica makes a bomb out of innermost energon and Firestar’s hair. All this, and the ticks are still coming. Then the bad bitch that Firestar wishes she was walks in and all is well.

Later on, we’re over on the Lost Light giving blood donations to all the guys who had ticks. Magnus, now back in his armor, because I guess the ticks would’ve gone for it if he’d worn it over to the pre-wake, is discussing just what the hell happened with Nightbeat. Nightbeat, ever a lover of the reveal, explains his thought process for what could stop the personality ticks. However, it turns out that Nightbeat isn’t the only man with a brain on this ship, as Rodimus and Megatron were called by none other than Skater. You might remember Skater as the guy who got his tit honked in the previous issue. He, along with fellow faceless friends Flex and Borer, figured everything out and got a solution rolling.

Now that the ticks aren’t chewing on his spark anymore, Thunderclash is set to make a full recovery, and could actually join the Lost Light, now that he no longer needs the Vis Vitalis to live. Ultra Magnus is excited by this prospect, but who wouldn’t be? It’s fucking Thunderclash. Damn shame about the map he made being destroyed by all the post-party ruckus, though.

Over in the shuttle bay, Firestar and Nautica are saying their goodbyes. Firestar is ready to get the hell out of dodge, considering she saw a man get torn in half and had to retire her pride in the same day. Firestar then says that they should consider seeing other people, because she realized how backwards she had everything this whole time; the one who’s got catching up to do is her, not Nautica.

Nautica, knowing how this will go, considering Firestar is the only one headed back to Caminus, refuses, saying that their relationship is just fine, and there’s no reason to destroy Firestar’s social standing over being completely different people. They hug, and the Vis Vitalis shoots off for home.

… I sure hope they discussed that with Thunderclash before just running off, he looked pretty unconscious in that last scene.

That night, at Swerve’s, it’s time for EarthDance, featuring a playlist that I refuse to believe Blaster of all people would approve.

Tailgate makes a request for a secret song. Bluestreak is serving out of a bottle with what might be a Decepticon insignia on it, which has some strange connotations. Everyone is dancing like a fucking lunatic, and I don’t mean that in a good way. Riptide might be playing “Fuck, Marry, Kill” with Ravage, not realizing that one of the options he’s provided him with is his own son.

Tailgate walks up to Cyclonus and asks him to dance. Cyclonus, once again, refuses, stating that it would be embarrassing. Tailgate, pulling from the shit Getaway said earlier, mutters about always being embarrassing to Cyclonus. Cyclonus catches at least some of this, but Tailgate refuses to elaborate, and you know damn well by this point that Cyclonus ain’t gonna clear the air because talking about feelings is for pussies, or something.

It’s at this point that the song Tailgate requested comes on; it’s Cyclonus’s favorite Earth song, “The Power of Love” by Huey Lewis and the News.

Here’s a fun thing to do: in a separate tab, pull up “Power of Love” by Huey Lewis and the News, and stare at this specific image of Cyclonus:

Ridiculous.

Cyclonus, my dude, what the fuck is your arc even doing? You’re a rich old man with a massive sword and a love for a single 80’s power ballad, but you won’t dance and if anyone were to point out how down bad you are for your roommate you’d probably stab them. You are a fucking mess, and I love you for that.

Cyclonus, having realized that he might have fucked up, looks for Tailgate, but alas, too little too late. Getaway has claimed the marshmallow’s dance, swinging him like he’s about to slam the little guy into a wall.

Velocity reveals herself to have stayed with the Lost Light, entering to her own theme music, and Firestar is revealed to have gotten one last jab in at Nautica.

At the bar, Skids congratulates Swerve on an awesome party, and Swerve has a little smile to himself at a job well done. What a great ending to this rollercoaster of an arc! Cheers all around!