Cosmic Rust part II

You know, I think "Cosmic Rust" is one of my favorite episodes of Transformers, so I hope you're all enjoying reading about it as much as I enjoy typing about it. If not, that's too bad, because part I only covered about the first three minutes of the episode, so it's gonna be a long time before I get through the whole thing. But without further ado, here's the next chapter!

COSMIC RUST part II

When we last left off, the Decepticons had newly acquired a powerful and ancient weapon from a cursed and abandoned city. Now we see Astrotrain, again in shuttle mode, blasting off from the ruined cityscape. It seems they are content to depart without bothering to investigate the awesome and apparently unlimited energy source that powers the giant hologram. This seems strange to me, as you'd think this would something of interest to these energy hungry robots. But I've already been wrong about so many things, and now's no time to quit!

"Sure glad we're out of there," Says Rumble. "That place was giving me the surges!"
Thus we have the first instance of Part II where I do not understand what they are trying to say, or, as a transformer might phrase it, "That does not compute."

Astrotrain again makes his way through the asteroid field, which may in fact be the planet's rings. This place has not fully run out of suprises, though, as one asteroid leaves it's brothers behind and begins to follow the decepticon spacecraft! This actually isn't all that much of a suprise, since this particular asteroid is a completely different shape and colour from all the other asteroids. Such is the way of cartoon universes.

"Faster, Astrotrain! We've got an asteroid on our tail!" announces Megatron, who, having lived in a cartoon universe for millions of years, is also none too suprised by this strange turn of the laws of physics. Megatron's patience is limited, however, and before they can trying anything like speeding up or evasive action, he is already fed up with the insolent space boulder and unleashes the wrath of his new weapon apon it. The asteroid is destroyed, and Astrotrain is pelted with debris from the explosion. A bit of space rock tears through Astrotrain's hull and winds up lodged in the shoulder of the Decepticon leader. Though the damage to Astrotrain is severe, the Decepticons continue on there way back to earth, which is suddenly visible in the distance.

At the Decepticon's underwater headquarters, Starscream's voice over let's us know that it will be weeks before Astrotrain is fully repaired. What we see, though, is that Megatron himself doesn't appear to be doing too well. He's stretched out on a bed of some kind with Starscream standing over him. The space rock is still lodged in his left shoulder. "Forget Astrotrain! It is me that must be attended to." he says in the characteristically callous manner of evil leaders towards their minions' welfare.

It is only natural that Megatron should order Starscream, the commander of the Decepticon's aerial combat forces, to conduct the surgery. Starscream is more than ready for this task and proves it when his hand retracts into his forearm and a metallic pincer emerges to replace it. Once the space rock is in the pincer's grip, only a few seconds of tugging are required to remove it and end the procedure. I wonder how long it would have taken if he'd tried to grab the rock with his hand.

"Unfortunately, the operation is successful." Starsceam declares.

"Your humour escapes me, Starscream." Sneers Megatron. It does not escape me, however; This is some classic stuff. Solid gold!

Levity aside, all is not well in the Decepticon medical bay. Megatron observes a curious residue around his wound left by the space rock. "It looks like some sort of... rust!" says Starscream. Considering how unusually perceptive he's been this epsiode so far, we would do well to assume he is correct. It also appears that Megatron has already read the script for this episode, as we catch him silently mouthing the words "It looks like..." while Starscream recites them. This probably means he already knows the validity of Starscream's assessment, but he chooses to play dumb for now. "That is ridiculous! We are rust proof!"

Megatron's bid to appear stupid pays off in spades. We see a close up of his wound and it appears to be covered in a soft brown stuff, very similar to what was on the old doomsayer-bot who tried to warn them about something. What was that again? Oh, yeah... rust.

"Perhaps you were made of shoddy material, Megatron!" Says Starscream with entirely too much glee to be just professional opinion. "That's absurd, you fool!" Megatron ineffectually retorts. "Fool" might be a good opening insult, but it's far too late in the battle to be pulling it out now. I understand that Megatron may have a lot on his mind at the moment, but excuses are just excuses. So this round of pointless bickering is awarded to Starscream.

More... some other time!